Every day problems arise which wear some
new phase and aspect, and I must fall back, if I would serve my
conscience, upon those things which are fundamental rather than upon
those things which are superficial, and ask myself this question, How
are you going to assist in some small part to give the American people
and, by example, the peoples of the world more liberty, more happiness,
more substantial prosperity; and how are you going to make that
prosperity a common heritage instead of a selfish possession? I came
here to-day partly in order to feed my own spirit. I did not come in
compliment. When I was asked to come I knew immediately upon the
utterance of the invitation that I had to come, that to be absent would
be as if I refused to drink once more at the original fountains of
inspiration for our own Government.
The men of the day which we now celebrate had a very great advantage
over us, ladies and gentlemen, in this one particular: Life was simple
in America then. All men shared the same circumstances in almost equal
degree. We think of Washington, for example, as an aristocrat, as a man
separated by training, separated by family and neighborhood tradition,
from the ordinary people of the rank and file of the country.
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