Conservatives, Let Down Your Nets For The Catch
Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.
And Simon answering said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing; nevertheless at Thy word I will let down the net.
And when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake.
And they beckoned unto their partners, who were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink. (Luke 5:4-7)
The trouble with conservatives today is that, having been fishing for the past ten years and not having elected a real conservative as Presiaent, they have no faith to let down their nets and try again. Over the past several years, they have become afflicted with chronic giveupitis. Watergate tremendously aggravated the condition; and, since the February 19 defeat of a Republican Congressional candidate in Vice President Gerald Ford’s Michigan district (which had not elected a Democrat in 64 years), the disease has reached epidemic proportions.
Conservatives generally blame the source of their present infection on Richard Nixon, the rapid spread of the malady on the press, and the lack of medical remedies on the default of conservative leaders at the Senatorial and gubernatorial levels. Conservatives fault Nixon on three principal grounds:
1) He betrayed all his major 1968 campaign promises. He solemnly promised to “restore our objective of clear-cut military superiority,” but then signed the SALT Agreements forcing the United States to accept a 3-to-2 inferiority in nuclear missiles and submarines. He promised he would not impose price and wage controls, but has saddled us with four phases of wage and price controls. He promised to reverse “irresponsible fiscal policies.” Yet, he has increased irresponsible fiscal policies, and given us tremendous peacetime deficits, more foreign giveaways, two devaluations of our dollar, and the highest interest rates in history. He promised not to give “credit to the Soviet Union.” Yet, he has given the Soviet Union $750,000,000 in credit through the Commodity Credit Corporation for agricultural products, and $760,000,000 in loans through the Export-Import Bank for industrial plants. He promised he “would not agree to admitting (Red China) to the UN.” Yet he pushed the entry of Red China into the UN, and failed to veto the ouster of the Republic of China.
2) In 1972, after Nixon and his cohorts, John Mitchell and Maurice Stans, raised by far the largest political campaign chest in history, some $50 million dollars, draining funds away from other Republican candidates, Nixon spent all the money on himself and declined to share with Republican Senatorial and Congressional candidates. A few crumbs from the table of the $50 million fund would have saved from defeat such stalwart Republican Senators as Gordon Allott of Colorado Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, and Jack Miller of Iowa.
3) Nixon’s apparent willingness to let the Republican Party go down to defeat in 1974, with a possible loss of 40 seats in Congress, rather than resign and remove himself as a campaign issue, is alleged to be further evidence of selfishness and personal acquisitiveness. Already, some 14 Republican Congressmen and two Republican Senators, who see the handwriting on the wall, have announced that they will not seek reelection this fall. Liberal commentator Murray Kempton summed up what many conservatives believe about Nixon in these words: “The conservative movement lost disastrously with Barry Goldwater and survived quite healthy. It took its triumph under Mr. Nixon finally to disable it. … I am not here to advance the conservative argument, but it was at least respectable until Mr. Nixon got his hands on it.”
Nixon’s Value To Conservatives
But there is another side of the coin in the matter of evaluating Richard Nixon. Just as one person will look at a glass half filled with water and say, “It’s half empty,” another will look at the identical glass and say, “It’s half full.” Let’s pause to reflect on the positive value of Richard Nixon to the conservative cause. Despite the body blows he has dealt conservative principles, he has taught us three valuable lessons which are absolutely essential to a conservative renaissance, and which could be a greater legacy than his mistakes.
1) Nixon proved in 1968 that a conservative can be elected. After Barry Goldwater was defeated in Lyndon’s Landslide of 1964, the majority of the nearly 27,000,000 who voted for him retreated behind an ideological barricade which can be summed up like this: “We put forth our supreme efforts in time, money and dedication, but they weren’t enough. A straightforward, plain-talking conservative simply cannot be elected President. Now we will have to back a moderate-conservative who is electable, and be content with, say, 75 percent of what we want, because that is better than not winning at all.”
Thus, after 1964, the disappointed Goldwaterites fashioned a mental image of their next Presidential candidate. And then Richard Nixon filled the empty shoes. The funny thing was, however, that Nixon didn’t campaign in 1968 as a moderate-conservative. His 1968 campaign was as hardline as any diehard conservative could have wished. He promisedclearcut military superiority, fiscal responsibility, freedom from price and wage control, and no trade with the Soviet Union. He ran this conservative campaign against a formidable Democratic opponent, Hubert H. Humphrey, who was experienced, articulate, not tarnished by any radical image, and fully supported by the usual Democratic bases of power and money, including Big Labor.
Nixon’s 1968 victory on all-out conservative speeches and platform totally demolished the alleged “lesson of 1964” that “a conservative can’t win.”
Of course, it will be argued that Nixon’s behavior after he was elected proves that he is not a conservative, and perhaps even that he never was a conservative. This is true. But the voting public didn’t know this in November 1968. Nixon talked conservative, promised conservative, and the voting public believed him and elected him on that basis.
Thus, Nixon’s election in 1968 conclusively proves that a straightforward conservative can be elected President, even when matched against a formidable opponent.
2) Nixon conclusively proved in 1968 and again in 1972 that the Republican National Convention is a reliably and overwhelmingly conservative body. There were three powerful Presidential hopefuls locked in contest at the Republican National Convention in Miami in 1968: Nixon, with superior organization; Rockefeller, with superior money; and Reagan, with superior charisma. Regardless of what has since become evident about the personal conservative/liberal ideology of the three candidates, it is a fact that the conservative Delegates at the Convention were divided between Nixon and Reagan, and the liberal Delegates concentrated on Rockefeller.
Thus, conservatives had such an overwhelming majority in the 1968 Convention that they could afford the luxury of being split — and they still were able to nominate one of their candidates.
In the Republican National Convention of 1972, the only true test of conservative/liberal strength occurred over the adoption of rules for future Conventions. The liberals had a formidable force of Governors, Senators, Congressmen and a former Cabinet official leading the troops to gun through a clever plan to McGovernize the Republican Party. The conservatives had no such nationally-known dignitaries. The responsibility to carry the conservative banner in this parliamentary confrontation fell on the shoulders of ordinary Delegates who did not have famous names or hold high office. Yet, conservative Delegates rose to the test and won a smashing victory. The Associated Press account of this conservative victory summed up the situation like this: “Though Nixon has used his presidency to move the nation’s policies far to the left of traditional Republican views on welfare, Communist China and economic controls, he has made no similar impression on his Party.”
3) Nixon conclusively proved in 1972 the folly of our voting for the candidate who is “the lesser of two evils.” By 1972, most conservatives were completely disillusioned with Nixon. A significant percentage did not vote for him at all. Those who did vote for Nixon did so for one reason only: “McGovern is so radical: we can’t let him be elected.” This argument was persuasive not only with many conservatives, but with thousands of Democrats, resulting in Nixon’s 49-state victory.
Watergate has put the lie to the argument that we are better off with “the lesser of two evils.” Richard Nixon has really done conservatives a favor by proving that they erred in voting for him “because McGovern was worse.” Conservatives should now abandon all thought of settling for half a loaf. Conservatives should fashion their image of a conservative leader, and then look for the man to fill the shoes. Here is an affirmative platform for conservatives. It should not be merely a “Platform for Conservatives,” but a “Platform for all Americans” for which conservatives should provide the leadership.
Platform for Americans
1. Sound money. We must immediately institute policies to stop the devastating deterioration of our dollar. A combination of galloping inflation, deliberate devaluation of the dollar, high interest rates, and a prohibition on the ownership of gold, has stolen the hard-earned savings of our citizens, penalized the thrifty, productive middle class, and particularly impoverished our senior citizens and others on fixed incomes. Here are some initial ways to start the restoration of sound money:
a) Stop deficit spending, which is the cause of inflation. The Federal deficit is continuing at a rate which is unconscionable in peacetime, and each year it fuels another round of inflation. In order to eliminate deficits, it is necessary to cut Federal spending. But where? That’s easy. Cut out direct and indirect foreign giveaways, now totalling about $16 billion per year. Cut out wheat deals and truck plants to Russia. Cut out 6 percent 20-year loans through the Export-Import Bank and 2 percent 30-year loans through the International Development Association. Also, cut out trips of U.S. officials all over the world.
b) Put legal restraints on an unbalanced budget by making it illegal unless we are in a war declared by Congress.
c) Announce that we are voting against any politician who votes for any tax increase.
d) Make it legal to own gold. Our Government has made it illegal to own gold bullion and American gold coins simply because citizenship ownership of gold restrains printing-press inflation. Our Government has even taken away our last hard-money safeguards, such as pure silver dollars, silver half-dollars and quarters, and silver certificates which are dollar bills redeemable in silver.
e) Bring about true welfare reform.
2. More jobs. Foolish Government policies have aggravated the energy crisis and brought about present increasing unemployment. Here are some of the ways we can increase jobs:
a) Stop exporting jobs to foreign countries by taxing American workers to finance factories in foreign countries whose products made with cheap labor will undersell American goods and force Americans out of work. This vicious circle is one of the biggest sellouts by which Americans are being victimized today.
b) End price and wage controls. They’ve been a failure: they haven’t stopped inflation. They’ve done nothing but stretch the dead hand of Government bureaucracy over business. They have paralyzed and dislocated production, which is the means to prosperity.
c) Get government off the back of industry. The reason why America’s economic prosperity is the envy of the world is not because Government planned it that way, but because Government stayed out of the way and let a free economic system unleash the ingenuity and resourcefulness of man.
d) Stop Government regulation of energy. Government controls have turned the gredtest petroleum-producing nation in the world into one with a 14 percent petroleum shortage. The trouble is not only price control, but the fact that our Government has forbidden its citizens to use our vast oil reserves, such as in Alaska and on the continental shelf.
3. Schools that teach the fundamentals. Evidence confronts us on all sides that our schools have failed to teach the basic R’s: reading, ‘riting, ‘rithmetic, and especially right or wrong. The cost of education has soared seven times faster than the population, while the quality of education falls lower and lower. Violent crime as well as mushrooming theft and vandalism show the desperate need for our schools to teach morals. The ten-year decline in the scores of high school students on Scholastic Aptitude Tests shows that the schools are not training our students as well in verbal and mathematical skills as they did in former years. Among the ways to improve education are:
a) Institute a program of moral education in the schools which would see that our children are taught the Ten Commandments, as well as other rules of good conduct such as Honesty is the Best Policy.
b) Institute a program to do a better job of teaching verbal and mathematical skills by rediscovering phonics and the multiplication tables.
c) Phase out Federal aid and control, in accordance with the Landgrebe Freer Schools Act. There is no evidence that Federal bureaucrats are better able to direct the education of our children than local school boards, and there is much evidence that the Federal spending for education has been a failure.
4. Defense of America against aggressors. When Richard Nixon came into office in January 1969, the United States had approximately the same number of land-based missiles and four times as many submarine-launched missiles as the Soviets. From then until the signing of the SALT Agreements in May. 1972, the Soviets added 1,000 strategic missiles to their forces. In the face of this Soviet buildup, the Nixon Administration did not add a single missile to our forces. The self-imposed freeze allowed the Soviets to go decisively ahead of us in both land-based and sea-based missiles.
The best prescription for the defense of America was given us by President Eisenhower in these words now inscribed on the keel of the aircraft carrier which bears his name: “Until war is eliminated from international relations, unpreparedness for it is well nigh as criminal as war itself.” It is truly “criminal” to have let America fall behind the Soviets in the nuclear weapons which will control the world. We must reorder our national priorities away from domestic and foreign giveaways, and instead build the vital weapons we need to make sure we never fall victim to a nuclear Pearl Harbor. This includes:
a) A national purpose to restore our nuclear superiority, at whatever cost. Can we afford it? We are spending only 7 percent of our Gross National Product on defense, while the Soviets are spending 40 percent of theirs on weapons whose only utility is to destroy or blackmail America. We can’t afford not to build the weapons to defend the United States.
b) Immediate production of the Trident submarine, the B-1 strategic bomber, mobile missiles, and whatever we need to regain our lead over the Soviets.
c) Fire such Robert McNamara holdovers as Paul Nitze, the architect of the McNamara disarmament policies which have placed us in our present peril.
5. Build a pro-American foreign policy which will defend American citizens and American interests. We must put a stop to the America-Last policies which have drained the blood of our sons and our hard-earned money all over the world, but won neither the friendship nor the respect ofthe countries we helped. For example:
The U.S. Canal Zone is just as much U.S. property as the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, the Gadsden purchase of 1953, and the Alaska purchase of 1867. There is no more reason to give it away or to knuckle under to the extortion of Panamanian dictators than there would be to give Alaska back to Russia. The solution to the present flap about Panama is to admit the U.S. Canal Zone as the 51st State of the Union. More Americans live there than lived in Nevada when it became a state. The Panama Canal is the lifeline of our military and economic security and must be defended.
6. Restore the credibility of Government officials. The credibility gap in Washington today is probably the widest in our history. Here are some ways to close the gap:
a) The President and all Cabinet officials should testify before Congressional committees when called, just like in the British institution called “Question Time in the House of Commons.”
b) The phony claim of”executive privilege” should be abolished. There is nothing in the Constitution or in any Federal law which grants “executive privilege,” and the Supreme Court has never upheld it.
c) All public officials and candidates should be required to make their income tax returns public.
7. Curb the power of the runaway Supreme Court. Although the U.S. Constitution clearly savs that “all legislative powers” shall be vested in Congress, a runaway Supreme Court has been legislating in nearly all fields. The Supreme Court has granted free speech to Communists to teach in public schools, but denied free speech to students to say prayers in public schools. The Supreme Court has denied a jury’s right to impose the death sentence on the most depraved murderers, but has granted a woman and her doctor the right to kill an innocent unborn baby.
One way to overrule the Supreme Court is by constitutional amendment. Another way, the method advocated by former Everett Dirksen, is to limit the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court under Article 111 of the Constitution, which specifically authorizes Congress to make “exceptions” to the Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction, and to decide what types of cases the lower courts may hear. Among the areas where legislation is urgently needed to correct Supreme Court decisions are (a) crime and capital punishment, (b) pornography, (c) prayer in public schools, (d) abortion, (e) busing, (0 security risks in Government and defense plants, (g) passports and teaching jobs for communists.
8. Protect women’s rights by defeating the women’s lib amendment. This radical “Equal Rights Amendment” (ERA) has been ratified by 32 state legislatures. It needs six more to become part of the U. S. Constitution. If it becomes the 27th Amendment, it will force every 18-year-old girl to register for the draft, be given a draft number, and be available for call and combat duty in case of a national emergency; invalidate the laws of 50 states which require the husband to support his wife; invalidate all protective labor legislation on the books; and transfer from the states to the Federal Government all jurisdiction over women’s rights, including marriage law, women’s property rights, child custody, divorce, etc.
On the other hand, ERA will not give women equal pay for equal work or do anything whatever for women in the fields of employment. Since the proponents have no affirmative case in behalf of their misnamed legislation, they spend their time making personal attacks and smears on anti-ERA women. Every time you hear an attack on ERA opponents, just remember that the proponents are trying to divert attention from the fact that they have no arguments to show how ERA will benefit women. The ERA is a deception, and all those who believe in the rights and dignity of women should join forces to defeat it now, while there is still time.
The conservative American and anti-Communist ideology has the brightest future it has ever had, not only because events have proven us right on every issue, but also because events have proved the Socialists and the big-government-spending, Communist-appeasing, unilateral-disarming politicians wrong, a thousand times wrong. Not only have their policies been a failure, but many liberal leaders are beginning to admit it! The same politicians who for years whooped it up for price and wage controls, foreign giveaways, public housing, higher and higher taxes, deficit spending, government control of education, busing and the coddling of criminals, are now singing a different tune. Recent national public opinion polls show that more people identify with conservative than with liberal, even in that heart of liberalism, New York City. Finally, the voices of Solzhenitsyn, Sakharov and Dolgun have cut through the decitful fog of detente.
When Jesus chose the leaders who were to carry on His work after the Ascension, he did not select the office holders and executives of His day. He chose a dozen plain, simple men who were distinguished only in their faith and fortitude.
Conservatives should quit standing around waiting for a Presidential candidate to lead them out of the valley of defeat and despair — and instead build a platform of principles which are time-tested and valid. Now is our greatest opportunity for the future — if conservatives have the faith and fortitude to let down their nets for the catch.
Testimonial Dinner For Dean Manion
All subscribers to the Phyllis Schlafly Report are cordially invited to attend a Testimonial Dinner for Dean Clarence Manion which will be held in Washington, D.C. at the Mayflower Hotel on May 15, 1974. The speaker will be Senator Jesse Helms. This will be one of the most distinguished national gatherings of conservatives ever held in the United States, and your personal invitation is included with the original mailing of this Report as a special fringe benefit to subscribers. Reservations at $17 per ticket, or $170 per table of 10, may be sent to the Manion Dinner Committee, c/o Phyllis Schlafly, Box 618, Alton, Illinois 62002.
The testimonial Dinner in Washington will be co-sponsored by the American Conservative Union, the Daughters of the American Revolution, Human Events, National Review, and the Young Americans for Freedom.
Dean Clarence Manion has conducted the Manion Forum, a weekly radio program heard on hundreds of stations throughout the country, for more than 20 years. It is one of the oldest consecutive radio programs in existence. It has provided a continuing public platform for conservative leaders including former President Herbert Hoover, General Douglas MacArthur, Governor Charles Edison, and hundreds of U.S. Senators, Congressmen, Judges, businessmen, professional men, clergymen and authors to speak directly to the American people on vital national issues.
No other program on radio or television has had so many years of continuing reliability in presenting the facts on such issues as the U.S. Supreme Court, Government regulation of business, Communist tyranny, and the America-Last policies which have led us into no-win wars and taxed us for foreign giveaways.
When the Manion Forum recently observed its 1,000th consecutive weekly broadcast, Dean Manion received greetings and congratulations from Senator Barry Goldwater, fbrmer Senator John Bricker, Senator Strom Thurmond, Senator Carl Curtis, Congressman John Ashbrook, Congressman Philip Crane, and William F. Buckley, Jr.
The two major addresses of the evening will be given by Dean Manion and by Senator Jesse Helms, a recently elected United States Senator who has the dedication and patriotism America needs today. He came to the Senate from the broadcasting industry. His background in television and radio has provided him with a thorough knowledge of world affairs and experience in articulating conservative philosophy through the communications media. In the Senate, he has already demonstrated his moral courage and political leadership in the battles against the Genocide Treaty, abortion, busing, the Legal Services bill, and unwise executive appointments.
The Manion Testimonial Dinner on May 15 is a once-in-a-lifetime event which you will not want to miss.
