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"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
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Governor Culbert Olson Inaugural Address January 2, 1939
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| Parent | Parent Candidate |
| Contributor | Thomas Walker |
| Post Date | , 12:am |
| Description | Members of the Legislature and My Fellow Citizens of California:
It is an honor to be chosen the people's representative in any position of public service. It is a trust, the violation of which through word or deed, according to my concept, is a form of treason. How deeply I sense the honor of being elected by the people of California as their Chief Executive can be known only to me. Mere words could not express it. Words would fail me if I tried to utter them on this solemn occasion of taking my oath of office.
I approach my responsibilities with humility. I intend that faithfulness to the trust imposed in me shall ever mark my administration. It is my sincere desire that the record of this administration's accomplishments, with due allowance for honest mistakes, will in time convince the people of the sense of duty that weighs upon my heart and conscience.
I wish to assure every citizen that I enter the high office of Governor of our great State free of all prejudices, even against those who most bitterly, and sometimes unfairly, opposed my election. I respect honest differences of philosophy and viewpoint on public policies. Marked differences in partisan opinion, for the most part, arise out of differences in understanding our common problems and the methods necessary to meet them through government. These are but the natural and healthy attributes of a functioning democracy.
Every person in California, regardless of party, color, creed or station in life, must know that, not only am I without prejudice, but I regard it as my sacred duty, under the oath I have taken today, to protect every person's civil liberties, and equality before the law, with every power at my command. These are precious rights. The founders of our republic and the preservers of the Union made supreme sacrifices for these rights. They are the very cornerstone of our democracy.
As we witness destruction of democracy elsewhere in the world, accompanied by denial of civil liberties and inhuman persecutions, under the rule of despots and dictators, so extreme as to shock the moral sense of mankind, it seems appropriate that we Californians, on this occasion, should announce to the world that despotism shall not take root in our State; that the preservation of our American civil liberties and democratic institutions shall be the first duty and firm determination of our government.
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