A Lafayette High School junior, in a prize-winning oration, called upon all Americans to accept a personal responsibility to make the Declaration of Independence “a declaration against the apathy and self-satisfaction into which so many of us have fallen.”
Jeremy Taylor, 783 Potomac Ave., representing Buffalo Chapter, Sons of the American Revolution, and New York State in the National SAR historical oration contest in Memphis, Tenn., placed third and won $100. He said:
“In this troubled age of nuclear pollution and world-wide violence in which we live, so many concepts have been rendered obsolete by time and science that many people are inclined to think that the intense courage and devotion to principle exhibited by our forefathers is also a little out of date.
“But today, more than ever, unswerving devotion to our beliefs is the essential bulwark of democracy.”
Jeremy termed the Declaration of Independence “a living challenge” to Americans.
He contrasted the action of the men of 1776 who braved death for their ideals with the apathy prevailing in 1960. “Today we face only the stigma of non-conformity, yet how many of us have the courage of our convictions?” he asked.
“If the people of this nation had the strength of character to make the noble words of the Declaration of Independence a reality, we would have nothing to fear from communism,” he declared.
