Vice Presidential Nomination Acceptance Address()

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第一篇：1984 Vice Presidential Nomination Acceptance Address

geraldine ferraro: 1984 Vice Presidential Nomination Acceptance Address

ladies and gentlemen of the convention:

my name is geraldine ferraro. i stand before you to proclaim tonight: america is the land where dreams can come true for all of us. as i stand before the american people and think of the honor this great convention has bestowed upon me, i recall the words of dr. martin luther king jr., who made america stronger by making america more free. he said, "occasionally in life there are moments which cannot be completely explained by words. their meaning can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart." tonight is such a moment for me.

my heart is filled with pride. my fellow citizens, i proudly accept your Nomination for Vice president of the united states.

and i am proud to run with a man who will be one of the great presidents of this century, walter f. mondale. tonight, the daughter of a woman whose highest goal was a future for her children talks to our nation's oldest party about a future for us all. tonight, the daughter of working americans tells all americans that the future is within our reach, if we're willing to reach for it. tonight, the daughter of an immigrant from italy has been chosen to run for [Vice] president in the new land my father came to love.

our faith that we can shape a better future is what the american dream is all about. the promise of our country is that the rules are fair. if you work hard and play by the rules, you can earn your share of america's blessings. those are the beliefs i learned from my parents. and those are the values i taught my students as a teacher in the public schools of new york city.

at night, i went to law school. i became an assistant district attorney, and i put my share of criminals behind bars. i believe if you obey the law, you should be protected. but if you break the law, you must pay for your crime.

when i first ran for congress, all the political experts said a democrat could not win my home district in queens. i put my faith in the people and the values that we shared. together, we proved the political experts wrong. in this campaign, fritz mondale and i have put our faith in the people. and we are going to prove the experts wrong again. we are going to win. we are going to win because americans across this country believe in the same basic dream.

last week, i visited elmore, minnesota, the small town where fritz mondale was raised. and soon fritz and joan will visit our family in queens. nine hundred people live in elmore. in queens, there are 2,000 people on one block. you would think we would be different, but we're not. children walk to school in elmore past grain elevators; in queens, they pass by subway stops. but, no matter where they live, their future depends on education, and their parents are willing to do their part to make those schools as good as they can be. in elmore, there are family farms; in queens, small businesses. but the men and women who run them all take pride in supporting their families through hard work and initiative. on the 4th of july in elmore, they hang flags out on main street; in queens, they fly them over grand avenue. but all of us love our country, and stand ready to defend the freedom that it represents.

americans want to live by the same set of rules. but under this administration, the rules are rigged against too many of our people. it isn't right that every year the share of taxes paid by individual citizens is going up, while the share paid by large corporations is getting smaller and smaller. the rules say: everyone in our society should contribute their fair share. it isn't right that this year ronald reagan will hand the american people a bill for interest on the national debt larger than the entire cost of the federal government under john f. kennedy. our parents left us a growing economy. the rules say: we must not leave our kids a mountain of debt.

it isn't right that a woman should get paid 59 cents on the dollar for the same work as a man.

if you play by the rules, you deserve a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. it isn't right that, if trends continue, by the year 2014 nearly all of the poor people in america will be women and children. the rules of a decent society say: when you distribute sacrifice in times of austerity, you don't put women and children first. it isn't right that young people today fear they won't get the social security they paid for, and that older americans fear that they will lose what they have already earned. social security is a contract between the last generation and the next, and the rules say: you don't break contracts.

we are going to keep faith with older americans. we hammered out a fair compromise in the congress to save social security. every group sacrificed to keep the system sound. it is time ronald reagan stopped scaring our senior citizens.

it isn't right that young couples question whether to bring children into a world of 50,000 nuclear warheads. that isn't the vision for which americans have struggled for more than two centuries. and our future doesn't have to be that way. change is in the air, just as surely as when john kennedy beckoned america to a new frontier; when sally ride rocketed into space; and when reverend jesse jackson ran for the office of president of the united states.

by choosing a woman to run for our nation's second highest office, you send a powerful signal to all americans: there are no doors we cannot unlock. we will place no limits on achievement. if we can do this, we can do anything.

tonight, we reclaim our dream. we are going to make the rules of american life work fairly for all americans again. to an administration that would have us debate all over again whether the voting rights act should be renewed and whether segregated schools should be tax exempt, we say, mr. president: those debates are over. on the issue of civil rights, voting rights, and affirmative action for minorities, we must not go backwards. we must -- and we will -- move forward to open the doors of opportunity.

to those who understand that our country cannot prosper unless we draw on the talents of all americans, we say: we will pass the equal rights amendment.

the issue is not what america can do for women, but what women can do for america.

to the americans who will lead our country into the 21st century, we say: we will not have a supreme court that turns the clock back to the 19th century.

to those concerned about the strength of american and family values, as i am, i say: we are going to restore those values -- love, caring, partnership -- by including, and not excluding, those whose beliefs differ from our own. because our own faith is strong, we will fight to preserve the freedom of faith for others.

to those working americans who fear that banks, utilities, and large special interests have a lock on the white house, we say: join us; let's elect a people's president; and let's have government by and for the american people again.

to an administration that would savage student loans and education at the dawn of a new technological age, we say: you fit the classic definition of a cynic; you know the price of everything, but the value of nothing.

to our students and their parents, we say: we will insist on the highest standards of excellence, because the jobs of the future require skilled minds. to young americans who may be called to our country's serVice, we say: we know your generation will proudly answer our country's call, as each generation before you.

this past year, we remembered the bravery and sacrifice of americans at normandy. and we finally paid tribute -- as we should have done years ago -- to that unknown soldier who represents all the brave young americans who died in vietnam. let no one doubt, we will defend america's security and the cause of freedom around the world. but we want a president who tells us what america's fighting for, not just what we are fighting against.

we want a president who will defend human rights, not just where it is convenient, but wherever freedom is at risk -- from chile to afghanistan, from poland to south africa. to those who have watched this administration's confusion in the middle east, as it has tilted first toward one and then another of israel's long-time enemies and wonder: "will america stand by her friends and sister democracy?" we say: america knows who her friends are in the middle east and around the world. america will stand with israel always.

finally, we want a president who will keep america strong, but use that strength to keep america and the world at peace. a nuclear freeze is not a slogan: it is a tool for survival in the nuclear age. if we leave our children nothing else, let us leave them this earth as we found it: whole and green and full of life.

i know in my heart that walter mondale will be that president.

a wise man once said, "every one of us is given the gift of life, and what a strange gift it is. if it is preserved jealously and selfishly, it impoverishes and saddens. but if it is spent for others, it enriches and beautifies." my fellow americans: we can debate policies and programs, but in the end what separates the two parties in this election campaign is whether we use the gift of life for others or only ourselves.

tonight, my husband, john, and our three children are in this hall with me. to my daughters, donna and laura, and my son, john junior, i say: my mother did not break faith with me, and i will not break faith with you.

to all the children of america, i say: the generation before ours kept faith with us, and like them, we will pass on to you a stronger, more just america.

thank you.

第二篇：Presidential Nomination Acceptance Address

《Presidential Nomination Acceptance Address》

Presidential Nomination Acceptance Address

my good friend and great republican, dick nixon, and your charming wife, pat; my running mate, that wonderful republican who has served us so well for so long, bill miller and his wife, stephanie; to thurston morton who's done such a commendable job in chairmaning this convention; to mr. herbert hoover, who i hope is watching; and to that -- that great american and his wife, general and mrs. eisenhower; to my own wife, my family, and to all of my fellow republicans here assembled, and americans across this great nation.

from this moment, united and determined, we will go forward together, dedicated to the ultimate and undeniable greatness of the whole man. together -- together we will win.

i accept your Nomination with a deep sense of humility. i accept, too, the responsibility that goes with it, and i seek your

continued help and your continued guidance. my fellow republicans, our cause is too great for any man to feel worthy of it. our task would be too great for any man, did he not have with him the hearts and the hands of this great republican party, and i promise you tonight that every fiber of my being is consecrated to our cause; that nothing shall be lacking from the struggle that can be brought to it by enthusiasm, by devotion, and plain hard work.

in this world no person, no party can guarantee anything, but what we can do and what we shall do is to deserve victory, and victory will be ours.

the good lord raised this mighty republic to be a home for the brave and to flourish as the land of the free -- not to stagnate in the swampland of collectivism, not to cringe before the bullying of communism.

now, my fellow americans, the tide has been running against freedom. our people have followed false prophets. we must, and we shall, return to proven ways -- not because they are old, but because they are true. we must, and we shall, set the tides running again in the cause of freedom. and this party, with its every action, every word, every breath, and every heartbeat, has but a single resolve, and that is freedom -- freedom made orderly for this nation by our constitutional government; freedom under a government limited by the laws of nature and of nature's god; freedom balanced so that order lacking liberty [sic] will not become the slavery of the prison shell [cell]; balanced so that liberty lacking order will not become the license of the mob and of the jungle.

now, we americans understand freedom. we have earned it; we have lived for it, and we have died for it. this nation and its people are freedom's model in a searching world. we can be freedom's missionaries in a doubting world. but, ladies and gentlemen, first we must renew freedom's mission in our own hearts and in our own homes.

during four futile years, the administration which we shall replace has -- has distorted and lost that vision. it has talked and talked and talked and talked the words of freedom, but it has failed and failed and failed in the works of freedom.

now, failures cement the wall of shame in berlin. failures blot the sands of shame at the bay of pigs. failures mark the slow death of freedom in laos. failures infest the jungles of vietnam. and failures haunt the houses of our once great alliances and undermine the greatest bulwark ever erected by free nations -- the nato community. failures proclaim lost leadership, obscure purpose, weakening will, and the risk of inciting our sworn enemies to new aggressions and to new excesses.

and because of this administration we are tonight a world divided; we are a nation becalmed. we have lost the brisk pace of diversity and the genius of individual creativity. we are plodding along at a pace set by centralized planning, red tape, rules without responsibility, and regimentation without recourse.

rather than useful jobs in our country, our people have been offered bureaucratic "make work"; rather than moral leadership, they have been given bread and circuses. they have been given spectacles, and, yes, they've even been given scandals.

tonight, there is violence in our streets, corruption in our highest offices, aimlessness amongst our youth, anxiety among our elders, and there's a virtual despair among the many who look beyond material success for the inner meaning of their lives. and where examples of morality should be set, the opposite is seen. small men, seeking great wealth or power, have too often and too long turned even the highest levels of public serVice into mere personal opportunity.

now, certainly, simple honesty is not too much to demand of men in government. we find it in most. republicans demand it from everyone. they demand it from everyone no matter how exalted or protected his position might be. now the -- the growing menace in our country tonight, to personal safety, to life, to limb and property, in homes, in churches, on the playgrounds, and places of business, particularly in our great cities, is the mounting concern, or should be, of every thoughtful citizen in the united states.

security from domestic violence, no less than from foreign aggression, is the most elementary and fundamental purpose of any government, and a government that cannot fulfill this purpose is one that cannot long command the loyalty of its citizens.

history shows us -- it demonstrates that nothing, nothing prepares the way for tyranny more than the failure of public officials to keep the streets safe from bullies and marauders.

now, we republicans see all this as more, much more, than the result of mere political differences or mere political mistakes. we see this as the result of a fundamentally and absolutely wrong view of man, his nature, and his destiny. those who seek to live your lives for you, to take your liberties in return for relieving you of yours, those who elevate the state and downgrade the citizen must see ultimately a world in which earthly power can be substituted for divine will, and this nation was founded upon the rejection of that notion and upon the Acceptance of god as the author of freedom.

now those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. they -- and let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed. their mistaken course

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stems from false notions, ladies and gentlemen, of equality. equality, rightly understood, as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences. wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.

fellow republicans, it is the cause of republicanism to resist concentrations of power, private or public, which -- which enforce such conformity and inflict such despotism. it is the cause of republicanism to ensure that power remains in the hands of the people. and, so help us god, that is exactly what a republican president will do with the help of a republican congress.

it is further the cause of republicanism to restore a clear understanding of the tyranny of man over man in the world at large. it is our cause to dispel the foggy thinking which avoids hard decisions in the delusion that a world of conflict will somehow

mysteriously resolve itself into a world of harmony, if we just don't rock the boat or irritate the forces of aggression -- and this is hogwash.

it is further the cause of republicanism to remind ourselves, and the world, that only the strong can remain free, that only the strong can keep the peace.

now, i needn't remind you, or my fellow americans regardless of party, that republicans have shouldered this hard

responsibility and marched in this cause before. it was republican leadership under dwight eisenhower that kept the peace, and passed along to this administration the mightiest arsenal for defense the world has ever known. and i needn't remind you that it was the strength and the [un]believable will of the eisenhower years that kept the peace by using our strength, by using it in the formosa straits and in lebanon and by showing it courageously at all times.

it was during those republican years that the thrust of communist imperialism was blunted. it was during those years of

republican leadership that this world moved closer, not to war, but closer to peace, than at any other time in the last three decades.

and i needn't remind you -- but i will -- that it's been during democratic years that our strength to deter war has stood still, and even gone into a planned decline. it has been during democratic years that we have weakly stumbled into conflict, timidly refusing to draw our own lines against aggression, deceitfully refusing to tell even our people of our full participation, and tragically, letting our finest men die on battlefields, unmarked by purpose, unmarked by pride or the prospect of victory.

yesterday, it was korea. tonight, it is vietnam. make no bones of this. don't try to sweep this under the rug. we are at war in vietnam. and y(请勿抄袭好范文网：WwW.haOwORd.Com)et the president, who is the commander-in-chief of our forces, refuses to say -- refuses to say, mind you, whether or not the objective over there is victory. and his secretary of defense continues to mislead and misinform the american people, and enough of it has gone by.

and i needn't remind you -- but i will -- it has been during democratic years that a billion persons were cast into communist captivity and their fate cynically sealed.

today -- today in our beloved country we have an administration which seems eager to deal with communism in every coin known -- from gold to wheat, from consulates to confidences, and even human freedom itself.

now the republican cause demands that we brand communism as the principal disturber of peace in the world today. indeed, we should brand it as the only significant disturber of the peace, and we must make clear that until its goals of conquest are

absolutely renounced and its relations with all nations tempered, communism and the governments it now controls are enemies of every man on earth who is or wants to be free.

now, we here in america can keep the peace only if we remain vigilant and only if we remain strong. only if we keep our eyes open and keep our guard up can we prevent war. and i want to make this abundantly clear: i don't intend to let peace or freedom be torn from our grasp because of lack of strength or lack of will -- and that i promise you, americans.

i believe that we must look beyond the defense of freedom today to its extension tomorrow. i believe that the communism which boasts it will bury us will, instead, give way to the forces of freedom. and i can see in the distant and yet recognizable future the outlines of a world worthy of our dedication, our every risk, our every effort, our every sacrifice along the way. yes, a world that will redeem the suffering of those who will be liberated from tyranny. i can see -- and i suggest that all thoughtful men must contemplate -- the flowering of an atlantic civilization, the whole of europe reunified and freed, trading openly across its borders, communicating openly across the world.

now, this is a goal far, far more meaningful than a moon shot.

it's a -- it's a truly inspiring goal for all free men to set for themselves during the latter half of the twentieth century.

i can also see -- and all free men must thrill to -- the events of this atlantic civilization joined by its great ocean highway to the united states. what a destiny! what a destiny can be ours to stand as a great central pillar linking europe, the americas, and the venerable and vital peoples and cultures of the pacific. i can see a day when all the americas, north and south, will be linked in a mighty system, a system in which the errors and misunderstandings of the past will be submerged one by one in a rising tide of prosperity and interdependence. we know that the misunderstandings of centuries are not to be wiped away in a day or wiped away in an hour. but we pledge, we pledge that human sympathy -- what our neighbors to the south call an attitude of "simpatico" -- no less than enlightened self'-interest will be our guide.

and i can see this atlantic civilization galvanizing and guiding emergent nations everywhere.

now i know this freedom is not the fruit of every soil. i know that our own freedom was achieved through centuries, by

unremitting efforts of brave and wise men. and i know that the road to freedom is a long and a challenging road. and i know also that some men may walk away from it, that some men resist challenge, accepting the false security of governmental paternalism.

and i -- and i pledge that the america i envision in the years ahead will extend its hand in health, in teaching and in cultivation, so that all new nations will be at least encouraged -- encouraged! -- to go our way, so that they will not wander down the dark alleys of tyranny or the dead-end streets of collectivism.

my fellow republicans, we do no man a serVice by hiding freedom's light under a bushel of mistaken humility.

i seek an america proud of its past, proud of its ways, proud of its dreams, and determined actively to proclaim them. but our example to the world must, like charity, begin at home.

in our vision of a good and decent future, free and peaceful, there must be room, room for deliberation of the energy and the talent of the individual; otherwise our vision is blind at the outset.

we must assure a society here which, while never abandoning the needy or forsaking the helpless, nurtures incentives and opportunities for the creative and the productive. we must know the whole good is the product of many single contributions.

and i cherish a day when our children once again will restore as heroes the sort of men and women who, unafraid and

undaunted, pursue the truth, strive to cure disease, subdue and make fruitful our natural environment and produce the inventive engines of production, science, and technology.

this nation, whose creative people have enhanced this entire span of history, should again thrive upon the greatness of all those things which we, we as individual citizens, can and should do. and during republican years, this again will be a nation of men and women, of families proud of their role, jealous of their responsibilities, unlimited in their aspirations -- a nation where all who can will be self-reliant.

we republicans see in our constitutional form of government the great framework which assures the orderly but dynamic fulfillment of the whole man, and we see the whole man as the great reason for instituting orderly government in the first place.

we see -- we see in private property and in economy based upon and fostering private property, the one way to make

government a durable ally of the whole man, rather than his determined enemy. we see in the sanctity of private property the only durable foundation for constitutional government in a free society. and -- and beyond that, we see, in cherished diversity of ways, diversity of thoughts, of motives and accomplishments. we don't seek to lead anyone's life for him. we only seek -- only seek to secure his rights, guarantee him opportunity -- guarantee him opportunity to strive, with government performing only those needed and constitutionally sanctioned tasks which cannot otherwise be performed.

we republicans seek a government that attends to its inherent responsibilities of maintaining a stable monetary and fiscal

climate, encouraging a free and a competitive economy and enforcing law and order. thus, do we seek inventiveness, diversity, and creative difference within a stable order, for we republicans define government's role where needed at many, many levels -- preferably, though, the one closest to the people involved.

our towns and our cities, then our counties, then our states, then our regional compacts -- and only then, the national

government. that, let me remind you, is the ladder of liberty, built by decentralized power. on it also we must have balance between the branches of government at every level.

balance, diversity, creative difference: these are the elements of the republican equation. republicans agree -- republicans agree heartily to disagree on many, many of their applications, but we have never disagreed on the basic fundamental issues of why you and i are republicans.

this is a party. this republican party is a party for free men, not for blind followers, and not for conformists.

in fact, in 1858 abraham lincoln said this of the republican party -- and i quote him, because he probably could have said it during the last week or so: "it was composed of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements" -- end of the quote -- in 1858. yet -- yet all of these elements agreed on one paramount objective: to arrest the progress of slavery, and place it in the course of ultimate extinction.

today, as then, but more urgently and more broadly than then, the task of preserving and enlarging freedom at home and of safeguarding it from the forces of tyranny abroad is great enough to challenge all our resources and to require all our strength.

anyone who joins us in all sincerity, we welcome. those who do not care for our cause, we don't expect to enter our ranks in any case. and -- and let our republicanism, so focused and so dedicated, not be made fuzzy and futile by unthinking and stupid labels.

i would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no Vice.

(thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you.)

and let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

why the beauty of the very system we republicans are pledged to restore and revitalize, the beauty of this federal system of ours is in its reconciliation of diversity with unity. we must not see malice in honest differences of opinion, and no matter how great, so long as they are not inconsistent with the pledges we have given to each other in and through our constitution.

our republican cause is not to level out the world or make its people conform in computer regimented sameness. our

republican cause is to free our people and light the way for liberty throughout the world.

ours is a very human cause for very humane goals.

this party, its good people, and its unquenchable devotion to freedom, will not fulfill the purposes of this campaign, which we launch here and now, until our cause has won the day, inspired the world, and shown the way to a tomorrow worthy of all our

yesteryears.i repeat, i accept your Nomination with humbleness, with pride, and you and i are going to fight for the goodness of our land.thank you.

第三篇：Presidential Nomination Acceptance

《Presidential Nomination Acceptance..》

Presidential Nomination Acceptance..

mr. president, ladies and gentlemen of the convention, my fellow citizens:

i accept your Nomination and your program. i should have preferred to hear those words uttered by a stronger, a wiser, a better man than myself. but after listening to the president's speech, i even feel better about myself. none of you, my friends, can wholly appreciate what is in my heart. i can only hope that you understand my words. they will be few.

i have not sought the honor you have done me. i could not seek it, because i aspired to another office, which was the full

measure of my ambition, and one does not treat the highest office within the gift of the people of illinois as an alternative or as a consolation prize.

i would not seek your Nomination for the presidency, because the burdens of that office stagger the imagination. its potential for good or evil, now and in the years of our lives, smothers exultation and converts vanity to prayer.

i have asked the merciful father -- the father of us all -- to let this cup pass from me, but from such dread[ed] responsibility one does not shrink in fear, in self-interest, or in false humility. so, "if this cup may not pass from me," i -- "except i drink it, thy will be done."

that my heart has been troubled, that i have not sought this Nomination, that i could not seek it in good conscience, that i would not seek it in honest self-appraisal, is not to say that i value it the less. rather, it is that i revere the office of the presidency of the united states. and now, my friends, that you have made your decision, i will fight to win that office with all -- with all my heart and my soul. and, with your help, i have no doubt that we will win.

you have summoned me to the highest mission within the gift of any people. i could not be more proud. better men than i were at hand for this mighty task, and i owe to you and to them every resource of mind and of strength that i possess to make your deed today a good one for our country and for our party. i am confident too, that your selection for -- of a candidate for Vice president will strengthen me and our party immeasurably in the hard, the implacable work that lies ahead of all of us.

i know you join me in gratitude and in respect for the great democrats and the leaders of our generation whose names you have considered here in this convention, whose vigor, whose character, whose devotion to the republic we love so well have won the respect of countless americans and have enriched our party. i shall need them; we shall need them, because i have not changed in any respect since yesterday.

your Nomination, awesome as i find it, has not enlarged my capacities, so i am profoundly grateful and emboldened by their comradeship and their fealty, and i have been deeply moved by their expressions of good will and of support. and i cannot, my friends, resist the urge to take the one opportunity that has been afforded me to pay my humble respects to a very great and good american, whom i am proud to call my kinsman, alben barkley of kentucky.

let me say, too, that i have been heartened by the conduct of this convention. you have argued and disagreed, because as

democrats you care and you care deeply. but you have disagreed and argued without calling each other "liars" and "thieves," without despoiling our best traditions -- you have not spoiled our best traditions in any naked struggles for power.

and you have written a platform that neither equivocates, contradicts, nor evades. you have restated our party's record, its

principles and its purposes, in language that none can mistake, and with a firm confidence in justice, freedom, and peace on earth that will raise the hearts and the hopes of mankind for that distant day when no -- no one rattles a saber and no one drags a chain.

for all these things i am grateful to you. but i feel no exultation, no sense of triumph. our troubles are all ahead of us. some will call us appeasers; others will say that we are the war party. some will say we are reactionary; others will say that we stand for socialism. there will be inevitable -- the inevitable cries of "throw the rascals out," "it's time for a change," and so on and so on.

we'll hear all those things and many more besides. but we will hear nothing that we have not heard before. i am not too much concerned with partisan denunciation, with epithets and abuse, because the workingman, the farmer, the thoughtful businessman, all know that they are better off than ever before, and they all know that the greatest danger to free enterprise in this country died with the great depression under the hammer blows of the democratic party.

and nor am i afraid that the precious two-party system is in danger. certainly the republican party looked brutally alive a couple of weeks ago -- and i mean both republican parties. nor am i afraid that the democratic party is old and fat and indolent. after a hundred and fifty years, it has been old for a long time, and it will never be indolent, as long as it looks forward and not back,

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《Presidential Nomination Acceptance..》

as long as it commands the allegiance of the young and the hopeful who dream the dreams and see the visions of a better america and a better world.

you will hear many sincere and thoughtful people express concern about the continuation of one party in power for twenty years. i don't belittle this attitude. but change for the sake of change has no absolute merit in itself. if our greatest hazard -- if our greatest hazard is preservation of the values of western civilization, in our self-interest alone, if you please, it is the part -- is it the part of wisdom to change for the sake of change to a party with a split personality, to a leader, whom we all respect, but who has been called upon to minister to a hopeless case of political schizophrenia?

if the fear is corruption in official position, do you believe with charles evans hughes that guild is personal and knows no party? do you doubt the power of any political leader, if he has the will too do so, to set his own house in order without his neighbors having to burn it down?

what does concern me, in common with thinking partisans of both parties, is not just winning this election but how it is won, how well we can take advantage of this great quadrennial opportunity to debate issues sensibly and soberly. i hope and pray that we democrats, win or lose, can campaign not as a crusade to exterminate the opposing party, as our opponents seem to prefer, but as a great opportunity to educate and elevate a people whose destiny is leadership, not alone of a rich and prosperous, contented country, as in the past, but of a world in ferment.

and, my friends even more important than winning the election is governing the nation. that is the test of a political party, the acid, final test. when the tumult and the shouting die, when the bands are gone and the lights are dimmed, there is the stark reality of responsibility in an hour of history haunted with those gaunt, grim specters of strife, dissension, and materialism at home and ruthless, inscrutable, and hostile power abroad.

the ordeal of the twentieth century, the bloodiest, most turbulent era of the whole christian age, is far from over. sacrifice, patience, understanding, and implacable purpose may be our lot for years to come. let's face it. let's talk sense to the american people. let's tell them the truth, that there are no gains without pains, that there -- that we are now on the eve of great decisions, not easy decisions, like resistance when you're attacked, but a long, patient, costly struggle which alone can assure triumph over the great enemies of man -- war, poverty, and tyranny -- and the assaults upon human dignity which are the most grievous consequences of each.

let's tell them that the victory to be won in the twentieth century, this portal to the golden age, mocks the pretensions of

individual acumen and ingenuity, for it is a citadel guarded by thick walls of ignorance and of mistrust which do not fall before the trumpets' blast or the politicians' imprecations or even a general's baton. they are -- they are, my friends, walls that must be directly stormed by the hosts of courage, of morality, and of vision, standing shoulder to shoulder, unafraid of ugly truth, contemptuous of lies, half truths, circuses, and demagoguery.

the people are wise, wiser than the republicans think. and the democratic party is the people's party -- not the labor party, not the farmers' party, not the employers' party -- it is the party of no one because it is the party of everyone.

that, that, i -- i think, is our ancient mission. where we have deserted it, we have failed. with your help, there will be no

desertion now. better we lose the election than mislead the people, and better we lose than misgovern the people. help me to do the job in this autumn of conflict and of campaign. help me to do the job in these years of darkness, of doubt, and of crisis which stretch beyond the horizon of tonight's happy vision, and we will justify our glorious past and the loyalty of silent millions who look to us for compassion, for understanding, and for honest purpose. thus, we will serve our great tradition greatly.

i ask of you all you have. i will give you all i have, even as he who came here tonight and honored me, as he has honored you, the democratic party, by a lifetime of serVice and bravery that will find him an imperishable page in the history of the republic and of the democratic party -- president harry s. truman.

and finally, my friends, in this staggering task that you have assigned me, i shall always try "to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with my god."

- 101 -

第四篇：1984 Vice Presidential nominat

geraldine ferraro: 1984 Vice Presidential Nomination Acceptance Address

ladies and gentlemen of the convention:

my heart is filled with pride. my fellow citizens, i proudly accept your Nomination for Vice president of the united states.

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it isn't right that a woman should get paid 59 cents on the dollar for the same work as a man.

to those who understand that our country cannot prosper unless we draw on the talents of all americans, we say: we will pass the equal rights amendment.

the issue is not what america can do for women, but what women can do for america.

to the americans who will lead our country into the 21st century, we say: we will not have a supreme court that turns the clock back to the 19th century.

i know in my heart that walter mondale will be that president.

to all the children of america, i say: the generation before ours kept faith with us, and like them, we will pass on to you a stronger, more just america.

thank you.

第五篇：thayer award Acceptance Address

general douglas macarthur: thayer award Acceptance Address

general westmoreland, general grove, distinguished guests, and gentlemen of the corps!

as i was leaving the hotel this morning, a doorman asked me, "where are you bound for, general?" and when i replied, "west point," he remarked, "beautiful place. have you ever been there before?"

no human being could fail to be deeply moved by such a tribute as this [thayer award]. coming from a profession i have served so long, and a people i have loved so well, it fills me with an emotion i cannot express. but this award is not intended primarily to honor a personality, but to symbolize a great moral code -- the code of conduct and chivalry of those who guard this beloved land of culture and ancient descent. that is the animation of this medallion. for all eyes and for all time, it is an expression of the ethics of the american soldier. that i should be integrated in this way with so noble an ideal arouses a sense of pride and yet of humility which will be with me always: duty, honor, country.

those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. they are your rallying points: to build courage when courage seems to fail; to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith; to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.

unhappily, i possess neither that eloquence of diction, that poetry of imagination, nor that brilliance of metaphor to tell you all that they mean. the unbelievers will say they are but words, but a slogan, but a flamboyant phrase. every pedant, every demagogue, every cynic, every hypocrite, every troublemaker, and i am sorry to say, some others of an entirely different character, will try to downgrade them even to the extent of mockery and ridicule.

but these are some of the things they do. they build your basic character. they mold you for your future roles as the custodians of the nation's defense. they make you strong enough to know when you are weak, and brave enough to face yourself when you are afraid. they teach you to be proud and unbending in honest failure, but humble and gentle in success; not to substitute words for actions, not to seek the path of comfort, but to face the stress and spur of difficulty and challenge; to learn to stand up in the storm but to have compassion on those who fall; to master yourself before you seek to master others; to have a heart that is clean, a goal that is high; to learn to laugh, yet never forget how to weep; to reach into the future yet never neglect the past; to be serious yet never to take yourself too seriously; to be modest so that you will remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength. they give you a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a freshness of the deep springs of life, a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of an appetite for adventure over love of ease. they create in your heart the sense of wonder, the unfailing hope of what next, and the joy and inspiration of life. they teach you in this way to be an officer and a gentleman.

and what sort of soldiers are those you are to lead? are they reliable? are they brave? are they capable of victory? their story is known to all of you. it is the story of the american man-at-arms. my estimate of him was formed on the battlefield many, many years ago, and has never changed. i regarded him then as i regard him now -- as one of the world's noblest figures, not only as one of the finest military characters, but also as one of the most stainless. his name and fame are the birthright of every american citizen. in his youth and strength, his love and loyalty, he gave all that mortality can give.

he needs no eulogy from me or from any other man. he has written his own history and written it in red on his enemy's breast. but when i think of his patience under adversity, of his courage under fire, and of his modesty in victory, i am filled with an emotion of admiration i cannot put into words. he belongs to history as furnishing one of the greatest examples of successful patriotism. he belongs to posterity as the instructor of future generations in the principles of liberty and freedom. he belongs to the present, to us, by his virtues and by his achievements. in 20 campaigns, on a hundred battlefields, around a thousand campfires, i have witnessed that enduring fortitude, that patriotic self-abnegation, and that invincible determination which have carved his statue in the hearts of his people. from one end of the world to the other he has drained deep the chalice of courage.

as i listened to those songs [of the glee club], in memory's eye i could see those staggering columns of the first world war, bending under soggy packs, on many a weary march from dripping dusk to drizzling dawn, slogging ankle-deep through the mire of shell-shocked roads, to form grimly for the attack, blue-lipped, covered with sludge and mud, chilled by the wind and rain, driving home to their objective, and for many, to the judgment seat of god.

i do not know the dignity of their birth, but i do know the glory of their death.

they died unquestioning, uncomplaining, with faith in their hearts, and on their lips the hope that we would go on to victory.

always, for them: duty, honor, country; always their blood and sweat and tears, as we sought the way and the light and the truth.

and 20 years after, on the other side of the globe, again the filth of murky foxholes, the stench of ghostly trenches, the slime of dripping dugouts; those boiling suns of relentless heat, those torrential rains of devastating storms; the loneliness and utter desolation of jungle trails; the bitterness of long separation from those they loved and cherished; the deadly pestilence of tropical disease; the horror of stricken areas of war; their resolute and determined defense, their swift and sure attack, their indomitable purpose, their complete and decisive victory -- always victory. always through the bloody haze of their last reverberating shot, the vision of gaunt, ghastly men reverently following your password of: duty, honor, country.

the code which those words perpetuate embraces the highest moral laws and will stand the test of any ethics or philosophies ever promulgated for the uplift of mankind. its requirements are for the things that are right, and its restraints are from the things that are wrong.

the soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training -- sacrifice.

in battle and in the face of danger and death, he discloses those divine attributes which his maker gave when he created man in his own image. no physical courage and no brute instinct can take the place of the divine help which alone can sustain him.

however horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country is the noblest development of mankind.

you now face a new world -- a world of change. the thrust into outer space of the satellite, spheres, and missiles mark the beginning of another epoch in the long story of mankind. in the five or more billions of years the scientists tell us it has taken to form the earth, in the three or more billion years of development of the human race, there has never been a more abrupt or staggering evolution. we deal now not with things of this world alone, but with the illimitable distances and as yet unfathomed mysteries of the universe. we are reaching out for a new and boundless frontier.

we speak in strange terms: of harnessing the cosmic energy; of making winds and tides work for us; of creating unheard synthetic materials to supplement or even replace our old standard basics; to purify sea water for our drink; of mining ocean floors for new fields of wealth and food; of disease preventatives to expand life into the hundreds of years; of controlling the weather for a more equitable distribution of heat and cold, of rain and shine; of space ships to the moon; of the primary target in war, no longer limited to the armed forces of an enemy, but instead to include his civil populations; of ultimate conflict between a united human race and the sinister forces of some other planetary galaxy; of such dreams and fantasies as to make life the most exciting of all time.

and through all this welter of change and development, your mission remains fixed, determined, inviolable: it is to win our wars.

everything else in your professional career is but corollary to this vital dedication. all other public purposes, all other public projects, all other public needs, great or small, will find others for their accomplishment. but you are the ones who are trained to fight. yours is the profession of arms, the will to win, the sure knowledge that in war there is no substitute for victory; that if you lose, the nation will be destroyed; that the very obsession of your public serVice must be: duty, honor, country.

others will debate the controversial issues, national and international, which divide men's minds; but serene, calm, aloof, you stand as the nation's war-guardian, as its lifeguard from the raging tides of international conflict, as its gladiator in the arena of battle. for a century and a half you have defended, guarded, and protected its hallowed traditions of liberty and freedom, of right and justice.

let civilian voices argue the merits or demerits of our processes of government; whether our strength is being sapped by deficit financing, indulged in too long, by federal paternalism grown too mighty, by power groups grown too arrogant, by politics grown too corrupt, by crime grown too rampant, by morals grown too low, by taxes grown too high, by extremists grown too violent; whether our personal liberties are as thorough and complete as they should be. these great national problems are not for your professional participation or military solution. your guidepost stands out like a ten-fold beacon in the night: duty, honor, country.

you are the leaven which binds together the entire fabric of our national system of defense. from your ranks come the great captains who hold the nation's destiny in their hands the moment the war tocsin sounds. the long gray line has never failed us. were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray, would rise from their white crosses thundering those magic words: duty, honor, country.

this does not mean that you are war mongers.

on the contrary, the soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.

but always in our ears ring the ominous words of plato, that wisest of all philosophers: "only the dead have seen the end of war."

the shadows are lengthening for me. the twilight is here. my days of old have vanished, tone and tint. they have gone glimmering through the dreams of things that were. their memory is one of wondrous beauty, watered by tears, and coaxed and caressed by the smiles of yesterday. i listen vainly, but with thirsty ears, for the witching melody of faint bugles blowing reveille, of far drums beating the long roll. in my dreams i hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield.

but in the evening of my memory, always i come back to west point.

always there echoes and re-echoes: duty, honor, country.

today marks my final roll call with you, but i want you to know that when i cross the river my last conscious thoughts will be of the corps, and the corps, and the corps.

i bid you farewell.