--- title: Chris Matthews Commencement Address at Saint Mary’s College of California description: Chris Matthews gave this commencement address at Saint Mary’s College of California canonical: https://time.com/collections/advice-for-2015-grads/3895685/chris-matthews-commencement-address/ article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-05-25T19:28:03.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:26:11.224Z og:title: Chris Matthews Commencement Address at Saint Mary’s College of California og:description: Chris Matthews gave this commencement address at Saint Mary’s College of California og:url: https://time.com/collections/advice-for-2015-grads/3895685/chris-matthews-commencement-address/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt42fd3d9b5cba0178/6988518b3c1639be1f4580bf/chris-matthews.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Chris Matthews Commencement Address at Saint Mary’s College of California og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Chris Matthews Commencement Address at Saint Mary’s College of California twitter:description: Chris Matthews gave this commencement address at Saint Mary’s College of California twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt42fd3d9b5cba0178/6988518b3c1639be1f4580bf/chris-matthews.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- May 25, 2015 # Chris Matthews to Grads: 'Make Them Say No. Never Say No to Yourself' > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. ## Video: Chris Matthews: Commencement 2015 - Saint Mary's College of California [Watch (HLS stream): Chris Matthews: Commencement 2015 - Saint Mary's College of California](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/LEOz3E7b.m3u8) (32:09)  _Published 2015-05-25. Chris Matthews: Commencement 2015 - Saint Mary's College of California_ by [Chris Matthews](https://time.com/author/chris-matthews/) ## Chris Matthews  Chris Matthews attends the "TIME 100 Gala, TIME's 100 Most Influential People In The World" at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City. Chris Matthews attends the "TIME 100 Gala, TIME's 100 Most Influential People In The World" at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City. LAN—Corbis President Donahue, Christian Brothers, other members of the faculty, my friend Frank Howard, graduates and families of the class of 2015\. By the way, is this February? I was told to bring sunscreen and sunglasses. It’s great to be back at beautiful Saint Mary’s College! I want to tell you right up front, that those speeches that you just heard, including the invocation – I think it was the best invocation I’ve ever heard – were pretty short, and I’m going to be pretty short. As the great Henry VIII of England said to each of his seven wives, “I won’t keep you long.” Before anything else, I want to say two words to the Christian Brothers here today: Thank you. Thank you for your dedication to students like me, for how you educated us, for your quiet, yes, humility – Yes, I had the Jesuits as well, – and for being more impressed with the young people you teach, more than you are with yourselves. As a Brother’s Boy, I know what I’m talking about. So thank you all Brothers, thank you all. And congratulations to the Gaels men’s rugby team for back-to-back national championships! Let me tell a little side story about the first Christmas you may not hear or remember from your catechisms. It’s an important part of the story. Saint Joseph on the real Christmas Eve arrives at the inn, and the innkeeper is not a nice fellow. And he tells the innkeeper, “I really need a room. My wife’s pregnant.” And the innkeeper says, “Sorry no rooms.” And St. Joseph tries again and says “But she is really pregnant “ And the innkeeper says, “Sorry, not my faulty.” And St. Josephs says, in words you will never forget, “It’s not my faulty either.” Well here you are graduating and most of your life you had it all figured out. You go from first grade to second grade, and you make it to 12th grade and then go from freshman, sophomore, juniors, and seniors in high school and then you do it all over again. And it’s really easy, because you can always know what is coming next. And now, you poor S.O.B.’s. You don’t know what’s next, do you? A couple of you guys think you have it all figured out. “I’m going to go to med school. I got it all figured out.” Yeah, right. “I’m going to be a lawyer, if I can find a law firm that is still around.” Just kidding, no I am not. I like it when the people who have it all figured out, don’t have it figured out. Now you are facing terra incognito, the uncharted waters where there is just the abyss in front of you and you have to figure things out. So what I have did today, really, so that no one will ever accuse me of repeating a graduation, speech, a commencement address, is that I have actually written a brand new speech. Okay. Yes, just for Saint Mary’s, just for the Brothers. I’ll do it anything. And what I want to talk about for just a few minutes is the strange part of life, which is that you can’t predict it, and the things you do in life really blow your mind. Especially, when you look back over them and say, “Did I do that?” And you have probably have done some of that stuff. Now I want to talk about jobs. I made a list a list of all the jobs I have ever since being in grade school at St. Christopher’s, and before that at Maternity BVM. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve had all these all these jobs. And you guys and girls, women, have had these jobs already. My first was altar Boy. I can certainly remember the scary parts about being an altar boy. Convent Mass! Now there was a beauty. You knock on the convent door five minutes before six in the morning. A sister greets you and takes you to the chapel. You put on your cassock, go out to light the candles – all the time averting your glance from the specter before you: the sisters you know all too well from school kneeling there in the dark. It’s an image to last a lifetime. The Sisters and Mary, together at dawn! Then there was Byberry Hospital. St. Christopher’s, our parish, just happens to include the largest mental institution in Pennsylvania. It was quite an experience heading there on a Sunday morning not knowing what to expect. There were patterns, like how the patients would show up for the Protestant service then stick around for the Mass. They saw it as a spiritual “double feature.” One of the altar boy’s jobs, back in those days, was to give a little card to each patient who went to confession. Then, at communion time you took the card back. I remember one guy who had a habit of using the card to keep his place in his missal. When he came in from communion, I would pull it out. Each time, I was causing this poor fellow to lose his place. I remember thinking at the time, who had the problem: this person who had the good sense to put that card we gave him to good use or the people who dreamed up with this card system in the first place. Paper Boy! I had a very large route delivering the old afternoon Philadelphia Bulletin. I delivered it the day after John F. Kennedy won the presidency. I remember the headline on the front page. The hard part was collecting on Fridays. I dreaded it. I don’t know where some people would hide. And I would come to the houses and all the screen doors would be open and no one would answer the bell. I admit it had me making judgments about people. Were they hiding in the basement? By my senior year at La Salle, I got a real newspaper job as the assistant editor of our school newspaper. If there is anyone here that worked for the school paper, it’s a great way to get started. I remember we had a single .45 record, you know what a record is? It’s on vinyl. We had a single record to play in the office: “Silver Daggers” by Joan Baez. And the moderator of the newspaper had a Volkswagen Bug. The Sixties had arrived! As part of being part of the newspaper, we all got to go to New York for the Columbia high school newspaper editor’s convention. We saw three plays – Man for All Seasons, Stop the World – I want to get off! – and A Thousand Clowns – all for ten bucks total. That trip really opened the world to me! I think about it more times than you think when I walk into 30 Rockefeller Center to do my show from up there. From then on, I got a lot of odd summer jobs, working on the New Jersey shore, drug store stock boy! Not all that exciting. I was a caddy! One thing you learn hitchhiking to the golf course before dawn, is how many mosquitoes there are up then, that and how strange the people are who pick up that time of the morning. Opening clams on the boardwalk: cherrystone and littlenecks I could do. Oysters were impossible. Bus boy. Am I the only one to fall for the waitresses? I was a counter man at the cool hangout restaurant in Ocean City, New Jersey. Same deal, fell in love with the waitresses. House painter! It’s where I learned the old carney trick of “Wabashing.” It’s when you mix in a lot of paint thinner. It speeds up the job beyond belief, and washes off in about two weeks. I was working for the Murray Brothers. Bernie, the older one, had worked as a roustabout with Barnum & Bailey for 29 years, and put away, he once told me, fifth a day for all those years. He was a recovering alcoholic. We’d stop for coffee practically every hour to deal with the craving. His younger brother, Joe, was still drinking. My first duty when I went to get him up in the morning was to run the tap in the bathroom so he could have really cold water as his first chaser of the morning. It was, like much of life, and certainly every job I managed to get, an education. At Holy Cross, I had three jobs: waiting in the dining hall, freshman and sophomore year. We ate twelve at a table, “family style,” they called it. It paid 43 cents a meal. Even with inflation, that is not a lot of money in college. In junior year I got a break. I got the birthday cake concession. That meant sitting for hours at the Dean of Men’s office writing down the dates of birth of the entire student body, then writing up a sales pitch to send to the parents, buying a supply of stationary and stamps and mailing mimeographed appeals to mom and dad a few weeks before the lucky kid’s birthday. And boy, were my letters good. “You may think your kid is all grown up, but boy, does he get lonely around birthday time.” I charged $5\. Half went to the pastry chef in the dining hall. I think I made about $500 to $600 that year. Senior year I had the best job, R.A. Resident Assistant on a corridor in the freshman dorm. Loved it, shared a suite of rooms with the other R.A., who had a TV set and a timed coffee maker. I learned that the best way to command respect from freshman college kids is to have some regard for them but don’t show it any more than necessary. Don’t let them get the idea you want to be their pal. It was the best lesson in the world. It gave me experience in command and it saved me and the freshman on my floor the trouble they would have gotten into if I’d caught them drinking. Holy Cross was tough back on drinking in those days, really tough. The summer I graduated, I pumped gas in the daytime, landed a job as a clapping, singing waiter at Your Father’s Moustache at night. I was better at pumping gas, washing cars and changing oil. The number-two guy at Father’s Moustache told me I “didn’t clap right.” The top guy cut my time down to Tuesday nights. He said, kind of kindly, “Maybe this isn’t your cup of tea.” Graduate assistant. As part of the financial deal, I worked for a professor at the University of North Carolina. As a graduate assistant I tutored and graded papers. I learned something I’ve never forgotten. No matter what the question, the smart students got it right. That job also taught me how scared I was to stand in front of an audience. At LaSalle High, I had been terrified in public speaking class, always afraid it would be my turn to speak or perform. In grad school, the professor once asked me to stand in for him, to give the lecture myself. I couldn’t sleep I was so worried, stayed up the whole night. I also miscalculated how long it would take to run through my notes. Twenty minutes into the class, I was standing up there with nothing left to say. Imagine that: me with nothing to say. The Peace Corps in Africa; for two years of my life, I road a motorbike over wild stretches of Swaziland, right next to Mozambique, teaching business to small traders. It was quite an adventure. There was a mamba snake that tried to leap in my window. There were also incredibly nice men, small business guys, who treated me like a son – or a younger brother – who always offered me a “cold drink’ even when there was no way out there to make it cold. My great accomplishment those two years was producing a national industrial show. I was told the king liked it. There were four of us Peace Corps guys who had that job teaching business in Swaziland back in the Sixties. We each had a province to develop. I shared my 120 Suzuki with one of them. He was brilliant at the local language. More important to me, he’s been a great and generous friend ever since. A graduate of St. Mary’s, he’s here with us today. Would my pal Jim Morphy stand up? When I got home to the United States, I went knocking on doors in Washington looking for a job writing for a Senator of Member of Congress. Somewhere over there in the hills of Swaziland it’s what I decided to do. When you knock on doors in the Capitol you meet some strange people that you bump into. There was a guy, nice guy, Catholic guy, from northern New Jersey, looked like one of my dad’s Knights of Columbus buddies. I get in to see him and he says, “Look, here’s the pen President Johnson gave me when signed the latest authorization for the Peace Corps.” He was going to hire me as his latest legislative assistant, right out the bag. About three or four days later, his top aide called me to tell me that they couldn’t work it. What I discovered the reason was that he was mobbed up. They discovered that he had a loan shark’s body removed from his basement by the mob. They were keeping it there. I guess they trusted him. That looking for a job was an experience. I must have knocked on two hundred doors. Finally, I got an interview with the top guy working for a senator from Utah. He’d been a big Robert Kennedy supporter and loved the idea I’d studied economics and had served in the Peace Corps. He gave me my first job in politics: A U.S. Capitol policeman. “It’ll pay for the groceries,” he said. During the mornings and early afternoons I worked in the senator’s office answering complicated mail and writing short speeches, from 3 o’clock in the afternoon until 11 at night when, me and my 38 police special, I defended our capitol. By that September I was a full-time legislative assistant to a US senator. I’d draft amendments to bills, sit next to the senator during floor debates, and learned a lot, unfortunately about the games politicians play to look good and do nothing – like saying that they are putting an “iron-clad ceiling” on government spending, which they tried in the 1970s, then exempting the entire budget from the ceiling. My next job was working in a political campaign out in Utah, which I loved, then a stint working as an investigative reporter for Ralph Nader, then for three years as a staffer for the new senate Budget Committee. Then came my big break, getting a job at the White House, and eventually speechwriter to the president, the job I’d wanted since I came to Washington. I loved it, sitting on Air Force One as it takes off, knowing the President of the United States will be speaking some of my words at the next stop. Then, for the next half dozen years I worked as top aide to Speaker of the House Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill., Jr., which taught how great leaders like he and Ronald Reagan could actually get things done. Saving Social Security from its fiscal trouble, reforming taxes by plugging loopholes and lowering rates, beginning the Northern Ireland peace effort, supporting Reagan on ending the Cold War. Yes, I give Ronald Reagan the historic credit for what he did. In 1987, I found myself as president and CEO of the Government Research Corporation, a consulting company when the job I really wanted arrived. Larry Kramer, Executive Editor, of the San Francisco Examiner hired me, at first to write a weekly column on the side, then to a full-time position as Washington Bureau Chief for the paper. At the Examiner I got to cover some unforgettable events: The fall of the Berlin Wall. I hope to never forget a conversation I had with a young East German while standing in the rain before the Brandenburg Gate. “What does freedom, Freiheit!, mean to you?” I asked. “Freedom means talking to you,” he said. And a nurse standing next to him said, “Two weeks ago, we couldn’t do it.” The Iron Curtain was real. Or watching the long line of people waiting to vote in South Africa’s first all-races election back in 1994, interviewing one young woman. She was standing in this incredible long, biblically long line, that Mandela got people to believe in – Democracy. “This is the day I’ve waited for my whole life,” she told me. I’ll never get over that lilt in her young voice when she said that word “life.” The lilt in her voice when she said “life,” and she was white. Or being in Belfast during the 1998 Good Friday Accords, standing in the back of Ulster Hall, watching and hearing this roomful of Protestant working men cheering the peace effort. And there’ve been show-stopping moments on Hardball when someone admits something that stuns us – like the top CIA briefer who said this week that there was never evidence that Iraq possessed nuclear weapons, despite what our leaders were saying and leaders in both parties were buying. I was so glad to get that fact on the table. I have been to national political conventions going back to Lyndon Johnson’s in Atlantic City back in 1964, then to George McGovern’s in 1972, Jimmy Carter’s in 1976 and again in 1980, here in San Francisco for Walter Mondale’s in 1984. One job led to the other, although it always looks easier, more graceful when looking back. Soon after I joined the San Francisco Examiner, I became a nationally syndicated columnist – with newspapers carrying me around the country – and a political commentator on CBS morning news. In 1988, James Silberman of Simon & Schuster had seen an article I’d done for The New Republic. He asked me to write a book about the inside of politics. I called it “Hardball.” In 1994, I got my first TV show and have been on every weekday night since. I got that job because I went to dinner with a hero of mine from college; author Joe McGinnis who’d written “Selling of the President.” He said he was meeting someone for drinks afterward and invited me along. That friend was Roger Ailes, who gave me got me started as a broadcaster. I’ve been on every weekday night since. Altar boy, paper boy, stock boy, caddy, clam opener, bus boy, house painter, counter man, college waiter, birthday cake man, R.A., gas pumper, singing waiter, graduate assistant, Peace Corps volunteer, U.S. Capitol Policeman, senate legislative assistant, investigative reporter, presidential speechwriter, aide to Tip O’Neill, CEO, columnist, newspaper bureau chief, television host, author. You never where things are going to take you. And now the simple rules that worked for me, may work for you. It’s all about finding a way to make a living at what you think you’re good at. In my case, it’s arguing about politics, something I’ve been doing ever since lunchtime at La Salle High. So here are the rules. Woody Allen has a great rule. He says 80 percent of success in life is showing up. I’d say it’s even higher. Show up, for the interview, for whatever. If I hadn’t gone to Washington looking for that job I don’t think some Senator from Utah would have come knocking on the door of my parents house in Philadelphia asking what I’d like to do with my life. Get out there and look – meet people – it’s not who you know; it’s who you get to know – because nobody’s coming asking what your dreams are, when you put your head on the pillow at night. Nobody’s coming. You have to go, you have to go. The good news is that “You’re coming.” Starting today you’re going to be out there hustling your way to the first job, the first chance to do what you want. Show up. Rule two: Ask. Sometimes, most of the time, it comes down to something this simple, this hard. If you see an opening, ask. Show how you can do the job. Lay it out and then ask for it. If you are a minority, or a woman, or gay or you feel like no one like you has ever had a particular position, go for it. Go for it. Make them say no. Never say no to yourself. And I know this sounds a little “romantical,” as my wife would say. Try to get everyone’s cell number before you leave today. Stick together. Be loyal – get the email addresses before you leave today – especially from the one you’ve been afraid to ask. Besides friendship or true love, one of your greatest career assets is each other, the people right here with you today. Stay in touch. Somebody’s going to get an idea that’s perfect for you. Think of yourselves as mountain climbers with ropes connecting you in case someone falls. Better yet, if someone gets to the top of the mountain, they’ll pull you up with them. Stick together. Keep your values. Be honest. Try not to be jealous. Try to see the good in other people, including the ones you disagree with. Try not to hate. Try to care. And try this one for extra credit. “Always do what you’re afraid to do.” I read where David Letterman advised Jerry Seinfeld, before he got his show, “Just make sure if you fail, you did what you wanted to.” Isn’t that great; because, we all fail at times. I was a terrible clapper. It’s going to happen. But I really didn’t want to be a good clapper. I wanted to argue politics. Jean-Paul Sartre, the existentialist, said we don’t always do what we want, but we are responsible for who we are. So don’t get pushed into stuff. Finally, let’s all pray on this day for Pope Francis. He’s coming to our country this year. He seems to have a sure sense of what’s important. He really could raise this country’s spirit; it’s spiritual life, its everyday life. I think he’s going to have a big impact on us. He is raising this country’s spirits. I think a lot people think he’s already doing it. And on that note, I can’t go any higher than Pope Francis. Thank you very much for having me. 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As an award winning political journalist, author, and host of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Mathews. Mr. Mathews has earned a reputation for digging deep into controversial issues Providing in- depth political analysis and challenging Democrats and Republicans alike in his pursuit of truth and social justice. In addition to his graduate work in economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Mr. Matthews has been a fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Politics and is the recipient of nearly 30 honorary degrees. Mr. Matthew's career has spanned work with the Peace Corps in Africa, presidential speech writing and press relations, serving as top aide to Speaker of the House, Tip O'Neill, and as a Washington Bureau Chief for the San Francisco Examiner, a position he held for 13 years. The insight demonstrated by his syndicated column for the San Francisco Chronical Lead to numerous occurrences on high profile talk shows, by 1994 Mr. Matthews hosted his first nightly show. America's talking as a journalist Mr. Matthews covered events spanning the fall of the Berlin wall to the first all races election in South Africa, to national convention and election night coverage here. as an author his best selling book Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked has been called a superb tribute to the neglected art of compromise and according to the Wall Street Journal, is an insightful account of one of histories celebrated political pairings the epidemy of how ideological opposites can get things done. Mr. Matthews has a deep and special connection with to the college. Having graduated from [ UNKNOWN ] High School. A Christian brother school in Philadelphia. And then from the college of the Holy Cross. Well at Holy Cross Mr. Matthews met our President Tim Donahue. Who he calls many car journeys and conversations in the rise together from Philadelphia home to Holy Cross in [ UNKNOWN ] How appropriate then to welcome a commencement speaker who comes to us by virtue of not only of his stellar accomplishments, but also from the shared values and enduring relationships that characterize the Saint Mary's education. I am honored to present to you, our 2015 commencement speaker, Mr. Chris Matthews Is that good or bad [ LAUGH ] president Donahue, Christian brothers, other members of the faculty. My friend Frank Howard is here somewhere who had a lot to do with me coming today, by the way is this February? I was told to bring sunscreen and sunglasses. It's great to be back to beautiful Saint Mary's College. I want to tell you right upfront that those speeches you just heard, including the invocation, I think it was the best invocation I've heard, were We're pretty short and I'm gonna be pretty short. As the great Henry VIII of England said to each of his seven wives, I won't keep you long. [ LAUGH ] I love anti- protestant jokes at Catholic colleges. [ LAUGH ] Before anything else, I want to say two words to the Christian brothers who are here today, and I met a few of them yesterday and today. Thank you. Thank you for your dedication to students like me and how you educated us for your quiet, yes, humility. Yes, I had the Jesuits as well. [ LAUGH ] And for being more impressed with the young people you teach than you are with yourselves. As a Brothers boy, I know what I'm talking about. So thank you all, brothers. Thank you. [ APPLAUSE ]. And congratulations to the Gale Men's Rugby Team for back to back national championships. [ APPLAUSE ]. Let me tell you a little side story of the first Christmas you may not hear or remember from your catechisms. It's an important part of the story. Saint Joseph on the real Christmas Eve arrives at the inn. And the innkeeper's not a nice fella. And he tells the innkeeper, I really need a room. My wife's pregnant. And the innkeeper says, sorry, no rooms. And Saint Joseph tries again and he says but she's really pregnant. And the innkeeper says, sorry not my fault. [ LAUGH ]. And Saint Joseph says in words you'll never forget, it's not my fault either. [ LAUGH ]. [ LAUGH ] Well here you are graduating and most of your life you had it all figured out. You go from first grade to second grade, you make it to twelfth grade. And then you go from freshman, sophomore, junior year high school. And then you do it all over again and it's really easy because you can always know what's coming next, and now, you poor SOBs. [ LAUGH ] You don't know what's next, do you? You really don't. A couple of you guys have it all figured out. Oh, I'm gonna go to med school, I've got it all figured out. Yeah right. You know? I'm gonna be a lawyer if I can find a law firm that's still around. Just kidding, no I'm not. I like it when the people have it all figured out, don't have it all figured out. So now you're facing [ INAUDIBLE ] incognito, the uncharted waters, where there's just the abyss in front of you and you have to figure things out. So what I did today Really, to make sure that nobody will ever accuse me of repeating a graduation speech, a commencement address, I've actually written a brand new speech. Okay? [ APPLAUSE ] Yes, just for Saint Mary's, just for the Brothers, I'll do anything. And what I wanted to talk about for just a few minutes, was the strange part of life, which is you can't predict it. And the things that you do in life really blow your mind, especially when you look back over them and say, Did I do, that? Now you already have done some of that stuff, but I wanna talk about jobs, I made a list of all the jobs I've had since being in grade school at Saint Christopher's, before that at Maternity BVM, I was at Saint Christopher's so Ever since I've been a kid, I've had all these jobs and you guys and women, had these jobs already. I'm learning. My first was order boy, okay? Now order boy, I can certainly remember the scary parts about being an order boy. Convent Mass Now there was a beauty. You get up before six o'clock in the morning, you arrive at the convent before six o'clock in the morning. And you're greeted by a face you recognize from school, [ LAUGH ] it's a little scary. Then you go to the chapel, and the whole time you're serving Mass, you're trying to avoid eye contact For all these people in the dark in front of you, they're the sisters that teach at school and scare the hell out of you and they're all at prayer together at dawn. It is quite an experience. It's an image most of us altar boys never forget. Then there was Byberry Hospital. By some weird coincidence, St. Christopher's included the largest mental institution in the state of Pennsylvania. [ LAUGH ] And we altar boys got the joy of serving mass at this place called Byberry. Now it was quite an experience because you never knew exactly what to expect at a mass when there were 7000 people who were mentally troubled all around you. I remember a couple of patterns however I really got to like. One was That the patients would all come to the Protestant service and then stick around for the mass. They saw it as a spiritual double feature. The alter boys had the job of giving a card to each patient when they came to confession. Now, this is old Catholic training. You go to confession every week, you go to mass, you go to commune every Sunday. Very regimented. So you give a little card to this patient who is mentally disturbed. And one of the guys, it was a patient, would always put the card in his missile to keep his place, which was quite logical. Mentally sufficient, he knew what he was doing. And every time he got to communion it was my job. To pull the card out of the place he was keeping in his missile, so he would lose his place every week after going to communion. And we'd go through this ritual. Didn't this guy get the drill? We're gonna take the card back out of your missile. But then I began to think at the time, I was quizzical and skeptical even then, and I was an arguer even then. I said Who's got the problem, here? The person who had the good sense to put that card where it could be of good use to him, and keep his place in his [ UNKNOWN ]. Or the guys who dreamed up this card system in the first place? [ LAUGH ] My nice job was paperboy. I had a huge paper route, delivering the old afternoon Philadelphia Bulletin. I delivered, in fact. They show how old I am the day that President Kennedy was elected. It was on the front page of the paper. The hard part, and this is when I learned about jobs, was collecting on Fridays. I dreaded it because, and you know what's coming here, I didn't know where those people were hiding. It was only thirty cents a week and they would hide and I would come to the houses and the screen door was open the screen door in the back was open and there wasn't a single person around. And all I wanted was damn thirty cents. That taught me a lot about human nature. In my senior year, at La Salle high school, I got a real newspaper job as assistant editor of the school paper, the Wysterian, which really got me started. If anybody here had been working for your school paper, it is a great way to get started. It is fantastic. [ APPLAUSE ] I remember back then we had a single record. You know what a record is? We had a thing called a record. It's on vinyl. And it's a 45, you know, we only got one single on there. A solo, a big hit. We had one song on our record player in the entire school student newspaper office. Silver Daggers. By Joe Biaz. And the moderator of the paper had a Volkswagen. This was the beginning officially of the 1960s. As part of the newspaper editors, we all got together in New York, which is a treat of my life. We met at New York, for the Columbia University newspaper editors convention for high school kids. We saw three plays catch this for inflation, man for all seasons which is still one of the great stories, stop the world I wanna get off and 1, 000 clams all for ten bucks total. That was Broadway. The trip opened up the world to me, I think about it every time I walk into 30 Rockefeller Center to do my show up there, I think about when I first go up it was because LaSalle High School Taken me to New York, to learn about the big world of New York. From then I got a lot of summer jobs like you've already had, on the New Jersey shore. I was a drugstore stock boy, boring. I was a caddy. And one thing you learn hitchhiking to the golf course before dawn, you get a lot of mosquitoes. And there's some really strange people that pick you up. [ LAUGH ] [ LAUGH ] Really strange and I can't even talk about it. It's terrible. I must have been a cute little kid, just kidding. The other job was opening clams on the boardwalk. Cherry stone and littlenecks were doable. I couldn't do oysters. I was a bus boy and fell in love with the waitresses like every bus boy. And then I was a counter man at the local hangout in Ocean City New Jersey. Same deal, fell in love with the waitresses. I was a house painter. It's where I learned the old carnival trick of wabashing. It's when you mix in a lot of paint thinner, it spreads on really easy and it washes away in the first rain. These guys were con artists. I was working for the Murray brothers. Bernie, the older one of the Murray brothers, had worked as a roustabout. With Barnum & Bailey for 29 years and told me he drank a fifth a day every one of those days, for 29 years. He was, of course, recovering as an alcoholic. We would stop for coffee every hour on the hour to deal with the craving. His younger brother, Joe, was more fun to work with. He was still drinking And my first duty of the morning as a house painter, and house painters are notorious drunks of course, my first duty of the morning, was to get up and turn on the water tap, to get the cold water going for his first chaser of the day, when he put down the serious booze to start the day, and then he kept going through the day with a six- pack. He used to tell me, I only drink a six- pack a day. Excuse me Joe, I'm there in the morning turning on the water for you for your first one. Anyway it was quite an education. At Holy Cross, I had three jobs, one was waiter in the family, in the diner we had. It was called family style. It was a little grubbier than that. Twelve people at a table. I was paid 43 cents a meal. Even with inflation that's not a lot of money in college. In junior year, I got my big break. I got the birthday cake concession That meant sitting for hours in the Dean of Men's office running down the dates of birth of the entire student body. Then writing up a sales pitch to send to the parents. Buying a supply of stationary and stamps and mailing out mimeograph appeals to mom and dad, a few weeks before the kid's birthday. And boy were my letters good. [ LAUGH ] You may think your kids all grown up now, but he gets really lonely around birthday time. [ LAUGH ] We charged $ 5. Half went to the pastry chef at the dining hall. I think I made about 500 bucks that year on the birthday cake in session. Senior year I had my best job. R- A. Resident Assistant to the corridor of freshman. I loved being an R- A. It was power. It was great, first time in my life I had any power. I shared this suite with a guy, the other RA and he had a TV set, which was a big deal back then, and a timed coffee maker, for in the morning, which was great. I learned the best way to command respect from freshman college kids was to have some, minimal regard for them. [ LAUGH ] Some minimal regard, but not in any way let it show. [ LAUGH ] Don't let them get the idea you wanna be their pal. That doesn't work. It was the best lesson in the world because it gave me the experience in command and it saved me and the freshmen on my floor the trouble they would've gotten into if I caught them drinking. Because hallway crossway back then was real tough on drinking, you were out. I don't want to get anybody out of college, so I decided to be menace for nine months, and they would never drink in front of me. At work, except for once, but I let that kid go. Anyway, the summer I graduate, pump gas in the daytime And I landed a job as a clapping, singing waiter. At Your Father's Mustache. That was the old banjo music and pitchers of beer place. I was better at pumping gas, washing cars, and changing oil, and occasionally, magically fixing cars when I had to fix cars. I don't now how I did it. I would jiggle something with the carburetor, and the carburetor would start and these guys, " You're one of those young grease monkeys that can do anything !" Well, I could. I was better dad. The number two guy by the way, my father's mustache, told me as he was about to fire me I didn't know how to clap. What a jerk! What a jerk. He said you have to do it on the bone or, what? I don't clap like that. Try it, I don't know. And then the top guy came to me and I realized that I was only getting Tuesday nights. I knew I wasn't one of the coolest waiters there. I said, maybe this isnt your cup of tea. I remember. You never forget this, especially for Irish related stuff. You try to keep track. Anyway, just kidding. Graduate assistance is part of of my financial at Chapel Hill, I worked for a professor, monitored policy. I tutored, I wrote the exams, I graded the exams. And I learned one thing about teaching. The little bit I know about teaching. The smart kids always get it right. No matter how tough the question, and then you know you've go the right question because the smart kids get it, I don't know how. But John taught me also how scared i was to stand in front of an audience. At [ UNKNOWN ] High School I was terrified of public speaking class. I was always afraid it's going to be my turn next. In grad school that professor had asked me to stand in for him one day, and give the lecture. I couldn't sleep I was so worried, I stayed up the whole night. I also miscalculated how long it took to run through my notes, how long to put lecture notes together. 20 minutes into the class I was without anything to say, imagine me with nothing to say. The Peace Corps in Africa for two years of my life, I rode a motor bike. A 120 Suzuki over wild stretches of Swaziland in Southern Africa, it's right next to Mozambique, teaching business to small traders. It was quite an adventure. There was an mamba snake. They go 30 miles an hour, attack your nervous system. They gallop like this, they don't squirm, they gallop. They hit you, and they keep biting and biting and biting. They're pretty scary. Anyway, he tried to get in my window, he didn't make it. I was driving too fast. And there was also incredible nice guys that work with African guys in their fifties who treated me like a son or younger brother. I think that really changed my life, the way those African guys treated me other there, wonderful people. They always offered me a cold drink even when they had no refrigerator, no way to make it cold. They always figured I'd like a Coke, and they would find one somewhere. But my great accomplishment over there was putting over a big national industrial show and even the king liked it. There were four of us Peace Corps guys who had that job of teaching business in Swaziland back in the 60s. We each had our own province of the country to develop, believe it or not. The minister of commerce said develop Economically this province that was my job. And one guy was natural at the local language is more important to me, he's been a great and generous friend ever since, a graduate of Saint Mary's, he's here with us today. I want my pal Jim Murphy to stand up, he's right over there. [ APPLAUSE ] We're in this together. When I got home from Africa after two years I went knocking on doors in Washington DC looking for a job writing for a US Senator or a member of Congress and somewhere over there in the hills of Swaziland It must've been what I decided to do. And when you knock on doors on Capitol Hill, if you ever do out looking for a job, you'll have some strange people you're bumping into. There was one guy, a nice guy, from Northern New Jersey. Catholic, Irish- Catholic. Regular guy. Looked like one of my dad's Knights of Columbus buddies I get into see him he said look here's the pen President Johnson gave me when he signed the latest authorization for the Peace Corp, and he was going to hire me, as his legislative assistant right off the bat, then about three or four lays later his top eight called me up and said he couldn't work it out and what I discovered reason he couldn't work it out because he was in big trouble he was mobbed up. Totally mobbed up. They discovered that he had a loan shark's body removed from his basement by the mob. They were keeping it there. I guess they trusted him. Anyway, looking for a job [ UNKNOWN ] was quite an experience. I must've knocked on 200 doors, including the guy who was mobbed up. But I talked to him on the phone two weeks ago, he was in his 90s, he's living up in Pennsylvania, he's quite happy He only went to prison twice. [ LAUGH ] Anyway, when I finally got an interview with a top guy from a senator from Utah of all places, he'd been a fit fan of Bob Kennedy and worked for Robert Kennedy in 68 before he was shot. He loved the idea and studied economics and has served in the Peace Corps. He gave me my first job in politics, U. S. Capitol Policeman. It'll pay for the groceries he said. And so during the mornings and early afternoons, I worked at the senator's office answering complicated mail and writing short speeches for the floor. From three 'o clock and afternoon to 11 'o clock, me and my 38 police special defended our capital. And by that September, I was a full time legislative assistant to a US senator. I'd draft amendments to bills. Sit next to the senator during debates, and learned a lot. Unfortunately, about the games some politicians play, to look good and do nothing. Like, saying that they're putting on an iron clad ceiling on government spending, which they tried in the 1970s. And then, systematically, within minutes, exempting the entire federal budget. From the ceiling. The games they play. My next job was working a political campaign in Utah which I loved and a stint working as an investigative reporter for the great Ralph Nader then for three years as a staff for the Senate Budget Committee, then came my big break getting a job at the White House and eventually speech writer for the president, the job I'd wanted ever since I came to Washington I loved it sitting on Air Force One. There's nothing like sitting on Air Force One with an old Selectric II typewriter typing speeches that the President's gonna give at the next stop. It was a thrill. I loved it. Then for the next half dozen years I worked as top aide to Speaker of the House Thomas P. O'Neill, Tip O'Neill, which taught me how great leaders like he and Ronald Reagan Could actually get things done. Saving social security from its fiscal troubles then, reforming taxes by plugging loopholes and lowering rates, begetting the Northern Island peace effort, and Tip O'Neill in the backroom and over in Moscow supporting Reagan every bit of the way. Yes, I give Ronald Reagan the historic credit for what he did. in 1987 when Tip retired I found myself as president and CEO of the government research corporation and consulting company when the job I really wanted, arrived. Larry Kramer, executive editor of the San Fransisco Examiner hired me, at first to write a weekly column On the side, then as a full- time Washington bureau chief for the newspaper. At the Examiner, I got to cover some unforgettable events. I will never forget these moments. The fall of the Berlin Wall. I hope to never forget a conversation I had with a young East German While standing in the rain waiting for the Brandenburg gate to open. What does freedom [ FOREIGN ] I took German mean to you, I asked this young guy, he looked like he was from Berkeley in the sixties he had long hair he had an army surplus jacket on, you know what he said to me? He said freedom means talking to you. And a nurse was standing next to him said two weeks ago we couldn't do it. The Iron Curtain was real. Or, watching the long line of people waiting to vote in South Africa's first all races election back in 1994. And I interviewed one young woman And she is standing in this biblical long line that Mandela got people to believe in Democracy. She said, this is the day that I waited for my whole life. i'll never forget the lilt in her voice when she said the word life. Life, and she was white. Or being in Belfast during the 1998 Good Friday accord, standing in the back of Ulster Hall watching and hearing this room full of Protestant working men sharing like hell for peace. And then there have been the show stopping moments on my show, Hard Ball. When someone admits something that just stuns me, like the top CIA briefer this week who said there never was any evidence that Iraq possessed nuclear weapons, despite everything our leaders said. And leaders of both parties bought at the time. I was so glad to finally get that fact on the table. I've been to national political conventions going to back to Linden Johnson's in Atlantic City in 64 George McGovern's in 72 to Jimmy Carter's in 76 and 80 and here in San Francisco at Walter Mondale's in 1984. One job led to another although it always looks easier and more graceful when looking backward. Soon after I joined the San Francisco Examiner, I became a nationally syndicated columnist with newspapers carrying me around the country and a political commentator on CBS Morning News. In 1988, James Silverman of Simon and Shuesster read an article I'd done for the New Republic, he asked me to write a book about the inside of politics, I called it Hard Ball. In 1994, I got my first TV show and it's been on every weekday night since. I got that job because I went to dinner with a hero of mine from college, author Joe MacInnes who had written Sewing of the President, he's going to Holy Cross too, he said he was meeting with someone for drinks afterwards and invited me to go along with him. This little incident, I could've said no, I said what the heck. And that friend of his was Roger Ales. Who gave me my first start as a broadcaster, and I've been on every night since. [ UNKNOWN ] boy. Paper boy. Stock boy. Caddy. Clam opener. Busboy. House painter. Counter man. College waiter. Birthday cake man. RA. Gas pumper. Singing waiter, graduate assistant, peace core volunteer, capital policeman, senate legislative assistant, investigative reporter, presidential speech writer, top aide to Tip O'Dale, CEO, columnist, newspaper bureau chief, television host, and author. You never know where things are going to take you. [ APPLAUSE ] The simple rules that happened to work for me, plus God's help, and the prayers of my aunt Elanor and aunt Agnes who were sisters of Saint Joseph and prayed for me for 50 years, and it adds up. Those spiritual [ UNKNOWN ] have quantity at some point. It's all about a way to find to make a living at what you think you're good at, and everybody here thinks they're good at something. Find a way to make a living at it. In my case, it's arguing about politics, something I've been doing since lunchtime at LaSalle College High School. I've never ever changed. People that know me, if they're 30 or 40 years know I'm the same guy. But I've been lucky to find a way to do it. So here are the rules. And I'm making no good comment here about Woody Allen, okay, don't write down anybody's covering this. But I think Woody Allen is a great person. But he has a great rule, he said 80 % of life is showing up. I'd say it's even higher. Show up For the interview, for whatever. If I hadn't been going to Washington looking for that job, I don't think some Senator from Utah would have come knocking on my door at my parents house in Philadelphia asking what I would like to do with my life. Show up. Get out there and look. Meet people. It's not who you know. It's who you get to know. My mom always said it's who you know. I said no mom, it's who you get to know. Don't be so yesterday about this thing. You can meet people. You can, and don't be so Irish. Just stop the begrudgement. Until you get to the [ INAUDIBLE ] nobody's coming to ask for your dreams. When you put your head down on the pillow at night, they don't really care when you're dreaming about Bing. Nobody's coming. You have to go. You have to go. And the good news is, you're all coming. That's the good news. Because starting today, you're gonna be out there hustling your way to the first job, the first chance to do what you want. Show up. Well too, ask. Sometimes, most of the time, it comes down to something just that simple, but just that hard. Like getting a date for the prom, and things like that. I waited weeks. You just put it off. It's too hard to ask, but you have to do it. You have to pull the trigger. You have to say, will you do this? If you see an opening, ask. Show how you can do the job. Lay it out and then ask for it. And, if you're minority, or a woman, or gay, or you feel that you've never, nobody like you has ever had a particular position? Go for it. Go for it. Make them say no. Never say no to yourself. [ APPLAUSE ] And here's something that's not hard at all. And you should do it now. I know this sounds a little romantical, my would say, a little romantical but try to get everybody's cell number before you leave today. [ LAUGH ] I mean, it's not hard. This is easy stuff. It's basics. It's blocking and tackling. Well maybe it's blocking and tackling, really is, but get their number, especially the one you've been afraid to ask. How's that for romantical? [ LAUGH ] Because besides friendship and true love. One of your greatest career assets you're gonna have walking out of here today is each other. The people right here with you today. So stay in touch. Stay in touch. Somebody's gonna get an idea one of your group, your clique, or whatever, one of you's gonna get an opening and they're gonna come up and blab about it. Guess what I just found out. And you know what? It's perfect for you. I got something, but this is perfect for you. Somebody's gonna be your advance person out there. They're gonna give you a break, because they heard of something you didn't hear of. You know, this is perfect for you. So we're all mountain climbers. We can think of ourselves that way. We had the ropes connecting each other together, if somebody falls. But more importantly than when somebody falls at your age. How about when somebody gets to the top of the mountain? They can help pull you up to stick together. Third, I should've started with this being a Catholic school and being a Catholic, but keep your values, be honest, try not to be jealous. That's hard. Try to see the good in other people. Including the ones you disagree with and including your rivals. Try not to hate. Try to care. And try this one for extra credit. Always do what you're afraid to do. Always do what you're afraid to do. Ralph Waldo Emerson said that, but you know it was people like Eleanor Roosevelt and Bobby Kennedy who really tried to live that way. Always do what you're afraid to do. I read this week, cause David Letterman left, ended his career and apparently not going to be seen again. He just said, you won't see me again, I take him at his word. He said that he advised Jerry Seinfeld, before there was a Seinfeld, this was his advice to Jerry, before he got his show. Just make sure if you fail, You did what you wanted to. Isn't that great? Because we all fail at times, I was a terrible clapper. It's going to happen, but I didn't really want to be a good clapper. I wanted to argue politics. That's what I wanted to do. Just make sure if you fail, you did what you wanted to. Jean- Paul Sartre, the existentialist, it's hard to figure out what an existentialist is, but if you listen to this line, you can figure it out: " We don't always do what we want, but we are responsible for who we are ." So don't get pushed into stuff, because you'll get blamed. If somebody tells you to do something and everybody else is doing it, and you do it, you'll go " Wait a minute ." [ INAUDIBLE ] Yeah, I am responsible. I did it. We don't always get what we want but we're responsible for what we are and that's true [ UNKNOWN ]. And finally I just wanna do this, and I never done this before. I was gonna say bright day, it's in my script but it's been often not but everybody cheers when the sun comes up. It's like a sunrise service here. We love the sun don't we. Let's all pray for Pope Francis. He is coming to the country to Philadelphia this year in September. It's a big deal. He seems to have a good sense of what's important. He really does and he can really raise this country's spirit. It's spiritual life. It's everyday life. I think he's gonna have a big impact on us. He's raising his country's spirits, just by being Pope Francis. And I think a lot of people think he already has. And on that note I can't go any higher than Pope Francis. Thank you very much for having me. [ APPLAUSE ] Thank you. 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