Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1916-09-08
WILSON ACCEPTS
THE NOMINATION
In Ringing Speech President
Sets Forth Accomplishment
of Democrats in Four Years
of Power.

The following is an extract from
President Wilson's speech Of accept
ance delivered ut Shadow Lawn, N.
j., Saturday:
Senator James, gentlemen of the
notification committee, fellow citi-
zens: 1 cannot accept the leadership
and responsibility which the national
Democratic convention has again, in
such generous fashion, asked me to
accept, without first expressing my
profound gratitude to the party for
the trust it reposes in me after four
years of fiery trial in the midst of af-
fairs of unprecedented difficulty, and
the keen sense of added responsibility
with which this honor fills II had al
most said burdens) me as / think
OF the great issues of national life and
policy involved in the present and i'm
mediate future conduct of our govern
ment. l shall seek, as have always
sought, to justify the extraordinary
confidence thus rcposed in me by
striving to purge my heart and pur-
pose OF every personal and of every
misleading party motive and devoting
every energy l have to the service of
the nation as whole, praying thai
l may continue to have the counsel
and support of all forward looking
men at every turn of the difficult
business.
For l do not doubt that the people
of the United States will wish the
Democratic party to continue in con-
troll of the government. They are not
in the habit of rejecting those who
have actually served them for those
who are making doubtful and con-
Jectural promises of service. Least of
all are they likelv to substitute those
who promised to render them parti-
cular services and proved false to
that promise for those who have ac-
tually rendered those very services.
Boasting. is always an empty bust
ness, which pleases nobody but the
boaster, and l have no disposition to
boast of what the Democratic party
has accomplished. 1t has merely done
its duty. 1t has merely fulfilled it's
explicit promises. But there can be
no violation of good taste in calling
attention to the manner in which
those promises have ben carried out
or in adverting to the interesting fact
that many of the things accomplished
were what the opposition party had
again and again promised to do, but
had left undone. Indeed, this is mani
testify part of the business of this
year of reckoning and assessment.
There is no means of Judging the fu-
ture except by assessing the past.
Constructive action must be weighed
against destructive comment and re-
action. The Democrats either have or
have not understood the varied inter-
ests of the country. The test is con-
tanned in the record.
What is the record? What were
the Democrats called into power to
do! What things had long waited
to be done, and how did the Demo-
Gratis do them? tbs a record of ex-
traordmary length, and variety, rich
IN elements of many kinds, but con-
sistent in principle throughout and
susceptible of brief recital.
Republican Failures.
The Republican party was put out
OF power because of failure, practical
failure and moral failure; because it
mad served special interests and not
the country at large; because, under
the leadership of its preferred and
established guides, of those who still
make its choices, it had lost touch
with the thoughts and the needs of
the nation and was living in past
age and under a fixed illusion, the
Illusion of greatness. 1t had framed
tariff laws based upon a fear of for
eign trade, a fundamental doubt as
to American skill, enterprise and ca
paclty, and very tender regard for
the profitable privileges of those who
had gained control of domestic mar
kets and domestic credits; and vel
had enacted antitrust laws which
hampered the very things they meant
10 foster, which were stiff and in.
elastic, and in part unintelligible. II
had permitted the country through
out the long period of it's control to
stagger from one financial crisis to
another under the operation of ma
tional banking law of its own franz
ing which made stringency and panic
certain and the control of the larger
business operations of the country by
the bankers of few reserve centers
inevitable; had made as if it meant
to reform the law, but had faint.
heartedly failed in the attempt. he
cause it could not bring itself to do
the one thing necessary to make the
reform genuine and effectual, namely
break up the control of small groups
of bankers. 1t had been oblivious
or Indifferent to the fact that the
farmers, upon whom the country de-
pends for it's food and in the last
analysis for it's prosperity, were with
out standing in the matter of com
mefcial credit. without the protection
OF standards in their market trans
actions, and without systematic
knowledge of the markets themselves:
that the laborers of the country. the
great army of men who man the in
dustries it was processing to father
and promote, carried their labor as
a mere commodity to market, were
SUBJECT to restraint by novel and dras-
tic process in the courts, were with
out assurance of compensation for in
dustrial accidents, without Federal as
sistance in accommodating labor dis
putes, and without national aid or adj
vice in finding the places and the in
dustries in which their labor was
e4 IL