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Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924

"President Wilson's Addresses"

You do not know whether he will come from the city or the farm.
You do not know whether you will ever have heard that name before or
not. Therefore you do not limit at any point your supply of new
strength. You do not say it has got to come through the blood of a
particular family or through the processes of a particular training, or
by anything except the native impulse and genius of the man himself. The
humblest hovel, therefore, may produce you your greatest man. A very
humble hovel did produce you one of your greatest men. That is the
process of life, this constant surging up of the new strength of
unnamed, unrecognized, uncatalogued men who are just getting into the
running, who are just coming up from the masses of the unrecognized
multitude. You do not know when you will see above the level masses of
the crowd some great stature lifted head and shoulders above the rest,
shouldering its way, not violently but gently, to the front and saying,
"Here am I; follow me." And his voice will be your voice, his thought
will be your thought, and you will follow him as if you were following
the best things in yourselves.


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