"Why I Am an American"
Today is a day of rejoicing for all of us – a rejoicing born in the realization and nurtured in the appreciation of our good fortune in enjoying the blessings of American citizenship.
America has in the past years struggled and fought and many of its best sons have shed their blood to safeguard and strengthen the inalienable truths and rights of the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence.
And the greatest of these is liberty.
Where starts this love of liberty?
As Judge Learned Hand has so well said:
"Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women. When it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it. No constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there, it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it.
"And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will, it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few: as we have learned to our sorrow.
"What then is the spirit of liberty: I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias. The spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded. The spirit of liberty is the spirit of him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned, but has never quite forgotten: that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest."
On this "I Am an American Day," it is well for us to consider the manner in which the fires of this spirit of liberty can be rekindled and perpetuated.
The fires of liberty were not self-starting, nor are they self-perpetuating. The fires of liberty must be continually fueled by the positive and conscious actions of all of us who would regard their burning out as a deadly catastrophe for mankind.
To safeguard the fires we must be aware of the fuel necessary for their continued burning. Such fuel is the recognition by each American of the extreme importance of our government and how it works.
It is frightening to think that public apathy toward government has in our day reached the stage where as few as 10% of those eligible voted in a recent New York Congressional primary.
More dangerous to our American liberty than the threat of foreign ideologies is this inaction and disinterest of the American voter.
Let those of us then gathered here today reaffirm our faith in American liberty by pledging ourselves to a more studied and conscientious awareness of government and the men who govern us.
Pray God let the words of Rousseau, who said, "As soon as a man says of the affairs of state 'What does it matter to me?' the state may be given up as lost" never apply to us, to America, and to American liberty.
Sources: Papers of John F. Kennedy. Pre-Presidential Papers. House of Representatives Files, Box 94, "'Why I am an American,' Mineola, New York, 18 May 1947"; David F. Powers Personal Papers, Box 28, "'Why I Am an American' speech, Mineola, NY, 18 May 1947." John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.