Michael R. Bloomberg

Graduates: Be True Patriots

What matters is how you respond when the founding values are tested.

Let patriotism ring.

Photographer: William Thomas Cain/Getty Images

The following is an adaptation of an address to Villanova University’s class of 2017.

In preparing for today, I was reminded that this beautiful campus lies halfway between two of the most important sites in American history: Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were debated and adopted, and Valley Forge, where George Washington’s troops spent a long winter during the Revolutionary War.