We are to beware of all men who would turn the tasks and the necessities
of the nation to their own private profit or use them for the building
up of private power.
United alike in the conception of our duty and in the high resolve to
perform it in the face of all men, let us dedicate ourselves to the
great task to which we must now set our hand. For myself I beg your
tolerance, your countenance and your united aid.
The shadows that now lie dark upon our path will soon be dispelled, and
we shall walk with the light all about us if we be but true to
ourselves--to ourselves as we have wished to be known in the counsels of
the world and in the thought of all those who love liberty and justice
and the right exalted.
***
Warren G. Harding
Inaugural Address
Friday, March 4, 1921
My Countrymen:
WHEN one surveys the world about him after the great storm, noting the
marks of destruction and yet rejoicing in the ruggedness of the things
which withstood it, if he is an American he breathes the clarified
atmosphere with a strange mingling of regret and new hope. We have seen
a world passion spend its fury, but we contemplate our Republic
unshaken, and hold our civilization secure. Liberty--liberty within the
law--and civilization are inseparable, and though both were threatened
we find them now secure; and there comes to Americans the profound
assurance that our representative government is the highest expression
and surest guaranty of both.
Pages:
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329