vindicated themselves.  They have shown by their votes that they resent trying to use them for private interests, or to employ them to resist the operation of the Government.  They are for the Government.  They are against those who are against the Government.  American institutions are safe in their hands.  Some of those who have posed as their leaders and argued that the wage-earners were patriotic because those leaders told them to be may well now inquire whether the case did not stand the other way about.  It begins to look as if those who attempt to lead the wage-earners must first show that they themselves are patriotic if they are to have any following.  The patriotism of some alleged leaders was not the cause but the effect of the patriotism of the wage-earners.

Three words tell the result.  Massachusetts is American.  The election will be a welcome demonstration to the Nation and to people everywhere who believe that liberty can only be secured by obedience to law.

XLIII

SPEECH AT TREMONT TEMPLE

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1919, 8 P.M.

Revelation has not ceased.  The strength of a righteous cause has not grown less.  The people of Massachusetts are patriotic before they are partisan, they are not for men but for measures, not for selfishness but for duty, and they will support their Government.  Revelation has not ceased and faith in men has not failed.  They cannot be intimidated, they cannot be coerced, they cannot be deceived, and their sovereignty is not for sale.

When this campaign is over it will be a rash man who will again attempt to further his selfish interests by dragging a great party name in the mire and seeking to gain the honor of office by trafficking with disorder.  The conduct of public affairs is not a game.  Responsible office does not go to the crafty.  Governments are not founded upon an association for public plunder but on the cooeperation of men wherein each is seeking to do his duty.

The past five years have been like an earthquake.  They have shaken the institutions of men to their very foundations.  It has been a time of searchings and questionings.  It has been a time of great awakenings.  There has been an overpowering resolution among men to make things better.  Despotisms have been falling.  Republics have been rising.  There has been rebellion everywhere against usurped authority.  With all that America has been entirely sympathetic.  There has been bred in the blood through generations a great sympathy for all peoples struggling to be free.  We have a deep conviction that “resistance to tyranny is obedience to law.”  And on that conviction we have stood for three centuries.  Time and experience have but strengthened our belief that it is sound.

But like all rules of action it only applies to the conditions it describes.  All authority is not usurped authority.  Any government is not tyranny.  These are the counterfeits.  There are no counterfeits of the unreal.  It is only of the real and true that men seek to pass spurious imitations.