When Albert Einstein received a human rights award from the Chicago Decalogue Society on February 20, 1954, he opened his acceptance speech with this comment:
You are assembled today to devote your attention to the problem of human rights. You have decided to offer me an award on this occasion. When I learned about it, I was somewhat depressed by your decision. For in how unfortunate a state must a community find itself if it cannot produce a more suitable candidate upon whom to confer such a distinction. — Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions, p. 34.
If you think Einstein was attempting humility, think again. He was speaking at a time of McCarthyism, at a time not long after the Nuremberg Trials showed that following government orders or arguing tu quoque was insufficient grounds for defense against human rights violations. Yet, Einstein implies, too few people step forward to denounce government crimes and resist their creators and enforcers, and most who do arrive on the scene far too late.
