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All wars bring in their trail great hardships. They existed in the day of General Shepard. They exist now. Having set up a sound government in Massachusetts, having secured their independence, as the result of a victorious war, the people expected a season of easy prosperity. In that they were temporarily disappointed. Some rebelling, were overthrown. The adoption of the Federal Constitution brought relief and prosperity.
Success has attended the establishment here of a government of the people. We of this day have just finished a victorious war that has added new glory to American arms. We are facing some hardships, but they are not serious. Private obligations are not so large as to be burdensome. Taxes can be paid. Prosperity abounds. But the great promise of the future lies in the loyalty and devotion of the people to their own Government. They are firm in the conviction of the fathers, that liberty is increased only by increasing the determination to support a government of the people, as established in this ancient town, and defended by its patriotic sons.
XXXIV
_The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
By His Excellency Calvin Coolidge, Governor_
A PROCLAMATION
The entire State Guard of Massachusetts has been called out. Under the Constitution the Governor is the Commander-in-Chief thereof by an authority of which he could not if he chose divest himself. That command I must and will exercise. Under the law I hereby call on all the police of Boston who have loyally and in a never-to-be-forgotten way remained on duty to aid me in the performance of my duty of the restoration and maintenance of order in the city of Boston, and each of such officers is required to act in obedience to such orders as I may hereafter issue or cause to be issued.
I call on every citizen to aid me in the maintenance of law and order.
Given at the Executive Chamber, in Boston, this eleventh day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and nineteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and forty-fourth.
CALVIN COOLIDGE
By His Excellency the Governor,
ALBERT P. LANGTRY
Secretary of the Commonwealth
God save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
XXXV
AN ORDER
BOSTON, September 11, 1919
To EDWIN U. CURTIS,
As you are Police Commissioner of the City of Boston,
Executive Order No. 1
You are hereby directed, for the purpose of assisting me in the performance of my duty, pursuant to the proclamation issued by me this day, to proceed in the performance of your duties as Police Commissioner of the city of Boston under my command and in obedience to such orders as I shall issue from time to time, and obey only such orders as I may so issue or transmit.
CALVIN COOLIDGE Governor of Massachusetts
XXXVI
A TELEGRAM
BOSTON, MASS., Sept. 14, 1919
MR. SAMUEL GOMPERS
President American Federation of Labor, New York City, N.Y.
Replying to your telegram, I have already refused to remove the Police Commissioner of Boston. I did not appoint him. He can assume no position which the courts would uphold except what the people have by the authority of their law vested in him. He speaks only with their voice. The right of the police of Boston to affiliate has always been questioned, never granted, is now prohibited. The suggestion of President Wilson to Washington does not apply to Boston. There the police have remained on duty. Here the Policemen's Union left their duty, an action which President Wilson characterized as a crime against civilization. Your assertion that the Commissioner was wrong cannot justify the wrong of leaving the city unguarded. That furnished the opportunity, the criminal element furnished the action. There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time. You ask that the public safety again be placed in the hands of these same policemen while they continue in disobedience to the laws of Massachusetts and in their refusal to obey the orders of the Police Department. Nineteen men have been tried and removed. Others having abandoned their duty, their places have, under the law, been declared vacant on the opinion of the Attorney-General. I can suggest no authority outside the courts to take further action. I wish to join and assist in taking a broad view of every situation. A grave responsibility rests on all of us. You can depend on me to support you in every legal action and sound policy. I am equally determined to defend the sovereignty of Massachusetts and to maintain the authority and jurisdiction over her public officers where it has been placed by the Constitution and law of her people.
CALVIN COOLIDGE Governor of Massachusetts
XXXVII
_The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
By His Excellency Calvin Coolidge, Governor_
A PROCLAMATION
There appears to be a misapprehension as to the position of the police of Boston. In the deliberate intention to intimidate and coerce the Government of this Commonwealth a large body of policemen, urging all others to join them, deserted their posts of duty, letting in the enemy. This act of theirs was voluntary, against the advice of their well wishers, long discussed and premeditated, and with the purpose of obstructing the power of the Government to protect its citizens or even to maintain its own existence. Its success meant anarchy. By this act through the operation of the law they dispossessed themselves. They went out of office. They stand as though they had never been appointed.
Other police remained on duty. They are the real heroes of this crisis. The State Guard responded most efficiently. Thousands have volunteered for the Guard and the Militia. Money has been contributed from every walk of life by the hundreds of thousands for the encouragement and relief of these loyal men. These acts have been spontaneous, significant, and decisive. I propose to support all those who are supporting their own Government with every power which the people have entrusted to me.
There is an obligation, inescapable, no less solemn, to resist all those who do not support the Government. The authority of the Commonwealth cannot be intimidated or coerced. It cannot be compromised. To place the maintenance of the public security in the hands of a body of men who have attempted to destroy it would be to flout the sovereignty of the laws the people have made. It is my duty to resist any such proposal. Those who would counsel it join hands with those whose acts have threatened to destroy the Government. There is no middle ground. Every attempt to prevent the formation of a new police force is a blow at the Government. That way treason lies. No man has a right to place his own ease or convenience or the opportunity of making money above his duty to the State. This is the cause of all the people. I call on every citizen to stand by me in executing the oath of my office by supporting the authority of the Government and resisting all assaults upon it.
Given at the Executive Chamber, in Boston, this twenty-fourth day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and nineteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and forty-fourth.
CALVIN COOLIDGE
By His Excellency the Governor,
HERBERT H. BOYNTON
Deputy, Acting Secretary of the Commonwealth
God save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
XXXVIII
HOLY CROSS COLLEGE
JUNE 25, 1919
To come from the press of public affairs, where the practical side of life is at its flood, into these calm and classic surroundings, where ideals are cherished for their own sake, is an intense relief and satisfaction. Even in the full flow of Commencement exercises it is apparent that here abide the truth and the servants of the truth. Here appears the fulfillment of the past in the grand company of alumni, recalling a history already so thick with laurels. Here is the hope of the future, brighter yet in the young men to-day sent forth.
"The unarmed youth of heaven. But o'er their heads Celestial armory, shield, helm and spear, Hung bright, with diamond flaming and with gold."
In them the dead past lives. They represent the college. They are the college. It is not in the campus with its imposing halls and temples, nor in the silent lore of the vast library or the scientific instruments of well-equipped laboratories, but in the men who are the incarnation of all these, that your college lives. It is not enough that there be knowledge, history and poetry, eloquence and art, science and mathematics, philosophy and ethics, ideas and ideals. They must be vitalized. They must be fashioned into life. To send forth men who live all these is to be a college. This temple of learning must be translated into human form if it is to exercise any influence over the affairs of mankind, or if its alumni are to wield the power of education.
A great thinker and master of the expression of thought has told us:
"It was before Deity, embodied in a human form, walking among men, partaking of their infirmities, leaning on their bosoms, weeping over their graves, slumbering in the manger, bleeding on the cross, that the prejudices of the Synagogue, and the doubts of the Academy, and the pride of the Portico, and the fasces of the Lictor, and the swords of thirty Legions, were humbled in the dust."
If college-bred men are to exercise the influence over the progress of the world which ought to be their portion, they must exhibit in their lives a knowledge and a learning which is marked with candor, humility, and the honest mind.
The present is ever influenced mightily by the past. Patrick Henry spoke with great wisdom when he declared to the Continental Congress, "I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided and that is the lamp of experience." Mankind is finite. It has the limits of all things finite. The processes of government are subject to the same limitations, and, lacking imperfections, would be something more than human. It is always easy to discover flaws, and, pointing them out, to criticize. It is not so easy to suggest substantial remedies or propose constructive policies. It is characteristic of the unlearned that they are forever proposing something which is old, and, because it has recently come to their own attention, supposing it to be new. Into this error men of liberal education ought not to fall. The forms and processes of government are not new. They have been known, discussed, and tried in all their varieties through the past ages. That which America exemplifies in her Constitution and system of representative government is the most modern, and of any yet devised gives promise of being the most substantial and enduring.
It is not unusual to hear arguments against our institutions and our Government, addressed particularly to recent arrivals and the sons of recent arrivals to our shores. They sometimes take the form of a claim that our institutions were founded long ago; that changed conditions require that they now be changed. Especially is it claimed by those seeking such changes that these new arrivals and men of their race and ideas had no hand in the making of our country, and that it was formed by those who were hostile to them and therefore they owe it no support. Whatever may be the condition in relation to others, and whatever ignorance and bigotry may imagine, such arguments do not apply to those of the race and blood so prominent in this assemblage. To establish this it were but necessary to cite eleven of the fifty-five signers of the Declaration of Independence and recall that on the roll of Washington's generals were Sullivan, Knox, Wayne, and the gallant son of Trinity College, Dublin, who fell at Quebec at the head of his troops,—Richard Montgomery. But scholarship has answered ignorance. The learned and patriotic research of men of the education of Dr. James J. Walsh and Michael J. O'Brien, the historian of the Irish American Society, has demonstrated that a generous portion of the rank and file of the men who fought in the Revolution and supported those who framed our institutions was not alien to those who are represented here. It is no wonder that from among such that which is American has drawn some of its most steadfast defenders.
In these days of violent agitation scholarly men should reflect that the progress of the past has been accomplished not by the total overthrow of institutions so much as by discarding that which was bad and preserving that which was good; not by revolution but by evolution has man worked out his destiny. We shall miss the central feature of all progress unless we hold to that process now. It is not a question of whether our institutions are perfect. The most beneficent of our institutions had their beginnings in forms which would be particularly odious to us now. Civilization began with war and slavery; government began in absolute despotism; and religion itself grew out of superstition which was oftentimes marked with human sacrifices. So out of our present imperfections we shall develop that which is more perfect. But the candid mind of the scholar will admit and seek to remedy all wrongs with the same zeal with which it defends all rights.
From the knowledge and the learning of the scholar there ought to be developed an abiding faith. What is the teaching of all history? That which is necessary for the welfare and progress of the human race has never been destroyed. The discoverers of truth, the teachers of science, the makers of inventions, have passed to their last rewards, but their works have survived. The Phoenician galleys and the civilization which was born of their commerce have perished, but the alphabet which that people perfected remains. The shepherd kings of Israel, the temple and empire of Solomon, have gone the way of all the earth, but the Old Testament has been preserved for the inspiration of mankind. The ark of the covenant and the seven-pronged candlestick have passed from human view; the inhabitants of Judea have been dispersed to the ends of the earth, but the New Testament has survived and increased in its influence among men. The glory of Athens and Sparta, the grandeur of the Imperial City, are a long-lost memory, but the poetry of Homer and Virgil, the oratory of Demosthenes and Cicero, the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, abide with us forevermore. Whatever America holds that may be of value to posterity will not pass away.
The long and toilsome processes which have marked the progress of the past cannot be shunned by the present generation to our advantage. We have no right to expect as our portion something substantially different from human experience in the past. The constitution of the universe does not change. Human nature remains constant. That service and sacrifice which have been the price of past progress are the price of progress now.
This is not a gospel of despair, but of hope and high expectation. Out of many tribulations mankind has pressed steadily onward. The opportunity for a rational existence was never before so great. Blessings were never so bountiful. But the evidence was never so overwhelming as now that men and nations must live rationally or perish.
The defenses of our Commonwealth are not material but mental and spiritual. Her fortifications, her castles, are her institutions of learning. Those who are admitted to the college campus tread the ramparts of the State. The classic halls are the armories from which are furnished forth the knights in armor to defend and support our liberty. For such high purpose has Holy Cross been called into being. A firm foundation of the Commonwealth. A defender of righteousness. A teacher of holy men. Let her turrets continue to rise, showing forth "the way, the truth and the light"—
"In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, And with their mild persistence urge man's arch To vaster issues."
XXXIX
REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION, TREMONT TEMPLE, BOSTON
OCTOBER 4, 1919
Ancient custom crystallized to law has drawn us here. We come to renew our pledge publicly at the altar of our country. We come in the light of history and of reason. We come to take counsel both from experience and from imagination. Over us shines a glorious past, before us lies a promising future. Around us is a renewed determination deep and solemn that this Commonwealth of ours shall endure.
The period since our last election has been one of momentous events. Within its first week the victorious advance of America and her allies terminated in the armistice of November eleventh. The power of organized despotisms had been proven to be inferior to the power of organized republics. Reason had again triumphed over absolutism. The "still small voice" of the moral law was seen to be greater than the might of kings. The world appeal to duty triumphed over the world appeal to selfishness. It always will. There will be far-reaching results from all this which no one can now foresee. But some things are apparent. The power of the people has been revealed. The worth of the individual man shines forth with an increased glory. But most significant of all, for it lies at the foundation of all civilization and all progress, was the demonstration that the citizens of the great republics of the earth possess the power which they dare to use, of maintaining among all men the orderly processes of revealed law.
These are no new doctrines in Massachusetts. For nearly three hundred years she has laid her course according to these principles, extending the blessings which arise from them to her citizens, ever ready to defend them with her treasure and her blood. In this the past year has been no exception.
In recognition of the long-established policy of making this Commonwealth first in humanitarian legislation, the General Court enacted a law providing for reducing a fifty-four hour week for women and minors to a forty-eight hour week. It passed the weavers' specification bill. The allowance under the workmen's compensation law was increased. Local option was provided on the question of a twelve-hour day for firemen. Authority was granted corporations to give their employees a voice in their management. Representatives of the employees have been appointed to the Board of Trustees of great public service corporations. Profiteering has been made a crime. A special commission of which the chairman is Brigadier-General John H. Sherburne was established to deal with the problem of the high cost of living—with power which has been effective in reducing the prices of the necessaries of life. No other State has taken any effective measure. The compensation of public employees has been increased. The entire public service of the Commonwealth has been reorganized in accordance with the constitutional amendment into twenty departments. In caring for her service men Massachusetts led all the States of the Nation in relief and in assistance, besides voting the stupendous sum of twenty million dollars, not as compensation, but as recognition of the gratitude due those who had represented us in the great war. The educational opportunities of the youth of the State have been improved. All of these acts of great importance, which are of course only representative of the character of current legislation, had the executive approval. There has been not only a sympathetic but a very practical attitude toward the ideal expressed in my inaugural address, that there is a right to be well born, well reared, well educated, well employed, and well paid. We shall not be shaken in the mature determination to promote these policies. The ancient faith of Massachusetts in the worth of her citizens, the cause of great solicitude for the welfare of each individual, will remain undiminished.
The many uncertainties in transportation which are State, Nation, and world wide, sent our street railway problems to an expert commission which will report to a special session of the General Court. It is recognized that the rate of fare necessary to pay for the service rendered has in some instances become prohibitive. Some roads and portions of roads have been closed down. There must be relief. But such relief must be in accord with sound economic principles. What the public has the public must pay for. From this there is no escape. Under private, or public, ownership or operation this rule will be the same. We must face the facts and restore this necessary service to the people in such a form that they can meet its costs. In meeting this issue, not hysterically, not with demagogy, but calmly, with candor, applying an adequate remedy to ascertained facts, Massachusetts, as usual, will lead all the other States of the Nation.
That agitation and unrest which has been characteristic of the whole world since the close of the war has had some manifestations here. There is a natural desire in every human mind to seek better conditions. Such a desire is altogether praiseworthy. There must, however, be discrimination in the methods employed. Wholesale criticism of everybody and everything does not necessarily exhibit statesmanlike qualities, and may not be true. Not all those who are working to better the condition of the people are Bolsheviki or enemies of society. Not all those who are attempting to conduct a successful business are profiteers. But unreasonable criticism and agitation for unreasonable remedies will avail nothing. We, in common with the whole world, are suffering from a shortage of materials. There is but one remedy for this, increased production. We need to use sparingly what we have and make more. No progress will be made by shouting Bolsheviki and profiteers. What we need is thrift and industry. Let everybody keep at work. Profitable employment is the death blow to Bolshevism and abundant production is disaster to the profiteer. Our salvation lies in putting forth greater effort, in manfully assuming our own burdens, rather than in entertaining the pleasing delusion that they can be shifted to some other shoulders. Those who attempt to lead people on in this expectation only add to their burdens and their dangers.
The people of Boston have recently seen the result of agitation and unrest in its police force. The policy of that department, established by an order of former Commissioner O'Meara and adopted by a rule which has the force of law by the present Commissioner Curtis, prohibited a police union from affiliating with an outside union. In spite of this such a union was formed and persisted in with acknowledged and open defiance of the rules and of the counsel and almost entreaties of the officers of the department. Such disobedience continuing, the leaders were cited for trial on charges and heard with their counsel before the Commissioner. After thorough consideration, and opportunity again to obey the rules, they were found guilty. In order to give a chance to recant sentence was suspended. Shortly after, three fourths of the police force abandoned their posts and refused further to perform their duties. During the next few hours, there was destruction of property in the city but happily no loss of life.
Meantime there had been various efforts to save the situation. Some urged me to remove the Commissioner, some to request him to alter his course. To all these I had to reply that I had no authority whatever over his actions and could not lawfully interfere with him. It was my duty to support him in the execution of the law and that I should do. I was glad to confer with any one and give my help where it was sought. The Commissioner was appointed by my predecessor in office for a term of years. I could with almost equal propriety interfere in the decisions of the Supreme Court.
To restore order, I at once and by pre-arrangement with him and the Commissioner, offered to the Mayor to call out the State Guard. At his request I did so, immediately beginning restoring obedience to the law. On account of the public danger, I called on the Commissioner to aid me in the execution of my duties of keeping order, and issued a proclamation to that effect.
To various suggestions that the police be permitted to return I replied that the Attorney-General had ruled that by law that could not be done and while I had no power to appoint, discharge, or reinstate, I was opposed to placing the public security again in the keeping of this body of men. There is an obligation to forgive but it does not extend to the unrepentant. To give them aid and comfort is to support their evil doing and to become what is known in law as an accessory after the fact. A government which does that is a reproach to civilization and will soon have on its hands the blood of its citizens.
The response to the appeal to support the Government of Massachusetts in sustaining law and order was instantaneous. It came from the State Guard, from volunteers for police, and the militia, from contributions gathered among all classes now reaching hundreds of thousands of dollars, from the loyal police of Boston, from all quarters of the Commonwealth and beyond. These forces may all be dissipated, they may be defeated, but while I am entrusted with the office of their Commander-in-Chief they will not be surrendered. Over them and over every other law-abiding citizen has gone up the white flag of Massachusetts. Who is there that by compromising the authority of her laws dares to haul down that flag? I have resisted and propose to continue in resistance to such action.
This issue is perfectly plain. The Government of Massachusetts is not seeking to resist the lawful action or sound policy of organized labor. It has time and again passed laws for the protection and encouragement of trade unions. It has done so under my administration upon my recommendation to a greater extent than in any previous year. In that policy it will continue. It is seeking to prevent a condition which would at once destroy all labor unions and all else that is the foundation of civilization by maintaining the authority and sanctity of the law. When that goes all goes. It costs something but it is the cheapest thing that can be bought; it causes some inconvenience but it is the foundation of all convenience, the orderly execution of the laws.
The people understand this thoroughly. They know that the laws are their laws and speak their voice. They know that this Government is their Government founded on their will, administered by their representatives. Disobedience to it is disobedience to the people. They know that the property of the Commonwealth is their property. Destruction of it destroys their substance. The public security is their security. When that is gone they are in deadly peril. And knowing this the people have a determination to support the Government with a resolution that is unchanging.
It is my purpose to maintain the Government of Massachusetts as it was founded by her people, the protector of the rights of all but subservient to none. It is my purpose to maintain unimpaired the authority of her laws, her jurisdiction, her peace, her security. This ancient faith of Massachusetts which became the great faith of America, she reestablished in her Constitution before the army of Washington had gained our independence, declaring for "a government of laws and not of men." In that faith she still abides. Let him challenge it who dares. All who love Massachusetts, who believe in America, are bound to defend it. The choice lies between living under coercion and intimidation, the forces of evil, or under the laws of the people, orderly, speaking with their settled convictions, the revelation of a divine authority.
XL
WILLIAMS COLLEGE
OCTOBER 17, 1919
There speaks here with the voice of immortality one who loved Massachusetts. On every side arise monuments to that enduring affection bred not of benefits received but of services rendered, of sacrifices made, that the province of Massachusetts Bay might live enlightened and secure. A bit of parchment has filled libraries. A few hundred dollars has enriched generations. The spirit of a single liberty-loving soldier has raised up a host that has shaken the earth with its martial tread, laying low the hills but exalting the valleys. Here Colonel Ephraim Williams still executes his will, still disposes of his patrimony, still leads the soldiers of the free to an enduring victory, and with a power greater than the sword stands guard on the frontier marches of the Commonwealth.
Honor compels that honor be recognized. In compliance with that requirement this day has been set apart by this institution of letters in testimony of the merit of her sons. Nearly one half of her living alumni were under the direct service of the Nation in the great war. Into all branches of the service, civil and military, they went from the alumni, from the class rooms, from the faculty, up to President Garfield himself, who served as Director of the Fuel Administration. From America and her allies has come the highest of recognition, conferred by citation, awards, and decorations. Their individual deeds of valor I shall not relate. They are known to all. Advisedly I say that they have not been surpassed among men. Their heroism was no less heroic because it was unconscious there or because of befitting modesty it is unostentatious here. There was yet a courage unequaled by the most momentous dangers which were met by those now marked with fame and a capacity in the others which would have matched equal events with equal fortitude. In the most grateful recognition of all this, to the living and the dead, by their Alma Mater the Commonwealth of Massachusetts reverently joins.
But this day, if it is truly to represent the spirit of this college, means more than a glorification of the past. It was by a stern determination to discharge the duties of the present that Ephraim Williams provided for a future filled with a glory that must not yet be termed complete. His thoughts were not on himself nor on material things. Had he chosen to inscribe his name upon a monument of granite or of bronze it would have gone the way of all the earth. Enlightening the soul of his fellow man he made his mark which all eternity cannot erase. A soldier, he did not
"put his trust In reeking tube and iron shard"
to save his countrymen, but like Solomon chose first knowledge and wisdom and to his choice has likewise been added a splendor of material prosperity.
Earth's great lesson is written here. In it all men may read the interpretation of the founder of this college, of the meaning of America, of the motive high and true which has inspired her soldiers. Not unmindful of a desire for economic justice but scorning sordid gain, not seeking the spoils of war but a victory of righteousness, they came, subordinating the finite to the infinite, placing their trust in that which does not pass away. This precept heretofore observed must not be abandoned now. A desire for the earth and the fullness thereof must not lure our people from their truer selves. Those who seek for a sign merely in a greatly increased material prosperity, however worthy that may be, disappointed through all the ages, will be disappointed now. Men find their true satisfaction in something higher, finer, nobler than all that. We sought no spoils from war; let us seek no spoil from peace. Let us remember Babylon and Carthage and that city which her people, flushed with purple pride, dared call Eternal.
This college and her sons have turned their eyes resolutely toward the morning. Above the roar of reeking strife they hear the voice of the founder. Their actions have matched their vision. They have seen. They have heard. They have done. I thank you for receiving me into their company, so romantic, so glorious, and for enrolling me as a soldier in the legion of Colonel Ephraim Williams.
XLI
CONCERNING TEACHERS' SALARIES
OCTOBER 29, 1919
A Letter to the Mayor of Boston
MY DEAR MR. MAYOR:
It will be with a good deal of satisfaction that I cooeperate with you and any other cities of Massachusetts for the purpose of increasing the pay of those engaged in the teaching of the youth of our Commonwealth. It has become notorious that the pay for this most important function is much less than that which prevails in commercial life and business activities.
Roger Ascham, the teacher to Queen Elizabeth, about 1565, in discussing this question, wrote: "And it is pity that commonly more care is had, yea and that among very wise men, to find out rather a cunning man for their horse than a cunning man for their children. They say nay in word, but they do so in deed. For to the one they will gladly give a stipend of two hundred crowns by the year and are loath to offer to the other two hundred shillings. God that sitteth in Heaven laugheth their choice to scorn and rewardeth their liberality as it should. For he suffereth them to have tame and well-ordered horses, but wild and unfortunate children, and therefore in the end they find more pleasure in their horse than comfort in their children."
In an address which I made at a Harvard College Commencement I undertook to direct attention to the inadequate compensation paid to our teachers, whether in the universities, public schools, or the pulpits of the land. It is perfectly clear that more money must be provided for these purposes, which surpass in their importance all our other public activities, both by government appropriation and by private charity.
It is significant that the number of teachers who are in training in our normal schools has decreased in the past twelve or fifteen years from three thousand to two thousand, while the number of students in colleges and technical schools has increased. The people of the Commonwealth cannot support the Government unless the Government supports them.
The condition which was described by the teacher of Queen Elizabeth, that greater compensation is paid for the unimportant things than is paid for training the intellectual abilities of our youth, might exist in the sixteenth century, but it ought not to exist in the twentieth century.
Fortunately for us, the sterling character of teachers of all kinds has kept them at their task even though we have failed to show them due appreciation, and up to the present time the public has suffered little.
But unless a change is made and a new policy adopted, the cause of education will break down. It will either become a trade for those little fitted for it or be abandoned altogether, instead of remaining the noblest profession, which it has been and ought to be.
There are some things that are fundamental. In the sixteenth century the voice of the people was little heard. If the sovereign had wisdom, that might suffice. But in the twentieth century the people are sovereign. What they think determines every question of civilization. Unless they are well trained, well informed, and well instructed, unless a proper value is put on knowledge and wisdom, the value of all material things will be lost.
There is now no pains too great, no cost too high, to prevent or diminish the duty enjoined by the Constitution of the Commonwealth that wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, be generally diffused among the body of the people.
This important subject ought to be considered and a remedy provided at the special session of the General Court.
XLII
STATEMENT TO THE PRESS
ELECTION DAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1919
My thanks are due to the millions of my fellow citizens of Massachusetts. I offer them freely, without undertaking to specify, to all who have supported the great cause of the supremacy of the law. The heart of the people has proven again sound and true. No misrepresentation has blinded them, no sophistry has turned them. They have listened to the truth and followed it. They have again disappointed those who distrusted them. They have turned away from those who sought to play upon their selfishness. They have justified those who trusted them. They have justified America. The attempt to appeal to class prejudice has failed. The men of Massachusetts are not labor men, or policemen, or union men, or poor men, or rich men, or any other class of men first; they are Americans first. The wage-earners have vindicated themselves. They have shown by their votes that they resent trying to use them for private interests, or to employ them to resist the operation of the Government. They are for the Government. They are against those who are against the Government. American institutions are safe in their hands. Some of those who have posed as their leaders and argued that the wage-earners were patriotic because those leaders told them to be may well now inquire whether the case did not stand the other way about. It begins to look as if those who attempt to lead the wage-earners must first show that they themselves are patriotic if they are to have any following. The patriotism of some alleged leaders was not the cause but the effect of the patriotism of the wage-earners.
Three words tell the result. Massachusetts is American. The election will be a welcome demonstration to the Nation and to people everywhere who believe that liberty can only be secured by obedience to law.
XLIII
SPEECH AT TREMONT TEMPLE
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1919, 8 P.M.
Revelation has not ceased. The strength of a righteous cause has not grown less. The people of Massachusetts are patriotic before they are partisan, they are not for men but for measures, not for selfishness but for duty, and they will support their Government. Revelation has not ceased and faith in men has not failed. They cannot be intimidated, they cannot be coerced, they cannot be deceived, and their sovereignty is not for sale.
When this campaign is over it will be a rash man who will again attempt to further his selfish interests by dragging a great party name in the mire and seeking to gain the honor of office by trafficking with disorder. The conduct of public affairs is not a game. Responsible office does not go to the crafty. Governments are not founded upon an association for public plunder but on the cooeperation of men wherein each is seeking to do his duty.
The past five years have been like an earthquake. They have shaken the institutions of men to their very foundations. It has been a time of searchings and questionings. It has been a time of great awakenings. There has been an overpowering resolution among men to make things better. Despotisms have been falling. Republics have been rising. There has been rebellion everywhere against usurped authority. With all that America has been entirely sympathetic. There has been bred in the blood through generations a great sympathy for all peoples struggling to be free. We have a deep conviction that "resistance to tyranny is obedience to law." And on that conviction we have stood for three centuries. Time and experience have but strengthened our belief that it is sound.
But like all rules of action it only applies to the conditions it describes. All authority is not usurped authority. Any government is not tyranny. These are the counterfeits. There are no counterfeits of the unreal. It is only of the real and true that men seek to pass spurious imitations.
There are among us a great mass of people who have been reared for generations under a government of tyranny and oppression. It is ingrained in their blood that there is no other form of government. They are disposed and inclined to think our institutions partake of the same nature as these they have left behind. We know they are wrong. They must be shown they are wrong.
There is a just government. There are righteous laws. We know the formula by which they are produced. The principle is best stated in the immortal Declaration of Independence to be "the consent of the governed." It is from that source our Government derives its just powers and promulgates its righteous laws. They are the will of the people, the settled conviction derived from orderly deliberation, that take on the sanctity ascribed to the people's voice. Along with the binding obligation to resist tyranny goes the other admonition, that "obedience to law is liberty,"—such law and so derived.
These principles, which I have but lightly sketched, are the foundation of American institutions, the source of American freedom and the faith of any party entitled to call itself American. It constitutes truly the rule of the people. It justifies and sanctifies the authority of our laws and the obligation to support our Government. It is democracy administered through representation.
There are only two other choices, anarchy or despotism—Russia, present and past. For the most part human existence has been under the one or the other of these. Both have failed to minister to the highest welfare of the people. Unless American institutions can provide for that welfare the cause of humanity is hopeless. Unless the blessings of prosperity, the rewards of industry, justice and liberty, the satisfaction of duty well done, can come under a rule of the people, they cannot come at all. We may as well abandon hope and, yielding to the demands of selfishness, each take what he can.
We had hoped these questions were settled. But nothing is settled that evil and selfish men can find advantage for themselves in overthrowing. We must eternally smite the rock of public conscience if the waters of patriotism are to pour forth. We must ever be ready to point out the success of our country as justification of our determination to support it.
No one can deny that we are in the midst of an abounding prosperity. No one can deny that this prosperity is well distributed; especially is this true of the wage-earner. Industrially, commercially, financially, America has been a success. The wealth of Massachusetts is increasing rapidly. There are large deposits going into her savings institutions, during banking hours with each tick of the clock more than $12.50, with each minute more than $750, with each day over $270,000. Wages and hours of labor were never so favorable. We have attained a standard of living among our people the like of which never before existed on earth.
Intellectually our progress compares with our prosperity. The opportunity for education is not only large, but it is well used. The school is everywhere. Ignorance is a disgrace. The turrets of college and university dot the land. Their student bodies were never so large. Science and invention, literature and art flourish.
There is higher standard of justice in all the affairs of life than in the past. Our commercial transactions are on a higher plane. There is a moral standard that runs through all the avenues of our life that has lifted it into a new position and gives to men a keener sense of honor in all things. There has come to be a new realization of the brotherhood of man, a new significance to religion. The war aroused a new patriotism, and revealed the strength of our moral power.
The issue in Massachusetts is whether these conditions can endure. Will men realize their blessing and exhibit the resolution to support and defend the foundation on which they rest? Having saved Europe are we ready to surrender America? Having beaten the foe from without are we to fall a victim to the foe from within?
All of this is put in question by the issue of this campaign. That one fundamental issue is the support of the Government in its determination to maintain order. On that all of these opportunities depend.
There can be no material prosperity without order. Stores and banks could not open. Factories could not run, railways could not operate. What was the value of plate glass and goods, the value of real estate in Boston at three o'clock, A.M., September 10? Unless the people vote to sustain order that value is gone entirely. Business is ended.
On order depends all intellectual progress. Without it all schools close, libraries are empty, education stops. Disorder was the forerunner of the Dark Ages.
Without order the moral progress of the people would be lost. With the schools would go the churches. There could be no assemblages for worship, no services even for the departed, piety would be swallowed up in viciousness.
I have understated the result of disorder. Man has not the imagination, the ability to overstate it. There are those who aim to bring about exactly this result. I propose at all times to resist them with all the power at the command of the Chief Executive of Massachusetts.
Naturally the question arises, what shall we do to defend our birthright? In the first place everybody must take a more active part in public affairs. It will not do for men to send, they must go. It is not enough to draw a check. Good government cannot be bought, it has to be given. Office has great opportunities for doing wrong, but equal chance for doing right. Unless good citizens hold office bad citizens will. People see the office-holder rather than the Government. Let the worth of the office-holder speak the worth of the government. The voice of the people speaks by the voice of the individual. Duty is not collective, it is personal. Let every inhabitant make known his determination to support law and order. That duty is supreme.
That the supremacy of the law, the preservation of the Government itself by the maintenance of order, should be the issue of this campaign was entirely due to circumstances beyond my control. That any one should dare to put in jeopardy the stability of our Government for the purpose of securing office was to me inconceivable. That any one should attempt to substitute the will of any outside organization for the authority conferred by law upon the representatives of the people had never occurred to me. But the issue arose by action of some of the police of Boston and it was my duty to meet it. I shall continue to administer the law of all the people.
I should have been pleased to make this campaign on the record of the past year. I should have been pleased to show what the march of progress had been under the people's government, what action had been taken for the relief of those who toil with their hands as well as their heads,—and the record was never more alluring,—what has been done to advance the business and commercial interests of this great industrial Commonwealth, what has promoted public health, what has assisted in agricultural development, the progress made in providing transportation, the increased opportunity given our youth for education. In particular I should have desired to point out the great pride Massachusetts has in her war record and the abundant way she has shown her gratitude for her service men and women, surpassing every other State. All this is a record not of promises, but of achievement. It is one in which the voters of the Commonwealth may well take a deep satisfaction. It is there, it stands, it cannot be argued away. No deception can pervert it. It endures.
All these are the result of ordered liberty—the result of living under the law. It is the great desire of Massachusetts to continue such legislation of progress and humanity. Those who are attempting to wrench the scepter of authority from the representatives of the people, to subvert the jurisdiction of her laws, are the enemies not only of progress, but of all present achievement, not only of what we hope for, but of what we have.
This is the cause of all the people, especially of the weak and defenseless. Their only refuge is the protection of the law. The people have come to understand this. They are taking the deciding of this election into their own hands regardless of party. If the people win who can lose? They are awake to the words of Daniel Webster, "nothing will ruin the country if the people themselves will undertake its safety; and nothing can save it if they leave that safety in any hands but their own."
My fellow citizens of Massachusetts, to you I commend this cause. To you who have added the glory of the hills and plains of France to the glory of Concord and Bunker Hill, to you who have led when others faltered, to you again is given the leadership. Grasp it. Secure it. Make it decisive. Make the discharge of the great trust you now hold an example of hope for righteousness everywhere, a new guaranty that the Government of America shall endure.
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