versies between individuals involving great constitutional questions, characterizes our national life as one of liberty under the law. Are we not tending toward the destruction of that law abiding spirit on which our institutions depend? Is not this tendency the direct and inevitable result of the multiplication of statutes and increase of penal offences? The type of public official who betrays his trust, who uses his position as if he were the master and not the servant of the people, and who grants dispensations for violations of the law to political favorites or for personal ends, flourishes under a system of regulative statutes spasmodically and unevenly enforced. Respect for law gives way to the uneasy feeling that political protection is a safer reliance than the justice of one's cause; that statutes are passed for the punishment of indiscretion rather than guilt, and that the unquestioning support of a powerful leader pays better than the unselfish service of the people. The Roman tyrant, who caused his statutes to be engraved in fine letters and set on high where his subjects could not read them was no more unjust than a people who allow their own laws to be broken daily, and who punish violations thereof only when prompted thereto by prejudice or caprice. If a penal statute is enacted without ample provision for its enforcement by the agencies of prevention, detection and punishment, if the officials entrusted with its enforcement are not held to strict accountability, if the citizen does not discharge his duty as witness and juryman with fearlessness and disinterestedness, and if the courts care more for nice quillets of the law than for substantial justice-the spirit of lawlessness will flourish. If, on the other hand, the Legislature is discreet, the public official incorruptible, the citizen patriotic and the courts just, then "Sovereign law, that state's collected will ADDRESS AT THE LEGISLATIVE CORRESPONDENTS' DINNER, ALBANY, MARCH 16, 1905. MR. TOASTMASTER AND GENTLEMEN: It gives me great pleasure to be present with the Legislative Correspondents this evening and to join with you in your annual banquet. I have had the privilege of meeting you daily at noon and again at five o'clock, and I think our interviews have been mutually beneficial and interesting. I have freely imparted information as to the past, present and future policies of the Chief Executive, and you have generously aided me with your advice and at times with your consent. The relations between the Governor and the legislative correspondents are most cordial, based as they are on mutual confidence and regard born of a long acquaintance. The newspapers have recently been scolded for their lack of political influence in the late campaign. The papers that I preferred to read during that interesting period exercised, in my judgment, a potent and wholesome influence for good government. Their discussions of the issues of the hour were calm, truthful and dispassionate, and met with a ready response from the fair minded American people. If other journals sought to influence their readers by appeals to prejudice, I can only say that they were justly rebuked, and that their failure was richly deserved. Seldom do we now find men who are without views on any public question before they read the editorials of their party organs. The correspondent is the man who shapes public opinion. If he is fair and candid, the man in public life cannot complain. If he is partisan or prejudiced, time will set things right. Our legislative correspondents have seen men come and go. They have seen the unrighteous flourish for a time and virtue cast ignominiously down. None know better than they that in the long run honesty and ability will together win the day. Honesty alone may be impotent; ability alone may be perverted to base uses, but when knowledge of the right is coupled with courage to do the right the forces of evil cannot long prevail. There are those who would curb the freedom of the press; yet that freedom of expression, in spite of its tendency towards license, is the safeguard of the nation's liberties. Criticism of public officials will never be regarded as petit treason in this country. With power comes responsibility. If you, gentlemen of the press, allow the commercial interests of your paper to control your pens, if you present any person before the bar of public opinion from envy, hatred or malice, or leave anyone unpresented through fear, favor, affection or reward or hope thereof, you degrade an honorable calling and justify those who say that the press has lost its power. But if you present all public matters truly as they come to your knowledge to the best of your understanding, you wield a superlative power and perform a patriotic service. ADDRESS TO A COMMITTEE REPRESENTING THE AGENTS OF THE EQUITABLE LIFE ASSURANCE SOCIETY AT ALBANY, APRIL 21, 1905 In response to the committee representing the agents of the Equitable Life Assurance Society, Governor Higgins said in Albany on April 25, 1905: GENTLEMEN: I realize fully that this is a very serious talk. I realize fully that the policy holders of this company have been led to believe that it was mutual in its character. I would be glad to do anything within reason that I could do to bring about mutualization. But I desire to call to your attention the fact that difficulties that arise between citizens in the State of New York, very fortunately I would say, rather than unfortunately-cannot be settled by the Governor nor by the Legislature. That those questions of difference have to be settled in this State by the courts. The plan of mutualization which you spoke of a few moments ago, was adopted, as I understand it, by the board of directors of the Equitable Life and placed in the hands of the Superintendent of Insurance-a gentleman in whom I have unlimited confidence as to capacity and as to integrity. A few days ago a suit was brought by Mr. Lord, questioning the right of the superintendent to mutualize this company, to deprive him as a stock holder of the power that his stock gave to him and of the benefits which he claimed that he might derive were mutualization, not to take effect. That matter is to-day in the courts-in my opinion in the place where it should be settled and the only place where it can be settled as to the relative rights of the stockholder and the policy holder of the Equitable Life. I, of course, am unable to judge as to what the result of that suit may be. I am not a lawyer and I cannot advise you from a lawyer's standpoint. The question has been raised as to whether the Legislature could not alter the charter of the Equitable Life Assurance Society, changing its character. I think it is perhaps true that it could. It could alter its charter, but the question still remains as to whether the stockholders, if they saw fit to reject the altered charter, could not refuse to act under it; and in that case they would be compelled to go into the hands of a receiver or close up the business of the Equitable Life. There are a few attorneys that are not at the present time retained by the Equitable, and I have taken occasion to consult some of them in relation to this unfortunate, very unfortunate situation, I feeling that it was not only unfortunate for the policy holders but unfortunate for the State of New York that this situation could exist under our insurance law. I realize that it is not only unfortunate for the Equitable but it is unfortunate for all insurance interests in this country and particularly in the State of New York. However, there are those in the legal profession who are inclined to believe that you cannot, by act of the Legislature, compel the stockholders of the Equitable Life Assurance Society to accept mutualization in its broadest lines without their consent. That I give you simply as an opinion as it comes to me. I cannot tell you what the Legislature of the State of New York will do. For the short period that I have held this office, I have endeavored to separate the executive department, so far as possible, from the legislative and the judicial. I |