[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 17861-17862]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




          50TH ANNIVERSARY OF JOHN F. KENNEDY'S ASSASSINATION

  Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, 50 years after the assassination of John 
F. Kennedy, America still mourns his loss. For those of us who were 
inspired by his Presidency, it is easy to understand why. In a time of 
indifference, he reawakened this Nation to the finest meaning of 
citizenship--placing public service ahead of private interest.
  That is why a half a century later, he remains a powerful symbol of a 
time of soaring idealism in America, when our people believed our 
country could do anything--even go to the moon.
  John Kennedy also inspires Americans who know him only from history 
books or from the stories their parents and grandparents tell of that 
all-too-brief shining moment that was his Presidency.
  John Kennedy was in the White House for only 1,000 days, not even 3 
years. But his achievements exceeded his years. It's easy to dismiss 
his Presidency as one of rhetoric more than results. But to do so 
ignores the New Frontier he pioneered--a new era of economic growth, 
space exploration, civil rights advancements, conservation of natural 
resources, nuclear disarmament and generations of Americans who have 
made public service a way of life.
  John Kennedy's immortal words, especially those of his Inaugural 
Address, still call us to action--to think beyond our own self-
interests, and to do what is best for our country and the people of the 
world.
  Like millions of Americans, I vividly recall the exact moment on that 
cold day of November 22, 1963, when I heard the shocking news from 
Dallas that the President had been shot. I was a junior at Farmington 
High School. By the time we were told of the tragedy, it was just after 
lunch and my classmates and I walked into English class. Mr. Simon 
Matthews, our English teacher who also was one of our football coaches, 
broke the unspeakable news.
  Mr. Matthews announced austerely, ``The President has been shot.'' We 
thought he was joking and teased him to quit kidding us. He said again, 
``The President has just been assassinated,'' and we were sent home 
from school early.
  When I arrived home, I was stunned to walk in to my living room and 
find it filled by my entire family. I had never seen my grandfather or 
father or my uncles leave work early. It was a somber time for every 
member of my family as we tried to come to grips

[[Page 17862]]

with the terrible news. It was just so hard to believe our President 
could be taken from us. But he was.
  Three days later, it was decided that our family would go to 
Washington to pay our respects to the President. As an eager 16 year 
old who had just gotten my license a few months before, I volunteered 
to drive us in Papa's '58 Cadillac. Six of us piled into the car and 
made the trip to our Nation's capital.
  I will never forget, as the caisson bearing the President's casket 
was led down Pennsylvania Avenue on its way to Arlington Cemetery, my 
cousins and I climbed into the trees for a better view of the 
procession. We saw the President's stricken family and friends, the 
somber Washington dignitaries and world leaders, and Black Jack, the 
riderless horse with boots turned backwards in the stirrups, a 
heartbreaking symbol of the loss of a great leader. As I watched the 
procession move slowly to the sad cadence of military drums, I thought 
of the time I had been fortunate enough to meet members of the Kennedy 
family.
  I was working on my go-cart downstairs in the garage when they 
visited my family in Farmington as then-Senator Kennedy was preparing 
for the West Virginia presidential primary. My hands were dirty and 
greasy, but my mother insisted that I wipe them clean and come upstairs 
to meet a few people. As I climbed the steps, I smelled my grandmother, 
Mama Kay's, spaghetti. Everyone had gathered at the table for dinner 
and an exciting discussion about the political race ramping up in West 
Virginia. That was the day I shook hands with the Kennedys.
  John Kennedy and his family spent so much time campaigning in West 
Virginia that he once quipped that ``West Virginia'' was the third word 
his daughter Caroline learned to pronounce. He once boasted that he was 
the only Presidential candidate in history, other than West Virginian 
John Davis in 1924, ``who knows where Slab Fork is and has been 
there.''
  John Kennedy came to West Virginia to show that a Catholic could win 
in a predominantly Protestant State. Americans worried that a Catholic 
President would be controlled by the Pope and that Catholic Mass would 
be held in the White House every day. Let me just note here that John 
Kennedy carried the West Virginia primary in a landslide--with 60.8 
percent. He won our votes and our heart. He went on to become, as he 
put it, ``not the Catholic candidate for President,'' but ``the 
Democrat Party's candidate for President, who happens also to be a 
Catholic.'' But there was one Catholic Mass in the White House, on 
November 23, 1963--a Requiem Mass for the slain President.
  As I reflect now on how much life intersected with John Kennedy's 
life, I prefer to think about the beginning of the Kennedy Presidency 
rather than its tragic ending. I prefer to remember his Inaugural 
Address. It was just 1,355 words and 14 minutes long, but it set in 
motion a generation of Americans with a passion for public service.
  Some were inspired to defend liberty as soldiers, sailors, Marines 
and airmen. Some would march for civil rights in the South. Some would 
join the Peace Corps and become ambassadors of peace in villages 
throughout the world. And some would answer the call to service by 
seeking public office.
  John Kennedy was a powerful and positive force in my life and the 
life of our Nation. To me, he embodied a time when politics could be 
harnessed to higher aspirations, to do good things for the country.
  Not only did his Inaugural Address famously challenge us to ask 
ourselves what we can do for our country, it also provided timeless 
advice on how to overcome the bitterness of partisan politics. An 
election, he said, is ``not a victory of party, but a celebration of 
freedom,'' not an end but a beginning ``signifying renewal.'' That is 
still good advice.
  John Kennedy was a committed Democrat and few people loved politics 
more than he and his family. But he understood--as he wrote in his book 
Profiles In Courage, that ``there are few if any issues where all the 
truth and all the right and all the angels are on one side.'' He 
accepted the fact that democracy relies on competing views and vigorous 
debate.
  But he did not believe the objective should be to win political power 
but to solve our country's problems. As he once said, ``Let us not 
despair but act. Let us not seek the Republican answer or the 
Democratic answer but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the 
blame for the past--let us accept our own responsibility for the 
future.''
  That is what I have always tried to do--to find the right answer and 
to do what is best for my country and the generations of Americans to 
follow. That is why, 50 years after John Kennedy's death, I still try 
to follow his admonition to ``go forth to lead the land we love, asking 
His blessing and His help knowing that here on earth God's work must 
truly be our own.''
  He acknowledged that this was not the work of a hundred days, or of a 
thousand days, or of one administration, or of a lifetime, but of 
generations. Even so, he said, ``Let us begin.'' Mr. President, to you 
and to all our colleagues in the Senate, I say: Let us continue.

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