The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-03-03
Wilson Promises Federal Government Will Consider
 Itself Servant of People
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 of the Federal government and is to do what it is trying to do in a con ference of this sort-draw the execu- tive 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 servants of the executives of the states and municipalities and counties, and we shall perform that duty with the greatest pleasure if you will guide us with your suggestions.
 T hope that the discussions of this conference will take as wide a scope as you think necessary. We are not met to discuss any single or narrow subject We are met to discuss the proper method of restoring all the la- bor conditions of the country to a normal basis as soon as possible and to effect such fresh aIlocations of la bOr and industry as the circumstances may make necessary. I think l can testify from what I have seen on the other side of the water, that we are more fortunate Llan other nations in respect to these great problems. Our industries have been disturbed and disorganized---d as com pared with a. peace basis, very seri- ousIy, indeed, by the war, but not so seriously as the industries of other countries; and it seems to me. there fore, that we should approach these problems that we are about to discuss with a gerat deal of confidence confidence that if we have a. common purpose we can realize that common purpose without serious or insur- mountable difficulties.
 ''The thing that has impressed me most, gentlemen, not only In the re- cent weeks when ! have been in con ference on the other side of the wa ter. but for many months before T went across the water, was this: We are at last learning that the business of government Is to take counsel for the average man. We are at last learning that the whole matter of the prosperity of peoples runs down into the great body of the men and women who do the work of the world, and that the process of guidance is not completed by the mere success of great enterprises-it Is completed only by the standard of the benefit that it confers upon those who in the ob- scure ranks of life contribute to the success of those enterprises.
 ''The hearts of the men and women and children of the world are stirred now in a way that has never been known before. They are not only stirred by their individual circum- stances but they are beginning to get a vision of what the general circun- stances Of the world are, and there is for the first time in history au international sympathy. which Is quick and vital-which does not dis play itself merely in the contact of nations but displays itself in the si- lent intercourse of sympathy be- tween great bodies that constitute great nations; and the significance of a conference like this is that we are expressing in 1t, and will, I believe, express in the results Of this confer ence, our consciousness that we are servants of this great silent mass of people who constitute the United States and that as their servants 1t Is our business, our privilege to find out how we can best assist in making their lives which they wish them to be, giving them the opportunities that they ought to have, assisting by public counsel in the private affairs upon which the happiness of men de- bends.
 And so I am the more distressed that can not take part in these councils, because my present business is to understand what plain men everywhere want It is perfectly un- derstood in Paris that we are not me- .ng there as the masters of, but that we are meeting there as the ser wants of. I believe 1t is, about 70O,- 100000 people, and that unless we show that we understand the business of servants we will not satisfy and we will not accomplish the peace of the , world. and that if we show that we want to serve any interest but theirs we will have become candidates for ! the most lasting discredit that will ever attach to men in history.
 And so it is with this profound feeling of the significance of the things you are undertaking that I bid you welcome, because believe you have come together in the spirit which ! have tried to indicate and that we will together concert methods of CO., | operation and individual notion which ] will really accomplish what we wish i to see accomplished in steadying and 1, easing and facitating the whole labor 1 processes Of the United States
 
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