Chronological List of Addresses, Speeches and Letters 1990 - 1999

1990 - 1999

Bush, Barbara, Address to Wellesley College “Choices and Change,” June 1, 1990 (Rhetoric #47)

Bush, George, Announces "War with Iraq", January 16, 1991

Clinton, Hillary Rodham, “Women’s Rights are Human Rights,” September 5, 1995 (Rhetoric #35)

Clinton, William J., “Map Room Speech,” August 17, 1998

Cochran, Johnnie, Closing Argument at the O.J. Simpson murder trial, September 28, 1995 (Carroll 420)

Fisher, Mary, Addresses the Republican National Convention, “A Whisper of AIDS,” August 19, 1992 (GOS)

Graham, Rev. Billy, “Mystery of Evil,” given for victims of the Oklahoma City Bombing, April 24, 1995 (Carroll 413)

Heston, Charlton, Speaks in support of the 2nd Amendment, February 11, 1997 (Carroll 426)

Hill, Anita, “Statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee,” October 11, 1991 (GOS)

Inouye, Daniel, “To the 442nd Infantry Regimental Combat Team,” 1993 (Gale) (Carroll 400) (McIntire)

Ripken, Cal Jr., “To His Fans,” 1995 (McIntire)

Steinem, Gloria, "Scholars, Witches and Other Freedom Fighters," Speech at Salem State College, March 1993

Streisand, Barbara, Defends the role of artists in American society and politics, February 3, 1995 (Carroll 407)

Thomas, Clarence, "Defends Himself Against Sexual Harassment Charges", October 11, 1991 (HIST- AUDIO ONLY) (Carroll 391)

Wiesel, Elie, “The Perils of Indifference,” April 12, 1999

Source: Gifts of Speech - Top 100 American Speeches. Dec. 2002. Sweet Brian College. 10 Jan. 2003

Bush, Barbara, Address to Wellesley College “Choices and Change,” June 1, 1990 (Rhetoric #47)

Choices and Change by Mrs. George Bush Former First Lady of the United States

June 1, 1990 -- Severance Green, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts

Thank you President Keohane, Mrs. Gorbachev, Trustees, faculty, parents, Julie Porter, Christine Bicknell and the Class of 1990. I am thrilled to be with you today, and very excited, as I know you must all be, that Mrs. Gorbachev could join us.

More than ten years ago when I was invited here to talk about our experiences in the people's republic of china, I was struck by both the natural beauty of your campus . . . and the spirit of this place.

Wellesley, you see, is not just a place . . . but an idea . . . an experiment in excellence in which diversity is not just tolerated, but is embraced.

The essence of this spirit was captured in a moving speech about tolerance given last year by the student body President of one of your sister colleges. She related the story by Robert Fulghum about a young pastor who, finding himself in charge of some very energetic children, hit upon a game called "Giants, Wizards and Dwarfs." "You have to decide now," the pastor instructed the children, "which you are . . . a giant, a wizard or a dwarf?" At that, a small girl tugging on his pants leg, asked, "But where do the mermaids stand?."

The pastor told her there are no mermaids. "Oh yes there are," she said. "I am a mermaid."

This little girl knew what she was and she was not about to give up on either her identity or the game. She intended to take place wherever mermaids fit into the scheme of things. Where do the mermaids stand . . . all those who are different, those who do not fit the boxes and the pigeonholes? "Answer that question," wrote Fulghum, "and you can build a school, a nation, or a whole world on it."

As that very wise young woman said . . . "diversity . . . like anything worth having . . . requires effort." Effort to learn about and respect difference, to be compassionate with one another, to cherish our own identity . . . and to accept unconditionally the same in all others.

You should all be very proud that this is the Wellesley spirit. Now I know your first choice for today was Alice Walker, known for The Color Purple. Instead you got me - known for . . . the color of my hair! Of course, Alice Walker's book has a special resonance here. At Wellesley, each class is known by a special color . . . and for four years the Class of '90 has worn the color purple. Today you meet on Severance Green to say goodbye to all that . . . to begin a new and very personal journey . . . a search for your own true colors.

In the world that awaits you beyond the shores of Lake Waban, no one can say what your true colors will be. But this I know: You have a first class education from a first class school. And so you need not, probably cannot, live a "paint-by numbers" life. Decisions are not irrevocable. Choices do come bacK. As you set off from Wellesley, I hope that many of you will consider making three very special choices.

The first is to believe in something larger than yourself . . . to get involved in some of the big ideas of your time. I chose literacy because I honestly believe that if more people could read, write and comprehend, we would be that much closer to solving so many of the problems plaguing our society.

Early on I made another choice which I hope you will make as well. Whether you are talking about education, career or service, you are talking about life . . . and life must have joy. It's supposed to be fun.

One of the reasons I made the most important decision of my life . . . to marry George Bush . . . is because he made me laugh. It's true, sometimes we've laughed through our tears . . . but that shared laughter has been one of our strongest bonds. Find the joy in life, because as Ferris Bueller said on his day off . . . "Life moves pretty fast. Ya don't stop and look around once in a while, ya gonna miss it!"

The third choice that must not be missed is to cherish your human connections: your relationships with friends and family. For several years, you've had impressed upon you the importance to your career of dedication and hard work. This is true, but as important as your obligations as a doctor, lawyer or business leader will be, you are a human being first and those human connections -- with spouses, with children, with friends -- are the most important investments you will ever make.

At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a friend, a child or a parent.

We are are in a transitional period right now . . . fascinating and exhilarating times . . . learning to adjust to the changes and the choices we . . . men and women . . . are facing. I remember what a friend said, on hearing her husband lament to his buddies that he had to baby-sit. Quickly setting him straight my friend told her husband that when it's your own kids it's not called babysitting!"

Maybe we should adjust faster, maybe slower, but whatever the era . . . whatever the times, one thing will never change: fathers and mothers, if you have children they must come first. Your success as a family . . . our success as a society depends not on what happens at the White House, but on what happens inside your house.

For over 50 years, it was said that the winner of Wellesley's Annual Hoop Race would be the first to get married. Now they say the winner will be the first to become a C.E.O. Both of these stereotypes show too little tolerance for those who want to know where mermaids stand. So I offer you today a new legend: the winner of the Hoop Race will be the first to realize her dream . . . not society's dream . . . her own personal dream. And who knows? Somewhere out in this audience may even be someone who will one day follow my footsteps, and preside over the White House as the President's spouse. I wish him well!

The controversy ends here. But our conversation is only beginning. And a worthwhile conversation it is. So as you leave Wellesley today, take with you deep thanks for the courtesy and honor you have shared with Mrs. Gorbachev and me. Thank you. God bless you. And may your future be worthy of your dreams.

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Source: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ghwbushiraqinvasion.htm

Bush, George, Announces "War with Iraq", January 16, 1991

Address to the Nation on the Invasion of Iraq

Just two hours ago, allied air forces began an attack on military targets in Iraq and Kuwait. These attacks continue as I speak. Ground forces are not engaged.

This conflict started August 2nd when the dictator of Iraq invaded a small and helpless neighbor. Kuwait -- a member of the Arab League and a member of the United Nations -- was crushed; its people, brutalized. Five months ago, Saddam Hussein started this cruel war against Kuwait. Tonight, the battle has been joined.

This military action, taken in accord with United Nations resolutions and with the consent of the United States Congress, follows months of constant and virtually endless diplomatic -- diplomatic activity on the part of the United Nations, the United States, and many, many other countries. Arab leaders sought what became known as an Arab solution, only to conclude that Saddam Hussein was unwilling to leave Kuwait. Others traveled to Baghdad in a variety of efforts to restore peace and justice. Our Secretary of State, James Baker, held an historic meeting in Geneva, only to be totally rebuffed. This past weekend, in a last- ditch effort, the Secretary-General of the United Nations went to the Middle East with peace in his heart -- his second such mission. And he came back from Baghdad with no progress at all in getting Saddam Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait.

Now the 28 countries with forces in the Gulf area have exhausted all reasonable efforts to reach a peaceful resolution -- have no choice but to drive Saddam from Kuwait by force. We will not fail.

As I report to you, air attacks are underway against military targets in Iraq. We are determined to knock out Saddam Hussein's nuclear bomb potential. We will also destroy his chemical weapons facilities. Much of Saddam's artillery and tanks will be destroyed. Our operations are designed to best protect the lives of all the coalition forces by targeting Saddam's vast military arsenal. Initial reports from General Schwarzkopf are that our operations are proceeding according to plan.

Our objectives are clear: Saddam Hussein's forces will leave Kuwait. The legitimate government of Kuwait will be restored to its rightful place, and Kuwait will once again be free. Iraq will eventually comply with all relevant United Nations resolutions, and then, when peace is restored, it is our hope that Iraq will live as a peaceful and cooperative member of the family of nations, thus enhancing the security and stability of the Gulf.

Some may ask: Why act now? Why not wait? The answer is clear: The world could wait no longer. Sanctions, though having some effect, showed no signs of accomplishing their objective. Sanctions were tried for well over five months, and we and our allies concluded that sanctions alone would not force Saddam from Kuwait.

While the world waited, Saddam Hussein systematically raped, pillaged, and plundered a tiny nation, no threat to his own. He subjected the people of Kuwait to unspeakable atrocities -- and among those maimed and murdered, innocent children.

While the world waited, Saddam sought to add to the chemical weapons arsenal he now possesses, an infinitely more dangerous weapon of mass destruction -- a nuclear weapon.

And while the world waited, while the world talked peace and withdrawal, Saddam Hussein dug in and moved massive forces into Kuwait.

While the world waited, while Saddam stalled, more damage was being done to the fragile economies of the Third World, emerging democracies of Eastern Europe, to the entire world, including to our own economy.

The United States, together with the United Nations, exhausted every means at our disposal to bring this crisis to a peaceful end. However, Saddam clearly felt that by stalling and threatening and defying the United Nations, he could weaken the forces arrayed against him.

While the world waited, Saddam Hussein met every overture of peace with open contempt.

While the world prayed for peace, Saddam prepared for war.

I had hoped that when the United States Congress, in historic debate, took its resolute action, Saddam would realize he could not prevail and would move out of Kuwait in accord with the United Nation resolutions. He did not do that. Instead, he remained intransigent, certain that time was on his side.

Saddam was warned over and over again to comply with the will of the United Nations: Leave Kuwait, or be driven out. Saddam has arrogantly rejected all warnings. Instead, he tried to make this a dispute between Iraq and the United States of America.

Well, he failed. Tonight, 28 nations -- countries from 5 continents, Europe and Asia, Africa, and the Arab League -- have forces in the Gulf area standing shoulder to shoulder against Saddam Hussein. These countries had hoped the use of force could be avoided. Regrettably, we now believe that only force will make him leave.

Prior to ordering our forces into battle, I instructed our military commanders to take every necessary step to prevail as quickly as possible, and with the greatest degree of protection possible for American and allied service men and women. I've told the American people before that this will not be another Vietnam, and I repeat this here tonight. Our troops will have the best possible support in the entire world, and they will not be asked to fight with one hand tied behind their back. I'm hopeful that this fighting will not go on for long and that casualties will be held to an absolute minimum.

This is an historic moment. We have in this past year made great progress in ending the long era of conflict and cold war. We have before us the opportunity to forge for ourselves and for future generations a new world order -- a world where the rule of law, not the law of the jungle, governs the conduct of nations. When we are successful -- and we will be -- we have a real chance at this new world order, an order in which a credible United Nations can use its peacekeeping role to fulfill the promise and vision of the U.N.'s founders.

We have no argument with the people of Iraq. Indeed, for the innocents caught in this conflict, I pray for their safety. Our goal is not the conquest of Iraq. It is the liberation of Kuwait. It is my hope that somehow the Iraqi people can, even now, convince their dictator that he must lay down his arms, leave Kuwait, and let Iraq itself rejoin the family of peace-loving nations.

Thomas Paine wrote many years ago: "These are the times that try men's souls."' Those well-known words are so very true today. But even as planes of the multinational forces attack Iraq, I prefer to think of peace, not war. I am convinced not only that we will prevail but that out of the horror of combat will come the recognition that no nation can stand against a world united, no nation will be permitted to brutally assault its neighbor.

No President can easily commit our sons and daughters to war. They are the Nation's finest. Ours is an all- volunteer force, magnificently trained, highly motivated. The troops know why they're there. And listen to what they say, for they've said it better than any President or Prime Minister ever could.

Listen to Hollywood Huddleston, Marine lance corporal. He says, "Let's free these people, so we can go home and be free again."' And he's right. The terrible crimes and tortures committed by Saddam's henchmen against the innocent people of Kuwait are an affront to mankind and a challenge to the freedom of all.

Listen to one of our great officers out there, Marine Lieutenant General Walter Boomer. He said: "There are things worth fighting for. A world in which brutality and lawlessness are allowed to go unchecked isn't the kind of world we're going to want to live in.''

Listen to Master Sergeant J.P. Kendall of the 82d Airborne: "We're here for more than just the price of a gallon of gas. What we're doing is going to chart the future of the world for the next 100 years. It's better to deal with this guy now than five years from now."

And finally, we should all sit up and listen to Jackie Jones, an Army lieutenant, when she says, "If we let him get away with this, who knows what's going to be next?"

I have called upon Hollywood and Walter and J.P. and Jackie and all their courageous comrades-in-arms to do what must be done. Tonight, America and the world are deeply grateful to them and to their families. And let me say to everyone listening or watching tonight: When the troops we've sent in finish their work, I am determined to bring them home as soon as possible.

Tonight, as our forces fight, they and their families are in our prayers. May God bless each and every one of them, and the coalition forces at our side in the Gulf, and may He continue to bless our nation, the United States of America.

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Source: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/hillaryclintonbeijingspeech.htm

Clinton, Hillary Rodham, “Women’s Rights are Human Rights,” September 5, 1995 (Rhetoric #35)

Remarks to the U.N. 4th World Conference on Women Plenary Session

delivered 5 September 1995, Beijing, China

Thank you very much, Gertrude Mongella, for your dedicated work that has brought us to this point, distinguished delegates, and guests:

I would like to thank the Secretary General for inviting me to be part of this important United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women. This is truly a celebration, a celebration of the contributions women make in every aspect of life: in the home, on the job, in the community, as mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, learners, workers, citizens, and leaders.

It is also a coming together, much the way women come together every day in every country. We come together in fields and factories, in village markets and supermarkets, in living rooms and board rooms. Whether it is while playing with our children in the park, or washing clothes in a river, or taking a break at the office water cooler, we come together and talk about our aspirations and concern. And time and again, our talk turns to our children and our families. However different we may appear, there is far more that unites us than divides us. We share a common future, and we are here to find common ground so that we may help bring new dignity and respect to women and girls all over the world, and in so doing bring new strength and stability to families as well.

By gathering in Beijing, we are focusing world attention on issues that matter most in our lives -- the lives of women and their families: access to education, health care, jobs and credit, the chance to enjoy basic legal and human rights and to participate fully in the political life of our countries.

There are some who question the reason for this conference. Let them listen to the voices of women in their homes, neighborhoods, and workplaces. There are some who wonder whether the lives of women and girls matter to economic and political progress around the globe. Let them look at the women gathered here and at Huairou -- the homemakers and nurses, the teachers and lawyers, the policymakers and women who run their own businesses. It is conferences like this that compel governments and peoples everywhere to listen, look, and face the world’s most pressing problems. Wasn’t it after all -- after the women’s conference in Nairobi ten years ago that the world focused for the first time on the crisis of domestic violence?

Earlier today, I participated in a World Health Organization forum. In that forum, we talked about ways that government officials, NGOs, and individual citizens are working to address the health problems of women and girls. Tomorrow, I will attend a gathering of the United Nations Development Fund for Women. There, the discussion will focus on local -- and highly successful -- programs that give hard- working women access to credit so they can improve their own lives and the lives of their families.

What we are learning around the world is that if women are healthy and educated, their families will flourish. If women are free from violence, their families will flourish. If women have a chance to work and earn as full and equal partners in society, their families will flourish. And when families flourish, communities and nations do as well. That is why every woman, every man, every child, every family, and every nation on this planet does have a stake in the discussion that takes place here.

Over the past 25 years, I have worked persistently on issues relating to women, children, and families. Over the past two and a half years, I've had the opportunity to learn more about the challenges facing women in my own country and around the world.

I have met new mothers in Indonesia, who come together regularly in their village to discuss nutrition, family planning, and baby care. I have met working parents in Denmark who talk about the comfort they feel in knowing that their children can be cared for in safe, and nurturing after-school centers. I have met women in South Africa who helped lead the struggle to end apartheid and are now helping to build a new democracy. I have met with the leading women of my own hemisphere who are working every day to promote literacy and better health care for children in their countries. I have met women in India and Bangladesh who are taking out small loans to buy milk cows, or rickshaws, or thread in order to create a livelihood for themselves and their families. I have met the doctors and nurses in Belarus and Ukraine who are trying to keep children alive in the aftermath of Chernobyl.

The great challenge of this conference is to give voice to women everywhere whose experiences go unnoticed, whose words go unheard. Women comprise more than half the world’s population, 70% of the world’s poor, and two-thirds of those who are not taught to read and write. We are the primary caretakers for most of the world’s children and elderly. Yet much of the work we do is not valued -- not by economists, not by historians, not by popular culture, not by government leaders.

At this very moment, as we sit here, women around the world are giving birth, raising children, cooking meals, washing clothes, cleaning houses, planting crops, working on assembly lines, running companies, and running countries. Women also are dying from diseases that should have been prevented or treated. They are watching their children succumb to malnutrition caused by poverty and economic deprivation. They are being denied the right to go to school by their own fathers and brothers. They are being forced into prostitution, and they are being barred from the bank lending offices and banned from the ballot box.

Those of us who have the opportunity to be here have the responsibility to speak for those who could not. As an American, I want to speak for those women in my own country, women who are raising children on the minimum wage, women who can’t afford health care or child care, women whose lives are threatened by violence, including violence in their own homes.

I want to speak up for mothers who are fighting for good schools, safe neighborhoods, clean air, and clean airwaves; for older women, some of them widows, who find that, after raising their families, their skills and life experiences are not valued in the marketplace; for women who are working all night as nurses, hotel clerks, or fast food chefs so that they can be at home during the day with their children; and for women everywhere who simply don’t have time to do everything they are called upon to do each and every day.

Speaking to you today, I speak for them, just as each of us speaks for women around the world who are denied the chance to go to school, or see a doctor, or own property, or have a say about the direction of their lives, simply because they are women. The truth is that most women around the world work both inside and outside the home, usually by necessity.

We need to understand there is no one formula for how women should lead our lives. That is why we must respect the choices that each woman makes for herself and her family. Every woman deserves the chance to realize her own God-given potential. But we must recognize that women will never gain full dignity until their human rights are respected and protected.

Our goals for this conference, to strengthen families and societies by empowering women to take greater control over their own destinies, cannot be fully achieved unless all governments -- here and around the world -- accept their responsibility to protect and promote internationally recognized human rights. The -- The international community has long acknowledged and recently reaffirmed at Vienna that both women and men are entitled to a range of protections and personal freedoms, from the right of personal security to the right to determine freely the number and spacing of the children they bear. No one -- No one should be forced to remain silent for fear of religious or political persecution, arrest, abuse, or torture.

Tragically, women are most often the ones whose human rights are violated. Even now, in the late 20th century, the rape of women continues to be used as an instrument of armed conflict. Women and children make up a large majority of the world’s refugees. And when women are excluded from the political process, they become even more vulnerable to abuse. I believe that now, on the eve of a new millennium, it is time to break the silence. It is time for us to say here in Beijing, and for the world to hear, that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women’s rights as separate from human rights.

These abuses have continued because, for too long, the history of women has been a history of silence. Even today, there are those who are trying to silence our words. But the voices of this conference and of the women at Huairou must be heard loudly and clearly:

It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls.

It is a violation of human rights when women and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution for human greed -- and the kinds of reasons that are used to justify this practice should no longer be tolerated.

It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire, and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small.

It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war.

It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide among women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes by their own relatives.

It is a violation of human rights when young girls are brutalized by the painful and degrading practice of genital mutilation.

It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.

If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights once and for all. Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely -- and the right to be heard.

Women must enjoy the rights to participate fully in the social and political lives of their countries, if we want freedom and democracy to thrive and endure. It is indefensible that many women in nongovernmental organizations who wished to participate in this conference have not been able to attend -- or have been prohibited from fully taking part.

Let me be clear. Freedom means the right of people to assemble, organize, and debate openly. It means respecting the views of those who may disagree with the views of their governments. It means not taking citizens away from their loved ones and jailing them, mistreating them, or denying them their freedom or dignity because of the peaceful expression of their ideas and opinions.

In my country, we recently celebrated the 75th anniversary of Women’s Suffrage. It took 150 years after the signing of our Declaration of Independence for women to win the right to vote. It took 72 years of organized struggle, before that happened, on the part of many courageous women and men. It was one of America’s most divisive philosophical wars. But it was a bloodless war. Suffrage was achieved without a shot being fired.

But we have also been reminded, in V-J Day observances last weekend, of the good that comes when men and women join together to combat the forces of tyranny and to build a better world. We have seen peace prevail in most places for a half century. We have avoided another world war. But we have not solved older, deeply-rooted problems that continue to diminish the potential of half the world’s population.

Now it is the time to act on behalf of women everywhere. If we take bold steps to better the lives of women, we will be taking bold steps to better the lives of children and families too. Families rely on mothers and wives for emotional support and care. Families rely on women for labor in the home. And increasingly, everywhere, families rely on women for income needed to raise healthy children and care for other relatives.

As long as discrimination and inequities remain so commonplace everywhere in the world, as long as girls and women are valued less, fed less, fed last, overworked, underpaid, not schooled, subjected to violence in and outside their homes -- the potential of the human family to create a peaceful, prosperous world will not be realized.

Let -- Let this conference be our -- and the world’s -- call to action. Let us heed that call so we can create a world in which every woman is treated with respect and dignity, every boy and girl is loved and cared for equally, and every family has the hope of a strong and stable future. That is the work before you. That is the work before all of us who have a vision of the world we want to see -- for our children and our grandchildren.

The time is now. We must move beyond rhetoric. We must move beyond recognition of problems to working together, to have the comment efforts to build that common ground we hope to see.

God's blessing on you, your work, and all who will benefit from it.

Godspeed and thank you very much.

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Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/text081898.htm

Clinton, William J., “Map Room Speech,” August 17, 1998

Federal Document Clearing House Tuesday, August 18, 1998; Page A05

Following are President Clinton's remarks last night on his grand jury testimony and the investigation by independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr:

Good evening. This afternoon in this room, from this chair, I testified before the Office of Independent Counsel and the grand jury.

I answered their questions truthfully, including questions about my private life, questions no American citizen would ever want to answer.

Still, I must take complete responsibility for all my actions, both public and private. And that is why I am speaking to you tonight.

As you know, in a deposition in January, I was asked questions about my relationship with Monica Lewinsky. While my answers were legally accurate, I did not volunteer information.

Indeed, I did have a relationship with Miss Lewinsky that was not appropriate. In fact, it was wrong. It constituted a critical lapse in judgment and a personal failure on my part for which I am solely and completely responsible.

But I told the grand jury today and I say to you now that at no time did I ask anyone to lie, to hide or destroy evidence or to take any other unlawful action.

I know that my public comments and my silence about this matter gave a false impression. I misled people, including even my wife. I deeply regret that.

I can only tell you I was motivated by many factors. First, by a desire to protect myself from the embarrassment of my own conduct. I was also very concerned about protecting my family. The fact that these questions were being asked in a politically inspired lawsuit, which has since been dismissed, was a consideration, too.

In addition, I had real and serious concerns about an independent counsel investigation that began with private business dealings 20 years ago, dealings, I might add, about which an independent federal agency found no evidence of any wrongdoing by me or my wife over two years ago.

The independent counsel investigation moved on to my staff and friends, then into my private life. And now the investigation itself is under investigation.

This has gone on too long, cost too much and hurt too many innocent people.

Now, this matter is between me, the two people I love most -- my wife and our daughter -- and our God. I must put it right, and I am prepared to do whatever it takes to do so. Nothing is more important to me personally. But it is private, and I intend to reclaim my family life for my family. It's nobody's business but ours. Even presidents have private lives.

It is time to stop the pursuit of personal destruction and the prying into private lives and get on with our national life.

Our country has been distracted by this matter for too long, and I take my responsibility for my part in all of this. That is all I can do. Now it is time -- in fact, it is past time -- to move on.

We have important work to do -- real opportunities to seize, real problems to solve, real security matters to face.

And so tonight, I ask you to turn away from the spectacle of the past seven months, to repair the fabric of our national discourse, and to return our attention to all the challenges and all the promise of the next American century.

Thank you for watching. And good night.

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Source: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/Simpson/cochranclose.html

Cochran, Johnnie, Closing Argument at the O.J. Simpson murder trial, September 28, 1995 (Carroll 420)

JOHNNIE COCHRAN’S CLOSING ARGUMENT ****** MR. COCHRAN: The Defendant, Mr. Orenthal James Simpson, is now afforded an opportunity to argue the case, if you will, but I'm not going to argue with you, ladies and gentlemen. What I'm going to do is to try and discuss the reasonable inferences which I feel can be drawn from this evidence. ****** Ultimately, it's what you determine to be the facts is what's going to be important, and all of us can live with that. You are empowered to do justice. You are empowered to ensure that this great system of ours works. Listen for a moment, will you, please. One of my favorite people in history is the great Frederick Douglas. He said shortly after the slaves were freed, quote, "In a composite nation like ours as before the law, there should be no rich, no poor, no high, no low, no white, no black, but common country, common citizenship, equal rights and a common destiny." This marvelous statement was made more than 100 years ago. It's an ideal worth striving for and one that we still strive for. We haven't reached this goal yet, but certainly in this great country of ours, we're trying. With a jury such as this, we hope we can do that in this particular case. ****** I'd like to comment and to compliment Miss Clark and Mr. Darden on what I thought were fine arguments yesterday. I don't agree with much of what they said, but I listened intently, as I hope you'll do with me. And together, hopefully these discussions are going to be helpful to you in trying to arrive at a decision in this case where you don't compromise, where you don't do violence to your conscious (sic), but you do the right thing. And you are the ones who are empowered to determine what is the right thing. Let me ask each of you a question. Have you ever in your life been falsely accused of something? Have you ever been falsely accused? Ever had to sit there and take it and watch the proceedings and wait and wait and wait, all the while knowing that you didn't do it? All you could do during such a process is to really maintain your dignity; isn't that correct? Knowing that you were innocent, but maintaining your dignity and remembering always that all you're left with after a crisis is your conduct during. So that's another reason why we are proud to represent this man who's maintained his innocence and who has conducted himself with dignity throughout these proceedings. Now, last night, as I thought about the arguments of my colleagues, two words came to mind. And I want to--I asked my wife this morning to get the dictionary out and look up two words. The two words were "Speculative" and "Cynical." Let me see if I can get those words that she got for me. ****** And I want you to tell me what does it mean to speculate, what does it mean to be cynical, as I thought about my colleagues' arguments and their approach to this case and their view of this case. "Cynical" is described as contemptuously distrustful of human nature and motives, gloomy distrustful view of life. And to speculate--to speculate, to engage in conjecture and to surmise or--is to take to be the truth on the basis of insufficient evidence. I mention those two definitions to you because I felt that much of what we heard yesterday and again this morning was mere speculation. ****** People see things that are totally cynical. Maybe that's their view of the world. Not everybody shares that view. Now, in this case--and this is a homicide case and a very, very, very serious case. And of course, it's important for us to understand that. It is a sad fact that in American society, a large number of people are murdered each year. Violence unfortunately has become a way of life in America. And so when this sort of tragedy does in fact happen, it becomes the business of the police to step up and step in and to take charge of the matter. A good efficient, competent, noncorrupt police department will carefully set about the business of investigating homicides. They won't rush to judgment. They won't be bound by an obsession to win at all costs. They will set about trying to apprehend the killer or killers and trying to protect the innocent from suspicion. In this case, the victims' families had an absolute right to demand exactly just that in this case. But it was clear unfortunately that in this case, there was another agenda. From the very first orders issued by the LAPD so-called brass, they were more concerned with their own images, the publicity that might be generated from this case than they were in doing professional police work. That's why this case has become such a hallmark and that's why Mr. Simpson is the one on trial. But your verdict in this case will go far beyond the walls of Department 103 because your verdict talks about justice in America and it talks about the police and whether they're above the law and it looks at the police perhaps as though they haven't been looked at very recently. Remember, I told you this is not for the naive, the faint of heart or the timid. So it seems to us that the evidence shows that professional police work took a backseat right at the beginning. Untrained officers trampled--remember, I used the word in opening statement--they traipsed through the evidence. ****** Because of their bungling, they ignored the obvious clues. They didn't pick up paper at the scene with prints on it. Because of their vanity, they very soon pretended to solve this crime and we think implicated an innocent man, and they never, they never ever looked for anyone else. We think if they had done their job as we have done, Mr. Simpson would have been eliminated early on. ****** Now, at the outset, let's talk about this time line for the Defense. I said earlier that Mr. Darden did a good job in his argument, but one thing he tended to trip over and stumble over was when he started to talk about our case. He doesn't know our case like we know our case. It was interesting, wasn't it, because first he stood up and started talking about the time line being at 10:15. Then he said, well, they didn't prove anything, but, "Golly, well, it may have been as late as 10:30." That's interesting, isn't it? Never heard that before. ****** And so as we look then at the time line and the importance of this time line, I want you to remember these words. Like the defining moment in this trial, the day Mr. Darden asked Mr. Simpson to try on those gloves and the gloves didn't fit, remember these words; if it doesn't fit, you must acquit. And we are going to be talking about that throughout. So to summarize, if you take the witnesses that we presented who stand unimpeached, unimpeached, and if you are left with dogs starting to bark at 10:35 or 10:40, 10:40 let's say--and we know from the most qualified individuals, Henry Lee and Michael Baden, this was a struggle that took from five to 15 minutes. It's already 10:55. And remember, the thumps were at 10:40 or 10:45--O.J. Simpson could not be guilty. He is then entitled to an acquittal ****** And when you are back there deliberating on this case, you're never going to be ever able to reconcile this time line and the fact there's no blood back there and O.J. Simpson would run into an air conditioner on his own property and then under her scenario, he still has the knife and the clothes. But what does she tell you yesterday? Well, he still has the knife and he's in these bloody clothes and presumably in bloody shoes, and what does he do? He goes in the house. Now, thank heaven, Judge Ito took us on a jury view. You've seen this house. You've seen this carpet. If he went in that house with bloody shoes, with bloody clothes, with his bloody hands as they say, where's the blood on the doorknob, where's the blood on the light switch, where's the blood on the banister, where's the blood on the carpet? That's like almost white carpet going up those stairs. Where is all that blood trail they've been banting about in this mountain of evidence? You will see it's little more than a river or a stream. They don't have any mountain or ocean of evidence. It's not so because they say so. That's just rhetoric. We this afternoon are talking about the facts. And so it doesn't make any sense. It just doesn't fit. If it doesn't fit, you must acquit. ******* And so she (Ms. Clark) talks about O.J. being very, very recognizable. She talks about O.J. Simpson getting dressed up to go commit these murders. Just before we break for our break, I was thinking--I was thinking last night about this case and their theory and how it didn't make any sense and how it didn't fit and how something is wrong. It occurred to me how they were going to come here, stand up here and tell you how O.J. Simpson was going to disguise himself. He was going to put on a knit cap and some dark clothes, and he was going to get in his white Bronco, this recognizable person, and go over and kill his wife. That's what they want you to believe. That's how silly their argument is. And I said to myself, maybe I can demonstrate this graphically. Let me show you something. This is a knit cap. Let me put this knit cap on (Indicating). You have seen me for a year. If I put this knit cap on, who am I? I'm still Johnnie Cochran with a knit cap. And if you looked at O.J. Simpson over there--and he has a rather large head-- O.J. Simpson in a knit cap from two blocks away is still O.J. Simpson. It's no disguise. It's no disguise. It makes no sense. It doesn't fit. If it doesn't fit, you must acquit. ****** Consider everything that Mr. Simpson would have had to have done in a very short time under their timeline. He would have had to drive over to Bundy, as they described in this little limited time frame where there is not enough time, kill two athletic people in a struggle that takes five to fifteen minutes, walk slowly from the scene, return to the scene, supposedly looking for a missing hat and glove and poking around, go back to this alley a second time, drive more than five minutes to Rockingham where nobody hears him or sees him, either stop along the way to hide these bloody clothes and knives, et cetera, or take them in the house with you where they are still hoisted by their own petard because there is no blood, there is no trace, there is no nothing. So that is why the Prosecution has had to try and push back their timeline. Even to today they are still pushing it back because it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't fit. ****** As I started to say before, perhaps the single most defining moment in this trial is the day they thought they would conduct this experiment on these gloves. They had this big build-up with Mr. Rubin who had been out of the business for five, six, seven, eight years, he had been in marketing even when he was there, but they were going to try to demonstrate to you that these were the killer's gloves and these gloves would fit Mr. Simpson. You don't need any photographs to understand this. I suppose that vision is indelibly imprinted in each and every one of your minds of how Mr. Simpson walked over here and stood before you and you saw four simple words, "The gloves didn't fit." And all their strategy started changing after that. Rubin was called back here more than all their witnesses, four times altogether. Rubin testified more than the investigating officers in this case, because their case from that day forward was slipping away from them and they knew it and they could never ever recapture it. We may all live to be a hundred years old, and I hope we do, but you will always remember those gloves, when Darden asked him to try them on, didn't fit. ****** Consider the EAP b found under Nicole Brown Simpson's fingernails where they try to come in and tell you it is a degraded BA and a cross-examination. Again Blasier got Matheson to admit there was no specific support in any of the literature for a BA degraded into a B, and this was by all accounts a double-banded B. The reason they didn't want to pursue that, because she may have scratched somebody with a b type, but they never pursued those things. The second hat at Bundy. The Bundy location inside, when the Defense investigator finds this hat, nobody wanted to collect it. They refused in fact to collect it. When we in this trial, before you, discovered that evidence had been moved at Bundy and that a key piece of evidence, the piece of paper, had disappeared, they didn't do anything to find out about it that we know of. I am concerned about those kind of things. ****** So we heard last night and we are treated to this morning some very, very interesting observations by my learned colleague, Mr. Darden. ****** Now, this is interesting because Mr. Darden started off by saying, well, you know, we are going to put together this other piece, it is not really one of the elements of the crime of murder, motive, but we are going to talk to you about motive now. We are going to tell you and convince you about the motive in this case, and then he spent a long time trying to do that. As I say, he did a fine job and addressed the facts and conjured up a lot of emotion. You notice how at the end he kind of petered out of steam there, and I'm sure he got tired and he petered out because this fuse he kept talking about kept going out. It never blew up, never exploded. There was no triggering mechanism. There is nothing to lead to that. It was a nice analogy, almost like that baby analogy, the baby justice and the house of fire. You don't have to go through the house of fire. You have to keep yourself on the prize, the house of justice, a city called Justice, and that is what this is leading to, so this is what it is all about. The court--Mr. Darden looks up there, says, well, gee, judge, whatever limited purpose, but let's talk about the limited purpose for which all of his argument was about. When you talk about this evidence of other crimes, such evidence was received--excuse me, sir--and may be considered by you only for the limited purpose of determining if it tends to show the characteristic method or plan or scheme about identity or motive. For the limited purpose for which you may consider such evidence, you must weigh it in the same manner as you do all other evidence in the case. You are not permitted to consider such evidence for any other purpose. So this isn't about character assassination of O.J. Simpson, as you might think at first blush. This is about Mr. Darden trying to conjure up a motive for you. And at the outset let me say that no, none, not one little bit of domestic violence is tolerable between a man and a woman. O.J. Simpson is not proud of that 1989 incident. He is not proud of it. But you know what? He paid his debt to that and it went to court. He went through that program. And the one good thing, and no matter how long Darden talked, from 1989 to now there was never any physical violence between O.J. Simpson and Nicole Brown Simpson ****** It is wonderful that we live in the age of videotape because it tells you about who O.J. Simpson. Cindy

Garvey tells you how O.J. Simpson was. He was this mean dark brooding person at this concert, that he was going to kill his ex-wife because he didn't like his seats. Because he didn't like his seats or because he didn't invite her to dinner. That is how silly what they are talking about in this case as he tries to play out this drama. But let me show you, rather than talk--a picture is worth a thousand words, so let me show you this video. You watch this video for a moment and we will talk about it. This is for Chris Darden. (At 4:19 P.M. a videotape was played.) You will recognize some of the people in this videotape after awhile. Mr. Simpson kissing Denise Brown, Miss Juditha Brown, Mr. Louis Brown. Talking to a friend. That is his son Justin who he kisses, smiling and happily waving. Mr. Brown is happy. Laughing and falling down and laughing again, bending over laughing. You see that. You see that with your own eyes. You will have that back in this jury room. How does that comport with this tortured, twisted reasoning that he was angry in some kind of a jealous rage? Did he look like he was a jealous rage to you? Your eyes aren't lying to you when you see that. Thank heaven we have videotape. I didn't tell you about that in opening statement. Do you think that is pretty compelling? Thank heaven we have that. And we know in this city how important videotapes can be when people don't want to believe things even when they see on it videotapes and you saw that yourself. ****** And even after that video, like any proud papa, you know what O.J. Simpson did? Took a picture, a photograph with his daughter. Let's look at this photograph for a minute, if you want to see how he looks while he is in this murderous rage, while this fuse is going on that Darden talks about. Where is the fuse now, Mr. Darden? Where is the fuse? Look at that look on his face liked (sic) any proud papa. He is proud of that little girl and who wouldn't be proud of her ****** Then we know that at nine o'clock he talked to Christian Reichardt, his friend Dr. Christian Reichardt, and you saw Chris Reichardt come in here and talk to you. I thought he made a very, very, very good witness from the standpoint of what he had to say. He told you that O.J. Simpson sounded even happier than usual. He was more jovial, he got his life back together and he was moving on. Isn't that interesting? Isn't that an interesting way of looking at circumstantial evidence. Let me show you how we differ in this case. A doctor witness comes in and says O.J. Simpson is jovial at nine o'clock on June 12th. Pretty good evidence, wouldn't you say? I think you would love to have that. Anybody would in a case where you are supposedly in a murderous rage. Instead of Chris Darden standing here and saying, well, that is pretty tough evidence for us to overcome, he says O.J. Simpson was happy because he was going to kill his wife. Now, if you believe that, I suppose I might as well sit down now and I am probably wasting my time. I don't think any of you believe that. That is preposterous. It flies in the face of everything that is reasonable. You have these two reasonable hypotheses, his isn't reasonable, but assume it is reasonable, you would have to adopt this, that he is jovial, he is happy. They make a date for that next Wednesday and O.J. Simpson returns from back east. You remember that. That is the testimony. Mr. Darden tries to make a big thing of the fact, well, gee, you know, golly, was he depressed about the fact that they had broken up or they had finally broke up? He said, yeah, he had been down. He never said he was depressed. Said he was down or upset and who wouldn't be. Remember the last questions I asked. If you had just ended a 17-year relationship and it was over, you would feel down for a short period of time until you got your life on track. You wouldn't go kill your ex-wife, the mother of your children. O.J. Simpson didn't try to kill or didn't kill Nicole Brown Simpson when they got a divorce, when they went through whatever they went through when Faye Resnick moved in. ****** In this case in opening statement I showed you Bob Shapiro's foresight and wisdom. He had these photographs taken I think on June 15th. Instead of praising this lawyer who was interested in the truth, the Prosecution says, well, they went to Dr. Huisenga. That wasn't really his doctor. Isn't that preposterous. Dr. Huisenga, by all accounts, is a qualified doctor. He was the raiders team doctor. I suppose he is supposes qualified. This is Mr. O.J. Simpson's body as it appeared on June 15th. Wouldn't you expect to see a lot of bruises and marks on that body? You see his back. Some of these aren't very flattering, but this is not about flattery; this is about his life. Now, on his hands--there is some slight abrasions on his hands, but nothing consistent with a fight like this. You know it. I know it. We all know it. We will talk more about this, this so-called fishhook cut and where he got that. It will become very clear when we talk about demeanor where that came from. Miss Clark wants to try and confuse that, but that is very, very clear. So with regard to Mr. Simpson's physical condition, I don't want to just tell you to take my word, stand here and say, oh, yeah, he was in great shape on that day or he looked good or whatever. Fortunately we had photographs again, we had graphic evidence of this man's body. This man had not been in a life and death struggle for five to fifteen minutes.

****** And just before we take the dinner break, let's talk briefly about these witnesses from the family and what they had to say. The first. We first called Arnelle Simpson, and you saw Arnelle on the stand. Arnelle Simpson, the Defendant's daughter, born the day he won the Heisman trophy ****** And she told you how her father reacted when he got the news that his ex-wife had been killed. She told you. She had never before heard her father sound like that, how upset he was, how he lost control of himself, how distraught he was. You heard and you saw her on that stand. That is why we called her, so you would have better understanding, because we knew, I knew there would come a day that Marcia Clark would stand here and say, well, you know, he wouldn't react like he does when somebody gets this information, just like he did yesterday, because what Miss Clark forgot was I examined Detective Phillips. And you look back through your notes. The first thing that O.J. Simpson said to Detective Phillips was, "What do you mean she has been killed?" And then he kept repeating himself and repeating himself, and Phillips, to his credit, said he became very, very upset, kept repeating himself, and Phillips gave the phone to Arnelle Simpson. So they can make--she can again theorize, fantasize all she wants. Well, he didn't ask, well, it was a car accident? Have you ever had some bad news given to you? There is no book that you go to. The only book you should go to is the bible or your God, whomever you believe in to help get you through it. There is nothing that says how you would handle yourself in those times. These Prosecutors don't understand that. They would stand here and tell you that that is preposterous. This man was upset. And you are going to see at everything he did from that moment that he found out that his ex-wife had been killed was consistent only with innocence absolutely that day. And so Arnelle Simpson helps us in that regard. ****** Now, when you want to think about the depths to which people will go to try to win, when you want to talk about an obsession to win, I'm going to give you an example. There was a witness in this case named Thano Peratis. This is a man who's their man who took O.J. Simpson's blood. This is a man who had a subpoena, at one point said he could have come down here and testify. They didn't call him. By the time we wanted to call him, he's unavailable because of his heart problem, remember? So what we did is, we read you his grand jury testimony I believe and we played for you his preliminary hearing testimony. And in that testimony, it's very, very consistent. He's been a nurse for a number of years. You saw him. He works for the city of Los Angeles. He says that when he took this blood from O.J. Simpson on June 13th, he took between 7.9 and 8.1 cc's of blood. That's what he said. That's real simple, isn't it? We knew that. He's sworn to tell the truth under oath both places, the grand jury and preliminary hearing. Pretty clear, isn't it? Pretty clear. You remember in my opening statement, I told you, you know, something's wrong here, something's sinister here, something's wrong, because if we take all their figures and assume they took 8 cc's of blood, there's 6.5 cc's accounted for, there is 1.5 cc's missing of this blood. There's some missing blood in this case. Where is it? ****** It took all four detectives, all four LAPD experienced detectives to leave the bodies. They had to notify the Coroner. They didn't have a criminalist to go over to notify O.J. Simpson. Who's fooling who here? This is preposterous. They're lying, trying to get over that wall to get in that house. You don't believe so? You're talking about saving lives. Remember what Arnelle said. First of all, they all make this big mistake. They forget and they say, "Well, when we leave from the back, we go right in that back door of the house there, go right in the back door." But they forgot. Arnelle Simpson comes in here and testifies you can't go in the back door because remember, Kato had put on the alarm. You had to go around the house to the front. Arnelle had to open the keypad to let them in, remember? You think who knows better? You'd think she knows better or they know better? She had to let them in. So they're worried about dead bodies and people being in that house and saving lives? Who goes in first? Arnelle Simpson goes in first. These big, brave police officers, and the young lady just walks in there first. They don't go upstairs looking. They just want to be inside that house and make her leave to give Fuhrman a chance to start what he's doing, strolling around the premises and doing what he's doing there. ****** Then we come, before we end the day, to Detective Mark Fuhrman. This man is an unspeakable disgrace. He's been unmasked for the whole world for what he is, and that's hopefully positive. ****** And they put him on the stand and you saw it. You saw it. It was sickening. And then my colleague, Lee Bailey, who can't be with us today, but God bless him, wherever he is, did his cross-examination of this individual and he asked some interesting questions. Some of you probably wondered, "I wonder why he's asking that." He asked this man whether or not he ever met Kathleen Bell. Of course, he lied about that. ****** Then Bailey says: "Have you used that word, referring to the `n' word, in the past 10 years? "Not that I recall, no. "You mean, if you call someone a Nigger, you had forgotten it? "I'm not sure I can answer the question the way it's phrased, sir." And they go on. He says, "Well--" And then pins him down. "I want you to assume that perhaps at some time since 1985 or `86, you addressed a member of the African American race as a Nigger. Is it possible that you have forgotten that act on your part? "Answer: No, it is not possible. "Are you, therefore, saying that you have not used that word in the past 10 years, Detective Fuhrman? "Answer: Yes. That is what I'm saying. "Question: And you say under oath that you have not addressed any black person as a Nigger or spoken about black people as niggers in the past 10 years, Detective Fuhrman? "That's what I'm saying, sir. "So that anyone who comes to this court and quotes you as using that word in dealing with African Americans would be a liar; would they not, Detective Fuhrman? "Yes, they would”. ****** Let's remember this man. This is the man who was off this case shortly after 2:00 o'clock in the morning right after he got on it. This is the man who didn't want to be off this case. This is the man, when they're ringing the doorbell at Ashford, who goes for a walk. And he describes how he's strolling. Let me quote him for you. Here's what he says: "I was just strolling along looking at the house. Maybe I could see some movement inside. I was just walking while the other three detectives were down there." And that's when he walks down and he's the one who says the Bronco was parked askew and he sees some spot on the door. He makes all of the discoveries. He's got to be the big man because he's had it in for O.J. because of his views since `85. This is the man, he's the guy who climbs over the fence. He's the guy who goes in and talks to Kato Kaelin while the other detectives are talking to the family. He's the guy who's shining a light in Kato Kaelin's eyes. He's the guy looking at shoes and looking for suspects. He's the guy who's doing these things. He's the guy who says, "I don't tell anybody about the thumps on the wall." He's the guy who's off this case who's supposedly there to help this man, our client, O.J. Simpson, who then goes out all by himself, all by himself. Now, he's worried about bodies or suspects or whatever. He doesn't even take out his gun. He goes around the side of the house, and lo and behold, he claims he finds this glove and he says the glove is still moist and sticky. Now, under their theory, at 10:40, 10:45, that glove is dropped. How many hours is that? It's now after 6:00 o'clock. So what is that? Seven and a half hours. The testimony about drying time around here, no dew point that night. Why would it be moist and sticky unless he brought it over there and planted it there to try to make this case? And there is a Caucasian hair on that glove. This man cannot be trusted. He is sinful to the Prosecution, and for them to say he's not important is untrue and you will not fall for it, because as guardians of justice here, we can't let it happen. ****** Why did they then all try to cover for this man Fuhrman? Why would this man who is not only Los Angeles' worst nightmare, but America's worse nightmare, why would they all turn their heads and try to cover for them? Why would you do that if you are sworn to uphold the law? There is something about corruption. There is something about a rotten apple that will ultimately infect the entire barrel, because if the others don't have the courage that we have asked you to have in this case, people sit sadly by. We live in a society where many people are apathetic, they don't want to get involved, and that is why all of us, to a person, in this courtroom, have thanked you from the bottom of our hearts. Because you know what? You haven't been apathetic. You are the ones who made a commitment, a commitment toward justice, and it is a painful commitment, but you've got to see it through. Your commitment, your courage, is much greater than these police officers. This man could have been off the force long ago if they had done their job, but they didn't do their job. People looked the other way. People didn't have the courage. One of the things that has made this country so great is people's willingness to stand up and say that is wrong. I'm not going to be part of it. I'm not going to be part of the cover-up. That is what I'm asking you to do. Stop this cover-up. Stop this cover-up. If you don't stop it, then who? Do you think the police department is going to stop it? Do you think the D.A.'s office is going to stop it? Do you think we can stop it by ourselves? It has to be stopped by you. ****** But the capper was finding those tapes, something that you could hear. Lest there be any doubt in anybody's mind, Laura McKinny came in here, and I can imagine the frustration of the Prosecutors, they've had the glove demonstration, they have seen all these other things go wrong and now they got to face these tapes. ****** We owe a debt of gratitude to this lady that ultimately and finally she came forward. And she tells us that this man over the time of these interviews uses the "N" word 42 times is what she says. And so-called Fuhrman tapes. And you of course had an opportunity to listen to this man and espouse this evil, this personification of evil. And so I'm going to ask Mr. Harris to play exhibit 1368 one more time. It was a transcript. This was not on tape. The tape had been erased where he said, "We have no niggers where I grew up." These are two of 42, if you recall. Then this was his actual voice. (At 10:00 A.M., Defense exhibit 1368, a videotape, was played.) This is the word text for what he then says on the tape. Now, you heard that voice. No question whose voice that is. Mr. Darden concedes whose voice that is. They don't do anything. Talking about women. Doesn't like them any better than he likes African Americans. They don't go out and initiate contact with some six foot five inch Nigger who has been in prison pumping weights. This is how he sees this world. That is this man's cynical view of the world. This is this man who is out there protecting and serving. That is Mark Fuhrman.

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Source: Gifts of Speech - Top 100 American Speeches. Dec. 2002. Sweet Brian College. 10 Jan. 2003

Fisher, Mary, Addresses the Republican National Convention, “A Whisper of AIDS,” August 19, 1992 (GOS)

A Whisper Of AIDS: Address To The Republican National Convention by Mary Fisher AIDS Activist

August 19, 1992 - Houston, Texas

Less than three months ago, at platform hearings in Salt Lake City, I asked the Republican Party to lift the shroud of silence which has been draped over the issue of HIV/AIDS. I have come tonight to bring our silence to an end.

I bear a message of challenge, not self-congratulation. I want your attention, not your applause. I would never have asked to be HIV-positive. But I believe that in all things there is a good purpose, and so I stand before you and before the nation, gladly.

The reality of AIDS is brutally clear. Two hundred thousand Americans are dead or dying; a million more are infected. Worldwide forty million, or sixty million or a hundred million infections will be counted in the coming few years. But despite science and research, White House meetings and congressional hearings, despite good intentions and bold initiatives, campaign slogans and hopeful promises-despite it all, it's the epidemic which is winning tonight.

In the context of an election year, I ask you-here, in this great hall, or listening in the quiet of your home- to recognize that the AIDS virus is not apolitical creature. It does not care whether you are Democrat or Republican. It does not ask whether you are black or white, male or female, gay or straight, young or old.

Tonight, I represent an AIDS community whose members have been reluctantly drafted from every segment of American society. Though I am white and a mother, I am one with a black infant struggling with tubes in a Philadelphia hospital. Though I am female and contracted this disease in marriage, and enjoy the warm support of my family, I am one with the lonely gay man sheltering a flickering candle from the cold wind of his family 's rejection.

This is not a distant threat; it is a present danger. The rate of infection is increasing fastest among women and children. Largely unknown a decade ago, AIDS is the third leading killer of young-adult Americans today-but it won't be third for long. Because, unlike other diseases, this one travels. Adolescents don't give each other cancer or heart disease because they believe they are in love. But HIV is different And we have helped it along. We have killed each other-with our ignorance, our prejudice, and our silence.

We may take refuge in our stereotypes but we cannot hide there long. Because HIV asks only one thing of those it attacks: Are you human? And this is the right question: Are you human? Because people with HIV have not entered some alien state of being. They are human. They have not earned cruelty and they do not deserve meanness. They don't benefit from being isolated or treated as outcasts. Each of them is exactly what God made: a person. Not evil, deserving of our judgment; not victims, longing for our pity. People. Ready for support and worthy of compassion.

My call to you, my Party, is to take a public stand no less compassionate than that of the President and Mrs. Bush. They have embraced me and my family in memorable ways. In the place of judgment, they have shown affection. In difficult moments, they have raised our spirits. In the darkest hours, I have seen them reaching not only to me, but also to my parents, armed with that stunning grief and special grace that comes only to parents who have themselves leaned too long over the bedside of a dying child.

With the President's leadership, much good has been done; much of the good has gone unheralded; as the President has insisted, "Much remains to be done."

But we do the President's cause no good if we praise the American family but ignore a virus that destroys it. We must be consistent if we are to b believed. We cannot love justice and ignore prejudice, love our children and fear to teach them. Whatever our role, as parent or policy maker, we must act as eloquently as we speak-else we have no integrity.

My call to the nation is a plea for awareness. If you believe you are safe, you are in danger. Because I was not hemophiliac, I was not at risk. Because I was not gay, I was not at risk. Because I did not inject drugs, I was not at risk.

My father has devoted much of his lifetime to guarding against another holocaust. He is part of the generation who heard Pastor Niemoeller come out of the Nazi death camps to say, "They came after the Jews and I was not a Jew, so I did not protest. They came after the Trade Unionists, and I was not a Trade Unionist, so I did not protest. They came after the Roman Catholics, and I was not a Roman Catholic, so I did not protest. Then they came after me, and there was no one left to protest."

The lesson history teaches is this: If you believe you are safe, you are at risk. If you do not see this killer stalking your children, look again. There is no family or community, no race or religion, no place left in America that is safe. Until we genuinely embrace this message, we are a nation at risk.

Tonight, HIV marches resolutely towards AIDS in more than a million American homes, littering its pathway with the bodies of the young. Young men. Young women. Young parents. Young children. One of the families is mine. If it is true that HIV inevitably turns to AIDS, then my children will inevitably turn to orphans.

My family has been a rock of support. My 84-year-old father, who has pursued the healing of the nations, will not accept the premise that he cannot heal his daughter. My mother has refused to be broken; she still calls at mid-night to tell wonderful jokes that make me laugh. Sisters and friends, and my brother Phillip (whose birthday is today)-all have helped carry me over the hardest places. I am blessed, richly and deeply blessed, to have such a family.

But not all of you have been so blessed. You are HIV-positive but dare not say it. You have lost loved ones, but you dared not whisper the word AIDS. You weep silently; you grieve alone.

I have a message for you: It is not you who should feel shame, it is we. We who tolerate ignorance and practice prejudice, we who have taught you to fear. We must lift our shroud of silence, making it safe for you to reach out for compassion. It is our task to seek safety for our children, not in quiet denial but in effective action.

Some day our children will be grown. My son Max, now four, will take the measure of his mother; my son Zachary, now two, will sort through his memories. I may not be here to hear their judgments, but I know already what I hope they are.

I want my children to know that their mother was not a victim. She was a messenger. I do not want them to think, as I once did, that courage is the absence of fear; I want them to know that courage is the strength to act wisely when most we are afraid. I want them to have the courage to step forward when called by their nation, or their Party, and give leadership-no matter what the personal cost. I ask no more of you than I ask of myself, or of my children.

To the millions of you who are grieving, who are frightened, who have suffered the ravages of AIDS firsthand: Have courage and you will find comfort.

To the millions who are strong, I issue this plea: Set aside prejudice and politics to make room for compassion and sound policy.

To my children, I make this pledge: I will not give in, Zachary, because I draw my courage from you. Your silly giggle gives me hope. Your gentle prayers give me strength. And you, my child, give me reason to say to America, "You are at risk." And I will not rest, Max, until I have done all I can to make your world safe. I will seek a place where intimacy is not the prelude to suffering.

I will not hurry to leave you, my children. But when I go, I pray that you will not suffer shame on my account.

To all within sound of my voice, I appeal: Learn with me the lessons of history and of grace, so my children will not be afraid to say the word AIDS when I am gone. Then their children, and yours, may not need to whisper it at all.

God bless the children, and bless us all.

Back to 1990-1999 Back to American Voices

Source: Senator Robert Torricelli and Andrew Carroll, eds. In Our Own Words: Extraordinary Speeches of the American Century. New York: Washington Square Press Publication, 1999.

Graham, Rev. Billy, “Mystery of Evil,” given for victims of the Oklahoma City Bombing, April 24, 1995 (Carroll 413)

The Reverend Billy Graham, After the Oklahoma City Bombing, Offers a Sermon on the "Mystery of Evil."

It was the worst domestic act of terrorism in our nation's history. At 9:03 A.M. on April 19, 1995, a bomb exploded in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, shearing off the front half of the nine-story building instantaneously. The fireball was so immense it could be seen over 30 miles away, and 167 innocent people, including 19 children, were killed. Although initial reports implicated a militant Islamic group (like the one that had set off a bomb in New York's World Trade Center two years earlier), the culprit was in fact a twenty-seven-year-old Gulf War veteran named Timothy McVeigh. McVeigh was purportedly outraged by the FBI's attack on the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, on April 19, 1993, and swore retaliation against the federal government. Whatever Mc neigh's motivations, the question of why anyone would commit such a vicious act was incomprehensible to many Americans, especially the citizens o f Oklahoma City. During a prayer service for the victims on April 24, the Reverend Billy Graham spoke movingly on God's power and purpose in a world in which evil often thrives.

We come together here today not only to pray and forgive and love, but to say to those who masterminded this cruel plot and to those who carried it out that the spirit of this city and this nation will not be defeated. Someday the wounds will heal, and someday those who thought they could sow chaos and discord will be brought to justice, as President Clinton has so eloquently promised. The wounds of this tragedy are deep, but the courage and the faith and determination of the people of Oklahoma City are even deeper....

Since I have been here I have been asked the question several times, many times: Why does a God of love and mercy that we read about and hear about allow such terrible things to happen?

Over 3,000 years ago, there was a man named job who struggled with the same question. He asked why because he was a good man and yet disaster struck him suddenly and swiftly. He lost seven sons, three daughters. He lost all his possessions. He even lost his health. Even his wife and friends turned against him. His wife and friends said: Curse God and die. And in the midst of his suffering he asked this question: Why? Job didn't know. "Why did I not perish at birth?" he cried.

Perhaps this is the way you feel. And I want to assure you that God understands those feelings. The Bible says in Isaiah 43:2, "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And when you walk through the fire, you will not be burned. The flames will not set you ablaze." And yet job found there were lessons to be learned from his suffering even if he didn't fully understand it. And that is true for all of us as well.

What are some of the lessons that we can learn from what has happened? First, there's a mystery to it. I've been asked why God allows it. I don't know. I can't give a direct answer. I have to confess that I never fully understand even for my own satisfaction. I have to accept by faith that God is a God of love and mercy and compassion even in the midst of suffering. I can remember many years ago lying on a dirt floor in a field hospital in Korea and looking up into the face of a soldier suspended in a frame, who was horribly wounded, and the doctor said, "He'll never walk again." And I asked myself, Why. I can recall standing at the bedside of children who were dying, and I've asked myself, "Lord, why?" I recall walking through the devastation left by hurricanes in Florida and South Carolina and typhoons in India and earthquakes in Guatemala and California, and I've asked myself Why.

The Bible says God is not the author of evil, and it speaks of evil in First Thessalonians as a mystery. There's something about evil we will never fully understand this side of eternity. But the Bible says two other things that we sometimes attempt to forget. It tells us that there is a devil, that Satan is very real and he has great power. It also tells us that evil is real and that the human heart is capable of almost limitless evil when it is cut off from God and from the moral law. But Father Jeremiah said the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? That's your heart and my heart without God. That's one reason we each need God in our lives. For only He can change our hearts and give us the desire and the power to do what is right and keep us from wrong.

Times like this will do one of two things: they will either make us hard and bitter and angry at God, or they will make us tender and open and help us to reach out in trust and faith. And I think that's what the people of Oklahoma are doing that I have met since I've been here these past two days. I pray that you will not let bitterness and poison creep into your souls, but you will turn in faith and trust in God even if we cannot understand. It is better to face something like this with God than without Him.

The lesson of this event has not only been about mystery; we've already heard it's a lesson of a community coming together and what an example Oklahoma City and the people of Oklahoma have given to the world.... The forces of hate and violence must not be allowed to gain their victory, not just in our society but in our hearts. We must not respond to hate with more hate. This is a time of coming together, and we've seen that already and have been inspired by it. This tragedy also gives us a lesson in comfort and compassion. We've seen an outpouring of sympathy and help not only in Oklahoma City and Oklahoma but throughout the United States and throughout the world. We've been reminded that a cruel event like this which so vividly demonstrates the depths of human evil also brings out the best of us, brings out the best of the human spirit, the human compassion and sympathy and sacrifice. But this can also teach us about God's comfort and compassion.

Some of you today are going through heartache and grief so intense that you wonder if it'll ever go away. I've had the privilege of meeting some of you and talking to you, but I want to tell you that our God cares for you and for your family and for your city. Jesus said, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted:" I pray that every one of you will experience God's comfort during these days as you turn to him, for God loves you, and He shares in your suffering.

Difficult as it may be for us to see right now, this event gives us, as we've heard from the archbishop, a message of hope. Yes, there is hope. There is hope for the present because I believe the stage has already been set for the restoration and renewal of the spirit of this city. You're a city that will always survive, and you'll never give up. Today it's my prayer that all Americans will rededicate ourselves to a new spirit of brotherhood and compassion, working together to solve the problems and barriers that would tear us apart....

My prayer for you today is that you will feel the loving arms of God wrapped around you and will know in your heart that He will never forsake you as you trust him. God bless Oklahoma.

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Source: http://www.save-now.com/news/archives/Charlton-Heston-Gun-Controle.htm

Heston, Charlton, Speaks in support of the 2nd Amendment, February 11, 1997 (Carroll 426)

Today I want to talk to you about guns: Why we have them, why the Bill of Rights guarantees that we can have them, and why my right to have a gun is more important than your right to rail against it in the press.

I believe every good journalist needs to know why the Second Amendment must be considered more essential than the First Amendment. This may be a bitter pill to swallow, but the right to keep and bear arms is not archaic. It's not an outdated, dusty idea some old dead white guys dreamed up in fear of the Redcoats. No, it is just as essential to liberty today as it was in 1776. These words may not play well at the Press Club, but it's still the gospel down at the corner bar and grill.

And your efforts to undermine the Second Amendment, to deride it and degrade it, to readily accept diluting it and eagerly promote redefining it, threaten not only the physical well-being of millions of Americans but also the core concept of individual liberty our founding fathers struggled to perfect and protect.

So now you know what doubtless does not surprise you. I believe strongly in the right of every law- abiding citizen to keep and bear arms, for what I think are good reasons.

The original amendments we refer to as the Bill of Rights contain 10 of what the constitutional framers termed unalienable rights. These rights are ranked in random order and are linked by their essential equality. The Bill of Rights came to us with blinders on. It doesn't recognize color, or class or wealth. It protects not just the rights of actors, or editors, or reporters, but extends even to those we love to hate. That's why the most heinous criminals have rights until they are convicted of a crime.

The beauty of the Constitution can be found in the way it takes human nature into consideration. We are not a docile species capable of co-existing within a perfect society under everlasting benevolent rule.

We are what we are. Egotistical, corruptible, vengeful, sometimes even a bit power-mad. The Bill of Rights recognizes this and builds the barricades that need to be in place to protect the individual.

You, of course, remain zealous in your belief that a free nation must have a free press and free speech to battle injustice, unmask corruption and provide a voice for those in need of a fair and impartial forum.

I agree wholeheartedly -- a free press is vital to a free society. But I wonder: How many of you will agree with me that the right to keep and bear arms is not just equally vital, but the most vital to protect all the other rights we enjoy?

I say that the Second Amendment is, in order of importance, the first amendment. It is America's First Freedom, the one right that protects all the others. Among freedom of speech, of the press, of religion, of assembly, of redress of grievances, it is the first among equals. It alone offers the absolute capacity to live without fear. The right to keep and bear arms is the one right that allows 'rights' to exist at all.

Either you believe that, or you don't, and you must decide.

Because there is no such thing as a free nation where police and military are allowed the force of arms but individual citizens are not. That's a 'big brother knows best' theater of the absurd that has never bode well for the peasant class, the working class or even for reporters.

Yes, our Constitution provides the doorway for your news and commentary to pass through free and unfettered. But that doorway to freedom is framed by the muskets that stood between a vision of liberty and absolute anarchy at a place called Concord Bridge. Our revolution began when the British sent

Redcoats door to door to confiscate the people's guns. They didn't succeed: The muskets went out the back door with their owners.

Emerson said it best:

By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world.

King George called us "rabble in arms." But with God's grace, George Washington and many brave men gave us our country. Soon after, God's grace and a few great men gave us our Constitution. It's been said that the creation of the United States is the greatest political act in history. I'll sign that.

In the next two centuries, though, freedom did not flourish. The next revolution, the French, collapsed in bloody Terror, then Napoleon's tyranny. There's been no shortage of dictators since, in many countries. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao, Idi Amin, Castro, Pol Pot. All these monsters began by confiscating private arms, then literally soaking the earth with the blood of ten and tens of millions of their people. Ah, the joys of gun control.

Now, I doubt any of you would prefer a rolled up newspaper as a weapon against a dictator or a criminal intruder. Yet in essence that is what you have asked our loved ones to do, through the ill-contrived and totally naive campaign against the Second Amendment.

Besides, how can we entrust to you the Second Amendment when you are so stingy with your own First Amendment?

I say this because of the way, in recent days, you have treated your own -- those journalists you consider the least among you. How quick you've been to finger the paparazzi with blame and to eye the tabloids with disdain. How eager you've been to draw a line where there is none, to demand some distinction within the First Amendment that sneers 'they are not one of us.' How readily you let your lesser brethren take the fall, as if their rights were not as worthy, and their purpose not as pure, and their freedom not as sacred as yours.

So now, as politicians consider new laws to shackle and gag paprazzi, who among you will speak up? Who here will stand and defend them? If you won't, I will. Because you do not define the First Amendment. It defines you. And it is bigger than you -- big enough to embrace all of you, plus all those you would exclude. That's how freedom works.

It also demands you do your homework. Again and again I hear gun owners say, how can we believe anything that anti-gun media says when they cannot even get the facts right? For too long you have swallowed manufactured statistics and fabricated technical support from anti-gun organizations that wouldn't know a semi-auto from a sharp stick. And it shows. You fall for it every time.

Thats why you have very little credibility among 70 million gun owners and 20 million hunters and millions of veterans who learned the hard way which end the bullet comes out. And while you attacked the amendment that defends your homes and protects your spouses and children, you have denied those of us who defend all the Bill of Rights a fair hearing or the courtesy of an honest debate.

If the NRA attempts to challenge your assertions, we are ignored. And if we try to buy advertising time or space to answer your charges, more often than not we are denied. How's that for First Amendment freedom?

Clearly, too many have used freedom of the press as a weapon not only to strangle our free speech, but to erode and ultimately destroy the right to keep and bear arms as well. In doing so you promoted your profession to that of constitutional judge and jury, more powerful even than our Supreme Court, more prejudiced than the Inquisition's tribunals. It is a frightening misuse of constitutional right, and I pray that you will come to your senses and see that these abuses are curbed.

As a veteran of World War II, as a freedom marcher who stood with Dr. Martin Luther King long before it was fashionable, and as a grandfather who wants the coming century to be free and full of promise for my grandchildren, I am troubled.

The right to keep and bear arms is threatened by political theatrics, piecemeal lawmaking, talk-show psychology, extreme bad taste in the entertainment industry, an ever-widening educational chasm in our schools and a conniving media, that all add up to cultural warfare against the idea that guns ever had, or should now have, an honorable and proud place in our society.

But all our rights must be delivered into the 21st century as pure and complete as they came to us at the beginning of this century. Traditionally the passing of that torch is from a gnarled old hand down to an eager young one. So now, at 72, I offer my gnarled old hand.

I have accepted a call from the National Rifle Association of America to help protect the Second Amendment. I feel it is my duty to do that. My mission and vision can be summarized in three simple parts.

First, before we enter the next century, I expect to see a pro-Second Amendment president in the White House.

Secondly, I expect to build an NRA with the political muscle and clout to keep a pro-Second Amendment congress in place.

Third is a promise to the next generation of free Americans. I hope to help raise a hundred million dollars for NRA programs and education before the year 2000. At least half of that sum will go to teach American kids what the right to keep and bear arms really means to their culture and country.

We have raised a generation of young people who think that the Bill of Rights comes with their cable TV. Leave them to their channel surfing and they'll remain oblivious to history and heritage that truly matter.

Think about it -- what else must young Americans think when the White House proclaims, as it did, that 'a firearm in the hands of youth is a crime or an accident waiting to happen'? No -- it is time they learned that firearm ownership is constitutional, not criminal. In fact, few pursuits can teach a young person more about responsibility, safety, conservation, their history and their heritage, all at once.

It is time they found out that the politically correct doctrine of today has misled them. And that when they reach legal age, if they do not break our laws, they have a right to choose to own a gun -- a handgun, a long gun, a small gun, a large gun, a black gun, a purple gun, a pretty gun, an ugly gun -- and to use that gun to defend themselves and their loved ones or to engage in any lawful purpose they desire without apology or explanation to anyone, ever.

This is their first freedom. If you say it's outdated, then you haven't read your own headlines. If you say guns create only carnage, I would answer that you know better. Declining morals, disintegrating families, vacillation political leadership, an eroding criminal justice system and social morals that blur right and wrong are more to blame -- certainly more than any legally owned firearm.

I want to rescue the Second Amendment from an opportunistic president, and from a press that apparently can't comprehend that attacks on the Second Amendment set the stage for assaults on the First.

I want to save the Second Amendment from all these nitpicking little wars af attrition -- fights over alleged Saturday night specials, plastic guns, cop killer bullets and so many other made-for-prime-time non-issues invented by some press agent over at gun control headquarters -- that you guys buy time and again.

I simply cannot stand by and watch a right guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States come under attack from those who either can't understand it, don't like the sound of it or find themselves too philosophically squeamish to see why it remains the first among equals: Because it is the right we turn to when all else fails.

That's why the Second Amendment is America's first freedom.

Please, go forth and tell the truth. There can be no free speech, no freedom of the press, no freedom to protest, no freedom to worship you god, no freedom to speak your mind, no freedom from fear, no freedom for your children and for theirs, for anybody, anywhere without the Second Amendment freedom to fight for it.

If you don't believe me, just turn on the news tonight. Civilizations veneer is wearing thinner all the time.

Thank you.

Back to 1990-1999 Back to American Voices

Source: Gifts of Speech - Top 100 American Speeches. Dec. 2002. Sweet Brian College. 10 Jan. 2003

Hill, Anita, “Statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee,” October 11, 1991 (GOS)

Opening Statement: Sexual Harassment Hearings Concerning Judge Clarence Thomas by Anita Hill Former Law Professor at the University of Oklahoma

Washington, DC - October 11, 1991

Mr. Chairman, Senator Thurmond, members of the committee, my name is Anita F. Hill, and I am a professor of law at the University of Oklahoma. I was born on a farm in Okmulgee County, Oklahoma, in 1956. I am the youngest of 13 children. I had my early education in Okmulgee County. My father, Albert Hill, is a farmer in that area. My mother's name is Irma Hill. She is also a farmer and a housewife.

My childhood was one of a lot of hard work and not much money, but it was one of solid family affection, as represented by my parents. I was reared in a religious atmosphere in the Baptist faith, and I have been a member of the Antioch Baptist Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, since 1983. It is a very warm part of my life at the present time.

For my undergraduate work, I went to Oklahoma State University and graduated from there in 1977. I am attaching to this statement a copy of my resume for further details of my education.

I graduated from the university with academic honors and proceeded to the Yale Law School, where I received my JD degree in 1980. Upon graduation from law school, I became a practicing lawyer with the Washington, DC, firm of Ward, Hardraker, and Ross.

In 1981, I was introduced to now Judge Thomas by a mutual friend. Judge Thomas told me that he was anticipating a political appointment, and he asked if I would be interested in working with him. He was, in fact, appointed as Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights. After he had taken that post, he asked if I would become his assistant, and I accepted that position.

In my early period there, I had two major projects. The first was an article I wrote for Judge Thomas' signature on the education of minority students. The second was the organization of a seminar on high- risk students which was abandoned because Judge Thomas transferred to the EEOC where he became the chairman of that office.

During this period at the Department of Education, my working relationship with Judge Thomas was positive. I had a good deal of responsibility and independence. I thought he respected my work and that he trusted my judgment. After approximately three months of working there, he asked me to go out socially with him.

What happened next and telling the world about it are the two most difficult things -- experiences of my life. It is only after a great deal of agonizing consideration and sleepless number -- a great number of sleepless nights that I am able to talk of these unpleasant matters to anyone but my close friends.

I declined the invitation to go out socially with him and explained to him that I thought it would jeopardize what at the time I considered to be a very good working relationship. I had a normal social life with other men outside of the office. I believed then, as now, that having a social relationship with a person who was supervising my work would be ill-advised. I was very uncomfortable with the idea and told him so.

I thought that by saying no and explaining my reasons my employer would abandon his social suggestions. However, to my regret, in the following few weeks, he continued to ask me out on several occasions. He pressed me to justify my reasons for saying no to him. These incidents took place in his office or mine. They were in the form of private conversations which would not have been overheard by anyone else.

My working relationship became even more strained when Judge Thomas began to use work situations to discuss sex. On these occasions, he would call me into his office for reports on education issues and projects, or he might suggest that, because of the time pressures of his schedule, we go to lunch to a government cafeteria. After a brief discussion of work, he would turn the conversation to a discussion of sexual matters.

His conversations were very vivid. He spoke about acts that he had seen in pornographic films involving such matters as women having sex with animals and films showing group sex or rape scenes. He talked about pornographic materials depicting individuals with large penises or large breasts involved in various sex acts. On several occasions, Thomas told me graphically of his own sexual prowess.

Because I was extremely uncomfortable talking about sex with him at all and particularly in such a graphic way, I told him that I did not want to talk about these subjects. I would also try to change the subject to education matters or to nonsexual personal matters such as his background or his beliefs. My efforts to change the subject were rarely successful.

Throughout the period of these conversations, he also from time to time asked me for social engagements. My reaction to these conversations was to avoid them by eliminating opportunities for us to engage in extended conversations. This was difficult because at the time I was his only assistant at the Office of Education -- or Office for Civil Rights.

During the latter part of my time at the Department of Education, the social pressures and any conversation of his offensive behavior ended. I began both to believe and hope that our working relationship could be a proper, cordial, and professional one.

When Judge Thomas was made chair of the EEOC, I needed to face the question of whether to go with him. I was asked to do so, and I did. The work itself was interesting, and at that time it appeared that the sexual overtures which had so troubled me had ended. I also faced the realistic fact that I had no alternative job. While I might have gone back to private practice, perhaps in my old firm or at another, I was dedicated to civil rights work, and my first choice was to be in that field. Moreover, the Department of Education itself was a dubious venture. President Reagan was seeking to abolish the entire department.

For my first months at the EEOC, where I continued to be an assistant to Judge Thomas, there were no sexual conversations or overtures. However, during the fall and winter of 1982, these began again. The comments were random and ranged from pressing me about why I didn't go out with him to remarks about my personal appearance. I remember his saying that someday I would have to tell him the real reason that I wouldn't go out with him.

He began to show displeasure in his tone and voice and his demeanor and his continued pressure for an explanation. He commented on what I was wearing in terms of whether it made me more or less sexually attractive. The incidents occurred in his inner office at the EEOC.

One of the oddest episodes I remember was an occasion in which Thomas was drinking a Coke in his office. He got up from the table at which we were working, went over to his desk to get the Coke, looked at the can and asked, "Who has pubic hair on my Coke?" On other occasions, he referred to the size of his own penis as being larger than normal, and he also spoke on some occasions of the pleasures he had given to women with oral sex.

At this point, late 1982, I began to feel severe stress on the job. I began to be concerned that Clarence Thomas might take out his anger with me by degrading me or not giving me important assignments. I also thought that he might find an excuse for dismissing me.

In January of 1983, I began looking for another job. I was handicapped because I feared that, if he found out, he might make it difficult for me to find other employment and I might be dismissed from the job I had. Another factor that made my search more difficult was that there was a period -- this was during a period of a hiring freeze in the government. In February of 1983, I was hospitalized for five days on an emergency basis for acute stomach pain which I attributed to stress on the job.

Once out of the hospital, I became more committed to find other employment and sought further to minimize my contact with Thomas. This became easier when Allison Duncan (sp) became office director, because most of my work was then funneled through her and I had contact with Clarence Thomas mostly in staff meetings.

In the spring of 1983, an opportunity to teach at Oral Roberts University opened up. I participated in a seminar -- taught an afternoon session and seminar at Oral Roberts University. The dean of the university saw me teaching and inquired as to whether I would be interested in furthering -- pursuing a career in teaching, beginning at Oral Roberts University. I agreed to take the job in large part because of my desire to escape the pressures I felt at the EEOC due to Judge Thomas.

When I informed him that I was leaving in July, I recall that his response was that now I would no longer have an excuse for not going out with him. I told him that I still preferred not to do so. At some time after that meeting, he asked if he could take me to dinner at the end of the term. When I declined, he assured me that the dinner was a professional courtesy only and not a social invitation. I reluctantly agreed to accept that invitation, but only if it was at the every end of a working day.

On, as I recall, the last day of my employment at the EEOC in the summer of 1983, I did have dinner with Clarence Thomas. We went directly from work to a restaurant near the office. We talked about the work I had done, both at education and at the EEOC. He told me that he was pleased with all of it except for an article and speech that I had done for him while we were at the Office for Civil Rights. Finally, he made a comment that I will vividly remember. He said that if I ever told anyone of his behavior that it would ruin his career. This was not an apology, nor was it an explanation. That was his last remark about the possibility of our going out or reference to his behavior.

In July of 1983, I left Washington, DC area and have had minimal contact with Judge Clarence Thomas since. I am of course aware from the press that some questions have been raised about conversations I had with Judge Clarence Thomas after I left the EEOC. From 1983 until today, I have seen Judge Thomas only twice. On one occasion, I needed to get a reference from him, and on another he made a public appearance in Tulsa.

On one occasion he called me at home and we had an inconsequential conversation. On one occasion he called me without reaching me, and I returned the call without reaching him, and nothing came of it. I have on at least three occasions, been asked to act as a conduit to him for others.

I knew his secretary, Diane Holt. We had worked together at both EEOC and education. There were occasions on which I spoke to her, and on some of these occasions undoubtedly I passed on some casual comment to then Chairman Thomas. There were a series of calls in the first three months of 1985, occasioned by a group in Tulsa, which wished to have a civil rights conference. They wanted Judge Thomas to be the speaker and enlisted my assistance for this purpose.

I did call in January and February to no effect, and finally suggested to the person directly involved, Susan Cahal (ph) that she put the matter into her own hands and call directly. She did so in March of 1985. In connection with that March invitation, Ms. Cahal (ph) wanted conference materials for the seminar and some research was needed. I was asked to try to get the information and did attempted to do so.

There was another call about another possible conference in July of 1985. In August of 1987, I was in Washington, DC and I did call Diane Holt. In the course of this conversation, she asked me how long I was going to be in town and I told her. It is recorded in the message as August 15. It was, in fact, August 20th. She told me about Judge Thomas's marriage and I did say congratulate him.

It is only after a great deal of agonizing consideration that I am able to talk of these unpleasant matters to anyone except my closest friends. As I've said before these last few days have been very trying and very hard for me and it hasn't just been the last few days this week. It has actually been over a month now that I have been under the strain of this issue.

Telling the world is the most difficult experience of my life, but it is very close to having to live through the experience that occasion this meeting. I may have used poor judgment early on in my relationship with this issue. I was aware, however, that telling at any point in my career could adversely affect my future career. And I did not want early on to burn all the bridges to the EEOC.

As I said, I may have used poor judgment. Perhaps I should have taken angry or even militant steps, both when I was in the agency, or after I left it. But I must confess to the world that the course that I took seemed the better as well as the easier approach.

I declined any comment to newspapers, but later when Senate staff asked me about these matters I felt I had a duty to report. I have no personal vendetta against Clarence Thomas. I seek only to provide the committee with information which it may regard as relevant.

It would have been more comfortable to remain silent. I took no initiative to inform anyone. But when I was asked by a representative of this committee to report my experience, I felt that I had to tell the truth. I could not keep silent.

Back to 1990-1999 Back to American Voices

Source: McIntire, Suzanne, ed. American Heritage Book of Great American Speeches for Young People. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2001. Print.

Inouye, Daniel, “To the 442nd Infantry Regimental Combat Team,” 1993 (Gale) (Carroll 400) (McIntire)

To the 442nd Infantry Regimental Combat Team Honolulu, Hawaii March 24, 1993

After Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941, thousands of Japanese Americans were unfairly imprisoned in camps by the U.S. government under suspicion of being enemy aliens. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii joined the army in 1943 and lost an arm to a German grenade in Italy. He became the first U.S. congressman from the new state of Hawaii, and the first of Japanese descent, in 1959. Senator Inouye returned to Honolulu in 1993 to address the 50th reunion of his decorated World War II regiment of Japanese American soldiers.

Although this is our 50th reunion, our journey began…on December 7, 1941 [at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii].

Soon after that tragic Sunday morning, we who were of Japanese ancestry were considered by our nation to be citizens without a country. I am certain all of us remember that the Selective Service system of our country designated us to be unfit for military service because we were “enemy aliens.” Soon after that, on February 19, 1942, the White House issued an extraordinary Executive Order—Executive Order 9066. This dreaded Executive Order forcibly uprooted our mainland brothers and their families and their loved ones from their homes with only those possessions that they were able to carry themselves…

Their only crime, if any, was that they were born of Japanese parents, and for that crime they were incarcerated in internment camps surrounded by barbed-wire fences, guarded by machine-gun towers…

Although we were separated by a vast ocean and mountain ranges, we from the mainland and Hawaii shared one deep-seated desire—to rid ourselves of that insulting and degrading designation, “enemy alien.” We wanted to serve our country. We wanted to demonstrate our love for our country.

After months of petitions and letters, another Executive Order was issued with the declaration that “…Americanism is a matter of mind and heart; Americanism is not, and never was, a matter of race or ancestry.” By this Executive Order, the formation of the special combat team made up of Japanese Americans was authorized.

More than the anticipated numbers volunteered; in fact, in Hawaii, about eighty-five percent of the eligible men of Japanese Americans volunteered…We were ready to live up to our motto, “Go for Broke.” And thus the 442nd Infantry Regimental Combat Team was formed.

There are too many battles to recall…But there is one we will never forget and one hopefully that our nation will always remember—the Battle of the Lost Battalion.

This battle began during the last week of October 1944. The members of the First Battalion of the 141st Infantry Regiment of the 36th Texas Division found themselves surrounded by a large number of enemy troops. This “lost battalion” was ordered to fight its way back, but could not do so. The Second and Third Battalions of the Texas Regiment were ordered to break through but they were thrown back, and so on October 26, the 442nd was ordered to go into the lines to rescue the “lost battalion.” On November 15, the rescue was successfully concluded…

Two thousand men were in hospitals and over three hundred had died. The price was heavy. Although we did not whimper or complain, we were sensitive to the fact that the rescuers of the Texas Battalion were not members of the Texas Division. They were Japanese Americans from Hawaii and from mainland internment camps. They were “enemy aliens.”…

And we knew that from that moment on, no one could ever, ever, question our loyalty and our love for our country. The insulting stigma was finally taken away….

Over the years, many have asked us—“Why?” “Why did you fight and serve so well?” My son, like your sons and daughters, has asked the same question—“Why?” “Why were you willing and ready to give your life?”…

I told my son it was a matter of honor. I told him about my father’s farewell message when I left home to put on the uniform of my country. My father was not a man of eloquence but he said, “Whatever you do, do not dishonor the family and do not dishonor the country.” I told my son that for many of us, to have done any less than what we had done in battle would have dishonored our families and our country.

My brothers, I believe we can assure ourselves that we did succeed in upholding our honor and that of our families and our nation. And I respectfully and humbly believe that our service and the sacrifices of those who gave their all on the battlefield assure a better life for our children and their children.

Back to 1990-1999 Back to American Voices

Source: McIntire, Suzanne, ed. American Heritage Book of Great American Speeches for Young People. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2001. Print.

Ripken, Cal Jr., “To His Fans,” 1995 (McIntire)

To His Fans Baltimore, Maryland September 6, 1995

“Iron Man” Cal Ripken Jr., shortstop for the Baltimore Orioles baseball team, broke “Iron Horse” Lou Gehrig’s longstanding record for most consecutive games played in 1995 at the Orioles’ home park of Camden Yards. Ripken received an ovation lasting over ten minutes when the game was official after the fifth inning, and he addressed the adoring crowd at a post-game ceremony.

Tonight, I want to make sure you know how I feel. As I grew up here, I not only had dreams of being a big league ballplayer, but also of being a Baltimore Oriole. As a boy and a fan, I know how passionate we feel about baseball and the Orioles here. And as a player, I have benefitted from this passion.

For all your support over the years, I want to thank you, the fans of Baltimore, from the bottom of my heart. This is the greatest place to play.

This year has been unbelievable. I’ve been cheered in ballparks all over the country. People not only showed me their kindness, but more importantly, they demonstrated their love of the game of baseball. I give my thanks to baseball fans everywhere…

Tonight, I stand here, overwhelmed, as my name is linked with the great and courageous Lou Gehrig. I’m truly humbled to have our names spoken in the same breath.

Some may think our greatest connection is because we both played many consecutive games. Yet, I believe in my heart that our true link is a common motivation—a love of the game of baseball, a passion for our team, and a desire to compete on the very highest level.

I know that if Lou Gehrig is looking on tonight’s activities, he isn’t concerned about someone playing one more consecutive game than he did. Instead, he’s viewing tonight as just another example of what is good and right about the great American game. Whether your name is Gehrig or Ripken, DiMaggio, or Robinson, or that of some youngster who picks up his bat or puts on his glove, you are challenged by the game of baseball to do your very best day in and day out. And that’s all I’ve tried to do.

Back to 1990-1999 Back to American Voices

Source: Gifts of Speech - Top 100 American Speeches. Dec. 2002. Sweet Brian College. 10 Jan. 2003

Steinem, Gloria, "Scholars, Witches and Other Freedom Fighters," Speech at Salem State College, March 1993

Scholars, Witches And Other Freedom Fighters by Gloria Steinem American Feminist Author

Speech At Salem State College - March 1993

Thanks for your generosity of spirit in coming out on a very cold and snowy night and taking a chance on a stranger.

We have something very precious together and that is an hour or so in this room. So here's my plan: if all goes well each of us, me included, will leave here with one new fact, one new idea, one new feeling of support, one new subversive organizing tactic. In order to make that happen, I need your help in overcoming this old fashioned structure of you looking at each others' backs and me looking at you. This is a hierarchical structure. Hierarchy is based on patriarchy, patriarchy doesn't work anywhere anymore. So I hope that during what is usually called the question and answer period you will feel quite okay to help us overthrow or humanize this particular hierarchical structure by not just asking questions, but giving us answers--we could all use some--by making organizing announcements of any upcoming trouble-making meetings you think this group should know about, by standing up and saying where the bodies are buried locally. If you'd rather not say it yourself, pass me a note, I'm leaving very early in the morning, I'll read anything. And generally turning this into what every meeting of this size, of good heart and good spirit ought to be, which is an organizing meeting.

The best role of outside agitators or whatever it is I am, is to be an excuse to get you all in one room and discover you didn't need an outsider in the first place. You have all the knowledge and smarts and anger and good ideas for making the world a better place that you need right here. That is especially true on this campus where I know there has been so much positive activity and change in the recent past, where you now have taken a leap toward a critical mass of diversity in your student body and on your faculty.

I know that the last three years of Nancy Harrington's presidency have really made a great difference here. She is much loved--I have discovered that since my arrival. You have women's studies, African American studies, at least the beginnings of all those that might better be called remedial studies, so eventually we will study the world as it really is. We can talk about your working on mainstreaming so that world literature actually becomes world literature. Wouldn't that be exciting. And I know too that this is a campus made more exciting by a lot of non-traditional, as they say, age students and that has a special importance for bringing vitality to the women's part of this campus, because women happen to be the only group that grows more radical with age.

It is true, you know, that newspaper reporters and sociologists are always kind of going to high school and campuses and traditional age young women looking for the red hot center of activism and there are, of course, many more activist young women than ever before, but nonetheless it is also true that women are more conservative when we're young and get steadily more activist as we grow older, which makes sense when you think about it because an 18 or 20 year old woman has more power--in the sense that women have power in a patriarchy, which means as sex objects, as child bearers, as energetic workers, and so on--she probably has more social power at 18 or 20 than she will when she is 50. Whereas a young man of 18 or 20 probably has less power than he will when he is 50, which is why men grow more conservative with age, except the men in this room, whom I'm sure are an exception to everything.

So, I really am looking forward to our discussion together and as you can tell from the title I had given to my speech, "Scholars, Witches and Other Freedom Fighters," even though I'm sure if there is a scholar present they would be happy to tell us that the hangings didn't take place in Salem, they took place in

Danvers, but none the less, it's what made all of you famous and so, I couldn't resist reflecting on the reasons that both are freedom fighters even though scholars are serene, non-activist, honorable, and respectable and witches are emotional, activist and all-together dishonorable. In other words, the first are masculine in their imagery and the second are feminine in their imagery. But both have a role to play as revolutionaries and freedom fighters for us all.

Think about scholars for a moment. When I went to college, I was taught that America was discovered when the first Europeans set foot on it, that Greece was the cradle of democracy, that Europe was the center of civilization, that other areas of the world were spoken of with appellations like "far" and "near" and "middle east," until someone said to me when I was living in India, "far and near from what?" From England of course. I said okay, I see what you mean. South Asia makes a lot more sense. And generally that the female half of the world, whatever our race or ethnicity or sexuality or class, was treated with great invisibility. I'm afraid that continues to be the rule in spite of brave incursions of remedial studies as we see on this campus and others. And it is for that reason that studies show, for instance, women's self- esteem goes down with every additional year of higher education. It makes sense when you think about it, no matter how good the grades we get, we are studying our own invisibility or denigration much of the time. And we are seeing fewer and fewer women honored in authority in our classrooms or in our administrations and of course, the same is very much true racially. That was true in my day and is still far too true now.

So we need scholars that are revolutionaries, who dare to think what we might study if we looked at the world as if everyone mattered. If we studied every continent in the reality of their existence instead of the political fact of their power in our view of the world. In fact, by not doing that we are missing a very great deal.

Think about what we did not learn about the Native American cultures with a sophisticated nuanced interest. And we are only just discovering how useful to us Native American cultures [are] that were already in this country before it was "discovered." And think about the true source of much of our democratic tradition in this country. I doubt very much that the European immigrants knew a great deal about Ancient Greece. And in any case in Ancient Greece only about 5 people voted. It was a very limited privilege. In fact, the source of our knowledge of democracy really came from the Native American cultures that were already here. We learned the structure of our government in large part from the Iroquois confederacy. Those wise people advised us and were present in Philadelphia explaining that it was, of course, possible to allow a high degree of autonomy as they did to various nations, the Cherokees and others and still cede certain overall umbrella powers in a confederacy. Benjamin Franklin admitted this as a major source of our democracy in this country, but with condescension: well, if those savages can do it, so can we.

Well I don't know about you, but I was much more likely to believe that everything was owed to ancient Greece and very little was owed to the Native American cultures of this country, because I suppose if we had admitted that, we would have also had to admit the genocide that was performed on those cultures and the fact that 90 percent of the individuals were wiped out in just a couple of centuries after the "discovery" of this country or that the teaching of the religion and culture and languages of those who remained was forbidden, was actually illegal well into the 1960s. We have penalized ourselves, in fact, by not having scholars who were freedom fighters and not enough scholars who were willing to go back and look at the real history and uncover the richness of cultures, who in many cases understood a balance between humans and nature, understood a balance between the male and the female, and have--as we are only now discovering--many secrets and much wisdom that we have looked outward for and have not known enough to look in our own back yard, to look inward, and to look at this country and see what we have missed.

Sometimes I think that the history of a country is much like the history of a person. We're just beginning to discover that if we had certain patterns put upon us in our childhood--if we were treated with neglect or with violence or were not appreciated for our unique selves, but forced to create a false self to get love and approval--that we continue these patterns in adult life. Even if they are painful, even if they do not serve us well anymore, nonetheless they feel like home--and that has a great power. It is only when we go back and look at the origins of the bruises, which events in current life may be hitting, that we understand the events in current life are not the total cause of what we are experiencing. And if we connect them to their original source, those bruises begin to heal and the patterns begin to change. We begin to make our own decisions rather than continue those decisions that were made for us in childhood.

I wonder if the history of a nation isn't something like that history as well. I wonder if we don't need to go back and look at the childhood of this nation, of those years just after it was founded and after Europeans arrive, to admit what happened to Native American cultures, to really look deeply at what slavery did to all of us and the callouses that it grew upon our souls. If we are to stop repeating the violence that comes with denial.

You can see it in our own leaders. For instance, think about the difference between Reagan and Clinton. Both were the children of alcoholic fathers who were quite violent to them, both had uncontrollable households to which they returned with great fear and trepidation, not knowing what they would find there. Reagan handled it in the way many of us in the room were encouraged to handle it, which was to feel ashamed of what was happening in the house and therefore, to deny that it was happening at all--No, everything is fine, there's no elephant in the living room, there's no shame, everything is fine. And without the chance to go back and look at those childhood patterns, he became the king of denial and he took the whole country into denial--No, there's no deficit, no there's no homeless, no, there's no racism. And you can see the pattern of his leadership as the pattern of his childhood. Not, mind you, that I am preaching childhood determinism, as if whatever happened to us in our childhood determined the rest of our lives-- absolutely not. Maybe quite the reverse. If we can go back and look at it and decide if we want to choose it or not, or heal the wounds, then we become even more compassionate toward other people. But in Reagan you could still see the rage of a young man, a boy, facing an all-powerful violent father, even in his attitude toward communists, toward the "evil empire," toward the Soviets. He demonized the enemy. They weren't just other human beings, they were all-powerful adults in the face of a much less powerful small boy.

Clinton, on the other hand, with a similar childhood, seems to have been able to go back and look at what happened, to understand the suffering of his mother, of his brother, and of himself. To be honest about it, talk about it. There are some people who say that Clinton and Gore are the first two post-therapy leaders. I'm not sure I would put it that way, because therapy is not always so wonderful, either--and it can be quite Freudian and full of denial in and of itself, but none the less it does seem that they have both been able to go back and look clear-eyed and open-hearted at what happened in their childhoods--forgive, understand, and thus be able to actually listen to other people, to look at reality, to say this is what is really going on.

How rare it is and how much we have suffered for not having leaders listen. It doesn't mean that you and I don't have to work. It doesn't mean that we can ever say "can this leader do it for us." No. We can only do it for ourselves. What we need is someone who listens. And at least we do seem to have that. If we look at what we have been learning, at the degree of denial and the lack of scholars who are really freedom fighters, even the things we have been studying, we have been studying incompletely.

I studied Virginia Woolf, too, when I was in college. I never learned she was the survivor of incredible sexual abuse in her household, and once you know that you understand so much about her and you understand her suicide, and her fears. And that has only come out in the past few years, as it has begun to come out about individuals, as women especially have been able to stand up and say what happened to us, not be disbelieved because it was something we imagined (and wanted, mind you), but confirm each others experience, and of course the many boys to whom it happened too, but we were learning only part of the truth.

Consider something as recent as the space program. I think many of us probably, understandably think that Sally Ride was the first female astronaut. Right? Wrong. In fact, there were 12 women astronauts in the very first class along with John Glenn. They passed all the tests, and did very well and would have been accepted, except they were washed out simply because they were women. There was even a Senate hearing on this question. So it was not a secret, but it isn't in our history books and it isn't in The Right Stuff. I suppose if Tom Wolfe would have put that in, it would have been the wrong stuff--if women could do it, too. The sad thing is that those women are still trying to be the explorers and pioneers they were meant to be. I tried to find some of them to take them to Sally Ride's launch, because I thought I would force the press and the media to understand that there had always been women qualified to do this. I did find one woman named Jane Heart, who had continued to be a pioneer and had gone around the world in a row boat with another woman. I couldn't find another member of this original group of 12, and I discovered that she was out of the country, because for the last 20 or 30 years she has been collecting money, buying medical supplies, and flying them in a single engine plane up the Amazon River to distribute them among tribes in Brazil. We don't know this.

On one evening I watched The Right Stuff on TV and Amadeus. Amadeus, I suddenly realized was completely silent on the fact that Mozart had a sister named Nannerl, whom Mozart said was "the talented one." They traveled together. The degree to which we have been looking at the world with one eye open and not even all the way open, we have only been seeing particular groups of people, and their history is really staggering. Even the scope of what we study is political. For instance, what we call "pre-history" and dismiss as "pre-history," is more than 95 percent of human history. We know now--since carbon dating and all of these methods--allow us to understand how long human beings have actually been on this earth. The finds in Africa have also helped us to understand that. So we are actually dismissing as pre- history 95 percent of human history, about which we actually know quite a great deal. It wasn't patriarchal, it didn't have the racial divisions, it wasn't nationalistic. We are studying what we politically have been encouraged to learn so that we will replicate it.

How did we get into this jam in the first place? We always ask people this question. Women, people of color, any less powerful group we are often confronted with some version of--if you're so smart, why aren't you rich--if you're equal how come you're not equal. Why aren't you in the history books? It must be your fault somehow anyway. Of course, nobody knows the whole answer, but it does seem that this current stage of patriarchy, hierarchy, nationalism and so on, began with the discovery of paternity. Until that time, people thought that women bore children when we were ripe, like trees, like plants and so on. The connection between conception and birth was not fully understood and indeed there are some societies in the world in which it is still not fully understood.

But gradually, with the discovering of paternity, there seems to have come over a millennia the desire to establish ownership of children by particular men and thus to restrict the freedom of women long enough to make sure who the father of the child is. Marriage de-mystified. Right. Restricting the freedom of women long enough to determine paternity. With the new ideas of ownership of children, of ownership of women, came the idea of ownership of territory, of warring for other territory, bringing captured peoples in who were often marked by race or ethnicity as different, to use as slaves and so on. There came to be gradually these kinds of structures that we now consider normal, but they did not always exist, and indeed if we consider the history of spirituality, of religion, it tells us the same thing, because for most of human history god was present in everything, in animals, in plants, in men, in women, in all races. The word pagan just means "of nature." It's supposed to be a terrible thing, of course, but that's all it means.

Actually, the overturning of the pre-existing, pre-historic millennia of various kinds of pagan beliefs was done very, very cruelly. It is from this period of 500 years of Inquisition, of the 13th-15th century in Europe, when heresy was the crime and then grew into full-blown witch hunts in the 16th-18th century in an effort to overturn the pre-existing pagan religions, very cruelly getting rid of, literally killing between 1 million and 9 million, nobody's quite sure, witches. The conservative and probable estimate is 6 million. These were mostly women who were the leaders of the pagan religions. 80 percent of the people burned at the stake, who were tortured, who were killed were women, but there were men as well. The town records in Germany and France reveal whole towns that were left with no females at all of any age, young or old. Travelers reported a countryside absolutely littered with stakes and funeral pyres. The old pagan, everyone matters, all of nature matters, kinds of world views and spiritual views were overturned over the centuries with great, great cruelty and the male gods that had been imposed by the Greeks and the Romans and their imperial systems gradually became Christianity, which, though certainly revolutionary in its origins, became the religion of the elite and feudal lords and later kings who insisted on Latin being the official court as well as the church language.

I realize that is a breath-taking overview of many thousands of years of history, so let's just take one example: Joan of Arc. I'm very interested in the revisionist both-eyes-open theory of Joan of Arc. She was legendarily a member of a coven, a part of the old religions, the pagan religion of the common people and it seems that the Dauphin perhaps, an alternate explanation, who had been conducting wars and whose court had been conducting wars for a very long time and decimated the French population was having a lot of trouble getting the peasants to join these armys anymore, understandably. So, perhaps he needed a leader of the old religion still adhered to by the peasants in order to lead the armys so the ordinary people would join up again, have faith again. Joan of Arc seems to have been used in that way. In this interpretation, she becomes not so much a heroine, as a kind of Gunga Din, who went over to the other side, with all good will perhaps, and led her people into the armys of their oppressors, the army of the upper class. She was loyal enough to the old ways to make sure that she herself never killed. As she said, "when we went forward against the enemy, I held my banner aloft to avoid killing anyone, I have killed no one." But nonetheless, once the wars were won, she had too much power and so she had to be burned as a witch.

I think it's endlessly, endlessly interesting to look at history whole instead of half. And thanks to your 300th anniversary here in Salem, I know that you have spent the last year looking at this and being very careful about commemorating your own pale but still tragic version of the witch burnings in Europe. But I think if we look at the events of our own childhoods, of our history, of the world in which we will live now whole, we can learn a lot of lessons about our current life and our current dilemmas. There is a reason why justice for all women, feminist movements, etc...make common cause with justice for gay men and lesbian women. Most obviously because all women can be stopped from bonding and rebelling by the word lesbian as long as that word is a bad word. So we all have common cause in making it honorable, because we will all be stopped by it, all non-conforming women will be stopped by it until it becomes as honorable a word as any other. In fact, if we look at the witch burnings, we find that homosexual men were the object of those persecutions, just as strong and independent women were, who were healers, the wise women, the witches and so on. So much so, that homosexual men were bound together at the foot of the pyres on which witches were burned. The thesis was that only the burning bodies of homosexual men could make a fire hot enough to burn a witch. And that's where the name faggots comes from, that's our heritage from those days.

But it makes sense in our current life to understand why our cause is common. If the point of patriarchy is to restrict women as the most basic means of production and reproduction and direct all sex into having children inside patriarchal marriage, so they are properly owned, then any form of sexual expression that can't end in conception is the adversary--and it's still the adversary. It's exactly the same now, if you look at the Moral Majority who actually are probably the people our European ancestors came here to escape. You will find that this explains what otherwise might seem illogical. Why is it that they are both against contraception and lesbians? Why is it that they actually take formal resolutions in their conferences against masturbation? Incidentally, masturbation was proof of witchery, as far as the church persecutors of women in Europe was concerned. Any form of sexual expression that doesn't take place inside patriarchal marriage and isn't directed toward conception is the enemy--and it is the enemy. The adversaries of love between two men and two women and the adversaries of equality for women are still the same people.

And if we look at history whole we can learn a lot. We can think of Pat Robertson. It may find that we were killing witches because they were healers, because they taught women contraception, because they could perform abortions, because they gave women control of their own bodies. In other words, they were doing a very radical thing in fact, which is seizing control or maintaining control of the means of reproduction. Even sounds radical when you say it that way, right? It may seem a long time ago that they were accused of eating babies and conversing with the devil and all this kind of stuff, but Pat Robertson can tell us today that all feminists really want is to leave their husbands, kill babies and become lesbians.

If we look at the Malleus Maleficarum, which was the handbook of witch killing--what to do about uppity women who insisted on being autonomous, independent and practiced medicine and healing--which was incidentally an instruction in killing and witch hunting written by two Dominican monks in 1486, we find that they said "among women, mid-wives--who often perform abortions--surpass others in wickedness. All witchery comes from carnal lust in women which is insatiable." I bet we could put that in the mouth of the head of the Mormon Church or the Ayatollah and it would sound quite the same. We could look in our own bible where it says in Samuel 15:23, "Rebellion is as the sin of Witchcraft." We can look at Martin Luther-- we shouldn't land only on the Catholics--who was the founder of Protestantism, "If woman grows weary and at last dies from child bearing, it matters not, let her die from bearing, she is there to do it." If we wonder why men who now also assert their whole selves and dare to claim the supposedly female parts of their nature--if you're going to have a male dominated society, you have to teach men to suppress the gentle, nurturing, empathetic, flexible parts of their nature, by saying that it is feminine, which of course is a libel on men. Men have all these qualities, too. Men who assert this wholeness are punished now, much in the same way as warlocks were punished in earlier centuries. And if we allow religions, which are often politics made sacred--you know: politics in the sky, god looks like the ruling class--to convince us to live a deferred life, to live for life after death--it's really quite amazing that they got us to do that--then that is not at all different from the philosophy of the burning times of the witch burning days, when this world was judged to be a punishment and one was to live only for life after death.

If we dare to live in the present, to live to the fullest, then we may be punished in somewhat the same way. But we can learn from scholars who look at the world whole. We can learn from understanding that witches were indeed healers and freedom fighters and not people to be denigrated on Halloween or any other time. Perhaps we should devote our next Halloween to having a celebration of witches as wise women. This means a very deep change, because it means changing the whole paradigm of masculine and feminine with which children grow up and which is the root of the idea of subject/object, winner/loser, and the whole model on which race and class and all other hierarchies are built. In the name of both scholars and witches I thought I'd read from a poem called "Network of the Imaginary Mother," which Robin Morgan, a wonderful poet and now editor of Ms. Magazine, a wonderful writer, wrote because I think we need to hear the names of the women and hear what happened to them, just as we need to understand what happened in our own childhoods and look at it with open eyes and just as we need to understand what happened in the childhood of our own country before we can stop repeating those patterns.

"Repeat the syllabull...... " [Poem not included in the text of the speech]

And every day when we open the newspapers and we see in Montreal the massacre of women killed because they were feminists, when we see the mass murderers who say that they picked out women who seemed too smart, too rebellious. When we see the statements of the very clear patriarchal and racist leaders who are still among us, we can learn a lot from looking at the past and from looking with new eyes as scholars, as witches. With a sadness and a tragedy, I have really come to believe that, as I wrote in Revolution from Within, "if our biggest dreams for ourselves, for what our world could be like, if those dreams weren't already real inside us, we couldn't even dream them."

Let me leave you with more practical lines, by Marge Piercy:

Alone, you can fight, you can refuse, you can take what revenge you can but they roll over you

But two people fighting back to back can cut through a mob, a snake-dancing file can break a cordon, an army can meet an army

Two people can keep each other sane, can give support, conviction love, massage, hope, sex. Three people are a delegation a committee, a wedge. With four you can play bridge and start an organization. With six you can rent a whole house, eat pie for dinner with no

seconds, and hold a fund raising party. A dozen make a demonstration. A hundred fill a hall. A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter; ten thousand, power and your own paper; a hundred thousand, your own media; ten million, your own country.

It goes on one at a time, It starts when you care to act, it starts when you do it again after they said no, it starts when you say We and know who you mean, and each day you mean one more.

Back to 1990-1999 Back to American Voices

Source: Senator Robert Torricelli and Andrew Carroll, eds. In Our Own Words: Extraordinary Speeches of the American Century. New York: Washington Square Press Publication, 1999.

Streisand, Barbara, Defends the role of artists in American society and politics, February 3, 1995 (Carroll 407)

Barbra Streisand Defends the Role of the Arts - and Actors as Activists-in American Society and Politics.

Led by a brash, staunchly conservative congressman from Georgia named Newt Gingrich Republicans swept the House of Representatives in 1994 and gained control of the House for the first time in four decades. Although liberals throughout the country watched Gingrich's ascension to Speaker of the House with trepidation, one rather well-known citizen-Barbra Streisand-was especially horrified. An Oscar-, Emmy-, Tony-, and Grammy-winning actor, producer, director, and singer, Streisand remains one of the most talented performers in America. An unabashed liberal with strong views on a host of issues, Streisand was offered an opportunity to voice her opinions, particularly in relation to the arts, on February 3, 1995, at the John E Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University. The following text is an excerpt from her speech.

The subject of my talk is the artist as citizen. I guess I can call myself an artist, although after thirty years, the word still feels a bit pretentious. But I am, first and foremost, a citizen: a tax-paying, voting, concerned American citizen who happens to have opinions-a lot of them-which seems to bother some people. So I'm going to try to say something about those two roles. This is an important moment to deal with this subject because so much of what the artist needs to flourish and survive is at risk now.

When I was asked to speak here a year ago, I was much more optimistic. We had seven women in the Senate, bringing the hope of full representation for more than half the population. And we had a president who judged our ethnic, cultural, and artistic diversity as a source of strength rather than weakness.

Then came the election of 1994, and suddenly the progress of the recent past seemed threatened by those who hunger for the "good old days" when women and minorities knew their place. In this resurgent reactionary mood, artists, derided as the "cultural elite," are convenient objects of scorn. And those institutions which have given Americans access to artistic works--such as the National Endowment for the Arts and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting-are in danger of being abolished.

From my point of view, this is part of the profound conflict between those who would widen freedom and those who would narrow it; between those who defend tolerance and those who view it as a threat.

All great civilizations have supported the arts. However, the new Speaker of the House, citing the need to balance the budget, insists that the arts programs should be the first to go. But the government's contribution to the NEA and PBS is actually quite meager. To put it in perspective, the entire budget of the NEA is equal to one F-22 fighter jet-a plane that some experts say may not even be necessary. And the Pentagon is planning to buy 442 of them. One less plane and we've got the whole arts budget! Seventy- two billion dollars for those planes. Now that's real money. On the other hand, PBS costs each taxpayer less than one dollar a year and National Public Radio costs them 29 cents.

So maybe it's not about balancing the budget. Maybe it's about shutting the minds and mouths of artists who might have something thought provoking to say. William Bennett, in calling recently for the elimination of the arts agencies, charged that they were corrupt for supporting artists whose work undermines "mainstream American values." Well, art does not exist only to entertain-but also to challenge one to think, to provoke, even to disturb, in a constant search for the truth. To deny artists, or any of us, for that matter, free expression and free thought-or worse, to force us to conform to some rigid notion of "mainstream American values" is to weaken the very foundation of our democracy.

The far right is waging a war for the soul of America by making art a partisan issue. And by trying to cut these arts programs, which bring culture, education, and joy into the lives of ordinary Americans, they are hurting the people they claim to represent.

The persistent drumbeat of cynicism on the talk shows and in the new Congress reeks of disrespect for the arts and artists. But what else is new? Even Plato said that artists were nothing but troublemakers and he wanted to ban poets from his perfect Republic. In Victorian times, there were signs requiring actors and dogs to eat in the kitchen. As recently as last year, artists who have spoken out politically have been derided as airheads, bubbleheads, and nitwits. And this is not just by someone like Rush Limbaugh, who has called people in my industry the "spaced-out Hollywood left." This is also the rhetoric of respectable publications.

Imagine talking about the leaders of any other group in our society this way-say. leaders of the steelworkers union, agribusiness, or chief executives of the automobile industry. Imagine having this kind of contempt for an industry that is second only to aerospace in export earnings abroad. According to Business Week, Americans spent 34o billion dollars on entertainment in 1993. Maybe policy makers could learn something from an industry that makes billions while the government owes trillions.

The presumption is that people in my profession are too insulated, too freethinking, too subversive. One can almost hear the question-are you now or have you ever been a member of the Screen Actors Guild? Never mind that the former president of our guild did become President of the United States. The Hollywood smear only seems to apply to liberals.

With no special interest and serving no personal or financial agenda, artists make moral commitments to many issues that plague our society. Indeed, this participation often makes artists vulnerable professionally. They take the risk of offending part of their audience or their government. As the record of the Hollywood blacklist demonstrates, they can even pay the price of serving time in jail, having their works banned, or being prevented from practicing their craft. . . .

We, as people, are more than what we do-as performers, professors, or plumbers-we also are, we also should be: participants in the larger life of society.

In the old days of the dominant movie studios, an artist wasn't allowed to express political opinions. But with the breakup of the studio system, creative people gained independence. And with the rise of the women's, environmental, and gay rights movements, there has been an increase in artists who support liberal causes. Why is that?

Well, most artists turn up on the humanist, compassionate side of public debate because this is consistent with the work we do. The basic task of the artist is to explore the human condition. In order to do what we do well, the writer, the director, the actor has to inhabit other people's psyches, understand other people's problems. We have to walk in other people's shoes and live in other people's skins. This does tend to make us more sympathetic to politics that are more tolerant. In our work, in our preparation, and in our research, we are continuously trying to educate ourselves. And with learning comes compassion. Education is the enemy of bigotry and hate. It's hard to hate someone you truly understand.

I'm not here to defend everything that comes out of the entertainment industry. A lot of junk is produced- gratuitously violent, sexist, exploitative, and debasing of the human spirit. I don't like it, and I won't defend it. This is a profit-driven industry that produces the best and the worst in its attempt to find a market. If you notice, the far right rarely attacks the violent movies in fact, their candidates campaign alongside of the major practitioners of this so-called art form.

Art is the signature of a generation. Artists have a way of defining the times. Marion Anderson singing on the steps o£ the Lincoln Memorial because as a black woman she was forbidden to sing at Constitution Hall forced Americans to confront the outrageousness of segregation. Art can illuminate, enlighten, inspire. Art finds a way to be constructive. It becomes heat in cold places. It becomes light in dark places.

When there was chaos in the Sixties, Bob Dylan said it was like "Blowin' in the Wind." During the riots of the Sixties, when people tried to explain the inexplicable, Aretha Franklin sang, simply what was being asked for, "R-E-S-P-E-C- T."

Then there are the movies that spoke for their times. The movie version of John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath brought the sad reality of the Depression home to those who wanted to ignore it. In the 1940s, a movie called Gentleman's Agreement raised the issue of anti-Semitism in America. In the Heat of the Night was named Best Picture of 1967, and is remembered for its unsparing look at the issue of race. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington focused on buying votes and favors, a problem we still haven't solved. A generation ago, Inherit the Wind took on the Scopes trial and the subordination of science to one narrow religious view, and the movie is powerfully relevant today in light of the Christian Coalition's efforts to reintroduce creationism into the public school curriculum.

Just last year, we saw a motion picture called Schindler's List bring the subject of the Holocaust to millions of people around the world. Steven Spielberg rescued it from fading newsreels and recast it in black-and- white film, which makes it vivid and real-and yes, undeniable.

Moviemakers can be late to a subject, or afraid, but often they are brave and ahead of their time. Artists were criticized for their involvement in the civil rights struggle and their early opposition to the Vietnam War. In those cases at least, I would suggest that the painters and performers were wiser than most pundits and politicians.

I'm not suggesting that actors run the country. We've already tried that. But I am suggesting, for example, that on the issue of AIDS, I would rather have America listen to Elizabeth Taylor, who had the courage to sponsor the first major fund-raiser against this dreaded disease, than to Jesse Helms, who has consistently fought legislation that would fund AIDS research.

Our role as artist is more controversial now because there are those, claiming the absolute authority of religion, who detest much of our work as much as they detest most of our politics. Instead of rationally debating subjects like abortion or gay rights, they condemn as immoral those who favor choice and tolerance. They disown their own dark side and magnify everyone else's until, at the extreme, doctors are murdered in the make of protecting life. I wonder, who is the God they invoke, who is so petty and mean? Is God really against gun control and food stamps for poor children?

All people need spiritual values in their lives, but we can't reduce the quest for the eternal meaning to a right-wing political agenda. That is dangerous about the far right is not that it takes religion seriously- most of us do- but rather that it condemns all other spiritual choices-the Buddhist, the Jew, the Muslim, and many others who consider themselves to be good Christians. The wall of separation between church and state is needed precisely because religion, like art, is too important a part of the human experience to be choked by the hands of censors.

Artists have long felt the stranglehold of censorship by officially established religions. A sixteenth-century pope ordered loincloths painted on the figures in Michelangelo’s Last Judgment; nineteenth-century clerics damned Walt Whitman; Tolstoy was viewed as a heretic; and today, Islamic extremists, sanctioned by governments, are still hunting down Salman Rushdie.

It’s interesting that Americans applaud artists in other parts of the world for speaking out—in China, for example. It’s very often the artist who gives a voice to the voiceless by speaking up when no one else will. The playwright Václav Havel went to join because of that. Now he’s the president of his country.

I know that I can speak more eloquently through my work than through any speech I might give. So, as an artist, I’ve chosen to make films about subjects and social issues I care about, whether it’s dealing with the inequality of women in Yentl, or producing a film about Colonel Grethe Cammermeyer, who was discharged from the army for telling the truth about her sexuality. Her story reminded me of a line from George Bernard Shaw’s St. Joan that said, “He who tells too much truth shall surely be hanged.”

I promised myself I wouldn’t get too partisan here. Some of my best customers are Republicans. When I sang in Washington, D.C., I asked the audience for a show of party allegiance, and a majority turned out to be Republican. I should have known—who else could afford those ticket prices?

Fortunately, there are reasonable Republicans. But I am worried about the direction in which the new Congress now seeks to take the country. I’m worried about the name calling, the stereotypical labeling. I want to believe that these people have good intentions, but I think it was dangerous when Newt Gingrich developed a strategy in the last campaign of pitting President Clinton against so-called “normal Americans.” Just last week, the speaker tacked again when he said, and I quote, “I fully expect Hollywood to have almost no concept of either normal American behavior, in terms of healthy families, healthy structures, religious institutions, conservative politics, the free enterprise system.”…

I'm also very proud to be a liberal. Why is that so terrible these days? The liberals were liberators. They fought slavery, fought for women to have the right to vote, fought against Hitler, Stalin, fought to end segregation, fought to end apartheid. Thanks to liberals we have Social Security, public education, consumer and environmental protection, Medicare and Medicaid, the minimum wage law, unemployment compensation. Liberals put an end to child labor and they even gave us the five-day workweek! What's to be ashamed of? Such a record should be worn as a badge of honor!

Liberals have also always believed in public support for the arts. At the height of the Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt created the Works Progress Administration, which helped struggling artists. Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollack, and John Cage were among those who benefited from the support of the WPA.

Art was a way out for me. I represent a generation of kids who happened to benefit from government support of the arts in public schools. I was a member of the choral club at Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn. Sadly, this current generation of young people does not have the same opportunities. How can we accept a situation in which there are no longer orchestras, choruses, libraries, or art classes to nourish our children? We need more support for the arts, not less-particularly to make this rich world available to young people whose vision is choked by a stark reality. How many children, who have no other outlet in their lives for their grief, have found solace in an instrument to play or a canvas to paint on? When you take into consideration the development of the human heart, soul, and imagination, don't the arts take on just as much importance as math or science?

What can I say? I have opinions. No one has to agree. I just like being involved. After many years of self- scrutiny, I've realized that the most satisfying feelings come from things outside myself.

Most artists are not experts, but all of us are something more. As President Carter said in 1980, "In a few days, I will lay down my official responsibilities in this office, to take up once more the only title in our democracy superior to that of president: the title of citizen."

We also need to keep in mind some words spoken by the man for whom this school of government is named. President Kennedy said he valued so much what artists could give because they "knew the midnight as well as the high noon [and] understood the ordeal as well as the triumph of the human spirit." He also said, "In serving his vision of the truth, the artist best serves his nation." By the way, President Kennedy was the first to suggest the creation of the National Endowment for the Arts. Well aware that art can be controversial, he concluded; the artist "must often sail against the currents of his time. This is not a popular role."

But in 1995, I continue to believe it is an indispensable one: that artists, especially those who have had success and have won popularity in their work, not only have the right, but the responsibility, to risk the unpopularity of being committed and active. We receive so much from our country. We can and should give something back.

So, until women are treated equally with men, until gays and minorities are not discriminated against, and until children have their full rights, artists must continue to speak out. I will be one of them. Sorry. Rush, Newt, and Jesse, but the artist as citizen is here to stay.

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Source: Clarence Thomas refutes Anita Hill's Charges

Thomas, Clarence, "Defends Himself Against Sexual Harassment Charges", October 11, 1991 (HIST- AUDIO ONLY) (Carroll 391)

"Judge Thomas Defense Against Sexual Harassment Charges"

JUDGE THOMAS: Mr. Chairman, Senator Thurmond, members of the committee. As excruciatingly difficult as the last two weeks have been, I welcome the opportunity to clear my name today. No one other than my wife and Senator Danforth, to whom I read this statement at 6:30 a.m. has seen or heard this statement. No handlers, no advisors.

The first I learned of the allegations by Professor Anita Hill was on September 25, 1991, when the FBI came to my home to investigate her allegations. When informed by the FBI agent of the nature of the allegations and the person making them, I was shocked, surprised, hurt and enormously saddened. I have not been the same since that day.

For almost a decade my responsibilities included enforcing the rights of victims of sexual harassment. As a boss, as a friend, and as a human being I was proud that I had never had such an allegation leveled against me, even as I sought to promote women and minorities into non-traditional jobs.

In addition, several of my friends who are women have confided in me about the horror of harassment on the job or elsewhere. I thought I really understood the anguish, the fears, the doubts, the seriousness of the matter. But since September 25th, I have suffered immensely as these very serious charges were leveled against me. I have been racking my brains and eating my insides out trying to think of what I could have said or done to Anita Hill to lead her to allege that I was interested in her in more than a professional way and that I talked with her about pornographic or X-rated films.

Contrary to some press reports, I categorically denied all of the allegations and denied that I ever attempted to date Anita Hill when first interviewed by the FBI. I strongly reaffirm that denial.

Let me describe my relationship with Anita Hill. In 1981, after I went to the Department of Education as an assistant secretary in the office of civil rights, one of my closest friends from both college and law school, Gil Hardy (sp), brought Anita Hill to my attention. As I remember, he indicated that she was dissatisfied with her law firm and wanted to work in government. Based primarily if not solely on Gil's recommendation, I hired Anita Hill.

During my tenure at the Department of Education, Anita Hill was an attorney advisor who worked directly with me. She worked on special projects, as well as day-to-day matters. As I recall, she was one of two professionals working directly with me at the time. As a result, we worked closely on numerous matters. I recall being pleased with her work product and the professional but cordial relationship which we enjoyed at work. I also recall engaging in discussions about politics and current events.

Upon my nomination to become chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Anita Hill, to the best of my recollection, assisted me in the nomination and confirmation process. After my confirmation, she and Diane Holt, then my secretary, joined me at EEOC. I do not recall that there was any question or doubt that she would become a special assistant to me at EEOC, although as a career employee she retained the option of remaining at the Department of Education.

At EEOC, our relationship was more distant and our contacts less frequent as a result of the increased size of my personal staff and the dramatic increase and diversity of my day-to-day responsibilities. Upon reflection, I recall that she seemed to have had some difficulty adjusting to this change in her role. In any case, our relationship remained both cordial and professional.

At no time did I become aware, either directly or indirectly, that she felt I had said or done anything to change the cordial nature of our relationship. I detected nothing from her or from my staff, or from Gil Hardy (sp), our mutual friend, with whom I maintained regular contact. I am certain that had any statement or conduct on my part been brought to my attention I would remember it clearly because of the nature and seriousness of such conduct, as well as my adamant opposition to sex discrimination and sexual harassment. But there were no such statements.

In the spring of 1983, Mr. Charles Kothe contacted me to speak at the Law School at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Anita Hill, who is from Oklahoma, accompanied me on that trip. It was not unusual that individuals on my staff would travel with me occasionally. Anita Hill accompanied me on that trip primarily because this was an opportunity to combine business and a visit to her home.

As I recall, during our visit at Oral Roberts University, Mr. Kothe mentioned to me the possibility of approaching Anita Hill to join the faculty at Oral Roberts University Law School. I encouraged him to do so and noted to him, as I recall, that Anita Hill would do well in teaching. I recommended her highly and she eventually was offered a teaching position.

Although I did not see Anita Hill often after she left EEOC, I did see her on one or two subsequent visits to Tulsa, Oklahoma. And on one visit I believe she drove me to the airport. I also occasionally received telephone calls from her. She would speak directly with me or with my secretary, Diane Holt. Since Anita Hill and Diane Holt had been with me at the Department of Education, they were fairly close personally and I believe they occasionally socialized together. I would also hear about her through Linda Jackson, then Linda Lambert (sp), whom both Anita Hill and I met at the Department of Education, and I would hear of her from my friend, Gil (sp).

Throughout the time that Anita Hill worked with me I treated her as I treated my other special assistants. I tried to treat them all cordially, professionally, and respectfully and I tried to support them in their endeavors and be interested in and supportive of their success. I had no reason or basis to believe my relationship with Anita Hill was anything but this way until the FBI visited me a little more than two weeks ago.

I find it particularly troubling that she never raised any hint that she was uncomfortable with me. She did not raise or mention it when considering moving with me to EEOC from the Department of Education, and she'd never raised it with me when she left EEOC and was moving on in her life. And, to my fullest knowledge, she did not speak to any other women working with or around me who would feel comfortable enough to raise it with me, especially Diane Holt, to whom she seemed closest on my personal staff. Nor did she raise it with mutual friends such as Linda Jackson and Gil Hardy (sp).

This is a person I have helped at every turn in the road since we met. She seemed to appreciate the continued cordial relationship we had since day one. She sought my advice and counsel, as did virtually all of the members of my personal staff.

During my tenure in the executive branch as a manager, as a policymaker, and as a person, I have adamantly condemned sex harassment. There is no member of this Committee or this Senate who feels stronger about sex harassment than I do. As a manager, I made every effort to take swift and decisive action when sex harassment raised or reared its ugly head. The fact that I feel so very strongly about sex harassment and spoke loudly at EEOC has made these allegations doubly hard on me. I cannot imagine anything that I said or did to Anita Hill that could have been mistaken for sexual harassment.

But with that said, if there is anything that I have said that has been misconstrued by Anita Hill or anyone else to be sexual harassment, then I can say that I am so very sorry and I wish I had known. If I did know, I would have stopped immediately and I would not, as I've done over the past two weeks, have to tear away at myself, trying to think of what I could possibly have done. But I have not said or done the things that Anita Hill has alleged. God has gotten me through the days since September 25th, and he is my judge.

Mr. Chairman, something has happened to me in the dark days that have followed since the FBI agents informed me about these allegations. And the days have grown darker as this very serious, very explosive, and very sensitive allegation -- or these sensitive allegations were selectively leaked in a distorted way to the media over the past weekend. As if the confidential allegations themselves were not enough, this apparently calculated public disclosure has caused me, my family, and my friends enormous pain and great harm. I have never in all my life felt such hurt, such pain, such agony. My family and I have been done a grave and irreparable injustice.

During the past two weeks, I lost the belief that if I did my best all would work out. I called upon the strength that helped me get here from Pin Point, and it was all sapped out of me. It was sapped out of me because Anita Hill was a person I considered a friend whom I admired and thought I had treated fairly and with the utmost respect. Perhaps I could have been -- better weathered this if it was from someone else. But here was someone I truly felt I had done my best with. Though I am by no means a perfect person, no means, I have not done what she has alleged, and I still don't know what I could possibly have done to cause her to make these allegations.

When I stood next to the President in Kennebunkport being nominated to the Supreme Court of the United States, that was a high honor; but as I sit here before you 103 days later, that honor has been crushed. From the very beginning, charges were leveled against me from the shadows, charges of drug abuse, antisemitism, wife beating, drug use by family members, that I was a quota appointment, confirmation conversion, and much, much more. And now, this.

I have complied with the rules. I responded to a document request that produced over 30,000 pages of documents, and I have testified for five full days under oath. I have endured this ordeal for 103 days. Reporters sneaking into my garage to examine books I read. Reporters and interest groups swarming over divorce papers looking for dirt. Unnamed people starting preposterous and damaging rumors. Calls all over the country specifically requesting dirt.

This is not American; this is Kafkaesque. It has got to stop. It must stop for the benefit of future nominees and our country. Enough is enough.

I'm not going to allow myself to be further humiliated in order to be confirmed. I am here specifically to respond to allegations of sex harassment in the workplace. I am not here to be further humiliated by this committee or anyone else, or to put my private life on display for prurient interests or other reasons. I will not allow this committee or anyone else to probe into my private life. This is not what America is all about. To ask me to do that would be to ask me to go beyond fundamental fairness.

Yesterday I called my mother. She was confined to her bed, unable to work and unable to stop crying. Enough is enough.

Mr. Chairman, in my 43 years on this earth I have been able with the help of others and with the help of God to defy poverty, avoid prison, overcome segregation, bigotry, racism and obtain one of the finest educations available in this country, but I have not been able to overcome this process. This is worse that any obstacle or anything that I have ever faced.

Throughout my life I have been energized by the expectation and the hope that in this country I would be treated fairly in all endeavors. When there was segregation I hoped there would be fairness one day or some day. When there was bigotry and prejudice, I hope that there would be tolerance and understanding some day.

Mr. Chairman, I am proud of my life, proud of what I have done and what I have accomplished, proud of my family and this process, this process is trying to destroy it all. No job is worth what I have been through, no job. No horror in my life has been so debilitating. Confirm me if you want. Don't confirm me if you are so led, but let this process end. Let me and my family regain our lives.

I never asked to be nominated. It was an honor. Little did I know the price, but it is too high.

I enjoy and appreciate my current position and I am comfortable with the prospect of returning to my work as a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit and to my friends there. Each of these positions is public service and I have given at the office. I want my life and my family's life back, and I want them returned expeditiously.

I have experienced the exhilaration of new heights from the moment I was called to Kennebunkport by the President to have lunch and he nominated me. That was the high point. At that time, I was told eye- to-eye that, "Clarence, you made it this far on merit. The rest is going to be politics." And it surely has been.

There have been other highs. The outpouring of support from my friends of long standing; a bonding like I have never experienced with my old boss, Senator Danforth; the wonderful support of those who have worked with me. There have been prayers said for my family and me by people I know and people I will never meet, prayers that were heard and that sustained not only me, but also my wife and my entire family.

Instead of understanding and appreciating the great honor bestowed upon me, I find myself here today defending my name, my integrity, because somehow select portions of confidential documents dealing with this matter were leaked to the public.

Mr. Chairman, I am a victim of this process. My name has been harmed. My integrity has been harmed. My character has been harmed. My family has been harmed. My friends have been harmed. There is nothing this committee, this body, or this country can do to give me my good name back. Nothing.

I will not provide the rope for my own lynching or for further humiliation. I am not going to engage in discussions nor will I submit to roving questions of what goes on in the most intimate parts of my private life or the sanctity of my bedroom. These are the most intimate parts of my privacy, and they will remain just that, private.

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Source: http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/wiesel.htm

Wiesel, Elie, “The Perils of Indifference,” April 12, 1999

Mr. President, Mrs. Clinton, members of Congress, Ambassador Holbrooke, Excellencies, friends: Fifty-four years ago to the day, a young Jewish boy from a small town in the Carpathian Mountains woke up, not far from Goethe's beloved Weimar, in a place of eternal infamy called Buchenwald. He was finally free, but there was no joy in his heart. He thought there never would be again.

Liberated a day earlier by American soldiers, he remembers their rage at what they saw. And even if he lives to be a very old man, he will always be grateful to them for that rage, and also for their compassion. Though he did not understand their language, their eyes told him what he needed to know -- that they, too, would remember, and bear witness.

And now, I stand before you, Mr. President -- Commander-in-Chief of the army that freed me, and tens of thousands of others -- and I am filled with a profound and abiding gratitude to the American people.

Gratitude is a word that I cherish. Gratitude is what defines the humanity of the human being. And I am grateful to you, Hillary -- or Mrs. Clinton -- for what you said, and for what you are doing for children in the world, for the homeless, for the victims of injustice, the victims of destiny and society. And I thank all of you for being here.

We are on the threshold of a new century, a new millennium. What will the legacy of this vanishing century be? How will it be remembered in the new millennium? Surely it will be judged, and judged severely, in both moral and metaphysical terms. These failures have cast a dark shadow over humanity: two World Wars, countless civil wars, the senseless chain of assassinations -- Gandhi, the Kennedys, Martin Luther King, Sadat, Rabin -- bloodbaths in Cambodia and Nigeria, India and Pakistan, Ireland and Rwanda, Eritrea and Ethiopia, Sarajevo and Kosovo; the inhumanity in the gulag and the tragedy of Hiroshima. And, on a different level, of course, Auschwitz and Treblinka. So much violence, so much indifference.

What is indifference? Etymologically, the word means "no difference." A strange and unnatural state in which the lines blur between light and darkness, dusk and dawn, crime and punishment, cruelty and compassion, good and evil.

What are its courses and inescapable consequences? Is it a philosophy? Is there a philosophy of indifference conceivable? Can one possibly view indifference as a virtue? Is it necessary at times to practice it simply to keep one's sanity, live normally, enjoy a fine meal and a glass of wine, as the world around us experiences harrowing upheavals?

Of course, indifference can be tempting -- more than that, seductive. It is so much easier to look away from victims. It is so much easier to avoid such rude interruptions to our work, our dreams, our hopes. It is, after all, awkward, troublesome, to be involved in another person's pain and despair. Yet, for the person who is indifferent, his or her neighbor are of no consequence. And, therefore, their lives are meaningless. Their hidden or even visible anguish is of no interest. Indifference reduces the other to an abstraction.

Over there, behind the black gates of Auschwitz, the most tragic of all prisoners were the "Muselmanner," as they were called. Wrapped in their torn blankets, they would sit or lie on the ground, staring vacantly into space, unaware of who or where they were, strangers to their surroundings. They no longer felt pain, hunger, thirst. They feared nothing. They felt nothing. They were dead and did not know it.

Rooted in our tradition, some of us felt that to be abandoned by humanity then was not the ultimate. We felt that to be abandoned by God was worse than to be punished by Him. Better an unjust God than an indifferent one. For us to be ignored by God was a harsher punishment than to be a victim of His anger.

Man can live far from God -- not outside God. God is wherever we are. Even in suffering? Even in suffering.

In a way, to be indifferent to that suffering is what makes the human being inhuman. Indifference, after all, is more dangerous than anger and hatred. Anger can at times be creative. One writes a great poem, a great symphony, one does something special for the sake of humanity because one is angry at the injustice that one witnesses. But indifference is never creative. Even hatred at times may elicit a response. You fight it. You denounce it. You disarm it. Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response.

Indifference is not a beginning, it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor -- never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten. The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children, the homeless refugees -- not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory. And in denying their humanity we betray our own.

Indifference, then, is not only a sin, it is a punishment. And this is one of the most important lessons of this outgoing century's wide-ranging experiments in good and evil.

In the place that I come from, society was composed of three simple categories: the killers, the victims, and the bystanders. During the darkest of times, inside the ghettoes and death camps -- and I'm glad that Mrs. Clinton mentioned that we are now commemorating that event, that period, that we are now in the Days of Remembrance -- but then, we felt abandoned, forgotten. All of us did.

And our only miserable consolation was that we believed that Auschwitz and Treblinka were closely guarded secrets; that the leaders of the free world did not know what was going on behind those black gates and barbed wire; that they had no knowledge of the war against the Jews that Hitler's armies and their accomplices waged as part of the war against the Allies.

If they knew, we thought, surely those leaders would have moved heaven and earth to intervene. They would have spoken out with great outrage and conviction. They would have bombed the railways leading to Birkenau, just the railways, just once.

And now we knew, we learned, we discovered that the Pentagon knew, the State Department knew. And the illustrious occupant of the White House then, who was a great leader -- and I say it with some anguish and pain, because, today is exactly 54 years marking his death -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt died on April the 12th, 1945, so he is very much present to me and to us.

No doubt, he was a great leader. He mobilized the American people and the world, going into battle, bringing hundreds and thousands of valiant and brave soldiers in America to fight fascism, to fight dictatorship, to fight Hitler. And so many of the young people fell in battle. And, nevertheless, his image in Jewish history -- I must say it -- his image in Jewish history is flawed.

The depressing tale of the St. Louis is a case in point. Sixty years ago, its human cargo -- maybe 1,000 Jews -- was turned back to Nazi Germany. And that happened after the Kristallnacht, after the first state sponsored pogrom, with hundreds of Jewish shops destroyed, synagogues burned, thousands of people put in concentration camps. And that ship, which was already on the shores of the United States, was sent back.

I don't understand. Roosevelt was a good man, with a heart. He understood those who needed help. Why didn't he allow these refugees to disembark? A thousand people -- in America, a great country, the greatest democracy, the most generous of all new nations in modern history. What happened? I don't understand. Why the indifference, on the highest level, to the suffering of the victims?

But then, there were human beings who were sensitive to our tragedy. Those non-Jews, those Christians, that we called the "Righteous Gentiles," whose selfless acts of heroism saved the honor of their faith. Why were they so few? Why was there a greater effort to save SS murderers after the war than to save their victims during the war?

Why did some of America's largest corporations continue to do business with Hitler's Germany until 1942? It has been suggested, and it was documented, that the Wehrmacht could not have conducted its invasion of France without oil obtained from American sources. How is one to explain their indifference?

And yet, my friends, good things have also happened in this traumatic century: the defeat of Nazism, the collapse of communism, the rebirth of Israel on its ancestral soil, the demise of apartheid, Israel's peace treaty with Egypt, the peace accord in Ireland. And let us remember the meeting, filled with drama and emotion, between Rabin and Arafat that you, Mr. President, convened in this very place. I was here and I will never forget it.

And then, of course, the joint decision of the United States and NATO to intervene in Kosovo and save those victims, those refugees, those who were uprooted by a man whom I believe that because of his crimes, should be charged with crimes against humanity. But this time, the world was not silent. This time, we do respond. This time, we intervene.

Does it mean that we have learned from the past? Does it mean that society has changed? Has the human being become less indifferent and more human? Have we really learned from our experiences? Are we less insensitive to the plight of victims of ethnic cleansing and other forms of injustices in places near and far? Is today's justified intervention in Kosovo, led by you, Mr. President, a lasting warning that never again will the deportation, the terrorization of children and their parents be allowed anywhere in the world? Will it discourage other dictators in other lands to do the same?

What about the children? Oh, we see them on television, we read about them in the papers, and we do so with a broken heart. Their fate is always the most tragic, inevitably. When adults wage war, children perish. We see their faces, their eyes. Do we hear their pleas? Do we feel their pain, their agony? Every minute one of them dies of disease, violence, famine. Some of them -- so many of them -- could be saved.

And so, once again, I think of the young Jewish boy from the Carpathian Mountains. He has accompanied the old man I have become throughout these years of quest and struggle. And together we walk towards the new millennium, carried by profound fear and extraordinary hope.

Elie Wiesel - April 12, 1999

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