“A statesman deals with concrete difficulties — with things which must be done from day to day. Not often can he frame conscious patterns for the far off future.”

1930s, Address at the Dedication of the Memorial on the Gettysburg Battlefield (1938)
Context: It seldom helps to wonder how a statesman of one generation would surmount the crisis of another. A statesman deals with concrete difficulties — with things which must be done from day to day. Not often can he frame conscious patterns for the far off future. But the fullness of the stature of Lincoln's nature and the fundamental conflict which events forced upon his Presidency invite us ever to turn to him for help. For the issue which he restated here at Gettysburg seventy five years ago will be the continuing issue before this Nation so long as we cling to the purposes for which the Nation was founded — to preserve under the changing conditions of each generation a people's government for the people's good.