"...it is regarded in some circles as highly radical and highly inflationary."

[deutsey]

JFK speaking at Convention Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey, 1962:

''Now I know there are some people who say that this isn't the business of the President of the United States, who believe that the President of the United States should be an honorary chairman of a great fraternal organization and confine himself to ceremonial functions. But that is not what the Constitution says. And I did not run for President of the United States to fulfill that Office in that way.

Harry Truman once said there are 14 or 15 million Americans who have the resources to have representatives in Washington to protect their interests, and that the interests of the great mass of other people, the hundred and fifty or sixty million, is the responsibility of the President of the United States. And I propose to fulfill it.

Then I believe it is the business of the President of the United States to concern himself with the general welfare and the public interest. And if the people feel that it is not, then they should secure the services of a new President of the United States.

We need a permanent unemployment insurance program so that those who want to work and can't find a job will not be shifted and living on a marginal income without hope for themselves. These are things which other countries in Western Europe did 30 or 40 years ago. Great Britain--and we regard ourselves as a progressive society--had these provisions at the time of the first World War. And yet this is suggested as a most radical proposal.

There is no reason why if your skin is colored you have twice as much chance to be unemployed, about a half as much chance to own your house, about a half or a third as much chance of your son or daughter going to college. This country is a free society, in which everyone can succeed or fail based on what they have inside of them, not what they have outside.

Imagine in this rich country of ours, eight million children leaving before they finished the 12th grade--one out of four today out of work!

The great lack--the most difficult places to find work in the sixties will be for those boys and girls without a good education and without training. And we want to make sure that every American has a chance to develop his talent. Education is basic to the preservation of a democracy.

We are going to have twice as many of our sons and daughters trying to get into college in 1970 as tried in 1960. We have to, in the next 8 years, build as many school buildings as we have built in our entire history, in our colleges. And yet we have found it extremely difficult to secure support for this vital program.

We cannot leave the 17 million people who have retired, and who may become ill--if they have no money, under the legislation now on the books, they have a chance to receive some as indigents. But that is not the way we believe it should be done. And if their son happens to have some money in the bank they do not qualify, and he goes and pays out. And it may break him at a time when he has responsibilities to his children.

Why it is so difficult to secure passage of a minimum wage paying somebody in interstate commerce a dollar or a dollar ten and fifteen cents, I do not understand, but it is regarded in some circles as highly radical and highly inflationary.

For the first time, unemployed men can retire at 62. For the first time, and I do not regard this as a particularly radical proposal, dependent children can receive aid for the first time in our history without the wage earner deserting his family. In the old days, before this act was passed, if a child was undernourished it was necessary for the wage earner to desert his wife and family in order that those children should qualify for assistance. But last year that was changed.''

[Louisiana1976]

1. JFK was one of the greater presidents in my lifetime. I wonder what America's history

would have looked like had he not been assassinated.

[deutsey]

2. "If a free society cannot help the many who are poor

it cannot save the few who are rich."

From his inaugural speech.

[dsteve01]

6. A lot more sex.

[ReRe]

7. I believe...

... that had JFK not been assassinated, all of our lives would have been positively affected. And that George McGovern would have had a greater chance at winning in 1973 against any candidate.

[Diclotican]

3. deutsey

deutsey

A great man - who was lost to early, by a murderer.... Guess how different the US would have been, if he had been alive to do more legasive duties - maybe won another term in office

And he is still hated by the right - even if it is more than 50 year since he got killed... They still see him as something a anti-christ - a man who they hate with a passion...

And even as the afterglow of that hate is somewhat lesser now - they have a new person to hate - Barack H. Obama - a man who also is black to boot.... I guess even in a 50 year time Obama would be hated as he is hated now - by the conservatives and the right wingers...

Diclotican

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

4. No wonder the RW hates JFK.

[pam4water]

5. Great speech, I haven't seen it before. K&R

[Uncle Joe]

8. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, deutsey.