izons
on earth.

For the first time, because the people of the world want peace, and the
leaders of the world are afraid of war, the times are on the side of
peace.

Eight years from now America will celebrate its 200th anniversary as a
nation. Within the lifetime of most people now living, mankind will
celebrate that great new year which comes only once in a thousand
years--the beginning of the third millennium.

What kind of nation we will be, what kind of world we will live in,
whether we shape the future in the image of our hopes, is ours to
determine by our actions and our choices.

The greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker. This
honor now beckons America--the chance to help lead the world at last out
of the valley of turmoil, and onto that high ground of peace that man
has dreamed of since the dawn of civilization.

If we succeed, generations to come will say of us now living that we
mastered our moment, that we helped make the world safe for mankind.

This is our summons to greatness.

I believe the American people are ready to answer this call.

The second third of this century has been a time of proud achievement.
We have made enormous strides in science and industry and agriculture.
We have shared our wealth more broadly than ever. We have learned at
last to manage a modern economy to assure its continued growth.

We have given freedom new reach, and we have begun to make its promise
real for black as well as for white.

We see the hope of tomorrow in the youth of today. I know America's
youth. I believe in them. We can be proud that they are better educated,
more committed, more passionately driven by conscience than any
generation in our history.

No people has ever been so close to the achievement of a just and
abundant society, or so possessed of the will to achieve it. Because our
strengths are so great, we can afford to appraise our weaknesses with
candor and to approach them with hope.

Standing in this same place a third of a century ago, Franklin Delano
Roosevelt addressed a Nation ravaged by depression and gripped in fear.
He could say in surveying the Nation's troubles: "They concern, thank
God, only material things."

Our crisis today is the reverse.

We have found ourselves rich in goods, but ragged in spirit; reaching
with magnificent precision for the moon, but falling into raucous
discord on earth.

We are caught in war, wanting peace. We are torn by d