ojects can wait, but the commitments of
the Commonwealth must be maintained. We cannot curtail the usual
appropriations or the care of mothers with dependent children or the
support of the poor, the insane, and the infirm. The Democratic
programme of cutting the State tax, by vetoing appropriations of the
utmost urgency for improvements and maintenance costs of institutions
and asylums of the unfortunates of the State, cannot be the example for
a Republican administration. The result has been that our institutions
are deficient in resources--even in sleeping accommodations--and it will
take years to restore them to the old-time Republican efficiency. Our
party will have no part in a scheme of economy which adds to the misery
of the wards of the Commonwealth--the sick, the insane, and the
unfortunate; those who are too weak even to protest.

Because I know these conditions I know a Republican administration
would face an increasing State tax rather than not see them remedied.

The Republican Party lit the fire of progress in Massachusetts. It has
tended it faithfully. It will not flicker now. It has provided here
conditions of employment, and safeguards for health, that are surpassed
nowhere on earth. There will be no backward step. The reuniting of the
Republican Party means no reaction in the protection of women and
children in our industrial life. These laws are settled. These
principles are established. Minor modifications are possible, but the
foundations are not to be disturbed. The advance may have been too rapid
in some cases, but there can be no retreat. That is the position of the
great majority of those who constitute our party.

We recognize there is need of relief--need to our industries, need to
our population in manufacturing centres; but it must come from
construction, not from destruction. Put an administration on Beacon
Hill that can conserve our resources, that can protect us from further
injuries, until a national Republican policy can restore those
conditions of confidence and prosperity under which our advance began
and under which it can be resumed.

This makes the coming State election take on a most important
aspect--not that it can furnish all the needed relief, but that it will
increase the probability of a complete relief in the near future if it
be crowned with Republican victory.

VI

AT THE HOME OF AUGUSTUS P. GARDNER, HAMILTON

SEPTEMBER, 1916

Standing here in the presen