“I was born in No-doyohn Canon, Arizona, June, 1829. In that country which lies around the head waters of the Gila River I was reared. This range was our fatherland; among these mountains our wigwams were hidden; the scattered valleys contained our fields; the boundless prairies, stretching away on every side, were our pastures; the rocky caverns were our burying places.

I was fourth in a family of eight children– four boys and four girls. Of that family, only myself, my brother, Porico, and my sister, Nah-da-ste , are yet alive. We are held as prisoners of war in this Military Reservation (Fort Sill).

As a babe I rolled on the dirt floor of my father’s tepee, hung in my tsoch (Apache name for cradle) at my mother’s back, or suspended from the bough of a tree. I was warmed by the sun, rocked by the winds, and sheltered by the trees as other Indian babes.

When a child my mother taught me the legends of our people; taught me of the sun and sky, the moon and stars, the clouds and storms. She also taught me to kneel and pray to Usen for strength, health, wisdom, and protection. We never prayed against any person, but if we had aught against any individual we ourselves took vengeance. We were taught that Usen does not care for the petty quarrels of men.

My father had often told me of the brave deeds of our warriors, of the pleasures of the chase, and the glories of the war path.
With my brothers and sisters I played about my father’s home. Sometimes we played at hide-and-seek among the rocks and pines; sometimes we loitered in the shade of the cottonwood trees or sought the shudock (a kind of wild cherry) while our parents worked in the field. Sometimes we played that we were warriors. We would practice stealing upon some object that represented an enemy, and in our childish imitation often perform the feats of war. Sometimes we would hide away from our mother to see if she could find us, and often when thus concealed go to sleep and perhaps remain hidden for many hours.

When we were old enough to be of real service we went to the field with our parents: not to play, but to toil. When the crops were to be planted we broke the ground with wooden hoes. We planted the corn in straight rows, the beans among the corn, and the melons and pumpkins in irregular order over the field. We cultivated these crops as there was need.

Our field usually contained about two acres of ground. The fields were never fenced. It was common for many families to cultivate land in the same valley and share the burden of protecting the growing crops from destruction by the ponies of the tribe, or by deer and other wild animals.

Melons were gathered as they were consumed. In the autumn pumpkins and beans were gathered and placed in bags or baskets; ears of corn were tied together by the husks, and then the harvest was carried on the backs of ponies up to our homes. Here the corn was shelled, and all the harvest stored away in caves or other secluded places to be used in winter.
…
I know that if my people were placed in that mountainous region lying around the head waters of the Gila River they would live in peace and act according to the will of the President. They would be prosperous and happy in tilling the soil and learning the civilization of the white men, whom they now respect. Could I but see this accomplished, I think I could forget all the wrongs that I have ever received, and die a contented and happy old man. But we can do nothing in this matter ourselves-we must wait until those in authority choose to act. If this cannot be done during my lifetime-if I must die in bondage- I hope that the remnant of the Apache tribe may, when I am gone, be granted the one privilege which they request-to return to Arizona.”

“Henry Flipper did all his country asked him to do. Though born a slave in Georgia, he was proud to serve America: the first African American graduate of West Point; the first African American commissioned officer in the regular United States Army. He showed brilliant promise and joined the 10th Cavalry. While stationed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, he perfected a drainage system that eliminated the stagnant water, and malaria, plaguing the fort. Still known as “Flipper’s Ditch,” it became a national landmark in 1977. He distinguished himself in combat on the frontier, and then was transferred to run a commissary at Fort Davis in Texas.

In 1881, Lt. Flipper was accused by his commanding officer of improperly accounting for the funds entrusted to him. A later Army review suggested he had been singled out for his race, but at the time there wasn’t much justice available for a young African American soldier. In December, a court-martial acquitted him of embezzlement, but convicted him of conduct unbecoming an officer. President Chester A. Arthur declined to overturn the sentence, and in June of 1882, Lt. Flipper was dishonorably discharged.

His life continued. He became a civil and mining engineer out West. He worked in many capacities for the government, as special agent for the Department of Justice; as an expert on Mexico for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; as a special assistant to the Secretary of the Interior. He died in 1940, at the age of 84. But even after his death, this stain of dishonor remained. One hundred and seventeen years have now elapsed since his discharge. That’s a long time, even more than the span of his long life. More than half the history of the White House, indeed, of the United States itself. And too long to let an injustice lie uncorrected.

The army exonerated him in 1976, changed his discharge to honorable and reburied him with full honors. But one thing remained to be done, and now it will be. With great pleasure and humility, I now offer a full pardon to Lt. Henry Ossian Flipper of the United States Army. …

Henry Flipper is not known to most Americans. All the more reason to remember him today. His remarkable life story is important to us, terribly important, as we continue to work … on deepening the meaning of freedom at home, and working to expand democracy and freedom around the world, to give new life to the great experiment begun in 1776.

This is work Henry Flipper would have been proud of. Each of you who worked so hard for this day is a living chapter in the story of Lt. Flipper. I thank you for your devotion, your courage, your persistence, your unshakable commitment. I thank you for believing, and proving, that challenges never disappear, but in the long run, freedom comes to those who persevere.

– President William J Clinton – February 19, 1999

I have… chosen this time and place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth too rarely perceived — and that is the most important topic on earth: peace.

What kind of peace do I mean and what kind of a peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war, not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace — the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living — and the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and build a better life for their children — not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women — not merely peace in our time but peace in all time.

I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age where great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age where a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all the Allied air forces in the second world war. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn.

Today the expenditure of billions of dollars every year on weapons acquired for the purpose of making sure we never need them is essential to the keeping of peace. But surely the acquisition of such idle stockpiles — which can only destroy and never create — is not the only, much less the most efficient, means of assuring peace.

I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men. I realize the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war — and frequently the words of the pursuers fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task.

Some say that it is useless to speak of peace or world law or world disarmament — and that it will be useless until the leaders of the Soviet Union adopt a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can help them do it.

But I also believe that we must re-examine our own attitudes — as individuals and as a nation — for our attitude is as essential as theirs. And every graduate of this school, every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward — by examining his own attitude towards the possibilities of peace, towards the Soviet Union, towards the course of the cold war and towards freedom and peace here at home.

First: Examine our attitude towards peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it is unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable — that mankind is doomed — that we are gripped by forces we cannot control.

We need not accept that view. Our problems are man-made. Therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable — and we believe they can do it again.

I am not referring to the absolute, infinite concepts of universal peace and goodwill of which some fantasies and fanatics dream. I do not deny the value of hopes and dreams but we merely invite discouragement and incredulity by making that our only and immediate goal.

Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace — based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions — on a series of concrete actions and effective agreement which are in the interests of all concerned.

There is no single, simple key to this peace — no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers. Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For peace is a process — a way of solving problems.

With such a peace, there will still be quarrels and conflicting interests, as there are within families and nations. World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor — it requires only that they live together with mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement. And history teaches us that enmities between nations, as between individuals, do not last forever. However fixed our likes and dislikes may seem, the tide of time and events will often bring surprising changes in the relations between nations and neighbors.

So let us persevere. Peace need not be impracticable — and war need not be inevitable.

“Look at me – I am poor and naked, but I am the chief of the nation. We do not want riches, but we want to train our children right. Riches will do us no good. We could not take them with us to the other world. We do not want riches. We want peace and love.

They made us many promises, more than I can remember. But they kept but one–They promised to take our land…and they took it.

In 1868, men came out and brought papers. We could not read them and they did not tell us truly what was in them. We thought the treaty was to remove the forts and for us to cease from fighting. But they wanted to send us traders on the Missouri, but we wanted traders where we were. When I reached Washington, the Great Father explained to me that the interpreters had deceived me. All I want is right and just.

Whose voice was first sounded on this land? The voice of the red people who had but bows, and arrows….What has been done in my country I did not want, did not ask for it; white people going through my country…. When the white man comes in my country he leaves a trail of blood behind him….I have two mountains in that country…. The Black Hills and the Big Horn Mountain. I want the great father to make no roads through them. I have told these things three times; now I have come here to tell them the fourth time.

“The Great Spirit raised both the white man and the Indian. I think he raised the Indian first. He raised me in this land, it belongs to me. The white man was raised over the great waters, and his land is over there. Since they crossed the sea, I have given them room. There are now white people all about me. I have but a small spot of land left. The Great Spirit told me to keep it.”

Chief Red Cloud – Sioux

On a cold December day in 1888 a couple of ranchers in southwest Colorado stumbled upon a spectacular sight: a series of ancient stone villages nestled in protective, overhanging alcoves under the steep cliffs at Mesa Verde.

This encounter by members of the Wetherill family, who ranched along the Mancos River and pastured their cattle near the mesa, set off  a decades long pursuit of Mesa Verde’s antiquities, a  bonanza which would significantly augment the income from their struggling ranch.

Richard Wetherill, working with family and friends, collected and sold pottery and artifacts while guiding tourists from his ranch to the awe-inspiring sites. In July 1891, he hosted Gustav Nordenskiold, a young, Swedish-Finnish nobleman who was eager to learn about Mesa Verde. Nordenskiold excavated sites on the mesa with some professionalism, and retrieved a trove of artifacts which he sent to Durango to be shipped back to his home in Sweden.

The railroad, responding to local and statewide outrage, refused to handle them. A confrontation broke out, centering directly on the impropriety of removing archeological artifacts from public lands and shipping them out of the country.

After a brief legal skirmish, it became clear that there was no state or federal statute prohibiting the removal of archeological properties from public land. Legally, these artifacts could be shipped anywhere, and they were eventually placed in the Finnish National Museum in Helsinki.

Two decades of looting, desecration, and destruction of Native American sites in the Southwest such as Chaco Canyon and Cliff Palace ensued.

Congressman John Lacey of Iowa usually carried on his congressional work without fanfare, and he received no great public exposure or acclaim through his speeches or writings. He had none of the rough-and ready ways of Theodore Roosevelt.

But Congressman Lacey possessed a kind of low-keyed, yet decided, interest in nature, and wrote with strong feelings about landscapes, plants, animals, and the natural world. With his long-time commitment to protecting the natural world, and with his legal knowledge and political acumen, he was able to help transform the landscape of our country.

He sought to protect lands were “for their scenic beauty, natural wonders or curiosities, ancient ruins or relics, or other objects of scientific or historic interest, or springs of medicinal or other properties.”

He proposed a bill which would authorize the Secretary of the Interior to establish a “service” to manage and care for the protected areas. This service was to make certain that the reserves remain essentially unimpaired: It would ensure the “preservation from injury or spoliation of any and all objects therein of interest or value to science or history.” And, recognizing the tourism potential of the reserves, the bill authorized the service to provide for the “accommodation of visitors.” And to protect the reserves’ scientific knowledge base, Lacey’s bill called for a research permitting process, plus penalties for vandals and looters

The Lacey Act – also known as the Antiquities Act of 1906 – was a decade in the making. On June 8, 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt signed the bill, which set aside “historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest” in order to stop their destruction. As the Antiquities Act provided, either the President or Congress could establish national monuments.

President Roosevelt wasted no time in taking advantage of the authority given him by the bill.

On September 24, 1906, he proclaimed Devils Tower in Wyoming the first national monument under the Antiquities Act. He followed that quickly with the Petrified Forest, Montezuma Castle in Arizona and El Morro in New Mexico. In the next two years Roosevelt issued fourteen more executive proclamations for Lassen Peak, Cinder Cone, Chaco Canyon, Gila Cliff Dwellings, Tonto Cliff Dwellings, Muir Woods, Grand Canyon, Pinnacles, Jewel Cave, Natural Bridges, Lewis & Clark Cavern, Tumacacori Mission, Wheeler, and Mount Olympus.

The lands initially set aside as “national monuments” under the Antiquities Act comprise more than 50 percent of today’s national park system, and include seven World Heritage sites.

Ten o’clock: the broken moon
Hangs not yet a half hour high,
Yellow as a shield of brass,…
In the dewy air of June,
Poised between the vaulted sky
And the ocean’s liquid glass.Earth lies in the shadow still;
Low black bushes, trees, and lawn
Night’s ambrosial dews absorb;
Through the foliage creeps a thrill,
Whispering of yon spectral dawn
And the hidden climbing orb.

Higher, higher, gathering light,
Veiling with a golden gauze
All the trembling atmosphere,
See, the rayless disk grows white!
Hark, the glittering billows pause!

Faint, far sounds possess the ear.
Elves on such a night as this
Spin their rings upon the grass;
On the beach the water-fay
Greets her lover with a kiss;
Through the air swift spirits pass,
Laugh, caress, and float away.

Shut thy lids and thou shalt see
Angel faces wreathed with light,
Mystic forms long vanished hence.
Ah, too fine, too rare, they be
For the grosser mortal sight,
And they foil our waking sense.

Yet we feel them floating near,
Know that we are not alone,
Though our open eyes behold
Nothing save the moon’s bright sphere,
In the vacant heavens shown,
And the ocean’s path of gold.

– Emma Lazarus