NO JUSTIFICATION FOR EXCESSES HERE. 



There are those who think that parts of the world have progressed 

 even beyond the rule of democracy and will be committed to per- 

 versions of it. Personally, I do not fear that any considerable part 

 of the world will run to excess for a very long psriod. I have no great 

 fears as to England, France, Switzerland, the United States, or any 

 of the other great free nations of the world. They are democratic. 

 In democracies there is no good cause which can not secure a hearing 

 and, in reasonable time, get itself expressed through the ballot. 

 Democracies are not places where attempts of misguided minorities 

 to force their will upon the majority by radical and violent methods 

 flourish. A minority has a right fully to expose its legitimate purposes 

 and to try to persuade the people to support them; but if it can 

 not do so, it has no right to resort to force. The great majority of 

 the people in this country clearly understand this. Unfortunately, 

 there are a few, many of them only recently among us, who do not 

 see this. They have not caught thg meaning, the spirit, and the pur- 

 pose of democracy. They think too exclusively in terms of some 

 other country entirely differently circumstanced; and they are con- 

 fused by words. I can understand how peoples who have lived in 

 Germany might realize the necessity of resorting to extrems measures 

 to enforce their views; because there the masses of the people have 

 not been consulted in governmental matters affecting their lives and 

 fortunes. It is easy to see how they might undertake, by using force 

 and violent measures, to break down tyrannical, dominating elements 

 and existing institutions. Excesses in Europe will abate as real 

 democracy makes headway. There is no justification for them here 

 and they will not be tolerated by the settled democracy of the other 

 free powers of the world. I am not afraid that the great thoughtful 

 masses of the American people will be swept from their moorings and 

 will abandon their standards and principles. Still, there is always 

 need of vigilance and of clear thinking. There are those among us 

 who are either ignorant, misguided, or vicious who assiduously spread 

 misinformation; and, for innocent, selfish, or pernicious reasons, 

 arouse, or seek to stir up prejudices and unrest. 



The remedy is the old remedy of education; and I speak of these 

 things because they indicate the great responsibility resting upon 

 the agricultural press of the Union and a great duty and privilege, 

 although I recognize as clearly as you do that you have to deal with a 

 constituency as deeply grounded in the principles of democracy and 

 in understanding of its essence, if not more so, than any other great 

 group in our country. 



