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EDITOR’S NOTE: It is now nearly 57 years since John F. Kennedy brought his presidential campaign to Pittston in the fall of 1960. One of the thousands of spectators to greet the candidate was Michael Clark, then a St. John’s High School senior. A former news writer, long-time senior aide to the late Congressman Dan Flood, and a Washington-based public affairs consultant for decades, Clark recounts the soon-to-be president’s visit as Pittston prepares to unveil a statue of Kennedy today.
John F. Kennedy’s 1960 campaign swing through Northeastern Pennsylvania — nearly six decades later — is still the watershed political event for tens of thousands of admirers determined to get a glimpse of, or if lucky, a handshake with the young senator who was taking the nation by storm. Indeed, it was Pennsylvania’s huge plurality, a sizable part of it from the anthracite region, that went far in Kennedy’s victory only days later.
It was a day whose legend of political drama stands, with the unveiling today of a life-size statue of Kennedy along the streets where he crossed the Water Street Bridge into a hysterical crowd. Enthusiastic as any was 14-year-old P.J. Melvin, a retired school administrator who has often worked to sustain appreciation of Pittston. Melvin in the last two years fostered the idea of a Kennedy statue, went on to raise some $50,000 to pay for it, and deserves the ranking of Pittston’s Great Citizen.
Friday, October 28, 1960,was a day of great anticipation in Pittston. St. John’s High School had burned the previous February, and plans for a new school were under way. It was football season, and that evening St. John’s would suffer ignominious defeat at the hands of the West Pittston Rams, 57-3. There were 10 days to go, and no presidential election in modern times had attracted or stirred such enthusiasm. The new order of presidential politics was coming, the age of television news still in its infancy, and an era when most politicians were still held in respect. Pittston itself was one year from the election when the old order would change, the end of the legendary political machine of John C. Kehoe and the beginning of more than 20 years in the mayor’s office for Robert A. Loftus.
This Friday was the setting for political theater unprecedented and unsurpassed
It was the day John F. Kennedy campaigned in Pittston. Pennsylvania was very important and the northeast counties were vital. Vice President Richard Nixon, the Republican hopeful to succeed the military hero Dwight Eisenhower in the White House, was by no means a weak opponent. And there was the Catholic issue — no member of this faith had ever been elected president.
Kennedy’s 19-hour campaign day started with a rally in Allentown, followed with a motorcade that would not end until nearly midnight at the Avoca Airport. In towns like Bethlehem, where 50,000 saw him, Pottsville, and others, the crowds were far in excess of anyone’s expectation. Arriving two hours late in Hazleton, Broad Street was jammed with over 10,000, the largest crowd since the town’s football team returned victorious from a state championship in 1938. Interstate 81 had not yet been built. The motorcade worked its way up Route 309 into Sugar Notch, Nanticoke, Plymouth and northward. By mid-afternoon, the sheer magnitude and enthusiasm of the throngs was already a news item on national radio.
At Public Square in Wilkes-Barre, an audience made up of seniors who had seen F.D.R. whistle stop in the region, along with high school students and factory workers, sang and cheered as they awaited the Democratic idol. The 2 p.m. rally to greet Kennedy was near the three-hours-late mark as 4:30 approached. Mayor Frank Slattery entertained the estimated 30,000 on hand. A musical show with the Stegmaier Gold Medal Band and the ILGWU chorus was quickly improvised. Min Matheson, a Garment Workers’ Union organizer and political activist, had brought 32,000 song sheets along for the event. Enthusiasm for Kennedy was so strong that Misericordia College officials decided to close the school for the afternoon. The college girls were going to Public Square for an unforgettable history class. When the candidate finally reached the podium, it took nearly 10 minutes for County Democratic Chairman Dr. John Dorris to settle the crowds so the program could begin. The screaming never seemed to stop.
The later the motorcade ran, the greater the crowds. Through Kingston, Forty Fort, Exeter and the west side, heavy Republican registration did not seem to effect the thousands who stood in the dark along Wyoming Avenue. Riding with Kennedy in the convertible’s rear seat were two of the greatest political powerhouses of their day, Governor Dave Lawrence and Congressman Dan Flood, a Kennedy friend from earlier days in the House. Around politics for decades, they had never seen anything like it. In front was another Democratic power, Senator Martin L. Murray. The day not nearly over, State Police in Wilkes-Barre told the Times Leader the outpouring for JFK already exceeded that for FDR and Harry S. Truman.
By 7:30, the Kennedy entourage was over two hours late before crossing the Water Street Bridge into Pittston. No one went home. The rally frenzy grew wilder when the St. John’s High School band marched down Broad Street, through the masses, to reach the West Pittston stadium for the big game. Student conductor Gerard A. Hines could not keep the line of march straight. It was becoming a circus.
Motorcycle sirens and a long trail of flashing red lights on the darkened Water St. Bridge were the first sign that the moment was at hand. The sudden silence of the crowd only dramatized what was coming, until the new white 1960 Ford convertible edged off the bridge on to Water Street. The surge was too much. All of us at the bridge’s end lurched for the car; a few of us climbing the sides. Shaking John F. Kennedy’s hand — unbelievable! His cuff links were gone. His left hand was bleeding, as I grabbed the right for a precious few seconds I would never forget. An elderly woman lost her shoes, which became crushed under Kennedy’s car. The State Police were visibly worried. In those days, presidential candidates had no Secret Service protection. The car was barely moving at 5 mph, and soon it was totally blocked. The sleeve of Kennedy’s top coat was being ripped off until a state trooper pushed a screaming student off the car. A petrified Flood and Lawrence served as props holding the Senator upright, as it was becoming impossible to stand. The clock on the old Liberty Bank that night showed that it took over 20 minutes for the car to move about 300 feet from the bridge to the intersection of Water and Main. Television and movie studio news crews lit the corner in a scene reminiscent of the great political movie “The Last Hurrah.”
“It’s like this guy is some kind of messiah …,”Governor Lawrence told newsmen.
The journey through the Junction, Duryea, Old Forge and on to west Scranton was more of the same. The Scranton Times would write the next day that over 20,000 turned out in the westside section alone even though the main event was over in central city. The route on Lackawanna Avenue to the Hotel Casey was virtually impassable. At the Casey, the news cameras caught a first, a presidential candidate stymied by forceful crowds so strong that he had to climb over a car roof, onto the shoulders of two policemen to the hotel lobby. The 17-mile trip from Wilkes-Barre to Scranton had taken over two-and-a-half hours. A quick change at the Casey was followed by a rally at Watres Armory. It began three hours late, with 16,000 in attendance and a police-estimated throng of 22,000 on the outside. Kennedy’s speech was supposed to last 10 minutes, with the noise, it ran nearly 30.
As the motorcade ended at the Avoca Airport, the day’s turnout drew at least two prominent predictions of the Kennedy victory ahead . Traveling JFK press secretary Pierre Salinger told newsmen the entire day’s enthusiasm was greater than the traditional garment district rally in New York the previous afternoon. Governor Lawrence asked newsmen to challenge his observation that over 500,000 people had seen Kennedy that day. None did!
If with the passage of time and the natural inclination to dramatize events, the unreal political events of Oct. 28 seem exaggerated, one might turn to the Associated Press archives for the following January, prior to the inauguration. AP reporters who had covered the Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns were asked to select two events in each party’s schedule which seemed the most momentous or significant. One AP Democratic choice was Kennedy’s historic September address to Mormons at the Tabernacle in Salt Lake City when he dealt anti-Catholicism a near fatal blow. The other was the sheer hysterical force of the throngs Oct. 28 in Pittston.
Credits: The Pittston Sunday Dispatch, The Scranton Times, The Sunday Independent, The Times Leader, The Wilkes-Barre Record, The New York Times, The Osterhout Free Library.