Orleans High School - Sword Yearbook (Orleans, VT)

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Salutatory RACES OF MANKIND For the class of nineteen forty-five, I wish to welcome you to our commencement exercises here tonight. We greatly appreciate the interest you have shown in making possible for us an education and a good start in life. We are very glad to be able to live in America where education is promoted to the highest extent by peo- ple who, like you in this community, have taken a very keen interest in our education from the first grade up to graduation. I am going to talk tonight on the subject of Races of Mankind.” As we go out into the world, we will meet many difficult prob- lems. One of them could well be the racial problem. Forty-eight nations are now united in a common cause—victory over Axis aggression. This is the greatest fighting alliance in history. White men, yellow men, black men, and red men are all fighting together against one enemy. Th is war has shown that the whole world has been made one neighborhood. All races of man are shoulder to shoulder. This is not as new to Americans as it is to other nations because there have always been people of different color, hair texture, and head shape since the founding of our nation. History today is only bringing together on a world scale races which have been brought together on a smaller scale here in America. We know better than most people the hard feeling there can be when people of different races and nationalities have to live together. In many cases there is conflict. Today winning the war is the most important thing and if we all pull together, whatever our origin, we shall obtain final victory. Hitl er has believed that we are wrong, that he could divide and conquer,” that America was a no man’s land, where peoples of all origin were ready to fight among themselves. On the war front, we have needed fuels, substitutes for rubber, lighter metals, or new plastics. We have asked scientists what they can do about it. We a'so need these scientists on the race front. Through scientific research, we have learned that all peoples of the earth are a single family and have a common origin. The early man started out with crude tools, without agriculture and domesticated animals except the dog, and, in spite of this, he spread to all corners of the globe. One theory is that those who settled nearer the equator developed a darker skin color than those who settled to the north of them. PAGE TWENTY.SIX

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To Charlotte Dewing, we present this jar of cold cream to preserve your peachy complexion. To Jackie Turnbull, we present this whistle so that when you teach Physical Education you may keep the class in order. To Hattie Kahlstrom, we present these stilts to add a few inches to your height. To Beverly Hussey, we present you this bottle of cedar oil to help carry on Eddie’s trade. To Warren Hilliard, we present this pack of cards so that you may carry on your card tricks. To Gertrude Broome, we present you this hair bow to go with all your other pretty ones. To Ann Wightman, we present this diploma so that she may grad- uate with the rest of us. To Carl Stevens, we present this new trumpet so that the valves won’t stick. To Phyllis Decker, we present this box of stationery so that you may keep up the morale of the boys in the service. To Elaine Dean, we present you this sailor to take the place of Raymond while he’s in the Navy. To Clyde Place, we present this address book that you may keep the names of the girls in each port. To Doris Simpson, we present you this horse so that you may go ga'loping happily through life. To Cynthia Gray, we present you this test tube to give you more vivid memories of Chemistry class. To Evelyn Barney, we present you this Maybelline to keep the gleam shining in your blue eyes. To Arvilla Smith, we present this cook book to help you in the future. To Raymond Boulanger, we present this cow to start your farming in Coventry Swamp after the war. To Marion Corrow, we present this pencil to keep up your good drawing. To Julie Muer, we present this barrel in case you lose in your crap games. To Mrs. Davies, we present you this yarn so that you may carry on your knitting. PAGE TWENTY-FIVE

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Race prejudice turns on the point of inferiority and superiority. One who is race prejudiced says of a man of another race, No matter who he is, I don’t have to compare myself with him. I’m superior anyway. I was born that way.” In order to see which of the two objects is superior, you have to test the abilities of both objects. The first thing we want to know is what traits a man is born with. If he is lucky, he will have good food, care, education and a good start in life. A man cannot say that these were things he was born with. If a person were born in France but brought up in China, he would speak Chinese. He wasn’t born to speak French. He speaks the way people around him speak. This is not a racial trait but is due to the person’s environment. The different customs among peoples of the world are not racial traits. To marry in church after a courtship or to marry a bride that you have never seen are customs due to environment. One race is not born to build skyscrapers and do the plumbing in their houses and another to build huts and carry their water from rivers. These are examples of ways of doing things which are brought about by usage instead of heredity. A man of one race would be the same as a man of another race if he had had the same environment. In America, there have been many investigations into the intel- ligence of negroes and whites. The scientists have found that some of the degree of intelligence of a person depends upon what happens to him after he is born. There are several proofs of this. Here is one. In the first World War, the American Expeditionary Forces were given intelligence tests. The results showed that Northerners, black and white, scored higher than Southerners, black and white. Southern states spend only a fraction of the amount spent in North- ern states for schools. This seems to prove that education governs a person rather than racial traits. The second superiority that a man claims when he says I was born a member of a superior race” is that the character of his race is better. The Nazis boast of their racial character. They believe that the only glorious death is that of dying on the battlefield. When they wanted to make a whole generation into Nazis, they made cer- tain kinds of teaching compulsory in schools, they broke up homes where the people were anti-Nazis, they required boys to join Nazi youth organizations. After doing all of this, they got the kind of character that they wanted. The Japanese have done the same thing to make fighters of a new generation. They are spiritually more like the Germans than like their racial brothers, the peace-loving Chinese. Some people think that the Germans and Japanese are born aggressors and the only way to change them is by force. Some say that they have the wrong kind of education and environment and that it is not a racial trait. Even though the Japanese are of a dif- ferent origin from that which we come from, they are good Ameri- P A G E T W E N T Y - S K V E N