Queens College - Silhouette Yearbook (Queens, NY)

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greet you, Seniors of 1951, in a mood of reminiscence. Ten years ago this month our first class was graduated, and, today, memories grave and gay-tender, proud, and wistful-throng my recollection of our beginnings at Queens-and of all that has happened since-in the world, in the Col- lege, and in the lives of the thousands of alumni with whom you are now to be num- bered. The decade closes at a point of crisis- a word dramatized by an ancient people in symbols of danger and opportunity. You have in your day a full measure of both- a greater measure, indeed, than did the Class of 1941, who, shadowed through their college years by the threat of war, marked in that first Silhouette the grim uncertainties of their time. To learn how to think, they wrote is hard. To apply our thinking in an irrational world, iS harder still. And they closed their class book with a question. Had they learned their lesson well enough? Would they Send their children into a saner world? lt was easy for you, the men and women of '51, to answer that question in dis- illusion and cynical doubt. Ten years 090 as children in elementary school, hearing talk of Pearl Harbor, and long afterwards, of V-Day, and J-Day, and then of the United Nations with its chartered vow to build in the minds of men the defense Of peace, you held assurances of a secure and challenging future. Today, as college graduates, after years of continuing Un'

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I F Vs ul Sd d. eel md E00 JOHN J. THEOBALD, Ph.D. Presidenf of Queens College 21

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lgqm how To 0PPll world, li 'heir class Y learned fhgyS9lld ? ndwomll m in WIS U90 y hgarllg geNurflS: W of ill dvow lo .ferr l a Welle U wllege . url' W9 rest, of wars and rumors of war, you go to the still unfinished task in a world crying Peace, Peace and there is no Peace! Yet, in the tempered consideration of reality there must be neither cynicism nor doubt. The task, unfinished, is far ad- vanced. You will not fiinch from the final fight. The ways of democracy are tedious and the time table of its goals is not set in measured years. Accomplishment, even in its most significant moments, is often imperceptible in the anxieties of the hour. New occasions teach new duties, and with hope, new-strengthened in conviction, you will rise to yours. The peril of crisis is not a thing of far away nor of another day. The danger is clear and present. ln your opportunity there is the urge of immediacy and of unpredictable emergency, even of finality. For your generation, in very truth, what is past is prologue. The common danger is our common op- portunity-supremely your opportunity. The free world-with your country, will- ingly or not, its leader-is come to grips with an avowed attack on the natural rights of man. The enemy is superior only in might of numbers. Our hope of defeat- ing him lies first in the physical endurance, fighting ability and courage of those who defend us in battle. lt lies, too, in the ade- quacy of our materiel and in the continued flow of manpower. It lies, as well, in the thinking power and spiritual quality of those who in civil life direct the battle and who, out of their creative skill and industry send to the field the products of techno- logical development. The battle, indeed, is to the strong, to the scientifically powerful, to the able of leadership, to the mighty of faith. ln all this, you, so far as you repre- sent and contribute to the trained intelli- gence of loyal American youth, have com- pelling obligation. Commencement means the breaking of the ranks-your individual, independent, striking-out across the world beyond the classroom. Wherever the way may go, wherever time or circumstance may lead you, l pray that the old associations will hold you forever friends and classmates. We, your teachers, will follow you with affectionate concern, grateful for the in- spiration of your youth and promise, eager for the fulfillment of your most cherished hopes. And if I myself have one last word to give you, this would I ask, that you accept literally the responsibilities of active citi- zenship in a democratic society. Prepared for leadership as you are, aspiring as you do to the respect of men of learning and power of distinguished achievement, you can, if you will, reflect your American heritage in the fullness of its assertion. Throw the weight of your infiuence against the deadening apathy of our people's in- difference to the privilege and responsi- bilities of the franchise. Be faithful in the exercise of your own right to vote. Take active part in public life. As citizens of high purpose and forceful plan, look to the passage and enforcement of construc- tive legislation in every area of the public interest, to the election of public officials of conscience, courage, and competence, to probity and efficiency in public and private life-decency spelled out in real- istic standards of personal integrity and ethical conduct. In war and peace, at home and abroad, fight to rebuild in our American life the disciplined morality in which alone abides our first, last and only hope of a rightly ordered world, a world at peace, with liberty and iustice for all.