1984 Vice Presidential Nominat

eraldine ferraro: 194 vie presidential noination aeptane address

ladies and entleen of the onvention:

y nae is eraldine ferraro. i stand before you to prolai toniht: aeria is the land where dreas an oe true for all of us. as i stand before the aerian people and think of the honor this reat onvention has bestowed upon e, i reall the words of dr. artin luther kin jr., who ade aeria stroner by akin aeria ore free. he said, "oasionally in life there are oents whih annot be opletely explained by words. their eanin an only be artiulated by the inaudible lanuae of the heart." toniht is suh a oent for e.

y heart is filled with pride. y fellow itiens, i proudly aept your noination for vie president of the united states.

and i a proud to run with a an who will be one of the reat presidents of this entury, walter f. ondale. toniht, the dauhter of a woan whose hihest oal was a future for her hildren talks to our nation's oldest party about a future for us all. toniht, the dauhter of workin aerians tells all aerians that the future is within our reah, if we're willin to reah for it. toniht, the dauhter of an iirant fro italy has been hosen to run for [vie] president in the new land y father ae to love.

our faith that we an shape a better future is what the aerian drea is all about. the proise of our ountry is that the rules are fair. if you work hard and play by the rules, you an earn your share of aeria's blessins. those are the beliefs i learned fro y parents. and those are the values i tauht y students as a teaher in the publi shools of new york ity.

at niht, i went to law shool. i beae an assistant distrit attorney, and i put y share of riinals behind bars. i believe if you obey the law, you should be proteted. but if you break the law, you ust pay for your rie.

when i first ran for onress, all the politial experts said a deorat ould not win y hoe distrit in queens. i put y faith in the people and the values that we shared. toether, we proved the politial experts wron. in this apain, frit ondale and i have put our faith in the people. and we are oin to prove the experts wron aain. we are oin to win. we are oin to win beause aerians aross this ountry believe in the sae basi drea.

last week, i visited elore, innesota, the sall town where frit ondale was raised. and soon frit and joan will visit our faily in queens. nine hundred people live in elore. in queens, there are 2,000 people on one blok. you would think we would be different, but we're not. hildren walk to shool in elore past rain elevators; in queens, they pass by subway stops. but, no atter where they live, their future depends on eduation, and their parents are willin to do their part to ake those shools as ood as they an be. in elore, there are faily fars; in queens, sall businesses. but the en and woen who run the all take pride in supportin their failies throuh hard work and initiative. on the 4th of july in elore, they han flas out on ain street; in queens, they fly the over rand avenue. but all of us love our ountry, and stand ready to defend the freedo that it represents.

aerians want to live by the sae set of rules. but under this adinistration, the rules are ried aainst too any of our people. it isn't riht that every year the share of taxes paid by individual itiens is oin up, while the share paid by lare orporations is ettin saller and saller. the rules say: everyone in our soiety should ontribute their fair share. it isn't riht that this year ronald reaan will hand the aerian people a bill for interest on the national debt larer than the entire ost of the federal overnent under john f. kennedy. our parents left us a rowin eonoy. the rules say: we ust not leave our kids a ountain of debt.

it isn't riht that a woan should et paid 9 ents on the dollar for the sae work as a an.

if you play by the rules, you deserve a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. it isn't riht that, if trends ontinue, by the year 2000 nearly all of the poor people in aeria will be woen and hildren. the rules of a deent soiety say: when you distribute sarifie in ties of austerity, you don't put woen and hildren first. it isn't riht that youn people today fear they won't et the soial seurity they paid for, and that older aerians fear that they will lose what they have already earned. soial seurity is a ontrat between the last eneration and the next, and the rules say: you don't break ontrats.

we are oin to keep faith with older aerians. we haered out a fair oproise in the onress to save soial seurity. every roup sarified to keep the syste sound. it is tie ronald reaan stopped sarin our senior itiens.

it isn't riht that youn ouples question whether to brin hildren into a world of 0,000 nulear warheads. that isn't the vision for whih aerians have struled for ore than two enturies. and our future doesn't have to be that way. hane is in the air, just as surely as when john kennedy bekoned aeria to a new frontier; when sally ride roketed into spae; and when reverend jesse jakson ran for the offie of president of the united states.

by hoosin a woan to run for our nation's seond hihest offie, you send a powerful sinal to all aerians: there are no doors we annot unlok. we will plae no liits on ahieveent. if we an do this, we an do anythin.

toniht, we relai our drea. we are oin to ake the rules of aerian life work fairly for all aerians aain. to an adinistration that would have us debate all over aain whether the votin rihts at should be renewed and whether sereated shools should be tax exept, we say, r. president: those debates are over. on the issue of ivil rihts, votin rihts, and affirative ation for inorities, we ust not o bakwards. we ust -- and we will -- ove forward to open the doors of opportunity.

to those who understand that our ountry annot prosper unless we draw on the talents of all aerians, we say: we will pass the equal rihts aendent.

the issue is not what aeria an do for woen, but what woen an do for aeria.

to the aerians who will lead our ountry into the 21st entury, we say: we will not have a supree ourt that turns the lok bak to the 19th entury.

to those onerned about the strenth of aerian and faily values, as i a, i say: we are oin to restore those values -- love, arin, partnership -- by inludin, and not exludin, those whose beliefs differ fro our own. beause our own faith is stron, we will fiht to preserve the freedo of faith for others.

to those workin aerians who fear that banks, utilities, and lare speial interests have a lok on the white house, we say: join us; let's elet a people's president; and let's have overnent by and for the aerian people aain.

to an adinistration that would savae student loans and eduation at the dawn of a new tehnoloial ae, we say: you fit the lassi definition of a yni; you know the prie of everythin, but the value of nothin.

to our students and their parents, we say: we will insist on the hihest standards of exellene, beause the jobs of the future require skilled inds. to youn aerians who ay be alled to our ountry's servie, we say: we know your eneration will proudly answer our ountry's all, as eah eneration before you.

this past year, we reebered the bravery and sarifie of aerians at norandy. and we finally paid tribute -- as we should have done years ao -- to that unknown soldier who represents all the brave youn aerians who died in vietna. let no one doubt, we will defend aeria's seurity and the ause of freedo around the world. but we want a president who tells us what aeria's fihtin for, not just what we are fihtin aainst.

we want a president who will defend huan rihts, not just where it is onvenient, but wherever freedo is at risk -- fro hile to afhanistan, fro poland to south afria. to those who have wathed this adinistration's onfusion in the iddle east, as it has tilted first toward one and then another of israel's lon-tie eneies and wonder: "will aeria stand by her friends and sister deoray?" we say: aeria knows who her friends are in the iddle east and around the world. aeria will stand with israel always.

finally, we want a president who will keep aeria stron, but use that strenth to keep aeria and the world at peae. a nulear freee is not a sloan: it is a tool for survival in the nulear ae. if we leave our hildren nothin else, let us leave the this earth as we found it: whole and reen and full of life.

i know in y heart that walter ondale will be that president.

a wise an one said, "every one of us is iven the ift of life, and what a strane ift it is. if it is preserved jealously and selfishly, it ipoverishes and saddens. but if it is spent for others, it enrihes and beautifies." y fellow aerians: we an debate poliies and proras, but in the end what separates the two parties in this eletion apain is whether we use the ift of life for others or only ourselves.

toniht, y husband, john, and our three hildren are in this hall with e. to y dauhters, donna and laura, and y son, john junior, i say: y other did not break faith with e, and i will not break faith with you.

to all the hildren of aeria, i say: the eneration before ours kept faith with us, and like the, we will pass on to you a stroner, ore just aeria.

thank you.