Every American Commonwealth is independent of every other. working out the numberless and multiplying problems which confront a free people in the onward march of civilization. You may not applaud the methods of Maine and Kansas in their efforts to put an end to the evils of intemperance by prohibition. you may doubt the wisdom of South Carolina in its legislative efforts to minimize those evils by a State dispensary. you may not in all respects hold wise the legislation of Texas in her efforts to curb the power of great corporations. you may even lag behind the onward march of Massachusetts in her legislation to better conditions surrounding those who labor. and to protect the children of the Commonwealth. you may differ from the citizens of my. State in their views and practice as to woman suffrage. perhaps you do not believe in the Iowa idea. and yet we must all admit that these activities mark the earnestness with which the American Commonwealths. along the lines which seem best to the majority of their people. are trying to work out the great problems of the ages. and no student of American history hut must confess the obligation which the nation owes to each and every one for its contribution to the sum total of our moral. intellectual. and material betterment. 1ut for the clarion call of California. which for a long time fell upon the unheeding ears of the country. we would not have awakened to the infinitely deplorable problems that would surround the assimilation of a vast horde of Asiatics into our body politic. More than once Massachusetts has sounded the call to a great national duty. from Mississippi has comesometimes many of us have thought with unnecessary insistence and persistencethe challenge to stand guard against the tendencies toward centralization. which. in their essential features. are no more approved in Maine than in Arkansas. Mr.
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Asiatics