Senator KENNEDY. My friend and colleague, Senator
McGee, your distinguished Governor, Governor Hickey, Secretary of State
Jack Gage, your State chairman, Teno Roncalio, your national committeeman,
Tracy McCracken and Mrs. McCracken, your next U.S. Senator, Ray Whitaker,
your next U.S. Congressman, Hep Armstrong, ladies and gentlemen; I first
of all want to express on behalf of my sister and myself my great gratitude
to all of you for being kind enough to have this breakfast and make it
almost lunch. [Laughter.] I understand from Tracy that some of you have
driven nearly three or four hundred miles to be here this morning. Yesterday
morning we were in Iowa, and since that time we have been in five States:
South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Colorado, and now Wyoming. We have
come, therefore, all of us, great distances, and I think we have come great
distances since the Democratic convention at Los Angeles. I know that Wyoming
is a small State, relatively, but it is a fact that Wyoming, which was
not talked about as a key State in the days before the convention, when
they were talking about what California and what Pennsylvania and what
New York and Illinois would do at the convention, not very many people
talked about what Wyoming would do, and yet, as you know, Wyoming did it.
[Applause.]
So you can expect in other days, other candidates,
will all be coming here. I don't know whether it is going to be that close
in November. I don't know whether Mr. Nixon and I will be three votes apart,
but it is possible we will be. If so, Wyoming having gotten us this far,
we would like to have you take us the rest of the way on November 8. [Applause.]
My debt of gratitude, therefore, to everyone
in this room, and everyone at the head table, goes very deep. As Gale said,
I have been to this State five times. My brother, Teddy, has been here
10 times, and I think that the Kennedys have a high regard and affection
for the State of Wyoming. [Applause.]
Bobby has been here, I guess, several times.
We have been here more than we have been to New York State. I don't know
what the significance is, but in any case, I am delighted to be back here
this morning. [Applause.] I am delighted to be here because this is an
important election, and because Wyoming elects not only a President of
the United States this year, but it elects a U.S. Senator and a Congressman.
The electoral college and the organization of the States is an interesting
business. New York has 15 million people, Wyoming has 300,000 people; you
have 1 Congressman, they have many Congressmen - you have more than that?
[Laughter.] Odd people? Well, they have a few in New York, I guess.
[Laughter.] But in any case, you have two Senators and New York has two
Senators. This causes a good deal of heartburn in New York but it should
be a source of pride and satisfaction to you that when Wyoming votes, it
votes the same number of U.S. Senators as the State of New York, and the
State of Massachusetts, and the State of California. All States are equal,
and therefore, the responsibility on the people of Wyoming is to make sure
that they send Members to the U.S. Senate who speak not only for Wyoming,
who serve not only as ambassadors from this State, but also speak for the
United States and speak for the public interest, and that, I think, has
been the contribution which Senator O'Mahoney has made to the U.S. Senate
and Gale McGee now makes. They speak for this State, they speak for its
interests, they speak for its development, they speak for its needs, but
they also speak for the country. And, therefore, our system works, and
Wyoming and the United States flourish together. [Applause.]
I think we have a chance to carry on that
tradition. To send as a successor to Senator O'Mahoney, who grew up in
Chelsea, Mass., and who saw the wisdom and came West, I think we have a
chance to carry on that tradition when you elect Ray Whitaker as U.S. Senator
next November 8. [Applause.]
Actually, as you know, the Constitution of
the United States confines and limits the power of Senators. We are given
the right to approve Presidential nominations, and to ratify treaties.
But the House of Representatives is given the two great powers which are
the hallmark of a self-governing society: One, the power to appropriate
money, and the second is the power to levy taxes. If you don't like the
way your taxes are, if you don't like the way your money is being spent,
write to the House of Representatives, not to the U.S. Senate, because
our powers and responsibilities are somewhat different. Therefore in sending
a man to fulfill these two functions, we want a man of responsibility and
competence and energy. I therefore am sure that the people of this State
will send to the House of Representatives to share in the great constitutional
powers given to that body, Hep Armstrong, with whom I served in the Navy
and hope to serve in the Government of the United States next November.
[Applause.]
During this campaign, there are many efforts
made to divide domestic and foreign problems and I don't hold that view.
I think there is a great interrelationship between the problems which face
us here in the United States and the problems which face us around the
world. I think if the United States is moving ahead here at home, the U.S.
power and prestige in the world will be strong. If we are standing still
here at home, then we stand still around the world. I think in other words,
as Gale McGee suggested, that the 14 points of Woodrow Wilson were the
logical extension of the New Freedom here in the United States. [Applause.]
And the good neighbor policy of Franklin Roosevelt had its counterpart
in his domestic policy of the New Deal. And the Marshall plan and NATO
and the Truman Doctrine carried out in foreign policy under the administration
of Harry Truman and point 4, all had their logical extension in the domestic
policy of President Truman here in the United States. I say that because
I think that there is a direct relationship between the efforts that we
make here in the sixties, here in the West, here in the State of Wyoming,
here in the United States, and what we do around the world.
Two days ago I spent the day in Tennessee.
I think that there is a direct relationship between what was done in the
Tennessee Valley by Franklin Roosevelt and the Democratic Party in the
thirties, and what other countries in Africa and the Middle East and Asia
are attempting to do to develop their own natural resources. I stand and
you stand today in the middle of the Great Plains of the United States.
There are great plains in Africa, and in my judgment Africa will be one
of the keys to the future. The people of Africa want to develop their resources.
They want to develop their resources of the great plains of Africa, and
they look to see what we do here to develop the resources of the Great
Plains of the United States.
I don't think that there can be any greater
disservice to the cause of the United States and the cause of freedom than
for any political party at this watershed of history to put forward a policy
for developing the resources of the United States of no new starts. I don't
say that we can do everything in the sixties, but I say we can move and
start and go ahead, and I think it is that spirit which separates our two
parties. [Applause.]
I come from Massachusetts, but it is a source
of satisfaction and pride that the two Americans who did more to develop
the resources of the West both came from New York, Theodore Roosevelt and
Franklin Roosevelt, and they did it because they saw it not as a State
problem, not as a regional problem, but as a national opportunity, and
it is in that spirit that I look to the future of the Great Plains of the
United States in the sixties.
We are going to have over 300 million people
living in this country in the year 2000. Many of them will live in this
State. We are going to have to make sure that we pass on to our children
a country which is using natural resources given to us by the Lord to the
maximum; that every drop of water that flows to the ocean first serves
a useful and beneficial purpose; that the resources of the land are used,
whether it is agriculture or whether it is oil or minerals; that we move
ahead here in the West and move ahead here in the United States. I think
that there is a direct relationship between the policy of no new starts
in developing our water and power resources, and irrigation and reclamation
and conservation, and the fact that our agricultural income has dropped
so sharply in the United States in recent years, and the fact that we are
using our steel capacity 50 percent of capacity. Pittsburgh, Wyoming, Montana,
Wisconsin are allied together. A rising tide lifts all the boats. If we
are moving ahead here in the West, if we are moving ahead in agriculture,
if we are moving ahead in industry, if we have an administration that looks
ahead, then the country prospers. But if one section of the country is
strangled, if one section of the country is standing still, then sooner
or later a dropping tide drops all the boats, whether the boats are in
Boston or whether they are in this community.
I can assure you that if we are successful
that we plan to move ahead as a national administration, with the support
of the Congress, in using and developing the resources which our country
has. This is a struggle, not only for a better standard of living for our
people, but it is also a showcase. As Edmund Burke said about England in
his day, "We sit on a conspicuous stage," what we do here, what we fail
to do, affects the cause of freedom around the world. Therefore, I can
think of no more sober obligation on the next administration and the next
President and the next Congress than to move ahead in this country, develop
our resources, prevent the blight which is going to stain the development
of the West unless we make sure that everything that we have here is used
usefully for our people.
The Tennessee Valley in Tennessee, the Northwest
power development, the resources of Wyoming, all harnessed together, the
Missouri River, the Columbia River, the Mississippi River, the Tennessee
River - all of them harnessed together serve as a great network of strength,
a stream of strength in this country which is going to be tested to its
utmost. So I come here today not saying that the future is easy, but saying
that the future can be bright. I don't take the view that everything that
is being done is being done to the maximum. I think the difference between
the Republicans and the Democrats in 1960 is that we both think it is a
great country, but we think it must be greater. We both think it is a powerful
country, but we think it must be more powerful. We both think it stands
as the sentinel at the gate for freedom, but we think we can do a better
job. I think that has been true of our party ever since the administration
of Theodore Roosevelt, and I think we can do a job in the sixties [Applause.]
I have asked Senator Magnuson, who is the
chairman of our Resources Advisory Committee, to hold a conference on resources
and mineral use here in the city of Casper in the State of Wyoming during
the coming weeks, because I think we should identify ourselves in the coming
weeks with the kind of programs we are going to carry out in January. If
there is any lesson which history has taught of the administrations of
Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, it is the essentiality of previous
planning for successful action by a new administration. Unless we decide
now what we are going to do in January, February, March and April, if we
should be successful, we will fail to use the golden time which the next
administration will have. I come here today speaking not for Wyoming or
Massachusetts, but speaking for a national party which believes in the
future of our country, which will devote its energies to building its strength,
and by building our strength here we build the cause of freedom around
the world. Thank you. [Applause and standing ovation.]