The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1919-03-07

think I can testify from what have seen
on the other side of the water. that we
are more fortunate than other nations in
respect to these great problems. Our in
duStries have been disturbed and disOr-
ganized-disCrganized as compared with
a peace basis, very seriously, indeed, by
the war, but not so seriously as the in
dustries of other countries: and il seems
to me, therefore, that we should approach
these problems that we are about to dis
cuss with a great deal &C confidence
with a good deal of confidence that if we
have common purpose we can realize
that common purpose without serious or
insurmountable difficulties.
The thing that has impressed me most,
gentlemen, not only in the recent weeks
when l have been in conference on the
other side of the wa ter, but for many
months before ] went across the water.
was this: 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 pros
perity 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 COM
pleted 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
The hearts of men and women and chill
dren of the world are stirred now in
way that has never been known before.
They are not only stirred by their individ-
ual circumstances, but they are beginning
to get a vision of what the general circum-
stances of the world are. and there is for
the first time in history an international
sympathy which Is quick and Vital-a
sympathy which does pot display 1tsef
merely in the contract of governments,
but displays itself in the silent intercourse
of sympathy between great bodies that
constitute great nations and the slgnlfl-
cause of conference like this is that we
lNa1ih
express in the results of this conference,
our consciousness that we are servants
of this great silent mass of people who
constitute the United States, and that as
their servants it is our business, as 1t IS
our privilege, to find out how we can best
assist in making their lives what they
wish them to be, giving them the opportu-
mites that they ought to have, assisting
by public counsel in the private affairs
upon which the happiness of men depends.
And so | am the more distressed that l
can not take part in these counsels be-
cause my present business is to UNDER
It is perfectly understood in Paris that
we are not meeting there as the masters
of anybody-that we are meeting there as
the servants Of, | believe it is, about lOo,-
that we understand the business of serv-
ants we will not satisfy them ana we
wi not accomplish the peace of the world,
and that if we show that we want TO serve
any interests but thelrS we VIII nave nS-
come candidates for the most lasting dis
credit that will ever attach to men ia
history.
And so it is with this profound feeling
of the Significance of the things you are
undertaking that l bid you welcome, be
cause | believe you have come together In
the spirit which I have tried to indicate,
and that we will together concert meth
DDS of cooperation and Individual holon
which will really accomplish what we
wish to see accomplished in steadying and
easing and facilitating the whole labor
processes Of the United States.