Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History

by Unknown

  And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.

  My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

  Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking his blessing and his help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.

  President Charles de Gaulle Offers Self-Determination to the Algerian People

  “What had to be done was done.”

  “Je suis la France” (“I am France“), spoken by a defiant de Gaulle after his country’s surrender to the Nazis in 1940, was typical of the innocent arrogance of a leader who thought he embodied the spirit of his nation—and, on occasion, did. His stiff-neckedness in the face of weakness caused Winston Churchill to say, “The heaviest cross I bear is the Cross of Lorraine.”

  Throughout the fifties, France was torn apart by the “Algerian question”: the desire of many in the colony to break free and the fear of many others, especially in the army, that the French in Algeria would be driven out. Only Charles de Gaulle—head of the Free French in exile during World War II, in retirement after an electoral setback in 1953—had the prestige and the will to use authority to end the rebellion. Only he could tell the angry French generals, “You are not the army’s army; you are France’s army.”

  The exponent of grandeur—“France cannot be France without greatness”—was given power to rule by decree in 1958; when an opponent compared him to Robespierre, he mockingly delivered this riposte: “I always thought I was Jeanne d’Arc and Bonaparte. How little one knows oneself.” He understood the importance of speaking and of keeping silent: “There can be no power without mystery,” he wrote in The Edge of the Sword. “There must always be a ‘something’ which others cannot altogether fathom, which puzzles them, stirs them, and rivets their attention…. Nothing more enhances authority than silence. It is the crowning virtue of the strong, the refuge of the weak, the modesty of the proud, the pride of the humble, the prudence of the wise, and the sense of fools….” He exuded certitude; when a Nixon speechwriter asked him about separatism in Canada’s Quebec in 1969, de Gaulle answered with absolute assurance, “One day Quebec will be free.”

  Charles de Gaulle served as president of the Fifth Republic from 1958 to 1969. On June 8, 1962, he gave the following address over radio and television, preparing his people for the independence of Algeria.

  ***

  IN TWENTY-THREE DAYS, the Algerian problem in its substance will be resolved for France. Algeria will determine its own future. Algeria and France will be able to cooperate organically and regularly with each other. The Algerians of European stock will have the necessary guarantees to participate, in full freedom, in full equality, and in full brotherhood, in the life of the new Algeria. This is what France will have wanted and obtained.

  Yes, in twenty-three days, the Algerian people, through the self-determination referendum, are going to ratify the Evian agreements, institute independence, and sanction cooperation, just as the French people, through the referendum of last April 8, subscribed to it for their part. Thus, over and above all the crises and all the passions, it is through the free decision and reasoned agreement of two peoples that a new phase in their relationships and a new chapter of their history are about to open.

  This being so, what role can and must the Frenchmen of Algeria—who have settled there, who love Algeria, who have done so much there already, and of whom Algeria has so great a need—what role can and must these French people play in the Algeria of tomorrow? Once again I should like to express the hope that they will play their part fully, as soon as the last bloody mists with which some criminal madmen are still trying to blind them are dispelled. What role also can and must the leaders of the Moslem community play, for the good of their country—whether it be the leaders that are in office or the leaders that are about to take office, and who are certain before long to assume the capital responsibilities in the Algerian republic? What role, finally, must and can France play in the development of a nation to which she is attached by so many ties and which, everything commands her to help become free and prosperous? After 132 years of the existence of the problem, which had tragic consequences on several occasions, and after seven years of senseless and grievous fighting, this result will bear the imprint of justice and reason. However, in order to attain this, France has had to overcome severe obstacles.

  When, in 1958, we came to grips with the affair, we found—who has been able to forget it?—the powers of the republic drowned in impotence, a plot of usurpation being formed in Algiers and drawn toward France by the collapse of the state, the nation suddenly finding itself on the brink of civil war. At the same time, the Moslem rebellion, having reached its climax and banking on our domestic crises, declared itself determined to triumph by arms, claimed to be sure of obtaining world support and offered the French community a single choice for its future: “the suitcase or the coffin.” But, once the state was on its feet again and the catastrophe avoided—a recovery soon confirmed by the country’s adoption of the necessary institutions by an 80 percent majority of the voters—it was possible, step by step, to bring the affair to its end.

  It was necessary that, in Algeria, our army have control of the battlefield and the frontiers so that no failure could in any way jeopardize the will of France. It was necessary for us to squarely adopt self-determination and cooperation as political goals, while the implementation of the Constantine Plan was making all Algeria realize how essential France’s aid was for its life. Thus the rebellion, renouncing its excesses and responding to the wish of the masses, came, little by little, to take the road to peace, to establish contact with us, and, finally, to conclude agreements permitting Algeria to express its will with full knowledge of the facts. It was necessary that the international attempts at interference and pressure, which were multiplying endlessly, have no hold over our policy. It was necessary that the successive plots be shattered: the affair of the barricades, the insurrection of April 1961, and, since then, the desperate acts of terrorist subversion, carried out, alas, by Frenchmen who resort to assassination, theft, and blackmail—all uprisings aimed at forcing the hand of the government, at shaking its foundations, toppling it, and hurling France into the abyss.

  What had to be done was done. But—as everyone saw—it is because the new institutions enable the state to act—whereas the old ones only hindered it—that the government can make decisions instead of constantly equivocating and that it stands fast instead of forever tottering and stumbling. Above all, women and men of France, everyone has seen that the loyal confidence which you as a body have bestowed upon me has spurred and sustained me day after day and that this direct agreement between the people and the one who has the responsibility of leading it has become, in modern times, essential to the republic.

  To maintain, in this domain, what has just been tested—such must be our conclusion, once the Algerian question has been settled. In these times that are difficult and dangerous, but filled with hope, how many things, indeed, have to be done that govern our destiny. To pursue our development—in the fields of economy, welfare, population, education, science, technology; to practice cooperation with those states of the world—above all, those of Africa—with which we are linked by virtue of ideals, language, culture, economy, and security; to contribute to the advancement of the two billion men who populate the underdeveloped countries; to equip ourselves with defense forces of such a kind that, for anyone, attacking France would mean certain death; to ensure together with our allies the integrity of the free world in the face of the Soviet threat; to help Western Europe build its unity, its prosperity, its strength, and its independence; to hasten th
e day when, perhaps—the totalitarian regime having lost its virulence and lowered its barriers—all the peoples of our continent will meet in an atmosphere of equilibrium, common sense, and friendship; in short, to accomplish the mission of France, we must, yes we must, be and freely remain a great and united people.

  For the past four years, despite all the storms, this is fundamentally what we have been, as we then decided to be, overwhelmingly and solemnly, by means of universal suffrage. Justice and efficiency have thereby received their due. Women and men of France, we shall, by the same means, at the proper time, have to make sure that, in the future and above and beyond men who pass, the republic may remain strong, well ordered, and continuous.

  Vive la République! Vive la France!

  Barry Goldwater Ignites the Conservative Movement

  “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”

  The year 1964 marked a great division in Republican ranks. Conservatives, denied the opportunity to lead the party when Thomas Dewey and, later, Dwight Eisenhower defeated Robert Taft, moved to gain control after the defeat of Richard Nixon in 1960. Their targets were Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York and Governor William Scranton of Pennsylvania, representatives of the “eastern establishment” in conservative eyes.

  After routing the “moderates” in primaries and state conventions, the militant rightists took command of the Republican National Convention, at the Cow Palace, in San Francisco. Barry Goldwater, Arizona senator and author of The Conscience of a Conservative, was their standard-bearer, and he was tired of being excoriated as an “extremist” by liberal Republicans. In a speech written by Karl Hess based on a strategy devised by F. Clifton White, Goldwater scorned the usual unity speech and took a forthright stand for individualism and anticommunism; he all but invited the liberal wing to take a walk with his rousing, well-balanced lines that did not find vice in all “extremism” and did not accept Rockefeller’s “moderation” as virtuous.

  I was in the hall that July 16, 1964, holding one end of a Scranton banner that said, “Stay in the Mainstream,” and looked toward the Nixon box when the conventioneers went wild at the stick-it-to-Rocky lines. The once and future candidate, stony-faced, sat on his hands.

  Though buried under the Lyndon Johnson landslide, and contained during the Nixon years, the conservative movement blossomed under Ronald Reagan, who got his national political start as a Goldwater speechmaker in the 1964 campaign.

  ***

  …FROM THIS MOMENT, united and determined, we will go forward together, dedicated to the ultimate and undeniable greatness of the whole man. Together we will win.

  I accept your nomination with a deep sense of humility. I accept, too, the responsibility that goes with it, and I seek your continued help and your continued guidance. My fellow Republicans, our cause is too great for any man to feel worthy of it. Our task would be too great for any man, did he not have with him the heart and the hands of this great Republican party. And I promise you tonight that every fiber of my being is consecrated to our cause, that nothing shall be lacking from the struggle that can be brought to it by enthusiasm, by devotion, and plain hard work.

  In this world no person, no party can guarantee anything, but what we can do and what we shall do is to deserve victory, and victory will be ours. The good Lord raised this mighty Republic to be a home for the brave and to flourish as the land of the free—not to stagnate in the swampland of collectivism, not to cringe before the bully of communism.

  Now, my fellow Americans, the tide has been running against freedom. Our people have followed false prophets. We must, and we shall, return to proven ways—not because they are old, but because they are true.

  We must, and we shall, set the tide running again in the cause of freedom. And this party, with its every action, every word, every breath, and every heartbeat, has but a single resolve, and that is freedom.

  Freedom made orderly for this nation by our constitutional government. Freedom under a government limited by laws of nature and of nature’s God. Freedom balanced so that liberty lacking order will not become the slavery of the prison cell; balanced so that liberty lacking order will not become the license of the mob and of the jungle.

  Now, we Americans understand freedom; we have earned it, we have lived for it, and we have died for it. This nation and its people are freedom’s models in a searching world. We can be freedom’s missionaries in a doubting world.

  But, ladies and gentlemen, first we must renew freedom’s mission in our own hearts and in our own homes.

  During four, futile years the administration which we shall replace has distorted and lost that faith. It has talked and talked and talked and talked the words of freedom, but it has failed and failed and failed in the works of freedom.

  Now failure cements the wall of shame in Berlin; failures blot the sands of shame at the Bay of Pigs; failures marked the slow death of freedom in Laos; failures infest the jungles of Vietnam; and failures haunt the houses of our once great alliances and undermine the greatest bulwark ever erected by free nations, the NATO community.

  Failures proclaim lost leadership, obscure purpose, weakening wills, and the risk of inciting our sworn enemies to new aggressions and to new excesses.

  And because of this administration we are tonight a world divided. We are a nation becalmed. We have lost the brisk pace of diversity and the genius of individual creativity. We are plodding at a pace set by centralized planning, red tape, rules without responsibility, and regimentation without recourse.

  Rather than useful jobs in our country, people have been offered bureaucratic make-work; rather than moral leadership, they have been given bread and circuses; they have been given spectacles, and, yes, they’ve even been given scandals.

  Tonight there is violence in our streets, corruption in our highest offices, aimlessness among our youth, anxiety among our elderly; and there’s a virtual despair among the many who look beyond material success toward the inner meaning of their lives. And where examples of morality should be set, the opposite is seen. Small men seeking great wealth or power have too often and too long turned even the highest levels of public service into mere personal opportunity.

  Now, certainly simple honesty is not too much to demand of men in government. We find it in most. Republicans demand it from everyone. They demand it from everyone no matter how exalted or protected his position might be.

  The growing menace in our country tonight, to personal safety, to life, to limb and property, in homes, in churches, on the playgrounds and places of business, particularly in our great cities, is the mounting concern—or should be—of every thoughtful citizen in the United States. Security from domestic violence, no less than from foreign aggression, is the most elementary and fundamental purpose of any government, and a government that cannot fulfill this purpose is one that cannot long command the loyalty of its citizens.

  History shows us, demonstrates that nothing, nothing prepares the way for tyranny more than the failure of public officials to keep the streets safe from bullies and marauders.

  Now, we Republicans see all this as more—much more—than the result of mere political differences or mere political mistakes. We see this as the result of a fundamentally and absolutely wrong view of man, his nature, and his destiny.

  Those who seek to live your lives for you, to take your liberty in return for relieving you of yours, those who elevate the state and downgrade the citizen, must see ultimately a world in which earthly power can be substituted for divine will. And this nation was founded upon the rejection of that notion and upon the acceptance of God as the author of freedom.

  Now, those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth, and let me remind you they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyranny.

>   Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed. Their mistaken course stems from false notions, ladies and gentlemen, of equality. Equality, rightly understood as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences; wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.

  Fellow Republicans, it is the cause of Republicanism to resist concentrations of power, private or public, which enforce such conformity and inflict such despotism.

  It is the cause of Republicanism to ensure that power remains in the hands of the people—and, so help us God, that is exactly what a Republican president will do with the help of a Republican Congress.

  It is further the cause of Republicanism to restore a clear understanding of the tyranny of man over man in the world at large. It is our cause to dispel the foggy thinking which avoids hard decisions in the delusion that a world of conflict will somehow resolve itself into a world of harmony, if we just don’t rock the boat or irritate the forces of aggression—and this is hogwash.

  It is further the cause of Republicanism to remind ourselves, and the world, that only the strong can remain free: that only the strong can keep the peace.

  Now, I needn’t remind you, or my fellow Americans regardless of party, that Republicans have shouldered this hard responsibility and marched in this cause before. It was Republican leadership under Dwight Eisenhower that kept the peace, and passed along to this administration the mightiest arsenal for defense the world has ever known.