Fellow Veterans!
I am glad to hear that after three years of famine, the Republicans finally sent someone to talk to you. By the Republican rhythm of feast and famine, their next speaker will appear in 1976.
But in November the party of the Jewish War Veterans will be the Democratic Party. Jews have always led the fight for justice and fairness. The famous Jew, Haim Solomon, financed George Washington at Valley Forge. This is the tradition engraved on the hearts and minds of the Jewish, people. In our Revolutionary War, the Jewish people in America were saying, “Let George do it!” And in November, the Jews will be repeating that famous slogan.
The Jews have never asked for special treatment! They have asked only for equal treatment. They have asked for fairness. And they have led the fight demanding fairness for others. In the 1950’s they supported Black Americans and helped give birth to the Civil Rights movement - Dore Schary, Rabbi Lilyveld, Rabbi Joachim Prinz.
But fairness could not end with a better seat on the bus. Nor could it strop with one racial group. From that day on, fairness began to sweep through all sectors, all communities in our land.
Fairness demanded equal legal protection for the poor and in the famous decision, Gideon v. Wainwrights a new concept of American jurisprudence was born. The lawyer, typically, was a Jewish advocate, Abe Ribicoff in 1968.
Fairness demanded equal representation in the political process and a reformed Democratic party was born. Fairness demanded equal pay for equal work and women’s rights were born. And who could ever forget Bella Abzug! Fairness demanded an end to the war and a peace movement was born.
Is it fair, they ask, that millions of workers are locked into baring jobs for the rest of their lives with no opportunity to return to school for a second chance?
Can it be fair that our elderly people are left in segregated concrete slums (Cincinnati story)?
Is it fair, they ask, that a child who speaks Spanish cannot go to a bilingual school?
Blacks, Latinos, and Jews do not ask for special privileges. They seek what every American seeks - fairness. Now this administration is fair, sometimes. It is fair to ITT. It is fair to ARMCO Steel here in Houston. It is fair to the big corporations seeking price increases. It is more than fair to Mr. Nixon’s campaign contributors. But it is not fair to the American people. The American people deserve a party that treats them first and foremost as citizens of America --- Equal citizens engaged in the common task of building a community in which men of every race and every creed and every historical background can live together in liberty and in equality. This is the goal by which the promises of every administration shall be judged. This is the goal for which George McGovern and I are working. Yet this very day the columnists and pollsters are looking over the Catholic vote and the Jewish vote and the Southern vote and they are deciding where it will go. They believe that a politically inspired statement on this issue or that will deliver whole communities to one party or the other.
I don’t believe that. I don’t believe the pollsters can tell individual Americans how to vote. That is the old politics. The day is gone when politicians can pledge anything during election year and forget everything the day after.
But look at the symbol of the Republican Party -- an elephant that remembers only every four years. Now in 1972 - four years too late: the Republicans remember it is time to negotiate for peace. Now the Republicans remember: it is time to seek prosperity. Now, they renew their interest in Jewish Americans, Polish Americans, Italian Americans, Mexican Americans, Black Americans.
In election years the Republicans begin writing letters to Archbishops! On election years the Republicans press plans to increase Chicano employment in the Federal government. In election years the Republicans grant money to Black capitalism project in North Carolina. Then -- and only then – do they decide to send a speaker to the Jewish War Veterans.
With the leader of this party -- Richard Nixon -- we are up against the supreme politician of our time. He is playing election year politics with the war in Vietnam instead of ending it. He is playing politics with the issue of race instead of meeting it. And now he is playing politics with the relationship between the United States and the State of Israel.
Under four years of Richard Nixon, we have seen America’s commitment to Israel rise and fall with the shifting political tides. We need only look back three years to find Richard Nixon sitting on his hands in the face of Israel’s urgent request for Phantom jets. We need only look tack a few years to find Secretary Rogers proposing a Middle East plan under his name! That plan united all Israelis in opposition. That plan united Israeli: supporters throughout the world against Richard Nixon’s record.
For the facts will show that the man who extended recognition to the infant state in the face of strong opposition was the Democratic President -- Harry S. Truman. The facts will show that the man who tripled the amount of aid that Israel received was the Democratic President -- John F. Kennedy. And the facts will show that the man who extended military credits to Israel was the Democratic President -- Lyndon Johnson!
And the facts will show that George McGovern is the heir to this Democratic legacy. As a Congressman in 1957, when a Republican Administration under Dulles, urged help for the Arabs, McGovern opposed military aid to those countries and he warned that those arms would be used against Israel.
As a Senator in 1969 McGovern warned the Nixon Administration against an imposed settlement in the Middle East. And two years later McGovern was one of only seven Senators who first urged the Nixon Administration to send Phantom jets to Israel without delay. For George McGovern is a Democrat, and the Democratic Party has always believed and continues to believe that the survival of Israel is vital to the values and the interests of the American nation.
Under George McGovern the Democratic Party will continue its historic commitment to our sister democracy in Israel.
We will point with pride to our unshakeable Democratic Party support for Israel’s security and integrity. We will repeat our demand that Israel be provided with secure and defensible boundaries. We will oppose any new “Rogers” plan; we will oppose a new Rogers “even handed” policy. I learned Bill Rogers’ definition of “even handedness”’ this week. And I can tell you it’s not for Israel!
We are against oil millionaires at John Connally’s ranch staking out future liens of American foreign policy.
We will oppose attempts by the administration to seize on the recent Soviet withdrawal from Egypt as an excuse to return to old Republican policies towards Israel. Our commitments remain firm for reasons of morality, decency, and national interest.
But with this alone no party would deserve the Jewish vote or any other. Our American people want more. American Jews have a vision for Israel. They also have a vision for America. They want something larger than themselves. That is what they find in Israel itself. That is what they will find with George McGovern.
So I have no doubt that in November American Jews will once again support the Democratic Party, the party of humane change. They will rally to the party of FDR, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and George McGovern.
They will pick up the fight they began. They joined hands with Black Americans in the Fifties and Sixties. In the Seventies they will join hands with the factory worker -- white, brown or black -- to whose needs out the nation must now turn. They will join hands with the elderly to whose requests we must listen. They will join hands with the young whose dreams we must fulfill.
They will also ask others to join with them. There are hundreds of thousands of hard-pressed Jewish working people in this country. They must not be forgotten. There are Jewish citizens who want safe streets and sound neighborhoods. They must be remembered. There are Jewish professionals who face loss of employment, who bear the brunt as other groups make their way. Both must be protected.
George McGovern and I believe in a country where Jews and Catholics and Blacks and Whites go forward together. We believe there will be progress for all, or progress for none! We believe in America.
We believe in and we will get a Democratic victory in November.
We will get that victory because all. Americans will go to the polls this year in the spirit of the Talmud which says:
If I am not for myself who will be for me ...And if I am only for myself what am I?And if not now, when?
