The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1925-06-04
PRESIDENTS MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS.

HhECIDENlO NEMOhlAL OA1 ADOEEGIoO'
President Coolidge will take notable place
in history as a writer of state papers He has
a remarkable faculty for striking directly at
the root of things, with swift and sure preci-
sion. He is almost parsimonoius with words,
but he is prolific in wisdom. Practically all his
public utterances are so far from the field of
partisan politics, that through his contacts
with the people in public addresses, he became
essentially the President of the Nation, rather
than the leader Of party.
Notable among all his addresses to the peo-
ple is the Memorial Day Address at Arlington
Cemetery in Washington, last Saturday. Con-
spicious for it's utter lack of rhetorical embel-
lishment, or effort to catch the eye with verbal
baubles, it gives thoughtful pause to every in
telligent citizen who heard it or who reads it.
At one sweep it went to the very root of the
national danger which obviously is the imin-
ent assalant of our government. He points out
in unacceptable logic, that government is the
basis of liberty, and that if we will not be self
governed we will be governed by Others 1t is a
forceful plea for freedom from extension of
federal powers but an equally forceful state
ment of the obvious truth that if the states re-
fuse to fulfill the duties of government, the fed
eral government will without question extend
it's activities so far as may be necessary to sup
ply the deficiency.
What we sometimes fail to realize is that
there is no longer the isolation of state SOW
ereignty which existed at the time abe consti-
tuition was framed. The individual state
has, it is true, it's own internal affairs
to administer, but the complex develop
ment of INTERVENING relations between the
states, has steadily multiplied the govern
mental obligations of each state to citizens of
all the other states. If any state will not so
legislate as to enforce and protect these multi
pick rights and duties, the other states,
through he strong arm of the federal govern
ment, which is within their control at all times,
will increasingly assert the extension of that
federal power. 1t is that which The President
strives to awaken the public conscience to, in
order that by more fully meeting these obliga-
tions through the operation of state govern
ment the dangers incident to federal concen-
tration and extension of power may be avoid
ed.
Those who attempt to read into the address
any position whatever on the mere incident of
regulation of the sale of liquor or the enforce
ment of such regulation, will, it seems to us be
disappointed, from whatever angle they ap-
proach it. To those who are in favor of the
repeal or serious modification of the present
laws, he has no word that can be constructed
into encouragement; those who fanatically in
sist that all the forces of the government shall
be turned in the direction of enforcing that law
either in preference to or exclusion of any 9TH
.er laws, will find no comfort in the views ex-
pressed by Mr.. Coolidge. To him one law looks
just exactly like. all other laws, and it is to
the failure of the states to fairly meet and
fully discharge the duties imposed upon them
by the sovereignty inherent in them, that he al
dresses the mastery philippe with which, in
the magnificent calm of that evscerating in
vective of which he is the master, by the very
force of indirection, he denounces the failure of
sovereign government to perform it's God given
functions.
It is an address which should be read and
pondered by all who love their country and
desire its welfare enough to give to it the con-
slant service of intelligent and loyal citizen
ship.