Remarks at Sixth Annual Republican Women's National Conference.

Miss Adkins and fellow Citizens:

I have always been especially happy to meet with gatherings of women workers and leaders in the Republican Party. This is not only because they are more numerous than men, and normally far more enthusiastic, in general women assume a much more personal attitude toward the business of party organization and work than do men. When a job needs doing they are likely to say, "All right, let's get at it." To me this is far more inspiring than to hear someone say, "Well, why don't you get after this problem and do something about it?"

Now, since women are both practical and personal--and who am I to omit the adjective charming?--they are also persuasive. This is one of the most important qualifications that any political worker can have.

So, as I try to express to you the thoughts that I have in mind this afternoon, I want to assure you that I do so with the feeling that you have always been, over these past five years, an army of devoted, helpful and energetic associates and friends. You have done much to attract supporters, women and men, to administrative programs and to our Party's platforms.

For this I thank each of you.

The American citizen in these times has a staggering job in keeping up with the facts and issues of a fast-moving world.

He is seemingly expected to understand everything from the effects of a change in the federal Reserve discount rates, to a boundary dispute in mid-Africa, to the impact of our stock-piling policy upon the zinc industry.

Presumably to help him gain this understanding, every day millions of words pour out of our presses and our loud-speakers to tell him about the day's news and controversies. Now along with this he is practically inundated by a volume of advice and exhortation flowing from political circles, as to what his opinions and his actions should be.

Now out of such a welter of words and widely-diverging counsel, how can the thoughtful citizen develop for himself sensible decisions on current issues?

Obviously, he cannot do it by bending to every gust of political opinion, or by depending upon the meanderings of some self-appointed prophet.

He can deal wisely with his complex world only if he begins with an orderly set of personal convictions about fundamentals. Next, he must assemble pertinent facts as he knows them, and then must constantly check his daily decisions against these deep convictions and these facts.

In somewhat the same fashion, it is one of the functions of a political party to develop and articulate basic convictions, so that its specific governmental actions will have the direction of well-understood principles.

I am proud to say that the Republican Party and the Republican Administration have held forth to American men and women a consistent set of basic policies. for five years we have struggled tirelessly to put those policies into action. And with a good deal of success.

Now, let us see how both a Party and an individual, pondering problems that today engage attention can, by harking back to principle, sometimes transform a swirling mass of controversy into a clear line of purpose.

I.

First, for example, there is the relation of the government to the economy.

The Republican principle is clear: we believe that the government has a never-ending responsibility to keep abreast of the facts of economic activity, and to be prepared, whenever an economic downturn occurs, to do whatever it can to help bring about a healthy increase in employment and business activity. But another part of the same principle holds that the real mainspring of our kind of economy is not government, but the built-in thrust and vigor of private enterprise.

Now let me here say this personally to every unemployed worker, every housewife trying to keep the family going on an unemployment check, every worried businessman, every young man and woman concerned about a job: your Administration is doing and will do everything that it can constructively do to bring about a resurgence of employment and production.

This is not an exercise in economic theory, nor primarily a problem of graphs and statistics. All the economic indicators and high-sounding oratory in the world cannot fill the empty place in a pay envelope.

We are concerned with people--their jobs, their homes, their children, their hopes and plans, their worries and their ambitions.

Now already a long line of governmental actions has been taken to stimulate recovery.

The government has acted, I earnestly believe, in both a sound and timely fashion.

First, beginning in November the federal Reserve authorities began to ease credit. funds are now more readily available to borrowers and interest costs are lower.

Second, the Administration has taken numerous steps, in the light of easier credit conditions, to stimulate private demand for homes. Down payments were reduced last August. The amount of cash required to purchase a new home was further reduced in January. Last month the Veterans Administration and the federal Home Loan Bank Board acted to increase the availability of funds for home mortgages. I have recently ordered the release of additional funds for military housing and for special assistance programs.

Third, we shall recommend to the Congress a plan to help meet the personal needs of those unemployed workers who have exhausted their unemployment benefits under state laws. We must move with speed because this plan bears directly on the immediate personal well-being and personal dignity of thousands of American families.

Fourth, the Administration has accelerated the schedule for the construction and improvement of needed facilities for which appropriated funds are available.

These projects include such items as water resources and reclamation projects. They include a step-up in federal aid for hospital construction.

They include the Administration's program to modernize our postal facilities. This is a step which is essential if the Post office Department is to continue expeditious handling of the growing volume of mail.

The General Services Administration is accelerating its program for repair and modernization of federal buildings and for building needed new facilities.

A sharp advance in expenditures for federal aid to highways is already taking place under the new budget. And I have asked the Congress to amend the Highway Act to suspend certain expenditure ceilings for three years, to permit accelerated placement of highway contracts.

Activity under the Urban Renewal Program is also rising rapidly, and we are taking action to speed pending projects.

Now this is a sample of the sort of thing we are already doing.

All of the projects being accelerated and being presently readied as a reserve have one thing in common: they are useful and needed in themselves. Moreover, they are generally projects that start quickly, and provide employment quickly. They will not drag out so long that they compete with the needs of private enterprise when resurgence comes.

Now a word about the make-work approach with its vast, slow-moving projects. To this I am flatly opposed. first, it is not effective. Moreover, experience dearly shows that too much of this sort of make-work activity tends to supplant rather than to supplement private activity. It dulls the edge of private initiative. It builds up a huge bureaucracy. And it threatens to turn a temporary recession into a long-term economic headache.

The hardships to individuals and their families of a temporary downturn in employment are bad enough. But this Administration is not going to be panicked by alarmists into activities that could actually make those hardships not temporary but chronic.

So let me repeat: this Administration will continue to undertake, by Executive action or proposal to the Congress, any measure--including tax reduction if, after consultation with the Congressional leaders, such action should prove desirable and necessary--that will assist healthy economical recovery.

This recovery effort of the American people will be successful. It will be successful, because we have faith in our nation, in our free economy, and in ourselves. Americans have over the years earned for themselves the highest standard of living in the world. They still have the same skills, the same resources, the same knowledge and the same experience. These will enable them to overcome temporary setbacks to economic growth and place them once more on the road to ever higher levels of prosperity.

To this goal I am fully dedicated.

My confidence in our ability to attain this goal is as strong as my belief in the greatness and destiny of our beloved country.

II.

Next, the farm economy.

If there ever was an issue that called for intelligence instead of prejudice, conviction instead of expediency, purpose instead of drifting, courage instead of timidity--that issue is the farm program.

It is therefore highly fortunate that we have a Secretary of Agriculture who typifies intelligence, conviction, purpose and courage.

Now the principle we are following with respect to the farm economy is this: to get real improvement in farm income, unnatural wartime controls must progressively give way to greater reliance on the natural operation of free market forces. Price-depressing surpluses must be reduced and then eliminated. At the same time, price support policies must avoid creating new and greater surpluses.

Meanwhile, every possible constructive action to improve agricultural health should be taken. Already much progress has been made in this direction through the Rural Development program. We have extension of low-cost credit to the family farm, the sharing of our abundance with the needy at home and abroad through donations, export sales for foreign currencies, research to find new uses for farm products, special programs to increase milk consumption, long-range conservation measures, and the development of new markets.

Now the improvement in farm prices at points where these principles have been given a chance shows that we are on the right track. Income per person on farms last year was the highest in history. But improvement is slow, the adjustment is sometimes painful, and there have been increases in costs of non-farm products that have robbed farmers of parts of their gains. But the direction of the Administration's farm program itself is right.

By contrast, the Senate bill passed last week, freezing rigidly the pricedepressing practices of the past, represents in my opinion a 180-degree turn in the wrong direction--that direction that can only lead to chronic controls and perpetual troubles for the farmer. The Administration program seeks to make government a real partner of the farmer--and not his boss.

III.

Now, a word about conduct in government.

Here there is only one possible principle for all Americans to follow: the standard of official conduct must be the highest standard known to human behavior.

Government activities reach into the lives and businesses of our people at a thousand points. for all practical purposes, remedies by the individual against unwise or unfair government actions are often too difficult and too costly to be effective. As a result, the citizen's primary protection lies in the assurance that the country's administrators are affected by no conceivable interest other than the public interest.

Of course in a government as large as ours, staffed by fallible human beings, there is no way to make certain that a deviation from this standard will not sometimes occur. But all of us can make certain, by prompt, decisive and fair corrective action, that public confidence in the integrity of government is maintained.

The greater the necessary role and responsibility of government, then, the greater the importance of uncompromising insistence on the highest official standards, all the time, everywhere.

IV

Now, my friends, I should like to talk to you about the principle we are following in our relations with people overseas.

It comes to this: we are trying to apply to the world community the same principles that have brought harmony and progress to local, state and national communities in this country.

Many years ago, the things we now do on a community basis were unheard-of. A man who could afford to educate his own children hired tutors, though his neighbors' children remained ignorant. He took health precautions in his own house, though nearby there might be disease and contagion. He looked after his own business, and let other businessmen look out for themselves.

Then people began to realize, as a matter of simple self-interest, that they themselves could have a free, healthy, prosperous community only if their neighbors were educated and healthy and their community prosperous.

Now our programs of economic and technical aid to newly-developing countries recognize this same truth, on a world-wide basis.

A similar principle applies to world trade.

Four and one-half million Americans owe their jobs directly to the activity created by overseas trade. But if we are to sell to others, we must buy from others. If we do not buy from them, and pay for them with dollars, where will they get the dollars with which to buy our goods? And if they do not buy our goods, what happens to the four and one-half million Americans whose jobs depend upon it?

But there is even more at stake. Peace is at stake.

Let us try to picture two different kinds of world.

First, a world in which we have begun to throw up increasing tariff and quota restrictions against imports. What happens? Bitter resentment among peoples whose good will and help is essential to our collective security. A sharp cut in their purchases from us--and sales to us. A severe blow to their vitally necessary development programs. A resultant mounting of unrest and violence. Offers by the Soviets to take their output on a barter basis. A desperate turning toward the communists, for want of an alternative. A gradual shackling of the smaller country's economy to that of the Soviets. Then it becomes an economic satellite, overrun with communist technicians and agents. At last national and personal freedoms are lost. Eventually, as one country after another runs this course, the United States will find itself beleaguered and alone. Then our nation's economy will be shrunken, its military posture damaged, and its young men drafted by the millions for the grim defense of their friendless country.

But now let us consider the other picture. A world in which the newly-developing countries build up more and more diversified economies. This creates a host of new demands and wants to be filled by sales from our factories and from our farms. The products of those countries begin to sell all over the globe. With progress comes pride and confidence. The same energy that might have gone into rioting and smashing goes into building and producing--into more and more demands for our products. As more and more goods move back and forth between our countries, so more and more people visit and learn to know each other. Millions of people acquire a stake in a stable but forward-moving way of life, that combines increasing living standards with personal freedom. In short, they have a stake in building and maintaining the only kind of world in which peace can really grow and flourish.

My fellow citizens, that is the kind of world America wants--and, indeed, needs.

If we are to have that kind of world, we must help to build it. Two of the most indispensable building-stones in the structure--without which it can never stand--are the Administration's mutual security bill and the extension of the Trade Agreements Act.

CONCLUSION

Now, although my audience today is made up primarily of women, I have talked to you not as women but as American citizens with a real responsibility in public affairs. You see, there is no special "women's angle" to the great issues of our day. Certainly, mothers do not want their sons to be shot at on the battlefield. Neither do fathers. And, I might add, neither do the sons.

Now our problems are not problems of motives. All Americans agree on the kind of harmonious prospering world we would like to see. Our problem is rather to get public understanding of the intricate international and domestic questions that must be decided right if we are to help build that kind of world.

An ever increasing burden of responsibility has devolved upon the people of this country in recent years. In the perspective of history, we have had comparatively little time as a people to prepare for it. But this is no cause for pessimism or defeatism. Rather it is a condition that should stimulate our pride and inspire our confidence. Though America is confronted with a great task, let no one doubt that America is equal to its every requirement. So first, what is needed above all is sober education in the facts of today's world. We must have a seriousness of approach to crucial public issues that is in proportion to the gravity of the decisions we must make and sustain.

In the light of our world position, our nation cannot tolerate, in any individual or in any party, demagoguery that would put winning immediate political advantage above winning the world struggle for justice and freedom. In this day and time it is up to every political party in every free country to stand up and be counted. Each must make clear its dedication to the best interests of its nation and the world.

The Republican Party and Republican Administration take their stand on their nation-wide principles, their constant five-year endeavor to apply those principles, and their forward-looking proposals for the future. These are the actions that the overwhelming majority of Americans-Republicans, Democrats, and Independents--know in their hearts are what the country needs and the world needs.

The growing dimensions of our world responsibility require that we strive always toward higher levels of understanding, of personal dedication and of insistence upon absolute integrity in political life. As long as this is our Party's dedication, we will attract to its support those additional millions of Americans who, with us, believe that we can make our country and our world more secure, more prosperous and peaceful.

My most profound hope, my most devout prayer for the Republican Party is that in its ranks the workers, members and candidates will be individuals who will set--and live--this high standard of responsibility, understanding and devotion. Thus they will bring lasting credit and strength to party, to community and to country.

Thank you very much indeed.