The memoirs of Will H. Hays (1955)

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IN THE FULLNESS OF TIME 577 as an effective community center. In its editorial following the celebration, the Indianapolis Star rightly quoted me as having said at the anniversary luncheon: "Flanner House is not concerned with a class, or even a race, but with individual men, women and children. . . . Here is an institution, here are a group of men and women, whose efforts transcend charity, for they dispense not only help, but a commodity vastly more valuable. They dispense opportunity. . . . Flanner House does not believe in handing out gifts, but in enabling people to discover and make full use of the gifts that God gave them." And the editorial continued: "Thus Flanner House is a peculiarly American type of charity. Its principles come straight out of the Constitution of our country. Like American democracy itself, it regards the individual as the center of the universe. . . . The American ideal, after all, is not security as a gift, but security as a personal achievement." One's own life, like that of his country, grows more complicated with the years. New interests develop, but it is hard to drop old ones. I have often found myself saying, in response to a request for participation in some new project: "My frontier is already extended from New York to California, with an important home base in Indiana; I mustn't spread out too thin." Many earlier interests have continued undiminished, though the activity has taken new forms. The Roosevelt Memorial Association, which we founded in January of 19 19 immediately after the colonel's death, and recently renamed the Theodore Roosevelt Association, continues a vital force. Its headquarters continue to be in his former town house on Twentieth Street in New York City, but we were all gratified when his big rambling house at Oyster Bay, where so many people visited him, was made a national shrine. This typical American home, full of the mementos of the colonel's amazing life and breathing the spirit of the vigorous American family, was impressively dedicated by President Eisenhower on June 14, 1953. As a former Postmaster General, I was particularly interested in the fact that the Post Office Department issued a commemorative stamp showing the house just as I had first seen it. Many Indiana civic projects continued to interest me. One was a banquet honoring John M. Budd, president of the C. & E.I. Railroad, when he left us to go with another line. Another was called the "Save the Shades" campaign, carried on by the Indiana Department of Conservation. I was glad to contribute toward the purchase of this beautiful tract of land so that it might be preserved and added to our Indiana svstem of state parks. My very good friend Ralph Gates, then governor, was pushing this matter splendidly. In 1947, in quite another area, I was asked to write a brief statement, which I called "The Supreme Ideal," for the annual observation of