Publication information
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Source: Proceedings of the 15th Annual Convention of the Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools of the Middle States and Maryland, 1901
Source type: book
Document type: public address
Document title: none
Author(s): Colgate, James C.
Publisher: University of the State of New York
Place of publication: Albany, New York
Year of publication: 1903
Pagination: 67-74 (excerpt below includes only page 71)

 
Citation
Colgate, James C. [untitled]. Proceedings of the 15th Annual Convention of the Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools of the Middle States and Maryland, 1901. Albany: University of the State of New York, 1903: pp. 67-74.
 
Transcription
excerpt
 
Keywords
James C. Colgate (public addresses); freedom of speech.
 
Named persons
William McKinley.
 
Notes
This proceedings appears in the March 1902 (no. 57) issue of Regents Bulletin, the entirety of which is appended to the University of the State of New York’s 116th Annual Report of the Regents. Colgate’s full remarks are part of a larger panel discussion titled “Freedom of Speech in Connection with Education” (pp. 49-86) that transpired on 29 November 1901.

From title page: Held at Syracuse University, Syracuse, N. Y. Friday and Saturday 29-30 Nov. 1901.
 
Document

 

[untitled] [excerpt]

     The recent assassination of Pres. McKinley has served perhaps to bring home to the American people the truth that the term freedom of speech needs some wise definition and some careful limitations. The highest form of liberty comes not where every right is emphasized but is rather the careful balancing of all kinds of rights. You have rights, I have rights; our rights may conflict; neither one of us will claim that our liberty is curtailed—our real liberty, because each of us must give up some of our original rights. I do not feel when I live in New York that I am under a tyrannic form of government because I can not dump my ashes on the asphalt in front of my door. Why should we not apply this same principle to freedom of speech? When it comes to real freedom of speech, the opportunity for every man to say the right thing at suitable times and in proper places, I yield to no one in its defense. I hold that the life of our universities and all their value depends on the proper safeguarding of freedom of speech; but there is a great difference between the terms “freedom of speech” and the “right to talk.”

 

 


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