The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1913-03-15
WILSON'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS

The New Presidents First Message
to His PeopIe-Full Text OF the
Eloquent Speech He Delivered at
Washington, March 4, 1918.
There has been change of govern
ment. It began two years ago when
the house of representatives became
Democratic by a decisive majority.
It has now been completed. The
/ senate about to assemble will also
be Democratic. The offices OF pres
/ ident and vice president have been
put into the hands OF Democrats.
/ What does the change mean? That
/ is the question that is zuppermost in
our minds today. That is the ques-
ton I am going to try to answer, in
order, if I may, to interpret the oc-
casion.
It means much more than the mere
success of a party. The success of
a party means little except when the
nation is using that party for large
and definite purpose. No one can
mistake the purpose for which the
I
cratic party. It seeks to use it to
| interpret a change in its own plans
and point of view Some old things
with which we had grown familiar
and which had begun to creep into
the very habit of our thought and of
! our lives, have altered their aspect
as we have latterly BOXED critically
upon them, with fresh. awakened
eyes; have dropped their DISCUSSES
and shown themselves alien and
sinister. Some new things, as we
look frankly upon them, willing to
comprehend their real character, have
come to assume the aspect of things
| long believed in and familiar, stuff
of our own convictions. We have
been refreshed by o new insight in
to our own life.
We see that in many things that
life is very great. It is fneomparably
great in its material aspects, in it's
body Of wealth, in the diversity and
sweep of its energy, in the indus
tries which have been conceived and
built up by the genius of individual
men and the limit Iesf aterprise Of
groups of men. It IS great, also, very
great, in its moral force. Nowhere
else in the world have noble men
and women exhibited in more strik-
ing forms the beauty and the energy
of sympathy and he1pfusness and
counsel in their efforts to reetify
wrong, alleviate suffering, and set
| the weak in the way of strength and
hope. We have built up, moreover,
a great system OF government, which
has stood through a long age as in
many respects a model for those who
seek to set liberty upon foundations
that will endure against fortuitous
change, against storm and accident.
Our life contains every. great thing,
and contains it in rich abundance.
But this evil has come with the
good, and much fine gold has been
corroded With riches has come in
excusable waste. We have squander-
ed a great part of what We might
have used, and have not stopped TO
nature, without which our genius for
enterprise would have been worthless
and impotent, scorning to be careful,
shamefully prodigal as well as ad-
mirably efficient. We have been
proud of our industrial achievements,
but we have not hitherto stopped
thoughtfully enough to count the
human cost, the cost of lives snuffed
out, of energies oVertaxed and bro
ken, the fearful physical and spiritual
cost to the men and women and chill
/ I,~a, Ivrc ;cI+ n
burden of it all has fallen pitilessly
the years through. The groans and
agony of it all had not yet reached
our ears, the solemn moving under
tone of our life, coming up out Of
/ the mines and factories and out Of
every home where the struggle had
its intimate and familiar seat. With
the great government went many
deep things which we too long de-
1ayed to look into and scrutinize with
candid, fearless eyes. The great
government we loved has too often
! been made use of for private and
selfish purposes, and those who used
| it had forgotten the people.
At last a vision has been youch-
safed US of our life as a whole We
see the bad with the good, the de-
based and decadent with the sound
and vital. With this vision we ap-
proach new affairs. Our duty is to
cleanse, to reconsider. to restore, to
correct the evil without impairing the
good, to purify and harmonic every
process of our common life without
weakening or sentimentalizing it.
There has been something crude and
heartless and unfeeling in our haste
to succeed and be great. Our
thought has been LET every man
look out for himself, let every gen
GRAFTON look out for itself" while We
reared giant machinery which made
! it impossible that any but those who
stood, at the levers of control should
have a chance to look out for
themselves. We had not forgotten
our morals. We remembered well
| enough that we had set up a policy
which was meant to serve the hunl-
| blest as well as the most powerful
| with an eye single to the standards
Of Justice and fair play, and remem-