Irving Berlin was born as Israel Baline in Russia in 1888. In 1893, Mr. Baline relocated his eight children and wife to New York City. Irving's father died when he was eight and the entire family went to work, in order to support each other. Irving became a newspaper boy and received a small amount of extra money from passers-by that enjoyed his singing on the paper route. On his first day as a newspaper boy, Irving found himself captivated by a large ship leaving for China. He was so enthralled by the sight that he was not aware of a swinging crane. The crane knocked the oblivious boy into the water. He was fished out of the water and, despite the frightening experience, he was still clinging tight to the five pennies in his hand from that day's wages.
Eventually, Irving joined a group of nomad singers. The young group of boys visited the saloons and sang to the customers with the hope that a few pennies would be tossed their way. At the age of eighteen, he received a job as a singer waiter at the Pelham Cafe in Chinatown. The boy made up spoofs of popular songs to amuse the customers. In his free time, he attempted to teach himself how to play the piano. He also made an effort at songwriting with the restaurant's regular piano player. Around this time, he began to use the pseudonym Irving Berlin because it was easier for people to remember. One night at a saloon Berlin sang "Yankee Doodle Boy." At the end of his performance, the entire joint burst into applause at the Jewish immigrant that was showing his pride of being American.
In 1908, when he was twenty, Irving found a job in the Union Square neighborhood at a saloon. At that job, he was able to work in partnership with other songwriters including Ted Snyder, George A. Whiting, and Edgar Leslie. In 1909, he received a job as a staff lyricist with the Ted Snyder company.
Irving's first hit song was entitled "Alexander's Ragtime Band". It was, at first, a failure. It was performed a number of times as an instrumental and the audiences didn't respond to it. However, when Irving added lyrics to the song, it was played in another Broadway Review and Variety news weekly declared it "the musical sensation of the decade." "Alexander's Ragtime Band" gave new life to ragtime music and inspired a national dance fad.
Berlin wrote songs that appealed to the average American. He used uncomplicated, simple, and direct lyrics. He also wrote songs out of his own sadness. For example, he wrote the ballad "When I Lost You" about his wife that died of typhoid fever. By 1918 Irving had written hundreds of songs and was producing a few new hits each week!
He was drafted into the army in 1917, at the start of World War I. The army employed Berlin to write patriotic songs. While at Camp Upton in New York he wrote the musical "Yip Yip Yaphank" that paid tribute to the United States Army. The show was on Broadway by the following summer and Berlin himself even performed in it!
In 1921, after the war, Berlin, in partnership with Sam Harris, built the Music Box Theater.
Berlin had many, many hits throughout the years including, "Blue Skies", "Puttin' on the Ritz", and "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm", but his biggest hit was "God Bless America." The title was a phrase taken from his mother. In 1938, Katie Smith's manager asked Berlin if he had any patriotic songs that Katie could sing to mark the 20th Anniversary of Armistice Day. The great song became like a second national anthem, especially with the onset of World War II.
Berlin wrote many patriotic songs during World War II, just like he had during the first World War. He wrote another stage show called "This is the Army." It was shown in Broadway and Washington D.C. and later on military bases throughout the world. He gave all profits to the Army Emergency Relief Fund. In 1943, the play was adapted into a movie, starring Ronald Reagan and Joan Leslie.
After the show, he returned home in need of rest but instead took on writing the music and lyrics for the show "Annie Get Your Gun."
Berlin produced a few more shows after this and then retired from songwriting a few years later. He definitely had great love for this country!
Clara Barton, also known as the Angel of the Battlefield, was born on Christmas day in 1821, in Oxford Massachusetts. Her father was a farmer and her mother, a stay-at-home mom. Clara was the youngest of five siblings, all of whom helped with her education. When she was eleven, Clara's brother David fell from a rafter of the family's unfinished barn. He became her first patient. She stayed by his side for quite some time and even administered him his medicines.
At age seventeen, Clara became a teacher. Six years later, she founded her own school. After ten years of teaching Clara began to feel restless and wanted to change the course of her career. She attended the Liberal Institute in New York where she turned her focus to writing and languages. A year later, she accepted a teaching position in New Jersey. Soon after that she opened a free school in Bordentown, New Jersey. Under Barton's guidance the attendance grew to six hundred students, but instead of being offered the job as head of the school, the board appointed a man. Aggravated, she left New Jersey and found a job as a clerk in the U.S. Patent Office in Washington D.C. At the onset of the Civil War Barton recalled her father's final advice to her, before he died, to serve her country with all she had. She began to work as a volunteer, gathering supplies for the soldiers.
In 1862, despite previous refusals, Barton was granted permission to deliver supplies directly to the front lines and to help the wounded. She eventually earned herself the nickname "The Angel of the Battlefield." She was given the rank of superintendent of Union nurses in 1864. Subsequent to the war, President Lincoln bestowed on her the ability to begin a letter writing operation to search for missing soldiers through the Office of Correspondence.
In 1869, Barton, under orders of her doctor, traveled to Europe for rest. There, she learned of the Red Cross, as sketched out in the Treaty of Geneva which twelve nations had signed, but the United States had not. The treaty provided relief for sick and wounded soldiers. She was further educated about the treaty while traveling with volunteers in the Franco-Prussian War. Upon her return to the U.S., Barton began a crusade to get the U.S. to sign the treaty. She also developed the idea of the Red Cross to include providing relief for any great national disaster. The United States signed the Geneva Agreement in 1882. Clara Barton was the president of the American National Red Cross for twenty-two years. Under her leadership, the Red Cross's work included helping out victims and workers in the floods of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers in 1882 and 1884, the Texas famine of 1886, the Florida yellow fever epidemic in 1887, an earthquake in Illinois in 1888, and the 1889 Johnstown, Pennsylvania disaster/flood. The first time the Red Cross assisted in wartime was during the Spanish-American War in 1898. She retired as President of the Red Cross at the age of eighty-three and died in 1912, at the age of ninety. Her wartime heroics are certainly not forgotten, though.
The Battle of Gettysburg, fought in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, is considered the Civil War's turning point. This battle claimed the largest number of casualties of the war. The battle began on July 1, 1863. The Confederates heavily attacked the hastily put-together Union lines. The Union lines crumbled and retreated through the streets of Gettysburg. On the second day, the majority of both armies had gathered. The Union troops were arranged in a defensive formation shaped like a fishhook. Robert E. Lee, the Confederate general, instigated heavy attacks on the Union's left flank and intense fighting ensued at Little Round Top, the Wheatfield, Devil's Den, and the Peach Orchard. On the Union's right flank there were attacks on Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill. All across the battleground the Union defenders held their lines, regardless of considerable losses. On July 3rd, the third day of battle, fighting continued on Culp's Hill and cavalry battles commenced to the east and south. The pinnacle of the battle, however, was a charge by 12,500 Confederates against the midpoint of the Union line on Cemetery Ridge. This assault is now known as Pickett's Charge. The charge was fended off by Union artillery and rifle fire, resulting in great losses on the Confederate side. General Lee directed his troops to retreat back to Virginia. All together, approximately 50,000 American lives were lost during the three-day battle. That November, President Lincoln delivered an empowering speech- the Gettysburg Address, honoring the fallen, at the dedication ceremony for the Gettysburg National Cemetery.
It would benefit us all (some more than others, of course) to reflect on the words of General Douglas MacArthur in his speech to the cadets at the U.S. Military Academy on May 12, 1962. He was there to accept the Sylvanus Thayer Award. The speech has become known as his "Duty, Honor, Country" address. Please take the time to read it in its entirety. You can also listen to an excerpt of his address at the bottom.
General Westmoreland, General Grove, distinguished guests, and gentlemen of the Corps!
As I was leaving the hotel this morning, a doorman asked me, "Where are you bound for, General?" And when I replied, "West Point," he remarked, "Beautiful place. Have you ever been there before?"
No human being could fail to be deeply moved by such a tribute as this [Thayer Award]. Coming from a profession I have served so long, and a people I have loved so well, it fills me with an emotion I cannot express. But this award is not intended primarily to honor a personality, but to symbolize a great moral code -- the code of conduct and chivalry of those who guard this beloved land of culture and ancient descent. That is the animation of this medallion. For all eyes and for all time, it is an expression of the ethics of the American soldier. That I should be integrated in this way with so noble an ideal arouses a sense of pride and yet of humility which will be with me always
Duty, Honor, Country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying points: to build courage when courage seems to fail; to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith; to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.
Unhappily, I possess neither that eloquence of diction, that poetry of imagination, nor that brilliance of metaphor to tell you all that they mean.
The unbelievers will say they are but words, but a slogan, but a flamboyant phrase. Every pedant, every demagogue, every cynic, every hypocrite, every troublemaker, and I am sorry to say, some others of an entirely different character, will try to downgrade them even to the extent of mockery and ridicule.
But these are some of the things they do. They build your basic character. They mold you for your future roles as the custodians of the nation's defense. They make you strong enough to know when you are weak, and brave enough to face yourself when you are afraid. They teach you to be proud and unbending in honest failure, but humble and gentle in success; not to substitute words for actions, not to seek the path of comfort, but to face the stress and spur of difficulty and challenge; to learn to stand up in the storm but to have compassion on those who fall; to master yourself before you seek to master others; to have a heart that is clean, a goal that is high; to learn to laugh, yet never forget how to weep; to reach into the future yet never neglect the past; to be serious yet never to take yourself too seriously; to be modest so that you will remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength. They give you a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a freshness of the deep springs of life, a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of an appetite for adventure over love of ease. They create in your heart the sense of wonder, the unfailing hope of what next, and the joy and inspiration of life. They teach you in this way to be an officer and a gentleman.
And what sort of soldiers are those you are to lead? Are they reliable? Are they brave? Are they capable of victory? Their story is known to all of you. It is the story of the American man-at-arms. My estimate of him was formed on the battlefield many, many years ago, and has never changed. I regarded him then as I regard him now -- as one of the world's noblest figures, not only as one of the finest military characters, but also as one of the most stainless. His name and fame are the birthright of every American citizen. In his youth and strength, his love and loyalty, he gave all that mortality can give.
He needs no eulogy from me or from any other man. He has written his own history and written it in red on his enemy's breast. But when I think of his patience under adversity, of his courage under fire, and of his modesty in victory, I am filled with an emotion of admiration I cannot put into words. He belongs to history as furnishing one of the greatest examples of successful patriotism. He belongs to posterity as the instructor of future generations in the principles of liberty and freedom. He belongs to the present, to us, by his virtues and by his achievements. In 20 campaigns, on a hundred battlefields, around a thousand campfires, I have witnessed that enduring fortitude, that patriotic self-abnegation, and that invincible determination which have carved his statue in the hearts of his people. From one end of the world to the other he has drained deep the chalice of courage.
As I listened to those songs [of the glee club], in memory's eye I could see those staggering columns of the First World War, bending under soggy packs, on many a weary march from dripping dusk to drizzling dawn, slogging ankle-deep through the mire of shell-shocked roads, to form grimly for the attack, blue-lipped, covered with sludge and mud, chilled by the wind and rain, driving home to their objective, and for many, to the judgment seat of God.
I do not know the dignity of their birth, but I do know the glory of their death. They died unquestioning, uncomplaining, with faith in their hearts, and on their lips the hope that we would go on to victory. Always, for them:Duty, Honor, Country; always their blood and sweat and tears, as we sought the way and the light and the truth.
And 20 years after, on the other side of the globe, again the filth of murky foxholes, the stench of ghostly trenches, the slime of dripping dugouts; those boiling suns of relentless heat, those torrential rains of devastating storms; the loneliness and utter desolation of jungle trails; the bitterness of long separation from those they loved and cherished; the deadly pestilence of tropical disease; the horror of stricken areas of war; their resolute and determined defense, their swift and sure attack, their indomitable purpose, their complete and decisive victory -- always victory. Always through the bloody haze of their last reverberating shot, the vision of gaunt, ghastly men reverently following your password of: Duty, Honor, Country.
The code which those words perpetuate embraces the highest moral laws and will stand the test of any ethics or philosophies ever promulgated for the uplift of mankind. Its requirements are for the things that are right, and its restraints are from the things that are wrong.
The soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training -- sacrifice.
In battle and in the face of danger and death, he discloses those divine attributes which his Maker gave when he created man in his own image. No physical courage and no brute instinct can take the place of the Divine help which alone can sustain him.
However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country is the noblest development of mankind.
You now face a new world -- a world of change. The thrust into outer space of the satellite, spheres, and missiles mark the beginning of another epoch in the long story of mankind. In the five or more billions of years the scientists tell us it has taken to form the earth, in the three or more billion years of development of the human race, there has never been a more abrupt or staggering evolution. We deal now not with things of this world alone, but with the illimitable distances and as yet unfathomed mysteries of the universe. We are reaching out for a new and boundless frontier.
We speak in strange terms: of harnessing the cosmic energy; of making winds and tides work for us; of creating unheard synthetic materials to supplement or even replace our old standard basics; to purify sea water for our drink; of mining ocean floors for new fields of wealth and food; of disease preventatives to expand life into the hundreds of years; of controlling the weather for a more equitable distribution of heat and cold, of rain and shine; of space ships to the moon; of the primary target in war, no longer limited to the armed forces of an enemy, but instead to include his civil populations; of ultimate conflict between a united human race and the sinister forces of some other planetary galaxy; of such dreams and fantasies as to make life the most exciting of all time.
And through all this welter of change and development, your mission remains fixed, determined, inviolable: it is to win our wars.
Everything else in your professional career is but corollary to this vital dedication. All other public purposes, all other public projects, all other public needs, great or small, will find others for their accomplishment. But you are the ones who are trained to fight. Yours is the profession of arms, the will to win, the sure knowledge that in war there is no substitute for victory; that if you lose, the nation will be destroyed; that the very obsession of your public service must be: Duty, Honor, Country.
Others will debate the controversial issues, national and international, which divide men's minds; but serene, calm, aloof, you stand as the Nation's war-guardian, as its lifeguard from the raging tides of international conflict, as its gladiator in the arena of battle. For a century and a half you have defended, guarded, and protected its hallowed traditions of liberty and freedom, of right and justice.
Let civilian voices argue the merits or demerits of our processes of government; whether our strength is being sapped by deficit financing, indulged in too long, by federal paternalism grown too mighty, by power groups grown too arrogant, by politics grown too corrupt, by crime grown too rampant, by morals grown too low, by taxes grown too high, by extremists grown too violent; whether our personal liberties are as thorough and complete as they should be. These great national problems are not for your professional participation or military solution. Your guidepost stands out like a ten-fold beacon in the night: Duty, Honor, Country.
You are the leaven which binds together the entire fabric of our national system of defense. From your ranks come the great captains who hold the nation's destiny in their hands the moment the war tocsin sounds. The Long Gray Line has never failed us. Were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray, would rise from their white crosses thundering those magic words: Duty, Honor, Country.
This does not mean that you are war mongers.
On the contrary, the soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.
But always in our ears ring the ominous words of Plato, that wisest of all philosophers: "Only the dead have seen the end of war."
The shadows are lengthening for me. The twilight is here. My days of old have vanished, tone and tint. They have gone glimmering through the dreams of things that were. Their memory is one of wondrous beauty, watered by tears, and coaxed and caressed by the smiles of yesterday. I listen vainly, but with thirsty ears, for the witching melody of faint bugles blowing reveille, of far drums beating the long roll. In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield.
But in the evening of my memory, always I come back to West Point.
Always there echoes and re-echoes: Duty, Honor, Country.
Today marks my final roll call with you, but I want you to know that when I cross the river my last conscious thoughts will be of The Corps, and The Corps, and The Corps.
Considered the inventor of the detective-fiction genre and best known for his stories of mystery and macabre, Edgar Poe (later Edgar Allan Poe) was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1809. He was orphaned as a young boy and taken under the wing of John and Frances Allan, though they never formally adopted him. Poe attended the University of Virginia for a semester but did not finish his education there due to the expense of it. In 1827, Poe enlisted in the Army so he could support himself. About two years later, he ended his five-year enlistment early, in order to attend the United States Military Academy at West Point. In 1831, after being disowned by John Allan, Poe decided to leave the Academy by purposely getting court-martialed. He moved to New York and published a book of poems, paid for partly by his fellow cadets at the Academy. He began to make more earnest efforts at making a living as a writer, but that was very difficult, especially during that time in America. There was not an international copyright law, which allowed publishers to pirate British works, instead of paying Americans for new work. Poe often had to resort to begging to supplement his meager income. Eventually, he turned to writing prose. Poe was recognized for a few of his stories and landed a job as assistant editor of the Southern Literary Messenger journal in Richmond. He later became the assistant editor of Burton's Gentlemen's Magazine. He published many reviews, articles, and stories, widening his reputation. After about a year working for Burton's Gentlemen's Magazine, he found work as assistant at Graham's Magazine. He worked for other journals and magazines and eventually ended up at the Evening Mirror, in New York, where he published his poem "The Raven." He became instantly popular for this poem, but received only a small payment for its publication. Poe died a few years later on October 7, 1849. The cause of his death remains a mystery, though many speculations have been made. He had planned to publish his own journal, The Penn (later called The Stylus), but it was not produced before his death. Though he struggled as a writer in his lifetime, Poe's works have become very influential to American literature and many of his works appear in literature, music, films, and television today.
Here is his poem, The Raven:
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore-- While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. "'Tis some visiter," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door-- Only this and nothing more."
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow;--vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow--sorrow for the lost Lenore-- For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore-- Nameless here for evermore.
And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me--filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating "'Tis some visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door-- Some late visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door; This it is and nothing more."
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer, "Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore; But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure I heard you"--here I opened wide the door-- Darkness there and nothing more.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?" This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!"-- Merely this and nothing more.
Back into the chamber turning, all my sour within me burning, Soon again I heard a tapping something louder than before. "Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice; Let me see, then, what thereat is and this mystery explore-- Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;-- 'Tis the wind and nothing more.
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore. Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he, But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door-- Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door-- Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
Then the ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, "Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven, Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore-- Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, Though its answer little meaning--little relevancy bore; For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door-- Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door, With such name as "Nevermore."
But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only That one word, as if its soul in that one word he did outpour Nothing farther then he uttered; not a feather then he fluttered-- Till I scarcely more than muttered: "Other friends have flown before-- On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before." Then the bird said "Nevermore."
Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, "Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store, Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore-- Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore Of 'Never--nevermore.'"
But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling, Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door; Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore-- What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore Meant in croaking "Nevermore."
This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core; This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er, But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er She shall press, ah, nevermore!
Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor. "Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee--by these angels he hath sent thee Respite--respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore! Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or devil!-- Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted-- On this home by Horror haunted--tell me truly, I implore-- Is there--is there balm in Gilead?--tell me--tell me, I implore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or devil! By that Heaven that bends above us--by that God we both adore-- Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore-- Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore." Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting-- "Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore! Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul has spoken! Leave my loneliness unbroken!--quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadows on the floor; And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted--nevermore!
The women's marathon was first introduced at the 1984 summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California. Joan Benoit Samuelson was the first gold medalist of this event. Born in Cape Elizabeth, Maine in 1957, Joan's first sports passion was skiing. Her father who was an army skier during World War II instilled this passion in her, and taught her the sport. In her sophomore year of high school, however, Joan broke her leg on the slopes. When recovering from her injury, she began running. She soon realized that she took as much pleasure in running as in skiing. Joan attended Bowdoin College, where she played field hockey and continued to run. One day she showed up to field hockey practice sore from a long run the day before. Her coach made her sit out for the remainder of the season, so Joan quit the team and started running full time. As a senior in college, she entered the Boston Marathon. Despite it being only her second marathon, she won the women's division and set an American record. Out of college, she worked as the coach for the women's track and cross country teams at Boston College. She also continued to train herself, totaling one hundred miles a week. She was determined to be in peak form for the Olympics. However, seventeen days before the Olympic trials, Joan underwent knee surgery. Fortunately, she recovered quickly and won the qualifying race to obtain a spot on the American team. On August 5th, Joan was the last runner to parade into the stadium, seeing that the teams were arranged in height order and she was the shortest. There was a total of fifty women, from twenty-eight different countries, in the race. The runners departed from Santa Monica College and made their way through the humid, twenty-six mile course in Los Angeles. About fourteen minutes into the race, Joan, deciding the pace was too slow, took the lead and continued to widen her lead throughout the rest of the race. At the nineteen-mile mark, her lead had extended to two minutes. She entered the Los Angeles Coliseum, greeted by the roar of 77,000 fans. She finished the marathon with a time of 2:24:52. It was the third fastest women's marathon time and a time that would have won thirteen of the twenty previous men's Olympic marathons. She instantly became an idol to all women runners and inspired many other women to run. Even after retiring from competitive running, she continues to make her presence known in the running world. She has written books, opened a running clinic, coached many teams, and founded a road race.
Mary Cassatt, born in Pennsylvania in 1844, was an American painter and printmaker who often portrayed the bonds between child and mother in her paintings. She was born into a wealthy family and was able to travel to many different countries in Europe. In Europe, Cassatt first took drawing lessons. She was also exposed to French painting. At the age of fifteen, Mary began studying painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, despite her family's objections. She was not pleased with the teaching at the Academy, so she began to study the old masters on her own. In 1866, once she convinced her father, Cassatt moved to Paris. She was accepted to study with Jean-Leon Gerome, a well-known and revered teacher. She took lessons from Charles Chaplin, a noted genre artist, towards the end of 1866. Cassatt returned to the U.S. in the summer of 1870. Her father still did not support her decision to make a living as an artist, so, for some time, she gave up painting. She traveled to Chicago in search of employment, but lost most of her paintings in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Her work did catch the eye of the Archbishop of Pittsburgh and he requested that she paint two copies of paintings by Correggio in Parma, Italy. This work supplied her with enough money to travel back to Europe. She began to gain renown and to sell her work. In 1874, she decided to live in France. In 1877, Cassatt hit a low point; she was not selling any of her paintings and her works were rejected. At this time, Edgar Degas, who Cassatt highly regarded, invited her to show her works with the Impressionists. Cassatt eagerly accepted Degas' invitation and began preparing paintings for the next Impressionist show in 1878. Degas had a great impact on Cassatt's work. The two gained popularity and Cassatt was able to sell many of her paintings at the Impressionist shows. Eventually Cassatt's style changed and she moved away from impressionism. She entered many paintings in New York galleries. She also began to solely paint mother and child pictures, which she is now most famous for.
"Be courageous! Whatever setbacks America has encountered, it has always emerged as a stronger and more prosperous nation...." -Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison, born in Milan, Ohio in the year 1847, was an American inventor, scientist, and businessman. Edison was not the best student and was, according to his teacher, "addled." Because of this, he only attended school for three months and was then home-schooled by his mother. In 1854, the Edison family, consisting of seven children and Mr. and Mrs. Edison, moved to Port Huron, Michigan. In Port Huron Thomas sold candy, newspapers, and vegetables. It was at that time that Thomas discovered his aptitude as a businessman. This talent eventually led him to found fourteen companies, including General Electric. Later, Thomas worked as a telegraph operator. In his free time at work he was able to engage in his two favorite hobbies--- reading and experimenting. His experiments later cost him his job, when he spilled sulfuric acid on the floor and his boss's desk.
Thomas began his profession as an inventor in Newark, New Jersey. He first gained renown as an inventor in 1877 with the invention of the phonograph. This creation seemed so magical to people that Edison earned himself the nickname "The Wizard of Menlo Park" (the place in which he lived). His "magic" did not end at the phonograph. He also created the electric vote recorder, light bulb, quadruplex, sextuplex and multiplex telegraphs, electricity distribution system, the first industrial research lab, motion picture camera, and many more wonderful inventions. Edison holds 1,093 U.S. patents in his name! He has truly contributed to the advancement of the United States and the world.
Above: Top- The original sketch by Charles Thomson/ Middle- Seal's Reverse Side/ Bottom- Front of the Great Seal
On July 4th, 1776 the decision to adopt a national seal was made. The original purpose of a national seal was simply to mark our supremacy. It, however, became a reflection of our beliefs and ideals. Three committees, fourteen men, and six years later, our seal was born. The final design was mainly inspired by the sketch done by Congressional Secretary Charles Thomson. It was adopted by Congress on June 20, 1782.
How do we interpret the many symbols on this Great Seal?
The bald eagle is a symbol of independence and liberty.
The thirteen arrows in the eagle's left talon represent the vigilance of our military.
The olive branch in the right talon signifies peace.
The shield and arrows and the olive branch together represent our idea of preserving our freedom, through the strength of our military--- or peace, through strength.
The number thirteen, seen throughout, denotes the unity of the original thirteen states.
The seal's reverse sidedepicts a incomplete pyramid, consisting of thirteen levels. According to the artist, Charles Thomson, the "pyramid signifies Strength and Duration... The date underneath is that of the Declaration of Independence (1776) and the words under it (novus ordo seclorum) signify the beginning of the new American Era, which commences from that date."
The pyramid's incompletion shows that America was incomplete; more states would be added to our nation and liberty for more people would be created.
The "new American Era" describes a new age where freedom was honored over oppression, self-determination over dependency on the govenment, and virtue over power.
Above the pyramid is a great eye, with the Latin phrase "annuit coeptis", which translates to "God approves." It signified God's divine providence, which lead to the founding of this great nation. The representatives in Congress wanted to represent, on the Great Seal, the presence of a higher power to which individuals, politics, and states are accountable. As Ronald Reagan said, "If we ever forget that we are One Nation, Under God, then we will be a nation gone under."
The Great Seal, seen on passports, military insignia, the one-dollar bill, and other official government documents, is a reminder of the essence of this great nation, founded in favor of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Ronald Reagan's A Time for Choosing speech, also known as The Speech, was delivered in 1964 in support of Republican Barry Goldwater's candidacy. Although its purpose was to endorse Goldwater, this speech laid the groundwork for Reagan's political career. Though the speech wasn't enough to convince the American people to vote for Goldwater, it stuck with them and later, perhaps, contributed to Ronald Reagan's victories and the "Reagan Revolution." We could use a man (or woman) like Ronald Reagan again! Take a few minutes and read the speech in its entirety. You'll probably find yourself saying "uh huh" throughout.
Here is the speech:
Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you and good evening. The sponsor has been identified, but unlike most television programs, the performer hasn't been provided with a script. As a matter of fact, I have been permitted to choose my own words and discuss my own ideas regarding the choice that we face in the next few weeks.
I have spent most of my life as a Democrat. I recently have seen fit to follow another course. I believe that the issues confronting us cross party lines. Now, one side in this campaign has been telling us that the issues of this election are the maintenance of peace and prosperity. The line has been used, "We've never had it so good."
But I have an uncomfortable feeling that this prosperity isn't something on which we can base our hopes for the future. No nation in history has ever survived a tax burden that reached a third of its national income. Today, 37 cents out of every dollar earned in this country is the tax collector's share, and yet our government continues to spend 17 million dollars a day more than the government takes in. We haven't balanced our budget 28 out of the last 34 years. We've raised our debt limit three times in the last twelve months, and now our national debt is one and a half times bigger than all the combined debts of all the nations of the world. We have 15 billion dollars in gold in our treasury; we don't own an ounce. Foreign dollar claims are 27.3 billion dollars. And we've just had announced that the dollar of 1939 will now purchase 45 cents in its total value.
As for the peace that we would preserve, I wonder who among us would like to approach the wife or mother whose husband or son has died in South Vietnam and ask them if they think this is a peace that should be maintained indefinitely. Do they mean peace, or do they mean we just want to be left in peace? There can be no real peace while one American is dying some place in the world for the rest of us. We're at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it's been said if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening. Well I think it's time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers.
Not too long ago, two friends of mine were talking to a Cuban refugee, a businessman who had escaped from Castro, and in the midst of his story one of my friends turned to the other and said, "We don't know how lucky we are." And the Cuban stopped and said, "How lucky you are? I had someplace to escape to." And in that sentence he told us the entire story. If we lose freedom here, there's no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth.
And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except the sovereign people, is still the newest and the most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man.
This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the Americanrevolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.
You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well I'd like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There's only an up or down—[up] man's old—old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.
In this vote-harvesting time, they use terms like the "Great Society," or as we were told a few days ago by the President, we must accept a greater government activity in the affairs of the people. But they've been a little more explicit in the past and among themselves; and all of the things I now will quote have appeared in print. These are not Republican accusations. For example, they have voices that say, "The cold war will end through our acceptance of a not undemocratic socialism." Another voice says, "The profit motive has become outmoded. It must be replaced by the incentives of the welfare state." Or, "Our traditional system of individual freedom is incapable of solving the complex problems of the 20th century." Senator Fullbright has said at StanfordUniversity that the Constitution is outmoded. He referred to the President as "our moral teacher and our leader," and he says he is "hobbled in his task by the restrictions of power imposed on him by this antiquated document." He must "be freed," so that he "can do for us" what he knows "is best." And Senator Clark of Pennsylvania, another articulate spokesman, defines liberalism as "meeting the material needs of the masses through the full power of centralized government."
Well, I, for one, resent it when a representative of the people refers to you and me, the free men and women of this country, as "the masses." This is a term we haven't applied to ourselves in America. But beyond that, "the full power of centralized government"—this was the very thing the Founding Fathers sought to minimize. They knew that governments don't control things. A government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they know when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. They also knew, those Founding Fathers, that outside of its legitimate functions, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector of the economy.
Now, we have no better example of this than government's involvement in the farm economy over the last 30 years. Since 1955, the cost of this program has nearly doubled. One-fourth of farming in America is responsible for 85 percent of the farm surplus. Three-fourths of farming is out on the free market and has known a 21 percent increase in the per capita consumption of all its produce. You see, that one-fourth of farming—that's regulated and controlled by the federal government. In the last three years we've spent 43 dollars in the feed grain program for every dollar bushel of corn we don't grow.
Senator Humphrey last week charged that Barry Goldwater, as President, would seek to eliminate farmers. He should do his homework a little better, because he'll find out that we've had a decline of 5 million in the farm population under these government programs. He'll also find that the Democratic administration has sought to get from Congress [an] extension of the farm program to include that three-fourths that is now free. He'll find that they've also asked for the right to imprison farmers who wouldn't keep books as prescribed by the federal government. The Secretary of Agriculture asked for the right to seize farms through condemnation and resell them to other individuals. And contained in that same program was a provision that would have allowed the federal government to remove 2 million farmers from the soil.
At the same time, there's been an increase in the Department of Agriculture employees. There's now one for every 30 farms in theUnited States, and still they can't tell us how 66 shiploads of grain headed for Austria disappeared without a trace and Billie Sol Estes never left shore.
Every responsible farmer and farm organization has repeatedly asked the government to free the farm economy, but how—who are farmers to know what's best for them? The wheat farmers voted against a wheat program. The government passed it anyway. Now the price of bread goes up; the price of wheat to the farmer goes down.
Meanwhile, back in the city, under urban renewal the assault on freedom carries on. Private property rights [are] so diluted that public interest is almost anything a few government planners decide it should be. In a program that takes from the needy and gives to the greedy, we see such spectacles as in Cleveland, Ohio, a million-and-a-half-dollar building completed only three years ago must be destroyed to make way for what government officials call a "more compatible use of the land." The President tells us he's now going to start building public housing units in the thousands, where heretofore we've only built them in the hundreds. But FHA [Federal Housing Authority] and the Veterans Administration tell us they have 120,000 housing units they've taken back through mortgage foreclosure. For three decades, we've sought to solve the problems of unemployment through government planning, and the more the plans fail, the more the planners plan. The latest is the Area Redevelopment Agency.
They've just declared Rice County, Kansas, a depressed area. Rice County, Kansas, has two hundred oil wells, and the 14,000 people there have over 30 million dollars on deposit in personal savings in their banks. And when the government tells you you're depressed, lie down and be depressed.
We have so many people who can't see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one. So they're going to solve all the problems of human misery through government and government planning. Well, now, if government planning and welfare had the answer—and they've had almost 30 years of it—shouldn't we expect government to read the score to us once in a while? Shouldn't they be telling us about the decline each year in the number of people needing help? The reduction in the need for public housing?
But the reverse is true. Each year the need grows greater; the program grows greater. We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry each night. Well that was probably true. They were all on a diet. But now we're told that 9.3 million families in this country are poverty-stricken on the basis of earning less than 3,000 dollars a year. Welfare spending [is] 10 times greater than in the dark depths of the Depression. We're spending 45 billion dollars on welfare. Now do a little arithmetic, and you'll find that if we divided the 45 billion dollars up equally among those 9 million poor families, we'd be able to give each family 4,600 dollars a year. And this added to their present income should eliminate poverty. Direct aid to the poor, however, is only running only about 600 dollars per family. It would seem that someplace there must be some overhead.
Now—so now we declare "war on poverty," or "You, too, can be a Bobby Baker." Now do they honestly expect us to believe that if we add 1 billion dollars to the 45 billion we're spending, one more program to the 30-odd we have—and remember, this new program doesn't replace any, it just duplicates existing programs—do they believe that poverty is suddenly going to disappear by magic? Well, in all fairness I should explain there is one part of the new program that isn't duplicated. This is the youth feature. We're now going to solve the dropout problem, juvenile delinquency, by reinstituting something like the old CCC camps [Civilian Conservation Corps], and we're going to put our young people in these camps. But again we do some arithmetic, and we find that we're going to spend each year just on room and board for each young person we help 4,700 dollars a year. We can send them to Harvard for 2,700! Course, don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting Harvard is the answer to juvenile delinquency.
But seriously, what are we doing to those we seek to help? Not too long ago, a judge called me here in Los Angeles. He told me of a young woman who'd come before him for a divorce. She had six children, was pregnant with her seventh. Under his questioning, she revealed her husband was a laborer earning 250 dollars a month. She wanted a divorce to get an 80 dollar raise. She's eligible for 330 dollars a month in the Aid to Dependent Children Program. She got the idea from two women in her neighborhood who'd already done that very thing.
Yet anytime you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we're denounced as being against their humanitarian goals. They say we're always "against" things—we're never "for" anything.
Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.
Now—we're for a provision that destitution should not follow unemployment by reason of old age, and to that end we've accepted Social Security as a step toward meeting the problem.
But we're against those entrusted with this program when they practice deception regarding its fiscal shortcomings, when they charge that any criticism of the program means that we want to end payments to those people who depend on them for a livelihood. They've called it "insurance" to us in a hundred million pieces of literature. But then they appeared before the Supreme Court and they testified it was a welfare program. They only use the term "insurance" to sell it to the people. And they said Social Security dues are a tax for the general use of the government, and the government has used that tax. There is no fund, because Robert Byers, the actuarial head, appeared before a congressional committee and admitted that Social Security as of this moment is 298 billion dollars in the hole. But he said there should be no cause for worry because as long as they have the power to tax, they could always take away from the people whatever they needed to bail them out of trouble. And they're doing just that.
A young man, 21 years of age, working at an average salary—his Social Security contribution would, in the open market, buy him an insurance policy that would guarantee 220 dollars a month at age 65. The government promises 127. He could live it up until he's 31 and then take out a policy that would pay more than Social Security. Now are we so lacking in business sense that we can't put this program on a sound basis, so that people who do require those payments will find they can get them when they're due—that the cupboard isn't bare?
Barry Goldwater thinks we can.
At the same time, can't we introduce voluntary features that would permit a citizen who can do better on his own to be excused upon presentation of evidence that he had made provision for the non-earning years? Should we not allow a widow with children to work, and not lose the benefits supposedly paid for by her deceased husband? Shouldn't you and I be allowed to declare who our beneficiaries will be under this program, which we cannot do? I think we're for telling our senior citizens that no one in this country should be denied medical care because of a lack of funds. But I think we're against forcing all citizens, regardless of need, into a compulsory government program, especially when we have such examples, as was announced last week, when France admitted that their Medicare program is now bankrupt. They've come to the end of the road.
In addition, was Barry Goldwater so irresponsible when he suggested that our government give up its program of deliberate, planned inflation, so that when you do get your Social Security pension, a dollar will buy a dollar's worth, and not 45 cents worth?
I think we're for an international organization, where the nations of the world can seek peace. But I think we're against subordinating American interests to an organization that has become so structurally unsound that today you can muster a two-thirds vote on the floor of the General Assembly among nations that represent less than 10 percent of the world's population. I think we're against the hypocrisy of assailing our allies because here and there they cling to a colony, while we engage in a conspiracy of silence and never open our mouths about the millions of people enslaved in the Soviet colonies in the satellite nations.
I think we're for aiding our allies by sharing of our material blessings with those nations which share in our fundamental beliefs, but we're against doling out money government to government, creating bureaucracy, if not socialism, all over the world. We set out to help 19 countries. We're helping 107. We've spent 146 billion dollars. With that money, we bought a 2 million dollar yacht for HaileSelassie. We bought dress suits for Greek undertakers, extra wives for Kenya[n] government officials. We bought a thousand TV sets for a place where they have no electricity. In the last six years, 52 nations have bought 7 billion dollars worth of our gold, and all 52 are receiving foreign aid from this country.
No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. So governments' programs, once launched, never disappear.
Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth.
Federal employees—federal employees number two and a half million; and federal, state, and local, one out of six of the nation's work force employed by government. These proliferating bureaus with their thousands of regulations have cost us many of our constitutional safeguards. How many of us realize that today federal agents can invade a man's property without a warrant? They can impose a fine without a formal hearing, let alone a trial by jury? And they can seize and sell his property at auction to enforce the payment of that fine. In Chico County, Arkansas, James Wier over-planted his rice allotment. The government obtained a 17,000 dollar judgment. And a U.S. marshal sold his 960-acre farm at auction. The government said it was necessary as a warning to others to make the system work.
Last February 19th at the University of Minnesota, Norman Thomas, six-times candidate for President on the Socialist Party ticket, said, "If Barry Goldwater became President, he would stop the advance of socialism in the United States." I think that's exactly what he will do.
But as a former Democrat, I can tell you Norman Thomas isn't the only man who has drawn this parallel to socialism with the present administration, because back in 1936, Mr. Democrat himself, Al Smith, the great American, came before the American people and charged that the leadership of his Party was taking the Party of Jefferson, Jackson, and Cleveland down the road under the banners of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin. And he walked away from his Party, and he never returned til the day he died—because to this day, the leadership of that Party has been taking that Party, that honorable Party, down the road in the image of the labor Socialist Party of England.
Now it doesn't require expropriation or confiscation of private property or business to impose socialism on a people. What does it mean whether you hold the deed to the—or the title to your business or property if the government holds the power of life and death over that business or property? And such machinery already exists. The government can find some charge to bring against any concern it chooses to prosecute. Every businessman has his own tale of harassment. Somewhere a perversion has taken place. Our natural, unalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation of government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.
Our Democratic opponents seem unwilling to debate these issues. They want to make you and I believe that this is a contest between two men—that we're to choose just between two personalities.
Well what of this man that they would destroy—and in destroying, they would destroy that which he represents, the ideas that you and I hold dear? Is he the brash and shallow and trigger-happy man they say he is? Well I've been privileged to know him "when." I knew him long before he ever dreamed of trying for high office, and I can tell you personally I've never known a man in my life I believed so incapable of doing a dishonest or dishonorable thing.
This is a man who, in his own business before he entered politics, instituted a profit-sharing plan before unions had ever thought of it. He put in health and medical insurance for all his employees. He took 50 percent of the profits before taxes and set up a retirement program, a pension plan for all his employees. He sent monthly checks for life to an employee who was ill and couldn't work. He provides nursing care for the children of mothers who work in the stores. When Mexico was ravaged by the floods in theRio Grande, he climbed in his airplane and flew medicine and supplies down there.
An ex-GI told me how he met him. It was the week before Christmas during the Korean War, and he was at the Los Angeles airport trying to get a ride home to Arizona for Christmas. And he said that [there were] a lot of servicemen there and no seats available on the planes. And then a voice came over the loudspeaker and said, "Any men in uniform wanting a ride to Arizona, go to runway such-and-such," and they went down there, and there was a fellow named Barry Goldwater sitting in his plane. Every day in those weeks before Christmas, all day long, he'd load up the plane, fly it to Arizona, fly them to their homes, fly back over to get another load.
During the hectic split-second timing of a campaign, this is a man who took time out to sit beside an old friend who was dying of cancer. His campaign managers were understandably impatient, but he said, "There aren't many left who care what happens to her. I'd like her to know I care." This is a man who said to his 19-year-old son, "There is no foundation like the rock of honesty and fairness, and when you begin to build your life on that rock, with the cement of the faith in God that you have, then you have a real start." This is not a man who could carelessly send other people's sons to war. And that is the issue of this campaign that makes all the other problems I've discussed academic, unless we realize we're in a war that must be won.
Those who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us they have a utopian solution of peace without victory. They call their policy "accommodation." And they say if we'll only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he'll forget his evil ways and learn to love us. All who oppose them are indicted as warmongers. They say we offer simple answers to complex problems. Well, perhaps there is a simple answer—not an easy answer—but simple: If you and I have the courage to tell our elected officials that we want our national policy based on what we know in our hearts is morally right.
We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human beings now enslaved behind the Iron Curtain, "Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skins, we're willing to make a deal with your slave masters." Alexander Hamilton said, "A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one." Now let's set the record straight. There's no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there's only one guaranteed way you can have peace—and you can have it in the next second—surrender.
Admittedly, there's a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face—that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand—the ultimatum. And what then—when Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we're retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the final ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary, because by that time we will have been weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he's heard voices pleading for "peace at any price" or "better Red than dead," or as one commentator put it, he'd rather "live on his knees than die on his feet." And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don't speak for the rest of us.
You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin—just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children ofIsrael to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at ConcordBridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard 'round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well it's a simple answer after all.
You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." "There is a point beyond which they must not advance." And this—this is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said, "The destiny of man is not measured by material computations. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we're spirits—not animals." And he said, "There's something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty."
You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.
We'll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we'll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.
We will keep in mind and remember that Barry Goldwater has faith in us. He has faith that you and I have the ability and the dignity and the right to make our own decisions and determine our own destiny.
Thank you very much.
And here is an video excerpt from the thirty minute speech:
