Idea of America Essay Contest Awards Dinner
November 6, 2006
United States Supreme Court,
Washington, DC
(As Prepared for Delivery)

Honorable Justice Breyer, Members of the: National Council on the Humanities, the National Trust for the Humanities, and the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities. Members of the Diplomatic Corps, distinguished guests, dedicated staff, Friends of the Endowment, Ladies and Gentlemen

And last, but not certainly not least, winners of the 2006 Idea of America Essay Contest.

Welcome, and thank you for joining us for this memorable evening as we celebrate the foundations of our freedom…and the hard work of some very gifted and thoughtful young men and women.

A little more than a year ago, many of us gathered at the National Gallery of Art with Vice President and Mrs. Cheney to celebrate the beginning of the Humanities Endowment's 40th year of service to our nation.

Just as the National Gallery of Art was a majestic setting for that occasion, so, too, are tonight's surroundings a perfect culmination of our anniversary year.

And, of course, they are a fitting venue to salute the winners of this year's Idea of America Essay Contest, and their outstanding examination of the First Amendment to the Constitution.

It has the added virtue of being perhaps the city's safest refuge tonight from politicians, pollsters, or professional prognosticators.

I here and now make a pledge tonight not to ask you for your votes. Only for your attention, and that you have a good time.

We are indeed privileged to have Associate Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer hosting us tonight. Justice Breyer has been a friend to young people, a champion of the Constitution, and as the bookshelves of his chambers testify, no stranger to the humanities.

We're thrilled that he will be addressing us later tonight.

Justice Frankfurter said, freedom of expression is the well-spring of our civilization.

"The liberty of man to search for truth," he wrote, "ought not to be fettered, no matter what orthodoxies he may challenge."

The essays written by this year's Idea of America Essay contest winners illuminate this conviction. They demonstrate that free societies can flourish only with the ability of their citizens to speak, to report, to petition, to assemble, and to worship, without fear of reprisal.

They illustrate the power of the humanities to teach us the origins and meaning of the freedoms we hold dear; freedoms which we must always safeguard if our democracy is to survive.

The essays also demonstrate how the NEH's We the People initiative encourages students nationwide to read great books, to ponder our democracy's founding principles, to think deeply, inquire avidly, and write knowledgeably.

Over the last four years, We the People programs have been helping to reinvigorate the teaching, study, and understanding of American democracy. Nothing could be more important because democracy must be defined, before it can be defended.

We the People programs fund award-winning documentaries and museum exhibitions. They deliver classic American literature to thousands of schools and libraries. They bring thousands of teachers to America's most storied sites where they study alongside scholars and then take those lessons back to their classrooms and generations of students.

And they're challenging young people like those here tonight to write incredibly insightful essays.

Socrates called education not the filling of a vessel, but the kindling of a flame.

At a time when surveys and test scores show an alarming lack of knowledge among young Americans about their nation's founding ideals, its past, and their future, we need to rekindle that flame.

The Idea of America Essay contest, now in its third year, remains an essential part of We the People and its mission. The freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment incite those who hate us for the democracy our freedoms engender.

The Idea of America Essay contest, and other We the People programs, are bedrock for future generations and their defense of those liberties.

This contest and this magnificent evening is made possible by the dedicated NEH staff, and the invaluable help of our co-sponsors: the National Trust for the Humanities and the McCormick Tribune Foundation.

I want to thank my good friend, and president of the National Trust, Albert Beveridge III, for his years of boundless enthusiasm and service to NEH and the humanities. After a distinguished law career Al is now writing his Ph.D. dissertation in American History.

I wish we could claim him as a We the People project.

I'd like to thank the White House for its continued support of the NEH and this program, as well. Mrs. Bush presented the first Essay Contest medals two years ago, and we were pleased that her chief of staff, Anita McBride, could take time out from a busy week and join us earlier this evening.

Finally, I'm privileged to thank and to introduce General David Grange, President and CEO of the McCormick Tribune Foundation.

General Grange's distinguished career in the First Infantry Division took him to Germany, Bosnia, Macedonia, and Kosovo. But it is his calling on behalf of youth, education, and the preservation of freedom that brings him here tonight.

The McCormick Tribune Foundation's generous support and collaboration made this year's Idea of America Essay contest possible. And the Foundation's newly-opened Freedom Museum in Chicago - whose staff helped develop this year's essay question and judge the essays - is introducing new generations to the cause of First Amendment freedoms.

To walk through this amazing museum is to witness firsthand Jefferson's charge to Madison in 1787:

"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people," he wrote. "They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of liberty."

On this mission, it has been our honor to work hand-in-hand with the McCormick Tribune Foundation.

Ladies and gentlemen, David Grange.