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Sunday, September 25, 2016

JFK'S CONSERVATION TRIP

JFK+50:  Volume 5, No. 2080

JFK SPEAKS ON CONSERVATION IN NORTH DAKOTA, WYOMING, MONTANA & CALIFORNIA

Laramie, Wyoming (JFK+50) Fifty-three years ago today, September 25, 1963, President John F. Kennedy spoke at the University of Wyoming here in Laramie.

The President said...

"I am...glad to come on this conservation trip and have an opportunity to speak at this distinguished university. 

We are attempting...to develop the talents...which require..education, which will permit us in our time, when the conservation of our resources requires entirely different techniques than were required 50 years ago, when the great conservation movement began under Theodore Roosevelt...and these talents, scientific and social...must be developed at our universities."

Earlier in the day, President Kennedy spoke at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks after receiving an honorary doctor of laws degree and again upon his arrival at the airport in Cheyenne.

JFK concluded the day speaking at the Yellowstone County Fairgrounds in Billings, Montana where he said...

"The potential of this country is unlimited and there is no action which any of us can take in Washington which gives us greater confidence in the future...than to leave our city...and come west to Wyoming, Montana, California, and recognize that in this golden area...that a great writer from my own State of Massachusetts, (Henry David) Thoreau, was right when he said...

"Eastward I go only by force; Westward I go free.  I must walk towards Oregon and not towards Europe."

SOURCES

"Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, John F. Kennedy, 1963," United States Government Printing Office, Washington, 1964.

John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston, Massachusetts, www.jfklibrary.org/



JFK at Yellowstone County Fairgrounds
Billings, Montana
September 25, 1963
White House Photo
JFK Library Image