Politics & Power Quote by Theodore C. Sorensen

Sorensen’s line is less a kumbaya appeal than a piece of legal drafting disguised as moral rhetoric: it defines “America” not by flag-waving but by a set of enforceable expectations about who pays and who benefits. The repeated “an America in which...” works like a contract clause, tightening with each iteration. It’s not poetic flourish; it’s prosecutorial rhythm, building a case that inequality isn’t an accident of markets or war, it’s a choice made in boardrooms and budgets.

The key move is the pairing: “workers as well as owners,” “bottom as well as top.” He refuses the comforting fantasy that prosperity naturally “trickles” into fairness. Productivity and prosperity are presented as collective achievements with a distribution problem, not as private trophies. That’s a lawyer’s logic, but also a political strategist’s: if growth is social, hoarding becomes anti-American.

Then he pivots from economics to national security, and the subtext sharpens. “Sacrifices required” evokes wartime legitimacy, but he punctures the sentimental hero narrative by naming the counterparty: “profiteers in the back offices.” It’s a deliberately ugly phrase, meant to make exploitation feel cowardly. The contrast with “volunteers on the front lines” isn’t subtle; it’s an accusation that some people get the honor while others get the invoice.

Context matters: Sorensen, Kennedy’s speechwriter and a Cold War liberal, is channeling a midcentury ethic of shared burden into an argument against two asymmetries that persist in American life: privatized gain and socialized risk. The intent is to turn fairness from a slogan into a standard of citizenship.