Ask not what your father can do for you…

…just go ahead and ask him for a raise.

As America marks the 50th anniversary of JFK’s inauguration — and that timeless address he delivered that day — the note below is, well, of note.

It’s 10-year-old Jack Kennedy’s plea for a raise in his allowance.  You can find a copy of the original over at the Letters of Note website.

Take a look at how a future president charted his own New Frontier, as he shares his thoughts in economics:

A Plea for a raise
By Jack Kennedy

Dedicated to my
Mr. J. P. Kennedy

Chapter I

My recent allowance is 40¢. This I used for areoplanes and other playthings of childhood but now I am a scout and I put away my childish things. Before I would spend 20¢ of my ¢.40 allowance and in five minutes I would have empty pockets and nothing to gain and 20¢ to lose. When I a a scout I have to buy canteens, haversacks, blankets, searchlidgs, poncho things that will last for years and I can always use it while I can’t use a cholcalote marshmellow sunday with vanilla ice cream and so I put in my plea for a raise of thirty cents for me to buy scout things and pay my own way more around.

Finis

John Fitzgerald Francis Kennedy