Remarks in Dundalk, Maryland

Congressman Beall, Senator Mathias, Congressman Morton, Congressman Hogan, all of the distinguished candidates here on the platform, and all of this distinguished audience here:

I want to say, first, I am very proud and honored to be in Dundalk.

And I am also honored to be in the State of Maryland and in Baltimore and in Baltimore County.

I think this year, 1970, is the year that Baltimore will be called the "City of Champions." The Baltimore Orioles, thanks to Pete Richert and his colleagues, are the champions of the world in baseball. The way the Baltimore Colts are going, they may be the champions of the world in football.

And Baltimore's Ted Agnew is the champion campaigner of 1970.

And Maryland's Rogers Morton is the champion National Chairman ¹ of this whole country.

I am also proud to be on this platform with all of these fine candidates. I can only mention each of them briefly.

I refer first to a man with whom I worked in the White House for 18 months, a man who gave devoted service to Ted Agnew and devoted service to this administration. He has competence; he has integrity; he has ability; he is a man superbly qualified to be the next Governor of the State of Maryland, Stan Blair.

And in speaking of him, I am very happy to have met and had the opportunity to give my complete endorsement to the fine State team here in the city of Baltimore. Will you all stand up so that we can all see you--the ones on the State ticket.

And also, having mentioned Congressman Morton, I want to mention Larry Hogan and to tell you that in the State of Maryland--I have got to remember which State I am in--in the State of Maryland you have a fine group of men who, like your own Congressman, Glenn Beall, have given great support to this administration. I am proud to endorse them all. I only say we need more like them. I would like for all the congressional candidates to stand up. And give them the welcome that they deserve.

I would like to spend a little more time on the next man to whom I will refer. And I will do so because what is involved in his campaign is one that is bigger than this State--it affects many States in this Nation, it affects the future of America and the future of the world---the question is the next United States Senator from the State of Maryland.

In talking about that question, I have noted, since I read the Washington papers and the Baltimore Sun, that there have been some indications that I am an intruder in this State.

Just let me say this: I don't think the President of the United States is an intruder in any State of this Nation.

As your President, I have the responsibility to carry out the mandate that I was given in 1968. I am going to talk about that mandate. In order to carry out that mandate, I need support, I need support in the Senate, I need support in the House.

The President can speak, the President can ask for the passage of laws, the President can nominate judges, but unless he has support in the Senate and in the House, he can't do what you elect him to do. That is why I am here.

Let me say I am not here to talk against Glenn Beall's opponent. I am here proudly to talk for Glenn Beall, for America, and for you.

Now for just a moment, forget whether you are Democrats or Republicans or Independents, whether you are union members or members of management, workers or employers, just think of yourselves, if you will, as Americans concerned about this country, concerned about yourselves, but also concerned about your children. And think of what we want for America and see whether or not you believe that the President of the United States, who has the responsibility for the foreign policy of this country and for its domestic policy, should have men who work with him or men who work against him.

I am not referring to being a rubber stamp. I don't want that in the United States Senate or the House of Representatives. I want men that will speak out when they feel that we are wrong.

But I do say this: There are four great issues in this campaign. They were the four great issues of 1968. I made some pledges to the people of America. I tried to keep those pledges. But I need some help, not for me, but for America and for you.

And the first one was this--Glenn Beall referred to it: Above everything else, the people of America want peace. We are a peaceful people.

We can say with great pride that the United States, in all the wars that we have had in this century, has never started one. We have never tried to destroy freedom. We have always tried to defend it.

We can say with great pride that our foreign policy, at the present time, is designed not to gain any domination over anybody else, but it is designed to build a better world in which, not only Americans but all people can have peace and freedom, a chance to choose.

That is what I talked about in 1968. And here is what we found when we came in. We found a war with 550,000 Americans in Vietnam and 300 being killed every week and there was no plan to end it. There was no peace plan at the conference table.

I said that I would bring this war to an end. I said that we would bring peace and that we would bring peace in a way that would discourage and perhaps prevent another war.

Now this is what we have done: Instead of sending more men to Vietnam, we have been bringing them home by the tens of thousands and more will be coming home.

Instead of our casualties being at 300 a week and going up, they are going down, and they are going to continue to go down.

Instead of not having a peace plan, we have submitted a peace plan: you know, a cease-fire and an agreement to exchange prisoners and an agreement also to have a negotiated settlement on political issues.

Let me tell you where we stand at the present time. We have a plan that is working. It is ending the war. Americans will be out of Vietnam. We also have a plan at the peace table which, if the enemy agrees to negotiate, will end it sooner.

The important point of difference, however, is this: The great problem, you see, is not ending the war; the great problem is winning a peace. Think back over this century, not just those as old as I that can remember all four wars, but some of you young ones, who study it here in history or social studies or whatever your course may be.

In World War I, we ended the war, and we thought it was the war to end wars. Before a generation was over, we were in another.

World War II, we ended the war. And the United Nations came into being. And we thought that was the beginning of the end of war. And within a few years, we were in another one.

Came Korea. We ended that war, and then in a few years we're in another one.

We have ended three wars. We have yet to have a generation of peace.

And I say, my friends, we are going to end this war in a way that will discourage the warmakers and build the peacemakers in the world.

I need your help. I need the help of men in the Senate and men in the House, who will support that kind of a policy, who won't say, "Stop now," and lead to an American defeat which would bring on another war.

My friends, let's stand firmly behind not just the President but behind the United States of America, as it tries to build what we have not had in a generation: a generation of peace--we haven't had it in a century--a generation of peace for all Americans. That is what we stand for.

And so it is also, my friends, I spoke yesterday, as you may remember, to the United Nations in New York. I spoke there of the world problems. It happens that the President of the United States, from time to time, must negotiate with world powers. He must particularly negotiate with the Soviet Union. The success of those negotiations will determine whether we avoid a world war and even may determine whether we avoid small wars in the years ahead.

And I say to you, we are prepared to negotiate. We are going forward with negotiations. But don't undercut the President of the United States. Let's be sure that the President of the United States negotiates from strength and not from weakness at the conference table, wherever the case may be.

Glenn Beall stands firmly with the President on this foreign policy. He has voted for it. He has spoken for it. He will vote for it and speak for it in the United States Senate. We need him there. And I urge you to support him on that ground.

And in the second ground--let's come to something much closer at home. I see a lot of ladies here in the room. Incidentally, I am very honored to be in this Steelworkers Union Hall. I think you should know, however, that I am going to talk to the ladies particularly, because a moment ago, when Glenn and I were sent to, in effect, the "holding room," before we were to come on stage, we sat there for a moment, a very nice room. As I went out, I saw it was the ladies room. So, I should talk to the ladies.

You are going to be shopping later today, and I am going to tell you what you are going to find. You are going to find prices higher than you like--the prices of groceries. You are going to find the prices of clothing, you are going to find the prices of everything that you find going up.

Let me tell you what I pledged in 1968. We found then that the United States had been on a course that was raising prices for all Americans and raising taxes for all America. I pledged that we'd do something about it.

And this is what you have to do about it, if you are going to bring prices down: You have got to start with spending in Washington, D.C. Let me tell you why.

When the Government in Washington spends more than the tax system at full employment will produce, it means that the taxpayers pay the bill, either in higher prices or higher taxes. And I say, give us a Senator who will support the President in trying to cut the Federal budget so you can balance the family budget. That is what we have in Glenn Beall.

And to pinpoint this issue, I should leave before this audience what the facts are of the last Congress. A joint committee of the Congress of both Houses made up of Democrats and Republicans reported just a few days ago that this Congress already has appropriated funds exceeding the budget requests of the President by $6 billion.

Now if we continue to have that runaway spending in the next Congress, your prices are going to continue to go up. So, I say we can win the battle against high prices. I will fight that battle, but I need some soldiers to fight with me. Give me some. Give me Glenn Beall in the United States Senate.

Now, I want to talk about reform. I said in the campaign that instead of putting good money into bad programs, we were going to reform the institutions of government, reform our educational system and our health system, reform our welfare system.

I could talk about the many reforms that we have submitted, the environment and all the other areas. But time will not permit it. Let me take one, the welfare program.

I want to talk to you very directly about it. I want to tell you what we have found and what we have proposed and why we need this man in the United States Senate.

First, we have found that welfare in the previous administration was going up and up and up. The number of people on the rolls went up by the hundreds of thousands in every State and by the millions in some, and the payments went up.

And we found that at the same time that welfare was going up, the want ads, people asking people to come to work, were still filled in paper after paper in the major cities. Now there is something wrong about that.

I say to you, my friends, and I said it in the campaign and I say it again now, that when a system has the effect of rewarding a man for not working rather than working, when it rewards him and encourages him to desert his family rather than to stay with his family, it is time to get rid of that system and to get another system in its place.

You know, we are fortunate we are very rich country. We are rich enough that we can provide, as I have recommended, a floor under the income of every family in America without the degrading of the dignity of the present welfare system of that effect.

But, my friends, we also provide this: We say that at the same time that we provide welfare and help for all those who need it, let's be sure that those who not need it have a work incentive and work requirement.

I will put it to you quite bluntly. I to you here today that if a man is able to work, and if he is trained for a job and if he is offered a job and he refuses to work, he shouldn't be paid for loafing by hard-working taxpayers in the State of Maryland.

For 14 months, that proposal has been lying before the Congress of the United States. We need action. But we need new men in order to get that action. We need Glenn Beall in the United States Senate, because he is for that program.

Then there was the fourth program that I talked about in the campaign. I noted in 1968 that in the previous 8 years, crime had gone up 158 percent. I noted that on the streets of our cities, women, even men, children certainly, could not be safe at night or even in the broad daylight. And I said we are going to do something about that.

Let me tell you. We can have the best social security. We can have the health program. We can have the best education in the world and it isn't going to make any difference if our children and our wives are not safe on the streets of our cities, whether it is here or any place else in this country.

So, the first proposal I sent to the Congress over 18 months ago, was a comprehensive proposal to modify the laws; an organized crime proposal; a proposal to deal with the mailing of obscene literature into the homes of our children, to stop that; a proposal to deal with drugs and narcotics, to stop that kind of traffic. These proposals have been before the Congress of the United States. It took 18 months for the first one to get to my desk--18 months of waiting, of delaying.

My friends, we need better than that, because I am going to tell you this: We are going to enforce these laws. If we need more laws, we are going to have them. But I need a Congress that will act and act swiftly to protect the American people from the criminal elements in this country.

And we need judges who will interpret and enforce the law as well.

And let me just simply say on that score, the President of the United States has the responsibility for nominating Justices to the Supreme Court and to the various district courts and the circuit courts. I am meeting that responsibility. The Senate of the United States has a responsibility to look over those nominations. I respect that right. But I want to say this one thing and then I want to tell you where I stand, where Glenn Beall stands.

I can tell you that as long as I am in the Presidency of the United States, I will not nominate a man for any judge in this country unless his record clearly demonstrates that he will interpret and enforce the laws in a way that will strengthen the peace forces as against the criminal forces in the United States of America.

But again, I can make nominations and then the Senate can sit on them. They can delay them as have been some of the circuit court nominations. And I can only say on that score, in Glenn Beall you have a man who will consider the nominations, he will give his best judgment, but he stands firmly for the proposition that the wave of crime is not going to be the wave of the future and that we are going to strengthen our laws, we are going to have strong judges, we are going to stop this increase of crime in America. There is something you can do, too.

A few days ago in Kansas City I went to a hospital. I saw two policemen. They were not particularly well-educated men by the standards of some of our media. Both of them were high school graduates. Both of them were war veterans. Both of them had served in the police force for a number of years.

They had done splendid work, working in a difficult part of the city. A bomb had been thrown. They had been injured and injured badly. So I called on them to express my sympathy.

I simply want to say this: We hear a lot about what is wrong with our police forces. And it is a difficult task, and when they are wrong, of course, they should be disciplined. But I also think it is important for us to bear in mind that those men who are the police forces of this country, they're there to protect us. Let us try to do everything we can to give them the laws that they need.

We may not be able to pay them as much as we ought to pay them, because of the danger of the jobs they have. Sixtysix were killed already in this year, and hundreds were injured in accidents like the one I have just described. But while we may not be able to pay them as much as we should, there is something that we can give them that money cannot buy.

Let's give respect to the men who enforce the laws of this country.

And now a final word to the young Americans that are here, and to your parents and to all who may be listening on television and radio.

As I have traveled around the country, we have had from time to time a few who have indicated not only their political opposition, but opposition that went a little further, a few rocks in Vermont, and a few obscene slogans in Kansas City and other places, an attempt to shout me down and so forth and so on.

And so I want to talk about that subject, and I want to put it in perspective because I went on the campus at Ohio State, and I talked to students from the University of Wisconsin when I was there and from various universities in the other States that I have visited.

Night after night on your television screen you see the pictures, sometimes of young people who are bombing or burning or shouting obscenities, shouting down speakers, engaging in violence. And you get the impression that those young people are a majority of young people and that they are going to be the future leaders of America.

Well, I have news for you. I have seen this country and I have talked to young people. And that kind of young people-they are not a majority of young people today, and they are not going to be the leaders of America tomorrow.

Oh, I do not suggest that I want our young people to approve everything that we stand for. Oh, I want them to disagree, I want them to speak up, because that's the way that we have progress. Each young generation has got to talk to its time. And it has got to keep the older generation from getting in a rut.

But, my friends, let us remember in a system that provides a means for peaceful change, there is no cause that justifies lawlessness or resort to violence in the United States.

So to the young people, and if there are parents here, go home and tell your young people this: Sometimes in school, sometimes as they look at television, listen to the radio, read the newspapers, they may get the impression that America is a sick country, that everything is wrong with America, that this is a country of riots and violence and drugs and decadence with a foreign policy that attempts to dominate other countries.

I have traveled to more countries than any President of the United States who has ever held this office--74.

I have met many wonderful people. I have respect for all the people in all the countries that I have met.

But, my friends, I want to tell you this: When you go abroad and when you return home, you realize we are mighty lucky, young and old, to be born or to live in the United States of America.

And so I say to you, criticize what is wrong in America, but also speak up about what is right. There is more freedom here. There is more opportunity here. There is a better standard of living here. And no country in the world has a foreign policy which in my view is more generous and more correct than that of the United States of America, insofar as we aid other countries and we maintain our strength not for the purpose of conquering anybody else but for the purpose that every nation in the world will have what we have: the right to choose, the right to freedom, the right to opportunity, the right to progress.

My friends, I say that in order that this minority that day after day tries to get on that television tube and to give that impression of America to Americans and the world, in order that they do not seem to be, it is time for the great silent majority to stand up and be counted for America and to speak for America.

There is a way you can be counted. You don't have to engage in violence. You don't have to shout four-letter obscenities.

November 3, you go into a little polling booth and for that moment you make a decision. I respect those who may make a decision different from what I recommend. That is our system. It is the greatness of it.

But I also say that at this time I want you to consider what I have said. The President of the United States over the next 2 years at least is going to have the responsibility to bring peace to the world and to keep it, the responsibility to bring peace at home and to keep it, the responsibility to reform this government, the responsibility also to have the progress that we want, to stop the rise in prices, to have jobs and prosperity without war.

I will meet that responsibility. But I need help. We need it in the House; we need it in the Senate. And so I say on November the 3d, if you want those things, if you want to stand up for those great principles that will make a better America, a better country, not only for you, but for your children, then I say vote for Glenn Beall, for Stanley Blair, for these fine candidates for the Congress and for all the candidates on the State ticket here in the State of Maryland.

Thank you.