of Governor Herbert R. O'Conor 365

MARYLAND DAY

University of Maryland, March 25, 1941
College Park

IT is not without reason that Marylanders pause in their daily pursuits and
today hark back to the beginnings of our State and take pride in its
origin. We cannot help but realize that we are the beneficiaries of her,
traditions, of her" natural blessings and of her noble ancient name.

We do not commemorate merely a landing of pilgrims over three centuries
ago. The exceptional fact which Marylanders throughout history shall always
commemorate, is that these settlers had very definite and avowed purposes
underlying their expedition.

They decided to establish a settlement where individual liberty and free-
dom of thought would prevail. Above all, the Maryland Pilgrims made their
stand for -the dignity of the human race. From the very outset, Maryland
became the sanctuary of those unhappy exiles.

Three hundred years and more have not altered the spirit of the Mary-
land Pilgrims. This spirit survived the War of the Revolution. It displayed
itself at the Annapolis Tea Party, with the burning of the Peggy Stewart;
at the Battle of North Point, which gave us the Star Spangled Banner. The
same spirit resides today in our people, who still maintain their right to
decide their own problems, without unnecessary interference and without
recourse to prejudice or backward-looking1.

We speak about Maryland's past and Maryland's present—what of Mary-
land's future? That depends, as every man knows in his heart, upon our own
sincerity and staunchness. The beginnings of our State were Liberty and
Opportunity. We shall continue to be free as long as we are strong, and strong
as long as we are united against enmity, within and without. That word
"disunity" no longer has the political and geographical sense in which our
forefathers used it.

It is not now a question of asking for harmony between Whig and Tory,
between North and South, as was true in earlier days. But today the potential
rifts are in ideology, in the functional overlapping of our complex economy.
It is here that our enemies will try to drive the wedge and where we must
take care to prevent even the appearance of division. We shall be free, as
long as farmer and industrialist, laborer and contractor and soldier and John
Smith, taxpayer—all relegate their individual interests to the proper sphere,
and all gear their efforts to the common cause.

As surely now as ever before—we must pull together or be pulled apart.

Will there be Opportunity? In the 17th Century people seeking to be
free had to look for new frontiers. They found them in the New World.
Today, once more, the oppressed peoples look in this direction. We still repre-