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Speeches - Governor Reagan - One Time Only (not indexed by subject), 1969/1974 (2 of 3)
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Speeches - Governor Reagan - One Time Only (not indexed by subject), 1969/1974 (2 of 3)
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Governor Ronald Reagan's Speeches
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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: Speeches - Governor Reagan - One Time Only
(not indexed by subject), 1969/1974 (2 of 3)
Box: P20
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/
Education - next step
time-tested value
generation gap
mass materialism
opportunities &
dreams
7
MARLBOROUGH COLLEGE PREPARATORY SCHOOL FOR GIRLS COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES
Los Angeles, California
June 6, 1974
Remarks by Governor Ronald Reagan
making it at college, and he said, "No, I'm making it,
he's spending it."
I think every speaker in a ceremony such as this one
approaches the task with mixed emotions-delight
But seriously, many of us today do have a very real
and pride at having been asked to speak, and fear, lest
worry. We have a worry now at this moment whether
his remarks turn out inappropriate to the occasion.
we have given you the foundation that will stand up to
the multitude of voices that will be assailing you in an
I am delighted for the reason that it gives me an
ever-increasing volume in the years ahead. Frankly,
opportunity, by being associated with this kind of
this includes some of the voices you will encounter in
educational ceremony, to demonstrate the falseness of
classroom and lecture halls as you go on to higher
some of the criticisms leveled against me in the
education. Some interpret their right of speech as an
performance of my job. It ain't true that I don't place no
obligation to shake your thinking to reflect their own
store on booklearning!
beliefs. This, too, is part of the changing world. There
was a time when the highest canons of academia
I believe that with a good education it is possible to
rejected the indoctrination of students with the views
worry about problems all over the world. But I
of those who taught. The goal then was to teach the
certainly feel that other emotion - concern -
student how to think and not what to think
whether the things I say will hopefully add at least a
little bit of meaning for you on this day of your lives
I am not suggesting that you leave here with a mind
closed to any of the new ideas that will be presented to
The one thing I do know, is that the world is improved
you in the future. I am suggesting that an open mind is
in many ways, not the least of which has been the
a fine thing but we shouldn't confuse an open mind
abandonment of certain cliches inflicted with
with an empty head. Beware of those who will wipe
heavy-handed humor on patient graduates. You are no
out, or attempt to wipe out, all of your beliefs but leave
longer told on this day that you know more now than
you with nothing to replace them.
you ever knew before, or that you will ever know again;
or that educational institutions are known as
At the same time don't accept without studying and
storehouses of knowledge because reshmen bring so
deep consideration the ready-made philosophy that
much in and the seniors take SO little out. And there
some will try to implant as a substitute for everything
was of course that all-time stand-by, the speaker who
that you now believe.
always said, "when I was fourteen I didn't think my
Challenge the morals and customs of the past. Every
parents knew anything and when I was twenty-one I
generation has done so, but don't automatically
was surprised at how much the old folks had learned in
discard them simply because they are old. Some of the
seven years."
time-tested values may be irksome at the moment, but
But I think some of us are thankful that some things
we forsake them at our peril. They are the values we
don't change. You have taken almost all of your entire
call civilization and men have always been willing to
life in achieving this moment and to you it seems like a
die for them.
very long journey indeed. But it seems to many of us
There are laws governing us that men didn't write and
who are here today that your journey started just the
which therefore men can't rewrite. We know, for
day before yesterday. For us it is a day of nostalgia, of
example, that three times two equals six, and
looking back on a montage of memories. I think for
sometimes that is inconvenient, but we can't change
you, in addition to the memories you will have, you are
it. There are some who know it's true and resent it,
looking forward and seeking a clue to what the future
just as they resent the existing moral order, and the
may hold. Perhaps that explains the paradox of calling
fact that a moral order operating in this year of 1974 is
this day graduation and at the same time, calling it
the same moral order that operated four thousand
commencement.
years ago in 1974 B.C.
All of you will go on in your education - some of you in
Through wishful thinking or ignorance we may at
the universities and colleges of this land, perhaps
times bury the interpretation of that law. But the law
some of you in specialized career training. But if your
remains unchanged and no society can long flaunt the
stay here has meant anything at all it is that you will go
law without inviting its own destruction.
on learning and expanding your awareness and your
horizons through all the years of your life.
Today there is an increasing rebellion against this
concept of order. Simply obeying whim or impulse, no
Once upon a time the adult portion of an audience
matter how attractive it seems at the moment, doesn't
such as this prepared itself for new worries on this
really make for freedom as we have been told; it makes
particular day. They started worrying, "How will you
for anarchy in society and in our souls. The bumper
do in that next education step?" There is one thing true
sticker, "If it feels good do it," might sound all right at
of all parents: they want their children to have
first reading, but it is a little hard to take if someone's
everything they never had. Especially a report card
idea of what makes him feel good is beating us
filled with A's.
over the head.
I know sometimes parents wonder whether they will
Actually, a lot of the new freedom we hear about is not
be able to keep you there in those institutions of higher
freedom and it is not new it is a return to the primitive.
education. I asked a friend the other day if his son was
What those who preach the doctrine would sneeringly
3
call old-fashioned is actually the newest idea in the
There are only a few times in history that a single
history of man's relation to man. Suppose we could
generation is called upon to preside over a period of
condense the whole history of life on earth down to
transition as our generation. We literally went from the
one year. We could put it on film. That movie would
horse and buggy to the moon. A few years ago I was
run for twenty four hours a day for 365 days a year
having a meeting with some student leaders from the
This idea we call America would not appear on that
University system of California. It was not exactly a
film until three-and-one-half seconds before midnight
friendly rap session. That was a time when the
on the final day of December thirty-first, and yet in
campuses were filled with great unrest. And finally one
those three-and-one-half seconds, one half of all the
of the student leaders said to me, "You have to
economic activity in world history would take place On
understand that you can't understand our generation.
this continent. But more important, a new concept of
You cannot understand your own sons and
society would come into being in those
daughters." And I tried to pass it off, I said, "We know
three-and-one-half seconds, and would become a
more about being young than we know about being
golden hope for all mankind
An individual man
old." And he said, "No, I'm serious because when you
would be free to express his genius and perform such
were our age you didn't live in a world of instant
miracles of invention and construction and production
electronic communications, of jet travel, of nuclear
as the world has never seen.
power, of space travel to the other planets, cybernetics
Every standard of measurement confirms this fact,
and computers computing in seconds what it used to
and yet there are those today who would have us
take men years to figure out,"-Well, that's true, we
believe this system that has accomplished these
didn't have those things when we were his age-we
things has somehow failed and should be replaced by
invented them.
some untried utopian theory.
Every generation thinks that the preceding generation
behaved badly, failed miserably, and left the world in
something of a mess for the new generation to clean
up. It is only later, when we work together, when the
generations begin to overlap in the work-a-day world
1 2
only then do we realize the fallacy of those who would
create such a generation gap.
The generations are not structured horizontally,
stretched out like a sausage and divided by age groups
into separate slices. Society is structured vertically
with each generation climbing and then standing on
When I speak of transition, I have already lived ten
the shoulders of the generation that has gone before as
years longer than my life expectancy when I was born.
man continues to reach for the stars.
(The governor then spoke about statistics confirming
You happen to be very unique in this particular
improvement in elimination of disease, improvement
ceremony. You are the first class for whom this day
of housing, recognition of racial problems, upgrading
marks also, at the proper birthday, your move into full
of mass-produced items, variety of helpful household
citizenship. So this is a day that is appropriate to take
items to buy and nutritious foods to eat, availability of
inventory of your inheritance-this social structure
cars to buy.) But the doom-criers will say that this is
that will one day be yours to manage. And if read you
proof-positive of our materialism. Well, they are wrong
correctly, and the rest of your age group, you are very
again, because our way of life is characterized by a
much disturbed.
compassion that is unique in all the world
You have been inundated with a flood of rhetoric by the
And we have helped afflicted mankind, back through
communications media unlike anything that any
our entire history, whether it was a natural disaster, an
generation has ever experienced before. This is the day
earthquake in Tokyo, a famine in an Asian country,
of the doom and gloom criers. Even so-called
any kind of natural disaster-flood, war-our finest
entertainment today reflects a world that is grimy and
young men have bled on foreign soil the world over to
distorted, with violence providing the only excitement.
protect the freedom of someone who could not protect
Well there are many problems that remain unsolved.
his own.
Poverty has not been eliminated, prejudice and
inequality of opportunities still exist and man's
Because of what some charge as our materialism, you
greatest stupidity-war-still takes place. But since
are bigger and healthier and brighter and will know
your generation will overlap with ours in trying to
more and travel farther and live longer than any people
resolve these problems, let me make one thing very
who have ever lived. And you will inherit a society
clear, I am not apologizing for our generation.
which has more churches, more libraries, supports
with voluntary contributions more symphonies,
In our lifetime we have fought harder and paid a higher
operas, non-profit theatres, and publishes more books
price for freedom than any people who ever lived, and
than all the rest of the world put together.
we have done more in our single lifetime to advance
the dignity of man than has ever been done in any
We have more doctors per thousand people, more
similar period of time.
hospitals in relation to population, and a third of all the
young people in the world who are getting a college
The occasional misdeed cannot kill the dream, truth
education are getting it in the United States.
and justice or brotherhood.
We have distributed our wealth more widely among
From time to time there have been individuals who
our people than any society that ever existed.
failed a dream, but make no mistake about it-the
dream has never failed us.
We tax ourselves more heavily than any other nation to
support education and to provide for the
A Camelot must not be built by shouting slogans such
disadvantaged. We contribute on top of that,
as "Revolution Now". It doesn't come from a bottle or a
voluntarily, more than 825 billion per year for the
syringe. It is built by people doing everyday things
such as extending common courtesy and compassion
same purpose.
for others.
Fifty million Americans spend several hours each
And Camelot is never finished. The tools for adding to
week in volunteer work, in youth programs and
it are handed by the old to the young on days like this.
education and charity endeavors. You are the heirs to
We will hope you learn as we did that the real joy is in
the noblest experiment in freedom that has ever been
the continued building. We hope you will do better
devised by the mind of man.
than we have done.
Beware of those who would cast it aside for some
I have spoken of your dreams and on a day like this,
super-planned utopia in which everything that is not
there are many here for whom this day is a realization
compulsory would be prohibited.
of dreams come true. And if sometimes you have
The scholar has written that the young of any
gotten a little impatient with the generation of your
generation have felt the same impulse to grow, to
parents and found us overly possessive at times,
reach out, to touch the stars, to live freely and to let
perhaps it is because whether you know it or not, we
their minds loose along unexplored corridors. Young
have been possessed by you for quite a while and you
men and women have always stood on some hill and
accomplished that so very easily. In fact, you did it
felt the same sudden complete expansion of mind to
with one hand. And you did it when that hand was so
final fulfillment. It is one of the oldest and sweetest and
tiny it could barely encircle a single finger, but you did
the most bitter experiences of mankind.
it with such a grip that we will go through the rest of
our lives wearing the imprint of that finger.
I wonder if you know how easy it is for us to really
Congratulations and God bless you.
understand that you want more out of life than a 9 to 5
routine, that you want to accomplish more than just to
Copies of the entire speech may be applied for by calling the
stay alive. You are right to have broader dreams than
Alumnae Office of Marlborough School.
that, we need your idealism to renew our own, to
remind us that life does begin when we begin to serve.
And if we presume to advise you, it is so that you will
understand that dreams are empty and dreary unless
they are accompanied by practical achievement.
Water must be brought down from the hills to quench
our thirst, the sick must be tended and all the intricate
meshings of harvest and manufacture and
transportation must take place. Do not let anyone tell
you that there are no opportunities. They are limitless
and they include opportunities to serve as well as just
to make a living.
The world of business and commerce today supports
A Championship Season in Volleyball
programs in the field of environmental protection in
Marlborough is extremely proud of its Spring 1974
the actual salvage of human beings who have dropped
Volleyball team which reached the finals in the
out of the parade, or who seek a way back from a life of
national high school competition. The winner of the
crime. Modern industry and business today support
finals was the Chicago All Star Team which was
scholarship programs, anti-drop-out programs at the
chosen from the best talent of that city's many high
high school level, provide research into drug culture
schools. As well, Carol Meihaus 75 for the second
and the other problems that create so much misery.
year, and Lori Garver '74 made the first team of the
Millions of splendid concerned Americans are quietly
High School All American, representing the top six
going about the business of being good neighbors.
girls in the country. Jane Bassett '76 was chosen for
Because of them, and in spite of the merchants of
the second team of the High School All American,
gloom and doom, America towers over the world.
representing the top twelve girls in the country.
Other members of the team were:
Our system, tried and tempered by warand every kind
of adversity, has been preserved by men and women of
Gina Giannini
'75
Ginny Stevens
74
uncommon stature and uncommon devotion to a
Jeanne Hall
'78
Karen Stevenson
'74
dream. So dream your dreams and dream your ideas
Jan Linden
'78
Maura Waters
74
for this truly is Camelot.
Kate Ridgway
'77
Cindy Whitaker
'76
Opening Day
Putting the Vision into Focus
"School opened in a unique way this year, as we
attempted to heighten our sense of community. In
place of classes there was a combination of large and
small group meetings designed to permit students and
faculty to share their experiences over the past
summer, plan advisor-advisee activities, and develop
ideas which would promote pride in themselves and in
our school."
Opening Comments by the Headmaster
"Honor is that mental standard which involves
self-respect, trustworthiness, fairness to others, and
adherence in spirit and in action to recognized ideals."
"We have a unique opportunity here
to explore in depth the important part
that religion plays in our lives."
"Discipline is a display of affection and one of the most important forms
of teaching."
Government encroachment - loss
of personal freedom
Free enterprise
Bureaucracy
QUOTE: Senator Ben Hill
--Watch and guard with sleepless dread
that corporation which can make
8
property
rights of all states
people
all liberty its playthings
in an hour, its victims forever
REMARKS BY GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA COUNCIL
San Francisco - June 6, 1974
There is a temptation, when all the remarks are made about your
busy schedule and all the rest of it, to indulge in a little self pity,
to stand before a gathering such as this and try to give the impression
that you are bowed down under the burden. I try to think of a young
poet every time I am tempted that way. He had just sold his first
verses and he was walking along dejectedly, his head down, and he
looked as if the world had fallen in on him and a friend said, "What's
the matter? You should be very happy. Why are you looking so
despondent?" And the young poet, who had just made that first sale,
said, "Shakespeare is dead, Shelley is dead, Keats is dead, Byron is
dead---all dead, and sometimes I think the responsibility on my
shoulders is more than I can bear."
You know, I'll tell you another thing I am also reminded of.
I have been talking for a great many years about too much government,
This isn't a new idea with me because I have learned there was an
ancient city-state in Greece and they had a custom in that city that
anyone who proposed a new law or a new program for government would
have to do so with a noose around his neck while standing on a chair
and, when he finished, if the people approved they removed the noose
and if they didn't they removed the chair. And with 5,000 bills a
year being introduced in Sacramento, I must confess I have a morbid
fascination with the custom.
But I have become convinced that just breathing the mist off the
Sacramento River or the Potomac does not automatically confer omnipotence
on those who serve in government. And yet turning to government for
the solutions to our problems has become an American way of life,
S.F. Bay Area Council
It is not alone the needy on welfare who are asking for a hand-out
or a hand-up. Labor asks of government those things that labor should
benegotiating at the bargaining table. And management too often seeks
legislation or regulations that will take some of the competition out
of the free market system. I think two things should be realized:
when government gives a hand, it gives it to the greatest number of
votes; and it is about time business realizes that there aren't as
many of you as there are of them. And second, government's answers
leave a lot to be desired. We could take, for example, one government's
answer to a simple holiday problem. It was in one of the socialist
countries in Eastern Europe, where any country could wind up if it is
not careful. They were called upon to meet the problem of what to do
about the day upon which a holiday fell. You might say that their
solution was one of bureaucracy's finest hours. The edict they issued
said that because Christmas Eve falls on Thursday, Thursday has been
designated as Saturday for work purposes, the factories will be closed
all day with the stores open a half day only; Friday has been designated
as Sunday, with both factories and stores closed all day; Monday will
be a Wednesday, for work purposes; Wednesday will be a business Friday;
Saturday will be Sunday and Sunday will be Monday.
If you are one of those who says it can't happen here, let me read
you a few lines from our Federal Internal Revenue Code. Section 509:
"For purposes of Paragraph 3 the organization described in Paragraph 2
shall be deemed to include an organization described in Section 501C,
Subparagraphs 4, 5 and 6, which would be described in Paragraph 2, if it
were the organization described in Section 501C3. =
You have to conclude that we live in the only country in the world
where it takes more intelligence to figure out your income tax than it
does to earn the income. The old Rabbi wrote, "if all the seas were ink,
and all the reeds were pens, and all the skies were parchment, and all
men could write, this would not suffice to write down all the red tape
of this government."
2
S.F. Bay Area Council
But I don't think this is exactly what the Founding Fathers had in
mind for us. The very essence of the American Revolution and the system
it produced was limited government and individual freedom. And free men
in this country, as no place else in all the world, were released to
perform such miracles of invention, construction and production as the
world has never seen. One half of the economic activity in the entire
history of man has taken place under American auspices. If the entire
history of life on earth could be boiled down and put on a screen in a
motion picture that would take 365 days
1
year
running 24 hours a
day, teams of scientists would then take turns watching this history.
This idea that is America would not appear on the screen until 3½1/2 seconds
before midnight on December 31. And, yet, in those 3½1/2 seconds the entire
history of man's relation to man would be changed. An idea, a concept,
of man being the master of government, instead of the servant, would be
created. It would give to all of mankind every place in the world a
hope they had never had. Government's proper function is to restrain.
But that restraint is supposed to be used to protect us from each other
not to interfere with the free rhythms of the marketplace. This system
of free enterprise, sparkplugged by the hope of economic reward, has
lifted more burdens from the backs of more people than any other system
the world has ever known. And yet there are today too many Americans,
and I am afraid this includes some in business and industry, who seem
to have lost faith in this economic system and faith in themselves.
I think it all started with traumatic shock of the Great Depression,
when one-time leaders of world-high finance were going out of skyscraper
windows on a daily basis and other leaders of business and industry were
openly questioning the durability and practicability of the free
enterprise system. What they did was open the door for those who
never had understood, or never had trusted the free enterprise system.
3
S.F. Bay Area Council
And they who stepped in that door and into the breach they started
this nation on an era of social tinkering that has distorted and
disrupted the traditional concept of states' rights and local autonomy
and, much worse, has dramatically altered the people's relationship
with government.
To illustrate that changed relationship I will use a story from
an Eastern newspaper. It was a columnist writing about a welfare
recipient who worked part-time on a farm. One day he yielded to
temptation and stole a smoked ham from the smokehouse. He went to
the grocer and sold it for
$27 and then being on welfare he took
$20 of the $27 and bought $80 worth of Food Stamps he was eligible
to do this as a welfare recipient. With $29 of the $80 worth of food
stamps he bought the ham back and he bought $51 worth of grocers
Then he put the ham back in the smokehouse, And the columnist wrote,
"the grocer had made a profit, the farmer had his ham back, the welfare
recipient had $51 worth of groceries and $7 in cash with no one being
the loser. = No one, unless you ask who paid for the food stamps.
One of the most serious problems confronting us today I think is a
kind of economic illiteracy. Stuart Alsop, writing about his Alma Mater,
Yale, for a commencement speech, said, "Like every other major college,
it is graduating scores of bright young people who deeply despise the
American political and economic system. After graduating, some will
find their way into business and industry and quickly unlearn a lot of
misinformation. But wome will find their way into the communications
media, the foundations, teaching or take appointive posts in government,
even in some of the regulatory agencies where they will make rulings
on the establishment they neither approve of or even believe in.
So we have gone further down the road to substituting government
(free enterprise)
for a system that has given us a higher standard of living than any
people have ever known in any other time and place.
4
S.F. Bay Area Council
With all the doomerying that is going on today, let me interject
just a few figures to show what you, the people of business and industry
and the free enterprise system, have accomplished. Not because of, but
in spite of, government. Ninety-five percent of all the families in
America have a daily adequate intake of nutrients and I think part
of the five percent that don't are on a diet. Ninety-nine percent
have gas or electric appliances, 96 percent have televisions, we own
120 million cars and trucks
and every day when you leave your house
and you are in a hurry to get to the office they're on your street.
We have shared our wealth more widely among our people than was ever
done in any society heretofore known to man. We have more churches,
more libraries, support by voluntary contribution more symphonies, more
operas, more non-profit theaters, and publish more books than all the
rest of the world put together. We have more doctors per thousand
people, more hospitals, and we have produced most of the medicines
discovered in the last four decades. And yet, in the marble halls of
government, plans go forward constantly to impose on or involve
government in every facet of our lives from meeting our material needs
to providing for the arts and to nationalizing health care. I know
that many of us talk of these things and have talked of them for a
long time, as they have grown over the years, and we have made dire
predictions of things to come. Well, we weren't wrong, because those
dire things are at hand. Maybe being in government now I have seen
them more clearly than you have. Government programs multiplying like
the spores of a fungus have brought an inflation that has robbed our
people of their dreams of a good life. Our tax burden approaches one
half of the amount all the toilers in our country can earn. And year
after year demagoguery preached from the podium of politics and even
the halls of academia has created a cynicism and mistrust of all these
institutions that we refer to as the establishment.
S. F. Bay Area Council
Our people in this land are in their season of discontent. One
poll that was taken reveals that the overwhelming majority of the people
think that business makes a profit that averages about 28 percent and
they think that is too high. The same majority thinks that business
should be happy with a 10 percent profit. Business would be ecstatic
with a 10 percent profit since you only average between 4 and 5 percent
and that has been going on for a great many years. A college poll was
taken on more than 2,000 campuses and it found, on a variety of questions,
that from two thirds to three quarters of the students and an even higher
percentage of the faculty blames business for every problem that
troubles us the economic problems, the social inequities. And in
the same numbers they believe that the answer to the problem lies in
government regulating the marketplace from the beginning of manufacturing
to distribution and sales. And they are quite positive in their belief,
also in that poll, that government can do this without in any way
reducing individual freedom, And then, 80 percent of them said they
wanted less government interference in their own lives and they couldn't
see the dichotomy.
Another interesting poll, and one that should give us a clue as
to what our task must be as well as some hope that we may yet succeed
in saving freedom, is a poll that found Americans today are more angry
about taxes and the cost of government than at any time in our nation's
history. Sixty-nine percent of our people are terribly angry and want
something done now. But, this is significant: less than half of the
people polled could name their Congressman and 86 percent of those who
could did not know one policy that he stood for, including his position
on taxes. Even in this distinguished gathering I suspect it might be
less than tactful if I should ask for a show of hands to how many could
name their Congressman or their State Senator or their Assemblyman.
- 6
S.F. Bay Area Council
The dual message contained in this poll is that, first, the people
realized that something has happened to government which threatens
their well-being. And that is a plus for us. And, second, there is a
revelation that they don't understand how to correct what they feel is
wrong. We have to take advantage of this increasing discontent with
government and we have to find ways to enlighten the citizen. Government
by the people will work if the people will work at it.
We had another hopeful sign last week, I hope that all of you will
agree. The House in Washington voted 211 to 204 against a federal land
planning bill. The issue here was not one of environment, it was
whether the federal government would preempt yet another area that
traditionally belonged to the state and to local autonomy. And I think
you should be pleased to know that with only one or two notable
defections in their ranks, our California delegation led the charge
that carried the day. But, let me warn you, we tend to sit back on
an occasion such as that and asy, "Well, we won!" And we assume that
the game is over. Unfortunately, those who would centralize government
into some kind of a federal leviathan never admit that the game is ended,
Right now they are planning how they can take the same bill that was
defeated and hang it as an amendment on some popular non-vetoable bill
as an amendment. Without realizing how it happened, you and I are
always defending against the further growth of government and hailing
our victories when we just created maybe a pause in that continued
growth. We will never really win until we go on the offensive and
start demanding a reduction in government size, power and cost,
demanding a cancellation of some of the things that government is
presently doing. And I believe the people are ready to join such an
effort and they are just waiting for someone to show them the way.
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S.F. Bay Area Council
In a recent Governors' Conference in Seattle, Washington, we
had a panel where they were discussing that now-defeated land planning
bill. In the discussion that followed I expressed a concern that it
might result in the federal government seeking to impose its plans from
Washington---uniform plans on our 50 diverse states. And a Republican
Congressman and a Democratic Senator both rejected this and said that
this wasn't the intent of Congress at all, that the bill only suggested
guidelines. Then not realizing, I think, that he was taking a counter
position, a Democratic Congressman from Texas added, "Well, of course,
you know we have no way of controlling what some bureau or agency
might do when it starts implementing the bill if they pass it." And
that sentence tells the whole story. When Congress adopts a program
there is always a line in the legislation which says the agency
entrusted with carrying out this program shall make such regulations
as it deems necessary.
We are governed by a powerful bureaucracy that is made up of
people who are not elected by the voters and who cannot be voted out
of office by the people. And to a large extent they actually determine
policy in contravention of every principle of representative government.
This has been recognized by Congress as much as the one Congressman
said in Seattle. Most of them say they are helpless to do anything
about it. Those who regulate and enthusiastically vote for more and
bigger government are now frightened, some of them by the leviathan
that they themselves have created.
Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin is so concerned that he has
introduced a bill to do something about it. And at first glance you
say, "that's a hopeful sign." He says that government has grown so
big that the average American can't deal with the endless red tape
and inconsiderate bureaucrats. This is quite a reversal for someone
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S.F. Bay Area Council
who not only voted for everything that created that bureaucracy,
but also voted every time to override the vetoes of the Presidents
when they tried to reduce it. But, unfortunately, the Senator's bill
won't reduce the bureaucracy. The Senator's answer to the whole
problem is to create another bureau complete, with 10 regional boards
to start with, and local advisory boards in every community to help
the citizen find his way through the rest of the bureaucracy.
Congresswoman Edith Green, certainly a distinguished liberal
a woman from Oregon herself a recent convert, however, to this idea
of a fight against bureaucracy, describes the situation best. She
says a federal agency consists of an upper echelon of political appointees
and a vast underlay of permanent civil service bureaucrats, the lower
level
bureaucratic level
runs the show. This means it makes the
regulations, the guidelines, it issues the laws, interprets the contracts,
and lets the grants that are made by the third and fourth-rank officers
who are immune from constituency complaints. Her conversion came after
her office made a study of the Office of Education which
she
later
described as a complete chaos. They will be distributing some $23
billion to educational institutions she said, and no one knew to whom
the grants were given, for what purpose or what the results were. No
wonder Johnny can't read!
Here in Sacramento we have been trying to establish, if we can,
how much federal money is coming into education in the State of California
And we found it absolutely impossible we're up to around $280 million
but we haven't been able to find out where it is going or how much more
there is than that. She described the bureaucracy as a huge adminis-
trative apparatus that operates out of public view and beyond public
control. I'm afraid the Edith Greens and even the Gaylord Nelsons
are too few.
6 I I
S.F. Bay Area Council
At the beginning of this session 11 senators, including our own,
set a new record in the history of American government, because between
them the 11 sponsored measures which would have added $1 trillion to
the present level of federal spending. The bureaucracy is self-
perpetuated. We hear so much about the public's demands on government.
The truth is most of the legislation originates in the bureaucracy.
The various agencies and departments, even at the state level, go
through another bureaucracy the staff of the Legislature. Knowing
that legislators would like to carry bills that they think might be
constructive, they tell them what they need in their departments to
do their jobs better, exert a little more control, and have a little
more power.
There are 30,000 bills introduced each year in the United States
Congress. If every Congressman spent 10 hours per day and you know
that ain't gonna happen at his desk, five days a week for 52 weeks
of the year, he would have to digest more than 11 bills an hour. That
is about 5 minutes each to decide whether it would be aye or nay when
the vote came. The truth is, that other bureaucracy of
personal
and
committee staff in many cases makes the decision for them. One out
of five of the nation's work force is a government employee. Since
government began keeping records in 1892, industrial productivity has
doubled every 25 years. There is no record kept of government's
productivity. But right now if government could just increase its
productivity 3 percent we could cut taxes $12 billion. The general
accounting office says that government spends $15 billion per year
processing a blizzard of paperwork most of it required of you, of
business, And that's really the tip of the iceberg and for someone
to say that you shouldn't worry is like the captain of the Titanic
saying, "Never mind all that ice, it's for the party Saturday night. =
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S.F. Bay Area Council
Government paper work, demanded of small business alone those
businesses of 500 employees or less takes 130 million man hours a
year and adds $50 billion a year to the cost of doing business. The
Federal Registry listing the regulations spawned by these bureaus, is
just a few pages less than the Encyclopedia Britannica, A druggist
in Connecticut says it takes as much time to do the paper work
connected with a prescription as it does to make up the prescription.
A baker in Illinois says, "Even if I could understand all the paper work,
I wouldn't have time to do it." The president of a small investment
house in Indiana spends more than half his time on unproductive minutia
that didn't exist a few years ago and that comes under the guise of
consumer protection. And you can increase the story proportionately
for what is termed "big business," A few years ago a leading drug firm
had to submit about 70 pages of data to the Federal Drug Administration
to get a drug license, The same firm recently loaded a truck with
72,000 pages of data to support its application for the licensing of
one new drug. It is an absolute fact that if penicillin were discovered
today under the present rules, it is very doubtful that it could get
an approval.
You remember the cyclamate story. All the shelves were stripped
of the soft drinks sweetened by cyclamates for dieting purposes.
Millions of dollars were lost as the product was thrown away, and now,
a couple of years later, the Federal Drug Administration says, "We
think maybe we acted hastily and made a mistake," On what did they
base their decision? Well, they fed cyclamates to 20 rats and 3 of
them developed what was suspected to be malignant tumors of the bladder.
But the rats had been fed cyclamates in a quantity that would require
a human being to drink 875 bottles of soft drink a day.
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S.F. Bay Area Council
I will look only to my right on the next example. The Interstate
Commerce Commission in its 85-year history has created 43 trillion
rules regarding rates for the railroads with
no
index.
For
a
half-
century the railroads have said, "We can solve our problems if
government would get out of the way and relieve us of some of the
regulations.' Finally the inevitable happened Amtrak! What
was
the first thing that Amtrak did? Exempt itself from having to obey
the ICC regulations.
One congressman has discovered through his committee that we are
underwriting $4 billion worth of research, and when they investigated
they found we didn't know where the laboratories were, who was working
in them or what the research was.
We know of one research program it costs $249,000. It was
called "The Demography of Happiness." And what do you think we
found out? We found that if you make more money you're happier
than if you make less, if you're healthy you're happier than if
your're sick, and if you're young you're happier than if you're old.
We spent $249,000 to find out that it is better to be young, rich
and healthy than old, poor and sick!
But all of this can be the threats that finally bind the giant
Gulliver and render him helpless. Put another way, they can be the
straws that become the backbreaking load. But the threat to free
enterprise is more imminent than just waiting for the straw that
would break the camel's back.
When we were hit by the energy crunch, the knee-jerk reaction
from government was to demand more government and less freedom. Never
mind that government regulations played a large part in bringing on
the crunch to begin with. The witch hunt was on the search for a
whipping boy. And it took off on cue, and so did the suggested
solutions. They were typical of government.
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S.F. Bay Area Council
They ranged from punitive taxes to government regulation as a public
utility. And this was, I think, most revealing as to their philosophy
government ownership of the oil industry. Well now that is a
provocative thought. They might undertake that and, who knows, it
might turn out to be as efficient and economical as the post office
has been.
The New York Times editorialized vehemently about the oil industry
showing a 50 percent increase in profits. The Times didn't mention
that its own profits had gone up 65 percent, nor did they mention
that when all the scores were in, the oil industry ranked about seventh
in increased earnings among all the major industries.
There is a bill now before Congress that would give government the
authority to place a public member and a government member of its
choosing on the board of each oil company. If that passes
who's next?
Also before Congress is a bill to nationalize health care. Let's not
be fools. I'm fed up with that polite euphemism about nationalized
health service. They mean socialized medicine. Can they socialize
the doctor without socializing the patient? And, finally, there is a
measure from the fertile mind of young Mr. Ralph Nader which has already
passed the House and is now before the Senate. This measure would
create a Consumer Agency with the power to supersede every other
regulatory agency but one in government and with virtually unlimited
authority to set standards for everything produced in this country
and there would be no appeal. I heard a representative of this Consumer
Agency in Washington on a television interview last night on the news.
The word he used over and over again was "mandate." With total disregard
for any individual rights we might have, he spoke of "mandating
standards" for home swimming pools yet, nothing to do with making
them improve the quality of construction, this was mandating the
size and shape so as to make them less subject to possible accidents
like kicking your ankle on the side of the pool or something.
S.F. Bay Area Council
Mandating where, if you had a playground slide into the pool, it
should be placed to lessen the chance of accidents to help the rest
of us. Obviously, or curiously enough, I should say in two areas
alone there would be an exemption to the power of this agency. One
would be television and the other would be organized labor. And
they are beginning already to picket the businesses who have taken
public positions in opposition to this super bureaucracy. The picketing
has already started. Will those businesses fight alone? American
business and industry faces the fight of its life. You have only
heard the beginning of the campaign to charge you with conspiring about
material shortages, inflation and unemployment, reaping windfall
profits at the expense of the consumer and the taxpayer. You can
expect a barrage of bills both at the state legislative level and
in Congress aimed at greater controls and more taxes. And unless
you fight, they '11 make you a kind of second class citizen in a moral
sense and they are succeeding better than you know.
Consider for one moment if your group tonight, before you left
this room, should adopt a resolution that you are going to spend your
resources to elect a government that is beholden to you and to your
interest, what would the public reaction be? What would the
communications media say? Suppose the National Association of
Manufacturers, the California merchants and manufacturers should announce
a campaign to elect a veto-proof Congress, dedicated to their interests
above all others. And yet the hierarchy of organized labor and I
differentiate the hierarchy from the rank and file union members
can announce they have such a plan and such a goal and there is no
outcry, no protest, even though if they should achieve that goal it
would mean the end of our carefully balanced separation of powers.
I think it would be presumptuous of me to go into great specific detail
as to tactics, how you should meet this problem, because I think that
14
S.F. Bay Area Council
together you can find the answers and the ways and many of you have
already started. But heed it you must, because the freedom of all
of us in this country really rides on this particular struggle. One
thing I do know: Daniel Webster was right when he said that government
always justifies its usurpation of freedom on the plea of good
intentions
the intention is always better to serve the citizens
but he warned "In every generation there are those who want to rule
well, but they mean to rule; they promise to be good masters, but
they mean to be masters."
It is time for American business to realize that in this matter
you must be united. No single industry should be left to fight the
battle against oppressive or costly government regulations alone,
No one of us should sit back with a sigh of relief and say "look
what is happening to them, thank God it isn't happening to us. 11
The doctors shouldn't be left alone to fight for their right to
practice their profession in the free marketplace. But above all,
I will get specific and say: the most essential thing is that you
must start bringing the truth to the people because the truth is on
your side. Don't just repeat it to each other by way of your trade
journals. Start telling the people with every means at your command
telling your customers, telling your employees (and usually they 're
one and the same), and, for heaven's sake, tell your own sons and
daughters! I said I wouldn't be specific, I met with a group of
businessmen recently in Akron, Ohio and they locally have already
underwritten and are supporting a chair at Akron University in the
free enterprise system because in most of the economics departments
they find that free enterprise is not being taught, I know that some
industries in America today have combed their ranks for some of their
bright personable young executives, have schooled them and taught them
so they can handle questions and so they can speak, and are making them
15
S.F. Bay Area Council
available as speakers on campuses to talk about the free enterprise
system.
But what about business and industry? What about the leadership
statewide and then nationwide in getting together, talking about these
problems and seeing how we can let one of these things happen without
endangering the security of all? How about the leadership of the
industrial and business community sitting down and asking for a meeting
with the very toughs in the field of communications and pointing out
to them that there has been little defense for business and industry in
the communications media, which could not exist without business today?
How about pointing out to them that we can't have a free society
without a free press, but we sure can't have a free press unless we
have a free society?
But above all, stop being afraid of government
oh,
I
know
it's
a threat but don't be afraid to fight back. Government is still
your servant. They have to be reminded of that every once in a while.
But you should remind them if necessary, like the fellow who kept
getting the mule's attention by hitting him between the eyes with a 2 X 4.
But, when you have to go before a legislative committee, are you aware
that the staffs of congressmen, for example, outnumber the congressman
20 to 1? They're bright young people, many of them fresh from the
campuses. They despise the free enterprise system in many instances.
They do their homework. They work with all the intelligence they have,
and they provide the congressman, before you arrive, with the very
kind of questions that you'd better do your homework on or they 'll
tie you in knots. We were speaking here at the table in a conversation
earliersabout those seven representatives of the oil industry who
received personal abuse before a Senate committee.
- 16 -
S.F. Bay Area Council
And they had been invited, not subpoenaed. I was in conversation
with one of them following that experience and I said something that
I mean with all my heart and I mean it for every businessman. You
who are the heads of businesses should tell those who serve under you,
and who might represent you before those committees, if that kind of
personal abuse takes place you should get up as any citizen has a
right to do and say, "I came at your invitation, I am willing to
cooperate, if that's the way you're going to act I'm leaving and I'll
come back when you're ready to behave as gentlemen."
In 1878 Senator Ben Hill said, "I do not dread industrial
corporations as an instrument of power to destroy this country.
But, there is one corporation that we may all well dread. That
corporation is the federal government. If this great, ambitious,
ever-growing corporation become oppressive, who shall check it?
If it become unjust, who shall trust it? Watch and guard with sleepless
dread that corporation which can make all property and the rights
of all states and people, all liberty and hope its playthings in
an hour, its victims forever."
Thank you.
######
- 17 -
Education - rebellion
generation gap
freedom of choice
inheritance
poverty VS. materialism
dreams & opportunities
QUOTES: John Gordon, Australian Prime Minister
--sacrifices of giant country for
small nations
9
Pope Pius XII
--American genius for splendid and
unselfish action
Remarks by Governor Ronald Reagan
Cal-Poly Commencement Exercises
June 15, 1974
Kennedy:
We have had many notable and distinguished individuals appear
on this campus as commencement speakers. Never in the previous 67
years has a governor of the State of California accepted an invitation
to be a speaker at a commencement exercise on this campus. Our library
archivist tells me that the record shows four other governors have
visited the campus and have spoken informally to small groups. They
include Governor Merriam, Governor Warren, Governor Knight, and Governor
Pat Brown, Sr. This is the third time in eight years- that our speaker
has visited this campus, and I am honored to present as our 1974
commencement speaker, the Governor of the State of California, the
Honorable Ronald Reagan.
Reagan:
President Kennedy. Thank you very much and it is a pleasure to
be back here again on this campus. I am heart and soul in sympathy
with the senior class gift to this campus. I don't know that I will
be around very much longer to do anything about the other, but as
an individual, as long as you have the fund established and the con-
tributions coming in, I would like to join those who contribute.
Reverend clergy, Trustees who are present, members of the admin-
istration, the faculty, the students and friends, and most of all the
members of the graduating class of 1974:
Every speaker on an occasion such as this approaches his task
with mixed emotions. There is, of course, pride and delight at having
been asked to speak and fear lest the remarks be inappropriate to the
occasion. Now I am delighted particularly because your invitation
gives me a chance to prove that it "jest ain't true that I don't set
no store by book learnin'. " As a matter of fact, I believe that with
a good education it is possible to worry about conditions all over
the world. But I also feel that other emotion, concern, whether my
words will add at least a little meaning to this important day in
your lives. Any speaker on any occasion has something of this concern
about the appropriateness of his remarks, and every speaker has at
one time or another known the embarrassment of falling short of
achieving an oratorical triumph. Some time ago, I had the privilege
of representing our government in Mexico City, and I spoke to a large
and distinguished audience there. When I finished, I sat down to very
scattered and unenthusiastic applause. I was embarrassed, and even
more so when the next man up representing the Mexican government and
speaking in Spanish, received the warmest kind of applause at almost
every sentence. To hide my embarrassment, when they started clapping,
I started clapping. I clapped louder and longer than anybody until
our ambassador leaned over and said, "I wouldn't do that if I were you;
he S interpreting your speech."
There is one thing I do know: The world has improved in many
ways since I was on the receiving end of a graduation speech. One
of those improvements has been the abandonment of certain standard
cliches which were tranditionally inflicted on patient graduates with
heavy-handed humor. You are not told anymore on this day that you
know now more than you have ever known before or than you will ever
know again or that the universities are known as storehouses of know-
ledge because the freshman bring so much in and the seniors take so
little out.
And, of course, there was that al1-time standby: "When I was
14 I didn't think my parents knew anything, and when I was 21, I was
amazed at how much the old folks had learned in seven years. "
But I am thankful that some things don't change, especially
about this day. You who are graduating have taken virtually your
entire lives in achieving this moment and to you it seems like a
very long time. But there are others here today, many who share this
day with you, and as they look back it seems as if the journey only
started yesterday. So for everyone, it is a day of nostalyia, of
looking back on a montage of memories, and for you looking ahead,
perhaps a little fearfully, seeking a clue to what the future holds.
Possibly that explains the paradox of calling the day graduation at
the same time we call it commencement.
You are coming into your inheritance, and some of us here worry
about the value you place on that inheritance. I am speaking of the
social order that you will some day have to manage. Some of us here
are concerned that possibly you are confused because certainly there
has never been a time when a people have been so inundated with words
and rhetoric, with opinions pontificated on a daily basis regarding
every facet of our lives. This is the day of the gloom and doom-crier
and the demagogues telling us that long-cherished standards are no
longer relevant, that the moral code is obsolete, and that we no
longer have any valid basis for measuring values.
This, we are told, is the era of the open mind. Sometimes we
wonder if someone hasn't confused an open mind with an empty head.
Be a little on guard against those who would wipe out all tradition
without offering something in its place. Every generation challenges
the mores and customs of the past, and every generation thinks the
preceding generation left the world in a mess. We thought it of our
parents; you think it of us. But today there is something more at work
than just that traditional feeling. There is a growing rebellion
against the concept of order itself and a feeling of guilt on the part
of some of us that we failed to give you a true perspective on this
world you are going to inherit.
Challenge the mores and customs if you will, as every generation
has, but don't carelessly discard all of them wholesale, simply
because they are old. The lasting values which make up what we call
civilization are those things for which men in ages past have always
been willing to die if need be. There are laws governing us which
were not written by man which, therefore, can't be rewritten by man.
We know that three times two is six. Sometimes we find that very
inconvenient, but we can't change it. The moral law which operates
in this year of 1974 was operating in the year 1974 B.C.
Through ignorance and wishful thinking we may vary the inter-
pretation of that law, but the law itself remains unchanged, and no
society can flout it without inviting its own distruction. The
bumper sticker, "If it feels good, do it," may sound attractive at
first reading, but it is a little hard to take if someone decides
that beating you over the head is what makes him feel good. If I
read you correctly, you have some doubt about the true value of this
inheritance. If someone right now were to offer you the world on a
silver platter, particularly right after hearing the evening news,
I'm sure you would take the platter, and no one could blame you.
Even if you decide to escape with a night out at the movies,
you are treated to the sordid and grimy with a few ugly bursts of
violence to keep the plot moving. It's true that all of the problems
of human misery have not been solved. Poverty hasn't been eliminated,
prejudice and bigotry, and inequality of opportunities still exist,
and war--man's greatest stupidity still takes place. It seems that
the noble dreams have gone replaced by greed and frenetic grubbing
for the unimportant material things. That is the world that is
pictured by some. Our industrialized society making workers into
dull-witted robots on the monotony of the assembly line and selling
the consumers into buying standardized inferior gadgetry they really
don't need and most of them don't even want. Over all of this hangs
the threat of a nuclear incineration unless we smother to death first
in our own waste. But picturing the world that way is about as
accurate as the situation of the burglar that broke into the studio
of an avant-garde modern artist, and while he was robbing him, the
artist got a glimpse of him and drew a sketch for the police. Within
a matter of hours the police were able to pick up a vulture, two
baskets of fruit, and a beagle.
First of all, let's take up the matter that I have referred to,
at least the bias with regard to the generation gap. Generations are
not as they have been pictured, structured horizontally with all of
mankind stretched out like a sausage divided into separate slices
by age groups. Mankind is structured vertically with each succeeding
generation finally standing on the shoulders of those who have gone
before, and each generation has a period of overlapping--for example,
from the day that you join us in the continuing effort to solve the
problems until someday you yourselves stand greeting a new generation
on a day like this one.
Now let me make one thing plain. I make no apologies for our
generation, because no generation has ever fought harder or paid a
higher price for freedom than our generation, and none has ever done
more to advance the dignity of man than we have accomplished in a
single lifetime. There have only been a few widely separated moments
in history when a single generation presided over a great period
of transition. Ours was such a generation. We literally went in
our lifetime from the horse and buggy to the moon.
A few years ago, I have to tell you, I had a meeting in Sac-
ramento with a group of student leaders from some of our campuses.
It was not exactly a friendly rap session. One of them finally
burst out and said, "You can't understand our generation,' and I
said: "Well, we know more about being young than we do about being
old." And he said, "No, I'm serious. It is impossible for you to
understand your own sons and daughters because when you were our age,
you didn't live in a world of instant electronic communications, of
space travel, of jet travel, of cybernetics, of computers computing
in seconds what it took men years previously to figure out. Well
that's true. We didn't have those things when we were their age.
We invented them.
Before you let the doom-criers with their prophecies and their
projections convince you there is no future worth anticipating, remem-
ber that part of your inheritance is freedom of choice that gives you
some control over your own destiny. With regard to those projections,
what we can expect in the years to come? In 1929 Herbert Hoover
appointed a commission to plot out a 20-year projection for the
United States. Five hundred researchers worked for three or four
years. By this time Franklin Delano Roosevelt had been elected, and
in 1932 they handed to him 13 volumes; 1600 pages on just a summary
alone. In all of those words, there was not one word about atomic
energy, jet propulsion, antibiotics, or transistors, and yet all of
those things came into being before 1952. So don't lower the life
boats and abandon ship just yet.
If we could condense the history of life on earth down to a
single year and put it on a film that would run 24 hours a day, for
365 days, this idea we call America wouldn't appear until 3½ seconds
before midnight on the final day of December 31.
In those 3 1/2 seconds, a totally new concept of society would come
into being--a concept that would swiftly become the golden hope for
mankind all over the world. The philosophy that was dominated by
government would in those 3½ seconds be replaced with the idea that
government is the servant of man, created by man for his own conven-
ience.
Now I will admit that we have to be constantly on guard to keep
government from becoming an inconvenience, and I suggest you keep
that in mind. But under this concept, the genius of the individual
man was freed to perform such miracles of invention, construction,
and production as the world had never seen.
In those 3½1/2 seconds, one-half of all the economic activity in
the history of mankind would take place here in this country. Mass
production and standardization that some find so distasteful has for
the first time made the products of our technology available not just
to the aristocracy, but to the toilers who manufacture them.
A socialist country would give their copies of Karl Marx for our
standardization and our assembly lines. For standardization means
products for the masses and the assembly lines have freed the worker
from back-breaking drudgery which for centuries had kept him at an
almost animal like existence. Where but in highly-industrialized
America will you find the variety of things to buy, the variety of
jobs and the variety of leisure pursuits.
It is time to read the will, to tell you what we have done with
your inheritance while it was in our custody and what you will inherit.
If I may put it in a somewhat personalized way, I have already lived
10 years longer than my life expectancy when I was born, which is a
source of annoyance to a great many people.
But medical research, most of it voluntarily supported in this
country, has eliminated diseases that have plagued mankind for gen-
erations, killing and maiming. Today you hardly recall the names of
those diseases.
When I was born, two-thirds of the people in this country lived
in substandard housing and 90 percent lived below what today we consider
the poverty line. Both figures are now less than 10 percent. When I
was young, this nation didn't even realize it had a racial problem.
I can't tell you that we have totally erased bigotry and pre-
judice from every heart, but I can tell you that in our lifetime we
have opened doors that have been closed and barred for a hundred years.
When I graduated from college, I became a sports announcer. I
broadcast major league baseball. I didn't have any Hank Aaron S and
Willie Mays to talk about. It's hard to realize that just these few
years ago the official Baseball Guide at that time defined baseball as
a game for Caucasion gentlemen.
Well, that wasn't good enough for us. We editorialized, and we
campaigned, and we worked, and we changed it, and we not only made
baseball better for it, we made America better for it because we
changed other things and opened professions and ungentlemenly gentle-
men's agreements have been outlawed.
Among other things, a higher percentage of the young people of
our minority communities today will go- to college in America than
the sons and daughters of the majority in every other country in the
world. You will work fewer hours for a higher standard of living,
have more opportunities for personal advancement and enjoyment than
any people who ever lived.
As for the poverty that we haven't totally eliminated, 95 percent
of the families have an adequate minimum daily intake of nutrients in
this country, and I think part of the 5 percent who don't are on a
diet. 99 percent of the homes in America have gas or electric ap-
pliances; 96 percent of them have TV.
There's an automobile for every two people, and they're all on
your street every time you are in a hurry to get someplace.
Ninety-eight percent of American women have their babies in
hospitals with a doctor in attendance, and in most countries, they have
them at home with only a midwife.
If someone says "this is just proof of our materialism," well,
that materialism has made you the biggest, the healthiest generation
that ever lived. You know more, you travel farther, and you'll live
longer than any people in history. But we pass on to you more than
that.
You inherit a society that is characterized by such compassion
that we are unique in all the world. We have distributed our wealth
more widely among our people than was ever done by any other society.
We have taxed ourselves more heavily than any other people to help
mankind worldwide.
John Gordon, the Australian Prime Minister a few years ago said:
"I wonder if anybody has ever thought what the situation of the com-
paratively small nations in the world would be if that giant country
hadn't been
prepared to make so many sacrifices.
"
And after taxing ourselves to do these things, we support educa-
tion and provide the less fortunate with voluntary contributions that
total 25 billion dollars a year.
Fifty million Americans average several hours each week as volunteers
in the same causes.
The society you inherit has more churches, libraries, supports
voluntarily more symphonies, more operas, more non-profit theatres
and publishes more books than all the rest of the world put together.
We have more doctors per thousand people, more hospitals, and a
third of all the young people in the world who are getting a college
education are getting it in the United States.
Beware of those who would have you exchange your inheritance
for some super planned Utopia. What they have in mind would probably
end up a society in which everything that wasn't prohibited would be
compulsory.
You are heirs of the noblest experiment in freedom that was
ever devised by the mind of man.
We wonder sometimes if you know how easy it is for our generation
to understand how very much more you want out of life than a 9 to 5
routine, that you want more of a goal than just requiring a means to
stay alive. A scholar has written that the young of any generation
have felt the same impulse to grow, to reach out, to touch the stars,
to live freely, to let their minds loose along unexplored corridors.
"Young men and women, 11 he said, "have always stood on some hill
and felt the same sudden and complete expansion of mind to the final
fulfillment." It is one of the oldest, the sweetest, and the most
bitter experience of mankind.
So bring your dreams and your idealism and we'll renew ours from
yours. Perhaps we can help you learn that the dream and the practical
go together, that either one without the other can become a very dreary
thing indeed.
Water must be brought down from the hills, and the sewers must
flow, and the sick be tended, and all the intricate meshing of harvest
and manufacture and transportation take place or there would be no
time for dreams.
Don't let anyone tell you there are no opportunities; they're
limitless, even in the workaday business world. Millions of splendid,
concerned Americans are quietly going about, their business of being
good neighbors; in the field of environment; salvaging human beings
who have failed to keep up with the parade, or who need to find a
way back from drugs or from crime.
Our system has been tempered and tried by war and every kind of
adversity, but the dream has been preserved by men and women of uncommor
stature and uncommon devotion.
On occasions there are misdeeds, but they can't kill the dream
of truth and justice, the dream of Camelot if you will. Now and then
some have failed the dream--the dream has never failed us, and Camelot
is never finished.
The tools for adding to it are handed by the old to the young
on days like this with a hope that you'll do better than we have done
and that you will learn as we learned the joy of continued building.
We in this country have had a rendevous with destiny since the first
Pilgrim set foot on this soil.
In the days right after World War II when American power and
American economic strength were all that stood between the world and
a return to the dark ages, Pope Pious XII said: "The American people
have a genius for splendid and unselfish action. Into the hands of
America, God has placed the destinies of an inflicted mankind."
Well, mankind is still inflicted, and he has no place to turn
except to us. That's our rendevous with destiny, a rendevous that we
can, keep only if we realize our own capacity for greatness and keep
constantly in mind the real value of our inheritance.
####
Inflation
'74 Campaign Philosophy
Middle East
Demo. grandstanding at
Congressional level
10
REMARKS BY GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
WESTERN WINNERS' ROUNDUP
Los Angeles
June 22, 1974
I know that you are gathered here at a time in which it
seems as if we are trying to come up from under water. (Laughter)
I'll get around to the rest of the term later
I'll use the full
term in a minute. But there are other things, troubled times,
inflation. Sometimes I think we can no longer afford the wages
of sin. Dollars to donuts aren't very good odds and if somebody
offered you the world on a silver platter you would take the platter.
I have been getting around the country somewhat
not as much as some
of our opponents would have you believe
sometimes it has been a fast
in and out on a weekend. But it has been very inspiring to meet
with Republicans around the country, and in almost every instance
to find that the particular affair, the fundraising dinner or whatever
is taking me there, has been setting records in spite of all this
trouble for that particular event, they have had a greater turnout.
Now I know there are many disillusioned Republicans, and many who are
pouting and sitting at home. I think some of you have heard this
story before, but back in New England I heard a story that I think
should be the story or the watchword for the Republican Party. It
was about the little old lady who went to her doctor and came out of
the doctor's office and right down the street as fast as she could
and reregistered Democrat. When she did so the Registrar said,
"Tillie, I don't know how you can do this, you have been a Republican
all of your life, as your parents and your grandparents in this
community before you were," and she said, "I have just come from the
doctor and he tells me my time is near and I figured if somebody's
got to go, better it's one of them."
Western Winners' Roundup
We are supposed to believe that we are responsible for the
present inflation, that somehow it has come along with a Republican
administration. But inflation, if only we would remember back a
little in history, was adopted by the New Deal, the Fair Deal,
and it has come back to us as the New Economics, the New Frontier,
and the Great Society and all of the years that this has been told
to us as the New Economics
some thing that would maintain prosperity
we have been against it. We have tried to point out over the years
that inflation was like radioactivity, it was cumulative and that it
was just as toxic, and that someday it would get out of hand, you
could not go on year after year and control this all the way down.
And now we have one of those instances where we have to say that a
Democratic Congress in both Houses in Washington has opposed every
effort that a Republican administration has made to try and get a
handle on inflation and to cure it. They have tried in every way
even to getting court decisions with regard to the impoundment of
funds. They have tried everything they can to
when he wanted to
eliminate the OEO, right back in Congress they said, "No, they are
not going to do anything of the kind." Inflation is caused by
government spending. And it is a very curious thing with our
"Cut, Squeeze and Trim" at the state level, government spending at
the federal level and deficit spending is the cause of inflation,
but whether it is a coincidence or not, for the several years prior
to our administration, prior to 1967, the inflation rate, the cost
of living index in California, was higher than it was in the rest of
the nation. For 6 of the last 7 years it has been lower in California
under "Cut, Squeeze and Trim" than it has been at the national level.
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Now I will finish that first term: "WaterGATE", Our
opponents would like to have us itching and scratching. For
a year and a half now we have been submerged and subjected to
a daily around-the-clock barrage of accusations, innuendos and
unsubstantiated charges until we come to expect that every statement
and every unnamed source is proof positive of guilt. To the
candidates here in the room, I know you must be thinking, "how
do I deal with them, what do I say?" Well, if I could suggest
something and be presumptious, I would like to point out that
there is a way to handle it. But, first of all, I think that all
of us as Republicans have got to recognize that if we don't handle
it, if we don't face up to it, what can happen to us. In Pennsylvania
there was a special election to fill a vacant seat in Congress. The
Democratic vote was within one percent of what it had been in the
1972 election; 32 percent of the Republicans stayed home. We lost
by 122 votes. Now since that election the poll reveals that most
of the people that stayed home believed that their candidate was
the best man but they just wanted to show their resentment about
Watergate. Well, we are all upset about Watergate. It was an
illegal, it was an immoral act and it was very stupid, incredibly
stupid. And the time, I think, has come to put it in proper
prospective. Now those who committed the actual break-in were
apprehended, they have been tried and convicted and are undergoing
punishment. It has been determined that others were involved, they
have been indicted and some of them have been sentenced and some of
them have served their sentences already and are being released.
And it is also before the Congress in the manner prescribed by the
Constitution. And I think all that the rest of us have to say in any
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Western Winners Roundup
election, or any other time, is "look, this system of ours is
working, it is before the courts, it is before the Congress of the
United States, and there is no reason for anyone to comment now ex-
cept to say that we will presume that all are innocent unless and
until proven guilty beyond any doubt. #
But, in the meantime, we ought to suggest also that we get on
with the business of government. And with regard to the election
that is going to take place now, we have a right to know more about
our Democratic opponents who are running for office and what they
think about Watergate. I think we have a right to know their views
on all of the issues. The issues at the national level for those who
are Congressional candidates and the issues here at the state level.
I don't believe that they are very eager to talk about those issues.
Because very frankly, they would not like their own rank and file
membership to be reminded that their party leadership still stands
for the things that the people of this country overwhelmingly voted
against just a couple of years ago two years ago in 1972. You have
never known an election in your lifetime in which the issues were more
clearly defined. And never have the American people crossed party
lines in such an overwhelming number to make it plain that they do
not believe that their hopes and aspirations can be realized under the
philosophy of the present Democratic leadership. Now the Republicans
have a responsibility in the coming campaign to see that a different
philosophy is held up to view SO that people can choose not just
between party labels, but between party beliefs, and which set of
beliefs matched their own hopes and dreams, Sometimes I wonder if it
is really Watergate that bothers our opponents or if it is our resistance
to their continual social tinkering. For 40 years they have been
dreaming up new programs, always with the promise that each one will
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Western Winners' Roundup
solve the problems of human misery, and, of course, the programs
always fail. But that doesn't bother them; they thrive on failure.
If the programs ever succeeded it would put them out of business.
Problems are their whole reason for being. Now noone will deny
that political campaigns must concern themselves with the record
of past performance as well as proposals for future action. And
Watergate, politically speaking, therefore is a part of the record.
We can only turn to the troubles of the Middle East, and I don't
know how many people realize how close this nation was to Armageddon,
much closer than any of us realized. Most of the world leaders shut
their eyes and pretended the problem would go away if they didn't
look. If you will remember some of them, some of our allies even
cowardly refused to allow us to refuel supply planes on their way
to Israel for fear they might in some way get involved. It was
going to be Armageddon. But step by step it was the United States
that didn't turn its back or look the other way. We brought about a
cease-fire, a retreat from confrontation, a meeting of the enemies
around a negotiation table for the first time in this quarter of a
century, and finally an agreement was announced between Syria and
Israel no too long ago and Henry Kissinger, who brought tha t back,
for all of his brilliant work, would be the first to say he was
carrying out the policy of the President of the United States, And
now the President has gone there, and whatever they may want to say
about it, the strategy in the Middle East was very simple: for all of
these years the United States has preserved a little nation of a million
and a half by supplying it with the military materiel it needed. A
hundred million people, surrounding that million and one half, were
under a Soviet influence receiving supplies from the Soviet. Our 6th
Fleet was in the Mediterranean. In a circle out around that area
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Western Winners' Roundup
hovered the Soviet Union and the Communist nations of the world.
As long as our presence could keep them outside of that line, that
little country of a million and a half could preserve itself against
this hundred million regardless of how it was outnumbered. How long
could this situation prevail before that outer ring was breached?
The President by his trip has simply replaced the Soviet Union as
an influence in the Arab Nations and now it is the United States
that can bring hope to them.
And he comes home, and if you look at some of the media you almost
are inclined to forget already that he has been away. Right now in
spite of the energy crisis, part of the record, we have the lowest
unemployment that we have had in peace time in this country in more
than 40 years. For the last 20 years the Democratic majority in both
Houses of Congress could have solved many of the problems they are now
complaining about in this campaign year. They could have halted the
unbroken increase in inflation all the way up until 1964 and '65 at
which time it began to skyrocket and go out of control with the
Vietnam War and the "Guns and Butter" policies of the Great Society.
Now, in this election year, they have the gall to grandstand that
they are proposing tax cuts of around $6 billion. Some of those
Senators who are talking about the tax cut were part of a group of
11 Democratic Senators who in the beginning of this session set a
new American record. Between them they advocated and some sponsored
spending measures that totalled more than one trillion dollars
and both Democratic Senators from the State of California were among
the 11. They weep crocodile tears about the tax strcuture, which
they say has loopholes benefiting the rich. Why haven't they changed
it? They are in charge, they have the numbers to do it. We might
help them if they would really set about to change it. How about
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Western Winners' Roundup
just simplifying the income tax so that a worker doesn't have
to employ legal help to find out how much he owes. We live in
the only country in the world where it takes more intelligence to
figure out your tax than it does to earn the income in the first
place. Here in our own state, with the campaigns that are going
on here, for those of you who are going to be candidates, let's
remind the people that it was Republicans who introduced legislation
that would require the legislature to send back to the governor a
balanced budget or a tax bill to pay for it if it is out of balance,
just as the governor is now required to send a balanced budget
upstairs in the first place. Or also, failing that, that anyone
proposing a spending bill should have to propose a means for raising
money to pay for it at the same time. Also we proposed to them a
bill that would require any spending legislation to contain in it
an estimate of the spending for the next four years SO that we
can get away with those dollar
down
and you will find out how
much it cost later
bills. All of those bills introduced in this
present session were killed in the first committee.
(end of
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Government encroachment -
loss of personal freedom
QUOTE: Daniel Webster
--Rulers promise to be good
masters but mean to master
REMARKS BY GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
Lions Convention -- San Francisco
July 3, 1974
Mr. President, officials, fellow members of Lions, I'm honored
to welcome you to this 57th International Convention, welcome you
here to California, particularly to the beautiful City of San Francisco.
I hope that while you are here you have some time outside of the Convention
to see some of the beauties of our state, if this is your first time to
visit here.
I said fellow Lions, and I was introduced as an honorary member of
my home town, and I was at first a little suspicious and wondered though
they didn't make me a Lion until I left town.
I have a special word here for those visitors from other countries.
It is nice that you could be here without waiting for Henry Kissinger to
visit you. He has decided that the definition of an underdeveloped country
anymore is one he hasn't visited. He does get around. Bob Hope told me
the other day that he was in Paris at the airport when three planes landed
right in succession and Henry got off all of them.
But this is a wonderful opportunity, at least for a few minutes, to
communicate. I hope that American baseball is understood by enough of you
from other countries here that you will understand this little example of
communication. I heard a pretty good example of how important it is that
and responding
you not only have someone speaking, but someone listening/when you communicate
One of our former professional football players here in this country
was visiting a young friend of his who played on one of our big league
baseball teams
a young man and his young wife. They had a little baby.
He was having dinner with them and the young housewife was hustling around
getting the dinner ready and the baby started to cry. And, she turned to
her husband on the way through the room and said, "Change the baby."
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Lions Convention
And he said, "What do you mean, change the baby? I'm a ball player,
hat's not my line of work." She turned around, put her hands on her
hips, and she communicated. She said, "Look, buster, you lay the diaper
out like a diamond, you put second base on home plate with the baby's
bottom on the pitcher's mound, hook up first and third, slide home
underneath, and if it starts to rain, the game ain't cancelled, you
start all over again."
But seriously, it is a pleasure to have you here and especially
those of you who are from other states and other nations. The fine work
of your members in helping the blind through the White Cane Project, and
the other programs that are well known and appreciated by all who know it.
In fact, the scope of your many activities is an impressive demonstration
of what active and concerned citizens can accomplish by working together.
Your efforts are helping to make this a better world for everybody.
I know that you are an international organization, but tomorrow is
a special day for America
the 4th of July
it
is our 198th anniversary
as a nation. And, if you will pardon me just being a little chauvinistic
now, I would like to say that Americans take great pride in the work of an
organization such as the Lions and the other service clubs. The idea of a
service club helping to solve problems through voluntary action, we feel,
is a part of our country's tradition. And, it might well be that one of
America 's most significant contributions to the rest of the world has
been that the fraternal groups, so many of which have their origin here
in this country, have spread to become world-wide organizations.
The people around this globe have discovered the real meaning of
brotherhood through such things as helping the blind, which you do, helping
crippled children, educating the disadvantaged, and any number of good works
and compassion from one human being to another. And because this help stems
from the humanitarian concern for people, it represents something very
special and very precious, especially in today's world when there is so
Lions Convention
much cynicism and distrust.
When we look back through history, we find that all of the really
great things achieved down through the ages were not accomplished by the
cynics but by those who had an abiding faith in man and his potential
for goodness. This optimistic view is not confined to any single nation
or group of nations.
There was a Frenchman, Pasteur, who did most for the world in diseases
associated with contaminated milk and then the work was so limitless; then
the good work of a Polish woman, Madam Curie; the scientist who discovered
penicillin was an Englishman, but he shared his life-saving miracle drug
with all who were afflicted. America has contributed a vaccine which has
virtually wiped out Polio as a crippling disease among the children around
the world. These types of medical advances have always been generously
shared by nations throughout the world because we know that sickness knows
90 national boundaries. If we could translate to our political institutions
the unselfish, humanitarian cooperation of medicine's achievements, we could
stop worrying about keeping the peace because we would also eliminate all
threats to peace.
This is why I believe that organizations such as yours are so important.
They represent not a formal exchange of governmental positions and programs
but a direct contact between people. I don't mean to minimize the importance
of government performing those functions which are the legitimate concern of
government. But, it seems that in our lifetime, we have seen man begin what
seemed to be a climb for more freedom for the invividual, and then we have
seen in our lifetime, disappointingly, a kind of turn away from this. And,
under the stress of great problems of wars and depressions, once again we
see man turning to government for the answer to all his problems turning
O an agency whose only power is that of force and coercion.
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Lions Convention
I have become interested in history particularly in these last
several years. I learned that in ancient Greece there was a city-state
and when any individual proposed a law or a program for government, he
had to do so with a rope noose around his neck tied to a limb of a tree
and standing on a chair. And, if the people approved the law that he
proposed, they removed the noose. If they disapproved, they removed the
chair. And I can assure you that in these last several years with 5,000
pieces of legislation introduced in our state's capitol each year
30,000
in the nation's capitol
I
have developed a morbid fascination with the
stories of ancient Greece.
There was an Englishman, Parkinson, who warned us in his well known
book that governments always tend to increase in size and power. I think
he illustrated that by pointing out that government hires a rat catcher
and the first thing you know he has become a rodent control officer and
be has no intention of getting rid of the rats
they have become his
reason for being. But I am speaking
and he was speaking
of the
permanent structure of government, the bureaucracy that tends to grow.
And, he reminded us in his writings, government is
/not always a howling success in doing those things, solving those problems
which men and women are individually able, and willing to solve if they
are given the chance.
For example, here in America, I won't name the other country, we
laughed recently when the press reported a story of how a government
bureaucracy in another country met a simple problem involving a holiday.
It was hardly bureaucracy's finest hour. It seems that in this country
they issued an edict
the edict said, "Because Christmas Eve falls on
Thursday, Thursday has been designated a Saturday for work purposes. The
factories will be closed all day with stores open half a day only. Friday
as been designated as Sunday, with both factories and stores closed all day.
Monday will be Wednesday for work purposes. Wednesday will be a business
Friday and Saturday will be Sunday and Sunday will be Monday. "
Lions Convention
Now, as I say, we here in America thought that was pretty funny.
ut, let me just read something our own bureaucracy was responsible for
Section 509 of our Internal Revenue Service Code which has to do with our
American income tax
says, "For purposes of Paragraph 3, an organization
described in Paragraph 2 shall be deemed to include an organization described
in Section 501c, subparagraphs 4, 5 or 6, which would be described in
Paragraph 2 if it were an organization described in Section 501c 3."
Would you believe me when I tell you only government could come up
with something like that? And, I am trying to admit that here in America
we live in the only country in the world where it takes more intelligence
to figure out your income tax than it does to earn the income.
The frightening thing is, not too long ago
to show you how this can
happen
a poll was taken here on our universities, on thousands of
universities, tens of thousands of college students. And, we found
hat these students were in agreement, in overwhelming percentages,
76 percent of them believed that all our problems are caused by American
businessmen and women, our business structure. And, they felt that the
answer to this was government must take over and regulate and control
these businesses. And, by the same percentage, three-fourths of them
did not believe that this would involve loss of anyone's personal freedom
if government took this action. But, then 80 percent of them, in the same
poll, said they wanted government to quit interfering in their private
lives. So, all of us
have seen government programs multiply like
spores of a fungus, bringing a worldwide inflation with all its attendant
misery.
A distinguished Congresswoman here in our country from Oregon, Edith
Green, has described the bureaucracy at the federal level as a huge
dministrative apparatus which operates out of public view and beyond
public control. Those of you who are small businessmen here in our country
know that you spend 130 million man hours a year at a cost added to business
Lions Convention
of $50 billion just making out government forms, filling out government
paperwork, and then government spends another $15 billion finding some-
place to put that paper.
We have a Federal Registry that lists all our government regulations.
It is almost as big as the Encyclopedia Britannica. A druggist in our
State of Connecticut says it takes as much time to do the paperwork
connected with a prescription as it does to make out the prescription.
A baker in Illinois says even if he could understand all the paperwork,
he wouldn't have time to do it. A president of a small investment house
in the State of Indiana says he spends more than half his time on unproductive
minutia that didn't exist a few years ago and which comes under the guise
of consumer protection. And, you can increase the story if you move from
small business to big business.
A few years ago, a leading drug firm in this country had to submit
about 70 pages of data to the Federal Drug Administration to get a drug
license. The same firm recently sought to get a new drug license and had
to take a truckload of 72,000 pages of data to support their application.
If penicillin were discovered today, I am doubtful that we would get approval.
And, of course, when they get going with these, as Parkinson said, we
have one regulation here applying to small businessmen that recently told
a California businessman that he had to install separate men's and women's
washrooms in his place of business for his employees. He only has one
employee and at home they share the same bed and bath because he is
married to her.
Recently, we discovered we're spending about $4 billion in this
country at government level on scientific research. I am not going to
say that's all bad, but we did find one called "The Demography of Happiness,"
nd for $249,000 the researchers finally learned that "If you earn more
you are happier than if you earn less, if you are young, you are happier
than if you are old, and, if you are well, you are happier than if you are
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Lions Convention
sick' $249, to find out that it's better to be rich, young, and
healthy than poor, old, and sick.
When man has been free to pursue his own purposes wherever in the
world, we have seen miracles of inventions, production, and construction.
Men and women have demonstrated as you here demonstrate, that along with
this freedom has gone a compassion for their fellow man. But as a great
jurist in our own country once said, "If freedom dies in the heart of man,
if it dies there, no government, no constitution, no court, no laws can
restore it." One of our early statesmen, a great defender of the Constitution,
Daniel Webster, said, "Government always justifies its usurpation of freedom
on the plea of good intentions the intentions to better serve the citizen."
"But," he warned, "in every generation there are those who want to rule well,
but they mean to rule. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to
be masters."
I hope you will pardon me for taking these few minutes of your time and
the advantage of your invitation to speak of these things. But, you already
know from your own activities in this organization what cooperation and
dedication can achieve within your own communities and within society as a
whole. Cooperation is voluntary. We all live with the hope that such
cooperation can one day be expanded to world communities.
And, today, in various parts of the world the heads of states gather
together in what are referred to in the press as summit meetings
and this
is a legitimate function of government. We wish them well. They meet in
an effort to broaden the areas of international cooperation between govern-
ments.
Well, we can help. Their task will become infinitely easier, with
a greater chance of success, if the peoples they represent have forged, as
ou have forged, friendships across international borders from people to
people. But we can impress on them then that we can offer this help better
if they will recognize that man must be as free as an individual can be,
Lions Convention
consistent with an orderly society. If I could give one word of
admonition it would be, don't risk having to face your children or
your children's children someday when they ask, "Where were you and
what were you doing on the day that freedom was lost?"
I know that you have a busy agenda and, again, welcome to California
and continue on the noble course that you have set for yourselves because
you truly are a service club and you truly serve all mankind. For that
we thank you. God bless you.
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