Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History

by Unknown

  If we adhere faithfully to the Charter of the United Nations and walk forward in sedate and sober strength, seeking no one’s land or treasure, seeking to lay no arbitrary control upon the thoughts of men, if all British moral and material forces and convictions are joined with your own in fraternal association, the high roads of the future will be clear, not only for us but for all, not only for our time but for a century to come.

  Hubert H. Humphrey Divides the Democratic Party on the Urgent Issue of Civil Rights

  “There are those who say—this issue of civil rights is an infringement on states’ rights. The time has arrived for the Democratic party to get out of the shadow of states’ rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.”

  In their 1948 national convention in Philadelphia, the Democrats under President Harry Truman were in particular disarray: Henry Wallace had taken the extreme left wing with him to form the Progressive party, and Strom Thurmond threatened to take the old “solid South” into a Dixiecrat offshoot if a civil rights plank appeared in the platform. As a result, Republican Thomas E. Dewey was considered a shoo-in.

  Hubert Horatio Humphrey, mayor of Minneapolis and candidate for the U.S. Senate, in what later came to be known as a defining moment in his career, called for confrontation rather than compromise on the issue of civil rights. His opening profession that the plank had no region or racial group in mind was disingenuous—the controversy was about abuse of black people’s rights in the southern states, and everyone in the convention hall knew it—but the sincerity of his passionate appeal was undeniable: “There are those who say to you—we are rushing this issue of civil rights. I say we are 172 years late.”

  Humphrey carried the day; the liberals’ plank was adopted, the Dixiecrats bolted, and Truman went on to win in a startling upset. The exuberant Humphrey served sixteen years in the Senate and an uncomfortable term as Lyndon Johnson’s vice-president; he returned to the Senate after losing a close presidential race to Richard Nixon in 1968.

  His speaking style was unmistakable: it bubbled and crackled with enthusiasm. Where other speakers would dutifully say, “It’s a pleasure to be here today,” he would pop up with “Golly, I’m just as pleased as Punch to be here,” and go on and on with verve and good feeling—in FDR’s Wordsworth-based characterization of Al Smith, a “happy warrior” in the liberal cause.

  He used the phrases “human rights” and “civil rights” in this speech. In 1948, the 200-year-old French phrase, translated as “the rights of man,” had been changed by Eleanor Roosevelt at the United Nations because some delegates made the point that the rights did not apply to women. She insisted on her title as chairman of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. Thus, the phrase “human rights” was in the air at the time of the Democratic convention, and Humphrey appropriated it to take some of the sting out of “civil rights” by broadening the appeal. In time, “human rights” came to mean the rights of dissidents of any color or sex under oppressive rule, and “civil rights” the rights of blacks to enjoy the full advantages of the Bill of Rights.

  ***

  …I REALIZE THAT I am dealing with a charged issue—with an issue which has been confused by emotionalism on all sides. I realize that there are those here—friends and colleagues of mine, many of them—who feel as deeply as I do about this issue and who are yet in complete disagreement with me.

  My respect and admiration for these men and their views was great when I came here.

  It is now far greater because of the sincerity, the courtesy, and the forthrightness with which they have argued in our discussions.

  Because of this very respect—because of my profound belief that we have a challenging task to do here—because good conscience demands it—I feel I must rise at this time to support this report—a report that spells out our democracy, a report that the people will understand and enthusiastically acclaim.

  Let me say at the outset that this proposal is made with no single region, no single class, no single racial or religious group in mind.

  All regions and all states have shared in the precious heritage of American freedom. All states and all regions have at least some infringements of that freedom—all people, all groups have been the victims of discrimination.

  The masterly statement of our keynote speaker, the distinguished United States senator from Kentucky, Alben Barkley, made that point with great force. Speaking of the founder of our party, Thomas Jefferson, he said:

  He did not proclaim that all white, or black, or red, or yellow men are equal; that all Christian or Jewish men are equal; Protestant and Catholic men are equal; that all rich or poor men are equal; that all good or bad men are equal.

  What he declared was that all men are equal; and the equality which he proclaimed was equality in the right to enjoy the blessings of free government in which they may participate and to which they have given their consent.

  We are here as Democrats. But more important, as Americans—and I firmly believe that as men concerned with our country’s future, we must specify in our platform the guarantees which I have mentioned.

  Yes, this is far more than a party matter. Every citizen has a stake in the emergence of the United States as the leader of the free world. That world is being challenged by the world of slavery. For us to play our part effectively, we must be in a morally sound position.

  We cannot use a double standard for measuring our own and other people’s policies. Our demands for democratic practices in other lands will be no more effective than the guarantees of those practiced in our own country.

  We are God-fearing men and women. We place our faith in the brotherhood of man under the fatherhood of God.

  I do not believe that there can be any compromise of the guarantees of civil rights which I have mentioned.

  In spite of my desire for unanimous agreement on the platform, there are some matters which I think must be stated without qualification. There can be no hedging—no watering down.

  There are those who say to you—we are rushing this issue of civil rights. I say we are 172 years late.

  There are those who say—this issue of civil rights is an infringement on states’ rights. The time has arrived for the Democratic party to get out of the shadow of states’ rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.

  People—human beings—this is the issue of the twentieth century. People—all kinds and all sorts of people—look to America for leadership, for help, for guidance.

  My friends—my fellow Democrats—I ask you for a calm consideration of our historic opportunity. Let us forget the evil passions, the blindness of the past. In these times of world economic, political, and spiritual—above all, spiritual—crisis, we cannot—we must not—turn from the path so plainly before us.

  That path has already led us through many valleys of the shadow of death. Now is the time to recall those who were left on that path of American freedom.

  For all of us here, for the millions who have sent us, for the whole two billion members of the human family—our land is now, more than ever, the last best hope on earth. I know that we can—I know that we shall—begin here the fuller and richer realization of that hope—that promise of a land where all men are free and equal, and each man uses his freedom and equality wisely and well.

  President Harry Truman Whistle-Stops the Nation, Blasting the “Do-Nothing” Congress

  “The Democratic party stands for the people. The Republican party stands, and always has stood, for special interests.”

  “You have a stake in this election,” the underdog to Thomas E. Dewey said to the individuals who made up a small crowd in Massachusetts in 1948. “It will affect your job, your chance to get a raise, your chance to get a better home…. It will mean the difference between moving ahead and going backward.” Simple, direct, unaffected, personal—that was the Truman style, in contrast to the formal presentations of his opponent. The “accidental president,” wh
o stepped into FDR’s shoes with “Who, me?” as his reported comment, had the ability to identify with the man in the street and the woman in the grocery store.

  Harry Truman’s White House addresses, from the announcement of the destruction of Hiroshima to the Truman Doctrine and the Fair Deal, were prepared by writers including George Elsey, Clark Clifford, and William Hillman. They were solid and workmanlike speeches, fact-filled and frank, delivered in a stilted, hurried way that made it seem as if the speaker wanted it over with.

  All that changed when he went on the stump. “My first formal experience at extemporaneous speaking,” he wrote later, “had come just a few weeks before I opened the whistle-stop tour in June. After reading an address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors in April, I decided to talk ‘off the cuff’ on American relations with Russia. When I finished my remarks about thirty minutes later, I was surprised to get the most enthusiastic reaction.” Instead of reading on the stump, he spoke up and out; instead of reacting to charges that he had caused the high cost of living, he went on the offensive. Like Demosthenes, he focused on a villain, but in this case a collective villain: the “do-nothing” Eightieth Congress (which he may have picked up from FDR’s “do-nothing policy of Hoover”). Between Labor Day and election day, Truman perfected the whistle-stop campaign, giving 275 short speeches. Here is a typical one, delivered in Elizabeth, New Jersey, on October 7, 1948:

  ***

  …YOU ARE HERE because you are interested in the issues of this campaign. You know, as all the citizens of this great country know, that the election is not all over but the shouting. That is what they would like to have you believe, but it isn’t so—it isn’t so at all. The Republicans are trying to hide the truth from you in a great many ways. They don’t want you to know the truth about the issues in this campaign. The big fundamental issue in this campaign is the people against the special interests. The Democratic party stands for the people. The Republican party stands, and always has stood, for special interests. They have proved that conclusively in the record that they made in this “do-nothing” Congress.

  The Republican party candidates are going around talking to you in high-sounding platitudes trying to make you believe that they themselves are the best people to run the government. Well now, you have had experience with them running the government. In 1920 to 1932, they had complete control of the government. Look what they did to it!…

  This country is enjoying the greatest prosperity it has ever known because we have been following for sixteen years the policies inaugurated by Franklin D. Roosevelt. Everybody benefited from these policies—labor, the farmer, businessmen, and white-collar workers.

  We want to keep that prosperity. We cannot keep that if we don’t lick the biggest problem facing us today, and that is high prices.

  I have been trying to get the Republicans to do something about high prices and housing ever since they came to Washington. They are responsible for that situation, because they killed price control and they killed the housing bill. That Republican Eightieth “do-nothing” Congress absolutely refused to give any relief whatever in either one of those categories.

  What do you suppose the Republicans think you ought to do about high prices?

  Senator Taft, one of the leaders in the Republican Congress, said, “If consumers think the price is too high today, they will wait until the price is lower. I feel that in time the law of supply and demand will bring prices into line.”

  There is the Republican answer to the high cost of living.

  If it costs too much, just wait.

  If you think fifteen cents is too much for a loaf of bread, just do without it and wait until you can afford to pay fifteen cents for it.

  If you don’t want to pay sixty cents a pound for hamburger, just wait.

  That is what the Republican Congress thought you ought to do, and that is the same Congress that the Republican candidate for president said did a good job.

  Some people say I ought not to talk so much about the Republican Eightieth “do-nothing” Congress in this campaign. I will tell you why I will talk about it. If two-thirds of the people stay at home again on election day as they did in 1946, and if we get another Republican Congress like the Eightieth Congress, it will be controlled by the same men who controlled that Eightieth Congress—the Tabers and the Tafts, the Martins and the Hallecks, would be the bosses. The same men would be the bosses the same as those who passed the Taft-Hartley Act, and passed the rich man’s tax bill, and took Social Security away from a million workers.

  Do you want that kind of administration? I don’t believe you do—I don’t believe you do.

  I don’t believe you would be out here interested in listening to my outline of what the Republicans are trying to do to you if you intended to put them back in there.

  When a bunch of Republican reactionaries are in control of the Congress, then the people get reactionary laws. The only way you can get the kind of government you need is by going to the polls and voting the straight Democratic ticket on November 2. Then you will get a Democratic Congress, and I will get a Congress that will work with me. Then we will get good housing at prices we can afford to pay; and repeal of that vicious Taft-Hartley Act; and more Social Security coverage; and prices that will be fair to everybody; and we can go on and keep sixty-one million people at work; we can have an income of more than $217 billion, and that income will be distributed so that the farmer, the workingman, the white-collar worker, and the businessman get their fair share of that income.

  That is what I stand for.

  That is what the Democratic party stands for.

  Vote for that, and you will be safe!

  Adlai Stevenson Makes the Model of a Concession Speech

  “Lincoln… said he felt like a little boy who had stubbed his toe in the dark. He said that he was too old to cry, but it hurt too much to laugh.”

  A concession speech must be graceful, brave, proud, and rueful; it must not be humble, envious, or vengeful, be filled with “if only’s, or reflect any of the qualities of the sore loser that lie within almost every loser. (“Show me a man who loses gracefully,” said an anonymous football coach, “and I’ll show you a loser.”) Churchill had said, “In defeat, defiance,” but he meant national defeat; in political defeat, defiance is bad form.

  Here is the speech conceding victory to his opponent by Adlai Stevenson on November 5, 1952, in the ballroom of the Leland Hotel in Springfield, Illinois.

  ***

  I HAVE A statement that I should like to make. If I may, I shall read it to you.

  My fellow citizens have made their choice and have selected General Eisenhower and the Republican party as the instruments of their will for the next four years.

  The people have rendered their verdict, and I gladly accept it.

  General Eisenhower has been a great leader in war. He has been a vigorous and valiant opponent in the campaign. These qualities will now be dedicated to leading us all through the next four years.

  It is traditionally American to fight hard before an election. It is equally traditional to close ranks as soon as the people have spoken.

  From the depths of my heart I thank all of my party and all of those independents and Republicans who supported Senator Sparkman and me.

  That which unites us as American citizens is far greater than that which divides us as political parties.

  I urge you all to give General Eisenhower the support he will need to carry out the great tasks that lie before him.

  I pledge him mine.

  We vote as many, but we pray as one. With a united people, with faith in democracy, with common concern for others less fortunate around the globe, we shall move forward with God’s guidance toward the time when his children shall grow in freedom and dignity in a world at peace.

  I have sent the following telegram to General Eisenhower at the Commodore Hotel in New York: “The people have made their choice and I congratulate you. That you may be
the servant and guardian of peace and make the vale of trouble a door of hope is my earnest prayer. Best wishes. Adlai E. Stevenson.”

  Someone asked me, as I came in, down on the street, how I felt, and I was reminded of a story that a fellow townsman of ours used to tell—Abraham Lincoln. They asked him how he felt once after an unsuccessful election. He said he felt like a little boy who had stubbed his toe in the dark. He said that he was too old to cry, but it hurt too much to laugh.

  Premier Nikita Khrushchev, in a “Secret Speech,” Tears Down Stalin’s Reputation

  “Comrades, the cult of the individual acquired such monstrous size chiefly because Stalin himself, using all conceivable methods, supported the glorification of his own person.”

  Mercurial, shrewd, energetic, earthy, unpredictable, bullying—these were the adjectives used in the West about Nikita Khrushchev when he ran the Soviet Union from 1955 to 1964. In retrospect, he is seen as having been a liberalizing force, a Gorbachev precursor, though his administrative reforms did not liberate most of those in what Aleksandr Solzhenitzyn called the gulag, or system of prison camps, and his attempt to put missiles into Cuba brought the world to the brink of war.

  In February of 1956, he laid out the case against Joseph Stalin to the Twentieth Party Congress in Moscow. Its proceedings were secret, but the CIA obtained a transcript of Khrushchev’s “secret speech”—perhaps from a KGB source acting with tacit Kremlin approval—and leaked it to Western media. The accusation that Sergey Kirov of Leningrad had been murdered, placed within the context of Stalin’s other depredations, was a bombshell; the reference to the “doctors’ plot” to kill Stalin was another, because it exposed the dictator’s anti-Semitism.

  Although Khrushchev blames Stalin for the phrase “enemy of the people,” that was the title of an Ibsen play; however, “cult of the individual” was popularized in the highly publicized “secret speech.”