Ask the Scholar
Document scope · 1 page
Scholar
Ask about this object, its catalog metadata, its source description, or the page inventory.
For page-specific OCR and visual context, open one of the page chats.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
118564458
label
1970 Campaign - Eureka College
core
doc
dtoType
document
citationUrl
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
118564458
contentType
document
title
1970 Campaign - Eureka College
citationUrl
identifierLocal
840
collections
Ronald Reagan's Governor's Papers of the Press Unit
Governor Ronald Reagan's Speeches
thumbnailUrl
largeImageUrl
imageCount
1
hasImages
yes
source
import
hasTranscription
no
Source extras
naId
118564458
coverageEndDate
logicalDate
1975-12-31
year
1975
coverageStartDate
logicalDate
1967-01-01
year
1967
levelOfDescription
fileUnit
recordType
description
ocrSource
nara-archive
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
document
mediaId
8d349b29f593557f
ocrText
Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
Digital Library Collections
This is a PDF of a folder from our textual collections.
Collection: Reagan, Ronald: Gubernatorial Papers,
1966-74: Press Unit
Folder Title: 1970 Campaign - Eureka College
Box: P19
To see more digitized collections visit:
https://reaganlibrary.gov/archives/digital-library
To see all Ronald Reagan Presidential Library inventories visit:
https://reaganlibrary.gov/document-collection
Contact a reference archivist at: [email protected]
Citation Guidelines: https://reaganlibrary.gov/citing
National Archives Catalogue: https://catalog.archives.gov/
THE WHITE HOUSE
washington 5/17am 1983
mally
Enclosed are the
transcrysts we had made of
the Eureka stapes. We've
taken copies, so the originate
are yours. Sadly enough
theyve not been proofed too
well, but I hope they can
still be of help to you.
I'll he sending the tapes
under separate cover today
or tomorrow so you can
re-use them.
Thanks for the help /
Misty
photocopy may not & further reproduced and distributed
REMARKS OF GOVERNOR REAGAN
EUREKA COLLEGE LIBRARY DEDICATION
Eureka, Illinois
September 28, 1967
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Dirksen, you're a tough act to
follow. (Laughter.) You know, when you got going on the birthdays
there, I looked down at our friends of the press to see that they
were contemplating with great delight the next press conference when
we shall meet.
I am most grateful to you for words I don't deserve.
Grateful, as all of us are, that you would be here.
Senator Percy, Senators Darins (phonetic) and Michel
(phonetic), other distinguished guests who are here, Trustees,
De Langston (phonetic), members of the administration, the faculty of
Eureka, oh, somany friends, new students who are here, you know this
has been a wonderful experience, is a wonderful experience and I'm sure
you recognize now and a kaleidoscope, a montage of pictures and memories
that are going through my mind in this particular spot.
You know, the roots go very deep in the blue-black soil
of this prairie heartland. It must be evident to most of you that
there's only a very thin wall of waivering will power standing between
you and an engulfing flood of nostalgia, but I'll try to resist.
Ten years ago, in cap and gown I was in this place just
across the campus there to receive an honorary degree. It was a
happening which compounded an already heavy sense of guilt I bore,
as I told some of you at that time. I'd always figured the first
degree you gave me was honorary. (Laughter.)
That first degree was 35 years and a few months ago.
And as far as the students here are concerned now, that makes it definite
that I'm not of our generation.
It isn't true, however, that when Captain Burgess (phonetic)
for whom Burgess Hall is named, stood out under Old Recruiting Elm,
called up to what is now the windows of what is now the Administration
Building and urged the students to come down and join him and enlist in
the Union Army, that I was among the first to go. (Laughter.)
Of course, there are those whose viewpoint politically
differs from mine somewhat who'd suggest that I go farther back than
that, to the Ice Age. Some would even suggest it's farther than that,
the time of McKinley. (Laughter.)
But there are some here today who can bear witness, some
I've already seen, such familiar faces, old friends, who also share
the memories of those dark Depression days here on this campus. And
they know 35 years are like 35 minutes, so clean and fresh is memory.
And no matter how much you students may want to believe this, your
imaginations aren't up to it. You just have to wait and find out
for yourselves, but you will find out that this is true.
Now, if I seem to direct my remarks tonight mostly to the
students, to that generation, bear with me because I too am laboring
here under a little misapprehension. Somehow this didn't live up to
my picture of it or my anticipation. I have pictured coming back, as
I have before, meeting with the students and a few old friends of my
own time, some of the good townspeople and I would address myself to
the students.
But there's a tendency in today's world to put more than
years between us. Somehow as humans, we've been stratified into
a horizontal society instead of a veritcal one. All the layers of
humanity today are separated into groups -- age groups -- from pre-
school to those the social tinkerers would refer to as "senior citizens."
MORE
- 2 -
And somehow we are losing our ability to establish communication be-
tween these layers. What is even worse, there is a growing hostility
between the layers. Now this is an unnatural situation. Humanity is
vertically structured. The teenager will become the young married or
the junior executive, and in turn the middle-aged then eventually
the senior citizen, and each will take the faults and virtues as
pluses and minuses through the years being at all times nothing
more than the sum total of all that he has experienced.
Separation into these horizontal groupings or layers
just doesn't make any sense at all.
MORE
- 3 -
For example, this wide-spread talk today from one end of
the country to the other that no one over thirty understands the youth
of today. Well, now if that is true, what happens when you reach
thirty? Do you suddenly join us and quite understanding those who
haven't quite made the magic age? Each generation is critical of
its predecessor and as the day nears when the classroom and the play-
ing field will give way to the larger arena, the problems of inequality,
human misunderstanding it is easy to look at those in that larger
arena and demand to know why the problems remain unsolved. We who
preceeded you asked that question of those who preceeded us, and
another generation will ask it of you, and I sincerely hope that there
will be less justification for the questions when it is your turn to
answer.
But what I am trying to say is that no generation has
failed completely nor will yours succeed completely, but at the same
time don't get me wrong -- when the generation of which I am a part
leaves the stage of history, history will record that seldom has any
generation fought harder or paid a higher price for freedom.
We have known three wars in our lifetime and now a fourth;
a cataclysmic depression that toppled governments and reshaped the map
of the world. And because we couldn't find a single cure-all for
man's inhumanity to man or the answer to human frailty, we ourselves
have downgraded our performance and we have confused you in so doing
as well as ourselves. It is easy to point to our failures and to talk
of the mess of our times and even to promise that we will do better.
But for the record, since we are the generation that exploded an atomic
bomb and brought permanent terror to the world, we are also the genera-
tion that harnessed the atom for peaceful purposes. Some of those peace-
ful purposes are in medicine and industrial power and we have brought
man to the threshold of a fabulous era.
We have defeated polio and tuberculosis and most of the
plague diseases that held even more terror for mankind than the threat
of the bomb. And it is a certainty that in this vertical structure,
your generation and ours will overlap in defeating cancer.
We point an accusing finger at the list of smog and water
pollution and poverty and civil rights and inequality of opportunity,
and we still seek the answers. While many disagree as to the solutions
let us make it plain that we were the ones who faced up to those prob-
lems and we charged ourselves with finding the answers and no one in
today's public life can fail to treat them and remain in public life
very long.
This horizontal stratification has led to a lateral communi-
cation. And I think that it is highly important that we restore vertical
dialogue if not outright recognition of the naturalness and the rightness
of the vertical structure in a society. How well do you young people
understand those whose defect today is that they have reached age thirty-
plus? Can you possibly believe that your fathers who knew the savagery
of World War II, or your grandfathers who came of age in the muddy trenches
of the Great War could have an affection for war? That we could callously
send our sons to war? Permit me here to try and build at least a foot-
bridge between the age groups of parent and offspring, and remembering
all the time that bridges are open to traffic both ways.
You young people that fellow with the thickening waist-
line or the thinning hair sometimes is a little unreasonable about your
allowance or letting you have the family car; if life seems a little
dull to you as he reports to his daily nine-to-five chores and looks
forward with great excitement to lowering his golf handicap or catching
a fish that no one in the family wants to eat. I wish that you could
have known him a few years back. I wish that you could have known him
when he was on a landing barge off the shores of Normandy or Terawa, or
even just on a weekend pass in Peoria, he was quite a guy.
Winston Churchill said of him, "He was the only man in the
world who could laugh and fight at the same time." General Marshall
called him our secret weapon. And if you will forgive the bluntness of
the language, remembering the time in which it was spoken and that he
was a military man, General Marshall said of this young fellow from
America, "He and his friends, they were just the best damned kids in the
- 4 -
He hated war more than he hated the enemy, but he did
what had to be done.
And a few years after the end of World War II -- I have to
pause for a little personal anecdote -- I was in a pub, a little, rural
pub in England and there was a motherly soul waiting on the trade
there and she finally figured out that I was an American. I can't
tell how she knew that for the life of me. And then, she started
telling me a little story. She was reminiscing. She sat there and
her eyes kind of far away and she said, "Oh, you know," she said, "during
the war, there were a great many of your chaps stationed just
across the road here." And she said, "They used to come in to see us
all the time and they'd have songfests every night." And she said,
"They called me Mom and called they old man Pop." And she said, "Christ-
mas eve we were sitting here and we were all alone and," she said,
"the door burst open and in they came. And she said, "They had presents
for me and Pop." And she said, "Then they sang some more and, oh,"
she said, "it was a wonderful Christmas." And she said, "There was
great big strapping lads from a place called Iowa."
Well, now, these fellows they knew what it was to dream.
This fellow I'm talking about, to say good-bye to a girl and wonder
when, if ever, he'd see her again. They cussed the world that let
things like that war happen and they swore to do better when they
got back and were running the show themselves.
They came back from the war and they created an organization
to outlaw war and we haven't known a single moment's peace since.
But they had a dream and it was a good dream and no effort was spared
and we continue to pour out our treasure to make that dream come true.
Proving again the vertical structure of society, this
problem will be yours as well as ours to solve. It wasn't that we
faltered or lacked in willingness. There are organizational difficulties
in that structure they created that was to bring peace, organizational
difficulties they couldn't have foreseen, new and emerging nations
with neither the power nor the responsibility for controlling world
forces, but that have a disprportionate voice in the world councils.
A two-thirds majority can be mustered among a half hundred nations
who represent less than 10 percent of the world's population.
There are problems to be solved in the urban ghettos
and poverty. Are these the result of selfishness on our part or
indifference to suffering? No people in all mankind's history have
shared so widely of their material resources. We've taxed ourselves
more heavily year after year and extended aid at home and abroad.
And when, instead of shrinking the problems grew larger, we planned
more, we passed more legislation, we added scores of new programs
until today, they're listed in a federal government catalog with
hundreds and hundreds of pages.
We, who are charged with being materialistic money
grubbers, have tried to solve the human problems, I'm afraid, with
material means and we've forgotten man's spiritual heritage too much.
We've placed security above freedom and we've confused
the citizens' responsibility to society with society's responsibility
to the individual.
We have to have a restudy of our social legislation.
The legislation meant well, but it's failed. It's failed its goals
or has created greater problems than the ones it was meant to cure.
We have to re-examine our individual goals and our aims.
What do we want for ourselves and what do we want for you of that
other generation? Is it enough to have material things? Aren't
liberty and morality and integrity and high principles and a sense
of responsibility more important?
The world's truly great thinkers haven't pointed toward
materialism. They dealt with great truths, with high questions of
right and wrong and morality and integrity and they've dealt with the
question of man, not the acquisition of things. And when civilizations
MORE
- 5 -
have disregarded their findings, when they've turned to the things of
the flesh, they've disappeared.
Now, you, of this younger generation, you who are
students, are concerned with us and you see what seems to be hypocrisy
and a lack of purpose on our part. Well, that's fair enough. We, in
turn, are pretty concerned about you.
We're seeing a rising spirit of unrest and aimlessness
into drifting, a feeling of rebellion without real cause that results
sometimes in meaningless, but violent action.
MORE
- 6 -
Now, let me make it plain. I'm aware as are most of us that all of
you are unfairly suspect because of a very small percentage of
dissidents across the country of your particular age group.
At the same time, though, I think it's safe to say
about most of you, all of you, that you do seek a purpose -- a
meaning to life. And apparently we have failed somewhat in giving
that to you. But again our failure wasn't one of bad intent.
We're a classic example of giving you what we never had -- from TV
to wheels, from dental care to Little League. But I'm afraid that
we short-changed you on responsibilities -- for the right to earn
for yourselves.
All too often, because we had to earn, we wanted to
give. Our motives have been laudable, our judgement's been pretty
bad. "No" was either a dirty word or dropped from the vocabulary
entirely.
Sometime ago out in California in a beach city known
as Newport Beach, something took place I'd like to tell you about
it. There was a row of rather luxurious expensive ocean-front
homes. And they were being threatened by an abnormally high tide
and heavy surf. And all through the day and on into the late night
and early morning hours, hundreds of people were there running as the
great waves came in and brought with them back as fast they could --
with sandbags, piling them up, trying to save these homes. And TV,
aware of the drama of that struggle was there throughout the day
and the night covering this so that all could sit in the comfort
of their own homes far away from the ocean and see. And we watched
and watched and about two o'clock in the morning one of the TV
commentators grabbed a young fellow -- obviously in his teens,
attired only in a wet pair of bathing trunks had been there all
day and all through the night until about two o'clock in the morning.
And he grabbed him and he was asking him some questions. No, the
boy didn't live in one of those houses. Yes, the boy was wet and
cold and tired. And eventually he had to get to the question of
why then. And out came an answer, a line that I think should have
been bannered, should have been billboarded across this nation it
was so poignant, so meaningful.
The kid stopped for just a minute and then he blurted
out as only a young fellow can. "Well, I guess it's the first time
we've ever felt like we were needed.' You are needed. We need your
courage, your idealism, your new and untried viewpoint. You know
more than we did at your age. You're brighter. You're better
informed and you're even healthier. Since humankind is vertically
structured we can take a little credit for that.
But you do want a purpose. You want a cause. You want
a banner to follow and we owe you that. A few years ago a national
magazine did a series of articles by prominent people including the
President of the United States and the Vice President and a number
of other distinguished statesmen and other people of great prominence.
Each wrote his idea of what was our national purpose. Somehow nothing
very exciting or profound came out of those articles. And I've always
felt personally that maybe it was because they all tried to invent
something that we already have -- that we've had for 200 years. The
national purpose of this country is to unleash the full talent and
the genius of every individual, not to create one after the other,
mass movements, subjecting each one of the citizens to the whims of
government thinking that it's only right if we're marching in the
ranks shoulder-to-shoulder trying to achieve something in the name
of the state.
Here as nowhere else in the world, we're established
to provide the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law
and order. Now, we're here to dedicate a library. This wouldn't
be possible if humanity was indeed horizontally structured instead
of vertically structured. This dedication tonight began more than
a 100 years ago when a man named Ben Major struck an axe into a tree
and said, "On this spot we'll build our school." According to the
history as I learned it here, the wagon train that had brought them
to this place hadn't even been unloaded. They hadn't built their
homes. But still they started by choosing a site for a school.
- 7 -
And Walnut Grove Academy became Eureka College because
a great many others followed Ben Major's footsteps, giving and
building, not for themselve, but others who would come later,
would take their place higher up in the vertical column of mankind.
Tonight, we dedicate a library because Wesley and
Clinton Mallock have fought, not in horizontal lines, not just a
communicating with their own associates in time and age, but because
they, too, have thought of that vertical structuring of mankind,
that ever upward building of the column.
You want a purpose, something to believe in? Well,
you might try resolving that you will contribute something to
generations unborn. Give a handhold above your own achievements so
that another generation can climb higher and achieve more.
This library is more than a beautiful and functional
building. It's first and foremost a repository of knowledge and
culture. More facts will be available in this library than were
available in all the libraries of the world a hundred years ago.
That shouldn't surprise you. Man's knowledge has increased at such
a rapid rate since the turn of the century that any book of facts
written then would be obsolete now, both in terms of what we know
to be true and, also, what we know to be true no longer.
The library, though, is more than a place to go for
facts. The library is also a place to go for wisdom and the purpose
of an educational institution is to teach, not only knowledge, but
also wisdom.
Someone said once that people who want to understand
democracy should spend less time in a library with Aristotle and
more time on buses and subways. Well, in a way, that may be true,
but to understand democracy is not necessarily to solve it's problems.
I'd venture to say that Aristotle and those others you'll not find
on the buses and the subways, but instead, in this building will give
more answers and more clues to the solution of our problems than you're
likely to find on the bus and the subway. But maybe the best answer
is to be found in a combination of both. But don't you let the
library go to waste because you're awaiting the completion of Eureka's
first subway. (Laughter.)
Now, when I suggest that you turn to books and the
accumulated knowledge of the past, I'm not suggesting that we turn
back the clock or retreat into some dim yesterday that's remembered
only with nostalgia, if at all. But we must learn from yesterday
if we're to have a better tomorrow.
We're beset by problems in a complex world. We're
confused by those who tell us that only the new and the untried ways
offer hope. This isn't true. The truth is the answers to all the
problems of mankind, every one of them, even the most modern and
the most complex, can be found in this building by those who desire
to find them and have perception enough to recognize them when they
do find them.
There will be the knowledge of Aristotle and Plato and
Socrates and from the vantage point of history, there will also be
the record of their mistakes. We can look back and see where their
dream of pure democracy became as dictatorial as a sultan and majority
rule, 11 find, without protection for the minority became just mob rule.
One of mankind's problems is that we keep repeating the
same errors. In every generation someplace there have been people who
have found that two and two added up to three or in another place to
five. And four seemed always to elude some of us. It happened in my'
generation and I predict, without smugness, it'll happen in yours.
Now, let us truly honor two men who have given something
almost beyond our comprehension. Do you doubt that all the answers
can be found here, all the answers to modern day confusion?
MORE
- 8 -
Well, from the 11th century Hebrew philosopher and
physician, Memonides, we can learn why, perhaps, the failure of
our well-intentioned effort to help the less fortunate in what's
becoming a welfare state because Memonides gave us eight steps which
make it plain that you can only help the needy if you help them to
help themselves.
If you're one who still rejects the so-called simple
answers and says they won't fit anymore in these complex problems,
can any one of us dare name a single problem that can't be solved if
we'll simply follow the teachings of the Man from Galilee? The
entire pattern for all mankind is laid out there.
We can redirect the nation's course in the paths of
freedom, morality, and high principle and, in SO directing it, we
can build better lives for ourselves and our children and a. better
nation for those who come after US. Or we can ignore history and
we can go the way of Greece and Rome.
I think that's the significance of this library --the
fact that we can use it to rechart our course, not into great unknown,
but unto paths that are clear and which, if followed, can show us
how to cope with the new problems that always confront each generation,
can lead us as a people onto continued greatness.
There were many who had a hand in this structure here,
the building of this library. It represents cooperation between
government and the private sector. It represents the efforts of
many here in the college and many who are just friends of the college,
but I think all of those would be the first to say it happened because
of you, Clint, and because of your brother, Wes.
And on behalf of all who knew Eureka down through the
years and those who still have Eureka to know, I'd like to usurp the
privilege if I could at this moment in behalf of all those people
say from the bottom of our hearts, we thank you.
Eureka means we have found a way of life and, Clint,
you and your brother, Wes, have helped in the search and made the
finding of that way a great deal easier.
God bless you and thank you.
(Applause.)
END
REMARKS OF GOVERNOR REAGAN
AT
FUND RAISER
Eureka, California
March 3, 1970
GOVERNOR REAGAN: Assemblyman Frank Belotti, Mrs. Belotti,
Reverend Clergy, my own Chairman here from the counties of Humboldt and
Del Norte, Bob Barnam, Darryl Schroeder, and our County Chairman, Jerry
Scott, you ladies and gentlemen.
This is wonderful to be back here again and to have such a
warm welcome, and I thank you for the kind things you said. And I think
you ladies and gentlemen should know that it may not seem as if some of
us get up here too often to visit, but I can assure you that as long as
Frank Belotti is in Sacramento the northwest coast is on the mind of
people in Sacramento and in the capital a great deal of the time. He
sees to that. (Applause.)
I know we all miss Congressman Don Clausen, but it was good
to hear from him and to have his greetings here tonight.
You know, I've been sitting here remembering because it
doesn't seem as if it's been so long between dinners here in this
particular room. But I was remembering the first one and that was back
in the 1964 campaign. And right after dinner, several of us rushed into
another little room here where they had taken a tape off the -- a sound
tape off the television debate between Senator George Murphy and that
other fellow, whatever his name was. (Laughter.) And then we listened
to the sound tape that we'd had to miss by being in here for the dinner.
Oh, when you get remembering, though.
I even go back so far I can remember when people use to
brag about only living a stone's throw from the campus. (Laughter and
applause.)
Sometimes, you know, I believe that insanity is inherited.
We catch it from our kids. (Laughter.)
But, no, let me seriously say something about that: Don't
be fooled and let the tiny dissident minority that has been creating so
much trouble. Don't accept them as a stereotype of our young people
today. I can say that and I've had a little experience in that line.
But let me just remind you of this one encouraging thing: When you see
a demonstration of that kind of lawlessness, remember you're seeing all
the force they can muster. There are no more or they'd be out there.
And the vast majority are just what we want them to be -- just the fine
young men and women that we can find on our campuses and in our society.
And keep your eyes focused on them because they have problems, too, and
it's about time we started devoting some time to their legitimate
problems instead of spending all of our time trying to appease that
hungry little mob of dissidents. (Applause.)
I know that in the few times I've been here since the '66
campaign and all, I've now and then taken advantage of you to tell you
a little bit about some of our troubles in Sacramento and some of the
problems of the job. And yet I keep thinking back and now that we've
gotten a little farther away from them, I keep thinking back to those
first dark days.
I remember a story of an old-timer in the woods who was
teaching a tenderfoot in the woods how to catch a porcupine. And he
said the big thing was to avoid that flapping tail with all those
spears on it. And he said, "You watch out for the tail and you slip in
real quick and you drop a tub over him." And the fellow said, "A tub?"
And he said, "Yeah, that's so you got something to sit on while you
figure out what to do next." (Laughter.) It's a little like that.
- 2 -
I've had some days when I felt like the scuba diver that
was on his way down to set a new record. And he'd gotten down beyond
the fish. And there he was with all his breathing apparatus and his
tanks of oxygen and he looked over and here was a fellow with nothing
but a pair of bathing trunks, no breathing equipment at all. And he
swam over to him and he took that slate they have, and he wrote on the
slate. And he said, "How is this possible?" He says, "You're down
here without any equipment. What are you doing?" And the fellow took
the slate from him and wrote back, "I'm drowning." (Laughter.)
Well, there's one thing I learned, though, these last three
years: If at first you don't succeed, you get an awful lot of advice.
(Laughter.)
You know there was a -- one of the things that's the
hardest, I guess, to move in government is -- when I was talking out on
the campus about the day the permanent structure of government -- the --
those people that have been there and doing things the way they've
decided to do them through several administrations. And then you try
to change things.
There was a young bridegroom once who asked his bride why
in cooking a ham she always cut both ends off. She said, "Because that's
the way my mother did it." So one night the mother-in-law was over for
dinner and he said, "Is this true that you always cut both ends?" And
she said, "Yes." And he said, "Why?" And she said, "Because that's the
way my mother did it." So came the holidays and grandma dropped in. And
he couldn't wait. And he told her about this and he said, "And you were
the one -- you always cut both ends off the ham before you cooked it?"
And she said, "Yes." And he said, "Why?" And she said, "I didn't have
a pot big enough to put the whole ham in." (Laughter.)
Oh, I tell you, there was a time up there in Sacramento
when I was taking so many tranquilizers that I found myself being nice
to people I shouldn't have been speaking to. (Laughter.)
Speaking of Jess -- (laughter and applause) -- Jess has
a great gift for finding things that no one has tried to hide. (Laughter.
Well, I had a letter the other day from a little girl.
She was in fourth grade and I thought it was wonderful. They'd been
asked to write what they thought the Governor did. And she wrote and
said, "The Governor gets up in the morning and has his breakfast, and
then his friend comes over and they walk together -- walk to work
together. His friend is named Jesse." And then she said, "The Governor
is twenty-five years old." Well, of course, she's a little wrong about
me and Jess going to work together, but she's right on that other part.
A few months ago, I got a strong feeling that there might
be an election in the offing. It was quite a surprise because it seemed
like we'd just had one. But then the days are shorter in Sacramento,
and things have a way of sneaking up on you. What caused all this was
the loud scream that greeted my reference to the environment in this
year's State of the State Message. Those fellows that Frank was
mentioning who'd been in the majority and been in charge of things for
about eight years prior to 1967 suddenly were screaming that I was a
"Johnny come lately" in this field, that environment was their bag.
Well, I apologize. But with trying to find the Eel River and to pick
out that one redwood tree I wanted to save, I wasn't aware that
California's air had been preserved until 1967 in wine-like purity,
that every stream and river that was crystal clear, with even the
San Francisco Bay untouched by sewage, until our administration. And
that somehow the trash and the garbage had never cluttered California's
meadowlands prior to my Inauguration.
Well, now having discovered all this, you got to admit
that we've been pretty forthright about offering to clean it up and
do something about it since we've been there.
Seriously, I would like to talk to you about what we've
accomplished, what we're trying to do and how we're trying to maintain
a proper balance between those extremes in the field of environment,
- 3 -
for example, which would on one hand would say, no more roads, no more
factories, no more cars, no more people, do nothing but preserve the
ecology. And those on the other hand who would justify everything and
every kind of destruction in the name of progress. We're going to try
extremely hard to avoid those extremes.
Progress for our people and preservation of our environment
are compatible goals. It is the refusal to work together for a proper
balance that is incompatible with the needs and the hopes of California.
Jobs and payrolls and our growing economy don't just happen.
They're the result of several dynamic forces: Risk capital, managerial
know-how, skilled labor and public demand for the product. Here in the
northwest we have a good example of the vigorous industry that is bringing
new and better production facilities in providing the need for employment
opportunities.
The investment in two new pulp and paper mills demonstrates
industry's confidence in the future and the future of the timber supply
in the northwest. We must assure this supply by supporting a program
for increased timber production on public lands within our general
conservation and multiple use concepts.
Multiple use of our forest resources is the key. And
through it, we can find the balance between conservation and production.
Now, this will call for more creative policies on both the public and
the private owners of timberland.
An example of achieving a proper balance in our environment
is the agreement that preceded the start of the construction of the
Humboldt Bay Bridge. The importance of fish and wildlife values that
are result now of a joint agreement between the state resources and the
business and transportation agencies.
Today, esthetic and ecological values are given an equal
weight with engineering and the cost factors as we build roads and
build bridges. And we've managed to bring this about with this whole
new approach of saying no longer will highways just simply be the
shortest distance between two points.
We will try to preserve the points of historical interest,
preserve the ecology, preserve the esthetic values. And the proof that
we've succeeded in this is the fact that just recently the National
Transportation Agency made nine national awards in the United States.
Four highways and bridges that were built with regard to environment
and that were built with regard to esthetic values, and California won
five of the nine awards and one honorable mention.
In December, the Mad River salmon and steel ad hatch reel
go into operation. It should revitalize the diminishing resource and
stimulate both sport and commercial fishing interests.
As we enter the decade of the '70's, it's important to
continue the development of the well-rounded program of conservation
education for our children. An initial step in this direction was taken
in 1968 when the education code was changed to require studies of man's
relation to his human and his natural environment.
Last October, the Advisory Committee on Conservation
Education called for a comprehensive program in this field. And this
will complement the work that is being done now by private and state
groups.
The State Board of Education has been asked to fund the
pilot program of conservation education as an experiment in 12 school
districts in the coming year.
Now I know that many of you are aware of the outstanding
programs in conservation education that have been undertaken by the
Redwood Region Conservation Council. And now the cooperation with the
State Department of Conservation we've developed Operation Springboard,
- 4 -
which is aimed at the kindergarten through third grade student.
All of these educational efforts, through both the public
and the private programs, are designed to help us preserve the magic
of California for future generations. I might add that our own park
people are going beyond this now in a kind of human salvage also. They've
set up a program for our state parks of going into the disadvantaged
areas of our crowded urban centers, our cities, and taking children to
whom outdoors and nature is -- are just words, and arranging tours of
our state parks, taking them up into the camping areas and showing them
the magic that is this land of California.
We figure that it's time as this program continues they're
seeing enough of the ugly side that they begin to see America the
beautiful.
Three years ago I said that government could be run
efficiently and economically, employing common sense -- the same common
sense that we all apply to our businesses and in the running of our
homes. And I think we've proven that this can be done in these
three years.
Now, it's been charged that in doing this, I have brought
California to a halt, to a standstill. Or was it a standstill to move
this state in three years from eleventh to second among the states in
the rehabilitation of the physically and the mentally handicapped?
We're first in the nation in the treatment of the mentally
ill. We are achieving the new staffing standards of increased staffing,
medical treatment, medical personnel for the inmates in our hospitals
for the mentally ill. These are the American Medical Association
Standards adopted in 1967, and we will achieve those standards in June,
four years ahead of the schedule that had been laid down for us.
Was it a standstill to impose procedures that will require
all state construction projects, from highways to the water program, to
conform with the long-range environmental goals; to establish a
mechanism for the protection of our coastline and our estuaries.
We've imposed the strongest controls for the purity of air
and water that have ever been adopted by any government anywhere in the
world. And we did these things without practicing the prophecy of doom
that seems to be so popular among some these days that would have you
believe that our days are numbered and that we can't achieve the
cleaning of our air and our water. We've achieved them without becoming
political stunt men and trying for publicity instead of results.
No, I didn't put on a wet suit and plunge into the Santa
Barbara Channel to discover that there was oil on the water, nor did I
go over to the Bay area to be photographed standing by a sewer in time
to make the 6:00 t.v. news. But it's true that we've brought some things
in California to a halt.
Three years ago this state was spending a million dollars
a day more than it was taking in, and we brought that to a halt. Three
years ago this state was adding five thousand or more employees each
year to the total staff of state government, and we brought that to a
halt.
By the end of this year there will be fewer employees in
state government than there were when we started three years ago. Three
years ago they were planning to build more buildings to house more
bureaus, to give more programs to the people that the people never asked
for and I doubt if they want or need. We brought that to a halt. We
cancelled the construction of the buildings and we eliminated more than
30 bureaus and agencies.
Now, they were going to build a bridge over Emerald Bay
at Tahoe. And they were going to continue a fiscal program that was
based on gimmickry and deception and enlarged government by hacks and
- 5 -
cronies by bringing in more hacks and cronies, and we brought all of that
to a halt.
We have moved from ninth lowest among the states to fifth
lowest with regard to the size of government in proporation to population.
And we're not going to stop until we're number one in that; having the
smallest government in proportion to our population. (Applause.)
We started a prairie fire. More than a dozen states have
sent staff members out to California to find out how we've been doing
some of these things, and they would then go back and do likewise.
Now, we've submitted a budget for the year that will begin
July 1. And then a short time as that budget comes under discussion,
brace yourself. You're going to hear screams that would curdle your
blood. They're going to be screams coming from the same people who have
been complaining about high taxes in Sacramento among our opponents.
But the same ones who, when they were a majority until we achieved that
bare majority that Frank told you about, passed legislation that would
have increased the spending of state government $330 million a year, all
legislation that I had to veto.
But these people are going to charge that we're selfish and
that we are lacking in compassion because we've asked the Legislature to
help bring welfare under control. But unless it is controlled, welfare
is going to put us in a position to where one day we won't even be able
to help the deserving needy.
Welfare is increasing in costs faster than our economy can
expand to bring us the revenues we need, and it has gobbled up all the
savings that we've been able to make in our economies in government.
Edith Green, Congresswoman from Oregon, classifies herself
as a liberal Democrat, asked the Library of Congress the other day to
give her a hypothetical case of how much could a single family in the
United States legally get from the welfare programs that are available.
And they gave her two cases: one, a widow with four children spanning
the ages from preschool to college; one, a widow with eight children
spanning preschool to college. And they told her that the family of
four could legally take advantage of all of the available programs and
that family could get $11,500 a year tax free. And the family of eight
could get $21,193 tax free income legitimately in welfare programs.
Now this is part of the importance. Incidentally, in our
own state, we are faced right now with law suits against certain changes
we want to make in welfare and certain changes we have made to try and
bring the spending under control. If these cases are decided against
us, they will add more than $300 million immediately to the costs, the
annual costs, of welfare. The cost now is one billion one hundred million
dollars at the state level. And I think there is every reason to believe
those cases will go against us.
To show you how ridiculous this situation can be, there is
a man who has never been on welfare in this country, who is working,
self-supporting, fully employed, and who is suing the United States
Government claiming that they must give him the difference between his
income and what he could get on welfare if he could quit work and go
on welfare.
This is the importance or part of the importance of this
coming election. We've only begun to unravel what has been done in the
recent decades. But we have begun. And now it's necessary that we
carry on.
Last year for the first time, you gave us a majority to
show what could happen for that first time and with that first majority,
we passed the most comprehensive anti-crime legislation that just went
into effect in January. We passed the anti-pornography laws that the
Legislature had been trying to pass for eight years or more that I know
of and certainly for the three that I've been there. All of this came
about just because we had a majority.
- 6 -
Now, I'd like to do something for a few remaining moments
here, if you don't mind rather than going on.
I got another letter from a little girl. And this little
girl wrote and told me what the Governor does. She says, "The Governor
owns the state and he tells the people what to do and then he goes out
and makes a speech." (Laughter.)
Well, I don't own the state and I don't tell the people what
to do and I'd like to stop trying to make a speech. And I would like to
have a dialogue that we haven't had for a long time. I don't know
whether you're prepared for this or not. But it just seemed to me in
talking about some of these things we've been doing that I'm bound to
miss some of the points or some of the things you'd like to know about.
How would you like to just finish out what limited time we have here by
throwing a few questions up here, and I'll try to answer them? Sing out
if you have one. I'll repeat the question so the microphones can pick
it up. Don't be bashful. Someone should ask a question because I've
missed a lot of points.
REMARKS OF GOVERNOR REAGAN
AT
FUNDRAISER FOR DON PETERSON
Eureka, California
August 29, 1974
GOVERNOR REAGAN: Well, Don, I thank you very much for
your generous words. Madam Chairman, Reverend Clergy, our very dear
friend that we miss very much in Sacramento, Mrs. Bilotti, others
here at the head table and, of course, the man who has brought us
here, our candidate for the Assembly in this District, Don Peterson.
I apologize. Have you ever had one of those days?
(Laughter.) We waited and-- I've been an after-luncheon speaker on
many occasions. I am still an after-breakfast speaker at this
particular moment. (Laughter.)
I remember they said the repair job would be four hours
and then we found another plane and we got on that plane and we've
been hedgehopping all the way here and I found myself remembering one
of those classic old lines from some of the movies that I used to
be in years ago. Do you know that line? "You're not going to send
the kid up in a crate like that?" (Laughter.)
But I know how long you've been here and I'm not going
to give you the whole load. (Laughter.)
But I would like to just say a few things. This is kind
of nostalgic. We have been here a number of times and it's always
very heartwarming to come here. When I tell you it's a pleasure to
be here, I can tell you it's a pleasure just not to be in Sacramento.
(Laughter.)
About a year ago -- and I don't remember whether I've
told you this or not -- Nancy and I came to a moment in which with
our son we decided that when the legislature left town for the summer
that we'd have a change. We'd get away from it all. And for the
first time in our lives, we did a pack trip into the high Sierras
and then found it wasn't all that different. We were still on an
uphill, rocky road with a bunch of mules. (Laughter.) (Applause.)
Government is said to be the second oldest profession
and sometimes I find it very similar to the first. (Laughter.)
I have learned, also, about some of the customs of
ancient Greece. I was fascinated with the study of Greece when I
found out that there was an ancient city-state in Greece that had
a custom whereby when anyone suggested a new program for government,
he had to make his proposal standing with a noose around his neck
tied to the limb of a tree (laughter) -- standing on a chair.
And, if they liked his proposal, they removed the noose. If they
didn't, they removed the chair. (Laughter.) And I developed a
morbid fascination with the customs of ancient Greece. (Laughter.)
Have you ever stopped to think what kind of service
we'd get from government if the Internal Revenue Service had to do
business on a satisfaction or money back guarantee? (Laughter.)
Well, let me tell you, speaking in politics at this
particular time, as you can imagine, is a little harrowing. It was
just a few days ago that I had to go up to Seattle to speak to a
Republican gathering there and it was at the end of that 48 hours
when the transition of authority had taken place in Washington.
And the speech that I had and that I thought would do me through
the whole campaign -- it was pertinent to the affairs of the day --
I took another look at it and it was about as appropriate as the
Captain of the Titanic saying, "Never mind all that ice. It's for
the party Saturday night." (Laughter.)
MORE
- 2 -
And then I found a story in a paper and this paper,
this news story, was on the front page of the Sunday paper found in
the airplane as I was riding up to Seattle. It had to do with a
gentlemen named Richard Conlin who was a campaign strategist for
the Democratic Party and the Democratic Party Study Committee in
Washington consists of about 170 Senators and Congressman and high
party functionaries. He, on that night of resignation, was leaving
his office to go home and met a young couple who were celebrating
the resignation. And, gleefully, they told him they had voted
for McGovern. And Mr. Conlin, Democratic strategist, said, "Swell.
And we lost that election and now we're going to lose the '74 and
the '76 elections."
Now, he might have been exaggerating, but what he was
speaking of was the fact that for a year and a half we've been
bludgeoned with one thing called Watergate. We've lost special
elections, five out of six for the Congress alone, simply on the
emotionalism of that one issue. And our opponents were hopeful that
they were going to be able to carry out the '74 election on that one
issue. The candidates would be chosen by the the people who will
have an effect on our lives and the lives of our children for years
to come and they wouldn't be questioned on the issues or where they
stood philosophically. They would be selected on that one issue
alone.
Then someone shot Santa Claus and now they have to get
out and stand up and be counted on the issues that really confront
us. And one of the reasons they were sorry that this was going to
have to happen because in '72 the issues were more clearcut than
they have been in the lifetime of any one of us in a national
election.
In 1972, it was not so much a selection between candidates
as it was a choice of two widely divergent philosophies and the
American people, Democrats -- and I hope there are many present --
and Independents -- and I hope they're present, also because I hope
they aspire to a better life -- and fellow Republicans all crossed
party lines to repudiate and reject the the confiscation and
redistribution of the peoples' earnings, the final step into a
welfare state, the running of our entire lives by government to an
extent greater than we've known so far. This was the thing they
didn't want to have to campaign on.
There has been no change in the philosophy of the
leadership on the other side, the state or the national level. They
still lack faith in our ability to govern ourselves. Arrogantly,
they count on the peoples' lack of knowledge to help them continue
in office. And I'm afraid they're justified in counting on that.
A recent poll revealed that only 46 percent of the
people polled could name their United States Congressman. Even less
could name their State Representatives. But of the people who could
name their Congressmen, 86 percent of them could not tell you a single
thing he stood for, not a single policy that he represented.
We've had too much of this and that's why for 40 years
we've had social tinkering by social experimenters that have distorted
the relationship between the levels of government and have badly
distorted the relationship of the people to their government.
Small businessmen in America spend 130 million manhours
a year filling out government paperwork. It adds $50 billion a year
to the cost of doing business which all turns up in the price of
the products we buy and contributes to the thing we call inflation.
A druggist in my original state of Illinois says it takes
him more time to fill out the government paperwork every time he fills
out a prescription than it does to fill out the prescription.
And the State is no different. Last week I vetoed a bill.
This was a bill passed by the majority in the lesgislature and a bill
MORE
- 3 -
that would have mandated by the State for every community in California
exactly the type of sign and the size sign that a person could put on
his lawn in front of his house if he wanted to sell his house. And
my veto was based on one thing only. When the bill was presented to
us at the cabinet meeting and I heard it for the first time I said,
"What business is that of the State government?" And so we vetoed it.
But there are other things that are going on. There is
a bill now within the last couple of days that came to my desk --
our opponents are frantic. The law of the State of California says
that every political party will in the month of August before an
election hold a platform convention so that the people of this State
know what the party platform is they' voting on. The Republicans
have held theirs. The Peace and Freedom Party has held its convention.
They're supposed to register the date of that convention and their
intention to hold it on July 1st. Our opponents made no such declaration
on July 1st and the Secretary of State who would now be Governor
has not upheld the law or enforced the law and here we are coming
to the end of August and they have not held a convention and the
other day he was asked by the press why he was not enforcing the law
and he said, "Maybe we don't need one."
But the law is the law. So, hastily, a bill was passed
by the majority in the legislature and laid on my desk with four days
to go in August that would have excused their party from holding such
a convention until after the election, come next January.
Last night, the Chairman of the Democratic Party called
frantically and said, "What is the Governor going to do about that
bill because, if he's not going to sign it, I'm going to have to
hastily call some kind of a convention and, if I have to, kick
the Governor's brains out for making us do it." Well, they can go
ahead and kick because I'm still studying that bill. (Laughter).
(Applause.)
You know, some of the progress we've made has been
mentioned. It has been mentioned the fact, also, that we've been in
an uphill fight against a hostile legislature on most of it. I know
that I've spoken to you about these things before. Let me just briefly
refresh your memory what it was like eight years ago.
I know that our Republican philosophy works because I've
seen it work for the last seven years and eight months. The cost of
living in California was higher than it was in the rest of the nation.
And it had been so for the previous six years.
The State was adding 5,500 new employees each year to
the State payroll.
Welfare, which was runaway, was increasing at a rate
of 40,000 new cases a month. That's what we were adding to the
welfare rolls.
We instituted our program that they called, "Cut, Squeeze,
and Trim" and we tried everything we could to get welfare under
control. Finally, after a few years of trying, we turned to the people
of this State for a task force and told them to find out and bring
to us a plan by which we could control this runaway program.
You know, when you find people that are earning $16,500
a year and were still considered legally eligible for welfare, you
had to believe something was wrong with the regulations that were
governing it.
And so, we came with our welfare reform, again, to that
same legislature. And they denied me the permission to even present
the reforms to them, to a joint session of the legislature.
But we took our case to the people, as we have so many
times. And government by the people works if the people work at it.
And each time public opinion was such that our opponents had to give
in. Oh, we always had to compromise a little. We couldn't get all
we wanted. We only got 70 percent of the welfare reforms.
MORE
- 4 -
Incidentally, on those welfare reforms they told us that,
if we got them, they said they would raise the caseload, not lower it.
They told us that it would dump the burden onto the counties, on
general relief and the county property taxes would go up and they
said the needy would starve in the streets and we would have a $700
million deficit at the end of the year. Other than that, they didn't
find much wrong with the whole program. (Laughter.)
So, we started in. Now, we're coming to the end of the
eight years. We started enforcing our reforms just three years and
five months ago. The welfare rolls are not increasing at 40,000 a
month. We have almost 400,000 fewer people on welfare in California
than we had just three years ago.
The property taxes in more than 40 of the 58 counties
in California have gone down for two years in a row. The taxpayers
have been saved almost two billion dollars on welfare alone.
Some of the men who were responsible for those reforms
have been taken to the government in Washington by Cap Weinberger
at HEW. Their job is to go around the country and persuade other
states to implement the similar kind of reforms. And last year for
the first time in the history of welfare, it went down at the national
level. Forty-seven percent of the decline was in California and the
rest was in those states that had implemented our type of reforms.
It is still going up in the other states that have not yet been
reached.
And, oh, yes -- the $700 million deficit. That turned
out to be an $850 million surplus and, as you know, we gave it back
to you in the form of a one-time tax rebate. And that was the
third time we've done such a thing.
To my knowledge, no government has ever followed the
practice of giving one-time rebates when it found itself with a
surplus, save we've done it three times. This last time at $850 million,
when I proposed that, that was a little like getting between a hog
and the bucket. (Laughter.) One Senator protested that giving the
money back to the people was an unnecessary expenditure of public
funds. (Laughter.)
When the eight years end in January, we will have
returned to the people of California in rebates, in tax cuts and
things such as the inventory tax being changed, even in the cutting
of bridge tolls, $5.7 billion.
The credit for our bonds, the credit rating by Moody's
has been lifted to triple, triple A which is the highest rating
you can get -- credit rating. The raise from AA to AAA alone
averages saving one and a half percent interest on the interest you
have to pay on your bonds and that means hundreds of millions of
dollars of savings.
In the meantime, I have vetoed and our Republicans in
the legislature have upheld the vetos on over $151/2 billion in
additional spending proposed by our opponents. The budget today,
without those vetos, would be over $13 billion, instead of the
present very extensive $10 billion.
Let me tell you what it's like. I shouldn't do this
because it might discourage Don and he might want to change his
mind. (Laughter.) But I tell it to you because I want you to know
how much a Don Peterson is needed in Sacremento.
Saturday, they'll recess and go home for the election.
Between now and then, in 48 hours, there will be pandemonium such
as you've never seen in what are supposed to the the two deliberative
bodies of our legislature. The clock will be stopped on Friday night
and they will go into the small hours of the morning and they will
be considering and they will be passing judgment on more than 800
pieces of legislation, including bills that involve hundreds of millions
of dollars in spending.
MORE
- 5 -
And about in the wee, small hours of the morning before
Saturday and their anxiety to get home, there will be rivalry and
mirth on the floor, there will tricks played on other legislators,
there will be amendments added to bills that won't even be read.
I speak from experience because this is what has happened under their
leadership ever since I have been in Sacremento.
Last year, one of our legislators had to leave the
chamber in those small hours. When he came back, found he had voted
on four bills while he was gone. When he stood up to protest, he
was declared out of order.
Down to my desk the last year came 450 bills that were passed
in 18 hours of almost continuous sitting there. They included $250
million in additional spending. The same thing will take place in
these next few days.
Yesterday, in a committee hearing, rushing its business
through, having to do with appointments to the Parole Board and to
the Youth Authority, the committee refused to hear members of those
boards as witnesses, but did give all the time they wanted to
representatives of the Prisoner's Union who wanted to complain about--
register their complaints as to some of the appointments suggested
for those particular boards. This is what takes place. This is
why the people have got to know more about those who represent
them in government and what they stand for.
This is why you have to ask -- incidentally, ask Barry
Keene -- you might ask him how did he vote on the bill to exempt his
party from telling the people of California what its platform was
for the coming election. Ask him where he has stood on a number of
the other things, where he stood on limitations.
Why should a legislator, for example, be able to introduce
a program that would cost $300 million additional in the first year
and within four years would cost a billion dollars a year and pretend
that there is no additional cost and make no effort whatsoever to
propose a method for paying for it? And, yet, these things take place.
Today, a gathering like this in many circles is referred to
as the gatheringoofithe fat cats. That's what Republicans are all
supposed to be. We've heard that for a year and a half. Look around
you. You're a pretty good cross-section of America. I've never
been able to figure why a rich Republican is a fat cat and a rich
Democrat is a public-spirited philanthropist. (Laughter.)
We have a candidate running for the Controller's office
on the other side, Assemblyman Court. He spend $690,000 on the
primary to win the nomination and $600,000 of it came from two
contributors. And we're supposed to be party with the fat cats.
No, our party has an opportunity to represent the one
special interest group -- and we've heard a lot about special interest
groups -- the one special interest group that hasn't had enough
representation in government. That special interest group is made
up of Democrats, Independents, Republicans, you name it. It's made
up, crosses every ethnic and racial line, every religious line,
geographic line, it's scattered across the whole United States and
up and down this state. They're just Americans who ask of freedom
nothing but freedom itself, who ask nothing of government except
to be left alone to the extent possible. These are the Americans
that get up in the morning and send their kids to school, and go to
work, and pay their bills, and support their church and charity.
These are the unsung heros of America and they need representation
in government. And I claim that the philosophy of our party, the
mandate of 1972 that still exists, that philosophy is more akin to
their hopes and dreams and aspirations than anything that our
opponents can claim or that they represent.
Therefore, I beg of you, send Don Peterson to
Sacramento. I know that the new governor, whoever he may be, in
January will be the first governor in 22 years who will inherit a
balanced budget and a surplus and will not have to face the necessity
of a new tax program to pay for the previous year's spending.
MORE
- 6 -
But send him up there because we need to maintain that
power. I don't say that we can get a majority in one election for
the legislature. We're too far outnumbered. But we can prevent them
from passing that two-thirds mark to where they could override the
vetos of a Republican governor and thus, be able to add their
$151/2 billion in spending.
So, ring doorbells and knock on doors and contribute
to the best of your ability and do everything you can to see that
Don Peterson represents the Second District in the Assembly and you
will be doing yourself a very great favor.
Thank you very much.
(Applause.)
END