of Governor Herbert R. O'Conor • 769

what Selective Service organizations should be. The State Guard, following
extensive inspections by regular Army officials, has been given a rating second
to no State Guard Unit in the Country.

Such is the tradition of Maryland, however, that even the most complete
absorption of our people in winning the war, has not, and never will make us
forget that there are other things of importance in addition to winning the war.
Today, as always, Marylanders are ready to give their all, if necessary.

While we are doing it, let us keep uppermost in mind the imperative duty
to preserve the proper balance between our State Government and the Federal
Union. It has been my experience to have witnessed from the inside the manner
in which the various states of the Country have cooperated with the National
Government. The Chief Executives of the Country,, through the Governors'
Conference, have patriotically yielded a number of powers to Washington. But
it is the universal belief that these powers should be returned to the states after
the emergency.

American has weathered the storms of more than a century and a half of
•wars, panics, and all the many problems that can raise their heads among a
people made up of so many racial elements. What has been the magic formula
which enabled this straggling colonial infant to live through expansion, coloni-
zation of the West, Civil War, boom times and bad?

There has been so much magic formula! America has survived and pro-
gressed through the years because her people at all times were close enough to
the functioning of Government, through the exercise of their privileges as
citizens in the conduct of their local affairs, to maintain an active interest and
to play an active part in all the activities of Government. Deprive them of
that incentive, and history has shown conclusively that you prepare the way
for the loss of freedom itself.

When the men of the A. E. F. returned to their homes and to every-day con-
tracts in their communities back in 1919, there was great dissatisfaction among
them. While they were away, Phohibition had been put into effect, and many
of them felt that an important decision of Government had been made, depriving
them of an inherent individual right, without their consent or participation.

When the 7, 500, 000 men whom Secretary Stimson yesterday declared
America needed in the armed forces return to us—and God grant they will re-
turn, soon, without great casualties, Victorious in the cause of humanity—our
aim and purpose must be to preserve for them the same kind of a Country they
left, the same kind of a Country Thomas Jefferson envisioned many years ago,
when he wrote:

"Were not this Country already divided into states, that distribution must
be made, that each might do for itself what concerns itself directly, and what
it can do so much better than a distant authority. It is by such partition of
cares, that the mass of human affairs may be best managed for the good and
prosperity of all. "

When these 7, 500, 000 stalwart young Americans come marching back to us,
likewise, we must be prepared to receive them in a Country so economically