My friends, we have work to do. There are the homeless,
lost and roaming. There are the children who have nothing, no
love, no normalcy. There are those who cannot free themselves of
enslavement to whatever addiction--drugs, welfare, the
demoralization that rules the slums. There is crime to be
conquered, the rough crime of the streets. There are young women
to be helped who are about to become mothers of children they
can't care for and might not love. They need our care, our
guidance, and our education, though we bless them for choosing
life.
The old solution, the old way, was to think that public money
alone could end these problems. But we have learned that is not
so. And in any case, our funds are low. We have a deficit to bring
down. We have more will than wallet; but will is what we need. We
will make the hard choices, looking at what we have and perhaps
allocating it differently, making our decisions based on honest
need and prudent safety. And then we will do the wisest thing of
all: We will turn to the only resource we have that in times of
need always grows--the goodness and the courage of the American
people.
I am speaking of a new engagement in the lives of others, a new
activism, hands-on and involved, that gets the job done. We must
bring in the generations, harnessing the unused talent of the
elderly and the unfocused energy of the young.
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