Senator Walsh Emphasizes the Value of Knowledge of History, Law in Politics

Massachusetts Legislature.

"An ability that is coupled with a high sense of justice and sincerity, and a capacity to grasp and analyze public questions, are most essential to success. It is regrettable to find so many men in public life who may be honest but whose conception of politics is that it is a game of expediency and that mental capacity is inconsequental.

"A legal education as well as an education in government is necessary, Only a small per cent of men wanting legal training can analyze and solve the perplexing problems of our day.

"Every statesman should have a solid background of American history. The Constitution, leading books on the Constitution, and the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention, as well as a study of the colonial history of America and the history events that led up to the Revolution and the political ideas in the Declaration of Independence should be thoroughly mastered. The reading of biographies and autobiographies of the founders of the republic and great statesmen such as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Marshall, Andrew Jackson, and many others, are of tremendous value in furnishing a foundation of political principles.

"My advice to young men who are students in college is to reason out carefully the differences between the political parties and turn to that one whose principles are, in their opinion, soundest and safest for our country's welfare, not the welfare of a day or a year, but best for the future. I cannot stress too much the need for far-sightedness of political life."