Norwich bulletin., 1914-10-07
Political Gossip

Speaking at the state fair at Berlin Senator Brandegee said:
 "The custom of holding the country fair at the close of the harvest season will never die out It is bred in the bone, transmitted by heredity to us from the remote past. If it's utility should ever cease. the sociability, the charming informality. the spirit of
 bon hommie will compel its contin- uance-
 At this particular season how many things we have to be thankful for, and how grateful we ought to be for all the blessings we enjoy. While other lands and other nations are rent and devastated by armed conflict which in magnitude and extent is without precedent and surpesses com-. prehension, our people and our beloved country are undisturbed. What fathers who left the feuds and quar- rels of the old world behind them and created this great and free democ- racy int the New World as the fit ting home of themselves and of their children for all time! How wisely
 they builded and how splendidly they established. With what an unerrirag and prophetic vision the Father of his Country warned us to avoid entang- ling alliance with all foreign nations, l his advice has been needed by the statesmen who followed him! While the contending nations of Europe are adjusting their differences at the edge of the sword, we are preparing to
 submit our difference of opinion to l the peaceful arbitrament of the bal f lot-box. We suffer from no i'll in this country that connot be remedied | whenever a majority of the people de- eide what remedy to apply. To be sure there will always be wrongs to right and evils to correct. Humanity is con- I finnaIly YT10Vtnp onward and uDwarl i and as our intellectual conceptions change our statutes will have to be changed to keep pace with them.
 But we must be careful that in our | our sense of proportion and do not | acquire the habit of fault-fnding. It is also well to bear in mind that in pop | ular government where changes or re- | forms are to be made and the minds of great masses of citizens are to be l convinced upon the merits of the | changes, there is danger in attempting 1 to accomplish a multitude of reasons | at one time. In the conduct of affairs | of government by political parties it | is wise that men s! culd attempt to agree principally upon fundamentals | and that the infinite number of minor
 matters and details should be left to be worked out by the departmental
 machinery of the political party which | the country makes responsible for the | aQmlnlStrdtlOn or a1IalrS.
 | 'Tn the main, both the theory and | structure of our government are sound | We should avoid the manufacture of l issues which are not real and suDstan- | tial, and the advocacy Of changes | which are not needed. The frequency | in the recurrence of our elections fur nishes an incentive to the urging of 1 experimental policies. It is only nec-
 essary to recall the political history Of
 a few decades to perceive that meas with frenzied energy as necessary to
 our salvation have been repeatedly rel
 egated to the scrap-heap. and could not command a respectable following today The professional agitator and the demagogue are always alert to
 snatch up some nostrum which will give them notoriety and meet with an I ephemeral popularity. This tendency has become almost epidemic. Change is not necessarily progress or better ment- We have plenty of energy and
 sound judgment.
 Amy successful builder nf an auto mobile will tell you it is easy enough to get all the motive power you wish but unless it is proportioned to the | weight, strength and structure of your car. it is more than likely that your automobile will not stay in the road We have a superduity of motive power I-let US realize that we are running
 an intricate piece of governmental mechanism through complicated and I continually changing conditions. Let
 us operate our machine so that 1t VIII | stay on the track and bring us through 1 safely"