The war on poverty, like it or not, is the single outstanding commitment this nation has made to the principle that poverty must be abolished. Not just that fathers shall not be without jobs, and children without education, and mothers without medical care— though it is all of these. The war on poverty is a commitment to the principle that every American shall have the same opportunities to make a life for himself and for his own children—and the same opportunity to share in the government of his city and state and country, the same opportunity to share in the great enterprises of American public life.