Speech, writing , untied farm workers movement Cesar Chavez

Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live ininfamy.

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what yourcountry can do for you. Ask what you ca

n do for yourcountry.

Therefore, I shall resign the presidency, effective atnoon tomorrow.

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

There is not a liberal America and a conservativeAmerica. There is the United States of

America.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the NobelPeace Prize for 2002 to Jimmy Car

ter for his decadesof untiring efforts to find peaceful solutions tointernational conflicts, to

advance democracy andhuman rights, and to promote economic and socialdevelopme

nt. The Nobel Committee praised Carter asone who has stood by the principles that con

flictsmust, as far as possible, be resolved throughmediation and international cooperatio

n, based oninternational law, respect for human rights andeconomic development.

Carter narrowly missed winning the Peace Prize duringhis presidency, after the signing

of the Camp DavidAccords between Israel's Begin and Egypt's Sadat.Instead, Begin an

d Sadat jointly received the prize.The speech that follows is Jimmy Carter's Nobellectur

e given December 10, 2002, on acceptance ofthe Nobel Peace Prize.

Few could argue that any president during his post-

presidency labored harder than Jimmy Carter toimprove the human condition. He vigoro

usly pursuedhis commitment to social justice and basic humanrights across the globe. T

he Carter Center, establishedin 1982, strives to resolve political conflict and combatdise

ase around the world.

President Carter conducted diplomatic missions as anelder statesman, monitored electi

ons in third worldcountries, and gained a reputation as a tirelesschampion for social justi

ce. Through Habitat forHumanity International and the Jimmy Carter WorkProject, Carte

r helped thousands of homeless familiesworldwide. During the Bush Senior and Clinton

administrations, Carter brokered for peace in Ethiopia,the Sudan, North Korea, Haiti, an

d the formerYugoslavia. In 2002, he visited Cuba's Fidel Castro,the highest American of

ficial to do so since Castrocame to power. It has been said that this son of apeanut farm

er is the only man to use the presidencyas a stepping stone to greatness.

The viewer should be aware of the political context ofthis speech. It comes at a time wh

en America ismarching to the drums of war in Iraq. Then PresidentGeorge W. Bush is ur

ging the country to take up armsagainst a Middle East despot who, he claims, is adirect

threat to the security of the United States. A yearearlier, America suffered the terrorist at

tack in NewYork City. Carter, in this speech, urges a moredeliberative approach adopte

d by most of the UNmembers in their opposition to Bush's impendingmilitary action. Pro

ponents of the currentadministration roundly criticized Carter, and only timemight reveal

the relative sagacity of the two opposingpositions.

[APPLAUSE]

Your Majesties, members of the Nobel Committee fromNorway, Excellencies, distinguis

hed guests, it is with adeep sense of gratitude that I accept this prize.

I'm grateful to my wife Rosalynn, to my colleagues atthe Carter Center, and to many oth

ers who continue toseek an end to violence and suffering throughout theworld. The sco

pe and character of our Center'sactivities are perhaps unique. But in many other ways,t

hey are typical of the work being done by hundreds ofnongovernmental organizations th

at strive for humanrights and peace.

Most Nobel Laureates have carried out our work inpeace and safety. But there are other

s who have actedwith great personal courage. None has provided morevivid reminders

of the dangers of peacekeeping thantwo of my close friends, Anwar Sadat and YitzhakR

abin, who gave their lives for the cause of peace inthe Middle East.

Like these two heroes of mine, my first chosen careerwas in the military. I was a submar

ine officer. And myshipmates and I realized that we had to be ready tofight if combat wa

s forced upon us. We were preparedto give our lives for our nation and its principles. Bu

t atthe same time, we always prayed fervently that ourreadiness would ensure that there

would be no war.

Later, as President and as Commander in Chief of ourmilitary forces, I was one of those

who bore thesobering responsibility of maintaining global stabilityduring the height of th

e Cold War as the world's twosuperpowers confronted each other. Both sidesunderstoo

d that an unresolved political altercation or aserious misunderstanding could lead to a n

uclearholocaust. In Washington and in Moscow, we knewthat we would have less than

one half hour to respondafter we had learned that intercontinental missiles hadbeen lau

nched against us. There had to be a constantand delicate balancing of our great military

strengthwith aggressive diplomacy, always seeking to buildfriendships with other nation

s, large and small, thatshared a common cause.

In those days, the nuclear and conventionalarmaments of the United States and the Sov

iet Unionwere almost equal. But democracy ultimately prevailedbecause of commitment

s to freedom and humanrights. Not only in our own country and those of ourallies, but in

the former Soviet Empire as well. AsPresident, I extended my public support andendors

ement to Andrei Sakharov who, althoughdenied the right to attend this ceremony, was h

onoredhere for his personal commitment to these sameideals.

The world has changed greatly since I left the WhiteHouse. Now there is only one super

power, withunprecedented military and economic strength. Thecoming budget for Ameri

can armaments will begreater than those of the next 15 nations combined.And there are

troops from the United States in manycountries throughout the world. Our gross nation

aleconomy exceeds that of the three countries thatfollow us. And our nation's voice mos

t often prevails asdecisions are made concerning trade, humanitarianassistance and the

allocation of global wealth. Thisdominant status is unlikely to change in our lifetimes.

Great American power and responsibility are notunprecedented and have been used wit

h restraint andwidespread benefit in the past. We have not assumedthat super strength

guarantees super wisdom, and wehave consistently reached out to the internationalcom

munity to ensure that our own power and influenceare tempered by the best common ju

dgment.

Within our country, ultimate decisions are madethrough democratic means, which tend t

o moderateradical or ill-

advised proposals. Constrained andinspired by historic constitutional principles, our nati

onhas endeavored for more than 200 years to follow thenow almost universal ideals of f

reedom, human rightsand justice for all.

Our President, Woodrow Wilson, was honored here forpromoting the League of Nations

, whose two basicconcepts were profoundly important-- collectivesecurity and self-

determination. Now they areembedded in international law. And violations of theseprinci

ples during the last half century have been tragicfailures, as was vividly demonstrated w

hen the SovietUnion attempted to conquer Afghanistan and whenIraq invaded Kuwait.

After the Second World War, our Secretary of State,Cordell Hull, received this prize for

his role in foundingthe United Nations. And his successor, GeneralGeorge C. Marshall,

was recognized because of hisefforts to help rebuild Europe without excluding thevanqu

ished nations of Italy and Germany. This was ahistoric example of respecting human rig

hts at theinternational level.

Ladies and gentlemen, 12 years ago, PresidentMikhail Gorbachev received your recogn

ition for hispreeminent role in ending the Cold War that had lasted50 years.

But instead of entering a Millennium of peace, theworld is now in many ways a more da

ngerous place.The greater ease of travel and communication has notbeen matched by

equal understanding and mutualrespect. There is a plethora of civil wars, unrestrainedb

y rules of the Geneva Convention, within which anoverwhelming portion of the casualtie

s are unarmedcivilians who have no ability to defend themselves.And recent appalling a

cts of terrorism have remindedus that no nations, even superpowers, areinvulnerable.

It is clear that global challenges must be met by anemphasis on peace and harmony wit

h others, withstrong alliances and international consensus.Imperfect as it may be, there

is no doubt that this canbest be done through the United Nations, whichanother America

n, Ralph Bunche, described here inthis same forum as exhibiting a fortunate flexibility. N

otmerely to preserve peace, but also to make change,even radical change, without viole

nce.

He went on to say, and I quote, to suggest that warcan prevent war is a base play on w

ords and adespicable form of warmongering. He said, theobjective of any who sincerely

believe in peace clearlymust be to exhaust every honorable recourse in theefforts to sav

e the peace. The world has had ampleevidence that war begets only conditions that beg

etfurther war, end quote.

We must remember that today there are at least eightnuclear nations on earth. And thre

e of these arethreatening to their own neighbors in areas of greatinternational tension. F

or powerful countries to adopt aprinciple of preventive war may well set an examplethat

can have catastrophic consequences.

If we accept the premise that the United Nations is thebest avenue for the maintenance

of peace, then thecarefully considered decisions of the UN SecurityCouncil must be enf

orced. All too often, the alternativehas proven to be uncontrollable violence andexpandi

ng spheres of hostility.

The most vivid example is that, for more than half acentury, following the founding of the

state of Israel in1948, the Middle East conflict has been a source ofworldwide tension a

nd conflict itself. At Camp David in1978, and in Oslo in 1993, Israelis, Egyptians andPal

estinians have endorsed the only reasonableprescription for peace, United Nations Res

olution 242.It condemns the acquisition of territory by force. And itcalls for the withdrawa

l of Israel from the occupiedterritories and provides for Israelis to live securely andin har

mony with their neighbors. There is no othermandate whose implementation could more

profoundly improve international relationships.

Perhaps of more immediate concern is the necessityfor Iraq to comply fully with the una

nimous decision ofthe Security Council that it eliminate all weapons ofmass destruction

and permit unimpeded access byinspectors to confirm that this commitment has beenho

nored. The world insists that this be done.

I thought often, during my years in the White House, ofan admonition that we received i

n our small school inPlains, Georgia, from a beloved teacher, Ms. JudithColeman. She

often said, we must adjust to changingtimes but still hold to unchanging principles. Whe

n Iwas a young boy, the same teachers introduced me toLeo Tolstoy's novel, War and P

eace. The powerfulnarrative she interpreted as a reminder that thesample human attribu

tes of goodness and truth canovercome great power. She also taught us that anindividu

al is not swept along on a tide of inevitabilitybut can influence even the greatest human

events.

These premises have been proven by the lives ofmany heroes, some of whose names

were little knownoutside their own region until they became NobelLaureates. Albert Joh

n Lutuli, Norman Borlaug,Desmond Tutu, Elie Wiesel, Aung San Suu Kyi, JodyWilliams,

and even Albert Schweitzer and MotherTeresa. All of these and others have proven tha

t evenwithout government power, and often in opposition toit, individuals can enhance h

uman rights and wagepeace actively and effectively.

The Nobel Prize also profoundly magnified theinspiring global influence of Martin Luther

King, Junior,the greatest leader that my native state has everproduced. On a personal

note, it's unlikely that myown political career beyond Georgia would ever havebeen poss

ible without the changes brought about bythe civil rights movement in the southern part

of ourcountry and throughout our nation.

On the steps of our memorial to Abraham Lincoln inWashington, Dr. King said, much m

ore eloquently thanthis, I have a dream that on the red hills of Georgia,the sons of forme

r slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table

ofbrotherhood. The scourge of racism has not beenvanquished, either in the red hills of

my state orthroughout the world. And yet, we see ever morefrequent manifestations of h

is dream of racial healing.In a symbolic but a very genuine way, at least in thecase of tw

o Georgians, it's coming true in Oslo today.

I'm not here as a public official, but as a citizen of atroubled world who finds hope in a gr

owing consensusthat the generally accepted goals of society arepeace, freedom, huma

n rights, environmental quality,the alleviation of suffering, and the rule of law.

During the past decades, the international community,usually under the auspices of the

United Nations, hasstruggled to negotiate global agreements that canhelp us achieve th

ese essential goals. They includethe abolition of land mines and chemical weapons, an

end to the testing, proliferation and further deploymentof nuclear warheads, constraints

on global warming,prohibition of the death penalty, at least for children,and an internatio

nal criminal court to deter and topunish war crimes and genocide. Those agreements,alr

eady adopted, must be fully implemented. Andothers should be pursued aggressively.

We must alsostrive to correct the injustice of economic sanctionsthat seek to penalize a

busive leaders but all too ofteninflict punishment on those who are already sufferingfrom

the abuse.

The unchanging principles of life predate moderntimes. I worship Jesus Christ, whom w

e Christiansconsider to be the Prince of Peace. As a Jew, hetaught us to cross religious

boundaries in service andin love. He repeatedly reached out and embracedRoman con

querors, other gentiles, and even the moredespised Samaritans.

Despite theological differences, all great religionsshare common commitments that defin

e our idealsecular relationship. I am convinced that Christians,Muslims, Buddhists, Hind

us, Jews and others canembrace each other in a common effort to alleviatehuman suffe

ring and to espouse peace.

But the current era is a challenging and disturbingtime for those whose lives are shaped

on religious faithbased on kindness toward each other. We have beenreminded that cru

el and inhuman acts can be derivedfrom distorted theological beliefs, as suicide bomber

stake the lives of innocent human beings draped falselyin the cloak of God's will. With h

orrible brutality,neighbors have massacred neighbors in Europe, Asia,and Africa.

In order for us human beings to commit ourselves,personally, to the inhumanity of war,

we find itnecessary first to dehumanize our opponents, which isin itself a violation of the

beliefs of all religions. Oncewe characterize our adversaries as beyond the scopeof God

's mercy and grace, their lives lose all value.We deny personal responsibility when we pl

antlandmines and days or years later, a stranger to us,often a child, is crippled or killed.

From a greatdistance, we launch bombs or missiles with almosttotal impunity and never

want to know the number orthe identity of the victims.

At the beginning of this millennium I was asked todiscuss, here in Oslo, in fact, the great

est challengesthat the world faces. Among all the possible choices, Idecided that the mo

st serious and universal problemis a growing chasm between the richest and poorestpe

ople on earth. It's interesting to note that citizens ofthe 10 wealthiest countries are now

75 times richerthan those who live in the 10 poorest ones. And theseparation is increasi

ng every year, not only betweennations, but within them.

The results of this disparity are the root causes of mostof the world's unresolved proble

ms, includingstarvation, illiteracy, environmental degradation, violentconflict, and unnec

essary illnesses that range fromGuinea worm to HIV and AIDS.

Most work at the Carter Center is in remote villages inthe poorest nations in Africa. And

there, I havewitnessed the capacity of destitute people topersevere under heartbreaking

conditions. I havecome to admire their judgment and wisdom, theircourage and faith, a

nd their awesomeaccomplishments when given a chance to use theirinnate abilities.

But tragically, in the industrialized world, there's aterrible absence of understanding or c

oncern aboutthose who are enduring lives of despair andhopelessness. We have not ye

t made the commitmentto share with others an appreciable part of ourexcessive wealth.

This is a necessary and potentiallyrewarding burden that we should all be willing toassu

me.

Ladies and gentlemen, war may sometimes be anecessary evil. But no matter how nece

ssary, it isalways evil. Never good. We will not learn how to livetogether in peace by killi

ng each other's children.

The bond of our common humanity is stronger than thedivisiveness of our fears and

prejudices. God gives usa capacity for choice. We can choose to alleviatesuffering. We

can choose to work together for peace.We can make these changes. And we must.

Thank you.

Like his predecessor, Ronald Reagan, PresidentGeorge W. Bush confronted the difficult

task ofcomforting the families, friends, coworkers and thenation after the tragedy of a s

pace shuttle disaster. At9:00 AM, February 1, 2003, in a dramatic on the airbreak-

up, the space shuttle Columbia failed to make asuccessful reentry. All seven crew mem

bers lost theirlives as television viewers watched with breathlesstrepidation.

Since the death of the Challenger astronauts in 1986,no one assumed the astronauts' jo

urney to be withoutrisk. But this disaster, occurring at the conclusion of asuccessful mis

sion, seemed particularly unexpected.

President Bush, in a private ceremony at the NASAJohnson Space Center in Houston, s

olemnlyaddressed those present and those watching from theKennedy Space Center in

Florida. Unlike the greatcommunicator, Reagan, President Bush's strengthscame from a

renas other than speech.

But on this occasion, he made words his ally. Heshowed his ability to console the nation

with words, ashe had done following the 9/11 disaster. Bush unitedthe country and prov

ided solace, reassurance andhope.

During this period, the nation was accustomed tohearing wartime speeches from Bush.

For thisoccasion, he must convey an entirely different tone.On this sunny February after

noon, he pays tribute tothe brave heroes of space shuttle Columbia bypersonalizing eac

h of the astronauts' lives. He remindsfamily and friends that the astronauts faced thedan

gers of space travel willingly, with daring,discipline and dedication to space exploration.

Their mission was almost complete. And we lost themso close to home. The men and w

omen of theColumbia had journeyed more than six million milesand were minutes away

from arrival and reunion.

The loss was sudden and terrible. And for theirfamilies, the grief is heavy. Our nation sh

ares in yoursorrow and in your pride. And today, we remember notonly one moment of t

ragedy, but seven lives of greatpurpose and achievement.

To leave behind earth and air and gravity is an ancientdream of humanity. For these sev

en, it was a dreamfulfilled. Each of these astronauts had the daring anddiscipline requir

ed of their calling. Each of them knewthat great endeavors are inseparable from great ri

sks.And each of them accepted those risks willingly, evenjoyfully, in the cause of discov

ery.

Rick Husband was a boy of four when he first thoughtof being an astronaut. As a man, a

nd having becomean astronaut, he found it was even more important tolove his family a

nd serve his Lord. One of Rick'sfavorite hymns was "How Great Thou Art," which offerst

hese words of praise. I see the stars, I hear the mightythunder, thy power throughout th

e universe displayed.

David Brown was first drawn to the stars as a little boywith a telescope in his backyard.

He admiredastronauts, but as he said, I thought they were moviestars. I thought I was ki

nd of a normal kid. David grewup to be a physician, an aviator who could land on thedec

k of a carrier in the middle of the night and theshuttle astronaut. His brother asked him s

everal weeksago what would happen if something went wrong ontheir mission. David re

plied, this program will go on.

Michael Anderson always wanted to fly planes androse to the rank of Lieutenant Colone

l in the Air Force.Along the way, he became a role model, especially forhis two daughter

s and for the many children he spoketo in schools. He said to them, whatever you want t

obe in life, you're training for it now. He also told hisminister, if this thing doesn't come o

ut right, don'tworry about me. I'm just going on higher.

Laurel Salton Clark was a physician and a flightsurgeon who loved adventure, loved her

work, lovedher husband and her son. A friend who heard Laurelspeaking to Mission Co

ntrol said, there was a smile inher voice. Laurel conducted some of the experimentsas

Columbia orbited the Earth and described seeingnew life emerge from a tiny cocoon. Lif

e, she said,continues in a lot of places. And life is a magical thing.

None of our astronauts traveled a longer path to spacethan Kalpana Chawla. She left In

dia as a student, butshe would see the nation of her birth, all of it, fromhundreds of mile

s above. When the sad news reachedher hometown, an administrator at her high school

recalled, she always said she wanted to reach thestars. She went there and beyond. Ka

lpana's nativecountry mourns her today. And so does her adoptedland.

Ilan Ramon also flew above his home, the land ofIsrael. He said, the quiet that envelops

space makesthe beauty even more powerful. And I only hope thatthe quiet can one day

spread to my country. Ilan was apatriot, the devoted son of a Holocaust survivor, whos

erved his country in two wars. Ilan, said his wifeRona, left us at his peak moment, in his

favorite place,with people he loved.

The Columbia's pilot was Commander Willie McCool,whom friends knew as the most st

eady anddependable of men. In Lubbock today they're thinkingback to the Eagle Scout

who became a distinguishedNaval officer and a fearless test pilot. One friendremember

s Willy this way. He was blessed, and wewere blessed to know him.

Our whole nation was blessed to have such men andwomen serving in our space progr

am. Their loss isdeeply felt, especially in this place where so many ofyou called them fri

ends. The people of NASA arebeing tested once again. In your grief, you areresponding

as your friends would have wished, withfocus, professionalism and unbroken faith in th

emission of this agency.

Captain Brown was correct. America's space programwill go on. This cause of explorati

on and discovery isnot an option we choose. It is a desire written in thehuman heart. We

are that part of creation which seeksto understand all creation. We find the best among

us,send them forth into unmapped darkness, and praythey will return. They go in peace

for all mankind, andall mankind is in their debt.

Yet some explores do not return, and the loss settlesunfairly on a few. The families here

today shared in thecourage of those they loved. But now they must facelife and grief wit

hout them.

The sorrow is lonely. But you are not alone. In time, youwill find comfort and the grace t

o see you through.And in God's own time, we can pray that the day ofyour reunion will c

ome.

And to the children who miss your mom or dad somuch today, you need to know they lo

ve you, and thatlove will always be with you. They were proud of you.And you can be pr

oud of them for the rest of your life.The final days of their own lives were spent lookingd

own upon this Earth.

And now on every continent, in every land they couldsee, the names of these astronaut

s are known andremembered. They will always have an honored placein the memory of

this country. And today, I offer therespect and gratitude of the people of the UnitedState

s. May God bless you all.

After a Viet Cong attack on US Army barracks in SouthVietnam killed nine Americans a

nd destroyed fiveaircraft, President Lyndon Johnson ordered anescalation to the bombi

ngs of North Vietnam targets.By the spring of 1965, Operation Rolling Thunderincrease

d the number of US soldiers present in SouthVietnam from 25,000 to 65,000. The groun

d troops nolonger acted only as military advisers but for the firsttime as US combat troo

ps. By the end of the year, thenumber of troops reached 180,000 and doubled in thenex

t year. In his address at Johns Hopkins Universityon April 7, 1965, President Johnson o

utlined the basisfor the escalating American military commitment inSouth Vietnam.

Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th President of theUnited States, was born on August 27

, 1908, inCentral Texas. Educated in public schools, he workedhis way through Texas S

tate Teachers' College. Hiscompassion for the poverty of others came fromteaching stu

dents of Mexican descent in rural Texas.

He served six terms in the House and was elected tothe Senate in 1948. John F. Kenne

dy defeatedJohnson in the 1960 Democratic presidentialcampaign but selected Johnso

n as his running mate.As Vice President, Johnson stepped into thepresidency following

the assassination of PresidentKennedy.

Johnson's greatest accomplishments came in theareas of social reform. His war on pov

erty, the buildingof a great society converted to legislation Medicare,the Voting Rights A

ct of 1965, the establishment of theDepartments of Housing and Urban Development an

dTransportation, the liberalization of unemploymentcompensation, expansion of the foo

d stamp program,and youth employment programs.

President Johnson took office believing in the UScommitment to South Vietnam. By 196

5, he felt withoutmilitary action, the communists would seize control ofSouth Vietnam. T

his speech stands as one of the mostimportant explanations of our involvement in Vietn

am.In it, Johnson clearly asserts his rationale for the warthat would eventually become h

is political downfall.You will hear his explanation of the domino theory ofCommunist cont

ainment, his plea to make war forpeace, and his lamentation about the eventual lossesa

ssociated with war. In all, it is a classic wartimespeech by a president sure of his cause

and resoluteabout his actions.

Mr. Garland, Senator Brewster, Senator Tydings,members of the congressional delegati

on, members ofthe faculty of John Hopkins, student body, my fellowAmericans, last wee

k 17 nations sent their views tosome two dozen countries having an interest inSoutheas

t Asia. We are joining those 17 countries andstating our American policy tonight, which

we believewill contribute toward peace in this area of the world. Ihave come here to revi

ew once again, with my ownpeople, the views of the American government.

Tonight, Americans and Asians are dying for a worldwhere each people may choose its

own path tochange. This is the principal for which our ancestorsfought in the valleys of

Pennsylvania. It is a principlefor which our sons fight tonight in the jungles ofVietnam.

Vietnam is far away from this quad campus. We haveno territory there, nor do we seek

any. The war is dirtyand brutal and difficult. And some 400 young menborn into an Amer

ica that's bursting with opportunityand promise have ended their lives on Vietnam'sstea

ming soil.

Why must we take this painful road? Why must thisnation hazard its ease and its interes

t and its power forthe sake of a people so far away? We fight becausewe must fight if w

e're to live in a world where everycountry can shape its own destiny. And only in such a

world will our own freedom be finally secure.

This kind of a world will never be built by bombs orbullets. Yet the infirmities of man are

such that forcemust often preceded reason and the waste of war, theworks of peace. W

e wish that this were not so. But wemust deal with the world as it is if it is ever to be as

wewish.

The world as it is in Asia is not a serene or peacefulplace. The first reality is that North V

ietnam hasattacked the independent nation of South Vietnam. Itsobject is total conquest

.

Of course, some of the people of South Vietnam areparticipating in attack on their own

government. Buttrained men and supplies, orders and arms flow in aconstant stream fro

m north to south.

This support is the heartbeat of the war. And it is a warof unparalleled brutality.

Simple farmers are the targets of assassination andkidnapping. Women and children ar

e strangled in thenight because their men are loyal to their government.And helpless vill

ages are ravaged by sneak attacks.Large scale raids are conducted on towns. And terro

rstrikes in the heart of cities.

The confused nature of this conflict cannot mask thefact that it is the new face of an old

enemy. Over thiswar and all Asia is another reality, the deepeningshadow of Communis

t China. The rulers in Hanoi areurged on by Peking. This is a regime which hasdestroye

d freedom in Tibet, which has attacked Indiaand has been condemned by the United Na

tions foraggression in Korea. It is a nation which is helping theforces of violence in almo

st every continent.

The contest in Vietnam is part of a wider pattern ofaggressive purposes. Why are these

realities ourconcern? Why are we in South Vietnam? We are therebecause we have a p

romise to keep.

Since 1954, every American president has offeredsupport to the people of South Vietna

m. We havehelped to build and we have helped to defend. Thus,over many years, we h

ave made a national pledge tohelp South Vietnam defend its independence. And Iintend

to keep that promise.

[APPLAUSE]

To dishonor that pledge, to abandon this small andbrave nation to its enemies and to th

e terror that mustfollow would be an unforgivable wrong.

We're also there to strengthen world order. Around theglobe from Berlin to Thailand are

people whose well-

being rests in part on the belief that they can count onus if they are attacked. To leave V

ietnam to its fatewould shake the confidence of all these people in thevalue of an Ameri

can commitment and in the value ofAmerica's word. The result would be increased unre

stand instability and even wider war.

We're also there because there are great stakes in thebalance. Let no one think for a m

oment that retreatfrom Vietnam would bring an end to conflict. The battlewould be rene

wed in one country and then another.The central lesson of our time is that the appetite o

faggression is never satisfied. To withdraw from onebattlefield means only to prepare fo

r the next. We mustsay, in Southeast Asia as we did in Europe, in thewords of the Bible,

hitherto shalt thou come, but nofurther.

There are those who say that all our efforts there willbe futile, that China's power is such

that it is bound todominate all Southeast Asia. But there is no end to thatargument until

all of the nations of Asia are swallowedup.

There are those who wonder why we have aresponsibility there. Well, we have it there f

or the samereason that we have a responsibility for the defense ofEurope. World War II

was fought in both Europe andAsia. And when it ended, we found ourselves withcontinu

ed responsibility for the defense of freedom.

Our objective is the independence of South Vietnamand its freedom from attack. We wa

nt nothing forourselves, only that the people of South Vietnam beallowed to guide their

own country in their own way.We will do everything necessary to reach thatobjective, an

d we will do only what is absolutelynecessary.

In recent months, attacks on South Vietnam werestepped up. Thus, it became necessar

y for us toincrease our response and to make attacks by air. Thisis not a change of purp

ose. It is a change in what webelieve that purpose requires.

We do this in order to slow down aggression. We dothis to increase the confidence of th

e brave people ofSouth Vietnam who have bravely borne this brutalbattle for so many y

ears with so many casualties. Andwe do this to convince the leaders of North Vietnam,a

nd all who seek to share their conquest, of a verysimple fact. We will not be defeated.

[APPLAUSE]

We will not grow tired. We will not withdraw, eitheropenly or under the cloak of a meanin

glessagreement. We know that air attacks alone will notaccomplish all of these purpose

s. But it is our bestand prayerful judgement that they are a necessarypart of the surest r

oad to peace.

We hope that peace will come swiftly. But that is in thehands of others besides ourselve

s. And we must beprepared for a long, continued conflict. It will requirepatience as well

as bravery, the will to endure as wellas the will to resist. I wish it were possible to convin

ceothers with words, of what we now find it necessary tosay with guns and planes.

Armed hostility is futile. Our resources are equal to anychallenge. Because we fight for v

alues and we fight forprinciples rather than territory or colonies. Ourpatience and our det

ermination are unending. Oncethis is clear, then it should also be clear that the onlypath

for a reasonable man is the path of peacefulsettlement.

[APPLAUSE]

Such peace demands and independent SouthVietnam, securely guaranteed and able to

shape itsown relationships to all others, free from outsideinterference, tied to no allianc

e, a military base for nocountry. These are the essentials of any finalsettlement. We will

never be second in the search forsuch a peaceful settlement in Vietnam.

[APPLAUSE]

There may be many ways to this kind of peace, indiscussion or negotiation with the gov

ernmentsconcerned, in large groups or in small ones, in thereaffirmation of old agreeme

nts or their strengtheningwith new ones. We have stated this position over andover agai

n, 50 times and more, to friend and foe alike.And we remain ready, with this purpose, fo

runconditional discussions.

[APPLAUSE]

And until that bright and necessary day of peace, wewill try to keep conflict from spreadi

ng. We have nodesire to see thousands die in battle, Asians orAmericans. We have no

desire to devastate that whichthe people of North Vietnam have built with toil andsacrific

e.

We will use our power with restraint and with all thewisdom that we can command. But

we will use it.

This war, like most wars, is filled with terrible irony. Forwhat do the people of North Viet

nam want? They wanttheir neighbors-

- what they want, their neighbors alsodesire. Food for their hunger, health for their bodie

s, achance to learn, progress for their country, and an endto the bondage of material mi

sery. And they would findall of these things far more readily in peacefulassociation with

others than in the endless course ofbattle.

These countries of Southeast Asia are homes formillions of impoverished people. Each

day, thesepeople rise at dawn and struggle through until thenight to wrestle existence fr

om the soil. They are oftenwracked by disease, plagued by hunger. And deathcomes at

the early age of 40.

Stability and peace do not come easily in such a land.Neither independence nor human

dignity will ever bewon, though, by arms alone. It also requires the workof peace. The A

merican people have helpedgenerously in times past in these works. And nowthere mus

t be a much more massive effort to improvethe life of man in that conflict-

torn corner of our world.

[APPLAUSE]

The first step is for the countries of Southeast Asia toassociate themselves in a greatly

expandedcooperative effort for development. We would hopethat North Vietnam would t

ake its place in the commoneffort just as soon as peaceful cooperation is possible.The

United Nations is already actively engaged indevelopment in this area.

And as far back in 1961, I conferred with ourauthorities in Vietnam in connection with th

eir workthere. And I would hope tonight that the SecretaryGeneral of the United Nations

could use the prestigeof his great office and his deep knowledge of Asia toinitiate as so

on as possible, with the countries of thatarea, a plan for cooperation and increaseddevel

opment.

[APPLAUSE]

For our part, I will ask the Congress to join in a billiondollar American investment in this

effort as soon as it isunder way.

[APPLAUSE]

And I would hope that all other industrializedcountries, including the Soviet Union, will jo

in in thiseffort to replace despair with hope and terror withprogress. The task is nothing l

ess than to enrich thehopes and the existence of more than 100 millionpeople.

And there is much to be done. The vast Mekong Rivercan provide food and water and p

ower on a scale todwarf even our own TVA. The wonders of modernmedicine can be sp

read through villages wherethousands die every year from lack of care. Schoolscan be

established to train people in the skills that areneeded to manage the process of develo

pment. Andthese objectives and more are within the reach of acooperative and determi

ned effort.

I also intend to expand and speed up the program tomake available our farm surpluses t

o assist in feedingand clothing the needy in Asia.

[APPLAUSE]

We should not allow people to go hungry and wearrags while our own warehouses overf

low with anabundance of wheat and corn and rice and cotton.

[APPLAUSE]

So I will very shortly name a special team ofoutstanding, patriotic, distinguished Americ

ans toinaugurate our participation in these programs. Thisteam will be headed by Mr. E

ugene Black, the veryable former president of the World Bank. In areas thatare still ripp

ed by conflict, of course development willnot be easy. Peace will be necessary for final s

uccess.But we cannot and must not wait for peace to beginthis job.

[APPLAUSE]

This will be a disorderly planet for a long time. In Asia,as elsewhere, the forces of the m

odern world areshaking old ways and uprooting ancient civilizations.There will be turbul

ence and struggle and evenviolence. Great social change, as we see in our owncountry

now, does not always come without conflict.

We must also expect that nations will on occasion bein dispute with us. It may be becau

se we are rich, orpowerful, or because we have made some mistakes,or because they h

onestly fear our intentions. However,no nation need ever fear that we desire their land o

r toimpose our will or to dictate their institutions.

[APPLAUSE]

But we will always oppose the efforts of one nation toconquer another nation.

[APPLAUSE]

We will do this because our own security is at stake.But there's more to it than that. For

our generation hasa dream. It is a very old dream, but we have thepower, and now we h

ave the opportunity to make thatdream come true.

For centuries, nations have struggled among eachother. But we, we dream of a world w

here disputes aresettled by law and reason. And we will try to make itso. For most of his

tory, men have hated and killed oneanother in battle. But we dream of an end to war. An

dwe will try to make it so.

[APPLAUSE]

For all existence, most men had lived in poverty,threatened by hunger. But we dream of

a world whereall are fed and charged with hope. And we will help tomake it so.

[APPLAUSE]

The ordinary men and women of North Vietnam andSouth Vietnam, of China and India,

of Russia andAmerica, are brave people. They're filled with thesame proportions of hate

and fear, of love and hope.Most of them want the same things for themselves andtheir f

amilies. Most of them do not want their songs toever die in battle or to see their homes

or the homes ofothers destroyed.

Well, this can be their world yet. Man now has theknowledge, always before denied, to

make this planetserve the real needs of the people who live on it. Iknow this will not be

easy. I know how difficult it is forreason to guide passion, and love to master hate. Thec

omplexities of this world do not bow easily to pureand consistent answers.

But the simple truths are there just the same. We mustall try to follow them as best we c

an. We often say howimpressive power is, but I do not find it impressive atall. The guns

and the bombs, the rockets and thewarships, are all symbols of human failure. They are

necessary symbols. They protect what we cherish. Butthey're witness to human folly.

A dam built across a great river is impressive. In thecountryside where I was born and w

here I live, I haveseen the night illuminated and the kitchens warmedand the homes hea

ted, where once the churlish nightand the ceaseless cold held way. And all thishappene

d because electricity came to our area alongthe humming wires of the REA. Electrificati

on of thecountryside. Yes, that too is impressive.

A rich harvest in a hungry land is impressive. The sightof healthy children in a classroo

m is impressive.These, not mighty arms, are the achievements whichthe American natio

n believes to be impressive. And ifwe are steadfast, a time may come when all othernati

ons will also find it so.

Every night, before I turn out the lights to sleep, I askmyself this question. Have I done e

verything that I cando to unite this country? Have I done everything I canto help unite th

e world? To try to bring peace and hopeto all the peoples of the world? Have I done eno

ugh?

Ask yourselves that question in your homes and in thishall tonight. Have we, each of us,

all done all wecould? Have we done enough? We may well be livingin the time foretold

many years ago when it was said, Icall heaven and earth to record this day against you,

that I have set before you life and death, blessing andcursing. Therefore choose life, tha

t both thou and thyseed may live.

This generation of the world must choose. Destroy orbuild? Kill or aid? Hate or understa

nd? We can do allthese things on a scale that's never dreamed ofbefore.

Well, we will choose life. And so going, we will prevailover the enemies within man and

over the naturalenemies of all mankind. To Doctor Eisenhower, Mr.Garland, and this gre

at institution, John Hopkins, Ithank you for this opportunity to convey my thoughts toyou

and to the American people. Goodnight.

[APPLAUSE]

Since 1992, the Estlow lecture annually provides aleading journalist the opportunity to s

peak to students,faculty, and community at the University of Denver. Theevent includes

the presentation of the Anvil FreedomAward to the guest lecturer. The award is sponsor

edby the Edward W. Estlow International Center forJournalism and New Media and reco

gnizesexcellence, integrity, courage, conscience andprofessional commitment to first a

mendmentprinciples.

The 2002 recipient of the award was Pulitzer Prizewinning editor, Geneva Overhosler. B

orn in SouthCarolina, Geneva Overhosler earned a bachelor'sdegree in history from We

llesley College and amaster's degree from Northwestern University's MedillSchool of Jo

urnalism. After working as a reporter forthe Colorado Springs Sun, she freelanced whilet

raveling in Africa and Europe with her husband.

Upon her return to the United States, Overhoslerbecame the editor of the Des Moines R

egister andguided the paper's coverage of women's issues.Under her leadership, The R

egister won the 1991Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for Public Service for aseries of articles o

n rape. She subsequently workedfor the Washington Post as a columnist andombudsm

an and then wrote a column for theColumbia Journalism Review.

This remarkable woman served on numerous boardsand received honorary doctorates f

rom GrinnellCollege and Saint Andrews Presbyterian College andAlumni Achievement

Awards from Wellesley,Northwestern and Medill. On October 22, 2002, afteraccepting t

he Anvil Award, Overhosler addressed theaudience at the University of Denver about w

hat isgood journalism. This speech stirred considerablecontroversy in the journalistic co

mmunity. She assertsthat the news media are more concerned withentertaining and sati

sfying shareholders than meetingthe needs of the public's right to know. This bottomline

philosophy results in more sensationalism thanresearch into more important but comple

x issues.

Madeline, I cannot thank you enough. I am deeplyhonored. And I am delighted to be abl

e to accept thatAnvil Freedom Award from Ed Estlow, who is a realchampion in our indu

stry. And I'm here to tell you thatfor a publisher to brag that well about an editor is areal

strong guy, and I thank you. Thank you very much.I'm going to remember your line abou

t did you takenotes? I hope you took notes.

I also want to pay warm tribute to Jean Otto, who Iknow is a great friend of the Universit

y of Denver andwho is a great friend of mine and of the FirstAmendment. And I apprecia

te very much that warmnote. And I want to thank DU. U. I want to thank LauraRuel, parti

cularly, and Mike Wirth. I have been honoredto travel to a number of different universitie

s in thiscountry. But I have never been better treated than Ihave been treated here. And

I am deeply grateful.Thank you very much. [APPLAUSE] Thank you.

It's a lot of fun for me to be here in Colorado. I fellirrevocably in love with this state 32 ye

ars ago. And Ihave one complaint. It ruins you for every climate youlive in thereafter. Alt

hough I must say, I kept wanting toapply lip balm today. I do remember that. I don't miss

that.

I also would like to pay my respects to thedistinguished winners and lecturers who have

comebefore me. Remarkably enough, I've had the goodfortune of knowing every one of

the people who havegiven this lecture and received this award. And I mustsay, you Estl

ows have selected an interesting bunch.Now let me see if I can earn my way into thatch

aracterization, interesting bunch, by sharing a fewthoughts with you tonight.

First, why am I talking to you about this question, whatgood is journalism? I'll put it to yo

u right away.Because I think that journalism in America isdangerously threatened. And I

think that a decline inAmerica's journalistic health leads directly to a declinein America's

civic health. And I think that the besthope for protecting journalism, for once againnouris

hing it, lies in a public clamor for goodjournalism.

Now I'm not a fool, or at least not a complete fool, andso I'm under no illusion that that's

the current publicmood, to speak out in support of journalism. Indeed,journalists have b

een experiencing a plummetingpublic reputation for years.

And most surveys show us lurking down there withused car salesmen these days. Peop

le thinkjournalists are pushy and obnoxious, cynical andsuperficial, self-

infatuated and bent on hobnobbingwith the powerful. They think we confuse news ande

ntertainment, embrace sensationalism and care moreabout prizes than we do about the

public. I do likeprizes myself. [LAUGHTER] The books about themedia that sell well the

se days have titles like, Biasand Slander, and then they're really hot sellers.

Well, you know what? I'm here to tell you that thingsare even worse than you think. The

picture is moreworrisome and drearier than all that. Let me read youjust a sampling of tit

les from my office bookshelf. TheNews About the News, American Journalism in Peril,C

onglomerates in the Media, Read All About It,Corporatization of America's Newspapers,

Don't Shootthe Messenger, How Our Growing Hatred of the MediaThreatens Free Spe

ech for All of Us, The Big Chill,Investigative Reporting and the Current MediaEnvironme

nt, MegaMedia, How Giant CorporationsDominate Mass Media and Threaten Democrac

y, ThePress and the Decline of Democracy, Rich Media, PoorDemocracy. Well, you get

the drift.

As is evident from this list, the role call of mediaproblems is long. Let me discuss just a f

ew.

Entertainment and scandal crowd out substantivenews. This is one you hear all the time

. PBS newsmanJim Lehrer dates this to the OJ obsession. But I thinkwe have antecede

nts aplenty. Certainly it's beenexacerbated like this tendency by the 24/7 news cablecha

nnels. And also by newspaper's entry into theonline world with our own ability to provide

news 24hours a day, 7 days a week and to be just as catchyand timely as anybody els

e.

Another one, the culture of news organizations is riskaverse. I'm sure Ed and other jour

nalists in this roomwould agree with me on that. We are slow to makechanges even wh

en solid evidence indicates the needfor us to do so.

For example, recent research from NorthwesternUniversity found that the public was not

uninterested innews but rather unhappy with many of the choices thateditors make. Re

spondents to the survey rankedstories about ordinary people as number one amongthei

r preferences and how I fit into my community asnumber two and national and internatio

nal news asthird. Now that sounds like a pretty good media diet tomost of us, I would sa

y. It's a pretty good journalismdiet. Yet such heavily covered stories as crime rankedeig

ht, and sports ranked nine in reader preference. Apretty good indication that we're not m

atching ourcoverage to public interest.

Another point, editors these days are far more likely tomove frequently from one commu

nity to another, asare reporters. There's therefore less connection to thecommunity and

indeed less knowledge of thecommunity.

It's worth noting, too, that journalists are far from alonein experiencing a decrease in pu

blic confidence.Society has shown a growing distrust of almost allprofessions and institu

tions in recent years, and weare part of that. Add to this a very different tenor in thenatio

n's life since 9/11 and the very powerful feelingsof national pride and protectiveness that

have surgedthrough our land. This has had a profound impact onjournalism.

There was a great deal of wonderful journalismpracticed in the immediate wake of 9/11.

I'm sureyou'd agree with me. But it tended to be journalismthat made us feel good, that

brought us together. Notjournalism that challenged the prevailing thinking,which is a mu

ch harder kind of journalism to do, insuch a climate, particularly, much harder to do.

Do you remember the USA Patriot Act, whichCongress passed quickly in the wake of 9/

11?Thorough and digging coverage of the USA PatriotAct-

- the name alone should give us pause, I think--

was virtually nonexistent. A law allowing federalinvestigators to search homes more free

ly, to tap emailand phone calls, to share information with intelligenceagencies, a law whi

ch put considerably greaterconstraints on the Freedom of Information Act. Yetyou'd hav

e thought that there was nary a need forscrutiny of its effect. Now, this was partly, of co

urse,because Congress was so pliant, at that moment inour nation's history. But we in t

he media were pliant aswell.

President Bush, I think, has done a very skillful job ofmaking anyone who questions any

thing lookunpatriotic. But this is a president who was prone tokeeping things close to his

chest before 9/11. Andjournalistic failure to prod and probe is not an act ofpatriotism. In

deed, skepticism is an act of patriotismfor journalists. Not cynicism. Skepticism, aquesti

oning, is a very American and very patriotic actfor journalists. But we've grown far too w

orried aboutbeing disliked in recent years, and now on top of that,we must fear being la

beled quote, unpatriotic,unquote. And too few journalists have been willing tolive up to t

he challenge.

But the journalistic challenge that I want to focus on inthis list of the drear is the challeng

e that, I think, isoverarching. And that is this. Satisfying shareholdershas become more i

mportant than serving citizens.Making money for their corporations now has a greaterho

ld on journalists, whether they like it or not, thanmaking a difference in their communitie

s, the questthat brought so many of us into the craft in the firstplace.

Listen to how Taking Stock, a recent book from IowaState University Press-

- never missed a chance to getIowa into the speech-

- about the impact of publicownership puts it. This is a quote. "News was theproduct aro

und which the business was shaped. Thenews was selected, presented and packaged i

nappealing and therefore profitable ways, to be sure.But the central focus of the newspa

per has been thepublication of news. Dramatic change is now afoot,however. Today, th

e business of news is business, notnews. News has become secondary, even incidental

to markets and revenues and margins and advertisersand consumer preferences."

Or consider this line from longtime newspaper editor,Harold Evans. Quote, "The proble

m manyorganizations face is not to stay in business. It's to stayin journalism. Nor is it on

ly newspapers. Indeed,broadcast organizations are under even greaterpressure and ha

ve generally gone further down theroad toward commercial success and away fromjour

nalistic responsibility."

A Tennessee broadcast journalist recently describedwhat's happening in television new

s by saying, "I seethe country drifting in this mindless direction. And Isee it has invaded t

elevision news, and it's here. Andonly the people with the intestinal fortitude to stand upt

o it and to reject it are going to save us from it.Because the temptation, see, is to get an

audience byhaving all these lurid stories and some celebrities. Andyou say to yourself,

well see, look at our ratings. Isn'tthat wonderful? And that is an abdication of ourrespons

ibility. While news can be entertaining, that'snot our job, to be entertainers. Our job is to

beinformers. And that's a tremendous challenge today,because these forces of infotain

ment are crashingthrough the door and the ratings are imperative. Youhave to have the

m, or you don't survive."

Don Hewitt, of 60 Minutes, has said that when he gotinto the biz as a young producer, t

he ethic was, "makeus proud." Now it's, "make us money." Part of this isattributable to a

decline in local ownership.

I was surprised recently to read remarks by JohnCurley. Ed mentioned that John Curley

had been theCEO of Gannett, which bought the Des MoinesRegister from the Cowles f

amily in Iowa. The companythat made quarter to quarter profit increases themantra of th

e newspaper business under Al Neuharth,actually, who preceded Curley and who is a v

eryinteresting newspaperman for whom I have a greatdeal of respect, in fact. But he did

help make theseprofit-to-profit, quarter-to-quarter profit increases amantra.

Anyway, Curley spoke recently to a group ofPennsylvania newspapers' editors, most of

them familyowned newspapers, locally owned newspapers. Andhe told them, keep it as

long as you can. He waslamenting how much pressure Wall Street has put onthe chains

to provide ever bigger returns toshareholders. And he said, some of the chains wouldd

o well to tell Wall Street that they've done all they canto improve the bottom line and foc

us instead onproducing a quality news product for theirsubscribers.

Well, as the former editor of the Des

Moines Register,which under Gannett, after being family owned, wentfrom just under $6

million in profits to $20.5 million inprofits in the first three years of Gannett ownership, Ic

an tell you that I wish this conviction had comeburning into John Curley's breasts sooner

, breastsooner.

When the press and broadcast media are owned bysome of the wealthiest corporations

in America, isthere any wonder that they come so late to reportingon financial difficulties

? On misleading accounting andconflicts of interest, from the savings and loan scandalt

o Enron, or that their enthusiasm for the new economywas virtually unbridled. When the

media become justanother institution intent on accumulating wealth, wecan hardly have

confidence that they will be diggingout facts that business leaders don't want us to kno

w.

Now I want you to think with me for just a momentabout the practical effect of these eco

nomicpressures. First, of course, on unemploy-- I mean, onemployment. I have a 24-

year-old daughter. That's whyI've got unemployment on the mind.

[LAUGHTER]

In 2001 alone, through retirement, death, buyout andlayoff, newspapers collectively lost

2,000 journalistsnationally, and broadcast and cable another 1,600.What about the ones

still on staff? Michigan StateUniversity does a survey of beginning salaries byoccupatio

n, and guess where journalism ranks? Out of40 occupations, journalism is third from the

bottom,hanging down there with preschool teachers. And weall know how well they're r

ewarded for work that wevalue as a society supposedly.

Or take training. Training in the average US business,even though supposedly less com

mitted to socialresponsibility than the press, is a given. FortuneMagazine's list of 100 be

st companies cites offeringsof 52 to 132 hours of training per year per employeeand not

es a powerful relationship between anorganization's investment in training and itsperfor

mance. Yet 2/3 of the nation's journalists receiveno regular training at all. As one collea

gue of mine hasput it, the amount most newspaper companies spendon training is equiv

alent to a rounding error. So nowonder last April's convention of the American Societyof

Newspaper Editors, the aforementioned influentialorganization Ed so generously spoke

of, revealed theresults of a survey showing that journalists cited,quote, "a lack of trainin

g," end quote, as their topsource of job dissatisfaction.

On and on go the sad pieces of news from surveysabout job satisfaction plummeting a

mong journalists,about declining numbers of journalists expecting toremain in the field u

ntil retirement, about increasednumbers of mistakes associated with overloaded copyde

sks, reporters with fewer and fewer hours to spendon stories, you know the drift. It's cov

erage ofgovernment at all levels, from Congress to statelegislators to the county courtho

use.

Fred and I were thinking about the days back in theearly '70s when he and I were coveri

ng the legislature.We sat over there at the capital, around a table thatalways had a doze

n people at it. The Post had fivereporters during the legislative session. The Rockyhad t

hree. Colorado Springs Sun, Pueblo, on and onnewspapers, television, radio, the Assoc

iated Press. Ihaven't been there. But I know it doesn't look like thattoday.

A new and very interesting book called Good WorkWhere Excellence and Ethics Meet c

ompares the twofields of genetics and journalism, as to whether theirpractitioners are ab

le to do good work. Geneticists,these authors found, are able to be, quote, "true totheir

domain in a well functioning field." This is a quotefrom the book. "In contrast, the realm

of journalismemerges as poorly align. That is, many practitionersfeel that it is difficult to

honor the precepts of thedomain. Their field is wracked by tension. Thestakeholders are

threatening the core values and theprincipal roles. And the future may well hold evenw

orse tidings. Under such circumstances, good workis but a distant dream."

I want to draw special attention, now, to the question ofinternational news coverage. Let

me put it to you thisway. On September 11, you would not have beennearly so likely to

have been caught utterly off guardas you were, had the press been doing the job wesho

uld do to keep you informed about the rest of theworld.

Remember how many at the time said, how could ourintelligence services have failed u

s so? It's a goodquestion. But I would ask this one as well. How couldour reporting on in

telligence have been so poor?

In February, 2001, CIA director George Tenet told theSenate Intelligence Committee th

at Osama binLaden's global network was, quote, "the mostimmediate and serious terrori

st threat to the UnitedStates." A handful of newspapers covered thetestimony. And even

their stories were brief andburied.

A few weeks before that, a bipartisan commissionwhich you all may know more about th

an mostbecause one of its leaders was your former senator,Gary Hart, released a repor

t saying that, quote, "therelative invulnerability of the US homeland tocatastrophic attack

was coming to an end." Thecommission, headed by Hart and by former SenatorWarren

Rudman, said a direct attack against Americancitizens on American soil is likely over th

e next quartercentury. And that America's military superiority will notprotect it from hostil

e attacks on our homeland.Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly inlarge n

umbers.

This report was hardly noticed. It did not appear in theNew York Times. Hart, who says

he was tearing hishair out during the 9/11 terrorist attack because thecommission's war

ning had been so clear and soclearly ignored, has said of the report's release thatthe W

hite House shut it down, but the media did nothave to join in.

A critical part of the problem is that news ofinternational relations has shrunk dramaticall

y. Asurvey a couple of years ago from Harvard showedthat US network television time d

evoted to internationalnews had dropped 70% in 25 years. From 45% of totalcoverage i

n the 1970s-- 45% of total coverage goingto foreign news-

- to 13.5% in '95. And believe me,since '95 the client has only been worse.

In newspapers, another study shows, the fall-

off hasbeen even worse, from 10.2% of total news space in'71 to less than 2% today. 2

% of total news space ofnewspapers in this lone superpower in the world is notan accep

table way of keeping the citizens of thisdemocracy informed.

Why has this happened? People will argue all kinds ofthings, going back to failures of ci

vics class in highschool that lead to lack of interest in adulthood. But Iam here to tell you

that a lot of it boils down, in theend, to money. It is expensive to provide intelligentforeig

n news. And media corporations like to avoiddoing expensive things these days, whene

ver theycan.

Now let us consider for a moment a more positivedevelopment. I bet we could use one.

The proliferationof new means of communication. Given thisdevelopment, and the evide

nt great public interest ininformation, then this should be a positive moment fornews me

dia. And indeed, the internet in particularseems to me to offer enormous hope fordemoc

ratization of the media. It used to be that thecost barrier for entry into the media was so

high thatpublication was indeed a rare privilege. But the 'nethas changed that.

So why do I list this under my endless list of problems?Because it's journalism I'm worri

ed about here. It'sjournalism I'm trying to bring to your attention, notinformation or comm

unication generally. Journalismmay appear in all different media, and certainly itappears

online. But the larger presence of a greatdeal of communication does not assure us jou

rnalism'shealth.

Journalism. I'm talking about the kind of informationthat gets done only in organizations

specificallydevoted and willing to devote resources to finding outwhat is going on with a

n eye toward the public interestand disseminating it with a commitment to fairnessand a

ccuracy. As Bill Kovach, the former editor of theAtlanta newspapers and now the head o

f somethingcalled the Committee of Concerned Journalists-- yousee I'm not alone-

- said in a recent Aspen Institutesession, "The world changes with every generation.But

those of us who spend time monitoring thebehavior of something we love fear that journ

alismcould disappear into the current mix of communicationand the public would never k

now it."

Let me say by way of comic relief that the reason heprefaced his remark with, "the world

changes withevery generation" is that Jeff Greenfield, who wasmoderating this session,

had just told a wonderfulstory about, it's a line, I guess, from the movie AtlanticCity, in

which the Burt Lancaster character is standingon the shore and gazing out at the ocean.

There's afellow beside him who has never seen the sea. Andthey're just gazing at the o

cean. And the newcomer ismarveling at it. And the Burt Lancaster character says,"Ah, b

ut you should have seen it in the old days." It's agreat line, I think.

To end my litany of misery here, I want to say that allthat I have told you is quite often di

scussed within thetrade. One friend of my notes, "being a cash cow is astrategy. And it's

a much-discussed strategy in the bizthese days."

And one question that's posed in this debate is thisone. Is it rational that we should go o

n degrading ourproducts, as the business people call newspapers,even as we see read

ers turning away in response? Afriend of mine tells of having asked a buddy inTennesse

e what percentage of profit crack dealersmake. The fellow answered, 25%, which actual

ly isfairly close to what many newspapers make. Degradethe crack anymore, he said, to

increase the profit, andyour apt to get yourself killed. Well now, that's aconsequence, y

ou know?

What are the consequences for our corporate leadersis what I'm worried about. I don't w

ish them the sameone. This topic, so much discussed in the biz,however, is little discus

sed beyond it. The publicknows little about it, indeed.

And why is that? Well, think about it. Who's going totell you, the newspapers? Sure, righ

t.

Think of the reporter who yearns to tell the story abouthow much newspaper advertising

rates are going up,even as circulation is going down. The publisherwould want to give t

hat one prominence. Ornewspaper profit margins, which have gone up some50% in the

last decade, while readership has gonedown 15%. That could be a good lead on the

biz-

pagestory. Newspaper companies make two to three timesthe returns that the average i

ndustry makes inAmerica. Surely the CEO would be eager foradvertisers to know that o

ne. In other words, don't holdyour breath.

As Jay Harris, the wonderfully honorable andthoughtful former publisher of the San Jos

e MercuryNews, who left the job over a disagreement about costcuts-

- although I must say in Knight Ridder's defense,they own the San Jose paper, and it's a

very richlystaffed papers still-

- "with several notable anddistinguished exceptions," Jay said, "the press doesnot cover

itself as well as it does other institutions insociety. If these cuts were happening in local

hospitals, it would be an enormous story. The public islargely unaware and must be ma

de aware of the slowbut steady erosion in priority that's given to the publicinterest."

I dare say I've done enough here to make my drearycase. So let's move on to the happy

part of myspeech. The part encapsulated in the title, "What goodis journalism?" Let's thi

nk about that for a moment.

Let's think about what good the newspaper does, forstarters. Because I admit that's whe

re my heart lies. Itgives you information on everything from the weatherto the stock mar

ket, from movie reviews to personalfinance. And of course it gives you the news-

- local,state, national, international.

Now, newspapers do this to varying degrees. Butbelieve me, they do it better than just a

bout anyoneelse. In a given community, I assure you, newspapernewsrooms are where

the preponderance of theinvestigative original reporting is going on. And thathas effect o

n other media. But all journalism can bepowerful, even I, the ink-stained wretch, assert.

And if you were to say to yourself what goodjournalism is, I suppose you might come up

with someof the big stories, right? Think about, maybe you sawthe movie The Insider.

And you think, OK, who knowswhen we would have learned about what was goingon in

side the cigarette industry and a dangerousdeceptions that were going on there, if we h

adn't hadthat investigative reporting.

Or, I think about this because I was with the greatinvestigative reporter Seymour Hirsch

last week, whorevealed for all of us the My Lai massacre. There wereplenty of reasons

we wouldn't have known about theMy Lai massacre. There are plenty of people whowou

ldn't have wanted us to know. Without Sy Hersh'sskill in ferreting it out and his-

- excuse me, his couragein telling it, we wouldn't have.

So you know what I'm getting at. There's story afterstory about abuse in nursing homes,

venality in thefoster care system, American adventurism abroad,misuse of your tax doll

ars, failures of the safety net. Itwas journalism, Rachel Carson writing in magazines,that

first gave us an awareness of our detrimentalimpact on the environment. It was journali

sm thatUpton Sinclair was committing, when he wrote aboutthe horrors of the meat pac

king industry, the principalreason we now have the Pure Food and Drug Act. Itwas, of c

ourse, journalism that revealed the corruptionthat brought Richard Nixon down. And it's j

ournalismtoday, students indeed, journalism students atNorthwestern University, hear th

is, oh students, whobrought to light wrongful convictions leading to theexoneration of de

ath row inmates in Illinois and now amoratorium on executions and to the completereev

aluation of the death penalty in that state.

So journalism is powerful, but in more ways than justthe big stories. Journalism brings t

he communitytogether, from birth announcements to obituaries toroutine city and county

news, crime reports in yourneighborhood and for that matter, movie listings,sports scor

es, stock quotes, restaurant reviews. And itis journalists who are essential to fighting for

the FirstAmendment, which many people think and some pollsindicate would never pas

s today.

This, I think, stems from not only the public disaffectionfor the press, but also from the fa

ct that if mediabusinesses are behaving just like any otherbusinesses, then why should t

hey alone deserve FirstAmendment protection?

What good is the press, then, has many answers. TheUS Supreme Court has said that

news providesinformation and opinion that enables the members ofour society to cope

with the exigencies of our period.Phil Graham, Katharine Graham's late husband andthe

one-

time publisher of the Washington Post calledjournalism "the first rough draft of history."

The recent book by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstielattempts to tell us what it is that set

s journalism apartfrom the rest of the communication mix. And it saysthings like journali

sm's first obligation is to tell thetruth. Its first loyalty is to citizens. Its essence is adiscipli

ne of verification. Its practitioners must maintainan independence from those they cover.

ThomasJefferson said, "were it left to me to decide whether weshould have a governm

ent without newspapers ornewspapers without a government, I should nothesitate a mo

ment to prefer the latter." And ThomasJefferson had some famous battles with the press

.

In concluding this testimony to what is good about thepress, I should add that, despite al

l the evidence tothe contrary, people still actually seem to like the pressand to consume

it in rather large numbers. Despite thereports of our death-

- I'm reminded of Mark Twain'swonderful quote about how reports of his death wereexa

ggerated-

- the truth is that this is an industryrunning strong. Consider that on Superbowl Sunday,

2001, the biggest TV day of the year, 86

million peoplewatched the Superbowl. And on that very Sunday,guess how many peopl

e read their Sundaynewspaper, Lord bless them? 132 million. And Ihaven't heard anyon

e calling the Super Bowl dead.

So let's agree, at least as long as I'm the one doing thetalking, on two propositions. Ther

e is a lot that is goodto be said about journalism. And American journalismtoday is in a g

reat deal of trouble.

So what can be done? Well, it's a good question. Ihave to say, when I began speaking o

ut on this issueafter becoming editor of the Des Moines Register in1988, I despaired of

any answer to that. A critique ofthe effects of economic pressures on journalism couldno

t be heard. I once gave a speech on this subject,which I tried to couch in quite complime

ntary terms, ata Gannett corporate gathering where I was beinghonored. And the speec

h became the first everdelivered by the Gannett editor of the year that wasnot reprinted i

n the corporate magazine.

[LAUGHTER]

A friend of mine described it as Samisdat. Those ofyou in the room who remember the

Soviet erainformation that was not officially sanctioned but wassought after as the real tr

uth, and so it wasmimeographed and passed around.

But the situation has changed dramatically, in part,alas, because so much more damag

e has been doneto our journalism stock. And I'm not talking, for once,about Wall Street.

The good news is that this changemeans that people are seeking solutions. I've gone to

half a dozen major gatherings under the egess of theAspen Institute, the Carnegie Corp

oration, the NiemanFoundation, Ford Foundation, Shorenstein Center atHarvard, variou

s journalism schools, all in the pastyear. And at the table have been publishers and CE

Osand journalism deans and editors. And in all of theseconversations, we have been di

scussing the issues Ihave sought to raise with you here tonight. Numerousbooks have b

een written, research conducted, panelsassembled on professional convention program

s.

So let me share just a little bit, by way of closing, aboutsome of the possibilities being di

scussed. I don't wantto leave you too blue. One is an endeavor in which Ijoined, with a n

umber of other former newspapereditors, to write to the CEOs and board members ofth

e nation's 14 largest publicly owned newspapercompanies, making some suggestions fo

r theirconsideration about corporate governance steps thatcould help strengthen the jou

rnalism their companiesdo. We urged them to consider that boards ofdirectors have am

ong them members with experienceon the editorial side of a news organization. We urg

edthem to designate a director or directors to havespecial responsibility to monitor the c

ompany'seditorial performance. And we urge that incentivecompensation for corporate o

fficers should be tied insignificant part to achieving journalistic quality goals,just as it is ti

ed in large part to achieving profit goals,even for editors in many companies.

I can't say we revolutionized anything. My first cluewas that one prominent and well resp

ected CEO,whom we both liked and have talked about but I said Iwouldn't give his nam

e, wrote back and said, Geneva,are you guys out of your minds? That was my first cluet

hat we had some more work to do. But, as I don'tneed to tell you, the call for a responsi

ble corporategovernance and better board scrutiny is not unheardthese days in America

n business.

Another arena for action is research. All kinds ofinteresting research, and Laura and I h

ave talkedsome about this, is being conducted. Research aboutpractices, from training t

o compensation to researchand development in other industries and otherprofessions, t

hat could help media companies behavemore responsibility. Research about how some

newspaper companies manage to continue to investwhile others don't, and what are the

results for thecommunity? Invest in journalism. And also researchthat attempts to give c

ompany leaders some numbersto look at other than money.

Several of my colleagues in this good fight are lookingat ways to measure investments i

n the newsroom.Some call it "journalism capacity," and its impact onthe community. An

d I should add here that I am farfrom unwilling to use another often powerful tool,shame.

I read an opinion article recently in theWashington Post holding that it is public shame t

hathas finally brought attention to the wildly spiraling CEOcompensation packages. Sha

me might help here too.As the publisher of the Kansas City Star said a year orso ago, b

oth money and public opinion, includingstanding in our community, matters to newsexec

utives. And, quote, "we've got to make the casethat quality matters to the money and qu

ality matters tothe public opinion."

Other suggestions include convening a nationalcommission, such as came in 1947, the

HutchinsCommission, when we had many of the samequestions being raised about the

media, having CEOsof large companies that have news organizations gettogether to as

sess the health of the newsorganizations, having reviews of journalistic units in thecomp

any, or even exploring more different kinds ofmedia ownership.

In the end, however, I believe that only throughacquainting the public with the issues at

hand, andwith the extent of the challenge, can we hope to attainany real solution. Partici

pants at one of the meetings Iwent to call this "the need to re-

acquainted the publicwith its role and resources as citizen sovereigns." It is,I believe, onl

y when the public demand for goodjournalism is heard as loudly as Wall Street's deman

dfor shareholder satisfaction that corporate journalismwill give its civic duty anything like

parity with itscommercial duty.

The playwright Arthur Miller once wrote, "A greatnewspaper, I suppose, is a nation talkin

g to itself." Isubmit to you tonight that our great nationalconversation is threatened. We

must care about thequality of that conversation if we are to care about thequality of our

self-governance.

Joseph Pulitzer, when he made his proposal tosupport the founding of a journalism sch

ool, whichactually came after Missouri I might add, it's ColumbiaGraduate School of Jou

rnalism, said "Our Republicand its press will rise or fall together. An able,disinterested p

ublic-

spirited press, with trainedintelligence to know the right and courage to do it, canpreserv

e that public virtue without which populargovernment is a sham and a mockery. A cynic

al,mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time apeople as base as itself. The powe

r to mold the futureof the Republic will be in the hands of the journalists offuture generati

ons." 1904.

I left Colorado almost 30 years ago to spent five yearsoverseas. I lived first in Africa, in

Kinshasa, then Zaire,now once again Congo. As a reporter, as anAmerican, I was blow

n away by how different a worldis with no free press. No means of finding out what'sreall

y going on, no means of mobilizing action, ofcurbing tyranny, no means really to do anyt

hing buthang on desperately.

Then I moved to France, where the press was rich andlively and quite free politically. Bu

t there I discovered adifferent kind of problem. France, and much of the restof Europe at

that period in the late '70s and early '80s,was caught up in a frenzy of huge corporateac

quisition of media. And those nations were grippedby a fear that fewer and fewer voices

would ring outand that those great democracies would suffer as aconsequence.

I came back home to America and I thanked my luckystars that our press was so vigoro

us and so free andso strong and so well-

supported by our thrivingmarketplace. Now, 25 years later, I'm not nearly sosanguine. I

believe journalism in America isendangered and that we will have to fight to keep itworki

ng for us and for this great nation. It is in thehope that you will join me in this fight that I

have giventhis speech, and I thank you all for that opportunity.Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

The Latino crusader for nonviolent social change,Cesar Estrada Chavez, addresses an

audience atOhio University, April 9, 1974, seeking support for aboycott of grapes, lettuc

e, and Gallo wines. Hedescribes to his audience the struggle the farmworkers have suff

ered and their attempts to organizeand improve working conditions. He explains thenatu

re and impact of his non-

violent farm workermovement. The spirit of justice and truth is the spirit ofnon-

violence and the spirit of Caesar Chavez.

Born in 1927 near his family farm in Yuma, Arizona,Cesar Chavez witnessed firsthand t

he hardships andinjustices of farmworkers' lives. After his father,Librado, was forced fro

m his farm during the GreatDepression, Chavez and his family became migrantworkers

in the southwest.

By the 1950s, Cesar, a laborer in the orchards ofCalifornia, began the fight for Latino civ

il rights. Withonly an eighth grade education but an insatiableintellectual curiosity, this h

usband and father of eightchildren devoted his life to changing the farmworkers'living co

nditions. A believer in the human dignity of allAmericans, he acted to organize, protect a

nd servethe farm workers by forming the National FarmworkersAssociation in 1962, late

r called the UnitedFarmworkers of America. This was the first successfulfarmworkers' u

nion in American history.

Through the use of non-

violent boycotts, strikes,fasting and numerous arrests, Chavez awakened thecountry to t

he plight of the farm laborer. SenatorRobert F. Kennedy described Chavez in 1968 as o

neof the heroic figures of our time. President Clintonpresented Chavez posthumously wi

th the Medal ofFreedom, America's highest civilian honor. In thisspeech, Chavez educat

es his audience on the historyof non-

violent protests. His frequent references toGandhi lends luster to his movement and enli

sts thesupport of his audience. What you will see is anentertaining and interesting spee

ch by one ofAmerica's most important labor unionists.

[APPLAUSE]

Thank you very much, brothers and sisters. I see thatyou're organized. We're here at O

hio Universityseeking support for the boycott of grapes, lettuce andGallo wines. It's not v

ery difficult to describe whatwe're boycotting. A grape is a grape is a grape. So ifyou boy

cott all grapes, we're in good shape. When itcomes to lettuce, it's a little more difficult. B

ecausewe're boycotting only the iceberg, Western iceberghead lettuce. And the only wa

y to describe that is bytelling you that it's the lettuce that looks like a lettuce.

[LAUGHTER]

And it's not the butter lettuce or the Bibb lettuce or theBoston lettuce. It's the good old fa

shioned lettuce thatwe want you to boycott.

Now, when we talk about Gallo, that's a bit morecomplicated. Gallo, the Gallo wine com

pany producesmany, many wines and it has many labels. In fact,some of the better kno

wn wines don't even carry thename Gallo in the label. And so you have to beware,beca

use if you don't, then you'll be drinking scabwines, but to name a few, you have the Red

MountainWine. That's Gallo. You have the Boone's Farms. Haveyou heard of that one?

[LAUGHTER]

Someone said that if we could get every student tostop drinking Boone's Farms, Gallo w

ould sign acontract with us tomorrow.

Then they have Spanada, Tyrolia, and Ripple.

[LAUGHTER]

I have a button here that they gave, that I was given inCleveland a couple of days ago.

And the button says,"Nixon drinks Ripple."

[LAUGHTER]

[APPLAUSE]

We want to thank our sister Pat Horner, and brotherKilroy and all of the Student Support

Committee for thework you've been doing. And I was reading, when wegot in today, a c

ouple of clippings from thenewspaper. And it was a dispute with a carry out store,a smal

l store, Brown's, I believe. And the commentaryin the paper was that it's unfair to picket t

hat store,because it's very small, and that other stores shouldbe picketed.

And so I've been thinking how to solve the problem.And I think I got a solution for it. The

suggestion in thenewspaper article was that we should be picketingA&P stores, and I a

gree. I think the way to solve theproblem very quickly is to get Mr. Brown to take theGall

o wines off and immediately, the moment he takesthem off, we suggest that we all marc

h to A&P andbegin picketing A&P.

[APPLAUSE]

The farmworker movement is quite an amazingmovement. It's been at the same level of

intensity nowfor something like 12 years. In that time we've seenmovements come and

go. It started a little before thestudents throughout the country began theirdemonstration

s in the fabulous '60s. That passed intothe '70s. And we're still around.

We were told in those days, it was a little difficult toreach people, because we were sev

erely criticizedbecause we were a nonviolent movement. And manyof our friends, althou

gh they liked what we were doing,thought that we should be a little more aggressive and

we should be more violent in order to win. And westuck to our

guns, nonviolent guns about nonviolenceand were able to surprise many people and toa

ccomplish many things.

You say, the farmworker movement, in its 12 years ofhistory, has gone further than man

y movements for thelast almost 80 years. The farm worker is not organizedtoday in unio

ns, not because he hasn't tried. As farback as the late 19th century and the 1886 and 18

90s,there were worker revolts. During the period when theChinese were the so-

called coolies, and they were theones that were being exploited in agriculture inCaliforni

a, they began to organize. And they wanted abetter life. And they wanted a union.

And the agribusiness of those days thought that thiswas, that the idea of these Orientals

who wanted aunion was very dangerous. And so they went to Japanand imported Japa

nese. The Japanese came toCalifornia. They had even worse ideas. They wanted toow

n land. So then the growers went to the Philippinesand imported Filipinos. And those Fili

pinos havestruggled to get a union. And they had some of thebitterest strikes in Californi

a. And they failed.

Then, with the coming of the Mexican revolution,hundreds of thousands of families cam

e across theborder from Mexico. And they went to the mines, to therailroads, and mostly

to the farms. And thoseMexicans and their descendants have been fighting tohave a un

ion for years and years. And up until the timetheir movement started, they had met with

total failurein terms of getting contracts.

We came into the scene. We knew very well that therewere two or three outstanding iss

ues that we had todeal with if we ever hoped to be successful. One,there was a number

of varied and different ethnicgroups working in agriculture, with the differentlanguages,

different religions, different backgroundsand so forth. And that the growers had been ext

remelysuccessful in pitting the Mexican against the blackand the black against the white

and the white againstthe Oriental and therefore, then, having fights amongthemselves.

And we said that we were going to stop that, and wedid nothing. But to end that kind of

divisiveness on thepart of the employers. And today, we can say, ifnothing, we can say f

or the movement, we can sayanything for the movement, we can say that we have amo

vement that's united, and that a worker's a worker'sa worker.

[APPLAUSE]

And the other issue was the issue of the Red baiting.That for years, all the growers had

to do, just go to thepress and say that this or these men, these men, thesewomen trying

to organize are outside agitators, andthat was the end. That, just that way. Just make a

flatcharge, and that was the end.

So we began to deal with that problem even before wegot into the Union, so when we g

ot hit with the Redbaiting, they couldn't do anything, because theworkers were organize

d and they were not about to befooled. And so now, today, the growers very seldomuse

d that charge. Because it doesn't work for themanymore. And luckily enough that they u

se it andoverused it so much that by the time it got to us, it wasso ineffective, the grower

s continued to use a weaponthat had long been discarded. It was no longer usablefor th

em.

But we continued to make hay and organize. Theywoke up one day finding out that reall

y, that was notgoing to work for them.

And the other issue was violence. That every singleagricultural worker had been destroy

ed with violence.That the workers had been baited into retaliating. Thegrowers had bee

n in many instances accused ofviolence, in some instances sent to jail. And that thisgav

e the police and the authorities the excuse theyneeded to wipe out a whole movement.

When we came in, we decided it was going to benonviolent. We talked to the workers a

nd, gradually,with a lot of education, a lot of patience, we began tomake progress. And t

he whole idea that violence is alot more powerful and more lasting-

- that nonviolenceis a lot more powerful and more lasting than violence,and that there w

as no way, we thought, in which wecould justify winning contract and building a union at

the expense of blood, even if it meant the blood ofthose who opposed us.

And this was something that the growers were notprepared to deal with. And when we h

it those picketlines in September of 1965 and we began to carry outthe ideal of nonviole

nce, there was an awful lot offrustrated growers and police around, because theycouldn'

t take us to jail for the things that they were soused to taking people to jail and breaking

the union.They had to find other ways to deal with us.

And so it became such an issue with them that insome of the small counties in Californi

a, there was talkamong the county, the city fathers, where they couldnot legislate agains

t nonviolence. There was talk inDelano, I remember, in those days that maybesomehow

the City Council would pass an ordinancemaking nonviolent protest illegal. And so we f

oundthat, in our own experience, that when you get veryupset and very full of anger, tha

t you cease to think.And if you cannot think, there's no way you can win therevolution.

[APPLAUSE]

In order to win the revolution, you have to be not onlyawake but also be able to think on

your feet. And thinkfast. And that, a commitment to nonviolence, ifanything, forces you t

o be creative. Demands that,once you make up your mind that the shortcut thatviolence

sometimes, it appears to some people is ashortcut or a cure-

all, once you disregard that and youcommit yourself to a course of nonviolence that then

isincumbent upon those who make the commitment tobegin to think how to make progr

ess without everthinking of violence.

[APPLAUSE]

But let me remind you that, when I speak of, ofnonviolence, I'm not speaking of angels o

r saints. I'mspeaking of men and women and children, very muchon this earth. And I do

n't speak of the nonviolencewhere you can lock yourself up in your room and takethe G

ood Book and begin to read, and you can betotally nonviolent to everything around you,

furnitureand so forth. No, I don't speak of that, although werecognize prayer as a, as a f

orm of nonviolent work.

No, we say nonviolence out in the gutter, out therewhere people are suffering. Not at th

e, so you knowthe whole question of nonviolence suffers terribly atinstitutions like yours

here, where it becomes aquestion of rhetoric. But nonviolence when it's appliedto practi

cal questions, when it's applied to the actual,to the actuality of the circumstances, when

it dealswith trying to change things through action, this issuffering. It can't even be quest

ioned. Its only questionwas removed from reality and it's brought into thecouncils of high

er learning. It runs into a problembecause it deals then with, not the practice of it as itsh

ould be.

And so, we know and you know that men, women, Ithink are by nature nonviolent. If we

were violent, thenwhy should the Army and the Navy and the MarineCorps and the Air F

orce and all those branches ofdestruction, why would they then have to take youngmen

and train them to kill before they sent themoverseas to the battlegrounds. They train the

m onlybecause they've got to teach them how to kill. And so Isay that nonviolence is rea

lly a natural way of doingthings. And violence is really very unnatural. And so,but also th

ere is soldiers, unfortunately, and I hope itdoesn't happen again, have to be trained to kil

l,nonviolent soldiers have to train how to disciplinethemselves.

[APPLAUSE]

And the discipline that we say is very simple. Therehas to be a work habit. You cannot s

it there and hopeand wish that things are going to happen because youare totally nonvi

olent. That's not enough. You've got towork. You've got to be creative.

To be effective nonviolently, that means that you haveto also discipline yourself. Prayer

is a good form ofdiscipline. But even a better form of discipline isfasting. Let me just sug

gest to you that, next time youget into a fight with a loved one or someone you carefor a

lot, or whomever, and really feel strongly againstthat person, I suggest that you stop ea

ting for a coupleof days, in which time you will be so worried aboutyour stomach that yo

u won't have time to think aboutthe hatred you have against your brother or sister.

[LAUGHTER]

[APPLAUSE]

And so, through prayer and through work discipline,through fasting, through hope and fa

ith, a lot can bedone. There's a danger that people begin to think thatwe're freaks, or tha

t we're saints or angels. None ofthat. We are men of this earth. We walk along withevery

one and among everyone. But there's acommitment. An understanding that we've seen

in ourlife, personally I've seen in my life, too much violence.And I haven't seen any real l

ong lasting gains out of allthat violence.

You see, one of the greatest errors in condemningnonviolence is that people say, nonvi

olence doesn'twork, instead of really saying what is true. And thetruth is that nonviolenc

e will not work unless those whoare professing it are good organizers. You can't blamen

onviolence for your inability to organize people.

But we also know that, here on this earth, there arepeople who have serious problems o

f discriminationand problems of exploitation and questions offreedom. And sometimes, t

hese men and women areviolent. And although we don't condone that, we're notafraid o

f them. And so, often we're asked, why, that so-and-

so group is so violent, why do you have relationswith them? And we say, because if we

stay away fromthem, we-

- first of all, even though they're violent,they're doing, trying to do something to change t

hings.Secondly, we have more in common with them, eventhough we completely reject

violence, than with theother set of brothers and sisters who spend most oftheir time wat

ching TV and involving nothing.

And so, for now 12 years, we've been conducting nota very spectacular movement, but

a movementnevertheless that's changed some things in California.The growers came to

realize last year that there was,that they themselves with all of the power that theyhave,

that might, control of courts and control of thepolice, and all the things at their disposal,

agriculturein California as you know, is a very large industry, thelargest in the state. It's

almost a $5

billion industry, andit accounts for one out of every three jobs in Californiais related to a

griculture.

And when they decided that the growers could notdeal with us by themselves, and that i

f they, that theycould not stop our forward progress in organizing aunion, they went out

and sought another union, themost powerful union in the country, a union that'smade up

of 2 and 1/2 million members, has a Treasury,so staggering that it baffles the imaginati

on, andsought this union, the Teamsters union, and theybecame partners in this marria

ge of convenience.

On April 15, we had 34 contracts in Coachella. OnApril 16, we had two contract and the

Teamsters had32 contracts, and yet not one election had beenconducted. How do we a

ccount for that? The workershad absolutely nothing to do with it. Those contractswere gi

ven, their sweetheart contracts, under the tablegimmicks. The Teamsters Union in the in

stance of farmlabor is being used as a company union to destir amovement.

And so the workers did what they must do. Theyorganized, they struck, and they began

to boycott. Inthe period from April the 16th to August the 23rd oflast year, we had over 3

0 people in the picket lines.Over 67 injunctions were issue to us.

Let me tell you how ridiculous those injunctions get.They were being issued ex

parte. We were not presentwhen the injunction was issued, which isunconstitutional. Th

ey were issuing injunctions to curbour first amendment rights. The injunctions were such

that it prevented us in some instances boycottingaltogether, which is also unconstitution

al, from striking.The workers decided to disobey the injunctionsnonviolently. And over 5,

000 were arrested.

In the first week of August, last year, in the San

Joaquin Valley, from Marvin California, in Kern Countyup to Fresno, every single-

- there are three countiesinvolved, Kern, Tulare and Fresno-

- every single largecounty jail and every city jail, about 26 city jails inthose three countie

s, were filled with strikers. And theevery jail facility was completely full, and the strikersw

ere being detained at the fairgrounds in Kern and inFresno Counties. Men and women a

nd children whohad never been to jail were going to jail and werehappy to go to jail for t

heir union, for the cause thatthey had.

And so when the deputy sheriffs were beating theheck out of us and were mistreating u

s and putting usin jail, we were going to the Board of Supervisors andwe were strenuou

sly demanding that those deputysheriffs should be paid time and a half after 40 hoursan

d double time after 54 hours.

[APPLAUSE]

And some of the more, some of the more civilizeddeputy sheriffs were coming to us qui

etly and asking,why, we do these things to you that may or may not beunjust or just or l

egal or illegal, why do you want us toget more money for our work? And we said, you sh

allsee.

At the end of the strike, the Board of Supervisors inFresno County was presented with a

$380,000 bill fromthe sheriff's department for extra time for the deputysheriffs. The Boa

rd of Supervisors are saying to thisday, we haven't got the money. We're not going toap

prove it. The deputy sheriffs are not being paid theirtime and a half and overtime and do

uble time they'vebeen promised, and they're saying that they haveserious doubts that th

ey'll go out to the picket linesagain and work overtime this year.

[APPLAUSE]

Brothers and sisters, nonviolence offers unlimitedhorizons. All you got to do is think. Thi

nk and work.You see, Gandhi often said, and you know he used theboycott very, very w

ell. And those of you who arefamiliar with his writings will marvel at the way that theboyc

ott was used in the salt protest. But he said that innonviolent struggle to change society

and bring aboutsocial justice, that the boycott is the most near-

perfectinstrument to struggle with and by.

And we tend to think it's so. Because you see, theboycott is not grapes or lettuce or Boo

ne's Farms orGallo or Spanada. The boycott is people.

Let me give you an example of some of ourexperiences of the boycott. I'm telling you th

eseexperiences, because we don't know what it is. Andeven though we have probably

more experience inboycotting than almost any other group in the country,there are still

many unanswered questions.

Not long ago, a friend of ours was traveling in Hong

Kong on a vacation, a very good supporter of theunion. He had the occasion to be walki

ng in the streetsof Hong Kong and came up on a small fruit stand. Andthere he saw a lo

nely picket, one man with a picketsign. Looked up at the picketer, saw that there were o

nthat sign what he considered to be Chinesecharacters. Not knowing the Chinese langu

age, ofcourse, he didn't give it another thought.

But as that picket went and turned around to makeanother pass in front of that fruit stan

d, saw in plainEnglish the words, "Do not eat, do not by Californiagrapes." And he rushe

d out there to congratulate theman, because well, gee, how did, you know, who gaveyo

u the message?

But that man didn't speak English. And we neverfound out why he was doing it. But he c

ame back toCalifornia and came to visit me to tell me what hadhappened.

And I answered, he says, how, do you know? I

said, noexcept I think the spirit did it. The spirit of nonviolence,the spirit of justice and tru

th, which is very, verypowerful. And it

can cross oceans and mountains andso forth and reach very far.

Because you see, throughout the world there are menand women who are dedicated to

justice. As there aresome here, as there are some in California, as thereare some wher

ever there are people. And it is theythat, together, move the whole world towards a mor

ejust place to live in.

And so, brothers and sisters, I want to leave a fewminutes for questions and answers. I

want to just endby saying this. I was asked, in Columbus this morning,why should we be

concerned about the farm workers?And I said, that is a very good question. And let me

tellyou why I think you should be concerned.

If you want to think, next time, the moment, the verynext meal you have, when you sit in

that table,consider the following. Almost everything that you eatat that table, whether it'

s the morning, at noon or in theevening, whether it's dairy products, fruits, vegetables,nu

ts, grains, remember that they didn't get therebecause of a miracle. They got there beca

use at theother end, at the end where they're harvested, wherethey're cultivated and wh

ere they're planted,harvested, cultivated and harvested, there is someoneback there, m

aybe a minor, child, a woman or a man,who sacrificed themselves. Cheap wages, horrib

leworking conditions, houses so bad that it's just a joke.Men, women and children who s

ometimes, by the timethey're 30 years of age, they are ready for the scrapheap.

Yesterday, in the Coachella Valley where the workstarted 14 days ago and where there

are twoimmigration checkpoints who check the people whocome from Mexico to see tha

t they're not coming inillegally, those checkpoints were closed down 14 daysago. In fact,

a night before the work started inCoachella, those checkpoints that harassed me when

Iwas a kid because I happened to be of Mexicanextraction, and because of that I was s

uspect, primesuspect of being a wetback even though I was born inArizona, those same

checkpoints are today closed,dark, and hundreds of illegals are coming across thebord

er.

You can't ban their hungry. The [INAUDIBLE] inMexico is in shambles. And they come,

and they areused to break our strikes, adding insult to injury.Taking advantage not only

of the farmworker here, butthese growers go to Mexico and then take advantageof the o

thers over there, use our brothers against us tobreak our strikes.

And so you are then the court of last resort. If you don'thelp us with the lettuce boycott a

nd the grapes andGallo and Boone's Farm and the others, there's no waywe can win. It'

s up to you.

We want to thank you for your attention, to tell you thatwe've done our job. You now mu

st vote and decide.You can help in many ways. You can help by verysimply just passing

the lettuce and the grapes and thewines. You can help by picketing. You can help bybe

coming very involved in what's being done here inAthens. Or you can contribute money,

whatever. Butthat's up to you. Thank you very much.

[APPLAUSE]

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