Mike Mansfield Lecture: Mike Mansfield Information

Message to Future Generations

We are living in a fast changing world. You are young enough to keep up with it. You are living in a world that is shrinking, the globe is becoming a neighborhood. It’s going to shrink further still. We’re going to become closer neighbors still. We are going to have to understand each other better. And we’ll have to recognize that regardless of where we come from, no matter what our color or background, we all initially sprang from the same source.

We’ll have to learn to get along with one another. We’ll have to be more aware of responsibilities which go with this rapidly speeding up world. We’ll have to set examples for those who will follow us and recognize that we don’t know it all. So we should listen to the other person, and that other person sometimes is right and sometimes we are wrong. It will be a matter of accommodation and compromise, knowledge and understanding.

I have no doubt that future generations will be able to cope with events as they occur no matter how rapidly, if for no other reason than they have no choice. And as we could cope and our predecessors could, you can cope too. And I wish you well. I hope you’ll devote your efforts to preserving the environment, preserving the rights guaranteed to all under the First Amendment, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Assembly and Freedom of the Press. I hope you will not violate any of those rights because there are limitations.

You haven’t been given much of a legacy, but you have been given a great challenge and what you do will determine what your successors will be. So I wish you all good luck and, as the Asians usually say, good health, good fortune, much happiness, and a long life.

Mike Mansfield, in a message to American Youth, November 1989.

This and other quotes from Mike Mansfield can be found at the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation.The Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation

• ​University of Montana Biography     This is a short biography with links to other resources.

•  U.S. Congress Biographical Directory