nthralled with material things, less
appreciative of the nobility of work and sacrifice?

My friends, we are not the sum of our possessions. They are not the
measure of our lives. In our hearts we know what matters. We cannot hope
only to leave our children a bigger car, a bigger bank account. We
must hope to give them a sense of what it means to be a loyal friend, a
loving parent, a citizen who leaves his home, his neighborhood and town
better than he found it. What do we want the men and women who work
with us to say when we are no longer there? That we were more driven to
succeed than anyone around us? Or that we stopped to ask if a sick
child had gotten better, and stayed a moment there to trade a word of
friendship?

No President, no government, can teach us to remember what is best in
what we are. But if the man you have chosen to lead this government
can help make a difference; if he can celebrate the quieter, deeper
successes that are made not of gold and silk, but of better hearts and
finer souls; if he can do these things, then he must.

America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral
principle. We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make
kinder the face of the Nation and gentler the face of the world. My
friends, we have work to do. There are the homeless, lost and roaming.
There are the children who have nothing, no love, no normalcy. There
are those who cannot free themselves of enslavement to whatever
addiction--drugs, welfare, the demoralization that rules the slums.
There is crime to be conquered, the rough crime of the streets. There
are young women to be helped who are about to become mothers of
children they can't care for and might not love. They need our care, our
guidance, and our education, though we bless them for choosing life.

The old solution, the old way, was to think that public money alone
could end these problems. But we have learned that is not so. And in any
case, our funds are low. We have a deficit to bring down. We have
more will than wallet; but will is what we need. We will make the hard
choices, looking at what we have and perhaps allocating it differently,
making our decisions based on honest need and prudent safety. And then
we will do the wisest thing of all: We will turn to the only resource we
have that in times of need always grows--the goodness and the courage of
the American people.

I am speaking of a new engagement in the lives of oth