But the library believes it was in new york in 1966. [ applause ] [ cheers and applause ] thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I havent even announced yet. You make me think ive been elected. Ladies and gentlemen, you have given me a welcome that is so heartwarming. Its something i will remember always. If i had no such reasons at all to be happy about the form of the greeting and the introductions and all here tonight, i could be grateful, because every once in a while, being introduced, i get selfconscious when they begin to introduce me and start mentioning the pictures that ive been in. Now, i dont mean that im ashamed of them. But everyone whos been around hollywood has been in some movies that the studio didnt want them good, they wanted them on thursday. And ive had my share. In the old times you could count on the passing years making you forget those pictures. Now you stay up late enough at night in front of the tv set, and they all come back to haunt us. Sometimes i think its like looking at a son you never knew you had. [ applause ] that takes a second, doesnt it . I have a friend in the business who stays up late to look at his old movies just to watch his hairline recede. But, you know, ive been protesting the growth of government for a number of years. Ive had a concern lest the permanent structure of government become so big that it would become beyond the control of congress and beyond the will of the people. And i have believed that this is a problem that crosses party lines. Ive seen an Interesting Development down through the years. When i first suggested the danger of government control inherent in so many federal handouts, there were people who denied vehemently that any such thing could ever take place. And yet, before too long, the same people were saying, whats wrong with government control . And in the recent days, weve heard representatives in the higher echelons of government ask us, well, are you afraid of your own government . To tell you the truth, i am. And all of us should be. [ applause ] and i speak not in a partisan sense of an administration or individuals. Im talking of the institution of government. Wasnt this the admonition of the founding fathers, that government tends to grow, to take on power until freedom eventually is lost . The fact is, and we cant escape it, only government is capable of tyranny. I realize this is a controversial subject, particularly as we approach an election year. But then if you didnt take up things that were controversial, you wouldnt talk at all. A man knocked on the door and a small boy answered. The man said, is your father home . The boy said, no. The man said, im your uncle on your fathers side. The kid said, i guess you can come in but ill tell you right now, youre on the wrong side. [ laughter ] in 1972, the Boston Committee of correspondents proclaimed the right to life, liberty, and property. Two years later in philadelphia, the First Continental Congress declared that americans were entitled to life, liberty, and property. It was asserted that all men were equally free and independent with the means to possess and right to acquire and possess property. Three weeks later came the declaration of independence, a bloody war, victory, and then a new nation which would be based on a constitution and a bill of rights. Life, liberty, and property had become life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 70 years would go by before englands lord acton would comment on the actions of these men and what they accomplished with this document. He said, they have solved two problems which have baffled the most enlightened nations. They have prodigiously increased the power of the National Government and founded it on the principle of equality without surrendering the security of freedom and property. Its true. Our constitution is a contract guaranteeing the most limited and equitable government in the history of mans relation to man. Now while the National Power is prodigious, what has happened to security for freedom and our right to the ownership of the fruit of our toil . The french philosopher de tocqueville said freedom comes when the party in power learns it can perpetuate itself through taxation . The executive branch of the government can take money from the people to coerce the people. Represent Glenn Andrews introduced an amendment to the Poverty Program on the floor of congress. It is almost inconceivable that such an amendment would be required. It is even more inconceivable that the amendment was overwhelmingly repudiated and defeated. It was a simple amendment that would prohibit poverty funds from being used for political purposes. Make no mistake about it. The party in power has legislated into existence a 1. 8 billion Campaign Fund for 1966. [ applause ] five years ago, we reached a knew fronew frontier. Weve added 31 billion to our debt but decreased our Gold Holdings until concern is felt for the solvency of our currency. Very shortly, the coins we jingle in our pocket will no longer have the ring of silver. But have no fear, we reached something of the height of absurdity when at a press conference we were told the government would stand behind those artificial coins and was prepared to exchange them any time for paper. [ applause ] weve discovered that every family with an income of less than 3,000 a year is poverty stricken. At the same time we learn that the cost of government pro rates out to 3,300 per family. We reach an alltime high in food prices as every housewife here knows but the farmer that produces that food receives the lowest percentage of the Market Basket dollar than hes received at history and his debt is higher even than on the eve of the 1929 crash. 4 1 2 years ago, 5 years ago, there were no daily casualty lists, no wives and mothers receiving telegrams that began, we regret to inform you. The last campaign found our opponents presenting themselves as conservatives in the sense that they would make no drastic change in our easy, prosperous, and affluent way. They would maintain the status quo. Thats latin for the mess were in. [ applause ] we, on the other hand, were presented as radicals who would bring about some cataclysmic upheaval. Now the wraps are off the Great Society and a multitude of messages and legislation has made it plain were to have the welfare state with an unprecedented federalization of american life. June 30 last, congress raised the debt limit for the seventh time in five years. But our government spends 260 million a day, 10 million more each day than we were spending just a year ago. We were told that were enjoying an unprecedented prosperity. But 42 Government Agencies the government has just informed us are spending 70 billion a year on Public Welfare. And serious discussion is given by men in high place in government to the idea that there is no longer any necessity to connect work with income and that a man simply by being born should be assured of an annual income with no need to work. The ancient hebrew book the talmud tells us for a father to fail to teach his son to earn a living is the same as teaching him to steal for that might be the inevitable result. [ applause ] our limited government with its decentralized powers has given way to planners and theyve laid an increasingly heavy hand on every facet of our lives. To quote de tocqueville again, he warned that such a government would cover the face of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, and thus the will of man is not shattered but softened and guided until the nation is reduced to a flock of timid and industrious animals of which government is the shepherd. The shepherd, the president , is fond of quoting these days from the scriptures. His favorite seems to be 1 isaiah, the 18th verse, come, let us reason together. That has a warm and cozy sound, doesnt it . Let your eyes stray down a line or two to the next versus, the lines not quoted aloud. If ye refuse, ye shall be devoured with a sword. [ applause ] freedom is very fragile. Weve only known a few moments of it in mans history and most of those moments have taken place here, in this land, under this constitutional system and under our Economic System of free enterprise. But freedom is also indivisible. It isnt spelled with a s. You cant elect to be partly free and partly slave. You are free or you are not free. If we ever decide we need a new declaration of independence, i hope well keep one line from the old. He has sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. Today for every 10,000 of us, it only takes 12 doctors to keep us well and healthy. It only takes 40 mechanics and oil station attendants for every 10,000 of us to keep our automobiles running. 37 telephone employees to keep the vast network of telephones running in this country. But it takes 130 federal employees to put every 10,000 to administer the affairs of state. [ applause ] federal employees outnumber state employees in 30 of the 50 states. I dont know about yours but thats true of california. And in california that isnt easy. The businessman, harassed and eaten out of our substance. The businessman spends 35 of his time filling out government forms and regulations. It has been estimated [ applause ] it has been estimated that this government paperwork costs american industry 20 billion a year, which must be added into the price tag. And it costs another 7 billion a year just to handle governments end that have paperwork and to store it and already it requires 25 million cubic feet. Sometime back, to show you how this can happen, there was a little new england town that decided to get into the surplus food idea. Now, this is a good idea. No one can quarrel with the fact that if we can raise a surplus rather than waste it, it should be distributed to those people who have need. So this little town got in on this and got its share of free federal surplus food. And then they woke up one day and discovered that they were being flooded under a great load of paperwork demanded in connection with this handout. They discovered finally they put on so many new City Employees just to handle this that it was cheaper to get out of the program and buy the groceries retail at the corner market. [ applause ] now weve declared war on poverty. No one, again, quarles wirels we humanitarian aim. I dont think any of us wants to be like the one who heard about the war on poverty and went out and threw a hand grenade at a beggar. But in getting the program passed we heard a great deal about one state, west virginia. Oh, this became a household word. This was the very center of poverty and distress and unemployment. Some of us thought the whole war would be fought right there in west virginia. Now the program is adopted. West virginia gets 400,000. Texas gets 10 million. [ applause ] were winning the war, though, at least on one front. On their own bureaucratic home grounds. 19,000 a year as a good satisfactorily and its a vesala high rate of pay in government salaries. Only one person in the department of defense gets 19,000 a year. Only one out of every 500 in the department of agricultural. But in the new Poverty Program, thats one out of 19. Gum springs, virginia, was awarded 54,000 for administrator salaries, 20,000 for the poor. [ applause ] while one voice in government tells us that were enjoying this great prosperity, another voice tells us that one out of five in our country is suffering from poverty and destitution. If that figure is true, it shouldnt be too hard to find the people who need the help under this program. In my hometown of dixon, illinois, a committee of ten selfappointed, beholden to no voters, has established itself and asked the government for a 38,000 grant so they can go on a search to find out if theres any poverty there. It breaks down it breaks down to 10,200 for the chairman and 7,200 each for two assistants and the balance will go for secretaries, mailing, office expense, and travel. In another area, more than 2,000 College Graduates have been hired as a part of the program to study the culture of poverty. Now, no one disagrees with the youth portion of that program. The idea that we should salvage if possible those young people who for whatever reason have failed to fit themselves for the responsibilities of adult life. But we take over a hotel and we install there young ladies who have been lifted from destitute families and now they are to be trained so theyll be selfreliant and can go out on their own and make a living but while theyre being trained, theyre given maid service so they wont have to make their own beds. There are a lot of families in this country raising fine, productive citizens on less than 7,000 a year. [ applause ] i can think of no higher, more noble purpose than to take young men and to make sure that they get an equal chance at a start in life. But we have such a program now. And we put the young men in camps for retraining. And we pay them a higher rate of pay than we give the young man who puts on a uniform and goes out to defend his country. [ applause ] i am sure that all of us are agreed, every responsible citizen is agreed, that we should provide shelter for those people who through no fault of their own lack adequate housing. For some time the government has provided public housing. But now those who administer the program have expressed concern after almost three decades of it, concern because an entire generation has grown up, raising children, and a second and a Third Generation now are growing up taking it for granted that this is an acceptable way of life. And there is no incentive for them to improve themselves because to get a raise might destroy their eligibility for continuing to live on a subsidy in the public housing. And yet never does government accept that it might be responsible with some of its programs for this trend or this tendency. No, now were going to have a program subsidizing rents and under the technicalities of the program, people will be eligible to live in a house or apartment or neighborhood beyond their means with their thrifty new neighbors taxed to help pay the differential in their rent. A variety of programs have diluted private Property Rights so that Public Interest is anything the planners decide it should be. For generations weve had traditional laws of eminent domain. We have recognized the occasional need of government to take a citizens property when there is a clear and present need for that particular piece of property in the Public Interest. But the citizen had his day in court, first to establish that the government paid a fair price, and second, that the government should be forced to prove that there was a clear and present need. Now, urban renewal grants the government the right to force the sale of private property for resale by government to other private citizens who can then use that property to make proper profit. And we have average selling urban renewal properties to private citizens for 30 of the investment that we the taxpayers have in that property. Again i say the purpose is noble. The idea of providing decent homes for every american and eliminating slums. But 1 Million People have been displaced with a bulldoze and her have wound up in new slums, paying a higher rent. The law says the displaced must be offered standard housing at rents they can afford in convenient locations. But if standard housing at rents they can afford in convenient locations had been available, they wouldnt have needed an urban renewal program, they would have moved there on their own. [ applause ] robert weaver, the federal housing commissioner, has said in the beginning he has made this statement public, the government gave the use of the land to the people to speed its development. I didnt remember history that way. I thought we were here and on the land and we created the government. But he says [ applause ] but he has announced now, it is the policy of the government to seek to reclaim complete control of the u. Se of the land. Planes equipped with surveying instruments fly over american farms. They survey from the air accurately to see whether the farmer has violated his planting allotment and if he has, hes guilty as charge. No day in court. And hes fined. If you cant pay the fine, the government can seize his farm and sell it at auction to pay the fine. For 30 years weve had a farm program. We spent billions to make the farmer more prosperous and to remove unneeded surplus land from farm production to reduce the surplus. And during that same period, the National Income has tripled but the farmers income is smaller than it was 30 years ago. And weve increased the number of acres in cultivation by 50 million. Every dollar that we spent on price stabilization in 1948 we are today spending 25. Weve reduced the number of farms by half and the government says another 2. 5 million farmers are unneeded and must be retrained and moved to city jobs. Meanwhile, at the same time, the Appalachian Program provides millions of dollars to reclaim marginal land so that the unemployed can be made farmers in that area and add to the present farm surplus. And an ominous question remains unanswered. Who will decide which citizens must leave the land . And how will the decision be made . How also will we explain that the same government that says we need only 1 million large commercial farms now, that there is no need for the small family farmer . Its still the government that tells us with another voice that no farm of over 160 acres can receive water from federal irrigation projects. Somehow, one suspects that government in all its involvement in the farm program will turn out to be something less than a jolly green giant. Meanwhile, the network of rules grows more minute and more uniform as de tocqueville warned. Down in the masondixon line on a highway used by northerners taking vacations in the south, is an oil station. Very enterprising fellow running it. A little triangular ground between the sidewalk and the driveway so often covered with gravel or paved off. He planted a few cotton bushes there. Now when a northerner stops off, he picks a cotton bush off and hands it to them. Hes been fined by the government for planting cotton without an allotment. The post office just recently was exposed as having for the last couple of years take