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    "title": "Text of Remarks by the President to be Delivered to the University of Pennsylvania Commencement Exercises, Philadelphia Civic Center [Ford Speech or Statement]",
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    "ocrText": "Digitized from Box 11 of the White House Press Releases at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library\nEMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UPON\nMAY 17, 1975\nDELIVERY, SUNDAY, MAY 18, 1975,\n3:20 P.M. (EDT)\nOffice of the White House Press Secretary\nTHE WHITE HOUSE\nTEXT OF REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT\nTO BE DELIVERED TO THE\nUNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES\nPHILADELPHIA CIVIC CENTER\nI am delighted to be here on this momentous occasion in the history of\nthe University of Pennsylvania.\nTwo hundred years ago, the members of the Second Continental Congress\nadjourned their sessions and marched over in a body to participate in the\ngraduation ceremonies of your great institution. I congratulate you on\nthis unique bit of history. From my experience, it is not all that easy\nto get a Congress to march together on anything.\nI congratulate today's graduates. But if my congratulations are to have\nreal meaning, I must relate the past to the present, and our national\ngoals to your individual goals.\nIt is a special privilege to address a university whose growth has always\nbeen oriented toward the future. Your medical school, your school of\nbusiness and other departments of the University of Pennsylvania testify\nto a timely response to needs of the community by equipping individuals\nto solve problems.\nYour illustrious founder, Benjamin Franklin, conceived of the University\nas a center where an individual can find fulfillment through the individual's\nown efforts. Franklin did not see schools as the purveyors of all the\nanswers. He saw them constantly responding to the needs of the community\nrather than conforming scholars to a rigid classic mold.\nFranklin's own life was a continuous self-educational process. Practical\nwisdom was his aim. We find nowhere in his writings the false concept\nof \"the completion of education. \" He saw no limitations to what an in-\ndividual could learn.\nWhen eight bachelors and four masters received their degrees here 200\nyears ago, the Continental Congress was groping its way to a fateful\ndecision as to the direction this country should take in the future. But\nthere was also much talk of the past, for the delegates were determined\nnot to repeat its mistakes.\nOne of the young commencement speakers in 1775 held forth on \"The Fall\nof the Empires,\" which he attributed to excesses of Luxury, Venality\nand Vice. He was not far wrong, and he wound up by looking far into the\nfuture and expressing his hope for America-- that amidst the wide waste of\nEmpires, this one corner of the globe may at least remain the last asylum\nof truth, righteousness and freedom.\nFreedom was on everyone's lips that day in May, 1775, just as it is in\nMay, 1975.\n(MORE)\n- 2 -\nThe news of Lexington and Concord, though nearly a month had passed,\nhad just reached the Philadelphia newspapers. But there was by no\nmeans unanimity for independence; indeed, if there had been public\nopinion polls in those days, they probably would have showed a. great\nmajority of Americans considered themselves loyal Englishmen and\nwanted no war.\nAs we read the records of 1775, we find a spirited debate was in progress\nright here on this campus, as well as in the nearby deliberations of the\nContinental Congress, between the proponents of individual liberty and in-\ndependence and the defenders of discipline and order.\nIn the long perspective of two centuries, it is clear to us today that both\nsides were right. The American revolution was not a single shot heard\nround the world. It was, as John Adams warned, a long, obstinate and\nbloody war that lasted six and a half years, followed by another period\nof political experimentation in which the weak and divided infant nation\nbarely survived. But the most remarkable thing about the beginnings of\nour nation is that the men of the revolution stuck to it until it was finished.\nTheir mutual pledges of their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor\nwere more than empty words. In breaking with their past they did not\nneglect to build a better system for their posterity.\nToday, we look back 200 years, not merely to take pride in our history,\nalthough we do; not merely to mark the high priority which Americans\nhave always accorded to education and higher learning, although we do;\nwe look back during this Bicentennial to learn some practical lessons for\ntoday and tomorrow.\nAs a nation, we have recently gone through some rough times. We\nexperienced military and diplomatic setbacks--but Washington and\nFranklin survived experiences far worse. Inflation, high prices,\nunemployment, recession--all these problems were more pressing in\n1775 than they are in 1975, if one believes the rhetoric of the Continental\nCongress and the lively reports of the colonial press.\nBut these are not the real lessons of the American Revolution. The real\nlesson of our Revolution is that national goals can be achieved only through\na combination of national purpose and of national will.\nThe thirteen colonies in the beginning were weak militarily, dependent\neconomically, and divided politically. Gradually they found their goals\nand articulated their purpose--in Thomas Jefferson's words: life, liberty\nand the pursuit of happiness. But the national will that saw the struggle\nthrough to its successful conclusion was better expressed by the patriot\nfarmer who said as he picked up his musket: 'We'll see who's going to\nown this farm. I believe that spirit is very much alive in America today.\nI am immensely proud of the Marines, the Airmen and the Seamen who\nrescued their captured countrymen and our merchant ship last week in the\nGulf of Siam.\nTheir skill and courage, their dedication and sacrifice make us all\nhumbly grateful and glad that a greater danger was averted.\n(MORE)\n- 3 -\nBut we must not forget that the jubilant cheers that greeted the pealing\nof the Liberty Bell were followed by the Trial and testing of Valley Forge.\nNational will comes from a consensus of national purpose, from the collective\nagreement among thinking citizens as to the goals they seek as a nation.\nA free people will never find unanimity--but a people must be united in\nthe pursuit of certain common goals in order to remain free.\nThe goals which were proclaimed here in Philadelphia after a dozen years\nof war and wrestling with the problems of a new kind of self-governing\nsociety are as valid today as they were in 1787:\n--\nTo form a more perfect Union\n--\nestablish justice\n--\ninsure domestic tranquility\n--\nprovide for the common defense\n--\npromote the general welfare\n--\nand secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and\nour posterity.\nWe need add to these original goals only the implicit one of striving to\npreserve and to advance the cause of peace and harmony among all nations\nand all peoples. We do not need nobler or newer goals. We do need a\nrenewed sense of national purpose and a strengthening of our national will\nto pursue these goals.\nIn a sense, our American Revolution has never ended. We are a unique\npeople in that we are at the same time eminently practical and incurably\nidealistic. Americans are always more interested in the future than the past.\nWe expect and indeed demand that tomorrow will be better than today.\nWhile I have spoken of national goals, I know that each of you have in-\ndividual goals, and that the celebration of this day is clouded by the\nimmediate problem of furthering those goals by finding meaningful em-\nployment.\nAlmost a million young Americans graduating from institutions of higher\nlearning this year are faced, through no fault of their own, with economic\ndifficulties greater than any since the period of my own commencement\nwith the Class of 1935.\nAs President, my first objective has been to overcome current economic\nproblems. Our national goal is jobs for all who want to work and economic\nopportunity for all who want to achieve.\nGovernment must follow policies that enable and encourage the private\neconomic system to create more jobs and more meaningful jobs in the\nreal world. Greater productivity is the only sure way to greater prosperity\nand a better life for everybody.\nWe are coming out of this recession. We are on our way. And we are on\nthe right track. But we cannot be satisfied with simply getting back to\nwhere we were, and we will not.\n(MORE)\n- 4 -\nWe must redefine our national purposes and pursue them with a renewal of\nnational will. On our 200th birthday shall we occupy ourselves questioning\nour limitations--or exploring our possibilities?\nShall we conclude from two centuries of American experience that we can\ndo no more --or that we can do much, much more? The United States of\nAmerica that evolved from the uneasy disputations and heated debates\nhere in Philadelphia has now before it a chance to write a new declaration\nof interdependence, among ourselves and with all peoples.\nWe must infuse our institutions with a new realism built on the old idealism--\nand we will. We must develop a vast new energy industry that will spur\nemployment and ensure economic security--and we will. We must expand\nthe control of each individual over his or her own life, liberty and pursuit\nof happiness--and we will.\nWe must increase the participation and influence of every citizen in the\nprocesses of self-government and the shaping of national consensus--and\nwe will. We must lead humanity's everlasting effort to live harmoniously\nwith nature, employing technology to the enrichment of spirit as well as\nbody--and we will.\nWe must sustain and strengthen our alliances and partnerships with other\nfreedom-loving nations as we seek cooperation and rational relations with\nall peoples--and we will.\nWe must maintain our vigilance and our defenses as a symbol of our\nundiminished devotion to peace and a lawful world--and we will.\nFinally, perhaps most importantly, we must declare again the brotherly\nlove in which this great Commonwealth was founded. We must learn to\ntrust one another and to help one another. We must plege anew to one\nanother our own lives, our own fortunes, and our own sacred honor. And\nwe will.\nBenjamin Franklin told the Constitutional Convention in those early years\nthat \"much of the strength and efficiency of any government, in procuring\nand securing happiness to the people, depends on opinion--on the general\nopinion of the goodness of that government as well as of the wisdom and\nintegrity of its governors.\"\nAs President, I value your good opinion and hope always to deserve it.\nAnd I ask the graduates of 1975 to work with me on America's new agenda,\njust as the class of 1775 joined in proclaiming a new era of liberty and\nhope. They did well by us. We must do even better by Americans yet\nunborn.\n###"
}