President Gerald R. Ford was the keynote speaker at the Tulane University Convocation in New Orleans, Louisiana on April 23, 1975. President Ford spoke to a packed house on the Opening of the Louisiana Superdome in 1975, the historical meaning for the country of winning the Battle of New Orleans against the British in 1815 and of wishing the Tulane “Green Wave” good luck beating the Louisiana State University “Tigers” in football later that year.
President Ford also outlined several domestic themes that the graduates would be facing as they left Tulane. President Ford spoke of the post-Vietnam War America which needed to not look back but move forward to better their country, that “the true source of American power, was the people’s belief in America” and challenged the engineering graduates to develop technologies to produce cheap, clean and plentiful energy.
President Ford historic quote: “We (America) can and we should help others to help themselves, but the fate of responsible men and women everywhere, and the final decision, rest in their own hands and not in ours”.
