Oratorical Pieces Jem...

8/3/2019 Oratorical Pieces Jem...

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/oratorical-pieces-jem 1/16

Oratorical Pieces

Submitted by:Jemimah Rose A. Jagonase

Submitted to:Ms. Cristine Melody Guarino



Shylock’s Defense by William Shakespeare (from TheMerchant of Venice Act III, Scene I, lines 43-61)

To bait fish withal: if it feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath

disgraced me, and hindered me half a million, laughed at my losses, mocked atmy gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends,heated mine enemies; and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes?hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healedby the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as aChristian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh?if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If weare like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian,

what is his humility? Revenge! If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should hissufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge! The villainy you teach me Iwill execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.

Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death by Patrick Henry

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of

experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with whichgentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House. Is it thatinsidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not,sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with akiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shownourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win backour love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war andsubjugation; the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir,what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission?Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain anyenemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies



and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us: they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry has been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them?Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years.

Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held thesubject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shallwe resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find whichhave not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves.Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is nowcoming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; wehave prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition toarrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions havebeen slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult;

our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, withcontempt, from the foot of the throne! In vain, after these things, may weindulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free-- if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending--if we mean not basely toabandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and whichwe have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained--we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! Anappeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us!

They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable anadversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the nextyear? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shallbe stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution andinaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinelyon our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shallhave bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that whichwe possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presidesover the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it



is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submissionand slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plainsof Boston! The war is inevitable--and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace-- but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from thenorth will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren arealready in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish?What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what courseothers may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

I Am a Filipino By Carlos P. Romulo

I am a Filipino - inheritor of a glorious past, hostage to the uncertain future. Assuch I must prove equal to a two-fold task- the task of meeting myresponsibility to the past, and the task of performing my obligation to the future. I sprung from a hardy race - child of many generations removed of ancient Malayan pioneers. Across the centuries, the memory comes rushingback to me: of brown-skinned men putting out to sea in ships that were as frail

as their hearts were stout. Over the sea I see them come, borne upon the billowingwave and the whistling wind, carried upon the mighty swell of hope- hope in the free abundance of new land that was to be their home and their children's forever.

This is the land they sought and found. Every inch of shore that their eyes firstset upon, every hill and mountain that beckoned to them with a green and purple invitation, every mile of rolling plain that their view encompassed, everyriver and lake that promise a plentiful living and the fruitfulness of commerce,

is a hollowed spot to me.

By the strength of their hearts and hands, by every right of law, human anddivine, this land and all the appurtenances thereof - the black and fertile soil, the seas and lakes and rivers teeming with fish, the forests with their inexhaustible wealth in wild life and timber, the mountains with their bowels



swollen with minerals - the whole of this rich and happy land has been, for centuries without number, the land of my fathers. This land I received in trust from them and in trust will pass it to my children, and so on until the world nomore.

I am a Filipino. In my blood runs the immortal seed of heroes - seed that flowered down the centuries in deeds of courage and defiance. In my veins yet pulses the same hot blood that sent Lapulapu to battle against the alien foe thatdrove Diego Silang and Dagohoy into rebellion against the foreign oppressor.

That seed is immortal. It is the self-same seed that flowered in the heart of JoseRizal that morning in Bagumbayan when a volley of shots put an end to all that was mortal of him and made his spirit deathless forever; the same that

flowered in the hearts of Bonifacio in Balintawak, of Gergorio del Pilar at TiradPass, of Antonio Luna at Calumpit; that bloomed in flowers of frustration in the sad heart of Emilio Aguinaldo at Palanan, and yet burst fourth royallyagain in the proud heart of Manuel L. Quezon when he stood at last on the threshold of ancient Malacañang Palace, in the symbolic act of possession andracial vindication.

The seed I bear within me is an immortal seed. It is the mark of my manhood, the symbol of dignity as a human being. Like the seeds that were once buried in

the tomb of Tutankhamen many thousand years ago, it shall grow and flower and bear fruit again. It is the insigne of my race, and my generation is but astage in the unending search of my people for freedom and happiness.

I am a Filipino, child of the marriage of the East and the West. The East, withits languor and mysticism, its passivity and endurance, was my mother, andmy sire was the West that came thundering across the seas with the Cross andSword and the Machine. I am of the East, an eager participant in its struggles for liberation from the imperialist yoke. But I also know that the East must

awake from its centuried sleep, shape of the lethargy that has bound his limbs,and start moving where destiny awaits.

For, I, too, am of the West, and the vigorous peoples of the West have destroyed forever the peace and quiet that once were ours. I can no longer live, being apart from those world now trembles to the roar of bomb and cannon shot. For no manand no nation is an island, but a part of the main, there is no longer any East



and West - only individuals and nations making those momentous choices that are hinges upon which history resolves.

At the vanguard of progress in this part of the world I stand - a forlorn figure in

the eyes of some, but not one defeated and lost. For through the thick,interlacing branches of habit and custom above me I have seen the light of thesun, and I know that it is good. I have seen the light of justice and equality and freedom and my heart has been lifted by the vision of democracy, and I shallnot rest until my land and my people shall have been blessed by these, beyond the power of any man or nation to subvert or destroy.

I am a Filipino, and this is my inheritance. What pledge shall I give that I may prove worthy of my inheritance? I shall give the pledge that has come ringing

down the corridors of the centuries, and it shall be compounded of the joyouscries of my Malayan forebears when they first saw the contours of this landloom before their eyes, of the battle cries that have resounded in every field of combat from Mactan to Tirad pass, of the voices of my people when they sing:

Land of the Morning,Child of the sun returning…Ne'er shall invaders trample thy sacred shore.

Out of the lush green of these seven thousand isles, out of the heartstrings of

sixteen million people all vibrating to one song, I shall weave the mighty fabricof my pledge. Out of the songs of the farmers at sunrise when they go to labor in the fields; out of the sweat of the hard-bitten pioneers in Mal-ig andKoronadal; out of the silent endurance of stevedores at the piers and the ominousgrumbling of peasants Pampanga; out of the first cries of babies newly bornand the lullabies that mothers sing; out of the crashing of gears and the whineof turbines in the factories; out of the crunch of ploughs upturning the earth; outof the limitless patience of teachers in the classrooms and doctors in the clinics;out of the tramp of soldiers marching, I shall make the pattern of my pledge:

"I am a Filipino born of freedom and I shall not rest until freedom shallhave been added unto my inheritance - for myself and my children's children - forever.



I Have a Dream by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we standsigned the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a greatbeacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the longnight of captivity. But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free.

One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by themanacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years

later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast oceanof material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishingin the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.

So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition. In a sense wehave come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every Americanwas to fall heir.

This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rightsof life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that Americahas defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color areconcerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given theNegro people a bad check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." Butwe refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.

So we have come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand theriches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowedspot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engagein the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to thesunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to



all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to

underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of theNegro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigoratingautumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but abeginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will nowbe content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business asusual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro isgranted his citizenship rights.

The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation

until the bright day of justice emerges. But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity anddiscipline. we must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physicalviolence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting

physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community mustnot lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, asevidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shallmarch ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees

of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" we can never be satisfied as long asour bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motelsof the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in NewYork believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and



we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousnesslike a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and

tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow cells. Some of you havecome from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been theveterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearnedsuffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to Georgia, go back toLouisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the

valley of despair. I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficultiesand frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rootedin the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the truemeaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men arecreated equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sonsof former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of

Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression,will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream thatmy four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters

and brothers. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valleyshall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough placeswill be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the gloryof the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope.This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be



able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautifulsymphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a newmeaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Landwhere my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring." And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. Solet freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedomring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from theheightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from thesnowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of

California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedomring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From everymountainside, let freedom ring.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and everyhamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that daywhen all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles,Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of

the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Despair of Judas

I will rest here, awhile. His face! His face! Not comely now. There is no beauty init. It is scarred into my heart. It is burned into my soul and never will it lift from me until I die. Die? Will death quench the flames which consume me?

Traitor, not endless years in hell can even pay the crime of murdering the sonof God.

And last night, he dealt with me so gently. He washed my feet. He bade me to put my hand into the cup with his, while in my purse there jingled the coins



which bought his blood. It was better for that man that he had never been born.Who? Who but I, who but I, I who betrayed him!

“What you do, do it quickly.” He knew, and kept my sin a secret.

“Friend, where unto have you come, Judas, Judas, do you betray the Son of Godwith a kiss?”

Friend! Friend! He called me his friend. The man I betrayed called me his friend. How hell must have laughed. Why did not the mountains fall on me?

Why did not the earth gape and swallow me up? Why did not the sea overwhelmme? Friend. Ha! Ha! Friend. Ha! Ha! Ha! The world will know Judas as the friend.

The world will point to Judas as a by word, and as a pledge of broken faith!

Do you think Judas you can hide from the father of your friend Jesus? Not evenin hell can I escape. Not in the grave for the earth will spurn my corpse. Not in the heavens for Jesus the friend is there.

What hope for Judas? What hope for Judas? Not even in hell can I escape for hecalled me devil, and devils cried out: torment us not, Jesus, Judas, faithless

friend, devil, one of whom it would have been better not to have been born. Thereis no hope for you, no hope, no hope…

We Have Become Untrue to Ourselves! By Felix B. Bautista

With all the force and vigor at my command, I contend that we have relaxed our vigilance, that we have allowed ourselves to deteriorate. I contend that we havelost our pride in the Philippines, that we no longer consider it a privilege and anhonor to be born a Filipino.

To the Filipino youth, nothing Filipino is good enough any more. Even their Filipino names no longer suit them. A boy named Juan does not care to be called

Juanito anymore. No, he must be Johnny. A girl named Virginia would get soreif she was nicknamed Viring or Biñang. No, she must be Virgie or Ginny.Roberto has become Bobbie; Maria, Mary or Marie.



And because they have become so Americanized, because they look down oneverything Filipino, they now regard with contempt all the things that our fathers and our fathers’ fathers held dear. They frown on kissing the hands of their elders, saying that it is unsanitary. They don’t care for the Angelus,

saying that it is old-fashioned. They belittle the kundiman, because it is sodrippingly sentinmental.

They are what they are today because their elders – their parents and their teachers – have allowed them to be such. They are incongruities because theycannot be anything else! And they cannot be anything else because their eldersdid not know enough, or did not care enough to fashion them and to mold theminto the Filipino pattern.

This easing of the barriers that would have protected our Filipinism, this hasresulted in something more serious, I refer to the de-Filipinization of our economic life.

Let us face it. Economically speaking, we Filipinos have become strangers inour own country.

And so, today, we are witnesses to the spectacle of a Philippines inhabited byFilipinos who do not act and talk like Filipinos. We are witnesses to the pathetic

sight of a Philippines controlled and dominated and run by non-Filipinos.We have become untrue to ourselves, we have become traitors to the braveFilipinos who fought and died so that liberty might live in the Philippines. Wehave betrayed the trust that Rizal reposed on us, we are not true to the faith thatenergized Bonifacio, the faith that made Gregorio del Pilar cheerfully lay downhis life at Tirad Pass.

Dirty Hands by John P. Delaney S.J.

I’m proud of my dirty hands. Yes, they are dirty. And they are rough andknobby and calloused. And I’m proud of the dirt and the knobs and thecallouses. I didn’t get them that way by playing bridge or drinking afternoon tea out of dainty cups, or playing the well-advertised Good Samaritan atcharity balls.



I got them that way by working with them, and I’m proud of the work and thedirt. Why shouldn’t I feel proud od the work they do – these dirty hands of mine?

My hands are the hands of plumbers, of truckdrivers and street cleaners; of carpenters; engineers, machinists and workers in steel. They are not prettyhands, they are dirty and knobby and calloused. But they are strong hands,hands that make so much that the world must have or die.

Someday, I think, the world should go down on its knees and kiss all the dirtyhands of the working world, as in the days long past, armored knights wouldkiss the hands of ladies fair. I’m proud of my dirty hands. The world haskissed such hands. The world will always kiss such hands. Men and women

put reverent lips to the hands of Him who held the hammer and the saw and the plane. His weren’t pretty hands either when they chopped trees , dragged roughlumber, and wielded car penter’s tools. They were workingman’s hands – strong,capable proud hands. And weren’t pretty hands when the executioners got through them. They were torn right clean through by ugly nails, and the bloodwas running from them, and the edges of the wounds were raw and dirty andswollen; and the joints were crooked and the fingers were horribly bent in amute appeal for love.

They weren’t pretty hands then, but, O God, they were beautiful – those handsof the Savior. I’m proud of those dirty hands, hands of my Savior, hands of God.

And I’m proud of my hands too, dirty hands, like the hands of my Savior, theHands of my God!

Jewels of the Pauper by Horacio de la Costa, S.J.

There is a thought that comes to me sometimes as I sit by my window in theevening, listening to the young men’s guitars, and watching the shadowsdeepen on the longs hills, the hills of my native land.

You know, we are a remarkably poor people; poor not only in material goods, buteven in the riches of the spirit. I doubt we can claim to possess a truly nationalliterature. No Shakespeare, no Cervantes has yet been born among us to touch



with immortality that which is in our landscape, in our customs, in our story, that which is most original, most ourselves. If we must give currency to our thoughts, we are focused to mint them in the coinage of a foreign tongue; for wedo not even have a common language.

But poor as we are, we yet have something. This pauper among the nations of theearth hides two jewels in her rages. One of them is our music. We are sunderedone from another by eighty-seven dialects; we are one people when we sing. Thekundimans of Bulacan awaken an answering chord of lutes of Leyte.Somewhere in the rugged north, a peasant woman croons her child to sleep; and the Visayan listening remembers the crane fields of his childhood, and hismother singing the self-made song.

We are again one people when we pray. This is our other treasure; our Faith. Itgives somehow, to our little uneventful days, a kind of splendor; as though theyhad been touched by a king. And did you ever notice how they are alwaysmingling, our religion and our music? All the basic rite of human life – theharvest and the seedtime, the wedding, birth and death – are among usdrenched with the fragrance and the coolness of music.

These are the bonds that bind us together; these are the souls that make us one. And as long as there remains in these islands one mother to sing Nena’s

lullaby, one boat to put out to sea with the immemorial rowing song, one priest to stand at the altar and offer God to God, the nation may be conquered, trampled upon, enslaved, but it cannot perish. Like the sun that dies everyevening it will rise again from the dead.

The Two Standards by Horacio de la Costa, S.J.

Life is a Warfare: a warfare between two standards: the Standard of Christ and

the Standard of Satan. It is a warfare older than the world, for it began with therevolt of the angels. It is a warfare wide as the world; it rages in every nation,every city, in the heart of every man. Satan desires all men to come under hisStandard, and to this end lures them with riches, honors, power, all thatministers to the lust and pride of man. Christ on the contrary, invites all to fight under His Standard. But He offers no worldly allurement; only Himself.



Only Jesus; only the Son of Man; born an outcast, raised in poverty, rejected asa teacher, betrayed by His friend, crucified as a criminal. And therefore His followers shall not be confounded forever; they are certain of ultimate victory;against them, the gates of Hell cannot prevail. The powers of darkness shall

splinter before their splendid battalions. Battle-scarred but resplendent, theyshall enter into glory with Christ, their king. Two armies, two Standards, twogenerals… and to every man there comes the imperious cry of command: Choose!Christ or Satan? Choose! Sanctity or Sin? Choose! Heaven or Hell? And in thechoice he makes, is summed up the life of every man.

Because of What We Are, Of What We Believe

For every generation, there is a destiny. For some, history decides. For this

generation, the choice must be our own.Our destiny in the midst of change will rest on the changed character of our

people and on their faith.

In a land of great wealth, families must not live in hopeless poverty.In a land rich in harvest, children must not be hungry.

In a land of healing miracles, neighbors must not suffer and die untended.

In a great land of learning and scholars, young people must be taught to readand write.

How incredible it is that in this fragile existence, we should hate and destroy

one another. There are possibilities enough for all who will abandon mastery;

others to pursue mastery over nature. There is world enough for all to seek their

happiness in their own way.

We have discovered that every child who learns, and every man who finds work,

and every sick body that is made whole – like a candle added to an altar – brightens the hope of all the faithful.

So let us reject any among us, who seek to reopen old wounds, and rekindle old

hatreds. They stand in the way of a seeking nation.



Let us join reason to faith and action to experience, to transform our unity of

interest into a unity of purpose. To achieve change without hatred; not without

difference of opinion but without the deep and abiding divisions which scar theunion for generations.

Under the covenant of justice, liberty and union, we have become a nation. Andwe have kept our freedom. It is the excitement of becoming – always becoming,

trying, probing, resting, and trying again but always gaining.

If we fail now, then we will have forgotten in abundance what we learned in

hardship; that democracy rests on faith, that freedom asks more that it gives.

If we succeeded, it will not be because of what we have, but it will be because of what we are; not because of what we own, but rather because of what we believe.

For we are a nation of believers. Underneath the clamor of buildings and the

rush of our day’s pursuits, we are the believers in justice and liberty and union.

And in our own union we believe that every man must some day be free. And we

believe in ourselves.

For this is what our country is all about. It is the uncrossed desert and theunclimbed bridge. It is the star that is not reached and the harvest that is

sleeping in the unplowed ground.

Is our world gone? We say farewell, is a new world coming? We welcome it – and

we will bend it to the hopes of man.

But you must look within your own hearts to the old promises and to the olddreams. They will lead you the best of all.

Oratorical Pieces Jem...

Documents

Transcript of Oratorical Pieces Jem...