I am honored to be here with one of the most outstanding state executives in the country – the man who will prove again in November that he is one of our greatest vote getters – the honorable Abe Ribicoff.
I am honored, too, to be here tonight with the next United States Senator from Connecticut – whose name I shall not mention. I can, however, tell you two known facts about your Democratic Senatorial nominee.
First, he will be a man of great experience and great ability; and
Secondly, he is going to win in November. Lest there be anyone here who doubts my ability to predict the future, let me remind you that I stood here four years ago and predicted with confidence that Connecticut in 1954 would elect its greatest Democratic Governor in the person of Abe Ribicoff.
But no magical gift of prophecy is necessary to foresee Democratic victories across the nation this year. In every special election, primary and local election in the last twelve months – from California to Wisconsin to Maine – the people have demonstrated their confidence in responsible, progressive Democratic candidates – and one of the best examples was the smashing victory of New Haven's Dick Lee and a whole host of other Democratic Mayors here in Connecticut last fall.
This Democratic tide, it seems to me, is of importance to all of the voters here in Connecticut, regardless of party. I would not attempt to tell the voters of another state their business. But it seems to me that the voters of Connecticut ought to consider the importance of sharing in the Democratic sweep of 1958. I do not think there is any doubt about that sweep, regardless of what happens in Connecticut.
For victory is in the air – the hand-writing is on the wall – this is going to be the greatest Democratic year since 1936.
In short, the Congressional policies that shape the future of this state will be shaped largely in the councils of the Democratic Party. Connecticut cannot ignore what goes on in Washington. You do not want the fate of your mills, your jobs, your cities and all your other problems to be decided by those unfamiliar with your needs. You want to have a voice in those Democratic councils. Why be represented only in the minority councils? That is one reason why I am confident that Connecticut will see the wisdom of sending an outstanding Democratic Senator down to Washington, and some Democrats to the House of Representatives as well.
But there is more to the need for a Democratic victory than this. The citizens of Connecticut know the meaning of economic crisis – and as citizens of the United States, they know the meaning of international crisis. I would remind them – I hope you will remind them – of one great historical truth – that in the most critical periods of our nation's history, the Democratic Party has come through with competent, courageous, responsible leadership.
I was sharply reminded of this Democratic tradition on another Friday night earlier this year. I was in New York to see the opening of a play about Franklin Roosevelt called "Sunrise at Campobello."
It is not a play about politics. It is not about the Presidency or the Democratic Party. It is a play about the triumph of one man and his family over disaster – the disaster of physical illness.
But I thought, as I left the theatre, that this play portrays more than this stirring personal triumph. It also brought to mind all the great qualities of leadership in times of crisis for which FDR was famous – not only the personal crisis of his paralysis, but the crisis of a chaotic economy, of a world at war, and all the rest.
But we need not turn to the past for an example of competent, courageous, responsible leadership. Connecticut has such a leader in Abe Ribicoff. One by one, quietly and effectively, without playing petty politics or seeking personal reward, he has successfully tackled the major problems of this state. He is respected for his highway programs from coast to coast. His vigorous response to the recession stood in sharp contrast to the inertia and inaction exhibited elsewhere. He is a man who inspires the confidence of all citizens, from all walks of life, from members of both parties and members of no party. You are fortunate indeed to have him at the helm for another four years.
We urgently need that kind of real leadership again in Washington today. For this nation now enters a period of crisis of greater proportion than any we have ever endured. We are confronted with a deepening crisis in world affairs, in our relations with our allies, in our prestige with the uncommitted nations, in our military, scientific, political and economic race with the Soviets.
The Soviets have outshone us in scientific achievement. They have out-maneuvered us in trade and aid. They have outstripped us in the race for ultimate weapons and outer space. The Middle East, North Africa, Indonesia, Cyprus, Latin America – every part of the world is in flames or in ferment.
The Republicans in 1956 may have cried "Peace, peace" – but there is no peace – no stable peace in the Middle East, in Southeast Asia, in North Africa and elsewhere. And what the Republicans did not tell us was that our position in the world – our security – our very hopes for survival could be drastically diminished without a single shot being fired.
We will only be deceiving ourselves if we attribute all of our troubles around the world to Communist agitators. There are Communists in Latin America, to be sure – but they are successful because they exploit our government's neglect of our former good neighbors. There are provocateurs in Lebanon and Algeria, to be sure – but their strength results from the massive decline of our prestige in North Africa and the Middle East.
These crises are not new. The fires have been shouldering for years in Latin America, North Africa, the Middle East, and all over the world. They have cried out for action, for decision, for leadership – but there has been no leadership, there has been no decision – only drift and postponement, vacillation and indecision.
Here at home, where they promised prosperity to match their peace, the economic situation also remains stagnant. Some five million workers are unemployed. Millions of others are working only a few days a week. This month, hundreds of thousands of college and high school graduates have been walking the streets looking for work. And yet the cost of living continues to break all records.
Indeed, since the end of World War II, we have never had so deep a recession – we have never had so high an inflation – and we have never had so much recession and so much inflation at the very same time.
We may still prevent continuing in a long period of economic inactivity – but only if we can obtain effective, imaginary, tireless leadership. That kind of leadership is sorely lacking in Washington today.
Here in New England, the oldest section of the country, we are particularly affected by this drift and lack of leadership. Our small businessmen and small farmers, our textile and fish industries, our one-industry cities and unharnessed rivers – all of these problems were neglected during the 70 years after the Civil War that New England was ignored as a one-party area – and all of these need extra attention and vigorous effort today.
These are not partisan issues – we are not going to play politics where the good of New England is concerned. On the contrary, I have devoted my efforts in the New England Senators conference to strengthening bi-partisan action on these issues.
But we do need action, not oratory. This spring manufacturing employment in New England is down by more than 150,000 jobs. We cannot fall back upon natural resources – our coal mines or oil wells or abundance of water power. We simply do not have them. We cannot rely upon the stability of the industrial giants – or the advantages of cheap fuel, cheap labor or cheap transportation costs. We simply do not have them.
This area, in short, needs leadership and attention – aid to our distressed areas and unemployed workers – relief for our hard-hit textile, shoe, fish and other industries – elimination of our rail freight rate differentials – the development of low-cost, competitive atomic power – expanded credit for our small businessmen – a better break for our farmers and housewives and working men and women.
Contrast, if you will, Abe Ribicoff's vigorous attack on the 1958 recession, with the Republican response in Washington. In 1933, the same kind of contrast was offered between the hesitant, moribund outgoing Republican Administration and the new dynamic drive of the New Deal.
And as the Republicans packed to move out, Robert E. Sherwood contrasted the old and the new administrations in a brief, sardonic poem:
"Plodding feet
Tramp – tramp
The Grand Old Party's
Breaking Camp.
Blare of bugles
Din – din
The New Deal is moving in."
In Washington today, we see no new ideas, no bold action, no "blare of bugles." We see only "plodding feet. . . tramp, tramp" – and "the Grand Old Party . . breaking camp."
When an Administration lets fall the reins of leadership, they must be firmly held by the Congress – today a Democratic Congress. We must exercise that leadership.
We must pass measures effectively assisting our unemployed workers and our labor surplus area.
We must restore the vitality of our anti-recession weapons – minimum wages, social security, jobless insurance.
We must restore the purchasing power of our consumers, and our small businessmen.
We must build the public works our nation needs – schools, homes, hospital, urban renewal projects.
We must raise the nation's standard of living instead of the cost of living – for the aged and the handicapped, for the unorganized and the underpaid and the underprivileged.
And above all, in the words of Justice Holmes, whether we sail with the wind or against the wind, let us set sail – and not drift or lie at anchor.
I find, as I move about my own state and about the country, that the American people regardless of party are concerned about this drift. They are concerned about where we are drifting. They want to know what has happened – why are we falling behind at home and abroad?
Why, they ask, with the cost of living at an all-time inflationary high, do we suffer at the same time from heavy unemployment and idle mills?
How, they ask, did this, the wealthiest nation in the world, fall behind in scientific achievement, in the education of our children, in the provision of adequate schools?
What happened, they ask, to our good neighbors in Latin America, once our firmest friends – but now the breeding-places of such resentment and hostility that U.S. troops have to be alerted to evacuate our good-will ambassador?
Whatever became, they ask, of the vigorous attack that was to be made to end the recession? Whatever became of the goal of a decent, healthful life for every older citizen, with adequate social security benefits?
The people, I believe, are rightfully puzzled and understandably discontented. Why are we on the verge of war in the Middle East, which Russia had previously been unable to penetrate for over a century? Why are we tainted with the broad brush of colonialism by the new nations of the uncommitted, under-developed world? Why, after ten years of the world's most generous program of foreign aid, is our prestige now declining and our leadership ignored? Why are we no longer certain of our military superiority in the air and under the sea?
These are some of the questions I find the people asking. They have every right to ask them. They are concerned about their jobs and their retirement. They wonder how adequate their children's school is, and what their chances are for college. They are worried about being caught up in a hopeless war, about atomic poisoning of the air we breathe, about new threats from outer space or the ocean floor. They are tired of higher and higher prices – and they wonder what they have bought with higher and higher taxes.
We have been told many times in recent months that all we need is confidence in our economy. It seems to me that what we need even more is confidence in our leadership. We do not have that confidence today.
I do not think the American people are either weak or selfish. I think they are ready to accept sacrifices and inconvenience – to take on new burdens and hardship. But they will do so only when they have confidence in our leadership – when they understand the necessity for their burdens – when they see clearly where we are going and why, what our problems are and what is being done about them.
Leaving all political partisan considerations aside, I believe the people at one time had that kind of confidence in our leadership – a willingness to trust, an eagerness to help. But that sense of confidence is gone today.
What is the American public to think, for example, of our possible involvement, this summer in a military struggle in Lebanon? We must not play politics with a delicate situation that finds us poised once again on the brink of war. But the fact remains that the American people have no clear and consistent understanding of why we are there, what we are going to do, or what we hope to accomplish. We are faced with involvement in a brush-fire war after six years of steady deterioration in our capacity to fight brush-fire instead of atomic wars. We are confronted once again with armed conflict in the Middle East because we have developed no alternatives to armed conflict. The decline in our prestige in that area, the increase in Soviet influence, the laceration of all its ancient rivalries, the instability of unpopular governments – all of these developments, if they could have been checked, should have been checked long ago, before the shooting started.
The case of Lebanon, it seems to me, points up the basic problem which is ignored by our policies of drift and indecision – and that is the problem of change. The world has changed in the last six years – but we have not changed with it. In 1952, Stalin was alive; the Iron Curtain was solid; the chief threat was military; and we had the strongest military force on earth. The Western Hemisphere was a solid phalanx of good neighbors – our Western alliances were sources of strength – our majorities in the UN were consistently high. The East-West struggle was the only struggle of any significance.
Now all of this has changed; but we have not. Eastern Europe shows chinks in the Iron Curtain – but we have not changed our policies to take advantage of them. The Soviets' chief weapon is now economic, not military – but we have not revised our arsenal accordingly. We have not kept pace in the race for outer space – we have not kept abreast of Latin American developments – we have not recognized the revolution of nationalism that now overshadows the Communist revolution in nearly every part of the globe. The programs, the policies and the positions which were good enough for the world of 1952 are not good enough for the world of 1958.
Here at home, the face of the American nation has also changed – but our policies have not kept pace with these changes. We have witnessed an explosive growth in the number of children of school age – but we have not built the schools necessary to handle their educational needs. We have witnessed a tremendous growth in that proportion of our population which has reached the retirement age – and yet we have done very little to modernize our social security, health and housing programs for these older citizens who do not want to be burdens to their children. We have witnessed a distressing continued increase in the cost of living – but Congress has failed to make certain that unemployment compensation benefits and other social legislation kept pace with this increase. We have witnessed an ever-growing concentration of monopolies – an ever-growing squeeze on small business – a continuing waste of our resources. We have done little or nothing to solve the staggering problems of our nation's health. And we have very nearly forgotten the needs of some seven million families trying to get by on less than two thousand dollars a year.
I do not say that we have not been promised action on these and other problems. I do say that these promises sound too much like the exhortation from King Lear that goes:
"I will do such things –
What they are yet I know not –
But they shall be
The terrors of the earth"
And I think the President would have added: "And they shall be without cost to the taxpayer."
I think we might say, to coin a phrase, that in Washington it is time for a change. The world has changed – our nation has changed – our outlook, our problems, our needs, all these have changed. It is time we changed our policies and our leaders as well.
In the words of Abraham Lincoln:
"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think and act anew."
The hard, tough question is whether a free society – with its freedom of choice – its breadth of opportunity – its range of alternatives – can meet the single-minded advance of the Communists.
Can a nation organized and governed such as ours endure? That is the real question. Have we the nerve and the will? Can we carry through in an age where – as never before – our very survival is at stake – where we and the Russians have the power to destroy one-quarter of the earth's population – a feat not accomplished since Cain slew Abel? Can we carry through in an age where we will witness not only new breakthroughs in weapons of destruction – but also a race for mastery of the sky and the rain, the ocean and the tides, the inside of the earth and the inside of men's minds?
We travel today along a knife-edged path which requires leadership better equipped than any since Lincoln's day to make clear to our people the vast spectrum of our challenges.
In the words of Woodrow Wilson: "We must neither run with the crowd nor deride it – but seek sober counsel for it - and for ourselves."
- - Candles
Fellow Democrats: As we face a dark and uncertain future, we ask that you, too, bring candles to help illuminate our way.
Source: Papers of John F. Kennedy. Pre-Presidential Papers. Senate Files, Box 901, "Connecticut Democratic State Convention, Hartford, 27 June 1958." John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.