Radio and Television Address Delivered at the "Fight-to-Win" Dinner Rally in the Stockyards Arena, Chicago, Illinois

Mr. Chairman, Governor Stratton, Senator Dirksen, Republican Precinct workers, fellow Americans:

First of all, my deep gratitude for the warmth of your welcome. May I say that if there be anywhere in the United States any Republican pessimism, I could wish that that community could send a representative to the Republican party organization of Illinois.

I am delighted to be back in America's heartland.

Here in Chicago, six years ago, I embarked, with all of you, upon a crusade for sound, efficient, progressive, trustworthy government here at home, and peace with justice in the world. That crusade I believe now, as I did then, is profoundly important to every one of us, to our country, to nations everywhere.

How far we have advanced in these six years:

--the Korean War ended;
--Communist military ambitions frustrated;
--the mightiest defensive force forged in all history, just reorganized for still greater efficiency and power;
--260,000 fewer Federal positions in a government striving earnestly to return to the States responsibilities wrongly preempted by the Federal government.

In a long list of material achievements and governmental accomplishments, consider for just a moment these four, each in its own field:

--runaway inflation checked;
--the St. Lawrence Seaway, so significant to this great inland empire;
--new nationwide super highways;
--a new Cabinet Department for Health, Education, and Welfare.

Now, on the eve of election, we review and reaffirm that kind of purpose and accomplishment.

As to that, my message tonight can be summed up in one sentence-let's all get hard to work to keep this sound and rewarding progress, this kind of good government, this sensible and progressive stewardship in America.
Now this means getting enthusiastically into politics.

It means wholeheartedly supporting sound government in America.
And well you should.
For from coast to coast things are up and going up.
And are getting better every day.

This autumn we are reaching new peaks in living and producing.

I have just today received a telegram expressing the conclusions of the Government's most authoritative economic spokesman. He is the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. I read his telegram:

"Official estimates have just been released showing that gross national product reached $440 billion in the third quarter of this year. This is an increase of more than $10 billion in the last three months. A $500 billion economy is clearly in sight. "Personal income is at an all-time high and is continuing to rise.

"We can confidently expect further increases in jobs and in incomes as our economy expands.

"Best of all, the cost of living has been held virtually constant in recent months, so that these increases in personal income mean more real buying power, not just higher prices.

"We should be able to keep the consumer price level stable over the next year."

That is the end of his telegram.

And isn't that great news--for every single family in America?

Clear it is that the recession is now rapidly running out. Many other facts offer additional proof.

Last month unemployment dropped by 600,000. Housing is booming.

Labor's share of the national income is now 71 percent, 6 percent higher than in 1952.

Last month the average weekly earnings of production workers hit a record of over $85.

More important, family purchasing power is up 7 percent.

Agricultural exports totaled over $8.5 billion in the two years ending last June--the highest ever.

Gross farm income, per capita income of farm people, land values, farm ownership--all these are up or stand at record highs.

Now, in weighing these encouraging advances, it is important to realize that they are firmly anchored in a fiscal policy that is sane, sensible, and trustworthy. That policy is but the reflection of an abiding Republican faith--faith in the vitality of our free economy, and faith in its strength. That policy and that faith concern each one of us directly and personally.

Here is an example.

All of us know that, in a free economy, periodically the business cycle will temporarily turn down. This happened in our country a year ago. What then did those of little faith do?

At once they rushed to the wailing wall. frantically merchandising doubt and fear, they forecast disaster with every decimal decline in the nation's economic indices. To meet their own forecasts, they cried out for massive public works and an avalanche of federal spending. What a myth!

The most deceptive notion taught by self-styled liberals is that when the economy starts to slow up, only a vast outpouring of your tax dollars will pump us out of trouble. That just means trying to live on new debts. It means diluting the dollar to fool the public into believing the economy is booming. It is cheating your children. This is a counterfeit logic. No sound-thinking American can possibly accept that philosophy.

We did not accept it, the radicals in Congress notwithstanding. Early this year we launched an orderly program to promote confidence and to help renew economic growth. These measures were not massive and heavy-handed. They did not founder the economy. Huge programs would have only enfeebled the economy.

Instead, the Administration last winter gave the private citizen and private enterprise a helping hand, not a federal wheelchair. In this, we kept faith with America. In this we again demonstrated our belief in the incentive system under which this nation has flourished beyond all others on the earth.

At some future time the business cycle may again show signs of slowing up. Should that occur, let us pray and hope that steadiness of faith and action, rather than hysterical fear, will be our government's guide.

Already the nation has repudiated those who panicked, those who prophesied that only huge federal spending would save us from ruin.

Already we are climbing to new levels of national income whose upper limits are not yet measurable.

Fellow Americans, Republican faith in the regenerative powers of our economy has been well placed.

Now in the years ahead our economic growth must be real productive gains not measured in the puffed up statistics of inflation.

Unlike certain economists influential in the opposition party, thoughtful Americans know that inflation is neither necessary nor desirable for sound economic growth. Unbridled inflation leads only to the dismal cycle of boom or bust. It robs us of our savings. It shrinks our pensions and insurance policies by paying back dollars worth less than when they were earned.

By now the farmer, the wage-earner, the businessman have all discovered the tragic effect of inflation. It is this: a pocketbook, though bulging more and more, buying ever less at the corner store. That is why all of us--regardless of party--must be hardheaded in our fight against inflation.

That's why Government must itself set an example to the nation.

Government must keep its spending down. And that, too, is Republicanism.

You and I know the irresistible impulse of the political radical. It is to squander money--your money. The result, another spurt of inflation.

In the last Congress the spendthrifts authorized the spending of billions more than sound government management required. Only aggressive Republican action stopped the authorization of still more billions.

Fellow citizens, every governmental economy is a block against inflation, inflation that picks the pockets of everyone, inflation that deals most harshly with the aged and with the poor.

I cannot too strongly emphasize that if we are to keep our economy vigorous and healthy, we must never cease our fight against reckless spending--and its offspring, inflation.

And now--national peace and safety.

The winning of a just, lasting peace is the overriding goal of all Americans. Peace is not partisan. Nor is our military strength which helps to keep the peace.

Now Americans know that power is the only language that Communist aggressors understand. Better than ever before, Americans understand the need for strength, and the grave issues involved in keeping the peace.

To deter aggression:

--the massive strength of our Strategic Air Command is alert and ready;
--powerful tactical air units are based both overseas and at home;
--our air warning and control systems are marvels of electronic engineering;
--never before has our Navy been so powerful, alert, and efficient;
--our Marine Corps is always ready;
--newly reorganized and modernized, our Army is prepared to meet any aggression;
--tactical guided missiles are operational in all our fighting services.

And now a word about long-range ballistic missiles.

Never was more than a million dollars spent in any one year on these critical new weapons before this Administration took office. How things have changed !

One of my early acts, almost six years ago, was to launch exhaustive missile studies by top scientists of America. After some months they reported their findings that America badly trailed the Soviets in long-range ballistic missiles. The scientists recommended, to me, urgent action.

That very day I took that action. I at once gave the nation's highest priority to these missile projects. No effort, no talent, no expense has since been spared to speed these projects.

Today annual expenditures for long-range ballistic missiles run into the hundreds of millions. Progress has been amazingly rapid.

The so-called missile gap of six years ago is speedily being filled.

So we know that America today is more powerfully armed than ever before. But this strength we maintain only to reinforce our quest for an enduring, just peace.

As we have carried forward America's security and peaceful objectives in which every citizen believes, tough problems have had to be faced, and tough decisions made.

For seventy months we have advanced America's peaceful efforts in a world of tension and recurring crisis. There is a long record of success extending into every continent.

Catastrophe, predicted by so many, has not come to pass; in many areas over the past six years, tensions have eased instead of worsened. And why is this?

Because our guide has been principle, not expediency.

Last July, for example, prompt action in Lebanon gave aggressors full warning that America will not tolerate an assault on the free world.

Again--in the Formosa Straits, America has shown that it will not countenance territorial expansion by Communist force.

The shelling of Quemoy is not a struggle, in itself; it is the announced first step in the deliberate plan of the Chinese Communists to occupy formosa; this plan publicized by themselves.

Territorially the off-shore islands of Quemoy and Matsu are inconsequential. But the principle they represent is great indeed.

If we should quail before any Communist threat, if we allow Communist territorial expansion by force, our problems will certainly multiply, and not diminish.

If America did not know this before Korea, unquestionably it does now.

But, would-be aggressors are on notice that we are always ready to negotiate in good faith, and never ready to appease.

All of us realize, of course, that preventing war is but one phase of winning the peace. Another phase, likewise important, is to help stabilize free governments, and to promote the growth of sound economies, in nations throughout the free world.

For her own sake, America will never cease striving to assure that the concept of world freedom shall become a practical reality. This is why we have so earnestly advanced programs of mutual aid and the expansion of peaceful world trade.

These programs are indispensable to world peace.

That is the realism of idealism.

Fellow Americans, in international affairs, strength, firmness, adherence to principle, cooperation with our friends, and a willingness to seek peaceable solutions at all times have rewarded us in the past.

There is no other formula to follow if we are to hold our self-respect, strengthen our friendships with others, and truly advance toward a just peace.

All of us fervently and devoutly pray for the day that we can transform H-bombs into power plants.

Meanwhile, much remains to be done.

For the good of all Americans--regardless of race, color, creed, section, or party--these are the broad goals toward which Republicans will tirelessly work:

As to international affairs:

--above all, to strive always for a just and lasting peace;
--second, firmly to support the United Nations Charter;
--third, to strengthen our partnership with the nations of the free world;
--fourth, to maintain our military might until peace has been secured;
--fifth, in all dealings with the world, to be true to American principles and traditions.

And as to the domestic economy:

--first, to preserve and advance our system of free enterprise; and to promote equality of opportunity for all citizens--every one of them;
--second, never to deviate from the principle of fiscal responsibility;
--third, to continue to apply efficiency and economy in government;
--fourth, to undertake needed tax reforms;
--fifth, to further the independence and prosperity of our agriculture;
--sixth, to encourage ever higher levels of technology and education;
--seventh, to urge labor and management leaders to join the government in its purpose of curbing inflation;
--eighth, to help our working men and women to drive racketeers and hoodlums out of American labor.

Such are the goals before us, as Americans, as Republicans, as citizens devoted to good government.

Such aims--sound, sensible, progressive--have ever characterized the Republican purpose and faith.

Some may allege: these goals are equally the aims of both great political parties, that the parties will equally strive toward these national goals.

My answer is this: beyond question both parties strive loyally for a peaceful world and for strength in the nation's defense. Those areas of government policy are all-American. We should keep them that way.

But, on matters domestic and non-military, our political parties part company. Here the differences are so basic to American political life that they have surely engaged the attention of our citizens. Now what are some of those differences? For example:

Republicans practice efficiency and thrift. The dominant wing of the other party most assuredly does not.

Republicans favor less Federal intrusion into America's city and community life. The radicals stand exactly for the opposite.

Republicanism is not sectional, not divided on social and fiscal grounds. Yet the opposition is so bitterly split as in fact to constitute two distinct parties, masquerading under one name. By virtue of its built-in antagonisms, the opposition is incapable of offering America anything except deadlocked government.

So, my friends, come November 4, our political choice is significant indeed.

Our national goals I have already stated. These, I believe, reflect the will of the great majority of Americans.

Therefore, for a government that will surely adhere to those goals:

--for dependable government;
--for government sensitively responsive to human need but prudent in the use of your money;
--for government eager to save, not raise, federal costs;
--for government determined to reduce, not increase, federal tampering with incentive and responsible private enterprise;
--for such government, for such a country, the choice of Republicans, Independents, and like-minded Democrats will surely be the Republican Party.

Thank you--good night.