This research examines how Richard Nixon's background and upbringing in poverty influenced his political thought and positions when he served in the US House of Representatives and when he served as US Vice President. The research will provide an overview of Nixon's early life and then discuss patterns of influence on his political philosophy and behavior in the first period of his public life.
When Richard Nixon resigned from the presidency on August 9, 1974, his valedictory address to the White House staff included references to his upbringing. In the day of tell-all, in-your-face confessionals that sight the boundaries of vulgarity almost as a matter of routine, it is perhaps unusual to remark that this mid-1970s public figure revealed private information about his background on national television, but the fact that he described his father as a great man and his mother as a saint is noteworthy for its uncharacteristically heartfelt quality.
I remember my old man. I think that they would have called him sort of a little man, common man. He didn't consider himself that way. You know what he was? He was a streetcar motorman first, and then he was a farmer, and then he had a lemon ranch. It was the poorest lemon ranch in California, I can assure you. He sold it before they found oil on it. [Laughter] And then he was a grocer. But he was a great man, because he did his job, and every job counts up to the hilt, regardless of what happens.
Nobody will ever write a book, probably, about my mother. Well, I guess all of you would say this about your mother-- my mother was a saint. And I think of her, two boys dying of tuberculosis, nursing four others in order that she could take care of my older brother for 3 years in Arizona, and seeing each of them die, and when they died, it was like one of her own.
Yes, she will have no books written about her. But she was a saint (Nixon, 1974).
This lengthy excerpt from Nixon's last publ...