FOLLOWING IS THE TEXT OF A SPEECH PREPARED FOR DELIVERY BY VICE PRESIDENT WALTER F. MONDALE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000200010107-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 22, 2007
• Sequence Number: 107
• Publication Date: September 18, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2007/03/22 : CIA-RDP99-00498R000200010107-4
STAT V y
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OFFICE OF THE VICE PRESIDENT'S PRESS SECRTAR
FOR RELEASE UPON DELIVERY (APPROX. 1:00 PM CDT) 'llfr
(Please check text against delivery.) Septe
KANSAS CITY, Mo., Sept. 18--Following is the text of a speech prepared for
delivery by Vice President WeIter F. MondaIe at the KANSAS CITY STAR's Centennial
Luncheon at the Radisson Muehlebach Hotel here.
Today we celebrate not just the founding of a remarkable newspaper. We celebrate
the values of a great people.
One hundred years ago, when William Rockhill Nelson arrived in Kansas City and set
up his printing press, he found a cowboy town with streets of mud. He discovered a
society that was wide open; a land that was raw and wild; a people restless and impa-
tient.
William Nelson set out to tame this city, and over the years he succeeded. He
built your beautiful parks and broad boulevards. He called for street lights and paved
thoroughfares. He struck at monopoly in business and corruption in government.
But even as the citizens of Kansas City rounded the rough edges of frontier life,
theypreserved and strengthened the heartland values of America. They took the independent
spirit of the settlers, and built with it one of the most vigorous, most probing, most
respected newspapers in the country. They took the faith of Samuel Clemens and forever
committed this city to civil rights for all. They stayed true to the honest, stubborn
and proud habits of their forebears -- and gave America one of our most decent and coura-
geous Presidents ever, Harry Truman.
One of your Congressmen put it this way nearly a century ago: "Frothy eloquence
neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me."
Before a citizen here trusts his government, government has to earn that trust.
Before he believes anything you tell him, you must show him why it is so.
That proud skepticism describes the Missouri character. It is priceless. It is
why people here have insisted on their right to a newspaper as open and informative and
free as the Kansas City Star.
William Nelson wanted to build the best paper in the'world. It should cost so
little that everyone could afford to buy it. It should probe so well that government
would fear its wrath. It should be so committed to good writing that William Allen
White and Ernest Hemingway could learn the art of their craft in these newsrooms. And
they did.
Nelson worked at getting his newspaper out every day as if his life depended on it.
He presided over the lay-out. He chose the illustrations. He leaned against the type-
cases and watched as the pages were put together. He controlled every single thing
about his paper except one -- the liberty of his newsmen and women.
As William Allen White said:
Every man on the paper -- in the advertising department, the
circulation department, the news department, the editorial
room -- was convinced in his own absolute freedom, the right
to express himself unhampered, except by the truth as he saw it.