Address at the American Club of Paris

"The story in the world today is evolution — not revolution."
Paris, France • June 20, 1968

I don’t think any of us can sit down to even a friendly luncheon such as today’s without looking at all that is going on in the world around us. Not just in the developed countries; not just in America; but everywhere -a tous azimuts. There is social and economic ferment and there are headlines telling of workers’ strikes, student demonstrations - on almost every horizon.

I think all of us wonder what is going on. And I think all of us want to know what is going on. 


All around us, in society, there is an uneasy apprehension that something is rocking the boat - and we sit here saying: what is it that has stirred up so much trouble, so fast, in so many places.

Our off-the-cuff reaction is - it must be something bad.

Well, I’m not so sure.

As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure that there’s something good going on, but we only hear the bad parts of its story.

There’s a crisis of change in the world today. 


And the awful thing is — it is not happening to us. We are the last ones to find out about it. Who are we — we’re the people, you might say, who articulate in lofty circles, who travel, who attend the theater, the opera, sit in soft chairs.

At least I’m that way.


And what we’re finding out is that in the world around us, in the cities and in the country, there are millions of young and old who are unhappy with their lot.

Young people who cannot get the education they deserve. Adults who cannot get the training to move ahead. People do not raise voices of protest, voices of appeal, voices that call for new considerations of new approaches, in order to destroy themselves.

Those who speak out are trying to tell us something. We know what we have done; others are trying to tell us what we have not done. And it is easy to discard protest, appeals, new considerations. We have been doing things our way. Why even think about doing things any other way?

Because — if we as people are to move ahead, if we as a nation are to work together, if we as a world are to capture the horizons that we are told can be captured, we must acknowledge progress, not repress it.

Newspapermen often tell stories on how stories that are suppressed finally blow up with a blast that is far out of proportion to the original revelation.

The story in the world today is evolution — not revolution.

Human contact, communications, travel have changed the face of the world and the thinking of the world. People know more, sooner, than ever before.

Young people literally bound up into the world of knowledge, the spread of information is practically instantaneous. A personality in one nation can be easily well known in many others. Facing things as they are brings us new guidelines, but not new values.

The words that will guide us are involvement and decentralization. The values that will be with us are, I hope, the values that have always existed.

But what we see around us are young and old, in many walks of life, crying out to get in on the action. Participate. It may be in Politics, it may be in national programs. The involvement isn’t limited to students, or to Mao, or to the cult of Che Guevara -- by no means.

For instance, in the United States, the most unlikely participants in the War Against Poverty was big business. I think I can say that with a big B------

Business has been alerted to the new evolution of things. Business is responding. It is involved in community action programs, in slum rehabilitation plans, in the Job Corps. Business knows that leadership, involvement, participation, will pay off for itself, for the community, for the nation. Sixty businessmen served on the Business Leadership Advisory Council at the Office of Economic Opportunity. Some of them were Walker Gisler, Chairman of Detroit Edison; Marion Folsom of Eastman Kodak; Edgar Kaiser of Kaiser Industries; Harold Geneen of I.T.T; Tom Watson of IBM; Gerald Phillippe, Chairman of G.E.

Just as important to know about is the decentralization going on about us. People want to be taking part in a mutual endeavor at many levels and in many places. They want something of mutual benefit and interest. Large organizations bind men’s souls and stifle initiative.


Once again, the more than 1,000 community action agencies in the U.S. bring local initiative — local involvement down to people on the community level. Local people organize a community action program, they staff it and plan its operations. No one from up there from Washington tells them how to run their local show.

What we are finding out is that all of us can be involved, and we can involve many more, in working toward goals for the future. Recently, a man was lost to the world in the United States. His aims exemplified involvement on every level. He walked in the slums, on the Indian reservations, in the rural foothills of poverty. He sought dignity, equality, justice for all mankind. I hope we can look at the world in change and attain the goal he fought for!

Peace requires the simple but powerful recognition that what we have in common as human beings is more important and crucial than what divides us.
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Sargent Shriver
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