There are among us a great mass of people who have been reared for generations under a government of tyranny and oppression.  It is ingrained in their blood that there is no other form of government.  They are disposed and inclined to think our institutions partake of the same nature as these they have left behind.  We know they are wrong.  They must be shown they are wrong.

There is a just government.  There are righteous laws.  We know the formula by which they are produced.  The principle is best stated in the immortal Declaration of Independence to be “the consent of the governed.”  It is from that source our Government derives its just powers and promulgates its righteous laws.  They are the will of the people, the settled conviction derived from orderly deliberation, that take on the sanctity ascribed to the people’s voice.  Along with the binding obligation to resist tyranny goes the other admonition, that “obedience to law is liberty,”—­such law and so derived.

These principles, which I have but lightly sketched, are the foundation of American institutions, the source of American freedom and the faith of any party entitled to call itself American.  It constitutes truly the rule of the people.  It justifies and sanctifies the authority of our laws and the obligation to support our Government.  It is democracy administered through representation.

There are only two other choices, anarchy or despotism—­Russia, present and past.  For the most part human existence has been under the one or the other of these.  Both have failed to minister to the highest welfare of the people.  Unless American institutions can provide for that welfare the cause of humanity is hopeless.  Unless the blessings of prosperity, the rewards of industry, justice and liberty, the satisfaction of duty well done, can come under a rule of the people, they cannot come at all.  We may as well abandon hope and, yielding to the demands of selfishness, each take what he can.

We had hoped these questions were settled.  But nothing is settled that evil and selfish men can find advantage for themselves in overthrowing.  We must eternally smite the rock of public conscience if the waters of patriotism are to pour forth.  We must ever be ready to point out the success of our country as justification of our determination to support it.

No one can deny that we are in the midst of an abounding prosperity.  No one can deny that this prosperity is well distributed; especially is this true of the wage-earner.  Industrially, commercially, financially, America has been a success.  The wealth of Massachusetts is increasing rapidly.  There are large deposits going into her savings institutions, during banking hours with each tick of the clock more than $12.50, with each minute more than $750, with each day over $270,000.  Wages and hours of labor were never so favorable.  We have attained a standard of living among our people the like of which never before existed on earth.