Remarks at the Civic Auditorium, San Francisco, California

Mr. Chairman, Fellow Americans, and Fellow Republican Workers:

I have had many things occur to my mind as possibly worthy of your attention, and it had been my hope to visit with you for awhile about them. And I shall do so. But I am going to skip around in the notes that I prepared, because I feel the warmth of this meeting and your welcome justifies a more "homey" talk than I possibly intended to give.

Now, before I talk about one or two things that I think are of great importance to Californians as such, I want to talk for a moment about a subject that is constantly in the hearts of all Americans. It is that of peace.

Now I can imagine no American who doesn't understand that the over-riding problem of our day is peace. The question of whether or not we are to have peace determines the size of our taxes, it influences the plans we make for the future, it brings us happiness or disappointment. It is one of those things that is always with us, and I should like to deal with this matter for a moment only, on the question of principle; knowing well that I am talking to Americans, people of courage, of vision, of stamina, and who are not to be stampeded by hysteria or fear, no matter who peddles that kind of product.

Now the pursuit of peace and the basic principles on which it stands is not subject to any kind of partisan debate or partisan discussion. It is supported by the political leaders of both parties, and we must always remember that.

Of those principles, the first one that I would mention would be: America is committed to avoidance of force as an instrument of national policy. We do not believe in using our great strength, our almost unimagined military strength, to coerce others. On the contrary, we keep it so that we have a position from which we can negotiate for peace and to avoid the disaster of aggression against us.

So, respecting freedom--the rights of the individual we have a mission, then, to do one other thing: to refuse to countenance communist territorial expansion by force. We stand on that as a principle of all our action in the field of supporting our friends in the world, whether they be big or little.

Because, my friends, if communists may be allowed to take a piece of territory, no matter how insignificant, by their own volition and without protest, and without supporting that little area by the strength of the free world, then we have merry created one more stepping-stone for them to go one more further step ahead. And as that occurs, the perimeter of the free world will constantly shrink until there will be an impossible position presented to all of us.

Therefore we must stand on principle, and not on a line on the map.

Peace requires, as I see it, rising standards of living throughout the world. This means that when we give economic, military, technical aid to others, we are not doing this as a matter of altruism, we recognize that freedom is indivisible. If we are ready to sacrifice the freedom and independence of another nation, we have by that much endangered our own. So these collective systems of security that we develop are themselves steps toward peace, to preserve the strength we need, and all of them negotiated under the aegis of the United Nations Charter.

So above all, in the realm of the spirit and of the mind and of the emotions, the United States tries with other free nations to develop that spiritual strength which recognizes the dignity and the freedom of men, and supported in the world exactly as we support it here in the United States. And only thus may we be safe.

I again say, these things are not partisan. These are the things that all of us can believe. Possibly we can, in the operation of a foreign policy, see here and there something we believe to be in error. But we do know that we believe in these things--these principles, all of us, with our whole hearts, and therefore doing so we cannot go very far wrong, because only thus will we be firm and safe.

Now I am going to become partisan.

And the very first thing I want to do, I want to give a personal salute to our hard-working, dynamic Vice President, your fellow Californian, Dick Nixon. He is one of our effective leaders in this fight to produce a solid Republican representation in the State government, and to give us a Republican Congress.

So primarily I am here to speak on behalf of Bill Knowland, Goodwin Knight, Pat Hillings--your entire slate of Republican State candidates; and Bill Mailliard, Arthur Younger, Charlie Gubser, and John Allen, along with all their Republican colleagues already in the Congress.

I feel that you know that these men have proved their quality and their integrity. Their record of public service speaks for itself. Therefore, I hope you will send them to Washington and to Sacramento.

Now they, like you, are involved in some mighty important decisions ahead. I want to talk to you about the need to insure that California continues to be run by Californians; that is, that its proper decisions are made in California and not by some far off bureaucracy in Washington.

May I point out, my friends, these things don't affect merely candidates for office, rich men, or someone who is involved deeply with the government. These things we are talking about involve every single one of us-your budget, influenced by the federal care with the federal budget; your dollar, whether it will stay sound and you can use it in the future on the same basis that you can use it now; your family decisions; your job; your prosperity, are all bound up in the question as to whether or not you can establish and maintain in this State and in Washington sane, sound government that has its complete concern for the human as such, but is completely conservative when it comes to that person's money and finances, and the nation's money and finances.

So what we are trying to do is keep government close to home. Your State is one of the richest of all. You have been blessed a hundred times with a bountiful agriculture, vast industry, commerce with other States and with the world. You farm both the land and the sea. Your forests and fields, your cities and farms, your seaports and factories, you rank first in more things than I thought any other State possibly could. But because of this remarkable growth, your problems are bigger and more complex than those of almost any other State. So to an extraordinary degree, they are the kind of problems that involve you in direct and continuous relationships with the federal government.

Here on the Coast you have a tremendous number of defense installations. Your thousands of miles of coastline is a frontier not only for the State but for the United States in a time of missiles, submarines and airplanes. Thousands of miles of federal-State highways lie within your borders. You lead all other States in value of farm products sold. Your cities exploding with a booming population are expanding far above the normal growth rate of the rest of the country. So this brings extensive federal participation in a dozen different fields, such as highway financing, the Hill-Burton hospital program, air safety, public housing, veterans' affairs, and on and on and on.

Now as you continue to grow, there will be an insistent demand for more and more services. Some of these are the proper concern of government, others are properly the concern of private citizens.

Moreover, and this question deeply concerns every thinking citizen, it matters a great deal to you that the fulfillment of this rising demand for additional services be kept right here at home, as closely as it may be. So I want to emphasize this point because of its profound meaning to each of us today, and also to the future of this Republic.

First, Republicanism is progressive, forward-looking, eager and determined to meet the requirements of our times, a philosophy that is responsive government, government sensitive to human need.
But equally important, Republicanism rejects political pablum.

We Republicans are flatly opposed to patronizing government, domineering government, government that panders to greed rather than to need.

I think we should hold firmly to this distinction. It, in a nutshell, reflects our common fight against radicalism in America.

So you want to keep control of California's affairs right here. And I want you to do the same. You do not want a far-off centralized bureaucracy dominating your local affairs.

Yet the trend is unmistakable. We see it on all sides:

--in agriculture, where for years Federal influence and direction have been extreme;

--in community redevelopment programs, where the Federal part tends always to grow;

--in water pollution programs, where the Federal participation has been ballooned;

--in road building, where pressures are persistent to raise the Federal share;

--in welfare expenditures, where the Federal portion tends always to grow;

--in power generation, where the Federal tendency is to exclude private effort.

We see the same trend manifested in never-ending, new proposals that would interject the Washington bureaucracy into community, city and State activities which at least to date have escaped the federal hand.

Your Republican Party has always opposed this kind of centralized control. But our efforts to restrain over-expansion of federal powers and activities is too soon forgotten.

The story of our efforts to stop further encroachments upon the proper functions of State and local governments does not get in the headlines.

A wise veto may not look very spectacular. It does not command much attention. Yet rejection of an irresponsible bill can equally advance the interest of every citizen. And this we must tell the voters.

And this is one reason that we want to elect men like Goodwin Knight, Bill Knowland, Pat Hillings and your other fine Republicans.

Now for a minute more, the next subject I should like to discuss is that of providing the kind of legislation that will enable workers to free themselves of certain corrupt labor bosses who have betrayed their trust. We need to elect Republicans so we can move ahead in this area. Past efforts have been blocked by partisan maneuvers. Disclosures in the labor and management field have brought to light great abuses of trust and power. And these things were brought to light, I remind you, by a Senate Committee.

This is a grave danger to all Americans. Where leadership has been faithless in the fiscal management of union affairs, these conditions must be fumigated. Corruption must be stopped,

I believe the American people, especially union members, not only want it stopped, they demand it be stopped. And I have submitted recommendations to the Congress in this area. Incidentally, these recommendations were sidetracked in favor of an insipid and wholly unsatisfactory substitute. This, Republicans reject.

But in 1955 and again in 1956, I told Congress that special, specific action was needed to cure these evils. I recommended protection for the funds and beneficiaries of employee health, welfare and pension plans.

This year, I gave Congress a special legislative program that would have provided certain specific protections for our working people, business, and the public. Like my earlier recommendations, this program, too, was scuttled. Now we must act.

I have been disappointed that no more progress has been made, but that disappointment in no way dampens my resolve to secure this legislation to protect the American men and women who with their minds and hands create so much of the wealth of this nation.

So next January, I shall recommend that Congress pass legislation to safeguard union funds, and assure fair and honest procedures in our unions.

These proposals are not "special interests" legislation. They are "all interests" legislation. The people of the United States deserve representatives who will pass such legislation.

This nation needs men in Washington and in Sacramento with intellectual honesty and political courage and experience to face up to these issues. We must no longer delay such vital legislation. We should no longer have to spend our time thwarting unwise encroachments against the States.

Because of the importance to you of these subjects, I know that we need Bill Knowland in Sacramento and Goodwin Knight in Washington.

I want to ask you, if you believe with me that understanding the intricacies of the federal government's relationship with States, with communities, with cities and with the individual and the family--and the family pocketbook, if you understand those things with me, then I would request that you join yourselves in one solid body to bring others to think the same; to defend sane, moderate, right, sound government-progressive government against radicalism, against spendthrift government, the kind that needlessly tacks on the backs of your children and your grandchildren debts that shouldn't have ever been incurred by us.

So I feel very sincerely that you owe it to yourselves as Republicans-we owe it to independents, to like-minded Democrats, and everybody that agrees in these basic things, to get together and get for ourselves this kind of government.

Thank you and goodbye.