The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1911-01-17
WILSON FAvORS
MANY new LAWS
Governor Elect Takes Oath and
Outlines Plans.
SAYS HE IS STATES SERVANT.


Urges Changes In Statutes to Keep
Pace With Advancement In All Lines.
Trenton, Jan. 17.-Goyernor Wilson
delivered the following inaugural adj
dress today:
Gentlemen of the Leglslature-I as
sumo the great Office Of governor of
the state with unaffected difidence.
Many great men have made this Of
fee illustrious. A long tradition of
honorable public service connects each
incumbent of it with the generation
of men who set up our governments
here in free America tos give men per-
petual assurance of liberty and justice
ard opportunity. No one dare be sure
that he is qualified to Iplay the part
expected of him by the people of the
commonwealth In the execution of this
high trust. 1t is best for him as he
sets out to look away from himself
and to concentrate his thoughts upon
the people whom he serves, the sacred
interests which are intrusted to his
care and the day in which he is TO
work, it's challenge, its promise, its
energies of opinion and of purpose, its
sustaining hopes and exciting expec-
tations. The scene viii inspire him,
not thought of himself.
The opportunity of our day in the
field of politics no man can mistake
who can read any, even the most SUI
perficial, signs of the times. We have
never seen day when duty was more
plain, the task to performed more
plish it more easy to determine. The
air has in recent months cleared amaz-
ingly about us, and thousands, hun
dreds of thousands, have lifted their
eyes to look about them to see things
they never saw before, to comprehend
things that once seemed vague and ELL
sive. The whole world has changed
within the lifetime of men not yet In
their thirties, the world of business and
therefore the world of society and the
world of politics. The organization and
movement of business are new and
upon a novel scale. Business has
changed so rapidly that for long time
we were confused, alarmed, bewilder-
ed, in a sort of terror of the things we
had ourselves raised up. We talked
about them either in sensational arti-
cles in the magazines which distorted
every line of the picture. or in con-
servative editorials in our newspapers
xtIai iol, ,fn =
all had happened, or in grave discourses
which tried to treat them as perfectly
normal phenomena, or in legislative de-
bates which sought to govern them
with statutes which matched them nei-
ther in size nor shape.
A Word on Corporations.
But if only by sheer dint of talking
about them, either to frighten or to re-
assure one another or to make our
selves out wiser or more knowing than
our fellows, we have at last turned
them about and looked at them from
almost every angle and begin to see
them whole, as they are. Corpora
tions are no longer hobgoblins which
have sprung at us out of some mystic
rious ambush, nor yet unwholy inven-
tions of rascally rich men, nor yet the
puzzling devices by which ingenious
lawyers build up huge rights out of a
multitude of small wrongs, but merely
organizations of perfectly intelligible
sort which the law has licensed for
the convenience of extensive business,
organizations which have proved very
useful, but which have for the time
being slipped out of the control of the
very law that gave them leave to be
and that can make or unmake them at
selves to control them, soberly, but ef-
fectively, and to bring them thorough
ly within the regulation of the law.
There Is great opportunity here; for
wise regulation, wise adjustment, will
mean the removal of half the difficult
ties that now beset us in our search
for justice and equality and fair
chances of fortune for the individuals
who make up our modern society. And
there is a great obligation as well as a
great opportunity, an imperative obi
CATION, from which we cannot escape
if we would. Public opinion is at last
wide awake. 1t begins to understand
the problems to be dealt with. 1t be-
gins to see very clearly indeed the OBJ
jects to be sought. 1t knows what has
been going on. 1t sees where resist
ance has come from whenever efforts
at reform have been made and knows
also the means of resistance. that have
been resorted to. 1t is watchful, in
sistent, suspicious. No man who wish
es to enjoy the public confidence dare
hold back, and if he is wise he will not
resort to subterfuge. A duty is exact.
ed : him which he must perform sim.
ply, directly, Immediately. The gate
of opportunity stands wide open. Ii
A, are foolish enough to be unwilling
to pass through it the whip of opinion
will drive us through
No wise man will say, of course.
that he sees the whole problem of re-
form lying plgin before him or knows
how to frame the entire body of law
that will be necessary to square bust
ness with the general interest and put
right and fairness and public spirit in
the saddle again In all the transactions
Of our new society, but some things
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