Per Circulum Locuti Sunt | Voices on the Circle
Divine
Julia Alling
Fire
Theodore Leonhardt ’11 and Kenneth Ballato, Jr. ’11
A Chapel Talk by Theodore Leonhardt ’11 and Kenneth Ballato, Jr. ’11 October 8, 2012
32 | Quarterly Winter 2013
I
t is wonderful to return to the Circle, and a true honor to speak from this pulpit, on the occasion of the School birthday. We would like to thank Mr. Commons for the invitation to speak today, and the whole Groton community for welcoming us back to the Circle. At Groton, we are privileged to walk the campus each day knowing that we attend a famous School with a long history and numerous notable alumni. The letters from presidents in the Schoolhouse hallway and the names on the walls of the Schoolroom remind us that as Grotonians, we are a part of a long tradition centered on the School motto: cui servire est regnare. From the beginning of the Franklin Roosevelt administration through the Nixon administration, Grotonians populated the highest reaches of government to a disproportionate degree. Groton was so ubiquitous in the State Department that the Groton-educated diplomat became something of a cliché. For example, in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1934 novel, Tender is the Night, the protagonist enters the American consulate in Rome where “from above and behind the porter floated down a weary Groton voice.” Indeed, the list of notable Groton graduates who served in the United States government reads like the cast of the drama of the rise of America in the 20th century. A brief list would include Attorney General Francis Biddle, Governor of New York and Ambassador to the Soviet Union Averell Harriman, Secretary of State Dean Acheson, Secretary of the Treasury Douglas Dillon, and, of course, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Grotonians served in many capacities: they were adventurous CIA operatives, tactful diplomats, and clever elected politicians. As we examined the careers of individual Grotonians through our tutorial in Sixth Form, our appreciation for Groton’s role grew more profound. We began to fix our study on a deeper question: how did a single school shape a leadership class that, in turn, shaped a nation?