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First Congress of American Politics, Hiram Scott College, Scottsbluff, NE, 4/27/68
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First Congress of American Politics, Hiram Scott College, Scottsbluff, NE, 4/27/68
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Gerald R. Ford Congressional Papers
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The original documents are located in Box D24, folder "First Congress of American
Politics, Hiram Scott College, Scottsbluff, NE, 4/27/68" 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States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.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.
Digitized from Box D24 of The Ford Congressional Papers: Press Secretary and Speech File at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
FIRST CONGRESS OF AMERICAN POLITICS,
8 P.M. SATURDAY, APRIL 27, 1968
HIRAM SCOTT COLLEGE, SCOTTSBLUFF, NEBRASKA.
BEFORE COMING HERE TODAY, I
PREPARED MYSELF VERY CAREFULLY FOR THE OCCASION.
TO DO THIS I DILIGENTLY REVIEWED ALL OF THE
INSTANCES WHEN I HAVE ATTACKED LYNDON JOHNSON,
THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, AND THE POLICIES OF THE
JOHNSON-HUMPHREY ADMINISTRATION.
SOME TIME AGO I WAS TOLD THAT THIS
CONGRESS ON AMERICAN POLITICS WOULD BE DIVIDED
INTO FOUR SECTIONS AND THAT I WAS TO KEYNOTE
THE ONE ON "CONGRESSIONAL POLEMICS."
A POLEMIC, ACCORDING TO WEBSTER'S
SEVENTH NEW COLLEGIATE DICTIONARY, IS "AN
AGGRESSIVE ATTACK ON OR REFUTATION OF THE
OPINIONS OR PRINCIPLES OF ANOTHER." IT IS ALSO
DEFINED AS "THE ART OR PRACTICE OF DISPUTATION
OR CONTROVERSY."
-2-
I RUBBED MY HANDS TOGETHER OVER MY
SPEAKING ASSIGNMENT, PARTICULARLY BECAUSE I
DO ENJOY GOOD DISPUTATION. HOWEVER, I WAS A BIT
TROUBLED WHEN I FOUND THAT WEBSTER DESCRIBED
DISPUTATION AS "AN ACADEMIC EXERCISE IN ORAL
DEFENSE OF A THESIS BY FORMAL LOGIC."
ENOUGH OF DEFINITIONS WHICH SOUND
AS THOUGH THEY WERE CONCOCTED BY A WASHINGTON
BUREAUCRAT.
Presumally
MAY HAVE BEEN CHOSEN TO KEYNOTE
THIS SECTION BECAUSE I HAVE A REPUTATION FOR
BEING ONE OF LYNDON JOHNSON'S MOST OUTSPOKEN
CRITICS. the impression this political in "give public + take worden has solding been me sidul
what WOULD BE FAR MORE TO MY LIKING
So, you Prespeat don't get franson calls nothing us compared Righbbars to what he calls us in produce
IF I WAS INVITED HERE BECAUSE--IN THE WORDS OF
BENJAMIN DISRAELI--"NO GOVERNMENT CAN BE LONG
SECURE WITHOUT A FORMIDABLE OPPOSITION."
Competition
REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS HAVE, I
BELIEVE, BEEN OFFERING THE JOHNSON-HUMPHREY
$ 817 03
ADMINISTRATION AND THE DEMOCRATIC MAJORITY IN
-3-
THE HOUSE AND SENATE OPPOSITION WHICH IS
FORMIDABLE.
A NEWS REPORTER RECENTLY SUGGESTED
TO ME THAT PRESIDENT JOHNSON'S DECISION NOT TO
SEEK REELECTION HAD NEUTRALIZED THE ISSUES
REPUBLICANS HAVE BEEN CONCENTRATING ON IN 1968.
I POLITELY--A POLITICIAN SHOULD ALWAYS BE POLITE
TO NEWSMEN--I POLITELY DISAGREED.
all
have into difference, not a smedyer
it docunt make one
They
THE ISSUES, I SAID, REMAINED THE SAME
AFTER ALL, THE MAJOR PROBLEMS CONFRONTING THIS
NATION HAVE NOT BEEN SOLVED. PEACE HAS NOT
BROKEN OUT IN VIETNAM. VIETNAM PEACE TALKS ARE
STILL JUST A HOPE DESPITE ALL THE TALK ABOUT A
START ON TALKS. THE NATION'S LARGE CITIES ARE
STILL SEEDBEDS OF POTENTIAL RACIAL REVOLT. THE
NATIONAL CRIME RATE CONTINUES TO RISE--AFTER
JUMPING A FRIGHTENING 83 PER CENT FROM 1960 THRU
1967, WHILE OUR POPULATION INCREASED BY 11 PER
CENT. THE COST OF LIVING CONTINUES TO SPIRAL,
NOW MOUNTING AT AN ANNUAL RATE OF 4 PER CENT
AFTER TOPPING 3 PER CENT EACH YEAR IN 1966 AND
1967. THE CONDITION OF THE DOLLAR CONTINUES
CRITICAL, AND EUROPEANS WHO HAVE LOST
-4-
CONFIDENCE IN THAT DOLLAR ANXIOUSLY WATCH TO SEE
IF AMERICA WILL PUT ITS FISCAL HOUSE IN ORDER.
THE DEEP DEFICIT IN OUR BALANCE OF PAYMENTS
CONTINUES. OUR SUPPLY OF GOLD IS shocking ABYSMALLY LOW;
THE NUMBER OF DOLLARS HELD BY FOREIGNERS DANGER-
OUSLY HIGH. OUR PAPER MONEY HAS BECOME
EXACTLY THAT--BECAUSE THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY'S
INABILITY TO SOLVE OUR BALANCE OF PAYMENTS
PROBLEM HAS FORCED REMOVAL OF THE 25 PER CENT
GOLD BACKING FOR OUR CURRENCY.
' ONE OF LYNDON JOHNSON'S FAVORITE
PHRASES HAS LONG BEEN "LET US CONTINUE."
CONTINUE WHAT? CONTINUE TO KEEP IN POWER A
POLITICAL PARTY WHICH HAS FAILED AMERICA? KEEP
IN POWER A PARTY WHICH HAS FAILED TO KEEP THE
PEACE AT HOME AND ABROAD? KEEP IN POWER A PARTY
WHICH HAS ALLOWED OUR CITY STREETS TO BECOME
PAVEMENTS OF FEAR? KEEP IN POWER A PARTY WHICH
HAS DESTROYED PRICE STABILITY IN THIS COUNTRY
BY PURSUING UNSOUND FISCAL POLICIES? KEEP IN
LIBRARY
-5-
POWER A PARTY WHICH THREATENS TO DESTROY THE
DOLLAR AS A WORLD CURRENCY AND THUS PRODUCE A
COLLAPSE OF WORLD TRADE? KEEP IN POWER A PARTY
WHICH THREATENS TO PLUNGE US INTO THE MAJOR
RECESSION THAT WILL INEVITABLY FOLLOW UPON
RUNAWAY INFLATION?
IN A RECENT SPEECH IN CHICAGO,
PRESIDENT JOHNSON SAID THE PURPOSE OF POLITICS
IS "TO SERVE THE UNITY OF ALL OUR PEOPLE."
POLITICS, WHEN DEFINED ACCURATELY,
IS THE ART OF GOVERNMENT. IF A POLITICAL PARTY
GOVERNS BADLY, IT IS THIS WHICH DIVIDES THE
COUNTRY. THERE CAN BE NO UNITY WHEN THE PARTY
IN POWER FAILS TO SOLVE THE NATION'S MOST
CRITICAL PROBLEMS AND THUS SERVES THE PEOPLE
POORLY. THERE CAN BE NO UNITY WHEN THE PARTY
IN POWER IS GUILTY OF MISMANAGING THE NATION'S
FISCAL AND MONETARY AFFAIRS. THERE CAN BE NO
UNITY WHEN THE PARTY IN POWER REFUSES TO MAKE
THE FULLEST POSSIBLE USE OF THE POWER OF FREE
-6-
ENTERPRISE TO SOLVE THE PROBLEMS OF OUR CITIES.
THERE CAN BE NO UNITY WHEN THE PARTY IN POWER
PERMITS THIS NATION TO BE HUMILIATED BY TINY
COMMUNIST NATIONS A FRACTION ITS SIZE.
for personal partician glun I make no allegation another- against
NOBODY IN THIS COUNTRY SHOULD
PROMOTE DIVISIVENESS. BUT THE STRENGTH OF
Dem n Rp.
AMERICA HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE SPIRIT OF FREEDOM
WHICH PERVADES OUR GREAT NATION. NO CITIZEN
SHOULD MUZZLE HIMSELF IN THE NAME OF UNITY.
HE SHOULD RATHER BE GUIDED BY A DEEP SENSE OF
RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE WELFARE OF OTHERS AND
AN ABIDING LOVE FOR HIS HOMELAND.
THIS IS Presidential AN ELECTION YEAR. The your Ichalling
REPUBLICANS ARE SPEAKING OUT IN CONGRESS AND
ELSEWHERE IN DISAGREEMENT WITH THE POLICIES OF
THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. THIS IS NOT PARTISANSHIP
IN THE NARROW SENSE.
WE ENGAGE IN CONGRESSIONAL POLEMICS
BECAUSE WE BELIEVE THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY HAS
LIBRARY
TAKEN THIS NATION ON A MISTAKEN COURSE, AND THE
-7-
AMERICAN PEOPLE SHOULD TURN TO THE REPUBLICAN
PARTY TO MAKE IT RIGHT. REPUBLICANS BELIEVE WE
MUST STEER THE COUNTRY IN NEW DIRECTIONS OR THE
NATION WILL SUFFER GRIEVOUS HURTS.
OUR NATION IS ALREADY SUFFERING,
HAS BEEN SUFFERING, WILL CONTINUE TO SUFFER
UNDER DEMOCRATIC PARTY POLICIES.
IN VIETNAM A DIVIDED DEMOCRATIC
PARTY GRADUALLY ESCALATED A SMALL EISENHOWER
AID COMMITMENT INTO A MAJOR LAND WAR, CONTRARY
TO ALL SOUND MILITARY ADVICE. IT WAS THE LATE
GENERAL DOUGLAS MAC ARTHUR, YOU WILL RECALL,
WHO SAID: "ANYBODY WHO COMMITS THE LAND POWER
OF THE UNITED STATES ON THE CONTINENT OF ASIA
OUGHT TO HAVE HIS HEAD EXAMINED."
HAVING COMMITTED U.S. LAND POWER TO
THE VIETNAM WAR, THE DIVIDED DEMOCRATIC PARTY
MADE THE ADDITIONAL POLICY MISTAKE OF EMPLOYING
A STRATEGY OF LIMITED OR MEASURED RESPONSE, A
STRATEGY OF GRADUALISM WHICH WAS DOOMED TO
-8-
FAILURE FROM THE OUTSET AND NEEDLESSLY ENDANGERED
THE LIVES OF AMERICAN FIGHTING MEN.
HAVING FOLLOWED THE MISTAKEN POLICY
OF GRADUALISM, THE JOHNSON-HUMPHREY ADMINISTRATION
NOW MUST MAKE GOOD ON ITS PROMISE TO PHASE OUT
U.S. LAND FORCES IN VIETNAM AND PHASE IN SOUTH
VIETNAMESE TROOPS WHILE SEEKING A NEGOTIATED
PEACE. I APPLAUD THE PRESIDENT'S DECISION TO
IMPOSE A CEILING OF 550,000 ON OUR TROOP
COMMITMENT TO VIETNAM. I ALSO APPLAUD HIS
ACTION LIMITING THE BOMBING OF NORTH VIETNAM
AS A MOVE IN THE DIRECTION OF PEACE. IT SO
HAPPENS THAT THIS PEACE INITIATIVE IS BASED ON A
PLAN PROPOSED PRIVATELY TO THE PRESIDENT BY A
GROUP OF NINE HOUSE REPUBLICANS EXACTLY ONE YEAR
PRIOR TO THE PRESIDENT'S PUBLIC IMPLEMENTATION
OF IT.
VIETNAM IS NOT AMERICA'S ONLY
FOREIGN POOL OF DESPAIR UNDER A DIVIDED
DEMOCRATIC PARTY.
-9-
IN LATIN AMERICA, THERE IS NO REAL
lcomomic, ficial or political
ALLIANCE AND THE PROGRESS IS INSIGNIFICANT.
WHERE ARE THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL REFORMS OUR
STATE DEPARTMENT HAS SOBRAVELY MAPPED FOR OUR
LATIN NEIGHBORS? THE REFORMS ARE BURIED UNDER
SHINY NEW IMPLEMENTS OF WAR WHILE SOUTH AMERICAN
LEADERS BOLSTER THEIR PERSONAL WEALTH AND POWER.
IN AFRICA NATION AFTER NATION
WHICH HAS ACCEPTED OUR ASSISTANCE FALLS AWAY
FROM POPULAR RULE AND INTO THE CULT OF PERSONAL
DICTATORSHIP. VICE-PRESIDENT HUMPHREY'S ANSWER
IS TO CALL FOR A TRIPLING OF A FOREIGN AID
PROGRAM THAT HAS REPEATEDLY BEEN EXPOSED AS
SHODDILY--AND IN SOME INSTANCES, CORRUPTLY--RUN.
IN EUROPE, NATO HAS STEADILY ERODED
INTO A LOOSE, LIP-SERVICE ALIGNMENT OF NATIONS
WHICH FORCE AMERICA TO PAY THE BILL FOR MILITARY
ARRANGEMENTS THEY DO NOT CONSIDER IMPORTANT
ENOUGH TO FINANCE ON THEIR OWN. SUPREME
HEADQUARTERS OF THE ALLIED FORCES HAS BEEN
-10-
PUSHED OUT OF FRANCE BY PRESIDENT D&GAULLE AND
FORCED TO TAKE REFUGE IN BELGIUM, LEAVING A
FORTUNE IN BUILDINGS BEHIND. BRITAIN,
SQUEEZED BY EXTRAVAGANT WELFARE PROGRAMS INTO
DEVALUING THE POUND, HAS PULLED BACK FROM THE
WORLD AND THRUST A GREATER PEACE-KEEPING BURDEN
ON AMERICA. OUR ERRATIC POLICY IN THE MIDEAST
FEEDS GUERRILLA WARFARE BETWEEN THE ARABS AND
ISRAEL AND BLUNTS THE PROSPECTS FOR PEACE WHILE
ENHANCING SOVIET INFLUENCE AMONG THE ARAB
NATIONS.
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE SUFFERING AT
HOME UNDER DEMOCRATIC PARTY POLICIES.
THE U.S. LABOR DEPARTMENT HAS
STATED FLATLY THAT THE WAGE GAINS AMERICAN
WORKERS THOUGHT THEY HAD MADE IN 1966 AND 1967
WERE WIPED OUT BY INCREASES IN THE COST OF LIVING.
THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY BRAGS ABOUT
MORE THAN 80 MONTHS OF "UNINTERRUPTED PROSPERITY"
BUT THE NAME OF THE GAME IS INFLATION, NOT
-11-
PROSPERITY. INFLATION IS A BIG WORD. THE
HOUSEWIFE KNOWS WHAT IT MEANS--HIGHER AND HIGHER
PRICES.
INFLATION HURTS THE POOR MORE THAN
ANYONE ELSE, BECAUSE THEIR INCOMES DO NOT RISE
ON A DIRECT LINE WITH PRICES. MUCH OF THE
TREMENDOUS EFFORT AND HUGE EXPENDITURES THAT
HAVE GONE INTO THE WAR ON POVERTY HAS BEEN
NULLIFIED BY INFLATION.
INFLATION HAS HURT THE FARMER BECAUSE
PRICES RECEIVED BY THE FARMER HAVE GONE UP VERY
isat all
LITTLE IN THE LAST SEVEN YEARS BUT THE INDEX OF
the cost Production
PRICES PAID, BY THE FARMER HAS GONE UP 44 POINTS.
THE FARMER IS A PRIME VICTIM OF JOHNSON-HUMPHREY
ADMINISTRATION INFLATION. HIS INCOME BRINGS
HIM ONLY 74 PER CENT OF PARITY--SOMETHING THAT
IS INCONCEIVABLE IN TIME OF WAR.
INFLATION HAS FORCED UP INTEREST
RATES AND CREATED A SPECIAL BURDEN FOR HOME
BUYERS AND ALL AMERICANS WHO FIND IT NECESSARY
-12-
TO BORROW. IT HAS GREATLY INTERFERED WITH
MUNICIPAL AND SCHOOL DISTRICT IMPROVEMENT
PROJECTS AND HAS SADDLED TAXPAYERS WITH HIGHER
INTEREST COSTS FOR YEARS TO COME. FED BY
DEFICIT FEDERAL SPENDING, INFLATION HAS ADDED
TO INTEREST COSTS ACCOMPANYING THE ABNORMALLY
LARGE RISE IN OUR NATIONAL DEBT UNTIL THE
INTEREST ON THAT DEBT NOW TOTALS NEARLY
$15 BILLION A YEAR.
INFLATION HAS HURT OUR FOREIGN TRADE
TO THE POINT WHERE OUR TRADE SURPLUS HAS FALLEN
TO AN ANNUAL RATE OF LESS THAN $2 BILLION.
OUR BALANCE OF TRADE ACTUALLY SLIPPED INTO
DEFICIT DURING THE MONTH OF MARCH, THE FIRST
TIME THIS HAS HAPPENED SINCE 1963. THIS VANISH-
ING TRADE SURPLUS HAS COMBINED WITH THE JOHNSON-
HUMPHREY ADMINISTRATION'S EXTRAVAGANCE IN
OVERSEAS EXPENDITURES TO PRODUCE OUR BALANCE OF
PAYMENTS CRISIS AND THE GOLD DRAIN.
THE GOLD CRISIS HAS RESULTED FROM
-13-
AN INTERNATIONAL CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE IN THE
FISCAL AND MONETARY POLICIES PURSUED BY THE
DEMOCRATIC PARTY. THE LOSS OF CONFIDENCE IN
THE DOLLAR WAS PARTICULARLY SHOCKING TO THOSE
AMERICAN TRAVELERS WHO FOUND THAT FOR A FEW DAYS
IN MARCH SOME EUROPEAN BANKS, HOTELS AND
MERCHANTS WERE UNWILLING TO ACCEPT THEIR DOLLARS
OR TRAVELERS CHECKS.
IT IS ABUNDANTLY CLEAR TO ME THAT
THE PARTY IN POWER HAS MISMANAGED THIS NATION'S
FISCAL AND MONETARY AFFAIRS.
I SAY THIS BECAUSE THE GENERAL PRICE
LEVEL HAS RISEN 10 PER CENT SINCE MID-1964.
I SAY THIS BECAUSE TOTAL FEDERAL
SPENDING JUMPED $53 BILLION BETWEEN MID-1965
AND MID-1968, WITH LESS THAN HALF OF THIS
INCREASE--$25 BILLION--DIRECTLY ATTRIBUTABLE TO
THE VIETNAM WAR.
I SAY THIS BECAUSE THE PARTY IN
POWER REFUSED TO ELIMINATE NON-ESSENTIAL
-14-
DOMESTIC SPENDING AS AN OFFSET TO VIETNAM WAR
COSTS OR EVEN TO DEFER LOW-PRIORITY EXPENDITURES.
THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY HAS BROUGHT ON
THIS NATION A FISCAL CRISIS WHICH THREATENS THE
AMERICAN PEOPLE WITH A MAJOR RECESSION OR WORSE.
THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, AS THE PARTY IN POWER,
THEREFORE HAS THE CHIEF RESPONSIBILITY FOR
RESOLVING OUR FISCAL CRISIS.
REPUBLICANS CAN POINT THE WAY--AS
WE HAVE BEEN DOING--WITH A CALL FOR AN AUSTERITY
PROGRAM. THIS WOULD INCLUDE DEEP CUTS IN
SPENDING AND THE ERASING OF FUTURE AUTHORITY
TO SPEND SO THAT CONGRESS CAN REGAIN CONTROL
OF FEDERAL EXPENDITURES. IF AN INCOME TAX
INCREASE APPEARS ABSOLUTELY INESCAPABLE, THEN
to avoid the catastrophe The 19305
a $6 belhin evpendetion reduction
THIS ALSO MUST BE WRAPPED INTO THE PACKAGE.
HOWEVER, I WILL NOT SUPPORT A TAX INCREASE
WHICH IS MERELY THE VEHICLE FOR ANOTHER SHARP
SPENDING SPIRAL.
FORD LIGRAR
THE NEED TO PUT OUR FISCAL HOUSE IN
-15-
ORDER APPEARS TO COLLIDE HEAD-ON WITH THE
DESPERATE DEMANDS OF OUR CITIES AND THE CRISIS
OF CIVIL DISORDER.
I FIRMLY BELIEVE THAT THE FIRST
ORDER OF BUSINESS IN MEETING THE CRISIS OF
CIVIL DISORDER IS FOR AMERICANS OF BOTH RACES
TO RECOGNIZE THAT THEY CANNOT LIVE TOGETHER IN
AN AMERICA DIVIDED BY HATRED. WE MUST, ALL OF
US. REDEDICATE OURSELVES TO THE TRUTH WHICH THE
AUTHORS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE SAW
AS SELF-EVIDENT--THAT ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL.
A CHANGE IN ATTITUDES WON'T
ELIMINATE SLUM CONDITIONS BUT IT WILL HELP
COOL THE PASSIONS WHICH HAVE CAUSED LOSS OF LIFE
AND DESTROYED PORTIONS OF OUR GREAT CITIES.
PERHAPS THE MOST IMPORTANT SINGLE
REMEDY IS JOBS--GOOD-PAYING JOBS THAT WILL
BRING DIGNITY, SELF-RESPECT AND THE RESPECT OF
OTHERS TO THE UNEMPLOYED AND UNDEREMPLOYED
CITIZENS OF THE CENTRAL CITIES.
-16-
I HAVE REPEATEDLY URGED BUSINESS
AND INDUSTRIAL LEADERS TO BECOME SOCIALLY
CONSICIOUS, AND INDEED MANY BUSINESSMEN HAVE
BECOME DEEPLY INVOLVED IN TRYING TO CURE
AMERICA'S URBAN ILLS. BUT IT IS EXCEEDINGLY
DIFFICULT AND EXPENSIVE TO TRAIN THE HARD-CORE
UNEMPLOYED FOR JOBS AND THERE ARE MANY PROBLEMS
IN LOCATING PLANTS IN THE CENTRAL CITIES.
THESE PROBLEMS CANNOT BE SOLVED BY
DIRECT FEDERAL APPROPRIATION, DIRECT FEDERAL
SUBSIDY, OR BY EMOTIONAL APPEALS TO SOCIAL
CONSCIOUSNESS.
WE MUST MAKE THE REBUILDING OF OUR
CITIES AN ATTRACTIVE NEW BUSINESS--AND REBUILD
THE CITIZENS OF THE CENTRAL CITIES IN THE PROCESS
THE BEST WAY TO ACCOMPLISH THIS IS
TO OFFER INDUSTRY TAX CREDITS AS AN INCENTIVE
TO PROVIDE LARGE-SCALE ON-THE-JOB TRAINING IN
THE CENTRAL CITIES. TO BUILD INDUSTRIAL PLANTS
THERE. AND TO CONSTRUCT LOW-COST HOUSING FOR
LIBRARY
LOW-INCOME FAMILIES.
-17-
AS A MILITANT BLACK LEADER IN
DETROIT TOLD A GROUP OF BUSINESSMEN: "THE
GOVERNMENT CAN'T LICK THIS PROBLEM, SO BUSINESS
HAS TO. IF YOU CATS CAN'T DO IT, IT'S NEVER
GOING TO GET DONE."
BUT THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY REFUSES
TO ACCEPT THE CONCEPT OF TAX CREDITS AS AN
INVESTMENT IN HUMAN BEINGS, JUST AS THEY HAVE
SPURNED A WHOLE ARRAY OF NEW REPUBLICAN IDEAS
AIMED AT SOLVING THE PROBLEMS OF THE LATE
SIXTIES AND THE SEVENTIES.
WE NEED TO THROW OFF THE MALAISE
WHICH HAS PARALYZED AMERICA.
IT IS TIME FOR FRESH APPROACHES--A
SHARING OF FEDERAL REVENUE WITH THE STATES AND
LOCAL COMMUNITIES TO BRING THEM INTO FULL
PARTNERSHIP IN PROBLEM-SOLVING, THE USE OF TAX
INCENTIVES TO PUT BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY TO WORK
RE-MAKING OUR CITIES, THE CREATION OF A PRIVATE-
PUBLIC CORPORATION TO RAISE MORTGAGE FUNDS AND
-18-
HELP LOW-INCOME FAMILIES BUY AND RUN THEIR
OWN HOMES, A RE-ORDERING OF OUR NATIONAL
PRIORITIES TO CONVERT URBAN RENEWAL INTO HUMAN
RENEWAL...THROUGHOUT AMERICA. UNFORTUNATELY,
THE OLD DEMOCRATIC PROGRAMS NEVER DIE. THEY
DON'T EVEN FADE AWAY. They just bup on Ner more
last - a got by enough the
JUST AS WE CAN ACCOMPLISH NOTHING
WITHOUT A SOUND DOLLAR, SO WE CANNOT CONTINUE
TO LIVE WITH FEAR. BESIDES ENLISTING PRIVATE
ENTERPRISE IN A NATIONWIDE ATTACK ON THE
CONDITIONS WHICH LEAD TO CIVIL DISORDERS,
REPUBLICANS WOULD LAUNCH A SWEEPING PROGRAM TO
CONTROL CRIME AND JUVENILE DELIQUENCY, IMPROVE
LAW ENFORCEMENT, OVERHAUL OUR COURT SYSTEM, AND
CRACK DOWN ON ORGANIZED CRIME.
THE PARTY IN POWER HAS FAILED TO
MOVE WITH URGENCY TOWARD A SOLUTION TO THE
PRESSING PROBLEM OF CRIME. IN FACT, THEIR
"HANG-UP" IS THAT THEY REFUSE TO RECOGNIZE THE
NEED FOR STATEWIDE IMPROVEMENTS IN LAW
GERALD
IBRARY
-18-
HELP LOW-INCOME FAMILIES BUY AND RUN THEIR
OWN HOMES, A RE-ORDERING OF OUR NATIONAL
PRIORITIES TO CONVERT URBAN RENEWAL INTO HUMAN
RENEWAL... THROUGHOUT AMERICA. UNFORTUNATELY,
THE OLD DEMOCRATIC PROGRAMS NEVER DIE. THEY
DON'T EVEN FADE AWAY. They just beep on nerry more
but agot by enough the
JUST AS WE CAN ACCOMPLISH NOTHING
WITHOUT A SOUND DOLLAR, SO WE CANNOT CONTINUE
TO LIVE WITH FEAR. BESIDES ENLISTING PRIVATE
ENTERPRISE IN A NATIONWIDE ATTACK ON THE
CONDITIONS WHICH LEAD TO CIVIL DISORDERS,
REPUBLICANS WOULD LAUNCH A SWEEPING PROGRAM TO
CONTROL CRIME AND JUVENILE DELIQUENCY, IMPROVE
LAW ENFORCEMENT, OVERHAUL OUR COURT SYSTEM, AND
CRACK DOWN ON ORGANIZED CRIME.
THE PARTY IN POWER HAS FAILED TO
MOVE WITH URGENCY TOWARD A SOLUTION TO THE
PRESSING PROBLEM OF CRIME. IN FACT, THEIR
"HANG-UP" IS THAT THEY REFUSE TO RECOGNIZE THE
NEED FOR STATEWIDE IMPROVEMENTS IN LAW
GERALD
IBRARY
-19-
ENFORCEMENT. THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES LAST
YEAR PASSED A NATIONAL LAW ENFORCEMENT
ASSISTANCE ACT AMENDED TO MEET A REPUBLICAN
DEMAND FOR COORDINATED STATE PLANS IN A WAR ON
CRIME. THIS LEGISLATION HAS MARKED TIME IN THE
SENATE BECAUSE OF JOHNSON-HUMPHREY ADMINISTRATION
INSISTENCE THAT FEDERAL ANTI-CRIME GRANTS BE
FUNNELED DIRECTLY TO THE CITIES,
state plans a state Mids
CRIME KNOWS NO JURISDICTIONAL
BOUNDARIES. IT DOES NOT STOP AT THE CITY LINE.
THE NATIONAL CRIME RATE CONTINUES TO MOUNT WHILE
Those who want all sultimate prover in The hands of the 4. 5. attong Through
CONGRESSIONAL ADVOCATES OF FEDERAL FUNDING OF
Sederal
LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT WITHHOLD ANTI-CRIME FUNDS
FROM THE STATES. REPUBLICANS HAVE ADVANCED
NO LESS THAN 31 PROPOSALS TO STRENGTHEN LAW
ENFORCEMENT IN THIS COUNTRY WHILE THE MAJORITY
PARTY PLOTS HOW TO BYPASS THE STATES IN THE
WAR ON CRIME. THIS IS A SHOCKING EXERCISE IN
THE MIS-USE OF POLITICAL POWER. AND ALL AMERICA
SUFFERS.
-20-
I AM CONVINCED THAT AMERICA CANNOT
AFFORD, EITHER AT HOME OR ABROAD, ANOTHER FOUR
YEARS OF DEMOCRATIC RULE IN WASHINGTON.
I FIRMLY BELIEVE THAT THE AMERICAN
PEOPLE-WITH TRADITIONAL MIDDLE-OF-THE-ROAD
WISDOM--ARE SEEKING A CHANGE OF DIRECTION IN
THEIR FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. Today THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
OFFERS THEM THIS NEW DIRECTION.
THE DEBATES IN CONGRESS--CONGRESSIONL
POLEMICS, IF YOU WILL--CONSTANTLY FOCUS ON A
BASIC DIFFERENCE IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE TWO
MAJOR POLITICAL PARTIES.
THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY ADMITS OF NO
REMEDIES FOR AMERICA'S PROBLEMS BUT FEDERAL
SOLUTIONS, FEDERALLY FINANCED AND FEDERALLY
ADMINISTERED.
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY PROPOSES THAT
OUR ATTACK ON AMERICA'S PROBLEMS BE DECENTRAL-
IZED. ONLY IN THAT WAY CAN WE SOLVE THE
PROBLEMS WHICH HAVE DEFIED THE FEDERAL
GERALD FORD LIBRARY
-21-
BUREAUCRACY. THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT MUST TAKE
THE LEAD IN IDENTIFYING NATIONAL PROBLEMS, THEN
PROMOTE MAXIMUM EFFORT BY STATE AND LOCAL
GOVERNMENTS AND BY PRIVATE ENTERPRISE AND
PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS IN SOLVING THEM.
THESE, THEN, ARE THE ISSUES. LET
THE CONGRESSIONAL POLEMICS BECOME YOUR POLEMICS.
2 know you agree with a basec principle which to insented to the
I HOPE YOU MANAGE TO DISAGREE AGREEABLY.
ARrength I own American political system - we can of must descripte without being smith
I COMMEND YOU FOR GATHERING HERE IN
THIS FIRST CONGRESS ON AMERICAN POLITICS. AS
YOU PLUNGE INTO THE POLITICAL MAELSTROM, MAY I
SUGGEST THESE WORDS SPOKEN BY A UNIVERSITY
PRESIDENT, A PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, A
DEMOCRAT--WOODROW WILSON--AS YOUR GUIDE:
"LIBERTY CANNOT EXIST WHERE GOVERNMENT TAKES
CARE OF THE PEOPLE, BUT IT CAN ONLY THRIVE WHERE
THE PEOPLE TAKE CARE OF THE GOVERNMENT."
-END-
Distribution: Full 4/26/68
mailed +20 Copies 4/27/68 mr. Ford m Office Copy
AN
ADDRESS
BY
REP.
GERALD
R.
FORD
REPUBLICAN LEADER OF THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
AT THE FIRST CONGRESS OF AMERICAN POLITICS
8 P.M. SATURDAY, APRIL 27, 1968
AT HIRAM SCOTT COLLEGE, SCOTTSBLUFF, NEBRASKA
For release in Sunday AM's
Before coming here today, I prepared myself very carefully for the occasion.
To do this I diligently reviewed all of the instances when I have attacked Lyndon
Johnson, the Democratic Party, and the policies of the Johnson-Humphrey
Administration.
Some time ago I was told that this Congress on American Politics would be
divided into four sections and that I was to keynote the one on "Congressional
Polemics."
A polemic, according to Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, is "an
aggressive attack on or refutation of the opinions or principles of another." It
is also defined as "the art or practice of disputation or controversy."
I rubbed my hands together over my speaking assignment, particularly because
I do enjoy good disputation. However, I was a bit troubled when I found that
Webster described disputation as "an academic exercise in oral defense of a thesis
by formal logic."
Enough of definitions which sound as though they were concocted by a
Washington bureaucrat.
I may have been chosen to keynote this section because I have a reputation
for being one of Lyndon Johnson's most outspoken critics.
It would be fare more to my liking if I was invited here because--in the
words of Benjamin Disraeli--"no government can be long secure without a formidable
opposition."
Republicans in Congress have, I believe, been offering the Johnson-Humphrey
Administration and the Democratic majority in the House and Senate opposition which
is formidable.
A news reporter recently suggested to me that President Johnson's decision
not to seek reelection had neutralized the issues Republicans have been concentrat-
ing on in 1968. I politely--a politician should always be polite to newsmen--I
politely disagreed.
The issues, I said, remained the same. After all, the major problems
confronting this Nation have NOT been solved. Peace has not broken out in Vietnam,
FORD
(more)
GERALD
LIBRARY
-2-
Vietnam peace talks are still just a hope despite all the talk about a start on
talks. The Nation's large cities are still seedbeds of potential racial revolt.
The national crime rate continues to rise--after jumping a frightening 83 per cent
from 1960 through 1967, while our population increased by 11 per cent. The cost of
living continues to spiral, now mounting at an annual rate of 4 per cent after
topping 3 per cent each year in 1966 and 1967. The condition of the dollar continues
critical, and Europeans who have lost confidence in that dollar anxiously watch
to see if America will put its fiscal house in order. The deep deficit in our
balance of payments continues. Our supply of gold is abysmally low; the number of
dollars held by foreigners dangerously high. Our paper money has become exactly
that because the Democratic Party's inability to solve our balance of payments
problem has forced removal of the 25 per cent gold backing for our currency.
One of Lyndon Johnson's favorite phrases has long been "let us continue."
Continue what? Continue to keep in power a political party which has failed
America? Keep in power a party which has failed to keep the peace at home and
abroad? Keep in power a party which has allowed our city streets to become pavements
of fear? Keep in power a party which has destroyed price stability in this country
by pursuing unsound fiscal policies? Keep in power a party which threatens to
destroy the dollar as a world currency and thus produce a collapse of world trade?
Keep in power a party which threatens to plunge us into the major recession that
will inevitably follow upon runaway inflation?
In a recent speech in Chicago, President Johnson said the purpose of politics
is "to serve the unity of all our people."
Politics, when defined accurately, is the art of government. If a political
party governs badly, it is this which divides the country. There can be no unity
when the party in power fails to solve the Nation's most critical problems and thus
serves the people poorly. There can be no unity when the party in power is guilty
of mismanaging the Nation's fiscal and monetary affairs. There can be no unity
when the party in power refuses to make the fullest possible use of the power of
free enterprise to solve the problems of our cities. There can be no unity when the
party in power permits this Nation to be humiliated by tiny Communist nations a
fraction its size.
Nobody in this country should promote divisiveness. But the strength of
America has always been the spirit of freedom which pervades our great Nation. No
citizen should muzzle himself in the name of unity. He should rather be guided by
a deep sense of responsibility for the welfare of others and an abiding love for
his homeland.
(more)
-3-
This is an election year. Republicans are speaking out in Congress and
elsewhere in disagreement with the policies of the Democratic Party. This is not
partisanship in the narrow sense.
We engage in congressional polemics because we believe the Democratic Party
has taken this Nation on a mistaken course, and the American people should turn to
the Republican Party to make it right. Republicans believe we must steer the
country in New Directions or the Nation will suffer grievous hurts.
Our Nation is already suffering, has been suffering, will continue to suffer
under Democratic Party policies.
In Vietnam a divided Democratic Party gradually escalated a small Eisenhower
aid commitment into a major land war, contrary to all sound military advice. It was
the late General Douglas MacArthur, you will recall, who said: "Anybody who commits
the land power of the United States on the continent of Asia ought to have his
head examined.'
Having committed U.S. land power to the Vietnam War, the divided Democratic
Party made the additional policy mistake of employing a strategy of limited or
measured response, a strategy of gradualism which was doomed to failure from the
outset and needlessly endangered the lives of American fighting men.
Having followed the mistaken policy of gradualism, the Johnson-Humphrey
Administration now must make good on its promise to phase out U.S. land forces in
Vietnam and phase in South Vietnamese troops while seeking a negotiated peace. I
applaud the President's decision to impose a ceiling of 550,000 on our troop
commitment to Vietnam. I also applaud his action limiting the bombing of North
Vietnam as a move in the direction of peace. It so happens that this peace
initiative is based on a plan proposed privately to the President by a group of
nine House Republicans exactly one year prior to the President's public implemen-
tation of it.
Vietnam is not America's only foreign pool of despair under a divided
Democratic Party.
In Latin America, there is no real Alliance and the progress is insignifi-
cant. Where are the economic and social reforms our State Department has so
bravely mapped for our Latin neighbors? The reforms are buried under shiny new
implements of war while South American leaders bolster their personal wealth and
power.
In Africa nation after nation which has accepted our assistance falls away
from popular rule and into the cult of personal dictatorship. Vice-President
(more)
-4-
Humphry's answer is to call for a tripling of a foreign aid program that has
repeatedly been exposed as shoddily--and in some instances, corruptly--run.
In Europe, NATO has steadily eroded into a loose, lip-service alignment
of nations which force America to pay the bill for military arrangements they do
not consider important enough to finance on their own. Surpreme Headquarters of
the Allied Forces has been pushed out of France by President DeGaulle and forced
to take refuge in Belgium, leaving a fortune in buildings behind. Britain,
squeezed by extravagant welfare programs into devaluing the pound, has pulled back
from the world and thrust a greater peace-keeping burden on America. Our erratic
policy in the Mideast feeds guerrilla warfare between the Arabs and Israel and
blunts the prospects for peace while enhancing Soviet influence among the Arab
nations.
The American people are suffering at home under Democratic Party policies.
The U.S. Labor Department has stated flatly that the wage gains American
workers thought they had made in 1966 and 1967 were wiped out by increases in the
cost of living.
The Democratic Party brags about more than 80 months of "uninterrupted
prosperity" but the name of the game is inflation, not prosperity. Inflation is a
big word. The housewife knows what it means--higher and higher prices.
Inflation hurts the poor more than anyone else, because their incomes do not
rise on a direct line with prices. Much of the tremendous effort and huge expendi-
tures that have gone into the War on Poverty has been nullified by inflation.
Inflation has hurt the farmer because prices received by the farmer have
gone up very little in the last seven years but the index of prices paid by the
farmer has gone up 44 points. The farmer is a prime victim of Johnson-Humphrey
Administration inflation. His income brings him only 74 per cent of parity--
something that is inconceivable in time of war.
Inflation has forced up interest rates and created a special burden for home
buyers and all Americans who find it necessary to borrow. It has greatly interfered
with municipal and school district improvement projects and has saddled taxpayers
with higher interest costs for years to come. Fed by deficit federal spending,
inflation has added to interest costs accompanying the abnormally large rise in
our national debt until the interest on that debt now totals nearly $15 billion a
year.
Inflation has hurt our foreign trade to the point where our trade surplus
has fallen to an annual rate of less than $2 billion. Our balance of trade
(more)
-5-
actually slipped into deficit during the month of March, the first time this has
happened since 1963. This vanishing trade surplus has combined with the Johnson-
Humphrey Administration's extravagance in overseas expenditures to produce our
balance of payments crisis and the gold drain.
The gold crisis has resulted from an international crisis of confidence in
the fiscal and monetary policies pursued by the Democratic Party. The loss of
confidence in the dollar was particularly shocking to those American travelers who
found that for a few days in March some European banks, hotels and merchants were
unwilling to accept their dollars or travelers checks.
It is abundantly clear to me that the party in power has mismanaged this
Nation's fiscal and monetary affairs.
I say this because the general price level has risen 10 per cent since
mid-1964.
I say this because total federal spending jumped $53 billion between mid-1965
and mid-1968, with less than half of this increase--$25 billion--directly
attributable to the Vietnam War.
I say this because the party in power refused to eliminate non-essential
domestic spending as an offset to Vietnam War costs or even to defer low-priority
expenditures.
The Democratic Party has brought on this Nation a fiscal crisis which
threatens the American people with a major recession or worse. The Democratic
Party, as the party in power, therefore has the chief responsibility for resolving
our fiscal crisis.
Republicans can point the way--as we have been doing--with a call for an
austerity program. This would include deep cuts in spending and the erasing of
future authority to spend so that Congress can regain control of federal expendi-
tures. If an income tax increase appears absolutely inescapable, then this also
must be wrapped into the package. However, I will not support a tax increase
which is merely the vehicle for another sharp spending spiral.
The need to put our fiscal house in order appears to collide head-on with
the desperate demands of our cities and the crisis of civil disorder.
I firmly believe that the first order of business in meeting the crisis of
civil disorder is for Americans of both races to recognize that they cannot live
together in an America divided by hatred. We must, all of us, rededicate ourselves
to the truth which the authors of the Declaration of Independence saw as
self-evident--that all men are created equal.
(more)
-6-
A change in attitudes won't eliminate slum conditions but it will help cool
the passions which have caused loss of life and destroyed portions of our great
cities.
Perhaps the most important single remedy is jobs--good-paying jobs that will
bring dignity, self-respect and the respect of others to the unemployed and under-
employed citizens of the central cities.
I have repeatedly urged business and industrial leaders to become socially
conscious, and indeed many businessmen have become deeply involved in trying to
cure America's urban ills. But it is exceedingly difficult and expensive to train
the hard-core unemployed for jobs and there are many problems in locating plants
in the central cities.
These problems cannot be solved by direct federal appropriation, direct
federal subsidy, or by emotional appeals to social consciousness.
We must make the rebuilding of our cities an attractive new business--and
rebuild the citizens of the central cities in the process.
The best way to accomplish this is to offer industry tax credits as an
incentive to provide large-scale on-the-job training in the central cities, to
build industrial plants there, and to construct low-cost housing for low-income
families.
As a militant black leader in Detroit told a group of businessmen: "The
government can't lick this problem, so business has to. If you cats can't do it,
it's never going to get done."
But the Democratic Party refuses to accept the concept of tax credits as an
investment in human beings, just as they have spurned a whole array of new
Republican ideas aimed at solving the problems of the late Sixties and the
Seventies.
We need to throw off the malaise which has paralyzed America.
It is time for fresh approaches--a sharing of federal revenue with the
states and local communities to bring them into full partnership in problem-solving,
the use of tax incentives to put business and industry to work re-making our cities,
the creation of a private-public corporation to raise mortgage funds and help
low-income families buy and run their own homes, a re-ordering of our national
priorities to convert urban renewal into human renewal throughout America.
Unfortunately, the old Democratic programs never die. They don't even fade away.
Just as we can accomplish nothing without a sound dollar, so we cannot
continue to live with fear. Besides enlisting private enterprise in a nationwide
(more)
-7-
attack on the conditions which lead to civil disorders, Republicans would launch
a sweeping program to control crime and juvenile deliquency, improve law enforcement,
overhaul our court system, and crack down on organized crime.
The party in power has failed to move with urgency toward a solution to the
pressing problem of crime. In fact, their "hang-up" is that they refuse to
recognize the need for statewide improvements in law enforcement. The House of
Representatives last year passed a National Law Enforcement Assistance Act
amended to meet a Republican demand for coordinated State plans in a war on crime.
This legislation has marked time in the Senate because of Johnson-Humphrey
Administration insistence that federal anti-crime grants be funneled directly to
the cities.
Crime knows no jurisdictional boundaries. It does not stop at the city line.
The national crime rate continue to mount while congressional advocates of federal
funding of local law enforcement withh anti-crime funds from the states.
Republicans
advanced no less than 31 proposals to strengthen law enforcement in
this country while the majority party ploto how to bypass the states in the war on
crime. This W a shocking exercise in the mis-use of political power. And all
has
America suffert
I am convinced that America cannot afford, either at home or abroad, another
four years of Democratic rule in Washington.
I firmly believe that the American people--with traditional middle-of-the-
road wisdom--are seeking a change of direction in their federal government. The
Republican Party offers them this New Direction.
The debates in Congress--congressional polemics, if you wi 11 constant
focus on a basic difference in the philosophy of the two major political parties.
The Democratic Party admits of no remedies for America's problems but
federal solutions, federally financed and federally administered.
The Republican Party proposes that our attack on America's problems be
decentralized. Only in that way can we solve the problems which have defied the
federal bureaucracy. The federal government must take the lead in identifying
national problems, then promote maximum effort by state and local governments and
by private enterprise and private institutions in solving them.
These, then are the issues. Let the congressional polemics become your
polemics. I hope you manage to disagree agreeably.
I commend you for gathering here in this first Congress on American Politics.
(more)
-8-
As you plunge into the political maelstrom, may I suggest these words spoken by
a university president, a President of the United States, a Democrat--Woodrow
Wilson - as your guide: "Liberty cannot exist where government takes care of the
people, but it can only thrive where the people take care of the government."
###
AN ADDRESS BY REP. GERALD R. FORD
REPUBLICAN LEADER OF THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
AT THE FIRST CONGRESS OF AMERICAN POLITICS
8 P.M. SATURDAY, APRIL 27, 1968
AT HIRAM SCOTT COLLEGE, SCOTTSBLUFF, NEBRASKA
For release in Sunday AM's
Before coming here today, I prepared myself very carefully for the occasion.
To do this I diligently reviewed all of the instances when I have attacked Lyndon
Johnson, the Democratic Party, and the policies of the Johnson-Humphrey
Administration.
Some time ago I was told that this Congress on American Politics would be
divided into four sections and that I was to keynote the one on "Congressional
Polemics."
A polemic, according to Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, is "an
aggressive attack on or refutation of the opinions or principles of another." It
is also defined as "the art or practice of disputation or controversy."
I rubbed my hands together over my speaking assignment, particularly because
I do enjoy good disputation. However, I was a bit troubled when I found that
Webster described disputation as "an academic exercise in oral defense of a thesis
by formal logic."
Enough of definitions which sound as though they were concocted by a
Washington bureaucrat.
I may have been chosen to keynote this section because I have a reputation
for being one of Lyndon Johnson's most outspoken critics.
It would be fare more to my liking if I was invited here because--in the
words of Benjamin Disraeli- no government can be long secure without a formidable
opposition."
Republicans in Congress have, I believe, been offering the Johnson-Humphrey
Administration and the Democratic majority in the House and Senate opposition which
is formidable.
A news reporter recently suggested to me that President Johnson's decision
not to seek reelection had neutralized the issues Republicans have been concentrat-
ing on in 1968. I politely--a politician should always be polite to newsmen--I
politely disagreed.
The issues, I said, remained the same. After all, the major problems
confronting this Nation have NOT been solved. Peace has not broken out in Vietnam,
(more)
-2-
Vietnam peace talks are still just a hope despite all the talk about a start on
talks. The Nation's large cities are still seedbeds of potential racial revolt.
The national crime rate continues to rise--after jumping a frightening 83 per cent
from 1960 through 1967, while our population increased by 11 per cent. The cost of
living continues to spiral, now mounting at an annual rate of 4 per cent after
topping 3 per cent each year in 1966 and 1967. The condition of the dollar continues
critical, and Europeans who have lost confidence in that dollar anxiously watch
to see if America will put its fiscal house in order. The deep deficit in our
balance of payments continues. Our supply of gold is abysmally low; the number of
dollars held by foreigners dangerously high. Our paper money has become exactly
that--because the Democratic Party's inability to solve our balance of payments
problem has forced removal of the 25 per cent gold backing for our currency.
One of Lyndon Johnson's favorite phrases has long been "let us continue."
Continue what? Continue to keep in power a political party which has failed
America? Keep in power a party which has failed to keep the peace at home and
abroad? Keep in power a party which has allowed our city streets to become pavements
of fear? Keep in power a party which has destroyed price stability in this country
by pursuing unsound fiscal policies? Keep in power a party which threatens to
destroy the dollar as a world currency and thus produce a collapse of world trade?
Keep in power a party which threatens to plunge us into the major recession that
will inevitably follow upon runaway inflation?
In a recent speech in Chicago, President Johnson said the purpose of politics
is "to serve the unity of all our people."
Politics, when defined accurately, is the art of government. If a political
party governs badly, it is this which divides the country. There can be no unity
when the party in power fails to solve the Nation's most critical problems and thus
serves the people poorly. There can be no unity when the party in power is guilty
of mismanaging the Nation's fiscal and monetary affairs. There can be no unity
when the party in power refuses to make the fullest possible use of the power of
free enterprise to solve the problems of our cities. There can be no unity when the
party in power permits this Nation to be humiliated by tiny Communist nations a
fraction its size.
Nobody in this country should promote divisiveness. But the strength of
America has always been the spirit of freedom which pervades our great Nation. No
citizen should muzzle himself in the name of unity. He should rather be guided by
a deep sense of responsibility for the welfare of others and an abiding love for
his homeland.
(more)
-3-
This is an election year. Republicans are speaking out in Congress and
elsewhere in disagreement with the policies of the Democratic Party. This is not
partisanship in the narrow sense.
We engage in congressional polemics because we believe the Democratic Party
has taken this Nation on a mistaken course, and the American people should turn to
the Republican Party to make it right. Republicans believe we must steer the
country in New Directions or the Nation will suffer grievous hurts.
Our Nation is already suffering, has been suffering, will continue to suffer
under Democratic Party policies.
In Vietnam a divided Democratic Party gradually escalated a small Eisenhower
aid commitment into a major land war, contrary to all sound military advice. It was
the late General Douglas MacArthur, you will recall, who said: "Anybody who commits
the land power of the United States on the continent of Asia ought to have his
head examined."
Having committed U.S. land power to the Vietnam War, the divided Democratic
Party made the additional policy mistake of employing a strategy of limited or
measured response, a strategy of gradualism which was doomed to failure from the
outset and needlessly endangered the lives of American fighting men.
Having followed the mistaken policy of gradualism, the Johnson-Humphrey
Administration now must make good on its promise to phase out U.S. land forces in
Vietnam and phase in South Vietnamese troops while seeking a negotiated peace. I
applaud the President's decision to impose a ceiling of 550,000 on our troop
commitment to Vietnam. I also applaud his action limiting the bombing of North
Vietnam as a move in the direction of peace. It so happens that this peace
initiative is based on a plan proposed privately to the President by a group of
nine House Republicans exactly one year prior to the President's public implemen-
tation of it.
Vietnam is not America's only foreign pool of despair under a divided
Democratic Party.
In Latin America, there is no real Alliance and the progress is insignifi-
cant. Where are the economic and social reforms our State Department has so
bravely mapped for our Latin neighbors? The reforms are buried under shiny new
implements of war while South American leaders bolster their personal wealth and
power.
In Africa nation after nation which has accepted our assistance falls away
from popular rule and into the cult of personal dictatorship. Vice-President
(more)
-4-
Humphry's answer is to call for a tripling of a foreign aid program that has
repeatedly been exposed as shoddily--and in some instances, corruptly--run.
In Europe, NATO has steadily eroded into a loose, lip-service alignment
of nations which force America to pay the bill for military arrangements they do
not consider important enough to finance on their own. Surpreme Headquarters of
the Allied Forces has been pushed out of France by President DeGaulle and forced
to take refuge in Belgium, leaving a fortune in buildings behind. Britain,
squeezed by extravagant welfare programs into devaluing the pound, has pulled back
from the world and thrust a greater peace-keeping burden on America. Our erratic
policy in the Mideast feeds guerrilla warfare between the Arabs and Israel and
blunts the prospects for peace while enhancing Soviet influence among the Arab
nations.
The American people are suffering at home under Democratic Party policies.
The U.S. Labor Department has stated flatly that the wage gains American
workers thought they had made in 1966 and 1967 were wiped out by increases in the
cost of living.
The Democratic Party brags about more than 80 months of "uninterrupted
prosperity" but the name of the game is inflation, not prosperity. Inflation is a
big word. The housewife knows what it means--higher and higher prices.
Inflation hurts the poor more than anyone else, because their incomes do not
rise on a direct line with prices. Much of the tremendous effort and huge expendi-
tures that have gone into the War on Poverty has been nullified by inflation.
Inflation has hurt the farmer because prices received by the farmer have
gone up very little in the last seven years but the index of prices paid by the
farmer has gone up 44 points. The farmer is a prime victim of Johnson-Humphrey
Administration inflation. His income brings him only 74 per cent of parity--
something that is inconceivable in time of war.
Inflation has forced up interest rates and created a special burden for home
buyers and all Americans who find it necessary to borrow. It has greatly interfered
with municipal and school district improvement projects and has saddled taxpayers
with higher interest costs for years to come. Fed by deficit federal spending,
inflation has added to interest costs accompanying the abnormally large rise in
our national debt until the interest on that debt now totals nearly $15 billion a
year.
Inflation has hurt our foreign trade to the point where our trade surplus
has fallen to an annual rate of less than $2 billion. Our balance of trade
(more)
-5-
actually slipped into deficit during the month of March, the first time this has
happened since 1963. This vanishing trade surplus has combined with the Johnson-
Humphrey Administration's extravagance in overseas expenditures to produce our
balance of payments crisis and the gold drain.
The gold crisis has resulted from an international crisis of confidence in
the fiscal and monetary policies pursued by the Democratic Party. The loss of
confidence in the dollar was particularly shocking to those American travelers who
found that for a few days in March some European banks, hotels and merchants were
unwilling to accept their dollars or travelers checks.
It is abundantly clear to me that the party in power has mismanaged this
Nation's fiscal and monetary affairs.
I say this because the general price level has risen 10 per cent since
mid-1964.
I say this because total federal spending jumped $53 billion between mid-1965
and mid-1968, with less than half of this increase--$25 billion--directly
attributable to the Vietnam War.
I say this because the party in power refused to eliminate non-essential
domestic spending as an offset to Vietnam War costs or even to defer low-priority
expenditures.
The Democratic Party has brought on this Nation a fiscal crisis which
threatens the American people with a major recession or worse. The Democratic
Party, as the party in power, therefore has the chief responsibility for resolving
our fiscal crisis.
Republicans can point the way--as we have been doing--with a call for an
austerity program. This would include deep cuts in spending and the erasing of
future authority to spend so that Congress can regain control of federal expendi-
tures. If an income tax increase appears absolutely inescapable, then this also
must be wrapped into the package. However, I will not support a tax increase
which is merely the vehicle for another sharp spending spiral.
The need to put our fiscal house in order appears to collide head-on with
the desperate demands of our cities and the crisis of civil disorder.
I firmly believe that the first order of business in meeting the crisis of
civil disorder is for Americans of both races to recognize that they cannot live
together in an America divided by hatred. We must, all of us, rededicate ourselves
to the truth which the authors of the Declaration of Independence saw as
self-evident--that all men are created equal.
(more)
-6-
A change in attitudes won't eliminate slum conditions but it will help cool
the passions which have caused loss of life and destroyed portions of our great
cities.
Perhaps the most important single remedy is jobs--good-paying jobs that will
bring dignity, self-respect and the respect of others to the unemployed and under-
employed citizens of the central cities.
I have repeatedly urged business and industrial leaders to become socially
conscious, and indeed many businessmen have become deeply involved in trying to
cure America's urban ills. But it is exceedingly difficult and expensive to train
the hard-core unemployed for jobs and there are many problems in locating plants
in the central cities.
These problems cannot be solved by direct federal appropriation, direct
federal subsidy, or by emotional appeals to social consciousness.
We must make the rebuilding of our cities an attractive new business--and
rebuild the citizens of the central cities in the process.
The best way to accomplish this is to offer industry tax credits as an
incentive to provide large-scale on-the-job training in the central cities, to
build industrial plants there, and to construct low-cost housing for low-income
families.
As a militant black leader in Detroit told a group of businessmen: "The
government can't lick this problem, 50 business has to. If you cats can't do it,
it's never going to get done."
But the Democratic Party refuses to accept the concept of tax credits as an
investment in human beings, just as they have spurned a whole array of new
Republican ideas aimed at solving the problems of the late Sixties and the
Seventies.
We need to throw off the malaise which has paralyzed America.
It is time for fresh approaches--a sharing of federal revenue with the
states and local communities to bring them into full partnership in problem-solving,
the use of tax incentives to put business and industry to work re-making our cities,
the creation of a private-public corporation to raise mortgage funds and help
low-income families buy and run their own homes, a re-ordering of our national
priorities to convert urban renewal into human renewal throughout America.
Unfortunately, the old Democratic programs never die. They don't even fade away.
Just as we can accomplish nothing without a sound dollar, so we cannot
continue to live with fear. Besides enlisting private enterprise in a nationwide
(more)
-7-
attack on the conditions which lead to civil disorders, Republicans would launch
a sweeping program to control crime and juvenile deliquency, improve law enforcement,
overhaul our court system, and crack down on organized crime.
The party in power has failed to move with urgency toward a solution to the
pressing problem of crime. In fact, their "hang-up" is that they refuse to
recognize the need for statewide improvements in law enforcement. The House of
Representatives last year passed a National Law Enforcement Assistance Act
amended to meet a Republican demand for coordinated State plans in a war on crime.
This legislation has marked time in the Senate because of Johnson-Humphrey
Administration insistence that federal anti-crime grants be funneled directly to
the cities.
Crime knows no jurisdictional boundaries. It does not stop at the city line.
The national crime rate continues to mount while congressional advocates of federal
funding of local law enforcement withhold anti-crime funds from the states.
Republicans have advanced no less than 31 proposals to strengthen law enforcement in
this country while the majority party plots how to bypass the states in the war on
crime. This is a shocking exercise in the mis-use of political power. And all
America suffers.
I am convinced that America cannot afford, either at home or abroad, another
four years of Democratic rule in Washington.
I firmly believe that the American people--with traditional middle-of-the-
road wisdom--are seeking a change of direction in their federal government. The
Republican Party offers them this New Direction.
The debates in Congress--congressional polemics, if you will--constantly
focus on a basic difference in the philosophy of the two major political parties.
The Democratic Party admits of no remedies for America's problems but
federal solutions, federally financed and federally administered.
The Republican Party proposes that our attack on America's problems be
decentralized. Only in that way can we solve the problems which have defied the
federal bureaucracy. The federal government must take the lead in identifying
national problems, then promote maximum effort by state and local governments and
by private enterprise and private institutions in solving them.
These, then, are the issues. Let the congressional polemics become your
polemics. I hope you manage to disagree agreeably.
I commend you for gathering here in this first Congress on American Politics.
(more)
-8-
As you plunge into the political maelstrom, may I suggest these words spoken by
a university president, a President of the United States, a Democrat--Woodrow
Wilson - as your guide: "Liberty cannot exist where government takes care of the
people, but it can only thrive where the people take care of the government."
# # #
Speech the Week
PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFICE
REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE
312 CONGRESSIONAL HOTEL
WASHINGTON, D. C.
'Time for Fresh Approaches'
Remarks of Rep. Gerald R. Ford.
House Republican Leader,
Before the First Congress of American Politics
Hiram Scott College, Scottsbluff, Nebraska
April 27, 1968
I MAY HAVE been chosen to keynote this section because I have a reputation for
being one of Lyndon Johnson's most outspoken critics.
It would be far more to my liking if I was invite d here because--in the words of
Benjamin Disraeli--"No government can be long secure without a formidable opposition."
Republicans in Congress have, I believe, been offering the Johnson-Humphrey
Administration and the Democratic majority in the House and Senate opposition which
is formidable.
A news reporter recently suggested to me that President Johnson's decision not
to seek reelection had neutralized the issues Republicans have been concentrating
on in 1968, I politely-a politician should always be polite to newsmen--I politely disagreed.
The issues, I said, remained the same. After all, the major problems
confronting this Nation have NOT been solved. Peace has not broken out in Vietnam.
Vietnam peace talks are still just a hope despite all the talk about a start on talks.
The Nation's large cities are still seedbeds of potential racial revolt. The national crime rate
continues to rise--after jumping a frightening 83 percent from 1960 through 1967, while our
population increased by II percent. The cost of living continues to spiral, now mounting at an
annual rate of 4 percent after topping 3 percent each year in 1966 and 1967. The condition
of the dollar continues critical, and Europeans who have lost confidence in that dollar
anxiously watch to see if America will put its fiscal house in order. The deep deficit in our
balance of payments continues. Our supply of gold is abysmally low; the number of
dollars held by foreigners dangerously high. Our paper money has become exactly that
because the Democratic Party's inability to solve our balance of payments problem has forced
removal of the 25 percent gold backing for our currency.
ONE OF LYNDON JOHNSON'S favorite phrases has long been "let US continue."
Continue what? Continue to keep in power a political party which has failed America?
Keep in power a party which has failed to keep the peace at home and abroad? Keep in power
a party which has allowed our city streets to become pavements of fear? Keep in power a party
which has destroyed price stability in this country by pursuing unsound fiscal policies? Keep
in power a party which threatens to destroy the dollar as a world currency and thus produce a
collapse of world trade? Keep in power a party which threatens to plunge US into the major
recession that will inevitably follow upcrerunaway inflation?
In a recent speech in Chicago, President Johnson said the purpose of politics is
"to serve the unity of all our people."
Politics, when defined accurately, is the art of government. If a political
party governs badly, it is this which divides the country. There can be no unity when the
party in power fails to solve the Nation's most critical problems and thus serves the people
poorly. There can be no unity when the party in power is guilty of mismanaging the Nation's
fiscal and monetary affairs. There can be no unity when the party in power refuses to make the
fullest possible use of the power of free enterprise to solve the problems of our cities. There can
be no unity when the party in power permits this Nation to be humiliated by tiny Communist
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nations a fraction its size.
Nobody in this country should promote divisiveness. But the strength of
America has always been the spirit of freedom which pervades our great Nation. No citizen
should muzzle himself in the name of unity. He should rather be guided by a deep sense
of responsibility for the welfare of others and an abiding love for his homeland.
THIS IS AN ELECTION year. Republicans are speaking out in Congress and
elsewhere in disagreement with the policies of the Democratic Party. This is not
partisanship in the narrow sense.
We engage in congressional polemics because we believe the Democratic Party
has taken this Nation on a mistaken course, and the American people should turn to
the Republican Party to make it right. Republicans believe we must steer the country in
New Directions or the Nation will suffer grievous hurts.
Our Nation is already suffering, has been suffering, will continue to suffer
under Democratic Party policies.
In Vietnam, a divided Democratic Party gradually escalated a small Eisenhower
aid commitment into a major land war, contrary to all sound military advice. It was
the late General Douglas MacArthur, you will recall, who said: "Anybody who commits the
land power of the United States on the continent of Asia ought to have his head examined."
Having committed U.S. land power to the Vietnam War, the divided Democratic
Party made the additional policy mistake of employing a strategy of limited or measured
response, a strategy of gradualism which was doomed to failure from the outset and needlessly
endangered the lives of American fighting men.
Having followed the mistaken policy of gradualism, the Johnson-Humphrey
Administration now must make good on its promise to phase out U.S. land forces in Vietnam
and phase in South Vietnamese troops while seeking a negotiated peace. I applaud the
President's decision to impose a ceiling of 550,000 on our troop commitment to Vietnam. I
also applaud his action limiting the bombing of North Vietnam as a move in the direction of
peace. It so happens that his peace initiative is based on a plan proposed privately to the
President by a group of nine House Republicans exactly one year prior to the President's
public implementation of it.
Vietnam is not America's only foreign pool of despair under a divided Democratic
Party.
IN LATIN AMERICA, there is no real Alliance and the progress is insignificant.
Where are the economic and social reforms our State Department has 50 bravely mapped for
our Latin neighbors? The reforms are buried under shiny new implements of war while South
American leaders bolster their personal wealth and power.
In Africa, nation after nation which has accepted our assistance falls away from
popular rule and into the cult of personal dictatorship. Vice President Humphiey's answer is
to call for a tripling of a foreign aid program that has repeatedly been exposed as shoddily--
and in some instances, corruptly--run.
In Europe, NATO has steadily eroded into a loose, lip-service alignment of nations
which force America to pay the bill for military arrangements they do not consider important
enough to finance on their own. Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Forces has been pushed
out of France by President DeGaulle and forced to take refuge in Belgium, leaving a fortune
in buildings behind. Britain, squeezed by extravagant welfare programs into devaluing the
pound, has pulled back from the world and thrus t a greater peace-keeping burden on America.
Our erratic policy in the Mideast feeds guerrilla warfare between the Arabs and Israel and
blunts the prospects for peace while enhancing Soviet influence among the Arab nations.
The American people are suffering at home under Democratic Party policies.
The U.S. Labor Department has stated flatly that the wage gains American workers
thought they had made in 1966 and 1967 were wiped out by increase in the cost of living.
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The Democratic Party brags about more than 80 months of "uninterrupted
prosperity" but the name of the game is inflation, not prosperity. Inflation is a big word.
The housewife knows what it means--higher and higher prices.
INFLATION HURTS the poor more than anyone else, because their incomes do not
rise on a direct line with prices. Much of the tremendous effort and huge expenditures
that have gone into the War on Poverty has been nullified by inflation.
Inflation has hurt the farmer because prices received by the farmer have gone
up very little in the last seven years but the index of prices paid by the farmer has gone up
44 points. The farmer is a prime victim of Johnson-Humphrey Administration inflation. His
income brings him only 74 percent of parity-something that is inconceivable in time of war.
Inflation has forced up interest rates and created a special burden for home buyers
and all Americans who find it necessary to borrow. It has greatly interfered with municipal
and school district improvement projects and has saddled taxpayers with higher interest costs
for years to come. Fed by deficit federal spending, infation has added to interest costs accom-
panying the abnormally large rise in our national debt until the interest on that debt now totals
nearly $15 billion a year.
Inflation has hurt our foreign trade to the point where our trade surplus has fallen
to an annual rate of less than $2 billion. Our balance of trade actually slipped into deficit
during the month of March, the first time this has happened since 1963. This vanishing trade
surplus has combined with the Johnson-Humphrey Administration's extravagance in overseas
expenditures to produce our balance of payments crisis and the gold drain.
The gold crisis has resulted from an international crisis of confidence in the fiscal
and monetory policies pursued by the Democratic Party. The loss of confidence in the dollar
was particularly shocking to shose American travelers who found that for a few days in March
some European banks, hotels and merchants were unwilling to accept their dollars or travelers
checks.
IT IS ABUNDANTLY clear to me that the party in power has mismanaged this
Nation's fiscal and monetary affairs.
I say this because the general price level has risen 10 percent since mid-1964.
I say this because total federal spending jumped $53 billion between mid-1965 and
mid-1968, with less than half of this increase-$25 billion-directly attributable to the
Vietnam War.
I say this because the party in power refused to eliminate non-essential domestic
spending as an offset to Vietnam war costs or even to defer low-priority expenditures.
The Democratic Party has brought on this Nation a fiscal crisis which threatens the
American people with a major recession or worse. The Democratic Party, as the party in power,
therefore has the chief responsibility for resolving our fiscal crisis.
Republicans can point-the way--as we have been doing--with a call for an austerity
program. This would include deep cuts in spending and the erasing of future authority to spend
so that Congress can regain control of federal expenditures. If an income tax increase appears
absolutely inescapable, then this also must be wrapped into the package. However, I will not
support a tax increase which is merely the vehicle for another sharp spending spiral.
The need to put our fiscal house in order appears to collide head-on with the
desperate demands of our cities and the crisis of civil disorder.
I FIRMLY BELIEVE that the first order of business in meeting the crisis of civil dis-
order is for Americans of both races to recognize that they cannot live together in America
divided by hatred. We must, all of us, rededicate ourselves to the truth which the authors of
the Declaration of Independence saw as self-evident--that all men are created equal.
A change in attitudes won't eliminate slum conditions but it will help cool the
passions which have caused loss of life and destroyed portions of our great cities.
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4
Perhaps the most important single remedy is jobs-good-paying jobs that will
bring dignity, self-respect and the respect of others to the unemployed and under-employed
citizens of the central cities.
I have repeatedly urged business and industrial leaders to become socially conscious,
and indeed many businessmen have become deeply involved in trying to cure America's urban
ills. But it is exceedingly difficult and expensive to train the hard-core unemployed for jobs
and there are many problems in locating plants in the central cities.
These problems cannot be solved by direct federal appropriation, direct federal
subsidy, or by emotional appeals to social consciousness.
We must make the rebuilding of our cities an attractive new business--and rebuild
the citizens of the central cities in the process.
THE BEST WAY to accomplish this is to offer industry tax credits as an incentive
to provide large-scale on-the-job training in the central cities, to build industrial plants there,
and to construct low-cost housing for low-income families.
As a militant black leader in Detroit told a group of businessmen: "The govern-
ment can't lick this problem, so business has to. If you cats can't do it, it's never going to get
done"
But the Democratic Party refuses to accept the concept of tax credits as an invest-
ment in human beings, just as they have spurned a whole array of new Republican ideas aimed
at solving the problems of the late Sixties and the Seventies.
We need to throw off the malaise which has paralyzed America.
It is time for fresh approaches--a sharing of federal revenue with the states and
local communities to bring them into full partnership in problem-solving, the use of tax
incentives to put business and industry to work re-making our cities, the creation of a private-
public corporation to raise mortgage funds and help low-income families buy and run their
own homes, a re-ordering of our national priorities to convert urban renewal into human re-
newal throughout America. Unfortunately, the old Democratic programs never die. They
don't even fade away.
Just as we can accomplish nothing without a sound dollar, so we cannot continue
to live with fear. Besides enlisting private enterprise in a nationwide attack on the conditions
which lead to civil disorders, Republicans would launch a sweeping program to control crime
and juvenile deliquency, improve law enforcement, overhaul our court system, and crack down
on organized crime.
THE PARTY: IN POWER has failed to move with urgency toward a solution to the
pressing problem of crime. In fact, their "hang-up" is that they refuse to recognize the need
for statewide improvements in law enforcement. The House of Representatives last year passed
a National Law Enforcement Assistance Act amended to meet a Republican demand for co-or-
dinated State plans in a wor on crime. This legislation has marked time in the Senate because
of Johnson-Humphrey Administration insistence that federal anti-crime grants be funneled
directly to the cities.
Crime knows no jurisdictional boundaries. It does not stop at the city line. The
national crime rate continues to mount while congressional advocates of federal funding of
local law enforcement withhold anti-crime funds from the states. Republicans have advanced
no less than 31 proposals to strengthen law enforcement in this country while the majority party
plots how to bypass the states in the war on crime. This is a shocking exercise in the mis-use of
political power. And all America suffers.
I am convinced that America cannot afford, either at home or abroad, another four
years of Democratic rule in Washington.
I firmly believe that the American people--with traditional middle-of-the road wis-
dom--are seeking a change of direction in their federal government. The Republican Party
offers them this New Direction.
(more)
-5-
The debates in Congress--congressional polemics, if you will--constantly focus
on a basic difference in the philosophy of the two major political parties.
THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY admits of no remedies for America's problems but
federal solutions, federally financed and federally administered.
The Republican Party proposes that our attack on America's problems be decentralized.
Only in that way can we solve the problems which have defied the federal bureaucracy. The
federal government must take the lead in identifying national problems, then promote maximum
effort by state and local governments and by private enterprise and private institutions in solving
them.
These, then, are the issues. Let the congressional polemics become your polemics.
I hope you manage to disagree agreeably.
I commend you for gathering here in this first Congress on American Politics. As
you plunge into the political maelstrom, may I suggest these words spoken by a university
president, a President of the United States, a Democrat--Woadrow Wilson--as your guide:
"Liberty cannot exist where government takes care of the people, but it can only thrive where
the people take care of the government."
###