for better or for worse, your generation has been appointed by history to deal with those problems and to lead
so, will you join in the battle to give every citizen the full equality which god enjoins and the law requires, whatever his belief, or race, or the color of his skin?
will you join in the battle *to give every citizen an escape from the crushing weight of poverty?
will you join in the battle to make it possible for all nations to live in enduring peace -- as neighbors and not as mortal enemies?
will you join in the battle to build the great society, to prove that our material progress is only the foundation on which we will build a richer life of mind and spirit?
there are those timid souls who say this battle cannot be won; that we are condemned to a soulless wealth. i do not agree. we have the power to shape the civilization that we want. but we need your will, your labor, your hearts, if we are to build that kind of society.
those who came to this land sought to build more than just a new country. they sought a new world. so i have come here today to your campus to say that you can make their vision our reality. so let us from this moment begin our work so that in the future men will look back and say: it was then, after a long and weary way, that man turned the exploits of his genius to the full enrichment of his life.
thank you. good-bye.*