Los Banos Rotary Club History
Warns of Too Much Government

In a talk designed to awaken an increased interest in governmental affairs by the average business man, Francis Whitmer, trust officer and vice president of the American Trust Co., San Francisco, Tuesday noon addressed members of the Los Banos Rotary Club on the struggle between Freedom and despotism in this country.

Decrying the gradual and sometimes almost imperceptible increase in governmental control and regulation in America, Mr. Phillips warned that the more we ask from our government the less freedom we will have . . . and if extended far enough our government will be unfit for liberty.

“We are degenerated,” he warned, “into a plan of social legislation of borrow, tax and spend on the basis of politics in power. We have two alternatives. We can go along with the tide, get ours while the getting is good, crowd the public trough, let others do our planning, and continue to fiddle until the whole structure falls down on our heads; or we can awaken ourselves to the heritage of democracy, elect men to public office who will stand true to democratic principles, balance the budget, pay off the debt, and in similar ways demonstrate to ourselves and the world that the American system of democratic government is deserving of survival.

“The crying need today,” the speaker concluded, “is for able, fearless leadership, and a new awakening on the part of every American worthy of the name.”

December 3, 1946

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