2010.10.31: There's no question that Michigan's claim on its role in the formation of the Peace Corps is legitimate but Wittenberg University in Springfield Ohio, Kennedy's next college stop, appears to have been the place where the candidate first inserts the idea into a speech, a key step in making it a campaign promise
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2010.10.31: There's no question that Michigan's claim on its role in the formation of the Peace Corps is legitimate but Wittenberg University in Springfield Ohio, Kennedy's next college stop, appears to have been the place where the candidate first inserts the idea into a speech, a key step in making it a campaign promise
There's no question that Michigan's claim on its role in the formation of the Peace Corps is legitimate but Wittenberg University in Springfield Ohio, Kennedy's next college stop, appears to have been the place where the candidate first inserts the idea into a speech, a key step in making it a campaign promise
Accounts of Peace Corps history mention the University of Michigan and Cow Palace speeches, said Taylor, "but they don't mention anything in between." "It's important to us, because Wittenberg really has a genuine tradition of public service in the community and the society," he said. Taylor said it's important to the larger Peace Corps story because, in contrast to the "almost the top of his head" remarks made in Ann Arbor, At Wittenberg "he gives it at a planned address in broad daylight." Long active in local historical circles - including the Gammon House, the Westcott House and the Heritage Center - Taylor is at work on a professional article to document Wittenberg and Springfield's role in Peace Corps history.
There's no question that Michigan's claim on its role in the formation of the Peace Corps is legitimate but Wittenberg University in Springfield Ohio, Kennedy's next college stop, appears to have been the place where the candidate first inserts the idea into a speech, a key step in making it a campaign promise
Wittenberg played part in the beginning of Peace Corps story
JFK launched ‘Code of Ethics' in 1960 speech at university
By Tom Stafford, Staff Writer 10:54 PM Sunday, October 31, 2010
Where it comes to the Peace Corps, Tom Taylor is willing to give the University of Michigan the Wolverine's share of the credit.
But the Wittenberg University history professor also says the home of the Tigers should be recognized for the piece it played in Peace Corps history.
It's part of an apparently forgotten lesson that goes to the Ann Arbor of last month and both the Ann Arbor and Springfield of 1960.
Early morning, cold war
Three Thursdays ago, on Oct. 14, the University of Michigan marked the 50th anniversary of candidate John F. Kennedy's 2 a.m. impromptu remarks to 5,000 students gathered at the Michigan Union.
Even at the end of a long day of campaigning, the senator's sense of humor was intact.
He introduced himself as a graduate of the "Michigan of the East, Harvard University." (For decades, universities in this part of the nation sought to describe themselves as the "Harvard of the Midwest.")
"It's an example of the Kennedy charm at its best," Taylor said.
Kennedy then offered a few remarks to challenge his idealistic and fresh-faced collegiate audience: "How many of you who are going to be doctors, are willing to spend your days in Ghana? Technicians or engineers, how many of you are willing to work in the Foreign Service and spend your lives traveling around the world?
"On your willingness to do that, not merely to serve one year or two years in the service, but on your willingness to contribute part of your life to this country, I think, will depend (on) the answer (to) whether a free society can compete."
Compete with what?
Communism and the Soviet Union.
"That particular speech wasn't planned at all," said Taylor. "He was there to give a speech about education and the education gap" in engineering and other fields, Taylor said.
The scheduled address included Kennedy's assertion that the Eisenhower Administration and his opponent, vice president Richard Nixon, had not done enough in those areas to keep up with the Soviets, who were using those skills to compete with the United States for the affections of the rest of the world.
To many unfamiliar with its history, the Peace Corps, an idea first mentioned by Kennedy at night at the Michigan Union, may seem a strictly humanitarian venture.
But it's no accident the idea was proposed by the president who vowed to beat the Soviets to the moon and whose inaugural address challenged Americans "to ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."
"Remember," said Taylor, "this is the middle of the Cold War."
Peace Corps catches on
Although the idea for the Peace Corps had been around "for several years," Taylor said, Kennedy had not mentioned it in any of his campaign speeches.
Apparently against the counsel of his advisers, at 2 a.m. that Oct. 14, he followed his own instincts in bringing it up.
"The story is, he got a very good reaction from the students at Michigan," Taylor said.
Some University of Michigan students were so excited they delivered petitions in support of it at a later Kennedy campaign stop, something that did not escape the attention of the candidate and his advisers.
"This is days from the election, and they're desperate to gain any advantage," Taylor said.
In addition to appealing to students, Taylor said, the Peace Corps appealed to another wing of the Democratic Party, those who had backed liberal standard-bearer, Adlai Stevenson.
The key element in its success for the campaign may have been Kennedy's ability to find a way to incorporate the energy of American idealism into a Cold War strategy.
It's a part of a what's now called "soft power."
The candidate didn't use the words Peace Corps until his Nov. 2, 1960, speech at the Cow Palace in San Francisco.
But in between Ann Arbor and San Francisco, Kennedy stopped in Springfield, where he delivered what Taylor called "the most developed version" of his vision.
Campaign theme takes form
By the time he arrived at Wittenberg on Oct. 17, 1960, Kennedy's speech writers had found the time to insert the off-the-cuff remarks that had stirred interest in Ann Arbor into their candidate's stump speech.
The resulting statement was "broader" and "a little more polished," Taylor said. "But the press didn't pick up on it."
At least most of the press.
The New York Times story written by Russell Baker carried no mention.
Wittenberg's student newspaper, the Torch, paraphrased Kennedy's remarks that students have "a higher role in life than merely obtaining an economic living with the tools acquired here."
"The most significant thing about Senator Kennedy's visit," it added, "is that he chose Wittenberg as the spot from which to launch his new theme of honesty in government. This important speech was his first mention of the proposed ‘Eight-Point Code of Ethics,' and marks the beginning of a new facet in the Senator's campaigning."
Springfield's morning newspaper, The Sun, carried none of the Peace Corps remarks, and Sun editor Maynard Kniskern characterized the speech as Kennedy's attempt to avoid further statements on the question of what he would do as president if Communist China took military action to claim Taiwan.
The Springfield Daily News reported this:
He asked the students how many would be willing do devote "years of your lives to serving humanity in Africa and Asia?" the paper quoted.
"If your nation is to prevail, its system must be with the closest cooperation between government and our educational institutions," Sen. Kennedy said. "He said the advantages of economic gain from college learning cannot equal the higher service gained through a public career."
The full Peace Corps-related remarks from the Springfield speech have been preserved by the American Presidency Project:
"I hope, in closing ... that all of those of you who are students at this college will consider during your lifetime embarking on a career of public service. In the next 10 years, we are going to try to develop in this country a sense of the public interest comparable or superior to what the Soviet Union is able to develop in its country by power of the police state.
"How many young students at this college are willing to spend part of their lives in Africa or Latin America or Asia; are willing to spend part of their time in this college learning not merely French or Spanish or Italian, but learning some of the esoteric dialects of India or Africa, learning something about those countries; preparing themselves as doctors or teachers or engineers or scientists, or nurses, or public health officials, or Foreign Service officers, to contribute part of your talents, part of the benefits of your education to society as a whole?
"This college was not founded and has not been maintained merely to give this school's graduates an economic advantage in the life struggle. There is a higher purpose. Prof. Woodrow Wilson said that every man sent out from a college should be a man of his time as well as a man of his nation. I ask you to consider how you can best use the talents which society is now helping develop in you in order to maintain that free society."
Addendum to history
"There's no question that Michigan's claim (on its role in the formation of the Peace Corps) is legitimate," Taylor said. (It's recognized, on the Peace Corps' own website.)
But Wittenberg, Kennedy's next college stop, appears to have been the place where the candidate first inserts the idea into a speech, a key step in making it a campaign promise.
Accounts of Peace Corps history mention the University of Michigan and Cow Palace speeches, said Taylor, "but they don't mention anything in between."
"It's important to us, because Wittenberg really has a genuine tradition of public service in the community and the society," he said.
Taylor said it's important to the larger Peace Corps story because, in contrast to the "almost the top of his head" remarks made in Ann Arbor, At Wittenberg "he gives it at a planned address in broad daylight."
Long active in local historical circles - including the Gammon House, the Westcott House and the Heritage Center - Taylor is at work on a professional article to document Wittenberg and Springfield's role in Peace Corps history.
Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0368 or tstafford@coxohio.com.
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