Ancient custom crystallized to law has drawn us here.  We come to renew our pledge publicly at the altar of our country.  We come in the light of history and of reason.  We come to take counsel both from experience and from imagination.  Over us shines a glorious past, before us lies a promising future.  Around us is a renewed determination deep and solemn that this Commonwealth of ours shall endure.

The period since our last election has been one of momentous events.  Within its first week the victorious advance of America and her allies terminated in the armistice of November eleventh.  The power of organized despotisms had been proven to be inferior to the power of organized republics.  Reason had again triumphed over absolutism.  The “still small voice” of the moral law was seen to be greater than the might of kings.  The world appeal to duty triumphed over the world appeal to selfishness.  It always will.  There will be far-reaching results from all this which no one can now foresee.  But some things are apparent.  The power of the people has been revealed.  The worth of the individual man shines forth with an increased glory.  But most significant of all, for it lies at the foundation of all civilization and all progress, was the demonstration that the citizens of the great republics of the earth possess the power which they dare to use, of maintaining among all men the orderly processes of revealed law.

These are no new doctrines in Massachusetts.  For nearly three hundred years she has laid her course according to these principles, extending the blessings which arise from them to her citizens, ever ready to defend them with her treasure and her blood.  In this the past year has been no exception.

In recognition of the long-established policy of making this Commonwealth first in humanitarian legislation, the General Court enacted a law providing for reducing a fifty-four hour week for women and minors to a forty-eight hour week.  It passed the weavers’ specification bill.  The allowance under the workmen’s compensation law was increased.  Local option was provided on the question of a twelve-hour day for firemen.  Authority was granted corporations to give their employees a voice in their management.  Representatives of the employees have been appointed to the Board of Trustees of great public service corporations.  Profiteering has been made a crime.  A special commission of which the chairman is Brigadier-General John H. Sherburne was established to deal with the problem of the high cost of living—­with power which has been effective in reducing the prices of the necessaries of life.  No other State has taken any effective measure.  The compensation of public employees has been increased.  The entire public service of the Commonwealth has been reorganized in accordance with the constitutional amendment into twenty departments.  In caring for her service men Massachusetts led all the States of the Nation