Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

Remarks in Indianapolis at the Columbia Republican Club

October 15, 1954

Governor Craig, and my friends:

I have often heard that in any political gathering in Indiana it was not very difficult to work up quite a head of steam. I see exactly what they mean.

I have been doing a little traveling over the United States in the past few weeks, particularly the western part. I visited big meetings and big cities and small places--farms, and so forth. And I have been trying to gather impressions. I have been astonished by one thing I have found. Everywhere our Republican groups, either in the organization or our candidates or incumbents in office, would talk about their difficulties, saying that they were greater than they expected to find them, particularly in view of an admitted record of accomplishment in the 83d Congress.

And finally, about a week ago, I ran into a friend of mine who explained it to me in his own way. He said, "Well, General, you oughtn't to be so greatly surprised by this." He said, "You know, in 1952 we got together, and we had a great cause, and we called it a crusade. We ,believed it was a crusade. We wanted to throw out the New Deal--and we did. And so what have we got to worry about now? Our taxes have been lowered. We have got rid of the abominable excess profits tax. Controls have been taken off our economy. We feel we are more our own men again, making more our own decisions. We are perfectly happy, so why should we get excited ?"

Well, this was rather astonishing, still, to me. Because you must remember that I had most of my experience in the Army. And I had 3 ½ years of rather exciting experiences in the recent war. And I learned one thing: a victory is not won until every objective for which you are struggling has been attained. Time and again, you found units, having gotten off to a good start, everything going pretty well, suddenly being surprised--driven back--sometimes suffering quite a reverse, as at Kasserine Pass in Africa.

Because, in the first flush of victory, they forgot there were no rules applied to this game except winning--in war, I was talking about. I hope I am still not partisan enough that I put any thought of winning above honor and decency. And I don't think the Republican Party does.

So about--let me see, I guess the day before yesterday--maybe 2 days ago--I went to a luncheon where they had the people that were heading the financial affairs of the Republican campaign in Colorado. And in attempting to describe my feelings about this, I recalled to them--and some of you here are old enough to have the same memories--I recalled to them a South American who came up here, a great prizefighter, and he crawled in the ring with a man named Dempsey. And in the first round he knocked Dempsey so far out in the audience that he broke two or three typewriters for the newspapermen. But Dempsey crawled back in the ring and whipped the tar out of him.

Now I don't think the Republican Party has any idea of being a Firpo.

In the 1952 campaign we started something in which we deeply believed. We believed that the Federal Government was penetrating too deeply into our lives, and the lives of our cities, our States, and often of our families, and certainly of our businesses. So we set about reversing this trend. And we have got the new trend started. It started well. The accomplishments of the 83d Congress, I venture to say, when future people look at them with a little bit less impassioned eyes than we possibly do now, will say: there was a Congress that America should have been proud of. And in my opinion they are.

But maybe that pride is just not of the kind to stir us to the action that will let the Congress, under the same leaders, carry forward and finish the job. That is what we are trying to do now. We have got to stir up and obtain the same kind of enthusiasm we had in 1952. And I admit it is not as easy. Because then we had always a symbol. Here was the New Deal standing up there and doing things to us we didn't like, and we really got busy and girded up our loins and went into battle. That is what we have got to do again.

Now in talking to these many people over in Colorado 2 days ago, I told them, "I am not going to talk dollars to you. Dollars are needed, but they are incidental. I want to talk about your hearts. Where is your heart?"

No organization, no battle unit, nobody else, can win a war--can win a battle or a political campaign unless they have got something very deep for which they believe they are fighting. So deeply do they believe it that they hold back nothing. And if it's money that has to be thrown into the pot, why, throw it in. Why not? You throw in your efforts, your time, and your brain. So why not money? And that is the only way that I would ever talk about money to anybody--I don't care how rich he is or how well he was able to support the efforts of the party.

What we have got to do now is to build again that flame, that flame that means good government, decent government, honest government, government of the kind that reserves to every citizen and to every locality the maximum power to determine its own affairs. It is in that kind of government that America has grown great. And it is only in that kind of government that America can continue to grow and be great--the kind of government that respects the human, respects him as an equal before the law and before God. That is the kind of thing in which we must believe--by which we do believe--but which we must build up again into such a cause for which to fight that there will be no question about these things.

Now I should like to make myself clear: I have never made any claim, and I am certain no one in this room does, that all the patriotism in America is the exclusive property of any one party.

We do know that we have a program for establishing the United States on the road of moderate government--decent, moderate government-that does respect the human, that does use the government to support and uphold the individual when he gets in trouble through catastrophes that he can't himself control--that is the kind of thing we want to do. Then I say if we are going to live that kind of thing--believe in it and support it--we have got to get on our horses, get the spurs in the grease and get going.

Now personally, I have never in my life gone into any fight to lose. I believe in faces that go this way, and not this way [broad--not long].

I believe in optimism--enthusiasm--and the confidence that we can do it.

As I tried to say the other night, this is so important because you can't have two drivers at the wheel of an automobile and expect to land anywhere but in the ditch. We don't want one driver--the Legislature; and another driver--the Executive, wanting to go two different places. We want these people working together, doing their task and going to the same place: good government for the United States of America, prosperity and peace and security.

When I came in and I was talking to Governor Craig, he said 2 minutes. I have done far better than--I mean, I have exceeded my welcome by that much; but I have one more message:

Mrs. "Ike," who is still on the plane, charged me specifically with making her apologies. But a long plane trip is a thing that throws her out of kilter a little bit, so I made her stay on the plane and take a nap. So she is not here, not because she did not want to come, but because just the spirit is willing; the flesh is just a little bit weak.

So good night.

Note: The President spoke at 6:10 p.m.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Remarks in Indianapolis at the Columbia Republican Club Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/232806

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