 I've seated the speaker and also charged with acting Brian Gordon, 10 days later we opened the show. That was a huge hit, got radio views, ran eight months. To this day, Tickle Me Up, that's it with that shovel. The inscription reads, Mr. Speaker, our friend, protector, master magician, with love and appreciation, you're housed in Ford's Theater, doing a night on. Here's a little list of couple of days of the strikers license. So he said he knew the governor at the time of California and his striker. With the trust that you and Mrs. Reagan join us here on stage, please. Thank you all. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. O'Neill, Mr. Chief Justice and members of the cabinet, members of the Congress, members of the diplomatic corps, distinguished members of the business community. Who's tending the store? But Nancy and I are honored to be able to participate in this, the 1986 Festival at Ford's. To the performers, I know I speak for everyone watching here and at home when I thank you for a show that started on a peak and went up. By the way, Victor Borger, that business about punctuation, could I try that in the Congress? You know, now, Tip, we may have had our differences, but I think we can both agree that Ford's theater is a wonderful place to be. I never played Ford's theater. But tonight's gala will enable this historic hall as we've been told to continue and expand its work in bringing theater to the heart of our nation's capital. And to everyone here tonight, especially the remarkably generous Carl Linder, Nancy and I are grateful for what you've done. After all, it's our own neighborhood that you're helping to spruce up. You Ford's theater chairman, Millie O'Neill, Carol Laxalt, executive producer, Frankie Hewitt, and gala chairman, Mary Jane Wick. You've made special efforts and we want to join in giving you our special thanks. And by the way, congratulations to you, Mary Jane, for your recognition here tonight. Ford's is a theater set apart. Seriously, it is a kind of shrine, one of those rare buildings that puts us directly in touch with the great men and events of our past. And what gives this house its sense of presence? What makes Ford central to the history of our country and indeed of the world is what took place here one foggy night more than a century ago. Up there in that box on the evening of Good Friday, 1865, President and Mrs. Abraham Lincoln drove in their carriage from the White House to this theater through streets so thick with mist that the Lincolns could hardly make out the buildings they passed. In just five days before, Lee had surrendered the army of Northern Virginia and the long and terrible war was coming to an end at last. On that gloomy night, Mr. Lincoln came here seeking some measure of relaxation, some measure of refreshment from a comedy entitled My American Cousin. And when the president and his party entered the theater, an actor on stage, ablibbed a line, this reminds me of a story as Mr. Lincoln would say and the audience roared. When the president and his party entered the state box, no one noticed that a peephole had been dug in the door. And it was during the third act that the shot rang out and for an instant, no one moved. Then Mr. Lincoln slumped forward. As Mrs. Lincoln reached to support him, John Wilkes Booth leapt from the state box to the stage below, from that box to this stage, and escaped through a side door. Mr. Lincoln was carried to a house across the street, had shortly passed seven the next morning, he died. Lincoln, Father Abraham, was gone. Is it fitting for us to come here tonight in the spirit of celebration for this theater once again to ring out with laughter? I believe that Mr. Lincoln himself would have wanted it so. He loved the theater, his biographers tell us, and nothing could have pleased him more than the performances we've seen here tonight. But more profoundly, it was the message of his life, as it is the message of our history, that joy must triumph over sorrow, that good is greater than evil, that laughter in the end must do away with tears. Some of his harshest critics, when he was living as president in the White House, assailed him because they said there was too much laughter and he was too prone to joke. And he said, I could not perform for 15 minutes the tasks that confront me here if I were not allowed to laugh. Well, his laughter in the end must do away with tears and that's why we're here tonight. That's why we must fill this hall with song and dance and comedy, and above all, with the most triumphant sound known to man, the sound of joyous applause and certainly the people standing behind me here in the stage and behind Nancy have richly deserved that kind of warm and happy applause. Thank you all for being here. God bless you all.