The Question

The auditorium of the small college was filled with students excited about the opportunity to hear a person of her stature speak. After the governor gave the introduction, the speaker moved to the microphone, looked at the audience from left to right, and began:

“I was born to a mother who was deaf and could not speak. I do not know who my father is or was. The first job I ever had was in a cotton field.”

The audience was spellbound. “Nothing has to remain the way it is if that’s not the way a person wants it to be,” she continued. “It isn’t luck, and it isn’t circumstances, and it isn’t being born a certain way that causes a person’s future to become what it becomes.” And she softly repeated, “Nothing has to remain the way it is if that’s not the way a person wants it to be.”

“All a person has to do,” she added in a firm voice, “to change a situation that brings unhappiness or dissatisfaction is answer the question: ‘How do I want this situation to become?’ Then the person must commit totally to personal actions that carry them there.”

Then a beautiful smile shone forth as she said, “My name is Azie Taylor Morton. I stand before you today as treasurer of the United States of America.”