My Friends:
Last Friday, the Garamendi family gathered to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the arrival of Santorino Jose Garamendi on Ellis Island. March 21, 1908.
The second of eight children, he left Ispaster, Spain in the Basque country seeking opportunity in America. He was filled with the hope our great democracy has inspired in millions of immigrants, and probably a good deal of anxiety. He moved west and became one of those individuals that JFK spoke about in his famous new frontier speech in 1960. JFK said:
“For I stand here tonight facing west on what was once the last frontier. From the lands that stretch three thousand miles behind us, the pioneers gave up their safety, their comfort and sometimes their lives to build our new West. They were not the captives of their own doubts, nor the prisoners of their own price tags. They were determined to make the new world strong and free –an example to the world, to overcome its hazards and its hardships, to conquer the enemies that threatened from within and without.
“Some would say that those struggles are all over, that all the horizons have been explored, that all the battles have been won, that there is no longer an American frontier. But I trust that no one in this assemblage would agree with that sentiment; for the problems are not all solved and the battles are not all won; and we stand today on the edge of a New Frontier.“
Each generation faces its own set of challenges. Its own New Frontier. My grandfather certainly did as he moved about the west seeking success: His inability to speak English, facing discrimination, lack of an education, the Great Depression, railroads that refused to ship his harvest of melons. Nevertheless he persevered, and found success in his marriage, in his numerous occupations, in a Basque hotel in Stockton, but most of all in his two children who graduated from college and built their families and their own measure of success. For five generations this great and generous country has provided my family the opportunity to achieve what my grandfather set out to accomplish when he left his homeland in 1908.
Our personal responsibility to address the challenges that each generation faces was made clear to me at a family gathering as I became a Senator in 1977. Santorino Garamendi thrust his finger into my chest and said, “Juan, you must make sure the next generation is better off than yours.” I have never forgotten that challenge.
A few years ago I spoke to you about Patti and My experience in Ethiopia as Peace Corps volunteers. How on passing a traveler on the forest trail the greeting was, “Comjetu fiata. Ligioli fiat.” How are the children? Another language, another culture, but the same challenge expressed by my grandfather. And a challenge I now put before all of us.
We must leave here tomorrow with a determination and a commitment so strong that we will win the presidency and establish a firmer margin in Congress and the Senate. We must ensure that our children’s generation and generations beyond are assured that they will be better off than ours.
Let our battle cry be “How are the children?” If we make this our central concern our task is clear, our task is just.
California stands as the beacon of opportunity in this country; we have a wealthy, innovative and successful economy. Why then do we deprive our children and students the opportunity to have the quality education necessary for them to take tomorrow’s jobs and compete in an ever more challenging world?
Are we content with our ranking of student support? 46th in America?
Are we content with our students’ dropout rate and their test scores?
Are we content when our employers cry out for skilled workers and our industries move because those skills can not be found here in California?
I say No, No! We, the Democratic Party, say No! This is California. We will only be satisfied when we are first in student performance and there are no drop outs.
The perennial budget crisis has relegated this great state to a last class educational system.
Let us resolve here, today, that we Democrats will commit our time, our political power and our collective wealth to our children’s education and that we will do all within our power to create a more efficient and effective education system.
This week another big chunk of ancient ice crashed into the ocean in the Antarctic. The ice cap in Greenland is melting as fast as the mountain glaciers are receding. The evidence is clear. Our generation and those before us have consumed the atmosphere’s ability to absorb green house gases and now the climate is warming at an alarming rate.
Are we content to pass this legacy of rising oceans and disrupted rivers and ecology on to the next generation?
Are we content to ignore the evidence and continue to subsidize coal and oil and continue to consume non-renewable energy?
Are we content to pass on to the next generation wars over water and food?
I say No, No! We Democrats say No, No! We will not continue the old way.
We will have a new energy policy that finally achieves what Jimmy Carter attempted to do: energy independence based on conservation and renewable technology. And we will put in the White House a Democratic president who will sweep out the coal tar and oily residue of the Bush Administration.
Are we content that more that 40 million hard working Americans have no health insurance?
Are we content that the elderly and disabled see their benefits taken away?
Are we content that we spend far more on health care than any other industrialized nation and yet have the health statistics of a developing nation?
Are we content that the health insurance industry rips off medical providers and patients while lining the pockets of Wall Street investors and bloated executives?
I say No, No! We Democrats say No!
And we are prepared to fight for and win for every generation a single payer universal health care plan that relegates the greedy health insurance companies to the history books of shame.
4000 Americans have died in Iraq.
Are we content with a never-ending war in Iraq?
Are we content with an administration that has continually mismanaged the war?
Are we content with over $500 billion wasted on a war that was sold to Americans on a pack of falsehoods by leaders that either knew the truth or were too infatuated with Shock and Awe to seek the facts?
I say No! We Democrats say No! On January 20, 2009 we will have a Democrat president, a Congress and Senate who will end this senseless war with dignity and do it fast.
We, the California Democrats, remember those travelers on the forest trails in Ethiopia. Remember their greeting. Comjitu fiata, Ligiola fiata. How are the children?
We, the California Democrats, will remember my grandfather’s admonition. We will always remember the children and make sure the next generation is better off.
We, the California Democrats will always remember and care for the aged, the disabled, and the poor.
We, the California Democrats, will always fight for quality public education.
We, the California Democrats are the legacy of FDR and we remember what he said. “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.”
