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Senator Byrd

Leadership.      Character.      Commitment.

Remarks by U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd

November 15, 2003

Courage from Conviction

Senator Byrd delivered the following remarks at the Four Freedoms Medal Ceremony at the home and library of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt in Hyde Park, New York.  Byrd received the 2003 Freedom from Fear Medal from the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute during the ceremony.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a man of tremendous courage.  A leader of uncommon vision and optimism.  An orator of compelling passion.  He looms large in my boyhood memory.  His presidential legacy will live on -- always.

The stock market crashed in October 1929.  I was 12 years old.  I had $7 in the bank at Matoaka, and I haven't seen my $7 since.  I struggled to find my first job during the Great Depression.  I was 24 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

In those difficult days, I can remember the voice of President Roosevelt on the radio.  There was no voice like his.  His words carried over the crackle and static of my family's old Philco set.  President Roosevelt understood this nation, its history, its character, and its ethos.  He understood the Constitution.  He respected the Constitution.  He was guided by the Constitution.

In Marietta, Ohio, in 1938, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said:  "Let us not be afraid to help each other -- let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us.  The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country."  President Roosevelt was right.

Especially in these days, when we find ourselves in dangerous waters, I remind the nation of President Roosevelt's charge: the government is ourselves.  I have called on my colleagues in Congress to stand as the Framers intended, as a check against an overreaching executive.  I have urged the people of America to awaken to what is happening and to speak out.  To speak out, for it is the duty of each citizen to be vigilant to what his or her government is doing, and to be critical, if need be.  We are in danger that the right of dissent, the right to disagree, may be trampled underfoot by misguided zealotry and extreme partisanship.

The individual mind remains an unassailable force.  The individual voice can inspire others to act.  A single act of bravery can lead an army against great odds.  At a time when dissent is labeled unpatriotic, the strength of a single individual can give hope to the hopeless, voice to the voiceless, power to the powerless.

"The iron will of one stout heart shall make a thousand quail.  A feeble dwarf, dauntlessly resolved, will turn the tide of battle, and rally to nobler strife the giants that had fled (Martin Tupper)."

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