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' It is a very real pleasu for me to have this Opportunity of
ing with you the pride of achievement which these graduates,
ir parents and friends feel, rightfully feel this evening. It has
been my privilege to be present at many such events, and I have never
done so without sensing the significagce of the mowent, without a
realization that a turning point is reached in the lives of young men
Lnd women who, in a few short years, may have determined not only the
hoourses of their own lives, but may also have left footprints on the
sands of time which others may follow for better or for worse. '
I hepe, of course, to be able to say something this evening of .
>such value that you will reflect upon it after I am gone, but after an.
Eexperience in a court room the other day my confidence in my ability
to do that is a little shaken.
Joke about Mandy and two pompous lawyers.
\ However, I'm not going to let that discourage me--Jdke about negro
ball game--51 to O. .
Something less than 200 years ago there lived in Virginia i young
man who, at the time he cemes to cur attention this evening, was about.
your age. As a youth he was obsessed with an idea which he carried
with him thrOugh life, and engraved its substance on a ring in this
form "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God."
A few years later, when he was but 22 years of age, he stood as a
visitor in the House of Burgesses in Virginia and heard his idea
expressed in impoassioned form by Patrick Henry. when he was 24 he
returned to the House of Burgesses as a member, and many times expressed
in some form or other the substance of his idea. Somehow he grasped
long before his more mature associates the concept that the essence of
evmnt is the attemp he goal; the the essence of liberty
not freedom, but resistanc to restraint on freedom.
Sent to the Continental Congress while still young enough to have
peOple refer to him as a precocious boy, he made his devotion to
's idea so clear and respected that he was chosen chairman of a
cmmdttee composed of Ben Franklin, Robert Livingston, John Adams and
vthers to draft the Declaration of Indpendence. So he framed in
Lurnished form his revolutionary idea: HE HOLD THESE TRUTHS To BE SELF-
lVIDENT: THAT ALL KEN ARE CREATED EQUAL: THAT THEY ARE ENDOHED BY THEIR
tEATOR WITH CERTAIN UNALIENABLE RIGHTS: THAT AMONG THESE ARE LIFE, '
.IBBRTY AND THE PURSUIT 0F HAPPINESS.
s
\
The things that I want to call to your attention are not the
evolutionary overtones of that message, but the fact that it contains
at a single one of the criteria that we Americans usually use to Judge
uccess; that the basic ideal upon which our society and economy and
overnmsnt is founded has not one word to say about wealth} nor power,
or fame, nor achievement in a material sense of any form.
Many, many years before that another young man had an ideal an idea
0
hat peeple ought to live the truth. He held that wealth was not a
5
reatly to be desired; he refused to let the people form themselves into
n army to fight for him; he went to the cross, let nails be driven into
is hands and feet, and hung there until He died, simply because He
alt that it was more important to live by one's principles, and to die
y them, than it was to achieve any of the types of success of which you
nd I commonly think.
And that's the message which I want to bring to you tonight, as you
tep from the classrooms which have been your world, into the world
hich must from henceforth be your classroom.
ce a great many young men, some
f f t
' I! bacon only a few
them no older than some of you, gave up their very lives in the
suit of an ideal. No one can claim riches, or power or fame for
, for they rest for the most part in lonely graves in strange lands.
wish I could draw for you tonight, for those of you who have not seen
it, a picture of rows upon rows of white crosses. Imagine, if you can,
an island so small you can stand anywhere on it and see blue water in
every direction. An island, so small, so infertile, so desolate that
of itself it is completely worthless; so small that you can see, from
anywhere you stand, a plot of ground covered with those rows of crosses,
and in the background an American flag fluttering in the Pacific breeze.
They never knew the success for which they strove, but I know that every
American within the sound of my voice is proud of the lives they lived,
the battle they fought, and the efforts that they made. .
Always keep in mind, my young friends, that it doesn't matter at
yall if you never achieve the material goal for which youqgt out from
this day forward; it only matters that you always hold fast to the best
that is in you, and always strive to do the best you know how. .It_is
only important that you are able to say, at the end of your span of
life, that you have fought the good fight, you have finished the course,
you have kept the faith. In such case it will matter not that you have
none of the usual concomittants of success; you will have in your heart
a peace which it is beyond the power of success to give.
The World stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide
Above the world is stretched the sky
No higher than the soul is high
I 'The can push the ee land
Farther away on either hand
The soul can split the sky in two
and let the face of God shine through.
PAGE 1
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PAGE 2
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PAGE 3
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PAGE 4
SThe u a push the eaV 1-nd Farther away on either hand The Beul can split the sky in teo and let the face of Gd hite thrOgh.
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