The following is a collection of the materials used in creating the fifth episode of the
Welcome to the Citizen Reagan podcast. As you may know, what I am here to talk about is the contents of the Ronald Reagan Radio Commentaries produced between 1975 and 1979. Sometimes, I may decide to talk about some other topic, but with over 1000 of these Commentaries to cover, the bulk of my work will be on them.
In 1975, Ronald Reagan used one of his broadcasts to discuss a stir being caused by
Tiffany and Company. Instead of its customary New York Times page 3 advertisement, there was a political editorial of sorts in the space. It was so unusual that articles appeared in other newspapers about the advertisement.
Let’s listen to that original Reagan broadcast:
Jewelry isn't made of Pulp paper and printers ink or is it? I'll be right back.
Some titles and names have come to be a part of our language, able to describe a current event, a happening, a place, or a thing. The name of one jeweler in America is one such you'd have to be way back in the hinterlands to find someone who wouldn't recognize the name Tiffany and immediately connected with precious stones and fine jewelry. It's often used in conversation to denote class or prestige. For example someone wanting to describe the high quality of a thing or place refers to it as the Tiffany of its kind. Perhaps that's why Tiffany and company of New York caused something of a nationwide ripple the other day. Now they didn't suddenly offer free diamonds or announce that they were going into the hardware business. They just published a newspaper advertisement. It didn't mention jewelry but in the days since it appeared it has been mentioned in editorials, been printed by other businesses, quoted in pamphlets and for all I know maybe even printed in the Congressional Record. I sincerely hope so because that above all is where it should be read and heeded. Just on the chance that some of you might have missed in spite of all the stir it caused, I thought I'd read it to you, as sort of a public service. So here it is, an advertisement by Tiffany & Company.
Is inflation the real problem? No it is not. Inflation is simply the inevitable final result of our follies What then are the real causes of this national calamity?
Here they are:
- Spending exorbitant sums of taxpayers money unwisely by our government.
- Inhibiting the initiatives of the people with frustrating bureaucratic regulations.
- taxing savings and capital formation to death
- government programs which have created critical shortages of essential materials and energy.
- Giving away billions of dollars to foreign governments.
- Wasting untold money on foreign wars.
- Tinkering with the economic machinery with unsound panaceas.
- Forsaking our religious heritage not only in our schools but everywhere thus accentuating crime, immorality, greed, and selfishness.
End of advertisement. Printer’s ink on pulp paper but priceless pearls if we'll take them to heart. Eight Tiffany jewels for free in a Tiffany of an ad.
This is Ronald Reagan thanks for listening.
Before I discuss the Tiffany ad, I’ve got my own advertising to take care of.
This time, I'm not going to sell you something. This is something I do for free. Reagan just mentioned pulp paper and ink in this broadcast. One of the other restoration projects I've pursued over the last few years has been to make the stories from old pulp magazines available, in a simple, e-reader friendly format. Pulps are where we first found characters like Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Conan the Barbarian, Tarzan and Zorro.
The work I have done is all available at
poorrichardsprintshop.com/pulp and they are all free. You'll find fantasy, science fiction, detective mysteries, war stories and much more.
Tiffany and Company would use its advertising space a number of other times for short editorials at the direction of their Chairman, Walter Hoving. Hoving, an immigrant born in Sweden, worked in high positions at several department stores such as Macy's, Montgomery Ward and Lord and Taylor before gaining a controlling share of stock in Tiffany in 1955. At the time, Tiffany's performance had been in decline. Hoving turned the company around and increased its business more than 10 fold by the time he left in 1980.
The Tiffany ad "Is Inflation the Real Problem?" appeared, to the best of my research, in the October 19, 1974 New York Times. I base this on an
October 30, 1974 article appearing in the Boston Globe stating that it had appeared "11 days ago". I have not, as yet, found a copy of the Times from that day. Reagan would record this commentary along with eleven others on March 12, 1975.
To date, I have tracked down a total of
nine different political editorials, while a
New York Times article from March of 1976 about Hoving which states he wrote, at the time, 25 such ads. You can find these 9 ads at my research wiki at
poorrichardsprintshop.com/wiki and a link to it will also be in the episode description.
Let’s consider the advertisement with which Reagan agreed so much that he read it on the air. Hoving was saying that inflation was the end result of meddling by the federal government, then stated eight ways in which that meddling was being done. If we look at this list today, have any of these concerns been corrected?
Spending exorbitant sums of taxpayers money unwisely by our government.
The federal government still spends significantly more than it takes in tax revenue, and simply by nature of the spending happening at the federal level, the money is not spent wisely. What do I mean? I mean that the Federal government is so big, it has to, to cover its own operating costs, absorb more of our money before spending it on the services it feels necessary to provide.
And where do they get that money?? Sometimes it is borrowed, by way of bonds, from other countries or corporations. However, it is far easier to simply print it. When was the last time the printing presses stopped?
Probably in 1979, when Milton Friedman was recording for his show, "Free to Choose."Inhibiting the initiatives of the people with frustrating bureaucratic regulations.
Federal bureaucracy and the creation of regulations are still out of control, though reforms are in place to reduce regulation for now. Environmental impact forms, safety regulations, contradictory regulations, they all take time to comply with and time, as they say, is money.
Taxing savings and capital formation to death.
The taxes have come down since 1975 thanks to the efforts of Reagan himself, Bush 43 and President Trump, though we have not seen comparable cuts in spending that would create a balanced budget. The government should work harder to promote fiscal responsibility and business growth.
Government programs which have created critical shortages of essential materials and energy.
Government regulation of materials and energy has improved over the last decade. The innovations surrounding fracking and other drilling techniques have created massive boons in the energy sector and a new level of energy independence. More work remains.
Giving away billions of dollars to foreign governments.
Oh, we still give billions to foreign governments. I think it would be safe to lump the United Nations into this point and we are still paying the lionshare of their bills as well. I am a firm believer that this is a policy that needs to be significantly re-evaluated.
Wasting untold money on foreign wars.
We still spend billions on foreign wars, but with the continued drawdowns in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, this issue is improving.
Tinkering with the economic machinery with unsound panaceas.
Government still thinks it can make everything perfect. When it fails, it decides to build on top of that failure. As it continues to fail, more gets built on top of that faulty foundation, until the government simply takes over the entire system. Governments need to just let the free market do what it does and let a natural equilibrium occur.
Forsaking our religious heritage not only in our schools but everywhere thus accentuating crime, immorality, greed and selfishness.
Government has, since the 1960s, incentivized the destruction of the family, which has done nothing to help the situation. Nor has it made it easy for religious organizations to promote a belief in a universal morality which helped in the foundation of the country.
Is this broadcast still relevant today? You bet it is.
As mentioned, there were other political statements used in Tiffany advertisements. I thought I’d end by teasing the titles on these ads. I do not know when these would have appeared in the New York Times:
- "Is Profit a dirty word?"
- "Is there an American Goal?"
- "Are the rich a menace?"
- "Full Employment"
- "Who Owns the Free Enterprise System?"
- "The Nitty-Gritty About Socialism"
- "The Truth About Capitalism"
- "On Education"
Again, these ads can be read on my wiki, found at poorrichardsprintshop.com/wiki