Bernard Schwartz was the last person in my life to regularly refer to me as “kid.” When in the course of our many collaborations over the past two decades, he would approve of a job I had done on something, he would say, “Nice work, kid.” It was, when you are, as I am, well into your sixties, a title that was as appreciated as it was misplaced.

Bernard, a philanthropist, political activist, business leader, father, grandfather, husband, and mensch to the very marrow of his bones was born the same year as my own father, 1925. He was of the greatest generation. He remembered the Depression and served during World War II. Those experiences, as much as the great business success he worked for throughout his adult life, shaped who he was and the kind of America he so strongly believed in.

He died earlier this month at the age of 98 after a long and extraordinary life. If, based on that life and the spirit of the man, I were able to bestow a title on him, it would be “the most optimistic man in America.”

To be optimistic in today’s America may seem detached from reality. It may smack of the triumph of hope over experience. But for Bernard, much like it is for President Joe Biden—for whom Bernard was tirelessly working until his very last days on this earth—optimism was not a viewpoint as much as it was the foundational reason for his belief in America. To him, this was a country founded on promise and built by those who believed in that promise in order to provide each succeeding generation with new hope and opportunity.

As it was for Biden and generations of Americans who lifted themselves up from humble beginnings—or came to this country in order to do so—Bernard’s optimism was not just some ephemeral dream that we carry in our hearts. It was both a motivation and a reward for hard work.

The American dream is not a gift to which we are all entitled, it is something we had to work for every day of our lives—if it were to be kept alive.

In recent years, with the rise of........

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