It was but an historical accident no doubt that
this great country was called the "United States"; yet I am very
thankful that it has that word "United" in its title, and the man who
seeks to divide man from man, group from group, interest from interest
in this great Union is striking at its very heart.
It is a very interesting circumstance to me, in thinking of those of you
who have just sworn allegiance to this great Government, that you were
drawn across the ocean by some beckoning finger of hope, by some belief,
by some vision of a new kind of justice, by some expectation of a better
kind of life. No doubt you have been disappointed in some of us. Some of
us are very disappointing. No doubt you have found that justice in the
United States goes only with a pure heart and a right purpose as it does
everywhere else in the world. No doubt what you found here did not seem
touched for you, after all, with the complete beauty of the ideal which
you had conceived beforehand. But remember this: If we had grown at all
poor in the ideal, you brought some of it with you. A man does not go
out to seek the thing that is not in him.
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