Evening star., 1923-06-22

The text of Presider. Harding s
speech last night follows:
My Countrymen: In an official
journey from Washington to our great
Territory of Alaska. our first stop
halts US in your hospitable city, and
affords an opportunity for renewed
acquaintance and better understand
ing. / suppose il IS a perfectly ma
tural expectation that, when the
President travels he must stop and
make report to the community he Is
seeking to serve. 1t has seemed to
me that nearly every city and vii
lage from the Potomac to the Pacific
has bestowed an invitation and a
tender OF hospitality. l like to say
L. YOU. because in saying it TO you |
am speaking to many others in this
marvellous age of communication,
that ] very genuinely regret the i'm
possibility of accepting ell of them.
Quite apart from the personal salts
faction and renewed assurance in
direct contact with our people, !
think there is vast benefit in bring
ing the government Il little closer to
the people. and the people a little
closer to the government and closer
To those temporarily cIdEStu Will
official responsibility.
You view government from afar.
and ! am not surprised that you
wonder now and then, because you
receive occasional refeXeS which are
so erroneous that official Washington
ltSelf can not understand them. And
those of us who are in Washington
live in an atmosphere of officialdom
which often hinders our knowledge
of the thoughts around the American
tireSide. and the activities which daily
make the essential life of the nation.
These are conditions not easily to be
avoided. our government is the big
gcst business in the world. and like
any other business it requires the
management to be more or less
diligently at work.
Firm for Party Life.
Congress has been more or less
continually in session for eight years,
and under our co-ordinated form of
government the President must be
more or less lin session at the same
time So ] have welcomed this op-
portunity to see the great central
valley, the mountai west. the Pacific
coast and our treasure land in
Alaska | am rejoiced to speak to
YOU as your President. reporting on
the state of affairs to the stock
holders of this republic
| do not come with Il partisan re-
port. though am politically a
partisan and believe in the utter
necessity of political parties. one
only serves his party by first serving
his country well. and good service to
his country ought to be the aspira-
ton of every citizen of our land.
Tells of Difficulties.
The present national administration
came into responsibility at very
difficult time. Our country found 1t
self in a bad way in the aftermath
# world war. We had expended in
IeedIessness, We had inflated in mad
ness, we had rushed into the abnor-
NAL. and found ten thousand difficult
ties in resuming our normal stride.
There was the inevitable business
slump. 1t follows every war. 1t ap-
plies to business in every line
finance. industry, agriculture. AND
business refeXes are felt by every
citizen no matter how humble or
how great. We found in the inev1ta-
ble refiux of the war tide threatened
financial ability, agricultural distress
and vast unemployment. a survey
of unemployment revealed four and
a half to five millions of workers
without jobs. I leave the appraisal
Of all relief efforts. legislative, execu-
tive. or administrative, to your own
iudement. The thing | want to say is
that this distressing situation has
been wholly reversed, and today en-
complaint about that, too. but since
we cannot always preserve the ac-
tual balance, / prefer a land which
is seeking workmen to a country
where discouraged men are hunting
for jobs.
| like to believe that the recovery
is based mainly on confidence in the
American policy and the fundamental
righteousness of our institutions. /
like to believe we have recovered be-
cause we avoid the paths of destruc-
tive experimentation, ignore mad
theories. and cling tenaciously to the
foundations of business and property
rights and human rights, which have
made ours the most rapidly and
most safely developed representative
democracy in all the world.
Calls L. =. World Example.
We have done more than Danish
unemployment; we have made our
way to financial stability, without
which there is little permanent en-
Iloyment. And we halted the ex-
tremists who caught their inspira
tion in European madness, and pro-
posed to destroy our social order be-
cause of temporary ills, rather than
cure the ills.
| believe America tonight is a fine
example to the world, with confidence
in herself, of "a people capable of
laying aside their arms, graphing a
reconstruction problem. and digging
down to hard work to effect the need
ed restoration, rather than to fling
aside all we had wrought in a cen
Jury of hopeful progress, and thereby
subscribe to destruction in the name
"f social democracy. We gave busi
ness chance to resume, and as
Sured il that honest success is no
crime in the United States. We as
Sured it that the government wasn't
going into business. but that We
meant to get out of 1t. Then to prove
that we meant to have more busi-
ness in government, we struck at the
extravaganza which grew in wars
fevered activities. we pruned govern
ment expenditures and reduced the
government personnel, not by thou
sands but by tens of thousands, and
went long way in reducing govern
ment outlay.
Outlines Cut in Costs.
Measures were adopted to tighten
the taxation load and distribute the
burdens more equitably. We sought
ia substitute for the exactions of war
the convictions of peace. We inaugu-
rated the budget system Of govern
ment financing. and thereby effected
amounting to billions. OF course,
this enormous reduction was made
possible mainly because we suspend
I'd war activities and ended war COM
mitments. but we drove at the or
dinary expenditures in the peace
time business of government and
Topped off hundreds of millions at a
time. and we have proven to the
world. in spite of a gigantic debt
and its interest burdens, that here
is government resolved to live
within it's income
The fiscal year, now near it's close,
threatened an S800,000,000 deficit
when its financial budget was in the
making, but we cut and trimmed and
insisted upon reduced expenditures.
md IL will close with a Sonn nnn n6n