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The world's first statue of John F. Kennedy --- on Lysle Boulevard, Downtown --- marks the spot where the nation's 35th president gave a rousing campaign speech in 1962.

Audio of that speech is now available online at the website of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.

Kennedy visited Western Pennsylvania on Oct. 12-13, 1962 while on a campaign swing for Democratic candidates, including U.S. Rep. Elmer Holland of Pittsburgh's South Side and former Philadelphia Mayor Richardson Dilworth, who was then running for governor.

The audio of his speech in McKeesport is part of a vast trove of digitized materials unveiled last week by Kennedy's daughter, Caroline, president of the JFK Library Foundation, and David S. Ferriero, Archivist of the United States.

The portions of the Kennedy archive digitized so far include approximately 200,000 pages of documents, 300 reels of audio tape and 1,500 photos. Alert Reader Adam Spate last week tipped off the Almanac that Kennedy's remarks in McKeesport are among the artifacts now available online.

. . .

Kennedy's speech in McKeesport was seen by more than 25,000 who thronged Lysle Boulevard and Walnut Street for a chance to see the charismatic president, then just 45 years old. According to the tape recording at the Kennedy Library website, the address was a barn-burner in which Kennedy struck themes that still sound familiar nearly 50 years later.

Among other topics, the president expressed his frustration that Republicans and some Democrats in the closely divided Congress had blocked signature programs of his administration --- including a bill to provide universal health care, which was defeated by one vote in the Senate.

"I believe that this world will not be strong and free unless the United States is strong and free," Kennedy said, "and it cannot be strong and free unless the President and the Congress are committed to this kind of progress --- and it involves your welfare and the welfare of your children, and most especially those who come after us."

Afterward, the crush of the crowd to shake Kennedy's hand was so great that the wooden rail around the speaker's platform collapsed.

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According to newspaper accounts, Kennedy's visit to the area began on Friday, Oct. 12 at the former Greater Pittsburgh Airport and included a motorcade ride to Aliquippa, Beaver County, and then down Ohio River Boulevard to downtown Pittsburgh, where he stayed on the 16th floor of the William Penn Hotel, then known as the Penn-Sheraton.

That night, the motorcade headed to Oakland and the Field House at the University of Pittsburgh, where 8,500 heard Kennedy deliver a mostly extemporaneous attack on Republicans, accusing them of "blind, negative opposition" to his administration's programs.

The Post-Gazette reported that an estimated 300,000 people lined the motorcade route, while the Press reported that the president was "greeted more like a matinee idol than a chief executive."

Most of the people in the crowds were friendly, the Post-Gazette said, although "in such Republican strongholds as Sewickley, Ben Avon and Avalon ... the reception was different. In Sewickley, the motorcade was greeted with signs that read, 'Cuba-Berlin?' and 'We Like Ike.' In Ben Avon, one spectator held up a sign that read, 'Impeach Earl Warren.'"

. . .

Photos show Kennedy, accompanied by Dilworth and Pennsylvania Gov. David L. Lawrence, riding in an open four-door Lincoln Continental convertible. The limousine --- apparently the one built for First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy --- is similar to the one in which Kennedy would be assassinated one year later in Dallas, Texas.

Security was described as tight, with "more than 1,000 policemen of all kinds" swarming the motorcade route, according to the Pittsburgh Press.

"Everyone got into the act, including four county policemen on horseback and four members of the K-9 corps," wrote the Press' Robert Field.

"Expert marksmen were stationed on the rooftops of buildings rimming the hotel and Mellon Square. Plainclothesmen and uniformed officers were everywhere. They milled through the lobby of the hotel and through the crowd at the Field House. They lined the streets and guarded corners along the route of the presidential motorcade."

Kennedy's visit to McKeesport came the following day --- a Saturday --- at the beginning of a visit to industrial towns including Monessen and Washington, Pa.

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His McKeesport speech was delivered at 10:30 a.m. in what was then a parking lot at the corner of Lysle and Walnut, between the Municipal Building and the Daily News Building. An estimated 25,000 people thronged the city's Downtown, with some sleeping overnight.

Or at least they were trying to sleep --- a 19-year-old student from what was then called California State Teachers College told the Pittsburgh Press he had arrived Downtown at 5 p.m. the night before to get a spot close to the speakers' platform, and spent a restless night in his friend's car. Thomas O'Neil said his dinner had consisted of "five bottles of pop and two bags of pretzels," but that the chance to see Kennedy was worth the discomfort.

Mayor Andrew "Greeky" Jakomas introduced the speakers, including U.S. Senator Joe Clark and Lawrence, and until Kennedy's appearance the crowd was subdued and polite. Indeed, they "moaned" when Lawrence, whose term as governor was expiring at the end of the year, began to speak, and when Clark delivered a few remarks, the moans increased.

But when Kennedy approached the podium, "the crowd kept up a sustained roar of approval," according to the Pittsburgh Press' account the next day.

. . .

Not everyone was happy to see Kennedy, even in heavily Democratic and working-class McKeesport. According to the Press, a fight broke out in a Downtown beauty shop on Friday night.

"One woman made the remark that she had gone to Pittsburgh to see (Soviet premier) Khrushchev, but wouldn't walk two steps to see the President. This so incensed another patron that a hair-tugging brawl broke out."

The Press' tipster said, "I understand that the woman who made the remark needs a wig and not a permanent, now."

Dilworth's opponent, U.S. Rep. Bill Scranton, a Republican from the northeast part of the state, called Kennedy's visit a "sign of panic" by the Democratic party. Dilworth lost the gubernatorial election to Scranton, though Holland would be elected to Congress three more times, serving until his death in 1968.

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Little more than a year later, McKeesporters would join the rest of the world in mourning Kennedy's death. Three days after Kennedy was cut down by a sniper's bullets in Dallas, Jakomas announced plans to erect a statue of the late president on Lysle Boulevard. "The city doesn't have a statue of any kind right now," Jakomas said, "and I'd like this to be our first one."

English-born sculptor Bryant Baker was commissioned to design the monument, which became the focal point of today's Kennedy Park. Baker, who died in 1970, also designed statues of presidents Washington, Cleveland and Fillmore, as well as a statue of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Fulton, Mo., and a 27-foot-tall statue outside of the Pioneer Woman Museum in Ponca City, Okla.

Three of Baker's statues --- of U.S. Senators John M. Clayton, Caesar Rodney and William Borah --- stand in the National Statuary Hall at the United States Capitol.

The marble base of the Kennedy statue in McKeesport bears a simple inscription --- the president's dates of birth of death, his years in office, and the most famous line of his 1961 inaugural address: "Ask not what your country can do for you ask what you can do for your country."

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