Expectancy

It was a wonderful winter--for penguins. Texas shivered in the blast of a rare "blue norther," Florida's pole bean and tourist crops were imperiled by frost, the temperature plunged to 22-o below in Laramie, Wyo., and the entire northeast was smothered under snow that seemed to fall endlessly, making the average commuter feel his kinship to Nanook of the North.

Nor was nature's chill caprice the only U.S. worry. The economy seemed wobbly. From Birmingham and its steel mills to Los Angeles and its aircraft plants, unemployment pockets grew; Trinidad, Colo., a mining and cattle town of 12,000, reported that 20.3% of its work force was job hunting. After the second best year in automotive history, Detroit was anxiously eying a growing backlog of unsold compacts in showrooms and on snow-packed car lots. The cost of living edged upward by one-tenth of 1% in December, bringing it to a record high. The stock market was strong but erratic: rails drooped badly even while American Telephone & Telegraph shares reached an alltime peak of 114 3/4.

Yet despite such afflictions, the nation's spirit was far from low. Rather, the mood was one of high expectancy. That expectancy centered on Washington and the new President, now fully and at headlong pace embarked on his White House career.

During his campaign for the nation's highest office, John Kennedy more than anything else had pledged active, energetic, day-to-day and hour-by-hour leadership. In short, he had promised to do things. Implicit in his franchise for doing things was the fact that he would provide Americans, and all the world, with many memorable moments.

The first days of a new job or new adventure never leave the mind; and the first days of a new President always remain vivid to his constituents. Few last week will forget the sight of the tense and nervous young man who stood, his white-knuckled hands clutching the sides of his lectern, to face the press and live national TV in his first presidential news conference. His performance--cool, controlled, knowledgeable--was hard to fault, as was his matter-of-fact handling of the return of imprisoned U.S. Airmen Freeman Bruce Olmstead and John McKone (see The Cold War).

Thus last week President Kennedy answered and fulfilled the mood of expectancy. His inaugural address had devoted itself principally to the problems of the U.S. and its place in the world. This week he was scheduled to deliver his State of the Union message to a joint session of Congress. In that message, Kennedy had the tough task of describing the condition of the nation precisely--without glossing over the facts of contemporary American life or painting a picture of unrelieved darkness. As he faced the expectant members of the U.S. Congress, both Democratic and Republican, he had riding with him the U.S.'s approval of his first week's work.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.