My
fellow countrymen, on this occasion, the oath I have taken
before you and before God is not mine alone, but ours
together. We are one nation and one people. Our fate as a
nation and our future as a people rest not upon one
citizen, but upon all citizens.
This
is the majesty and the meaning of this moment.
For
every generation, there is a destiny. For some, history
decides. For this generation, the choice must be our own.
Even
now, a rocket moves toward Mars. It reminds us that the
world will not be the same for our children, or even for
ourselves in a short span of years. The next man to stand
here will look out on a scene different from our own,
because ours is a time of change rapid and fantastic
change bearing the secrets of nature, multiplying the
nations, placing in uncertain hands new weapons for
mastery and destruction, shaking old values, and uprooting
old ways.
Our
destiny in the midst of change will rest on the unchanged
character of our people, and on their faith.
THE
AMERICAN COVENANT
They
came here the exile and the stranger, brave but frightened to
find a place where a man could be his own man. They made a
covenant with this land. Conceived in justice, written in
liberty, bound in union, it was meant one day to inspire
the hopes of all mankind; and it binds us still. If we
keep its terms, we shall flourish.
JUSTICE
AND CHANGE
First,
justice was the promise that all who made the journey
would share in the fruits of the land.
In
a land of great wealth, families must not live in hopeless
poverty. In a land rich in harvest, children just must not
go hungry. In a land of healing miracles, neighbors must
not suffer and die unattended. In a great land of learning
and scholars, young people must be taught to read and
write.
For
the more than 30 years that I have served this Nation, I
have believed that this injustice to our people, this
waste of our resources, was our real enemy. For 30 years
or more, with the resources I have had, I have vigilantly
fought against it. I have learned, and I know, that it
will not surrender easily.
But
change has given us new weapons. Before this generation of
Americans is finished, this enemy will not only retreat it
will be conquered.
Justice
requires us to remember that when any citizen denies his
fellow, saying, "His color is not mine," or
"His beliefs are strange and different," in that
moment he betrays America, though his forebears created
this Nation.
LIBERTY
AND CHANGE
Liberty
was the second article of our covenant. It was
self-government. It was our Bill of Rights. But it was
more. America would be a place where each man could be
proud to be himself: stretching his talents, rejoicing in
his work, important in the life of his neighbors and his
nation.
This
has become more difficult in a world where change and
growth seem to tower beyond the control and even the
judgment of men. We must work to provide the knowledge and
the surroundings which can enlarge the possibilities of
every citizen.
The
American covenant called on us to help show the way for
the liberation of man. And that is today our goal. Thus,
if as a nation there is much outside our control, as a
people no stranger is outside our hope.
Change
has brought new meaning to that old mission. We can never
again stand aside, prideful in isolation. Terrific dangers
and troubles that we once called "foreign" now
constantly live among us. If American lives must end, and
American treasure be spilled, in countries we barely know,
that is the price that change has demanded of conviction
and of our enduring covenant.
Think
of our world as it looks from the rocket that is heading
toward Mars. It is like a child's globe, hanging in space,
the continents stuck to its side like colored maps. We are
all fellow passengers on a dot of earth. And each of us,
in the span of time, has really only a moment among our
companions.
How
incredible it is that in this fragile existence, we should
hate and destroy one another. There are possibilities
enough for all who will abandon mastery over others to
pursue mastery over nature. There is world enough for all
to seek their happiness in their own way.
Our
Nation's course is abundantly clear. We aspire to nothing
that belongs to others. We seek no dominion over our
fellow man, but man's dominion over tyranny and misery.
But
more is required. Men want to be a part of a common enterprise a
cause greater than themselves. Each of us must find a way
to advance the purpose of the Nation, thus finding new
purpose for ourselves. Without this, we shall become a
nation of strangers.
UNION
AND CHANGE
The
third article was union. To those who were small and few
against the wilderness, the success of liberty demanded
the strength of union. Two centuries of change have made
this true again.
No
longer need capitalist and worker, farmer and clerk, city
and countryside, struggle to divide our bounty. By working
shoulder to shoulder, together we can increase the bounty
of all. We have discovered that every child who learns,
every man who finds work, every sick body that is made whole like
a candle added to an altar brightens the hope of all the
faithful.
So
let us reject any among us who seek to reopen old wounds
and to rekindle old hatreds. They stand in the way of a
seeking nation.
Let
us now join reason to faith and action to experience, to
transform our unity of interest into a unity of purpose.
For the hour and the day and the time are here to achieve
progress without strife, to achieve change without hatred not
without difference of opinion, but without the deep and
abiding divisions which scar the union for generations.
THE
AMERICAN BELIEF
Under
this covenant of justice, liberty, and union we have
become a nation prosperous, great, and mighty. And we have
kept our freedom. But we have no promise from God that our
greatness will endure. We have been allowed by Him to seek
greatness with the sweat of our hands and the strength of
our spirit.
I
do not believe that the Great Society is the ordered,
changeless, and sterile battalion of the ants. It is the
excitement of becoming always becoming, trying, probing,
falling, resting, and trying again but always trying and
always gaining.
In
each generation, with toil and tears, we have had to earn
our heritage again.
If
we fail now, we shall have forgotten in abundance what we
learned in hardship: that democracy rests on faith, that
freedom asks more than it gives, and that the judgment of
God is harshest on those who are most favored.
If
we succeed, it will not be because of what we have, but it
will be because of what we are; not because of what we
own, but, rather because of what we believe.
For
we are a nation of believers. Underneath the clamor of
building and the rush of our day's pursuits, we are
believers in justice and liberty and union, and in our own
Union. We believe that every man must someday be free. And
we believe in ourselves.
Our
enemies have always made the same mistake. In my lifetime in
depression and in war they have awaited our defeat. Each
time, from the secret places of the American heart, came
forth the faith they could not see or that they could not
even imagine. It brought us victory. And it will again.
For
this is what America is all about. It is the uncrossed
desert and the unclimbed ridge. It is the star that is not
reached and the harvest sleeping in the unplowed ground.
Is our world gone? We say "Farewell." Is a new
world coming? We welcome it and we will bend it to the
hopes of man.
To
these trusted public servants and to my family and those
close friends of mine who have followed me down a long,
winding road, and to all the people of this Union and the
world, I will repeat today what I said on that sorrowful
day in November 1963: "I will lead and I will do the
best I can."
But
you must look within your own hearts to the old promises
and to the old dream. They will lead you best of all.
For
myself, I ask only, in the words of an ancient leader:
"Give me now wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out
and come in before this people: for who can judge this thy
people, that is so great?"
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