from the bottom, not from the top; that the genius which springs up from
the ranks of unknown men is the genius which renews the youth and energy
of the people. Everything I know about history, every bit of experience
and observation that has contributed to my thought, has confirmed me in
the conviction that the real wisdom of human life is compounded out of the
experiences of ordinary men. The utility, the vitality, the fruitage of
life does not come from the top to the bottom; it comes, like the natural
growth of a great tree, from the soil, up through the trunk into the
branches to the foliage and the fruit. The great struggling unknown masses
of the men who are at the base of everything are the dynamic force that
is lifting the levels of society. A nation is as great, and only as great,
as her rank and file.

So the first and chief need of this nation of ours to-day is to include in
the partnership of government all those great bodies of unnamed men who
are going to produce our future leaders and renew the future energies of
America. And as I confess that, as I confess my belief in the common man,
I know what I am saying. The man who is swimming against the stream knows
the strength of it. The man who is in the mêlée knows what blows are being
struck and what blood is being drawn. The man who is on the make is the
judge of what is happening in America, not the man who has made good; not
the man who has emerged from the flood; not the man who is standing on the
bank looking on, but the man who is struggling for his life and for the
lives of those who are dearer to him than himself. That is the man whose
judgment will tell you what is going on in America; that is the man by
whose judgment I, for one, wish to be guided.

We have had the wrong jury; we have had the wrong group,--no, I will not
say the wrong group, but too small a group,--in control of the policies of
the United States. The average man has not been consulted, and his heart