The Educated Citizen's Responsibility in an Age of Change

Many things bring us together today. We are saluting the ninetieth anniversary of Vanderbilt University, which has grown from a small Tennessee university and institution to one of our nation's greatest, with seven different colleges, and with more than half of its 4,200 students from outside of the State of Tennessee. And we are saluting the thirtieth anniversary of the Tennessee Valley Authority, which transformed a parched, depressed, and flood-ravaged region into a fertile, productive center of industry, science,and agriculture. We are saluting-by initiating construction of a dam in his name--a great Tennessee statesman, Cordell Hull, the father of reciprocal trade, the grandfather of the United Nations, the Secretary of State who presided over the transformation of this nation from a life of isolation and almost indifference to a state of responsible world leadership.

And, finally, we are saluting-by the recognition of a forthcoming dam in his name--J. Percy Priest, a former colleague of mine in the House of Representatives who represented this district, this state, and this nation in the Congress for sixteen turbulent years, years which witnessed the crumbling of empires, the splitting of the atom, the conquest of one threat to freedom and the emergence of still another.