I have the greatest affection for them but I know they're not going to make it for 500 years. They aren't. You know it, too. The Mexicans are a diffe… - Richard Nixon

If he gets shot, it's too damn bad.

To challenge a particular policy is one thing; to challenge the government's right to set that policy is another--for this denies the process of freedom itself. Lately, however, a great many people have become impatient with this democratic process. Some of the more extreme even argue, with a rather curious logic, that there is no majority, because the majority has no right to hold opinions that they disagree with. Scorning persuasion they prefer coercion. Awarding themselves what they call a higher morality, they try to bully authorities into yielding to their "demands." On college campuses they draw support from faculty members who should know better; in the larger community, they find the usual apologists ready to excuse any tactic in the name of "progress." It should be self-evident that this sort of self-righteous moral arrogance has no place in a free community in America, because it denies the most fundamental of all the values we hold--respect for the rights of others. This principle of mutual respect is the keystone of the entire structure of ordered liberty that makes freedom possible.

We are meeting here tonight at a time of great and fundamental change in America--of changes more far-reaching than have ever been seen in the span of a single lifetime. These changes summon all of us--the Federal Government, the States, the counties, the cities, and towns--each person everywhere--to a high adventure in human advancement. We stand on the threshold of a time when the impossible becomes possible--a time when we can choose goals that, just a generation ago, would have seemed as unreachable as the moon seemed to be unreachable then. We can reach those goals. The Spirit of Apollo gave us a brief, glittering glimpse of how far we can stretch. Thousands of minds, thousands of hands, all were marshaled in selfless dedication in achieving a great human dream--and the dream came true. Today, we in America can afford to dream--but we have to put drive behind those dreams. This requires that we turn--now--to a new strategy for the seventies--one that enables us to command our own future by commanding the forces of change. Only 7 years from now, in 1976, America will celebrate its 200th birthday as a nation. So let us look ahead to that great anniversary in the Spirit of Apollo-and discover in ourselves a new Spirit of '76. Let us resolve that what we can do, we will do. When a great nation confronts its shortcomings, not angrily, but analytically; when it commits its resources, not wantonly but wisely; when it calms its hatreds, masters its fears, and draws together in a spirit of common endeavor, then the forces of progress are on the march.