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Fred Dugan for Congress Dinner, New York 35th District, Auburn, NY, September 19, 1966
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Fred Dugan for Congress Dinner, New York 35th District, Auburn, NY, September 19, 1966
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The original documents are located in Box D21, folder "Fred Dugan for Congress Dinner,
New York 35th District, Auburn, NY, September 19, 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States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.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.
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
FOR RELEASE AT 6:30 P.M.
MONDAY, SEPT. 19, 1966
SPEECH EXCERPTS--FRED DUGAN FOR CONGRESS DINNER, NEW YORK 35TH DISTRICT, AUBURN, N. Y.
President Johnson has sent Congress what he calls an anti-inflation program.
After months and months of trying to talk inflation to death--and failing miserably--
he has done something. It's something, but not much. What does his program really
add up to?
It's a full confession by Mr. Johnson that he has mismanaged the American
economy.
It's a full confession by Mr. Johnson that inflation--the swift rise in the
cost of living--is continuing on its frightening course and is robbing the people
blind.
It's a full confession by Mr. Johnson that his administration touched off
this inflationary spiral by turning a deaf ear all this year--until now--to
Republican pleas for cutbacks in non-essential federal spending.
***
Mr. Johnson has promised to cut federal spending by $3 billion. I was in
Missouri a few days ago, and as the people there say, 'he's going to have to show
me.' I just don't believe him.
He may cut the billions that his wild-spending Democrats in Congress are
adding to his budget, but I just don't believe he'll make cuts that really count
in any fight against inflation. I don't believe he'll cut his own budget, which
was advertised as a $112.8 billion spending sheet but will run to at least
$120 billion in fiscal 1967.
***
You know why the 89th Congress with its lopsided Democratic majorities has
been running wild, don't you? So wild that the President has to pull on the reins,
and even then he can't stop his Democrat friends? It's because the wild-eyed
Democrats in Congress were so enthusiastic about Mr. Johnson's sadly mistaken guns-
and-butter decision of last January that they not only rubber-stamped all his
welfare state proposals but proceeded to lard them with even more fat. And the
incumbent congressman in this district played a part in all that.
This is an election year. And the Democrats' formula always has been to spend
and spend, elect and elect, tax and tax. You'll notice the taxes always come after
(MORE)
-2-
SPEECH EXCERPTS
the election. That's the prize package Mr. Johnson is planning to spring on us
after November 8.
He'd like to keep it a surprise package. But if the voters are genuinely
surprised, I'll be amazed. I just don't believe the American people are that
gullible. I think they'll have some surprises for the Democrats on November 8.
The handwriting is on the wall right now. Mr. Johnson has waited too long
to cut non-essential federal spending. His present efforts are like swatting at
a disease-carrying mosquito after it has already infected its victim.
***
Earlier this year Mr. Johnson's hide-and-seek encounters with inflation
produced a most revolting development. That was when he and his Secretary of
Agriculture, Orbiting Orville Freeman, declared war on the farmer by driving down
farm commodity prices and making the farmer the scapegoat of inflation.
I don't think the farmer will forget this, and that's one reason this promises
to be the year of the elephant in American politics.
The farmers have another big bone to pick with the Johnson Administration and
Orbiting Orville. All the evidence indicates Mr. Freeman deliberately understated
demand and overstated carryover last year in his forecasts for four farm commodities.
The result is that the farmer has been cheated of some $1 billion--as much as
$300 million in corn, $180 million in wheat, $400 million in soybeans, and $25
million for grain sorghums.
***
Inflation keeps robbing us all, and the farmer fails to share equitably in
the economic pie but Mr. Johnson goes around the country telling the people they
never had it so good. He's following the advice of Orbiting Orville, his foot-in-
mouth-disease expert. Like Orville suggested, Mr. Johnson and all the Democratic
candidates for Congress are doing their best to "slip, slide and duck all questions
of higher consumer prices."
Thinking Americans won't be taken in. They will recognize the need for high-
caliber men like Fred Dugan in Congress. In the 35th District of New York, the
people will pick Fred Dugan because they know he believes in progress with common
sense. Voters throughout this great land know they must elect Republicans to
Congress to restore good management to the economy, to bring back good government in
Washington, to give themselves sound prosperity based on a stable dollar, to build
a strong America able to keep peace at home and to restore peace in the world.
####
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
FOR RELEASE AT 6:30 P.M.
MONDAY, SEPT. 19, 1966
SPEECH EXCERPTS--FRED DUGAN FOR CONGRESS DINNER, NEW YORK 35TH DISTRICT, AUBURN, M. Y,
President Johnson has sent Congress what he calls an anti-inflation program.
After months and months of trying to talk inflation to death--and failing miserably--
he has done something. It's something, but not much. What does his program really
add up to?
It's a full confession by Mr. Johnson that he has mismanaged the American
economy.
It's a full confession by Mr. Johnson that inflation--the swift rise in the
cost of living--is continuing on its frightening course and is robbing the people
blind.
It's a full confession by Mr. Johnson that his administration touched off
this inflationary spiral by turning a deaf ear all this year now-to
Republican pleas for cutbacks in non-essential federal spending.
...
Mr. Johnson has promised to out federal spending by #3 billion. I was in
Missouri a for days ago, and as the people there say, 'he's going to have to show
me." I just don't believe him.
Me may cut the billions that his wild-spending Democrats in Congress are
adding to his budget, but I just don't believe he'll make cuts that really count
in any fight against inflation I don't believe he'll cut his own budget, which
was advertised as a $112.8 billied spending sheet but will run to at least
$120 billion in fiscal 1967.
* * *
You know why the 89th Congress with its lopsided Democratic majorities has
been running wild, don't you? So wild that the President has to pull on the reins,
and even then he can't stop his Democrat friends? It's because the wild-ayed
Democrats in Congress were so enthusiastic about Mr. Johnson's sadly mistaken guns-
and-butter decision of last January that they not only rubber-stamped all his
welfare state proposals but proceeded to lard them with even more fat. And the
incumbent congressman in this district played a part in all that.
This is an election year. And the Democrats' formula always has been to spend
and spend, elect and elect, tax and tax. You'll notice the taxes always come after
(MORE)
-2-
SPEECH EXCERPTS
the election. That's the prise package Mr. Johnson is planning to spring on us
after November 8.
Me'd like to keep it a surprise package. But if the voters are genuinely
surprised, I'll be sussed. X just don't believe the American people are that
gullible. I think they'll have some surprises for the Democrats on November 8.
The handwriting is on the wall right now. Mr. Johnson has waited too long
to cut non-essential federal spending. His present efforts are like swatting at
a disease-carrying mosquito after it has already infected its victim.
***
Earlier this year Mr. Johnson's hide-and-seek encounters with inflation
produced a most revelting development. That was when he and his Secretary of
Agriculture, Orbiting Orville Freeman, declared war on the farmer by driving down
farm commodity prices and making the farmer the scapegest of inflation.
I don't think the farmer will forget this, and that's one reason this promises
to be the year of the elephant in American politics.
The farmers have another big bone to pick with the Johnson Administration and
Orbiting Orville. All the evidence indicates Mr. Freeman deliberately understated
demand and overstated carryover last year in his forecasts for four farm commodities.
The result is that the farmer has been cheated of some $1 billion--as much as
$300 million in corn, $180 million in whest, $400 million in soybeans, and $25
million for grain sorghums.
***
Inflation keeps robbing us all, and the farmer fails to share equitably in
the economic pie but Mr. Johnson goes around the country telling the people they
never had it so good. Ne's following the advice of Orbiting Orville, his feet-in-
mouth-disease expert. Like Orville suggested, Mr. Johnson and all the Democratic
candidates for Congress are doing their best to "slip, slide and duck all questions
of higher consumer prices."
Thinking Americans won't be taken in. They will recognize the need for high-
caliber men like Fred Bugan in Congress. In the 35th District of New York, the
people will pick Fred Bugan because they know he believes in progress with common
sense. Voters throughout this great land know they must elect Republicans to
Congress to restore good management to the economy, to bring back good government in
Washington, to give themselves sound prosperity based on a stable dollar, to build
a strong America able to keep peace at home and to restore peace in the world.
####
TEMPORARY HEADQUARTERS, FREDERICK D. DUGAN,
CANDIDATE FOR CONGRESS, 35th DISTRICT,
240 LAKE STREET PLAZA
PENN YAN, NEW YORK 14527
315-536-8311
ABOUT FRED DUGAN
FOR
CONGRESS
Attorney Frederick D. Dugan is the Republican Candidate for Congress from the 35th Con-
gressional District, the second biggest in the State of New York, stretching two-thirds of the way
across the state and including the counties of Cayuga, Chenango, Cortland, Montgomery, Ontar-
io, Otsego, Seneca and Yates.
Fred Dugan was born in the 35th District. And almost all his working life has been spent in
the eight counties, except for schooling at Antioch College, where he received a degree in Gov-
ernment, and of Cornell Law School in Ithaca to get his law degree, and periods of service in
Washington (with the Wage Stabilization Board) and in Albany on legislative staffs. He knows his
eight-county district from one end to the other.
Fred Dugan knows Washington, too. Business trips have taken him there often and he was
admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States and the Treasury Department.
International relations have long interested him. For years he has been building an excellent
library on the subject and learns from study trips when he can afford them.
Fred Dugan lives near Penn Yan, in Yates County, where he has law offices--about 25 miles
from his birthplace at Canandaigua, in Ontario County. He is now 37, the youngest man ever to
run for Congress from the 35th District, although, of course, much older than first-term Congress-
men from many other districts.
Fred Dugan's wife, Marcia, breaks the supposed rule: She's "beautiful but bright." Their
three children are still youngsters. One is about ready for kindergarten; two are in gradeschool.
Marcia Dugan is as active in political organizations and women's groups as her household duties
permit. She is now Candidate Dugan's chief campaign aide.
When time and money allow, the Dugans indulge in two hobbies, both of which come natur-
al in their Finger Lakes area. They go sailing in summer and skiing in winter. Fred is a member
of the Snowridge Ski Club and the Keuka Lake East Branch Sailing Associations--affiliations of
quite a different kind than some of his others, like Phim Delta Phi, International Legal Fraternity,
Rotary International or the Experiment in International Living. The Dugans also like to travel and
save to do SO. On a recent trip to Europe, they preferred Italy. Marcia Dugan, who WUS brought
up in Havana, Cuba, and speaks perfect Spanish, quickly developed an ear for Italian.
Because of his attractive wife and family and his relative youth, Dugan has been called "the
Upstate Lindsay." But he says, "I don't know what a Silk-Stocking District is. I think I'm more of
a typical 'Upstate New Yorker." He also refuses any "liberal" or "conservative" tag. "I'm a
Republican," he says, "an advocate of representative government. I believe in serving the people,
not dictating to them. I want to serve them in the best way in any given circumstances, so I can't
be tied to any rigid 'liberal' or 'conservative' line. Also, most labels are meaningless. People
mean everything. I'm pretty sure that not only Republicans but Independents and free-minded
Democrats really feel the same way."
As for issues in the campaign, Fred Dugan sees two main ones right now, and a third that is
the key to settling the first two, though he will, of course, bring up others.
First, he says, "we have to clear up the confusion over Viet Nam and see what the facts are
behind the smokescreen of wild, cover-up statements being made even by my opponent, who is the
incumbent Democratic Representative, Samuel S. Stratton. Once the confusion is out of the way
and we can all think clearly on the basis of known facts, than both parties and all the people
should unite behind a solution we know to be in the best interests of the United States. Those in-
terests should always be a guiding concern and not be lost sight of among all the conflicting prob-
lems we face.
Second, we have to do something immediate to stop this really unbearable rise in prices and
taxes which hurts everybody and is already causing some actual privation in our District among
people living on fixed incomes, including many retired men and women and thousands who work
for small enterprises which simply can't afford to raise wages to keep up with the price spiral.
Small employers, like farmers and small businessmen, are terribly hurt by this because their taxes
and costs go up a lot faster than the prices they can get for what they produce and sell. And, of
course, bankers may not lend money to young people just starting out or to small enterprises or
people on fixed incomes at a low interest rate any more, because the value of the money they
lend goes down monthly and what they get back may not equal in value what they lent. Everybody
in the District is caught in this price-tax squeeze.
"I'm not saying that the Washington Administration should just stop spending. I'm not against
spending for necessary pruposes and for the genuine benefit of people. What I'm against is unnec-
essary spending, or political juggling of money, or waste, or corruption, or mismanagement of
funds. Federal spending, applied where it's needed only, would not be inflationary. In fact, our
District has never got its share, in relation to its size and needs, of necessary federal funds."
"We have to spend what is necessary to do the job we set ourselves and of course taxes have
to be high enough to cover that spending. But an example of the kind of spending that harms all
the people and provokes wild rises in prices and taxes is what Secretary of Defense McNamara has
been doing in his Department. He deferred spending on Viet Nam needs until he has to replenish
it all at once, endangering not only our national security but threatening the whole economy.
This fiscal year, just to replenish the stockpile, he will have to spend at on annual rate of $21
billion--five times as much as he earmarked for Viet Nam purposes in the 1965-66 budget. The
shock of this great tidal wave of dollars could make prices double and triple. But if he has spent
as needs arose, and not resorted to political juggling, the economy could have absorbed the spend-
ing better, assuming it would all have been necessary."
"And then, of course, we have another problem coming out of this peculiar confusion and
mismanagement and political use of spending. What if peace comes in Viet Nam? We shall all
rejoice at peace; but what will happen to an economy puffed up and inflated by McNamara's
juggling of expenditures?"
Candidate Dugan feels that the only way to solve these two main issues and several others is
to have Congressmen in Washington who will seriously review what the federal government plans,
is spending and in taxation especially, and act as they are supposed to under the Constitution,
that is, to be the Legislative check against the Executive.
"We simply don't have enough Congressmen in Washington now who feel that this is their
duty," Fred Dugan says. "There are about 225 Congressmen who are real captives of the Admin-
istration and always vote the way they are told to, regardless of their people's wishes or needs.
I'm sorry to say that Rep. Samuel Stratton has been one of these 225 captives for quite a while now.
Every time the whip snapped, Rep. Stratton jumped. None of his own bills ever got anywhere.
Maybe they were just gestures, because he is worried about being reelected and of course wants
the backing of the Administration's propaganda and financial machine, which is one of the few
things about it which works with remarkable efficiency. So, to get that, he has to parrot the line
in what he says and vote in lockstep. I'm sure he doesn't like that role, and 1 feel sorry for him."
The Republican Candidate said he would bring these and other issues to the people of the
eight counties in the 35th District by every possible means--meetings, mailings, interviews,
speeches, person-to-person talks and "whatever will put me in touch with the people. I have an
absolute trust in the common sense of people once they know the facts and how to separate them
from Administration propaganda." Whenever Marcia Dugan can come along, Fred Dugan hopes to
take her with him on his trips through the eight counties. As a housewife, she has a knack for
learning quickly what the effect of high prices and high taxes has been on the families in each
area and what people feel should be done.
"Most voters already understandthat the November elections are crucial to their private fu-
tures," Fred Dugan says. "Many have written to me already about business and personal problems
caused by economic pressures. I don't what to sould like a Prophet of Doom, because I'm naturally
optimistic. But unless we elect Congressmen that can keep a check on the Administration and ob-
lige it to think of People instead of Politics and Propaganda, a Prophecy of Doom may be in order."
"No country, not even ours, can keep strong and free if elected representatives merely obey
Executive orders. That is Authoritarianism. For a strong and free country, we need a strong and
free Congress."
FREDERICK D. DUGAN
CAMPAIGN ADDRESS
REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE FOR CONGRESS
P. O. BOX 16
35th CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT
PENN YAN, NEW YORK
TELEPHONE: 315/536-8311
Fred Dugan has been unanimously endorsed by the eight Republican Committees of the Counties of
Cayuga, Chenango, Cortland, Montgomery, Ontario, Otsego, Seneca and Yates.
PERSONAL:
Born in Canandaigua, Ontario County, N.Y., December 27, 1928.
Married former Marcia Joan Brussel.
Three Children: Michael D., Elizabeth and Margaret.
EDUCATION:
Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio - B.A. 1952 (Government).
Cornell Law School, Ithaca, New York - LL.B. 1955.
CAREER:
Private Law Practice, Penn Yan.
Formerly associated with Honorable Lyman H. Smith, Yates County Judge and Surrogate, as
Smith and Dugan, Attorneys.
Former Assistant District Attorney of Yates County.
Served with the Wage Stabilization Board, Washington, D.C.
Admitted to Supreme Court of the United States, Federal District Court, U.S. Treasury Department,
N.Y. Supreme Court and Court of Appeals.
In the New York State Assembly, Counsel to Assemblyman V.S. Blodgett.
In the New York State Senate, Counsel to the late Senator Dutton S. Peterson of Odessa, N.Y.
and to the Senate Committee on Taxation.
Counsel to Joint Legislative Committee for Appraisal and Assessment of Publicly-owned Lands and
the Joint Legislative Committee on Unemployment Insurance.
Campaign Chairman for Senator Bryce Barden (R) N.Y. 50th Senatorial District, New York State
Senate.
ASSOCIATIONS:
St. Michael's Church, Penn Yan, N.Y.
Member of the New York State Bar Association.
Past-President of the Yates County Bar Association.
Phi Delta Phi, International Legal Fraternity (Conklin Inn).
Member of the District Attorney's Association.
Rotary International, Past-President of Penn Yan Rotary Club.
Past-Director, Rotary District Handicapped Children's Comp.
Yates County Young Republican Club, Past-President.
Junior Chamber of Commerce, Past-Director.
Alumni Association Director, Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio.
Community Associate, Keuka College, Keuka Park, N.Y.
Lakeside Country Club, Penn Yan, N.Y.
Snowride Ski Club.
Keuka Lake East Branch Sailing Association.
Penn Yan Central School Parent Teachers Group Council -1961-62.
Experiment in International Living, Community Ambassador Program.
American Legion National Oratorical Contest, Alternate Judge - 1960.
Yates County Red Cross Fund Chairman - 1956-57.
Isaac Walton League.