If only

I would vote for someone who'd honestly say things like this in today's world. Will we ever again have a president like this? Someone who would, at the very least, challenge the corporate ownership of our government? I found these via digg and on this site. The situations are eerily familiar, in some cases, but he addresses them and deals with them rather than engaging in silent (or overt) collaboration. These hit home, to me. Take a look at a documentary called Evidence of Revision for some other interesting, bet-you-didn't-know pieces of U.S. history.

but this administration has failed to recognize, has failed to recognize that in these changing times, with a revolution of rising expectation sweeping the globe, the United States has lost its image as a new, strong, vital, revolutionary society.

University of Illinois Campus, October 24th, 1960

I believe in an America... where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source

Address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, September 12, 1960

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich

Inaugural Address of John F. Kennedy FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 1961

In this serious hour in our Nation's history when we are confronted with grave crises in Berlin and Southeast Asia, when we are devoting our energies to economic recovery and stability, when we are asking reservists to leave their homes and their families for months on end and servicemen to risk their lives--and four were killed in the last two days in Viet Nam and asking union members to hold down their wage requests at a time when restraint and sacrifice are being asked of every citizen, the American people will find it hard, as I do, to accept a situation in which a tiny handful of steel executives whose pursuit of private power and profit exceeds their sense of public responsibility can show such utter contempt for the interests of 185 million Americans.

News Conference April 11, 1962

In short, at a time when they could be exploring how more efficiency and better prices could be obtained... a few gigantic corporations have decided to increase prices in ruthless disregard of their public responsibilities.

April 11, 1962

Harry Truman once said there are 14 or 15 million Americans who have the resources to have representatives in Washington to protect their interests, and that the interests of the great mass of other people, the hundred and fifty or sixty million, is the responsibility of the President of the United States. And I propose to fulfill it.

Atlantic City at the Convention of the United Auto Workers. May 8th, 1962

I realize that there are some businessmen who feel only they want to be left alone, that Government and politics are none of their affairs, that the balance sheet and profit rate of their own corporation are of more importance than the worldwide balance of power or the Nationwide rate of unemployment. But I hope it is not rushing the season to recall to you the passage from Dickens' "Christmas Carol" in which Ebenezer Scrooge is terrified by the ghosts of his former partner, Jacob Marley, and Scrooge, appalled by Marley's story of ceaseless wandering, cries out, "But you were always a good man of business, Jacob." And the ghost of Marley, his legs bound by a chain of ledger books and cash boxes, replied, "Business? Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business. Charity, mercy, forbearance and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"

Members and guests of the Florida State Chamber of Commerce, whether we work in the White House or the State House or in a house of industry or commerce, mankind is our business. And if we work in harmony, if we understand the problems of each other and the responsibilities that each of us bears, then surely the business of mankind will prosper. And your children and mine will move ahead in a securer world, and one in which there is opportunity for them all.



Florida Chamber of Commerce, November 18th, 1963

You could argue that he just talked a good game, and to that I say, well, at least he did that.