Senator KENNEDY. Congressman Patman, Governor,
Members of the Congress, Speaker Rayburn, Mrs. Price, national committee
man and woman, ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to have accepted the invitation
of your distinguished Congressman, Wright Patman, to attend this fair and
come to these two States on this occasion. Arkansas Senator Fulbright is
the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on which I serve.
Senator McClellan, of Arkansas, is the chairman of the Rackets Committee
on which I served for 3 years. Members of the House and Senate from both
of these States have been my companions and colleagues in the House and
the Senate for the past 14 years, and I am delighted to be here on this
occasion. [Applause.]
Massachusetts and Texas are several thousand
miles apart, but Boston, Tex., and Boston, Mass., are only a few inches
apart in their common devotion to the principles of this country.
[Applause.] I have been taken from the Pass of the North, El Paso, on Sunday
night, across the great State of Texas to the eastern borders of Texas
and Arkansas-Louisiana. I come to this State on this occasion as the Democratic
standard bearer, representing not Massachusetts, but representing a national
Democratic Party which has its roots in Texas as well as in my own State.
[Applause.] Yesterday I was shown the Alamo, and I was informed of all
the brave deeds of all the Texans, of Bowie and Crockett and all the rest.
So I said last night, "Haven't you heard of Paul Revere" They said, "Yes,
he is the one who ran for help." [Laughter.]
Well, I have come down here to Texas to ask
your help on this occasion in this election to rebuild our State and country.
[Applause.] This is a contest not merely between the Vice President of
the United States and myself. This is a contest between the Republican
Party and the Democratic Party, between all that the Democratic Party has
done to rebuild the economy of this section of the West, all that the Democratic
Party has done through the administrations of Jefferson and Wilson and
Roosevelt and Truman, and all that the Republican Party has not done under
Coolidge, McKinley, Taft, Dewey, Landon, Nixon, and the others. [Applause.]
For progress for the people, I put the New
Freedom of Wilson, the New Deal of Roosevelt, the Fair Deal of Truman -
I put that against the "Stand Pat With McKinley," "Return to Normalcy With
Harding," "Keep Cool With Coolidge," "A Chicken in Every Pot," and "Had
Enough?" I think that the Democratic Party is best equipped in a time of
a anger here in Texas and Arkansas, and in a time of danger around the
world. There is not a single farmer in this State of Texas, there is not
a farmer in the State of Arkansas, whose income has not deteriorated under
the administration of Benson and Nixon and the others. There is not a citizen
in the United States who looks around the world, who feels he is secure
as he was 10 years ago, who feels that the strength and prestige of the
United States in comparison to that of the Communist world is increasing
or decreasing. Is our prestige in Latin America and Asia and Africa is
our military strength in comparison to that of the Communist bloc? Is our
position in outer space compared to the Communist position as strong as
it was some years ago? I don't think it is. I don't think we have done
enough. I think we can do better. I ask your help in this campaign. [Applause.]
I think all those who feel that everything that is being done is being
done right now, all those who are satisfied to stand still, all those who
wish to look back and not forward all those who have enough the way they
are, all those who are satisfied to fall into a position of relative weakness
- I hope that they will support the Republican Party.
But all those who want to move forward, all
those who believe in the Democratic Party, who believe in what Sam Rayburn
and Lyndon Johnson and Ralph Yarborough and Wright Patman and Oren Harris
and others have done for the Democratic Party since its earliest beginnings,
I come in a great tradition, now down to 1960. Lyndon Johnson and I seek
to represent the United States in a difficult and dangerous period. We
do not run for the Presidency and the Vice Presidency promising that if
we are elected life will be easy, but we do promise that if we are elected
this country will begin to move again, this country will move forward,
this country will stand strong, this country's brightest days will be ahead.
I ask your support in this campaign. [Applause.]
One hundred years ago a great American President
wrote a friend, "I see the storm coming. I know there is a God and that
He hates injustice. If He has a part and a place for me, I believe that
I am ready." Now in 1960 we know there is a God. We know He hates injustice.
And we see the storm coming. But if he has a place and a part for us, I
believe that we are ready. Thank you. [Applause.]