Nixon phone call with Colson on Welfare Reform and Labor Unions

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Yeah.

I hear Mr. Coulson.

Yeah.

There you are.

Hello.

Yes, sir, Mr. President.

Bob tells me the Hardats were pleased with my welfare stand.

My golly, I wonder how they heard about it.

Well, they'd read about it, a lot of them.

But one of the interesting things, I'd received a lot of calls on this yesterday.

But then when I went up there last night and went from room to room, it was really one of the first things that people mentioned.

Of course, they'd had a few drinks, and it was an after-dinner kind of thing, and they were letting off a little steam.

And all of them, just almost without exception, people would say, by God, you tell them we agree with that.

Those loafers, and I've worked all my life, and by God, nobody gives me anything for nothing, and I believe in hard work.

Of course, that's really the one characteristic of these fellows.

But everywhere they talked about it.

They're a great bunch.

I must say, Mr. President, I was heartened last night.

I didn't get any criticism on that.

or very little on Davis Bacon.

The criticism I got, people would say, well, I think the president got bad advice.

They were reluctant to blame you.

Brennan was in full swing there last night, taking me around to people.

He was being very helpful.

How do they think of these...

these uh that crowd in the mall down there did any of them mention that or have they seen it oh yeah god that's an awful looking group it sure is well they had they had the reaction of the

These are real bums, and, you know, how do you keep people like this off the streets?

And they were mad at him, but none of them have gone out to do anything about it.

That's right.

They shouldn't fight veterans.

Well, I think that's probably the one point that has kept them quiet, because the fact that they think they're veterans, of course, we know they're not.

A lot of them aren't.

I thought the attitudes were good.

As I also told Bob, the minority hiring thing is something we're going to do some work on here because that has a lot of them bothered.

But I think we can... Well, heck, I don't think we're getting many points out of doing minority hiring, are we?

That's my opinion, yes, sir.

Yeah.

We'll work on this.

It just irritates the hell out of them because they know that a lot of it's unfair.

Well, they've had some rough breaks, but the basic...

thing which i told bab was that the underlying sentiment was more positive than it has been much more positive and very good towards you personally and the same that same kind of a proud feeling is there and despite our troubles which i think we'll find ways around in the in the

in the near future it may be too that some of those fellows that were in the cabinet room kind of got around too don't you think they sure did uh they would have helped too don't you think they helped a great deal and interestingly i let them know where i was going to be last night and three of them came by and thank thanked me for the meeting and told how much the

appreciated it no that word is spread all through the year they kind of like the idea somebody they know darn well that uh that they that most most people would have run away from the meeting and they think well he was willing to talk to us had the guts to to talk and to listen and

Tom Murphy, who's a pretty outspoken guy, said that he was very moved by your ending.

No, I think I have the feeling we're building back with these fellows.

I really do.

Some things we need to do and we're working on.

Well, we can just get some more jobs.

I mean, employment should start to go up in that business, shouldn't it?

No.

It should be the first to feel it.

Good heavens.

I don't know.

It depends on, of course, which...

carpenters, if housing ought to be affected by carpenters, and a lot of things around.

Well, there are still localized problems.

I heard some of them last night, and I've talked to this morning about two or three particular areas, Pittsburgh and Allegheny County, have a special problem that we'll do some work on.

But when you think that the

Total construction estimate for this year has been revised upward to $109 billion.

Gosh, they've just got a... Well, I used that everywhere last night on that tag of people because the outlook is good for them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You might be interested that... That's good.

that Evans Novak column on Muskie and the Trotskyites.

Oh, yeah.

That, curiously, I can't imagine how these things happened, but 2,000 copies of that had been distributed out there.

And every room I went in, they had a little stack of copies.

Did they?

What's some?

These guys really are on the ball, aren't they?

Well, you just wonder how those things get up there.

Did some of them read it?

Oh, a number of people were commenting on it.

In fact...

They were a little defiant about Muskie over that.

They got no use for the Communists or the Trotskyites, you know.

To them, a Trotskyite is just the same as a Moscowite, you know.

They don't distinguish.

They just know it's one of the bad guys.

Of course, Brennan, I'm surprised to learn he's a real hardliner on this side.

He still sees communists everywhere.

He was giving a little speech everywhere last night about we've got to protect against the commies taking us over.

He's a real tough guy on that score.

It's good to have a few.

The welfare line, it just may be that we ought to

That pumped around a little more.

Well, I mean, the speech itself.

I told Bob this morning they ought to get it reprinted and mail it to him.

I mean, reprinted with my, I added several ad libs in it, which, with regard to personal experience, which really gets it across.

And people really are sick of this welfare.

They really are.

They're sick of loafers.

That's what I mean.

They want to help the needy, but they don't want to help these people that are sponging and gold-bricking off the others.

That's right.

I met a number of people last night.

For example, a carpenter from Pittsburgh came up to me and he said, I've been unemployed.

Be goddamned if I'll go on welfare.

And he said, you tell the president.

He said, I admire him for saying that his family wouldn't do it.

And he said, by God, we've just got to get more Americans thinking that way.

Isn't that interesting?

It really was.

And...

I started last night to ask one of our speech writers to start boiling that speech or taking the key parts of that speech out and see if we can't give it a wide distribution.

I think we ought to figure a damn good mailing list for that.

Tell them particularly to get in the personal.

You see,

There was what the speechwriter prepared.

Then, of course, I ad-libbed something about my family and also about the kids from Rio Grande High School, you know, that came up.

Well, that kind of stuff, that really gets people and reaches them.

Yes, it does.

That's exactly the kind of thing.

It's like that...

to Kevin Taylor's story.

That's right.

You've got to have a little story there.

And tell the speechwriter who does this, say, now, take the priceless prose.

That's fine, too.

I mean, the immortal prose, we want a little of that.

But a little of the anecdote stuff, they can pull that in, you know.

But I think if that could get around, another thing that you might do is to get that to, I think that's a very, Bob is going to have Louis Nunn

do a little mailing on it, but if he could, because, but I think that ought to get to the, to all the Republican members of Congress and all Southern Democrats.

Yes, sir.

Is that my point?

Yes, sir.

Why not?

Just a letter from Nunn maybe could go to him, you know?

Well, we ought to, we ought to...

I mean, the Republican, let's get this...

This is a, this is a, this is an issue that really strikes home right now.

People are, they're braving the high taxes and the welfare loafers.

That's exactly right.

And the dirty streets, and it gets, it hits a lot of things.

Well, those, the high taxes and the welfare rolls people associate together, right?

Right, right, right, right.

You go into city areas where this problem is particularly severe.

Well, our main problem right now, of course, is that Supreme Court ruling.

Boy, that really puts the fat in the fire again.

It's a shocker.

But I guess it was inevitable.

I guess it had to come.

I guess he had to do some horse trading, but he did.

Well, at least, as you know, it doesn't go nearly as far as it could have.

And in other words, it doesn't cover de facto.

The trouble is it penalizes the South again.

It does not cover the North.

It rules out de facto segregation.

That's okay.

You don't have to change that.

It rules out.

It also says you don't have to have balance.

So there are some good things in it, too, but...

Yes, it may.

Well, it was interesting that yesterday the Rybakov Amendment was up on the floor the same day.

Good.

And it'll be up today, isn't it, for a vote?

It'll be up today for a vote.

It was the tabling motion yesterday.

We got a lot of our Democratic friends out on a limb on that one.

Did they vote for it?

Well, I was just going through the list when you called.

I was looking to see if they voted.

How did they vote?

You got it?

Muskie.

But he wasn't there.

He wasn't there.

He ducked at Teddy.

Teddy Duckett.

I don't see his name here.

Humphrey.

Cory.

Duckett, too.

I'm telling you.

Humphrey, Kennedy.

That's a good column.

Now, check up today to see what's happening up there.

These guys now, they just shouldn't be allowed to get away with that.

Shouldn't let them wriggle off this hook.

And they talk about courage now.

This is a...

You know, profiles encourage.

Now, will you do that?

Check today and have Dole or somebody, somebody just ought to make a speech and rip their hide off them.

Where are they?

Here are the three Democratic candidates.

They won't stand up and be counted on either side.

Isn't that interesting?

Here's not voting.

I figured they wouldn't vote.

Here's Biden.

He ran too.

He ran.

Humphrey, Kennedy, Muskie.

Yeah.

All right.

McGovern also?

That's another one.

Okay.

Now let's see what they did today.

They'll have to vote on the...

They didn't table, did they?

No, the tabling failed.

Therefore, they'll have to vote yea or nay on the overall bill.

That's right.

All right.

Let's come down all of this.

Let's get down to this darn thing and have a little fun with them, okay?

Oh, I think that's a good one.

All right.

I'll certainly follow that.

Good.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Nixon phone call with Colson on Welfare Reform and Labor Unions

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on April 21, 1971

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