Remarks to Republican Campaign Workers, New York City

Mr. Chairman, and all of our Republican candidates and fellow workers in the Republican Party--and all our friends here:

This is an inspiring occasion. I wish that I had the words to do justice to it.

There was a song some years ago that made a great impression on me, and it has a title that has been rather a motto for me ever since I got into politics. And it was this: I believe.

Now the only thing that joins us together here today is not because we think that we have a very handsome chairman or a very good-looking candidate, or anything else. It is: we believe something. And you believe that the people you have selected for your candidates will try to further those things in which you do believe.

There is no political party, as I understand it, unless it is joined together by certain common convictions that are important to this country. If a political party is less than that, it is nothing in the world but a cabal to seize power. You have to have something in your heart and in your mind that inspires you to work for what you believe with respect to this country. That is exactly what you are doing. It is what I am trying to do.

I have been across the country, into little towns, even to one as little as the one in which I was raised, about the size of this city block. But those people as well as those in Chicago and Los Angeles and Denver and Cedar Rapids, and all of those I have talked to today, understand that your belief and your conviction and your efforts are producing an effect.

Only a short few weeks ago, I saw newspapers reporting apathy, particularly on the part of Republicans. I wonder if there is anyone who happens to be writing today would like to write a story on apathy after seeing the demonstration that we have just seen here for your candidates-people on the platform, which after all is your way of saying, we believe that you are doing what you think is right for America, that you are struggling to preserve and advance the principles that brought us from a little colony at Plymouth Rock to 175 million that peoples a whole continent.

Those are the things we believe in, and there is no need for me to try to explain or analyze or expand upon them today. Each one of you feels them in your heart, as you understand them and comprehend them with your intellect.

I believe in recent times there are people who seeking political power have too far forgotten some of these basic principles: thrift, economy, efficiency, and a progressive and humanitarian attitude in government.

I quoted, last evening in a talk, Theodore Roosevelt, and he said something I have never before found in his writings, where he said "America cannot buy peace, it cannot buy prosperity. But we can all work for it and achieve it."

And so, as I meet with this group--and frankly, I think I have had no meeting across the United States during this campaign except with Republican workers--I have exactly the conviction that I am one of you. frankly, it would be fun to be sitting right in the middle of this audience, saying to myself, "Now just how can I help best? Have I done quite enough?"

Because we do not want to see any attempt to purchase peace or to purchase prosperity. We work for those things. What our kind of government gives you is opportunity, protects you in disaster, encourages you and always puts out a helping hand--but never wants to put you in a wheelchair.

Now this is certainly a short-cut in an attempt to explain something of the difference between these two great political parties, and of course when I am talking in this campaign let's remember this: the opposition party as we well know is divided into two great wings. Most of the contests in one wing are long completed; they were completed in the Southern primaries, weeks and months ago. What we are fighting against is the dominant wing of the party, and it is that party which I believe does not, in its practice, in its teachings, hold to these straightforward, honest, sound and sane principles which have made America great.

I sometimes lose sight of my terminal facilities when I start talking to such a group as this, because I so much want to let you see the depth of my sincerity. I believe that we must work for America, and not only for today, hoping that someone will give you a more favorable tariff or do something else that you think would be nice for the moment-working for America in terms of looking down the lane to your children, your grandchildren, and with their right to have the same kind of opportunity that you have enjoyed, not only since you were a child--in fact, and I hope it isn't bragging, I think if you will look back only to 1952 and count your blessings, you will stop counting all of those points where you have found reason to quarrel with the Administration and the Republican Party during these past six years.

I thoroughly realize that government, since it is composed of humans, is bound to make errors. Our hope is, when there are errors, that they are only of the head and never of the heart.

But however they are made, my hope is that you approve of the general trend, the general philosophy and the general record, whether it be in employment or in savings, or in the preservation of peace, or whatever is closest to you, I hope you do approve of that, even if you do, once in a while, have to tell your wife or your husband how silly we have been on some particular point. And indeed, it would be difficult, I don't believe that anyone here could truthfully say they haven't found something to object to. Because if we were completely in agreement, this would mean we were completely made in the same mold and then it would no longer be prosperity.

But if we do join hands, regardless of religion and race and geography and any other divisive type of influence, if we join hands to try to push forward in the atmosphere, in the kind of teachings that we have learned in our homes, in our schools and in our experience, then, in my mind, the United States will not only always be the United States, but it will be one that will be recognizable by your descendants on into the dim future.

So that's the reason that I say: for goodness sake elect your State ticket. Please send Mr. Keating to the Senate to help me out.

By the way, let me digress for just a moment. I have heard that in the city here he is not so well known as you think he should be. Why don't you go around and ring bells and show his picture?

I will tell you one thing: he is known well in Washington. He is a very able legislator. He is not only that, he is a respected Member of the House who is listened to whenever he takes the floor to make a speech. And he has demonstrated his humanitarianism by being the co-author of a bill on immigration, hoping to join families, that was long needed and for which he worked and succeeded in helping to get passed.

I should not fail to mention that Nelson Rockefeller worked with me down in Washington for some years, until he got tired of me and the way I was driving him all the time, and he finally came back here to take a rest, or something. But I will tell you: he worked--and effectively. And I am delighted that he is making such a campaign, which all! New Yorkers tell me today is truly a successful one.

So I conclude on the first thought I advanced: we believe. And if we believe enough, we can do.

Thank you a lot.