375th Anniversary of Maryland Celebration
Historic St. Mary's City, Maryland
March 29, 2009
Dick Moe, thank you very, very much. Thank you for your leadership nationally and for your love of this place that matters, this place where we celebrate this Happy Birthday, 375 years in Maryland.
Beautiful weather here,… I want to thank President Miller and Majority Leader Hoyer for bringing the sun with them. We are so lucky to be able to have in the Congressional Delegation, a person of Steny Hoyer's stature and respect. When you walk the halls of the United States Capitol, you are really struck by just what a tremendous force he is in the halls of our nation. But, for as powerful as he is in Congress, it is also the deep love of this place that matters, of Southern Maryland, of St. Mary's, that he carries with him every single day. And for that, Majority Leader, I really want to thank you on behalf of all of the people of our State.
And President Miller, I don't think any Governor has ever had the honor to serve with a Senate President who has such a love of history as Senate President Miller does. He reminds me of this every day, and I'm always grateful for his mentoring, for his guidance and for the care that he takes of Maryland history and the reverence he has for it.
To President Jack Russell and the St. Mary's Board of Commissioners and to all of those individuals who have been recognized by prior speakers for your contributions to this place, for your belief in community, for your demonstration by your own actions that one person makes a difference, that each of us must try and that together we are stronger. I want to thank you for what you do to defend this place every day, in every way.
375th Anniversary of Maryland
It's great to be with you in St. Mary's County, this beautiful land to which the Ark and the Dove brought settlers in search of new life – and this place where the sixth grade class of the Chesapeake Public Charter School brought home the State Championship in the Middle School Hovercraft Engineering Challenge… there they are, the descendants of the Ark and the Dove.
It is great to be with you on this day also in this place where Native American people for thousands of years cared for this land, respected the beauty of God's creation, and did so mindful of the fact that we, in fact, did share this gift of creation, not just with one another in the here and now, but with future generations.
Today is a day of celebration and reflection, a day to celebrate not only the 375th Anniversary of our State, but also to reflect on the great heritage which still inspires us today; a heritage of democracy, a heritage of religious freedom, and a heritage of respect for the land and the air and the water and the beauty of God's creation in this beautiful place that we call Maryland. In spots like this where the eagle and the osprey fly, near to the face of God.
It is the heritage of people like Margaret Brent, of people like Mathias de Sousa, of Lord Baltimore and Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass,… of Edgar Allen Poe, of Francis Scott Key, of Paca, Carroll, Chase, and Stone, of F. Scott Fitzgerald, of Johns Hopkins and Matthew Henson, of Billie Holliday and Henrietta Szchold, of H.L. Mencken and Thurgood Marshall, of Mother Elizabeth Ann Seaton, and Mother Mary Lange.
The natural beauty of this land and water may well be the music that keeps us here, but it is our shared history that urges us forward. And it is that history, that legacy and that responsibility, that also urges us forward not just in easy times, but especially in times of great adversity.
It is that heritage that urges us forward as we make investments, even in tough times, to make, to create, to invest in creating the number one school system in America, to expand opportunity to more families, rather than fewer, by fighting to hold the line on college tuition in our State.
It is that heritage and that shared history which also urges us forward to reduce homicides in our State, to improve public safety in every corner of our State.
It is that shared heritage and history, that yearning, that responsibility to lead in times of great adversity, yes, that also leads us to invest in the protection of open space, even in tough times when some would say we cannot afford it. We, instead, say we cannot afford not to preserve the beauty of this place. And that is why we proudly invested in protecting the Jesuit properties for all times – the 4,478 acres, including 1,761 here in St. Mary’s County.
Conclusion
President Miller knows I'm fond of retelling the story of the Maryland 400, those individuals who, when Washington's Army was this close to annihilation, surrounded by the British in New York, instead of running away from that adversity, they ran into the face of that adversity. And they fought under a flag that had 13 stars and 13 stripes, but get this: the stars were arranged in a circle, but there was one star in the center and that star was us. And that star still is us. That middle State. That State around which other states rally in times of great adversity.
In a radio address honoring Maryland's 300th Anniversary, President Roosevelt said, and I quote, “Lord Baltimore and his colonists sought in their charter, liberty not alone for the members of the expedition, but for all later comers as well,… May we, in our own fights for things which we know to be right, fight as ably and as successfully as he did 300 years ago. For we have our own fights to wage not against the same foe which he beat down, but against other foes just as obstinate and just as powerful and just as intolerant of things we fight for today.”
So in our own here and now, as we face down common foes of recession and terrorism, and yes, racism, of poverty and pollution, of crime and the threat of decline, we too can draw strength from what they saw and what they strove for here. From that country, from that community that they held in their hearts.
And let us fight just as courageously, and let us fulfill our legacy and our responsibility to lead not in easy times, but in difficult times, with the faith and the knowledge that God wants every partial victory.
Thank you.
