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Editor’s Note: This article has been condensed down from the original article published in the Cedr County News on April 24, 1968. The complete article can be found at https://hartington. newspapers.com
HARTINGTON — Sen. Robert F. Kennedy drew an estimated 4,000 people to Hartington on Saturday as the Democratic presidential hopeful toured northeast Nebraska promising fairer farm prices, economic justice and an end to violence and despair dividing the nation.
Kennedy arrived about 5:20 p.m. in an open convertible, smiling and shaking hands as the Wynot High School marching band led his motorcade through downtown streets packed with onlookers. The Hartington High concert band played as he reached the public school campus, where he delivered a nearly hour-long campaign speech before touring the Neu Cheese Plant and departing for Norfolk to catch a flight back to Washington.
The New York senator had spent the day barnstorming the region, speaking earlier in Norfolk and Wayne and making an unscheduled stop in Laurel, where townspeople presented him a commemorative plate for the community’s 75th anniversary. Hartington drew the day’s largest crowd, topping Norfolk’s turnout of about 1,000 and Wayne’s estimated 3,000.
W.E. Rossiter, president of the Bank of Hartington and regional chairman of Kennedy’s Nebraska campaign, introduced the candidate as a “hardworking New Yorker” reaching out to rural voters. Rossiter told the crowd Kennedy was exploring “one of the deepest frustrations in the United States” by visiting farming communities that often feel powerless to influence national policy.
Kennedy responded with a mixture of humor and policy. He charmed the crowd by pointing out local ties — his sister Kathleen had married Lord Hartington in England, he said, and one of his daughters was named Kathleen Hartington Kennedy. “If anybody here votes for anyone else, it shows real ingratitude,” he joked to laughter and cheers. He also teased that his family’s heavy consumption of milk and pork at the breakfast table made him “the best friend Nebraska farmers ever had.”
But Kennedy quickly turned serious, saying farmers have been “the backbone of the United States” yet left behind economically. Net farm income, he said, had dropped nearly 50 percent since the 1940s, while farmers earned only about 60 percent of what industrial workers made. He promised to fight for stronger price supports, higher parity payments, lower interest rates on farm loans and the right for producers to bargain collectively for better prices.
He argued that rural America needed more than emergency relief — it needed long-term opportunity so young people could afford to stay on the land. “We can find people decent employment and honorable work so families can raise their children with dignity and hope,” he said. Kennedy tied farm prosperity to the broader economy, warning that “we cannot go on driving thousands and thousands more of our young farmers from their farms.”
Kennedy also spoke forcefully about unrest in American cities.
The recent riots in Washington, D.C., and other communities, he said, were “a matter of concern for us as American citizens” but should not be accepted as inevitable.
He called for equal opportunity, jobs and education for Black Americans and others long shut out of economic progress, while insisting the nation reject “violence and lawlessness” as a solution. “We need a change,” he said. “We must make it absolutely clear that we are not going to tolerate this kind of riot and injustice.”
Foreign policy drew pointed remarks. Kennedy criticized the Vietnam War’s growing U.S. role, saying South Vietnam must shoulder its own defense. “I don’t think American boys should be fighting and dying while the South Vietnamese fail to get into the army,” he said, to loud applause. He pledged to redirect billions spent on the war toward strengthening the U.S. economy and helping struggling families at home.
Kennedy framed his campaign as a call to rebuild hope in a country that feels shut out of decisionmaking.
He said many Americans believe government is distant and unresponsive, and he promised to open doors to ordinary citizens. He also vowed to support farmers with stronger safety nets and to expand food programs so “no child in America is hungry.” He said the United States should secure overseas markets for its crops but first ensure Americans have enough to eat.
Rossiter told the crowd Kennedy’s visit was historic for rural Nebraska. Mayor-elect Adolph Heimes presented Kennedy with Hartington Diamond Jubilee dinner plates for his family and offered to complete a full set if Kennedy returned as president. Kennedy laughed, embraced Heimes and said he would be proud to come back.
Kennedy closed on a hopeful note that drew sustained cheers. Quoting from his campaign launch, he said he wanted the United States to “stand for hope, for reconciliation and for new policies.” Then he offered the line that has become a hallmark of his run: “Some people see things as they are and ask, ‘Why?’ I see things that have never been and ask, ‘Why not?’”
