Kennedy's Remarks At 04 Convention: "Once More America The Beautiful"

Sen. Edward Kennedy's remarks at the Democratic convention
The Associated Press

The text of Sen. Edward Kennedy's speech Tuesday at the Democratic National Convention, as prepared:

Now it is our turn to take up the cause. Our struggle is not with some monarch
named George who inherited the crown. Although it often seems that way.

Our struggle is with the politics of fear and favoritism in our own time, in our own country. Our struggle, like so many others before, is with those who put their own narrow interest ahead of the public interest.

We hear echoes of past battles in the quiet whisper of the sweetheart deal, in the
hushed promise of a better break for the better connected. We hear them in the
cries of the false patriots who bully dissenters into silence and submission.

..................

For centuries, kings ruled by what they claimed was divine right. They could not
be questioned. They could not be challenged. The people's fate was not their own.
But today, because of the surpassing wisdom of our founders, the constant
courage of the patriots of the past, and the shared sacrifice of generations of
Americans who kept the faith, the power of America still rests securely in citizens' hands. In our hands.

True to our highest and noblest ideals, we intend to use that power. We will use it wisely and well. We will use it, in the poet's words my brothers loved,
"to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." We will use it to heal, to build, to hope, and to dream again. And in doing so, we will truly make our country once more America the Beautiful.

Thank you very much.

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