Republicans: Stage to Sacramento?

Near the end of the 1964 presidential campaign, veteran Actor Ronald Reagan, co-chairman of the Goldwater forces in California, appeared over national television and delivered a 30-minute speech. In it, Reagan served up some uncompromising conservative logic, plus a devastating denunciation of the welfare state, G.O.P. me-tooism, and Communist appeasement. At the same time, he provided just about the only dramatic moments in the whole, dreary Goldwater campaign.

"For almost two centuries we have proved man's capacity for self-government," Reagan said, "but today we are told we must choose between a left and right or, as others suggest, a third alternative, a kind of safe middle ground. I suggest to you there is no left or right, only an up or down. Up to the maximum of individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism.

"Already the hour is late. Government has laid its hand on health, housing, farming, industry, commerce, education, and to an ever-increasing degree interferes with the people's right to know. Government tends to grow. Government programs take on weight and momentum."

Reagan suggested that "either we accept the responsibility for our own destiny or we abandon the American Revolution." As for Communism abroad, he argued: "The specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face is that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and appeasement does not give you a choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender." He concluded with a ringing call to responsibility. "Should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the Pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns ....?"

Off & Running. The speech brought an estimated $750,000 in campaign contributions, was rebroadcast by state G.O.P. leaders, and, for Reagan, resulted in a flood of speaking invitations that still average around 100 a week and come from all parts of the U.S.

As of last week, Ronald Reagan, 54, was off and running for Governor of California. The boyishly handsome good guy in some twoscore movies (King's Row, Accidents Will Happen), and more lately the host and sometimes hero of TV's Death Valley Days, Reagan, away from the floodlights, has long been politically concerned. As president of the Screen Actors Guild in the late '40s, he helped block a Communist attempt to take over Hollywood's trade unions. In 1959, when 20th Century-Fox laid on a feast for the visiting Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev, Reagan refused to attend.