But my favorite comment was this: “I’m really proud that a Yalie is Secretary of State.” Ishould have stopped reading right there because he or she went on to write, “but he is buttugly.” (Laughter.) So there go my dreams of being on “Yale’s 50 most beautiful” list. (Cheersand applause.)
It really is a privilege for me to share this celebration with you, though I’m forewarned that noone remembers who delivers their graduation speech. All I really remember about our speakerin 1966 is that he was eloquent, insightful, really good looking. (Laughter.) Anyway, onething I promise you, one thing I promise you: I will stay away from the tired cliches ofcommencement, things like “be yourself,” “do what makes you happy,” “don’t use the laundryroom in Saybrook”. (Cheers and applause.) That’s about all I’ll say about that. (Laughter.)
So right after we graduated, Time Magazine came out with its famous “Man of the Year” issue.But for 1966, Timedidn’t pick one man or one woman. They picked our entire generation.
And Time expressed a lot of high hopes for us. It not only predicted that we’d cure thecommon cold, but that we’d cure cancer, too. It predicted that we’d build smog-free cities andthat we’d end poverty and war once and for all. I know what you’re thinking – we reallycrushed it. (Laughter.)
So fair question: Did my generation get lost? Well, that’s actually a conversation for anothertime. But let me put one theory to rest: It’s not true that everyone in my generationexperimented with drugs. Although between Flomax, Lipitor and Viagra, now we do. (Laughterand applause.)
Now, I did have some pretty creative classmates back then. One of my good friends, very closefriends in JE – (cheers) – I’m going to set it right for you guys right now. (Laughter.) One of mygood friends in JE had at least two hair-brained ideas. The first was a little start-up built on thenotion that if people had a choice, they’d pay a little more to mail a package and have it arrivethe very next day. Crazy, right? Today that start-up is called FedEx. And by the way, it wascreated in JE, which therefore means JE rules. (Cheers and applause.)
Now, his other nutty idea was to restart something called the Yale Flying Club. And admittedly,this was more of a scheme to get us out of class and off the campus. So I basically spent mysenior year majoring in flying, practicing take-offs and landings out at Tweed Airport.Responsible? No. But I wouldn’t have missed it.
And one of the best lessons I learned here is that Mark Twain was absolutely right: Never letschool get in the way of an education.
Now, I didn’t know it at the time, but Yale also taught me to finish what you start. And that’sone thing that clearly separates us from Harvard. (Laughter.) After all, a lot of those guys don’teven graduate. Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Matt Damon – what the hell have they everamounted to? (Laughter.)
For all I ever learned at Yale, I have to tell you truthfully the best piece of advice I ever got wasactually one word from my 89-year-old mother. I’ll never forget sitting by her bedside andtelling her I had decided to run for President. And she squeezed my hand and she said: “Integrity, John. Integrity. Just remember always, integrity.” And maybe that tells you a lotabout what she thought about politics.
But you should know: In a complicated world full of complicated decisions and close calls thatcould go either way, what keeps you awake at night isn’t so much whether or not you got thedecision right or wrong. It’s whether you made your decision for the right reasons: Integrity.
And the single best piece of advice I ever received about diplomacy didn’t come from myinternational relations class, but it came from my father, who served in the Foreign Service. Hetold me that diplomacy was really about being able to see the world through the eyes ofsomeone else, to understand their aspirations and assumptions.
And perhaps that’s just another word for empathy. But whatever it is, I will tell you sittinghere on one of the most gorgeous afternoons in New Haven as you graduate: Listening makes adifference, not just in foreign ministries but on the streets and in the souks and on the socialmedia network the world over.
So Class of 2014, as corny as it may sound, remember that your parents aren’t just here todayas spectators. They’re also here as teachers – and even if counter-intuitive, it’s not a badidea to stay enrolled in their course as long as you can.
Now for my part, I am grateful to Yale because I did learn a lot here in all of the ways that agreat university can teach. But there is one phrase from one class above all that for somereason was indelibly stamped into my consciousness. Perhaps it’s because I spent almost 30years in the United States Senate seeing it applied again and again.
One morning in the Law School Auditorium, my Professor, John Morton Blum, said simply: “Allpolitics is a reaction to felt needs.” What I thought he meant is that things only get done inpublic life when the people who want something demand nothing less and the people who makeit happen decide tht they can do nothing less.
Those “felt needs” have driven every movement and decision that I’ve witnessed in politicssince – from South Africa a couple of decades ago to the Arab Spring a few years ago to ourown communities, where same-sex couples refuse to be told by their government who they canlove.
In 1963, I remember walking out of Dwight Hall one evening after an activist named AllardLowenstein gave the impassioned and eloquent plea that I had ever heard. He compelled usto feel the need to engage in the struggle for civil rights right here in our own country.
And that’s why, just steps from here, right over there on High Street, we lined up buses thatdrove students from Yale and elsewhere south to be part of the Mississippi Voter RegistrationDrive and help break the back of Jim Crow. Ultimately we forced Washington to ensure throughthe law that our values were not mere words. We saw Congress respond to this “felt need” andpass the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, and life in America did change.