However, a hundred years ago the people of this state struggled to ignite it. Since then it has dimmed at times, but always rekindled because our basic values have been continually nurtured and preserved. For the most part, our people have been self reliant, hard working, responsible, kind and honest. In the context of centuries, those attributes have proven to be the active ingredients that sustain free societies. These are simple but powerful virtues.
Self reliance is nothing more than doing all possible to carry one's own burdens.
Honesty is keeping family promises, giving a day's work for a day's pay, rendering one's debts, telling the truth, keeping the law. Human kindness is caring for a neighbor or shouldering another's load. As we face the next hundred years, during a period of unparalleled change, we can proceed with the confidence that a nation or state acting on these values will have the capacity to care for the truly needy, fund great institutions, foster education and improve the human condition. But prosperity can also expose a community's soft under belly by breeding complacency, arrogance, and social division. Nations have often been slowly consumed by the burden of those who abuse the power of human creation, mistreat children or spouse, fail in their promises, break the law, or find themselves content to live from the sweat of another's brow.