Radio and Television Remarks on Election Eve

My fellow citizens:

Eight years ago on the eve of the 1952 election, I came into your homes through the magic of radio and television to thank the many millions of you--of all parties--of all faiths--from all sections of our land--I thanked you that evening because you supported Richard Nixon and me in our campaign to restore the unimpeded opportunity to America to develop her economic, military, and spiritual strength to the full.

Your response on election day in 1952--renewed in even greater measure in 1956--was overwhelming proof of the identity of beliefs and convictions that you and your families have shared with us over these past 8 years.

It has been a good partnership--and much good for our nation has resulted from it.

For myself, I shall always be humble and grateful because of the confidence you have placed in me and my associates in the Government.

Tonight--on the eve of another election--I again come into your homes.

Tomorrow, we choose the next President of the United States and the Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces--as each of us going into the polling booth finds himself alone with his God and his conscience. In that booth, each of us makes his own imprint on the future prosperity, security, and peace of the Republic--and of mankind.

Much more than your and my immediate good is at stake.

After church yesterday, I paid a visit to the home, on the outskirts of Gettysburg, where my son and his wife and their four children live. These grandchildren of mine, ranging in years from 12 to 4, are naturally very dear to me.

Though young, they have definite opinions of their own about this election--opinions in which, I must say, I heartily concur. Of course, like all other children, they are lighthearted and very personal in their approach to an election. They cannot appreciate what its impact will be upon their lives in the future.

But as I drove away, I could not help pondering on the far-reaching effects that tomorrow's election will inevitably have on them and on all the other Americans--your children and grandchildren--now too young to vote.

Will they, years from now, live in a country still strong and free; still prosperous, its economy undamaged by the cancer of inflation; still dynamic in its philosophy of free enterprise--with Government the partner of the people, not the boss? Will our nation still be the respected leader of free peoples in a world at peace?

This is what all of us want, but none of us tonight can answer these questions. I do pray that we, here and now, in this election do our part to give to these young Americans the best possible chance of inheriting from us a sound Republic.

I do pray that the man we choose to be your--and my--President for the next 4 years is endowed with wisdom, common sense, experience, and character. Then the heritage of our children and grandchildren will be well served.

Since the beginning of the Republic, great decisions influencing our destiny have been wrought by the President in deliberation with his Cabinet. In such deliberations, the measure of every participant is soon taken by those around him.

Since January of 1953, in the Cabinet Room of the White House, in the weekly sessions of the Cabinet and the National Security Council, Richard Nixon sat directly across the table from me--a mere few feet away.

I came to know him as a man cannot be known from headlines or interviews or speeches. I lived with him in hours of intense discussion and thought and soul-searching.

Around the Cabinet table were gathered at every meeting men and women who constituted in their dedication to the public good, a gathering worthy of America's highest purposes.

The matters before us were always important to the well-being of Americans; often of grave moment; sometimes fraught with the peril of war, sometimes critical in their impact on the nation's prosperity and security.

They included such matters as:

Korea and Formosa and Lebanon;

Suez and Indo-China;

a halt to Communist engulfment that began in 1946;

a buildup, for the first time in our peacetime history, of an adequate military posture including the initiation and development of missile systems never before attempted;

orderly expansion at Cabinet level of programs in health, education and welfare;

an end to Federal controls on your economy and a halt to rapid rises in the cost of living.

The constant effort was to create conditions in which America might live in bright hope; might have the opportunity to better themselves and the living of their families; might be confident that their Government cared about people.

In every discussion during these 8 years of Cabinet and National Security Council sessions, all of us were always unified in fundamental principle. Our single guide was the welfare of the United States. But in the application of principle, there were often expressed honest and wide differences of opinion. This was democracy at work--and quite naturally these differences inspired full, even heated, debate.

Through all these meetings, I could watch Richard Nixon; absorbed in the thoughtful, sober, silent weighing of every word and idea.

Then, after others had spoken, I frequently asked him to present a consensus of the judgments expressed. This he did, avoiding the trivial, the irrelevant, the imprudent; adding, from his own insight and knowledge and conviction, counsel that took into account every factor important to my final decision.

Eight years ago, I pledged to you that I and my Administration would serve all the people of America in every human way. Four years ago, I repeated that pledge--to lead and serve in devotion to the national interest; in a program of hard work; and in the purpose of seeking always a universal peace with justice. I hope you believe we have kept that pledge.

Acting for you, we fostered a climate of enterprise and hope.

And you--the people of America--took effective advantage of the opportunities so created. In all the works of heart and mind and hand you have set new records of achievement.

You made the United States the most powerful nation on earth-militarily, economically, spiritually.

In partnership with local and State and Federal Government, you built schools in your communities; expanded colleges and universities; erased slums; linked cities with expressways; advanced the horizons of knowledge in the science of health, of security, of space; pushed to new standards of living--as no people ever before has been able to do in a comparable period.

Far from standing still, you have advanced dramatically. My pride in you is beyond anything I can express--but I do suggest to you: just look around. See for yourselves what you have accomplished. And you will continue so to advance--given assurance that the climate of confidence will be sustained and that the system of free, competitive enterprise will never be weakened by political meddling.

That assurance you will have with the right kind of leadership, steeped in the philosophy of enterprise and of hope; experienced in working for an America, confident of her destiny, secure against the devastation of war, in a world moving toward peace with justice in freedom.

In those countless hours in the Cabinet Room, in many more hours of consultation with him at my own desk, I took the measure of the man that is Richard Nixon. He will provide that sort of leadership.

Side by side with him, the other member of a remarkable team, is Henry Cabot Lodge, esteemed by the entire free world and grudgingly respected by Communist bosses. He will give Richard Nixon the sturdy help, advice, and support that only a man who has proved himself a statesman, a diplomat, a great American, can give his President.

Cabot Lodge, for 8 years, has dealt with international problems at the highest level. And he has performed superbly, as the many million Americans who have watched him at the United Nations well understand. Incidentally, Ambassador Lodge will be the next to follow me on this program.

My friends, I have one all-consuming desire: I want our country to continue along the paths of peace and progress that she has trod so confidently for 8 years. I want America to have the most experienced, the most responsible leadership that we can produce.

You want the same, I know. But I am told that millions of you still are called "undecided voters." I deeply hope that this means only that you are still undecided as to your choice. I trust that you are decided in a determination to vote your choice tomorrow after you make it.

Let us remember that the right to vote was won for you in the toil and sacrifice and blood of all the fighting men of all America's wars. You must not ignore or reject that right.

My friends--exactly 18 years ago tomorrow, on November 8, 1942, it was my responsibility to lead an invading force of young Americans and their allies, landing in Africa in the first great land operation of World War II to eliminate the Hitler-Mussolini axis. Those two men had decided to destroy the right of freedom and of the free vote in the world. Our men were there to prevent this.

In all that command everybody was far from home; none had decent shelter, rarely any hot food; they were lonesome, tired, hungry; they were constantly exposed to the dangers of bullets and bombs. Thousands of them were wounded or disabled. Many others died. But their comrades pushed on until at least in Africa they forced the surrender of the Fascists and the Nazis.

They then went on to over-run Pantelleria, capture Sicily, invade Italy--finally, they and their comrades and their brothers who came after them invaded northern Europe. Finally we reached the culmination with the surrender of the Nazis at Berlin. Now they fought their way through danger and terror, under the constant threat of extinction, until they penetrated the Nazi heartland and destroyed that menace to freedom.

The primary purpose of their courage and sacrifice was to assure that there could not be taken from us the right of free government, the freedom of responsible citizenship--a citizenship that demands of us all the exercise of our right to vote.

I shall exercise my right tomorrow, as I hope you will, also. For myself, because of my firsthand knowledge of their capacity, dedication and character, I shall vote for Richard M. Nixon and Henry Cabot Lodge, as again I hope you will.

And now, after the last campaign speech that as your President I shall ever make to you, I say good night--may God bless you all and our beloved country.