Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1922-10-06
Press Association Opens Two Day Meeting Augusta

age Incidence, unambition and cow
ardice?
Humanity is in debt for all better
ment to individual effort. AS we look
back over the arduous, soul-paved
road by which we came up from the
mires, We know that our gratitude is
not to the many but to the few who
thought and strove to improve the
race.
The majority is never resolved nor
inventive nor original. so genius and
initiative must have thoroughfare
and guarantees of renown and secur-
ity, or men will soon cease to serve
their dreams and talents.
We are not of one caliber-simply
born free to elect our own careers
and born equal only in the chance to
share prevailing opportunity.
That is what America means by
liberty. II Fortunes cards were all
of one value. life would be robbed of
expectation, and the splendid CANDLES
against time and distance for new
lands. new forces, new wealths that
enrich all folk, would end.
Kings may not be necessary. but
aces are, and we refuse to allow the
disconnected deuce spots of the world
to eliminate them from our deck.
I once saw a fruit sorting machine
in, an Oregon nursery upon which the
promiscuous yield of the orchard was
dumped and left to grade itself. The
little apples that had failed to win
their share of sun and sap. dropped
soonest. But the big fellows rolled
on and on until the came to maxi
mum openings.
And as I watched I saw America
mplified-America which allows
each man to find his fitting place
And | felt sure that many of the
biggest apples in that harvest sprang
from some struggling little Gull that
couldn't make good in its own time
but had passed its aborted determina-
ton on to another growth.
And then Lincoln the rail splitter
rose before my eyes and Andrew
johnson squatting on his tailor's
bench and Garfield walking along
the towpath and Grover Cleveland
NNAiN Si MS SICICIlSS anu lIl6 ClllQ
Hartman scraping his meager plate
at a poor preachers table and Henry
Ford tinkering in the wood shed and
Herbert Hoover tramping his lonely
miles to country school.
We let folks sort themselves here
that's why we're great-greater than
any people that ever lived, and Wen
stay great and grow greater year by
year until we rob our children of
their inheritance by plugging the big
holes in the grading machine. Then
the national orchard will wither and
we shall be a runt nation
The South leads in illitcracy but the
North leads in non-English speaking
Over II per cent. Of the persons in the
east-south central states have never
been to school. approximately 16 per
cent. of the people of Passaic, n. j.,
must deal with their fellow workers
and employers through interpreters
And IL per cent. of the folk in Law
renee and Fall River. Mass, are utter
strangers in a strange land
Millions of adults in this nation
don't know the meaning of the Stars
and Stripes. can't write a word of Eng
lish or read primer page. Millions
OF children and young men born on
this soil are facing maturity and the
full rights of citizenship. without the
, qualifying knowledge and traditions to
win for themselves or for us.
Ten per cent. of our people have no
hope of high emprise. no conception Of
the spirit in which these United States
were founded, or the part they can
play. singly and en- massc, in making
tomorrow a mightier hour for the re-
public.
Some of them are totally illitcrate
abysmally ignorant of every fact ex-
cept the information tawdry experience
and exploiting compatriots have
brought them.
They have no way of learning how
different this land is from the ruth
less and discriminatory kingdoms from
which they emgrated.
The extent to which our industries
arc dependent upon this labor is peril
Gus to all standards of efficiency Their
ignorance not only retards production
stantly piles up junk heap of broken
humans and damaged machines which
cost the nation incalculably.
1t is our duty to interpret America
to all potential Americans in terms of
protection as we'll as of opportunity:
and neither the opportunities nor that
humanity which is the genius of Amer
lean democracy can be rendered intel
ligible to these eight million until they
can talk and read and write our Ian
guage.
Our future security compels atten-
ton to such concentrations of unread.
unsocialized masses. They live in
America but America does not live in
them. How can all be free and
equal until they have free access to
the same sources of self-help and an
equal chance to secure them? The
brthright of every man is the COM
bined intelligence of his predecessors.
Illiteracy is q pick-an-shovel estate
life sentence to mentality. Dcmocra-
cy may not have fixed classes and sur
vive. The first duty of Congress is to
preserve opportunity for the whole
people and opportunity can not exist
where there is no means of informa-
ton.
How may they reason soundly or
plan sagely? The man who knows
nothing of the past can find little in
the future. The less he has cleaned
from human experience, the more he
may be expected to duplicate in signal
errors. No argument is too ridiculous
for acceptance. no sorhistry can seem
ar-fetched to person without the
sense to confound it.
The Constitution MIGHT peyar ;aye