Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History

by Unknown

  More than thirty-seven thousand people die from gunshot wounds in this country every year. Gunfire is the leading cause of death in young men. And now that we’ve all gotten so cool that everybody can get a semiautomatic weapon, a person shot now is three times more likely to die than fifteen years ago, because they’re likely to have three bullets in them. A hundred and sixty thousand children stay home from school every day because they are scared they will be hurt in their schools.

  The other day I was in California at a town meeting, and a handsome young man stood up and said, “Mr. President, my brother and I, we don’t belong to gangs. We don’t have guns. We don’t do drugs. We want to go to school. We want to be professionals. We want to work hard. We want to do well. We want to have families. And we changed our school because the school we were in was so dangerous. So when we showed up to the new school to register, my brother and I were standing in line and somebody ran into the school and started shooting a gun. My brother was shot down standing right in front of me at the safer school.” The freedom to do that kind of thing is not what Martin Luther King lived and died for, not what people gathered in this hallowed church for the night before he was assassinated in April of 1968. If you had told anybody who was here in that church on that night that we would abuse our freedom in that way, they would have found it hard to believe. And I tell you, it is our moral duty to turn it around.

  And now I think finally we have a chance. Finally, I think, we have a chance. We have a pastor here from New Haven, Connecticut. I was in his church with Reverend Jackson when I was running for president on a snowy day in Connecticut to mourn the death of children who had been killed in that city. And afterward we walked down the street for more than a mile in the snow. Then, the American people were not ready. People would say, “Oh, this is a terrible thing, but what can we do about it?”

  Now when we read that foreign visitors come to our shores and are killed at random in our fine state of Florida, when we see our children planning their funerals, when the American people are finally coming to grips with the accumulated weight of crime and violence and the breakdown of family and community and the increase in drugs and the decrease in jobs, I think finally we may be ready to do something about it.

  And there is something for each of us to do. There are changes we can make from the outside in; that’s the job of the president and the Congress and the governors and the mayors and the social service agencies. And then there’s some changes we’re going to have to make from the inside out, or the others won’t matter. That’s what that magnificent song was about, isn’t it? Sometimes there are no answers from the outside in; sometimes all the answers have to come from the values and the stirrings and the voices that speak to us from within.

  So we are beginning. We are trying to pass a bill to make our people safer, to put another 100,000 police officers on the street, to provide boot camps instead of prisons for young people who can still be rescued, to provide more safety in our schools, to restrict the availability of these awful assault weapons, to pass the Brady Bill and at least require people to have their criminal background checked before they get a gun, and to say, if you’re not old enough to vote and you’re not old enough to go to war, you ought not to own a handgun, and you ought not to use one unless you’re on a target range….

  We need this crime bill now. We ought to give it to the American people for Christmas. And we need to move forward on all these other fronts. But I say to you, my fellow Americans, we need some other things as well. I do not believe we can repair the basic fabric of society until people who are willing to work have work. Work organizes life. It gives structure and discipline to life. It gives meaning and self-esteem to people who are parents. It gives a role model to children.

  The famous African-American sociologist William Julius Wilson has written a stunning book called The Truly Disadvantaged in which he chronicles in breathtaking terms how the inner cities of our country have crumbled as work has disappeared. And we must find away, through public and private sources, to enhance the attractiveness of the American people who live there to get investment there. We cannot, I submit to you, repair the American community and restore the American family until we provide the structure, the values, the discipline, and the reward that work gives.

  I read a wonderful speech the other day given at Howard University in a lecture series funded by Bill and Camille Cosby, in which the speaker said, “I grew up in Anacostia years ago. Even then it was all black, and it was a very poor neighborhood. But you know, when I was a child in Anacostia, a 100 percent African-American neighborhood, a very poor neighborhood, we had a crime rate that was lower than the average of the crime rate of our city. Why? Because we had coherent families. We had coherent communities. The people who filled the church on Sunday lived in the same place they went to church. The guy that owned the drugstore lived down the street. The person that owned the grocery store lived in our community. We were whole.” And I say to you, we have to make our people whole again.

  This church has stood for that. Why do you think you have five million members in this country? Because people know you are filled with the spirit of God to do the right thing in this life by them. So I say to you, we have to make a partnership, all the government agencies, all the business folks; but where there are no families, where there is no order, where there is no hope, where we are reducing the size of our armed services because we have won the cold war, who will be there to give structure, discipline, and love to these children? You must do that. And we must help you. Scripture says, you are the salt of the Earth and the light of the world, that if your light shines before men they will give glory to the Father in heaven. That is what we must do.

  That is what we must do. How would we explain it to Martin Luther King if he showed up today and said, yes, we won the Cold War. Yes, the biggest threat that all of us grew up under, communism and nuclear war, communism gone, nuclear war receding. Yes, we developed all these miraculous technologies. Yes, we all have got a VCR in our home; it’s interesting. Yes, we get fifty channels on the cable. Yes, without regard to race, if you work hard and play by the rules, you can get into a service academy or a good college, you’ll do just great. How would we explain to him all these kids getting killed and killing each other? How would we justify the things that we permit that no other country in the world would permit? How could we explain that we gave people the freedom to succeed, and we created conditions in which millions abuse that freedom to destroy the things that make life worth living and life itself? We cannot.

  And so I say to you today, my fellow Americans, you gave me this job, and we’re making progress on the things you hired me to do. But unless we deal with the ravages of crime and drugs and violence and unless we recognize that it’s due to the breakdown of the family, the community, and the disappearance of jobs, and unless we say some of this cannot be done by government, because we have to reach deep inside to the values, the spirit, the soul, and the truth of human nature, none of the other things we seek to do will ever take us where we need to go.

  So in this pulpit, on this day, let me ask all of you in your heart to say: We will honor the life and the work of Martin Luther King. We will honor the meaning of our church. We will, somehow, by God’s grace, we will turn this around. We will give these children a future. We will take away their guns and give them books. We will take away their despair and give them hope. We will rebuild the families and the neighborhoods and the communities. We won’t make all the work that has gone on here benefit just a few. We will do it together by the grace of God.

  President George W. Bush Envisions the “Age of Liberty”

  “Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe—because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty.”

  Six months after American and British forces liberated Baghdad, the flush of victory had been replaced by the dismay
ed reaction to the guerrilla warfare being waged by terrorists and die-hard supporters of the ousted Saddam Hussein, who had not yet been captured. Nor had weapons of mass destruction been found, and critics led at the time by Democrat Howard Dean derided claims of a link between Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network and Iraq. President George W. Bush found it necessary to counter his critics at home and abroad by placing the second Iraq war in a greater context than “regime change.”

  At a dinner in Washington, D.C., on November 6, 2003, honoring the twentieth anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy, he delivered what had become a rarity in recent political rhetoric: a thematic speech.

  In articulating what had become, after the attacks of September 11, 2001, the central purpose of his presidency, he evoked three of his predecessors in the twentieth century: Woodrow Wilson, trying to make the world safe for democracy in 1918; Franklin D. Roosevelt, in 1941 giving hope to peoples crushed and endangered by nazism; and Ronald Reagan, in 1982 (derogated at the time, as Bush often is, as a “cowboy”) telling the British Parliament that a turning point had been reached in confronting the menace of world communism. “From the Fourteen Points to the Four Freedoms, to the speech at Westminster, America has put our power at the service of principle.” (A copyeditor would have changed “our” to “its.”) He stated his theme in ten words: “The advance of freedom is the calling of our time.”

  The speech is structured, like a concerto, on a tripod. It begins with its forceful statement of theme and an optimistic evocation of recent history: “We’ve witnessed, in little over a generation, the swiftest advance of freedom in the 2,500-year story of democracy…. It is no accident that the rise of so many democracies took place in a time when the world’s most influential nation was itself a democracy.” (He chose the adjective “influential” rather than the customary “powerful” to stress our democratic example. And the formulation “It is no accident” parodies, perhaps unconsciously, the communist cliché “As is well known.”)

  The second movement turns from the successes of freedom in South Africa, Central America, and a unified Germany to a tour d’horizon of the places where restrictions on freedom are an anomaly in an age of liberty: from the assonant “outposts of oppression”—including Cuba, North Korea, and Zimbabwe—to those Palestinian leaders who are “the main obstacles to peace” in the Middle East. That brings him to the challenge to leaders of nations of that turbulent area: “Will they be remembered for resisting reform, or for leading it?”

  The transition to the speech’s third movement is a startling charge of error in previous U.S. policy toward that area. He faults presidents since FDR—including his father, George H. W. Bush—for not doing more to urge freedom on authoritarian regimes: “Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe—because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty.” In thus breaking with the advocates of realpolitik, he associated his policy with that of the Wilsonian idealism so long derided by pragmatic Kissingerians. In that way, he wrapped his controversial decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein in the larger purpose of advancing human freedom everywhere in the “age of liberty.” (He first used that phrase in his speech to a joint session of Congress a week after the September 11, 2001, attacks.)

  Both the daring and profundity of the speech were a surprise coming from a speaker not known for his eloquence. Because it had not been heralded in advance as a major foreign policy address, the text was not printed in the New York Times nor telecast at length on network newscasts, and its impact was delayed. Bush’s main speechwriters—Michael Gerson, John McConnell, and Matthew Scully—followed up this speech by drafting an address to the British Parliament two weeks later that developed the freedom theme further. Because of the dramatic setting and delayed reaction to the first speech, the London effort was far more extensively covered. It included a defiant, Churchillian applause line: “We did not charge hundreds of miles into the heart of Iraq and pay a bitter cost of casualties, and liberate 25 million people, only to retreat before a band of thugs and assassins.”

  However, his earlier, shorter effort in D.C. was seminal and that is why I chose it for this anthology, despite the greater sense of occasion in London. Just as he used a spiritual word in stating his theme—“the calling of our time”—Bush invoked, without excessive religiosity, the Deity in his conclusion: “As we meet the terror and violence of the world, we can be certain the author of freedom is not indifferent to the fate of freedom.”

  ***

  THE ROOTS OF our democracy can be traced to England, and to its Parliament—and so can the roots of this organization. In June of 1982, President Ronald Reagan spoke at Westminster Palace and declared, the turning point had arrived in history. He argued that Soviet communism had failed, precisely because it did not respect its own people—their creativity, their genius, and their rights.

  President Reagan said that the day of Soviet tyranny was passing, that freedom had a momentum which would not be halted. He gave this organization its mandate: to add to the momentum of freedom across the world. Your mandate was important twenty years ago; it is equally important today.

  A number of critics were dismissive of that speech by the president. According to one editorial of the time, “It seems hard to be a sophisticated European and also an admirer of Ronald Reagan.” Some observers on both sides of the Atlantic pronounced the speech simplistic and naive, and even dangerous. In fact, Ronald Reagan’s words were courageous and optimistic and entirely correct.

  The great democratic movement President Reagan described was already well under way. In the early 1970s, there were about forty democracies in the world. By the middle of that decade, Portugal and Spain and Greece held free elections. Soon there were new democracies in Latin America, and free institutions were spreading in Korea, in Taiwan, and in East Asia. This very week in 1989, there were protests in East Berlin and in Leipzig. By the end of that year, every communist dictatorship in Central America had collapsed. Within another year, the South African government released Nelson Mandela. Four years later, he was elected president of his country—ascending, like Walesa and Havel, from prisoner of state to head of state.

  As the twentieth century ended, there were around 120 democracies in the world—and I can assure you more are on the way. Ronald Reagan would be pleased, and he would not be surprised.

  We’ve witnessed, in little over a generation, the swiftest advance of freedom in the 2,500-year story of democracy. Historians in the future will offer their own explanations for why this happened. Yet we already know some of the reasons they will cite. It is no accident that the rise of so many democracies took place in a time when the world’s most influential nation was itself a democracy.

  The United States made military and moral commitments in Europe and Asia, which protected free nations from aggression, and created the conditions in which new democracies could flourish. As we provided security for whole nations, we also provided inspiration for oppressed peoples. In prison camps, in banned union meetings, in clandestine churches, men and women knew that the whole world was not sharing their own nightmare. They knew of at least one place—a bright and hopeful land—where freedom was valued and secure. And they prayed that America would not forget them, or forget the mission to promote liberty around the world.

  Historians will note that in many nations, the advance of markets and free enterprise helped to create a middle class that was confident enough to demand their own rights. They will point to the role of technology in frustrating censorship and central control—and marvel at the power of instant communications to spread the truth, the news, and courage across borders.

  Historians in the future will reflect on an extraordinary, undeniable fact: Over time, free nations grow stronger and dictatorships grow weaker. In the middle of the twentieth century, some imagined that the central planning and social regimentation were a shortcut to na
tional strength. In fact, the prosperity, and social vitality and technological progress of a people, are directly determined by extent of their liberty. Freedom honors and unleashes human creativity—and creativity determines the strength and wealth of nations. Liberty is both the plan of heaven for humanity, and the best hope for progress here on Earth.

  The progress of liberty is a powerful trend. Yet, we also know that liberty, if not defended, can be lost. The success of freedom is not determined by some dialectic of history. By definition, the success of freedom rests upon the choices and the courage of free peoples, and upon their willingness to sacrifice. In the trenches of World War I, through a two-front war in the 1940s, the difficult battles of Korea and Vietnam, and in missions of rescue and liberation on nearly every continent, Americans have amply displayed our willingness to sacrifice for liberty.

  The sacrifices of Americans have not always been recognized or appreciated, yet they have been worthwhile. Because we and our allies were steadfast, Germany and Japan are democratic nations that no longer threaten the world. A global nuclear standoff with the Soviet Union ended peacefully—as did the Soviet Union. The nations of Europe are moving towards unity, not dividing into armed camps and descending into genocide. Every nation has learned, or should have learned, an important lesson: Freedom is worth fighting for, dying for, and standing for—and the advance of freedom leads to peace.

  And now we must apply that lesson in our own time. We’ve reached another great turning point—and the resolve we show will shape the next stage of the world democratic movement.

  Our commitment to democracy is tested in countries like Cuba and Burma and North Korea and Zimbabwe—outposts of oppression in our world. The people in these nations live in captivity, and fear and silence. Yet, these regimes cannot hold back freedom forever—and, one day, from prison camps and prison cells, and from exile, the leaders of new democracies will arrive. Communism, and militarism and rule by the capricious and corrupt, are the relics of a passing era. And we will stand with these oppressed peoples until the day of their freedom finally arrives.