Excerpts of Remarks of the Vice President of the United States Prepared for Delivery at the Airport, Charlotte, NC

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in a world dominated by communism, held in contempt by those who love freedom, its military forces relatively weak and out of date, a tenth of its people verging on starvation, its educational system woefully behind, the entire Nation teetering on economic depression - and one of its two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.