The Evening Star, Washington, D.C., July 5, 1929, Page 10.

Statue Unveiled to First Governor

Judge Offutt Speaks at Memorial Ceremonies for Thomas Johnson.

Special Dispatch to The Star

FREDERICK, Md., July 5.—Contrasting conditions in the United States with those of a century and a half ago, Judge T. Scott Offutt, Towson, Md., a member of the Maryland Court of Appeals, on the occasion of the unveiling of a memorial to Thomas Johnson, first provincial Governor of Maryland, in this city yesterday, said “many of the most valuable rights of the individual have been surrendered,” and that “bureaucratic officials consume our substance and pester and bedevil us with ‘dont's and musts’ until we are afraid to call our lives our own.”

Included among the speakers at the ceremonies was Charles Francis Adams, Secretary of Navy, who read from a letter of President Adams that Johnson was the suggestor of the nomination of Washington for commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, putting to rest a contention of long standing among historians over this point.

Referring to modern governmental and social conditions. Judge Offutt said “we are drifting more and more into a paternal socialism, the liberties which our forefathers won, are being bartered away for one mess of pottage or another, many of the most valuable rights of the individual, which were the soul and spirit of the common law, have been seized or surrendered in the interest of the general welfare and politically the individual has long since ceased to have any existence aside from the public of which he is a part.

“The press does our thinking for us, the State guards our morals, boards and commissions of one kind or another manager our affairs and hordes of bureaucratic officials consume our substance and pester and bedevil us with ‘don'ts and musts’ until we are afraid to call our lives our own, have become sick and tired of too much government and pray that somehow a little of that hard practical common sense and genius for government, which marked Johnson's generation may be substituted for at least some of the rules, regulations, ordinances and statutes, which like bristling bayonets now face us at l every turn.”

Others speaking were Former Judge Glenn H. Worthington, who presided, William Tyler Page, clerk of the United States House of Representatives, H. Dorsey Etchison, Frederick; David C. Winebrenner, 3d, Frederick; secretary of State, Edward S. Delaplaine, author of “The Life of Thomas Johnson,” and Joseph Urner, the sculptor.

Statue Unveiled to First Governor, The Evening Star, Washington, D.C., July 5, 1929, Page 10.(PDF)

An identically worded article, with some typos fixed, appeared in the Montgomery County Sentinel on July 12, 1929.

Statue Unveiled to First Governor, The Montgomery County Sentinel Vol. LXXIV, No. 43. Friday Morning, July 12, 1929, Page 3. (PDF)