Popular Unrest
Performed by William H. Taft
Recorded October 1, 1912
We are living in an age in
which by exaggeration of the defects of our present
condition, by false charges of responsibility for
it against individuals and classes, by holding up
to the feverish imagination of the less fortunate
and the discontented the possibilities of a millennium,
a condition of popular unrest has been produced. New
parties are being formed with the proposed purpose
of satisfying this unrest by promising a panacea.
In so far as any quality of condition can be lessened
and equality of opportunity can be promoted by improvement
of our educational system, the betterment of the laws
to ensure the quick administration of justice, and
by the prevention of the acquisition of privilege
without just compensation, in so far as the adoption
of the legislation above recited, and laws of a similar
character may aid the less fortunate in their struggle
with the hardships of life, all are in sympathy with
a continued effort to remedy injustice and to aid
the weak. And I venture to say that there’s no
national administration in which more real sense of
such progress has been taken than in the present one.
But in so far as a the propaganda for the satisfaction
of unrest involves the promise of a millennium, a
condition in which the rich are to be made reasonably
poor, and the poor reasonably rich by law, we are
chasing a phantom. We are holding out to those whose
unrest we fear, a prospect and a dream, a vision of
the impossible. After we have changed all the governmental
machinery so as to permit instantaneous expression
of the people in constitutional amendment, in statute,
and in recall of public agent, what then? Votes are
not bread, constitutional amendments are not work,
referendums do not pay rent or furnish houses, recalls
do not furnish clothing, initiatives do not supply
employment or relieve inequalities of condition or
of opportunity. We still ought to have set before
us the definite plans to bring on complete equality
of opportunity and to abolish hardship and evil for
humanity. We listen for them in vain.