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 I've earned and paid for in cash and honest effort. You may deny me certification of my accomplishment. You cannot withdraw that which I have absorbed under these old and stately elms and in these class rooms and under the guardianship of those of you whose lives are worthy of emulation.

"Therefore your proposal if carried out would fail of accomplishment except as it branded you as hide-bound, narrow and bigoted. Your action would but brand you as inhuman, unChristian—unmoral. That I differ from you in blood you may claim. Yet how false that claim. The blood of all men is human. Complexion is external. There is as royal blood in my veins as in yours—as in the best of you. The blood of kings pulses from my heart; the blood of the King of life and death; of God our King courses through my veins. Wherein are you more royal than I? How long is America to dwell in the gloom of prejudice? How long are men of thought and leadership to allow blind caste bigotry to shape our common destinies?

"I want my diploma as a right fully earned; as a matter of justice; as a matter of law. I've earned it by study, by expenditures, by loyalty. As for the halting of my course; the turning aside from my purpose; repudiating of my pledged word, first halt you the tides; reshape the course of day through night; still the wheels of the Universe, yet only death shall rob me of my will to,—right to love the one I love.—Unless it be the lady herself.