The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-06-16
WESCOTT SPEECH


X" for the denomination of his pres
ent running mate.
The address of Attorney General
Wescott follows:
Prophecy is fulfilled. The eternal
verities of righteousness have pre-
vailed Undismayed by the calamities
of war, unmoved by vituperation and
vain defamation, holding to the pure
altar of truth, the schoolmaster is
statesman, the statesman financier,
the financier emancipation, the c1nanc;-
pator pacificator, the pacificator the
moral leader of democracy.
The nation. is at work. The nation
is at peace. The nation Is accomplish
ing the destiny of Democracy. Four
years ago the nation was not at work.
With resources boundless, with a hun
dred million people eager to achieve
and do, commerce 1anguished, indus
tries halted, men were idle. The coun-
try struggled in the tolls of an made
quate financial system. Credit was
at the mercy OF piracy. The small
business man was bound hand and
foot. Panic hung like a storm cloud
over the business world.
Now bursting granaries, teeming
factories. crowded railways and over
| laden ships distribute wealth and COM
fort to uncounted millions the world
| over. Production outruns the means
of distribution. The parallel of Amer
| lean prosperity is not found in indus
trial history;> nor is it causeless 1t
did not descend, like a merciful acct
dent, from heaven. It is not due to
the devastations of revised tariff It
| is not the result of destructive legis-
! lation. It cannot be attributed to the
| manufacture of war materials, con-
shutting bare per centum of the
volume of national business. War is
destruction, not production. War cur
tails international trade. War de-
presses industrial energy. When the
European cataclySm struck the world
moratoria fell like blight upon many
of the neutral nations, but not upon
the United States.
Didn't Talk; Did Things.
There stands the astounding phe-
nomenon of American prosperity.
What is its explanation? The Euclid
| of financial theory worked to a dem
onstration. measures for the country's
relief He promptly put into effect
| the legislative expression of a great
program. He did not talk. He did
things. He dynamited the monetary
dams and let credit flow to the re-
hottest corners of the land, its spray
dashing even upon foreign shores. He
released the nations resources and set
the energies of all men free to exploit
| them.
He destroyed commercial slavery
| He struck off its ShackleS. The pros
perity of the nation is the product of
craftsmanship and financial genius.
American credit is now limited only
by its own honesty and capacity. The
cause being undisturbed, the effects
must remain. The schoolmaster is
statesman, the statesman is financier,
the financier is emancipator. With
Lincoln, the emancipation of the chat
| tel slave, he will live forever as the
| emancipator OF the commercial slave.
| The nation is at peace in world at
| war. America is confronted with ap-
palling realities. 1t is not the part of
wisdom to play with phantoms, deal
| in riddles, or seek to entertain the ma
main OF language. To build words
! mountain high as the throne of vanity
and ambition should not be an Ameri-
| can pastime. An attempt to catch the
presidency by phrases is the work of
folly. The function of a sounding
brass and tinkling cymbal is not ger
name to the tragic conditions of the
world.
When the fate of millions is at
stake, it is not the part of any man
| to stack the cards. With civilization
in peril, the sphinx becomes an
| anachronism. The anchronism will
remain the mysterious silence of the
age. The safety of the nation will
not permit the supreme court of the
United States to become a political
supply shop. With the whole world
tense and anxious, patriotic advice and
suggestion are of more value than
wits in the blaze of truth. Abusive
| phraseology shrive1s before the re-
| lentleSS fact. Honesty is the COM
handing quality of free and patriotic
| American.
What are the realities that face us?
In Mexico exist the potentialities of
civilization. In her wealth, her his
tory, her schools, her religion, her
needs, her very suffering and patriot
ism lie the indestructible seeds of
fVar ~
would have seated death at the Amer
lean fireside. 1t would have destroyed
our prosperity and added hundreds of
millions of taxation to the burdens of
the nation. 1t would have planted
distrust and hatred of the United
States in every South American repub-
lie. 1t would have forfeited the re-
spect of the world. 1t would have
substituted the tenets of imperialism
for the principles of Americanism. 1t
| would have prostituted the bravery
and patriotism of American arms to
the greed and avarice of concession
aries. 1t would have robbed the
United States of the grandeur of her
mission amongst the nations of the
earth. 1t would have made might
right and repudiated the doctrines of
Christianity. 1t would have ignored
the fundamental conceptions of moral
progress and denied the right of fiji
teen millions of people to govern
themselves Ambition and greed were
prepared to sacrifice America and all
that America stands for, in order to
acquire the wealth of Mexico. The
diplomacy of "watchfuI waiting
averted these calamities and preserved
in their original purity the principles
of American freedom and justice.
''Watchful waiting repudiated the
brutal dictum of science that the weak
must go down before the strong Help
Mexico lest, over her bloody grave are
sown the dragons teeth of our own
destruction.
The Viriiity of Americanfsm.
War with an European nation would
have set the world afIame and stopped
the march of progress for a century,
Would anyone have had it so in order
to affirm a 'virile Americanism" Is
a virile Americanism' bloodshed
destruction. the horrors of war and its
uncertainties? The substance of civil