Happy Birthday, Hubert Humphrey

A great Minnesotan. From his 1948 speech to the Democratic National Convention, staking out the party's claim to civil rights and human rights in a way that resonates unfortunately well 57 years later...

Every citizen has a stake in the emergence of the United States as a leader in a free world. That world is being challenged by the world of slavery. For us to play our part effectively, we must be in a morally sound position.

We can't use a double standard -- there's no room for double standards in American politics -- for measuring our own and other people's policies. Our demands for democratic practices in other lands will be no more effective than the guarantees of those practiced in our own country...

To those who say, my friends, to those who say, that we are rushing this issue of civil rights, I say to them we are 172 years late! To those who say, to those who say this civil-rights program is an infringement on states' rights, I say this: the time has arrived in America for the Democratic party to get out of the shadow of states' rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights!

People, people -- human beings -- this is the issue of the 20th century. People of all kinds -- all sorts of people -- and these people are looking to America for leadership, and they're looking to America for precept and example...

Let us not forget -- let us do forget -- the evil passions, the blindness of the past. In these times of world economic, political, and spiritual crisis, we cannot -- we must not -- turn from the path so plainly before us. That path has already lead us through many valleys of the shadow of death. Now is the time to recall those who were left on that path of American freedom.