President Kennedy's Address upon Receiving the Patriot of the Year Award at Notre Dame, February 22, 1957.
Senator John F. Kennedy received Notre Dame's Patriot pf the Year Award on Washington's Birthday, February 22, 1957, delivering a witty speech about the tumultuous final year of Washington's presidency: "In what may well have been his finest hour, in what may have served his country better than Valley Forge or the Philadelphia Convention, he chose to endure the abuse of his countrymen rather than risk needless danger for his country. He reluctantly submitted the Jay Treaty to the Senate, therefore, where it was approved without a single vote to spare." He concluded by urging the seniors present to enter public service: "Bear in mind, as you leave this university and consider the road ahead, not the sneers of the cynics or the fears of the purists, for whom politics will never be an attraction – but bear in mind instead these words which are inscribed behind the Speaker's desk high on the Chamber Wall of the United States House of Representatives, inscribed for all to see and all to remember, these words of the most famous statesman Massachusetts ever sent to the Halls of Congress, Senator Daniel Webster:
'Let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its power, build up its institutions, promote all its great interests and see whether we also, in our day and generation, may not perform something worth to be remembered.'"