(HOST) This is the time of year for graduations and commencement addresses. And commentator Peter Gilbert is reminded of a classic commencement address that is as inspiring today as it was when it was given – in 1954.
(GILBERT) One university president I know used to begin his Commencement speeches with a bit of doggerel:
The month of June approaches, and soon across the land
The graduation speakers will tell us where we stand.
We stand at Armageddon, in the vanguard of the press.
We’re standing at the crossroads, at the gateway to success.
We stand upon the threshold of careers all brightly lit.
In the midst of all this standing, we sit and sit and sit.
Joking aside, there are times when it’s appropriate to be serious, to talk about important things; ceremonies of leave-taking and commencing are such times.
Adlai Stevenson gave a terrific commencement speech at Princeton in 1954; it’s anthologized in volumes of great American speeches. Eloquent and thoughtful, Stevenson was considered an intellectual. Once, on the campaign trail for the presidency, an enthusiastic supporter told him gushingly that every thinking American would be voting for him. Stevenson replied that that wouldn’t be enough, he needed a majority!
The subject of his speech at Princeton was the educated citizen. Stevenson pointed out that “our country has placed all of our faith… all of our hopes, upon the education, the intelligence, and the understanding of our people… We believe that the people will find their way to the right solutions, given sufficient information. We have bet all our chips, if you please, on the intellectual improvement of our people.”
Stevenson urged the graduates, most importantly, to think for themselves: “Nothing,” he said, “has been . . . more disheartening . . . in the last several years in America than the growth of the popularity of unreason, of anti-intellectualism. One thinks of those chanting, screaming crowds that walked over precipices in Germany and not so long ago. The conformists abominate thought. Thinking implies disagreement and disagreement implies non-conformity and non-conformity implies heresy and heresy implies disloyalty. So obviously thinking must be stopped…”
Educated citizens had, Stevenson argued, had “a duty to work to put good people into public office and to defend them there against abuse and the ugly inclination we as human beings have to believe the worst… It is not enough merely to vote… we have the further obligation to think… It is always true that when the citizens of a democracy become apathetic, a power vacuum is created, and corrupt men, or incompetents or worse, rush in and fill it.” Stevenson continued, “the world’s fate now hangs upon how well or how ill we in America conduct our affairs. And if a bad man is elected trustee of a sanitary district, or an able man in Washington is left to shift for himself in the face of unjustified attack, then our government is diminished by that much and even more because others will lose heart from his example.”
Stevenson’s words are powerful and timeless, serious and important for students on graduation day, and for citizens every day.
Peter Gilbert is executive director of the Vermont Humanities Council.