This etext was produced by Steve Bonner.
by Charles E. MorrisSecretary to Governor Cox
There come times in the affairs of men which call for "not aforgetful hearer, but a doer of the work." Such a time is athand. A great war, the most devastating in history, has beenconcluded. Its moral lesson has been taught by its master mindsand learned in penitence, we may hope, by the erring and wronglywillful. But the fruits of victory are ungathered and thebeneficence of peace is not yet attained. The call arises for a"doer of the work."
Two great political parties in the United States, both withsplendid accomplishments behind them and both with gravemistakes as well, have attempted to respond to this call, andAmerica, whose proudest boast is that it has always found a manfor every great occasion, chooses between them. It is a solemnand serious hour. For it has been America's special fortune thatits great teachers and leaders and doers have been found at justthe proper time.
This knowledge of the certain right decision of our country is,we might almost say, a part of its very fiber abiding with thepersistency of a fixed idea, a part of the heritage of thenation, scarcely needing to be taught in the schools, obviouseven to the casual student from an alien land. For ourhistorical records glow with the stories of the appearance ofthe man; and the thought of a friendly destiny seems not easyto banish. Time has given so often either the inspired teacherof the word or the doer of the work that there is more than afaith and a hope, nay almost a conviction, that it cannot failnow when the agonized appeal of the world beckons America tocomplete her high mission to humanity upon which she embarkedwhen she threw her power and might on the scales in war.
Those who insist that the fulfillment of that mission lies inkeeping the solemn promises make in France, accepted by friendand foe alike, for a League of Nations to end war, to see thatretribution becomes not blind vengeance, to set the tribes ofthe earth again on their forward journey, present as theirleader James Monroe Cox, Governor of Ohio.
A party of traditions, a party that has directed in everycritical period save one since the Republic began, has said thathe meets the requirements of the time. That party chose himbecause of his record for doing, because there was an innerconviction that he could enter upon a still larger field with agrowing, an ever-expanding capacity.
This, too, furnishes a fitter chapter in the history of countryand party. For the wise selection of men, even obscure men, hasbeen the tower of our national strength. America had her ThomasJefferson to expound for all the world the real underlying truthof her Revolution. The equality of rights and duties spread froma dream of philosophers to be the doctrine of warriors forfreedom. There was her George Washington to hold together thetenuous bands of freedom. She found her James Monroe to lay thefoundations of the doctrine that stern moral precepts forbid theviolation of sovereign rights of the nations. She brought forthher Andrew Jackson to make the country in his time safe fordemocracy, and to establish for all time that no single moneybaron, nor yet any collection of them, is superior to the powerof all the people.
In later time she had her Abraham Lincoln, now in the judgmentof the succeeding generations but little beneath the Savior ofmen, preserver of the Union for its larger duties. S