Evening star., 1962-01-14

take the oath and assume the
office of Governor of Virginia.
I accept the honor the people of
Virginia have conferred upon
me with a deep resolve to keep
sacred the trust that I have
assumed.
I pray that I may discharge
the responsibilities of this high
office with the same courage,
devotion and high sense of
duty exhibited by those who
have preceded me as the Chief
Executive of this State.
There are many difficult
problems that call for our con-
sidered action. I shall attempt
to deal with these in some de-
tail in a message to the General
Assembly on Monday. I would
speak here today, If I may,
primarily to the people of Vir-
ginia. I earnestly solicit their
active interest and trust these
remarks will indicate some of
the reasons their support is
vital to Virginia.
From the inauguration of
Patrick Henry as Governor of
Virginia 1856 years ago, to this
date, the character of our State
has been summed up in a single
word: integrity.
Too often the word is taken
to mean that our public Off
cialS do not steal and lie. We
can be justly proud of nearly
two centuries of honest, truth
full men-of incorruptible men
1t minimizes, however, the
stature Of those who have
served Virginia to imply this
limitation.
Cites Changing Times
The virtues Of honesty and
truthfulness, which Virginians
assume in their officials, are
not enough to meet the de-
mands of new conditions
brought by successive eraS.
They have never been enough.
Much more is demanded by
integrity"
Every generation speaks of
changing times, but change is
a constant in the stream of
time. When Henry and Jeffer-
son took office, Virginia was
changing the very nature of
her political existence; we were
then assuming, as a free and
independent State, the sepa-
rate and equal station that is
implicit in the principles of
sovereignty.
A decade later, in the admin
istrations of Edmund and Bev-
erley Randolph. times changed
again, with ratification of the
compact that brought our Fed
eral Union into being. From
that time on, the waves Of polit-
ical change have varied only
in their intenSity-and in the
extent to which men measured
them correctly.
We look back upon the South
of a century ago and see q
surface similarity to the pres
ent, yet every social force that
is present today was set in mo-
ton during the 10 years prior
to the War Between the States
when from day to day there
seemed so little change.
Must Do a Better Job
We must do a better job ir
our own time of appraisal, as
sessment, and evaluation. We
must learn to recognize these
forces of change, and to chan
mel these constantly flowing
energies to the public good. II
is not an easy process; it de-
mands of us that we do moi
shun the strange. simply be-
cause it is strange; and it de-
mands of us We do not en-
brace the merely novel, in i'm
pulsive fascination with it,
transitory appeal.
We hear much of "tht
shrinking world" and OF "neV
dimensions of time and space
The world has been shrinking
in this manner, since primitive
man began to explore the val
Ieys beyond his cave. The worlc
shrank when the first clipper
ship shaved a day off its sched'
ule. It shrinks now to the 80
minute parabola of a guided
missile. I would not underesti'
: mate the awesome problem!
that accompany this geophysi'
cal shrinking.
Our problem is to prevent thu
minds of men from shrinking
. our struggle is to maintain tht
pre-eminence of mind owe
matter, of the spiritual over tn
material, of the true over tn
!. false. Our concern is that thu
compression of peoples, Gus
toms and things into a singl,
: physical community be not al
lowed to destroy perspective
and undermine basic principles
S Goal for Virginia
! If were to fix one goal TO
; Virginia during the final dec
! AIDES of this century, it woult
E be the expansion of the mind
l of our people within the ira
dition of the Virginia charac
+ ter. And if I were to venture
even the gentlest criticism o
our beloved State, it would b.
that in times past we have no
expanded sufficiently our in
tellectual, cultural, and socia
horizons.
The changes wrought by So
cial forces and scientific de
/ velopments of the past centur!
! have not wrought in us a suf'
3 ficiently timely response. Som'
explanation may be found fol