N
AUGUST 10, 1912
The Commoner.
Governor Wilson's Speech of Acceptance
Governor "Wilson was formally notified of his
nomination to bo president of the United States,
August 7th. Following is the Associated Press
report:.
Seagirt, N. J., Aug. 7. Governor Woodrow
Wilson today unfolded the fabric of his political
beliefs in a speech formally accepting the- demo
cratic nomination to the presidency. Establish
ing first what ho termed his "faith," he invoked
"the rule of right and of justico" to politics,
proceeding in succession to show its applica
tion to the tariff, the an ti-t.ru 3t question, the
restoration of the merchant marine, the develop
ment of waterways, tho conservation of natural
resources, banking reforms and other issues of
tho day.
Officially there was a notification committee
of fifty-' wo, representing evoiy state and terri
tory, and with them came eight of the demo
cratic governors. Spread over the grocn that
stretched away from the governor's cottage to
the ocean, however, was a mixed gathering of
several thousand.
Governor Wilson was notified of his nomina
tion by Senator-elect Ollie James of Kentucky,
who emphasized, as he said, that the governor
had obtained the honor untrammeled by obliga
tions and unembarrassed by felicitations
of any kind. Though tho governor spoke
in acceptance to tho fifty-two members of Mio
committee, tho speech sounding his political
philosophy was heard by a great throng.
The governor, read from his manuscript. Tho
platform, he said, was not a program, but a
practical document intended to show "that wo
know what tho nation is thinking about and
what it is most concerned about'
The people, he atlded. wore about to be asked
not particularly to adopt a platform, but to en
trust the democratic party with "office and
power and guidance of their affairs," and their
desire now was to know what "translation of
action and policy he intends to givo the general
terms of the platform, should he be elected."
By 11:30 the roadway was jammed with
automobiles. Governor Mann of Virginia was
the first of'the governors to arrive.
"It's a great day for democracy," said Gov
ernor Mann, as he greeted the democratic presi
dential nominee.
The marching clubs which arrived with brass
bands bore orange and black pennants with a
Wilson picture on thorn. On their coats they
wore sunflowers.
The notification committee, led by Senator
elect Ollie James of Kentucky, arrived at 1:45
o'clock. The party were received by the gover
nor, his wife and daughters in the governor's
cottage, where luncheon was served.
. William Jennings Bryan, it was announced,
sent a telegram regretting that previous en
gagements prevented his attendance.
THE SPEECH OF ACCEPTANCE
Governor Wilson's speech of acceptance was
as follows: "Mr. James and Gentlemen of tho
Notification Committee: Speaking for tho na
tional democratic convention, recently as
sembled at Baltimore, you have notified me of
my nomination by the democratic party for tho
high office of president of the United States.
Allow me to thank you very warmly for tho
generous terms in which you have, through
your distinguished chairman, conveyed the noti
fication, and for tho thoughtful personal
courtesy with which you have performed your
Interesting and important errand.
"I accept tho nomination with a deep sense of
its unusual significance and of the great honor
done me, and also with a very profound sens
of my responsibility .to the party and to the na
tion. You will expect me in 'accepting the
honor to speak very plainly the faith that Is in
me. You will expect me, in brief, to talk poli
tics and open the campaign in words whose
meaning no ono need doubt. You will expect
mo to speak to the country as well as to your
selves. "We can not intelligently talk politics unless
we know to whom wo are talking and in what
circumstances. The present circumstances are
clearly unusual. No previous political cam
paign in our time has disclosed anything like
them. The audience we address is Infiio ordi
nary temper. It is no audience of partisans.
Citizens of every class and party and prepos
session sit together, a single people, to learn
whether we understand their life and know how
to afford them the counsel and guidance they are
now keenly aware that they stand in need of.
We must speak, not to catch votes, but to satisfy
the thought and conscience of a people deeply
stirred by tho conviction that thoy have como
to a critical turning point in their moral and
political development.
AN AWAKENED NATION
"We stand in tho presence of an awakened na
tion, impatient of partisan make-believe. Tho
public man who does not realize the fact and
feel its stimulation must bo singularly unsus
ceptible to tho influences that stir in every
quarter about him. Tho nation has awakoned
to a sense of neglected ideals and neglected
du'ics; to a consciousness that tho rank and file
of her people find life very hard to sustain, that
her young men find opportunity embarrassed,
and that her older men find business difficult to
renew and maintain because of circumstances of
privilege and private advantago which have
interlaced their subMe threads throughout al
most every part of the framework of our present
law. She has awakened to the knowledge that
she has lost certain cherished liberties' and
wasted priceless resources which she had
solemnly undertaken to hold in trust for pos
terity and for all mankind; and to the convic
tion that she stands confronted with an occa
sion for constructive statesmanship such as
has not arisen since the great, days in which her
government was set up.
"Plainly, it is a new age. Tho tonic of such
a timo is very exhilarating. It requires self
restraint not to attempt too much, and yet it
would be cowardly to attempt too little. Tho
path of duty soberly and bravely trod is the way
to service and distinction, and many adven
turous feet seek to sot out upon it.
"There never was a timo when impatienco
and suspicion were moro keenly aroused by pri
vate power selfishly employed; when jealousy
of everything concealed or touched with any
purpose not linked with general good, or In
consistent with it, moro sharply or immediately
displayed itself.
"Nor was the country ever moro susceptible
to unselfish appeals or to the high arguments of
sincere justice. These are the unmistakable
symptoms of an awakening. Thoro is the moro
need for wise counsel because tho people are so
ready to need counsel if it bo given honestly
and in their Interest.
FORCES OF NATION AROUSED
"It is in the broad light of this new day that
we stand face to face with what? Plainly,
not with questions of party, not with a contest
for office, not with a petty struggle for ad
vantage, democrat against republican, liberal
against conservative, progressive against reac
tionary. With great questions of right and of
justice, rather questions of national develop
ment, of the development of character and of
standards of action no less than of a better busi
ness system, more free, more equitable, moro
open to ordinary men; practicable to live
under, tolerable to work under, or a bettor fiscal
system whose taxes shall not come out of the
pockets of tho many to go into tho pockets
of the few, and within whoso intricacies
special privilege may not so easily find covert.
The forces of the nation are asserting them
selves against every form of special privilege
and private control, and are seeking bigger
things than they have ever heretofore achieved.
They are sweeping away what Is unrighteous
in order to vindicate once more tho essential
rights of human life and, what is very serious
for us, they are looking to us for guidance, dis
interested guidance, at once honest and fearless.
"At such a time, and in the presence of such
circumstances, what is the meaning of our plat
form, and what is our responsibility under it?
What are our duty and our purposes? Tho plat
form is meant to show that we know what the
nation is thinking about, what it is most con
cerned about, what it wishes corrected and what
it desires to see attempted that is new and con
structive and intended'for its long future. But
for us it is a very practical document. We are
now about to ask the people of the United
States to adopt our platform; we are about to
ask them to entrust us with office and power
and the guidance of their affairs. They will wish
to know what sort of men we are and of what
definite purpose; what translation of action and
of policy we intend to give to the general term
of the platform which the convention at Balti
more put forth, should we be elected.
"The platform is not a program. ' A program
must consist of measures, administrative acts,
and acts of legislation. The proof of the pud-
ding is tho eating thereof. How do wo Intend
to mako it cdiblo and digestible? From this
timo on wo shnll bo under Interrogation. How
do we expect to handle each of the great mat
tors that must bo taken up by tho next congress
and tho next administration?
TASK CONFRONTS THE PEOPLE
"What is there to do? It Is hard to sum tho
great task up, but apparently this la the sum of
the matter: Thore are two great things to do.
One is to sot up tho rule of justice and of right
in such matters as tho tariff, tho regulation of
tho trusts and tho prevention of monopoly, tho
adoption of our banking and currency laws to
tho variod uses to which our pcoplo miiBt put
them, the treatment of those who do tho dally
labor in our factories and mines and throughout
all our great industrial and commercial under
takings, and tho political lifo of tho pcoplo of
tho Philippines, for whom wo hold governmen
tal power In trust, for their servico not our own.
Tho other, the additional duty is tho great task
of protecting our pcoplo and our resources and
of keeping open to the wholo people tho doors
or opportunity through which they must, gene
ration by gonoration, pass if thoy aro to mako
conquest of their fortunes In health, In freedom,
in peace, and In contentment. In tho perfor
mance of this second great duty wo aro face to
face with tho questions of conservation and of
development, questions of forests and water
powers and mines and water ways, of tho build
ing of an adequate merchant marine, and the
opening of every highway and facility and tho
setting up of every safeguard needod by a great
industrious, expanding nation.
"These are all great matters upon which
everybody should bo heard. Wo have got Into
trouble in recent years chiefly because these
largo things, which ought to havo been handled
by taking counsol with as largo a number of
persons as possible, becauso they touched every
interest and tho lifo of every class and region,
havo In fact been too often handled In private
conference. They havo been settled by very
small, and often deliberately exclusive, groups of
men who undertako to Bpeak for tho wholo na
tion, or, rathor, for themselves in tho terms of
the wholo nation very honestly it may bo, but
very Ignorantly sometimes, and very short
sightedly too a poor substitute for genuine
common counsel. No group of directors, econ
omic or political, can speak for a pcoplo. Thoy
havo neither tho point of view nor the
knowledge. Our difficulty Is not that wicked
and designing men havo plotted against us, but
that ouu common affairs havo been determined
upon too narrow a view, and by too private an
initiative. Our task now Is to effect a great re
adjustment and get tho forces of tho whole
people onco moro into play. Wo need no
revolution; wo need no excited change; wo need
only a new point of view and a new method
and spirit of counsel.
, BOUND TO UNDERTAKE DUTY
"Wo aro "servants of tho people, tho whole
people. Tho nation has been unnecessarily, un
reasonably at war within Itself. Interest has
clashed with interest when thero were common
principles of right and of fair dealing which
might and should havo bound them all together,
not as rivals, but as partners. As the servants
of all, wo aro bound to undertako tho great duty
of accommodation and adjustment.
"Wo can not undertako It except in a spirit
which some find It hard to understand. Some
people only smile when you speak of yourself
as a servant of the people; it seems to them
like affectation or moro demagoguery. Thoy
ask what the unthinking crowd knows or coni
prohends of great complicated matters of gov
ernment. They shrug their shoulders and lift
their eyebrows when you speak as If you really
believed in presidential primaries, In tho direct
election of United States senators, and in an
utter publicity about everything that concerns
government, from the sources of campaign
funds to the intlmato debate of the highest
affairs of state.
"Thoy do not, or will not, comprehend the
solemn thing that Is In your thought. Yon
know as well as they do that there are all sorts
and conditions of men the unthinking mixed
with tho wise, tho reckless with the pru
dent, tho unscrupulous with the fair and
honest and you know what they some
times forget, that every class, without excep
tion, arffords a sample of the mixture, the
learned and tho fortunate no less than the un
educated and struggling mass. But you sec
more than they do. You see that these multi
tudes of men, mixed of every kind and quality,
constitute somehow an organic and noble whole,
ijmiitftimiiwHm "nfcatoi
f'jt. ."