Press Release Archive: Remarks of Herman Wouk Upon Receipt of the Honorary Degree, Doctor of Letters

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Remarks of Herman Wouk Upon Receipt of the Honorary Degree,
Doctor of Letters

MR. WOUK: Thank you, President Trachtenberg, for that very consoling introduction. I use the word "consoling" exactly and let me tell you why. I speak particularly to the graduates. Mrs. Wouk and I have a home here in Washington, which we will never give up, but in recent years we've been spending most of our time out west in Palm Springs. You know of Palm Springs, of course. It is regarded far and wide as God's waiting room.

Time goes by very gently there and I am not very aware of the passage of the years, although looking at a commencement reminds me of how long it's been. But every now and then an event brings it up sharply to my mind. The last time Mrs. Wouk and I came back here, I went to a bookstore on Connecticut Avenue which we have used for many years. I picked up some books and told the clerk, charge it. He said: Yes, sir. It was a new clerk. What's the name? I said: Herman Wouk. Well, that clerk, his jaw dropped, his eyes popped, and all the blood drained from his face. I said to him: Are you all right? He said: I'm fine; I thought you were dead. (Laughter.)

That's why I say this is a consoling -- it was a citation that Trachtenberg gave, not an obituary. Well, I better get on to the commencement address. I talked to President Trachtenberg about length, a touchy subject, and I said: Well, I was thinking about seven minutes. He said: Well, that's pretty good; you can even go up a little bit. I said: Well, that's good, fine. He and I are both graduates of Columbia University. I said: I'm reassured because you remember Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler. Dr. Butler spoke very much longer than that. Trachtenberg said -- maybe I shouldn't repeat this, but it's true. Trachtenberg said: Nicholas Murray Butler, he couldn't clear his throat in seven minutes. (Laughter.)

That's kind of harsh on the illustrious dead. Dr. Butler was an eminent sage of political affairs. I'm not a sage at all. What I am is a storyteller and, having been engaged to give a so-called commencement address, I will tell you a story and point the moral and that will be all.

It's a simple story, sort of almost an Aesop's fable, although you wouldn't find it in Aesop. It's the story of a mouse, a mother mouse with three baby mice who found their way into an empty house foraging for food. After a while, the mother mouse found in a cupboard a rich, big cheese. So she got her children together quickly, went into that cupboard, and they were feasting on that cheese when she heard the door open a crack, and there was a huge, furry face of a cat with its ears pinned back in the hunting pose and blazing eyes.

There was no way to get past that cat. It filled the space. In utter desperation, the mother mouse reared back and said: Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof. Now, of course the cat fled for its life. The mother turned to the children and said: Now, my dears, you see the advantage of having a second language. (Laughter.)

The second language, graduates, is my simple theme, and I am addressing you in talking about it. All of you have two languages, and I speak now when I say a second language not of the French or Spanish or German that you're presumed to have when you graduate from a university. Here's what I'm speaking about. There is a language of the moment and there is a language of your origins, of your tradition. The language of the moment needs no great description. It pours at you from the television, it shows up on the Internet. It's the language of daily discourse and it is the language in which you were talking as you came today about what you were going to do next, what jobs you're applying for, what schools you are hoping to get into. That's the language of the moment.

The language of your origins is the language of your family: where you came from, what your traditions are. That's the most rewarding in the long run, the language to which you will turn. I will not be rained out. I will finish what I have to say. (Laughter and applause.)

The language of tradition, the language of your grandfathers and your mothers and your family, because all of us almost are immigrants or descended from immigrants. There's a fallacy and a metaphor of the melting pot. I don't refer to what's happening at the moment. I mean the melting pot in which America is supposed to absorb and diffuse your origins so that you more or less forget them. I urge you to hang onto that second language, because you will find in the great moments of your lives, in the deep moments of your lives -- the birth of a child, the falling in love, the marriage, the confronting of a catastrophe or a death -- the language of the moment falls silent. It's inadequate to it.

The language of origins, the language of tradition, rises up from your taproots to deal with those moments of strain and stress in all our lives. Very briefly, here's how it affects me. In Palm Springs every morning I try to get out there just before the dawn. As the sun rises, before it comes over the hill, it touches with red the mountain ridge opposite my home, and I make the blessing: Blessed art thou, Lord our God, maker of the works of creation. It's supposed to be said when you see a shooting star, an eclipse, or similar marvel. But what is more marvelous than each new day that comes, when this tiny planet of ours turns 24 hours and that new day comes for you to live?

You are entering a new day. I wish you Godspeed and, reverting for the moment to the language of the moment, the ultimate language of the movies: Get out there and kill 'em, get out there and knock 'em dead, get out there and win. (Applause and end of commencement address.)

-- GW --