Immediately after graduation, the road gets rougher. The near future for most of us means a job. We must start earning our own way. Some of us plan to go to college, but education past high school costs money. Even the so-called free education at the University of California costs a good deal. Some of us are planning marriage, where—to correct an old adage—two cannot live as cheaply as one. A few of us, however, are going to avoid the trap of having to get a job. These are the men graduates who don’t plan on going to college. The Army is going to take care of them for a couple of years. In any case, the sanctuary known as Nordhoff High School is no longer available to us.

But the problems of the near future are trivial indeed when compared to those of the more distant future. This is the generation that will shape the 21st century. In the year 2000 the average age of today’s graduates will be 51. In the 32 years remaining in this century, we will determine whether the next is a Golden Age or a Dark Age. After a brief glimpse of what we must do, I can only conclude by quoting Mr. Landon: “There’s trouble in River City.” Let us look at three of our tasks.

Crime is a major and growing concern in the U.S. A survey made by the President’s Crime Commission revealed that in certain areas of Chicago and Boston 43% of those surveyed stayed off the street at night, and that 20% wanted to move to a different neighborhood. Last year the reported crime rate went up 11%. These statistics are shocking, but of more concern to us is who commits the most crimes. Half of those arrested in 1965 for serious offenses were under 18. One boy in every six will be arrested for a non-traffic violation before he reaches the age of 18. And the problem will get worse because one fourth of our population is under ten years old. By the year 2000 the problem will be intolerable if nothing is done. What can we do? We can and must eliminate some of the sources of crime. The ghettoes of the inner city, where crime is the rule rather than the exception, must be improved. We must see that every person has an adequate education so that he may get a constructive, meaningful job. We must see that those who want jobs get them. In a more personal approach, we must try to instill in each of our children, through the schools, the churches, and at home, a sense of belonging to the society in which they live. And most important, we must make our society worth our children’s allegiance. If we can accomplish all that, then, perhaps, the crime rate will go down.

We graduates are lucky in one respect, however. The President has appointed a commission to study crime. Some of our other problems are seemingly no closer to a solution than they were a thousand years ago.

If we are to simply survive until the 21st century, we have to somehow realize that age-old dream of ending war. The Vietnam War provides a classic case of what we must avoid. Vietnam is—or was—a small Asian country of little consequence to anyone except those who live there. A few years ago, in 1954, to be exact, two peasant groups with different ideas as to how things should be done started fighting for power. That sort of war has been going on since the second man. but this is the age of super powers with the ability to instantly destroy each other. Each of the two giants, with the aid of a third country that is about to become a super power, rushed to the aid of its favorite side. The war got bigger and bigger and soon the small Asian country no longer mattered. The war was simply a massive game of “chicken” in which neither side had the courage to back down. Each side hoped—and still hopes, unfortunately—to make the other side give up. But neither side does, and the war gets still bigger. This war may end in compromise, but what about the next, and the next, and the next? Someday one of the super powers may give in to its blind obsession for saving face and use the ultimate weapon. That country, of course, will be destroyed, but the rest of the world will be destroyed with it. We must see that that situation never occurs. But how? Does the answer lie in disarmament? If so, how can we persuade the countries involved to give up their most powerful weapon, and who is going to police them to make sure no one cheats? Maybe the answer lies in strengthening the United Nations. But is the world ready to give up nationalism in favor of internationalism? I don’t know the answer; nobody does. But we are going to have to find it.

Suppose, then, for a moment, that we achieve the impossible, that we end war. W still face a more impossible task: keeping the world from starving to death. Thomas Malthus in 1798 wrote that only three things check population: war, disease, and famine. If we put an end to war, and if medical techniques continue to eliminate disease, famine can be the only result. Today there are 3.3 billion people, and 1.7 billion of those are close to starvation. By the year 2000 there will be more than 6.6 billion. To combat this problem, we must fight on two fronts. First we should begin an intensive program of improving the world’s farming methods. Most of the world’s farmers do not use even the simplest products such as fertilizer and hybrid seeds which could easily double their yields. Those changes, however, take time. People don’t change over night. In the mean time, the U.S. and the nine other countries that produce more food than they consume must increase their production to help feed the other countries while they catch up. Our second front should be a campaign to reduce man’s tendency to destroy himself through unchecked reproduction. Birth control must be an integral part of any program to head off worldwide famine. These facts are well known, but it is ironic the virtually no one has done anything about them. Senator George McGovern, first director of the Food for Peace program, said in Look magazine, “Horrified historians may record that as the world sped on a collision course with starvation its great powers fiddled with a war in Vietnam, a crisis in Berlin, a contest in arsenal building, and a race to the moon.” And another expert in this field, Dr. Binay R. Sen, Director-General of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, said of this problem what could be equally applied to all the world’s problems: “The next 35 years...will be...a most critical period in man’s history.” Guess who will be in charge of things during the next 35 years.

So there it is, fellow graduates; there is the world we are “escaping” into. For twelve years—a very short time in view of what we have to accomplish—we’ve been preparing for this “great escape.” I hope, and I trust, that with the diploma we accept tonight, we will successfully accept the responsibility of facing and solving these and the endless other problems that will present themselves, for if we don’t, who will?

Thank you.