America is great in proportion as she can make sure of having great men in the next generation.
 Woodrow Wilson, The New Freedom (1913). copy citation

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Author Woodrow Wilson
Source The New Freedom
Topic generation
Date 1913
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14811/14811-h/14811-h.htm

Context

“I believe that I am preaching the very cause of some of the gentlemen whom I am opposing when I preach the cause of free industry in the United States, for I think they are slowly girding the tree that bears the inestimable fruits of our life, and that if they are permitted to gird it entirely nature will take her revenge and the tree will die. I do not believe that America is securely great because she has great men in her now. America is great in proportion as she can make sure of having great men in the next generation. She is rich in her unborn children; rich, that is to say, if those unborn children see the sun in a day of opportunity, see the sun when they are free to exercise their energies as they will. If they open their eyes in a land where there is no special privilege, then we shall come into a new era of American greatness and American liberty;” source