of Governor Herbert R. O'Conor 99

For today, and hereafter, Francis Scott Key belongs to the nation, to the
country whose principles he immortalized in verse, the United States of
America, —God Bless it!

THE NEED FOR TRAFFIC SAFETY

Radio Station WFBR, September 30, 1939

Baltimore

THERE is nothing which challenges the thought and action of a people more
than matters affecting life and great injury to citizens. The radio, the
newspapers and the news-reels, all have been painting for us these past few
weeks a gruesome picture of the horrors of war. Those who are old enough
to recall the World War and to have experienced the shock of seeing the name
of a friend or relative among the lists of those who were reported "killed in
action, " during that terrific conflict, need no reminder to be convinced that war
is the greatest calamity which could possibly fall upon a state or nation.

During the nineteen months in which Maryland men were engaged in the
World War, the list of soldier dead totalled 645, and there was grief throughout
the length and breadth of our State, —for hardly a family among us had not
lost a friend or relative whose passing left a void in our lives. The names of
those 645 soldier dead were memorialized in many ways, and even today, more
than twenty years after the close of the War, those lists are revered by Mary-
land's citizens, whose names are cherished in the hearts of the parents, the
relatives and the friends who knew and loved them.

Tonight, as Chief Executive of your State, I come before the microphone
to speak to all of our citizens about a matter that is, in the view of persons
well-informed in State affairs, of the most serious and pressing importance.
If I have approached the discussion in a circuitous manner, by reviewing the
horrors and miseries of war as it affected our own State of Maryland some
twenty years ago, it is only to bring home with greater force, the disturbing
phases of the problem that vexes our State and its people today.

The problem to which I refer is that of traffic safety on our roads and
city streets. It is a schocking fact that in the last nineteen months 642 people
have been killed in traffic accidents in our State. Recalling that there were
645 Marylanders who died in action in the World War, it is truly an alarming
thought that here in our own peaceful State of Maryland, with our citizens
going quietly about their own business, there was approximately the same
number of people slaughtered in traffic accidents during the past nineteen
months as were killed in action in the War in the same period from among the
ranks of Maryland's soldiery. We MUST take that fact to heart if we are to
deserve the name of reasoning human beings!

It must be admitted our people have not given sufficient serious thought
to this most alarming of present day problems. You are willing to have your
public funds expended for the education of children, and rightly so. Additional
large outlays are made with your approval, to put down professional criminals
who wage constant warfare against organized society. Furthermore, in the
field of public health, we devote every effort and expend large sums of tax-