Victory is in the air – the handwriting is on the wall – this is going to be the greatest Democratic years since 1936. But I do not say that victory will be easy. It will come to us only if we deserve it. We must offer more than the old slogans and policies of the past. We must offer more than the old slogans and policies of the past. We must offer more than charges we cannot prove or promises we cannot fulfill.
We must prove our capacity for competent, responsible leadership. And we will. For able, courageous, responsible leadership has been in the great moments of our history the trademark of the Democratic Party.
I was sharply reminded of this Democratic tradition fourteen weeks ago last night. 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 world at war, and all the rest.
We urgently need 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. They have out-shown us in scientific achievement. The Middle East, North Africa, Indonesia, Cyprus, Latin America – every part of the world is in flames or in [missing word]. The Republicans in 1956 may have cried, "Peace, peace," – but there is [no peace].
Here at home, where they promised prosperity to match their peace, the economic situation is also approaching the crisis stage. More than five million workers are unemployed. Millions of others are working only a few days a week. Millions more are being forced to leave the farm. In June, hundreds of thousands of college and high school graduates will be walking the streets looking for work. Our own State of Massachusetts has been among those hardest hit by the recession. One out of every 14 of our workers are unemployed. In some parts of the state almost one in five are out of work. I need not remind you that these are not statistics, they are people – men and women and their families – whose income has been drastically reduced and in some cases cut off almost completely.
We may still prevent a complete economic disaster – but only if we can obtain effective, imaginative, tireless leadership. That kind of leadership is sorely lacking in this Administration.
We need something more in the way of leadership than those who talk blithely of a "breather in the economy... or those who say everything will get better if we wait until the end of the year... or those who say reassuringly with Vice President Nixon: "There is nothing wrong with the economy that a good dose of confidence won't cure" and "It's time to quit running America down." Well, my friends, I say it's time to start building America up.
First on our list of priorities must be immediate help to those who are now out of work. A cut in taxes may well be necessary. But for those who receive no wages, discussion of a tax cut – or a decrease in the withholding tax – does not mean very much. New public works, new highways, and new defense contracts may mean jobs for some next year – but these steps do not help the unemployed workers pay a grocery bill today. When he cannot pay his bill, his merchants cannot [missing word]. More cutbacks and more layoffs follow.
In short, the unemployed worker should be our first concern – not our last. Yet our chief weapon to combat this problem – our Federal-State system of unemployment insurance – is weak, outmoded and unfair. It does not replace a worker's lost earnings, even to the same extent it did 20 years ago. It does not put enough money back into the community to offset the decline in payrolls. The eligibility period does not last long enough to enable a worker and his family to get by until he can find another job. Coverage is so limited as to exclude hundreds of thousands of men and women. Over a million others are denied benefits as a result of inconsistent and arbitrary eligibility restrictions.
This is clearly no time to stop-gap proposals – for temporary solutions. We cannot expect the states to adopt all of these standards on their own, although Democratic governors and legislators have recognized their responsibility in this regard. The only way to achieve nationwide standards which will give no state an unfair advantage – the only way to improve this program permanently, so that it does not collapse with each recession – is to enact permanent improvements in standards for our unemployment insurance system.
How has the present Republican Administration responded to this challenge? The tragic fact is that the Administration has abdicated its responsibility on this issue. For five years the President has talked about strengthening these standards. He has appealed to the states to change their laws, knowing full well that only national action could possibly be effective.
Then, faced with the unpleasant fact of millions out of work and tens of thousands exhausting their benefits each week, the Administration delayed through weeks of dissension any Federal proposal. When a program was finally offered, it turned out to be wholly inadequate to the problem. Forgotten had been the President's earlier words in support of increased benefits, longer duration and extended coverage. Instead, those who have exhausted their benefits were offered a temporary extension at the same inadequate amounts. Nowhere was there even a mention of those unfortunate people who had no jobs and were not covered by unemployment insurance.
This recital of the Administration's sorry record does not end there. As usual, even on this weak backswing, the follow-through was lacking. The bill, recently passed by the House, is a mockery of an unemployment compensation bill. No state need enter the program if it chooses not to. Each state is free to set the extended benefit period at any amount of time it wishes – one day, if that is that state's desire. Finally, there is serious doubt that any state can participate in this program without specific legislative authority. In short, this is an emergency program that cannot meet the emergency.
Yet, the President has endorsed this bill as if it were just what he wanted all along – Perhaps it is.
The fight is not over yet, though. The Democratic Party in the Senate will do all that it can to put some meaning into our unemployment compensation system – to erect standards that bring this program into the 1950's and to put money where it is needed now – in the hands of the unemployed.
Unemployment compensation is not an isolated issue. It is not the only one in the past five years to have been met by timidity and retreat. Our nation's education system is beset by troubles. Not troubles caused by the Sputnik – but troubles caused by too many years of neglect and apathy. Yet, when the people where mobilized for action, they received no bold program to revitalize the schools. Instead, there was a retreat from action. The President proposed a program that was not adequate to do even what it set out to do. Instead of concentrating effort at the lower levels of education in an attempt to build a [missing word] base, the Administration offered a crash program to produce scientists.
Forgotten completely was the vitally necessary school building program. The President did not propose to do more for education – he proposed to do less. The cold fact is that the budget for fiscal year 1959 proposed less money for education than the pre-Sputnik budget of 1958.
Confronted by these problems, our minds are inevitably drawn to the memories of 1933 and to the contrast between the outgoing Republican administration and the in-coming administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
His predecessor insisted that everything that could be done had been done – that "the major difficulty is in the state of the public mind" – that the primary need was for "confidence."
But Franklin Roosevelt brought down to Washington with him something more than confidence. He brought leadership – articulate, thoughtful, visionary, resourceful leadership.
And as the Republicans packed to move out, Robert E. Sherwood contrasted the old and the new administration 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."
"The Presidency," FDR had told a reported the previous year, "is not merely an administrative office. That's the least of it. It is more than an engineering job, efficient or inefficient. It is pre-eminently a place of moral leadership. Without leadership, alert and sensitive to our change, we are bogged up or lose our way."
What we need in America today is not so much confidence in the economy, but confidence in our leadership. We want "leadership alert and sensitive," in Roosevelt's words, to the harsh changes occurring in the economy. That is necessarily the role of the Chief Executive in modern America. He alone can do the job. That is the role fulfilled by Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. That role is not being fulfilled today.
We were told when the recession increased in January to wait for the upturn in March. We waited – March arrived – and our confidence was diminished further. Do we now wait for the summer or the fall – or next spring?
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 areas.
We must restore the vitality of our anti-recession weapons – minimum wage, social security, jobless insurance.
We must restore the purchasing power of our heard-pressed farmers and small businessmen. We must build the public works our nation needs – schools, homes, hospitals, reclamation projects, power dams, urban renewal.
We must raise the nation's standard of living instead of the cost of living – for the aged and handicapped, for the unorganized and the underpaid and the underprivileged.
And above all, in the words of Justice Holmes, whether we sail with or against the wind, let us set sail – and not drift or lie at anchor.
I believe it is the Democratic Party which has the capacity for leadership. We have that welcome for new ideas – that zest for hard work.
I do not pretend to say that the future will always by easy, even under a Democratic Administration. There will be crises, there will be problems. But only the Democratic Party has the enthusiasm and the determination and the new ideas necessary to meet those problems.
We can build the schools and the hospitals and the homes that dams that our nation needs.
We can wage unrelenting war against drought and poverty and illiteracy and illness and economic insecurity.
We can build, through strength and justice and realistic leadership, a lasting peace.
The hard, tough question is – whether a Democratic society – with its freedom of choice – its breadth of opportunity – its range of alternatives – can meet the single-minded advance of the Communists.
Our decisions are more subtle than dramatic. Our far-flung interests are more complex than consistent – our crises more chronic than easily solved.
Can a nation organized and governed such as ours endure? That is the real question. Have we the nerve and the will? Have we got what it takes to carry through in an age where – as never before – our very survival is at stake – where we end 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 are moving ahead 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 somber counsel for it – and for ourselves."
Source: Papers of John F. Kennedy. Pre-Presidential Papers. Senate Files, Box 901, "Political Speech, Fitchburg, Mass., 10 May 1958." John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.