Remarks at a "Victory '72" Dinner in New York City

Mr. Vice President and Mrs. Agnew, and all of the distinguished guests at this dinner in New York and at the other 26 dinners across this country:

It is hard to realize that 4 years have passed since September 19 when we were last in New York for a dinner of this kind.

As I look back on that dinner, and as I remember the funds that were contributed on that occasion, I realize how very important they were to the victory that we won 4 years ago. We thank you for what you did then.

On behalf of the Vice President, who has been so generous in his introductory remarks tonight, speaking from Chicago, let me express my appreciation and his for the thousands across this country attending these dinners who, by your help, are making it possible for us to win an even greater victory, a more important victory, in this year 1972.

I would like to describe that victory for you in perhaps different terms than we usually hear such victories described. It will be, I would trust, not simply the victory of a man and his running mate, not simply the victory of a party, but in the very deepest and most profound sense I would hope that we could make it a victory for America. That is what we are working for.

I believe one of the reasons why our campaign this year has support across the party lines, across the regional lines, across all parts of this great country, across the so-called generation gap--I think one of the reasons that is the case is that we are representing in our campaign what people believe is best for America. Let me explain it to you in three or four of the great issues that you have heard discussed earlier this evening, and perhaps that I can elaborate on briefly in my own remarks.

First, the subject that the Vice President has addressed in his remarks from Chicago. He has spoken of the record we have made in the field of foreign policy. We are proud of that record. But let me speak quite candidly with you. We have only begun, and there is so much left to do.

We have had a dialogue, a beginning of a dialogue with the leaders of one-fourth of all of the people in this world, and as a result, the world will be safer in the years ahead; not certainly, but it can be. If we had not had the dialogue, it would have been a very dangerous world just a few years from now, and that is an achievement.

We have begun negotiations, as the Vice President has pointed out, in a number of fields with the Soviet Union, fields that were not even anticipated 4 years ago, anticipated insofar as success was concerned. But particularly, as was indicated in the vote that was completed in the House yesterday, now we have passed the first phase of the limitation of nuclear arms. But note, I use the words "first phase" because in opening these negotiations with the Soviet Union, we still have a long way to go.

What we must recognize is that whether it is continuing our dialogue with the People's Republic of China, whether it is continuing our negotiations in the second phase of arms limitation with the Soviet Union, whether it is building our friendship with our allies in Europe, in the Mideast, and other parts of the world, Latin America and Africa, whatever the case might be--we have begun.

I think it is not an overstatement to say that over these past 4 years we have been part of a great movement. We have changed the world, and the world will be better for it. But it will be better for it only if we can follow through. And what we ask tonight from you is not just your contributions, but your work, so that we can finish the job, so that we can continue the work that we have begun.

To say "finish the job" is really an overstatement because the job will never be finished. Whoever is President of the United States of America in the next 4 years, or the next 4 years after that, will have to continue to do as well as he possibly can in the field in which he has responsibility, primary responsibility, as the Vice President has pointed out--the field of foreign policy--to provide the kind of leadership that will make the world a more peaceful world and that will preserve freedom in the world.

That is why one of the major issues of this campaign, one in which we want a mandate from the American people, involves the position not only of the next President but of Presidents after him. One of the reasons we have been able to lead the world in a more peaceful direction over the past 4 years is because the United States was strong. And I simply say to all of you, let us never send the President of the United States to the conference table with anybody as the head of the second strongest nation in the world.

I make this statement in no belligerent sense, because I know the American people. I know we have made mistakes in foreign policy, as all peoples have. But I say it is time that we be proud of the fact that in four wars in this century we have always fought to preserve freedom, not to destroy it; to defend the peace, not to break it. Let us remember that the power of the United States is not a threat to the peace of the world; it is the guardian of peace in the world.

So let's keep America strong, and reject the advice of those that would make us weak.

At home we have similar goals, goals that in a way may not appear quite 'as exciting as these great global issues that we talk about, but goals that affect the lives of every American family.

I refer, for example, to the new prosperity, the new prosperity which we believe received enormous impetus from the programs that we announced on August 15 of last year. Just 2 days ago, or, as a matter of fact, just yesterday morning, speaking in Washington, D.C., before 124 nations in the world, I was proud to be able to say that the United States of America today has the lowest rate of inflation, the highest rate of growth, the highest real income for its workers of any industrial nation in the world. That is what we have.

But here, again, we say "That is not enough." We are never satisfied because we have a goal out there, one that we must achieve. I will tell you what it is: We want full prosperity, without war and without inflation, and that is something we have not had in this country since the days of President Eisenhower in 1955 and '56.

We can get it, and we will have it again. But in order to build that kind of prosperity, we must continue the sound policies in the economic field. We must reject that kind of philosophy that would penalize those who produce the jobs that make America the best fed, the best clothed, the best housed people in the world. And we certainly must reject the philosophy that someone on welfare should receive more than someone who works in the United States of America.

There is a third area where we have made some progress in the past 4 years-not nearly as much as we would have liked. Some of you perhaps find it hard to remember what America was like in 1968. You remember what was happening on the campuses and in the cities. You remember the escalating rate of crime, of dangerous drugs and narcotics across this country. You remember that we declared that we would launch a massive offensive across this Nation on the forces of crime, narcotics, and the like.

We have not accomplished as much as we would like, but under the leadership of Attorney General John Mitchell and his successor, Attorney General Kleindienst, and due to the fact that we have appointed to the Supreme Court judges who have recognized that their primary responsibility is to protect the first civil right of every American, the right to be free from domestic violence, we have finally turned the corner on the fight against crime, but we need to go on. Let us not turn back to the era of permissiveness that got us where we were in 1968.

Then there is another area in which all of us, as Americans, have an enormous interest. I was talking earlier with Governor Rockefeller, at a reception of the New York Committee to Re-Elect the President, about the difference in the problems a President faces in the field of foreign policy and domestic policy. Let me confide, in this rather select group and those who are listening in the other 26 cities, the problem that a President faces when he was elected, as I was in 1968 along with Vice President Agnew, but does not have a majority mandate due to the fact that there was that year, you recall, a third party candidate.

In the field of foreign policy, a President can act and he should act and he should lead and, generally speaking, he can carry the country with him, even though the Congress may be carried in this instance by a majority of the other party. I found that when I first came to the Congress, for example. The Republicans were a majority in the 80th Congress, but when it came to the Greek-Turkish aid program, when it came to the Marshall Plan, President Truman was able to carry the Congress with him, and I, as a Republican, joined with Democrats in supporting those programs because we put the country first when the security of America was involved.

But in the field of domestic policy, it is a very, very different matter. Here a President can propose, and then the Congress does what it pleases, and sometimes it does not go along.

For example, we have proposed, as you know, much needed reforms in this Government of ours, reforms in the field of welfare, reforms in the field of health programs, in the field of education, in the field of Government reorganization. And in area after area where the Congress should have acted, the Congress has not acted.

One of the reasons for that is that the Congress quite rightfully could claim that the President did not have a majority mandate. But let me say this: In one area we have succeeded and that one success, as not only Governor Rockefeller will tell you but all the other Governors who are listening here tonight--Governor Cahill, Governor Meskill, Governor Ogilvie in Chicago ¹--that one success, revenue sharing, is a great victory for the American people.

But now let me come to the point. What we need and what you can help provide through giving us a clear majority, a new American majority this year: You can give us the opportunity to carry forward exciting, new programs on the domestic front that are just as important as those that we have been able to carry forward on the international front.

That is why this election is so terribly important to the American people. What I am saying to you tonight is that whether it is in the field of foreign policy, whether it is in the field of domestic policy, that what we need and what we ask for is not simply the support of a party, but the support of a clear majority of the American people so that we can do those things that America needs to have done for it.

We have a program. We have submitted it to the Congress. We will have more to submit. But we need the majority, and you can help provide that majority. That is what you have done by your contributions here.

Now, in very personal terms, may I tell you what this election is really about? What does a man think, what does Vice President Agnew think, what do I think as we crisscross the country, as much as the dudes of our office will permit, in campaigning for reelection? Of course, we think of winning. Of course, we think of what we can do when we get in. But above all, we think of our obligation to the generations that have made this country in the past, to the older citizens, for example, who have contributed so much and who deserve so much in respect as well as in care from those that they have served in this country.

And we think, too, of the younger people in this country. This year, more than in any election in our history, the candidates for the Presidency and the Vice Presidency are thinking of younger people as well as older people.

One of the reasons, of course, is quite a selfish one. They can vote, and being able to vote, they can affect this election very much. But it is good that we are reminded of that. It is rather significant that this is Student Government Day ² all over the United States. It is significant right here in this room, that at this great dinner where it costs, I understand, a great deal to sit down and eat, that the young people were able to come in and at least enjoy the speeches.

Could I tell all of the people listening here, all the young Americans and their parents and all of those who think of this country and what we want it to mean, what I want for you, for this new generation?

I want you to grow up in a world with peace. We have had a war in every generation in this century. That is too many and that is too long, and it doesn't need to be the case. I want you to grow up in an open world. I want you to be able to take the trips that Mrs. Nixon and I have taken, to the People's Republic of China, to the Soviet Union, to nations that up to this time have been relatively closed to young people or any people, for that matter, who might want to visit them from the United States of America.

I want you to know all the people of the world. Even though we may have differences in government, let's not let the differences between governments keep people, and particularly young people, from being friends.

I want every young person in this country to have real prosperity. That means full employment without war and without inflation. It means also opportunity, opportunity for every American, regardless of his background, but opportunity that is not limited by putting you in a quota so that you can't go as high as your talents are going to take you. And there is something else that I want for this younger generation as you vote for the first time. I tried to say it in Miami when I said that I hoped that this first vote of yours you might look back upon as being one of your best.

In another way I would like to say this: It has been very distressing to me from time to time as I have talked to audiences across this country to find that some of our young people had lost confidence in America. Some of them have felt that this was not a good country to be living in, that this was a poor time to be alive and particularly a poor time to be alive in America.

Above everything else in this campaign and in those next 4 years you have talked about so well, I want you to be proud of America and proud of our role in the world. This is a great country, and let's always remember that.

It is news when a few young Americans try to obstruct or disrupt some meeting that is being held, like this. It is bigger news, in my opinion, when millions of young Americans are doing what they are doing this year, peacefully supporting the candidate of their choice in a Presidential election.

I say, let's make it the biggest news of all by having a majority of young Americans join a majority of older Americans in winning a great victory for America this November.