The Wit and Wisdom of Ted Kennedy Page 4

  —Distinguished Lecture Series,

  Boston University, September 15, 1970

  The person who serves as Attorney General must inspire the trust and respect of all Americans. Inscribed in stone over the center entrance to the Department of Justice is this phrase—“The Place of Justice Is a Hallowed Place.” All Americans deserve to have confidence that when the next Attorney General walks through the doors of Justice and into that hallowed place, he will be serving them too. On the basis of his record, tens of millions of Americans can have no such confidence. I therefore oppose this nomination.

  —Judiciary Committee Executive Business

  Meeting on the Confirmation of Senator

  John Ashcroft for Attorney General,

  January 30, 2001

  America still has considerable work to do to improve the lives of our African American citizens. Civil rights is still the great unfinished business of our nation. But African Americans and all Americans are better off today because Martin Luther King challenged this country in the 1960s. As Dr. King said: Cowardice asks the question “Is it safe?” Expediency asks the question “Is it politic?” Vanity asks the question “Is it popular?” But conscience asks the question “Is it right?” And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.

  —Presentation of the 2000 Robert F. Kennedy

  Human Rights Award, November 21, 2000

  Jackie Robinson’s career and courage symbolize the inspiring words of our national anthem that he and the nation heard each time a baseball game was about to begin—“the land of the free, and the home of the brave.” But in those days, millions of Americans were not free, no matter how brave they were.

  Jackie Robinson was a miracle worker who helped change all that. Athletically, he was in a class by himself. At UCLA in 1941, he became the first athlete in the history of the university—and to this day still the only one—to earn a letter in four sports in the same year. In 1949, his second year with the Dodgers, he was named the National League’s Most Valuable Player. And when his all-too-brief Major League career ended after 10 seasons, he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on the first ballot.

  —Press Conference following the award

  of the Congressional Gold Medal

  to Jackie Robinson,

  April 30, 2003

  In an area where our founding fathers failed—the founding fathers wrote slavery into the Constitution—we fought a civil war, but it wasn’t really until we had Dr. King and Coretta Scott King in the ‘50s that awakened the conscience of the nation, so the political leadership of the early ‘60s could begin what I call the march to progress, that of knocking down walls of discrimination on race, religion, ethnicity and gender, and disability. And we have benefited so much from their leadership and from their inspiration.

  —Response to an interview question

  on “The Early Show,” CBS,

  January 31, 2006

  September 11th—that horrible and hateful day—has scorched our minds, our memories, and our hearts.

  Our lives were forever changed. And in the days and the weeks since that hideous crime, our entire nation has continued to mourn the thousands of innocent victims of those cruel and heartless attacks.

  We come together today in Boston to remember the friends and family members from our own state whose lives were cut short without reason or sense on that fateful day, and to offer comfort and our prayers to try to ease the pain of those left behind.

  It is especially fitting that we gather here in Faneuil Hall, this magnificent landmark of liberty, which for two centuries has been the symbol of our nation’s freedom. This hallowed hall is a monument to those who dedicated their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to the early struggles for liberty and justice in this great land of America. The friends and loved ones we mourn today were able to pursue their own dreams and their own happiness because of that early hard-won freedom. And they themselves have become martyrs for liberty and justice in our own time.

  —Massachusetts Memorial: A Celebration of Life,

  Faneuil Hall, Boston,

  November 16, 2001

  In the aftermath of these shameful attacks, there is understandable anger across the nation. But it is wrong and irresponsible to jump to conclusions and make false accusations against Arabs and Muslims in our communities. Above all, we must guard against any acts of violence based on such bigotry. America’s ideals are under attack too, and we must do all we can to uphold them at this difficult time.

  —Remarks on September 13, 2001,

  in support of U.S. Muslim and Arab

  communities in the aftermath

  of the September 11 terrorist attacks

  I don’t think you’re going to be a success in anything if you think about losing, whether it’s in sports or in politics.

  —Quoted in Sportswit by Lee Green, 1984

  ON THE KENNEDY FAMILY

  AND ITS LEGACY

  EDWARD MOORE KENNEDY WAS THE YOUNGEST OF NINE children, born into a family already famous enough for the birth of their fourth son to merit not a small birth announcement in the local newspaper, but a full column-length news article in each of the two competing Boston dailies.

  Throughout his 77 years he was constantly surrounded by family: He was father to three, stepfather to two, grandfather to four, and uncle to more than two dozen, including Bobby’s eleven children and Jack’s two children, all left fatherless by assassins and for whom he was an active father substitute. As he told New York Times reporter Fox Butterfield in an interview in October, 1992, “Thankfully, I’ve been inundated with children all my life.”

  With a lifetime of being part of a large and celebrated family, one can either try to escape it and strike out alone, or embrace it wholeheartedly, seeking refuge and support from its numerous members. With Ted Kennedy the path was clear: His love and reliance on his family is something noted by all.

  Yet one of the most significant moments of his life, that he identifies as such in his memoir, True Compass, ended with a recognition of distinctiveness from his family, of his longing for a chance to be just himself, not “a Kennedy.” He had just won reelection to the Senate in what turned out to be hard-fought campaign against Republican challenger Mitt Romney in 1994. In his victory speech that night he gave full credit to his family, who, as always, had rallied around him and campaigned hard on his behalf: “Well, this victory isn’t really about me. It’s about my family and about the people of Massachusetts and their residual goodwill that goes all the way back to Grandpa’s day—” Suddenly, his wife Vicki interrupted with a truth that he needed to hear: “You know, Teddy, if you had lost, it would’ve been you that lost. It wouldn’t have been your family …” So, she concluded, “You won! Not your family. You.”

  This, says Ted Kennedy, was something he had yearned all his life to hear. And it took a new family member, his second wife, Victoria Reggie Kennedy, to see it.

  Like my brothers before me, I pick up the fallen standard. Sustained by the memory of our priceless years together, I shall try to carry forward that special commitment to justice, to excellence, and to courage that distinguished their lives.

  —Speech given before the start of the

  1968 Democratic Convention

  I think about my brothers every day.

  —Interview with Reuters, 2006

  We loved him [Robert Kennedy] as a brother, and as a father, and as a son. From his parents, and from his older brothers and sisters—Joe and Kathleen and Jack—he received an inspiration which he passed on to all of us. He gave us strength in time of trouble, wisdom in time of uncertainty, and sharing in time of happiness. He will always be by our side.

  Love is not an easy feeling to put into words. Nor is loyalty, or trust, or joy. But he was all of these. He loved life completely and he lived it intensely.

  —Eulogy for Robert K
ennedy,

  St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York,

  June 8, 1968

  My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it. Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us, and what he wished for others, will some day come to pass for all the world. As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him: “Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not.”

  —Eulogy for Robert Kennedy,

  St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York,,

  June 8, 1968

  I often think of what she [Jackie] said about Jack in December after he died: “They made him a legend, when he would have preferred to be a man.” Jackie would have preferred to be just herself, but the world insisted that she be a legend too.

  —Eulogy for his sister-in-law,

  Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, May 23, 1994

  John [Kennedy, Jr.] was a serious man who brightened our lives with his smile and his grace. He was a son of privilege who founded a program called Reaching Up to train better caregivers for the mentally disabled. He joined Wall Street executives on the Robin Hood Foundation to help the city’s impoverished children. And he did it all so quietly, without ever calling attention to himself. John was one of Jackie’s two miracles. He was still becoming the person he would be, and doing it by the beat of his own drummer. He had only just begun. There was in him a great promise of things to come.

  The Irish Ambassador recited a poem to John’s father and mother soon after John was born. I can hear it again now, at this different and difficult moment:

  “We wish to the new child

  A heart that can be beguiled

  By a flower that the wind lifts as it passes.

  If the storms break for him

  May the trees shake for him

  Their blossoms down.

  In the night that he is troubled

  May a friend wake for him

  So that his time be doubled,

  And at the end of all loving and love

  May the Man above

  Give him a crown.”

  —Eulogy for his nephew,

  John F. Kennedy, Jr.,

  July 1999

  Rose [his mother] is the finest teacher we ever had. She made our home a university that surpassed any formal classroom in the exciting quest for knowledge. With her gentle games and questions, she could bring the farthest reaches of the university to our dinner table, or transform the daily headlines into new and exciting adventures in understanding.

  —Speech at Georgetown University,

  October 1, 1977

  The thing about being a Kennedy is that you come to know that there’s a time for the Kennedys. And it’s hard to know when that time is, or if it will ever come again.

  —Quoted in Time magazine, January 10, 1969

  John Kennedy referred to the age in which we live—an age when history moves with the tramp of earthquake feet, an age when a handful of men and nations have the power literally to devastate mankind. But he did not speak in despair or with a sense of hopelessness.

  —Speech, Trinity College Historical Society

  Bicentennial, Dublin, Ireland,

  March 3, 1970

  From my vantage point as the youngest of the nine Kennedy children, my family did not so much live in the world as comprise the world. Though I have long since outgrown that simplistic view, I have never questioned its emotional truth. We depended on one another. We savored food and music and laughter with one another. We learned from and taught one another. We worshipped one another. We loved one another. We were mutually loyal, even as we were mutually competitive, with an intensity that owed more to joy than to an urge for domination. These values flowed into us on the energies of Joseph and Rose Kennedy.

  —True Compass: A Memoir, 2009

  From the windows of my office in Boston … I can see the Golden Stairs from Boston Harbor where all eight of my great-grandparents set foot on this great land for the first time. That immigrant spirit of limitless possibility animates America even today.

  —From a Senate speech in 2007,

  quoted by reporter Kathy Kiely in USA Today,

  August 26, 2009

  A VOICE FOR CHILDREN

  IT’S EASY ENOUGH TO POINT OUT HOW MUCH SENATOR Kennedy has done for children. Just take it from Reg Weaver, former president of the National Education Association: “Every major education law passed since the 1960s has borne Kennedy’s imprint, from Head Start to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. He has proven himself, time and again, to be a fighter for children.” (Weaver was quoted on Air America’s website.)

  Just count up the seven million formerly uninsured children now covered by health insurance through the S-CHIP program that came into being in 1997 due to Kennedy’s authorship of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program legislation and was expanded in 2009.

  Look at the accolades bestowed on him by one of the oldest and most respected children’s health organizations: In 2001 the March of Dimes Foundation gave him its top honor, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Award, for his advocacy of children’s health issues, and then in 2003 and again in 2007 gave him its Public Affairs Leadership Award as the outstanding member of Congress in the field of maternal and child health.

  There’s much more of the same, of course. It would have been easy for him at any point to say to himself that he’d done as much as he could for children, and slow down, and pass the baton. But that wasn’t his way. Up until his final weeks he was hard at work on new legislation, pushing for greater expansion of several of the children’s programs that he had helped to bring into being, to make sure that even more kids would be served.

  President Obama has promised to push for passage of those bills now that his friend Ted Kennedy is no longer here to do so.

  Our nation’s greatest resource is its children. We must do all we can to ensure that they reach their full potential. Improving school readiness is an essential first step.

  —Introduction to the Early Learning Trust Fund,

  March 25, 1999

  Education shouldn’t have to be an obstacle course. Imagine how much more you could accomplish without the albatross of overcrowded and outdated facilities.

  —Speech at Edward Everett Elementary School,

  Dorchester, MA, March 29, 1999

  The greatest tribute of all to Dr. Seuss is a child who learns to read. He’d be very impressed by the 3rd graders here at Squantum. What a wonderful slogan you have—“Drop Everything and Read” for at least 15 minutes a day. Every child in America should do that. Dr. Seuss would love it—and so would the whole country.

  —Statement on “Read Across America,”

  March 1, 1999

  It is the young who have often been the first to speak and act against injustice or corruption and tyranny, wherever it is found. More than any other group in the population, it is the young who refuse to allow a difficulty or a challenge to become an excuse to fail to meet it. We need their ideas and ideals, the spirit and dedication of young Americans who are willing to hold a mirror to society and probe the sores that others would ignore.

  —Speech, February 9, 1976

  There are many who criticize youth for not being more obedient to our traditions. What they fail to understand is that the questions of our youth are disturbing because they are questions we ourselves find hard to answer. They are questions we ourselves refuse to face.

  —Speech to the National Council

  for Social Studies, April 11, 1970

  If there are some children in this land—whether because they are black or because they were born on a reservation or because they are poor—if there are some children who do not have an equal opportunity for a quality education, the
n there are some children who are not free.

  —Speech, April 25, 1977

  In the generation of our fathers and grandfathers, schools were expected to produce only a few leaders. Their principal output was unskilled workers. During that era, managers and professionals were all too often members of an elite class. The fantastically rapid development of modern technology has changed all that. The call of new opportunity has gone out to millions of American youth, and our education system must respond.

  —Speech at the Conference of the

  National Council for Social Studies,

  April 11, 1970

  Every generation has its own mission in the life of the nation. Your generation may well be the peace generation, because the issue of nuclear war or peace will in all likelihood be settled by you.

  —Address at the Brown University

  Commencement Forum, June 4, 1983

  Good schools and good teachers are every bit as important to the future strength of our country as a strong defense.

  —Comments at a committee hearing,

  September 10, 2002

  There has been a steady drumbeat of loud calls for cutting welfare benefits by some in this Congress. But there has been a deafening silence on the need for child care. It is time to break the silence and put together a realistic reform—reform based not on rhetoric but on results.

  —Statement on welfare reform,

  March 1, 1995

  We must invest more in early education and healthy development for the youngest children, so that entering school ready to learn is no longer just a hollow mantra but a genuine reality. … If we fail to meet a child’s development needs starting at birth, we fail not only the child, but our country and our future as well.

  —Address at the National Press Club,