The Presidency: Don't Sit on the Sidelines

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Most of the little talks that President Kennedy makes to visiting White House groups—exchange teachers, clubwomen, South Dakota Indians—are about as inspired as the occasions that compel them.

But when the guests are young, eager and obviously admiring, the President is apt to linger a bit longer, to say something extra that really matters to him.

Waiting to see and hear him on the White House lawn last week were 4,800 college students—the better part of 7.900 just winding up summertime Government jobs (TIME, Aug. 17). "I wonder," said the President, "if we could ask how many have become interested in either becoming a politician or a civil servant or a bureaucrat as a result of this summer?" Perhaps 500 hands went up. "What about the rest of you?" he asked. The kids laughed. So did Kennedy, as he began taking them on an informal tour through history.

"This tree behind me," he said, "was planted by Andrew Jackson. The balcony was built by Harry Truman, and that tree over there was planted by John Adams; so I think that just visiting this historic house and these grounds does bring you in more intimate contact with American history.

"I am always struck by the fact that the U.S. had for a period of 30 years in the Congress the most extraordinarily gifted figures that we have had in our history—Calhoun, Clay, Douglas, Benton and all the rest. And yet they dealt in their whole life with only three or four problems: states' rights, and the new states coming in, slavery, currency, and two or three others. And yet this extraordinarily gifted group of men failed, and as a result, of course, we had a long and bloody war.

"Now perhaps our political leaders may not be so gifted, and yet they deal with questions which are far more complex than the questions which came across the desks of our people a century ago. We deal with questions of monetary and fiscal policy. We deal with questions which are esoteric—balance of payments, nuclear tests, the mix of our strategic weapons.

We have obligations stretching all around the globe; and yet this country must make not only our society work, but all those societies which are dependent upon us.

"I wouldn't want anyone to sit on the sidelines today when so much goes on in the mainstream ... So I hope that you come in and join us, because the water is not too cold."