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Ambition? Well, I want to do something that's going to be lastingly useful...

and leave some sort of mark behind me, not just a blank space.

I think my ambition in life is to be famous, but I'm not quite sure.

I've never experienced another generation,

but I do feel we'll have something to say.

We'll make a gigantic splash in the world to come.

There's always a change going on.

You never know what's gonna happen next.

You never know what new clothes you're gonna have.

You never know what the new records are gonna be.

My stack of records keeps getting larger.

You know how parents are. They always bug you-- where you're going,

when you're getting home, who you went with,

what time you're gonna be back, don't stay on the phone too long.

Then you get your own car, and you're free a little bit.

But they're still holding on the rope.

We're teenagers.

But we didn't always exist.

We were a wartime invention.

Who would we become?

Who would decide it?

The adults?

Or us?

First we were just children.

That's how they thought of us.

And then all of a sudden we were supposed to be adults.

Twelve years old, and I'd be off to work in the factory.

I worked 74 hours a week.

6:00 in the morning till 5:30 at night.

Saturdays till noon.

My hands were bruised and cut.

I felt like a slave.

Children have always worked,

but it is only since the reign of the machine...

that their work has been synonymous with slavery.

There is no more terrible page in history...

than that which records the enslavement of mere babies...

by the industrial revolution.

Adults knew it wasn't right.

They wanted to protect us.

So governments started to make child labor against the law.

I started going to school.

I loved having fun with my friends.

We were young,

and we were allowed to be.

There was a second stage of life now.

"Adolescence."

In the factory we were prisoners,

but in the streets...

we were free.

The cities were fast and hard.

So were we.

We formed gangs that roamed the streets.

"Hooligans" is what the police called us.

We carried knives.

We robbed... and killed.

Youth were a problem...

that had to be controlled.

My brother Scouts,

you are doing much to prevent the present disgraceful waste...

of human materials...

and showing your poorer brothers...

how to be good, successful men.

One man thought he'd found a solution...

to the problem of youth.

A soldier called Robert Baden-Powell...

wrote a military training manual for the young.

Scouting for Boys it was called.

It was a manifesto for a movement--

the Boy Scouts.

You are tested on your honor...

to do your best to carry out the Scout Promise,

which is to work for God and the king.

Tracking and camping had always been a fantasy for me.

I'd yearned for an awfully big adventure,

and here it was.

The Scouts came to America too.

Hundreds of thousands of boys joined.

They learned patriotism,

courage and self-reliance.

Once a Scout, always a Scout.

I believed what Baden-Powell said--

"The Scout is loyal to the king,

to his officers, his parents and country.

He must stick to them through thick and thin."

We went from rat-faced slum kids...

to fit and healthy soldiers,

primed for war.

Today, England is off to war.

Meet the fall with the cry of liberty.

If you didn't join up,

you were letting everybody down.

They made sure you knew it.

In Germany, the news of war was intoxicating.

**

There were bands playing, flags flying.

What drove us was a feeling of adulthood...

burning up inside.

Half the population was under the age of 22.

Almost all the boys applied for military service.

13- or 14-year-olds...

were crushed if they were rejected by the recruiting officers.

Europe tore itself apart.

And then the Americans came.

More than two million soldiers,

fully equipped and indomitable in spirit,

were safely transported across 3,000 miles of seas,

where they turned the tide of battle,

one imperishable glory...

and triumph to the greatest war that the world has ever known.

They brought new music, dances and films.

American culture started to spread.

Our boys made good in France.

The word "American" has a new meaning in Europe.

When my brother died in the war,

they sent us a frame that said "Died on the field of honor."

There is no field of honor.

An entire generation was gutted.

We lost all loyalty and trust.

We were shell-shocked.

The pound of the guns drove us mad.

Millions of young men were massacred.

The old had sent us to die,

and we hated them.

After the war, everyone wanted to be born anew,

to blot out the past.

There was this reckless sense of release,

and I felt a kind of wildness inside.

What do they want?

They say, "We want beer."

Spending their money, debauching their character,

rotting their bodies...

and jeopardizing their immortal souls.

My father says I can't go out every night.

But what on earth does he want me to do?

Just sit around at home all evening?

I don't trust my parents anymore.

I just want to be with my friends.

Our world is speedy,

and they're old.

The power of today is in our hands.

We who number ourselves among the so-called wild and wicked youth...

would prefer to go out with drums beating and bugles blowing.

We want to be young before we're old.

They call us flappers, flaming youth.

The times have made us awfully experienced for our age.

I got all the new jazz records.

My mum thought it was awful noise.

She asked me why it was good, and I said,

"Because it comes from America."

You'd hear people say,

"Those who get the youth get the future."

Our parents had ruined Germany,

and we wanted a new kind of community.

So we joined youth groups.

There had been youth movements even before the war.

Workers' youth groups, Jewish youth groups,

but the most important group was the Wandervogel--

"Wandering Birds."

Our teachers and our parents didn't understand us.

So we created our own world.

Youth were leading youth.

We'd run through forests,

lay together at bonfires,

make flower wreaths and photos,

sing and dance.

Then drop off our clothes...

and feel free.

To be young was the style.

And it was for sale.

Records,

cigarettes, perfume.

And all those glamorous Hollywood stars to admire.

I wanted to be like Valentino.

He always got the girls.

When he died, we rushed the funeral by the thousands.

They called it a riot.

I wish I could have been there.

**

In Britain there was a new breed,

and we defined ourselves by our youth.

They called us the Bright Young People.

It started with a few girls who liked dressing up,

doing hoaxes and treasure hunts,

making a fool of everyone.

We took it all very seriously.

Except when we didn't.

The police were trying to shut down all of London's nightlife.

So we created our own.

There was this one girl who shined especially bright.

Her name was Brenda Dean Paul.

Brenda hit the scene in 1926.

She was 19.

She came from a broken home.

Longed to be famous.

She played many parts, but...

the most convincing was her role as life and soul of the party.

Pajama parties,

Greek parties, Russian parties,

sailor parties, American parties,

murder parties, baby parties.

We called them "freak" parties.

And it didn't take long for them to become big affairs.

Girls were like boys, and the boys like girls.

Sometimes you couldn't even tell us apart.

We liked it that way.

A couple of gossip columnists wrote it all up in the papers.

They made it into...

a "movement."

But for Brenda--

once she started she couldn't stop.

She crashed her car, and then she fell ill.

Perhaps it was all the late nights.

Or perhaps it was the abortion.

Somebody gave her morphine,

and Brenda became London's first and most notorious junkie.

Scandal, drug busts, prison.

Brenda became famous,

but not in the way she had wanted.

Did she really think she could stay young forever?

Yes. Probably in that moment we all did.

We were just too tired to break away.

Eventually Brenda crashed,

but by then nobody could really remember or care.

We were all crashing,

and then the whole world did too.

Adults were in a panic.

But we were the ones who would inherit this mess.

Today the largest single group of the nation's unemployed...

are young men and women between the ages of 16 and 24.

Boys like 18-year-old Warren Harper,

hardest hit of a generation which has grown up in depression.

Warren himself never has had a steady job in all his life,

never has owned an overcoat.

When he goes out looking for work, he wears borrowed clothing.

He gets up late and spends most of his time...

hanging around talking with other boys who are out of work...

and wondering what's wrong when a fella wants to work and can't.

You couldn't even work.

I was fired at 16.

The governor wanted to take on an errand boy who'd do my job cheaper.

Nothing to do with my time.

Nothing to spend.

Nothing to do tomorrow, nor the day after.

I was a living corpse.

Not only old people had grief,

but young ones too.

Our future looked bleak.

Some parents were suffering so bad...

they couldn't look after their children anymore.

Those kids hit the road.

They were the children's army.

Hoboes,

boxcar riders,

young tramps.

People thought there was no hope for youth.

But we were searching for something to believe in.

And we were willing to fight for it.

As fast as one mob is broken up, another gathers.

Politics was our problem too.

We are not looking for charity. We want an opportunity to work.

There was talk of revolution.

And they feared us.

There were the Communists...

and the Nazis,

and we took up sides.

People would come up to you in the street and ask,

"Who are you with?"

If you gave them the wrong answer,

they would attack.

Radical change was in the air.

5,000 fascists rally to their mobilization...

for the much advertised march through the East End.

Communists jammed the fascists' route,

resisting the peaceful efforts of the outnumbered police to clear the way.

I was there when the fascists started marching down my street.

I wasn't gonna let my country go that way.

We had to get involved.

We weren't gonna be another lost generation.

Let us carry on the good that the past has given us.

The best of that good is the spirit of America,

and the spirit of America is the spirit in which youth...

can find the fulfillment of its ideals.

It is for the new generation to participate in the decision...

and to give strength and spirit...

and continuity...

to our government and to our national life.

Melita Maschmann was a typical middle-class girl.

Her parents complained about the unemployment and poverty,

but they didn't do a thing.

Melita wanted action.

So she joined the Hitler Youth.

My mother expected me to be unquestioning and obedient,

like the maids.

I rebelled.

I wanted to be different--

to escape from my narrow childish life.

I was a March Violet,

one of the many youth who joined after Hitler became chancellor.

Every weekend we had tests and competitions.

Swimming, sports, obstacle races.

There were camping trips and holidays too.

I can only recall this feeling of happiness--

to be allowed to belong to a community...

which embraced the whole youth of the nation.

Millions of us joined the Hitler Youth.

It felt like the Wandervogel,

only now we were part of the national cause.

Youth were leading youth.

We were at the center of the government's plan...

because we would shape the future.

They wanted us to be strong.

Hitler said his youth should be tough as leather,

swift as greyhounds...

and hard as Krupp steel.

A young German...

was the most exciting thing you could be.

Big-city backwoodsmen.

New York boys are getting back to nature...

in the citizens conservation camp at Yellowstone Park.

That's pretty.

An important part of the national recovery program are these camps,

one of the president's pet projects.

They're a great thing for city boys.

Roosevelt created the Civilian Conservation Corps...

and other programs that put youth to work.

It was job training, but we were getting paid.

Maybe our protests were heard.

On a bank of the Avon,

you will find the men of the first Grith Fyrd,

or Peace Army camp,

where young men of all classes can develop themselves...

both physically and mentally.

We had labor camps.

Instructional Centers is what they were called.

They gave us something worthwhile to do.

The government was taking us seriously.

It gave us a real boost.

Young people were part of the solution.

We were prospering.

And we were going to change the world.

* Happy days are here again

* The skies above are clear again *

* Let us sing a song of cheer again *

* Happy days are here again *

**

Let me tell you in plain American English.

I'm a jitterbug,

and I'm crazy about swing.

For years we oompahed to sticky fox-trots.

And then came swing with its solid rhythm.

**

Negro bands playing hot,

but with the power of a big orchestra.

It was free, beautiful music,

and it let us cut loose and act like normal kids for a change.

Every day into music shops from coast to coast...

go more and more customers,

all for the same thing--

the latest in swing music.

Swing! Swing!

It's the rhythm, rhythm, rhythm that gets 'em.

The hot-cha-cha,

the boogie-woogie, the vicey versa, the nuts and bats.

It's movement, movement, rhythm, rhythm and all that.

Ever since the crash, life's been so grim.

Jitterbugs were changing the mood.

We were the new flaming youth.

When Benny Goodman played New York, it was madness.

There was a whole youth craze catching on.

Adults weren't ready to integrate,

but jitterbugs were.

White kids took their cues from us Negroes.

Where we couldn't go, our songs would.

Our music made the feet of the world dance.

Swing broke out to the mass audience.

If you didn't live in the city,

then you could hear it on the radio.

And so the Camel Caravan--

Shows like Camel Caravan and Let's Dance.

You could live the dream without ever having to leave your bedroom.

I hereby dedicate...

the World's Fair of 1939.

When they had the World's Fair,

it was about the future,

and jitterbugs were at the center of it all.

I heard them talking about us on the radio.

They said,

"Once you've glimpsed the world of tomorrow,

you can never look back.

You may enter it a girl of today.

You'll come out a girl of tomorrow."

I want to tell you, I have never seen...

such a spectacle as this in all my life.

Swing was the voice of youth, the sound of freedom.

It was real.

It was alive.

Enthusiastic young jitterbugs--

young Americans living for the world of tomorrow.

When the Hitler Youth started,

it was an inspiring cause.

But now it was the establishment.

Membership was compulsory.

Slowly, you lost yourself.

It was the denial and the degradation of the individual...

into the mass.

If you didn't like it,

there was no escape.

At 16 and 17,

you crawled inside yourself.

Psychologically...

you were armed.

Germany has invaded Poland and has bombed many towns.

General mobilization has been ordered in Britain and France.

Melita had quickly climbed the ranks of the Hitler Youth.

Once the war started, she left home to serve as a youth press officer.

Melita was the ideal youth leader--

rigorous, hardworking,

and she believed in Germany's superior moral position.

She quickly lost her Jewish friends,

but sacrifices had to be made.

You had only two choices--

have Jewish friends or be a National Socialist.

When I had to pass along the ghetto street,

the wretchedness of the children brought a lump into my throat.

But gradually,

I learned to switch off my private feelings.

Everything that I was or had been...

was now absorbed into the whole.

Not everyone was willing to comply.

There were the Hamburg Swings.

They were obsessed with American music and British fashion.

It didn't matter if it was against Nazi law.

They had no manifesto.

Still, their mere presence was a threat to the regime.

Tommie Scheel fell in love with swing.

It all started when a friend of his came back from New York...

with all the latest records.

Tommie heard something in swing he liked.

It was a new youth language,

and Nazis weren't allowed.

Once the war started, if you weren't in uniform,

everyone knew what you believed in or what you didn't.

Tommie wore British suits.

He wouldn't put on the Hitler Youth uniform.

It was important not to look like faithful German younglings.

The Nazis hated swing.

They banned all art and social dancing.

Boys and girls were forbidden to mix.

Swing shows were raided by police.

When one Hamburg Swing was arrested, they told him,

"Anything that begins with Duke Ellington...

ends with an assassination attempt on Hitler."

So Tommie and his friends met at his parents' house...

where nobody could see them dance.

Once, for fun,

they dressed up like American gangsters...

and pretended to rob a friend's villa.

Of course they took pictures.

It was their art.

Once the Gestapo got ahold of the pictures,

they wished they'd never done it.

Robbery charges were brought against them.

Police reports called them criminals.

It said they were race defilers,

they fornicated,

they were homosexuals and robbers.

It wasn't just kids having fun.

They were a direct threat to the nation.

When they arrested Tommie, they beat him.

He was shipped to a political prison,

much like a concentration camp.

He survived,

eventually finding his way to his beloved America.

But most of his friends did not.

A date which will live in infamy.

Following yesterday's shattering and unprovoked attacks,

the United States formally declared war on the empire of Japan.

Today the nation is stirring...

as it slowly realizes the immense extent...

of the enterprise on which it has embarked.

More than 16 million young Americans,

in answer to the highest obligation of their citizenship,

place themselves at the disposal of their country.

I will obey the orders of the president of the United States...

The government was asking us to defend freedom,

and we answered the call.

We thought democracy was something worth fighting for.

The Americans were coming.

It was world war all over again.

The youth of Britain certainly means to play its part...

in shaping the future.

The authorities know how keen all these boys of 17 are--

a sign of the times.

We'd been at war for two years now.

I lived in London during the Blitz.

I slept in the Underground while the bombs dropped,

then came up to see the buildings crumbling.

I was excited when the G.I.s arrived from America.

They brought all the swing music I'd been listening to and made it live.

Who wants to listen to some sentimental ballad...

when you're young and you can dance the "A" Train with the Yanks?

The G.I.s looked so sharp,

like we were in black and white and here they came, in color.

When you think of entertainment,

you must somehow think of Piccadilly, the hub of entertainment.

In Shaftesbury Avenue, less than a hundred yards from the circus,

is Rainbow Corner, famous American entertainment headquarters.

Ices and lasses, and what more could you want?

Unless it's more lasses than ices.

Rainbow Corner was open all day and all night.

But sometimes they had to close it...

because there were so many of us on the street outside.

For a night, I could forget about the war.

And are they enjoying it.

Such an occasion as this, small though it may be in itself,

it's just another happy indication...

of the friendly relationship and happy understanding...

that exist between ourselves and our cousins across the Atlantic.

In Europe they were treating us like equals.

But back home was a different story.

We were the enemy.

Warren Wall was 16 when the war started,

the eldest of seven brothers and sisters.

He hoped to become an electrical engineer.

Sometimes I feel so alone.

I don't wanna run with the gangs.

I wanna work...

and gain respect.

But most of my friends don't see it that way.

They tell me, why try to fit into a white man's world?

I don't believe I or any Negro can help but feel inferior.

Scouting's one program where I'm nearly an equal.

I can compete with white boys and get the same recognition.

I'd like to be the first Negro Eagle Scout in the city.

But somehow I'm stuck.

I don't know whether it's me or the Scout leadership.

I've always wanted to be an athlete.

And I know you can't give up all your strength on girls...

and expect to give your best in athletic games.

But when I was 14,

I had sex for the first time with a girl,

and I thought I was hot stuff.

I'll never forget the experience...

because for weeks I was darn near eaten up.

I had to go to my father, and he just laughed.

I've seen lots of people...

whose actions make me dislike them,

even despise them.

But my father says we should be fighting for our rights,

not picking fights.

But at times, I've just itched to take a crack at a white guy...

just to see if he can take it like he can dish it.

When I get disrespected, I get so angry I could explode.

I want to appeal to all the people of Harlem...

for your complete cooperation...

in order to bring to a speedy end...

this most unfortunate condition...

which was brought about by a few rowdies and hoodlums.

And during the past 10 days,

the zoot-suit warfare here in Los Angeles.

Mobs attacked and roughed up harmless citizens of Mexican descent.

Cars were stopped, the occupants pulled out, doors ripped from the cars.

That's what happens when the mob starts to take things into its own hands.

Why would young people fight for democracy...

if we're just gonna be treated like second

Aside from the physical evidences of the war,

the psychological impact of the war is of extreme importance...

in consideration of the conduct of the children at this time.

The lid had blown off,

and all our anger poured out.

And they searched for a reason why.

Have you ever had any obsessions?

Ideas that drive you to do something?

Well, yeah, I guess so.

I remember when I was a kid I used to have spells...

where I was afraid to touch a knife for fear I'd cut my throat.

Upon America's youth,

the excitement and emotional tension of war...

is today exerting an influence...

which psychiatrists fear may be felt for years to come.

And the conversion to all-out war effort of American industry and the American community...

has confronted many young people, like their elders,

with a profound and unsettling change in their manner of living.

The depression was long gone.

Millions of people were on the move,

just going where the work was.

Dad's working again all hours.

Mom too.

So I'm at home alone a lot.

It gets a little lonely.

Freed from parental authority,

youngsters are venturing into new and unwholesome worlds.

Experiments with new sensations, such as the smoking of marijuana,

are tempting more and more teenage youngsters along dangerous paths.

To many adolescent girls,

even those in their earliest teens,

war is opening up avenues of unaccustomed excitement.

To them any man in uniform seems a hero.

And in towns crowded with footloose soldiers or sailors,

it is easy for them to get passing attention they could not normally expect.

Do you realize what time it is?

Oh, Mother, don't be such an old fuddy-duddy.

No!

Is it wise for a girl of your age to go steady with just one boy, June?

Well, Miss Norton, I don't think a girl should confine her dating schedule to just one boy.

She needs the companionship of all of them.

* There's a girl named Kate, and she thinks she's really great *

* But she's not

* All the boys stare at the girl with blonde hair It's not fair *

They called us Victory Girls.

Khaki Whaki young women.

Juvenile delinquents.

Are you pregnant?

Yes! Yes, I am!

Johnny and 200,000 other youngsters who are arrested each year...

are America's number one crime problem.

Now what will become of this boy?

Will he be fingerprinted, photographed,

given a permanent criminal record at 15?

Will he grow up in reformatories and prisons...

to become a bitter and seasoned criminal?

Can't something be done...

to help these twisted young lives and set them straight?

Golly, what do you suppose is going to happen to us now?

To keep youngsters away from dives and drinking places,

there is the dry nightclub,

organized and operated by the local young people themselves.

Where they exist, experience has shown...

that most youngsters prefer these clubs to more dubious hangouts.

We had a right to a place of our own.

And adults started to realize that maybe some freedom might make us behave.

So we started our own social clubs.

They were called teen canteens.

This is fun, isn't it? Yeah!

You're sure you like to do things like this? Sure.

I thought all girls wanted fellas to take them to fancy places...

and spend lots of money. Not this girl.

We called the clubs The Jive Hive,

The Buzz Bucket, The Swing Haven, Hepcat Hall,

Rhythm Rocker, Boogie and The Strut Hut.

Hear the names?

Proves that they're really ours.

The canteen has its own laws about closing,

and the members obey them.

Some people may question our behavior when we keep the canteen open until 11:00.

Nobody has to stay here till 11:00 just because the canteen is still open.

There's no law that says you have to stay or you have to go.

I have heard people talking about your late hours here.

You'd better realize that the town could pass a law.

You see, whatever the community decides is best for itself...

usually becomes law.

The community? Well, aren't we part of the community?

Well, of course you are, Jack.

Don't you think it would be better...

if the canteen were to pass its own law to close weeknights at 10:30?

And so Jack is learning about social controls.

Social controls, moral code and law...

have always played a part in the activities of the teen canteen.

These leaders--

the Hitlers and the Goebbels and the Görings...

and, uh, so forth...

have built up, uh-- I don't know--

some sort of a demi-godliness about them.

The youth of Germany-- they have likes and dislikes,

and they want freedom just as much as other people do.

The tide turned...

and bombs rained from the sky.

There were sirens every night...

and several terrible attacks.

We wanted to run away from this misery.

It didn't matter where to, just away.

Still,

there were some who resisted Hitler's will.

For years,

underground gangs like the Edelweiss Pirates escaped into nature--

far away from the regime.

They declared eternal war on the Hitler Youth.

In Cologne,

they started a campaign of anti-Hitler graffiti,

vandalism and sabotage.

In just one month 600 of them were arrested.

The Gestapo made an example of them.

Kids of 13 or 14 were sent to the front.

The old had sent us to die,

and there was no turning back.

My parents died in a night bombing attack by the British.

The sight of smoking ruins became a daily occurrence.

I believed that I would not outlive the Third Reich.

If it was condemned to go under,

then so was I.

I was no longer able to suppress the realization...

that all the sacrifices had been in vain.

**

* Fifteen thousand times a day

* I hear a voice within me say

* "Hide yourself behind a screen *

* You shouldn't be heard You shouldn't be seen *

* You're just an awful in-between" *

* I'm past the stage of doll and carriage *

* And not the age

* To think of marriage

* I'm too old for toys, and I'm too young for boys *

* I'm just an in-between

* I'm not a child

* All children bore me

* I'm not grown up

* Grown-ups ignore me

* And in every sense I'm just on a fence *

* I'm just an in-between *

There's nothing worse than a dope...

who tries to look old or sophisticated,

so all the makeup we use is just powder and lipstick.

But we're fussy about lipstick.

The right shade can make or break.

Of course clothes are awfully important.

If a girl doesn't dress right, the way everyone else is dressing,

well, she's just out.

She might as well be dead.

I don't mean she needs a lot of clothes,

and they don't have to be expensive, but they have to be right,

or she just labels herself a crumb for life.

What's this?

What's what?

Well, Jen, you're not going to Emily's party in those clothes, are you?

Oh, Mother, it's only a hen party.

Do you want them to think I'm different or something?

Oh, all right.

Bye.

Be home early.

Before Pearl Harbor, I was playing with paper dolls.

After Pearl Harbor,

I never played with dolls again.

I'm part of the war effort now.

Workers for victory.

The National Youth Administration schooling in skilled mechanical trades,

and you earn while you learn.

And note the nifty new costumes too: blue jeans.

So here's your chance to take a slap at a Jap.

The army of industry needs you.

I'm earning my own money.

I'm not a little kid anymore.

And I want to be treated like an equal.

I suppose you're going out again tonight.

Yeah. So what?

Jimmy, you have no business staying out half the night...

and coming home all liquored up.

Look, I'm getting sick and tired of being treated like a kid.

I'm making as much money as you are,

and I have a right to have a little fun.

All the big businesses...

were starting to understand how important we were.

We are endeavoring to evaluate your group's social habits.

Could you tell us in your own words?

I can walk into a store...

and buy clothes, records, magazines...

all aimed right at me.

Department stores,

waking up to the special market represented by some six million girls...

are earnestly concentrating on giving this exacting clientele what it wants.

We're the bosses of the business now.

A Big Bang. Uh, chocolate--

With chocolate sauce.

And, uh, marshmallows, nuts.

How about a cherry? A cherry.

They called us subdebs.

You'd see us all over the magazines.

We weren't debutantes at all.

Just regular old high school kids.

But it sounded fancy.

And we sure like fancy.

I love being 17.

I wish I could stay this age for a while.

Seventeen is that perfect spot between adolescence--

which means you're going somewhere--

and adulthood-- which means you're on the downgrade.

**

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.

Whether they called us hooligans,

flappers, jitterbugs or subdebs,

we knew who we were.

The time had come...

to declare it.

The article came out in the New York Times.

The Teen-Age Bill of Rights.

A declaration.

A manifesto.

It was like a contract between the generations.

From the beginning of man's life on earth,

there have been but two generations: the old and the young.

And throughout the world's history,

in every nation and in every time,

the lives and fortunes of the young...

have been inevitably ruled by the dictates of the old...

who have called upon youth to enforce their aims and impose their will.

Of all the world's youth,

none are more fortunate by birthright and inheritance...

than the 21 million boys and girls between the ages of 16 and 24...

who constitute one vast and glamorous society.

Today no one portion of the American population...

is more consistently admired than its young men and women.

For since the postwar days of the flapper,

speakeasy and flaming youth,

America's youngsters have led the styles and set the pace...

for the young of every other nation.

Each generation feels that it is the future.

To the teenager,

nothing is more important--

Than to find out where we fit in...

in relation to life around us.

It is a serious quest.

Often a painful one.

Two atomic bombs three days apart.

Japan has surrendered.

And there's jubilation around this earth.

This is a story that ends with a beginning.

The old world was over,

and a new figure emerged.

It would become the model for youth...

that still exists today.

The teenager.

American culture kept spreading around the world.

They took away our weapons...

and gave us Coca-Colas instead.

The teenager was an American invention.

It's what we wanted to be.

We knew we could be blown up in an instant.

So we lived in the now.

Teenage was a compromise solution.

We got the freedom we were looking for.

But adults still had some control.

A lot of people try to shape the future.

Parents, the government,

bankers, the police.

But it's the young ones who will live in it.

And we are the ones who will fight for it.