I am greatly honored to participate in this annual presentation luncheon for the Rockefeller public service awards. My sense of privilege is heightened by the distinction of these annual awards, by the distinction of this program and those responsible for it and by the distinction of those recipients whom we honor today.
The opportunity which has now been granted to them is, I am certain, unprecedented in their lifetime – and it will never be offered again.
It is not, however, an opportunity for mere personal enrichment. We are confident that in the year ahead they will benefit in such a way as to benefit us all in the years to come. We are confident that they will bring new vision, new wisdom, and a new stimulus back to the musty halls of Washington officialdom as the result of their observations and learning during the coming year.
I know that these recipients whom we honor today will bring some learning back with them – that they will be better fitted to meet the challenge of our age. Certainly our Government and our people have never stood so acutely in need of developing in full the talents of our ablest public servants. We have long been accustomed to the practice of elevating talented scholars in the public service.
But a growing disdain for public service in our Nation as a whole and in our colleges in particular has been coupled with a trend for increasing complexity of national problems. We must secure the services of the best minds of our Nation – and expand the horizons of those career servants who have demonstrated their distinction – if we are to cope with the staggering burdens of discouraging and puzzling problems that now confront us. This is not time for overspecialized public servants who are unable to ride easily over broad fields of knowledge.
On the contrary, we need career servants especially trained to meet the critical issues of our time – issues which have become both so immense and so complex that the experts disagree and the laymen throw up their hands. Think, if you will, of the technical competence necessary to enable one to make an informed judgment on the desirability of suspending atomic tests, on the necessity of establishing missile bases abroad, on the effort worth devoting to reaching the moon, on the disposition of our agricultural surpluses, on the stabilization of the world's currencies and a whole host of other problems. Some of our problems are so familiar that we have almost taken their existence for granted – we have in effect despaired of ever ending mental illness or social tensions or juvenile delinquency or business cycles.
The fact remains that the American people lack the information and training necessary to make an informed judgment on many of those issues; and we in the Congress, ill housed and ill staffed, are not much better equipped to deal with them effectively. We are dependent upon alert, informed, resourceful, and objective guidance from our civil servants. If they, too, lack the necessary opportunities for training and growth, then we will be reduced to the "blind leading the blind" – or, to put it more precisely in the case of our most difficult issues, the bland leading the bland.
I do not say that a year in college will work miracles for our public servants.
But it is no exaggeration to say that whether or not the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton, the struggle in which we are now engaged will be won or lost in the classrooms of America.
And what should be of concern to us today is that there are so few who are to be given this opportunity – that even these awards are available only because of the foresight and philanthropy of John D. Rockefeller – and that this program is one of a limited duration.
The Rockefeller Foundation and family have recognized – perhaps more than any comparable group – the usefulness of what the economists like to call "seed capital." They have pioneered in the establishment of new projects and programs – not as permanent monuments but as pilot projects. They have established task forces or initiated ventures in order to demonstrate what can and should be done by the rest of the Nation. These undertakings have stimulated our awareness and action in a number of fields – in medicine and public health, in education, the arts, and elsewhere.
But certainly one of their finest contributions has been to the strengthening of our career public service. The awards and training program we honor today is built in a sense upon a similar precedent which the foundation set a generation ago. Under the auspices of the National Institute of Public Affairs, the cream of our college talent was attracted to Washington and to an internship in government service. Those interns today hold top positions in the Government or in educational, industrial, or professional activities closely identified with it.
That experiment was successful – its value to the whole Nation became apparent – and the idea first conceived by the foundation was adopted by the Government as its continuing responsibility. The junior management training and executive development programs administered by the Civil Service commission and the various departments have enlarged upon this original and decisive model of the Rockefeller Foundation. And the result has been the most imaginative program of recruitment ever devised in this country for creating a strong backbone to the professional career service.
Today we witness another successful program established by Mr. John D. Rockefeller III, in association with Princeton University. This program, too, has blazed a trail for the public service – and this program, too, deserves to be adopted by the Federal Government.
In a sense, the Rockefeller public service awards have a double purpose: The first is to provide a reward for merit and to recognize distinguished service. This aim has already been reinforced within the Government by the Presidential awards to distinguished civil servants begun this year
But the second aim has not yet been secured, though it lies within reach – and that is to spotlight the needs to continued training of career servants – to emphasize the value of their maintaining up-to-date competence, renewing their relationships with the scholars and researchers who are in their field of specialty extending the frontiers of knowledge – to take men in middle life, who have gone far in a relatively narrow field, and broaden their outlook, then use them in positions of still broader scope and responsibility. Given new incentives, for advancement, a new environment, an opportunity for a fresh exchange of ideas and constructive criticism, these men have been enabled to move out of the ruts of routine. Their contribution to the public good is greater – and at the same time our Government has retained the services of highly and often expensively trained public servants.
This concept of additional training and experience for the advanced career man is not unique, of course. It is not a new device to ease the lot of bureaucrats or spend the taxpayer's money. Lawyers, doctors, and other professional men avail themselves of private opportunities to recharge their batteries, so to speak.
The tradition of the sabbatical in the field of education – for intellectual retooling and extension of skills and research – is now well established. In industry, too, there is a growing recognition that men in middle life can benefit enormously from the change and pause of an educational environment. In my state the School for Industrial Management at MIT, and the program of advanced management at Harvard, have been foremost in contributing to these new developments in executive training. The Bell Telephone Co. and the University of Pennsylvania are associated in a program of liberal education for its higher executives. Indeed, most large industries are now actively considering new ways by which the rich resources of our educational institutions can be mobilized for the broadened training of career executives.
Yet the record in our Government is a spotty one, to say the least. The Foreign Service, the military services, and a few departments do have limited authority to send personnel to universities for tours of training and advanced education. Yet there are many departments which cannot, under current law, enrich their personnel standards, and stimulate their most promising men and woman, through providing this kind of educational leave and training. The Rockefeller awards have made it possible for only a few.
The value of this program is now undeniable. Those whom we honor today, to be sure, are an exceptional few – but there are potentially many, many more. We cannot expect the Rockefeller program to do the job alone – or forever. It is high time that the Congress adopted this Rockefeller program, also. It is high time that we offered this kind of opportunity to our most talented, promising, and devoted career servants – to benefit those who receive its grants, to benefit those who strive for it, to benefit all of the career service, the Congress that makes so many demands upon it, and the public that so often wrongfully abuses it.
It is high time that we acted – that we nourish the seed first planted in this program so many years ago. And I know of no more appropriate year to act than 1958 – the year which marks the 75th anniversary of the civil service. Here is the ideal backdrop against which congress should act. Training is the only broad area of public personnel administration for which this Congress has not passed any legislation. Yet we are, as I indicated earlier, on the brink of action.
Through the leadership of the able Senator Joe Clark, the Senate has passed S. 385. It is a training bill which gives the broad authority required by most agencies and permits its flexible administration. The main features of the bill have been supported by the President, the Bureau of the Budget, the Civil Service Commission, and the personnel directors of most agencies.
I am hopeful that the Senate and House can soon reconcile their differences in a sensible compromise – and that Mr. Rockefeller's seed capital can give momentum to a sustained and flexible training program in our Government.
The enactment of such a program will mark a turning point, in my opinion, in the attitude of the government toward the intellectual capacity of its employees. In recent years we have scoffed at intellectuals in Government, isolated them, and refused to finance their research. We drove them out of the career service or discouraged them from ever entering. And today the Soviets have seized the initiative in intellectual achievements and prestige, with telling results – not because they captured German scientists but because we neglected American scientists. Because Mr. Wilson wasn't interested in basic research as to why certain chemical substances turned green – and now we're finding out too late why certain nations turn Red. Did anyone else in history ever think the best way to prepare for a crucial battle was to blow his own brains out?
Today we need new ideas, new techniques, statesmen, politicians, and civil servants willing to take the lead in new fields. 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.
The 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 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?
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."
Source: Papers of John F. Kennedy. Pre-Presidential Papers. Senate Files, Box 901, "Rockefeller Public Service Awards, Washington, D.C., 30 April 1958." John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.