John Fitzgerald
John Fitzgerald
clash compromise days eliminate idealists interests mean meeting moving necessity political prevent resolve shall shape situations stretched
We shall need compromises in the days ahead, to be sure. But these will be, or should be, compromises of issues, not principles. We can compromise our political positions, but not ourselves. We can resolve the clash of interests without conceding our ideals. And even the necessity for the right kind of compromise does not eliminate the need for those idealists and reformers who keep our compromises moving ahead, who prevent all political situations from meeting the description supplied by Shaw: ""smirched with compromise, rotted with opportunism, mildewed by expedience, stretched out of shape with wirepulling and putrefied with permeation.""Compromise need not mean cowardice. ...
edge frontier hopes stand today unknown
We stand today on the edge of a new frontier-the frontier of the 1960s, a frontier of unknown opportunities and perils-a frontier of unfulfilled hopes and threats.