Hooverfest 2010: Emergency Responders Put Ideals into Action
In honor of Herbert Hoover’s 136th birthday, The West Branch Times ran a transcript of the keynote speech given by John Avlon, Saturday, August 7, at Hooverfest 2010. Avlon, a former speechwriter for former New York mayor and Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, had the good sense to marry Margaret Hoover, last November.
“It is an honor to be asked to speak here in West Branch — at President Hoover’s gravesite and in sight of his birthplace — on a day in which we’re also honoring the courage and sacrifice of our firefighters and emergency responders.
It is an appropriate match because Herbert Hoover was known as “the master of emergencies” in his meteoric rise before the presidency.
He was a first responder in his own way, going where the need and danger were greatest, as a private citizen, ultimately saving a billion lives from starvation. So this is a time and a place for honoring public service — a legacy of vigorous citizenship and practical idealism — that echoes across generations with the enduring power of example.
Herbert Hoover once said, “Words without actions are the assassins of idealism.” Putting ideals into action is what our emergency responders do every day.
Think about it — firefighters earn the respect of their fellow citizens, because they exemplify the best within each of us, without ever pretending to be perfect.
They are ready to risk their lives at a moments notice to save the life of a stranger.
And when they run into a burning building, they never stop to ask what race, religion or ethnicity or political persuasion the person is inside.
All they know is that there’s fellow human being in need and it is their obligation to lend a helping hand.
That’s vigorous citizenship and practical idealism.
It is the example that inspires us to think bigger, to focus on what unites us rather than what divides us — taking the risk of reaching beyond the safety of cynicism and cultivating the civic virtue of courage.
You know the phrase ‘one man with courage makes a majority’ – it is true, ultimately, because of the power of example – one person’s actions can inspire a nation and by creating ripples of new possibility, help change the world.
Look at the life of Herbert Hoover — the enduring example of this great American story:
An orphan born and raised here in West Branch was, by the age of 40, one of America’s wealthiest citizens, a self-made man who employed more than 175,000 people around the world and circumnavigated the globe seven times before the advent of aviation.
He was a pioneering entrepreneur and a prophet of globalization.
As a private citizen during the first World War he marshaled his private resources to save the lives of strangers in other countries, crossing battle lines to save lives of innocents who were being impacted as armies collided.
He was no armchair advocate or bureaucrat — he put his personal fortune on the line to found what history might view as the first modern NGO, reaching behind battle lines to do what governments at war could not or would not — reduce human suffering, beginning with the basics — food and water.
He saved 10 million Belgians alone from starvation, offering bread and soup to children living under occupation.
He reached behind the borders of the newly formed Soviet Union and saved the lives of people whose government was controlled by an evil and incompetent ideology which he knew was compounding if not creating the human suffering.
But ‘the great humanitarian’ understood individuals are always more important than ideology.
And during the Katrina of his time – the 1927 Mississippi flood – when high water was rising everywhere and more than 600,000 Americans were displaced from their homes, the nation turned again to Herbert Hoover with justified confidence.
He gave communities in crisis the tools they needed to help themselves.
By practicing vigorous citizenship and practical idealism, Herbert Hoover exemplified the spirit of public service.
The full transcript at the West Branch Times Online
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