The Rotarysburg Address

      Five score and three years ago our four founders brought forth a new concept of service, conceived in fellowship and dedicated to the propositions that all vocations have value, that every individual is entitled to a measure of dignity.

      Now we are engaged in a great struggle testing whether that concept or any concept so dedicated can long endure. We are met at Redondo Beach Rotary Club to review this struggle. We have come to celebrate our victories and rededicate our commitment. It is altogether fitting and proper that we do this.

      But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate - we cannot celebrate; that is for the blind who see, the deaf and the mute who hear and speak, the ill made well, the lame that walk, the misery vanquished, the friendships made, and the poor who have been given hope where before there was none - these events and countless others celebrate and consecrate THE SERVICE ABOVE SELF so unselfishly proffered.

      The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what we do here. It is for us Rotarians, rather, to be motivated here to our mission.

      It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task emaining before us - that from our honored deeds we take increased devotion to that cause for which all people thirst and hunger - true, lasting world peace and understanding - that we here highly resolve that our past deeds not die in vain, and that our service, under God, shall have continued vision, and that service of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from our hearts.