Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History

by Unknown

  During these hard days I have been comforted by Her Majesty my mother and by my family. The ministers of the crown and, in particular, Mr. Baldwin, the prime minister, have always treated me with full consideration. There has never been any constitutional difference between me and them, and between me and Parliament. Bred in the constitutional tradition by my father, I should never have allowed any such issue to arise.

  Ever since I was prince of Wales, and later on when I occupied the throne, I have been treated with the greatest kindness by all classes of the people wherever I have lived or journeyed throughout the empire. For that I am very grateful.

  I now quit altogether public affairs, and I lay down my burden. It may be some time before I return to my native land, but I shall always follow the fortunes of the British race and empire with profound interest, and if at any time in the future I can be found of service to His Majesty in a private station, I shall not fail.

  And now, we all have a new king. I wish him and you, his people, happiness and prosperity with all my heart. God bless you all! God save the king!

  Yankee Great Lou Gehrig Bids Farewell to Baseball

  “I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”

  On July 4, 1939, Lou Gehrig stood before a crowd of more than sixty thousand fans in Yankee Stadium to bid farewell to a game in which he’d become legendary. Within two years of that tearful speech, the baseball great was dead of a paralyzing disease that still bears his name.

  In spite of the fatal ailment, however, the “Iron Horse” heroically spoke in 1939 of his great fortune in teammates and family. As first baseman of the New York Yankees, Gehrig had played 2,130 consecutive games, a major-league record; with a career batting average of .340, he became known as the Pride of the Yankees.

  The emotion of his farewell speech wells up in this direct address to his fans, particularly in the repeated assertion of “Sure, I’m lucky.”

  ***

  FANS, FOR THE past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.

  Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn’t consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day?

  Sure, I’m lucky. Who wouldn’t consider it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert; also the builder of baseball’s greatest empire, Ed Barrow; to have spent six years with that wonderful little fellow Miller Huggins; then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology—the best manager in baseball today—Joe McCarthy!

  Sure, I’m lucky. When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift, that’s something! When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies, that’s something.

  When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles against her own daughter, that’s something. When you have a father and mother who work all their lives so that you can have an education and build your body, it’s a blessing! When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed, that’s the finest I know.

  So I close in saying that I might have had a tough break; but I have an awful lot to live for!

  General Douglas MacArthur Moves Congress with “Old Soldiers Never Die”

  “In war there can be no substitute for victory.”

  As a soldier, the man who had served in World War II as supreme commander of the Allied powers in the Far East, and later as commander of the UN forces in Korea, was aloof, magisterial, decisive, and brilliant; as a speaker, the man who transfixed a joint meeting of Congress after being fired for insubordination by Harry Truman was purposeful, serious, disingenuous about his nonpartisanship, and in the end devastatingly sentimental.

  The MacArthur style was usually unabashedly florid. After taking the Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri on September 2, 1945, he condemned war in these terms: “If we will not devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door. The problem basically is theological and involves a spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human character that will synchronize with our almost matchless advances… of the past two thousand years.” Only Douglas MacArthur would write and say a mouthfilling, unfamiliar word like “recrudescence” instead of “revival” (and, in fact, the sense of “breaking out afresh” is rooted in the return of a rash and is unsuited for association with spirituality). On another occasion, in his “duty, honor, country” address at West Point in 1962 (see p. 83), he showed himself to be the master of the high style of formal hortatory oratory.

  His “Old soldiers never die” speech, as it came to be known, is different: the tone is subdued, the cadences thoughtful. the vision strategic. Its voice is not martial but orderly, as arguments are marshaled: “With this brief insight into the surrounding areas, I now turn to the Korean conflict.” Though the April 19, 1951, speech about that war—called “conflict”—is remembered for its tear-jerking peroration, it reads decades later like a sober exposition of a view of warfare that holds up well against the ambiguities of Vietnam.

  I stand on this rostrum with a sense of deep humility and great pride—humility in the wake of those great American architects of our history who have stood here before me, pride in the reflection that this forum of legislative debate represents human liberty in the purest form yet devised.

  Here are centered the hopes and aspirations and faiths of the entire human race.

  I do not stand here as advocate for any partisan cause, for the issues are fundamental and reach quite beyond the realm of partisan consideration. They must be resolved on the highest plane of national interest if our course is to prove sound and our future protected.

  ***

  I TRUST, THEREFORE, that you will do me the justice of receiving that which I have to say as solely expressing the considered viewpoint of a fellow American.

  I address you with neither rancor nor bitterness in the fading twilight of life, with but one purpose in mind: to serve my country.

  The issues are global, and so interlocked that to consider the problems of one sector oblivious to those of another is but to court disaster for the whole. While Asia is commonly referred to as the gateway to Europe, it is no less true that Europe is the gateway to Asia, and the broad influence of the one cannot fail to have its impact upon the other. There are those who claim our strength is inadequate to protect on both fronts, that we cannot divide our effort. I can think of no greater expression of defeatism.

  If a potential enemy can divide his strength on two fronts, it is for us to counter his effort. The Communist threat is a global one. Its successful advance in one sector threatens the destruction of every other sector. You cannot appease or otherwise surrender to communism in Asia without simultaneously undermining our efforts to halt its advance in Europe.

  Beyond pointing out these general truisms, I shall confine my discussion to the general areas of Asia.

  Before one may objectively assess the situation now existing there, he must comprehend something of Asia’s past and the revolutionary changes which have marked her course up to the present. Long exploited by the so-called colonial powers, with little opportunity to achieve any degree of social justice, individual dignity, or a higher standard of life such as guided our own noble administration of the Philippines, the peoples of Asia found their opportunity in the war just past to throw off the shackles of colonialism and now see the dawn of new opportunity, and heretofore unfelt dignity, and the self-respect of political freedom.

  Mustering half of the earth’s population, and 60 percent of its natural resources, these peoples are rapidly consolidating a new force, both moral and material, with which to raise the living standard and erect adaptations of the design of modern progress to thei
r own distinct cultural environments.

  Whether one adheres to the concept of colonization or not, this is the direction of Asian progress and it may not be stopped. It is a corollary to the shift of the world economic frontiers as the whole epicenter of world affairs rotates back toward the area whence it started.

  In this situation, it becomes vital that our own country orient its policies in consonance with this basic evolutionary condition rather than pursue a course blind to the reality that the colonial era is now past and the Asian peoples covet the right to shape their own free destiny. What they seek now is friendly guidance, understanding, and support, not imperious direction; the dignity of equality, not the shame of subjugation.

  Their prewar standard of life, pitifully low, is infinitely lower now in the devastation left in war’s wake. World ideologies play little part in Asian thinking and are little understood.

  What the people strive for is the opportunity for a little more food in their stomachs, a little better clothing on their backs, a little firmer roof over their heads, and the realization of a normal nationalist urge for political freedom.

  These political-social conditions have but an indirect bearing upon our own national security, but do form a backdrop to contemporary planning which must be thoughtfully considered if we are to avoid the pitfalls of unrealism.

  Of more direct and immediate bearing upon our national security are the changes wrought in the strategic potential of the Pacific Ocean in the course of the past war.

  Prior thereto the western strategic frontier of the United States lay on the littoral line of the Americans, with an exposed island salient extending out through Hawaii, Midway, and Guam to the Philippines. That salient proved not an outpost of strength but an avenue of weakness along which the enemy could and did attack. The Pacific was a potential area of advance for any predatory force intent upon striking at the bordering land areas.

  All this was changed by our Pacific victory. Our strategic frontier then shifted to embrace the entire Pacific Ocean, which became a vast moat to protect us as long as we held it. Indeed, it acts as a protective shield for all of the Americas and all free lands of the Pacific Ocean area. We control it to the shores of Asia by a chain of islands extending in an arc from the Aleutians to the Marianas, held by us and our free allies.

  From this island chain we can dominate with sea and air power every Asiatic port from Vladivostok to Singapore—with sea and air power, every port, as I said, from Vladivostok to Singapore—and prevent any hostile movement into the Pacific.

  Any predatory attack from Asia must be an amphibious effort. No amphibious force can be successful without control of the sea lanes and the air over those lanes in its avenue of advance. With naval and air supremacy and modest ground elements to defend bases, any major attack from continental Asia toward us or our friends of the Pacific would be doomed to failure.

  Under such conditions, the Pacific no longer represents menacing avenues of approach for a prospective invader. It assumes, instead, the friendly aspect of a peaceful lake….

  The Japanese people since the war have undergone the greatest reformation recorded in modern history. With a commendable will, eagerness to learn, and marked capacity to understand, they have from the ashes left in war’s wake erected in Japan an edifice dedicated to the primacy of individual liberty and personal dignity, and in the ensuing process there has been created a truly representative government committed to the advance of political morality, freedom of economic enterprise, and social justice.

  Politically, economically, and socially Japan is now abreast of many free nations of the earth and will not again fail the universal trust. That it may be counted upon to wield a profoundly beneficial influence over the course of events in Asia is attested by the magnificent manner in which the Japanese people have met the recent challenge of war, unrest, and confusion surrounding them from the outside and checked communism within their own frontiers without the slightest slackening in their forward progress.

  I sent all four of our occupation divisions to the Korean battlefront without the slightest qualms as to the effect of the resulting power vacuum upon Japan. The results fully justified my faith….

  With this brief insight into the surrounding areas, I now turn to the Korean conflict.

  While I was not consulted prior to the president’s decision to intervene in support of the Republic of Korea, that decision, from a military standpoint, proved a sound one. As I say, a brief and sound one, as we hurled back the invader and decimated his forces. Our victory was complete, and our objectives within reach when Red China intervened with numerically superior ground forces.

  This created a new war and an entirely new situation, a situation not contemplated when our forces were committed against the North Korean invaders—a situation which called for new decisions in the diplomatic sphere to permit the realistic adjustment of military strategy. Such decisions have not been forthcoming.

  While no man in his right mind would advocate sending our ground forces into continental China, and such was never given a thought, the new situation did urgently demand a drastic revision of strategic planning if our political aim was to defeat this new enemy as we had defeated the old.

  Apart from the military need, as I saw it, to neutralize the sanctuary protection given the enemy north of the Yalu, I felt that military necessity in the conduct of the war made necessary (1) the intensification of our economic blockade against China; (2) the imposition of a naval blockade against the China coast; (3) removal of restrictions on air reconnaissance of China’s coastal areas and of Manchuria; (4) removal of restrictions on the forces of the Republic of China on Formosa, with logistical support to contribute to their effective operation against the Chinese mainland.

  For entertaining these views, all professionally designed to support our forces in Korea and to bring hostilities to an end with the least possible delay and at a saving of countless American and Allied lives, I have been severely criticized in lay circles, principally abroad, despite my understanding that from a military standpoint the above views have been fully shared in the past by practically every military leader concerned with the Korean campaign, including our own Joint Chiefs of Staff.

  I called for reinforcements. but was informed that reinforcements were not available. I made clear that if not permitted to destroy the enemy built-up bases north of the Yalu, if not permitted to utilize the friendly Chinese force of some 600,000 men on Formosa. if not permitted to blockade the China coast to prevent the Chinese Reds from getting succor from without, and if there were to be no hope of major reinforcements, the position of the command from the military standpoint forbade victory.

  We could hold in Korea by constant maneuver and at an approximate area where our supply-line advantages were in balance with the supply-line disadvantages of the enemy, but we could hope at best for only an indecisive campaign with its terrible and constant attrition upon our forces if the enemy utilized its full military potential.

  I have constantly called for the new political decisions essential to a solution.

  Efforts have been made to distort my position. It has been said in effect that I was a warmonger. Nothing could be further from the truth.

  I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me—nothing to me—is more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling international disputes….

  But once war is forced upon us, there is no other alternative than to apply every available means to bring it to a swift end. War’s very object is victory, not prolonged indecision.

  In war there can be no substitute for victory.

  There are some who for varying reasons would appease Red China. They are blind to history’s clear lesson, for history teaches with unmistakable emphasis that appeasement but begets new and bloodier war. It points to no single instance where the end has justified that means, w
here appeasement has led to more than a sham peace. Like blackmail, it lays the basis for new and successively greater demands until, as in blackmail, violence becomes the only other alternative. Why, my soldiers asked of me, surrender military advantages to an enemy in the field? I could not answer.

  Some may say to avoid spread of the conflict into an all-out war with China. Others, to avoid Soviet intervention. Neither explanation seems valid, for China is already engaging with the maximum power it can commit, and the Soviet will not necessarily mesh its actions with our moves. Like a cobra, any new enemy will more likely strike whenever it feels that the relativity in military or other potential is in its favor on a worldwide basis.

  The tragedy of Korea is further heightened by the fact that its military action is confined to its territorial limits. It condemns that nation, which it is our purpose to save, to suffer the devastating impact of full naval and air bombardment while the enemy’s sanctuaries are fully protected from such attack and devastation.

  Of the nations of the world Korea alone, up to now, is the sole one which has risked its all against communism. The magnificence of the courage and fortitude of the Korean people defies description. They have chosen to risk death rather than slavery. Their last words to me were “Don’t scuttle the Pacific.”

  I have just left your fighting sons in Korea. They have met all tests there, and I can report to you without reservation that they are splendid in every way. It was my constant effort to preserve them and end this savage conflict honorably and with the least loss of time and a minimum sacrifice of life. Its growing bloodshed has caused me the deepest anguish and anxiety. Those gallant men will remain often in my thoughts and in my prayers always.