Thank you, Thurston, for your kind introduction, and for reading that long list of my alleged accomplishments. However, even though you referred to certain family connections you overlooked probably the most important fact about my adult life.
That fact is my having visited Mexico off and on for nearly 40 years! My first visit here was back around 1948. Since then I’ve gotten to know many parts of Mexico on numerous subsequent trips. Besides Mexico City, I’ve been to a lot of the out-of-the way places. You know. Acapulco, Cancun, Puerto Vallarta....
I’ve always enjoyed my visits, and have come to like this great country and its warm and hospitable people more each time I’ve been here.
I don’t have to tell you that Mexico is filled with history, culture, color and creativity. In my opinion, it is obviously the most important of the world’s” Spanish-speaking countries.
And so it is a real pleasure to be with you today and to talk about another subject close to my heart: Volunteerism.
In most developing countries there are a myriad of government agencies whose purpose is to help educate, feed, transport and employ the masses of people who are mostly poor, and to care for the sick, the disabled and the orphaned. On an international level there is a another whole set of multinational agencies such as the World Bank, UNESCO, the Interamerican Development Bank and so forth.
The national government agencies and the multinational organizations have two things in common: they have as a stated purpose to bring about economic development and the betterment of the lives of the millions of people on society’s margin.
The other thing they have in common is that they tend to be bureaucratic. Generally speaking, their decision -making is ponderous, and action from them is slow in coming about. First of all, resources are never sufficient. In addition interest and pressure groups are countless, media attention is fickle and feared, political currents often shift abruptly and approval levels within these organizations tend to be multiple. All of this undermines sensible and careful long-range planning, and causes inexplicable and sometimes abrupt shifts in policy which waste resources and create distrust.
At the heart of that problem is that the bureaucrats habitually turn inward rather than outward. By and large, they don’t have the time, energy or attitude to get “close to their customers”. This prevents them from having a clear understanding of the real needs of people at the margins of life. It also prevents them from tapping into the energy, spiritual strength, street smarts and manual skills that los de abajo often possess in abundance. Connecting to this storehouse of energy and talent through closeness and real understanding would enormously leverage scarce resources, to the benefit of all.
That’s why I say that economic development is just too important to be left to government bureaucrats. People like yourselves -- with energy, creative ideas, sound judgment based on hard, practical experience -- is what we need.
Two weeks ago I read a front page article in the Wall Street Journal about Brazil and Mexico, the two largest debtors nations in the world. (Although the U.S.A. is fast catching up....) It purported to describe the differences in the attitude towards their troubles of people in the two countries. Its title was “Brazil Stays Buoyant, Mexico is Dispirited in the Face of Troubles”.
I would like to take issue with the point of view expressed in that article. Let me tell you why.
Recent world and local events would seem, at first glance, to justify a dispirited attitude in Mexico. It is almost as if Mexico has been singled out as a target for misfortunate through some malevolent design. This country faces a huge foreign debt; fifteen months ago the price of oil sunk and, therefore, the country’s greatest foreign exchange earner plummeted, making the debt burden nearly insurmountable. Inflation is raging above the three digit mark, open and disguised unemployment are the lot of an alarming percentage of the work force, and real purchasing power for the vast majority has dropped 40 or 50% in the last five years. Eighteen months ago this capital city was hit by one of the worst earthquakes in history: thousands were killed and tens of thousands left homeless. These are problems large enough and intractable enough to discourage all but the most persevering and faithful.
The magnitude of Mexico’s problems would catch anyone’s attention. But what catches mine is the sense you get nearly everywhere of an unrelenting, courageous, cheerful -- yes, above all cheerful -- daily struggle against adversity, pain and real want.
Oil is not the country’s greatest natural resource; it is the Mexican people’s generosity, unlimited hospitality, humanistic and spiritual values, personal warmth and the bravery of the Mexican people themselves. These seem to me to be this country’s most prevalent and important resources, and the origin of its strength and creativity.
People the world over were shocked and saddened by the terrible earthquakes that destroyed parts of this great city year and a half ago. But these same millions were also astonished and inspired by the solidarity, generosity and selflessness of Mexicans from every social class and all walks of life as they sought to help and comfort those who had gone down in the rubble. I remember reading of the heroism of “los topos”, scratching and crawling their way through spaces so small and twisted as to be nearly impassible, constantly risking being crushed to death, in order to reach victims who might be alive. Their bravery almost defies belief. Construction workers with machinery supplied by their companies; doctors, nurses, ham radio operators; students from the wealthy west and south sections of the city, engineers, technicians, teachers, businessmen and lawyers all contributed manual effort, food, shelter, medicine, money, and comfort to the grief-stricken. I heard about a dentist whose hands and arms -- that is, the instruments of his livelihood -- ended up so bruised and cut from digging barehanded in the rubble that he was unable to attend his patients for several weeks after the earthquakes. These actions do not reflect an attitude of despair: I dare say it was one of the most moving examples of collective inner strength, resolve and humanistic values the world has seen in many years.
What the world witnessed in Mexico City almost 19 months ago is perhaps the largest-scale, most intense people-to-people effort of this decade. It was an exceptional and inspiring example of volunteerism, which is what we are gathered here today to talk about.
What is interesting is that this spirit of personal service did not begin with that tragedy, nor has it ended with the clearing away of the debris from it.
Over six years ago David Garza Laguera founded ADMIC in Monterrey to create jobs and raise incomes among the working poor.
In the 1970s, the late Bernardo Quintana, head of the Grupo ICA, set up a non-profit subsidiary staffed by agronomists, accountants and sociologists, whose purpose was to help ejidatarios. With the technical backing and guidance of Grupo ICA, the campesinos were able to plant those crops producing the highest return in a given season. Through their unity they had the power to demand higher prices and better treatment from the coyotes, or middleman. They also got credit from the private banks.
I wonder how many of you have heard of Maria Guadalupe de la Vega, who lives in Ciudad Juarez? The list of voluntary organizations she has started is four-and-a-half pages long! They include the youth committee of the Red Cross in Monterrey; “Friends of the Blind” in Ciudad Juarez; the Family Orientation Center in Matamorros; the Social-Cultural Center of Nogales; Foundations for Family Welfare and Improvement in Celaya, Cuatzacualcos, Chamapa, Irapuato and Leon. In 1985 alone she helped start maternal-infant care and family planning programs in Guadalajara; Culiacan; Acapulco; Tapachula; Mexicali: Cuauhtemoc, Chihuahua and Jalapa, Veracruz. Now there’s a volunteer lady that any country can be proud of!
I’ve just returned from China, where I attended a regional meeting of Special Olympics. This was the first gathering ever, in the history of the People’s Republic of China, of volunteers associated with a private sector non-profit organization from the Free World! Even more astounding, to me, is the fact that an influential Cabinet Minister of the Chinese Government has agreed to serve on the Board of Directors of Special Olympics.
To describe the challenge of volunteerism, however, is to describe the most profound problems facing the entire world, and the problems within each one of us which prevent us from fulfilling our’ potential to overcome those problems. An impossible task for a mere speech.
Forgive me, then if I say that you know as well as I that hunger, disease, poverty, fear and anxiety afflict more human beings now than ever in recorded history. You know we live face-to-face with total disaster and death through nuclear war. You know that all of us who volunteer our time constitute merely a handful of persons seeking perfection in a world population of billions struggling for mere survival.
“Oh! Lord, your sea is so vast and my boat is so small!” the mariner said. We have faced that fact throughout history.
Which brings me to the story of the Peace Corps, an idea which took hold and unleashed a spirit of volunteerism in a way no one could have imagined.
First, no one in 1961 would have predicted that the Peace Corps would last five years, let alone 25. Most of us just hoped we would, get approval from one Congress and survive to the next.
We never had a multi-year authorization, let alone a multi-year appropriation for anything. Every year was do-or-die. And every year more than 25% of the Congress voted against us!
We had famous enemies: Otto Passman, H.R. Gross. Bourke Hickenlooper and others. Some famous Democrats as well as Republicans were skeptical: --Eleanor Roosevelt, Richard Russell, Richard Nixon, Walter Judd, Edith Bolton. Gerry Ford. We were not accepted like apple-pie and motherhood. And, we were nervy, even presumptuous.
Can you believe this? We had some 400 Volunteers overseas at work before Congress ever approved of the Peace Corps! That result was accomplished using Presidential Discretionary Funds. We used less than $10,000,000 to hire our entire staff, at home and abroad, select and train the Volunteers, ship them overseas, and arrange all our operations in seven countries! Today no one could do that, politically or financially. Those were truly the good old days!
Secondly, everyone at the Peace Corps headquarters was a volunteer...except me. I’m’ the first and only draftee in Peace Corps history! Kennedy made me do it! But Bill Moyers and Frank Mankiewicz and Sally Bowles and a hundred others, voluntarily showed up and went to work, some without being asked, all without any assurance of permanent positions, many without getting paid. They simply appeared. They responded to the idea. Most of them had never heard of one another. They didn’t even know where the Peace Corps was located in Washington. They just asked ‘til they found us. Most of them had never worked in any Governmental position anywhere. They simply walked in the door, sat down, and started to do whatever needed to be done. Best of all, for the first few months, we didn’t even have an Organization Chart! Everyone talked with everyone and gave out their own ideas and opinions. The lights burned all night long.
Then my deputy, Warren Wiggins, protested. He said all our Volunteers from within the Government were going to quit. They were suffering culture shock. They didn’t know who was above them or below them, whom to report to, or whom to give orders to! The chaos was un-nerving. So, I said, “Warren, please get us an Organization Chart and I’ll sign it”...That’s the way we became the best organized Agency in Washington. We had a perfect chart and perfect free spirits, who despite the chart continued to think, Imagine, support, suggest, criticize and create.
All of our policies, even when written down in lucid, unequivocal English by our gifted General Counsel, even with Shriver’s signature affixed thereto, all of our policies were conspicuously labeled as “Interim Policies”. They were thus subject to change immediately as we learned from experience how to improve them.
Third, we started the Peace Corps without knowing whether anybody in the world wanted it. That takes some chutzpah. We had no market research department, and no one able to explain what the Peace Corps was all about except ourselves. So we did it ourselves, traveled to our potential customers (the nations of the less developed world). We made deals with them for future delivery of volunteers...persons whom none of us had ever seen! Fortunately, we succeeded -- But let me emphasize the host nations gambled with us! Their leaders had the courage to trust what we said. Kwame Nkrumah , Pandit Nehru, Julius Nyerere, Ramon Macapagal, Azikiew of Nigeria, Jomo Kenyata, Lleras Camargo of Colombia and Romulo Betancourt of Venezuela, all were heroes of the first Peace Corps days. We could never have succeeded without their cooperation. The Peace Corps has always been a two-way street. The USA, then and now, can do little for peace without help from other nations.
Why do Presidents from distant lands and island empires still ask our President for Peace Corps Volunteers?
Why can Peace Corps Volunteers live everywhere today, unprotected, unarmed, defense-less, free and open and yet never be assaulted or terrorized? Why doesn’t anybody kidnap PCV’s? There are some 800 of them all over Central America. Why don’t they get killed or kidnapped?
Why are Volunteers still “The Wanted Americans”, not “The Ugly Americans”?
It is not because of me, nor was it ever because of me. I had the challenge and the Joy of meeting and convincing all the powers and potentates. I had the marvelous opportunity of working with all the creative people who put the Peace Corps together. I welcomed the first volunteers and visited them abroad. I challenged and cajoled the Congressmen and the Senators. But as I said, I was only a draftee! Kennedy called me and made me run the Peace Corps. Yes, he left me alone. He gave me no orders or advice. But, still, I was only a draftee. The Volunteers made the Peace Corps a success. I applaud them. I respect them. I cherish them. Yet the very difference between a draftee and a volunteer, that very fact, enables me today to see clearly, to discern and describe, why the Volunteers and the Peace Corps itself, is such an extraordinary reality. A blind man appreciates sight more deeply than those with eyes.
What do I see?
I see two worlds: -- the Peace Corps world and our world in the U.S. I see that most of us Americans have lived most of our lives in “the world” of the USA. Unlike the Peace Corps world overseas, the USA is dominated by the lust for power:-economic, political, cultural, bodily and scientific power!
Because of our preponderant strength in all these areas, we enjoy a peace of sorts.
But international terrorism aimed at us and our friends is spreading. International distribution of narcotics aimed at us spreading. International poverty and even destitution is increasing. Its victims increasingly threaten our oasis of plenty.
Our expenditures for war mount almost out of anyone’s control. Tension mounts...in our world.
The Peace Corps world is different: -- Much of it is poor, threatened, hopeless.
Within this endangered and impoverished world, when even one Peace Corps Volunteer appears and begins to work humbly, compassionately, effectively for humanistic goals, every one spontaneously realizes that this is a person whose very presence and conduct bespeaks the existence of another America than the one I have just described -- an America without violence, fear, and force...an America of compassion, concern, and yes, of competence! Volunteers know what they are doing with their hands as well as with their hearts. Their courage, their generosity, their spirit tells the world what American democracy, rather than American power is all about. Volunteers are the representatives, the true followers of Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton, Franklin and all the other intellectual and moral leaders who created the U.S.A. Peace Corps Volunteers represent the promise, not the power, of America. Every one of those men who signed the Declaration of Independence was a volunteer! The most important phrase was not the first one -- much quoted – but the last: “We pledge our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor to these principles.” The richest men in Maryland, not the poorest, signed it.
The Peace Corps seeks peace through service, not through economic strength or military power. The Peace Corps exists to serve, to help, to care, for our fellow human beings. It works its magic from below, not from above. It concentrates on basics -- food, health, education, community development. Peace Corps Volunteers are rarely in capital cities, rarely seen with gilded potentates. They are almost un-American in their willingness to serve in the boondocks.
Peace Corps Volunteers come home realizing that there are billions of human beings not enraptured by our pretensions, or practices, or morals...billions of human beings with whom we must live in peace. PCV’s learn that there’s more to life than money, more to life than the latest styles in clothes, cars, or cosmetics.
I’d like to turn to another example of Volunteerism at its best.
At seven p.m. on July 31st, 1987, in the stadium and on the playing fields of Notre Dame University, made famous by thousands of athletes, coaches, and even movie stars, there will take place the largest athletic event ever staged on a college campus in American history or on any campus anywhere in the world, for that matter.
Let me say that again, but in a different way: The International Summer Special Olympics Games at Notre Dame next year will bring together the largest number of athletic competitors, coaches, and sports officials ever assembled on an American college campus. 5,000 participants, in twenty official and demonstration sports, coming from 70 nations, will march into Notre Dame’s stadium with every seat filled -- 50,000 people-with ABC-TV broadcasting the event, live on prime time: with the President of the United States probably there, and with the e yes-of TV viewers on all continents watching. Every one of those athletes will be fully equipped, fully prepared -- and every one of them will be mentally retarded.
Forty years ago -- even twenty years ago -- not one of those athletes would have been playing any sport. No one, not even their parents, would have seen them competing in any contest.
Most of them were locked up in institutions, or hidden away in private homes, -- an embarrassment to their parents, an economic drain on society, another Inexplicable burden visited on suffering humanity by an inscrutable God.
“Why was my son, my daughter, so afflicted?” asked millions of parents.
“Why, Oh God! Why, Oh God! have you cursed me?”
At Notre Dame and at St. Mary’s next year, instead of, cursing, parents will be cheering! Instead of hiding, they will, be bragging. 10,000 of them will be wearing T-shirts with their identities emblazoned on their chests. They will be sitting in special reserved seats, attending special parties, appearing on TV themselves. They, and thousands and thousands of all races, nationalities, ages, creeds, and political parties, will be filled with joy. This time it will not be “a shot heard round the world” from Lexington and Concord, but “a smile sent round the world” from every face of every person in that huge throng.
Nor will those smiles be shallow, pasted-on smiles for television. For not one of the coaches, athletic directors, politicians, foreign dignitaries, athletes, officials, ticket takers, hot dog and hamburger people, not the Coca-Cola dispensers, or musicians, or composers, or policemen, or medical doctors, or nurses, will have been given an extra dime for their services. They, and the athletes, will be all volunteers, pure amateurs, brought together by love of sports, love of Competition, love of life, and love for one another. They will be there, in substantial part, because of thousands of people like Olivia de Galeana and Georgina de Fernandez, who have for years volunteered hours of their free time in the development of Special Olympics in Mexico.
Faced with terrorism and violence everywhere -- confronted by boycotts and barriers of every kind -- “defenses” under the sea, “defenses” on land, in the air, in outer space, we shall be bringing together at Notre Dame Communists and Capitalists, Jews and Arabs, Whites and Blacks and Orientals. Old and Young, Rich and Poor, the Learned and the Retarded. We will be uniting the world by uniting men and women everywhere in the service of the weakest and most helpless of all human beings, the mentally retarded.
Special Olympics moves the mentally retarded from the debit side to the credit side of Society’s ledger. But without supporters throughout the world, that is, without the volunteers everywhere, little or none of this would be possible.
Why is Special Olympics the fastest growing sports program in the world? Why is it welcomed in Cuba, China, Poland, Mexico. Ethiopia, Yugoslavia, Taiwan, Korea, in Africa, in Latin-America, in the Caribbean, Australia, New Zealand. Singapore, Hong-Kong, Jordan, Israel, Bolivia, and by the northern and southern Irish together!
Let me start to answer the questions by starting at home. We were told by the experts in the 1960’s 1950’s , and earlier that the mentally retarded couldn’t swim, they couldn’t play team games, they couldn’t play contact sports. They’ll get hurt we were told, playing hockey, or basketball, or soccer, or skiing. They’re not coordinated enough to figure-skate or do gymnastics. They can’t run 400 yards, let alone a mile.
My wife decided to test out those theories for herself. On a farm in Maryland where we lived, she brought high school volunteers and mentally retarded youngsters together in a day camp. For 30 days each spring for three years, the retarded tried everything from swimming and touch football to rope climbing. Finally, in 1968, she decided the experts were all wrong. She staged the very first Special Olympics Games in Chicago.
We had 2500 spectators in those 103,000 seats at Soldier’s Field!!! We only had 1,250 athletes from 13 states, about 40 from Canada and 10 from France. But we had Mayor Daley and Frank Gifford; and we had our own eyes. We could see the Canadians playing floor hockey -- six to a side -- successfully performing team sports.
We could see the retarded run 400 yard, races and not get exhausted. We could see them swimming, jfumping, laughing and smiling.
Then we went truly national and international. My wife gave it all she had. She was everywhere and into everything. Together we began to learn from the mentally retarded, Not from experts.
We learned that the mentally retarded
- Can not only run 400 yards but even the mile and 2 mile races;
- Can swim 400 and 800 meters and participate in relay races;
- Can play football, basketball, and softball, with full teams;
- They can perform gymnastic routines ski downhill, figure skate, jump dance, give speeches, and take on full-time jobs in parks and recreation facilities where they now teach sports to normal children!
- Old age is no barrier for them...women and men in their 50’s, 60’s and 70’s showed us they, too, can run 400 yard races, swim and enjoy themselves in sports.
Most of all, we found that they are pure amateurs! There’s no money under the table in Special Olympics. There’s no proselytizing and no drugs! In fact, Special Olympics may be the only supra-national, drug-free, non-political, non-nationalistic, non-violent, sports program in the world!
These examples of volunteerism tell us that volunteers are people who turn problems into opportunities. They supplant fear with hope. They never say “no”. Theirs is a society of “yes” men and women. " Yes, we can do it.” “Yes, we can help one another.” “Yes, we can make life better for the handicapped, the orphaned, the unskilled, the legally defenseless, the uprooted, for los de abajo.” “Yes, we can get joy out of doing good”.
Volunteers recognize that personal service is essential to a free and caring society. They know that service means an opportunity to help solve local and national problems in a direct and satisfying way.
Peace cannot be maintained in the less-developed world, nor Communism stopped there or anywhere else by self-centered preoccupation with our own problems and safety or by reliance primarily on force of arms. But we can begin to liberate it from despair and fear and anger by making economic development and mutual service a central part of our daily lives.
In believing this about each other in believing this about all people who volunteer we are giving reality to the words of Martin Luther King Jr. He said: --
“Everybody can be great because everyone can serve.You don’t have to have a college degree to serve.You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve.You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve.You don’t have to know Einstein’s theory of relativity to serve.You don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics to serve.You only need a heart full of grace and a soul regenerated by love”.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was right: -- “Everybody can be great because everybody can serve.”
So I invite you to be great and to bring your talent and your effort to bear in programs to help the less fortunate.
Governments, which have a clear responsibility toward all citizens, cannot do it all. Their efforts must be complemented and expanded by help from people like yourselves.
All social projects need the support of experienced volunteer fund-raisers: the organizational talent of business leaders; the savvy advice of lawyers; the professional skills of engineers, accountants, architects and doctors: the writing talent of journalists.
Above all, those on the margin of life need the energy and commitment that volunteers always bring to the task.
Thus, the efforts of all of you today, and of people like you throughout Mexico, will really determine the kind of society that will evolve from the crisis and the rate of progress this magnificent country will enjoy.
Your countrymen need and deserve your help -- and I know Mexico can count on it!
