opportunity to study the needs of the country at large, especially in the field of foreign affairs where, indeed, subtlety builds on subtlety, and profession all too seldom leads to action. And never was there a time, Mr. President, when those charged with responsibility should walk more carefully; for the state of international society is today a precarious one, and to no country does it present more dangerous aspects than to our own. The war is with men. still, not alone in the material alterations it has wrought, but in a spiritual laceration which some would seek to heal by measures more drastic than the vitality of peoples can endure. This country, in particular, being far removed from the scene of the great conflict which brought other nations face to face with all its terrible realism, has been in grave danger, through the mistaken generosity of many of its inhabitants, of forsaking the plain, but none the less arduous, path laid down for it by its founders. In order to relieve devastation abroad, some would renounce justice at home, and by thus abdicating principles which in the course of the ages have been established in the relations of man with man, would deprive society of the guarantees it can now boast, at a time when it can ill afford to lose any. New problems are ever arising, it is true, but there are few, if any, which can not be solved by an application of the principles embodied in the letter and spirit of the Constitution, to which we all owe unqualified allegiance. Such technical difficulties in diplomacy and economics as your experience has not embraced can be largely overcome by recourse to counsel from those qualified to advise. We have great confidence in your judgment of men, nor could there be, perhaps, a more necessary adjunct to a successful Executive; but if we may venture the suggestion, it will be well for you to bear in mind that the diversity and extent of this country demand of its Chief Magistrate not only discretion in policy, but sympathy with each of its many sections, never more strongly local than today. Problems of executive routine can not be disposed of with the precision and speed possible to one who deals only with a single group of people, such as you have been accustomed to do, but must be accorded a balanced consideration, a judgment of the heart as well as of the understanding. But "there is no true liberty nor right joy but in the fear of God accompanied with a good conscience". In your modest confidence in yourself, no less than in your sterling patriotism, we seem to perceive a heartening sign for days ahead, and you could not be what you are nor have come from the people you did come from without being animated by passionate devotion to the ideal of individual self-development, unimpeded by government, from which these United States have derived their independence. It is for you, their freely chosen President, to proclaim by all your acts this sacred right, and thus by observing the limitations of government procure for it greater respect, even as in your own person we like to think of you exemplifying the character of that Happy Warrior Who if he rise to station of command, Rises by open means; and there will stand And in himself possess his own desire. Whatever may be the seeming to others, Mr. President, you will understand that what we venture to proffer at this time is neither presuming advice nor unsought suggestion, but a simple, old-fashioned confession of faith-of faith in you, Sir, reflected from your own appealing adjuration to us to have faith in America and embodying not merely "the substance of things hoped for," but also "the evidence of things not seen." Your unusual, if not indeed unique, career supplies that. In the course of a quarter of a century you have been sixteen times elected by the people to serve them in public office, and have never once been rejected. And of the last twenty-five years you have devoted nineteen years and nine months to the public service, sometimes as the maker and sometimes as the executor of laws. Our experience of you has thus been extensive and varied, and "experience worketh hope. It has been your lot, Mr. President, to win your numerous elections largely through the force and merit of your own dependable personality, and with comparatively little aid from others or from extraneous circumstances. This has been true in the last three of the sixteen cases to a degree commanding national attention. Your reëlection to the Governorship of Massachusetts by a phenomenally large majority was a tribute to your intrepid bearing in one of the greatest civic crises that Commonwealth has seen in our time. Your selection for the Vice-Presidency of the United States was an abrupt reversal of the hitherto practically uniform custom of political parties, in that you were chosen not for expediency but for merit. Your recent election to the Presidency of the United States, by a popular majority unprecedented in the history of the country, was a personal triumph for yourself greater, perhaps, than that of any other President. You were elected because of yourself, and you carried with you to sweeping victory a party which without your personality as its chief asset might easily have suffered defeat. Yet you yourself have doubtless perceived the desirability of applying Professor Einstein's unproved theory of relativity to the case, and of recognizing in even these felicitous circumstances elements of difficulty, if not of danger. Chief among these must be reckoned the disposition of your own political organization. When a party wins at the polls a substantial victory through its own deserts, it should be and generally is competent to conduct the Government in a satisfactory manner; for the very conditions of its success denote its possession of unity of purpose and of a potentially profitable programme of achievement. But it is not so when, as in the present instance, the party has been carried into power in spite of its own demerits and through the worthiness of a single leader. Its best hope then lies in continuing the man who was its chief asset in the electoral campaign as its dominant factor during its tenure of power. The party of which you are the leader and to which you would naturally look for support in your Administration, is by no means unified or harmonious, even though it has happily rid itself of some of its most discordant and disloyal factors. It is not always scrupulous in fulfilling the promises which it has made in soliciting popular favor. It is lacking in definite policies toward some of the most vital and urgent issues of the time. Yet it is often self-willed and inclined to vaunt itself upon the victory which you won for it as though it had been its own, and to regard itself as secure in possession, irrespective of the manner in which it may discharge its stewardship. From it you can expect only such support as your own initiative may constrain it to give. If we turn to the opposite party, a still more unsatisfactory plight confronts us. That aggregation is so utterly divergent and demoralized after two of the most disastrous defeats in the history of national campaigns that it can but ill and scantily perform the functions of a constitutional opposition and seems likely, at least for some time, to offer mere carping in place of the corrective and constructive criticism which is always so needed. Apart from these is a cave bigger than Adullam's, filled with heterogeneous elements of dissent, unrest, and even sedition. There are those who sincerely differ from both of the established parties, and seek the public welfare by dubious and untried ways. There are those who would replace the proved and prosperous principles of the American system of government with mere vagaries or with the discredited and discarded policies of other lands. There are those who, openly or insidiously, seek to subvert the Constitution and to erect above its ruins a motley structure of Communism infected with Anarchy. And in such a situation, Mr. President, you are called upon to deal with some of the most complicated and most momentous problems this country has ever known, in both its domestic economy and its foreign relationships. With no inclination to play the part of a killjoy, we must regard it as an outlook conducive to serious thoughts and earnest resolution rather than to idle jubilation. Yet "Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" More than once or twice in our nation's history a great issue has arisen, upon the determination of which the integrity of the Republic seemed to depend. Never did such a number of such issues arise together as at the present time. The efficiency of the Supreme Court as a coördinate department of the national Government, the rights of the States as against Federal centralization, the rights of the individual as against oppressive legislation, the sovereign independence of the Republic as against any alien super-State, the freedom of the nation from foreign entanglements beyond our legitimate concern-all these are at stake, openly or covertly challenged. The abatement of waste, the promotion of prosperity, the fore fending of class conflicts, the assurance of "a fair field and no favor" to every honest and industrious citizen in every useful occupation-these, too, are urgent domestic needs to which a wise and just Government must be responsive. And so, Mr. President, we conclude as we began. The American people have faith in you, as "the substance of things hoped for," that you will successfully apply to these things those principles of homely, robust virtue and practical common sense which prevailed in the founding of this Republic and which you have inherited from its founders and manifested on your own behalf. They have faith that you will prove those pristine principles to be still vital and still valid. If our greeting to you seems more serious than effusive, it is for that very reason the more sincere and confident. If we have indicated trying tasks before you, we still more earnestly suggest the puissant factors of achievement. No President in recent times ever had so great a popular electoral mandate as you. No President ever entered upon his duties more free from obligations to party or to individuals. No President ever had better opportunity to promote the highest and most enduring welfare of the nation and the people. To such achievement you have yourself best pointed the way, under that which you have felicitously commended to the nation in its dealings with others, and under that which the nation confidently expects to see become the ruling principle of your Administration in all directions, "the inescapable law of service." Good morning, Mr. President-and good will! |