Gloucester County Democrat., 1912-08-08
WILSON'S ACCEPTANCE
Insists That the Whole People Shall
Be Consulted.
THE NATIONS AWAKENING.

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have notified me of my nomination by
the Democratic party for the high of
fee of president of the United States.
Allow me to thank you very warmly
for the generous terms i'll which you
have. through your distinguished chair
man. conveyed the notification and for
the thoughtful personal courtesy with
which you have performed your inter-
esting and important errand.
accept the nomination with a deep
sense of its unusual significance and OF
the great honor done me and also with
a very profound sense of my RESPONSE
bility to the party and to the nation.
You will expect me in accepting the
honor to speak very plainly the faith
that is in me. You will expect me, in
brief, to talk politics and open the cam
paign in words whose meaning no one
need doubt. You will expect me to
speak to the country.
We cannot intelligently talk politics
unless we know to whom we are talk
ing and in what circumstances. The
usual. No previous political campaign
In our time has disclosed anything like
them. The audience we address is in
no ordinary temper. 1t is no audience
of partisans. Citizens of every class
and party and prepossession sit to-
gether, a single people, to learn wheth-
er we understand their life and know
how to afford them the counsel and
guidance they are now keenly aware
that they stand in need of. We must
speak not to catch votes, but to satisfy
the thought and conscience of a people
deeply stirred by the conviction that
they have come to a critical turning
point in their moral and political de-
veiopment
The Awakened Nation.
We stand in the presence of an
awakened nation. impatient of parti-
san make believe. The public man
who does not realize the fact and feel
It's stimulation must be singularly un
susceptible to the influences that stir
in every quarter about him.
Plainly, it is a new age. The tonic
of such time is very exhilarating.
1t requires self restraint not to attempt
too much, and yet it would be cow
ardly to attempt too little.
1t is in the broad light of this new
day that we stand face to face-with
what? Plainly not with questions of
party, not with a contest for office, not
with a petty struggle for advantage,
Democrat against Republican, liberal
against conservative, progressive against
reactionary. With great questions of
right and of justice, rather-questions
of national development, of the devel-
opment of character and of standards
OF action no less than of a better busi-
ness system, more free, more equitable.
more open to ordinary men, practicable
TO live under. tolerable TO work under,
or better fiscal system whose taxes
shall not come out of the pockets of
the many to go into the pockets of the
few and within whose intricacies spe-
cial privilege may not so easily find
covert
AT such a time and in the presence of
such circumstances what is the mean
ing of our platform and what is our re-
sponsibility under It? What are our
duty and our purpose? The platform
is meant to show that we know what
the nation is thinking about, what it is
most concerned about, what it wishes
corrected and what it desires to see at
tempted that is new and constructive
and intended for its long future. But
for us it is a very practical document.
We are not about to ask the people of
the United States to adopt our plat
form. We are about to ask them to
fntrust us with office and power and
the guidance of their affairs. They
will wish to know what sort of men
we are and of what definite purpose.
what translation of action and of pol
Icy we intend TO give to the general
terms Of the platform which the con
yention at Baltimore put forth should
we be elected.
The Work to Be Done.
The platform is not program. A
program must consist of measures. adj
ministrative acts and acts Of legisla.
ton The proof of the pudding is the
eating thereof. How do we intend to
make it edible and digestibleg From
this time on we shall be under inferro-
CATION. How do we expect to handle
zach of the great matters that must be
AIKEN up by the next congress and the
asN administration?
What is there to do? IT is hard e
4 Gum the great task up, but apparently
his IS the sum OF the matter: There
ire two great things to do. One is to
let up the rule of justice and Of right
ID such matters as the tariff, the regsl4
alton Of the trusts and the prevention
L monopoly. the adaptation of on.
anking and currency laws to ths
ariea uses TO which our people masi
3af them, tlie treatment Of those who
d the daily lalor In our factories and
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