804 State Papers and Addresses

common to all, which are to be found in your fellowmen from every part of the
world, if only one takes the trouble to look for such traits and qualities.

I said before that our Nation is fortunate in having at any time, organiz-
ations like yours. Doubtly fortunate are we as Americans to have in this time of
crisis, when above all else National Unity is the first requisite, an organization
which makes and always has made unity one of its first objectives.

Since that day in February, nearly 75 years ago, when the first members
of your Order foregathered in fraternal communion, the Order has made a con-
tribution to American life and progress, the value of which becomes even more
notable in times of crisis like this.

The light held aloft by these first members of the Elks attracted men from
all walks of life, men fleeing from hate, from guile, from bigotry, and above all,
from luke-warm patriotism; to the avowal and open practice of the ideals which
we have inherited and which bespeak for us complete spiritual, as well as
physical, unity.

That light still shines. To the general public perhaps it is best revealed
in the spectacular undertakings with which the Elks have been identified nation-
ally, such as your National Home, your relief work in the World War and in
national calamaties; your National War Memorial Building, in Chicago, ad-
mittedly one of the most beautiful War Memorials in the world; and your
National Foundation, devoted exclusively to educational and humanitarian pur-
poses.

To those of us privileged to enjoy membership in Elkdom, however, the
light glows most strongly upon the continuing, unheraded charitable work per-
formed by our lodges everywhere, as well as upon the character and patriotism
of the individual members who make up what we affectionately call - - "The
Order".

For nearly seventy-five years the candle has burned, while The Order has
grown from the modest to the magnificent, has increased in membership from a
parlor group to a half million, all prototypes of the serious-minded, idealistic
founders who sought to pace in the offered friendly hand the very clasp of the
human heart.

Seventy-five years hence, the light of our cardinal precepts will still com-
fort and fire human emotions and impulses, because, social-conscious, self-
perpetuating, our Order must be regarded as the leading American patriotic,
fraternal organization today, a perennial force for good.

. Merely to be here this evening and to have this session in absolute freedom
and with never a worry as to immediate attack from a hostile force is in itself
striking evidence of what it means to be an American, and further, of how
necessary it is that our American rights and freedoms be preserved.

To do this we are embarked in the greatest war in all history. We are
faced, as a Nation, with momentous problems and with the necessity of pre-
paring ourselves adequately to defend our land and our free institutions against