. ..vERSlTy
T S 1919
LIBRARY

WASHINGTON AND OUR FORE-FATHERS
MADE DEMOCRACY SAFE FOR THE
WORLD, NOT THE WORLD SAFE
FOR. DEMOCRACY
AN ADDRESS BY
EDWARD CASPER STOKES
BEFORE
THE WASHINGTON ASSOCIATION
OF NEW JERSEY
With Greeting by ALFRED ELMER MILLS, President
and Proceedings in the Celebration
AT WASHINGTON'S HEADQUARTERS
IN MORRISTOWN, N. J.
ON FEBRUARY 22, 1919

ADDRESSES
Before the Members of the
WASHINGTON ASSOCIATION OF NEW JERSEY
At Headquarters, Morristown, New Jersev.
February 22, 19 19.
President Alfred Elmer Mills called the assembly to
order.
All present stood at attention while the orchestra
played "The Star Spangled Banner."
The national antheim, "America," was then sung by
all. President Mills said:
Gentlemen of the Washington Association. The joys
and sorrows of another year have passed. Once more we
meet on this historic spot and once more I give you a
most cordial welcome.
You see but little change in your surroundings.
Through the gifts of generous friends valuable additions
have been made to our collection of paintings and relics, but
the old home remains the same. If Washington could
return after nearly one hundred and forty years he would
at once recognize his old headquarters. It is we who
change. Our lives, our friends, our country, all have
changed during the past eventful year. Death has wrung
the hearts of all of us. It has removed our beloved Treas
urer, Mr. John H. Bonsall, who for many years gave his
devoted services to our Association. It has taken many
3

of our most valued members. It has laid low tens of thou
sands of our best and bravest on the battlefields of France.
Our boys have not died in vain, for to them we owe
the victory that has crowned the allied arms. (Applause.)
On the nth of November last, the little town of Senlis
in Northern France witnessed the supreme triumph of the
democratic nations of the world. The signing of the
armistice by the representatives of Germany marked the
overthrow of the Autocrat. Imperialism had succumbed
to Democracy. A civilization based upon the greatest
amount of individual freedom, had conquered one
of socialistic formation ruled by a group of imperialistic
leaders. The German with his curious combination of
socialism and imperialism had fallen before gallant France,
backed by Britain and America — the most individual
istic of the nations — who, with their unlimited resources
had sprung to her support. Right had prevailed. Wash
ington's debt — our debt — to Lafayette had been repaid, and
the waves of militarism and barbarism had been driven
back. The world is in suspense today lest the victories that
our armies have won may prove of no avail through the
Bolshevists and Anarchists who are trying to impose a
despotism far worse than that of a Kaiser or a Czar.
Is personal initiative to be stifled? Is class conscious
ness to control? Is that mean and contemptible spirit of
Caste that has cursed the peoples of the old world to replace
the glorious freedom that has released the boundless
energies of America?
These are questions that must be answered not by
boys in khaki, but by you and me, by every thinking man.
The responsibility is upon us.
One of the foremost thinkers on these great problems
is with us today. He will speak to us on the subject,
"Washington and Our Forefathers Made Democracy Safe
for the World — Not the World Safe for Democracy."
I take great pleasure in calling on our old friend.
Governor Stokes. (Applause.) 4

WASHINGTON AND OUR FORE-FATHERS MADE
DEMOCRACY SAFE FOR THE WORLD, NOT
THE WORLD SAFE FOR DEMOCRACY

An Address Delivered by Edward Caspar Stokes before the
Washington Association of New Jersey
on February 22, 1919.
MR. STOKES— Mr. President and Fellow Americans :
It is far from good form to begin an address with an
apology. But in this case it at least has the merit of truth,
and truth ought to be permissible on the anniversary of
the cutting down of the cherry tree. (Laughter.) My
apology is that this is my first visit to this historic spot
so full of patriotic associations. Washington never said
anything to me about it. My absence probably entirely
escaped his notice, or it may be that he was entirely satis
fied with the fact that for three years I had the honor of
signing the appropriation to aid in the maintenance of this
organization. At any rate, my visit here g^ives me a new
phase of Washington's character. Added to his other
illustrious characteristics, I now know that he was a
connoisseur in the selection of the right place to live and
he knew how to pick out a home. (Applause.) Although
it is my first visit, I come with the greatest pleasure, and
I should be guilty of lack of appreciation if I failed to
acknowledge the compliment I feel in being able to be the
guest of this honored Association and of this distinguished
gathering. Any anniversary occasion is always full of suggestions.
It sharply contrasts the past with the present, and it marks
5

6 ADDRESS OF HON. E. C. STOKES
the deviations, if any there be, from the highways of our
forefathers. The Father of His Country, in his farewell
address, that manual of sound Americanism and sound
patriotism, advised that this land of ours should hold aloof
from foreign entanglements. That was his attitude.
How different the attitude of the present Chief Execu
tive, who personally visits European fields, suggests policies
to those nations, recommends forms of government, and
advises an American partnership in a league of European
and world problems and difficulties !
Was the Father of His Country altogether wrong in
his policy of minding our own business? Is our present
distinguished Chief Executive altogether right in the policy
of mingling in the business of other nations?
To a judicial mind, and all minds should be judicial on
an anniversary occasion, free from bias and prejudice, the
great contrariety between the attitude of the Father of His
Country and the distinguished chief who now guides the
destinies of this Republic, ought to suggest careful con
sideration and deliberation on the proposed innvoations of
the day. For example, peace between the mother country and
the colonies was signed in 1783. It was not until 1790 that
Rhode Island ratified the Constitution. The thirteen col
onies fought a common war. Their interests were largely
identical, their conception of liberty and ideals the same,
their racial characteristics so near alike as not to interfere
with practical homogeneity, they were geographically con
tiguous, and their whole safety lay in the unity of action,
and yet those thirteen colonies, so bound together in com
mon interest, deliberated and debated and considered for
seven years before they formed a safe league of nations.
Some of the questions in the boiling pot of Europe
have been simmering for six thousand years, many of them
for at least, two thousand years. Never were there so many
questions to be settled; never were suspicions so subtly
keen; never were ambitions so whetted by opportunity;
never were antagonisms so real, and yet some of our en-

ADDRESS OF HON. E. C. STOKES 7
thusiastic friends expect us to form a safe and sane league
of nations for the whole world within a twelvemonth.
This hasty idealism of the day makes us wonder if
some miodern Phaethon is not wildly driving the chariot
of the sun. At least, the patriotic student of history, with
the caution of Webster in his opening remark in his reply
to Hayne, wants to take his bearing before he steers into
the open sea.
A nation is the sum total of its traditions and its ex
periences. They are our guides and our sign posts. The
pioneers who blazed the way are held up to acclamation or
derision, just in proportion as the pathway they laid out
led to the comfort or misery of those who follow after.
Our present is not of our own making ; it is the legacy
of the past. We owe much to the past. Our religion, our
Bible, our Ten Commandtnents, our Independence, and our
Fourth of July, all come from the past. The lessons of the
past are more pregnant than those of the present, because,
as Patrick Henry said, "There is no way to judge the
future but by the lamp of experience."
The success of this government is due to the wisdom
of those who founded it, and not to the guess of those who
would change it. The wisdom and judgment of those who
founded it have been tried and proven. The guess of those
w^ho would change it is uncertain and problematical. Nay,
it is uncertain? Are there no precedents even here?
The Constitution of the French Republic of 1848 con
tained practically every nostrum advocated by the radicals
of today. And I have in my possession a political platform
of one of the parties of that day, which in its plea for gov
ernment ownership of railroads and canals and mines, and
compensation to citizens for accidents, floods, fire, etc.,
whatever that may mean, and other measures, reads prac
tically word for word like the propaganda of the radicals
of this hour. And yet that republic so organized and so
established fell to pieces of its own weight in four years,
and ended in monarchy and the coup d'etat of Louis
Napoleon in 1852.

8 ADDRESS OF HON. E. C. STOKES
The genesis of our land differed from all the nations.
Most nations were conceived either in war or in hunger
settled by tribes who were pushed on from behind by their
foes, or by those who were seeking new and fertile fields
for food. That is true of modern Italy, overrun by barbar
ians; true of Germany, settled by the Teuton; true of
France, settled by the Celts; true of England, conquered
first by the Angles, Saxons and Jutes and later by the North
men. Not so America. Our land was settled not by un
thinking adventurers, but by educated men. Robinson
and Brewster, who led the Pilgrim fathers to Amsterdam,
were university graduates; Roger Williams, the first to
declare for religious freedom and for separation of church
and state, was a son of English Cambridge. The dissolu
tion of Parliament by Charles sent to Massachusetts, the Bay
Colony, an influx of brains and scholarship whose char
acter is indicated by the fact that nearly all the clergy of
that day, including John Harvard, John Cotton, Thomas
Shepherd and Thomas Hooker were college graduates.
So scholarly were our forefathers that they were lead
ers on both sides of the Atlantic. Some of them held high
rank in the military service; some of them held high posi
tions in the civil service of the Protectorate. Twelve of
the first twenty graduates of Harvard went back to Eng
land to aid in the cause of liberty. And it is not too much
to say, although it might seeim a little like boasting, and
we have a right to boast today, it is not too much to say that
Payne and Cromwell and Sidney, Hampden and Milton,
those disciples of English liberty, were the scholars of
teachers on this side of the Atlantic. John Adam,s, Samuel
Adams, James Otis, glorious names in American history,
were sons of old Harvard.
This Republic of ours was founded by educated men,
and men of character. Of the fifty-five members of the
Constitutional Convention, thirty-three were college grad
uates, and the eight leaders of the great debates were all
college men. And when that Convention adjourned, it was
Hamilton, a son of Columbia, who induced New York to

ADDRESS OF HON. E. C. STOKES 9
join the union of states, and it was Madison, a son of our
own Princeton, who in spite of the firm protest of Patrick
Henry, placed Virginia by her side.
America, perhaps, at that time was the land of the
brainest men of the world.
The dissolution of Parliament by Charles, to which I
have referred, gave us that influx of scholarship. When
the Protectorate was established, there came here the
Cavalier, hating democracy and loving his king, but a
man of courage, culture and daring. At the restoration,
supposed to be peaceful, but a restoration of confiscation,
we fell heir to another influx of fine culture, brains and
brawn. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes gave us
another contribution, that fine strain of the Huguenot.
Add to that the Quakers, with statesmen like Penn and
the Knickerbockers of Manhattan that came from Holland,
that land of liberty, and the common school, and it is no
exaggeration to say, my friends, that at that time America
was the home of the finest characters and the finest scholar
ship in the world. It was these men who made our democ
racy what it is. It was these men who made democracy
safe, and with this fact in mind is it wise to forget in this
hour all the lessons, all the advice, all the experience of
ancestors so wise, in this period of reformation after civili
zation has been saved, a victory to which you, Mr. Presi
dent, so eloquently referred.
In the work, I think they call it, of reconstruction, is
it not well to remember, that innovation is not always
reform, and that this country of ours has som« principles
and assets worthy of preservation without change? (Ap
plause.) The policies that have made our land a land of more
freedom, of more happiness, of more privilege, of more
opportunity for the lowly than any other land on earth,
must have some good in them. Our constitution after a
hundred years of trial was declared by Gladstone and
Bryce to be the greatest instrument ever emanating from
the brains of men. It sufficed for three millions of people

10 ADDRESS OF HON. E. C. STOKES
along the Atlantic seaboard. It suffices today for a hun
dred millions scattered over the continent's expanse — even
— even further than that, for it reaches from sunrise to
sunset. It has been equally good in peace or war. It en
abled us to double our territory by the purchase of Louisi
ana, and to write the marvelous story of our growth, re
ligious, educational, industrial and material. And it has
stood the test of this progress and vicissitude for one hun
dred and thirty years with only four fundamental changes
— only four fundamental changes necessary to be added to
the wisdom of our fathers in a journey of one hundred and
thirty years.
And yet today, or until recently, for one has now been
adopted, there have been pending at one and the same
time four proposed amendments, some of them mere police
regulations that never ought to be written into the organic
law of our country. Every patriot should hesitate before
he allows the spirit of change to lay violent hands upon
an instrument that has proven so useful and efficient.
Moreover, my friends, the demand for change does
not come from the men who fought our battles. They
want to return to the old conditions they left. They want
to come back to the same mother and the same father and
the same wife and the same children and the same old home
they left behind, just as when you revisit your boyhood
scenes you want to find them just as when you played
among them.
Our heroes abroad want none of this Bolsheviki and
socialistic failure they have witnessed on the soil of Europe.
(Applause.) They are homesick not for new but for the
old conditions, and we have no right in their absence, with
out any opportunity upon their part, either to vote or ex
press opinion, to change this land of ours from one of indi
vidual freedom and initiative to a paternal and socialistic
government of autocratic control of business enterprise.
(Applause.) The great factor in America's greatness, as you
suggested, Mr. President, has been the individual and his

ADDRESS OF HON. E. C. STOKES 11
freedom, just as it was when Greece was great, or when
Rome was mighty.
In our patriotic personification of government, we are
often misled into thinking that government is an entity and
a personalty, and we forget it was individuals who framed
and made it. We are a queer set of reformers. Just as
soon as we give up one vice we become addicted to another.
(Laughter.) Just now, you know, we have got the fashion of giving
up drink, but we are taking to phrasing. (Laughter.) And
we are lost in phrases. Nobody ever analyzes them, no
body ever thinks what they mean. That is too much work.
"Making the world safe for democracy" is a beautiful
phrase, but there isn't a man here who knows what it
means. (Laughter.) and no man ever did. Making democ
racy safe for the world is the real problem. (Applause.)
Democracy is not safe for anything unless you make
it so. Democracy is not a virtue. It is the result of a
virtue. It is the outcome of brains and character. Democ
racy has not made Russia safe. If all reports are true, and
they are well authenticated, in that land religion is over
thrown, the family life destroyed, and all women from
seventeen years of age upwards, either married or single,
have become the corrimon property of the state, a form of
state ownership and state control that have made degener
ates and animals out of men, a most horrible condition of
infamy. Why, because the Bolsheviki have not made
democracy safe. Democracy never made America safe. It
was American brains and character that made free govern
ment and democracy in our land possible. (Applause.)
I referred to the character of our ancestors. By the
common consent of historians, the members of the second
Continental Congress were the finest body of minds ever
gathered together in the history of the world in deliberative
assembly. Take old Virginia as an illustration. George
Washington, the Father of His Country; Richard Henry
Lee, who moved that the colonies should be free and in
dependent; Patrick Henry, whose "Liberty or Death" has

12 ADDRESS OF HON. E. C. STOKES
been mouthed by every school boy; Mason, the author of
the bill of rights; Jefferson, the author of the Declaration
Madison, the father of the Constitution; Marshall, the first
Chief Justice, who breathed into it virility and vitality;
Monroe, the author of the doctrine that no European mon-
archial flag should find permanent lodgment on the soil of
the western hemisphere — all these lived at one and the same
time in a single one of the thirteen colonies. (Applause.)
The age of an Augustus or Pericles produced no such
galaxy of great names. Add to these the Hamiltons and
Clintons of New York, the Adamses and the Otises of
Massachusetts, the Wilsons and Franklins of Pennsylvania,
the Rutledges and Gasdens of the Carolinas. It was these
men and their contemporaries that made our government
what it is. The government did not make these men.
Government is the result, not the cau&e of individual achieve
ment and effort.
Civilization if it is to survive must develop individuals.
Religion and art and science, philosophy and trade and com
merce and transportation and business, the children of
civilization, are the result not of collective but of indi
vidual effort.
You may have looked upon some magnificent painting,
like that of the Sistine Madonna. An individual painted
that picture. The masses never painted a pictvire. You
may have gazed enraptured upon some beautiful statue.
An individual like a Phidias carved that statue. The masses
never carves a statue. You may have sat enthralled under
some thrilling oration. An individual delivered that ora
tion. The masses never made an oration. The masses
never invented a machine or framed a statue, or penned a
poem, or shaped a cathedral, or discovered a law of gravi
tation. It is individuals who take these steps of progress
alone, and the whole story of social development, in this
world has been the struggle of the individual to break
through the procrustean bed of governmental direction and
control. Greece was great so long as she was an individual, and

ADDRESS OF HON. E. C. STOKES 13
she failed when she became socialistic. Rome was mighty
so long as she was composed of an aggregate of local activ
ities, but the empire decayed when a centralized govern
ment becajne the business umpire of her people.
The free cities of the middle ages and the feudal sys
tem dwelt side by side, but it was the burghers of the free
cities who were the pioneers in business, outstripping
the stagnant life of their feudal neighbors, ruled over by
some governmental overlord.
The Renaissance, known to every student of history,
was nothing more nor less than the protest of the indi
vidual against govemmentalandl ecclesiastical direction of life,
and when the Renaissance came the world awoke, the dark
ages ceased and progress began, and like stars out of the
firmament of the night, there came a Guttenberg with his
printing press, an Erasmus, with his new learning, a
Columbus to chart the seas, a Galileo and Copernicus to
unfold the heavens, a Raphael and Angelo to charm with
art, a Newton to weigh the planets in their courses, and
later a Shakespeare to dramatize the virtues and weaknesses
of the age.
Within three hundred years from the outbreak of this
individualism, the individuals to whom I have referred, sat
in the city of Philadelphia and framed a government, deriv
ing its just powers from the consent of the governed.
(Applause.) We have just finished a war between these two ideas,
and that is all this war was, nothing more, nothing less;
between the two ideas of the individual on one hand and
government control on the other ; between two ideas which
Abraham Lincoln declared had always been in conflict since
the dawn of history, the right of the individual to carve out
his own destiny, and the effort of the government to con
trol it.
I place Germany and America in illustrative contrast:
Gertaany , government owned and government controlled,
ninety-two per cent, of her railroads government owned,
her telephones and telegraph lines likewise, her banks.

14 ADDRESS OF HON. E. C. STOKES
government agents, her business and industries either in
government partnership or under the government thumb,
producing the finest industrial organization the world ever
saw, with the most scientific war machine ever known in
history, but a paternal rule that made her people mere
working machines, barbaric and soulless.
I turn now to America. Her telephones and telegraphs
and roalroadsand business enterprises not government owned,
but individual in ownership and effort. If her policy did not
produce as efficient workers as that of Germany, it did
produce real men and women, fine characters, recognizing
their obligations to their fellowmen. (Applause.)
And when the scientific war machine of that govern
ment owned and government controlled empire of Germany
met the unfettered individualism of Amierica on the field,
the Ger»man machine went down in defeat, and individual
America triitfnphed. (Applause.)
The one unanswerable argument of the world against
government ownership and state socialism is the verdict of
the European battlefields in favor of the American flag.
(Applause.) And yet, my friends, you know, there are some that
honestly advise that we revise the policy of individual
freedom that has made us great, and adopt the policy of
Germany which we have denounced as barbaric and un
civilized. They are honest in that, but they forgot. They
forgot that it is brains and not things that make wealth.
You know we are very apt to follow in the pathway of
the fellow who has gone before without thinking, and
there is a lot of political economy accepted in this world
in some of our schools that is not orthodox.
Now, there isn't any such thing as intrinsic wealth in
any true political economy, or intrinsic value, if you want
to call it. There isn't any intrinsic value in this building.
There isn't any wealth or value in any of your buildings or
industries, your houses and lands and lots in Morristown.
The wealth lies in the brains of your citizens and these
other things are only their tools and instruments, and if

ADDRESS OF HON. E. C. STOKES 15
all of your citizens should leave Morristown today and
none should ever return to take their place, Morristown as
a deserted community would be absolutely valueless; un
worthy even of the attention of the tax collector.
Why ? Because its wealth would depart with the brains
of its citizens. Why, this land of ours with its mines of
copper and gold and silver, wonderful forests, water falls
and fertile fields, was here for centuries, but they remained
a wilderness and waste in the hands of the Indians. But
when God sent over that little cargo of brains in the May
flower, they turned the wilderness into a garden and the
waste into sources of wealth. It was the brains of the
human cargo of the Mayflower, the Susane Constant and
the Half-Moon and their descendants that made our pros
perity and progress. That is a kind of thing that makes
our democracy safe.
Jefferson purchased the whole of Louisiana, stretching
from the Mississippi nearly to the Pacific for less than two
cents an acre. The victorious Union soldiers went out
there and settled it under the homestead act, and today
this waste that Jefferson purchased turns out annually
over ten billions of dollars in the form of harvests; it feeds
one-third of the people of the world, and it furnished the
food and sustenance that enabled the allies to win the
war. It was not government ownership of the land that did
that. It was brains and character and intelligence of the
farmer settlers that turned that desert of Jefferson into the
granery of the world. It was not artificial fertilizer and
potash that fertilized those fields. It was the brains of
the individuals who lived there that fertilized that desert
and made it blossom like a rose.
That nation progresses imost that permits the unfet
tered development of its brains, the real source of wealth;
and that nation progresses least whose government usurps
the activities of business and trade and commerce, and
reduces its citizens to the dead level of bureaucratic em
ployes.

16 ADDRESS OF HON. E. C. STOKES
I have been at the head of one of these bureaucratic
departments and I know something about it, and my
friend Salmon is going to take the place. After he has been
there awhile he will make just the same kind of a speech on
this subject that I am making. Now, if there is anything
more pitiful or more withering to the intellect than a posi
tion in one of the bureaucratic departments, God save us.
I don't want to seem to be cheap or to use cheap exprcF-
sions, but I am only using it to be forceful when I say
when I was there I used to fire the young men out of that
office into the business world before their brains dried up.
(Laughter and applause.)
This question of government control is mental and
psychological as well as economic. You don't find a Morse,
— I believe he used to work up here in Morristown, didn't
he? You don't find a Morse or an Edison, or a Wright or
a Holland, in a government laboratory. You never de
veloped a sleeping car under governmental ownership of
railroads. We had sleeping cars in this country thirty-
five years before the Midland road of England announced
through its managers with great gusto that they had formed
a contract with an American individual by the name of
Pullman and that thereafter they would be able to render
that service to their people.
Just before he left for Europe, President Wilson ap
peared before Congress for a few words of advice. (Laugh
ter.) He has that habit. (Laughter.) He drops in occasion
ally upon Congress for a cup of afternoon tea, and as a
rule when he leaves Congress has the tea and he has Con
gress. (Laughter.) In the course of his remarks on this
occasion he said, "The American people do not need to be
coached or led. They know their own business." "They
know their own business." Any leading strings that we
might seek to put upon them would speedily become hope
lessly entangled, because they would pay no attention to
them and go their own way." The American business man is
resourceful and has initiative. That splendid statesimanlike
utterance of President Wilson, if it means anything, means

ADDRESS OF HON. E. C. STOKES 17
that government interference with business ought to for
ever cease. (Applause.) And as President Wilson spoke
he was a splendid illustration himself of the individualism.
that he was then portraying. Can you think of Woodrow
Wilson under government or even congressional control?
(Laughter.) Has not his whole plea been to give him
power and freedom from government red tape that he
might be able more quickly to solve the problem of the
war? Now, if you can trust your President of the United
States free from control and restraint to solve the problems of
a great war, you can trust the businessmen of America just as
honest as your President and just as capable in their line
to solve their own problems and irianage their own busi
ness. (Applause.)
Washington founded this government; Lincoln saved
it, and Wilson is spreading the doctrines to the world, and
his one continuous plea is that the people of Europe shall
have freedom and immunity from the governmental control
and restraint under which they have lived for centuries.
(Applause.) Are not the American people entitled to the same
thing? (Applause.) Why fetter the American business
man with a system which every step in the progress of the
world has condemned as inefficient and wrong? One illus
tration will suffice. It is a splendid tribute to the efficiency,
enterprise and capacity of American citizenship. It was
individual enterprise that pioneered the great railway
lines of our country. These railroad pioneers blazed a new
way over the trackless plains and through the forests, and
they added millions to the wealth of the country in the
newly opened mines, the villages and cities and industries
that sprung up along the way at their touch. They did
this great work on an average capitalization of $60,000
per mile, as against $109,000 in Germany, $139,000 in
France, $275,000 in Great Britain. They paid the highest
wages ever paid in the world, and on the whole they
charged the lowest traffic rates in the world and with a

IS ADDRESS OF HON. E. C. STOKES
capitalization of only one-third of the average capitaliza
tion of the three countries I have named. They carried
over these lines a traffic density double that of the govern
ment owned roads of Europe. In the parallel between the
government owned roads of Europe and the individual
owned roads of America, almost in any aspect of the ques
tion, the individualism of America beats government
ownership two to one.
The other night I heard a great speech by a Democrat.
I always like to quote a Democrat. It warms the cockles
of my heart to quote a Ddmocrat, because I never quote
him unless he is right. Whenever I quote a Democrat I
realize just how the father of the prodical son felt when he
fell on the neck of his boy and wept on his return. (Laugh
ter.) This Democrat was Congressman Small of North
Carolina, chairman of the Rivers and Harbors Committee.
He is a real statesman. These are some of the things he
said : "The history of the world shows that the danger to a
republic is the tendency toward centralization. The more
power you delegate to the federal government the more
you enervate the citizen, and the less opportunity and
power you give him to control his government. The more
responsibilities you impose upon him, the more patriotic
you make him, and the more patriotic you make him the
safer you make democracy." Continuing he said, "I am
pleased to say that in the war period there were no Demo
crats or no Republicans ; the great Republican party united
with the Democratic party in enacting any legislation and
making any sacrifice necessary for a glorious victory, but
in doing those things necessary for the winning of the war
we very greatly curtailed the rights of individuals and be
stowed autocratic powers upon their official representatives.
I have no hesitation in stating that I heartily approve that
sentiment, that as soon as practicable those powers should
be withdrawn and restored to the people." (Applause.)
I am not saying this. Congressman Small, a Democrat, is
saying it. (Laughter.)

ADDRESS OF HON. E. C. STOKES 19
He is not through yet. "fWhen we restore their rights
to the owners, we ought not to hesitate to enact such legis
lation as will make our great instrumentalities of transpor
tation more valuable to commerce and the welfare of the
country without in any wise doing injustice or injuring
those who have invested their moneys in these enterprises."
Having taken the railroads over he said, under the pretext
of war for purposes of government ownership, we have no
right in operating them to so scramble them' that we can
not unscramble them without rendering injustice to their
owners. (Applause.) "Having taken them over," he is
still speaking, lend me your ears a moment, "having taken
over the telephone and telegraph wires under the pretext of
war, we have no right to use that as an excuse for taking
them away from their rightful owners and handing them
over to a centralized government." (Applause.)
Those statesmanlike utterances of Congressman Small
at once dispose effectively of the irresponsible suggestion
that these properties be handed back to their owners bank
rupt. Such a suggestion so shocks the sense of common
honesty that it need not be discussed before this body. No
decent government could afford to perpetrate that travesty
on financial morals.
The railroads of this country are its great highways of
trade and commerce ; they are international highways ; they
are a proper subject for government co-operation, that they
may be justly dealt with and deal justly with all.
They are not owned by a few people. They are owned
directly and indirectly by fifty ;millions of our citizens, and
those fifty millions of people have a just right to have
honest and fair return upon their investment.
The public, if there is a distinction between fiftjf
millions American people and the public, and I don't think
there is, the public has the right to have the railroads have
remunerative rates that they may render prompt and effici
ent service. The whole country has a right to have the
railroads have remunerative rates that additional capital
may be attracted for development and that new places may

20 ADDRESS OF HON. E. C. STOKES
be opened for abiding places for future generations of
Americans yet to come, and that is what will make a con
tented and safer dem|ocracy.
Now, government ownership, socialism, just as you
¦suggested, Mr. President, is a menace to democracy. I am
not sure that it does not mean the end of delmocracy. It is
autocracy enthroned and under it the goods of a merchant
or a business man who might be out of political accord
with the administration that happened then to be in power
could be delayed and hampered in shipment. The news
papers that criticized the administration then in power
could be lost on the way to their readers, and in the hands
of a fourth-rate politician that power could so enslave the
people of this country that they would only dare obey like
unto that which made the civilization of Germany a men
ace to the world.
We believe in the rule of the people. If people are
competent to run their own government, they are certainly
competent to run their own business affairs. The American
citizen is honest. He is just as honest as his own public
official, and he is more competent in his own business and
it prospers better in his own hands.
But it is the same story in every aspect. Every step
in the world's progress has been the struggle of the indi
vidual for the right of self development and initiative
against government control. Sometimes it has been a
struggle for the freedom of the press ; sometimes it has been
a struggle for freedom of speech and action; sometimes it
has been a struggle to worship God according to the
dictates of conscience ; sometimes for the right to labor and
engage in business pursuits. But it has always been, no
matter what form it assumes, the same principle as Lin
coln said, "The struggle of the individual for the right of
his own initiative." In America it has reached its highest
culmination and has made us the greatest republic on earth,
and it has made us a great republic because it has developed
individuals competent to make democracy safe. It gave
us a Washington and a Jefferson ; it gave us a Garfield and

ADDRESS OF HON. E. C. STOKES :21
a McKinley, it gave us a Roosevelt and a Wilson, (Ap
plause), differing in opinions and convictions, but men each
the free architect of his own destiny; Americans all, hon
ored at home and abroad; all the product not of a populace
government-owned, but of a government people owned, a
government of a people and by a people of intelligence and
character that shall not perish from the earth.

At the close of Governor Stokes' oration a motion was
unanimously passed thanking him for his splendid address
and directing that it be printed and circulated among the
members of the Association.
The meeting was finished by singing "Auld Lang
Syne."

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