What is the American dream?
It is the anticipation that sometime we will be able to say — Here is equality and freedom; Here is brotherhood and justice.
The dream is of compassion expressing itself in society's concern for those who fall by the way in a competitive system.
It is imagination perfecting the mechanisms of government.
It is sensitivity to the claim of righteousness in human affairs.
It is the hope that triumphs here will strengthen values that are shared with other people around the world.
It is human kindness so penetrating the nation that every man, no matter how incapacitated, will feel that he is wanted.
It is the vision of opened doors of opportunity.
It is insistence upon government by as well as of and for the people.
It is the hope of human dignity made secure.
It is the longing for acknowledgment of the human family's oneness.
It is the vision of a citizenry drawn together in mutual confidence, facing common evils and exalting a common faith in God.
This is my conception of the American dream.
