Oration of Ben Robert Hahn '06

State of the Moustache Address 2006

Delivered by the honorable moustache club co-presidents:

Benjamin Robert Hahn

David Suter Holman

    Holman:        Hark!!   Welcome friends of the moustache! Welcome to an event so monumentous that the very tips of your whiskers may curl in delight as we are here tonight to hold the annual state of the moustache address.   I moustache club co-president David Suter Holman and this is moustache club co-president, and younger brother of the moustache club's co-founder Benjamin Robert Hahn!

              I need not remind you all of the labors you have gone through to arrive here tonight with your upper lips gleaming at me like opals emerging from a snowfield. Brothers, were the struggles we underwent to grow these moustaches not immense!?   Were the dangers not clear and present!?   Were they not!?   Yes, they were, and yet we have navigated them all like a great hairy cartographer guiding a ship full of moustaches to safety.   As you began your quest there were few staches to be seen, few beacons of light to guide you.   Yet slowly, they began to emerge, did they not?   As your moustaches sprang into full bloom, did you not feel the surge of newfound higher cause for which to dedicate yourselves?   And yet our quest was frought with many perils and pitfalls, many detractors, nay sayers, and villifiers who all said nay and detracted. But, did they stop you!? Moustaches are one of the very few thing that Pakistanis, Uzbeks, Somalis, Peruvians and United States citizens can share and love together. And the moustache has brought us together tonight, has it not?! And now my friends, I have the honor of presenting the stage to Moustache club co-president Benjamin Robert Hahn who will eloquently bestow upon you the much anticipated annual state of the moustache address.

Hahn:        Brothers and sisters,  as the second club member of a first generation moustache founding family, there is no sense I feel stronger than the sense of tradition inherent in this club.   The good growth has been grown on this campus for no less than one year longer than one half of one decade and it will continue to be grown for many years hence.   We have grown and we have supported the moustache in a time of dearth and hibernation, a bleak and solemn time in the dark days pre-equinox when myriad fellow men and women suffer from diseases such as influenza, pertussis, and seasonal affective disorder.   The world in winter is a cold and dreary time.   But we, my brothers and sisters, have we not prevailed against the stronger forces of nature? We have.   I have witnessed the staunch defiance of fate and fellow man with mine own two eyes, and my heart has swelled with a pride for the human race that reaches much deeper than the follicles above my upper lip.   Our work is not done. Our work is never done. For every man who lets his moustache flower, there are countless who scoff and scorn.   For every woman who supports the good growth, there are innumerable more who accuse this club, this very club, of idle pomp and bombasticism.   Does our pomp and bombast not serve the greater good?   It does! And I say to you, fellow brethren, that though you have struggled for facial equality and have raised money for those less fortunate than yourselves, the fight for acceptance and tolerance will rage until the world finally admires and adores what we know to be the true qualities of the moustache: strength, sargacity, boistrosity, moral fortitude and yes, beauty.   We have come far.   We have far to go.   I leave you with one final statement and that is this:   The state of the moustache is strong!