"The business world reflects the disturbance of war's reaction, Herein flows the life-blood of mat-enol existence. The economic mechanism is intricate and its parts inter-dependent and it has suffered the shocks and jars incident to abnormal demands, credit inflations and price upheavals. The normal balances have been impaired. The channels of distribution have been clogged. The relations of labour and management have been strained. Wie must seek the readjustment with care and courage. Our people must give and.take. Prices must reflect. the receding fever of war activities. Perhaps never shall we know the old level of wages, because war invariably readjusts compensation, and the necessaries of life will show their inseparable relationship; but we must strive for the normal, to reach stability. All the penalties will not be light nor evenly distributed; there is no way of making them so. There is no instant step from disorder to order. We must face a condition of grim reality, charge off our losses and start afresh. It is the oldest lesson of civilization. 1 would like the Government to do vall it can to mitigate them. In understanding, in mutuality of interest, in concern for the common good, our tasks will be solved. No altered system will work a miracle. Any wild experiment will only add to the confusion. it best assurance fies in efficient administration of our proven system.
"The forward courss of the business people is unmistakeable. People are turning from destruction to production. Industry has scented the changed order and our own people are turning to resume their normal onward way. The call is for productive America fo go on. I know that Congress and the Administration will favour every wish for a Government policy to aid resumption and encourage continued progress."
Government, Not Business, Continuing President Harding advocated adequate credit facilities, omission of unnecessary interference of Government with business and an end to Government experiments in business. They had also to attend to the human side of all activities, and in this respect he hoped for much from the introduction of womanhood into their political life. His most reverent prayer was for industrial peace, and if revolution insisted upon overturning established order, let other people make the tragic experience. There was no place for it in America.
"When the world war threatened civilization, we pledged our resources and gave our lives for its preservation, and when revolution threatened we unfurled the flag of law and order. Ours is a constitutional freedom, where the popular will is the law supreme, and minorities are sacredly protected. Our revisions, reformations and evolutions represent a deliberate judgement and an orderly progress, and means to cure our ills, but never to destroy or to permit destruction of our force."
Protective Tarifis, He went on to say that it had been proved again and again that they could not, while throwing their markets open to the world, maintain an American standard of living and opportunity and hold their industrial eminence in such equalized competition. They must accordingly adjust their tariffs to the new order. Theirs ought to be a country free from great blotches of distressed poverty; they ought to find a way to guard against the perils and penalties of unemployment. They were mindful to-day as never before of the friction of modern industrialism, and they must learn its causes and reduce its evil consequences by sober and tested methods where genius, made for great possibilities, justice and happiness, must reflect a greater common welfare.
President Harding concluded "Service is the supreme commitment of life. I would rejoice to acclaim the era of the golden rule, and crown it vith the autocracy of servian I predict an. administration wherein all the agencies of government are called to serve, and ever prxnete an understanding of government purely as an expression of the popular will.'—U. S. Navy Radio through Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.