John F. Kennedy: “Open and peaceful competition--for prestige, for markets, for scientific achievement, even for men's minds--is something…”

For together we face a common challenge: to enlarge the prosperity of free men everywhere--to build in partnership a new trading community in which all free nations may gain from the productive energy of free competitive effort.

But today, were I to offer--after little more than a week in office--detailed legislation to remedy every national ill, the Congress would rightly wonder whether the desire for speed had replaced the duty of responsibility.

There is no longer any reason why American children should suffer from polio, diphtheria, whooping cough, or tetanus.

Our decision could well affect the unity of the West, the course of the Cold War, and the economic growth of our Nation for a generation to come.