In a recent op-ed for Newsweek, Richard Graber, president and CEO of The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and Hanna Skandera, president and CEO of the Daniels Fund, highlight the legacies of their organizations’ founders: entrepreneurs Lynde and Harry Bradley and Bill Daniels. Graber and Skandera emphasize that we must continue to dream boldly to strengthen civil society, defend the rule of law, support an informed citizenry and expand opportunity for generations to come.
Below are excerpts from “Protect the Institutions That Sustain American Exceptionalism”:
“The namesakes of the foundations we lead—The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and the Daniels Fund—were among America’s captains of industry. Yet they did not begin with privilege, pedigree or guarantees. They began, like so many American success stories, with grit, uncertainty and dogged perseverance. Most importantly, they kept their dreams alive, despite disastrous failures along their journeys.”
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“What’s striking about these stories is not just what they built, but how they understood their own good fortune. Neither the Bradleys nor Daniels forgot how little they had while they were growing up. They also recognized that what they lacked materially was more than made up for by the privilege of being American.”
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“Today, those principles face pressures our founders could not have imagined—rising distrust in institutions, weakening civic bonds and growing uncertainty about the very ideals that make flourishing possible.”
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“The American experiment has worked not because it guarantees success, but because it preserves the freedom to strive. Our responsibility at 250 years is to ensure that freedom and the institutions that sustain it remain strong for future generations. If we succeed, Americans will continue to build, invent and dream boldly, just as the Bradleys and Daniels once did.”
Please continue reading at Newsweek.
