making?" And then, again, he would grow solemn when he spoke of the
average man. Turning aside from the humorous, he would strike a serious
note like this one:

You know that communities are not distinguished by exceptional men.
They are distinguished by the average of their citizenship. I often
think of the poor man when he goes to vote: a moral unit in his lonely
dignity.

The deepest conviction and passion of my heart is that the common
people, by which I mean all of us, are to be absolutely trusted. The
peculiarity of some representatives, particularly those of the
Republican party, is that when they talk about the people, they
obviously do not include themselves. Now if, when you think of the
people, you are not thinking about yourself, then you do not belong in
America.

When I look back at the processes of history, when I look back at the
genesis of America, I see this written over every page, that the
nations are renewed 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 the energy of the people; and in every age of the
world, where you stop the courses of the blood from the roots, you
injure the great, useful structure to the extent that atrophy, death,
and decay are sure to ensue. This is the reason that an hereditary
monarchy does not work; that is the reason that an hereditary
aristocracy does not work; that is the reason that everything of that
sort is full of corruption and ready to decay.

So I say that our challenge of to-day is to include in the partnership