Senator KENNEDY. Ladies and gentlemen, thank
you, first, for standing in the rain. I just heard that it is raining where
Mr. Nixon is. [Applause.] But the Republicans are all home. We are out
here in the rain, as we are in the sunshine, as we are in the daytime,
as we are at night, because this is an important campaign for a great office
of a great country, and I come here and ask your support in this campaign.
[Applause.]
This is a campaign between those who want
action and those who are ready to stand still, between those who look to
the future and those who look to the past, between those who say that this
country is going to have to move in the sixties. As long as 35 percent
of our brightest boys and girls graduating from high school never get to
college, as long as 50 percent of the capacity of our steel mills is unused,
as long as we are building this year 30 percent less homes than we did
last year, as long as we are sitting still - in other words, as long as
our prestige and influence and power declines in the world in relation
to that of our adversary, this country cannot be satisfied. I don't think
any American can accept Mr. Nixon's words that everything that needs to
be done is being done in its proper time, that our prestige is the highest
it has ever been, and that of the Communists the lowest. I am not satisfied
as an American to be anything less than first as a country, as the defender
of freedom, as an example of freedom, and you have to make up your judgment
on November 8 what kind of a country you want, what kind of a citizen you
are, what you look for in the future, how ready you are to bear the burdens
that go with being a citizen of this country, a defender of freedom, an
example of freedom.
The United States is going to be only as strong
in the world, freedom is going to be only as strong in the world in direct
ratio to how powerful we are. The thing that gives Mr. Khrushchev his power
is the productive force of the Soviet Union. The thing that makes the Chinese
Communists now dangerous as opposed to years ago is because they have harnessed
all of the energy and the resources, human and material, for the service
of the state. We believe in freedom, and we believe in the long run that
our system has the most staying power and the most vitality. But our system
cannot work without leadership. Unless the President of the United States
looks to the future, unless he is willing to set before our country its
unfinished business in the same way that Franklin Roosevelt set it before
it in the thirties, and Woodrow Wilson before him, unless he is willing
to move ahead this country cannot possibly meet its responsibilities to
itself and to those who look to us for assistance and help.
We are the defenders of freedom and therefore
it is incumbent upon us to build a strong and vital society, to build a
society which is moving here at home, to build a society which can be an
example of what free men and women can do, which permits every American,
regardless of his race or his creed, to develop his talents fully, which
puts people to work, which educates our children, which permits those who
are retired to live in dignity. To build, in other words, the kind of society
which all men over the world will want to duplicate. That is our responsibility
in the sixties. And I believe to do that we have to elect men and women
who are committed to progress, not those who are committed to the status
quo. This is a race between the contented and the concerned, between those
who are satisfied and those who wish to move ahead. I am confident that
here in this Keystone State, the people of Pennsylvania are prepared for
action and progress. On that basis, I ask your help. [Applause.]