56 State Papers and Addresses

In conclusion, may I refer to the statement included in my inaugural
address to the effect that I would keep constantly in mind the fact that my
administration would be measured by the character of legislation and by the
manner of our administration. In the light of the success which has attended
the first three months with the Legislature in session, I am encouraged more
than ever in the belief that we can go farward in the effort to advance our
State along forward-looking lines. Undoubtedly the past session has been
productive of lasting, worthwhile results.

Feeling that the citizens are entitled to have a first hand report of the
functioning of your government, I have made this broadcast. I intend to
continue in the course along which I have started, namely, to aim for the very
best in government and for the whole-hearted cooperation and support of
public citizens in order to effect worthwhile accomplishments for Maryland.

MASS INITIATION—THE AMERICAN LEGION

War Memorial Building, April 28, 1939
Baltimore

IT affords me a deep sense of pleasure to be with you tonight, at your Mass
Initation for 1939, just as it always does to attend Legion affairs, and to meet
the many, many friends I have, and value, in the various Posts of the State.
Tonight, however, the presence of so many of you, and of this new class of
applicants for membership, gives me an additional sense of security and well-
being, a feeling that America has little to fear while such groups as the
American Legion survive.

As your Chief Executive, I bring to you and to all the Legionnaires of the
State, the greetings of the State of Maryland, and I assure you that Maryland
and all the States of our Country are fortunate, indeed, in these troubled
times, to have within their citizenry such a splendid organization as the
American Legion.

As I stand here, looking down upon this cross-section of the manhood of
our State, I cannot help but contrast what is taking place here with what is
transpiring across the ocean from us. Here before us we have a great
American organization, made up of all classes of our citizenry, a volunteer
body of America's patriotic manhood, strengthening its ranks, broadening its
influence, by taking into its membership other patriotic Americans who believe
in, and who are anxious to have a hand in, the important work the Legion is
doing to safeguard our liberties and our free American institutions.

In England, on the other hand, as you have seen in the papers of the past
few days, there is no longer room for volunteer action for the preservation of
liberties—now it is MUST, and for the first time in Great Britain's peacetime
history, the young men of the nation MUST join the armed forces for a six
months' period, and after that MUST be enrolled in one branch or another
of the English armies. Under the circumstances, may we not all feel, as did
the poet Robert Browning, when he wrote that—"God's in His Heaven, and
All's Right with the World"—at least as far as America is concerned.