Remarks in Las Vegas, Nevada

Governor Laxalt, all of the distinguished guests on the platform, and this very great audience in the Convention Center here in Nevada:

I, too, am proud to be here on the 106th birthday of this great State, and I am particularly proud to be in this State, and I have been in all the 50 States of this Nation, but I have a very special feeling for this State because it is the birthplace of my First Lady and America's First Lady, Pat Nixon.

She is not with me today because, as you get near the end of the campaign, we like to campaign every place we can. She is campaigning in northern California for George Murphy and Ronald Reagan.

And Tricia is campaigning in Cleveland, Ohio, for Bob Taft, and Julie is in Pennsylvania for the Pennsylvania ticket; David is in the Navy in Newport.

The reasons for this all-out family venture, I will indicate in a moment. At this time, I particularly want to express my appreciation to all of you for coming out and giving me such a wonderfully warm welcome on such a magnificent day in this miracle city of the West--and what a miracle city it is.

I want to thank all of those who have been providing entertainment for the audience before we got here. I must say to provide entertainment here in Las Vegas is really competitive. As we were coming down the line, I want to express appreciation for the fact that in hotel after hotel, there were the signs out, "Welcome President Nixon." I am very happy, and I want to thank you.

And to our musical entertainment-The Kids Next Door,¹ I understand, were here. Let's give them a hand.

Wayne Newton² flew in for this meeting. I want to thank him.

Usually I ask them to put on the card the high school band that is going to play. They had to give me two cards today. The Basic High School Band, the Rancho High School Band, the Western High School Band, the Las Vegas High School Band, and the Rancho High School Choir. What a great group.

Let's give our young people, the good young people, a hand. How about that.

And now in the closing days of this campaign, I have come to Nevada, as you know, for a purpose, one in the great tradition of American politics.

I have a responsibility to speak for those men that I believe will best serve the interests of the Nation and the interests of this State where those interests are tied together.

I am here and very proud to endorse the members from the State ticket. First, before speaking of those that are running, I want to say something about a man who is not on the ticket, but with whom I have been very proud to work over the past 4 years: Paul Laxalt.

He has made a record for progressive leadership in this State which has been an example for all of the Governors of the Nation. And I am very, very happy to pay respects to him, to thank him for his public service and tell him that I look forward to the day when he returns to public service at some time in the future.

I am very happy that in the State of Nevada, and I think the people of Nevada should be happy, that in the Lieutenant Governor of this State, Ed Fike, you have a man who will continue in the tradition of Paul Laxalt.

May I say something quite personal about him? I have known Ed Fike for 15 years. Long before he became Lieutenant Governor, I knew him as I campaigned in this State. He is a man of very great intelligence. He is a hard-working man. He is a man who knows government. He is a man of unquestioned honesty and integrity. I am proud to endorse him.

And now I turn to the race for the United States Senate. This is, my friends, in Nevada, one of the most important races in the Nation. It is one of the most important races in the Nation, because the contest for the United States Senate this year is probably the most important contest for the United States Senate in the whole 190-year history of this country.

I say that because we have a Senate over the past 2 years that is evenly divided. On vote after vote, a shift of one vote makes the difference as to whether the policies that the President recommends-I don't mean everything, but I mean those policies he recommends in which he has pledged action for the American people-a shift of one vote determines whether those policies are going to be approved or whether they are not going to be approved.

And so, today, I want to talk to you about your next United States Senator, what the vote means, why I am here, and what I would hope you would do.

I am not going to talk to you in terms of: if you are a Republican I want you to vote Republican, or a Democrat, vote Democrat, or as the case might be.

As we get toward the last days of this campaign, I say what happens to America is far more important than whether you are a Democrat or Republican. Let's vote American this year.

Both of the candidates for the United States Senate are good Americans. I know both of them. It happens that in the case of one candidate, the man who is the present incumbent Senator, I have had some differences. I respect his right to differ.

It happens also that as far as the candidate I am supporting, Bill Raggio, I find that he does not agree with me on everything.

In the great tradition of Nevada, he is not going to be a rubber stamp. He is going to vote his convictions and I respect that in any man. That is the kind of man you want in the United States Senate.

Now, let me put it right straight from the shoulder like the people of Nevada like it. And I have been here enough to know how you like to hear it.

I was elected President of the United States in 1968. Nevada voted for me for President of the United States. When I was elected President of the United States, I made some promises to the people of America. The people of America expect their Presidents--and they have every right to expect their Presidents--to keep their promises.

The President of the United States is a very powerful man. Because this is the richest country and the strongest country in the world, he is the most powerful man in the world, probably.

But the President of the United States cannot do what needs to be done. He cannot keep the promises that he made to the American people and that the American people want him to keep and expect him to keep, unless he has people in the Senate and in the House who will vote with him, rather than against him on the big issues.

Let me be more precise: There are many, many votes in the course of a year in the United States Senate. Nobody votes with the administration all the time. I do not expect it. I would not respect one who agreed with me every bit of the time, because no one in our country is right all the time. We just try to be right.

But, on the other hand, I think it is only appropriate that the voters of Nevada know what the facts are with regard to this Senate contest.

Again I repeat, the present Senator from Nevada is a man who with sincere conviction has voted against the President 70 percent of the time on the key issues. Now, let's repeat again. Let us understand what we are talking about.

I was elected President. I made some promises. If I can keep those promises I will, if I am able to. I can do so only if I have support from the United States Senate, a Senate that is divided usually by a majority of one.

I respect a man in the Senate when he votes against me from time to time. But, it seems to me, that the man who is elected President of the country and who received the endorsement and the support of the State of Nevada in that election, should have a Senator--not one that votes with him 100 percent of the time, but certainly one who will vote with him more than 50 percent of the time. And Bill Raggio will do that.

So you see the key question that you are going to have to answer. You want me to do a job, you want me to keep my promises. I am going to do that job and I want to keep my promises. The question is: Do you want a Senator who is going to vote against me 70 percent of the time or one who more than half the time will support the President on the big issues?

Now let me come to the big issues and you can then give your own evaluation as to whether or not you believe the President deserves support on those issues.

I begin with what is certainly the most important issue of all. You remember when I spoke in the campaign that I said over and over again that the primary responsibility of the next President of the United States would be to develop policies that would bring lasting peace in the world. I have been working toward that end. We have made progress toward that end.

The war in Vietnam, in which we had 550,000 Americans there when I arrived in office, instead of having the situation where for 5 years we were sending men into Vietnam, they have been coming out by the tens of thousands. I think the American people like that policy.

We have a peace plan on the conference table in Paris.

Casualties are down as a result of the strong action I took in Cambodia. And so, as a result of this, we are on the road to ending the war in Vietnam and ending it in a way that we will discourage those who might start another war.

And let me make that point very precisely, because I note here as I note in some other places people who understandably say "Peace now."
Let me tell you, the problem is not ending a war. America has ended three wars in this century. We ended World War I, you remember. We ended World War II. We ended the Korean war.

But listen to this, you younger people that are here, all the members of those high school bands and the college students: Do you realize that in this century, despite the fact that we have ended the three wars, we have never had a full generation of peace?

And so I have made a pledge to myself, and I make a pledge to the American people: We are going to end this war in a way that will discourage the warmakers so that we will have a chance to have a generation of peace for all Americans.

That is why when key amendments like Cooper-Church come up, that is why it is very important that we have in the United States Senate men who will back the President, back the President in a chance to get a just peace, one that will last, rather than a temporary peace.

Now we come to the broader aspect of peace. I speak here in Nevada, a State which is one of the key States in our whole defense and space complex. Let me tell you about that defense program, why it is so important.

The President of the United States and his colleagues are going to have to negotiate in the months and perhaps the years ahead with the Soviet Union in the critical area of nuclear arms. I have indicated that we should move from a period of confrontation to negotiation.

As we negotiate, it is vitally essential that we have something to negotiate with. In other words, it is essential, when you are negotiating with somebody else, that the President of the United States negotiate from strength and not from weakness. So let's keep America strong.

And now I come to one of those key votes, a key vote where a majority of one determined whether the United States President would negotiate from strength rather than from weakness.

A year ago, I made a very hard decision, a decision that because the Soviet Union had an ABM missile defense, the United States should try to have one.

I recommended it to the United States Senate. The vote came up in the United States Senate. The vote was 50--50. The present Senator from Nevada, who is running against Bill Raggio, voted against the President of the United States.

Let me say, my friends, I think that on that particular vote that you must realize that had that vote gone against the President of the United States, had that majority of one gone that way, it would have meant that we would not have had that missile defense, which is essential to see to it that America has the strength, and that the President has the strength at the bargaining table that he is going to need if we are going to be able to negotiate a peaceful settlement.

I give this only as an example, and I simply leave to you the question again that comes: Remember, in the next Senate, one vote may determine whether the President has the strength that this Nation needs when he goes to the bargaining table or whether he negotiates from weakness.

Also, it relates to the State of Nevada in a very direct sense. The test center here in Nevada is essential and indispensable to our defense program. The test center here in Nevada is essential and indispensable to our space program.

Unless we have a Senator who votes for what the President says is necessary for national defense, we are not going to have anything to test at the test center. So why not Bill Raggio on that particular point?

What I am simply suggesting is this: Everybody, of course, is for peace and everybody is for defense, in the general sense. But you get down to the critical votes we must realize that America first needs defense, and second, that if we are going to have that defense it means we have to have Senators and Congressmen who will back the President in those critical votes that make the difference between whether we have strength or weakness at the conference table.

I know where Bill Raggio stands. I know that on those votes involving national security, involving not only the security of this Nation but involving Nevada's participation in that program, he will be with the President of the United States more than 50 percent of the time.

And the other point that I would make is this: You know, in the last days of a campaign rumors begin to fly around. I frankly have been quite shocked to find rumors to the effect that immediately after this election unless the present Senator from Nevada is reelected, that Nevada can simply forget the programs for the test center and the rest that presently it is participating in.

Well, I can tell you that is pure nonsense. Bill Raggio is a man in whom I have confidence. He is a man who will have, certainly, the ear of those who make the decisions in the Defense Department and in the White House, and when Bill Raggio comes to talk to us about those matters he will be listened to.

Nevada is not going to be shortchanged. It will play a great role in the future as it has in the past in the defense and space programs of the United States of America.

Now we come to issues that are at home. And here there is one that is directly related to something that we are all concerned about, the whole problem of reform of government in America. We don't want to go back to programs of the past.

We realize that it doesn't make sense to put good money into bad programs. And that is why this administration has recommended a whole series of programs to reform the institutions of government. I want to give you one example, the welfare program.

Here is what we found when we went in: We found a program in welfare in which the number on the welfare rolls all over America was going up and up and up, and that costs were going up into billions of dollars.

Cities and counties and States were practically going bankrupt because of the cost of welfare. New York City alone-listen to these figures in 1966, in New York City there were 600,000 people on welfare. In 1970, 4 years later, there were 1,200,000 people on welfare. If the present welfare program continues, we will find that by 1980 there will be 2.5 million people on welfare in one city, New York City.

My friends, that kind of a program does not make sense.

I say this: That when a program has the effect of making it more profitable for a man not to work than to work, when it encourages a man to desert his family rather than stay with his family, you ought to get rid of that program and get another one in its place.

That is why I am very proud that in this great, rich country of ours I have been able to recommend a program in which we will provide for every family in America that needs assistance, assistance that could provide, certainly, the needs that they require, but provide that assistance without the degrading aspects of the social snoopers of the present welfare program, but also one that would have work incentive and work requirement.

Because, my friends, if a man is able to work, if a man is trained for a job, if a man is offered a job, and if he refuses to work, he shouldn't be paid to loaf by a hard-working taxpayer of the State of Nevada.

I made another promise to the people of Nevada and the people of America, and you well remember it. In 1968, I found that over the previous 8 years, crime had gone up 150 percent in this country: organized crime, street crime, drugs, narcotics. I said that I would appoint stronger judges. I said that I would ask for stronger laws. And I said I would appoint a stronger Attorney General and stronger U.S. attorneys.

I have tried to keep my promises, my friends. I appointed a great Attorney General-John Mitchell who is doing a fine job in that particular aspect.

I have appointed strong judges, but here, again, the United States Senate comes in. When I appoint a strong judge, one who is strong on the issue of law and order, one who believes in strengthening the peace forces against the criminal forces, I think the President deserves the support of the Senator rather than his opposition. And I think we will have that support from Bill Raggio.

I asked for strong laws and it took 18 months for the first law--I presented the program 18 months ago---for the first, the one on organized crime, to reach my desk. That isn't soon enough.

We need a man in the United States Senate who knows the subject, a man who will work on it, a man who will vote on it, a man who will fight for it all year long and not just talk about it during election time.

Bill Raggio knows this subject. He has been one of my chief advisers in the field of law enforcement. He is a man who will be invaluable to us in the United States Senate. I say send him down there so that he can help us see that the wave of crime is not becoming the wave of the future in America.

And now, my friends in Nevada, could I make reference to a very gracious remark that was made by Paul Laxalt in his introduction. He referred to an incident in California e days ago, in San Jose. He referred to the fact that the reception here in Nevada was a very warm one.

When I was in Phoenix, I saw a sign which said, "Welcome, Mr. President. This is Phoenix, not San Jose."

My friends, I think it is well that that incident be put into context. San Jose is one of my favorite cities in California. It is a great, growing city, like this great, growing city of Las Vegas. It is made up of fine people, just like this city is made up of fine people. And what a few violent radicals did should not smear the good name of San Jose, California.

The president of the student body of San Jose State College--24,000 strong-sent me a wire and said, "The great majority of our students disapprove of what happened there at San Jose."

So let me put the whole thing in perspective very simply by saying this: Night after night on our television screens we see these evidences of violence, rather than seeing, often, huge crowds like this, or 50,000 in Columbus, or 35,000 in Johnson City, or 20,000 standing in the rain in Asheville, or 35,000 in Longview, Texas.

You may see a little of that, but what makes bigger news are the violent few throwing rocks, shouting their obscenities at the President or anybody else who happens to be in view.

My friends, let me simply say that on that score, I think young America is getting a bad rap from that kind of thing because, my friends, I think it is well for you to realize that as a result of what we see night after night on our television screens, as a result of the fact that bad news makes most of the news, many Americans are getting the impression that the radical few among you are a majority of American youth today or may be the leaders of American youth tomorrow.

Well, I have news for you. I have been all over this country. I have been in the great States and the smaller States. I have been in the North, in the East, in the West, and the South. I have seen big crowds of adults and I have seen lots of young people.

I can tell you that the radical few that you see on your TV screen night after night, they are not a majority of American youth today and they will not be the leaders of America tomorrow.

Let's separate out the problem. Let us understand. American youth is and deserves our commendation for its idealism, for the fact that they want change, for the fact that they want peace in the world, for the fact that they want a better chance for people that don't have the opportunity that they have.

And for this idealism, they should receive the high marks, and we should be proud of our American youth.

But, my friends, let us recognize that when we talk about being for peace and the rest, we have to separate those things that are right and those things that are wrong in a free society. I simply want to lay it right on the line, and I lay it on the line to you as clearly as I possibly can.

I say to you here today that those who carry a peace sign in one hand and throw a brick or a bomb with the other are the top hypocrites of our time.

And to the young people of America, let me tell you: Don't you lose faith in your country. You sometimes must get the impression from what you read, maybe what you hear at school, that America abroad is not held up in high regard, that we are considered to be imperialists; and at home, that America is a sick society.

I know different. I have had a very great privilege in these past few months as President of the United States to travel all over this world--to Asia, to Europe, and to all parts of the world. And every place I go, I have been moved by the fact that hundreds of thousands of people come out.

In Communist Yugoslavia and Communist Romania, hundreds of thousands came out and stood in the rain, cheering the President of the United States. And the same was true in Spain, in Ireland, and other countries, and India.

Why? I will tell you why they cheered the President of the United States: not because of who he was but because of the country he represented. They know that the United States of America is the strongest nation in the world. But they know that the United States of America will not use its strength ever to destroy freedom, only to defend it; that we will not use our strength to break the peace, only to keep the peace. And we can be proud of that, that we represent that kind of a country.

And they know something else, too. They know America has problems, but they know that in America there is more freedom, there is more opportunity, there is more progress than in any nation in the whole history of civilization.

Listen to this: I mentioned a moment ago the program that I have recommended, which will provide assistance for every family that needs it in America. Now, the level of that program, what it would provide, the floor for income for every family in need in America--the floor for the poor in America--is higher than the ceiling for three-fourths of the people that live in the world today.

Let's recognize once and for all, America has its faults. But because we are rich, we are able to do things that other countries can only dream about. We can lift the burden of toil from our people, not just a few elite but from all the people of the United States. We can provide opportunity for all.

And with this in mind, let us be proud of our country. Let us be proud of it, and let us answer those who run it down and knock it down and tear it down and express their hate.

I will tell you how to answer them. You don't have to answer them by throwing rocks back. You don't have to answer them by answering with their four-letter epithets.

The way to answer them is for the great silent majority just to stand up and be counted on November 3d.

By your votes on November 3d you can--some of you will vote how I recommend, some will vote otherwise--but by your votes, you will say, in effect, to the people of America, to the people of the world, this is what we believe.

And I leave this final message with you: As the President of the United States, I would not urge anyone to vote anything other than his convictions. But I have made some promises to the American people. I want to keep those promises. I need help. I need Bill Raggio.

And as I make those promises, and in keeping those promises, I want to tell you what I see for America.

A vote for Bill Raggio and for support for the programs that I have pledged to the American people will mean that we can achieve these great goals in our time: We can achieve prosperity without war. We can have progress without inflation. We can stop the wave of crime and have respect for law and order and justice in America.

And we can have what everybody wants, peace for a generation for America and the whole world. That is what we are fighting for. That is what I ask you to vote for.

Thank you.