The Social Consciousness of John F. Kennedy: A Political Legacy

The purpose of this thesis is to consider the evolution of John Kennedy's consciousness of social-welfare problems and his attempts to secure better standards of Federal legislation to remedy them. Within the scope of this study, the author intends to trace Kennedy's proclivity for "bread-and-butter" issues from the beginning ^of his Congressional career, when he demonstrated his awareness of people and their needs in the associations and techniques of his first electoral campaigns, to his election to the Presidency, where he guided his long-lived proposals: to fulfillment in law. As examples of President Kennedy's efforts to alleviate the financial burdens of the unskilled, the elderly, the ill, and the deprived, his attempts to improve the minimum wage and OASDI will be recorded from his early Congressional years, through seven years in the Senate and the election campaign of I960, to their ultimate execution in legislation during the first few months of his incumbency