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Show I OO WATERSON'S ! LAST SPEECH Kentuckian Declares ! He Is Through Mak- ! ing Public Addresses Talks on "Perils Menacing the Republic's Repub-lic's Future," at the Perry Centennial Celebration Cele-bration i Put-In-Bay, O, July 4, Henry SVatterson, vice president general of the Interstate Perry Centenary com- j mission, was a speaker at the Perry celebration here today. Colonel Wat-terson Wat-terson announced that this was the, last public address ho intended to' make In the tourse of his address,, the speaker took occasion to dwell ; upon what he declared to be "a peril menacing the future of the republic' repub-lic' ' He said in part : "We are told, and most of us believe, be-lieve, that those are best governed who are least governed. Yet we have) one big congress In the national's capital, and forty-eight little con-1 gresses In the several state capitals, constantly in session, to make aud ur- make laws to vex the people and con-i fuse the courts. Inevitably, respect for law Is lowered, and here, on elsewhere, else-where, familiarity breeds contompt. "Tho danger Is admitted Clearly seeing the evils of too much legislation, legisla-tion, we call for more. Through chanci majorities Btabie in nothing we would regulate the tastes, morals,' and habits of the people by act of I assembly. "Perennially reproaching oongress, I we would nevertheless augment the powers of congress We are creating a system of centralized bureaucracy and supplementing the civil service With multifarious commissions We have n standing army of officials Collectivism, robbing man of hl6 in-1 dlvlduallty, trusts nothing to the forue of nature, the genius of our institu- j lions and the providence of God. "Yet we disdain alike experience and forecast. We are threatened with government by hysteria, displaying its; excess on the one hand by the vain glorious assertion of our grandeur, I puisance, on the other hand, exprcp -log Its humanity through the exploitation exploi-tation of visionary schemes of impossible im-possible relief. Do I overpalnt the picture? Is It but the mocking effigy of an old i I man a pessimism? Let us not be c-ure of ourselves. It we preserve that ! which Washington and Franklin and i Jefferson contemplated; that which Jones and Perry. Harrison and She -i bv fought for; that which each side . in the war of sections claims it n in-! in-! tlJ at intelligent freedom we snatij baVe done well. I "We have not heen so well gover-Ined gover-Ined that wc may not be better gov-, i erned But I would summon reform: l I through reason, not emotion. I would . Imve regeneration come by growth, not by spasm, and so, despite the impatience im-patience and unthinking, 1 look for (hem to come In their own good time and order; because I have faith n that people who seem chosen of God nit fabric which "ems ordained ot God: m the destiny of that hind under the blessing of God who in Its darkest hour raised up WaWngton to defend and Lincoln to save for 1 IS own all-wise purpose and will never suffer the empiric or the sacrilegious ' ud0 .he work of his hand. "PcrVy nailed to his masthead the brfl words Of the unconquerable 'wrence; -Don't give up the ship May we not amplify and extend them to embrace the sweep and reach of our institutional system? On land nd sea In glory and In peril, when- i or the republic rides the waves too oroudl or is threatened by foes with, prouuiy u (hem as a ln r Z lam Heaven, and pass them message from Hoa . them S afirtfSl address. Mr W, ter",."i'd i.D of Dtenarl.s. We inavUVbled'Yo commemorate vie- tory gained by the Americans over the British .1 hundred years ago. The yeai after we are to herald a hundred hun-dred year;? or peace between English-speaking English-speaking peoples. A year BtUl later ;,,:, we shall solemnize half a century cen-tury of peace among ourselves. Already Al-ready at Gettysburg the surviving , nefl who on either side contended there fifty years ago are mustering to celebrate the event. We cannot tell then) apart distinguish the federal from the eonfedoratPi all are so well content that government of, and for. and hyr the people has not perished from the enrth. After these festivals. It la promised prom-ised us that perpetual peace shall reign throughout the world. With all my heart, I say 'Amen!' Yet before the f(na' exit of the God of war, may we not without offense, for a moment, wrap the flug about us and with the eagle soar'' I ?in so old-f;shloned old-f;shloned that 1 still warm to the bunting aud exult in tho bird. Within the radius of but little further fur-ther ihau the cyo can reaca from where wc are gathered all that makes us proud of our country the very rose and expectancy of American Ameri-can manhood joined heart and hand during the unforgetablo autumn of 1813 Except for sailors of Rhode Island, the hunters of Kentucky could not have crossed these deeps; except for the hunters of Kentucky. Terry's incomparable exploit had been barren of result Yet first let uh salute the mother of states. The nation owes an unexliuguishable debt to Virginia ln the war of the revolution, George Rogers (Mark conquered the territory of the Great Northwest. In the war of lSU William Henry Harrison and Isaac Shelby regained unci held n. Then tho old dominion made a gift of It to the New Dominion. Turn W seaward John Paul Jones sot an example of sea fighting to Oliver Hazard Perry, and. taking up the wondrous talo where Jones left olf Oliver Tazard Perry wrote with bis sword the end of the chapter Dying Dy-ing he left no copy- ne twain etand uuon a single pedestal matchless tU naval annals. Tho battle off Scarborough Scar-borough Head in the Northern ocean, was prelude to the battle of Lake Erie off Put-In-Bay. The 'Boy Homme Richard' and the 'Niagara' sister ships sailed into Valhalla harbors 6lde by side 'I have not et begun to fight, makes Immortal couplet with 'We have met the enemy and he is ours ' nd thus we come and here we are this blessed Fourth of July, 1913. With such a past and so great a patrimony, s it not discreditable that the heirs of the noble men who fought with Jones and Perr , with Harrison and Shelbv, could ever have fallen apart and come to blows9 I think so truly, find it seems to me tho more discreditable discred-itable when we reflect thai brothers then are brothers still; tho moat homogenous peoplo upon tho face ot tho globe, the sections merged in their cradles, tho states but geographic geograph-ic expressions. "t length we are reunited. Let us thank God for that. But from our misadventures and mistakes shall we take no le to ourselves?" I Colonel Watterson at this point dls-I dls-I cussed the evils of too much legislation legisla-tion and other questions. 00- |