Institute for Public Affairs of Montreal

Institute for Public Affairs of Montreal

Forge of Fire:Words That Changed The World

Reflections of Transcendant Yearning for Redemptive Change:A Multimedia Presentation

Institute Staff Compilation

Montreal

*“A break in the established order is never the work of chance. It is the outcome of a man's resolve to turn life to account.”-André Malraux* William Jennings Bryan, Democratic Party Candidate for President of the United States "Thou Shalt Not Crucify Man on a Cross of Gold" http://history.gmu.edu:8080/ramgen/hmaudio/1901c.rm Emile Zola J'Accuse! C'est aujourd'hui seulement que l'affaire commence, puisque aujourd'hui seulement les positions sont nettes : d'une part, les coupables qui ne veulent pas que la lumière se fasse ; de l'autre, les justiciers qui donneront leur vie pour qu'elle soit faite. Quand on enferme la vérité sous terre, elle s'y amasse, elle y prend une force telle d'explosion, que, le jour où elle éclate, elle fait tout sauter avec elle. On verra bien si l'on ne vient pas de préparer, pour plus tard, le plus retentissant des désastres. Mais cette lettre est longue, monsieur le Président, et il est temps de conclure. Un jour, la France me remerciera d'avoir aidé à sauver son honneur J'accuse le lieutenant-colonel du Paty de Clam d'avoir été l'ouvrier diabolique de l'erreur judiciaire, en inconscient, je veux le croire, et d'avoir ensuite défendu son oeuvre néfaste, depuis trois ans, par les machinations les plus saugrenues et les plus coupables. J'accuse le général Mercier de s'être rendu complice, tout au moins par faiblesse d'esprit, d'une des plus grandes iniquités du siècle. J'accuse le général Billot d'avoir eu entre les mains les preuves certaines de l'innocence de Dreyfus et de les avoir étouffées, de s'être rendu coupable de ce crime de lèse-humanité et de lèse-justice, dans un but politique et pour sauver l'état-major compromis. J'accuse le général de Boisdeffre et le général Gonse de s'être rendus complices du même crime, l'un sans doute par passion cléricale, l'autre peut-être par cet esprit de corps qui fait des bureaux de la guerre l'arche sainte, inattaquable. J'accuse le général de Pellieux et le commandant Ravary d'avoir fait une enquête scélérate, j'entends par là une enquête de la plus monstrueuse partialité, dont nous avons, dans le rapport du second, un impérissable monument de naïve audace. J'accuse les trois experts en écritures, les sieurs Belhomme, Varinard et Couard, d'avoir fait des rapports mensongers et frauduleux, à moins qu'un examen médical ne les déclare atteints d'une maladie de la vue et du jugement. J'accuse les bureaux de la guerre d'avoir mené dans la presse, particulièrement dans l'Éclair et dans L'Echo de Paris, une campagne abominable, pour égarer l'opinion et couvrir leur faute. J'accuse enfin le premier conseil de guerre d'avoir violé le droit, en condamnant un accusé sur une pièce restée secrète, et j'accuse le second conseil de guerre d'avoir couvert cette illégalité, par ordre, en commettant à son tour le crime juridique d'acquitter sciemment un coupable. En portant ces accusations, je n'ignore pas que je me mets sous le coup des articles 30 et 31 de la loi sur la presse du 29 juillet 1881, qui punit les délits de diffamation. Et c'est volontairement que je m'expose. Quant aux gens que j'accuse, je ne les connais pas, je ne les ai jamais vus, je n'ai contre eux ni rancune ni haine. Ils ne sont pour moi que des entités, des esprits de malfaisance sociale. Et l'acte que j'accomplis ici n'est qu'un moyen révolutionnaire pour hâter l'explosion de la vérité et de la justice. Je veux que la France redeviendra la terre de l'équité et de la bonté Je n'ai qu'une passion, celle de la lumière, au nom de l'humanité qui a tant souffert et qui a droit au bonheur. Ma protestation enflammée n'est que le cri de mon âme. Qu'on ose donc me traduire en cour d'assises et que l'enquête ait lieu au grand jour ! J'attends. Veuillez agréer, monsieur le Président, l'assurance de mon profond respect. Émile Zola *,13 janvier 1898* Eugene V. Debs, Chairman of the Socialist Party of America On Social Progress and Solidarity http://www.albany.edu/history/LaborAudio/EugeneDebs1904.ram Samuel Gompers, President of The American Federation of Labor Labor and the Struggle for Freedom http://www.historychannel.com/speeches/ra_archive/speech_118.ram Vladimir I. Lenin An Address to the Red Army http://www.historychannel.com/speeches/ra_archive/speech_457.ram Against Anti-Semitism http://www.aha.ru/~mausoleu/speaches/antisemit.ram Leon Trotsky "I Would Stake My Life" http://ito.gn.apc.org/trotskyPCM.mp3 Arrival in Petrograd http://ito.gn.apc.org/TROTSKY2.AVI Clarence Darrow, Counsel for the Damned The Real Cause of Crime http://www.historychannel.com/speeches/ra_archive/speech_63.ram Tom Mooney, President of the California Federation of Labor The Cause of Labor and Democracy http://www.albany.edu/history/LaborAudio/tmooney1939-288.ram President Franklin Delano Roosevelt First Inaugural Address:"We Have Nothing To Fear But Fear Itself" http://www.pbs.org/greatspeeches/timeline/fdr_fear.ram The Depression and The American Spirit http://www.historychannel.com/speeches/ra_archive/speech_392.ram "The Grilled Millionaire" http://www.pbs.org/greatspeeches/timeline/fdr_grilled.ram "The New Nazi Order-It Is Not New and It Is Not Order" http://www.historychannel.com/speeches/ra_archive/speech_259.ram Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill On Germany and Hitler http://www.historychannel.com/speeches/ra_archive/speech_367.ram The War of the Unknown Heroes http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/churchill.ra The Battle of Britain http://www.chicago-law.net/speeches/churchill.ram Their Finest Hour http://www.historyplace.com/sounds/germany/thp-churchill-hour.ram General Charles De Gaulle A Plea To The Allies http://www.historychannel.com/speeches/ra_archive/speech_65.ram On Restoration http://www.senat.fr/histoire/video/cinte2.ram André Malraux Selections From "Man`s Fate" and "The Human Condition “The great mystery is not that we should have been thrown down here at random between the profusion of matter and that of the stars; it is that, from our very prison, we should draw from our own selves images powerful enough to deny our nothingness.” “Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one has better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on one's ideas, to take a calculated risk - and to act .And when man faces destiny, destiny ends and man comes into his own.” “Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.” "The most important thing in life is to see to it that you are never beaten." "The attempt to force human beings to despise themselves...is what I call hell." “A man becomes truly Man only when in quest of what is most exalted in him. True arts and cultures relate Man to duration, sometimes to eternity and make of him something other than the most favored denizen of a universe founded on absurdity.” “Culture is the sum of all the forms of art, of love and of thought, which in the course of centuries, have enabled man to be less enslaved.” “Masterpieces are a purification of the world, but their common message is that of their existence and the victory of each individual artist over his servitude, spreading like ripples on the sea of time, implementing art's eternal victory over the human situation. The next century's task will be to rediscover its gods.” Excerpt from "Man's Estate" Slowly a long siren-note swelled until it filled the wind which wafted across the faint hum coming from the besieged city, almost silent now, and the hooting of the picket-boats as they returned to the men-of-war. Wafted it across, and bore it away past the wretched electric lamps which glimmered down the side streets and the alleys which engulfed them: all around them crumbling walls stood out from the waste of shadow, laid bare in all their blotchy nakedness by that merciless un-wavering light, which seemed unearthly in its unrelieved drabness. Those walls bid half a million men: hands from the spinning-mills, men who work sixteen hours a day from early childhood, ulcerous, twisted, famine-stricken. The coverings which protected the bulbs lost their clear outline, and in a few minutes rain, rain as it only falls in China, raging, slashing down, took possession of the town. John L. Lewis, President of theUnited Mine Workers of America A Defence of Labor Before Congress http://www.pbs.org/greatspeeches/timeline/lewis_ah_q27.ram David Ben-Gurion, Prime Minister of Israel The Declaration of Independance of the State of Israel The catastrophe which recently befell the Jewish people - the massacre of millions of Jews in Europe - was another clear demonstration of the urgency of solving the problem of its homelessness by re-establishing in Eretz-Israel the Jewish State, which would open the gates of the homeland wide to every Jew and confer upon the Jewish people the status of a fully privileged member of the community of nations. Survivors of the Nazi holocaust in Europe, as well as Jews from other parts of the world, continued to migrate to Eretz-Israel, undaunted by difficulties, restrictions and dangers, and never ceased to assert their right to a life of dignity, freedom and honest toil in their national homeland. In the Second World War, the Jewish community of this country contributed its full share to the struggle of the freedom- and peace-loving nations against the forces of Nazi wickedness and, by the blood of its soldiers and its war effort, gained the right to be reckoned among the peoples who founded the United Nations. This recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their State is irrevocable. This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State. ACCORDINGLY WE, MEMBERS OF THE PEOPLE'S COUNCIL, REPRESENTATIVES OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF ERETZ-ISRAEL AND OF THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT, ARE HERE ASSEMBLED ON THE DAY OF THE TERMINATION OF THE BRITISH MANDATE OVER ERETZ-ISRAEL AND, BY VIRTUE OF OUR NATURAL AND HISTORIC RIGHT AND ON THE STRENGTH OF THE RESOLUTION OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY, HEREBY DECLARE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A JEWISH STATE IN ERETZ-ISRAEL, TO BE KNOWN AS THE STATE OF ISRAEL. A.Philip Randolph,President Emeritus of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and Founder of the A.Philip Randolph Institute On The Struggle for Racial Equality http://www.historychannel.com/speeches/ra_archive/speech_226.ram The March for Jobs and Freedom http://129.105.203.21/civilrights/march1963/randolph.ram Joseph N. Welch, General Counsel for the Army of the United States (Army-McCarthy Hearings.Mr.Welch is at left.) "Sir,At Long Last,Have You Left No Sense of Decency" http://www.pbs.org/greatspeeches/timeline/McCarthy_attack.ram http://www.pbs.org/greatspeeches/timeline/welsch_rebuttal.ram Justice William O. Douglas "Keeper of the Conscience" http://www.historychannel.com/speeches/ra_archive/speech_71.ram President John F. Kennedy The Inaugural Address http://www.americanpresidents.org/ram/amp110899_4.ram Berlin:"Ich Bin Ein Berliner" http://www.americanpresidents.org/ram/amp110899_7.ram American University:"We Are All Mortal" http://www.americanpresidents.org/ram/amp110899_12.ram Rev.Dr.Martin Luther King,Jr. March on Washington:”I Have A Dream” http://www.earthstation1.com/Civil_Rights/MLK/MLK630828Video.ram Detroit:”I Am A Drum Major for Justice” http://129.105.203.21/mlk/drummajor-for-justice.ram Memphis:"I Have Been To The Mountaintop" http://www.historychannel.com/speeches/ra_archive/speech_399.ram Walter P. Reuther,President of the United Auto Workers of America Harvard Law School Address:Labor and the Priorities for Survival http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/scripts/rammaker.asp?s=bcisbcis&dir=forum&file=Reuther Labor Day Address http://www.historychannel.com/speeches/ra_archive/speech_243.ram Sen.Robert F. Kennedy On the 100^th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation http://129.105.203.21/jfk/library_misc/MR69-9.ram On A Visit to Poor Blacks in Mississippi http://www.earthstation1.com/Kennedys/BobbyKennedyVisitsPoorBlacksMississippi65.ram Announcement of Presidential Candidacy http://www.historychannel.com/speeches/ra_archive/speech_164.ram On the Assasination of The Rev. Martin Luther King,Jr.:The Indianapolis Ghetto Address http://129.105.203.21/jfk/library_misc/item8.ram Sen. Edward M. Kennedy Eulogy at the Funeral of Sen.Robert F. Kennedy http://www.chicago-law.net/speeches/eulogy.ram "The Cause Endures":1980 Democratic National Convention http://www.historyplace.com/sounds/ted-dream.wav Sen.Abraham Ribicoff "No Gestapo in the Streets":Address to the 1968 Democratic National Convention http://www.historychannel.com/speeches/ra_archive/speech_475.ram Bernadette Devlin "I Did It Because It Was Neccessary" http://www.historychannel.com/speeches/ra_archive/speech_530.ram John Forbes Kerry, Vietnam Veterans Against The War "To Help In The Turning" "We call this investigation the Winter Soldier Investigation. The term Winter Soldier is a play on words of Thomas Paine's in 1776 when he spoke of the Sunshine Patriots and summertime soldiers who deserted at Valley Forge because the going was rough." "We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could come back to this country, we could be quiet, we could hold our silence, we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what threatens this country, not the reds, but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out." "We are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" "We are here in Washington to make more clear than ever our own determination to undertake one last mission - to search out and destroy the last vestige of this barbaric war, to pacify our own hearts, to conquer the hate and fear that have driven this country these last ten years and more. So when thirty years from now our brothers go down the street without a leg, without an arm, or a face, and small boys ask why, we will be able to say "Vietnam" and not mean a desert, not a filthy obscene memory, but mean instead where America finally turned and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning." The Hon.Abba Eban,Foreign Minister of the State of Israel The Yom Kippur War:Address to the United Nations http://www.historychannel.com/speeches/ra_archive/speech_78.ram Rep.Barbara Jordan "My Faith in the Constitution" http://www.pbs.org/greatspeeches/timeline/bjordan_ah_q25.ram Keynote Address:1976 Democratic National Convention http://www.historychannel.com/speeches/ra_archive/speech_151.ram The Hon.Daniel Patrick Moynihan,U.S.Ambassador to the United Nations Condemnation of the Zionism/Racism Resolution at the United Nations "It would be tempting to see in this propaganda nothing more than bigotry of a quite traditional sort that can, sooner or later, be overcome. But the anti-Israel, anti-Zionist campaign is not uninformed bigotry, it is conscious politics. Further, this fact of world politics creates altogether new problems for those interested in the fate of democacies in the world, and of Israel in the Middle East. It is not merely that our adversaries have commenced an effort to destroy the legitimacy of a kindred democracy through the incessant repetition of the Zionist-racist lie. It is that others can come to believe it also. Americans among them." "In logic, the State of Israel could be, or could become, many things, theoretically including many undesirable things. But it could not be and could not become racist unless it ceased to be Zionist. There will be time enough to contemplate the harm this act will have done the United Nations. Historians will do that for us, and it is sufficient for the moment only to note one foreboding fact: A great evil has been loosed upon the world." “The United States...does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act." The Hon.Chaim Herzog,Ambassador to the United Nations from the State of Israel The Entebbe Rescue:Address to the United Nations http://www.historychannel.com/speeches/ra_archive/speech_367.ram Simon Wiesenthal The Harvard Law School Address:The Importance of Memory http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/scripts/rammaker.asp?s=bcisbcis&dir=forum&file=Simon Elie Wiesel "The Perils of Indifference" http://www.historyplace.com/sounds/presidents/thp-wiesel.ram

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." - Rev.Dr.Martin Luther King,Jr.