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{
    "localId": "193921",
    "label": "Address at Yale University, 11 June 1962",
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    "id": "193921",
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    "contentType": "document",
    "title": "Address at Yale University, 11 June 1962",
    "description": "This file contains materials collected by the office of President John F. Kennedy's secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, concerning President Kennedy's remarks at the 1962 Yale University graduation ceremony. In his speech the President thanks the University for the honorary degree bestowed upon him, and discusses three areas of domestic concern where the prevalence of myth dangerously impedes progress: fiscal policy, confidence in an administration, and the concept of \"big government.\" Materials in this folder include various memoranda of suggested talking points, a draft by Special Assistant to the President and speechwriter Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., a press copy, and a reading copy of the speech with handwritten notations by the President, as well as a luncheon menu, program for the commencement exercises, and an additional transcript of the speech published by Yale University.",
    "citationUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/193921",
    "identifierLocal": "JFKPOF-039-001",
    "creators": [
        "Schlesinger, Arthur Meier, Jr., 1917-2007"
    ],
    "collections": [
        "Papers of John F. Kennedy: Presidential Papers: President's Office Files",
        "Speech Files"
    ],
    "subjects": [
        "Yale University"
    ],
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    "ocrText": "- 7 -\nHow do we eradicate the carriers which separate\nsustantial minorities of our citizens from access to\neducation and employment on equal terms with the rest?\nHow, in sum, can we make our free dconomy work\nat full capacity -- that is, provide adequate profits for\nenterprise, adequate wages for labor, adequate utilization of\nplant and opportunity for all?\nThese are the problems that we should be talking\nabout -- that the political parties and the various groups\nin our cuuntry should be discussing. They camnot be solved\nby incantations of the forgotten past, But the example of\nWestern Europe shows that they are capable of solution --\nthat goverments, and many of them are conservative\ngovernments, prepared to face technical problems without\nideological preconcept ions, can coordinate the elements of\na national economy to bring about growth and prosperity --\na decade of it.\nSome conversations I have heard in our own country\nsound like old records, longplaying, left over from the middle\nThirties. The debate of the Thirties had its great\nsignificance and produced great results but it took place\nin a different world with different needs and different tasks.\nIt is our responsibility today to live in our own world --\nand to identify the needs and discharge the tasks of the 1960's.\nIf there is any current trend toward meeting present\nproblems with old cliches, this is the moment to stop it --\nbefore it lands us all in a bog of sterile acrimony.\nDiscussion is essential; and I am hopeful that the\ndebate of recent weeks, though up to now somewhat barren,\nmay represent the start of a serious dislogue of the kind\nwhich has led in Europe to such fruitful collaboration among\nall the elements of economic society and to a decade of\nunrivaled economic progress. But let us not engage in the\nwrong argument at the wrong time between the wrong people\nin the wrong country -- while the real problems of our own\ntime grow and multiply, fertilized by our neglect.\nNearly 150 years ago Thomas Jefferson wrote,\n\"The new circumstances under which we are placed call for\nnew words, new phrases, and for the transfer of old word S\nto new objects. That is truer today than it was in the time\n11\nof Jefferson, because the role of this country is so vastly\nmore significance. There is a show in England called \"Stop\nthe World, I Want to Get Off\". You have not chosen to\nexercise that option. You are part of the world and you\nmust participate in these days of our years in the solution\nof the problems that pour upon us requiring the most\nsophisticated and technical judgment, andas we work in\nconsonance to meet the authentic problems of our times, we\nwill gen erate a vision and an energy which will demonstrate\nanew to the world the superior vitality and the strength\nof the free society.\nEND"
}