of Governor Herbert R. O'Conor 115

hospital schools, the blind, the aged, the infirm. It includes all those, in a word,
who must look to the charity of Baltimore's citizenry to protect them from
want, to clothe and house them, to cheer their loneliness and perhaps to re-
store to them the health and activity so necessary to their participation in the
struggle for existence with which they are faced.

This unseen audience looks to you this evening to do for them what they
are unable to do for themselves—to raise the funds whereby they may be
assured of the necessities of life, the medical helps, the care and the attention
they need so badly. And in the name of the Giver of all Gifts, they ask you
to do your bit to see that at least during the year ahead, they may not want,
they may not be the victims of conditions and circumstances that in the great
majority of cases are not of their making.

I ask, therefore, as we are assembled here this evening, and contemplate
with thanksgiving the satisfactory condition of our homes, as we think with
joy of the healthy state of our own children, and the protection afforded those
dependent upon us, that we give serious thought to the members of this un-
seen audience.

Let us resolve that, as a token of our own appreciation for the good things
that have been given us, so we in turn will do everything that lies within
our power to assure another year of safety, and shelter, of food and medical
attention for the great number of our fellow-citizens who today are so badly
in need of these bare essentials of life.

TRAFFIC SAFETY COMMITTEE DINNER

Radio Station WBAL, Southern Hotel, November 1, 1939
Baltimore

THE Maryland Traffic Safety Committee now inaugurates the second of
its three scheduled Traffic Safety Weeks, in an attempt to reduce the ap-
palling number of fatal accidents occurring daily upon our streets and high-
ways, —sometimes under our very eyes. We are gathered here to attest our
interest, as citizens, in the movement just as throughout the State, groups of
our county residents are gathering at this very hour, and throughout this week,
to further the program in their own communities, and to lend their aid in every
way possible towards saving the lives of many of our fellow Marylanders.

I am sure I need but to mention that, already this year, more than
20, 000 inhabitants of these United States have been killed on our roads and
streets, as the result of traffic accidents, to impress you that here, indeed, is a
problem worthy of our attention. Our own State of Maryland has sadly con-
tributed its share of these fatalities—336 from January 1 of this year to the
close of October, yesterday.

You have heard statements like this before; you have seen figures quoted
that were close to, or maybe in excess of those to which I have just referred.
Some may observe that we might well say about traffic fatalities what a famous
American humorist, Mark Twain, once remarked about the weather, that
"Everybody talks about it, but no one ever seems to do anything about it. "
Frankly, I believe that we have neither heard enough, nor done enough, about