Evening capital news. (Boise, Idaho) 1901-1927, 1919-03-03
Presidents Address to
Governors and Mayors

D.,
Il wish that could promise myself
the pleasure and the profit of taking
part in your deliberations. I find that
nothing deliberate is permitted since
my return. l have been trying under
the guidance of my secretary, Mr.. |
Tumulty, to do a months work in q
week, and l am hoping that not all of
it has been done badly, but inasmuch
as there is a necessary pressure upon
my time, I know that you will excuse
me from taking a part in your con-
ference, much as I should be prolific
by SO doing.
MY pleasant duty is to bid you a
very hearty welcome and to express
my qualification that SO many execu
tives of the cities and of states have
found the time and the inclination to
come together on the very important
matter we have to discuss.
DUTY OF STATES.
"The primary duty of caring for
our people in the intimate matters that
we want to discuss here, OF course.
falls upon the states and upon the
municipalities, and the function of the
federal government is to do wnat it is
trying to do in a conference of this
sort-draw the executive minds of the
country together so that they may
profit by each others suggestions and
plans and so that we may offer our
services to coordinate their efforts
in any way that they may deem it wise
to coordinate.
"In other words it is the privilege
of the federal government in matters
Of this sort to be the servants of the
executives of the states and munich
palities and counties and we shall per-
| form that duty with the greatest plea
sure IL you will guide us with your
suggestions.
URGES WIDE SCOPE.
II hope the discussion of this con-
| ference will take as wide scope as
you think necessary. We are not TO
| discuss any single or narrow subject.
| We are met to discuss the proper
methods of restoring all the labor con-
! ditions of the country to normal
! basis as soon as possible AMI to eff
| fecting such fresh ALLEGATIONS of labor
and industry as the circumstances may
make necessary.
81 think I can testify from what !
have seen on the other side of the wa
ter that we are more fortunate than
other nations in respect to these great
problems. Our industries have been
| disturbed and Observation-Disclosures
| lied as compared with peace basis
very seriously, indeed, by the war, but
not so seriously as the Industries OF
the other countries and it seems to me,
therefore, that we should approach
these problems that we are about to
discuss with good deal of confidence
with a good deal of confidence that
| IL we have a common purpose; we can
realize that common purpose without
serious insurmountable difficulties.
FOR AVERAGE MAN.
"The thing that has impressed me
most gentlemen, not only in the re-
cent weeks, when I have been in con-
| ference of the other side of the water
but for many months before l went
across the water was this:
1--WE are at last learning that the
business of government is to take coun-
sci for the average man. We are at
last learning that the whole matter of
the prosperity of peoples runs down in
to the great body of the men and wo-
men who do the work of the world
and that the process of guidance is not
completed by the mere success of great
enterprise-it is completed only by the
standard of the benefit that it confers
upon those who in the obscure ranks
of life contribute to the success of
those enterprises.
STIRRED AS NEVER BEFORE.
"The hearts of the men, women and
children of the world are stirred now
| in way that has never been known
before. They are not only stirred by
their individual circumstances but they
are beginning to get a vision of what
the general circumstances of the world
are and there is, for the first time in
history, an international sympathy
which is quick and yital-a sympathy
which does not display itself merely in
the contact OF governments, BIC dis
plays itself in the silent intercourse Of
sympathy between great BODIES that
constitute great nations and the sig
nitieance of conference like this is
that we are expressing 1t and | be-
lieve will express in the results of this
conference our consciousness that we
are the servants of this great silent
mass of people who constitute the
United States and that, as their serv-
ants. 1t is our bosiness as well as our
privilege, to find out how we can best
assist in making their lives what they
wish them to be, giving them the op-
portunities that they ought to have,
assisting by public counsel in the pri-
vate affairs upon which the happiness
of men depends.
"And SO I am the more distressed
that l cannot take part in these coun-
ellis because my present business is to
understand what plain men everywhere
want. 1t Is perfectly understood in
Paris that we are not meeting there as
the masters Of anybody; that we are
as the servants of. believe 1t is, about
TOO, 900. 900 people and that unless we
show that we understand the business
OF servants We will not satisfy them
and we will not accomplish the peace
OF the world, and that II we show that
We want to serve any interest but theirs
we will have become candidates for the
most lasting discredit that will ever