By Congressman Paul Findley

Senior Republican on the House of Representatives Subcommittee on the Middle East

Speech at Illinois College on September 18, 2005

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To explain my wrinkles, I admit that my first convocation lecture at Illinois College occurred forty years ago, twenty years before most of you were born. Wow! The march of years!

The college offered me the same privilege perhaps a dozen times since, but this time I invited myself. I did so because I have a message arising from the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and another I learned sixty-five years ago from Joe Patterson Smith, a blind Illinois College professor. Both messages, I believe, are vitally important to everyone in this chamber.