ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT AT THE COMMENCEMENT CEREMONY OF NOTRE DAME UNIVERSITY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000505410122-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 22, 2010
• Sequence Number: 122
• Publication Date: May 17, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(South Bend, Indiana)
For Immediate Release May 17, 1981
ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT
AT THE COMMENCEMENT CEREMONY
OF NOTRE DAME UNIVERSITY
Notre Dame Athletic and Convocation Center,
South Bend, Indiana
(3:11 P.M. EST)
THE PRESIDENT: Father Hesburgh, I thank you very much
and for so many things The distinguished honor that you've
conferred upon me here today, I must say, however, compounds a
sense of guilt that I have nursed for almost 50 years. I thought
the first degree I was given was honorary. (Laughter.) But it's
wonderful to be here today, Governor Orr, Governor Bowen, Senators
Lugar and Quayle and Representative Hiler. These distinguished
honorees, the trustees, adiniAstration, faculty, students, and
friends of Notre Dame and most important, the graduating class of
1981. (Applause.)
Nancy and I are greatly honored to share this day with
you and our.pleasure.?has been more than doubled because I am also
sharing the platform with a long-time and very dear friend, Pat
O'Brien. (Applause.)
Pat and I haven't been able to see much of each other
lately so I haven't had a chance to tell him that there is now
another tie that binds us together. Until a few weeks ago I knew
very little about my father's ancestry. He had been orphaned at
age six. But now I've learned that his grandfather, my great
grandfather, left Ireland to come to America, leaving his home in
Ballyporeen, a village in County Tipperary in Ireland and I have
learned that Ballyporeen is the ancestral home of the O'Briens.
(Applause.)
If I don't watch out, this may turn out to be less of
a commencement than a warm bath in nostaligic memories. Growing up
in Illinois I was influenced -- (applause) -- I was influenced by
a sports legend so national in scope and so almost mystical it is
difficult to explain to anyone who didn't live in those times.
The legend was based on a combination of three elements: a game,
football; a university, Notre Dame; and a man, Knute Rockne. There
has been nothing like it before or since. (Applause.)
My first time to ever see Notre Dame was to come here
as a sports announcer two years out of college to broadcast a
football game. You won or I wouldn't have mentioned it. (Laughter.)
A number of years later I returned here in the company
of Pat O'Brien and a galaxy of Hollywood stars for the world
premiere of "mute Rockne -- All American" in which I was
privileged to play George Gipp. (Applause.)
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I've always suspected that there might have been many actors
in Hollywood who could have played the part better. But no-
one could have wanted to play it more than I did. And I was
given the part largely because the star of that picture, Pat 0'
Brien, kindly and generously held out a helping hand to a begin-
ning young actor.
Having come from the world of sports, I'd been trying
to write a story about Knute Rockne. I must confess that I had
someone in mind to play the Gipper. On one of my sports broad-
casts before going to Hollywood, I had told the story of his
career and tragic death. I didn't have very many words on paper
when I learned that the studio that employed me was already
preparing a story treatment for that film. And that brings me
to the theme of my remarks.
I'm the fifth President of the United States to
address a Notre Dame commencement. The temptation is great to
use this forum as an address on a great international or national
issue that has nothing to do with this occasion. Indeed, this
is somewhat traditional. So, I wasn't surprised when I read in
several reputable journals that I we going to deliver an address
on foreign policy or on the economy. I'm not going to talk about
either. (Applause.)
But by the same token, I'll try not to belabor you
with some of the standard rhetoric that is beloved of graduation
speakers. (Applause.) For example, I'm not going to tell you
that "You know more today than you've ever known before or that
you'll ever know again." (Laughter.) And the other standby
is "When I was 14, I didn't think my father knew anything. By
the time I was 21, I was amazed at how much the old gentleman
had learned in seven years." And then, of course, the traditional
and the standby is that "A university like this is a storehouse
of knowledge because the freshmen bring so much in and the
seniors take so little away." (Laughter. Applause.)
You members of the graduating class of 18 -- or
1901-?-- (Laughter)--I don't really go back that far ---- (laughter)
are what behaviorists call achievers. And while you will look
back with warm pleasure and your memories of these years.. that
brought you here to where you are today, you are also, I know,
looking at the future that seems uncertain to most of you but
which, let me assure you, offers great expectations.
Take pride in this day. Thank your parents as one
on your behalf has already done here. Thank those who've been
of help to you over the last four years. And do a little celebrating.
You're entitled. (Applause.) This is your day and whatever I
say should take cognizance of that fact. It is a milestone
in life and it marks a time of change.
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Winston Churchill during the darkest period of the "Battle
of Britain" in World War II said: "When great causes are on the
move in the world ... we learn we are spirits, not animals, and
that something is going on in space and time, and beyond space
and time, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty."
Now, I'm going to mention again that movie that Pat and I
and Notre Dame were in for it says something about America.
First Knute Rockne as a boy cazar to Ame pica with his--parents
from Norway. And in the few years it took him to grow up to
college age, he became so American, that here at Notre Dame, he
became an All American in a game that is still to this day uniquely
American.
As a coach he did more than teach young men how to play a
game. He believed truly that the noblest work of man was building
the character of man. And maybe that's why he was a living legend
No man connected with football has ever achieved the stature or
occupied the singular niche in the Nation that he carved out for
himself, not just in sport, but in our entire social structure.
Now, today I hear very oft:er., "Win one for the Gipper,"
spoken in a hum^rous vein. Lately i' ve been hearing it by
Congressmen who are supportive of the program that I've introduced.
(Laughter.) But let's look at the significance of that story.
Rockne could have used Ci.i1p' n any.ng words to win a game any time.
But eight years went by follkwi.ng the death of George Gipp before
Rock revealed those dying words, his deathbed wish.
And then he told the st?.nry at halftime to a team that was
losing. And one of the only, t-.:-ms he had ever coached that was
torn by dissention and jealousy and factionalism. The seniors cn
that team were about to close cu` their football careers without
learning or experiencing any of the real values that a game has to
impart. None of them had known George Gipp. They were ch4 .n
when he played for. Notre Dane. It was to this team that
told the story and so insired them that they rose above thaiz
personal animosities. For someone they had never known, they
joined together in a common cause and attained the unattainable.
We were told when we were ma)&ng,the picture of one line that
was spoken by a player during that game. We were actually afraid
to put it in the ?ictuxe. The man who carried the ball over for
the winning touchdown was injured on the play. We were told that
as he was lifted on the stretcher and carried off the field he
was heard to say: "That's the last one I can get for you Gipper."
Now, it's only a game. And maybe to hear it now afterward --
and this is what we feared it might sound maudlin and not the way
it was intended, but is there anything wrong with young people hav-
ing an experience, feeling something so deeply, thinking of someone
else to the point that they can give so completely of themselves?
There will come times in the lives of all of us when we'll be
faced with causes bigger than ourselves and they won't be on a
playing field.
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This nation was born when a band of men, the founding
fathers, a group so unique we've never seen their like since, rose
to such selfless heights. Lawyers, tradesmen, merchants, farmers,
56 men, achieved security and standing in life but valued freedom
more. They pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred
honor. Sixteen of them gave their lives. most gave their fortunes.
All preserved their sacred honor.
They gave us more than a nation. They brought
to all mankind for the first time the concept that man was born free,
that each of us has on.-,; ry_tIhe grace of -God
and that government was created by us for our convenience, having
only the powers that we choose to give it.
This is the heritage that you're about to claim as you
come out to join the. society made up of those who have preceded
you by a few years or some of us by a great many.
This experiment in man's relation to man is a few years
into its third century. Saying that may make it sound quite old.
But let's look at it from another viewpoint or perspective. A few
years ago someone figured or..t that if you could condense the entire
history of life on earth into a motion picture that would run for
24 hours a day, 365 days -- mcvbe on leap years we could have an
intermission -- this idea that is the United States wouldn't appear
on the screen until 3-1/2 seconds before midnight on December 31st.
And in those 3-1/2 seconds not only would a new concept of society
come into being, a golden hope for all mankind, but more
than half the activity, economic activity in'world history, would
take place on this continent. Free to express their genius,
individual Americans, men and women, in 3-1/2 seconds, would perform
such miracles of invention, construction and production as the
world had never seen.
As you join us out there beyond the campus, you know
there are great unsolved problems. Federalism, with its built in
checks and balances, has been distorted. Central government has
usurped powers that properly belong to local and state governments.
And in so doing, in many ways that central government has begun to
fail to do the things that are truly the responsibility of a central
government.
All of this has led to the misuse of power and
preemption of the prerogatives of people and their social
institutions. You are graduating from a great private will, independent, university. Not too many su, if you
were relatively free from government interference. ago
In recent years
government has spawned regulations covering virtually every facet
of our lives. The independent and church-supported colleges and
universities have found themselves enmeshed in that network of
regulations and the costly blizzard of paperwork that government is
demanding.
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Today 34 congressional committees and almost 80 subcommittees have
jurisdiction over 439 separate laws affecting education at the
college level alone. Almost ev-.xy aspect of campus life is now
regulated -- hiring, firing, proir:otions, physical plant, construc-
tion, record keeping, fundraising and to some extent curriculum
and educational programs.
I hope when you leave this campus that you will do so
with a feeling of obligation to your alma mater. She will need
your help and support in the years to come. If ever the great
independent colleges and universities like Notre Dame give way to
and are replaced by tax-supported institutions, the struggle
to preserve academic freedom will have been lost. (Applause.)
And we're troubled today by economic stagnation,
brought on by inflated c'trency a%d prohibitive taxes, and
burdensome regulations. The cost of stagnation in human terms,
mostly among those least equipped to survive it, is cruel and
and inhuman.
Now, of ter those. r: iia,'ks, son ? t dt..de that you'd
better turn your dipoma Lack in ,o ~?~a;, .you can star another
year on the campus. I ?' e J -;:4t c, iven you the bad news. The
good news is that so*ttr% h1.Zlc _ 3 being d*ne-, about all this.
Because the per. j .e of .krierica have said., "Unough l.ready..:
(Applause.) We wh^ had pre:;eean': y