The New Frontier
The New Frontier
I think the American people expect more from us than cries of indignation and attack. The times are too grave, the challenge too urgent, and the stakes too high -- to permit the customary passions of political debate. We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us through that darkness to a safe and sane future. Today our concern must be with that future. For the world is changing. The old era is ending. The old ways will not do.
Abroad, the balance of power is shifting. There are new and more terrible weapons -- new and uncertain nations -- new pressures of population and deprivation. One third of the world, it has been said, may be free -- but one third is the victim of cruel opression -- and the other one-third is rocked by the pangs of poverty, hunger and envy. More energy is released by the awakening of these new nations than by the fission of the atom itself. The world has been close to war before -- but now man, who has survived all previous threats to his existence, has taken into his mortal hands the power to exterminate the entire species some seven times over. An urban population has overcrowded our schools, cluttered up our suburbs, and increased the squalor of our slums. A peaceful revolution for human rights -- demanding an end to racial discrimination in all parts of our community life -- has strained at the leashes imposed by the timid executive leadership.
There has also been a change -- a slippage -- in our intellectual and moral strength. Seven lean years of drouth and famine have withered a field of ideas. Blight has descended on our regulatory agencies -- and a dry rot, beginning in Washington, is seeping into every corner of America -- in the payola mentality, the expense account way of life, the confusion between what is legal and what is right. Too many Americans have lost their way, their will and their sense of historic purpose.
I stand tonight facing west on what was once the last frontier. From the lands that stretch three thousand miles behind me, the pioneers of old gave up their safety, their comfort and sometimes their lives to build a new world here in the West. They were not the captives of their own doubts, the prisoners of their own price tags. Their motto was not "every man for himself" -- but "all for the common cause." They were determined to make that new world strong and free, to overcome its hazards and its hardships, to conquer the enemies that threatened from without and within.
Today some would say that those struggles are all over -- that all the horizons have been explored -- that all the battles have been won -- that there is no longer and American frontier. The problems are not all solved and the battles not all won -- and we stand today on the edge of a New Frontier -- a frontier of unknown opportunities and perils -- a frontier of unfulfilled hopes and threats. The New Frontier of which I speak of is not a set of promises -- it is a set of challenges. It sums up not what I intend to offer the American people, but what I intend to ask of them. It appeal to their pride, not to their pocketbook -- it holds out the promise of more sacrifice instead of more security. But I tell you the New Frontier is here, whether we seek it or not. Beyond that frontier ar the uncharted areas of science and space, unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered pockets of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty and surplus.
I am asking each of you to be pioneers on that New Frontier. My call is to the young in heart. regardless of age -- to all who respond to the Scriptural call: " be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed." For courage -- not complacency -- is our need today -- leadership -- not salesmanship. And the only valid test of leadership is the ablity to lead, and lead vigorously.
Can a nation organized and governed such as ours endure? That is the real question. Have we the nerve and the will? Can we carry through in an age wher we will witness not only new breakthroughs in weapons of destruction -- but also a race for mastery of the sky and the rain, the ocean and the tides, the far side of space and the inside of men's minds? Are we up to the task -- are we equal to the challenge? Or must we sacrifice our future in order to enjoy the present?
That is the question of the New Frontier. That is the choice our nation must make -- between the public interest and private comfort -- between rational greatness and national decline -- between the fresh air of progress in the stank, dank atmosphere of "normalcy" -- between determined dedication and creeping mediocrity. All mankind waits upon our decision. A whole world looks to see what we will do. We cannot fail their trust, we cannot fail to try.
-- John F. Kennedy
I think the American people expect more from us than cries of indignation and attack. The times are too grave, the challenge too urgent, and the stakes too high -- to permit the customary passions of political debate. We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us through that darkness to a safe and sane future. Today our concern must be with that future. For the world is changing. The old era is ending. The old ways will not do.
Abroad, the balance of power is shifting. There are new and more terrible weapons -- new and uncertain nations -- new pressures of population and deprivation. One third of the world, it has been said, may be free -- but one third is the victim of cruel opression -- and the other one-third is rocked by the pangs of poverty, hunger and envy. More energy is released by the awakening of these new nations than by the fission of the atom itself. The world has been close to war before -- but now man, who has survived all previous threats to his existence, has taken into his mortal hands the power to exterminate the entire species some seven times over. An urban population has overcrowded our schools, cluttered up our suburbs, and increased the squalor of our slums. A peaceful revolution for human rights -- demanding an end to racial discrimination in all parts of our community life -- has strained at the leashes imposed by the timid executive leadership.
There has also been a change -- a slippage -- in our intellectual and moral strength. Seven lean years of drouth and famine have withered a field of ideas. Blight has descended on our regulatory agencies -- and a dry rot, beginning in Washington, is seeping into every corner of America -- in the payola mentality, the expense account way of life, the confusion between what is legal and what is right. Too many Americans have lost their way, their will and their sense of historic purpose.
I stand tonight facing west on what was once the last frontier. From the lands that stretch three thousand miles behind me, the pioneers of old gave up their safety, their comfort and sometimes their lives to build a new world here in the West. They were not the captives of their own doubts, the prisoners of their own price tags. Their motto was not "every man for himself" -- but "all for the common cause." They were determined to make that new world strong and free, to overcome its hazards and its hardships, to conquer the enemies that threatened from without and within.
Today some would say that those struggles are all over -- that all the horizons have been explored -- that all the battles have been won -- that there is no longer and American frontier. The problems are not all solved and the battles not all won -- and we stand today on the edge of a New Frontier -- a frontier of unknown opportunities and perils -- a frontier of unfulfilled hopes and threats. The New Frontier of which I speak of is not a set of promises -- it is a set of challenges. It sums up not what I intend to offer the American people, but what I intend to ask of them. It appeal to their pride, not to their pocketbook -- it holds out the promise of more sacrifice instead of more security. But I tell you the New Frontier is here, whether we seek it or not. Beyond that frontier ar the uncharted areas of science and space, unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered pockets of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty and surplus.
I am asking each of you to be pioneers on that New Frontier. My call is to the young in heart. regardless of age -- to all who respond to the Scriptural call: " be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed." For courage -- not complacency -- is our need today -- leadership -- not salesmanship. And the only valid test of leadership is the ablity to lead, and lead vigorously.
Can a nation organized and governed such as ours endure? That is the real question. Have we the nerve and the will? Can we carry through in an age wher we will witness not only new breakthroughs in weapons of destruction -- but also a race for mastery of the sky and the rain, the ocean and the tides, the far side of space and the inside of men's minds? Are we up to the task -- are we equal to the challenge? Or must we sacrifice our future in order to enjoy the present?
That is the question of the New Frontier. That is the choice our nation must make -- between the public interest and private comfort -- between rational greatness and national decline -- between the fresh air of progress in the stank, dank atmosphere of "normalcy" -- between determined dedication and creeping mediocrity. All mankind waits upon our decision. A whole world looks to see what we will do. We cannot fail their trust, we cannot fail to try.
-- John F. Kennedy