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
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.
A Letter to the Mayor of Boston
MY DEAR MR. MAYOR:
It will be with a good deal of satisfaction that I coöperate 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.
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.
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 coöperation 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.