The scholar, the teacher, the intellectual, have a higher duty than any of the others, for society has trained you to think as well as do. - John F. Kennedy

Today our slowed-down economy, our overcrowded schools, our poor and our unemployed, our spreading slums and our thousands of abandoned farms are visible, tangible evidence of our failure to meet those responsibilities. And those failures are defeats for the cause of freedom. For today the Communists are determined to convince the emerging and developing nations of Asia and Africa and Latin America that only Communism will eliminate their poverty and hunger and disease - that the Communist road is the only road to a better life. We know that this is not true - for our own greatness is living proof that the road to abundance is freedom's road. And we intend to build a still greater America where every man has a chance to work, a decent house to live in and decent schools for his children because we believe in a decent life for all our citizens - and because we who first lit man's hope for the good life are determined that freedom shall continue to show the way to progress.

I am talking about the accumulated evidence of the last 5 years that our present tax system, developed as it was, in good part, during World War II to restrain growth, exerts too heavy a drag on growth in peace time; that it siphons out of the private economy too large a share of personal and business purchasing power; that it reduces the financial incentives for personal effort, investment, and risk-taking. In short, to increase demand and lift the economy, the Federal Government's most useful role is not to rush into a program of excessive increases in public expenditures, but to expand the incentives and opportunities for private expenditures. [...] While rising demand will expand imports, new investment in more efficient productive facilities will aid exports and a new economic climate could both draw capital from abroad and keep capital here at home.

This Nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.