Remarks in Dallas, Texas

Senator Tower, Congressman Bush, Congressman Collins, Congressman Price, all of the very distinguished guests on the platform, and all of this very distinguished audience here in the hall, all of the people who are waiting in the overflow hall, and the thousands outside:

I just want you to know that I am very proud and honored for the first time, as President of the United States, to be speaking here in Dallas. And as I speak in Dallas, I know that this State likes to think of itself as being number one in a number of ways.

Dallas likes to think of itself as being number one in a number of ways. And I have been trying to think of what I could say which wouldn't get me in trouble in Ohio or some other place.

So, I will just make a few comments in this respect about this city, this State, some of the current headlines we have been reading on the sports pages.

First, I find that, and I must be very careful what I say here, that the AP poll puts Texas as number one.

Second, I find that the Dallas Cowboys, after a slow start, are now tied for number one in their division.

Third, I understand that SMU [Southern Methodist University] isn't having its best year, but I do know this, and a little bit of history long before those from high school or even the present members of the SMU band will recall: In the year 1934, which was my senior year in college, I remember that, for the first time, a southwest conference team came to the Rose Bowl, SMU came there. They won 7 to 0. That was not something that was particularly new, because other teams from the East or the West or the South had won in the Rose Bowl. But what really made the news was the SMU band. It was the greatest they ever had.

I am very proud tonight that the SMU band, as I understand, for the first time for what is labeled as a political event, is here.

I appreciate your coming. I shall keep my remarks as nonpolitical as I can under the circumstances. I can only say in that respect, however, that after the reception, the wonderful reception, we had in Longview earlier today, after this enormous reception here in Dallas, it is quite clear that most of the people in Texas do not consider the President of the United States to be an outsider in the State of Texas.

Now, my friends, since this is a State that thinks of itself and is very proud of its number one teams and its number one band, I will tell you that I am very proud to be standing here with what I think is a team of champions, George Bush and Paul Eggers, your great candidates for the Senate and the governorship.

You will expect me--and you will not be disappointed in this respect--to endorse them strongly. However, I am going to surprise most of you by the way that I do it. You know, as you get to the last days of a campaign, the oratory gets more strident, the charges get more wild, and you hear "Vote Republican" or "Vote Democratic"--"The other fellow is bad, and this fellow is good."

Let me simply say this: First, the issues before the American people today are too great to be thinking in partisan terms. We have got to think of what man is best for America. And George Bush, in my opinion, is the best man for America.

I would like for you to consider, for example, the fact that in this election campaign there are vitally important issues-vitally important issues--that involve the future of all Americans. They involve the future of particularly young Americans. They are ones that involve your vote on November 3d, and they are ones that I would like to address myself to, not in partisan terms, but in the terms that I know you in this State appreciate and understand.

You want the best man for Governor; you want the best man for the Senate. And it is because I believe these are the best men for Governor and for the Senate that I am for them.

First, for your candidate for Governor, I appointed him as the General Counsel of the Treasury Department. I watched him working there for over a year in that very important department. I know that this is a man who had responsibility in the field of taxes, who knows what a dollar means, and who will do what needs to be done by the Governor of a great State, who will see that he will cut the spending so that your taxes are not going to go up in the State of Texas.

Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, I urge you, consider him as a man, a strong man, a qualified man, an experienced man, and one who can be a great Governor of a very great State.

Now I turn to the national scene. Here, I unqualifiedly, of course, endorse Jim Collins, Bob Price, our candidates for the Congress--Frank Crowley. I endorse them because we need the assistance in the House and in the Senate of men who will work with us on those great issues that I am going to describe.

I want to tell you why I feel so strongly about George Bush. I spoke for him before. I remember that election many years ago--1964. It was a hard year. George ran hard. He lost. But he came back. And you remember he was elected to the Congress in 1966. I have watched him in those 4 years, and what I have seen is that a man who came there 4 years ago has become a very big and strong man in the Congress of the United States. His is a voice that is heard in the House of Representatives because of the quality of the man, because of the honesty of the man, because of his integrity.

His voice will be heard in the United States Senate, and I can assure you it will be heard and paid attention to in the White House. George Bush and John Tower will make a very great team in the United States Senate--young men, experienced men, speaking for Texas, speaking for America.

I don't suggest that when George Bush gets to the Senate that he is going to support the administration all the time any more than he has in the House. He is independent. He is independent like most Texans, I can assure you. I admire him for that. And when he believes that we are wrong, he will not support us.

But I do know that on the great issues that I am discussing here tonight, the ones that have counted, George Bush has stood firm and strong. We need him. I need him in the United States Senate, and I hope you are going to send him there so that we can have him there.

Now listen to the issues. Don't think in terms of being a Republican or a Democrat. Think of America, think of its future, think of our young people, what you want for this great country of ours.

And what you want first of all, of course, and what we all want, is peace-peace at home and peace abroad. And when we think of that, we think of the war in Vietnam and the record of this administration. I want to tell you about that.

What we have done is that after 5 years of men going into Vietnam, we have been bringing them home. We have brought them home by tens of thousands.

What we have done is that by our strong action in Cambodia, we have reduced our casualties to the lowest in 4 1/2 years. And what we have done is to offer a peace plan for a cease-fire, a negotiated settlement, and exchange of prisoners.

My friends, we are ending the war in Vietnam, but the important thing is how we are ending it. You see, the difficult problem is not ending a war. The difficult problem is ending it in a way that you can win the peace.

Look back over the history of this country. If you haven't lived as long as I have, you have studied it. The United States has been in four wars in this century. We ended World War I. You will remember that was the war that was going to end wars. And yet, before a generation was over we were in another war, World War II. We ended World War II. That was a war that was going to be the last.

The United Nations came along. And within a few years, we were in Korea. We ended that war, and then came Vietnam.

You look over the whole century and what do you find: that we have yet to have in this century a full generation of peace for the American people. I think we can do better. That is why our policies will end the war in Vietnam, but end it in a way that will discourage those that would start another war and will win that generation of peace that we want for all Americans.

This is not a partisan issue. I can assure you that when I was talking tonight to former President Johnson on the phone, I told him that I knew that he tried, just as I am trying, to bring peace to this country.

The problem is doing it and doing it in a responsible way.

And again I come back to our candidates. Here are men, George Bush, John Tower, our candidates, who understand this issue, who will be responsible, and this is why--one reason--I urge your support.

Now I come to another point. This is the problem of peace at home. This is something that you usually wouldn't think would be discussed in an American campaign. But it had to be discussed in 1968. You will recall what the figures were. You remember that over the period of 1960 to 1968, crime went up 150 percent in this country, and we saw a growth in the use of drugs and narcotics. We found, also, that there didn't seem to be a program that would stop it.

I pledged in that campaign that I would ask for new strong laws, that I would appoint new strong judges, that I would put in a strong Attorney General, and that I would see to it, if I got support from the Congress, that the wave of crime did not become the wave of the future in America. And we are going to do that with your help and your support.

We are succeeding in that program. The Congress has not come along as fast as we would have liked, but I can assure you that pledge will be kept, and it must be kept so that our young people, all of our people, can have the feeling that there is going to be respect for law and justice and order in this country, something that we must have if we are going to be able to stand for law and order in the world.

A third promise that I made in the campaign had to do with another problem that concerns every American family. And that is how you balance your family budget. You know how prices have been going up.

You remember that when we came into office they had been going up for the past 3 years. And you will recall that I said that we had to get at the heart of the problem, that we had to recognize that when your Government in Washington spends billions of dollars more than it takes in in taxes year after year, inevitably that means that it raises prices for all of the people.

That is wrong, and that is why I have stood firmly for a program that allocates those monies and asks for the monies that are necessary and the funds for the programs that we need, but that will cut the Federal budget where we can so that we can take the pressure off of prices.

Let us put it this way: Unless we cut the Federal budget, you are not going to be able to balance the family budget, and we need support on that proposition.

It goes beyond that. It goes to all of our economic policies. We have found that in this country too often we have sometimes enjoyed prosperity in wartime, and too often we have not had full employment without war in a period of peace.

The objective of this administration, and I believe we can have it--I think we are on the right road; I think we are making progress is to have the transition from war to peace--and a million men have been let out of the armed services, and from defense plants, as a result of the wind down in Vietnam--to have that transition so that young Americans, all Americans, can have what we really want.

Let's have prosperity without war, and progress without inflation. That is what we want, and that is what you can help us achieve.

Now let's look to the future in terms of progress for America. Every American, Democrat and Republican, is for progress. The question that I found when I came into office was this: I found huge Government programs for very good causes, billions for education, billions for health, billions for welfare.

And all of us who have a feeling about our fellow citizens want to see that programs are adequate to take care of those who are in need, and to see that all Americans have an opportunity to move up, to have the chance that all of us would want to have, the chance to realize the American dream.

However, I determined then that we had to examine the programs, because I found that in program after program we were putting billions of dollars into old programs, and they weren't working. It doesn't make sense to put good money into bad programs because you end up with bad programs and bad money both. And so we started to change it.

The way we have Changed it? I can use as an example: First, I determined it was time to have a different approach to the whole relationship between the States and the Federal Government.

To all of you young people, again, I know you study American history and you are very interested in politics. And you will remember that in the early days of this Republic we used to talk about States rights and States responsibilities. And for 190 years we have seen those rights and those responsibilities go down and down. Power has flown from the people and from the States and from the cities to bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., until ,it is concentrated there, an enormous amount of power.

And now I think after 190 years of power going from the people and from the States to Washington, it is time to turn it around and have the power come back to the States and back to the people of Texas and all of the other States of this Nation.

But it isn't enough to say the States have the responsibility unless the States have the funds. And that is why we have the revolutionary program, one of revenue sharing, in which the revenues that the Federal Government collects will be shared with the States so that the States will make the decisions; the Texans will make decisions about Texans rather than Washingtonians making them about Texas.

This, I think, is the proposal that we support.

George Bush supports this proposition. John Tower supports it. Paul Eggers helped to develop it in his position as Counsel for the Treasury Department. He will be a great Governor to handle those responsibilities when that power does come to the State of Texas, and the funds to deal with it.

There are many other programs that I could discuss, but one in particular, I think, needs to be discussed very frankly, very honestly, because I understand it has become an issue in this campaign.

That is the question of our welfare program. I want to tell you why I made some recommendations about changing it. This is what I found when I came into office: I found that welfare costs in this country were going up and up and up. The number of people on the welfare rolls just went up and nothing was being done to stop the increase both in the numbers and the costs of welfare. And it was breaking cities and counties and States, and also even the Federal Government was having enormous responsibilities to meet the cost.

So, I decided something had to be done about it. And I took the city of New York as an example. Did you know--listen to this---New York City in 1966, just 4 years ago, had 600,000 people on welfare. Four years later, New York City had 1,200,000 people on welfare--double.

I will tell you what is wrong with it. The difficulty is that in that same period of time in the city of New York, the great newspapers there had want ads, pages after pages, offering work for people, and no takers.

I say to you that when a program makes it more--as far as an individual is concerned-where it rewards a man for not working rather than rewarding him for working, when it, in effect, gives him an incentive not to work rather than to work, when it gives him an incentive to desert his family rather than to stay with his family, it is time to get rid of that program and to get another one in its place.

So, we have offered a reform, a reform that will provide, as it should in this rich country, for those families in need, without the degradation of welfare. But, on the other hand, one that will have a work requirement and a work incentive. Everybody in this great audience wants to see to it that any family in this country, and particularly children, do have an adequate income, because this country should be able to afford that if they need it.

But, my friends, I say also that when a man is able to work, when he is trained for a job, when he is offered a job and refuses to work, that man should not be paid to loaf by a hard-working taxpayer in the United States of America.

I have outlined these programs for you to give you a broad sweep of what we have been trying to do, to bring real peace for a generation abroad, to restore peace, respect for law at home; a program of progress for Americans, progress without inflation; a program in which we can have real prosperity, prosperity without war; and a program of reform of the institutions of government in which government comes back to the people where it belongs and to the States, and in which we reform those institutions that are draining from the American people funds that could better be used for other purposes.

This can happen in America. This is what we stand for in this administration, and I say to you that these principles that I have outlined tonight--and think back to what I said a moment ago--they are not Republican; they are not Democrat; they are what are best for America, and George Bush stands for those things and for what is best for America.

I would not want the opportunity to pass while I was here in Texas before this great audience, and particularly with so many young people in the audience, both here and in the other hall and outside, without giving you an impression of what I have seen in the country in these past few weeks as from time to time I have visited States all over this Nation. It is a very different impression than you see night after night on that television screen. It is a very different impression than you may see, even, when you see coverage of rallies that we have had.

For example, on the television screen, if you saw what happened in Florida when we were there, you would have seen a few hundred over on the side trying to shout down the President of the United States with four-letter words, trying to engage in that kind of conduct which I think many Americans have grave questions about.

So, you get an impression as you see that. One night you see a bombing or a burning--a bank, 2 days ago, 10 miles from my home in California, near the University of California at Irvine campus, burned senselessly, no reason at all.

You see violence. You hear hecklers, not there for the purpose simply of trying to learn but trying to shout down a speaker, the President, anybody else who happens to come. And the impression is created, when you see that, that the violent few are really a majority of American youth and that they are probably the leaders of the future of this country.

Well, I have a different view. I have been around this country. I have talked to students. I have seen them at meetings in great numbers. And I can tell you that the violent few that you see on your TV screens, they are not a majority of American youth today, and they will not be the leaders of America tomorrow.

I want to tell you what I think about American youth. I believe in them. I have faith in the young people. It is an idealistic young generation. They care-they care about peace in the world, and they care about it at home. They care about those who don't have the chance that they have. They want this country to be a better country. They aren't satisfied with things as they are. And that is what we want from our younger generation. We don't want them simply to ape what we have done and what we have said.

That is to their credit. They are going to be great leaders of this country. But also America's youth, the great majority, recognize that the greatness of America is that for over 190 years, we have had a lot of changes in this country, and that in a country that provides a method for peaceful change, there is no cause that justifies resort to violence and violent change.

To the young people, I want to say something to you--just to you, if I could for a moment:

Sometimes you must wonder about your country. You hear about how we are not liked abroad, that our foreign policy is a Fascist policy or an imperialist policy. You have seen the signs. You hear about the situations at home in the United States, about all the things that are wrong, the fact that the air isn't clean and the water is poison, and that our system is one that has grave inequities in it, and that the United States of America should be held up to scorn to other nations of the world.

Let me tell you what the truth is. There are some things wrong about this country. We make mistakes abroad; we make them at home. But as we look at the things that are wrong, and we should look at them and we should correct them, let's also stand up and talk about what is right about the United States of America.

I will tell you what is right. As I traveled through other countries, I was very proud of the fact that whether it was in a Communist country, Yugoslavia or Romania, or in a non-Communist country, hundreds of thousands of people came out to cheer for the President of the United States.

Why? Because they know that while the United States is the strongest nation in the world, to our credit, they have nothing to fear from the United States. We keep our strength not for the purpose of destroying freedom but for the purpose of defending it. We will not use it to break the peace, only to keep the peace. Let's be proud of that.

Here at home, you look over this great country of ours and why is it that people abroad, as they look at America, why is it that the traffic is all one way, coming here? I will tell you why. Because they know that this country is rich, yes, and that it is strong, but also that in America there is more freedom, there is more opportunity, there is more progress than in any nation in the world. There is no country in the world, for example, where the President or the leader of that country could do what I have been able to do-to offer to the American people programs in education, programs in health, programs of care for those that are in need, on the massive basis, and be believed.

But because America is rich, because America has produced what it has, we are able now to offer a better life to Americans than any people have ever enjoyed in the history of the world.

So, as you consider those things that are wrong, I repeat: Remember, what is right about America is that we have the ability to correct what is wrong. We have the idealism to do it.

I simply leave this final message with you: My friends in Texas, all over this great State, I have never been prouder of the United States of America than as I have traveled abroad and as I have traveled in this country. This is a great country. We are part of a very great people, and we share a great future. And one of the proofs of that greatness is what is going to happen on November 3d.

I don't mean all of you are going to vote the way I want you to vote, but you are going to vote and you are going to make a decision. I have been often asked: What is the answer to those that try to shout you down in a meeting? Do you shout back? What is the answer to the violent few?

No, you don't shout back. The thing to do is simply this: To those who try to shout down, to those that engage in violence, it is just time for the great silent majority of America to stand up and be counted; and the way you can stand up and be counted is with the strongest weapon ever given to a free man--the right to vote.

So, I say vote on November 3d, vote for the candidate of your choice. If you ask my advice, and even if you don't ask for it, I can say I believe that the election of your candidates, the men that I have mentioned here tonight, the election of Paul Eggers as Governor, the election of George Bush as United States Senator, will be good for Texas. I know it will be good for America, and I am convinced it will be good for you.

Thank you.