Latest / Worlds Famous Orations - Continental Europe / 42 - Worlds Famous Orations - Continental Europe by William Jennings Bryan

Transcript

42 - Worlds Famous Orations - Continental Europe by William Jennings Bryan · Worlds Famous Orations - Continental Europe

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Section forty two of the World's Famous Orations, Volume seven,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Continental Europe. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: please visit LibriVox dot org. Read by Richard Stibbard. The
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: World's Famous Orations, Volume seven, Continental Europe by William Jennings Bryan,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Section forty two. Clemenceaux in the Debate on Socialism with
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Jorese nineteen oh six born in eighteen forty one, Elected
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: mayor of Montmartre and then for many years a deputy
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: in the French Chamber, where he became the leader of
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: the Radical Party, prominent during the administrations of Gambetta eighteen
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: eighty two, Ferrie eighteen eighty five and Preissant eighteen eighty six,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Active against Boulangeis in eighteen eighty five, defeated in eighteen
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: ninety one. Three he devoted himself exclusively to his newspaper
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: A Justice, advocating, among other things, a revision of the
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: action against Trefus. Returning to public life, he served as
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Minister of the Interior, and in October nineteen o six
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: became Prime Minister. I wish at the outset to render
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: full homage to the noble passion for social justice, which
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: so magnificently animates the eloquence of Monsieurjorets in an irresistible
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: impulse of idealism. He wishes the happiness of all humanity,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: and we are witnesses that he would spare nothing to
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: assure this happiness. To the cords of his lire Amphion
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: modestly erected the walls of Thebes. At the voice of
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Monsieur Jorres, a still greater miracle is accomplished. He speaks,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: and all the historical organizations of human societies suddenly crumble.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: All that man has ever consused of a social order,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: all that he has ever wished at, all that he
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: has realized of justice, commencing in pain, in sorrow, in blood,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: since the day when he burst from his caverns to
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: the conquest of his earth. All the secular effort for
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: a better life, all the progress acquired at the price
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: of a labour figured perhaps by millions of years victory,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: all that resolves itself into dust, all that enshrouds itself
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: in smoke, And if your eye wishes to follow this
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: smoke into the heavens you, there behold a new prodigy.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: For in sumptuous clouds, enchanted palaces rear themselves. Whences banished
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: all human misery, there remains only to fix them in
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: the air, and to seek their foundations among us, in
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: order that the work of Genesis be reformed. Forever, the
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: social evil that Jehovah could not eliminate from his work
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: shall disappear. There shall remain to us only the evils
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: of human conditions, sufficient in all conscience. Alas, while this
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: pompous mirage unfolds itself before the charmed gaze of the
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: new Creator, I vacillating mortal, that I am labor miserably
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: in the plain, even in the far depths of the valley,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: struggling with an ungrateful soil which dulls me out and
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: niggardly harvest. Hence the difference between our points of view,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: that his good will pardons me so hardly. Monsieur Jorreess
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: indeed paid me the compliment of some floral offerings. But
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: I soon discovered that when he did so, it was
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: for the purpose of immolating me more pompously upon the
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: altar of collectivism. After having pronounced upon me a pitiless condemnation.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: But I do not pride myself in being one of
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: that noble category of resigned victims who stretch out an
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: innocent neck to the sword of Calcus. I writhe, I struggle,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: I revolt, And when Monsieur Jorresse explains to me that
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: he has conceived a most unfavorable opinion of my policy,
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: I appeal from this judgment to a superior judge this chamber,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: the exponent of a republican country. I had thought that
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: my acts would speak for me. I had thought that
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: the hour would come when, in this very place I
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: could explain myself regarding them, face to face with my adversaries.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: That hour has come, and I take advantage of it
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: to say at the outset that, in my view, those
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: who act against the working class are those who encourage it,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: in the crazy idea that wherever there is a workman
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: who will respect neither the law nor the right, there
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: you have the working class. These are they who represent
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: to him as his enemy, the government charged with the
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: maintenance of order. I say that those who act against
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: the working class of those who encourage it to believe
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: that it can do no wrong, and that it suffices
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: for it to visit upon others the oppressions from which
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: it has itself suffered. I say that those who act
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: against the working class are those who thus retard its education.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Because education is not by words, as pedagogues profess and believe,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: but is achieved by deeds. We shall know that the
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: working class is worthy to govern the democracy as you desire,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: and as I myself heartily wish, on the day when
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: of its own free will it shall conform its acts
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: to the right at demands. Such is the education which
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: must be given it. It learns nothing by discourses. Could
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: discourses teach the world the Sermon on the Mount whould
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: have been realized long ago. Without doubt, Monsieur Jorreys, you
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: dominate me from all the heights of your socialistic conceptions.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: You have the magic power of evoking fairy palaces with
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: your worf. While I am as some modest laborer on
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: a cathedral who obscurely carries a stone to the august edifice,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: he shall never see. At the first puff of reality,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: the fairy palace will vanish, whereas the Republican cathedral will
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: someday rear its spire into the skies. Individual property, I assert,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: will be evolved for a long time to come. I
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: assert that the relations of individual property and of social
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: property will not remain as they are now. And when
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: I say that, I say nothing that anyone cannot approve.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: So much is understood. The question is open. We shall
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: discuss it as fully as you please. In the meantime,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: I wish to brand the sophism upon which you have
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: founded your right of expropriation. You have shown us both
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: extreme wealth and extreme poverty. You have promised us that
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: in six months you would find the means to remedy
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: the evil you point out, And you have concluded, would
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: not this society be better? Juster humania? Reply, we launch
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: the anathema. Monsieur jorrees. There are more than two hypotheses
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: to submit to this chamber. Between the society of today
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: and yours. There are an infinite number of social conceptions
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: which may be developed. You underestimate the task, admitting even
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: that your criticisms are well founded, That present society is
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: as bad as you say it is, and I am
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: not one of those who pretend that it is very good,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: as you well know. Admitting further that the society which
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: you have conceived is actually realizable. You have still omitted
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: a point which is worth the trouble of considering, and
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: that is that we have not alone to choose between
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: the society which you promise and society as it is.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: There are an infinite number of other hypotheses. And when
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: I shall later on speak to you of the projects
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: of social order which this much abused middle class republic
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: has nevertheless brought to success, I shall show you without
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: difficulty that the social regime of today is not the
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: social regime of twenty years ago, and that it is
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: in truth founded upon absolutely different principles. I can not
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: therefore admit that you give us choice only between these
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: two hypotheses, and that you have said the last word
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: when you say to us, take care if you do
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: not accept my project. The human mind is bankrupt, Monsieur Gurreyes.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: You must not confound the bankruptcy of the human mind
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: with the bankruptcy of the mind of Monsieur Jorrees. You
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: are carrying it. Permit me to say a little too
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: high with the men who until this day have been
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: your collaborators. You show us the spectacle of those divinities
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: of Hellenism who, upon the Acropolis of Athens struggled one
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: day for the accomplishment of a p to just task.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: With your imperious scepter. You strike the earth, you cause
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: to emerge from it the type of the new society.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: These are your words, and you, turning toward us, say
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: to us, do us much very good. It is not
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: certain that this challenge cannot be taken up. The alchemists
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: sought the philosopher's stone. You have found it. You hold
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: in your hand the magic formula which ought to solve everything.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: I do not say which will solve, since we do
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: not yet know that it will, which ought to solve
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: in six months the social question. That is all very good.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: But the clear critical spirit of modern France, which you
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: do not appreciate because it inconveniences you at the present moment,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: has preserved us up to this time from these dreams.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: It is, however, natural that at the historical hour, when
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: the social question presents itself in all its amplitude, that
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: imaginations should give themselves full play. So much is necessary
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: to men who dare not look destiny full in the face.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: It is necessary to replace the lost religions which promised
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: eternal happiness by the illusion of prophecies by the terrestrial
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: paradise about to be prophecy on the generations who sleep
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: far away in the future, will not rise up from
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: the ground to confound you. In eighteen forty eight the
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: Republic believed itself on the eve of the great day,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: and we saw many builders of future cities. Do you
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: remember the sittings of the constituent and of the legislative
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: assemblies where Pierre la rue, where Victor consideran where prudent
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: detailed as you are shortly about to do plans of
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: the new society. A very great number pronounced themselves in
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: favor of the suppression of individual property. Long before them,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Thomas Morris, at the commencement at the sixteenth six century,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: had condemned individual property in terms more definite than those
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: which you could employ. These men were not inferior to you.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Where are they now? Where you have replaced them, as
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: others will shortly replace you. The truth is that we
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: must distinguish in the social organization two things, the man
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: and the environment. It appears more simple to theoretically reform
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: the environment. Everyone goes about that at his pleasure. But
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: if you consider that the environment of the social organization
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: is and can be, only the product of successive human conceptions.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: You will see that to arbitrarily modify the social organization
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: without troubling to find out if man is in a
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: state to adapt himself to it can lead only to
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: the most pronounced disorder. Thus, even for those who pretend
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: to remake the social organization, all in the first instance
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: turns upon the primordial reform of the individual. If you
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: reform the individual, if you apply yourself, I do not
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: say wholly, but principally, to the reform of the human personality,
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: man will be able to find for himself the form
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: of organization which best suits him without troubling himself with
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: your theories, without troubling himself with the prophecies you have made,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: and which certainly cannot be realized, because you cannot unless
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: you are a divinity yourself foresee the result of human evolution.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: In any case, your conceptions are fatally defective in one point,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: and that is that the man whom you need for
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: the realization of your future society does not yet exist,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: even though your theories might be realized. And when this
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: man shall exist, if he ever should exist, he will
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: employ his own intelligence in his own way, without troubling
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: himself with the path which you have taken upon yourself
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: to trace out for him. You pretend directly to construct
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: the future. While we construct the man who will construct
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: the future. And in doing so we are achieving a
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: phenomenon much greater than your own. We are not constructing
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: a man already made for our city. We take the
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: man such as he is, still imperfectly cleared from his
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: primitive dens, in his cruelty, in his goodness, in his egoism,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: in his altruism, in the pathos of the evils which
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: he endures, and the evils to which he himself subjects
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: his kind. We take him fallible, contradictory, groping towards he
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: knows not what better things, And we enlighten him, and
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: we enlarge him. We mitigate the evil of him and
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: fortify him in the good, and we liberate him, and
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: we justify him, and partaker of the bestial regime of
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: force as he is, we lead him towards an approximation
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: greater and still greater of a superior justice. And every
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: day marks a little more of disinterestedness, a little more
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: of nobility, of goodness, of beauty, and of a new
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: power over himself and over the external world. End of
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Section forty two.