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VALEDICTORIAN SPEECH
It Jobn Marshall University
This is the Valedictory speech
made June 6, 1964 at the John Mar¬
shall University Commencement ex¬
ercises, made by William T. Dean, Jr.
Dr. Fenster, Dr. Schell, members of
the faculty, honored guests, members
of the class of 1964:
I am totally incapable of expressing
the honor and pleasure I feel at hav¬
ing the privilege of addressing you
tonight.
First, I would like to pay tribute to
the members of the faculty of John
Marshall University; particularly
Doctors Ted and Martin Fenster, and
to those with them who have guided
us over the past three years and giv¬
en us this opportunity to reach this
point in our legal education.
Secondly, I would like to express
our appreciation to our families, to
those wives and children, who have
sat home for the past three years,
who have had to prepare innumer¬
able late meals and who have had
the unenviable task of juggling the
family budget to accommodate the
necessary school expenses.
And finally, I would like to take
this opportunity to talk about the
members of the class of 1964, and if
by virtue of being a member of this
group I appear to be indulging in
self praise, I assure you that’s not
what is intended.
I merely want to say that they are
the greatest group of people I have
ever been associated with in all re¬
spects. And that the very fact they
are sitting on this platform tonight
is in itself testimony to their ability,
perseverance, and dedication.
Although I am placed in the posi¬
tion of being the spokesman for the
class of 1964, I would like to address
my remarks primarily to the mem¬
bers of this class.
There were many and varied reas¬
ons, possibly as many as there are
graduates, for you entering law
school three years ago. But as you
progressed in your study of law I be¬
lieve one over-riding purpose became
uppermost in the minds of all of you,
and that purpose was and is to
achieve a knowledge of the law and
the basic truths it represents. In my
opinion, the greatest of these basic
truths and perhaps the most difficult
one a law student has to learn is that
law is not dogma. In fact, law is the
very antithesis of dogma. Law is a
flexible, living, breathing, ever
changing organism, but one that
changes in orderly fashion within
well established procedural lines, dic¬
tated by the wills of the majority of
those governed by the law.
One wonders if today the flexibil¬
ity of the law is not being applied in
too hasty, and too random a fashion,
that works to the detriment of the
majority of those protected by the
law, and also whether or not the pre¬
occupation of the protection of indi¬
vidual liberties has not been over
extended to include a protection of
individual idiosyncracies no matter
how repugnant they are to society.
As a case in point, a California
Court recently ruled that a court em¬
ployee of a lower court had a right
to wear a beard in his work, even
though the judge he worked for had
directed him to appear in court clean
shaven.
The beard-wearer was a probation
officer who was charged with the
responsibility of helping rehabilitate
juvenile offenders. What was surpris¬
ing and distressing about this deci¬
sion was, that the language the court
used in upholding this so-called
(right) could be used equally well to
justify the right of a nudist to exer
cise his rather unique idiosyncracy
on a similar type job.
This decision becomes less surpris¬
ing when you consider that the At¬
torney General of the same state re¬
cently ruled that one man had the
right to an occasional dalliance with
another man’s wife without being
considered an adulterer in the eyes
of the laws of that state.
It is my firm hope that we, the
members of this class, recognize not
only the flexibility and ever broad¬
ening and expanding qualities of the
law but also recognize the necessity
of retaining the reflective consider¬
ation that has preceded judicial and
legislative innovation throughout the
history of Anglo American jurisprud¬
ence.
Under our syste mof laws, we have
become the greatest nation in the his¬
tory of the world but it must be re¬
membered that a short fifty years ago
an equally enviable position was oc
cupied by the British Empire and
now that once great empire has been
reduced to the status of an ineffectu¬
al, influence^less, second-rate power.
Many reasons have been given for
this decline, ranging all the way from
the decimation of its population by
two world wars to the awakening of
a natoinal spirit in subjugated peo¬
ples. But there is a strong possibility
that this downfall and deterioration
of national purpose was precipitated
by the same judicial and legislative
preoccupation with the protection of
individual idiosyncracies that is prev¬
alent in this country today.
It appears from a study of history
that all nations who have stressed the
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'\
from Bible
Che
I have called friends. A
you
—(John 15:15).
It we but realize that most
people want to be friendly we
will be able to make many
friends by performing small
services for others. It is the
friendly spirit that draws
people to us and adds much
to our happiness -
rights of a citizen under the law,
without placing an equal emphasis
on the responsibilities and duties of
a citizen under the law, have by the
natural course of events, created an
attitude of total reliance by the peo¬
ple on the state, which eventually
resolved itself into a belief that the
state was an all encompassing ma
ternalistic creature that owed to its
citizens a duty to provide for their
every need and want regardless of
their ability or desire to contribute
to the general welfare.
In the early days of this republic
our forefathers were the state—they
came to explore and to settle, to sell
the forests, and to till the soil and
almost with their bare hands to build
a nation which they bequeathed the
posterity at the cost of their blood,
sweat and tears.
Most of us are now living in com¬
parative ease from the fruits of that
heritage, but if we continue this ten¬
dency to assert our rights without
accepting our responsibilities, of not
using our heritage in such a way as
to enhance its richness—we may shift
along temporarily but we are deplet¬
ing our birthright, courting national,
individual, and spiritual bankruptcy
and creating nothing for ourselves or
for posterity. but it
We have a great country,
was not made great by those who
said it owed them a living, or those
who said their rights outweighed
their responsibilities.
So, in closing, I would like to say
,it’s my fervent hope that we, the
members of this class, expend our
energies and use our knowledge of
the law in protecting and fostering
those principles of honesty, truth,
self-reliance that are our sacred heri
tage.
YTHE CLEVELAND (GXJ COURIER ^
HEALTH HINTS
By Dr. Frank O. Ploudr*. F#«iM-ittf Jj j
National Chiropractic AicocIMIm
How To Be Happy—, 1
And Married
From the time each young other, people their get
serious” about to
return from the they honeymoon, should not or
even thereafter, their elders
lack the advice of on
how to establish a happy marriage. advieore
Both the coupie ideas ana tne what is
have their own on
most important and work? questions Must pop tht
up: Should a wife
couple be of the same faith? How
to harmonize with in-laws? Tht
questions are legion, but it is very
seldom the question: Are you both
physically fit for marriage?, is
asked. Yet, the basic instinet be¬
hind marriage is propagation of
the species, and the fundamental
health of both man and wife aro
necessary for a happy marriage. with shat¬
Psychiatrists dealing breakdowns,
tered lives — nervous
separations, desertions, and di¬
vorces, dig beneath the surface for
reasons of infidelity, incompati¬ and, in
bility, and alcoholism, find health a
majority of cases, poor
of one of the partners is a vital
factor. Apart marital from the unhappiness, psychiatric
reasons for
there are those situations which
have developed simply because of
poor health. These people lack the
general vitality, the happy robust marriage. health,
to consummate a
Most of the states demand cou¬
ples pass marriage. a physical A examination prospective
before husband and/or wife with bad
a
heart condition, complaint, tuberculosis, perhaps or
any serious be un¬
known to them, should both ad¬
vised of same. Such condition* of
health should not be a secret until
after the ceremony. 4
Checking a young man’s char¬
acter and bank balance, his reli¬
gious background, hobbies, eating li¬
habits, manners and driving chiroprao
cense is fine, but isn’t a
tic physical for future check-up happincest more impor¬
tant
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