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| Source:James Miller Center- President Gerald R. Ford (Republican, Michigan) 38th POTUS (1974-77) |
"President Ford gives his final State of the Union Address, bidding his farewell to Congress and describing the strength of the United States and what must be done to make further improvements.
From the James Miller Center
"The initials synonymous with the Republican Party—“GOP”—stand for “grand old party.” As early as the 1870s, politicians and newspapers began to refer to the Republican Party as both the “grand old party” and the “gallant old party” to emphasize its role in preserving the Union during the Civil War. The Republican Party of Minnesota, for instance, adopted a platform in 1874 that it said “guarantees that the grand old party that saved the country is still true to the principles that gave it birth.”
In spite of its nickname, though, the “grand old party” was only a mere teenager in the early 1870s since the Republican Party had been formed in 1854 by former Whig Party members to oppose the expansion of slavery into western territories."
I put that Grand Ole Party quote and link in this piece for an excellent reason: The Grand Ole Party is Gerald Ford's party. His job was to restore and preserve, or conserve (if you prefer) confidence in the American form of government and our constitution, after the Watergate debacle of 1972-73, that led to President Richard Nixon's resignation in 1974. And he did a great job of doing just that.
There have been times in American history when if America didn't have a certain person as President, it wouldn't been clear if they could've survived as a country gotten through that crisis. I'm thinking of:
Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War
Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression and World War II
Lyndon Johnson during the civil rights movement
And yes, Gerald R. Ford during the post-Watergate period during the mid-1970s
Now, maybe the country would've survived during those periods with someone else as President, but we would've been a lot worst off.
Of course as a Conservative Republican, Gerry Ford was partisan. He was House Minority for almost 9 years, Vice President and then President of the United States and Leader of the Republican Party. But he wasn't President as a partisan. He knew the situation that he inherited and knew what his job was, which was to restore order and confidence in the American system and form of government.
There are plenty of people who think that Gerry Ford was a great man and a good President. I'm a Democrat, but I'm one of those people. But almost no one (Democrat or Republican) thinks that Gerry Ford was a bad man. And we're talking about someone who served in the U.S. Government for over 30 years, if you count his military service during World War II.
This post was updated June 14, 2023.
