Remarks of Senator John F. Kennedy, Manchester, NH, Airport Rally

Senator KENNEDY. Thank you, very much. Bernard Boutin, Marie Devine, Mr. Mayor, Senator Muskie, Romeo Champagne, Joe Moyer, Stuart Nims, our next Senator, Professor Hill, ladies and gentlemen, I want to express on behalf of my wife and myself our appreciation to you. This is really the beginning of this campaign. You cannot guess how glad I am to leave the dust of Washington behind us and start in on this campaign which will take us in the next 60 days to all parts of the United States. I was anxious to come and start this campaign, however, in the State of New Hampshire, where I was 6 months ago in 1 foot of snow beginning to run for the nomination.

There is no doubt in my mind that the start that we secured here in this State in the primary last March began the road to the nomination in July. Therefore, I come again today and begin this campaign in this month for the office of the Presidency of the United States here in New Hampshire.

One by one the States of New England, which 30 years ago were all Republican - Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, then Maine - began to move into the Democratic column until now there stands only two States, New Hampshire and Vermont, and they are going Democratic in November.

New Hampshire will make a judgment on who it should select for Governor, for Senator and for the Congress. But I must say that I hope you secure as the representatives for you in Washington and here, the men who sit with me on this platform. They are in every case the kind of men that have brought victory to the Democratic Party in other States. Ed Muskie is right, the Democratic Party is successful in New England only so long as it presents for high office men of character and responsibility, who have some understanding of the revolutionary and changing times through which we move. I spoke in accepting the nomination in Los Angeles of the new frontier that is coming into our country. I come here today and speak in New Hampshire, one of the oldest sections of the United States, a section of the United States that Bernard De Voto said 30 years ago was a finished place. I talk in this State also of the new frontier.

I do not accept the idea at all that New England is finished. I think in many ways that it is the youngest part of the United States, and I think that it is possible, both in the State of New Hampshire and in the Nation, to set a governmental climate which will permit us to prosper. We don't have coal and iron and oil, but we have human talent. We can clean our rivers, we can provide an atmosphere for business to move ahead. We can reform our transportation system. We can protect our textile and shoe industries. We can bring in new industries. We can perfect our educational system to have the best trained people.

All these things can be done in partnership of the State and the Government working together. I have spent 14 years addressing myself to the same problem in Massachusetts that you face here in the State of New Hampshire. But I have the greatest confidence. I think the solution lies in recognizing the tremendous changes that are taking place in this country and in this world, in grasping the future and not letting the future pass us by, not permitting other countries and other sections of this country to move ahead when we stand still.

The new frontier is in New Hampshire, just as much as it is in Alaska, just as much as it is in any section of the world.

I ask your support in this campaign. I ask your support here in the State of New Hampshire. I think we can win this election, and I think it is proper to start here in New Hampshire.

Thank you.