enlarge the privileges of the individual.

It was the same spirit that made Massachusetts that made the Provident
Institution for Savings. What the men of that day wanted they made for
themselves. They would never have thought of asking Congress to keep
their money in the post-office. They did not want their commercial
privileges interfered with by having the Government buy and sell for
them. They had the self-reliance and the independence to prefer to do
those things for themselves. This is the spirit that founded
Massachusetts, the spirit that has seen your bank grow until it could
now probably purchase all there was of property in the Commonwealth when
it began its existence. I want to see that spirit still preëminent here.
I want to see a deeper realization on the part of the people that this
is their Commonwealth, their Government; that they control it, that they
pay its expenses, that it is, after all, only a part of themselves; that
any attempt to shift upon it their duties, their responsibilities, or
their support will in the end only delude, degrade, impoverish, and
enslave. Your institution points the only way, through self-control,
self-denial, and self-support, to self-government, to independence, to a
more generous liberty, and to a firmer establishment of individual
rights.




XI

ASSOCIATED INDUSTRIES DINNER, BOSTON

DECEMBER 15, 1916