of Governor Herbert R. O'Conor 215

As we stand here this afternoon, happy participants in these interesting
ceremonies, I wonder how many of us stop to give a thought to what such
occasions as these mean to us here in America. We have but to remember the
headlines that have greeted us in our daily papers these many months to come
to the full and consoling realization that we. as Americans, enjoy blessings of
peace and liberty, such as are vouchsafed at the present time to few other
peoples in the world. While we are gathered there dedicating this splendid
symbol of American progress, millions of human beings throughout the whole
world are engaged in struggles that are the very antithesis of everything we
hold dear in America. While every energy of our more than one hundred
million people is directed to the development and furtherance of our cultural
and physical possessions, countless numbers elsewhere in Europe and Asia are
engaged in the dreadful task of tearing down the cultural and physical achieve-
ments of centuries.

Here we stand in free assemblage, subject in the final analysis to no
dictator but our own conscience. In other countries millions of people, with
hope and ambitions little different from ours, are being regimented to the ex-
tent that their every thought and word, as well as their every deed, must be
done at the direction of an exacting government. While we continue to build
and plan for the future, who knows but at this very moment some such build-
ing as this in one of the warring countries of Europe may be the target for
a bomb that will undo the work of years of toil, and destroy perhaps a treasured
work of art.

Well may we, as we stand assembled here to celebrate this, the completion
of the formal occupancy of this building, well may we, I say, offer up a quiet,
but heartfelt, prayer of thanksgiving that despite all the tribulations and griefs
that assail the rest of the world, we here in Maryland, and throughout all
America, may go our way in peace, and look securely to a future of peaceful
development for ourselves and for our families.

MARYLAND COUNCIL OF DEFENSE AND RESOURCES
ORGANIZATIONAL MEETING

Senate Chamber, State House, August 1, 1940
Annapolis

1HAVE invited representative citizens, as a matter of patriotic service, to
compose the Maryland Council of Defense and Resources. Several compell-
ing reasons prompted me to take this action and certain definite purposes
should govern its functioning, concerning which I feel it timely to make this
statement.

In asking the citizens of serve in this connection, I wish to give assurance
that no consideration will enter into any of the plans or activities of the Council
except that which is for the public good. In a word, we shall strive to do all
that lies in our power but only that which is calculated to be for the preserva-
tion and perpetuation of the ideals and principles which characterize the
United States of America. Fortunately, Maryland in previous crises has given