If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize as we
have never realized before our interdependence on each other; that
we can not merely take but we must give as well; that if we are to
go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to
sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because without
such discipline no progress is made, no leadership becomes
effective. We are, I know, ready and willing to submit our lives
and property to such discipline, because it makes possible a
leadership which aims at a larger good. This I propose to offer,
pledging that the larger purposes will bind upon us all as a
sacred obligation with a unity of duty hitherto evoked only in
time of armed strife.
With this pledge taken, I assume unhesitatingly the leadership of
this great army of our people dedicated to a disciplined attack
upon our common problems.
Action in this image and to this end is feasible under the form of
government which we have inherited from our ancestors. Our
Constitution is so simple and practical that it is possible always
to meet extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis and arrangement
without loss of essential form. That is why our constitutional
system has proved itself the most superbly enduring political
mechanism the modern world has produced.
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