John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Formation of this committee dramatizes the willingness of farm people to work together to help us carry out our pledge to take positive action to raise farm prices and incomes.

In the first place, the United States is going to have twice as many people by the year 2,000 as it does today.

I have called this challenge the New Frontier.

The world is changing, too.

But I do think it is a real problem, because we are concerned about the effect it has on employment.

Farmers throughout the Nation are putting aside their differences in a common determination to prevent 4 more years of falling prices and shrinking incomes.

First, of course, we must make immediate and fruitful use of surpluses we now have - through an expanded food-for-peace program to halt famine and malnutrition abroad - and through an increased food surplus distribution program for the…

It is time for a program which views the farmer as a great national asset - not an unwanted burden on the taxpayer.

My call is not to those who believe they belong to the past. My call is to those who believe in the future.

In a world of danger and trial, peace is our deepest aspiration, and when peace comes we will gladly convert not our swords into plowshares, but our bombs into peaceful reactors, and our planes into space vessels.

But it is an unfortunate fact that we can prepare for peace only by preparing for war.

I feel committed to the platform and would do my best, if elected, to implement it.

I think the Western States are important.

Only the President speaks for the United States.

We must not allow our NATO bases to become an unwitting instrument of such an effort, which is being carried on in defiance of the United Nations, of world opinion, and of the hopes of all of those who wish for peace.

It must protect growers of other crops from destructive competition through diversion of former wheat acreage.

It is time for a program which sees in America's farms the true source of American strength - not a source of difficulty.

I believe the American people elect a President to act.

I am proud to have the support of this group of outstanding farmers and farm leaders.

Our Government owes the American people a full explanation of this situation and an explanation of what is being done to keep Russia from establishing a new satellite, this time in the heart of Africa.

It is time, in short, for a Democratic program - and in 1960 we are going to put it into action.

It must reduce the total cost of the price-support and storage programs.

It must protect other wheat-producing countries against unfair 'dumping.'

It is time for a program which views an abundance of wheat as an opportunity to provide hungry people with a decent diet - not as an unwanted stock of useless grain to be stored and forgotten.

I am in this campaign as your candidate for President of the United States.