Remarks at an Awards Dinner of the Nevada State Society of Washington, D.C.

President Smith and--this list of honored guests is so very long I think I will read just a little of it---Secretary and Mrs. Weinberger, and if I may be a bit premature, Vice President and Mr. Ford--you notice I made his wife the Vice President---Senator Bible, Senator Cannon, Senator Symington, Senator John McClellan, Senator Long--Russell Long-and Governor O'Callaghan:

First, I want to apologize for being a bit late. I could only drive at 50 miles per hour. And I also want to express my apologies to you, President Smith, and all the honored guests, for leaving after my brief remarks. I have to get back to the White House to do some work before they turn off the lights.

I did want to come by today to join the Nevada State Society in this extraordinary occasion in which you honor three very great ladies of Nevada--you call them "Women of the Century"--and I would say three great ladies of the Nation.

I would simply say that Nevada is not one of our most populous States. It has, as we know, much territory, but only one Congressman and two Senators. But there is no State in America, large or small, that has produced three more remarkable women than the State of Nevada--the three you honor tonight.

Now, a lot is going to be said about these honorees by others, and I will not try to preempt them, because I don't want them to tear up their notes while I am speaking, but I would like to put it all in perspective, if I could, by mentioning each of them briefly, how I have known each of them through many, many years.

Eva Adams, I remember meeting you many, many years ago--and you don't look a bit older today than when I first met you--when you were the administrative assistant for Pat McCarran and I was a junior Congressman from California. We have both come up a bit in the world since then. You became Director of the Mint, and now, isn't it Mutual of Omaha? Is that right? And certainly to be here to honor you is something that I am very proud to be able to do.

Helen Bentley is a woman of great capacity, as we all know, and I am proud to say that she is the first woman ever to be appointed by a President of the United States--and I happened to be the President who had the honor to do that--to be appointed as Chairman of one of the regulatory agencies--Helen Bentley.

And then, of course, I wanted to come because you are honoring the first lady in my family and America's First Lady, Pat Nixon.

Now, these three women have several things in common: They were all born in Nevada; they are all intelligent; they are all women who have come up from rather humble beginnings to very high places in their various lives that they have lived. And they share one other quality which I would like to address just a bit tonight, and that is the quality of character. They have great character.

That is what Nevada is all about. It is a State that produces men and women of character. I have been trying to think how I could describe that character best.

I remember, when I was considering Helen Bentley for the position as Chairman of the Maritime Commission, a Senator who was trying to get me to appoint somebody else came to the office and said, "Mr. President, you can't appoint Helen Bentley to this job. You know, she swears like a man." [Laughter]

Well, you know, as all of our honored Senators here know, I never like to put a Senator down, but in this case I did. I said, "Senator, you are absolutely wrong. She swears like a lady, and that is much more powerful."

I think, too, of the fact that through many years that Pat Nixon, who was born in Ely, Nevada, and I have shared many great moments, and some difficult moments. And I, of course, remember the great moments, but even more, I remember the more difficult moments, because that is the test of an individual, and the great test of Nevada's First Ladies, one of whom I have the privilege to know extremely well, is that when the going is toughest, they are at their very best.

I remember, for example to show how much the Nation thinks of her--that after I had named Jerry Ford as the Vice President-designate of the United States of America, I received a lot of letters and other correspondence indicating their approval of it, but one man wrote me a letter with a clipping in it about the inauguration in Argentina, where President Peron has named his wife as Vice President. He said, "Mr. President, why didn't you think of that?"

And I can only say that I remember many moments, but one in particular that I would describe for you that perhaps never has been in the history books to date: 1958, Caracas, when great mobs of rather violent rioters attacked the cars of the Vice President and those in the caravan as we moved through the city of Caracas.

The Vice Presidential car was badly bashed in, they began to tip it over, and Pat Nixon was in the car immediately behind. Don Hughes, then a major, now a general, of the Air Force was sitting by her, and he said that what impressed him was that as she looked at that mob attacking her husband's car and also attacking her car, that she sat there cool, calm, just smiling at them. And he said, "She was the bravest woman I ever saw in my life."

And I know that I have talked to many world leaders, and I have found that whenever you find a strong world leader, you find usually by his side a very strong woman. I have been fortunate in that respect.

Perhaps I can describe her spirit by a reference to another woman who has played a very major role in my life, my mother. I remember the last conversation I ever had with her. It was in the midsixties. It had not been particularly a good period for me. I had just lost for President, and then I lost for Governor of California. There wasn't anything else to run for--[laughter]--so I moved to New York and started to make money.

I came back to see her because she had had several serious operations, and the prognosis was that she would not live. I remember going into the hospital room. I talked to her a while. I noticed that she seemed to be a little down. I said, "Mother, don't you give up," and all of a sudden she got up on her elbow, and she looked at me, and she said, "Richard, don't you ever give up."

I want to say to this great audience here' that that is the spirit of the three honorees you have here tonight; that is the spirit of the frontier women of America, the women who helped make the West, Nevada and all the great States that we, who come from the West, know so well, and that is the spirit, strength in adversity, that has carried America through many trials and that will carry it on to many great triumphs in the future.

And I am proud to be here tonight to join with the Nevada State Society in honoring these three great ladies, and by honoring them, honoring the women of America who have the character to make the men whatever they happen to be.

Thank you.