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2.14.26 - Part 2 · Children's Hour

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Realized Children's Story Hour as a
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  Reminder is a reading service intended for people who are
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  blinder of other disabilities that make it difficult to read
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  printed material. Today we will be reading from various books
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  on presidents of the United States. Your reader today is Diane.
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  We will begin with the book Abe's Honest Words, The
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  Life of Abe Graham Lincoln. It was published by Hyprien
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  Books for Children. It has a copyright year of two
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  thousand and eight and the author's Dourene Rapp Report. In
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  the state slave of Kentucky, deep in the wilderness, young
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  Abraham learned to hunt for nuts and currants, and fish
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  for trout and bass, intend to soil and seed. He
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  learned sorrow at age nine when his mama died, but
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  he found great joy with a loving stepmother who encouraged
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  him to read and learn. Abraham Lincoln is my name,
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  and with my pen I wrote the same. I wrote
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  in both haste and speed, and left it here for
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  fools to read. The family moved deep into the wilderness
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  to the free state of Indiana. Panther screams and prowling
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  bears filled Abraham's nights with fear. He had just might
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  have schooling. Yet he loved the words. The way is
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  Papa a master storyteller did. He stuffed books inside his shirt.
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  Between splitting wood and plowing, he stood in the field
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  and read. He read some books so many times he
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  knew all parts by heart. The things I want to
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  know are in books. My best friend is the man
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  who get me a book, and I ate reads another
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  move to New Salem, a village in Illinois. The long
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  lanky boy was a man now. He furied people in
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  goods down Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Between the pool of
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  the pole and the splash of the water. He listened
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  to hunters spin tall tales of a mighty marksman half
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  man half alligator, and sailors described giant mosquitoes that could
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  kill a man. Heard lawyers tell how they used words
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  to gain justice for ordinary folks. He heard preachers quote
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  from the Bible. A house divided against his self cannot stand.
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  He stored these different voices in his heart and wove
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  them into his own words. The long, muddy Mississippi River
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  brought Lincoln south to New Orleans. He walked on cobblestone
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  paths and a long canals past flowers spinning over lacy
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  iron balconies. He saw men and women in fancy clothes,
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  eating fancy foods, and sipping wine. French, Spanish and English
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  words filled his ears, but a hideous sight shattered his joy.
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  Twelve negroes changed six and six together, strung together like
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  so many fish upon a trotline, being separated forever from
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  their childhood, their friends, their fathers and mothers, and brothers
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  and sisters, from their wives and children into perpetual slavery.
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  Lincoln worked at many jobs, farm hands, store owner, postmaster,
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  surveyor rail splitter. Wherever whatever, he always had a book
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  in hand. Grammar, mathematics, biography, history, poetry plays upon the
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  subject of education. I viewed as the most important subject
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  which we as a people can be engaged in. America
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  was growing. Farmers needed new waterways and railroads to ship
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  their crops. Everyone needed better education. If he became a lawmaker,
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  he could help people get these things. So he ran
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  from the Illinois State Legislator. He spoke in public squares
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  and country stores in hayfields. I am young, and unknown
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  to many of you, is born and have ever remained
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  in most humble walks of life. I have no wealthier
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  popular relations to recommend me. He lost the election. That
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  people liked what he said and how he said it.
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  He ran again, this tiny one. He ran three more times,
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  and one he became a lawyer. His clients praised honest
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  old Abe, the lawyer who was never known to lie.
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  He didn't like the nickname Abe, but it's stuck. Resolved
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  to be honest in all events. And if you cannot
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  be an honest lawyer, it resolved to be honest without
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  being a lawyer, choose some other occupation. Nearly four million
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  black men, women, and children were enslaved in Southern States.
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  Lincoln thought slavery a great evil. If he became a
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  United States senator, more people would hear him speak out
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  against it. In speech after speech, he reminded people that
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  slavery did not fit with the ideals of the Declaration
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  of Independence. As a nation we begin to declare that
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  all men are created equal. We now practically read it
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  all men are created equal except negroes. He lost the election,
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  but again his words got much attention. People felt he
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  spoke from his heart. The next two years, tension over
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  slavery grew between the South and North. Lincoln ran for
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  president and spoke out against this evil practice. He won
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  this election, but a month before he took office, seven
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  southern states left the Union. They formed their own government
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  with their own president. In his first inaugural address, Lincoln
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  reminded Americans that they were one people. We are not enemies,
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  but friends. We must not be enemies. On April twelfth,
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  eighteen sixty one, Southern troops attacked Fort Sutner, a federal
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  fort in South Carolina. Lincoln knew he had no CHOI
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  now the North had to fight the South to bring
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  it back to the Union. I hope that the union
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  of these states is perpetual. No state can lawfully get
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  out of the union. Families were torn apart as husbands, fathers,
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  and sons went off to war, many never to return.
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  Many Northerners worried that Lincoln did not have the skills
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  to lead the nation in this terrible time. He's two backwards,
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  he's unprecedential, he's too many silly jokes. He's had too
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  little experience in government. If I were to try to read,
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  much less answer all the attacks made on me, this
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  shop might as well be closed for any other business.
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  I do the very best I know how the very
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  best I can, and I need to keep doing so
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  until the end. Lincoln believed that true liberty could not
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  permit slavery. He decided to use his wartime powers as
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  commander in Chief to end slavery. The third year of
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  the war, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freed over three
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  million black men, women, and children, and called for black
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  men to join the Union army. In giving freedom to
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  the slave, we assure freedom to the free. Most white
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  Northerners opposed Lincoln's proclamation, but he stood firm. I never
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  in my life felt more certain that I was doing
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  right than I do in signing this paper. My whole
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  soul is in it. The war dragged on, Lincoln grew
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  sadder and sadder as more Americans died. He went to
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  the Gettysburg battlefield and again reminded the nation why these
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  men had sacrificed their lives. Four score and seven years ago.
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  Our fathers brought forth in this continent a new nation,
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  conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all
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  men are created equal. The Mancipation Proclamation had freed slaves
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  only in the states and territories that were in rebellion
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  Lincoln when slavery ended in the entire nation. Most white
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  lawmakers did not want this. He called them to the
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  White House to convince them of what he knew was right.
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  The moment came when I felt that slavery must die
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  that the nation might live. Finally they agreed. The fourth
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  year of the war, victory seemed close for the North,
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  but Lincoln felt no joy. Hundreds of thousands of men
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  on both sides had died in battle. The country was
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  deeply divided. Many Northerners wanted to punish the South for
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  starting the war. Southerners were furious that the Union army
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  had destroyed their cities and homes and crops. Could the
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  nation ever be one people again? In his second inaugural address,
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  Lincoln shared his vision of how the country could heal
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  itself with malice towards none, with charity for all, with
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  firmness and the right, as God gives us to see
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  the right, drive on to finish the work we are in,
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  to bind up the nation's wounds. The South finally surrendered.
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  The job of elimination began, but Lincoln was not there
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  to help, and assassin's bullet ended his life. But His
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  words were there to guide those who chose to remember.
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  It is for us the living rather that we were
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  highly resolved that these dead shall not have died in vain,
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  that this nation under God shall have a new birth
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  of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people,
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  for all the people shall not perish from the earth.
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  Our next book is told What Lincoln Said, and it
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  was published by Collins and Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. It
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  has a copyright year of two thousand and nine. The
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  author of the book is Sarah L. Thompson. The world
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  seemed wider and ferrier before me. That was how Abraham
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  Lincoln remembered the day he earned his first a farm boy,
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  abe could plant and harvests, catch fish in the creek,
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  split rails for fences, and he could build a boat.
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  One summer he ferry passengers up and down a river.
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  Two men hired aid to row them out to their steamboat.
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  A thought that they might pay him a quarter. Then
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  each tossed him a silver half dollar. I could scarcely
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  believe my eyes, he said, by honest work, I had
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  earned a dollar. What else could he do if he tried?
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  When he grew up, aide, left his father's farm. He
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  worked on a river boat, clerked in a store, marched
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  as a soldier but never fought a battle, and he
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  sat under trees reading books on law. He planned to
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  make a new life for himself, and studying law was
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  the start. When Lincoln rode into town of Springfield, everything
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  he owned fit into two saddle bags. He didn't know
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  a single person in there. I'm quite as lonesome here
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  as I ever was in my life, he complained. But
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  six months later he was working as a lawyer. Nobody
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  called him eight anymore. They called him Lincoln or mister Lincoln.
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  When people were a used of crimes or needed to
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  settle arguments, Lincoln presented to their cases to a judge.
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  Nobody worked harder than he did. Leave nothing for tomorrow
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  that can be done today, he advised, resolved to be
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  honest at all events. With a scar on his face
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  and big ears that stuck out, Lincoln didn't win cases
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  on his looks. He was so tall, skinny, he seemed
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  like a skeleton in clothes that he knew how to
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  make people laugh. When someone called him two face, he
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  shot back, if I had another face, do you think
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  I would wear this one. Arguing about laws in court
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  wasn't enough for Lincoln. He became a politician so he
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  could make laws. Mary encouraged him. She believed he could
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  even be president. The idea made Lincoln laugh. Just think
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  of such a one as me as a president, he roared.
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  But maybe Mary knew something her husband did not. In
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  Lincoln's time, there were about four million slaves in the
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  United States. Slaves were human beings, treated like animals, forced
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  to work, bought and so chained, beaten. Slavery is not wrong,
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  Nothing is wrong, Lincoln said. He ran for president after all,
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  promising to keep slavery out of new states in the
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  American West. Lincoln won the election. After his victory, so
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  several southern states decided to break away from the country.
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  They wanted to make a new nation where slavery would
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  always be legal. They said they weren't part of the
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  United States anymore and didn't have to obey its laws
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  or its president. Lincoln said the Southern their saints, didn't
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  have the right to leave. The United States was one country,
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  and he would keep it that way, but he hoped
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  to do it without fighting. We are not enemies, but friends,
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  he said. In his first speech as president, We must
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  not be enemies. Lincoln couldn't stop the Civil War from
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  breaking out. He hated the thought of soldiers killing and dying.
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  I cannot bear it, he said. The suffering, the loss
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  of life is dreadful. But he wouldn't back down. He
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  was determined to keep the United States together. After two
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  years of fighting, Lincoln made a decision. He would sign
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  the Emancipation Proclamation on New Year's Day, and the states
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  that were fighting to break away from the country slaves
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  would be forever free. On January first, eighteen sixty three,
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  Lincoln shook hands until his arm ached. He worried that
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  his fingers might tremble as he signed his name. He
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  didn't want anyone in years to come to look at
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  the paper and think that he had hesitated. Taking a
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  moment to steady his hand, he wrote his name firmly
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  and clearly. Lincoln knew one thing. Nothing else that happened
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  in the war, nothing else that happened while he was president,
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  would be as important as this moment. If ever my
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  name goes into history, it will be for this act,
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  he said, And my whole soul is in it. Abraham
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  Lincoln and slavery. When Abraham Lincoln became president, he had
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  no plans to make slavery illegal where it already existed.
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  He fought the Civil War to keep the country together,
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  not to end slavery. If I could save the Union
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  without freeing any slave, I would do it, he wrote.
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  And if I would save it by freeing all the slaves,
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  I would do it. But it was impossible to separate
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  the war from slavery. Once Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation,
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  the war was not only about keeping the country together.
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  Now it was also about what kind of country would be,
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  and whether the promise and the declaration of en dependence
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  that all men are CREATI equal would be true for
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  black people as well as white. Emancipation Proclamation let slavery
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  remain legal in six states and parts of others. Two
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  years later, Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution,
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  outlying slavery throughout the United States forever. Lincoln worked hard
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  to get the amendment passed. When the vote was finished,
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  he said, simply, the great work is over. Our next
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  book is titled Jack's Path of Courage The Life of
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  John F. Kennedy, and it was published by hyperend Books.
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  It has a copyright year of two thy ten and
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  the author of our book is Doreen Rapaport. John F. Kennedy,
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  called Jack by family and friends, was the second oldest
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  of four boys and five girls in a wealthy, close
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  kniche family. Jack's mother richer children every night. He always
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  read more than any of the others. Books to Jack
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  on the Ventures with the Mischievous Goat Billy Whisker, with
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  Peter Pain and tinker Bell, and with Keen Arthurst Brave
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  Knights in the Kingdom of Camelot. Jack's father pushed his
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  children to compete with each other and do their very best.
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  Come in a winter second place is not good. Jack's
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  father's dream was for his eldest son, Joe, to become
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  the first Catholic president of the United States. Joe excelled
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  in everything. Jack tried to keep up with Joe. He
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  didn't succeed in school, even though his father pushed him
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  to do better. I've been doing a little worrying about
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  my studies because of what Dad said about me starting
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  off great and then going down. Joe was a college
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  football star. Jack tried out for the team, but he
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  wasn't strong enough and heard his back playing. Swimming was
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  his sport, and he helped his team win many medals.
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  Jack Jack's college record was only fair, but he received
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  a better grade than Joe did on his senior thesis.
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  His father congratulating him, I always knew you were smart.
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  He sent Jack's thesis to a reporter who helped Jack
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  rewrite it, gave it more interesting title, and helped get
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  it published. While England slept, made twenty three year old
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  Jack famous. When Jack turned twenty four, of the United
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  States was at war. Jack commanded a pet boat in
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  the South Pacific. The Americans and Japanese were locked in
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  fierce combat. This job is really the great spot of
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  the navy. You are your own boss, and it's like
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  sailing around as in the old days. One night, and
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  on a mission, a Japanese destroyer rammed Jack's pt boat,
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  splitting it in half and re injuring Jack's back. Two
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  men died instantly. The eleven survivors clung to the wreckage,
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  waiting to be rescued. No one came. After nine hours.
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  Jack ordered them to swim. One man was to burn
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  to swim, so Jack put the man's life fest straight
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  between his teeth and pulled him for five hours. The
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  crew reached a small island four miles away. Jack lept
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  his men there. Currents battered his tired body as he
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  swam to an area where peach boats patrolled. He traded
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  water for an hour, but no boats came. He swam
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  back to his men. He battled the sea two more times,
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  but did not find help. After five days, two islanders
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  who were American Scouts found them. Jack received three medals
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  for his courage and leadership. As to how he became
• 18:37
  a hero, he answered, it was involuntary. They sank my boats.
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  Joe was a courageous war pilot that on his fifty
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  first flight, his plane exploded. His death devastated the family.
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  Jack's father told Jack, now that Joe was dead, he
• 18:55
  had to go into politics. I can fill Pappy's eyes
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  on the back of my neck. Jack didn't think he
• 19:02
  had the ability or the strength to run for public office.
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  His back was never free from paying. A year later,
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  he ran for Congress from a neighborhood in Boston. For
• 19:14
  eight months, day and night, he was at factories and shipyards,
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  on trolley cars and street corners, and in barbershops and
• 19:22
  fire stations. He shook thousands of hands and gave hundreds
• 19:27
  of speeches. He told women whose sons had died in battle,
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  my mother is a ghost star mother too. People liked
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  the handsome war hero with his warm smile, easy manner,
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  and seemingly endless energy. He won the election easily. Jack
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  served three terms in Congress, then won a seat in
• 19:49
  the Senate, but before he could take office, he had
• 19:51
  two back operations. In bed for five months, he thought
• 19:55
  about the challenges of being a lawmaker. He decided to
• 19:58
  write a book about eight cent who had risked their
• 20:01
  careers by standing up for what they believed in. Several
• 20:04
  people helped him in the research and writing. A man
• 20:07
  does what he must in spite of personal consequences, obstacles, dangers,
• 20:13
  and pressures. The book, Profiles Encouraged, won the Pulitzer Prize
• 20:17
  for biography. Jack was in the spotlight again in nineteen
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  sixty he ran for president. He created a message of
• 20:27
  hope and used television print to millions, we stand on
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  the edge of a new frontier. The new frontier is
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  not a set of promises, is a set of challenges.
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  Americans liked his bote ideas, but even friends that he
• 20:42
  could not win because he was Catholic. Many people were
• 20:45
  prejudiced against Catholics. Then Jack refused to ignore the issue.
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  He spoke directly about it on television. I believe in
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  a president whose views on religion are his own private affair.
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  He narrowly won the election. He asked his advisers to
• 21:03
  help him make his inaugural speech memorable and inspirational. On
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  a bitterly cod January twentieth, nineteen sixty one, the world
• 21:12
  listened to America's youngest president ever elected. And so, my
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  fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you,
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  as what you can do for your country. My fellow
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  as citizens of the world, ask not what America will
• 21:27
  do for you, but what together we can do for
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  the freedom of man. His words inspired people all over
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  the globe. The White House had a new spirit. The
• 21:39
  elegant First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy welcome artists and writers and
• 21:43
  musicians into her new home. The Kennedy children, John Junior
• 21:48
  and Caroline played all over the White House grounds. Americans
• 21:52
  enjoyed Kennedy's directness and wit. How do you like being president?
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  The problems are more difficult than I thought. They would
• 21:59
  be much easier to make speeches than make the judgments.
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  Asked the question another time, he playfully answered, the pay
• 22:08
  is good and I can walk to work. Few people
• 22:11
  knew that the young, vital president had serious health problems
• 22:15
  and was in constant pain. The United States and the
• 22:19
  Soviet Union competed for woral power. Then the Soviets sent
• 22:23
  experts to help people in the developing countries. Can decreate
• 22:27
  the peace Corps. We have men and women anxious to
• 22:30
  sacrifice their energies and time to toil to the cause
• 22:34
  of the world peace and human progress. Thousands of Americans,
• 22:38
  young and old, built schools and roads and sewers, and
• 22:42
  taught children all over the worlds. He announced that America
• 22:47
  would beat the Soviets to the moon. We choose to
• 22:50
  go to the Moon in this decade and do the
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  other things, not because they are easy, but because they
• 22:55
  are hard. Less than ten years later, two American astronauts
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  walked on the moon, but not off. Kennedy's decisions were wise.
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  Three months into office, he approved an invasion of Cuba,
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  a country ninety miles from Florida. Cuba's leader was Soviet ally,
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  the invasion was a disaster. I'm the responsible officer of
• 23:18
  the government, he told Americans on television. Eight months later,
• 23:22
  the Soviets put nuclear missiles aimed at the United States
• 23:26
  in Cuba. Kennedy demanded they be removed. For thirteen anxious days,
• 23:31
  the world feared war between two superpowers. Finally, the Soviets
• 23:37
  back down and the United States pledged not to invade Cuba.
• 23:43
  The two superpowers had enough bombs to destroy each other.
• 23:46
  Kennedy went to end the weapons race. His military advisors
• 23:50
  were against any ban on testing weapons. Kennedy met with
• 23:54
  the Soviet premier. He sent advisors back and forth with
• 23:58
  letters and proposals. Negotiations seemed deadlocked, but on July twenty fifth,
• 24:03
  nineteen sixty three, the two countries agreed to the first
• 24:07
  major test ban treaty. This tree is its important first
• 24:11
  step towards peace and reason. Kennedy also faced conflict in
• 24:17
  the United States. Southern blacks were protesting for equal rights.
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  White speech them and murdered them. Black leaders asked the
• 24:25
  President to help stop the violence. For two years, he hesitated,
• 24:29
  worry that if he helped white Southern lawmakers would not
• 24:32
  vote for his other programs. Finally, he took a firm
• 24:36
  stead and called for new laws protecting black Americans. One
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  hundred years of pass since President Lincoln freed the slaves,
• 24:44
  yet their heirs are not fully free. This nation will
• 24:48
  not be fully free until all its citizens are free.
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  November nineteen sixty three, can you decide to visit some
• 24:56
  Western states where he had done poorly with voters? Thousand
• 25:00
  shared his motorcade through Dallas, Texas. He was shot and killed.
• 25:04
  His son depth shocked and saddened the worlds. A man
• 25:10
  may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea
• 25:13
  lives on. The new president, Linda B. Johnson, carried out
• 25:16
  Kennedy's legacy. Johnson used his political skills to convince Congress
• 25:21
  to pass new programs that better the lives of all Americans.
• 25:25
  Laws that guarantee voting rights for all, medical care for
• 25:29
  the elderly, and educational opportunities for the very young. This
• 25:37
  concludes the children's story ire for today. Please join us
• 25:40
  next time as we will read more stories, fables and
• 25:43
  fairy tales. Thank you for listening, and please stay tuned
• 25:46
  for the Lexton Hair Leader on RADIOI