…we will
call America home to the ideals that nourished us from the beginning.
From
secrecy and deception in high places; come home, America.
From
military spending so wasteful that it weakens our nation; come home, America.
From the
entrenchment of special privileges in tax favoritism; from the waste of idle
lands to the joy of useful labor; from the prejudice based on race and sex;
from the loneliness of the aging poor and the despair of the neglected sick —
come home, America.
Come
home to the affirmation that we have a dream.
Come
home to the conviction that we can move our country forward.
THIS was McGovern's acceptance speech upon receiving the Democratic nomination for President, July 1972. Unfortunately he didn't deliver this great speech until 3 am, Miami time. I was 11, and disappointed to miss the climax of the convention. In the fall I got my first political experience hanging around the Rogers Park McGovern headquarters, stuffing envelopes and selling t-shirts on the street under the Loyola El station.
McGovern might be the most decent man ever to receive the nomination for president of this nation. What a different world we would be living in had he won.
