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 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.
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 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.