University of Virginia Library

Nixon

Richard M. Nixon promised Thursday that if he is
elected President, he will scrap government by consensus
and bring dissenters back into the political mainstream.

'The lamps of enlightenment are lit by the spark of
controversy; their flame can be snuffed out by the
blanket of consensus,' the Republican nominee said in a
Thursday night nationwide radio broadcast.

Mr. Nixon attended a GOP dinner in New York
Thursday night, on a series of 23 $1,000-a-plate dinners
expected to gross more than $5 million and linked by
closed circuit television.

When Mr. Nixon left the Americana Hotel he was
greeted by about 50 pickets who denounced him for his
opposition to the California grape boycott.

Mr. Nixon had entered the hotel earlier through a side
entrance and had missed the demonstrators, but they had
shifted their position and were on hand to see him and his
wife, Pat, when the candidate departed.

'Nixon is a pig, Nixon is a pig,' they chanted at him.

The demonstration, which stemmed from efforts to
organize migrant farm workers in the California grape
vineyards, was peaceful.

While Mr. Nixon was speaking in New York to about
1,200 well- contributors, his running mate, Gov.
Spiro T. Agnew of Maryland, was speaking at a San
Francisco dinner.

Other dinners were being held at Los Angeles, Chicago,
San Francisco, Boston, Washington, Philadelphia,
Houston, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Cleveland, Cincinnati, San
Diego, Calif., Nashville, Tenn., Wilmington, Del.,
Portland, Ore., Baltimore, Dallas, Tulsa, Okla., Miami,
Fla., Detroit, Denver, Milwaukee, and Newport, R.I.

Along with Mr. Nixon and Mr. Agnew's appearances on
closed circuit television, other speakers assigned to each
of the dinners included: Govs. Nelson A. Rockefeller of
New York, Ronald Reagan of California, George Romney
of Michigan, House GOP Leader Gerald R. Ford and other
governors and members of the Congress.

In his radio broadcast, Mr. Nixon said, 'In a Nixon
administration, America's citizens will not have to break a

law to be heard. They will not have to shout or resort to
violence.'