A. Robert Francis Kennedy’s Biography
1. The Kennedy Family
Robert Francis Kennedy’s grandfather, Patrick Kennedy, was the first Kennedy who came to the New World. At the age of 25, he decided to go to the
United States from his village in Dugganstown, New Ross, County Wexford, Ireland, following the Great Famine in 1840s which attacked his homeland in
Ireland. The disaster of failed potato crops was so immense that encouraged the young Kennedy to emigrate rather than to continue his family tradition as farmer.
The emigration was a common thing for people in Ireland as the result of the famine, among other causes. They tried to trace better fortune by fleeing to
Britain or America. The Irish were the first group of impoverished Europeans to leave their
homeland in the nineteenth century. The Irish Poor Law of 1838, the enclosure movement, on the land, and finally the Great Famine at the
end of 1840s, when blight ravaged the potato crops and brought untold misery and starvation to millions, combined to increase emigrati
on.” Dinnerstein and Reimers, 1983: 21
With hundreds of other Irish immigrants, in 1849 Patrick Kennedy arrived in Boston harbor, Massachusetts. Boston was a city that had already
settled and was dominated by the riches and the elites. Immigrants were detested, especially those who came from Ireland. Their numbers were vast, but their
powers were only in their bodies, not in their mind and knowledge. Therefore, at
the time Irish immigrants were considered worthless, especially in the East Boston, a ruthless area for immigrants.
Beside their vast numbers, Irish’s Catholicism also became the consideration for them to be degraded, because the religion existed in the middle
of vast Protestant groups. These two causes made the majority group in the region, who belonged to the White, Anglo Saxon, and Protestant community,
discriminated Irish immigrants. As the result, most of Irish people came to Boston worked only as harbor labors and other severe jobs in the cultivations. Only a
small numbers of the immigrants could acquire good life in the era. They were mostly country folk, small farmers, cottagers and farm
laborers. Yet they congregated mainly in the cities along the Eastern seaboard, for they did not have the money to travel after reaching shore.
Few could read or write; some spoke only Gaelic. The Irish were the first to endure the scorn and discrimination later to be inflicted, to some
degree at least, on each successive wave of immigrants by already
settled “Americans.” In speech and dress they seemed foreign; they were poor and unskilled; and they were arriving in overwhelming numbers.
The Irish are perhaps the only people in our history with the distinction of having a political party, the Know-Nothings, formed against them.
Their religion was later also the target of the American Protective Association, and in this century, the Ku Klux Klan. Kennedy, 1964: 40
The common thing had also happened to Patrick Kennedy. For almost his entire life, Patrick Kennedy could not afford fortune for himself, his wife,
Bridget Murphy whom he married with, and his four children. He was only a tin maker who worked full time but earned only a little income. It was his son,
Patrick Joseph Kennedy, who made the chance came to the family. Patrick Joseph
Kennedy opened successful saloons and run liquor business. As he was able to make enough fortune, his status climbed up as part of middle class society. His
wealth, combined with his influence in East Boston, also made him confident to represent his area in politics, joining local Democratic Party.
Political by nature, he found that politics came naturally to him. In 1884 he had been elected to the Democratic Club of Ward Two…. In 1886,
the year that children of Irish immigrants first outnumbered those of the native born in Boston, P.J Patrick Joseph and his allies took control of
Democratic Committee of Ward Two and he was elected to the State Senate. Collier and Horowitz, 1984: 14
Patrick Joseph Kennedy’s son, Joseph Patrick Kennedy continued his father’s charge as the family hope. His talent in collecting money had been seen
since he was child and he sustained it as he grown up. Joseph Patrick was a tough man. When he was enrolled in Harvard, he felt the intense competition between
him and his American fellows. As son of saloonkeeper and, even worse, grandson of one of the famine Irish, Joe Kennedy should have found university life
difficult. However, he emerged thinking he was as good as anyone else and he set out to complete the journey to America his grandfather had begun half a century
earlier Collier and Horowitz, 1984: 25-27. In sustaining his ability in business, Joseph Patrick Kennedy and his
family moved to New York, where power and racial amount was not as intense as in Boston. Eventually, he succeeded in raising his and his family name through
fortunes and authority.
Not yet fifty years old, Joe Kennedy had already gone through several careers, always moving forward, pushing toward the center of things,
grasping for more. He had been an operator on Wall Street, a self-made man who accumulated one of the largest private fortunes of the twenties.
He had gone to Hollywood and become one of the first tycoons, making movies and engineering some of the mergers that transformed the film
world from a colony into an industry. He had entered politics and become one of the most controversial personalities of the New Deal, a
power in the Democratic Party and a friend of the President. Collier and Horowitz, 1984: 3
Joseph Patrick would later have nine children, who one of them was Robert Francis Kennedy. Although these kids came from a wealthy family with
huge assets collected by their father, Kennedy children could not just enjoy it wastefully. Joseph Kennedy educated his children hard and in disciplinal
atmosphere. Encouraged by his family background as minority, he was so ambitious in proving that he could obtain successfulness above majority group.
He handed over his ambition to his children. He taught each of them to be competitive and never accept the second place.
The ambition of Joseph Kennedy was also delivered through politics. Continuing his father’s political view, he joined Democratic Party. He supported
the candidacy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt as US President in three successive periods. For his role, he expected to be awarded one position in the cabinet, but it
never happened. After several low office appointments, in 1937 Joe Kennedy Sr. was selected to be the ambassador for Great Britain. Nonetheless, “this
appointment was considered as a mistake that his isolationism and vocal
skepticism about England’s ability to continue the war against Germany made him enormously unpopular abroad and at home” Seymour, 1998: 45.
The failure of his national political career did not destroy Joe Kennedy and his ambition of making the first Catholic President of the United States. He
followed up his thought to his children, especially to his sons. He thought that “great things were expected of the Kennedy sons, and the means were provided:
1-million trust funds, entrance to the Ivy League, and later, leverage to see that they held government positions” http:www.answers.comtopicrobert-f-
kennedy. It was Joseph Patrick Kennedy Jr. who became the first heir of his father’s objective, but he died when he was the officer on charge in World War II.
Soon the second son, John F. Kennedy, maintained the succession of the ambition. JFK finally made his father’s dream into real that in 1961 he was
inaugurated as the 35
th
President of the United States. By this inauguration, Joe Kennedy Sr.’s ambition was close to complete that Kennedys became the major
Irish-descendant family in the United States who successfully upheld its existence from a minor group. His two youngest sons, Robert Francis Kennedy and Edward
Moore Kennedy were also involved in politics and held important positions in government. Joe Kennedy played a significant role as financier and campaign
conductor for he recognized himself as his children’s biggest liability http:www.pbs.orgwgbhamexarchivestheme_bios_01.html
.
Joe Kennedy’s goal, encouraged by his background as a person belonged to the minority group, gave significant inf
luence toward his sons’ ideals in politics. To some extent, this influenced ideal became the basic vision of Joe
Kennedy Sr.’s kids, including Robert Kennedy, during their political career.
2. Robert Francis Kennedy’s Early Life
Kategori