Gerald Ford for President 1976 Campaign Brochures

‘He’s making us proud again’

 

A bitter, depressed, vulnerable America has become a confident, strong, proud America.

Inflation has been cut in half.

Prosperity has returned.

Our jobs are secure.

We are at peace.

The world respects us again.

We trust our own government again.

President Ford has started something great.

Now he needs your support to finish a job well begun.

He wants to beat inflation.

He wants to balance the budget.

He wants to return control of our children's education to parents and local school authorities.

He wants to insure jobs for every worker.

He wants to keep prosperity surging.

He wants to keep America strong -- and at peace.

He wants to continue to stand for the people against a free spending Congress.

He wants to build a fairer tax structure.

He wants to build a new dimension of freedom that will allow all Americans to share equally in all the advantages of a free society.

He took on the toughest job in the world -- at the toughest time in our history.

He proved that he's tough enough to get the job done.

He asked for your prayers in one of our darkest hours.

He asks for your support in one of our brightest hours.

 

‘A Lifetime of Accomplishment’

 

The 38th President of The United States -- Gerald R. Ford

On August 9, 1974, in a time of uncertainty, a quiet, determined man from Grand Rapids, Michigan, was sworn in as the 38th President of the United States.

His name was Gerald R. Ford. From the moment he took the oath of office from the Chief Justice of the United States, it was obvious that he was a new kind of President.

There was an aura of confidence about him; an open friendly spirit, an approachable candor that soon would ease the minds of a worried public.

"Our long national nightmare is over," President Ford said in his first address. "Our Constitution works. Our great republic is a government of laws and not, of men. Here, the people rule."

 

From the beginning, one sensed that he took the whole of America into his confidence. It was his nature to do so. He came from a Midwestern community where plain talk and honesty were everyday currency. He was a family man with four children, a lawyer, a Congressman. He had grown up in a time and place where hard work, rather than privilege, was the stepping stone to achievement.

 

The President was born in Omaha, Nebraska on July 14, 1913, and grew up in Grand Rapids, the adopted son of a paint salesman and the oldest of four brothers. He attended Grand Rapids South High School, worked after hours and starred on the football team. Growing up during the depression years, he came early to the knowledge that there was much to be done in this country. He developed an unassuming faith in his own ability to get things done.

 

At the University of Michigan, Jerry Ford earned his board and room by waiting on tables and washing dishes. A superb athlete, he played center on the Wolverine football team. As a senior, persistent even in a losing season, he was voted the most valuable player on the team. A strong student and leader, he was a member of the honor society and was elected president of the senior class.

 

After receiving his Michigan degree, the future President decided on a career in law and set his sights on Yale Law School, one of the most prestigious in the country.

To help pay for his studies, the young law student worked as assistant football coach of the Yale varsity. Hard work, perseverance, and a strong intellect resulted in academic success: he was graduated in the top third of his distinguished class.

When war came in 1941, he enlisted in the Navy, received a commission and was assigned combat duty. He rose to the rank of lieutenant commander, holding the critical, demanding job of assistant navigator aboard the aircraft carrier USS Monterey, which went through nine major combat operations in the Pacific. Once, during a raging typhoon, fire broke out amidships, threatening to destroy the Monterey. But under Ford's cool command the fire was controlled and disaster averted.

 

At the end of the war, Ford returned to Grand Rapids and began law practice. In his spare time he taught jurisprudence and took active leadership in the city's affairs. He was honored by the Grand Rapids Junior Chamber of Commerce as the Young Man of the Year for his successful battles for more housing and jobtraining opportunities for veterans.

 

Having survived world-wide depression and World War II, Ford broadened his horizons. The first step was to seek, an active role in shaping the nation's future. In 1948 he challenged a veteran Grand Rapids Congressman for the Republican nomination.

Against an incumbent with a powerful party machine, Ford raised a force of several hundred hard-working volunteers and began a door-to-door campaign to take his views to the people. Despite heavy odds, he won the nomination and then the election, by more than 60% of the vote. This was the first of 13 straight Congressional elections in which he received more than 60% of the vote. Among his political assets were a common sense approach to government and a steady attention to the needs and views of his constituency.

 

In Congress, Ford was known as an intelligent, tough-minded representative who put in long hours and hard study poring over legislative details. Unknown at first to the general public, he quickly won the respect and admiration of his fellow congressmen. He specialized in problems affecting our national security, serving on the Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on Defense and the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations. He became known as a congressional expert on the complexities of aerospace weapons procurement, always urging the swift development of critical weapons that would increase America's technological superiority.

 

In 1960 Newsweek magazine polled the top 50 Washington correspondents for their choices of the most able men in Congress. They rated Gerald Ford the ablest of the post-war generation. Shortly after this accolade, he received a Distinguished Congressional Service Award from the American Political Science Association.

 

During his apprentice years in Congress, Ford continually challenged the old guard. Almost from the first, the hallmarks of his voting record were opposition to extravagant spending and advocacy of a strong American voice in international affairs.

 

In 1963, Representative Ford was chosen to serve as chairman of the House Republican Conference, which serves as an organizational arm to provide policy and research guidance. Later that year, President Johnson appointed him to the Warren Commission which was investigating the assassination of President Kennedy.

 

These honors, although considerable, were but a prelude to what was to come. In 1964 Gerald Ford was chosen by his Republican colleagues in the House to be their leader. Ford used his new position as Minority Leader to widen the operating base of the Republican Party and to see that every member's views and interests received a personal hearing.

 

Gerald Ford brought a new questioning, probing, creative force to the opposition leadership. He activated a series of task forces to develop constructive alternatives to the Johnson administration's sweeping welfare proposals. For nine years, the Minority Leader' kept his outnumbered team in the forefront by fostering Republican principles, often attracting strong bipartisan support of his positions.

 

In 1973 Gerald Ford became the first Vice President selected under the newly ratified 25th Amendment. His finances, his personal and public history underwent unprecedented public scrutiny. The hearings brought out not only his personal integrity, but the broad support and respect that he had earned from his colleagues in Congress.

 

As our 38th President, Gerald Ford has worked hard to restore public confidence in the nation's highest office, quickly winning the trust and faith of the people for his candor, his dedication and his principled actions.

 

President Ford is perhaps the most down-to-earth, unpretentious President in recent history. He enjoys friendly, open relationships with his former colleagues as well as with the reporters assigned to cover him. With diplomatic forcefulness, he has established himself as a world leader for peace, seeking out chiefs of state throughout the world and welcoming many others to America.

 

In the election of 1976, President Ford's qualifications and proven record set him apart from other candidates of either party. He has devoted more than a quarter-century to the causes of peace, fiscal integrity, national defense and accountability in government.

 

By his actions and accomplishments, the President has helped bring our nation out of the worst recession in four decades and, at the same time, slowed the spiral of inflation.

 

More than anyone else, President Ford has helped turn America around and put us back on the track.

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