Scribd Logo
Încărcați

Bine ați venit la Scribd!

  • A Crisis of Spirit

    Încărcat de

    richardnixonfoundation
    1K vizualizări14 pagini
    Nixon's first campaign address on Feb 3rd, 1968.

    Drepturi de autor

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Formate disponibile

    PDF sau citiți online pe Scribd

    Vi se pare util acest document?

    Este necorespunzător acest conținut?

    Raportați acest document
    Nixon's first campaign address on Feb 3rd, 1968.

    Drepturi de autor:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Descărcați ca PDF sau citiți online pe Scribd
    Indicator pentru conținut neadecvat
    1K vizualizări14 pagini

    A Crisis of Spirit

    Încărcat de

    richardnixonfoundation
    Nixon's first campaign address on Feb 3rd, 1968.

    Drepturi de autor:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Descărcați ca PDF sau citiți online pe Scribd
    Indicator pentru conținut neadecvat
    din 14
    RN's Copy hh la W Concord, New Hampshire February 3, 1968 ‘The finest hours in our nation's history have been triumphs of the American spirit lL 2. We now are engaged in a great test of that spirit. @ Throughout the land, bitter conflicts are being waged between the races, between the generations, between ideologies, between advocates of lawful change and of chaotic violence. When the leaders of a great nation lose the trust of its people, when they lose touch with its spirit, the soul of the nation is torn. Q Whei Lyndon Johnson took office five years ago, he proclaimed the slogan: "Let us continue." 1. Today, five years later, President Johnson is saying to the American people;: Let us continue what we have been doing Yor the last five years for another four years. (1) So the question the American people will be answering with their votes in 1968 is: Shall we cote? The only 1 iE oe wer to this question is: strongest nation in the world can be tied down for in the war in Viet Nam, with no end in sight; est nation in the world cannot manage its own economy; when the nation with the greatest tradition of respect for the rule of law is plagued by rampant lawlessness; when the nation that has been a symbol/of human liberty is torn apart by racial Strife; when the President of the United States cannot travel either at (1) I don't think America can afford four more years of Lyndon Johnson in the White and jobs and education, (1) This Has to be done and it can be done. \ 1. _/But I mean something more. \ \| () We need leadership that recognizes that the real crisis of America today is a crisis of the spirit. 0,5 (2) What America needs most today is what \{ it once had, but has lost: the Lift of a driving dream. Let us look at America now, at the start of this final third of the 20th Century, 1, Whether peace and freedom survive in the world depends on the United States, and the great question is whether we can meet this challenge. () Ina material sense, our assets are immense. 1, Our economic strength is unquestioned, and our military strength can be whatever we choose to make it. 2, But in what should be our area of greatest strength, we have lost something. @) Back in the days when America was one of the _weakest nations of the world, when this granite state was one of only thirteen, then America's ideals were more powerful than they are today. 1. America meant more to the world, (l) It was a symbol of liberty and hope. ae (2) It was weak militarily, poor economically, but rich in its devotion to a new concept of freedom. The-tragedy-is that somehow, while fhat concept has d this nation Lette + higher, faster, than any nation at any time, the American idea has be losing its meaning for the world and for America. 1, There are two reasons: the world has changed, and America has changed. () Then we were a new nation in an old world. 1, Now we are an old nation in a new world. (2) At home and abroad, we must recapture the American dream. 1, America did not create freedom, but freedom did ~ create America. (1) The trouble is that we have let both the word and the concept grow stale. 1, The word "freedom" has become a cliche, and the concept has too often been made an excuse for inaction. (3) If we are to restore the vitality of the American ideal, we have to bear in mind that freedom is not static. 1. Like any other living thing, freedom has to grow to survive, 2. ‘Today we live in a period of unprecedented change, and growth in the world, a time when young people at home and new nations abroad are groping for new directions -- and a static concept of freedom simply is not enough. Let us dedicate ourselves not only to the preservation of freedom, but to the expansion of ern ee ss —_ xy 4 SHA ~ Tn F- - 1 The place to begin is here at home. @) We cannot Sessiieem example abroad unless we get an example at home. UAH, for 1. None of the battlegrounds on which we are engaged, none of the places in which we are being tested, is more important than the ground we stand on here, (1) For the ultimate testing-place of America is — americat America itself. 6) 2, And this is the time to begin. (1) It's time to move on to a new freedom. 1. The old negative freedoms -- freedom from hunger, freedom from want, freedom from fear -- are no longer enough. () The new freedom has to mean freedom for the poor_as well as the rich, freedom for black as well as for white; and it has to mean not only freedom from but freedom to. 1, It means freedom to grow, freedom to choose, freedom to travel, freedom to create, freedom to work -- and freedom to enjoy the fruits of our labors, Let us recognize that rights have no meaning -- freedom has no meaning -- without the opportunity to exercise those rights and to use that freedom. For most of us in America, the American Revolution has been won and the American dream achieved. But there are millions for whom the dream — 10 has been an unreachable vision. The prophets of despair, the peddlers of hate, would have those millions believe that by taking up arms -- whether literally or figuratively, or both -- they can destroy a society that they see only in fragments, of which they see only the underside and not its promise or its glory. 1. They have to be persuaded, first, that they cannot -- and they cannot. 2. But second, they have to be shown the other side of that society, and they have to be shown it as a reality, which they can attain, (1) It has not been so. Let us begin by confessing that fact. (2) It must become so, Let us proceed by accepting that coania agai commitment. 1, How do we do this? (Q) We do it, first, by turning the power of freedom to the uses of freedom. 1, The question today is not whether we provide food for the hungry, homes for the ill-housed, jobs for the jobless. () The question is how. BT And here we have one of the great, fundamental issues which the people will decide with their votes in November. 1, The Johnson Administration's approach to every problem is to begin with government. (@) Ours is to begin with people. 2, The trouble with their approach is that it has failed. he om pe FLAT Log Rho ST bpm (oe ee — 1 thet () What they forget is that what has made Ameriéa great has not been what government has done for people, but _/ what people have done for themsel ie 4 people have done for themselves. _ a pete ‘ eS The choice we face today, very simply, is this: Bey he es pee fe ten $a ———___ anf? 1, Do we continue down a road that leads to big government and little people ? sega cece ata: () Or do wejtake a new road, one that taps the energies of the greatest engine of productivity the world has ever seen -- the engine of American industry and American private enterprise ? 1. I say we take this new road. aCe 1, This means providing tax credit and other incentives for business to go where the need is, and to do efficiently what government now does so inefficiently. () Let me be very precise: ae 1, I am not saying that government is the enemy. , it's ce Demet Delonte the (2) It has a role to play. 1, But government alone simply is not capable of doing the job that needs to be done. (1) And even more importantly, it's not capable of giving fire to the spirit, and life to the am. fe ream. olay the ped 2, Government would be capable, if all we cared about were the old freedoms from. a () But jt fails because it stunts the new freedoms to. enOn ee Whenever a new government program is proposed, I } there is one test that we should apply. () Does it limit freedom? YA Aik f— Ge YLLE CG a hat a There are those who say that there's nothing new about relying more on (2) Or does it expand it? | | private enterprise. 1. After all, American business is older than the American —_o— government. (@) But what is new is both the capacity and the will of private enterprise to do the job. 1. During this past third of a century, while we've been loading more and more onto the shoulders of government, private enterprise has been undergoing a quiet revolution, (l) Its leaders have developed a social conscience far beyond anything the leaders of the 20s or the 30s would have recognized. 1. And at the same e, technology has thrown wide the windows\of the possible. ea 2. It's private enterprise, not government that has been turning the wonders of science to the service of man. () The American system of private enterprise is | ( the greatest instrument of change and of progress the world has ever known. 1, And the skills and the resources it now commands are those that we need if the new freedoms are to be made a living reality for all of our people. 3. ‘And it's use of free private enterprise that can provide for all of us an opportunity to participate in this great adventure. There's another thing we need if we're to make our freedoms real. 1. We need the civil order that makes freedom possible. 2. We need the rul » of law to sustain the light of hope, and the oi ee of hope to sustain the rule of law. & Lk - SE! oh” Reaereien kay oe Cees T

    S-ar putea să vă placă și