Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, it is a great pleasure to have some part to play in this great convention and to be welcomed with that great show of warmth and friendship. I thank you from the depths of my heart.
Mr. Chairman, Madam Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, this is a great honor for me. I have looked forward to it for a long time, to play this part in an historic occasion as we begin this task of selecting our Republican nominee for President of the United States.2
We are gathered here, at the Thirty-first Republican National Convention as a Party that wears the scars of combat, but as a Party completing a contest for its Presidential nomination among the most intense in our history. And yet, my friends, as a Party in fighting trim, sobered by its losses, and toughened by its battles, and determined to work together and win together in November.
My friends, this is a time as well for straight talk and for common sense. For straight talk about the condition of our Party, and for common sense about the needs of our nation.
These have been difficult years for the Republican Party. The Watergate era was a painful time for all of us. You know that. And certainly I know that.3
Some in our Party have gone through a crisis of faith, even wondering if the Republican Party had the strength to survive and to go forward. But, we do. My friends, we do have that strength because we faced our problems with honor and dignity. We performed as the country would expect us to perform. We did not shy away from our duty in the face of difficult times, even though we knew that Watergate would be an embarrassing, a humiliating, and even a potentially devastating time. And indeed, Republicans took a real drubbing in the 1974 elections in part at least because of that unhappy time in our national experience.4
But you know, since then America has learned a lot about other political abuses in prior Democratic administrations and even in the present Democratic Congress. Abuses of personal liberty, invasions of privacy and political mischief of the most shocking type. But friends, there’s one big difference, we faced ours. And in doing so we raised the country’s expectations for honorable government of the United States, but we’re still waiting for the Democrats to face theirs this year in 1976.
You know, it’s interesting to watch the Democrats running around the country rattling the dusty old skeletons of Watergate all over again. But they can rattle those skeletons until the bones fall out and it’s not going to work. And let me tell you why. Because the issues in 1976 are Republican issues and because the Republican record in 1976 is one that we can be proud to run on and one we deserve to win on this year. Because, my friends, Republicans are looking to the future of this country while the Democrats are still chasing the ghosts of the past.
To those in the opposition who day after day try to exploit the tragedy of Watergate for partisan purposes and who pretend that one party or one person has had a monopoly on mistakes or bad judgment I say you know better, they know better and the people of the United States know better. And let’s set the record straight now and tonight.
My friends, let’s put away past history, let’s put aside hypocrisy, and in this election let’s talk about what does divide the parties in 1976. And let’s make Jimmy Carter level at the American people before the election exactly what he proposes to do with the government after the election.
Friends, you know the issue this year isn’t virtue. It isn’t love, or patriotism, or compassion.5 These are the common concerns of all of us, regardless of party. The issue this year quite simply is this: How much government is too much government? How many laws are too many laws? How much taxation is too much taxation? How much coercion is too much coercion? Those are the issues in 1976.
And friends, that is what the election this year is about, and we are not going to let Jimmy Carter forget it.
You know, as we look at America today, as we look at this great country of ours, in this era we find challenges to match our strengths, but we also find strengths in America to match those challenges. And today we have greater economic strength, greater scientific and technological strength than any nation, any time, anywhere. And let’s not forget the source of that strength. It is not the government. It has never been the government. It is the people of this country who provide that strength, the people of America. And it is through the free will of a free people that we will continue to build that strength.
After the worst recession of the post-war period, our economy is in a healthy, solid recovery, with jobs up, with incomes up, with inflation down. And it is recovering because a Republican Administration had the courage when it counted to stand up against a free-spending Democratic Congress. And it is happening because the Republican Administration had the courage to veto reckless spending and resist the clamorous cause [sic] for controls and rationing in peacetime.
Abroad we face new challenges. We face the challenge of growing military might in the Soviet Union, from heightened economic competition throughout the world and from international terrorism abroad throughout the land, from the advance of the Communist Party in the countries of our friends in Western Europe.
We confront the danger of nuclear proliferation of a continuing conflict in the Middle East and ferment in Africa and Asia and Latin America. What this means is that the world continues to be a dangerous place, as it has been a dangerous place for generations. And it means that the United States must go forward with a sure trend [sic] and a clear instinct for where the dangers lie.
The questions confronting America, the questions are serious, and, my friends, they require serious choices. They demand that each of us think carefully about the direction America must take, about the careful decisions we must make in these critical years ahead. This presents a challenge to the two-party system itself.
My friends, throughout history America has been remarkably right on the major decisions that have confronted her, not only because we have always had great leaders, because certainly we have had our share, but primarily because the people’s judgment and wisdom, the common sense of America has often supplied those answers to the great dilemmas that confront America. The two-party system in the United States has served us well as the sensing mechanism by which the common sense of America has been determined.
If we are to meet the challenges of the future, if we are to avert the perils and fully realize on our promise, we must continue to harken [sic] to the common sense of this nation, to those shared perceptions, those basic ideas, that reflect the popular wisdom and embody the national will.
Two centuries ago, the founding fathers spoke the common sense of America when they declared that all men are created equal and that governments derived their just powers from the consent of the governed.
In the days that saw the birth of the Republican Party, it was the common sense of America to put an end to slavery and to bind up the wounds of a divided nation.
In our time the common sense of America was that we should join with our allies in defeating Nazi tyranny. It was the common sense of America to stand firm against Soviet expansion. It was the common sense of America to help those in need and to right the wrongs against Blacks and other Americans who have been the victims of discrimination for too long.
It is the common sense of America to make government a creative instrument for doing together those things we cannot do separately.
At one critical turning point after another, it has been the popular wisdom, the good common sense of the people themselves that has been the nation’s salvation. And that is why those who best keep faith with the common sense of America best keep faith with the people of America.
My friends, that is why the party that understands and responds to the common sense of America can best be expected to do what is right for our nation and for the world.
Fellow Republicans, the common sense of America today is that even a freely-elected government can become an oppressive government. The common sense of America today is that government taxes too much; it meddles too much; it interferes too much; it bullies too much, and it is up to us to do something about it at the polls in November of 1976.
And because this is the common sense of America, the Democratic Party has four big problems this year, my friends and the first of those problems is Jimmy Carter. The second one of those big problems that our friends, the Democrats, have is Walter Mondale. And the third big problem the Democrats have in 1976 is that Democratic Congress. And, my friends, the fourth big problem they’ve got is the American people who don’t want the kind of government they would get from a cozy alliance between another big-spending Congress and a Carter-Mondale administration in 1976.
You know which party it is that speaks the common sense of America. It is the Republican Party, as it has been for more than 100 years in this country.
It is the Republican Party which fought uphill battles to limit the size of government, to limit the role of government, to protect the individual against the encroachments of government. And we say to you, America, we hear you and we understand what you want in 1976.
The idea of limited government is one that we didn’t suddenly embrace when it became popular but one that we preached when it was unpopular.6 We preached it because we shared the concern of Thomas Jefferson, who warned his countrymen that the natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.
We preach it because our aim is not the sullen call of a regimented society but the mutual respect of a free society. And we preach it also, my friends, because we believe in it and we practice it.
Jimmy Carter says he will never lie to us, but, my friends, Jimmy Carter is the nominee of the party that gave us the original credibility gap. And the Jimmy Carter who talks about running against Washington is the nominee of the party which created more than 1,000 new federal programs and planned them so poorly that they have made Washington sound like a dirty word.
At last month’s Democratic convention, Carter made it clear in his platform and acceptance speech that the same old, tired approaches will be tried again this year. While he still bobs and weaves and straddles a lot of issues, it is now clear that the Carter-Mondale politics will be more of the same – more programs, more promises, more controls, more spending, more taxes, more government.
That is the Carter-Mondale program, and we’ve been down that road, my friends, and we have seen where it goes. We have been down that road, and don’t you let them take us down it again in 1976.
My friends, it’s no coincidence that for forty years of the last forty-four the Democratic Party has been in control of the Congress of the United States. You know, in those 44 years Federal spending has risen from less than $4 billion annually to upwards of $400 billion annually. And when it comes to big government, Franklin Roosevelt always was thought of as the founder of big government in the United States. But based on the record of that Democratic Congress, Jimmy Carter and his friends in Congress make Franklin Roosevelt look like a piker by comparison. Just think about this for just a second.
It was pointed out to me the other day that in this year alone the Democratic Congress is spending more of your money than it spent in the entire years of the Roosevelt New Deal, and that even includes the cost of World War II. And if the promises of the Carter-Mondale platform were enacted into law, they would add another $110 billion on top of that, and that is the equivalent of another $2,000 of taxes for every family of four in the United States of America.
Now, in some of their campaign speeches, some of our Democratic friends and candidates were beginning to sound a little like Republicans, running against big government, talking about the limitations of power. For a while it sounded awfully Republican to me, and I was tickled to death. But, you know, after they got to New York, when they got to their convention, we found out they still acted like Democrats.
And while they were trying to sing our song, as Ronald Reagan once said, “I guess they learned the words, but they never learned how to carry the tune.”7
My friends, it was the same old thing. The same old reflex actions were still there. Just look at the Democratic platform. Plank after plank says pass another law, spend another billion, build a new bureaucracy. You know, when you tore up the dollars and you think of the proposals that the Democrats are making for more and more of more government, it reminds me a little of what my late father-in-law used to say – the late, and I think great, Everett McKinley Dirksen—8
By the way, Ev Dirksen’s daughter is an only child. She is my wife, and I tell her she only acts like it sometimes. She is up on the platform with me.
When Dirksen would think about a free-spending Democratic Congress, he used to say, “Why, a billion here, a billion there, and why, my friends, the first thing you know, it adds up to real money.”9
But it is not just a question of money. It is not just money we are concerned about as Republicans in this election year. It is a question of what kind of country we are going to have. And somehow, the Democratic words of compassion always seem to translate into programs of coercion, of control, of compulsion.
My friends, power in Washington is a seductive thing – the power to tax, the power to spend, the power to regulate, the power of a few hundred people in Congress to impose their own will on 200 million others. It often breeds a sort of insensitivity to the limits of power.
This year’s campaign is not just a question of ins and outs, not just a question of who gets the power – but more importantly, how that power is going to be used, whether it is going to be used to restrain the growth of government or to accelerate the growth of government.
That is the big difference between the Republican and Democratic Parties in this election year – the difference of how much power the government should have and how that power should be exercised.
The Democrats start with government and we start with people.
My friends, for decades now leaders of the Democratic party have peddled the patronizing notion that only in Washington are officials wise enough or farsighted enough to decide for the rest of us what our priorities should be, how we should spend our taxes, what our goals should be, how we should organize our communities, even how close to home our children should go to school. And they do this with the best of intentions, because they really believe that they do know better and that the rules and guidelines that they write are for our own good, that some superior vision, some nobler motive entitles them to tell the rest of us how to run our personal lives.
But let me tell you something – the notion that they know better than you do what is best for Nashville10 or New York or for Kansas City11 is so much nonsense. They don’t know better; you know better what’s better for this country.
That, my friends, is at the heart of the Republican idea, that the place to put our faith is in the people themselves, that government in Washington should legislate less and should listen more.
For a long time now it has been fashionable to praise as strong those administrations and those lawmakers who used their power to extend their power.12 But that fashion is wrong, and today more and more people can see that it is wrong and know that it takes even greater strength to stand against the temptations of power than to extend them. And to know that the government that really cares is the one that promises only what it can perform, that concerns itself with the next generation, not just the next election, and that moves forward one sure step at a time, not by blind leaps that drain our resources and risk our future.
And a government that truly cares is one that cares about all of the people, not merely as a coalition of interest groups, but cares about them individually, all of the people, one at a time. It is each American individually who knows the despair that comes when government fails, either because it does too little or because it attempts too much.
It is written on the façade of the National Archives that what is past is prologue, and for a nation to survive it must learn from its past. As we look back on our past, on the decade of the sixties, many of our memories are so painful – of burning cities, of riots in the streets, the forces of law under siege, the sky chockfull of promises set aloft like Roman candles that lit the heavens with hope, only to fizzle and disappear.
But, my friends, America has had its fling with Roman candles, with the exaggerated promise, the false expectation, the cruel deception that preyed most viciously on those most vulnerable – the young, the black, the jobless, the poor, those with little to cling to except hope itself.
In New York last month in the Democratic convention, we saw the same old Roman candle set off again – more promises, more impossible dreams, more gift certificates in the sky. But it’s not going to fool the American people, not this time, because we are not going to let it happen to America.
You know, we Republicans entered the election this year as a minority party. We know that. But, you know, while I was watching the Democratic convention on television from my home in Tennessee, when I saw them speaking of unifying the party and going on to victory, it suddenly dawned on me that the Democrats have omitted to realize that they are a minority party, too. It will be the voters of the United States this year, all of them – Republicans and Democrats, but more particularly that great body of independent-spirited citizens in the United States who will vote with equal ease for a Republican or a Democratic candidate – who will decide this election.
So let the Democrats talk about uniting their party. Let them celebrate their victory in July. We will celebrate ours in November.
They can go to New York and celebrate their victory in July; they can talk about uniting their party, and I’ve got news for them – they can unite their party until they are blue in the face, and they will get about forty percent of the vote and we will get about sixty, because, my friends, it will be the whole country that will decide the outcome of this election – Republicans, enlightened Democrats and those independents who really care about their country and who want to know what political parties have to offer.
And therein lies the great opportunity for our party, for Republicans, because what we believe in this year, what the great majority of American people believe in this year are Republican policies, and because for us these are policies not of convenience. They are policies of conviction which we have fought for through lean years as well as the good. And that is why we can look forward with confidence and with pride to a Republican year in 1976.
We know and the country must know that these are Republican principles that they are calling for, that they are crying out for effective government, that the people want effective government, that they want limited government.
People in 1976 want restraints on the arrogance of power, whether it is the arrogance of the Executive, arrogance of the Congress or arrogance of the court. The people want restraints on the arrogance of power in 1976. Because the people of this country want a nation with the strength to defend its vital interests and the wisdom to define them; because the people want leadership that has a heart but that uses its head; because what we Republicans say to the people is not “Trust me,” but “Trust yourselves.”
My friends, in all history, no dream has exercised so powerful a hold on the human spirit as the American dream. No political experiment has so caught the hopes of mankind as the American experiment. For two centuries, ours has been a beacon of liberty that lit hope in the hearts of millions of people on every continent. For two centuries, from every corner of the globe, people have flocked to our shores. Their dreams, their strivings, their sacrifices have made America.
And just as ours is the only nation whose people are drawn from every nation, we have a meaning that reaches the people of all nations.
My friends, around the world today, the idea of freedom itself is on the defensive. But here in America, our American experiment is still unfolding. Our American adventure is still continuing, and our third century offers as much promise for the world as our first.
On our shoulders we carry the hopes of free men and women everywhere. As a nation, the responsibility we bear to the idea of freedom is a sacred trust. As a political party, the responsibility we bear to that same idea of freedom is an equally sacred trust.
We shall be true to that trust. And by placing our faith firmly and unshakably in the people, we shall prove ourselves worthy of the trust we ask of the people.
Thank you very much.
NOTES
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1 The keynote address text is from Raleigh E. Milton, Official Report of the Proceedings of the Thirty-First Republican National Convention, Republican National Committee, 1976. For an audio recording of the keynote address, click here for an mp3 file provided by the Vincent Voice Library of Michigan State University.
2 The convention resulted in the nomination of Gerald R. Ford and Robert J. Dole as the candidates for President and Vice-President, respectively. Ford was the incumbent President of the United States and Dole was a United States Senator from Kansas. Baker had been a possible running-mate for President Ford, though this selection ultimately did not happen. Nonetheless, Baker's popularity in the Republican Party continued to rise, in part because of his well-received keynote address.
3 Baker could personally attest to the painfulness of Watergate since he served as Vice-Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, more commonly known as the Senate Watergate Committee. Even though President Richard M. Nixon was a Republican, Baker intended to uncover the truth even though he was a member of the same party as the President. Even though he wanted to believe in Nixon's innocence, Baker persistently asked the question "what did the President know and when did he know it?" despite opposition from fellow party members. Baker's diligent non-partisan service may have alienated him from some Republicans, but he gained the respect of many people accross the nation.
4 According to election results from the Clerk of the United States House of Representatives found here, Republicans lost 5 seats in the Senate and 48 seats in the House. In terms of the total national popular vote, Senate Democrats won 22,544,761 votes (55.24%) and Senate Republicans won only 16,145,793 votes (39.56%) out of 40,810,392 total votes cast. House Republicans hardly fared better since they could only muster 21,165,583 votes (40.46%), while House Democrats captured 29,872,842 votes (57.10%) out of 52,313,457 total votes.
5 This is perhaps a reference to Jimmy Carter's well-known evangelical Christian beliefs or a general reference to the Democratic claim that their policies to help the needy were more compassionate than Republican policies.
6 The New Deal programs of President Franklin D. Roosevelt marked a major political realignment as the Democrats began to promote an active government as majority party in Congress and the Republicans adopted a limited government stance.
7 This reference to Ronald Reagan drew applause from the audience. The popular Reagan, then Governor of California, was giving Ford a significant challenge for the Presidential nomination at the convention.
8 According to his Congressional biography found here, Dirksen served as a United States Senator from Illinois from 1951 until his death in 1969. He was a Republican who served as Senate Minority Leader for the last 10 years of his life.
9 Though this phrase is popularly attributed to Dirksen, after an thorough search of its archives, the Dirksen Congressional Center concluded that the Senator probably did not say the phrase. More information is available here.
10 Baker probably chose this city as an illustration because it is the capital of his home state of Tennessee.
11 Baker made this illustration as a reference to the location of the convention.
12 It is uncertain whether or not Baker has any specific reference in mind, such as an American history or political science text, though that is a possibility. At the very least, he is commenting on the growth of government under Franklin Roosevelt's Presidency and previous Democratic Congresses.