Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen.

It is indeed a great and undeserved privilege to address such an audience as I see before me. At no previous time in the history of human civilization have greater problems confronted and challenged the ingenuity of man's intellect than now. Let us look around us. What do we see on the horizon? What forces are at work? Whither are we drifting? Under what mist of clouds does the future stand obscured?

My friends. Casting aside the raiment of all human speech, the crucial test for the solution of these intricate problems, to which I have just alluded, is the sheer and forceful application of those immutable laws which, down the corridors of time, have always guided the hand of man, groping, as it were, for some faint beacon light for his hopes and aspirations. Without these great vital principles, we are but puppets responding to whim and fancy, failing entirely to grasp the hidden meaning of it all. We must readdress ourselves to these questions which press for answer and solution. The issues cannot be avoided. there they stand. It is upon you, and you, and, yes, even upon me, that the yoke of responsibility falls.

What, then, is our duty? Shall we continue to drift? No! With all the emphasis of my being I hurl back the message: "NO!" Drifting must stop! We must press onward and upward toward that ultimate goal to which all must aspire!

"An Address to End All Addresses," by
Parker Nevin, printed in 1948 in the
Princeton Alumni Weekly.