Unless we solve that problem it will avail us little to solve all others. The worst of all fears is the fear of living. I hail as a benefactor every writer or speaker, every man who, on the platform, or in book, magazine or newspaper, with merciless severity makes such attack, provided always that he in his turn remembers that the attack is of use only if it is absolutely truthful. No man can lead a public career really worth leading, no man can act with rugged independence in serious crises, nor strike at great abuses, nor afford to make powerful and unscrupulous foes, if he is himself vulnerable in his private character. It is true of the Nation, as of the individual, that the greatest doer must also be a great dreamer.
Men can never escape being governed.
Either they must govern themselves or they must submit to being governed by others. It is by no means necessary that a great nation should always stand at the heroic level. But no nation has the root of greatness in it unless in time of need it can rise to the heroic mood. This country has nothing to fear from the crooked man who fails. We put him in jail.