| OCR Text |
Show Continue His Goals Death of the President President John Fitzgerald Kennedy is dead. Words, even the best used ones, are useless at such a time and there is nothing left to be said about this unmitigated tragedy which has not been said many times already. But in the very volume of the outcry by people great and obscure which overreaches national and geographical boundaries, part politics and even world antagonisms in this spontaneous, prolonged, universal and sometimes incoherent lament is an elegy more eloquent than any one man could compose. We sorrow for the late President's family, to whom the crime was most cruel and the grief is most immediate, who are left widowed and fatherless or have had a second brother or son killed while serving his country. All America mourns his death, for every citizen has lost a friend and the nation has been deprived of a great leader in a time of trial and stress. - The world knows it has lost a champion for peace, and no one can say when another will come to match him for vigour and effectiveness in this cause. Lee Harvey Oswald was charged with the senseless and heinous murder and Sunday, Jack Ruby killed Lee Oswald. Oswald was a leftist, a political eccentric, and a universal misfit. Jack Ruby is a night club owner, a "respectable citizen," citi-zen," great admirer of the late President Kennedy, and a "very emotional man." Both are Americans; both, human beings. be-ings. They had free public educations and were taught to respect law and order, the memory of Lincoln, Washington and Jefferson, and the American Presidency. But here in the United States, the land of the free, the affluent society, three unreasoning and brutal murders were committed, of a President, Presi-dent, a police officer, and an accused man. Perhaps, no matter how good our society, there will still be men, who perpetrate dreadful deeds to the eternal shame and horror of the rest of mankind. But let us guard that it goes no farther. Such times are fertile ground for political witch hunts, miscarriages of justice and in which to forget the principles of fair play by which we would like to characterize our country. If such were to happen now and the great guilt compiled in the last few days is to taint those who are not guilty then we too will have lost our reason and respect for justice and freedom, and the assassin will have succeeded in much more than the death of our President; he will have struck a terrible blow to the country which John Kennedy loved. John Fitzgerald Kennedy stood for peace and freedom. Let us honor him by continuing to pursue these goals with great dedication, as individuals and as a nation. It is right that he should be so honored, for he was our President, whom we loved. |
