Humanities Homework Help
Humanities Homework Help. English passage questions
Read the passage. Then answer the questions.
from “The Presidency in 1960”
by John F. Kennedy
1 Today a restricted concept of the Presidency is not enough. For beneath today’s surface gloss of peace and prosperity are increasingly dangerous, unsolved, long postponed problems – problems that will inevitably explode to the surface during the next 4 years of the next administration – the growing missile gap, the rise of Communist China, the despair of the underdeveloped nations, the explosive situations in Berlin and in the Formosa Straits, the deterioration of NATO, the lack of an arms control agreement, and all the domestic problems of our farms, cities, and schools.
2 This administration has not faced up to these and other problems. Much has been said – but I am reminded of the old Chinese proverb: “There is a great deal of noise on the stairs but nobody comes into the room.”
3 The President’s state of the Union message reminded me of the exhortation from “King Lear” but goes: “I will do such things – what they are I know not . . . but they shall be the wonders of the earth.”
4 In the decade that lies ahead – in the challenging revolutionary sixties – the American Presidency will demand more than ringing manifestoes issued from the rear of the battle. It will demand that the President place himself in the very thick of the fight, that he care passionately about the fate of the people he leads, that he be willing to serve them, at the risk of incurring their momentary displeasure.
5 Whatever the political affiliation of our next President, whatever his views may be on all the issues and problems that rush in upon us, he must above all be the Chief Executive in every sense of the word. He must be prepared to exercise the fullest powers of his office – all that are specified and some that are not. He must master complex problems as well as receive one-page memorandums. He must originate action as well as study groups. He must reopen channels of communication between the world of thought and the seat of power.
6 Ulysses Grant considered the President “a purely administrative officer.” If he administered the government departments efficiently, delegated his functions smoothly, and performed his ceremonies of state with decorum and grace, no more was to be expected of him. But that is not the place the Presidency was meant to have in American life. The President is alone, at the top – the loneliest job there is, as Harry Truman has said.
7 If there is destructive dissension among the services, he alone can step in and straighten it out – instead of waiting for unanimity. If administrative agencies are not carrying out their mandate – if a brushfire threatens some part of the globe – he alone can act, without waiting for the Congress. If his farm program fails, he alone deserves the blame, not his Secretary of Agriculture.
8 “The President is at liberty, both in law and conscience, to be as big a man as he can.” So wrote Prof. Woodrow Wilson. But President Woodrow Wilson discovered that to be a big man in the White House inevitably brings cries of dictatorship.
9 So did Lincoln and Jackson and the two Roosevelts. And so may the next occupant of that office, if he is the man the times demand. But how much better it would be, in the turbulent sixties, to have a Roosevelt or a Wilson than to have another James Buchanan, cringing in the White House, afraid to move.
10 Nor can we afford a Chief Executive who is praised primarily for what he did not do, the disasters he prevented, the bills he vetoed – a President wishing his subordinates would produce more missiles or build more schools. We will need instead what the Constitution envisioned: a Chief Executive who is the vital center of action in our whole scheme of Government.
11 This includes the legislative process as well. The President cannot afford – for the sake of the office as well as the Nation – to be another Warren G. Harding, described by one backer as a man who “would when elected, sign whatever bill the Senate sent him–and not send bills for the Senate to pass.” Rather he must know when to lead the Congress when to consult it and when he should act alone.
12 Having served 14 years in the legislative branch, I would not look with favor upon its domination by the Executive. Under our government of “power as the rival of power,” to use Hamilton’s phrase, Congress must not surrender its responsibilities. But neither should it dominate. However large its share in the formulation of domestic programs, it is the President alone who must make the major decisions of our foreign policy.
13 That is what the Constitution wisely commands. And even domestically, the President must initiate policies and devise laws to meet the needs of the Nation. And he must be prepared to use all the resources of his office to ensure the enactment of that legislation–even when conflict is the result.
14 By the end of his term Theodore Roosevelt was not popular in the Congress – particularly when he criticized an amendment to the Treasury appropriation which forbade the use of Secret Service men to investigate Congressmen.
15 And the feeling was mutual, Roosevelt saying: “I do not much admire the Senate because it is such a helpless body when efficient work is to be done.”
16 And Woodrow Wilson was even more bitter after his frustrating quarrels. Asked if he might run for the Senate in 1920, he replied: “Outside of the United States, the Senate does not amount to a damn. And inside the United States the Senate is mostly despised. They haven’t had a thought down there in 50 years.”
17 But, however bitter their farewells, the facts of the matter are that Roosevelt and Wilson did get things done – not only through their Executive powers but through the Congress as well. Calvin Coolidge, on the other hand, departed from Washington with cheers of Congress still ringing in his ears. But when his World Court bill was under fire on Capitol Hill he sent no message, gave no encouragement to the bill’s leaders, and paid little or no attention to the whole proceeding – and the cause of world justice was set back.
18 To be sure, Coolidge had held the usual White House breakfasts with congressional leaders – but they were aimed, as he himself said, at “good fellowship,” not a discussion of “public business.” And at his press conferences, according to press historians, where he preferred to talk about the local flower show and its exhibits, reporters who finally extracted from him a single sentence – “I’m against that bill” – would rush to file tongue-in-cheek dispatches claiming that: “President Coolidge, in a fighting mood, today served notice on Congress that he intended to combat, with all the resources at his command, the pending bill . . .”
From “The Presidency in 1960” by John F. Kennedy. Public Domain.
How does Kennedy mainly apply constitutional principles to support his ideas in the speech?
Part A
How does the author mainly use the term Chief Executive over the course of the speech?
Part B
Which detail from the speech best supports the answer to Part A?
Which of the following provides the best example of a way Kennedy sought to make a connection with members of his audience who might be inclined to disagree with his points about the need for a strong President?
"Our Prices Start at $11.99. As Our First Client, Use Coupon Code GET15 to claim 15% Discount This Month!!"
