100 State Papers and Addresses

payers' money through research, experimentation and preventive medicine to
safe-guard the lives and well-being of our citizens. All of these expenditures
are eminently proper, but it is a most regrettable fact that many of the people
for whose benefits these public funds are spent, will never enjoy the privileges
of citizenship, unless more is done in the future than in the past to avoid traf-
fic fatalities. It is a gruesome thought that we are laboring and spending and
planning for the lives of future citizens, only to face the prospect of having
them slaughtered in such great numbers through avoidable traffic accidents.

It is, of course, a waste of time to discuss such a problem without doing
something about it. I refuse to believe that the Maryland people are willing
to sit back and allow their State to be ranked with those of States in which
traffic accidents are most frequent. Maryland, after showing a reduction in
automobile fatalities in 1938 over the previous year, has had an increase during
the nine months of the present year.

This is contrary to the situation throughout the country generally, where
a reduction in fatal accidents is noted. Again, think of this: Among the eleven
States of New England, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Deleware and
Maryland, our State has the highest death rate based on definite measuring
standards, during the first portion of this year, and it has a rate higher than
the average for the entire United States.

When I completed a recent study of the figures dealing with Maryland
accidents and compared them with the figures of other States, in which con-
certed efforts are being made to reduce this total, I was forced to one conclu-
sion; namely, that those States in which the public officials, with the backing
of private citizens, are engaged in plans to eliminate accidents, have the low-
est accident death rate. From that, you will agree it is apparent that Mary-
land can do something about this distressing situation. We need not simply
talk about it, but we can do something, and by doing it, we can improve the
situation.

Tomorrow morning, October 1, the Maryland Traffic Safety Committee,
organized some four weeks ago with representation from every section of our
State, will launch October Safety Week, a concerted, State-wide effort to stem
the rising tide of automobile traffic fatalities. As your Governor, and as the
instigator of this campaign for increased safety on our streets and highways,
I invite your serious attention to this movement, and to the aims it seeks to
accomplish.

In order to insure the success of this movement, I invited seventy-five
men and women from every section of the State to meet in the Senate Chamber
at the State House and to form a permanent, self-perpetuating commission.
The organization was formed on a non-partisan basis with representation
given to Parent-Teachers' Association, Women's Clubs, patriotic organizations,
civic groups, "key" officials and the general public. The response to my invita-
tion was immediate and gratifying. These representative citizens have entered
into the work with no ulterior purpose and with no motive other than to strive
for the protection of human lives and the well-being of our people.

I have pledged them the whole-hearted support of the State administration
and have guaranteed that no outside consideration, political or otherwise, will
be allowed to interfere with the furtherance of our plans to make safer roads
and streets within our State.