Excerpts from a Convention Speech, 1940

Editor’s Note: During the 1940 Democratic Convention, Eleanor Roosevelt was asked to speak. It marked the first time a first lady addressed a convention, and her brief, unscripted remarks reaffirmed the need to think of the country as a whole. CivicStory’s goal in posting excerpts from this short speech text is to highlight inspired civic language; we’ve bolded our favorite examples. The full text of Eleanor Roosevelt’s speech can be found here. [Pronouns are updated.]

Delegates to the convention, visitors, friends: It is a great pleasure for me to be here and to have an opportunity to say a word to you... I know and you know that anyone who is in an office of great responsibility today faces a heavier responsibility, perhaps, than anyone has ever faced before in this country. 

Therefore, to be a candidate of either great political party is a very serious and a very solemn thing. You cannot treat it as you would treat an ordinary nomination in an ordinary time. You will have to rise above considerations which are narrow and partisan. You must know that this is the time when all good men and women give every bit of service and strength to their country that they have to give. 

This is no ordinary time. No time for weighing anything except what we can best do for the country as a whole, and that responsibility rests on each and every one of us as individuals.

No one who is a candidate…can carry this situation alone. This is only carried by a united people who love their country and who will live for it to the fullest of their ability, with the highest ideals…devoted to the good of the nation as a whole, and to doing what this country can to bring the world to a safer and happier condition.