Quakers

1039 quotes found

"Well, then, some of you will say, and rightly, "Well, what did you use the fund for, Senator? Why did you have to have it?" Let me tell you in just a word how a Senate office operates. First of all, a Senator gets $15,000 a year in salary. He gets enough money to pay for one trip a year, a round trip, that is, for himself, and his family between his home and Washington, DC. And then he gets an allowance to handle the people that work in his office to handle his mail. And the allowance for my State of California, is enough to hire 13 people. And let me say, incidentally, that that allowance is not paid to the Senator. It is paid directly to the individuals that the Senator puts on his payroll. But all of these people and all of these allowances are for strictly official business; business, for example, when a constituent writes in and wants you to go down to the Veteran's Administration and get some information about his GI policy — items of that type, for example. But there are other expenses that are not covered by the Government. And I think I can best discuss those expenses by asking you some questions.Do you think that when I or any other senator makes a political speech, has it printed, should charge the printing of that speech and the mailing of that speech to the taxpayers? Do you think, for example, when I or any other Senator makes a trip to his home State to make a purely political speech that the cost of that trip should be charged to the taxpayers? Do you think when a Senator makes political broadcasts or political television broadcasts, radio or television, that the expense of those broadcasts should be charged to the taxpayers? Well I know what your answer is. It's the same answer that audiences give me whenever I discuss this particular problem: The answer is no. The taxpayers shouldn't be required to finance items which are not official business but which are primarily political business."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"I have said publicly before and I say it before this group today: As I look at the new generation of Americans of which you are, of course, outstanding examples or you would not have been selected for this program, it is the best educated new generation we have had--young generation; but more than that, it is the most involved, involved in the sense of being interested, not only in how you can get out and make a living, which was our primary concern in the 1930's when making a living was necessary in order to just keep going, but involved in the problems of your neighborhoods and the problems of your Nation and the problems of the world. Finally, it is a generation which knows more about the problems of the world and knows more about the problems of this country than has any generation in history. What this means is, very simply, that you are a political force, even though you do not yet have the right to vote. You will soon have it, of course. I say you will soon have it because you will be 21, or you will soon have it if you are from Kentucky because you will vote when you are 18. Of course, at some time there will be a constitutional amendment. I have noted that this particular organization, among many others, has indicated its support of that kind of a constitutional amendment."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"Now, a bit of advice--that is what you have to learn to take when you come to these sessions--a bit of advice as to what, if I were your age, I would like to do in terms of preparing for whatever you may go into. Many of you will, I am sure, go into government. Most of you will end up, probably, in some kind of private activity as lawyers or doctors or businessmen or newspaper men and women, or whatever the case might be. But I would urge that whatever you do, as you go to college, don't specialize too much. This is an age--those years between 18 and 22 or 17 and 21, as the case might be, or if you go on to graduate school between 17 and 24 and 25--when you will have every opportunity to specialize in the law or in medicine or in some other profession. But this is the time when your minds are young, when they can, without any question, understand more, in which you can learn faster than at any time in your life. This is the time to get all of the broadest possible education that you can. I don't mean by that that the books you read in disciplines that are not the ones that are going to be your profession will be something that you will remember later on. But by having that experience now it means that you create a total environmental background that will serve you in good stead in the years ahead. The second point I would make is that one of the great things about being young is that young people are impatient. You want to go to the top very fast. I have found, for example, that the young lawyers I interviewed in our office in New York were asking, "When am I going to be a partner--tomorrow, the next day--in the firm?" Of course it takes a little time in a major law firm for that to happen. But impatience, of course, is a good factor as well. What I am suggesting to you, however, is this: Not everyone in this room is going to be the president of a corporation, is going to be a Congressman or a Senator, is going to be the top leader in the field that you choose, but everyone in this room is going to make a contribution in his particular field that is essential for the success of whoever may be that top leader."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"We have tremendous problems abroad--no question about that--a war in Vietnam and threats of war in other areas. We have tremendous problems at home--the crisis of our cities, environmental and others. But on the other hand, look at it in terms as young people should look at the problems--not in terms of the threat, but in terms of the opportunity. Never has this Nation, any nation, had more of an opportunity to do something about its problems, the productivity of our farms, of our factories, and the rest. It is all there if we can only bring it together and get it properly distributed. Also, have this in mind: Have in mind the fact that because you were born in the United States of America and because you live in the United States of America, you in this Nation can play a great role in the affairs of the world--a greater role, actually, than any people in any nation of the world. This is not to downgrade any other great people in the world, because greatness does not come simply from the size of a nation and from the accident of where we happen to be born. But it just does happen that because of the great waves of history that at this time and place the decisions made in the United States of America, as far as the free world is concerned, will determine whether peace and freedom survive in the world. That is the challenge of young America, looking down to the end of this century. It is an exciting challenge, not a burden to be carried and whimpered about, but one to be accepted with all of the excitement that we have when we meet any kind of new experience, any kind of a challenge."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"But if we are to command from the younger generation coming along, and from people generally, that deep feeling of pride and patriotism which we all want, we have to do everything that we can to make our country lovely so that people will love this country and love it very deeply. They will love this country even when it has some unlovely characteristics. There is no question about that. But how much we can do, how much you can do, as we look to the future 10 years, 90 years, down to the end of this century, how much we can do to see that the America that is built will be a new America, a new America in terms not only of the tremendous concentration of population in our cities-and I have spoken to that point in visits to various departments--how we must plan now for transportation and housing and all of the other areas which will determine the character of our cities in the future, which will be one and a half times as big as they are 15 years from now, but we must also think of the character of that great part of America that is called rural America, the part that you mainly deal with, our water, our land, our resources, everything that really makes America a lovely country, one that gives you a feeling as you move out through the western part of this Nation and up to Alaska and out to Hawaii, a feeling of patriotism, of love of country that goes beyond simply seeing the flag, that goes beyond simply reading our history, that recognizes that we are fortunate to live in a country that was so richly blessed as this country has been blessed with natural resources."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"Having said all of that, I realize that I have not decided any of those tough problems you have to work with: making the decisions between whether you develop resources or conserve them. And I know that sometimes we can talk about conservation and development going along together. These are decisions that you will have to make, decisions that the Secretary will have to make, decisions on which he will have to advise me. But in the final analysis, I know that we are all working toward the same goal: to see to it that this great and rich land, more richly blessed when we look at it in terms of our natural resources than any land on earth--and we are fortunate to have it that way--but that this great and rich land will develop in the years ahead, will develop the resources that will enable us to be the best fed and the best clothed and the best housed people in the world, but that will also retain for the generations to come those great areas of beauty and also an environment, clean air, pure water, which will be one that our children will want to live in. And I can think of no more exciting responsibility than that. So much of that action is right here. We often hear that the action is in the cities and there is a lot of action there; and some would say today that the action is in the universities, and certainly there is a lot of action there."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"I have respect for those who have dedicated their lives to public service. I have spent most of my life actually, my adult life, working in one capacity or another in a public service capacity. But in speaking of those who are here in the career service, I want you to know that your Secretary, all of those who have been appointed by the new administration depend upon you, and we will appreciate your support and in turn you will have our support, our support for a strong career service which must go on and give continuity to this Government in the years ahead. Would you pass that message on right down the line? As I came down the halls here, it was very touching to see people gathered in some of the halls and the secretaries and stenographers and others put their hands out. They wanted to shake hands and say hello and the rest. I thought of how, perhaps for some of them, their jobs must be very routine and sometimes very baring--you know, getting out that last draft of a statement or going through the boring form mail that you have to get out, and all the other things. And if you would just let them know that we in this administration appreciate every person who works in it, because it takes not only the top people that are in this room. You know better than I that we need the cooperation and the support of all of those down 'the ranks who can, by the quality of their job, make ours that much better."

- Richard Nixon

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"And then finally, one point that I think is a bit sensitive but perhaps needs to be discussed at a meeting like this: At the present time, this administration, like its predecessor, and as will be the case with its successor, is struggling with the problem of welfare. What do we do about it? What should the level be? Should we have a national standard? Should we raise the standard? And, as I have been looking at the various proposals with regard to welfare that have come across my desk, a thought has come to my mind that I am sure must come to yours: The word "welfare," I think, is, in a sense, an inaccurate term if we are thinking of the welfare of the individual in the broadest sense. Welfare is necessary--necessary when an individual is unable to get a job, necessary when an individual needs help. But when we think about the welfare of this country and the welfare of an individual, in the best sense, that means a job. That is truly in the best interest of the welfare of the Nation and the welfare of every individual, because with that job comes dignity, dignity that cannot come, of course, from being on public welfare, no matter how high we are able to raise it, no matter how much we are able to do. I am not indicating here any intention on the part of this administration not to do what is required and as much as we can do to take care of those who are unable to care for themselves, who cannot find jobs. But I am emphasizing here that when we are speaking of the welfare of an individual, we should not stop in terms of what government can do for him, but we should think in terms of that dignity that can only come from what he does for himself."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"I would like to also tell you how proud I am of the women in this administration who do not hold office, but who hold the hands of their husbands who do hold office. I refer to our Cabinet wives. I wonder if both downstairs, where they are carrying this on closed circuit television, and upstairs will the Cabinet wives please stand so that you can all see them, those who are in the Cabinet? I want you to know that I am--I was going to say "an expert on wives." I don't mean that. But I have seen not only many women in government, but I have seen the wives of government officials and I have had the opportunity to see the wives of the members of the new Cabinet. I want to tell you first I am proud of every member of that Cabinet. It is a fine team. It is one of the best teams we have ever had. But I can tell you that I have had an unusual experience, as you probably noted. We have done two things that have never been done before. We have had two meetings. Immediately before the Inauguration we had a meeting of all of the Cabinet, with the wives, an all-day meeting in which they were briefed along with the members of the Cabinet on the major issues that we would be facing. Then just this last week we had another meeting. We are going to have one every quarter, because we believe that in government, when men have to make these very important decisions, if the member of the Cabinet happens to be a man, he needs not only the sympathy of his wife; he needs her advice, her understanding."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"I think you should know that the first Women's Conference actually occurred in 1953. That was the first one, 17 years ago. Mrs. Eisenhower hosted the women at that conference. That was the first time in 20 years that the Republican Women had been visitors at the White House in that capacity. This year Pat Nixon hosted you. We hope to make it an annual event for as many years as you will allow us to do so. Now if I could express a personal word--I can't often do this at home--but I understand that you are going to honor my wife and my two daughters for their role in the campaign. Believe me, they deserve it. Any wife who can do as my wife has, listen to my speeches through campaigns, at home and abroad in over 60 countries for 23 years, and sit there transfixed, as if she is hearing it for the first time, believe me, that is service far beyond the call of duty. But beyond that, I want you to know that in this last campaign I was proud of what all the Republican women did, the marvelous work you did all over this country. I was proud of what the women of my family did, my wife making appearances on her own in so many places, as did the wives of the Cabinet who are up here today, and my two daughters going out and making appearances all over the country. People ask me about the fan mail we get. We get more for them than we do for me, believe me. We get more invitations for them, I think, than we do for me. That is fine."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"I am reminded of a lesson that I have never forgotten: I remember in 1952, right after being nominated for Vice President, naturally, as a young Senator and a young candidate for Vice President-the youngest in history except for one up to that time--I felt, you know, rather puffed up about it, and I was put in my place at one of the first receptions. I remember it was in Nebraska. It was one of those long handshakers, and people came through the line over and over again saying, "Congratulations. This was fine," and so forth and so on. Then one fellow came through the line. He said that he came from a farm and had driven over 200 miles to that meeting. He put it quite directly. He said, "Dick, I want to tell you something"--because he had seen me out there before when I had spoken as a Congressman and as a Senator. If there is any place I have not spoken, you name it. But believe me, he said to me, "I just want you to know that as I stand here and shake hands with you, I congratulate you for what you did. But never forget this: You are controversial, but everybody likes Pat." So you see, I know the asset of the women in my family. I know what assets the Cabinet wives and all of the women in this administration are to this administration. I know what each of you has done in this campaign, and I thank you for it."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"First, the desire to bring peace in the world again. That was uppermost in the minds of women voters across this country, not the illusory peace that comes from simply ending a war, but the kind of a peace that is lasting, ending a war on a basis that will discourage other wars. The women wanted that kind of leadership. They weren't satisfied with the past leadership. They voted for new leadership. That, therefore, was a major issue. A second major issue was the desire upon the people of this country, among them, to stop the rise in taxes and stop the rise in prices. Women particularly were concerned about that issue because women have the responsibility for the family budget, and having the responsibility for the family budget, they know that unless we deal effectively in handling the problems of the Federal budget, you are not going to be able to balance the family budget. They voted for new leadership to stop the rise in prices and stop the rise in taxes so that millions of Americans would do a better job and have a better chance to balance that family budget. Then there is another great issue that I found--whether it was in the North, the East, the West, or the South--that women particularly were interested in, and that was to stop the rise in crime and reestablish respect for law and order throughout the United States. This administration has been in office for almost 3 months. I know that many are quite impatient, perhaps, or might be impatient as to why we don't have peace, why we haven't stopped inflation, and why we haven't stopped the rise in crime and reestablished respect for law with justice and order throughout this country. I could stand here and tell you that it had been done. That would not be true. I could stand here and promise you when it would be done. But that would not be responsible. But I will tell you this: There are no three issues that have a higher priority in this administration than those three. I can tell you that on this day, for example, not only in the morning but throughout the afternoon, and when I leave this meeting to return to the White House for further meetings tonight, those were the three great issues on which my time was being spent."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"I read a very disturbing report the first of this week. It was from the British Institute of Strategic Studies. Many of you probably read it, too. What made the headlines in this report was its appraisal of American strength in the world compared with that of the Soviet Union. It pointed out some facts that we found were accurate when we came into office. First, that over the past few years in terms of conventional weapons, the Soviet Union has been moving at a much faster pace than the United States; and that in terms of strategic weapons of the nuclear type, that in the year 1969 some estimates indicate that the Soviet Union might pass the United States. That compares with what the situation was in 1962 when there was at least a 4 to 1 advantage of the United States over the Soviet Union. I mention those statistics because they have been publicly printed, not to frighten anybody, because we need not be afraid. We still have major advantages in several areas. But I bring you those statistics simply to indicate that in the field of military strength we have the responsibility and we shall see to it that the United States, as we attempt to negotiate with other nations, as we are going to be willing to and desire to, as we negotiate to bring peace, we shall always negotiate from strength and never from weakness. That we pledge we will do."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"But getting back to the study of the London Institute, it made one other point in which you have a special responsibility. It raised a question as to whether the year 1969 might mark the period in the history of the Western world when the United States not only lost the military superiority that it had, but more significantly, lost the will and the determination to be a major power and to play a major role in the world. The study didn't go into it in detail, but the clear implication was that as far as the United States was concerned, a grave question now existed as to whether this great Nation, the Nation on whom the hopes for peace and freedom of the whole free world ride--the question was raised not simply with regard to our military strength, something that your administration takes responsibility for, but with regard to our moral strength, with regard to our will, with regard to our determination. I simply want to say to the women in this audience, and to the women of America, through you, that will, that determination, cannot be brought by any President to the people. It must come from the home. It must come from the families. It must come from our churches, from our schools throughout the Nation, and I can tell you that having spoken across this Nation for so many years, I am not pessimistic about that will."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"This is a great country. I have traveled all the nations of the world and I know the criticisms of America. But I can tell you that when I come back to the United States, I realize that this Nation not only is militarily strong and will remain so, not only is it the richest Nation and will remain so, but that as a great nation, we are going to meet the challenge of our time because we do have the character and we do have the moral stamina that this country requires and that the world requires today. This I believe. All that I ask is this: that as you return to your homes, we instill that spirit--a spirit of pride, a spirit of patriotism in the very best sense of the word, a spirit of what America has always stood for to the world, not bent on aggression, but recognizing that freedom, meaning as much as it does to us, that we have a responsibility to, hold that standard high for all the world to see. This is the charge that I leave with you tonight, and I am confident, as I have talked to you and as I have received reports from this meeting--I am confident that you are going to meet it. A few days ago when I delivered the eulogy to President Eisenhower, I referred to the fact that in his eloquent and memorable speech at London's Guildhall, he made the statement: "I come from the heart of America." And he truly did, from the geographical heart and the spiritual heart of America. I simply want to say that as I see a great group of Americans like this, not just because you are Republicans--I like that--but as I see you vitally interested in your country, concerned about the issues, making this trip to Washington, going back and carrying the word back to the precincts throughout this country, as I see you, I am going to leave this meeting knowing that the heart of America is good because you are going to keep it good and strong. I am sure you will."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"Naturally, and understandably, there are those who are impatient about what has happened. Some believe we should have moved faster in some areas--for example on appointments--and others think that we should have moved faster in finding the solutions to the great problems with which we were confronted. Tonight I want to tell you how I look at this situation. We deliberately have not attempted to make the kind of a record that looked awfully good in the headlines of today and that made very bad history in the books 3 or 4 years from now. We want a solid achievement we can all be proud of. It would have been very easy, I can assure you, on the first day after the inauguration, for me to have announced that we were immediately going to bring all the men home from Vietnam; that immediately the solution of the problem of inflation and others that we had inherited were to be found. I could not say that. I could not say that because I knew we could not produce. I can assure you of one thing: We will make our mistakes. We have made some, and we will make some more in the future. But as far as this administration is concerned, we are going to lay it on the line with the American people. We are never going to promise something we cannot produce. I think that is the kind of government that you want."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"Now, I think Ev Dirksen and Jerry Ford have well described the great issues that brought us here. There are really three that stand out above all the others, the ones that stood out during the election campaign, and the ones that are on the minds and in the hearts of every person in this audience. The first is peace, the desire to have the kind of a peace that will give us a chance not only to end the war in which we presently are engaged, but a chance to avoid other wars of that type, or any type, in the years ahead. So that goal, the goal of peace--the American people who have not known peace for 4 years--is one that they want the new administration to achieve. The second goal is the goal closely related to the problem of peace abroad, and that is the problem of peace at home. The American people want to stop the rise in crime, as Ev Dirksen and Jerry Ford indicated, and they want to restore respect for law in this country. That was the second great issue of the last campaign. Then the third goal that the American people want achieved by their new administration is to stop the rise in taxes and the rise in prices, and to have the orderly progress, prosperity without inflation, that the American people are entitled to. Now there are other issues, of course, local issues and some national. But these are the three great issues that seemed to be on the minds of most of the people during the campaign, and from my mail and from my discussions with Congressmen and Senators, these are the issues that the American people are going to judge the new administration by."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"Speaking in a very personal sense, I know, as the one who was described by Jerry Ford a few moments ago--a little boy in California, growing up in Yorba Linda, listening to the one train a day go by--I know that in those contests that I had to participate in--as did so many Members of the House, first for the House, and then for the Senate, then the Vice Presidency and then the Presidency-that it all would not have been possible without the help of hundreds of people that I know, but thousands of people like yourselves who contributed, that I have never really had a chance to speak to and to thank adequately. I hope over the years that we are here in Washington we can express our personal appreciation to each and every one of you, but tonight I can tell you this is a great moment for us, a great moment for Pat, my wife, and for myself. We know that in this room are the people without whose support we could not have achieved the goal which we finally realized. We can assure you that in the years that we are here, we will always remember what you have done; and we will do everything in our power not only not to let you down, but to make you proud of what you have done, to make you proud of our party, but more than that, proud of our country and proud of the great role that America can and will play in the world for the rest of this century."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"This is a solemn occasion. It is the beginning of a new institution as part of a larger institution. I think as we dedicate this beautiful, new library, that this is the time and place to speak of some very basic things in American life. It is the time, because we find our fundamental values under bitter and even violent attack all over America. And it is the place, because so much that is basic to America is represented right here where we stand. Opportunity for all is represented here. This is a small college, not rich and famous like Yale and Harvard, and not a vast State university like Michigan and Berkeley. But for almost 90 years it has served the people of South Dakota, opening doors of opportunity for thousands of deserving young men and women. Like hundreds of other fine small colleges across this Nation, General Beadle State College--soon to be known as Dakota State College--has offered a chance to people who might otherwise not have had a chance for an education. And as one who had such a chance at a small college, I know what that means. The pioneer spirit is represented here, and the progress that has shaped our heritage. Because here in South Dakota we still can sense the daring that converted a raw frontier into part of the vast heartland of America. The vitality of thought is represented here. A college library is a place of living ideas; a place where timeless truths are collected to become the raw materials of discovery. In addition, the Karl E. Mundt Library will house the papers of a wise and dedicated man who for 30 years has been at the center of public events. Thus, more than most, this is a library of both thought and action, containing and combining the wisdom of past ages with a uniquely personal record of the present time. So today, as we dedicate this place Of ideas, I think we should reflect on some of the values we have inherited and which are now under challenge."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"We live in a deeply troubled and profoundly unsettled time. Drugs and crime, campus revolts, racial discord, draft resistance--on every hand we find old standards violated, old values discarded, old precepts ignored. A vocal minority of our young people are opting out of the process by which a civilization maintains its continuity: the passing on of values from one generation to the next. Old and young across the Nation shout across a chasm of misunderstanding, and the louder they shout, the broader the chasm becomes. As a result of all this, our institutions in America today are undergoing what may be the severest challenge of our history. I do not speak of the physical challenge, the force and threats of force that have racked our cities and now our colleges. Force can be contained. We have the power to strike back if need be, and we can prevail. The Nation has survived other attempts at insurrection. We can survive this one. It has not been a lack of civil power, but the reluctance of a free people to employ it, that so often has stayed the hand of authorities faced with confrontation. But the challenge I speak of today is deeper--the challenge to our values and to the moral base of the authority that sustains those values. At the outset, let me draw a very clear distinction. A great deal of today's debate about "values," or about "morality," centers on what essentially are private values and personal codes: patterns of dress and appearance, sexual mores, religious practices, the uses to which a person intends to put his own life. Now these are immensely important, but they are not the values I mean to discuss here today. My concern and our concern today is not with the length of a person's hair, but with his conduct in relation to the community; not with what he wears, but with his impact on the process by which a free society governs itself. I speak not of private morality, but of public morality--and of "morality" in its broadest sense, as a set of standards by which the community chooses to judge itself."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"Some critics call ours an "immoral" society because they disagree with its policies, or they refuse to obey its laws because they claim that those laws have no moral basis. Yet the structure of our laws has rested from the beginning on a foundation of moral purpose. That moral purpose embodies what is, above all, a deeply humane set of values--rooted in a profound respect for the individual, for the integrity of his person, for the dignity of his humanity. At first glance, there is something homely and unexciting about basic values as we have long believed in them. And we feel apologetic about espousing them; even the profoundest truths become cliches with repetition. But these truths can be like sleeping giants: slow to rouse, but magnificent in their strength. So today let us look at some of those values--so familiar now, and yet once so revolutionary in America and in the world: liberty, recognizing that liberties can only exist in balance, with the liberty of each stopping at that point at which it would infringe the liberty of another; freedom of conscience, meaning that each person has the freedom of his own conscience, and therefore none has the right to dictate the conscience of his neighbor; justice, recognizing that true justice is impartial and that no man can be judge in his own cause; human dignity, a dignity that inspires pride, is rooted in self-reliance, and provides the satisfaction of being a useful and respected member of the community; concern, concern for the disadvantaged and dispossessed, but a concern that neither panders nor patronizes; the right to participate in public decisions, which carries with it the duty to abide by those decisions when reached, recognizing that no one can have his own way all the time; human fulfillment, in the sense not of unlimited license, but of maximum opportunity; the right to grow, to reach upward, to be all that we can become, in a system that rewards enterprise, encourages innovation, and honors excellence."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"The student who invades an administration building, roughs up the dean, rifles the files, and issues "nonnegotiable demands" may have some of his demands met by a permissive university administration. But the greater his "victory," the more he will have undermined the security of his own rights. In a free society, the rights of none are secure unless the rights of all are respected. It is precisely the structure of law and custom that he has chosen to violate--the process of freedom--by which the rights of all are protected. We have long considered our colleges and universities citadels of freedom, where the rule of reason prevails. Now both the process of freedom and the rule of reason are under assault. At the same time, our colleges are under pressure to reduce our educational standards, in the misguided belief that this would promote "opportunity." Instead of attempting to raise the lagging students up to meet the college standards, the cry now is to lower the standards to meet the students. This is the old, familiar, self-indulgent cry for the easy way. It debases the integrity of the educational process because there is no easy way to excellence, no shortcut to the truth, no magic wand that can produce a trained and disciplined mind without the hard discipline of learning. To yield to these demands would weaken the institution; more importantly, it would cheat the student of what he comes to college for, a good education. Now, no group, as a group, should be more zealous defenders of the integrity of academic standards and the rule of reason in academic life than the faculties of our great colleges and universities. But if the teacher simply follows the loudest voices, parrots the latest slogan, yields to unreasonable demands, he will have won not the respect but the contempt of his students; and he will deserve that contempt. Students have some rights. They have a right to guidance, to leadership, and direction; they also have a right to expect their teachers to listen and to be reasonable, but also to stand for something--and most especially, to stand for the rule of reason against the rule of force. Our colleges and universities have their weaknesses. Some have become too impersonal, or too ingrown, and curricula have lagged. But let us never forget that for all its faults, the American system of higher education is the best in this whole imperfect world, and it provides in the United States today a better education for more students of all economic levels than ever before anywhere in the history of the world. And I submit this is no small achievement. We should be proud of it. We should defend it and we should never apologize for it."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"Often the worst mischief is done in the name of the best cause. In our zeal for instant reform we should be careful not to destroy our educational standards and our educational system along with it, and not to undermine the process of freedom on which all else rests. The process of freedom will be less threatened in America, however, if we pay more heed to one of the great cries of our young people today. I speak now of their demand for honesty: intellectual honesty, personal honesty, public honesty. Much of what seems to be revolt is really little more than this: an attempt to strip away sham and pretense, to puncture illusion, to get down to the basic nub of truth. We should welcome this. We have seen too many patterns of deception in our lives: in political life, impossible promises; in advertising, extravagant claims; in business, shady deals. In personal life, we all have witnessed deceits that ranged from the "little white lie" to moral hypocrisy; from cheating on income taxes to bilking the insurance company. In public life, we have seen reputations destroyed by smear, and gimmicks paraded as panaceas. We have heard shrill voices of hate shouting lies and sly voices of malice twisting facts. Even in intellectual life, we too often have seen logical gymnastics performed to justify a pet theory, and refusal to accept facts that fail to support it. Of course, absolute honesty, on the other hand, would be ungenerous. Courtesy sometimes compels us to welcome the unwanted visitor, and kindness leads us to compliment the homely girl on how pretty she looks. But in our public discussions we sorely need a kind of honesty that too often has been lacking: the honesty of straight talk, a careful concern with the gradations of truth, a frank recognition of the limits of our knowledge about the problems we have to deal with. We have long demanded financial integrity in private life. We now need the most rigorous kind of intellectual integrity in public debate. Unless we can find a way to speak plainly and truly, unself-consciously, about the facts of public life, we may find that our grip on the forces of history is too loose to control our own destiny. The honesty of straight talk leads us to the conclusion that some of our recent social experiments have worked and some have failed and that most have achieved something--but far less than their advance billing promised. This same honesty is concerned not with assigning blame, but with discovering what lessons can be drawn from that experience in order to design better programs next time. Perhaps the goals were unattainable; perhaps the means were inadequate; perhaps the program was based on an unrealistic assessment of human nature. We can learn these lessons only to the extent that we can be candid with one another. We have and we face enormously complex choices. In approaching these, confrontation is no substitute for consultation; and passionate concern gets us nowhere without dispassionate analysis. More fundamentally, our structure of values depends on mutual faith, and faith depends on truth. The values we cherish are sustained by a fabric of mutual self-restraint woven of ordinary civil decency, respect for the rights of others, respect for the laws of the community, and respect for the democratic process of orderly change. The purpose of these restraints, I submit, is not to protect an "establishment," but to establish the protection of liberty; not to prevent change, but to insure that change reflects the public will and respects the rights of all. This process is our most precious resource as a nation, and it depends on public acceptance, public understanding, and public faith."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"Whether our values are maintained depends ultimately not on government, but on people. A nation can only be as great as the people want it to be. A nation can only be as free as its people insist that it be. A nation's laws are only as strong as the people's will to see them enforced. A nation's freedoms are only as secure as the people's determination to see them maintained. And a nation's values are only as lasting as the ability of each generation to pass them on to the next. We often have a tendency to turn away from the familiar because it is familiar, and turn to the new because it is new. To those intoxicated with the romance of violent revolution, the continuing revolution of democracy may sometimes seem quite unexciting. But no system has ever liberated the spirits of so many so fully. Nothing has ever "turned on" man's energies, his imagination, his unfettered creativity, the way the ideal of freedom has. We can be proud that we have that legacy and that we celebrate it today. Now there are some who see America's vast wealth and protest that this has made us materialistic. But we should not be apologetic about our abundance. We should not fall into the easy trap of confusing the production of things with the worship of things. We produce abundantly, but our values turn not on what we have but on what we believe. And what we believe very simply is this: We believe in liberty, in decency, and the process of freedom. On these beliefs we rest our pride as a nation. In these beliefs we rest our hopes for the future. And by our fidelity to the process of freedom we can assure to ourselves and our posterity the blessings of freedom."

- Richard Nixon

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"I have spoken today of these basic values on this occasion because of the man we honor and also because of the place in which I stand. I know that many in this audience have shared the concern that I have shared, that in recent years, due to the fact that the spotlight has been turned on some public officials who have not reached the standard of integrity that we think they should have reached, we have tended to lose faith in the integrity of all of our institutions. Let me, as one who for almost a quarter of a century has had the opportunity to meet Governors and Congressmen and Senators and State legislators and judges and public officials all over this land--as a matter of fact, I have probably met more than any living American--just let me say something based on my own observation. There are men, some, who fail to meet the standards of integrity which should be met by a public servant, but I want this audience to know that as I look at the men who served in public life during my own generation, the great majority of Congressmen and Senators and Governors and State legislators and mayors and judges are honest, dedicated, decent men. And Karl Mundt represents that kind of honesty, decency, and honor. His public life stands for these values about which I have spoken. I am proud to have known him for 22 years. I am proud to have had his friendship and support in victory and also in defeat. And I am proud today to join with you in honoring him by dedicating in his name a library which will preserve those values for which and about which he has spoken so eloquently in 30 years of public life."

- Richard Nixon

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"In speaking of that work, I naturally think somewhat in personal terms of the fact that not only is the Chief Justice concluding almost 16 years in his present position, but that today he concludes 52 years of public service to local, State, and national government--as District Attorney in Alameda County, as Attorney General of the State of California, as Governor of the State of California, the only three-term Governor in the history of that State, as Chief Justice of the United States of America. The Nation is grateful for that service. I am also reminded of the fact that the Chief Justice has established a record here in this Court which will be characterized in many ways. In view of the historical allusion 'that was made in the opinions just read, may I be permitted an historical allusion? Will Rogers, in commenting upon one of the predecessors of the Chief Justice, Chief Justice William Howard Taft, said that "It is great to be great. It is greater to be human." I think that comment could well apply to the Chief Justice as we look at his 52 years of service. One who has held high office in this Nation, but one who, in holding that office, always had the humanity which was all-encompassing, the dedication to his family--his personal family, to the great American family, to the family of man. The Nation is grateful for that example of humanity which the Chief Justice has given to us and to the world. But as we consider this moment, we also think of the transition which will shortly take place. We think of what it means to America, what it means to our institutions."

- Richard Nixon

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"We are meeting here tonight at a time of great and fundamental change in America--of changes more far-reaching than have ever been seen in the span of a single lifetime. These changes summon all of us--the Federal Government, the States, the counties, the cities, and towns--each person everywhere--to a high adventure in human advancement. We stand on the threshold of a time when the impossible becomes possible--a time when we can choose goals that, just a generation ago, would have seemed as unreachable as the moon seemed to be unreachable then. We can reach those goals. The Spirit of Apollo gave us a brief, glittering glimpse of how far we can stretch. Thousands of minds, thousands of hands, all were marshaled in selfless dedication in achieving a great human dream--and the dream came true. Today, we in America can afford to dream--but we have to put drive behind those dreams. This requires that we turn--now--to a new strategy for the seventies--one that enables us to command our own future by commanding the forces of change. Only 7 years from now, in 1976, America will celebrate its 200th birthday as a nation. So let us look ahead to that great anniversary in the Spirit of Apollo-and discover in ourselves a new Spirit of '76. Let us resolve that what we can do, we will do. When a great nation confronts its shortcomings, not angrily, but analytically; when it commits its resources, not wantonly but wisely; when it calms its hatreds, masters its fears, and draws together in a spirit of common endeavor, then the forces of progress are on the march."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"The central race in the world today is neither an arms race nor a space race. It is the race between man and change. The central question is whether we are to be the master of events, or the pawn of events. If we are to win this race, our first need is to make government governable. When the new administration took office last January, we confronted a set of hard and unpleasant facts. I cite these facts not in a partisan way; they are not the fault of any one administration or of any one party. Rather, they are part of our common experience as a people, the result of an accumulating failure of government over the years to come to grips with a future that soon overtook it. We confronted a legacy of Federal deficits that has added $58 billion to the burden of public debt in the past 10 years. We confronted the fact that State and local governments were being crushed in a fiscal vise, squeezed by rising costs, rising demands for services, exhaustion of revenue sources. We confronted the fact that in the past 5 years the Federal Government alone has spent more than a quarter of a trillion dollars on social programs--over $250 billion. Yet far from solving our problems, these expenditures had reaped a harvest of dissatisfaction, frustration, and bitter division. Never in human history has so much been spent by so many for such a negative result. The cost of the lesson has been high, but we have learned that it is not only what we spend that matters, but how we spend it."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"Listen to Professor Peter Drucker analyze the problem of government today: "There is mounting evidence that government is big rather than strong; that it is fat and flabby rather than powerful; that it costs a great deal but does not achieve much .... Indeed, government is sick--and just at the time when we need a strong, healthy, and vigorous government." The problem has not been a lack of good intentions, and not merely a lack of money. Methods inherited from the thirties proved to be out of date in the sixties. Structures put together in the thirties broke down under the load of the sixties. Overcentralized, over-bureaucratized, the Federal Government became unresponsive as well as inefficient. In their struggle to keep up, States and localities found the going increasingly difficult. In the space of only 10 years, State and local expenditures rose by two and a half times---from $44 billion in 1958 to $108 billion in 1968. States alone have had to seek more than 200 tax increases in the past 8 years. You know--you as Governors--and I know, that simply piling tax on tax is not the long range solution to the problems we face together. We have to devise a new way to make our revenue system meet the needs of the seventies. We have to put the money where the problems are, and we have to get a dollar's worth of return for a dollar spent. Our new strategy for the seventies begins with the reform of government: overhauling its structure; pruning out those programs that have failed or that have outlived their time; ensuring that its delivery systems actually deliver the intended services to the intended beneficiaries; gearing its programs to the concept of social investment; focusing its activities not only on tomorrow, but on the day after tomorrow. This must be a cooperative venture among governments at all levels, because it centers on what I have called the "New Federalism"--in which power, funds, and authority are channeled increasingly to those governments that are closest to the people. The essence of the New Federalism is to help regain control of our national destiny by returning a greater share of control to State and local governments and to the people. This in turn requires constant attention to raising the quality of government at all levels."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"We have proposed, as all of you know because you have discussed it in this conference, the first major reform of welfare in the history of welfare. This would abolish the discredited Aid to Families With Dependent Children program, and launch in its place a new system that for the first time would insure a minimum income for every family with dependent children--and at the same time provide a coordinated structure of work requirements, work incentives, and training designed to move people off the welfare rolls and onto payrolls in the United States. Now I realize that some object to some of these proposals--understandably--as seeming to favor one region over another, or because they give the rich States more or less than they give to poorer States. I considered these arguments, rejected them, because, as Buford Ellington indicated in his introduction, we are one country. We must think in terms of the people and their needs--wherever they are. We must meet our problems where the problems are. Because, unless we act to meet the problems of human need in the places where they exist, the problems and troubles of rural America today will be the problems of urban America tomorrow. Consider for a moment the name of this Nation: the United States of America. We establish minimum national standards because we are united; we encourage local supplements because we are a federation of States; and we care for the unfortunate because this is America."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"Now I would like for all of us to look at these measures in a larger framework. Exactly 4 months from today, we will enter the decade of the seventies. And as we look ahead toward that 200th anniversary of American independence in 1976, we have a target to shoot for. What kind of a nation we will be on that momentous anniversary is ours to determine by what we do or fail to do now. As conditions are changing, so we must change. The reforms I have proposed in these legislative recommendations are not partisan changes. They are positive changes. They have no special constituency of region or class or interest group. Their constituency is tomorrow. It already is painfully clear that many hard choices will have to be made. Dreams of unlimited billions of dollars being released once the war in Vietnam ends are just that--dreams. True, there will be additional money, but the claims on it already are enormous. There should be no illusion that what some call the "peace and growth dividend" will automatically solve our national problems, or release us from the need to establish priorities. There are hard budget and tax decisions ahead. These involve your interests as Governors; they involve the interests of all of us as citizens. In order to find the money for new programs, we are going to have to trim it out of old ones. This is one reason why I regard the reforms I have proposed as essential. We can no longer afford the luxury of inefficiency in Government. We cannot count on good money to bail us out of bad ideas. Equally important, continued improvement of governments at the State and local levels is essential to make these new concepts work. If the delegation of funds and authority to the State and local governments under the Comprehensive Manpower Act is successful, this can then be a model for more delegations in the future. But we can only toss the ball; the States and localities have to catch it and they have to carry it. I am confident that you can."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"More than anything else, it is these new tasks of the future--not the distant future, but the immediate future--that give urgency to the need to reform government today. We can command the future only if we can manage the present. The reforms I have proposed are designed to make this possible. Only if we clean out the unnecessary can we focus on the necessary. Only if we stop fighting the battles of the thirties can we take on the battles of the seventies. These reforms represent a New Federalism, a new humanism, and, I suggest also, a new realism. They are based not on theoretical abstractions, but on the hard experience of the past third of a century. They are addressed to the real problems of real people in a real world--and to the needs of the next third of a century. They represent not an end but a beginning-the beginning of a new era in which we confound the prophets of doom, and make government an instrument for casting the future in the image of our hopes. That task requires the best efforts of all of us together. It requires the best thinking of all of us together, as we choose our goals and devise the means of their achievement. But the future that beckons us also holds greater promise than any man has ever known. These reforms are steps in the direction of that promise--and as we take them, let us do so confident in the strength of America, firm in our faith that we can chart our destiny to the abundant spirit of a great and resourceful people. This spirit has been our strength. Marshaled in a new Spirit of '76, giving force to our purposes and direction to our efforts, it can be our salvation."

- Richard Nixon

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"My suggestions this evening for new directions toward a more balanced relationship come from many sources. First, they are rooted in my personal convictions. I have seen the problems of this hemisphere. As those in this room know, I have visited every nation in this hemisphere. I have seen them at first hand. I have felt the surging spirit of those nations--determined to break the grip of outmoded structures, yet equally determined to avoid social disintegration. Freedom, justice, a chance for each of our people to live a better and more abundant life--these are goals to which I am unshakably committed because progress in our hemisphere is not only a practical necessity, it is a moral imperative. Second, these new approaches have been substantially shaped by the report of Governor Rockefeller, who, at my request and at your invitation, listened perceptively to the voices of our neighbors and incorporated their thoughts into a set of farsighted proposals. Third, they are consistent with thoughts expressed in the Consensus of Vina del Mar, which we have studied with great care. A list of 46 specific proposals for United States trade and aid policy changes drawn up at Vina del Mar, Chile, by ministers from 21 Latin American nations in May 1969. Fourth, they have benefited from the counsel of many persons in government and out, in this country and throughout the hemisphere. And, finally, basically they reflect the concern of the people of the United States for the development and progress of a hemisphere which is new in spirit, and which, through our efforts together, we can make new in accomplishment."

- Richard Nixon

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"Now it is not my purpose here tonight to discuss the extent to which we consider the various charges that I have just listed right or wrong. But I recognize the concerns. I share many of them. What I propose tonight is, I believe, responsive to those concerns. The most pressing concerns center on economic development and especially on the policies by which aid is administered and by which trade is regulated. In proposing specific changes tonight, I mean these as examples of the actions I believe are possible in a new kind of partnership in the Americas. Our partnership should be one in which the United States lectures less and listens more. It should be one in which clear, consistent procedures are established to insure that the shaping of the future of the nations in the Americas reflects the will of those nations. I believe this requires a number of changes. To begin with, it requires a fundamental change in the way in which we manage development assistance in the hemisphere. That is why I propose that a multilateral inter-American agency be given an increasing share of responsibility for development assistance decisions. CIAP-the Inter-American Committee on the Alliance for Progress--could be given this new function, or an entirely new agency could be created within the system. Whatever the form, the objective would be to evolve an effective multilateral framework for bilateral assistance, to provide the agency with an expert international staff and, over time, to give it major operational and decision making responsibilities. The other American nations themselves would thus jointly assume a primary role in setting priorities within the hemisphere, in developing realistic programs, in keeping their own performance under critical review."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"Most Latin American exports now are raw materials and foodstuffs. We are attempting to help the other countries of the hemisphere to stabilize their earnings from these exports, to increase them as time goes on. Increasingly, however, those countries will have to turn more toward manufactured and semimanufactured products for balanced development and major export growth. Thus they need to be assured of access to the expanding markets of the industrialized world. In order to help achieve this, I have determined to take the following major steps: First, to lead a vigorous effort to reduce the nontariff barriers to trade maintained by nearly all industrialized countries against products of particular interest to Latin America and other developing countries. Second, to support increased technical and financial assistance to promote Latin American trade expansion. Third, to support the establishment, within the inter-American system, of regular procedures for advance consultation on trade matters. United States trade policies often have a very heavy impact on our neighbors. It seems only fair that in the more balanced relationship we seek, there should be full consultation within the hemisphere family before decisions affecting its members are taken, and not after. And finally, most important, in world trade forums, I believe it is time to press for a liberal system of generalized trade preferences for all developing countries, including Latin America. We will seek adoption by all of the industrialized nations of a scheme with broad product coverage and with no ceilings on preferential imports. We will seek equal access to industrial markets for all developing countries, so as to eliminate the discrimination against Latin America that now exists in many countries. We will also urge that such a system eliminates the inequitable "reverse preferences" that now discriminate against Western Hemisphere countries."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"I would like to turn now to a vital subject in connection with economic development in the hemisphere, namely, the role of private investment. Now, clearly, each government in the Americas must make its own decision about the place of private investment, domestic and foreign, in its development process. Each must decide for itself whether it wishes to accept or forgo the benefits that private investment can bring. For a developing country, constructive foreign private investment has the special advantage of being a prime vehicle for the transfer of technology. And certainly, from no other source is so much investment capital available, because capital, from government to government on that basis, is not expansible. In fact, it tends now to be more restricted, whereas, private capital can be greatly expanded. As we have seen, however, just as a capital-exporting nation cannot expect another country to accept investors against its will, so must a capital-importing country expect a serious impairment of its ability to attract investment funds when it acts against existing investments in a way which runs counter to commonly accepted norms of international law and behavior. Unfortunately, and perhaps unfairly, such acts by one nation in the Americas affect investor confidence in the entire region. We will not encourage U.S. private investment where it is not wanted or where local political conditions face it with unwarranted risks. But I must state my own strong belief, and it is this: I think that properly motivated private enterprise has a vital role to play in social as well as economic development in all of the American nations. We have seen it work in our own country. We have seen it work in other countries--whether they are developing or developed--other countries that lately have been recording the world's most spectacular rates of economic growth. Referring to a completely other area of the world, the exciting stories of the greatest growth rates are those that have turned toward more private investment, rather than less. Japan we all know about, but the story is repeated in Korea, in Taiwan, in Malaysia, in Singapore, and in Thailand. In line with this belief, we are examining ways to modify our direct investment controls in order to help meet the investment requirements of developing nations in the Americas and elsewhere. I have further directed that our aid programs place increasing emphasis on assistance to locally-owned private enterprise. I am also directing that we expand our technical assistance for establishing national and regional capital markets. As we all have seen, in this age of rapidly advancing science, the challenge of development is only partly economic. Science and technology increasingly hold the key to our national futures. If the promise of this final third of the 20th century is to be realized, the wonders of science must be turned to the service of man. In the Consensus of Vina del Mar, we were asked for an unprecedented effort to share our scientific and technical capabilities. To that request we shall respond in a true spirit of partnership."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"This I pledge to you tonight: The nation that went to the moon in peace for all mankind is ready, ready to share its technology in peace with its nearest neighbors. Tonight, I have discussed with you a new concept of partnership. I have made a commitment to act. I have been trying to give some examples of actions we are prepared to take. But as anyone familiar with government knows, commitment alone is not enough. There has to be the machinery to assure an effective follow-through. Therefore, I am also directing a major reorganization and upgrading of the United States Government structure for dealing with Western Hemisphere affairs. As a key element of this--and this is one of those areas where the President cannot do it, he needs the approval of the Congress--but as a key element of this, I have ordered preparation of a legislative request, which I will submit to the Congress, raising the rank of the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs to Under Secretary--thus giving the hemisphere special representation. I know that many in this room, 15 years ago urged that upon me, and I see Mr. Pedro Beltran here particularly applauding. He urged it upon me just a few years ago, too. I trust that we will be able, through the new Under Secretary of State, to do a more effective job with regard to the problems of the hemisphere, and the new Under Secretary will be given authority to coordinate all United States Government activities in the hemisphere, so that there will be one window for all those activities."

- Richard Nixon

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"And now, my friends in the American family, I turn to a sensitive subject. Debates have long raged, they've raged both in the United States and elsewhere, over what our attitude should be toward the various forms of government within the inter-American system. Let me sum up my own views very candidly. First, my own country lives by a democratic system which has preserved its form for nearly two centuries. It has its problems. But we are proud of our system. We are jealous of our liberties. And we hope that eventually most, perhaps even all, of the world's people will share what we consider to be the blessings of genuine democracy. We are aware that most people today in most countries of the world do not share those blessings. I would be less than honest if I did not express my concern over examples of liberty compromised, of justice denied, or rights infringed. Nevertheless, we recognize that enormous, sometimes explosive, forces for change are operating in Latin America. These create instabilities; they bring changes in governments. On the diplomatic level, we must deal realistically with governments in the inter-American system as they are. We have, of course--we in this country--a preference for democratic procedures, and we hope that each government will help its own people to move forward to a better, a fuller, and a freer life."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"We cannot have a peaceful community of nations if one nation sponsors armed subversion in another's territory. The ninth meeting of American Foreign Ministers clearly enunciated this principle. The "export" of revolution is an intervention which our system cannot condone, and a nation like Cuba which seeks to practice it can hardly expect to share in the benefits of this community. And now, finally, a word about what all this can mean--not just for the Americas but for the world. Today, the world's most fervent hope is for a lasting peace in which life is secure, progress is possible, and freedom can flourish. In each part of the world we can have lasting peace and progress only if the nations directly concerned take the lead themselves in achieving it, and in no part of the world can there be a true partnership if one partner dictates its direction. I can think of no assembly of nations better suited than ours to point the way to developing such a partnership. A successfully progressing Western Hemisphere, here in this new world, demonstrating in action mutual help and mutual respect, will be an example for the world. Once again, by this example, we will stand for something larger than ourselves. For three quarters of a century, many of us have been linked together in the Organization of American States and its predecessors in a joint quest for a better future. Eleven years ago, Operation Pan America was launched as a Brazilian initiative. More recently, we have joined in a noble Alliance for Progress, whose principles still guide us. And now I suggest that our goal for the seventies should be a decade of "action for progress" for the Americas."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"As we seek to forge a new partnership, we must recognize that we are a community of widely diverse peoples. Our cultures are different. Our perception are often different. Our emotional reactions are often different. May it always be that way. What a dull world it would be if we were all alike. Partnership-mutuality--these do not flow naturally. We have to work at them. Understandably, perhaps, a feeling has arisen in many Latin American countries that the United States really "no longer cares." Well, my answer to that tonight is very simple. We do care. I care. I have visited most of your countries, as I said before. I have met most of your leaders. I have talked with your people. I have seen your great needs as well as your great achievements. And I know this, in my heart as well as in my mind: If peace and freedom are to endure in this world, there is no task more urgent than lifting up the hungry and the helpless, and putting flesh on the dreams of those who yearn for a better life. Today, we in this American community share an historic opportunity. As we look together down the closing decades of this century, we see tasks that summon the very best that is in us. But those tasks are difficult precisely because they do mean the difference between despair and fulfillment for most of the 600 million people who will live in Latin America in the year 2000. Those lives are our challenge. Those lives are our hope. And we could ask no prouder reward than to have our efforts crowned by peace, prosperity, and dignity in the lives of those 600 million human beings-- in Latin America and in the United States--each so precious, each so unique--our children and our legacy."

- Richard Nixon

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"What I was talking about just a moment ago after we finished meeting all of these winners--I always like to meet winners, believe me, and to give condolences to losers; I have done both, you know but I was reminded of a little bit of history that I would like to share particularly with these very young people who were not born when these dinners first began in 1947, and with the Members of the House and the Senate who, like myself, may have attended that first dinner in 1947. For 23 years the Veterans of Foreign Wars have had a dinner here in Washington in which they have honored the Members of the House and the Senate. And I attended that first dinner in '47 as a freshman Member of Congress. I was privileged to attend. I remember among those who were in attendance, incidentally, on that occasion was another freshman Member of Congress, Olin Teague, the Chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee. And then I remember through the years my association with this organization. And I, without imposing on your time, would like to share it with you very briefly before introducing our honored guest and award winner tonight. I recall that not only many dinners like this for Members of Congress, but on eight different occasions as Vice President of the United States, I have had the honor of addressing the National Convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. However, that is all past history. I am proud to be here tonight, proud because of this special occasion in Which these young people who have won these awards, the Voice of Democracy Awards, in which they are honored, but proud also because this is the first time, as President of the United States, that I have had the honor of addressing any meeting of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. And I am proud to be here in that capacity. But I speak to you tonight not as Commander in Chief which, of course, was referred to by our Commander, Ray Gallagher, but I speak to you as one of your comrades who has been with you on so many of these occasions in the past. And I think that I can speak to you in the spirit in which this award is being given by referring very briefly to, I think, what this contest has been about, in which all of you have participated, and also where America stands today at this very critical juncture in our history and in world history."

- Richard Nixon

0 likesPoliticians from CaliforniaPresidents of the United StatesQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
"In 1960, I ran for President the first time. Incidentally, I could see some of you with the political glint in your eyes as I went down there. Some of you may never be able to get to run the first time. But in any event, I remember when I ran the first time. I didn't quite make it. And I also remember that the chairman of the other party was the honored guest tonight, Senator Jackson of Washington. I was just thinking tonight as I shook his hand and was speaking about this award we are going to present: You know, suppose he had been chairman in 1968, I might not be President today. I, of course, am a Republican. Senator Jackson is a Democrat. But I can say to you what I said to the Congress a few weeks ago. And I say this particularly to all the young people who are here who are receiving these awards. When the great issues of the defense of America are involved--the security of America, the fate of our men who are fighting for America abroad--when the issues of peace and freedom are involved, when these issues are involved, we are not Democrats; we are not Republicans; we are Americans. That is what we are. And it is in that spirit that I, as President of the United States and also as a comrade and as a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, am very proud tonight on behalf of your Commander and of this organization to present the Congressional Award to a man who in his public life has spoken not as a partisan, but as an American, a man who understands national defense and is not afraid to speak out for it, a man who understands national security and is not afraid to speak out for it, a man who understands the threat to peace and freedom in the world as well as any man that I know, a man who is a great credit not only to his party but more important, a credit to the United States of America: Senator Jackson of the State of Washington."

- Richard Nixon

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"Let me now turn to the third criteria for troop withdrawals--the level of enemy activity. In several areas since December, that level has substantially increased. In recent months Hanoi has sent thousands more of their soldiers to launch new offensives in neutral Laos in violation of the Geneva Accords of 1969 to which they were signatories. South of Laos, almost 40,000 Communist troops are now conducting overt aggression against Cambodia, a small neutralist country that the Communists have used for years as a base for attack upon South Vietnam in violation of the Geneva Accords of 1954 to which they were also signatories. This follows the consistent pattern of North Vietnamese aggression in Indochina. During the past 8 years they have sent tens of thousands of troops into all three countries of the peninsula and across every single common border. Men and supplies continue to pour down the Ho Chi Minh Trail; and in the past 2 weeks, the Communists have stepped up their attacks upon allied forces in South Vietnam. However, despite this new enemy activity, there has been an overall decline in enemy force levels in South Vietnam since December. As the enemy force levels have declined and as the South Vietnamese have assumed more of the burden of battle, American casualties have declined. I am glad to be able to report tonight that in the first 3 months of 1970, the number of Americans killed in action dropped to the lowest first quarter level in 5 years."

- Richard Nixon

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"In June, a year ago, when we began troop withdrawals, we did so on a "cut and try" basis--with no certainty that the program would be successful. In June we announced withdrawal of 25,000 American troops; in September another 35,000 and then in December 50,000 more. These withdrawals have now been completed and as of April 15, a total of 115,500 men have returned home from Vietnam. We have now reached a point where we can confidently move from a period of "cut and try" to a longer-range program for the replacement of Americans by South Vietnamese troops. I am, therefore, tonight announcing plans for the withdrawal of an additional 150,000 American troops to be completed during the spring of next year. This will bring a total reduction of 265,500 men in our Armed Forces in Vietnam below the level that existed when we took office 15 months ago. The timing and pace of these new withdrawals within the overall schedule will be determined by our best judgment of the current military and diplomatic situation. This far-reaching decision was made after consultation with our commanders in the field, and it has the approval of the Government of South Vietnam. Now, viewed against the enemy's escalation in Laos and Cambodia, and in view of the stepped-up attacks this month in South Vietnam, this decision clearly involves risks. But I again remind the leaders of North Vietnam that while we are taking these risks for peace, they will be taking grave risks should they attempt to use the occasion to jeopardize the security of our remaining forces in Vietnam by increased military action in Vietnam, in Cambodia, or in Laos. I repeat what I said November 3d and December 15th. If I conclude that increased enemy action jeopardizes our remaining forces in Vietnam, I shall not hesitate to take strong and effective measures to deal with that situation."

- Richard Nixon

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"My responsibility as Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces is for the safety of our men, and I shall meet that responsibility. The decision I have announced tonight to withdraw 150,000 more men over the next year is based entirely on the progress of our Vietnamization program. There is a better, shorter path to peace--through negotiations. We shall withdraw more than 150,000 over the next year if we make progress at the negotiating front. Had the other side responded positively at Paris to our offer of May 14 last year, most American and foreign troops would have left South Vietnam by now. A political settlement is the heart of the matter. That is what the fighting in Indochina has been about over the past 30 years. Now, we have noted with interest the recent statement by Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Malik concerning a possible new Geneva conference on Indochina. We do not yet know the full implications of this statement. It is in the spirit of the letters I wrote on April 7, to signatories of the 1962 Geneva Accords urging consultations and observance of the Accords. We have consistently said we were willing to explore any reasonable path to peace. We are in the process of exploring this one. But whatever the fate of this particular move we are ready for a settlement fair to everyone."

- Richard Nixon

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"When our astronauts returned safely to earth last Friday, the whole world rejoiced with us. We could have had no more eloquent demonstration of a profound truth--that the greatest force working for peace in the world today is the fact that men and women everywhere, regardless of differences in race, religion, nationality, or political philosophy, value the life of a human being. We were as one as we thought of those brave men, their wives, their children, their parents. The death of a single man in war, whether he is an American, a South Vietnamese, a Vietcong, or a North Vietnamese, is a human tragedy. That is why we want to end this war and achieve a just peace. We call upon our adversaries to join us in working at the conference table toward that goal. No Presidential statement on Vietnam would be complete without an expression of our concern for the fate of the American prisoners of war. The callous exploitation of the anxieties and anguish of the parents, the wives, the children of these brave men, as negotiating pawns, is an unforgivable breach of the elementary rules of conduct between civilized peoples. We shall continue to make every possible effort to get Hanoi to provide information on the whereabouts of all prisoners, to allow them to communicate with their families, to permit inspection of prisoners-of-war camps, and to provide for the early release of at least the sick and the wounded. My fellow Americans, 5 years ago American combat troops were first sent to Vietnam. The war since that time has been the longest and one of the most costly and difficult conflicts in our history."

- Richard Nixon

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"The decision I have announced tonight means that we finally have in sight the just peace we are seeking. We can now say with confidence that pacification is succeeding. We can now say with confidence that the South Vietnamese can develop the capability for their own defense. And we can say with confidence that all American combat forces can and will be withdrawn. I could not make these statements tonight had it not been for the dedication, the bravery, the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of young men who have served in Vietnam. Nor could I have made it had it not been for the perseverance of millions of Americans at home. When men write the history of this Nation, they will record that no people in the annals of time made greater sacrifices in a more selfless cause than the American people sacrificed for the right of 18 million people in a faraway land to avoid the imposition of Communist rule against their will and for the right of those people to determine their own future free of outside interference. The enemy has failed to win the war in Vietnam because of three basic errors in their strategy. They thought they could win a military victory. They have failed to do so. They thought they could win politically in South Vietnam. They have failed to do so. They thought they could win politically in the United States. This proved to be their most fatal miscalculation. In this great free country of ours, we debate--we disagree, sometimes violently, but the mistake the totalitarians make over and over again is to conclude that debate in a free country is proof of weakness. We are not a weak people. We are a strong people. America has never been defeated in the proud 190-year history of this country, and we shall not be defeated in Vietnam. Tonight I want to thank the American people for the support you have given so generously to the cause of a just peace in Vietnam. It is your steadiness and your stamina that the leaders of North Vietnam are watching tonight. It is these qualities, as much as any proposals, that will bring them to negotiate. It is America's resolve, as well as America's reasonableness, that will achieve our goal of a just peace in Vietnam and strengthen the foundations of a just and lasting peace in the Pacific and throughout the world. Thank you and good night."

- Richard Nixon

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"In passing this office to the Vice President, I also do so with the profound sense of the weight of responsibility that will fall on his shoulders tomorrow and, therefore, of the understanding, the patience, the cooperation he will need from all Americans. As he assumes that responsibility, he will deserve the help and the support of all of us. As we look to the future, the first essential is to begin healing the wounds of this Nation, to put the bitterness and divisions of the recent past behind us, and to rediscover those shared ideals that lie at the heart of our strength and unity as a great and as a free people. By taking this action, I hope that I will have hastened the start of that process of healing which is so desperately needed in America. I regret deeply any injuries that may have been done in the course of the events that led to this decision. I would say only that if some of my judgments were wrong, and some were wrong, they were made in what I believed at the time to be the best interest of the Nation. To those who have stood with me during these past difficult months, to my family, my friends, to many others who joined in supporting my cause because they believed it was right, I will be eternally grateful for your support. And to those who have not felt able to give me your support, let me say I leave with no bitterness toward those who have opposed me, because all of us, in the final analysis, have been concerned with the good of the country, however our judgments might differ. So, let us all now join together in affirming that common commitment and in helping our new President succeed for the benefit of all Americans."

- Richard Nixon

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"President Nixon opened his memoirs with a simple sentence: "I was born in a house my father built." Today, we can look back at this little house and still imagine a young boy sitting by the window of the attic he shared with his three brothers, looking out to a world he could then himself only imagine. From those humble roots, as from so many humble beginnings in this country, grew the force of a driving dream — a dream that led to the remarkable journey that ends here today where it all began. Beside the same tiny home, mail-ordered from back East, near this towering oak tree which, back then, was a mere seedling. President Nixon's journey across the American landscape mirrored that of this entire nation in this remarkable century. His life was bound up with the striving of our whole people, with our crises and our triumphs. As it is written in the words of a hymn I heard in my church last Sunday: "Grant that I may realize that the trifling of life creates differences, but that in the higher things, we are all one." In the twilight of his life, President Nixon knew that lesson well. It is, I feel certain, a faith he would want us all to keep. And, so, on behalf of all four former presidents who are here — President Ford, President Carter, President Reagan, President Bush — and on behalf of a grateful nation, we bid farewell to Richard Milhous Nixon."

- Richard Nixon

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"President Nixon had come into office in January, 1969, determined to extricate the United States from the Vietnam War, to regain the initiative in the Cold War, and to restore the authority of government at home. As the November, 1972, election campaign drew to a close, he could credibly claim to have achieved the first two objectives, and to be well on the way toward accomplishing the third. A peace settlement with North Vietnam was, as Kissinger, put it, "at hand." A slow but steady withdrawal of American forces from South Vietnam, together with the elimination of the military draft, had taken the steam out of domestic anti-war protests. And with his "opening" to China, Nixon had placed the United States in the enviable position of being able to play off its Cold War adversaries against one another. He had, earlier that year, become the first American president to visit both Beijing and Moscow. He could exert "leverage"—always a good thing to have in international relations—by "tilting" as needed toward the Soviet Union or China, who were by then so hostile to one another that they competed for Washington's favor. It was a performance worthy of Metternich, Castlereagh, and Bismarck, the great grand strategists that Kissinger, in his role as a historian, had written about, and had so admired."

- Richard Nixon

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"Where Nixon went wrong was not in his use of secrecy to conduct foreign policy—diplomacy had always required that—but in failing to distinguish between actions he could have justified if exposed and those he could never have justified. Americans excused the lies Eisenhower and Kennedy told because the operations they covered up turned out to be defensible when uncovered. So too did the methods by which Nixon brought about the China opening, the SALT agreement, and the Vietnam cease-fire: the results, in those instances, made reliance on secrecy, even deception, seem reasonable. But what about the secret bombing of a sovereign state? Or the attempted overthrow of a democratically elected government? Or the bugging of American citizens without legal authorization? Or burglaries carried out with presidential authorization? Or the organization of a conspiracy, inside the White House itself, to hide what had happened? Nixon allowed all of this during his first term; his reliance on secrecy became so compulsive that he employed that tactic in situations for which there could never be a plausible justification. So when plausible denial was no longer possible—in large part because Nixon, with his secret Oval Office taping system, had even bugged himself—a constitutional crisis became unavoidable."

- Richard Nixon

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"Perceptions of McGovern’s 1972 opponent have been heavily influenced by Nixon’s subsequent disgrace and resignation from office. But in 1972 itself, Nixon was brilliant, in a devious, unprincipled sort of way. He had already defied conservative orthodoxy by imposing wage and price controls (1971) and visiting the previously forbidden kingdom of the People’s Republic of China (a maneuver so audacious that Nixon-to-China became a general term for politicians going sharply against type). Nixon’s campaign relentlessly appealed to Democratic constituencies, especially labor (the AFL-CIO was neutral in a presidential general election for the first time ever), southern white voters (a Democrats-for-Nixon organization was headed by LBJ crony John Connally), and Catholics. He falsely promised imminent peace in Vietnam and used fiscal stimulus to pump up the economy (helping to create later inflation that would bedevil his successors). He gave every appearance of being a very successful president, disguising the moral rot within his White House. His job-approval ratings in 1972 breached 60 percent in May and were at 62 percent on Election Day. Trump has never been within hailing distance of this sort of popularity, and has never shown any interest, much less ability, in appealing beyond his electoral base."

- Richard Nixon

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"Had Richard Nixon not resigned, he would certainly have been impeached by the House and most likely convicted by the Senate. Peter Rodino and John Doar had been essentially right about the preconditions for a successful presidential impeachment: There had to be a commonly accepted baseline of facts, an atmosphere of trust among the members of the House Judiciary Committee, and a disciplined commitment by the committee chair and the inquiry staff to bipartisanship. But those were only the preconditions. Even still, Richard Nixon very nearly finished his second term. His impeachment holds worrisome lessons for future Congresses. Law enforcement and the judiciary had evidence of Nixon’s criminal behavior eight months before he left office, and yet there was no predictable way to ensure his removal. Impeachment is a political process, not a legal one, and by hampering access to information while encouraging his defenders to demand a very high level of proof of direct presidential misconduct, Nixon almost stymied that process. But Nixon had made tapes, and the public and Congress learned about those tapes before he could destroy them. Fortunately for the nation, Richard Nixon could never figure out how to untangle himself from those tapes. Equally fortunate for the nation was the fact that in 1974 a group of elected officials, from both parties, were prepared to take political, and even personal, risks to follow that evidence wherever it led for the sake of a Constitution they all revered."

- Richard Nixon

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"Nixon accomplished much both in domestic and foreign policy, in spite of facing Democratic majorities in Congress. Nixon initiated relations with China (a relationship botched by future presidents), negotiated the first nuclear arms limitation treaty and extricated (imperfectly) the nation from its multi-decade misadventure in Vietnam. Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), increased aid to people with disabilities and worked to devolve power to the states. Trump’s foreign policy is, at best, a draw. While the Abraham Accords and a few trade deals were completed, he failed to get out of Afghanistan and got ripped off by China. That he cut through the policy inertia to move toward leaving Afghanistan is to his great credit. But he could not close the deal — something Nixon would never have let fall through the cracks. His domestic policy accomplishments included a tax cut and a raft of executive orders that his successor wiped out within weeks of his inauguration. And Trump faced far less adversity that Nixon. Nixon had to deal with inflation sparked by Lyndon Johnson’s spending and Vietnam escalation, the subsequent collapse of the Bretton Woods monetary system, war in the Middle East and an energy crisis caused by decades of increasing dependence on imported oil. Trump entered office with low inflation and low unemployment. He faced one major crisis in the COVID epidemic and, unsurprisingly, fumbled it badly. Trump’s hesitating, vacillating response ended up dooming his reelection. In times of crisis, the American people tend to rally around their president, but that only lasts as long as the president demonstrates leadership and determination. Trump only demonstrated confusion, indecision and doubt."

- Richard Nixon

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"Even in scandal, Trump does not compare. The sum of misdeeds by the Nixon administration under the heading of “Watergate” was sprawling and complex. But for a botched burglary, they might have gotten away with it (and to be fair, Nixon’s predecessors all abused the power of the presidency for political aims, just not as extensively as Nixon). Meanwhile, Trump is getting caught for stashing classified documents in his bathroom, begging for votes (unsuccessfully) and paying hush money to a stripper. That’s one pathetic collection of felonies. But there are two ways in which Trump and Nixon diverge. First, Nixon was a winner. He won the biggest vote percentage of any Republican in 1972, in addition to his win in 1968. He was on the winning national ticket in four of five attempts, equaling Franklin Roosevelt. Even in 1960, there is some dispute, with historian Irwin Gellman casting doubt on the result and Robert Caro, award-winning biographer of Lyndon Johnson, certainly implying that Texas was stolen for opponent John F. Kennedy (see pp. 150-155 in his book “The Passage of Power”). Second, Nixon was willing to sacrifice for the country. Most people don’t realize Nixon was not impeached. Articles of impeachment were voted out of committee, but the process had not started. Nixon might have held on to enough votes to forestall conviction. But Nixon resigned. He knew impeachment would be profoundly damaging to the nation and Republicans. He kept a low profile through the 1974 and 1976 elections (where Gerald Ford, improbably, almost won). Can anyone imagine Trump sacrificing anything for the GOP or the country? So far, that’s an emphatic “No.” In fact, Trump seems to be going out of his way to wreck Republican election prospects. Republicans escaped the damaging effects of Nixon and Watergate by 1980 and the nation moved decisively to the right for nearly 30 years. Nixon somewhat rehabilitated himself and became a respected voice on international relations. Today’s Republican Party is not nearly so fortunate. Trump is determined to stick around no matter the cost to everyone but himself. He already cost Republicans control of the U.S. Senate in both 2020 and 2022, and he is primarily responsible for the most left-progressive administration since Lyndon Johnson to be in power. Trump is just a shadow of what Nixon was as a president and a politician, but the damage he is causing Republicans and conservatives is exponentially greater than anything Nixon ever did."

- Richard Nixon

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"I have in my hand a poem which our own beloved poet John Greenleaf Whittier wrote almost fifty years ago, in the darkest hour of the midnight which brooded over our country. You are most of you, perhaps all, familiar with it. It is addressed to Mr. Garrison. Shall I read a single stanza? I do it to illustrate a point strongly put by our brother who has just taken his seat; that is, the power of a single soul, alone, of a single soul touched with sacred fire, a soul all of whose powers are enlisted the thought, the feeling, the susceptibility, the emotion, the indomitable will, the conscience that never shrinks, and always points to duty-I say, the power which God has lodged in the human mind, enabling to do and to dare and to suffer everything, and thank God for the privilege of doing it. To show also how, when one soul is thus stirred in its innermost and to its uttermost, it is irresistible; that wherever there are souls, here and there, and thick and fast, too, not merely one, and another, and another, of the great mass, but multitudes of souls are ready to receive the truth and welcome it, to incorporate it into their thought and feeling, to live and die for it. That was the effect of Garrison upon the soul of Whittier. He here gives us his testimony. The date of this is 1833-almost fifty years ago. He says in the third stanza: "I love thee with a brother's love,/I feel my pulses thrill/To mark thy spirit soar above/The cloud of human ill./My heart hath leaped to answer thine,/And echo back thy words,/As leaps the warrior's at the shine/And flash of kindred swords!""

- John Greenleaf Whittier

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"When I came in I was moved to say, "Peace be in this house"; and I exhorted him to keep in the fear of God, that he might receive wisdom from Him, that by it he might be directed, and order all things under his hand to God's glory. l spoke much to him of Truth, and much discourse I had with him about religion; wherein he carried himself very moderately. But he said we quarrelled with priests, whom he called ministers. I told him I did not quarrel with them, but that they quarrelled with me and my friends. "But," said I, "if we own the prophets, Christ, and the apostles, we cannot hold up such teachers, prophets, and shepherds, as the prophets, Christ, and the apostles declared against; but we must declare against them by the same power and Spirit." Then I showed him that the prophets, Christ, and the apostles declared freely, and against them that did not declare freely; such as preached for filthy lucre, and divined for money, and preached for hire, and were covetous and greedy, that could never have enough; and that they that have the same spirit that Christ, and the prophets, and the apostles had, could not but declare against all such now, as they did then. As I spoke, he several times said, it was very good, and it was truth. I told him that all Christendom (so called) had the Scriptures, but they wanted the power and Spirit that those had who gave forth the Scriptures; and that was the reason they were not in fellowship with the Son, nor with the Father, nor with the Scriptures, nor one with another. Many more words I had with him; but people coming in, I drew a little back. As I was turning, he caught me by the hand, and with tears in his eyes said, "Come again to my house; for if thou and I were but an hour of a day together, we should be nearer one to the other"; adding that he wished me no more ill than he did to his own soul. I told him if he did he wronged his own soul; and admonished him to hearken to God's voice, that he might stand in his counsel, and obey it; and if he did so, that would keep him from hardness of heart; but if he did not hear God's voice, his heart would be hardened. He said it was true. Then I went out; and when Captain Drury came out after me he told me the Lord Protector had said I was at liberty, and might go whither I would. Then I was brought into a great hall, where the Protector's gentlemen were to dine. I asked them what they brought me thither for. They said it was by the Protector's order, that I might dine with them. I bid them let the Protector know that I would not eat of his bread, nor drink of his drink. When he heard this he said, "Now I see there is a people risen that I cannot win with gifts or honours, offices or places; but all other sects and people I can." It was told him again that we had forsaken our own possessions; and were not like to look for such things from him."

- George Fox

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"No one familiar with the history of this country can deny that congressional committees are useful. It is necessary to investigate before legislating, but the line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one and the junior Senator from Wisconsin has stepped over it repeatedly. His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind as between the internal and the external threats of communism. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men — not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular. This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy's methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn't create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it — and rather successfully. Cassius was right. "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves." Good night, and good luck."

- Edward R. Murrow

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"To the Working Men of Rochdale: A deep sympathy with you in your present circumstances induces me to address you. Listen and reflect, even though you may not approve. Your are suffering—you have long suffered. Your wages have for many years declined, and your position has gradually and steadily become worse. Your sufferings have naturally produced discontent, and you have turned eagerly to almost any scheme which gave hope of relief. Many of you know full well that neither an act of Parliament nor the act of a multitude can keep up wages. You know that trade has long been bad, and that with a bad trade wages cannot rise. If you are resolved to compel an advance of wages, you cannot compel manufacturers to give you employment. Trade must yield a profit, or it will not long be carried on...The aristocracy are powerful and determined; and, unhappily, the middle classes are not yet intelligent enough to see the safety of extending political power to the whole people. The working classes can never gain it of themselves. Physical force you wisely repudiate. It is immoral, and you have no arms, and little organisations...Your first step to entire freedom must be commercial freedom—freedom of industry. We must put an end to the partial famine which is destroying trade, and demand for your labor, your wages, your comforts, and your independence. The aristocracy regard the Anti-Corn Law League as their greatest enemy. That which is the greatest enemy of the remorseless aristocracy of Britain must almost of necessity be your firmest friend. Every man who tells you to support the Corn Law is your enemy—every man who hastens, by a single hour, the abolition of the Corn Law, shortens by so much the duration of your sufferings. Whilst the inhuman law exists, your wages must decline. When it is abolished, and not till then, they will rise."

- John Bright

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"I take it that the Protestant Church of Ireland is at the root of the evils of that country. The Irish Catholics would thank us infinitely more if we were to wipe away that foul blot than they would even if Parliament were to establish the Roman Catholic Church alongside of it. They have had everything Protestant—a Protestant clique which has been dominant in the country; a Protestant Viceroy to distribute places and emoluments amongst that Protestant clique; Protestant judges who have polluted the seats of justice; Protestant magistrates before whom the Catholic peasant cannot hope for justice; they have not only Protestant but exterminating landlords, and more than that a Protestant soldiery, who at the beck and command of a Protestant priest, have butchered and killed a Catholic peasant even in the presence of his widowed mother. The consequence of all this is the extreme discontent of the Irish people. And because this House is not prepared yet to take those measures which would be really doing justice to Ireland, your object is to take away the sympathy of the Catholic priests from the people. The object is to make the priests in Ireland as tame as those in Suffolk and Dorsetshire. The object is that when the horizon is brightened every night by incendiary fires, no priest of the paid establishment shall ever tell of the wrongs of the people among whom he is living...Ireland is suffering, not from the want of another Church, but because she has already one Church too many."

- John Bright

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"You say the right hon. baronet [Peel] is a traitor. It would ill become me to attempt his defence after the speech which he delivered last night—a speech, I will venture to say, more powerful and more to be admired than any speech which has been delivered within the memory of any man in this House. I watched the right hon. baronet as he went home last night, and for the first time I envied him his feelings. That speech was circulated by scores of thousands throughout the kingdom and throughout the world; and wherever a man is to be found who loves justice, and wherever there is a labourer whom you have trampled under foot, that speech will bring joy to the heart of the one, and hope to the breast of the other. You chose the right hon. baronet—why? Because he was the ablest man of your party. You always said so, and you will not deny it now. Why was he the ablest? Because he had great experience, profound attainments, and an honest regard for the good of the country. You placed him in office. When a man is in office he is not the same man as when in opposition. The present generation, or posterity, does not deal as mildly with men in government as with those in opposition. There are such things as the responsibilities of office. Look at the population of Lancashire and Yorkshire, and there is not a man among you who would have the valour to take office and raise the standard of Protection, and cry, "Down with the Anti-Corn Law League, and Protection for ever!" There is not a man in your ranks who would dare to sit on that bench as the Prime Minister of England pledged to maintain the existing law. The right hon. baronet took the only, the truest course—he resigned. He told you by that act: "I will no longer do your work. I will not defend your cause. The experience I have had since I came into office renders it impossible for me at once to maintain office and the Corn Laws." The right hon. baronet resigned—he was then no longer your Minister. He came back to office as the Minister of his Sovereign and of the people."

- John Bright

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"I ask every Gentleman...whether it is possible that you can continue to raise from the people of this country £60,000,000 sterling per annum of taxes more than an equal population is called upon to pay for its Government and its policy in the United States, and that we can go on with safety to our institutions, or that the people can hear the strain of that enormous pressure? ... [T]his insane and wicked policy, which requires that you should abstract from the labour and the industry of the people of England this enormous, incredible, and ruinous sum from year to year. ... You will have an exiled Royal family—you will have an overthrown aristocracy—and you will have a period of recurring revolution; and there is no path so straight, so downward, so slippery, so easily travelled to all these misfortunes as the path which we are now following, year after year adding to these enormous expenses until the time will come when there will be some change throughout the country, when men will open their eyes, will ask who has deceived them, defrauded them, pillaged them. And then you will have to pay the penalty which all men in the upper classes of society in every country have had to pay when they have not maintained the rights of the great body of the people in this particular, and when they have not fulfilled the duties which devolved upon them as the governing classes of the country."

- John Bright

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"Working men in this hall...I...say to you, and through the Press to all the working men of this kingdom, that the accession to office of Lord Derby is a declaration of war against the working classes...They reckon nothing of the Constitution of their country—a Constitution which has not more regard to the Crown or to the aristocracy than it has to the people; a Constitution which regards the House of Commons fairly representing the nation as important a part of the Government system of the kingdom as the House of Lords or the Throne itself...Now, what is the Derby principle? It is the shutting out of much more than three-fourths, five-sixths, and even more than five-sixths, of the people from the exercise of constitutional rights...What is it that we are come to in this country that what is being rapidly conceded in all parts of the world is being persistently and obstinately refused here in England, the home of freedom, the mother of Parliaments...Stretch out your hand to your countrymen in every portion of the three kingdoms, and ask them to join in a great and righteous effort on behalf of that freedom which has so long been the boast of Englishmen, but which the majority of Englishmen have never yet possessed...Remember the great object for which we strive, care not for calumnies and for lies, our object is this—to restore the British Constitution and with all its freedom to the British people."

- John Bright

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"[Gladstone] gave me a long memorandum, historical in character, on the past Irish story, which seemed to be somewhat one-sided, leaving out of view the important minority and the views and feelings of the Protestant and loyal portion of the people. He explained much of his policy as to a Dublin Parliament, and as to Land purchase. I objected to the Land policy as unnecessary—the Act of 1881 had done all that was reasonable for the tenants—why adopt the policy of the rebel party, and get rid of landholders, and thus evict the English garrison as the rebels call them? I denied the value of the security for repayment. Mr G. argued that his finance arrangements would be better than present system of purchase, and that we were bound in honour to succour the landlords, which I contested. Why not go to the help of other interests in Belfast and Dublin? As to Dublin Parliament, I argued that he was making a surrender all along the line—a Dublin Parliament would work with constant friction, and would press against any barrier he might create to keep up the unity of the three Kingdoms. What of a volunteer force, and what of import duties and protection as against British goods? … I thought he placed far too much confidence in the leaders of the rebel party. I could place none in them, and the general feeling was and is that any terms made with them would not be kept, and that through them I could not hope for reconciliation with discontented and disloyal Ireland."

- John Bright

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"I say, life and figure are distinct attributes of one substance, and as one and the same body may be transmuted into all kinds of figures; and as the perfecter figure comprehends that which is more imperfect; so one and the same body may be transmuted from one degree of life to another more perfect, which always comprehends in it the inferior. We have an example of figure in a triangular prism, which is the first figure of all right lined solid triangular prism, which is the first figure of all right lined solid bodies, where into a body is convertible; and from this into a cube, which is a perfecter figure, and comprehends in it a prism; from a cube it may be turned into a more perfect figure, which comes nearer to a globe, and from this into another, which is yet nearer; and so it ascends from one figure, more imperfect to another more perfect, ad infinitum; for here are no bounds; nor can it be said, this body cannot be changed into a perfecter figure: But the meaning is that that body consists of plane right lines; and this is always chageablee into a perfecter figure, and yet can never reach to the perfection of a globe, although it always approaches nearer unto it; the case is the same in diverse degrees of life, which have indeed a beginning, but no end; so that the creature is always capable of a farther and perfecter degree of life, ad infinitum, and yet can never attain to be equal with God; for he is still infinitely more perfect than a creature, in its highest elevation or perfection, even as a globe is the most perfect of all other figures, unto which none can approach."

- Anne Conway

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"The framework of Conway's system is a tripartite ontological hierarchy of ‘species’, the highest of which is God, the source of all being. Christ, or ‘middle nature’, links God and the third species, called ‘Creature’. God as the most perfect being is infinitely good, wise and just. A principle of likeness links God and creation. Since God is good and just, his creation too is good and just. Created substance, like God, consists of spirit, but, unlike God, is constituted of particles called monads. All created substance is living, capable of motion and perception Anne Conway denies the existence of material body as such, arguing that inert corporeal substance would contradict the nature of God, who is life itself. Incorporeal created substance is, however, differentiated from the divine, principally on account of its mutability and multiplicity even so, the infinite number and constant mutability of created monads constitute an obverse reflection of the unity, infinity, eternity and unchangeableness of God. The continuum between God and creatures is made possible through ‘middle nature’, an intermediary being, through which God communicates life, action, goodness and justice. ‘Middle nature’, partakes of the nature of both God and creation, and is therefore both a bridge and a buffer between God and created things. Thus, although she conceives of created substance as a continuum, and understands mutability as capacity for increased perfection, she sought to avoid the charge of pantheism."

- Anne Conway

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"Some pre-Socratic “Greek” thinking conceived of the world as a composite whole made up of indivisible parts (atoms) and so searched for a basic “stuff” at bottom. Conway suggests that the distinctions composite/indivisible, whole/part be collapsed without abandoning the pre-Socratic process of division. Divide a whole and you are left not with parts, but with wholes. In this sense, nothing is more “basic” than anything else. Plato and Parmenides began with the One not “at bottom,” but “at top.” The problem is not how to get a whole out of a bunch of parts, but how to account for the diversity of “wholes” without sacrificing unity. Perfect freedom would consist in perfect determination — perfect identification of wholes: hence, the idea of “conformity to God’s will” and the Quaker ideal of simplicity. Sequentially, there is a time and place where/ when “simpler” structures exist and more “complex” structures do not — but atemporally (and from the perspective of the whole) all simply exists. Reading back from that perspective (as Plato and Parmenides attempt to do), the“end” may be seen as informing the “beginning” and the “middle.” If Plato worked backward from the “end” and Democritus worked forward from the “beginning,” Conway worked outward from the middle — and this is the place Leibniz mapped in his comment to Burnett. Since the middle is the one place we can be, it is most assuredly a more secure place to start than the“end” or the “beginning,” where we cannot."

- Anne Conway

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"Economists can take a good deal of credit for the stabilization policies which have been followed in most Western countries since 1945 with considerable success. It is easy to generate a euphoric and self-congratulatory mood when one compares the twenty years after the first World War, 1919-39, with the twenty years after the second, 1945-65. The first twenty years were a total failure; the second twenty years, at least as far as economic policy is concerned, have been a modest success. We have not had any great depression; we have not had any serious financial collapse; and on the whole we have had much higher rates of development in most parts of the world than we had in the 1920’s and 1930’s, even though there are some conspicuous failures. Whether the unprecedented rates of economic growth of the last twenty years, for instance in Japan and Western Europe, can be attributed to economics, or whether they represent a combination of good luck in political decision making with the expanding impact of the natural and biological sciences on the economy, is something we might argue. I am inclined to attribute a good deal to good luck and non-economic forces, but not all of it, and even if economics only contributed 10 percent, this would amount to a very handsome rate of return indeed, considering the very small amount of resources we have really put into economics."

- Kenneth Boulding

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"We are now in the middle of a long process of transition in the nature of the image which man has of himself and his environment. Primitive men, and to a large extent also men of the early civilizations, imagined themselves to be living on a virtually illimitable plane. There was almost always somewhere beyond the known limits of human habitation, and over a very large part of the time that man has been on earth, there has been something like a frontier... Gradually, however, man has been accustoming himself to the notion of the spherical earth and a closed sphere of human activity. A few unusual spirits among the ancient Greeks perceived that the earth was a sphere. It was only with the circumnavigations and the geographical explorations of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, however, that the fact that the earth was a sphere became at all widely known and accepted. Even in the thirteenth century, the commonest map was Mercator's projection, which visualizes the earth as an illimitable cylinder, essentially a plane wrapped around the globe, and it was not until the Second World War and the development of the air age that the global nature of tile planet really entered the popular imagination. Even now we are very far from having made the moral, political, and psychological adjustments which are implied in this transition from the illimitable plane to the closed sphere."

- Kenneth Boulding

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"When we consider that all elastic fluids are equally expanded by temperature, and that liquids and solids are not so, it should seem that a general law for the affection of elastic fluids for heat, ought to be more easily deducible and more simple than for liquids, or for solids.—There are three suppositions in regard to elastic fluids which merit discussion. 1. Equal weights of elastic fluids may have the same quantity of heat under like circumstances of temperature and pressure. The truth of this supposition is disproved by several facts... 2. Equal bulks of elastic fluids may have the same quantity of heat with the same pressure and temperature. This appears much more plausible... But... considerations... render this supposition extremely improbable, if they do not altogether disprove it. ... 3. The quantity of heat belonging to the ultimate particles of all elastic fluids, must be the same under the same temperature and pressure. It is evident the number of ultimate particles or molecules in a given weight or volume of one gas is not the same as in another... The only answer that can be given... is this.—The particles will condense their respective atmospheres of heat, by which their mutual repulsion will be diminished, and the external pressure will therefore effect a proportionate condensation in the volume of air: neither an increase nor diminution in the quantity of heat around each molecule, or around the whole, will take place. Hence the truth of the supposition, or... proposition, is demonstrated. Corol. 1. The specific heats of equal weights of any two elastic fluids, are inversely as the weights of their atoms or molecules. Corol. 2. The specific heats of equal bulks of elastic fluids, are directly as their specific gravities, and inversely as the weights of their atoms. Corol. 3. Those elastic fluids that have their atoms the most condensed, have the strongest attraction for heat; the greater attraction is spent in accumulating more heat in a given space or volume, but does not increase the quantity around any single atom. Corol. 4. When two elastic atoms unite by chemical affinity to form one elastic atom, one half of their heat is disengaged, &c. And in general, when m elastic particles by chemical union become n; the heat given out is to the heat retained as m-n is to n."

- John Dalton

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"This new patriarch Fox said one day to a justice of peace, before a large assembly of people. "Friend, take care what thou dost; God will soon punish thee for persecuting his saints." This magistrate, being one who besotted himself every day with bad beer and brandy, died of apoplexy two days after; just as he had signed a mittimus for imprisoning some Quakers. The sudden death of this justice was not ascribed to his intemperance; but was universally looked upon as the effect of the holy man's predictions; so that this accident made more Quakers than a thousand sermons and as many shaking fits would have done. Cromwell, finding them increase daily, was willing to bring them over to his party, and for that purpose tried bribery; however, he found them incorruptible, which made him one day declare that this was the only religion he had ever met with that could resist the charms of gold. The Quakers suffered several persecutions under Charles II; not upon a religious account, but for refusing to pay the tithes, for "theeing" and "thouing" the magistrates, and for refusing to take the oaths enacted by the laws. At length Robert Barclay, a native of Scotland, presented to the king, in 1675, his "Apology for the Quakers"; a work as well drawn up as the subject could possibly admit. The dedication to Charles II, instead of being filled with mean, flattering encomiums, abounds with bold truths and the wisest counsels. "Thou hast tasted," says he to the king, at the close of his "Epistle Dedicatory," "of prosperity and adversity: thou hast been driven out of the country over which thou now reignest, and from the throne on which thou sittest: thou hast groaned beneath the yoke of oppression; therefore hast thou reason to know how hateful the oppressor is both to God and man. If, after all these warnings and advertisements, thou dost not turn unto the Lord, with all thy heart; but forget Him who remembered thee in thy distress, and give thyself up to follow lust and vanity, surely great will be thy guilt, and bitter thy condemnation. Instead of listening to the flatterers about thee, hearken only to the voice that is within thee, which never flatters. I am thy faithful friend and servant, Robert Barclay." The most surprising circumstance is that this letter, though written by an obscure person, was so happy in its effect as to put a stop to the persecution."

- Quakers

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"William Penn, when only fifteen years of age, chanced to meet a Quaker in Oxford, where he was then following his studies. This Quaker made a proselyte of him; and our young man, being naturally sprightly and eloquent, having a very winning aspect and engaging carriage, soon gained over some of his companions and intimates, and in a short time formed a society of young Quakers, who met at his house; so that at the age of sixteen he found himself at the head of a sect. Having left college, at his return home to the vice-admiral, his father, instead of kneeling to ask his blessing, as is the custom with the English, he went up to him with his hat on, and accosted him thus: "Friend, I am glad to see thee in good health." The viceadmiral thought his son crazy; but soon discovered he was a Quaker. He then employed every method that prudence could suggest to engage him to behave and act like other people. The youth answered his father only with repeated exhortations to turn Quaker also. After much altercation, his father confined himself to this single request, that he would wait on the king and the duke of York with his hat under his arm, and that he would not "thee" and "thou" them. William answered that his conscience would not permit him to do these things. This exasperated his father to such a degree that he turned him out of doors. Young Penn gave God thanks that he permitted him to suffer so early in His cause, and went into the city, where he held forth, and made a great number of converts; and being young, handsome, and of a graceful figure, both court and city ladies flocked very devoutly to hear him. The patriarch Fox, hearing of his great reputation, came to London — notwithstanding the length of the journey — purposely to see and converse with him. They both agreed to go upon missions into foreign countries; and accordingly they embarked for Holland, after having left a sufficient number of laborers to take care of the London vineyard."

- Quakers

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"William inherited very large possessions, part of which consisted of crown debts, due to the vice-admiral for sums he had advanced for the sea-service. No moneys were at that time less secure than those owing from the king. Penn was obliged to go, more than once, and "thee" and "thou" Charles and his ministers, to recover the debt; and at last, instead of specie, the government invested him with the right and sovereignty of a province of America, to the south of Maryland. Thus was a Quaker raised to sovereign power. He set sail for his new dominions with two ships filled with Quakers, who followed his fortune. The country was then named by them Pennsylvania, from William Penn; and he founded Philadelphia, which is now a very flourishing city. His first care was to make an alliance with his American neighbors; and this is the only treaty between those people and the Christians that was not ratified by an oath, and that was never infringed. The new sovereign also enacted several wise and wholesome laws for his colony, which have remained invariably the same to this day. The chief is, to ill-treat no person on account of religion, and to consider as brethren all those who believe in one God. He had no sooner settled his government than several American merchants came and peopled this colony. The natives of the country, instead of flying into the woods, cultivated by degrees a friendship with the peaceable Quakers. They loved these new strangers as much as they disliked the other Christians, who had conquered and ravaged America. In a little time these savages, as they are called, delighted with their new neighbors, flocked in crowds to Penn, to offer themselves as his vassals. It was an uncommon thing to behold a sovereign "thee'd" and "thou'd" by his subjects, and addressed by them with their hats on; and no less singular for a government to be without one priest in it; a people without arms, either for offence or preservation; a body of citizens without any distinctions but those of public employments; and for neighbors to live together free from envy or jealousy. In a word, William Penn might, with reason, boast of having brought down upon earth the Golden Age, which in all probability, never had any real existence but in his dominions."

- Quakers

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"There is no king in the world, who can so experimentally testify of God's providence and goodness; neither is there any who rules so many free people, so many true Christians: which thing renders thy government more honorable, thyself more considerable, than the accession of many nations filled with slavish and superstitious souls. Thou hast tasted of prosperity and adversity; thou knowest what it is to be banished thy native country, to be overruled as well as to rule and sit upon the throne; and being oppressed, thou hast reason to know how hateful the oppressor is both to God and man. If after all these warnings and advertisements thou dost not turn unto the Lord with all thy heart, but forget him who remembered thee in thy distress and give up thyself to follow lust and vanity, surely great will be thy condemnation. Against which snare, as well as the temptation of those that may or do feed thee and prompt thee to evil, the most excellent and prevalent remedy will be to apply thyself to that Light of Christ, which shineth in thy conscience, which neither can nor will flatter thee nor suffer thee to be at ease in thy sins, but doth and will deal plainly and faithfully with thee as those that are followers thereof have also done. God Almighty, who hath so signally hitherto visited thee with his love, so touch and reach thy heart, ere the day of thy visitation be expired, that thou mayest effectually turn to him so as to improve thy place and station for his name."

- Robert Barclay

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"The Quakers suffered several persecutions under Charles II; not upon a religious account, but for refusing to pay the tithes, for "theeing" and "thouing" the magistrates, and for refusing to take the oaths enacted by the laws. At length Robert Barclay, a native of Scotland, presented to the king, in 1675, his "Apology for the Quakers"; a work as well drawn up as the subject could possibly admit. The dedication to Charles II., instead of being filled with mean, flattering encomiums, abounds with bold truths and the wisest counsels. "Thou hast tasted," says he to the king, at the close of his "Epistle Dedicatory," "of prosperity and adversity: thou hast been driven out of the country over which thou now reignest, and from the throne on which thou sittest: thou hast groaned beneath the yoke of oppression; therefore hast thou reason to know how hateful the oppressor is both to God and man. If, after all these warnings and advertisements, thou dost not turn unto the Lord, with all thy heart; but forget Him who remembered thee in thy distress, and give thyself up to follow lust and vanity, surely great will be thy guilt, and bitter thy condemnation. Instead of listening to the flatterers about thee, hearken only to the voice that is within thee, which never flatters. I am thy faithful friend and servant, Robert Barclay." The most surprising circumstance is that this letter, though written by an obscure person, was so happy in its effect as to put a stop to the persecution."

- Robert Barclay

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"From the top of the campanile, or Giotto's bell tower, in Florence, one can look out over the city in all directions, past the stone banking houses where the rich Medici lived, past the art galleries they patronized, past the magnificent cathedral and churches their money helped to build, and on to the Tuscan vineyards where the contadino works the soil as hard and efficiently as he probably ever did. The city below is busy with life. The university halls, the shops, the restaurants are crowded. The sound of Vespas, the "wasps" of the machine age, fills the air, but Florence is not today what it once was, the center in the 15th century of a great civilization, one of the most extraordinary the world has ever known. Why? ­­What produced the Renaissance in Italy, of which Florence was the center? How did it happen that such a small population base could produce, in the short span of a few generations, great historical figures first in commerce and literature, then in architecture, sculpture and painting, and finally in science and music? Why subsequently did Northern Italy decline in importance both commercially and artistically until at the present time it is not particularly distinguished as compared with many other regions of the world? Certainly the people appear to be working as hard and energetically as ever. Was it just luck or a peculiar combination of circumstances? Historians have been fascinated by such questions ever since they began writing history, because the rise and fall of Florence or the whole of Northern Italy is by no means an isolated phenomenon."

- David C. McClelland

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"GOD, the absolute Soveraign Lord and King, of all things in heaven and earth, the originall fountain, and cause of all causes, who is circumscribed, governed, and limited by no rules, but doth all things meerly and onely by his soveraign will, and unlimited good pleasure, who made the world, and all things therein, for his own glory, and who by his own will and pleasure, gave man (his meer creature) the soveraignty (under himselfe) over all the rest of his Creatures, Gen. 1.26.28.29. and indued him with a rationall soule, or understanding, and thereby created him after his own image, Gen. 1.26.27. and 9.6. the first of which was Adam, a male, or man, made out of the dust or clay, out of whose side was taken a Rib, which by the soveraign and absolute mighty creating power of God, was made a female, or Woman cal'd Eve, which two are the earthly, original fountain, as begetters and bringers forth of all and every particular and individuall man and woman, that ever breathed in the world since, who are, and were by nature all equall and alike in power, dignity, authority, and majesty, none of them having (by nature) any authority dominion or majesteriall power, one over or above another, neither have they, or can they exercise any, but meerely by institution, or donation, that is to say, by mutuall agreement or consent, given, derived, or assumed, by mutuall consent and agreement, for the good benefit and comfort each of other, and not for the mischiefe, hurt, or damage of any."

- John Lilburne

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