Speech #740189353

But if we saw only the brilliantly hued rainbow when we started on our new course. looking backward now. we can discern with clear. if not altogether satisfied. vision whither the path actually led that we so trustingly sought with eager feet. No one can now boast of an America that even approximately fulfills the dreams of those who gave us a land which they not only hoped but believed. as they expressed it in the Declaration of Independence. would be one where it would be recognized that all men are created equal. that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. that among these rights are life. liberty. and the pursuit of happiness. The concept was of an America that in a few generations would be occupied by happy and contented landowners. but instead of such a desirable state of society. one of the major problems of government for many years has been to prevent our fine and free and still semiindependent agricultural class from being pushed back into that state of peasantry which hundreds of thousands of immigrants from every nook and corner of Europe in years past have sought to escape by coming to these shores. And while there are heard in every part of the land the despairing cries of our