Big Government JFK http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=74292 A Wingnut's Conservative?
Praising FDR?
Second is the new frontier of longevity. Already nearly 10 percent of our population is over the age of 65. And medical research, if properly encouraged, is on the verge of new breakthroughs in learning the cause and cure of cancer, hardening of the arteries, and other diseases that take their toll in the later years of life. But will these extra years be a blessing or a curse? Will they be years of loneliness, poverty, high doctor bills, and low income? Or will they be years of dignity and security and recognition? Forcing a retired worker to get by on an average social security check of $72 a month or forcing him to take a pauper's oath before he can receive assistance on his medical bills is not the way to meet this challenge. I think we can do better.
Third is the new frontier of education. Pouring into our schools in the next 10 years will be the nearly 51 million children who were born in this country between 1946 and 1958 - a number greater than our entire population in 1880. They are already creating the most critical classroom shortage in the history of our public schools. In the 1960's, as that problem grows even more acute, and as this wave grows older, it will spread into our colleges and universities as well. We will need, in this period immediately ahead, to recruit more new teachers for our public schools than all those presently in service combined. We will need to build more college classrooms and dormitories than we have built in the last 200 years. We will need to spend, as a nation, nearly twice as much on education as we are spending today. There is hardly a family in America that does not look forward to a son or daughter in college. But already our colleges are being overcrowded, their costs are rising, and some 50 percent of our top students do not receive a higher education. There is an old saying that civilization is a constant race between education and catastrophe. In a democracy such as ours, in an age such as this, we must make sure that education wins that race.
Twenty-four years ago, Franklin Roosevelt told the Nation: "I, for one, do not believe that the era of the pioneer is at an end; I only believe that the area for pioneering has changed." The new frontiers of which I speak call out for pioneers from every walk of life - in the White House in Washington, but in the country at large as well. Their challenge can be concealed for a little while, but it cannot be ignored, and it cannot be met by a soft complacency, a satisfaction with things as they are, or a commitment to the past. For as the Old Testament tells us, this challenge "is not too hard for thee, neither is it far off * * * neither is it beyond the sea that thou shouldst say: 'Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us * * * that we may do it?' (for) the word is very near unto thee - in thy mouth - and in thy heart. * * *"
The new frontier of which I speak is not too hard for us, neither is it far off. No one need bring it to us, it is here, both its dangers and its opportunities, and we must meet its challenges here, in our hearts.
