The moral and social aspiration proper to American life is, of course, the aspiration vaguely described by the word democratic; and the actual achievement of the American nation points towards an adequate and fruitful definition of the democratic ideal.

Let it be immediately added, however, that this economic independence and prosperity has always been absolutely associated in the American mind with free political institutions.

The essential nature of a democracy compels it to insist that individual power of all kinds, political, economic, or intellectual, shall not be perversely and irresponsibly exercised.

Of course, Americans have no monopoly of patriotic enthusiasm and good faith.

I am not a prophet in any sense of the word, and I entertain an active and intense dislike of the foregoing mixture of optimism, fatalism, and conservatism.

Had it not been for the Atlantic Ocean and the virgin wilderness, the United States would never have been the Land of Promise.

Unless the great majority of Americans not only have, but believe they have, a fair chance, the better American future will be dangerously compromised.