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1972 Republican Party Platform
(24,379 words, 83 pages)

PREAMBLE

This year our Republican Party has greater reason than ever before forpride in its stewardship.

When our accomplishments are weighed ‹ when our opponents' philosophy,programs and candidates are assessed ‹ we believe the American peoplewill rally eagerly to the leadership which since January 1969 has broughtthem a better life in a better land in a safer world.

This political contest of 1972 is a singular one. No Americans beforehave had a clearer option. The choice is between going forward from dramaticachievements to predictable new achievements, or turning back toward a nightmarishtime in which the torch of free America was virtually snuffed out in a stormof violence and protest.

It is so easy to forget how frightful it was.

There was Vietnam ‹ so bloody, so costly, so bitterly divisive ‹a war in which more than a half-million of America's sons had been committedto battle ‹ a war, it seemed, neither to be won nor lost, but onlyto he endlessly fought ‹ a war emotionally so tormenting as almostto obliterate America's other worldly concerns .

And yet. as our eyes were fixed on the carnage in Asia, in Europe ouralliance had weakened. The Western will was dividing and ebbing. The isolationof the People's Republic of China, with one-fourth of the world's population,went endlessly on.

At home our horrified people watched our cities burn, crime burgeon,campuses dissolve into chaos. A mishmash of social experimentalism, producingsuch fiscal extravaganzas as the abortive war on poverty, combined withwar pressures to drive up taxes and balloon the cost of living. Workingmen and women found their living standards fixed or falling, the victimof inflation. Nationwide, welfare skyrocketed out of control .

The history of our country may record other crises more costly in materialgoods, but none so demoralizing to the American people. To millions of Americansit seemed we had lost our way.

So it was when our Republican Party came to power.

Now, four years later, a new leadership with new policies and new programshas restored reason and order and hope. No longer buffeted by internal violenceand division, we are on course in calmer seas with a sure, steady hand atthe helm. A new spirit, buoyant and confident, is on the rise in our land,nourished by the changes we have made. In the past four years:

• We have turned toward concord among all Americans.
• We have turned toward reason and order.
• We have turned toward government responding sensitively and sensibly to the people's hopes and needs.
• We have turned toward innovative solutions to the nation's most pressing problems.
• We hare turned toward new paths for social progress ‹ from welfare rolls to payrolls, from wanton pollution to vigorous environmental protection.
• We have moved far toward peace: withdrawal of our fighting men from Vietnam, constructive new relationships with the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, the nuclear arms race checked, the Mid-East crisis dampened, our alliances revitalized.

So once again the foreign policy of the United States is on a realisticfooting, promising us a nation secure in a full generation of peace, promisingthe end of conscription, promising a further allocation of resources todomestic needs.

It is a saga of exhilarating progress.

We have come far in so short a time. Yet, much remains to be done.

Discontents, frustrations and concerns still stir in the minds and heartsof many of our people, especially the young. As long as America falls shortof being truly peaceful, truly prosperous, truly secure, truly just forall, her task is not done.

Our encouragement is in the fact that things as they are, are far betterthan things that recently were. Our resolve is that things to come can be,and will be, better still.

Looking to tomorrow, to President Nixon's second term and on into thethird century of this Republic, we of the Republican Party see a quarter-billionAmericans peaceful and prospering as never before, humane as never before,their nation strong and just as never before.

It is toward this bright tomorrow that we are determined to move, inconcert with millions of discerning Democrats and concerned Independentswho will not, and cannot, take part in the convulsive leftward lurch ofthe national Democratic Party.

The election of 1972 requires of the voters a momentous decision ‹one that will determine the kind of nation this is to be on its 200th birthdayfour years hence. In this year we must choose between strength and weaknessfor our country in the years to come. This year we must choose between negotiatingand begging with adversary nations. This year we must choose between anexpanding economy in which workers will prosper and a hand-out economy inwhich the idle live at ease. This year we must choose between running ourown lives and letting others in a distant bureaucracy run them. This yearwe must choose between responsible fiscal policy and fiscal folly.

This year the choice is between moderate goals historically sought byboth major parties and far-out goals of the far left. The contest is notbetween the two great parties Americans have known in previous years. Forin this year 1972 the national Democratic Party has been seized by a radicalclique which scorns our nation's past and would blight her future.

We invite our troubled friends of other political affiliations to joinwith us in a new coalition for progress. Together let us reject the NewLeft prescription for folly and build surely on the solid achievements ofPresident Nixon's first term.

Four years ago we said, in Abraham Lincoln's words, that Americans mustthink anew and act anew. This we have done, under gifted leadership. Themany advances already made, the shining prospects so clearly ahead, arepresented in this Platform for 1972 and beyond.

May every American measure our deeds and words thoughtfully and objectively,and may our opponents' claims be equally appraised. Once this is done andjudgment rendered on election day, we will confidently carry forward thetask of doing for America what her people need and want and deserve.

Toward A Full Generation of Peace

FOREIGN POLICY

When Richard Nixon became President, our country was still clinging toforeign policies fashioned for the era immediately following World War II.The world had changed dramatically in the 1960's, but our foreign policieshad not.

America was hopelessly enmeshed in Vietnam. In all parts of the globeour alliances were frayed. With the principal Communist powers our relationsshowed little prospect of improvement. Trade and monetary problems weregrave. Periodic crises had become the way of international economic life.

The nation's frustrations had fostered a dangerous spirit of isolationismamong our people. America's influence in the world had waned.

In only four years we have fashioned foreign policies based on a newspirit of effective negotiation with our adversaries, and a new sense ofreal partnership with our allies. Clearly, the prospects for lasting peaceare greater today than at any time since World War II.

New Era of Diplomacy. Not all consequences of our new foreign policyare yet visible precisely because one of its great purposes is to anticipatecrises and avoid them rather than merely respond. Its full impact will berealized over many years, but already there are vivid manifestations ofits success.

Before this Administration, a Presidential visit to Peking would havebeen unthinkable. Yet our President has gone there to open a candid airingof differences so that they will not lead some day to war. All over theworld tensions have eased as, after a generation of hostility, the strongestof nations and the most populous of nations have started discoursing again.

During the 1960's, Presidential visits to Moscow were twice arrangedand twice cancelled. Now our President has conferred, in the Soviet Union,with Soviet leaders, and has hammered out agreements to make this worlda much safer place. Our President's quest for peace has taken him to 20other countries, including precedent-shattering visits to Rumania, Yugoslaviaand Poland.

Around the globe America's alliances have been renewed and strengthened.A new spirit of partnership shows results m our NATO partners' expendituresfor the common defense ‹ up by some $2-billion in two years.

Historians may well regard these years as a golden age of American diplomacy.Never before has our country negotiated with so many nations on so widea range of subjects ‹ and never with greater success. In the last fouryears we have concluded agreements:

• To limit nuclear weapons.
• To ban nuclear weapons from the world's seabeds.
• To reduce the risk of an accidental nuclear war.
• To end the threat of biological and toxin warfare.
• To terminate American responsibility for the administration of Okinawa.
• To end the recurrent crises over Berlin.
• To provide for U.S.-Soviet cooperation in health and space research.
• To reduce the possibility of dangerous incidents at sea.
• To improve emergency communication between the White House and the Kremlin.
• To exercise restraint in situations threatening conflict.
• To realign the world's currencies.
• To reduce barriers to American exports.
• To combat the international drug traffic.
• To protect the international environment.
• To expand cultural relations with peoples of Eastern Europe.
• To settle boundary disputes with Mexico.
• To restore the water quality of the Great Lakes in cooperation with Canada.

In Vietnam, too, our new policies have been dramatically effective.

In the 1960's, our nation was plunged into another major war ‹ forthe fourth time in this century, the third time in a single generation.

More than a half-million Americans were fighting in Vietnam in January1969. Fatalities reached 562 in a single week. There was no plan for bringingAmericans home, no hope for an end of the war.

In four years, we have marched toward peace and away from war. Our forcesin Vietnam have been cut by 93 percent. No longer do we have a single groundcombat unit there. Casualties are down by 95 percent. Our young drafteesare no longer sent there without their consent.

Through it all, we have not abandoned an ally to aggression, not turnedour back on their brave defense against brutal invasion, not consigned themto the bloodbath that would follow Communist conquest. By helping SouthVietnam build a capability to withstand aggression, we have laid the foundationfor a just peace and a durable peace in Southeast Asia.

From one sector of the globe to another, a sure and strong America, inpartnership with other nations, has once again resumed her historic mission‹ the building of a lasting peace.

The Nixon Doctrine. When President Nixon came into office, America'sforemost problem was the bloody, costly, divisive involvement in Vietnam.But there was an even more profound task ‹ to redefine the internationalrole of the United States in light of new realities around the globe andnew attitudes at home. Precisely and clearly, the President stated a newconception of a positive American role. This ‹ the Nixon Doctrine ‹is monumentally important to every American and to all other people in theworld.

The theme of this Doctrine is that America will remain fully involvedin world affairs, and yet do this in ways that will elicit greater effortby other nations and the sustaining support of our people.

For decades, our nation's leaders regarded virtually every problem oflocal defense or economic development any place in the world as an exclusiveAmerican responsibility. The Nixon Doctrine recognizes that continuing defenseand development are impossible unless the concerned nations shoulder theprincipal burden.

Yet strong economic and military assistance programs remain essential.Without these, we are denied a middle course ‹ the course between abruptlyleaving allies to struggle along against economic stagnation or aggression,or intervening massively ourselves. We cannot move from the over-involvementof the Sixties to the selective involvement of the Seventies if we do notassist our friends to make the transition with us.

In the Nixon Doctrine, therefore, we define our interests and commitmentsrealistically and clearly; we offer not an abdication of leadership, butmore rational and responsible leadership.

We pledge that, under Republican leadership, the United States will remaina leader in international affairs. We will continue to shape our involvementabroad to national objectives and realities in order to sustain a strong,effective American role in the world.

Over time we hope this role will eventually lead the peace-loving nationsto undertake an exhaustive, coordinated analysis of the root causes of warand the most promising paths of peace, so that those causes may in timebe removed and the prospects for enduring peace strengthened year by year.

Peace in the 1970's. We stand with our President for his Strategy forPeace ‹ a strategy of national strength, a new sense of internationalpartnership, a willingness to negotiate international differences.

We will strengthen our relationships with our allies, recognizing themas full-fledged partners in securing the peace and promoting the commonwell-being.

With our adversaries, we will continue to negotiate in order to improveour security, reduce tension, and extend the realm of cooperation. Especiallyimportant is continued negotiation to maintain the momentum establishedby the Strategic Arms Limitation agreements to limit offensive and defensivenuclear weapons systems and further to reduce the danger of nuclear conflict.In addition, we will encourage increased trade for the benefit of our consumers,businessmen, workers, and farmers.

Along with NATO allies, we will seek agreement with the Warsaw Pact nationson a mutual and balanced reduction of military forces in Europe.

We will press for expansion of contacts with the people of Eastern Europeand the People's Republic of China, so long isolated from most of the world.

We will continue to seek a settlement of the Vietnam war which will permitthe people of Southeast Asia to live in peace under political arrangementsof their own choosing. We take note of the remaining major obstacle to settlement‹ Hanoi s demand that the United States overthrow the Saigon governmentand impose a Communist-dominated government on the South Vietnamese. Westand unequivocally at the side of the President in his effort to negotiatehonorable terms, and in his refusal to accept terms which would dishonorthis country.

We commend his refusal to perform this act of betrayal ‹ and wemost emphatically say the President of the United States should not go beggingto Hanoi. We believe that the Presidents proposal to withdraw remainingAmerican forces from Vietnam four months after an internationally supervisedceasefire has gone into effect throughout Indochina and all prisoners havebeen returned is as generous an offer as can be made by anyone ‹ byanyone, that is, who is not bemused with surrender ‹ by anyone whoseeks, not a fleeting peace at whatever cost, but real peace that will beboth just and lasting.

We will keep faith with American prisoners of war held by the enemy,and we will keep faith, too, with their families here at home who have demonstratedremarkable courage and fortitude over long periods of uncertainty. We willnever agree to leave the fate of our men unclear, dependent upon a cruelenemy's whim. On the contrary ‹ we insist that, before all Americanforces are withdrawn from Vietnam, American prisoners must he returned anda full accounting made of the missing in action and of those who have diedin enemy hands.

We pledge that upon repatriation our returned prisoners will be receivedin a manner befitting their valor and sacrifice.

We applaud the Administration's program to assure each returned prisonerthe finest medical care, personal counseling, social services and careerorientation. This around-the-clock personal service will ease their reintegrationinto American life.

North Vietnam's violation of the Geneva Convention in its treatment ofour prisoners of war has called forth condemnation from leaders around theworld ‹ but not by our political opposition at home. We denounce theenemy's flagrant breach of international law and common decency. We willcontinue to demand full implementation of the rights of the prisoners.

If North Vietnam continues obdurately to reject peace by negotiationwe shall nevertheless achieve peace for our country through the successfulprogram of Vietnamization, phasing out our involvement as our ally strengthenshis defense against aggression.

In the Middle East, we initiated arrangements leading to a cease-firewhich has prevailed for two years. We pledge very effort to transform thecease-fire into lasting peace.

Since World War II, our country has played the major role in the internationaleffort to assist the developing countries of the world. Reform of our foreignassistance program to induce a greater international sharing of the aideffort, is long overdue The reforms proposed by the President have beenapproved only in part. We call for further reforms to make our aid moreeffective and protect the taxpayer's interests.

We stand for an equitable, non-discriminatory immigration policy, reaffirmingour support of the principles of the 1965 Immigration Act ‹ non-discriminationagainst national origins, renunciation of families, and the selective admissionof the specially talented. The immigration process must be just and orderly,and we will increase our efforts to halt the illegal entry of aliens intothe United States.

We also pledge to strengthen the agencies of international cooperation.We will help multilateral organizations focus on international issues affectingthe quality of life ‹ for example the peaceful uses of nuclear energyand the protection of man's cultural heritage and freedom of communication,as well as drug abuse, pollution, overpopulation, exploitation of the seaand seabeds, aircraft hijacking and international crime. We will seek toimprove the performance of the United Nations, including more objectiveleadership. We support a more equitable sharing of the costs of internationalorganizations and have serious concerns over the delinquency of many UNmembers in meeting their financial obligations.

Our country, which from its beginnings has proclaimed that all men areendowed with certain rights, cannot be indifferent to the denial of humanrights anywhere in the world. We deplore oppression and persecution, theinevitable hallmarks of despotic systems of rule. We will continue to striveto bring them to an end, both to reestablish the rights of self-determinationand to encourage where and when possible the political freedom of subjugatedpeoples everywhere in the world.

We firmly support the right of all persons to emigrate from any country,and we have consistently upheld that doctrine. We are fully aware of andshare the concern of many citizens for the plight of Soviet Jews with regardto their freedoms and emigration. This view, together with our commitmentto the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the UnitedNations, was made known to Soviet leaders during the President's discussionsin Moscow.

The Middle East. We support the right of Israel and its courageous peopleto survive and prosper in peace. We have sought a stable peace for the MiddleEast and helped to obtain a cease-fire which contained the tragic convict.We will help in any way possible to bring Israel and the Arab states tothe conference table, where they may negotiate a lasting peace. We willcontinue to act to prevent the development of a military imbalance whichwould imperil peace in the region and elsewhere by providing Israel withsupport essential for her security, including aircraft, training and modemand sophisticated military equipment, and also by helping friendly Arabgovernments and peoples, including support for their efforts to diminishtheir dependence on outside powers. We support programs of economic assistanceto Israel pursued by President Nixon that have helped her achieve a ninepercent annual economic growth rate. This and the special refugee assistanceordered by the President have also helped to provide resettlement for thethousands of immigrants seeking refuge in Israel.

We will maintain our tactical forces in Europe and the Mediterraneanarea at adequate strength and high levels of efficiency. The irresponsibleproposals of our political opposition to slash the defense forces of theUnited States specifically, by cutting the strength of our fleet, by reducingour aircraft carriers from 16 to six and by unilateral withdrawals fromEurope ‹ would increase the threat of war in the Middle East and gravelymenace Israel. We flatly reject these dangerous proposals.

With a settlement fair to all nations of the Middle East, there wouldbe an opportunity for their peoples to look ahead to shared opportunitiesrather than backward to rancorous animosities. In a new environment of cooperation,Israel will be able to contribute much to economic renaissance in the Mid-Eastcrossroads of the world.

The Atlantic Community. We place high priority on the strengthening ofthe North Atlantic Alliance. One of the President's first initiatives wasto visit Western European capitals to reinvigorate the NATO alliance andindicate its importance in U.S. foreign policy.

Right now, with plaintive cries of "come home America" echoinga new isolationism, the Republican Party states its firm belief that nonation can be an island or a fortress unto itself. Now, more than ever,there is need for interdependence among proven friends and old allies.

The North Atlantic Alliance remains the strongest, most successful peacetimeassociation ever formed among a group of free nations. The continued strengtheningof the Alliance will remain an important element in the foreign policiesof the second Nixon administration.

Japan. During the 1960's a number of economic and political issues developedin our country's relations with Japan, our major ally in Asia. To resolvethese, President Nixon terminated our responsibility for the administrationof Okinawa and initiated action to reduce our trade deficit with Japan.We are consulting closely to harmonize our two countries' separate effortsto normalize relations with Peking. In these ways we have shifted our vitalalliance with Japan to a more sustainable basis for the long term, recognizingthat the maintenance of United States-Japanese friendship advances the interestsof both countries.

The Soviet Union. Over many years our relations with the Soviet Unionhave oscillated between superficial improvements and new crises. False hopeshave been repeatedly followed by disillusioned confrontation. In the closingmonths of 1968, our relations with the Soviet Union deteriorated steadily,forcing the cancellation of a scheduled Presidential visit to Moscow andimmobilizing projected negotiations on strategic arms limitation.

President Nixon immediately began the difficult task of building a newrelationship ‹ one based on a realistic acceptance of the profounddifferences in the values and systems of our two nations. He moved decisivelyon key issues ‹ such as the Berlin problem and strategic arms limitation‹ so that progress in one area would add momentum to progress in otherareas. The success of these efforts was demonstrated at the summit in Moscow.Agreements were reached on new areas of cooperation ‹ public health,environmental control, space exploration and trade. The first historic agreementslimiting strategic arms were signed last May 26 in Moscow, and the SovietUnion subscribed to a broad declaration of principles governing our relations.

We pledge to build upon these promising beginnings in reorienting relationsbetween the world's strongest nuclear powers to establish a truly lastingpeace.

China. In the 1960's it seemed beyond possibility that the United Statescould dispel the ingrained hostility and confrontation with the China mainland.President Nixon's visit to the People's Republic of China was, therefore,an historic milestone in his effort to transform our era from one of confrontationto one of negotiation. While profound differences remain between the UnitedStates and China, at least a generation of hostility has been replaced byfrank discussions. In February 1972 rules of international conduct wereagreed upon which should make the Pacific region a more peaceful area nowand in the future. Both the People's Republic and the United States affirmedthe usefulness of promoting trade and cultural exchanges as ways of improvingunderstanding between our two peoples.

All this is being done without affecting our mutual defense treaty orour continued diplomatic relations with our valued friend and ally on Taiwan,the Republic of China.

Latin America. Our common long-range interests, as well as history andgeography, give the relations among nations of the Western Hemisphere aspecial importance. We will foster a more mature partnership among the nationsof this hemisphere, with a wider sharing of ideas and responsibility, abroader understanding of diversities, and firm commitment to the commonpursuit of economic progress and social justice.

We believe the continuing campaign by Cuba to foment violence and supportsubversion in other countries makes it ineligible for readmission to thecommunity of American states. We look forward to the day when changes inCuba's policies will justify its re-entry into the American community ‹and to the day when the Cuban people achieve again their freedom and theirtrue independence.

Africa. Our ties with Africa are rooted in the heritage of many Americansand in our historic commitment to self-determination. We respect the hardearned sovereignty of Africa's new states and will continue to do our utmostto make a meaningful contribution to their development. We have no illusionsthat the United States can single-handedly solve the seemingly intractableproblems of apartheid and minority rule, but we can and will encourage non-violent,evolutionary change by supporting international efforts peacefully to resolvethe problems of southern Africa and by maintaining our contacts with allraces on the Continent.

DEFENSE

We believe in keeping America strong.

In times past, both major parties shared that belief. Today this viewis under attack by militants newly in control of the Democratic Party. Tothe alarm of free nations everywhere, the New Democratic Left now wouldundercut our defenses and have America retreat into virtual isolation, leavingus weak in a world still not free of aggression and threats of aggression.We categorically reject this slash-now, beg-later approach to defense policy.

Only a strong America can safely negotiate with adversaries. Only a strongAmerica can fashion partnerships for peace.

President Nixon has given the American people their best opportunityin this century to achieve lasting peace. The foundations are well laid.By adhering to a defense policy based on strength at home, partnership abroadand a willingness to negotiate everywhere, we hold that lasting peace isnow achievable.

We will surely fail if we go crawling to the conference table. Militaryweakness is not the path to peace; it is invitation to war.

A Modern, Well-Equipped Force. We believe that the first prerequisiteof national security is a modem, well-equipped armed force.

From 1965 to 1969 the Vietnam war so absorbed the resources of the DefenseDepartment that maintenance, modernization. and research and developmentfell into neglect. In the late 1960's the Soviet Union outspent the UnitedStates by billions of dollars for force modernization, facing the UnitedStates with the dangerous prospect that its forces would soon be qualitativelyinferior. Our Reserve Forces and the National Guard had become a dumpingground for castoff arms and equipment. The military posture of our countrybecame seriously undermined.

To assure our strength and counter the mounting Soviet threat, PresidentNixon directed:

• The most significant ship construction and modernization program since World War II;
• The development of new types of tactical aircraft such as the F-15, a lightweight fighter, and a fighter plane for close support of ground troops;
• Improvements in our strategic bomber force and development of the new B-1 strategic bomber;
• Development of a new TRIDENT submarine and undersea missile system;
• Greatly increasing the capability of existing strategic missiles through multiple warheads;
• Strengthening of strategic defenses, including initial deployment of an anti-ballistic missile system;
• The largest research and development budget in history to ensure continued technological superiority;
• Equipping of the National Guard and Reserves with the most modern and sophisticated weapons;
• Improved command and control communications systems.

We draw a sharp distinction between prudent reductions in defense spendingand the meat-ax slashes with which some Americans are not beguiled by thepolitical opposition. Specifically, we oppose plans to stop the MinutemanIII and Poseidon programs, reduce the strategic bomber force by some 60percent, cancel the B-1 bomber, reduce aircraft carriers from 16 to 6, reducetactical air wings by a third, and unilaterally reduce U.S. forces in Europeby half.

These slashes are worse than misguided; they are dangerous.

They would torpedo negotiations on arms and troop reductions, createa crisis of confidence with our allies, damage our own industrial and technologicalcapacity, destabilize Europe and the Middle East, and directly endangerthe nation's security.

A New Partnership. The Nixon Doctrine has led to a new military strategyof realistic deterrence. Its essence is the sharing of the responsibilitiesand the burdens of defense. This strategy is based on the efficient utilizationof the total force available -- our own and our allies', and our civilianreserve elements as well as our regular forces.

For years our country shouldered the responsibility for the defense ofother nations. There were fears that we were attempting to be the policemenof the world. Our country found it necessary to maintain a military forceof 3.5 million persons more than a million overseas at 2,270 installations.

A new partnership is emerging between the United States and other nationsof the free world. Other countries are assuming a much greater responsibilityfor the common defense. Twice in the last two years our European allieshave agreed to substantial increases in their support for NATO forces. InAsia we have been heartened by the efforts of the Koreans, Vietnamese, Thais,Nationalist Chinese, Australians, New Zealanders and others who have soughtimprovements in their own forces.

We have been able to reduce our military forces by more than one millionmen and women. We have cut by half the number deployed overseas, reducedoverseas installations by more than 10 percent, and sharply reduced theeconomic burden of defense spending from the Vietnam high. All this hasbeen done by virtue of our new security posture, without impairing our ownor our allies' security.

We pledge to press on toward a lasting peace. To that end we declareourselves unalterably opposed to a unilateral slash of our military power,and we reject a whimpering "come back America" retreat into isolationism.

An All-Volunteer Armed Force. We wholeheartedly support an all-volunteerarmed force and are proud of our historic initiatives to bring it to pass.

Four years ago, the President pledged to work toward an early end ofthe draft. That promise has been kept. Today we approach a zero draft thatwill enlarge the personal freedom of millions of young Americans.

Prior to 1969, annual draft calls exceeded 300,000. The Selective ServiceSystem was inequitable in operation, and its rules caused prolonged uncertaintyfor young men awaiting call.

Since 1969, the Selective Service System has been thoroughly reorganized,and local draft boards are more representative than ever before. Today drafteesare called by random selection of the youngest first, so that the maximumlength of vulnerability is no longer seven years but one year only. Youthadvisor committees are in operation all across the country.

Of critical importance, we are nearing the elimination of draft callsaltogether. In every year since 1968, draft calls have been reduced. Monthlydraft calls are now down to a few thousand, and no draftees are sent involuntarilyto Vietnam. We expect to achieve our goal by July, 1973. Then, for the firsttime in a quarter-century, we hope and expect that young Americans of allages will be free from conscription.

Our political opponents have talked for years of their concern for youngpeople. It is our Republican Administration that has taken the strong, effectiveaction required to end the draft, with its many hardships and uncertaintiesfor the youth of America.

Improvements in Service Life. We believe that the men and women in theuniformed services deserve the gratitude and respect of all Americans andare entitled to better treatment than received in the past.

For years most servicemen have been underpaid, harassed with restrictions,and afforded few opportunities for self-development. Construction of militaryhousing was allowed to fall badly behind.

Since 1968 improvements in service life have been many and major:

• The largest pay raises in military history have been enacted. While increases have been in all grades, the largest have gone to new recruits whose base pay will have risen more than 300 percent by the end of this year.
• Construction of new housing for military personnel and their families have increased sixfold since January 1969.
• Without sacrificing discipline, needlessly harsh, irksome and demeaning practices of the past have been abandoned.
• An effective program against dangerous drugs has been initiated.
• Educational and training opportunities have been expanded.
• Major strides have been made toward wiping out the last vestiges of racial discrimination.

We regard these tasks as never completed, but we are well on the wayand pledge ourselves to press forward assuring all men and women in thearmed forces rewarding careers.

Better Defense Management. In the 1960's, the Department of Defense becameadministratively top-heavy and inefficient. The acquisition of new weaponssystems was handled with inadequate attention to cost or performance, andthere was little recognition of the human dimensions of the Department.Morale was low.

Our improvements have been many and substantial. Healthy decentralizationhas taken place. The methods of acquiring new weapons systems have beenreformed by such procedures as "fly before you buy," the use ofprototypes and the elimination of frills. Service personnel and civilianemployees are now treated as the most important asset of the Department.

We have sharply reduced defense spending. In 1968, 45 percent of theFederal budget was spent for defense and 32 percent for human resources.In the 1973 budget the proportions were reversed ‹ 45 percent for humanresources, 32 percent for defense. The 1973 defense budget imposes the smallesteconomic burden on the country of any defense budget in more than 20 years,consuming only 6.4 percent of the estimated Gross National Product.

Arms Limitation. We believe in limiting arms ‹ not unilaterally.but by mutual agreement and with adequate safeguards.

When the Nixon Administration began, the Soviet Union was rapidly buildingits strategic armaments, and any effort to negotiate limitations on suchweapons seemed hopeless. The Soviet build-up threatened the efficacy ofour strategic deterrent.

The Nixon years have achieved a great breakthrough in the long-term effortto curb major armaments by international agreement and given new momentumto arms limitations generally. Of greatest importance were agreements withthe Soviet leaders to limit offensive and defensive nuclear weapons. TheSALT accord established mutually agreed restraints between the United Statesand the Soviet Union and reduced tensions throughout the world.

With approval of the SALT agreements by the Congress, negotiations willbe resumed to place further restrictions on nuclear weapons, and talks willbegin on mutual, balanced force reductions in Europe.

We believe it is imperative that these negotiations go forward underPresident Nixon's continuing leadership. We pledge him our full support.

For the Future. We will continue the sound military policies laid downby the President ‹ our policies which guard our interests but do notdissipate our resources in vain efforts to police the world. As stated bythe President:

• We will maintain a nuclear deterrent adequate to meet any threat to the security of the United States or of our allies.
• We will help other nations develop the capability of defending themselves.
• We will faithfully honor all of our treaty commitments.
• We will act to defend our interests whenever and wherever they are threatened.
• But where our vital interests or treaty commitments are not involved our role will be limited.

We are proud of the men and women who wear our country's uniform, especiallyof those who have borne the burden of fighting a difficult and unpopularwar. Here and now we reject all proposals to grant amnesty to those whohave broken the law by evading military service. We reject the claim thatthose who fled are more deserving, or obeyed a higher morality, than thosenext in line who served in their places.

In carrying out our defense policies, we pledge to maintain at all timesthe level of military strength required to deter conflict, to honor ourcommitments to our allies, and to protect our people and vital interestsagainst all foreign threats. We will not let America become a second-classpower, dependent for survival on the good will of adversaries.

We will continue to pursue arms control agreements ‹ but we recognizethat this can be successful only if we maintain sufficient strength andwill fail if we allow ourselves to slip into inferiority.

A New Prosperity

JOBS, INFLATION AND THE ECONOMY

The goal of our Party is prosperity, widely-shared, sustainable in peace.

We stand for full employment ‹ a job for everyone willing and ableto work in an economy freed of inflation, its vigor not dependent upon waror massive military spending.

Under the President's leadership our country is once again moving towardthese peacetime goals. We have checked the inflation which had started toskyrocket when our Administration took office. making the difficult transitionfrom inflation toward price stability and from war toward peace. We havebrought about a rapid rise in both employment and in real income, and laidthe basis for a continuing decline in the rate of unemployment.

All Americans painfully recall the grave economic troubles we faced inJanuary 1969. The Federal budget in fiscal 1968 had a deficit of more than$25 billion even though the economy was operating at capacity. Predictably,consumer prices soared by an annual rate of 6.6 percent in the first quarterof 1969. "Jawboning" of labor and business had utterly failed.The inevitable tax increase had come too late. The kaleidoscope of "GreatSociety" programs added to the inflationary fires. Our internationalcompetitive position slumped from a trade surplus of $7 billion in 1964to $800 million in 1968. Foreign confidence in the value of the dollar plummeted.

Strategies and Achievements. Our Administration took these problems headon, accepting the unpopular tasks of holding down the budget, extendingthe temporary tax surcharge, and checking inflation. We welcomed the challengeof reorienting the economy from war to peace, as the more than two and one-halfmillion Americans serving the military or working in defense-related industrieshad to be assimilated in the peacetime work force.

At the same time, we kept the inflation fight and defense employmentcuts from triggering a recession.

The struggle to restore the health of our nation's economy required avariety of measures. Most important, the Administration developed and appliedsound economic and monetary policies which provided the fundamental thrustagainst inflation.

To supplement these basic policies, Inflation Alerts were published;a new National Commission on Productivity enlisted labor, business and publicleaders against inflation and in raising real incomes through increasedoutput per worker: proposed price increases in lumber, petroleum, steeland other commodities were modified. A new Construction Industry StabilizationCommittee, with the cooperation of unions and management, braked the dangerouslyskyrocketing costs in the construction industry.

Positive results from these efforts were swift and substantial. The rateof inflation, more than 6 percent in early 1969, declined to less than 4percent in early 1971.

Even so, the economic damage inflicted by past excesses had cut so deeplyas to make a timely recovery impossible forcing the temporary use of wageand price controls.

These controls were extraordinary measures, not needed in a healthy freeeconomy, but needed temporarily to recapture lost stability.

Our mix of policies has worked. The nation's economic growth is onceagain strong and steady.

The rate of increase of consumer prices is now down to 2.7 percent.

On the employment front, expenditures for manpower pro. grams were increasedfrom $2.3 billion to a planned $5.1 billion; new enrollees receiving trainingor employment under these programs were increased by more than half a million;computerized job banks were established in all cities; more than a millionyoung people received jobs this summer through Federal programs, 50 percentmore than last year; engineers, scientists and technicians displaced bydefense reductions were given assistance under the nationwide TechnologyMobilization and Reemployment program; 13 additional weeks of unemploymentcompensation were authorized; and a Special Revenue Sharing Program forManpower was proposed to train more people for more jobs ‹ a programstill shelved by the opposition Congress.

Civilian employment increased at an annual rate of about 2.4 millionfrom August 1971 to July 1972. Almost four and one-half million new civilianjobs have been added since President Nixon took office, and total employmentis at its highest level in history.

The total productive output of the country increased at an annual rateof 9.4 percent in the second quarter of 1972, the highest in many years.

Workers' real weekly take-home pay ‹ the real value left after taxesand inflation ‹ is increasing at an annual rate of 4.5 percent, comparedto less than one percent from 1960 to 1970. For the first time in six yearsreal spendable income is going up, while the rate of inflation has beencut in half.

Time lost from strikes is at the lowest level in many years.

The rate of unemployment has been reduced from 6.1 percent to 5.5 percent,lower than the average from 1961 through 1964 before the Vietnam buildupbegan, and is being steadily driven down.

In negotiation with other countries we have revalued the dollar relativeto other currencies, helping to increase sales at home and abroad and increasingthe number of jobs. We have initiated a reform of the international monetaryand trading system and made clear our determination that this reform mustlead to a strong United States position in the balance of trade and payments.

The Road Ahead. We will continue to pursue sound economic policies thatwill eliminate inflation, further cut unemployment, raise real incomes,and strengthen our international economic position.

We will fight for responsible Federal budgets to help assure steady expansionof the economy without inflation.

We will support the independent Federal Reserve Board in a policy ofnon-inflationary monetary expansion.

We have already removed some temporary controls on wages and prices andwill remove them all once the economic distortions spawned in the late 1960'sare repaired. We are determined to return to an unfettered economy at theearliest possible moment.

We affirm our support for the basic principles of capitalism which underlinethe private enterprise system of the United States. At a time when a smallbut dominant faction of the opposition Party is pressing for radical economicschemes which so often have failed around the world, we hold that nothinghas done more to help the American people achieve their unmatched standardof living than the free enterprise system.

It is our conviction that government of itself cannot produce the benefitsto individuals that flow from our unique combination of labor, managementand capital.

We will continue to promote steady expansion of the whole economy asthe best route to a long-term solution of unemployment.

Ate will devote every effort to raising productivity, primarily to raiseliving standards but also to hold down costs and pried and to increase theability of American producers and workers to compete in world markets.

In economic policy decisions, including tax revisions, we will emphasizeincentives to work, innovate and invest; and research and development willhave our full support.

We are determined to improve Federal manpower programs to reduce unemploymentand increase productivity by providing better information on job openingsand more relevant job training. Additionally we reaffirm our commitmentto removing barriers to a full life for the mentally and physically handicapped,especially the barriers to rewarding employment. We commit ourselves tothe full educational opportunities and the humane care, treatment and rehabilitationservices necessary for the handicapped to become fully integrated into thesocial and economic mainstream.

We will press on for greater competition in our economy. The energeticantitrust program of the past four years demonstrates our commitment tofree competition as our basic policy. The Antitrust Division has moved decisivelyto invalidate those "conglomerate" mergers which stifle competitionand discourage economic concentration. The 87 antitrust cases filed in fiscalyear 1979 broke the previous one-year record of more than a decade ago,during another Republican Administration.

We will pursue the start we have made for reform of the internationalmonetary and trading system, insisting on fair and equal treatment.

Since the 1930's, it has been illegal for United States citizens to owngold. We believe it is time to reconsider that policy. The right of Americancitizens to buy, hold, or sell gold should be reestablished as soon as thisis feasible. Review of the present policy should, of course, take accountof our basic objective of achieving a strengthened world monetary system.

TAXES AND GOVERNMENT SPENDING

We pledge to spread the tax burden equitably, to spend the Federal revenuesprudently, to guard against waste in spending, to eliminate unnecessaryprograms, and to make sure that each dollar spent for essential governmentservices buys a dollar's worth of value.

Federal deficit spending beyond the balance of the full employment budgetis one sure way to refuel inflation, and the prime source of such spendingis the United States Congress. Because of its present procedures and particularlybecause of its present political leadership, Congress is not handling Federalfiscal policies in a responsible manner. The Congress now permits its legislativecommittees ‹ instead of its fiscal committees ‹ to decide, independentlyof each other, how much should be devoted to individual programs. TotalFederal spending Is thus haphazard and uncontrolled. We pledge vigorousefforts to reform the Congressional budgeting process.

As an immediate first step, we believe the Nation needs a rigid spendingceiling on Federal outlays each fiscal year ‹ a ceiling controllingboth the executive branch and the Congress ‹ as President Nixon stronglyrecommended when he submitted his fiscal 1973 budget. Should the total ofall appropriations exceed the ceiling, some or all of them would be reducedby Executive action to bring the total within the ceiling.

Our tax system needs continual, timely reform. Early in this Administrationwe achieved the first comprehensive tax reform since 1954. The record showsthat as a result of the Tax Reform Act of 1969 and the Revenue Act of 1971:

• 9 5 million low-income Americans are removed from the Federal income tax rolls.
• Persons in the lowest income tax bracket will pay 82 percent less this year than they would have paid, had the 1969 and 1971 tax reforms not been enacted; those in the $10,000 to $15,000 income range will pay 18 percent less, and those with incomes above $100,000 will pay about 7 percent more.
• This year the tax reduction for a family of four earning $7,500 a year will be $270.
• In this fiscal year individual taxpayers will pay $22 billion less in Federal income taxes than they would have paid if the old tax rates and structures were still in force.
• The tax disadvantage of single taxpayers is sharply reduced and we urge further changes to assure full equality.
• Working parents can now deduct more of their costs for the care of their children during working hours.
• The seven percent automobile excise tax is repealed, saving the new car buyer an average of $200 and creating more jobs in that part of the economy.

This is sound tax reform, the kind that more equitably spreads the taxburden and avoids incentive-destroying tax levels which would cripple theeconomy and put people out of work.

We reject the deceitful tax "reform" cynically representedas one that would soak the rich, but in fact one that would sharply raisethe taxes of millions of families in middle-income brackets as well. Wereject as well the lavish spending promised by the opposition Party whichwould more than double the present budget of the United States Government.This. too, would cause runaway inflation or force heavy increases in personaltaxes.

Taxes and government spending are inseparable. Only if the taxpayers'money is prudently managed can taxes be kept at reasonable levels.

When our Administration took office, Federal spending had been mountingat an average annual rate of 17 percent ‹ a rate we have cut almostin half. We urge the Congress to serve all Americans by cooperating withthe President in his efforts to curb increases in federal spending ‹increases which will ordain more taxes or more inflation.

Since 1969 we have eliminated over $5 billion of spending on unneededdomestic and defense programs. This large saving would have been largerstill, had Congress passed the Federal Economy Act of 1970 which would havediscontinued other programs. We pledge to continue our efforts to purgethe Government of these wasteful activities.

Tax reform must continue. During the next session of Congress we pledge:

• To pursue such policies as Revenue Sharing that will allow property tax relief;
• Further tax reform to ensure that the tax burden is fairly shared;
• A simplified tax system to make it easier for all of us to pay no more and no less than we rightly owe;
• Prudent fiscal management, including the elimination of unnecessary or obsolete programs, to keep the tax burden to a minimum.

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC POLICY

In tandem with our foreign policy innovations, we have transformed ourinternational economic policy into a dynamic instrument to advance the interestsof farmers, workers, businessmen and consumers. These efforts are designedto make the products of American workers and farmers more competitive inthe world. Within the last year we achieved the Smithsonian Agreements whichrevalued our currency, making our exports more competitive with those ofour major trading partners, and we pledge continuing negotiations furtherto reform the international monetary system. We also established negotiationsto expand foreign market access for products produced by United States workers,with further comprehensive negotiations committed for 1973.

As part of our effort to begin a new era of negotiations, we are expandingtrade opportunities and the jobs related to them for American workers andbusinessmen. The President's Summit negotiations, for example, yielded anagreement for the Soviet purchase, over a three-year period, of a minimumof $750 million in United States grains ‹ the largest long-term commercialtrade purchase agreement ever made between two nations. This amounts toa 17 percent increase in grain exports by United States farmers. A U.S.-SovietCommercial Commission has been established, and negotiations are now underwayas both countries seek a general expansion of trade.

As we create a more open world market for American exports, we are notunmindful of dangers to American workers and industries from severe andrapid dislocation by changing patterns of trade. We have several agreementsto protect these workers and industries ‹ for example, for steel, beef,textiles and shoes. These actions, highly important to key American industries,were taken in ways that avoided retaliation by our trading partners andthe resultant loss of American jobs.

As part of this adjustment process, we pledge improvement of the assistanceoffered by government to facilitate readjustment on the part of workers,businessmen and affected communities.

In making the world trading system a fairer one, we have vigorously enforcedanti-dumping and countervailing duty laws to make them meaningful deterrentsto foreign producers who would compete unfairly.

The growth of multinational corporations poses both new problems andnew opportunities in trade and investment areas. We pledge to ensure thatinternational investment problems are dealt with fairly and effectively‹ including consideration of effects on jobs, expropriation and treatmentof investors, as well as equitable principles of taxation.

At the same time that we seek a better environment for American exports,we must improve our productivity and competitiveness. We must have a strongdomestic economy with increased investment in new plants and equipment andan advancing technology.

We pledge increased efforts to promote export opportunities, includingcoordination of tax policy and improved export financing techniques ‹designed to make America more competitive in exporting. Of critical importancewill be new legislative proposals to equip American negotiators with thetools for constructing an open and fair world trading system.

We deplore the practice of locating plants in foreign countries solelyto take advantage of low wage rates in order to produce goods primarilyfor sale in the United States. We will take action to discourage such unfairand disruptive practices that result in the loss of American jobs.

SMALL BUSINESS

Small business, so vital to our economic system is free enterprise inits purest sense. It holds forth opportunity to the individual, regardlessof race and color, to fulfill the American dream. The seed bed of innovationand invention, it is the starting point of many of the country's large businesses,and today its role in our increasingly technological economy is crucial.We pledge to sustain and expand that role.

We have translated this philosophy into many beneficial actions. Primarilythrough the Small Business Administration, we have delivered financial assistanceto small business at a dramatically increasing rate. Today small businessis receiving double the SBA funds it was receiving when our Administrationtook office. During the 1970-72 fiscal years the Agency loaned small business$3.3-billion ‹ 40 percent of the total amount loaned in the entire19-year history of the Small Business Administration.

Financial help to minorities has been more than tripled, and now morethan 17 percent of the SBA dollar goes to minority business. Procurementof Federal contracts for small business has surged above $12 billion.

In his first year in office, the President established a Task Force todiscover ways in which the prospects of the small businessman could be improved.

The findings, reported to Congress, were followed by legislative proposalsto give small business tax and interest advantages, to provide incentivesfor more participation in small business, to make venture capital and long-termcredit easier to obtain, and to open the doors for disadvantaged minoritiesto go into business for themselves. Some of these measures have been signedinto law. Others are still in the hands of the indifferent opposition incontrol of Congress.

The results of our efforts have been significant. Today small businessis once again gaining ground. Incorporations are at a record level and thenumber of business failures is dropping. The current new growth of smallbusiness is about 100,000 units a year. For tomorrow, the challenges aremany. We will:

• Continue to fill the capital gap in the small business community by increasing SBA financing to upwards of $3 billion next year.
• Provide more incentives for the private sector to join with SBA in direct action programs, such as lease guarantees, revolving lines of credit, and other sophisticated financial techniques, such as factoring and mortgage financing.
• Increase SBA's Community Development program so that growth-minded communities can help themselves by building industrial parks and shopping centers.
• Continue the rejuvenation of the Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) program, leading to greater availability of venture capital for new business enterprises.
• See that a fair share of all Federal dollars spent on goods and services goes to small business.
• Create established secondary financial markets for SBA loans, affording ready liquidity for financial institutions and opening up more financial resources to small firms.
• Through tax incentives, encourage the start-up of more new businesses, and work for a tax system that more fairly applies to small business.
• Establish special programs that will permit small firms to comply with consumer, environmental, and other new government regulations without undue financial burden.

Improving the Quality of Life

HEALTH CARE

Our goal is to enable every American to secure quality health care atreasonable cost. We pledge a balanced approach ‹ one that takes intoaccount the problems of providing sufficient medical personnel and facilities.

Last year President Nixon proposed one of the most all-inclusive healthprograms in our history. But the Opposition Congress has dragged its feetand most of this program has yet to be enacted into law.

To increase the supply of medical services, we will continues to supportprograms to help our schools graduate more physicians, dentists, nursesand allied health personnel, with special emphasis on family practitionersand others who deliver primary medical care.

We will also encourage the use of such allied personnel as doctors' assistants,foster new area health education centers, channel more services into geographicareas which now are medically deprived, and improve the availability ofemergency medical care.

We note with pride that the President has already signed the most comprehensivehealth manpower legislation ever enacted.

To improve efficiency in providing health and medical, care, we havedeveloped and will continue to encourage a pluralistic approach to the deliveryof quality health care including innovative experiments such as health maintenanceorganizations. We also support efforts to develop ambulatory medical careservices to reduce hospitalization and keep costs down.

To reduce the cost of health care, we stress our efforts to curb inflationin the economy; we will also expand the supply of medical services and encouragegreater cost consciousness in hospitalization and medical care. In doingthis we realize the importance of the doctor-patient relationship and thenecessity of insuring that individuals have freedom of choice of healthproviders.

To assure access to basic medical care for all our people, we supporta program financed by employers, employees and the Federal Government toprovide comprehensive health insurance coverage, including insurance againstthe cost of long-term and catastrophic illnesses and accidents and renalfailure which necessitates dialysis, at a cost which all Americans can afford.The National Health Insurance Partnership plan and the Family Health InsurancePlan proposed by the President meet these specifications. They would buildon existing private health insurance systems, not destroy them.

We oppose nationalized compulsory health insurance. This approach wouldat least triple in taxes the amount the average citizen now pays for healthand would deny families the right to choose the kind of care they prefer.Ultimately it would lower the overall quality of health care for all Americans.

We believe that the most effective way of improving health in the longrun is by emphasis on preventive measures.

The serious physical fitness problem in our country requires urgent attention.The President recently reorganized the Council on Physical Fitness and Sportsto increase the leadership of representatives of medicine, physical education,sports associations and school administrations. The Republican Party urgesintensification of these efforts, particularly in the Nation's school systems,to encourage widespread participation in effective physical fitness programs.

We have initiated this Nation's first all-out assault against cancer.Led by the new National Cancer Institute, the drive to eliminate this cruelkiller will involve Federal spending of nearly $430 million in fiscal year1973, almost twice the funding of just two years ago.

We have also launched a major new attack on sickle cell anemia, a seriousblood disorder afflicting many black Americans, and developed a comprehensiveprogram to deal with the menace of lead-based paint poisoning, includingthe screening of approximately 1,500,000 Americans.

We support expanded medical research to find cures for the major diseasesof the heart, blood vessels, lungs and kidneys ‹ diseases which nowaccount for over half the deaths in the United States.

We have significantly advanced efforts to combat mental retardation andestablished a national goal to cut its incidence in half by the year 2000.

We continue to support the concept of comprehensive community mentalhealth centers. In this fiscal year $135 million ‹ almost three timesthe 1970 level ‹ will be devoted to the staffing of 422 community mentalhealth centers serving a population of 56 million people. We have intensifiedresearch on methods of treating mental problems, increasing our outlaysfrom $76 million in 1969 to approximately $96 million for 1973. We continueto urge extension of private health insurance to cover mental illness.

We have also improved consumer protection, health education and accidentprevention programs. And in Moscow this year, President Nixon reached anagreement with the Soviet Union on health research which may yield substantialbenefits in many fields in the years ahead.

EDUCATION

We take pride in our leadership these last four years in lifting bothquality and equality in American education ‹ from preschool to graduateschool ‹ working toward higher standards than ever before.

Our two most pressing needs in the 1970's are the provision of qualityeducation for all children, and equitable financing of steadily rising costs.We pledge our best efforts to deal effectively with both.

Months ago President Nixon sent Congress a two-part comprehensive proposalon school busing. The first is the Student Transportation Moratorium Actof 1972 ‹ legislation to halt immediately all further court-orderedbusing and give Congress time to devise permanent new arrangements for assuringdesegregated, quality education.

The details of such arrangements are spelled out in a companion bill,the Equal Educational Opportunities Act. This measure would:

• Provide $2.5 billion in Federal aid funds to help promote quality education while preserving neighborhood schools;
• Accord equal educational opportunities to all children;
• Include an educational bill of rights for Spanish-speaking people, American Indians, and others who face special language problems in schools;
• Offer, for the first time, a real chance for good schooling for the hundreds of thousands of children who live in urban centers;
• Assure that the people's elected representatives in Congress play their proper role in developing specific methods for protecting the rights guaranteed by the 14th amendment, rather than leaving this task to judges appointed for life.

We are committed to guaranteeing equality of educational opportunityand to completing the process of ending de jure school segregation.

At the same time, we are irrevocably opposed to busing for racial balance.Such busing fails its stated objective ‹ improved learning opportunities‹ while it achieves results no one wants ‹ division within communitiesand hostility between classes and races. We regard it as unnecessary, counter-productiveand wrong.

We favor better education for all children, not more transportation forsome children. We favor the neighborhood school concept. We favor the decisiveactions the President has proposed to support these ends. If it is necessaryto accomplish these purposes, we would favor consideration of an appropriateamendment to the Constitution.

In the field of school finance, we favor a coordinated effort among alllevels of government to break the pattern of excessive reliance on localproperty taxes to pay educational costs.

Our nation's intellectual resources are remarkable for their strengthand public availability. American intellectuals have at least two importanthistorical roles of which we are deeply conscious. One is to inform thepublic, the other to assist government by thoughtful criticism and consultation.We affirm our confidence in these functions and especially in the free playof ideas and discourse which they imply.

We cherish the nation's universities as centers of learning, as conserversof our culture, and as analysts of our society and its institutions. Wewill continue to strive to assure their economic well-being. The financialaid we have given and will continue to give in the form of funds for scholarships,research, building programs and new teaching methods must never be usedas a device for imposing political controls on our schools.

We believe that universities should be centers of excellence ‹ thatthey should recruit faculty on the basis of ability to teach and admit studentson the basis of ability to learn. Yet, excellence can be too narrowly confined‹ abilities overlooked, and social conformity mistaken for educationalpreparation.

We pledge continued support of collegiate and university efforts to insurethat no group in our society ‹ racial, economic, sexual or regional‹ is denied access to the opportunities of higher education.

Our efforts to remedy ancient neglect of disadvantaged groups will continuein universities as well as in society at large, but we distinguish betweensuch efforts and quotas. We believe the imposition of arbitrary quotas inthe hiring of faculties or the enrollment of students has no place in ouruniversities; we believe quotas strike at the essence of the university.

We recognize that the public should have access to the most rationaland most effective kinds of education. Vocational training should be availableto both young and old. We emphasize the importance of continuing education,of trades and technologies, and of all the honorable vocations which providethe society with its basic necessities. Such training must complement ourmore traditional forms of education; it will relieve the pressures on ouruniversities and help us adapt to the rapid pace of technological change.Perhaps more important, it will help to restore a public sense of importanceto these essential jobs and trades.

Moreover, we believe our educational system should not instruct in avacuum, unmindful that the students ultimately will engage in a career.Our institutions of learning, from earliest years to graduate schools canperform a vital function by coupling an awareness of the worth of work tothe delivery of fundamental education. We believe this kind of career educationblended into our school curricula, can help to prevent the aimlessness andfrustration now experienced by large numbers of young people who leave theeducation system unable to cope with today's complex society.

In recognizing the fundamental necessity for quality education of allchildren, including the exceptional child, we recommend research and assistancein programs directed to the problems of dyslectic and hyperkinetic childrenwho represent an estimated ten percent of the school population.

By every measure, our record in the field of education is exceptionallystrong. The United States Office of Education is operating this year underits highest budget ever ‹ some $5.1 billion. Federal aid to elementaryand secondary education has increased 60 percent over the past four years.Federal aid for college students has more than tripled.

We are proud of these accomplishments. We pledge to carry them forwardin a manner consistent with our conviction that the Federal Government shouldassist but never control the educational process. But we also believe thatthe output of results, not the input of dollars, is the best yardstick ofeffectiveness in education. When this Administration took office in 1969,it found American schools deficient at many points. Our reform initiativeshave included:

• An Office of Child Development to coordinate all Federal programs targeted on the first five years of life and to make the Head Start program work better;
• A Right to Read Program, aimed at massive gains in reading ability among Americans of all ages;
• A Career Education curriculum which will help to prepare students for the world of work;
• A National Institute of Education to be a center for research on the learning process; and
• A proposed National Foundation for Higher Education.

We have also proposed grant and loan programs to support a national commitmentthat no qualified student should be barred from college by lack of money.The Education Amendment of 1972 embodied substantial portions of that proposaland marked the nation's most far-reaching commitment to make higher educationavailable to all.

Our non-public schools, both church-oriented and nonsectarian, have beenour special concern. The President has emphasized the indispensable rolethese schools play in our educational system ‹ from the standpointsof the large numbers of pupils they serve, the competition and diversitythey help to maintain in American education, and the values they help toteach ‹ and he has stated his determination to help halt the acceleratingtrend of non-public school closures.

We believe that means which are consistent with the Constitution canbe devised for channeling public financial aid to support the educationof all children in schools of their parents' choice, non-public as wellas public. One way to provide such aid appears to be through the grantingof income tax credits.

For the future, we also pledge Special Revenue Sharing for Education,continued work to develop and implement the Career Education concept, andcontinued efforts to establish a student financial aid system to bring highereducation within the reach of any qualified person.

WELFARE REFORM

The Nation's welfare system is a mess. It simply must be reformed.

This system, essentially unchanged since the 1930's, has turned intoa human and fiscal nightmare. It penalizes the poor. It provides discriminatorybenefits. It kills any incentives its victims might have to work their wayout of the morass.

Among its victims are the taxpayers. Since 1961 the Federal cost of welfarehas skyrocketed over 10 times ‹ from slightly over $1 billion thento more than $11 billion now. State and local costs add to this giganticexpenditure. And here are the things are paying for:

• The present system drains work incentive from the employed poor, as they see welfare families making as much or more on the dole.
• Its discriminatory benefits continue to ensnare the needy, aged, blind and disabled in a web of inefficient rules and economic contradictions.
• It continues to break up poor families, since a father's presence makes his family ineligible for benefits in many states. Its dehumanizing lifestyle thus threatens to envelop yet another "welfare generation ."
• Its injustices and costs threaten to alienate taxpayer super port for welfare programs of any kind.

Perhaps nowhere else is there a greater contrast in policy and philosophythan between the Administration's remedy for the welfare ills and the financialorgy proposed by our political opposition.

President Nixon proposed to change our welfare system "to provideeach person with a means of escape from welfare into dignity." Hisgoals were these:

• A decent level of payment to genuinely needy welfare recipients regardless of where they live.
• Incentives not to loaf, but to work.
• Requiring all adults who apply for welfare to register for work and job training and to accept work or training. The only exceptions would be the aged, blind and disabled and mothers of preschool children.
• Expanding job training and child care facilities so that recipients can accept employment.
• Temporary supplements to the incomes of the working poor to enable them to support their families while continuing to work.
• Uniform Federal payment standards for all welfare recipients.

In companion actions, our efforts to improve the nutrition of poor peopleresulted in basic reforms in the food stamp program. The number of recipientsincreased from some three million to 13 million, and now 8.4 million needychildren participate in the school lunch program, almost three times thenumber that participated in 1968.

Now, nearly 10,000 nutrition aides work in low-income communities. In1968 there were none.

Since 1969, we have increased the Federal support for family planningthreefold. We will continue to support expanded family planning programsand will foster research in this area so that more parents will be betterable to plan the number and spacing of their children should they wish todo so. Under no circumstances will we allow any of these programs to becomecompulsory or infringe upon the religious conviction or personal freedomof any individual.

We all feel compassion for those who through no fault of their own cannotadequately care for themselves. We all want to help these men, women andchildren achieve a decent standard of living and become self-supporting.

We continue to insist, however, that there are too many people on thiscountry's welfare rolls who should not be there. With effective cooperationfrom the Congress, we pledge to stop these abuses.

We flatly oppose programs or policies which embrace the principle ofa government-guaranteed income. We reject as unconscionable the idea thatall citizens have the right to be supported by the government, regardlessof their ability or desire to support themselves and their families.

We pledge to continue to push strongly for sound welfare reform untilmeaningful and helpful change is enacted into law by the Congress.

LAW ENFORCEMENT

We have solid evidence that our unrelenting war on crime is being won.The American people know that once again the thrust of justice in our societywill be to protect the law-abiding citizenry against the criminal, ratherthan absolving the criminal of the consequences of his own desperate acts.

Serious crimes rose only one percent during the first quarter of thisyear ‹ down from six percent last year and 13 percent the year before.From 1960 to 1968 major crime went up 122 percent.

The tact is, in the first quarter of 1972, 80 of our 155 largest citieshad an actual decline in reported crime.

In our Nation's Capitol, our anti-crime programs have been fully implemented.Through such measures as increased police, street lighting, a NarcoticsTreatment Administration, court reform and special prosecuting units formajor offenders we have steadily dropped the crime rate since November 1969.By the first quarter of this year, the serious crime rate was down to halfits all-time high.

When our Administration took office, a mood of lawlessness was spreadingrapidly, undermining the legal and moral foundations of our society. Wemoved at once to stop violence in America. We have:

• Greatly increased Federal aid to State and local law enforcement agencies across the country, with more than $1.5 billion spent on 50,000 crime-fighting projects.
• Augmented Justice Department funding four-fold and provided more marshals, more judges, more narcotics agents, more Assistant United States Attorneys in the field.
• Raised the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration budget ten-fold, earmarking $575 million of the $850 million for 1973 to upgrade State and local police and courts through revenue sharing.
• Added 600 new Special Agents to the FBI.
• Raised Federal spending on juvenile delinquency from $15 million to more than $180 million and proposed legislation to launch a series of model youth services.
• Appointed Attorneys General with a keen sense of the rights of both defendants and victims, and determination to enforce the laws.
• Appointed judges whose respect for the rights of the accused is balanced by an appreciation of the legitimate needs of law enforcement.
• Added to the Supreme Court distinguished lawyers of firm judicial temperament and fidelity to the Constitution.

Even more fundamentally, we have established a renewed climate of respectfor law and law enforcement. Now those responsible for enforcing the lawknow they have the full backing of their Government

We recognize that programs involving work release, study release andhalt-way houses have contributed substantially to the rehabilitation ofoffenders and we support these programs. We further support training programsfor the staffs in our correctional institutions and will continue to seethat minority group staff members are recruited to work in these institutions.

The Fight Against Organized Crime. To most of us, organized criminalactivity seems remote and unreal ‹ yet syndicates supply the narcoticspushed on our youth, corrupt local officials, terrify legitimate businessesand fence goods stolen from Our homes. This Administration strongly supportedthe Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, and under our Strike Force conceptwe have combined Federal enforcement agencies to wage a concerted assaulton organized crime. We have expanded the number of these strike forces andset a high priority for a new campaign against the syndicates.

Last year we obtained indictments against more than 2,600 members orassociates of organized crime syndicates ‹ more than triple the numberindicted in 1968.

At last we have the lawless elements in our society on the run.

The Republican Party intends to keep them running.

Rehabilitation of Offenders. We have given the rehabilitation of criminaloffenders more constructive, top-level attention than it has received atany time in our Nation's history. In November 1969, the President ordereda ten-year improvement program in prison facilities, correctional systemsand rehabilitation methods and procedures.

We believe the correctional system not only should punish, but also shouldeducate and rehabilitate. We are determined to press ahead with reform ofthe system to make it more effective against crime.

Almost a decade of inadequate Federal support of law enforcement hasleft deep scars in our society, but now a new mood pervades the country.Civil disorders and campus violence are no longer considered inevitable.Today, we see a new respect for law and order.

Our goal is justice ‹ for everyone.

We pledge a tireless campaign against crime ‹ to restore safetyto our streets, and security to law-abiding citizens who have a right toenjoy their homes and communities free from fear.

We pledge to:

• Continue our vigorous support of local police and law enforcement agencies, as well as Federal law enforcement agencies.
• Seek comprehensive procedural and substantive reform of the Federal Criminal Code.
• Accelerate the drive against organized crime.
• Increase the funding of the Federal judiciary to help clear away the logjam in the courts which obstructs the administration of justice.
• Push forward in prison reform and the rehabilitation of offenders.
• Intensify efforts to prevent criminal access to all weapons, including special emphasis on cheap, readily-obtainable handguns, retaining primary responsibility at the State level, with such Federal law as necessary to enable the States to meet their responsibilities.
• Safeguard the right of responsible citizens to collect, own and use firearms for legitimate purposes, including hunting, target shooting and self-defense. We will strongly support efforts of all law enforcement agencies to apprehend and prosecute to the limit of the law all those who use firearms in the commission of crimes.

Drug Abuse. The permissiveness of the 1960's left no legacy more insidiousthan drug abuse. In that decade narcotics became widely available, mosttragically among our young people. The use of drugs became endowed witha sheen of false glamour identified with social protest.

By the time our Nation awakened to this cancerous social ill, it foundno major combat weapons available.

Soon after we took office, our research disclosed there were perhapshundreds of thousands of heroin users in the United States. Their cravingsmultiplied violence and crime. We found many more were abusing other drugs,such as amphetamines and barbiturates. Marijuana had become commonplace.All this was spurred by criminals using modern methods of mass distributionagainst outnumbered authorities lacking adequate countermeasures.

We quickly launched a massive assault against drug abuse.

We intercepted the supply of dangerous drugs at points of entry and impededtheir internal distribution. The budget for international narcotics controlwas raised from $5 million to over $50 million. Narcotics control coordinatorswere appointed in 59 United States embassies overseas to work directly withforeign governments in stopping drug traffic. We have narcotics action agreementswith over 20 countries. Turkey has announced a total ban on opium productionand, with our cooperation, France has seized major heroin laboratories anddrugs.

To inhibit the distribution of heroin in our own country, we increasedthe law enforcement budget for drug control more than 10 times ‹ from$20 million to $244 million.

We are disrupting major narcotics distribution in wholesale networksthrough the combined efforts of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs,Customs operations at our borders, and a specially created unit of over400 Internal Revenue agents who conduct systematic tax investigations oftargeted middle and upper echelon traffickers, smugglers, and financiers.Last January, we established the Office of Drug Abuse Law Enforcement todisrupt street and mid-level heroin traffickers.

We established the "Heroin Hot Line" ‹ a nationwide tollfree phone number (800/368-5363) ‹ to give the public a single numberfor reporting information on heroin pushers.

Last year we added 2,000 more Federal narcotics agents, and the Bureauof Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs has trained over 170,000 State and localpersonnel.

And we are getting results. This past year four times as much heroinwas seized as in the year this Administration took office. Since 1969, thenumber of drug-related arrests has nearly doubled.

For drug abuse prevention and treatment we increased the budget from$46 million to over $485 million.

The demand for illicit drugs is being reduced through a massive effortdirected by a newly created office in the White House. Federally fundeddrug treatment and rehabilitation programs were more than doubled last fiscalyear, and Federal programs now have the capacity to treat more than 60,000drug abusers a year.

To alert the public, particularly the youth, to the dangers of drugs,we established a National Clearinghouse for Drug Abuse Information in 1970as well as a $3.5 million Drug Education and Training Program.

We realize that the problem of drug abuse cannot be quickly solved, butwe have launched a massive effort where practically none existed before.Nor will we relax this campaign:

• We pledge to seek further international agreements to restrict the production and movement of dangerous drugs.
• We pledge to expand our programs of education, rehabilitation, training, and treatment. We will do more than ever before to conduct research into the complex psychological regions of disappointment and alienation which have led many young people to turn desperately toward drugs.
• We firmly oppose efforts to make drugs easily available. We equally oppose the legalization of marijuana. We intend to solve problems, not create bigger ones by legalizing drugs of unknown physical impact.
• We pledge the most intensive law enforcement war ever waged. We are determined to drive the pushers of dangerous drugs from the streets, schools, and neighborhoods of America.

AGRICULTURE AND RURAL LIFE

Our agriculture has become the economic marvel of the world. Our Americanfarmers and ranchers have tripled per worker production in the last 20 years,while non-farm industries have increased theirs a little over half.

Yet when we took office three and a half years ago, the farm communitywas being shockingly shortchanged for its remarkable achievements.

Inflation was driving up both the cost of farming and the cost of living‹ indeed, driving up all prices except the prices of products the farmerswere taking to market. Overall farm income was down. Farm exports were low.Bureaucratic planting regulations were oppressive. All across the countryfamily farms were failing.

Our moves to deal with these problems have been numerous and effective.

The rate of inflation has been curbed without forcing down prices forcommodities, even as we have stepped up our drive against rising food costsin the cities.

Net farm income has soared to a record high of more than 818 billion.During these Republican years average net farm income has been over $2 billiona year higher than during the last two Administrations. For the same periodaverage income per farm is up more than 40 percent.

And farm exports now stand at a record $8 billion, sharply up from the$5.7 billion when we took office.

Operating loans to help young farmers have reached the highest levelsin history. Administration-backed legislation has given farmers much greaterfreedom to plant what they choose and we have given assistance to cooperativesto strengthen the farmers' bargaining positions.

Rural development has been energetically carried forward, and small townsand rural areas have been helped to adjust and grow. The loan programs ofthe Farmers Home Administration for farm and rural people have been dramaticallyincreased. Electric and telephone service in rural areas has beep substantiallyexpanded, a Rural Telephone Bank has beer enacted, and the Farm Credit Administrationhas been streamlined. The total national investment in rural developmenthas almost tripled. Heading the Department of Agriculture have been leaderswho understand and forcefully speak out for the farming people of America.

Farmers are benefitting markedly from our successful relief efforts toexpand exports ‹ notably a $750 million sale of United States grainsto the Soviet Union, with prospects of much more. Last year we negotiateda similar sale amounting to $135 million.

For the future, we pledge to intensify our efforts to:

• Achieve a $10 billion annual export market by opening new foreign markets, while continuing to fight for fair treatment for American farm products in our traditional markets.
• Follow sound economic policies to break inflation and reduce interest rates;
• Expand activities to assist farmers in bargaining for fair prices and reasonable terms in a rapidly changing marketing system;
• Keep farm prices in the private sector, not subject to price controls;
• Support family farms as the preferred method of organizing agricultural production, and protect them from the unfair come petition of farming by tax-loss corporations and non-farm enterprises;
• Reform Federal estate tax laws, which often force the precipitate sale of family farms to help pay the tax, in such ways as to help support the continuance of family farms as institutions of great importance to the American way of life;
• Provide greater credit, technical assistance, soil and water conservation aid, environmental enhancement, economic stimulus, and sympathetic leadership to America's rural areas and communities;
• Concentrate research on new uses of agricultural products;
• Continue assistance to farm cooperatives, in their efforts to improve their services to their members;
• Develop land and water policy that takes account of the many uses to which these resources may be put;
• Establish realistic environmental standards which safeguard wise resource use, while avoiding undue burdens on farmers;
• Use forums of national leaders to create a better understanding by all citizens, those in the cities and suburbs as well as those in small towns, of the difficult problems confronting farm and ranch families in a modern agriculture.

We will not relax our efforts to increase net farm income, to narrowthe spread between farm and non-farm income levels, and to pursue commodityprograms that will enable farmers and ranchers to receive fair prices forwhat they produce. :

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

For more than a quarter century the Federal Government has sought toassist in the conservation and rebuilding of our urban centers. Yet, afterthe spending of billions of dollars and the commitment of billions moreto future years, we now know that many existing programs are unsuited tothe complex problems of the 1970's. Programs cast in the mold of the biggovernment philosophy of the 1930's are simply incapable of meeting thechallenges of today.

Our Party stands, therefore, for major reform of Federal Community developmentprograms and the development of a new philosophy to cope with urban ills.

Republican urban strategy rejects throwing good money after bad money.Instead, through fundamental fiscal, management and program reforms, wehave created a new Federal partnership through which State, county and municipalgovernments can best cope with specific problems such as education, crime,drug abuse, transportation, pollution and housing.

We believe the urban problems of today fall into these categories:

• The fiscal crises of State, county, and municipal governments.
• The need for a better quality and greater availability of urban services.
• The continual requirement of physical development.
• The need for better locally designed. locally implemented, locally controlled solutions to the problems of individual urban areas.

In the last category ‹ the importance of grass roots planning andparticipation ‹ our Republican Party has made its most important contributionto solving urban problems.

We hold that government planners should be guided by the people throughtheir locally elected representatives. We believe that real solutions requirethe full participation of the private sector.

To help ease the fiscal crises of State, county and municipal governments,we pledge increased Federal assistance ‹ assistance we have more thandoubled in the past four years. And, as stressed elsewhere in this Platform,we remain committed to General Revenue Sharing, which could reduce the oppressiveproperty tax.

Our proposals for Special Revenue Sharing for Urban Development, transportation,manpower and law enforcement ‹ all still bottled up by the oppositionCongress ‹ are designed to make our towns and cities places where Americanscan once again the and work without physical or environmental hazard. Urbanareas are already benefiting from major funding increases which we foughtfor in the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration programs and in our$10-billion mass transit program.

Urban areas are also benefiting from our new Legacy of Parks program,which is bringing recreational opportunities closer to where people live.

We are committed also to the physical development of urban areas. Wehave quadrupled subsidized housing starts for low and moderate income familiessince 1969, and effected substantial increases for construction of municipalwaste treatment facilities

We strongly oppose the use of housing or community development programsto impose arbitrary housing patterns on unwilling communities. Neither dowe favor dispersing large numbers of people away from their homes and neighborhoodsagainst their will. We do believe in providing communities, with their fullconsent, guidance and cooperation, with the means and incentives to increasethe quantity and quality of housing in conjunction with providing increasedaccess to jobs for their low income citizens.

We also pledge to carry forward our policy of encouraging the developmentof new towns in order to afford all Americans a wider range of residentialchoices. Additionally, our Special Revenue Sharing for Urban and Rural CommunityDevelopment, together with General Revenue Sharing and nation-wide welfarereform, are basic building blocks for a balanced policy of national growth,leading to better lives for all Americans, whether they dwell in cities,suburbs or rural areas.

Our Party recognizes counties as viable units of regional governmentwith a major role in modernizing and restructuring local services, eliminatingduplication and increasing local cooperation. We urge Federal and Stategovernments, in implementing national goals and programs, to utilize thevaluable resources of counties as area-wide, general-purpose governments.

HOUSING

Our Republican Administration has made more and better housing availableto more of our citizens than every before.

We are building two-and-a-third million new homes a year ‹ 65 percentmore than the average in the eight years of the two previous Administrations.Progress has not been in numbers alone; housing quality has also risen toan all-time high ‹ far above that of any other country.

We will maintain and increase this pattern of growth. We are determinedto attain the goal of a decent home for every American.

Significant number of Americans still lack the means for decent housing,and in such cases ‹ where special need exists ‹ we will continueto apply public resources to help people acquire better apartments and homes.

We further pledge:

• Continued housing production for low and moderate income families, which has sharply increased since President Nixon took office.
• Improvement of housing subsidy programs and expansion of mortgage credit activities of Federal housing agencies as necessary to keep Americans the best-housed people in the world.
• Continued development of technological and management innovations to lower housing costs ‹ a program begun by Operation Breakthrough, which is assisting in the development of new methods for more economical production of low-cost, high-quality homes.

We urge prompt action by State, county and municipal governments to seeksolutions to the serious problems caused by abandoned buildings in urbanareas.

TRANSPORTATION

When President Nixon took office a crisis in transportation was imminent,as indicated by declining mass transportation service, mounting highwaydeaths, congested urban streets, long delays at airports and airport terminals,deterioration of passenger train service, and a dwindling Merchant Marine.Within two years the President had proposed and signed into law:

• A $10-billion, 12-year program ‹ the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1970 ‹ to infuse new life into mass transportation systems and help relieve urban congestion;
• A major 10-year program involving $280-million annually for airport development projects as well as an additional $250 million annually to expand airways systems and facilities;
• The Rail Passenger Service Act of 1970 to streamline and improve the nation's passenger train service;
• New research and development projects, including automatic people movers, improved Metroliner and Turbo-trains, quieter aircraft jet engines, air pollution reduction for mass transportation vehicles, and experimental safety automobiles. We strongly support these research and development initiatives of the Department of Transportation.

Four years ago we called attention to the decline of our Merchant Marinedue to previous neglect and apathy. We promised a vigorous ship replacementprogram to meet the changing pattern of our foreign commerce. We also pledgedto expand maritime research and development and the simplification and revisionof construction and operating subsidy procedures.

By the enactment of the Merchant Marine Act of 1970, we have reversedthe long decline of our Merchant Marine.

We reaffirm our goals set forth in 1968 and anticipate the future developmentof a merchant fleet that will give us defensive mobility in time of emergencyas well as economic strength in time of peace.

To reduce traffic and highway deaths, the National Highway Traffic SafetyAdministration has been reorganized and expanded, with dramatic results.In 1971, the number of traffic deaths per hundred million miles driven wasthe lowest in history.

To help restore decision-making to the people, we have proposed a newSingle Urban Fund providing almost $2-billion a year by 1975 to State andmetropolitan areas to assist local authorities in solving their own transportationproblems in their own way.

Our proposal for Special Revenue Sharing for Transportation would alsohelp governments close to the people meet local needs and provide greaterfreedom to achieve a proper balance among the Nation's major transportationmodes.

To revitalize the surface freight transportation industry, we have recommendedmeasures to modernize railway equipment and operations and to update regulatorypractices. These measures, on which Congress still dawdles, would help curbinflation by saving the public billions of dollars a year in freight costs.Their enactment would also expand employment and improve our balance oftrade.

The Nation's transportation needs are expected to double in the next20 years. Our Party will continue to pursue policies and programs that willmeet these needs and keep the country well ahead of rapidly changing transportationdemands.

ENVIRONMENT

In January 1969, we found the Federal Government woefully unpreparedto deal with the rapidly advancing environmental crisis. Our response wasswift and substantial.

First, new decision-making organizations were set in place ‹ thefirst Council on Environmental Quality, the Environmental Protection Agency,the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. We also proposed anew Department of Natural Resources, but Congress has failed to act. Wealso created a National Industrial Pollution Control Council to enlist theprivate sector more actively against environmental decay, and a PresidentialFederal Property Review Board was appointed to ferret out Federal propertyfor transfer to local park recreational uses.

Second, we gave top priority in the Federal Budget to environmental improvements.This fiscal year approximately $2.4-billion will be expended for major environmentalprograms, three times more than was being spent when President Nixon tookoffice.

Third, sweeping environment messages were sent to Congress in 1970, 1971and 1972 covering air quality, water quality, toxic waste substances, oceandumping, noise, solid waste management, land use, parklands and many otherenvironmental concerns. Almost all of these proposals still languish inthe opposition Congress.

Although the President cannot move until and unless Congress passes lawsin many of these areas, he nevertheless can act ‹ and has acted ‹forcefully on many fronts:

He has directed the Federal Government to practice ecological leadershipby using low-lead gasoline and recycled paper. He has cracked down on flagrantpolluters, greatly increasing prosecutions and making the first use of Federalauthority to shut down major industries during an air pollution crisis.The fragile and unique Everglades were saved from a jetport. Pesticide abuseswere curtailed.

Strict new clean air standards were set, and in many urban centers theair is improving. Regulations were issued to make one grade of lead-freeand phosphorous-free gasoline available throughout the Nation by July 1,1974, and a phased reduction was required in the lead content of regularand premium gasolines. Auto makers were required to design air pollutioncontrol systems to assure that vehicles comply with Federal emission standardsthroughout their useful life.

Additionally, the President launched the Legacy of Parks program to convertunder-utilized Federal properties to park and recreational use, with specialemphasis on new parks in or near urban areas. More than 140 areas have alreadybeen made available to States, counties and municipalities for such useincluding priceless stretches of ocean beach. Moreover, nearly two millionacres of land have been purchased by Federal State and local governmentsfor recreation and for historical and natural preservation purposes.

A system of recreational trails for hiking, bicycling and horseback ridingwill help meet the pressing recreational needs of our increasingly urbanizedsociety. Many State, county and municipal governments are developing bicycle,hiking, and horseback trails with our active assistance through variousFederal programs. We pledge our continued commitment to seeking out practicalways for more and safer bicycling opportunities within our cities and metropolitanareas.

We have also provided effective leadership in international environmentalactivity. The President has negotiated the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreementwith Canada and a Cooperative Agreement on Environmental Protection withthe Soviet Union.

The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm adoptedour government's initiatives for the creation of an international fund forthe environment, a continuing United Nations agency for environmental problems,and the control of ocean dumping. Our President has led the effort for aten-year moratorium on commercial whaling everywhere in the world.

We call upon the Congress to act promptly on the President's environmentalproposals still stalled there ‹ more than 20 in all. These include:

• Legislation to control, and in some cases prohibit, the dumping of wastes into the oceans, estuaries and the Great Lakes.
• A federal Noise Control Act to reduce and regulate unwanted sound from aircraft, construction and transportation equipment.
• Authority to control hundreds of chemical substances newly marketed each year.
• Legislation to encourage the States to step up to pressing decisions on how best to use land. Both environmentally critical areas such as wetlands and growth-inducing developments such as airports would have particular scrutiny.
• A proposal to provide for early identification and protection of endangered wildlife species. This would, for the first time, make the taking of endangered species a Federal offense.
• Establishment of recreational areas near metropolitan centers such as the Gateway National Recreational Area in New York and New Jersey and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in and around San Francisco Bay.

The nostalgic notion of turning the clock back to a simpler time maybe appealing but is neither practical nor desirable We are not going toabandon the automobile, but we are going to have a clean-burning engine.

We are not going to give up electric lighting and modern industry, butwe do expect cleanly-produced electric power to run them.

We are not going to be able to do without containers for our foods andminerals, but we can improve them and make them reusable or biodegradable.

We pledge a workable balance between a growing economy and environmentalprotection. We will resolve the conflicts sensibly within that framework.

We commit ourselves to comprehensive pollution control laws, vigorousimplementation of those laws, and rigorous research into the technologicalproblems of pollution control. The beginnings we have made in these firstyears of the 1970's are evidence of our determination to follow through.

We intend to leave the children of America a legacy of clean air, cleanwater, vast open spaces and easily accessible parks.

Natural Resources and Energy. Wilderness areas forests, fish and wildlifeare precious natural resources. We have proposed 36 new wilderness areas,adding another 3.6 million acres to the National Wilderness PreservationSystem. We have made tough new proposals to protect endangered species ofwildlife.

Public lands provide us with natural beauty, wilderness, and great recreationalopportunities as well as minerals, timber, food and fiber. We pledge todevelop and manage these lands in a balanced way, both to protect the irreplaceableenvironment and to maximize the benefits of their use to our society. Wewill continue these conservation efforts in the years ahead.

We recognize and commend the humane societies and the animal welfaresocieties in their work to protect animals.

Water supplies are not a boundless resource. The Republican Party iscommitted to developing additional water supplies by desalinization. thediscovery of new groundwater stocks recycling and wiser and more efficientuse of the waters we have.

We will continue the development of flood control, navigation improvementand reclamation projects based on valid cost-benefit estimates, includingfull consideration of environmental concerns.

No modern nation can thrive without meeting its energy needs. and ourneeds are vast and growing. Last year we proposed a broad range of actionsto facilitate research and development for clean energy. provide energyresources on Federal lands, assure a timely supply of nuclear fuels, useenergy more efficiently, balance environmental and energy needs. and betterorganize Federal efforts.

The National Minerals Policy Act of 1970 encourages development of domesticresources by private enterprise. A program to tap our vast shale resourceshas been initiated consistent with the National Environmental Policy Actof 1969.

We need a Department of Natural Resources to continue to develop a national,integrated energy policy and to administer and implement that policy asthe United States approaches the 21st Century. Energy sources so vitallyimportant to the welfare of our Nation are becoming increasingly interchangeable.There is nothing inherently incompatible between an adequate energy supplyand a healthy environment.

Indeed, vast quantities of energy are needed to do the work necessaryto clean up our air and streams. Without sufficient supplies of power wewill not be able to attain our goals of reducing unemployment and povertyand enhancing the American standard of living.

Responsible government must consider both the short-term and the long-runaspects of our energy supplies. Avoidance of brownouts and power disruptionsnow and in the future call for sound policies supporting incentives thatwill encourage the exploration for. and development of, our fossil fuels.Such policies will buy us time to develop the sophisticated and complextechnologies needed to utilize the exotic energy sources of the future.

National security and the importance of a favorable balance of tradeand balance of payments dictate that we must rot permit our Nation to becomeoverly dependent on foreign sources of energy. Since more than half ourNation's domestic fossil resources now lie under Federal lands, high prioritymust be given to the governmental steps necessary to the development ofthese resources by private industry.

A liquid metal fast breeder reactor demonstration plant to be built withthe financial support of the Atomic Energy Commission, the electric powerindustry, and the Tennessee alley Authority.

We will accelerate research on harnessing thermo-nuclear energy and continueto provide leadership in the production of energy from the sun and geothermalsteam. We recognize the serious problem of assuring adequate electric generatingcapacity in the Nation, and pledge to meet this need without doing violenceto our environment.

Oceans. The oceans are a vast, largely untapped reservoir of resources,a source of food, minerals, recreation and pleasure, with great potentialfor economic development. For their maintenance we must:

• Encourage the development of coastal zone management systems by the States, in cooperation with the Federal Government, to preserve the coastal environment while allowing for its prudent social and economic development.
• Protect the oceans from pollution through the creation of binding domestic and international legal and institutional arrangements.
• Foster arrangements to develop the untapped mineral resources of the seas in an equitable and environmentally sound manner.
• Establish domestic and international institutions for the management of the ocean fisheries. Fishing in international waters, a way of life for many Americans, must be maintained without harassment on the high seas or unreasonable restrictions.
• Protect and conserve marine mammals and other marine species to ensure their abundance and especially to protect species whose survival is endangered
• Maintain a national capability in ocean science and technology and, through the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, work to codify an international legal framework for the peaceful conduct of ocean activities.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Basic and applied scientific research and development are indispensableto our national security, our international competitive position, and virtuallyevery aspect of the domestic economy. We have initiated a new research anddevelopment strategy which emphasizes a public-private partnership in searchingout new ideas and technologies to create new jobs, new internationally competitiveindustries, and new solutions for complex domestic problems.

In support of this strategy we have increased Federal efforts in civilianresearch and development by 65 percent ‹ from $3.3-billion to $5.4-billion‹ and expanded research in drug abuse, law enforcement, health care,home building, motor vehicle safety, energy, and child development as wellas many other fields.

We will place special emphasis on these areas in which breakthroughsare urgently needed:

• Abundant, clean energy sources;
• Safe, fast and pollution-free transportation;
• Improved emergency health care;
• Reduction of loss of life, health and property in natural disasters;
• Rehabilitation of alcoholics and addicts to dangerous drugs.

Additionally, we urge the fair and energetic enforcement of all fireprevention laws and applaud the work of the National Commission on FirePrevention and Control. We encourage accelerated research on methods offire prevention and suppression, including studies on flammable fabrics,hazardous materials, fire equipment and training procedures.

The space program is yielding impressive dividends in earth-orientedapplications of space technology ‹ advances in medicine, industrialtechniques and consumer products that would still be unknown had we notdeveloped the technology to reach the moon. We will press ahead with thespace shuttle program to replace today's expendable launch vehicles andprovide low-cost access to space for a wide variety of missions, includingthose related to earth resources. We pledge to continue to extend our knowledgeof the most distant frontiers in space.

We will also extend our exploration of the seabed and the sea. We willseek food for the hungry, power for future technologies, new medicines forthe sick, and new treatments of water for arid regions of the world.

The quantities of metals and minerals needed to maintain our economichealth and living standards are so huge as to require the re-use of allrecoverable commodities from solid waste materials. We pledge a vigorousprogram of research and development in order to seek out more economicalmethods to recover and recycle such commodities, including the processingof municipal solid wastes.

We pledge to extend the communications frontier, and to foster the developmentof orbiting satellite systems that will make possible wholly new, world-wideeducational and entertainment programs.

We recognize that the productivity of our Nation's research and developmentefforts can be enhanced through cooperative international projects. Thesigning of the Moscow agreements for cooperation in space, environment,health, and science and technology has opened a new era in internationalrelations. A similar agreement between the United States and Polish Governmentswill permit expansion of programs such as the jointly-funded CopernicusAstronomical Center and the Krakow Children's Hospital.

Finally, we pledge expanded efforts to aid unemployed scientists andengineers. We are determined to see that such on-going efforts as the TechnologyMobilization and Reemployment Program are effective.

THE INDIVIDUAL AND GOVERNMENT

Even though many urgently-needed administrative proposals have been longdelayed or stopped by the opposition Congress, we have kept our 1968 promiseto make government more accountable and more responsive to the citizen.One such proposal is General Revenue Sharing with State and local governments‹ a means of returning to the people powers which for 40 years havegrown increasingly centralized in the remote Washington bureaucracy. Anotheris consolidation of scores of categorical grant programs into six SpecialRevenue Sharing programs which would make available some $12-billion annuallyin broad policy fields for States and localities to apply in their own waysto their own needs. Yet another is our proposal to modernize the ExecutiveBranch of the Federal Government by combining six Cabinet departments andseveral independent agencies into four new departments. So far, the oppositioncontrolled Congress has blocked or ignored all of these proposals.

In addition, we have:

• Improved domestic policy formulation and implementation by the new Domestic Council and Office of Management and Budget within the Executive Office of the President;
• Established stronger liaison between the Federal Government and the States, counties and municipalities by a new Office of Intergovernmental Relations, headed by the Vice President;
• Overhauled the fragmented and poorly coordinated Federal agencies concerned with drug abuse and the environment;
• Utilized voluntary citizen effort through the formation of the ACTION agency in government and the National Center for Voluntary Action outside of government
• Proposed reorganization of the Federal regulatory agencies and appointed distinguished people to those agencies;
• Assured more open government, ending abuse of classification and providing fuller information to the public.

We pledge continuing reform and revitalization of government to assurea better response to individual needs.

We express deep concern for the flood victims of Tropical Storm Agnes,the worst natural disaster in terms of property damage in our nation's history.Past laws were totally inadequate to meet this crisis, and we commend thePresident's leadership in urgently recommending the newly-enacted $1.8-billionflood relief measure, greatly expanding and enlarging the present program.We pledge to reevaluate and enlarge the national flood disaster insuranceprogram so that it will be adequate for future emergencies.

We will continue to press for the enactment of General and Special RevenueSharing and to pursue further initiatives both to decentralize governmentalactivities and to transfer more such activities to the private sector.

We will continue to defend the citizen's right to privacy in our increasinglyinterdependent society. We oppose computerized national data banks and allother "Big Brother" schemes which endanger individual rights.

We reaffirm our view that voluntary prayer should be freely permittedin public places ‹ particularly, by school children while attendingpublic schools ‹ provided that such prayers are not prepared or prescribedby the state or any of its political subdivisions and that no person's participationis coerced, thus preserving the traditional separation of church and state.

We remain committed to a comprehensive program of human rights, socialbetterment and political participation for the people of the District ofColumbia. We will build on our strong record in this area ‹ a recordwhich includes cutting the District of Columbia crime rate in half, aggressivesupport for a balanced transportation system in metropolitan Washington,initiation of a Bicentennial program and celebration in the national capitalregion, and support for the first Congressional Delegate in nearly a century.We support voting representation for the District of Columbia in the UnitedStates Congress and will work for a system of self-government for the citywhich takes fair account of the needs and interests of both the FederalGovernment and the citizens of the District of Columbia.

The Republican Party adheres to the principle of self-determination forPuerto Rico. We will welcome and support statehood for Puerto Rico if thatstatus should be the free choice of its people in a referendum vote.

Additionally, we will pursue negotiations with the Congress of Micronesiaon the future political status of the Trust Territories of the Pacific Islandsto meet the mutual interests of both parties. We favor extending the rightof electing the territorial Governor to the people of American Samoa, andwill take complementary steps to increase local self-government in AmericanSamoa. We vigorously support such action as is necessary to permit Americancitizens resident in Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands to vote forPresident and Vice President in national elections. We support full votingrights in committees for the Delegates to Congress from Guam and the VirginIslands.

In our territorial policy we seek a maximum degree of local self-sufficiencyand self-government, while encouraging greater inclusion in Federal servicesand programs and greater participation in national decision-making.

Volunteerism. In our free system, the people are not only the sourceof our social problems but also the main source of solutions. Volunteerism,therefore, an indispensable national resource, is basic to our Republicanphilosophy. We applaud the Administration's efforts to encourage volunteerismby all Americans and commend the millions of volunteers who are workingin communities and states across the country on myriad projects. We favorfurther implementation of voluntary action programs throughout the fiftyStates to assist public and private agencies in working to assure qualitylife for all human beings.

Arts and Humanities. The United States is experiencing a cultural renaissanceof inspiring dimension. Scores of millions of our people are now supportingand participating in the arts and humanities in quest of a richer life ofthe mind and spirit. Our national culture, no longer the preserve of theelite, is becoming a people's heritage of importance to the whole world.

We believe, with the President, that "the Federal Government hasa vital role as catalyst, innovator, and supporter of public and privateefforts for cultural development."

We have supported a three-year extension of the National Foundation onthe Arts and the Humanities, and increased the funding of its two endowmentsby more than four times the level of three years ago. The State Arts Councils,which operate in all 50 States and the five special jurisdictions have alsobeen strengthened.

The Arts Endowment has raised its support for the Nation's museums, orchestras,theatre, dance, opera companies and film centers and encouraged the creativityof individual artists and writers. In addition, the new Federal ExpansionArts Program has been sharply increased.

We have encouraged Federal agencies to use the arts in their programssponsored an annual Design Assembly for Federal administrators, requestedthe National Endowment for the Arts to recommend a program far upgradingthe design of Federal buildings and moved to set new standards of excellencein all design endeavors of the Federal Government.

Moreover, the National Endowment for the Humanities, now greatly enlarged,is fostering improved teaching and scholarship in history, literature, philosophyand ethics. The Endowment also supports programs to raise levels of scholarshipand teaching in Afro-American, American Indian and Mexican-American studies,has broadened its fellowship programs to include junior college teachers,and stresses adult or continuing education, including educational televisionand film series. We have also expanded the funding of public broadcasting.

For the future, we pledge continuance of our vigorous support of thearts and humanities.

A Better Future for All

CHILDREN

We believe, with the President, that the first five years of life arecrucial to a child's development, and further, that every child should harethe opportunity to reach his full potential as an individual.

We have, therefore, established the Office of Child Development whichhas taken a comprehensive approach to the development of young children,combining programs dealing with their physical, social and educational needsand development.

We have undertaken a wide variety of demonstration programs to assureour children, particularly poor children, a good start in life ‹ forexample, the Parent and Child Center program for infant care, Home Startto strengthen the environment of the preschool child, and Health Start toexplore new delivery systems of health care for young children.

We have redirected Head Start to perform valuable full day child careand early education services, and more than 380,000 preschool children arenow in the program. We have doubled funds for early childhood demonstrationprograms which win develop new tools and new teaching techniques to servechildren who suffer from deafness, blindness and other handicaps.

So that no child will be denied the opportunity for a productive lifebecause of inability to read effectively, we have established the Rightto Read Program.

To add impetus to the entire educational effort, our newly-created NationalInstitute of Education ensures that broad research and experimentation willdevelop the best educational opportunities for all children. Additionally,we have taken steps to help ensure that children receive proper care whiletheir parents are at work.

Moreover, as stated elsewhere in this Platform, we have broadened nutritionalassistance to poor children by nearly tripling participation in the foodstamp program, more than doubling the number of needy children in the schoollunch program, operating a summer feeding program for three million youngpeople, increasing the breakfast program fivefold, and doubling Federalsupport for child nutritional programs. We are improving medical care forpoor children through more vigorous treatment procedures under Medicaidand more effectively targeting maternal and child health services to low-incomemothers. We will continue to seek out new means to reach and teach childrenin their crucial early years.

YOUTH

We believe that what our youth most want and need is not special treatmentas a group apart, but just the opposite ‹ the opportunity for fullparticipation by exercising the rights and responsibilities of adults.

In 1970 the President approved legislation which gave the vote to morethan 11 million 18-to-20 year olds. The 26th Amendment, which places thisimportant new right in the Constitution, has our enthusiastic backing.

Our Administration has already made the draft a far less arbitrary factorin young men's lives. Now we near the point where we can end conscriptionaltogether and achieve our goal of an all-volunteer armed force.

Our total war on drug abuse has had special benefits for youth, hardesthit by this menace. Last year we held the first White House Conference everheld by and for young people themselves. The Administration gave the Conference'smore than 300 recommendations a searching review, and last spring the Presidentreturned a detailed response and action report to the conferees.

The anarchy which swept major campuses in the late 1960's penalized noone more severely than the young people themselves. The recent calm on campusis, we believe, in part the result of the President's leadership in windingdown the war in Vietnam, reducing the draft, and taking a strong stand againstlawlessness, but our view is that colleges themselves are responsible formaintaining a campus climate that will preserve academic freedom.

We have proposed legislation to ensure that no qualified student is denieda higher education by lack of funds, and have also moved to meet the often-overlookedconcerns of the two-thirds of the college-age young not in school. We havedeveloped a new job-oriented, career-education concept, expanded Federalmanpower programs, and provided record numbers of summer job opportunitiesfor young men and women.

To engage youthful idealism and energies more effectively, we have createdthe new ACTION volunteer service agency bringing together the Peace Corps,VISTA, and other volunteer programs; and we encouraged the establishmentof the independent National Center for Voluntary Action.

We stand for lowering the legal age of majority in all jurisdictionsto 18; and we will seek to broaden the involvement of young people in everyphase of the political process ‹ as voters, party workers and leaders,candidates and elected officials, and participants in government at municipal,State and Federal levels.

We will continue to build on these solid achievements in keeping withour conviction that these young people should have the opportunity to participatefully in the affairs of our society.

EQUAL RIGHTS FOR WOMEN

The Republican Party recognizes the great contributions women have madeto our society as homemakers and mothers, as contributors to the communitythrough volunteer work, and as members of the labor force in careers outsidethe home. We fully endorse the principle of equal rights, equal opportunities,and equal responsibilities for women, and believe that progress in theseareas is needed to achieve the full realization of the potentials of Americanwomen both in the home and outside the home.

We reaffirm the President's pledge earlier this year: "The Administrationwill ... continue its strong efforts to open equal opportunities for women,recognizing clearly that women are often denied such opportunities today.While every woman may not want a career outside the home, every woman shouldhave the freedom to choose whatever career she wishes ‹ and an equalchance to pursue it.

This Administration has done more than any before it to help women ofAmerica achieve equality of opportunity.

Because of its efforts, more top-level and middle-management positionsin the Federal Government are held by women than ever before. The Presidenthas appointed a woman as his special assistant in the White House, specificallycharged with the recruitment of women for policy-making jobs in the UnitedStates Government. Women have also been named to high positions in the CivilService Commission and the Department of Labor to ensure equal opportunitiesfor employment and advancement at all levels of the Federal service.

In addition we have:

• Significantly increased resources devoted to enforcement of the Fair Labor Standards Act, providing equal pay for equal work.
• Required all firms doing business with the Government to have affirmative action plans for the hiring and promotion of women.
• Requested Congress to expand the jurisdiction of the Commission on Civil Rights to cover sex discrimination.
• Recommended and supported passage of Title IX of the Higher Education Act opposing discrimination against women in educational institutions.
• Supported the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972 giving the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission enforcement power in sex discrimination cases.
• Continued our support of the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution, our Party being the first national party to back this Amendment.

Other factors beyond outright employer discrimination ‹ the lackof child care facilities, for example ‹ can limit job opportunitiesfor women. For lower and middle income families, the President supportedand signed into law a new tax provision which makes many child care expensesdeductible for working parents. Part of the President's recent welfare reformproposal would provide comprehensive day care services so that women onwelfare can work.

We believe the primary responsibility for a child's care and upbringinglies with the family. However, we recognize that for economic and many otherreasons many parents require assistance in the care of their children.

To help meet this need, we favor the development of publicly or privatelyrun, voluntary, comprehensive, quality day care services, locally controlledbut federally assisted, with the requirement that the recipients of theseservices will pay their fair share of the costs according to their ability.

We oppose ill-considered proposals, incapable of being administered effectively,which would heavily engage the Federal Government in this area.

To continue progress for women's rights, we will work toward:

• Ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.
• Appointment of women to highest level positions in the Federal Government, including the Cabinet and the Supreme Court.
• Equal pay for equal work.
• Elimination of discrimination against women at all levels in Federal Government.
• Elimination of discrimination against women in the criminal justice system, in sentencing, rehabilitation and prison facilities.
• Increased opportunities for the part-time employment of women, and expanded training programs for women who want to re-enter the labor force.
• Elimination of economic discrimination against women in credit, mortgage, insurance, property, rental and finance contracts.

We pledge vigorous enforcement of all Federal statutes and executiveorders barring job discrimination on the basis of sex.

We are proud of the contributions made by women to better government.We regard the active involvement of women on all levels of the politicalprocess, from precinct to national status, as of great importance to ourcountry. The Republican Party welcomes and encourages their maximum participation.

OLDER AMERICANS

We believe our Nation must develop a new awareness of the attitudes andneeds of our older citizens. Elderly Americans are far too often the forgottenAmericans, relegated to lives of idleness and isolation by a society bemusedwith the concerns of other groups. We are distressed by the tendency ofmany Americans to ignore the heartbreak and hardship resulting from thegeneration gap which separates so many of our people from those who havereached the age of retirement. We deplore what is tantamount to cruel discrimination‹ age discrimination in employment, and the discrimination of neglectand indifference perhaps the cruelest of all.

We commit ourselves to helping older Americans achieve greater self-relianceand greater opportunities for direct participation in the activities ofour society. We believe that the later years should be, not isolated years,not years of dependency, but years of fulfillment and dignity. We believeour older people are not to be regarded as a burden but rather should bevaluable participants in our society. We believe their judgment, their experience,and their talents are immensely valuable to our country.

Because we so believe, we are seeking and have sought in many ways tohelp older Americans ‹ for example:

• Federal programs of direct benefit to older Americans have increased more than $16 billion these past four years.
• As part of this, Social Security benefits are more than 50 percent higher than they were four years ago, the largest increase in the history of social security.
• Social security benefits have become inflation proof by making them rise automatically to match cost of living increases, a protection long advocated by the Republican Party.
• We have upgraded nursing homes.

Expenditures under the Older Americans Act have gone up 800 percent sincePresident Nixon took office, with a strong emphasis on programs enablingolder Americans to live dignified, independent lives in their own homes.

The valuable counsel of older people has been sought directly throughthe White House Conference on Aging. The President has appointed high leveladvisers on the problems of the aging to his personal staff.

We have urged upon the opposition Congress ‹ again, typically, tono avail ‹ numerous additional programs of benefit to the elderly.We will continue pressing for these new initiatives to:

• Increase the amount of money a person can earn without losing social security benefits.
• Increase widow, widower, and delayed retirement benefits.
• Improve the effectiveness of Medicare, including elimination, of the monthly premium required under Part B of Medicare ‹ the equivalent of more than a three percent social security increase.
• Strengthen private pension plans through tax deductions to encourage their expansion, improved vesting, and protection of the investments in these funds.
• Reform our tax system so that persons 65 or over will receive increased tax-free income.
• Encourage volunteer service activities for older Americans such as the Retired Senior Volunteer Program and the Foster Grandparents Program.
• Give special attention to bringing full government services within the reach of the elderly to rural areas who are often unable to share fully in their deserved benefits because of geographic inaccessibility.
• Upgrade other Federal activities important to the elder including programs for nutrition, housing and nursing homes, transportation, consumer protection, and elimination of age discrimination in government and private employment.

We encourage constructive efforts which will help older citizens to bebetter informed about existing programs and services designed to meet theirneeds, and we pledge to cut away excessive Federal red tape to make it easierfor older Americans to receive the benefits to which they are entitled.

WORKING MEN AND WOMEN

The skill, industry and productivity of American workers are the drivingforce of our free economy. The Nation's labor unions, comprised of millionsof working people, have advanced the well-being not only of their membersbut also of our entire free enterprise system. We of the Republican Partyreaffirm our strong endorsement of Organized Labor's key role in our nationallife.

We salute the statesmanship of the labor union movement. Time and timeagain, at crucial moments, it has voiced its out-spoken support for a firmand effective foreign policy and for keeping the Armed Forces of the UnitedStates modern and strong.

The American labor movement and the Republican Party have always workedagainst the spread of totalitarian forms of government. Together we cancontinue to preserve in America the best system of government ever devisedfor human happiness and fulfillment.

We are for the right of American workers and their families to enjoyand to retain to the greatest possible extent the rewards of their own labor.

We regard collective bargaining as the cornerstone of the nation's laborrelations policy. The government's role is not to encroach upon this processbut rather to aid the differing parties to make collective bargaining moreeffective both for themselves and for the public. In furtherance of thatconcept we will continue to develop procedures whereby the imagination,ingenuity and knowledge of labor and management can more effectively seeksolutions for such problems as structural adjustment and productivity.

In the construction industry, for example, we will build on a new jointeffort between government and all parts of the industry to solve such problemsas seasonality and varying peaks of demand to ensure a stable growth inthe number of skilled craftsmen .

We call upon management and labor to devote their best efforts to findingbetter ways to conduct labor-management relations so the good of all thepeople can be advanced without strikes or lockouts.

We will continue to search for realistic and fair solutions to emergencylabor disputes, guided by two basic principles: first, that the health andsafety of the people of the United States should always be paramount; andsecond, that collective bargaining should be kept as free as possible fromgovernment interference.

For mine health and safety, we have implemented the most comprehensivelegislation in the Nation's history, resulting in a major reduction in mine-relatedaccidents. We pledge continued advancement of the health and safety of workers.

We will continue to press for improved pension vesting and other statutoryprotections to assure that Americans will not lose their hard-earned retirementincomes.

We pledge further modernization of the Federal Civil Service Systemsincluding emphasis on executive development. We dedicate ourselves to promotionon merit, equal opportunity, and the setting of clear incentives for higherproductivity. We give continuing close attention to the evolving labor-managementrelationship in the Federal service.

We pledge realistic programs of education and training so that all Americansable to do so can make their own way, on their own ability, receiving anequal and fair chance to advance themselves. We flatly oppose the notionthat the hard-earned tax dollars of American workers should be used to supportthose who can work but choose not to, and who believe that the world owesthem a living free from any responsibility or care.

We are proud of our many other solid achievements on behalf of America'sworking people ‹ for example:

• Nearly five million additional workers brought under the coverage of the unemployment insurance system, and eligibility deadlines twice extended.
• Funding for more than 166,000 jobs under the Emergency Employment Act.
• Expansion of vocational education and manpower training programs.
• Use of the long-neglected Trade Expansion Act to help workers who lose their jobs because of imports. We strongly favor vigorous competition by American business in the world market but in ways that do not displace American jobs.
• Negotiation of long-needed limitations on imports of manmade fibers, textiles and other products, thus protecting American jobs.

We share the desire of all Americans for continued prosperity in peacetime.We will work closely with labor and management toward our mutual goal ofassuring a job for every man and woman seeking the dignity of work.

ENDING DISCRIMINATION

From its beginning, our Party has led the way for equal rights and equalopportunity. This great tradition has been carried forward by the NixonAdministration.

Through our efforts de jure segregation is virtually ended. We pledgecontinuation of these efforts until no American schoolchild suffers educationaldeprivation because of the color of his skin or the language he speaks andall schoolchildren are receiving high quality education. In pursuit of thisgoal. we have proposed $2.5-billion of Federal aid to school districts toimprove educational opportunities and build facilities for disadvantagedchildren. Further to assure minority progress, we have provided more supportto predominantly black colleges than ever before ‹ twice the amountbeing spent when President Nixon took office.

Additionally, we have strengthened Federal enforcement of equal opportunitylaws. Spending for civil rights enforcement has been increased from $75-millionto $602-million ‹ concrete evidence of our commitment to equal justicefor all. The President also supported and signed into law the Equal EmploymentOpportunity Act of 1972, which makes the Equal Employment Opportunity Commissiona much more powerful body.

Working closely with leaders of construction unions, we have initiated50 "hometown" plans which call for more than 35,000 additionalminority hirings in the building trades during the next four years. We willcontinue to search out new employment opportunities for minorities in otherfields as well. We believe such new jobs can and should be created withoutdisplacing those already at work. We will give special consideration tominority Americans who live and make their way in the rural regions of ourcountry ‹ Americans too often bypassed m the advances of the generalsociety.

We have made unprecedented progress in strengthening minority participationin American business. We created the Office of Minority Business Enterprisein March, 1969, to coordinate the Federal programs assisting members ofminority groups who seek to establish or expand businesses. We have morethan tripled Federal loans, guarantees and grants to minority-owned businesses.More minority Americans are now in our nation's economic mainstream thanat any other time in our history, and we pledge every effort to expand thesegains.

Minority businesses now receive 16 percent of the Small Business Administrationdollar ‹ more than double the proportion in 1968. Many Minority EnterpriseSmall Business Investment Companies have been licensed since 1969 to provideventure capital for minority enterprises. More than $200-million is nowavailable through this program, and we have requested additional funding.

In late 1970, we initiated a combined Government-private program to increaseminority bank deposits. This year our goal of $100-million has been reachedfour times over.

We pledge to carry forward our efforts to place minority citizens inresponsible positions ‹ efforts we feel are already well under way.During the last four years the percentage of minority Federal employeeshas risen to a record high of almost 20 percent and, perhaps more important,the quality of jobs for minority Americans has improved. We have recruitedmore minority citizens for top managerial posts in Civil Service than everbefore. We will see that our progress in this area will continue and grow.

In 1970 President Nixon approved strong new amendments to the VotingRights Act of 1965, and we pledge continued vigilance to ensure that therights affirmed by this act are upheld.

The cultural diversity of America's heritage groups have always beena source of strength for our society and our Party. We reaffirm our commitmentto the basic American values which have made this nation the land of opportunityfor these groups, originating from all sectors of the world, from Asia toAfrica to Europe to Latin America. We will continue our Party's open doorpolicy and work to assure all minorities full opportunity for participationin the political process. We pledge vigorous support of the Bilingual Actand the Ethnic Studies Heritage Act.

SPANISH-SPEAKING AMERICANS

In recognition of the significant contributions to our country by ourproud and independent Spanish-speaking citizens, we have developed a comprehensiveprogram to help achieve equal opportunity.

During the last four years Spanish-speaking Americans have achieved agreater role in national affairs. More than thirty have been appointed tohigh federal positions.

To provide the same learning opportunities enjoyed by other Americanchildren, we have increased bilingual education programs almost sixfoldsince 1969. We initiated a 16-point employment program to help Spanish-speakingworkers, created the National Economic Development Association to promoteSpanish-speaking business development and expanded economic developmentopportunities in Spanish-speaking communities.

We will work for the use of bilingual staff in localities where thislanguage capability is desirable for effective health care.

INDIANS, ALASKA NATIVES AND HAWAIIANS

President Nixon has evolved a totally new Indian policy which we fullysupport. The opposition Congress, by inaction on most of the President'sproposals, has thwarted Indian rights and opportunities.

We commend the Department of Interior for its stalwart defense of Indianland and water rights, and we urge the Congress to join in support of thateffort. We further request Congress to permit Indian tribal governmentsto assume control over the programs of the Departments of Interior and Health.Education and Welfare in their homelands, to assure Indians a role in determininghow funds can best be used for their children's schools, to expand Indianeconomic development opportunity, to triple the funds for Indian creditand create a new Assistant Secretary of the Interior and Territorial Affairs.

These reforms, all urged by the President, have been ignored by the Congress.We ‹ with the Indian people ‹ are impatiently waiting.

Knowing the Indians' love for their land and recognizing the many wrongscommitted in years past, the President has restored Blue Lake in New Mexicoto the Taos Pueblo and the Mt. Adams area in Washington to the Yakima Nation.We are seeking to protect Indian water rights in Pyramid bringing suit inthe Supreme Court.

We are fully aware of the severe problems facing the Menominee Indiansin seeking to have Federal recognition restored to their tribe and promisea complete and sympathetic examination of their pleas.

We have increased the Bureau of Indian Affairs' budget by 214 percent,nearly doubled funds for Indian health, and are arranging with tribal leadersfor the allocation of Bureau funds in accordance with priorities set bythe tribal governments themselves.

We pledge continued attention to the needs of off-reservation Indiansand have launched demonstration projects at Indian centers in nine majorcities. We are determined that the first Americans will not be the forgottenAmericans, and that their rights will be respected.

At the President's recommendation, the Congress voted an Alaska NativeClaims Settlement which confirms the titles of the Eskimos, Indians andAleuts to 40 million acres and compensates them with a generous cash settlement.

We will also preserve and continue to protect the Hawaiian Homes CommissionAct which provides land already set aside for Hawaiians for homes and theopportunity to preserve their culture.

Our achievements for human dignity and opportunity are specific and real,not idle promises. They have brought tremendous progress to many thousandsof minority citizens and made our society more just for all.

We will press on with our fight against social injustice and discrimination,building upon the achievements already made. Knowing that none of us canreap the fullest blessings of liberty until all of us can, we reaffirm ourcommitment to the upward struggle for universal freedom led by Abraham Lincolna century ago.

Amendment Adopted

We will continue the policies of Indian preference in hiring and promotionand apply it to all levels, including management and supervisory positionsin those agencies with programs affecting Indian peoples.

The standard of Living of Indian Americans is still far below that ofany of the peoples of the United States This intolerable level of existenceshould be alleviated by enactment of new legislation designed to furtherIndian self-determination without termination and to close this economicgap and raise the Indian standard of life to that of the rest of America.We favor the development of such legislation in the 93rd Congress.

CONSUMERS

The American consumer has a right to product safety clearly specifiedqualities and values, honest descriptions and guarantees, fair credit procedures,and due recourse for fraud and deception. We are addressing these concernsforcefully with executive action and legislative and legal initiatives.

The issues involved in this accelerating awareness on the part of consumerslie close to the heart of the dynamic American market: Good products atfair prices made it great; the same things will keep it great.

Enlightened business management is as interested in consumer protectionand consumer education as are consumers themselves. In a market place ascompetitive and diverse as ours, a company's future depends on the reputationof its products. One safety error can wipe out an established firm overnight.

Unavoidably, the remoteness of business management from the retail countertends to hamper consumers in resolving quality and performance questions.Technical innovations make it harder for the consumer to evaluate new products.Legal Complexities often deny efficient remedies for deception or productfailure.

To assist consumers and business, President Nixon established the firstOffice of Consumer Affairs in the White House and made its Director a memberof his personal staff and of the Cost of Living Council. We have also proposeda Buyer's Bill of Rights, including:

• Federal authority for the regulation of hazardous consumer products;
• Requirement of full disclosure of the terms of warranties and guarantees in language all can understand.

We support the establishment of an independent Consumer Protection Agencyto present the consumer's case in proceedings before Federal agencies andalso a consumer product safety agency in the Department of Health, Educationand Welfare. We oppose punitive proposals which are more anti-business thanpro-consumer.

We pledge vigorous enforcement of all consumer protection laws and tofoster more consumer education as a vital necessity in a marketplace everincreasing in variety and complexity.

VETERANS

We regard our Nation's veterans precisely as our President does:

"Americans have long known that those who defended the great valuesof our Nation in wartime are of great value to the Nation when the war isover. It is traditional that the American veteran has been helped by hisNation so that he can create his own 'peace story,' a story of prosperity,independence and dignity.

"Veterans benefit programs have therefore become more than a recognitionfor services performed in the past; they have become an investment in thefuture of the veteran and of his country."

Under Republican leadership, far more for our veterans is being donethan ever before:

• G.I. Bill education benefits have been increased more than 35 percent. Vietnam-era veterans have the highest assistance levels in history to help them pursue educational opportunities.
• Major cost of living adjustments have been made in compensation and pension payments.
• Medical services are the best in the history of the Veterans Administration and now include a strong new drug treatment and rehabilitation program.
• Disability benefits have been increased.
• GI home loan benefits have been expanded and improved.

The total Administration commitment is massive ‹ $12.4 billion forthis fiscal year. This is the largest Veterans Administration budget inhistory, and the third largest of all Federal agencies and departments.

We are giving the highest priority to the employment problems of Vietnamveterans. In 1971 we initiated a comprehensive Program which recently placedmore than one million Vietnam-era veterans in jobs, training and educationprograms.

For the future, we pledge:

• Continuation of the Veterans Administration as a strong, independent agency;
• Continuation of an independent system of Veterans Administration health care facilities to provide America's veterans with the best medical care available, including appropriate attention to the problems of the ex-serviceman afflicted with drug and alcohol problems;
• Continuing attention to the needs of the Vietnam-era veteran, with special emphasis on employment opportunities, education and housing;
• Continuation of our efforts to raise GI Bill education benefits to a level commensurate with post-World War II benefits in adjusted dollars.
• Continued effort for a better coordinated national policy on cemeteries and burial benefits for veterans.

We will not fail our obligation to the Nation's 29 million veterans andwill stand ever watchful of their needs and rights.

Conclusion

The record is clear.

More than any President, Richard Nixon has achieved major changes inpolicy and direction in our government. He has restored faith ‹ faiththat our system will indeed reflect the will of the people ‹ faiththat there will be a new era of peace and human progress at home and aroundthe world.

To be sure, there is unfinished business on the agenda of our ever-restlessNation. We have great concern for those who have not participated more fullyin the general prosperity. The twin evils of crime and drug abuse are stillto be conquered. Peace in the world is not yet won.

But Republican leadership has restored stability and sanity to our landonce again. We have vigorously attacked every major problem.

Once again our direction is peace; once again our determination is nationalstrength; once again we are prospering; once again, on a host of fronts,we are making progress.

Now we look to tomorrow.

We pledge ourselves to go forward at an accelerated pace ‹ witha determination and zeal unmatched before.

In four years we mark the 200th anniversary of the freest, most productive,most benevolent nation of all human history. In four years we celebrateone of man's highest achievements ‹ two hundred years as a constitutionalrepublic founded on the noble concept that every person is a sovereign being,possessed of dignity and inalienable rights.

Almost two centuries ago, the Founding Fathers envisioned a nation oftree people. at peace with themselves and the world ‹ each with equalopportunity to pursue happiness his own way. Much of that dream has cometrue; much is still to be fulfilled.

We, the Republican Party, pledge ourselves to go forward, hand-in-handwith every citizen, to solve those problems that yet stand in the way ofrealizing that more perfect union, the dream of the Founding Fathers ‹a dream enhanced by the free and generous gift of people working together,not in shifting alliances of separated minorities, but in unison of spiritand purpose. We cannot favor, nor can we respect, the notion of group isolationin our United States of America. We must not divide and weaken ourselvesby attitudes or policies which would segregate our citizens into separateracial, ethnic, economic, religious or social groups. It is the strivingof all of us ‹ our striving together as Americans ‹ that willmove our nation continually onward to our Founders' dream.

Building on the foundations of peace in the world, and reason and prosperityat home, our Republican Party pledges a new era of progress for man ‹progress toward more freedom, toward greater protection of individual rights,toward more security from want and fear, toward greater fulfillment andhappiness for all.

We pledge to the American people that the 200th anniversary of this Nation1976 will be more than a celebration of two centuries of unequaled success;we pledge it also to be the beginning of the third and greatest centuryfor all of our countrymen and, we pray, for all people in the world.