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Speeches - Miscellaneous (including scripts), 1964-1974 [March 1970-December 1971]
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Speeches - Miscellaneous (including scripts), 1964-1974 [March 1970-December 1971]
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Ronald Reagan's Governor's Papers of the Press Unit
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 - Miscellaneous (including scripts),
1964-1974 [March 1970-December 1971]
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/
02/5/21
THE ORME SCHOOL
(GRADUATION OF
PATRICIA REAGAN)
COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS
BY
GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
JUNE 1970
Having a personal involvement in this ceremony, I shall, with
hope in my heart, reject the cynical definition that educa-
tional institutions are storehouses of knowledge because the
freshmen bring so much in and the seniors take so little out.
The world has undergone many changes, most for the good, not
the least of which is the abandonment of some of the standard
cliches which by custom and tradition are a part of every com-
mencement address.
There was a time when the speaker was expected to tell the
graduates on this day that they knew more than they had ever
known before or than they would ever know again. The next
light hearted pearl was to pronounce: "When I was fourteen I
thought my father didn't know anything, but by the time I had
reached twenty-one I was amazed at how much the old gentleman
had learned in seven years. "
With all the change, however, some things remain the same.
You have taken almost an entire lifetime to achieve this mo-
ment and, as you look back from this day, the journey seems
very long. But to some of us here, it seems the journey started
only yesterday.
This is a day for mixed emotions, for looking back with nostalgia,
and looking ahead, seeking a clue as to what the future holds. I
suppose this explains the paradox of calling this day "graduation"
at the same time we call it a "commencement". But it's a special
kind of day when it's appropriate that you should take inventory
of your inheritance, the world, and the social structure you 11
be taking over in such a very short time.
Almost all of you are going on with your education to colleges
and universities throughout the land, and this brings me to one
of the changes in this day a new kind of worry that many of us
feel.
There was a time when our worries had only to do with how you'd
fare in college whether you'd make good, and whether we could
afford it. Now we're concerned as to whether we've given you a
foundation which will stand up under an assault by some who in-
terpret their right to teach as an obligation to shape your
thinking so as to reflect their own beliefs. This, too, is part
of the changing world. There was a time when to do this would be
-2-
a violation of the highest canons of the teaching profession,
when teachers rejected the idea of indoctrinating students with
a particular viewpoint. Their aim then, and I'm sure for many
professors now, was and is to teach you how to think, rather
than what to think.
I recall the professor who shepherded me through four years to
a degree in Economics and, as I look back now, I discover I
haven't a single clue as to which of the major political parties
he belonged to, or what his personal views were on partisan
matters.
Now this isn't to say that we should impose such a blanket res-
triction on teachers that they should hide their viewpoint to
the extent of not even wearing a campaign button for the candi-
date of their choice. As a matter of fact, right at the moment,
I feel rather kindly toward people who wear campaign buttons,
and will even send them a button upon request.
But there is a "time, place, and manner, requiring exercise of
judgment. Suppose for example a student in a class in mathe-
matics should ask the professor for his opinion on some current
national policy or some political dispute. It is possible the
professor, under certain circumstances, could answer that question
in class without risk of unduly influencing his students. But it
would be better if he suggested that those interested in his view-
point remain after class or meet him on the campus. Then he could
give his opinion and give his reasons for taking that position.
At the same time, however, if he was a really good professor, he
would advise them to find someone of a different view and seek to
learn that person's reasons for thinking as he did. Having urged
them to inquire as to differing viewpoints, the good professor
would then suggest they make up their own minds on the basis of
all they had heard and all they had learned.
I'm sure there are still many professors like that. But as a
Regent of one of the great university systems in this land, I have
come to know from first hand experience that the "now" generation
which prides itself on telling it "like it is" is being told in
too many Social Science classes the way it is not. The American
system is portrayed in those classes as being so unjust and in-
adequate as to be beyond repair. Advocates of change and revolu-
tion assail something they call "The Establishment, and suddenly
many of us who thought of ourselves just as parents to be tolerated
discover that we are "The Establishment," motivated by greed and
only poorly concealed by hypocrisy. The result has been a bitter
polarization--a separation of the generations, with young people
particularly complaining of an inability to communicate. However,
it is possible you have communicated better than you know. We do
understand your complaints, and we agree with their legitimacy.
-3-
The world you will inherit in a few more years is less than
perfect. Poverty hasn't been eliminated, prejudice and in-
equality of opportunity still exist. War, man's greatest
stupidity, still takes place. This we freely admit, but let me
make this plain: I have no intention of apologizing for our
generation.
In our lifetime we have fought harder and paid a higher price
for freedom than any people who ever lived. At the same time,
we have done more to advance the dignity of man than any people
in any similar period of time.
The cry "revolution now" is heard on many of our campuses.
Frankly, it has little meaning for us--indeed it sounds some-
what foolish for we presided over the greatest economic and
social revolution the world has ever known. We were born with
a life expectancy ten years less than I have already lived.
Diseases which had plagued mankind for centuries past, diseases
that killed and maimed, have been so totally eliminated by our
efforts and research that it is difficult to even remember
their names. We were born at a time when two-thirds of us
lived in sub-standard housing and ninety percent of us lived
below what is called the poverty line. In our lifetime we
have reduced the number of people living in sub-standard
housing to less than ten percent, and less than eleven percent
are today considered poor.
A student challenged the other day that we are unable to under-
stand you--our sons and daughters--because in our youth we
didn't have the miracles of instant electronic communication,
nuclear power, space exploration, and jet travel. That's
right, we didn't have those things- we invented them!
With regard to another sickness plaguing our world, we took up
where the Second World War left off. We met head on, a racial
problem no people had ever dared tackle before. In my first
year out of college, I broadcaste major league baseball. But
there were no Willie Mays or Hank Arrans to thrill us with their
great ability. The opening line of the official guide read:
"Baseball is a game for caucasion gentlemen. " Many of us cover-
ing sports editorialized and fought to change that. We haven't
erased prejudice and bigotry from every heart, but we've opened
doors that had been closed and barred for a hundred years. From
an almost zero start we can point today to thirty percent of all
the employed Negroes holding jobs that are classified high status.
In the last decade alone, their employment in white collar jobs
has increased fifty percent, and almost the same is the case in OF
skilled craftsmen or foreman type positions jobs which were once
-4-
denied them at the time of our birth and later. Today, a
higher percentage of our young Negro men and women go to
college in the United States than the percentage of Whites
in any other country in the world.
It surprises us that anyone can honestly believe that parading
pickets and demonstrations are necessary to remind us of our
responsibility to our fellow man. Now there is an ugly war,
and part of our failure to communicate seems to be an assump-
tion that we don't find the war repugnant or that somehow our
love of peace lacks fervor. We have looked upon war four times
in the course of our lives and have learned to hate it. At
the same time, however, we had to learn an age old truth. There
are things of lasting value for which men must be willing to
die. Have you ever wondered what this world would be like if
young men had not been willing to bleed their dreams and hopes
and lives into the sand of Omaha Beach, the mud of Normandy, or
a thousand atolls and jungle islands in the Pacific a quarter
of a century ago? No one has ever been able to visualize his
parents as they were when they were young and, somehow, that's
too bad. I wish you could have known those older men in our
life, who are getting a little thin on top and thick in the
middle, as they were in World War II when General Marshall called
them, "Our secret weapon--the best damned kids in the world".
Winston Churchill said they were the only soldiers he'd ever
seen who were able to laugh and fight at the same time. Per-
haps it's difficult for you, seeing them now, to realize how
deeply they could feel and how great was their sorrow when they
said last farewells. They didn't take war lightly.
I remember reading a citation in the general orders of the Eighth
Air Force--an award for heroism above and beyond the call of duty.
A B-17 bomber, one of our flying fortresses, had been badly da-
maged by antiaircraft fire on a raid over Europe. The ball turret
beneath the belly of the plane had taken a direct hit and was
jammed in such a way it was impossible to get the wounded gunner
out and back into the plane. As the crippled bomber headed out
over the channel on its return to England, it began to lose al-
titude until finally the captain had to order abandon ship. As
the crew began to bail out, the kid in the ball turret seeing
this realized he was being left to go down with the plane--under-
standably he cried out in terror. The last man to leave the
ship saw the pilot sit down on the floor, take the boys hand
and heard him say, "Never mind, son, ride it down together. "
Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously awarded. Somehow it
doesn't seem that a nation 80 selfish and materialistic could
produce such young men, or that such a nation, fighting for its
very existence in a savage war, would give its highest and most
distinguished award not for killing the enemy in heroic combat
but for such an act of unselfish sacrifice.
-5-
There are some things which belong to youth but not neces-
sarily to one generation of youth. A scholar has written:
"The young of any generation have felt the same impulse to
grow, to reach out to touch stars, to live freely, and to
let their minds loose upon unexplored corridors. Young men
and women have always stood on some hill and felt the same
sudden and complete expansion of the mind, to final fulfill-
ment. It is one of the oldest, sweetest, and most bitter
experiences of mankind.'
I wonder if you know how easy it is for us to understand that
you want more out of life than just more horsepower in the
garage, and color TV in the bedroom? Did you know that we
share your idealism and from time to time renew our own from
yours? But without sacrificing our ideals, idealism must still
go hand in hand with the commonplace and the practical. Water
must flow, the sick be healed, and all the intricate meshing of
harvest and manufacture, and transportation must take place so
that we are not ill-housed, ill-fed and ill-clothed. To have
the dream or the practical, either one without the other could
become very dreary. Many young people on a number of campuses
want to feel as if they are making a contribution to society-
and why not? The opportunities for that be are limitless. You
don't have to join the Peace Corps or join the Missionary-
admirable as that is. Even the world of business, maligned so
much these days as a mere process of money grubbing, offers a
multitude of opportunity for those who want to serve.
Last year American business found a quarter of a million un-
employables-- individuals who had never in their lifetime held
a steady job. Many of these individuals had jail and prison
records but they were trained and put to work in jobs paying
more money in many instances than they had ever dreamed of
having. Last year, American business spent $350 million dol-
lars to send poor kids from the ghettos to college. They gave
$800 million dollars to non-profit organizations for medical
research.
Many young people are properly concerned about pollution, the
environment, the world you're going to live in, and whether
the beauty of that world is going to be preserved. Well, last
year, businessmen gave over and above taxes two and one half
billion dollars to fight pollution and desecration of the en-
vironment, and have earmarked four billion dollars for the
coming years. This meant more than just an individual sitting
at a desk writing a check. It meant staffing and organization
to see that these worthwhile projects were carried out, and
this meant opportunities for young people who can earn a living
and serve at the same time. Ours is not a sick society.
-6-
A few years ago the Australian Prime Minister, John Corton,
said: "I wonder if anybody has ever thought what the situation
of the comparatively small nations in the world would be if
there were not in existence the United States--if there were
not the giant country prepared to make so many sacrifices."
Was he talking about the 190 billion dollars we've given to
more than a hundred other countries since World War II, in-
cluding our erstwhile enemies? Or was he referring to an
earlier period, the Belgium Relief Program after World War I
in which we saved millions of people from starvation? The list
of those we ve helped is extensive. We headed off faminein
India, went to the aid of earthquake victims in Japan, Turkey
and Iran, and now Peru. This is all very much a part of the
history of this country of ours.
Now of course you could protest that I'm putting you off talk-
ing about things you can do when you have finished your educa-
tion, and you want action and involvement now. Well, again,
why not? Mozart wrote his first sonata at age seven; Michael-
angelo sculptured the Battle of the Centaur at sixteen; and
Thomas Edison patented the electric voice recorder when he
was nineteen. You will have an almost instant opportunity for
involvement when you get to college. You can burn down the li-
brary or stone the Dean. Or if you really have a yen for ex--
ploration you can, if you search diligently, find that vast
majority of your fellow students who are doing any of a number
of things that are little publicized but greatly rewarding to
them and to society. On a number of campuses there are students
who take their own time to go into the ghettos and tutor dis-
advantaged children. In my own state, thousands of young college
students volunteer every summer to go into our mental hospitals
to participate in the great experimental work that is being done
in an attempt to make them truly hospitals, places of healing
where patients are restored to a useful life instead of being
warehoused in institutions for the rest of their lives. There
is a widespread program for students who spend at least one
afternoon a week driving shut-ins to libraries and markets. On
one campus the students took their whole summer vacation to
build a school for underprivileged children in Mexico.
Today, with all the noise and furor and concern over what seems
to be the more dramatic but often the less productive, we tend
to forget that there are millions of splendid, concerned Ameri-
cans, quietly going about the business of being good neighbors,
building themselves and America by helping others. Because of
them and in spite of the merchants of doom and gloom, America
towers over the world. Our system, tried and tempered through
years of both peace and war, adversity and achievement, has
been preserved by men and women of uncommon stature and un-
common devotion to a dream. Call it a dream of Camelot if you
will--that mythical place of truth and justice and brotherhood.
-7-
On the deck of the tiny Argella, off the Massachusetts coast
in 1630, John Winthrop said to a little band of pilgrims:
"We shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people
are upon us. If we fail, we shall be made a story. and a
byword through all the world. Camelot didn't die on a
street in Dallas, Texas, nor can it be killed in the jungles
of Vietnam. Camelot is here. We have come closer to the
realization of that dream than any people, at anytime, in
any other place.
From time to time we have failed the dream, but the dream
has never failed us. Camelot isn't built by shouting slogans
through a bullhorn or holding sit-ins, or locking the dean in
his office. You can't get it from a bottle or a syringe.
Camelot is built by people doing mundane, work-a-day things
but still having time for common courtesy as well as com-
passion for each other. Camelot is not built by one genera-
tion with the deed to the property and the key delivered to
those who follow after. Camelot is never finished. The tools
for building are handed by the old to the young on days like
this for the joy is in the building. That shining "city upon
a hill" will soon be yours. We're proud of the towers and
the spires that we have added. We hope with all our hearts
you'll do even better.
If at times you've gotten a little impatient with us, found
us overly possessive, perhaps that's because whether you know
it or not, we have been possessed by you, and you did it so
very easily with one hand, when that hand was so tiny it could
barely encircle a single finger. But it did that with such a
grip we'll go through the rest of our lives feeling the im-
print.
Congratulations and God bless you.
10/18/70
no
K
R All writtenses per of mission of This this transcript and 1 be for the Inc.
CBS NEWS
2020 M Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
20036
FACE THE NATION
as broadcast over the
CBS Television Network
and the
CBS Radio Network
Sunday, October 18, 1970 - - 11:30 AM - 12:00 Noon EDT
Origination: Los Angeles, California
GUESTS: CALIFORNIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATES
RONALD REAGAN
Republican Governor of California
JESSE UNRUH
Former Speaker, California State Assembly
REPORTERS:
George Herman, CBS News
Donald Neff, Time Magazine
Bill Stout, CBS News
PRODUCERS: Sylvia Westerman and Prestiss Childs
NOTE TO EDITORS: Please credit CBS News' "Face the Nation." "
1
ANNOUNCER: In Los Angeles, California, in color, FACE THE
NATION, a spontaneous and unrehearsed news interview with the major
party condidates for governor of California, Republican Governor
Ronald Reagan, who is seeking to win a second four-year term, and
the former Speaker of the California Assembly, Democrat Jesse Unruh.
The candidates will be questioned by CBS News Correspondent Bill
Stout, Donald Neff, Los Angeles Bureau Chief of Time Magazine, and
CBS News Correspondent George Herman.
GEORGE HERMAN: For today's interview, it was decided by lot
that Governor Reagan would be questioned first, and also, by prior
agreement, Mr. Unruh will not have heard the interview with Governor
Reagan when he's questioned in the second half of this program.
Governor, when you campaigned four years ago, you campaigned on a
promise of cracking down on crime, on campus violence, and high
taxes. Over the past three and a half years, in which of these
areas do you think you've really made a dent?
GOV. REAGAN: I would think in the area of crime, and let me
take advantage of your question there to point out that it is not
true that I campaigned on the basis that I would solve all those
problems. My criticism, and I think it was well-founded, was that
under the previous administration, nothing was being done to cope
with campus violence or with crime. And we did stop appeasing and
started opposing in the area of campus violence, and perhaps this
has contributed to some. For example, there would have been no
people's park episode if we had given in to the street people who
demanded $1,300,000 worth of property that belonged to the
2
university. Because we wouldn't give them the property, we had a
riot.
In the area of crime, however, for two years we were unable to
get many of our preposals for anti-crime legislation out of com-
mittee, and last year we did and we passed 20 bills that went into
effect in January. Three of the leading mayors in California, Los
Angeles, San Francisco and Oakland, have in just recent days testi-
fied that crime in these major cities in California--crimes of
violence--are going down, while they are going up in the rest of
the country. I think part of this is due to those bills we passed.
NEFF: Campus violence and taxes are both higher since you
became governor. Do you think you could do any better in four
years what you haven't already done in three and a half?
GOV. REAGAN: Yes, because when you say the taxes are higher,
I don't think there's any question about the fact that when we
inherited a nearly bankrupt state, a state that was on the brink of
insolvency, there was no question but that the taxes were needed
that had been stalled off for eight years by gimmicks and various
bookkeeping devices, and there was no opposition from the other
party--there was great support for the tax program. But I would
like to point out to you that after having passed that tax increase,
we have returned to the people by way of direct property tax relief
in the main over a billion dollars. Now this appears in our budget
as an expense. In this year's budget, there's $318 million expense
that is actually money we are collecting through statewide taxes
and returning to local government to make up for exemptions that
are granted against the property tax. We failed in our big tax
3
reform program by one vote, this time.
In the area of campus violence, I think today, finally, many
people who poohpoohed and said that everyone was trying to find
something under the bed has discovered that this is a world-wide
phenomenon, a national phenomenon, and it is linked to a direct
revolution against our system and our way of life.
STOUT: Governor, at the meeting of the University of California
Board of Regents, did you really call a fellow member of the Board
a lying son of a bitch?
GOV. REAGAN: Well, let me say that episode has been highly
colored, but I can't kick, I opened the box of crayons, and if they
wanted to highly color it, there was a certain amount of creative
writing that has gone on about the incident. There was no shoving
of shouting at all, but very quietly, and if this comes as sort of
taking the Fifth on the -- very quietly I expressed a long-held
opinion quite forcefully to the individual.
STOUT: Do you think, sir, that's setting some kind of tone
as the chief executive of the nation's most populous state?
GOV. REAGAN: It was between him and me. There happened to be
an eavesdopper. There was no shouting or out in public. I waited
until the meeting was over, and he was the one who had injected a
political note into the meeting. He has done it repeatedly. There
were two individuals involved.
NEFF: Was this Fred Dutton or Norton Simon?
GOV. REAGAN: Both of them had injected the political note,
Norton to my complete surprise, because up until now there has been
complete-
4
NEFF: He's a Republic--
GOV. REAGAN: Well, no, there has been a complete communication
between us, and We've talked over many things, and when he said
what he did I was quite shocked, and I tried to signal him that I
would like to see him after the meeting, and he immediately started
scooping up his possessions to run for cover, and I hurried around
the table to intercept him and ask him if we couldn't go into one
of the adjacent rooms and find out what's on his mind. But on the
way around Mr. Dutton had already taken the microphone and had
joined the fray, and so I just dismissed him with a quiet remark
as to his antecedents, and then turned to Mr. Simon, but Simon
wasn't--
NEFF: There was a charge that you also lightly pushed, I
think, Norton Simon.
GOV. REAGAN: No, not at all.
STOUT: There is something involved in all this, Governor,
that I think goes to the heart of contemporary political rhetoric,
I suppose we might call it. The other day at the highway patrol
meeting, you said something to the officers and their wives and the
delegates about how they are the people who are holding back the
jungle, and the jungle creatures.
GOV. REAGAN: Yes.
STOUT: What did you mean, and what is that supposed to appeal
to?
GOV. REAGAN: Well, I think law enforcement is in reality --
I've described -- and whether you like my picture of it or not - -
I have described on previous occasions that civilization is in
5
reality a clearing in a jungle, and that the law of the jungle is
always there, that there are the baser instincts, there is a
tendency for violence to come back in. We see it when war breaks
out, and we see the rules break down and the moral standards begin
to decline. And I believe that law enforcement, basically the
policeman, is in the thin line, that that basically is what they
do. Belloc, the poet, put it when he said we laugh at the barbarian
and the easy times of peace, but while we laugh we are watched by
large and awful faces from beyond and on those faces there is no
smile. Now I'm sure what he was referring to was this element
that is always ready to turn to violence, even the legal type of
violence, when a Hitler or a Stalin seizes power.
And when your society begins to crumble, these men, all of
this assault that they want to make against the forces of law and
order, these men stand between us. They go to work each day with
the knowledge that they may not return, that they are duty-bound
to put themselves between the citizen and those who would wreak
violent harm upon them. This is why, I suppose, that there is
such a terrible blow when one of those men that we find in law
enforcement, they themselves succumb and give the so-called
bad cop. It's a terrible blow to us because it strikes at the
very heart of our protection.
HERMAN: Let me take you back to the campuses for just a
moment. You said, I believe, in one of your statements that
college administrators and student leaders are going to maintain
order on the campus or we will do it for them. What I want to
know, and I suspect a lot of college administrators around the
6
country would like to know, how can you do it for them?
GOV. REAGAN: When I say we, make this plain that we refers
to the Board of Regents. Now, in a couple of instances lately,
as you know, the Regents have had to interject themselves a little
more into actual administration of the campus than a governing
body of that kind is normally expected to do. The responsibility
is with the Regents. The constitution says the Regents are totally
responsible for everyone on that campus, for everything that campus
does for its policy and so forth. Down through the years, bodies
like that delegate authority. They let the faculty, because that
is their profession, name their department heads and so forth.
They let the administration of each campus, as far as possible,
exercise the policy that has been determined by the Regents. But
when you have a breakdown, when you have the kind of problems we
are having, there comes a moment in which the governing board,
having the responsibility, must take back the authority. And what
the Regents in recent months have said to the administration, after
meeting after meeting and months and even these few years of trying
to persuade them to the danger that is inherent in appeasing these
violent factions on the campus, the Regents finally have said,
and this isn't a harsh kind of a gloating thing -- it is a statement
in which the Regents have had to make it plain that either these
administrators will bring this order and take this firm stand that
is necessary in protection of the majority who want to get an
education, the majority of faculty who want to teach -- or the
Regents will have to do it for them, and that isn't good adminis-
tration and we don't want to have to do that.
7
NEFF: Governor, aren't you getting into the threat, such as
Nazi Germany, of legalizing the jungle? Now recently you've come
out suggesting that you'd like to see tenure abolished for teachers,
and if you continue these repressive acts toward the campus, aren't
you in effect going to be imposing a repression on a majority of
our society?
GOV. REAGAN: No, and I think this charge all the time that
any time you try to restore law and order, which is all that's ever
been done, that it is repression in some way -- you go on to a
campus where the buildings are burning and the students are throwing
rocks, and they are beating up on their own kind -- bombings and
so forth -- finally law enforcement is brought in. How is this
repressive? The repression would be if you lined up the law en-
forcement in advance and everyone went around under an armed guard
and there was someone assigned to, in the classroom, watching the
professor and telling him what to say. This might be the thing we
saw in Hitler's Germany. No one wants that.
But I would think that if there is a Nazi influence, it is
coming from the rebels, because they are not advocating freedom of
speech. William Kunstler, one of their boys, can go on the campus
that the President of the United States can't go on. And so this --
when you say tenure, this is a subject which has come up all over
the United States, and many states have a much less generous tenure
than California. What I'm suggesting was a study of tenure, and
whether perhaps we should hold out longer before it is given, and
whether there should be a period at which you review whether you
should continue it on an individual, instead of giving a man lifetime
8
tenure and forever after being helpless to remove him if he turns
out to be incompetent.
(MORE)
9
HERMAN: Let me take you back to the clearing in the jungle
analogy for a moment. Is there--because this clearing finds itself
beleaguered now--is there a conservative tide running in the nation,
or more specifically, in California?
GOV. REAGAN: Well, I happen to be one who's felt that the
American people are always, in the sense that conservative is used
these days, have always been conservative and have not been quite
aware of some of the threats against individual liberty.
HERMAN: Well, my question really is partly aimed at - to why
is it that from what I read and find in California, you are doing
so well and, for example, Senator Murphy is not doing so well. This
doesn't seem to reflect what we normally would consider to be a
conservative tide. We have about one minute left.
GOV. REAGAN: Well, you have a congressman, an incumbent
congressman, a well-known and popular name running against an
incumbent senator in the state. You have the congressman represent-
ing what is a majority party, as against a candidate from a minority
party. You had a somewhat bitter primary on the Republican side
in this, and some division in the ranks that we've tried to hold
down over the years. And I'm confident that Senator Murphy is
going to win; but he does have a tougher race.
HERMAN: I have one last quick question. You said four years
ago that you were not a politician. Are you now?
GOV. REAGAN: Well, I keep thinking of myself as a citizen.
I've--guard very much against--and I had little temptation to
join the empire builders and try to bring government up to a bigger
level. I'm still trying to reduce the power of government.
10
HERMAN: Thank you very much, Governor Reagan. I'm sorry,
but we've run out of time, and we'll be on to our next guest in a
moment.
ANNOUNCER: We resume now with Democratic candidate Jesse
Unruh.
HERMAN: Mr. Unruh, California's voters are almost 55 per cent
registered Democrats, I note, and yet all of the polls that I've
seen and all of the experts that I've read show you apparently well
behind Governor Reagan. What's happened?
MR. UNRUH: Well, first of all, I don't put much faith in the
polls, although I guess almost everyone else does. Goodman Ace
once said that every American believes the polls, from the smallest
farmer in Iowa right on up to President Thomas E. Dewey. I think
beyond that that people do not vote their registration nowadays
very much anywhere. California hasn't for a long time, and I think
that's the pacesetter as far as the nation is concerned.
NEFF: Governor--Mr. Unruh--
MR. UNRUH: I'll accept that.
NEFF: --A number of traditional Democratic supporters, such
as former National Committeeman Eugene Wyman, singer Frank Sinatra
and others, are not supporting you. Why?
MR. UNRUH: Well, I suppose you'd have to ask them. But I
think that's principally-- I mean most of those people are people
who came in when the Democratic Party was in power, when we had a
governor and a president with whom they could--they could expect
something from. And we don't have that now, so they're following
11
the--where the power is.
STOUT: What do you mean, expect something from? You mean
money?
MR. UNRUH: Well, not necessarily money, but there are charters
to be given, there are law cases to be referred, there are other
favors or prestige--
STOUT: That sounds like money to me.
MR. UNRUH: Well--
STOUT: Is that what you mean, that these people came in?
MR. UNRUH: Most of the people that have now--are supposedly
Democratic stalwarts and have gone over to the governor, most of
them I never heard of back in the 1950's, before we had a Democratic
governor in California and a Democratic president.
HERMAN: You, sir, in your sort of afterthought to your answer
to my first question, you said that in California people don't vote
their registration anyhow, and that sounded to me like sort of a
pessimistic note, that you do not expect a very good Democratic
turnout for you.
MR. UNRUH: You know, I just simply meant that there's going
to be a wild crossover on both respects. I think I'm going to get
a good, strong Republican vote. Many of the people who voted for
Tom Kuchel, who's now been exorcised by the Republican leadership in
this state, along with the other--most of the other liberal Republi-
can leadership--I think we're going to get a good Republican vote.
Conversely, I expect some Democrats to vote for the incumbent.
HERMAN: Why do you appear to be--or maybe I should ask if it
is true first--but let me ask you why do you appear to be running
12
so far behind some of the other Democrats on the ticket here, for
example, Mr. Tunney?
MR. UNRUH: Well, I really can't answer that. You're basing
all of that on the polls.
HERMAN: Yes, sir.
MR. UNRUH: And as I told you before, I simply do not believe
the polls. I don't think the people are really looking at the
election yet. I don't think that the polls are accurate. That's
the best I can say.
NEFF: You haven't had any TV advertising at all in this race
and your opponent has had quite a bit. Is that a factor?
MR. UNRUH: Well, it may well be, may well be that we have not
gotten our message over as well as we would like to, because we've
not sold out to the special interests and therefore have not collected
the three or four or five or ten million dollars. And I have no
idea what he's going to spend -- clearly, he has not filed a total
report, so that the people know either. It may be that that's one
of the reasons we're having some problems there.
STOUT: What will you spend in this race?
MR. UNRUH: I really don't know at this point, but it'll
probably be somewhere between 15 per cent and 20 per cent of what
the governor spends.
STOUT: But Mr. Unruh, realistically, in this state, a state
this size, the largest and all that sort of thing; and in the age
of television and against a candidate like Ronald Reagan, can you
possibly beat him or come close without television?
MR. UNRUH: Well, I could if you would start asking me questions
13
about what is the condition of welfare in this state.
STOUT: All right, I'll ask that.
MR. UNRUH: There are 663,000 more people on welfare than there
were when Governor Reagan came in, despite the fact that he keeps
talking about the welfare mess. If we could talk about taxes, for
example, and understand that under four years of Ronald Reagan taxes
have gone up 87 per cent in this state. If we could talk about
unemployment, and know that in the last year alone, under the
Nixon-Reagan administration, unemployment has almost doubled in the
state. Now if you talk to me about the issues and what's important
to the people, instead of the polls, or instead of Governor Reagan's
great technique on television, it--that's not important; it's not
important what Mervin Field thinks about this election. What is
important is whether someone is going to give us decent property
tax relief. The governor can't do that because he's attached to the
oil interests, the insurance interests, all of the other people who
crawl through the loopholes on taxes because they finance his
campaigns.
STOUT: But--but to use that same word--realistically. What
Mervin Field and the pollsters think, and what reporters think, none
of that is important. What's important is what the voters think of
Ronald Reagan as he comes across.
MR. UNRUH: You see, what we get into here is the minute we
get on a television program-and I don't get on too many of them
because we don't have the money to buy--but the minute we get on
one, the first question I get asked is how in the world are you
going to beat this invincible fellow? How in the world are you
14
going to match his great technique? I can't match his technique on
television. I'm willing to stipulate that he's a better actor than
I am, that if the people want a performance on television that they
should vote for him.
But if they want to understand that in every situation that
he said was bad in --welfare, taxes, unrest on the campuses--it's
gotten twice or three times as bad. Our crime rate has gone up
20 per cent a year under Reagan, twice as fast as it was going up
before-that he's been a total and abject failure. Now if we could
get that kind of talk instead of talking about what pollsters say
or what someone else thinks is the situation on the tube here.
NEFF: Well, just--what do you think you could do about crime
in the streets or campus unrest that he hasn't done?
MR. UNRUH: Well, I think it's very simple what you can do.
about the crime. You're going to have to pay for it. You're going
to have to admit that the greatest deterrent to crime is to get
more policemen on the beat in the high crime areas. They did that
in New York in 1968 and they managed to reduce violent crime in
those areas by 50 per cent. That means we're going to have to pay
for it. This administration is spending less than one per cent
on police officer training or on crime research. That's not enough.
We're going to have to pay for it, and I think the people are willing
to pay for protection.
(MORE)
15
NEFF: Well, but on the one hand you are criticizing the
Governor for raising taxes, and now you're suggesting that you are
going to have to raise taxes?
MR. UNRUH: No, I'm not. I'm suggesting that if we made the
oil companies give up their depletion allowance, which is the
greatest tax gimmick since disappearing ink, that if we said to the
insurance companies, you're going to pay taxes on your home, which
they don't now, just like everybody else in California has to pay
taxes on their home, and if we had a withholding tax where we lose
$150 to $175 million every year, and if we treated the capital gains
thing differently, that we could pick up a half billion dollars
every year or more.
And secondly, if we did one thing more, which we ought to do,
if we said let's stop having two classes of taxpayers where one
guy can charge off a luxury yacht, a night out on the town, or
his martinis or whatever else he might want to charge off -- you
name it and some people charge it off -- whereas the guy who goes
down here and works in a plant can't even charge off the cost of his
gasoline -- that's what ought to be done, and we could have the
money for decent law enforcement, we could have the money for schools,
we could have the money for some property tax relief for small and
moderate home owners.
HERMAN: Have you done studies that show that these things
will in fact provide that much money?
MR. UNRUH: Yes, I have, I have. We could reduce the property
tax on small and moderate homes--
HERMAN: How much money does that involve?
16
MR. UNRUH: Well, we're talking probably about a half billion
dollars, and that's about what these loopholes would raise the
first year. Now after that we're going to have to raise bank and
corporation taxes to offset the relief we give to small and moderate
pricedhome owhers, but we're driving people out of their homes
in this state, and we're not going to provide relief by simply
passing it on in the sales tax or other consumer taxes, because
then you take it out of the pockets of the renters; and that's what
the governor's last bill was doing.
NEFF: You've been complaining this past week that you've been
mislabeled as a liberal, but your program sounds very liberal
indeed.
MR. UNRUH: Well, I think the old concept of liberal and con-
servative is absolutely meaningless today, and in turn I think
that's another help to the Governor because clearly if you are
going to tie the liberal tag around me and paint him as a conserva-
tive or something other than a liberal, you've given me a pretty
big millstone to carry around my neck. The fact of the matter is
I don't think I am either liberal or conservative, I'm not tied to
any ideology. On the mental health program a few years back we
the
took solutions from both sides, both/conservatives who said people
were being committed to mental hospitals without protecting their
civil rights, and we revised that--we found they were right. So
that's just a meaningless term nowadays.
STOUT: Do you think it is meaningless to the majority of
voters, Mr. Unruh? Don't they still respond in almost basic
animal terms to labels like liberal and conservative?
17
MR. UNRUH: Well, I hope that's not true. I don't think the
voters respond in animal terms to dirty language or anything else
that's used.
HERMAN: Which is the dirty word, liberal or conservative?
MR. UNRUH: Well, the words that some of the politicians use
is what I was referring to.
HERMAN: I was interested in your saying that -- I'm not sure
I understood you exactly correctly -- but you seemed to me to be
saying that to call you a liberal was to hang a big millstone
around your neck. Are you talking about a big conservative swing
in the country?
MR. UNRUH: No, I'm not talking about a big conservative
swing. I'm talking about what I say is -- continues to seem to me
to be the conventional wisdom of the press. When they want to
label anything simply and without any concept of what the real
issues are. Now, for example, I think I'm more of a tough-liner,
hard-liner, on campus dissent than the Governor was. I was support-
ing throwing these people off campus before he was even elected,
before he was even thinking about it, as a matter of fact. I guess
while he was still making speeches for governor--for Barry Goldwater.
And yet that doesn't come through because people insist on talking
about conservatives and liberals. It's absolutely meaningless now.
STOUT: Well, let's put the labels aside, then, Mr. Unruh.
What would you do about the campus problem, if we can call it that?
MR. UNRUH: Well, I think the first thing you have to do is
to have a flat rule that you're going to expel any student or any
faculty member who is guilty of violence or continued disruption
18
of the educational process, but I think the faculty and the adminis-
tration have to take the authority and the responsibility for doing
that, and then if they won't take it, we're going to have to fire
them and get others that will. Now beyond that, you can't contain
the campus thing by the kind of constant criticism in other fields
that this Governor has gone through. He has cut the budget, he
has increased tuition, he has constantly derogated and downgraded
it, and now the Board of Regents, I think, is being used to further
enrich one of the big land companies in this state.
HERMAN: We have about a minute and a half left. Have you
had problems because of your past differences with some Democratic
leaders, both in the State and in the nation; for example, you are
saying about President Johnson's domestic policies, that they were
as great a failure as his foreign policies -- has that cost you
support?
MR. UNRUH: I don't really think SO, I think people are pre-
pared to let politicians deviate somewhat from their party platform--
HERMAN: We have just one minute.
MR. UNRUH: And I don't think its realistic any more to say
that you have to go right straight down the line, and that every
Democrat for me to say that every Democrat is better than every
Republican is just hogwash, and to try to get the people to believe
that is a case. Now I don't think that's a case. Some people have
used that, but the reason they 've used it is to absolve themselves
when they really were going with the power.
STOUT: Very briefly, Mr. Unruh, because we are running out
of time, do you think that the voters in this state respond to the
19
issues, as you speak out on them? Uenmployment, welfare and so
forth?
MR. UNRUH: I think they would if the issues were out here,
if they understand that everything is worse today than it was four
years ago, and that Ronald Reagan has been governor and is res-
ponsible for it, I think they would respond.
HERMAN: Okay, on that note we've just about run out of time,
and I want to thank you very much, Mr. Unruh, and thank you also, to
Governor Reagan, for being here to Face the Nation, and we'll have
a word about next week's guests in a moment.
****
ANNOUNCER: Today on FACE THE NATION, the major party candidates
for Governor of California, former Speaker of the California
Assembly, Jesse Unruh, and Republican Governor Ronald Reagan were
interviewed by CBS Correspondent Bill Stout, Donald Neff, Los
Angeles Bureau Chief of Time Magazine, and CBS News Correspondent
George Herman. Next week, the three major party candidates for
the United States Senate from New York, incumbent Republican Senator
Charles Goodell, Democratic Representative Richard Ottinger, and
conservative candidate James Buckley will FACE THE NATION.
11/30/70
and
REMARKS BY GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
(Transcript)
FILM INDUSTRY RALLY
LOS ANGELES
November 30, 1970
I suppose it is unnecessary in a gathering of this kind
for us to recount step by step the history that brought about the
necessity for such a gathering. However, a few words about the golden
era of Hollywood are not only appropriate but essential, if our fellow
citizens are to understand their stake in the continuation of a healthy
American film industry.
Almost forgotten is the skyrocketing rise from the 5 cent novelty
to the great motion picture palaces of the '20s and the '30s. We once
C alled movies "chasers" and they were just exactly that. They were
used in the beginning--about 5 minutes in length--to chase the audience
out of the vaudeville houses and to get a turn over in audience for the
ext show. Of course, some of us have had the very unhappy experience
of making chasers long after vaudeville was dead!
From silents to the talkies this industry became a major industry,
with billions of dollars invested in production and theatre facilities
more than two hundred thousand people employed nationwide, and heaven
only knows how many were employed in the associated industries, because
this industry was a great consumer, a great customer for thousands of
different services and supplies. During the depth of the depression it
remained one of the only billion dollar industries in the entire nation.
And in these recent years when we have watched with alarm the flow of
gold from our own shores because of an unfavorable balance of trade, I
think that we are entitled to remind he United States Government that
back through history the motion picture industry has been without equal
one of, the greatest earners of foreign exchange in our economy.
-1-
But unfortunately, over the years government began to look
upon our industry as a golden goose. A source of revenue for itself.
I well recall an incident back during the war years when a delegation
from Hollywood went to the Treasury Department to talk about a phase
of the tax laws that were particularly discriminatory against our industry.
They met with an assistant secretary of the Treasury and when they met
him, virtually as he said hello, just as jovially
he said"now what is it
you want to see me about, and if it doesn't mean more money for the
government, I'm not interested." That was their reception. That this
industry sold America
not just the freedom and an idea of the
American way
but we sold American products. Stores throughout the world
stocked clothing and wardrobe and home furnishings and devices they saw
on American screens. We set styles throughout the world. And the
result was we gave millions of jobs to other Americans not even remotely
associated with our industry. In the post war years of the '40s, we
sold something else. Audiences looked beyond our boy meets girl plot.
They looked beyond, and a hungry world saw our streets filled with
shinning automobiles, saw our store windows filled with products that
were for sale and available to our citizens. Even in the family type
picture, they saw dinner scenes and food on the table that they, in their
land, thought could only be enjoyed by royalty or those of higher station.
Sometimes the things they saw were so startling they were hard
to believe. Eric Johnson, when he represented this industry told of a time
before the Iron Curtain had come down quite SO tightly. He went behind
the Iron Curtain into Warsaw, Poland. He was running some movies for
the education minister of Poland. Among them was a light romantic
comedy starring Dennis Morgan and the late Ann Sheridan. They were
employed in an aircraft plant and they made the film on location at
Lockheed there in Burbank.
-2-
One of the scenes took place out on a parking lot, and at that
point the minister of Education grabbed Eric's arm and said, "Mr. Johnson,
that's what we mean. How stupid do you think we poor Poles are to fall
for this type of propaganda? Eric didn't know what he meant. The minister
said "Those thousands of automobiles in the background
are
you
trying
to
convince us that American working people drive automobiles like that to
work in a factory? Well, this is the type of thing that we were selling.
Those were not props they belonged to the people who worked
at Lockheed. Well, it is easy to understand why the people of other
countries wanted a chunk of this for themselves. Wanted this great salesman
of their products for themselves.
Hollywood made movies were a world product, and soon, in order
to play on foreign screens, we were paying levys and special taxes in
every country of the world. There were quotas adopted that limited the
r
ber of American pictures that could be imported, and the playing time
that would be alloted on the screens for each of those films. And America
soon remained the only nation in the world where the pictures of all the
world were free to play in competition with our own, with no discriminatory
taxes or restrictions on playing time. And we were still big enough and good
enough that we could hold our own in the face of this kind of discrimination.
At that point, never once had this industry asked government
to join it when it sat down to negotiate, because in all the discrimatory
measures taken agains us, these were negotiated with private picture
people on our side of the table and government representatives on their
side of the table.
We never asked for help. It was an unequal contest. Still,
and in spite of the unequal balance of power, Hollywood continued to dominate
world, market. Hollywood--the name itself became a trademark! And
it was a trademark precisely because here in Hollywood we had gathered
together in one place the greatest pool of skill and theatrical talent
that has ever been assembled in the whole world.
Our friends abroad found there were other things they had
to do. Other weapons that hadn't been used. In the days following
World War II when this country embarked on a program to rebuild
the war-torn and the war-weary--friend and former foe alike--a new 3-word
term became a part of the Hollywood vocabulary. "Run away production"
First, foreign government froze our revenue. We could play our pictures
there, but we couldn't bring the money home.
We became pretty ingenious at trying to get that money out of
there. I remeber one instance where the Hollywood motion picture business
with its money in one country, had them build a ship. We sailed the ship
to another country, bought products from that country with our impounded
funds and loaded them on the ship. We brought the products over here,
sold the products, sailed the ship to another country and sold the ship,
in an effort to get our money.
But, the easiest and most obvious way, and what they had in
mind all the time, was to use. the money to produce pictures. First, it
was fairly legitimate--the pictures that went abroad were pictures and
stories designed for a foreign locale. Pretty soon they began to fudge
a little bit. You bought a book called "In Old Chicago" and decided to
make it "In Old Copenhagen". Pretty soon American cowboys and Indians
were "going thataway" over the hills of Spain or any one of a dozen
other countries.
You will pardon a personal reference, but I made a picture' in
1949, in the winter in studios just outside London. The locale was suppos
be a military hospital compound in the steaming jungles of Burma.
Fortunately, it was in black and white, so you couldn't see that our noses
were blue. They put glycerine on us to be persperiration, and that covere
up the goose bumps.
-4-
When I came back I made a pledge that except for legitimate
location travel, I would make no more foreign pictures. It wasn't easy
to keep that pledge. If it hadn't been for television, I would have
set a world's record for liberty between engagements.
But while I was returning, I received a radiogram on shipboard
that invited me to what I suppose was the first meeting of the first
appeal that Hollywood had ever made to its own government for help.
And, it had to do with 'run away production'.
I met with
several
some of whom are perhaps in this room tonight
in Washington
we met with the President of the United States. We told him the
problem we told him of the rising unemployment in Hollywood, and at tha
time I have to say--the President of the United States after finally her
our plea said, "Oh but think of their problems overseas!" And we tried
point out to him that an American technician in Hollywood, unemployed,
got just as hungry as a foreign unemployed technician in a foreign countr
When we made that appeal, 20 percent of the pictures showing
on American screens--20 percent of the playing time--was taken up by
either foreing made pictures or American pictures made abroad. Today,
70 percent of the playing time is taken up by that kind of picture.
Because, since that first appeal to government, our friends
across the sea discovered new weapons against which we have been unable
to prevail. To all the discriminatory taxes, the quotas, the frozen
funds, they added an outright subsidy to American pictures
if those
pictures would be produced in their countries. The methods ranged from
low or no-interest loans to advance partial production costs. From
admission tax rebates to cash prizes. Some American pictures can obtain
as much as 80 percent of their production costs if they produce them
And, a lot of American motion picture workers can obtain their unemploy
while they are doing that!
-5-
The times when I think about government's ignoring our appeals,
ecause by now there have been several appeals, is like that old story that
you all know
The fighter who was backpeddling around the ring trying to
keep away from his opponent and about the fourth time around, his second
said "Stay in there, he can't hurt you"! On the fifth time around, the
fighter said "Well, if he can't, take a look at the referee
somebody's
kicking my brains out."
Well, it's time for us to have a few words with someone who should
be in our corner. Ironically, the American Picture business has not only
been without government help, but it was a government act that contributed
to the present situation.
When the anti-trust action divorced the ownership of theatres
and studios, they destroyed the economic stability of the motion picture
siness in Hollywood. I personally have always felt there was no
logic in that decision. Our industry was like a candy store--properly,
we should make it in the back and sell it in the front.
As a result of that act, the economics of our business now are such
that if you follow where the money is, it is in distribution. And that is
why it has been so difficult to get a concerted approach to this particular
problem. It means that those who actually work in the making of pictures
are the principal sufferers from 'run away production'. We have every
right to ask government to pay heed to the plight of the people in this
industry. I know that some of you know that I am not one who automatically
turns to government for the answer to every (Continued next page)
-6-
7
problem. As a matter of fact, I have always believed that when you
ask government for help, you usually wind up with a partner a senior
partner.
The governments are already in this game on the other side, and it seems
to me that it's time we allowed a few ringers of our own. The AFL film
Council has made a number of suggestions as to how our government can
help with less than sensational results. One such suggestion was made
to state government two years ago, and although this problem that we're
discussing belongs mainly in the federal province, I am proud that we were
able tohelp in a small way. There was an inventory tax as you know on
all the finished films in the vaults and all of you who are veterans in
this industry know this business ground to a halt in January until after
the March tax date. The it began to rev up again and we were a seasonal
industry. When the film council proposed that perhaps one of the things
that might help was the removal of that particular tax--and secured the
legislation there were a great many people that urged me to veto that
bill because they said it was favoritism. Well, I signed the bill into law
and I was very proud to do so, because that tax was punitive and
discriminatory and should have never been applied to the film industry
in the first place.
Now it's not my intention to spell out here specific proposals. Others
here are better informed and better able to do that. But I hope that we
will explore ways by which our government can prevail upon their counter-
parts to give up the unfair and discriminatory practices rather than for
us to simply ask for retaliatory measures. Now, many countries now insist
that pictures made here, before they can be shown abroad, prints to be disp
abroad must be made in those countries. I say, in spite of my objection
to retaliatory measures, that we should be prepared to demand a tariff if
they sould start exporting back to this country, those foreign made prints
of American made movies.
8
Television, which for a time helped maintain American production, is
now being rated by some countries which are offering prime time in
their countries, to American series that will be made in those countries.
This, I think, is a matter for negotiation between governments, and we
should ask for that. But the type of help which has always seemed
to be the safest and the most practical kind that government can give
to private industry is the kind that former Senator Kuchel has
recommended to the treasury department on behalf of the labor-management
domestic committee for the motion picture industry. This committee
consists, as you know, of every segment of this industry. Very simply,
it is to change the revenue laws to give an exemption of 20 percent of the
gross profits those 20 percent exempt from our income taxation.
I realize this is a unique idea for government to swallow, but I for
one have always believed and been captivated by the common sense idea
C
leavingmoney where it's needed rather than running it through those
puzzle palaces on the Potomac only to get it back minus an agents fee.
As I said befor, this is a federal matter, but anything that my
administration can do and that I can do personally, to help in persuading
and selling this idea to Washington, I tell you now I will do that
and I will do everything that is asked and everything that can be
done to see if we can bring this about.
So far, I have spoken of government shortcomings, and what government
can do. Now, what will the industry do? We have a proud record.
There are those a few-of you still active who pioneered this business.
World War II, ours was the only major industry in the United States
that voluntarily refused to ask for. military deferrment for its essential
personnel. We sold the nation's bonds and we provided our product to the
armed forces and again, we were the only ones who did not provide it
cost plus ten percent or even at cost. We gave away the only thing we
had to sell and provided it free of charge.
y
1
We didn't ask favors in the old days---we did them. For everyone who asked
Those who have looked and look now on this industry as the source of agood
life, owe that industry something. They have an obligation to put a
little back, as well as take a lot out. And, I' think they had better think
ahead. In spite of all the subsidies and all the goodies that are
being offered only because Hollywood still remains a threat to the
world motion picture industries. And if the world and those foreign
countries, with their dangling goodies, manage to bring an end to this
trademark Hollywood, and make us nolonger a threat, then I assure you
the goodies will disappear.
Then they will have what they started out to get. It will be totally a
foreign industry, and we will have no part of it.
I am going to take a chance because I cannot conclude my remarks without
touching on one other problem, which I believe concerns the industry
and the people who support this industry with their patronage.
Many years ago, motion pictures went through a period of dis-favor with
the people in this country. Governmental censorship was threatened. The
people, their sense, of taste offended, were seemingly ready to accept
this violation of our traditional freedoms. Indeed 1/4 of the states
and several hundred towns and cities did impose censorship. The industry
fought back--not by protest and complaint--but by accepting the
responsibility for voluntary censorship. There were times when many of
us making motion pictures found that voluntary censorship code unduly
restrictive. We chafed under the restrictions.
Nevertheless, it held off the threat of political censorship and more
improtant, it built a trust on the part of our audiences. The people of
America learned that they could take their children to the movies without
ear of embarrasment. That is no longer true. As a matter of fact, you
an leave the kids at home and its pretty hard to go to the movies without
being embarrased.
10
Many pictures today falsely claim free expression to justify what is
nothing more than bad theater in even worse taste.
I know the men and women of this industry. And I know many of you who
must be deeply distrubed by this violation of the audiences trust and
resentful when economic necessity forces you to accept employment in
pictures which are offensive to your own sense of decency. And the
industry turns now to government for help---I hope that the people of
this industry now make it known that they are willing once again to accept
responsibility for ridding American films of vulgarity and outright
pornography.
We once had not only the patronage of the American public, we once
had their honest and sincere affection. It is not too late to have
that again.
Thank you.
#
I
OL/1/21
Transcript.
Cov. Comments - Page 8
This is an official public service transcript. The Advocates is not
responsible for errors of ommission or commission.
responsible for errors of ommission or
THE ADVOCATES
9:00 - 10:00 p.m. December 1, 1970
Topic:
"Should the federal government
guarantee a minimum income to
every American?"
Participants:
Advocate Howard Miller (pro)
Ted Marmor, Ph. D.
Associate Director of the School of
Public Affairs
University of Minnesota
Barbara Jordan
State Senator from Texas
Member President's Commission on
Income Maintenance
Advocate William Rusher (con)
Ronald Reagan
Governor of California
Roger Freeman, Ph.D.
Senior Fellow of the Hoover
Institute at Stanford University
Moderator:
Victor Palmieri
Origination:
KCE T, Los Angeles
"The Advocates" is a public television network presentation of KCET,
Los Angeles and W G B H, Boston made possible by grants from the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Ford Foundation.
IE
ADVOCATES
is made possible by grants from The Ford Foundation and The Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
WGBH/KCET
Mike Levine, 125 Western Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02134, (617) 868-3800
on
PBS
ANNOUNCER: Tonight
from Los Angeles
The Advocates
Howard Miller
William Rusher
and the moderator, Victor Palmieri.
PALMIERI: Good evening. Every week at this time The Advocates looks a.
an important public problem and for you, a practical choice. Tonight
we discuss the problem of 25 million Americans living in poverty. The
House of Representatives has passed President Nixon's Family Assistance
Plan, which may be the most important welfare reform bill offered in
a decade; however it faces uncertain future in the Senate. Tonight we
consider not the Nixon Family Assistance Plan, but a proposal that is
broader in its implications for the country. And specifically our
question is this: "Should the federal government guarantee a minimum
income to every American? Advocate Howard Miller says yes.
MILLER: We propose an end to the welfare system. That system is cruel,
is paid for by the wrong people, breaks up families and positively
penalizes work. We propose instead a minimum income supplement *paid
through the Internal Revenue Service. That supplement would stabilize
families, would reward work and would break the welfare cycle. The
system we propose has been put forth by the President's Commission on
Income Maintenance, the distinguished panel of businessmen and public
officials throughout the United States, Of course it is not cheap. It
would cost about $6 billion, but that is less than 1% of our gross
national product and is the test of our willingness to break up the
welfare bureaucracy, end the welfare cycle and deal justly and humanely
with our poor. With me tonight to support this proposal are Ted Marmor,
Professor of Political Science and Associate Director of the School of
Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, and Senator Barbara
Jordan, State Senator from the state of Texas and a member of that
President's Commission on Income Maintenance.
PALMIERI: Advocate William Rusher says no.
RUSHER: America has long recognized the national obligation to give
adequate help to every man, woman and child who is truly in need and
is unable to help himself. Tonight's proposal is something else again.
For the first time in American history, under this plan we would be
guaranteeing an annual cash payment to any individual who desired it
without any serious test as to whether or not he needed it, without the
slightest control over how he spent it. Without requiri ng of him
either job training, let alone a job, if he didn't want to take it. This
proposal would add 26 million people to the welfare rolls instead of
eliminating the welfare state, It would cost the American taxpayers an
additional $6 billion every year over and above what they now spend on
welfare payments. To oppose this plan we have with us tonight Dr.
Roger Freeman, Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institute at Stanford
University, and the Honorable Ronald Reagan, Governor of the State of
California.
PALMIERI: Gentlemen, I detect some major areas of disagreement. Let's
go to cases. Mr. Miller, will you begin.
MINIMUM INCOME 2
MILLER: You detect them correctly, but one thing we should understand
is that the idea of a guaranteed income is not new to the United States
or to the American people. Countless people in our country, in fact,
receive guaranteed incomes. There are thousands of farmers in the state
of California, for example. who receive farm subsidies for growing no
crops and doing no work, and who average subsidies of over $30,000 a
year. Numerous other industries, regulated industries, utilities, banks,
airlines, other transportation companies, all receive, directly or
indirectly, government subsidies that keep them alive in the free
enterprise economy. In fact, our system of guaranteed income can best
be described as socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the poor.
But at least the benefits to the wealthy come disguised and with
dignity. No one ever accused the welfare system of operating with
dignity. Two things we can say about it. It's enormously cruel and
despite its cruelty it is growing beyond all bounds. Eleven million
people now in the United States, 8% of all the children in the United
States on welfare. Costs skyrocketing under the existing system. Why
has this taken place? Those figures are impressive, but let's look at
one specific example. Suppose a man with a wife and two children is
earning $2400 a year. Hardly enough to support his family, substantially
below the poverty level of $3600 a year. What are his options? So long
as he continues to work he can receive no government aid at all. On the
other hand, if he leaves his family, if he deserts his family, his wife
and children under the existing welfare system will in many states get
more than he previously earned. That is the system we must break. And
that is the system we propose to break through the guaranteed minimum
income plan, or as it's sometimes called, as this is administered
through the Internal Revenue Service, the negative income tax. How does
it work? First of all, every individual, the working head of the family,
receives $2400 a year if it's a family with two children, Second of all,
he received that even if he works. He receives it simply by filing a tax
return with the Internal Revenue Service indicating his income. If
there is no income, the base minimum of $2400 is paid. What about our
father who is earning $2400 a year, however? What happens to him? He
keeps his $2400 a year, but half of that is credited against the
subsidy and he receives $1200 a year, still in subsidy, though he
continues to work. The figures may change. If he earns as much as
$3600 the subsidy goes down. But the basic principle is what's
important. The basic principle is to preserve the family and to provide
incentives to work, instead of our existing system which breaks up the
family and provides positive dis-incentives to work. This is the plan
that we are supporting tonight. And to speak in favor of it and to
talk about the existing welfare system, I've asked to join us tonight
Professor Ted Marmor from the University of Minnesota,
PALMIERI: Professor, welcome to The Advocates. (applause)
MILLER: Professor Marmor is Associate Director of the School of Public
Affairs at the University of Minnesota. He also is a consultant to the
President's Commission on Income Maintenance. Professor Marmor, how
would you describe the existing welfare system?
MINIMUM INCOME/ 3
MARMOR: I think it's a system that in the first place is inadequate.
It's an inequitable system. It's an inhumane one and it's one that is
unfairly financed.
MILLER: Why is it inadequate?
MARMOR: It's inadequate for two reasons. For families that are poor and
under the welfare system the benefits themselves are below anyone's
conception of subsistence. For example, in the state of Alabama, the
state defines need as $189 per month for a family of four and yet pays
$89 a month. But it's inadequate in a second way in that it's inadequate
to deal with the problem of poverty. In 1968, 25 million Americans were
poor, but 15 million of them were completely unaided by the Public
Assistance system.
MILLER: Why is the system inequitable?
MARMOR: The system is inequitable for a number of reasons. Partly the
programs vary in the benefits they offer from state to state and county
to county. And then within a state for particular programs, needs are
defined differently. Let me illustrate on the state by state unfairness.
A single aged woman living alone in the state of South Carolina has her
need defined as $82, When you move to the middle-west, to Nebraska, her
need is defined as $182. There's no change in the cost of living that
justifies that much of a discrepancy.
MILLER: Why is this inhumane? The currect welfare system?
MARMOR: I think the most powerful reason why it's inhumane is that it
gives the most extraordinary and awful incentives for the fathers of
intact families to leave those families in order to improve the
circumstances of their family. As I said earlier, of the 25 million
Americans poor in 1968, 15 million of those were unaided by public
assistance and the overwhelming majority of those people are the heads
of households in which the wage earner works full time throughout the
year and is still poor.
MILLER: Professor Marmor, let's look specifically at that point. How
does this proposal, the guaranteed minimum income, change that
inhumanity? Does it provide a different set of incentives?
MARMOR: Well the first thing it does, it no longer says that you have
to have an absent father, an incapacitated father, an unemployed father
in order to qualify for public assistance. It says that you have to be
in poverty and thereby it reduces the incentives to break up families.
MILLER: Tell me, Professor Marmor, who now pays for the cruel welfare
system and how would that change under this proposal?
MARMOR: Well, the system as you know, is now shared between state, loca
and federal financing. The system we're suggesting would be a minimum
floor completely paid for by the federal government. In 1971 it was
estimated that a billion dollars in state savings would follow from this
program.
MINIMUM INCOME/ 4
MILLER: Would that shift the tax base from one group of taxpayers to
another?
MARMOR: I think it would.
PALMIERI: Professor, let's hear from Mr. Rusher,
RUSHER: Professor Marmor, just on the general philosophical principle,
would it be fair to say that you believe every citizen has a right to
the share of the national wealth?
MARMOR: Yes, I do,
RUSHER: Can you tell me what the national wealth is?
MARMOR: Eight hundred billion dollars.
RUSHER: How do you arrive at that? What constitutes. .I didn't mean
the amount. I mean, what is our national wealth to which everybody has
a right?
MARMOR: We measure it, you know, Mr. Rusher, in all sorts of ways. But
we usually apply a dollar figure to the total production of goods and
services.
RUSHER: Total production of goods and services, so that what we're
saying is that everybody whether or not they contribute to the total
production of goods and services has a right to a share in the total
production of goods and services, Is that correct ?
MARMOR: I think we're saying that, What we're also saying that 15
million Americans are outside the present Public Assistance system and
most of the poor are now working. That is they 're in households in
which someone is now contributing.
RUSHER: Precisely. You are arguing that if a person makes no contri-
bution whatever to the total production of goods and services to the
United States, he nevertheless should have, does have, a moral right and
should have a legal right to a share in that production. Is that correct?
MARMOR: Yes. I'd put it the other way. I'd say the society
RUSHER: Putting it that way, that would be correct, wouldn't it?
MARMOR: Yes.
RUSHER: Now tell me secondly, why wouldn't it be better to guarantee
people a job rather than to guarantee them an unearned share of the
national wealth?
MARMOR: Partly as I was suggesting. We now have people who are working
Full time and are still poor. Your guarantee of a job, it seems to me,
would be a help and in no way does the Heineman Commission argue against
the provision of jobs. What it says is that jobs are insufficient.
They 're desireable, but insufficient.
MINIMUM INCOME/ 5
RUSHER: But under the proposal that we're discussing tonight there
would not even be a requirement that a person take training for a job,
would there?
MARMOR: Well, there's not the requirement that people take training
because we have a good reason to believe that if you are required to
take training you will respond less favorably than if you're given
incentives to take training. That's what the work incentive would do
RUSHER: In this particular case there's no requirement to take either
training or a job, right? If a person didn't want to he wouldn't have
to. Is that right?
MARMOR: No, I think it would be fair to say there are incentives to
take training.
RUSHER: I understand there are incentives, but if a person declines
what you regard as an adequate incentive, he doesn't have to take it,
does he?
MARMOR: That's right.
RUSHER: And he can have it without any countervailing contribution by
him at all.
MARMOR: Without any what?
RUSHER: Without any contribution on his part at all. In other words,
by asking for it, it's his,
MARMOR: I think there's a right to a guaranteed income.
RUSHER: That's right and I've now described the particular form and
MARMOR: That's right.
RUSHER: And there's no requirement of a job involved. Guaranteed work
you say would not be enough. Tell me, a great deal of stress has been
laid by Mr. Miller, and secondly by you on this proposition of aid to
families with dependent children. There is this tremendous motive for
breaking up the family because the aid isn't given unless the father
deserts. In my state of New York, however, and in many states, certainly
in my state, there is a general assistance program which eliminates the
incentive for the father to desert. And yet we have seen in the last
six or seven years for which statistics are available in New York, the
highest increase in desertions of all, we have a 335% increase. There
has been, in point of fact, no lessening of the desertion percentage.
Quite the contrary in New York. What makes you think that your incentive
is going to be any better than that provided by the state of New York.
MARMOR: I think for a simple reason. If the family is going to be no
better off by the father leaving, you reduce the incentive for him to
leave.
MINIMUM INCOME/ 6
RUSHER: You reduce the incentives, but the fact is, Professor, that
in New York the desertions have nonetheless increased with the incentive
ompletely gone.
MARMOR: That may well be true, but
RUSHER: But what is the idea -- What good is your plan?
MARMOR: If you'll let me answer I'll try to give you an answer.
RUSHER: Go ahead.
MARMOR: We have no way of saying, for example, that the rate of
increase would not have been greater had the incentives been greater
for the father to leave
RUSHER: Greater than 335%?
MARMOR: It's certainly possible. We don't know the full causes of that
rate of increase. All I'm saying is a reasonable man facing an income
guarantee system that gave him no benefits to leave the family, would
have no reason to leave the family. No financial reason.
RUSHER: You complained that state differences, differences in the
compensation rates now available in various states were unjust. Isn't
it entirely possible though that what would be an appropriate floor for
one state would be highly inappropriate for another where the general
tandard of living was higher?
MARMOR: Mr. Rusher, I think that's absolutely right. However, I don't
think that at all justifies the difference I suggested between
Nebraska and South Carolina,
RUSHER: I'm not saying it does. If we establish that there is such a
thing as a just difference, what provision does your plan make for it?
MARMOR: Well, the problem with that as it turns out is the variation
within regions is as great as the variation between regions. You deal
with a serious problem. However, I suggest.
RUSHER: I'm well aware it's a serious problem.
MARMOR: One benefit of this is giving a uniform guarantee level which
would stem or at least provide some incentives for people to stay out
of high cost areas including major urban centers,
RUSHER: It would if they nonetheless chose to go there, it would be
only just, would it not, to have a higher floor there than say in
Mississippi? Yet under your plan the floor would be the same in both
Mississippi and New York, would it not?
MARMOR: You're faced with the dilemma
MINIMUM INCOME 7
RUSHER: Indeed we are.
MARMOR:
and argument there,
RUSHER: Tell me this. Isn't it true that the payment for this plan
will simply have to be in one of two forms in the long run? Either by
taxation of by inflation, assuming we did not want to cut something
else which the government and the people of the United States are currentl
spending money on? In other words, the additional $6 billion that Mr.
Miller estimates would be required is going to have to be provided not
as you put it, at least not quite so generously by the federal
government, but by the taxpayers of the United States and if they are
not directly attacked through taxes, then through inflation.
MARMOR: Mr. Rusher, I can't think of any way that the federal
government can pay for anything without taxing somebody.
RUSHER: Precisely.
PALMIERI: Professor, let me ask a question before Mr. Miller begins.
You said that 15 million of 25 million people who are beneath the
poverty level are working and working most of the time and simply not
making enough money to subsist. Does that suggest that 10 million
people who are beneath the poverty level are idle and might be available
for work?
MARMOR: I think that's a totally unrealistic assumption, Most of the
people who are now on public welfare are in no way likely candidates
for full time work in the labor force.
PALMIERI: Who are they?
MARMOR: They comprise, for example, the aged, They comprise as well,
beneficiaries of a program for the blind and the partially and totally
disabled. In the largest group are composed of aid to families with
dependent children. Now of that group you have at least a third who
have children under six. So you're dealing in the first place with
aged people, with disabled people, with blind people and families with
children many of whom.
PALMIERI: Fine, I wanted to clarify the numbers. Mr. Miller, will
you give US your close. Thank you very much, Professor. (applause)
MILLER: Of course all government expenditures are paid for by tax-
payers but which taxpayers make a difference. One of the consequences
of the federal floor is to shift the large part of the burden from
property taspayers in state and local areas who now bear the burden,
through the income tax and the federal system and into a different kind
of system. We can't ignore the fact that welfare rates now and the cost
of welfare are rising at an unpredictable rate. They are rising because
the system has no way to check itself. It makes no incentive for peop¹
to become self-sufficient. Only that kind of system can ultimately
check the long run costs of welfare.
MINIMUM INCOME/ 8
PALMIERI: All right, thank you, Mr. Miller. We'll be back to you for
ebuttal. Now, Mr. Miller has proposed that the federal government
guarantee a minimum income to every American and Mr. Rusher proposes
now to say why that should not be the case. Mr. Rusher, will you begin.
RUSHER: If I understand Mr. Miller's statistics he concedes that far
from abolishing welfare, he said in that inspiring opening, this will
actually add 26 million people to the welfare rolls in this country.
Unless my arithmetic is wrong somewhere, it will result in 37 million
altogether, or somewhere between 1 out of every 5 and 1 out of every 6
Americans, It will cost almost $6 billion on top of the $7.2 billion
which America is now spending on welfare in the principal programs,
and others have made much higher estimates, of course. But will even
these things be the whole story? How long do you suppose it will take
the politicians of this country to start raising that floor from $2400?
Senator Fred Harris, Democrat of Oklahoma, already has a bill before the
United States Senate to make that floor $3600. And the National Welfare
Rights Organization already has demanded that the floor be $5500. And
what will then become of the incentive feature that Mr. Miller makes so
much of, and what then will be done for money to pursue such programs
as the fight against pollution, which is now attracting such justified
attention in this country, or such total imperatives as the military
defense of the United States? The original figure isn't really
important, whether it's $2400 or $3600 or $5500. Once the principle is
established that there is a right to a cash payment from the government
of the United States without any requirement for work whatever, then you
an depend upon it that the stage is set for bleeding the taxpayers of
America white. There will be a vast new class created, parasitical,
self-indulgent and demanding, and it will be with us forever. To
discuss this problem in some of its more general and philosophical
implications, I have the honor and privilege to call first upon the
Governor of the State of California, the Honorable Ronald Reagan.
(applause)
PALMIERI: Governor Reagan, a very warm welcome from The Advocates.
RUSHER: May I start on a personal note sir? Congratulations upon
your recent reelection.
REAGAN: Thank you.
RUSHER: What is the true purpose, Governor, of welfare, in you opinion?
REAGAN: Well at the moment I think that's one of the problems. I don't
think anyone has really defined a true purpose for welfare in this
country, and that's why I would classify it, the one place where I think
we are all in agreement, it is a great colossal failure in the United
States. No one quite knows what we're supposed to achieve with it. I
think it should have a purpose and I think the proper purpose of welfare
should be to eliminate the necessity for itself.
SHER: How about this proposition that there is a right to share in the
national wealth?
MINIMUM INCOME 9
REAGAN: Well, I find national wealth one of those kind of glittering
terms and generalities like the greatest good for the greatest number,
and so forth, that don't bear too close an analysis. To call the national
wealth the gross national product ignores the fact that the gross national
product could go up every year without any of us getting any richer
simply if you raise the prices of things. Inflation makes the gross
national product increase. I think what we have to talk about, when we
consider it in connection with welfare, we're talking about the earnings
of the people who produce in the United States, And if you ask me is
anyone morally entitled, has a right to a share of those earnings, harsh
as it may sound, I have to say no. That what we're talking about is how
far can you ask the producing citizens to give of their earnings to
support those who do not produce? Now let me hasten and say that I
think, I say this with safety because the American people over 200
years have proven they are extremely compassionate, and no one could
conceive of the American people ever not wanting to take care of those
who through no fault of their own cannot provide for themselves. And
this we have done to a remarkable degree and greater than any other
society ever known in the history of man. But you cannot get away from
the fact that welfare is a sharing of earnings and at the moment by 1.
doing it by law it is a forced sharing of those earnings.
RUSHER: What would be the political effect in your opinion of the plan
we have heard proposed this evening if we start out with a floor of $2400?
REAGAN: We don't even have to speculate. History's been pretty plain
about that. It will escalate. You were perfectly right about that.
Every election year, you only have to look at a number of programs,
social security, to find that there are men who will seek office on the
basis of promising to what would constitute quite a sizeable voter's
bloc. And history, we can take the obvious example of Rome, with what
they called the mob, bread and circuses, they had a welfare that was
very much like our own and it went on and on until economically Rome
was strapped. We can come up even more recently and more particularly.
England had a plan in 1795 called the Speenhamland System and this was
one in which each parish had to guarantee to supplement the income of
those below a certain earning level based on the price of bread and
the number of dependents in the family. Very similar to what we're
talking about in our own program. And this program in 1795 was almost
immediately a failure and they said that first of all it began to con-
stitute a subsidy for low paying employers, that they didn't have to
come up to meet the market price for workers because the government
subsidized their workers for them, It also eliminiated the incentive,
according to history, of the individual to improve his own earning
capacity or ability to move on to better jobs, because it was taken
care of for him. By 1834 even though it had fallen into disrepute and
disuse before then, by 1834 in the poor laws it was totally eliminated.
PALMIERI: Governor, I can't give you a chance to bring that up to date.
Mr. Miller now has a chance for cross examination.
REAGAN: Oh, 1834 was as far as I was going to go.
MINIMUM INCOME/10
MILLER: Governor, the problem is what to do about a welfare system that's
in crisis and there are a lot of things about this plan that agree with
some of the things you've been in favor of, For example, one of the
things that it does, by substituting the Internal Revenue Service as a
disbursing agent it completely ends the entire welfare bureaucracy.
That's something you've wanted for a long time. Isn't that the kind of
feature we should have in the plan?
REAGAN: Well, I wish I could think that would happen. But I've been
dealing with it now for four years and I must tell you that from the
inside looking out, nothing seems to go away. Things just seem to keep
being added on top. I don't believe that really would happen. I think
that you would find that the need to encourage, the need to follow
through, would lead to a continuation of the bureaucracy.
MILLER: Let's look at something else you've been largely in favor of,
which is shifting burdens from the property tax owner. By having the
benefits come through the federal government and the Internal Revenue
Service, in fact, the enormous burden on state and local property
taxpayers would end, and the money would come through the progressive
income tax instead of the very hard regressive property tax, which
places a large burden on those who are close to poor themselves, Isn't
that something we should try to do?
REAGAN: Well, it's a long way around to correct the inequity of the
property taxpayer. Here in California he has : a very great inequity
and I tried to cure that and failed by one vote in the last session
of the legislature. There's no question they need the burden taken off
their backs. Part of our bill would have removed $190 million from the
California homeowners backs by way of the county tax that would have
been taken over by the state and turned over to these other programs.
MILLER: Let's look at something else in this program that you've
spoken in favor of getting people to work, providing them with a
work incentive. Now, when there was a work incentive program in
California, 80% funded by the federal government, in fact you took the
initiative in holding people down who are on it in terms of numbers,
the W.I.N. Work Incentive Program, and fought against that work
incentive program. This also provides a work incentive. Is that the
kind of incentive you're against?
REAGAN: No, and you're not quite right in your statement that I held
it down. The truth of the matter is that California has actually gone
so far into the WIN program, the Federal Work Incentive Program, that
16% of all the training slots are in California while we're only 10% of
the population. And 32% of all the people who have ever gotten jobs
in the whole United States under the program have gotten them in
California. And 40% of the people who have gotten job training under
the program have gotten it in California.
MILLER: Then you are in favor them of that kind of work incentive?
REAGAN: I am.
MINIMUM INCOME/11
MILLER: Here's a program that would in addition to those things cut
down on the migration of people to California by raising levels across
the country, affect the property taxpayer, cut the bureaucracy. It's
been spoken for by Milton Friedman, a conservative economist, by a
presidential commission that includes conservative businessmen. The
only fair answer, Governor, is that if this program does not satisfy
your needs for welfare, to change an old phrase around, what is it that
you want?
REAGAN: Mr. Miller, I don't believe that the government--. I believe
that the government of the United States is supposed to promote the
general welfare. I don't think it's supposed to provide it. (applause)
I think the obligation of government is to offer every citizen an
opportunity to earn. It is not to offer him a livelihood. Aad L
believe there is a humane way to do it. I agree with much that's
been said about the inhumanity of the present program. I do not go
along with some of the impression that is given, that welfare as it is
now, that the people are more or less put in an embarrassing position,
The type of thing that we're seeing, that I can foresee under your
program, is the type of thing which shows a family with a gross income
of $35,000 in the state of California receiving a grant.
MILLER: And there are such families, aren't there? Three thousand
farmers in the state of California.
REAGAN: Oh, no. I'm talking about welfare.
MILLER: But let's talk:: about farmers who are on a different kind of
welfare. Over 3000 farmers in the state of California, who receive an
average of $30,000 a year. An average. There are some in the millions,
but an average, for not growing crops. That's a program that you support.
REAGAN: Oh, Mr. Miller, wait a minute, You make some assumptions, If
you'd like to go back over about 20 years of my public speaking, long
before I ever anticipated public office, you will find that I can top
you in spades about my criticism of the farm subsidy program, as well
as any of the other subsidies. (applause)
MILLER: And of course that's also true of the other subsidies that we
pay, over $150 billion in subsidies to airlines through the mails, to
banks through deposits, to railroads, to subsidized government
programs, the whole range, the $150 billion roughly of government
support and subsidized programs for corporations and individuals you
oppose.
REAGAN: I became, well no. You can't blanket oppose them. There are
many subsidies in any country that are designed because of an industry
that could be useful in time of emergency to a nation. The Merchant
Marine was an example, The need for this country of ours which, because
of high labor cost, cannot compete any longer with foreign shipping lines,
we subsidized the Merchant Marine because we know that in the event of
aggression, in the event of a war, we would have to have such a Merchant
MINIMUM INCOME/12
Marine. So we are willing as a people to pay a subsidy, just as we
subsidized watch makers in the United States for years when we couldn't
really economically compete with Switzerland, but because the watch-
makers were also a source of technicians for us in the munitions
industry in time of war. Now that kind of subsidy has to be weighed
differently.
MILLER: You talked about ending the welfare system. Let's talk about
the millions of people on welfare. What are they supposed to do? The
women with dependent children? The blind? The aged? The disabled?
The men who cannot work. Are they to be miraculously cured and brought
off the welfare system? You seriously can't end that system of
support, can you?
REAGAN: No. But I do believe that a program--. I believe there is a
total reform of welfare needed.
MILLER: What is that reform?
REAGAN: And I believe that the form of that welfare, that we should
explore the idea of no longer welfare, but employment. For jobs that
should be done, that have to be done and that cannot normally be
afforded in the labor market or by government employees.
PALMIERI: Governor, we've come to the end of the cross-examination,
Can I ask you a question while you're on that? What about the people
that Mr. Rusher or the previous witness I should say, the Professor
referred to, who work and work all the time and just don't make enough
money to support their families? How does that come out in your
position?
REAGAN: I believe, and this is the most vexing problem of all. But
what it comes down to is at what level can you reach the point at which
they divorce themselves from this subsidy? You have to recognize that
there is a factor of, and certain people who will weigh the benefits of
not having to work excessively hard or long as long as they can get by
without that work.
PALMIERI: Governor, will you forgive me for cutting you short? We're
very grateful to you for coming on our show. Thank you very much.
REAGAN: All right. I had a great answer. (applause)
RUSHER: I must in respect to Professor Milton Friedman, who isn't here
tonight, take exception to Mr. Miller's statement that he approves of
this particular plan. I have every reason to think that he would
disapprove of it thoroughly if he were here. It is true that he has
proposed the negative income tax, but it is in major respects different
from the plan we're seeing proposed tonight. To discuss this plan
further and some of its important and technical aspects, we have with us
a distinguished economist, until recently a special assistant to the
President of the United States, Dr. Roger Freeman.
MINIMUM INCOME/13
PALMIERI: Dr. Freeman, welcome to the program. (applause)
RUSHER: Dr. Freeman is a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institute at
Stanford University. Dr. Freeman, we've heard a great deal about the
incentive that Mr. Miller's chart showed would be given. You could
keep some of the welfare money even while you worked and this was
supposed to provide a big incentive to people to get out and work. In
point of fact, though, if the payments are raised in a year or SO, or
started to raise as Governor Reagan predicted they would, how much
incentive is there really going to be under this program?
FREEMAN: If you looked at the chart, Mr. Rusher, you saw that it
provided $2400 for a family with no earnings, and if you earn $2400
you would get $1200, a total of $3600, In New York a couple with two
children are already getting about $4000 plus fringe benefits. So how
much incentive do you have to go from $4000 to $2400? In the second
place, we have had an incentive system in the Aid to Dependent Children
program and other welfare programs incidentally, for several years. In
New York, in September, 1967 a system was introduced under which a
welfare recipient, an ADC recipient, that's Aid to Dependent Children,
could keep of her extra earnings $85 a month plus 30% of her earnings.
Since that time the number of recipients on ADC has tremendously
increased just over the past year by 26%, which means that within
three years the number of recipients will double. In other words,
the experience has been that these incentives, so-called incentives,
do not work for a great majority of the people. They may work for a few.
RUSHER: Dr. Freeman, since our time is short, I want to come to the
question that I had saved for last, which I consider perhaps the most
important. It's been touched on twice already here tonight. Doesn't
everyone, or does everyone have a right to a share in the national
wealth of the United States?
FREEMAN: It seems to me that everybody has a responsibility to share in
a national wealth, that means contributing to the national production
if it is within his capacity. And only that contribution gives him the
right to share in proportion to what he produces.
PALMIERI: Mr. Miller?
MILLER: What about a system, Professor Freeman, that when he is
producing gives him every incentive to stop producing and leave his
family? Is that the kind of system that you support?
FREEMAN: No, sir, and I don't think it does because as you well know, it
does not require, not in California, not in New York, not in 20 states
MILLER: Not in 20 states, but in 28.
FREEMAN: That's right.
MILLER: In 30 rather.
MINIMUM INCOME/14
FREEMAN: Well, for a man to leave his family, but rather he can remain
with his family if he's unemployed and he will receive welfare.
MILLER: He has to stop working. He has to stop working.
FREEMAN: Well, now let US first assume he is not working. In that
case he will receive welfare and the experience has been that since
that was introduced, about 8 years ago, that the rolls since that time
have been increasing very rapidly. In other words, an incentive to
leave the family is not there.
MILLER: It's no incentive like the one weve been proposing. I mean,
the incentive you talked about is very limited. You have to be working
part tine, The $4000 figure in New York, of course, New York incentive
would go to a higher level. The principle is you'd always keep half of
what you earn. But let me ask you about the guaranteed jobs feature,
which the Governor spoke of and which Mr. Rusher mentioned, and which I
understand you support also. How much would a program of guaranteeing
jobs, just for the idea of guaranteeing jobs, to everyone in the United
States at a level at the poverty line or above, cost the federal
government?
FREEMAN: No, I'm opposed to that,
MILLER: You're opposed to that.
FREEMAN: I believe that the government does not owe everybody a
living. But society does owe him an opportunity to earn a living.
In proportion to what he produces. I do not believe that anyone has the
right not to work, and just because he has no income, or a little income,
to be supported by the other people.
MILLER: Let's get to the principle then, If we have a person who is
working, those 15 million households, 15 million people in households
that are headed by the working poor, if we have a person that is working.
On principles, forgetting about sharing in the national wealth, on
principles, what we should do with that person who'd demonstrated his
motivation, we should keep him working and do everything to keep him
working, shouldn't we?
FREEMAN: We do. Except if we offer him welfare, where he makes as
much as he can with working or not much more.
MILLER: This is what we do.
FREEMAN: This is what, we are doing and what you propose would make it
even worse. How are you going to control the welfare program if at the
present time we have 12 million, it's increased by a million since you
spoke, from 11 to 12 million at the present time, We have 12 million
and you're going to control that and make it better by putting 36
million or 26 million on the rolls,
MINIMUM INCOME/15
MILLER: By putting people on who are now deciding whether to go on the
welfare system that we now have or to continue working, Why shouldn't
they simply, they re not on now. The welfare costs are going up. Tell
me, what do you propose to do with the welfare system? Welfare costs
that are out of control? Welfare rolls that are growing by a million
in ten seconds, apparently. What do you propose to do with it?
FREEMAN: Very simple, sir. What I propose is to offer people an
opportunity to work. Now there are some who cannot compete in an open
market. They, we may have to
MILLER: An opportunity to work. Most of the people on welfare ar
blind, are aged or disabled. What are they to do? Sit magically and
be born anew?
FREEMAN: Most of the people are not blind.
MILLER: Children. Are children to grow old and the old to grow young?
Are the 97% of the people on welfare
FREEMAN: That is incorrect. Most of the people who are on the ADC
program, the Aid to Dependent Children, the blind, the disabled, the
old, that's a program by itself, which is really not controversial at
the present time. The real controversy is on aid to dependent children,
which would enable millions of men and women to live off of other
people's sweat of the brow.
PALMIERI: Professor, let me thank you for appearing on The Advocates.
(applause)
RUSHER: Like most deadly proposals this one starts out by being
relatively modest. At first we see only the tip of the iceburg. But
once the principle of a guaranteed minimum income is established,
political pressures to increase the actual payment
ANNOUNCER: (simulated newscast) We interrupt this program for a
special report: The welfare strike has begun. We repeat, the welfare
strike has begun. At nine o'clock this evening, welfare strikers
blockaded the transportation systems of New York, Los Angeles, and other
major cities, Earlier today a welfare union spokeswoman told us why
they want to strike.
WELFARE WOMAN: I'm pi---d off cause I want something for myself, my
kids and my people.
HELEN BROWN: (L.A. Welfare Union) We were promised under this minimum
wage, minimum salary thing from the government that everything would be
different. That we would break out of this poverty cycle, that we
wouldn't be poor people any more. That we'd be able to participate
in the wealth of this nation which is such a wealthy nation. Well
nothing has changed.
MINIMUM INCOME/16
ANNOUNCER: The National Alliance of Welfare Unions wants more money. The
guaranteed income was originally set at $2400 for a family of four.
Later is was raised to $3600. Now the Alliance demands $6500. And the
inflationary spiral keeps getting worse. Farm prices pushed the cost of
living this month up 7% hitting a seven year high of 8.5%
ROBERT SCHROEDER: (American Consumer League) This inflationary
spiral that's caused by this program has risen my food bill 9½ in
the last six months, There are no janitors in my child's school. A
group of parents including myself were there last night cleaning up
the school because people are not willing to go to work at menial jobs
like janitors. And we can't take it any more. The taxpayers in Southern
California alone, with twelve other groups around the country are going
to refuse to pay our federal taxes until this program is wiped out.
FLOYD YOUNG: (Truck Driver) Last month I plowed under three hundred
acres of lettuce; no one to pick it. There's two hundred acres of
tomatoes out there that I've had to plow under also. I just can't get
the workers. Government guarantees them a certain amount of money and
what we can pay them isn't really enough to make it worth their while,
Now next year I'm going to plant one third of the acreage that I have
here, and prices will go up, But if that doesn't work, well, maybe
I'll go on relief.
ANNOUNCER: Earlier today, before the strike started, the chairman of
the Senate Finance Committee described his dilemma and made an
unprecedented appeal to the nation's taxpayers for help.
RICHARD COLEMAN: (Senator, Senate Finance Committee) The welfare
block has placed enormous demands on Congress and the economy. This
year, we've again underestimated by 20% the escalating cost of this
program, We've also underestimated the enormous labor Deduction this
program has caused. This budget report I have just received gives us
two options: Either pass another formidable appropriation with an
increase in income taxes, or cut back by one third the welfare payments
we are now handing out. You've got to help make that decision.
ANNOUNCER: That's the latest on the welfare strike. This is James
Waterman reporting,
RUSHER: Fortunately that was only a simulated newscast. You will
not really see one like it for five or ten years if this plan is
adopted. You will see it one of these days if a guaranteed minimum
income, God forbid, should become America's national policy.
PALMIERI: Well, Mr. Miller.
MILLER: That film is a complete prediction of what will happen if
the welfare system remains as it is, not if it is changed because what
we are building is a self-perpetuating welfare bloc brought on by the
system by itself. The system must be changed and that is the question
to which everyone must address themselves, not simply existing
criticisms of the system and brushing aside every proposal, even when
MINIMUM INCOME/17
proposed by this presidential commission that comes along. When I say
the welfare system must be abolished, I mean it's the system that must
be abolished, not that people stop receiving checks from the government,
but that the checks that they receive from the government be productive
toward leading them to work and family stability. That's the goal we
can achieve by breaking the system. Continuing the present system will
continue to add those millions to the welfare roles. We must address
ourselves to the question what to do and not simply be scared away by
a proposal that striked at the bureaucracy, that stabilizes the family,
that provides incentives to work. Those are the proposals we need to
consider. This proposal in fact was proposed by a commission of
distinguished Americans including presidents of major corporations and
public leaders from all over the United States and the principle of
the negative income tax, that is payment as of right, without categories,
is in fact a principle concurred in by Professor Milton Friedman and
others. We have a member of that commission here tonight to support
that proposal. She is State Senator Barbara Jordan from Texas.
PALMIERI: Welcome Senator Jordan. (applause)
MILLER: Senator Jordan, the question has come up about whether the
government should simply provide a kind of guarantee of income to
every American. Should it?
JORDAN: The government should provide some kind of guarantee to every
American because we expect of every American, as has been said here
many times tonight, to produce and consume and 25 million Americans
are being locked out of society and locked out of the economy, unable
to participate in the marketplace and the economy and the government
has a responsibility to give these people a chance in life.
MILLER: Now despite all the talk about able-bodied people on welfare,
the Commission studies indicated that less than 3% of all those on
welfare were able-bodied.
JORDAN: Absolutely correct. Less than 3%.
MILLER: If we do guarantee this income, that is if we simply move
from our existing system where all but 3% are not able-bodied, if we
guarantee the income to all, will that create this momentous political
bloc that will besiege this country?
JORDAN: Well I think anyone who feels that we're going to have a
tremendous welfare bloc bringing political pressure for changes in
adoption programs they 're absolutely erroneous, The National Welfare
Rights organization has failed as far as bringing pressure to bear or
a new program or an innovative program by the federal government. I
don't think that this is going to occur.
MILLER: What will happen though if the system did not change, if we
continue as we are because people continue to say no to every proposal?
MINIMUM INCOME/18
JORDAN: I shudder to think about the newscast that we will see if
we don't change the present system. There are people who will revolt,
the have-nots in our society have decided that they will not be eter-
nally mute and that they will demand that they be included in the
inner workings of this economy.
MILLER: What does the current welfare system in fact do to people
and families on welfare?
JORDAN: It destroys hope. A person who is locked in the basement of
poverty, a person who cannot feed his family, a person who works and
tries to earn a living and still cannot produce in the terms of middle
America, he loses hope and I think that this is what we can give to
people if we include them in our society.
MILLER: In fact does it provide an incentive to families to remain
together or to break up?
JORDAN: It's an incentive for them to break up, we've talked about
that.
MILLER: What about an incentive to work, does it provide any real
incentives to work?
JORDAN: No real incentives to work. The working poor are left out
f the categories. The working poor are excluded from Public Assis-
cance programs as they now exist. They have no incentive to work built
in to present systems and this is the case.
MILLER: One last question. You're a member of this distinguished
presidential commission including men from all over the country,
including many businessmen. Did they all come to the commission agreed
that this was the proposal or what was the process? How did the
commission come to unanimously recommend this plan?
JORDAN: This commission was composed of corporate executives,
university professors, former governors, even the former governor of
California and they saw poverty, they stidued it, they smelled poverty,
they saw people locked into this kind of isolation that I talk about
and decided that the only response and the only alternative was a
minimum income guarantee.
MILLER: Thank you.
PALMIERI: Senator, before Mr. Rusher starts, the question that Mr.
Rusher and his witnesses posed to earlier witnesses is still a
question very much in the minds of the American public. Why should
productive people, so-called, contribute to non-productive people?
JORDAN: Well, I could say that we always in many instances productive
eople have contributed to non-productive people, but the assumption
hat you, we're making which is erroneous here is that there are large
and vast numbers of people who can be productive who are on welfare
MINIMUM INCOME/19
simply because they are lazy. This is one of the myths the Heineman
Commission sought to destroy. This is not the case.
PALMIERI: Thank you Senator. Let's hear from Mr. Rusher.
RUSHER: Senator Jordan, as you are aware, Senator Harris of Oklahoma
has introduced into the Senate a bill to make the floor for this type
of a system $3600. How do you stand on that bill?
JORDAN: I would say that it is unmalistic to seek a floor of $3600
at this time.
RUSHER: Unrealistic how?
JORDAN: It is unrealistic in terms of $3600 would require an expen-
diture of some $27 billion and the American people are not ready to
commit that vast sum of money to a program to help people stand
their feet.
RUSHER: I agree with you, but if the American people by any chance
could be persuaded to do it would you favor it?
JORDAN: Yes, I would.
RUSHER: And how about the proposal of the National Welfare Rights
Organization, the demand indeed, that the floor be $5500?
JORDAN: I think that when you get to that point you reach the point
of diminishing returns and I'd say that in order for us to keep
incentives built into the system that it is necessary to keep it at a
reasonable and practical level.
RUSHER: You're in favor of $3600 if it could be practically achieved
but not $5500.
JORDAN: $3600 because that is the poverty index at this time and
that's why it makes sense.
RUSHER: Tell me, isn't it true that, well put it the other way
around, what's wrong with requiring work or at least job training for
welfare payments?
JORDAN: It is alien to the American way of life to coerce people,
to coerce people to work in order, in order to earn
RUSHER: Is it the American,
JORDAN: The vast majority, let me finish my answer.
RUSHER: Surely.
MINIMUM INCOME/20
JORDAN: The vast majority of the American people continue to work to
earn a living and the vast ma jority would continue to work to earn a
living.
RUSHER: Since you have raised the question of just what is and what
isn't alien to the American way of life would you say that it is alien
to the American way of life to pay a man a stipulated amount every year
for doing nothing whatever and not requiring anything of him in return?
JORDAN: I would say that it is alien to the American way of life to
be the richest nation in the world and suffer 25 million people.
RUSHER: And not give people money for nothing?
JORDAN: And suffer 26 million people.
RUSHER: We've heard a lot of talk about the proposition that only 3%
of the people now on welfare are able-bodied and let's assume for the
moment, although I assume it only for the moment because I think it's
wrong, that it is true. Let's assume that it's true about those
presently on welfare, these 10 million plus that are on welfare, This
proposal tonight proposes to add 26 million. Is it your impression that
only 3% of those are going to be able-bodied?
JORDAN: It is my impression that this country must move in the
direction of eliminating, eradicating, erasing welfare as it now
exists
RUSHER: I would like you to answer my question.
JORDAN:
and moving to a new program. That's the only answer I
can give you.
RUSHER: Let me try again. If we add 26 million to the welfare 10
million will they all but 3% of them be unable to work?
JORDAN: The question is this 26 million people be poor people, people
who
RUSHER: Would they be able to work?
JORDAN:
are looking for an opportunity, people who are looking
for the chance to stand on their feet. If they could work they would
work.
RUSHER: Well, we'll pass that and ask you this instead. Is it true
that recently in Detroit 600 welfare recipients said they would never
again accept work as domestic servants, that they regarded it as
demeaning and instead they's stay on welfare?
JORDAN: I did not talk to them.
MINIMUM INCOME/21
RUSHER: I didn't ask whether you did.
JORDAN: Well, I don't know whether they said it or not.
RUSHER: In other words you haven't heard that they did.
JORDAN: I have not heard that they did.
RUSHER: Well, accepting for the moment hypothetically the proposition
that they did, would you comment on it.
JORDAN: I would not comment on a proposition that's hypothetical.
RUSHER: Oh, you won't comment on a hypothetical proposition.
PALMIERI: Well, we've got enough real world propositions to talk about.
I think we're talking about problems that are important to all.
RUSHER: Well, I assure you, Mr. Palmieri, I did not pull that story out
of the blue, It actually happened in Detroit and I'm sorry Senator
Jordan would rather not comment on it. May I ask you whether or not in
fact, let's put it around this way instead of giving you a hypothetical.
Would you consider that work as a domestic Servant should be accepted by
a person who is otherwise out of work?
JORDAN: Do I think he should be coerced?
RUSHER: No, should he do it on his own?
JORDAN: If this isa job that the man desires as a domestic servant
or a woman, yes.
RUSHER: And if he prefers to stay on welfare, that's all right with you.
JORDAN: If she prefers a new kind of opportunity, another kind of job
and her skills can adapt themselves to a new kind of job then that
opportunity ought to be provided.
RUSHER: And suppose her skills can only adapt her to a new kind of
welfare.
JORDAN: Well, I would not assume a situation in which a person's skills--
RUSHER: I'm not asking you to assume anything. I am merely saying if
there is a job as a domestic servant
JORDAN: Well, you said "suppose" and in my book suppose means assume.
RUSHER: I didn't say suppose. I didn't. I said that if a person receive
an offer of employment as a domestic servant and is currently on welfare,
should they take it or should they not? Now you can say can do it or
t
as you choose.
MINIMUM INCOME/22
JORDAN: That should be a matter of
RUSHER: Of personal decision.
JORDAN:
of personal decision and judgment.
RUSHER: Right. And if they don't want to take it then they can just
take the cash and sit.
JORDAN: That would be a matter of personal decision and judgment.
RUSHER: Precisely, For each person individually, and if he decided to
take the cash, it is our moral duty to pay it to him.
JORDAN: That is your assumption at that point that it is our moral duty.
RUSHER: What is yours?
JORDAN: What my assumption is that we would create a climate, market
incentives, labor participation, more jobs to enable people to break
out of the cocoons that lock them in at this point in serval kinds of
positions.
RUSHER: Do I understand that you do not believe then that there is a
oral obligation to make welfare payments to people who don't want to work?
JORDAN: There is a moral obligation
RUSHER: Oh there is.
JORDAN: There is a moral obligation to provide every man, woman and
child in America with a decent level of living.
RUSHER: And that is to be done regardless of whether they want to work
for it or not.
JORDAN: The point that I would like to make
RUSHER: I would like to make that point.
JORDAN: Then you make it and don't ask me to respond to it.
RUSHER: Yes, I do ask you to respond to it. You're a witness here.
JORDAN: What I am saying is.
RUSHER: And what I'm asking is whether or not they would have to do
any work for it.
PALMIERI: Senator, I'd intervene if I didn't think you could handle
yourself.
MINIMUM INCOME/23
JORDAN: People should not be forced to work in order to be able to
celebrate life. That should not be an ingredient of the American way of
life.
RUSHER: I think that sums up if not the American way of life at any
rate the one that Senator Jordan favors. Thank you.
PALMIERI: Senator Jordan, thank you for being on The Advocates.
(applause) Mr. Miller you have one minute to summarize your case.
MILLER: The question is whether we really intend to deal with he
problem that exists. The problem that exists is not vast number of
able-bodied people who don't want to work, but people who are working
and who are nevertheless poor and for whom we have structured an entire
system that leads them away from their family and from their work.
That is the reality we must deal with. All the boogeymen about people
who don't want to work, in fact as income level goes up people tend to
work often harder. It is not a question of the requirement. The
requirement or the force requires the kind of vast bureaucracy that
everyone wants to get rid of. If the bureaucracy's gone, if the payments
go, if the climate's correct, if the incentives are there, then the
people who now work will continue working. Those who are simply to
continue the present system and the present bureaucracy and the present
reverse incentive have an obligation it seems to me to suggest some-
thing else, This is the suggestion of the commission. It is the one we
should adopt.
PALMIERI: Thank you, Mr. Miller. Now Mr. Rusher, you have one minute.
RUSHER: This year and last on The Advocates we've discussed many
liberal proposals for allegedly improving our society. Some it may be
were meritorious. Others perhaps were harmful and yet had small actual
effect, but there has never been one in my opinion as full of peril to
our national life as the proposal we have been considering tonight.
To create a whole new class of lifelong professional dependents, 35
million strong, to tax the heart out of every working man and woman in
America to feed and to clothe and house these people without once
requiring them to lift a finger or even asking them to learn a trade,
this is not statecraft, This isn't even common politics. This is the
swift sure road to national suicide.
PALMIERI: Mr. Rusher, thank yoo. Well, ladies and gentlemen, now
it's time for you at home to act on tonight's question. Should the
federal government guarantee a minimum income to every American?
You've heard our distinguished witnesses, including the Governor of the
State of California. It's time for you to make up your mind and signify
to us where you stand ón the question, We want you to let us know. We
want you to write us tonight, Every one of your votes is important.
Will you send your vote to The Advocates, Box 1970, Boston 02134. We
tabulate your views and we make them known to the White House, to all
the members of the Congress and to others throughout the nation who are
concerned with this problem. Please remember that address; The
Advocates, Box 1970, Boston 02134.
MINIMUM INCOME/24
Four weeks ago The Advocates debated a plan for universal voter
registration in presidential elections. Doesn't sound like it'd be as
controversial as tonight's program. Believe me it was. We've now
heard from over 1300 individuals across the country. Our viewers were
fairly evenly divided. 48% were in favor, 48% were opposed, 4%
expressed other views.
Now for the next two weeks The Advocates programs will come to you from
Paris, France. We'll have more on that for you in just a moment. Now
we anticipate while we're overseas that Congress will act on a question
that we debated three weeks ago. That question: Should Congress set
import quotas on textiles and shoes. So therefore we're reporting
tonight the preliminary mail results on that question. We've received
24,468 replies. And they were overwhelmingly in favor of quotas.
90% of those responding said yes, they were in favor of quotas, only
10% said no. But more than 80% of the total mail was clearly the result
of organized write-ins with a preponderance of letters coming, not
surprisingly, from the textile states of South and North Carolina,
Georgia and Alabama. And now let's look ahead to next week.
FILM:
MADAME BINH: If Mr. Nixon really wants to end the war and negotiate
seriously, we are ready to do SO,
ANNOUNCER: Madame Nguyen Thi Binh, spokesman for the Viet Cong at the
Paris peace talks.
XUAN THUY: speaking in Vietnamese.
ANNOUNCER: Xuan Thuy, principle negotiator for the North Vietnamese.
Next week Xuan Thuy and Madame Binh participate in an extraordinary
television event when The Advocates begin a two-part program on ending
the war in Vietnam. Next time from Paris, The Advocates,
PALMIERI: Thanks now to our advocates and to our distinguished
witnesses. I'm Victor Palmieri. Til next week, thanks to you. Good
night.
ANNOUNCER: The Advocates as a program takes no position on the issues
debated tonight. Our job is to help you understand both sides more
clearly.
-
1/24/21
PLEASE CREDIT ANY QUOTES OR EXCERPTS FROM THIS ABC RADIO AND
TELEVISION PROGRAM TO "ABC'S ISSUES AND ANSWERS."
ISSUES AND ANSWERS
SUNDAY, JANUARY 24, 1971
GUEST:
GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN (R. Cal.)
INTERVIEWED BY:
Sam Donaldson, ABC News Capitol IIill
Correspondent.
Louis Rukeyser, ABC News Economic Editor
DE - -
MR. RUKEYSER: Governor, President Nixon made his State
of the Union speech Friday night. You spent more than an
hour with him yesterday. What reaction did you give nim?
GOVERNOR REAGAN: Well, I thought it was fine. I think
that what he called for basically was the very thing that has
been at the heart of Republican philosophy in recent years.
The decentralization of the great power of the federal govern-
ment, the return of more authority and autonomy to local
governments, to the states, and, of course, this ties in with
the federal revenue-sharing which I see as a possibility of
2
1
taking some of the burdens off the federal government and
2
operating things more efficiently at the local and the state
3
level.
4
MR. RUKEYSER: Will you be supporting that program in the
5
deliberations here in Washington?
6
GOVERNOR REAGAN: Oh, very much. I think there is
7
probably going to be great congressional opposition to winding
8
down. You know, there is an old saying that no government has
9
ever voluntarily reduced itself in size, but I think if the
10
people themselves will, at the grass roots, make it evident
11
that they want this - and I believe they do; I think people
12
are concerned about how far government has become removed from
13
their influence -- I think that Congress can see the light and
14
bring this about.
15
MR. DOMALDSON: Governor, another point of congressional
16
opposition that is developing has to do with what you call
17
"deficiency." Many members of Congress don't like the idea
18
of sending the money back to the states with no strings
19
attached, afraid that the states may not use the money
20
properly. What is your counter to that?
21
GOVERNOR REAGAN: I see nothing wrong with the federal
22
government setting some minimum standards. For example, if
73
they are going to give us money to operate a welfare program,
21
that is now bound in by federal regulations right down to
every detail as to how we must administer the program; if they
3
1
are to give us the authority to run the program, there is
2
nothing wrong with the federal government insisting that
3
there is a basic level that must be maintained, and I wouldn't
4
object to that. Where we get in trouble at the local level
5
is trying to make regulations that are worked out here in the
6
Nation's Capital on a basis that would fit every section of
7
the country, and there is a great diversity in America, and
8
then expecting us to make those regulations work in our
C)
administering of the program.
10
MR. DONALDSON: Well, it is said that the federal govern
11
ment is the best tax collector, but people like Wilour Mills
12
of the house Ways and Means Committee make the point that
13
the person that uses the money should be the person --
14
meaning government constituency --- that raises the money.
15
Why shouldn't you in California have some device for increas-
16
ing your taxes, lowering the federal tax, let's say, rather
17
than sending the money to Washington and then back again?
18
GOVERNOR REAGAN: Well, I have always been an opponent of
19
that. I have said that, running it through these puzzle
20
palaces on the Potomac, it comes back minus a pretty neavy
21
carrying charge and the ideal would be for the federal govern
22
ment, which has preempted so many sources of revenue, to
23
simply return those sources and allow the collection at the
24
local level. But it is a fact of government, and not only
25
the federal government you'd be surprised, after a while
-
I
at the state level, how resistant some at the state level
2
are when you suggest allowing the cities to have a source
3
revenue and to solve their own problems with that revenue.
&
So this is just a fact of human nature and governments
5
made up of human beings.
6
MR. RUKLYSER: Do you think there is any chance this
7
program would result in any net tax reduction?
8
GOVERNOR REAGAN: Oh, I think very easily it coulu be-
9
cause I believe that in administering these, without the
10
duplication of bureaucracies -- take, for example, in welfare,
11
There is the gigantic Health, Education and Welfare Depart-
12
ment. How, there is a very sizeable state welfare Department
13
in California. Then the program that actually aoministers
14
to the people is at the county level and they have a gigantic
15
bureaucracy, if you want to call it that, because they are
16
the ones who provide the case workers who are in contact
17
with the Welfare recipients. NOW, if you could reduce the
18
administrative overhead at Washington, you free a great
19
dollars that are not actually helping the problems of tue
20
poor If we at the state lo el -- and we have been trying
21
to do this in California, to wind ours
down -- we have,
22
in the four years that I have been there, we have reduced the
23
state regulations imposed on the counties Erom 2500 pages to
24
less than 250 and I think that the 250 are still too many.
25
5
cl
--
HR. DONALDSON: Well, what can you do, saying that you
2
support this idea, to mobilize some sort of pressure on
3
Congress, because at the moment it would appear that it has
4
very little chance -- that is, Revenue Sharing -- of getting
5
through this year?
6
GOVERNOR REAGAN: I think they had better start listen-
7
ing to the people. Of all the issues in this country that
3
have the people aroused, I will quarantee you, just from my
3
own experience in speaking engagements and getting around
10
the country and in our own state, there is no problem that
11
I can think of in which the people are more set and determined
12
in their minds that there must be reform than in the field
13
of welfare. The people are at the they see it operating,
14
they live across the street from the recipients, they see
i5
the shortcomings of the program and they see, certainly, the
16
waste and extravagance and I am prepared to say that most of
17
that waste and extravagance is the result of trying to make
18
the multitudenous federal regulations operate, because the
13
more regulations you get, the more interpretations you can
20
have, and the more loopholes you can have and some of the
21
cases are just actually riuiculous.
22
MR. RUKEYSER. Well, Governor, it is no secret you have
23
been involved in controversy with the Hixon Administration
24
over more than one question involving public welfare. Vice
President Agnew suggested ten days ago that welfare was much
c2
6
}
more complex a problem -- those were his words - than your
2
proposal, to put able-bodied recipients to work.
3
Have you resolved any of these differences in the last
4
ten days?
5
GOVERNOR REAGAN: Well, there is a great deal more in which
0)
we are in agreement. As a matter of fact, we in California
7
were privileged to be in on the very inception of the
8
President's idea about reform of welfare. Now we are agreed
9
totally on the need for complete reform of welfare. It is
10
a colossal failure. It is a disaster in this country as it
11
is now operated. It has no goal. It has no eventual end
12
purpose that anyone can see.
13
We are agreed on the necessity to have some realistic
14
work incentives. At present, literally, the welfare re-
15
cipient has the choice of working or saying, "I will sit
16
and do nothing, and I won't be penalized, I will still be
17
given subsistence." This, we are in agreement on, must be
18
changed.
19
Where we came into some disagreement -- and it never
20
affected a cordial relationship, at all; we have discussed
21
it frankly and openly - we believe that when the President's
22
original concept came down through the bureaucracy of NEW
23
in legislative form and was passed by the Congress, these
24
work provisions were watered down to where the loopholes re-
25
mained and there was no realistic way to get these people
7
$
into employment, or force them into employment. We think
2
the shortcomings were in that legislative form.
3
MR. DONALDSON: You just used the words "force then
4
into employment" and it ties in with what Lou mentioned about
5
your own plans for a work force for the employable people
6
who are in welfare in California. Now how would that work?
7
How would you force them into employment?
8
GOVERNOR REAGAN: Well, we are working toward a concept,
9
there, on an experimental basis, that we would like to try
10
out, and I have had conversations with the Secretary of
11
HEW, Eliot Richardson, and he is most interested in having
12
our people come back -- and they are not frozen into any
13
total, solid position, nor are we. I am one who believes
14
that some of these various programs, there should be some
10
experimentation before they are imposed nationwide. This is
16
what has been wrong in the past. Someone has had an idea in
17
Washington and a program goes out and if it turns out there
18
are shortcomings, inertia sets in and there is no way to
reverse the trend.
19
20
21
22
23
24
8
1
1
We would like to experiment with, first of all, taking
2
the real dependents, the aged, the disabled, the blind and
3
so forth, and recognizing that they are pensioners, they
4
do not properly belong over in the welfare structure.
Automate their checks by way of Social Security. Set them over
5
here and pay them.
as
You don't have to have a case worker dropping in every
7
few months on an elderly person to check on whether they
8
are getting younger or not. They are not. And then turn to
9
this section of welfare that should be viewed
10
as temporary, and the goal of welfare should be to reduce
11
the need for itself. Welfare should base its success on how
12
much this segment of potential employables shrinks as
13
government wards, how many of them they can get out into
14
the private sector. And we are working toward the idea of
15
trying - in a sense a public work force, cataloguing all
16
those functions that are not now being performed at
17
local or state or even federal government levels, useful,
18
necessary things that government would do, if it had the
19
manpower and the resources. Well, we do. We have the manpower
20
presently on welfare, the employable manpower, that just isn't
21
able to get a job in the private sector because of the
22
lack of a job skill, or basic education, or whatever. We
23
have the funds. It is now being paid to them in the welfare
24
grants.
25
9
2
I
But if we created on a priority basis these public
=
services - now in this whole environmental field, countless
3
doors are opened for things that need doing. Here is the
4
manpower and the resources to do it, but consider always
F.
that these people are not permanent government employees.
6
The program is permanent, but they are temporary, and you
7
tie your job training and job procurement to these programs
8
in which your goal is to get these people out of this
?
kind of employment into the private sector, into the jobs
10
with a future and an opportunity as quickly as possible.
11
(Announcements)
*
#
12
13
MR. RUKEYSER: Governor Reagan, in your talk with the
14
President yesterday did he indicate that he was moving to
15
remedy what you consider defects in his previous Welfare
16
Reform Plan?
17
GOVERNOR REAGAN: No, we actually didn't touch on that
18
subject. We were both being very tactful. But I do know
19
that the Secretary 15 very interested in hearing all input
from others. lie wants to find whatever there is that
20
21
might aid, again, in this total agreement we have, that
2?
the program must be salvaged, it must be reformed.
22
MR. RUKEYSER: Would you agree that some form of a
24
welfare reform plan is likely to be enacted by the Congress
25
this year, and if so what form do you think it is going to
10
3
take?
:
GOVERNOR REAGAN: Now perhaps you here closer to the SC
2
are more familiar with how Congress is going to react to
in
these things. Perhaps Congress might be more willing to
Do
act on an experimental basis. You see the one that I just
5
outlined to you, I cannot be totally sure in my mind that
6
there aren't defects, that this would solve the whole
7
problem and this is why I believe in the idea of granting
S
some states the permission to try some of these things,
9
implement them and see if they work fine, what the
10
advantages are, the shortcomings, but we may find
11
an amalgum, we may find a mix
12
of features of one and features of another. But if we can
13
240
agree upon the goal and if Congress will give that permission.
14
I think we can solve it, but I think it is the most important
15
issue facing the Congress today. This nation must have
16
a reform of welfare, or the nation and the states individually
17
are heading for bankruptcy.
18
MR. RUKEYSER: Do you regard that as more important
19
than revenue sharing?
20
GOVERNOR REAGAN: Well, I think revenue sharing
21
ties right in with it. Let me just add one thing. I have
22
just finished referring to the bankruptcy that faces government,
23
but let me make very clear that the most important and tragic
24
part of the failure of welfare IS for the person who is totally
25
11
-
destitute and dependent on the rest of us, because
2
we are spread so thin with this proliferation of programs
3
that we can't actually do what we should be doing for
4
the totally destitute persons. They are existing on grants
S
that do not give them what they need to raise their children
6
properly, and to escape poverty.
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
2,
25
12
$1s.mm
MR. DONALDSON: Governor, your own state faces a
2
deficit and you told the Legislature that you are going to
3
have to borrow to make up. while reforming welfare and
cutting back on some services might be the long-range
5
solution, but the Democratic leaders of the Legislature --
6
and it is Democratic now -- say taxes, a rise in taxes is
7
inevitable. How are you going to resolve this difference?
8
GOVERNOR REAGAN: Well, there is a kind of a revelation
9
here of the basic difference in philosophies between us.
10
Now, when I said borrow, let me explain this. This is a
11
technical thing in California. We cannot have a deficit.
12
We cannot borrow like the federal government can, to go out
13
and Borrow in order to pay the running costs of government.
14
was simply injecting there that our cash flow problem requires
15
interdepartmental borrowing. The fact that in several months
16
of the year you have no revenues coming in under our tax
17
structure, but the bills must be paid.
18
Now, we meet this every year, regularly, by borrowing,
19
let's say from the gasoline tax fund of money that they are
20
not yet ready to use, and this borrowing must be paid back
21
as the year goes on.
22
what I did say to them was that if they would meet, as
23
they should, the issue of reducing some of the costs of
21
government, some of the lower priority items, and meet the
25
problem of reforming Medicaid, which we call medical, and
2
13
date
Welfare, we GO not need a tax increase.
2
NOW, the easy way is for them to just simply say, "well,
(1)
here we are in trouble. We need 'x' number of dollars more.
4
we will turn to the public and take more money away from them.
5
But if they do without reforming Welfare, then, as I tolu
6
them, next year they will have to do it again; they will have
7
to do it the year after; they will have to do it the year
8
after and into bankruptcy because Welfare is progressing at a
9
rate that is more than three times the annual increase through
10
growth of the economy in our resources.
11
MR. DONALDSON: How about legalized gambling as New York
12
has done and there is a bill in your Legislature with
13
terrific Democratic backing for off-track betting?
14
GOVERNOR REAGAN: Well, there isn't solid Democratic
15
backing even for that. Californians have made it pretty
16
plain they don't like this gimmick approach. Twice now the
17
California people have voted down on the ballot the idea of a
18
public lottery. I myself lean against it.
19
MR. DONALDSON: On moral grounds or what?
20
GOVERNOR REAGAN: I am inclined to believe that a state
21
should get its revenue from its people's strength, not by
22
capitalizing on their weaknesses.
23
MR. RUKLYSER: Governor, before we leave the subject of
24
the poor, I want to ask you whether you expect the Office of
23
Lconomic Opportunity to sustain your veto of 3 $1.8 million
3
14
1
grant for the California Rural Legal Assistance?
2
GOVERNOR REAGAN: well, I sincerely hope they will. we
3
have been discussing this whole problem with them. You see,
4
this is only one of a number of OEO-funded grants for legal
S
assistance to the poor. Now, I have had no problem with the
3
others. I have approved the others. There are a number of
7
those programs in effect. In Los Angeles County they handled
a
8,000 cases last year. It is a tremendously successful
9
program.
10
CRLA, I flatly charge, is not fulfilling the purpose for
11
which it was created. It is not giving legal representation
12
to the poor, and we have come back here with a proposal for
13
a program that will give this legal aid to the poor that is not
14
nowbeing given.
15
MR. DONALDSON: Let me change the subject very quickly an:
16
talk about the Indo-China War. Under two presidents you have
17
supported our goals and our program in Vietnam. HOW many
18
people in Washington are concerned about increased U. S. air
19
involvement in Cambodia at a time when we are withdrawing from
20
Vietnam. They worry that we must be sucked into a Camoodian
21
quagmire, to use Senator Muskie's words. DO you have any
22
reservations about what we are doing?
23
GOVERNOR REAGAN: Well, I am in great disagreement with
21
Senator Muskie and his observations on this and some of the
25
others. This war, which has been going on a great many years
4
IS
1
in conception it was contrary to what many of us believed.
2
I have been one who subscribed to the lacarthur theory that
3
you do not get bogged down in a land war in Asia, out we did,
4
quite a number of years ago.
5
dow, in these two years we are winding down the war we
3
have fewer than half as many men, Americans, in Vietnam as
7
we had before, and I think they can't have it both ways.
3
They want the war wound down.
9
MR. DONALDSON: Do you want it wound down?
30
GOVERNOR REAGAN: I want it wound down and I believe
11
turning it over to the South Vietnamese is imminent and very
12
practical and they will be able to take care of themselves
13
very shortly.
14
But, what Senator luskie seems to be denying is the
15
responsibility of the Commander-in-Chief to insure that as we
16
reduce our forces down to a dangerous level in which the
17
enemy could attack, overrun them, and we could have eitner a
18
Dunkirk or thousands of prisoners in a death march as we nau
19
in Bataan, that the bombing in Cambodia is not involvement
20
in the Cambodian War. That bombing is to keep them from re-
21
establishing the sanctuaries they had from which they could
22
attack and overrun, once our force gets down.
23
NOW, the present plans call for us being down to only
21
around 60,000 combat troops by May. Witen you get down to that
23
level you are in great danger unless you Keep the enday off
16
1
balance and I think the Commander-in-Chief would be derelict
2
in his responsibility -- which he is not --- if ne aid not
335
3
keep up this action, so that we can withuraw our forces
4
safely.
5
(Announcements)
6
7
MR. RUKEYSER: Governor, are there any circumstances
8
that you can conceive under which Richard Nixon would not be
9
a candidate for re-election next year?
10
GOVERNOR REAGAN: No, I mildn't foresee it. I suppose
11
you'd have to say if there was some tremendous calamity or
12
cataclysm, 1929 crash or something, that this coulu be fore-
13
seeable, but I am far more optimistic than that. I think
14
is on the right track and has been doing a fine job and I.
15
expect to be supporting him.
16
MR. RUKLYSLR: Are there any circumstances you can con-
(PM)
17
ceive under which you would Le a candidate?
18
GOVERNOR REAGAN: No. The President knows that I intend
19
to lead a California delegation to the convention pleuged
20
to his renomination and election.
21
MR. DONALDSON: The Republican party here in washington
22
is going through a great deal of soul-searching because of
23
the last election. NOW we see a more moderate image. The
23
President apparently has given up on the law and order issu
25
per se and is trying to remold the party in more moderate
17
1
forms. his State of the Union Message certainly was one
2
example. Do you think that is the right course? Is that the
3
prescription for victory in '72?
4
GOVERNOR RLAGAN: Maybe we have a different interpretation
353
5
of it. I thought his speech called for quite a revolution.
$
I think an effort has been made down through the years and
7
over the decades to portray the Republican party as one that
8
was not interested in humanity and not interested in the prob-
9
lems of human misery and I think he was reassuring that tais
10
is not 50. I don't think anyone in either party wants people
11
who are poor to not be improved in their lot or careu for,
12
or wants them to not have the medical attention they need, out
13
I thought he called the attention of the Congress to the fact
14
that this is a time for choosing: that this is a time that
15
must rise above partisanship. The basic things of decentral-
16
izing the federal government, of restoring government to the
17
people at the local -- the nearest level to them, local and
18
state level; the revenue-sharing. These I thought were very
19
revolutionary.
20
Now, some people may interpret ais words on the nummitari
21
side as meaning that he wants to continue the Great Society.
22
I don't believe that because the Great Society revealed that
23
it was greatest in cost and extravagance and duplication and
2:
really failure in the solution of the problems that we are
attempting to solve. So this is a time - the people have
18
1
returned and have sent into government representatives of
N
both parties. Now, with this they must have given a manuat
3
that they expect a bipartisan management of their affairs,
&
and I don't think they are going to be patient much longer
5
with total partisanship and the rejecting of certain things
6
simply because they are proposed by the wrong party.
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
19
I
1
MR. DONALDSON: Governor, I want to return to a point
2
we were talking about earlier and that is the problem
3
with HEW that you are having, which is now before the
4
California Supreme Court, and the Court may say that you can
S
come into compliance with HEW as you have proposed. But
6
what if the Court rules that the things that you have
7
promulgated are not legal and that you cannot that way
8
come into compliance, and what if the State Legislature
9
refuses to pass legislation to bring you into
10
compliance, what then?
11
GOVERNOR REAGAN: Well, that is quite a question
12
because it is a strange thing, the technicality of
13
this non-conformity. California is one of the - well, we
14
are the top welfare paying state in the nation, and
15
there are, oh, more than 35 states who are paying
16
less to the recipients of aid, to dependent children than
17
we are and yet they are in conformity and we are not.
18
It is a technicality. I guess the ball would then
19
rest with NEW as to what action they wanted to take. But I
20
want you to know that before they ever charged nonconformity,
21
we had legislation before the Legislature to change that
22
particular program, to augment the grants to the needy. The
23
Legislature turned it down. We tried to do it administratively.
24
OEO lawyers brought a case and got a temporary injunction
25
against us administratively doing this, which means that
20
-
unless the Supreme Court upholds our right to administrativel
2
change these grants, which would put us in conformity, then
3
it would go back to the Legislature.
4
Now I have confidence that the Legislature would
5
grant us what is needed and what we are asking, but
6
if they didn't, then my question is, what would HEW do?
7
MR. DONALDSON: It would be up to them. You would
8
accept the fact that the funds were cut off?
9
GOVERNOR REAGAN: No. If the funds were cut off I
10
would have only one recourse. We would send the welfare
11
recipients the state's share and notify them that it was the
12
federal government that was withholding their share. Now if
13
HEW wants to live with that that's their problem.
14
MR. DONALDSON: Thank you very much, Governor Reagan,
15
for being with us today on ISSUES AND ANSWERS.
16
(Sunday, February 7, Senator Edmund Muskie (D. Maine))
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
the
&
Steve
or
9/5/71
S
TELEPHONE ADDRESS BY GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
Y.A.F. NATIONAL CONVENTION
Houston, Texas
September 5, 1971
Since you've been so kind as to grant me these few moments for greetings
and salutations, perhaps you'll not take it too unkindly if I impose
further on your time. As representatives of Y.A.F., you are political
independents. Still, you've found in your political activism an affin-
ity for the Republican Party, rejecting the albumin brained socialist
engineers who would set mass above man, and who think social progress is
superior to individual action or choice, group compulsion is the only
road to Utopia, and economic security is a more desirable goal than per-
sonal freedom.
When I think of the philosophy prevalent in so much of the intellectual
community, I marvel at the way you have obtained an education, yet re-
mained steadfast in your beliefs, resisting the zeitgeist--the wind of
our times.
Poll after poll reveals that a most persistent myth is the acceptance
of the Democratic Party as the most efficient and reliable in times of
economic stress. Evidence of this is the rush to register Democrat by
so many of your newly enfranchised peers. These are the same young
people who have been so stridently vocal in their denunciation of the
establishment, and who find government too big, impersonal and oppressive.
I suppose the myth of the Democrats' economic capability had its be-
ginning in the fact that a Republican Herbert Hoover was President at
the time of the crash and depression which began in 1929. The Democrats
came to power in the election of 1932, and for almost forty years they
have been applying a variety of nostrums from their social medicine chest.
In just one two-year period--1953 through 1954--has there been a Repub-
lican Congress, and, curiously enough, that is the only time in all the
forty years that the dollar remained stable.
When Herbert Hoover left the White House there were two hundred and
thirty Americans for every federal employee. When Richard Nixon entered
the White House there were only sixty-seven citizens for each federal
employee. And what prosperity did such a growth in government bring us?
In 1939, after seven years of New Deal programs costing billions of
dollars, twenty-five percent of the labor force was still unemployed.
But then in 1939 we became the arsenal of Democracy; full employment and
prosperity were on their way, and so was World War II.
Following the war, as we began to catch up with the shortage of consumer
goods, unemployment began to increase. But then came war again, this
time in Korea, and once again we had full employment. A Republican
President ended that war and led us through the longest period of peace
we've known since World War II. Also during that time of peace we had
virtually no inflation. Peace was not the result of appeasement. At
one point Red China threatened war and an invasion of Taiwan. President
Eisenhower said, "They'd have to climb over the seventh fleet to do it,"
and there was no war.
Y.A.F. National Convention
-2-
Then came Camelot and three years of unemployment averaging higher than
the unemployment we have now in this time of economic hardship. Somehr
the communications media was unaware of it, and in the many Presidentia_
press conferences of those three years no reporter ever asked President
Kennedy what he intended doing about unemployment.
It was from Camelot that the first American combat troops went to Vietnam.
And soon we had another Democratic President, the Great Society, full-scale
war in Vietnam, and, of course, full employment and prosperity on the
home front, but no sacrifice. The war was conducted on a "guns and butter"
basis, which brought on runaway inflation. The 1939 dollar had lost
sixty-one cents of its purchasing power by 1968. One has to wonder at
the staying power of the Democratic myth.
Now a Republican President is bringing this fourth war in our century to
a halt. In the transition from a war to a peacetime economy. some two
million defense workers and military personnel have been thrown
job market. There is unemployment and. of course, economic dis.
There is also the inflation he inherited and which neither his predecessor
nor George Meany had the guts to tackle. He is confronted by a hostile
Congress and a bureaucratic jungle peopled by permanent government em-
ployees determined to carry on the discredited social tinkering of the
past forty years.
There is more. John F. Kennedy announced the discovery of a missile gap
in 1960. After the election he admitted no such gap existed, so in eight
years the Democrats created one. And the present Democratic Congress r
made it plain they have little stomach for any rebuilding of our deterior-
ated defense structure.
In summing it up, there have been four major wars in my lifetime, all
under Democratic Presidents, and we've only achieved full employment
and prosperity during and because of those wars.
Now our opponents would lead the nation again, shedding crocodile tears
over the present economic distress, and professing absolute innocence
over having. anything to do with it. Somehow they remind me of the wide-
eyed blonde in the tabloids who has just bunched six shots from a '38
in her boyfriend's bread basket, and says she didn't know the gun was
loaded.
And what do they have in store for us if they get back in charge? Well,
six would-be-Presidents now in the Senate have, between them, introduced
more than one hundred fortv-three billion dollars in new social welfare
programs. The Democratic Party Council has declared open season on tax-
payers. The Council has called for. "A shift of financial resources
from private to government channels to meet the growing needs of health,
welfare, employment and other domestic problems.' They call for a
"vigorous tax program," and we learn that the wage-earning citizen who
averages working five months out of the twelve to pay for the cost of
government should be denied such legitimate tax deductions as interest
on his home mortgage or installment payments, or his property tax.
Y.A.F. National Convention
-3-
They would also impose a limit on charitable contributions. It is time
to ask ourselves seriously if this nation can survive four years of what
they have in mind.
I know something of your discomfort and your unhappiness with what you
feel has been the present administration's abandonment of some Repub-
lican principles. At the same time, I have been the beneficiary of
your friendly approval, warm commendation, and generous words. I was
terribly tempted tonight to limit myself to simply expressing my personal
gratitude, and I am grateful--humbly grateful-- to all of you. But you
are too important--too vital to this country's very existence-for me to
indulge in what would be a copout.
Perhaps we have all been at fault. We've forgotten that our President
lives in a liberal community; that the heritage of these four decades is
a constant pressure in the nation's Capitol from the left. We who think
of ourselves as Conservatives have sat back critically observing, but
doing no pressuring in behalf of our own views. Be critical, be vocal
and forceful in urging your views on the President. He needs that input
to counter the constant pressure from the opposite side; he needs the
arguments you can provide. In all of this we fallen short.
Let me take the one issue of the announced China visit and ask you to
consider a few points that might have been overlooked in your deliberations.
I've heard staunch Republicans say if Hubert Humphrey were President and
had announced such a visit we as Republicans would be horrified and united
in our opposition.
Of course we would, and why not? Look at the track record. A Democratic
President brought back the bitter fruit of appeasement from Yalta and
Potsdam. A Democratic President snatched defeat from the jaws of victory
in Korea. A Democratic President scaled the heights of statesmanship in
the Cuban missile crisis and then lacked the courage or wisdom to take
the final step to the summit. A Democratic President disgraced this
nation at the Bay of Pigs, and a Democratic President faltered and was
unwilling to exact a price for the thousands of young Americans who died
in the jungles of Vietnam. A Democratic President made possible the
godless, inhumane tyranny of Mao Tse Tung's Red China. Yes. we'd be
horrified. and with good reason, if Hubert Humphrey were representing
us in talks with China.
But it is a Republican President who has said he's willing to talk. He
has been blunt in his declaration that we will not under any circumstances
desert an old friend and ally, Chiang Kai Shek. There is no indication
that he 11 give anything away or betray our honor. If I am wrong and
that should be the result--time then for indignation and righteous anger.
But in the meantime, let us remember that this American President who
has said he 11 go to China is the same man who as Vice President went
to Moscow; and there in the glare of the television flood lights, sur-
rounded by microphones, heard Nikita Khrushchev threaten action by the
Soviet Union against the United States, and he replied. "Try it and we 11
kick the hell out of you."
Y.A.F. National Convention
-4-
Young ladies and gentlemen, remember your very title--you are young
Americans for freedom. That is your mission above all others. You
are most important in this particular moment of history, because so
many of your peers have. listened to false prophets and demagogues.
Consider very carefully the long hard struggle that lies ahead, and
how far we've traveled together to reach this moment of hope for all
the things we believe in. Weigh the alternatives, and use your strength
wisely and well.
God bless you in your deliberations, and grant you wisdom and courage
and strength.
-
$
9/12/71
The National Broadcasting Company Presents
The Proceedings of
MEET THE PRESS
as broadcast nationwide by the National Broadcasting Com-
pany, Inc., are printed and made available to the public to
further interest in impartial discussions of questions affect-
ing the public welfare. Transcript may be obtained by send-
ing a stamped, self-addressed envelope and ten cents for each
copy to:
MEET THE PRESS
Merkle Press Inc. Box 2111, Washington, D. C. 20013
America's Press Conference of the Air
(Division Publishers Co., Inc.)
Produced by LAWRENCE E. SPIVAK
Guest:
GOVERNOR WARREN E. HEARNES
(D., Mo.), Chairman
MEET THE PRESS is telecast every
GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN (R., Calif.)
Sunday over the NBC Television Net-
GOVERNOR JOHN J. GILLIGAN (D., Ohio)
work. This program originated from
GOVERNOR LINWOOD HOLTON (R., Va.)
the El San Juan Hotel in San Juan,
GOVERNOR WILLIAM G. MILLIKEN (R., Mich.)
Puerto Rico.
GOVERNOR LUIS A. FERRE (N.P., Puerto Rico),
Host
VOLUME 15
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1971
NUMBER 36
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Television Broadcast 6:05-7:00 P.M. EDT.
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17
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MEET THE PRES
Panel: PETER LISAGOR, Chicago Daily News
DAVID S. BRODER, The Washington Post
R. W. APPLE, The New York Times
PAUL DUKE, NBC News
MR. MONROE: This special satellite edition of MEET THE
PRESS comes to you today from San Juan, Puerto Rico, now
relebrating its 450th anniversary as a city. The nation's Gover-
nors have gathered here for their 63rd Annual Conference, and
our guests on MEET THE PRESS are six leading Governors:
Warren E. Hearnes, Democrat of Missouri, Chairman of this
year's Conference; Ronald Reagan, Republican of California;
John J. Gilligan, Democrat of Ohio; Linwood Holton, Republican
of Virginia; William G. Milliken, Republican of Michigan, and
Luis A. Ferré, New Progressive Party of Puerto Rico, host of the
Conference.
MR. DUKE: Each year the Governors come to these confer-
ences and complain long and loud about their problems and the
need for more federal aid. I'd like to start out by asking each
of you about President Nixon's new economic recovery program
Moderator: BILL MONROE, NBC News
and whether you feel it was wrong for Mr. Nixon to delay his
revenue-sharing and welfare reform plans, both designed to help
the states. Governor Hearnes?
GOVERNOR HEARNES: I don't think it was wrong. I think
it was unfortunate for us that the Administration established
the other as first priority. I am not begging the question, but
someone has to make a decision, and he felt that the other had
priority. That does not mean that the National Governors' Con-
ference will not keep on trying as they have in the past to im-
press upon Congressman Mills the importance of revenue sharing,
and we are speaking of the revenue sharing program which was
advocated by the Administration. We still have hopes that some-
thing will come out of this Congress.
MR. DUKE: Governor Reagan, you have opposed key provisions
of the welfare reform plan, but you have been an enthusiastic
advocate of revenue sharing. How do you feel?
GOVERNOR REAGAN: I have opposed certain measures of
H.R. 1, as it has been proposed. I don't believe they will reduce
the welfare burden. As to revenue sharing, I think the ideal
would be if the federal government in the New Federalism
Permission is hereby granted to news media and
could simply restore sources of revenue to the states which have
magazines to reproduce in whole or in part. Credit
in recent years been confiscated or taken over, preempted >by
to NBC's MEET THE PRESS will be appreciated.
the federal government. But I view revenue sharing as a first
step in this process. With it, however, I have always believed
that the federal government should give us the responsibility
for some of the programs they are now conducting, not only give
1
the money the state but give the responsibility to the state
about the expanding economy of Puerto Rico, and yet
have
to carry
the program.
widespread unemployment here, you have a problem of
ation,
and some of your big hotels have closed down. Can the Presi-
MR. DUKE: But what about President Nixon's postponement
dent's program help you?
of revenue sharing for now?
GOVERNOR FERRE: Yes, I believe SO. I believe, of course,
GOVERNOR REAGAN: This, I think, I associate myself with
inflation is the worst thing we have. Another thing that is very
Governor Hearnes. I think this would be kind of nitpicking in a
bad for our country is the fact that our balance of payments
program designed to halt inflation and improve our economic
with the outer world has been against us for quite a while.
situation in the nation to pick out certain phases because they
This has hurt Puerto Rico very substantially because our most
might not please us and say, "We will drop this phase or that
important industrial activity is shoe manufacturing and apparel
phase."
manufacturing. Those are the two that have been hit the hard-
est by foreign competition. Thirty-five per cent of our employ-
GOVERNOR GILLIGAN: I can only say that the planks of
ment is in those two areas, SO it is very important for us to be
revenue sharing and welfare reform were the principal parts
able to eliminate this unfair competition of low-wage areas. The
of what was called in January by this Administration the New
President's plan we think is going to help Puerto Rico. Of course,
American Revolution. Evidently the Revolution lasted eight
as for the revenue-sharing and the welfare programs, we feel that
months, and we are now into something else, and I don't think
straightening out the economy of the United States is more
any of us are quite sure what. I would object strenuously to the
important in stopping this inflationary spiral, and, therefore,
proposition that the federal government is going to solve any
this high priority in my mind-I think the President was right
of our economic problems by throwing additional burdens upon
because it will take less welfare reform if the inflation is stopped
state and local government by cutting back its own participation
and we have a sound economy in our country.
in the service programs to the people of this country.
GOVERNOR HOLTON: I certainly think all of these programs
(Announcements)
are extremely important.
MR. LISAGOR: Governor Hearnes, last winter and spring
I think that just as a matter of procedure, however, the new
many Governors came to Washington saying that you faced fiscal
economic proposals must receive priority attention in Congress.
disaster in your state, or you were on the edge of bankruptcy
This program is very, very important. It helps develop more
if you didn't get revenue-sharing. Then the President postponed
profits which in turn help develop more jobs. It increases our
it for a time.
productivity. It comes at a time when it is very much needed, and
I think that clearly this must be the first priority. But the other
Two questions: Do you know what the Administration's posi-
two, as evidenced by communications we have all had from the
tion on revenue-sharing now is, and what happened to all those
White House, just in the last 24 or 48 hours, also must receive a
bankruptcy petitions?
high priority, and I would anticipate that certainly the revenue-
GOVERNOR HEARNES: I think if they were using the term
sharing bill or some alternative that will give the states real as-
-and I am not familiar with the statement that you made, but if
sistance will get immediate attention after the new economic
any one Governor used the term "bankruptcy," I don't think he
proposals have been handled in Congress. I believe that the
was using it in the sense that you and I think of it, as far as a
Senate Finance Committee will begin hearings just as soon as
merchant or someone on the streets.
possible on a welfare reform bill, but they are all important.
What they were trying to impress upon the Congress and the
GOVERNOR MILLIKEN: I think the overriding consideration
Administration was that the demand for services all over the
obviously of the President in the development of the new eco-
respective United States, of the states, has far exceeded their
nomic plan is to get control of inflation. Unless we can break the
Income.
back of inflation in this country, then I think all groups, whether
No man speaks with any great knowledge of another state,
they are business or employee or citizen groups, are going to
SO he can only speak of his own. I have been through the battle
be paying the price, SO that this must receive the first priority.
that many of them are now fighting. It is an experience which is
It is in the President's proposal. Clearly the momentum to carry
not very pleasant and certainly doesn't make you any friends, but
on revenue-sharing and the momentum for welfare reform should
we need money to do the things that the people want us to do.
not be stopped, and I don't think it will. I think the momentum
Services in my state, ninety per cent of it is in the field of
will carry forward, and as soon as we move, perhaps, into Phase
health, education and welfare, and it is hard to talk about cutting
2 of the President's plan, we can then move aggressively toward
in these particular fields. The people don't want them to be cut,
welfare reform and revenue-sharing.
and we want to do what we think is best for our state.
MR. DUKE: Governor Ferré, you have been boasting lately
MR. LISAGOR: Do you understand what the status of the
2
3
revenue
ring program is now S0 far as the Administration is
inflation, of a great imbalance of trade, I think
t certain
concerne
I think Governor Holton said you had a message
emergency measures are required in this time of eco.
nic stress,
from the White House in the last 24 or 48 hours. Did that tell
and I don't think they mean a change of philosophy.
you what they are going to do about revenue-sharing?
I think some Conservatives who are perturbed about his an-
nouncement of wanting to talk to China have been frightened
GOVERNOR HEARNES: I am not familia
that message.
over the years by American representatives who have tended
To my best knowledge, we have a subcommittee which is working
to appease and give away too much of America, at Potsdam and
with the staff members of Congressman Mills' committee trying
Yalta and in subsequent dealings with the totalitarian states,
to arrive at some common ground between the Ways and Means
but I think that when the President said he wanted to talk he
Committee of the House and not only the Governors, but also
made it plain that he was going to stand by our old ally, Chiang
the Mayors.
Kai-shek. He has made no announcement or indicated that he is
going to go and appease or give anything away. All I have cau-
MR. BRODER: Governor Reagan, I would like to ask you one
tioned is that those Conservatives who, having been burned
economic question and one political question. You said to a
before, now jump to the conclusion that a simple talk is going to
group of Minnesota Republicans back in March-and this is
cause us trouble, are forgetting that this is the man who stood
your language: "Emergency federal solutions tend to become
in the Soviet Union in Moscow and told Khrushchev when he
permanent problems on a wider scale. Temporary controls turn
was Vice President-when Mr. Nixon was Vice President-told
into lasting shackles."
Khrushchev that if they did some of the things Khrushchev was
Do you have any fear that that may happen with the new
threatening, we would-forgive the expression, but his exact
economic program?
words were, "We will kick hell out of you."
GOVERNOR REAGAN: I think we have to take the Presi-
MR. APPLE: Governor Gilligan, I would also like to ask an
dent at his word, and I do, that he has said that he himself
economic and a political question: You were the only man a
philosophically is opposed to such permanent shackles. He made
few moments ago who really criticized President Nixon for
this very clear in his recent speech to Congress in the Joint
postponing revenue sharing and welfare reform. Yet if I recall
Session. I think he has made it plain that these are emergency
correctly you were one of the Governors who opposed him on
measures for an emergency situation, and I have confidence that
revenue sharing. How can you be against him on having revenue
philosophically that is his thinking and that he means that.
sharing and against him at dropping it, or postponing it?
MR. BRODER: The broader political question I wanted to
GOVERNOR GILLIGAN: As shocking as it might be to
ask you is this: A good many conservatives who in the past
Governor Reagan, I agree with him on one point. I proposed
have also been Reagan supporters now find themselves unable
revenue sharing on the grounds that we don't want to put state
to support the policies of the Nixon Administration. Particu-
and local government on a perpetual federal dole. We shouldn't
larly they criticize the deficit spending by the Administration,
be talking about sharing federal revenue, but revenue sources,
the wage-price controls, what they regard as the lack of atten-
and the basic and fundamental revenue source in the nation
tion to military needs, and the President's planned trip to Com-
as we all know is income. That is the only real source of wealth,
munist China.
corporate and personal income. And I therefore look forward-
You have supported the President on all this, and what I am
it is going to take some time to work it out, but look forward
curious about is, do you think you have changed or the conserva-
to the development of a tax credit system where sufficient
tives have changed, or what has happened?
revenue would be assigned to local government, state govern-
ment and national government to allow them to meet their
GOVERNOR REAGAN: No, I don't think I have changed. I
responsibilities within their own area of responsibility. So all
don't think the conservatives have changed, and I don't think
I am saying is that when the President comes out in January
that it is exactly fair to say that the President with regard to
and announces the great need to help the states and local govern-
military matters and SO forth has changed.
ments meet these responsibilities and eight months later turns
I think he inherited the missile gap that was talked about
his back on it and walks away from it and puts it on the back
back in 1960 and which at that time it was revealed did not
burner, I am disturbed not by the abandonment of a device,
exist, but I think in the eight intervening years someone set
but of an obvious change in philosophy which disturbs me
about energetically to create that missile gap. I think this is a
greatly.
matter of concern, but I would point out that it has been the Con-
gress that has resisted the President's request for such things
MR. APPLE: Turning to politics, your state certainly will be
as the ABM. The President added a couple of billion dollars to a
one of the important states in choosing the Democratic presi-
defense budget over and above what Congress had proposed.
dential nominee. You have been described as an advocate of open
Again I have to say that inheriting a situation of runaway
politics, and yet the word in Washington among the candidates
4
5
is that th have been told to take it easy in Ohio, that you want
expressed disagreement with President Nixon's opp tion to
to keep rol of Ohio and you don't want the state being torn
using federal funds to facilitate school busing. Has the
llminis-
up by a lot of candidates running around.
tration stand made it more difficult for you as a moderate South-
GOVERNOR GILLIGAN: Part of this statement is true. It
ern Governor, and is that stand keeping alive the race issue in
the South?
isn't that I want to keep control of Ohio, it is that I have wanted
to avoid-a gang war or a barroom brawl this fall while we have
GOVERNOR HOLTON I don't think that it is keeping the race
some very important municipal races going on, and I would
issue alive. Let me make very clear that I think the busing issue
rather leave the considerations of the Presidential campaign to
generally has much broader connotation than race, and it has
the Presidential year. We have adopted a new state party con-
much broader connotation than region, too. Parents object to
stitution in Ohio designed to provide as well as we can within
taking youngsters great distances on buses. In Virginia we are
state laws for the most open kind of party, open kind of primary
having, because we don't have enough transportation facilities,
to develop a political instrumentality which will be directly
to stagger the opening hours of school in some of our cities.
responsible and responsive to the people, and we were discussing
Parents are very upset about the fact that they have to send
at great length yesterday in Miami with the other Democratic
young children to school on a staggered basis beginning as early
Governors the desirability of working out some of the McGovern
as seven o'clock in the morning and continuing up until ten o'clock
and O'Hara and Fraser reforms, but also of the practical barriers
in the morning, and then you have the reverse process in the
to that embedded in ancient state laws and in ancient state
afternoon.
practices.
Parents also have expressed to me in the last two weeks a
concern about the fact that when children are taken ten miles,
MR. APPLE: Are you telling us that come 1972 you will wel-
perhaps, as opposed to one mile to school, they lose a contact
come with open arms any candidate who wants to come in and
with the school that they have had in the past. One of them
campaign for those delegates in Ohio?
said to me, "When he went just down the street we could be
GOVERNOR GILLIGAN: Yes, but I haven't said whether I
there, we could see it often. If something went wrong with play-
think it ought to be done in terms of a wide open statewide
ground equipment, if books ran short, we knew about it, we
could try to correct it."
primary or in terms of the candidates presenting themselves and
So busing is not all a racial issue. I think that the differences
their philosophies and attitudes and programs to an uncommitted
slate of 153 delegates. It can be done either way. One involves a
that the President and I have about money to facilitate busing
vast expediture of time, effort and money. The other is relatively
are minor differences. I think the President was thinking about
simple and direct.
not encouraging busing, and I don't want to encourage massive
crosstown busing just to achieve a racial balance either. I was
MR. DUKE: Governor Holton, could you now elaborate and
thinking about, and I am still thinking about when I say we need
tell us about that mysterious White House message received
this money, a school system such as the City of Norfolk in
during the past 48 hours?
Virginia, which is confronted with a need to transport a large
number of children pursuant to court orders that have, with
GOVERNOR HOLTON: I don't think there is any mystery
final review, established constitutional rights.
about it. It was a telegram from Secretary Richardson saying
That city has to transport children. Neither I nor the President
that contrary to what some people were trying to have it appear,
can stop it because the courts require it.
this welfare program was clearly not on the back burner, and
that, I think, went to all or nearly all of the Governors, I think
MR. DUKE: But you are not as upset about this issue as
all. I also had a communication from Mr. Klein in which-
President Nixon is, are you?
this was directed to me, but it equally applies to all Governors
I am sure-saying that we are very, very much still interested
GOVERNOR HOLTON: I am a little closer to it. I have seen
in revenue sharing and hope that the Governors will continue
it work. I have seen the young people thrown into schools where
to support it. And I am on the subcommittee on Revenue Sharing
they are in a minority and get along beautifully. I have seen our
of the National Governors' Conference, and we are affirming our
State of Virginia perform magnificently in giving what I
support, I think, and we will continue, I know, as long as I am
consider to be real leadership in adapting itself to a set of
on that subcommittee, to try to get it done, and I am very
required changes with real dedication to true principles of law
optimistic. I think that the delay, which after all is only three
and order, and I am very proud of our state. I think that people
months, is more a recognition of the fact that there is going
at the Presidential level and perhaps others in the White House
to have to be more legislative work done in Congress before it
just haven't seen that it is working, and SO while we don't
can be passed anyway.
like it from a disruptiveness standpoint, we have found that we
can adapt to it, and particularly we have found that our young
MR. DUKE: I would like to turn to another subject. You have
people can make real, beneficial contributions, I think, in this
6
7
whole :
(
of race relations as a result of being thrown together
they have polled under three per cent of the But,
in these schools.
of course, we have a completely democratic societ
Puerto
MR. LISAGOR: Governor Milliken, your state is a northern
Rico, and we protect the right of the minorities to express them-
state having difficulty with busing. Do you agree with the Presi-
selves. In this particular instance it is interesting to note that in
dent's position or Governor Holton's position about the use of
Puerto Rico we have, by law, a fund to pay all the parties. Every
federal funds for busing?
party in Puerto Rico gets a certain amount of money per year for
its campaign expenses. This party which has about three per cent
GOVERNOR MILLIKEN: I think it is true that no one of us
of the vote of Puerto Rico gets exactly the same amount of money
likes busing. Certainly the parents don't like it. School adminis-
that the minority party which I represent-
trators don't like it, and I think that we have to consider busing
MR. BRODER: Don't you think in the United States though-
in the context of, number one, obeying the law, and the law is
clear on that point now, and we have to consider busing in the
GOVERNOR FERRE you see, we protect the minority's
context of the ultimate objective, I think, in our society of having
freedom of expression.
an integrated society.
MR. BRODER: Parties on the mainland might like that system
I think if the time should ever come when we divide ourselves
very well.
into two major groups in this country, then heaven help this
Let me ask you about statehood. You have long been an ad-
country. So I see busing as only one element. It certainly should
vocate of statehood for the island. Can you afford the burden of
not be considered an end in itself, and to that extent I agree
taxes that would go with statehood, or would that ruin your
entirely with the President.
economic development plan?
MR. LISAGOR: But to have reasonable integration of the
GOVERNOR FERRE: I don't think that there is going to be
schools, you have to have some measure of busing. Is that what
any burden of taxes with statehood. There will be, of course, a
you are saying?
shifting of taxes when Puerto Rico becomes a state of the
Union. This will, of course, require a transitionary period, but
GOVERNOR MILLIKEN: That is correct, but we need to look
I don't think for the long run Puerto Rico can continue to be a
even further than busing if we are seeking an integrated society.
part of the United States and the Puerto Ricans to be American
We need to look at our housing patterns; we need to look at our
citizens unless we achieve the equality that comes with state-
job patterns and our opportunity for employment, and above all,
hood. Our country is a country based on equality, and therefore
in the process it seems to me that we need to put the emphasis
we must have equal rights and equal duties at some time. Of
where it really belongs, and that is on making schools and educa-
course, at the present time our income per capita in Puerto
tion quality experiences for young people wherever the child
Rico is about $1,500, $1,566 as a matter of fact. That is much
may be, whether it is in the inner city of a major city or in the
more than any country in Latin America, but it is much less than
suburban areas or in out-state areas.
the lowest income per capita of the states of the Union. So we
have not yet been able to achieve the same level of income of the
MR. LISAGOR: Could I ask you an economic question, Gov.
States. We feel that once we are able to achieve the same income
ernor? Your state has a higher unemployment rate, as I under-
level of other states of the Union, there is no reason why we
stand it, than the national average.
should not pay taxes like every state of the Union pays.
GOVERNOR MILLIKEN: That is correct.
(Announcements)
MR. LISAGOR: And yet the President's new program will
MR. APPLE: Governor Hearnes, the Democrats are beginning
benefit in a major way the automobile industry. Will that be
their quadrennial process of arguing about whether they need
enough to correct your unemployment problem or not?
to go to the left or to the right or stay in the middle. You come
GOVERNOR MILLIKEN: It will in my judgment be a major
from a border state. How liberal a candidate could carry Missouri
factor in improving the economic situation in the State of
for the Democrats?
Michigan. I think Michigan perhaps as much, if not more than
GOVERNOR HEARNES: Let me say if you look at the line-
any other state in the United States, will receive the desirable
up of our senatorial representation-I don't know whether that
effects of the President's economic policies.
would give us somewhat of a lead. We have a senior Senator
MR. BRODER: Governor Ferré, a number of Puerto Ricans
from Missouri, Senator Symington, who certainly couldn't be
are outside marching for independence from the United States
classed as conservative. I think Senator Eagleton, the junior
today. How strong is this sentiment in the island?
Senator, would be classed more as a liberal, as we use our labels.
I have seen Missouri carry Adlai Stevenson, and I saw Senator
GOVERNOR FERRE: We have always had an independence
Humphrey, Vice President Humphrey lose it.
movement in Puerto Rico. For the last five or six elections
Unfortunately-and many people won't like what I am going
8
9
to say- am not sure the question of liberal or conservative
it was doing its duty if it just provided them with dole. We
always
rshadows the personality of the candidate, and there-
have found families in California, many of them tl are the
fore I odd say that I don't believe my state or many other
second and third generations of their families on welfal
states in the United States would take what all of us think is
We believe welfare's goal should be to salvage as many human
maybe an extreme liberal. But neither do I think they would
beings as possible and make them independent of welfare, make
take any extreme conservative.
them self-sufficient, self-sustaining, and we think that to do that
there have to be some great reforms and changes at the national
MR. APPLE: Could you give us some examples of those two
level also.
types? Would Mr. Lindsay be an extreme liberal?
One of those things that we have asked for is a waiver to
GOVERNOR HEARNES: In my opinion, yes, and I don't
permit us to create a community work force in which people
believe Mayor Lindsay could carry Missouri. I hope Mayor Lind
receiving welfare grants will report for and do meaningful tasks
say will accept my apologies. I am trying to answer your ques-
that need to be done for the public good in return for those wel-
tions as candidly as possible.
fare grants.
MR. APPLE: On the other side, how about Mr. Mills and Mr.
MR. DUKE: But isn't the percentage of people who can do
Jackson? Are they too conservative for Missouri, or would they
these meaningful tasks that you speak of, isn't this a very small
respond-
percentage, and don't you do a disservice by talking about
chiselers and loafers on welfare when most people on welfare are
GOVERNOR HEARNES: I think the problem there is identi-
not chiselers and loafers?
fication. I know Senator Jackson, and certainly I know Congress-
man Mills, and think a great deal of both of them. But what
GOVERNOR REAGAN: I have been the most vocal myself in
people in the east do not realize is that the people in the middle
saying that the majority would like to get off welfare, but it
west and maybe even the other west do not have the opportunity
doesn't take a tremendous percentage or even a majority to
to be associated with these names every night when they watch
account for the great waste of welfare.
the news, and so on and so forth, and therefore name identifica-
One state, Nevada, recently was able, with its more limited
tion plays a great part as far as the voter is concerned. I am
population, to do a head count, an actual nose count of the
sure that anyone they would nominate has a certain amount of
people on welfare, and found 22 per cent of them receiving it
time to get their identification before the people, but there are
illegally.
those who start out with a little advantage.
In New York the simple expedient of asking welfare recipients
to pick up their checks instead of receiving them through the
MR. DUKE: Governor Reagan, you and President Nixon and
mail-18 per cent of the checks are lying there uncollected, mean-
many conservatives in Congress repeatedly talk about putting
ing that someone must have some hesitation about coming in in
people on welfare to work, but isn't this essentially a false issue?
person to pick up his check.
Aren't most of the people who receive welfare, children, disabled
In California we have, for a long period, been increasing the
people and the elderly?
welfare caseload 50,000 a month. That has been our average.
From the moment that we started this campaign to reform wel-
GOVERNOR REAGAN: We have proposed and in our own
fare in January and February, started talking about it and
reform which has just been adopted in California, we divide the
started implementing the administrative changes we could make
so-called unemployables from the employables, the potentially
without legislative approval, we not only stopped that 50,000 a
employable. In other words we have advocated taking the elderly,
month increase, but we have been decreasing at a rate of about
the disabled, the blind, those people who through no fault of
20 to 25 thousand a month. It has never happened before in our
their own cannot work and must depend on the rest of us, and
simply putting them into a pension system, which I think would
history.
have more dignity than continuing to consider them as welfare
MR. LISAGOR: Governor Gilligan, I would like to follow this
recipients and allowing them to get automated, as they do with
line of questioning. The President has suggested that there has
Social Security checks.
been a loss of respect in this country for what he calls the work
When you talk about children on welfare, you have to realize
ethic. Do you find that true in the State of Ohio?
that every time you put the head of a family into a self-support-
ing job and an earning capacity, you remove that man from
GOVERNOR GILLIGAN: We certainly don't, and where I
welfare but you also remove a family and several of those
said a moment ago that I agreed with Governor Reagan, I dis-
children.
agree with almost everything he has said on the subject he has
We feel-and the basis of our welfare reform in California is-
just spoken on, factually and philosophically. There is no lack
that in recent decades welfare has become a program that literally
of respect for the work ethic that I am aware of. We do have
makes permanent the people on welfare, that welfare has thought
the highest unemployment that we have experienced in Ohio
10
11
and
th
ghout this country since the late '30's. We have as
believe that is the attitude of President Nixon. I thi
he has
well m. ns of working poor, hundreds of thousands of people
had terrific accomplishment in this area of race relat.
and I
who are still fulltime employed, but whose work check has shrunk
don't feel that he needs to go after a single segment of our vote.
due to inflation, due to lack of overtime, due to a lot of other
He will carry Virginia very nicely and, I hope, the rest of the
things.
South.
This nation 25 years ago committed itself to the policy of
having the federal government guarantee a job to every able
MR. APPLE: Governor Milliken, we have been hearing in
bodied person who was seeking work at a wage which would
Washington recently that it is the judgment of the White House
enable him to support a family. That is a pledge we have never
political operators and of the Republican National Committee
kept, and unless and until we are ready to make that job oppor-
that the President will have a very difficult time indeed carrying
tunity available to American men and women, it is nothing
your state. I wonder if you agree with that, and if you do, what
better then cynicism to tell people on welfare or returning Viet
0 you think he could do to bolster his position there?
nam veterans to go out in the kind of job market we have in this
GOVERNOR MILLIKEN: I think that statement would have
country today and find themselves a job. It just cannot be done,
been correct perhaps a year ago or beyond. I don't think that
and it will not be done.
statement is correct today. I think the President's new initia-
MR. LISAGOR: Governor, does it follow from this that you
tives in China, I think the fact that he is effectively winding
would favor federalizing the whole welfare program?
down the tragic war in Vietnam, I think the fact that he has made
very bold and imaginative proposals for the economy of this
GOVERNOR GILLIGAN: Yes, I would favor federalizing it
country, the fact that he has proposed and is in fact backing,
and changing it in some degree, as President Nixon has ad-
in spite of a moratorium, the welfare reform and the revenue
vocated. He for instance advocated government assistance,
sharing proposals and the governmental reorganization of the
family assistance to the working poor. That would instantly
federal structure, all of these things, I think, place the President
double the number of people receiving government assistance.
today in a position where Michigan may not be easily won by
It would go in exactly the opposite direction that Governor
him, but I think it is a fact that the President could win in
Reagan has just been talking about. But that is the direction
Michigan where in 1968 he lost Michigan.
we have to go if we are going to get these people back on their
feet and into a productive role in our economy.
MR. BRODER: If it is going to be reasonably close as you
are implying, will it make any difference who is the Vice Presi-
MR. BRODER: Governor Holton, George Wallace of Alabama
dential nominee in Michigan? You have been critical of some
is back in the Governors' Conference this year and apparently
of the things Mr. Agnew has said in the past; any new thoughts
back in national politics. As you are the Southerner on the
on that?
panel, I would be interested in your judgment. How much of a
threat is he to Mr. Nixon's reelection hopes in 1972?
GOVERNOR MILLIKEN: I think again the overriding fact
is the President himself, the record which the President has
GOVERNOR HOLTON: Let me confine my answer on that
written by the time the election year comes around next year.
to our State of Virginia. I think he will not be as strong in 1972
I don't think the Vice Presidential candidate would be the decid-
as he was-and I am talking now about Governor Wallace-in
ing factor by any means.
'68, and I therefore think we would be of considerably less influ-
MR. LISAGOR: Governor Ferré, there have been reports that
ence on the outcome of the national election, and my instinct is
the migration has turned around from the mainland back to
that this would be true generally throughout the South.
Puerto Rico. If that is true, can you tell us why this is occur-
MR. BRODER: Some people criticized the Administration fo
"ing?
seeming to go too far in what they call the Southern strateg)
GOVERNOR FERRE: I would say in the first place the ques-
to head off Governor Wallace. Do you think they exaggerate
tion of unemployment on the mainland has, of course, limited
the political threat that he represensts?
the amount of jobs available for Puerto Ricans who want to
GOVERNOR HOLTON: I don't know. I never have believed
migrate.
that the Southern strategy as such existed, if it meant that any
In the second place, we are having more opportunities in
Puerto Rico which are attractive to Puerto Ricans, and there-
canidate for President of the United States would seek the vote
fore, they would rather stay here than go out, SO this year, the
from only one group. I know that in Virginia we have encour-
last report we just had, about 1,800 was the outflow from
aged national candidates and statewide candidates to recognize
Puerto Rico.
every vote of every citizen and to seek to appeal to those citizens
as individuals on merits of each issue, and I would commend that
MR. LISAGOR: But are they coming back in substantial or
to the national candidates in 1972 of the Republican Party. I
significant numbers?
12
13
GOVERNOR FERRE: They are coming back. Some Puerto
assume that role and would take our problems pers
ly, that
Ricans
coming back who have been on the mainland, have
this is what we would like to have, and he accepted t
respon-
been able to make a little money, save money and come back to
sibility this morning.
Puerto Rico. They buy themselves small parts of land or they
MR. APPLE: Governor Reagan, I wonder if you could be a
put up small businesses, and they are doing very well in Puerto
pundit for us for a moment? You have said in response, I think,
Rico.
to Mr. Broder's question, that there are a number of conserva-
MR. LISAGOR: Could I ask you finally, what are the advan-
tives that are upset about some of the things that Mr. Nixon
tages of statehood for Puerto Rico, in view of the fact that
is doing, and you said they shouldn't be.
there are many advantages in your present commonwealth
Suppose Mr. Nixon should decide on another running mate
status, including not paying federal taxes, I might add.
besides Mr. Agnew. Would that send them off the reservation?
Vhat would they do? What would the reaction be?
GOVERNOR FERRE: The only advantage of the common-
GOVERNOR REAGAN: I don't know that anyone could be
wealth status is that we can develop more industrial enterprises
a pundit about that. I happen to think very highly of Mr. Agnew
in Puetro Rico with the tax exemption. That, of course, is a
as a Vice President and as a man. I don't know that there is
transitory attraction, because in the long run you have got to
any indication that he isn't going to be the candidate, unless it
have sound business principles in order to have industry in
would be by his own choice, but I think this would depend on
Puerto Rico. Therefore commonwealth may be satisfactory for
all of the surrounding circumstances, who was selected.
a period of time while we [get] enough investment in Puerto
Rico in those industries. There are really sound business enter-
MR. APPLE: Who else is there that would be acceptable to
prises here. But in the long run you cannot continue to depend
conservatives if Mr. Agnew were off the ticket?
on special gimmicks. You have got to have sound business prin-
ciples to develop Puerto Rico's economy.
GOVERNOR REAGAN: I don't think-haven't you got an-
Under statehood we would be receiving considerably more fed-
other question?
eral help than we receive today. You see, we don't pay federal
MR. APPLE: They all cover the same subject.
taxes, but at the same time, we don't receive the same amount
Would Mr. Connally be acceptable to the Republican conserva-
of federal aid that the states receive. So it is a question of not
tives, do you think?
giving one way and not receiving the other. But what we are
doing with this difference is that we are trying to bring in indus-
GOVERNOR REAGAN: Mr. Connally would have to change
tries in Puerto Rico and develop our industrial base in the island.
parties, first of all. I think this would cause some concern among
a great many Republicans. Just as I am quite sure Governor
MR. DUKE: Governor Hearnes, a few years ago you and
Hearnes indicated here that the Democrats are a little concerned
some of the other governors criticized President Johnson for not
about a recent Johnny-come-lately to their party.
paying enough attention to the states and for not cooperating
with the states in solving their problems. How do you find
MR. APPLE: Would it cause concern on your part? Would
you be upset if Mr. Connally were the nominee?
President Nixon in this respect?
GOVERNOR REAGAN: I happen to favor the retention of
GOVERNOR HEARNES: Let me back up a little on your
the present ticket. I happen to favor the retention of Mr. Agnew.
statement about the criticism of the Administration. I have only
been Governor for seven years, but I assume it has happened
MR. BRODER: Governor Gilligan, you talked a moment ago
in prior years. The criticism, we hoped, and it turned out to be,
about the desirability of sharing revenue sources. The federal
was very constructive, because since that time or after that time
overnment is cutting its tax rates again apparently, as it has
in the last two years of the Johnson Administration, we could no
one several times in this decade. Is this what you had in mind
have had any more cooperation than we did.
by way of sharing revenue sources?
We meet today with the Vice President on this very subject
matter, and these things have a way, like many other things,
GOVERNOR GILLIGAN: No. What I am talking about is
of being relaxed, and then you have to bolster them up. You
sharing the source in terms of allowing the states and local gov-
don't exactly mean them as criticisms because that can be mis-
ernments to adopt a tax structure essentially geared to income
interpreted in a variety of ways.
and to the growth of income, both corporate and personal, and
We did see a relaxation of the ability to present our problems
to allow the individual taxpayer, through a system of tax credits
to the Administration, problems that we are having maybe with
at the local and at the state level, to deduct from his federal tax
HEW or with someone else. and SO it was decided at this meet-
liability a given percentage of that liability. That money, instead
ing that the role which Governor Boe had had prior to his
of going into Washington, and then we go in on our hands and
leaving that position for the bench, if the Vice President would
knees and try to get some of it back, that money would stay at
15
14
the local
el to meet local responsibilities or stay at the state
level to
state responsibilities.
MR. BRODER: As I understand it, you have asked the citizens
of Ohio to help you get an income tax, personal and corporate,
through the state legislature there. That program is still mired
in the legislature, I believe, is it not?
GOVERNOR GILLIGAN: Yes, it is.
MR. BRODER: It is possible that the citizens really aren't
any happier to pay taxes to you than they are to Mr. Nixon?
GOVERNOR GILLIGAN: I don't think anybody wants to pay
taxes at any time to anyone or to any service level, but I think
the-I campaigned on the program of augmenting state revenues,
giving better state programs, and SO forth, to the people of
Ohio. They accepted it. I think the state legislature, which is
mired down in a 30-year program of no new taxes and low per-
formance levels, and so forth, has realized that we are in a new
age. They are ready to move. It is taking them a little time, but
I am confident before the fall season is out they will have adopted
a more modern and a more equitable tax program than we have
had heretofore in Ohio.
MR. MONROE: Gentlemen, we have just about a minute.
Let me see how far we can get. I would like to ask each Gov-
ernor-we might not be able to get through each of you-if you
can give me a brief answer, hopefully about fifteen seconds, to
the question of whether you are hopeful, as Attorney General
Mitchell is apparently hopeful about crime in the nation, about
the crime situation in your state?
GOVERNOR HOLTON: Yes, I am. The LEAA program has
been very good. We have had much more devotion to crime
prevention and law enforcement at the local level and at the state
level, and I am very optimistic about the future.
GOVERNOR MILLIKEN: I am optimistic too. We have still
a rising crime rate in Michigan, but we are taking effective
steps, particularly through the Crime Commission and other
means, and I think the climate is right to move and to move
hard in our state.
GOVERNOR FERRE: I am very hopeful too. We have had
diminishing in our crime rate in Puerto Rico in the last year
Our Crime Commission has worked very successfully, and we
have reduced the crime rate in Puerto Rico, as compared to the
United States, I want to say.
GOVERNOR HEARNES: If we were not hopeful, we would
have a mass exodus from the State of Missouri. We have to be
hopeful, but these are the things that are every-day problems-
MR. MONROE: I am sorry to interrupt, Governor, having
asked you the question, but our time is up. Thank you, gentle-
men, for being with us today on MEET THE PRESS.
16
é
12/7/71
ACCEPTANCE SPEECH
By
GOLD MEDALIST, GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
NATIONAL FOOTBALL FOUNDATION DINNER - DECEMBER 7, 1971
Chairman Draddy, Dr. Tate, the new members of the Hall of
Fame and these distinguished young men who are here, my old friend
Senator George Murphy. "Murph," you and I just somehow keep
turning up on the late late show. It is a pleasure of course to be here.
Coming to New York always has one benefit as far as I am concerned.
It's one place that's got more troubles than Sacramento. I was on the
way to the office one morning when things were particularly tough.
There was a lot of criticism going on, and I tuned in a disc jockey. I
don't know who he was, but I learned to love him. He interrupted the
music to say that everybody, every man, should take unto himself a
wife because eventually something is bound to happen you can't blame
on the governor.
But in keeping with the purpose that brings us together, I have
to tell you that I am struck that there is a parallel between football and
my present job. Being Governor and playing down in the center of the
line is a little bit like being a three pound chicken trying to lay a four
pound egg. No matter how it turns out, it's going to hurt. Serious-
ly, I am deeply honored to be here and to share the dais with men who
have achieved so much and contributed so much to football. To be
here, however, in this capacity as a recipient of this award is over-
whelming, and I have no words to express my pride and my apprecia-
tion. The only possible qualification I have to justify my receiving this
award and at least to try to rationalize it in my own mind is that I
have been involved in a love affair with football that began as far back
as my memory goes.
We lived in a small town in Illinois, on a low bluff overlooking
the High School football field. Every autumn afternoon, as far back
as I can remember, I spent watching every minute of football practice.
Eventually going to high school there, meant going out for football.
Four years and two varsity letters later, I went to college for the same
reason. Unless you are from Illinois, you have to ask, "Where is
Eureka College?" And if I told you, you wouldn't know a hell of a lot
more than you know right now. Maybe there are some old timers,
particularly connected with the pro gram, who'll remember that there
was a conference of prairie colleges known as the Little Nineteen.
This was in a day before athletic scholarships sorted out the smaller
schools.
- 2 -
The game was simon pure then. A football player just had to work
at back-breaking jobs - like winding the gym clock. The Little Nineteen
conference was rather distinctive. It was somewhat innovative in that it
was the only conference in the United States in which you could be employ-
ed as an Assistant Coach, Physical Ed Instructor, and play summer base-
ball for money without tarnishing your amateur standing. In my Senior
year, our starting lineup had seven Athletic Instructors, and I was the
Swimming Coach. But seriously, I am indebted to football for so many
things.
Football provided an education. As a matter of fact, it provided
my career. In 1932, when you graduated, you didn't start out to have a
career. You just hoped that in some way you could find a job, any kind
of job. I received $5. and bus fare to broadcast the Iowa-Minnesota
game for a local radio station. That turned into a sports announcing
career. And even later, in Hollywood, when I found myself bogged down
making some pictures (pictures that the studio didn't necessarily want
good; they wanted them on Thursday) the Gipper won one for me and made
possible everything that has happened since.
But I am indebted for much more than just those boosts along the
career path. I know that it has become cliche to talk about the lessons of
living that are learned on the gridiron, and many men here tonight have
eloquently remarked about those things. But cliches are born of unchang-
ing truths. Something becomes a cliche because it has happened and
happened so consistently. In Hollywood, we like to sit around on the set
and joke about cliche lines. One of them in adventure films is always
there. It is that line, "We're safe 'til the drums stop. 11 Well, that cliche
is based on truth, because in the real life situation of that kind, it means
when they stop beating those drums, they're on their way to beat your
brains out with a club.
Teddy Roosevelt once spoke of those who have known the blood and
sweat of the arena, men who've know what it means to win and what it means
to lose. At Eureka we learned a great deal about losing. The funny thing
is I don't mind. I remember once when a few of us went to our coach.
We wanted to talk to him about scheduling. We were a little tired of losing
as often as we did, and then he told us why we had the kind of schedule we
had. We were a tiny unknown school. He said, "Yes, I can give you a
schedule. I can give you a schedule in which you can probably win every
game, but, he said, "would you rather do that, or would you rather play
as you're playing now -- against schools that at a minimum are ten times
your size
... against schools that it's an achievement to even be on their
schedules and be out on the field
...
and if you play them on even terms
- 3 -
and so you lose by a touchdown, or two touchdowns or a point doesn't
that, and won't that, mean more to you when this is all over than having
those easy wins on a schedule that's someplace down to our size?"
And now, today, I know what he was talking about. And when we
did win, "Oh, my!" How sweet it was! 11 But, you know, I think all of
us here love sports, and we have an affinity for all of the games. But
somehow there is a mystic something about football. Your presence here
acknowledges that. Anyone who has played in more than the one sport
and most athletes do knows there is something unique, something that
captures the spectator and the player -- captures him emotionally --
about football that he can feel about football more seriously than he can
feel about other sports. So seriously does he feel that sometimes there
are those who tend to sneer a little and want to remind us that it's only a
game.
The other day a group of psychiatrists said that we should abandon
this game. They said it was a primitive appeal to our inner aggressions.
Well, dare them to prove that football players have a built-in tendency to
spend an evening in the park massaging their fellow citizens' heads with
an iron pipe. Sometimes I think a psychiatrist is a fellow who tells you
you're crazy and then gets you to give him fifty dollars an hour to prove it.
But let me if I could be so presumptious -- try for a moment
to put my finger on that indefinable quality that marks football. We live in
an over-civilized world that no longer calls upon man to survive by dint
of physical prowess. And football somehow is the last thing we have, the
last place where men can engage in non-fatal combat and do so by literally
flinging themselves and flinging their bodies against other human beings,
against an opponent. Ask a lineman who has just smashed through and
upended a ball-carrier in a head-on tackle if he envies the fellow that
happens to run across the goal line for the touchdown. I think he'll tell you
right at that moment that he would' nt trade places with anyone. There's
no feeling exactly like it. There's a hot, clean hatred for an opponent dur-
ing a game. You don't hate him in any kind of a mean, human way that is
demeaning to you. But you hate him not because you even see a human
face opposite you as you line up waiting for the ball to be snapped - - you
see him as a symbol of an enemy by virtue of the color of his jersey, and
the hatred you feel is almost the same righteous hatred that you have for
eveil. And in that moment, he to you is the symbol of evil. When the ball
is snapped, however, you express that hatred within a very definite frame-
work of rules. You apply tactics that have been taught you to make a play,
and you carry out assignments that will make a play work and gain success
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for your team. Then, when the final gun sounds, every man who has
ever played knows how suddenly that hatred is replaced by a genuine
affection and respect, the kind of feeling that two men can have who have
intimately shared that kind of experience for the last few hours of that
afternoon or evening.
Now there are, of course, individuals who cheat. They are to
be found any place. I suppose, in football, too. Yet I believe that foot-
ball is actually miraculuously clean, when you consider the opportunity
for wrong doing. On every play, at least fifteen or sixteen out of twenty-
two men have an opportunity to do serious physical injury to another
human being, for the most part with no possibility of being detected. It's
a violent game. Men are injured. But unlike the ancient gladiator sports,
the injury is incidental. It is not the object of the game. I find for all
these reasons maybe it imperfectly explains some of what I've tried to
express about this game that football is peculiar to America, and that
isn't strange. It's typical of the American personality, and I, for one,
think there's something very important in American that would be lost if
those psychiatrists had their way and we ever lost our emotional attach-
ment to this game.
I don't happen to think there is anything wrong with young men at
that stage of their life feeling so deeply about an abstraction such as team
spirit, or a school, or just "our side, 11 that would make a young man --
even as he faced death speak up and make the request that George Gipp
made on his deathbed. Nor do I find anything strange that, eight years
later, another group of young men who had never known him personally
would be so deeply moved at hearing his request that they would go out and
rise above themselves in order to fulfill that request. What does it matter
if it's only a game if it has the power to make boys become men capable
of self sacrifice and unselfish, noble deeds.
I don't know whether football made this contribution to America or
America made it to football, but I know that football players have the ability
to understand a young man on a much larger playing field in Vietnam. A
C ouple of years ago a young Negro soldier who threw himself on a grenade
so save his platoon mates, and I doubt if he paused to count how many of
them were white or black or brown. It so happens there was a pretty good
distribution of each, but his dying words were, "You have to care. 11
Today an increasing number of voices are being raised in our land.
They are urging an end to competitive sports. It's a murmur in some places,
but watch out for it. Indeed, you will find that they find competition in our
whole social structure undesirable. Their song is that man's very nature
can be changed by controlling his environment, and they have some kind
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of a dream of a non-competitive, placid world. But if they have their way
and I sometimes think that what they really mean by the ending of compe-
tition is a leveling down to mediocrity for all of us where there won't be any
need for competition -- if they have their way, can they promise us that
there will never again be a time when we need heroes, when we need men
who have known the blood and sweat of the arena -- who have known what it
is to overc ome weariness and pain and find another untapped source of
strength within yourself when it seems that all strength is gone?
Of, these are the men that tell us we don't need grades anymore,
just pass or fail. I don't know about you, but if I ever lie down on an operat-
ing table and they put the thing over my face to put me to sleep, I would like
to know more about the man with the knife in his hand than that he just
happened to get by.
(Turning to Jack Mildren) I was watching you - - this fine young
quarterback on the tube last week, and coming out of my chair several times.
You spoke of athletes being known as "jocks." A few years ago there were
people that sneeringly called athletes "gorillas." There is a tendency on the
part of a number of people to try to pretend that the athlete is somehow
something apart from the rest of us. But you only had to look at that list of
men, or that lineup of men back there who stood up -- at the men who are
sitting here beside you tonight, to understand that you can look at the record
of the men who have been a part of this game, back through the years, and
I'll match it against any other group they want to put together.
I remember one night in an old classroom building on our Eureka
campus. We were having - whatever they call it now I don't know - skull
session, chalk talk, going over plays and SO forth under those cold bare
bulbs. Somehow - I don't know how in the conversation the subject of
prayer came up. I think the coach must have introduced it, but I don't
know just how he did it. I was one of the younger fellows. I was one of the
few who had come direct from high school. I never went into a game that
I didn't pray to myself, but I would have cut my hand off before I would have
admitted it. to that bunch of roughnecks that I was associating with on the
team because I thought I must be the only person who did anything like that,
and I would never have opened my mouth about it. But as the conversation
went on and man after man began speaking up, it developed that every man
in the room prayed silently to himself before he went into a game. Now, I
kind of developed a prayer of my own on what I thought it was fair to ask
for. Obviously, you couldn't ask the Lord to be on your side and win. The
fellow on the other side had as much claim on Him as I did, but I was amazed
to find out when finally it all came out that every man in that room had
almost the same identical prayer not to win, but "let me do my best, let
/
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there be no injuries, not just me, let everyone play his best."
So, I wonder if it's too much to suggest that maybe they learned
the tone of that prayer from the very principles of the game they were
playing, I remember a couple of seasons back when the Los Angeles
Rams had won eleven straight and were going to play the Vikings. It
didn't matter because both teams had won their respective titles and it was
just a game for the crowd. I took my eleven year old son, who is a
worshiper of football and a particular fan of the Los Angeles Rams. We
sat there in the stadium that day and the Rams had a bad day. The Vikings
poured it on, and all around us I heard cynical talk about, "Well, they're
fellows who play for money. They're not trying very hard because the
game doesn't mean anything." I even heard talk about, "They probably
shaved the points a little bit for the gamblers" and all I could do was kind
of shoulder over against my eleven year old. I knew he was hearing it,
and he also takes defeat very personally. The eyes were looking a little
glassy, as if they might break over in a minute. I'd kept one secret from
him. I'd had an invitation to bring him down to the locker room after the
game, but we had to catch a plane, and I didn't want to tell him about it
in advance and then maybe find that time was such that we couldn't do it.
But there was time, so to ease his disappointment at the defeat, I told
him. Well, that brightened the day, and down we went to the locker room,
and in they came. Anyone who thought they weren't trying just didn't
know. They'd been through a meat chopper. They were bleeding,
literally. They were also very angry about not playing up to standard.
As I stood there beside him, they sat down in this kind of a classroom type
place that they have, and for about seven minutes they poured it on them-
selves about how badly they'd done. At about that moment, Coach Allen
said to them "Okay that's enough. Let's give thanks. " As I stood there,
I saw my eleven year old bow his head as those big hulking heroes of his
dropped to their knees and repeated the Lord's Prayer. No lesson that I
could ever teach him, nothing that I could ever say, would mean as much.
I went out of there. I don't care, they won the game as far as I was con-
cerned.
I don't even know if we will ever be able to identify and prove what
each man learns from football SO that we can list it and hang it on a wall like
a diploma or like a license for the practice of a profession. I do know that
down through the years I've somehow placed my faith in men of the sports
world and seldom has that faith ever been betrayed. A few years ago "Bud"
Wilkinson was having one of those great teams. He know's what I am going
to say now. He had one of those National Championship teams. They were
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playing TCU in their final game, and TCU had had a lack luster season.
It had been pretty dull for them, but now -- as a team will - -- they rose to
the heights, and in the closing minutes of the game in the fourth quarter
Oklahoma was leading, 20 to 14. Then TCU passed. A man dived into the
end zone and caught what was apparently the tying touchdown, but with the
great probability of it becoming a one point victory over the National
Champions. There was bedlam in the stadium, and then that young man
who caught the pass got up and walked over to the referee, handed him the
ball, and said, "No sir, it touched the ground before I caught it. "
Now, I don't know where that end he was the team Captain, John
Crouch - - is. I've been told that he is coaching. I never met him, but I
wish my son could grow up and play under him someday. I think that I'm a
better man just knowing about that story. I think all who hear it are.
Perhaps those who think winning is all important would say he should have
kept his mouth shut. He hadn't been caught. He could get away with it. But
I wonder if the same person would like to feel that that's the way a President
of the United States should make his decisions ... or a Senator, or a
Congressman, or a Justice of the Supreme Court. Do we really want men who
make decisions -- not out of expediency-- whether it's in business, public
affairs, or personal affairs, but on a basis of what they honestly believe in
their hearts is morally right?
I hope my remarks have given you some idea of what this award means
to me. You know, there were no Emmys when I was a sports announcer. There
were Oscars when I was an actor, but I didn't get one, and I am sure I am
never going to get an honorary degree from Berkley. But as I said, that's
unimportant because football has given me an education, it gave me a career,
and now it has given me an honor that I cherish more than I can say. It is
sweet to be approved by your fellow man. It is doubly SO when that approval
comes from men you admire, respect, and hold high in esteem.
All I can say is tonight, I thank you from the bottom of my
heart.