Remarks at the New York Republican State Committee Rally, New York City

Governor Dewey, Senator Ires, and my friends:

I am here, I think, possibly more because I am a voter in the State of New York than I am because I am a--a temporary resident in Washington. So in case anyone thinks that my ballot is secret, I will say I am one of those that will vote the straight Republican ticket. And so, with that out of the way--and, I might add, I am going to do it enthusiastically-- with that out of the way, we can talk about a couple of things here--since they gave me carte blanche--that are from my heart.

First, I think there was something started 2 years ago that many of us feel was sort of finished, and that is the aspect of our job that I want to talk about. There were a number of things that formed the battle cry of the Republican Party and its affiliated allies--from parties and independents and everything else, 2 years ago.

We wanted clean government. We wanted efficient government. We wanted economical government. We wanted the security of this country looked after. We wanted a program begun in our relationships with other nations that solidified our own security and made the whole free world more certain of its ability to withstand the Communist menace, either in its threat of the use of military force or in its political aspects-the ones that are constantly going on.

Those were the main things. There were added programs, of devising farm plans that would not break down of their own weight, of getting the tax structure revised so that it was more equitable in its incidence upon all our citizens, and so it could be used to create more jobs and to make our economy a better place.

Now not long ago I was talking to one of my Republican friends, and we were talking about how much of this has been accomplished. "Why," he said, "practically everything." He thought things looked well. He said, "We have gotten rid of the excess profits tax, and we have gotten rid of those terrible controls over our economy--amidst the prophets of gloom, that prices would skyrocket and we would have a terrible round of inflation. The Korean War was stopped and we had all sorts of things happening." He was very well satisfied. Indeed, he had no real criticism of what the administration and the Congress had accomplished. So he was very satisfied.

Well, I told him, to start off my argument, I knew about a man named Firpo--and some of you here are old enough to remember the name. He was a South American, who came up here, and he crawled into the ring one night here in New York, with a man named Dempsey, and in the first round Firpo knocked Dempsey out of the ring and he broke three typewriters of the newspapermen. But Dempsey crawled back into the ring and whipped the tar out of him.

Now, as I see it, we have carried the cause through the first round. We have made a tremendous start on accomplishing the basic objectives of that whole crusade, which is: moderate government in this day and time that is fitted for the economic and the social and the political needs of the United States of America. The things we have done have been important steps in getting over to the United States that this is the kind of government that is now fitted to our needs. We reject the extremes of both sides--the extreme right and the extreme left. We believe they are wrong, and we have the difficult task of dramatizing and selling moderate government, one that is attacked from both sides--and I am proud that it is.

But it does make it a little bit hard to explain and to sell.

Now what I really believe is our job today--the reason that justifies such meetings as this, coming together, to consult among ourselves--is to realize that that job is only partly done, that the great population has not absorbed all of this understanding of what is going on. We have got to go ahead with it. We must not pause along the way.

And so we come down to the fact that we have a battle. Now about battles I think I know a little. And I know this: the one indispensable ingredient of any victory is heart--belief in what you are doing, and the determination that nothing in the world will stop you from succeeding.

In the Army--or the armed services--we called it morale, esprit de corps, all the rest of it--but it is that thing inside the heart of a man, the heart of an organization, that will not accept defeat, and goes out and wins.

I realize that many things are necessary--organization, plans, money. All of these things, as we give them, are merely manifestations of what is in the heart, and how much we believe. How much do we believe that we are really saving the basic principles of the United States of America, the system under which it was developed. And in doing so, we preserve it by adapting all of those principles to the economic and industrial agricultural requirements of the moment--and so we can pass them on sound and unimpaired.

Now, if we believe that is our task, where is the sacrifice too great? How can there be too much time to put into this job? Every step that we have made is merely indicative of what we can do. Much remains to .be done, and it seems to me that to entrust our echelons of government, national and State, to the people who have jumped in and carried the job this far, is exactly what we are trying to say and to do now.

In Washington we are trying to keep the same leaders. To do that we have to have the same party predominant so that those leaders can carry on in their responsible positions. In the States in the same way.

Here in this State you have a Senator who has been tremendously helpful in carrying us forward in Washington, now turning and accepting the duty of leading the job here in the State. And it is tremendously important.

I have got just one more word to add. I have probably said this to many of you lots of times. Ladies and gentlemen, again I refer to fighting in its generic sense--contest. I have seen various kinds. I have never yet seen one that was won when the leaders went around pulling their faces up to here. We have got to go that way [demonstrating]. You have got to let people see that you believe in something. You are not ashamed of what you believe in, and that you do not consider your own duty done until not only have you put in every bit of time--the substance--the thought--the heart--the brain that you have got, but that you have induced others to do it also.

And that is what brings victory.

Goodbye.