Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas

I am delighted to be here to call to order this session of our conference. I am Leela Bermenodiz, I am one of the people who was involved in starting the Federal Society and I am now the Senior Vice-President and Director of our faculty division. I am going to introduce Boyden Gray who in turn is going to introduce, our guest. And I'm not going to spend a lot of time introducing Boyden Gray probably because Leonard of course already introduced him this morning and probably because I'm sure that everybody is eager to hear from both him and Justice Thomas. I do want to mention that we do have overflow rooms somewhere in that general direction if there are people who are looking for seats would be more comfortable there. I think it's the Chinese room and something else so you may wanna be aware of that. I do want to tell one story about Boyden Gray though. I worked for Boyden when he was counsel to the President and as probably, those of you who heard him this morning know. Boyden is something of an iconoclast. And one morning, when he was working on a Saturday. He was busily working in his office and he brought with him, his daughter and her pet to the office because he could get some work done and also keep an eye on her. Now one person who nobody ever crossed at the White House was a woman named Rose Samaria. You might ignore the directive of the Chief of Staff. You might ignore the directive of the Counsels of the President but you would not ignore Rose Samaria, who had been with the President for many years and who basically was in charge of seeing all the things that you couldn't do at the White House. So Rose had some piece of business that she wanted to conduct with Boyden and she was working on a Saturday as was not frequently the case with her either. And so she popped into Boyden's office. And there in Boyden's lightly furnished office was a gigantic Vietnamese pot bellied pig. And this is the only time that anyone can remember Rose being at a complete loss for words. She looked at Boyden. She looked at the pig. She tried to utter some words. But none would come out. And she just threw up her hands and walked out of the room. Ladies and gentleman, Boyden Gray. Well thank you Lee, thank you very much. You've already heard me speak and you don't want to hear me. What you want to do is hear Justice Thomas so, I am just gonna have get up here as soon as he can. The time is limited. I will say though that my Boss is constantly goes over these times of his confirmation and I think, well I know how his epitaphs is gonna be written. But I think he feels it was the best thing he ever did, so for Justice Thomas... Thank you all. Thank you. Well, I feel like quitting while I'm ahead. Well thank you all very much. First of all for being out in such inclement weather and being part of such a wonderful event and wonderful organization. I'd like to thank Boyden not only for introducing me but for his kindness throughout the more than 25 years we've known each other and especially during the confirmation where both he and the President were steadfast, firm and courageous, I think. And I deeply, deeply appreciate that. I also like to thank Lee Lieberman who is not only is one of the founders of the Federalist Society butwas also central in my confirmation processing who sort of, as Lee's character would suggest very quietly behind the scene that some of the very, very effective work and gave me some of the most important advise throughout that process. And this is an opportunity to thank her personally from the bottom of my heart, for all that she has done. Lee thank you. [Clapping] And my wife, Virginia I feel badly sometimes, she is, she loves even when I'm not so loveable. And throughout this long riding process that was a lot of time, she has been tireless and tenacious throughout some years ago. More than 20 years ago, I was sitting by myelf and I said you know, if I would ever be married, I'd like to be married with someone who understands the, or who loves me during the difficult times and who is dedicated to being married during the worst times not just the best times. And my wife has been steadfast and immovable and unshakeable through some of the most turbulent and difficult times in our lives. And she is my best friend in the whole world. And I really... [Clapping] And finally I like to thank Jean Myer and Leonard Leo for all the work they've done throughout. They travelled all over the country and co-sponsored some fantastic events and also like to thank them through over the years. I appeared in this very room 15 years ago to speak at a federalist society and I like to thank them for giving me an opportunity to be involved in something very, very important. And I have been in the court now 16 years and it's kind of hard to say that. Just like what has happened to my life? You almost want to say that, "you need to go get a life". But it has been interesting 16 years and I'm sure we will have an opportunity to chat about that dring the Q and A's but it has certainly move along more rapidly than I would liked. But someone asked and this is a question that I have been asked over the past few weeks, and that is, "why write the book now"? Well if anybody knows anything about book writing, I just didn't write it now. It didn't just suddenly show up. But over the past few years it's taken, it has certainly taken quite sometime. One of the reasons I wrote this book is because so much has been written about me. And most of it is wrong. Even when people mean well, it's wrong. It seem to be it required, I owed to so many people, my grandparents, the people who were in my neighborhood, Miss Gertrude, Miss Beck, Miss Mariah, Miss Gladys, I think I owed it to them to give an accurate story of the way we've been raised. Because they played such a critical role in all of that. I also thought it was important to so many people I've met over the years, people who have asked me about my life, and when they found out that I had so many similarities to their own. They said, "why don't you think of telling the story"? And it's almost as though you owed it to them to say, "look, here is my story and it's very similar to yours". You know it's really hard to talk if there's this guy in front of me keeps moving if maybe we can turn that out I'd really appreciate it but any rate that's me. So if you see yourself moving around it's like...[Laughing] This guy keeps moving in front of me gosh! But in any rate let's stop looking at this guy in front of me. But sorry to look at you that because it was to much of a good thing, if you think well of yourself my goodness. But on the other hand, I have also wanted to provide some hope to people who are still trying to hope. People who are going through difficult times, their education, their difficulties in their lives that sort of thing, in this score it has been enormously rewarding to go across the country. Far more rewarding than I could possibly have hoped. I've met a Vietnamese lady in Atlanta and she came up to me in tears and said that, "your story is my story". And I looked at her and we're so different since she has broken english, she obviously dreamt of being in this country and prospering here. It was so wonderful to see she understood implicitly what I was trying to say. There is so much in there about hope that is universal and about our lives is general and universal. There was a man who came up to me the other day who grew up in a rural town in Iowa. And he said, "we grew up the same way". There is so much the that's the same. Obviously he doesn't mean that were exactly the same but so much of it is the same. And there isn't a single person in this room who haven't had some of the challenges that I have tried to deal with in the book as honestly as I could. And finally I had recently looked this morning I was looking at a letter from a black gentleman who said that he sat in his car and wept upon reading the book. Because it told him that he had taken the safe course by not expressing his own opinions, that he went along to get along. It is a safe course. And that just hearing from these people means that it's broken through the din. The din that we all have known and watched in D.C. The monopoly of certain organizations, certain groups and media types who for years would not allow this simple message to get through. So much of what, is in that book is what we have said before. There's nothing new. There wouldn't have been no reason for the federalist society if the then predominant organizations had allowed open debate, open discussions did not take hard position, had not become so ideologically closed that you can't talk anymore. I don't know about you but when I was in law school, we go get beer in Thursday, a dollar a pitcher where you could have a lot of good thoughts with that. [Laughter] But it was so wonderful to argue about things, to talk about them, to debate and that by the way my point and my discussion about John Bolton in the book. Here's a guy who has his book out now. On the same thing, he may seen as an iconoclast but he is not. He is just a person who decides for himself and has the courage of his convictions. And I think when people like that man who sat in his car and wept because he had not have the courage of his. When they see maybe they will stand up and express like the people like Lee etc. who founded this organization, Leonard and Jean, people running it and making it grow. That they have the courage of their convictions and still believe that ideas are worth putting out, having people debate them and discuss them, see them grow and strengthen and heading to a certain direction. So in any case the rewards of having written this book I have already reaped. It 's far greater than anything I could hoped for. And you all each of you in this room are part of that. The reason why those ideas got out. The reason you are the people who gave us hope. You are the people, the fact that you would have us here, that you would say that it's good to think that you're here. That you see numbers of people who say. "we're here not to be proselytized but to think for ourselves. And at bottom isn't that why we want, one of the reasons we loved a free society, that we got to think for ourselves, make our decisions based on certain principles and to make it possible for others to do the same. So I thank you all. And I thank you for having me here. And I look forward to answering as many of your questions as time allows [Clapping]