Adlai Stevenson: “Not inaptly has hell been described as "disqualification in the face of opportunity.”

It is high privilege and high honor to be a citizen of this grand republic.

It is in very truth a government of the people, in an important sense a government standing separate and apart; its foundations the morality, the intelligence, the patriotism of the people.

As one standing, alas, 'upon the western slope,' let me adjure the young men of this magnificent county--my home for more than half a century--to study thoroughly the history of our own State, and of the grand republic of which it is a…

The great navigator in his lonely search for a new pathway to the Indies was buoyed by a courage, a yearning for discovery, scarce greater than that which in the heart of the new continent sustained the later voyagers and discoverers…