The city of San Francisco was holding a great exposition. The committee had asked Paderewski to play a concert for the occasion, since he had always been San Francisco’s favorite artist. When he replied that he was in the country to speak for Polish relief, not to play concerts, they willingly changed their offer. He could talk, he could play, he could do anything he liked. They in turn would guarantee him an audience of thousands who would be glad to hear whatever he had to say. It was a fine way to begin his career as a speaker, Paderewski thought. But as the day and finally the hour itself approached, he grew more and more nervous.
“What makes me think I can persuade an audience?” he asked his wife. “By playing—perhaps. But by speaking! And in English! How do I know they will even listen to me?”
Madame Paderewska’s eyes did not stray an inch from the sock she was knitting. She smiled patiently and said for the tenth time that day, “They will listen.”
As Paderewski walked toward the stage of the enormous auditorium that night, he longed for the blissful assurance he had once had of knowing exactly how every note was going to sound. He stepped out from the wings—and then stopped in his tracks at the breath-taking sight that greeted him.
The stage was bare except for the piano. Hanging behind the piano was an enormous flag that had been made only a day before. It covered the huge back wall of the building from one side to the other, and from ceiling to floor. A triumphant white eagle on a blood-red field! The flag of Poland!
Paderewski’s nervousness vanished. He felt a great surge of confidence both for the present moment and for the future. The audience was cheering wildly, but as he walked to the front of the stage and bowed, a deep silence settled over the hall.
He said, “I have to speak to you about a country which is not yours, in a language which is not mine.”
The flag of Poland!
It was the first of over three hundred speeches. It was the opening of a journey that would carry him to every state in the country. He would travel thousands of miles to speak thousands of words. And with the unerring instinct of an artist, he had begun with a phrase that sent an electric shock through that first audience and every future audience that heard it.