George Washington

First Inaugural Address

In the City of New York
Thursday, April 30, 1789

The Nation's first chief executive took his oath of office in April in New York
City on the balcony of the Senate Chamber at Federal Hall on Wall Street.
General Washington had been unanimously elected President by the first
electoral college, and John Adams was elected Vice President because he
received the second greatest number of votes. Under the rules, each
elector cast two votes. The Chancellor of New York and fellow Freemason,
Robert R. Livingston administered the oath of office. The Bible on which the
oath was sworn belonged to New York's St. John's Masonic Lodge. The
new President gave his inaugural address before a joint session of the two
Houses of Congress assembled inside the Senate Chamber.
Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:
AMONG the vicissitudes incident to life no event could have filled me with
greater anxieties than that of which the notification was transmitted by your
order, and received on the 14th day of the present month. On the one hand,
I was summoned by my country, whose voice I can never hear but with
veneration and love, from a retreat which I had chosen with the fondest
predilection, and, in my flattering hopes, with an immutable decision, as the
asylum of my declining yearsa retreat which was rendered every day
more necessary as well as more dear to me by the addition of habit to
inclination, and of frequent interruptions in my health to the gradual waste
committed on it by time. On the other hand, the magnitude and difficulty of
the trust to which the voice of my country called me, being sufficient to
awaken in the wisest and most experienced of her citizens a distrustful
scrutiny into his qualifications, could not but overwhelm with despondence
one who (inheriting inferior endowments from nature and unpracticed in the
duties of civil administration) ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own
deficiencies. In this conflict of emotions all I dare aver is that it has been my
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faithful study to collect my duty from a just appreciation of every

circumstance by which it might be affected. All I dare hope is that if, in
executing this task, I have been too much swayed by a grateful
remembrance of former instances, or by an affectionate sensibility to this
transcendent proof of the confidence of my fellow-citizens, and have thence
too little consulted my incapacity as well as disinclination for the weighty
and untried cares before me, my error will be palliated by the motives which
mislead me, and its consequences be judged by my country with some
share of the partiality in which they originated.
Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience to the public
summons, repaired to the present station, it would be peculiarly improper to
omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being
who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and
whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His
benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of
the United States a Government instituted by themselves for these
essential purposes, and may enable every instrument employed in its
administration to execute with success the functions allotted to his charge.
In tendering this homage to the Great Author of every public and private
good, I assure myself that it expresses your sentiments not less than my
own, nor those of my fellow-citizens at large less than either. No people can
be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the
affairs of men more than those of the United States. Every step by which
they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to
have been distinguished by some token of providential agency; and in the
important revolution just accomplished in the system of their united
government the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many
distinct communities from which the event has resulted can not be
compared with the means by which most governments have been
established without some return of pious gratitude, along with an humble
anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem to presage. These
reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced themselves too
strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will join with me, I trust, in
thinking that there are none under the influence of which the proceedings of
a new and free government can more auspiciously commence.
By the article establishing the executive department it is made the duty of
the President "to recommend to your consideration such measures as he
shall judge necessary and expedient." The circumstances under which I
now meet you will acquit me from entering into that subject further than to
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refer to the great constitutional charter under which you are assembled, and
which, in defining your powers, designates the objects to which your
attention is to be given. It will be more consistent with those circumstances,
and far more congenial with the feelings which actuate me, to substitute, in
place of a recommendation of particular measures, the tribute that is due to
the talents, the rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the characters
selected to devise and adopt them. In these honorable qualifications I
behold the surest pledges that as on one side no local prejudices or
attachments, no separate views nor party animosities, will misdirect the
comprehensive and equal eye which ought to watch over this great
assemblage of communities and interests, so, on another, that the
foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable
principles of private morality, and the preeminence of free government be
exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens
and command the respect of the world. I dwell on this prospect with every
satisfaction which an ardent love for my country can inspire, since there is
no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists in the economy
and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness;
between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an honest
and magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and
felicity; since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of
Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules
of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained; and since the
preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican
model of government are justly considered, perhaps,
as deeply, as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the
American people.
Besides the ordinary objects submitted to your care, it will remain with
your judgment to decide how far an exercise of the occasional power
delegated by the fifth article of the Constitution is rendered expedient at the
present juncture by the nature of objections which have been urged against
the system, or by the degree of inquietude which has given birth to them.
Instead of undertaking particular recommendations on this subject, in which
I could be guided by no lights derived from official opportunities, I shall
again give way to my entire confidence in your discernment and pursuit of
the public good; for I assure myself that whilst you carefully avoid every
alteration which might endanger the benefits of an united and effective
government, or which ought to await the future lessons of experience, a
reverence for the characteristic rights of freemen and a regard for the public
harmony will sufficiently influence your deliberations on the question how
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far the former can be impregnably fortified or the latter be safely and
advantageously promoted.
Having thus imparted to you my sentiments as they have been awakened
by the occasion which brings us together, I shall take my present leave; but
not without resorting once more to the benign Parent of the Human Race in
humble supplication that, since He has been pleased to favor the American
people with opportunities for deliberating in perfect tranquillity, and
dispositions for deciding with unparalleled unanimity on a form of
government for the security of their union and the advancement of their
happiness, so His divine blessing may be equally conspicuous in the
enlarged views, the temperate consultations, and the wise measures on
which the success of this Government must depend.

Thomas Jefferson

First Inaugural Address

In the Washington, D.C.
Wednesday, March 4, 1801
Chief Justice John Marshall administered the first executive oath of office
ever taken in the new federal city in the new Senate Chamber (now the Old
Supreme Court Chamber) of the partially built Capitol building. The
outcome of the election of 1800 had been in doubt until late February
because Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, the two leading candidates,
each had received 73 electoral votes. Consequently, the House of
Representatives met in a special session to resolve the impasse, pursuant
to the terms spelled out in the Constitution. After 30 hours of debate and
balloting, Mr. Jefferson emerged as the President and Mr. Burr the Vice
President. President John Adams, who had run unsuccessfully for a second
term, left Washington on the day of the inauguration without attending the
ceremony.
Friends and Fellow-Citizens:
CALLED upon to undertake the duties of the first executive office of our
country, I avail myself of the presence of that portion of my fellow-citizens
which is here assembled to express my grateful thanks for the favor with
which they have been pleased to look toward me, to declare a sincere
consciousness that the task is above my talents, and that I approach it with
those anxious and awful presentiments which the greatness of the charge
and the weakness of my powers so justly inspire. A rising nation, spread
over a wide and fruitful land, traversing all the seas with the rich
productions of their industry, engaged in commerce with nations who feel
power and forget right, advancing rapidly to destinies beyond the reach of
mortal eyewhen I contemplate these transcendent objects, and see the
honor, the happiness, and the hopes of this beloved country committed to
the issue, and the auspices of this day, I shrink from the contemplation,
and humble myself before the magnitude of the undertaking. Utterly,
indeed, should I despair did not the presence of many whom I here see
remind me that in the other high authorities provided by our Constitution I
shall find resources of wisdom, of virtue, and of zeal on which to rely under
all difficulties. To you, then, gentlemen, who are charged with the sovereign
functions of legislation, and to those associated with you, I look with
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encouragement for that guidance and support which may enable us to

steer with safety the vessel in which we are all embarked amidst the
conflicting elements of a troubled world.
During the contest of opinion through which we have passed the animation
of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might
impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what
they think; but this being now decided by the voice of the nation,
announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course,
arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts
for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that
though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful
must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which
equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. Let us, then,
fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social
intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life
itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our
land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and
suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance
as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions.
During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the
agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter
his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows
should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more
felt and feared by some and less by others, and should divide opinions as
to measures of safety. But every difference of opinion is not a difference of
principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same
principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any
among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its
republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety
with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to
combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican
government can not be strong, that this Government is not strong enough;
but would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment,
abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the
theoretic and visionary fear that this Government, the world's best hope,
may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this,
on the contrary, the strongest Government on earth. I believe it the only
one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the
law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal
concern. Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the
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government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of

others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let
history answer this question.
Let us, then, with courage and confidence pursue our own Federal and
Republican principles, our attachment to union and representative
government. Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the
exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe; too high-minded to endure
the degradations of the others; possessing a chosen country, with room
enough for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth generation;
entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our own faculties,
to the acquisitions of our own industry, to honor and confidence from our
fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth, but from our actions and their sense
of them; enlightened by a benign religion, professed, indeed, and practiced
in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance,
gratitude, and the love of man; acknowledging and adoring an overruling
Providence, which by all its dispensations proves that it delights in the
happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafterwith all these
blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous
people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizensa wise and frugal
Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall
leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and
improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has
earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close
the circle of our felicities.
About to enter, fellow-citizens, on the exercise of duties which comprehend
everything dear and valuable to you, it is proper you should understand
what I deem the essential principles of our Government, and consequently
those which ought to shape its Administration. I will compress them within
the narrowest compass they will bear, stating the general principle, but not
all its limitations. Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or
persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship
with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the State
governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for
our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against antirepublican
tendencies; the preservation of the General Government in its whole
constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety
abroad; a jealous care of the right of election by the peoplea mild and
safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution
where peaceable remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the
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decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which is no

appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism; a
well disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the first moments
of war, till regulars may relieve them; the supremacy of the civil over the
military authority; economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly
burthened; the honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the
public faith; encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its
handmaid; the diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the
bar of the public reason; freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and
freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by
juries impartially selected. These principles form the bright constellation
which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of
revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our
heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of
our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try
the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in
moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to
regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety.
I repair, then, fellow-citizens, to the post you have assigned me. With
experience enough in subordinate offices to have seen the difficulties of
this the greatest of all, I have learnt to expect that it will rarely fall to the lot
of imperfect man to retire from this station with the reputation and the favor
which bring him into it. Without pretensions to that high confidence you
reposed in our first and greatest revolutionary character, whose preeminent
services had entitled him to the first place in his country's love and destined
for him the fairest page in the volume of faithful history, I ask so much
confidence only as may give firmness and effect to the legal administration
of your affairs. I shall often go wrong through defect of judgment. When
right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not
command a view of the whole ground. I ask your indulgence for my own
errors, which will never be intentional, and your support against the errors
of others, who may condemn what they would not if seen in all its parts.
The approbation implied by your suffrage is a great consolation to me for
the past, and my future solicitude will be to retain the good opinion of those
who have bestowed it in advance, to conciliate that of others by doing them
all the good in my power, and to be instrumental to the happiness and
freedom of all.

Relying, then, on the patronage of your good will, I advance with obedience
to the work, ready to retire from it whenever you become sensible how
much better choice it is in your power to make. And may that Infinite Power
which rules the destinies of the universe lead our councils to what is best,
and give them a favorable issue for your peace and prosperity.

James Madison
First Inaugural Address
Saturday, March 4, 1809
Chief Justice John Marshall administered the oath of office in the Hall of
the House of Representatives (now National Statuary Hall). Subsequently
the oath by Presidents-elect, with few exceptions, was taken in the House
Chamber or in a place of the Capitol associated with the Congress as a
whole. The Vice Presidential oath of office for most administrations was
taken in the Senate Chamber. President Jefferson watched the ceremony,
but he joined the crowd of assembled visitors since he no longer was an
office-holder. The mild March weather drew a crowd of about 10,000
persons.
UNWILLING to depart from examples of the most revered authority, I avail
myself of the occasion now presented to express the profound impression
made on me by the call of my country to the station to the duties of which I
am about to pledge myself by the most solemn of sanctions. So
distinguished a mark of confidence, proceeding from the deliberate and
tranquil suffrage of a free and virtuous nation, would under any
circumstances have commanded my gratitude and devotion, as well as
filled me with an awful sense of the trust to be assumed. Under the various
circumstances which give peculiar solemnity to the existing period, I feel
that both the honor and the responsibility allotted to me are inexpressibly
enhanced.
The present situation of the world is indeed without a parallel, and that of
our own country full of difficulties. The pressure of these, too, is the more
severely felt because they have fallen upon us at a moment when the
national prosperity being at a height not before attained, the contrast
resulting from the change has been rendered the more striking. Under the
benign influence of our republican institutions, and the maintenance of
peace with all nations whilst so many of them were engaged in bloody and
wasteful wars, the fruits of a just policy were enjoyed in an unrivaled
growth of our faculties and resources. Proofs of this were seen in the
improvements of agriculture, in the successful enterprises of commerce, in
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the progress of manufacturers and useful arts, in the increase of the public
revenue and the use made of it in reducing the public debt, and in the
valuable works and establishments everywhere multiplying over the face of
our land.
It is a precious reflection that the transition from this prosperous condition
of our country to the scene which has for some time been distressing us is
not chargeable on any unwarrantable views, nor, as I trust, on any
involuntary errors in the public councils. Indulging no passions which
trespass on the rights or the repose of other nations, it has been the true
glory of the United States to cultivate peace by observing justice, and to
entitle themselves to the respect of the nations at war by fulfilling their
neutral obligations with the most scrupulous impartiality. If there be candor
in the world, the truth of these assertions will not be questioned; posterity
at least will do justice to them.
This unexceptionable course could not avail against the injustice and
violence of the belligerent powers. In their rage against each other, or
impelled by more direct motives, principles of retaliation have been
introduced equally contrary to universal reason and acknowledged law.
How long their arbitrary edicts will be continued in spite of the
demonstrations that not even a pretext for them has been given by the
United States, and of the fair and liberal attempt to induce a revocation of
them, can not be anticipated. Assuring myself that under every vicissitude
the determined spirit and united councils of the nation will be safeguards to
its honor and its essential interests, I repair to the post assigned me with
no other discouragement than what springs from my own inadequacy to its
high duties. If I do not sink under the weight of this deep conviction it is
because I find some support in a consciousness of the purposes and a
confidence in the principles which I bring with me into this arduous service.
To cherish peace and friendly intercourse with all nations having
correspondent dispositions; to maintain sincere neutrality toward
belligerent nations; to prefer in all cases amicable discussion and
reasonable accommodation of differences to a decision of them by an
appeal to arms; to exclude foreign intrigues and foreign partialities, so
degrading to all countries and so baneful to free ones; to foster a spirit of
independence too just to invade the rights of others, too proud to surrender
our own, too liberal to indulge unworthy prejudices ourselves and too
elevated not to look down upon them in others; to hold the union of the
States as the basis of their peace and happiness; to support the
Constitution, which is the cement of the Union, as well in its limitations as
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in its authorities; to respect the rights and authorities reserved to the States
and to the people as equally incorporated with and essential to the success
of the general system; to avoid the slightest interference with the right of
conscience or the functions of religion, so wisely exempted from civil
jurisdiction; to preserve in their full energy the other salutary provisions in
behalf of private and personal rights, and of the freedom of the press; to
observe economy in public expenditures; to liberate the public resources
by an honorable discharge of the public debts; to keep within the requisite
limits a standing military force, always remembering that an armed and
trained militia is the firmest bulwark of republicsthat without standing
armies their liberty can never be in danger, nor with large ones safe; to
promote by authorized means improvements friendly to agriculture, to
manufactures, and to external as well as internal commerce; to favor in like
manner the advancement of science and the diffusion of information as the
best aliment to true liberty; to carry on the benevolent plans which have
been so meritoriously applied to the conversion of our aboriginal neighbors
from the degradation and wretchedness of savage life to a participation of
the improvements of which the human mind and manners are susceptible
in a civilized stateas far as sentiments and intentions such as these can
aid the fulfillment of my duty, they will be a resource which can not fail me.
It is my good fortune, moreover, to have the path in which I am to tread
lighted by examples of illustrious services successfully rendered in the
most trying difficulties by those who have marched before me. Of those of
my immediate predecessor it might least become me here to speak. I may,
however, be pardoned for not suppressing the sympathy with which my
heart is full in the rich reward he enjoys in the benedictions of a beloved
country, gratefully bestowed or exalted talents zealously devoted through a
long career to the advancement of its highest interest and happiness.
But the source to which I look or the aids which alone can supply my
deficiencies is in the well-tried intelligence and virtue of my fellow-citizens,
and in the counsels of those representing them in the other departments
associated in the care of the national interests. In these my confidence will
under every difficulty be best placed, next to that which we have all been
encouraged to feel in the guardianship and guidance of that Almighty Being
whose power regulates the destiny of nations, whose blessings have been
so conspicuously dispensed to this rising Republic, and to whom we are
bound to address our devout gratitude for the past, as well as our fervent
supplications and best hopes for the future.

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James Monroe
First Inaugural Address
Tuesday, March 4, 1817
Because the Capitol was under reconstruction after the fire, Presidentelect Monroe offered to take his oath of office in the House Chamber of
the temporary "Brick Capitol," located on the site where the Supreme
Court building now stands. A controversy resulted from the inaugural
committee's proposals concerning the use of the House Chamber on the
second floor of the brick building. Speaker Henry Clay declined the use of
the hall and suggested that the proceedings be held outside. The
President's speech to the crowd from a platform adjacent to the brick
building was the first outdoor inaugural address. Chief Justice John
Marshall administered the oath of office.

I SHOULD be destitute of feeling if I was not deeply affected by the strong

proof which my fellow-citizens have given me of their confidence in calling
me to the high office whose functions I am about to assume. As the
expression of their good opinion of my conduct in the public service, I
derive from it a gratification which those who are conscious of having done
all that they could to merit it can alone feel. My sensibility is increased by a
just estimate of the importance of the trust and of the nature and extent of
its duties, with the proper discharge of which the highest interests of a
great and free people are intimately connected. Conscious of my own
deficiency, I cannot enter on these duties without great anxiety for the
result. From a just responsibility I will never shrink, calculating with
confidence that in my best efforts to promote the public welfare my motives
will always be duly appreciated and my conduct be viewed with that candor
and indulgence which I have experienced in other stations.
In commencing the duties of the chief executive office it has been the
practice of the distinguished men who have gone before me to explain the
principles which would govern them in their respective Administrations. In
following their venerated example my attention is naturally drawn to the
great causes which have contributed in a principal degree to produce the
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present happy condition of the United States. They will best explain the
nature of our duties and shed much light on the policy which ought to be
pursued in future.
From the commencement of our Revolution to the present day almost
forty years have elapsed, and from the establishment of this Constitution
twenty-eight. Through this whole term the Government has been what may
emphatically be called self-government. And what has been the effect? To
whatever object we turn our attention, whether it relates to our foreign or
domestic concerns, we find abundant cause to felicitate ourselves in the
excellence of our institutions. During a period fraught with difficulties and
marked by very extraordinary events the United States have flourished
beyond example. Their citizens individually have been happy and the
nation prosperous.
Under this Constitution our commerce has been wisely regulated with
foreign nations and between the States; new States have been admitted
into our Union; our territory has been enlarged by fair and honorable treaty,
and with great advantage to the original States; the States, respectively
protected by the National Government under a mild, parental system
against foreign dangers, and enjoying within their separate spheres, by a
wise partition of power, a just proportion of the sovereignty, have improved
their police, extended their settlements, and attained a strength and
maturity which are the best proofs of wholesome laws well administered.
And if we look to the condition of individuals what a proud spectacle does it
exhibit! On whom has oppression fallen in any quarter of our Union? Who
has been deprived of any right of person or property? Who restrained from
offering his vows in the mode which he prefers to the Divine Author of his
being? It is well known that all these blessings have been enjoyed in their
fullest extent; and I add with peculiar satisfaction that there has been no
example of a capital punishment being inflicted on anyone for the crime of
high treason.
Some who might admit the competency of our Government to these
beneficent duties might doubt it in trials which put to the test its strength
and efficiency as a member of the great community of nations. Here too
experience has afforded us the most satisfactory proof in its favor. Just as
this Constitution was put into action several of the principal States of
Europe had become much agitated and some of them seriously convulsed.
Destructive wars ensued, which have of late only been terminated. In the
course of these conflicts the United States received great injury from
several of the parties. It was their interest to stand aloof from the contest,
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to demand justice from the party committing the injury, and to cultivate by a
fair and honorable conduct the friendship of all. War became at length
inevitable, and the result has shown that our Government is equal to that,
the greatest of trials, under the most unfavorable circumstances. Of the
virtue of the people and of the heroic exploits of the Army, the Navy, and
the militia I need not speak.
Such, then, is the happy Government under which we livea
Government adequate to every purpose for which the social compact is
formed; a Government elective in all its branches, under which every
citizen may by his merit obtain the highest trust recognized by the
Constitution; which contains within it no cause of discord, none to put at
variance one portion of the community with another; a Government which
protects every citizen in the full enjoyment of his rights, and is able to
protect the nation against injustice from foreign powers.
Other considerations of the highest importance admonish us to cherish
our Union and to cling to the Government which supports it. Fortunate as
we are in our political institutions, we have not been less so in other
circumstances on which our prosperity and happiness essentially depend.
Situated within the temperate zone, and extending through many degrees
of latitude along the Atlantic, the United States enjoy all the varieties of
climate, and every production incident to that portion of the globe.
Penetrating internally to the Great Lakes and beyond the sources of the
great rivers which communicate through our whole interior, no country was
ever happier with respect to its domain. Blessed, too, with a fertile soil, our
produce has always been very abundant, leaving, even in years the least
favorable, a surplus for the wants of our fellow-men in other countries.
Such is our peculiar felicity that there is not a part of our Union that is not
particularly interested in preserving it. The great agricultural interest of the
nation prospers under its protection. Local interests are not less fostered
by it. Our fellow-citizens of the North engaged in navigation find great
encouragement in being made the favored carriers of the vast productions
of the other portions of the United States, while the inhabitants of these are
amply recompensed, in their turn, by the nursery for seamen and naval
force thus formed and reared up for the support of our common rights. Our
manufactures find a generous encouragement by the policy which
patronizes domestic industry, and the surplus of our produce a steady and
profitable market by local wants in less-favored parts at home.
Such, then, being the highly favored condition of our country, it is the
interest of every citizen to maintain it. What are the dangers which menace
15

us? If any exist they ought to be ascertained and guarded against.

In explaining my sentiments on this subject it may be asked, What raised
us to the present happy state? How did we accomplish the Revolution?
How remedy the defects of the first instrument of our Union, by infusing
into the National Government sufficient power for national purposes,
without impairing the just rights of the States or affecting those of
individuals? How sustain and pass with glory through the late war? The
Government has been in the hands of the people. To the people, therefore,
and to the faithful and able depositaries of their trust is the credit due. Had
the people of the United States been educated in different principles, had
they been less intelligent, less independent, or less virtuous, can it be
believed that we should have maintained the same steady and consistent
career or been blessed with the same success? While, then, the
constituent body retains its present sound and healthful state everything
will be safe. They will choose competent and faithful representatives for
every department. It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt,
when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of
exercising the sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and an
usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing
instruments of their own debasement and ruin. Let us, then, look to the
great cause, and endeavor to preserve it in full force. Let us by all wise and
constitutional measures promote intelligence among the people as the best
means of preserving our liberties.
Dangers from abroad are not less deserving of attention. Experiencing the
fortune of other nations, the United States may be again involved in war,
and it may in that event be the object of the adverse party to overset our
Government, to break our Union, and demolish us as a nation. Our
distance from Europe and the just, moderate, and pacific policy of our
Government may form some security against these dangers, but they
ought to be anticipated and guarded against. Many of our citizens are
engaged in commerce and navigation, and all of them are in a certain
degree dependent on their prosperous state. Many are engaged in the
fisheries. These interests are exposed to invasion in the wars between
other powers, and we should disregard the faithful admonition of
experience if we did not expect it. We must support our rights or lose our
character, and with it, perhaps, our liberties. A people who fail to do it can
scarcely be said to hold a place among independent nations. National
honor is national property of the highest value. The sentiment in the mind
of every citizen is national strength. It ought therefore to be cherished.
16

To secure us against these dangers our coast and inland frontiers should
be fortified, our Army and Navy, regulated upon just principles as to the
force of each, be kept in perfect order, and our militia be placed on the best
practicable footing. To put our extensive coast in such a state of defense as
to secure our cities and interior from invasion will be attended with
expense, but the work when finished will be permanent, and it is fair to
presume that a single campaign of invasion by a naval force superior to our
own, aided by a few thousand land troops, would expose us to greater
expense, without taking into the estimate the loss of property and distress
of our citizens, than would be sufficient for this great work. Our land and
naval forces should be moderate, but adequate to the necessary purposes
the former to garrison and preserve our fortifications and to meet the first
invasions of a foreign foe, and, while constituting the elements of a greater
force, to preserve the science as well as all the necessary implements of
war in a state to be brought into activity in the event of war; the latter,
retained within the limits proper in a state of peace, might aid in
maintaining the neutrality of the United States with dignity in the wars of
other powers and in saving the property of their citizens from spoliation. In
time of war, with the enlargement of which the great naval resources of the
country render it susceptible, and which should be duly fostered in time of
peace, it would contribute essentially, both as an auxiliary of defense and
as a powerful engine of annoyance, to diminish the calamities of war and to
bring the war to a speedy and honorable termination.
But it ought always to be held prominently in view that the safety of these
States and of everything dear to a free people must depend in an eminent
degree on the militia. Invasions may be made too formidable to be resisted
by any land and naval force which it would comport either with the
principles of our Government or the circumstances of the United States to
maintain. In such cases recourse must be had to the great body of the
people, and in a manner to produce the best effect. It is of the highest
importance, therefore, that they be so organized and trained as to be
prepared for any emergency. The arrangement should be such as to put at
the command of the Government the ardent patriotism and youthful vigor of
the country. If formed on equal and just principles, it can not be oppressive.
It is the crisis which makes the pressure, and not the laws which provide a
remedy for it. This arrangement should be formed, too, in time of peace, to
be the better prepared for war. With such an organization of such a people
the United States have nothing to dread from foreign invasion. At its
approach an overwhelming force of gallant men might always be put in
motion.
17

Other interests of high importance will claim attention, among which the
improvement of our country by roads and canals, proceeding always with a
constitutional sanction, holds a distinguished place. By thus facilitating the
intercourse between the States we shall add much to the convenience and
comfort of our fellow-citizens, much to the ornament of the country, and,
what is of greater importance, we shall shorten distances, and, by making
each part more accessible to and dependent on the other, we shall bind the
Union more closely together. Nature has done so much for us by
intersecting the country with so many great rivers, bays, and lakes,
approaching from distant points so near to each other, that the inducement
to complete the work seems to be peculiarly strong. A more interesting
spectacle was perhaps never seen than is exhibited within the limits of the
United Statesa territory so vast and advantageously situated, containing
objects so grand, so useful, so happily connected in all their parts!
Our manufacturers will likewise require the systematic and fostering care
of the Government. Possessing as we do all the raw materials, the fruit of
our own soil and industry, we ought not to depend in the degree we have
done on supplies from other countries. While we are thus dependent the
sudden event of war, unsought and unexpected, can not fail to plunge us
into the most serious difficulties. It is important, too, that the capital which
nourishes our manufacturers should be domestic, as its influence in that
case instead of exhausting, as it may do in foreign hands, would be felt
advantageously on agriculture and every other branch of industry. Equally
important is it to provide at home a market for our raw materials, as by
extending the competition it will enhance the price and protect the cultivator
against the casualties incident to foreign markets.
With the Indian tribes it is our duty to cultivate friendly relations and to act
with kindness and liberality in all our transactions. Equally proper is it to
persevere in our efforts to extend to them the advantages of civilization.
The great amount of our revenue and the flourishing state of the Treasury
are a full proof of the competency of the national resources for any
emergency, as they are of the willingness of our fellow-citizens to bear the
burdens which the public necessities require. The vast amount of vacant
lands, the value of which daily augments, forms an additional resource of
great extent and duration. These resources, besides accomplishing every
other necessary purpose, put it completely in the power of the United
States to discharge the national debt at an early period. Peace is the best
time for improvement and preparation of every kind; it is in peace that our
commerce flourishes most, that taxes are most easily paid, and that the
18

revenue is most productive.

The Executive is charged officially in the Departments under it with the
disbursement of the public money, and is responsible for the faithful
application of it to the purposes for which it is raised. The Legislature is the
watchful guardian over the public purse. It is its duty to see that the
disbursement has been honestly made. To meet the requisite responsibility
every facility should be afforded to the Executive to enable it to bring the
public agents intrusted with the public money strictly and promptly to
account. Nothing should be presumed against them; but if, with the
requisite facilities, the public money is suffered to lie long and uselessly in
their hands, they will not be the only defaulters, nor will the demoralizing
effect be confined to them. It will evince a relaxation and want of tone in the
Administration which will be felt by the whole community. I shall do all I can
to secure economy and fidelity in this important branch of the
Administration, and I doubt not that the Legislature will perform its duty with
equal zeal. A thorough examination should be regularly made, and I will
promote it.
It is particularly gratifying to me to enter on the discharge of these duties
at a time when the United States are blessed with peace. It is a state most
consistent with their prosperity and happiness. It will be my sincere desire
to preserve it, so far as depends on the Executive, on just principles with all
nations, claiming nothing unreasonable of any and rendering to each what
is its due.
Equally gratifying is it to witness the increased harmony of opinion which
pervades our Union. Discord does not belong to our system. Union is
recommended as well by the free and benign principles of our
Government, extending its blessings to every individual, as by the other
eminent advantages attending it. The American people have encountered
together great dangers and sustained severe trials with success. They
constitute one great family with a common interest. Experience has
enlightened us on some questions of essential importance to the country.
The progress has been slow, dictated by a just reflection and a faithful
regard to every interest connected with it. To promote this harmony in
accord with the principles of our republican Government and in a manner
to give them the most complete effect, and to advance in all other respects
the best interests of our Union, will be the object of my constant and
zealous exertions.
Never did a government commence under auspices so favorable, nor
ever was success so complete. If we look to the history of other nations,
19

ancient or modern, we find no example of a growth so rapid, so gigantic, of

a people so prosperous and happy. In contemplating what we have still to
perform, the heart of every citizen must expand with joy when he reflects
how near our Government has approached to perfection; that in respect to
it we have no essential improvement to make; that the great object is to
preserve it in the essential principles and features which characterize it,
and that is to be done by preserving the virtue and enlightening the minds
of the people; and as a security against foreign dangers to adopt such
arrangements as are indispensable to the support of our independence,
our rights and liberties. If we persevere in the career in which we have
advanced so far and in the path already traced, we can not fail, under the
favor of a gracious Providence, to attain the high destiny which seems to
await us.
In the Administrations of the illustrious men who have preceded me in this
high station, with some of whom I have been connected by the closest ties
from early life, examples are presented which will always be found highly
instructive and useful to their successors. From these I shall endeavor to
derive all the advantages which they may afford. Of my immediate
predecessor, under whom so important a portion of this great and
successful experiment has been made, I shall be pardoned for expressing
my earnest wishes that he may long enjoy in his retirement the affections
of a grateful country, the best reward of exalted talents and the most
faithful and meritorious service. Relying on the aid to be derived from the
other departments of the Government, I enter on the trust to which I have
been called by the suffrages of my fellow-citizens with my fervent prayers
to the Almighty that He will be graciously pleased to continue to us that
protection which He has already so conspicuously displayed in our favor.

Andrew Jackson

20

First Inaugural Address

Wednesday, March 4, 1829
The election of Andrew Jackson was heralded as a new page in the
history of the Republic. The first military leader elected President since
George Washington, he was much admired by the electorate, who came
to Washington to celebrate "Old Hickory's" inauguration. Outgoing
President Adams did not join in the ceremony, which was held for the first
time on the East Portico of the Capitol building. Chief Justice John
Marshall administered the oath of office. After the proceedings at the
Capitol, a large group of citizens walked with the new President along
Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House, and many of them visited the
executive mansion that day and evening. Such large numbers of people
arrived that many of the furnishings were ruined. President Jackson left
the building by a window to avoid the crush of people.
Fellow-Citizens:
ABOUT to undertake the arduous duties that I have been appointed to
perform by the choice of a free people, I avail myself of this customary
and solemn occasion to express the gratitude which their confidence
inspires and to acknowledge the accountability which my situation
enjoins. While the magnitude of their interests convinces me that no
thanks can be adequate to the honor they have conferred, it admonishes
me that the best return I can make is the zealous dedication of my
humble abilities to their service and their good.
As the instrument of the Federal Constitution it will devolve on me for a
stated period to execute the laws of the United States, to superintend
their foreign and their confederate relations, to manage their revenue, to
command their forces, and, by communications to the Legislature, to
watch over and to promote their interests generally. And the principles of
action by which I shall endeavor to accomplish this circle of duties it is
now proper for me briefly to explain.
In administering the laws of Congress I shall keep steadily in view the
limitations as well as the extent of the Executive power, trusting thereby to
discharge the functions of my office without transcending its authority.
21

With foreign nations it will be my study to preserve peace and to cultivate

friendship on fair and honorable terms, and in the adjustment of any
differences that may exist or arise to exhibit the forbearance becoming a
powerful nation rather than the sensibility belonging to a gallant people.
In such measures as I may be called on to pursue in regard to the rights
of the separate States I hope to be animated by a proper respect for
those sovereign members of our Union, taking care not to confound the
powers they have reserved to themselves with those they have granted to
the Confederacy.
The management of the public revenuethat searching operation in all
governmentsis among the most delicate and important trusts in ours,
and it will, of course, demand no inconsiderable share of my official
solicitude. Under every aspect in which it can be considered it would
appear that advantage must result from the observance of a strict and
faithful economy. This I shall aim at the more anxiously both because it
will facilitate the extinguishment of the national debt, the unnecessary
duration of which is incompatible with real independence, and because it
will counteract that tendency to public and private profligacy which a
profuse expenditure of money by the Government is but too apt to
engender. Powerful auxiliaries to the attainment of this desirable end are
to be found in the regulations provided by the wisdom of Congress for the
specific appropriation of public money and the prompt accountability of
public officers.
With regard to a proper selection of the subjects of impost with a view to
revenue, it would seem to me that the spirit of equity, caution, and
compromise in which the Constitution was formed requires that the great
interests of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures should be equally
favored, and that perhaps the only exception to this rule should consist in
the peculiar encouragement of any products of either of them that may be
found essential to our national independence.
Internal improvement and the diffusion of knowledge, so far as they can
be promoted by the constitutional acts of the Federal Government, are of
high importance.
Considering standing armies as dangerous to free governments in time
of peace, I shall not seek to enlarge our present establishment, nor
disregard that salutary lesson of political experience which teaches that
the military should be held subordinate to the civil power. The gradual
increase of our Navy, whose flag has displayed in distant climes our skill
in navigation and our fame in arms; the preservation of our forts,
22

arsenals, and dockyards, and the introduction of progressive

improvements in the discipline and science of both branches of our
military service are so plainly prescribed by prudence that I should be
excused for omitting their mention sooner than for enlarging on their
importance. But the bulwark of our defense is the national militia, which in
the present state of our intelligence and population must render us
invincible. As long as our Government is administered for the good of the
people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights
of person and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be
worth defending; and so long as it is worth defending a patriotic militia will
cover it with an impenetrable aegis. Partial injuries and occasional
mortifications we may be subjected to, but a million of armed freemen,
possessed of the means of war, can never be conquered by a foreign foe.
To any just system, therefore, calculated to strengthen this natural
safeguard of the country I shall cheerfully lend all the aid in my power.
It will be my sincere and constant desire to observe toward the Indian
tribes within our limits a just and liberal policy, and to give that humane
and considerate attention to their rights and their wants which is
consistent with the habits of our Government and the feelings of our
people.
The recent demonstration of public sentiment inscribes on the list of
Executive duties, in characters too legible to be overlooked, the task
of reform, which will require particularly the correction of those abuses
that have brought the patronage of the Federal Government into conflict
with the freedom of elections, and the counteraction of those causes
which have disturbed the rightful course of appointment and have placed
or continued power in unfaithful or incompetent hands.
In the performance of a task thus generally delineated I shall endeavor
to select men whose diligence and talents will insure in their respective
stations able and faithful cooperation, depending for the advancement of
the public service more on the integrity and zeal of the public officers than
on their numbers.
A diffidence, perhaps too just, in my own qualifications will teach me to
look with reverence to the examples of public virtue left by my illustrious
predecessors, and with veneration to the lights that flow from the mind
that founded and the mind that reformed our system. The same diffidence
induces me to hope for instruction and aid from the coordinate branches
of the Government, and for the indulgence and support of my fellowcitizens generally. And a firm reliance on the goodness of that Power
23

whose providence mercifully protected our national infancy, and has since
upheld our liberties in various vicissitudes, encourages me to offer up my
ardent supplications that He will continue to make our beloved country the
object of His divine care and gracious benediction.

Inaugural Address
of

24

General Emilio Aguinaldo

President of the Philippines
[Delivered at Barasoain Church, Malolos, Bulacan, on January 23, 1899]
Honorable Representatives:
I congratulate you upon having concluded your constitutional work. From
this date, the Philippines will have a National Code to the just and wise
precepts of which we, each and every one of us, owe blind obedience, and
whose liberal and democratic guarantees also extend to all.
Hereafter, the Philippines will have a fundamental law, which will unite our
people with the other nations by the strongest of solidarities; that is the
solidarity of justice, of law, and of right, eternal truths, which are the basis
of human dignity.
I congratulate myself also on seeing my constant efforts crowned; efforts
which I continued from the time I entered the battlefield with my brave
countrymen of Cavite, as did our brothers in other provinces with no arms,
but bolos, to secure our liberty and independence.
And finally, I congratulate our beloved people, who from this date will cease
to be anonymous and will be able with legitimate pride to proclaim to the
universe the long coveted name of Philippine Republic.
We are no longer insurgents; we are no longer revolutionists; that is to say
armed men desirous of destroying and annihilating the enemy. We are from
now on Republicans; that is to say, men of law, able to fraternize with all
other nations, with mutual respect and affection. There is nothing lacking,
therefore, in order for us to be recognized and admitted as a free and
independent nation.
Ah, Honorable Representatives! How much pain and bitterness do those
passed days of Spanish slavery bring to our minds, and how much hope
and joy do the present moments of Philippine liberty awaken in us.
25

Great is this day, glorious is this date; and this moment, when our beloved
people rise to the apotheosis of independence, will be eternally memorable.
The 23rd of January will be for the Philippines, hereafter a national feast,
as is the Fourth of July for the American nation. And thus, in the same
manner that God helped weak America in the last century, when she fought
against powerful Albion (England), to regain her liberty and independence;
He will also help us today in our identical goal, because the ways of Divine
Justice are immutably the same in rectitude and wisdom.
A thousand thanks, honorable Representatives, for your parliamentary
work, which enables us and establishes in a public and authentic manner,
that we are a civilized nation and also a brave one; worthy, therefore, of
being freely admitted into the concerts of nations.
You have justly deserved the gratitude of the country and of the
government, in that you showed the entire world, by your wisdom, sound
sense, and prudence, that in this remote and heretofore unknown portion of
the world, the principles of European and American civilization are known,
and more than known; that intelligence and hearts here are perfectly in
accord with those of the most civilized nations; and that notwithstanding the
calumnious voice of our eternal detractors, there is here, finally, a national
spirit, which unites and forges together all Filipino hearts into a single idea
and single aspiration to live independent of any foreign yoke in the
democratic shadow of the Philippine Republic.
For this reason, on seeing consecrated in our constitutional work the
eternal principles of authority, of liberty, of order and justice, which all
civilized nations profess, as the most perfect guaranty of their actual
solidarity, I feel strength, pride, and am sincerely impelled, from the bottom
of my heart to shout
Long live the Philippine Republic!
Long live the Constitution!

26

Long live their illustrious authors, the Representatives of the first Philippine
Congress!

Second Inaugural Address

of
His Excellency Manuel L. Quezon
President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines
[Delivered at Corregidor on December 30, 1941]
On November 15, 1935, I took my oath of office as first President of the
Philippines under the most favorable auspices. The Philippines was at
peace and the Filipino people were happy and contented. At the inaugural
ceremonies held in the city of Manila, there were present high dignitaries of
the Government of the United States, and a vast multitude of Filipinos
deeply grateful to America and thrilled with the vision of a bright future.
Today, I am assuming for the second time the duties of the Presidency
under entirely different conditions. We are in the grip of war, and the seat of
the government has been temporarily transferred from the city of Manila to
a place in close proximity to the headquarters of our armed forces, where I
am in constant touch with Gen. Douglas MacArthur. All around us, enemy
bombs are dropping and anti-aircraft guns are roaring. In defenseless cities
and towns, air raids are killing women and children, and destroying centuryold churches, monasteries, and schools.
Six years ago, there was every reason to believe that the Filipino people
would be able to prepare themselves for independence in peace and
without hindrance. In my first inaugural address, I outlined a program
intended to lay the foundations for a government that will, in the language
of our Constitution, promote the general welfare and secure to the Filipino
27

people and their posterity the blessings of independence under a regime

of justice, liberty, and democracy.
Our task of nation building was in progress when suddenly, on December
8, 1941, the Philippines became the victim of wanton aggression. We are
resisting this aggression with everything that we have.
Our soldiers, American and Filipino, under the leadership of Gen. Douglas
MacArthur, one of the greatest soldiers of our time, are fighting on all fronts
with gallantry and heroism that will go down in history. In the face of
frequent air raids which are causing so much death, suffering, and
destruction, our civilian population are maintaining their morale. Despite the
enemys temporary superiority in the air, and on land and sea, we have
been able to check the rapid advance of the invading armies. America and
the Philippines may well be proud of the heroic struggle that our forces are
putting up against the invader.
At the present time we have but one taskto fight with America for America
and the Philippines. To this task, we shall devote all our resources in men
and materials. Ours is a great cause. We are fighting for human liberty and
justice, for those principles of individual freedom which we all cherish and
without which life would not be worth living. Indeed, we are fighting for our
own independence. It is to maintain this independence, these liberties and
these freedoms, to banish fear and want among all peoples, and to
establish a reign of justice for all the world, that we are sacrificing our lives
and all that we possess. The war may be long drawn and hard fought, but
with the determination of freedom-loving peoples everywhere to stamp out
the rule of violence and terrorism from the face of the earth, I am absolutely
convinced that final and complete victory will be ours.
Soon after the outbreak of the war, I received a message from President
Roosevelt expressing admiration for the gallantry of our soldiers and the
courageous stand of our civilian population. Yesterday, the President of the
United States issued a proclamation which, I am sure, will hearten our
fighting men and thrill the soul of every American and Filipino in this land.
This is the proclamation:
28

News of your gallant struggle against the Japanese aggressors has

elicited the profound admiration of every American. As President of the
United States, I know that I speak for all our people on this solemn
occasion. The resources of the United States, of the British Empire, of the
Netherlands East Indies, and the Chinese Republic have been dedicated
by their people to the utter and complete defeat of the Japanese War
Lords. In this struggle of the Pacific, the loyal Americans of the Philippine
Islands are called upon to play a crucial role. They have played, and they
are playing tonight, their part with the greatest gallantry. As President, I
wish to express to them my feeling of sincere admiration for the fight they
are now making. The people of the United States will never forget what the
people of the Philippine Islands are doing these days and will do in the
days to come. I give to the people of the Philippines my solemn pledge that
their freedom will be redeemed and their independence established and
protected. The entire resources in men and materials of the United States
stand behind that pledge. It is not for me or for the people of this country to
tell you where your duty lies. We are engaged in a great and common
cause. I count on every Philippine man, woman, and child to do his duty.
We will do ours. I give you this message from the Navy:
The Navy Department tonight announces the Japanese Government is
circulating rumors for the obvious purpose of persuading the United States
to disclose the location and intentions of the American Pacific Fleets. It is
obvious that these rumors are intended for, and directed at, the Philippine
Islands. The Philippines may rest assured that while the United States
Navy will not be tricked into disclosing vital information, the fleet is not idle.
The United States Navy is following an intensive and well planned
campaign against Japanese forces which will result in positive assistance
to the defense of the Philippine Islands.
My heart, and I know the hearts of all Americans and Filipinos in this
country, are filled with gratitude for the reassuring words of the President of
the United States. My answer, our answer, to him is that every man,
woman, and child in the Philippines will do his duty. No matter what
sufferings and sacrifices this war may impose upon us, we shall stand by
29

America with undaunted spirit, for we know that upon the outcome of this
war depend the happiness, liberty, and security not only of this generation
but of the generations yet unborn.
Mr. High Commissioner, may I ask you to convey to the President of the
United States our profound gratitude for the noble sentiments expressed in
his proclamation. The Filipino people are particularly grateful for his abiding
interest in our welfare and for his pledge to assure and protect our freedom
and independence.
Gen. MacArthur, there are no words in my language that can express to
you the deep gratitude of the Filipino people and my own for your devotion
to our cause, the defense of our country, and the safety of our population. I
trust that the time will come when we may express this sentiment to you in
a more appropriate manner.
To all Americans in the Philippines, soldiers and civilians alike, I want to say
that our common ordeal has fused our hearts in a single purpose and an
everlasting affection.
My fellow countrymen, this is the most momentous period of our history. As
we face the grim realities of war, let us rededicate ourselves to the great
principles of freedom and democracy for which our forefathers fought and
died. The present war is being fought for these same principles. It demands
from us courage, determination, and unity of action, In taking my oath of
office, I make the pledge for myself, my government, and my people, to
stand by America and fight with her until victory is won. I am resolved,
whatever the consequences to myself, faithfully to fulfill this pledge. I
humbly invoke the help of Almighty God that I may have the wisdom and
fortitude to carry out this solemn obligation.

30

Second Inaugural Address

of
His Excellency Ferdinand E. Marcos
[Delivered at the Quirino Grandstand, Manila on December 30, 1969]
My Countrymen:
Four years have passed since I took my first oath of office as President of
the Republic of the Philippines. We have travelled far since then. On that
year and hour when I first assumed the presidency, we found a government
at the brink of disaster and collapse, a government that prompted fear
before it inspired hope; plagued by indecision, scorned by self-doubt, its
economy despoiled, its treasury plundered, its last remaining gleam shone
to light the way of panic. But panic, we did not. Rather against the usual
31

raucous cries of the cynics we kept faith, and in that faith persevered, until
the passing of that terrible cloud.
We survived the agony, we passed the test.
The results of those endeavors are landmarks upon our nation now. We
have conquered the first obstacles first.
But our task is not done. For the task of nation-building never ends. We
must forge on.
You have given me the task of leadership by an overwhelming and
unprecedented mandate. I thank you for your trust.
I lead this nation into a new decade, the decade of the seventies a
decade that is one of the most crucial in our history as well as in the history
of Asia and of the world.
The world seeks to know whether man is indeed impelled by some strange
instinct to self-destruction or whether its sciences on the relationships of
men can catch up or overreach its natural sciences.
In Asia we must now forge a constructive unity and co-exist in purposeful
peace, not on terms that must yet be drawn by a conquering ideology, but
on bonds that now exist. For in the years of this difficult decade, Asia must
decide whether in this vast region of one of the greatest of the worlds
peoples, it will build a sanctuary, or set up continental prison.
Decision cannot much longer be delayed.
In our own land, we have just begun building a nation. We have had to
telescope in four years what other nations achieved in decades.
There, is a mortgage of dedication, of discipline, of self-abnegating
leadership in the billowing fields of green sprung from miracle rice; on every
road or bridge; on every school or hospital; on every house or irrigation; on
every farm or industry; on every community project we have built.
32

For discipline is the other face of achievement.

But hear the strident cries of protest against self-discipline from the gilded
throats of the privileged and the cynically articulate they who have yet to
encounter the implacable face of poverty. I hear the well-meaning cries of
the uninformed and the naive. To them I address this plea. Let them share
the burden with the grace and courage of the poor. Let them find common
cause the people. Too long have we blamed on one another the ills of this
nation. Too long have we wasted our opportunities by finding fault with
each other, as if this would cure our ills and rectify our errors. Let us now
banish recrimination.
There are too many of us who see things as they are and complain. Let us
rather see things as they should be and aspire. Let us dream the vision of
what could be and not what might have been.
There are many things we do not want about our world. Let us not just
mourn them. Let us change them.
The time is now. In government I pledge the severest leadership in integrity
as well as discipline. Public officials shall set the vision for simplicity within
the bounds of civility. I ask in turn a response from the privileged. Let us be
true to ourselves as the people of a poor nation struggling to be
prosperous; whatever our personal circumstances, rich or poor, we are all
citizens in poverty.
Today with us, self-reliance is, no longer an option; it is our fate.
The next few years will lay the basis for a reformation - a revolutionary
reformation of our international and domestic policies - of our political,
social, legal and economic systems.
Truly then the decade of the seventies cannot be for the faint of heart and
men of little faith. It is not for the whiners nor for the timid. It demands men
and women of purpose and dedication. It will require new national habits,
nothing less than a new social and official morality. Our society must
33

chastise the profligate rich who waste the nations substance including its
foreign exchange reserves on persona comports and luxuries.
The nations capacity for growth is limited by its foreign exchange earnings.
Every dollar spent on self-indulgence is a dollar taken away from
employment, from welfare, from education from the nations social and
economic well-being.
The presidency will set the example of this official morality and oblige
others to follow. Any act of extravagance in government will be considered
not only an offense to good morals but also an act punishable with
dismissal from office.
With such a new ethic, we will surmount the problems we are confronting
now.
We must discard complacency embracing panic; rely on our efforts alone
without rejecting the support of others.
Let not the future observe that being virile in body we multiplied in number,
without increasing in spirit.
I do not demand of you more than I shall demand of myself and of
government. So seek not from government what cannot find in yourself.
In the solution of our problems, this government will lead.
But, the first duty that confronts us all is how to continue to grow in this
nation now a new heart, a new spirit that springs out of the belief that while
our dangers be many, and our resources few, there is no problem that
cannot be surmounted given but the will and courage.
Let every man be his own master, but let him first, and above all, be his
own charge.

34

It is our destiny to transform this nation; we begin by transforming

ourselves first. In this formidable task, no Filipino, no one in the land will be
exempt whatever his station in life.
Neither wealth nor power will purchase privilege; wealth and power shall
not outrage the conscience of our people.
Trusting in God and in ourselves, we must now pledge, my countrymen,
that in homage to the vision of a race, there shall be in this spot of the
universe, a people strong and free, tracing their ancestral roots to Asia,
proud of their oriental heritage as well as western culture, secure in their
achievements, a people daring to match the iron of the world without losing
their essential humanity, eradicating social iniquity without encouraging
anarchy, eliminating subversion without endangering their liberties,
practising self-discipline and self-reliance without ostentation, attaining
dignity without losing friends, seeking true independence without provoking
war, embracing freedom even in deprivation.
Thus we prove to our posterity that our dream was true that even in this
land of impoverished legacy, the wave of the future is not totalitarianism but
democracy.

35

Inaugural address of
her excellency Gloria Macapagal Arroyo
INAUGURAL ADDRESS
[Delivered at Our Lady of EDSA Shrine, Mandaluyong on January 20,
2001]
In all humility, I accept the Presidency of the Republic.
I do so with both trepidation and a sense of awe.
Trepidation, because it is now, as the Good Book says, a time to heal and a
time to build. The task is formidable, so I pray that we will all be one one
in our priorities, one in our values and commitments, and one because of
Edsa 2001.
A sense of awe, because the Filipino has done it again on the hallowed
ground of Edsa.
People Power and the oneness of will and vision have made a new
beginning possible. I cannot but recall at this point, therefore, Ninoy
Aquinos words:
I have carefully weighed the virtues and the faults of the Filipino, and I
have come to the conclusion that he is worth dying for.
As we break from the past in our quest for a new Philippines, the unity, the
Filipinos sense of history, and his unshakeable faith in the Almighty that
prevailed in EDSA 86 and EDSA 2001 will continue to guide and inspire us.
I am certain that Filipinos of unborn generations will look back with pride to
EDSA 2001, just as we look back with pride to Mactan, the Katipunan and
other revolts, Bataan and Corregidor, and EDSA 86.
I am certain that pride will reign supreme as they recall the heroism and
sacrifices and prayers of Jaime Cardinal Sin, former Presidents Corazon
36

Aquino and Fidel Ramos, the legislators who fought the good fight in
Congress, the leaders whose principles were beyond negotiation, the
witnesses in the impeachment trial who did not count the cost of testifying,
the youth and students who walked out of their classes to be here at EDSA,
the generals in the Armed Forces and the Philippine National Police, and
the Filipino out there who stood up to be counted in these troubled times.
The Filipino, crises and all, is truly worth living and dying for.
Ngunit saan tayo tutungo mula rito?
Jose Rizal, the first to articulate self-determination in a free society,
provides the answer.
Rizal counseled the Filipino to lead a life of commitment. He must think
national, go beyond self.
A stone is worthless, Rizal wrote, if it is not part of an edifice.
We are the stones, and the Philippines is our edifice.
On many occasions I have given my views on what our program of
government should be. This is not the time or place to repeat them all.
However, I can tell you that they converge on four core beliefs.
1. We must be bold in our national ambitions, so that our challenge
must be that within this decade, we will win the fight against poverty.
2. We must improve moral standards in government and society, in
order to provide a strong foundation for good governance.
3. We must change the character of our politics, in order create fertile
ground for true reforms. Our politics of personality and patronage
must give way to a new politics of party programs and process of
dialogue with the people.
4. Finally, I believe in leadership by example. We should promote solid
traits such as work ethic and a dignified lifestyle, matching action to
rhetoric, performing rather than grandstanding.
The first of my core beliefs pertains to the elimination of poverty. This is our
unfinished business from the past. It dates back to the creation of our
37

Republic, whose seeds were sown in the revolution launched in 1896 by

the plebeian Andres Bonifacio. It was an unfinished revolution, for to this
day, poverty remains our national problem. We need to complete what
Andres Bonifacio began. The ultimate solution to poverty has both a
political and an economic aspect.
Let me first talk about the political aspect.
In doing so, I will refer to one of my core beliefs, that of the need for new
politics. Politics and political power as traditionally practiced and used in
the Philippines are among the roots of the social and economic inequities
that characterize our national problems. Thus, to achieve true reforms, we
need to outgrow our traditional brand of politics based on patronage and
personality. Traditional politics is the politics of the status quo. It is a
structural part of our problem.
We need to promote a new politics of true party programs and platforms, of
an institutional process of dialogue with our citizenry. This new politics is
the politics of genuine reform. It is a structural part of the solution.
We have long accepted the need to level the playing field in business and
economics. Now, we must accept the need to level the playing field in
politics as well. We have long aspired to be a world class economy. Now,
we must also aspire to develop a world class political system, one in tune
with the 21st Century.
The world of the 21st Century that our youth will inherit is truly a new
economy, where relentless forces such as capital market flows and
advances in information and communications technology create both peril
and opportunity.
To tap the opportunities, we need an economic philosophy of transparency
and private enterprise, for these are the catalysts that nurture the
entrepreneurial spirit to be globally competitive.

38

To extend the opportunities to our rural countryside, we must create a

modernized and socially equitable agricultural sector.
To address the perils, we must give a social bias to balance our economic
development, and these are embodied in safety nets for sectors affected by
globalization, and safeguards for our environment.
To ensure that our gains are not dissipated through corruption, we must
improve moral standards. As we do so, we create fertile ground for good
governance based on a sound moral foundation, a philosophy of
transparency, and an ethic of effective implementation.
Considering the divisions of today, our commitment will entail a lot of
sacrifices among us all, as we work to restore the dignity and pre-eminence
of the Filipino.
Join me, therefore, as we begin to tear down the walls that divide. Let us
build an edifice of peace, progress, and economic stability.
People Power has dramatized the Filipinos capacity for greatness.
People of People Power, I ask for your support and prayers. Together, we
will light the healing and cleansing flame.
This we owe to the Philippines. This we owe to every Filipino.
Thank you and may the Good Lord bless us all.

39

INAUGURAL ADDRESS
OF
HIS EXCELLENCY RAMON MAGSAYSAY
PRESIDENT OF THE PHILIPPINES

[Delivered at the Independence Grandstand, Manila, on December 30,

1953]
My Countrymen:
You have called upon me to assume the highest office within our gift. I
accept the trust humbly and gratefully. My sole determination is to be
President for the people.
The office of President is the highest in the land. It can be the humblest
also, if we regard it as we must in the light of basic democratic
principles. The first of these principles is the declaration of the
Constitution that sovereignty resides in the people and all government
authority emanates form them. This simply means that all of us in public
office are but servants of the people.
As I see it, your mandate in the past election was not a license for the
selfish enjoyment of power by any man or group of men. On the contrary, it
40

was an endorsement of the principle at times forgotten that the general

welfare is the only justification for the exercise of governmental power and
authority.
Your mandate was a clear and urgent command to establish for our people
a government based upon honesty and morality; a government sensitive to
your needs, dedicated to your best interests, and inspired by our highest
ideals of mans liberty.
We have a glorious past. Now we must build a future worthy of that past.
It is significant that we begin on this day and on this ground hallowed by the
supreme sacrifice of Jose Rizal. We can find no finer example of dedication
to country to light our way.
All too often, however, we speak of Rizal and of Del Pilar, Bonifacio,
Mabini, and our host of heroes as if their work were done, as if today their
spirit had ceased to have any meaning or value to our people. The truth is
that we need their spirit now more than ever. We need it to complete the
work which they began.
We need men of integrity and faith like Rizal and Del Pilar; men of action
like Bonifacio; men of inflexible patriotism like Mabini. We need their zeal,
their self-reliance, their capacity for work, their devotion to service, their
ability to lose themselves in the common cause of building a nation.
I will have such men. From this day, the members of my administration,
beginning with myself, shall cease to belong to our parties, to our families,
even to ourselves. We shall belong only to the people.
In the administration of public affairs, all men entrusted with authority must
adhere firmly to the ideals and principles of the Constitution.
I will render and demand uncompromising loyalty to the basic tenet of
our Constitution; that you, the people, are sovereign. The rule of
government must be service to you.
41

Accordingly, I pledge my administration to your service. I pledge that we

shall extend the protection of the law to everyone, fairly and impartially to
the rich and the poor, the learned and the unlettered recognizing no party
but the nation, no family but the great family of our race, no interest save
the common welfare.
The Bill of Rights shall be for me and the members of my administration, a
bill of duties. We shall be guardians of the freedom and dignity of the
individual.
More than this, we shall strive to give meaning and substance to the
liberties guaranteed by our Constitution by helping our citizens to attain
the economic well-being so essential to the enjoyment of civil and political
rights.
The separation of powers ordained by our Constitution as an effective
safeguard against tyranny shall be preserved zealously. Mutual respect
for the rights and prerogative of each of the three great departments of
government must be observed.
The legislative power vested by the Constitution, in the elected
representatives of the people will, I trust, operate vigorously to prosecute
our common program of honest, efficient and constructive government. As
Executive, I look forward to intimate cooperation with the members of
Congress, particularly with those statesmen who have stood guard over the
rights and liberties of our people.
The independence of the judiciary shall be strengthened. Our courts must
be freed from political and other baneful influences, so that they may
function with the same integrity and impartially which have made our
Supreme Court the fortress of law and justice.
Heretofore, social justice has raised fervent but frustrated hopes in the
hearts of our less fortunate citizens. We must not permit social justice to be
an empty phrase in our Constitution. We must bring it to life for all.

42

In consonance with this purpose, my administration shall take positive,

energetic measures to improve the living conditions of our fellow citizens in
the barrios and neglected rural areas and of laborers in our urban and
industrial centers.
The land tenure system of our country shall be reexamined, to purge it of
injustice and oppression.
Land for the landless shall be more than just a catch-phrase. We will
translate it into actuality. We will clear and open for settlement our vast and
fertile public lands which, under the coaxing of willing hearts and industrious hands, are waiting to yield substance to millions of our
countrymen.
Democracy becomes meaningless if it fails to satisfy the primary needs of
the common man, if it cannot give him freedom from fear and on which a
strong republic can be built. His happiness and security are the only
foundations on which a strong republic can be built. His happiness and
security shall be foremost among the goals of my administration.
We must develop the national economy so that it may better satisfy the
material needs of our people. The benefits of any economic or industrial
development program shall be channeled first to our common people, so
that their living standards shall be raised.
While I shall give priority to our domestic problems, my administration will
not neglect our international responsibilities. We cannot escape the fact
that, today, the destinies of nations are closely linked. It is in this spirit that
we regard the goodwill and assistance extended to us through the various
programs of international economic cooperation with the more developed
nations, chiefly the United States. Considering this aid to be primarily a
means of speeding up our progress toward self-reliance, I pledge that
every peso worth of assistance will be spent honestly and to the best
advantage.

43

It is to our common interest that this Republic, a monument to mutual

goodwill and common labor, should prove to the world the vitality of the
democracy by which we live.
We shall continue to cooperate with the United Nations in seeking
collective security and a just world peace.
No effect will be spared, no element of cooperation will be withheld in
strengthening and safeguarding our physical security. We are prepared to
live up to all our obligations under our Mutual Defense Treaty with the
United States.
To our Asian brothers, we send our fraternal greetings. They are beset by
problems of the same nature and complexity as those that confront us. We
invite them to share our experience in finding solutions to those problems
through democratic means. It is my hope that we can exchange
experiences and information on methods that each of us has found most
effective in subduing illiteracy, poverty, disease, under-productivity, and
other common evils which have afflicted our countries of past generations.
The problems and opportunities ahead of us set the measure of the effort
we must exert in the years to come. We must have unity to solve our
problems, cooperation to exploit our opportunities. I urge you to forego
partisan differences whenever the national interest clearly demands united
action. We must not be distracted from our work. We have no time for petty
strife.
Certainly we cannot temporize with armed dissidence. I therefore call upon
the remnants of the Huk uprising still hiding in the hills to lay down their
arms and rejoin the rest of the nation in the ways of peace. I say to the
rank and file of the Huks who have been misled by the lies of the Kremlin
that they can win the economic security and social justice they desire
only within the framework of our democracy. We shall welcome back the
truly repentant with understanding and with sympathy.

44

But, to the leaders of the Communist conspiracy who would deliver

country and its people to a foreign power, this I say: I shall use all
forces at my command to the end that the sovereign authority of
government shall be respected and maintained. There can be
compromise with disloyalty.

this
the
this
no

I have been warned that too much is expected of this administration, that
our people expect the impossible. For this young and vigorous nation of
ours, nothing is really impossible!
Let us have faith in ourselves, the same faith that fired the heroic
generation of revolution. They waged and won their struggle with nothing
but bolos in their hands and courage in their hearts. Without political
training and experience, they wrote a constitution comparable with the best,
and established the first republic in Asia. Our own generation was told by
doubters and enemies that we would never have independence from the
United States. We live today under a free and sovereign Republic. Our faith
was fulfilled.
Today, we are told anew that it is impossible to do what must be done. But
our people, sustained by God, under whose protection we have placed our
destiny and happiness, and strengthened by an abiding faith in His
goodness and mercy our people, united and free, shall shape a future
worthy of our noble heritage if we but act; act together; act wisely; act with
courage; and act unselfishly, in a spirit of patriotic dedication.

45

ESSAY

46

I Survived the Blizzard of 79

Beth Ann Fennelly

We didn't question. Or complain. It wouldnt have occurred to us, and it
wouldnt have helped. I was eight. Julie was ten.
We didnt know yet that this blizzard would earn itself a moniker that would
be silk-screened on T-shirts. We would own such a shirt, which extended its
tenure in our house as a rag for polishing silver.
So I didnt make up the blizzard, though it sounds made up, the grimmest
of Grimms, windchill forty below, three feet of snow and snow still falling.
You had to shovel your drive daily. Later, a neighbor would tell of coming
home after two nights away and having to dig down a foot to reach his own
keyhole.
My dad had a snow blower, which spewed sheets of snow out of the side of
its mouth. Sheets became mountains, and mountains became walls on
either side of our front path, reaching almost to the sky. I could still view sky
by tipping my head back, but seeing it was no relief because the sky was
snow-white, tearing itself into pieces and hurling them at us.
And then the world began shutting down. The airports, which was bad
because Mom was in Toronto, visiting her sister. The schools, which was
great for the first day, and good for the second, and then less good and
less good yet. Because the roads were impossible; the fridge,
emptying. Does this smell OK to you? Couldnt watch Little Housebecause
Channel 5 covered the blizzard all day. A motorist, dead of exposure in a
stranded car. A man, dead of a heart attack while shoveling snow;
ambulance couldnt reach him. Coat drive, shelters for the
homeless. Check in on your elderly neighbors, folks. If you can get out, that
is. Amtrak trains abandoned. Hundreds of cars lining the highway, buried
by snow, white lumps pierced by antennas. Family of five, killed when their
roof collapsed. We were a family of four, but with Mom far away, we were
47

only three. I got out of the bathtub to answer her crackling long-distance
call.
Then it was Sunday, so Dad said get ready for mass. We didnt question.
He helped us tug and wriggle into our snowsuits, and we slid our feet into
plastic bread bags before yanking on our boots. He pushed open the door
into the shrieking tunnel of white. We trudged between the walls of snow to
the unplowed road. Follow me, Dad said. Step where Im stepping; this part
will hold our weight. Except sometimes we couldnt match his stride, or the
snow wouldnt hold our weight and Julies boot or my boot would crunch
through crust and wed plummet to the groin, feeling nothing below but
more snow. On the count of three, Dad said, and hoisted us out, and we
battled on, snow melting into our boots, heads lowered against the wind.
When we reached the plowed road, we scrambled down, easier walking. I
couldnt tell how far we had to go. It hurt to look up.
At last, the dark church loomed. We climbed the stone steps to the doors.
Locked. My father raised his gloved fist and knocked. He must have known,
even as he knocked, but still he knocked. There was no sign on the door
saying that mass was cancelled. But why should the priests post a sign?
Probably they couldnt even get out of the rectory themselves.
Righteo, said my father, slowly turning back the way we had
come. Righteo. Whatever he felt thengazing out over the tundra, the
alien tundra, all the mailboxes and road signs and newspaper vending
machines and parking meters blighted and buriedwasnt something he
shared. What he shared was, Home again, home again, jiggety jig.
We descended the steps, back into the scouring wind. I knew now that
white hurt worse than red. Where was everybody? Elderly couple, found in
their basement, dead of hypothermia. Fourteen-year-old boy, poisoned by
carbon monoxide as he sat in a running car his dad was trying to dig out
from a snow bank. Another shovelers heart attack. Volunteers with
snowmobiles taking doctors to hospitals.
Every part of my body was scalding cold, but one part scalded coldest: my
neck, my plump childs neck. The wind was wily, cupping my lowered chin
48

and arrowing along the inch of skin before my parkas zipper. The wind, like
a squirrel wielding knives. How much farther? I tried to step where my
father was stepping. I tried to use his body as a shield. Family of three or
four, frozen dead on the road, hadnt even gone to mass. It was a sin to
skip mass. If you were a sinner when you died, you went to hell.
Finally, I did it, the thing Id been contemplating for the last half mile. I
shouted at my dads back, asking for his scarf. I didnt want to ask. I wasnt
a child who asked. And I knew he must be cold, too. Yet I asked, and when
I did, he turned, already unwrapping his red-and-black striped scarf. He
squatted and tied it around my neck, he wound it once, he wound it twice,
he wound it three times, he smiled at me, his handsome Black Irish smile,
and behind his scarf, which covered my neck all the way to the tip of my
nose, I smiled, too. And thought I might make it, after all.
Why are people nervous about becoming parents? Children are so gullible.
So stupid. For years, Id think of this as a happy memory, my father
snugging his scarf around my neck.
But eventually I corrected myself. First, I heard my parents late-night
argument, the barb about Dad dragging us to church in a blizzard, over two
miles round trip. And in time, I recognized the catholicism of my fathers
rigidity, the Victorian strictures of our house. And eventually, I realized that if
he were going to foot-slog us through a blizzard, he should have damn sure
dressed us in scarves.
And so, with each year, with each time my thoughts are blown back to the
Blizzard of 79, I unwind that scarf, unwind its loops around my neck. With
my self-pity I unwind it; with my self-righteousness I unwind it; even with the
care I take dressing my own soft children, I unwind it. The very care I take
Here are your mittens, kitten; here are your warmest socksis a
reprimand, and then the scarf is off my neck. Yet still I worry it: I pull out the
threads, pluck and pull and release them to the wind, the wind that shall
never again find the neck of my father, my handsome father, for he is
shielded from it, as he is shielded from me, for he is below the earth and

49

has been for years and cares not for the ways I remember him, or
remember remembering him.

50

The Marrying Kind

Jane Bernstein
These days, it's common for couples to get married by a layperson with
credentials bought online. But in 2003, the first time I was asked to officiate,
so few people knew this was an option that whenever I mentioned it, I got a
bug-eyed look and a lot of questions. You can do that? You can just be a
minister?
You, who didnt attend divinity school, they meant. You, who had a bat
mitzvah.
Is that even legal?
I got all these questions because I couldnt stop talking about my role in the
upcoming wedding. I was honored and moved, busting at the seams with
delight.
A wedding announcement might have referred to me as a friend of the
family, though that hardly did justice to the long, tender history I shared
with Lis, the bride-to-be. Her mothers pregnant belly was the first Id ever
touched. Her baby pictures filled my photo album before my own daughters
were born.
The day she asked if Id officiate, I bought books about wedding
ceremonies. Then I went on line and became a Universal Life minister. It
cost me eleven dollars. For an extra eight dollars, I could have purchased a
sign for my dashboard, identifying me as clergy, but though I was enticed
by visions of endless free parking in New York City, I declined. I found the
churchs mission statement on the website: we were all children of the
same universe, all of us worthy of the right to be ordained, no matter what
our spiritual background. Yes, I thought, after reading that. That seemed
true. Even so, I dismissed this ministry as a benign scam, a backdoor way
for me to marry Lis and Troy.
Though Id been married once and had attended many weddings, before I
opened those how to plan a wedding books, all I really knew about
51

weddings was that the groom came down the aisle first, followed by the
bride in white on the arm of a father. A rabbi or minister spoke; friends and
family members did readings, often Corinthians 13:4-7 (Love is patient,
love is kind. . . .) or Shakespeares Sonnet 116 (Let me not to the
marriage of true minds / Admit impediments. . . .). The best man fumbled
while searching for the ring; then, the groom fumbled while trying to fit it
onto the brides trembling finger. We all slid to the edges of our seats and
waited with communal bated breath for the kiss, and when at last the bride
and groom fell into each others arms, the tension in the room broke, and
we all laughed and cheered.
But I couldnt have named the sequence of events and hadnt known that in
Judeo-Christian weddings, it goes this way, most often: procession,
opening remarks, charge to the couple, exchange of vows, ring exchange,
pronouncement, kiss, closing remarks, recessional.
After I finished reading the wedding books, I understood that the wedding
ceremony is as precise a form as a sonnet or a sonata. The venue might
be different (backyard, country club, seaside, church), as well as the music,
the readings by friends, the vows, the officiants, but within the basic
structure is a story that goes something like this: once, these two people
were separate; now, theyre about to become a couple; welcome them into
your community. When the ceremony was successful and we were drawn
into the story by moments of genuine emotion, we didnt see the formal
structure or think of it as a rite of passage. At least, I didnt. I hadnt thought
of the ceremony as the time when a couple goes public with what
beforehand had been a private relationship.
At the time, I was six years into a happy divorce and had no desire to be
married again. But I fell deeply in love with the idea of marriage while
reading about every aspect of weddings, from the ceremony to the
possibilities these unions held.
By the time Lis and I sat together to plan for the big day, she and her
fianc, Troy, had already made most of the big decisions. Our job was to go
over each step, to fit in the readings and discuss the details. Where would
52

the musicians stand? How many unity rituals should they include? What
material should they use for the Celtic hand binding?
Then I went shopping. Id planned to wear something that was ministerial
and ended up buying a full-length dress, rust-colored, with flowing sleeves
and an irregular hem. More plumage than Presbyterian.
At the end of October, I flew to Madison, Wisconsin, where the happy
couple, raised in no religion but culturally Christian, one might say, would
be married by a Jewish minister in the Gates of Heaven Synagogue. The
mid-19th century buildingwhich is now an historic landmark, used by the
public for a variety of purposeshad a balcony, where the women had sat
in yesteryear, and a bimah, where I stood while the bride processed down
an aisle so narrow her voluminous gown brushed the sides of the pews. It
brought me back to the night in western Massachusetts when her mother
had lifted her long shirt and I had placed my hand against her hard belly.
How intimate that long-ago moment had been, how connected Id felt with
that unborn child, and now with the lovely young bride, with her flushed
cheeks and strawberry blonde hair.
I worked very hard not to cry as she approached. This is not about you, I
told myself each time I felt a catch in my throat. This is not about you.
The reception was held at a farmhouse just outside Madison, decorated
with pumpkins, Indian corn, and baskets of candy bars. When I took in the
guests milling about, I began to laugh. The brides unclea Luddite, appletree pruner, and former celibate guru who now had a wife and sonwas
chowing down on candy. And there was my own former husband, with
flowing white hair, red suspenders, and ill-fitting thrift-shop jacket. His
girlfriend was beside him. I waved my arms and hurried to their table. I was
so happy to be single.
Long ago, I had loved this man in a way Ive never loved anyone before or
since. Madly. Blindly. Head over heels. Drunk with love. Drunk on the night
he pulled me into a strangers bathroom and proposed to me.

53

He was not a man my mother would have chosen for meraised as a

Catholic, fifteen years my senior. Though gainfully employed, there was
something feckless about him that I found charming, and my mother must
have known it would be useless to express her opinions. I was gone, could
hear no objections.
It took one afternoon to plan my wedding to this man. I made a list of three
places in New York where we might have the party, and we settled on the
third, a restaurant on Fifth Avenue and Ninth Street, across from the
dormitory where Id lived for two years. We booked the date: July 15, 1975.
Then my mother and I walked to MacDougal Street, where I bought a
Mexican wedding dress, with a square neck and voluminous bell sleeves.
This I wore with a floppy white hat that had daisies woven through the brim.
Its your wedding; put on a little lipstick, said my mother, so I put on a little
lipstick.
I was twenty-six. I should have been locked in a tower.
We hired a woodwind quartet from Juilliard, and an eccentric friend of my
husbands talked a judge named Harold Rothwax into officiating. On the
day of our wedding, the judge biked to the Village from arraignment court,
arriving about an hour before the ceremony. He had a boilerplate wedding
service tucked into his pocket. I asked him to say I now pronounce you
husband and wife instead of man and wife.
Someone at the restaurant had seen the name Bernstein and provided us
with achuppah, which we used. My husband stomped on a glass.
At least, the judge is Jewish, my mother supposedly said.
My new husband, beautiful blue eyes brimming with tears, went from table
to table, saying, Arent I lucky? Arent I the luckiest man in the world?
We were supposed to stay at the Plaza Hotel that night and, in the
morning, drive north to Portland, Maine, where we would pick up a ferry to
Nova Scotia. But traffic was light, so we headed out of the city after the
wedding and stayed at a Travelodge in West Hartford, Connecticut. I

54

carried the groom over the threshold on my back: it was the punch line of a
long-standing private joke. I was crazy about him.
In time, we had children, a rundown house, a dog, a better house. We had
some fun and then a lot of heartache. When I thought Id die if I had to live
with him any longer, I left. By then, wed been together nearly twenty years.
Some months after we separated, he bought me a book for my birthday.
When I pulled off the wrapping paper, I saw the title in fat black
letters: Guilty. My gut twisted. Then I saw that it was written by Harold
Rothwax, the judge whod married us.
To Jane, with all my love, my husband had written on the flyleaf, as if I was
not guilty after all.
Almost thirty years after our wedding day, as I slid into the seat beside my
former husband and his girlfriend, the love and anger and guilt had long
ago vanished. I was giddy with relief that he was living with someone else.
For months after Lis and Troys wedding, whenever an impending marriage
was mentioned, I jumped up and cried, I can marry you! Im a minister! I
can do it. I said this once at the copy machine at work, where a colleague
was talking about a commitment ceremony she and her partner were
planning. I can marry you! Same-sex marriage wasnt yet legal in
Pennsylvania, but this didnt stop me. Ill go to Massachusetts! I can marry
you there!
How nice of me to offer, she said. Then she gathered her papers and left.
I felt a little foolish. I also realized I didnt want to marry her. I didnt know
her well enough.
My standards continued to evolve. I decided Id only marry couples whose
relationships seemed loving and durable. I wanted to feel their commitment
to each other, to believe that they had the ability to hang on in good times
and bad, in sickness and in health, etc. Not that it mattered how seriously I
took my role as Universal Life minister since no one expressed any interest
in my services. For the next eleven years, the only weddings I attended
55

were as a guest. All were formal affairs with mainstream members of the
clergy officiating.
And so much crying! I had held back my tears when I married Lis and Troy,
but as a guest, I gushed. Sometimes, I cried because the bride and groom
were so fresh and lovely, and when I saw them trembling with emotion, I
was reminded of all the obstacles they faced and wanted more than
anything for life to be sweet for them. I wanted to believe their tender love
might last.
Once I cried because the groom, previously remote and unemotional, burst
into tears at the sight of his bride walking toward him, with her swanlike
neck; pale, bare shoulders; and fitted gown nipped at her tiny waist.
Another time I cried because they were so young and unformed, and all I
could think was: Oh man, you have no idea whatsoever.
Only once, I didnt cry. This wedding was held in the basement of a
Presbyterian church. He was in his early thirties, divorced once, widowed
once; she was pregnant and had a little girl with a prior husband. Someone
handed each guest a flower when we walked into the auditorium. We took
our seats and waited. On the stage was a large rug with a maze printed
upon it. The bride and groom walked through the maze in different
directions, solemn and silent, while we clutched our wilting flowers. It
seemed a troubling metaphor to watch these two lost souls, each on a
separate path, neither able to find the other.
Sitting beside me while the bride and groom were lost on that maze was a
man Id met at the end of my fifties. As soon as we moved in together,
friends started asking if we planned to get married. Usually I brushed off
the question by saying, I did that once. Watching the befuddled couple, it
occurred to me that if Id come of age in a different time and had felt
compelled to marry every lover with whom I cohabited, Id have to count
him as husband number five. I imagined telling someone, I did that four
times. It would make me sound like some unstable Hollywood starlet of
yesteryear: Zsa Zsa Gabor minus the glamour and Hungarian
accent. Whats her problem? people would think. He would seem a little
56

daft, too, to take on an oft-married, obviously troubled woman. How could

you trust someone whos already been married four times? How could you
believe your union might endure?
But as a child of the sixties, I simply set up housekeeping with three of
those men, and when our relationships soured, we split up the books and
record albums and went our separate ways, and I got to say Id only been
married once. Now I began to wonder what would have happened if,
pressed by mores, Id married one of these men.
Man Number One and I were babies, playing housebetter not to count
him. But Man Number Two and I had been companionable and well
matched. Still, I shivered to imagine our life if wed stayed together. I was
young and unsettled and didnt know how to live with a man and get what I
needed. In the end, it was good that we parted. Son of a philanderer, he got
married not long after we broke up. He and his wife are still together. And
when I married, too, I stayed with my husband for two decades.
My mother spoke disparagingly of my failed marriage. Though she knew I
had sound reasons for leaving, she still viewed it as a major flaw that I
couldnt stay married. My former husband had used these same words. But
was it a flaw? As time had passed, my views had softened. We had a good
run, didnt we? We loved each other, raised our kids, hung on as best we
could. Why was this a failure?
As an officiate-in-waiting, I wanted my couples to stay married. I wanted all
those dewy brides and blushing grooms to honor their vows. I wanted them
to buckle their seatbelts in turbulent times. I had some long-married friends
whod done that. The richness and depth that comes of these long unions
is fine and enviable. But some of us are unsettled in youth; we make
choices that dont have longevity. My husband loved more fiercely than
anyone Id ever known. He also hated with the same ferocity. I should
never have married him, should not have stayed with him as long as I did.
When I left, I saved myself, wounded my children, and lost a web of
relationships wed built over the decades.

57

The man who sat beside me, clutching his flower and watching the maze
walkers, is the perfect man for this season of my life. He would never pull
me into a bathroom to propose or let me carry him on my back. Though his
eyes didnt well up at the sight of me, hed never fallen into terrifying rages
or slept in the car instead of coming home. When I thought about marriage,
I was reminded that I would never have chosen him when I was young.
Maybe those early relationships got me ready for the one I had now.
I loved him, loved our stable life together, could not imagine what might tear
us asunder. Why not get married? Friends of our vintage pointed out the
practical reasons to wed, the tax advantages, the doubled social security. I
listened and thought, Ugh. Is that what its come to?
Then I thought, The only marrying I want to do is as a minister.
Finally, eleven years after standing on the bimah in the Gates of Heaven, I
was asked to officiate at another wedding. My former husband was dead by
then. The maze walkers had divorced. Lis and Troy were about to have a
second child.
Eddie, the groom-to-be, was a cinematographer: warm, levelheaded, fun.
He lived in my house on and off for a year while shooting my older
daughters documentary, sleeping in a small room off the kitchen I still call
Eddies room. One night during his stay, a woman came to visit: a
playwright, pale and willowy, with long hair and a big laugh, the kind of
person whose generosity of spirit you can feel the moment she enters a
room. When she arrived, the temperature changed. I could feel their mutual
attraction. Eight years after that night, they decided to get married.
If I could have chosen one couple to marry, I would have chosen them.
Yes, I said, when Eddie asked. Absolutely yes.
The venue for what would end up being the first of two consecutive
ceremonies was at the Blue Mountain Center in the Adirondacks, where Id
once done a residency. After my ecstatic yes, Eddie reminded me that I had
encouraged him and Andrea to apply, and they had. It was there, on
Utowana Lake, theyd first talked about marriage. So theyd thought it was
58

fitting that I officiate at this place, where they had deepened their
commitment to each other and made the decision to wed.
These days, the list of people legally permitted to officiate at weddings
registered in the City of New York includes the expected officials: judges,
justices of the peace, city clerks at all levels, and the mainstream pastoral
crowd made up of priests, ministers, and rabbis, active and emeritus. There
is also a mind-boggling list of others, including apostle, elder, guru, imam,
lecturer, mayor, practitioner, rinpoche, roshi, sensei, swami, and vicar.
That said, your sensei or rinpoche needs to have a notarized proof of
identity and information about their church. Because my church does not
publish a directory, the City of New York demanded additional
documentation that certified the churchs beliefs and the reasons for its
being.
The Universal Life Church had seemed a bit of a con in 2003, but that was
before the Supreme Court struck down DOMA, before all the public
conversation about those who had been unfairly shut out, denied the legal
and financial benefits of marriage, denied the ability to stand before
members of their community and say, I do.
Id moved twice since I had last officiated and could no longer find the
books Id bought in 2003. Not that it mattered. Now there were hundreds of
Internet sites to help prospective brides and grooms plan their ceremony.
There were for-profit sites, with ads for wedding planners and brides
magazines, and sites with advice for Unitarians and Jews, seniors, atheists,
Wiccans, anarchists, couples of every gender. The sequence of events was
the same.
I got my credentials in order, arranged for transportation to the
Adirondacks. Two weeks before the wedding, we had our first conversation
about the ceremony. When I asked what they had in mind, Eddie said they
were thinking maybe the guests could pick up something from the ground
that represented space or energy: a feather or a rock, maybe. Then
everyone would sit in a circle while a friend played music, and each person
could speak about what the offerings symbolized. They also wanted a
59

remembrance part of the service, to acknowledge those people who were

part of the community but no longer with them in a corporeal way, like
Eddies sister or Andreas abuelita, her grandmother. But they were open to
ideas. They wanted my input.
I kept thinking about the maze-walking couple and their restless guests
wondering why the couple kept grimly passing each other and where to
chuck the dying flowers. When I pictured Eddie and Andreas guests, many
flying from Chile and Puerto Rico, asked to scour the grounds for feathers
and rocks, I got worried. A wedding ceremony couldnt be made of symbols
without a story. They needed a story. I couldnt afford to be as shy as Id
been the first time.
I sent them the bones of the wedding story, marking what traditionally fit
into each segment so they could think about how their own ceremony might
be structured. Then I asked if they wanted me to write something about
them. Eddie seemed surprised. Of course, he said.
I arranged to speak to them separately so I could hear the parts of their
history I didnt know. Eddie was first. I asked when hed met Andrea, what
had attracted him at first, and what he loved about her now. Theyd met at
work and were friends at first. Over time, their friendship deepened,
evolved, changed. Eddie talked about Andrea with affection and respect.
He spoke of his love for her with awe. As I listened, I thought of the
impossibly romantic notion that there was only one person on Earth, one
soul mate for each person. Ones bashert, Jews called the person with
whom one was meant to be.
Do you ever think you and Andrea were destined to be together? I asked.
No, he said, they had chosen to be together. And they had chosen to stay
together.
Andrea agreed, after describing Eddie with the same affection and respect
Id heard in his voice. Were choosing to get married. Its what we decided
to do.

60

I was so taken by this: their decision to marry was deeper and more
meaningful than what Id expected to hear. It illuminated the divide in me
that I hadnt fully acknowledged. In everyday life I was unsentimental, a
little jaded, perhaps. If I hadnt seen it all, Id seen enough. And yet there
was a place inside me, untouched by life experience, that still held onto the
dream of undying romantic lovemad, boundless love. That was the story
Id wanted to see enacted at a wedding. I had to admit it was the reason I
resisted getting married. I wanted a grand statement, the bended knee, and
overflowing eyes. Not drunk, but drunk with love.
Eddie and Andrea seemed very wise to me. Their love was seasoned; it
had been tested. To say I know you well and choose you as my
spouse was a richer, more hopeful story than the one Id been waiting to
hear.
I arrived at Blue Mountain on Friday afternoon, a day before the wedding. A
dozen guests were already busy, making flower arrangements and
preparing food in the retreat centers huge kitchen. Eddies father was
marinating meat for the eighty people attending that nights barbeque.
Children were squeezing oranges and shaping cookies while grownups
diced vegetables and washed pots by hand. One friend was mixing batter
for the first of nineteen cakes she would bake over the next twelve hours.
On the morning of the wedding, a crew prepared a grand buffet breakfast
with chilaquiles, hash browns, and clafoutis. A theater director
choreographed the ceremony that would be performed later that day.
Friends would mount flags, play the mandolin, sing, and tell stories. Never
had I seen so many people work so joyously to make an event happen.
Only the weather failed to cooperate, so Eddie and Andreas wedding
ceremony wasnt on the dock, as they had intended. Instead, we gathered
around the stone fireplace, adults in folding chairs, children cross-legged
on the floor. The musicians sat on either side of the hearth, along with the
friends and family members asked ahead of time to speak on passion, on
patience, on fun.

61

They were so beautiful as they slowly processed: Eddie with his shiny curls
and burgundy jacket and Andrea in a silk gown her friends had dyed her
favorite shade of green. They joined hands and faced this community who
had promised to welcome and support them. And there was trembling, yes.
And there were tears of emotion. They fumbled with the rings. They
fumbled to find and unfold the paper on which theyd written their vows.
The guests sat upright, waiting for them to kiss, and when they did, we
laughed and cheered. We wished for their love to endure. We had reason
to believe it would.

62

The Pit and the Page

Elizabeth Mosier
When I talk about my volunteer work at the Independence National Park
Archeology Laboratory in Philadelphia, people often ask me if Ive taken
anything. Apparently, many people would pocket a sherd of broken glass or
pottery as a souvenir if given half a chance. But these fragments of
Colonial history dont tempt me; they seem sacred, imbued with other
peoples stories. Besides, there are too many pieces for any one to be
precious. I have only to enter the labs storeroom and stand amid the floorto-ceiling rows of cartons (more than a million artifacts hauled up from a
mile-square block of backyard privy pits) to feel the weight of history. Two
sitesone named for the Presidents House, which once stood at Sixth and
Market; the other for the National Constitution Center, which now stands on
the vast lawn across the streethave yielded more treasures than the dig
at Colonial Williamsburg. It will take ten years to process it all.
Todays assignmentbrushing diluted adhesive across tiny field specimens
to seal the numbers inked onto hundreds of sherdsis Zen-like in its
tedium. Hours pass, marked by the transfer of pieces, one by one, from
mesh tray to aluminum, as the empty bakers rack is slowly filled. My time
to think, I tell my friends. But really, I love the work because it requires just
enough focus so that I cant think. I cant think about my mother, who is
dying slowly and furiously. My grief is an unpacked box of sharp pieces
stacked in a dark storeroom; I lug around a catalog of unfinished business.
This is my break from that.At my mothers memory care community in
Phoenix, I look out across the parking lot and see a cinder-block fence and,
beyond it, dull taupe houses made of chicken wire and stucco. My mother
sees a timeline of her accomplishmentsyears bundled into numbered lots
dotting the desert, constellations of housing developments named
Saddleback Homes, The Meadow, Scottsdale Vista, Heritage Village,
Mountainside Estates. There is no convincing her that these
arent her houses, the three-dimensional evidence of her long career in real
estate.
63

Thats what I have to look at while Im locked up in this prison, she says,
gesturing to the space surrounding the gazebo where we sit. Do you know
how awful it is to be herewhen I used to be there?
Her arm hangs in the air for a moment, as loose as a marionettes. Lately,
her movements seem detached from her intentions, inspired instead by her
bodys memory. I feel that way, toodisconnectedsitting in this ridiculous
gazebo in the center of a burnt-grass courtyard a few days before
Christmas. I am performing, directing myself from a seat somewhere in the
audience. I dont want to be here, but this is what its come to.
A man from the state came yesterday. He says I dont belong here, she
says.
Would you like to open your presents? I ask.
Youre not even listening to me, she says.
I am listening.
Im going to kill myself.
I am performing, directing myself from a seat somewhere in the audience. I
dont want to be here, but this is what its come to.
Suicide has always been her backup plan, first voiced when I was ten years
old, a child with my ear pressed against the hollow bedroom door while she
sobbed into her pillow about a hairbrush she couldnt find and about ending
her life. Even then, I knew her complaintI have nothing! You kids take
everything!was the screw-top cap on the deep jar of her grief. I sensed,
too, that her dire plan would soon be abandoned, just like the weight-loss
diets and new enthusiasms (ESP, horoscope, Phoenix Suns basketball,
genealogy) and unopened patterns for child-sized clothes I recently found
in the drawers of the old baby dresser in the back of her closet. For years, I
listened at that locked door, one hand on the brass knob, reassured by her
sobbing because it meant she was not dead.
You dont mean that, I say.
64

The Math of Marriage

Elane Johnson
You are walking down that plushly carpeted aisle for the first time, your
satin heels sinking into the rug so that you wobble a little on your daddys
arm, and you see through the mosquito netting of your veil the pewter pipes
of the organ, flat against the back wall like a display of rifles in a gun rack,
and the looming, gilded cross hanging in front, illuminated just right so the
carved Christ, Episcopalian and clean and tidynot the Catholic churchs
slumping, half-naked, bleeding, suffering Saviorgets most of the glory.
Suspended on wires that make Him dance, not unlike a puppet, in gusts
from the central A/C, the Son of God waits with His arms outstretched as if
Hes planning to grab you when you get there. You turn your head left and
right, nodding slightly at the mayor, at some friends from high school, at
some faces as foreign to you as this thing you are about to become:
married.
And, God, you want to run. You want to snatch up the hem of your swishy,
off-white gown with its seventeen layers of lace, and you want to wrench
free of your daddys grasp, and you want to turn around and hightail it right
back down that blood-colored runner, past all those shocked stares and out
those bright red doors to your freedom. God! This is that fucking temptation
youve heard so much about. And the wooden Christ with His knowing
gaze, with His slight smile. O! He just bobs along, nothing but taunting,
because He sees exactly what youre going to do. Youre not going to flee.
You are going to teeter on up there and join in holy matrimony with this
poor, sweet, good-hearted sap who doesnt know the math: thirty-one
percent of marriages between college graduates aged twenty-three to
twenty-eight end in divorce.
OK. Thats not so terrible. You graduated together last year in the top 3
percent of your college class. But. People who wait until after age twentyfive to marry are 17 percent less likely to get divorced. Damn. Youre both
twenty-three. All right, lets see . . . If your parents are still married, your
risk of divorce decreases by 33 percent. Well, thats a wash; his parents are
65

the til-death-us-do-part types, and your parents are the kind who throw
away twenty years over a drinking-directly-out-of-the-milk-jug argument.
Oh. And then this. Living together before marriage increases the odds of
divorce by 33 percent. Shit. Youre doomed. You rent separate apartments
for appearances, but youve been sneaking around and living together in
one of them for the past year. Whats worse is all the years of sneaking
around with your high school boyfriend, the one you are dying to marry, the
one you called last night, praying to the Almighty Christ that hed agree to
run away with you so you wouldnt now be processing to the altar with your
false intentions and some incalculable percentage of certainty that this
union will not last.
Forty-four percent of first marriages end in divorce.
Check.
A couple of years after your first marriage ends, you scramble to the justice
of the peace. You time the ceremony impeccably: as soon as the last bell
rings, the two of you, both teachers, squeal out of the school parking lots
one middle, one elementaryand head for the OB/GYNs office, where
somebody dips a stick in an inch of your pee and delivers the verdict.
Youve already lined up the judge just in case, and after the doctors
appointment, when you stop to fill up your fiancs Honda at the Shell
station, you say, So, do you still want to go through with it? And he does.
So you do.
The judge looks at your application and says, Ohhh. Thats not a good
sign, that shes been married before. He sucks something out of his teeth
and squints a little at your soon-to-be, maybe kind of encouraging him to
rethink this whole thing. Youre pissed. How dare he question your
commitment? Asshole. Surely you think of this later when the ink is drying
on your divorce papers, and you acknowledge the bastards grasp of the
math.
Up to 34 percent of second marriages for people over the age of 25 end in
divorce.

66

Check.
Some sources posit that 73 percent of third marriages end in divorce. But
this time, you ignore the math because this timeget this!!youre
marrying the old high school sweetheart, your one, true love, the one who
crowded your first marriage. Of course, this one is going to stick because
its so romantic, right? Reunited and it feels so good, right? What could
possibly go wrong, right? Yeah. Two years later, youve had your second
kid and your third affair, and youre single again.
Now, according to LegalHandle.com, a shady website that proclaims its
content is for entertainment purposes only, 93 percent of fourth marriages
end in divorce within five years, and youre inclined to believe it even
though your own fourth marriage lasted more than fifteen. At the end of
number four, you swore you would never, ever, ever walk that plank aisle
again. But here you are, happily married for five-and-one-fourth years to
lucky number five, and goddammit, you ought to be an expert by now.
His family threw a royal fit when you married, and one of his sisters
declared he was going to end up broke and broken, which made you kind
of hate her with a white-hot passion for a while. But youre over it, and
neither of you has anything to prove to anybody. You experience the normal
ecclesiastical highs and desire-to-strangle-you-in-your-sleep lows of
marriage, and you really cant imagine life any other way. Hes been
married almost as many times as you have, and you can both recite the
agreed-upon reasons that the marriages happened in the first place as well
as the causes of their deaths. The latter are much easier to pinpoint:
infidelity, money squabbles, disagreements over child-raising, job stress,
incompatibility, immaturity, growing apart, losing that lovin feelin. Those
things are easy to spot. Whats confounding is why anyone ever gets
married. Anyone. For example, your official first boyfriend from third grade,
Chriswho, it turns out, liked you but actually had a crush on your dad,
who looked like Mr. Brady. Yeah.
Exactly two weeks after SCOTUSs 2015 marriage equality ruling, Chris
married his longtime love, Victor. Naturally, the Facebook announcement of
67

their nuptials incited an outpouring of love and congratulations, to which

you added your shrieking approval. Wedding! Cake! Celebration! Kisses!
Rubbery chicken and a crappy cover band! What wasnt to love? Now, of
course, it was only fair that they were allowed to wed, but since gay divorce
rates are shaping up to be only slightly lower than those of heterosexual
couples, you couldnt help wondering why in Gods name, after eighteen
years of togetherness, they felt the need. Was it the spousal benefits?
Social conformity? The legal rights to make end-of-life decisions or to share
custody? The public proclamation that one is wanted, loved, taken? What is
it that makes people risk the financial ruin, the emotional upheaval, the
gaping wounds of probable divorce? What is it that makes your own heart
nearly burst from the utter joy of the phrase getting married, that spurs you
to get on that ride five fucking times?

The morning of your fifth wedding, an ashen first-of-January sky, low over
the shallow waves of the Atlantic, threatens to spoil your beach ceremony.
Bleary-eyed at the breakfast buffet on the fourth floor of an oceanfront hotel
on Tybee Island, Georgia, with Gods view of the shore, youre irritated,
worried that your dream venue isnt going to pan out. Youre sipping coffee,
picking at some buttery grits, when you spot the pair of silver dolphins
somersaulting out of the water. They are as mysterious and unexpected as
finding true love at forty-five, and the surprise fills you with hope. Two hours
later, the sun has burned away the gray scrim, and the ocean blurs into
azure heavens, making the perfect backdrop for the ceremony. Your
minister, his hair still dripping from a morning paddle-surfing expedition,
draws a gigantic heart in the sand and positions you and your intended
inside. Your familywhove all traveled hours and hours to witness this
joininggather at the point, their hair askew in the salty breeze, their shoes
flung off or dangling from two fingers, bare feet barely tamping down the
euphoria waiting to spill over after the I-dos. At half-past eleven, the
minister intones, Dearly beloved, we are gathered here in the sight of God
to bless this union, and you ignore all the questions, all the probabilities
and uncertainties, and all the mathexcept the only important equation:
1/2 + 1/2 = one.
68

In the Grip of the Sky

Sonya Huber
The sky has its way with me. As clouds lower their shoulders against the
horizon, a warm fronts humid body slides along my skin, lifting the hem of
my dress to curl around my waist and stretch along my spine.
Closer still, the atmosphere enters me soundlessly. Barometric pressure
squeezes my joints, each a tiny fishbowl of synovial fluid that cushions the
space where two bones pivot and swing.
My immune system loves and defends me too diligently. I am one of the
joint-diseased and chronic, we who have lupus and rheumatoid arthritis and
psoriatic arthritis. If we could map our pain, the constellation of joints would
glow on the map, lit to follow storm fronts and hurricanes. A joint-sick friend
and I trade texts: Rain comingGot bad at 2 PM, now flat on the couch.
You?
In this sky-grip, I am one of many, and we are on fire.
I lie back, linked in pain with other bodies, in a kind of planetary
transcendence. I watch the sky with closed eyes as an internal aurora
borealis throbs, exquisite and strange. The rhythm and shifting whorls
scrawl inside my flesh and bones in a patterned grammar I can almost
pretend to decode. I have decided to listen to the air.
The atmosphere outside mirrors each tiny joint bubble inside me; the fates
of both worlds have been permanently altered.
The heated sky skews and pitches, longing only for balance, hung with
carbon-rich effluvia from the coal that launched the factories of London.
Outer and inner protective layers become inflamed. My over-eager immune
system works too well, devouring its host, while the planets protective
atmosphere holds the dangerous heat that men have made.
The atmospheric and the arthritic trace tendrils of smoke from the industrial
explosion. My disease is said to be a signal miscopied: genes or molecules
69

scrambled by chemical by-products that echo our desire to be faster and

stronger than nature. My flesh and bones retract against the heat of the
worlds fever as the storms whip the planets surface.
I and this pain-shadow lie on the couch. We turn in tandem under a blanket
as mares tail clouds loop above me, against the icy blue. If every body
seated around the table at our climate negotiations had to push against a
pain-shadow to stand or reach for a glass of water, to raise a hand to cast a
vote, might each voice be raised in strong support for change? If every
human felt the sky inside, we might wince against each turn of a key in an
ignition. The islands being swallowed by water might seem not so far away.
In some minutes I feel beaten by the sky. Bobbing down, my spirit fights for
air. I have learned to push up into this pain storm, out of curiosity and a
need to understand. Each throb reminds me of my permeability. The
gasses surrounding our planet follow every move I make, pushing at my
nerves. I sometimes shake my fist at the sky, but I do not hate the clouds; I
do not hate them even when they seem to deliver terrible blows. Their
impact is a desperate appeal, intending to reach us, even as far as under
the skin, to drag us to safety.

70

DECLAMATION

71

Bad Girl
Hey! Everybody seems to be staring at me..
You! You! All of you!
How dare you to stare at me?
Why? Is it because I'm a bad girl?
A bad girl I am, A good for nothing teen ager, a problem child?
That's what you call me!
I smoke. I drink. I gamble at my young tender age.
I lie. I cheat, and I could even kill, If I have too.
Yes, I'm a bad girl, but where are my parents?
You! You! You are my good parents?
My good elder brother and sister in this society where I live?
Looklook at meWhat have you done to me?
You have pampered and spoiled me, neglected me when I needed you
most!
Entrusted me to a yaya, whose intelligence was much lower than mine!
While you go about your parties, your meetings and gambling session
Thus I drifted away from you!
Longing for a father's love, yearning for a mother's care!
As I grew up, everything changed!
You too have changed!
You spent more time in your poker, majong tables, bars and night clubs.
You even landed on the headlines of the newspaper as crooks, peddlers
and
racketeers.
Now, you call me names, accuse me of everything I do to myself?
Tell me! How good are you?
If you really wish to ensure my future
Then hurry.hurry back home! Where I await you, because I need you
Protect me from all evil influences that will threaten at my very own

72

understanding
But if I am bad, really badthen, you've got to help me!
Help me! Oh pleaseHelp me!

Juvenile Delinquent
73

Am I a juvenile delinquent? Im a teenager, Im young, young at heart in

mind. In this position, Im carefree, I enjoy doing nothing but to drink the
wine of pleasure. I seldom go to school, nobody cares!. But instead you
can see me roaming around. Standing at the nearby canto (street). Or else
standing beside a jukebox stand playing the nerve tickling bugaloo. Those
are the reasons, why people, you branded me delinquent, a juvenile
delinquent.

My parents ignored me, my teachers sneered at me and my friends, they

neglected me. One night I asked my mother to teach me how to appreciate
the values in life. Would you care what she told me? "Stop bothering me!
Cant you see? I had to dress up for my mahjong session, some other time
my child". I turned to my father to console me, but, what a wonderful thing
he told me. "Child, heres 500 bucks, get it and enjoy yourself, go and ask
your teachers that question".

And in school, I heard nothing but the echoes of the voices of my teachers
torturing me with these words. "Why waste your time in studying, you cant
even divide 100 by 5! Go home and plant sweet potatoes".

I may have the looks of Audrey Hepburn, the calmly voice of Nathalie Cole.
But thats not what you can see in me. Heres a young girl who needs
counsel to enlighten her way and guidance to strenghten her life into
contentment.

Honorable judge, friends and teachersis this the girl whom you
commented a juvenile delinquent?.
My parents ignored me, my teachers sneered at me and my friends, they
neglected me. One night I asked my mother to teach me how to appreciate
the values in life. Would you care what she told me? "Stop bothering me!
74

Cant you see? I had to dress up for my mahjong session, some other time
my child". I turned to my father to console me, but, what a wonderful thing
he told me. "Child, heres 500 bucks, get it and enjou yourself, go and ask
your teachers that question".
And in school, I heard nothing but the echoes of the voices of my teachers
torturing me with these words. "Why waste your time in studying, you cant
even divide 100 by 5! Go home and plant sweet potatoes".
I may have the looks of Audrey Hepburn, the calmly voice of Nathalie Cole.
But thats not what you can see in me. Heres a young girl who needs
counsel to enlighten her way and guidance to strenghten her life into
contentment.
Honorable judge, friends and teachersis this the girl whom you
commented a juvenile delinquent?.

The Unpardonable Crime

Only one living creature seemed to take any notice of his existence: this
was an old St. Bernard, who used to come and lay his big head with its
75

mournful eyes on Christophe's knees when Christophe was sitting on the

seat in front of the house. They would look long at each other. Christophe
would not drive him away Unlike the sick Goethe, the dog's eyes had no
uneasiness for him Unlike him, he had no desire to cry: "Go away! . . . Thou
goblin thou shalt not catch me, whatever thou doest!"
He asked nothing better than to be engrossed by the dog's suppliant sleepy
eyes and to help the beast: he felt that there must be behind them an
imprisoned soul imploring his aid.
In those hours when he was weak with suffering, torn alive away from life,
devoid of human egoism, he saw the victims of men, the field of battle in
which man triumphed in the bloody slaughter of all other creatures: and his
heart was filled with pity and horror. Even in the days when he had been
happy he had always loved the beasts: he had never been able to bear
cruelty towards them: he had always had a detestation of sport, which he
had never dared to express for fear of ridicule: but his feeling of repulsion
had been the secret cause of the apparently inexplicable feeling of dislike
he had had for certain men: he had never been able to admit to his
friendship a man who could kill an animal for pleasure. It was not
sentimentality: no one knew better than he that life is based on suffering
and infinite cruelty: no man can live without making others suffer. It is no
use closing our eyes and fobbing ourselves off with words. It is no use
either coming to the conclusion that we must renounce life and sniveling
like children. No. We must kill to live, if, at the time, there is no other means
of living. But the man who kills for the sake of killing is a miscreant. An
unconscious miscreant, I know. But, all the same, a miscreant. The
continual endeavor of man should be to lessen the sum of suffering and
cruelty: that is the first duty of humanity.
In ordinary life those ideas remained buried in Christophe's inmost heart.
He refused to think of them. What was the good? What could he do? He
had to be Christophe, he had to accomplish his work, live at all costs, live
at the cost of the weak. ... It was not he who had made the universe. . . .
Better not think of it, better not think of it. ...
76

But when unhappiness had dragged him down, him, too, to the level of the
vanquished, he had to think of these things. Only a little while ago he had
blamed Olivier for plunging into futile remorse and vain compassion for all
the wretchedness that men suffer and inflict. Now he went even farther:
with all the vehemence of his mighty nature he probed to the depths of the
tragedy of the universe: he suffered all the sufferings of the world, and was
left raw and bleeding. He could not think of the animals without shuddering
in anguish. He looked into the eyes of the beasts and saw there a soul like
his own, a soul which could not speak: but the eyes cried for it:
"What have I done to you? Why do you hurt me?" He could not bear to see
the most ordinary sights that he had seen hundreds of times a calf crying
in a wicker pen, with its big, protruding eyes, with their bluish whites and
pink lids, and white lashes, its curly white tufts on its forehead, its purple
snout, its knock-kneed legs:a lamb being carried by a peasant with its
four legs tied together, hanging head down, trying to hold its head up,
moaning like a child, bleating and lolling its gray tongue:fowls huddled
together in a basket:the distant squeals of a pig being bled to death:a
fish being cleaned on the kitchen-table. . . . The nameless tortures which
men inflict on such innocent creatures made his heart ache. Grant animals
a ray of reason, imagine what a frightful nightmare the world is to them: a
dream of cold-blooded men, blind and deaf, cutting their throats, slitting
them open, gutting them, cutting them into pieces, cooking them alive,
sometimes laughing at them and their contortions as they writhe in agony.
Is there anything more atrocious among the cannibals of Africa? To a man
whose mind is free there is something even more intolerable in the
sufferings of animals than in the sufferings of men. For with the latter it is at
least admitted that suffering is evil and that the man who causes it is a
criminal. But thousands of animals are uselessly butchered every day
without a shadow of remorse. If any man were to refer to it, he would be
thought ridiculous.And that is the unpardonable crime. That alone is the
justification of all that men may suffer. It cries vengeance upon God. If there
exists a good God, then even the most humble of living things must be
saved. If God is good only to the strong, if there is no justice for the weak
and lowly, for the poor creatures who are offered up as a sacrifice to
77

humanity, then there is no such thing as goodness, no such thing as

justice.

No Pardon For Me
I'm sentenced.

78

Sentenced to life in this dank cell

of misery.
I can see the keyit hangs there,
just out my finger's reach,
dangling there in a mock of freedom.
There will be no pardon for me,
no stay of this execution.
My life has convicted me
for crimes I did not commit.
My penalty meted out.
I followed every rule,
broke no laws,
have more than paid my fines
to society's shun upon me.
There was no fair trial,
no chance for me to plead my case.
The jurors were sent from hell,
quick to judgement
and showed no mercy
as they read their verdict.
Life/Death, what does it matter?
Its all the same in this prison.
I am but a mere victim,
the criminal has gotten away,
while I do the time
for fate's crimes against me.
I can't escape the hounds they'd release,
should I attemp escape,
79

for the walls and barbed wires

are too painful to scale
and the hounds would scent my fear.
So I sit here,
waiting...
waiting for the day they walk me
that longest mile,
waiting for the flow of their poison
to seep within' my veins.
That lethal injection
that will finally end this misery
of a soul so wrongfully convicted to die.

The Plea of an Aborted Fetus

LET THIS PRECIOUS ANGELS LIVE !
"SET ME FREE. LET ME LIVE, I DESERVE TO BE BORN, I WANT TO
80

LIVE. FOR HEAVENS SAKE, HAVE PITY."

Ladies and Gentlemen, dear fathers and mother, listen to my plea, listen to
my story. I could have been the 17th Lady President of the Philippines
Republic, had you given me the chance to live, had you not deprived me of
my life, had you not taken away my privilege to be born.
Some eleven years ago, a healthy ovum started to generate in the womb of
a woman with six other children. My coming should be a herald of joy, a
symbol of love incarnate but to my mommy it was a burden, a problem, an
additional mouth to feed. To Dad, it was a mistake, an effect of Mom's
carelessness for not taking the contraceptive pills.
One gloomy day in June, my unexpected coming was confirmed. It was a
painful decision. I could sense the imminent danger as Mom got inside the
abortion room. I was an unwanted child. No one loved me. No one cared. I
was a rejected being, a tiny lump slowly forming into human being with
human soul. I was already alive, kicking, struggling. My heart was already
beating and my thumb had already the unique mark. As I was holding to my
mother's womb a splash of heat came all over me. I writhed in extreme
pain.
-- "Mom, why have you done this to me? Am I not the flesh of your own
flesh, the blood of your own blood?"
The rubber suction caught my tiny limbs and mercilessly twisted it slowly
cutting it from my body. I struggled for my life. 1,2,3 and the first part of me
came out.
-- "Mom, why have you permitted this? Am I not Dad's pledge of love to
you?"
Then it was followed by another rubber suction sucking the other part
moving it with force until both were fully amputated.
81

-- "Mom, why have you done this to me? Am I not God's image you
promised to love and protect?"
Then i felt shaken once, twice, several times until I do not know anymore
what has been going around. I gushed forth my last breath...
Then came the final blow, my head - the abortionist termed as No. I was
totally cut from my torso: total annihilation.
GONE IS MY CHANCE TO LEAD A HEALTHY NORMAL LIFE.
GONE IS MY CHANCE TO BEHOLD THE MANY LOVELY THINGS GOD
CREATED FOR US.
GONE IS THE PROMISE OF A BLISSFUL LIFE.

I Killed Her
I killed her because I do love her. These hands, these hands that gave life
to many, killed her because of my love for her.

82

Ladies and Gentlemen of this honorable court, please listen to me, listen to
my story before you give my verdict. I am Dr. Reyes, a cancer specialist. I
was born in a slum district of Batalon. My father oh! I don't know him for I
am a child of faith. My mother brought me up in such determination and my
ambition was to escape the filthy and horrible place of Batalon. I was
nourished with hope that someday I might live a life different from her. My
mother had a burning faith that she turned the nights into days. All her
efforts were not in vain for I pushed through with flying colors. My mother
who had given her whole life to me had tears in her eyes as she pinned the
gold medal on my proud chest.
Later on, I was sent as a scholar of the Philippines to the United States of
America. I embraced my mother tightly as I've reached the
plane.."Mother, mother,.." I whispered. You will always be my best mother
in the world.
After four years, I came back with laurels. I became a cancer specialist. I
gave my mother everything but I was too late. I who had used to ease the
pain of many, came too late for the life of my dying mother. I gave the best
treatment but the grasp of death was so tight around her. My God, what is
the use of ten years of study if I couldn't even use it at my mother's pain.
Then one night, I heard a strange cry. I run to her room. "Do you love me,
child?" she asked, as I embrace her. " Yes, mother.. If only I could get
all your pain and agonies"
" Then.. if you love me, end my sufferings, kill me Let me die."
"But, mother, I promise to give life and not to end it."
God. She did not deserve the unhappiness. She deserves to be happy.
I run to my room and came back with a syringe.
"Mother, forgive me. God, please understand me."
83

"Mother, mother, you must not die.. Don't leave, I love you. It was only a
distilled water..Mother Mother. MOTHER"
Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, give me your verdict. Yes, it was only distilled
water which ended the sufferings of my mother.
Judge me.. Punish me
GO, punish me.. Thy will be done!!

Conscience
I wept, I cried so hard. But this tears cant bring back my sister to life. My
being brought here by my conscience. I want to ask forgiveness. But can
she still hear? O heart, forgive me for what I have done, please bring peace
to mind.
84

Dry leaves were crushed down below. As if to freshen my memories that

her life perished because of my selfishness.
She was my only sister. Since our childhood, I always believed that I was
the favorite of our dad. One night, while I was facing all about to the mirror,
with my micro mini, I puffed powder, when I saw Luisas face, reflecting in
the mirror. "You cant get out tonight, Lucille." I heard a threatening tone
from her. I turned to her, but I cant resist at her sharp stare at me. "And
who says so, my dear sister?" "We are to celebrate Mommas death
anniversary, you know that dont you?" In a relaxed and condescending
voice, I replied "well I dont care. Im going out to party tonight!"
Then I heard a knock on the door. I shouted "Help Papa!" for I knew that it
was he. I pulled my hair, I tore my dress away as I was attacked by a squad
of monstrous creatures. When the door opened the site Papa saw was that
Luisa was holding my neck who was trying to make a rescue. But I cried so
hard that made Papa grew to the height of anger. He threw Luisa to the
corner, where the head of my poor sister was hit at the edge of the chair.
I slowly rejoiced for I have made a successful revenge. But when she lifted,
I saw a different sparkle in her tearful eyes. "Ha ha ha ha ha!" O my, Luisa,
she went out of her mind. I was not able to move, as well as Papa. Both of
us were motionless. And before we returned to our senses, Luisa ran to the
door and proceeded to the open gate of our house. We followed her calling
out her name. "Luisa!" "Sister!" "Luisa" "Sister" "Luisa the Truck!" "Dont
cross the road, Luisa, the truck dont Dont DONT!"
The next sight I saw was that Luisa was thrown five meters away from the
truck. I ran to her and embraced her. Blood was all over her face. In a low
but distinct voice she murmured, that made my heart break so much. She
said, "Lucille, please be a good girl. I love you. Please be a good girl coz
Papa loves you very much."
"Luisa? Luisa? Sister sister!!!" From that moment I cried so hard for
85

killing my only sister, who loved and cared for me, even at the last moment
of her life.
Now can you blame me, for asking God to forgive me? Forgive me dear
God, Forgive me!

Am I to be Blamed?
Theyre chasing me, theyre chasing, no they must not catch me, I have
enough money now, yes enough for my starving mother and brothers.
Please let me go, let me go home before you imprisoned me. Very well,
officers? take me to your headquarters. Good morning captain! no captain,
you are mistaken, I was once a good girl, just like the rest of you here. Just
86

like any of your daughters. But time was, when I was reared in slums. But
we lived honestly, we lived honestly in life. My, father, mother, brothers,
sisters and I. But then, poverty enters the portals of our home. My father
became jobless, my mother got ill. The small savings that my mother had
kept for our expenses were spent. All for our daily needs and her needed
medicine.
One night, my father went out, telling us that he would come back in a few
minutes with plenty of foods and money, but that was the last time I saw
him. He went with another woman. If only I could lay my hands on his neck
I would wring it without pain until he breaths no more. If you were in my
place, youll do it, wont you Captain? What? you wont still believe in me?.
Come and Ill show you a dilapidated shanty by a railroad.
Mother, mother Im home, mother? mother?!. There Captain, see my dead
mother. Captain? there are tears in your eyes? now pack this stolen money
and return it to the owner. What good would this do to my mother now?
shes already gone! Do you hear me? shes already gone. Am I to be
blamed for the things I have done?

A Glass of Cold Water

Everybody calls me young, beautiful, wonderful. Am I? Look at my hair, my
lips, my red rosy cheeks and a pair of blinkering eyes.
I remember, somebody says that I look like my mother that I look like my
mother. But that when she was young.
Now, I am much lovelier than she is. Im a mortal Venus. Oops! What time
87

is it? I must get ready for the party!

Beep-beep!A-huh! Here they are! Yes, Im coming!
"Child, are you still there?"
"Hmp! Thats my mama"
"Child, are you still there? Will you please get me a glass of cold water?"
"Mama, Im in a hurry!"
"Please child, try to get me a glass of cold water."
"Mama, please, try to get it on your own."
"Please child, try to get me a glass of cold water!"
At the party, I danced and danced the whole night.
You see, I cant leave the party at once. I have to danced with everybody
who proposed to me. At last, the party is over. Im very tired. Very, very
tired.
So, I went home to tell mama what happened.
"Mama, Im home! Its very quiet. "Mama, Im home!" Nobody answers.
Where is she? I look for her in the sala, but shes not there. Where is she?
A-huh! In the kitchen!
I saw my mama, lying down on the floor, dead. With a glass on her hand. I
remember, she tried to get it.
Oh, God, just for the glass of cold water! Mama! Mama! Oh, Mama!
88

Vengeance Is Not Ours, Its Gods

Alms, alms, alms. Spare me a piece of bread. Spare me your mercy. I am a
child so young, so thin, and so ragged.Why are you staring at me? With my
eyes I cannot see but I know that you are all staring at me. Why are you
whispering to one another? Why? Do you know my mother? Do you know
my father? Did you know me five years ago?
Yes, five years of bitterness have passed. I can still remember the vast
happiness mother and I shared with each other. We were very happy
89

indeed.
Suddenly, five loud knocks were heard on the door and a deep silence
ensued. Did the cruel Nippons discover our peaceful home? Mother ran to
Fathers side pleading. Please, Luis, hide in the cellar, there in the cellar
where they cannot find you, I pulled my fathers arm but he did not move. It
seemed as though his feet were glued to the floor.
The door went bang and before us five ugly beasts came barging in. Are
you Captain Luis Santos? roared the ugliest of them all. Yes, said my
father. You are under arrest, said one of the beasts. They pulled father
roughly away from us. Father was not given a chance to bid us goodbye.
We followed them mile after mile. We were hungry and thirsty. We saw
group of Japanese eating. Oh, how our mouths watered seeing the
delicious fruits they were eating,
Then suddenly, we heard a voice call, Consuelo. . . . Oscar. . . .
Consuelo. . . . Oscar. . . . Consuelo. . . . Oscar. . . . we ran towards the
direction of the voice, but it was too late. We saw father hanging on a tree. .
. . dead. Oh, it was terrible. He had been badly beaten before he died. . . .
and I cried vengeance, vengeance, vengeance! Everything went black. The
next thing I knew I was nursing my poor invalid mother.
One day, we heard the church bell ringing ding-dong, ding-dong! It was a
sign for us to find a shelter in our hide-out, but I could not leave my invalid
mother, I tried to show her the way to the hide-out.
Suddenly, bombs started falling; airplanes were roaring overhead, canyons
were firing from everywhere. Boom, boom, boom, boom! Mother was hit.
Her legs were shattered into pieces. I took her gently in my arms and cried,
Ill have vengeance, vengeance! No, Oscar. Vengeance, its Gods, said
mother.
But I cried out vengeance. I was like a pent-up volcano. Vengeance is
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mine not the Lords. No, Oscar. Vengeance is not ours, its Gods these
were the words from my mother before she died.
Mother was dead and I was blind. Vengeance is not ours? To forgive is
divine but vengeance is sweeter. That was five years ago, five years. . . .
Alms, alms, alms. Spare me a piece of bread. Spare me your mercy. I am a
child so young, so thin, and so ragged. Vengeance is not ours, its Gods. . .
. Its. . . . Gods. . Its

91

Oration
I Am a Filipino By Carlos P. Romulo

92

I am a Filipino inheritor of a glorious past, hostage to the uncertain future.

As such I must prove equal to a two-fold task- the task of meeting my
responsibility to the past, and the task of performing my obligation to the
future. I sprung from a hardy race child of many generations removed of
ancient Malayan pioneers. Across the centuries, the memory comes
rushing back to me: of brown-skinned men putting out to sea in ships that
were as frail as their hearts were stout. Over the sea I see them come,
borne upon the billowing wave and the whistling wind, carried upon the
mighty swell of hope- hope in the free abundance of new land that was to
be their home and their childrens forever.
This is the land they sought and found. Every inch of shore that their eyes
first set upon, every hill and mountain that beckoned to them with a green
and purple invitation, every mile of rolling plain that their view
encompassed, every river and lake that promise a plentiful living and the
fruitfulness of commerce, is a hollowed spot to me.
By the strength of their hearts and hands, by every right of law, human and
divine, this land and all the appurtenances thereof the black and fertile
soil, the seas and lakes and rivers teeming with fish, the forests with their
inexhaustible wealth in wild life and timber, the mountains with
their bowels swollen with minerals the whole of this rich and happy land
has been, for centuries without number, the land of my fathers. This land I
received in trust from them and in trust will pass it to my children, and so on
until the world no more.
I am a Filipino. In my blood runs the immortal seed of heroes seed that
flowered down the centuries in deeds of courage and defiance. In my veins
yet pulses the same hot blood that sent Lapulapu to battle against the alien
foe that drove Diego Silang and Dagohoy into rebellion against the foreign
oppressor.
That seed is immortal. It is the self-same seed that flowered in the heart of
Jose Rizal that morning in Bagumbayan when a volley of shots put an end
to all that was mortal of him and made his spirit deathless forever; the
same that flowered in the hearts of Bonifacio in Balintawak, of Gergorio del
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Pilar at Tirad Pass, of Antonio Luna at Calumpit; that bloomed in flowers of

frustration in the sad heart of Emilio Aguinaldo at Palanan, and yet burst
fourth royally again in the proud heart of Manuel L. Quezon when he stood
at last on the threshold of ancient Malacaang Palace, in the symbolic act
of possession and racial vindication.
The seed I bear within me is an immortal seed. It is the mark of my
manhood, the symbol of dignity as a human being. Like the seeds that
were once buried in the tomb of Tutankhamen many thousand years ago, it
shall grow and flower and bear fruit again. It is the insigne of my race, and
my generation is but a stage in the unending search of my people for
freedom and happiness.
I am a Filipino, child of the marriage of the East and the West. The East,
with its languor and mysticism, its passivity and endurance, was my
mother, and my sire was the West that came thundering across the seas
with the Cross and Sword and the Machine. I am of the East, an eager
participant in its struggles for liberation from the imperialist yoke. But I also
know that the East must awake from its centuried sleep, shape of the
lethargy that has bound his limbs, and start moving where destiny awaits.
For, I, too, am of the West, and the vigorous peoples of the West have
destroyed forever the peace and quiet that once were ours. I can no longer
live, being apart from those world now trembles to the roar of bomb and
cannon shot. For no man and no nation is an island, but a part of the main,
there is no longer any East and West only individuals and nations making
those momentous choices that are hinges upon which history resolves.
At the vanguard of progress in this part of the world I stand a forlorn
figure in the eyes of some, but not one defeated and lost. For through the
thick, interlacing branches of habit and custom above me I have seen the
light of the sun, and I know that it is good. I have seen the light of justice
and equality and freedom and my heart has been lifted by the vision of
democracy, and I shall not rest until my land and my people shall have
been blessed by these, beyond the power of any man or nation to subvert
or destroy.
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I am a Filipino, and this is my inheritance. What pledge shall I give that I

may prove worthy of my inheritance? I shall give the pledge that has come
ringing down the corridors of the centuries, and it shall be compounded of
the joyous cries of my Malayan forebears when they first saw the contours
of this land loom before their eyes, of the battle cries that have resounded
in every field of combat from Mactan to Tirad pass, of the voices of my
people when they sing:
Land of the Morning,Child of the sun returningNeer shall
invaders trample thy sacred shore.
Out of the lush green of these seven thousand isles, out of the heartstrings
of sixteen million people all vibrating to one song, I shall weave the mighty
fabric of my pledge. Out of the songs of the farmers at sunrise when they
go to labor in the fields; out of the sweat of the hard-bitten pioneers in Malig and Koronadal; out of the silent endurance of stevedores at the piers and
the ominous grumbling of peasants Pampanga; out of the first cries of
babies newly born and the lullabies that mothers sing; out of the crashing of
gears and the whine of turbines in the factories; out of the crunch of
ploughs upturning the earth; out of the limitless patience of teachers in the
classrooms and doctors in the clinics; out of the tramp of soldiers marching,
I shall make the pattern of my pledge:
"I am a Filipino born of freedom and I shall not rest until freedom shall
have been added unto my inheritance for myself and my childrens
children forever.

I Have a Dream

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we

stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree
95

came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had
been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous
daybreak to end the long night of captivity. But one hundred years later, we
must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free.
One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the
manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred
years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a
vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still
languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in
his own land.
So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition. In a
sense we have come to our nations capital to cash a check. When the
architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution
and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory
note to which every American was to fall heir.
This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable
rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that
America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of
color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America
has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked
"insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is
bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great
vaults of opportunity of this nation.
So we have come to cash this check a check that will give us upon
demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also
come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now.
This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the
tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and
desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the
time to open the doors of opportunity to all of Gods children. Now is the
time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid
rock of brotherhood.
96

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and
to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer
of the Negros legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an
invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an
end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off
steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation
returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in
America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights.
The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation
until the bright day of justice emerges. But there is something that I must
say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the
palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be
guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by
drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and
discipline. we must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into
physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of
meeting physical force with soul force.
The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community
must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white
brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize
that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably
bound to our freedom.
We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we
shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking
the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" we can never be
satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain
lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We
cannot be satisfied as long as the Negros basic mobility is from a smaller
ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in
Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing

97

for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied
until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and
tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow cells. Some of you
have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by
the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality.
You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the
faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to Georgia, go back
to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities,
knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not
wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friends, that in spite
of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a
dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true
meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men
are created equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia
the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able
to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day
even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of
injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and
justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation
where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of
their character. I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governors lips
are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will
be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be
able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as
sisters and brothers. I have a dream t oday. I have a dream that one day
every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low,
the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made
straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it
98

together. This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South.
With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone
of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of
our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will
be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail
together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one
day.
This will be the day when all of Gods children will be able to sing with a
new meaning, "My country, tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrims pride, from every
mountainside, let freedom ring." And if America is to be a great nation, this
must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New
Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let
freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let
freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring
from the curvaceous peaks of California! But not only that; let freedom ring
from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain
of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of
Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every
hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that
day when all of Gods children, black men and white men, Jews and
Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in
the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God
Almighty, we are free at last!"

Dirty Hands By John P. Delaney S.J.

99

Im proud of my dirty hands. Yes, they are dirty. And they are rough and
knobby and calloused. And Im proud of the dirt and the knobs and the
calluses. I didnt get them that way by playing bridge or drinking afternoon
tea out of dainty cups, or playing the well-advertised Good Samaritan at
charity balls.
I got them that way by working with them, and Im proud of the work and
the dirt. Why shouldnt I feel proud of the work they do these dirty hands
of mine?
My hands are the hands of plumbers, of truck drivers and street cleaners;
ofcarpenters; engineers, machinists and workers in steel.
They are not pretty hands, they are dirty and knobby and calloused. But
they are strong hands, hands that make so much that the world must have
or die.
Someday, I think, the world should go down on its knees and kiss all the
dirty hands of the working world, as in the days long past, armored knights
would kiss the hands of ladies fair. Im proud of my dirty hands. The world
has kissed such hands. The world will always kiss such hands. Men and
women put reverent lips to the hands of Him who held the hammer and the
saw and the plane. His werent pretty hands either when they chopped
trees, dragged rough lumber, and wielded carpenters tools. They were
workingmans hands strong, capable proud hands. And werent pretty
hands when the executioners got through them. They were torn right clean
through by ugly nails, and the blood was running from them, and the edges
of the wounds were raw and dirty and swollen; and the joints were crooked
and the fingers were horribly bent in a mute appeal for love.
They werent pretty hands then, but, Oh God, they were beautiful those
hands of the Savior. Im proud of those dirty hands, hands of my Savior,
hands of God.
And Im proud of my hands too, dirty hands, like the hands of my Savior,
the Hands of my God!

100

The Death Penalty

101

Gentlemen of the Jury, if there is a culprit here, it is not my son, it is

myself, it is I! I, who for these twenty-five years have opposed capital
punishment, have contented for the inviolability of human life, have
committed this crime for which my son is now arraigned. Here I denounce
myself, Mr. Advocate General! I have committed it under all aggravated
circumstances deliberately, repeatedly, and tenaciously. Yes, this old and
absurd lextalionix this law of blood for blood I have combated all my
life all my life, Gentlemen of the Jury! And while I have breath, I will
continue to combat it, by all my efforts as a writer, by all my words and all
my votes as a legislator! I declare it before the crucifix; before that victim of
the penalty of death, who sees and hears us; before that gibbet, to which,
two thousand years ago, for the eternal instruction of the generations the
human law nailed the Divine!
In all that my son has written on the subject of capital punishment and for
writing and publishing that for which he is now on trial, in all that he has
written, he has merely proclaimed the sentiments with which, from his
infancy, I have inspired him.
Gentlemen, Jurors, the right to criticize a law, and to criticize it severely
especially a penal is placed beside the duty of amelioration, like the torch
beside the work under the artisans hand. The right of the journalist is a
sacred, as necessary, as the right of the legislator.
What are the circumstances? A man, a convict, a sentenced wretch, is
dragged, on a certain morning, to one of our public squares. There he finds
the scaffold! He shudders. He struggles. He refuses to die. The victim
clings to the scaffold, and shrieks for pardon. His clothes are torn, his
shoulders bloody still he resists. They drag him forth, haggard, bloody,
weeping, pleading howling for life calling upon God, calling upon his
father and mother, For like a very child had this man become in the
prospect of death they drag him forth to execution. He is hoisted on
the scaffold, and his head falls!
And then through every conscience runs a shoulder. Never had legal
murder appeared with an aspect so indecent, so abominable. All feel jointly
102

implicated in the deed it is at this very moment that from a young mans
breast escapes a cry, wrung from his very heart a cry of pity and
anguish a cry of horror a cry of humanity. And this cry would punish!
And in the face of the appalling facts which I have narrated, you would say
to the guillotine, Thou art right! and to Pity, saintly Pity, Thou art wrong!
Gentlemen of the Jury, it cannot be! Gentlemen, I have finished.

I ACCUSE
103

Whether you like it or not, you are sitting atop a time bomb. Worst, you are
taking lightly the inescapable reality that it exist all because you have
been lulled all these years into a belief that everything is fine, just fine,
thanks to a captive, intimidated and prostituted media.
So, on with that false sense of security, the serenity with which you have
accepted the things around you. Its such a lovely landscape, you say,
Join me, lets bask under the sun. before it explodes you dont say!

In the meantime, the timing device ticks on, ticking off the seconds from the
hour, until, with the final countdown to zero, it is too late to avoid the
explosion to elude the ugly truth, that we have been gullible idiots all
along, playing into the hands of sweet-talking demagogues with their ready
answers and empty promises.
But the signs could not have escaped you they are so starkly real to be
ignored, so intimately linked with everyday life, yours and mine
ours. You could not have failed to notice them, or while they bluntly
portray the present, they are just as inseparably a part of your future and
the future of your children.

Thus, before you, is a wide panoramic view of the suffering from want,
from neglect, from the indifference of those in whom the welfare of the
people has been entrusted. One wonders how you can be so blind.
While no relief is in sight nor had been attempted in all seriousness and
dedication, now here comes again Mr. X with tongue in cheek, unabashed,
and with all the theatrics at his command, beguiling the electorate once
more with his artifice, offering himself for another tenure of incompetence,
poor performance, and untrustworthiness in public office. God! What have
we done that we should be visited by such a blight!

104

There really are people who simply do not know how much we endure
them!
Meanwhile, the time-bomb ticks on and unless defused on time, we shall all
be blown to smithereens!
Just what is ailing us today?
Mr. Xs entry into the picture is illustrative of the callousness, the daring,
and the atrocious impudence of phonies, so thick-faced they are insensitive
to the public condemnation of their crimes and misdeeds. These are the
kinds who prey on a credulous electorate, then, before the ink dries on their
oaths of office, the kind who immediately maps out measures to the feast of
public funds!
Let us beware of such candidate, such kind of public servant, in the same
way that one avoids a plague! Voting for him is simply calamitous for
beneath that benign and smiling face is a scheming mind bent on devious
ways to enrich himself in office. An octopus in human form has tentacles
reach deep into the farthest and tiniest crevices where the last centavo may
be heard to tingle, for there is nothing to satiate his avarice, there is nothing
to satisfy his inordinate greed. It is time too, to realize that the hoary arms
of this monster, fondling an armalite, cast a shadow over our lives, our
present and our future and those of our successors. It is time, therefore,
that this candidate who begs for our votes should stand an accounting for
his omissions, his dubious accomplishments or the manner by which he
conducted himself while in office or in committing his crimes.
Unhappily, the measure of a public official should be one at par with
Caesars wife above suspicion. I say, unhappily because Mr. X could
hardly measure up to pur barest expectations. In fact, if he has any
decency left in him, he should never have shown his face in public for the
shame and the ignominy he had placed on his name, and the ill-repute to
which his town had been made to bear, all because of a single scoundrel.
For once, let us vote for integrity in office, for performance and deportment
beyond reproach, for the honor of this town we all love.
105

For once let us join hands to vote for Mr. Y, and thus let prosperity be with
us once more. And in one decisive stroke of rallying behind his leadership,
let the time-bomb of disaster be dismantled, with law and order, peace and
progress restored under a benevolent God, supreme once more over our
land and fortunes!

106

The Defense of Brutus

Romans, countrymen, and lovers!

Hear me for my cause, and be silent, that you may hear: believe me for
mine honor, and have respect to mine honor, that you may believe: censure
me to your wisdom, and wake your senses, that you mat the better
judge. If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesars, to him I
say that Brutus love to Caesar was no less than his. If then that friend
demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer: not that I loved
Caesar less, but that I love Rome more. Had you rather Caesar were
living, and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live all freemen?

As Caesar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as
he was valiant, I honor him; but as he was ambitious, I slew him.
There is tears for his love; joy for his fortune; honor for his valor; and death
for his ambition.
Who is here so base that would be a bondman? If any, speak: for him have
I offended.
Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman? If any, speak: for him
have I offended.
Who is here so vile that will not love his country? If any, speak: for him
have I offended.
I pause for a reply.

107

Tribute by Anthony

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious,
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answerd it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest,
For Brutus is an honorable man;
So are they all, all honorable men
Come I to speak in Caesars funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honorable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill;
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept;
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honorable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honorable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
108

And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;

My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar;
And I must pause till it come back to me.

109

Because Of What We Are, Of What We Believe

For every generation, there is a destiny. For some, history decides. For
this generation, the choice must be our own.
Our destiny in the midst of change will rest on the changed character of our
people and on their faith.
In a land of great wealth, families must not live in hopeless poverty.
In a land rich in harvest, children must not be hungry.
In a land of healing miracles, neighbors must not suffer and die untended.
In a great land of learning and scholars, young people must be taught to
read and write.
How incredible it is that in this fragile existence, we should hate and
destroy one another. There are possibilities enough for all who will
abandon mastery; others to pursue mastery over nature. There is world
enough for all to seek their happiness in their own way.
We have discovered that every child who learns, and every man who finds
work, and every sick body that is made whole like a candle added to an
altar brightens the hope of all the faithful.
So let us reject any among us, who seek to reopen old wounds, and
rekindle old hatreds. They stand in the way of a seeking nation.
Let us join reason to faith and action to experience, to transform our unity
of interest into a unity of purpose. To achieve change without hatred; not
without difference of opinion but without the deep and abiding divisions
which scar the union for generations.
Under the covenant of justice, liberty and union, we have become a nation.
And we have kept our freedom.
It is the excitement of becoming always becoming, trying, probing,
resting, and trying again but always gaining.
110

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

hardship; that democracy rests on faith, that freedom asks more that it
gives.
If we succeeded, it will not be because of what we have, but it will be
because of what we are; not because of what we own, but rather because
of what we believe.
For we are a nation of believers. Underneath the clamor of buildings and
the rush of our days pursuits, we are the believers in justice and liberty and
union. And in our own union we believe that every man must some day be
free. And we believe in ourselves.
For this is what our country is all about. It is the uncrossed desert and the
unclimbed bridge. It is the star that is not reached and the harvest that is
sleeping in the unplowed ground.
Is our world gone? We say farewell, is a new world coming? We welcome
it and we will bend it to the hopes of man.
But you must look within your own hearts to the old promises and to the old
dreams. They will lead you the best of all.

111

Hold Your Tongue

Some people say that their heads are right on top of their stomachs and
when anything goes wrong with their stomachs they cannot sleep. An
equally serious condition is one in which words are always on the tips of
peoples tongue, so that reason never intervenes to stop their
utterances. This advice was once given to those whose speech is an
intemperate; Think before you speak; then talk to yourself, ruling of the
most difficult of all tasks. For that reason, the ancient Persians taught their
youths two things: to be secret, and to tell the truth.
Those who abuse speech are divided into three general classes: The first
are those who are always putting people in their place as if they were
ordained by God and the Constitution to tell off everybody for what they
call their own good. The second class is those who detract from the merit
of others by criticizing, finding fault or putting an evil interpretation on all
they say or do. They go to an art museum and criticize every picture for
not being hung properly, but they never see that the pictures in their own
homes are all upside down. A critical spirit is born of wrong
behavior. There is not a critical person in the world that is not in need of
criticism. Criticism of others is an escape from necessary selfcriticism. The third is made up of just plain liars. Conscious of their own
littleness and insignificance or by creating a mythical world, which is built
according to their own specifications.
Socrates said: Speak that I may see thee. Speech is the index of the
mind, and the summation of a soul, all that the person has been, is, and will
be. We can say: He is an ignorant man, He is a proud man, He is a
kind man, He is a cruel man.
The whirlwind on the tongue is the sign of the tempest in the soul. If there
is envy in the heart, it will show in the tone of the voice; if there is love in
the heart even the words share the glow. But a skunk in the cellar soon
smells up the whole house. It is a physical and a psychological impossibility
to develop the art of a good and humble heart out of which comes out
112

words. The power of edifying speech increases with the improvement in

morals. Many of the suggestions are in reality nothing else than the art of
deceit and amount to How to disguise you feeling, How to praise when
you want to damn, How to compliment when you want to
condemn, How to influence people when you hate them.

113

A CHANGE WITHIN
Half a century of oppression, tyranny, and cruelty had passed.
Foreign battleships, artillery, and military left our land. Our flag raised in full
dignity and colours. An independent government formed and fortified by
laws. A nation formed by people with its own rights, language, and identity
to be proud of. The Philippines is free at last, or is it? Corruption, poverty,
dirty politics, and other national problems both minor and major are present
and imminent nowadays. Moral and character crisis is sweeping around the
country. We are in need for a change, a change that will not come from
others but with you. We have to eradicate the image of a common Filipino
which is still bound to the old culture of being idle and going through the
flow. We have to become a new Filipino bound with the new culture of
being disciplined, righteous, and persevering, a new Filipino which is
honest and loyal, and a new Filipino full of patriotism for his country. The
Filipino youth is the answer and the fulfillment of this dream. We will be the
future leaders and forth runners of this nation. The future of our country is
at our hands and it is on a hanging balance. If we fail to change, our
country will continue to deteriorate. But if we succeed, our country will
shine again with its full glory.
So why is it that Im persuading you to change? What is the true
dilemma of our society? The truth is corruption and other problems are just
contributors in the deterioration of our country. Our culture is the one to be
blamed of. Many countries such as the Koreas were once full of corrupt
political leaders, but where are they now? They rose as the 13th largest
economy in the world. The secret lies in their culture of being hard working.
We too have our own hard working people but what becomes imminent is
the culture of consumerism. We tend consume our gains faster than we
produce. We dont think for the future but just think of today. Many say that
immigrating and Filipinos abroad must go back and work for their country
instead. But what is the use of patriotism if their stomachs are empty. We
have to admit that our minimum wage is so low for a growing economy tied
up with growing population trend that eats up our economic gains and low
job availability or jobs mismatch. Filipinos also tends to give importance to
114

white collar jobs and ignore blue collar jobs like welding, gardening, and
etc. which are the basic jobs in a society. We also didnt pursue agrarian
reform like what our Asian neighbours had done like Japan and Taiwan to
give importance and lift the current situation of our peasants and farmers.
We also lack in implementation. Our laws are nearly perfect but cannot be
implemented and enforced properly. These are the problems of our society
and do need an immediate change.
The effects of these problems tend to amplify because of the culture
of idleness. There was a time when I passed along the slums of Catarman
early morning and saw how the people there are just so idle, sitting,
gambling, and even drinking alcoholic drinks early morning. They are just
wasting time and energy doing nothing instead of searching for
opportunities. This culture is perpetuating and sometimes we even take
pride on it uttering the quote: Filipinos are lazy people. These problems
are also sometimes considered as the norm. Because everyone does it I
will do it, a common idea of Filipinos. We are also great show-offs. We are
always fond of extravagant clothes, bags, and shoes with expensive
product line. We are always saying that we love our country and we are
proud of it but do nothing to save it from its demise. These effects
conjugate together and form an impassable barrier towards a better future.
The enemy and the one to be blamed for are our own selves. And we have
the capacity and the decision to change and prosper. Reform in the
educational sector can be an answer to these problems. On a hundred kids
only five will proceed to college and 2 will have decent jobs. If we focused
on education we can and we will purge the root cause of these problems.
Social revolutions can also be done to induce reform. Not the bloody one
but a peaceful one. But I am not provoking a revolution to overthrow the
government but a revolution inside our selves. Educational reforms and
social revolutions will not succeed if we ourselves will not change our
attitude, values and perspective in life. The sole solution to these problems
is a change within, a change that will start at us, a change that will create
an unbreakable chain of changes among others, and a change that will
break that impassable barrier. We can become a new Filipino. And when
that day comes, I assure you the Philippines is free at last.
115

Dos and Donts in Public

Speaking:
Do decide what the purpose of
your talk really is. What is the
"take-home" message you want
to
give
your
audience?
Organize your talk accordingly,
focusing sharply on your
intended message.
Do prepare a talk that will fit
within the time limit you're
given. That includes allowing
time for questions from the
audience. Rehearse with a
stopwatch if necessary.

Do answer
questions
as
succinctly
and
briefly
as
possible. Remember, there may
be only one person in the
audience interested in a specific
answer.

Don't forget that studies show

an audience can remember only
three or four things you present
in a talk.
Don't distract
from
your
message by including peripheral
topics or excessive arcane
detail.
Don't forget that any lecture is
a performance:
you
must work to get your message
across.

Don't use a question as an

excuse to bring up the dozen
slides you cut out of your talk in
order to meet the time limit you
were given.
Don't go rummaging through
your slides to answer a question

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Do remember that "I don't

know" is a perfectly good
answer. You needn't go into a
five-minute
explanation
of why you don't know. If you're
working on answering the
question, just say that.

unless it is absolutely necessary

(and it usually isn't).
Don't hold
"private
conversations" with questioners
in the front rows. Make sure
everyone in the audience knows
what the question is (repeat it if
necessary) and can hear and
understand the answer.

Appendices
Appendix 1: Speech
1.1 First Inaugural Address ( George Washington)
1.2 First Inaugural Address (Thomas Jefferson)
1.3 First Inaugural Address (James Madison)
1.4First Inaugural Address (James Monroe)
1.5 First Inaugural Address (Andrew Jackson)
1.6 Inaugural Address (General Emilio Aguinaldo)
1.7 Second Inaugural Address (Manuel L. Quezon)
1.8 Second Inaugural Address (Ferdinand E. Marcos)
1.9 Inaugural Address (Gloria Macapagal Arroyo)
1.10 Inaugural Address (Ramon Magsaysay)
Appendix 2: Essay
2.1 I Survived the Blizzard of 79

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2.2 The Marrying Kind

2.3 The Pit and the Page
2.4 The Math of Marriage
2.5 In the Grip of the Sky
Appendix 3: Declamation
3.1 Bad girl
3.2 Juvenile Delinquent
3.3 The Unpardonable Crime
3.4 No Pardon For Me
3.5 The Plea of an Aborted Fetus
3.6 I Killed Her
3.7 Conscience
3.8 Am I to be Blamed?
3.9 A Glass of Cold Water
3.10 Vengeance Is Not Ours, Its Gods
Appendix 4: Oration
4.1 I Am a Filipino
4.2 I Have a Dream
4.3 Dirty Hands
4.4 The Death Penalty
4.5 I ACCUSE
4.6 The Defense of Brutus
4.7 Tribute by Anthony

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4.8 Because Of What We Are, Of What We Believe

4.9 Hold Your Tongue
4.10 A CHANGE WITHIN

Glossary
abiding- a feeling or a memory lasting a long time; enduring.
abundance- a very large quantity of something.
Adams- is a common surname of English, Scottish and Jewish origin,
meaning "son of Adam".
ambitious- having or showing a strong desire and determination to
succeed.
anxieties - a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an
imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome.
Artillery- large-caliber guns used in warfare on land.
avarice - extreme greed for wealth or material gain.
Aver- state or assert to be the case.
blizzard- a severe snowstorm with high winds and low visibility.
Bondman- a serf; a slave.
Condemn- express complete disapproval of, typically in public; censure.
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crackling - the crisp, fatty skin of roast pork.

cruelty- callous indifference to or pleasure in causing pain and suffering.
dignity- the state or quality of being worthy of honor or respect.
dilemma - a situation in which a difficult choice has to be made between
two or more alternatives, especially equally undesirable ones.
loomed- appear as a shadowy form, especially one that is large or
threatening.
moniker- a name.
plummet- fall or drop straight down at high speed.
spewed- expel large quantities of (something) rapidly and forcibly.
tyranny- cruel and oppressive government or rule.
wriggle- twist and turn with quick writhing movements.

References
https://www.scribd.com/doc/20267987/Oratorical-Piece
http://www.gov.ph/inaugural-addresses/
http://www.bartleby.com/124/
https://www.creativenonfiction.org/online-reading/essays
https://letterpile.com/books/Top-Declamation-Speeches

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Acknowledgement
We would like to express our special thanks of gratitude to our teacher
Josephine Cafirma who gave us the golden opportunity to do this wonderful
project a compendium of speeches, which also helped us in doing a lot of
Research and we came to know about so many new things we are really
thankful to them.
Secondly we would also like to thank our parents and friends who helped
us a lot in finalizing this project within the limited time frame.
Dedication
As well as everything that we do, we would be honor to dedicate this Final
compendium to our parents and to teacher Josephine Cafirma . The two
persons that gave the tools and values necessary to be where we are
standing today.
Our parents and ma`am Josephine Cafirma who support us every step we
make, and decision that we take; but is necessary to understand that they
let us take our decisions alone in order for us to learn from our personal
mistake.

Foreword
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The compilation of this compendium of speeches primarily aims to have a

reference of their project at Senior High School of Infant Jesus Montessori
School. Not only at senior high but also the lower graders/students this can
help with their research.
Compendium is divided to different parts: speeches, oration, declamation
and essay. Each includes interpretation and samples to better understand
its significance.
Upon reading the wholeness of this compilation, the reader is expected to
expand their familiarity with public speaking. Most of all is to appreciate the
use and creativity of this compendium relatively in ones real life story.

Table of Content
Acknowledgement and Dedication....i-ii
Foreword.iii

123

Speech
First Inaugural Address ( George Washington).. 1
First Inaugural Address (Thomas Jefferson) ...5
First Inaugural Address (James Madison) .10
First Inaugural Address (James Monroe) ..13
First Inaugural Address (Andrew Jackson) ...21
Inaugural Address (General Emilio Aguinaldo) 25
Second Inaugural Address (Manuel L. Quezon) ..27
Second Inaugural Address (Ferdinand E. Marcos) ..31
Inaugural Address (Gloria Macapagal Arroyo) .35
Inaugural Address (Ramon Magsaysay) ...39
Essay
I Survived the Blizzard of 79 ...45
The Marrying Kind..49
The Pit and the Page.61
The Math of Marriage.63
In the Grip of the Sky.67
Declamation
Bad girl70
Juvenile Delinquent72
The Unpardonable Crime..74
No Pardon For Me..77
The Plea of an Aborted Fetus..79
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I Killed Her...81
Conscience..83
Am I to be Blamed? ..85
A Glass of Cold Water..86
Vengeance Is Not Ours, Its Gods..88
Oration
I Am a Filipino.....91
I Have a Dream...94
Dirty Hands..98
The Death Penalty100
I ACCUSE..102
The Defense of Brutus.105
Tribute by Anthony...106
Because Of What We Are, Of What We Believe.108
Hold Your Tongue110
A CHANGE WITHIN112

Do`s and don`ts in Public Speaking .114

Appendices ..115
Glossary....117
Reference..118

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