Vice Presidents Of The United States

"Like everyone else I was misled by the size and the enthusiasm of the crowds that Wallace was attracting across the country. In Los Angeles ten thousand Chicanos came to hear Wallace speak in Lincoln Park under the banner of "Amigos de Wallace," and twenty-five hundred blacks came to hear him speak in Watts. We filled Gilmore Stadium, with its 32,000 seats, on three occasions. Charlie Chaplin endorsed him; Katharine Hepburn spoke at the first of those Gilmore Stadium meetings and made a very powerful speech supporting Wallace and attacking red-baiting. The Students for Wallace movement was very strong at UCLA, and we recruited many young people into the Party as a result. In Berkeley, Wallace was banned from speaking on campus but managed to attract eight thousand students to hear him speak from a sidewalk adjoining the campus. In the California primaries in June, about a half million people cast ballots for candidates who had filed or cross-filed as Progressives, one fifth of the total primary vote. It was a very energizing campaign, and no one in the Party thought that Wallace could possibly end up with less than five million votes nationwide."

"the Progressive Party, with its extravagant claims, has, therefore, imposed on itself the considerable burden of proof. The only party within recent memory which made equally strident claims of fellowship were the Communists, who failed to survive this test; and the only politician of similar claims was, of course, Wallace's erstwhile master, Roosevelt, who did not after all, now that the magic of his voice is gone, succeed in raising the darker brother to the status of a citizen. This is the ancestry of the Wallace party, and it does not work wholly in its favor. It operates to give pause to even the most desperate and the most gullible."

"The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power."

"If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful. Most American fascists are enthusiastically supporting the war effort."

"In 1948 the two-party duopoly smeared and suppressed the pro-labor efforts by the Progressive Party and its presidential candidate, former Vice President (under Franklin Delano Roosevelt) Henry Wallace. This was followed by more onerous restrictions on state ballot access and exclusions of third parties, enacted by both the Republicans and Democrats, that further stunted competitive choices of candidates and agendas."

"My first introduction to economics came by way of Professor B.H. Hibbard. I remember being asked in 1910, at the close of my college course, who had influenced me most, and I said Professor Hibbard. Later, of course, we came to disagree violently about the McNary-Haugen Bill and some other things; but I still think that Professor Hibbard is a very good teacher."

"With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public."

"American fascism will not be really dangerous until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information... Fascism is a worldwide disease... greatest threat to the United States will come after the war... within the United States itself."

"If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful. ... They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead."

"The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information.."

"They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection."

"Instead, the main challenge to Truman’s decision to confront the Soviet Union came from the Left. And it was not much of a challenge. Roosevelt’s former secretary of agriculture, Henry Wallace—a Democratic Party grandee who regarded himself as a leader of the Left—decided to form a separate party for the presidential elections in 1948. “The bigger the peace vote in 1948,” Wallace said in declaring his candidacy, “the more definitely the world will know that the United States is not behind the bipartisan reactionary war policy which is dividing the world into two armed camps and making inevitable the day when American soldiers will be lying in their Arctic suits in the Russian snow.” Even though it was supported by some Democrats who felt that Truman was moving away from the legacies of the New Deal by breaking the wartime alliance with the USSR, Wallace’s campaign was undermined by his own haplessness as a candidate and the rather shrill US Communist Party support for his cause. To everyone’s surprise, Truman narrowly won the election against the Republican Thomas Dewey. Wallace’s Progressives scored 2.5 percent of the vote, less than Strom Thurmond’s Southern segregationists ticket."

"One of the most controversial issues of our time and one in which we share a keen interest is the question of abortion. I have grave concern over the serious moral questions raised by this issue. Each new life is a miracle of creation. To interfere with that creative process is a most serious act. In my view, the Government has a very special role in this regard. Specifically, the Government has a responsibility to protect life — and indeed to provide legal guarantees for the weak and unprotected. It is within this context that I have consistently opposed the 1973 decision of the Supreme Court. As President, I am sworn to uphold the laws of the land and I intend to carry out this responsibility. In my personal view, however, this court decision was unwise. I said then and I repeat today — abortion on demand is wrong."

"The veto is a President's Constitutional right, given to him by the drafters of the Constitution because they wanted it as a check against irresponsible Congressional action. The veto forces Congress to take another look at legislation that has been passed. I think this is a responsible tool for a president of the United States, and I have sought to use it responsibly."

"Americans are beautiful -- individually, in communities, and freely joined together by dedication to the United States of America."

"There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe — and there never will be under a Ford administration... The United States does not concede that those countries are under the domination of the Soviet Union."

"For millions of men and women, the church has been the hospital for the soul, the school for the mind and the safe depository for moral ideas."

"There are no adequate substitutes for father, mother, and children bound together in a loving commitment to nurture and protect. No government, no matter how well-intentioned, can take the place of the family in the scheme of things."

"The exclusive right to declare war, the duty to advise and consent on the part of the Senate, the power of the purse on the part of the House are ample authority for the legislative branch and should be jealously guarded. But because we may have been too careless of these powers in the past does not justify congressional intrusion into, or obstruction of, the proper exercise of Presidential responsibilities now or in the future. There can be only one Commander in Chief. In these times crises cannot be managed and wars cannot be waged by committee, nor can peace be pursued solely by parliamentary debate. To the ears of the world, the President speaks for the Nation. While he is, of course, ultimately accountable to the Congress, the courts, and the people, he and his emissaries must not be handicapped in advance in their relations with foreign governments as has sometimes happened in the past."

"[W]e are uniquely a community of values, as distinct from a religious community, a racial community, a geographic community, or an ethnic community. This Nation was founded 200 years ago, not on ancient legends or conquests or physical likeness or language, but on a certain political value which Jefferson's pen so eloquently expressed. To be an American is to subscribe to those principles which the Declaration of Independence proclaims and the Constitution protects -- the political values of self-government, liberty and justice, equal rights, and equal opportunity. These beliefs are the secrets of America's unity from diversity -- in my judgment the most magnificent achievement of our 200 years as a nation."

"I'm Gerald Ford, and you're not."

"The founding of our Nation was more than a political event; it was an act of faith, a promise to Americans and to the entire world. The Declaration of Independence declared that people can govern themselves, that they can live in freedom with equal rights, that they can respect the rights of others. In the two centuries that have passed since 1776, millions upon millions of Americans have worked and taken up arms when necessary to make that dream a reality. We can be extremely proud of what they have accomplished. Today, we are the world's oldest republic. We are at peace. Our Nation and our way of life endure. We are free."

"The Declaration was not a protest against government but against the excesses of government. It prescribed the proper role of government to secure the rights of individuals and to effect their safety and their happiness. In modern society, no individual can do this all alone, so government is not necessarily evil but a necessary good. The framers of the Constitution feared a central government that was too strong, as many Americans rightly do today. The framers of the Constitution, after their experience under the Articles, feared a central government that was too weak, as many Americans rightly do today. They spent days studying all of the contemporary governments of Europe and concluded with Dr. Franklin that all contained the seeds of their own destruction. So the framers built something new, drawing upon their English traditions, on the Roman Republic, on the uniquely American institution of the town meeting."

"It is only as the temporary representatives and servants of the people that we meet here, we bring no hereditary status or gift of infallibility, and none follows us from this place."

"The three-martini lunch is the epitome of American efficiency. Where else can you get an earful, a bellyful and a snootful at the same time?"

"Several veterans of the Ford administration's 1976 swine flu response team warned us of the difficulties involved in getting out in front of an outbreak without overreacting or triggering a panic: Apparently President Ford, wanting to act decisively in the middle of a reelection campaign, had fast-tracked mandatory vaccinations before the severity of the pandemic had been determined, with the result that more Americans developed a neurological disorder connected to the vaccine than died from the flu."

"You know, Michael, what I really wanted was to get the presidential nomination and then win the presidency in November because I was looking forward to negotiating the SALT treaty with Brezhnev. It has been a long time since an American president has stood up to the Soviet Union. It seems that every time we get into negotiations, the Soviets are telling us what we are going to have to give up in order for us to get along with them, and we forget who we are. I wanted to become president of the United States, so I could sit down with Brezhnev. And I was going to let him pick out the size of the table, and I was going to listen to him tell me, the American president, what we were going to have to give up. And I was going to listen to him for maybe twenty minutes, and then I was going to get up from my side of the table, walk around to the other side, and lean over and whisper in his ear "Nyet.' It has been a long time since they've heard 'nyet' from an American president."

"The ultimate beneficiary of Nixon’s summitry was Leonid Brezhnev. The Soviet party leader had staked his bid for outright leadership on a policy of peaceful coexistence with the United States. That made sense for economic and defense reasons, not to mention the looming threat from China. In the spring of 1972 Brezhnev let nothing, not even the American mining of North Vietnam, get in the way of a summit. The arms control agreements signed in Moscow in May silenced his critics and apparently confirmed the Soviet Union’s equality with the United States. The statement of Basic Principles also suggested that the Americans were accepting détente on Soviet terms. Had Nixon remained potent in the second term he might have held the Kremlin to account, as he believed had not been done after Yalta. Instead his crumbling presidency gave the Soviets and their allies an increasingly free hand to act as they pleased. By the middle of 1975 communist forces controlled all of Indochina. Over the next few years the Soviets extended their influence in eastern and southern Africa, in ways that fitted their understanding of détente— a world made safe for class struggle—but also undermined support for the process in the United States. In 1976 Gerald Ford, Nixon’s successor, banned the word “détente” from the official diplomatic lexicon. Nixon’s failure, in other words, relegated not merely summitry but diplomacy to the back burner. Dialogue with Moscow atrophied. And after the Brezhnev Politburo sent troops into Afghanistan at the end of 1979, Soviet-American relations degenerated into what was dubbed a “new cold war.”"

"For myself, and for our nation, I want to thank my predecessor for all he has done to heal our land."

"Honesty and truth-teller were synonymous with the name Jimmy Carter. Those traits were instilled in him by his loving parents Lillian and Earl Carter and the strength of his honesty was was reinforced by his upbringing in the rural South poised on the brink of social transformation. He displayed that honesty throughout his life as a naval officer, state legislator, governor, president, and world leader. For Jimmy Carter, honesty was was not a aspirational goal — it was part of his very soul."

"Actually, I have fond feelings toward Gerald Ford, largely because of a semi-encounter I had with him in 1995, when he was in his eighties. We had both given speeches at an event in Bakersfield, California, and we were both among the passengers aboard a small, two-propeller commercial plane headed for Los Angeles, where most of us were making connections. The flight was running late, and although everybody was anxious to get going, we figured we had no choice but to sit through the safety lecture from the co-pilot. "Ladies and gentlemen," he began, "I'd like to take just a few minutes to..." "Let's just go!" snapped Gerald Ford, former president of the United States. "Okay, sir!" said the co-pilot, sitting down immediately. That is my kind of leadership."

"Gerald R. Ford was the most accidental of American presidents, but when he unexpectedly appeared at the crossroads of history, he seemed to have been placed there by a deliberate act of providence. In one important respect, Ford was different from most of his predecessors and all of his successors: He did not seek the presidency... Ford became the 38th president because of the shortcomings of others and because he had earned the trust of both Democrats and Republicans in Congress. When the corrupt Spiro T. Agnew was forced to resign as vice president, it was Ford's congressional colleagues who virtually forced President Richard M. Nixon to accept him as Agnew's successor. And when the embattled Nixon was finally engulfed by the Watergate scandal and forced to resign himself, it was the unimposing "gentleman from Michigan" who inherited the leadership of a deeply troubled nation."

"It's too early to say how most of my decisions will turn out. As president, I had the honor of eulogizing Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. President Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon, once regarded as one of the worst mistakes in presidential history, is now viewed as a selfless act of leadership. And it was quite something to hear the commentators who had once denounced President Reagan as a dunce and a warmonger talk about how the Great Communicator had won the Cold War."

"Richard Nixon… was just offered $2 million by Schick to do a television commercial — for Gillette."

"I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, "I hear you spoke here tonight." "Oh, it was nothing," I replied modestly. "Yes," the little old lady nodded, "that's what I heard.""

"I have a basic philosophy: When I meet somebody, even somebody who I've been warned is not a very nice person, my approach is there must be something nice in that person. And if you get to know the nice part of the individual, then you develop a relationship and a friendship that is invaluable. And I say with great emphasis: Everybody I've ever met, you can find something good about them. And I think that is a trait we ought to embellish and appreciate rather than discard."

"In 1949, when I arrived in Washington, President Truman was a moderate-to-liberal Democrat who had struggled with a conservative Republican Eightieth Congress. He wanted to spend, and we Republicans wanted to save. Here I was in 1974, a conservative-to-moderate Republican about to struggle with a liberal Democratic Congress. The President wanted to save, and the Congress wanted to spend. Well, Truman had won a good share of his battles on Capitol Hill. With any luck, I would too."

"The old question still remains: Can a free people restrain crime without sacrificing fundamental liberties and a heritage of compassion? I am confident of the American answer. Let it become a vital element on America's new agenda. Let us show that we can temper together those opposite elements of liberty and restraint into one consistent whole. Let us set an example for the world of a law-abiding America glorying in its freedom as well as its respect for law."

"The length of one's days matters less than the love of one's family and friends."

"I can tell you, and tell you now, that I am prepared to veto any bill that has as its purpose a Federal bailout of New York City to prevent a default.… It encourages the continuation of "politics as usual" in New York, which is precisely not the way to solve the problem."

"More than any other president of this century, Ford was chosen for his integrity and trustworthiness: his peers in Congress put him in the White House because he told the truth and kept his word."

"I would hope that understanding and reconciliation are not limited to the 19th hole alone."

"The pat on the back, the arm around the shoulder, the praise for what was done right and the sympathetic nod for what wasn't are as much a part of golf as life itself."

"(Gail A. Cobb) has our lasting admiration for the cause of law enforcement and the well-being of our society, a cause for which she made the highest sacrifice."

"It is believed that a trial of Richard Nixon, if it became necessary, could not fairly begin until a year or more has elapsed. In the meantime, the tranquility to which this nation has been restored by the events of recent weeks could be irreparably lost by the prospects of bringing to trial a former President of the United States. The prospects of such trial will cause prolonged and divisive debate over the propriety of exposing to further punishment and degradation a man who has already paid the unprecedented penalty of relinquishing the highest elective office of the United States. NOW, THEREFORE, I, Gerald R. Ford, President of the United States, pursuant to the pardon power conferred upon me by Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, have granted and by these presents do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974."

"All my children have spoken for themselves since they first learned to speak, and not always with my advance approval, and I expect that to continue in the future."

"All of us who served in one war or another know very well that all wars are the glory and the agony of the young."

"Let us put an end to self-inflicted wounds. Let us remember that our national unity is a most priceless asset. Let us deny our adversaries the satisfaction of using Vietnam to pit Americans against Americans."

"As I rejected amnesty, so I reject revenge. I ask all Americans who ever asked for goodness and mercy in their lives, who ever sought forgiveness for their trespasses, to join in rehabilitating all the casualties of the tragic conflict of the past."

"It's the quality of the ordinary, the straight, the square, that accounts for the great stability and success of our nation. It's a quality to be proud of. But it's a quality that many people seem to have neglected."