Transcript on free speech and free thought from the 1942 movie The Male Animal with Henry Fonda.
Now if the class will come to order, please.
Last Friday, if you remember, I happened to mention that I wanted to read you three letters written by men whose profession was not literature, but who had something sincere to say.
Once I declared that harmless intention, the world began to shake, great institutions trembled and football players descended upon me and my wife. I realized then that I was doing something important.
The men whose letters I picked were Abraham Lincoln, General Sherman, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Initially, I chose Vanzetti to show that even broken English can sometimes be very moving and eloquent.
Oppressor: “This isn’t just about broken English, it’s more than that.”
Hester, you’ve made it more than that.
Oppressor: “Well, Vanzetti was an anarchist. He was convicted…”
Thomas Quincy was an opium eater, and Edgar Allen Poe was a drunkard. And Carl Marks was a communist. I’m not advocating opium or alcohol or communism or anarchy. And if I were, you’d have a perfect right to remove me.
This was supposed to be a class in English composition, and I am saying that I have a right to read any great writings regardless of their authors’ personal habits or political opinions.
Oppressor: “And I still say it’s a dangerous thing to bring up?”
No, sir. It’s a dangerous thing to keep down on if you wanna make that political all right. I’m fighting for teachers’ rights and students’ rights and the rights of everybody in this land. You can’t suppress ideas, Mr. Keller, just because you don’t like them. Nobody can. Not in this country. Not yet.
This is not about Vanzetti. It’s, not a question of whether he was guilty or innocent. It’s about us. This is a university. We’re teachers, and it’s our business to be impartial. To bring what light we can into this muddled world to try to follow the truth.
And if I can’t read this letter today if it must be suppressed before you even heard what it is, tomorrow none of us will be able to read anything or teach anything except what Edward K. Keller and the trustees permit us to teach. And you know where that leads and where it has led in other places.
We hold the fortress of free thought and free speech in this place this afternoon, and if we surrender to prejudice and dictation, we’re cowards. I have no idea what started all this. I don’t know quite how I got into this fight. I’m not a politician. I have nothing personally to gain by reading this letter. And there’s little more that I can lose. I only know I have to read it.