As you graduate, remember the responsibility of self-government

This excerpt from Mario Cuomo's commencement address at Queens College was printed in Newsday on June 9, 1983.

In writing [this address], I have tried to keep in mind the experience of the governor of Vermont who had the fortune — or misfortune’ to speak at the same commencement at which mark Twain received an honorary degree.

On a hot June afternoon, the governor went on, and on, and on, and Twain took off his mortarboard hat and went to sleep.

Finally, overcome by the hot air — both his own and nature’s — the governor concluded and, in retaking his chair, inadvertently sat on Twain’s hat.

With that, Twain stood, and in a voice loud enough for all to hear, said, “Governor, that wasn’t necessary — I could have told you my hat wouldn’t fit before you tried it on.”

Let me be honest with you about my own experience with commencement addresses.

I’ve sat through dozens — although thankfully I have yet to sit on anybody else’s hat — but I can’t recall a single word or phrase from any one of those informed, inspirational and seemingly interminable addresses. Despite that, however, I think now, in looking back, that the president of my alma mater, St. John’s University, may have hit the mark when he once told me, “Having a commencement speaker serves the same purpose as the body at a Irish wake. It’s essential for the part, but you don’t expect it so say very much.” He could have added: “Nor do you want it to.”

Others wiser and more learned than I have decided there continues to be virtue in this tradition. So I will speak to you, but I will try not do delay you too long.

In view of the office I hold, I am expected, no doubt, to talk about politics and government — subjects that leave most people cold.

I’m used to that reaction. In fact, in the house I was raised in hear in Queens, a career in politics was considered more unthinkable than uninteresting.

My mother and father were immigrants, hard-working, illiterate people driven here by lack of opportunity. They struggled like most immigrants before and since, scrimping, sacrificing, saving.

And they dreamed the immigrants’ dream: that through their faith and perseverance they could one day make it possible for their children to grasp the full promise of America — education, a profession, status, success. I, like many of the others here today, was one of those children.

Raised up by my parent’s sacrifices, infused by their belief in America, clothed and fed and educate with the savings that — somehow — they managed to scrape together, I lived out their hopes. College. Law school. A family. A house. A successful law practice. My name in the newspapers. Even a book.

And then, in 1975, I decided to go into politics. My father couldn’t understand. At first, he was silent. He’d seen other men do strange things when they passed 40 and, I think he hoped politics was a phase I’d go through quickly.

When I persisted, he asked, “But why, Mario?”

“Because, Pa,” I said, “I’ve figured that this system has been good to us and I want to give something back. Besides, I want the best for my kids, and politics and government affect them, so I’m going into politics.”

“But, Mario,” my father replied, “all your life you’ve been honest.”

I’m afraid a lot of Americans still feel that way. If they don’t see politics as necessarily dishonest, then they often believe it is ineffective or useless.

Perhaps this would be easier to accept if you and I could resign ourselves to the believe that we — as individuals — don’t really make a difference because, after all, one vote and one life can’t really change things.

That would be easier, I suppose, than facing the responsibility we bear for one another.

But priests, rabbis, ministers, professors preach compassion at us. The voice of individual conscience keeps telling us we must care. Finally, the system of government we live under demands we care enough to get involved. Our system rewards involvement and punishes aloofness.

It gives the governed the chance to insist on intelligent, reasonable, sensible polices form their government, allow them to dismiss corrupt officials, to require that order be reconciled with justice, stability with opportunity, progress with compassion.

Americans of every generation have kept faith with the principle that ordinary people, born without high pedigree or great privilege, could govern themselves and give to each man and woman among us a reasonable measure of freedom, enjoyment, self-fulfillment.

But unless there is a new generation willing to take on the burdens of self-government, then the very rich will get richer, the poor will become fixed in their desperation, violence will increase, and the purpose of government will be reduced to maintaining order, no matter the cost in freedom, in justice, in lives.

You must be ready to step outside whatever niche you envision for yourselves and understand that awful range of moral, economic and political judgments that beset New York and the nation.

You must educate yourselves to those choices — and then you must help the system to make them.

Mario Cuomo is governor of New York. This article is excerpted from his commencement address at Queens College.