tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39573837383409468132024-03-21T04:24:33.930-07:00Heroes and Role ModelsSpeeches, biographies and quotations of those I admireFallhikerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00558598370555827002noreply@blogger.comBlogger74125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3957383738340946813.post-7684179415707903692011-12-06T17:16:00.000-08:002011-12-06T17:16:42.376-08:00USS Ward, Report of Pearl Harbor Attack<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbUGl9NOOsWlA1zTRPSQRyhnveFGAl6LAAH01FGE0rd1ytDP2Ry_INiSOvlH_oyKEDLlYvLEiBFcCwwMvBohi_NyYf6R96Q5qt7Vchyphenhyphen6uxJfQaWp7ca7gjEBlNbP1rKn-0q5NPScBeW7g/s1600/tigtbawnsop01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="302" mda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbUGl9NOOsWlA1zTRPSQRyhnveFGAl6LAAH01FGE0rd1ytDP2Ry_INiSOvlH_oyKEDLlYvLEiBFcCwwMvBohi_NyYf6R96Q5qt7Vchyphenhyphen6uxJfQaWp7ca7gjEBlNbP1rKn-0q5NPScBeW7g/s400/tigtbawnsop01.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>DD139/A16-3(7--)/ <br />
U.S.S. Ward Pearl Harbor, T.H.<br />
December 13, 1941. <br />
<br />
From: Commanding Officer. <br />
To: The Commandant, Fourteenth Naval District.<br />
(1) Commander Destroyer Division EIGHTY.<br />
(2) Commander Inshore Patrol. <br />
<br />
Subject: Sinking of a Japanese Submarine by U.S.S. Ward. <br />
<br />
While patrolling Pearl Harbor Entrance on Sunday, December 7, 1941, the U.S.S. Ward attacked an unidentified submarine in the Restricted Area off the Harbor. <br />
<br />
The facts are as follows: <br />
<br />
At 0637 the Officer-of-the-Deck said, "Captain come on the bridge". A conning tower with periscope of submarine was visible. She was apparently headed for Pearl Harbor trailing the U.S.S. Antares. The Antares was standing toward the channel entrance towing a lighter. <br />
<br />
At 0640 the attack was started. The Ward bore down on the submarine while accelerating from 5 to 25 knots. <br />
<br />
At 0645 the Ward opened fire with No. 1 and 3 guns and began dropping depth charges. One shot was fired from each gun. The shot from No. 1 gun missed, passing directly over the conning tower. The shot from No. 3 gun fired at a range of 560 yards or less struck the submarine at the waterline which was the junction of the hull and coning tower. Damage was seen by several members of the crew. This was a square positive hit. There was no evidence of ricochet. The submarine was seen to heel over to starboard. The projectile was not seen to explode outside the hull of the submarine. There was no splash of any size that might results from an explosion or ricochet. <br />
<br />
Immediately after being hit the submarine appeared to slow and sink. She ran into our depth charge barrage and appeared to be directly over an exploding charge. The depth charges were set for 100 feet. <br />
<br />
The submarine sank in 1200 feet of water and could not be located with supersonic detector. There was a large amount of oil on the surface where the depth charges exploded. <br />
<br />
The attack was made at 0645 which was before Pearl Harbor was bombed by Japanese planes. <br />
<br />
A dispatch by voice transmission was sent to Commandant, Fourteenth Naval District at 0645 which stated: <br />
<br />
"We have attacked, fired upon, and dropped depth charges on a submarine operating in defensive sea areas." <br />
<br />
The performance of duty by the officers and men during this attack was in accordance with the traditions of this service. <br />
<br />
Pertinent Information<br />
<br />
Appearance of submarine: Cylindrical tube about 80 feet long with small oval shaped conning tower. It had no deck. It was painted dark green and was covered with moss indicating that it had been at sea for a considerable period. <br />
<br />
Behavior during attack: In spite of the five minute run from the time of sighting and time of attack, the submarine apparently did not see or detect the Ward. It was making from 8 to 10 knots and was apparently bent on following the Antares into port. Exact distances are not known but at the time of the first shot the range was not more than 100 yards and for the second shot the range was 50 yards or less. The submarine passed very close to our stern. <br />
<br />
[signed]<br />
W.W. OUTERBRIDGE</div>Fallhikerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00558598370555827002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3957383738340946813.post-48766658425155322092011-05-10T09:49:00.000-07:002011-05-10T09:53:51.042-07:00Chief Joseph Nez Pierce (1840-1904)<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2dsd5xA8MGc61GAj8dddPokI_FhzgMtRY7lI3EvJ4hfxllc8CxaIAIQR4BSNREiIC3SlPSRXUWOoniA0KNzQfA4FZg-Ma2EUct1UTJ8aTOkUrl3cuAcfrJD_l6iaLcDmeC3dnKcXgL5I/s1600/chief%252520joseph%252520nez%252520perce.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 256px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5605131429118930434" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2dsd5xA8MGc61GAj8dddPokI_FhzgMtRY7lI3EvJ4hfxllc8CxaIAIQR4BSNREiIC3SlPSRXUWOoniA0KNzQfA4FZg-Ma2EUct1UTJ8aTOkUrl3cuAcfrJD_l6iaLcDmeC3dnKcXgL5I/s320/chief%252520joseph%252520nez%252520perce.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;">Chief Joseph, known by his people as In-mut-too-yah-lat-lat (Thunder coming up over the land from the water), was best known for his resistance to the U.S. Government's attempts to force his tribe onto reservations. The Nez Perce were a peaceful nation spread from Idaho to Northern Washington. The tribe had maintained good relations with the whites after the Lewis and Clark expedition. Joseph spent much of his early childhood at a mission maintained by Christian missionaries. </span><br /><div><br /><br /><p><span style="font-family:arial;">In 1855 Chief Joseph's father, Old Joseph, signed a treaty with the U.S. that allowed his people to retain much of their traditional lands. In 1863 another treaty was created that severely reduced the amount of land, but Old Joseph maintained that this second treaty was never agreed to by his people. </span></p><br /><p><span style="font-family:arial;">A showdown over the second "non-treaty" came after Chief Joseph assumed his role as Chief in 1877. After months of fighting and forced marches, many of the Nez Perce were sent to a reservation in what is now Oklahoma, where many died from malaria and starvation. Chief Joseph tried every possible appeal to the federal authorities to return the Nez Perce to the land of their ancestors. In 1885, he was sent along with many of his band to a reservation in Washington where, according to the reservation doctor, he later died of a broken heart. </span></p><br /><p><b><span style="font-family:arial;">Quotes from Chief Joseph:</span></p></b><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><p></span></span><span style="font-family:arial;">* I have carried a heavy load on my back ever since I was a boy. I realized then that we could not hold our own with the white men. We were like deer. They were like grizzly bears. We had small country. Their country was large. We were contented to let things remain as the Great Spirit Chief made them. They were not, and would change the rivers and mountains if they did not suit them. </span></p><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><p></span></span><span style="font-family:arial;">* I am tired of fighting.... from where the sun now stands, I will fight no more. </span></p><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><p></span></span><span style="font-family:arial;">* Our fathers gave us many laws, which they had learned from their fathers. These laws were good. They told us to treat all people as they treated us; that we should never be the first to break a bargain; that is was a disgrace to tell a lie; that we should speak only the truth; that it was a shame for one man to take another's wife or his property without paying for it. </span></p><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><p></span></span><span style="font-family:arial;">* Suppose a white man should come to me and say, "Joseph, I like your horses. I want to buy them." I say to him, "No, my horses suit me; I will not sell them." Then he goes to my neighbor and says, "Pay me money, and I will sell you Joseph’s horses." The white man returns to me and says, "Joseph, I have bought your horses and you must let me have them." If we sold our lands to the government, this is the way they bought them. </span></p><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><p></span></span><span style="font-family:arial;">* I am not a child, I think for myself. No man can think for me. </span></p><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><p></span></span><span style="font-family:arial;">* If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian, he can live in peace. Treat all men alike. Give them a chance to live and grow. </span></p><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><p></span></span><span style="font-family:arial;">* All men were made brothers. The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it. You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born free should be contented when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases. </span></p><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><p></span></span><span style="font-family:arial;">* If you tie a horse to a stake, do you expect him to grow fat? If you pen an Indian up on a small spot of earth, and compel him to stay there, he will not be contented, nor will he grow and prosper. </span></p><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><p></span></span><span style="font-family:arial;">* The earth and myself are of one mind. </span></p><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><p></span></span><span style="font-family:arial;">* We were taught to believe that the Great Spirit sees and hears everything, and that he never forgets, that hereafter he will give every man a spirit home according to his deserts; If he has been a good man, he will have a good home; if he has been a bad man, he will have a bad home. </span></p><br /><p><span style="font-family:arial;">* This I believe, and all my people believe the same. </span></p><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><p></span></span><span style="font-family:arial;">* Good words do not last long unless they amount to something. Words do not pay for my dead people. They do not pay for my country, now overrun by white men. They do not protect my father’s grave. They do not pay for all my horses and cattle. </span></p><br /><p><span style="font-family:arial;">* Good words cannot give me back my children. Good words will not give my people good health and stop them from dying. Good words will not get my people a home where they can live in peace and take care of themselves. </span></p><br /><p><span style="font-family:arial;">* I am tired of talk that comes to nothing It makes my heart sick when I remember all the good words and all the broken promises. There has been too much talking by men who had no right to talk. </span></p><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><p></span></span><span style="font-family:arial;">* It does not require many words to speak the truth. </span></p><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><p></span></span><span style="font-family:arial;">* We do not want churches because they will teach us to quarrel about God, as the Catholics and Protestants do. We do not want that. </span></p><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><p></span></span><span style="font-family:arial;">* We may quarrel with men about things on earth, but we never quarrel about the Great Spirit. </span></p><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><p></span></span><span style="font-family:arial;">* I believe much trouble and blood would be saved if we opened our hearts more. I will tell you in my way how the Indian sees things. The white man has more words to tell you how they look to him, but is does not require many words to seek the truth. </span></p><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><p></span></span><span style="font-family:arial;">* Too many misinterpretations have been made... too many misunderstandings... </span></p><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><p></span></span><span style="font-family:arial;">* The Great Spirit Chief who rules above all will smile upon this land... and this time the Indian race is waiting and praying. </span></p><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><p></span></span><span style="font-family:arial;">* I am tired of talk that comes to nothing.</span></p></div>Fallhikerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00558598370555827002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3957383738340946813.post-17765708840271886162011-05-10T09:21:00.000-07:002011-05-10T09:24:41.415-07:00Address by William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891)<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKiXIog_Cuvm3su-GLAY1EtU_jsLvih_-HAYlPTSJpBsIK3h6A2vU81GWe7naNIxSSbX_fq7r5-OkMu03IWE6FCdSCSlyJ7KgIJabYlm5aMU-VXO0iBKooqFrt5LXg_lpCIjFBzpf7kas/s1600/sherman_image.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 262px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5605123654456444274" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKiXIog_Cuvm3su-GLAY1EtU_jsLvih_-HAYlPTSJpBsIK3h6A2vU81GWe7naNIxSSbX_fq7r5-OkMu03IWE6FCdSCSlyJ7KgIJabYlm5aMU-VXO0iBKooqFrt5LXg_lpCIjFBzpf7kas/s320/sherman_image.jpg" /></a>Ladies and Gentlemen, and Fellow-Citizens: <br /><div><br /><dir><br /><p>When I accepted the invitation to come over to your town and join with you in the festivities of this Fourth of July, I little dreamed I would be ushered so soon upon the stage. I thought some younger and more ambitious man would break the way, and prepare for those who were to follow. </p><br /><p>But, I find myself here at your bidding. I believe I have never failed you, and I will try to do my best now. I think every old soldier will give me full credit for being in earnest. </p><br /><p>It is a long time, my friends, since I have seen a Fourth of July within the groves with ladies and children, all free in the woods of nature. I have seen crowds of all kinds in the cities and on the battle-fields, but I cannot recollect having seen a crowd of ladies and children all mingled together in the native forest, for many, many years. </p><br /><p>I trust you will bear with me if my voice does not reach you all, for I am not accustomed to pitch it through the woods and over the heads of a crowd like this, and I hope you will be as quiet and silent as possible. </p><br /><p>I regret that Governor Oglesby is unwell, for I thought that he, with his herculean frame and giant intellect, would take the load off my shoulders; but I am going to leave a big pile for my friend John Logan, who has got to fight it through. [Laughter.] Now, my friends and fellow soldiers, with this introduction, let me ask you if we have not a right to come here together and be satisfied and rejoice. [Applause.] We have a right to come here and say that this is our National day, and that we will celebrate it just when and how we please--that we will fire guns or raise flags or do what we please, for it is our day--your day, my day. We are all free in this country. And when did we acquire this freedom? Just ninety years ago, as these young ladies who sang to us in so sweet a melody served to remind us just nine years ago it was boldly proclaimed to the whole world that a new nation was born. </p><br /><p>I wish they had called it Columbia, but they called it the United States of America, and we have inherited the name and the fame, and now it becomes us to transmit both to those who may come after us, and we will do it. [Cheers.] But, my friends, inheriting a national name on that day ninety years ago we can look back into the past and into the still darker future, and see whether we were entitled to that name. </p><br /><p>I remember well to have read of Columbus on his voyage of discovery, and I have always felt for him as he stood by that foremast looking into the future, into the unknown distance of time, and never doubting but what he would discover at last the land which we have inherited. I would rather have him standing there by that foremast as our National emblem than almost anything else--standing there full of confidence and hope, looking into the future, never doubting and regardless of the tumult and turmoil around him. He did discover our country and then the nations of the earth commenced grasping for territory--he Spaniard for his gold and for the fountain of perpetual youth. He has found his gold and passed away. The English, the Swedes, the Germans--all came in search of fertile lands. They looked for the land which would remain forever yielding its grain, its grass and its timber; so that not only they, but their children after them should live and enjoy the fruits of their labor. </p><br /><p>The Spaniards have nearly vanished from our territory, but the English, the Swedes, the Germans, the French remain, and their posterity will remain till the end of time. </p><br /><p>From this I infer the fact that the soil and climate such as you enjoy here in Illinois is the wealth of America not alone its mineral resources. They are incidental. They are dug up and are taken away, but this soil remains to you today, next year and forever to the end of time; and will produce food and raiment for all men on the face of the earth. </p><br /><p>Then comes the intellectual part of our history. Look at Franklin drawing from the clouds the agency of electricity, so that now you are able to communicate with your friends far away that you are well and comfortably assembled together. He is also another man whom we should cherish with pride--he and other men who made your constitution according to the best of their understanding, believing that it would fulfill the destiny for which they contemplated it. No one doubted that it was fair upon its face; every paragraph had been well studied, and it did work like a charm, and I still think it is the best heritage which they could have given us. </p><br /><p>But like many of the people of the world, are we not governed by reason alone. We are full of passion; I am full of passion and sometimes act wildly. So do you, and so do all men. We do not follow the dictates of our intellect and reason; but are swayed hither and thither by passion. Passion carried us into one war with England; then came the Mexican War, and finally the great war which is now over, thank God, and you are the living witnesses of it. </p><br /><p>I know that you connect my name with this last war; but I must confess there were phases which I was powerless to meet. Everyone of you have seen and comprehended perfectly the whole problem. A part of our people supposing they had sustained wrongs endeavored to break down our Government. You said no, they said yes. There was no use disguising it further, it had to be fought out. All arguments were at an end. All discussion should have ceased then and there; and every man capable of bearing arms should have siezed [sic] his musket and rushed to the standard of his country and rescued it from danger as you did. </p><br /><p>But it was difficult for a time, as you all know, to comprehend that any part of the American people would rebel against any other part. I could not believe it until I saw it. I doubt if any man in Illinois comprehended in the beginning that we were to be swamped in civil war. But when at last it flashed upon us how majestically rose our people. It is one of the proudest points in our history that our young men, regardless of party and of former associations, rushed to the rescue of that flag which is the symbol of our Nation and rescued it. [Cheers.] </p><br /><p>But I hope that never, never again will you be called on to be exposed, as you were, to the dangers and vicissitudes of war. But I believe that you, and such as you that fill our Western country and the far off East, will solve and make plain that course which will bring us all back to our true position in reference to National right and National duty. </p><br /><p>[At this point Governor Oglesby made his appearance on the platform and was received with loud cheers.] </p><br /><p>As I remarked in the first place, ladies and gentlemen, I do not intend to make a Fourth of July speech, and I am glad to see that the Governor has come to my rescue. There are two or three points in relation to the last war upon which I want the Illinois boys to understand how I feel, because in those days you remember I could not talk to you very confidentially. [Laughter.] I believe, as a general rule, there was a full understanding among the Generals of the army; but even we had to be very careful lest information of our intentions should get abroad and result in your loss. If I had said in advance that I was going to do a certain thing, many of you now living might not be here now. It was our desire--the desire of every officer in the army, every general officer--to accomplish the object in view, and as far as possible restore you back in health to your families. </p><br /><p>We did not like to see blood shed, but we were determined to produce results. Now, what were those results? To make every man, woman and child in the South feel that if they had rebelled against the flag of our country they must die or submit. [Loud cheers.] That was the problem which we had to solve. As long as they met us man to man, and face to face, we went at them and struck in front and rear. And when they tried the game of drawing us farther and farther away--compelling us to leave our garrisons or guard here, so as to absorb our strength--when they undertook to play that game, it became necessary for us to defeat it, and to make it appear that we were going to do one thing, and then go and do another. [Laughter.] Now you all remember when we took Atlanta it looked as though with our army strung along a line of six or seven hundred miles the head of the column would be crushed. </p><br /><p>If I had gone on stringing out my forces would there not have been a time when the head of that column would have been crushed in? You soldiers are generals enough to see that. Therefore I resolved in my mind to stop the game of guarding their cities, and destroy their cities. [Cheers.] </p><br /><p>Now, my friends, I know there are parties who denounce me as inhuman. I appeal to you if I have not always been kind and considerate to you. [Cheers.] I care not what they say. [Bully for you and cheers.] I say that it ceased to be our duty to guard their cities any longer, and had I gone on stringing out my column, little by little, some of your Illinois regiments would not have come home, but would have been crushed. Therefore I determined to go through their country, and so I took one army myself and gave my friend George Thomas the other, and we whaled away with both. [Loud cheers.] Therefore we destroyed Atlanta, and if we had destroyed all the cities of the South in order to bring about the result in view it would have been right. [Loud cheers.] </p><br /><p>The course we pursued did produce the desired result, and now, ladies, you see your young friends returned to you, wives see their husbands-- all reunited in this beautiful grove in Illinois, and God knows, I hope you will never be sent forth again; but if you are, I know you will respond more promptly than you did before. [Loud cheers.] </p><br /><p>As to the future, I have been over all that part of the country which is assigned to me, and I have never yet, at any period of our history, seen the country looking so prosperous, the grain growing so luxuriantly, and the people so well contented and happy, the table so bountifully spread; and all this, too, out on the plains of Kansas where, six years ago, it required an escort of three hundred men to guard an officer sent to pay off a garrison. Now I can go, and anybody can go with a single horse a way out to the limits of Kansas, or even to Colorado, without an escort, and that too at the close of a long and terrible war. So that I say that we are progressing to the end we have in view, and that whether the politicians, whether the statesmen, I will call them, the judges and lawyers, will adopt a policy to produce the desired result, I don't know and don't much care, because it will be done anyhow. [Laughter and cheers.] I say if the farmers, mechanics and businessmen will go on and attend to their own business the people of Missouri will do the same. Iowa the same, and so it will be all over the Western and Northern country, and politicians will be compelled to adapt their policy to this end--and that is the true end, namely, the great prosperity of our country. </p><br /><p>Therefore it is unnecessary to even allude to the position in which our national affairs are placed, for I do not pretend to comprehend or understand them. It is not my task; but it is my task to see that the forces placed at my disposal to put down opposition to the laws quickly and forever, do their duty. [Cheers.] Whenever the United States Marshal comes to me and tells me that his power is resisted, and he has not sufficient civil force to execute the laws, if I have soldiers I will go to his assistance and see that the laws are enforced. And my friends, if that rule is carried out in the land, if the laws of Congress are to be enforced wherever this flag floats, then in truth are we a nation to all intents and purposes, at home and abroad. </p><br /><p>I have also had occasion to meet with a great many foreigners of late and I tell you they have a great deal of respect for us; far more than they did five years ago, and they have reason to. At the same time I believe the policy that General Washington laid down is the true one, not to interfere with other people. We have plenty to do ourselves, at home. [We?] have land enough in all [causes?] level land, mountain land [?] for that three hundred millions of people. [?] All the riches of the [?]. Therefore, I hope we will never be jealous of our neighbors' prosperity, and that our people will not become involved with any foreign nations; but when it becomes necessary to assert our authority with foreign nations, let Congress and the Executive do it by due course of law, and then it becomes our right and not before. [Cheers.] Now, fellow soldiers, I have spoken longer than I could wish, but I beg you would consider it as a measure of my love for the old army. I do not believe you realize or understand the feeling which I had for you, as you left all behind you and followed me blindly, not knowing what was transpiring in my mind--followed me in my long and devious career without asking any questions--cheerfully and well. I thank you from the bottom of my heart, because then you were serving your country. You realize it now--you and I surviving. I did not expect to survive the war, but I have survived it, and you have survived it, and now from the bottom of my heart I thank you for that cheerful performance of your duty-- noble and manly endurance which at last caused the clouds of war to vanish, and enable our flag to float triumphantly over our whole land. </p><br /><p>And now, here we are in peace and quiet at home in the midst of plenty, prosperity and kind friends, and I trust these old flags may remain with you forever. </p></dir><br /><p>Presented in Salem, Illinois, on July 4, 1866</p></div>Fallhikerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00558598370555827002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3957383738340946813.post-87699915173166593072011-05-03T12:55:00.000-07:002011-05-03T13:01:09.710-07:00Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's speech to the United Nations<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtD7HTKbIfHMKCLjlGCDdfYLR6mL-v1Xklq4d3kEmGkv53nuxfvVwkk7jdaTb6YXUFrbrvCLpj5sy0s2HGDyvcw-yIGumUryWPH9idBlcpWFEfUeqyfmCGn8K2flSJn8vIRWBdzNGeEdM/s1600/r.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 244px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5602581455034763778" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtD7HTKbIfHMKCLjlGCDdfYLR6mL-v1Xklq4d3kEmGkv53nuxfvVwkk7jdaTb6YXUFrbrvCLpj5sy0s2HGDyvcw-yIGumUryWPH9idBlcpWFEfUeqyfmCGn8K2flSJn8vIRWBdzNGeEdM/s320/r.jpg" /></a>Thank you President of the General Assembly, Dr. Han Seung-Soo, and Secretary General Annan.<br />And thank you very much for the opportunity to speak, and also for the consideration you showed the city in putting off your general session. And as I explained to the secretary general and the president of the General Assembly, we are now open and we're ready, and at any time that we can arrange it, we look forward to having your heads of state and your foreign ministers here for that session.<br />On September 11, 2001, New York City, the most diverse city in the world, was viciously attacked in an unprovoked act of war. More than 5,000 innocent men, women and children of every race, religion and ethnicity are lost. Among these were people from 80 different nations.<br />To their representatives here today, I offer my condolences to you as well on behalf of all New Yorkers who share this lost with you.<br />This was the deadliest terrorist attack in history. It claimed more lives than Pearl Harbor or D-Day. This was not just an attack on the city of New York or on the United States of America. It was an the attack of the very idea of a free, inclusive and civil society. It was a direct assault on the founding principles of the United Nations itself.<br />The preamble to the U.N. charter states that this organization exists to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights in the dignity and worth of the human person, to practice tolerance and live together in peace as good neighbors, and to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security.<br />Indeed, this vicious attack places in jeopardy the whole purpose of the United Nations. Terrorism is based on the persistent and deliberate violation of fundamental human rights. With bullets and bombs and now with hijacked airplanes, terrorists deny the dignity of human life. Terrorism preys particularly on cultures and communities that practice openness and tolerance. Their targeting of innocent civilians mocks the efforts of those who seek to live together in peace as neighbors; it defies the very notion of being a neighbor.<br />This massive attack was intended to break our spirit; it has not done that. It's made us stronger, more determined and more resolved. The bravery of our firefighters, our police officers, our emergency workers, and civilians, we may never learn of, in saving over 25,000 lives that day and carrying out the most effective rescue operation in our history, inspires all of us.<br />I'm very honored to have with me as their representatives, the fire commissioner of New York City, Tom Von Essen.<br />Tom, please stand up.<br />And the police commissioner of New York City, Bernard Kerik.<br />The determination, resolve and leadership of President George W. Bush has unified America and all decent men and women around the world. And the response of many of your nations, your leaders and people, spontaneously demonstrating in the days after the attack your support for New York and America, and your understanding of what needs to be done to remove the threat of terrorism, gives us great, great hope that we will prevail.<br />The strength of America's response, please understand, flows from the principles upon which we stand. Americans are not a single ethnic group.<br />Americans are not of one race or one religion. Americans emerged from all of your nations. We're defined as Americans by our beliefs, not by our ethnic origins, our race or our religion. Our belief in religious freedom, political freedom, economic freedom, that's what makes an American. Our belief in democracy, the rule of law, and respect for human life, that's how you become an American.<br />It's these very principles and the opportunities these principles give to so many to create a better life for themselves and their families that make America and New York a shining city on a hill. There's no nation in the history of the world and no city that has seen more immigrants in less time than America. And people continue to come here in large, large numbers to seek freedom, opportunity, decency, civility.<br />Each of your nations, I'm certain, has contributed citizens to the United States and to New York. I believe I can take every one of you someplace in New York City, and you can find someone from your country, someone from your village or town, that speaks your language and practices your religion. In each of your lands, there are many who are Americans in spirit by virtue of their commitment to our shared principles.<br />It's tragic and perverse that it's because of these very principles, particularly our religious, political, and economic freedoms, that we find ourselves under attack by terrorists. Our freedom threatens them, because they know if our ideas of freedom gain a foothold among their people, it will destroy their power. So they strike out against us to keep those ideas from reaching their people.<br />The best long-term deterrent and approach to terrorism, obviously is the spread of the principles of freedom and democracy and the rule of law and respect for human life. The more that spreads around the globe, the safer we will all be. These are very, very powerful ideas. And once they gain a foothold, they cannot be stopped.<br />In fact, the rise that we've seen in terrorism and terrorist groups, I believe, is in no small measure a response to the spread of these ideas, freedom and democracy, to many nations, particularly over the past 15 years. The terrorists have no ideas or ideals with which to combat freedom and democracy. So their only defense is to strike out against innocent civilians, destroying human life in massive numbers and hoping to deter all of us from our pursuit and expansion of freedom.<br />But the long-term deterrent of spreading our ideals throughout the world is just not enough and may never be realized if we do not act, and act together, to remove the clear and present danger posed by terrorism and terrorists.<br />The United Nations must hold accountable any country that supports or condones terrorism. Otherwise, you will fail in your primary mission as peacekeeper. It must ostracize any nation that supports terrorism. It must isolate any nation that remains neutral in the fight against terrorism.<br />Now is the time in the words of your charter, the United Nations Charter, ``to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security.'' This is not a time for further study or vague directives. The evidence of terrorism's brutality and inhumanity, of its contempt for life and the concept of peace is lying beneath the rubble of the World Trade Center, less than two miles from where we meet today.<br />Look at that destruction, that massive, senseless, cruel loss of human life, and then, I ask you to look in your hearts and recognize that there is no room for neutrality on the issue of terrorism. You're either with civilization or with terrorists.<br />On one side is democracy, the rule of law and respect for human life. On the other, it's tyranny, arbitrary executions and mass murder. We're right and they're wrong. It's as simple as that. And by that I mean that America and its allies are right about democracy, about religious, political and economic freedom. And the terrorists are wrong and, in fact, evil in their mass destruction of human life in the name of addressing alleged injustices.<br />Let those who say that we must understand the reasons for terrorism, come with me to the thousands of funerals we're having in New York City--thousands--and explain those insane maniacal reasons to the children who will grow up without fathers and mothers and to the parents who have had their children ripped from them for no reason at all. Instead, I ask each of you to allow me to say at those funerals that your nation stands with America in making a solemn promise and pledge that we will achieve unconditional victory over terrorism and terrorists.<br />There's no excuse for mass murder, just as there's no excuse for genocide. Those who practice terrorism, murdering or victimizing innocent civilians lose any right to have their cause understood by decent people and lawful nations. On this issue, terrorism, the United Nations must draw a line. The era of moral relativism between those who practice or condone terrorism and those nations who stand up against it must end. Moral relativism doesn't have a place in this discussion and debate.<br />There's no moral way to sympathize with grossly immoral actions. And by so doing and by trying to do that, unfortunately, a fertile field has been created in which terrorism has grown. The best and most practical way to promote peace is to stand up to terror and intimidation.<br />The Security Council's unanimous passage of Resolution 1373 adopting wide-ranging antiterrorism measures into the international community is a very good first step. It's necessary to establish accountability for the subsidizing of terrorism.<br />As a former united states attorney I am particularly encouraged that the United Nations has answered President Bush's call to cut terrorists off from their money and their funding. It's enormously important. We've done that successfully with organized crime groups in America. By taking away their ability to mass large amounts of money, you take away their ability to have others carry on their functioning for them even if they're removed, arrested, prosecuted or eliminated through war or through law enforcement. It cuts off the life blood of the organization. So I believe there was a very good first step.<br />But now it's up to the member states to enforce this and other aspects of the resolution and for the United Nations to enforce these new mechanisms to take the financial base away from the terrorists. Take away their money, take away their access to money and you reduce their ability to carry out complex missions.<br />Each of you sitting in this room is here because of your country's commitment to being part of the family of nations. We need to unite now as a family as never before across all of our differences in recognition of the fact that the United Nations stands for the proposition that human beings have more in common than divide us. If you need to be reminded of this, you don't need to look very far.<br />Just go outside for a walk in the streets and the parks of New York City. You can't walk a block or two blocks in New York City without seeing somebody that looks different than you, acts different than you, talks different than you, believes different than you. If you grow up in New York City you learn that and then you look something, if you're an intelligent or decent person, you learn that all those differences are nothing in comparison to the things that unite us.<br />We're a city of immigrants unlike any other city, within a nation of immigrants. Like the victims of the World Trade Center attack, we're of every race, we're of every religion, we're of every ethnicity and our diversity has been our greatest source of strength.<br />It's the thing that renews us and revives us in every generation, our openness to new people from all over the world. So from the first day of this attack, an attack on New York, on America and, I believe, on the basic principles that underlie this organization.<br />I've told the people of New York that we should not allow this to divide us, because then we would really lose what this city is all about. we have a very, very strong--we have very strong and vibrant Muslim and Arab communities in New York City. They are an equally important part of the life of our city. We respect their religious beliefs. We respect everyone's religious beliefs. That's what America is about and that's what New York City is all about.<br />I've urged New Yorkers not to engage in any form of group blame or group hatred. This is exactly the evil that we're confront with these terrorists. And if we're going to prevail over them, over terror, them our ideals and principles and values must transcend all forms of prejudice. This is a very important part of the struggle against terrorism.<br />This is not a dispute between religions or ethnic groups. All religions, all decent people are united in their desire to achieve peace and understand that we have to eliminate terrorism. We're not divided about this.<br />There have been many days in New York, when I was running for mayor and since I've been mayor, that many times, when I would have a weekend in which I would go to a Mosque on a Friday and synagogue on a Saturday and a church--sometimes two churches--on a Sunday.<br />And by the time I finished, I would say to myself, I know that we're getting through to God. We're talking to him in every language that he understands. We're using every liturgy that exists, and I know we're getting through to the same God.<br />We may be doing it in slightly different ways. God is known by many different names and many different traditions, but identified by one consistent feeling: love--love for humanity, particularly love for our children. Love does eventually conquer hate. I believe that; I'm sure you do.<br />But it also needs our help. Good intentions alone are not enough to conquer evil. Remember British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain who, armed only with good intentions, negotiated with the Nazis and emerged hopeful that he had achieved peace in his time.<br />Hitler's wave of terror was only encouraged by these attempts at appeasement. At the cost of millions of lives, we've learned that words alone, although important, are not enough to guarantee peace. It is action alone that counts.<br />For the United Nations and individual nations, decisive action is needed to stop terrorism from ever orphaning another child. That's for nations. For individuals, the most effective course of action they can take to aid our recovery is to be determined to go ahead with their lives. We can't let terrorists change the way we live, otherwise, they will have succeeded. In some ways, the resilience of life in New York City is the ultimate sign of defiance to terrorists.<br />We call ourselves the capital of the world, in large part, because we're the most diverse city in the world and we're the home of the United Nations. So that spirit of unity, amid all our diversity, has never, ever been stronger.<br />On Saturday night, I walked through Times Square. It was crowded, it was bright, it was lively. Thousands of people were visiting from all parts of the United States and all parts of the world. And many of them came up to me and they shook my hand and patted me on the back and said, ``We're here because we want to show our support for the city of New York. And that's where there's never been a better time to come to New York City.<br />I say to people across the country and around the world, if you were planning to come to New York sometime in the future, come here now. Come to enjoy our thousands of restaurants, the museums and sporting events and shopping and Broadway, but also come to take a stand against terrorism.<br />We need to heed the words of a hymn that I and the police commissioner and the fire commissioner and--have heard over and over again at the many funerals and memorial services that we've gone to in the last week, two weeks. They hymn begins ``Be not afraid.''<br />Freedom from fear is a basic human right. We need to reassert our right to live free from fear, with greater confidence and determination than ever before. Here in New York City, across America and around the world, with one clear voice, unanimously, we need to say, we will not give in to terrorism.<br />Surrounded by our friends of every faith, we know this is not a clash of civilizations. It's a conflict between murderers and humanity. This is not a question of retaliation or revenge, it's a matter of justice leading to peace. The only acceptable result is the complete and total eradication of terrorism.<br />New Yorkers are strong and they are resilient. We are unified and we will not yield to terror. We do not let fear make our decisions for us. We choose to live in freedom.<br /><br />Thank you and God bless you.Fallhikerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00558598370555827002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3957383738340946813.post-34224195532514051512011-04-19T18:21:00.001-07:002011-04-19T18:24:45.260-07:00Lou Gehrig's Farewell Speech<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2syyx9-Zbh_LFojYyxLqzB4pyLl0HTN_epkPZovoCPmYhvmDw307R_95wLWcxqS7ujvyIUEf4Gt8fCm9GmHhNQk_C9zzZzLTiSi9M68Lr-D4y8diFbBlW9tHTUzhkNmTzPm5bxAB2jTk/s1600/lou+gehrig.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5597470576419602130" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2syyx9-Zbh_LFojYyxLqzB4pyLl0HTN_epkPZovoCPmYhvmDw307R_95wLWcxqS7ujvyIUEf4Gt8fCm9GmHhNQk_C9zzZzLTiSi9M68Lr-D4y8diFbBlW9tHTUzhkNmTzPm5bxAB2jTk/s320/lou+gehrig.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><div>"Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.<br /><br />"Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn't consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day? Sure, I'm lucky. Who wouldn't consider it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert? Also, the builder of baseball's greatest empire, Ed Barrow? To have spent six years with that wonderful little fellow, Miller Huggins? Then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology, the best manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy? Sure, I'm lucky.<br /><br />"When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift - that's something. When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies - that's something. When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter - that's something. When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so you can have an education and build your body - it's a blessing. When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed - that's the finest I know.<br /><br />"So I close in saying that I may have had a bad break, but I have an awful lot to live for."</div>Fallhikerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00558598370555827002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3957383738340946813.post-48139392371089663802011-02-28T18:04:00.000-08:002011-05-03T14:45:52.479-07:00Charles F. Buckles<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfsyEMM9mHyo9VAk6AM-nlfo7v_XJsx6IKOLSf-JdZdfW12NTaWpzZ-D9RxrV6ototyHatYi9OJUWuGSbZOp7ePrDe7XWS8tNQgksaSU8WFZX2BA5J_fSi7Snt-MMvSMCeWWO-dUSnf1M/s1600/frank+buckles.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 218px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5578928232035105202" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfsyEMM9mHyo9VAk6AM-nlfo7v_XJsx6IKOLSf-JdZdfW12NTaWpzZ-D9RxrV6ototyHatYi9OJUWuGSbZOp7ePrDe7XWS8tNQgksaSU8WFZX2BA5J_fSi7Snt-MMvSMCeWWO-dUSnf1M/s320/frank+buckles.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmQELj0nFIIm-VYU1hn8OZWh__LBNNv29E6nDG-mOEsr_7z6C1e6CWvZ6IcCRNdpB7qv5xQjmugS_RKCxeKk5irnOSYAn2rEfkqo91vWiZ8iRNFrR73UfKL_yGcL3Qm8l9wDJS6jYDNxU/s1600/frank-buckles-at-age-107.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5578928223703658818" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmQELj0nFIIm-VYU1hn8OZWh__LBNNv29E6nDG-mOEsr_7z6C1e6CWvZ6IcCRNdpB7qv5xQjmugS_RKCxeKk5irnOSYAn2rEfkqo91vWiZ8iRNFrR73UfKL_yGcL3Qm8l9wDJS6jYDNxU/s320/frank-buckles-at-age-107.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHqiyF8Z0HwceMb3FovOso12_KIg2srUd-F23iIYIUC3vsDGpAERJ4xaw4iJqZw14BN37d26PMIiZut73iu60YB0Qa5oJQS_WTmh3Yh7AQLe3XP_NSTHXJGdx_sgJTC_dubEWAhE9MLD0/s1600/f+buckles.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 219px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5578928222300317874" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHqiyF8Z0HwceMb3FovOso12_KIg2srUd-F23iIYIUC3vsDGpAERJ4xaw4iJqZw14BN37d26PMIiZut73iu60YB0Qa5oJQS_WTmh3Yh7AQLe3XP_NSTHXJGdx_sgJTC_dubEWAhE9MLD0/s320/f+buckles.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh76kG3Wp2NjMbgX1ynKGe8rb6GC2WjHHP6CDUP1PGxwSZbsHMj688Hhlj4FaI23lRNDnbuKi9GL4gIMmGdgBjwRCRHqn4MdaEossVpXZ1GZJDJEiHRxpVLNDbBn0-T9FUngrywTUoRrc/s1600/f+buckles+awards.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 270px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5578928217864580786" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh76kG3Wp2NjMbgX1ynKGe8rb6GC2WjHHP6CDUP1PGxwSZbsHMj688Hhlj4FaI23lRNDnbuKi9GL4gIMmGdgBjwRCRHqn4MdaEossVpXZ1GZJDJEiHRxpVLNDbBn0-T9FUngrywTUoRrc/s320/f+buckles+awards.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><div><br /><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 5pt 0in; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none" class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;font-family:'Arial', 'sans-serif';" >Frank Woodruff Buckles’ life spanned the awesome, horrible, fantastic, dreadful Twentieth Century. He saw and experienced much. As America’s last surviving veteran witness to the First World War, his life experiences and perspective are an artifact in our day which often lacks perspective. Frank’s story, in his own words:</span><span style="font-family:'Arial', 'sans-serif';"><?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><br /><p style="PAGE-BREAK-AFTER: avoid; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 5pt 0in; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none" class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;font-family:'Arial', 'sans-serif';" >The Beginning<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 5pt 0in; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:'Arial', 'sans-serif';">I was born on my father’s farm north of Bethany in Harrison County, Missouri, on 1 February 1901. My father retired in 1905 and bought property in the small town of Coffey, where I started school. In 1910, he bought a farm in Vernon County, near Walker, Missouri, where we enjoyed country living. In December 1916, we moved to Dewey County, Oklahoma, near Oakwood. I was 15 at the time, and I accompanied a boxcar load of draft horses and equipment to the farm. I knew that my father was planning to arrange for a man to take the horses to Oklahoma. He would be paid $20 and transportation back to Missouri. I asked my father if I could do the job, and he agreed. My parents came later by automobile.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 5pt 0in; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:'Arial', 'sans-serif';">In the charming little frontier town of Oakwood, population 300, I worked at the bank, lived at the hotel, and went to high school. On 6 April 1917, the United States entered the Great War and patriotic posters appeared in the post offices.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><br /><p style="PAGE-BREAK-AFTER: avoid; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 5pt 0in; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none" class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;font-family:'Arial', 'sans-serif';" >Enlistment<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 5pt 0in; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:'Arial', 'sans-serif';">When summer vacation came, I was invited to the Kansas State Fair in Wichita. While there, I went to the Marine Corps recruiting office to enlist. I said that I was 18, but the understanding sergeant said that I was too young; I had to be 21. I went to Lamed, Kansas, to visit my father’s mother who was living with my aunt and uncle who owned a bank in Larned. A week later, I returned to Wichita and went to the Marine recruiting station. This time I stated that I was 21. The same sergeant gave me a physical examination, but kindly told me that I was just not heavy enough. I tried the Navy and passed the tests, but they were perhaps suspicious of my age and told me that I was flat-footed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 5pt 0in; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:'Arial', 'sans-serif';">I decided to try elsewhere, so I went to Oklahoma City. There I had no luck with either the Marines or the Navy. I then tried the Army, but was asked for a birth certificate. I told them that the public records were not made of births in Missouri at the time I was born, and my record would be in the family Bible. They accepted this and I enlisted in the Army on 14 August 1917. Thirteen of us were accepted at the recruiting station and given rail tickets to Fort Logan, Colorado, where those who were accepted were sworn into the regular U. S. Army. My serial number was 15577.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 5pt 0in; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:'Arial', 'sans-serif';">In choosing the branch of the Army in which to serve, the old sergeant advised that the Ambulance Service was the quickest way to get to France because the French were begging for ambulance services. I followed his advice and was sent to Fort Riley, Kansas, for training and trench casualty retrieval and ambulance operations.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><br /><p style="PAGE-BREAK-AFTER: avoid; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 5pt 0in; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none" class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;font-family:'Arial', 'sans-serif';" >The Great War<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 5pt 0in; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:'Arial', 'sans-serif';">The unit that I went overseas with was called the First Fort Riley Casual Detachment, which consisted of 102 men. The ranking officer was a sergeant. I have a photo of this unit taken at Fort Riley.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 5pt 0in; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:'Arial', 'sans-serif';">We sailed from Hoboken, New Jersey, via Halifax, Nova Scotia, in December 1917, aboard the HMS <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic">Carpathia, </span>the vessel famous for the rescue of the White Star Liner, <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic">Titanic, </span>on 15 April 1912. Some of the officers and crew who made the rescue were aboard the <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic">Carpathia </span>and were not averse to describing the rescue.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 5pt 0in; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:'Arial', 'sans-serif';">We docked in Glasgow, Scotland, and our unit continued on to Winchester, England, to await cross-channel shipment to France. A unit of the 6<sup>th</sup> Marines was operating Camp Hospital No. 35 near Winchester. Our unit was forced to replace the Marines who were sent on to France.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 5pt 0in; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:'Arial', 'sans-serif';">While in England, I drove a Ford ambulance, a motorcycle with sidecar, and a Ford car for visiting dignitaries. Others walked. After some weeks in England, I requested a meeting with the commanding officer of the area, Colonel Jones of the 6<sup>th</sup> Cavalry. I asked to be sent to France, and he explained to me that he, too, wanted to go to France but had to stay where he was ordered.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 5pt 0in; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:'Arial', 'sans-serif';">I finally got an assignment to escort an officer to France who had been left behind by his original unit. In France, I had various assignments and was at several locations. After Armistice Day I was assigned to a prisoner-of-war escort company to return prisoners back to Germany.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 5pt 0in; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:'Arial', 'sans-serif';">After two years with the AEF (American Expeditionary Force), I returned home on the USS <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic">Pocahontas </span>in January 1920. I was paid $143.90, including a $60 bonus.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><br /><p style="PAGE-BREAK-AFTER: avoid; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 5pt 0in; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none" class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;font-family:'Arial', 'sans-serif';" >Returning Home<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 5pt 0in; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:'Arial', 'sans-serif';">I went home to visit my parents, then decided to get a quick education in shorthand and typewriting at a business school in Oklahoma City. After four months of school, I got a job at the post office, working 4:00 p.m. to midnight. I was paid 60¢ an hour. In one month, I had enough money to take the train to Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where I got a job in the freight soliciting office of the White Star Line Steamship Company. I also had a night job with the Great Northwest Telegraph Company.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 5pt 0in; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:'Arial', 'sans-serif';">During the winter of 1921, I went to New York and got a job in the bond department of the prestigious Bankers Trust Company at 5<sup>th </sup>Avenue and 42<sup>nd</sup> Street. I used as my reference the Oakwood, Oklahoma, bank where I had worked at age 15.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 5pt 0in; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:'Arial', 'sans-serif';">The steamship business had more appeal for me, but first I had to have some experience at sea. I got my first sea job with the old Munson Line as assistant purser of the ship, <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic">Western World, </span>bound for Buenos Aires. I spent several years with the Grace Line, in both cargo and passenger ships on the west coast of South America, where an intimate knowledge of the countries and language was required.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p style="PAGE-BREAK-AFTER: avoid; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 5pt 0in; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none" class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;font-family:'Arial', 'sans-serif';" ></span></p><br /><p style="PAGE-BREAK-AFTER: avoid; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 5pt 0in; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none" class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;font-family:'Arial', 'sans-serif';" >World War II<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 5pt 0in; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:'Arial', 'sans-serif';">In 1940, I accepted an assignment to expedite the movement of cargoes for the American President Lines in Manila. Unfortunately for me, my stay was extended by the Japanese invasion of the Philippines in 1941. I spent three-and-a-half years in Japanese prison camps at Santo Tomas and Los Banos. We were rescued by the 11<sup>th</sup> Airborne Division on 23 February 1945.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><br /><p style="PAGE-BREAK-AFTER: avoid; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 5pt 0in; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none" class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;font-family:'Arial', 'sans-serif';" >Home Again<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 5pt 0in; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:'Arial', 'sans-serif';">Life in San Francisco was pleasant after World War II. On 14 September 1946, I married Audrey Mayo of Pleasanton, California. She was born on a ranch, and my people were landowners and farmers for generations, so we decided it was time to give up foreign assignments and come back to the land. We came to Gap View Farm near Charles Town, West Virginia, in January 1954, to reside in the area where my forefather, Robert Buckles, his wife, and 15 other families settled in 1732.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 5pt 0in; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none" class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;font-family:'Arial', 'sans-serif';" >Frank Buckles continued to work on his farm and, up until the age of 106 still drove his tractor. His wife Audrey has passed and Mr. Buckles lived with his daughter, Susannah near Charles Town, West Virginia, until his death at the age of 110.</span><span style="font-family:'Arial', 'sans-serif';"><o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div></div></div>Fallhikerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00558598370555827002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3957383738340946813.post-44677571069663941432010-12-30T08:31:00.000-08:002010-12-30T08:33:31.377-08:00Edward Everett's Gettysburg Address<div>...in 1863, Edward Everett spoke at the dedication of Gettysburg's National Cemetery, giving what is remembered today as the other Gettysburg Address. The Boston orator was the obvious choice for the occasion. During his 40-year career as professor, diplomat, and statesman, he had consistently dazzled audiences with his brilliant oratory. At Gettysburg, Everett held the crowd spellbound for two hours. But his words are not the ones that are remembered from that day. When Abraham Lincoln followed Everett to the podium, the president spoke for only three minutes, but what he said entered the national memory and has remained there ever since. Everett's Gettysburg address lives on, in the words of one historian, "as a foil to that better thing that followed." For his part, Everett was deeply impressed by the concise speech and wrote to Lincoln noting "I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes."</div><div> </div><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5556514106687490354" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 228px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUeRNjsyOMNj7TLS64Tsanx6EokuBp_qyeRIstvN6WV8kTlhvv9GCchTVPK29SXDcjCuVfESwPLL8lHAo8dJFbepIC5DPeatekp6ITmaIO0KRwxFyYA5m3mcgaREJYYd4Tt_WMlnwSB0w/s320/Edward_Everett.jpg" border="0" /></div><br /><div><strong>Edward Everett's Gettysburg Address </strong></div><strong><div><br /></strong></div>Standing beneath this serene sky, overlooking these broad fields now reposing from the labors of the waning year, the mighty alleghenies dimly towering before us, the graves of our brethren beneath our feet, it is with hesitation that I raise my poor voice to break the eloquent silence of God and Nature. But the duty to which you have called me must be performed;-grant me, I pray you, your indulgence and your sympathy. <div><br />It was appointed by law in Athens, that the obsequies of the citizens who fell in battle should be performed at the public expense, and in the most honorable manner. Their bones were carefully gathered up from the funeral pyre, where their bodies were consumed, and brought home to the city. There, for three days before the interment they lay in state, beneath tents of honor, to receive the votive offerings of friends and relatives,-flowers, weapons, precious ornaments, painted vases, (wonders of art, which after two thousand years adorn the museums of modern Europe,)-the last tributes of surviving affection. Ten coffins of funeral cypress received the honorable deposit, one for each of the tribes of the city, and an eleventh in memory of the unrecognized, but not therefore unhonored, dead, and of those whose remains could not be recovered. On the fourth day the mournful procession was formed; mothers, wives, sisters, daughters led the way, and to them it was permitted by the simplicity of ancient manners to utter aloud their lamentations for the beloved and the lost; the male relatives and friends of the deceased followed; citizens and strangers closed the train. Thus marshalled, they moved to the place of interment in that famous Ceramicus, the most beautiful suburb of Athens, which had been adorned by Cimon, the son of Miltiades, with walks and fountains and columns,--whose groves were filled with altars, shrines, and temples,--whose gardens were kept forever green by the streams from the neighboring hills, and shaded with the trees sacred to Minerva and coeval with the foundation of the city,--whose circuit enclosed the olive Grove of Academe, Platos retirement, where the Attic birdTrilled his thick-warbled note the summer long;<br />whose pathways gleamed with the monuments of the illustrious dead, the work of the most consummate masters that ever gave life to marble. There, beneath the over-arching plane-trees, upon a lofty stage erected for the purpose, it was ordained that a funeral oration should be pronounced by some citizen of Athens, in the presence of the assembled multitude.<br />Such were the tokens of respect required to be paid at Athens to the memory of those who had fallen in the cause of their country. For those alone who fell at Marathon a special honor was reserved. As the battle fought upon that immortal field was distinguished from all others in Grecian history for its influence over the fortunes of Hellas,--as it depended upon the event of that day whether Greece should live, a glory and a light to all coming time, or should expire like the meteor of a moment; so the honors awarded to its martyr-heroes were such as were bestowed by Athens on no other occasion. They alone of all her sons were entombed upon the spot which they had forever rendered famous. Their names were inscribed upon ten pillars, erected upon the monumental tumulus which covered their ashes, (where after six hundred years, they were read by the traveler Pausanias,) and although the columns beneath the hand of time and barbaric violence, have long since disappeared, the venerable mound still marks the spot where they fought and fell,--<br />That battle-field where Persias victim horde First bowed beneath the brunt of Hellas sword.<br />And shall I, fellow citizens, who, after an interval of twenty-three centuries, a youthful pilgrim from the world unknown to ancient Greece, have wandered over that illustrious plain, ready to put off the shoes from off my feet, as one that stands on holy ground,--who have gazed with respectful emotion on the mound which still protects the dust of those who rolled back the tide of Persian invasion, and rescued the land of popular liberty, of letters, and of arts, from the ruthless foe,--stand unmoved over the graves of our dear brethren, who so lately, on three of those all-important days which decide a nations history,--days on whose issue it depended whether this august republican Union, founded by some of the wisest statesmen that ever lived, cemented with the blood of some of the purest patriots that ever died, should perish or endure,--rolled back the tide of an invasion, not less unprovoked, not less ruthless, than that which came to plant the dark banner of Asiatic despotism and slavery on the free soil of Greece? Heaven forbid! And could I prove so insensible to every prompting of patriotic duty and affection, not only would you, fellow citizens, gathered, many of you from distant States, who have come to take part in these pious offices of gratitude--you, respected fathers, brethren, matrons, sisters, who surround me--cry out for shame, but the forms of brave and patriotic men who fill these honored graves would heave with indignation beneath the sod.We have assembled, friends, fellow citizens, at the invitation of the Executive of the great central State of Pennsylvania, seconded by the Governors of seventeen other loyal States of the Union, to pay the last tribute of respect to the brave men, who, in the hard fought battles of the first, second and third days of July last, laid down their lives for the country on these hill sides and the plains before us, and whose remains have been gathered into the Cemetery which we consecrate this day. As my eye ranges over the fields whose sods were so lately moistened by the blood of gallant and loyal men, I feel, as never before, how truly it was said of old, that it is sweet and becoming to die for ones country. I feel as never before, how justly, from the dawn of history to the present time, men have paid the homage of their gratitude and admiration to the memory of those who nobly sacrificed their lives, that their fellow men may live in safety and in honor. And if this tribute were ever due, when, to whom, could it be more justly paid than to those whose last resting place we this day commend to the blessing of Heaven and of men?<br />For consider, my friends, what would have been the consequences to the country, to yourselves, and to all you hold dear, if those who sleep beneath our feet, and their gallant comrades who survive to serve their country on other fields of danger, had failed in their duty on those memorable days. Consider what, at this moment, would be the condition of the United States, if that noble Army of the Potomac, instead of gallantly and for the second time beating back the tide of invasion from Maryland and Pennsylvania, had been itself driven from these well contested heights, thrown back in confusion on Baltimore, or trampled down, discomfited, scattered to the four winds. What, in that sad event, would have been the fate of the Monumental city, of Harrisburg, of Philadelphia, of Washington, the capital of the Union, each and every one of which would have lain at the mercy of the enemy, accordingly as it might have pleased him, spurred by passion, flushed with victory, and confident of continued success, to direct his course?<br />For this we must bear in mind, it is one of the great lessons of the war, indeed of every war, that it is impossible for a people without military organization, inhabiting the cities, towns, and villages of an open country, including, of course, the natural proportion of noncombatants of either sex, and of every age, to withstand the inroad of a veteran army. What defence can be made by the inhabitants of villages mostly built of wood, of cities unprotected by walls, nay, by a population of men, however high-toned and resolute, whose aged parents demand their care, whose wives and children are clustering about them, against the charge of the war-horse whose neck is clothed with thunder--against flying artillery and batteries of rifled cannon planted on every commanding eminence--against the onset of trained veterans led by skilful chiefs? No, my friends, army must be met by army, battery by battery, squadron by squadron; and the shock of organized thousands must be encountered by the firm breasts and valiant arms of other thousands, as well organized and as skilfully led. It is no reproach, therefore, to the unarmed population of the country to say, that we owe it to the brave men who sleep in their beds of honor before us, and to their gallant surviving associates, not merely that your fertile fields, my friends of Pennsylvania and Maryland, were redeemed from the presence of the invader, but that your capitals were not given up to threatened plunder, perhaps laid in ashes, Washington seized by the enemy, and a blow struck at the heart of the nation.<br />Who that hears me has forgotten the thrill of joy that ran through the country on the 4th of July--auspicious day for the glorious tidings, and rendered still more so by the simultaneous fall of Vicksburg--when the telegraph flashed through the land the assurance from the President of the United States that the army of the Potomac, under General Meade, had again smitten the invader? Sure I am, that with the ascriptions of praise that rose to Heaven from twenty millions of freemen, with the acknowledgments that breathed from patriotic lips throughout the length and breadth of America, to the surviving officers and men who had rendered the country this inestimable service, there beat in every loyal bosom a throb of tender and sorrowful gratitude to the martyrs who had fallen on the sternly contested field. Let a nations fervent thanks make some amends for the toils and sufferings of those who survive. Would that the heartfelt tribute could penetrate these honored graves!In order that we may comprehend, to their full extent, our obligations to the martyrs and surviving heroes of the army of the Potomac, let us contemplate for a few moments the train of events, which culminated in the battles of the first days of July. Of this stupendous rebellion, planned as its originators boast, more than thirty years ago, matured and prepared for during an entire generation, finally commenced because, for the first time since the adoption of the Constitution, an election of President had been effected without the votes of the South, (which retained, however, the control of the two other branches of the governments) the occupation of the national capital, with the seizure of public archives and of the treaties with foreign powers, was an essential feature. This was, in substance, within my personal knowledge, admitted in the winter of 1860-61, by one of the most influential leaders of the rebellion; and it was fondly thought that this object could be effected by a bold and sudden movement on the 4th of March, 1861. There is abundant proof, also, that a darker project was contemplated, if not by the responsible chiefs of the rebellion, yet by nameless ruffians, willing to play a subsidiary and murderous part in the treasonable drama. It was accordingly maintained by the Rebel emissaries in England, in the circles to which they found access, that the new American Minister ought not, when he arrived, to be received as the envoy of the United States, inasmuch as before that time Washington would be captured, and the capital of the nation and the archives and muniments of the government would be in the possession of the Confederates. In full accordance also with this threat, it was declared, by the Rebel Secretary of War, at Montgomery, in the presence of his Chiefs and of his colleagues, and of five thousand hearers, while the tidings of the assault on Sumter were traveling over the wires on that fatal 12th of April, 1861, that before the end of May 'the flag which then flaunted the breeze, as he expressed it, 'would float over the dome of the Capitol at Washington.At the time this threat was made, the rebellion was confined to the cotton-growing States, and it was well understood by them, that the only hope of drawing any of the other slaveholding States into the conspiracy, was in bringing about a conflict of arms, and 'firing the heart of the South by the effusion of blood. This was declared by the Charleston press, to be the object for which Sumter was to be assaulted; and the emissaries sent from Richmond, to urge on the unhallowed work, gave the promise, that, with the first drop of blood that should be shed, Virginia would place herself by the side of South Carolina.<br />In pursuance of this original plan of the leaders of the rebellion, the capture of Washington has been continually in view, not merely for the sake of its public buildings, as the capital of the Confederacy, but as the necessary preliminary to the absorption of the border States, and for the moral effect in the eyes of Europe of possessing the metropolis of the Union.<br />I allude to these facts, not perhaps enough borne in mind, as a sufficient refutation of the pretence, on the part of the Rebels, that the war is one of self-defence, waged for the right of self-government. It is in reality, a war originally levied by ambitious men in the cotton-growing States, for the purpose of drawing the slaveholding border States into the vortex of the conspiracy, first by sympathy--which, in the case of South-Eastern Virginia, North Carolina, part of Tennessee and Arkansas, succeeded--and then by force and for the purpose of subjugating Maryland, Western Virginia, Kentucky, Eastern Tennessee and Missouri; and it is a most extraordinary fact, considering the clamors of the Rebel chiefs on the subject of invasion, that not a soldier of the United States has entered the States last named, except to defend their Union-loving inhabitants from the armies and guerillas of the Rebels.<br />In conformity with these designs on the city of Washington, and notwithstanding the disastrous results of the invasion of 1862, it was determined by the Rebel Government last summer to resume the offensive in that direction. Unable to force the passage of the Rappahannock, where General Hooker, notwithstanding the reverse at Chancellorsville, in May, was strongly posted, the Confederate general resorted to strategy. He had two objects in view. The first was by a rapid movement northward, and by manoeuvring with a portion of his army on the east side of the Blue Ridge, to tempt Hooker from his base of Operations, thus leading him to uncover the approaches to Washington, to throw it open to a raid by Stuarts cavalry, and to enable Lee himself to cross the Potomac in the Neighborhood of Poolesville and thus fall upon the capital. This plan of operations was wholly frustrated. The design of the Rebel general was promptly discovered by General Hooker, and, moving with great rapidity from Fredericksburg, he preserved unbroken the inner line, and stationed the various corps of his army at all the points protecting the approach to Washington, from Centreville up to Leesburg. From this vantage-ground the Rebel general in vain attempted to draw him. In the mean time, by the vigorous operations of Pleasanton's cavalry, the cavalry of Stuart, though greatly superior in numbers, was so crippled as to be disabled from performing the part assigned it in the campaign. In this manner, General Lees first object, namely, the defeat of Hookers army on the south of the Potomac and a direct march on Washington, was baffled.<br />The second part of the Confederate plan, which is supposed to have been undertaken in opposition to the views of General Lee, was to turn the demonstration northward into a real invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania, in the hope, that, in this way, General Hooker would be drawn to a distance from the capital, and that some opportunity would occur of taking him at disadvantage, and, after defeating his army, of making a descent upon Baltimore and Washington. This part of General Lees plan, which was substantially the repetition of that of 1862, was not less signally defeated, with what honor to the arms of the Union the heights on which we are this day assembled will forever attest.<br />Much time had been uselessly consumed by the Rebel general in his unavailing attempts to out-manoeuvre General Hooker. Although General Lee broke up from Fredericksburg on the 3d of June, it was not till the 24th that the main body of his army entered Maryland. Instead of crossing the Potomac, as he had intended, east of the Blue Ridge, he was compelled to do it at Shepherdstown and Williamsport, thus materially deranging his entire plan of campaign north of the river. Stuart, who had been sent with his cavalry to the east of the Blue Ridge, to guard the passes of the mountains, to mask the movements of Lee, and to harass the Union general in crossing the river, having been severely handled by Pleasanton at Beverly Ford, Aldie, and Upperville, instead of being able to retard General Hookers advance, was driven himself away from his connection with the army of Lee, and cut off for a fortnight from all communication with it--a circumstance to which General Lee, in his report, alludes more than once, with evident displeasure. Let us now rapidly glance at the incidents of the eventful campaign.<br />A detachment from Ewell's corps, under Jenkins, had penetrated, on the 15th of June, as far as Chambersburg. This movement was intended at first merely as a demonstration, and as a marauding expedition for supplies. It had, however, the salutary effect of alarming the country; and vigorous preparations were made, not only by the General Government, but here in Pennsylvania and in the sister States, to repel the inroad. After two days passed at Chambersburg, Jenkins, anxious for his communications with Ewell, fell back with his plunder to Hagerstown. Here he remained for several days, and then having swept the recesses of the Cumberland valley, came down upon the eastern flank of the South mountain, and pushed his marauding parties as far as Waynesboro. On the 22nd, the remainder of Ewell's corps crossed the river and moved up the valley. They were followed on the 24th by Longstreet and Hill, who crossed at Williamsport and Shepherdstown, and pushing up the valley, encamped at Chambersburg on the 27th. In this way the whole rebel army, estimated at 90,000 infantry, upwards of 10,000 cavalry, and 4,000 or 5,000 artillery, making a total of 105,000 of all arms, was concentrated in Pennsylvania.<br />Up to this time no report of Hookers movements had been received by General Lee, who, having been deprived of his cavalry, had no means of obtaining information. Rightly judging, however, that no time would be lost by the Union army in pursuit, in order to detain it on the eastern side of the mountains in Maryland and Pennsylvania, and thus preserve his communications by the way of Williamsport, he had, before his own arrival at Chambersburg, directed Ewell to send detachments from his corps to Carlisle and York. The latter detachment, under Early, passed through this place on the 26th of June. You need not, fellow citizens of Gettysburg, that I should recall to you those moments of alarm and distress, precursors as they were of the more trying scenes which were so soon to follow.As soon as Gen. Hooker perceived that the advance of the Confederates into Cumberland valley was not a mere feint to draw him away from Washington, he moved rapidly in pursuit. Attempts, as we have seen, were made to harass and retard his passage across the Potomac. These attempts were not only altogether unsuccessful, but were so unskillfully made as to place the entire Federal army between the cavalry of Stuart and the army of Lee. While the latter was massed in the Cumberland valley, Stuart was east of the mountains, with Hookers army between, and Gregg's cavalry in close pursuit. Stuart was accordingly compelled to force a march northward, which was destitute of strategical character, and which deprived his chief of all means of obtaining intelligence.<br />Not a moment had been lost by General Hooker in the pursuit of Lee. The day after the Rebel army entered Maryland, the Union army crossed the Potomac at Edwards Ferry, and by the 28th of June lay between Harpers Ferry and Frederick. The force of the enemy on that day was partly at Chambersburg, and partly moving on the Cash-town road in the direction of Gettysburg, while the detachments from Ewell's corps, of which mention has been made, had reached the Susquehanna opposite Harrisburg and Columbia. That a great battle must soon be fought, no one could doubt; but in the apparent and perhaps real absence of plan on the part of Lee, it was impossible to foretell the precise scene of the encounter." Wherever fought, consequences the most momentous hung upon the result.In this critical and anxious state of affairs, General Hooker was relieved, and General Meade was summoned to the chief command of the army. It appears to my unmilitary judgment to reflect the highest credit upon him, upon his predecessor, and upon the corps commanders of the army of the Potomac, that a change could take place in the chief command of so large a force on the eve of a general battle--the various corps necessarily moving on lines somewhat divergent, and all in ignorance of the enemy's intended point of concentration--and that not an hours hesitation should ensue in the advance of any portion of the entire army.<br />Having assumed the chief command on the 28th, General Meade directed his left wing, under Reynolds, upon Emmitsburg, and his right upon New Windsor, leaving General French with 11,000 men to protect the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, and convoy the public property from Harpers Ferry to Washington. Buford's cavalry was then at this place, and Kilpatrick's at Hanover, where he encountered and defeated the rear of Stuart's cavalry, who was roving the country in search of the main army of Lee. On the Rebel side, Hill had reached Fayetteville on the Cashtown road on the 28th, and was followed on the same road by Longstreet on the 29th. The eastern side of the mountain, as seen from Gettysburg, was lighted up at night by the camp-fires of the enemy's advance, and the country swarmed with his foraging parties. It was now too evident to be questioned, that the thunder-cloud, so long gathering blackness, would soon burst on some part of the devoted vicinity of Gettysburg.<br />The 30th of June was a day of important preparation. At half-past eleven o'clock in the morning, General Buford passed through Gettysburg, upon a reconnaissance in force, with his cavalry, upon the Chambersburg road. The information obtained by him was immediately communicated to General Reynolds, who was, in consequence. directed to occupy Gettysburg. That gallant officer accordingly, with the First Corps, marched from Emmitsburg to within six or seven miles of this place, and encamped on the right bank of Marsh's creek. Our right wing, meantime, was moved to Manchester. On the same day the corps of Hill and Longstreet were pushed still further forward on the Chambersburg road, and distributed in the vicinity of Marsh's creek, while a reconnaissance was made by the Confederate General Pettigrew up to a very short distance from this place.--Thus at nightfall, on the 30th of June, the greater part of the Rebel force was concentrated in the immediate vicinity of two corps of the Union army, the former refreshed by two days passed in comparative repose and deliberate preparation for the encounter, the latter separated by a march of one or two days from their supporting corps, and doubtful at what precise point they were to expect an attack.And now the momentous day, a day to be forever remembered in the annals of the country, arrived. Early in the morning, on the 1st of July, the conflict began. I need not say that it would be impossible for me to comprise, within the limits of the hour, such a narrative as would do anything like full justice to the all-important events of these three great days, or to the merit of the brave officers and men, of every rank, of every arm of the service, and of every loyal State, who bore their part in the tremendous struggle--alike those who nobly sacrificed their lives for their country, and those who survive, many of them scarred with honorable wounds, the objects of our admiration and gratitude. The astonishingly minute, accurate, and graphic accounts contained in the journals of the day, prepared from personal observation by reporters who witnessed the scenes, and often shared the perils which they describe, and the highly valuable "notes" of Professor Jacobs, of the University in this place, to which I am greatly indebted, will abundantly supply the deficiency of my necessarily too condensed statement.<br />General Reynolds, on arriving at Gettysburg, in the morning of the 1st, found Buford with his cavalry warmly engaged with the enemy, whom beheld most gallantly in check. Hastening himself to the front, General Reynolds directed his men to be moved over the fields from the Emmitsburg road, in front of M'Millan's and Dr. Schinucker's, under cover of the Seminary Ridge. Without a moments hesitation, he attacked the enemy, at the same time sending orders to the Eleventh Corps (General Howard's) to advance as promptly as possible. General Reynolds immediately found himself engaged with a force which greatly outnumbered his own, and had scarcely made his dispositions for the action when he fell, mortally wounded, at the head of his advance. The command of the First Corps devolved on General Doubleday, and that of the field on General Howard, who arrived at 11:30, with Schurz's and Barlow's divisions of the Eleventh Corps, the latter of whom received a severe wound. Thus strengthened, the advantage of the battle was for some time on our side. The attacks of the Rebels were vigorously repulsed by Wadsworth's division of the First Corps, and a large number of prisoners, including General Archer, were captured. At length, however, the continued reinforcement of the Confederates from the main body in the neighborhood, and by the divisions of Rodes and Early, coming down by separate lines from Heidlersberg and taking post on our extreme right, turned the fortunes of the day. Our army, after contesting the ground for five hours, was obliged to yield to the enemy, whose force outnumbered them two to one; and toward the close of the afternoon General Howard deemed it prudent to withdraw the two corps to the heights where we are now assembled. The great part of the First Corps passed through the outskirts of the town, and reached the hill without serious loss or molestation. The Eleventh Corps and portions of the First, not being aware that the enemy had already entered the town from the north, attempted to force their way through Washington and Baltimore streets, which, in the crowd and confusion of the scene, they did with a heavy loss in prisoners.<br />General Howard was not unprepared for this turn in the fortunes of the day. He had, in the course of the morning, caused Cemetery Hill to be occupied by General Steinwehr, with the second division of the Eleventh Corps. About the time 0f the withdrawal of our troops to the hill, General Hancock arrived, having been sent by General Meade, on hearing of the death of Reynolds, to assume the command of the field till he himself could reach the front. In conjunction with General Howard, General Hancock immediately proceeded to post troops and to repel an attack on our right flank. This attack was feebly made and promptly repulsed. At nightfall, our troops on the hill, who had so gallantly sustained themselves during the toil and peril of the day, were cheered by the arrival of General Slocum with the Twelfth Corps and of General Sickles with a part of the Third.<br />Such was the fortune of the first day, commencing with decided success to our arms, followed by a check, but ending in the occupation of this all-important position. To you, fellow citizens of Gettysburg, I need not attempt to portray the anxieties of the ensuing night. Witnessing, as you had done with sorrow, the withdrawal of our army through your streets, with a considerable loss of prisoners--mourning as you did over the brave men who had fallen--shocked with the wide-spread desolation around you, of which the wanton burning of the Harman House had given the signal--ignorant of the near approach of General Meade, you passed the weary hours of the night in painful expectation.<br />Long before the dawn of the 2d of July, the new Commander-in-Chief had reached the ever-memorable field of service and glory. Having received intelligence of the events in progress, and informed by the reports of Generals Hancock and Howard of the favorable character of the positions, he determined to give battle to the enemy at this point. He accordingly directed the remaining corps of the army to concentrate at Gettysburg with all possible expedition, and breaking up his headquarters at Taneytown at ten p.m., he arrived at the front at one o'clock in the morning of the 2d of July. Few were the moments given to sleep, during the rapid watches of that brief midsummer's night, by officers or men, though half of our troops were exhausted by the conflict of the day and the residue wearied by the forced marches which had brought them to the rescue. The full moon, veiled by thin clouds, shone down that night on a strangely unwonted scene. The silence of the grave-yard was broken by the heavy tramp of armed men, by the neigh of the war-horse, the harsh rattle of the wheels of artillery hurrying to their stations, and all the indescribable tumult of preparation. The various corps of the army, as they arrived, were moved to their positions, on the spot where we are assembled and the ridges that extend south-east and south-west; batteries were planted and breastworks thrown up. The Second and Fifth Corps, with the rest of the Third, had reached the ground by seven o'clock, a.m.; but it was not till two o'clock in the afternoon that Sedgwick arrived with the Sixth Corps. He had marched thirty-four miles since nine o'clock on the evening before. It was only on his arrival that the Union army approached in equality of numbers with that of the Rebels, who were posted upon the opposite and parallel ridge, distant from a mile to a mile and a half, overlapping our position on either wing, and probably exceeding by ten thousand the army of General Meade.<br />And here I cannot but remark on the providential inaction of the Rebel army." Had the contest been renewed by it at daylight on the 2d of July, with the First and Eleventh Corps exhausted by the battle and the retreat, the Third and Twelfth weary from their forced march, and the Second, Fifth and Sixth not yet arrived, nothing but a miracle could have saved the army from a great disaster. Instead of this, the day dawned, the sun rose, the cool hours of the morning passed, the forenoon and a considerable part of the afternoon wore away, without the slightest aggressive movement on the part of the enemy. Thus time was given for half of our forces to arrive and take their places in the lines, while the rest of the army enjoyed a much needed half days repose.<br />At length, between three and four o'clock in the afternoon, the work of death began. A signal gun from the hostile batteries was followed by a tremendous cannonade along the Rebel lines, and this by a heavy advance of infantry, brigade after brigade, commencing on the enemy's right against the left of our army, and so onward to the left center. A forward movement of General Sickles, to gain a commanding position from which to repel the Rebel attack, drew upon him a destructive fire from the enemy's batteries, and a furious assault from Longstreet's and Hills advancing troops. After a brave resistance on the part of his corps, he was forced back, himself falling severely wounded. This was the critical moment of the second day, but the Fifth and part of the Sixth Corps, with portions of the First and Second, were promptly brought to the support of the Third. The struggle was fierce and murderous, but by sunset our success was decisive, and the enemy was driven back in confusion. The most important service was rendered towards the close of the day, in the memorable advance between Round Top and Little Round Top, by General Crawford's division of the Fifth Corps, consisting of two brigades of the Pennsylvania Reserves, of which one company was from this town and neighborhood. The Rebel force was driven back with great loss in killed and prisoners. At eight o'clock in the evening a desperate attempt was made by the enemy to storm the position of the Eleventh Corps on Cemetery Hill; but here, too, after a terrible conflict, he was repulsed with immense loss. Ewell, on our extreme right, which had been weakened by the withdrawal of the troops sent over to support our left, had succeeded in gaining a foothold within a portion of our lines, near Spangler's spring. This was the only advantage obtained by the rebels to compensate them for the disasters of the day, and of this, as we shall see, they were soon deprived.<br />Such was the result of the second act of this eventful drama,--a day hard fought, and at one moment anxious, but, with the exception of the slight reverse just named, crowned with dearly earned but uniform success to our arms, auspicious of a glorious termination of the final struggle. On these good omens the night fell.In the course of the night, General Geary returned to his position on the right, from which he had hastened the day before to strengthen the Third Corps. He immediately engaged the enemy, and after a sharp and decisive action, drove them out of our lines, recovering the ground which had been lost on the preceding day. A spirited contest was kept up all the morning on this part of the line; but General Geary, reinforced by Wheaton's brigade of the Sixth Corps, maintained his position, and inflicted very severe losses on the Rebels.<br />Such was the cheering commencement of the third days work, and with it ended all serious attempts of the enemy on our right. As on the preceding day, his efforts were now mainly directed against our left centre and left wing. From eleven till half-past one o'clock, all was still--a solemn pause of preparation, as if both armies were nerving themselves for the supreme effort. At length the awful silence, more terrible than the wildest tumult of battle, was broken by the roar of two hundred and fifty pieces of artillery from the opposite ridges, joining in a cannonade of unsurpassed violence--the Rebel batteries along two thirds of their line pouring their fire upon Cemetery Hill, and the centre and left wing of our army. Having attempted in this way for two hours, but without success, to shake the steadiness of our lines, the enemy rallied his forces for a last grand assault. Their attack was principally directed against the position of our Second Corps. Successive lines of Rebel infantry moved forward with equal spirit and steadiness from their cover on the wooded crest of Seminary Ridge, crossing the intervening plain, and, supported right and left by their choicest brigades, charged furiously up to our batteries. Our own brave troops of the Second Corps, supported by Doubleday's division and Stannard's brigade of the First, received the shock with firmness; the ground on both sides was long and fiercely contested, and was covered with the killed and the wounded; the tide of battle flowed and ebbed across the plain, till, after 'a determined and gallant struggle, as it is pronounced by General Lee, the Rebel advance, consisting of two-thirds of Hills corps and the whole of Longstreet's--including Picketts division, the elite of his corps, which had not yet been under fire, and was now depended upon to decide the fortune of this last eventful day--was driven back with prodigious slaughter, discomfited and bro. ken. While these events were in progress at our left centre, the enemy was driven, with a considerable loss of prisoners, from a strong position on our extreme left, from which he was annoying our force on Little Round Top. In the terrific assault on our centre, Generals Hancock and Gibbon were wounded. In the Rebel army, Generals Armistead, Kemper, Pettigrew and Trimble were wounded, the first named mortally, the latter also made prisoner, General Garnett was killed, and thirty-five hundred officers and men made prisoners.These were the expiring agonies of the three days conflict, and with them the battle ceased. It was fought by the Union army with courage and skill, from the first cavalry skirmish on Wednesday morning to the fearful rout of the enemy on Friday afternoon, by every arm and every rank of service, by officers and men, by cavalry, artillery, and infantry. The superiority of numbers was with the enemy, who were led by the ablest commanders in their service; and if the Union force had the advantage of a strong position, the Confederates had that of choosing time and place, the prestige of former victories over the army of the Potomac, and of the success of the first day. Victory does not always fall to the lot of those who deserve it; but that so decisive a triumph, under circumstances like these, was gained by our troops, I would ascribe, under Providence, to the spirit of exalted patriotism that animated them, and the consciousness that they were fighting in a righteous cause.All hope of defeating our army, and securing what General Lee calls 'the valuable results of such an achievement, having vanished, he thought only of rescuing from destruction the remains of his shattered forces. In killed, wounded and missing, he had, as far as can be ascertained, suffered a loss of about 37,000 men--rather more than a third of the army with which he is supposed to have marched into Pennsylvania. Perceiving that his only safety was in rapid retreat, he commenced withdrawing his troops at daybreak on the 4th, throwing up field works in front of our left, which, assuming the appearance of a new position, were intended probably to protect the rear of his army in retreat. That day--sad celebration of the 4th of July for an army of Americans--was passed by him in hurrying off his trains. By nightfall, the main army was in full retreat upon the Cashtown and Fairfield roads, and it moved with such precipitation, that, short as the nights were, by day-light the following morning, notwithstanding a heavy rain, the rear guard had left its position. The struggle of the last two days resembled, in many respects, the battle of Waterloo; and if, in the evening of the third day, General Meade, like the Duke of Wellington, had had the assistance of a powerful auxiliary army to take up the pursuit, the rout of the Rebels would have been as complete as that of Napoleon.<br />Owing to the circumstances just named, the intentions of the enemy were not apparent on the 4th. The moment his retreat was discovered, the following morning, he was pursued by our cavalry on the Cashtown road and through the Emmitsburg and Monterey passes, and by Sedgwicks corps on the Fairfield road. His rear guard was briskly attacked at Fairfield; a great number of wagons and ambulances were captured in the passes of the mountains; the country swarmed with his stragglers, and his wounded were literally emptied from the vehicles containing them into the farm houses on the road. General Lee, in his report, makes repeated mention of the Union prisoners whom he conveyed into Virginia, somewhat overstating their number. He states, also, that 'such of his wounded as were in a condition to be removed were forwarded to Williamsport. He does not mention that the number of his wounded not removed, and left to the Christian care of the victors, was 7,540, not one of whom failed of any attention which it was possible, under the circumstances of the case, to afford them, not one of whom, certainly, has been put upon Libby prison fare--lingering death by starvation. Heaven forbid, however, that we should claim any merit for the exercise of common humanity.Under the protection of the mountain ridge, whose narrow passes are easily held even by a retreating army, General Lee reached Williamsport in safety, and took up a strong position opposite to that place. General Meade necessarily pursued with the main army by a Hank movement through Middletown, Turners Pass having been secured by General French. Passing through the South mountain, the Union army came up with that of the Rebels on the 12th, and found it securely posted on the heights of Marsh run. The position was reconnoitred, and preparations made for an attack on the 13th. The depth of the river, swollen by the recent rains, authorized the expectation that the enemy would be brought to a general engagement the following day. An advance was accordingly made by General Meade on the morning of the 14th; but it was soon found that the Rebels had escaped in the night, with such haste that Ewell's corps forded the river where the water was breast-high. The cavalry, which had rendered the most important services during the three days, and in harassing the enemy's retreat, was now sent in pursuit, and captured two guns and a large number of prisoners. In an action which took place at Falling Waters, General Pettigrew was mortally wounded. General Meade, in further pursuit of the Rebels, crossed the Potomac at Berlin. Thus again covering the approaches to Washington, he compelled the enemy to pass the Blue Ridge at one of the upper gaps; and in about six weeks from the commencement of the campaign, General Lee found himself on the south side of the Rappahannock, with the probable loss of about a third part of his army.<br />Such, most inadequately recounted, is the history of the ever memorable three days, and of the events immediately preceding and following. It has been pretended, in order to diminish the magnitude of this disaster to the Rebel cause, that it was merely the repulse of an attack on a strongly defended position. The tremendous losses on both sides are a sufficient answer to this misrepresentation, and attest the courage and obstinacy with which the three days battle was waged. Few of the great conflicts of modern times have cost victors and vanquished so great a sacrifice. On the Union side there fell, in the whole campaign, of generals killed, Reynolds, Weed and Zook, and wounded, Barlow, Barnes, Butterfield, Doubleday, Gibbon, Graham, Hancock, Sickles and Warren; while of officers below the rank of General, and men, there were 2,834 killed, 13,709 wounded, and 6,643 missing. On the Confederate side, there were killed on the field or mortally wounded, Generals Armistead, Barksdale, Garnett, Fender, Pettigrew and Semmes, and wounded, Heth, Hood, Johnson, Kemper, Kimball and Trimble. Of officers below the rank of general, and men, there were taken prisoners, including the wounded, 13,621, an amount ascertained officially. Of the wounded in a condition to be removed, of the killed and the missing, the enemy has made no report. They are estimated, from the best data which the nature of the case admits, at 23,000. General Meade also captured 3 cannon, and 41 standards; and 24,978 small arms were collected on the battle-field.<br />I must leave to others, who can do it from personal observation, to describe the mournful spectacle presented by these hill-sides and plains at the close of the terrible conflict. It was a saying of the Duke of Wellington, that next to a defeat, the saddest thing was a victory. The horrors of the battlefield, after the contest is over, the sights and sounds of woe,--let me throw a pall over the scene, which no words can adequately depict to those who have not witnessed it, on which no one who has witnessed it, and who has a heart in his bosom, can bear to dwell. One drop of balm alone, one drop of heavenly, life-giving balm, mingles in this bitter cup of misery. Scarcely has the cannon ceased to roar, when the brethren and sisters of Christian benevolence, ministers of compassion, angels of pity, hasten to the field and the hospital, to moisten the parched tongue, to bind the ghastly wounds, to soothe the parting agonies alike of friend and foe, and to catch the last whispered messages of love from dying lips. 'Carry this miniature back to my dear wife, but do not take it from my bosom till I am gone.' 'Tell my little sister not to grieve for me; I am willing to die for my country.' 'Oh, that my mother were here!' When, since Aaron stood between the living and the dead, was there ever so gracious a ministry as this? It has been said that it is characteristic of Americans to treat women with a deference not paid to them in any other country. I will not undertake to say whether this is so; but I will say, that, since this terrible war has been waged, the women of the loyal States, if never before, have entitled themselves to our highest admiration and gratitude,--alike those who at home, often with fingers unused to the toil, often bowed beneath their own domestic cares, have performed an amount of daily labor not exceeded by those who work for their daily bread, and those who, in the hospital and the tents of the Sanitary and Christian Commissions, have rendered services which millions could not buy. Happily, the labor and the service are their own reward. Thousands of matrons and thousands of maidens have experienced a delight in these homely toils and services, compared with which the pleasures of the ball room and the opera house are tame and unsatisfactory. This, on earth, is reward enough, but a richer is in store for them. Yes, brothers, sisters of charity, while you bind up the wounds of the poor sufferers--the humblest, perhaps, that have shed their blood for the country,--forget not Who it is that will hereafter say to you, 'Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.'<br />And now, friends, fellow citizens, as we stand among these honored graves, the momentous question presents itself: Which of the two parties to the war is responsible for all this suffering, for this dreadful sacrifice of life, the lawful and constitutional government of the United States, or the ambitious men who have rebelled against it? I say 'rebelled' against it, although Earl Russell, the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in his recent temperate and conciliatory speech in Scotland, seems to intimate that no prejudice ought to attach to that word, inasmuch as our English forefathers rebelled against Charles I. and James II., and our American fathers rebelled against George III. These, certainly, are venerable precedents, but they prove only that it is just and proper to rebel against oppressive governments. They do not prove that it was just and proper for the son of James II. to rebel against George I., or his grandson Charles Edward to rebel against George II.; nor, as it seems to me, ought these dynastic struggles, little better than family quarrels, to be compared with this monstrous conspiracy against the American Union. These precedents do not prove that it was just and proper for the 'disappointed great men of the cotton-growing States to rebel against 'the most beneficent government of which history gives us any account, as the Vice President of the Confederacy, in November, 1860, charged them with doing. They do not create a presumption even in favor of the disloyal slaveholders of the South, who, living under a government of which Mr. Jefferson Davis, in the session of 1860-61, said that it 'was the best government ever instituted by man, unexceptionably administered, and under which the people have been prosperous beyond comparison with any other people whose career has been recorded in history,' rebelled against it because their aspiring politicians, himself among the rest, were in danger of losing their monopoly of its offices. What would have been thought by an impartial posterity of the American rebellion against George III., if the colonists had at all times been more than equally represented in parliament, and James Otis, and Patrick Henry, and Washington, and Franklin, and the Adamses, and Hancock, and Jefferson, and men of their stamp, had for two generations enjoyed the confidence of the sovereign and administered the government of the empire? What would have been thought of the rebellion against Charles I., if Cromwell, and the men of his school, had been the responsible advisers of that prince from his accession to the throne, and then, on account of a partial change in the ministry, had brought his head to the block, and involved the country in a desolating war, for the sake of dismembering it and establishing a new government south of the Trent? What would have been thought of the Whigs of 1688, if they had themselves composed the cabinet of James II., and been the advisers of the measures and the promoters of the policy which drove him into exile? The Puritans of 1640, and the Whigs of 1688, rebelled against arbitrary power in order to establish constitutional liberty. If they had risen against Charles and James because those monarchs favored equal rights, and in order themselves, 'for the first time in the history of the world, to establish an oligarchy 'founded on the corner-stone of slavery, they would truly have furnished a precedent for the Rebels of the South, but their cause would not have been sustained by the eloquence of Pym, or of Somers, nor sealed with the blood of Hampden or Russell.<br />I call the war which the Confederates are waging against the Union a 'rebellion,' because it is one, and in grave matters it is best to call things by their right names. I speak of it as a crime, because the Constitution of the United States so regards it, and puts 'rebellion' on a par with 'invasion.' The Constitution and law not only of England, but of every civilized country, regard them in the same light; or rather they consider the rebel in arms as far worse than the alien enemy. To levy war against the United States is the constitutional definition of treason, and that crime is by every civilized government regarded as the highest which citizen or subject can commit. Not content with the sanctions of human justice, of all the crimes against the law of the land it is singled out for the denunciations of religion. The litanies of every church in Christendom whose ritual embraces that office, as far as I am aware, from the metropolitan cathedrals of Europe to the humblest missionary chapel in the islands of the sea, concur with the Church of England in imploring the Sovereign of the Universe, by the most awful adjurations which the heart of man can conceive or his tongue utter, to deliver us from 'sedition, privy conspiracy and rebellion.' And reason good; for while a rebellion against tyranny--a rebellion designed, after prostrating arbitrary power, to establish free government on the basis of justice and truth--is an enterprise on which good men and angels may look with complacency, an unprovoked rebellion of ambitious men against a beneficent government, for the purpose--the avowed purpose--of establishing, extending and perpetuating any form of injustice and wrong, is an imitation on earth of that first foul revolt of 'the Infernal Serpent,' against which the Supreme Majesty sent forth the armed myriads of his angels, and clothed the right arm of his Son with the three-bolted thunders of omnipotence.<br />Lord Bacon, in 'the true marshalling of the sovereign degrees of honor, assigns the first place to 'the Conditores Jinperiorum, founders of States and Commonwealths; and, truly, to build up from the discordant elements of our nature, the passions, the interests and the opinions of the individual man, the rivalries of family, clan and tribe, the influences of climate and geographical position, the accidents of peace and war accumulated for ages--to build up from these oftentimes warring elements a well-compacted, prosperous and powerful State, if it were to be accomplished by one effort or in one generation, would require a more than mortal skill. To contribute in some notable degree to this, the greatest work of man, by wise and patriotic counsel in peace and loyal heroism in war, is as high as human merit can well rise, and far more than to any of those to whom Bacon assigns this highest place of honor, whose names can hardly be repeated without a wondering smile--Romulus, Cyrus, Caesar, Ottoman, Ismael--is it due to our Washington, as the founder of the American Union. But if to achieve or help to achieve this greatest work of mans wisdom and virtue gives title to a place among the chief benefactors, rightful heirs of the benedictions, of mankind, by equal reason shall the bold, bad men who seek to undo the noble work, Eversores Irnperiorum, destroyers of States, who for base and selfish ends rebel against beneficent governments, seek to overturn wise constitutions, to lay powerful republican Unions at the foot of foreign thrones, to bring on civil and foreign war, anarchy at home, dictation abroad, desolation, ruin--by equal reason, I say, yes, a thousandfold stronger shall they inherit the execrations of the ages.<br />But to hide the deformity of the crime under the cloak of that sophistry which strives to make the worse appear the better reason, we are told by the leaders of the Rebellion that in our complex system of government the separate States are 'sovereigns, and that the central power is only an 'agency established by these sovereigns to manage certain little affairs--such, forsooth, as Peace, War, Army, Navy, Finance, Territory, and Relations with the native tribes--which they could not so conveniently administer themselves. It happens, unfortunately for this theory, that the Federal Constitution (which has been adopted by the people of every State of the Union as much as their own State constitutions have been adopted, and is declared to be paramount to them) nowhere recognizes the States as 'sovereigns'--in fact, that, by their names, it does not recognize them at all; while the authority established by that instrument is recognized, in its text, not as an 'agency,' but as 'the Government of the United States.' By that Constitution, moreover, which purports in its preamble to be ordained and established by 'the People of the United States,' it is expressly provided, that 'the members of the State legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support the Constitution.' Now it is a common thing, under all governments, for an agent to be bound by oath to be faithful to his sovereign; but I never heard before of sovereigns being bound by oath to be faithful to their agency.<br />Certainly I do not deny that the separate States are clothed with sovereign powers for the administration of local affairs. It is one of the most beautiful features of our mixed system of government; but it is equally true, that, in adopting the Federal Constitution, the States abdicated, by express renunciation, all the most important functions of national sovereignty, and, by one comprehensive, self-denying clause, gave up all right to contravene the Constitution of the United States. Specifically, and by enumeration, they renounced all the most important prerogatives of independent States for peace and for war,--the right to keep troops or ships of war in time of peace, or to engage in war unless actually invaded; to enter into compact with another State or a foreign power; to lay any duty on tonnage, or any impost on exports or imports, without the consent of Congress; to enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; to grant letters of marque and reprisal, and to emit bills of credit--while all these powers and many others are expressly vested in the General Government. To ascribe to political communities, thus limited in their jurisdiction--who cannot even establish a post office on their own soil--the character of independent sovereignty, and to reduce a national organization, clothed with all the transcendent powers of government, to the name and condition of an 'agency' of the States, proves nothing but that the logic of secession is on a par with its loyalty and patriotism.<br />Oh, but 'the reserved rights!' and what of the reserved rights? The tenth amendment of the Constitution, supposed to provide for 'reserved rights,' is constantly misquoted. By that amendment, 'the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.' The 'powers reserved must of course be such as could have been, but were not delegated to the United States,--could have been, but were not prohibited to the States; but to speak of the right of an individual State to secede, as a power that could have been, though it was not delegated to the United States, is simple nonsense.<br />But waiving this obvious absurdity, can it need a serious argument to prove that there can be no State right to enter into a new confederation reserved under a constitution which expressly prohibits a State to 'enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation,' or any 'agreement or compact with another State or a foreign power?' To say that the State may, by enacting the preliminary farce of secession, acquire the right to do the prohibited things--to say, for instance, that though the States, in forming the Constitution, delegated to the United States and prohibited to themselves the power of declaring war, there was by implication reserved to each State the right of seceding and then declaring war; that, though they expressly prohibited to the States and delegated to the United States the entire treaty-making power, they reserved by implication (for an express reservation is not pretended) to the individual States, to Florida, for instance, the right to secede, and then to make a treaty with Spain retroceding that Spanish colony, and thus surrendering to a foreign power the key to the Gulf of Mexico,--to maintain propositions like these, with whatever affected seriousness it is done, appears to me egregious trifling.<br />Pardon me, my friends, for dwelling on these wretched sophistries. But it is these which conducted the armed hosts of rebellion to your doors on the terrible and glorious days of July, and which have brought upon the whole land the scourge of an aggressive and wicked war--a war which can have no other termination compatible with the permanent safety and welfare of the country but the complete destruction of the military power of the enemy. I have, on other occasions, attempted to show that to yield to his demands and acknowledge his independence, thus resolving the Union at once into two hostile governments, with a certainty of further disintegration, would annihilate the strength and the influence of the country as a member of the family of nations; afford to foreign powers the opportunity and the temptation for humiliating and disastrous interference in our affairs; wrest from the Middle and Western States some of their great natural outlets to the sea and of their most important lines of internal communication; deprive the commerce and navigation of the country of two-thirds of our sea coast and of the fortresses which protect it; not only so, but would enable each individual State--some of them with a white population equal to a good sized Northern county--or rather the dominant party in each State, to cede its territory, its harbors, its fortresses, the mouths of its rivers to any foreign power. It cannot be that the people of the loyal States--that, twenty-two millions of brave and prosperous freemen--will, for the temptation of a brief truce in an eternal border war, consent to this hideous national suicide.Do not think that I exaggerate the consequences of yielding to the demands of the leaders of the rebellion. I understate them. They require of us not only all the sacrifices I have named, not only the cession to them, a foreign and hostile power, of all the territory of the United States at present occupied by the Rebel forces, but the abandonment to them of the vast regions we have rescued from their grasp--of Maryland, of a part of Eastern Virginia and the whole of Western Virginia; the sea coast of North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida; Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri; Arkansas, and the larger portion of Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas--in most of which, with the exception of lawless guerillas, there is not a Rebel in arms, in all of which the great majority of the people are loyal to the Union. We must give back, too, the helpless colored population, thousands of whom are perilling their lives in the ranks of our armies, to a bondage rendered ten-fold more bitter by the momentary enjoyment of freedom. Finally we must surrender every man in the Southern country, white or black, who has moved a finger or spoken a word for the restoration of the Union, to a reign of terror as remorseless as that of Robespierre, which has been the chief instrument by which the Rebellion has been organized and sustained, and which has already filled the prisons of the South with noble men, whose only crime is that they are not the worst of criminals. The South is full of such men. I do not believe there has been a day since the election of President Lincoln, when, if an ordinance of secession could have been fairly submitted, after a free discussion, to the mass of the people in any single Southern State, a majority of ballots would have been given in its favor. No, not in South Carolina. It is not possible that the majority of the people, even of that State, if permitted, without fear or favor, to give a ballot on tile question, would have abandoned a leader like [James L.] Petigru, and all the memories of the Gadsdens, the Rutledges, and the Cotesworth Pinckneys of the revolutionary and constitutional age, to follow the agitators of the present day.<br />Nor must we be deterred from the vigorous prosecution of the war by the suggestion, continually thrown out by the Rebels and those who sympathize with them, that, however it might have been at an earlier stage, there has been engendered by the operations of the war a state of exasperation and bitterness which, independent of all reference to the original nature of the matters in controversy, will forever prevent the restoration of the Union, and the return of harmony between the two great sections of the country. This opinion I take to be entirely without foundation.<br />No man can deplore more than I do the miseries of every kind unavoidably incident to war. Who could stand on this spot and call to mind the scenes of the first days of July with any other feeling? A sad foreboding of what would ensue, if war should break out between North and South, has haunted me through life, and led me, perhaps too long, to tread in the path of hopeless compromise, in the fond endeavor to conciliate those who were predetermined not to be conciliated. But it is not true, as is pretended by the Rebels and their sympathizers, that the war has been carried on by the United States without entire regard to those temperaments which are enjoined by the law of nations, by our modern civilization, and by the spirit of Christianity. It would be quite easy to point out, in the recent military history of the leading European powers, acts of violence and cruelty, in the prosecution of their wars, to which no parallel can be found among us. In fact, when we consider the peculiar bitterness with which civil wars are almost invariably waged, we may justly boast of the manner in which the United States have carried on the contest. It is of course impossible to prevent the lawless acts of stragglers and deserters, or the occasional unwarrantable proceedings of subordinates on distant stations; but I do not believe there is, in all history, the record of a civil war of such gigantic dimensions where so little has been done in the spirit of vindictiveness as in this war, by the Government and commanders of the United States; and this notwithstanding the provocation given by the Rebel Government by assuming the responsibility of wretches like Quantrell [sic], refusing to quarter colored troops and scourging and selling into slavery free colored men from the North who fall into their hands, by covering the sea with pirates, refusing a just exchange of prisoners, while they crowd their armies with paroled prisoners not exchanged, and starving prisoners of war to death.In the next place, if there are any present who believe that, in addition to the effect of the military operations of the war, the confiscation acts and emancipation proclamations have embittered the Rebels beyond the possibility of reconciliation, I would request them to reflect that the tone of the Rebel leaders and Rebel press was just as bitter in the first months of the war, nay, before a gun was fired, as it is now. There were speeches made in Congress in the very last session before the outbreak of the Rebellion, so ferocious as to show that their authors were under the influence of a real frenzy. At the present day, if there is any discrimination made by the Confederate press in the affected scorn, hatred and contumely with which every shade of opinion and sentiment in the loyal States is treated, the bitterest contempt is bestowed upon those at the North who still speak the language of compromise, and who condemn those measures of the administration which are alleged to have rendered the return of peace hopeless.<br />No, my friends, that gracious Providence which over-rules all things for the best 'from seeming evil still educing good,' has so constituted our natures, that the violent excitement of the passions in one direction is generally followed by a reaction in an opposite direction, and the sooner for the violence. If it were not so--if injuries inflicted and retaliated of necessity led to new retaliations, with forever accumulating compound interest of revenge, then the world, thousands of years ago, would have been turned into an earthly hell, and the nations of the earth would have been resolved into clans of furies and demons, each forever warring with his neighbor. But it is not so; all history teaches a different lesson. The Wars of the Roses in England lasted an entire generation, from the battle of St. Albans in 1455 to that of Bosworth Field in 1485. Speaking of the former, Hume says; 'This was the first blood spilt in that fatal quarrel, which was not finished in less than a course of thirty years; which was signalized by twelve pitched battles; which opened a scene of extraordinary fierceness and cruelty; is computed to have cost the lives of eighty princes of the blood; and almost entirely annihilated the ancient nobility of England. The strong attachments which, at that time, men of the same kindred bore to each other, and the vindictive spirit which was considered a point of honor, rendered the great families implacable in their resentment, and widened every moment the breach between the parties.' Such was the state of things in England under which an entire generation grew up; but when Henry VII., in whom the titles of the two Houses were united, went up to London after the battle of Bosworth Field, to mount the throne, he was everywhere received with joyous acclamations, 'as one ordained and sent from heaven to put an end to the dissensions' which bad so long afflicted the country.<br />The great rebellion of England of the seventeenth century, after long and angry premonitions, may be said to have begun with the calling of the Long Parliament in 1640--and to have ended with the return of Charles II., in l660----twenty years of discord, conflict and civil war; of confiscation, plunder, havoc; a proud hereditary peerage trampled in the dust; a national church overturned, its clergy beggared, its most eminent prelate put to death; a military despotism established on the ruins of a monarchy which had subsisted seven hundred years, and the legitimate sovereign brought to the block; the great families which adhered to the king proscribed, impoverished, ruined; prisoners of war--a fate worse than starvation in Libby--sold to slavery in the West Indies; in a word, everything that can embitter and madden contending factions. Such was the state of things for twenty years; and yet, by no gentle transition, but suddenly, and 'when the restoration of affairs appeared most hopeless,' the son of the beheaded sovereign was brought back to his fathers blood-stained throne, with such 'unexpressible and universal joy' as led the merry monarch to exclaim 'he doubted it had been his own fault he had been absent so long, for he saw nobody who did not protest he had ever wished for his return.' 'In this wonderful manner,' says Clarendon, 'and with this incredible expedition did God put an end to a rebellion that had raged near twenty years, and had been carried on with all the horrid circumstances of murder, devastation and parricide that fire and sword, in the hands of the most wicked men in the world,' (it is a royalist that is speaking,) 'could be instruments of, almost to the desolation of two kingdoms, and the exceeding defacing and deforming of the third. . . By these remarkable steps did the merciful hand of God, in this short space of time, not only bind up and heal all those wounds, but even made the scar as undiscernable as, in respect of the deepness, was possible, which was a glorious addition to the deliverance.'<br />In Germany, the wars of the Reformation and of Charles V., in the sixteenth century, the Thirty Years war in the seventeenth century, the Seven Years' war in the eighteenth century, not to speak of other less celebrated contests, entailed upon that country all the miseries of intestine strife for more than three centuries. At the close of the last named war--which was the shortest of all, and waged in the most civilized age--'an officer,' says Archenholz, 'rode through seven villages in Hesse, and found in them but one human being.' More than three hundred principalities comprehended in the Empire, fermented with the fierce passions of proud and petty States; at the commencement of this period the castles of robber counts frowned upon every hilltop; a dreadful secret tribunal, whose seat no one knew, whose power none could escape, froze the hearts of men with terror throughout the land; religious hatred mingled its bitter poison in the seething caldron of provincial animosity; but of all these deadly enmities between the States of Germany scarcely the memory remains. There are controversies in that country, at the present day, but they grow mainly out of the rivalry of the two leading powers. There is no country in the world in which the sentiment of national brotherhood is stronger.In Italy, on the breaking up of the Roman Empire, society might be said to be resolved into its original elements--into hostile atoms, whose only movement was that of mutual repulsion. Ruthless barbarians had destroyed the old organizations, and covered the land with a merciless feudalism. As the new civilization grew up, under the wing of the church, the noble families and the walled towns fell madly into conflict with each other; the secular feud of Pope and Emperor scourged the land; province against province, city against city, street against street, waged remorseless war with each other from father to son, till Dante was able to fill his imaginary hell with the real demons of Italian history. So ferocious had the factions become, that the great poet-exile himself, the glory of his native city and of his native language, was, by a decree of the municipality, condemned to be burned alive if found in the city of Florence. But these deadly feuds and hatred yielded to political influences, as the hostile cities were grouped into States under stable governments; the lingering traditions of the ancient animosities gradually died away, and now Tuscan and Lombard, Sardinian and Neapolitan, as if to shame the degenerate sons of America, are joining in one cry for a united Italy.<br />In France, not to go back to the civil wars of the League, in the sixteenth century, and of the Fronde, in the seventeenth; not to speak of the dreadful scenes throughout the kingdom, which followed the revocation of the edict of Nantes; we have, in the great revolution which commenced at the close of the last century, seen the bloodhounds of civil strife let loose as rarely before in the history of the world. The reign of terror established at Paris stretched its bloody Briarean arms to every city and village in the land, and if the most deadly feuds which ever divided a people had the power to cause permanent alienation and hatred, this surely was the occasion. But far otherwise the fact. In seven years from the fall of Robespierre, the strong arm of the youthful conqueror brought order out of this chaos of crime and woe; Jacobins whose hands were scarcely cleansed from the best blood of France met the returning emigrants, whose estates they had confiscated and whose kindred they had dragged to the guillotine, in the Imperial antechambers; and when, after another turn of the wheel of fortune, Louis XVIII. was restored to his throne, he took the regicide Fouche, who had voted for his brothers death, to his cabinet and confidence.<br />The people of loyal America will never ask you, sir, to take to your confidence or admit again to a share in the government the hard-hearted men whose cruel lust of power has brought this desolating war upon the land, but there is no personal bitterness felt even against them. They may live, if they can bear to live after wantonly causing the death of so many thousands of their fellow-men; they may live in safe obscurity beneath the shelter of the government they have sought to overthrow, or they may fly to the protection of the governments of Europe--some of them are already there, seeking, happily in vain, to obtain the aid of foreign powers in furtherance of their own treason. There let them stay. The humblest dead soldier, that lies cold and stiff in his grave before us, is an object of envy beneath the clods that cover him, in comparison with the living man, I care not with what trumpery credentials he may be furnished, who is willing to grovel at the foot of a foreign throne for assistance in compassing the ruin of his country.<br />But the hour is coming and now is, when the power of the leaders of the Rebellion to delude and inflame must cease. There is no bitterness on the part of the masses. The people of the South are not going to wage an eternal war, for the wretched pretext by which this Rebellion is sought to be justified. The bonds that unite us as one people--a substantial community of origin, language, belief, and law, (the four great ties that hold the societies of men together;) common national and political interests; a common history; a common pride in a glorious ancestry; a common interest in this great heritage of blessings; the very geographical features of the country; the mighty rivers that cross the lines of climate and thus facilitate the interchange of natural and industrial products, while the wonder-working arm of the engineer has leveled the mountain-walls which separate the East and West, compelling your own Alleghenies, my Maryland and Pennsylvania friends, to open wide their everlasting doors to the chariot-wheels of traffic and travel; these bonds of union are of perennial force and energy, while the causes of alienation are imaginary, factitious and transient. The heart of the people, North and South, is for the Union. Indications, too plain to be mistaken, announce the fact, both in the East and the West of the States in rebellion. In North Carolina and Arkansas the fatal charm at length is broken. At Raleigh and Little Rock the lips of honest and brave men are unsealed, and an independent press is unlimbering its artillery. When its rifled cannon shall begin to roar, the hosts of treasonable sophistry--the mad delusions of the day--will fly like the Rebel army through the passes of yonder mountain. The weary masses of the people are yearning to see the dear old flag again floating upon their capitols, and they sigh for the return of the peace, prosperity, and happiness, which they enjoyed under a government whose power was felt only in its blessings.And now, friends, fellow citizens of Gettysburg and Pennsylvania, and you from remoter States, let me again, as we part, invoke your benediction on these honored graves. You feel, though the occasion is mournful, that it is good to he here. You feel that it was greatly auspicious for the cause of the country, that the men of the East and men of the West, the men of nineteen sister States, stood side by side, on the perilous ridges of the battle. You now feel it a new bond of union, that they shall lie side by side, till the clarion, louder than that which marshalled them to the combat, shall awake their slumbers. God bless the Union; it is dearer to us for the blood of brave men which has been shed in its defence. The spots on which they stood and fell; these pleasant heights; the fertile plain beneath them; the thriving village whose streets so lately rang with the strange din of war; the fields beyond the ridge, where the noble Reynolds held the advancing foe at bay, and, while he gave up his own life, assured by his forethought and self-sacrifice the triumph of the two succeeding days; the little streams which wind through the hills, on whose banks in aftertimes the wondering ploughman will turn up, with the rude weapons of savage warfare, the fearful missiles of modern artillery; Seminary Ridge, the Peach Orchard, Cemetery, Culp, and Wolf Hill, Round Top, Little Round Top, humble names, henceforward dear and famous--no lapse of time, no distance of space, shall cause you to be forgotten. 'The whole earth,' said Pericles, as he stood over the remains of his fellow citizens, who had fallen in the first year of the Peloponnesian war, 'the whole earth is the sepulchre of illustrious men.' All time, he might have added, is the millennium of their glory. Surely I would do no injustice to the other noble achievements of the war, which have reflected such honor on both arms of the service, and have entitled the armies and the navy of the United States, their officers and men, to the warmest thanks and the richest rewards which a grateful people can pay. But they, I am sure, will join us in saying, as we bid farewell to the dust of these martyr-heroes, that wheresoever throughout the civilized world the accounts of this great warfare are read, and down to the latest period of recorded time, in the glorious annals of our common country, there will be no brighter page than that which relates The Battles of Gettysburg.</div>Fallhikerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00558598370555827002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3957383738340946813.post-84491665474030953162010-12-20T17:45:00.000-08:002010-12-20T17:46:34.737-08:00John F. Kennedy Ich bin ein Berliner ("I am a 'Berliner'") 26 June 1963, West Berlin<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsuYoNqZkkrmFQmhZFReNciJIG9YqYJSJfeN8HxrJU69V2M9s65tFD1AzPcUt9MC1ueGI1TNq25SGdabLUNTawmkuLQ0I7qMHAtCMn6PLQsC-KhBF_r0BlcRgHWxa0_1CsaXTSr5h9lGI/s1600/jfkberlinamericanrhetoric.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5552945992114865698" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 254px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsuYoNqZkkrmFQmhZFReNciJIG9YqYJSJfeN8HxrJU69V2M9s65tFD1AzPcUt9MC1ueGI1TNq25SGdabLUNTawmkuLQ0I7qMHAtCMn6PLQsC-KhBF_r0BlcRgHWxa0_1CsaXTSr5h9lGI/s320/jfkberlinamericanrhetoric.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div>I am proud to come to this city as the guest of your distinguished Mayor, who has symbolized throughout the world the fighting spirit of West Berlin. And I am proud -- And I am proud to visit the Federal Republic with your distinguished Chancellor who for so many years has committed Germany to democracy and freedom and progress, and to come here in the company of my fellow American, General Clay, who has been in this city during its great moments of crisis and will come again if ever needed.<br /></div><br /><div>Two thousand years ago -- Two thousand years ago, the proudest boast was "civis Romanus sum."¹ Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is "Ich bin ein Berliner."<br />(I appreciate my interpreter translating my German.)<br /></div><br /><div>There are many people in the world who really don't understand, or say they don't, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world.<br /></div><br /><div>Let them come to Berlin.<br /></div><br /><div>There are some who say -- There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future.<br /></div><br /><div>Let them come to Berlin.<br /></div><br /><div>And there are some who say, in Europe and elsewhere, we can work with the Communists.<br /></div><br /><div>Let them come to Berlin.<br /></div><br /><div>And there are even a few who say that it is true that communism is an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress.<br /></div><br /><div>Lass' sie nach Berlin kommen.<br />Let them come to Berlin.<br /></div><br /><div>Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect. But we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in -- to prevent them from leaving us. I want to say on behalf of my countrymen who live many miles away on the other side of the Atlantic, who are far distant from you, that they take the greatest pride, that they have been able to share with you, even from a distance, the story of the last 18 years. I know of no town, no city, that has been besieged for 18 years that still lives with the vitality and the force, and the hope, and the determination of the city of West Berlin.<br /></div><br /><div>While the wall is the most obvious and vivid demonstration of the failures of the Communist system -- for all the world to see -- we take no satisfaction in it; for it is, as your Mayor has said, an offense not only against history but an offense against humanity, separating families, dividing husbands and wives and brothers and sisters, and dividing a people who wish to be joined together.<br /></div><br /><div>What is -- What is true of this city is true of Germany: Real, lasting peace in Europe can never be assured as long as one German out of four is denied the elementary right of free men, and that is to make a free choice. In 18 years of peace and good faith, this generation of Germans has earned the right to be free, including the right to unite their families and their nation in lasting peace, with good will to all people.<br /></div><br /><div>You live in a defended island of freedom, but your life is part of the main. So let me ask you, as I close, to lift your eyes beyond the dangers of today, to the hopes of tomorrow, beyond the freedom merely of this city of Berlin, or your country of Germany, to the advance of freedom everywhere, beyond the wall to the day of peace with justice, beyond yourselves and ourselves to all mankind.<br /></div><br /><div>Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free. When all are free, then we look -- can look forward to that day when this city will be joined as one and this country and this great Continent of Europe in a peaceful and hopeful globe. When that day finally comes, as it will, the people of West Berlin can take sober satisfaction in the fact that they were in the front lines for almost two decades.<br /></div><br /><div>All -- All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin.<br /></div><br /><div>And, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words "Ich bin ein Berliner."</div>Fallhikerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00558598370555827002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3957383738340946813.post-43469367064650898582010-12-20T16:52:00.000-08:002010-12-20T17:03:07.375-08:00You can't handle the truth!... Jack Nicholson as Col. Nathan R. Jessep<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTycCRW96oFgo6OYTsKV2uoyuoB5pSfof5_CbSOp85jC6fcWURwi9mHiGTAQb3l3DtiETEEh8bnTcx_e-pPsRCWAgpNnVu96NUiKQ5XdG6jWzp9Dg9WPc93gTIzMTBnfWOkzQvfzeGr-8/s1600/cant-handle.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5552934795211020034" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 230px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTycCRW96oFgo6OYTsKV2uoyuoB5pSfof5_CbSOp85jC6fcWURwi9mHiGTAQb3l3DtiETEEh8bnTcx_e-pPsRCWAgpNnVu96NUiKQ5XdG6jWzp9Dg9WPc93gTIzMTBnfWOkzQvfzeGr-8/s320/cant-handle.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><em>from the script of "A Few Good Men" written by Aaron Sorkin</em></div><br /><div></div><br /><div>You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives...You don't want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall.We use words like honor, code, loyalty...we use these words as the backbone to a life spent defending something. You use 'em as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it! I'd rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you're entitled to!</div>Fallhikerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00558598370555827002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3957383738340946813.post-44554206419461672642010-12-20T15:07:00.000-08:002010-12-20T15:09:26.295-08:00Winston Churchill "their finest hour"<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiSnNoCtRvy8OK3O0tIfc84TanHoxI5CQ2ko06TFg0c8YhAgSb59WspwtOicDakRopIKzxmqnglrrMI9RZViH3uQmTJK9oIQCxJF8uQgzKr4sQOsK2kg_7tDFZmQmQ7Gb3JLX-hZoi-FU/s1600/sir-winston-churchill-posters.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5552905489828635794" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 250px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiSnNoCtRvy8OK3O0tIfc84TanHoxI5CQ2ko06TFg0c8YhAgSb59WspwtOicDakRopIKzxmqnglrrMI9RZViH3uQmTJK9oIQCxJF8uQgzKr4sQOsK2kg_7tDFZmQmQ7Gb3JLX-hZoi-FU/s320/sir-winston-churchill-posters.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div>I spoke the other day of the colossal military disaster which occurred when the French High Command failed to withdraw the northern Armies from Belgium at the moment when they knew that the French front was decisively broken at Sedan and on the Meuse. This delay entailed the loss of fifteen or sixteen French divisions and threw out of action for the critical period the whole of the British Expeditionary Force. Our Army and 120,000 French troops were indeed rescued by the British Navy from Dunkirk but only with the loss of their cannon, vehicles and modern equipment. This loss inevitably took some weeks to repair, and in the first two of those weeks the battle in France has been lost. When we consider the heroic resistance made by the French Army against heavy odds in this battle, the enormous losses inflicted upon the enemy and the evident exhaustion of the enemy, it may well be the thought that these 25 divisions of the best-trained and best-equipped troops might have turned the scale. However, General Weygand had to fight without them. Only three British divisions or their equivalent were able to stand in the line with their French comrades. They have suffered severely, but they have fought well. We sent every man we could to France as fast as we could re-equip and transport their formations.<br />I am not reciting these facts for the purpose of recrimination. That I judge to be utterly futile and even harmful. We cannot afford it. I recite them in order to explain why it was we did not have, as we could have had, between twelve and fourteen British divisions fighting in the line in this great battle instead of only three. Now I put all this aside. I put it on the shelf, from which the historians, when they have time, will select their documents to tell their stories. We have to think of the future and not of the past. This also applies in a small way to our own affairs at home. There are many who would hold an inquest in the House of Commons on the conduct of the Governments--and of Parliaments, for they are in it, too--during the years which led up to this catastrophe. They seek to indict those who were responsible for the guidance of our affairs. This also would be a foolish and pernicious process. There are too many in it. Let each man search his conscience and search his speeches. I frequently search mine.<br />Of this I am quite sure, that if we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future. Therefore, I cannot accept the drawing of any distinctions between members of the present Government. It was formed at a moment of crisis in order to unite all the Parties and all sections of opinion. It has received the almost unanimous support of both Houses of Parliament. Its members are going to stand together, and, subject to the authority of the House of Commons, we are going to govern the country and fight the war. It is absolutely necessary at a time like this that every Minister who tries each day to do his duty shall be respected; and their subordinates must know that their chiefs are not threatened men, men who are here today and gone tomorrow, but that their directions must be punctually and faithfully obeyed. Without this concentrated power we cannot face what lies before us. I should not think it would be very advantageous for the House to prolong this debate this afternoon under conditions of public stress. Many facts are not clear that will be clear in a short time. We are to have a secret session on Thursday, and I should think that would be a better opportunity for the many earnest expressions of opinion which members will desire to make and for the House to discuss vital matters without having everything read the next morning by our dangerous foes.<br />The disastrous military events which have happened during the past fortnight have not come to me with any sense of surprise. Indeed, I indicated a fortnight ago as clearly as I could to the House that the worst possibilities were open; and I made it perfectly clear then that whatever happened in France would make no difference to the resolve of Britain and the British Empire to fight on, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.<br />During the last few days we have successfully brought off the great majority of the troops we had on the line of communication in France; and seven-eighths of the troops we have sent to France since the beginning of the war--that is to say, about 350,000 out of 400,000 men--are safely back in this country. Others are still fighting with the French, and fighting with considerable success in their local encounters against the enemy. We have also brought back a great mass of stores, rifles and munitions of all kinds which had been accumulated in France during the last nine months.<br />We have, therefore, in this Island today a very large and powerful military force. This force comprises all our best-trained and our finest troops, including scores of thousands of those who have already measured their quality against the Germans and found themselves at no disadvantage. We have under arms at the present time in this Island over a million and a quarter men. Behind these we have the Local Defense Volunteers, numbering half a million, only a portion of whom, however, are yet armed with rifles or other firearms. We have incorporated into our Defense Forces every man for whom we have a weapon. We expect very large additions to our weapons in the near future, and in preparation for this we intend forthwith to call up, drill and train further large numbers. Those who are not called up, or else are employed during the vast business of munitions production in all its branches--and their ramifications are innumerable--will serve their country best by remaining at their ordinary work until they receive their summons. We have also over here Dominions armies. The Canadians had actually landed in France, but have now been safely withdrawn, much disappointed, but in perfect order, with all their artillery and equipment. And these very high-class forces from the Dominions will now take part in the defense of the Mother Country.<br />Lest the account which I have given of these large forces should raise the question: Why did they not take part in the great battle in France? I must make it clear that, apart from the divisions training and organizing at home, only twelve divisions were equipped to fight upon a scale which justified their being sent abroad. And this was fully up to the number which the French had been led to expect would be available in France at the ninth month of the war. The rest of our forces at home have a fighting value for home defense which will, of course, steadily increase every week that passes. Thus, the invasion of Great Britain would at this time require the transportation across the sea of hostile armies on a very large scale, and after they had been so transported they would have to be continually maintained with all the masses of munitions and supplies which are required for continuous battle--as continuous battle it will surely be.<br />Here is where we come to the Navy--and after all, we have a Navy. Some people seem to forget that we have a Navy. We must remind them. For the last thirty years I have been concerned in discussions about the possibilities of oversea invasion, and I took the responsibility on behalf of the Admiralty, at the beginning of the last war, of allowing all regular troops to be sent out of the country. That was a very serious step to take, because our Territorials had only just been called up and were quite untrained. Therefore, this Island was for several months particularly denuded of fighting troops. The Admiralty had confidence at that time in their ability to prevent a mass invasion even though at that time the Germans had a magnificent battle fleet in the proportion of 10 to 16, even though they were capable of fighting a general engagement every day and any day, whereas now they have only a couple of heavy ships worth speaking of--the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau. We are also told that the Italian Navy is to come out and gain sea superiority in these waters. If they seriously intend it, I shall only say that we shall be delighted to offer Signor Mussolini a free and safeguarded passage through the Strait of Gibraltar in order that he may play the part to which he aspires. There is a general curiosity in the British Fleet to find out whether the Italians are up to the level they were at in the last war or whether they have fallen off at all.<br />Therefore, it seems to me that as far as sea-borne invasion on a great scale is concerned, we are far more capable of meeting it today than we were at many periods in the last war and during the early months of this war, before our other troops were trained, and while the B.E.F. had proceeded abroad. Now, the Navy have never pretended to be able to prevent raids by bodies of 5,000 or 10,000 men flung suddenly across and thrown ashore at several points on the coast some dark night or foggy morning. The efficacy of sea power, especially under modern conditions, depends upon the invading force being of large size; It has to be of large size, in view of our military strength, to be of any use. If it is of large size, then the Navy have something they can find and meet and, as it were, bite on. Now, we must remember that even five divisions, however lightly equipped, would require 200 to 250 ships, and with modern air reconnaissance and photography it would not be easy to collect such an armada, marshal it, and conduct it across the sea without any powerful naval forces to escort it; and there would be very great possibilities, to put it mildly, that this armada would be intercepted long before it reached the coast, and all the men drowned in the sea or, at the worst blown to pieces with their equipment while they were trying to land. We also have a great system of minefields, recently strongly reinforced, through which we alone know the channels. If the enemy tries to sweep passages through these minefields, it will be the task of the Navy to destroy the mine-sweepers and any other forces employed to protect them. There should be no difficulty in this, owing to our great superiority at sea.<br />Those are the regular, well-tested, well-proved arguments on which we have relied during many years in peace and war. But the question is whether there are any new methods by which those solid assurances can be circumvented. Odd as it may seem, some attention has been given to this by the Admiralty, whose prime duty and responsibility is to destroy any large sea-borne expedition before it reaches, or at the moment when it reaches, these shores. It would not be a good thing for me to go into details of this. It might suggest ideas to other people which they have not thought of, and they would not be likely to give us any of their ideas in exchange. All I will say is that untiring vigilance and mind-searching must be devoted to the subject, because the enemy is crafty and cunning and full of novel treacheries and stratagems. The House may be assured that the utmost ingenuity is being displayed and imagination is being evoked from large numbers of competent officers, well-trained in tactics and thoroughly up to date, to measure and counterwork novel possibilities. Untiring vigilance and untiring searching of the mind is being, and must be, devoted to the subject, because, remember, the enemy is crafty and there is no dirty trick he will not do.<br />Some people will ask why, then, was it that the British Navy was not able to prevent the movement of a large army from Germany into Norway across the Skagerrak? But the conditions in the Channel and in the North Sea are in no way like those which prevail in the Skagerrak. In the Skagerrak, because of the distance, we could give no air support to our surface ships, and consequently, lying as we did close to the enemy's main air power, we were compelled to use only our submarines. We could not enforce the decisive blockade or interruption which is possible from surface vessels. Our submarines took a heavy toll but could not, by themselves, prevent the invasion of Norway. In the Channel and in the North Sea, on the other hand, our superior naval surface forces, aided by our submarines, will operate with close and effective air assistance.<br />This brings me, naturally, to the great question of invasion from the air, and of the impending struggle between the British and German Air Forces. It seems quite clear that no invasion on a scale beyond the capacity of our land forces to crush speedily is likely to take place from the air until our Air Force has been definitely overpowered. In the meantime, there may be raids by parachute troops and attempted descents of airborne soldiers. We should be able to give those gentry a warm reception both in the air and on the ground, if they reach it in any condition to continue the dispute. But the great question is: Can we break Hitler's air weapon? Now, of course, it is a very great pity that we have not got an Air Force at least equal to that of the most powerful enemy within striking distance of these shores. But we have a very powerful Air Force which has proved itself far superior in quality, both in men and in many types of machine, to what we have met so far in the numerous and fierce air battles which have been fought with the Germans. In France, where we were at a considerable disadvantage and lost many machines on the ground when they were standing round the aerodromes, we were accustomed to inflict in the air losses of as much as two and two-and-a-half to one. In the fighting over Dunkirk, which was a sort of no-man's-land, we undoubtedly beat the German Air Force, and gained the mastery of the local air, inflicting here a loss of three or four to one day after day. Anyone who looks at the photographs which were published a week or so ago of the re-embarkation, showing the masses of troops assembled on the beach and forming an ideal target for hours at a time, must realize that this re-embarkation would not have been possible unless the enemy had resigned all hope of recovering air superiority at that time and at that place.<br />In the defense of this Island the advantages to the defenders will be much greater than they were in the fighting around Dunkirk. We hope to improve on the rate of three or four to one which was realized at Dunkirk; and in addition all our injured machines and their crews which get down safely--and, surprisingly, a very great many injured machines and men do get down safely in modern air fighting--all of these will fall, in an attack upon these Islands, on friendly soil and live to fight another day; whereas all the injured enemy machines and their complements will be total losses as far as the war is concerned.<br />During the great battle in France, we gave very powerful and continuous aid to the French Army, both by fighters and bombers; but in spite of every kind of pressure we never would allow the entire metropolitan fighter strength of the Air Force to be consumed. This decision was painful, but it was also right, because the fortunes of the battle in France could not have been decisively affected even if we had thrown in our entire fighter force. That battle was lost by the unfortunate strategical opening, by the extraordinary and unforseen power of the armored columns, and by the great preponderance of the German Army in numbers. Our fighter Air Force might easily have been exhausted as a mere accident in that great struggle, and then we should have found ourselves at the present time in a very serious plight. But as it is, I am happy to inform the House that our fighter strength is stronger at the present time relatively to the Germans, who have suffered terrible losses, than it has ever been; and consequently we believe ourselves possessed of the capacity to continue the war in the air under better conditions than we have ever experienced before. I look forward confidently to the exploits of our fighter pilots--these splendid men, this brilliant youth--who will have the glory of saving their native land, their island home, and all they love, from the most deadly of all attacks.<br />There remains, of course, the danger of bombing attacks, which will certainly be made very soon upon us by the bomber forces of the enemy. It is true that the German bomber force is superior in numbers to ours; but we have a very large bomber force also, which we shall use to strike at military targets in Germany without intermission. I do not at all underrate the severity of the ordeal which lies before us; but I believe our countrymen will show themselves capable of standing up to it, like the brave men of Barcelona, and will be able to stand up to it, and carry on in spite of it, at least as well as any other people in the world. Much will depend upon this; every man and every woman will have the chance to show the finest qualities of their race, and render the highest service to their cause. For all of us, at this time, whatever our sphere, our station, our occupation or our duties, it will be a help to remember the famous lines:<br />He nothing common did or mean, Upon that memorable scene.<br />I have thought it right upon this occasion to give the House and the country some indication of the solid, practical grounds upon which we base our inflexible resolve to continue the war. There are a good many people who say, 'Never mind. Win or lose, sink or swim, better die than submit to tyranny--and such a tyranny.' And I do not dissociate myself from them. But I can assure them that our professional advisers of the three Services unitedly advise that we should carry on the war, and that there are good and reasonable hopes of final victory. We have fully informed and consulted all the self-governing Dominions, these great communities far beyond the oceans who have been built up on our laws and on our civilization, and who are absolutely free to choose their course, but are absolutely devoted to the ancient Motherland, and who feel themselves inspired by the same emotions which lead me to stake our all upon duty and honor. We have fully consulted them, and I have received from their Prime Ministers, Mr. Mackenzie King of Canada, Mr. Menzies of Australia, Mr. Fraser of New Zealand, and General Smuts of South Africa--that wonderful man, with his immense profound mind, and his eye watching from a distance the whole panorama of European affairs--I have received from all these eminent men, who all have Governments behind them elected on wide franchises, who are all there because they represent the will of their people, messages couched in the most moving terms in which they endorse our decision to fight on, and declare themselves ready to share our fortunes and to persevere to the end. That is what we are going to do.<br />We may now ask ourselves: In what way has our position worsened since the beginning of the war? It has worsened by the fact that the Germans have conquered a large part of the coast line of Western Europe, and many small countries have been overrun by them. This aggravates the possibilities of air attack and adds to our naval preoccupations. It in no way diminishes, but on the contrary definitely increases, the power of our long-distance blockade. Similarly, the entrance of Italy into the war increases the power of our long-distance blockade. We have stopped the worst leak by that. We do not know whether military resistance will come to an end in France or not, but should it do so, then of course the Germans will be able to concentrate their forces, both military and industrial, upon us. But for the reasons I have given to the House these will not be found so easy to apply. If invasion has become more imminent, as no doubt it has, we, being relieved from the task of maintaining a large army in France, have far larger and more efficient forces to meet it.<br />If Hitler can bring under his despotic control the industries of the countries he has conquered, this will add greatly to his already vast armament output. On the other hand, this will not happen immediately, and we are now assured of immense, continuous and increasing support in supplies and munitions of all kinds from the United States; and especially of aeroplanes and pilots from the Dominions and across the oceans coming from regions which are beyond the reach of enemy bombers.<br />I do not see how any of these factors can operate to our detriment on balance before the winter comes; and the winter will impose a strain upon the Nazi regime, with almost all Europe writhing and starving under its cruel heel, which, for all their ruthlessness, will run them very hard. We must not forget that from the moment when we declared war on the 3rd September it was always possible for Germany to turn all her Air Force upon this country, together with any other devices of invasion she might conceive, and that France could have done little or nothing to prevent her doing so. We have, therefore, lived under this danger, in principle and in a slightly modified form, during all these months. In the meanwhile, however, we have enormously improved our methods of defense, and we have learned what we had no right to assume at the beginning, namely, that the individual aircraft and the individual British pilot have a sure and definite superiority. Therefore, in casting up this dread balance sheet and contemplating our dangers with a disillusioned eye, I see great reason for intense vigilance and exertion, but none whatever for panic or despair.<br />During the first four years of the last war the Allies experienced nothing but disaster and disappointment. That was our constant fear: one blow after another, terrible losses, frightful dangers. Everything miscarried. And yet at the end of those four years the morale of the Allies was higher than that of the Germans, who had moved from one aggressive triumph to another, and who stood everywhere triumphant invaders of the lands into which they had broken. During that war we repeatedly asked ourselves the question: 'How are we going to win?' And no one was able ever to answer it with much precision, until at the end, quite suddenly, quite unexpectedly, our terrible foe collapsed before us, and we were so glutted with victory that in our folly we threw it away.<br />We do not yet know what will happen in France or whether the French resistance will be prolonged, both in France and in the French Empire overseas. The French Government will be throwing away great opportunities and casting adrift their future if they do not continue the war in accordance with their treaty obligations, from which we have not felt able to release them. The House will have read the historic declaration in which, at the desire of many Frenchmen--and of our own hearts--we have proclaimed our willingness at the darkest hour in French history to conclude a union of common citizenship in this struggle. However matters may go in France or with the French Government, or other French Governments, we in this Island and in the British Empire will never lose our sense of comradeship with the French people. If we are now called upon to endure what they have been suffering, we shall emulate their courage, and if final victory rewards our toils they shall share the gains, aye, and freedom shall be restored to all. We abate nothing of our just demands; not one jot or tittle do we recede. Czechs, Poles, Norwegians, Dutch, Belgians have joined their causes to our own. All these shall be restored.<br />What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us.<br />Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.<br />Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'<br />Winston Churchill - June 18, 1940</div>Fallhikerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00558598370555827002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3957383738340946813.post-15019257267333576632010-12-19T12:41:00.000-08:002010-12-19T12:42:55.960-08:00George Washington'sFarewell Address<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEt69KEicaXtADZQ5uR8lfZz1_EEJW2LRzCykqX5Z2-VGFkjA7XAtlpdhT-QMd3aFv9Ia4LSCUbbegicyzsYSMLGXgi6-buiMtSkVaASa3nMAU5-VHU77KkPnAtYridlLuoJXzLqB5HME/s1600/washingtonresigning.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5552496564966030130" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 213px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEt69KEicaXtADZQ5uR8lfZz1_EEJW2LRzCykqX5Z2-VGFkjA7XAtlpdhT-QMd3aFv9Ia4LSCUbbegicyzsYSMLGXgi6-buiMtSkVaASa3nMAU5-VHU77KkPnAtYridlLuoJXzLqB5HME/s320/washingtonresigning.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div>To the People of the United States, FRIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS:<br />1 The period for a new election of a citizen, to administer the executive government of the United States, being not far distant, and the time actually arrived, when your thoughts must be employed designating the person, who is to be clothed with that important trust, it appears to me proper, especially as it may conduce to a more distinct expression of the public voice, that I should now apprize you of the resolution I have formed, to decline being considered among the number of those out of whom a choice is to be made.<br />2 I beg you at the same time to do me the justice to be assured that this resolution has not been taken without a strict regard to all the considerations appertaining to the relation which binds a dutiful citizen to his country; and that in withdrawing the tender of service, which silence in my situation might imply, I am influenced by no diminution of zeal for your future interest, no deficiency of grateful respect for your past kindness, but am supported by a full conviction that the step is compatible with both.<br />3 The acceptance of, and continuance hitherto in, the office to which your suffrages have twice called me, have been a uniform sacrifice of inclination to the opinion of duty, and to a deference for what appeared to be your desire. I constantly hoped, that it would have been much earlier in my power, consistently with motives, which I was not at liberty to disregard, to return to that retirement, from which I had been reluctantly drawn. The strength of my inclination to do this, previous to the last election, had even led to the preparation of an address to declare it to you; but mature reflection on the then perplexed and critical posture of our affairs with foreign nations, and the unanimous advice of persons entitled to my confidence impelled me to abandon the idea.<br />4 I rejoice, that the state of your concerns, external as well as internal, no longer renders the pursuit of inclination incompatible with the sentiment of duty, or propriety; and am persuaded, whatever partiality may be retained for my services, that, in the present circumstances of our country, you will not disapprove my determination to retire.<br />5 The impressions, with which I first undertook the arduous trust, were explained on the proper occasion. In the discharge of this trust, I will only say, that I have, with good intentions, contributed towards the organization and administration of the government the best exertions of which a very fallible judgment was capable. Not unconscious, in the outset, of the inferiority of my qualifications, experience in my own eyes, perhaps still more in the eyes of others, has strengthened the motives to diffidence of myself; and every day the increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more, that the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome. Satisfied, that, if any circumstances have given peculiar value to my services, they were temporary, I have the consolation to believe, that, while choice and prudence invite me to quit the political scene, patriotism does not forbid it.<br />6 In looking forward to the moment, which is intended to terminate the career of my public life, my feelings do not permit me to suspend the deep acknowledgment of that debt of gratitude, which I owe to my beloved country for the many honors it has conferred upon me; still more for the steadfast confidence with which it has supported me; and for the opportunities I have thence enjoyed of manifesting my inviolable attachment, by services faithful and persevering, though in usefulness unequal to my zeal. If benefits have resulted to our country from these services, let it always be remembered to your praise, and as an instructive example in our annals, that under circumstances in which the passions, agitated in every direction, were liable to mislead, amidst appearances sometimes dubious, vicissitudes of fortune often discouraging, in situations in which not unfrequently want of success has countenanced the spirit of criticism, the constancy of your support was the essential prop of the efforts, and a guarantee of the plans by which they were effected. Profoundly penetrated with this idea, I shall carry it with me to my grave, as a strong incitement to unceasing vows that Heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its beneficence; that your union and brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free constitution, which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its administration in every department may be stamped with wisdom and virtue; than, in fine, the happiness of the people of these States, under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete, by so careful a preservation and so prudent a use of this blessing, as will acquire to them the glory of recommending it to the applause, the affection, and adoption of every nation, which is yet a stranger to it.<br />7 Here, perhaps I ought to stop. But a solicitude for your welfare which cannot end but with my life, and the apprehension of danger, natural to that solicitude, urge me, on an occasion like the present, to offer to your solemn contemplation, and to recommend to your frequent review, some sentiments which are the result of much reflection, of no inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me all-important to the permanency of your felicity as a people. These will be offered to you with the more freedom, as you can only see in them the disinterested warnings of a parting friend, who can possibly have no personal motive to bias his counsel. Nor can I forget, as an encouragement to it, your indulgent reception of my sentiments on a former and not dissimilar occasion.<br />8 Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment.<br />9 The unity of Government, which constitutes you one people, is also now dear to you. It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquillity at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very Liberty, which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee, that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment, that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national Union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the Palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion, that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.<br />10 For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of american, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together; the Independence and Liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts, of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.<br />11 But these considerations, however powerfully they address themselves to your sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those, which apply more immediately to your interest. Here every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the Union of the whole.<br />12 The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the South, protected by the equal laws of a common government, finds, in the productions of the latter, great additional resources of maritime and commercial enterprise and precious materials of manufacturing industry. The South, in the same intercourse, benefiting by the agency of the North, sees its agriculture grow and its commerce expand. Turning partly into its own channels the seamen of the North, it finds its particular navigation invigorated; and, while it contributes, in different ways, to nourish and increase the general mass of the national navigation, it looks forward to the protection of a maritime strength, to which itself is unequally adapted. The East, in a like intercourse with the West, already finds, and in the progressive improvement of interior communications by land and water, will more and more find, a valuable vent for the commodities which it brings from abroad, or manufactures at home. The West derives from the East supplies requisite to its growth and comfort, and, what is perhaps of still greater consequence, it must of necessity owe the secure enjoyment of indispensable outlets for its own productions to the weight, influence, and the future maritime strength of the Atlantic side of the Union, directed by an indissoluble community of interest as one nation. Any other tenure by which the West can hold this essential advantage, whether derived from its own separate strength, or from an apostate and unnatural connexion with any foreign power, must be intrinsically precarious.<br />13 While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and particular interest in Union, all the parts combined cannot fail to find in the united mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations; and, what is of inestimable value, they must derive from Union an exemption from those broils and wars between themselves, which so frequently afflict neighbouring countries not tied together by the same governments, which their own rivalships alone would be sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate and embitter. Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty. In this sense it is, that your Union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other.<br />14 These considerations speak a persuasive language to every reflecting and virtuous mind, and exhibit the continuance of the union as a primary object of Patriotic desire. Is there a doubt, whether a common government can embrace so large a sphere? Let experience solve it. To listen to mere speculation in such a case were criminal. We are authorized to hope, that a proper organization of the whole, with the auxiliary agency of governments for the respective subdivisions, will afford a happy issue to the experiment. It is well worth a fair and full experiment. With such powerful and obvious motives to Union, affecting all parts of our country, while experience shall not have demonstrated its impracticability, there will always be reason to distrust the patriotism of those, who in any quarter may endeavour to weaken its bands.<br />15 In contemplating the causes, which may disturb our Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern, that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by Geographical discriminations, Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western; whence designing men may endeavour to excite a belief, that there is a real difference of local interests and views. One of the expedients of party to acquire influence, within particular districts, is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heart-burnings, which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those, who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection. The inhabitants of our western country have lately had a useful lesson on this head; they have seen, in the negotiation by the Executive, and in the unanimous ratification by the Senate, of the treaty with Spain, and in the universal satisfaction at that event, throughout the United States, a decisive proof how unfounded were the suspicions propagated among them of a policy in the General Government and in the Atlantic States unfriendly to their interests in regard to the mississippi; they have been witnesses to the formation of two treaties, that with Great Britain, and that with Spain, which secure to them every thing they could desire, in respect to our foreign relations, towards confirming their prosperity. Will it not be their wisdom to rely for the preservation of these advantages on the union by which they were procured? Will they not henceforth be deaf to those advisers, if such there are, who would sever them from their brethren, and connect them with aliens?<br />16 To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a Government for the whole is indispensable. No alliances, however strict, between the parts can be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions, which all alliances in all times have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay, by the adoption of a Constitution of Government better calculated than your former for an intimate Union, and for the efficacious management of your common concerns. This Government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true Liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish Government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established Government.<br />17 All obstructions to the execution of the Laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels, and modified by mutual interests.<br />18 However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying afterwards the very engines, which have lifted them to unjust dominion.<br />19 Towards the preservation of your government, and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the constitution, alterations, which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be invited, remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of governments, as of other human institutions; that experience is the surest standard, by which to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of a country; that facility in changes, upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion, exposes to perpetual change, from the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion; and remember, especially, that, for the efficient management of our common interests, in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable. Liberty itself will find in such a government, with powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian. It is, indeed, little else than a name, where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the society within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property.<br />20 I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the state, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party, generally.<br />21 This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.<br />22 The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.<br />23 Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind, (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight,) the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.<br />24 It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.<br />25 There is an opinion, that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the Government, and serve to keep alive the spirit of Liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in Governments of a Monarchical cast, Patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in Governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And, there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.<br />26 It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution, in those intrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositories, and constituting each the Guardian of the Public Weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way, which the constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for, though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield.<br />27 Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens. The mere Politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connexions with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.<br />28 It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who, that is a sincere friend to it, can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric ?<br />29 Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.<br />30 As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is, to use it as sparingly as possible; avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge the debts, which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burthen, which we ourselves ought to bear. The execution of these maxims belongs to your representatives, but it is necessary that public opinion should cooperate. To facilitate to them the performance of their duty, it is essential that you should practically bear in mind, that towards the payment of debts there must be Revenue; that to have Revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised, which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant; that the intrinsic embarrassment, inseparable from the selection of the proper objects (which is always a choice of difficulties), ought to be a decisive motive for a candid construction of the conduct of the government in making it, and for a spirit of acquiescence in the measures for obtaining revenue, which the public exigencies may at any time dictate.<br />31 Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and Morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great Nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt, that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages, which might be lost by a steady adherence to it ? Can it be, that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its Virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices ?<br />32 In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential, than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular Nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The Nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the Government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The Government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of Nations has been the victim.<br />33 So likewise, a passionate attachment of one Nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite Nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest, in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite Nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the Nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained; and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens, (who devote themselves to the favorite nation,) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.<br />34 As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent Patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practise the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the Public Councils! Such an attachment of a small or weak, towards a great and powerful nation, dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter.<br />35 Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens,) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove, that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government. But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defence against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation, and excessive dislike of another, cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.<br />36 The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connexion as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.<br />37 Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.<br />38 Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people, under an efficient government, the period is not far off, when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality, we may at any time resolve upon, to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.<br />39 Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?<br />40 It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them.<br />41 Taking care always to keep ourselves, by suitable establishments, on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.<br />42 Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing, with powers so disposed, in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the government to support them, conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary, and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping in view, that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that, by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion, which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.<br />43 In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression I could wish; that they will control the usual current of the passions, or prevent our nation from running the course, which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But, if I may even flatter myself, that they may be productive of some partial benefit, some occasional good; that they may now and then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism; this hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare, by which they have been dictated.<br />44 How far in the discharge of my official duties, I have been guided by the principles which have been delineated, the public records and other evidences of my conduct must witness to you and to the world. To myself, the assurance of my own conscience is, that I have at least believed myself to be guided by them.<br />45 In relation to the still subsisting war in Europe, my Proclamation of the 22d of April 1793, is the index to my Plan. Sanctioned by your approving voice, and by that of your Representatives in both Houses of Congress, the spirit of that measure has continually governed me, uninfluenced by any attempts to deter or divert me from it.<br />46 After deliberate examination, with the aid of the best lights I could obtain, I was well satisfied that our country, under all the circumstances of the case, had a right to take, and was bound in duty and interest to take, a neutral position. Having taken it, I determined, as far as should depend upon me, to maintain it, with moderation, perseverance, and firmness.<br />47 The considerations, which respect the right to hold this conduct, it is not necessary on this occasion to detail. I will only observe, that, according to my understanding of the matter, that right, so far from being denied by any of the Belligerent Powers, has been virtually admitted by all.<br />48 The duty of holding a neutral conduct may be inferred, without any thing more, from the obligation which justice and humanity impose on every nation, in cases in which it is free to act, to maintain inviolate the relations of peace and amity towards other nations.<br />49 The inducements of interest for observing that conduct will best be referred to your own reflections and experience. With me, a predominant motive has been to endeavour to gain time to our country to settle and mature its yet recent institutions, and to progress without interruption to that degree of strength and consistency, which is necessary to give it, humanly speaking, the command of its own fortunes.<br />50 Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope, that my Country will never cease to view them with indulgence; and that, after forty-five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest.<br />51 Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated by that fervent love towards it, which is so natural to a man, who views it in the native soil of himself and his progenitors for several generations; I anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat, in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free government, the ever favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.<br />George WashingtonUnited States - September 17, 1796 Source: The Independent Chronicle, September 26, 1796.</div>Fallhikerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00558598370555827002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3957383738340946813.post-78373391403519275622010-12-18T16:27:00.000-08:002010-12-18T17:48:40.001-08:00Winston Churchill Speech - "We shall fight them on the beaches"<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin2hMyKt0PmMzuvb9WCpsZp-fbJHZnkIfZShWjnuMrNTJZBBKnyQwPPFHfn0kysTKk4W1qxm3tXl8NXRdhk8jKv_pYWJ-DBbWTnXrBwnpSj1-3libGmrZoTT58hNHITgMIt0zGQcMmD6s/s1600/Churchill_portrait.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5552183904148024530" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 260px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin2hMyKt0PmMzuvb9WCpsZp-fbJHZnkIfZShWjnuMrNTJZBBKnyQwPPFHfn0kysTKk4W1qxm3tXl8NXRdhk8jKv_pYWJ-DBbWTnXrBwnpSj1-3libGmrZoTT58hNHITgMIt0zGQcMmD6s/s320/Churchill_portrait.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div>4 June 1940<br />"I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.<br />At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of His Majesty's Government-every man of them. That is the will of Parliament and the nation.<br />The British Empire and the French Republic, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength.<br />Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail.<br />We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be,we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."</div>Fallhikerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00558598370555827002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3957383738340946813.post-79263277718848841442010-12-18T16:18:00.000-08:002010-12-18T16:22:57.651-08:00Day of Infamy Franklin D. Roosevelt - Dec. 7, 1941<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKCVHIo4CBx6B-N1C2U6YrzQDN2XdGfY-xtT9Mom6MDWYnwZDKgBQqZChnLHE7xCdXaQGou_6qFQEIyVb8MwSbEfy-_bA5EXAJASDCOmUtiDKIOnkjbWnEmjk-2d3ISrUPsaeA-tKjRZQ/s1600/06_fdr_infamy.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5552182223740770642" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 261px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 195px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKCVHIo4CBx6B-N1C2U6YrzQDN2XdGfY-xtT9Mom6MDWYnwZDKgBQqZChnLHE7xCdXaQGou_6qFQEIyVb8MwSbEfy-_bA5EXAJASDCOmUtiDKIOnkjbWnEmjk-2d3ISrUPsaeA-tKjRZQ/s320/06_fdr_infamy.jpg" border="0" /></a>Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with the government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.<br /><div>Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleagues delivered to the Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. While this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or armed attack.It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time, the Japanese government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.</div><br /><div>The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. Very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.</div><br /><div>Yesterday, the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya.</div><br /><div>Last night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.</div><br /><div>Last night, Japanese forces attacked Guam.</div><br /><div>Last night, Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.</div><br /><div>Last night, the Japanese attacked Wake Island.</div><br /><div>This morning, the Japanese attacked Midway Island.</div><br /><div>Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.As commander in chief of the Army and Navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense.Always will we remember the character of the onslaught against us.</div><br /><div>No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.</div><br /><div>I believe I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger.</div><br /><div>With confidence in our armed forces - with the unbounding determination of our people - we will gain the inevitable triumph - so help us God.I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, Dec. 7, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire.</div>Fallhikerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00558598370555827002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3957383738340946813.post-80702233034547208652010-12-18T16:14:00.001-08:002010-12-18T16:16:07.374-08:00We Choose to go to the moon Speech by John F Kennedy<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7oZSU_OwXmLAetFZ2qYQmQwLyCRisg1wP6ImijatzEyc237dUNwitdRqjKRT0prWK4Cb4glL01WrxweauZflZAEkyOlaN2Hq7YpntUgPMtHrW7RH_B_tinM2Z8-dMQMcqXvrWzgqPaPI/s1600/we-choose-to-go-to-the-moon.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5552180398824860562" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 238px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7oZSU_OwXmLAetFZ2qYQmQwLyCRisg1wP6ImijatzEyc237dUNwitdRqjKRT0prWK4Cb4glL01WrxweauZflZAEkyOlaN2Hq7YpntUgPMtHrW7RH_B_tinM2Z8-dMQMcqXvrWzgqPaPI/s320/we-choose-to-go-to-the-moon.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div>President Pitzer, Mr. Vice President, Governor, Congressman Thomas, Senator Wiley, and Congressman Miller, Mr. Webb, Mr. Bell, scientists, distinguished guests, and ladies and gentlemen:<br />I appreciate your president having made me an honorary visiting professor, and I will assure you that my first lecture will be very brief.<br />I am delighted to be here and I'm particularly delighted to be here on this occasion.<br />We meet at a college noted for knowledge, in a city noted for progress, in a state noted for strength, and we stand in need of all three, for we meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds.<br />Despite the striking fact that most of the scientists that the world has ever known are alive and working today, despite the fact that this Nation's own scientific manpower is doubling every 12 years in a rate of growth more than three times that of our population as a whole, despite that, the vast stretches of the unknown and the unanswered and the unfinished still far outstrip our collective comprehension.<br />No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but condense, if you will, the 50,000 years of man's recorded history in a time span of but a half-century. Stated in these terms, we know very little about the first 40 years, except at the end of them advanced man had learned to use the skins of animals to cover them. Then about 10 years ago, under this standard, man emerged from his caves to construct other kinds of shelter. Only five years ago man learned to write and use a cart with wheels. Christianity began less than two years ago. The printing press came this year, and then less than two months ago, during this whole 50-year span of human history, the steam engine provided a new source of power. Newton explored the meaning of gravity. Last month electric lights and telephones and automobiles and airplanes became available. Only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power, and now if America's new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight.<br />This is a breathtaking pace, and such a pace cannot help but create new ills as it dispels old, new ignorance, new problems, new dangers. Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships, as well as high reward.<br />So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of Houston, this state of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward--and so will space.<br />William Bradford, speaking in 1630 of the founding of the Plymouth Bay Colony, said that all great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courage.<br />If this capsule history of our progress teaches us anything, it is that man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred. The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space.<br />Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolution, the first waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be a part of it--we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding.<br />Yet the vows of this Nation can only be fulfilled if we in this Nation are first, and, therefore, we intend to be first. In short, our leadership in science and industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men, and to become the world's leading space-faring nation.<br />We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. I do not say that we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours.<br />There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?<br />We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.<br />It is for these reasons that I regard the decision last year to shift our efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most important decisions that will be made during my incumbency in the office of the Presidency.<br />In the last 24 hours we have seen facilities now being created for the greatest and most complex exploration in man's history. We have felt the ground shake and the air shattered by the testing of a Saturn C-1 booster rocket, many times as powerful as the Atlas which launched John Glenn, generating power equivalent to 10,000 automobiles with their accelerators on the floor. We have seen the site where five F-1 rocket engines, each one as powerful as all eight engines of the Saturn combined, will be clustered together to make the advanced Saturn missile, assembled in a new building to be built at Cape Canaveral as tall as a 48 story structure, as wide as a city block, and as long as two lengths of this field.<br />Within these last 19 months at least 45 satellites have circled the earth. Some 40 of them were made in the United States of America and they were far more sophisticated and supplied far more knowledge to the people of the world than those of the Soviet Union.<br />The Mariner spacecraft now on its way to Venus is the most intricate instrument in the history of space science. The accuracy of that shot is comparable to firing a missile from Cape Canaveral and dropping it in this stadium between the 40-yard lines.<br />Transit satellites are helping our ships at sea to steer a safer course. Tiros satellites have given us unprecedented warnings of hurricanes and storms, and will do the same for forest fires and icebergs.<br />We have had our failures, but so have others, even if they do not admit them. And they may be less public.<br />To be sure, we are behind, and will be behind for some time in manned flight. But we do not intend to stay behind, and in this decade, we shall make up and move ahead.<br />The growth of our science and education will be enriched by new knowledge of our universe and environment, by new techniques of learning and mapping and observation, by new tools and computers for industry, medicine, the home as well as the school. Technical institutions, such as Rice, will reap the harvest of these gains.<br />And finally, the space effort itself, while still in its infancy, has already created a great number of new companies, and tens of thousands of new jobs. Space and related industries are generating new demands in investment and skilled personnel, and this city and this state, and this region, will share greatly in this growth. What was once the furthest outpost on the old frontier of the West will be the furthest outpost on the new frontier of science and space. Houston, your city of Houston, with its Manned Spacecraft Center, will become the heart of a large scientific and engineering community. During the next 5 years the National Aeronautics and Space Administration expects to double the number of scientists and engineers in this area, to increase its outlays for salaries and expenses to $60 million a year; to invest some $200 million in plant and laboratory facilities; and to direct or contract for new space efforts over $1 billion from this center in this city.<br />To be sure, all this costs us all a good deal of money. This year's space budget is three times what it was in January 1961, and it is greater than the space budget of the previous eight years combined. That budget now stands at $5,400 million a year--a staggering sum, though somewhat less than we pay for cigarettes and cigars every year. Space expenditures will soon rise some more, from 40 cents per person per week to more than 50 cents a week for every man, woman and child in the United States, for we have given this program a high national priority--even though I realize that this is in some measure an act of faith and vision, for we do not now know what benefits await us. But if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth, re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about half that of the temperature of the sun--almost as hot as it is here today--and do all this, and do it right, and do it first before this decade is out--then we must be bold.<br />I'm the one who is doing all the work, so we just want you to stay cool for a minute. [laughter]<br />However, I think we're going to do it, and I think that we must pay what needs to be paid. I don't think we ought to waste any money, but I think we ought to do the job. And this will be done in the decade of the Sixties. It may be done while some of you are still here at school at this college and university. It will be done during the terms of office of some of the people who sit here on this platform. But it will be done. And it will be done before the end of this decade.<br />And I am delighted that this university is playing a part in putting a man on the moon as part of a great national effort of the United States of America.<br />Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, "Because it is there."<br />Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.<br />Thank you. </div><br /><div><br />President John F. Kennedy - September 12, 1962</div>Fallhikerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00558598370555827002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3957383738340946813.post-65123455296226212912010-12-18T16:09:00.000-08:002010-12-18T16:11:12.916-08:00A TIME FOR CHOOSING (The Speech – October 27, 1964)<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe0zq2pq4fjzl1u866Gp0r_icmaO-iOqvDmZPRGtj92KycU7G1NdO0qGkEZqoPaWCIAlYmq87UR9wcAZPz0vH9-jMOWUEaJC5xuiLmf00C3ayY9irw6bPu6Fa1gIUPK2iZUNG4dleiuRE/s1600/reagan_1964.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5552179122785538850" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 206px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe0zq2pq4fjzl1u866Gp0r_icmaO-iOqvDmZPRGtj92KycU7G1NdO0qGkEZqoPaWCIAlYmq87UR9wcAZPz0vH9-jMOWUEaJC5xuiLmf00C3ayY9irw6bPu6Fa1gIUPK2iZUNG4dleiuRE/s320/reagan_1964.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><a name="_top"></a>Ronald Reagan</div><br /><div><br />Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you and good evening. The sponsor has been identified, but unlike most television programs, the performer hasn't been provided with a script. As a matter of fact, I have been permitted to choose my own words and discuss my own ideas regarding the choice that we face in the next few weeks. I have spent most of my life as a Democrat. I recently have seen fit to follow another course. I believe that the issues confronting us cross party lines. Now, one side in this campaign has been telling us that the issues of this election are the maintenance of peace and prosperity. The line has been used, "We've never had it so good." But I have an uncomfortable feeling that this prosperity isn't something on which we can base our hopes for the future. No nation in history has ever survived a tax burden that reached a third of its national income. Today, 37 cents out of every dollar earned in this country is the tax collector's share, and yet our government continues to spend 17 million dollars a day more than the government takes in. We haven't balanced our budget 28 out of the last 34 years. We've raised our debt limit three times in the last twelve months, and now our national debt is one and a half times bigger than all the combined debts of all the nations of the world. We have 15 billion dollars in gold in our treasury; we don't own an ounce. Foreign dollar claims are 27.3 billion dollars. And we've just had announced that the dollar of 1939 will now purchase 45 cents in its total value. As for the peace that we would preserve, I wonder who among us would like to approach the wife or mother whose husband or son has died in South Vietnam and ask them if they think this is a peace that should be maintained indefinitely. Do they mean peace, or do they mean we just want to be left in peace? There can be no real peace while one American is dying some place in the world for the rest of us. We're at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it's been said if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening. Well I think it's time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers. Not too long ago, two friends of mine were talking to a Cuban refugee, a businessman who had escaped from Castro, and in the midst of his story one of my friends turned to the other and said, "We don't know how lucky we are." And the Cuban stopped and said, "How lucky you are? I had someplace to escape to." And in that sentence he told us the entire story. If we lose freedom here, there's no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except the sovereign people, is still the newest and the most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well I'd like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There's only an up or down—[up] man's old—old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course. In this vote-harvesting time, they use terms like the "Great Society," or as we were told a few days ago by the President, we must accept a greater government activity in the affairs of the people. But they've been a little more explicit in the past and among themselves; and all of the things I now will quote have appeared in print. These are not Republican accusations. For example, they have voices that say, "The cold war will end through our acceptance of a not undemocratic socialism." Another voice says, "The profit motive has become outmoded. It must be replaced by the incentives of the welfare state." Or, "Our traditional system of individual freedom is incapable of solving the complex problems of the 20th century." Senator Fullbright has said at Stanford University that the Constitution is outmoded. He referred to the President as "our moral teacher and our leader," and he says he is "hobbled in his task by the restrictions of power imposed on him by this antiquated document." He must "be freed," so that he "can do for us" what he knows "is best." And Senator Clark of Pennsylvania, another articulate spokesman, defines liberalism as "meeting the material needs of the masses through the full power of centralized government." Well, I, for one, resent it when a representative of the people refers to you and me, the free men and women of this country, as "the masses." This is a term we haven't applied to ourselves in America. But beyond that, "the full power of centralized government"—this was the very thing the Founding Fathers sought to minimize. They knew that governments don't control things. A government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they know when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. They also knew, those Founding Fathers, that outside of its legitimate functions, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector of the economy. Now, we have no better example of this than government's involvement in the farm economy over the last 30 years. Since 1955, the cost of this program has nearly doubled. One-fourth of farming in America is responsible for 85 percent of the farm surplus. Three-fourths of farming is out on the free market and has known a 21 percent increase in the per capita consumption of all its produce. You see, that one-fourth of farming—that's regulated and controlled by the federal government. In the last three years we've spent 43 dollars in the feed grain program for every dollar bushel of corn we don't grow. Senator Humphrey last week charged that Barry Goldwater, as President, would seek to eliminate farmers. He should do his homework a little better, because he'll find out that we've had a decline of 5 million in the farm population under these government programs. He'll also find that the Democratic administration has sought to get from Congress [an] extension of the farm program to include that three-fourths that is now free. He'll find that they've also asked for the right to imprison farmers who wouldn't keep books as prescribed by the federal government. The Secretary of Agriculture asked for the right to seize farms through condemnation and resell them to other individuals. And contained in that same program was a provision that would have allowed the federal government to remove 2 million farmers from the soil. At the same time, there's been an increase in the Department of Agriculture employees. There's now one for every 30 farms in the United States, and still they can't tell us how 66 shiploads of grain headed for Austria disappeared without a trace and Billie Sol Estes never left shore. Every responsible farmer and farm organization has repeatedly asked the government to free the farm economy, but how—who are farmers to know what's best for them? The wheat farmers voted against a wheat program. The government passed it anyway. Now the price of bread goes up; the price of wheat to the farmer goes down. Meanwhile, back in the city, under urban renewal the assault on freedom carries on. Private property rights [are] so diluted that public interest is almost anything a few government planners decide it should be. In a program that takes from the needy and gives to the greedy, we see such spectacles as in Cleveland, Ohio, a million-and-a-half-dollar building completed only three years ago must be destroyed to make way for what government officials call a "more compatible use of the land." The President tells us he's now going to start building public housing units in the thousands, where heretofore we've only built them in the hundreds. But FHA [Federal Housing Authority] and the Veterans Administration tell us they have 120,000 housing units they've taken back through mortgage foreclosure. For three decades, we've sought to solve the problems of unemployment through government planning, and the more the plans fail, the more the planners plan. The latest is the Area Redevelopment Agency. They've just declared Rice County, Kansas, a depressed area. Rice County, Kansas, has two hundred oil wells, and the 14,000 people there have over 30 million dollars on deposit in personal savings in their banks. And when the government tells you you're depressed, lie down and be depressed. We have so many people who can't see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one. So they're going to solve all the problems of human misery through government and government planning. Well, now, if government planning and welfare had the answer—and they've had almost 30 years of it—shouldn't we expect government to read the score to us once in a while? Shouldn't they be telling us about the decline each year in the number of people needing help? The reduction in the need for public housing? But the reverse is true. Each year the need grows greater; the program grows greater. We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry each night. Well that was probably true. They were all on a diet. But now we're told that 9.3 million families in this country are poverty-stricken on the basis of earning less than 3,000 dollars a year. Welfare spending [is] 10 times greater than in the dark depths of the Depression. We're spending 45 billion dollars on welfare. Now do a little arithmetic, and you'll find that if we divided the 45 billion dollars up equally among those 9 million poor families, we'd be able to give each family 4,600 dollars a year. And this added to their present income should eliminate poverty. Direct aid to the poor, however, is only running only about 600 dollars per family. It would seem that someplace there must be some overhead. Now—so now we declare "war on poverty," or "You, too, can be a Bobby Baker." Now do they honestly expect us to believe that if we add 1 billion dollars to the 45 billion we're spending, one more program to the 30-odd we have—and remember, this new program doesn't replace any, it just duplicates existing programs—do they believe that poverty is suddenly going to disappear by magic? Well, in all fairness I should explain there is one part of the new program that isn't duplicated. This is the youth feature. We're now going to solve the dropout problem, juvenile delinquency, by reinstituting something like the old CCC camps [Civilian Conservation Corps], and we're going to put our young people in these camps. But again we do some arithmetic, and we find that we're going to spend each year just on room and board for each young person we help 4,700 dollars a year. We can send them to Harvard for 2,700! Course, don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting Harvard is the answer to juvenile delinquency. But seriously, what are we doing to those we seek to help? Not too long ago, a judge called me here in Los Angeles. He told me of a young woman who'd come before him for a divorce. She had six children, was pregnant with her seventh. Under his questioning, she revealed her husband was a laborer earning 250 dollars a month. She wanted a divorce to get an 80 dollar raise. She's eligible for 330 dollars a month in the Aid to Dependent Children Program. She got the idea from two women in her neighborhood who'd already done that very thing. Yet anytime you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we're denounced as being against their humanitarian goals. They say we're always "against" things—we're never "for" anything. Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so. Now—we're for a provision that destitution should not follow unemployment by reason of old age, and to that end we've accepted Social Security as a step toward meeting the problem. But we're against those entrusted with this program when they practice deception regarding its fiscal shortcomings, when they charge that any criticism of the program means that we want to end payments to those people who depend on them for a livelihood. They've called it "insurance" to us in a hundred million pieces of literature. But then they appeared before the Supreme Court and they testified it was a welfare program. They only use the term "insurance" to sell it to the people. And they said Social Security dues are a tax for the general use of the government, and the government has used that tax. There is no fund, because Robert Byers, the actuarial head, appeared before a congressional committee and admitted that Social Security as of this moment is 298 billion dollars in the hole. But he said there should be no cause for worry because as long as they have the power to tax, they could always take away from the people whatever they needed to bail them out of trouble. And they're doing just that. A young man, 21 years of age, working at an average salary—his Social Security contribution would, in the open market, buy him an insurance policy that would guarantee 220 dollars a month at age 65. The government promises 127. He could live it up until he's 31 and then take out a policy that would pay more than Social Security. Now are we so lacking in business sense that we can't put this program on a sound basis, so that people who do require those payments will find they can get them when they're due—that the cupboard isn't bare? Barry Goldwater thinks we can. At the same time, can't we introduce voluntary features that would permit a citizen who can do better on his own to be excused upon presentation of evidence that he had made provision for the non-earning years? Should we not allow a widow with children to work, and not lose the benefits supposedly paid for by her deceased husband? Shouldn't you and I be allowed to declare who our beneficiaries will be under this program, which we cannot do? I think we're for telling our senior citizens that no one in this country should be denied medical care because of a lack of funds. But I think we're against forcing all citizens, regardless of need, into a compulsory government program, especially when we have such examples, as was announced last week, when France admitted that their Medicare program is now bankrupt. They've come to the end of the road. In addition, was Barry Goldwater so irresponsible when he suggested that our government give up its program of deliberate, planned inflation, so that when you do get your Social Security pension, a dollar will buy a dollar's worth, and not 45 cents worth? I think we're for an international organization, where the nations of the world can seek peace. But I think we're against subordinating American interests to an organization that has become so structurally unsound that today you can muster a two-thirds vote on the floor of the General Assembly among nations that represent less than 10 percent of the world's population. I think we're against the hypocrisy of assailing our allies because here and there they cling to a colony, while we engage in a conspiracy of silence and never open our mouths about the millions of people enslaved in the Soviet colonies in the satellite nations. I think we're for aiding our allies by sharing of our material blessings with those nations which share in our fundamental beliefs, but we're against doling out money government to government, creating bureaucracy, if not socialism, all over the world. We set out to help 19 countries. We're helping 107. We've spent 146 billion dollars. With that money, we bought a 2 million dollar yacht for Haile Selassie. We bought dress suits for Greek undertakers, extra wives for Kenya[n] government officials. We bought a thousand TV sets for a place where they have no electricity. In the last six years, 52 nations have bought 7 billion dollars worth of our gold, and all 52 are receiving foreign aid from this country. No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. So governments' programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth. Federal employees—federal employees number two and a half million; and federal, state, and local, one out of six of the nation's work force employed by government. These proliferating bureaus with their thousands of regulations have cost us many of our constitutional safeguards. How many of us realize that today federal agents can invade a man's property without a warrant? They can impose a fine without a formal hearing, let alone a trial by jury? And they can seize and sell his property at auction to enforce the payment of that fine. In Chico County, Arkansas, James Wier over-planted his rice allotment. The government obtained a 17,000 dollar judgment. And a U.S. marshal sold his 960-acre farm at auction. The government said it was necessary as a warning to others to make the system work. Last February 19th at the University of Minnesota, Norman Thomas, six-times candidate for President on the Socialist Party ticket, said, "If Barry Goldwater became President, he would stop the advance of socialism in the United States." I think that's exactly what he will do. But as a former Democrat, I can tell you Norman Thomas isn't the only man who has drawn this parallel to socialism with the present administration, because back in 1936, Mr. Democrat himself, Al Smith, the great American, came before the American people and charged that the leadership of his Party was taking the Party of Jefferson, Jackson, and Cleveland down the road under the banners of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin. And he walked away from his Party, and he never returned til the day he died—because to this day, the leadership of that Party has been taking that Party, that honorable Party, down the road in the image of the labor Socialist Party of England. Now it doesn't require expropriation or confiscation of private property or business to impose socialism on a people. What does it mean whether you hold the deed to the—or the title to your business or property if the government holds the power of life and death over that business or property? And such machinery already exists. The government can find some charge to bring against any concern it chooses to prosecute. Every businessman has his own tale of harassment. Somewhere a perversion has taken place. Our natural, unalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation of government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment. Our Democratic opponents seem unwilling to debate these issues. They want to make you and I believe that this is a contest between two men—that we're to choose just between two personalities. Well what of this man that they would destroy—and in destroying, they would destroy that which he represents, the ideas that you and I hold dear? Is he the brash and shallow and trigger-happy man they say he is? Well I've been privileged to know him "when." I knew him long before he ever dreamed of trying for high office, and I can tell you personally I've never known a man in my life I believed so incapable of doing a dishonest or dishonorable thing. This is a man who, in his own business before he entered politics, instituted a profit-sharing plan before unions had ever thought of it. He put in health and medical insurance for all his employees. He took 50 percent of the profits before taxes and set up a retirement program, a pension plan for all his employees. He sent monthly checks for life to an employee who was ill and couldn't work. He provides nursing care for the children of mothers who work in the stores. When Mexico was ravaged by the floods in the Rio Grande, he climbed in his airplane and flew medicine and supplies down there. An ex-GI told me how he met him. It was the week before Christmas during the Korean War, and he was at the Los Angeles airport trying to get a ride home to Arizona for Christmas. And he said that [there were] a lot of servicemen there and no seats available on the planes. And then a voice came over the loudspeaker and said, "Any men in uniform wanting a ride to Arizona, go to runway such-and-such," and they went down there, and there was a fellow named Barry Goldwater sitting in his plane. Every day in those weeks before Christmas, all day long, he'd load up the plane, fly it to Arizona, fly them to their homes, fly back over to get another load. During the hectic split-second timing of a campaign, this is a man who took time out to sit beside an old friend who was dying of cancer. His campaign managers were understandably impatient, but he said, "There aren't many left who care what happens to her. I'd like her to know I care." This is a man who said to his 19-year-old son, "There is no foundation like the rock of honesty and fairness, and when you begin to build your life on that rock, with the cement of the faith in God that you have, then you have a real start." This is not a man who could carelessly send other people's sons to war. And that is the issue of this campaign that makes all the other problems I've discussed academic, unless we realize we're in a war that must be won. Those who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us they have a utopian solution of peace without victory. They call their policy "accommodation." And they say if we'll only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he'll forget his evil ways and learn to love us. All who oppose them are indicted as warmongers. They say we offer simple answers to complex problems. Well, perhaps there is a simple answer—not an easy answer—but simple: If you and I have the courage to tell our elected officials that we want our national policy based on what we know in our hearts is morally right. We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human beings now enslaved behind the Iron Curtain, "Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skins, we're willing to make a deal with your slave masters." Alexander Hamilton said, "A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one." Now let's set the record straight. There's no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there's only one guaranteed way you can have peace—and you can have it in the next second—surrender. Admittedly, there's a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face—that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand—the ultimatum. And what then—when Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we're retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the final ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary, because by that time we will have been weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he's heard voices pleading for "peace at any price" or "better Red than dead," or as one commentator put it, he'd rather "live on his knees than die on his feet." And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don't speak for the rest of us. You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin—just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard 'round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well it's a simple answer after all. You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." "There is a point beyond which they must not advance." And this—this is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said, "The destiny of man is not measured by material computations. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we're spirits—not animals." And he said, "There's something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty." You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We'll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we'll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness. We will keep in mind and remember that Barry Goldwater has faith in us. He has faith that you and I have the ability and the dignity and the right to make our own decisions and determine our own destiny. Thank you very much.</div>Fallhikerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00558598370555827002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3957383738340946813.post-7075703347804979352010-12-18T11:42:00.000-08:002010-12-18T17:34:23.105-08:00George W Bush; After 9/11<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV07c6o52hmogyvoX0DvRBfatsmBtUR17jaafnv-W5wo3fJGcaKPpplBR_TAJhxrlF0YWEjXTRAWf3wLBlOKqkD1NtxXT1WpJURbyi44bFJvu3_qPalULMt6OodKlo_dcY11ubnDMWado/s1600/BushSpeechCongressSept20.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5552110276904592658" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 230px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV07c6o52hmogyvoX0DvRBfatsmBtUR17jaafnv-W5wo3fJGcaKPpplBR_TAJhxrlF0YWEjXTRAWf3wLBlOKqkD1NtxXT1WpJURbyi44bFJvu3_qPalULMt6OodKlo_dcY11ubnDMWado/s320/BushSpeechCongressSept20.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div>Mr. Speaker, Mr. President Pro Tempore, members of Congress, and fellow Americans:<br />In the normal course of events, presidents come to this chamber to report on the state of the Union. Tonight, no such report is needed. It has already been delivered by the American people.<br />We have seen it in the courage of passengers who rushed terrorists to save others on the ground. Passengers like an exceptional man named Todd Beamer. And would you please help me welcome his wife Lisa Beamer here tonight?<br />We have seen the state of our Union in the endurance of rescuers working past exhaustion.<br />We've seen the unfurling of flags, the lighting of candles, the giving of blood, the saying of prayers in English, Hebrew and Arabic.<br />We have seen the decency of a loving and giving people who have made the grief of strangers their own.<br />My fellow citizens, for the last nine days, the entire world has seen for itself the state of our Union, and it is strong.<br />Tonight, we are a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom. Our grief has turned to anger and anger to resolution. Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done.<br />I thank the Congress for its leadership at such an important time.<br />All of America was touched on the evening of the tragedy to see Republicans and Democrats joined together on the steps of this Capitol singing "God Bless America."<br />And you did more than sing. You acted, by delivering $40 billion to rebuild our communities and meet the needs of our military. Speaker Hastert, Minority Leader Gephardt, Majority Leader Daschle and Senator Lott, I thank you for your friendship, for your leadership and for your service to our country.<br />And on behalf of the American people, I thank the world for its outpouring of support.<br />America will never forget the sounds of our national anthem playing at Buckingham Palace, on the streets of Paris and at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate.<br />We will not forget South Korean children gathering to pray outside our embassy in Seoul, or the prayers of sympathy offered at a mosque in Cairo.<br />We will not forget moments of silence and days of mourning in Australia and Africa and Latin America.<br />Nor will we forget the citizens of 80 other nations who died with our own. Dozens of Pakistanis, more than 130 Israelis, more than 250 citizens of India, men and women from El Salvador, Iran, Mexico and Japan, and hundreds of British citizens.<br />America has no truer friend than Great Britain.<br />Once again, we are joined together in a great cause.<br />I'm so honored the British prime minister has crossed an ocean to show his unity with America.<br />Thank you for coming, friend.<br />On September the 11th, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country. Americans have known wars, but for the past 136 years they have been wars on foreign soil, except for one Sunday in 1941. Americans have known the casualties of war, but not at the center of a great city on a peaceful morning.<br />Americans have known surprise attacks, but never before on thousands of civilians.<br />All of this was brought upon us in a single day, and night fell on a different world, a world where freedom itself is under attack.<br />Americans have many questions tonight. Americans are asking, "Who attacked our country?"<br />The evidence we have gathered all points to a collection of loosely affiliated terrorist organizations known as al-Qaida. They are some of the murderers indicted for bombing American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya and responsible for bombing the USS Cole.<br />Al-Qaida is to terror what the Mafia is to crime. But its goal is not making money. Its goal is remaking the world and imposing its radical beliefs on people everywhere.<br />The terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim clerics; a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam.<br />The terrorists' directive commands them to kill Christians and Jews, to kill all Americans and make no distinctions among military and civilians, including women and children.<br />This group and its leader, a person named Osama bin Laden, are linked to many other organizations in different countries, including the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.<br />There are thousands of these terrorists in more than 60 countries.<br />They are recruited from their own nations and neighborhoods and brought to camps in places like Afghanistan, where they are trained in the tactics of terror. They are sent back to their homes or sent to hide in countries around the world to plot evil and destruction.<br />The leadership of al-Qaida has great influence in Afghanistan and supports the Taliban regime in controlling most of that country. In Afghanistan we see al-Qaida's vision for the world. Afghanistan's people have been brutalized, many are starving and many have fled.<br />Women are not allowed to attend school. You can be jailed for owning a television. Religion can be practiced only as their leaders dictate. A man can be jailed in Afghanistan if his beard is not long enough.<br />The United States respects the people of Afghanistan -- after all, we are currently its largest source of humanitarian aid -- but we condemn the Taliban regime.<br />It is not only repressing its own people, it is threatening people everywhere by sponsoring and sheltering and supplying terrorists.<br />By aiding and abetting murder, the Taliban regime is committing murder. And tonight the United States of America makes the following demands on the Taliban.<br />Deliver to United States authorities all of the leaders of al-Qaida who hide in your land.<br />Release all foreign nationals, including American citizens you have unjustly imprisoned. Protect foreign journalists, diplomats and aid workers in your country. Close immediately and permanently every terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. And hand over every terrorist and every person and their support structure to appropriate authorities.<br />Give the United States full access to terrorist training camps, so we can make sure they are no longer operating.<br />These demands are not open to negotiation or discussion.<br />The Taliban must act and act immediately.<br />They will hand over the terrorists, or they will share in their fate.<br />I also want to speak tonight directly to Muslims throughout the world. We respect your faith. It's practiced freely by many millions of Americans and by millions more in countries that America counts as friends. Its teachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah.<br />The terrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself.<br />The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends. It is not our many Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists and every government that supports them.<br />Our war on terror begins with al-Qaida, but it does not end there.<br />It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.<br />Americans are asking, "Why do they hate us?"<br />They hate what they see right here in this chamber: a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.<br />They want to overthrow existing governments in many Muslim countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. They want to drive Israel out of the Middle East. They want to drive Christians and Jews out of vast regions of Asia and Africa.<br />These terrorists kill not merely to end lives, but to disrupt and end a way of life. With every atrocity, they hope that America grows fearful, retreating from the world and forsaking our friends. They stand against us because we stand in their way.<br />We're not deceived by their pretenses to piety.<br />We have seen their kind before. They're the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions, by abandoning every value except the will to power, they follow in the path of fascism, Nazism and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way to where it ends in history's unmarked grave of discarded lies.<br />Americans are asking, "How will we fight and win this war?" We will direct every resource at our command -- every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence and every necessary weapon of war -- to the destruction and to the defeat of the global terror network.<br />Now this war will not be like the war against Iraq a decade ago, with a decisive liberation of territory and a swift conclusion. It will not look like the air war above Kosovo two years ago, where no ground troops were used and not a single American was lost in combat.<br />Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes visible on TV and covert operations secret even in success.<br />We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place until there is no refuge or no rest.<br />And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation in every region now has a decision to make: Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.<br />From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime. Our nation has been put on notice, we're not immune from attack. We will take defensive measures against terrorism to protect Americans.<br />Today, dozens of federal departments and agencies, as well as state and local governments, have responsibilities affecting homeland security.<br />These efforts must be coordinated at the highest level. So tonight, I announce the creation of a Cabinet-level position reporting directly to me, the Office of Homeland Security.<br />And tonight, I also announce a distinguished American to lead this effort, to strengthen American security: a military veteran, an effective governor, a true patriot, a trusted friend, Pennsylvania's Tom Ridge.<br />He will lead, oversee and coordinate a comprehensive national strategy to safeguard our country against terrorism and respond to any attacks that may come.<br />These measures are essential. The only way to defeat terrorism as a threat to our way of life is to stop it, eliminate it and destroy it where it grows.<br />Many will be involved in this effort, from FBI agents, to intelligence operatives, to the reservists we have called to active duty. All deserve our thanks, and all have our prayers.<br />And tonight a few miles from the damaged Pentagon, I have a message for our military: Be ready. I have called the armed forces to alert, and there is a reason.<br />The hour is coming when America will act, and you will make us proud.<br />This is not, however, just America's fight. And what is at stake is not just America's freedom.<br />This is the world's fight. This is civilization's fight. This is the fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom.<br />We ask every nation to join us.<br />We will ask and we will need the help of police forces, intelligence services and banking systems around the world. The United States is grateful that many nations and many international organizations have already responded with sympathy and with support -- nations from Latin America, to Asia, to Africa, to Europe, to the Islamic world.<br />Perhaps the NATO charter reflects best the attitude of the world: An attack on one is an attack on all. The civilized world is rallying to America's side.<br />They understand that if this terror goes unpunished, their own cities, their own citizens may be next. Terror unanswered cannot only bring down buildings, it can threaten the stability of legitimate governments.<br />And you know what? We're not going to allow it.<br />Americans are asking, "What is expected of us?"<br />I ask you to live your lives and hug your children.<br />I know many citizens have fears tonight, and I ask you to be calm and resolute, even in the face of a continuing threat.<br />I ask you to uphold the values of America and remember why so many have come here.<br />We're in a fight for our principles, and our first responsibility is to live by them. No one should be singled out for unfair treatment or unkind words because of their ethnic background or religious faith.<br />I ask you to continue to support the victims of this tragedy with your contributions. Those who want to give can go to a central source of information, libertyunites.org, to find the names of groups providing direct help in New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia.<br />The thousands of FBI agents who are now at work in this investigation may need your cooperation, and I ask you to give it. I ask for your patience with the delays and inconveniences that may accompany tighter security and for your patience in what will be a long struggle.<br />I ask your continued participation and confidence in the American economy. Terrorists attacked a symbol of American prosperity; they did not touch its source.<br />America is successful because of the hard work and creativity and enterprise of our people. These were the true strengths of our economy before September 11th, and they are our strengths today.<br />And finally, please continue praying for the victims of terror and their families, for those in uniform and for our great country. Prayer has comforted us in sorrow and will help strengthen us for the journey ahead.<br />Tonight I thank my fellow Americans for what you have already done and for what you will do.<br />And ladies and gentlemen of the Congress, I thank you, their representatives, for what you have already done and for what we will do together.<br />Tonight we face new and sudden national challenges.<br />We will come together to improve air safety, to dramatically expand the number of air marshals on domestic flights and take new measures to prevent hijacking.<br />We will come together to promote stability and keep our airlines flying with direct assistance during this emergency.<br />We will come together to give law enforcement the additional tools it needs to track down terror here at home.<br />We will come together to strengthen our intelligence capabilities to know the plans of terrorists before they act and to find them before they strike.<br />We will come together to take active steps that strengthen America's economy and put our people back to work.<br />Tonight, we welcome two leaders who embody the extraordinary spirit of all New Yorkers, Governor George Pataki and Mayor Rudolf Giuliani.<br />As a symbol of America's resolve, my administration will work with Congress and these two leaders to show the world that we will rebuild New York City.<br />After all that has just passed, all the lives taken and all the possibilities and hopes that died with them, it is natural to wonder if America's future is one of fear.<br />Some speak of an age of terror. I know there are struggles ahead and dangers to face. But this country will define our times, not be defined by them.<br />As long as the United States of America is determined and strong, this will not be an age of terror. This will be an age of liberty here and across the world.<br />Great harm has been done to us. We have suffered great loss. And in our grief and anger, we have found our mission and our moment.<br />Freedom and fear are at war. The advance of human freedom, the great achievement of our time and the great hope of every time, now depends on us.<br />Our nation, this generation, will lift the dark threat of violence from our people and our future. We will rally the world to this cause by our efforts, by our courage. We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail.<br />It is my hope that in the months and years ahead life will return almost to normal. We'll go back to our lives and routines, and that is good.<br />Even grief recedes with time and grace.<br />But our resolve must not pass. Each of us will remember what happened that day and to whom it happened. We will remember the moment the news came, where we were and what we were doing.<br />Some will remember an image of a fire or story of rescue. Some will carry memories of a face and a voice gone forever.<br />And I will carry this. It is the police shield of a man named George Howard, who died at the World Trade Center trying to save others.<br />It was given to me by his mom, Arlene, as a proud memorial to her son. It is my reminder of lives that ended and a task that does not end.<br />I will not forget the wound to our country and those who inflicted it. I will not yield, I will not rest, I will not relent in waging this struggle for freedom and security for the American people.<br />The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain. Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.<br />Fellow citizens, we'll meet violence with patient justice, assured of the rightness of our cause and confident of the victories to come.<br />In all that lies before us, may God grant us wisdom, and may he watch over the United States of America.<br />Thank you.<br />President George W. Bush - September 20, 2001</div>Fallhikerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00558598370555827002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3957383738340946813.post-21580925978464792312010-11-24T12:23:00.000-08:002010-11-24T12:41:01.504-08:00General Dwight D. Eisenhower (Ike) D-Day Message<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7s4fCkvcr8ml6n6D6qGgiTGgVKMxhRyPnRfwWWQgVGB-3P-vhgaj2iJT68g3k2C37oNNsDLgtYwUOXTGhLGCgKwOVA3RzNt-tEl4X6cIQaZGbwR7xizCFZam1aTCcItvKWSmfStu_bvM/s1600/ike.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 251px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7s4fCkvcr8ml6n6D6qGgiTGgVKMxhRyPnRfwWWQgVGB-3P-vhgaj2iJT68g3k2C37oNNsDLgtYwUOXTGhLGCgKwOVA3RzNt-tEl4X6cIQaZGbwR7xizCFZam1aTCcItvKWSmfStu_bvM/s320/ike.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5543215573116270978" /></a><br />Order of the Day: 6 June 1944<br /><br />Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! <br />You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have<br />striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The <br />hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. <br />In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on<br />other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war<br />machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of<br />Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.<br /><br />Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well<br />equipped and battle hardened. He will fight savagely.<br /><br />But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of<br />1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats,<br />in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their<br />strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home<br />Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions<br />of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men.<br />The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to<br />Victory!<br /><br />I have full confidence in your courage and devotion to duty and skill in<br />battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory! <br /><br />Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great<br />and noble undertaking.<br /><br /><br />SIGNED: Dwight D. EisenhowerFallhikerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00558598370555827002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3957383738340946813.post-63280417123313495002010-11-04T16:06:00.001-07:002010-12-18T17:34:51.582-08:00Speech of Joseph McCarthy, Wheeling, West Virginia, February 9, 1950<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBP74sQ-eU4hlcoK9RN0auFxYzWLk0g0Rfw7hv3zmWk3cVuHulKFMW_RU_BB-G7Zli2seXUPbhhxR4pzYhrqGF6LnCuwjF3kTaOkZakqMG7ne_Ohqhgbw1o66tF_WFukqrUA3NXO4Qy84/s1600/mccarthy.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5535834995460886274" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 301px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBP74sQ-eU4hlcoK9RN0auFxYzWLk0g0Rfw7hv3zmWk3cVuHulKFMW_RU_BB-G7Zli2seXUPbhhxR4pzYhrqGF6LnCuwjF3kTaOkZakqMG7ne_Ohqhgbw1o66tF_WFukqrUA3NXO4Qy84/s320/mccarthy.bmp" border="0" /></a><br />Ladies and gentlemen, tonight as we celebrate the one hundred forty-first birthday of one of the greatest men in American history, I would like to be able to talk about what a glorious day today is in the history of the world. As we celebrate the birth of this man who with his whole heart and soul hated war, I would like to be able to speak of peace in our time—of war being outlawed—and of world-wide disarmament. These would be truly appropriate things to be able to mention as we celebrate the birthday of Abraham Lincoln.<br />Five years after a world war has been won, men’s hearts should anticipate a long peace—and men’s minds should be free from the heavy weight that comes with war. But this is not such a period—for this is not a period of peace. This is a time of “the cold war.” This is a time when all the world is split into two vast, increasingly hostile armed camps—a time of a great armament race.<br />Today we can almost physically hear the mutterings and rumblings of an invigorated god of war. You can see it, feel it, and hear it all the way from the Indochina hills, from the shores of Formosa, right over into the very heart of Europe itself.<br />The one encouraging thing is that the “mad moment” has not yet arrived for the firing of the gun or the exploding of the bomb which will set civilization about the final task of destroying itself. There is still a hope for peace if we finally decide that no longer can we safely blind our eyes and close our ears to those facts which are shaping up more and more clearly . . . and that is that we are now engaged in a show-down fight . . . not the usual war between nations for land areas or other material gains, but a war between two diametrically opposed ideologies.<br />The great difference between our western Christian world and the atheistic Communist world is not political, gentlemen, it is moral. For instance, the Marxian idea of confiscating the land and factories and running the entire economy as a single enterprise is momentous. Likewise, Lenin’s invention of the one-party police state as a way to make Marx’s idea work is hardly less momentous.<br />Stalin’s resolute putting across of these two ideas, of course, did much to divide the world. With only these differences, however, the east and the west could most certainly still live in peace.<br />The real, basic difference, however, lies in the religion of immoralism . . . invented by Marx, preached feverishly by Lenin, and carried to unimaginable extremes by Stalin. This religion of immoralism, if the Red half of the world triumphs—and well it may, gentlemen—this religion of immoralism will more deeply wound and damage mankind than any conceivable economic or political system.<br />Karl Marx dismissed God as a hoax, and Lenin and Stalin have added in clear-cut, unmistakable language their resolve that no nation, no people who believe in a god, can exist side by side with their communistic state.<br />Karl Marx, for example, expelled people from his Communist Party for mentioning such things as love, justice, humanity or morality. He called this “soulful ravings” and “sloppy sentimentality.” . . .<br />Today we are engaged in a final, all-out battle between communistic atheism and Christianity. The modern champions of communism have selected this as the time, and ladies and gentlemen, the chips are down—they are truly down.<br />Lest there be any doubt that the time has been chosen, let us go directly to the leader of communism today—Joseph Stalin. Here is what he said—not back in 1928, not before the war, not during the war—but 2 years after the last war was ended: “To think that the Communist revolution can be carried out peacefully, within the framework of a Christian democracy, means one has either gone out of one’s mind and lost all normal understanding, or has grossly and openly repudiated the Communist revolution.” . . .<br />Ladies and gentlemen, can there be anyone tonight who is so blind as to say that the war is not on? Can there by anyone who fails to realize that the Communist world has said the time is now? . . . that this is the time for the show-down between the democratic Christian world and the communistic atheistic world?<br />Unless we face this fact, we shall pay the price that must be paid by those who wait too long.<br />Six years ago, . . . there was within the Soviet orbit, 180,000,000 people. Lined up on the antitotalitarian side there were in the world at that time, roughly 1,625,000,000 people. Today, only six years later, there are 800,000,000 people under the absolute domination of Soviet Russia—an increase of over 400 percent. On our side, the figure has shrunk to around 500,000,000. In other words, in less than six years, the odds have changed from 9 to 1 in our favor to 8 to 5 against us.<br />This indicates the swiftness of the tempo of Communist victories and American defeats in the cold war. As one of our outstanding historical figures once said, “When a great democracy is destroyed, it will not be from enemies from without, but rather because of enemies from within.” . . .<br />The reason why we find ourselves in a position of impotency is not because our only powerful potential enemy has sent men to invade our shores . . . but rather because of the traitorous actions of those who have been treated so well by this Nation. It has not been the less fortunate, or members of minority groups who have been traitorous to this Nation, but rather those who have had all the benefits that the wealthiest Nation on earth has had to offer . . . the finest homes, the finest college education and the finest jobs in government we can give.<br />This is glaringly true in the State Department. There the bright young men who are born with silver spoons in their mouths are the ones who have been most traitorous. . . .<br />I have here in my hand a list of 205 . . . a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department. . . .<br />As you know, very recently the Secretary of State proclaimed his loyalty to a man guilty of what has always been considered as the most abominable of all crimes—being a traitor to the people who gave him a position of great trust—high treason. . . .<br />He has lighted the spark which is resulting in a moral uprising and will end only when the whole sorry mess of twisted, warped thinkers are swept from the national scene so that we may have a new birth of honesty and decency in government.Fallhikerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00558598370555827002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3957383738340946813.post-52997839901934032782010-11-04T15:52:00.001-07:002010-12-18T17:35:20.111-08:00Margaret Thatcher The lady's not for turning<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5dFKtZtMF-2FFfOanW1clFbOlhaihYbbLsPA_5naSiGJ7IdGA4BKw12drj6QZsWLIyvCJiDeQgAwmV2dQ_bJ0iFbcNLEcO7L39fo1GbjLhOXhONiK8NGLUgk5haVBNTHi4KIVQtomr-o/s1600/thatcher_time_cover.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5535697670184815586" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 243px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5dFKtZtMF-2FFfOanW1clFbOlhaihYbbLsPA_5naSiGJ7IdGA4BKw12drj6QZsWLIyvCJiDeQgAwmV2dQ_bJ0iFbcNLEcO7L39fo1GbjLhOXhONiK8NGLUgk5haVBNTHi4KIVQtomr-o/s320/thatcher_time_cover.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />This speech was delivered to the Conservative party conference in Brighton on October 10 1980<br />Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, most of my Cabinet colleagues have started their speeches of reply by paying very well deserved tributes to their junior Ministers. At Number 10 I have no junior ministers. There is just Denis and me, and I could not do without him. I am, however, very fortunate in having a marvelous deputy who is wonderful in all places at all times in all things - Willie Whitelaw.<br />At our party conference last year I said that the task in which the Government were engaged - to change the national attitude of mind - was the most challenging to face any British Administration since the war. Challenge is exhilarating. This week we Conservatives have been taking stock, discussing the achievements, the set-backs and the work that lies ahead as we enter our second parliamentary year. As you said Mr Chairman our debates have been stimulating and our debates have been constructive. This week has demonstrated that we are a party united in purpose, strategy and resolve. And we actually like one another.<br /><br />When I am asked for a detailed forecast of what will happen in the coming months or years I remember Sam Goldwyn's advice: "Never prophesy, especially about the future." (Interruption from the floor.) Never mind, it is wet outside. I expect that they wanted to come in. You cannot blame them; it is always better where the Tories are. And you - and perhaps they - will be looking to me this afternoon for an indication of how the Government see the task before us and why we are tackling it the way we are. Before I begin let me get one thing out of the way.<br /><br />This week at Brighton we have heard a good deal about last week at Blackpool. I will have a little more to say about that strange assembly later, but for the moment I want to say just this. Because of what happened at that conference, there has been, behind all our deliberations this week, a heightened awareness that now, more than ever, our Conservative government must succeed. We just must, because now there is even more at stake than some had realised. There are many things to be done to set this nation on the road to recovery, and I do not mean economic recovery alone, but a new independence of spirit and zest for achievement.<br /><br />It is sometimes said that because of our past we, as a people, expect too much and set our sights too high. That is not the way I see it. Rather it seems to me that throughout my life in politics our ambitions have steadily shrunk. Our response to disappointment has not been to lengthen our stride but to shorten the distance to be covered. But with confidence in ourselves and in our future what a nation we could be!<br /><br />In its first seventeen months this Government have laid the foundations for recovery. We have undertaken a heavy load of legislation, a load we do not intend to repeat because we do not share the Socialist fantasy that achievement is measured by the number of laws you pass. But there was a formidable barricade of obstacles that we had to sweep aside. For a start, in his first Budget Geoffrey Howe began to rest incentives to stimulate the abilities and inventive genius of our people. Prosperity comes not from grand conferences of economists but by countless acts of personal self-confidence and self-reliance.<br /><br />Under Geoffrey 's stewardship, Britain has repaid $3,600 million of international debt, debt which had been run up by our predecessors. And we paid quite a lot of it before it was due. In the past twelve months Geoffrey has abolished exchange controls over which British Governments have dithered for decades. Our great enterprises are now free to seek opportunities overseas. This will help to secure our living standards long after North Sea oil has run out. This Government thinks about the future. We have made the first crucial changes in trade union law to remove the worst abuses of the closed shop, to restrict picketing to the place of work of the parties in dispute, and to encourage secret ballots.<br /><br />Jim Prior has carried all these measures through with the support of the vast majority of trade union members. Keith Joseph, David Howell, John Nott and Norman Fowler have begun to break down the monopoly powers of nationalisation. Thanks to them British Aerospace will soon be open to private investment. The monopoly of the Post Office and British Telecommunications is being diminished. The barriers to private generation of electricity for sale have been lifted. For the first time nationalised industries and public utilities can be investigated by the Monopolies Commission - a long overdue reform.<br /><br />Free competition in road passenger transport promises travellers a better deal. Michael Heseltine has given to millions - yes, millions - of council tenants the right to buy their own homes.<br /><br />It was Anthony Eden who chose for us the goal of "a property-owning democracy". But for all the time that I have been in public affairs that has been beyond the reach of so many, who were denied the right to the most basic ownership of all - the homes in which they live.<br /><br />They wanted to buy. Many could afford to buy. But they happened to live under the jurisdiction of a Socialist council, which would not sell and did not believe in the independence that comes with ownership. Now Michael Heseltine has given them the chance to turn a dream into reality. And all this and a lot more in seventeen months.<br /><br />The left continues to refer with relish to the death of capitalism. Well, if this is the death of capitalism, I must say that it is quite a way to go.<br /><br />But all this will avail us little unless we achieve our prime economic objective - the defeat of inflation. Inflation destroys nations and societies as surely as invading armies do. Inflation is the parent of unemployment. It is the unseen robber of those who have saved.<br /><br />No policy which puts at risk the defeat of inflation - however great its short-term attraction - can be right. Our policy for the defeat of inflation is, in fact, traditional. It existed long before Sterling M3 embellished the Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, or "monetarism" became a convenient term of political invective.<br /><br />But some people talk as if control of the money supply was a revolutionary policy. Yet it was an essential condition for the recovery of much of continental Europe. Those countries knew what was required for economic stability. Previously, they had lived through rampant inflation; they knew that it led to suitcase money, massive unemployment and the breakdown of society itself. They determined never to go that way again. Today, after many years of monetary self-discipline, they have stable, prosperous economies better able than ours to withstand the buffeting of world recession.<br /><br />So at international conferences to discuss economic affairs many of my fellow Heads of Government find our policies not strange, unusual or revolutionary, but normal, sound and honest. And that is what they are.<br /><br />Their only question is: "Has Britain the courage and resolve to sustain the discipline for long enough to break through to success?" Yes, Mr Chairman, we have, and we shall. This Government are determined to stay with the policy and see it through to its conclusion. That is what marks this administration as one of the truly radical ministries of post-war Britain. Inflation is falling and should continue to fall.<br /><br />Meanwhile we are not heedless of the hardships and worries that accompany the conquest of inflation. Foremost among these is unemployment. Today our country has more than 2 million unemployed.<br /><br />Now you can try to soften that figure in a dozen ways. You can point out - and it is quite legitimate to do so - that 2 million today does not mean what it meant in the 1930s; that the percentage of unemployment is much less now than it was then.<br /><br />You can add that today many more married women go out to work. You can stress that, because of the high birthrate in the early 1960s, there is an unusually large number of school leavers this year looking for work and that the same will be true for the next two years. You can emphasise that about a quarter of a million people find new jobs each month and therefore go off the employment register. And you can recall that there are nearly 25 million people in jobs compared with only about 18 million in the 1930s. You can point out that the Labour party conveniently overlooks the fact that of the 2 million unemployed for which they blame us, nearly a million and a half were bequeathed by their Government.<br /><br />But when all that has been said the fact remains that the level of unemployment in our country today is a human tragedy. Let me make it clear beyond doubt. I am profoundly concerned about unemployment. Human dignity and self respect are undermined when men and women are condemned to idleness. The waste of a country's most precious assets - the talent and energy of its people - makes it the bounden duty of Government to seek a real and lasting cure.<br /><br />If I could press a button and genuinely solve the unemployment problem, do you think that I would not press that button this instant? Does anyone imagine that there is the smallest political gain in letting this unemployment continue, or that there is some obscure economic religion which demands this unemployment as part of its ritual? This Government are pursuing the only policy which gives any hope of bringing our people back to real and lasting employment. It is no coincidence that those countries, of which I spoke earlier, which have had lower rates of inflation have also had lower levels of unemployment.<br /><br />I know that there is another real worry affecting many of our people. Although they accept that our policies are right, they feel deeply that the burden of carrying them out is falling much more heavily on the private than on the public sector. They say that the public sector is enjoying advantages but the private sector is taking the knocks and at the same time maintaining those in the public sector with better pay and pensions than they enjoy.<br /><br />I must tell you that I share this concern and understand the resentment. That is why I and my colleagues say that to add to public spending takes away the very money and resources that industry needs to stay in business let alone to expand. Higher public spending, far from curing unemployment, can be the very vehicle that loses jobs and causes bankruptcies in trade and commerce. That is why we warned local authorities that since rates are frequently the biggest tax that industry now faces, increases in them can cripple local businesses. Councils must, therefore, learn to cut costs in the same way that companies have to.<br /><br />That is why I stress that if those who work in public authorities take for themselves large pay increases they leave less to be spent on equipment and new buildings. That in turn deprives the private sector of the orders it needs, especially some of those industries in the hard pressed regions. Those in the public sector have a duty to those in the private sector not to take out so much in pay that they cause others unemployment. That is why we point out that every time high wage settlements in nationalised monopolies lead to higher charges for telephones, electricity, coal and water, they can drive companies out of business and cost other people their jobs. If spending money like water was the answer to our country's problems, we would have no problems now. If ever a nation has spent, spent, spent and spent again, ours has. Today that dream is over. All of that money has got us nowhere but it still has to come from somewhere. Those who urge us to relax the squeeze, to spend yet more money indiscriminately in the belief that it will help the unemployed and the small businessman are not being kind or compassionate or caring.<br /><br />They are not the friends of the unemployed or the small business. They are asking us to do again the very thing that caused the problems in the first place. We have made this point repeatedly.<br /><br />I am accused of lecturing or preaching about this. I suppose it is a critic's way of saying "Well, we know it is true, but we have to carp at something." I do not care about that. But I do care about the future of free enterprise, the jobs and exports it provides and the independence it brings to our people. Independence? Yes, but let us be clear what we mean by that. Independence does not mean contracting out of all relationships with others. A nation can be free but it will not stay free for long if it has no friends and no alliances. Above all, it will not stay free if it cannot pay its own way in the world. By the same token, an individual needs to be part of a community and to feel that he is part of it. There is more to this than the chance to earn a living for himself and his family, essential though that is.<br /><br />Of course, our vision and our aims go far beyond the complex arguments of economics, but unless we get the economy right we shall deny our people the opportunity to share that vision and to see beyond the narrow horizons of economic necessity. Without a healthy economy we cannot have a healthy society. Without a healthy society the economy will not stay healthy for long.<br /><br />But it is not the State that creates a healthy society. When the State grows too powerful people feel that they count for less and less. The State drains society, not only of its wealth but of initiative, of energy, the will to improve and innovate as well as to preserve what is best. Our aim is to let people feel that they count for more and more. If we cannot trust the deepest instincts of our people we should not be in politics at all. Some aspects of our present society really do offend those instincts. Decent people do want to do a proper job at work, not to be restrained or intimidated from giving value for money. They believe that honesty should be respected, not derided. They see crime and violence as a threat not just to society but to their own orderly way of life. They want to be allowed to bring up their children in these beliefs, without the fear that their efforts will be daily frustrated in the name of progress or free expression. Indeed, that is what family life is all about.<br /><br />There is not a generation gap in a happy and united family. People yearn to be able to rely on some generally accepted standards. Without them you have not got a society at all, you have purposeless anarchy. A healthy society is not created by its institutions, either. Great schools and universities do not make a great nation any more than great armies do. Only a great nation can create and involve great institutions - of learning, of healing, of scientific advance. And a great nation is the voluntary creation of its people - a people composed of men and women whose pride in themselves is founded on the knowledge of what they can give to a community of which they in turn can be proud.<br /><br />If our people feel that they are part of a great nation and they are prepared to will the means to keep it great, a great nation we shall be, and shall remain. So, what can stop us from achieving this? What then stands in our way? The prospect of another winter of discontent? I suppose it might.<br /><br />But I prefer to believe that certain lessons have been learnt from experience, that we are coming, slowly, painfully, to an autumn of understanding. And I hope that it will be followed by a winter of common sense. If it is not, we shall not be diverted from our course.<br /><br />To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the "U" turn, I have only one thing to say. You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning. I say that not only to you but to our friends overseas and also to those who are not our friends.<br /><br />In foreign affairs we have pursued our national interest robustly while remaining alive to the needs and interests of others. We have acted where our predecessors dithered and here I pay tribute to Lord Carrington. When I think of our much-travelled Foreign Secretary I am reminded of the advert, you know the one I mean, about "The peer that reaches those foreign parts that other peers cannot reach."<br /><br />Long before we came into office, and therefore long before the invasion of Afghanistan I was pointing to the threat from the East. I was accused of scaremongering. But events have more than justified my words. Soviet Marxism is ideologically, politically and morally bankrupt. But militarily the Soviet Union is a powerful and growing threat.<br /><br />Yet it was Mr. Kosygin who said "No peace loving country, no person of integrity, should remain indifferent when an aggressor holds human life and world opinion in insolent contempt." We agree. The British Government are not indifferent to the occupation of Afghanistan. We shall not allow it to be forgotten. Unless and until the Soviet troops are withdrawn other nations are bound to wonder which of them may be next. Of course there are those who say that by speaking out we are complicating East-West relations, that we are endangering detente. But the real danger would lie in keeping silent. Detente is indivisible and it is a two-way process.<br /><br />The Soviet Union cannot conduct wars by proxy in South-East Asia and Africa, foment trouble in the Middle East and Caribbean and invade neighbouring countries and still expect to conduct business as usual. Unless detente is pursued by both sides it can be pursued by neither, and it is a delusion to suppose otherwise. That is the message we shall be delivering loud and clear at the meeting of the European Security Conference in Madrid in the weeks immediately ahead.<br /><br />But we shall also be reminding the other parties in Madrid that the Helsinki Accord was supposed to promote the freer movement of people and ideas. The Soviet Government's response so far has been a campaign of repression worse than any since Stalin's day. It had been hoped that Helsinki would open gates across Europe. In fact, the guards today are better armed and the walls are no lower. But behind those walls the human spirit is unvanquished.<br /><br />The workers of Poland in their millions have signalled their determination to participate in the shaping of their destiny. We salute them. Marxists claim that the capitalist system is in crisis. But the Polish workers have shown that it is the Communist system that is in crisis. The Polish people should be left to work out their own future without external interference.<br /><br />At every Party Conference, and every November in Parliament, we used to face difficult decisions over Rhodesia and over sanctions. But no longer. Since we last met the success at Lancaster House, and thereafter in Salisbury - a success won in the face of all the odds - has created new respect for Britain. It has given fresh hope to those grappling with the terrible problems of Southern Africa. It has given the Commonwealth new strength and unity. Now it is for the new nation, Zimbabwe, to build her own future with the support of all those who believe that democracy has a place in Africa, and we wish her well. We showed over Rhodesia that the hallmarks of Tory policy are, as they have always been, realism and resolve. Not for us the disastrous fantasies of unilateral disarmament, of withdrawal from NATO, of abandoning Northern Ireland.<br /><br />The irresponsibility of the Left on defence increases as the dangers which we face loom larger. We for our part, under Francis Pym 's brilliant leadership, have chosen a defence policy which potential foes will respect.<br /><br />We are acquiring, with the co-operation of the United States government, the Trident missile system. This will ensure the credibility of our strategic deterrent until the end of the century and beyond, and it was very important for the reputation of Britain abroad that we should keep our independent nuclear deterrent as well as for our citizens here.<br /><br />We have agreed to the stationing of Cruise missiles in this country. The unilateralists object, but the recent willingness of the Soviet Government to open a new round of arms control negotiations shows the wisdom of our firmness.<br /><br />We intend to maintain and, where possible, to improve our conventional forces so as to pull our weight in the Alliance. We have no wish to seek a free ride at the expense of our Allies. We will play our full part.<br /><br />In Europe we have shown that it is possible to combine a vigorous defence of our own interests with a deep commitment to the idea and to the ideals of the Community.<br /><br />The last government were well aware that Britain's budget contribution was grossly unfair. They failed to do anything about it. We negotiated a satisfactory arrangement which will give us and our partners time to tackle the underlying issues. We have resolved the difficulties of New Zealand's lamb trade with the Community in a way which protects the interests of the farmers in New Zealand while giving our own farmers and our own housewives an excellent deal, and Peter Walker deserves to be congratulated on his success. Now he is two-thirds on his way to success in making important progress towards agreement on a common fisheries policy. That is very important to our people. There are many, many people whose livelihoods depend on it.<br /><br />We face many other problems in the Community, but I am confident that they too will yield to the firm yet fair approach which has already proved so much more effective than the previous Government's five years of procrastination.<br /><br />With each day it becomes clearer that in the wider world we face darkening horizons, and the war between Iran and Iraq is the latest symptom of a deeper malady. Europe and North America are centres of stability in an increasingly anxious world. The Community and the Alliance are the guarantee to other countries that democracy and freedom of choice are still possible. They stand for order and the rule of law in an age when disorder and lawlessness are ever more widespread.<br /><br />The British Government intend to stand by both these great institutions, the Community and NATO. We will not betray them.<br /><br />The restoration of Britain's place in the world and of the West's confidence in its own destiny are two aspects of the same process. No doubt there will be unexpected twists in the road, but with wisdom and resolution we can reach our goal. I believe we will show the wisdom and you may be certain that we will show the resolution.<br /><br />In his warm hearted and generous speech, Peter Thorneycroft said that, when people are called upon to lead great nations they must look into the hearts and minds of the people whom they seek to govern. I would add that those who seek to govern must in turn be willing to allow their hearts and minds to lie open to the people.<br /><br />This afternoon I have tried to set before you some of my most deeply held convictions and beliefs. This Party, which I am privileged to serve, and this Government, which I am proud to lead, are engaged in the massive task of restoring confidence and stability to our people.<br /><br />I have always known that that task was vital. Since last week it has become even more vital than ever. We close our Conference in the aftermath of that sinister utopia unveiled at Blackpool. Let Labour's Orwellian nightmare of the left be the spur for us to dedicate with a new urgency our every ounce of energy and moral strength to rebuild the fortunes of this free nation.<br /><br />If we were to fail, that freedom could be imperilled. So let us resist the blandishments of the faint hearts; let us ignore the howls and threats of the extremists; let us stand together and do our duty, and we shall not fail.Fallhikerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00558598370555827002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3957383738340946813.post-27274348482102210502010-11-01T09:32:00.000-07:002010-12-18T17:35:40.173-08:00Vince Lombardi - What It Takes to be Number 1<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO4ZK4-_I6BdvU6MFzGaUZFGIQY4rVGinHCer_9cZV8TJh69rNhE5ekTLmxejYBpYbWeypMDlHhgo72cEv2H4eXoOAb_e6YN2oYJAAaqI514Md-TDVpeHrc1cYdNEgTSYi6mLO2aSLuYk/s1600/vince-lombardi.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5534620333552768354" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 243px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO4ZK4-_I6BdvU6MFzGaUZFGIQY4rVGinHCer_9cZV8TJh69rNhE5ekTLmxejYBpYbWeypMDlHhgo72cEv2H4eXoOAb_e6YN2oYJAAaqI514Md-TDVpeHrc1cYdNEgTSYi6mLO2aSLuYk/s320/vince-lombardi.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />"Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all the time thing. You don't win once in a while; you don't do things right once in a while; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.<br />"There is no room for second place. There is only one place in my game, and that's first place. I have finished second twice in my time at Green Bay, and I don't ever want to finish second again. There is a second place bowl game, but it is a game for losers played by losers. It is and always has been an American zeal to be first in anything we do, and to win, and to win, and to win.<br />"Every time a football player goes to play his trade he's got to play from the ground up — from the soles of his feet right up to his head. Every inch of him has to play. Some guys play with their heads. That's O.K. You've got to be smart to be number one in any business. But more importantly, you've got to play with your heart, with every fiber of your body. If you're lucky enough to find a guy with a lot of head and a lot of heart, he's never going to come off the field second.<br />"Running a football team is no different than running any other kind of organization — an army, a political party or a business. The principles are the same. The object is to win — to beat the other guy. Maybe that sounds hard or cruel. I don't think it is.<br />"It is a reality of life that men are competitive and the most competitive games draw the most competitive men. That's why they are there — to compete. To know the rules and objectives when they get in the game. The object is to win fairly, squarely, by the rules — but to win.<br />"And in truth, I've never known a man worth his salt who in the long run, deep down in his heart, didn't appreciate the grind, the discipline. There is something in good men that really yearns for discipline and the harsh reality of head to head combat.<br />"I don't say these things because I believe in the "brute" nature of man or that men must be brutalized to be combative. I believe in God, and I believe in human decency. But I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle — victorious."Fallhikerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00558598370555827002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3957383738340946813.post-3935690823002438082010-10-04T18:21:00.000-07:002010-12-18T17:36:27.432-08:00Captain Harl Pease Jr. 1917-1942<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQiQRVTb6-raJDxQ6UXWAPiB5m-6zVCbjRi2XFcXXNmF36SkDjM3d6dKW0D3Dn9wJOZipe2ReHH3lXmWAYj_iuLjSYfHbcz5vOIE_zvdqRp9-uxKa5EIWq2SG96-_1gO-_sAyW6jc0HVY/s1600/02_pease_plane.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524366421283487202" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 237px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQiQRVTb6-raJDxQ6UXWAPiB5m-6zVCbjRi2XFcXXNmF36SkDjM3d6dKW0D3Dn9wJOZipe2ReHH3lXmWAYj_iuLjSYfHbcz5vOIE_zvdqRp9-uxKa5EIWq2SG96-_1gO-_sAyW6jc0HVY/s320/02_pease_plane.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_cvviGqiFuw8/TKp97aNPP4I/AAAAAAAAAW4/83kxMH92cEQ/s1600/medal_of_honor.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524366352523935618" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 292px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_cvviGqiFuw8/TKp97aNPP4I/AAAAAAAAAW4/83kxMH92cEQ/s320/medal_of_honor.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikdqRJUF6dJ0ZR4gc5cWoBDQ8zUwzSh2BbFKqFeEMs_9GKFEGHXRI37QhS-NTStQ3YQ3N857W3OXihvlZ3onr_FgN59-XlehThJlKSIJoW-UvTy7UIMl9hw_iu8VPC3iJnVPL1s26h_qY/s1600/PrisonerofWarMedal.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524366295249754354" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 184px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikdqRJUF6dJ0ZR4gc5cWoBDQ8zUwzSh2BbFKqFeEMs_9GKFEGHXRI37QhS-NTStQ3YQ3N857W3OXihvlZ3onr_FgN59-XlehThJlKSIJoW-UvTy7UIMl9hw_iu8VPC3iJnVPL1s26h_qY/s320/PrisonerofWarMedal.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Captain Harl Pease, Jr., (April 10, 1917-October 8, 1942) was a United States Army Air Forces officer and a recipient of the United States military's highest award, the Medal of Honor, for his actions during World War II. He is the namesake for Pease Air Force Base.<br /><br />Captain Harl Pease, born and raised in Plymouth, New Hampshire, enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1939 after graduating from the University of New Hampshire the same year with a degree in Business Administration and becoming a brother of Theta Chi Fraternity.<br /><br />He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant a year later and awarded pilot rating upon completion of flight training at Kelly Field, Texas. He was immediately called to active duty and participated in B-17 bombing missions in the Pacific Theater.<br />It was during one of these missions, on August 6, 1942, that one engine of Captain Pease's B-17 failed, and he was forced to return to his base in Australia. His unit, the 19th Bomb Group, was scheduled to deploy to Papua, New Guinea, to support a maximum effort mission on August 7. It would require all available aircraft. Captain Pease and his crew, with their aircraft out of commission, were not scheduled for the mission.<br /><br />Determined not to "miss the big show", the crew voluntarily selected and worked over one of several unserviceable B-17s at the base. They rejoined the 19th at Port Moresby, Papua, New Guinea at 1 a.m. after having flown almost continuously since early the preceding morning.<br /><br />With only three hours rest, Captain Pease took off with the group to bomb targets at Rabaul, New Britain. Forty to fifty miles from the target, the group was attacked by more than 30 Japanese fighters. Captain Pease and his crew shot down several of the enemy, fought their way to the target, and bombed successfully.<br />After leaving the target, Captain Pease’s crippled B-17 fell behind the rest of the formation. Once again attacked by more than 30 Japanese fighters, he was seen to drop a bomb bay gasoline tank which was aflame, and it is believed that he and his crew were subsequently shot down in flames. However, as his aircraft lost altitude, Pease and another crew member bailed out. They were both captured and taken to a POW camp in Rabaul. He languished there until October 8, 1942. On that date, Pease, along with three other Americans and two Australians, were forced to dig their own grave and they were beheaded.<br /><br />On December 2, 1942, the Medal of Honor, awarded posthumously to Captain Pease for his heroism in combat, was presented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to the hero’s parents. His actions represent the true spirit of New Hampshire’s patriots.<br />The beheaded men were buried by local missionaries. It was not until 1946 that their bodies were recovered for a full military burial.<br /><br />Medal of Honor Citation<br /><br />For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action with the enemy on 6–7 August 1942. When 1 engine of the bombardment airplane of which he was pilot failed during a bombing mission over New Guinea, Capt. Pease was forced to return to a base in Australia. Knowing that all available airplanes of his group were to participate the next day in an attack on an enemy-held airdrome near Rabaul, New Britain, although he was not scheduled to take part in this mission, Capt. Pease selected the most serviceable airplane at this base and prepared it for combat, knowing that it had been found and declared unserviceable for combat missions. With the members of his combat crew, who volunteered to accompany him, he rejoined his squadron at Port Moresby, New Guinea, at 1 a.m. on 7 August, after having flown almost continuously since early the preceding morning. With only 3 hours' rest, he took off with his squadron for the attack. Throughout the long flight to Rabaul, New Britain, he managed by skillful flying of his unserviceable airplane to maintain his position in the group. When the formation was intercepted by about 30 enemy fighter airplanes before reaching the target, Capt. Pease, on the wing which bore the brunt of the hostile attack, by gallant action and the accurate shooting by his crew, succeeded in destroying several Zeros before dropping his bombs on the hostile base as planned, this in spite of continuous enemy attacks. The fight with the enemy pursuit lasted 25 minutes until the group dived into cloud cover. After leaving the target, Capt. Pease's aircraft fell behind the balance of the group due to unknown difficulties as a result of the combat, and was unable to reach this cover before the enemy pursuit succeeded in igniting 1 of his bomb bay tanks. He was seen to drop the flaming tank. It is believed that Capt. Pease's airplane and crew were subsequently shot down in flames, as they did not return to their base. In voluntarily performing this mission Capt. Pease contributed materially to the success of the group, and displayed high devotion to duty, valor, and complete contempt for personal danger. His undaunted bravery has been a great inspiration to the officers and men of his unit.Fallhikerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00558598370555827002noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3957383738340946813.post-89308802107718073192010-09-20T16:08:00.000-07:002010-12-18T17:37:05.689-08:00Amelia Mary Earhart; 1897 - 1937<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsOZNOf5CS2be8at3IF5VlQhLbXAF-smSeoUqxExbxzGDIwqNbk_jCs2BfxG6gnj5NKyaL8bhJWD3cGajf69G_opel4mnmbWBZM_s2iQYd4fPXSYzX1YirodIeVmajoeiQtNYVCQQO08Q/s1600/AMELIA+EARHART.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5519137341184419298" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 214px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsOZNOf5CS2be8at3IF5VlQhLbXAF-smSeoUqxExbxzGDIwqNbk_jCs2BfxG6gnj5NKyaL8bhJWD3cGajf69G_opel4mnmbWBZM_s2iQYd4fPXSYzX1YirodIeVmajoeiQtNYVCQQO08Q/s320/AMELIA+EARHART.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />When 10-year-old Amelia Mary Earhart saw her first plane at a state fair, she was not impressed. "It was a thing of rusty wire and wood and looked not at all interesting," she said. It wasn't until Earhart attended a stunt-flying exhibition, almost a decade later, that she became seriously interested in aviation. A pilot spotted Earhart and her friend, who were watching from an isolated clearing, and dove at them. "I am sure he said to himself, 'Watch me make them scamper,'" she said. Earhart, who felt a mixture of fear and pleasure, stood her ground. As the plane swooped by, something inside her awakened. "I did not understand it at the time," she said, "but I believe that little red airplane said something to me as it swished by." On December 28, 1920, pilot Frank Hawks gave her a ride that would forever change her life. "By the time I had got two or three hundred feet off the ground," she said, "I knew I had to fly."<br /><br />Although Earhart's convictions were strong, challenging prejudicial and financial obstacles awaited her. But the former tomboy was no stranger to disapproval or doubt. Defying conventional feminine behavior, the young Earhart climbed trees, "belly-slammed" her sled to start it downhill and hunted rats with a .22 rifle. She also kept a scrapbook of newspaper clippings about successful women in predominantly male-oriented fields, including film direction and production, law, advertising, management, and mechanical engineering.<br /><br />After graduating from Hyde Park High School in 1915, Earhart attended Ogontz, a girl's finishing school in the suburbs of Philadelphia. She left in the middle of her second year to work as a nurse's aide in a military hospital in Canada during WWI, attended college, and later became a social worker at Denison House, a settlement house in Boston. Earhart took her first flying lesson on January 3, 1921, and in six months managed to save enough money to buy her first plane. The second-hand Kinner Airster was a two-seater biplane painted bright yellow. Earhart named the plane "Canary," and used it to set her first women's record by rising to an altitude of 14,000 feet.<br /><br />One afternoon in April 1928, a phone call came for Earhart at work. "I'm too busy to answer just now," she said. After hearing that it was important, Earhart relented though at first she thought it was a prank. It wasn't until the caller supplied excellent references that she realized the man was serious. "How would you like to be the first woman to fly the Atlantic?" he asked, to which Earhart promptly replied, "Yes!" After an interview in New York with the project coordinators, including book publisher and publicist George P. Putnam, she was asked to join pilot Wilmer "Bill" Stultz and co-pilot/mechanic Louis E. "Slim" Gordon. The team left Trepassey harbor, Newfoundland, in a Fokker F7 named Friendship on June 17, 1928, and arrived at Burry Port, Wales, approximately 21 hours later. Their landmark flight made headlines worldwide, because three women had died within the year trying to be that first woman. When the crew returned to the United States they were greeted with a ticker-tape parade in New York and a reception held by President Calvin Coolidge at the White House.<br /><br />From then on, Earhart's life revolved around flying. She placed third at the Cleveland Women's Air Derby, later nicknamed the "Powder Puff Derby" by Will Rogers. As fate would have it, her life also began to include George Putnam. The two developed a friendship during preparation for the Atlantic crossing and were married February 7, 1931. Intent on retaining her independence, she referred to the marriage as a "partnership" with "dual control."<br /><br />Together they worked on secret plans for Earhart to become the first woman and the second person to solo the Atlantic. On May 20, 1932, five years to the day after Lindbergh, she took off from Harbor Grace, Newfoundland, to Paris. Strong north winds, icy conditions and mechanical problems plagued the flight and forced her to land in a pasture near Londonderry, Ireland. "After scaring most of the cows in the neighborhood," she said, "I pulled up in a farmer's back yard." As word of her flight spread, the media surrounded her, both overseas and in the United States. President Herbert Hoover presented Earhart with a gold medal from the National Geographic Society. Congress awarded her the Distinguished Flying Cross-the first ever given to a woman. At the ceremony, Vice President Charles Curtis praised her courage, saying she displayed "heroic courage and skill as a navigator at the risk of her life." Earhart felt the flight proved that men and women were equal in "jobs requiring intelligence, coordination, speed, coolness and willpower."<br /><br />In the years that followed, Earhart continued to break records. She set an altitude record for autogyros of 18,415 feet that stood for years. On January 11, 1935, she became the first person to fly solo across the Pacific from Honolulu to Oakland, California. Chilled during the 2,408-mile flight, she unpacked a thermos of hot chocolate. "Indeed," she said, "that was the most interesting cup of chocolate I have ever had, sitting up eight thousand feet over the middle of the Pacific Ocean, quite alone." Later that year she was the first to solo from Mexico City to Newark. A large crowd "overflowed the field," and rushed Earhart's plane. "I was rescued from my plane by husky policemen," she said, "one of whom in the ensuing melee took possession of my right arm and another of my left leg." The officers headed for a police car, but chose different routes. "The arm-holder started to go one way, while he who clasped my leg set out in the opposite direction. The result provided the victim with a fleeting taste of the tortures of the rack. But, at that," she said good-naturedly, "It was fine to be home again."<br /><br />In 1937, as Earhart neared her 40th birthday, she was ready for a monumental, and final, challenge. She wanted to be the first woman to fly around the world. Despite a botched attempt in March that severely damaged her plane, a determined Earhart had the twin engine Lockheed Electra rebuilt. "I have a feeling that there is just about one more good flight left in my system, and I hope this trip is it," she said. On June 1st, Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan departed from Miami and began the 29,000-mile journey. By June 29, when they landed in Lae, New Guinea, all but 7,000 miles had been completed. Frequently inaccurate maps had made navigation difficult for Noonan, and their next hop--to Howland Island--was by far the most challenging. Located 2,556 miles from Lae in the mid-Pacific, Howland Island is a mile and a half long and a half mile wide. Every unessential item was removed from the plane to make room for additional fuel, which gave Earhart approximately 274 extra miles. The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca, their radio contact, was stationed just offshore of Howland Island. Two other U.S. ships, ordered to burn every light on board, were positioned along the flight route as markers. "Howland is such a small spot in the Pacific that every aid to locating it must be available," Earhart said.<br /><br />At 10am local time, zero Greenwich time on July 2, the pair took off. Despite favorable weather reports, they flew into overcast skies and intermittent rain showers. This made Noonan's premier method of tracking, celestial navigation, difficult. As dawn neared, Earhart called the ITASCA, reporting "cloudy, weather cloudy." In later transmissions earhart asked the ITASCA to take bearings on her. The ITASCA sent her a steady stream of transmissions but she could not hear them. Her radio transmissions, irregular through most of the flight, were faint or interrupted with static. At 7:42 A.M. the Itasca picked up the message, "We must be on you, but we cannot see you. Fuel is running low. Been unable to reach you by radio. We are flying at 1,000 feet." The ship tried to reply, but the plane seemed not to hear. At 8:45 Earhart reported, "We are running north and south." Nothing further was heard from Earhart.<br /><br />A rescue attempt commenced immediately and became the most extensive air and sea search in naval history thus far. On July 19, after spending $4 million and scouring 250,000 square miles of ocean, the United States government reluctantly called off the operation. In 1938, a lighthouse was constructed on Howland Island in her memory. Across the United States there are streets, schools, and airports named after her. Her birthplace, Atchison, Kansas, has been turned into a virtual shrine to her memory. Amelia Earhart awards and scholarships are given out every year.<br />Today, though many theories exist, there is no proof of her fate. There is no doubt, however, that the world will always remember Amelia Earhart for her courage, vision, and groundbreaking achievements, both in aviation and for women. In a letter to her husband, written in case a dangerous flight proved to be her last, this brave spirit was evident. "Please know I am quite aware of the hazards," she said. "I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others."<br /><br />As taken from the official website http://www.ameliaearhart.com/Fallhikerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00558598370555827002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3957383738340946813.post-9816319509616015342010-09-10T13:56:00.001-07:002010-12-18T17:38:34.961-08:00Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM9xbxWrYudLWzJUtxT2yDFUf-W9h83CQBKczja8t5PuWHJwTtVsJ6Uh-j_mxSQSin4RWpWm6CVJNpM9aVOBSOzhbmjXXWl4x9mxhOQAGPvHy8Wo_80IQJgD2uxrILmFsXybQE17itfzc/s1600/0910-medal-honor_full_238.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5515391838331195938" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 229px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM9xbxWrYudLWzJUtxT2yDFUf-W9h83CQBKczja8t5PuWHJwTtVsJ6Uh-j_mxSQSin4RWpWm6CVJNpM9aVOBSOzhbmjXXWl4x9mxhOQAGPvHy8Wo_80IQJgD2uxrILmFsXybQE17itfzc/s320/0910-medal-honor_full_238.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_cvviGqiFuw8/TIqb_yzmLHI/AAAAAAAAATQ/IdFp9CVlRrQ/s1600/moh.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5515392213940841586" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 292px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_cvviGqiFuw8/TIqb_yzmLHI/AAAAAAAAATQ/IdFp9CVlRrQ/s320/moh.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />The first living soldier to receive a Medal of Honor for the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan got a phone call from the president Thursday thanking him for his service and his “extraordinary bravery” in battle, according to the White House.<br />Medal of Honor recipient Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta<br /><br />Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta from Hiawatha, Iowa, was assigned to Company B, 2nd Battalion (Airborne), 503rd Infantry Regiment as a rifle team leader on October 25, 2007 when he rescued a fellow soldier who had been wounded and taken prisoner by insurgents during an ambush on US troops.<br />It was in the deeply violent Korengal Valley in eastern Afghanistan that his squad was split into two groups and Giunta first “exposed himself to enemy fire to pull a comrade back to cover,” according to a White House release.<br />Later, in the midst of fighting and while he was trying to link up with the rest of his unit, Giunta saw two insurgents carrying off a fellow soldier who had been grievously injured in the fighting.<br />Giunta threw a hand grenade and rushed toward the insurgents, killing one and injuring the other before rescuing the US soldier and tending to his wounds. The soldier later died of his injuries.<br />Born in 1985, Giunta enlisted in the Army in November, 2003. He had also been deployed to Afghanistan one year previously, from March, 2005 to March 2006, before heading back to the country for 15 months from May 2007 to July 2008.<br />He will become the eighth service member to receive the Medal of Honor for US operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, “for acts of gallantry at the risk of his life that went above and beyond the call of duty.” All of the previous medals for both wars have been awarded posthumously.<br />The nation’s highest award for valor, the Medal of Honor – also known as the Congressional Medal of Honor – has been awarded posthumously to six troops fighting in the wars in Afghanistan in Iraq so far, with another to be conferred Oct. 6. Vietnam War troops earned the honor 246 times, and 464 were awarded for service in World War II.Fallhikerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00558598370555827002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3957383738340946813.post-55542822125529431882010-08-23T17:11:00.000-07:002010-12-18T17:43:48.625-08:00Sergeant Alvin Cullum York 1887 – 1964<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlD7NJxvxucC07jlbQFVsjME-u-lNJ5LdycwBhs-rgTgO6DP_UHP8jeq2KMs4lUJejAvtbJ05hg-VGHBHIpatVQOvMYEJqxVmKN2uktLZx2Tbox3eH79jf_EHE4gsntjK7IUW86Uvyo5M/s1600/Alvin_C[1]._York_postwar_1.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5508762848681729554" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 255px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlD7NJxvxucC07jlbQFVsjME-u-lNJ5LdycwBhs-rgTgO6DP_UHP8jeq2KMs4lUJejAvtbJ05hg-VGHBHIpatVQOvMYEJqxVmKN2uktLZx2Tbox3eH79jf_EHE4gsntjK7IUW86Uvyo5M/s320/Alvin_C%5B1%5D._York_postwar_1.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_cvviGqiFuw8/THMOkvmZ-PI/AAAAAAAAAPM/zWpVX0XXPao/s1600/moh.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5508762793619880178" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 292px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_cvviGqiFuw8/THMOkvmZ-PI/AAAAAAAAAPM/zWpVX0XXPao/s320/moh.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Alvin Cullum York (December 13, 1887 – September 2, 1964) was the most decorated American soldier in World War I. He received the Medal of Honor for leading an attack on a German machine gun nest, taking 32 machine guns, killing 28 German soldiers and capturing 132 others. This action occurred during the U.S.-led portion of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in France, which was part of a broader Allied offensive masterminded by Marshal Ferdinand Foch to breach the Hindenburg line and ultimately force the opposing German forces to capitulate.<br /><br />Alvin Cullum York was born in a two-room log cabin near Pall Mall, Tennessee, on December 13, 1887, the third of eleven children born to Mary Elizabeth Brooks (8 August 1866 - 21 May 1943) and William Uriah York (15 May 1863 – 17 November 1911). William Uriah York was born in Jamestown, Tennessee, to Uriah York and Eliza Jane Livingston, both travelers from Buncombe County, North Carolina. Mary Elizabeth York was born in Pall Mall, Tennessee, to William Brooks and Nancy Pile, and was the great-granddaughter of Coonrod Pile, an English settler who settled Pall Mall in Tennessee. William York and Mary Brooks married on December 25, 1881, and had eleven children. The York siblings are, in order: Henry Singleton, Joseph Marion, Alvin Cullum, Samuel John, Albert, Hattie, George Alexander, James Preston, Lillian Mae, Robert Daniel, and Lucy Erma. The York family is of English, Irish, Choctaw, and Cherokee ancestry.<br /><br />The York family resided in the Indian Creek area of Fentress County. The family was impoverished, with William York working as a blacksmith, by which he supplemented the family income. The father and sons of the York family would gather and harvest their own food, while the mother knitted all family clothing. The York sons only attended nine months of schooling, and withdrew from education because William York wanted his sons to assist him in tending to the family farm and hunting small game in order to feed the family.<br /><br />When William York died in November 1911, his son Alvin assisted his mother in raising his younger siblings. Alvin was the oldest living sibling that was then-residing in the county, as his two older brothers had married and moved into more urban areas in the American South. In order to supplement the family income, York first held employment as a community laborer in Harriman, Tennessee, in which he assisted in the construction of a railroad and worked as a logger as well. By all accounts, he was a very skilled worker who was devoted to the welfare of his family. However, in the few years before the war, York was a violent alcoholic and prone to fighting in saloons, and had accumulated several arrests within the area. His mother, a member of a pacifist Protestant denomination, tried to persuade York to change his ways because she worried he would "amount to nothin'", however to no avail. In the winter of 1914, he and his friend engaged in a fight with other saloon patrons during a night of heavy drinking. The incident resulted in his friend Everett Delk being beaten to death inside a saloon in Clinton County, Kentucky. The event was profound enough that York finally followed his mother's advice and became a pacifist, and stopped drinking alcohol. York was baptized as a born again Christian in the Wolf River, with the baptism being conducted by Reverend H.H. Russell in early 1915.<br /><br />In 1914, York joined the Church of Christ in Christian Union, a Protestant denomination, which had no specific doctrine of pacificism but opposed warfare and violence by all means. In a lecture later in life, he reported his reaction to the outbreak of World War I: "I was worried clean through. I didn't want to go and kill. I believed in my bible." On June 5, 1917, at the age of 29, Alvin York registered for the draft as all men between 21 and 31 years of age did on that day. When he registered for the draft, he answered the question "Do you claim exemption from draft (specify grounds)?" by writing "Yes. Don't Want To Fight." When his initial claim for conscientious objector status was denied, he appealed.<br /><br />In World War I, conscientious objector status did not exempt one from military duty. Such individuals could still be drafted and were given assignments that did not conflict with their anti-war principles. In November 1917, while York's application was considered, he was drafted and began his army service at Camp Gordon in Georgia. There, extensive conversations with Major George Buxton challenged his pacifism and its Biblical basis until York decided he could and would serve.<br /><br />From the day he registered for the draft until he arrived back from the war on May 29, 1919, York kept a diary of his activities. In his diary, York wrote that he refused to sign documents provided by his pastor seeking a discharge from the Army on religious grounds. He refused to sign similar documents provided by his mother asserting a claim of exemption as the sole support of his mother and siblings. He disclaimed ever having been a conscientious objector.<br /><br />York enlisted in the United States Army and served in Company G, 328th Infantry Regiment, 82nd Infantry Division at Camp Gordon, Georgia. Discussions of the Biblical stance on war with his company commander, Captain Edward Courtney Bullock Danforth (1894–1973) of Augusta, Georgia and his battalion commander, Major Gonzalo Edward Buxton (1880–1949) of Providence, Rhode Island, eventually convinced York that warfare could be justified.<br /><br />During an attack by his battalion to secure German positions along the Decauville rail-line north of Chatel-Chehery, France, on October 8, 1918, York's actions earned him the Medal of Honor. He recalled: "The Germans got us, and they got us right smart. They just stopped us dead in our tracks. Their machine guns were up there on the heights overlooking us and well hidden, and we couldn’t tell for certain where the terrible heavy fire was coming from… And I'm telling you they were shooting straight. Our boys just went down like the long grass before the mowing machine at home. Our attack just faded out… And there we were, lying down, about halfway across [the valley] and those German machine guns and big shells getting us hard."<br /><br />Four non-commissioned officers and thirteen privates under the command of Sergeant Bernard Early (which included York) were ordered to infiltrate behind the German lines to take out the machine guns. The group worked their way behind the Germans and overran the headquarters of a German unit, capturing a large group of German soldiers who were preparing a counter-attack against the U.S. troops. Early’s men were contending with the prisoners when machine gun fire suddenly peppered the area, killing six Americans: Corp. Murray Savage, and Pvts. Maryan E. Dymowski, Ralph E. Weiler, Fred Waring, William Wins and Walter E. Swanson, and wounding three others, Sgt. Early, Corp. William S. Cutting (AKA Otis B. Merrithew) and Pvt. Mario Muzzi. The fire came from German machine guns on the ridge, which turned their weapons on the U.S. soldiers. The loss of the nine put Corporal York in charge of the seven remaining U.S. soldiers, Privates Joseph Kornacki, Percy Beardsley, Feodor Sok, Thomas C. Johnson, Michael A. Saccina, Patrick Donohue and George W. Wills. As his men remained under cover, and guarding the prisoners, York worked his way into position to silence the German machine guns.<br /><br />York recalled: "And those machine guns were spitting fire and cutting down the undergrowth all around me something awful. And the Germans were yelling orders. You never heard such a racket in all of your life. I didn't have time to dodge behind a tree or dive into the brush… As soon as the machine guns opened fire on me, I began to exchange shots with them. There were over thirty of them in continuous action, and all I could do was touch the Germans off just as fast as I could. I was sharp shooting… All the time I kept yelling at them to come down. I didn't want to kill any more than I had to. But it was they or I. And I was giving them the best I had."<br /><br />York, at the hill where his actions earned him the Medal of Honor, three months after the end of World War I on February 7, 1919<br /><br />During the assault, a group of eight German soldiers in a trench near York were ordered to charge him with fixed bayonets. York had fired all the rounds in his rifle, but drew out his pistol and shot all eight of the soldiers before they could reach him.<br /><br />One of York’s prisoners, German First Lieutenant Paul Jürgen Vollmer (who spoke fluent English) of 1st Battalion, 120th Württemberg Landwehr Regiment, emptied his pistol trying to kill York while he was contending with the machine guns. Failing to injure York, and seeing his mounting losses, he offered to surrender the unit to York, who gladly accepted. By the end of the engagement, York and his seven men marched 132 German prisoners back to the American lines. His actions silenced the German machine guns and were responsible for enabling the 328th Infantry to renew its attack to capture the Decauville Railroad.<br /><br />York was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his heroism, but this was upgraded to the Medal of Honor, which was presented to York by the commanding general of the American Expeditionary Force, General John J. Pershing. The French Republic awarded him the Croix de Guerre and Legion of Honor. Italy and Montenegro awarded him the Croce di Guerra and War Medal, respectively.<br /><br />York was a corporal during the action. His promotion to sergeant was part of the honor for his valor. Of his deeds, York said to his division commander, General George B. Duncan, in 1919: "A higher power than man power guided and watched over me and told me what to do."<br /><br />Awards: Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross, World War I Victory Medal, American Campaign Medal, World War II Victory Medal, French Légion d'honneur, French Croix de guerre with Palm, Italian Croce di Guerra, Montenegrin War Medal<br /><br />On June 7, 1919, Alvin C. York and Gracie Loretta Williams (February 7, 1900 - September 27, 1984) were married by Tennessee Governor Albert H. Roberts in Pall Mall. They had seven children, all named after American historical figures: five sons (Alvin Cullum, Jr., Edward Buxton, Woodrow Wilson, Andrew Jackson, and Thomas Jefferson) and two daughters (Betsy Ross and Mary Alice).<br /><br />York founded the Alvin C. York Agricultural Institute, a private agricultural school in Jamestown, Tennessee, that was eventually turned over to the State of Tennessee. The school, now known as Alvin C. York Institute, is the only fully state-funded public high school in the State of Tennessee. The school is a nationally recognized school of excellence and boasts the highest high school graduation percentage in the state. It is home to almost 800 students.<br /><br />York also opened a Bible school and later operated a mill in Pall Mall on the Wolf River.<br /><br />Alvin York died at the Veterans Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, on September 2, 1964, of a cerebral hemorrhage and was buried at the Wolf River Cemetery in Pall Mall. His funeral sermon was delivered by Richard G. Humble, General Superintendent of the Churches of Christ in Christian Union. Humble also preached Mrs. York's funeral in 1984.<br /><br />York's son, Thomas Jefferson York, was killed in the line of duty on May 7, 1972 while serving as a constable in Tennessee.<br /><br />Medal of Honor Citation<br />Rank and organization: Corporal, U.S. Army, Company G, 328th Infantry, 82d Division. Place and date: Near Chatel-Chehery, France, 8 October 1918. Entered service at: Pall Mall, Tenn. Born: 13 December 1887, Fentress County, Tenn. G.O. No.: 59, W.D., 1919. Citation: After his platoon had suffered heavy casualties and 3 other noncommissioned officers had become casualties, Cpl. York assumed command. Fearlessly leading 7 men, he charged with great daring a machinegun nest which was pouring deadly and incessant fire upon his platoon. In this heroic feat the machinegun nest was taken, together with 4 officers and 128 men and several guns.Fallhikerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00558598370555827002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3957383738340946813.post-40990142050068905572010-08-22T17:00:00.000-07:002010-12-18T17:40:28.682-08:00Edward "Eddie" Vernon Rickenbacker 1890-1973<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8NsLlerlZ0ojZEAbNEaHSs6uXIzq_tDoVtW3ID-xqrZcyhbOZBaER9pSFt53jRqErUi6UwqgqXdbFCJHUS_ozxcM1NlWPETUXOqhO2LdpsSCLQvXFBAdvaOn1Rk3S-ZqOgIMKL0Hg-LA/s1600/Eddie_1a.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5508389278999112194" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 244px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8NsLlerlZ0ojZEAbNEaHSs6uXIzq_tDoVtW3ID-xqrZcyhbOZBaER9pSFt53jRqErUi6UwqgqXdbFCJHUS_ozxcM1NlWPETUXOqhO2LdpsSCLQvXFBAdvaOn1Rk3S-ZqOgIMKL0Hg-LA/s320/Eddie_1a.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_cvviGqiFuw8/THG6z0zbwZI/AAAAAAAAAO0/8y5Hk7EYZrs/s1600/moh.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5508389218761294226" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 292px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_cvviGqiFuw8/THG6z0zbwZI/AAAAAAAAAO0/8y5Hk7EYZrs/s320/moh.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />He was born Edward Rickenbacher (without a middle name) in Columbus, Ohio to German-speaking Swiss immigrants. From childhood, he loved machines and experimented with them, encouraged by his father's words: "A machine has to have a purpose".<br />In what was to become one of the defining characteristics of Rickenbacker's life, he nearly died many times in events ranging from an early run-in with a horse-drawn carriage, to a botched tonsillectomy, to airplane crashes. His first near-death experience occurred when he was in the "Horsehead Gang". He lived near a mine, and they decided to ride a cart down the slope. It tipped over and almost crushed them.<br />Thirteen-year-old Rickenbacker's schooling ended in grade seven after the accidental death of his father on August 26, 1904. He found jobs to help support the family, but driven by an intense admiration for machines, Rickenbacker taught himself as much as he could, including enrolling in a correspondence course in engineering. He aggressively pursued any chance of involvement with automobiles. Rickenbacker went to work at the Columbus Buggy Company, eventually becoming a salesman. Rickenbacker became well-known as a race car driver, competing in the Indianapolis 500 four times before World War I. Rickenbacker joined the Maxwell Race Team in 1915 after leaving Peugeot. After the Maxwell team disbanded that same year, he joined the Prest-O-Lite team as manager and continued to race improved Maxwells for Prest-O-Lite.<br /><br />World War I<br />Rickenbacker wanted to join the Allied troops in World War I, but the U.S. had not yet entered the war. He had several chance encounters with aviators, including a fortuitous incident in which he repaired a stranded aircraft for T. F. Dodd, a man who later became General John J. Pershing's aviation officer and an important contact in Rickenbacker's attempt to join air combat.<br />During World War I, with its anti-German atmosphere, he – like many other German Americans – changed his surname; the "h" in "Rickenbacher" became a "k" in an effort to "take the Hun out of his name." As he was already well known at the time, the change received wide publicity. "From then on", as he wrote in his autobiography, "most Rickenbachers were practically forced to spell their name in the way I had..."<br />He believed his given name "looked a little plain." He signed his name 26 times, with a different middle initial each time. After settling upon "V", he selected "Vernon" as a middle name.<br />In 1916, Rickenbacker traveled to London, with the aim of developing an English car for American races. Because of an erroneous press story and Rickenbacker's known Swiss heritage, he was suspected of being a spy. En route and in England, agents closely monitored his actions.<br />On a sea voyage back to America, he came up with the idea to recruit his race car driver friends as fighter pilots, on the theory that such men were accustomed to tight spaces and high speeds. His suggestion was ignored by the military.<br />When, in 1917, the United States declared war on Germany, Rickenbacker had enlisted in the United States Army and was training in France with some of the first American troops. He arrived in France on June 26, 1917 as a Sergeant First Class.<br />Most men chosen for pilot training had degrees from prestigious colleges,[citation needed] and Rickenbacker had to struggle to gain permission to fly because of his perceived lack of qualifications. Because of his mechanical abilities, Rickenbacker was assigned as engineering officer in a flight-training facility at Issoudun, where he practiced flying during his free time. He learned to fly well, but because his skills were so highly valued, Rickenbacker's superiors tried to prevent him from attaining his wings with the other pilots.<br />Rickenbacker demonstrated that he had a qualified replacement, and the military awarded him a place in one of America's air combat units, the 94th Aero Squadron, informally known as the "Hat-in-the-Ring" Squadron after its insignia. Originally he flew the Nieuport 28, at first without armament. On April 29, 1918, Rickenbacker shot down his first plane and claimed his fifth to become an ace on May 28. Rickenbacker was awarded the French Croix de Guerre that month for his five victories.<br />On May 30, he scored his sixth victory. It would be his last for three and a half months. He developed an ear infection in July which almost ended his flying career and grounded him for several weeks. He shot down Germany's hottest new fighter, the Fokker D.VII, on September 14 and another the next day.<br />On September 24, 1918, now a captain, he was named commander of the squadron, and on the following day, he claimed two more German planes, for which he was belatedly awarded the Medal of Honor in 1931 by President Herbert Hoover. After claiming yet another Fokker D.VII on September 27, he became a balloon buster by downing observation balloons on September 28, October 1, October 27, and October 30, 1918.<br />Thirteen more wins followed in October, bringing his total to thirteen Fokker D.VIIs, four other German fighters, five highly defended observation balloons, and only four of the easier two-seated reconnaissance planes.<br />The military determined ace status by verifying combat claims by a pilot; confirmation was needed from ground witnesses, affirmations of other pilots, or observation of the wreckage of the opposing enemy aircraft. If no witnesses could be found, a reported kill was not counted. It was an imperfect system, dependent on the frailties of human observation, as well as vagaries of weather and terrain. Most aces records are thus best estimates, not exact counts. Nevertheless, Rickenbacker's 26 victories remained the American record until World War II.<br />Rickenbacker flew a total of 300 combat hours, reportedly more than any other U.S. pilot in the war.<br />When Rickenbacker learned of the Armistice, he flew an airplane above the western front to observe the cease fire and the displays of joy and comradeship as the formerly warring troops crossed the front lines and joined in celebration.<br />After World War I ended, Rickenbacker was approached for publicity exploits. He chose to go on a Liberty bond tour. He was offered many movie positions, but did not want all the attention, even though he was the most celebrated aviator in America (soon to be supplanted by Charles Lindbergh after his solo flight across the Atlantic). Rickenbacker described his World War I flying experiences in his memoirs, Fighting the Flying Circus, published after the war. In this book, he also describes the character, exploits, and death of fellow pilot Lt. Quentin Roosevelt, the son of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt.[citation needed] Rickenbacker also continued to associate with Reed Chambers, with whom he had served in World War I; they jointly founded an airline.<br />In 1925, Rickenbacker was a defense witness, along with Hap Arnold, Tooey Spaatz, Ira Eaker, and Fiorello H. La Guardia, in the court-martial of General Billy Mitchell.<br /><br />Marriage<br />In 1922, Rickenbacker married Adelaide Frost Durant; their marriage lasted for the rest of his life. Although they spent considerable time in Florida, Texas and Ohio, the Rickenbackers lived chiefly in New York City. They adopted two boys: David Edward in 1925, and William Frost in 1928. Adelaide was an unconventional wife for the times: she was five years older than her husband, had been previously married, and was outspoken and active. As independent as she was, Adelaide fully supported Rickenbacker's endeavors until his death in 1973.<br /><br />Rickenbacker automobile<br />He started the Rickenbacker Motor Company in 1920, selling technologically advanced cars incorporating innovations from automobile racing. The Rickenbacker came equipped with the first four-wheel brake system. Probably due to bad publicity from the other car manufacturers, who feared they would be unable to sell their inventory of cars with two-wheel braking, the company had trouble selling its cars and eventually went bankrupt in 1927. Rickenbacker went into massive debt, but was determined to pay back all of the $250,000 he owed, despite personally going bankrupt (and therefore no longer being legally obligated to do so). Eventually, all vehicles manufactured in the U.S. incorporated four-wheel braking.<br /><br />The Indianapolis Motor Speedway<br />On November 1, 1927, Rickenbacker bought the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which he operated for nearly a decade and a half, overseeing many improvements to the facility. Once the Speedway operations were under control, Rickenbacker looked for additional opportunities for entrepreneurship, including in sales for the Cadillac division of General Motors, and for various aircraft manufacturers and airlines. After the 500-mile race in 1941, Rickenbacker closed the Speedway due to World War II. Among other things, holding the race would have been a waste of valuable gasoline and other fuels. In 1945, Rickenbacker sold the racetrack to the businessman Anton Hulman, Jr.<br /><br />Clashes with President Roosevelt<br />Rickenbacker was adamantly opposed to President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal policies, seeing them as little better than socialism. For this, he drew criticism and ire from the press and the Roosevelt administration, which ordered NBC Radio not to allow him to broadcast opinions critical of Roosevelt's policies after Rickenbacker had harshly denounced the president's decision to rescind existing mail contracts in 1934 and have Army Air Corps pilots carry the air mail. At the time, Rickenbacker was vice president of one of the companies affected, Eastern Air Transport. When a number of inexperienced, undertrained army pilots were killed in crashes soon afterward, Rickenbacker stated, "That's legalized murder!"<br /><br />Eastern Air Lines<br />Rickenbacker's most lasting business endeavor was his longtime leadership of Eastern Air Lines. Through the 1920s, he had worked with and for General Motors (GM): first as the California distributor for its new car, the short-lived Sheridan, then later as a marketer for the LaSalle, and finally as vice president of sales for their affiliate, Fokker Aircraft Company. He persuaded GM to purchase North American Aviation, a conglomerate whose assets included Eastern Air Transport. GM asked him to manage Eastern, beginning in 1935. With the help of some friends, Rickenbacker merged Eastern Air Transport and Florida Airways to form Eastern Air Lines, an airline that eventually grew from a company flying a few thousand air miles per week into a major airline. In April 1938, after learning that GM was considering selling Eastern to John D. Hertz, Rickenbacker met with GM's Chairman of the Board, Alfred P. Sloan, and Rickenbacker bought the company for $3.5 million.<br />Rickenbacker oversaw many radical changes in the field of commercial aviation. He negotiated with the U.S. government to acquire air mail routes, a great advantage to companies in need of business. He helped develop and support new aircraft designs. Rickenbacker bought the new, large, faster airliners for Eastern Airlines, including the four-engined Lockheed Constellation and Douglas DC-4. Rickenbacker personally collaborated with many of the pioneers of aviation, including Donald W. Douglas, the founder of the Douglas Aircraft Company, the designer and builder of the large, four-engined airlines, the DC-4, DC-6, DC-7, and DC-8 (its first jet airliner).<br />Rickenbacker promoted flying to the American public, but, always aware of the possibility of accidents, he wrote in his autobiography, "I have never liked to use the word "safe" in connection with either Eastern Air Lines or the entire transportation field; I prefer the word 'reliable'."<br />Rickenbacker's near-fatal airline crash, Eastern Air Lines Flight 21<br />Rickenbacker often traveled for business on Eastern Airlines flights. On February 26, 1941, he was a passenger on a Douglas DC-3 airliner that crashed just outside of Atlanta, Georgia. Rickenbacker suffered especially grave injuries, and he was soaked in fuel, immobile, and trapped in the wreckage. In spite of his own critical wounds, Rickenbacker encouraged the other passengers, offered what consolation he could to those around him who were injured or dying, and guided the survivors who were still ambulatory to attempt to find help. The survivors were rescued after spending the night at the crash site. Rickenbacker barely survived. This was just the first time that the press announced his death while he was still alive.<br />In a dramatic retelling of the incident, Rickenbacker's autobiography relates his astonishing experiences. While he was still conscious but in terrible pain, Rickenbacker was left behind while some ambulances carried away bodies of the dead. When Rickenbacker arrived at a hospital, his injuries appeared so grotesque that the emergency surgeons and physicians left him for dead for some time. They instructing their assistants to "take care of the live ones." Rickenbacker's injuries included a fractured skull, other head injuries, a shattered left elbow with a crushed nerve, a paralyzed left hand, several broken ribs, a crushed hip socket, a pelvis broken in two places, a severed nerve in his left hip, and a broken left knee. Rickenbacker's left eyeball was also blown out of its socket.<br />It took many months in the hospital, followed by a long time at home, for Rickenbacker to heal from this multitude of injuries and to regain his full eyesight. Rickenbacker described his terrible experience with vivid accounts of his mental state as he approached death -- emphasizing the supreme act of will that it took to stave off dying. Rickenbacker's autobiography reports that he spent ten days on the door of death, which he illustrated as having an overwhelming sensation of calm and pleasure.<br /><br />Ace Drummond<br />Rickenbacker also scripted a popular comic strip called Ace Drummond from 1935-1940. He worked with aviation artist and author Clayton Knight, who illustrated the series. The strip followed the adventures of aviator Drummond. It was later adapted into a film serial and radio program.<br /><br />World War II<br />Rickenbacker supported the war effort as a civilian. In 1942, he toured training bases in the southwestern United States and in England. He encouraged the American public to contribute time and resources, and pledged Eastern Airlines equipment and personnel for use in military activities.<br />Rickenbacker inspected troops, operations, and equipment, and served in a publicity function to increase support from civilians and soldiers. In 1942, with a sweeping letter of authorization from Henry L. Stimson, U.S. Secretary of War, Rickenbacker visited England on an official war mission and made ground-breaking recommendations for better war operations.[clarification needed]<br /><br />Adrift at sea<br />One of Rickenbacker's most famous near-death experiences occurred in October 1942. He was sent on a tour of the Pacific Theater of Operations to review both living conditions and military operations, and also to deliver personally a secret message to General Douglas MacArthur from the President. After visiting several air and sea bases in Hawaii, Rickenbacker was a passenger in the B-17D Flying Fortress numbered 40-3089, which strayed hundreds of miles off course while on its way to a refueling stop on Canton Island in the Central Pacific Ocean. The B-17 was forced to "ditch" (to make an emergency landing on the water) in a remote and little-traveled part of the Central Pacific.<br />The failure in navigation has been ascribed to an out-of-adjustment celestial navigation instrument, an octant, that gave a systematic bias to all of its readingss. That octant reportedly had suffered a severe shock in a pre-takeoff mishap. This unnecesary ditching spurred on the development of improved navigational instruments and also better survival gear for the aircrewmen. The B-17's pilot-in-command, Captain William T Cherry, Jr., was forced to ditch his B-17 in the Pacific Ocean, rather close to Japanese-held islands, also. However, the Americans were never spotted by Japanese patrol planes, and they were to drift on the ocean for thousands of miles.<br />For 24 days, Rickenbacker, the Army captain Hans C. Adamson, his friend and business partner, and the rest of the crewmen drifted in life rafts at sea. Rickenbacker was still suffering somewhat from his earlier airplane crash, and Capt. Adamson sustained serious injuries during the ditching. The other crewmen in the B-17 were hurt to varying degrees. The crewmen's food supply ran out after three days. Then, on the eighth day, a seagull landed on Rickenbacker's head. He adroitly captured it, and then the survivors meticulously divided it into equalparts and used part of it for fishing bait. They lived on sporadic rain water that fell and similar food "miracles".<br />Rickenbacker assumed leadership, encouraging and browbeating the others to keep their spirits up. He encouraged them to turn to Christianity for solace using the Psalm 46. One crewman, Alexander Kaczmarczyk of the USAAF, died and was buried at sea. The U.S. Army Air Forces and the U.S. Navy's patrol planes planned to abandon the search for the lost B-17 crewmen after just over two weeks, but Rickenbacker's wife persuaded them to extend it another week. The services agreed to do so. Once again, the newspapers and radio broadcasts reported that Rickenbacker was dead.<br />A U.S. Navy patrol seaplane then spotted the survivors, and by landing on the open ocean, it rescued the survivors, who included Private John F. Bartek of the Army, on November 13, off the coast of Nukufetau near the Samoa Islands. All of the crewmen were suffering from exposure, sunburn, dehydration, and near-starvation. Due to his piloting and air-search skills, and his leadership role in the successful search-and-rescue missions to the Rickenbacker party, the Navy's Air Medal was awarded to Lieutenant William F. Eadie, USN. The citation accompanying this award reads as follows:<br />For meritorious achievement while participating in an aerial flight as pilot of a scouting plane in search of the survivors of the Rickenbacker party on November 12, 1942. Discovering their tiny raft after a search of more than 10 hours, Lieutenant Eadie, knowing that every moment counted after 20 days of hunger and thirst which these men had endured, brought his plane down on the open sea near the raft. Placing the most severely injured man in the cockpit of his small plane, and lashing the others to the wings, he taxied toward his base 40 miles away, until given assistance by a passing ship. His courageous and skillful accomplishment of this dangerous mission was in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.<br />The rescue was made with a Navy OS2U Kingfisher (an OS2U-3). The Kingfisher was a two-seater float-plane. Lt. Eadie's radioman was Lester H. Boutte, ARM1c (born: 10 June 1920; died: 14 February 1995, Metairie Jefferson Parish, Louisiana).<br />Later, Lt. Eadie was promoted to lieutenant commander, and he became the commanding officer of Torpedo Squadron Eighty Two, the "Devil's Diplomats" (VB-82), assigned to Carrier Air Group 82 on board the aircraft carrier USS Bennington (CV-20). Lt. Cdr. Eadie, was killed in an automobile accident ashore on January 7, 1945.<br />Rickenbacker completed his assignment and delivered his message to General MacArthur, which has never been made public. Rickenbacker had thought that he had been lost for 21 days, and wrote a book about this experience titled Seven Came Through, published by Doubleday, Doran. It was not until later that he recalculated the number of days, and he corrected himself in his autobiography in 1967.<br />The story was also recounted in Lt. James Whittaker's book "We Thought We Heard The Angels Sing", published in 1943.<br />The story of Rickenbacker's ordeal has been used as an example for Alcoholics Anonymous when the first of their Twelve Traditions was formulated: Our common welfare should come first. Personal recovery depends upon A.A. unity."<br /><br />1943 mission to the USSR<br />Still determined to support the U.S. war effort, Rickenbacker suggested a fact-finding mission in the Soviet Union to provide the Soviets with needed technical assistance for their American aircraft. Rickenbacker approached Soviet diplomats, and avoided requesting help from President Franklin Roosevelt, due to their prior disagreements. With the help of the Secretary of War and by trading favors with the Soviet ambassador, Rickenbacker secured unlikely permission to travel to the Soviet Union. The War Department provided everything Rickenbacker needed, including a highly unusual letter stating that the bearer was authorized to "visit ... any ... areas he may deem necessary for such purposes as he will explain to you in person", signed by the Secretary of War.<br />Rickenbacker's trip took him over South America, where he made observations about the conditions there. He stopped in Africa, China and India, at each stop reviewing American operations and making notes to report to authorities. In Iran, Rickenbacker offered to bring along an American officer, whose unapproved request to travel to the Soviet Union delayed Rickenbacker's party for a few days.<br />In the Soviet Union, Rickenbacker observed wartime conditions, the extraordinary dedication and patriotism by the populace, and the ruthless denial of food to those deemed unproductive to the war effort. He befriended many Soviet officials and shared his knowledge of the aircraft they had received from the United States. He was lavishly entertained and recalled attempts by KGB agents and officials to get him intoxicated enough to disclose sensitive information.<br />Rickenbacker's mission was successful. He discovered that a commander of Moscow's defense had stayed at Rickenbacker's home in 1937, and personal connections like this and the respect the Soviet military personnel had for him greatly aided his information-gathering. He learned about Soviet defense strategies and capabilities. In the distraction resulting from the outbreak of the Battle of Kursk, he saw a map of the front line showing the locations of all major Soviet military units, which he did his best to memorize. He also persuaded his hosts to give him an unprecedented tour of the Shturmovik aircraft factory.<br />Rickenbacker observed some traces of capitalism (for example, people were allowed to grow food and sell their surplus) and predicted that the Soviet Union would eventually become a capitalist nation.<br />British Prime Minister Winston Churchill interviewed Rickenbacker about his mission. In the U.S., Rickenbacker's information resulted in some diplomatic and military action, but President Roosevelt did not meet with Rickenbacker.<br />Although his main home was in New York City for many years, Rickenbacker owned a winter home in Coconut Grove, Florida, near the Eastern Airlines' major maintenance and administrative headquarters at the Miami International Airport. For a time, Eastern was the most profitable airline in the postwar era. During the late 1950s though, Eastern Airline's fortunes declined, and Rickenbacker was forced out of his position as CEO on October 1, 1959. Rickenbacker also resigned as the Chairman of the Board on December 31, 1963, at the age of 73. After that, Capt. and Mrs. Rickenbacker traveled extensively for a number of years.<br />In the 1960s, Rickenbacker became a well-known speaker. He shared his vision for the future of technology and commerce, exhorted Americans to respect the enemy, the Soviet Union during the Cold War, but still uphold American values. Rickenbacker endorsed many conservative idea.<br /><br />In 1967, when Rickenbacker published his autobiography, a special edition was printed for the employees of Eastern Air Lines, and it contained the following dedication:<br /><br />To the Men and Women of Eastern Air Lines<br />It is with pleasure and pride that I inscribe to you this copy of my life story from the time I was three years of age.<br />You will find therein the source of those principles I used to preach; and if they can help you avoid even a few of the keen disappointments and bitter heartaches that I have lived through, then I will feel well repaid for my efforts.<br />From these principles and our labors together emerged one of our country's great airlines and further developed our great heritage of pioneering. In the years ahead young, strong hands will carry them into a future which you and I, with all our dreams, can scarcely visualize---that "Parade of Youth" which always was and always will be the true spirit of Eastern Air Lines.<br />(signed) Capt Eddie Rickenbacker<br /><br />Capt. Rickenbacker suffered from a stroke while he was in Switzerland seeking<br />special medical treatment for Mrs. Rickenbacker, and he then contracted pneumonia. Rickenbacker died on July 23, 1973 in Zürich, Switzerland, and then his body was interred in Columbus, Ohio, at the Green Lawn Cemetery.<br /><br />Medal of Honor Citation<br /><br />Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, U.S. Army Air Corps, 94th Aero Squadron, Air Service. Place and date: Near Billy, France, 25 September 1918. Entered service at: Columbus, Ohio. Born: 8 October 1890, Columbus, Ohio. G.O. No.: 2, W.D., 1931. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action against the enemy near Billy, France, 25 September 1918. While on a voluntary patrol over the lines, 1st Lt. Rickenbacker attacked 7 enemy planes (5 type Fokker, protecting two type Halberstadt). Disregarding the odds against him, he dived on them and shot down one of the Fokkers out of control. He then attacked one of the Halberstadts and sent it down also.Fallhikerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00558598370555827002noreply@blogger.com0