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Dear Editor:
This quotation was published in a paper for America's Bicentennial in 1976. It was called: A Warning for America - from Abraham Lincoln.
"You cannot bring prosperity by discouraging thrift; You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong; You cannot help the wage earner by putting down the wage payer; You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich; You cannot build character and courage by taking away a person's initiative and independence; and You cannot help people permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves."
This seems to me to be wisdom for the ages and ageless wisdom. Though spoken more than 150 years ago, it certainly fits today's needs for our nation.
President Gerald R. Ford - "The kind of government that is strong enough to give you everything you want is also strong enough to take away everything you have."
Theodore Roosevelt's ideas on immigrants and being an American in 1907: "In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the persons becoming in every fact an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Anyone who says they are an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language. And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."
George Washington - "It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible."
Ronald Reagan - "Inside the Bible's pages lies all the answers to all the problems man has ever known...It is my firm belief that the enduring values presented in its pages have a great meaning for each of us and for our nation The bible can touch our hearts, order our minds, and refresh our souls." "If we ever forget we are one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under."
Dwight D. Eisenhower - "Without God, there could be no form of government nor American way of life. Recognition of her Supreme Being is the first-and most basic-expression of Americanism."
"If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land." 2 Chronicles 7:14
May God bless America again!
Jeanne Kapotas
Dodgeville