ranting about the tyranny of capitalists, would be preferred to the law-abiding and self-respecting statesman. But common sense still holds sway; nor will clamor prevail so long as those to whom men look for leadership are true to democratic institutions and democracy is true to itself.

"Upon the shoulders of the Chief Executive of this State must rest heavy burdens, imposed by constitutions and customs. To execute the laws, to recommend wise measures of legislation, to exercise the appointing power with judgment and discernment, to defend the liberties and enforce the rights of eight million people - these are duties which try the mental, moral and physical strength to the utmost. To this high office the people of the State, reposing well-deserved confidence in your independence, patriotism, ability and integrity have called you.

"I welcome you and wish you God speed."

t

INAUGURAL ADDRESS

Governor Hughes first addressed Governor Higgins and then delivered his inaugural address. He said:

"GOVERNOR HIGGINS:- You retire from office after a long and distinguished career of public service. Before you became Chief Executive you had served eight years in the Senate and two years as Lieutenant-Governor. You brough to the office of Governor a rare equipment of experience. Your admisitration has been identified with important reforms and large undertakings of the greatest concern to the future of the State have been inaugurated. Your service in connection with matters of such conspicuous advantage to the public will not be forgotten. But to the faithful public officer, the best reward of fidelity is the approval of his own conscience, won by disinterested devotion in matters large and small to the interests of the public. In your retirement to private life you may be assured of the general appreciation of the stainless integrity of your character and of the honorable motives which have governed your conduct.

"FELLOW-CITIZENS :

I assume the office of Governor without other ambition than to serve the people of the State. I have not coveted its powers nor do I permit myself to shrink from its responsibilities. Sensible of its magnitude and of my own limitations, I undertake the task of administration without illusion. But you do not require the impossible. You have bound me to earnest and honest endeavor in the interest of all the people according to the best of my ability and that obligation, with the help of God, I shall discharge.

"We have reason to congratulate ourselves that coincident with our prosperity, there is an emphatic assertion of popular rights and a keen resentment of public wrongs. There is no panacea in executive or legislative action for all the ills of society which spring from the frailties and defects of the human nature of its members. But this furnishes no excuse for complacent inactivity and no reason for the toleration of wrongs made possible by defective or inadequate legislation or by administrative partiality or inefficiency.

It is sometimes said that we have laws enough and that the need is not of more law, but of better enforcement of the law. There is abundant occasion for caution against hasty legislation. Whether or not we have laws enough, we certainly have enough of ill-considered legislation, and the question is not as to the quantity, but as to the quality of our present and of our proposed enactments.

"The proper confines of legislative action are not to be determined by generalities. Slowly but surely the people have narrowed the opportunities for selfish aggression, and the demand of this hour, and of all hours, is not allegiance to phrases, but sympathy with every aspiration for the betterment of conditions and a sincere and patient effort to understand every need and to ascertain in the light of experience the means best adapted to meet it. Each measure proposed must ultimately be tested by critical analysis of the particular problem, the precise mischief alleged and the adequacy of the proffered remedy. It is the capacity for such close examination without heat or disqualifying prejudice which dis

tinguishes the constructive effort from vain endeavors to change human nature by changing the forms of government.

"It must freely be recognized that many of the evils of which we complain have their source in the law itself, in privileges carelessly granted, in opportunities for private aggrandizement at the expense of the people recklessly created, in failure to safeguard our public interests by providing means for just regulation of those enterprises which depend upon the use of public franchises. Wherever the law gives unjust advantage, wherever it fails by suitable prohibition or regulation to protect the interests of the people, wherever the power derived from the State is turned against the State, there is not only room, but urgent necessity for the assertion of the authority of the State to enforce the common right.

"The growth of our population and the necessary increase in our charitable and correctional work, the great enterprises. under State control,- our canals, our highways, our forest preserves, the protection of the public health, the problems created by the congestion of population in our great cities lead to a constant extension of governmental activity from which we cannot have, and we would not seek, escape.

"This extension compels the strictest insistence upon the highest administrative standards. We are a government of laws and not of men. We subordinate individual caprice to defined duty. The essentials of our liberties are expressed in constitutional enactments removed from the risk of temporary agitation. But the security of our government despite its constitutional guaranties is found in the intelligence and public spirit of its citizens and in its ability to call to the work of administration men of single-minded devotion to the public interests, who make unselfish service to the State a point of knightly honor.

"If in administration we make the standard efficiency and not partisan advantage, if in executing the laws we deal impartially, if in making the laws there is fair and intelligent action with reference to each exigency, we shall disarm reckless and selfish agitators and take from the enemies of our peace their vantage ground of attack.

"It is my intention to employ my constitutional powers to this end. I believe in the sincerity and good sense of the people. I believe that they are intent in having government which recognizes no favored interests and which is not conducted in any part for selfish ends. They will not be, and they should not be, content with less.

"Relying upon your support and hoping to deserve your continued confidence, with the single desire to safeguard your interests and to secure the honorable administration of the office to which you have called me, I now enter upon the discharge of its duties."