of Governor Herbert R. O'Conor 47

land, a new vista of freedom and toleration to the oppressed of all lands. We
can conjecture with what joy—yet with trepidation—they came ashore from
their tiny ocean craft... rejoicing to be once again on dry land after their four
months of confined, anxious existence on the wintry seas. Yet they doubtless
were fearful of the welcome that awaited them from the Indian residents of that
vicinity, —fearful, too, of the uncertainties that faced them on all sides in that
land of primitive forests.

Surely they must have felt themselves sorely beset by dangers, as they
fell down on their knees to give thanks to the Divine Power that had brought
them safely through their hazardous journey. And torn with anxiety they
had a right to be! Could they have looked ahead, to the years of strife with
unfriendly Indians and with the even more obdurate hostile settlers of their
neighboring colonies; could they have forseen the heart-breaking struggle
against the elements, and the soil, against the internal dissensions that were
to rack their little settlement within a comparatively few years, they would
have been disheartened. Few there would be to blame them if they had changed
their minds, gathered their few belongings and betaken themselves again to
the Ark and the Dove to sail back to a life with which they were acquainted,
rather than stay on and fight unendingly against the combined forces of
nature and hostile Indians.

Deep-seated within their hearts and minds, however, was a determination
to endure any sacrifices, to brave any dangers, that they might set up in this
new land a principle of government that would be different from that of any
on the face of the globe. This was to be a principle of government that
would wipe out et one cleansing stroke all the disabilities under which
oppressed minorities had been struggling for centuries in the countries of the
Old World, and establish a new system under which the people themselves
were to be the final arbiter and ruler of their destinies. This was to be a
system under which ancient prejudices against class and other distinctions
were to be relegated to the limbo of forgotten things. For this had they braved
the dangers of the unchartered ocean, for this had they willingly left behind
them all that life held near and dear. To them, compared to the galling
subjection of mind and of spirit under which they had chafed in the land they
had left, the uncertainties and travails of this new land were but fleeting
obstacles to be met and overcome with the spirit of the Crusaders of old.

As we stand here today, proud of the heritage they have left us, gladly
paying our mead of homage to their memory, what have the three centuries
brought to us to justify the sacrifices and years of toil and privation of these
first residents of our great State ? Are we, after these more than three hundred
years of progress in the arts of living and of government, at last free from the
prohibitions and the threats that drove them from their established homes
to this untried, unknown land?

We have but to look across the sea to the Old World from which these
Colonists fled, we have but to read the bold headlines that are emblazoned
across the pages of every newspaper in the land, to realize that, while many
things have changed for the better, while the physical dangers and uncertainties
of those early days have given way to more settled conditions, the really im-
portant considerations of life are little different today than they were three
hundred years ago. We are forced to the conclusion that to people of spirit,
to those who love liberty and abhor its opposites, to those who subscribe to