John F. Kennedy Campaigns at Euclid Beach Park

Sunday, Sept. 25, 1960, was not the first time then John F. Kennedy would speak to an assembled crowd at the Cuyahoga County Democratic Steer Roast at Euclid Beach Park. In fact, it was the third occasion, but this time, the 43-year-old senator from Massachusetts was running for president.

“Warmed by the biggest and most enthusiastic crowd of his entire campaign for the presidency, Sen. John F. Kennedy took off the kid gloves yesterday in Cleveland and swung his stiffest direct punch at Vice President Richard M. Nixon, his Republican opponent,” Washington Bureau Chief Alvin Silver reported in the Monday, Sept. 26 edition of Cleveland’s The Plain Dealer.

The Democratic nominee made his way some 200 blocks from the Hollenden Hotel to Euclid Beach Park, according to the newspaper’s report. It noted an estimated crowd of between 200,000 to 250,000 people, “wide smiles reflecting their affection and happiness as they screamed, whistled, threw confetti and brandished homemade posters.”

The paper also noted that, “Police had a much more difficult time restraining the mammoth assemblage of an estimated additional 125,000 which jammed inside the spacious amusement park theoretically to hear the rumpled New Englander speak … but actually to try to shake the Democratic nominee’s hand, pat his shoulders and roar endorsement of his personality and arguments.”

During his speech, Kennedy stated he would serve as a successor to Democratic presidents Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman.

“I want to put the New Frontier alongside the New Deal and Fair Deal,” he said.

The senator also noted the importance of the Buckeye State in the upcoming presidential election, predicting that whichever candidate carried “the great industrial states” of Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York would win the election.

“Kennedy concluded by asserting that “the cause of all mankind in 1960 is the cause of America,” the newspaper reported.

While Kennedy would go on to win the 1960 election, becoming the 35^th president of the United States, it would be Nixon, not Kennedy, who would win Ohio. 

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