Well Said
“It is my right to be uncommon…if I can. I seek opportunity….not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me. I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed. I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia. I will not trade freedom for beneficience nor my dignity for a handout. I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat. It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; to think and act for myself; enjoy the benefits of my creations and to face the world boldly and say, “This I have done.” All this is what it means to be an American.”
— Dean Alfange
Alfange was born in Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire, to two ethnic Greek parents.[2] His parents moved to New York when he was still an infant, where they raised him in Utica, New York.[1][2] He graduated from Utica Free Academy in 1918, and joined the United States Army during World War I.After the war, he attended Hamilton College and graduated in 1922 with honors in philosophy, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa Society.[2][3] Alfange remained active at the college, and when he received the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Award for his book The Supreme Court and the National Will, he donated the prize to Hamilton College, establishing the ongoing Dean Alfange Essay Award, given to two students each year for essays on American constitutional government.[4] He received a juris doctor from Columbia University Law School and became a lawyer in Manhattan.[2]