By David A. Sampayo
The following was a speech at the JBS Council Dinner in Parsippany, NJ on October 9, 2004.
Let me start off this little talk with a quick greeting and introduction. Good evening to everyone here, especially Mr. G. Vance Smith, Mr. Tom Gow, Dr. Steven Bonta, Mr. John McManus, the regional coordinators, and all of our evening�s fine speakers. I thank you all for allowing me this great honor of addressing such a fine crowd of men and women this evening. However, I would like to especially thank those members of the John Birch Society who have never given up in their pursuit of freedom. You are examples for us all and I ask that everyone here, the audience, give these people a big hand.
As was said, my name is David Anthony Sampayo and my part in this wonderful program is to speak about what I think is the finest opportunity available for young men and women out there. Firstly, so you may know who I am, I am currently a student at Dartmouth College in the great state of New Hampshire where I intend to major in Physics, all of which I consequently greatly attribute to my parents for homeschooling me for the first 8 grades of my life, but that is another story. I was born and raised in New York City and went to my first JBS meeting before I could spell �JBS� (or so I�m told). Regardless, the experiences that I am here to expound upon are the four weeks I spent over four consecutive summers at Robert Welch University.
When I received a call from Mr. Tregenza, my coordinator, last week, he told me that I needed to give the good people at Appleton the title of my speech. As my brain furiously worked, I looked for something that I could name a talk that was supposed to represent everything I had done at RWU. When I realized that more important than what I had done at the camp is what the camp has done to me. My personality, my outlook, (and I mean this in all sincerity) my very convictions have never been edified so drastically, so quickly, and so happily. The people, the place, the ideas, the histories, and the very feeling of being there gave me enough inspiration to become a new person. Now, there are a million different stories involving dozens of friends and role models as to how it all happened, but the point is that Robert Welch University does not only teach, it changes. It is an instrument of change.
Now, it is not very often that one week anywhere will change the direction of a person�s life, but to fully understand what I am saying, I want everyone in this room to think back, back to a time when before you would not have even recognized that name of the John Birch Society or if you did, you would not have thought kindly on it. Now, see if you can remember a special person, the one person who gave you something, whether it was a pamphlet or an invitation to a chapter meeting or a conversation where you learned the truth about our world, and think about how you would not be here tonight without them. Now, further think what would happen if you gathered several of the finest of these people and gave them a curious young man or woman to talk to.
It is in this way that hundreds of young people have been spared from the corrupting influence of lies, deception, and ignorance. Truly, I am silently thankful everyday to my parents and God for allowing me to be one of them. But even more remarkable than this is that this process of bettering the world has not stopped there. Maybe you have not heard the news, but these campers (as Mr. Shurtleff used to call us) are not stopping after getting home on Saturday from a week of Birch Camp. They are going out into their communities and informing people, they are writing letters to their congressmen and local opinion molders, and they are making a real change in this country. Yet, even better, they have been taught the correct way to do it. They know that standing in the street yelling with signs in a crowd of angry but more or less directionless protestors will not do much. They�or rather we know that indeed, �education is our total strategy; truth our only weapon.�
As alumni of the Robert Welch University summer camps, we are making a difference. We are seeking to bring attention to these problems for the public at many levels; we are writing articles in local newspapers; we are debating and discussing our views in classrooms; and we are slowly but surely overcoming the seemingly monstrous force of opposition to Americanism. And by our words and examples we are bringing more young people with us. Personally, I can speak to this well. Especially with the new threat of the FTAA, I have been able to publicly educate many of my fellow students. Even now at a predominantly liberal institution like Dartmouth College, people are questioning me curiously about the enormous �Stop the FTAA� poster on my door and I am writer for one of the college newspapers, adding Americanism to the long list of viewpoints represented in the articles.
