When people generally are aware of a problem, it can be said to have entered the public consciousness. When people get on their hind legs and holler, the problem has not only entered the public consciousness -- it has also become a part of the public conscience. At that point, things in our democracy begin to hum.

For the first time in the history of mankind, one generation literally has the power to destroy the past, the present and the future, the power to bring time to an end.

The history of the labor movement needs to be taught in every school in this land. America is a living testimonial to what free men and women, organized in free democratic trade unions can do to make a better life. We ought to be proud of it!

Compassion is not weakness, and concern for the unfortunate is not socialism.

You cannot tell a poor boy from a small country town on the plains of South Dakota who has had the opportunity to be a teacher, a mayor, a senator, and a vice president, that America is not a nation of promise.

This, then, is the test we must set for ourselves; not to march alone but to march in such a way that others will wish to join us.

To be realistic today is to be visionary. To be realistic is to be starry-eyed.