The Parisian. (Paris, Tenn.) 1907-1962, 1921-01-21
TAYLOR'S FIRST
WORD TOPEOPLE
OF TENNESSEE
New Governor Urges Legislators In
inaugural Address To Work
In Harmony
SETS OUT PROBLEMS;
USE BUSINESS METHODS
Says Time Has Come For Public
Servants To Work For
Good OF All.

Gov. Alfred A. Taylor, Tennessee's
new chief executive, in his inaugral
address delivered Saturday, made an
appeal to the legislators, assembled
in joint convention, to work in har-
mony for the welfare of the state.
He urged them to forget politics and
apply business principles to legisla-
tive affairs.
His address in full follows:
Gentlemen of the Senate and
House of Representatives.: ! greet
you in a spirit of the most sincere
cordiality as comrades and co-work-
ers in the great task that is before
us.
I'VE are here in obedience to the
choice and mandate of our sovereign
constituents, invested with the dele
gated power to carry Oh the legisla-
tive and executive branches of their
government, to shape its policies and
administer its great affairs. IA
ut is primarily essential that we
enter this far-reaching work in an
unreserved spiritk of harmony, coop
GRAFTON and coordination, to the end
that we serve the highest interests
of the commonwealth and promote
the welfare, happiness and prosperity
this result it becomes equally essen
tial that we divert ourselves of all
the handicaps of partisan prejudice
and political and personal bias. With
out this freedom we can have no CO.
operation, no unity of purpose and
no harmony of action.
"There are many vital questions
pressing for consideration that will
require the best of your services,
but there are a few problems that
demand immediate attention and con-
centrated action.
"The rural school problem, the
highway problem, the problem of &C.
onomic government, and the prob
lem of taxation, these four ought
not to escape your earnest attention,
and wise and correct solution of them
calls for breadth and sympathy of
vision, sincerity of purpose and an
ability that characterizes true states
manship.
Education.
There can be no material, social
or political progress without educa-
tion. The highest exercise of pow
er is that which fashions the intel
lect, unfolds the vision and moulds
the ideals of the children of our
country. Without the moral and in
tellectual training of the masses we
rest upon quicksands and submerg-
ence of the huge Russian national
fabric at this moment. Oppressed,
down-trodden, reduced to bestial ig-
norance by the tyrannies of czardom,
for centuries the ignorant, degraded
Russian masses, melted by violent,
insane leaders have risen as saw
age, destructive force, unparalleled
in all history Ignorance of the mas
ses is the fertile soil of anarchy;
strife-mongers and poison squads are
it's husbandmen; and destruction,
wholesale and universal, is it's har-
vest. There can be no real and en-
during civilization without universal
progress forever upward towards a
higher life. The very word itself
means to unfold and develop the dor
mant powers and faculties of the
mind even as under the mystic power
of nature the bud is brought forth
and unfolds into blade and bloom and
fruitage.
"Christian education is not only
the bedrock of our civilization, but
it is the hope of the world. The
school houses of our state and the
forces in charge of them constitute
the manufacturing plants of enlight-
ened citizenship. There is no evil,
whether moral, industrial or politi
cal. with which we have to contend
that cannot be eradicated by the
application of Christian intelligence.
The most potent agency for the prop
ogation, maintenance, spread and
preservation of such Christian intel
ligence is the school.
at is a matter of common knowl-
edge that our rural schools have
CONTINUED on page 81