what the vitality of America consists of. Its vitality does not lie in New
York, nor in Chicago; it will not be sapped by anything that happens in
St. Louis. The vitality of America lies in the brains, the energies, the
enterprise of the people throughout the land; in the efficiency of their
factories and in the richness of the fields that stretch beyond the
borders of the town; in the wealth which they extract from nature and
originate for themselves through the inventive genius characteristic of
all free American communities.

That is the wealth of America, and if America discourages the locality,
the community, the self-contained town, she will kill the nation. A nation
is as rich as her free communities; she is not as rich as her capital city
or her metropolis. The amount of money in Wall Street is no indication of
the wealth of the American people. That indication can be found only in
the fertility of the American mind and the productivity of American
industry everywhere throughout the United States. If America were not rich
and fertile, there would be no money in Wall Street. If Americans were not
vital and able to take care of themselves, the great money exchanges would
break down. The welfare, the very existence of the nation, rests at last
upon the great mass of the people; its prosperity depends at last upon the
spirit in which they go about their work in their several communities
throughout the broad land. In proportion as her towns and her
country-sides are happy and hopeful will America realize the high
ambitions which have marked her in the eyes of all the world.

The welfare, the happiness, the energy and spirit of the men and women who
do the daily work in our mines and factories, on our railroads, in our
offices and ports of trade, on our farms and on the sea, is the underlying
necessity of all prosperity. There can be nothing wholesome unless their
life is wholesome; there can be no contentment unless they are contented.
Their physical welfare affects the soundness of the whole nation. How
would it suit the prosperity of the United States, how would it suit
business, to have a people that went every day sadly or sullenly to their
work? How would the future look to you if you felt that the aspiration had
gone out of most men, the confidence of success, the hope that they might
improve their condition? Do you not see that just so soon as the old
self-confidence of America, just so soon as her old boasted