Remarks at the Annual Meeting of the United States Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. President, and all of our distinguished guests here attending the annual Chamber of Commerce dinner:

I am honored to be here because I am always very pleased to address this group. It has been twice my privilege to do so as President, and I am happy tonight--particularly for two reasons that are personal-one, to congratulate President Rust for his leadership of this group over the past year and, two, to congratulate Arch Booth for finally making it. Twenty-four years as vice president is enough.

I know that your dinner will not begin until my remarks conclude, and I will not hold you long. But I thought that since you are going to hear from so many experts on the economy, the business cycle, and other matters that affect the business leaders of the Nation--and, of course, this is the largest business organization in the United States and, for that matter, in the world--since you are going to hear from so many of those experts, I thought that perhaps I could best open this meeting by putting it somewhat in perspective of America's challenge in the world, and what the strength of the American economy means, not only to us here at home but what it means to the future of peace in the world.

Sometimes it is hard for us, any people, to realize, when we are living in great times, how great those times are and how profound the challenges are. We live at a time, we in America, when there is the best chance since the end of World War II, and perhaps even the best chance in this century, to build a peace that we can enjoy, but more than that, a peace that 3 billion people in the world who share it with us can enjoy.

I will not go over what is happening in the world today. You follow the news. I get the reports as they come in daily. I can only say this: We are making progress in our efforts to bring peace to the Mideast--an area that has known four wars in one generation and has not known real peace for perhaps 1,000 years--and that will be a great achievement, one which America can play a great role in helping to bring about.

The preparations for the meeting with the Soviet leaders--the third summit-are going forward on schedule. We will make progress there in the limitation of nuclear arms, in cooperation in many areas where two systems that are totally opposed to each other insofar as their philosophy is concerned, recognize that because of the power they have, they have a responsibility to work together for peace in the world.

Our dialog with those who lead one-fourth of all the people who live on the globe, in the People's Republic of China, is going forward. Not that our differences in philosophy have changed. They have not. But again, recognizing the pragmatic fact that those who live there play now and, in the future, will play an even greater role in determining whether we have peace or a period of war and mass destruction.

And as you know, we are moving forward with a new dialog with our friends in Latin America. We are moving forward with a new dialog with our friends in Western Europe. And all of this put together means not that peace is here and we can relax and enjoy it, because peace is not something that comes and then is an established fact. It is a process; one must work at it, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, or otherwise it escapes, and war again becomes our lot and, next time, if it should become our lot, perhaps the lot of most of the people in the world.

But I can assure you today that, looking at the world scene, the prospects for building world peace are good. I can assure you today, too, of another fact, and this is something that many Americans perhaps do not want to recognize as being their responsibility, because having gone through World War I and World War II, and then Korea, and then Vietnam, there are so many of us that would like to say, "Why can't someone else take up the burdens that we have been carrying for trying to defend freedom and keep peace in the world?"

But I can assure this audience from all over America, having just returned 2 weeks ago from meetings with the world leaders in Paris, that except for the United States of America, its leadership, there would be no chance to build a lasting peace. We hold the key to peace in our hands.

And so, an America that is strong, an America that will lead is essential if this great goal that mankind has tried to find for so many years and has eluded us, this great goal can be achieved, but it is in our hands.

Now, so much for the prospect. Let me tell you what you, as the business leaders of America, and those you represent can do to contribute to the success of achieving that great goal.

We all know that America must maintain its military might. We all know that we must never send an American President to the conference table as the head of the second strongest country in the world. We know that, and we must maintain that strength.

But just as important as America's military strength is America's economic strength, and the first is not possible without the second. And I can assure you, as you meet with world leaders, they know we are militarily strong, but as they look at this massive productivity that we have in this country, if they look at what we have done over 200 years in our history, America is the economic envy of the world. We are a strong country economically.

Now, having said that, I know that many of you are thinking perhaps of what has happened in the first quarter and the latter part of the fourth quarter of 1973 to our economy.

We have been going through a difficult period, much of it energy-related, much of it caused also by a worldwide inflation, but whatever the causes, it has been there. But while we must not overlook the difficulties through which we are passing and which we will overcome, we must also never forget that our economy basically is strong, and Government policies must do nothing that weaken the American economy. They must always do things that strengthen the American economy.

I consider, for example, the problem of inflation. And here, as you all know, there are various theories, but I know this: You can spend your way into inflation, but you sure can't spend your way out of inflation. So, we have got to keep Government spending at a level that is responsible.

I know, too, there are those who, as they look at the inflationary spiral, would like to think that there was an easy answer. Why doesn't the Government control it all? If there were such an answer, believe me, that is what we would do.

But while controls can work for a time, we have to remember that the experience in this country, and we have had it in these past 5 years, indicates that the future of the American economy is not through more controls, but less controls.

I would also suggest that on this day, when the control authority officially ends, that a great responsibility is placed on the business community--the leaders of labor as well--to be responsible, because if the fires of inflation continue to burn too strongly, the demand for controls will again come up in the country and be reflected in the Congress.

That would not be in the best interests of the country in the long run. And for that reason I say, let us have faith in our economy. Let us recognize, however, that the answer to inflation, the major answer, is more production, and more production is going to come through policies that all of you are familiar with.

And that brings me to the third point about the strength of this economy. As far as the future is concerned--and incidentally, predicting the economy, particularly one as big as ours, is even more difficult than predicting the Washington weather--I can assure you that as far as most of the economic advice that I have been able to get, both within the Government and from without is concerned, it is this: a leveling out of the downturn in the second quarter, an upturn in the third and fourth quarters of this year, a very good year in '75, and the best year in our history in '76. This is something I think we can achieve, because we have passed through the major part of the energy crisis.

Automobile production, one of the weak spots in the economy, is finally beginning to turn up. Housing is a special problem, and it is one of those rare areas--I say rare as far as I am concerned where Government must play a significant role. And announcements that I will be making next week with regard to Government action will stimulate a sagging housing market, because it is essential that in this particular area, we continue to have that growth which is not only important in terms of the families who buy and live in our houses or rent them, but it is also important to the overall strength of our economy.

But having spoken of what Government can do--be responsible in its fiscal policies, be responsible in its monetary policies, be responsible in terms of not imposing controls when controls will have short-term advantages and long-term disaster--what we must remember above everything else is that what built America, what made us what we are, the strongest, the freest, the most prosperous nation in the world, is not what Government did, but what private enterprise did. That is the secret of the American dream.

Let me give you a very timely example. Everybody is concerned about energy. And I often get questions: "What is the Government going to do? How much are we going to spend?" A great deal, $15 billion over the next 3 years or 4 years, possibly, maybe $20 billion. And people gasp, "That is bigger than Manhattan [the Manhattan Project]; that is as big as the space program," or what have you.

But let me point this out: What Government does in the energy field and what we spend in the areas of research and the other areas in which we are working is important. Fifteen billion dollars over 3 years or 4 years is a lot of money. But over the next years--10 years--do you realize that to achieve the goal that we must achieve, of being independent of any other country for our energy, that private enterprise will be spending $500 billion? That makes Manhattan, which gave a big boost to the economy, look very small. It makes the space program, which gave a good boost to the American economy, look very small indeed.

And so, in this one area alone, you can see that our Project Independence for 1980, if we move forward not just with what Government does but in unleashing and encouraging private enterprise in every respect, this is going to add enormous strength to the economy of this country.

Let me just speak of some actions that can help in that respect, and if you don't mind, a little lobbying: In this respect, what we have to do is to develop the resources that we have, and the Congress should deregulate natural gas. Why? So that we can get enough gas to bring the price down. The Congress should pass the legislation that will allow America to use to the maximum necessary the resource in energy that we have more of than any in the free world. We have two-thirds of all the known coal resources in the free world, and what we need to do is to change the environmental standards so that we can mine that coal and use that coal and use it effectively, and it can be done.

And further down the line, we must move forward in the development of nuclear power, where the United States was first in finding the secret to breaking the atom and, now, we seem to be so far behind in using it for peaceful means. We must move forward in the development of deepwater ports.

There are other areas that I could mention, but my intention here is not to put pressure on the Congress, my intention here is to point out the great promise that it holds for America. It is possible for this great and powerful economy, this Nation, to be totally independent of any other nation, so that we will never go through what we did in October of last year when they cut off our energy supplies.

Long-term: 24 years from now--and Arch has been--24 years from now, well, he may be around for that 2000th birthday of the millennium. But all I can say is that as we look at the future of America, the prospects for world peace are good if we lead, the prospects for a strong economy are good if we play to our strength, which is private rather than Government enterprise.

But also, we must remember that the history of nations tells us that great civilizations have fallen not when they were poor and when they were weak, but when they were rich and apparently strong. Because the tendency inevitably then--and it was true of Rome and it was true of Greece and it was true of many other civilizations-the tendency then at a time of great wealth and affluence is an inward turning, turning away from greatness, turning away from leadership, and failing to keep the character and the strength that brought that civilization to where it was.

And that brings me finally to the most important point of all. We can be militarily strong, we can be economically strong, and still fail in this great goal that we are trying to achieve--of building a lasting peace in the world--if America is not strong in its character among its people. And that means faith in this country, faith in its system, faith, it seems to me, that is well justified.

And I can tell you that sometimes when we hear the media reports, some of them, sometimes when we read the newspapers, there is a tendency to emphasize those things that are wrong. And there are things wrong, and we should correct them, whether it is in our economy or any other area, but let us never forget that as you go out across this great country of ours, you see a very different America than you will see here in Washington, D.C.

I do not mean that Washington is not a great city, populated by many very great people, but I do suggest that out in this country, there is still that character that crossed the mountains and the prairies and went all the way to the Pacific and built America to where it is, and you see it best in times of adversity.

I close with this one example. A President has many duties, and one is to go to disaster areas. And every time you go, your staff tells you, "Go in and give them a lift." And I can tell you, every time I go in, those who go through the disasters give me a lift.

It was true when I visited Mississippi in 1969 during the Camille hurricane. It was true when I was in Pennsylvania at the time of Hurricane Agnes as I went around and talked to the people who had suffered so much.

And it was true just a few weeks ago when I was in Xenia, Ohio, where a tornado had torn through a city and left destruction such as I had never seen before, except possibly of an earthquake in Anchorage, Alaska. And as I drove along I saw a very moving sight. In place after place, there were modest homes that had been there. They were gone. Nothing was left but the rubble. But standing there, planted there, was an American flag.

When you have people who go through that kind of tragedy and who are still proud of their country, proud of their city, proud of their State, then let me tell you, there is nothing wrong with the heart of America. This country is going to provide the leadership that is needed.

Thank you.