It s a pleasure to speak before a group that s dedicated to that other principle that made America great.
Free enterprise is the oxygen that fuels our democracy.
Without it, the flames of our other freedoms might have died out long ago. Your group takes its name from Thomas Newcomen, an 18 th Century ironworker from Great Britain. And free enterprise made it possible for people like James Watt and William Murdock and George Stephenson to improve on Newcomen s invention. The point is, the true engines of progress are not machines powered by steam. They re people powered by ideas .