June 17, 1968
Page 17395
ADDRESS BY HON. EDWARD M. CURRAN AT MAINE STATE SOCIETY DINNER
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, on May 24 the Maine State Society held its annual lobster dinner, at which the coveted Big M Award is presented each year to an outstanding son or daughter of the Pine Tree State. At this year's banquet the society presented the Big M Award to the Honorable Edward M. Curran, a native of Bangor, Maine. Judge Curran is chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
In accepting the award, Judge Curran spoke about what it means to be an American today and what that citizenship demands of each of us. He spoke of the need for brotherhood and conciliation among all Americans and all segments of our society.
In these days, when we hear talk of division within our system, Judge Curran's remarks are especially appropriate. I ask unanimous consent that they be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the address was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
BROTHERHOOD AND CONCILIATION
(Address by the Honorable Edward M. Curran, Chief Judge, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, at the annual dinner of the Maine State Society, National Press Club, May 24, 1968, Washington, D.C.)
Words cannot adequately express my deep feeling of gratitude and appreciation to the Maine State society for the honor conferred upon me this evening.
Having been born and reared in that state of silvery lakes and green forests, I am well aware of the ideals of the people of Maine. Conservative in nature, they are imbued with the principle that justice is the great interest of man on earth. Over a century ago, the ideals to be achieved by the administration of justice were eloquently expressed by Lord Brougham as follows:
"It was the boast of Augustus . . . that he found Rome of brick, and left it of marble. But how much nobler would be the Sovereign's boast when he shall have it to say that he found law dear, and left it cheap; found it a sealed book – left it a living letter; found it the patrimony of the rich – left it the inheritance of the poor; found it the two-edged sword of craft and oppression – left it the staff of honesty and the shield of innocence. Our forefathers in America decreed that it shall be: "One nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all". It became our task, therefore, inherited from the founding fathers, to create on the American continent a nation of free people, strong enough to withstand tyranny and oppression, wise enough to educate their children in the ways of truth, and broad enough to accept, as a self-evident truth, the right of every human being – regardless of race, creed and color – to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of his own conscience.
America is unique in that it has, from the time of its discovery, been the haven of the unfortunate, the oppressed, and the persecuted. For years, people of every nationality, of every religion, of every race, have willingly and freely come to our shores in search of shelter and solace and to rid themselves from the economic, political, and religious intolerances of other governments.
America is truly one nation with many nationalities. It is a nation dedicated to inspired principles, for which people have been willing to sacrifice and suffer; a democracy of cultures, as well as a free and tolerant association of individuals; a country in which there is present the values and the ideas, the arts and the sciences, the laws and techniques of the people of every civilized tradition.
The late Mr. Chief Justice Hughes expressed this thought: "our unity in fact is not racial and does not depend upon blood relationship, whether near or remote. It is the unity of a common national idea; it is the unity of a common conception of the dignity of manhood; it is the unity of a common recognition of equal civil rights; it is the unity in devotion to liberty expressed in institutions designed to give every man a fair opportunity for the exercise of his talents and to make the activities of each subordinate to the welfare of all ... This is a common country. Whatever the abode of our ancestors, this is our home and will be the home of our children, and in our love for our institutions, and in our desire to maintain the standards of civic conduct which are essential to their perpetuity, we recognize no difference in race or creed. We stand united, a contented people rejoicing in the privileges and determined to meet the responsibilities of American citizenship".
The American people have always been concerned with the flagrant violations of the rights of peaceful little nations; and of the cruel and bitter persecution of God-fearing men, and women, and children because of their religion, race, or political opinions. The vile and barbarous deeds which were inflicted upon democratic peoples of the Old World represent an attack against everything that we hold dear – an attack against international good faith, against religion, political freedom and against civilization itself.
We cry for peace, and yet we have no peace. The present conflict is not just a struggle of armaments, but rather is it the spawn of that atheistic culture and philosophy that stemmed from Marx and Engels, that not only threatens our peace, but also our very way of life by those who openly avow that the altar of the omnipotent state is the only shrine before which every head must bow and every knee must bend. But surely there is hope when, in quietude, we realize that there is a Supreme Being, and when, in the stress and strain of daily life, we seek the guidance of a Divine Providence.
If the people of America have no convictions with regard to the values in which they so strongly believe, no faith in the principles for which their fathers and forefathers died, democracy then is doomed. If Americans will not voluntarily obey the disciplines of morality, then immoral forces will discipline us, and if the citizens of the United States have no ideals which they would die to preserve, then despotism and darkness will come over the western hemisphere.
The great problem today is how people of different races and with conflicting viewpoints in the realms of religion and politics can live together in harmony. The solution of this problem, perhaps, is America's destiny, and in that solution may lie her future as a nation. Since America is a medley of differences, engendered by the existence, within her borders, of more than a score a nationalities and an infinite number of religions, those differences must find one common denominator – one level – and that is understanding and friendship. It is not so much tolerance which is needed as appreciation – appreciation of the rights of others which all humans possess, because freedom of thought and conscience is not a matter of favor granted by the state and withheld by the state, or granted by the majority and withdrawn by the majority, but it is a matter of right, inalienable, God-given, and self-evident. The enjoyment of such rights is a common heritage, and the free enjoyment of these rights necessarily implies the appreciation of one another's differences.
We must be highly critical and severely disdainful of those in our midst who would spread the doctrine of class hatred, prejudice and bigotry; who would set one social class against another.
Let us not forget too quickly the long ordeal the Negroes suffered in their efforts to be treated in accordance with the truism that "all men are created equal"; the trial of social ostracism and persecution which the Mormons experienced in their trek from New York to Utah; the organized hate of the 1920's by the Ku Klux Klan of Jews, Catholics and Negroes; and the other national prejudices being suffered today by millions of Americans born in the United States of immigrant parents. Our only hope is in a unity of effort between all people, all religions, all races, in a common brotherhood of man, under a common fatherhood of God.
I need not remind you, whether your forebears came to America on the first Mayflower, or on the thousands of Mayflowers that followed, in the creaking barks and clippers of the 1840's, with their dark and reeking holes, or in the steerage of those ships in the later era, of what we owe them for their contribution in sweat, blood and tears for the wonder that is America. These things are ours. We have known their cost, and so we should all unite as Americans, resolving that the hates and prejudices of the old world cannot abide in the new, under the bright light of a new day an the flaming splendor of a new sun.
We should lend ourselves to the preservation of those fundamental principles that have their basis and roots in the natural law and which have been enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.
Remember this – we are servants of society, accredited representatives of a system which has for its ultimate purpose the administration of justice in its highest sense. Take up the line of advance into the future and press with earnest purpose toward the noblest aims of America the great Nation, that is so proudly known as the land of the free and the home of the brave.