1. Continued
QUESTION: What advice would you give to young people who mught be contemplating careers in politics, about the pitfalls and the rewards of public service?
Senator Humphrey: When you are involved in anything, you have to expect criticism. You have to constantly ask yourself, am I prepared to do that? You can always run away from problems and hide out; many people do. If you are going to be involved, you must be willing to be criticized for your inadequacies and your limitations. This is especially true in public life, where you are constantly under examination.
Some young people today feel that it isn't worth it. Why go through all the sweat? Why put up with it? Let somebody else do it. But they forget that politics is another word for people. Politics is the people's business, particularly in a democracy. If the people
don't take care of their business by participating, by getting involved, then they will "get the business." While you may not think that your individual effort amounts to much, remember that every person sitting on the sidelines gives those that are involved that much more power.
I always try to point out that while great decisions may carry the name tag of one or two leaders, in fact many more people are involved. Great decisions are the products of a kind of digestive process that takes place in the whole society, in which all individuals can express their feelings on new ideas and plans.
In this process, we look to the younger generation, to those who are filled with the love of life and with bright ideals. They've got to contribute. If they are involved, then politics will really be the people's business.
Gallup poll: a special count of opinions done by questioning a representative section of the population. George Horace Gallup, born 1901, statistician, founded the American Institute of Public Opinion.
Teddy Roosevelt: Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) U.S. President 1901-1909.
Q
A
President's Mission
G
eorge
Bush's Nomination Acceptance Speech (excerpt)
is
to me the presidency provides an incomparable
opportunity for "gentle persuasion."
I hope to stand for a new harmony, a greater tolerance. We've come far, but I think we need a new harmony among the races in our country. We're on a journey to a new century, and we've got to leave the tired old baggage of bigotry behind.
Some people who are enjoying our prosperity have forgotten what it's for. But they diminish our triumph when they act as if wealth is an end in itself.
There are those who have dropped their standards along the way, as if ethics were too heavy and slowed their rise to the top. There's graft in city hall, the greed on Wall Street; there's influence peddling in Washington, and the small corruptions of everyday ambition.
But you see, I believe public service is honorable. And every time I hear that someone has breached the public trust it breaks my heart.
I wonder sometimes if we have forgotten who we
are. But we're the people who sundered a nation rather than allow a sin called slavery - we're the people who rose from the ghettoes and the deserts.
We weren't saints - but we lived by standards. We celebrated the individual - but we weren't self-centered. We were practical - but we didn't live only for material things. We believed in getting ahead - but blind ambition wasn't our way.
The fact is, prosperity has a purpose. It is to allow us to pursue "the better angels" to give us time to think and grow. Prosperity with a purpose means taking your idealism and making it concrete by certain acts of goodness. It means helping a child from an unhappy home learn how to read -and I thank my wife Barbara for all her work in literacy. It means teaching troubled children through your presence that there's such a thing as reliable love. Some would say it's soft and insufficiently tough to care about these things. But where is it written that we must act as if we do not care, as if we are not moved?
Well I am moved. I want a kinder, gentler nation.
Two men this year ask for your support. And
154 AMERICA IN CLOSE-UP