natural mistake, growing out of the character and experience of our government. Ours was a great adventure. It was an experiment. There was nothing like it under the sun-never had been anything like it under the sunso far as history could tell. It was a burning question whether it would go. As a consequence, most of the great men of the time got behind it got in it-went into politics. Every boy who felt the stirring of genius or aspiration within his breast felt called to dedicate himselfto consecrate himself-to public service. For that reason, and that reason alone, the thing did go. The time came when it seemed it would go by itself. It seemed to become fool-proof-even rascal-proof. Now, a real man wants a man's job; and when the time came when it seemed the Government would run itself, when the holding of public office was no longer a public sacrifice but a private benefit, many of the big men abandoned it and went to something else. If those great statesmen whom we read about today with so much pride and pleasure had been born sixty years later, some of them would probably have been mere "malefactors of great wealth;" and many of those whom we characterize today as "captains of industry," if they had been born sixty years sooner, doubtless would have been great statesmen. We should now begin to realize again that somebody must put a shoulder to the wheel and keep it there. It seems to me that the lawyer, of all men, is the one to take the initiative; because his very living depends on his having a knowledge of things which are in a large sense public. I am not advocating that you run for office. I am only advocating your becoming what I would call a "lay statesman," an advisor and a helper; because I am afraid if you began to run for office you would reach about the level of those politicasters we already have; and what we need of you is to lift them up. I don't speak harshly of them, and I don't feel harshly towards them. We can't blame them for expressing whatever opinions and advocating whatever measures may be necessary to get the votes necessary to get elected; because the first thing to do, if one wants to serve in public office, is to get elected. My observation leads me to believe that the average politician is a wee bit better than the average voter. The more I see of the public utility of the socalled better element the better I like the so-called scurvy politician. As the politician must please the voters in order to get the votes, it follows that the better voters we are the more active interest we take in public affairs -the better politicians we will have. The reason politics is thought to be so bad is not that so many bad men are in it but that so many good men are out of it. This thing can be illustrated in many ways, but one way in particular is this: It has just been resolved by this Association that the judges should be appointed by the Governor, the idea being to take the judges out of politics. Then we will have to go in and elect good Governors. If you put that method into practice and don't elect good Governors, you won't have any better judges, because a Governor must be expected to appoint to the bench the kind of men desired by the people who elect him. I am inclined to say he ought to, but whether he ought to or not, he will, and if the better people stay out of politics because they are too good and too clean to get in, and leave the politics of the State to be run by the element that is not so good and not so clean, you won't have good Governors; and poor Governors won't appoint good judges. Another illustration: The great President of this Association has just delivered a great address on a great subject-State Rights. We have heard a great deal of that all our lives. We have read much of it all our lives. We have read a great deal of it that was uttered and written before we were born. I don't think I ever heard any argument to the contrary. And yet the thing inveighed against goes on and on and on like a glacier. Why? Because so many good men stay out of politics. Now, that may seem far-fetched, and the reason it seems far-fetched is because it is so near-fetched. The reason it seems so far away is that we are looking so far away "we cannot see what flowers are at our feet." When your client wants something done by governmental agency he is going to want it done by the Federal Government. I give you odds of 99 to 1 on that. If it is something he does not want done, something he has tried to keep from being done and is about to fail, and he sees it is going to be done in spite of him, he wants it done by the State; but, whether it is material, sociological or what not, for his interest and his hobby he wants the Federal Government. If he is a prohibitionist he wants Federal prohibition. If he wants the cattle-tick eradicated or the boll-weevil exterminated he wants the Federal Government to do it. If he wants child labor suppressed he looks to the Federal Government. And even when he wants a certain kind of vice suppressed he wants it done by the Federal White Slave Law. A gentleman from Oregon or New Hampshire, bearing the credentials of the Federal Government, comes down to your premises, he goes into your closet, he towsles your dirty linen, he tickles the toes and rattles the ribs of your family skeleton, and that's all right; but let the thing be attempted by a gentleman who is your neighbor, bearing a commission of the State of Georgia, and see what happens! These Federal encroachments and Federal usurpations are not imposed upon us by foreigners. They are put upon us by ourselves. These Federal laws are passed by Congressmen elected by the same voters who elect the officers of the State governments. The professing of the theory of State rights is not confined to any one section. State rights shrieked just as loud and just as shrill in the North and East when the South and West put over the Income Tax and Barleycorn amendments as they will shriek in the South when the North, East and West put over the Woman amendment. These so-called Federal encroachments and Federal usurpations are not entirely Federal encroachments and Federal usurpations. They are largely State evacuations and State abdications, largely due to the fact I have stated that good men don't take the interest in politics that they should. They neglect the local politics. They leave it to be run by the irresponsible. The irresponsible run it badly or not at all. The good people are determined to have a government; they are determined to have a good government, if they can; and inasmuch as those left in charge of local affairs here at home won't run them right the good people entrust their affairs to somebody away off yonder. The men away off yonder may be no better but the local man does not know it, and he is better satisfied. Now one remedy for all that, it seems to me, is for the better people to take an interest which we have not taken in local affairs. Make local politics better, make the local government better, make the local government serve the purpose which it ought to serve; and you will then find that our people will want to trust their government to the local authorities and cease to send it away; and we won't have to spend so much of our time fussing about the encroachments and usurpations of the Federal Government. Just exactly how that is to be done I cannot tell you because, as I have already told you, I am not a politician, I am not skilled. You get in and you may learn what to do and how to do it after you get in. You will never learn to swim if you "hang your clothes on a hickory limb and don't go near the water." There is a story that once upon a time an ancient city found itself in a very bad sanitary condition. They didn't have any of our modern methods. They held a city meeting, earnest and long, discussing how to get rid of the filth. The meeting failed. They were about to adjourn in despair when an old man on a back seat got up |