Remarks at the President's Birthday Breakfast.

Mr. Chairman, Mrs. Williams, and My Friends:

This party, made up as it is of workers for the cause of good government, makes it rather a difficult one to address. The motivation all of you have in the political field as exemplified by your enthusiasm this morning and your great courtesy to me makes me want to spend my entire time just thanking each of you, not only those present but those who have had a part in this celebration--particularly those who made this great, unique greeting card. I was deeply touched by the thought behind it.

But, we do have a political campaign and it is possible that I may have a thought or two that might give you, in turn, some ideas which could be helpful.

First, I will talk about one or two of my own experiences in this life, one of them a recent one.

We had before the last legislature a problem of reorganizing the Defense Department. It was one that I had been working on for twelve years. In 1946 I started working as strongly as I knew how and as persistently as I knew how to get this job done. I thought this was almost the last chance to have the Defense Department so modernized and organized that it could actually, by its very form and by its very prescribed procedures, meet the needs of America in defense in an efficient and economical style.

At times it looked as if this was not going to be too easy. In fact, at times some people got very discouraged and believed that amendments were going, again, to kill the measure.

So one night I had an idea. I started next day to write letters to business friends, professional friends--every friend I could think of-that I thought would have a real interest in this great public enterprise. As I recall, within the next two or three days, I got out something on the order of 450 letters.

The response from this, coming to the Congress from awakened citizens has been described to me only within the last 48 hours by Members of Congress who said that from complete apathy on the part of the public, as far as they could see, there came such a flood of letters just from these 450 letters. Through everybody talking to his associates, to his friends, to his superiors, to his subordinates and fellow workers and everybody else, there resulted such a flood of correspondence indicating that something be done, that the passage of the bill almost in its exact framework as originally recommended was assured. from that time on there was nothing left to it but talking.

Now it seems to me there's a lesson in this particular incident, and that is this: suppose from this body each of you wrote ten letters to the communities from which you come. If you could get those ten letters multiplied by another ten--really start a real chain program like that which was done those few month back--it would do two things. It would not only show your friends your interest, but it would by the very act of doing something that was helpful, motivate them. They would say: "All right, as long as I am going to get into the campaign, I am going to get into it a little deeper." I believe this, along with the telephone calls, is the kind of thing that each of us can do. By the way, for myself, I am doing some of it again.

Now I want to tell you about another story. As a young staff officer of many years ago, I had a very wise, understanding and skillful boss. One day I said to him--because he knew, I guess, that I was a slightly ambitions young officer--I said to him, "What would you consider the most important qualification of a staff officer?"

Well, he looked at me and he said: "Why that's easy. A ready grin." Well, we were going along the trail in Panama, and we had to go in single file. I got to thinking, what does he mean? I didn't want him to think that I was so stupid I didn't get the meaning, so I thought it over until we got again to where we could ride abreast, and by that time I figured it out. Here is what he meant.

A staff is a team, and no matter what the capabilities of each member of that team, if that staff is not basically motivated in the same direction, if they do not have the same basic aim in their work, then they aren't going to be a good team.

In the same way we must be supporting each person that is close to us. We must, in turn, be supported by them. Internecine warfare--family fights--will not do any good for any team that is trying to do something which has a common objective.

Therefore, as you see someone irritating you, just grin. And you will stop that irritation instantly and you will both be working stronger, better and more efficiently.

This "grin" business reminds me of a little incident that goes much further back, when I was at West Point. I used to like to box. I boxed with a man who had been a champion heavyweight wrestler but who was also a very strong, fine boxer. With his some forty or fifty pounds advantage, he used to handle me rather roughly.

One day, hit with a very fast left, I went into the comer very rapidly, more rapidly than I intended, of course. But as I got up from this blow, he looked at me and he said, "You smile." I again shut my eyes and wondered what he meant.

But from that time on, I erred just once. I got knocked down again. I got up looking rather rueful. He just took his gloves off and threw them in the basket in the corner and said, "Well, I'm done boxing with you." I said, "What's the matter?" He said, "If you can't smile when you get up from a knockdown, you are never going to lick an opponent."

Now recently there have been some people trying to knock you down. The Democrat propaganda has said--and is beginning, I think, to make some of us believe--that we Republicans are apathetic, that we have no interest in this election, that we are saying: "Oh, what's the difference, it's hopeless and that's that."

You haven't smiled when you got up, because once in a while they throw a haymaker at you. So what? You don't win a campaign in one battle. You win a campaign by sticking everlastingly at it, with the kind of attitude that is the attitude of a victor.

I recognize that you people know this. I am emphasizing it because if you are going to get your influence felt all the way from Los Angeles to Boston, you have got to get the rest of the people believing that you can get up with a grin. Because when you come down to it, what is there-except believing hostile propaganda--what is there to make us discouraged?

We started off in 1952 to break away from the kind of government, the kind of political philosophy, that wants to put all power, all direction of our economy and of our whole population, in the hands of a central bureaucracy. We wanted to restore more authority to localities, to states and above all to individuals, whether he be a farmer, a worker, a business man or a professional man. We wanted to remove unwanted economic controls--which we did.

We wanted to begin balancing budgets, not because balanced federal budgets themselves save the nation. I will tell you what they do. Balanced budgets help in making it possible for the housewife to balance her own budget. If we continue, as a matter of policy, unbalanced budgets, then every price continues to go up and the housewife will never balance her budget. I am talking about the pocketbook of the wage earner, the salaried man. It is to his interest to do exactly what we are trying to do-help keep expenditures down. We have, as proved by the record, made a remarkable progress in this way.

We have tried--desperately tried--to keep this country on a system of fiscal responsibility--rather than irresponsibility. Though this year, because of the past year's recession and the tremendous demands made on us by the knowledge of Sputniks and that kind of thing, other additional sums have been voted by a Congress that should not have been voted. This gives us now--and again--a big deficit. It is up to us to announce that we are going to eliminate this deficit in the interest of the household budget.

The defense establishment has never been so strong. In the world, though there may not be yet established a just and permanent peace, there is no shooting. The inconclusive Korean war, a war that was being waged under conditions in which it could not possibly be won, was stopped on honorable terms.

After the French left Indo China, there was no further advance by the Communists in that area.

Iran has been saved. In 1953 it was on the brink of going under, under Mossadegh.

The whole struggle between Yugoslavia and Italy was finally settled-the struggle that was centered around Trieste.

There has been no Communist government established in this continent.

Austria was saved.

West Germany has been recognized by NATO and has become a great partner in the western association of nations.

All the way along, you find a record of accomplishment.

So, why should not our faces be bright? Why should not they be grinning?

Why do we have to question why political money has been so difficult to come by in this year? It has been reported to me by Meade Alcorn and Spencer Olin and the rest of them, that this money isn't coming in. I will tell you why: because people have begun to believe--contributors have been believing--what their opponents want them to believe. We have got to stop it.

The campaign can be won.

All we have to do is to give of ourselves--not money, not alone. A poet said, "A gift without the giver is bare." But if you give yourselves-and I mean when I say "You," I mean every single person that believes in sane, sound, logical government as opposed to radical government, then we can win without doubt.

Let's put behind us all memory of past quarrels among ourselves. They are unimportant. In war you have one great over-riding objective. It is not too important, although newspapers may play it up, if there happens to be a public quarrel between two of your best generals, and they say: "Well, the other fellow isn't as good as he should be." It doesn't matter what has happened to create new minor problems, as long as you keep your eyes on the one major objective and dedicate yourself--with your heart, your substance, your complete soul--to do the job. That's all we need to do today.

Within a week, if we could get all Republicans to understand this, Spencer Olin couldn't endorse the checks fast enough to get them into the bank. That is just exactly what we could do if we could reach, this morning, every single Republican, Independent, every discerning Democrat, and get him on the side--through his work and vote--of establishing and keeping sound, solid government for the United States of America.

Thank you.