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Text:
Mayor Campbell, Governor Talmadge, my friends
of Georgia and South Carolina:
I am glad to come back
again to my own State; and because Georgia has
given me the privilege of serving as the Honorary
Chairman of the Celebration of this bicentennial
year of the founding of Georgia, I have come to
Savannah in an official capacity.
But I come here also because
of all that Georgia means to me personally, through
my long association with this State and also through
the kinship which my wife and my children bear
to the early settlers who participated with Oglethorpe
in the founding of civilization on this portion
of the Atlantic seaboard.
I feel that, apart from
the ties of Colonial ancestry, I have additional
kinship with the founders of the thirteen American
colonies. It has been remarked of late by certain
modern Tories that those who are today in charge
of your national Government are guilty of great
experimentation. And they are right. If I read
my history correctly, the same suggestion was
used when Englishmen, two centuries ago, protesting
in vain against intolerable conditions at home,
founded new colonies in the American wilderness
as an experiment. And the same suggestion was
used during the period in 1776 when the Washingtons,
the Adamses, the Bullocks and other people of
that time conducted another experiment.
Three-quarters of a year
have gone by since I left Georgia. During that
time you have conducted a dignified and history
teaching Statewide celebration. During that time,
the lives of the people of this Commonwealth,
like the lives of the inhabitants of all the other
States, have undergone a great change.
I am happy in the thought
that it has been a change for the better; that
I have come back to see smiles replacing gloom,
to see hope replacing despair, and to see faith
restored to its rightful place. You good people
have given me evidence of that this morning.
While we are celebrating
the planting of the Colony of Georgia, we remember
that if the early settlers had been content to
remain on the coast, there would have been no
Georgia today. It was the spirit of moving forward
that led to the exploration of the great domain
of Piedmont and the mountains, that drove the
Western border of this Colony to the very banks
of the Mississippi River itself. Yet, all through
those great years of the pioneer, we must remember
that there were the doubting Thomases, there was
the persistent opposition of those who feared
change, of those who wanted to let things alone.
In coming for a two weeks'
visit among you, my neighbors, I shall have opportunity
to improve myself and my own perspective by reading
of the makers of our history with the thought
before me that although problems and terms of
problems change, the principles and objectives
of American self-government remain the same. I
have heard so much of economics during the past
few months that it was refreshing the other day
to have my friend, the Governor of New Hampshire,
call my attention to a paragraph written about
a century ago by one of the fathers of all economists,
John Stuart Mill. He said this:
"History shows that
great economic and social forces flow like a tide
over communities only half conscious of that which
is befalling them. Wise statesmen foresee what
time is thus bringing and try to shape institutions
and mold men's thoughts and purposes in accordance
with the change that is silently coming on.
"The unwise are those who bring nothing constructive
to the process, and who greatly imperil the future
of mankind, by leaving great questions to be fought
out between ignorant change on one hand, and ignorant
opposition to change, on the other."
I sometimes think that
the saving grace of America lies in the fact that
the overwhelming majority of Americans are possessed
of two great qualities—a sense of humor and
a sense of proportion. With the sense of humor
they smile good-naturedly at those who would divide
up all the money in the Nation on a per capita
basis every Saturday night and smile equally at
those who lament that they would rather possess
pounds and francs than dollars. And with that
other quality, our sense of proportion, we understand
and accept the fact that in the short space of
one year we cannot cure a chronic illness that
beset us for twelve years, nor restore the social
and economic order with equal and simultaneous
success in every part of the Nation and in every
walk of life. But my friends, we are on our way.
It is the pioneering spirit
and understanding perspective of the people of
the United States which already is making itself
felt not only here, but among other Nations of
the world. The simple translation of the peaceful
and neighborly purposes of the United States has
already given to our sister American Republics
a greater faith in professions of friendship than
they have held since the time, a century ago,
when James Monroe encouraged South America and
Central America in their struggles for freedom.
So, too, my friends, I have had a good example
of the effect of honest statement and simple explanation
of the fundamental American policy during the
past week in Washington.
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