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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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—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?”