[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 195 (Tuesday, November 28, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5630-S5634]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO GRAY MAXWELL

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I rise today to share news with the 
Senate. Dennis Gray Maxwell--Gray to all of us--my floor director and 
most senior legislative adviser since I arrived in the Senate almost 17 
years ago, is retiring at the end of December. For many of us, Senators 
and staff alike, this is heartbreaking news, as we will miss Gray's 
good counsel, impeccable speechwriting skills, remarkable knowledge of 
Senate history, and award-winning home brew. He always has a relevant 
story, whatever the circumstance. And, of course, Gray was the one who 
got us to finally put the Senate Democratic Conference rules in 
writing, so it is no wonder that he knows them inside and out better 
than any Senator or parliamentarian.
  Gray loves the Senate. He loves it for all it was meant to be, as 
drafted by the Founding Fathers, and all that it should be in modern 
times--a respected

[[Page S5631]]

entity dedicated to upholding the values and ideals that drive this 
great Nation forward. Year after year, Gray has dedicated himself to 
finding ways to preserve the Senate's role as the world's greatest 
deliberative body, which has not always been easy. It pains him to see 
the rules abused or when 10 years of work to pass a significant law, 
like the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, is undone in 10 
minutes. But he does cherish the days when we finally clear a record 
vote-a-rama or come together in a landmark bipartisan vote.
  Gray has worked for so many Senators over the years that his love of 
this institution should not surprise anyone. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, 
John Heinz, Jim Jeffords, Bill Cohen, Moynihan again, Dianne Feinstein, 
Carl Levin, Frank Lautenberg and, since 2007, he has been part of Team 
Cardin. This impressive list, nearly 40 years in the making, is why I 
jumped at the opportunity to hire Gray.
  A registered Independent his whole life, Gray lives the words of John 
F. Kennedy: ``Men of goodwill and generosity should be able to unite 
regardless of party or politics.''
  I hired Gray because, on January 3, 2007, despite being a State 
delegate, including speaker, for a total of 20 years, and a Member of 
the House of Representatives for 20 years, I had zero direct experience 
in the U.S. Senate. Gray Maxwell had more than two decades of 
legislative service in the Senate with some of the most consequential 
Senators to walk these halls. I wanted to learn from him. I had brought 
over some core staff from my House office, but I knew that if I had 
Gray on my team, he would help me quickly translate my previous 
legislative experience into this new arena. Today, I love being a 
Senator, and I credit Gray for sharing his fever for the institution 
and showing me what great things we could accomplish.
  Gray's path to public service perhaps was unexpected. The summer 
after he graduated Stanford University, he came to Washington, DC, to 
work at a branch of his father's law firm before starting law school. 
His life would change though, when his roommate, who worked for Senator 
Moynihan, told Gray there was an opening as a legislative 
correspondent, or LC. Gray loved everything about the job and the 
position. He was promoted quickly within the office and even met his 
future wife, Eileen, during this time. Eileen, a fifth-generation 
Washingtonian, came from a long line of public servants and had joined 
the Foreign Service. Some may not know this, but Gray passed both the 
written and oral Foreign Service exams in an effort to join his wife 
for her new posting in Bolivia. In the end, they decided to stay in 
Washington, and Gray's long career in the Senate would take off.
  I have been told that there were quite a few conversations with 
Gray's dad to explain that he would not be returning home to 
Connecticut or going to New York to become a lawyer. But life would be 
okay. His dad came around eventually. He would become one of Gray's 
greatest cheerleaders and immensely proud of everything his son would 
accomplish--despite not being a lawyer.
  During the late 80s, Gray worked for Senator John Heinz and served as 
legislative director of the Northeast-Midwest Institute, of which Heinz 
was a cofounder. Gray was serving as the Senator's legislative director 
at the time of his tragic plane crash in 1991. He went on to work for 
Senator Jim Jeffords as his legislative director and then worked for 
another Republican who made a career working across the aisle, Senator 
Bill Cohen. He later would rejoin Senator Moynihan's staff as 
legislative director.
  Gray and Senator Moynihan had a close, almost father-son 
relationship. This is obvious to anyone who has heard Gray tell a story 
from his Moynihan days. Every tale, even something that might seem 
embarrassing, like slipping on the floor while walking with the Senator 
through the Senate, is coated with a sense of care and respect for the 
man and lawmaker. I know it was a difficult task for Gray when he had 
to call the then-recently retired Senator on September 11, 2001, to 
tell him that New York and our Nation was being attacked.
  Gray has been a witness to history during his nearly 40 years in the 
Senate, and he has done his part to make history, as well. As a 
lifelong public servant, Gray has become one of the most vociferous 
champions for public service unions and Federal workers, generally. He 
meticulously combs through data annually from the Office of Personnel 
Management and other official sources to create the most accurate 
snapshots of Federal workers in every State and the District of 
Columbia. Among other uses, these charts have been invaluable each time 
one of my colleagues dares to attack Federal workers or attempts to use 
veterans and civil servants as pawns in yet another partisan game or 
government shutdown. Gray relishes every opportunity to lift up stories 
about Federal workers, serves as a watchdog for attacks on well-earned 
benefits, and consistently advocates for the rights of all Federal 
employees and retirees.
  During the Trump years, Gray led the charge to pass S. 24, the 
Government Employee Fair Treatment Act, which guarantees back pay to 
Federal workers furloughed during a government shutdown. Thanks to 
Gray's doggedness, if and when we have another shutdown of the Federal 
Government, no longer will hundreds of thousands of Federal workers 
have to wait and see if Congress will provide relief to those workers 
caught in the crossfire.
  Another project Gray helped carry over the finish line was the 
National Memorial to Fallen Journalists. Based on his work and 
coordination with stakeholders, days before the 1-year anniversary of 
the fatal ``Capital Gazette'' shooting in Annapolis--the most deadly 
newsroom shooting in American history--Gray helped finalize legislation 
I introduced with Senator Rob Portman. Our bill authorized a privately 
funded memorial within the District of Columbia to honor journalists, 
photographers, broadcasters, and media workers killed in the line of 
duty. In later stages, he would identify the ultimate location of the 
memorial, across the street from the Voice of America and, 
coincidently, across the street from the National Museum of the 
American Indian, where Gray's wife Eileen would work until her 
retirement in December 2022.
  Far too many pieces of legislation that have become law have Gray 
Maxwell's fingerprints on them for me to name every one. But let me 
talk briefly about one recent bill that goes to the heart of Gray's 
integrity and strong belief that Congress should be a leader in 
protecting civil rights and values. Back in 2020, Senator Chris Van 
Hollen and I introduced legislation in the Senate that would remove 
from the U.S. Capitol a statue of fellow Marylander and Supreme Court 
Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney. Taney was the author of the infamous 
Dred Scott decision that ruled that African-Americans were not U.S. 
citizens and that Congress could not prohibit slavery. In addition to 
removing the Taney bust, our bill authorized the placement of a new 
bust of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first African-
American to serve on the Nation's highest Court, and also a Marylander. 
The bill was reintroduced this Congress and approved unanimously by the 
Senate in 2022. Following House passage, President Joe Biden signed the 
measure into law, and the massive Taney bust was removed in February of 
this year. If not for Gray's legislative acumen and pure persistence, 
the bust of a man who actively helped prolong slavery would still greet 
visitors to the Old Supreme Court Chamber.
  I am thankful that Gray shared his knowledge of the Senate with me. I 
also am grateful that he shares this bounty with every new staffer and 
intern that walks into our office. Capitol Hill can be a magnet, 
attracting young people. If we want them to stay, we need more people 
like Gray to share their experiences and adventures. He is teaching the 
next generation about how they fit into the history, and the future, of 
our legislative branch of government. He also is constantly learning, 
with an understanding that these young people bring with them new 
perspectives and different ways of solving age-old problems.
  I would ask unanimous consent that, after my remarks, the full text 
of Robert F. Kennedy's ``Ripple of Hope'' address, which was delivered 
June 6, 1966, at the University of Capetown, South Africa, be entered 
into the record. Gray

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gives a copy of this speech to every new intern in our office and takes 
time from his hectic schedule to discuss it with each group. Anecdotes 
and surveys from interns year after year mention this discussion and 
how it stays with them long after their semester is complete. RFK's 
words echo throughout our work.
  He said: ``It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief 
that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, 
or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, 
he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a 
million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a 
current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and 
resistance.''
  Gray is proof positive that one person can make a difference.
  Finally, I would like to thank Gray for being there for me and for 
the Senate even when everyone else was home or working elsewhere. Maybe 
they were asleep because the Senate was voting at 2 a.m. Maybe they 
were teleworking because of the pandemic. Yes, as media reports have 
recounted, Gray was one of the few people who worked in his Senate 
office throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. He actually insisted that he 
come in so that his wife could be comfortable teleworking from their 
apartment. Truth be told, traffic was easier, and there were very few 
people around at that time, so it was seemingly a safe thing to do. We 
still took precautions. Even if he and I were in the office at the same 
time, he stayed in his office, and I stayed in mine, and we talked by 
phone. We wore facemasks and used antibacterial wipes on every door or 
item we touched.
  In another extreme case, Gray was one of only two staffers who were 
in our Hart office on January 6, 2021. He and our chief of staff, Chris 
Lynch, sheltered in place together all day while the Capitol was being 
overrun. Gray charged through the Trump years and the pandemic, but the 
days and months after January 6 definitely took their toll. I can 
understand why he and Eileen began to spend more and more time out in 
rural Rappahannock County, Virginia, where they rented a cottage during 
the pandemic. They now have a beautiful home on 6 acres of land and are 
surrounded by wheat and cornfields and dairy farms. I would try to 
entice them to Maryland, but they have been visiting this area for 40 
years, ever since Gray bought Eileen her very first riding lesson as a 
birthday gift. Even from Virginia, he will forever be a part of Team 
Maryland and the Cardin family.
  I wish Gray all the best in his retirement. He is a good man with a 
good heart, who has done phenomenal things for the Senate and our 
Nation. He will be missed, especially by this Senator.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

       [From University of Capetown, South Africa, June 6, 1966]

  Day of Affirmation Address, University of Capetown, Capetown, South 
                                 Africa

                         (By Robert F. Kennedy)

       Mr. Chancellor, Mr. Vice Chancellor, Professor Robertson, 
     Mr. Diamond, Mr. Daniel, Ladies and Gentlemen: I come here 
     this evening because of my deep interest and affection for a 
     land settled by the Dutch in the mid-seventeenth century, 
     then taken over by the British, and at last independent; a 
     land in which the native inhabitants were at first subdued, 
     but relations with whom remain a problem to this day; a land 
     which defined itself on a hostile frontier; a land which has 
     tamed rich natural resources through the energetic 
     application of modern technology; a land which was once the 
     importer of slaves, and now must struggle to wipe out the 
     last traces of that former bondage. I refer, of course, to 
     the United States of America.
       But I am glad to come here, and my wife and I and all of 
     our party are glad to come here to South Africa, and we are 
     glad to come here to Capetown. I am already greatly enjoying 
     my visit here. I am making an effort to meet and exchange 
     views with people of all walks of life, and all segments of 
     South African opinion--including those who represent the 
     views of the government. Today I am glad to meet with the 
     National Union of South African Students. For a decade, NUSAS 
     has stood and worked for the principles of the Universal 
     Declaration of Human Rights--principles which embody the 
     collective hopes of men of good will around the globe.
       Your work, at home and in international student affairs, 
     has brought great credit to yourselves and your country. I 
     know the National Student Association in the United States 
     feels a particularly close relationship with this 
     organization. And I wish to thank especially Mr. Ian 
     Robertson, who first extended this invitation on behalf of 
     NUSAS, I wish to thank him for his kindness to me in inviting 
     me. I am very sorry that he can not be with us here this 
     evening. I was happy to have had the opportunity to meet and 
     speak with him earlier this evening, and I presented him with 
     a copy of Profiles in Courage, which was a book written by 
     President John Kennedy and was signed to him by President 
     Kennedy's widow, Mrs. John Kennedy. This is a Day of 
     Affirmation--a celebration of liberty. We stand here in the 
     name of freedom.
       At the heart of that western freedom and democracy is the 
     belief that the individual man, the child of God, is the 
     touchstone of value, and all society, all groups, and states, 
     exist for that person's benefit. Therefore the enlargement of 
     liberty for individual human beings must be the supreme goal 
     and the abiding practice of any western society.
       The first element of this individual liberty is the freedom 
     of speech; the right to express and communicate ideas, to set 
     oneself apart from the dumb beasts of field and forest; the 
     right to recall governments to their duties and obligations; 
     above all, the right to affirm one's membership and 
     allegiance to the body politic--to society--to the men with 
     whom we share our land, our heritage and our children's 
     future.
       Hand in hand with freedom of speech goes the power to be 
     heard--to share in the decisions of government which shape 
     men's lives. Everything that makes man's lives worthwhile--
     family, work, education, a place to rear one's children and a 
     place to rest one's head--all this depends on the decisions 
     of government; all can be swept away by a government which 
     does not heed the demands of its people, and I mean all of 
     its people. Therefore, the essential humanity of man can be 
     protected and preserved only where the government must 
     answer--not just to the wealthy; not just to those of a 
     particular religion, not just to those of a particular race; 
     but to all of the people.
       And even government by the consent of the governed, as in 
     our own Constitution, must be limited in its power to act 
     against its people: so that there may be no interference with 
     the right to worship, but also no interference with the 
     security of the home; no arbitrary imposition of pains or 
     penalties on an ordinary citizen by officials high or low; no 
     restriction on the freedom of men to seek education or to 
     seek work or opportunity of any kind, so that each man may 
     become all that he is capable of becoming.
       These are the sacred rights of western society. These were 
     the essential differences between us and Nazi Germany as they 
     were between Athens and Persia.
       They are the essences of our differences with communism 
     today. I am unalterably opposed to communism because it 
     exalts the state over the individual and over the family, and 
     because its system contains a lack of freedom of speech, of 
     protest, of religion, and of the press, which is 
     characteristic of a totalitarian regime. The way of 
     opposition to communism, however, is not to imitate its 
     dictatorship, but to enlarge individual human freedom. There 
     are those in every land who would label as ``communist'' 
     every threat to their privilege. But may I say to you, as I 
     have seen on my travels in all sections of the world, reform 
     is not communism. And the denial of freedom, in whatever 
     name, only strengthens the very communism it claims to 
     oppose.
       Many nations have set forth their own definitions and 
     declarations of these principles. And there have often been 
     wide and tragic gaps between promise and performance, ideal 
     and reality. Yet the great ideals have constantly recalled us 
     to our own duties. And--with painful slowness--we in the 
     United States have extended and enlarged the meaning and the 
     practice of freedom to all of our people.
       For two centuries, my own country has struggled to overcome 
     the self-imposed handicap of prejudice and discrimination 
     based on nationality, on social class or race--discrimination 
     profoundly repugnant to the theory and to the command of our 
     Constitution. Even as my father grew up in Boston, 
     Massachusetts, signs told him that ``No Irish Need Apply''. 
     Two generations later, President Kennedy became the first 
     Irish Catholic, and the first Catholic, to head the nation; 
     but how many men of ability had, before 1961, been denied the 
     opportunity to contribute to the nation's progress because 
     they were Catholic, or because they were of Irish extraction? 
     How many sons of Italian or Jewish or Polish parents 
     slumbered in the slums--untaught, unlearned, their potential 
     lost forever to our nation and to the human race? Even today, 
     what price will we pay before we have assured full 
     opportunity to millions of Negro Americans?
       In the last five years we have done more to assure equality 
     to our Negro citizens and to help the deprived, both white 
     and black, than in the hundred years before that time. But 
     much, much more remains to be done.
       For there are millions of Negroes untrained for the 
     simplest of jobs, and thousands every day denied their full 
     and equal rights under the law; and the violence of the 
     disinherited, the insulted and the injured, looms over the 
     streets of Harlem and of Watts and Southside Chicago.
       But a Negro American trains as an astronaut, one of 
     mankind's first explorers into outer space; another is the 
     chief barrister of the United States government, and dozens

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     sit on the benches of our court; and another, Dr. Martin 
     Luther King, is the second man of African descent to win the 
     Nobel Peace Prize for his non-violent efforts for social 
     justice between all of the races.
       We have passed laws prohibiting discrimination in 
     education, in employment, in housing; but these laws alone 
     cannot overcome the heritage of centuries--of broken families 
     and stunted children, and poverty and degradation and pain.
       So the road toward equality of freedom is not easy, and 
     great cost and danger march alongside all of us. We are 
     committed to peaceful and non-violent change and that is 
     important for all to understand--though change is unsettling. 
     Still, even in the turbulence of protest and struggle is 
     greater hope for the future, as men learn to claim and 
     achieve for themselves the rights formerly petitioned from 
     others.
       And most important of all, all the panoply of government 
     power has been committed to the goal of equality before the 
     law--as we are now committing ourselves to achievement of 
     equal opportunity in fact.
       We must recognize the full human equality of all of our 
     people--before God, before the law, and in the councils of 
     government. We must do this, not because it is economically 
     advantageous--although it is; not because the laws of God 
     command it--although they do; not because people in other 
     lands wish it so. We must do it for the single and 
     fundamental reason that it is the right thing to do.
       We recognize that there are problems and obstacles before 
     the fulfillment of these ideals in the United States as we 
     recognize that other nations, in Latin America and in Asia 
     and in Africa have their own political, economic, and social 
     problems, their unique barriers to the elimination of 
     injustices.
       In some, there is concern that change will submerge the 
     rights of a minority, particularly where that minority is of 
     a different race than that of the majority. We in the United 
     States believe in the protection of minorities; we recognize 
     the contributions that they can make and the leadership they 
     can provide; and we do not believe that any people--whether 
     majority or minority, or individual human beings--are 
     ``expendable'' in the cause of theory or policy. We recognize 
     also that justice between men and nations is imperfect, and 
     that humanity sometimes progresses very slowly indeed.
       All do not develop in the same manner and at the same pace. 
     Nations, like men, often march to the beat of different 
     drummers, and the precise solutions of the United States can 
     neither be dictated nor transplanted to others, and that is 
     not our intention. What is important however is that all 
     nations must march toward increasing freedom; toward justice 
     for all; toward a society strong and flexible enough to meet 
     the demands of all of its people, whatever their race, and 
     the demands of a world of immense and dizzying change that 
     face us all.
       In a few hours, the plane that brought me to this country 
     crossed over oceans and countries which have been a crucible 
     of human history. In minutes we traced migrations of men over 
     thousands of years; seconds, the briefest glimpse, and we 
     passed battlefields on which millions of men once struggled 
     and died. We could see no national boundaries, no vast gulfs 
     or high walls dividing people from people; only nature and 
     the works of man--homes and factories and farms--everywhere 
     reflecting man's common effort to enrich his life. Everywhere 
     new technology and communications bring men and nations 
     closer together, the concerns of one inevitably become the 
     concerns of all. And our new closeness is stripping away the 
     false masks, the illusion of differences which is at the root 
     of injustice and hate and war. Only earthbound man still 
     clings to the dark and poisoning superstition that his world 
     is bounded by the nearest hill, his universe ends at river's 
     shore, his common humanity is enclosed in the tight circle of 
     those who share his town or his views and the color of his 
     skin.
       It is your job, the task of the young people in this world 
     to strip the last remnants of that ancient, cruel belief from 
     the civilization of man.
       Each nation has different obstacles and different goals, 
     shaped by the vagaries of history and of experience. Yet as I 
     talk to young people around the world I am impressed not by 
     the diversity but by the closeness of their goals, their 
     desires, and their concerns and their hope for the future. 
     There is discrimination in New York, the racial inequality of 
     apartheid in South Africa, and serfdom in the mountains of 
     Peru. People starve to death in the streets of India; a 
     former Prime Minister is summarily executed in the Congo; 
     intellectuals go to jail in Russia; and thousands are 
     slaughtered in Indonesia; wealth is lavished on armaments 
     everywhere in the world. These are different evils; but they 
     are the common works of man. They reflect the imperfections 
     of human justice, the inadequacy of human compassion, the 
     defectiveness of our sensibility toward the sufferings of our 
     fellows; they mark the limit of our ability to use knowledge 
     for the well-being of our fellow human beings throughout the 
     world. And therefore they call upon common qualities of 
     conscience and indignation, a shared determination to wipe 
     away the unnecessary sufferings of our fellow human beings at 
     home and around the world.
       It is these qualities which make of our youth today the 
     only true international community. More than this I think 
     that we could agree on what kind of a world we want to build. 
     It would be a world of independent nations, moving toward 
     international community, each of which protected and 
     respected the basic human freedoms. It would be a world which 
     demanded of each government that it accept its responsibility 
     to insure social justice. It would be a world of constantly 
     accelerating economic progress--not material welfare as an 
     end in of itself, but as a means to liberate the capacity of 
     every human being to pursue his talents and to pursue his 
     hopes. It would, in short, be a world that we would all be 
     proud to have built.
       Just to the North of here are lands of challenge and of 
     opportunity--rich in natural resources, land and minerals and 
     people. Yet they are also lands confronted by the greatest 
     odds--overwhelming ignorance, internal tensions and strife, 
     and great obstacles of climate and geography. Many of these 
     nations, as colonies, were oppressed and were exploited. Yet 
     they have not estranged themselves from the broad traditions 
     of the West; they are hoping and they are gambling their 
     progress and their stability on the chance that we will meet 
     our responsibilities to them, to help them overcome their 
     poverty.
       In the world we would like to build, South Africa could 
     play an outstanding role, and a role of leadership in that 
     effort. This country is without question a preeminent 
     repository of the wealth and the knowledge and the skill of 
     the continent. Here are the greater part of Africa's research 
     scientists and steel production, most of its reservoirs of 
     coal and of electric power. Many South Africans have made 
     major contributions to African technical development and 
     world science; the names of some are known wherever men seek 
     to eliminate the ravages of tropical disease and of 
     pestilence. In your faculties and councils, here in this very 
     audience, are hundreds and thousands of men and women who 
     could transform the lives of millions for all time to come.
       But the help and leadership of South Africa or of the 
     United States cannot be accepted if we--within our own 
     countries or in our relationships with others--deny 
     individual integrity, human dignity, and the common humanity 
     of man. If we would lead outside our own borders; if we would 
     help those who need our assistance; if we would meet our 
     responsibilities to mankind; we must first, all of us, 
     demolish the borders which history has erected between men 
     within our own nations--barriers of race and religion, social 
     class and ignorance.
       Our answer is the world's hope; it is to rely on youth. The 
     cruelties and the obstacles of this swiftly changing planet 
     will not yield to obsolete dogmas and outworn slogans. It 
     cannot be moved by those who cling to a present which is 
     already dying, who prefer the illusion of security to the 
     excitement and danger which comes with even the most peaceful 
     progress. This world demands the qualities of youth: not a 
     time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a 
     quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over 
     timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the life of 
     ease--a man like the Chancellor of this University. It is a 
     revolutionary world that we all live in; and thus, as I have 
     said in Latin America and Asia and in Europe and in my own 
     country, the United States, it is the young people who must 
     take the lead. Thus you, and your young compatriots 
     everywhere have had thrust upon you a greater burden of 
     responsibility than any generation that has ever lived.
       ``There is,'' said an Italian philosopher, ``nothing more 
     difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more 
     uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the 
     introduction of a new order of things.'' Yet this is the 
     measure of the task of your generation and the road is strewn 
     with many dangers.
       First is the danger of futility; the belief there is 
     nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous 
     array of the world's ills--against misery, against ignorance, 
     or injustice and violence. Yet many of the world's great 
     movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work 
     of a single man. A young monk began the Protestant 
     reformation, a young general extended an empire from 
     Macedonia to the borders of the earth, and a young woman 
     reclaimed the territory of France. It was a young Italian 
     explorer who discovered the New World, and 32 year old Thomas 
     Jefferson who proclaimed that all men are created equal. 
     ``Give me a place to stand,'' said Archimedes, ``and I will 
     move the world.'' These men moved the world, and so can we 
     all. Few will have the greatness to bend history; but each of 
     us can work to change a small portion of the events, and in 
     the total of all these acts will be written the history of 
     this generation. Thousands of Peace Corps volunteers are 
     making a difference in the isolated villages and the city 
     slums of dozens of countries. Thousands of unknown men and 
     women in Europe resisted the occupation of the Nazis and many 
     died, but all added to the ultimate strength and freedom of 
     their countries. It is from numberless diverse acts of 
     courage such as these that the belief that human history is 
     thus shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts 
     to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against 
     injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing 
     each other from a million different centers of energy and 
     daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the 
     mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
       ``If Athens shall appear great to you,'' said Pericles, 
     ``consider then that her glories

[[Page S5634]]

     were purchased by valiant men, and by men who learned their 
     duty.'' That is the source of all greatness in all societies, 
     and it is the key to progress in our own time.
       The second danger is that of expediency; of those who say 
     that hopes and beliefs must bend before immediate 
     necessities. Of course if we must act effectively we must 
     deal with the world as it is. We must get things done. But if 
     there was one thing that President Kennedy stood for that 
     touched the most profound feeling of young people across the 
     world, it was the belief that idealism, high aspiration and 
     deep convictions are not incompatible with the most practical 
     and efficient of programs--that there is no basic 
     inconsistency between ideals and realistic possibilities--no 
     separation between the deepest desires of heart and of mind 
     and the rational application of human effort to human 
     problems. It is not realistic or hard-headed to solve 
     problems and take action unguided by ultimate moral aims and 
     values, although we all know some who claim that it is so. In 
     my judgement, it is thoughtless folly. For it ignores the 
     realities of human faith and of passion and of belief; forces 
     ultimately more powerful than all the calculations of our 
     economists or of our generals. Of course to adhere to 
     standards, to idealism, to vision in the face of immediate 
     dangers takes great courage and takes self-confidence. But we 
     also know that only those who dare to fail greatly, can ever 
     achieve greatly.
       It is this new idealism which is also, I believe, the 
     common heritage of a generation which has learned that while 
     efficiency can lead to the camps at Auschwitz, or the streets 
     of Budapest, only the ideals of humanity and love can climb 
     the hills of the Acropolis.
       A third danger is timidity. Few men are willing to brave 
     the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their 
     colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a 
     rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. 
     Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek 
     to change the world which yields most painfully to change. 
     Aristotle tells us ``At the Olympic games it is not the 
     finest or the strongest men who are crowned, but those who 
     enter the lists . . . so too in the life of the honorable and 
     the good it is they who act rightly who win the prize.'' I 
     believe that in this generation those with the courage to 
     enter the conflict will find themselves with companions in 
     every corner of the world.
       For the fortunate amongst us, the fourth danger is comfort; 
     the temptation to follow the easy and familiar path of 
     personal ambition and financial success so grandly spread 
     before those who have the privilege of an education. But that 
     is not the road history has marked out for us. There is a 
     Chinese curse which says ``May he live in interesting 
     times.'' Like it or not, we live in interesting times. They 
     are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also the 
     most creative of any time in the history of mankind. And 
     everyone here will ultimately be judged--will ultimately 
     judge himself--on the effort he has contributed to building a 
     new world society and the extent to which his ideals and 
     goals have shaped that effort.
       So we part, I to my country and you to remain. We are--if a 
     man of forty can claim the privilege--fellow members of the 
     world's largest younger generation. Each of us have our own 
     work to do. I know at times you must feel very alone with 
     your problems and with your difficulties. But I want to say 
     how impressed I am with what you stand for and for the effort 
     you are making; and I say this not just for myself, but men 
     and women all over the world. And I hope you will often take 
     heart from the knowledge that you are joined with your fellow 
     young people in every land, they struggling with their 
     problems and you with yours, but all joined in a common 
     purpose; that, like the young people of my own country and of 
     every country that I have visited, you are all in many ways 
     more closely united to the brothers of your time than to the 
     older generation in any of these nations; you are determined 
     to build a better future. President Kennedy was speaking to 
     the young people of America, but beyond them to young people 
     everywhere, when he said ``The energy, the faith, the 
     devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our 
     country and all who serve it--and the glow from that fire can 
     truly light the world.''
       And, he added, ``With a good conscience our only sure 
     reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go 
     forth and 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.''
       I thank you.

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