4. To Face Life With Courage

What is most important to a mans success? Being born into a rich family which can provide him with whatever he wants? People, perhaps, have different views on that question. Although the Kennedy parents were rich, they urged their children to struggle to succeed and John Kennedy benefited a great deal from this encouragement. The following essay will tell us more about John Kennedy, the man.

One cold afternoon in 1937 a football game was taking place. The players were students at Harvard University, near Boston, in the United States of America. American football is a rough game in which it is easy to get hurt. The players are usually strong, solid young men. But on this occasion one player was tall and thin. He wasn't really heavy enough for football. But he was keen to succeed in spite of that. He loved outdoor games and played most of them well. Whatever he did he did with all his heart. He was John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Twenty-three years later he would become President of the United States.

As the excitement of the game increased everyone rushed for the ball at once. They landed on top of one another on the hard, frosty ground. John Kennedy was underneath. As the other men picked themselves up, ready to continue the game, he lay still. At first it was difficult to move. He felt as if he had twisted something in his back. His arms and legs didn't seem to work. Slowly he rose to his feet. Sharp pains shot up his back as he stood upright. But he refused to have help as he walked off the field.

That day he hurt his back so badly that it gave trouble the rest of his life. But few people, either then or later, knew how often this busy and attractive man was in pain. It wasn't in his character to give up.

John Kennedy was born, as the saying goes, with a "silver spoon in his mouth". His father, Joseph Kennedy, was a wealthy banker. His mother, Rose, was the daughter of a well-known Boston politician. She had been educated in France. Joseph Kennedy had enough money to give each of his nine children a million dollars as they reached the age of twenty-one.

John didn't really have to struggle very hard. He didn't have to work for his living. But his parents brought their children up to lead useful lives no matter what riches were coming to them. They taught them to struggle as hard as they could for whatever they believed in and not to be afraid of competition. They taught them to face life with courage, without complaining. This was lucky. For, although John had the best doctors that money could provide, he never had the gift of perfect health or of freedom from pain.

The Kennedys were a lively family who quarrelled and fought among themselves, as most children do. But they were very loyal to one another. They came from an Irish family and belonged to the Catholic Church. Their religion was important to them and they learned as children to defend their faith. For the United States is a strongly Protestant country.

The Kennedy parents were ambitious for their children. Nothing seemed impossible. Their grandfathers had arrived in America penniless and uneducated and had made their fortunes. They themselves had worked hard to give their children a good chance in life. Who knew what John and his brothers and sisters might do?

The children looked to their oldest brother Joe to lead the way. Like many American children he hoped to be president one day. He was gay and quick-tempered, a fine student and confident leader. He studied to be a lawyer and seemed certain to be a politician like both his grandfathers.

John was quieter. He liked books and study although he didn't get top marks at school like his brother. He seemed likely to become a teacher or writer.

As the boys grew up they travelled to foreign countries. John spent a summer in England when he was eighteen. When he was twenty he travelled through Europe with a friend. It was then 1937. Europe was moving towards the Second World War. Most Americans weren't much interested in what was happening outside the United States. But when John returned to Harvard he began to take a more serious interest in history and government. He still spent a lot of time out of doors, swimming and sailing.

In 1938 Joseph Kennedy was appointed United States Ambassador to London. John joined him in London that summer and again in the following spring. The war was coming that would change all their lives. The ambassador's son had a splendid chance to learn what was happening. He carried messages and information from one country to another for his father and left Germany only a few days before war began.

American history might have been altogether different if Joe Kennedy hadn't died in the war. It was he who was expected to be president. But in 1944 the plane he was flying exploded in the air over the coast of France and he was killed.

Both young men joined the armed services even before America entered the war. Both fought with great courage. John himself was given up for dead when his boat sank as a result of enemy action in the Pacific Ocean. He and his men were missing for a whole week and were believed to have drowned. But John had saved his men and himself by his steady courage and strong sense of duty. He would not give up while life or strength remained.

The account of their escape makes an exciting story. As their boat sank under them the men decided not to give themselves up to the enemy on an island which was near. Instead they went towards another island several miles away. They swam, or floated on a log, to the shore. One of his companions was wounded so John, who was a very good swimmer, pulled him along by a rope which he held in his teeth until they reached the island.

That night, tired as he was after nearly twelve hours in the water, he swam out again to look for help. For a week he continued to make one attempt after another to fetch help for his eleven men. They had no food or water. At last he discovered a native of the islands who proved to be friendly to the Americans. He took a message which brought an American boat to rescue them. By this time they were so weak and sick they couldn't have stayed alive much longer.

John's courage at this time brought him honour. But he had sacrificed his own strength. He was ill for more than a year after his rescue and was forced, at last, to retire from duty in the Navy. The war was almost over but it was a sad time for John. He learned that both his brother and his brother-in-law (his sister's husband) had been killed.

John had to consider what he would do next. He went as a newspaper reporter to the San Francisco meeting that began the United Nations organisation. It was a very important world event. When he got back to Boston, his father mentioned that a congressman from their state of Massachusetts was giving up his post. "Why don't you stand for election to Congress, John?" he added. John thought it over and decided to try.

It seemed impossible that he would be elected. He was too young, rich and inexperienced to have a serious chance of winning. And there were nine other candidates, a lot of competition. Although he was tall and manly, with thoughtful eyes and a friendly smile, he was thin and pale and looked delicate.

But there were several things in his favour. One was his courage. Another was his honesty. Massachusetts had had its share of dishonest politicians. The Kennedy money helped to make him known to a wide public. The large Kennedy family united to make speeches and public appearances for him and helped to win a lot of votes.

Most of all, John himself was determined to succeed, as he always was, and nothing could stop him. He worked terribly hard and got little sleep. He went into homes, shops, factories, hotels, wherever he might meet people and shake their hands. He promised to work for better conditions for the poor—better pay, houses and medical care. He didn't consider himself a rich man's son. He showed that he was ready to help the people who couldn't help themselves. He was easily elected and was sent to Washington as a United States Congressman.

From then on John Kennedy, with his serious manner and easy charm, became the golden boy of American politics. He couldn't lose. After six years as Congressman he returned to Washington in the more important job of Senator from Massachusetts.

Then in 1960 he was elected President of the richest and most powerful nation in the world. At forty-three he was the youngest president there had ever been, and the first one who was a Catholic. The Kennedys, young, gifted and attractive, were like a royal family. And John's lovely wife Jacqueline was the perfect young queen. The Kennedys still stuck together. John's brother Robert, aged thirty-five, now became his most trusted adviser and the country's Attorney General.

Three years later President Kennedy was dead. He was shot by an assassin as he rode with his wife in an open car through the streets of Dallas, Texas. What made him, in that short time as president, such a bright spot on the American political scene? Why is he better known than presidents who lived longer and did much more? What did the name John Kennedy stand for?

Perhaps the answer is to be found in the speech which he delivered on the day he became president: "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty." He promised this and more.

With his brother, the Attorney General, he tried to make sure that the laws of his country gave black people an equal chance with white people. It was time, he said, to make it "clear to all that race has no place in American life or law". He tried, without success, to obtain better medical care for old people. He wanted to improve education.

History has already begun to show that Kennedy, as President of the United States, made serious mistakes. It was in the name of freedom that he led his country deeper into its cruel, hopeless war in Vietnam.

It was Kennedy, the man, who put his stamp on the world of the early 1960s. Instead of the tired old men who led most of the nations, a new star had risen. A bright, gifted and brave young man, who could do most things well, chose the rough life of politics because he wanted a better world for everyone. He made men—and particularly Americans—think better of themselves because he was one of them.

He greatly admired the kind of courage that makes men stand alone for the things they believe are right. Once, when he was recovering from illness, he wrote a book about people who were examples of that kind of courage. He was an example of it himself.

From Great People of Our Time, ed. Carol Christian,

Macmillan Education, 1977.