Nation: Hit the Road, Jack

In at least one way, John F. Kennedy had the country moving again. And the result was sore feet.

The President had offered his challenge to the Marine Corps: match the Marines of 1908 by marching 50 miles in 20 hours, according to the terms of an old Teddy Roosevelt order. The Marines responded. And so, it seemed, did everyone else who could muster up the same kind of spirit it took to swallow gold fish, raid for panties or whirl a hula hoop.

Just to Loosen Up. At Camp Lejeune, N.C., the 34 marines designated officially by Commandant David Shoup to uphold the honor of the corps, took the 50 miles in stride. Led by Brigadier General Rathvon McClure Tompkins, 50, who still limps from an old shrapnel wound, all finished within the time limit, carrying 24-lb. combat packs. Tompkins finished ninth. Bachelor Lieut. Donald Bernath trotted in first—in 11 hr. 44 min.—just in time to keep a date with his best girl. At Great Lakes Naval Training Center, a contingent of marines managed to finish 53 miles, took exactly 20 hours to do it.

Predictably it was Bobby Kennedy, the Administration’s touch-football quarterback, who took the field in defense of the New Frontier’s own honor. Rousting four Justice Department aides out of bed to accompany him, the Attorney General and three dogs set out at 5 a.m. along the towpath of the old Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. Where the path was not slick with ice, it was gooey with mud, but Bobby’s scuffed Cordovan oxfords never faltered.

On he walked toward Harpers Ferry. Come on, beckoned Bobby, let’s run a bit ”just to loosen up.” By the 35-mile mark, all four aides had dropped out. but Bobby completed the 50 miles alone in a respectable 17 hr. 50 min. And next morning he rose at 7:30, made it to 9 o’clock mass and then went ice skating with his children.

Like Stuffing a Booth. Across the country, the fad of fatigue took hold. Boy Scouts loved it, though their adult leaders seldom kept up. College fraternities took to it with the same gusto with which they once stuffed telephone booths. In California 400 Marin County high school students set out, and 97 finished—including 16-year-old Diana Congdon, who covets a place among lady discus throwers in the 1964 Olympics and who walked the 50 miles in 13 hr. 29 min., toting an 8-lb. knapsack filled with a diminishing supply of candy, oranges and fresh clothes. In Burlington, N.C., a 58-year-old postman (who rides a motor scooter on his route) walked the 50 miles in 10 hr. 28 min.. boasted he could cut two hours off that time. Newspapers scrambling for a “bright feature” put their most athletic reporters on the road, though few finished 50 miles. One—the San Francisco Chronicle’s Bob Robertson—managed 50 miles around the city’s famed Scenic Drive, which the Chronicle thought should be renamed “Robertson’s Track.”

Plucky, Not Stupid. But not everyone was ready to tumble from his easy chair and into his hiking boots. A California radio announcer shunned the forced marches, made plans instead for a “restathon,” vowing he would attempt 20 nonstop hours in the sack. Even psychiatrists got into the act. In San Francisco one shrugged that the hikers were merely seeking “ego boosters.” “The one who does it can look down contemptuously on the one who can’t,” said he, looking down even more contemptuously.

In Washington even the New Frontier was beginning to back away from the fad it had fielded. The President’s own Fitness Council warned of the dangers to the unaccustomed—perhaps even a heart attack. That was enough for portly Pierre Salinger, who had promised he would carry the Administration’s banner in a do-or-die walkathon with newsmen. Salinger canceled the hike, explaining: “My shape is not good. While this fact may have been apparent to others for some time, its full significance was pressed upon me as a result of a six-mile hike last Sunday. I have done little walking since then, except to go from my office to the White House dispensary.” Pleaded Pierre: “I may be plucky, but I am not stupid.”