The fabulous Founder of Special Olympics and my glorious wife, -- Eunice Kennedy Shriver.
The C.O.O. of Special Olympics whom we stole from Governor and U.S. Senator, Lowell Weicker, Kim Elliott,
Our Special Olympics Board Member, Loretta Claiborne, Please accept my most sincere thanks, Dennis Schmidt, for all your flattering comments about me. I loved all of them, especially the exaggerations.
Tomorrow your flattery will be circulated in Chicago to all the press, radio, and TV gurus at the Democratic National Convention.... George McGovern and I always needed help. If you had been alive and talking for us in 1972, we might have won that election. However, Special Olympics is above, or if you prefer, below, politics. Our philanthropy ranks at the top with nearly all Republicans as well as Democrats, and, I might add, with Ross Perot and his “Reform” Party.
Yes, even Communists in China and Cuba love us; “little birds in trees” in tiny Island nation of Reunion in the Indian Ocean, and on the Isle of Man, love Special Olympics. Lech Walesa, the first President of Poland, Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union, Vaclav Havel, the former President of the Czech Republic, and their wives, too, all love Special Olympics! The former Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union, Eduard Shevardnadze, who is now President of Georgia-on-the-Black Sea, not the Georgia laid waste by General Tecumseh Sherman in our Civil War, loves us. Shevardnadze has even joined our Advisory Board for Special Olympics Europe and Eurasia!
Thirty years ago in 1965, when the incomparable Eunice Kennedy started Special Olympics with 1,200 athletes in Chicago, no one alive, not even her husband, would have predicted the unprecedented success, worldwide, which Special Olympics has achieved. All of us together must be doing something blessed by God. But all of us, except for Eunice, if we are honest, would have to agree that Special Olympics grows and grows, everywhere, not because of us, but because the historical moment, the tides of history, if you prefer, have endorsed Eunice’s vision and courage. We, all of us, are the humble beneficiaries of her visionary enterprise, courage and work. Just pause for 15 seconds. Ask yourselves now if any other sports organization on earth has grown from 1,200 athletes in 1968, to 1,200,000 athletes in 1996! What other sports organization in history has achieved full-blown, Olympic status so quickly, and the right to use the word, “Olympics”, in our official title, “Special Olympics”? The answer is none.
What other sports organization now, or any other time, has enrolled 596,000 listed volunteers in its work, in 145 countries!?! What other sports organization has the unqualified endorsement of Fidel Castro and Ronald Reagan; of Nelson Mandela in Southernmost Africa, and the Leader, Augunapak of all the Eskimos in the farthest North Pole reaches of Alaska? Why does the six billion dollar leader of American Business, Ronald Perelman, help us with Special Olympics alongside the $6,000 a year President of Sierra Leone?
I can answer all those questions. And the answer is simple and blunt: --
No other private philanthropy in history has ever started and spread so quickly. None has ever been created to serve the needs of human beings with mental retardation, -- all 170,000,000 of such persons now alive, alongside us, on this tiny spinning planet we call “Earth.” None has ever been endorsed by such an array of politically powerful human beings. Nor has any athletic movement ever been endorsed, in writing, in the 2,000-year history of the Roman Catholic Church, by an official letter, signed personally by the Pope! (Incidentally) Eunice had nothing to do with that! I want to make that super clear: -- Eunice did not seduce the Pope. Hesitate for a moment! Think of these facts: --
1. Special Olympics in the Union of South Africa alone has grown from 3,107 athletes in ’92-'94, to 15,350 in ’95-'96 = 480% in three years!!! And, I’m told, it will triple to 50,000 between 1996 and 2000!
2. Athletes in Europe, from 249,949 in ’92--'94, to 315,055 today - an increase of 26% in two years!
3. Athletes outside the US in 1992-1994 were only 499,330. Today, they number 704,131 - more than in our own country, an increase for them of 41%.
While all of us are here at out Annual USA Conference, the Executive Director of North Carolina Special Olympics is conducting a long distance running school in Tanzania in Africa! The annual per capita income there is $600! But, I venture a guess, that in 1999 our Special Olympics Marathon will be won by an athlete from Kenya or Tanzania. Their running time for the Marathon will beat all but the best, the most coached, and most experienced Marathon runners in the entire world.
Who is financing all this growth outside the U.S.? Those countries and peoples themselves are donating their money and time. They are most responsible for these achievements. But, our Christmas Record monies are also assisting in the realization of these miracles. Yet, none of us, practically no one of us, has worked a day or an hour to earn or raise the Christmas Record monies, or the money given to us by Procter & Gamble, or Coca-Cola, or IBM, or Kodak, of the Knights of Columbus, or Otis Elevator of Bob Finondella of Phoenix Home Life Insurance.
Volunteers, including in a major way, my son, Bobby Shriver, have raised and given more than $30,000,000 to Special Olympics through the Christmas Records. How many of us beneficiaries of their unprecedented generosity have ever written to thank these generous private citizens who have given so much to us, without any participation by them in the profits of these recordings? Never before has this been done in the entire history of the music industry in the USA? Did we have to work hard with the music industry to get this income? Practically speaking, none of us has had to raise a hand. Leaders in that industry came to us! Jimmy and Vicki Iovine, Herb Albert and Jerry Moss volunteered their time and skill to Special Olympics. And, do you know that Procter and Gamble also came to us? They sought out Special Olympics because they had heard from their own advertising agency in Chicago that Special Olympics was something totally new, exciting, different, private, voluntary, staffed and led mostly by volunteers. P&G came 17 years ago and has never, left. P&G has never worked with one private philanthropy for so long a time!!!
Why am I reciting this litany, so to speak, of miraculous happenings in ' Special Olympics history?
The answer is basic and simple: --
We had better never modify, let alone violate, the principles established by Eunice Kennedy, and her associates, of whom I rank myself as one of many, original skeptics.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Remember that old and accurate statement? We today might even improve that truism by saying..."Let all of us who are mere followers adhere to the vision and practice and structure which have brought success to Special Olympics everywhere!”
So, let us all rejoice! Especially let us thank Eunice Kennedy without her no one of us would be here. If we have jobs we like, let us thank her for, directly or indirectly, creating those jobs. Without her, mentally handicapped persons might well be still incarcerated in giant, hopeless government institutions here in the USA, just as they still are in many countries outside the USA.
If some of our moribund State Programs in the USA, and around the world, have been closed down by Special Olympics Headquarters, and then reorganized and rejuvenated into new success, let us thank her for keeping our feet to the fire, for never being satisfied with what has been done instead of focusing on what still needs to be done! In the last ten years or so, Special Olympics Programs have been closed down and then rejuvenated in seven states within the USA, and in fifteen countries outside the USA! Progress has truly been our most important product in all of those places, and must continue to be so for tens and scores of years to come.
Why?
Because there are 170,000,000 persons on earth with mental retardation, and we are reaching and helping only 1,250,000 of them. Our work has only begun. But, once again, let us rejoice that God has blessed our efforts so far, and Eunice has been here to keep our eyes on the job, -- the job of reaching all persons with mental retardation, in all of our states in the USA, and in all countries on earth.
Is mere growth in numbers our only or main criteria for success? Certainly it is not! Along with growth, we need always to improve the quality of our product and the quality of our own individual work. Quality may be measured in many ways:--
First, how many of our athletes have become happier members of happy families? How many parents and siblings have been successfully encouraged and helped to participate in ways improving themselves, as well as a family member who is retarded? What do all family members do better now than the predecessors did in the 1950’s, ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s? Much has in fact been achieved, but here and around the world huge problems for mentally handicapped persons, and for their families remain.
Forgetting momentarily our own families, have we changed the attitudes and outlook of obstetricians, gynecologists, pediatricians, and other leaders in medicine? Are we prepared for a Doctor Kevorkian who will not only assist the elderly and sick and despondent to die, but encourage young mothers to get rid of newborn babies, or embryos, with little chance of being or becoming, perfect, physically and mentally? Today in China mothers can legally destroy babies, or get others to destroy their babies upon request, if the baby appears to be defective physically, or even if the baby is a girl instead of a boy!! Ail! “Brave New World”. Aldous Huxley was right. Back in the 1930’s he imagined such a world and predicted it would come. Now we are in it, and no US State or Court has successfully ruled that Dr. Kevorkian cannot assist tormented and pain-filled persons to kill themselves. What’s the difference between killing yourself because of immense pain or killing your baby because of its immense pain? Notice I said “its pain”, not, his or her pain! Today, babies are “its” before they are “his” or “hers.”
Improving the quality of Special Olympics does not only concern our success with our athletes physically, but our success with them and their families, and their schools, and their neighbors and neighborhoods, psychologically and spiritually. Never forget, please, that the highest award in our World of Special Olympics is known as “The Spirit of Special Olympics Medal.” That “Spirit” must be maintained and enhanced. That “Spirit” is the heart of our Movement. It is the source and test of our quality. What we do, and how we do it must be measured by how we individually and collectively maintain and exhibit the quality and the Spirit of our Movement. Let me be blunt once again: --
We are not only in the business of improving the physical abilities of our participants and thus their chances for a happy and productive life on earth. We are in that business, yes, but we are also in the business of changing and improving the ways we and all of humanity looks upon “The least of our brethren.”!!!
Our opportunity, and our Mission, may well be the best of any human endeavor in history. Why? Because we are revolutionizing humanity from the bottom up, not from the top down!!! And we are not killing or even injuring anyone in the process!!!
The English and French Revolutions, two or three hundred years ago, our own successful Revolutionary War, and our new Constitution, two hundred years ago, freed millions from Kings and Queens, and Czars and Emperors. Former Serfs and Slaves have been saved from poverty and degradation. But, lots of people died in those Revolutions. None die in ours!!
But 170,000,000 persons with mental retardation are only beginning to be freed (because of Special Olympics Worldwide) from their degradation, their servitude, their helplessness!!!
Yes, my friends, the quality of what we do in sports and through sports may well change all of humanity from the very bottom up to the very top. Ours is a genuine and needed new Revolution.
In all of these new developments and improvements, Special Olympics in our own country has been the laboratory for originating and testing new ideas, new sports and new structures. Unified Sports and Mega-City Programs originated here. The first full-length Marathon race, the first sailboat race, the first official golf tournament took place here. The first coordinated and comprehensive, academic research enterprise originated at Yale University last year, and is now being followed by a comparable effort under the leadership of Duke University, one of the hosts for our 1999 Games! And, let us never forget that “the huggers” who greet contestants at the finish of our races also originated here in the USA. They -- all the thousands of them -- are precursors of a new world where compassion, not conquest, will reign supreme.
We are also, and still, the only worldwide, comprehensive sports organization which rises above nationalism! Thanks be to God, and to Eunice Kennedy, we do not rank countries by the number of medals won by their athletes, nor do we send away from our Games 80% of all our participants with no rewards at all, no medals, or citations, or their efforts! Special Olympics builds people up, not ‘down: Special Olympics rewards human beings, not nations. We recognize that we are all, fundamentally, one humanity, but we realize we must struggle to achieve one humanity, under God, not just one nation, with liberty and justice for all. That may be the greatest challenge and goal for the 21st Century: --
“No war! Never again war!” was the cry and challenge directed to the United Nations and its members twenty years ago by Pope Paul VI.
Let our cry and challenge for the 21st Century be “No more human rejects!. Never again death, or rejection, for the disabled!”
In this huge enterprise may we always continue United! For united in theory and practice, all marching to the same drummer, we shall succeed! Unity, Unity, Unity must be one of our most distinguishing characteristics. But it must not be the final or principal characteristic of our Movement. Nazis, and Fascists, and Communists were united in their nationalistic and imperialistic ambitions for power and control. So were the barbarian hordes under Attila the Hun, or Genghis Khan.
Ours is not, and must not become, a Movement for power even within the world of the 170,000,000 persons with mental retardation. On the contrary, let us continue to be dedicated to service, service to all with mental retardation and to their families. Let us calculate our success by the numbers we serve, not by the numbers who serve us within our own structures. Let us not build empires for ourselves like Peter the Great or Catherine the Great of those Vanished Empires, or Suelima the Magnificent, or the Pharaohs of Egypt. War and death were their trademarks.
Our distinguishing characteristic must continue to be SERVICE to all with mental retardation, to all their parents and siblings, and to all who , serve them in different ways -- as lawyers, politicians, doctors, financiers, social workers, teachers, , academicians, Volunteers, Nurses, et al.
Fortunately, for you, and for Special Olympics, a person with just those characteristics has suddenly appeared coming over the horizon, not in a spaceship or fighter aircraft, not on a cloud, not from Wall Street, not from abroad or afar, but right from under our own feet, so to speak, or better, from within our own ranks -- a Volunteer in Special Olympics for many years, a participant on one of our Unified Sports® teams from the earliest days of that revolutionary concept, an officer on the Board of Directors of a State Program here in the USA, and, believe it or not, an authorized and certified special education teacher in U.S. public schools, a faculty member affiliated with The Yale Medical School, a person forcibly drafted by Governor Lowell Weicker himself to work for the 1995 World-Wide Summer Games, -- this academician, for that is what he is, who within the next few months will receive his Doctoral Degree from a highly esteemed University in our own country has accepted the unanimous call of our seven Member Board of Directors Search Committee and their Board Colleagues to be our new youthful, visionary and yet experienced President.
I’m happy to get out of the way for this man. He soon will be here as an observer of all that will be going on here in the next few days. To get out of his way is the reason I’ll be rushing away to the Democratic Party Convention in Chicago. In leaving, please, let me thank and congratulate all in this Hall who have committed themselves to service in this phenomenal Special Olympics Movement. You are doing great and essential work. You are inspiring to everyone who observes your dedication and competence. Because of your work and unselfishness, you may make Special Olympics the greatest Revolution from Below in Human History.
In doing so please remember always just that one thought: --
Service Service Service is our most important product. For in the end it will be the servants who are the saviors of us all.
