A VIEW OF THE PRESIDENCY
Kennedy, John F.
A View of the Presidency by JOHN F. KENNEDY Rarely in American history have the people had an opportunity to evaluate the estimate of the Presidency held by the Presidentelect before he was even...
...Today a restricted concept of the Presidency is not enough...
...During the past eight years, we have seen one concept of the Presidency at work...
...If there is destructive dissension among the services, he alone can step in and straighten it out, instead of waiting for unanimity...
...Nor can we afford a Chief Executive who is praised primarily for what he did not do, the disasters he prevented, the bills he vetoed—a President wishing his subordinates would produce more missiles or build more schools...
...And the time has come to demand that kind of leadership again...
...And if he insists that he is "President of all the people" and should therefore offend none of them—if he blurs the issues and differences between the parties, if he neglects the party machinery and avoids his party's leadership— then he has not only weakened the political party as an instrument of the democratic process, he has dealt a blow to the democratic process itself...
...This includes the legislative process as well...
...a man who will formulate and fight for legislative policies, not be a casual bystander to the legislative process...
...The President's State of the Union message reminded me of the exhortation from King Lear that goes: "I will do such things . . . what they are I know not . . . but they shall be the wonders of the earth...
...They demand a vigorous proponent of the national interest, not a passive broker for conflicting private interests...
...And inside the United States, the Senate is mostly despised...
...A View of the Presidency by JOHN F. KENNEDY Rarely in American history have the people had an opportunity to evaluate the estimate of the Presidency held by the Presidentelect before he was even nominated for that office...
...The facts of the matter are that legislative leadership is not possible without party leadership, in the most political sense, and Mr...
...And so may the next occupant of that office, if he is the man the times demand...
...And upon him alone converge all the needs and aspirations of all parts of the country, all departments of the government, all nations of the world...
...It is in this spirit that we must go forth in the coming months and years...
...So were Lincoln and Buchanan, but there is a Lincoln Room in the White House, and no Buchanan Room...
...My whole soul is in it...
...And later, when he went to sign it after several hours of exhausting handshaking that had left his arm weak, he said to those present: "If my name goes down in history, it will be for this act...
...For example, he waited up all night in 1863 to get the crucial returns on the Ohio governorship...
...Our needs and hopes have been eloquently stated, but the initiative and follow-through have too often been left to others...
...They seem to us to have special timeliness on the eve of his inauguration—The Editors...
...It will demand that the President place himself in the very thick of the fight, that he care passionately about the fate of the people he leads, that he be willing to serve them at the risk of incurring their momentary displeasure...
...To quote the State of the Union message: "No Congress...
...But that is not the place the Presidency was meant to have in American life...
...But: "I have gathered you together," Lincoln said, "to hear what I have written down...
...That Cabinet had been carefully chosen to please and reflect many elements in the country...
...When the Unionist candidate was elected, Lincoln wired: "Glory to God in the highest...
...In the decade that lies ahead—in the challenging, revolutionary Sixties —the American Presidency will demand more than ringing manifestoes issued from the rear of battle...
...So did Wilson and Lincoln, Truman and Jackson and Teddy Roosevelt They led the people as well as the government — they fought for great ideals as well as bills...
...Having served fourteen years in the legislative branch, I would not look with favor upon its domination by the Executive...
...He has not only been chosen by the nation—he has been chosen by his party...
...The President is alone, at the top—the loneliest job there is, as Harry Truman has said...
...If his farm program fails, he alone deserves the blame, not his Secretary of Agriculture...
...Eisenhower's last message to the Congress, but Calvin Coolidge's...
...But President Woodrow Wilson discovered that to be a big man in the White House inevitably brings cries of dictatorship...
...So wrote Professor Woodrow Wilson...
...We will need in the Sixties a President who is willing and able to summon his national constituency to its finest hour, to alert the people to our dangers and our opportunities, to demand of them the sacrifices that will be necessary...
...It is the Presidency itself...
...We will need instead what the Constitution envisioned: a Chief Executive who is the vital center of action in our whole scheme of government...
...For only the President represents the national interest...
...But the public is rarely alerted to a candidate's views about the central issue on which all the rest turn...
...He did not hesitate...
...The President must act in the image of Abraham Lincoln summoning his wartime Cabinet to a meeting on the Emancipation Proclamation...
...That central issue—and the point of [these] comments—is not the farm problem or defense or India...
...For beneath today's surface gloss of peace and prosperity are increasingly dangerous, unsolved, long - postponed problems—problems that will inevitably explode to the surface during the four years of the next administration: the growing missile gap, the rise of Communist China, the despair of the underdeveloped nations, the explosive situations in Berlin and in the Formosa Straits, the deterioration of NATO, the lack of an arms control agreement, and all the domestic problems of our farms, cities, and schools...
...But the White House is not only the center of political leadership, it must be the center of moral leadership—a "bully pulpit," as Theodore Roosevelt described it...
...For he was the President of the United States...
...Divided government over the past six years has only been further confused by this lack of legislative leadership...
...Roosevelt fulfilled the role of moral leadership...
...I do not wish your advice about the main matter—that I have determined for myself...
...They demand that he be the head of a responsible party, not rise so far above politics as to be invisible...
...He did not equivocate...
...Perhaps historians will regard this as necessarily one of those frequent periods of consolidation, a time to draw breath, to recoup our national energy...
...Eisenhower prefers to stay above politics (although a weekly news magazine last fall reported the startling news, and I quote, that "President Eisenhower is emerging as a major political figure...
...Asked if he might run for the Senate in 1920, he replied: "Outside of the United States, the Senate does not amount to a damn...
...Despite the increasing evidence of a lost national purpose and a soft national will, F.D.R.'s words in his first inaugural still ring true: "In every dark hour of our national life, a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory...
...The President cannot afford—for the sake of the office as well as the nation—to be another Warren G. Harding, described by one backer as a man who "would, when elected, sign whatever bill the Senate sent him—and not send bills for the Senate to pass...
...That is what the Constitution wisely commands...
...Of course it is important to elect a good man with good intentions, but Woodrow Wilson and Warren G. Harding were both good men of good intentions...
...T^he modern Presidential campaign covers every issue in and out of the platform from cranberries to Creation...
...He must be prepared to exercise the fullest powers of his office—all that are specified and some that are not...
...But, however bitter their farewells, the facts of the matter are that Roosevelt and Wilson did get things done, not only through their executive powers but through Congress as well...
...The history of this nation — its brightest and its bleakest pages—has been written largely in terms of the different views our Presidents have had of the Presidency itself...
...Under our government of "power as the rival of power," to use Hamilton's phrase, Congress must not surrender its responsibilities...
...But no President, it seems to me, can escape politics...
...Ulysses Grant considered the President "a purely administrative officer...
...I have no great liking for that...
...But how much better it would be, in the turbulent Sixties, to have a Roosevelt or a Wilson than to have another James Buchanan, cringing in the White House, afraid to move...
...And at his press conferences, according to press historians, where he preferred to talk about the local flower show and its exhibits, reporters who finally extracted from him a single sentence — "I'm against that bill" — would rush to file tongue-in-cheek dispatches, proclaiming that: "President Coolidge, in a fighting mood, today served notice on Congress that he intended to combat, with all the resources at his command, the pending bill . . ." But in the coming years, we will need a real fighting mood in the White House—a man who will not retreat in the face of pressure from his Congressional leaders, who will not let down those supporting his views on the floor...
...He must master complex problems as well as receive one-page memoranda...
...To be sure, Coolidge had held the usual White House breakfasts with Congressional leaders...
...This history ought to tell us that the American people in 1960 have an imperative right to know what any man bidding for the Presidency thinks about the place he is bidding for— whether he is aware of and willing to use the powerful resources of that office, whether his model will be Taft or Roosevelt, Wilson or Harding...
...If true, the times and the man met...
...But the word 'politics...
...And too often his own objectives have been lost by the President's failure to override objections from within his own party, in Congress or even in his Cabinet...
...This Administration has not faced up to these and other problems...
...When asked, early in his first term, how he liked the "game of politics," he replied with a frown that his questioner was using a derogatory phrase...
...The President is at liberty, both in law and conscience, to be as big a man as he can...
...Being President," he said, "is a very great experience...
...To restore it next year will help restore purpose to both the Presidency and the Congress...
...So did Lincoln and Jackson and the two Roosevelts...
...It is not enough to represent prevailing sentiment: to follow McKin-ley's practice, as described by Joe Cannon, of "keeping his ear so close to the ground he got it full of grasshoppers...
...And even domestically, the President must initiate policies and devise laws to meet the needs of the nation...
...Unfortunately, this is not Mr...
...He followed to the White House Mr...
...Whatever the political affiliation of our next President, whatever his views may be on all the issues and problems that rush in upon us, he must above all be the Chief Executive in every sense of the word...
...But the question is, what do the times—and the people—demand for the next four years in the White House...
...But when his World Court bill was under fire on Capitol Hill, he sent no messages, gave no encouragement to the bill's leaders, and paid little or no attention to the whole proceeding—and the cause of world justice was set back...
...By the end of his term, Theodore Roosevelt was not popular in Congress, particularly when he criticized an amendment to the Treasury appropriation which forbade the use of Secret Service men to investigate Congressmen...
...Ohio has saved the nation...
...They demand a man capable of acting as the Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Alliance, not merely a bookkeeper who feels that his work is done when the numbers on the balance sheet come out even...
...Rather, he must know when to lead Congress, when to consult it, and when he should act alone...
...The American people in 1952 and 1956 may well have preferred this detached, limited concept of the Presidency after twenty years of fast-moving, creative Presidential rule...
...If he administered the government departments efficiently, delegated his functions smoothly, and performed his ceremonies of state with decorum and grace, no more was to be expected of him...
...on surveying the State of the Nation, has met with a more pleasing prospect than that which appears at the present time...
...And he must be prepared to use all the resources of his office to ensure the enactment of that legislation, even when conflict is the result...
...Harding, whose "sponsor" declared very frankly that the times did not demand a first-rate President...
...If my hand trembles when I sign this Proclamation, all who examine the document hereafter will say: 'He hesitated.' " But Abraham Lincoln's hand did not tremble...
...But they were aimed, as he himself said, at "good fellowship," not a discussion of "public business...
...But neither should it dominate...
...They haven't had a thought down there in fifty years...
...However large its share in the formulation of domestic programs, it is the President alone who must make the major decisions of our foreign policy...
...Senator Kennedy expressed these views of the Presidency in an address to the National Press Club nearly a year ago...
...I prefer the example of Abe Lincoln, who loved politics with the passion of a born practitioner...
...Calvin Coolidge, on the other hand, departed Washington with the cheers of Congress still ringing in his ears...
...Much has been said, but I am reminded of the old Chinese proverb: "There is a great deal of noise on the stairs but nobody comes into the room...
...Woodrow Wilson was even more bitter after his frustrating quarrels...
...He must originate action as well as study groups...
...Of course a candidate's views on specific policies are important, but Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft shared policy views with entirely different results in the White House...
...And the feeling was mutual, Roosevelt saying: "I do not much admire the Senate, because it is such a helpless body when efficient work is to be done...
...He must reopen the channels of communication between the world of thought and the seat of power...
...If administrative agencies are not carrying out their mandate, if a brush fire threatens some part of the globe, he alone can act, without waiting for Congress...
Vol. 25 • January 1961 • No. 1
