PRESIDENT WILSON'S GREETING TO NEW CITIZENS AT PHILADELPHIA IN 1915 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. A man does not hope for the thing that he does not believe in, and if some of us have forgotten what America believed in, you, at any rate, imported in your own hearts a renewal of the belief. That is the reason that I, for one, make you welcome. If I have in any degree forgotten what America was intended for, I will thank God if you will remind me. I was born in America. You dreamed dreams of what America was to be, and I hope you brought the dreams with you. No man that does not see visions will ever realize any high hope or undertake any high enterprise. Just because you 'brought dreams with you, America is more likely to realize dreams such as you brought. You are enriching us if you came expecting us to be better than we are. You have come into this great Nation voluntarily seeking something that we have to give, and all that we have to give is this: We cannot exempt you from work; no man is exempt from work anywhere in the world. We cannot exempt you from the strife and the heartbreaking burden of the struggle of the day; that is common to mankind everywhere. We cannot exempt you from the loads that you must carry; we can only make them light by the spirit in which they are carried. That is the spirit of hope, it is the spirit of liberty, it is the spirit of justice. UNIV. OF CALIFORNIA LESSONS IN DEMOCRACY PART ONE THE MEANING OF DEMOCRACY LESSON 1 WORKING TOGETHER We must all work to earn a living. But we do not work alone. We work together with other people. We work in the factories, stores, shops, and mines. Hundreds and hundreds of people work there. Some of us do one kind of work; others do some other kind of work. In the shops and factories there are great machines. They help us to make many things that we need. The railroad trains and ships carry these things from one place to another. Machines, railroads, and ships help us to get what we need. Because of the machines, railroads, and ships, many hundreds of people can work together. |