of Governor Herbert R. O'Conor 429

the heaviest and most murderous bolts in the armament of Mars. Great nations
have been overrun and conquered. Natural rights have been violated and ex-
tinguished by the blade of the sword. Frontiers have been destroyed and
sovereignty wiped from the map by the bayonet's thrust. In such an hour
of world danger, at a time when the processes of peace and the rule of law
have been dethroned, and military might and conquest have usurped the seats
of power, it is the duty of the American people to stand united.

It is a manifest obligation to our people, to our institutions, to our territory
and to our lives; to the heroic traditions of a great and glorious past; to those
whose blood and treasure established this Republic; to the martyred dead who
have defended and protected it—it is our manifest obligation to all these to
make America so strong upon the land and upon the sea and in the air that
no power on earth shall dare to attack us. or to challenge our safety.

We shall arm not for war, but for peace. We must be prepared to say to
any power on earth who challenges our security or threatens our safety, "we
want no war with you, but if you dare assail us, if you challenge our institu-
tions, if you attack our territory, we shall resist on the sea and under the sea,
on the land and above the land, with our Navy and our Army and with an air
fleet inconquerable and irresistible.

To attain these noble ends we look back through the heroic history and
treasured traditions of America for more than 160 years. We shake hands
with and salute the Continental Congress that gave us the Declaration of Inde-
pendence and with them exclaim, "With a firm reliance on the protection of
Divine Providence, we mutally pledge to each other our lives, fortunes, and our
sacred honor. "

To the Star Spangled Banner, that now flies so boldly, we pledge a firm
devotion, which springs from a -heart fired with true loyalty, and a mind
tempered and cooled with a patriotic realization of the necessities of the
moment.

"Long may it wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. "