ets through
the door to prosperity. The people of the world agitate for free
expression and free thought through the door to the moral and
intellectual satisfactions that only liberty allows.

We know what works: Freedom works. We know what's right: Freedom is
right. We know how to secure a more just and prosperous life for man on
Earth: through free markets, free speech, free elections, and the
exercise of free will unhampered by the state.

For the first time in this century, for the first time in perhaps all
history, man does not have to invent a system by which to live. We don't
have to talk late into the night about which form of government is
better. We don't have to wrest justice from the kings. We only have to
summon it from within ourselves. We must act on what we know. I take as
my guide the hope of a saint: In crucial things, unity; in important
things, diversity; in all things, generosity.

America today is a proud, free nation, decent and civil, a place we
cannot help but love. We know in our hearts, not loudly and proudly, but
as a simple fact, that this country has meaning beyond what we see, and
that our strength is a force for good. But have we changed as a nation
even in our time? Are we enthralled with material things, less
appreciative of the nobility of work and sacrifice?

My friends, we are not the sum of our possessions. They are not the
measure of our lives. In our hearts we know what matters. We cannot hope
only to leave our children a bigger car, a bigger bank account. We must
hope to give them a sense of what it means to be a loyal friend, a
loving parent, a citizen who leaves his home, his neighborhood and town
better than he found it. What do we want the men and women who work with
us to say when we are no longer there? That we were more driven to
succeed than anyone around us? Or that we stopped to ask if a sick child
had gotten better, and stayed a moment there to trade a word of
friendship?

No President, no government, can teach us to remember what is best in
what we are. But if the man you have chosen to lead this government can
help make a difference; if he can celebrate the quieter, deeper
successes that are made not of gold and silk, but of better hearts and
finer souls; if he can do these things, then he must.

America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral
principle. We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make
kinder the face of the Nation a