Page:Report on the Memorial Meeting for Mahatma Gandhi.djvu/9



EMANUEL CELIER, Member of the House of Representatives, United States Congress; Member Advisory Board, India League of America:

“The beloved Gandhi belongs to all of us now. True, he is India's son, but the truth and the beauty of his life lifted him out of the limitations of time and place.

“The meaning of Gandhi’s life cannot be weighed and measured like a pound of coffee, but there is not one who will deny, I repeat, not one, that the impact of this frail, slight body upon the course of history has made itself felt universally.

“His grip on the pulse of his country did not require what so-called strong men in other lands demanded - there was no secret police behind him, no controlled army, no spy system. His enemies knew his strength, but they made the same mistake that men of ill-will always make. The body of man is mortal, but not the spirit. A bullet cannot kill a gospel.

“To the United States, the magic name of Gandhi had a very special significance. It has become more than a bit tiresome to hear the word ‘materialist’ thrown at us and the American way of life. We have had a good deal of difficulty in clarifying that concept to many foreign dignitaries. Because democracy is based on the dignity of the individual, the practical application of the democratic form has resulted in the widest distribution of goods and services any country has ever known. Withal, we have been conscious of our defects, knowing our own incompletions, we hold on to the American dream, working toward wider and ever wider application. The Intellectual sneers directed at our stream of automobiles, cars and refrigerators, and so forth, have reduced some of us to apologize for our ‘materialism’. I may be appearing at this moment to be departing from the figure of Gandhi. But I’m not, actually. To the people of the United States, Gandhi was the embodiment, the clarification, the explanation of the stream of cars and refrigerators.