Repository: UIHistories Project: Commencement - 1925 [PAGE 3]

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duty into which you are all launched • i gr du on, sphere of activity in which j u II will be required to

cany on. It is that field of dutj , that sphere of ac ty,

ommonly described as citizei hip; morel* ship in a community—-politic I, « >iiom

what not. You will he called on

nbersocial, and

>ns1 tttly to expre

judgment on matters concerning the org ion and operation of the politic il machinery that e c 1 govern1 ment.

This is a democratic republic, or was intended to be. The name means that the government is carried on by the people at large through representatives. T h e jovernment as distinct from the people, is a limited sovereignt; although there are theorists and some people in practical life, mainly office-holders, who have been insisting of late years that there can be no such thing as a limited sovereignty and that, therefore, our government, particular!} our federal government, may be as autocratic as any old world government that exists or ever has existed. The} magnify the state as if it had an existence independent of the will of the people. They enlarge on ideas of what they call society as if there could be a society apart from the individuals composing it; a separate entity or bein . so to speak, with a will, power, and authority, all its own, irrespective of the individuals that make it up. In intention. certainly, our government was intended to give operation to the will of the people expressed through representatives chosen by the people, whose business would be to legislate in the interest of the common weal rather than in the interests of particular classes or individuals. They in not reflect and put into operation the will of the people unles the people have definite ideas of what they want done and themselves as individuals have ideals promotive o\ the common weal rather than of individual or class interests. That this state of affairs has been and is now far from being realized is a matter that deserves some at lent ion During the past few years we have heard much about excessive legislation, over-centralization of governmental power in Washington, the impairment ol authority of state

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