Just before I entered Monmouth, a seemingly minor incident changed my perception of what opportunities we can take for granted, and that’s the other story I’d like to share with you today, because the message it gave me is even more relevant today. I was 18 and spending my third summer working for a Del Monte cannery in the little town where I grew up, Rochelle, Illinois, about 75 miles west of Chicago.

Nearly every high school kid in town worked at one of the two Del Monte canneries in Rochelle during the summer packing season—which goes from June to October—canning peas, corn, beans and pumpkins. When it was hot and the crops were maturing rapidly, we could work 18-hour days, sometimes for many days in a row. Even working at the minimum wage, we could earn enough in the summer to pay for a significant part of our college expenses; that is, if family circumstance even made college an option.

Migrant workers were the main working force at the canneries. They returned every year to the same summer jobs from their shantytown winter homes in the hills of Tennessee, Kentucky and Appalachia. Most had received little schooling and were illiterate. As a result, the migrant workers—many old enough to be our fathers—depended on the high school kids to some degree. For example, every payday I went to the pay window with my co-workers to sign as a witness to each one’s “X,” so they could receive and cash their checks without signature.

At the beginning of my third summer at the cannery, a pleasant, middle-aged migrant worker, who had worked with me during the previous two summers, arrived again. This time he brought his son, Sam, with him. Sam had just turned 16, the minimum legal age to work at the cannery. Although Sam had received little or no schooling and was nearly illiterate, he was very bright. We soon became good friends and I taught him to drive a car that summer during our work breaks.

One hot day in August, Sam and I were sitting on the steps of the cafeteria drinking coffee and hoping it would keep us awake during one of those long days. I had received a scholarship to Monmouth and started telling Sam all about it, including my aspiration to become an engineer or scientist, although that still seemed a rather unrealistic dream then. After going on and on enthusiastically, I finally looked at Sam and stopped at mid-sentence. He looked so sad. Finally, he turned to me and said, “Yeah, and I’ll be right here…the rest of my life.” He quickly got up and walked into the cafeteria, but I saw tears in his eyes before he could turn away. I was then, and I still am, absolutely horrified of my insensitivity that day.

A few days later, I left for Monmouth and the great adventure that lay before me. Sam came over, cheerfully wished me good luck, and waved goodbye. I never saw him again. Already, at age 16, the culture and economic system he had been born into had left him behind. He knew it and so did I.

Sam has haunted me ever since, because he made me realize how truly privileged I am. And that goes for virtually all of us gathered here today. We are among those who have the opportunity to do whatever we want to do…a privileged minority even in this wealthiest of nations, which promises but does not deliver equality of opportunity. Sam also made me realize that it’s up to the privileged to make that promise more real for those not so privileged.

Today, the bar for entry into the realm of real opportunity has been set much higher than it was in Sam’s day. In our knowledge-based economy, one almost has to achieve the milestone that you graduates are celebrating today to enjoy full equality of opportunity. A high school graduate can clear the bar, but it’s a lot harder. Did you know that less than one-third of the 14-year-old students who enter American high schools hold a baccalaureate degree 12 years later at age 26? Two-thirds are being left behind. That’s what I mean when I say we here today truly are a privileged minority group. Moreover, we live and work with others from our privileged class, conveniently isolated from a huge number being left behind, making the problem largely invisible to us. How many high school dropouts do you encounter and know by name in your daily work or social routine?

So how could we help more people participate in the kind of opportunity we enjoy? We must do so, not only for the obvious moral reasons, but for practical reasons, too. The estimated cost to our economy of those left behind due to lost productivity, higher crime rates and higher health care costs is $500 billion annually. And the problem is getting worse. In the United States, the rich are getting richer, often aided by government policies promoted by the privileged people who are in control. The poor are getting poorer.

The history majors among you know that such a divergence of classes, with a diminishing middle class, often has been characteristic of a nation in decline. We must reverse the trend. One traditional answer, of course, is charity. Some successful young entrepreneurs, like my guest-cottage Kiva founders, as well as better-known ones like Bill Gates, are reinventing the way charitable organizations work by applying proven business principles. That’s a good start.

Others advocate socialism in one form or another, but that really doesn’t work. Socialism tends to drag down the top two-thirds of the population to help the bottom third. To paraphrase a famous remark by Winston Churchill, capitalism is the worst economic system ever invented, except for all the others. After all, President Ditzler and my fellow trustees here are smiling today partly because they know that capitalism and free enterprise someday will make many of you major donors to Monmouth College.

But without some kind of checks and balances, capitalism has an inherent tendency to let the privileged grow more privileged while the underprivileged fall farther behind. You’ve probably heard the statistic that chief executives of corporations today, on average, make 400 times the compensation of their companies’ average employee—not the employee most poorly paid. Just one generation ago, that ratio was 20. We who preceded you have failed to curb the trend to divide the country into ever more diverse classes of haves and have-nots. I hope your generation, represented by you as college graduates, will impose reforms that make capitalism and free enterprise work better for everyone, not just the privileged minority, because the future truly depends on it. Ultimately, such growing inequalities will destroy the privileged along with the underprivileged if the trend isn’t reversed.

So what does this mean for you 2007 graduates? Despite my advanced billing, what I said today certainly isn’t rocket science, and I’ll bet you’re glad of that. After all, the conclusions drawn from my experiences aren’t new. Most of us learn them sooner or later. But the challenge for you will be to apply the concepts taught by your experiences and those of others in your daily life. If you 2007 graduates can do that, many of your dreams will be fulfilled, just as mine were. With that in mind, I’d like to leave you with these thoughts to consider as you approach the great adventures that lie ahead for you:

First, you leave Monmouth College today well prepared for the complex world that you’re entering. Be confident that you can do whatever you want to do, because it’s true, and confidence is half the battle.

Second, one person really can make a difference in the lives of others. Find a way to use your abilities and knowledge to make a difference for some people who, in turn, will make a difference for others.

Third, learning is fun and stimulating. It makes you grow. If you’re not learning new things all the time, change what you’re doing.

And fourth, change is the partner of progress. There’s a natural human tendency to avoid what we don’t know in favor of sticking with what we know. Try to overcome that tendency in favor of tackling something new. If you have a job that’s boring and not fun, you’re probably learning nothing and should change jobs to get on the fast track.

And finally, recognize and appreciate that you’re already part of a small group of the most privileged people in the world. That privilege carries the responsibility to help the majority, who were born into far less favorable family, cultural and economic circumstances and are being left behind. You can’t insure a great outcome for them, but they deserve the opportunity to create such an outcome for themselves—the opportunity that’s yours today.

Get involved, give them a hand, start some cascades, and maybe you’ll grow a tree of cascades for others, with many branches. Good luck graduates. Godspeed, and may your dreams come true.

Information about Care2 and Kiva, the two Internet-based organizations mentioned by Dr. Marxman in his address, can be found at the following sites: www.care2.org www.kiva.org