I have always thought it an interesting commentary on history that all Democratic dinners across the country always link together the two founding fathers of our party, Andrew Jackson and Thomas Jefferson. For we ought to realize that neither of them was beloved by all Democrats in their day. For example, one prominent Democrat is quoted as saying, in 1824:
"I feel much alarmed at the prospect of seeing General Jackson President. He is one of the most unfit men I know of for such a place. He has very little respect for law … his passions are terrible … he is a dangerous man."
This was the statement of Thomas Jefferson.
And who do you suppose it was, when Mr. Jefferson was President, who described him as "too cowardly to resent foreign outrage on the republic" – a man willing "to seize peaceable Americans and prosecute them for political purposes" – a man who seemed to hold himself "above the law. This statement, of course, was made by General Andrew Jackson.
But while we are devoted to them both, I also think it is appropriate today to invoke the memory of another great Democratic President – the man in whose progressive image our party must be forever molded – Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Every American who lived through the past generation has his own favorite memory of Franklin Roosevelt – some incident in that fabulous career that to him best illustrates F.D.R.'s character and personality.
But, in sorting out these memories, I like to think back to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia in 1936 – when F. D. R. was re-nominated by wild acclamation. His acceptance speech inspired a crowd of over 100,000 in Franklin Field. But perhaps the most dramatic moment – portraying more than anything else his courage and determination – occurred just prior to the speech, completely hidden from that huge audience. As the President came forward behind the curtain to the front of the stage, leaning on the arm of his son Jimmy, he suddenly lost his balance and fell to the ground. Lesser men might have lost their composure or dignity – most would have been visibly shaken. But with the aid of his son and the Secret Service, the President was instantly back on his feet before more than a few had observed what had happened. A few seconds later the curtain opened - and he stood there calm and erect, accepting the tremendous roar of the crowd with the familiar Roosevelt smile; and without hesitation, without any sign of recent distress, he launched confidently into one of his most buoyant, most winning speeches. This is the image of Franklin Roosevelt that we honor here today – the man of determination and steel in an hour of crisis – not only the personal crisis of his paralysis but the crisis of a nation in panic, the crisis of a world at war, and all the rest.
I think our best guide to the future is the standard set forth by Franklin Roosevelt on that damp Saturday night in Philadelphia. "Governments can err," the President said, "Presidents do make mistakes; but the immortal Dante tells us that divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted in different scales. Better the occasional faults of a Government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a Government frozen in the ice of its own indifference."
The American people today are confronted in their Executive Branch with the very danger of which Franklin Roosevelt warned – "a Government frozen in the ice of its own indifference." Where Franklin Roosevelt opened new horizons, this Administration sets ceilings. Where Roosevelt urged a spirit of self-sacrifice, we are now lulled into a spirit of self-satisfaction. F.D.R. in 1936 set before us the unfinished tasks of our society, its new opportunities, its unfulfilled promises. In 1959, on the other hand, the President emphasizes the limitations on our economy – and the limitations on our nation.
And when this Administration does act, it acts not with the faith of Franklin Roosevelt – it acts out of fear – fear of the future, of the new and the untested and the unpopular – fear of our weaknesses and even fear of our strength. It is we of the Democratic Party, on the other hand, who must act out of faith. For we place our trust in the people – and in 1960, the people will place their trust in the Democratic Party.
Today we have the same kind of contrast as was noted in 1933 – a contrast between the hesitant, moribund outgoing Republican Administration and the new dynamic drive of the New Deal.
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, on every major problem – crises in Formosa and Berlin – the plight of our cities – the neglect of our schools – the inadequacy of our defenses – the remaining pockets of poverty and discrimination – in every case, 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."
I do not say that the President has remained silent on these issues. On the contrary, we have heard many a bold platitude – promising action on a variety of fronts, as long as it's not too complicated, not too controversial, and doesn't cost any money. The content of those daring White House messages remind me of 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."
We are given glib phrases instead of leadership – popular slogans instead of a program. In 1829, as Parrington has put it, it was a "battle between homespun and broadcloth for control of the Government." Today the choice might be said to lie between Main Street and Madison Avenue – and the Democratic Party is going right down Main Street.
When an administration lets fall the reins of leadership, they must be firmly held by the Congress – in this case the Democratic Congress – we must exercise that leadership.
Some may say that there are no longer any major issues – that the battles of the past have all been won – that there are no major differences between the two major political parties – and that future elections will be decided more on the basis of personalities and public relations.
But I know that no one in this room agrees with that analysis. For the problems are not all solved and the battles are not all won and the issues are not all gone.
On the contrary, our agenda today is, if anything, even longer than it was in the 1930's. We have not yet eliminated the malignant effects of poverty, injustice, and illness from the land. We have not yet met the needs of some four million unemployed workers – of more than four million people driven from their farms – of the nearly seven million families, in this the richest land on earth, still trying to get by on less than two thousand dollars a year. We have not yet met the needs of some 15 million families housed under what the Bureau of the Census classifies as substandard conditions. We have not yet ended the waste of our natural resources – reversed the decay that is blighting so many of our major cities – or, most tragic of all, found the means of stopping man's destruction of man.
There are still violent attacks upon the Supreme Court, the citadel of our liberties. We face new inroads on the public's right to know, new sacrifices to the twin fetishes of secrecy and security, new expansions instead of limitations on wire-tapping. A man can still be deported, denied a passport; or fired from the government without elementary due process. Our immigration laws are still a blot on the name of democracy. Churches, schools and synagogues are still being bombed; and the ideals of equal opportunity and equal education are yet to be realized. This is not only a problem in those areas where defiance of court orders and denials of equal rights are most blatant – it deserves attention as well in our own cities and in our own lives, where more subtle pressures operate – in our neighborhoods and churches – in our newspapers and clubs – and attitudes.
These are some of the reasons why I cannot agree with those who regard the election of 1958 as merely a reward to the Democratic Congress for a job well done – it represents instead an opportunity to do the job that still needs to be done.
We must demonstrate, in the words of Justice Holmes, that whether we sail with the wind or against the wind, we must above all set sail – and not drift or lie at anchor.
But while our agenda of unfinished tasks may remind us of the 1930's, the role of our party, our Government and our nation in the years that lie ahead is certain to be completely different. For we are also challenged by problems which were never even foreseen by Franklin Roosevelt. We are confronted with crises which the policies of the New Deal and the Fair Deal cannot adequately meet, however much we may enjoy their imitation by their one-time detractors.
I think it is well for us to invoke the names of the past, as we invoke the names of Roosevelt or Jackson tonight. But we can no longer invoke the solutions of the past – the programs and the policies which served us so well during the last generation. For now the age of consolidation is over – and once again the age of change and challenge has come upon us. We are faced with a whole new set of problems – a whole new set of dimensions. We are at the edge of this nation's greatest age of expansion, growth and abundance – at the edge of a new era for our nation, our world and all mankind. It is this challenge that constitutes the great portion of our unfinished agenda.
Here at home, we are approaching the day of a two hundred million population, a five hundred billion dollar national income, a trillion dollar economy. These trends are recognized in our universities – they are recognized by market analysts and industrial statisticians throughout the country – and they are planning accordingly. But our Government is not planning accordingly. And if the future is not grasped quickly, it may be lost to use forever.
Take one specific example of Republican drift and vacillation of particular importance to your state – the issue of water resource development. The growth of our hydro-electric power capacity and flood control networks under Republican rule has been slowed down, halted and hamstrung. And the growth of the entire state and nation has been slowed down right along with it.
The Republican lag in water power projects is not a local issue – it is a national issue. While our new starts decline, while we neglect your projects here in this state, the Russians move ahead. In recent years their rate of growth in power generating capacity has far outstripped our own. Four Soviet projects now completed or underway are each greater in capacity than the Grand Coulee Dam. By 1975, their total capacity will far exceed our own.
What does this mean? It means the Russians can better disperse their industries, increase their output, strengthen their economy, and satisfy their consumer demands. It means that we are losing ground every time we abandon our responsibility to exploit fully the great resource potential of this region.
What we need now in this nation, more than atomic power, or airpower, or financial, industrial, or even manpower, is brainpower. The dinosaur was bigger and stronger than anyone else – he may even have been more pious – but he was also dumber. And look what happened to him.
I do not confuse brainpower with word power. For words are not enough. Missiles are not enough. Atoms are not enough. All of these may help us gain time to find a solution – but they are not a solution themselves.
We need new ideas – new ideas to obtain an endless supply of fresh water, food, and energy from the ocean depths – to expand the world's arable land 7 times – and multiply the output per acre even more. To replace our dwindling supply of energy resources from the granite that lies beneath every continent – and, instead of beating our swords into plowshares, and our spears into pruning hooks, to convert our bombs into power reactors that can electrify the frontier and the jungle. All of this we can do with new ideas.
But we cannot obtain new ideas until we have a government and a nation and a press and a public opinion which respect new ideas and respect the people who have them. Our country has surmounted great crises in the past, not because of our wealth, not because of our rhetoric, not because we had longer cars and whiter iceboxes and bigger television screens than anyone else, but because our ideas were more compelling and more penetrating and more wise and enduring.
A tired nation, said David Lloyd George, is always a Tory nation. And the United States today cannot afford to be either tired or Tory.
If we are to live up to our national promise and live up to our national destiny, then we must forever remember this: If we are to be the land of the free, then we must also be the home of the brave.
For we are now face to face with the severest test this nation has ever known – the test of survival itself.
This, after all, is the real issue of our times – the issue beyond Berlin. The hard, tough question for the next decade – for this or any other group of Americans – is whether any free society – with its freedom of choice – its breadth of opportunity – its range of alternatives – can meet the single-minded advance of the Communist system.
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 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 far side of space and the inside of men's minds? We and the Russians now have the power to destroy with one blow one quarter of the earth's population – a feat not accomplished since Cain slew Abel.
But now we have taken in our human hands the source of energy that has lighted the universe from the beginning of time – we can ignite stars on earth hotter than any that shine in the heavens – and, indeed, we are racing to launch our own stars and our own moons.
To keep our faith and our freedom alive will require leadership better equipped than any since Jackson's day to make clear to our people the vast spectrum of our challenges.
Source: Papers of John F. Kennedy. Pre-Presidential Papers. Senate Files, Box 903, "Democratic dinner, Yakima, Washington, 21 June 1959." John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.