Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1907-09-22
Missourian is Referred to as Presi.
Dental Possibility.
TALKS ON LIBERTY AS A RIGHT
Believes in the People and Says They
Can Master All Problems.
BRIGHT OUTLOOK FOR FUTURE
Awakening of Public Conscience
Does Not Proceed from n Spirit
of DiscOntent-The
Outcome.

NORFOLK, Va, Sept. 1.-"Missourl
Day" was celebrated at the jamestown
exposition today with Governor Folk of
that state the central figure of interest
The weather was ideal. Assembled in tho
large audience hall at the auditorium,
where the formal exercises were held,
were several hundred prominent men from
all parts of the country who remained
over following the adjournment of the
League of American Municipalities yes
terday to hear Governor Folk address and
participate in the joint celebration of
Municipal day.
The Exercises began i'm the forenoon,
when Governor Folk and party escorted
! by the Twelfth United States cavalry left
the Missouri building for the auditorium.
/ Henry T. Kent of st. Louis president Of
the Missouri jamestown commission, pre-
sided
An address of welcome by Lieutenant
Governor Ellyson of Virginia, in which sug
gestive reference to Governor Folk a
presidential possibility received tumultuous
applause preceded the Grafton by Governor
Folk. who took for his subject Liberty of
the Individual a Right, Not a Privilege"
Governor Folk said in part:
our civilization differs from those that
have gone before, in tnat 1t is a civilization
I oil the lHulNlQuaI, q clNlllZatlOn tnat de-
mands the education of all, not of a few;
a civilization of equal rights instead of
privilege. Our material prosperity and
progress in invention are the outgrowth of
the principles of liberty and Individual
rights. When we depart from these moral
principles our nation win go as others have
gone during the flight of time through
the ages. The nations that have tottered
off the stage. of the world into oblivion did
not die for lack of wealth. for many of
them were richer when they fell than ever
before. but they ceased to exist for lack
of men, They died not for lack of money
but for lack of morals; not for want of
material wealth, but for lack of moral
wealth. The many had no rights; the few
had all. Vice followed then decay. The
perpetuity of this government rests not on
dividual. ..
There are some who see danger TO our
Institutions in the agitation resulting from
the exposures of wrongdoing in official and
business life. To my mind the hope for
the perpetuity of this government by the
people was never brighter than now. This
awakening of the public conscience does
not proceed from spirit of discomfort
moral sense of the average Individual.
No man or corporation doing an honest
business need fear the arousing OF the
doing Those whose business methods
will not stand the light of publicity have
no right to con complain II they persist in
injured by the psople, but by the wrong
which they do. l do not believe there is
any enmty anywhere in this country to
legitimate industry. 1t is not railroads nor
Insurance companies the people complain of,
but the breaches of trust on the part Of
those running railroads or insurance COM
panies.
In the fight against the privilege of law
lessness there have arisen questions be-
tween the federal and state governments as
to the construction of the powers of each
II the people Of the states cannot be trusted
to erect valid laws with respect to cor
porattons, by what process of reasoning
can II be assured that they have the
capacity to legislate for the individual
citizens.
The danger to the integrity of the states
can best be checked by the states exercis-
ing their rights of self-government in the
enactment of good laws, and enforcement
OF those laws. The states that allow their
self-government to be spread out and dis
sipated among many subdivisions. until 1t
becomes so weak as to mean hut little, are
doing much to aid in the plan of those who
argue for more centralised government
at the nations capitol.