Senator Kennedy has promised many things in
this campaign. These he has promised for a nation which he views darkly
as being on the defensive in a world dominated by communism, held in contempt
by those who love freedom, its military forces relatively weak and out
of date, a tenth of its people verging on starvation, its educational system
woefully behind, the entire Nation teetering on economic depression - and
one of its two great political parties dead set against human welfare,
addicted to human misery, against decent schooling for children, anxious
for the elderly to live in poorhouses and unattended when ill - a party
truly content only when people are out of work.
This strange preoccupation with despair has
led Senator Kennedy to urge some very interesting proposals.
For example, to keep our country from remaining,
as he sees it, relatively second rate, he promises to raise your social
Security tax.
To strengthen our country from within, he
promises to move the Federal Government into the very heart of your school
system by providing Federal dollars for use to pay the salaries of your
teachers, which would inevitably bring Federal control of what is taught.
To assure a vital economy, he promises a minimum
wage that official studies show would force unemployment and business failures.
To protect the unfortunate, he promises to
give the wealthiest people in American a helping hand with medical costs
in their later years, while withholding help from some 3 million people
with incomes of $2,000 or less; in fact, in the name of freedom he would
force this medical program on one and all, save the 3 million who need
help the most.
For vitality in the farmlands, he promises
to regiment all agriculture from now on.
To build for the future, he promises a program
that will price cotton out of markets so that synthetics will take over;
as a result, to keep America ahead, your cotton acreages will he cut, cut
again, and then cut some more.
Time and time again Senator Kennedy has promised
to carry out all of the irresponsible contradictions bundled into the 1960
Democratic platform, adopted 6 weeks ago in Los Angeles.
He changed his mind a hit on this in our debate
last week.
I believe Senator Kennedy is going to take
time to read some of his other platform promises. I commend this to him
in the hope that he will repudiate or revise other parts of his platform
and perhaps, on reflection, will decide to keep the plank he rewrote during
our first debate.
There has been some talk around the country
that Senator Kennedy really does not agree with a number of his platform
pledges.
I call upon him to say exactly where he agrees
and where he disagrees.
And I want him to state his views in exactly
the same way in the North, the East, the South, and the West, so everyone
in every part of America will clearly understand his position.