1 68 Presidential Addresses 



is an especially good thing for the American who 

 happens to be President at any time, to go around 

 in the country and meet his fellow-Americans of 

 different sections and different States. The more 

 he sees of his fellow-Americans the more he will 

 realize that the differences which divide them are 

 trivial and that the likenesses which unite them are 

 fundamental. A good American is a good Ameri 

 can wherever he is, and a bad American is a poor 

 one wherever he is. If a man is a decent citizen, if 

 he does his duty to his family, to his neighbors, to 

 the State and the nation, as a decent man ought to, 

 then he is a man who has a right to claim kinship and 

 comradeship with every other decent American from 

 one end of this country to the other. If he is a 

 straight man he is a credit to all of us, and if he is a 

 crooked man he is a disgrace to all of us. Fundamen 

 tally, for weal or for woe, we are knit together ; we 

 shall go up or go down together. If hard times come 

 they come without much regard to State lines. If 

 good times come they come without regard to State 

 lines. Wherever a deed is done by an American 

 which reflects credit upon our country, each of us 

 can walk with his head a little higher in conse 

 quence ; and wherever anything happens through the 

 fault of any of us that is discreditable it discredits all 

 of us more or less. 



Gentlemen and ladies, I thank you greatly for 

 having come down here to greet me. It is a genuine 

 pleasure to see you. No man of the United States, 

 proud of the history of the United States, can fail 



