They’re still talking today — pro and con — about Senator John F. Kennedy’s brief stop and talk in Butler Saturday afternoon.

The Democratic presidential candidate, who is only the second seeker of the nation’s highest office ever to speak in this city, put his political philosophy on the line to a crowd estimated at approximately 8,000 persons.

“I believe if we are to retain our strength, our freedom and our prestige, we have to do better (than the GOP has done in the past eight years), and that’s the issue of this campaign,” declared the Massachusetts senator.

On the other hand, Kennedy said he believes the Republican administration, during the past few years, has failed to put the United States in a position “to present an image of a nation moving ahead.”

Hits Nixon

He declared that Vice President Richard M. Nixon, GOP presidential candidate, has a record of public action that is so changeable and contradictory “that his political philosophy defies definition.”

Telling the packed crowd in front of the Butler County Courthouse that here is no “personal controversy between Vice President Nixon and myself,” the Democratic nominee said there are two different views. He said Nixon is dwelling on reassurance, indicative of a “never-had-it-so-good” attitude, while he thinks we are not growing fast enough.

Economic Growth

“Unless we can stimulate our economic growth, we will not move ahead,” declared Kennedy earlier in his speech, after talking about Pennsylvania job losses in steel and coal industries because of automation.

“Automation has been a problem to every citizen in Pennsylvania,” Kennedy said, adding that the Keystone state has “not really recovered from the recession of 1958.”