Richard Nixon photo

Remarks to Members of Young Labor for Nixon

September 23, 1972

Ladies and gentlemen:

I am very delighted to welcome you here in the East Room of the White House. I want you to know that after I speak to you briefly that some refreshments are available. It is a little early, but they will be very nice. A little coffee and the best hors d'oeuvres you can possibly imagine, and all of you are young, so eat them up so that we won't have to eat them tomorrow.

I was under the impression that this was "Young Labor for the President," or "Young Labor for Nixon," and as I went along, you know, people were reaching out handing me things. This is an interesting thing. I guess that is the hard hat vote, so I will put that in there. [Laughter] And some fellow gave me a cigar and since it said "Young Labor for the President," I said, "Your daughter?" He said, "No, my granddaughter." So we have one that is a little older.

Then one little boy--here he is right here in front--shook hands with me, and I said, "Well, you are not old enough, are you?" And he said, "Oh, not to vote, but old enough to work." [Laughter] There is a little girl over there.

Let me say in speaking to you, I know that you have had a very heart-warming announcement today. I am most grateful for that support. I know, too, that you have come from most of the States in this eastern seaboard. I know, too, that giving up a Saturday, when you have been doing a lot of work all week, is somewhat of a sacrifice to come here, and we want you to feel very much at home. I want you to remember this visit as one that was worth coming to, worth coming here.

I would like to speak to you in terms of what this election is about, not in partisan terms of Democrats versus Republicans, or one individual against another, but in terms that I was trying to describe last night in speaking to a group in Texas. There were leaders from all over the country of an organization called Democrats for Nixon. And when I addressed them, I said, of course, in a personal sense I liked the name of the organization, but I said, on the other hand, in a larger sense I would prefer another name. Rather than saying "Democrats for Nixon," why not "Democrats for America." That is what it is really all about.

I would like for you to think in those terms. You have the wonderful asset of being young. You have all those great years ahead of you, and they will be good years I am sure, better years than any generation in our history. We are all working for that.

But being young, and looking ahead, you think of your country and America, and whatever your party, whatever your background, whatever you are doing, whatever job you have, you want this country to be better, you want it to play the role that it should play in making a better world, and that is what I have been trying to work for. That is what every President tries to work for, be he a Democrat or Republican.

So, in telling you why I think many of you are here, let me say that I believe one of the reasons is that you believe that America needs to be strong, strong not simply in the sense of being bigger than somebody else and wanting to put somebody else down, but strong because we know that a strong America is the world's best guarantee of peace and freedom. That is why we have to be for a strong America.

During the past 4 years I have had to make some rather difficult decisions with regard to national defense, decisions with regard to whether we went through with this weapon system or that one that I thought was necessary in order for the United States not to become the second strongest nation in the world. Some of those votes were very close, and always, of course, I sought support from all areas of our country, from businessmen, from people in organized labor and people in unorganized labor, working men and women, others throughout the country.

Also, I have made some very hard decisions in the conduct of foreign policy. One of the hardest was the one I made on May 8, when a massive Communist invasion took place of South Vietnam, where the Communists moved into the South, and where, in order to protect the 50,000 Americans that were there and in order to prevent the Communist imposition of a government on the people of South Vietnam, I ordered the mining of the harbors of Haiphong and the bombing of military targets in North Vietnam.

Many thought that was not the thing to do. That was their opinion. They had a right to it. I was criticized quite roundly for it. Many thought that it would jeopardize the summit that was scheduled in just 3 weeks with the Soviet Union, but I had to do what I felt was right for America, right for the cause of peace, right for our servicemen.

Under the circumstances, I made that decision. I think you should know this: Polls were taken at that time of all segments of our society. Polls were also taken at the time we had some of those close decisions with regard to whether America would remain strong enough militarily to keep its position of being second to none in the world, or whether we should become weak.

You will be interested to know that the strongest support of the President in those two areas came from the working men and women of America. That is where the strength was.

That isn't because working men and women are for war, it is because they are for peace. It is because they are for freedom. It is because also they are very practical. They know that the only way that we are going to keep peace and we are going to keep freedom is for the United States of America--that has no designs on any other country, that doesn't want to conquer any other country, that has fought four wars in this century without asking for an acre of territory or any concession from any other country, fought to defend freedom and not to destroy it-they know that for the United States to have that strength is the world's best guarantee in the future for peace.

If we don't have it, we leave a vacuum. Because, as we look at the free nations of Europe, as we look at the only nation in Asia that could develop that strength, Japan, not one of them now can do it. And so, it is all right here. If the United States backs down, if we turn inward, if we turn away from responsibility, if we allow this country to become second to any country in the world in terms of arms strength, it means that the chances for this 9-year-old to grow up in a period of peace and freedom are much less than they would otherwise be.

I simply want you to know that I am grateful for the support that I have had from you, from 80 million wage earners in this country, who saw that and saw it more clearly than some people in business, some people in the professions, some people in the media, some people in the universities-not all, but some. You saw it because you helped to build America. You believed deeply in America and you know that strength in the hand of America is not a bad thing. It is a good thing. It is a necessary thing.

The other point I want to make with regard to what I would call "Young Labor for America" is this: You want good jobs, good jobs for yourselves and better jobs for your .children. You want good jobs and opportunity for yourselves, a chance to go up as far as your talents will take you, an opportunity for everybody in this country, whatever his background, whatever his color, whatever his religion, whatever his national origin. We all want that.

You also want your country to be one that can be generous, generous to those who can't help themselves, generous to the poor, generous to the old, generous to others who, because of some physical disability, cannot work as you are able to work, and let me say sometimes we are bored with our jobs and sometimes I am sure we think, gee, why do I have to work. Just let me say, to be able to work, to be able to take care of yourself, the dignity of work is something we all ought to appreciate in this country of ours. And every job is a good job if it puts bread on the table and provides housing and clothing for a man's children, or for a woman's, for that matter. We all must remember that this is something that we must respect.

Some of us do one thing, some do another, but all help to build America. And it is because you represent that strength that has built America from the time of its beginning that you are here, I believe, today.

We believe in helping those who can't help themselves. But just let me make one thing very, very clear. It seems to me that a man or a woman should work for what he gets and get what he works for. It seems to me, too, that it is wrong for anyone who works to get less than someone who may be on welfare.

That does not mean that we do not' want to help those who have to be on welfare. We should, and we can be thankful that in this country we do take care of those who cannot help themselves. But do you realize---I am sure all of you do-that those who cannot help themselves, those who have to have government assistance, could only get it if other people worked. That is where you get the taxes. That is where this government gets the money. They talk about what the government is going to do. We have no money. You produce it, and I say that we in government owe an obligation to the working men and women in America to see that your money is not wasted, to see to it that it goes for good causes and not for wasteful causes.

There is one last point that I would like to leave with you, without going into any detail with regard to the future, as far as our foreign policy and the rest is concerned. We are coming to the end of a very long and very difficult war. It has been one that has divided Americans. It is one, however, which we are ending and ending in a way without staining the honor of the United States of America. It is one in which 17 million people of South Vietnam will not have a Communist government imposed upon them against their will, in which they have developed the strength to defend themselves with our help as they have been defending themselves, particularly on the ground, in these past months.

And sometimes when we hear about good news and bad news, I think one of the best pieces of news that I have seen in the almost 4 years I have been here was that for the first time since 1965, not one American was killed in action this last week.

So, I want that war to end, just as President Johnson wanted to end it before me. I want it to end. I want it to end in a way that it will discourage others who might engage in that kind of aggression, but beyond that, I want America to help to build a new world.

That is what my trip to the People's Republic of China is about. You can't have peace in the world and have one-fourth of all the people of the world--and one-fourth of the people of the world live on the mainland of China--you can't have them without any communication with the United States of America.

So, we have opened that line of communication. Oh, our philosophies are very different, and we are going to have our differences, but there is now a better chance that they will be settled peacefully, without war.

That is why we have started these historic communications with the Soviet Union in arms control, in the environment, cooperating in programs in health, space, and others, not because we don't recognize that they have a very different philosophy than we have, but because we realize that if we are going to have a world of peace, it is essential that the United States and the Soviet Union negotiate rather than confront and eventually break out into a war that could well be the last one.

That is why, looking to the future--because all we have had is a beginning what I am really asking for in this election campaign is a chance to continue, a chance to continue to build a structure of peace in the world, so that this young man and that little girl that was sitting on her father's shoulders a moment ago--so that they can grow up in an open world where they can go to China, they can go to Russia, where they can learn to know the Chinese people and the Russian people and all the peoples of the world, Africa and Asia, where at last in this last fourth of the 20th century, there will be no war any place in the world.

That is what I want. That is what I want for the world, that is what I want for America, that is what you want. And I want an America in which we continue to have, as we have today, the best jobs, at the highest real wages, with the greatest opportunity and the most freedom of any country in the world.

Oh, there is lots more to be done. There are inequities in our system. But what is great about America is that we can change what is wrong and change it peacefully. And that is another reason you are here, because you believe in our system, you are working through it, rather than attempting to destroy it from the outside.

In that connection, I mentioned a moment ago that this had been a long and a very difficult war. I know that one of the subjects that has been discussed in your group, as well as in many others in this country, is that of the question of amnesty for those who chose to desert America rather than to serve it.

When you think of it in solely human terms, in personal terms, I know that there might be a tendency to say, "Why not? Once the war is over, why not? From a personal standpoint, let's forget it, let them come back."

Let me tell you my view. Let me tell you in terms of another President, Abraham Lincoln--he was a strong President. He was a very great President. He was a very kind man. But he was a man who knew that you had to have discipline. He was a man who knew that if the United States was going to be able to be first, be unified, and then to continue to have people that would serve in the armed forces, there had to be penalties for those who refused to serve.

And there is a story told in Sandburg's Lincoln. One day in 1863, Abraham Lincoln was in the upstairs office--the office was then there, they didn't have the East Wing or the West Wing at that point-and a messenger brought in a note from a man who was standing outside at the gate. He was one who had deserted and gone to Canada. He had stayed there for a year or so, and the message came in and he asked the President for amnesty, for the right to come back.

And President Lincoln, who was a very kind man, but also a very strong man, and one who knew what was right and what was just, wrote on that little note these words, as I recall it. He said, "He may return, but there are hundreds of thousands of others who served. Some of them lost their lives, and this man who went to Canada and who has come back, he shall stay in prison until he has served the number of days he was out of this country before we give him amnesty."

At first blush that would seem harsh, but on the other hand, what we must realize, that as we think of the hundreds of thousands--yes, 2 1/2 million Americans who served their country in Vietnam--I am sure most of them didn't want to go, didn't want to leave their families, didn't want to take all that risk, and some of them did lose their lives, but they chose to serve. A few didn't, and under the circumstances, under the rules, it is essential that those who serve get the respect that they deserve and those who chose to desert must pay the penalty that they have earned. That, very simply, is the position that I take on this issue.

Now, one last point. When I was your age, or perhaps a little younger--let's see, 1932 to 1939--in those years, I was in high school, later went on to college, then to law school, finished law school, and incidentally, worked all the way through. But in any event, during those periods this country was in a great depression. Many people had lost confidence in the country and I remember sometimes in our bull sessions we used to say, "Gee, maybe there is a better place to go. I wonder how it is in Latin America. I wonder how it is in Europe, or some place else."

Of course none of us then could afford to go and find out. We just had to keep working, because there weren't that many jobs. Fortunately, the situation has changed considerably. But let me tell you this: You are young. You have most of your lives ahead. And you hear many things that are wrong about this country, and there are some. But let me tell you, I have been to over 80 countries in this world. I have been to Communist countries. I have been to socialist countries. I have been to the great free countries of Europe and of Asia and of Latin America and of Africa. I have enjoyed every visit. I have respected all of the people of the countries that I have met. But every time I come back to America, this is what I know: Anybody who lives in America, who is young in America at this time, is the most fortunate young man or woman in the world. This is the place.

So let's help make this a better country, a country of better jobs, of more opportunity, of better retirement for all of us when we do retire, more generosity for those who cannot help themselves, but above all, let's remember, Americans can be proud of the fact that their country, as we near our 200th birthday, is the strongest nation of the world. We can be proud of the fact that our strength according to all of the leaders of the world that I have met, when you talk to them, really face to face, know that that strength will never be used for the purpose of destroying their freedom or their peace.

Let us remember that the strength of America, its military strength, its economic strength, its moral strength which you represent here today, that that is not only good for us, but it is good for the world. Let's be proud to be Americans and let me say, I am mighty proud to have "Young Labor for America" here today.

Just let me say, when anybody asks you what it is all about, when they ask you what politics is about, whether you are in it as a vocation or whether you are in it as an avocation, working for the candidate of your choice, here it is: It is their future, let's make it the best.

Note: The President spoke at 2:25 p.m. in the East Room at the White House. He spoke without referring to notes.

Richard Nixon, Remarks to Members of Young Labor for Nixon Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/255014

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