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{
    "localId": "193976",
    "label": "The President John F. Kennedy Lecture by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy at the Free University of Berlin June 26, 1964",
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    "title": "The President John F. Kennedy Lecture by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy at the Free University of Berlin June 26, 1964",
    "description": "Address by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy on President John F. Kennedy.",
    "citationUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/193976",
    "collections": [
        "Robert F. Kennedy Papers",
        "Robert F. Kennedy Papers: Attorney General Files: Speeches"
    ],
    "subjects": [
        "Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963",
        "Kennedy, Robert F. (Robert Francis), 1925-1968",
        "Speeches, addresses, etc."
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    "ocrText": "90\n(I)\n8 -\nJune 26, 1964\nThat emphasis ennobles our strivings today. We cannot tolcrate passive\ncitizenship and passive commitment to freedom today any more then could the\nfathers of the first democracy. And the responsibility to pirticipate in\nyour government and community is even greater for you.\nYou came here not merely to become intellectual tradesmen; you are not\neducated by this University merely to make a prosperous living in an upper\nclass.\nYou are among the best educated, most crentive and most rational citi-\nzens of this continent. You thus have a greater obligation to return the\nfruits of your education, your creativity, and your reason to the future of\nsociety.\nJacqueline Kennedy shid not long ago that, \"John Konnedy believed so\nis trongly that one's sim should not just be the most comfortable life\npossible,-- but that we should all do something to right the vrongs we\nsee -- and not just complair about them. He believed that one non can\nmake a difference -- and that every mon should try.'\nThis is the demand of scholarship as well as freedon -- commitment.\nAnd the conmitnent of the educated mon who would be free cannot be reserved\nfor times of stress.\nIt cannot be selective commitment -- unless ve choose to allow our\n.reedom to become selective.\nThis, then, is the fin=l and most important ally freedom must have\nif freedon is to exist, if it is to endure, and if it is to flourirh. No\namount of courage alone can moke freedom live. No Army, horever untchful\nor powerful, alone can defend freedos.\nBut if, on the other hand, the defense of freedon is supported by the\nactive will and the educated dedicatior of all those who would remain free,\nthen however perilous the path, however greit the obstecles, we can go\nforward in confidence.\nThat was the kind of future Frosident Kennedy sought. \"Our problems\nare nonmade,\" he said, \"therefore, they con be solved by men. And man can\nbe as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond humen beings.\nlian's reason and spirit have often solved the seeningly insolvable -- and\nwe believe they can do it again.\"\nPresident Kennedy spoke on behelf>of men's reason and spirit; he also\nacted for then. As free men, let us do no less.\nBecause this University embodies so many of the things Tresident\nKennedy cherished, I would like, in closing to say a personel word about\nthe significance of his death.\nThere were many who felt then that a light had been snuffed out; that\nthe torchbearer for a whole generation was gone; that an cra was over before\nits time; that with him there died idealism and hope and what vas cloan and\nbest in all of us.\n9 -"
}