page_title: Checkers speech
section_title: Fund crisis
hierarchical_section_title: Checkers speech / Fund crisis
caption_attribution_description: English: President Harry Truman (left), Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson (right), and Democratic vice presidential candidate John Sparkman (standing) meeting in the Oval Office.
context_page_description: The Checkers speech or Fund speech was an address made on September 23, 1952, by California Senator Richard Nixon, the Republican candidate for Vice President of the United States. Nixon had been accused of improprieties relating to a fund established by his backers to reimburse him for his political expenses. His place was in doubt on the Republican ticket, so he flew to Los Angeles and delivered a half-hour television address in which he defended himself, attacked his opponents, and urged the audience to contact the Republican National Committee to tell it whether he should remain on the ticket. During the speech, he stated that he intended to keep one gift, regardless of the outcome: a black-and-white dog that his children had named Checkers, thus giving the address its popular name.
  Nixon came from a family of modest means, as he related in the address, and he had spent his time after law school in the military, campaigning for office, and serving in Congress. After his successful 1950 Senate campaign, his backers continued to raise money to finance his political activities.
context_section_description: In 1952, the Republicans chose Dwight D. Eisenhower as their presidential candidate, who then selected Nixon as his running mate, while the Democrats nominated Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson for president and Alabama Senator John Sparkman for vice president. The California delegation to the 1952 Republican National Convention, including Nixon, had been pledged to the state's "favorite son" candidate, Governor Earl Warren, who hoped to gain the presidential nomination in a brokered convention. Warren failed in his attempt to gain the nomination, and his supporters alleged that Nixon had worked behind the scenes to nominate Eisenhower despite his pledge to support Warren, and accused him of political opportunism for accepting the vice presidential nomination. A disgruntled Warren supporter from Pasadena leaked the Fund story to several reporters.
  Nixon had campaigned for public integrity in his time in the Senate, even calling for the resignation of his own party chairman, Guy Gabrielson, when the latter was implicated in a loan scandal. By using such "indignant rhetoric," Nixon had "weakened his own position" when the Fund crisis erupted.
caption: President Harry Truman (left, seated) meets with Gov. Adlai Stevenson (right, seated) and Sen. John Sparkman
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