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Illinois State Fair, Springfield, IL, August 17, 1966
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Illinois State Fair, Springfield, IL, August 17, 1966
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Gerald R. Ford Congressional Papers
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The original documents are located in Box D20, folder "Illinois State Fair, Springfield, IL,
August 17, 1966" of the Ford Congressional Papers: Press Secretary and Speech File at the
Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
Copyright Notice
The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of
photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. The Council donated to the United
States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.
Works prepared by U.S. Government employees as part of their official duties are in the public
domain. The copyrights to materials written by other individuals or organizations are presumed to
remain with them. If you think any of the information displayed in the PDF is subject to a valid
copyright claim, please contact the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
FINDLEY
PERCY
Machamina
,
PIRKSEN-quitings
one? them
Johnson
rather Than one
ILLINOIS STATE FAIR ADDRESS, SPRINGFIELD--AUGUST 17,81966 1966
Iowa (SouthDalata)isa
THIS IS A FAMOUS STATE FAIR. WE ARE IN THE GREAT
therefore
FARMING STATE OF ILLINOIS. IT IS FITTING THAT WE SHOULD
PAY OUR RESPECTS TO THE AGRICULTURE EXPERT OF THE JOHNSON-
HUMPHREY ADMINISTRATION--SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE ORVILLE L.
FREEMAN.
MR. FREEMAN IS A GREAT SOCIETY DEMOCRAT. 1 AM A
REPUBL ICAN.
BUT I KNOW YOU SHARE THE VIEW THAT HE IS THE
MOST PECULIAR SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE WE HAVE HAD FOR A
cannot
LONG, LONG TIME.
I
SALUTE HIM AS A TRAIL-BLAZING
but 2 songratulate heinfor being
EXPERIMENTER
$8
A SOCIAL REVOLUTIONARY, AND AS A POLITICAL
PHRASE-MAKER WHO WAS BORN WITH A FOOT IN HIS MOUTH.
BERALD R.FORD LIBRARY
SECRETARY FREEMAN IS THE ONLY SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE
Digitized from Box D20 of The Ford Congressional Papers: Press Secretary and Speech File at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
-3-
JOHNSON-HUMPHREY-FREEMAN has TEAM, HAS/INCREASE Respecto BEEF IMPORTS
ANDADUMPED CCC-STORED GRAINS TO KNOCK DOWN MARKET PRICES.
THIS DEMOCRATIC ADMINISTRATION TRIED TO SCUTTLE THE SCHOOL
as you well know also
MILK AND SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAMS AND TO REDUCE EXTENSION
SERVICE PROGRAMS.
THIS IS WHAT OUR FATHERS USED TO CALL "SOME PUNKINS."
BUT IF SECRETARY FREEMAN HAS HURT THE FARMERS AND WOUNDED
thanked for
THE DEMOCRATS, HE IS TO BE CONGRATULATED ON PROVIDING THE
REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN SLOGAN FOR 1966. ON Recently JULY 28TH, AT A
SECRET DEMOCRATIC POLITICAL HUDDLE AT WHICH HE BRUSHED OFF
THE HOUSEWI VES AND THE FARMERS, HE GAVE THIS SLICK ADVICE
TO THE DESPERATE DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATES--AND
I QUOTE:
FORD
"SLIP, SLIDE AND DUCK ANY QUESTION OF HIGHER
CONSUMER PRICES IF YOU POSSIBLY CAN!"
-4-
THAT'S ORBITING ORVILLE FOR YOU. RIGHT OUT OF THE
HORSE'S MOUTH. "SLIP, SLIDE AND DUCK!" PERHAPS SUCH
ADVICE WOULD BE HELPFUL IF THE DEMOCRATIC HOPEFULS WERE
DODGING BASEBALLS IN A CARNIVAL CONCESSION, BUT CANDIDATES
WHO "SLIP, SLIDE AND DUCK!" WON'T SATISFY THE AMERICAN
VOTERS IN 1966. IN THE POLITICAL ARENA THIS FALL DEMOCRATS
WILL BE DUCKING WHEN THEY SHOULD BE SLIPPING, AND SLIPPING
WHEN THEY SHOULD BE SLIDING. THE JOHNSON HUMPHREY FREEMAN
"RUBBER STAMP" CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATES WILL BE DUCK SOUP
FOR THE VOTERS AND THE REPUBL ICAN PARTY Y.
We have the OPPORTUNITY to make
THIS THE YEAR OF THE ELEPHANT. REPUBLICANS ARE ON
THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE ISSUES, HAVE THE BEST CANDIDATES,
REAL PARTY UNITY, AND ORGANIZATION. THE DEMOCRATS ARE
GERALD FORD LIBRARY
SADDLED WITH HIGHER PRICES, HIGHER INTEREST RATES, HIGHER
-7-
IT IS A GRIM AND DIFFICULT WAR THAT THEY ARE FIGHTING,
IN THE JUNGLES, SWAMPS AND RICE-PADDIES OF SOUTHEAST ASIA.
ALREADY OUR COMBAT LOSSES HAVE RISEN TO OVER 30,000--
4
INCLUDING MORE THAN 4,000 AMERICANS KILLED IN ACTION.
BUT WE HAVE THE POWER TO BE SUCCESSFUL ON THE BATTLEFIELD
AND AT THE PEACE TABLE, AND WE SHOULD PRESS MORE VIGOROUSLY
Illinois Sinstorialcandidate
FOR SOLUTIONS all ON BOTH FRONTS. I COMMEND CHUCK PERCY FOR
CALLING FOR AN ASIAN PEACE CONFERENCE, WITH THE ASIANS Themallves
TAKING THE LEAD IN SEEKING AN HONORABLE PEACE IN WAR-TORN
VIETNAM. This papmising proposal isa Republican plan forpeace.
OUR SOLDIERS ARE PERFORMING BRILLIANTLY IN VIETNAM.
BUT IT IS TRAGIC THAT MORE AND MORE OF OUR YOUNG MEN ARE
BEING SENT TO FIGHT AND PERHAPS TO DIE THERE.
WE ARE TOLD WE CAN NOW EXPECT THERE WILL BE 400,000
-11-
EVER BEEN FOR ANY CONSECUTIVE FIVE-YEAR PERIOD SINCE THE
BIG DEPRESSION.
HE DIDN'T TELL THEM THAT FARM PRODUCTION COSTS HAVE
GONE UP $4 BILLION SINCE 1960, OR THAT TOTAL FARM DEBT
STANDS 60 PER CENT HIGHER THAN FIVE YEARS AGO.
HE DIDN'T TELL THEM THAT JOHNSON-HUMPHREY-FREEMAN
sinit
INFLATION HAS SO CHEAPENED THE AMERICAN DOLLAR THAT THE
$14 BILLION IN NET FARM INCOME REPORTED FOR 1965 WILL BUY
ONLY ABOUT AS MUCH AS THE $12.8 BILLION FARMERS EARNED
IN 1958.
GERALD LIBRARY
HE DIDN'T TELL THEM THAT FARMERS ARE STILL EARNING
ONLY ABOUT 65 PER CENT AS MUCH AS NON-FARMERS.
NOW THERE'S
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT. NEVER HAD IT SO GOOD? WHAT A
LOT OF BALONEY!
-17-
THAT'S ROBIN HOOD IN REVERSE. HE STOLE FROM THE RICH
TO GIVE TO THE POOR. THE ADMINISTRATION TAKES FROM THE
HAVE-NOTS AND GIVES TO THE HAVES.
AND THEN THEY TALK
ABOUT WAGING A WAR ON POVERTY!
Admi Administrations
WHAT DO WE HAVE TODAY IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY? WE' VE
th
GOT THE PARTY OF BIG BUSINESS, THE PARTY OF BIG GOVERNMENT,
THE PARTY OF BIG BUREAUCRACY, THE PARTY OF BIG SPENDING,
THE PARTY OF BIG DEFICITS, THE PARTY OF BIG COST OF LIVING,
THE PARTY OF BIG LABOR TROUBLES, THE PARTY OF BIG HOME
FORECLOSURES, THE PARTY OF BIG SCANDALS. THE PARTY WITH
BIG RIOTS IN THE STREETS, THE PARTY OF BIG PROMISES.
RIOTS IN THE STREETS. THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY PROMISED
BIG BUT FAILED TO DELIVER. THAT WHY WE ARE IN TROUDLE NOW-
FORD : GERALD LIBRARY
-16-
BUT THAT'S ONLY WHEN IT COMES TO TAKING CANDY-MONEY
In contrast
FROM SCHOOL KIDS., WHEN THE TREASURY TURNS TO THE BIG
INVESTORS, IT TALKS ANOTHER LANGUAGE. HERE I HOLD
which is
# A PARTICIPATION SALES CERTIFICATE, AN INTEREST IN VARIOUS
MORTGAGE ASSETS THAT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OWNS. ITS
ISSUANCE WAS AUTHORIZED BY THE PARTICIPATION SALES ACT
OF LAST MAY, ANOTHER DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS BLANK CHECK.
ANYONE WHO CAN AFFORD THE $5,000 MINIMUM CAN BUY ONE
OF THESE CERTIFICATES AND WILL DRAW INTEREST NOT AT THE
about
or more means the Adminest pays
RATE OF, 4.15 PER CENT BUT 5-3/4. THAT OVER 40 PER CENT
Democration
MORE THAN THE ADMINI STRATION PAYS TO THE RICH THAN IT PAYS
TO THE GREAT NUMBER OF AMERICANS WHO DON'T HAVE $5,000 IN
CASH LYING AROUND FOR A SAFE INVESTMENT. fow interest turns for the
That to Domocrat Policy
POOR; high interest Mata for the rich
returns
R.FORD LIBRARY
FOR RELEASE IN WEDNESDAY P.M. -AUGUST 17, 1966
ADDRESS BY REP. GERALD R. FORD
At
ILLINOIS STATE FAIR
SPRINGFIELD - AUGUST 17, 1966
This is a famous State Fair. We are in the great farming State of Illinois.
It is fitting that we should pay our respects to the agriculture expert of the
Johnson-Humphrey Administration--Secretary of Agriculture Orville L. Freeman.
Mr. Freeman is a Great Society Democrat. I am a Republican. But, I know you
share the view that he is the most peculiar Secretary of Agriculture we have had for
a long, long time. I salute him as a trail-blazing experimenter, as a social
revolutionary, and as a political phrase-maker who was born with a foot in his mouth.
Secretary Freeman is the only Secretary of Agriculture who has ever asked the
Department of Defense to cut down on its purchases of beef and pork produced by the
American farmer.
He is the only Secretary of Agriculture who has ever publicly expressed
pleasure at a drop in farm prices.
He is the Cabinet officer who beamed his approval of an $8 million Export-
Import Bank deal to help Communist Rumania process 300,000 pigs a year with modern
American-made equipment and to sell millions of pounds of Communist pork in
competition with American farmers.
Secretary Freeman has waged an undeclared war on American agriculture which
has driven parity prices from an average of 84.5 per cent under Eisenhower to barely
79 per cent this year. He, as the agriculture "boss man" on the Johnson-Humphrey-
Freeman team, has increased beef imports and dumped CCC-stored grains to knock down
market prices. This Democratic Administration tried to scuttle the school milk and
school lunch programs and to reduce extension service programs.
This is what our fathers used to call "some punkins." But if Secretary
Freeman has hurt the farmers and wounded the Democrats, he is to be congratulated on
providing the Republican campaign slogan for 1966. On July 28th, at a secret Demo-
cratic political huddle at which he brushed off the housewives and the farmers, he
gave this slick advice to the desperate Democratic congressional candidates--and
I quote:
"Slip, slide and duck any question of higher consumer prices if
you possibly can!"
That's Orbiting Orville for you. Right out of the horse's mouth. "Slip,
slide and duck!" Perhaps such advice would be helpful if the Democratic hopefuls
(MORE)
-2-
were dodging baseballs in a carnival concession. But candidates who "slip, slide and
duck!" won't satisfy the American voters in 1966. In the political arena this fall
Democrats will be ducking when they should be slipping, and slipping when they should
be sliding. The Johnson-Humphrey-Freeman "rubber stamp" Congressional candidates
will be duck soup for the voters and the Republican Party.
This is the year of the Elephant. Republicans are on the right side of the
issues, have the best candidates, real party unity, and organization. The Democrats
are saddled with higher prices, higher interest rates, higher draft calls, higher
crime rates. The Great Society is the High Society. Had enough?--Vote Republican!
What is the State of the Union? Not good with a war in Vietnam and NATO in
disarray in Europe. At home we see prices skyrocketing to all-time highs, interest
rates going out of sight, mortgage money tight and getting tighter, federal spending
out of control, crime soaring and violence spreading across the land.
This is the time for leadership. America needs straight-from-the-shoulder
answers. Slip, slide and duck will not suffice. Despite all the Johnson-Humphrey
fanfare and hoopla, this nation is not getting decisive and effective leadership
from the Democrats at a time when it's desperately needed. The "big daddy" Johnson-
Democrat attitude will not solve the frankenstein mess which is damaging our prestige
and power abroad, and ravaging our people at home. Democrats talk like Pollyanna.
The White House blows with an uncertain trumpet, with its credibility at an all-time
low.
What are we to believe about Vietnam? There the stakes are high; the
consequences are great.
Americans are proud of our men in our armed forces. Many of you here have
husbands, fathers, sons and brothers fighting for freedom half-way around the world.
We must not, we cannot, we will not let them down. Republicans believe we must
forthrightly and steadfastly meet the challenge of Communist terror and aggression
in Vietnam, Berlin or elsewhere.
It is a grim and difficult war that they are fighting, in the jungles, swamps
and rice-paddies of Southeast Asia. Already our combat losses have risen to over
30,000--including more than 4,000 Americans killed in action.
But we have the power to be successful on the battlefield and at the peace
table, and we should press more vigorously for solutions on both fronts. I commend
Chuck Percy for calling for an Asian Peace Conference, with the Asians taking the
lead in seeking an honorable peace in war-torn Vietnam.
Our soldiers are performing brilliantly in Vietnam. But it is tragic that
more and more of our young men are being sent to fight and perhaps to die there.
(MORE)
-3-
We are told we can now expect there will be 400,000 of our ground troops in
Vietnam by the end of this year. We are also informed it will take 750,000 Americans
to end the Vietnam War within five years.
These reports sound utterly fantastic when we recall what President Johnson
told the nation just two years ago, when he was seeking election.
"We don't want our American boys to do the fighting for Asian boys," Johnson
the campaigner said. "We don't want to get involved in a nation with 700 million
people and get tied down in a land war in Asia."
National Republican leaders urged the President in December, 1965, to make
more effective use of the superiority we enjoy in air and sea power to end the
Vietnam War more quickly and save our manpower.
But the President dilly-dallied and shilly-shallied until 6½¹₂ months later when
the polls told him the American people wanted to win in Vietnam and get out.
Only then did the President order destruction of the oil depots near Hanoi and
Haiphong. In explaining the action, Defense Secretary McNamara said the bombings
would save American and South Vietnamese lives.
Apparently the President thought the oil depot bombings would save lives in
July but not in December.
The war in Vietnam is costly both in lives and in dollars. Yet the Johnson
Administration persists in a spending-as-usual attitude. While pumping billions into
the Vietnam War, the Johnson-Humphrey-Freeman Administration dishes out billions more
in non-essential domestic spending. The result--inflation.
Inflation is a big word. But you people know what it means. You find out
every time you go into the marketplace and pay more and more for less and less.
Don't let Big Daddy or any other apologist for his Administration tell you
you never had it so good. That's a lot of hooey.
Mr. Johnson went out to Nebraska and Iowa to tell the farmers they never had
it so good.
He didn't tell them the farmer is caught in a cost-price squeeze. He didn't
tell them that makes the average parity ratio over the past five years the lowest it
has ever been for any consecutive five-year period since the big depression.
He didn't tell them that farm production costs have gone up $4 billion since
1960, or that total farm debt stands 60 per cent higher than five years ago.
He didn't tell them that Johnson-Humphrey-Freeman inflation has so cheapened
the American dollar that the $14 billion in net farm income reported for 1965 will
buy only about as much as the $12.8 billion farmers earned in 1958.
He didn't tell them that farmers are still earning only about 65 per cent as
much as non-farmers. Now there's something to think about. Never had it so good?
What a lot of baloney!
(MORE)
-4-
The truth is the Johnson-Humphrey-Freeman Administration has been spending the
American people silly. This is the chief reason your dollars are slipping away in
line with Freeman's slide-slip-and-duck philosophy.
The Democrats have been drowning this country in red ink for six long years.
You know what the deficit for those six years adds up to? Thirty billion--an average
of $6 billion a year. The last time the federal budget was balanced was in 1960
under a Republican Administration.
President Johnson pretends to be an economizer. I say "pretends" because I've
got the figures to back up what I say. Mr. Johnson is planning to spend 47.5 per cent
more in fiscal year 1967 than the federal government spent in 1960. Since fiscal
1965, federal spending is up 17 per cent. That's the great economy record compiled
during Mr. Johnson's time in office.
It is this kind of reckless spending, the doling out of dollars by the Johnson-
Humphrey-Freeman Administration and its blank-check Democratic Congress, which is the
prime cause of inflation.
In their 1960 platform the Democrats promised to maintain price stability.
Have they kept this promise?
In 1960 the Democrats promised to place farmers on the same economic level as
automobile workers and the teamsters. What happened to that promise? Like all the
others, it was for the Democrats to get in on, not to deliver on.
I ask you. Why shouldn't a farmer get as much for a 400-hour month as the
driver of a city milk delivery truck gets for a 30-hour week?
And I ask you. Why does the Administration and its captive Democrat Congress
act as though there is no problem under the sun which can't be cured by spending
billions of taxpayer dollars?
Why, in short, does the Administration pretend that we can fight an all-out
war in Vietnam and still pay for any and every sociological brainstorm hatched by
the kept economists of the Great Society?
We're bogged down in Vietnam. We're in a mess with inflation. And now we're
getting kicked around by high interest rates.
Do you know that the Democrats in their 1960 platform had the gall to attack
the Eisenhower Administration as a high-interest administration?
Well, now, after barely five years of Democratic control, interest rates in
this country have hit a 30-year high--that's right, a 30-year high--and they're still
going up.
This may be news to you, but the Administration can't even be honest about
interest rates, much less keep them from going sky-high.
(MORE)
-5-
Here in my hand I hold a United States Savings Bond. My children and your
children are buying these bonds. So are farmers and industrial workers, people who
are demonstrating their faith in America. The U.S. Treasury pays them 4.15 per cent
interest for the use of their money.
But that's only when it comes to taking candy-money from school kids. When
the Treasury turns to the big investors, it talks another language. Here I hold a
Participation Sales Certificate, an interest in various mortgage assets that the
federal government owns. Its issuance was authorized by the Participation Sales Act
of last May, another Democratic Congress blank check.
Anyone who can afford the $5,000 minimum can buy one of these certificates and
will draw interest not at the rate of 4.15 per cent but 5-3/4. That's over 40 per cent
more that the Administration pays to the rich than it pays to the great number of
Americans who don't have $5,000 in cash lying around for a safe investment.
That's Robin Hood in reverse. He stole from the rich to give to the poor.
The Administration takes from the have-nots and gives to the haves. And then they
talk about waging a war on poverty!
What do we have today in the Democratic Party? We've got the Party of Big
Business, the Party of Big Government, the Party of Big Bureaucracy, the Party of
Big Spending, the Party of Big Deficits, the Party of Big Cost of Living, the Party
of Big Labor Troubles, the Party of Big Home Foreclosures, the Party of Big Scandals,
the Party with Big Riots in the Streets, the Party of Big Promises.
Riots in the Streets. The Democratic Party promised big but failed to deliver.
That why we are in trouble now.
There is an atmosphere of lawlessness in this country. It springs from the
attitude that Americans should only obey the laws that please them. It stems from
the feeling that if you've got more than I have, I can take from you whatever I want.
It's the old attitude of the-world-owes-me-a-living gone wild.
You read about the riots, the arson, and the looting in our great cities and
you wonder if America has gone mad. This kind of disregard for law and order breeds
anarchy.
I have said it before and I say it again. When high-ranking public figures
like Vice President Humphrey talk about leading a riot themselves, they are
encouraging a defiance of the law which is inexcusable in a civilized society. Is
this a Great Society?
Some of our big cities are rapidly reverting to the jungle. Lawless elements
are threatening to make guerrilla warfare with the police a familiar pattern of
American life.
(MORE)
-6-
How long are we going to abdicate law and order--the backbone of any
civilization--in favor of a soft social theory that the man who heaves a brick through
your window or tosses a fire bomb into your car or snipes at firemen is simply the
misunderstood and underprivileged product of a broken home?
Vietnam. Inflation. High interest. Violence. These are the issues of 1966.
We did not create them. They are simply there. We would rather the Administration
had not let them develop.
But that is where the two-party system comes in.
Winston Churchill once said that democracy had many and serious faults but
was better than any other system of government man had devised.
Democracy in America depends on two-party politics. One-party government
leads straight to tyranny. A vigorous two-party system is the simplest way of
bringing about necessary changes in our government without wrecking the country or
resorting to revolution.
Today we do not have two strong, nearly equal-in-strength political parties.
Lopsided government, if allowed to continue, leads only to disaster.
Competition is the secret of American economic freedom and social progress.
Competition between the two major political parties has been good for America.
In 1966 this competition will be reestablished. The Democrats' stranglehold will
be broken at the polls in November.
The easiest and quickest way for you to clean up Vietnam, stop inflation,
bring down interest rates, and protect the lives, rights and property of us all--
including all minorities--is to vote Republicans in and Democrats out. It's just
as simple as that. It's not a matter of intrigue in government, or of contributing
$10,000 to the President's Club, or lobbying on Capitol Hill.
Often when I ponder the great land that is America, I think of that day in
Philadelphia when Benjamin Franklin left the Constitutional Convention.
"Which have you given us," a man asked him, "a monarchyor a republic?"
"A Republic," Franklin answered, "if you can keep it."
That republic has endured for 177 years because in every age there have been
Americans who gave of their time, of their treasure, and of their faith to keep it.
It is for us, the living, to rededicate ourselves to that high purpose.
And it is my deep conviction that you--all of you--will pass on the torch of freedom
to your children because you dare stand up and be counted for America. Thank you
and God bless you all.
###
Re: 1966 REP. CAMPAIGN ISSUES
FOR RELEASE IN WEDNESDAY P.M.'s--AUGUST 17, 1966
ADDRESS BY REP. GERALD R. FORD
At
ILLINOIS STATE FAIR
SPRINGFIELD - AUGUST 17, 1966
This is a famous State Fair. We are in the great farming State of Illinois.
It is fitting that we should pay our respects to the agriculture expert of the
Johnson-Humphrey Administration--Secretary of Agriculture Orville L. Freeman.
Mr. Freeman is a Great Society Democrat. I am a Republican. But, I know you
share the view that he is the most peculiar Secretary of Agriculture we have had for
a long, long time. I salute him as a trail-blazing experimenter, as a social
revolutionary, and as a political phrase-maker who was born with a foot in his mouth.
Secretary Freeman is the only Secretary of Agriculture who has ever asked the
Department of Defense to cut down on its purchases of beef and pork produced by the
American farmer.
He is the only Secretary of Agriculture who has ever publicly expressed
pleasure at a drop in farm prices.
He is the Cabinet officer who beamed his approval of an $8 million Export-
Import Bank deal to help Communist Rumania process 300,000 pigs a year with modern
American-made equipment and to sell millions of pounds of Communist pork in
competition with American farmers.
Secretary Freeman has waged an undeclar war on American agriculture which
has driven parity prices from an average of 84.5 per cent under Eisenhower to barely
79 per cent this year. He, as the agriculture "boss man" on the Johnson-Humphrey-
Freeman team, has increased beef imports and dumped CCC-stored grains to knock down
market prices. This Democratic Administration tried to scuttle the school milk and
school lunch programs and to reduce extension service programs.
This is what our fathers used to call "some punkins." But if Secretary
Freeman has hurt the farmers and wounded the Democrats, he is to be congratulated on
providing the Republican campaign slogan for 1966. On July 28th, at a secret Demo-
cratic political huddle at which he brushed off the housewives and the farmers, he
gave this slick advice to the desperate Democratic congressional candidates--and
I quote:
"Slip, slide and duck any question of higher consumer prices if
you possibly can!"
That's Orbiting Orville for you. Right out of the horse's mouth. "Slip,
slide and duck!" Perhaps such advice would be helpful if the Democratic hopefuls
LIBRARY
(MORE)
-2-
were dodging baseballs in a carnival concession. But candidates who "slip, slide and
duck!" won't satisfy the American voters in 1966. In the political arena this fall
Democrats will be ducking when they should be slipping, and slipping when they should
be sliding. The Johnson-Humphrey-Freeman "rubber stamp" Congressional candidates
will be duck soup for the voters and the Republican Party.
This is the year of the Elephant. Republicans are on the right side of the
issues, have the best candidates, real party unity, and organization. The Democrats
are saddled with higher prices, higher interest rates, higher draft calls, higher
crime rates. The Great Society is the High Society. Had enough?--Vote Republican!
What is the State of the Union? Not good with a war in Vietnam and NATO in
disarray in Europe. At home we see prices skyrocketing to all-time highs, interest
rates going out of sight, mortgage money tight and getting tighter, federal spending
out of control, crime soaring and violence spreading across the land.
This is the time for leadership. America needs straight-from-the-shoulder
answers. Slip, slide and duck will not suffice. Despite all the Johnson-Humphrey
fanfare and hoopla, this nation is not getting decisive and effective leadership
from the Democrats at a time when it's desperately needed. The "big daddy" Johnson-
Democrat attitude will not solve the frankenstein mess which is damaging our prestige
and power abroad, and ravaging our people at home. Democrats talk like Pollyanna.
The White House blows with an uncertain trumpet, with its credibility at an all-time
low.
What are we to believe about Vietnam? There the stakes are high; the
consequences are great.
Americans are proud of our men in our armed forces. Many of you here have
husbands, fathers, sons and brothers fighting for freedom half-way around the world.
We must not, we cannot, we will not let them down. Republicans believe we must
forthrightly and steadfastly meet the challenge of Communist terror and aggression
in Vietnam, Berlin or elsewhere.
It is a grim and difficult war that they are fighting, in the jungles, swamps
and rice-paddies of Southeast Asia. Already our combat losses have risen to over
30,000--including more than 4,000 Americans killed in action.
But we have the power to be successful on the battlefield and at the peace
table, and we should press more vigorously for solutions on both fronts. I commend
Chuck Percy for calling for an Asian Peace Conference, with the Asians taking the
lead in seeking an honorable peace in war-torn Vietnam.
Our soldiers are performing brilliantly in Vietnam. But it is tragic that
more and more of our young men are being sent to fight and perhaps to die there.
(MORE)
-3-
We are told we can now expect there will be 400,000 of our ground troops in
Vietnam by the end of this year. We are also informed it will take 750,000 Americans
to end the Vietnam War within five years.
These reports sound utterly fantastic when we recall what President Johnson
told the nation just two years ago, when he was seeking election.
"We don't want our American boys to do the fighting for Asian boys," Johnson
the campaigner said. "We don't want to get involved in a nation with 700 million
people and get tied down in a land war in Asia."
National Republican leaders urged the President in December, 1965, to make
more effective use of the superiority we enjoy in air and sea power to end the
Vietnam War more quickly and save our manpower.
But the President dilly-dallied and shilly-shallied until 61/2 months later when
the polls told him the American people wanted to win in Vietnam and get out.
Only then did the President order destruction of the oil depots near Hanoi and
Haiphong. In explaining the action, Defense Secretary McNamara said the bombings
would save American and South Vietnamese lives.
Apparently the President thought the oil depot bombings would save lives in
July but not in December.
The war in Vietnam is costly both in lives and in dollars. Yet the Johnson
Administration persists in a spending-as-usual attitude. While pumping billions into
the Vietnam War, the Johnson-Humphrey-Freeman Administration dishes out billions more
in non-essential domestic spending. The result--inflation.
Inflation is a big word. But you people know what it means. You find out
every time you go into the marketplace and pay more and more for less and less.
Don't let Big Daddy or any other apologist for his Administration tell you
you never had it so good. That's a lot of hooey.
Mr. Johnson went out to Nebraska and Iowa to tell the farmers they never had
it so good.
He didn't tell them the farmer is caught in a cost-price squeeze. He didn't
tell them that makes the average parity ratio over the past five years the lowest it
has ever been for any consecutive five-year period since the big depression.
He didn't tell them that farm production costs have gone up $4 billion since
1960, or that total farm debt stands 60 per cent higher than five years ago.
He didn't tell them that Johnson-Humphrey-Freeman inflation has so cheapened
the American dollar that the $14 billion in net farm income reported for 1965 will
buy only about as much as the $12.8 billion farmers earned in 1958.
He didn't tell them that farmers are still earning only about 65 per cent as
much as non-farmers. Now there's something to think about. Never had it so good?
What a lot of baloney!
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The truth is the Johnson-Humphrey-Freeman Administration has been spending the
American people silly. This is the chief reason your dollars are slipping away in
line with Freeman's slide-slip-and-duck philosophy.
The Democrats have been drowning this country in red ink for six long years.
You know what the deficit for those six years adds up to? Thirty billion--an average
of $6 billion a year. The last time the federal budget was balanced was in 1960
under a Republican Administration.
President Johnson pretends to be an economizer. I say "pretends" because I've
got the figures to back up what I say. Mr. Johnson is planning to spend 47.5 per cent
more in fiscal year 1967 than the federal government spent in 1960. Since fiscal
1965, federal spending is up 17 per cent. That's the great economy record compiled
during Mr. Johnson's time in office.
It is this kind of reckless spending, the doling out of dollars by the Johnson-
Humphrey-Freeman Administration and its blank-check Democratic Congress, which is the
prime cause of inflation.
In their 1960 platform the Democrats promised to maintain price stability.
Have they kept this promise?
In 1960 the Democrats promised to place farmers on the same economic level as
automobile workers and the teamsters. What happened to that promise? Like all the
others, it was for the Democrats to get in on, not to deliver on.
I ask you. Why shouldn't a farmer get as much for a 400-hour month as the
driver of a city milk delivery truck gets for a 30-hour week?
And I ask you. Why does the Administration and its captive Democrat Congress
act as though there is no problem under the sun which can't be cured by spending
billions of taxpayer dollars?
Why, in short, does the Administration pretend that we can fight an all-out
war in Vietnam and still pay for any and every sociological brainstorm hatched by
the kept economists of the Great Society?
We're bogged down in Vietnam. We're in a mess with inflation. And now we're
getting kicked around by high interest rates.
Do you know that the Democrats in their 1960 platform had the gall to attack
the Eisenhower Administration as a high-interest administration?
Well, now, after barely five years of Democratic control, interest rates in
this country have hit a 30-year high--that's right, a 30-year high--and they're still
going up.
This may be news to you, but the Administration can't even be honest about
interest rates, much less keep them from going sky-high.
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Here in my hand I hold a United States Savings Bond. My children and your
children are buying these bonds. So are farmers and industrial workers, people who
are demonstrating their faith in America. The U.S. Treasury pays them 4.15 per cent
interest for the use of their money.
But that's only when it comes to taking candy-money from school kids. When
the Treasury turns to the big investors, it talks another language. Here I hold a
Participation Sales Certificate, an interest in various mortgage assets that the
federal government owns. Its issuance was authorized by the Participation Sales Act
of last May, another Democratic Congress blank check.
Anyone who can afford the $5,000 minimum can buy one of these certificates and
will draw interest not at the rate of 4.15 per cent but 5-3/4. That's over 40 per cent
more that the Administration pays to the rich than it pays to the great number of
Americans who don't have $5,000 in cash lying around for a safe investment.
That's Robin Hood in reverse. He stole from the rich to give to the poor.
The Administration takes from the have-nots and gives to the haves. And then they
talk about waging a war on poverty!
What do we have today in the Democratic Party? We've got the Party of Big
Business, the Party of Big Government, the Party of Big Bureaucracy, the Party of
Big Spending, the Party of Big Deficits, the Party of Big Cost of Living, the Party
of Big Labor Troubles, the Party of Big Home Foreclosures, the Party of Big Scandals,
the Party with Big Riots in the Streets, the Party of Big Promises.
Riots in the Streets. The Democratic Party promised big but failed to deliver.
That's why we are in trouble now.
There is an atmosphere of lawlessness in this country. It springs from the
attitude that Americans should only obey the laws that please them. It stems from
the feeling that if you've got more than I have, I can take from you whatever I want.
It's the old attitude of the-world-owes-me-a-living gone wild.
You read about the riots, the arson, and the looting in our great cities and
you wonder if America has gone mad. This kind of disregard for law and order breeds
anarchy.
I have said it before and I say it again. When high-ranking public figures
like Vice President Humphrey talk about leading a riot themselves, they are
encouraging a defiance of the law which is inexcusable in a civilized society. Is
this a Great Society?
Some of our big cities are rapidly reverting to the jungle. Lawless elements
are threatening to make guerrilla warfare with the police a familiar pattern of
American life.
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How long are we going to abdicate law and order--the backbone of any
civilization- in favor of a soft social theory that the man who heaves a brick through
your window or tosses a fire bomb into your car or snipes at firemen is simply the
misunderstood and underprivileged product of a broken home?
Vietnam. Inflation. High interest. Violence. These are the issues of 1966.
We did not create them. They are simply there. We would rather the Administration
had not let them develop.
But that is where the two-party system comes in.
Winston Churchill once said that democracy had many and serious faults but
was better than any other system of government man had devised.
Democracy in America depends on two-party politics. One-party government
leads straight to tyranny. A vigorous two-party system is the simplest way of
bringing about necessary changes in our government without wrecking the country or
resorting to revolution.
Today we do not have two strong, nearly equal-in-strength political parties.
Lopsided government, if allowed to continue, leads only to disaster.
Competition is the secret of American economic freedom and social progress.
Competition between the two major political parties has been good for America.
In 1966 this competition will be reestablished. The Democrats' stranglehold will
be broken at the polls in November.
The easiest and quickest way for you to clean up Vietnam, stop inflation,
bring down interest rates, and protect the lives, rights and property of us all--
including all minorities--is to vote Republicans in and Democrats out. It's just
as simple as that. It's not a matter of intrigue in government, or of contributing
$10,000 to the President's Club, or lobbying on Capitol Hill.
Often when I ponder the great land that is America, I think of that day in
Philadelphia when Benjamin Franklin left the Constitutional Convention.
"Which have you given us," a man asked him, "a monarchyor a republic?"
"A Republic," Franklin answered, "if you can keep it."
That republic has endured for 177 years
because in every age there have been
Americans who gave of their time, of their treasure, and of their faith to keep it.
It is for us, the living, to rededicate ourselves to that high purpose.
And it is my deep conviction that you--all of you--will pass on the torch of freedom
to your children because you dare stand up and be counted for America. Thank you
and God bless you all.
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