FREE ESSAY ON JFK

JFK

The modern presidential campaign covers every issue in and out of the platform from
cranberries to creation. But the public is rarely alerted to a candidate's views about
the central issue on which all the rest turn. That central issue--and the point of my
comments this noon-- is not the farm problem or defense or India. It is the presidency
itself. 
Of course a candidate's views on specific policies are important, but Theodore Roosevelt
and William Howard Taft shared policy views with entirely different results in the White
House. Of course it is important to elect a good man with good intentions, but Woodrow
Wilson and Warren G. Harding were both good men with good intentions; so were Lincoln and
Buchanan; but there is a Lincoln Room in the White House and no Buchanan Room.
The history of this Nation--its brightest and its bleakest pages-- has been written
largely in terms of the different views our Presidents have had of the Presidency itself.
This history ought to tell us that the American people in 1960 have an imperative right
to know what any man bidding for the Presidency thinks about the place he is bidding for,
whether he is aware of and willing to use the powerful resources of that office; whether
his model will be Taft or Roosevelt, Wilson or Harding.
Not since the days of Woodrow Wilson has any candidate spoken on the presidency itself
before the votes have been irrevocably cast. Let us hope that the 1960 campaign, in
addition to discussing the familiar issues where our positions too often blur, will also
talk about the presidency itself, as an instrument for dealing with those issues, as an
office with varying roles, powers, and limitations
During the past 8 years, we have seen one concept of the Presidency at work. Our needs
and hopes have been eloquently stated--but the initiative and follow-through have too
often been left to others. And too often his own objectives have been lost by the
President's failure to override objections from within his own party, in the Congress or
even in his Cabinet.
The American people in 1952 and 1956 may have preferred this detached, limited concept of
the Presidency after 20 years of fast-moving, creative Presidential rule. Perhaps
historians will regard this as necessarily one of those frequent periods of
consolidation, a time to draw breath, to recoup our national energy. To quote the state
of the Union message: No Congress . . . on surveying the state of the Nation, has met
with a more pleasing prospect than that which appears at the present time.
Unfortunately this is not Mr. Eisenhower's last message to the Congress, but Calvin
Coolidge's. He followed to the White House Mr. Harding, whose sponsor declared very
frankly that the times did not demand a first-rate President. If true, the times and the
man met.
But the question is what do the times--and the people--demand for the next 4 years in the
White House?
They demand a vigorous proponent of the national interest--not a passive broker for
conflicting private interests. They demand a man capable of acting as the commander in
chief of the Great Alliance, not merely a bookkeeper who feels that his work is done when
the numbers on the balance sheet come even. They demand that he be the head of a
responsible party, not rise so far above politics as to be invisible--a man who will
formulate and fight for legislative policies, not be a casual bystander to the
legislative process.
Today a restricted concept of the Presidency is not enough. For beneath today's surface
gloss of peace and prosperity are increasingly dangerous, unsolved, long postponed
problems--problems that will inevitably explode to the surface during the next 4 years of
the next administration--the growing missile gap, the rise of Communist China, the
despair of the underdeveloped nations, the explosive situations in Berlin and in the
Formosa Straits, the deterioration of NATO, the lack of an arms control agreement, and
all the domestic problems of our farms, cities, and schools.
This administration has not faced up to these and other problems. Much has been said--but
I am reminded of the old Chinese proverb: There is a great deal of noise on the stairs
but nobody comes into the room.
The President's state of the Union message reminded me of the exhortation from King Lear
but goes: I will do such things--what they are I know not . . . but they shall be the
wonders of the earth.
In the decade that lies ahead--in the challenging revolutionary sixties--the American
Presidency will demand more than ringing manifestoes issued from the rear of the battle.
It will demand that the President place himself in the very thick of the fight, that he
care passionately about the fate of the people he leads, that he be willing to serve
them, at the risk of incurring their momentary displeasure.
Whatever the political affiliation of our next President, whatever his views may be on
all the issues and problems that rush in upon us, he must above all be the Chief
Executive in every sense of the word. He must be prepared to exercise the fullest powers
of his office--all that are specified and some that are not. He must master complex
problems as well as receive one-page memorandums. He must originate action as well as
study groups. He must reopen channels of communication between the world of thought and
the seat of power.
Ulysses Grant considered the President a purely administrative officer. If he
administered the overnment departments efficiently, delegated his functions smoothly, and
performed his ceremonies of state with decorum and grace, no more was to be expected of
him. But that is not the place the Presidency was meant to have in American life. The
President is alone, at the top--the loneliest job there is, as Harry Truman has said.
If there is destructive dissension among the services, he alone can step in and
straighten it out--instead of waiting for unanimity. If administrative agencies are not
carrying out their mandate--if a brushfire threatens some part of the globe--he alone can
act, without waiting for the Congress. If his farm program fails, he alone deserves the
blame, not his Secretary of Agriculture.
The President is at liberty, both in law and conscience, to be as big a man as he can. So
wrote Prof. Woodrow Wilson. But President Woodrow Wilson discovered that to be a big man
in the White House inevitably brings cries of dictatorship.
So did Lincoln and Jackson and the two Roosevelts. And so may the next occupant of that
office, if he is the man the times demand. But how much better it would be, in the
turbulent sixties, to have a Roosevelt or a Wilson than to have another James Buchanan,
cringing in the White House, afraid to move.
Nor can we afford a Chief Executive who is praised primarily for what he did not do, the
disasters he prevented, the bills he vetoed--a President wishing his subordinates would
produce more missiles or build more schools. We will need instead what the Constitution
envisioned: a Chief Executive who is the vital center of action in our whole scheme of
Government.
This includes the legislative process as well. The President cannot afford--for the sake
of the office as well as the Nation--to be another Warren G. Harding, described by one
backer as a man who would when elected, sign whatever bill the Senate sent him--and not
send bills for the Senate to pass. Rather he must know when to lead the Congress when to
consult it and when he should act alone.
Having served 14 years in the legislative branch, I would not look with favor upon its
domination by the Executive. Under our government of power as the rival of power, to use
Hamilton's phrase, Congress must not surrender its responsibilities. But neither should
it dominate. However large its share in the formulation of domestic programs, it is the
President alone who must make the major decisions of our foreign policy.
That is what the Constitution wisely commands. And even domestically, the President must
initiate policies and devise laws to meet the needs of the Nation. And he must be
prepared to use all the resources of his office to ensure the enactment of that
legislation--even when conflict is the result.
By the end of his term Theodore Roosevelt was not popular in the Congress--particularly
when he criticized an amendment to the Treasury appropriation which forbade the use of
Secret Service men to investigate Congressmen.
And the feeling was mutual, Roosevelt saying: I do not much admire the Senate because it
is such a helpless body when efficient work is to be done.
And Woodrow Wilson was even more bitter after his frustrating quarrels. Asked if he might
run for the Senate in 1920, he replied: Outside of the United States, the Senate does not
amount to a damn. And inside the United States the Senate is mostly despised. They
haven't had a thought down there in 50 years.
But, however bitter their farewells, the facts of the matter are that Roosevelt and
Wilson did get things done--not only through their Executive powers but through the
Congress as well. Calvin Coolidge, on the other hand, departed from Washington with
cheers of Congress still ringing in his ears. But when his World Court bill was under
fire on Capitol Hill he sent no message, gave no encouragement to the bill's leaders, and
paid little or no attention to the whole proceeding--and the cause of world justice was
set back.
To be sure, Coolidge had held the usual White House breakfasts with congressional
leaders--but they were aimed, as he himself said, at good fellowship, not a discussion of
public business. And at his press conferences, according to press historians, where he
preferred to talk about the local flower show and its exhibits, reporters who finally
extracted from him a single sentence--I'm against that bill--would rush to file
tongue-in-cheek dispatches claiming that: President Coolidge, in a fighting mood, today
served notice on Congress that he intended to combat, with all the resources at his
command, the pending bill . . .
But in the coming months we will need a real fighting mood in the White House--a man who
will not retreat in the face of pressure from his congressional leaders--who will not let
down those supporting his views on the floor. Divided Government over the past 6 years
has only been further confused by this lack of legislative leadership. To restore it next
year will help restore purpose to both the Presidency and the Congress.
The facts of the matter are that legislative leadership is not possible without party
leadership, in the most political sense--and Mr. Eisenhower prefers to stay above
politics (although a weekly news magazine last fall reported the startling news, and I
quote, that President Eisenhower is emerging as a major political figure). When asked
early in his first term, how he liked the game of politics, he replied with a frown that
his questioner was using a derogatory phrase. Being President, he said, is a very great
experience . . . but the word 'politics' . . . I have no great liking for that.
But no President, it seems to me, can escape politics. He has not only been chosen by the
Nation--he has been chosen by his party. And if he insists that he is President of all
the people and should, therefore, offend none of them--if he blurs the issues and
differences between the parties--if he neglects the party machinery and avoids his
party's leadership--then he has not only weakened the political party as an instrument of
the democratic process--he has dealt a blow to the democratic process itself.
I prefer the example of Abe Lincoln, who loved politics with the passion of a born
practitioner. For example, he waited up all night in 1863 to get the crucial returns on
the Ohio governorship. When the Unionist candidate was elected, Lincoln wired: Glory God
in the highest. Ohio has saved the Nation.
But the White House is not only the center of political leadership. It must be the center
of moral leadership--a bully pulpit, as Theodore Roosevelt described it. For only the
President represents the national interest. And upon him alone converge all the needs and
aspirations of all parts of the country, all departments of the Government, all nations
of the world.
It is not enough merely to represent prevailing sentiment--to follow McKinley's practice,
as described by Joe Cannon, of keeping his ear so close to the ground he got it full of
grasshoppers. We will need in the sixties a President who is willing and able to summon
his national constituency to its finest hour--to alert the people to our dangers and our
opportunities--to demand of them the sacrifices that will be necessary. Despite the
increasing evidence of a lost national purpose and a soft national will, F.D.R.'s words
in his first inaugural still ring true: In every dark hour of our national life, a
leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the
people themselves which is essential to victory.
Roosevelt fulfilled the role of moral leadership. So did Wilson and Lincoln, Truman and
Jackson and Teddy Roosevelt. They led the people as well as the Government--they fought
for great ideals as well as bills. And the time has come to demand that kind of
leadership again.
And so, as this vital campaign begins, let us discuss the issues the next President will
face--but let us also discuss the powers and tools with which we must face them.
For we must endow that office with extraordinary strength and vision. We must act in the
image of Abraham Lincoln summoning his wartime Cabinet to a meeting on the Emancipation
Proclamation. That Cabinet has [sic] been carefully chosen to please and reflect many
elements in the country. But I have gathered you together, Lincoln said, to hear what I
have written down. I do not wish your advice about the main matter--that I have
determined for myself.
And later, when he went to sign, after several hours of exhausting handshaking that had
left his arm weak, he said to those present: If my name goes down in history, it will be
for this act. My whole soul is in it. If my hand trembles when I sign this proclamation,
all who examine the document hereafter will say: 'He hesitated.'
But Lincoln's hand did not tremble. He did not hesitate. He did not equivocate. For he
was the President of the United States.
It is in this spirit that we must go forth in the coming months and years.