Graduation Address

Convocation Address (UA Case 69, Box 2)

Thank you for your kind invitation to join in extending congratulations to all those graduating today.

This is the first graduation I have been privileged to attend in your great province.

There undoubtedly are many similarities to the graduations held in my state, one of which I am sure is that some Convocation speakers talk too long.

So let me say that at the outset, I didn’t come here today to gain a place in “The Guinness Book of Records” in this area.

This day belongs to you, the graduates.

It is a time we set aside to recognize your personal achievements, and a time to recognize fine educational institutions, such as yours, all over the world that seek new answers and stimulate learning that, when properly applied, offers hope for advancement of mankind.

I am personally deeply grateful for the honor you have extended to me. However, I believe that, more importantly, my presence is a symbol of the interchange and friendship between your province and my state.

In Maine, we are most conscious of the great country to our north as some three-fourths of our boundary is shared with the provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec, and a large percentage of our citizens are of Canadian descent.

From the very first days of statehood, and before friendship has been so strong that, during the War in 1812, people along the border between Maine and New Brunswick refused to fight. I am told that after the war was over Canadian authorities turned over ammunition to the Maine neighbors to celebrate the fourth of July.

During my term a governor, I was privileged to work closely with your premier, Richard Hatfield.

We both recognized that our people shared many of the same problems, as well as the desire to provide a good life for their families.

Too many people are under-employed and suffer from the need for more employment opportunities. Many make their living form agriculture, forestry, fisheries and tourism.

So it is only natural that much can be gained from a cooperative effort seeking so many of our common goals. Some positive steps have been taken in recent years.

In testimony before the Senate Committee on U.S. – Canadian Relations on Feb. 20, 1975, Premier Hatfield testified that 49 joint formal and informal arrangements agreements and accords had been entered into between Maine and New Brunswick.

One of the earliest agreements was a forest fire compact, supplemented recently by a flood control agreement.

Maine and New Brunswick have operated a joint potato seed plot in Florida and cooperated in research for potato disease and spruce bud worm control. There were recent agreements to cooperate in such areas as transportation and energy planning, fisheries research joint tourism promotion and trade.

These are only a few specific examples. The greatest benefit of this cooperative relationship is an open, personal and friendly line of communication that prevents misunderstandings and helps us meet whatever need might arise.

Such efforts of course, cannot infringe upon those matters which by law must remain with our national governments.

Indeed, we are from two proud, different and independent national federations.

Yet, I believe we are, at the same time, quite interdependent.

On July 1, 1867, upon the creation of the Canadian Nation, the editor of the New York Times wrote that the new nation would become a "populous, rich, and powerful independent nation" that would in time become on the "most reliable and useful allies" of the United States.

Over 100 years later, in 1969, James Reston of the same New York Times wrote: "if we can’t count on the Canadians, who’s left?"

I candidly believe that we in the United States must pay greater attention to our friends to the north. In these difficult days, it is easy to have our attention diverted to many complicated diplomatic situations throughout the world. However, we should not become so busy we do not properly remember our friends.

I believe such a spirit would be reciprocal, and the United States and Canada, like Maine and New Brunswick, could continue a friendship which can be a model for the countries of the world. As a planet grown smaller, and becomes more crowded, decade by decade, relations among all people must improve if we are to survive.

In the United States we are now engaged in the debate which surrounds our presidential elections. One topic of debate deals with the increased demand for arm from our as well as other industrial nations of the world.

I raise this point, not because I don’t believe it essential for countries to maintain a strong defense, but with people continuing to die all over the world from the want of even the simplest of food, it is saddening to know that mankind continues to expend so much of its efforts to produce arms, while its children lie starving in the streets.

In 1953 General Eisenhower, when our president, put it this way:

• Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
• This world in arms is not spending money alone
• It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
• The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: A modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
• It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.
• It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.
• We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.
• We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people…

I expect as graduates stop forth, full of idealism that is youth, and run headlong into the world in which we find ourselves, it may seem difficult to maintain that confident, optimistic spirit that has sustained your country and mine. Believing in ourselves and the future is not easy today. We hear prophecies of doom from too many quarters.

Our technology is out of control.

Environmental damage is irreversible.

The arms race is escalating.

There will soon be too many people on this planet.

Faced with these dire predictions, it is little wonder that some turn inward to think only of their own security. Why think of adventure and risk and challenge when the odds seem so heavily against you?

Le me say that the odds against us realizing our dreams are no greater than we allow them to be.

The nay-sayers have always been with us.

There have always been fearful people around to scoff at those with courage and determination.

There have always been the pessimists who only see peril.

They have been wrong in the past, and they will be wrong again.

The challenges and opportunities have never been greater for any generation.

We can use our technology to combat unconquered diseases.

There are still businesses to build, books to be written.

There are planets to be explored in the endless universe.

There are people to be helped everywhere.

Most of all, we can try to use the knowledge we possess to feed the millions in this world who still die of starvation.

There is indeed much left for us to do.

With all of their great territory, natural resources, technical ability and good people, the United States and Canada can set an example for all to follow.

If we don’t one wonders who will.