USA > Vermont > The Lake Champlain and Lake George valleys, Vol. III > Part 55
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Although a strong believer in political parties as the best agencies yet devised for the administration of our form of democratic government, and always loyal to his party, he was at times a caustic critic of its organization in the State. Nevertheless, he continued to hold its confidence. In 1920, after the party had suffered disastrous defeats in the three preceding State elections, he was requested by "The Empire State Democrat," published at Albany by the Democratic State Committee as the party organ in the State, to contribute an article for publication in its columns giving his views of "what should be done . . . to bring about the full strength of the vote of the party in the State." He did so. After specifically pointing out the causes of the waning of popular confidence in it and tracing them to their sources, and criticising the party organization and leadership as being responsible for them and advising what was necessary to remedy such causes, he warned both that:
In the future the voters who will determine party majorities will be little concerned with party labels, but they will be deeply concerned in knowing which party can be made the more effective instrumentality of government and which will most effectually aid in laying the foundations of a new era and of a civilization broad enough to express and strong enough to safeguard and perpetuate the sane and progressive principles and conceptions of public duty held and approved by the great majority of the people of the State; . that the party or party leadership lacking in vision to see or in constructive policies to serve these new and regenerating purposes and forces already active in our politics, will neither command nor deserve popular confidence or sup- port.
That this warning was an accurate forecast would seem to be amply proven by the results of the Presidential elections of 1932 and 1936.
An original and independent thinker, he has often been a pioneer in the advocacy of important reforms and progressive measures of government, a few of which may be referred to: He was one of the earliest and strongest advocates of woman suffrage, when the leaders of both major parties opposed it. His addresses and writings urging the adoption of the Nineteenth Amend- ment were widely circulated, and they doubtless had much influence in induc- ing its approval later by President Wilson.
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In a Jefferson Day address to the Women's Democratic Clubs of the southern tier of counties, assembled at Elmira, on April 12, 1923; to the Fed- eration of Women's Clubs of New York State, at their State convention held in Albany on November 13, 1912, and again at its convention held at the Lake Placid Club on November 12, 1924, he outlined his reasons for favor- ing the grant of the franchise to women, the duty attaching to its exercise, and the most effective means of performing it. From these addresses we excerpt the following :
You women as the new force thus released in our national life are bound to be a controlling factor in shaping its future. . . . Idealism crystallized in action and finding expression in individual and community life has been the inspiration of all that has been best in our history. It is the one great force that will lift our future civilization to higher levels. By this I do not mean the kind of idealism that limits itself to mere talk and cannot be differ- entiated from mere sentimentality, but that which impels to action and ex- presses itself in the daily life of the individual. . Women possess it in higher degree than do men. Through your enfranchisement the power and influence of democracy have been doubled. As a result, greater efficiency in government and higher standards of duty in community and national life should be assured.
In an address to the mayors of the State, at their annual convention in Utica in 1912, while he was acting Governor, he strongly advocated the need and importance of : (1) Taking the judiciary of the State out of politics, and as an effective means of so doing the adoption of the short ballot, without any party emblem, on which the names of candidates for judicial offices should be placed in alphabetical order; (2) workmen's compensation, and safer and more sanitary conditions for the protection of employees; (3) prohibition of child labor ; and (4) development by the State itself of its waterpowers, par- ticularly the vast power owned by it in the St. Lawrence River, in order to supply power and light to the people of the State at a cost the lowest possible consistent with a fair return on the investment, which up to that time had not even been seriously considered.
He was one of the earliest advocates of the enactment of a statewide direct primary law and, as was said in the "New York Evening Mail," while presiding over the Senate :
His rulings against the Democratic majority, led by the late Senator Grady in the absence of President pro tem. Wagner, when it was sought to sidetrack the direct primary bill was another notable instance of independence and devotion to the principle that resulted in the bill's passage by the Senate. It is conceded that his rulings and his stand with the upstate Senators in favor of direct primaries resulted in passing through the Senate an entirely satisfactory direct primary law. The measure was weakened in the
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Assembly afterwards by amendment adopted against his advice and oppo- sition.
When in 1916, at a Democratic State pre-primary convention, the party organization, in disregard of the spirit and purpose of the primary law, for the enactment of which the party was claiming the credit, called for and obtained an expression of the views of the delegates regarding candidates for nomination at the primaries which they favored, against his advice and pro- test, although he was not a candidate for nomination for Senator or any other office that year, and William F. McCombs, long his personal friend and whose qualifications for the position he did not question, was indicated as the favorite candidate for nomination for United States Senator by the majority of the delegates, Mr. Conway entered the primaries contesting his nomination, and refused at the request of the party organization to withdraw from the contest. He frankly admitted that without an organization, which he lacked, or time to create one, and with the party organization giving its support to Mr. Mc- Combs at the primaries, he did not expect to be nominated, but that his candi- dacy would afford him an opportunity to impress upon the electorate of the State, particularly the Democratic electorate, not only that the primary law was being disregarded and its purposes thwarted by the party organization, but that if not rebuked would jeopardize the important right of the party membership to have a voice in the selection of candidates for public office which the primary law if observed insured to them. In lieu of a personal campaign throughout the State, which the brief time before primary day made impossible, he took advantage of the generous space permitted him in the press for the statement of the reasons for his candidacy. He solicited no assistance or support from the party leaders ; yet a statement addressed "To the Demo- cratic Electors of the State" was issued by independent members of the party of high standing, among others ex-Judge D. Cady Herrick, of Albany, and William Church Osborn, of New York, recommending his nomination at the primaries. After enumerating the high qualifications which a United States Senator should possess, it stated :
We believe that the Hon. Thomas F. Conway, of Plattsburg, meets all these requirements. His integrity and courage are unquestioned. He is one of the ablest lawyers in the State. He has long been a student of public affairs and service upon different State boards has made him intimately acquainted with all the public service of the State, its needs, the needs of the people, and the public men of the State-not simply in political life, but in all walks of life.
To the amazement of the organizations of both major parties, Mr. Con- way carried 20 upstate counties and only lost many others by the narrowest margins. He received 52,756 votes as against 99.305 votes received by Mr.
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McCombs, or thirty-five per cent of the total votes cast. He evidently accom- plished his purpose, as since that contest the State party organization has refrained from favoring or opposing primary candidacies.
He also favored the election of United States Senators by popular vote. When in 1912 the party organization proposed as its candidate and endeavored to elect in the Legislature a United States Senator who in his judgment lacked the qualifications he had assured the electorate in his campaign speeches would be possessed by the Senator who would be elected, in case a Democratic Legis- lature was elected, he exerted all his influence to prevent the election of the organization's candidate, as also did a minority of Democratic Senators and Assemblymen, and the name of the candidate so chosen by the organization was withdrawn by his sponsors, after a long and bitter contest. That was the session of the Senate at which Franklin D. Roosevelt, then serving his first term there, achieved prominence for his advocacy of progressive measures not favored by the party's leaders.
He has long regarded the farm problem as "one of first magnitude" and, as stated in a booklet published by him some time since and which is being revised and enlarged, he believes that :
Unless and until that problem is permanently solved, and agriculture, the country's basic business, is rescued from its present desperate plight and per- manently placed on a basis of security and equality with all other branches of our national economy, neither complete nor permanent economic recovery will be possible. Recurring economic crises even more devastating than the one from the aftermath of which the country still suffers will be inevitable, and it is not a rash prediction that in the not distant future they will permanently engulf in hopeless chaos our whole economic and social order.
After prolonged and exhaustive study of the problem and an analysis of its underlying causes, tracing them to their sources through authentic statis- tical data, he reached what he regards as an inevitable conclusion from them, that none of the remedies hitherto proposed or adopted by the present or any previous national administration is at all adequate for its permanent solution, but that on the contrary many of the most important of them only complicate and intensify it and tend to the regimentation and placing in tutelage to gov- ernment the approximately 6,800,000 farmers in the nation. In the booklets mentioned he clearly outlines remedies that in his judgment will, if adopted, permanently solve the problem and which are meeting increasing approval not only by farm organizations, but by leaders in industry and finance.
Long before the adoption by either the Federal or State governments of definite policies of social security he was a strong advocate of their adoption by both, but at the same time stressed the equal or greater need by government to remove the cause or causes of insecurity among large and increasing num-
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bers of our people, and for which government itself is in great measure responsible, that make such policies necessary. In both speeches and writings he has often pointed out these causes, and outlined remedies for them.
He has long been and still is an advocate of "preparedness." In his Navy Day address, broadcast from Plattsburg on Navy Day in 1938, he said :
The policy of strengthening our navy and maintaining it at the peak of efficiency and power, and of increasing and better equipping our army is a wise one. It has been forced upon us. It constitutes no threat of war to any other nation. It is strictly a policy of defense. While insuring our own safety, it will be a powerful influence for the preservation of peace and the prevention of war. And in the event of another world conflagration, which existing unrest and rising war spirit in other parts of the world portend in the near future, it will be a controlling factor in keeping us out of it, as it is hardly conceivable that any nation or combination of nations, however power- ful, will again disregard or violate our rights as a neutral, the cause that finally compelled our entry into the World War; but if unhappily we for that or other reasons should again be drawn into a world conflict to save democ- racy, we will be prepared in that event to exert to the limit the might of our manpower and the marshaled resources of the nation."
He is also convinced and has repeatedly stressed in public addresses :
That even greater dangers within our borders confront the nation today than can come from any foreign foe, arising from the increasing unrest and discontent, in large measure due to the inequitable distribution of our national income among those whose services produce it. The situation is summed up in the trite but terrific indictment after more than one hundred and fifty years of our democratic government that increasing multitudes of our people "are starving in the midst of abundance." Failure to rectify the discriminatory social and economic policies that inevitably led to this deplorable and danger- ous situation is bound to lead sooner or later to loss of confidence by many in the capacity of our American form of democracy to insure equality of opportunity-its basic principle. Loss of confidence by the people in our American democracy would be the greatest catastrophe that could overtake it.
He has never been a believer in the policy of isolation. In his Jefferson Day address at Elmira in 1923, he said in part :
We entered the World War because we believed that democracy would be in deadly jeopardy if the Allies should be defeated. The might of our power, the unselfishness of our motives, and the impressiveness of our exam- ple upon its termination placed our country in a position of leadership and dominance that was nowhere questioned, and that would have enabled us to have reaped in full the fruits of our great sacrifices by the inauguration of a new era in which reason and not physical force would be resorted to to adjust differences between nations, and thus avert for the future the dangers of armed conflict.
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Instead, however, we chose to stand aside in trembling isolation over possi- ble dangers, largely imaginary, and thus American democracy in the day of its maturity and when at the zenith of its influence and popularity, missed the opportunity to render its crowning services to mankind everywhere, and at the same time to make the "world safe for democracy" while insuring the safety of our own democratic institutions, to do which was the sole reason for our entering the World War, and thus to enshrine in the hearts of all peoples a devotion and attachment to its principles second only to that cherished by our own.
He has long favored a greater participation by the people in the formu- lation of our foreign policy, and that they should be encouraged and permitted to do so. In the same address, he said in part :
It may be claimed that a majority of our people lack the necessary infor- mation and knowledge of foreign affairs to qualify them for participation in shaping our foreign policy, but the same was said as to their knowledge of the science of government and urged as a reason why they should not be entrusted with its control, as appears by the debates of the convention at which our Federal Constitution was formulated. Similar reasons were urged in opposition to every demand for the extension of manhood suffrage and to granting the right of franchise to women. They have been proven ground- less, and I am satisfied will be found equally so as regards the capacity of the majority of the people of the country to intelligently participate in shaping our foreign policy, that so often profoundly affects some of their most important rights and interests, and of which they alone have first-hand knowledge.
In public addresses he has stressed the fact many times that the seat of government in our American form of democracy is not at distant capitals, either national or State, but in local communities that constitute the founda- tions of both our national and State governments; that if or when these foundations become too weak to support these structures superimposed on them, disaster to both cannot be averted ; that this calamity cannot be averted from Washington or any other capital where the elected representatives of the people function.
The one power that can avert it is to be found in the people themselves who in reality constitute the government, and the one place at which that power can be exercised effectively is at the ballot box. Yet it is a startling and disturbing fact that in local, State and national elections in the past often more qualified voters than would have been necessary to change the results of elections have refrained from voting. To that extent political democracy has abdicated, and given a clear field to economic autocracy to seize govern- mental powers and shape governmental policies so as to promote their own too often selfish purposes. Of this opportunity for the exploitation of the public it has been quick to take advantage. This is the genesis of special privilege and the concentration of great wealth in ever fewer hands-one of the greatest dangers to democracy. Is it surprising, therefore, that for years
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past the very foundations of our whole social order have been in the process of progressive disintegration, only temporarily stayed by governmental sub- sidies and succor to vast numbers and interests approaching bankruptcy ?
The one hope for escaping the final collapse of our democratic institutions lies in the active and intelligent participation in government by the residents of local communities. They have first-hand knowledge of their needs, and are therefore far better able to formulate the governmental laws and policies that will best promote and protect them. They can no longer leave this duty, so vitally important to them, to be performed by representatives whose will- ingness to do so may be more than offset by lack of qualifications, as the history of the past painfully shows. Ready cooperation between such com- munities, however far separated geographically, is now made possible by the many methods of quick communication now available, and thus the power of such communities to shape and control governmental policy has been increased manifold. The leadership that is needed, therefore, is leadership in local com- munities ; and every public-spirited citizen capable of furnishing it and who will do so will be performing a service to our democracy greater by far than any he could render in public office, however high.
He has been persistent in his advocacy of compulsory teaching in all schools, public and private, of the fundamental principles of our representa- tive form of democracy to a far greater extent than has hitherto been done, and indelibly impressing on the minds of youth the blessings it does and will assure them, in contrast with their denial by totalitarian or autocratic govern- ments ; and, above all, that on reaching majority they will become its trustees and must not fail to discharge that sacred trust.
He has persistently advocated making religious instruction in all schools, public and private, compulsory, and often stressed as a dangerous anomaly our failure to do so in our Christian civilization. He regards the fundamental tenets of Christianity and the fundamental principles of our American democ- racy as in essence identical-and that they are both interwoven into its very fabric. That not to impress indelibly these truths on the minds of youth as a part of their education is not only an injustice to them in the denial of opportunity for Christian spiritual idealism, but a grave danger to the nation to which it contributes the most powerful influence for good and the enrich- ment of its life.
Notwithstanding his multitudinous activities, professional and otherwise, he has never lost interest in his beloved North Country, in whose history and civilization he feels a deep pride. In a national broadcast from St. Lawrence University on March 27, 1924, on "Duties and Dangers of the Present Hour," he said, among other things :
In conception of duty, in loyalty to the highest ideals and traditions of our civilization, our northern tier of counties can challenge comparison with any other section of our country.
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In his services to them politics never was permitted to play any part. As the "Plattsburg Daily Press," a strong Republican paper, in its issue of Sep- tember 21, 1937, said :
He has been a leader in all things pertaining to the welfare of Plattsburg and Northern New York. Time and again his good offices have been called upon in matters of local importance. Party lines have been entirely forgotten, and we have gone to him as one man to represent us in matters of vital impor- tance to us. He has never failed us. In fact, he has seemed more enthusiastic than any of us and has spent his own time and money freely in affairs which he regarded as for the common welfare. . In his particular case party affiliations become secondary. The members of both parties have long recog- nized the high qualifications and splendid attainments of our distinguished fellow-townsman.
And the "Glens Falls Post-Star," in its issue of October 23, 1937, in speaking of his qualifications to be a member of the Constitutional Conven- tion, said :
Occasionally there appears among candidates for public office a figure who even on the broad and teeming stage of government rises above party lines and appeals to the voters as requiring their support regardless of political affiliations.
His services to the North Country have been so numerous and varied that space will permit reference to but a very few. Every movement or project calculated to promote the welfare of its people found in him a ready sup- porter, not only by advice and personal services, but often generous financial aid. In 1912, when the county of Albany instituted an action to have declared unconstitutional an appropriation of $50,000,000 for the construction of State highways, and to enjoin the expenditure of any part of the same for the con- struction of a State highway system, he was retained by the counties of Wash- ington, Warren, Essex and Clinton, through which the main trunk line from New York to the Canadian border was laid out and the construction of which was vital to their interests, to defend the action, and later was also retained by the Attorney-General's office to represent the State for the same purpose. He did so successfully in all courts, the Court of Appeals finally dismissing the action. For these most important services he refused to accept any com- pensation either from the counties mentioned or the State, although he was tendered generous compensation by both.
For two years he acted as a member of the St. Lawrence Power Develop- ment Commission, appointed by Governor Roosevelt in 1930 to devise plans for the development of the vast waterpower owned by the State in the St. Lawrence River and its supply to the people at the lowest cost consistent with a fair return on the investment. The members of the commission received no
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compensation. Not agreeing with a majority of the commission on some important aspects of its report, he made a minority report, the major recom- mendations of which met with wide approval and have since been recognized by the State Power Authority as well as by the Federal Waterpower Commis- sion and followed as both sound and practical.
He was chairman of the committee appointed by Governor Lehman to draw up the liquor control system after repeal of the Eighteenth Amend- ment ; chairman of the State NRA Board, and director for New York State of the National Emergency Council. To none of such positions was there attached any salary or compensation.
He has given a great deal of attention and time to the conservation, improvement and protection of the unsurpassed natural scenery of this region, and to making its advantages accessible to seekers of health or pleasure from everywhere.
While in religion he is a Roman Catholic and a sincere believer in the tenets of his religion, and always a generous supporter of its charitable work and activities, yet his benefactions have never been limited by the test of reli- gious belief or lack of it. In 1939 the Holy See conferred upon him the signal honor of creating him Knight Commander of the Order of St. Gregory the Great. The order was founded by Pope Gregory XVI, and is bestowed as recognition of high services to religion or to the State, and its bestowal is not limited to professors of the Roman Catholic religion but equally on mem- bers of any other religion who possess such qualifications. The title of papal nobility it carries is no empty title, and is given the same recognition as that of the sovereign of any nation or kingdom but is not hereditary.
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