Remarks at a Rally at the Rochester, N.Y., Airport

Thank you, Bob Kennedy. I treasure those statements. I consider them as among my most prized possessions. I know of no one who is in a better position to know my relationship and my work with our late, beloved President than you, and you make me feel very humble and very proud and very obligated to, as I said before, continue with the ideals that he enunciated and which he was in the process of carrying out.

Mayor Lamb, Mayor Wagner, Governor Harriman, my friend State Chairman McKeon, Secretary Folsom, our two wonderful congressional candidates, John Williams of Rochester in the 36th District, and Neil Bubel in the 37th District, Chairman Bob O'Brien, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls:

I feel so good about having a chance to come back here and be with you. I was here a good deal of my time in 1960 and never have I been any place where I found more interested people in the affairs of their country, more genuine friends, and more happy and progressive citizens. So I like Upstate New York, and I am so happy when you ask me to come back here again.

I have told Bob Kennedy that after we get this election behind us in November, and the things that flow with it, and we get the votes in the box, and the results are announced, that one of the things I want to do is to come with your new Senator to Upstate New York and evaluate and study your problems, and try to be of such help as I can, not only to putting him to work for New York, but putting his great abilities and talents to work for the entire Nation and the entire world.

Now, this country needs its most able, most talented, most progressive men that are available in the service of their country. The country needs Robert Kennedy in Washington. New York needs Robert Kennedy in the United States Senate. There is really no conceivable way that the Senate can keep from being Democratic.

It now has 67 Democratic Senators. The best estimates are that we will increase that number by several. The worst estimates are that we would lose two or three. But we are going to have a majority, or more than 50. So the chairmen and the majorities and the important assignments are going to be made by the majority party. And New York ought to have its Senator participating in those majority decisions, and I think you will have Bob Kennedy doing that after November 3d.

Bob Kennedy has a reputation that is known throughout the world. He has a name that is beloved in every household. But that, in itself, is not reason alone to select him as a public servant.

I think the thing that each of you should weigh in your mind in selecting your officials is the same thing that you consider in selecting someone to work with or that works for you.

Robert Kennedy has experience. He has training. He has demonstrated ability. His experience in fighting crime, his great knowledge in the field of education and training of our children, his understanding and participation in our housing problems, his expertness in the field of defense and his intimate association with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Defense, his contributions in the all-important--the number one important--problem in the world, the area of peace, make him a most unusual and a most valuable and a most needed public servant.

The greatest aid that New York citizens can give to their country now is to make certain that Robert Kennedy and Democratic New York Congressmen are sent to Washington to work for a program for the people next January.

And you don't just send Bob Kennedy to Washington when you elect him Senator. He, like the rest of us, outmarried himself and you send one of the most effective, intelligent, and gracious persons that I have ever known--Ethel Kennedy. I think so much of her that when we had great problems in my State and we were evenly divided, the first person I asked to come to Texas, even before I asked the Democratic presidential candidate, was Ethel Kennedy. She visited practically every major city in that State, and everywhere she went she left indelibly imprinted on their minds an impression of a competent, dedicated person.

I will also appreciate your help in sending John Williams, of Rochester, because we need his effective services in the House of Representatives, and you need him as your Congressman. Young, energetic, talented, and able--he can do things for New York, and you want things done for New York.

And we all need to have Neil Bubel join him from the 37th District, because we can work there as a team, a team to bring peace to the world and prosperity to all of our people.

So I hope that you will concentrate the next 3 weeks on helping Bob Kennedy, and helping John Williams, and helping Neil Bubel. And if you have any time left over, help Hubert Humphrey and me.

I think here in this great city of Rochester you know something about the meaning of responsibility. This is the hometown of one of the most responsible Americans who ever lived in our country, a crusader for equality and human rights--Susan B. Anthony.

Here in Rochester, great corporations have flourished, and you have fostered a long and proud tradition of healthy trade unions. You have made Rochester a byword for invention and for technological innovation. And you have used the fruits of your economic foresight and enterprise to enrich your lives. This is the spirit of responsibility that has built this great city.

I believe the American people want a responsible government. And that means a government that works actively to promote the prosperity of all Americans.

This has been the goal of the Kennedy-Johnson administration. Here in the State of New York, responsible policies are paying off, responsible Government decisions.

Employment in Rochester has increased by 16,000 jobs. Our goal, our objective, is the day when every man and woman who wants to work in Rochester will be able to work in a decent job.

A responsible government will not turn its back on workers whose jobs have been taken over by machines. You know, last year we trained nearly 9,000 men and women in new skills in New York. I intend to speed up that training and that transition of workers into new industries.

A responsible government will not gaze into the sky while millions of Americans live in poverty. Fourteen percent--14 percent--of your New York families live in poverty, below the poverty line. Now, we are not going to abandon them and we are not going to forget them, and we are going to do something about them.

We abolished slavery in this country 100 years ago, and beginning this year we are going to abolish poverty in this country, because a responsible government is going to put education on the top of the list of our unfinished work. In the next 10 years, 30 million boys and girls--30 million--will be ready to work. We intend to do something about these needs.

The Johnson administration, aided by your two Congressmen that you are going to select, and Senator Kennedy, will be guided by the principle that regardless of family financial status, education should be open to every boy and girl in America up to the highest level that he can possibly take.

A responsible government will do something about the conditions which foster crime. It's not enough just to talk about crime in September and October of every fourth year. Crime is something you just don't talk against. Crime is something you must work against. Crime is something you must fight against. Crime is something you must vote against.

In Congress you vote and you work to provide employment, education, and training for people to become constructive citizens. And I intend in the next 4 years, if you are willing, to continue and to improve those programs which take our young people off the streets and to give them a decent break in life, and equal opportunity.

Responsible government means a government that works actively to build our strength and to maintain the peace.

I am very proud to be able to say to you that in all the recorded history of man, no nation has ever been so strong in arms as your Nation is today. With the Presidents before him, but particularly with President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, he developed that strength for one overriding purpose: because he had a passion for peace, and we have an obligation to him to keep the peace.

In 37 meetings of the Security Council during the frightening days of the Cuban missile crisis, surrounded by the most expert military geniuses that West Point and Annapolis could produce, the coolest man in that room, the man with the most cautious and careful judgment, I am proud to say, was the man that you had selected as your Commander in Chief--John Fitzgerald Kennedy. And sitting there with him through the days and the nights that followed was his loyal and dedicated brother who gave him excellent and helpful assistance.

Now, we know that we will not keep peace by bluff, by bluster, or by ultimatum. Patience and strength are the road to peace. Understanding of why people do certain things and what our reaction must quickly be, are important considerations. These courses must be walked with vigilance.

I have no doubt that freedom is going to survive in this troubled world. I have no doubt that democracy is ultimately going to win. But we are not going to win it by quarreling with each other, by questioning each other's patriotism, or by mudslinging, muckraking, or getting personal with the men who are doing their dead level best in the interest of their country. We are not going to do it by questioning or tearing down our cherished institutions.

We have in Washington dedicated Republicans that President Kennedy brought there--the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Central Intelligence Agency, and others too numerous to mention. And all of these men want to do what is best for their country. None of them went there on a platform of doing what is wrong. They are trying so hard to protect our institutions, and this is no time for us to try to win by dividing brothers against brothers.

I know I feel, and I hope that all the other members of my party feel, as good Republicans on this platform this morning feel, that what is good for your country is good for your party and yourself. And that ought to be our sole criterion.

How can we unite the world and lead it if we divide among ourselves? How can we be the example for the rest of the world if part of us go in one direction and part in the other, if some of us preach love and faith, and the others preach doubt and hate?

So let us all, as good Christians, focus on those values that can unite America, and try to overlook the petty things that divide America. There are so many more things that unite us than divide us.

Let's try to lead our country and our friends. Let's try to teach our children to love and to respect their neighbors instead of hating and suspecting them. Let's say to those that join these secret societies and march in the night with masks on their heads, that this is not really the thing that built America. Let us all come out in the open and unite behind one program, and that is, preserving our country first.

Let's say to these men of little faith, the doubters and the critics, who sometimes become frustrated, and other times become bitter--let's say, "Let's turn the other cheek," and say, "God forgive them, for they really know not what they do."

Here in New York, the leading State in the Union, let all the people of all religions, of all ancestries, regardless of how they spell their name, of all colors, of all faiths--yes; of all parties--let us, as good Americans first, do not what is just good for the Democratic Party, or the Republican Party. Let us on November 3d go and do what each of us in our own conscience tells us is best for our beloved America.

Thank you.