This Country Cannot Afford To Be Materially

... The Athenian Lawmaker Solon Decreed It A Crime For Any Citizen To Shrink From Controversy.

There Is Danger That Totalitarian Governments, Not Subject To Vigorous Popular Debate, Will Underestimate The Will And Unity Of Democratic Societies Where Vital Interests Are Concerned.

This Is Not A Time To Keep The Facts From The People-to Keep Them Complacent. To Sound The Alarm Is Not To Panic But To Seek Action From An Aroused Public. For, As The Poet Dante Once Said: 'the Hottest Places In Hell Are Reserved For Those Who, In A Time Of Great Moral Crisis, Maintain Their Neutrality.

One Hundred Years Of Delay Have Passed Since President Lincoln Freed The Slaves, Yet Their Heirs, Their Grandsons, Are Not Fully Free. They Are Not Yet Freed From The Bonds Of Injustice. They Are Not Yet Freed From Social And Economic Oppression. And This Nation, For All Its Hopes And All Its Boasts, Will Not Be Fully Free Until All Its Citizens Are Free.

While We Cannot Guarantee That We Shall One Day Be First, We Can Guarantee That Any Failure To Make This Effort Will Make Us Last.