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Hungry Club 11/3/76
It is a difficult prospect to speak on the day after an event whose outcome is known to the whole world. The speaker cannot tell what has happened - everyone knows that.
He may try to tell how it happened, but many already know that. He can try to tell what will happen next, but no one knows that. including the speaker
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BUTLER STREET YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION HUNGRY CLUB FORUM Wednesday, November 3, 1976 J. R. Henderson, Moderator
INVOCATION - - - - - Rev. Martin McCain, I. T. C. - - - - - 12 : 00 noon
- LUNCHEON -
INTRODUCTION OF GUEST - - - - - 12 : 20 p.m. ANNOUNCEMENTS - - - - - 12 : 25 p.m.
- ON THE AIR -
INTRODUCTION OF SPEAKER - - - - - 12 : 30 p.m. SPEAKER - - - - - Senator Julian Bond - - - - - 12 : 33 p.m. State Senator Thirty-Ninth District QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS - - - - - 1 : 00 p.m. ADJOURNMENT - - - - - 1 : 30 p.m.
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Copyright 1976, Julian Bond
The loudest sound to be heard in Atlanta as last night's long count came to a climax was not the cheers and happy tears of the victory celebration held to herald the success of the region's first native son to succeed in national politics in 100 years: it was rather the quiet click of thousands of suitcase locks as final packing fo the great exodus for Washington begins.
Never have so many placed their faith--and risked their political fortunes--on a chance so obscure. Never before in my memory has a candidate for the White House so captured the attention and loyalty of so many in so fervent a fashion.
We have just completed the quadrennial occasion in which Americans express their preferences about what kind of
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world they want to live in.
Ithas been a rather long time coming. For Jimmy Carter and his early supporters, it was the climax of more than two years of planning and work.
For those veterans of these contests of1972 and 1968, it was a chance at power again, the creation of four years of breathing space in which to plot and plan the future.
For the loser, it isthe end of a career that had already gone further than it should.
For the country, it was a chance to turn loose a government which had been warm toward special interests and tight with a helping hand toward those who needed it.
For the winner, it was the beginning of a chance to prove that faith was not misplaced, that hope could be born again, and that charity would begin at home.
What yesterday's election finally means is a subject to be debated for many, many months to come.
For some, it signifies a new south, a disappearance of yesterday's politics of race in this region, and the return of the confederate states back into the union.
For others, the election will have no regional significance at all, but will serve only as a classic example
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of an outsider's achievement against entrenched and established power.
For others, this will mark the first American election in which black voters "qualified" a candidate, made it all right for suspicious voters to cast their votes for a white Southerner. For some, it simply means that the electorate had had too much crime in the suites, too much unemployment and inflation, too much of an administration that governed by veto, and that the democrats' turn had come round again.
For whatever reason or combination of reasons, one man has triumphed and another lost. In the process, new political fortunes have been made.
That the choices we were offered this year did not appear to be universally popular or inspiring is not surprising. Yesterday's scandals have reinforced an old American suspicion of political figures. The contradictory rhetroic on heard from the candidates added to the inescapable conclusion that in order to be all things to everyone they were willing at times to be nothing at all. The federal election law guaranteed a monopoly and public subsidies for only two political parties, and a complicated series of state election laws insured that lesser candidates and smaller parties