Los Banos Rotary Club History
WeSpeaker Predicts GOP Defeat if Ike Does Not Need Ticket

The Republicans will be defeated in this year's presidential election if President Eisenhower does not seek re-election, according to Golden Griggs, San Joaquin Valley general manager of the New York Life Insurance Co., who addressed members of the Lions Club here Tuesday night.
This is the opinion of many of the president's close advisers with whose Griggs conferred on a recent trip to Washington D. C.

Griggs said general thinking in the nation's capitol is that Eisenhower will head the Republican ticket if his health permits him to seek another four year term in the White House. However, GOP leaders look to Mass. Governor Christian A. Herter as the most likely candidate if Ike declines nomination. Herter, according to Griggs, is a vote-getter whose popularity has soared, in contrast to GOP office holders in other states who popularity has slumped sharply in the past four years. He feels Adlai Stevenson will be the Democratic candidate in the presidential election.

Touching briefly on the national economic situation, Griggs said he looks to continued booming conditions, although minor economic adjustments will continue. The soft spot in the nation's economy, of course, is agriculture, the speaker emphasized, especially in the dairy industry.

His optimism, reflected by many leading economists, is based on the spiraling birth rate which will bolster the demand for goods in years ahead. A long range building program for schools and other buildings and highways is coupled with this population increase, he said, and will keep employment at a high level.

Swinging into field of human relations, Griggs said the future of America lies in persistence and determination and adhering to the wisdom and philosophies of great Americans.

The political beliefs of Benjamin Franklin, whom Griggs believes was America's greatest statesman, hold true today as much as they did 250 years ago. The speaker cited Franklin's creed that the best way to express confidence in man is to serve him. These fundamentals of political philosophy that Franklin preached have never changed, Griggs stressed.

"Review the lives of other great Americans and you can be better citizens," he stated. And pointing to the importance of not looking to government as a crutch, Griggs quoted the philosophy of Henry Ford: "He who chops his own wood warms himself twice."

He stated this well could apply to former president Herbert Hoover, whom he believes has one of the greatest minds this century has ever produced.
Griggs told of meeting Hoover years ago and cited his rise to fame from obscurity as a youth who failed his entrance examination to Stanford University and later tried again and passed.

The speaker also told of meeting other great men such as Al C. Smith, Calvin Coolidge and John L. Lewis and of their fight to reach the top of their professions.

Griggs also addressed the Rotary Club at its luncheon meeting Tuesday. His appearance before both service clubs was arranged by Fred Rosa.

February 10, 1956

---