Excerpt from Message of His Excellency John H. Bartlett, Governor of New Hampshire: To the Two Branches of the Legislature, January 2, 1919 It is the duty of the nation, as an expense of the war, not only to care for those who have been made dependent by the war, but to furnish employment at once in public works and improvements, or support without work, those who are forced by the sudden transition of business from a war basis to a peace basis into want and distress through idleness. As one of the sovereign states of the nation, we ask this of the nation, and we are willing to do all we can as a state. Our Goal Good government in a democracy is to provide what the people honestly want, and then levy taxes of some kind for payment. These two phases of the question must always be kept together. We should be reasonably sure the people do want each given thing, and then we should discover the best method of securing the necessary money. When that has been done, the executive function of the state should see that the people obtain those results without waste. Powers of a Legislature You now have the power to reconstruct every item of our state government machinery within the limits of the constitution. When this legislature adjourns, if any of our laws and our methods of administering them are not right, regardless of when a law was enacted, the responsibility is on us. It is as bad to pass over and retain a law that is wrong as it is to legislate a new wrong. How to Begin Our Work The question of how to go to work under our powers to reach our goal comes first. My belief is that we should resolve ourselves into a kind of governmental school for study, by lectures, addresses and discussions, so that each and every one of us, however new to the business, may know the full situation and be able to pass judgment intelligently. Let no one say this is impossible. There are no questions here which we all cannot readily understand, if we study them. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.