Thursday, January 11, 1962
January 11, 1962
JFk traveled to Capitol Hill to deliver the annual State of the Union address. He had decided to open his address focusing on economic themes and laid out his plan for strengthening the economy, “The task must begin at home. For if we can not fulfill our own ideals here, we cannot expect others to accept them.”
JFK giving January 11, 1962 State of the Union speech
Of course, his personal and political competition with the leaders of the Soviet Union was also evident in the speech:
“At home, we began the year in the valley of recession; we completed it on the high road of recovery and growth…. At year’s end the economy which Mr. Kruschchev once called a ‘stumbling horse’ was racing to new records in consumer spending, labor income, and industrial production.”
The conclusion of the speech framed the current state of affairs in a larger historical context and reminding his audience of the power of American exceptionalism:
“It is the fate of this generation – of you in Congress and of me as President – to live with a struggle that we did not start, in a world that we did not make. But, the pressures of life are not always distributed by choice. And while no nation has ever faced such a challenge, no nation has ever been so ready to seize the burden and the glory of freedom.”
[98, p.275-6]