I have pledged myself and my colleagues in the cabinet to a continuous encouragement of initiative, responsibility and energy in serving the public interest.  Let every public servant know, whether his post is high or low, that a man’s rank and reputation in this Administration will be determined by the size of the job he does, and not by the size of his staff, his office or his budget.  Let it be clear that this Administration recognizes the value of dissent and daring—­that we greet healthy controversy as the hallmark of healthy change.  Let the public service be a proud and lively career.  And let every man and woman who works in any area of our national government, in any branch, at any level, be able to say with pride and with honor in future years:  “I served the United States government in that hour of our nation’s need.”

For only with complete dedication by us all to the national interest can we bring our country through the troubled years that lie ahead.  Our problems are critical.  The tide is unfavorable.  The news will be worse before it is better.  And while hoping and working for the best, we should prepare ourselves now for the worst.

We cannot escape our dangers—­neither must we let them drive us into panic or narrow isolation.  In many areas of the world where the balance of power already rests with our adversaries, the forces of freedom are sharply divided.  It is one of the ironies of our time that the techniques of a harsh and repressive system should be able to instill discipline and ardor in its servants—­while the blessings of liberty have too often stood for privilege, materialism and a life of ease.

But I have a different view of liberty.

Life in 1961 will not be easy.  Wishing it, predicting it, even asking for it, will not make it so.  There will be further setbacks before the tide is turned.  But turn it we must.  The hopes of all mankind rest upon us—­not simply upon those of us in this chamber, but upon the peasant in Laos, the fisherman in Nigeria, the exile from Cuba, the spirit that moves every man and Nation who shares our hopes for freedom and the future.  And in the final analysis, they rest most of all upon the pride and perseverance of our fellow citizens of the great Republic.

In the words of a great President, whose birthday we honor today, closing his final State of the Union Message sixteen years ago, “We pray that we may be worthy of the unlimited opportunities that God has given us.”

***

State of the Union Address
John F. Kennedy
January 11, 1962

Mr. Vice President, my old colleague from Massachusetts and your new Speaker, John McCormack, Members of the 87th Congress, ladies and gentlemen: 

This week we begin anew our joint and separate efforts to build the American future.  But, sadly, we build without a man who linked a long past with the present and looked strongly to the future.  “Mister Sam” Rayburn is gone.  Neither this House nor the Nation is the same without him.