Glass E ^ 4 & •iMTOfcPOSli CJUOOLUC&ytt / ORATIONS rn f )B AND After-Dinner Speeches OF CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW NEW YORK THE CASSELL PUBLISHING CO. 31 East 17TH St. (Union Square) \ Copyright, 1896, by THE CASSELL PUBLISHING CO. All rights reserved. THE MHRSHON COMPANY PRBSS, RAHWAY, N. J. PUBLISHERS' NOTE. The present volume, containing an authorized selec- tion of fifty-two representative Orations and After- Dinner Speeches by Mr. Chauncey M. Depew, has been compiled and edited by Mr. Joseph B. Gilder, editor of The Critic, and revised by Mr. Depew himself. The selection has been made from several hundred addresses, delivered in various parts of the country, and indicates very fully the wide range of topics to which the orator has turned his attention during the past twenty-five years, and the versatility of his treatment of questions of every degree of gravity and importance. CONTENTS. PAGE I. — Oration on the Site of Federal Hall, New York City, on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Inauguration of President Washington, April 30, 1889, 1 II. — The Political Mission of the United States. — Oration at the Celebration of the Birthday of Washington, by the Union League Club of Chicago, at Central Music Hall, Chicago, February 22, 1888, - - - - - 37 III. — Oration at the Unveiling of the Bartholdi Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World, New York Harbor, October 28, 1886, ------- 64 IV. — Speech at the One Hundred and Nineteenth Annual Ban- quet of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, November 15, 1887, - 82 V. — Speech at the Dinner given to the Hon. Justin McCarthy, M. P., at the Hoffman House, New York, October 2, 1 886, by the Irish Parliamentary Fund Association, - 91 VI. — Speech at the Dinner given by Members of the Union League to the Hon. John Jay, on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday, June 24, 1887, 99 VII. — Address delivered at Kingston, July 30, 1877, at the Centennial Celebration of the Formation of the State Government of the State of New York, - - - 103 3 IV CONTENTS. PAGE VIII. — Oration at the Academy of Music, New York, on Decoration Day, May 30, 1879, - - - - - 125 IX. — Oration at the Reunion of the Army of the Potomac, at Saratoga, Evening of June 22, 1887, - - - 149 X. — Speech at the Banquet given on March 16, 1886, by the Members of the Union League Club of 1863 and 1864, to Commemorate the Departure for the Seat of War of the Twentieth Regiment of United States Colored Troops, Raised by the Club, - - - - 1 59 XI. — Speech at the Dinner to Celebrate the Anniversary of the Birth of General Grant, at Delmonico's, April 27, 1888, - - .... 166 XII. — Address at the Memorial Service of President James A. Garfield, by the Grand Army of the Republic, at Chickering Hall, New York, September 26, 188 1, - - 175 XIII. — Address at the Memorial Service by the Legislature of the State of New York, for President Chester A. Arthur, in the Assembly Chamber, at Albany, Wednes- day Evening, April 20, 1887, - - - - - 184 XIV. — Address at the Memorial Service by the Legislature of the State of New York, for Governor Reuben E. Fenton, in the Capitol at Albany, April 27, 1887, - - - 199 XV. — Address at the Unveiling of the Statue of Alexander Hamilton in Central Park, New York, November 22, 1880, - - - 220 XVI.— Oration at the Centennial Celebration of the Capture of Major Andre, at Tarrytown, N. Y., September 23, 1880, --- - 231 CONTENTS. V PAGE XVII. — Addresses before the New England Society of the City of New York : i. December 22, 1865, in Response to the Toast, " Woman," ------- 257 2. December 22, 1879, in Response to the Toast, " The State of New York," - 261 3. December 22, 1880, in Response to the Toast, "The City of New York," ------ 266 4. December 22, 1882, in Response to the Toast, "The Half-Moon and the Mayflower," - - - - 272 5. December 22, 1884, in Response to the Toast, "The State of New York," - - - - - 277 XVIII. — Speech at the Sixth Annual Festival of the New England Society of Pennsylvania, at the Continental Hotel, Philadelphia, .December 22, 1886, in Reply to the Toast, " The New Netherlanders, the Pilgrim Fathers of Manhattan," 283 XIX. — Address before the Chamber of Commerce May 10, 1 88 1, in Response to the Toast, " The State of New York," - 293 XX. — Speech at the Banquet given by the Republican Club of the City of New York, at Delmonico's, February 12, 1887, in Response to the Sentiment, "The Young Men in Politics," 301 XXI. — Speech at the Lotos Club's Reception to Henry M. Stanley, November 27, 1886, 309 XXII. — Speech at the Lotos Club's Reception to George Augustus Sala, January 10, 1885, - - - 314 VI CONTENTS. PAGE XXIII. — Speech at the Lotos Club's Reception to Henry Irving, October 27, 1883, - - 319 XXIV. — Speech at the Dinner at Delmonico's to Celebrate Yale's Victories in Athletic Contests, February 16, 1889, ---.-._._ 324 XXV. — Address as Chairman of the Alumni Meeting, in Alumni Hall, Yale College, at the Commencement, June 25, 1886, - 330 XXVI.— Speech at the Dinner at Delmonico's, given by Yale Alumni to President Noah Porter, on the Occasion of his Retirement, January 23, 1886, - 337 XXVII. — Speech at the Semi-Centennial Anniversary of the St. Nicholas Society of the City of New York, February 28, 1885, - - 344 XXVIII.— Speech at the First Annual Dinner of the Hol- land Society of New York, at the Hotel Brunswick, January 8, 1886, - - - - - - . . 355 XXIX. — Address at the Dedication of the Monument of the New York Press Club, at Cypress Hills Cemetery, June 12, 1887, - 361 XXX. — The Liberty of the Press — Address before the New York State Press Association at the Madison Square Theatre, New York, June 19, 1883, - 367 XXXI. — A Talk to Young Physicians — Address to the Graduating Class of the Syracuse Medical College. June 14, 1888, - - 386 CONTENTS. Vll PAGE XXXII.— Address at the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Board of Management of the Bank Clerks' Mutual Benefit Association of the City of New York, December 3, 1878, - - - - 400 XXXIII. — Address at the Laying of the Corner-stone of the College Building given by William H. Vanderbilt to the College of Physicians and Surgeons, April 24, 1886, ------- - 412 XXXIV. — Address before the Graduating Class of the Columbia College Law School, at the Academy of Music, New York, May 17, 1882, - - - - 421 XXXV. — Address at the Eighteenth Anniversary of the Working-Women's Protective Union, Chickering Hall, New York, February 6, 1882, ----- 437 XXXVI. — Address before the Annual Convention of the Psi Upsilon Societies of the Various Colleges in the United States, held at Syracuse, May 10, 1881, - 449 XXXVII. — Address at the Opening of the New Building of the New York Produce Exchange, May 6, 1884, - 466 XXXVIII. — Address at the Complimentary Banquet, given by the Alumni Association of Packard's Business Col- lege, at Delmonico's, June 2, 1883, - - - - 477 XXXIX. —Address on the Tenth Anniversary of the Organiza- tion of the Railroad Branch of the Young Men's Chris- tian Association of New York, January 4, 1887, - 482 XL. — Washington Irving, the Father of American Literature — An Address before the Irving Club of Tarrytown, New York, April 16,1887. - - - - 494 Vlll CONTENTS. PAGE XLI— From a Speech before the College Republican Cam- paign Club of Princeton, New Jersey, October 3, 1884, 504 XLII — The Friendships of Politics— From a Speech at the Dinner given by State Senator McCarthy to the Senate of New York, February 20, 1884, - 508 XLIII. — Speech at the Dinner given to Southern Governors by the Southern Society of New York, May 2, 1889, 511 XLIV. — An Interview with Emperor William, Aug. 12, 1886, 514 XLV. — Withdrawal from the Presidential Race— Speech at the Republican National Convention at Chicago, June 22, 1888, - -------- 516 XLVI. — Reply to Friends who Greeted Him in New York Bay on his Return from Europe, September 13, 1888, - 518 XLVII.— The Christian Faith —Reply to John Fiske at a Meeting of the Nineteenth Century Club, March 3, 1886, 522 XLVI 1 1. — Argument by Chauncey M. Depew before the United States Senate Committee, January 11, 1890, on the Quadri-Centennial Celebration, - - - 524 o I. ration on the site of federal hall, new York City, on the One Hundredth Anni- versary of the Inauguration of President Washington, April 30, 1889. We celebrate to-day the Centenary of our Nation- ality. One hundred years ago the United States be- gan their existence. The powers of government were assumed by the people of the Republic, and they be- came the sole source of authority. The solemn cere- monial of the first inauguration, the reverent oath of Washington, the acclaim of the multitude greeting their President, marked the most unique event of modern times in the development of free institutions. The occasion was not an accident, but a result. It was the culmination of the working out by mighty forces through many centuries of the problem of self- government. It was not the triumph of a system, the application of a theory, or the reduction to practice of the abstractions of philosophy. The time, the coun- try, the heredity and environment of the people, and the folly of its enemies, and the noble courage of its friends, gave to liberty, after ages of defeat, of trial, of experiment, of partial success and substantial gains, this immortal victory. Henceforth it had a refuge and 2 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF recruiting station. The oppressed found free homes in this favored land, and invisible armies marched from it by mail and telegraph, by speech and song, by pre- cept and example, to regenerate the world. Puritans in New England, Dutchmen in New York, Catholics in Maryland, Huguenots in South Carolina, had felt the fires of persecution and were wedded to religious liberty. They had been purified in the fur- nace, and in high debate and on bloody battle-fields had learned to sacrifice all material interests and to peril their lives for human rights. The principles of constitutional government had been impressed upon them by hundreds of years of struggle, and for each principle they could point to the grave of an ancestor whose death attested the ferocity of the fight and the value of the concession wrung from arbitrary power. They knew the limitations of authority; they could pledge their lives and fortunes to resist encroachments upon their rights; but it required the lesson of Indian massacres, the invasion of the armies of France from Canada, the tyranny of the British Crown, the seven years' war of the Revolution, and the five years of chaos of the Confederation, to evolve the idea upon which rest the power and permanency of the Republic, that liberty and union are one and inseparable. The traditions and experience of the colonists had made them alert to discover, and quick to resist, any peril to their liberties. Above all things, they feared and distrusted power. The town meeting and the colonial legislature gave them confidence in themselves, and courage to check the royal governors. Their interests, hopes, and affections were in their several CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 3 commonwealths, and each blow by the British Minis- try at their freedom, each attack upon their rights as Englishmen, weakened their love for the Motherland and intensified their hostility to the Crown. But the same causes which broke down their allegiance to the Central Government increased their confidence in their respective colonies, and their faith in liberty was large- ly dependent upon the maintenance of the sovereignty of their several States. The farmer's shot at Lexing- ton echoed round the world ; the spirit which it awak- ened from its slumbers could do and dare and die ; but it had not yet discovered the secret of the permanence and progress of free institutions. Patrick Henry thun- dered in the Virginia convention; James Otis spoke with trumpet tongue and fervid eloquence for united action in Massachusetts; Hamilton, Jay, and Clinton plegded New York to respond with men and money for the common cause ; but their vision only saw a league of independent colonies. The veil was not yet drawn from before the vista of population and power, of empire and liberty, which would open with National Union. The Continental Congress partially grasped, but com- pletely expressed, the central idea of the American Republic. More fully than any other that ever assem- bled did it represent the victories won from arbitrary power for human rights. In the New World it was the conservator of liberties secured through centuries of struggle in the Old. Among the delegates were the descendants of the men who had stood in the brilliant array upon the field of Runnymede, which wrested from King John Magna Charta, that great charter of 4 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF liberty, to which Hallam, in the nineteenth century, bears witness "that all which has been since obtained is little more than a confirmation or commentary." There were the grandchildren of the statesmen who had summoned Charles before Parliament and com- pelled his assent to the Petition of Rights which trans- ferred power from the Crown to the Commons, and gave representative government to the English-speak- ing race. And there were those who had sprung from the iron soldiers who had fought and charged with Cromwell at Naseby and Dunbar and Marston Moor. Among its members were Huguenots, whose fathers had followed the White Plume of Henry of Navarre, and in an age of bigotry, intolerance, and the deifica- tion of absolutism, had secured the great edict of relig- ious liberty from French despotism, and who had be- come a people without a country, rather than surrender their convictions and forswear their consciences. In this Congress were those whose ancestors were the countrymen of William of Orange, the Beggars of the Sea, who had survived the cruelties of Alva and broken the yoke of proud Philip of Spain, and who had two centuries before made a declaration of independence and formed a federal union which were models of free- dom and strength. These men were not revolutionists, they were the heirs and the guardians of the priceless treasures of mankind. The British King and his Ministers were the revolutionists. They were reactionaries, seeking arbitrarily to turn back the hands upon the dial of time. A year of doubt and debate, the baptism of blood upon the battle-fields, where soldiers from every CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 5 colony fought, under a common standard, and consoli- dated the Continental Army, gradually lifted the soul and understanding of this immortal Congress to the sublime declaration: "We, therefore, the representa- tives of the United States of America, in General Con- gress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States." To this Declaration John Hancock, proscribed and threatened with death, affixed a signature which has stood for a century like the pointers to the North Star in the firmament of freedom, and Charles Carroll, taunt- ed that, among many Carrolls, he, the richest man in America, might escape, added description and identifi- cation with "of Carrollton." Benjamin Harrison, a delegate from Virginia, the ancestor of the distin- guished statesman and soldier who to-day so worthily fills the chair of Washington, voiced the unalterable determination and defiance of the Congress. He seized John Hancock, upon whose head a price was set, in his arms, and placing him in the Presidential chair, said : "We will show Mother Britain how little we care for her, by making our President a Massachusetts man, whom she has excluded from pardon by public proclamation" ; and when they were signing the Decla- ration, and the slender Elbridge Gerry uttered the grim pleasantry, "We must hang together, or surely we will hang separately," the portly Harrison responded with the more daring humor, "It will be all over with me in 6 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF a moment; but you will be kicking in the air half an hour after I am gone." Thus flashed athwart the great Charter, which was to be for its signers a death-warrant or a diploma of immortality, as with firm hand, high purpose, and undaunted resolution, they subscribed their names, this mockery of fear and the penalties of treason. The grand central idea of the Declaration of Inde- pendence was the sovereignty of the People. It relied for original power, not upon States or colonies, or their citizens as such, but recognized as the authority for nationality the revolutionary rights of the people of the United States. It stated with marvelous clearness the encroachments upon liberties which threatened their suppression and justified revolt, but it was inspired by the very genius of freedom, and the prophetic possi- bilities of united commonwealths covering the conti- nent in one harmonious republic, when it made the people of the thirteen colonies all Americans, and de- volved upon them to administer by themselves and for themselves the prerogatives and powers wrested from Crown and Parliament. It condensed Magna Charta, the Petition of Rights, the great body of English liber- ties embodied in the common law and accumulated in the decisions of the courts, the statutes of the realm, and an undisputed though unwritten Constitution ; but this original principle and dynamic force of the people's power sprang from these old seeds planted in the virgin soil of the New World. More clearly than any statesman of the period did Thomas Jefferson grasp and divine the possibilities of popular government. He caught and crystallized the CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 7 spirit of free institutions. His philosophical mind was singularly free from the power of precedents or the chains of prejudice. He had an unquestioning and abiding faith in the people, which was accepted by but few of his compatriots. Upon his famous axiom, of the equality of all men before the law, he constructed his system. It was the trip-hammer essential for the emer- gency to break the links binding the colonies to im- perial authority, and to pulverize the privileges of caste. It inspired him to write the Declaration of Independence, and persuaded him to doubt the wis- dom of the powers concentrated in the Constitution. In his passionate love of liberty he became intensely jealous of authority. He destroyed the substance of royal prerogative, but never emerged from its shadow. He would have the States as the guardians of popular rights, and the barriers against centralization, and he saw in the growing power of the nation ever-increasing encroachments upon the rights of the people. For the success of the pure democracy which must precede presidents and cabinets and congresses, it was perhaps providential that its apostle never believed a great people could grant and still retain, could give and at will reclaim, could delegate and yet firmly hold, the authority which ultimately created the power of their Republic and enlarged the scope of their own liberty. Where this master-mind halted, all stood still. The necessity for a permanent union was apparent ; but each State must have hold upon the bowstring which encircled its throat. It was admitted that union gave the machinery required to successfully fight the com- mon enemy ; but yet there was fear that it might be- 8 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF come a Frankenstein and destroy its creators. Thus patriotism and fear, difficulties of communication be- tween distant communities, and the intense growth of provincial pride and interests, led this Congress to frame the Articles of Confederation, happily termed the League of Friendship. The result was not a gov- ernment, but a ghost. By this scheme the American people were ignored and the Declaration of Indepen- dence reversed. The States, by their legislatures, elected delegates to Congress, and the delegate repre- sented the sovereignty of his commonwealth. All the States had an equal voice without regard to their size or population. It required the vote of nine States to pass any bill, and five could block the wheels of Government. Congress had none of the powers essential to sovereignty. It could neither levy taxes nor impose duties nor collect excise. For the support of the army and navy, for the purposes of war, for the preservation of its own functions, it could only call upon the States, but it possessed no power to enforce its demands. It had no president or executive au- thority, no supreme court with general jurisdiction, and no national power. Each of the thirteen States had seaports and levied discriminating duties against the others, and could also tax and thus prohibit interstate commerce across its territory. Had the Confedera- tion been a Union instead of a League, it could have raised and equipped three times the number of men contributed by reluctant States, and conquered inde- pendence without foreign assistance. This paralyzed Government — without strength, beeause it could not enforce its decrees; without credit, because it could CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 9 pledge nothing for the payment of its debts; without respect, because without inherent authority — would, by its feeble life and early death, have added another to the historic tragedies which have in many lands marked the suppression of freedom, had it not been saved by the intelligent, inherited, and invincible understanding of liberty by the people, and the genius and patriotism of their leaders. But while the perils of war had given temporary strength to the Confederation, peace developed its fatal weakness. It derived no authority from the people, and could not appeal to them. Anarchy threatened its existence at home, and contempt met its representatives abroad. "Can you fulfill or enforce the obligations of the treaty on your part if we sign one with you?" was the sneer of the courts of the Old World to our ambassa- dors. Some States gave a half-hearted support to its demands; others defied them. The loss of public credit was speedily followed by universal bankruptcy. The wildest phantasies assumed the force of serious measures for the relief of the general distress. States passed exclusive and hostile laws against each other, and riot and disorder threatened the disentegration of society. "Our stock is stolen, our houses are plun- dered, our farms are raided," cried a delegate in the Massachusetts convention; " despotism is better than anarchy!" To raise four millions of dollars a year was beyond the resources of the Government, and three hundred thousand was the limit of the loan it could secure from the money-lenders of Europe. Even Wash- ington exclaimed in despair: "I see one head gradually io ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF changing into thirteen ; I see one army gradually branch- ing into thirteen ; which, instead of looking up to Con- gress as the supreme controlling power, are considering themselves as depending on their respective States." And later, when independence had been won, the impo- tency of the Government wrung from him the excla- mation : "After gloriously and successfully contending against the usurpation of Great Britain, we may fall a prey to our own folly and disputes." But even through this Cimmerian darkness shot a flame which illumined the coming century, and kept bright the beacon-fires of liberty. The architects of constitutional freedom formed their institutions with wisdom which forecasted the future. They may not have understood at first the whole truth ; but, for that which they knew, they had the martyrs' spirit and the crusaders' enthusiasm. Though the Confederation was a government of checks without balances, and of pur- pose without power, the statesmen who guided it dem- onstrated often the resistless force of great souls ani- mated by the purest patriotism ; and, united in judg- ment and effort to promote the common good, by lofty appeals and high reasoning, to elevate the masses above local greed and apparent self-interest to their own broad plane. The most significant triumph of these moral and intellectual forces was that which secured the assent of the States to the limitation of their boundaries, to the grant of the wilderness beyond them to the General Government, and to the insertion in the ordinance erecting the Northwest Territory of the immortal proviso prohibiting "slavery or involuntary servitude" CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. tl within all that broad domain. The States carved out of this splendid concession were not sovereignties which had successfully rebelled, but they were the children of the Union, born of the covenant and thrilled with its life and liberty. They became the bulwarks of nationality and the buttresses of freedom. Their preponderating strength first checked and then broke the slave power ; their fervid loyalty halted and held at bay the spirit of State rights and secession for gener- ations ; and when the crisis came, it was with their overwhelming assistance that the nation killed and buried its enemy. The corner-stone of the edifice whose centenary we are celebrating was the Ordinance of 1787. It was constructed by the feeblest of con- gresses, but few enactments of ancient or modern times have had more far-reaching and beneficent influence. It is one of the sublimest paradoxes of history, that this weak Confederation of States should have welded the chain against which, after seventy-four years of fret- ful efforts for release, its own spirit frantically dashed and died. The government of the Republic by a Congress of States, a diplomatic convention of the ambassadors of petty commonwealths, after seven years' trial, was fall- ing asunder. Threatened with civil war among its members, insurrection and lawlessness rife within the States, foreign commerce ruined and internal trade paralyzed, its currency worthless, its merchants bank- rupt, its farms mortgaged, its markets closed, its labor unemployed, it was like a helpless wreck upon the ocean, tossed about by the tides and ready to be en- gulfed in the storm. Washington gave the warning 12 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF and called for action. It was a voice accustomed to command, but not entreat. The veterans of the war and the statesmen of the Revolution stepped to the front. The patriotism which had been misled, but had never faltered, rose above the interests of the States and the jealousies of jarring confederates to find the basis for union. "It is clear to me as A B C," said Washington, "that an extension of federal powers would make us one of the most happy, wealthy, re- spectable, and powerful nations that ever inhabited the terrestrial globe. Without them we shall soon be everything which is the direct reverse. I predict the worst consequences from a half-starved, limping govern- ment, always moving upon crutches and tottering at every step." The response of the country was the Convention of 1787, at Philadelphia. The Declaration of Independence was but the vestibule of the temple which this illustrious assembly erected. With no suc- cessful precedents to guide, it auspiciously worked out the problem of constitutional government, and of im- perial power and home rule supplementing each other in promoting the grandeur of the nation and preserv- ing the liberty of the individual. The deliberations of great councils have vitally af- fected, at different periods, the history of the world and the fate of empires; but this Congress builded, upon popular sovereignty, institutions broad enough to em- brace the continent, and elastic enough to fit all condi- tions of race and traditions. The experience of a hun- dred years has demonstrated for us the perfection of the work for defense against foreign foes, and for self-preser- vation against domestic insurrection, for limitless expan- CHAUMCEY M. DEPEW. *3 sion in population and material development, and for steady growth in intellectual freedom and force. Its continuing influence upon the welfare and destiny of the human race can only be measured by the capacity of man to cultivate and enjoy the boundless opportunities of liberty and law. The eloquent characterization of Mr. Gladstone condenses its merits: "The American Constitution is the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man." The statesmen who composed this great senate were equal to their trust. Their conclusions were the result of calm debate and wise concession. Their character and abilities were so pure and great as to command the confidence of the country for the reversal of the policy of the independence of the State of the power of the General Government, which had hitherto been the invariable practice and almost universal opinion, and for the adoption of the idea of the nation and its supremacy. Towering in majesty and influence above them all stood Washington, their President. Beside him was the venerable Franklin, who, though eighty-one years of age, brought to the deliberations of the Convention the unimpaired vigor and resources of the wisest brain, the most hopeful philosophy, and the largest experi- ence of the times. Oliver Ellsworth, afterward Chief- Justice of the United States, and the profoundest jurist in the country; Robert Morris, the wonderful financier of the Revolution, and Gouverneur Morris, the most versatile genius of his period ; Roger Sherman, one of the most eminent of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and John Rutledge, Rufus King, El- 14 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OE bridge Gerry, Edmund Randolph, and the Pinckneys, were leaders of unequaled patriotism, courage, ability and learning; while Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, as original thinkers and constructive states- men, rank among the immortal few whose opinions have for ages guided ministers of state, and determined the destinies of nations. This great Convention keenly felt, and with devout and serene intelligence met, its tremendous responsi- bilities. It had the moral support of the few whose aspirations for liberty had been inspired or renewed by the triumph of the American Revolution, and the active hostility of every government in the world. There were no examples to follow, and the experience of its members led part of them to lean toward absolute centralization as the only refuge from the anarchy of the Confederation, while the rest clung to the sovereignty of the States, for fear that the concentration of power would end in the absorption of liberty. The large States did not want to surrender the advantage of their position, and the smaller States saw the danger to their existence. The Leagues of the Greek cities had ended in loss of freedom, tyranny, conquest, and destruction. Roman conquest and assimilation had strewn the shores of time with the wrecks of empires, and plunged civili- zation into the perils and horrors of the Dark Ages. The government of Cromwell was the isolated power of the mightiest man of his age, without popular au- thority to fill his place or the hereditary principle to protect his successor. The past furnished no light for our state-builders; the present was full of doubt and despair. The future, CttAUNCEY m. depeW. \% the experiment of self-government, the perpetuity and development of freedom, almost the destiny of mankind, was in their hands. At this crisis the courage and confidence needed to originate a system weakened. The temporizing spirit of compromise seized the Convention, with the alluring proposition of not proceeding faster than the people could be educated to follow. The cry, "Let us not waste our labor upon conclusions which will not be adopted, but amend and adjourn," was assuming startling unani- mity. But the supreme force and majestic sense of Washington brought the assemblage to the lofty plane of its duty and opportunity. He said: "It is too probable that no plan we propose will be adopted. Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If to please the people we offer what we ourselves dis- approve, how can we afterward defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the event is in the hands of God." "I am the State," said Louis XIV. ; but his line ended in the grave of absolutism. "Forty centuries look down upon you," was Napoleon's address to his army, in the shadow of the Pyramids ; but his soldiers saw the dream of Eastern Empire vanish in blood. Statesmen and parliamentary leaders have sunk into oblivion, oi- led their party to defeat, by surrendering their convic- tions to the passing passions of the hour; but Washing- ton, in this immortal speech, struck the keynote of representative obligation, and propounded the funda- mental principle of the purity and perpetuity of consti- tutional government. Freed from the limitations of its environment, and 1 6 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF the question of the adoption of its work, the Conven- tion erected its government upon the eternal founda- tions of the power of the people. It dismissed the delusive theory of a compact be- tween independent States, and derived national power from the people of the United States. It broke up the machinery of the Confederation, and put in practical operation the glittering generalities of the Declaration of Independence. From chaos came order, from inse- curity came safety, from disintegration and civil war came law and liberty, with the principle proclaimed in the preamble of the great charter: "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Consti- tution for the United States." With a wisdom inspired of God, to work out upon this continent the liberty of man, they solved the problem of the ages by blending, and yet preserving, local self-government with national authority, and the rights of the States with the majesty and power of the Republic. The government of the States, under the Articles of the Confederation, became bankrupt because it could not raise four millions of dol- lars; the government of the Union, under the Consti- tution of the United States, raised six thousand mill- ions of dollars, its credit growing firmer as its power and resources were demonstrated. The Congress of the Confederation fled from a regiment, which it could not pay ; the Congress of the Union reviewed the com- rades of a million of its victorious soldiers, saluting as CHAUNCEY m. depew. 17 they marched the flag of the nation whose supremacy they had sustained. The promises of the Confederacy were the scoff of its States; the pledge of the Repub- lic was the honor of its people. The Constitution, which was to be strengthened by the strain of a century, to be a mighty conqueror with- out a subject province, to triumphantly survive the greatest of civil wars without the confiscation of an es- tate or the execution of a political offender, to create and grant home rule and state sovereignty to twenty- nine additional commonwealths, and yet enlarge its scope and broaden its power, and to make the name of an American citizen a title of honor throughout the world, came complete from the great Convention to the people for adoption. As Hancock rose from his seat in the old Congress, eleven years before, to sign the Declaration of Independence, Franklin saw emblazoned on the back of the President's chair the sun partly above the horizon, but it seemed setting in a blood-red sky. During the seven years of the Confederation he had gathered no hope from the glittering emblem, but now as with clear vision he beheld fixed upon eternal foundations the enduring structure of constitutional liberty, pointing to the sign, he forgot his eighty-two years, and, with the enthusiasm of youth, electrified the Convention with the declaration: "Now I know that it is the rising sun." The pride of the States and the ambition of their leaders, sectional jealousies and the overwhelming dis- trust of centralized power, were all arrayed against the adoption of the Constitution. North Carolina and Rhode Island refused to join the Union until long after 1 8 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF Washington's inauguration. For months New York was debatable ground. Her territory, extending from the sea to the lakes, made her the keystone of the arch. Had Arnold's treason in the Revolution not been foiled by the capture of Andre, England would have held New York and subjugated the colonies; and in this crisis, unless New York assented, a hostile and powerful commonwealth dividing the States made the Union impossible. Success was due to confidence in Washington and the genius of Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson was the inspiration of Independence, but Hamilton was the in- carnation of the Constitution. In no age or country has there appeared a more precocious or amazing intelli- gence than Hamilton's. At seventeen he annihilated the President of his college, upon the question of rights of the colonies, in a series of anonymous articles which were credited to the ablest men in the country; at forty-seven, when he died, his briefs had become the law of the land, and his fiscal system was, and after a hundred years remains, the rule and policy of our Government. He gave life to the corpse of national credit, and the strength for self-preservation and aggres- sive power to the Federal Union. Both as an expoun- der of the principles and an administrator of the affairs of the Government he stands supreme and unrivaled in American history. His eloquence was so magnetic, his language so clear, and his reasoning so irresistible, that he swayed with equal ease popular assemblies, grave senates, and learned judges. He captured the people of the whole country for the Constitution by his papers in The Federalist, and conquered the hostile CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 19 majority in the New York Convention by the splendor of his oratory. But the multitudes whom no argument could con- vince, who saw in the executive power and centralized force of the Constitution, under another name, the dreaded usurpation of king and ministry, were satisfied only with the assurance, "Washington will be Presi- dent." "Good," cried John Lamb, the able leader of the Sons of Liberty, as he dropped his opposition ; "for to no other mortal would I trust authority so enor- mous." "Washington will be President," was the battle- cry of the Constitution. It quieted alarm, and gave confidence to the timid and courage to the weak. The country responded with enthusiastic unanimity, but the Chief with the greatest reluctance. In the su- preme moment of victory, when the world expected him to follow the precedents of the past, and perpetu- ate the power a grateful country would willingly have left in his hands, he had resigned and retired to Mount Vernon to enjoy in private station his well-earned rest. The Convention created by his exertions to prevent, as he said, "the decline of our federal dignity into insignificant and wretched fragments of empire," had called him to preside over its deliberations. Its work made possible the realization of his hope that "we might survive as an independent republic," and again he sought the seclusion of his home. But after the triumph of war, and the formation of the Constitution, came the third and final crisis; the initial movements of government which were to teach the infant state the steadier steps of empire. He alone could stay assault and inspire confidence 20 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF while the great and complicated machinery of organ- ized government was put in order and set in motion. Doubt existed nowhere except in his modest and unambitious heart. "My movements to the chair of government," he said, "will be accompanied with feel- ings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution. So unwilling am I, in the even- ing of life, nearly consumed in public cares, to quit a peaceful abode for an ocean of difficulties, without that competency of political skill, abilities, and inclination, which are necessary to manage the helm." His whole life had been spent in repeated sacrifices for his coun- try's welfare, and he did not hesitate now, though there is an undertone of inexpressible sadness in this entry in his diary on the night of his departure: "About ten o'clock I bade adieu to Mount Vernon, to private life, and to domestic felicity, and with a mind oppressed with more anxious and painful sensa- tions than I have words to express, set out for New York with the best disposition to render service to my country in obedience to its call, but with less hope of answering its expectations." No conqueror was ever accorded such a triumph, no ruler ever received such a welcome. In this memorable march of six days to the Capitol, it was the pride of States to accompany him with the masses of their people to their borders, that the citizens of the next common- wealth might escort him through its territory. It was the glory of cities to receive him with every civic honor at their gates, and entertain him as the saviour of their lib- erties. He rode under triumphal arches from which chil- dren lowered laurel wreaths upon his brow. The road- CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 21 ways were strewn with flowers, and as they were crushed beneath his horse's hoofs, their sweet incense wafted to Heaven the ever-ascending prayers of his loving countrymen for his life and safety. The swelling an- them of gratitude and reverence greeted and followed him along the country-side and through the crowded streets: "Long live George Washington ! Long live the Father of his People !" His entry into New York was worthy the city and State. He was met by the chief officers of the retiring Government of the country, by the Governor of the commonwealth, and the whole population. This su- perb harbor was alive with fleets and flags; and the ships of other nations, with salutes from their guns, and the cheers of their crews, added to the joyous acclaim. But as the captains, who had asked the privilege, bending proudly to their oars, rowed the President's barge swiftly through these inspiring scenes, Washing- ton's mind and heart were full of reminiscence and fore- boding. He had visited New York thirty-three years before, also in the month of April, in the full perfection of his early manhood, fresh from Braddock's bloody field, and wearing the only laurels of the battle, bearing the prophetic blessing of the venerable President Davies, of Princeton College, as "That heroic youth, Colonel Washington, whom I cannot but hope Providence has hitherto preserved in so signal a manner for some im- portant service to the country." It was a fair daugh- ter of our State whose smiles allured him here, and whose coy confession that her heart was another's re- corded his only failure, and saddened his departure. 2 2 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF Twenty years passed, and he stood before the New York Congress, on this very spot, the unanimously chosen Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, urging the people to more vigorous measures, and made painfully aware of the increased desperation of the struggle, from the aid to be given to the enemy by do- mestic sympathizers, when he knew that the same local military company which escorted him was to perform the like service for the British Governor Tryon on his landing on the morrow. Returning for the defense of the city the next summer, he executed the retreat from Long Island, which secured from Frederick the Great the opinion that a great commander had appeared, and at Harlem Heights he won the first American vic- tory of the Revolution, which gave that confidence to our raw recruits against the famous veterans of Europe which carried our army triumphantly through the war. Six years more of untold sufferings, of freezing and starving camps, of marches over the snow by bare- footed soldiers to heroic attack and splendid victory, of despair with an unpaid army, and of hope from the generous assistance of France, and peace had come and Independence triumphed. As the last soldier of the invading enemy embarks, Washington at the head of the patriot host enters the city, receives the welcome and gratitude of its people, and in the tavern which faces us across the way, in silence more eloquent than speech, and with tears which choke the words, he bids farewell forever to his companions in arms. Such were the crowding memories of the past suggested to Wash- ington in 1789 by his approach to New York. But the future had none of the splendor of precedent and brill- CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 23 iance of promise which have since attended the inagu- ration of our Presidents. An untried scheme, adopted mainly because its administration was to be confided to him, was to be put in practice. He knew that he was to be met at every step of constitutional progress by factions temporarily hushed into unanimity by the ter- rific force of the tidal wave which was bearing him to the President's seat, but fiercely hostile upon questions affecting every power of nationality and the existence of the Federal Government. Washington was never dramatic, but on great occa- sions he not only rose to the full ideal of the event, he became himself the event. One hundred years ago to- day the procession of foreign ambassadors, of states- men and generals, of civic societies and military com- panies, which escorted him, marched from Franklin Square to Pearl Street, through Pearl to Broad to this spot ; but the people saw only Washington. As he stood upon the steps of the old Government Building here, the thought must have occurred to him that it was a cradle of liberty, and as such giving a bright omen for the future. In these halls, in 1735, in the trial of John Zenger, had been established, for the first time in its history, the liberty of the press. Here the New York Assem- bly, in 1764, made the protest against the Stamp Act, and proposed the General Conference, which was the beginning of the united colonial action. In this old State House, in 1765, the Stamp Act Congress — the first and the father ^of American congresses — assembled and presented to the English Government that vigor- ous protest which caused the repeal of the Act. and 24 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF checked the first step toward the usurpation which lost the American Colonies to the British Empire. Within these walls the Congress of the Confederation had com- missioned its ambassadors abroad, and in ineffectual efforts at government had created the necessity for the concentration of federal authority, now to be consum- mated. The first Congress of the United States, gathered in this ancient temple of liberty, greeted Washington and accompanied him to the balcony. The famous men visible about him were Chancellor Livingston, Vice- President John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Gover- nor Clinton, Roger Sherman, Richard Henry Lee, General Knox, and Baron Steuben. But we believe that among the invisible host above him at this supreme moment of the culmination in permanent triumph of the thousands of years of struggle for self-government, were the spirits of soldiers of the Revolution who had died that their countrymen might enjoy this blessed day, and with them were the Barons of Runnymede, and William the Silent, and Sidney, and Russell, and Cromwell, and Hampden, and the heroes and martyrs of liberty of every race and age. As he came forward, the multitude in the streets, in the windows, and on the roofs sent up such a rapturous shout that Washington sat down overcome with emo- tion. As he slowly rose, and his tall and majestic form again appeared, the people, deeply affected, in awed silence viewed the scene. The Chancellor solemnly read to him the oath of office, and Washington, repeat- ing, said: "I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 25 and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." Then he reverently bent low and kissed the Bible, utter- ing with profound emotion, "So help me, God." The Chancellor waved his robes and shouted: "It is done. Long live George Washington, President of the United States!" "Long live George Washington, our first President !" was the answering cheer of the people, and from the belfries rang the bells, and from forts and ships thundered the cannon, echoing and repeating the cry with responding acclaim all over the land : "Long live George Washington, President of the United States!" The simple and imposing ceremony over, the inaugu- ral read, the blessing of God prayerfully petitioned in old St. Paul's, the festivities passed : and Washington stood alone. No one else could take the helm of State, and enthusiast and doubter alike trusted only him. The teachings and habits of the past had educated the people to faith in the independence of their States; and for the supreme authority of the new Government there stood, against the precedent of a century and the passions of the hour, little besides the arguments of Hamilton, Madison, and Jay in The Federalist, and the judgment of Washington. With the first attempt to exercise national power be- gan the duel to the death between State Sovereignty, claiming the right to nullify federal laws or secede from the Union, and the power of the Republic to command the resources of the country, to enforce its authority, and protect its life. It was the beginning of the sixty years' war for the Constitution and the nation. It 26 ORA TIONS AND SPEECHES OF seared consciences, degraded politics, destroyed parties, ruined statesmen, and retarded the advance and devel- opment of the country; it sacrificed hundreds of thou- sands of precious lives, and squandered thousands of millions of money; it desolated the fairest portion of the land and carried mourning into every home North and South ; but it ended at Appomattox in the abso- lute triumph of the Republic. Posterity owes to Washington's Administration the policy and measures, the force and direction which made possible this glorious result. In giving the organization of the Department of State and Foreign Relations to Jefferson, the Treasury to Hamilton, and the Supreme Court to Jay, he selected for his Cabinet and called to his assistance the ablest and most eminent men of his time. Hamilton's marvelous versatility and genius designed the armory and the weapons for the promotion of national power and greatness, but Washington's steady support carried them through. Parties crystallized, and party passions were intense, debates were intemperate, and the Union openly threatened and secretly plotted against, as the firm pressure of this mighty personality funded the debt and established credit; assumed the State debts incurred in the War of the Revolution, and superseded the local by the national obligation; imposed duties upon im- ports and excise upon spirits, and created revenue and resources; organized a National Banking system for public needs and private business, and called out an army to put down by force of arms resistance to the federal laws imposing unpopular taxes. Upon the plan marked out by the Constitution, this great architect, CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 27 with unfailing faith and unfaltering courage, builded the Republic. He gave to the Government the principles of action and sources of power which carried it success- fully through the wars with Great Britain in 1812 and Mexico in 1848, which enabled Jackson to defeat nulli- fication, and recruited and equipped millions of men for Lincoln, and justified and sustained his Proclama- tion of Emancipation. The French Revolution was the bloody reality of France and the nightmare of the civilized world. The tyranny of centuries culminated in frightful reprisals and reckless revenges. As parties rose to power and passed to the guillotine, the frenzy of the revolt against all authority reached every country and captured the imaginations and enthusiasm of millions in every land, who believed they saw that the madness of anarchy, the overturning of all institutions, the confiscation and distribution of property, would end in a millennium for the masses and the universal brotherhood of man. Enthusiasm for France, our late ally, and the terrible commercial and industrial distress occasioned by the failure of the Government under the Articles of Con- federation, aroused an almost unanimous cry for the young Republic, not yet sure of its existence, to plunge into the vortex. The ablest and purest statesmen of the time bent to the storm, but Washington was un- moved. He stood like the rock-ribbed coast of a con- tinent between the surging billows of fanaticism and the child of his love. Order is Heaven's first law, and the mind of Washington was order. The Revolu- tion defied God and derided the law. Washington devoutly reverenced the Deity, and believed liberty 28 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF impossible without law. He spoke to the sober judg- ment of the nation and made clear the danger. He saved the infant Government from ruin, and expelled the French Minister who had appealed from him to the people. The whole land, seeing safety only in his continuance in office, joined Jefferson in urging him to accept a second term. "North and South," pleaded the Secretary, "will hang together while they have you to hang to." No man ever stood for so much to his country and to mankind as George Washington. Hamilton, Jeffer- son, and Adams, Madison, and Jay, each represented some of the elements which formed the Union : Wash- ington embodied them all. They fell at times under popular disapproval, were burned in effigy, were stoned ; but he with unerring judgment was always the leader of the people. Milton said of Cromwell, that "war made him great, peace greater." The superiority of Washing- ton's character and genius was more conspicuous in the formation of our Government and in putting it on indestructible foundations, than in leading armies to vic- tory and conquering the independence of his country. "The Union in any event," is the central thought of his Farewell Address ; and all the years of his grand life were devoted to its formation and preservation. He fought as a youth with Braddock and in the capture of Fort Du Quesne for the protection of the whole country. As Commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, his commission was from the Congress of the United Colo- nies. He inspired the movement for the Republic, was the President and dominant spirit of the Convention which framed its Constitution, and its President for CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 29 eight years, and guided its course until satisfied' that moving safely along the broad highway of time, it would be surely ascending toward the first place among the nations of the world, the asylum of the oppressed, the home of the free. Do his countrymen exaggerate his virtues? Listen to Guizot, the historian of civilization : "Washington did the two greatest things which in politics it is per- mitted to man to attempt. He maintained by peace the independence of his country which he conquered by war. He founded a free government in the name of the principles of order and by re-establishing their sway." Hear Lord Erskine, the most famous of Eng- lish advocates : "You are the only being for whom I have an awful reverence." Remember the tribute of Charles James Fox, the greatest parliamentary orator who ever swayed the British House of Commons: "Illustrious man, before whom all borrowed greatness sinks into insignificance." Contemplate the character of Lord Brougham, pre-eminent for two generations in every department of human activity and thought, and then impress upon the memories of your children his deliberate judgment: "Lentil time shall be no more, will a test of the progress which our race has made in wisdom and virtue be derived from the veneration paid to the immortal name of Washington." Chatham, who, with Clive, conquered an empire in the East, died broken-hearted at the loss of the empire in the West, by follies which even his power and elo- quence could not prevent. Pitt saw the vast creations of his diplomacy shattered at Austerlitz, and fell mur- muring: "My country! how I leave my country!" 3° ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF Napoleon caused a noble tribute to Washington to be read at the head of his armies ; but, unable to rise to Washington's greatness, witnessed the vast structure erected by conquest and cemented by blood, to minis- ter to his own ambition and pride, crumble into frag- ments, and an exile and a prisoner he breathed his last, babbling of battle-fields and carnage. Washington, with his finger upon his pulse, felt the presence of death, and calmly reviewing the past and forecasting the future, answered to the summons of the grim messen- ger, "It is well"; and as his mighty soul ascended to God, the land was deluged with tears and the world united in his eulogy. Blot out from the page of his- tory the names of all the great actors of his time in the drama .of nations, and preserve the name of Washing- ton, and still the century would be renowned. We stand to-day upon the dividing line between the first and second century of constitutional government. There are no clouds overhead, and no convulsions under our feet. We reverently return thanks to Al- mighty God for the past, and with confident and hope- ful promise march upon sure ground toward the future. The simple facts of these hundred years paralyze the imagination, and we contemplate the vast accumulations of the century with awe and pride. Our population has grown from four to sixty-five millions. Its center moving westward five hundred miles since 1789, is elo- quent with the founding of cities and the birth of States. New settlements, clearing the forests and subduing the prairies, and adding four millions to the few thousands of farms which were the support of Washington's Republic, create one of the great granaries of the CHAUNCEY M. BE PEW. 31 world and open exhaustless reservoirs of national wealth. The infant industries, which the first act of our Ad- ministration sought to encourage, now give remunera- tive employment to more people than inhabited the Republic at the beginning of Washington's Presidency. The grand total of their annual output of seven thous- and millions of dollars in value places the United States first among the manufacturing countries of the earth. One-half of all the railroads, and one-quarter of all the telegraph lines of the world within our borders, testify to the volume, variety, and value of an internal com- merce which makes these States, if need be, independent and self-supporting. These hundred years of develop- ment under favoring political conditions have brought the sum of our national wealth to a figure which is past the results of a thousand years for the mother-land, herself otherwise the richest of modern empires. During this generation a civil war of unequaled mag- nitude caused the expenditure and loss of eight thous- and millions of dollars, and killed six hundred thousand and permanently disabled over a million young men ; and yet the impetuous progress of the North and the marvelous industrial development of the new and free South have obliterated the evidences of destruction and made the war a memory, and have stimulated pro- duction until our annual surplus nearly equals that of England, France, and Germany combined. The teem- ing millions of Asia till the patient soil and work the shuttle and loom as their fathers have done for ages; modern Europe has felt the influence and received the benefit of the incalculable multiplication of force by 32 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF inventive genius since the Napoleonic wars; and yet, only two hundred and sixty-nine years after the little band of Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, our people, numbering less than one-fifteenth of the inhabitants of the globe, do one-third of its mining, one-fourth of its manufacturing, one-fifth of its agriculture, and own one-sixth of its wealth. This realism of material prosperity, surpassing the wildest creation of the romancers who have astonished and delighted mankind, would be full of danger for the present and menace for the future, if the virtue, intelli- gence, and independence of the people were not equal to the wise regulation of its uses and the stern preven- tion of its abuses. But following the growth and power of the great factors, whose aggregation of capital made possible the tremendous pace of the settlement of our national domain, the building of our great cities and the opening of the lines of communication which have unified our country and created our resources, have come national and state legislation and supervision. Twenty millions — a vast majority of our people of intelligent age — acknowledging the authority of their several churches, twelve millions of children in the com- mon schools, three hundred and forty-five universities and colleges for the higher education of men and two hundred for women, four hundred and fifty institutions of learning for science, law, medicine, and theology, are the despair of the scoffer and the demagogue, and the firm support of civilization and liberty. Steam and electricity have not only changed the commerce, they have also revolutionized the govern- ments of the world. They have given to the press its CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 33 powers, and brought all races and nationalities into touch and sympathy. They have tested and are trying the strength of all systems to stand the strain and con- form to the conditions which follow the germinating influences of American democracy. At the time of the inauguration of Washington, seven royal families ruled as many kingdoms in Italy, but six of them have seen their thrones overturned and their countries disappear from the map of Europe. Most of the kings, princes, dukes, and margraves of Germany, who reigned despot- ically and sold their soldiers for foreign service, have passed into history, and their heirs have neither pre- rogatives nor domain. Spain has gone through many violent changes, and the permanency of her present government seems to depend upon the feeble life of an infant prince. France, our ancient friend, with repeated and bloody revolutions, has tried the government of Bourbon and Convention, of Directory and Consulate, of Empire and Citizen King, of hereditary Sovereign and Republic, of Empire, and again Republic. The Haps- burg and the Hohenzollern, after convulsions which have rocked the foundations of their thrones, have been compelled to concede constitutions for their people, and to divide with them the arbitrary power wielded so autocratically and brilliantly by Maria Theresa and Frederick the Great. The royal will of George III. could crowd the American colonies into rebellion, and wage war upon them until they were lost to his king- dom ; but the authority of the Crown has devolved upon ministers who hold office subject to the approval of the representatives of the people, and the equal powers of the House of Lords have become vested in 34 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF the Commons, leaving to the Peers only the shadow oi their ancient privileges. But to-day the American people, after all the dazzling developments of the cen- tury, are still happily living under the Government of Washington. The Constitution during all that period has been amended only upon the lines laid down in the original instrument, and in conformity with the recorded opinions of the Fathers. The first great addition was the incorporation of a Bill of Rights, and the last the embedding into the Constitution of the immortal prin- ciple of the Declaration of Independence — of the equal- ity of all men before the law. No crisis has been too perilous for its powers, no evolution too rapid for its adaptation, and no expansion beyond its easy grasp and administration. It has assimilated diverse nationalities with warring traditions, customs, conditions, and lan- guages, imbued them with its spirit, and won their pas- sionate loyalty and love. The flower of the youth of the nations of Conti- nental Europe are conscripted from productive indus- tries and drilling in camps. Vast armies stand in battle array along the frontiers, and a Kaiser's whim or a Min- ister's mistake may precipitate the most destructive war of modern times. Both monarchical and republican governments are seeking safety in the repression and suppression of opposition and criticism. The volcanic forces of demo- cratic aspiration and socialistic revolt are rapidly in- creasing and threaten peace and security. We turn from these gathering storms to the British Isles and find their people in the throes of a political crisis in- volving the form and substance of their Government, CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 35 and their statesmen far from confident that the enfran- chised and unprepared masses will wisely use their power. But for us no army exhausts our resources nor con- sumes our youth. Our navy must needs increase in order that the protecting flag may follow the expanding commerce which is to successfully compete in all the markets of the world. The sun of our destiny is still rising, and its rays illumine vast territories as yet un- occupied and undeveloped, and which are to be the happy homes of millions of people. The questions which affect the powers of government and the expan- sion or limitation of the authority of the Federal Con- stitution are so completely settled, and so unanimously approved, that our political divisions produce only the healthy antagonism of parties which is necessary for the preservation of liberty. Our institutions furnish the full equipment of shield and spear for the battles of freedom ; and absolute protection against every dan- ger which threatens the welfare of the people will always be found in the intelligence which appreciates their value, and the courage and morality with which their powers are exercised. The spirit of Washington fills the executive office. Presidents may not rise to the full measure of his greatness, but they must not fall below his standard of public duty and obligation. His life and character, conscientiously studied and thoroughly understood by coming generations, will be for them a liberal education for private life and public station, for citizenship and patriotism, for love and de- votion to Union and liberty. With their inspiring past and splendid present, the people of these United States, 36 OKATIOA'S AXD SPEECHES OF heirs of a hundred years marvelously rich in all which adds to the glory and greatness of a nation, with an abiding trust in the stability and elasticity of their Constitution, and an abounding faith in themselves, hail the coming century with hope' and joy. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 37 T II. he Political Mission of the United States. Oration at the Celebration of the Birthday of Washington, by the Union League Club of Chicago, at Central Music Hall, Chicago, February 22, 1888. Mr. President and Gentlemen: The subject assigned to me falls more naturally into the domain of the philosophical theorist, or of the prac- tical politician, than of the active man of affairs. We are all men of business, and absorbed in its details, and neither our time nor our associations admit of prolonged speculations upon the possibilities of government. We are an industrial people, and the great question with us is, How do institutions best serve our needs? We are not so wholly materialistic that we cannot deeply feel the sentiments of liberty and nationality, and yet both form the broad foundation upon which we must build for permanence. No intelligent consideration of the question affecting our present and future is possible without an understanding of the successive stages in the development of our system. The political mission of the United States has so far been wrought out by individuals and territorial condi- tions. Four men of unequaled genius have dominated our century, and the growth of the West has revolu- 38 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF tionized the Republic. The principles which have here- tofore controlled the policy of the country have mainly owed their force and acceptance to Hamilton, Jefferson, Webster, and Lincoln. The two great creative contests of America were pure- ly defensive. They were neither the struggles of dynas- tic ambitions nor of democratic revenges. They were calm and determined efforts for good government, and closed without rancor or the husbanding of resources for retaliation. The Revolution was a war for the pres- ervation of well-defined constitutional liberties, but dependent upon them were the industrial freedom nec- essary for the development of the country, the promo- tion of manufactures, and independence of foreign pro- ducers. The first question which met the young confederacy, torn by the jealousies of its stronger and weaker colo- nies, was the necessity of a central power strong enough to deal with foreign nations and to protect commerce between the States. At this period Alexander Hamil- ton became the saviour of the Republic. If Shake- speare is the commanding originating genius of Eng- land, and Goethe of Germany, Hamilton must occupy that place among Americans. At seventeen he had formulated the principles of government by the people so clearly that no succeeding publicist has improved them. Before he was twenty-five he had made sugges- tions to the hopeless financiers of the Revolution which revived credit and carried through the war. With few precedents to guide him, he created a fiscal system for the United States which was so elastic and comprehen- sive that it still controls the vast operations of the treas- CHAUNCEY M. DEPEVV. 39 ury and the customs. Though but a few years at the bar after his retirement from public life, his briefs are embodied in Constitution and statutes, and to his mas- terly address the press owes its freedom. This superb intelligence, which was at once philosophic and prac- tical, and with unrivaled lucidity could instruct the dullest mind on the bearing of the action of the present on the destiny of the future, so impressed upon his con- temporaries the necessity of a central Government with large powers that the Constitution, now one hundred and one years old, was adopted, and the United States began their life as a nation. At this period, in every part of the world, the doc- trine that the Government is the source of power, and that the people have only such rights as the Govern- ment had given, was practically unquestioned, and the young Republic began its existence with the new and dynamic principle that the people are the sole source of authority, and that the Government has such powers as they grant to it, and no others. Doubt and debate are the safety-valves of freedom, and Thomas Jefferson created both. He feared the loss of popular rights in centralization, and believed that the reserved powers of the States were the only guaran- tee of the liberties of the people. He stands supreme in our history as a political leader, and left no succes- sor. He destroyed the party of Washington, Hamil- ton, and Adams, and built up an organization which was dominant in the country for half a century. The one question thus raised and overshadowing all others for a hundred years, half satisfied by compromises, half suppressed by threats, at times checking prosperity, at 4° ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF times paralyzing progress, at times producing panics, at times preventing the solution of fiscal and industrial problems vital to our expansion, was, Are we a Nation? For nearly fifty years the prevailing sentiment favored the idea that the federal compact was a contract be- tween sovereign States. Had the forces of disunion been ready for the arbitrament of arms, the results would have been fatal to the Union. That ablest ob- server of the American experiment, De Tocqueville, was so impressed by this that he based upon it an ab- solute prediction of the destruction of the Republic. But, at the critical period, when the popularity, cour- age, and audacity of General Jackson were almost the sole hope of nationality, Webster delivered in the Senate a speech unequaled in the annals of eloquence for its immediate effects and lasting results. The ap- peals of Demosthenes to the Athenian democracy, the denunciations of Cicero against the conspiracies of Catiline, the passionate outcry of Mirabeau pending the French Revolution, the warnings of Chatham in the British Parliament, the fervor of Patrick Henry for independence, were of temporary interest, and yielded feeble results, compared with the tremendous conse- quences of this mighty utterance. It broke the spell of supreme loyalty to the State and created an unquenchable and resistless patriotism for the United States. It appeared in the school- books^ and, by declaiming glowing extracts therefrom, the juvenile orators of that and succeeding generations won prizes at academic exhibitions and in mimic con- gresses. Children educated parents, and the pride of the fathers and the kindled imaginations of the sons CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 4 1 united them in a noble ideal of the great Republic. No subsequent patriotic oration met the requirements of any public occasion, great or small, which did not breathe the sentiment of "Liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable." As the coldest clod, when first inspired by the grand passion of his life, becomes a chivalric knight, so, when at last the Union was assailed by arms, love of country burst the bonds of materialism and sacrificed everything for the preservation of the nation's life. From the unassailable conviction of the power of the General Government to protect itself, to coerce a State, to enforce its laws everywhere, and to use all the resources of the people to put down rebel- lion, came not only patriotism, but public conscience. With conscience was the courage, so rare in commercial communities, which will peril business and apparent prosperity for an idea. This defeated the slave power, and is to-day the most potent factor in every reform. The field for the growth and development of this sentiment, and for its practical application without fear of consequences, was the great West. Virginia's gift to the Union of the Northwest Territory, which now constitutes five great States, and its prompt dedication to freedom, and Jefferson's purchase from the First Na- poleon of the vast area now known as Arkansas, Colo- rado, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Nebraska, Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and the Indian Territory, were the two acts of generosity and consummate statesmanship which definitely out- lined the destiny of the Republic and its political mis- sion. In the genesis of nations there is no parallel with the 42 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF growth of the West and its influence upon the world. The processes of its settlement reduce to comparative insignificance the romances and realities of the state- builders of the past. Movements of peoples which at other periods have been devastating migrations, or due to the delirium of speculations, are here the wise found- ing and sober development of prosperous communities. The fabled Argo, sailing for the Golden Fleece, neither bore nor found the wealth carried and discovered by the emigrants' wagons on the prairies. The origi- nal conditions surrounding our hardy and adventurous pioneers ; the riches in poverty, where hope inspired the efforts, and the self-denial to clear, or develop, or improve, or stock the farm, which was to be at once the family home and estate ; the church and the school- house growing simultaneously with the settlements ; citizenship of the great Republic, which could only come through the admission of the territory as a State into the grand confederacy of commonwealths, and only be lost by the dissolution of the Union ; citizenship, which meant not only political dignity and indepen- dence, but incalculable commercial and business advan- tages and opportunities — these were the elements which made the West, and these were the educators of the dominant power in the nation for the present and the future. Thus the West, the child of the Union, met the slave power with determined resistance, and its threats with a defiant assertion of the inherent powers of the Nation, and with the pledge of its young and heroic life for their enforcement. This double senti- ment found its oracle and representative in Abraham Lincoln. He consolidated the Northwest by declaring CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 43 that the Mississippi should flow unvexed to the sea. In the great debate with Douglas, his challenge rang through the whole land, a summons to battle. "A house divided against itself," he said, "cannot stand. I believe this Government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided." To enforce that expectation he called a million of men to arms, he eman- cipated four millions of slaves by Presidential procla- mation, and when the victory was won for liberty and unity, this most majestic figure of our time, clothed with the unlimited powers of a triumphant Govern- ment, stood between the passions of the strife, and com- manded peace and forgiveness. When he fell by the hand of the assassin the hundred years' struggle for national existence was ended. He throttled sectional- ism and buried it. The Republic for which half a mil- lion men had died and a million had been wounded was so firmly bedded in the hearts, the minds, and the blood of its people, that the question of dissolution will never more form part of the schemes of its politicians or re- quire the wisdom of its statesmen and the patriotism of its people. It is impossible to estimate the effect upon our ma- terial and moral development of the disappearance of the dread and deadly issue of dissolution and civil war from our politics. The Nation, emancipated from the thraldom of perpetual peril, advanced by leaps and bounds in its fiscal policy and industrial progress. Our substantial growth in every element of national strength since the war, has been greater than in all the years 44 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF that preceded it. But the very conditions of this tremendous development, and the mighty forces con- centrated and involved, present grave problems, which must be solved if we would be safe. Said De Tocque- ville, in 1834: "I cannot believe in the duration of a government whose task is to hold together forty differ- ent peoples, spread over a surface equal to the half of Europe, to avoid rivalries, ambitions, and struggles among them, and to unite the action of their indepen- dent wills for the accomplishment of the same plans. Unless I am greatly mistaken, the Federal Government of the United States tends to become daily weaker; it draws back from one kind of business after another; it more and more restricts the sphere of its action. Natu- rally feeble, it abandons even the appearance of force." With the admission of the territories already knock- ing at the door and fully qualified to become States, we will have reached De Tocqueville's fatal forty. But in the mean time the pendulum of our politics has swung back from the Jeffersonian to the Hamiltonian extreme. The Federal Government is everything, the States in a national sense nothing. The abolition of slavery, and with it sectional lines, and the Civil War, have done much to produce this; but commerce has done more. The application of steam and electricity to trade has made forty commonwealths one. It is not distance alone which creates the dangers of the disintegration of a government, but difficulty of intercommunication. Sixty millions of people covering a continent are in much closer communion to-day than were the four mil- lions along the Atlantic coast at the adoption of the Con- stitution. The President, whose authority De Tocque- CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 45 ville thought weak and gradually being reduced to a shadow, has acquired power beyond the dreams and fears of the fathers. The arbitrary arrests, the procla- mations of far-reaching import at which Mr. Lincoln did not hesitate, indicate what a President may do in time of war. A civil service four times as large as our stand- ing army, and subject to executive appointment and removal, and the frequent exercise of the veto power by President Cleveland, exhibit the extent of his pow- ers, even in peace. The United States has been fortunate in its Presi- dents. The poorest and weakest of them had patriot- ism and a sense of public duty which prevented the re- sort to desperate expedients for the retention of power. But as the country increases in population and in new communities, the functions of the Executive become more potent. The legislative and judicial branches re- main the same, but the President grows as a potential factor of Government. We are always at the mercy of the majority, but its intelligence has heretofore pro- tected us from its easily stated and possible peril. But with a hundred millions of people and a commensurate civil service; with the blind fury of intense political passions; with an able, audacious, and unscrupulous President, anxious for re-election, and sustained by his party in anything which secures it, the situation will be full of danger. The best of Presidents have lowered the standard of administration when seeking a second term. The pres- ent Executive is an officer highly esteemed for singular honesty and directness of purpose, and remarkable for inexperience in the duties of government and for ignor- 46 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF ance of the great issues before the country. With per- fect frankness and honest intention to carry out his pledges he defied the traditions of his party in his bold utterances for Civil Service Reform. He both under- stood what he was promising, and believed he had the courage and the power to make good his word. The best sentiment of the country is overwhelmingly be- hind him on this question. And yet, as the canvass of 1888 opens, the tremendous advantages of an auxiliary force of one hundred thousand faithful workers has relegated Roman virtue to the rear and brought the spoils system to the front. Methods have changed, and the borrowed nomenclature of Reform means the old practices, with the familiar result of the constant substitution of the partisan recruit for the veteran of- ficial. With the growth of the Republic, the known and implied powers of the President become of increasing value. As, with larger and more populous districts, Congress becomes more distant and vague, the people will need and demand an executive to whom appeal can be immediate, and whose responsibility is direct. He should, however, by constitutional prohibition, be made ineligible for a second term. As the peculiarities of his position on retirement from office prevent his partici- pation in the ordinary business avocations of the citi- zen, he should receive an adequate pension for life, and on the retired list, though still in the service, be subject to call for any public duty where his experience, char- acter, and ability would be of value. Thus his adminis- tration, free from temptation and the baser ambitions, would be impelled with resolute and unflinching en- CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 47 deavor to win the plaudits of the present and the admi- ration and gratitude of posterity. While no act or thought should tend to resurrect the baleful doctrine of State Sovereignty, we need to be educated in the direction of State Rights. The immen- sity of our nationality and its centralizing tendencies create a feeling of dependence upon Government which enfeebles the American character and is hostile to Ameri- can liberty. Home rule is the school and inspiration of manliness and independence. The town meeting brings power directly to the people, where it belongs, and clearly and sharply draws the line between public business and private business. The American travel- ing in Europe chafes under the restraints of administra- tion. The bayonet or the baton is always by his side. The Government carries his person and goods, trans- mits his message, appears as a proprietor in the mine and factory, and suffocates enterprise, development, and ambition. The demagogue and the agitator are already appealing to the sentiment for a strong government ; to make it so strong that it will both impoverish and enrich with its burdens and its bounties, and the citizen surendering his individuality will go for everything to the Government. This is the underlying principle of despotism, under whose operation there would have been no great Republic, and the West would have re- mained a wilderness. We are too great and too generous, and have too many and vast opportunities, to adopt the selfish motto of "America for Americans," — meaning to include only those who are now citizens and their descendants. But the needs of the present and the preparation for the 48 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF future require that all citizens shall be Americans Healthy patriotism can be sentimental, but it must be intelligent. Said the philosopher: "Let me write the songs of a people, and I care not who make their laws." That day has passed, never to return. Steam and elec- tricity have broken the spell. Revolutions can no longer be conjured, nor ancient rights defended, by mel- ody. The marching music of the columns of liberty must be, not the Marseillaise or the national anthem, but the high and harmonious teachings of the common school. There is an intellectual awakening in this land, and its stimulants affect the well-being and the safety of life, and property, and law. The trades-union is a debat- ing club; a session of the knights, a congress of labor; the Sabbath picnic is a school, not of divinity, but of theology. The questions discussed are vital in their proper solution to the State, Society, and the Church. The churches of all creeds, and men of every faith, are doing magnificent work in the conservation of the virtues and habits of liberty, but the Preacher has lost his political influence and the Priest much of the power he possessed in the more primitive period. The teachers of disintegration, destruction, and in- fidelity possess the activity of propagandists and the self-sacrificing spirit of martyrs. Their field is ignor- ance, their recruiting sergeant is distress. Only faith grounded in knowledge can meet these dangerous, ceaseless, and corrupting influences. In the midst of the perils, the sheet-anchor of the Ship of State is the common school. Before the era of great cities and crowded populations, when it was easy both to earn a CHAUlVCEY M. DEPEW. 49 living and to gain a competence, when the best in- fluences of every settlement reached every part of it, the State met every requirement in furnishing, free, a fair business education. But now by far the larger part of our people have no common ancestry in the Revolutionary war, and a generation has come to its majority which knows little of the Rebellion and its results. Colonists from Europe form communities, both in city and country, where they retain the language, customs, and traditions of the Fatherland, and live and die in the belief that the Government is their enemy. To meet there conditions, the State provides an education which does not educate, and the prison, and the poorhouse. Ignorance judges the invisible by the visible. Turn on the lights. Teach, first and last, Americanism. Let no youth leave the school without being thoroughly grounded in the history, the principles, and the incal- culable blessings of American liberty. Let the boys be the trained soldiers of constitutional freedom, the girls the intelligent mothers of freemen, and the sons of the anarchists will become the bulwarks of the law. American liberty must be protected against hostile invasion. We welcome the fugitives from oppression, civil or religious, who seek our asylum with the honest purpose of making it their homes. We have room and hospi- tality for emigrants who come to our shores to better their condition by the adoption of our citizenship, with all its duties and responsibilities. But we have no place for imported criminals, paupers, and pests. The revo- lutionist who wants to destroy the power of the ma- 5<> ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF jority with the same dynamite with which he failed to assassinate the Emperor or the Czar is a public enemy, and must be so treated. We are no longer in need of the surplus population of the Old World, and must carefully examine our guests. The priceless gift of citizenship should never be conferred until by years of probation the applicant has proved himself worthy, and then a rigid examination in open court should test his knowledge of its limitations as well as its privileges, and his cordial acceptance of both. It is monstrous that the time of our courts and the patience of our juries should be occupied and tried in the repeated prosecution of persistent disturbers of the peace who refuse to become citizens. On the first conviction by a jury they should be expelled from the country. This youngest of cities, destined to be one of the greatest on the earth, in deadly peril of fire and sack, with indomitable spirit and lofty courage saved civiliza- tion in American municipalities, and the nation by wise laws should prevent any possible recurrence of the danger. In government by majorities, the existence of the system depends upon the purity of the ballot. The minority must know that it is fairly beaten, to peacefully accept its defeat. A crisis more critical than the Civil War has twice threatened us, because there was doubt as to the honesty of the vote. In the first instance, it was averted by wise compromise; and in the second, the fears proved fallacious. But it is the highest duty to provide every safeguard against repeti- tions of such dangers. The whole power and machinery of the State must be used for the unbought and unin- timidated vote and the fair count. Submission to the CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 5 1 will of the majority has become universally the accep- ted faith of the people ; and, while that faith is un- shaken, no party will ever appeal to the only other alternative, arms. It is the duty of the General Government in all elec- tions for Congress or President to protect, at every cost, the voter and the ballot-box. It is the duty of every State to reduce to a minimum the opportunities for fraud upon the citizen or the improper influencing of his choice. It is a general and local scandal that the expenses of the candidate have grown beyond the means of the poor and honest man. No system can be right or safe under which the treasuries of the oppos- ing parties must be filled with sums so vast that they equal the great accumulations of prosperous corpora- tions. The ballot should be printed by the State and distributed at the public cost, under conditions which would enable the most ignorant voter to select his ticket without help, and deposit it with no one knowing its contents but himself. Then as the Republic grows in power and population, its safety and perpetuity will be assured by keeping pure the channels through which the ever-increasing millions of freemen with more ma- jestic and impressive force express their will. The political mission of the United States is purely internal. The wise policy and traditions of Washing- ton against entangling alliances with foreign nations have been happily strengthened by our geographical position. The moral effect of our experiment upon the destinies of peoples and governments has been greater than that of all other causes combined. In preserving in letter and spirit our liberties, in developing our re- 52 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF sources and adding to the wealth, prosperity, and power of the Republic, in the adoption of those measures which favor happiness and contentment within our borders, we are indirectly aiding the struggling masses, and fur- nishing the arguments for, and inspiring the hopes of, the patriots of every country of the world. It is vital to the success of our mission that all ques- tions be boldly met, fearlessly discussed, and promptly acted upon. The area of arable acres in the United States is 20 per cent, larger than that of China, which supports a population of nearly four hundred millions. As time is reckoned in the history of nations, in the near future there will be two hundred millions of people in this country. All of them will be dependent upon industrial conditions, and the larger part of them will be wage-earners. Our problem is not, How can they be controlled? For they are the majority, and the majority is the Government; but, How are they to be satisfied? Macaulay's prediction has been supported by the ablest political economists of the Old World. They claim that with the conditions of crowded popu- lations always on the brink of starvation, with hopeles? poverty and chronic distress such as prevail under Euro pean governments, the Republic will end in anarch} and anarchy in despotism. Whether there be much or little in these gloomy fore bodings, the least of them sternly impresses the lesson of maintaining and promoting, by every measure which experience has tested and wisdom can suggest, that policy which will keep wages above the line of mere subsistence, and in the general prosperity of diversified industries hold open the opportunities for every man CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 53 to rise. This issue is broadly national, and is of equal interest to the North and South, the East and West. Cheap transportation has obliterated the lines which formerly divided the planters and the manufacturers, and engendered and embittered the sectional controver- sies. The New South thrills with the movement of mighty industries which are developing her mines, util- izing her great forces and resources, and founding her cities; the flames of busy furnaces illumine her wasted fields, and near and quick markets awaken to hitherto unknown activities her dormant agriculture. The hum of the spindles and the inspiring music of machinery sound over the prairies and along the lakes as well as among New England hills and Pennsylvania mines. The theory of the wealth of nations has been dis- cussed by the ablest and most competent of philoso- phers and statesmen, from the time of Adam Smith, with the demonstrated result that principles of political economy are not of universal application, but must be modified by the conditions and necessities of different nations. At the zenith of prosperity, when confidence and credit were projecting enterprises which covered the continent, and were fraught with untold wealth and healthy expansion, or disaster and collapse upon a scale of equal magnitude and commensurate distress, President Cleveland has boldly and happily challenged the policy upon which all these investments were based. The President says to the combined forces of Capital and Labor, flushed with past successes and eager for the conquest of the world : "Halt ! you are on the wrong road." Business is built upon stability of statutes. 54 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OE Fluctations in the law must not be a factor in the cal- culations of commerce. It is fortunate for the future of the country that the President has taken a position so radical and defiant that discussion and decision are imperative. If the result is as I think it will and ought to be — the defeat of the President and of his party — he will take his place among the few eminent specialists and experimentalists who have died in demonstrating that the gun was not loaded. During a quarter of a century of passionate nation- ality, of free labor, of protected industries, the growth of the Republic has been without precedent or parallel in ancient or modern times. Its population has in- creased at the rate of a million a year, and a thousand millions per annum have been added to its accumulated wealth. It has paid five-sixths of the enormous losses of the Civil War; it has borne the burden of a gigantic debt ; it has spent with lavish hand, and yet has saved half as much as all the rest of the world. With sixty thousand millions of capital, and a developed capacity for creating a product worth over ten billions a year, its political mission is, as far as possible, to monopolize its home market in the materials it possesses or can manu- facture, to cross the seas, to enter all ports and explore new countries, and to compete with the most advanced nations in all the markets of the earth. Ninety-nine years ago, on the fourth day of July, 1789, George Washington signed the first tariff act passed by the young Republic. Political independence had been proclaimed by the immortal Declaration of 1776, but the country was still dependent upon Great Britain for every article of manufacture in metals or CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 55 fabrics. With more gloomy forebodings than those caused by the separation of the Empire was this news received in England. It was the emancipation of raw materials and the birth of manufactures in the United States, and without them the Republic had no "mani- fest destiny." At the close of an exhausting war, with an unpaid, half-clothed, and riotous army, a worthless currency, shattered credit, and an empty treasury, Alex- ander Hamilton, great in every department of mental activity, but the greatest of finance ministers, was called upon to provide the moneys for carrying on the Government, meeting its obligations, and restoring its credit. In a report whose arguments have never been answered or equaled, he gave, as a solution of the present problem and a future prosperity, protection to home industries as a continuous policy, and when neces- sary, bounties and premiums besides. The closing year of the century of Hamilton's idea finds thirteen States grown to thirty-eight, four millions of people increased to sixty, and nominal national wealth to sixty billions. A manufacturing plant not worth half a million of dollars has expanded until its annual product is six thousand millions, and the consumption per year by our own people of the output of our farms and our factories is not less than five times the consolidated capital of 1789. From an increasing indebtedness to foreign nations, which drained all our resources, the re- turning tide of the balance of trade is flowing in enrich- ing currents through every artery of our industrial life. Upon this golden monument, with a hundred millions of surplus in the national treasury, and proud and pros- perous populations all round, the culminating century 56 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF finds President Cleveland proclaiming with equal bold- ness, if less originality, the new departure. The celebration of the birthday of the Father of his Country recalls at this juncture the peculiar signifi- cance of the language of the law which received his first signature as President, and which had his heartiest ap- proval : "Whereas it is necessary for the support of the Government, for the discharge of the debts of the United States, and the encouragement and protection of manufactures, that duties be levied on goods, wares, and merchandise imported." Since that most fruitful legislation, whenever theory has overcome the plain teachings of practice, the penalty has been panics and distress. "The friend of the many against the profits of the few," is the seductive role which captivates the free trader, and its glittering allurements on a subject new to his thought and studies have led out to sea the strong common-sense of Mr. Cleveland. It is the basis of the policy upon which he has staked his own for- tunes and those of his party. "The tariff raises the price to consumers," he says, "of all articles imported and subject to duty by precisely the sum paid for such duties" ; and, as the consumers are enormously in ex- cess of the laborers upon purely protected articles, he rushes naturally and triumphantly to the conclusion that tariff laws are "the vicious, inequitable, and illogi- cal source of unnecessary taxation." In 1816, 1832, 1846, the weapons which the President found in 1888 won great victories, but like Samson's arms about the pillars of the Temple, the result in- volved all in common ruin. The mill closed, the fur- nace fires out, the farmer bankrupt, and the laborer a CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW, 57 tramp, are the lurid lessons of these well-meant experi- ments upon a delusive theory of the relations of the factory to the farm. The genius of our scheme of general government and the spirit of our people are hostile to direct taxation for national affairs. The federal tax-gatherer has always provoked friction and lawlessness, even under the neces- sities of war, and his presence at every door to levy and take three times the amount required by the state for home and local wants would peril both prosperity and loyalty. Two hundred and fifty millions of dollars flow into the national treasury annually, and under the cus- toms system of collection we are unconscious of our bur- dens. It is only the necessities of war which justify in- ternal revenue taxes, and only a concession to the moral sentiment of the country which permits the continu- ance of any part of them. No revenue laws are perfect or permanent, but in modifying them to meet the changing conditions of the country the principle of ample protection for everything which can be success- fully produced or manufactured on American soil must be maintained. The factory doubles the value of the adjoining farms for the farmers, whose tariff exactions are too small to be calculated. Beside the mill grows the village, and the resistless energies of American development burst the village bounds and build the Western city. To this new mart the railroad is constructed almost with the speed of its moving trains, and the quick and cheap communication between country and city furnishes new solvents for the safety in the prosperity of the country. Protected opportunity has developed our incalculable 55 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF natural resources and enabled us to manufacture in iron, glass, cotton, and wool as well as any nation in the world, and more cheaply, save only in wages. If the duty on importations is the bounty to labor which lifts it above the degrading and dangerous conditions of Europe, and enables our artisans to retain their self- respect and independence, it is the Republic's best investment. Celebrating here to-day the one hundred and fifty- sixth anniversary of Washington's birth, and recalling the influence of his victories in war, his counsels in con- vention, his acts as President of the Republic, and his matchless character, the visible results of the policy in- augurated by the first exercise of his executive approval are the most marvelous. The purely agricultural states which formed his confederacy have become the fore- most region of the world in the variety, the usefulness, and the volume of its manufactures, and the fertility of its inventive genius. Paying its labor fifty per cent, more than the rest of the world, it produces the food, the clothing, and the household effects which the laborer uses, cheaper than the older nations ; and the surplus of wages flowing into the savings-banks are finally invested in homes, and in the multitude of homesteads is the greatest safety of Society and the State. The United States is the granary, the workshop, the political hope of the world. It can largely feed, and in the interchanges of trade supply many other material wants of the peoples who are inspired by its successful liberty to strive for better government and nobler lives. Its vast network of railways, its lakes, rivers, and canals, carry a commerce of incalculable value, and its surplus CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 59 above our home consumption is to be the growing ele- ment of our national wealth. This grand product is freighted in foreign ships, and its carriers depend for their profit upon the enemies of the expansion of our commerce. I said to a representative of the new steam- ship line which is to make the link across the Pacific of the route from the East over the American Conti- nent and to Europe — a route whose possibilities tax the imagination — "Why, instead of connecting with the Canadian Pacific and running through Canada, do you not meet our transcontinental system, making Chicago your entrepot and distributing point for the West and New York for the East?" He answered: "Because we would lose our subsidy of three hundred thousand dol- lars a year from the British Government." In that answer lay the secret of the disappearance of the American flag from the ocean. In the recognition of the necessity for a commercial nation meeting for its citizens the aid given by foreign governments, which is beyond the power of private enterprise, is the potency and promise of American trade with the world and of the old-time supremacy of America on the seas. The new conquest will give to us the commerce of South America, and wealth beyond the dreams of Pizarro and the Spanish victors. It will follow the opening of the African continent ; it will share in the riches of India and the islands of the East ; our shipyards will be the centers of fruitful industries along our coasts, and our navy once more our boast, our protection, and our pride. Last summer Victoria, Queen of England and Em- press of India, celebrated with imposing ceremonial the Co ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF fiftieth anniversary of her reign. The world never wit- nessed a more glittering pageant, and no people in her- alding and accompanying the procession with loyal en- thusiasm and ringing acclaim ever viewed a half-century of retrospect with loftier pride. The Queen, as sove- reign and woman, commanded their devotion, respect, and love, but nowhere in that splendid procession ap- peared the witness for the triumphs of the people which will be remembered as the chief glory of her reign. Subject princes from India, whose ancestors had faced Alexander of Macedon, and tributary sovereigns from Asia and Africa and the Islands of the Sea exhibited the conquests of English arms and the world-circling supremacy of the British flag. Representatives of the reigning houses of the monarchies of Europe testified to her royal lineage and inherited rights, and the me- dieval pomp and chivalry brought the spirit of feudal- ism into vivid contrast with the glorious sunlight of the nineteenth century. At the same time, in Philadelphia, the United States was celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the life of its Constitution. The most ancient and venerable relic of the past in its procession was the Declaration of Independence, emblazoning every banner with the motto : "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"; and next in order of age and sanctity was the Consti- tution, the charter of our Government, commencing with the immortal axiom of representative liberty: "We, the people of the United States." In our ceremonial were CHAUNCEY M. DEPEVV. 6 1 the mammoth printing-presses, the locomotive, the steamship, the steam-engine, the telegraph, trained light- ning in its manifold forms of usefulness ; the inventions and their marvelous and beneficent powers, the arts in their development and perfection ; the schoolhouse and the university ; the hardy pioneer, the retreating savage, the wilderness, the settlement, the farms and rich har- vests, the village, the city with its magic growth and wondrous industries; and, pervading the pageant, the political ideal of man, panoplied with American liberty, and responsible and obedient only to God and the law. Westward the course of empire takes its way ; The first four acts already past, A fifth shall close the drama with the day ; Time's noblest offspring is the last. As the human race have moved along down the centuries, the vigorous and ambitious, the dissenters from blind obedience and the original thinkers, the colonists and state-builders, have broken camp with the morning, and followed the sun until the close of day. They have tarried for ages in fertile valleys and beside great streams ; they have been retarded by barriers of mountains and seas beyond their present resources to overcome ; but as the family grew into the tribe, the tribe into the nation, and equal authority into the des- potism of courts and creeds, those who possessed the indomitable and unconquerable spirit of freedom have seen the promise flashed from the clouds in the glorious rays of the sinking orb of day, and first with despair and courage, and then with courage and hope, and lastly with faith and prayer, they have marched Westward. In the purification and trials of wandering and settlement 62 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF they have left behind narrow and degrading laws, tradi- tions, customs, and castes, until now, as the Occident faces the Orient across the Pacific, and the globe is circled, at the last stop and in their permanent home the individual is the basis of government, and all men are equal before the law. The glorious example of the triumphant success of the people governing themselves fans the feeble spirit of the effete and exhausted Asiatic with the possibilities of the replanting of the Garden of Eden and of the restoration of the historic grandeur of the birthplace of mankind. It is putting behind every bayonet which is carried at the order of Bismarck or the Czar men who, in doing their own thinking, will one day decide for themselves the problems of peace and war. It will penetrate the breeding-places of Anarchy and Socialism, and cleanse and purify them. The scenes of the fifth act of the grand drama are changing, with the world as its stage, and all races and tongues the audience. And yet, as it culminates in power, and grandeur, and absorbing interest, the atten- tion remains riveted upon one majestic character. He stands the noblest leader who was ever intrusted with his country's life. His patience under provocation, his calmness in danger, and lofty courage when all others despaired, his prudent delays when the Continental Congress was imperative and the Staff almost insubordi- nate, and his quick and resistless blows when action was "possible, his magnanimity to his defamers and generosity to his foes, his ambition for his country and unselfish- ness for himself, his sole desire the freedom and inde- pendence of America, and his only wish to return after victory to private life and the peaceful pursuits and CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 63 pleasures of home, have all combined to make him, by the unanimous judgment of the world, the foremost figure in history. Not so abnormally developed in any direction as to be called a genius, yet he was the strong- est because the best balanced, the fullest rounded, the most even and most self-masterful of men — the incar- nation of common sense and moral purity, of action and repose. The Republic will live so long as it reveres the memory and emulates the virtues of George Washing- ton. 64 OR A T10NS AND SPEECHES OF o III. RATION AT THE UNVEILING OF THE BAR- THOLIN Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World New York Harbor, October 28, 1886. We dedicate this statue to the friendship of nations and the peace of the world. The spirit of liberty embraces all races in common brotherhood ; it voices in all languages the same needs and aspirations. The full power of its expansive and progressive influence cannot be reached until wars cease, armies are disbanded, and international disputes are settled by lawful tribunals and the principles of jus- tice. Then the people of every nation, secure from in- vasion and free from the burden and menace of great armaments, can calmly and dispassionately promote their own happiness and prosperity. The marvelous development and progress of this Republic is due to the fact that in rigidly adhering to the advice of Washington for absolute neutrality and non-interference in the politics and policies of other governments, we have avoided the necessity of depleting our industries to feed our armies, of taxing and impoverishing our re- sources to carry on war, and of limiting our liberties to concentrate power in our Government. Our great civil strife, with all its expenditure of blood and treasure, was a terrible sacrifice for freedom. The results are so CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 65 immeasurably great that by comparison the cost is insignificant. The development of liberty was impossi- ble while she was shackled to the slave. The divine thought which intrusted to the conquered the full measure of home rule, and accorded to them an equal share of imperial power, was the inspiration of God. With sublime trust it left to liberty the elevation of the freedman to political rights and the conversion of the rebel to patriotic citizenship. The rays from this torch illuminate a century of unbroken friendship between France and the United States. Peace and its opportunities for material prog- ress and the expansion of popular liberties send from here a fruitful and noble lesson to all the world. It will teach the people of all countries that in curbing the ambitions and dynastic purposes of princes and privi- leged classes, and in cultivating the brotherhood of man, lies the true road to their enfranchisement. The friendship of individuals, their unselfish devotion to each other, their willingness to die in each other's stead, are the most tender and touching of human records ; they are the inspiration of youth and the solace of age; but nothing human is so beautiful and sublime as two great peoples of alien race and language transmit- ting down the ages a love begotten in gratitude, and strengthening as they increase in power and assimilate in their institutions and liberties. The French alliance which enabled us to win our independence is the romance of history. It overcame improbabilities impossible in fiction, and its results sur- pass the dreams of imagination. The most despotic of kings, surrounded by the most exclusive of feudal aris- 66 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF tocracies, sending fleets and armies officered by the scions of the proudest of nobilities to fight for subjects in revolt and the liberties of the common people, is a paradox beyond the power of mere human energy to have wrought or solved. The march of this medieval chivalry across our States — respecting persons and property as soldiers never had before ; never taking an apple or touching a fence rail without permission and payment ; treating the ragged Continentals as if they were knights in armor and of noble ancestry ; captivat- ing our grandmothers by their courtesy and our grand- fathers by their courage — remains unequaled in the poetry of war. It is the most magnificent tribute in history to the volcanic force of ideas and the dynamitic power of truth, though the crust of the globe imprison them. In the same ignorance and fearlessness with which a savage plays about a powder magazine with a torch, the Bourbon King and his Court, buttressed by the consent of centuries and the unquestioned posses- sion of every power of the State, sought relief from cloying pleasures, and vigor for enervated minds, in per- mitting and encouraging the loftiest genius and the most impassioned eloquence of the time to discuss the rights and liberties of man. With the orator the themes were theories which fired only his imagination, and with a courtier they were pastimes or jests. Neither speakers nor listeners saw any application of these ennobling sentiments to the common mass and groveling herd, whose industries they squandered in riot and debauch, and whose bodies they hurled against battlement and battery to gratify ambition or caprice. But these reve- lations illuminated many an ingenious soul among the CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 67 young aristocracy, and with distorted rays penetrated the Cimmerian darkness which enveloped the people. They bore fruit in the heart and mind of one youth to whom America owes much and France everything — the Marquis de Lafayette. As the centuries roll by, and in the fullness of time the rays of Liberty's torch are the beacon lights of the world, the central niches in the earth's Pantheon of Freedom will be filled by the figures of Washington and Lafayette. The story of this young French noble's life is the history of the time which made possible this statue, and his spirit is the very soul of this celebration. He was the heir of one of the most ancient and noble families of France ; he had inherited a fortune which made him one of the richest men in his country ; and he had enlarged and strengthened his aristocratic posi- tion by marriage, at the early age of sixteen, with a daughter of the ducal house of Noailles. Before him were pleasure and promotion at court, and the most brilliant opportunities in the army, the state, and the diplomatic service. He was a young officer of nine- teen, stationed at Metz, when he met, at the table of his commander, the Duke of Gloucester, the brother of George the Third. The Duke brought news of an in- surrection which had broken out in the American colo- nies, and read, to the amazement of his hearers, the strange dogmas and fantastic theories which these "in- surgents," as he called them, had put forth in what they styled their Declaration of Independence. That docu- ment put in practice the theories which Jefferson had studied with the French philosophers. It fired at once the train which they had laid in the mind of this young 68 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF nobleman of France. Henceforth his life was dedicated to "Liberty Enlightening the World." The American Commissioners at Paris tried to dissuade this volunteer by telling him that their credit was gone, that they could not furnish him transportation, and by handing him the dispatches announcing the reverses which had befallen Washington, the retreat of his disheartened and broken army across New Jersey, the almost hope- less condition of their cause. But he replied in these memorable words : "Thus far you have seen my zeal only ; now it shall be something more. I will purchase and equip a vessel myself. It is while danger presses that I wish to join your fortunes." The King prohibits his sailing — he eludes the guards sent for his arrest ; his family interpose every obstacle, and only his heroic young wife shares his enthusiasm and seconds his reso- lution to give his life and fortune to liberty. When on the ocean battling with the captain who fears to take him to America, and pursued by British cruisers special- ly instructed for his capture, he writes to her this lov- ing and pathetic letter: "I hope for my sake you will become a good American. This is a sentiment proper for virtuous hearts. Intimately allied to the happiness of the whole human family is that of America, destined to become the respectable and sure asylum of virtue, honesty, toleration, equality, and of tranquil liberty."^ Except the Mayflower, no ship ever sailed across the ocean from the Old World to the New carrying passen- gers of such moment to the future of mankind. It is idle now to speculate whether our fathers could have succeeded without the French alliance. The strug- gle would undoubtedly have been infinitely prolonged CHAUNCEY M. BE PEW. 69 and probably compromised. But the alliance assured our triumph, and Lafayette secured the alliance. The fabled argosies of ancient and the armadas and fleets of modern times were commonplace voyages compared with the mission enshrined in this inspired boy. He stood before the Continental Congress and said ; "I wish to serve you as a volunteer and without pay," and at twenty took his place with Gates and Green and Lin- coln as a Major-General in the Continental Army. As a member of Washington's military family, sharing with that incomparable man his board and bed and blanket, Lafayette won his first and greatest distinction in re- ceiving from the American chief a friendship which was closer than that bestowed upon any other of his compatriots, and which ended only in death. The great commander saw in the reckless daring with which he carried his wound to rally the flying troops at Brandy- wine, the steady nerve with which he held the column wavering under a faithless general at Monmouth, the wisdom and caution with which he maneuvered inferior forces in the face of the enemy, his willingness to share every privation of the ill-clad and starving soldiery, and to pledge his fortune and credit to relieve their pri- vations, a commander upon whom he could rely, a pa- triot whom he could trust, a man whom he could love. The surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga was the first decisive event of the war. It defeated the British plan to divide the country by a chain of forts up the Hud- son and conquer it in detail ; it inspired hope at home and confidence abroad ; it seconded the passionate appeals of Lafayette and the marvelous diplomacy of Benjamin Franklin ; it overcame the prudent counsels 70 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF of Necker, warning the King against this experiment, and won the treaty of alliance between the old Monar- chy and the young Republic. Lafayette now saw that his mission was in France. He said, "I can help the cause more at home than here," and asked for leave of absence. Congress voted him a sword, and presented it with a resolution of gratitude, and he returned bear- ing this letter from that convention of patriots to his King: "We recommend this young nobleman to your Majesty's notice as one whom we know to be wise in council, gallant in the field, and patient under the hard- ships of war." It was a certificate which Marlborough might have coveted, and Gustavus might have worn as the proudest of his decorations. But though King and Court vied with each other in doing him honor; though he was welcomed as no Frenchman had ever been by triumphal processions in cities and fetes in villages, by addresses and popular applause, he reckoned them of value only in the power they gave him to procure aid for Liberty's fight in America. "France is now com- mitted to war," he argued, "and her enemy's weak point for attack is in America. Send there your money and men." And he returned with the army of Rocham- beau and the fleet of De Grasse. "It is fortunate," said De Maurepas, the Prime Min- ister, "that Lafayette did not want to strip Versailles of its furniture for his dear Americans, for nobody could withstand his ardor." None too soon did this assistance arrive, for Washington's letter to the Ameri- can Commissioners in Paris passed it on the way, in which he made this urgent appeal: "If France delays a timely and powerful aid in the critical posture of our CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 71 affairs, it will avail us nothing should she attempt it hereafter. We are at this hour suspended in the bal- ance. In a word, we are at the end of our tether, and now or never deliverance must come." General Wash- ington saw in the allied forces now at his disposal that the triumph of independence was assured. The long dark night of doubt and despair was illuminated by the dawn of hope. The material was at hand to carry out the comprehensive plans so long matured, so long de- ferred, so patiently kept. The majestic dignity which had never bent to adversity, that lofty and awe-inspir- ing reserve which presented an impenetrable barrier to familiarity, either in council or at the festive board, so dissolved in the welcome of these decisive visitors that the delighted French and the astounded American soldiers saw Washington for the first and only time in his life express his happiness with all the joyous effer- vescence of hilarious youth. The flower of the young aristocracy of France, in their brilliant uniforms, and the farmers and frontiers- men of America, in their faded continentals, bound by a common baptism of blood, became brothers in the knighthood of Liberty. With emulous eagerness to be first in at the death, while they shared the glory, they stormed the redoubts at Yorktown, and compelled the surrender of Cornwallis and his army. While this prac- tically ended the war, it strengthened the alliance and cemented the friendship between the two great peoples. The mutual confidence and chivalric courtesy which characterized their relations has no like example in international comity. When an officer from General Carleton, the British Commander-in-Chief, came to head- 72 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF quarters with an offer of peace and independence, if the Americans would renounce the French alliance, Washington refused to receive him ; Congress spurned Carleton's Secretary bearing a like message ; and the states, led by Maryland, denounced all who entertained propositions of peace which were not approved by France, as public enemies. And peace with indepen- dence meant prosperity and happiness to a people in the very depths of poverty and despair. France, on the other hand, though sorely pressed for money, said in the romantic spirit which permeated this wonderful union : "Of the twenty-seven millions of livres we have loaned you, we forgive you nine millions as a gift of friendship, and when with years there comes prosperity you can pay the balance without interest." With the fall of Yorktown Lafayette felt that he could do more for peace and independence in the diplo- macy of Europe than in the war in America. His ar- rival in France shook the Continent. Though one of the most practical and self-poised of men, his romantic career in the New World had captivated courts and peoples. In the formidable league which he had quick- ly formed with Spain and France, England saw humili- ation and defeat, and made a treaty of peace by which she recognized the independence of the Republic of the United States. In this treaty were laid the deep, broad, and inde- structible foundations for the great statue we this day dedicate. It left to the American people the working out of a problem of self-government. Without king to rule, or class to follow, they were to try the experi- ment of building a nation upon the sovereignty of the CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 73 individual and the equality of all men before the law. Their only guide, and trust, and hope were God and Liberty. In the fraternal greetings of this hour sixty millions of witnesses bear testimony to their wisdom, and the foremost and freest Government in the world is their monument. The fight for liberty in America was won. Its fu- ture here was threatened with but one danger — the slavery of the negro. The soul of Lafayette, purified by battle and suffering, saw the inconsistency and the peril, and he returned to this country to plead with State legislatures and with Congress for the liberation of what he termed "my brethren, the blacks." But now the hundred years' war for liberty in France was to begin. America was its inspiration, Lafayette its apostle, and the returning French army its emissaries. Beneath the trees by day, and in the halls at night, at Mt. Vernon, Lafayette gathered from Washington the Gospel of Freedom. It was to sustain and guide him in after- years against the temptations of power and the despair of the dungeon. He carried the lessons and the grand example through all the trials and tribulations of his desperate struggle and partial victory for the enfran- chisement of his country. From the ship, on depart- ing, he wrote to his great chief, whom he was never to see again, this touching good-by : "You are the most beloved of all the friends I ever had or shall have any- where. I regret that I cannot have the inexpressible pleasure of embracing you in my own house and wel- coming you in a family where your name is adored. Everything that admiration, respect, gratitude, friend 74 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF ship, and filial love can inspire is combined in my affectionate heart to devote me most tenderly to you. In your friendship I find a delight which no words can express." His farewell to Congress was a trumpet-blast which resounded round a world then bound in the chains of despotism and caste. Every government on the Continent was an absolute monarchy, and no language can describe the poverty and wretchedness of the people. Taxes levied without law exhausted their property; they were arrested without warrant and rotted in the Bastile without trial, and they were shot at as game, and tortured without redress, at the caprice or pleasure of their feudal lords. Into court and camp this mes- sage came like the handwriting on the wall at Belshaz- zar's feast. Hear his words: "May this immense tem- ple of freedom ever stand a lesson to oppressors, an example to the oppressed, a sanctuary for the rights of mankind; and may these happy United States attain that complete splendor and prosperity which will illus- trate the blessings of their government, and for ages to come rejoice the departed souls of its founders." Well might Louis the Sixteenth, more far-sighted than his ministers, exclaim : "After fourteen hundred years of power the old Monarchy is doomed." While the principles of the American Revolution were fermenting in France, Lafayette, the hero and favorite of the hour, was an honored guest at royal tables and royal camps. The proud Spaniard and the Great Frederic of Germany alike welcomed him, and every- where he announced his faith in government founded on the American idea. The financial crisis in the affairs of King Louis on the one hand, and the rising tide of popu- tHAUNCEY At. DEPEVV. 75 lar passion on the other, compelled the summons of the Assembly of Notables at Versailles. All the great offi- cers of state, the aristocracy, the titled clergy, the royal princes were there, but no representative of the people. Lafayette spoke for them, and, fearless of the effort of the brother of the King to put him down, he demanded religious toleration, equal taxes, just and equal adminis- tration of the laws, and the reduction of royal expendi- tures to fixed and reasonable limits. This overturned the whole feudal fabric which had been in course of con- struction for a thousand years. To make effectual and permanent this tremendous stride toward the American experiment, he paralyzed the Court and Cabinet by the call for a National Assembly of the people. Through that Assembly he carried a Declaration of Rights, founded upon the natural liberties of man — a concession of popular privilege never before secured in the modern history of Europe ; and going as far as he believed the times would admit toward his idea of an American Re- public, he builded upon the ruins of absolutism a con- stitutional monarchy. But French democracy had not been trained and educated in the schools of the Puritan or the Colonist. Ages of tyranny, of suppression, repression, and tor- ture had developed the tiger and dwarfed the man. Democracy had not learned the first rudiments of lib- erty—self-restraint, and self-government. It beheaded King and Queen, it drenched the land with the blood of the noblest and best ; in its indiscriminate frenzy and madness it spared neither age nor sex, virtue nor merit, and drove its benefactor, because he denounced its ex- cesses and tried to stem them, into exile and the dun- 7 6 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF geon of Olmutz. Thus ended in the horrors of French Revolution Lafayette's first fight for liberty at home. After five years of untold sufferings, spurning release at the price of his allegiance to monarchy, holding with sublime faith, amidst the most disheartening and dis- couraging surroundings, to the principles of freedom for all, he was released by the sword of Napoleon Bona- parte, to find that the untamed ferocity of the Revo- lution had been trained to the service of the most bril- liant, captivating, and resistless of military despotisms by the mighty genius of the great Dictator. He only was neither dazzled nor dismayed, and when he had re- jected every offer of recognition and honor, Napoleon said : "Lafayette alone in France holds fast to his origi- nal ideas of liberty. Though tranquil now, he will reappear if occasion offers." Against the First Consul- ate of Bonaparte he voted, "No, unless with guarantees of freedom." When Europe lay helpless at the feet of the conqueror, and in the frenzy of military glory France neither saw nor felt the chains he was forging upon her, Lafayette from his retirement of Lagrange pleaded with the Emperor for republican principles, holding up to him the retributions always meted out to tyrants, and the pure undying fame of the immortal few who patriotically decide, when upon them alone rests the awful verdict whether they shall be the enslavers or the saviors of their country. The sun of Austerlitz set in blood at Waterloo; the swords of the allied Kings placed the Bourbon once more on the throne of France. In the popular tempest of July, the nation rose against the intolerable tyranny of the King, and, calling upon this unfaltering friend of CttAUrtCEY M. DEPEW. 77 liberty, said with one voice : "You alone can save France from despotism, on the one hand, and the orgies of the Jacobin mob, on the other; take absolute power; be marshal, general, dictator, if you will." But, in assum- ing command of the National Guard, the old soldier and patriot answered, amidst the hail of shot and shell : "Liberty shall triumph, or we all perish together." He dethroned and drove out Charles the Tenth, and France, contented with any destiny he might accord to her, with unquestioning faith left her future in his hands. He knew that the French people were not yet ready to take and faithfully keep American liberty. He believed that in the school of constitutional govern- ment they would rapidly learn, and in the fullness of time adopt, its principles; and he gave them a king who was the popular choice, and surrounded him with the restraints of charter and an Assembly of the people. And now this friend of mankind, expressing with his last breath a fervent prayer that his beloved France might speedily enjoy the liberty and equality and the republican institutions of his adored America, entered peacefully into rest. United in a common sorrow and a common sentiment, the people of France and the peo- ple of the United States watered his grave with their tears and wafted his soul to God with their gratitude. To-day, in the gift by the one, and the acceptance by the other, of this colossal statue, the people of the two countries celebrate their unity in republican institutions, in governments founded upon the American idea, and in their devotion to liberty. Together they rejoice that its spirit has penetrated all lands and is the hopeful future of all peoples. American liberty has been for 78 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF a century a beacon light for the nations. Under its teachings, and by the force of its example, the Italians have expelled their petty and arbitrary princelings and united under a parliamentary government ; the gloomy despotism of Spain has been dispelled by the repre- sentatives of the people and a free press; the great German race have demonstrated their power for empire and their ability to govern themselves. The Austrian monarch, who, when a hundred years ago Washington pleaded with him across the seas for the release of La- fayette from the dungeon of Olmutz, replied that "he had not the power," because the safety of his throne and his pledges to his royal brethren of Europe com- pelled him to keep confined the one man who repre- sented the enfranchisement of the people of every race and country, is to-day, in the person of his successor, rejoicing with his subjects in the limitations of a Con- stitution which guarantees liberties, and a Congress which protects and enlarges them. Magna Charta, won at Runnymede for Englishmen, and developing into the principles of the Declaration of Independence with their descendants, has returned to the mother country to bear fruit in an open Parliament, a free press, the loss of royal prerogative, and the passage of power from the classes to the masses. The sentiment is sublime which moves the people of France and America, the blood of whose fathers, com- mingling upon the battle-fields of the Revolution, made possible this magnificent march of liberty and their own republics, to commemorate the results of the past and typify the hopes of the future in this noble work of art. The descendants of Lafayette, Rochambeau, and CttAUNCEY M. DEPEW. *}$ De Grasse, who fought for us in our first struggle, and Laboulaye, Henri Martin, De Lesseps, and other grand and brilliant men, whose eloquent voices and powerful sympathies were with us in our last, conceived the idea, and it has received majestic form and expression through the genius of Bartholdi. In all ages the achievements of man and his aspira- tions have been represented in symbols. Races have disappeared and no record remains of their rise or fall, but by their monuments we know their history. The huge monoliths of the Assyrians and the obelisks of the Egyptians tell their stories of forgotten civiliza- tions, but the sole purpose of their erection was to glorify rulers and preserve the boasts of conquerors. They teach sad lessons of the vanity of ambition, the cruelty of arbitrary power, and the miseries of mankind. The Olympian Jupiter enthroned in the Parthenon ex- pressed in ivory and gold the awful majesty of the Greek idea of the King of the Gods; the bronze statue of Minerva on the Acropolis offered the protection of the patron Goddess of Athens to the mariners who steered their ships by her helmet and spear; and in the Colossus of Rhodes, famed as one of the Wonders of the World, the Lord of the Sun welcomed the commerce of the East to the city of his worship. But they were all dwarfs in size and pigmies in spirit beside this mighty structure and its inspiring thought. Higher than the monument in Trafalgar Square, which com- memorates the victories of Nelson on the sea; higher than the Column Vendome, which perpetuates the triumphs of Napoleon on the land ; higher than the towers of the Brooklyn Bridge, which exhibit the latest So ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF and grandest results of science, invention, and indus- trial progress, this Statue of Liberty rises toward the heavens to illustrate an idea which nerved the three hundred at Thermopylae and armed the ten thousand at Marathon ; which drove Tarquin from Rome, and aimed the arrow of Tell ; which charged with Crom- well and his Ironsides, and accompanied Sidney to the block ; which fired the farmer's gun at Lexington, and razed the Bastile in Paris ; which inspired the charter in the cabin of the Mayflower, and the Declaration of Independence from the Continental Congress. It means that with the abolition of privileges to the few, and the enfranchisement of the individual ; the equality of all men before the law, and universal suf- frage ; the ballot secure from fraud, and the voter from intimidation; the press free, and education furnished by the State for all ; liberty of worship, and free speech ; the right to rise, and equal opportunity for honor and fortune ; the problems of labor and capital, of social re- generation and moral growth, of property and poverty, will work themselves out under the benign influences of enlightened law-making and law-abiding liberty, with- out the aid of kings and armies, or of anarchists and bombs. Through the Obelisk, so strangely recalling to us of yesterday the past of twenty centuries, a forgotten monarch says: "I am the great King, the Conqueror, the Chastiser of Nations," and except as a monument of antiquity it conveys no meaning and touches no chord of human sympathy. But, for unnumbered centu- ries to come, as Liberty levels up the people to higher standards and a broader life, this statue will grow CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 8 1 in the admiration and affections of mankind. When Franklin drew the lightning from the clouds, he little dreamed that in the evolution of science his discovery would illuminate the torch of Liberty for France and America. The rays from this beacon, lighting this gateway to the continent, will welcome the poor and the persecuted with the hope and promise of homes and citizenship. It will teach them that there is room and brotherhood for all who will support our institu- tions and aid in our development ; but that those who come to disturb our peace and dethrone our laws are aliens and enemies forever. I devoutly believe that from the Unseen and the Unknown, two great souls have come to participate in this celebration. The faith in which they died fulfilled, the cause for which they battled triumphant, the people they loved in the full enjoyment of the rights for which they labored and fought and suffered, the spirit voices of Washing- ton and Lafayette join in the glad acclaim of France and the United States to Liberty Enlightening the World &2 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OP s IV. PEECH AT THE ONE HUNDRED AND NINETEENTH Annual Banquet of the Chamber of Com- merce of the State of New York, November 15, 1887. Mr. President and Gentlemen: Your Chairman has illustrated the truthful character of Trade by the statement which he has made in regard to me. He stated, in his opening address, that there were represented in the Chamber all the factors of our political body politic — the Republican, at his best; the Democrat, as he could ; and the Mugwump, by the cream ; but he forgot that neither on the dais nor the floor we find a Prohibitionist. I feel the embarrassment of standing here, represent- ing the United States, in the presence of these Mem- bers of Parliament from Great Britain, who quarrel on the other side to a point which requires the military, almost, to keep them apart, and masquerade here as the Evangels of Peace ; and yet I have been told that between the wily Englishman and the canny Scot there has been a conspiracy concocted which is to settle, in spite of us, the great Fishery Question — that this peace delegation, marching under the banner of Home Rule, in which most of us agree with them, is to commit us absolutely and beyond recall, to "peace at any price" ; CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 83 and then the Fisheries Commissioner, our distinguished guest, Mr. Chamberlain, is to fix the price. I am only afraid that he, with these Scotch members, may get the best of us in this controversy, because it is the pecul- iarity of the Scotchman that he keeps the Sabbath day and everything else that he can lay his hands on. The question given me is rather large for an evening crowded with many themes and great orators. It re- calls an incident of college days when the sententious Professor of Rhetoric said to me : "Sir, your time is three minutes; your subject, 'The Immortality of the Soul' !" But it has always been the habit of the Chamber of Commerce to deal broadly and familiarly with important matters. It has never been local or sectional in its interests or opinions. It has expressed itself with power and vigor upon every question which, during the one hundred and twenty years of its exist- ence, has influenced the integrity, the credit, or the prosperity of the country. It has always appreciated the grand fact that all roads run to New York, and the real destination of every vessel, no matter at what port of our seacoast or our lakes she may land, is this harbor. We have had our annual lessons in the election, the clamor of which is still ringing in our ears, and the results are suggestive. They leave the political prophet doubtful of his predictions, and increase the problem for the probable candidates. The members of Parlia- ment who are visiting us, on reading our papers in the heat of the controversy, thought our campaign litera- ture was compiled from the Scriptures and our partisan vocabulary furnished by the Testament, while they had 84 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF additional proof of the slander of the assertions of our rival that this is the most godless city on the continent when they found that the issue fought and won was the virtue of a "simple Christian life." In the larger conflict which covered the State, all parties may im- prove an invaluable axiom, that it is the highest polit- ical wisdom not to fool with dangerous heresies which affect the stability of property and business, but to expose their fallacies and denounce their results. We meet not only amidst the echoes of a recent elec- tion, but just at the close of the most solemn tragedy of the year, and one of the most eventful in our his- tory. Chicago, one of the youngest of our great cities, was solving a problem of vaster moment to the future of government by the people and for the people than has fallen to the lot of any municipality in a century. The principles involved became of national and inter- national importance. The fate of anarchy in America interested princes and peasants, statesmen and publi- cists of the Old World, and the fate of the anarchists adjudged guilty of murder aroused the sympathy of sentimentalists, the terrors of the timid, and the em- phatic voice of public opinion in the New. Repugnant to our feelings and our humanity as was the execution, it demonstrated that the velvet glove of Liberty in- cased the iron hand of the Law. Under European governments the enemy of society feels the grip of the secret police ever on his shoulder, and behind the ranks of the constabulary are the bayonets of the soldiers. The resistless forces of the standing armies garrison every town and are bivouacked in every center of population. Such remedies and safeguards are against CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. S5 the spirit of our institutions, and our only reliance for order, property, and life is upon the vigilant enforce- ment of the principle that there is no liberty without law. If an uncontrollable propensity for riot, rapine, and murder, fearing the consequences of its acts under despotic or monarchical governments, hopes here for toleration of its teachings, immunity for its acts, and the ultimate triumph of its efforts, the time has come for the lesson to be sternly taught, that the guardians of the law the world over are not so dangerous as a free people when aroused to a full sense of public and private danger. The uprising which followed the guns of Sumter, and the graves of the five hundred thous- and heroes who fell fighting for the flag, expressed the value placed by Americans upon their institutions, their Constitution, and their liberty. There have arrived upon our shores in the last ten years a million more people than inhabited the country at the time of the formation of the Government. While we can still welcome those who will add to our strength and assist in the development of our resources, we should most rigidly inquire who these emigrants are and for what purpose they come. We quarantine cholera, yel- low fever, and small-pox, and we ought to have a national department of political health, empowered to search for paupers, lepers, and criminals, and by summary procedure, to seize the open and blatant enemies of our Government who are not citizens, and send them home. As things are now, if a cause for quarrel should arise with Russia or Austria or any other power, they need not declare war, but by flooding our cities with the propaganda of treason and revolution, they can parai- 86 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF yze our business and destroy our peace, without trouble or expense to themselves. Happily we can turn easily from these gloomy fore- bodings to a splendid present and brilliant future. All our ills are only the spots upon the sun, which neither obscure nor impair the glorious light of the orb of day. Never in our history were we in such prosperous con- dition, and our credit on so stable a basis. A sound currency is the first necessity of a commercial people, and ours is beyond question or dispute. The panic of 1873 was one of the most disastrous in the series of such calamities, and its depression continued for years; but it was the culmination of the losses of the Civil War, of wild speculation, of false finance, and inflation. With seven hundred and forty millions of paper money, we held for its redemption only one hundred and thirty- five millions of coin. Bankruptcy and ruin were the inevitable results. But to-day against eight hundred and twenty-five millions of paper, we have nine hundred millions of silver and gold. The promise is wedded to the pledge, and general prosperity is the product. For nine years past the balance of trade in favor of the United States has mounted up to the magnificent fig- ure of thirteen hundred millions. This golden current, of an average of one hundred and thirty millions a year, draining Europe and pouring into America, has not flown into the treasuries of corporations, or capitalists, or monopolies. It has reached every farmer, helped every manufactory, mill, and furnace, given employ- ment and wages to artisans and laborers, and been of incalculable service to our merchants. This magnificent profit, sufficient almost to pay our national debt, is al- CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 87 ready producing unparalleled industrial results by its active employment and reinvestment. Never before in the history of the world has the average of wages been so high, and the purchasing power of money so great, as in the United States to-day. These are the two conditions which make a free country the paradise of honest labor. There is no civilized country where so many workingmen own their homes. The solvent of national prosperity and happiness is not the confis- cation of land upon crazy theories of its common use, but the widest distribution of its ownership. The man who holds in fee his house and lot, and within the walls of his cottage, however humble it may be, gathers his family, forms the tender fireside associations, and be- gins to feel the independence of his position — becomes at once a defender of the law and a determined foe of anarchy. The broadest philanthropy, the most benefi- cent and best-paying selfishness in the use of capital, is to make cheap and easy the purchase of homesteads. Providence has given to us the raw material for limit- less manufactures, and fertile fields from which to draw sustenance for untold millions of people. While I have fixed views as to the policy which will continue the harmonious development of agriculture and fac- tories, and solve labor problems by general prosperity, I will not disturb the peace of this meeting, of diverse opinions, by their discussion. I was glad that the Sec- retary of the Interior threw down the challenge to- night, in that vague, but perfectly understood, senti- ment of his, for free trade. I sincerely hope that he will persuade the great party, of which he is an orna- ment and a leader, to make it the front plank in its 88 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF platform in the coming presidential election. I promise him, that the party to which I belong will state the opposite in equally emphatic terms. And then I hope, and have no doubt that he hopes, that we shall have one Presidential contest fought out in this country, where mud and dirt and slander and personal detrac- tion and the personality of the candidate shall disap- pear, and what principle is to govern the prosperity of the American people shall be decided directly by the American people themselves. But there are some matters of the first importance upon which, among merchants and business men, there can be no dispute. England belts the world with her flag; the adventures of her explorers are the knight-errantry of this century, and her navies patrol the seas, her armies brave deadly climates, and her agents visit savage tribes to find new markets for her manufactures. Bismarck has built a wall of protection about Germany mountains high to improve prices for the German farmers and wages for German workmen, while all the resources of the Empire are bent upon extending the area of territory in every quarter of the earth which can absorb the German product. We Americans, with the results demonstrat- ing unequaled genius for internal development, seem to have lost our faculty for the sea. A chance in the markets of the world for our increasing surplus of pro- duction is one of the safety valves for the energies and the needs of a growing population. We build one hundred and forty thousand miles of railroad at a capi- talization of eight billions of dollars to bring the output of our farms, our mills, and our mines to the seacoast, and then sit on our treasures and gaze upon the ocean CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 89 with something of the helpless wonder of the simple aborigines who first roamed these States. The political sagacity of the hour finds no means for preventing a surplus in the Treasury, which threatens the credit and stability of business and the demoralization of the Gov- ernment, and seeks to diminish it by appropriating millions for dredging creeks which can be only utilized for eel-pots and terrapin-farms, when proper mail sub- sidies might build a merchant marine which would carry our flag once more over all the waters of the world, furnish a ready-made navy in time of war, and start vast shipyards upon the Delaware and arms of the sea, north and south. One thousand and five hundred millions of dollars is the value of the commerce of the United States, and all of it is carried under alien flags. The English, the German, and the French kindly carry our persons and our freight and skim the cream of our trade. One year ago a distinguished governor of an interior State, standing in this hall, said to us: "You merchants along the coast scare too easy. This country wants no navy. If a hostile fleet of ironclads should anchor in your harbor and bombard your city, three millions of men would march from the Lakes to your rescue." My dear Governor, we are all members of one body. The failure of the West would destroy the East, the de- struction of the cities and credits of the East would ruin the West. The United States is a great Repub- lic; its diverse climatic conditions, industrial develop- ment, and needs, blend harmoniously to form a mighty nation, which must be able to protect itself in every part, and trade in every quarter of the world. We 90 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF have no time to listen to the pessimist or the croaker. The vital problems of Capital and Labor are solving themselves in the full and remunerative employment of the one and opportunity and good wages for the other. The genius of our liberty is an equal chance for every man to rise and enrich himself, and in the pro- tection of the individual in his struggle to earn, and in the possession of what he accumulates. CHAUMCEY M. DEPEW. 91 s V. peech at a Dinner Given to the Hon. Justin McCarthy, M.P., at the Hoffman House, New York, October 2, 1886, by the Irish Parlia- mentary Fund Association. Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: The first of my ancestors reached this country about two hundred and fifty years ago; many of them came afterwards; and the result is that I am able successful- ly to stand in the presence of every nationality as one of kindred blood. But none of the national organiza- tions to which I am related, so far as I know, have spent the day in creating a resolution and alleging that it passed four years ago, relating to Home Rule in Ire- land. It was only a Welshman who was equal to such a stretch of the imagination. One of my ancestors left Ireland a hundred and twenty-five years ago — and I left it three weeks ago. He never returned ; but I expect to take my seat in the stranger's gallery of the Irish Parliament, unless I should be elected as a member from County Cork. It affords me an unusual pleasure to begin the festive exercises of the winter by joining in a welcome to our distinguished guest of to-night. With his versatility, his marvelous capacity to move in many ways — and all 02 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OP acceptable to his friends and to himself — he seems to me to be, more than any other man on the other side, peculiarly an American. He has impressed himself upon the American people as a literary man, by pos- sessing that facility which secures from them a read- ing. In his romances he seems to be reciting history, and his histories are romances. But we welcome him here to-night, not because he has touched that chord which is responded to by every cultivated American — and every American is cultivated — but because he represents a principle in which every American agrees with him. In England, during the recent canvass and election, a Tory Member of Parliament said to me: "Does anybody in America take any inter- est in the question which Mr. Gladstone has precipi- tated upon us, except the Irish?" I said to him: "There are no cross-roads in the United States where the question is not watched with the same eagerness with which in a Presidential canvass candidates and questions are talked about. There are no cross-roads in America where the Irish question is not to-night. There are no cross-roads, hamlets, villages, or cities in this country where a silent vote is not being cast day by day ; and the only difference between an ordinary Presidential election with us and this election is that our voices and our votes are unanimously on one side." "Well," he said, "that is because you are not informed." I said to him: "It is because we are edu- cated on that question, and England proper is not." The principle of Home Rule starts from the town meet- ing, starts from the village caucus, starts from the ward gathering, reaches the county board of supervisors, CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 93 stops at the State legislature, and delegates imperial power only to Congress. The whole genius and spirit of American liberty is Home Rule in the locality where it best understands what it needs, and that only in gener- al matters shall the central Government control. With all our English-speaking race, whatever may be its ori- gin or its commingling with other races, there is at bot- tom a savage spirit — a brutal spirit — by which we seek to gain what is necessary to our power or to our in- terests by might, and to hold it no matter what may be the right. Under the impetus of that spirit, the English-speaking race have trod upon rights and sacred privileges until they virtually circle and control the globe. We ourselves in our own country are no stran- gers to the spirit, in the manner in which for a century we trampled upon the rights of the slave, in the manner in which we to-day trample upon the rights of the Indians. But, thank God, in the evolution of the moral principle of human nature, in the enlightenment which belongs to the race of which we are so proud, in the exercise and the power of the Church within and without, there has grown up within our race a conscience to which an appeal can be successfully made. It is the appeal to that conscience which came within seventy-five thous- and votes of carrying the election for Home Rule for Ireland during the last campaign. Except for faith in one man, that election would not have shown many votes for Home Rule in England, for the English peo- ple — and I met them everywhere — are not enlightened, not yet educated. I know the common, middle-class Englishman. Whatever may be the prejudice aroused against him in Ireland, or in this country, he is a hard- 94 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF headed, a conscientious, a moral, and family-loving man. All he needs is to be enlightened as to what is right and what is wrong, and he rises to the emergency. He had followed Gladstone for a quarter of a century, and when Gladstone said : "This is the right," believ- ing it not to be the right, he still followed Gladstone. When Gladstone and those who are behind him have educated him, within two years from to-night he will turn around and say to the Tory Government, to Union- Liberal Government, to Liberal Government, to Radi- cal Government: "Justice to Ireland, or you cannot stay in power." Now I thought I would talk with these people. A Yankee does not amount to much if he does not ask questions. And I am a Yankee — that is, an Irish Yan- kee. I said to a Tory of some note: "Why do you oppose Mr. Gladstone's bill?" "Why," said he, "be- cause it would confiscate, through an Irish Parliament, all the land there is in Ireland, and the Protestant minority would be crushed out and driven from the Island." I said to a Union-Liberal: "Why do you oppose Home Rule in Ireland?" "Why," said he, "be- cause it would lead to the disruption of the British Em- pire ; and that .is precisely the question presented in your Rebellion and Civil War." I said to the English manufacturer : "Why don't you help Ireland by taking over your capital and developing her industries and great national capacities?" He said: "Because the beggars wont work." I said to an English squire, who is alive to-day, but who is simply the mummied repre- sentative of his ancestors of the fourteenth century : "Why are you opposed to Gladstone and Home Rule?" CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 95 "Why," said he, "because the Irish are children, and must have a strong hand to govern them." Well, gentlemen, all those questions are answered success- fully either in America or Ireland to-day. The fact that among the noblest, the most brilliant, the most magnificent contributions to the forces of human liber- ty, not only in Ireland but in the world, which have been given in the last century, have come from the Protestant minority in Ireland, answers the question of Irish bigotry. Through that ancestor who left Ireland a hundred and twenty-five years ago, I come from that same Presbyterian stock which is represented to-day by Parnell, and which dared to take its chances with Home Rule among its fellow-citizens. What have the Irishmen in this country done? Whenever they are freed from the distressing and oppressing influences which have borne them down for centuries in their coun- try, they do work. They have built our great public works; they have constructed our vast system of rail- ways ; they have done more than that : they have risen to places of power and eminence in every walk of indus- try and in every avenue which is open to brains and to pluck. The only complaint we have against them is, that they show too much genius for government and get all the offices. I have some ambitions myself, and I am for Home Rule in Ireland, because I want these fellows to go back to give me a chance. I read in one of the leading papers this morning — I shall not state which for fear of exciting an irruption here on this platform, but it was the leading paper — that the Prime Minister of Austria, who was a member of the Irish Peerage, under some name which I now 96 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF forget, had been engaged through his agent in evicting some hundreds of his tenants. It seemed to me to preach the most pregnant lesson of Irish difficulty and Irish relief. The Prime Minister of Austria, as all the world knows, is a man of pre-eminent ability, of extra- ordinary power in the management of international questions, of profound and magnificent patriotism — to Austria. But engrossed as he is in the great question of how the peace of Europe is to be preserved with the position of Russia on one hand and Germany on the other, how is he to perform his part as an Irish citizen toward the people who are dependent upon him for support or encouragement, for that sympathy which should flow between him who holds the land, and him who tills it for a price? The world has come to recog- nize that property has its obligations as well as labor. The world has come to recognize that he who has, if he would enjoy, must reciprocate with those who have not, and with those who are dependent upon him. But as all wealth springs from the earth, and as all national prosperity comes from the soil, if there is in any coun- try — as thank God there is not in ours — a system by which the tenant's title goes down from generation to generation, unless the lord is there in his castle — so that between the castle and the cottage there is an in- dissoluble tie, in sickness and in health, in poverty and prosperity, each sympathizing with the other's woes, each sharing in the other's joys— he has no place in that land, and the law should say to him, not : "We will strip you of your possessions without price" ; but "with a price that is fair, we will give them to the tillers of the soil." I was the other day — three weeks ago — in CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 97 an Irish city ; and as I was passing along the street, I saw on the lintel of a door the emblems of mourning. There came out two solemn looking persons whom I judged from their conversation to be the doctor and his assistant. They walked atang seeming to feel very bad over the misfortune that had befallen the family or the falling off of their revenues, but when they reached the opposite corner of the street, they turned, and one said to the other: "Mr. O'Flyn, we did the best we could." "Yes," says he, "Mr. O'Brien, and it was a melancholy pleasure." Now I have attended a great many funerals in my life ; I expect to attend a great many more ; and there are many obsequies to which I go which afford me a melancholy pleasure. I feel melancholy in outward aspect out of respect to my surroundings, and have great pleasure in the event ; and the funeral of the passion and the prejudice of England, which for ages have cursed Ireland, I shall attend with a melancholy pleasure. The difficulty about Ireland and the United States is, that while the Americans have talked — as we all have to talk upon the stump and platform, some of us for votes, and some of us because we feel it, about the rights and wrongs of Ireland— the difficulty with us has always been that we did not know what Irishmen wanted. We have reached an age when sentiment is gone. We are no longer a sentimental people. We have come to a period when passion can no longer be torn to tatters, unless there is a foundation for the cloth. When we believe a people to be suffering from tyranny and injustice, then we can be full of sentiment in our sympathies, and intensely practical in our assistance. 98 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF In the divided councils of the past we could not learn what the Irish wanted for Ireland, but the full lesson has been taught us by the same great leader who has consolidated the opinions and the purposes of his coun- trymen — Charles Stewart Parhell. I doubt if the justice and strength of Mr. Parnell's position would have been so thoroughly understood, and so unanimously approved, by the American people, except for the conversion and resistless advocacy of an English statesman who has for years held the first place in our admiration and respect. Americans recognize genius everywhere, and neither race nor nationality is a barrier to their appreciation and applause. Beyond all other men in the Old World, one Englishman of supreme ability, of marvelous eloquence, and varied acquirements, has fired their imaginations and enthusi- asm — William E. Gladstone. During the fifty years he has been in public life, there have been other English statesmen as accomplished and eminent in many departments of activity and thought ; many whose home and foreign policies have received equal, if not greater, approval from their contempo- raries; two hundred years from now none of them will be remembered but Gladstone. His fame will rest upon the great achievement of having saved the Em- pire he loved from a policy based upon ignorance and prejudice which would have destroyed it, and the greater triumph of having liberated a noble people, for centuries oppressed, who will forever keep his name alive with their gratitude. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 99 VI. speech at the dinner given by members of the Union League to the Hon. John Jay, on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday, June 24, 1887. At one o'clock this morning, at their anniversary banquet, the veterans of the Army of the Potomac had adjourned, and the bummers had taken possession when I left that interesting assemblage to come here. It is a contrast. Though the hour is approaching that at which I departed from Saratoga last night, the guests apparently are not the same; and yet I came on pur- pose to be present here ; not to speak, for I am not on the programme, but to pay my respects to Mr. Jay. I don't know why it was that Mr. Choate should have begun these exercises by abusing me, and ended them by calling me up. He alluded to the fact that his fees connected with the railroad over which I preside have not been satisfactory. There has been no dispute in the directory of that corporation in regard to those fees; and the statement has not yet been made to the stockholders that the reduction of our dividend from eight to four per cent, has been on that account. When Choate came to me with this paper, I told him I signed it with great cheerfulness, and thought it was a very happy thing to do. But Choate said : "I have a greater ioo ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF and a larger meaning in this than a mere compliment to Mr. Jay. You know I never do anything without a fee. I want to establish the precedent that every ex- President of this Club, when he reaches seventy years of age, shall be given a banquet. Evarts will get one next year, and that goes into the firm. Jack Schultz ought to have had one eight or ten years ago ; we will count back and include him. The next year I will come in. Twenty-five or thirty years from now you will have one." Of course I signed the paper. Now the most eminent pathologists, or medical men, have said that a man can live to almost any period if he only has an object in getting there. The medical fraternity of England say that Gladstone would have died years ago, except that he had a well-defined purpose in liv- ing; and that he would have died two years ago if he had not determined first to liberate Ireland and estab- lish Home Rule ; and that may carry him on a good many years. The medical faculty of Germany gave up Bismarck; but although he fixed the limit of his own life at a period now passed, his object was not accom- plished, and he is going on four or five years more. The Emperor of Germany had a great mission to carry out thirty-five years ago, which he said he would do in four or five years. It is not done yet, and he has vig- orously entered his ninety-second year. And so every ex-President of this Club has an opportunity to live to be seventy years of age now that he is sure of this din- ner; and every member of the association who is not President, hopes to be, and that carries him along. The life-insurance agents are lurking about our door-ways all the while, because they understand this perfectly. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. IOI I have a special object in being here, which cannot be shared by any of the rest of you. Most of you hail from New England. A New England man cannot properly appreciate Mr. Jay. I hear so much from New Eng- land men about New England, that I am inclined to think they deem it necessary on all public occasions to make an apology for the fact that they left New Eng- land. But I have the honor to have been born in the same county in this State with Mr. Jay. His father and mine were born there ; and my grandfather and great- grandfather; and for four generations my ancestors and now myself have been rendering reverence, honor, and love to three generations of Jays. Westchester County had more to do of historical significance relating to the formation of this Republic and its liberties than many States, and all the other counties of New York put together. It contributed Gouverneur Morris, with all his genius for affairs, and his superb accomplishments; but it gave a greater man than Gouverneur Morris— John Jay. By his articles in The Federalist he created the sen- timent which formed the loosely united colonies into a Republic, and a hundred years afterward put down the Rebellion and established forever that this is not a con- federacy of independent States, but a nation. By his learning, his constructive talents, and spotless purity, he, as its first Chief-Justice, gave to our highest judicial tribunal a dignity and character which have secured for it the profoundest confidence of our first and second century. I was riding yesterday around Saratoga Springs with General Sherman. We called at the house of a friend, and instantly the General's attention was occupied by 102 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF a beautiful girl. I have often noticed that it is the peculiarity of very eminent men, seventy years of age, that whenever the opportunity occurs, their attention is occupied by a beautiful girl. He said to her: "My dear young lady, if I could go back to your time of life and start once more with all your fresh, bright, and hopeful career, I would sacrifice all I am and have done, and take my chances again." I replied : "General, there is no man living who can share with you that sentiment. No one who has achieved what you have ; who has reached the borders of seventy years, and has behind him a glorious career which is part of the his- tory of his country, would be permitted by his country- men to blot it out and begin life again. Such a record is treasured among the best things we own and cherish and desire to transmit to our descendants." We would not have John Jay bury his past and be restored to youth to try once more his fortunes. We know that he would pass an honorable and useful life, but in five hundred years the opportunity might not occur again for him to render such an incalculable ser- vice to humanity. It is one of the glories of our time that his character and courage protected the poor and helpless against prejudice and passion, and that he lived to see the victory of that liberty to which he had de- voted his talents and his fortune. All of us his friends, and proud to be so numbered, we stand about him to- night paying, in our individual ways, and according to our several relations, our heartfelt tributes. We honor him for his unselfish devotion to a noble but unpopular cause, for his public services, for his work in this Club, and we love and revere him as a man. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 1 03 VII. address delivered at kingston, july 30, 1 877, at the Centennial Celebration of the For- mation of the Government of the State of New York. Fellow Citizens: Centennial celebrations crowd upon us. Appropri- ate commemorations of events of the Revolutionary period are the pleasure and duty of the year. Most of them are upon historic battle-fields, and recall the feats of arms of our victorious ancestors. The occasion which calls us together has deeper sig- nificance than any battle. It is the anniversary of the declaration and establishment of those principles of con- stitutional liberty, without which the Continental sol- dier had fought and died in vain. The story of the formation and expression of popular opinion upon popu- lar rights during the colonial era, its development in the Constitution of 1777, and its results for a century, can only be sketched in the limits of an address. Un- like the other colonies, New York had no chartered rights ; there were no limitations on the royal preroga- tive, and it was only by long and continued struggles that any immunities or privileges were secured. The Dutch had brought with them from Holland ideas of toleration and liberty, of which that country 104 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF was for a time the only asylum in the world ; the Eng- lish colonists were firm in their devotion to representa- tive government. By every process short of revolution during the early period of the English rule, the arbi- trary exactions of the royal Governors were resisted, and the demands for an Assembly of the people never ceased. The claim was based upon the natural and in- herent rights of a free people. In 1683 the Home Government, unable longer to re- sist, called together an Assembly elected by the people. It was the dawn of representative government in New York. The first Assembly of our ancestors immediate- ly asserted and enacted into laws the fundamental prin- ciples of civil liberty. They passed laws for a triennial Assembly ; they declared all power to vest in the Gover- nor, Council, and people met in General Assembly. The privileges of members of Parliament were conferred upon the Assembly and its members; their consent must be had to the levy of any tax, and all the guaran- tees contained in Magna Charta, in the Bill of Rights, in the habeas corpus act, together with trial by jury, and freedom of conscience in matters of religion, were declared to be the rights, liberties, and privileges of the inhabitants of New York. They created the town- ship — that school of self-government — provided the civil divisions upon the plan which has substantially prevailed ever since, and organized superior and inferior courts for the administration of justice. The rights and liberties thus established were often violated and arbitrarily suspended or denied, but every repetition of such tyranny only served to inflame to passionate de- votion the people's love of liberty, and to prepare the CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 105 way for the Declaration of Independence. Ninety- three years after this memorable assertion of popular rights, petition and remonstrance having alike failed, the people determined to peril life and fortune to main- tain and enlarge them. In 1776 New York was with- out a regular government. The Council was dissolved ; the General Assembly prorogued, and the royal Gover- nor a fugitive under the protection of the guns of the British fleet. The Provincial Congress sitting in New York owed its existence to the necessities of the times. It was a revolutionary body, its only charter and election by the people. On the 15th of May of that year the Conti- nental Congress, then sitting in Philadelphia, adopted a resolution requesting the respective assemblies and conventions of the United Colonies, "where no govern- ment sufficient for the exigencies of their affairs had been established, to adopt such government as should in the opinion of the representatives of the people best conduce to the happiness and safety of their constitu- ents in particular and America in general." They also recommended the suppression of all authority derived from the Crown of Great Britain, and the assumption and exercise of government under authority from the people of the colonies. Of the thirteen colonies, all ex- cept Rhode Island and Connecticut adopted the recom- mendation. Their charters did not reserve to the Crown the control over or veto upon their internal af- fairs, and with them such action was unnecessary. Vir- ginia's Constitution was first, and New York's fifth, in the order of adoption. A few days after the passage of this resolution the 106 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF Provincial Congress met in New York; Gouverneur Morris, a delegate from the County of Westchester, then but twenty-four years of age, signalized his en- trance into public life by urging immediate action, in a speech remarkable for its courage and radicalism, and its strong presentation of the thought of the time. He boldly declared that reconciliation with the Mother Country was a delusion ; liberty and security could only be had by independent government ; and moved that a committee be appointed to draw up a plan for the frame of the government. These men, acting upon well-understood principles, and jealous of every assump- tion of power, thought that this Congress was not elected for this purpose. A committee was finally appointed, to whom the whole subject was referred, and on the 27th of May they reported "that the right of framing, creating, or remodeling civil governments, is and ought to be in the people" ; that the old form of government was dis- solved, and a new form was absolutely necessary ; and that, as doubts existed whether the Provincial Congress had power to act, the people of the colony be called to elect a new Congress specially instructed upon the question of a new government. This report is remarka- ble as the earliest, clearest, and most emphatic declara- tion of the doctrine of popular sovereignty. It was New York's contribution to American liberty, learned by more than half a century of incessant struggle of the representatives elected by the people with the repre- sentatives of the royal power. The report of the committee was adopted, and on the 31st a series of resolutions, prepared by Mr. Jay, CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 107 was passed, calling upon the several counties to elect a new body, with power to form a new government, and instructed also upon the question of united colonial independence. In the mean time the seat of war was transferred to New York.. On Sunday afternoon of the 30th of June the British fleet and army under Lord Howe having entered the harbor, the Congress, appre- hensive of an attack by the enemy, resolved that the next Congress should meet at White Plains, in the County of Westchester, and adjourned. On the 9th of July, 1776, the newly elected delegates met at the court- house in that place and elected General Woodhull Presi- dent, and John McKesson and Robert Berrian Secre- taries. During the forenoon a letter was received from the delegates of New York in the Continental Congress, inclosing the Declaration of American Independence, which had been adopted on the 4th. It was immedi- ately read and referred to a committee, consisting of Messrs. Jay, Yates, Hobart, Brashier, and Wm. Smith. It was a critical moment for these men. They had been just elected ; only a few hours had elapsed since they had qualified and entered upon their duties, and now their first legislative act was to make up their rec- ord upon an issue which, if successful, made them pa- triots; if it failed, traitors and felons. How firm was their resolve, how clear their purpose, how serene their minds, is evidenced by the fact that on the after- noon of the same day the committee reported resolu- tions concurring in the Declaration, fully adopting it, and instructing our delegates in the General Congress to support the same, and give their united aid to all measures necessary to obtain its object. io8 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF The Convention immediately adopted the report. On the morning of the next day — the ioth of July — this body "Resolved and ordered, that the style and title of this House be changed from that of the Trovin. cial Congress of the Colony of New York,' to that of 'The Convention of the Representatives of the State of New York';" and thus on the ioth day of July, 1776, the State of New York was born. In the afternoon of the ioth, they resolved to enter on the 16th upon the formation of a State government ; but by that time the situation of affairs here became too alarming for deliber- ation. Washington was contemplating the abandon- ment of New York. British ships of war were anchored off Tarrytown, within six miles of where they were sit- ting. Their whole attention was occupied in raising troops and supplies, and providing for the public order. On the 1 6th they postponed the question till the 1st of August. In the mean while they provisionally ordained that all magistrates and civil officers well affected to- ward independence, continue the exercise of their duties until further orders, except that all processes thereafter must issue in the name of the State of New York ; and declared it to be treason and punishable with death for any one living within the State and enjoying the pro- tection of its laws to adhere to the cause of the King of Great Britain or levy war against the State in his be- half. With dangers threatening on every hand, the British fleet in possession of New York Bay, the Hudson River, and Long Island Sound, a veteran army in over- whelming numbers but a few miles distant, thus boldly and fearlessly did the Representatives of New York CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 109 assert her sovereignty. On the 27th of July the Con- vention found it necessary to remove to Harlem, and there, on the 1st of August, on motion of Gouverneur Morris, and seconded by Mr. Duer, a committee was ap- pointed to prepare and report a constitution or form of government. This committee was composed of the most eminent men in the Convention and in the Commonwealth. For a generation after independence was achieved a ma- jority of them continued to receive, in positions of honor and trust, the highest marks of the confidence and affec- tion of their countrymen. Their labors in the Cabinet and in Congress, in the State Legislature and upon the Bench, and in the Diplomatic Service, form the bright- est pages in the history of the Nation and the State. John Jay was Chairman, and his associates were Gouverneur Morris, Robert R. Livingston, William Duer, Abraham and Robert Yates, General Scott, Colonel Broome, Mr. Hobart, Colonel De Witt, Samuel Townshend, William Smith, and Mr. Wisner. The committee were to report on the 16th of August, 1776; but such was the perilous condition of the State, and so manifold the duties of the members of the Conven- tion, that no report was made till March, 1777. The Convention meanwhile, by the alarming situation of af- fairs, was migrating from place to place, and perform- ing every class of public duty. It was a Committee of Public Safety ; it was providing the ways and means to continue the contest ; its members were now serving in the Continental Congress, and again with the army; they were acting as judges and negotiators. To-day they were flying before the enemy, to-morrow furnish- no ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF ing protection for the sorely pressed Commonwealth. At one time meeting at Kingsbridge, then at Odell's in Philips' Manor, then at Fishkill, Poughkeepsie, and finally at Kingston. At Fishkill they supplied them- selves with arms and ammunition, and thereafter legis- lated with their swords by their sides — literally build- ing the peaceful fabric of constitutional government in the very presence of the alarms, the perils, and the carnage of war. On the 6th of March, 1777, at Kingston, the committee appointed to prepare a form of government were required to report on the following Wednesday, and that day, the 12th, the committee made a report which was read by Mr. Duane. The draft was drawn by John Jay, and is in his hand writing. This draft was under discussion until the 20th of April, and underwent some amendments and addi- tions. The leading minds in the debates, and in the introduction of the amendments adopted, were John Jay, Gouverneur Morris, Robert R. Livingston, and Mr. Duane. The Constitution, however, was finally passed almost as it came from the hands of Mr. Jay, and was adopted with one dissenting voice on the 20th of April, 1777. It was the evening of Sunday; the President, General Ten Broeck, was absent, and also the Vice-President, General Pierre Van Cortlandt ; but revolutions know neither days nor individuals. General Leonard Gansevoort, acting as President pro tan., at- tested the document. The same night Robert R. Livingston, General Scott, Gouverneur Morris, Abraham Yates, John Jay, and Mr. Hobart were appointed a committee to report a plan CHAUNCZY M. DEPEIV. lit for organizing and establishing the form of govern- ment. They next directed one of the secretaries to pro- ceed immediately to Fishkill, and have five hundred copies of the Constitution, without the preamble, and twenty-five hundred with the preamble, printed, and instructed him to give gratuities to the workmen to have it executed with dispatch. They then resolved that the Constitution should be published on the next Tuesday, in front of the court-house, at Kingston ; and the village committee were notified to prepare for the event. This latter body seem expeditiously and eco- nomically to have performed their duty by erecting a platform upon the end of a hogshead, and from this, Vice-President Van Cortlandt presiding, Robert Ber- rian, one of the secretaries, read this immortal docu- ment to the assembled people. The Convention hav- ing promulgated their ordinance for the formation of the State Government, and filled up, provisionally, the offices necessary for carrying it on until an election could be had, and appointed thirteen of their number to act as a Committee of Safety until the Legislature should assemble, adjourned sine die on the 13th of May, 1777. Thus passed into history this remarkable con- vention. In lofty patriotism, steadfastness of purpose, practical wisdom, and liberal statesmanship, it had few, if any, equals, even among the legislative bodies of ex- traordinary merit which marked the era. Its address to the people, drafted by Jay, and declared by Jefferson the ablest document of the period, is a most compact and eloquent statement of the fundamental princi- ples of free government, and was republished by Con- gress for the whole country, and translated into foreign 112 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF tongues. Of the many distinguished men who were its members three stand out conspicuously, and form an unequaled triumvirate of social distinction, character, culture, and intellect. They were John Jay, Gouverneur Morris, and Robert Livingston. All young men, pos- sessing the best education of the time, belonging to the wealthiest families in the State, by birth and opportu- nity certain of royal favor, and having the largest stake in loyalty and stable government ; they yet risked all, and periled their lives, for civil liberty and self-govern- ment. John Jay became Governor, and Cabinet Minis- ter, and Foreign Envoy, and the first Chief-Justice of the United States. Gouverneur Morris distinguished himself in the councils of the nation and the diplomatic service of the country. Robert R. Livingston rendered the most eminent services, both to this State and the United States, and in foreign courts. Their examples, efforts, and contributions in educating and nerving the colonies to the Declaration of Independence, in the events which led to the recognition of the Republic, and in moulding the internal regulations and foreign policy of the new Government, are the special pride of New York and the glory of the nation. No one can to-day read the Constitution of 1777 without wonder- ing how little we have been able to improve upon it in one hundred years. When we consider that purely representative government was then an almost untried experiment, this instrument becomes more and more an enduring monument to the wisdom and foresight of its framers. It begins with a preamble setting forth the causes which led to the formation of a separate gov- ernment, and the authority conferred upon the Con- CtiAUNCEY M. DEPEW. w% vention by the people to do this work. It recites at length the Declaration of Independence, and the unani- mous resolution of the Convention on the 9th of July, 1776, indorsing the Declaration and instructing the New York delegates in the Continental Congress to give it their support. By virtue of which several acts and recitals, says the preamble, "All power whatever in the State hath reverted to the people thereof, and this Convention hath, by their suffrages and free choice, been appointed and authorized to institute and estab- lish such a government as they shall deem best calcu- lated to secure the rights and liberties of the good people of this State." Its first section, which was unanimously agreed to, is the keynote of its spirit. It ordained, determined, and declared that no authority, on any pretense whatever, should be exercised over the people or members of this State, but such as should be derived from and granted by the people. The declarations of 1683 were to secure for British colonists every liberty granted by the Crown to the British subject. The purpose of the men of 1777 was to substitute the popular will for the royal prerogative, and natural rights for charters wrung from the reluctant hands of hereditary power. Their experience with the colonial Governors had made them jealous and suspicious of individual authori- ty, and so, to prevent the passage of laws inconsistent with the spirit of the Constitution or the public good, they placed the veto power in the hands of a council of revision, consisting of the Governor, the Chancellor, and the Judges of the Supreme Court. All bills passed by the Legislature were to be submitted to them, and 114 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF their veto was absolute, unless the bill was repassed by two-thirds of each House. It followed the English model in its Legislature, and created two bodies, Senate and Assembly, and vested in them all legislative power. The Senate, twenty- four in number, was to be elected for four years by the freeholders of their districts having freeholds of the value of over one hundred pounds, and the Assembly of seventy members for one year, by freeholders pos- sessing freeholds of the value of twenty pounds, or renting tenements of the yearly value of twenty shil- lings and paying taxes. Provision was made for increas- ing both branches, but the Senate was never to exceed one hundred, or the Assembly three hundred. It was the universal belief of the time that those who paid the taxes and supported the Government should govern. Universal suffrage was not deemed an inherent right, but a privilege to be hedged about with restrictions and limitations; and while we have enlarged the limit, our legislation has always held to the theory, until recent- ly, as to people of color, and still as to women, and minors, and others. It was the change of sentiment on this great question which led to the Convention and new Constitution of 1821. The executive power was vested in a governor and lieutenant-governor, to be chosen for three years, and to this term we have returned by an amendment adopted in 1874. The judicial power was vested in a chancellor, and judges of the Supreme Court ; and local county courts and a probate judiciary were constituted ; and they respectively held during good behavior, and until sixty-five years of age; while a final appellate court, both in law and equity, was CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 115 formed by the Senate, the Chancellor, and the Judges of the Supreme Court. Says the most eminent au- thority of our time : "The first New York judiciary administered public justice and protected private rights during the whole period of its existence, in a manner which satisfied our people and won applause from all disinterested observers." The appointing power was vested in a council of ap- pointment, consisting of four senators, selected annual- ly by the Assembly who, with the Governor, were to form the council. To this body was given the appoint- ment and removal of all officers in the State, except the chancellor, judges of the Supreme Court, and first judges of counties. As the State increased in wealth and population, the power and patronage of this coun- cil became enormous. It controlled the politics of the Commonwealth for forty years, and, at the time of its abolishment, had within its gift fifteen thousand offices. Such parts of the common law of England and the statute law of Great Britain and the colony of New York, not inconsistent with the independence of the State, as were in force on the 19th day of April, 1775, were declared to be the law of New York, thus deliber ately fixing in the fundamental law the day when the British soldiers fired upon the patriots at Lexington as the close forever of the supremacy of British authority. The manner of voting was the subject of much dis- cussion in the Convention. The object was to get the freest and most unbiased expression of the popular will. At first the advocates of the viva voce vote seem to have had the majority ; but this Convention was won- derfully free from prejudice, or pride of opinion, or Il6 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF slavery to precedent. As stated in the Constitution, their object was to do that which best "would tend to preserve the liberty and equal freedom of the people." They were willing to fairly try any reasonable experi- ment. While the vote by ballot was negatived by two- thirds, a compromise was adopted by thirty-three to three, ordaining that, after the termination of the war, the Legislature should provide for all elections by bal- lot, and if after full and fair trial, it was found less con- ducive to the safety and interest of the State, the viva voce practice might be restored. In 1787 the requisite law was enacted for voting by ballot, and that method has continued ever since. The question of religious tolerance excited great in- terest and the longest debate. By personal experience and family tradition these men were very familiar with the results of bigotry and intolerance. With the ex- ception of Holland, there was scarcely a place in the world where religious freedom was permitted. John Jay, true to his Huguenot recollections and training, threw the weight of his great influence and ability on the side of restriction. He moved to "except the pro- fessors of the religion of the Church of Rome, until they should take oath that they verily believed that no pope, priest, or foreign authority hath power to absolve the subjects of the State from allegiance, and unless they renounce the false, wicked, and damnable doc- trine that the pope has power to absolve men from their sins" ; this having been voted down by nineteen to ten, it was then moved, "that this toleration shall not ex- tend to justify the professors of any religion in disturb- ing the peace or violating the laws of this State" ; this CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 117 too was rejected, and the Convention, to their immor- tal honor and glory, established liberty of conscience in these memorable words: "This Convention doth, in the name and by the authority of the good people of this State, ordain, determine, and declare that the free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and wor- ship, without discrimination or preference, shall forever hereafter be allowed within this State to all mankind." Thomas Jefferson forced a like expression from Vir- ginia, but with that exception, New York alone among the thirteen States began its existence with absolute and untrammeled religious liberty. The Constitution provided for the naturalization of foreigners, for trial by jury, for a militia service with recognition of the Quakers, and for the protection of Indians within the State limits. Acts of attainder were prohibited ; no person was to be disfranchised, except by law of the land or the judgment of his peers ; free- dom of debate in legislative bodies was secured ; par- ties impeached or indicted for crimes were to be allowed counsel as in civil cases; and the Legislature were pro- hibited from instituting any court except such as should proceed according to the course of the common law. Pause for a moment and reflect upon the conditions under which this Constitution was prepared and adopted. Its framers in perpetual peril of their lives; at some period during their deliberations, every county in the State invaded by the enemy; devoting most of their time to the public defense and the protection of their families, without precedent to guide them, save the Eng- lish model, their own experience, and thoughtful study of the principles of liberty. "Our Constitution," said Il8 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF Mr. Jay, in his letter to the President of the Conven- tion, "is universally approved, even in New England, where few New York productions have credit." The verdict of posterity is unanimous and emphatic, that it deserves a high place among the few immortal docu- ments which attest and determine the progress of the people, and the growth and defense of human liberty. Its principal features were incorporated into the Con- stitution of the United States, and followed by a ma- jority of the new commonwealths, which from time to time were admitted into the Union. The men whose virtues we celebrate here to-day did not build better than they knew. It is the crowning merit of their work that it fulfilled its purpose. The peril of their posi- tion ; the time, nearly the darkest and most hopeless of the Revolution ; so purified their actions and intensi- fied their thoughts, that reason became almost prophecy. The brilliance of the promise is equaled by the splen- dor of the performance. The salient principles of the old Constitution underlie the new; and every present effort to abandon other experiments and restore the an- cient forms, is the best tribute posterity can pay to the marvelous wisdom of the members of our first State Con- vention. The Constitution of 1777 remained in force for over forty years, and then with some minor modi- fications, the extension of suffrage, and the concentra- tion of more power in the Governor, it continued sub- stantially unchanged until 1846. The public improve- ments of the State, its growth in population, and local necessities, demanded some amendments; and to pro- vide for the public debt, and limit the debt-contracting power, and to enlarge the judiciary, the Convention of CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 119 1846 was called together. While preserving many of the essential features of the old Constitution, this Con- vention made changes which radically altered our scheme of State administration. The Governor was stripped of nearly all power, the authority of the Legis- lature was restricted, and appointments to office and local administration given directly to the people. The whole civil service, which for seventy years had been appointed by the Council of Appointment and the Governor and Senate, was reduced to elective offices. The Judiciary, which had been selected by the Execu- tive, and held its place during good behavior, was sub- mitted to popular nomination and election, and very short terms of service. The whole instrument is a protest against the concentration of power in any branch of the Government, and a demand for its sur- render at the shortest possible intervals by the execu- tive, the legislative, and the judicial officers, back again to the people. It cut up and subdivided, for the elec- tion of the Legislature, the large districts, with their guarantee of larger men for representatives, and made statesmanship difficult in proportion as it multiplied the opportunities and increased the influence of the local politician. It so widely distributed official authority and responsibility that each soldier of a vast army of placemen was accountable only to the hazards of a re- election at the end of a brief term, and the Governor was the head of an administration beyond the reach of appointment, removal, or control by him. The wisdom of the revolution, especially in the Judiciary, has never ceased to be doubted, and within the past five years, by duly adopted amendments, more permanency and dig- 120 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF nity have been given to our higher and appellate courts, by reorganizing them upon a more harmonious basis, with more symmetry and concentration, and longer terms of service. The tendency of recent constitu- tional reform has been to old methods in respect to the Executive, both in regard to his length of service and general powers, and happily to drive from the Legis- lature special legislation for the benefit of individuals, corporations, or localities, and compel the enactment of such general laws as will bear equally in both grant and limitation upon all, giving to none the exclusive benefits and franchises of the State. But the methods provided by the Constitution of 1846 to preserve the credit of New York, to reform and simplify the practice and codify the laws, are worthy of all praise, and have been adopted by a large number of the other States. Let us hope that very soon our fundamental law may be still further amended to stop the increase of local and municipal debt — the source and fountain of extrav- agance, peculation, and fraud, and the greatest curse of our time. [The law has since been so amended.] This brief review of our constitutional history leads naturally to an inquiry as to what practical results have been obtained by these principles and plans of govern- ment. The first election for State officers and mem- bers of the Legislature was held in June, 1777, in all the counties not in possession of the enemy, by the officers appointed by the Convention. A majority of the Coun- cil of Safety sought to control the matter by nominat- ing Philip Schuyler for Governor, and George Clinton for Lieutenant-Governor. As Jay said, in proclaiming these nominations: "Our Constitution is universally CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 1 21 approved and does honor to our State. Let us not lose our credit in committing the government of it to men inadequate to the task. These gentlemen are respecta- ble abroad ; their attachment to the cause is confessed, and their abilities unquestionable. Let us endeavor to be as unanimous as possible." Notwithstanding this powerful nomination, forty-one candidates ran, 13,179 votes were cast, and General George Clinton was elected both Governor and Lieutenant-Governor. He resigned the latter office, and General Pierre Van Cort- landt, as President of the Senate, became Lieutenant- Governor. The newly-elected Governor was cast in the mould of the sternest and most inflexible patriotism. The highest office in the gift of the people had come to him unsolicited, but he hesitated long before accepting it. Regardless of personal sacrifice or ambition, he wanted first clearly to see whether his duty to the cause could be best performed in the field or the executive chair. The Council of Safety, restive under their great respon- sibilities, demanded that he immediately leave his com- mand and assume the helm of state. Washington and Putnam advised his acceptance, and among the expres- sions of opinion from all quarters, the Consistory of the Dutch Reformed Church, at Kingston, addressed him a most earnest appeal and congratulation. "From the beginning of the present war," they said, "the Consis- tory and people of Kingston have uniformly been at- tached to the cause of America, and justify, upon the soundest principles of religion and morality, the glori- ous revolution of a free and oppressed country. Take, then, with the acclamation and fullest confidence of the 122 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF public — take, sir, the Government into your hands, and let the unsolicited voice of the whole State prevail upon you to enter upon this arduous task. The Consistory esteem themselves especially happy in having cause to believe that religious liberty, without which all other privileges are not worth enjoying, will be strenuously supported by your Excellency." He yielded his own judgment to the universal anxi- ety, and the 30th of July, 1777, was fixed for the inau- guration. And so, one hundred years ago to-day, upon this spot, the Council of Safety surrendered its powers, General George Clinton was inaugurated Governor, and the State of New York, under a Constitution and duly organized Government, began its history. He came from the very presence of the enemy to assume the robes of office, to return to his post when the ceremony was over; and the proclamation which made him Gover- nor, General and Commander of the Militia, and Ad- miral of the Navy of the State, was the first state paper bearing the startling attest "God save the People." Forts Clinton and Montgomery were attacked in the Highlands, Herkimer was battling in the Valley of the Mohawk, Burgoyne was marching from the north, and it was months before he could summon from the field and gather in council the first Legislature. New York had but two hundred thousand people ; was without manufactories or internal improvements ; and hemmed in and invaded on every side by hostile fleets and armies. One hundred years have passed, and to-day in the Sisterhood of States, she is the Empire in all that constitutes a great commonwealth. An indus- trious, intelligent, and prosperous population of five CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 123 millions of people live within her borders. In the value of her farms and farm products, and in her manufactur- ing industries, she is the first State in the Union. She sustains over one thousand newspapers and periodicals, has eighty millions invested in church property, and spends twelve millions of dollars a year upon popular education. Upward of three hundred academies and colleges fit her youth for special professions and furnish opportunities for liberal learning and the highest cul- ture, and stately edifices all over the State, dedicated to humane and benevolent objects, exhibit the perma- nence and extent of her organized charities. There are three hundred millions of dollars in her savings banks; three hundred millions in her insurance compa- nies, and five hundred millions in the capital and loans of her State and National Banks. Six thousand miles of railroads, costing six hundred millions of dollars, have penetrated and developed every accessible corner of the State, and maintain against all rivalry and com- petition her commercial prestige. In 1825 a cannon was fired upon the Battery in New York City, in response to the reverberations of the guns from Sandy Hook ; its echoes were caught and repeated by another shot at the Palisades; and so from Tappan . Zee to the Highlands, and along the Catskills and the Valley of the Mohawk, and passed the falls of the Gene- see, till lost over the lake at Buffalo, the thunders of artillery announced, in one hour and twenty minutes, the whole length of the State, that the waters of the lake had been wedded to the ocean, and the Erie Canal was completed. It marked a new era in the prosperity of the State and the history of the Nation. It sent the 124 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF tide of emigration to the Northwest, developing there great agricultural States, and added immensely to the wealth of New York. All honor and gratitude to the men who at that early day had the courage and fore- sight to plan and pursue these great public improve- ments, and whose wisdom has been proven by a repeti- tion of the lessons of the ages, that along the highways of commerce reside population, wealth, civilization, and power. The glory of each State is the common prop- erty of the Nation, and we make this day our centennial exhibit. Our inquiry has shown that we need not step beyond our own boundaries to find illustrious annals and noble examples. We are rich in battle-fields, de- cisive in results upon the freedom of the Nation. Jay, Morris, and Livingston, Schuyler and Mont- gomery, Clinton and Herkimer, Hamilton and Kent, are names which will live among the soldiers, patriots, and sages of all time. In every crisis of its history, the virtue, courage, and wisdom of the people have been equal to the needs of the present and the wants of the future. Let us welcome the second century and enter upon its duties with the stern purpose and high resolve to maintain the standard of our fathers in the public and private life of the State, and the honorable superiority of New York in the Federal Union. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 12$ o VIII. RATION AT THE ACADEMY OF MUSIC, NEW YORK, ox Decoration Day, May 30, 1879. Veterans, Ladies, and Gentlemen : The occasion which calls us together is the most in- teresting of our national celebrations. While others appeal to our pride or recall the recollections of a his- toric past, the events of to-day form a part of our own experience, revive the sorrows and sufferings we all in- dividually and collectively have felt, and recall those whose loss touched and stirred the deepest and tender- est emotions of the heart. But while the associations of the day are so sacred and personal, we cannot give all its hours to the luxury of grief, or surrender our- selves entirely to the waves of sentiment. The time has come, and as the years elapse it will be more and more important that, mingling with our recollections and eulogies, should be told the story of the causes of the great contest, the issues which it decided, and the results which have been attained. At the Centennial Exhibition was a picture remarka- ble for its naturalness and the story it portrayed. It was the Battle of Monmouth. An aged fifer, his gray locks streaming in the wind, with eager step was lead- ing his company on to the fray. A drummer boy by 126 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OP his side was looking anxiously into the old man's eyes, and catching from him the tune and the step of the music of liberty. So upon this day, from the lives and the deeds of the men who fell in the great Civil War, from the causes for which they died and the results which they achieved, we take our step and learn our lesson of how to preserve and perpetuate the union of these States. We are one of the most fortunate of the generations of man. While others have passed their peaceful and eventless lives without incident and without history, it has been our lot to witness some of the mightiest events of all time ; to participate in the discussion of the grand- est questions which have ever agitated a people, and to take part in the conflict and decide the issue which settled the destiny of humanity and liberty upon this continent. Eighteen years have passed since the first gun was fired at Sumter; fourteen since Lee surrendered at Ap- pomatox ; and yet so rapid has been the stride of opin- ion and the march of events, that this great struggle seems already relegated to a dim and historic past. But around our knees, about our chairs, and in this audience are gathered the eager upturned faces of those who are to be the future citizens of the Republic, ask- ing: "What is the meaning of these ceremonials? Why are flowers strewn upon these graves? Why this gath- ering of the people together? For what did these men fight and die?" The answer to these questions is necessary now, and will become more necessary every year, to keep alive in the national mind the value of our institutions and their tremendous cost. Our forefathers, great and wise CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. I27 as they were, committed a fatal error in the formation of the Republic, when they crippled freedom by a com- promise with slavery. While proclaiming in noble lan- guage and lofty spirit that "all men are created free and equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," the only answer the American citizen had for seventy years to the sneer of the monarchist was a blow or a blush. For the pres- ervation of that institution, opinions were inculcated and measures proposed which for three-quarters of a century imperiled the existence of the Union. It was the cancer in the body politic, which until it was cut out by the Civil War, constantly threatened to destroy the national life. To protect, extend, and preserve it the men most interested taught to three generations of the people of the States where it existed the heresy of secession, the idea of extreme state rights ; the opin- ion that the State was superior to the General Govern- ment, that the allegiance of the citizen was to his State first, and his country afterward, and that the sovereign State at any time of its own motion could dissolve the compact and set up for itself. This idea, enforced by the logic and eloquence of the ablest men, and but- tressed and fortified by necessity, came to be thorough- ly and honestly believed by a large portion of the American people. In 1820 it threatened the dissolu- tion of the Union, and the danger was only averted by compromise. In 1833 it sought to destroy the Repub- lic, and the Nation was saved by the indomitable will and the dauntless courage of Andrew Jackson. In 1850 it threatened disunion, and was appeased by compro- 128 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF mise. In 1854 it clamored for secession, and was again pacified by compromise. In i860 the people of the United States, under the forms of law and according to the Constitution, elected the President of their choice. By residence, association, and opinion, he was distasteful to the men interested in upholding the sys- tem of slavery, and they immediately plunged the country into the most tremendous and disastrous civil war of modern times. That contest was not a conflict of ambition, or aggression, or territorial aggrandize- ment ; it was a war of ideas. On.the one side for three- quarters of a century had been cultivated a belief in the righteousness and rightfulness of human slavery and state rights; on the other, devotion to human liberty and nationality. These two ideas, with men of the same race, and of kindred blood behind them, met in deadly conflict upon the battle-field. The Almighty permitted that strife to rage for four years. He per- mitted a million men on one side and the other to lose their lives. He permitted twelve thousand millions of dollars worth of property to be squandered, lost, and destroyed : but when, by these tremendous sacrifices, the sin of the nation had been expiated, He set the seal of victory upon the side of nationality and liberty. When the contest was over, in the grave which was dug were buried the shackles of four millions of human beings, and the idea of secession and state rights; and upon it was builded a monument which will endure for- ever — to Nationality, Liberty, and the Rights of Man. From the battlements of Heaven to-night there look down upon us the spirits of both the Union and the Confederate dead. I believe that as together in the CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 1 29 clearer light of the spirit land they see right and wrong, the Confederate and the Federal alike join with us in gratitude and thankfulness to Almighty God that the issue of the war was liberty and nationality, and not slavery and secession : and as a broader and healthier public sentiment prevails, both the North and the South, without regard to previous sectional associations or party affiliations, have come almost unanimously to the same opinion. We look back upon the scenes which transpired at the time of the beginning of the struggle with wonder and amazement. When its story is read a hundred years hence, it will be impossible to credit all its de- tails. On the one side the South had become the spoiled darling of the Nation ; it had devoted itself to politics and to the science of government; it had exer- cised a controlling voice and influence in the national councils for two generations : it was proud, high-spirited, and aggressive. We were fond of saying to older and more aristocratic countries : We too have a class which lives by the labor of others, and which is born and edu- cated to govern. On the other hand, the North was given up to materialism ; it had devoted itself to the development of its material prosperity ; it was engaged in agriculture, in mining, in the mechanical arts, in industrial pursuits, and in the inventions; it was accu- mulating, and had accumulated, enormous wealth, was enjoying unparalleled prosperity, and living in the pleasures and the luxuries which flow from these results. All revolutions and all conspiracies against consti- tuted authority are brought about by minorities. It is because the minority are banded together for a single 130 orations and speeches of and common purpose. They have cut the bridges be- hind them. They have staked life, liberty, and prosper- ity on the issue. For them it is patriotism if they suc- ceed, treason and death if they fail; and they carry with them, by the force of compact and energetic ear- nestness, all who share in their belief and are anxious for the success of their plans. Edward Everett has said that ten men precipitated the great rebellion of 1 86 1 ; and it was precipitated for the purpose, as Alex- ander H. Stephens declared, of founding a new Govern- ment, in which the chief of the corner should be the stone which the original builders rejected. But all now see and acknowledge that had the rebellion suc- ceeded, instead of two Governments, there would have been a dozen ; and in the jealousies of little and con- tending sovereignties, security for property and life and all liberty would have been lost. When the world looked upon the combatants as they stood in i860 and 1861, with the South united and in- tent upon a single purpose ; with the North divided and devoted to money-making; they said: "Here on the one side is military skill and martial ardor, and on the other a nation of shopkeepers, and the end will not be doubtful." So anxious were we for peace and pros- perity, so accustomed to bluster and threats, that we saw the navy scattered so that only one ship of twenty guns remained in American waters, and entered no pro- test. We saw the army divided so that a regiment of regulars could not be got together, and we entered no protest. We saw the arsenals and forts denuded of arms and munitions of war, which were placed at points where they could be conveniently seized by drilling bands of CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 131 conspirators, and we entered no protest. We saw- companies forming, regiments rendezvousing, armies mustering, and we did nothing. When a sovereign State protested against the Government putting troops into a national fort for its defense, we half admitted it was right. When the same State declared it to be an act of war for the troops in a Federal fort to defend it against seizure by the State, half of the North almost thought the defense was wrong. But we all remember that beautiful Sunday morning when the news was flashed over the country that the flag had been fired upon at Sumter. Instantly all apathetic elements and diverging opinions were cemented into one common mass, with one common resolve. The flag fired upon ! We had seen it floating from mastheads and public buildings, carried in processions and upon mimic battle- fields, and little knew how much tenderness and affec- tion were emblemed to us in its folds. We little knew that way down in the depths of our hearts was the be- lief that in the flag were symbolized the Republic and its Constitution, its institutions, its liberty, its glory, its past, its present, and its future. At first all were stunned; then succeeded amazement, then indignation, and then a settled purpose that war should be waged until that flag was recognized and acknowledged as the emblem of the nation wherever it had ever waved. The shell of materialism dropped from the manhood of the North, and it stood forth spiritualized into purest patriotism. The manufactory was deserted, the plow was left in the furrow, the spade in the sod, the mining- tool in the shaft. The law-office was closed, the pulpit was empty, and without regard to previous opinions or 132 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF party affiliations, a million of men marched forth to the defense of the country and the preservation of the Union. There was no malice, no vengefulness, no vindictive- ness in this vast array. The contest was not attended with the havoc, ravages, outrages, and sackings which have characterized other wars. There have been wars from the beginning of time, and will probably be until the end of time, but most of them were for ambition or to acquire territory. England waged one of her most expensive and destructive conflicts with Holland be- cause of an offensive picture in the Town Hall at Amsterdam. France carried on one of the most deso- lating wars in history, making the homes of millions of people a desert, that a corrupt minister might amuse a mighty monarch. But this conflict was to preserve and not to destroy, and when it was ended the world saw how magnanimous a free people could be. The Republic bleeding at every pore held no state trials, closed no prison doors upon political offenders, reared no scaffolds amidst the ashes of the Rebellion, but said : "You are all equally the children of a common Govern- ment and the heirs of a common destiny, and all the benefits of free institutions, all the liberty, all the rights, and all the advantages which are possessed by those who fouerht to sustain the Union, shall be shared equally by those who fought to destroy it." This grand magnanim- ity ought to have cemented and consolidated the frag- ments of the Union, and built it up into a stronger and better nation than it had ever been before. In the fourteen years of reconciliation and of reconstruction there is much to be grateful for, and much to regret. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 133 As always happens in great social disturbances, bad men, imported and native-born, taking advantage of the newly enfranchised and uneducated vote, seized upon the governments of those States to plunder and steal. On the other hand, the pardoned rebel, when power came into his hands, denied to the freedman the rights which had been so generously granted to himself and prevented the free exercise of the ballot. We can never have in this country permanent peace and the assur- ance of settled and prosperous government until, on the one hand, public sentiment and the law can control and punish the state officer, the legislator, the judge, and the public official who is unfaithful to his trust; and, on the other hand, the voter is educated up to the fullest appreciation of and ability to exercise the price- less gift of the franchise, and the ballot-box is free from fraud and the ballot from intimidation. There must be an overwhelming public sentiment which will bury in a common grave the "carpet-bag" thief and the Con- federate "bulldozer." The distinction of the volunteer army (the graves of whose dead we strew to-day with flowers) over all other armies of all times, was its intelligence. Behind every musket was a thinking man. On the march, around the camp-fire, in the hospital and the prison, and in letters to friends at home, these men discussed the issues at stake, and the results which would follow de- feat or victory, with as much statesmanship and pro- phetic force as the representatives in Congress. Of the million volunteer soldiers, thousands were fitted by culture, ability, and character to be Presidents of the United States. Latour D'Auvergne was a grenadier of 134 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF Napoleon's Old Guard. Bravest of the brave on every battle-field, he was tendered for distinguished services a sword bearing the inscription, "To the first grenadier of France"; but he refused it, saying: "Among us soldiers there is neither first nor last." Constantly declining promotion, and ever winning fresh laurels, he fell fighting gloriously for his country, and an imperial decree gave to him a distinction never enjoyed by the proudest marshals of the Empire. His name continued on the roll of his company, and when it was called the oldest sergeant answered : "Died on the field of honor." And this year and next, and for the next decade, and centuries after, on the anniversary of this day, when the roll-call in every churchyard and village cemetery of the men who died in the conflict is read, the answer of a grateful people will be: "Dead upon the field of honor." While thousands of Confederates, in that last moment when, upon the confines of eternity, the mind distinguishes more accurately the right from the wrong, confessed to themselves that they had spilt their blood upon the wrong side, there never was a Union soldier whose life ebbed away upon the field, whose last mo- ments were not comforted and consoled by the glorious and inspiring consciousness that he was dying for his country and his God. There is an old epitaph in an English churchyard which quaintly says that "he who saves, loses ; he who spends, saves ; and he who gives away, takes it with him." These men gave away their lives and took with them immortal glory, and the grati- tude of endless generations. They may repose in un- known graves south of the Potomac, or sleep beneath the sea, and yet theirs is a deathless fame. Poetry and CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 135 eloquence will embalm their memories and keep ever bright the recollection of their heroic deeds. They belong to the Grand Army of the elect, who, though they died before the cause had triumphed, yet their blood and sacrifice inspired those following to victory. They never fail who die In a great cause. The block may soak their gore ; Their heads may sodden in the sun, their limbs Be strung to city gates and castle walls ; But still their spirit walks abroad. Though years Elapse and others share as dark a doom, They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts Which overpower all others, and conduct The world at last to freedom. If we should eliminate from history all its heroism and the story of its heroic deeds, how barren would be the record. The national spirit of Great Britain is kept alive to-day by her Marlboroughs, her Wellingtons, and her Nelsons. Rome lives not in her Empire, or in the centuries of her rule, but in the few great names whose deeds have been transmitted for example and encouragement. The ten thousand who at Marathon drove the Persian hordes into the sea, lit a fire the spark of which enkindled the flame three thousand years after- ward that expelled the Turk from the soil of Greece. The Barons at Runnymede wrested Magna Charta from King John. Magna Charta gave to the people a repre- sentation in the House of Commons. The House of Commons created Pym, Hampden, Sydney, and Crom- well, and the spirit of these men produced the Ameri- can Revolution. The shot which the embattled farmers fired at Lexington echoed " round the world," and pro- duced most of those revolutions in all lands by which \ I3 6 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF in the last hundred years power has fallen away from the throne and been gained by the people. It was the echo of that shot which in 1861 aroused the national spirit to the protection of the national life, and while Lexington founded the Republic, the memory of Lex- ington preserved it. To-day, of all days in the year, without criticism and without animosity, we can fight over those old battles. We can recall those great deeds and heroic sacrifices and pay our tribute to the men, living and dead, who did so much for us. All has been forgiven, but noth- ing should be forgotten. While memory lives this people will never tolerate the beginning, or tamely sub- mit to the organization, of another revolution, but will visit with swift and terrible wrath its aiders, abettors, and promoters. Representatives of the people who neglect the measures necessary to promote business and prosperity, to develop the resources and augment the power of the nation ; who forget that the true in- terests of the Republic are peace and liberty, intelligence and progress, and equality and inviolability of civil and political rights; who would stir up the old strifes, or attempt to defeat or nullify the results of the war, would better remember that the American people de- mand the preservation of the national honor, the sanc- tity of national pledges, the solid and substantial growth of national unity and wealth, and that there are ques- tions settled at fearful cost, which they will never per- mit to be reopened. To-day, we can with the old fire and fervor sweep with Sherman in his March to the Sea; stand by the grand Thomas while he is holding the enemy at bay; I CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 137 be with the chivalric McPherson as he falls at the front ; fight in the clouds on Lookout Mountain with gallant Joe Hooker ; follow that wonderful ride down the val- ley to Winchester, when the heroic Sheridan on foam- ing steed reformed his flying squadrons, and plucked victory from defeat ; sit with Farragut in the shrouds of his flagship at Mobile Bay, and look at that noblest of historical groupings when Lee surrendered his sword to Grant. Within the past year an American citizen has been received in foreign lands with unprecedented distinc- tion. Liberal and imperial, constitutional and auto- cratic governments, have vied with each othsr in doing him honor. Kings and peoples of all nationalities — of Europe, of India, of China, and Japan — have received him as a national guest and greeted him with en- thusiastic welcome. It is the tribute of the world to the power and genius of the reunited and disenthralled American Republic, and to the valor and prowess of the American soldier in the person of an ex-President of the United States, and the first captain of his time — Ulysses S. Grant. When the war was over, in the South, where, under warmer skies and with more poetic temperaments, sym- bols and emblems are better understood than in the practical North, the widows, mothers, and children of the Confederate dead went out and strewed their graves with flowers ; at many places the women scattered them impartially also over the unknown and unmarked rest- ing places of the Union soldiers. As the news of this touching tribute flashed over the North, it roused, as nothing else could have done, national amity and love, I3 8 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF and allayed sectional animosity and passion. It thrilled every household where there was a vacant chair by the fireside, and an aching void in the heart for a lost hero whose remains had never been found ; old wounds broke out afresh, and in a mingled tempest of grief and joy the family cried, "Maybe it was our darling." Thus, out of sorrows, common alike to the North and the South, came this beautiful custom. But Decoration Day no longer belongs to those who mourn. It is the common privilege of us all, and will be celebrated as long as gratitude exists and flowers bloom. To-day, we can recall just for an instant our emotions when the drum of the recruiting sergeant sounded at every cross-roads and in every village street. The moth- er, the wife, the affianced bride at the station to bid good-by, half glad, half sorrowful. Then the weary days of waiting, the news of battle, the anxious scan- ning of the newspaper for the killed and wounded, the awful haste to the front for the remains, or to the hos- pital to attend the wounded and dying; and now the pride in the achievements and in the lives of those who survived, and this beautiful tribute to those who died. The Revolution of 1776 and the movement to repress the Rebellion of 1861 in their spirit and purpose stand together to-day, and with choicest garlands we wreathe the forms and enshrine the monuments of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. The one, with a majesty of character unequaled in the annals of the race, was Father of his Country, and left to it the wisest utterances which ever came from an uninspired pen — his Farewell Address — for its guidance and its preservation. The other in his administration, in his CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 1 3 9 spirit, and in his death, fitly exhibits the devotion and sacrifices which preserved all that the first had founded. "With malice toward none and charity for all," let those who fought to maintain and those who fought to destroy, each seeing that the preservation of this Union is the common glory, the common benefit, and the common heritage of both, in the spirit of Washing- ton, the founder, and of Lincoln, the preserver, pass our institutions in all their beneficent grandeur and beauty to those who come after us. 140 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF o IX. ration at the reunion of the army of the Potomac at Saratoga, Evening of June 22, 1887. Soldiers of the Army of the Potomac : Last summer I stood upon the White Hill at Prague, in Bohemia, where the Thirty Years' War began and ended. There is no more suggestive spot in Europe. It recalled a picture of the horrors and desolation of war unequaled in history. Across the vision moved the majestic figures of Gustavus Adolphus and Wallenstein, of Turenne, and Tilly, and Cardinal Richelieu. The con- test began when the Continent was dominated by the German Empire, and ended with the magnificent crea- tion of Charles the Fifth broken into numberless petty principalities. Religious zeal supported the combat- ants on both sides. The results were gains in tolera- tion of creeds, but the losses in power and prestige and in devastated cities and countries were incalculable. I was struck with the parallel it offered with our Civil War. The separation of the German people into little states, each with its court, its army, and its jealousies, made Germany the prey of conquerors for two hundred years. Liberty was crushed, and the public burdens were intolerable. Each new invader found allies among CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 14I the contending kingdoms and duchies, and internal dis- sensions made national unity and strength impossible. It was not until after two centuries of suffering and humiliation that the genius of Bismarck consolidated the German people into an Empire. Instantly they assumed their proper place, and became the strongest and most hopeful of European powers. The War of the Rebellion began properly with the battle of Bull Run; it ended within a short distance, at Appomattox. Along seven thousand miles of country battles were fought and armies maneuvered, but the transcendent conflicts were always in Virginia. The Army of the Potomac and the army of Lee were the main combatants, for whom other armies, in their own gallant and brilliant way, were creating diversions, fight- ing glorious battles, and drawing off the strength of the adversary. Like the contest of the seventeenth centu- ry, ours was both a civil and religious war. Three gen- erations of the people of eleven States had been taught by the ablest and most logical statesmen of their time that, as a matter of the highest political economy, the laborer should be enslaved. No other doctrine was permitted to reach the masses, and they became unan- imous in this belief. The Church threw around this opinion its sacred benediction, and doctors of divinity and ambitious politicians vied with each other in find- ing excuses for slavery, the one by distorted interpreta- tions of the Scriptures, and the other by forced render- ings of the Constitution. In the North preacher and publicist inveighed against it as the most frightful curse to the State and a crime against God. But the country came out of the conflict, not like the old Ger- H2 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF man Empire from the Thirty Years' War, a confedera- tion of independent and warring states, but a mighty na- tion. We believed from the start in unity and nation- ality, and upon them staked our all. We escaped that terrible experience of two hundred years by which Ger- many learned her lesson, and the American Bismarck was the American people. In the Army of the Potomac the State of New York has the deepest and most tender interest. This com- monwealth contributed more men to its ranks than they ever mustered at any one time. The grand total of the mighty host enlisted from this State under its banners was four hundred and eighty-eight thousand, and from every one of your battle-fields the cords of grief are stretched to all the cities, villages, and hamlets within our borders. It is, therefore, eminently fit that you should frequently honor us with your reunions, and pre- eminently appropriate that a commemoration should be had upon this spot. The battle of Saratoga is one of the landmarks of liberty. A great critic has placed it among the most important of the fifteen decisive con- flicts of history. The patriot army was in desperate straits, and the Continental treasury bankrupt and with- out credit. The British Cabinet had ordered that Bur- goyne should march down from the north to meet Sir Henry Clinton coming up the Hudson, and the young confederacy thus cut in twain could be easily con- quered. Washington was as thoroughly alive to the perils of the situation as the English generals were to its possibilities. The hopes and fears of the young Re- public were concentrated on the army facing Burgoyne at Saratoga. The battle closed, not only with the de- CHAVNCEV M. DEPEIV. 143 feat, but in the capture, of the entire British army, with all its armament and stores. The victory breathed the breath of life into American credit, and opened the sources of national revenue. It inspired the wavering and gave strength to the weak. It furnished the means to that hero and patriot of two continents, the Marquis de Lafayette, by which he brought about the French alliance. "Now is the time and here is the place for every enemy of England to strike a mortal blow," said old Frederick the Great, of Prussia, when he heard of Saratoga, and the governments of the world received the United States of America into the family of na- tions. But it is not to celebrate the victories and the vir- tues of the heroes of the Revolution that we are met here to-day. It is for old soldiers once more to touch elbows, for the cordial communion of comrades, for the revival of sacred reminiscences, and the broader purpose of keeping coming generations informed for what you fought and what you won. Vapid sentimentalists and timid souls deprecate these annual reunions, fearing they may arouse old strifes and sectional animosities; but a war in which five hundred thousand men were killed and two millions were wounded ; in which States were devastated and money spent equal to twice Eng- land's gigantic debt ; has a meaning, a lesson, and re- sults which are to the people of this Republic a liberal education, and the highest chairs in this university belong to you. We cheerfully admit that the Confederate equally with the Federal soldier believed he was fighting for the right, and maintained his faith with a valor which fully 1 44 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OP sustained the reputation of Americans for courage and constancy; and yet, one side or the other was wrong. It was slavery and disunion, or freedom and union, and one must not only yield, but die. The God of Battles decided for Liberty and Nationality, and no surviving soldier who fought in either army to-day doubts the righteousness of that verdict. The best and bravest thinkers of the South gladly proclaim that the superb development which has been the outgrowth of their defeat is worth all its losses, its sacrifices, its humilia- tions. As torrents of living waters flowed from the rock smitten by Moses in the desert, so from the touch of liberty has come an industrial revolution full of pros- perity and promise. The wastes and wildernesses of feudal baronies are inviting emigration to a new agri- culture and harvests of wealth, and the hills and moun- tains are yielding their treasuries to the founding and building of new Birminghams and Sheffields. The marvelous recuperation of the whole country in the past twenty years, and our gigantic strides in material progress, have almost obliterated from memory the fact that these results are solely due to the victories won by the armies of the Union. Let the youth of all sections grow up from generation to generation taught the lesson and imbued with the sentiment that this Repub- lic is not a confederacy of independent States, but a nation, with the right and power to use the last dollar and enlist the last man to maintain the authority of the Constitution and the supremacy of the flag. Whoever is offended by this is not a loyal citizen and should "reconstruct" or emigrate. Englishmen fought against Englishmen in the Revolutionary War, and now, to the CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 1 45 modern and enlightened Briton, the Fourth of July is as triumphant a day as it is for us. It won for us inde- pendence, and for him larger liberties and better gov- ernment. I say it reverently, the converted sinner kneels at the altar and confesses before God and the world the error of his ways, or the heresy of his opin- ions, and when forgiven and absolved, instead of being offended at the repeated celebrations of the event, he glories in the victory, and calls upon comrades and com- panions to share his happiness. The results of the Civil War were embodied in the Constitution and embedded in the laws of the land, and loyal minds and loyal hearts, no matter on which side they fought, hold that the observance and enforcement of such laws in letter and in spirit are the tests of true citizenship and honest patriotism. We are surfeited in these times with careful calcu- lations and rigid estimates of the value of the services of the men who fought this war. In popular discus- sions it is widely taught that "pensioner" is a term of reproach instead of honorable recognition of the coun- try's gratitude. I remember, when a boy, that the most distinguished guests at all patriotic celebrations were the venerable men whose names were borne on the pension-roll of the army. It was a decoration, and carried with it the distinction of the medal and ribbon of the Legion of Honor. Fraud upon the pension fund is a capital crime and merits the severest punishment, but the principles upon which it is founded, and the purity with which it is administered, reflect credit alike upon the giver and the recipients. The men who at a compensation of thirteen dollars a month left behind H& ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF them prospects for promotion in their professions, wealth in their business, and competence from their in- dustries, and for four years marched under blazing suns, slept upon the ground, breathed the miasma of the swamps, were racked with the fevers of the jungle, and amidst shot and shell and saber-thrust kept their colors aloft and bore them to the Capital in triumph, secured for the sixty millions of people of this Republic, and their descendants, those unequaled civil and religious rights and business opportunities which make this land the one country in the world where people of all nation- alities are seeking homes, and from which no man ever voluntarily emigrated. In i860 the developed and assessable property of the United States was valued at sixteen thousand millions of dollars. One-half of this enormous sum was destroyed by the Civil War, and yet so prodigious has been the growth of wealth under the conditions created by the national victory and the set- tlements of reconstruction, that in this month of June, 1887, the estimate surpasses the imperial figure of sixty thousand millions of dollars, and the growth is at the rate of nearly seven millions a day. Our wealth ap- proximates one-half of that of all Europe, and it is an easy task for the statistician to aggregate civilized governments with populations of hundreds of millions of people who are paupers in the scale of comparisons. While in Europe with the increase of population there has been a decrease, since the surrender of Appomat- tox, in the amount for each individual, here during the same period the increase for every inhabitant has been fifty per cent. If it be true that the transmitti- ble property of the world accumulated during the last CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 147 twenty-five years equals all the gains from the birth of Christ to the beginning of the present century, then much of it has been made by this favored nation, which for sixteen hundred years had no existence, and was not an appreciable factor in the divisible property of the earth at the close of the Christian calculation. These unparalleled results can be protected and continued only by the spirit represented by your sacrifices and inspiring your victories— the spirit of patriotism. This is a republic, and neither Mammon nor Anarchy shall be king. The American asks only for a fair field and an equal chance. He believes that every man is en- titled for himself and his children to the full enjoyment of all he honestly earns; but he will seek and find the means for eradicating conditions which hopelessly handicap him from the start. In this contest he does not want the assistance of the Red Flag, and he regards with equal hostility those who march under that banner and those who furnish argument and excuse for its ex- istence. The men who in 1880 "cornered" our wheat product, and so artificially raised the price all over the world that governments and peoples pushed railroads through Indian plains to the Himalayas, across Russian steppes to the Arctic zone, and over Australian deserts to fertile valleys, in search of food, created for us com- petitions which lost us the foreign markets and partial- ly paralyzed our agricultural prosperity. They were public enemies. In good times and easy credit a small margin represents millions of capital, and reckless specu- lators control first one and then another of the necessa- ries of life, raising the cost of living beyond the profits of production, throwing thousands of industrious men 148 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF out of employment, and thwarting and ruining legiti- mate trades and business capital. They exasperate the victims and incite combinations and dangers which threaten the whole property of the country, the peace of communities, and the lives of millions of people. If public sentiment cannot reach these evils, our Constitu- tions are elastic enough, our Legislatures wise enough, and our Courts strong enough, to eradicate them by lawful means. Traffic in the food of the people must be free. The corporation is the creature of the State, its powers limited by the conditions of its existence, its methods subject to public supervision, and its life dependent upon its creator. It is the only medium through which many of the great enterprises of our civilization can be carried on. But the sun of publicity can send no ray into the labyrinths of those gigantic combinations which are created by neither law nor cus- tom nor necessity, and whose mysterious movements are at once the peril and the puzzle of the investor, and the destructive traps for enterprise and ambition. Thirty years ago Macaulay wrote a letter to an emi- nent citizen of this State which carries to the reader the shock of an electric battery. In it he declares that our institutions are not strong enough to stand the strain of crowded populations and social distress, and that our public lands furnish the only escape from anar- chy. With the opening of the next century, thirteen years hence, they will all be occupied, and at the first in- dustrial disturbance which throws large masses of men out of employment we must meet the prediction of the famous historian. If Macaulay had witnessed the sub- lime response of the people to President Lincoln's call CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 149 for troops to suppress rebellion and save the Union, it would have cleared his vision and modified his judg- ment. Nevertheless, the exhaustion of the public do- main and the disappearance forever of the unbought homestead, present part of Macaulay's problem. The ranks of anarchy and riot number no Americans. The leaders boldly proclaim that they come here, not to en- joy the blessings of our liberty and to sustain our insti- tutions, but to destroy our Government and dethrone our laws, to cut our throats and divide our property. Dissatisfied labor furnishes the opportunity to preach their doctrines and mobs to try their tactics. Their recruiting officers are active in every city in Europe, and for once despotic governments give them accord and assistance, in securing and shipping to America the most dangerous elements of their populations. The emigrants arriving this year will outnumber the peo- ple of several States, and of every city in the coun- try but three, and if some mighty power should in- stantly depopulate Maine or Connecticut or Nebraska, or Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, and New Haven com- bined, with their culture, refinement, and varied pro- fessional, mechanical, and industrial excellence and en- lightened government, and suddenly substitute these people, we could quickly estimate the character and value of this contribution to our institutions and wealth. The emigrants of the past have been of incalculable benefit to a country which needed settlers for its lands, and skilled and unskilled labor for its towns, and among them have been men who have filled and adorned the highest positions of power and trust. The officers of the Government report that there is a falling-off of over 15° ORATIONS -AND SPEECHES OF seventy per cent, of farmers, mechanics, and trained workers, and their places are occupied by elements which must drift into and demoralize labor centers al- ready overstocked and congested, or fill the highways and poorhouses. We do not wish to prohibit emigra- tion, but our laws should be rigidly revised so that we may at least have some voice in the selection of our guests. We cannot afford to become the dumping- ground of the world for its vicious or ignorant or worth- less or diseased. We will welcome, as always, all pa- triots fleeing from oppression, all who will contribute to the strength of our Government and the development of our resources, and we will freely grant to all who be- come citizens equal rights and privileges under the laws and in making them, with the soldiers who saved the Republic, but no more. There is room in this country for only one flag, and "Old Glory" must head the pro- cession or it cannot march. A nation of the power and position of the United States should have a navy strong enough to protect its coasts and harbors, to maintain its honor and enforce respect for its flag, and an army worthy of the name. Wars have not ceased. With our reviving commerce and growing interests all over the world, we may at any time be embroiled in a conflict with some European or South American government. That Turkey or Chili could sweep our navy from the seas in a month ; that there is no gun or armament in any of our ports which could prevent an ironclad from entering the harbor and destroying our chief cities or levying hundreds of mil- lions of tribute ; is not gratifying to our sense, our se- curity, or our pride. That we would be buffeted and CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 151 humiliated for two years before we would be able to protect ourselves or retaliate, illustrates the superlative idiocy of our blind confidence in our resources. The governments of Europe, armed to the teeth, are con- fronting each other, and an accident or a death may precipitate the most gigantic conflict of modern times; but they will not always be thus engaged. An army of fifty thousand men is none too large to man our forts and frontiers, and form the nucleus and the school for our volunteers. For while the citizen soldiers will al- ways be our reliance in war or rebellion, it takes many months to arm, equip, and drill them for effective ser- vice. We are in the enjoyment of profound domestic tran- quillity, but the safety of every man in his home, his family, his children, and his property is only in the su- premacy of the laws. Among sixty millions of people, and soon to be a hundred millions, spread over a conti- nent, there is liable to arise at any time insurrection or riots from economic or political or religious or social causes beyond the power of local or state authorities to meet. There has been a Mormon rebellion ; others of like character are possible. A temperance murder may provoke that most frightful form of tyranny, mob rule. Had the police been routed on the night of the anarch- ists' assault at Chicago, it would have taken an army to save the unprotected city from burning and pillage and the unutterable horrors of the sack. A less peace-lov- ing or self-poised man than Samuel J. Tilden would have stirred political passions, inflamed to the fighting point, into bloody revolt. The demagogue who pre- tends to fear that the liberties of sixty millions of 152 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF people may be endangered by an army of fifty or a hundred thousand men, finds instead of the credulity which accepts his opinions, only contempt for himself. The American Caesar is an airy phantasm of a diseased imagination. In all ordinary, and most of the extra- ordinary, cases of local trouble, the police and the sheriff are equal to the emergency, but it was found in the riots of 1877, when States were paralyzed and their offi- cers helpless, that in the popular mind the supreme sovereignty of the American people was represented by the uniform of the regular army, and through it sixty millions of citizens demanded the cessation of hostili- ties, the restoration of law and order, and the vindica- tion of rights by the courts. It is the glory of the army and the pride of the nation, that since the formation of the Government no regiment or company of United States soldiers has ever joined the enemy, sympathized with insurrection, or sided with rebellion. That an efficient, thoroughly drilled, and equipped body of citi- zen soldiers should exist in every State — of which no better example exists than the National Guard of New York — is too self-evident for discussion ; it keeps alive the martial spirit of patriotism and principle of volun- tary service. But I have no fears of the fulfillment of Macaulay's direful forebodings. I have unlimited faith in the absorbent properties of American communities, and the solvent powers of American liberty. Let us take care of the Mosts, the Spies, and the Schwabs; and the press, the platform, the school, the church, and the English language, will make honest citizens of their followers and their descendants. Every man who leads a temperate and industrious life, and organizes himself CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 153 into an anti-poverty society of one, has secured his in- dependence and individual prosperity, and become a champion of order and a bulwark of law. So long as the veterans of the Civil War can carry muskets and rally at command, the nation has a most effective army. But age, disease, and death are fast thinning their ranks. Their active service will soon be only glorious memories for the inspiration of others. Their story will be the recruiting sergeant of coming generations. Each of the great armies had its distin- guishing merit, but in the achievements and in the rec- ords of the Western forces, following the precedent of previous wars, are largely represented the genius and personality of great commanders. To the Army of the Potomac belongs the unique distinction of being its own hero. It fought more battles and lost more in killed and wounded than all the others ; it shed its blood like water to teach incompetent officers the art of war, and political tacticians the folly of their plans; but it was always the same invincible and undismayed Army of the Potomac. Loyal ever to its mission and to dis- cipline, the only sound it gave in protest of the murder- ous folly of cabinets and generals was the crackling of the bones as cannon-balls ploughed through its deci- mated ranks. The verdict of history is already made up as to the value of its services, its sacrifices, and its victories, but perhaps not yet upon its commanders. All of them were brave soldiers, all of them were unequaled at the head of a division or a corps; but to make the combi- nations to overcome the Titanic forces of the unprece- dented obstacles presented by nature, a hostile popu- 154 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF lation, and a foe of equal power and prowess on the defensive line, was not their talent. From intermediate discussions we rise to the contemplation of two grand facts, standing like monuments at the beginning and close of its career: that it owed its existence to the masterly organizing abilities of McClellan, and ended the war under the superb generalship of Grant. As we recall the memory of the dead, the spirits of all the war- rior heroes of the past come trooping before us. There are Alexander and Caesar, Gustavus and the great Fred- erick, Napoleon and his marshals, Wellington and his generals, Washington and his compatriots; and they have enrolled in their company and encircled with their praise, Hancock and Hooker, Sumner and Sedgwick, Meade and Warren, Burnside and Reynolds, Kearny, Wadsworth, Custer, and Kilpatrick. A good soldier does full honor to his adversary. Also Americans, though on the wrong side, no more formida- ble force of equal numbers ever marched or fought than the Army of Northern Virginia ; and it had the rare fortune of being always under the command of one of the most creative and accomplished military minds of his time — General Lee. To conquer and capture such an army and captain, the Army of the Potomac must overcome what the greatest of tacticians has said was invincible: an armed enemy in his own country, with the whole population venomously hostile, acting as spies, furnishing information, removing supplies, pre- paring ambuscades, and misleading the invader; and it did accomplish this military miracle. It was hard and trying to be marched and countermarched for naught ; to be separated and paralyzed at the moment when a CHAUNCEY M. DEPEtV. 155 supteme effort meant victory; to be hurled against im- passable defenses, and then waste months in repairing the mistake ; but in God's mysterious providence it was the only means by which the end of the war should be a final settlement. Had the conflict closed by the cap- ture of Richmond during the first or second, or even the third year it would have left an armed, defiant, and unconverted adversary, utilizing peace as a truce in which to recuperate for another blow, when sure of larger sympathy and support in the North. It required complete and utter exhaustion, and the humiliation of total and hopeless defeat, that, in absolute despair of revenge, reflection might calmly reason through the errors of the lost cause to the glowing realization that defeat was victory, that poverty would be the source of undreamed wealth, and that the striking of the chains from the limbs of the slave had unshackled the master. It was the answer to the Apostle's cry, "Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death !" And the disenthralled rebel in his rags began the life of a prosperous patriot. The Army of the Potomac was composed of think- ing bayonets. Behind each musket was a man who knew for what he was fighting, and intended when the war was over to return home and take up the peaceful implements of his trade or profession where he had dropped them. He understood the plan of campaign, and with unerring and terrible accuracy sized up his commander. The one soldier in whom he never lost confidence was himself. This army operated so near the Capitol, that congressmen and newspapers directed its movements, changed its officers, and criticised its 156 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF failures to conquer upon lines blue-penciled on Washing- ton maps. It suffered for four years under unparalleled abuse, and was encouraged by little praise, but never murmured. It saw all its corps and division comman- ders sign a petition to the President to remove its Gen- eral, and then despairingly but heroically marched to certain disaster at his order. It saw its General de- mand the resignation or court-martial of its corps and division officers, and yet, undemoralized and undis- mayed, it charged under his successor in a chaos of con- flicting commands. "Onto Richmond !" came the unthinking cry from every city, village, and cross-roads in the North; "On to Richmond!" shouted .grave senators and impetuous congressmen ; "On to Richmond !" ordered the Cabinet, no longer able to resist the popular demand, and the raw and untrained recruits were hurled from their un- formed organizations and driven back to Washington. Then, with discipline and drill, out of chaos came order; the self-asserting volunteer had become an obedient soldier, the mass had been molded into a complex and magnificent machine, and it was the "Army of the Po- tomac." Overcoming untold difficulties, fighting with superb courage, it comes in sight of the spires of Rich- mond, and then, unable to succeed, because McDowell and his corps of thirty-four thousand are held back, it renews each morning and carries on every night in re- treat the seven days' battle for existence, and, brought 'to bay at Malvern Hill, asserts its undaunted spirit in hard-won victory. It follows Pope, and marches, and falls back, pursues enemies who are not before it, and finds foes for which it is unprepared, and fights, and is CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 157 beaten, under orders so contradictory and counsels so divided, that an army of European veterans would have disbanded. Immediately it recognizes a general in whom it has confidence, the stragglers come from the bush, and the wounded from the hospitals; regiments, brigades, divisions, and corps reform, and at Antietam it is invincible and irresistible. Every man in the ranks knows that the fortified heights of Fredericksburg are impregnable ; that the forlorn-hope charges not into the imminent deadly breach, but into a death-trap, and yet, with unfaltering step, this grand army salutes its blind commander, and marches to the slaughter. Theirs not to reason why, Theirs not to make reply, Theirs but to do and die. Every private was aware of the follies of the Rappa- hannock campaign. He knew that the opportunity to inflict an irreparable blow upon the army of Lee had been trifled away, and that after reckless delays to make the movement, which at first would have been a surprise, conceived by the very genius of war, was then mere midsummer madness; and yet this incomparable army, floundering through swamps, lost in almost impenetra- ble forests, outflanked, outmaneuvered, outgeneraled, decimated, no sooner felt the firm hand of Meade than they destroyed the offensive and aggressive power of the Confederacy in the three days' fighting at Gettysburg. At last this immortal army of Cromwellian descent, of Viking ancestry, and the blood of Brian Boru, had at its head a great captain who had never lost a battle, and whom President Lincoln had freed from political meddling and the interference of the civil authorities. I5 8 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF Every morning for thirty days came the orders to storm the works in front, and every evening for thirty nights the survivors moved to the command, "By the left flank, forward, march" ; and at the end of that fateful month, with sixty thousand comrades dead or wounded in the Wilderness, the Army of the Potomac once more, •after four years, saw the spires of Richmond. Inflexi- ble of purpose, insensible to suffering, inured to fatigue, and reckless of danger, it rained blow on blow upon its heroic but staggering foe, and the world gained a new and better and freer and more enduring Republic than it had ever known, in the surrender at Appomattox. When Lincoln and Grant and Sherman, firmly hold- ing behind them the vengeful passions of the Civil War, put out their victorious arms to the South and said, "We are brethren," this generous and patriotic army joined in the glad acclaim and welcome with their fer- vent "Amen." Twenty-two years have come and gone since you marched down Pennsylvania Avenue past the people's representatives, to whom you and your Wes- tern comrades there committed the Government you had saved and the liberties you had redeemed ; past Americans from whose citizenship you had wiped with your blood the only stain, and made it the proudest of earthly titles. Call the roll. The names reverberate from earth to Heaven. "All present or accounted for." Here the living answer for the dead ; there the spirits of the dead answer for the living. As God musters them out on earth, He enrolls them above ; and as the Republic marches down the ages, accumulating power and splendor with each succeeding century, the van will be led by the Army of the Potomac. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 1 59 s X. peech at the banquet given on march l6, 1886, by the Members of the Union League Club of 1863 and 1864, to Commemorate the Departure for the Seat of War of the Twentieth Regiment of United States Col- ored Troops, Raised by the Club. It is a fortunate thing that in the rush and hurry of our metropolitan life, celebrations like this occur. It is one of the great safety-valves in the high pressure of business and care, that the American people can seize upon and utilize every opportunity to meet about the festive board. Happily for our health, spirits and longevity, for our elevation above drudgery, our fresh and continuing interest in the intellectual life of the world, and our possibilities for agreeable companion- ship, the average New Yorker lets slip no occasion which will justify putting his legs under the mahogany and himself outside a good dinner. We live in a vor- tex of business, great undertakings, stocks, bonds, and money-making. In the vestibule of the church, the se- clusion of the club, the privacy of our homes, the midst of our festivities, comes the shadow of the shop, and the man whose talk is all of the street. We have no opportunities for plain living and high thinking, for elo- 160 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF quence and lofty debate. The only two occasions which call forth genuine metropolitan enthusiasm and suggest the possibilities of an intellectual life are, when at their annual banquets the sons of New England loud- ly proclaim that all there is of liberty, progress, and culture in this country has come from the Puritans and their descendants ; or the disciples of St. Patrick argue in ardent speech that their conspicuous talent for govern- ment entitles them to hold and administer all the offices. The significance of this celebration lies in the fact that it is one of the few which recall an event worth commemorating. We who were upon the stage of ac- tion during the Civil War recall as if it were but yester- day the scenes which have been recited here with such graphic and realistic power. It occurs to only one generation in a thousand years to witness the events and experience the emotions of the times which this occasion brings in review. I remember as if it had happened this morning, the marching of that colored regiment down Broadway. While in memory these scenes of a quarter of a century ago seem so near, a look about this table dis- pels the illusion. I recall most of you as you appeared during that famous march down Broadway. Bliss * was then known as the white-headed boy, Acton's f crown of snow was a glossy black, SchultziJ: was lithe and active as a young race-horse; and it is a trib- ute to the healthfulness of courageous patriotism and public spirit, that all of you are here with unimpaired mental, moral, and physical vigor. * Col. George Bliss, f Thomas Acton. % Jackson S. Schultz. CHAUNCEY M. DEPRW. 161 It is a rare privilege to have been a participant in the events of the Civil War. It is not once in a hundred years that the opportunity comes when the tremendous issues involved spiritualize everybody, when enthusiasm mounts to ecstasy, and standing, as it were, upon the boundary of the finite and the infinite, we grasp them both. For a man to have gone through such a struggle and felt its emotions, is to have lived the lives of count- less generations. Those people whose lot is cast in ordinary times, who meet only the usual accidents and changes in public affairs, and drift along on smooth cur- rents of opinion and discussion, know nothing of this experience. It is only in those great crises in the fates of governments and peoples, which involve the accumu- lations of the past and the hopes of the future, when the world waits in hushed expectancy the result, that a man in the concentrated intensity of his feelings be- comes God-like. Every one of us who passes through such a baptism would not exchange it for a hundred peaceful and uneventful years. I stood upon a balcony when the Seventh marched down Broadway on their way to res- cue the Capitol. About me were men from all parts of the State who had come down to the city to witness their departure. Many of them were rough and coarse, possessing little refinement, but strong in all the arts of politics and trade ; and yet they fell on each other, and in their sobs and tears were transformed and ennobled. As the regiment marched by, and amid the salutes I saw the pallid faces of fathers, brothers, and friends, the waving handkerchief, and then the drooping forms of mother, wife, sweetheart, sister; before me seemed the 1 62 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF picture of our Country, with all its achievements and possibilities for liberty and humanity, in deadly peril, and may be to be saved by these flashing guns. And then came the shock — this is war; these young men may never return, the land is to be filled with sorrow, with deserted homesteads, mourning firesides, broken hearts, and what will be the issue? Disunion? never; we all felt and knew from that hour that the nation was aroused and the Republic would be saved. I believe the march of the Seventh Regiment down Broadway, which was witnessed in panoramic description by the whole Country, thrilled a sordid and money-getting people to an enthusiasm which developed the noblest patriotism, and won for liberty its most enduring tri- umph. Well, as we are taking out of memory's store-house to-night pictures of every kind, let us lay down for the moment the tragedies, and take up this sketch which outlines the other side. I remember while sitting in my office one morning in that most beautiful and pictur- esque spot on earth, the village of Peekskill, an order came from the Governor for the 18th Regiment of Westchester militia (of which I was an officer) to move immediately to the front and head off General Lee's army returning from the invasion of Pennsylvania. The regiment, as a whole, had never met, but it was equal to the emergency. Every member of it dropped his plow or locked his office, and the next day we were marching down Broadway. The Union League did not notice us, the populace did not enthuse, and the Gov- ernment put us on cattle-cars and shipped us to Balti- more. When we formed in line of battle I found that CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 1 63 the front of the regiment was much safer than the rear. But the reputation of a martial host often makes their presence as potent as their steel. The fame of the prowess and value of the Westchester yeomanry had preceded them. The very night we arrived in Baltimore for the purpose of preventing General Lee from reaching Virginia, he fled from Gettysburg. I found afterwards, in looking over the Confederate rec- ords in Washington, that into the midst of the Rebel council of war, upon a horse flecked with foam, dashed a breathless messenger, bearing from the Rebels in Baltimore this significant message, "The 18th Westches- ter has arrived." The next day the broken ranks of Lee's invading host were flying down the valley of the Shenandoah, and the North was saved. I tell this story and pay this tribute to a corps whose deeds might not otherwise be recorded, because your chairman, Col. Cannon, announced that in to-night's reminiscences many things never heard of before would be told for the instruction and delight of future generations. My friend, Col. Cannon, asks me to speak of and for the women in the war. It is historically true that if it had not been for the women of the South, the war would have closed two years before it did. When the men saw the inevitable and were ready to submit, their mothers, wives, and sweethearts kept them to the front, and were ready to perish with them in the last ditch. On the other hand, if it had not been for the women of the North, the war would have ended in a disgraceful compromise. When a Confederate victory was hailed with applause by the vast crowd of Rebel sympathizers in New York City and elsewhere, and the discourage- 1 64 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF ments of defeat were intensified by internal divisions in our own community, the weak-hearted and the waver- ing joined in the call for peace at any price — peace which would have restored the Union with the seeds of dissolution planted in its structure. But the women who were bereaved and the women whose loved ones were still in the field, cried with one voice, "Union with liberty and the principles of its per- petuity, or death with honor." To the women in the war belongs the higher and the purer glory. The volun- teer was inspired by the trumpet's blare, the cannon's roar, the shouts of marching thousands, and the wild intoxication of gunpowder and fighting. Honor, im- mortality, every emotion and incentive which fires the blood, and in all ages has led the forlorn hope, carried the deadly breach, and made the heroes of the world, were with him and behind him. j But for the women there were none of these conditions. In loneliness, in sor- row, often in want, it was their lot to suffer and endure. No opportunity for them to be placed upon the roll of honor or to win immortal fame. Patriotic women sub- mitted to the hardships of camp and field ; they nursed in the hospitals and lived in chambers of horrors for three years. For what? For glory or a decoration? Oh no ! But with love which was angelic, piety which was saintlike, and an abnegation of self and devotion to duty unparalleled, they labored to alleviate suffering, encourage the despairing, help the wounded hero back to health, or, if need be, soothe and smooth his passage to the grave. Many an unknown private soldier, recall- ing in the last supreme moment his childhood and home, went to his reward blessed with a touch so sympathetic CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 1 65 and a kiss so pure, that his own mother seemed to ten- derly commit his spirit to his Maker. Tens of thous- ands of sick and wounded soldiers lived to join their families and enjoy the gratitude of their countrymen solely through what was done for them by the women, - through sanitary commissions, contribution of necessa- ries and luxuries, and personal attendance and care. All hail to the mothers, sisters, wives, and sweethearts of the war. Their courage and constancy were the fac- tors in the salvation of the Republic. The three hundred founders of this Club who braved social ostracism and contempt, by marching as an escort for the first colored regiment down Broadway, are worthy of commemoration and honor; but the ladies who gave the regiment its flag must share in this glory. I am sure that proud as my friend Mr. Astor, who sat beside me, has a right to be, that he was one of the three hundred, there is a source of profounder gratifi- cation in the fact that Mrs. Astor was Chairman of the Ladies' Committee which presented the flag. The po- tent influence of the women of position and power in our New York world stamped out prejudice, turned his- ses into applause, exalted the humble and despised to places of honor, and in giving the black man not only the right but the invitation to fight for his liberty, created the force which emancipated the slaves and saved the Union. 1 66 OR A TIONS AND SPEECHES OF s XI. peech at the dinner to celebrate the Anniversary of the Birth of Gen. Grant, at Delmonico's, April 27, 1888. I do not propose, as has been announced, to deliver a formal oration upon General Grant, but, as one of the many gentlemen who are to speak here to-night, to ex- press the judgment of a busy man of affairs upon his character and career. We are not yet far enough from this striking personality to read accurately the verdict of posterity, and we are so near that we still feel the force of the mighty passions in the midst of which he moved and lived. The hundred years of our national existence are crowded with an unusual number of men eminent in arms and in statesmanship ; but of all the illustrious list one only has his birthday a legal holi- day — George Washington. Of the heroes and patriots who filled the niches in our temple of fame for the first century, the birthdays of only two of them are of such significance that they receive wide celebrations — Lin- coln and Grant. When the historian of the future calm- ly and impartially writes the story of this momentous period, these two names will be inseparably linked to- gether. The President supplemented the General, and the General the President, and without them the great CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 167 battle of human rights and American unity might have been lost. Reticent as to his plans, secretive as to his move- ments, repelling inquiry and disdaining criticism, Gener- al Grant invited the deepest hostility from the country at large. Three years of war, which had carried grief to every household, and in which the failures had been greater than the successes, had made the people dis- pirited, impatient, and irritable. The conditions were such that the demand for the removal of Grant many times would have been irresistible, and the call for re- cruits to fill his depleted ranks unanswered, except for the peculiar hold the President had upon the country. Lincoln was not an accidental or experimental Presi- dent. As a member of Congress he became familiar with the details of government, and in the debate with Douglas had demonstrated a familiarity with the ques- tions before the people, and a genius for their solution, unequaled among his contemporaries. No one of the statesmen of the time, who might possibly have been President, could have held the country up to the high- water mark of the continuous struggle of hope against defeat, of fighting not only against a solid enemy, but an almost equal division in his own camps. His hum- ble origin, his homely ways, his quaint humor, his con- stant touch and sympathy with the people, inspired the confidence which enabled him to command and wield all the forces of the Republic. He alone could stand between the demand for Grant's removal, the criticism upon his plans, the fierce outcries against his losses, and satisfy the country of the infallibility of his own trust in the ultimate success of the command. 1 68 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF On the other hand, the aspiration of Lincoln for the defeat of the rebellion and the reunion of the States could not have been realized except for Grant. Until he appeared upon the scene the war had been a bloody and magnificent failure. The cumulative and concen- trated passions of the Confederacy had fused the whole people into an army of aggression and defense. The North, without passion or vindictiveness, fought with gloved hands, at the expense of thousands of lives and fatal blows to prestige and credit. The lesson was learned that a good brigadier, an able general of division, a successful corps commander, might be paralyzed under the burden of supreme responsibility. Victories were fruitless, defeats disastrous, delays demoralizing, until the spirit of war entered the camp in the person of Ulysses S. Grant. Without sentiment or passion, he believed that every reverse could be retrieved and victory should be followed with the annihilation of the enemy's forces. "My terms are unconditional surren- der; I move immediately upon your works," was the legend of Donelson, which proclaimed the new method of warfare. He hurled his legions against the ramparts of Vicksburg, sacrificing thousands of lives which might have been saved by delay, but saved the loss of tens of thousands by malarial fever and camp diseases, and pos- sibly at the expense of defeat. He believed that the river of blood shed to-day, and followed by immediate results, was infinitely more merciful to friend and foe than the slower disasters of war which make the heca- tombs of the dead. From the surrender of Vicksburg rose the sun of national unity to ascend to the zenith at Appomattox, CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 169 and never to set. Where all others had failed in the capture of Richmond, he succeeded by processes which aroused the protest and horror of the country and the criticism of posterity — but it triumphed. For thirty nights in succession he gave to the battle-torn and deci- mated army the famous order, "By the left flank, for- ward": and for thirty days hurled them upon the ever- succeeding breastworks and ramparts of the enemy. But it was with the same inexorable and indomitable idea that, with practically inexhaustible resources be- hind him, the rebellion could be hammered to death. As Grant fought without vindictiveness or feeling of revenge, in the supreme moment of victory the soldier disappeared and the patriot and statesman took his place. He knew that the exultation of the hour would turn to ashes in the future unless the surrendered rebel soldier became a loyal citizen. He knew that the Re- public could not hold vassal provinces by the power of the bayonet and live. He returned arms, gave food, transportation, horses, stock, and said, "Cultivate your farms and patriotism." And they did. Whatever others may have done, the Confederate soldier has never violated the letter or the spirit of that parole. All other conquerors have felt that the triumphal en- try into the enemy's capital should be the crowning event of the war. The Army of the Potomac had been seeking to capture Richmond for four years, and when the hour arrived for the victorious procession Grant halted it, that no memory of humiliation should stand in the way of the rebel capital becoming once more the capital of a loyal State. The curse of power is flattery ; the almost inevitable 17° ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF concomitant of greatness, jealousy ; and yet no man ever lived who so rejoiced in the triumph of others as General Grant. This imperturbable man hailed the victories of his generals with wild delight. Sheridan, riding down the valley, reversing the tide of battle, fall- ing with resistless blows upon the enemy until they surrendered, drew from his admiring commander the exulting remark to the country : "Behold one of the greatest generals of this or any other age." His com- panion and steadfast friend through all his campaigns, the only man who rivaled him in genius and the affec- tions of his countrymen, the most accomplished soldier and superb tactician, who broke the source of supply and struck the deadliest blow in the march from Atlanta to the sea, received at every step of his career the most generous recognition of his services and abilities. He knew and was glad that the march of Xenophon and the ten thousand Greeks, which had been the inspira- tion of armies for over two thousand years, would be replaced, for the next two thousand, by the resistless tramp of Sherman and his army. Grant was always famous among his soldiers for the rare quality of courage in the presence of danger. But the country is indebted to him for a higher faculty, which met and averted a peril of the gravest character. One of the most extraordinary and singular men who ever filled a great place was Andrew Johnson. He was a human paradox of conflicting qualities, great and small, generous and mean, bigoted and broad, patriotic and partisan. He loved his country with a passionate devotion, but would have destroyed it to rebuild it upon his own model. Born a poor white, hating with CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. l) t the intensity of wounded pride the better and dominant class, in a delirium of revenge and vindictiveness he shouted, "Treason is odious and must be punished," and by drumhead court-martial or summary process at law would have executed every one of the Confederate generals, and left behind a vendetta to disturb the peace of uncounted generations. Between their execution and this madman appears the calm and conquering force of General Grant, with the declaration: "My pa- role is the honor of the nation." When, swinging to the other extreme, and in the exercise of doubtful power, the President would have reversed the results of the war by reorganizing a government upon the lines which he thought best, he was again met by this same determined purpose, exclaiming: "My bayonets will again be the salvation of the nation." General Grant will live in history as the greatest sol- dier of his time, but it will never, be claimed for him that he was the best of Presidents. No man, however remarkable his endowments, could fill that position with supreme ability unless trained and educated for the task. He said to a well-known publicist in the last days of his second term : "You have criticised severely my administration in your newspaper ; in some cases you were right, in others wrong. I ask this of you, in fairness and justice, that in summing up the results of my presidency, you will only say that General Grant, having had no preparation for civil office, performed its duties conscientiously and according to the best of his ability." The times of reconstruction presented problems which required the highest qualities of statesmanship and 172 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF business. In the unfamiliarity with the business of a great commercial nation General Grant did not, how- ever, differ much from most of the men who have been successful or defeated candidates for the Presidency of the United States. It is a notable fact that though we are the only purely industrial nation in the world, we have never selected our rulers from among the great business men of the country. And the conditions and prejudices of success present insuperable obstacles to such a choice. Yet Grant's administration will live in history for two acts of supreme importance. When the delirium of fiat money would have involved the nation in bankruptcy, his great name and fame alone served to win the victory for honest money and to save the credit and prosperity of the Republic. He, the first soldier of his time, gave the seal of his great authority to the settlement of international disputes by arbi- tration. The quality of his greatness was never so conspicuous as in the election of General Garfield. He carried with him around the world the power and majesty of the American nation — he had been the companion of kings and counselor of cabinets. His triumphal march had belted the globe, and through the Golden Gate of the Pacific he entered once more his own land, expecting to receive the nomination of his party for a third term for the Presidency. In the disappointment of defeat and the passions it involved, the election of the nomi- nee of that Convention depended entirely upon him. Had he remained in his tent, Garfield would never have been President of the United States; but gathering all the chieftains, and commanding them, when they would CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 173 sulk or retire, to accompany him to the front, his ap- pearance in the canvass won the victory. He was at West Point only to be a poor scholar and to graduate with little promise and less expectancy from his instructors. In the barter and trade of his Western home he was invariably cheated. As a subal- tern officer in the Mexican War, which he detested, he simply did his duty and made no impress upon his com- panions or superiors. As a wood-seller he was beaten by all the wood-choppers of Missouri. As a merchant he could not compete with his rivals. As a clerk he was a listless dreamer, and yet the moment supreme command devolved upon him the dross disappeared, dullness and indifference gave way to a clarified intel- lect which grasped the situation with the power of inspi- ration. The larger the field, the greater the peril, the more mighty the results dependent upon the issue, the more superbly he rose to all the requirements of the emergency. From serene heights unclouded by pas- sion, jealousy, or fear, he surveyed the whole boundless field of operations, and with unerring skill forced each part to work in harmony with the general plan. The only commander who never lost a battle, his victories were not luck, but came from genius and pluck. Caesar surpassed him, because he was both a great. soldier and a great statesman ; but he was immeasura- bly inferior to Grant, because his ambition was superior to his patriotism. Frederick the Great and Napoleon the First reveled in war for its triumphs and its glory, but General Grant, reviewing that most superb of arm- ies beside the Emperor and Von Moltke and Bismarck, electrified the military nations of Europe by proclaim- 174 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF ing his utter detestation of war. The motto which ap- peared in the sky at the consummation of his victories, and was as distinct as the cross to Constantine, was, "Let us have peace." Under its inspiration he returned to Lee his sword. He stood between the Confederate leaders and the passions of the hour, and with his last breath repeated it as a solemn injunction and legacy to his countrymen. As his spirit hovers over us to-night, let the sentiment be the active principle of our faith. He meant that political divisions of our country, inevita- ble and necessary for its freedom and prosperity, should not be upon sectional lines. A solid North has been broken. The solid South must disappear. On these broad lines, supplemented from time to time with the immediate questions of the hour, partisanship is always within patriotic limits, and the successful party is the best judgment of the people. We leave this hall to carry into the Presidential can- vass our best efforts for the success of the principles in which we severally believe, the parties which we severally love, and the candidates we honor; but let us labor to bring about such conditions all over this coun- try that we may fight our political battles under the common banner of patriotism and peace. CHA UNCE V M. DEPE W. 1 7 5 XII. ADDRESS AT THE MEMORIAL SERVICE OF PRESI- DENT James A. Garfield, by the Grand Army of the Republic, at Chickering Hall, New York, September 26, 1881. My Friends: We have met together many times in the long years past, on occasions serious and trifling, sad and joyful ; for the hot discussion of politics, for the purpose of commemorating historical and patriotic events, and to strew with flowers and eulogiums the graves of our he- roic dead ; but never before have we assembled when we were only the units of universal and all-embracing grief. The world is in tears. The sun in its course has for the past two months greeted with its morning rays a never-ending succession of kneeling millions, suppli- cating the heavenly throne to spare the life of General Garfield ; and during the last few days it has set upon them bowed in sorrow for his death. This intense in- terest has been limited by neither boundaries nor nation- alities. It has belted the globe with mourning. Why has this calamity touched the chords of universal sym- pathy? Heroes and statesmen have died before, but never before have all civilized people felt the loss their own. The glory of the battle-field has mingled exul- tation with the soldier's agony. Statesmen have closed I7 6 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF a long and distinguished career, but the loss has been relieved by the reflection that such is the common lot of all. Lincoln's murder was recognized as the expir- ing stroke of a dying cause. The assassination of him who was the savior of Holland and the hope of the liberty of his time, was felt to be the fruit of implaca- ble feud and religious strife ; but the shot at Garfield was the most causeless, purposeless, and wicked crime of the century. No section, no party, no faction, desired his death. It had no accessories in public vengeance or private malice. The President was a strong, brave, pure man in the prime of his powers ; the trusted Ex- ecutive of fifty millions of people; the title to his office unquestioned, and the nation unanimous in the purpose that he should develop his policy and fulfill his mission. Such a life and career so ruthlessly broken arouses hor- ror and sympathy. But the love, reverence, and sad- ness of this hour is due to the fact that the man him- self, in his strength and weakness, in his struggles and triumphs, in his friendships and enmities, in his rela- tions to mother, wife, and children, and in his battle with death, was the best type of manhood. He was not one of those historical heroes, with the human ele- ment so far eliminated that, while we admire the char- acter, we rejoice that it exists only in books and on canvas, but a man like ourselves, with like passions and feelings, but possessed of such greatness and goodness that the higher we estimated him, the nearer and dearer he became to us. In America and Europe he is recog- nized as an illustrious example of the results of free in- stitutions. His career shows what can be accomplished where all avenues are open and exertion is untram- CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 177 meled. Our annals afford no such incentive to youth as does his life, and it will become one of the Repub- lic's household stories. No boy in poverty almost hope- less, thirsting for knowledge, meets an obstacle which Garfield did not experience and overcome. No youth despairing in darkness feels a gloom which he did not dispel. No young man filled with honorable ambition can encounter a difficulty which he did not meet and surmount. For centuries to come great men will trace their rise from humble origin to the inspirations of that lad who learned to read by the light of a pine-knot in a log cabin ; who, ragged and barefooted, trudged along the tow-path of the canal, and without ancestry behind to impel him forward, without money or afflu- ent relations, without friends or assistance, by faith in himself and in God, became the most scholarly and best equipped statesman of his time, one of the foremost soldiers of his country, the best debater in the strong- est of deliberative bodies, the leader of his party, and the Chief Magistrate of fifty millions of people before he was fifty years of age. We are not here to question the ways of Providence. Our prayers were not an- swered as we desired, though the volume and fervor of our importunity seemed resistless; but, already, behind the partially lifted veil we see the fruits of the sacrifice. Old wounds are healed and fierce feuds forgotten. Vengeance and passion, which have survived the best statesmanship of twenty years, are dispelled by a com- mon sorrow. Love follows sympathy. Over this open grave the cypress and willow are indissolubly entwined, and in it are buried all sectional differences and ha- treds. The North and South rise from bended knees to 178 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF embrace in the brotherhood of a common people and reunited country. Not this alone, but the humanity of the civilized world has been quickened and elevated, and the English-speaking people are nearer to-day in peace and unity than ever before. There is no lan- guage in which petitions have not arisen for Garfield's life, and no clime where tears have not fallen for his death. The Queen of the proudest of nations, for the first time in our recollection, brushes aside the formali- ties of diplomacy, and, descending from the throne, speaks for her own heart and the hearts of all her people in the cablegram to the afflicted wife which says: "Myself and my children mourn with you." It was my privilege to talk for hours with General Garfield during his famous trip to the New York con- ference in the late canvass, and yet it was not conver- sation or discussion. He fastened upon me all the powers of inquisitiveness and acquisitiveness, and ab- sorbed all I had learned in twenty years of the politics of this State. Under this restless and resistless craving for information, he drew upon all the resources of the libraries, gathered all the contents of the newspapers, and sought and sounded the opinions of all around him, and in his broad, clear mind the vast mass was so as- similated and tested that when he spoke or acted it was accepted as true and wise. And yet it was by the gush and warmth of old college-chum ways, and not by the arts of the inquisitor, that when he had gained, he never lost a friend. His strength was in ascertaining and expressing the average sense of his audience. I saw him at the Chicago Convention, and whenever that popular assemblage seemed drifting into hopeless con- CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 179 fusion, his tall form commanded attention and his clear voice and clearer utterances instantly gave the accepted solution. I arrived at his house at Mentor in the early morning following the disaster in Maine. While all about him were in a panic, he saw only a danger which must and could be repaired. "It is no use bemoaning the past," he said — "the past has no uses except for its lessons." Business disposed of, he threw aside all restraint, and for hours his speculations and theories upon philoso- phy, government, education, eloquence; his criticisms of books ; his reminiscences of men and events, have made that one of the white-letter days of my life. At Chickamauga he won his major-general's commission. On the anniversary of the battle he died. I shall never forget his description of the fight — so modest, yet graphic. It is imprinted on my memory as the most glorious battle-picture words ever painted. He thought the greatest calamity which could befall a man was to lose ambition. I said to him: "General, did you ever in your earlier struggle have that feeling I have so often met with, when you would have compromised your whole future for a certainty — and, if so, what?" "Yes," said he, "I remember well when I would have been will- ing to exchange all the possibilities of my life for the certainty of a position as a successful teacher." Though he died neither a school principal nor college profes- sor — and they seem humble achievements compared with what he did — his memory will instruct while time endures. His long and dreadful sickness lifted the roof from his house and family circle, and his relations as son, 180 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF husband, and father stood revealed in the broadest sun- light of publicity. The picture endeared him wherever is understood the full significance of that matchless word, "home." When he stood by the Capitol, just pronounced the President of the greatest and most powerful of republics, the exultation of the hour found its expression in a kiss upon the lips of his mother. For weeks in distant Ohio she sat by the gate, watch- ing for the hurrying feet of the messenger bearing the telegrams of hope or despair. His last conscious act was to write a letter of cheer and encouragement to that mother, and when the blow fell she illustrated the spirit she had instilled in him. There were no rebel- lious murmurings against the Divine dispensation, only in utter agony: " I have no wish to live longer; I will join him soon ; the Lord's will be done." When Dr. Bliss told him he had a bare chance of recovery: "Then," said he, "we will take that chance, doctor." When asked if he suffered pain, he answered: "If you can imagine a trip-hammer crashing on your body, or cramps, such as you have in the water, a thousand times intensified, you can have some idea of what I suffer." And yet during those eighty-one days was heard neither groan nor complaint. Always brave and cheerful, he answered the fear of the surgeons with the remark: "I have faced Death before, I am not afraid to meet him now"; and again: "I have strength enough left to meet him yet" ; and he could whisper to the Secretary of the Treasury an inquiry about the success of the funding scheme, and ask the Postmaster-General how much public money he had saved. His first thought when borne to the White House CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 181 was not for himself, but for his wife sick at Elberon. He sent her an assuring message, bidding her come, re- ceived her with a cheerful and smiling welcome, and when she had left the room he said to the wife of a Cabi- net Minister: "How does Crete bear it?" "Like the wife of a true soldier," was the reply. "Ah, the dear little woman!" he exclaimed; "I would rather die than that this should cause a relapse to her." Scanning with loving eyes her watchful and anxious face weeks after- ward, he drew down her head and whispered : "Go out, dear, and drive before the sun gets too hot ; I would go with you if I didn't have so much business to attend to; you will, I am sure, excuse me." Forbidden to talk, he established with his lifelong friends and constant watchers, General Swaim and Colonel Rockwell, a system by which, in the knowledge gained by the intimacy of years, single words stood for ideas. Williams College Commencement, to which he was going when he was shot, was mentioned. The old familiar alumni assemblage became present to his mind, and what were they saying of him? "Tenderness?" he said to Rockwell. "Measureless," was the reply, and he had gathered the spirit of that memorable meeting. In answer to an inquiry General Swaim said to me : "The most hopeful, courageous, and calm observer of the case is General Garfield himself. He has so com- pletely eliminated his personality, that he thinks and acts as if General Garfield had unusual and extraordi- nary opportunities to study the condition of the Presi- dent of the United States, and an uncommon duty to preserve his life." As he lay in the cottage by the sea, looking out upon 1 82 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF the ocean, whose broad expanse was in harmony with his own grand nature, and heard the beating of the waves upon the shore, and felt the pulsations of millions of hearts against his chamber door, there was no posing for history and no preparation of last words for dramatic effect. With simple naturalness he gave the military salute to the sentinel gazing at his window, and that soldier, returning it in tears, will proudly carry its mem- ory to his dying day, and transmit it to his children. The voice of his faithful wife came from her devotions in another room, singing: "Guide me, O Thou Great Jehovah." "Listen," he cries, "is not that glorious?" And in a few hours Heaven's portals opened, and up- borne upon such prayers as never before wafted spirit above, he entered the presence of God. It is the alle- viation of all sorrow, public or private, that close upon it press the duties of and to the living. The whole nation unites in smoothing the pathway of the revered and beloved mother, and caring for the noble wife and her children. But, as citizens, let us remove from our institutions the incentives to assassina- tion. The President is of one school, the Vice-Presi- dent of another. The President of the Senate, next in succession, is of one party, the Speaker of the House of the other. A million of needy or ambitious men be- siege the President for the hundred thousand places in his gift. In a change is a perpetual opportunity to retrieve a failure, and murder forever lurks in this concentration and distribution of patronage. Let the President be the constitutional ruler of the Republic, and the civil service placed on a business basis. Let us render our cordial support to him who under these try- CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 183 ing circumstances succeeds to this high office. "God reigns and the Government at Washington still lives," was the Christian soldier's shout with which General Garfield stopped the maddened mob when Lincoln was killed. Arthur is President. He needs the confidence and encouragement of the people, and will prove wor- thy of the trust which has devolved upon him. The tolling bells, the minute guns upon land and sea, the muffled drums and funeral hymns, fill the air while our chief is borne to his last resting-place. The busy world is stilled for the hour when loving hands are pre- paring the grave. A stately shaft will rise overlooking the lake and commemorating his deeds ; but his fame will not live alone in marble or brass. His story will be treasured and kept warm in the hearts of millions for generations to come, and boys, hearing it from their mothers, will be fired with nobler ambitions. To his countrymen he will always be a typical American citi- zen, soldier, and statesman. A year ago, and not a thousand people of the Old World had ever heard his name ; and now there is scarcely a thousand who do not mourn his loss. The peasant loves him because from the same humble lot he became one of the mighty of earth, and sovereigns respect him because in his royal gifts and kingly nature God made him their peer. 1 84 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF XIII. ADDRESS AT THE MEMORIAL SERVICE BY THE Legislature of the State of New York, for President Chester A. Arthur, in the Assembly Chamber at Albany, Wednesday Evening, April 20, 1887. Gentlemen of the Senate and Assembly of the State of New York : The twenty-first President of the United States was the third from the State of New York who had filled that high office. The administration and personal career of each of them form marked features of our national history. The conditions which prepared them for pub- lic duty were strikingly alike. Each was the sole archi- tect of his own fortunes and without the aid of family or wealth. They were of the type of most of the men who have always controlled parties and managed the Government. Receiving in their youth the training and influence of Christian homes, starting in life with no other endowment than health, character, courage, and honorable ambition, they became leaders and rulers in their generations. The historian of the future will fill most of his pages devoted to our first century with the rise and fall of the slave power. In that story the parts of Martin Van Buren, Millard Fillmore, and Ches- CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 185 ter A. Arthur will be of dramatic interest. The revolt of Van Buren in 1848 was the first organized effort for freedom which had strength or votes. It assailed slavery in its strongest intrenchment, its hold upon the old parties. In paving the way for their dissolution it opened the road for the union, upon this vital issue, of men hitherto arrayed against each other in hostile camps. With Van Buren as its leader, the anti-slavery sentiment crystalized into a powerful and aggressive or- ganization. It broke up associations which had existed since the formation of the Government, alarmed and infuriated the adherents of slavery, and prepared the way for the inevitable conflict. Millard Fillmore sought to stay the storm by compromise ; but when he signed the Fugitive Slave Law the storm became a cyclone. The enforcement of the law brought the horrors of slavery to every door ; it aroused the old fire which had charged with Cromwell on the field and expounded liberty through Mansfield on the bench ; it united the North in a solemn determination to save the country and free the Constitution from the dangers and dis- grace of the system ; it consolidated the South for a struggle to the death for its preservation. The years following of agitation and preparation, the appeal to arms, the Civil War with its frightful sacrifices of blood and treasure, the triumph of nationality and liberty, the reconstruction of the states upon the broadest and most generous principles, the citizenship of the freedman, the reconciliation of the rebel, gave first to President Ar- thur the glorious opportunity and privilege of con- structing a message which most significantly marked the happy end of a century of strife, by its failure to 1 86 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF allude to its causes, remedies, or results. Thus the first of the New York Presidents gave to anti-slavery a national party; the second by an effort to compromise with evil brought on the battle which ended in its de- struction ; and the administration of the third saw the regenerated and reunited Republic rising upon its ruins. A small cottage, in a sparsely settled rural neighbor- hood of over half a century ago, a scant salary, the un- selfish sacrifices which a large family and narrow means necessitate — these were the physical surroundings which fitted Chester A. Arthur for his life's work. His fath- er, a clergyman of vigorous intellect and ripe learning, his mother, a pious, cultured woman, gave to him by precept and example the character and courage which both in resistance and action win and worthily occupy the most commanding positions. All the marked suc- cesses among our people have resulted from the spur of necessity. It has not been the poverty which dwarfs and discourages, but the opportunity and incentive for larger fields of usefulness and for the gratification of higher ambitions. The narrow limits of his little home became each day an expanding horizon inviting the boy to exploration and conquest. From his father he inherited that sturdy Scotch-Irish blood, which for centuries has shown conspicuous aptitude for govern- ment and leadership, and he was early taught that, with liberal education, backed by the principles in which he was grounded, all gates could be unbarred and all ave- nues were open to him. With these motives work was pleasure, and difficulties were delights, in the fresh strength and confidence with which they were success- ively overcome. The accepted hardships of teaching CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 187 the country school and boarding around; the distrac- tions of earning a living while fighting for a degree; toughen and develop the elastic fibers of American character. When Arthur had won the maximum hon- ors of his college, and completing his law-studies was admitted to the bar, he was already a victor in the bat- tle of life, and knew there were no dangers before him so great as those he had already overcome. The pro- fession did not receive in him its frequent addition of a raw recruit whose steps have been so tenderly watched and taken for him that he stands with difficulty and moves with timidity, but he had tested his powers and felt the confidence of a veteran. It was natural that with his origin and training Gen- eral Arthur should at once have enrolled on the side of anti-slavery. It was fortunate for his future that the opportunity came early to participate in a legal contest which was one of the decisive battles of that long strug- gle. Jonathan Lemmon, a Virginia slaveholder, under- took to remove to Texas by way of New York, carry- ing his slaves with him. The Court was asked to dis- charge them on the ground that no man could be de- prived of his liberty in this State without the authority of the law. Virginia, through her Governor and Legis- lature, took up the cause of the slave-holder, and the Legislature of our State responded by employing coun- sel for the slaves. The most eminent men at the bar appeared on the one side or the other. The whole na- tion became interested in the conflict, and mutterings of war were heard. Barriers were to be set to the encroach- ments of slavery, or it was to be virtually established everywhere. Political passions, commercial timidity, 1 88 Orations and speeches of moral convictions, swayed and agitated the press and the courts. Behind the States'-rights and vested-prop- erty arguments of the lawyers for Virginia were the threats of a dissolution of the Union which had so often frightened Northern constituencies, and cowed North- ern statesmen ; but the advocates of liberty, with un- equaled boldness and ability, pressed home the eternal principles of freedom embodied in the charters of the Fatherland, and embedded in our American declara- tions and constitutions ; and our highest tribunal reiter- ated, with phrase altered for us, Mansfield's immortal judgment, " A slave cannot breathe the air of Eng- land." The same decision had been eloquently and vigorously rendered by William H. Seward while Gov- ernor of our State years before, but it received little at- tention or approval. Then, as often afterwards, this great statesman was nearly a generation in advance of his contemporaries on the most important of questions. While this case settled the status of the slave brought within our jurisdiction, the rights of free colored people in our midst were violated daily. General Arthur championed the cause of a poor woman, who, because of her race, was refused a seat and ejected from a car; and in the success of the litigation, principles which after the Civil War could only receive recognition and obedience by Congressional enactment and consti- tutional amendment became parts of the fixed juris- prudence of the State. He was never a brilliant advo- cate. He did not possess those rare qualities which win verdicts from unwilling juries and force decisions from hostile courts; but he early took and held the impor- tant place of wise and safe counsel and adviser. Tact, CHAUiVCEY M. DEPEW. 189 sense, and quick appreciation of the right were quali- ties he possessed in such high degree, that they were the elements of his success, not only at the bar, but in the administration of public trusts. This so impressed Governor Morgan that he assigned him to the most important position of recruiting and equipping New York's quota in the President's call for troops. The situation was of unparalleled novelty and danger. Generations of peace and prosperity had left the State with a holiday military system, and ignorant of war. The problems of camps, depots, supplies, arma- ments, transportation, which require a liberal educa- tion to solve, were suddenly precipitated upon men un- prepared and untrained. To collect, feed, uniform, arm, and forward to the front tens of thousands of raw re- cruits, required great ability and unimpeachable integ- rity. An army larger than the combined Continental forces of the Revolution was marching to Washington from New York by regiments as completely equipped as they were hastily gathered. The pressing needs of the Government on the one hand, and the greed of the contractor on the other, were spurs and perils of the organizing officer. It is one of the proudest records of General Arthur's life that he surrendered his position to a successor of hostile political faith, to receive from him the highest compliments for his work and to re- turn to his profession a poorer man than when he as- sumed office. Activity in public affairs and strong political bias were inevitable in a man of such experience and char- acteristics. The fate of the empire depended upon the issue of the tremendous questions which agitated 19° ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF the country during these years. Party spirit ran high, and parties were organized and officered like contend- ing armies. A great party must have leadership and discipline. Revolts become necessary at times against corrupt, incompetent, or selfish leadership, but constitu- tional government cannot be successfully conducted by political guerrillas and bushwhackers. If the common judgment of mankind is the voice of God, the control- ling sentiment of great parties is their best policies ; but that sentiment must needs be voiced and receive ex- pression in the practical measures of government by commanding authority. There have been in our history few party leaders of the first class, who possessed those wonderful gifts which secure the confidence and sway the actions of vast masses of men ; but there have been many who could combine and consolidate the organi- zation for work in the field when the canvass was criti- cal. Among these General Arthur held a high rank, and the length and vigor of his rule, and the loyal de- votion of his friends, were lasting tributes to his merits. It was the natural result that the President should re- quire him to hold a representative position. The Col- lectorship of the Port of New York was at that time the key to the political fortunes of the administration. The Collector was in a sense a cabinet officer, the dis- penser of party patronage, and the business agent of the Government at the commercial capital of the nation. The peculiar difficulties of the place had permanently consigned to private life every man who ever held it. To make mistakes, to provoke calumny, to create enmi- ties, were the peculiar opportunities of the office. That Arthur should have been unanimously confirmed for a CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 19 1 second term and died ex-President of the United States are the best evidences of his integrity, wisdom, and tact. A long lease of power creates not only a desire for change, but develops internal antagonisms. Both these dangers were very threatening in the campaign of 1880. The first was a present and increasing force, and success was impossible unless all discordant elements were har- monized. Garfield and Arthur, as the representatives of the hostile factions, were singularly fitted to accom- plish this result. Their selection contributed enorm- ously to the triumph of their cause. Garfield, the boy On the tow-path, the university alumnus, the learned professor, the college president, the gallant soldier, the congressional leader, the United States Senator and bril- liant orator, enthusiastic, generous, and impulsive, pre- sented a most picturesque, captivating, and dashing candidate; while Arthur's cool judgment, unequaled skill, commanding presence, and rare gifts for conciliat- ing and converting revengeful partisans into loyal and eager followers, brought behind his chief a united and determined party. But no sooner was the victory won, than the internal strife was renewed with intensified bitterness. In demonstrating the evils and power of patronage, it gave effective impetus to the triumph of Civil Service Reform. The struggle was transferred from Washington to Albany, and this Capitol became the field for the most envenomed and passionate con- test of the century. The whole Republic was involved in the conflict. Upon it depended the control of the Government. Vice-President Arthur, whose loyalty to his friends was the central motive of his life, deemed it his duty to come here and take command of the forces 192 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF on the one side, while a share in the conduct of the other devolved upon me. The murderous fury of the fray dissolved friendships of a lifetime, but I hail with profound gratification the fact that ours survived it. The bullet of Guiteau struck down President Garfield, and in the whirlwind of resentment and revenge, General Arthur, by the very necessity of his position, became the object of most causeless and cruel suspicion and assault. But in that hour the real greatness of his char- acter became resplendent. The politician gave place to the statesman, and the partisan to the President. As a spent ball having missed its mark is buried in the heart of a friend, so the dying passions of the Civil War by one mad and isolated crime murdered Abraham Lin- coln, the one man in the country who had the power and disposition to do at once, for those whom the as- sassin proposed to help and avenge, all that was after- wards accomplished through many years of probation, humiliation, and suffering. But in the death of Gar- field the Spoils System, which dominated parties, made and unmade statesmen, shaped the policy of the Gov- ernment, and threatened the integrity and perpetuity of our institutions, received a fatal blow. It aroused the country to the perils both to the proper conduct of the business of the Government and to the Government itself. A morbid sentiment that the civil service was a Pre- torian Guard, to be recruited from the followers of the successful chief without regard to the fitness of the officer removed or the qualifications of the man who took his place, created the moral monstrosity — Guiteau. The Spoils System murdered Garfield, and the murder CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 193 of Garfield shattered the system. The months during which President Garfield lay dying by the sea at El- beron were phenomenal in the history of the world. The sufferer became a member of every household in the land, and in all countries, tongues, and creeds, sym- pathetic prayers ascended to God for the recovery of the great ruler beyond the ocean, who had sprung from the common people and illustrated the possibilities for the individual where all men are equal before the law. While he who was to succeed him if he died, though in no place in and in no sense charged with sympathy with the assassination, yet was made to feel a national re- sentment and distrust which threatened his usefulness and even his life. Whether he spoke or was silent, he was alike misrepresented and misunderstood. None but those most intimate with him can ever know the agony he suffered during those frightful days, and how earnestly he prayed that in the returning health of his chief he might be spared the fearful trial of his death. When the end came for General Garfield, Arthur en- tered the White House as he had taken the oath of office — alone. A weaker man would have succumbed ; a narrower one, have seized upon the patronage and en- deavored to build up his power by strengthening his faction ; but the lineage and training of Arthur stood in this solemn and critical hour for patriotism and manli- ness. Friends, co-workers within the old lines, and associates under the old conditions, looking for oppor- tunities for recognition or for revenge, retired chas- tened and enlightened from the presence of the Presi- dent of the United States. The man had not changed. He was the same genial, companionable, and loving 194 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF gentleman, but in the performance of public duty he rose to the full measure and dignity of his great office. It was the process which has been witnessed before among our statesmen, where under the pressure of sud- den and grave responsibilities the evolution of character and capacity which would, under ordinary conditions, have taken a lifetime, or perhaps never matured, culmi- nates in a moment. The most remarkable examples in our history were Abraham Lincoln and, in a lesser de- gree, Edwin M. Stanton and Salmon P. Chase. The cold and hesitating constituency which expected the Presi- dent to use for the personal and selfish ends and ambi- tions of himself and friends the power so suddenly and unexpectedly acquired, saw the Chief Magistrate of a mighty nation so performing his duties, so administer- ing his trust, so impartially acting for the public inter- ests and the public welfare, that he entered upon the second year of his term in the full possession of the confidence of his countrymen. The grateful task of review and portrayal of the his- tory of his administration has been most worthily as- signed in these ceremonies to the learned, eloquent, and eminent lawyer who was the Attorney-General in his Cabinet. President Arthur will be distinguished both for what he did and what he refrained from doing. The strain and intensity of public feeling, the vehemence of the angry and vindictive passions of the time, demanded the rarest of negative as well as positive qualities. The calm and even course of government allayed excite- ment and appealed to the better judgment of the people. But though not aggressive or brilliant, his CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 195 administration was sensible and strong and admirably adjusted to the conditions which created and attended it. He spoke vigorously for the reform and improve- ment of the Civil Service, and when Congress, acting upon his suggestions, enacted the law, he constructed the machinery for its execution which has since accom- plished most satisfactory, though as yet incomplete, results. On questions of currency and finance he met the needs of public and private credit and the best com- mercial sentiment of the country. He knew the neces- sity for efficient coast defenses and a navy equal to the requirements of the age. He keenly felt the weakness of our merchant marine, and the total destruction of the proud position we had formerly held among the maritime nations of the world, and did what he could to move Congress to wise and patriotic legislation. When the measures of his period are crowded into oblivion by the rapid and ceaseless tread of the events of each hour in our phenomenal development and its needs, two acts of dramatic picturesqueness and historical significance will furnish themes for the orator and illustrations for the academic stage of the future. The centennial of the final surrender at Yorktown, which marked the end of the Revolutionary War and the close of English rule, was celebrated with fitting splendor and appropriateness. The presence of the descendants of Lafayette and Steuben, as the guests of the nation, typified the undying gratitude of the Re- public for the services rendered by the great French patriot and his countrymen, and by the famous Ger- man soldier. But the President, with characteristic grace and tact, determined that the ceremonies should 196 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF also officially record that all feelings of hostility against the Mother Country were dead. He directed that the celebration should be closed by a salute fired in honor of the British flag, as he felicitously said, "in recogni- tion of the friendly relations so long and so happily subsisting between Great Britain and the United States, in the trust and confidence of peace and good will be- tween the two countries for all the centuries to come" ; and then he added the sentence which might be Ameri- ca's message of congratulation at the Queen's Jubilee this summer: "and especially as a mark of the profound respect entertained by the American people for the illustrious sovereign and gracious lady who sits upon the British throne." General Grant was dying of a lingering and most painful disease. Manifold and extraordinary misfor- tunes had befallen him, and his last days were clouded with great mental distress and doubt. The old soldier was most anxious to know that his countrymen freed him, and would hold his memory sacred from blame, in connection with the men and troubles with which he had become so strangely, innocently, and most inex- tricably involved. Whether his life should suddenly go out in the darkness, or be spared for an indefinite period, was largely dependent upon some act which would convey to him the confidence and admiration of the people. Again were illustrated both General Ar- thur's strong friendship and his always quick and cor- rect appreciation of the expression of popular sentiment. By timely suggestions to Congress, speedily acted upon, he happily closed the administration by affixing as its last official act his signature to the nomination, which CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 197 was confirmed with tumultuous cheers, creating Ulysses S. Grant General of the Army. The news flashed to the hero with affectionate message rescued him from the grave, to enjoy for months the blissful assurance that comrades and countrymen had taken his character and career into their tender and watchful keeping. There has rarely been in the history of popular gov- ernments so great a contrast as in the public apprecia- tion of General Arthur at the time of his inauguration and when he retired from office. The President of whom little was expected and much feared returned to private life enjoying in a larger degree than most of his predecessors the profound respect and warm regard of the people, without distinction of party. He was a warm-hearted, social, pleasure-loving man, but capable of the greatest industry, endurance, and courage. He dearly loved to gratify his friends ; but if he thought the public interests so required, no one could more firmly resist their desires or their importunities. By his dignity and urbanity, and his rich possession of the graces which attract and adorn in social intercourse, he gave a new charm to the hospitalities of the White House. Though the son of a country clergyman and unfamiliar with courts, in him the veteran courtiers of the Old World found all the culture, the proper observ- ance of ceremonial proprieties, and the indications of power which surround emperors and kings of ancient lineage and hereditary positions, but tempered by a most attractive republican simplicity. He said to me early in his administration: "My sole ambition is to enjoy the confidence of my countrymen." Toward this noble ideal he strove with undeviating purpose. I9 8 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF Even in the mistakes he made could be seen his manly struggle to be right. Once again in private station and resuming the practice of his profession, he moved among his fellow-citizens receiving the homage and recognition which came of their pride in the way he had borne the honors and administered the duties of the Chief Magistracy of the Republic. In his last illness he had the sympathy and prayers of the nation ; and the grand gathering of the men most distinguished in every department of our public and private life, who sorrowfully bore him to the grave, was the solemn tribute of the whole people, through their representatives, to his worth as a man and his emi- nence as a public servant. CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 1 99 XIV. ADDRESS AT THE MEMORIAL SERVICE BY THE LEG- ISLATURE of the State of New York, for Governor Reuben E. Fenton, in the Capitol at Albany, April 27, 1887. Gentlemen of the Senate and Assembly of the State of New York : New York has, as a rule, been remarkably fortunate in her Governors. Many of them have been statesmen of national and commanding influence. Two of them have served as Presidents, and two as Vice-Presidents, of the United States, and two others were the choice of their party for the Chief Magistracy of the Repub- lic. Their influence upon the policy and course of government has been potential. It is proper in this place to speak only of those who have joined the majority beyond the grave. There is no more heroic figure in Revolutionary annals than o*ir first Governor, George Clinton. Within an hour after his inauguration he was marching to the post of duty and danger in front of the enemy. His obstinate cour- age, wise generalship, and great popularity, did much to keep New York, full as the colony was of royalists, loyal to liberty and the Continental Congress. John zoo ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF Jay did more than any one save Alexander Hamilton to bind the discordant colonies into a harmonious con- federacy. De Witt Clinton, by his foresight and energy, made New York the Empire State, and her chief city the commercial metropolis of the continent. Martin Van Buren for nearly a quarter of a century was the actual ruler of the Republic, through his control and management of the dominant party, and he gave politi- cal form and substance to the anti-slavery sentiment. William L. Marcy, United States Senator and twice a Cabinet Minister, has left an indelible impress upon the history of his time. Silas Wright ranks among our ideal statesmen. He possessed the loftiest character and most signal ability. His ambitions were always subordinated to the public welfare. He could calmly lay aside the certainty of the Presidency when his duty, as he understood it, called him to serve in more hazard- ous but minor fields, and he was in every sense a mod- ern Cincinnatus. The name of William H. Seward will be among the few of his generation which will survive in coming ages. He was the political philosopher of his period who alone of his contemporaries grasped the full meaning and inevitable result of the vast moral questions which agitated the country. His matchless genius for affairs, and unruffled judgment in the midst of trial and danger, kept that peace with the world without, which alone enabled nationality to win its vic- tory within. His speeches and state papers will be the exhaustless treasury from which the statesmen of the future will draw their best lessons and inspiration. Within our immediate memory the tablets upon our Gubernatorial mausoleum recall the public services of CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 201 John A. King, John A. Dix, Edwin D. Morgan, Ho- ratio Seymour, Reuben E. Fenton, and Samuel J. Tilden. No other State has been governed by an equal number of men of national influence and fame. It is therefore eminently proper and wise that the Legis- lature should commemorate, and by imposing cere- monial perpetuate, the history and characters of its de- parted chief magistrates. The one in whose honor we are here assembled worthily ranks with the best of his predecessors in office. Repeated and long-continued promotions to places of trust by popular suffrage are cumulative evidence of merit and distinction. The opportunity to rise from humble station to lofty positions is the common heri- tage of all, but they only successfully climb the slippery and perilous ascent, gathering fresh strength at each station for bolder efforts, who are easily the leaders of their fellows. The early settlers of Western New York were a hardy and enterprising race, and their children, roughing it in log cabins, forest clearings, and frontier ex- periences, were by heredity and education state-builders. They created farms out of the wilderness, formed com- munities, and organized government. It is easier for a man of ability to get on in a new country and with fresh surroundings than in the neighborhood where he was born. Where every one has known him from childhood, he often is handicapped by the unforgotten frivolities of youth, and reaches middle life before he has out- grown the feeling that he is still a boy ; while as a new settler, he starts at once at the level of his ascertained capabilities. It is the peculiar distinction of Mr. Fen- ton that he overcame these prejudices before he was of - 202 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF age; that he became the choice of his fellow-citizens for positions of trust as soon as he obtained his majority ; and passing his life at his birthplace, he earned, at a period when most young men are unknown, the confi- dence of the people among whom he had grown up, and carried it with him to his grave. He saw Western New York expand from the forest into one of the most beautiful, highly cultivated, and richest sections of the State, teeming with an intelligent and prosperous population, which had founded cities, formed villages, erected schools, endowed colleges, and planted by every stream flourishing manufactories; and he remained throughout all this growth and until his death the fore- most and most distinguished citizen. He was seven times Supervisor of his town, and three times Chairman of the County Board, for five terms a member of Con- gress, twice Governor of this great State, United States Senator, and the choice of New York for Vice-President in the Convention which first nominated General Grant. This proud career was not helped by accident, or luck, or wealth, or family, or powerful friends. He was, in its best sense, both the architect and builder of his own fortunes. When a lad of seventeen his father failed in business, and the boy dropped his studies and professional aspirations to support the family and re- trieve its credit. Self-reliant but prudent, courageous but cautious, his audacity subject to reason, he quickly measured his powers and then boldly struck out for himself. He traversed the virgin forests, selecting with unerring judgment the most productive tracts, and for years following his life was spent in logging camps and piloting his rafts down the Allegheny and Ohio rivers. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 203 The adventures, exposure, and perils of the work gave him an iron constitution, and knowledge of men, and developed his rare capacity for business. An omnivor- ous and intelligent reader, he became, by the light of blazing fires in the forest and pine knots in the cabin on the rafts, well educated and widely informed. At thirty-one he had paid his father's debts and secured a comfortable competence for himself. Then came the inevitable internal struggle with himself of the man who has early in life achieved an independence. He feels his strength, the ardor and fire of vigorous man- hood enlarge his vision, and he sees no limits to his ambitions. The divergent roads to untold wealth on the one side, or honors and fame on the other, are be- fore him, and to lead the crowd his best energies will be required for whichever path he selects. Mr. Fenton determined to devote his future to the public service, and henceforward his life became identified with the history of his times. He had always been a Democrat, but the great ques- tion which was to destroy the Whig and divide the Democratic Party, met him at the outset of his con- gressional career. Stephen A. Douglas had introduced into the bill organizing the territories of Kansas and Nebraska a section repealing that portion of the Mis- souri Compromise of 1820 which forever prohibited slavery in the new territories lying north of latitude thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes. In a moment the whole country was aflame. The slumbering con- science of the nation awoke with an energy which rocked pulpits and revolutionized colleges. The oration, the tract, and the madly exciting novel were potent forces 204 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF in the storm. The young Congressman must choose, and at once, between his convictions and the caucus. He did not hesitate. He was never afraid of his beliefs, and faith and courage with him always stood together. His maiden speech was for the inviolable preservation of the boundaries so solemnly set by a former genera- tion to the encroachments of slavery. It was the first speech made from either side in the House of Repre- sentatives against the pending crime ; it was made by a member of the party then dominant in the Govern- ment ; and its clear notes of independence and defiance rallied about him a determined band of young Demo- cratic representatives. From that day he was one of the leaders in the formation, and afterward in the con- duct, of the Republican Party. When Mr. Seward an- nounced the death of the Whig, and christened the young party Republican ; and when at its first State Convention there fraternized under that name old Whigs and Democrats, Barnburners of '48, Free Soilers, and Liberty Party men of the days of martyrdom, Reu- ben E. Fenton was unanimously elected as their presid- ing officer. It is difficult now to realize the duties and responsi- bilities of a member of Congress during the Civil War. He was investigating estimates and making appropria- tions of such appalling magnitude, that he had no prec- edents to guide him and no standards for comparison. Amidst the tension and strain of great battles, of vic- tories and defeats, of the result oft-times in doubt, and the Capitol itself frequently in peril, he was uprooting by legislation wrongs and abuses which had been em- bedded in the constitutions, the laws, the decisions of CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 205 the courts, as well as the approving judgment of the people, since the formation of the Government, and pre- paring for the reconstruction of a new upon the ruins of the old Republic. Fundamental principles of human rights were pressing for immediate and final settlement, while the carnage, slaughter, and suffering without, and the financial and administrative perils within, the Capi- tol were unparalleled in the experience of nations. But, widely known and with a sympathetic heart, he was counselor, friend, and brother, for the mother searching for her dead, for wives looking for loved ones left wound- ed upon the field, for parents seeking furloughs for their boys in the hospital, that they might carry them home and tenderly nurse them back to life and health ; and by the soldier's bedside he gave relief, encouragement, and strength, or received the dying message and the last embrace to be faithfully borne to mourning and broken households in the peaceful valleys of the distant North. There were many men in Congress of commanding elo- quence and great power in debate, who received gener- al attention and applause ; but Mr. Fenton did not excel in either of these more attractive fields. He was a man of affairs — one of those clear-headed, constructive, and able business managers, whose persistent industry, com- prehensive grasp of details, and power to marshal them for practical results, made him invaluable in committee, where legislation is perfected and all important meas- ures are prepared. The people rarely know the debt they owe to the careful, plodding, alert members, who, ceaselessly working in committee-rooms, with no re- porters to herald their achievements and no place in the Congressional Record for their work, detect frauds 2o6 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF and strangle jobs; mold crudities into laws, and de- velop the hidden meaning and deep-laid schemes of skillful and deceptive amendments; ascertain the needs of government, and devise the statutes for meeting them. They are the reliance of the cabinet minister, and the safety of parliamentary government. There are always three classes of Congressmen : the leaders who organize the forces of administration or opposition, and by speeches profound or magnetic give opinions to their party and educate the country to its views; the able and conscientious committeeman and watchful member; and the drones whose public usefulness is lost between yawns and naps. Mr. Fenton was an ideal representative of the second type, with some of the qualities of the first. He mastered his subject so thoroughly, and understood so well the causes and effects of pending issues, that his calm and lucid state- ments made him, upon the floor, a strong ally and a dan- gerous enemy. His speeches upon pensions, internal improvements, the regulation of emigration, the pay- ment of bounties, the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law, and the financial measures for carrying on the war, and funding the national debt, attest the extent of his ac- quirements and the wisdom of his views. But his distinction during this period was, that he came to be pre-eminently recognized as the "Soldiers' Friend." The bill to facilitate the granting of fur- loughs and discharges to disabled soldiers; the bill to facilitate the payment of bounties and arrears of pay due wounded and deceased soldiers; and bills granting pensions, and those making the application for them easy and inexpensive, were among the results of his pa- CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 2 °7 triotic and thoughtful interest. He kept lonely vigils by the hospital cots at night, and by day was ceaseless- ly and tirelessly tramping from the War and Navy De- partments to the Executive Mansion. The New York Soldiers' Aid Society, in recognition of his eminent fit- ness and meritorious services, elected him its President, and the beneficent work of that Society is recorded in grateful hearts and registered by happy firesides all over our State. When, as Governor, he welcomed home the returning regiments of the disbanded army, the for- mal words of his official proclamation spoke the senti- ments which had guided his actions. "Soldiers," said he, "your State thanks you and gives you pledge of her lasting gratitude. You have elevated her dignity, brightened her renown, and enriched her history. The people will regard with jealous pride your welfare and honor, not forgetting the widow, the fatherless, and those who were dependent upon the fallen hero." The Presidential canvass of 1864 was one of the most interesting in our history. The radical element in the Republican Party had nominated a ticket after denounc- ing President Lincoln because he was too slow and con- servative. Governor Horatio Seymour, while voicing the thought of the Democratic National Convention, in one of the most able and masterly of speeches, as its Chairman, had declared that Mr. Lincoln's administra- tion had been a series of costly and bloody mistakes, and under his guidance the war had been, and would continue to be, a failure. To carry New York Mr. Sey- mour accepted a renomination for Governor, and en- tered upon the canvass with his accustomed vigor and eloquence. Whether we differ from, or sustain, his po- 208 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF litical opinions, we must all admit that Horatio Sey- mour was one of the most brilliant and attractive of our New York statesmen. The purity of his life, his unblem- ished character, his commanding presence, and his mag- netism upon the platform, made him the idol of his party and the most dangerous of opponents. It was vital to Mr. Lincoln and his administration, and to Mr. Seward, the Chief of his Cabinet, that New York should sustain them, and repel these charges. To meet this emergency, and conduct this campaign, Reuben E. Fen- ton was nominated by the Republican Convention for Governor. The wisdom of the choice was speedily ap- parent. Mr. Fenton's unequaled abilities as an organ- izer were felt in every school district in the common- wealth, and when the returns showed the State carried for Lincoln, and Fenton leading by some thousands the Presidential vote, the new Governor became a figure of national importance. Within four days after his inaug- uration he raised the last quota of troops called for from New York with this stirring appeal : "Having resolute- ly determined to go thus far in the struggle, we shall not falter nor hesitate when the rebellion reels under our heavy blows, when victory, upon all the methods of human calculation, is so near. Believing ourselves to be inspired by the same lofty sentiments of patriotism which animated our fathers in founding our free institu- tions, let us continue to imitate their example of cour- age, endurance, and faithfulness to principle in main- taining them. Let us be faithful and persevere. Let there be a rally of the people in every city, village, and town." A few months afterward the happy lot and unique CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 209 distinction came to him, following the surrender at Appomattox, of being among the immortals who will always live as the War Governors of our civil strife, who in Thanksgiving Proclamations returned to Al- mighty God the devout acknowledgments of a grate- ful people for the end of war and bloodshed, and the victory of unity and nationality. That he carried the State for his party at each recurring annual election during his two terms as Governor proves the popularity of his administration and his skill as an organizer. By temperament and training he was admirably fitted for executive position. No one ever understood better the peculiarities and surroundings of men. He was appar- ently the most amiable and conciliatory of public offi- cers, but never yielded an essential point. He pos- sessed in an eminent degree the rare faculty of satisfy- ing applicants and petitioners without gratifying them. The immense state and local indebtedness following the war, the wild speculations incident to an unstable cur- rency, and the perilous condition of public and private credit, he thoroughly understood, and with great sa- gacity and judgment devoted his powers to removing the dangers and preparing for the storm. He gave the State what it most needed after the drain and demoral- ization of the Civil War — a wise business government. So profoundly impressed with the strength of his ad- ministration was the Convention which met at Syra- cuse in 1868 to send delegates to the National Conven- tion at Chicago, that it unanimously and enthusiastically instructed the delegates to present his name for Vice- President, and for five ballots in that memorable con- test he was second on the poll. 210 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF Senator Morgan realized, when it was too late to either gracefully retire or to avert defeat, that the power which Thurlow Weed had held for thirty years, and upon which he relied, had passed away, and the Gover- nor had become the master of the party forces in the State. Governor Fenton became easily the choice of the Legislature as Mr. Morgan's successor, and entered the Senate at a period when measures were pending which he thoroughly understood, and in their solution could render most valuable and enduring service. The bent of his mind was toward financial and business subjects, and the debt, taxation, the currency, banking, and revenue were the pressing problems of the hour. No measures since the adoption of the Constitution have had such permanent and beneficial influence upon the growth and prosperity of the country as the acts relating to finance from 1869 to 1875. The national credit was impaired, the interest upon the debt was ex- orbitant and threatened the gravest complications, and fiat money induced the wildest speculation, followed by its natural sequence, general bankruptcy and busi- ness suspension. With rare courage and wisdom Con- gress declared that all the obligations of the Govern- ment should be paid in gold. Instantly the shattered credit of the Republic was restored, and its securities advanced in all the markets of the world. Taking ad- vantage of this good name and reputation, bills were passed funding the debt at a rate of interest so much re- duced that a burden of over fifty millions of dollars a year was lifted from the taxpayers. Commerce, manu- factures, and all industries soon responded to this great relief, and the stability and healthy expansion of the CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 211 vast business of the country were assured. But steady and reputable occupations, and the inauguration and completion of the enterprises which were in the years to come to develop our exhaustless resources in such a rapid and limitless way, were impossible with a fluc- tuating and uncertain currency. The full fruition of this grandest scheme of finance of modern times came with the resumption of specie payment. That the losses and destruction of the Civil War have been re- gained, repaired, and forgotten ; that the Republic is many-fold richer in every element of wealth, prosper- ity, and promises for the future, is due to the wise foresight which prepared and perfected this harmo- nious and interdependent system. While Senator Fen- ton did his full share and occupied an honorable place in this grand and statesmanlike work, he originated and promoted with all his ability, thoroughness, and persistence, the abolition of the moiety methods of collecting the revenue. The evils had long been ap- parent, but no one had the boldness to attack them. They originated when the young Republic was too poor to pay adequate salaries, and continued until the enor- mous receipts at the customs gave to the revenue offi- cers a fortune each year, and retired them with large wealth. They were intrenched in the cupidity of in- cumbents and the hopeful dreams of aspirants. Those in possession, and those who expected to be, in the ever varying tides of political fortunes, were alike hostile to a change. The system was fecund in spies, informers, and perjurers, and merchants were at the mercy of legalized blackmail. The final triumph of this benefi- cent reform will be remembered to his lasting honor. 212 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF No record of Governor Fenton's life would be com plete which failed to give the facts of his separating from his party for one campaign, and no memorial hon- est which ignored its discussion. He supported the Republican candidates with all his might from the form- ation of the party till his death, with the single excep- tion of his vote for Mr. Greeley; before this event, bringing into the canvass all the forces of the organiza- tion then under his control, and after it, returning again within the regular lines, and giving his whole time and influence for the success in each succeeding canvass of Hayes, of Garfield, and of Blaine. No organization was either large enough or elastic enough to hold in harmonious relations and views two such opposite, orig- inal, and positive men as General Grant and Horace Greeley. All conditions in the beginning conspired to urge Greeley to independent action, as in the latter part of his canvass they united for his defeat. The rise of his tidal wave until a vast majority of the voters were apparently drawn into the current, and then its sudden collapse, followed immediately by his sleepless watching for weeks by the bedside of his dying wife, brain fever, delirium, and death, form one of the most dramatic episodes and romantic tragedies in American politics. Mr. Greeley delighted in polemical contro- versy, but he hated war. For more than a quarter of a century this strong thinker and master of the most vigorous English had furnished opinions to, and done the thinking for, vast masses of his fellow-citizens. In the anti-slavery movement, in the struggle for temper- ance legislation, in all moral reforms, he was the most potent factor of his generation. Shocked and outraged CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 213 beyond restraint when the first shot was fired at the flag, he demanded that the rebel soil be plowed with cannon-balls and sown with salt, and his clarion notes rang through the land like a trumpet blast calling all loyal men to arms. But when he thought he saw a prospect of peace with slavery abolished, he recoiled appalled from further bloodshed, and cried halt. Unlike most strong natures he harbored no resent- ments and was incapable of revenge. When the rebel- lion was crushed, he went upon the bail-bond of Jeffer- son Davis as a protest against death-penalties and con- fiscations, and in the hope of amnesty, reconciliation, and brotherly reunion upon the basis won by our vic- tory in the war. He so impressed and imbued Abra- ham Lincoln with his views that only the assassination of the President prevented their public announcement. He had been a devoted follower and passionate lover of Henry Clay, and three times had seen him set aside for the availability of military popularity. While most cordially conceding to General Grant his position as the foremost Captain of his time, Mr. Greeley mistrusted his administrative ability in civil affairs, feared the re- sult of his inexperience, and intensely disliked his ad- visers. To President Grant, on the other hand, the great editor seemed something more, and little less, than an inspired crank. After the unfortunate results of some of the temporary and tentative state adminis- trations in the South, Mr. Greeley conceived the idea that if the late rebels and slaveholders could be induced, in return for the full restoration of their state govern- ments and universal amnesty, to accept the amendments to the Constitution, the freedom and citizenship of the 214 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF slave, the inviolability of the debt, and all the results of the war, with hearty loyalty to the flag waving over a Republic reconstructed on these conditions; and as hostage for their faith would take as their candidate for President a lifelong abolitionist and Republican ; the problem of reconstruction and peace would be solved at once. Responding to this idea the world beheld the amazing spectacle of these people in convention assem- bled solemnly declaring that the obligations of the Re- public to the abolition of slavery, to the civil and polit- ical rights of the freedmen, to the honest payment of the national debt, to the repudiation of rebel loans, and to pensions to Union soldiers, were unalterable and sacred, and then nominating for President one who had said more harsh and bitter things, and through his writings and speeches done more effective work for the overthrow of all their principles and traditions, than any man living or dead. That the South, without giv- ing the evidences of repentance then promised, has been granted and now enjoys even more than Mr. Greeley proposed is the answer of the succeeding po- litical generation to the fierce assaults made at the time upon his theory and anticipations. That a large majority of his party associates were converted to his hopeful view at first, and many followed him to the end, was natural, when the movement was inspired and led by so masterful and commanding an intellect, which had braved defeat and death for the rights of men, and been always the first of the forlorn hope of liberty and re- form, in the assault upon the almost impregnable posi- tions of wrong, immorality, and oppression for over a quarter of a century. That he was defeated and Gen- CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 215 eral Grant elected, the backward view over the events since 1872, which is not difficult for most men to safely and correctly take, proves to have been a wise and fortu- nate result. He was killed by his defeat. I stood near as the clouds began to gather in that mighty and ac- tive brain. He thought that a life unselfishly given to mankind would be judged a failure by posterity, and that the fame which he had hoped would rest upon the praise and the gratitude of the humble and oppressed, was already permanently injured by the prejudices and distrust aroused in them by the calumnies of the can- vass. Though his controversies filled the land, this great fighter for the truth as he understood it was the most morbidly sensitive of mortals, and, weakened by the sleepless strain of the struggle and domestic afflic- tion, his reason and life succumbed to ridicule and mis- representation. We have seen death in many forms, and for most of us it has lost its terrors, but to witness a great mind suddenly break and go out in helpless and hopeless darkness was the saddest scene I ever saw, and its memory is as of the most painful of tragedies. Horace Greeley was the last of that famous triumvir- ate of editors, Greeley, Bennett, and Raymond, whose genius and individuality subordinated the functions of a great newspaper to the presentation of their opinions and characteristics. Their journals were personal or- gans, but of phenomenal influence. The vigor of Mr. Greeley's thought, and the lucidity of its expression, carried conviction to the minds of hundreds of thousands of people, and he was for nearly a quarter of a century the greatest individual force in the country. He was so honest and terrifically in earnest, so right in his mo- 216 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF tives and pure in his principles, that, like the spots upon the sun, his mistakes made more evident the loftiness of his purposes. His motives were so transparent that his errors and eccentricities increased his strength, and even when wrong he inspired more confidence than is reposed in most men when they are right. He made and unmade more reputations than any writer in the land. His untimely death hushed all hearts. President and Cabinet, generals and soldiers, Governors and Congress- men, friends and foes, the mighty and the humble, gath- ered at his bier, and the nation mourned as never before for the loss of a citizen in private station. Mr.Fenton had acted with Mr. Greeley since the form- ation of the Republican Party. They had been the closest of personal and political friends. They consulted freely and often on all questions, and continued in the fullest accord on party measures and policies. After the dissolution of the famous partnership of Seward, Weed, and Greeley, Fenton cast his fortunes with the junior member of the firm. His faith in Greeley, and constant contact with his aspirations and views, led to his full agreement with the opinions, while his fidelity led to his giving a cordial support to the ambitions, of his friend. After retiring from the Senate, Governor Fenton con- tinued active and deeply interested in the success of his party, but was never again a candidate for office. President Hayes sent him abroad in 1878 as Chairman of the Commission to the International Monetary Con- vention to fix the ratio of value between gold and sil- ver, and provide for their common use. But his health had become impaired by the strain of a busy and stormy CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 217 life, and continued precarious until his sudden death while sitting at his office desk. The Governor and state officers, and a great multitude of people representing the affection and respect of a large constituency, gave additional significance and solemnity to the last trib- utes to his memory. Reuben E. Fenton was remarkable for the full, rounded character of his mind and disposition. No matter how fiercely the storm raged about him, he was always serene and unmoved. Though it was his for- tunes which were at stake, he was the calmest of the combatants. He was the most affable and approach- able of men, and yet until he acted none knew either his plans or his views. He listened courteously to every- one, but what he heard rarely changed his deliberate judgment. In the heat of the contest, when upon his decision or signature depended results of the greatest importance to powerful and persistent applicants, his manner of receiving them led to angry charges that he had conveyed false impressions or been guilty of bad faith, but no proof was ever submitted, and it came to be admitted that he was simply under the most tantal- izing and exasperating conditions always a gentleman. He was faultless in dress and manners, whether in the executive chamber, upon the platform, or in the crowd, but this scrupulous exactness seemed to enhance his popularity. He loved to mingle freely with the people, but he received the like kindly greeting and cordial con- fidence from workingmen fresh from the forge or mer- chants in their parlors or counting-rooms. When the history of our State comes to be impartially written, Mr. Fenton will be given rank as its best political organ. 218 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF izer after Martin Van Buren. But he possessed a mag- netism which Van Buren never had. A most tender, gentle, and affectionate nature shone brightly for his friends through the crust of the mannerisms of office and policy. I have met all the public men of my time under circumstances sufficiently close to afford some insight into the secrets of their power, and he was one of the very few who had an eloquent presence. His touch and look conveyed, if he pleased, such a world of interest and regard, that the recipient, without knowing why, felt honored by his confidence and en- circled by his friendship. It was this which made it impossible to crush him after repeated defeats. When he was under the ban of power; when to act with him was to accept ostracism ; when the office-holder was sure to lose his place and the ambitious found all ave- nues barred if they followed his lead ; he came year after year to the annual Convention of his party with such a solid, numerous, and aggressive host that it re- quired all the resources of unsurpassed eloquence, polit- ical sagacity, and the lavish prizes of patronage to pre- vent his carrying off the victory. The character and deeds which redound to his honor and will perpetuate his memory are sources of just pride to his State and of lasting pleasure to his friends. He was a representa- tive of the people when the most vital questions affect- ing the welfare of the human race on this continent were at issue and the Republic in the agonies of disso- lution, and acted well the part of philanthropist, patriot, and statesman. He was twice Governor of this State at a most critical period in its history, wielding the powers of the Executive with wisdom and courage; CHAUNCEY M. DEPFAV. 219 and as the leader of the dominant party in the com- monwealth, exercising a potent, but broad and health- ful, influence in the affairs of the nation. He was United States Senator during the fruitful period of the recon- struction of the Government, and left enduring monu- ments of his fidelity and ability as one of the architects of the new era. As Congressman, Governor, Senator, there is no stain upon his record, and his public life stands pure and unassailed. The controversies which occupied so large a part of his life are over; the causes which produced them have ceased to exist ; and the friends and foes of that period can fight over the old battles without rancor or passion. The ever dissolving and reuniting fragments of political forces wear off by friction enmities and jealousies, and by the recognition of merits before unknown in our op- ponents we are all brought into more harmonious and respecting relations. We can all stand beside the grave of Reuben E. Fenton, and forgetting, for the moment, our divisions and contentions, mourn the loss of one who in his day and generation acted so well his part as private citizen and public officer, that the common- wealth and the country were enriched by his example, his character, and his work. 2 20 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF XV. address at the unveiling of the statue of Alexander Hamilton, in Central Park, New York, November 22, 1880. Fellow-Citizens: The cosmopolitan spirit of our city is attested by the monuments erected in this park by the pride and patriotism of other nationalities and States to commem- orate the men whose genius and works belong to them, but are equally honored by us. The time has long since passed, when to this glorious group should have been added the statue of New York's greatest gift to the Revolutionary period and the constitutional his- tory of the Republic. The filial piety of a son performs the work, and we are here to honor the deed, and vener- ate the memory of his distinguished father. Precocious intellects in all ages of the world have flashed with meteoric splendor, and for a brief space amazed mankind ; but he only whose full-equipped mind knew no youth and never failed in the full maturi- ty of its powers was Alexander Hamilton. At twelve years of age, a merchant's clerk, he writes: "I would willingly risk my life, though not my character, to ex- alt my station." At thirteen he was the responsible head of a great commercial establishment, controlling the details of the counting-room, managing its ventures CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 22 1 with distant countries, and maintaining its credit. At fifteen, he stands before the venerable President of Princeton College, with the bold proposition to be per- mitted to ascend through the classes as he mastered their courses, and to be graduated without regard to the years alloted by the rules, when he could pass an examination. The conservatism of Princeton rejects, and Columbia, then King's College, accepts the youth- ful student upon his own terms. With rare industry and application, with method and wisdom, he seeks every source of knowledge and rapidly absorbs and assimilates all the teachings of the schools. But while he meditates in the groves of the Academy, the thunders of the mighty revolution which was shak- ing the continent disturb the quiet of the lecture-room. The protracted struggle of the colonists with the Mother Country for peaceful recognition of their rights was approaching a crisis. The tea had been thrown into Boston Harbor, and the retaliatory measures of the Home Government impressed upon the colonies the necessity of all uniting in the common defense. A great meeting was called in the Fields by the patriots of this city. When the orators had closed their passion- 1 ate appeals, a slender lad of seventeen ascended the platform. Curiosity soon gave place to admiration, and admiration to amazement and enthusiastic applause, as the boy proceeded. Calmly and clearly, with resistless reason and vivid imagery, he portrayed the origin of the difficulties, the rights guaranteed by their charters, by Magna Charta and the English Constitution, but above all the inalienable liberties of every people, and showed the possibilities of successful resistance by 22 2 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF united effort. New York decided to send delegates to the Continental Congress, and Hamilton began that structure of American nationality, of which he was the main architect, and to whose perfection and per- petuity he devoted his life. A resort to arms had not yet closed the forum, and to the discussion came the best trained, the ablest, the most eloquent men of New York, pleading the cause of England in pamphlets remarkable for their power, and which stayed the course and shook the judgment of the people. But the replies were so brilliant and over- whelming that they consolidated public sentiment for the cause of the people, and were ascribed to the fore- most statesman of the period ; and upon the discovery of their author, Hamilton, at eighteen, was hailed by the whole country as the peer of. the Adamses and of Jay. But when the multitude, smarting under wrongs and fired by the eloquence of their champion, sought riotous vengeance upon their enemies, he stayed the angry mob while the President of his college escaped, and offered to lead in defense of property and the maj- esty of the law. Popular passion never swayed his judgment; personal ambition, or the applause of the hour, never moved or deterred him. The same intui- tive insight and foresight, which worked out for him his own course and position, recognized and protected the rights of his bitterest foes. Concord and Lexing- ton closed the argument. He saw the necessity and rightfulness of armed resist- ance, and, with clearest reasoning upon the character of the combatants and the nature of the country, pre- dicted its success. While others fought for terms, he CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 223 from the beginning fought for independence. With the remnant of his little fortune he equipped a com- pany, and the Board of Examining Officers, in admira- tion of his proficiency in the science of war, commis- sioned the stripling a Captain of Artillery, and compli- mented the discipline of his command. In an anony- mous letter which he wrote to Washington he pointed out the dangers of the position on Long Island, and the warning was justified by the disastrous, battle and retreat. His coolness and intrepidity at Harlem Heights attracted the notice and comment of the Com- mander-in-Chief, and his skill and bravery at White Plains stayed the onset of the veteran and victorious Hessians. In an age when commissions in the army were only secured by noble birth or by purchase, he struck the keynote of the inspiration of a volunteer force, by recommending promotion from the ranks with such vigor that his advice was adopted by Congress. Dur- ing the gloomy retreat through New Jersey, a veteran officer noticed a company "which was a model of dis- cipline : its Captain a mere boy, with small, slender, and delicate frame, who, with cocked hat pulled down over his eyes, and apparently lost in thought, marched be- side a cannon, patting it every now and then as if it were a favorite horse or pet plaything," and was sur- prised when told it was the famous Hamilton. But the young officer held the British at bay while the Ameri- can army crossed the Raritan, and at Princeton and Trenton his company won renown and left upon the field three-fourths of their number. From the line, with its opportunities for distinction and promotion, the necessities of the Commander-in- 224 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF Chief drafted Hamilton into his military family, and at twenty he became the confidential aide of Washington. How fortunate and providential was this conjunction! The reverence of the secretary for the majestic charac- ter, lofty patriotism, and full, rounded judgment of his chief, was reciprocated by the confidence and admira- tion of the chief for the genius, thoroughness, readi- nes, comprehensive knowledge, intuitive perception, and purity of his secretary. The one began, the other instantly grasped the conclusion. The brief statement of the one became the convincing argument of the other. The suggestive hint of the evening was pre- sented for signature as the completed and unanswer- able argument of the morning. Washington pointed the way, and Hamilton cleared and paved the broad road upon which Congress, or the army, or the hesitat- ing State, must travel. The responsibilities of the con- tinent, in field and cabinet, rested upon Washington ; but Hamilton grasped, assimilated, codified principles, and simplified details, so that in the vast and compli- cated system nothing was neglected or forgotten, and the friendship cemented and strengthened with years ended only in death. It was a fitting and picturesque close of the Revolutionary War that, when the combi- nations of Washington had hemmed in Cornwallis at Yorktown, Hamilton should lead the forlorn hope in the storming of the British redoubt, and, firing his sol- diers to the charge by the memory of the massacre of their comrades at New London, in the heat and passion of victory grant mercy to the vanquished. Independence left the Republic with but the shadow of a government. Congress possessed only advisory CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 225 powers, and, in its inability to enforce its decrees upon the States, became an object of contempt at home and ridicule abroad. It was then that Hamilton brought forth his exhaustless resources to consolidate a nation. The first Convention proved a failure, but its address to the country, prepared by him, aroused the fears and stirred the patriotism of the people. The second Convention, presided over by Washington, numbered among its members the ablest men of the infant Repub- lic. Hamilton presented for their deliberations a system complete in all its parts. He had seen the war for in- dependence prolonged, and at times almost lost, by the failure of centralized authority and Aie jealousies of the States, and he proposed that the great empire, whose future was as clear to his vision as its reality is to ours, should recognize the federative principle in home and local affairs ; but be clothed with powers to preserve the union of the States and command the respect of the world. State sovereignty assailed the proposition in every part, but out of the discussion was saved the Con- stitution which has survived the storms of a century. Its preamble, written by him, "We, the People of the United States," was the foundation of his policy. An overwhelming majority of the New York Convention, led by her War Governor, George Clinton, opposed its ratification ; but Hamilton, by resistless logic, impas- sioned eloquence, and lofty appeals to the pride and patriotism of its members, silenced opposition, quieted prejudices, and won the assent of our State to the great compact ; and, with rapturous applause, with proces- sions and addresses, the people, whom he had educated by The Federalist, the press, and his speeches, to a de- 226 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF sire for a common country, hailed him as the savior of the nation. Hamilton forged the links and welded the chain which binds the Union. He saw the dangers of secession, and pointed out the remedy against it in the implied powers of the Constitution. When Pennsyl- vania rebelled against the Excise Law, he said : "Let there be no temporizing, but crush the insurrection with such overwhelming force and display of power that it will never be repeated." Upon the foundation laid by Hamilton, Webster built his majestic structure of constitutional law, and the principles so established silenced nullification, vindicated the right of the Repub- lic to protect its life by arms, and reconstructed the States. This young soldier, whose life had passed in camps, dropped the practice of law at the moment when emi- nence and wealth were in his grasp, to obey the call of Washington, and at thirty-two became the first Secre- tary of the Treasury. The Republic was bankrupt and without credit, commerce was destroyed, trade para- lyzed, agriculture neglected, and public distress and pri- vate poverty were the attendants of despair. He so constructed the Treasury Department that it has need- ed but little revision during ninety years. He created a system of finance which restored credit and sent the life-blood throbbing through every artery of the body politic. The demagogue cried: "Pay the obligation of the Government at the nominal price for which it was buffeted in the market," and the misery of the unthink- ing echoed the cry; but this statesman said: "Let the letter and the spirit of the bond be met," and prosper- ity trod upon the heels of honesty. He alone knew the CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 227 secrets whose publicity enriched multitudes, and yet he retired from office to earn a living. Upon the bound- less sea of experiment without chart or compass, he in- vented both. He smote the sources of revenue with such skill and power, that from the barren rocks flowed the streams which filled the Treasury and the Sinking Fund, and the exhausted land was fertilized by its own productiveness. Out of chaos he developed perfected schemes which have stood every strain and met every emergency in our national life. From his tent at Morristown he sug- gested to the bewildered Morris, who was seeking funds to sustain the Revolution, a plan of a National Banking system which he completed as Secretary of the Treas- ury, and which, after many vicissitudes and with some modifications, has met the exigencies created by civil war, and is the basis upon which rests our whole struct- ure of public and private business. He saw the neces- sity for manufactures, and the possibility of their crea- tion and growth by judicious protection, and laid down the principles which succeeding statesmen and public- ists have accepted, but never enlarged. When the or- gies of the French Revolution maddened Europe and intoxicated America, and in the name of universal Re- publicanism France demanded an offensive and defen- sive alliance, he stemmed the popular current, prophe- sied that license would end in despotism, and estab- lished the great rule of neutrality which has been the guiding and protecting spirit of our foreign policy. Having spent his patrimony in the war, the care of his family called for his best exertions. So great was the concentration of his industry and the compreheiv 228 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF siveness of his mind, that in three months he mastered the law, and entered at once upon a lucrative practice. So great was his public spirit that he abandoned it to perfect the Federal Constitution, resumed, and again left it to secure the ratification of that instrument, closed his books a third time when summoned by Washington into his Cabinet, and locked his office for a fourth time to organize an army to resist threatened war and inva- sion of the country. Amidst the universal prosperity created by his wis- dom and measures, private needs compelled his resigna- tion, and he entered upon the brief, but most brilliant, professional career in the illustrious history of the bar of our State. With all-embracing genius, the most plodding lawyer was never better fortified with case and precedent. With tireless energy he traced princi- ples back to their sources and forward to their conclu- sions. Enraptured juries were swayed by his eloquence, and admiring judges convinced by his arguments. He so settled the law of libel and the liberty of the press, that his brief became part of the constitutions of States and the statutes of England. The accused, who was too poor to retain and too humble to arouse the ambition of a lawyer, found both advocate and acquittal in Hamilton. The needy client, whose little patrimony and family he had saved, could pay no fee but grateful tears. That he was human and committed errors is the background which brings out in bolder relief the sim- plicity and integrity of his character and the greatness of his mind. Talleyrand, walking up Garden Street in this city late at night, and seeing him at work in his office, said: "I have seen one of the wonders of the CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 229 world. I have seen a man laboring all night to support his family, who has made the fortune of a nation." This great critic and cynic said: "I consider Napoleon, Fox, and Hamilton the three greatest men of our epoch, and without hesitation I award the first place to Hamilton." To the objection that the others had dealt with greater masses and larger interests in Europe, Talleyrand re- plied : "But Hamilton divined Europe." The period was rich in precocious intellects, but Hamilton's superiority was in strength of thought and vigor of expression, in the consistency and honesty of his convictions, the unselfishness of his purposes, and his marvelous versatility. He brushed aside prejudice and preconceived opinions, and from impregnable founda- tions his reasonings had the strength of inspiration and the spirit of prophecy. He dwelt upon the problem of internal commerce, and suggested the Erie Canal. He thought out a standing army, and founded West Point. He saw the necessity of popular education and the plain duty of the State, and perfected that grand and comprehensive system, free from sectarian control or influence, which is the pride of New York and has been a model of reform in foreign countries. The glory of our time is the emancipation of the slave, and yet he advised the arming and freeing of the blacks in the Revolutionary War as a measure of wisdom and philanthropy. When informed of the death of Wash- ington, he burst into tears and fell into the arms of a friend, crying: "The Republic has lost its savior and I a father." His last message was: "For God's sake, cease conversations and threatenings about a separation of the Union." His dying words were of forgiveness 230 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF to his murderer and his enemies, and of a confident trust in salvation through the mercy of the Redeemer. The Republic, recovering from grief at the loss of Washington by the reflection that Hamilton lived in the meridian of his powers, was plunged into universal sorrow by his untimely end. But the fears which agi- tated that generation, lest the dissolution of the Union might follow the death of this great bulwark of nation- ality, have blended, in our time, into gratitude and reverence for the founder of the Constitution. CHAUNCEY M DEPEW. 2 3 l o J XVI. ration at the centennial celebration of the Capture of Major Andre, at Tarry- town, N. Y., September 23, 1880. One hundred years ago the sun rose upon the same beautiful landscape which surrounds us here to-day. The noble Hudson rolled in front; to the north were the Highlands, in their majesty and strength; on the west towered the mountains enclosing the bay, and on the east spread valleys and hills celebrated then, as now, for their picturesqueness and commanding views. Beyond the loveliness of the situation it had no greater claims upon the attention of the world than hundreds of places adorned by nature which have made our State celebrated for the beauty and variety of its scenery; but when the sun went down this spot had become one of the fields priceless in the memory of mankind, where virtue is vindicated, and civilization and liberty saved from great disaster. The story we repeat here has equal value as a lesson to the living and a reverent tribute to the memory of the dead History, traditions, legends forgotten, almost lost, in the rapid march of events and the wonderful develop- ment of material prosperity, are so revived by these commemorations that our county, richer than any other 232 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF in the commonwealth in Revolutionary recollections, becomes in every part a perpetual teacher of the labors and sacrifices of patriotism to secure our independence. The happiness and progress of mankind have as often been advanced or retarded by small events as by great battles. If the three hundred men with Leonidas stemmed the Persian torrent, and made Thermopylae the inspiration of twenty centuries, right here a cent- ury ago to-day three plain farmers of Westchester pre- served the liberties of the American people. It is hard, even in imagination, to understand now the condition of this region at that period. It xvas ominously known as the neutral ground, and marauded and harried by Royal and Continental soldiers, and by Skinners and Cowboys, robbers and brigands of equal infamy. The Whig farmer saw his cattle driven off and the flames of his buildings lighting the sky to-night, and mercilessly retaliated upon his Tory neighbor to- morrow. Fences were down, fruit rotted ungathered on the ground, rank vegetation covered the unsown fields, and the gaunt and vengeful citizen guarded with ready musket his family and hidden stores, or watched in ambuscade by the wayside to recapture his stolen property or prevent the delivery of foraged stores to the enemy. Amidst such experiences and surround- ings the captors of Andre passed their daily lives. September, 1780, was a gloomy and anxious time for Washington and Congress. Charleston had fallen, and Gates had been disastrously defeated. With the rout of his army the whole South had come under the ene- my's control. New Jersey was overrun, and twenty thousand men, veterans of European battle-fields, were CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 233 gathered in New York. The French fleet had sailed away, and a large reinforcement arrived to the British navy, and Washington's cherished plan of a demonstra- tion against the city had to be abandoned. The only American force worthy the name of an army, number- ing less than twelve thousand, suffering from long ar- rears of pay, without money to send their starving fami- lies, and short of every kind of supplies, was encamped at and about West Point. This critical moment was selected by Arnold, with devilish sagacity, to strike his deadly blow. Elated by the success which had crowned his earlier efforts, he plunged into excesses which left him without a command, bankrupt in fortune, and smarting under the reprimand of Congress. He still retained the confidence of Washington, and anxious to secure the largest price for his treason, applied for and obtained the command of West Point. The surrender of this post, controlling the passes of the Hudson, with its war materials vital to the maintenance of the patriot army, and its garrison of four thousand troops, together with the person of Washington, ended, in his judgment, the war, and gave him a place second to Monk in English history. The success or failure of the united colonies in form- ing an independent government depended, from the beginning to the end of the contest, on the State of New York. Through her boundaries ran the natural channels by which the Six Nations marched to savage empire ; the English broke the French power on this continent, and emigration and commerce have peopled and enriched great States. A British statesman and soldier said: "Fortify from Canada to the city of New 234 ORA TIONS AND SPEECHES OF York, and we can hold the colonies together." The British Cabinet and generals said : "Capture and place a chain of posts along the route from New York city to Canada, and we can crush rebellious New England and awe all the rest into submission." The battle of Saratoga and surrender of Burgoyne defeated the last and most formidable attempt to accomplish this result by arms. Upon its bloody field American indepen- dence was consummated. That grand victory, which gave us unity at home and recognition abroad, was largely due to the skill, the dash, the intrepid valor of Arnold. The issue decided in that conflict the control of the passes of the Hudson, and all which would follow was now to be reopened and reversed by treason — and the traitor the same Arnold. For eighteen months a cor- respondence opened by Arnold had been carried on be- tween him and Major Andre, acting for Sir Henry Clin- ton. He wrote over the signature of Gustavus, seeking a bid for his defection, and occasionally imparting valu- able information to indicate his importance. Andre re- plied under the name of John Anderson, testing and tempting. These letters, molded in the vocabulary of trade, and treating of the barter and sale of cattle and goods, were really haggling about the price of the betrayal of the liberties of America and a human soul. The time had come for action, and the British must be satisfied as to the identity of their man and the firm- ness of his purpose, and commit him beyond the possi- bility of retreat. For, said Sir Henry Clinton, "We propose to risk no lives upon the possibilities of deceit or failure." The first meeting appointed at Dobbs' CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 235 Ferry, on the 12th of September, failed, and Arnold came near being captured. With rare audacity he re- ported his visit at once to Washington, and the next day wrote a letter to General Greene expressing bitter indignation against Gates for his Southern defeat, and the apprehension that it would leave an indelible stain upon his reputation. Armed with a decoy letter from Beverly Robinson, ostensibly about his confiscated lands, really conveying information where an interview with Andre might be had, he met Washington, on his way to see Rocham- beau at Hartford, carried him across the river at Ver- planck's Point in his barge, and asked permission to go, but the chief declined, saying the matter had better be left to the civil authorities. An overruling Providence was protecting the patriot cause and weaving about the plot the elements of its exposure and destruction. Baffled, but not disheartened, Arnold, lurking in the bushes of the Long Clove below Haverstraw, sent a boat at midnight to the Vulture to bring Andre to the shore. The boatmen, roughly handled on the sloop of war for daring to approach her without a flag of truce, are hurried before Andre and explain their mission. He disguised his uniform in a cloak and determined to accompany them. The caution of Sir Henry Clinton not to go within the American lines, not to cover his uniform, not to be the bearer of any papers, rings in his ears. The warning hand of Beverly Robinson rests upon his shoulder. The danger, the disgrace, the prize, are before him. If detected, a spy; if successful, at the head of a victorious column upon Fort Putnam receiv- ing the surrender of West Point ; a General's commis- 236 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF sion ; the thanks of Parliament ; the knightly honors of his King. Brilliant, accomplished, captivating, chival- ric, and ambitious, his secret correspondence had re- vealed the defect in his character; his moral sense was paralyzed in the presence of great opportunities. The dawn finds Arnold and Andre still in the thicket, still disputing about the terms. Horses are hastily mounted, and they start for Smith's House, still stand- ing yonder above the bay. The sentinel's challenge, the countersign, warn Andre that he is in the last posi- tion of a soldier: disguised and on a secret mission within the enemy's camp. All the morning that fearful bargaining goes on, and at last it is settled. He receives the papers giving the plans, fortifications, armament, and troops at West Point, the proceedings of Wash- ington's last council of war, and hides them between his stockings and his feet. He receives the assurance that the defenses shall be so manned as to fall without a blow, and assures Arnold in return of a brigadier-gen- eralship in the British army, and seven thousand pounds in money, and bids him farewell, till he meets him at the close of a sham combat to receive his surrender and sword. Those two men thus bidding adieu on yonder hillside have determined the destinies of unborn millions, and none share their secret, and there is no one to betray them. Once safely back with those papers, and Ameri- ca's doom is sealed. We bow with devout and humble thanksgiving to the watchful and beneficent Providence which turned most trivial circumstances into the power- ful elements that thwarted this well-laid scheme. Col- onel Livingston, commanding at Verplanck's, refused by CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 237 Arnold a heavy gun to fire upon the Vulture, had made it so hot for her with a little four-pounder on Teller's Point, that she had dropped down the river. The timid Smith, of whom posterity is in doubt whether he was a knave or a tool, was too scared to venture to reach her by boat, and so the land journey was determined upon. Still further disguised, and armed with Arnold's pass in the name of John Anderson, Andre crossed the river on the afternoon of the 22d of September to Verplanck's Point, and safely passed through Livingston's camp. Gayly he rides, accompanied by Smith, through the Cortlandt woods, and over the Yorktown hills. He laughs as he passes the ancient guide-post, bearing its legend, "Dishe his di Roode toe de Kshing's Farray"; and his hair stood on end, he said, when he met Colonel Webb, of our army, whom he perfectly knew, but who stared and went on. His plan is to strike the White Plains road and so reach his own lines. But at Crum- pond, Captain Boyd stops them. A most uncomfort- able, inquisitive, vigilant, and troublesome Yankee, is this same Captain Boyd. Arnold's pass stuns him, but it requires all the versatility and adroitness of Andre to allay his suspicions. He so significantly recommends their remaining all night that they dare not decline. A Westchester farmer's bed never had two more uneasy occupants. At early dawn they departed, with Captain Boyd in the rear, and the Cowboys, against whom Boyd had warned them, in front ; Andre's spirits rose. He had left disgrace and a shameful death behind, and saw only escape, glory, and renown before. Hitherto taci- turn and depressed, he now overwhelmed his dazed companion with a flood of brilliant talk. Poetry, music, 238 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF belles-lettres, the drama, the times, formed the theme of his flowing eloquence, and ever and anon as they ascend- ed the many eminences which command a view of the Highlands and the river, he broke out in rapturous praise of the entrancing scenery. Mrs. Underhill, near Pine's Bridge, had lost her all, but one cow and a bag of meal, by a raid of the Cowboys the night before, but with true county hospitality she spread before them the time-honored Westchester dish of suppawn and milk. At Pine's Bridge, Smith's courage failed and he bade his companion good-by. This was another of the triv- ial incidents which led Andre to his fate. Smith, with his acquaintance and ready wit, would have piloted him safely by the White Plains road, or upon the other route, and satisfied the scruples of the yeomen who cap- tured him. Smith rode to West Point and by his re- port allayed Arnold's anxiety, and then in the easy and shiftless character of everybody's friend, he continued on to Fishkill and supped with Washington and his staff. Andre alone, free from care, decided to strike for the river : it was a shorter road, and from the Cow- boys who infested it he had nothing to fear; but it was another link in the chain winding around him. The broad domains of his friends, the great loyalist families, lay about him, his own lines a few short hours beyond. Saturday morning, the 23d of September, one hun- dred years ago, was one of those clear, bright, exhilarat- ing days, when this region is in the fullness of its quiet beauty. The handsome horseman delights the children of Staats Hammond's family as they hand him a cup of water, and leaves a lasting impression upon the Qua- kers of Chappaqua, of whom he inquires the distance to CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 239 Tarrytown. Through Sparta, he strikes the river road, and gallops along that most picturesque highway, the scenery in harmony with the brilliant future spread be- fore his imagination. He recognizes the old Sleepy Hollow Church, with its ancient bell bearing the motto, Si Deus pro nobis, quis contra nos, and a half-mile in front sees the bridge over the little brook which was to be for him a fatal Rubicon. On the south side of that stream, in the bushes playing cards, were three young farmers of the neighborhood — John Paulding, David Williams, and Isaac Van Wart — watching to intercept the Cowboys and their stolen cattle. At the approach of the horseman, Paulding steps into the road, presents his musket, and calls a halt. It was nine in the morn- ing; they have been there but an hour. An earlier start, a swifter pace, and Andre would have escaped ; but this was still another of the trivial incidents in the fatal combination about him. Andre speaks first. "My lads, I hope you belong to our party." "Which party?" they said. "The lower party," he answered. "We do." "Then, thank God !" said he, "I am once more among friends. I am a British officer, out on particular business, and must not be detained a min- ute." Then they said : "We are Americans, and you are our prisoner and must dismount." "My God!" he said laughing, "a man must do anything to get along," and presented Arnold's pass. Had he presented it first, Paulding said afterward, he would have let him go. They carefully scanned it, but persisted in detaining him. He threatened them with Arnold's vengeance for this disrespect to his order; but, in language more forcible than polite, they told him "they cared not for 240 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF that," and led him to the great whitewood tree, under which he was searched. As the fatal papers fell from his feet, Paulding said: "My God, here it is!" and, as he read them, shouted in high excitement to his com- panions, "By God, he is a spy!" Now came the crucial and critical moment. Andre, fully alive to his danger, and with every faculty alert, felt no alarm. He had the day before bargained with and successfully bought an American major-general of the highest military reputation. If a few thousand pounds and a commission in the British army could se- duce the commander of a district, surely escape was easy from these three young men, but one of whom could read, and who were buttressed by neither fame nor for- tune. "If you will release me," said Andre, "I will give you a hundred guineas and any amount of dry goods." "I will give you a thousand guineas," he cried, "and you can hold me hostage till one of your number re- turns with the money." Then Paulding swore, "We would not let you go for ten thousand guineas." That decision saved the liberties of America. It voiced the spirit which sustained and carried through the Revolu- tionary struggle for nationality, and crushed the rebel- lion waged eighty years afterward to destroy that na- tionality — the invincible courage and impregnable vir- tue of the common people. As Washington was riding that night from Hartford, depressed by the refusal of Count Rochambeau, the French General, to co-operate in his plans, and to be overwhelmed on the morrow by Arnold's astounding treason, all along the route enthusiastic throngs with torches and acclamations hailed his approach. "We CHAUNCEY M. DEPEJV. 241 may be beaten by the English," he said to Rocham- beau's aide, "it is the fortune of war; but behold an army which they can never conquer." With one of his captors in front, the others on either side of his horse, Andre is carried to Colonel Jame- son's, the nearest American post. The gay horseman has come to grief, and the buoyant gallop to the front has turned into a funeral march to the rear, and he re- calls the ill omen of the song sung by Wolfe the night before the storming of Quebec, and which he had re- peated at the farewell dinner given him the evening of his departure on this fatal errand : Why, soldiers, why, Should we be melancholy, boys, Why, soldiers, why, Whose business 'tis to die. Jameson, a brave and honest soldier, was easily duped by the courtly arts of Andre. While he sent the pa- pers by special messenger to Washington, he was per- suaded by Andre to forward him, with a letter descrip- tive of his capture, to Arnold. Once there, and both had escaped. The vigilant and suspicious Major Tall- madge induced Jameson to bring back Andrd; but to recall the letter to Arnold he positively refused. Jame- son's messenger to Washington, mistaking his road, did not reach West Point till the next noon ; his messen- ger to Arnold arrived in the morning. Washington, on approaching the river, according to his habit, proceeded at once to examine the fortifica- tions. Lafayette reminded him that Mrs. Arnold's breakfast was waiting. "You young gentlemen are all 242 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF in love with Mrs. Arnold," he said. "You go and tell her not to wait for me, I will be there in a short time." Hamilton and McHenry delivered the message, and were welcomed by Arnold and his wife. In the midst of the meal Allan, the messenger, delivered Jameson's letter. Arnold's iron nerve held him unconcernedly at the table a few moments; then, saying he must go over to the Point to prepare for the reception of the General, he arose. His wife followed him upstairs. Hastily informing her of his ruin, and bidding her per- haps a last farewell, as she fell fainting to the floor, he kissed his sleeping baby, stepped a moment into the breakfast-room to inform his guests of the sudden ill- ness of his wife, and, followed by his boat's crew, dashed down the hillside to the river. They must row with all their might, he told them, as he had a message to deliver on board the Vulture, eighteen miles below, for Washington, and should be back before evening. He reprimed his pistols, and, with one in each hand, sat re- solved to die the death of a suicide rather than be cap- tured. By promises of reward, by voice and gesture, he urges his crew to their best exertions. His guilty soul peopling every turn of the river with avenging pursuit, he sails through the Highlands, waving his handkerchief as a flag to his forts, redoubts, and patrols, astonishing the vigilant Livingston at Verplanck's with the spectacle of his commander making straight for the British sloop of war, and takes the first free breath of relief as he steps on the deck of the Vulture. To his coxswain he offers a commission, to the crew rewards, if they will desert and join the British. They unanimously refuse, and Larvey, the coxswain, replies: CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 243 "If General Arnold likes the King of England, let him serve him ; we love our country, and intend to live or die in support of her cause." At Arnold's command they are made prisoners, and he stood there among them then, as he stands pilloried in history for all time, the only American soldier who, during the Revolution- ary War, turned traitor to his country. As Washing- ton returns from the inspection at West Point to Ar- nold's headquarters, at the Robinson House, he finds Hamilton holding Jameson's letters and the papers found on Andre. Then he understands Arnold's sud- den flight, the failure to greet him from the batteries with the accustomed salute, the general negligence and want of preparation for attack everywhere found. He stands on a mine. How far does this conspiracy ex- tend? Who else are implicated? The enemy may come this very night, and who shall be placed in posts of danger? Despairingly he says: "Whom can we trust now?" But Washington's greatness shone con- spicuously in great emergencies. Hamilton is dis- patched to intercept Arnold, if possible ; Tallmadge is ordered to bring Andre with triple guards to West Point ; Greene at Tappan is directed to put the whole army in marching order, and before night every fort and defense from Putnam to Verplanck's is ready for an assault. Then, with no outward sign of excitement, Washington sat down to dinner, and with courtly kind- ness sent word to Arnold's hysterical and screaming wife: "It was my duty to arrest General Arnold, and I have used every exertion to do so, but I take pleas- ure in informing you that he is now safe on board the Vulture" 244 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF Andre was brought to West Point that night, and taken to the headquarters of the army at Tappan the next day. According to the laws and usages of war in relation to spies, Washington could have ordered him summarily to execution; but threats of retaliation, im- pudent letters from Arnold, extraordinary appeals and interpretations of Andre's conduct and position from Sir Henry Clinton, began to pour in upon the Com- mander-in-Chief. He ordered a board of officers to be convened, and submitted the case to their considera- tion. It was as august a tribunal as ever sat under like circumstances. Six major-generals and eight brig- adiers, as eminent as any in the service, including the foreign officers Lafayette and Steuben, formed the court. They gave Andre every opportunity to pre- sent his own defense, and when the facts were all in, unanimously adjudged him guilty, and that he must suffer the death of a spy. His youth, graces, and ac- complishments, his dignity and cheerfulness won the affections of his guard and the tenderest sympathy of the whole army. There was not a soldier present who would not have risked his life, if by so doing Arnold might be captured and substituted in Andre's place. In all the glittering splendor of the full uniform and ornaments of his rank, in the presence of the whole American army, without the quiver of a muscle or sign of fear, the officers about him weeping, the bands play- ing the dead march, he walked to execution. His last words were of loving solicitude for the welfare of moth- er and sisters in distant Britain, and the manner of fame he would leave behind. "How hard is my fate, but it will be but a momentary pang," he said, as he pushed CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 245 aside the executioner and himself adjusted the rope. To those around he cried, "I pray you to bear witness that I meet my fate like a brave man," and swung into eternity. The supernatural served to add to the interest and perpetuate the memory of this tragedy. On the day of his execution the great tree under which he was searched was shattered by a bolt of lightning; and at the same hour, at his home in England, his sister awoke from a troubled sleep screaming, "My brother is dead; he has been hung as a spy." In the British Army, and in England, the wildest indignation burst out against Washington. Andre was mourned and honored as if he had fallen in a moment of glorious victory at the head of his column. His brother was knighted, his family pensioned, and his King declared in solemn message that "the public can never be compensated for the vast advantages which must have followed from the success of his plan." In Westminster Abbey, that grand mausoleum of Eng- land's mighty dead, where repose her great statesmen, warriors, and authors, the King placed a monument bearing this inscription: "Sacred to the memory of Major John Andre, who, raised by his merit, at an early period of his life, to the rank of Adjutant-General of the British forces in America, and employed in an im- portant but hazardous enterprise, fell a sacrifice to his zeal for his King and country." Forty years after- ward a royal embassy came to this country, disinterred his remains at Tappan, and a British frigate sent for the purpose bore them to England, where they were buried beside his monument with imposing ceremo- 246 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF nies. One of the most enlightened and liberal of Eng- land's churchmen, in a recent visit to this land, wrote the inscription for, and urged the erection of, the monu- ment to Andre's memory at Tappan, as the one act which would do more than anything else to remove the last vestiges of enmity between the United States and Great Britain. Andre's story is the one overmastering romance of the Revolution. American and English literature is full of eloquence and poetry in tribute to his memory and sympathy for his fate. After the lapse of a hun- dred years there is no abatement of absorbing interest. What had this young man done to merit immortality? The mission, whose tragic issue lifted him out of the oblivion of other minor British officers, in its inception was free from peril or daring, and its objects and pur- poses were utterly infamous. Had he succeeded by the desecration of the honorable uses of passes and flags of truce, his name would have been held in ever- lasting execration. In his failure, the infant Republic escaped the dagger with which he was feeling for its heart, and the crime was drowned in tears for his un- timely end. His youth and beauty, his skill with pen and pencil, his effervescing spirits and magnetic dispo- sition, the brightness of his life, the calm courage in the gloom of his death, his early love and disappoint- ment, and the image of his lost Honora hid in his mouth when captured in Canada, with the exclamation, "That saved, I care not for the loss of all the rest," and nestling in his bosom when he was slain, surrounded him with a halo of poetry and pity which have secured for him what he most sought and could never have CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 247 won in battles and sieges — a fame and recognition which have outlived that of all the generals under whom he served. Are kings only grateful, and do republics forget? Is fame a travesty, and the judgment of mankind a farce? America had a parallel case in Captain Nathan Hale. Of the same age as Andre, he graduated at Yale College with high honors, enlisted in the patriot cause at the beginning of the contest, and secured the love and confidence of all about him. When none else would go upon a most important and perilous mis- sion he volunteered, and was captured by the British. While Andre received every kindness, courtesy, and attention, and was fed from Washington's table, Hale was thrust into a noisome dungeon in the sugar-house. While Andr6 was tried by a board of officers and had ample time and every facility for defense, Hale was summarily ordered to execution the next morning. While Andre's last wishes and bequests were sacredly followed, the infamous Cunningham tore from Hale his cherished Bible and destroyed before his eyes his last letters to his mother and sister, and asked him what he had to say. "All I have to say," was his reply, "is, I regret I have but one life to lose for my country." His death was concealed for months, because Cunningham said he did not want the rebels to know they had a man who could die so bravely. And yet, while Andre rests in that grandest of mausoleums, where the proudest of nations garners the remains and perpetuates the memo- ries of its most eminent and honored children, the name and deeds of Nathan Hale have passed into oblivion, and only a simple tomb in a village church-yard marks 248 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF his resting-place. The dying declarations of Andre and Hale express the animating spirit of their several armies, and teach why, with all her power, England could not conquer America. "I call upon you to wit- ness that I die like a brave man," said Andre, and he spoke from British and Hessian surroundings, seeking only glory and pay. "I regret I have but one life to lose for my country," said Hale; and with him and his comrades self was forgotten in that absorbing, passion- ate patriotism which pledges fortune, honor, and life to the sacred cause. But republics are not ungrateful. The captors of Andre were honored and rewarded in their lives, and grateful generations celebrate their deeds and revere their memories. Washington wrote to Congress : "The party that took Major Andre acted in such a manner as does them the highest honor, and proves them to be men of great virtue; their conduct gives them a just claim to the thanks of their country." Congress acted promptly. It thanked them by resolution, granted to each an annuity of two hundred dollars for life, and twelve hundred and fifty dollars in cash, or the same amount in confiscated lands in Westchester County, and directed a silver medal, bearing the motto "Fi- delity" on the one side and "Vincit Amor Patrice' on the other, to be presented to them. The Legislature of the State of New York gave to each of them a farm, in consideration — reads the act — of "their virtue in re- fusing a large sum offered to them by Major Andre as a bribe to permit him to escape." Shortly after, Wash- ington gave a grand dinner-party at Verplanck's Point. At the table were his staff and the famous generals of CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 249 the army, and as honored guests these three young men, Paulding, Williams, and Van Wart, whose names were now household words all over the land ; and there, with solemn and impressive speech, Washington presented the medals. Paulding died in 1818, and in 1827 the Corporation of the City of New York placed a monu- ment over his grave in the old cemetery just north of Peekskill, reciting, "The Corporation of the City of New York erected this Tomb as a Memorial Sacred to Public Gratitude," the Mayor delivering the address, and a vast concourse participating in the ceremonies. Van Wart died in 1828, and in the Greenburgh church- yard the citizens of the country erected a memorial in "Testimony of his Virtuous and Patriotic Conduct." Williams died in Livingstonville, in Schoharie County, in 1 83 1, and was buried with military honors. In 1876 the State erected a monument, and his remains were re-interred in the old stone fort at Schoharie Court- house. On the spot where Andre was captured the young men of Westchester County, in 1853, built a cenotaph in honor of his captors. Arnold, burned in effigy in every village and hamlet in America, received his money and a commission in the British army, but was daily insulted by the proud and honorable officers upon whom his association was forced, and who despised alike the treason and the trai- tor. His infamy has served to gild and gloss the acts of Andre, and, deepening with succeeding years, brings out with each generation a clearer and purer apprecia- tion of the virtue and patriotism of Paulding, Williams, and Van Wart. Pity for Andre led to grave injustice to Washing- 250 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF ton and detraction of his captors, which a century has not effaced. Sir Henry Clinton and his officers, in ad- dresses and memoirs, denounced the execution of An- dre as without justification. A contemporary British poetess characterized Washington as a"remorseless mur- derer," and one of the latest and ablest of England's his- torians says this act is the one indelible "blot upon his character," and that the decision of the military tribu- nal composed of men ignorant of Vattel and Puffen- dorff, and fresh from "plow-handles and shop-boards," does not relieve him. It has become a conviction abroad, and to some extent a sentiment here, that a grave and fatal error was committed. It is claimed that Andre was under the protection of a flag of truce; that he was within the American lines upon the invita- tion of the commander of the district, and under the protection of that General's pass ; that his intent was free from turpitude, and the circumstances surround- ing his position entitled him to exchange or discharge. When Andre was on trial upon the charge of being a spy, he testified in his own behalf that "he had reason to suppose he came on shore under a flag of truce," and such is the concurrent testimony of all the witnesses. The story was the subsequent invention of Arnold ; but, even if true, the flag is recognized in the usages of war for definite and honorable purposes — it ameliorates the horrors of the conflict ; but when used as a cover for treasonable purposes, loses its character and pro- tective power. To present it as a defense and shield for the corrupt correspondence of the enemy's emissary and a traitorous officer, is a monstrous perversion. It is true he was present at Arnold's invitation and carried CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 25 1 his pass, but he knew the object of his visit, and did not hold the pass in his own name and title. Months before he had written to Colonel Sheldon, commanding the Continental outposts, that under flag and pass he proposed visiting, on important business. General Ar- nold, at West Point, and requesting safe conduct, and signing and representing himself as John Anderson, a trader. The meeting which finally took place was an appointment often before thwarted, and its object to tamper with the integrity and seduce from his alle- giance the enemy's officer. The signals and agencies of communication and travel between hostile forces were collusively used to procure the betrayal of an army and the ruin of a nation. And/e landed at Haverstraw to traffic with the necessities and tempt the irritated pride cf a bankrupt and offended general, and having succeeded in seducing him to surrender the forts and trusts under his command, Benedict Arnold, so far as his confederate Andre was concerned, ceased from that moment to be the American commander, and any pa- pers issued by him to further and conceal the scheme were absolutely void. His pass and safe-conduct were not only vitiated in their inception by the joint act of giver and receiver, secreting treason in them, but they were issued to an assumed name and borne in a false character. A British soldier found disguised in the American lines, with the plans of the patriots' forts, the details of their armament, and the outlines of the plot for their betrayal, hidden in his boots, lost, with the discovery of his personality and purposes, the protec- tion of a fraudulent certificate. Greene and Knox, and Lafayette and Steuben, and the other members of 252 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF the board of officers who tried and convicted Andre\ may possibly have been ignorant of the great authori- ties upon international law; but had they studied, they would have found in them both precedent and justification. While the laws of war justify tampering with the opposing commander and compassing his desertion, the sudden, unsuspected, unguardable, and overwhelming character of the blow renders it the high- est of crimes, and subjects those detected and arrested in the act to summary execution. A general is com- missioned by his government to fight its battles and protect its interests. The law of principal and agent is as applicable as to a civil transaction, and all who deal with him, to betray his tryst, know that he is acting beyond the limits of his authority. Not the least re- markable of the incidents of this strange history was the proposition of Sir Henry Clinton to submit the question to the arbitration of the French General Rochambeau and the Hessian General Knyphausen. Such an offer would never have been made to a Euro- pean commander. It was an expression, in a form most offensive to Washington, of that supercilious contempt for the abilities, acquirements, and opinions of Ameri- can soldiers and statesmen, on the part of the ruling classes in England, which precipitated the Revolution and created this Republic. The sympathy and grief of Washington for Andre and his misfortunes were among the deepest and profoundest emotions of his life. The most urgent public necessity, the most solemn of pnb- lic duties, demanded his decision. The country and the army were dismayed by the plot, which Congress declared would have been ruinous to the cause; which CHAUNCEY m. DEPEW. 253 Greene proclaimed in general order would have been a fatal stab at our liberties; which King George the Third said possessed advantages that, if successful, could not be estimated ; and, as Sir Henry Clinton wrote, would have ended the conflict. Washington's remark to Lafayette, "Whom can we trust now?" echoed the sentiment of the hour. In that supreme moment, private considerations and personal pity sur- rendered to the requirements of official responsibil- ity, and General Washington, the Commander-in-Chief, stamped out treasonable sentiment within, and deterred treasonable efforts without, by signing the death-war- rant of Major John Andre. Andre left as a legacy a blow at his captors which, thirty-seven years afterward, bore extraordinary fruit. In 18 1 7 one of them petitioned Congress for an in- crease of pension, and Major Tallmadge, then a mem- ber, assailed them with great vigor and virulence. He had been a distinguished officer in the Revolutionary War. It was by his energy and sagacity that Lieuten- ant-Colonel Jameson was prevented from delivering An- dre" to Arnold, and he was in command of the guard and with Andre till his death. Like all the young Ameri- can officers about him, Tallmadge formed a warm friendship for him, and admiration of his character and accomplishments. He asserted that his captors were Cowboys, and that it was Andre's opinion, frequently expressed, that they stopped him for plunder, and would have released him if he could have given security for his ransom. Tallmadge knew nothing of either of them prior to this event, and his judgment was wholly the reflex of Andre's expressions. Andre's remarks 254 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF were either a deliberate stab at the reputations of the men toward whom the nation's gratitude was already rising with a volume which promised an immortality of fame, while he was waiting a shameful death, or in his dread extremity he could neither understand any higher motive in them to resist his offers, or regard with toler- ance or patience these humble peasants whose acts had ruined his fortunes and delivered him to his fate. But against assertions and theories stand the impregnable facts of history. They did reject bribes beyond the wildest dreams of any wealth they ever hoped to ac- cumulate. They did deliver him to the nearest Ameri- can post, and neither asked nor expected any reward. Van Wart had served four years in the Westchester Militia, and his term of enlistment had but recently ex- pired. Paulding had been twice a British prisoner of war in New York, and was a third time wounded in their hands at the declaration of peace, and the Yager uniform in which he had escaped but four days before the capture misled Andre into the impulsive revelation of his rank. Security for the ransom they had. * As they were intelligent enough to understand the impor- tance of their prisoner, they knew that while two held him as hostage, the third could arrange for the delivery of any sum he promised upon his release. Washing- ton, the Continental Congress, and the Legislature of our own State are the contemporary witnesses, and their testimonies, by words and deeds, are part of the rceord which makes this day memorable. When the news of Major Tallmadge's charges was received here, sixteen of the most respected and reputable men of our county — names as familiar among us as household CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 255 words — certified to Congress, "that during the Revolu- tionary War they were well acquainted with Isaac Van Wart, David Williams, and John Paulding, and that at no time during the Revolutionary War was any sus- picion entertained by their neighbors or acquaintances that they or either of them held any undue intercourse with the enemy. On the contrary, they were universal- ly esteemed, and taken to be ardent and faithful in the cause of the country." Van Wart and Paulding, in sol- emn affidavits, reasserted the details of the capture and the motives of their conduct. As each of them in ripe old age and the fullness of years was called to render his account to the Great Judge, mourning thousands gathered about the graves to testify their reverence ; and the respect and gratitude of their countrymen reared monuments to their memories. The population, prosperity, wealth, and luxury which surround us here have grown upon the devastated fields of a century ago. We re-dedicate this cenotaph in honor of those whose virtues made possible this result. The peace, civilization, liberty, and happiness we enjoy at home, the power which commands for us respect abroad, lie in the strength and perpetuity of our repub- lican institutions. Had they been lost by battle or treason in the Revolutionary struggle, or sunk in the bloody chasm of civil war, the grand nationality of to- day would have been dependent provinces, or warring and burdened States. Arnold and Andre, Paulding, Williams, and Van Wart, are characters in a drama which crystallizes an eternal principle : that these insti- tutions rest upon the integrity and patriotism of the common people. We are not here to celebrate marches, 256 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF sieges, and battles. The trumpet, the charge, the wav- ing plume, the flying enemy, the hero's death, are not our inspiration. The light which made clear to these men the priceless value of country and liberty was but the glimmering dawn, compared with the noonday glory of the full-orbed radiance in which we stand. As a hundred years have ripened the fame and enriched the merit of their deed, so will it be rehearsed with increas- ing gratitude by each succeeding century. This modest shaft marks the memorable spot where they withstood temptation and saved the State, but their monument is the Republic — its inscription upon the hearts of its teeming and happy millions. CHA UNCE V M. DEPE W. 25 ) XVII. addresses before the new england society of the City of New York. December 22, 1875, in Response to the Toast, " Woman " : From women's eyes this doctrine I derive: They sparkle still the right Promethean fire ; They are the books, the arts, the academes That show, contain, and nourish all the world. — Love's Labor's Lost, iv. in. Mr. President: I know of no act of my life which justifies your as- sertion that I am an expert on this question. I can very well understand why it is that the toast to "Woman" should follow the toast to "the Press." I am called upon to respond to the best, the most sug- gestive, and the most important sentiment which has been delivered this evening, at this midnight hour, when the varied and ceaseless flow of eloquence has exhausted subjects and audience, when the chairs are mainly vacant, the bottles empty, and the oldest veteran and most valiant Roman of us all scarce dares meet the doom he knows awaits him at home. Bishop Berkeley, when he wrote his beautiful verses upon our Western World, and penned the line, Time's noblest offspring is the last, described not so nearly our prophetic future as the 258 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF last and best creation of the Almighty — woman — whom we both love and worship. We have here the Presi- dent of the United States and the General of our armies.; around these tables is gathered a galaxy of intellect, genius, and achievement seldom presented on any oc- casion ; but none of them would merit the applause we so enthusiastically bestow, or have won their high honors, had they not been guided or inspired by the woman they revered or loved. I have noticed one peculiarity about the toasts of this evening very re- markable in the New England Society : every one of them is a quotation from Shakespeare. If Elder Web- ster and Carver and Cotton Mather, the early divines of Massachusetts, and the whole colony of Plymouth could have been collected together in general assem- bly, and have seen with prophetic vision the flower of their descendants celebrating the virtues of its ancestry in sentiments every one of which was couched in the language of a playwright, what would they have said? The imagination cannot compass the emotions and the utterances of the occasion. But I can understand why this has been done. It is because the most versatile and distinguished actor upon our municipal stage is the President of the New England Society. We live in an age when from the highest offices of our city the en- cumbent seeks the stage to achieve his greatest honors. I see now our worthy President, Mr. Bailey, industri- ously thumbing his Shakespeare to select these toasts. He admires the airy grace and flitting beauty of Tita- nia; he weeps over the misfortunes of Desdemona and Ophelia ; each individual hair stands on end as he con- templates the character of Lady Macbeth ; but as he CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 259 spends his nights with Juliet, he softly murmurs, "Part- ing is such sweet sorrow." You know it is a physiological fact that the boys take after their mothers, and repro- duce the characteristics and intellectual qualities of the maternal, and not the paternal, side. Standing here in the presence of the most worthy representatives of Plymouth, and knowing as I do your moral and mental worth, the places you fill, and the commercial, financial, humanitarian, and catholic impetus you give to our metropolitan life, how can I do otherwise than on bended knee reverence the New England mothers who gave you birth. Your President, in his speech to-night, spoke of himself as a descendant of John Alden. In my judgment, Priscilla uttered the sentiment which gave the Yankee the keynote of success, and condensed the primal elements of his character, when she said to John Alden, "Prythee, why don't you speak for your- self, John?" That motto has been the spear in the rear and the star in the van of the New Englander's progress. It has made him the most audacious, self- reliant, and irrepressible member of the human family ; and for illustration we need look no farther than the present descendant of Priscilla and John Alden. The only way I can reciprocate your call at this late hour is to keep you here as long as I can. I think I see now the descendant of a Mayflower immortal who has been listening here to the glories of his ancestry, and learning that he is "the heir of all the ages," as, puffed and swollen with pride of race and history, he stands solitary and alone upon his doorstep, reflects on his broken promise of an early return, and remembers that within "there's a divinity that shapes his ends.'' 260 OR A TIONS AND SPEECHES OF In all ages woman has been the source of all that is pure, unselfish, and heroic in the spirit and life of man. It was for love that Antony lost a world ; it was for love that Jacob worked seven long years, and for seven more; and I have often wondered what must have been his emotions when on the morning of the eighth year he awoke and found the homely, scrawny, bony Leah instead of the lovely and beautiful presence of his beloved Rachel. A distinguished French philoso- pher answered the narration of every event with the question, "Who was she?" Helen conquered Troy, plunged all the nations of antiquity into war, and gave that earliest, as it is still the grandest, epic which has come down through all time. Poetry and fiction are based upon woman's love, and the movements of his- tory are mainly due to the sentiments or ambitions she has inspired. Semiramis, Zenobia, Queen Elizabeth, claim a cold and distant admiration ; they do not touch the heart. But when Florence Nightingale, or Grace Darling, or Ida Lewis, unselfish and unheralded, peril all to succor and to save, the profoundest and holiest emotions of our nature render them tribute and hom- age. Mr. President, there is no aspiration which any man here to-night entertains, no achievement he seeks to accomplish, no great and honorable ambition he de- sires to gratify, which is not directly related to either a mother or a wife, or both. From the hearthstone around which linger the recollections of our mother, from the fireside where our wife awaits us, come all the purity, all the hope, and all the courage with which we fight the battle of life. The man who is not thus inspired, who labors rather to secure the applause of CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 261 the world than the solid and more precious approval of his home, accomplishes little of good for others or of honor for himself. I close with the hope that each of us may always have near us A perfect Woman, nobly planned, To warn, to comfort, and command ; And yet a Spirit still, and bright With something of angelic light. December 22, 1879, IN Response to the Toast, " The State of New York " : Our voice is imperial. — Henry V. It has been my lot, from a time which I cannot re- member, to respond each year to this toast. When I received the invitation from the committee, its origin- ality and ingenuity astonished and overwhelmed me. But there is one thing the committee took into con- sideration when they invited me to this platform. This is a Presidential year, and it becomes men not to trust themselves talking on dangerous topics. The State of New York is eminently safe. Ever since the present able and distinguished Governor has held his place I have been called upon by the New England Society to respond for him. It is probably due to that element in the New Englander that he delights in provoking controversy. The Governor is a Democrat, and I am a Republican. Whatever he believes in, I detest ; what- ever he admires, I hate. The manner in which this toast is received leads me to believe that in the New England Society his administration is unanimously ap- 262 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF proved. Governor Robinson, if I understand correctly his views, would rather that any other man should have been elected as Chief Magistrate than Mr. John Kelly. Mr. Kelly, if I interpret aright his public utterances, wolud prefer any other man for Governor of New York than Lucius Robinson, and therefore, in one of the most heated controversies we have ever had, we elected a Governor by unanimous consent or assent in Alonzo B. Cornell. Horace Greeley once said to me, as we were returning from a State Convention where he had been a candidate, but the delegates had failed to nomi- nate the fittest man for the place : "I don't see why any man wants to be Governor of the State of New York, for there is no one living who can name the last ten Governors on a moment's notice." But though there have been Governors and Governors, there is, when the gubernatorial office is mentioned, one figure that strides down the centuries before all the rest ; that is the old Dutch Governor of New York, with his wooden leg— Peter Stuyvesant. There have been heroines, too, who have aroused the poetry and eloquence of all times, but none who have about them the substantial aroma of the Dutch heroine, Anneke Jans. It is within the memory of men now living when the whole of American literature was dismisssed with the sneer of The Edinburgh Revieiv, "Who reads an Ameri- can book?" But out of the American wilderness a broad avenue to the highway which has been trod by the genius of all times in its march to fame was opened by Washington Irving; and in his footsteps have fol- lowed the men who are read of all the world, and who will receive the highest tributes in all times — CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 263 Longfellow, and Whittier, and Hawthorne, and Prescott. New York is not only imperial in all those material results which constitute and form the greatest common- wealth in this constellation of commonwealths, but in our political system she has become the arbiter of our national destiny. As goes New York so goes the Union, and her voice indicates that the next President will be a man with New England blood in his veins or a representative of New England ideas. And for the gentleman who will not be elected I have a Yankee story. In the Berkshire hills there was a funeral, and as they gathered' in the little parlor there came the typical New England female, who mingles curiosity with her sympathy, and as she glanced around the darkened room she said to the bereaved widow, "When did you get that new eight-day clock?" "We ain't got no new eight-day clock," was the reply. "You ain't? What's that in the corner there?" "Why, no, that's not an eight-day clock, that's the deceased ; we stood him on end, to make room for the mourners." Up to within fifty years ago all roads in New England led to Boston ; but within the last fifty years every by- way and highway in New England leads to New York. New York has become the capital of New England, and within her limits are more Yankees than in any three New England States combined. The boy who is to-day plowing the stony hillside in New England, who is boarding around and teaching school, and who is to be the future merchant-prince, or great lawyer, or wise statesman, now looks not to Boston, but to New 264 ORA TIONS AND SPEECHES OF York, as the El Dorado of his hopes. And how gener- ously, sons of New England, have we treated you ! We have put you in the best offices; we have made you our merchant-princes. Where is the city or village in our State where you do not own the best houses, run the largest manufactories, and control the principal industries? We have several times made one of your number Governor of the State, and we have placed you in positions where you honor us while we honor you. New York's choice in the National Cabinet is the dis- tinguished Secretary of State, whose pure Yankee blood renders him none the less a most fit and most eminent representative of the Empire State. When the Yankee conquered New York, his union with the Dutch formed those sterling elements which have made the Republic what it is. Yankee ideas pre- vailed in this land in the grandest contest in the Senate of the United States which has ever taken place, or ever will : in the victory of Nationalism over Sectional- ism by the ponderous eloquence of that great defender of the Constitution, Daniel Webster. And when, fail- ing in the forum, Sectionalism took the field, Yankee ideas conquered again in that historic meeting when Lee gave up his sword to Grant. And when, in the disturbance of credit and industry which followed, the twin heresies Expansion and Repudiation stalked abroad, Yankee ideas conquered again in the policy of our distinguished guest, the Secretary of the Treasury. So great a triumph has never been won by any finan- cial officer of the Government before as in the funding of our national debt at four per cent., and the restora- tion of the national credit, which has given an impulse CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 265 to our prosperity and industry that can neither be stayed nor stopped. When Hendrik Hudson sailed up the great harbor of New York, and saw with prophetic vision its magnifi- cent opportunities, he could only emphasize his thought, with true Dutch significance, in one sentence — "See here !" When the Yankee came and settled in New York, he emphasized his coming with another sen- tence — "Sit here !" And he sat down upon the Dutch- man with such force that he squeezed him out of his cabbage-patch, and upon it he built his warehouse and his residence. He found this city laid out in a beauti- ful labyrinth of cow-patches, with the inhabitants and the houses all standing with their gable-ends to the street, and he turned them all to the avenue, and made New York a parallelogram of palaces; and he has multiplied to such an extent that now he fills every nook of our great State, and we recognize here to-night that with no tariff, with free trade between New Eng- land and New York, the native specimen is an improve- ment upon the imported article. Gentlemen, I beg leave to say, as a native New Yorker of many genera- tions, that by the influence, the hospitality, the liberal spirit, and the cosmopolitan influences of this great State, from the unlovable Puritan of two hundred years ago you have become the most agreeable and com- panionable of men. New York to-day, the Empire State of all the great States of the commonwealth, brings in through her grand avenue to the sea 80 per cent, of all the imports, and sends forth a majority of all the exports, of the Republic. She collects and pays four-fifths of the 266 OR A TIONS AND SPEECHES OF taxes which carry on the government of the country. In the close competition to secure the Western com- merce which is to-day feeding the world and seeking an outlet along three thousand miles of coast, she holds by her commercial prestige and enterprise more than all the ports from New Orleans to Portland combined. Let us, whether native or adopted New Yorkers, be true to the past, to the present, to the future of this commercial and financial metropolis. Let us enlarge our terminal facilities and bring the rail and the steam- ship close together. Let us do away with the burdens that make New York the dearest, and make her the cheapest, port on the continent ; and let us impress our commercial ideas upon the national legislature, so that the navigation laws, whch have driven the merchant marine of the Republic from the seas, shall be repealed, and the breezes of every clime shall unfurl, and the waves of every sea reflect, the flag of the Republic. December 22, 1880, in Response to the Toast, " The City of New York." For the tenth time, and under so many administra- tions that my politics have become mixed, I respond for the State of New York. As I have been looking around this hall to-night, my Dutch imagination has been wondering, and trying to solve the problem "whether it was in view of the future of such a scene as this for his descendants, that the Puritan poet said that man is "a little lower than the angels." I attended with General Grant that extraordinary meeting of the Pilgrims in Brooklyn last night, and the speeches were CHA UNCE Y At. DEPE W. 267 so long that I had just time, with the facility afforded by the bridge, to reach your dinner here to-night. I discovered there in its full force and vigor that peculi- arity of the Yankee that makes him such a valuable friend of every community that it loses nothing from his view of it. As I understood the Yankee-Brooklyn idea, that city is the metropolis and New York is the suburb. I heard so much there last night, supple- mented by some remarks here to-night, that all educa- tion, civilization, progress, and liberty sprang from the Puritan, that I confess I am overloaded on one side, and it will take me a week or more to adjust the claims of one and the other races to the sphere in which we live. I go to my own Dutch dinner, and there believe that civil and religious liberty and toleration came alone from us. I go to the Irish dinner, and find them cipher- ing up the offices they have held, and exhausting their arithmetic to ascertain how many they will hold in the future. I go to the English dinner, and find the loyal Briton proclaiming that England would be the greatest nation in the world if Ireland would only stay con- quered. I go to the Scotch dinner, and there I ascer- tain that the quality of Scotch wit is like Mumm's best champagne — extra dry. And when I come to the New England dinner, as I did last night and again to-night, I ascertain that all the cargo in the human ship that is worth saving was put there by the Yankee, and I ap- preciate as never before the full force and beauty of the line : Truth crushed to earth shall rise again. New York is the foremost in all the elements which constitute a great commonwealth, and second only in 268 ORA TIONS AND SPEECHES OF power among its sister States to the State of Ohio. If Shakespeare had lived in our time, the familiar line that some men are born great and some have greatness thrust upon them, would have been written, "Some men are born great and some are born in Ohio." But there never yet has been an Ohio man who filled fully the national eye, who didn't descend from New England ancestors. The State of New York, — what would have become of the Yankee but for us? In the Revolution- ary period New York prevented the union of the Brit- ish forces in Canada and on the sea-coast, which, if ac- complished, would have enabled Great Britain to crush the Yankee out. In the Constitutional period, old George Clinton, with three-fourths of the members, thought that New York, holding the channel between the East and West, would be greater and more inde- pendent by not surrendering to the Central Govern- ment ; but those great statesmen and patriots, Alexan- der Hamilton, John Jay, and Chancellor Livingston, by force and genius and logic won over that Convention, so that New York came into the great compact ; the nation was created and the Yankee was safe. Prior to that time he had a place in which he might be born and where his bones could be deposited, but ever after he had a place where he could live. Other States may claim to be the mother and the creator of Presidents, but New York alone elects them. And when I circu- late among my brethren who were defeated and disap- pointed in this contest, and who are looking around with such vengeful earnestness to find somebody who was responsible for the results in order that they may sacrifice him on the spot, I am reminded of a New Eng- CHAUNCEY M. DEPEVV. 269 land story. There are certain portions of Vermont where the only recreation and pleasure of the inhabi- tants is the attendance upon funerals. A friend of mine up there last summer engaged in the diversion of the neighborhood, and went to one of these gatherings. After the preacher had concluded, he was startled by the undertaker, who got up and announced this notice : "Friends will be patient; the exercises are briefly post- poned because the corpse has been mislaid." There is a relationship between the Yankee and the Dutchman very remote. It is true the connection would never have been found out, but the Yankee dis- covered it, for the reason that, beyond all other races, he is agile in climbing the genealogical tree and pluck- ing a relationship from the topmost branches, when it suits his purposes and when it is for his profit to do so. The original stock settled in Holland, diked out the sea, and raised a nation. One part remained there, and the other went over into England and became Puri- tans. But the original stock, remaining in Holland, liv- ing by themselves, resisted the powers of oppression, dispersed darkness all about them, gave unity to the states, created civil and religious liberty, and discovered that these great principles could only be secured by promoting a sound education. For a century Holland remained the sole spot in the world where the liberties of mankind were secure. Over in England the Puritan was surrounded on all sides by ecclesiastical and civil oppression. He resisted manfully and sustained his in- dependence and his faith, but the pressure narrowed him down, so that after a while he sought a spot where he might have the largest room for the free exercise 27° ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OE of his own opinions — a spot where there would not be any room for the exercise of anybody else's opinions. The Dutchman received him, when he came, as a long lost relative, with traditional hospitality; but after he had remained for many years, he said to his Dutch en- tertainers, "I can practice my own religion, it is true, but there are too many religions among you for my comfort — I must emigrate"; and so he emigrated to New England. There the seeds of liberty and tolera- tion, planted first in Holland, have, in these sons of Dutch and English, flowered and fruited into men of the best quality any nation has ever seen. When there were less than twenty thousand persons in New England they thought they were too closely settled, and looking over into Connecticut, found it fair and fruitful. There they saw the Dutchman prosperous and happy, and coming in upon him, cried out, "My long-lost cousin Diedrich ; how do you do?" They came as guests, but they remained with him for a hundred and fifty years. Fortunately for us, there is a dispute among the Yan- kees by which one celebrates the 21st and the other the 22d as Forefathers' Day, and I, as the representa- tive of Dutchmen, attend both dinners; and that is the only return we get for a hundred and fifty years of hospitality. Another reason why we come to this dinner, when we get an invitation, is best stated in the story of a temperance lecturer who was caught by a disciple after he retired, taking a hot whisky punch. Said his shocked follower, "I thought you were a total ab- stainer." "So I am," said the lecturer, "but not a bigoted one." CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 271 These Yankees, when they came over here a hun- dred and fifty years ago, married the best Dutch girls, and they brought with them bright and handsome sis- ters whose quick and active minds captured the more sluggish intellects of our Dutch boys, and that stock, as Dr. Storrs has well said, has made New York the Empire State of the confederacy. If John Alden and Priscilla, the Puritan maiden, should come into this room to-night, neither of them would recognize their sons upon the floor or their daughters in the gallery ; and if they should partake of the dinner furnished to us here, the indigestion which would follow would im- press upon their minds, as nothing else could, the ideas of a Puritan hereafter. But although there has been a large departure from the standard of two hundred and fifty years ago, they would recognize in their descend- ants the best elements of the original stock, conform- ing themselves to the civilization of the times, and they would find the Yankee of to-day, like the Yankee of all days, the only one of any race who becomes, even when a tramp, a beneficent addition to the region in which he settles. The Mayflozuer sailed to Plymouth ; the Half-Moon sailed to Manhattan Island. Each bore a valuable con- tribution to humanity and civilization, but in the com- pleteness in which they were united upon the soil of New York they have created those elements that have crystallized into all time that which we enjoy and in- tend to pass down to after-ages, known as the Declara- tion of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. 272 orations and speeches of December 22, 1882, in Response to the Toast, "The Half-Moon and the Mayflower." It is embarrassing for the representative of a con- quered people to have devolve upon him at the great festival of the conqueror the unpleasant duty of plac- ing the crooked pin upon the hero's chair, to remind him when he sits down that he is mortal. The Yankees have swarmed into the fair land of the Knickerbockers, filled its places of business and trust, held the few offi- ces left unoccupied by the Irish, married the daughters of the house, and as the disinterested brothers-in-law administered upon and absorbed the estate. And yet upon the principle of the old epitaph that "he who saves loses, he who spends saves, and he who gives away takes it with him," the Dutch are a thousandfold richer for their loss. The garden in which they vege- tated in peaceful content has become an empire ; Puri- tan bigotry spiritualized and humanized by Dutch tole- rance,Dutch inertia vitalized by Yankee energy, Dutch frugality fired by Yankee thrift, Dutch steadfastness enthused by Yankee patriotism, Dutch babies crossed with Yankee blood, have conquered the world. We are never luminous after 4 o'clock except at our Knicker- bocker feast. You must visit us there. The tenor of one of our city churches, whose pulpit is occupied by a famous preacher, said to me recently : "You must come again ; the fact is, the Doctor and myself were not at our best last Sunday morning. We artists can- not be always at our best." The questioning character of my sentiment is indica- tive of the resistless inquisitiveness and acquisitiveness CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 273 which are the rudiments of Yankee success. Wander- ing with other tourists over the splendid estate of the Duke of Westminster, near Chester, and admiring the palace he was decorating for his bride, I heard a Berk- shire man say to the gardener, who acted as guide : "What; you can't tell how much the house cost, nor what this farm yields an acre, nor what the old man's income is, nor how much he is worth? Don't you Brit- ishers know anything?" History, poetry, and eloquence have immortalized the few voyages freighted with humanity's hopes. The Grecian Argo has inspired fable and epic, — the great steamship traversing the ocean in seven days, between the Old World and the New, with her tons and passen- gers numbered by thousands, is the unnoticed common- place of the hour. But of greater moment than fabled Argo and the combined fleets of commerce were the sailing and the landing of the Mayflower and the Half- Moon. They carried the principles of a new and higher civilization, and bore a charter of liberty broader and better than was ever known before. The compact signed in the cabin of the Mayflower, guaranteeing to all the protection of "just and equal laws," after two hundred and fifty years of strife, humili- ation, and civil war, found a permanent home in the fundamental law by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, pledging, without regard to creed or color, the universal blessing of just and equal laws. The Puri- tan, worsted in his battle with the Cavalier in 1620, fled to the wilderness; the Puritan, triumphant over like elements in 1865, broke down the barriers of caste, and welcomed bondman and freeman alike to equal liberties 274 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF with himself. And yet this splendid record of match- less achievement, the inspiration of every orator to-night, would have been impossible without the Dutch. The men who wrested a country from the sea were of the same stock with Pym, Sidney, Hampden, and Crom- well. Fighting for their homes and lives against the invading ocean on the one side, and the hosts of des- potism and darkness upon all sides, they learned the lesson that freedom rests upon education, and educa- tion begets and fosters civil and religious liberty. They provided for the Puritan both an asylum and a university. The Puritans landed in Holland with a fierce purpose to find a place where there should be full liberty for their own religion and no liberty for any- body else. They left, applauding the parting words of Robinson, that neither to Calvin nor Luther, nor to any man, has God revealed all of His truth. The two most potent factors of modern liberty were William of Orange and Oliver Cromwell, but the triumph of "Will- iam's beggars of the sea" made possible the victory of Naseby and Marston Moor. In an age of force their Grotius had laid the foundations of international law, the peaceful arbitration of states; in an age of dense ignorance they had invented types. The Union of Utrecht of 1579 was the model of colonial confedera- tion ; the Declaration of Independence at the Hague of 1 581 was the seed carried by the Mayfloiver and the Half-Moon to America, from which grew the immortal sentiment of 1776. New York has always illustrated the cosmopolitan and hospitable character of the Dutch. Her first and most famous Governor, Clinton, was an Irishman ; her CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 275 first and most eminent statesman, Hamilton, a Scotch- man ; her first and ablest jurist, Jay, a Huguenot; and only her first and most chivalric soldier, Schuyler, of the household of her founders. And in the last elec- tion we had the choice for Governor between two Yan- kees of pure blood, one by way of Connecticut and the other from Connecticut around by way of New Jersey. So far as the returns have come in, the Jerseyman ap- pears to have been elected. It has been said that the Pilgrim Fathers would have disowned their roystering descendants were they introduced to this annual revel, but their banquet on the eve of their departure from Delft Haven lasted all night, though history is silent upon the speeches of the guests or their condition in the morning. The Puritans who came afterward burnt witches, hung Quakers, and banished Baptists, but the Pilgrims who had spent eleven years in Holland strug- gled against this bigotry and intolerance. They were the leaven liberalizing their brethren with such mighty suc- cess that in this year of grace Massachusetts elects Ben Butler Governor, and New England professors and di- vines in this hall welcome Herbert Spencer and illustrate the practical processes of evolution by smashing the pa- triarchs and knocking out of the Bible prophecy and hell. The Mayflower was not the first ship which anchored in Plymouth Harbor: the Dutch had been there, but they were equal to neither the climate nor soil. Eigh- teen years before, Captain Pring had landed there, and says he was hospitably entertained by the savages with steaming dishes of peas and beans. This traditional and frugal fare at the dinner at Plymouth last night has 276 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF prepared the representatives of that society for a Del- monico banquet to-night. I state this fact with timid- ity, because a stray remark of mine at the Brooklyn din- ner last year, about the relations betwen New England progress and pumpkin-pie, drew down upon me a famous assault from the leading newspaper of Massachusetts. It seemed to me to mark that decadence of a race where the enervated descendant blushes for the robust and homely virtues of his ancestor. The sentiment of to-day was freely expressed by the New England girl who mistook the first milestone out of Boston for a tombstone, and reading its inscription, "1 M. from Boston, " said, " 'I'm from Boston.' How simple, how sufficient !" The farmer's shot at Concord which echoed around the world was the inevitable expression of the ever-expanding principles of Plymouth. They have overleaped all artificial and natural boundaries. They plant the school-house and the church in every new settlement. They maintain and finally vindicate the purity of the ballot from every peril. They extend the suffrage in Great Britain, nationalize Germany, repub- licanize France, and imprison the Czar. While we laugh at the claim of every one of the twenty million of descendants of the Pilgrims, that in his house is a chair and table that came over in the Mayflower ; while we know not which to admire most, the ability of the forefathers to compact furniture on a sixty-ton ship, or the capacity of their heirs to expand facts to meet the needs of a continent, it is a weakness and pride more noble than that which boasts of the armor and weapons in feudal castle and baronial hall — relics of carnage and courage for territory and power. CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 277 Of the kings, princes, generals, statesmen, preachers, who filled the world's stage in 1620, no man in this au- dience can name one. They rest in forgotten graves; while on this anniversary night fifty millions hail with gratitude the names of Miles Standish and his army of ten men, of Brewster, Carver, Winthrop, and their broad statesmanship, of Robinson and his tender piety and toleration of all creeds, as the founders of a government of the people, for the people, and by the people, which shall not perish from the earth. December 22, 1884, in Response to the Toast, "The State of New York." It marks the evolution of your race that a Brooklyn man (General Stewart L. Woodford) presides over the New York Society. When he attends the annual meet- ing of the Brooklyn branch, he says he comes as a vas- sal bringing the subject city across the bridge with him, while here he claims the autocracy of the world. The solution of this paradox is, that with the citizens of Brooklyn modesty is purely a domestic product and never carried abroad. I have responded so often to the sentiment you have given me, that when it came again I felt like the good brother in the class-meeting of a Methodist church in a Pennsylvania town, who, when the experiences had all been told and the exhortations lagged, and the prayers grew feeble, remarked : "My brethren, as the regular exercises to-night seem to halt a little, I will improve the time by making a few obser- 278 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF vations on the tariff." The gentleman who answers for the State is supposed to speak for the Executive, and as I have done this during every administration for twenty years, I have discovered that when trying to feel as the Governor of the hour, whether he be Mor gan, Hoffman, Fenton, Dix, Tilden, Robinson, or Cor- nell, might under similar circumstances, my mental and moral conditions have been rather remarkable. It is one of the present distinctions of our State, that its Capitol has become the Mecca of half the nation. It is a safe prediction to offer to both confident and hopeless patriots that the Cabinet the President-elect thinks he will select in December is not the one he will send to the Senate in March. New York, always im- perial and original, settled in the late campaign, in a grand way which startled the world, the effects, as fac- tors in politics, of gastronomy and theology. None of us who with hurts and wounds are trying to look cheer- ful will ever, when recalling the feast or the sermon, have any doubts as to the distinction between a boom and a boomerang. But while recognizing the right of the victors to rejoice, the vanquished have the happy privilege of extracting comfort from the fact that in the ultimate assortment and assimilation upon policies and principles of all the elements which carried our pivotal State, the experiences may be repeated of the lady who astonished the quiet citizens of the Dutch hamlet of Peekskill when I was a boy, by introducing a coach-dog. The first rain-storm washed off the black spots, and when the purchaser remonstrated with the dog-mer- chant, he said : "Beg pardon, ma'am, but there is a mis- take; there was an umbrella went with that dog." It CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 279 is the misfortune of our State that she is big enough to be careless and contented, and not sufficiently large or small to be opinionated and aggressive. The natural highway between the ocean and the lakes was utilized by De Witt Clinton to construct the water- way which created empires in the West and a metropo- lis on the coast. Alexander Hamilton formulated the National and our State constitutions, and constructed a financial system which has survived the first century of the Republic, while with Jay he formed two of the triumvirate who carried through the Federal Union. Any other State would have been filled with the ima- ges of these men in marble and in bronze, and the whole country deafened with their fame, and illumi- nated with the light shed on the capacity of their com- monwealth for leadership ; but we have erected no public statues or monuments to perpetuate their memo- ries. It is not pleasant for us to note that ten thou- sand billions of invested and active capital cannot see the plate which begs the dole to pay the expenses of receiving the grand emblem of Liberty contributed by France to cement, by the triumphs of peace between a young republic and her elder sister, a compact of friend- ship signed in blood a century ago, between an old monarchy and a young republic. If the metropolis knew as much of, and took as deep an interest in, the great centers of activity and intelligence in the interior like Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo, as they do in the metropolis, it would promote healthful state pride, cordial good-neighborhood, better legislation, and home-rule in local government. But with large opportunities for criticism come far 280 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF greater elements for praise. When the heroes of the Boston tea-party were in their cradles, New York started the Revolution which ended in independence. The Erie Canal created a new era in the commerce of the globe. Irving solved the Edinburgh reviewer's riddle, "Who reads an American book?" New York's great journalistic quartette, Greeley, Raymond, Bennett, and Weed, made the newspaper the arbiter of our laws and our morals. The Brooklyn Bridge is the eighth wonder of the world, and the Capitol at Albany sur- passes in size and solidity those of all the other States together. The Empire State houses her Legislature in a palace which rivals any parliament house in the world, and with surroundings fit for the loftiest elo- quence and most masterly statesmanship. She has made the annual dinner of the New England Society an event which suspends the operations of governments and commands the attention of the universe. I never was more convinced of her boundless hospitality than in a recent survey of our contest for United States Senator. I found that our Governor was a Jerseyman, the Mayor of our city a Vermonter, our local govern- ment and metropolitan judiciary Irish, and the candi- dates for Senator all Yankees, and concluded that a native of the State had better not intrude. The Pilgrim planted beside his meeting-house the Dutch common-school, and inaugurated with his scanty fare the custom which he had found at Leyden, and in which his descendant revels, under the name of Thanks- giving Day. The Puritans direct from England, who landed twenty years after in Massachusetts Bay, burned witches, hung Quakers, and banished Baptists, CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 281 but all sectaries fleeing from those persecutions found hospitable welcome at Plymouth. The men who stood on this famed rock were the leaven of American liberty. The Puritan exhibited his religion in the cut of his coat and the style of his hat ; the Dutchman wore the same clothes, no matter what his creed. The Puritan sang with the nasal twang and stormed the gates of Heaven through his nose; the Dutch offered their peti- tions in the natural way, and the only Dutchman whose facial ornament has become historic was Antony Van Corlear, who with it defied the mossbunkers in Spuyten Duyvil Creek, and attracted the sturgeons off Antony's Nose, — but it was not for him or his an instrument with which to pry open the doors of Paradise. But as a de- scendant of the vanquished race, I freely admit that the best thing which ever happened for them, their State, and the country, was their conquest by the Yankees. The Dutchman was too easily content with earthly ease and comfort to be a pioneer and state, builder; he needed the stimulus of a people who are never satisfied, to whom acquisition increases appetite in earthly matters, as the church fence breeds an irre- sistible inclination to climb over it in things spiritual. One of the most eminent of New England divines, himself the son of a Puritan clergyman, told me that when a boy he heard the deacons at his father's house discussing the merits of their respective ministers. After many had spoken, one old elder said : "Wa'al, our minister gives so much attention to his farm and orch- ard, that we get pretty poor sermons ; but he is mighty movin' in prayer in caterpillar and canker-worm time." It is this spirit which held the town-meeting in the 282 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF church; which made God a partner in every honest call- ing, useful pursuit, and perilous enterprise ; that made possible the victories of Grant and of Sherman, that moved Mason and Dixon's line into the Gulf of Mexico, that with telegraphs and railroads has developed new commonwealths and liberalized governments to meet all the needs of expanding empire, and that gave to the second century a Republic so much grander than the forefathers planted in the first. CHA UNCE V M. DEPE W. 283 s XVIII. peech at the sixth annual festival of the New England Society of Pennsylvania, at the Continental Hotel, Philadelphia, De- cember 22, 1886, in Reply to the Toast, "The New Netherlanders, the Pilgrim Fathers of Manhattan." Mr. President and Gentlemen: I do not see why you should send to New York for after-dinner speakers when you have a chairman fully equipped to make a speech upon every toast that is presented. He takes the meat, as it were, desiccates it, and leaves the shell for the unfortunate guest who is to follow. Next year we will take him over to New York. The President of the New England Society of New York said to me : "Depew, you know a good thing when you see it. If you find anything of that sort in Philadelphia, let us know." I have found it. I met on the train coming over here to-night a Penn- sylvania Dutchman of several generations, who asked me what business called me to Philadelphia. I replied : "I am going to attend the annual banquet of the New England Society of Pennsylvania; which I understand to be the most important event that takes place in that State." He remarked : "I did not know there was such a society, nor did I know there were enough Yankees 284 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF in Philadelphia to form a decent crowd around a dinner- table ; because the Yankees can't make money in Phila- delphia, and a Yankee never stays where he can't make money." It is a most extraordinary thing that one should come from New York to Philadelphia for the purpose of at- tending a New England dinner. It is a most extraordi- nary thing that a New England dinner should be held in Philadelphia. Your chairman to-night spoke of the hard condition of the Puritans who landed on Plymouth Rock. Let me say that if the Puritans had come up the Delaware, landed here, and begun life with terra- pin and canvas-back duck, there never would have been any Puritan story to be retailed from year to year at Forefathers' dinners. If William Penn had ever con- templated that around his festive board would sit those Puritans with whom he was familiar in England, he would have exclaimed: "Let all the savages on the continent come, but not them." It is one of the pleas- ing peculiarities of the Puritan mind, as evinced in the admirable address of Mr. Curtis here to-night (and when you have heard Mr. Curtis, you have heard the best that a New Englander, who has been educated in New York, can do), that when they erect a monument in Philadelphia or New York to the Pilgrim or Puritan, they say : "See how these people respect the man whom they profess to revile." But they paid for them and built the monuments themselves. The only New Eng- landers of Philadelphia whom I have met are the offi- cials of the Pennsylvania Railroad. When I dine with them, enjoy their hospitality, revel in that glorious sociability which is their characteristic and charm, I CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 285 think that they are Dutchmen ; when I meet them in business, and am impressed with their desire to pos- sess the earth, I think that they came over in the May- fiozver. There is no part of the world to-night, whether it be in the Arctic Zone, or under the equatorial sun, or in monarchies, or in despotisms, or among the Fiji Island- ers, where the New Englanders are not gathered for the purpose of celebrating and feasting upon Forefathers' Day. But there is this peculiarity about the New Eng- lander, that if he cannot find anybody to quarrel with, he gets up a controversy with himself — inside of him- self. We who expect to eat this dinner annually — and to take the consequences — went along peacefully for years with the understanding that the 22d of December was the day, when it suddenly broke out that the New Englander, within himself, had got up a dispute that the 2 1st was the day. I watched it with interest, be- cause I always knew that when a Yankee got up a con- troversy with anybody else, it was for his profit ; and I wondered how he could make anything by having a quarrel with himself. Then I found that he ate both the dinners with serene satisfaction ! But why should a Dutchman — a man of Holland descent — bring "coals to Newcastle" by coming here among the Pennsylvania Dutch for the purpose of attending a New Englander dinner? It is simply another tribute extorted by the conqueror from the conquered people, in compelling him not only to part with his possessions, his farms, his sisters, his daughters, but to attend the feast, to see de- voured the things raised upon his own farm, and then to assist the conqueror to digest them by telling him stories 286 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF My first familiarity with the Boston mind and its pe- culiarities was when I was a small boy, in that little Dutch hamlet on the Hudson where I was born, when we were electrified by the state superintendent of Massachusetts coming to deliver us an address. He said : "My children, there was a little flaxen-haired boy in a school that I addressed last year ; and when I came over this year, he was gone. Where do you suppose he had gone?" One of our little Dutch innocents re- plied, "To Heaven." "Oh no, my boy," the superin- tendent said, "he is a clerk in a store in Boston." John Winslow said that the Connecticut River was the dividing line between the Continent of New Eng- land and the Continent of America ; and he foresaw the time, in his imagination, when there should grow up, upon the eastern side of the Connecticut River, a population of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, who would enjoy their homes, their liberties, civil and religious, and build up a state. He never looked for- ward to that time, in the evolution of the species, when the New England farm would pass from the hands of the Puritan into the possession of the Irishman, who would cultivate it and earn a living where the Yankee could not live, and who would threaten the supremacy of New England faith and the supremacy of New Eng- land politics. If he had looked forward, he would have rejoiced in the fact that in the expansion of the New England idea and in the exodus of the New England Pilgrim, the Yankee marched forth over the continent to possess it and to build it up in the interests of civil and religious liberty ; so that, instead of a few hundred thousands on the sterile hills of New England, sixty CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE IV. 287 millions of people should rise up and call him blessed in the plenitude of a power, a greatness, and a future un- equaled among the nations of the earth. If from any of the planets in our sphere there should come a being endowed with larger perceptions and ob- servations than our own, and not familiar with our civil- ization or creeds, and he should drop in at a New Eng- land dinner anywhere to-night, he might ask, "Who are these people?" and he would be told, "They are the people who claim to have created this great Republic, and to have put into it all that is in it that is worth preserving." If he should ask, "What is their creed and faith, and what do they worship?" he would be told to wait and listen to their speeches. When finally he had gone out, he would say, "They worship their forefathers and themselves." And yet there is not a descendant of the Pilgrims in this room to-night who could stay in a ten-acre lot for three hours with his an- cestors, to save his soul. There is not one of those gaunt, ascetic, and bigoted men who sang through his nose and talked cant, as described here so effectively on the other side of the picture presented by Mr. Cur- tis, who would not have every one of his descendants here to-night put into the lock-up as roystering blades, dangerous to the morals of the community ; but, never- theless, I can join in that measure of sweet song, of magnificent adulation, and superb eulogium which has been given to us from the tongue and pen of one who has no equal among our speakers and writers. The Puritan was a grand character. He was a grand character because of what he was and did, and because of what circumstances made him. Fighting with the 288 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF state for his liberty, he learned to doubt, and then to deny, the divine right of kings. Fighting with the Church for his conscience, its possession and expression, he learned to doubt, and then to deny, the divine right of hierarchies; but this created within him that spirit which made him recognize that the only foundation of the Church, if it will live, that the only foundation of the State, if it will be free, is man and the manhood of individuals. The family idea of all ages created the patriarch and his rule, the chieftain of the tribe and his rule, the despot and his rule, the military chieftain and his rule, the feudal lord and his rule ; every step illum- ining the individual, crushing liberty, producing despot- ism, making the riders and the ridden ; but when the Puritan discovered, as he enunciated in the cabin of the Mayflozver, that there should be just and equal laws, and before those laws all men should stand equal ; when he carried out in his administration that here should be the township as the basis of the state, and the state as the unit out of which should be created the Republic, then he discovered the sublime and eternal principle which solves all difficulties of home rule and modern liberty. Now this magnificent man never would have amount- ed to much — never would have founded a state, never would have builded a government — if Providence had not sent him to Holland among my ancestors. The Pilgrim who went to Holland, and there learned toler- ation ; there learned to respect the rights, the opinions, and liberties of others; there learned the principle of the common school and universal education; when he got to Plymouth Rock never burned witches, never CHA UNCE V M. DEPE W. 28$ hung Quakers, never drove out Baptists; he always fought against all this. It was the Puritan, twenty thousand strong, who came years afterward, who did those things; and, except for the leaven of the Pilgrim who had been to Holland, the Puritan would not be celebrated here to-night. Four hundred of them went to Holland, every man with a creed of his own and anx- ious to burn at the stake the other three hundred and ninety-nine because they did not agree with him ; but being there enlightened, they discovered the magnifi- cence of the universe. All over Holland, they saw compulsory school education sustained by the State. They found a country in which there was universal tol- eration of religion ; in which the persecuted Jew could find an asylum ; in which even the Inquisitor could be safe from the vengeance of his enemies ; and there, after they had been prepared to found a state, and to build it, when they got down to Delft-Haven to depart, the Dutchmen, in their hospitality, gave them a fare- well dinner as a send-off. It was the first good din- ner they had ever had — the first square meal the Puritan had ever eaten. It followed that when they went on board the ship they were happy and they were — full. I do not know whether the word "full" had the same significance in those times that it has now, or not. And then Pastor Robinson preached the sermon in the after- noon, in which he told them that the whole truth was not given to Luther, though he thought so, nor to Cal- vin, though his disciples said so ; but that in the future there would be a development of the truth which they must nurse and evolve. See how they have nursed and evolved it ! Why, they have nursed and evolved 290 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF that truth into so many creeds and doctrines on the sterile hills of New England, that they deny the exis- tence of a heaven — many of them; and many more would deprive us of the comforts of a hell for — some people. Now who were those people who founded New Neth- erlands, and who entertained so hospitably those Puri- tans and gave them such a grand send-off? I remem- ber that a vicious and irate adherent of the Stuarts says, in his history, looking with vengeance upon the accession of William of Orange to the throne of Eng- land, that the Puritan and the Hollander were shaken out of the same bag. And so they were. The same vigorous Northern stock came down to settle upon the marshes of Holland and in the fens of England. The stock that remained in England produced Pym and Hampden, and Sidney and Russell, with a cross of Swedish pirate or Northern conqueror; but the original stock which went to Holland fought off forever, during its whole existence, the power of the Roman Empire ; fought off the hordes of barbarians who came down upon the ruins of the Roman Empire ; fought off all the forces and powers of medieval chivalry, and won their grand victory when they took from the sea her- self a land, that upon it they might govern themselves upon the principles of their own manhood and of civil and religious liberty. Those people were not a selfish people; but they liked to be by themselves and to govern themselves. Theirs was precisely the sentiment of the Hebrew speculator in Wall Street recently, who, when he had scooped everybody about him, gathered his co-conspirators around the festive board and said to CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 291 them, "Now, shentlemen, we feel shust as if we were among ourselves." Holland, at a time when there was no light for man elsewhere in the world, preserved the principles of civil liberty. Holland, at a time when learning was crushed out or buried in the monasteries, had her asylums, her libraries, and her universities. Holland, at a time when the bigotry of the Church crushed out all expression of conscience and individual belief, had her toleration and religious liberty. For a century Holland was the safe- deposit company of the rights of man. For a century Holland was the electric light which illumined the world and saved mankind. But, gentlemen, how did your forefathers repay my ancestors for all this kindness? Why, you came over to New York to teach school, and you got into the con- fiding Dutch families ; you married their daughters ; and then, as the able son-in law, you administered upon the estate and you gave us — what was left. Yet I am willing to admit that the Dutchmen never could have colonized this country or created this Republic. I am willing to admit that my ancestors were too pleasure- loving, comfort-loving, and home-loving. They needed just that strain which you have, which is never tired, never restful, never at peace; just that strain which, re- ceiving sufficient capital to start with from my ances- tors, went out and crossed the borders and built up all these grand Western and Northwestern States, and carried civilization across the continent to the Pacific coast. You go into a territory, you organize the men of all nationalities and of all languages who are there into a territorial government ; then you organize them 292 orations and speeches of into a state ; then you take the governorships and the judgeships; then you found the capital at the place where you own all the town-lots ; then you bring the territory into the Union, and the glory and perfection of the federal principle is vindicated. But without you and just these incentives we never would have had an American Republic as great and glorious as it is. But with all your selfishness, with all your desire for profit, for pelf, for gain, there is this underlying princi- ple in the Yankee : in every community which he founds, in every State which he builds, he carries with him the church ; he carries with him the school-house. He may want money, and he will get it if he can ; he may want property, and he will get it if he can ; but, first and foremost, he must have liberty of conscience, liber- ty of thought, liberty of speech — all of liberty that be- longs to a man, consonant with the liberty of others ; and he must have that same liberty for every man be- side himself. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 293 XIX. address before the chamber of commerce, May 10, 1 88 1, in Response to the Toast, "The State of New York." Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Chamber of Commerce: Having been an active politician and partisan all my life, nothing affords me more pleasure than to vary the entertainment, and be present among a body of gentle- men with whom politics and partisanship do not exist. I have responded, during the present year, ten times, and constantly during the last fifteen years, to the State of New York. It misled me in the earlier part of the year into the belief that there was an anxious desire on the part of the people of the State to put me into a position where, instead of being here to speak, I should write one of the two letters which have just been read.* The only harm done by that amiable hallucination was the anxiety it occasioned in the breasts of the gen- tlemen who were similarly afflicted — for example, my friend, Mr. Levi P. Morton. Having in a professional way for some years been engaged in a continuous and noisy fusillade with an active committee of the Cham- ber of Commerce, it was with great trepidation I at- tended this banquet unprotected and alone; but I re- 1 " — ■■■ ' — * United States Senators Conkling and Piatt. 294 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF member that the merchants of New York, in their long history, were peculiarly noted for two things : their for- giveness of their enemies, and the facility with which, if they can get the legs of their foes under their ma- hogany, they invariably captured them. And, however much we differ as to methods, we all have a common purpose — the prosperity of New York. As I have listened to-night to the cabinet ministers giving their glowing description of the present and fu- ture, I have wondered whether the same spirit of the occasion afflicted them which did my ministerial neigh- bor here, who assured me in the most solemn way that there were several members of the Chamber present who remembered its original organization, one hundred and thirteen years ago. My toast calls for an expression of opinion as to how the present and the past commercial prosperity of New York may be maintained. It can be maintained by the public spirit, enterprise, and energy of the merchants of the commonwealth, and principally of this body. If I should speak to-night of what the merchants of New York have done in their relations to the State, and what they have made the State in its relations to the country, I should repeat the brightest pages in the his- tory of the American Republic. When other interests, too conservative to break out, were willing to hold back and temporize, it was the merchants of New York who defied the Stamp Act and precipitated the Revolution. When Washington was going to take command of the Continental Army, his first and greatest inspiration and welcome came from the merchants of the City of New York ; and it was they who surrounded him when, at CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 295 the climax of his fame, he was inaugurated on the steps of the Treasury in this metropolis as the first President of the Republic. When the country in the State of New York, by three-fourths membership of the State Convention, proposed to withhold its assent to the Con- stitution of the United States, it was the merchants of the City of New York who sent to that Convention Alexander Hamilton, Chancellor Livingston, and John Jay, who, by their matchless eloquence and patriotism, won over the adverse majority, and secured the assent of the Empire State to the confederation of the United States ; because the commercial instincts of the me- tropolis behind them recognized the grand fact, that only in the formation and preservation of the Union of the States was the true growth of this State, and the possibility of this city becoming the metropolis of the Republic. The merchants of the City of New York, as a class, are sui generis. You never think of naming them in the same connection with the merchants of rival ports, who are striving to take away our commerce. Formulate an ideal, for a moment, of these various merchants. There is the Baltimore merchant : you picture him as a man who is rejoicing to-day over discoveries utilized and discarded by us twenty years ago. Take the Phila- delphia merchant : your ideal of a gentleman who has, late in life, graduated from a retail into a wholesale store, and who looks for release in a Heaven where only retailers exist. Take the Boston merchant : he is a gentleman who is seeking to secure, as his ultimate ambition, a position sufficiently eminent at home to be invited into a partnership with a New York firm. But, 296 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF wherever commerce reaches or trade extends — wherever the electric telegraph and the rail bring together the minds and the products of communities, of states, and of nations — the synonym of enterprise and power is the merchant of the City of New York. Now, gentlemen, New York owes its supremacy to, and will maintain its supremacy by, its commercial integrity and thrift. While the Puritan in the East, and the Cavalier at the South, wrested their lands by force from the aboriginal owners, the Dutchman who settled upon Manhattan Island, with true commercial integrity, purchased it of the Indians for twenty-four dollars. Tradition narrates that, with true commercial thrift, at the game of pitch- penny he won the money back the next day. Upon this broad base of commercial integrity and enterprise has been builded the mighty structure which forms the commercial, financial, and intellectual center of the Republic. When De Witt Clinton slept upon his five-ton boat, he not only dreamed out the Erie Canal, but in the wilderness watered by the Mississippi and Missouri he saw the great States of to-day, and he struck through the only natural route in the great mountain chain which forms the backbone of the continent that artery of communication which has illustrated for the State of New York the fact, known to historical students for all time, that along the highways of commerce and travel are to be found civilization, population, power, and wealth. For twenty-five years that ditch dug by Clin- ton gave to New York a monopoly of the internal com- merce of the land ; but the result of that great work was to fringe with people only the shores of the lakes CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 297 and the ocean front. It took eighteen hundred years of civilization, eighteen hundred years of effort, before the inventive genius of man and the providence of God developed a system which should reach out from the water-ways, and send population into the distant prairies ; which could radiate from the shores and river banks, and carry settlements into the interior; which could develop remote places, and convey their prod- ucts to central reservoirs; which could make possi- ble rich and prosperous communities far from naviga- ble streams — that was the railroad. This it was that brought the sea at Philadelphia one hundred or two hundred miles nearer the great West and Southwest ; brought Boston into intimate communication with the same territory. And yet, notwithstanding all this, New York to-day retains absolute supremacy of the internal trade of this continent. "All roads lead to Rome," is a sentiment two thousand years old ; but Rome is dead, and other capitals of ancient and modern times have sunk into oblivion, because all roads lead to Rome only so long as the trunk lines of the metropolis compel them to go there. The great preservative of the prosperity of this Republic, of the grandeur of this State, of the con- tinued supremacy of this metropolis, is cheap transpor- tation. The railroad mind, within the last ten years, has changed, and the commercial mind has changed with it, and we reach almost the paradox that the cheaper the carriage the greater the profit, both to the railroad and the shipper. It is the enormous produc- tion from the vast acreage brought under cultivation, and the enormous volume of business, that make pos- sible this result. They have forced freights, in ten years, 298 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF from two and one-half to three-quarters of a cent a ton a mile. When Hendrik Hudson sailed up this great river, he was overwhelmed by the ridicule of his com- patriots, because he failed to discover the Northwest passage to India; but could he have looked forward less than two centuries, he would have seen commer- cial enterprise make the river which bears his name the great highway of commerce between India and the West. New York can sustain and maintain her com- mercial supremacy by being true to herself, true to the elements which have made her what she is — broad, liberal, and national, and not narrow or sectional. The genius of the preceding generation gave her a water-way which made her what she is. The enter- prise and foresight of the present should make that water-way, by freedom and enlargement, equal to the demands of the time. And, doing that, the State should treat its other great transportation interest in a broad and liberal spirit. It should permit its railroads to supplement the work of the canals, in compelling all trunk lines to end at the City of New York. Already the Grand Trunk, which feeds Boston, is struggling with all her might to come to this city. Already the railroad which makes Baltimore what she is, is putting forth every effort to reach the sea here. Already the Pennsylvania road, whose objective point was Philadel- phia, has its greatest terminal facilities upon this bay. And while Pennsylvania has her railroad, while Mary- land has her railroad, while Boston, Montreal, and Can- ada rely on the Grand Trunk and the Welland Canal, New York, with her canals and system of railroads, can, by reasonable foresight and enterprise, preserve her CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 299 prominence, notwithstanding all these efforts to take away her supremacy. Why, gentlemen, within the last ten years we have turned the tide of trade and changed the commerce of the world. Formerly we were continually in debt to Europe, but now the products of our Western soil have turned the tide, so that three hundred millions of gold a year roll into our country for our manufacturers, mer- chants, and farmers. New York must be the distribut- ing center of this inflowing stream of wealth. The commerce of the East, through the Golden Gate at San Francisco ; the commerce of the West, from Chicago and St. Louis; the commerce from beyond the Atlan- tic—all should come to New York for handling and dis- tribution. How is it to be done? We must be equal to the demands of the present, and forget the barbarism of the past. While Canada has its enlarged channel, while cheap transportation is encouraged and practiced everywhere, New York City should get beyond her youth. The terminal charge of three cents a hundred at this port is a disgrace. Instead of hampering and burdening commerce to produce a miserable revenue of two hundred thousand or three hundred thousand dollars a year by exorbitant wharf and pier rentals, the grand water-front around this city should be developed, and covered with piers and bulkheads, to welcome, without cost, the trade of the world. The harbor mas- ter, the port warden, the health officer, the pilots, are compelled to measure their necessities by the needs of our commerce. (A voice: "Where would our ships come from?") From the cheapest market. If we have not sufficient enterprise to build ships, it is the 300 OR A TIONS AND SPEECHES OF dark ages that prevent us from buying them. In old times the granaries of the world were owned by its fighting nations, and yet we, to-day, have the granary of the world ; and China, with her ironclads, could shut up the Pacific Coast, and Spain, a tenth-rate power of Europe, blockade every port on the Atlantic. It is a shame and disgrace to the American people that we have neither navy nor armaments to meet such emer- gencies. Gentlemen, you, as members of this historic associa- tion, can create public sentiment and promote public spirit. Parties and politicians will listen and follow your advice if you are thoroughly in earnest. You can so order it that port charges will no longer threaten the prosperity of our commerce, nor the streets of New York the health of her inhabitants. And now, if I may be permitted, without exciting undue apprehension, I will close my remarks with one word — Monopoly. Give to New York the monopoly of the internal trade of this Republic, and Ohio may have the monopoly of its Presidents. CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE IV. 30 1 S XX. peech at the banquet given by the republl can Club of the City of New York, at Del- monico's, February 12, 1887, in Response to the Sentiment, "The Young Men in Politics." I AM glad these toasts are beginning to assume some relation to the gentlemen who are to respond to them. When Senator Hawley, whose sentiment was "Lincoln," started off with mine of "The Young Men in Politics," and Senator Hiscock took up Governor Foraker's sub- ject, "The Republican Party," and Foraker started out on Hiscock's demesne, "The Empire State," I began to think the honored guests had been exchanging speeches, and became alarmed about my own. Governor Haw- ley eloquently remarked that it was the greatest of dis- tinctions to be a private when everybody was a titled officer. Then I am the most distinguished man upon this platform, for all the other gentlemen but myself are governors, senators, or generals. I have found during the evening that conversation was impossible, because if I began a question, "Governor," the answer came in chorus from the dozen of them about me. I was re- cently in a Southern city and the landlord said to me: "Colo7iel Depew, if you desire recognition in this town, and to bridge over the bloody chasm, always remember that every citizen is either a general or a judge." 302 ORA TIONS AND SPEECHES OP The youthful vigor of the Republican Party was never better shown than in the vigorous and magnetic elo- quence which has electrified us to-night. It has been worthy of the most heroic period and most inspiring achievements of the grand old party. It is impossible for me to voice the encouragement and hope which come to us whose lot is cast in a district where the enemy beat us nine times and count us out the tenth, when we listen to the aggressive eloquence from you gentlemen of the West, who win nine times, and the tenth get there just the same. It has always been the custom in companies of vet- eran politicians to call upon "callow youth," with its want of opportunity and experience, to speak for the young men in politics. In this instance and upon this line the selection has been well made. I see about me gentlemen who were famous twenty-five years ago, and the time required prior to that to reach their then high positions, no man living remembers. I have always found that when a life-long office-holder loses the con- fidence of his constituency, or exhausts the patience or generosity of the appointing power, he at once violently projects to the front the bald and frosted pate and calls upon the young men of the State to rally for the reform of the party. What is age? What is youth? They are purely rela- tive terms. It is not a question of years, but of grip. The college professor of forty who despairs of the party and votes with the enemy is fifty years older than Han- nibal Hamlin at eighty,who dispenses with an overcoat. The hot and turbulent blood of early manhood forces the pace so rapidly that it is necessary to put on the CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. %<>% brakes, but when middle life is passed, the man who re- sists most successfully the waste of declining years, the indolence which comes from comfortable positions, the temptations for ease and for pleasure, and who, with all his powers, keeps himself vigorously, actively, and in- dustriously alert and abreast with the living issues, questions, and controversies of the day, carries with him longest the bloom and the efflorescence of youth. The two men who are the most important factors in the destinies of peoples and in the politics of nations, are Bismarck at seventy-two and Gladstone at seventy- eight. There are crises in the history of every great people when conservatism is a convertible name for treason ; when the lines of old party associations and affiliations are the boundaries of the dungeon ; and when fidelity to ancient principles and precedents creates the condi- tions of an inquisitorial torture which leads to certain death. Twice only in the history of this people have these conditions existed, and each time they have led to a union of the young men of the country, and to the projection into the foremost ranks of politics and of statesmanship of the young men of the nation — namely, in the Revolutionary party of '76 and the Republican party of '56. The one struck out first for republican government, and then for independence and nationality. The other struck first for the union of the States, and then for the union of the States only upon the basis of universal liberty and the equality of all men before the law. If the nation would remain free, its young men must be the most important factors in its politics and its par- 3°4 ORA TIONS AMD SPEECHES OF ties. They alone possess the element which overturns rings and upsets combinations and all other artificial creations for the suppression of popular sentiment. They alone possess that quality so necessary at times where audacity leads caution, and imagination and en- thusiasm command judgment. The day that marks such a distaste for politics and public life, such a disap- pearance of activity in the affairs of the State and of the Government, as will make it bad form and unpopu- lar for young men to be active, will mark the decadence to be followed by the overthrow of the liberties of the country. Tens of thousands of young men stand every year upon the threshold of manhood, and must make their choice of the parties with which they shall cast their lots and activities. The elements which win them are the traditions and inspirations of the past and the prom- ise of the future. The Democratic party presents nothing in the past thirty years of its existence to inspire the imagination, to appeal to the enthusiasm, or to warm the patriot- ism of youth. The ingenuous young voter looks back among the public men of that organization to find that, while they were able statesmen, the conditions of their position, the necessities of their organization, the fright- ful results of their affiliations, compelled them to be eternally the drags upon the wheels of progress and a hindrance to the development of the prosperity and the moral influences of the country. They had necessarily to seek to thwart and defeat the party of progress, and so they were always years behind the sentiments, the needs, and the aspirations of the people. He looks over CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 3°5 their public declarations and finds their speeches an arid waste, in which the dry bones of previous conditions are rattled over and over again — bones belonging to the principles which had been buried by the Civil War ten thousand feet below the surface of the earth. He turns, on the other hand, to the Republican par- ty, and he learns that it was born in the inspiring senti- ments of free soil and free men. He studies the his- tory of its founders, and finds that most of them lived up to within the period when he could know something personally of their greatness and participate in the national mourning at their demise. There stands be- fore him that rough, strong, grand figure, whose rise from among the people, whose great heart, great mind, character, and achievements had made for him the first and most enduring fame among the statesmen of his generation — Abraham Lincoln. He looks for construc- tive statesmanship which can create in national exigen- cies out of bankruptcy, of lost credit, the means for carry- ing on great and expensive warfare, and there looms up the figure of Salmon P. Chase. He finds that the hands of the Republic were tied by civil war; that the monarchies and despotism of the Old World were plot- ting for the overthrow of the Republic and the destruc- tion of liberty on this side, which reacted on the other; and he reads of the brilliant diplomacy, the successful leadership, and the wonderful acquirements of William H. Seward. He naturally turns to the halls of Con- gress, and there discovers the tribune of the people, who voiced in most eloquent and enduring language the moral sentiment for which men were sacrificing their lives upon the battlefield — in Charles Sumner. His in- 306 ORA TIONS AND SPEECHES OF quiries as to the military glory of the Republic are at once confronted with the history of that great soldier who commanded the largest armies and won the most victories fought in the greatest cause of modern times — General Grant. But the past alone will not retain his allegiance or keep his vote. The surging elements of our industrial and material conditions form the sea upon which he must find the ship that can carry him to prosperity and to safety. He looks out for that organization which is constructive and creative ; which can understand the needs of sixty millions of people and legislate for their wants. If he finds no organization equal to this great task and trust, then the young men of the country will unite and form one. But the Republican party has always been, and is to-day, the only organization which puts into the practical form of legislation the principles that develop and promote American industry and care for American labor. It is not enough, however, that Ameri- can industry should be protected ; that the conditions should be created where capital can safely be invested in mines, in factories, and in mills; but that some party either exists or will be created which can solve so suc- cessfully the distribution of wealth, the responsibilities of capital, the remunerative employment of labor, as to bring about in all the great industrial centers of the land harmonious relations between the employers and employees, and prosperous and happy conditions for all classes of workers. There is a young man in politics who now occupies the exalted position of President of the United States. He is not yet recovered from one of the delusions of CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 307 young Democratic politicians, that the fulfillment of the roseate and reform promises of the campaign necessar- ily loses him the confidence of his party. He finds that just in proportion as he attempts to solve the question of revenue and tariff, upon which depend prosperity and employment, does he offend one section of his party; just in proportion as he reaches sound positions upon currency and finance does he alienate another por- tion of his party; and when he carries into practice the Civil Service promises which the Mugwumpian reform placed so acutely in his letter of acceptance and plat- form, does he find himself deserted by the whole of his party. So that, as he loyally rises to the highest and best conditions of his early promises and hopes, does he become the most lonesome statesman in America. I remember that I was once a pall-bearer at the funeral of one of the leading citizens of Peekskill. Noticing that the carriage was plunging wildly and likely to upset, I looked out and saw that the horse attached to the hearse was running away and galloping across lots, while we were in reckless pursuit. I called to the driver to hold up, but he only answered, as he gave his team the lash: "Mr. Depew, you were born in Peekskill, and you ought to remember that it is the custom in this town for the mourners to follow the hearse." While the Democratic hearse is being frantic- ally driven now in the woods, now in the open, and now on the road, to suit every condition of grief there may be behind, the Republican procession moves grand- ly forward in harmonious columns and with equal step along the broad highway toward better government for the nation and freer and happier lives for the people. 3°8 ORA TIONS AND SPEECHES OF Well, gentlemen, the Republican party have not now the responsibilities of power. They will secure them only through the aid of the generous and ingenuous youth who this year and next year are to become the first voters of the country. They are coming from the fields, the workshops, and colleges, and they will be found in the ranks of our party of progress. The past of the party is absolutely secure. The present of the party is fully abreast of the needs and aspirations of the people. In the future of the party I hope for suc- cess in 1888, when the grand old organization, resum- ing the government of the country, which it so admira- bly administered for a quarter of a century, will for another equal period exhibit in the administration of affairs its unrivaled genius for promoting the develop- ment, the prosperity, and the liberty of the Republic. CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE IV. 309 s XXI. PEECH AT THE LOTOS CLUB'S RECEPTION TO Henry M. Stanley, November 27, 1886. Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Lotos Club: I have never felt so much the cares of railroading as I do to-night. From early youth I have been reading and admiring and wondering at the words and works of Stanley and Reid and "Gath" ! Yet I find them here to-night with flowing heads of jet-black hair and jet- black mustaches, while I have a polished sconce and silvered side-whiskers. Now I want to know where journalism gets its dye. If it is brandy and soda, then that is my beverage forevermore. I never appreciated so fully before the privilege of being a member of the Lotos Club. I see in an even- ing paper, in an interview to which Stanley subjected himself, that he intended to give fifty-two lectures at $250 apiece. Yet for the ordinary price of a Lotos dinner we have had the lecture for nothing — and thus we gather them in. It affords me very great pleasure to join in this wel- come to-night to the great explorer. He is more than an explorer, he is a great artist, for he has presented to us those magnificent word-pictures, which will endure forever, of the romance and reality of the Dark Conti- 310 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF nent. It is seldom that the American people, isolated as they are from the politics and complications of for- eign nations, have an opportunity to greet a hero of their own land, who has become such on account of his achievements in other continents. But the bloodless victories of Stanley will outlive many of the bloody battles which form the staple of history. Rome wel- comed her conquerors returning with the spoils of nations with triumphal processions and memorial arches. We, more practical, receive them with a banquet at the Lotos Club. But the gathering here simply expresses in condensed form the feeling which will find universal expression all over the United States. We are a nation of travelers, and as such are glad to meet and to honor one who is by right the chief of our order. No people have ever existed who move so much, so far, and so rapidly as Americans. They are constantly finding pretexts, or acting without pretexts, to take advantage of steam upon the rail or upon the water to annihilate distance and to accomplish results. This nomadic instinct has sent them all over the world, to bring back new opportuni- ties for an increase of our commercial life, to bring back the results of old civilization for our culture in art and in our education in every direction. It has led the way to the peopling of our prairies and to the discovery of our untold mineral wealth. The development of this instinct is the solace of the railroad stockholder of to- day and his hope for the future. Every man who has ever in his own person sounded the capacities of the reporter for an interview, for the representation of his personal experience and character- CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 3 11 istics, for a report of the things which he never said, will join in this greeting, in the fond hope that the world-wide fame and magnificent achievements of Stan- ley will inspire all his brother reporters to become explorers. His hope is, that, as a result of this tes- timonial, the reporters will be exploring the wilds of Africa, the forest and swamps of South America, or float- ing down the yet unnamed rivers of Alaska. The world in all ages has worshiped its heroes, but the standard of heroism has always been improving. Among the best examples of the heroism of to-day, after all, are the things that have been done by reporters. They take risks and incur hazards which none others dare, and without any of the incentives which inspire others to their actions. While the soldier mounts to magnifi- cent heights of courage and daring when the savage in him is developed by the blood of the conflict, the re- porters calmly stand beside him noting the incidents of the tragedy, and riding afterward for miles through a hostile country alone to reach the telegraph office and flash it to the world. I know American reporters in Europe, who, a year ago, during the prevalence of the cholera, when even the medical staff dared not go, en- tered Toulon, stood in its pest-houses, walked its hos- pitals, nursed its sick, and buried its dead, simply that they might be able to give a true account to the world of the plague-besieged city. We reckon heroism to-day, not so much on account of the thing done, as for the motive behind the act. It is not the destroyers of mankind or of nations who will live in the affections of the present or of future gen- erations, but their benefactors, Livingston is sure of 312 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF immortality, though he was but an humble mission- ary, because he endured and suffered everything that he might elevate a whole race to civilization and to Christianity. This unselfish devotion secured for him the love and admiration of the world, and when he was lost, civilization felt that a brother was in trouble who must be relieved. At this supreme moment the re- porter, Henry M. Stanley, with no other motive than to restore the hero Livingston to the world, undertook all the perils of travel in the African jungles. The result of that expedition made his name one that will never die. There is nothing so fascinating in the whole realm of literature as the incidents, the accidents, and the adventures of travel. The brightest pages in the recol- lection of every man are the nights and days which he gave to the tales of travelers of ancient and of modern times. While we remember their stories, how few of their names survive. There is always a latent sus- picion that the traveler may not have seen all that he describes, and may not have experienced all the adventures with which he thrills us. Notwithstanding this, I have known people who have believed that all the marvelous things so brilliantly and charmingly put forth by Colonel Knox in his "Boy Travelers" are remi- niscences of his personal experience. It is one of the elements of hopefulness in this world, that, notwith- standing the existence of such people, progress is not retarded. But Stanley will own his claim upon the present and the future, not to his merit as a story-teller, but to the substantial contributions he has made to the welfare of mankind. Any man who has calmly studied the social CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 313 and industrial conditions of Europe cannot but be appalled at the prospect, unless there be some outlet for its overcrowded population. Otherwise the future must witness the constant accumulation of dangers threatening both the state and society. But in the dis- covery of the possibilities of the interior of Africa, the climatic conditions of its different plateaus, the fertility of its valleys, and the wealth of its immense forests^ Stanley has presented to civilization a safety-valve. When commerce has opened up its navigable rivers and laid the railroad across its plains, population will follow to build thriving and wealthy states in regions inhabited now only by wild tribes. The Africa of the future will add enormously to the wealth of the world and the happiness of the human race. It may become the seat of capitals and empires which, like Carthage, will illumine the world. It is not at all impossible or improbable that in the distant future Stanley may be to the African people what Columbus is to the inhabi- tants of America. It is neither improbable nor impos- sible that Germans, Englishmen, Scotchmen, Irishmen, Frenchmen, Italians, and Spaniards, who have built up in Africa powerful and prosperous nations, shall look back with gratitude to the man whose intrepidity opened up these opportunities for settlement and civili- zation. 314 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF S XXII. peech at Lotos Club Reception to George Augustus Sala, January io, 1885. Mr. President and Gentlemen: Nothing pleases and compliments me more than to be called upon on this occasion to speak by my fellow extinct Senator. When, in Dublin last summer, an Irish orator was dilating upon an opponent who, he said, pos- sessed all the characteristics of an extinct volcano, one of the audience yelled out "Poor cratur." As this oc- casion seems to be turned somewhat from a social to a political discussion, it pleases me to find that the repre- sentative newspaper of America, which has been for months my personal organ, is here to-night in the per- son of Mr. Pulitzer. The public may not understand this thing, but Pulitzer and I do; and I am always pleased that while Mr. Reid represents the Blaine ele- ment, which would have succeeded but for certain unforeseen accidents, and Mr. Pulitzer, both in his Con- gressional record and as the representative of a party newspaper, represents the party which did succeed, — that the secretary supplemented the full round of the political horizon by reading the letters of those most distinguished Mugwumps, George William Curtis and Henry Ward Beecher. And after having seen and CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 3*5 heard from our guest of to-night his reply to the presi- dent, no one can doubt where his sympathies are. I have noticed that after some of the jocose remarks of the eminent wits who have preceded me, they have introduced some of the most witty parts of their obser- vations by saying "now to be serious." I have thought as I have sat here at this table to-night, what a congre- gation it would be if all the eminent men who have been received by the Lotos Club were gathered in one room ; it would be an intellectual kaleidoscope that at every turn would illustrate and present the best form of gen- ius. We have received here those men who, in letters, in arms, and in statesmanship, have illustrated all that is greatest and grandest of our time in this and other countries. At the same time, by sundry accidents which happen in clubs like this, as well as in politics, we have received gentlemen who have culminated at this recep- tion and never been heard of after. And the receptions which have marked our history would illustrate the manner in which, in one sense, the country which our guest represents sought to capture this great and grow- ing empire. When that gentleman whom Macaulay alludes to as sitting upon the broken arch of London Bridge has become tired of his reflections and come over here for grander and larger ones, swinging upon the broken string of the Brooklyn Bridge to muse upon what has been and might be, his thoughts will recur to the efforts, continuously made and partly successful, of the mother-country to capture and control her wayward child on this side of the Atlantic. She began at the beginning by attempting to wallop us, and made that discovery which many a parent has made before, when 316 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF the child has gone forth into the world and become in- dependent and self-reliant — that he returns not a boy, but a full-grown man. Since that time, for a hundred years, by diplomacy and by other art, England has endeavored to make this great empire the tail of the British kite. Now, we have been able to resist her armies and her navies, but she has captured us in the sense that she does all our carrying trade, and tolls us for a whole of the profit. She has captured us in the sense that our best society speaks with a dialect of the noble language which is called English. But while we could resist her armies and her navies, while we could withstand the metrical and musical assaults of her Sullivans and of her Gilberts, there is a point where we feel that there is a necessity of not surrendering — that is, when the British lecturer appears. A modern Briton, when he feels that he has a mission to reveal to the world, goes out, not to the country which needs it most — his own — but comes over here, and in the spirit of the purest philanthropy lets us have it at two hundred dollars a night. And that is the reason why Mr. Sala, notwith- standing his modest declaimer that he is a traveler, sojourning through the land, goes to San Francisco by way of Portland, Maine, and Boston. The present commercial difficulties in this country — lack of prosperity, the closing of the mills, and all that which we are accustomed to ascribe to the fact that a Democratic administration has come into power — are due to this horde of English lecturers. For, like the Chinaman, who comes here to accumulate and not to stay, he carries away with him all our surplus and CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE IV. 317 leaves nothing but ideas. I well remember, as you do, Mr. President, when this system of insidious English attack upon our institutions was begun. Thackeray, that grand-hearted and genial critic, began it. Dickens, with his magnificent dramatic talent, continued it ; and then, what we have suffered since ! Look at Serjeant Ballantyne, who brought us jokes so old that they fell within the provisions of the Penal Act, and carried away stories which have since convulsed the British Empire. Look at Herbert Spencer the dyspep- tic — lean, hungry, sleepless, emaciated, prostrated with nervous prostration. He appeared before us, and, look- ing for all the word like Pickwick gone to seed, lectured us upon over-work. Look at Matthew Arnold, that apostle of light and sunshine, who came here and had an experience which might excite the compassion of all. He found himself in that region from which Mr. Pulitzer hails, in the midst of what is termed a lecture corpse. The lecture manager made this introductory speech : "Ladies and Gentlemen : Next week we shall have here those beau- tiful singers, the Johnson Sisters. Two weeks from to- night Prof. Forcewind will give us magnificent views of Europe upon the magic-lantern ; and to-night I have the pleasure of introducing to you that distinguished philosopher who has passed most of his life in India, Matthew Arnold, who is the author of that great poem, 'The Light of Asia.' " Well, now, gentlemen, whatever may be said of the previous representatives of the British Empire, we, rep- resenting the whole American people, welcome here to- night our guest, George Augustus Sala. We welcome 318 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF him because he is of all Englishmen the most like an American. He writes editorials which fire people like the sound of a trumpet ; he writes books which a man may take home to his friends and read to his family with perfect satisfaction and without fear of a blush. He is the best after-dinner speaker among the English people, and equal to most of our American after-din- ner speakers. I see that in that interview in which he says that he has come here to make money — I was glad to see — he refuted the statement that among his lec- tures there was one upon "Culture, Costumes, and Cookery." I want him to understand, as he traverses this continent by way of Boston and Portland to San Francisco, that the lecture-going and intelligent people of this country will not stand alliteration. A great so- cial, religious, moral, and political revolution has been wrought in this Republic by Dr. Burchard's famous phrase of "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion." CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 3*9 s XXII. peech at the lotos club's reception to Henry Irving, October 27, 1883. Mr. President: The best criticism that was made upon the speech of our guest to-night was, "He talks like an American." I am sure that this memorable night will be recollected from the fact that, in the midst of the din of wars and contests and controversies about us, this is simply a peaceful tribute on behalf of this club to one of the chief and most devoted of the exponents of the drama. We have welcomed to this country recently many emi- nent Englishmen, and among them Lord Coleridge, whom we were glad to see and to honor both for what he is and what he represents. We have received, at the same time with Mr. Irving, Matthew Arnold, and while as a great thinker we give him welcome, we warn him that orthodoxy has for him its scalping-knife sharp, and that the theological hatchet is thirsting for his gore. The whole town is in a din and furore with the oper- atic war, and tenors are peeping over high "C's" to get at each other, while sopranos are hauled before the courts, Mapleson walks around with the chip on his shoulder, and Abbey calls upon the police to prevent him from hurting somebody. 320 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF But while this controversy rages we meet here to-night with one voice and one accord to welcome the most eminent dramatic scenic painter of this century and the most eminent English actor of this generation. We have welcomed to this board many men from beyond the seas, and while they have poured something into this vast reservoir of intellectual wealth, we have done more for them. Lord Houghton asserts that his health and longevity after his reception here were largely due to the fact that he learned at this place the way to longevity by a cheap and frugal meal. From this board Sullivan arose to become a knight. We are all of us familiar with the oratory which usually character- izes an expression of the relations between the old country and the new. There is nothing better known in the whole range of eloquence than that which refers to the inter-dependent relations in respect to literature and science and art between America and England. While this chord is familiar, there is one string which is not often touched, and that is the debt we owe to the English thinkers, Huxley, Tyndall, and Darwin, who have created the shibboleth known in all the schools of America, that evolution is the great principle of modern science. While the most of us believe in evolution in theory, in practice we have seen it only upon the stage. The Englishman, from whom our Yankee inherits commer- cial instincts, saw our want and supplied it. First he sent to us Lydia Thompson and her troupe. The over- flowing houses, the plethoric treasuries, the wild en- thusiasm that greeted them, showed that they had touched a sympathetic cord in the American anatomy. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 32 f And then the shrewd Englishman sent us "Pinafore." We were at first fascinated, then charmed, and then annihilated. We could stand it for 600 consecutive nights in all the theaters to the exclusion of everything else ; in the parlor, upon the piano, in the school-room, on the hurdy-gurdy and on the hand-organ ; but when the church choir could do nothing else, then there rose a cry for relief from one end of this country to the other. The like of that cry has never been heard since the children of Israel sought to escape from Egypt. Then, in recognition of his great service, Queen Victoria summoned the author to her presence, and said to him : "For one hundred years I have sought to subdue those children of ours beyond the seas, but without success; but for your grand success arise and take your place with the knights in armor." And when by the natural process of evolution we had got beyond that, England, seeing our need, caused to beam upon us, like the aurora borealis, Oscar Wilde. Not the emasculated Oscar who recently appeared here with shorn locks and ready-made clothes, an exceed- ingly commonplace young man, but that glorious son of the morning, in flowing locks and knickerbocker breeches, to whom a friend said : "We have heard your mission of the aesthetic and the beautiful which raises us to a new and higher atmosphere ; but what of Irv- ing?" He said: "Ah, Irving! You ought to see his legs. They are beautiful. One is sublime, and the other is a poem." And then, as an oasis in the desert which followed his departure, they sent us the "Jersey Lily." But now, clothed and in our right minds — now, when we are 322 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF advanced from the chrysalis into the butterfly — devel- oped from the savage into the civilized man of the nineteenth century — she sends us the guest whom we welcome here to-night — the great high-priest of that oldest of all arts, which, from the time when Roscius taught Cicero down to the present day, has had few great exponents within the centuries which marked the interval. There is nothing which more clearly indicates the development of this American people from provincial- ism and its bigotry than the welcome given to Ma- cready and that which we accord to Irving. To secure a hearing for Macready required that the soldiery should march with fixed bayonets and loaded guns, while the blood of the mob poured through the gutter. But now the American people have come to recog- nize the fact that to be a great people they must adopt that catholicity which embraces men all over the world ; that while they may believe in Protection for textile fabrics and manufactures, there must be Free Trade in genius. We hail, with the gladdest acclaim and heartiest wel- come, the German Barnay, the Italian Salvini, and the English Irving, because we wish to have the best the world has of art in any of its departments, and because we want to show them that their success is incomplete until they have passed the ordeal of American criticism. The very best tribute of recent times to the sentiment of right-minded men of culture and intelligence on both sides of the Atlantic, notwithstanding what demagogues may say, is that a London audience crowded the house and rose to the highest enthusiasm to greet the appear- CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 323 ance and applaud the acting of the American Edwin Booth ; and its counterpart will be the reciprocity mani- fested by the American people in crowding the house and applauding the acting of Henry Irving. Still, in illustration of the same idea, while London renders her most generous tribute to the beauty and genius of Mary Anderson, we here, with an equal chivalry, will receive with our best loyalty that accomplished, charming and lovely woman, and brilliant actress, Ellen Terry. \ 324 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF s XXIV. PEECH AT THE DINNER AT DELMONICO'S TO CEL- EBRATE Yale's Victories in Athletic Con- tests, February 16, 1889. Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen.- For the only time in a hundred and eighty-eight years, the alumni of Yale meet solely to celebrate her athletic triumphs. In all the other attributes of a great seat of learning, Yale has been known for a century as the first of American colleges. Now that she has demonstrated upon so many famous fields her cham- pionship in this chief requisite of a modern university, we, of the older school, join you, of the younger, in wel- coming Hercules into the college faculty. The oldest graduate and the youngest are one to-night in the charming fellowship which makes them all boys of equal age, a joy to each other and a terror to their foes. This gathering of four hundred college athletes is the argument for athletics. We are the healthiest body of men ever seen within these walls, and to-night the hap- piest. There can be no greater contrast than between the student of thirty years ago and to-day. Dyspep- sia is no longer the test of scholarship, and honors are not won by shadows. The theology of to-day believes CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 325 that there are no antagonisms between spirituality and muscularity. The minister who hits sin so hard from the pulpit can whip any sinner in the pews. The mod- ern student knows that a well-developed body and a well-informed mind are necessary partners for intel- lectual and material triumphs. The hollow-chested, high-honor men of thirty years ago would stand like wired skeletons beside the valedictorians and saluta- torians, the DeForest medalists and the philosophical oration champions, who exhibit splendid physical vigor, while winning the prizes under harder conditions and with far more advanced standards. The past compared with the present reminds me of a compliment which paralyzed one of my earlier efforts. I had spoken at a great meeting on the Mohawk, and when I closed, a leading citizen said : "Chauncey, I have read many of your speeches, and traveled miles to-day to hear you, and have been greatly entertained by your effort, but on reflection it strikes me that your speech this after- noon had more frill than shirt." One alumnus to whom we are largely indebted for the more vigorous and more muscular Yale is Mr. Robert J. Cook. A chapter from his own experience shows the continuing value of athletics. If President Dwight, or Judge Howland, or I had been at any time in our lives struck on the head by an ax wielded by a brawny ruffian, we would have folded our arms, smiled with sweet resignation, and died. That was the result of the old culture. But when a gigantic Negro plunged a hatchet into the head of Bob Cook, he seized his assailant, nearly licked the life out of him, carried him a prisoner to the police station, and then pulled the hatchet out of his brain 326 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF and sent for a doctor. That is what can be endured and done under the new curriculum. The entrance of Cook into Yale forms an epoch in her history. He will be remembered by future genera- tions as one of the founders of the college. In giving to boating the enthusiasm of success, he stimulated every manly sport. When Yale became triumphant with the oar, and the discussion of her stroke filled more space in the daily newspaper than the proceed- ings of Congress, her navy became a school of physical culture. Other colleges became first interested, and then active, in the same direction. Baseball and foot- ball games experienced a genuine revival, and the deep- chested and broad-minded student was born. The worthy successor of Cook as a leader in Yale athletics has been Pitcher Stagg. He prayed before he pitched, and had the manliness to acknowledge it, and then he fought the game in the same spirit with which Cromwell's Ironsides won Naseby. Exercise in solitude and without the stimulus of friendly contest is always a failure. The dumb-bell becomes a nuisance, and the Indian club a fraud. You get tired of walking, and sawing wood somehow loses its attractions. The conflicts with Harvard, the defeats so hard to bear, the occasional victory so soothing to our wounds, so inspir- iting for our future, these made work a pastime, and work rightly directed has given Yale the championship of America. Venerable axioms are exploded, mechani- cal movements of muscles make neither athletes nor healthy students. The excited mind must guide the procession of the limbs. To force water by a hand- pump in the cellar to a tank on the roof is work, to CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 327 master the glorious sweep and artistic dip of the oar is exercise — and fame. Athletics have encouraged manliness and stamped out ruffianism. Every healthy youth generates steam faster than under ordinary conditions he can work it off. In the old days it impelled him to throw bricks through the tutors' windows, to crack the college bell, to steal signs, and wrench off door-knobs. These di- versions taught him contempt for law, and kept him in fear of the constable and dangerously near the police court. It dulled his sense of honor and left a stain upon his character to be exhibited under other condi- tions in after-years. If he thought it brilliant to smoke out freshmen, to overcome a defenseless student by force of numbers, to subject his victim to degrading and disgraceful torments and cruel tortures, which were often lasting in their disastrous effects, the refin- ing influences of education became the veneer of the bully and the weapon of the savage. He was rusti- cated for rioting and dropped because he had neither a disciplined mind nor could submit to discipline. But with the bat, the ball, and the oar, with the training of the gymnasium, and in the splendid vigor of competi- tive sports, came the fire and enthusiasm of the Olym- pian games. The hard lesson that the best training and the most faithful work alone win the prizes is learned under joyous conditions. The page again welcomes every hardship that he may bear the armor of the knight, and the spirit of chivalry pervades the univer- sity. The pent-up forces and the resistless energies of the students become the potent agents for physical de- velopment and mental discipline, and for the growth of 328 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF moral and intellectual health. Such men hail difficul- ties with ardor and overcome them with ease. They love work because of the pleasure in the mastery and the movement of the perfect machinery which wins the game or elucidates the problem. The school of unruly boys becomes a university of active, thoughtful, and self-reliant gentlemen. The requirements for admis- sion are constantly increasing, and the standard for graduation is perpetually rising. Except for the dis- ciplined and obedient mind which comes from the train- ing of the athlete, it would be hard to meet the condi- tions of the curriculum within proper years. Already practical men are becoming alarmed for fear the advanc- ing demands of the college courses may keep a man an undergraduate so long, and launch him into his life-work so late, that he can neither catch up nor compete with those who came younger into the field. This year marks not only the cycles of uninterrupted successes in the field, but will be remembered for the triumphs of Yale in the arena of national politics. Thirty years ago the old college graduated a young citizen of Delaware, and returned him to his State equipped for a life-and-death struggle with feudal con- ditions and hereditary power. With rare courage and masterly ability he began the unequal and hopeless bat- tle. But with the indomitable spirit born of Yale, and the weapons forged in her furnaces, he made breaches in the walls of caste and prejudice, and revolu- tionized the commonwealth. To-day Delaware catches the step of progress and marches abreast the times under the leadership of Senator Anthony Higgins. Colorado felt the impulse of national aspirations and the need of CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 329 the laiger influence commanding eloquence and states- manship. She found in Yale the voice which had cap- tured the country by a single speech, and a new era of brilliant promise opens for her through the genius of Senator Edward Wolcott. Old Yale was never so dear to her children and never more merited their affection than now. We are proud of her progress and rejoice in her conservatism. She has the courage to wait, and does not tempt Providence until she has proved the experiment. She never for- gets that the object of her efforts is to fit and train young men for work in an industrial republic, and the highest testimony to her methods is the success of her sons in every department of energy and thought. Z3° ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF A XXV. ddress as Chairman of the Alumni Meeting, in Alumni Hall, Yale College, at the Com- mencement, June 25, 1886. Gentlemen of the Alumni and Ladies: I find that thirty years out of college do not impair the enjoyment of academical honors. The feelings of an undergraduate who has just received the De Forest Medal are the sentiments with which I return you my thanks for this high honor. For many years I have wondered upon what principle the President of the Alumni of this college was selected, and have suspected at times that the machine methods which control politi- cal parties were practiced in these canvasses; but the closer contact, the more rigid examination, and the satis- factory result of to-day, have convinced me that there is the freest expression of the popular will. We meet here on this anniversary under peculiar con- ditions. Criticism and change confront us. The past year has been fruitful in charges against, and attack upon, the University. The shouts of the assailants have filled the land with noise. They say the institution is bigot- edly conservative ; is unequal to the demands of the times; does not keep abreast with educational develop- ment, and is religious, Precisely in what it fails to CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 33 1 meet every requirements of learning they do not state. They do not deny that its standard of scholarship is higher than any of its rivals, but claim that somehow the standard is defective. Unless we admit at the out- set that education and religious teachings and require- ments are incompatible, it is impossible to find out what is the difficulty. The critics among us would tear down the old, would wipe out the traditions and ex- perience of the past, but they offer nothing to replace them. The constructive talent is indeed rare, but be- fore we part with this glorious result of two hundred years of magnificent achievement and progress, we must be sure of the future. The disciples of the New Learn- ing, whatever it may be, must furnish us not only the material of their edifice, but the designs of its architects and every detail of its equipment. I believe that the great body of the Alumni are in a state of serene satis- faction with the old college, and that the apparent ex- citement and distrust can be accounted for upon the familiar experience that one harvest will break up a camp-meeting. But the preacher continues, and the good work goes on. The temporary exasperation of the article, or the fear of it, does not reach fundamen- tal doctrines or disturb the foundations of faith. We be- lieve that Yale should remain a Christian college. The prayers which the student cannot escape, the chapel, or the church of his parents which he must attend, the un- derlying and vital principles of Christianity which he must understand, may bear little or no fruit ; they cer- tainly can do no harm. In the vast majority of cases they have kept the boy right, through manhood and old age, have saved him in times of peril and tempta- 33 2 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF tion, or have rescued him after crime and despair be- fore he was wholly lost. The New Learning proclaims another Declaration of Independence for youth. The callow judgment of the boy under twenty is better for his needs, than the ex- perience of the learned Faculty, who have given their lives to teaching. Curriculums, uniform courses of study, classics, philosophies, and mathematics for men- tal discipline, were well enough in the infancy of the race, but wholly unfit for the present development of the mind. Study only those things which can be made immediately useful in trade or the professions, and trust the student to elect. Yale repudiates the whole scheme. She broadly cultures her sons, believing that men learned in the literature and languages of the ancients, as well as the moderns whose souls are satu- rated with the thoughts and spirit of the ages, and whose minds are multifariously trained, will soonest acquire and better follow their life vocations. She has faith that wherever their lots may be cast they will be the leaders in all that promotes the public welfare, and surpass the specialists in their specialities. It is the distinction of Yale that within her walls neither scholastic nor student honors are influenced by pedigree or purse. We are not located in or so near a large city that its social and moral influences domi- nate our college life, nor so entirely in the country as to insensibly acquire provincialisms of the neighborhood, which make it difficult to assimilate with any and every community. The University is most happily situated in a city which presents in the best forms the most perfect results of urban culture, refinement, and civiliza- CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 333 tion, and yet from its size and numbers can only be to the students an example, but not a force. The young men who come here from every State and Territory, and of every creed and faith, form among themselves a stu- dent republic, like that of Abelard in the Middle Ages. It has its own politics and public opinions, and its stand- ards are manhood and intellect. That curse of col- legiate life, large allowances by injudicious parents, and a rivalry in extravagant expenditures by their sons, which through riot and dissipation surely end in their ruin and the demoralization of their associates, is not possible in their University. The controlling element of their student democracy is the serious business of preparation for a career, and there can be neither place nor recognition for the spendthrift or the prodigal. While we are assembling under these old elms the world is ringing with the clamor of two of the most far- reaching agitations of the century: the greatest of liv- ing statesmen and parliamentary leaders is appealing to his countrymen to empower him to redress the wrongs of centuries, by granting self-government in their own affairs to a long-suffering and generous people. For the first time in history, the politics of our nation have become the concern of all civilized communities, and the speech of Gladstone for the freedom of Ireland, which arouses the enthusiasm of his Edinburgh audi- ence, following the wires over the earth and flashed through cables under the seas, receives responsive ap- plause from every people which possesses and knows the blessings of liberty. His marvelous success is the best living tribute to a rigid university curriculum and a classical education. May the wonderful career of 334 ORA TIONS AND SPEECHES OF the grand old man be crowned with triumph in this the» final and most fruitful and beneficent effort of his life. But the second great event, and that in which we are more immediately interested, is the filling of the va- cancy in the Corporation of Yale College. The plat- forms and pronunciamentos of the candidates have filled the newspapers and burdened the mails. In point and precision, in modest statement and glowing prom- ises, they take equal rank with contemporaneous elec- tion circulars of Gladstone and Salisbury, of Parnell and Hartington, of Chamberlain and Churchill. Each of them says that this serious call of duty has come to him at a time when acceptance of the place involves the greatest sacrifices; but he is prepared to make them. He knows of no personal or private interest which can stand in the way, when the welfare of Alma Mater needs his services. It is with profoundest satis- faction that we hail this martyr spirit. It shows that, notwithstanding the gross materialism of our times, the voyage of the Mayflower was not made in vain, and that the sons of Yale are always ready to pledge their "lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor" to the public service. We perform on this occasion a duty which rarely falls to the lot of the alumnus of Yale. We are to bid "hail and farewell" to the incoming and the retiring Presidents. Elections seldom occur in our University, and the Executive has always voluntarily laid down the cares of his high office and carried with him to well- earned rest the heartfelt regrets of his constituents. There have been only four changes in nearly a century. The past hundred years are remarkable for the redu- CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 335 plication of forces, and the enormous development of wealth by the utilization of steam and electricity and the results of inventive genius, but the march of the mind has kept pace with material progress, and the in- stitutions of learning are still in the lead. There have been no more important factors in this activity than Jeremiah Day, Timothy Dwight, Theodore D. Woolsey and Noah Porter, Yale's contribution to this centenary of college Presidents. I do not object to incisive and constant criticism, and controversy is the very life and breath of intel- lectual advancement. A man in conspicuous and dis- tinguished position, to be worthy the devotion of his friends, must stir into perpetual activity the vigor and alertness of his foes. Up to the full measure of this standard has lived President Porter. But when the smoke of battle clears away, and we calmly sum up the achievements of his administration, we find it the most successful in the history of the college. The noble foundation of Sheffield, the splendid buildings erected by the wise munificence of Sloan, Peabody, Farnum, Durfee, Lawrence, Battell, Marquand, and others, are monuments more enduring than brass, while the num- ber of students in the various departments, bidding him a reverent farewell, in double the numbers which greeted his acceptance of the office, illustrates the con- fidence inspired by his teachings. May he live long in the enjoyment in health of the fruits of his labors, is the prayer to-day of every alumnus of Yale. The election of the grandson and namesake of one of Yale's greatest Presidents shows our faith in blood, and the improvement of the species. Tim Dwight the tu- 33 6 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF tor, genial and learned, piloted our unruly class of '56 safely through our course. One of our most prophetic members then predicted that the man who could so successfully accomplish a feat so difficult would one day rule the University. What '56 then saw, the whole Cor- poration now joyfully acknowledges, and our class, in common with all the rest, greets with enthusiasm the Reverend Timothy Dwight, D.D., President of Yale — always a boy, in full sympathy with the boys, filling the measure of a man who is a born leader of men. The only objections urged against him are that he is a Congregational minister and not eminent in athletics. We have got along very well with the first for two hundred years, and will be content if the next century shows equal development. We can safely leave our muscular reputation to the teams and the crews, even if their efficiency is sometimes threatened by the ineradi- cable prejudice of the College in favor of recitation. I predict for President Dwight a career of great glory and usefulness. I believe that in him will be fulfilled the poet's aspiration, as applied to the ancient Timothy and ours: From the sacred ashes of the feast Shall a new Rome in Phoenix grandeur burst. And now, gentlemen, conservatives and radicals, burying all differences in the supreme emotions of this hour, we pledge anew our allegiance, and one and all send heavenward a prayer for old Yale. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 337 S XXVI. peech at the dinner at delmonico's, given by Yale Alumni to President Noah Porter, on the Occasion of his Retirement, Janu- ary 23, 1886. Gentlemen: Our monthly meetings are held within ourselves, and our annual dinners without ourselves. We welcome on this occasion our President and faculty, non-resident alumni, and the representative of rival colleges. But this is our night. We have hired the hall and paid for the dinner, and it is our proud privilege to say what we please in praise of ourselves and criticism of our enemies. I have the poorest opinion of a man who cannot at least once a year, as a theologian or politi- cian, collegian or crank, shout himself hoarse for that which he believes or loves. Life is worth living only for those who can on occasion let their convictions loudly overcome their modesty. We have many speakers and but one sentiment. As the Saga to the Norseman, the Cross to the Crusader, that senti- ment warms our hearts and stirs our blood beyond all other rallying cries, and it is old Yale. It brings back the precious memories, the glorious times of our stu- dent days, the venerable age, the ever-vigorous youth, the noble fame of our Alma Mater. We are once more 33& ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OP at home with the elms, the fence, the campus, and the girls. Our relations with the foreign powers of Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia are somewhat less strained than they were a year ago. The humane resolutions of their faculties, forbidding them to encounter the sav- age athletes of New Haven, did much to restore har- mony, but their repeal will cause hostilities to break out anew. At the Princeton dinners I have been deeply grieved when Princeton, claiming to be the home of all the piety which is left in American colleges, has charged that Harvard was the most godless of our in- situtions, and at Harvard banquets pained by the retort that she alone possessed true spirituality and grace, while Princeton possessed only the husks of creeds. I have always succeeded in restoring friendly relations between these rivals and inspiring their gratitude to ourselves, by impartially assuring them that each was right as to the other, but the sum of what both claimed for themselves could only be found at Yale. An an- cient city had upon three of its gates "Be Bold," and upon the fourth "Be not too Bold." So Yale clings to the lessons of experience, and accepts slowly and with caution the suggestions of the time. Her faith has not grown with years in the self-reliant judgment and con- duct of youth, but she believes in the fruits of the prac- tice and doctrine of obedience. That boy flowers best into noblest manhood and rules himself and others, who has been taught to serve, and from the page grows the Chevalier Bayard, the knight for whom is as large a sphere to-day as in the age of chivalry. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 339 While at the Harvard annual dinners the bill-of-fare and the toasts are printed in Latin as a delicate tribute to a departed fetish, while the compulsory study of Latin and Greek has been abandoned in many schools, yet the classics survive and flourish in all the colleges, as the favorite elective in those Olympian games, the oar, the bat, the football, minstrelsy, and the stage which have become the primal elements of a liberal education. Yale firmly holds that Greek and Latin are and always will be essential to a liberal education. She admits that with age, experience, and opportunity, the time comes when the youth can be trusted to elect for himself the studies he will pursue, but that time is not the beginning of freshman year. If you or I have any ability to do easily the hard and disagreeable duties of our profession or business, it is because we got at old Yale that mental discipline which comes alone from being compelled to study and to master the most diffi- cult and, as we then thought, detestable problems. Beyond all other sentiments, we cherish and revere through all the changes of life the men who crowded us at college toward their ideals. No matter how much we level up, genius and individuality in every department of thought or action will always lead. Yale owes her supreme position, without great wealth of endowment, to the self-sacrificing men who have given to her their lives, and to the four great Presidents who have governed her for a century. We have been busy for a hundred and fifty years in developing the country and founding colleges, and it is only recently that we felt it necessary to reform the Government of 34° ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF the Republic. First we furnished a Chief Justice to the Supreme Court of the United States; then we brought New York back to its old traditions of emi- nent representation in the Senate by giving her Evarts ; then, when the American navy was sunk by a coal scow, and the new President felt that its restoration was essential to the success of his Administration, he chose for his secretary an experienced mariner from the navy of Yale ; and lastly, when a Harvard professor, by the splendor of his attainments and the brilliancy of his wit, had held captive the British nation for four years, Mr. Cleveland knew that he could only maintain friendly relations with England and advance the representation of his country at the Court of St. James, by drawing upon the faculty of Yale. Yale is the most cosmopolitan of colleges, and to meet in rivalry and friendship during the College's course the men from every State and Territory and from beyond the seas, is in itself a liberal education. When some great capitalist has given her several millions of dollars, he will have immortalized himself and solved the problem of the ideal American university. The Boston man doubts the security of his grave or of his hereafter unless he remembers Harvard in his will ; the Presbyterian of wealth feels that he will profit both his state hereafter and his estate here, by endowing Prince- ton ; but Yale has so broadly developed her sons, that she has reserved no class from which to conjure, and can only rely on the exceptional intelligence of the land. In our American republic of letters the colleges are CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 341 the sovereign states. Their differences are in degrees of power and influence, but each has its merits and its characteristics, and they are all combined in a grand confederacy of liberal learning. Our old University is just now subject to sharp criticism and assault both from within and without. It is the highest proof of her vigor and activity. They say that she is apathetic; that she resists the new learning; while the revolution and liberty at Harvard, and the new departure there from discipline and compulsory lessons and creeds and prayers, creates discussion and is a potent advertise- ment ; that it arouses enthusiasm in the preparatory schools and draws the crowd to Cambridge. But even the disciples of the new learning admit, upon exam- ination, that the faculty of Yale are abreast of the times, and their work in every department equal to the best to be found anywhere, with many elements which are found nowhere else. She needs to copy from aggressive institutions in the West the genius of the patent medicine vendor and emblazon the natural scen- ery of the country with her merits, and to borrow from Harvard the art of painting the town red. Between the eleven Congregational clergymen in the Corpora- tion on the one side, and the eleven athletes of the ball-field on the other, old Yale in her teachers and cur- riculum is still the most generous home and strongest bulwark in this country of learning and religion. It would be a misfortune to Yale College and its growth to claim perfection and defy criticism. Posses- ing in a larger measure than any other seat of learning the schools of science, theology, law, medicine, and 34 2 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF academic instruction, under-graduate and post-gradu- ate, which constitute a National University, her devel- opment has outgrown the college limits and requires such harmony of government that the strength of every department shall be the common property of all. Let the alumni be brought in closer communion and more intimate knowledge of her work. Let the faculty and the Corporation keep them advised, in confidence and in public, of her needs and of the way in which she marches abreast of, or leads, the learning of the times: then we shall find that the fictions about her spring mainly from mystery and misinformation, and that her faculty and her alumni are her facts. During one hundred and eighty-seven years Yale has had ten Presidents. The four who have governed her for the past century have won imperishable fame for their College and themselves. Their names are house- hold words in every home in the land where learn- ing and character are cherished. They are Timothy Dwight, Jeremiah Day, Theodore D. Woolsey, and Noah Porter. The last, after a life devoted to the edu- cation of young men and the administration of a great trust, retires that he may enjoy a well-won rest. Dur- ing the fifteen years of his administration the average attendance has increased twenty-six per cent., and the number of instructors from seventy-one to one hundred and fourteen. The funds of the College have grown from one million, two hundred and twenty-seven thou- sand, three hundred and five dollars to two million, one hundred and fifty-five thousand, seven hundred and five dollars, and the usefulness of the University has CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 343 been enlarged and its campus adorned with eight great buildings furnished and equipped for their work, each larger and better than any that existed at the time of his installation. That he may pass in vigor and health through long years of a serene and happy old age, is the prayer of Yale's Alumni all over the world ; it is the sentiment with which we of New York pledge him to-night. 344 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF s XXVII. peech at the semi-centennial anniversary of the St. Nicholas Society of the City of New York, February 28, 1885. I TRUST we will not have many recurrences of semi- centennials, because they seem to lead to a plenitude of weathercocks, and the staid and consistent charac- teristics of our society do not encourage too many em- blems of that nature. I do not stand here to-night, as did my friend Dr. Vermilye, to recall from personal recollections the first landing of the first Dutchman in New York; nor am I one of the several gentlemen on this platform who, in middle life, inaugurated this society fifty years ago, and are still in a state of good preservation. The commit- tee have arranged with commendable discretion, and with that sense of propriety which characterizes the work of all our committees, a memorial which recalls and distinguishes in a peculiar way the thoughts and aspirations of the members present at the first meeting of this society. The day after that first and memor- able gathering, the gentlemen present on that night gave an order to the proprietors of the Gobelin tapes- tries to have woven in wonderful and enduring pictures the portraits of those sons who were expected to sue- CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 345 ceed the fathers who founded this organization ; and in the rosy cherubs playing amidst the tropical foliage of the tapestries which adorn the galleries, and which we borrowed from Sypher, you will find correct repre- sentations of the Beekmans, the Fishes, the de Pey- sters, the Livingstons, the Millses, and the rest of them, as they appeared at that early day. The artist, being a Frenchman, supposed that perpetual summer reigned in these latitudes. But, gentlemen, we meet here to- night not to be facetious, and there falls upon me the duty of delivering the historical address, which in its character is necessarily serious. We all of us, for fifty years, have been having a good time — that is, all those who are fifty years old ; I am not — and the object of our gathering on all festive occasions has been to have a good time. A Scotchman cannot thoroughly enjoy himself, for he is continually plunged in dejec- tion and gloom in the effort to grasp the jokes which he don't understand ; and the English and the French recall with sorrow the land from which they fled. But these, our festive occasions, are free from griefs, and are marked by no jealousies or strifes. We meet as becomes those who have life to enjoy, and know how to enjoy it, and we do it on these and all other occa- sions where our circumstances will permit. Our fund of thirty thousand dollars has accumulated from the fact that the committee appointed by the Society to seek out the objects who should be the recipients of its assistance, have never been able to discover one worthy of its charity within the limits of their view. He was always just beyond. But, for once in fifty years, you will pardon me if I am serious. Gentlemen who are 34^ ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF present representing other nationalities and societies will forgive us, if once in half a century we lay aside our characteristic modesty, and emulate their frequent examples by speaking of ourselves. It is emphatically our night and our hall. We are met to recall the pur- poses and history of the Saint Nicholas Society, to commemorate the object for which it was organized, and the excellence, the nobleness, and the virtue of the ancestry from whom we sprang. In the ordinary life of a nation or a municipality, fifty years have been but a day. The original condi- tions of our American existence have destroyed the value of time as an element of progress and develop- ment. Cities whose founders are still living rival in population and prosperity the oldest and most success- ful capitals. This Society was organized to "collect and preserve information respecting the history, settle- ment, and manners of New York, and to promote so- cial intercourse among its native citizens." Its first half-century, though devoid of incident to itself, covers a period of municipal growth unparalleled in history. For more than a hundred years in different forms the descendants of the early inhabitants have sought to preserve the traditions of the fathers. Rivingtori s Gazetteer reports a celebration of the Sons of Saint Nicholas at Waldron's Tavern, a road-house on the Brooklyn side, in 1763; and again in 1784 that old chronicle records that the anniversary of Saint Nicho- las was celebrated "by the descendants of the ancient Dutch families." Doubtless each recurring birthday of our patron saint has for over two hundred years received appropriate recognition in festival and speech. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 347 But it was not until fifty years ago to-night that, with constitution and definite purposes, a Society was formed to perpetuate the memories of old New York and the virtues of its founders. Washington Irving walked into the assembly carrying the gilded rooster which had served as a weathervane upon the old Stadt Huys, or City Hall, from the first settlement of the city until the needs of a larger population required a new structure. He was so overcome with fright that he forgot the little speech he had prepared, and broke down during the first sentence. But this ancient bird, built in Holland after an old model, looking down for a century upon the city's daily life, its steady growth, the gathering of patriots, the conventions and con- gresses which preceeded and formulated the Republic, and now the silent Mentor at our meetings, speaks more eloquently than any records or musty documents of the sources of our strength. It saw the land from which we sprang. It marked the storm signals for the early mariner sailing in and out of our harbor, and under its weather-eye political clouds burst, first in protest and then in arms, to be followed by the pure atmosphere and clear sunlight of liberty. Our Society may properly trace its origin to 1609, when our Dutch ancestors first established their col- ony on Manhattan Island. The Puritan proves his claim to have originated and inspired all that makes our country free, intelligent, and great, by the repeti- tion of the history, principles, and characteristics of his forefathers. It is often better for fame to have emi- nent historians than to have enacted history. The judgment of mankind upon nations and peoples of the 34§ ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF past is never formed from original sources, but made up from the accepted picture of the most popular artist. While the Pilgrim fully merits most of the praise which has crystallized into settled opinion, it has been his wonderful fortune to have the highest genius, elo- quence, thought, and philosophical acumen devoted to throwing about himself, his mission, his words and creations, now as they assert in course of partial reali- zation in our institutions and progress, a meaning, a self-denial, and prophetic construction for humanity, of which Brewster and Carver and Captain John Smith never dreamed. The Dutch settlers, on the other hand, by the magic pen of the father of American literature, became the victims of a caricature which captivated the fancy of the world and made the most potent factors in the founding and development of the freedom and pros- perity of our country the accepted subjects of good- natured ridicule and merriment. Two generations have been laughing at a marionette, whose antics have con- cealed the most important figure in the preservation of civil and religious liberty. Pliny says of this indomitable people, that, though dwelling in marshes and subsisting on fish, they reso- lutely refused to become absorbed into and enjoy the benefits of the great Roman Empire. Their conquests were beneficent victories over nature, and not bloody confiscations of subject peoples. They won their coun- try from the ocean, and by their dykes set bounds to the waters. They have pumped out the Harlem Sea and the Zuyder Zee, and transformed their depths into fruitful soil. They alone for a thousand years have en- CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 349 forced upon Neptune, "Thus far shalt thou come and no farther, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." Though their country is only one-fourth the area of the State of New York, they fought for sixty-eight years to secure their independence against the power of Spain, then the strongest nation in Europe. And they won, because with them was liberty of conscience and of the individual, and universal education ; while the Spanish despotism crushed into dungeons, and pun- ished with torture and the stake, enlightenment, relig- ious liberty, and opinion. When the rest of Europe was in intellectual darkness, Holland had her univer- sities, and a system of general education upon which our common schools are founded. While learning lan- guished elsewhere, Grotius promulgated a system of international law, Erasmus taught Greek to Oxford, Zacharias Janssens invented the telescope and the microscope whose revelations created modern science, and Lawrence Koster discovered the art of printing. When Koster made a Bible for five crowns, which be- fore him had cost the ransom of a prince, the Ameri- can Republic first became possible. For a time free thought was impossible in England, or upon the Conti- nent, and Holland became the bulwark, the refuge, and salvation of humanity. The spirit of her sons was illustrated at the siege of Leyden. There was but little food, and that the vilest offal ; starvation and pestilence afflicted the inhabitants ; but when the Spaniard pro- posed surrender and generous terms, with submission to king and creed, "No," they replied, "we will eat our left arms and fight with our right, and set fire to our houses, and die in the flames, before we will be slaves." 35° ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OE When, for their heroic defense, they were asked what should be their indemnity and reward, they answered : "Give us a national university." They gave to Eng- land that Bill of Rights which is the basis of Puritan liberty, and to us our form of government. In 1579 the seven provinces of the Netherlands formed a repub- lic at Utrecht, and adopted for their motto, "Unity makes Might"; and in 1581 they promulgated their declaration of independence in these memorable words : "The people are not made for the prince, but the prince for the people, who always have the right to depose him if he should oppress them." This grand formula of liberty the Dutch asserted and maintained with their swords a hundred years before the English Declaration of Rights, and two hundred years before the American Declaration of Independence, and at a time when the belief was universal that kings were gods anointed, and could do no wrong. Here was the inspiration of Crom- well, Milton, and of Hampden, of Washington, Hamil- ton, Jefferson, and Adams. This was the people who in 1609 settled upon Man- hattan Island, and founded our city and State. They bought twenty-two thousand acres from the Indians for sixty guilders, and upon an honest title founded their city. They had circled the globe with their colonies ; with their three thousand ships and a hundred thous- and sailors they were the chief of maritime powers, and controlled the commerce of the world ; but they had no country save that submerged land, where Puri- tan and Huguenot, Catholic, Protestant, and Jew, have found hospitable and tolerant asylum. Their coming was attended by no loud professions of their virtue or CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 35 * their mission, but their object was to extend the trade of Holland, and by increasing the wealth and oppor- tunities of her people to add to their happiness; but the things above all others which they guarded and maintained were the common school and religious liber- ty. The first Dutch Governor brought with him a do- mine and a schoolmaster, each the first of his class on this continent, and Everardus Bogardus, the preacher, and Adam Roolandson, the teacher, were the pioneers of our American civilization. In this free and tolerant atmosphere the witchcraft superstition never found lodgment. The unfortunate victims fleeing to New York from New England for their lives, were warmly welcomed, and only by threat of war did Governor Stuyvesant rescue his sister-in-law, Judith Varlet, from the clutches of the fierce sectaries at Hartford, who had determined to burn her as a witch, because the Connecticut swains had lost hearts and heads for the Dutch beauty, who safely returned, married a Dutch- man, and became the ancestress of some of the noblest people in our State. While the Puritan colonies were in their wild terror imprisoning and executing the sus- pected, and every family was at the mercy of the ac- cuser, the Dutch and Huguenot ministers of New Am- sterdam unanimously resolved that "the apparition of a person afflicting another is very insufficient proof of a witch, and that a good name obtained by a good life should not be lost by mere spiritual accusation." Bap- tists, and the dissenters of every creed, fleeing from Masachusetts, were given homes and lands, the deeds declaring that they should "enjoy in peace the free exer- cise of their religion." The only effort to curb heresy 35 2 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OP which was affecting the prosperity of the Dutch church was made by Peter Stuyvesant. But the sturdy old Governor received from the home government so sharp a reprimand, that neither by him nor any man has the right of freedom of worship and opinion ever been ques- tioned in New York. In words which should be put upon our public buildings in letters of gold, they wrote : "The consciences of men ought to be free and un- shackled. Such have been the maxims of prudence and toleration by which the magistrates of this city, Amsterdam, have been governed ; and the consequen- ces have been that the oppressed and persecuted from every country have found among us asylum from dis- tress. Follow in the same footsteps and you will be blessed." When the English conquered New York in 1664, the city had about a thousand inhabitants, and three hun- dred houses ; but there were three public, one Latin, and twenty private schools. The accession of William of Orange to the English throne brought here about five thousand more Dutch, and with the increase of the means of education the society of New York was the most learned and cultured in the country. Both men and women were familiar with the classics and the modern languages. The English paid little attention to education, and it continued under Dutch auspices until ten years after the Revolutionary War. The for- mation of the Free School Society in 1810 was a re- markable example of the Dutch faith in universal edu- cation. For fifty years, almost unaided, it furnished the means for popular learning, and only surrendered its great and magnificently administered trust when the CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 353 State was prepared to undertake this its most impor- tant duty. Upon this broad basis of civil and religious liberty, of toleration and education, was formed the metropo- lis of the New World. Here, nearly a hundred years before the Boston Tea Party, Jacob Leisler began the battle of colonial rights. Here, forty years before the Declaration of Independence, the trial of John Zenger established the freedom of the press upon principles which have since been incorporated in every State in the Union. Eleven years before the battle of Lexing- ton, the Assembly of New York protested against the Stamp Act and organized the colonies for resistance to British aggression, and the Stamp Act Congress, sitting in this city, first boldly proclaimed that taxation with- out representation is tyranny, and paved the way to American independence. When the last British soldier had embarked at the Battery, those two most promi- nent citizens of New York, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, began the publication of The Federalist, which out of the chaos of confederation organized a constitutional republic. The Government of the United States, which began life in this city with the inaugura- tion of Washington in Wall Street, reflected in every part the influence of Dutch examples. Its federal form, its toleration of creeds, its hospitable invitation to the oppressed of all lands, its liberal views on trade and commerce, its official terms and titles, came from the home of the first settlers in New York. They pro- claimed no mission for themselves or mankind, but without boasting, with modesty, industry, and inflexi- ble principle, they so builded their part of our great 354 ORA TlOiVS AND SPEECHES OF temple of liberty as to deserve the undying affection and reverence of their descendants, and the respect and gratitude of the world. This city and State, which they founded, and in which, in their spirit, the peoples of every nation and of every faith enjoy equal privi- leges and freedom with their sons, are their monu- ments. When William of Orange received the crown of England in the old hall of Westminster, and the charters of English liberty were read to him, with his hand on his sword he swore, "I will maintain." To- night we take up anew the glories, the traditions, and the lessons of old New York, with the solemn oath, "We will maintain." CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 355 S XXVIII. peech at the first annual dinner of the Holland Society of New York, at the Hotel Brunswick, January 8, 1886. GOOD-EVENING, Van.* [A roar of laughter drowned the reply, if any was made. Mr. Depew continued :] Don't all speak at once. I never knew a Van who wasn't always on hand when there was anything to eat and drink, but this collection beats any that I ever saw before. There is just one thing, by the way, which the Philharmonic Society will never regret ; and that is that the Dutch songs attempted here to-night are not the only musical gems of which our city can boast. Gentlemen, one of the most curious psychological conundrums that a man was ever called upon to solve is : Why did Judge Van Wyck, when he asked if we came here to get a full drink, look straight at me? What are we here for? it has been asked. We have the St. Nicholas Society, a most estimable organization, that for an annual tax of ten dollars gives you four stated banquets, and two dinners at half-price. It has a large and respect- able membership, which, in keeping with the thrifty precepts of our ancestors, regularly attends the four free banquets, and is unavoidably detained from being present at the two dinners a half-price. I am a lover of * The names of 150 of the 200 gentlemen present began with " Van." 35 6 ORA TIONS AND SPEECHES OF old things — old wine, for instance, and old women. Gentlemen, what heart here has not thrilled this even- ing at that beautiful painting by Mr. Turner, the "Old Dutch Woman Reading her Bible !" How many a gray head, here, knelt years ago at such a knee ! The influ- ence of Dutch women such as that has molded the fate of religious liberty in this whole world. And, gentle- men, I respect the Saint Nicholas Society, for it is a venerable and an ancient one. Why, then, should we form another? I will tell you. It is because you and I have felt our blood on fire when we were present at those dinners, and have heard it said : "This is not a Dutch society. The pipes are Dutch ; the menu is in alleged Dutch ; but this is merely a society of old New York, and includes men of all nationalities and of no nationality." That is why the Holland Society was founded. But still it is asked, what are we here for? We know what we're here for. We've got it. Those fellows over in Delmonico's to-night, at the Merchants' Dinner to Gov- ernor Hill, don't know what they are there for, and they never will know until the prizes and offices are distributed. Then they will realize, as many better men have realized before them, that on a January day of a certain temperature many are left, and but few are chosen. The famous question of the patriotic Mr. Flanigan of Texas, in the National Convention at Chi- cago, What are we here for if we don't get the offices? becomes reflectively both painful and significant when the gentlemen who are forgotten in the spoils remem- ber that they paid for the dinner. I went down to the reporters' table before the speech- CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE IV. 357 making commenced — there were twelve of them there at that time ; there isn't one left now — and I said to them: "Boys, I suppose you have come to hear Sena- tor Voorhees speak on the silver question, and Secre- tary Bayard discuss our diplomatic relations with Aus- tria. I am sorry that they didn't come ; but there will be at least one good speech to-night. You had bet- ter stay." But with one accord they answered and spake unto me, saying: "Chauncey, we've reported that speech seventeen times !" But to come back to the question, Why has not a distinctly Dutch society been formed before? Because in the Dutch character there are two principles : one, that it is wrong to do wrong, and 'everybody knows it ; the other, that it is so natural to do right that it is expected of every one, and there is no use making a fuss about it. I tell you, gentlemen, it is to Holland that this coun- try owes her common schools and her love of liberty ; to Holland, that heroic little State whose noble prince said, when offered the hand of King James's daughter, "I cannot sacrifice my honor and my country's honor for the sake of your alliance" ; to that heroic little State that stood alone and unsupported among her enemies and listened to the voice of her prince when he said : "Though our country disappear beneath the sea, if our independence be preserved, all is not lost." And, thank God, the sea did roll over her fields ! Her honor and her independence were preserved ; and her prince married the daughter of King James, without the exaction of an obligation from him out of keeping with truth and right. We hear much of the Puritan and of Plymouth Rock. 358 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF The true Puritan was a bigot and a sectary ; fighting to preserve his own religious liberty and to destroy that of every one else ; believing conscientiously in the political freedom of himself, and the political suppres- sion of everybody else. The Puritans left England and went to Holland. There were four hundred of them, divided into three hundred sects. They went up to the Hague, and there in the Great Congregation they learned that one man's religion was as good as an- other's. And God in His mercy kept them eleven years in a state of probation in Holland before he let them land on Plymouth Rock. And in their after-lives they did credit to their preceptors, and to the lessons they had learned while in that state of probation. ' It was the teachings of Holland that rendered the Revo- lution and the Constitution possible. Those Pilgrim Fathers that journeyed to New England by way of Hol- land never burned witches or whipped Quakers or dis- graced themselves and their religion by other exhibi- tions of narrow intolerance. It was the Puritans who came after them, straight from England, without the softening influence of Holland, who smirched the pages of New England's history. This, gentlemen, was the country too modest to write her own history ; the country that had to wait the com- ing of a Motley before her story could be fitly told. Her children, the Dutch settlers of America and their descendants, have too long emulated the modesty of the mother-country. We have quietly occupied the back pews, while the Yankees and Scotchmen and Irish- men at their annual dinners have claimed everything that is worth claiming in our city and country. Why, CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE IV. 359 gentlemen, there are people who actually believe that there was no demand ever made for civil and religious liberty until the Declaration of Independence; people who are ignorant of the fact that, two centuries before that document was signed, Holland had poured out her blood and treasure for those very principles : thundered them in the face of Europe from the cannon's mouth; flaunted them o'er sea and land upon the Beggars' Sack, and formally enunciated them in words which Jefferson only quoted. Many fondly believe that in America was first founded a Republic of Sovereign States; but the plan in its letter and spirit was copied from the Dutch. By the compact of Utrecht, the seven prov- inces of the Netherlands formed a free government in 1579, with the sentiment "Unity makes Might"; and in 1787 the United States of America were builded upon the same model, and adopted for their motto "E Pluribus Unum." The principles of Dutch liberty were education and toleration. The Puritans found in Holland a school system supported by the State, and the doors of her universities open to students of all creeds and nationalities, at a time when all other seats of learning were closed to those who denied their dog- mas in religion or did not commune with their church. Free thought, free speech, inquiry, discussion, and the open Bible were unknown except in this little corner of Europe, which its indomitable people had rescued from the sea, and waged perpetual battle with the ocean to keep. The Pilgrims brought the common school from Holland and planted it on Plymouth Rock, and it has been for two hundred years the inspiration of Yankee growth, power, and conquest, and the corner-stone of 360 ORA TIONS AND SPEECHES OF New England's eloquence, and the source of her boast that she alone has furnished the brains for American liberty and expansion. But the Knickerbockers' school- master and domine were already established institu- tions on Manhattan Island, and their beneficent, civiliz- ing, and humanitarian influences following the Indian trails, the highways of commerce, the Dutchman's own Erie Canal, and the Great Lakes, carried the elements and fructifying forces of freedom into new Territories and laid the foundations of sovereign States. The Jew, the Huguenot, the Puritan, even the perse- cuted Catholic, was welcomed in Holland with hos- pitality and employment, and, unharmed and unmo- lested, could there worship God in his own way, and was only restrained from interfering with his neigh- bor's worshiping God in his way. But in that critical period in the history of the race, when every hope of humanity was lost everywhere in the world, except Holland ; when she alone, relying in steadfast faith upon the God above and the waves about her, was sheltering the rights of man against the combined forces of despotism and bigotry, she was not content to sim- ply save liberty; but by the invention of types and the creation of a printing-press, she organized the new cru- sade against darkness and superstition in Church and State, which has ever since been triumphantly march- ing down the ages, emancipating the mind from the thraldom of ignorance and bigotry, and transferring power from the throne to the people. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 361 XXIX. address at the dedication of the monument of the New York Press Club, at Cypress Hills Cemetery, June 12, 1887. Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Press Club: The occasion which calls us together is both sad and comforting. It reminds us of the horrors of a lonely death and suggests some of its alleviations. It is emi- nently fit and appropriate that our ceremonies are upon the Sabbath day, when our thoughts and feelings are inspired and moved by the victory over the grave in the assuring promises of a glorious resurrection. In this month of June, with its balmy air, its wealth of leaf and flower and fruit, we forget the destruction and de- cay of winter and learn from Nature that ever recurr- ing and beautiful lesson which takes from the cemetery its terrors. The memorial monuments of a people mark their civilization and humanity, and the care they give to that spot which the Germans so tenderly desig- nate as God's Acre tells of the power and development of home and family and friendship. From primitive man to the height of Greek intellectuality, and then down through Roman barbarism and the night of the dark ages until we rise again to \he splendid evolution of mind 362 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF and heart and soul in our era, we review all the miser- ies, the misfortunes, and the gains of our race. One of the sure evidences of progress or decay in humaniz- ing influences is the treatment of the unknown and the friendless living or dead. The hundred years of our existence as a nation exhibit in connection with our marvelous growth and development in commerce, manu- factures, invention, and population, the relation of in- dividuals to each other and the community which preceding ages have not shown. In the mighty move- ment of the tremendous forces which control our indus- trial life, the individual, upon whom our fathers built their government, has been lost. He has become an atom in a vast system of organized machinery. The old days of universal acquaintance and interest, when the cords of sympathy connected all the members of the community, and the friendless and suffering felt at once a neighbor's helpful hand, are gone. The surging crowd rushes by the helpless stranger, too careless to stop, or too fearful of fraud or contamination to listen. Poor, alone, and sick in a great modern city crushes out hope, and despair gives way to death. A man dies calmly and courageously when he knows that he will be buried among his kindred, or that loving hands will care for his remains. Every body of workers should have a lot for their homeless dead. Around the open grave they would be so reminded of their duties to their brethren, that the old loving and helpful spirit would return, recruiting the broken ties of primitive neighbor- hoods, restoring the sick and hopeless to health and usefulness, or smoothing his pathway through the dark valley. CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 3 6 3 It will remain as one of the best deeds of the Press Club that it has purchased this resting-place and erected upon it this monument. It redounds to the honor of journalism that the fund largely came from the efforts of one of its working memb *rs whose talents and versa- tility are so widely appreciated. This cemetery is full of memorials to the departed, telling their varied stories of family bereavements ; but none of them will have so wide and deep significance as this shaft. From each mournful visit, as the survivors leave, they will bear with them a broader charity for, and a healthier kin- ship to, each other. It is the mission of the Club to overcome the necessary resentments which arise from the controversies and antagonisms of the profession, and to promote harmony and good feeling among its members. The reporterial corps has furnished the most power- ful influence of modern thought. From it have come not only the editors, but the contributors to our litera- ture whose names are immortal. In glorious battles for the liberty of the press, it has promoted the free- dom of mankind. But in no work does the struggling beginner or the aged veteran stand more in need of the sympathy and strength of a club or society organized and equipped for mutual good. The soldier is inspired with the hope of promotion, the dream of glory, and he becomes a hero in the maddening passions of the battle. But the reporter, with no incentive but duty, shares the warrior's dangers and exposures, notes in the thickest of the fray the fortunes of the fight, and while the camp is asleep rides many miles through a hostile country to send to his paper the first account of the 364 ORA TIONS AND SPEECHES OE carnage and the victory, in a message which electrifies the nation and bears no signature. I wished at one time to find the author of a report in one of our dailies. I discovered that he had been a gallant officer in the Civil War, and was mustered out at its close covered with honorable scars, and bearing with him a noble rec- ord. He took up once more the occupation of his early manhood, and his graphic pen made picturesque the columns of his paper. A few nights before my inquiry he was reporting a great fire ; many lives were in dan- ger; where none others dared go, he fearlessly vent- ured, and fell a sacrifice to his courage and humanity. Three lines of cold narration was the sum of his earthly fame. But if then he could have had before him ten- der care and burial at the hands of his brethren, that gallant soul would have been spared its bitterest pang, and in his memorial services the world would have learned what it had lost and sacredly treasured his story. The great liners plow the seas, their depar- ture and arrival, their speed, their passengers, heralded around the world and enlisting the eager interest of two hemispheres. An accident to one of them is a calamity which stirs millions of people in many coun- tries. An ocean-tramp steamer, freighted with lives as precious, goes to the bottom, and the memory of her is lost as quickly as the waters reunite over the spot where she sank. The men of brilliant success among the brain-workers are the darlings of fortune and the idols of the hour, but the great mass of those whose minds are their only capital, workshop, and tools, strug- gle against every element of discouragement. In peace- ful valleys among the New England hills or on the West- CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 3 6 5 em plains are the homes in which they were reared and educated, but to which they have bid good-by forever; and, alone in the great city, the ambition for fame and wealth is satisfied by ceaseless effort to win a comfort- able living. Every consideration of happiness, security, and safety should bind such men together, so that each might feel the vigor and strength of a great, prosper- ous, and aggressive organization. Two of the most famous journalists of their time were Greeley and Ray- mond. Presidents, Cabinets, and Congressmen were their creation and subject to their control. The land was filled with their controversies and their fame. And yet death came to each of them in its most terrible and tragic form. Loving friends and millions of mourning and sympathetic admirers gave them tender ceremonial and sepulture, but there was a period in both of their lives when a Press Club, and a plot and monument such as we here dedicate, could alone have rescued them from nameless graves. To some of you will come the opportunity to fill the measure of their commanding influence and power. To all of you is assigned a por- tion of their work and its results. The newspaper is the most important factor in our social and public life. Through it all nations and races by their deeds and opinions daily act and react upon each other in the approach to substantial unity in the aims and liberties of all the people of the globe. The reader has no thought for or interest in the great army which makes up this library of information, discussion, and imperious direction as to the character and official acts of public officers and the duties of private citizens. The journal is to him an impersonal expression of popu- 366 ORA TIONS AND SPEECHES OF lar feeling which sways his judgment, but he rarely recognizes the man behind it. But here all strifes are for- gotten, and all enmities healed. Whether critics or criti- cised, governors or governed, employers or employees, we are in the presence of death, of one family and kin- dred, with equal aims and a common end. From this spot will flow those tender and beneficent influences by which the voices of those who have gone before come to us from the spirit land with their messages of hope and rest, of charity, loyalty, and good-fellowship. On each recurring anniversary of that social day when their children and their comrades decorate the soldiers' graves with flowers, you will hang garlands upon this shaft and strew wreaths upon the soil which covers these humble heroes who also died at the post of duty, and the world will be happier, brighter, and better for this closer com- munion of the strong and the weak, the successful and the unfortunate, the prosperous and the poor. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 3 6 7 T XXX. he Liberty of the Press. — Address before the New York State Press Association, at the Madison Square Theater, New York, June 19, 1883. Gentlemen : It is difficult for one more than ordinarily engrossed in business cares to secure the time to fairly treat a subject so important as the Liberty of the Press. It would be presumptuous in a layman to address profes- sionals upon this theme, if its inviolability and invul- nerability within proper limits were not more important to the rest of the State than to the editors themselves. Libraries have been filled with the literature of civil and religious liberty, but the record of this essential element in the triumph and maintenance of either is comparatively meager. The block, the scaffold, and the stake have been illuminated and adorned by illus- trious victims, martyrs to free thought and human right, but they have been leaders in revolutions for re- forms in the State and purification in the Church. The heroes in the battle for the liberty of the Press have not shed their blood, but in the two hundred years since the founding of the newspaper they have been always braving and suffering incarceration and confisca- tion. The Press had no part in the struggles for their 3 68 ORA TIONS AND SPEECHES OF rights among the peoples of antiquity or medieval times, but in the mighty movements of the present and pre- ceding century, it has broken the ground and prepared the way for the soldier and the statesman. To prove this, we need not refer to the past, but to day can find abundant illustrations. In autocratic Rus- sia, the Nihilist plots in the dark; the terrorist furtive- ly hurls his dynamite bomb, careless and reckless of the hundreds of innocent people killed and maimed, if he can reach the Czar and secure safety for himself; the revolutionists meet in secret in cellars and garrets, but the editor alone daily runs the risk of ruin and Siberia. The police need not search for him, he is to be found at his desk; he knows that the suspension of his paper means the sudden loss of income; its suppres- sion, hopeless poverty ; and gradually feeling his way, educating the people, and undermining the throne, he disregards the warning and defies the censor, resumes his work when the limit of suspension has expired to take bolder and higher ground — for to such men there is no backward step, — and when the inevitable hand of arbi- trary power falls and crushes him and his, the grave of his hopes is another mile-stone marking the progress in the construction of the road to liberty. It is a natural process in the development of the mind, that the constant discussion of daily events at home and abroad, with their relations to the foreign policy of the country, and to every function of govern- ment, not only enlarges and broadens the grasp of liv- ing questions, but inspires in the most timid of men an unusual independence of opinion and daring in its ex- pression. He cannot constantly record injustice and CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 3^9 wrong, without exposing the perpetrators, asking re- dress, or suggesting a remedy. And so under Bour- bons, and Napoleons, and the Stuarts and the Georges, the Press has openly led the fight for freedom, and shared in its triumphs. The one man to whom the Press is more indebted than all others is that marvelous genius, who, with rarest indifference to personal fame, buried his personal- ity in devotion to his principles, and wrote under the name of Junius. In an age remarkable for its venality and servility in Parliament, in politics, and the Press, when it took little more than the whim of a minister to suppress a newspaper or imprison an editor, Junius sud- denly appeared as an inspired evangel of destruction and reparation, of purification and enlightenment. He revolutionized the relations of the Press to the Govern- ment and the people. Master of every weapon of con- troversy, and with unequaled power in the use of the English language, he discussed men and affairs with the information of a cabinet minister and the best states- manship of his time. He broke over the barriers which hedge the king and the privileges which Parliament had thrown about itself, and gave enormous impetus to the growing idea of the responsibility of the representative to his constituency. The paper through which he spoke remained unmolested because King and peer and com- moner knew that he had concentrated and voiced pub- lic opinion. While not directly bearing upon that ques- tion, yet the light he shed upon the measures and mo- tives of public men so seconded the efforts of the press to publish the proceedings of Parliament, that after a few fitful efforts to resist the right, in which Richard Brins- 37° ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF ley Sheridan did glorious work, that most important safeguard of liberty was secured. In all countries which have representative government, the one thing which checks corruption and promotes patriotism, which passes good measures and defeats bad ones, which destroys little men and gives great men their opportunity, is that publicity of proceedings in which the newspaper pos- sesses and exercises its greatest power. But the Press still had impending over it a menace which impaired its independence and partially para- lyzed its usefulness, and that was the law of libel. Under the construction that the greater the truth the greater the libel, the early newspapers of Massachusetts were suppressed and their editors punished. Benjamin Franklin, then only sixteen years of age, but a writer of recognized force, received in the discipline administered to himself and his paper that first lesson as to the value of liberty which afterwards bore such abundant and glorious fruit. It was reserved, however, for New York to rescue the Press from this peril and secure for it its greatest privilege. While the Dutch, who settled New York, and were at this time the controlling element in its society, are not propagandists or crusaders, they surpass all races in stubborn resistance to oppression and obstinate defense of their rights. Though King James, when the Eng- lish conquered the colony, gave it no other charter than his royal will, and solemnly decreed that no newspaper should ever be published in the province, the Dutch- man printed his paper, and it became the leader of the Revolution and awakened the other colonies to the necessities of the strruggle. When Governor Cosby CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 3 7 * ordered the Mayor and Council to attend the burning of Peter Zenger's paper by the hangman, they refused to go ; when after nine months' imprisonment Zenger was brought to trial, and his counsel, the venerable Andrew Hamilton, then eighty years of age, demanded that the truth of the alleged libel should be given in evidence and taken by the jury in justification of the publication, a New York jury, against the direction of the judge, acquitted Zenger. The result was received with bon- fires and processions, with cannon-firing and general re- joicing. It forced the British Government to meet the growing disaffection in the colonies, not by suppress- ing the Press, but by subsidizing these newspapers to counteract it. Though the ablest lawyers, clergymen, college presidents and government officials entered the lists in these columns as champions of the royal author- ity, they were ignominiously routed and overthrown in newspaper combat, long before the questions were sub- mitted to the arbitration of arms, by the Adamses, War- ren and Otis in Massachusetts, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay in New York, Benjamin Franklin in Penn- sylvania, and Thomas Jefferson in Virginia. Limited in number and circulation, yet the colonial press ac- complished more than all other agencies in preparing the way for the Declaration of Independence, and in keeping the people during the long and exhausting Revolutionary War inspired with patriotism to continue and to conquer. But after the Revolution, in the fierce strife of par- tisanship, the Press was again confronted with its old enemy, the law of libel. To the rescue of the impris- oned editor, and to vindicate for all time the liberty of 37 2 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF the Press, came that most extraordinary lawyer, states- man, and financier, Alexander Hamilton. In an ad- dress of wonderful power he carried the jury and the people, and in the very language of his brief the free- dom of the Press was incorporated in the constitution or the statutes of every State in the Union and the laws of England. The Press was now free from all danger of arbitrary interference by the Government or the courts, but it was not emancipated. All the newspapers of the young Republic became the personal organs of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, on the one side, and Hamilton, Adams, and Jay on the other. These statesmen either contributed or inspired their utterances. The editor was only an echo, his paper a shadow. The control of the Government was the prize for which these giants were contending, and interest and ambition gave intense viciousness and vindictiveness to the Press thus edited and controlled. Washington charged Jefferson in Cabi- net meeting with having written a bitter assault in a Philadelphia paper upon his administration and char- acter, and the hates and fears of the combatants were reflected in the unexampled animosity and absolute unfairness of all newspaper discussion and criticism. When leading politicians became too numerous and factions too many to longer continue the individual control of organs, the Press became the servile instru- ment of Party to secure patronage or retain it. For many years the rigid enforcement of the doctrine, "to the victors belong the spoils," was equally fatal to the political independence of the newspaper or the indi- vidual. At the command of General Jackson, the CHA UNCE Y M, DEPE W. 373 National Intelligencer is set aside, and the Telegraph and Duff Green come into favor; Green falls under suspicion, and by the same autocratic will the Tele- graph and Green are ruined by the withdrawal of the Government support, and the Globe and Francis P. Blair secure power and riches by its bestowal. The Council of Revision and Appointment, in our own State, by the same processes, held the Press of New York by the throat. In the South, Calhoun, Hayne, and McDuffie gave to the Press its opinions and argu- ments, and the bullet and the torch quieted protest and rebellion. A little more than a quarter of a century ago began the real liberty of the Press, and by the rapid processes of evolution which characterize all efforts towards free- dom, it has reached its present position of absolute irresponsibility to any power but itself. Congress and Legislatures regard it with awe and fear. Judges will no longer deliver hostile charges or juries convict ; politicians have become its followers, and it dictates policies to parties. It is an educator in every branch of human thought and activity. It opens all the doors of the mind and enters for good or ill. It has unre- stricted admission to the house and unrivaled influence in the family. It exercises, and in a sense fills, the functions of preacher and teacher, of censor and critic, of thinking and voting for its readers. Napoleon said that four newspapers were more dangerous than a hun- dred thousand soldiers, and he thought his conquests unstable until he had subdued the Press of Europe and compelled it to take its opinions from the Moniteur, which he edited himself. Samuel Taylor Coleridge was 374 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OE a writer on a London paper, at the insignificant salary of a guinea a week. And yet his editorials so disturbed the Emperor that Fox declared in the House of Com- mons that the Treaty of Amiens would be broken and the peace of Europe destroyed unless those articles were stopped. Afraid to touch the liberty of the Press, the British Cabinet, nevertheless, secretly informed Bonaparte of the vessel Coleridge was on, coming from Italy to England. In pursuit of this then obscure au- thor sailed French frigates and sloops of war, and the most magnificent tribute ever paid to the power of the Press was this union of treachery and force by the two greatest nations upon earth to silence a humble journalist. With the incalculably greater influence of the news- paper of to-day, what are the limitations it ought to set to its liberties? This is a question of profoundest mo- ment and anxiety to every self-respecting journalist. Party duties and responsibilities exercise a healthful restraint. Republics cannot be governed well except by party organizations, so evenly balanced and watch- ful that the errors of the one are the opportunity of the other. An alert, vigorous, and aggressive opposition is the surest method of securing faithful service and honest measures. I like a party paper, impregnably fixed in its principles, and which fights vigorously and hits hard ; but it should have that measure of liberty which will make conventions of its party fear to submit to its criticisms unworthy nominations, and the legis- latures of its party afraid to promote bad measures. It is better for any organization to suffer defeat by in- dependent protest against manifest wrong than to be CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 375 perpetually upon the platform of explanation, or kneel- ing upon the stool of repentance. It seldom happens that the situation is as embarrassing as one where Hor- ace Greeley once said to me, in regard to a prominent nomination, "That man is an infernal rascal, and I in- tended to oppose him, but the Democrats have put up against him a man who is as big a rascal, and a d — d fool to boot. I prefer the one quality, pure and una- dulterated, and shall support the regular ticket." The Press is the mirror of the daily life of the world, but it performs the very highest duty in selecting what it shall reflect. The newspaper is read by the boy be- fore he begins the study of his morning's lesson, and it is his companion after he returns from school ; it is be- side our daughter in her boudoir and her bedroom ; it drops into those young lives facts, thoughts, and im- pressions which bear sweet or bitter fruit in after years. You and I have known the whole moral nature of youth soiled and spoiled by this unguarded and unguardable communion. There are cases of leprosy and small-pox, and a vast variety of unsightly and contagious diseases in the hospitals, but we do not take our families to see them. There are in the by-streets and alleys nightly scenes which furnish food for earnest reflection to the reformer and sociologist, but if we can help it our children never hear of them. We become the willing victims of the plumber to keep sewer gas out of our houses, and the newspaper under the guise of faithful reporting, with picturesque and attractive details, has not the liberty to bring all these things and worse into our homes. It is often said that there is enormous profit in ministering to the depraved and debased ele- 37 6 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF ments in human nature, and that the papers which re- frain throw away fortunes. I do not believe it, if the paper has come to stay. The Szvitches and Scorpions, and all their brood are notoriously short-lived and un- profitable. The family is the unit of society, and no matter what its head may be, he does not introduce or tolerate in that circle any element which he believes will destroy it. Without the family support no news- paper can survive, and that journal will have the long- est life, the largest profits, and the greatest influence which as far as possible admits to its columns only such matter as its editor would freely narrate at his own table. It is said that whenever two Russians are together one of them is a Government spy, and the opinions of every individual, no matter where uttered, are part of the records of the secret police. In our higher civiliza- tion and perfect freedom, the "Third Section" has no existence, but the Press performs its functions and shares its secrets with all the world. The reporter and the interview have destroyed the privacy of domicile and of thought. They walk with the Czar to his coro- nation, and wring from their keepers the mysteries of the Empress's wardrobe. They disclose the discus- sions of the Cabinet to the people, and to the parents the first details of an elopement. They print the next morning the most sacred proceedings of the Executive Session, and on the occasion of your daughter's wed- ding describe the dresses and the undergarments which constitute the bridal outfit, with their quality, style, and cost. They pump from a theologian seeking no- toriety the brave statement of his half-hearted heresy, CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE IV. 377 and in the same column overwhelm him with the anathemas of his brethren to whom they have submitted it. They compel politicians to talk by threatening to report imputed opinions, and set prima-donnas by the ears by encouraging their jealousy and vanity. They divulge the points of great operators, and invade the homes of railroad magnates and publish their plans. Rebuffs are their invitation, assaults their opportunity ; sometimes thrashed but never defeated, they mend their bones and increase their incomes by embalming their victims in a vivid description of the fight. Fifty years ago this exercise of the liberty of the Press would have led to breaches of the peace and to murder, but the community of to-day applauds and calls for more. A sense of security in absolute publicity is an underlying force in all free governments, and there is great good in our refinement of the principle which compels men, whose position is official or semi-public in relation to their fellows, to frequent accountability, but it at least admits of a doubt whether it should be carried so far as to take the place of the gossip or the detective. The error into which this feeling of irresponsibility sometimes leads the Press is* that it controls and there- fore can defy the public. But while docile and tracta- ble, so as to be easily swayed or led within certain legiti- mate boundaries, yet public opinion is always the mas- ter. That newspaper is strongest which best reflects it. In molding and forming the views of the commu- nity as to men or measures, the newspaper wields a mighty influence ; but the most powerful organ cannot run counter to the beliefs or moral sense of its con- stituency. The whole Press of the North could not 37 8 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF have subdued the indignant outburst at the firing upon Sumter, or checked the grief at the death of Garfield. The Press interprets and enforces doctrines and faiths, but is confronted by a thousand forces if it attempts their overthrow. The traveler in the Western Reserve of Ohio asked a farmer about the times ; "Bad enough," said he, "my Democratic neighbor got his newspaper yesterday and floored me completely this morning, but when the Weekly Tribune comes, Saturday, and I have read old Greeley, I will wipe him out." Both of these men were clear in their faith, and went to their papers for materials of attack and defense. If their papers had come preaching strange doctrines, they would have been bewildered, but not converted, and abandoning the old, would have found new armories filled with familiar weapons. In speaking upon a theme which inspires so much enthusiasm, and where the wildest statement seems tame beside the truth, it has become common to claim that the Press has superseded the pulpit, annihilated the orator, relegated to the realm of tradition the pic- ture of the "listening Senate," which has fired to high ambition the youth of preceding generations, and so elevated and educated the masses, that great men and great leaders, the Websters, Clays, and Calhouns of the past, will never more appear. But nothing can take the place of the spoken word, the magnetism and thrill, the nameless combination of power and personality, by which the speaker sways his audience, and leaves im- pressions which follow to the grave. If his message is of moment, the newspapers repeat and drop it into millions of minds, and the light of his revelation radi- CttA UNCE V M. DEPE W. 379 ates through the Republic. In the red-hot days of anti- slavery strife, an editorial or pamphlet from the pen of Wendell Phillips, cast anonymously into the discussion, served in the ranks ; but if Wendell Phillips made a speech, the spirit which pervaded the hall, following the telegraph and reproduced in the Press, brought the whole country to its feet, and the clash of contending opinions shook the Union. There were other and able contemporary speeches and writings, but this was the triumph of the orator. Exceptionally great men have disappeared from American public life, and the dreary drivel of ordinary legislative debate produces an insati- able longing for the fresh vigor of the newspaper arti- cles of which it is a thin paraphrase. How many con- gressional orators are there, the announcement of whose names for a speech at Cooper Institute would fill the hall and whose utterances would command the full at- tention of the Press? The position of Representatives gives no social distinction, while the time required to properly fill the functions of legislating for fifty millions of people ruins the opportunity for professional or business success. The Websters and Clays and Cal- houns are editing newspapers, practising law, or con- trolling the great business enterprises of the times. The causes underlying this are too radical to be investigated here, but they are a great present and future danger to the dignity of the public service, and the equal growth of the Government and the laws with the marvelous development of the country. But the Press has not made the existence of such men impossible ; for no- where is it stronger than in Great Britain, and Glad- stone and John Bright command the attention of the 380 ORA TIONS AND SPEECHES OF world ; nowhere more brilliant than in France, and Gam- betta moved with equal power the Senate and the popu- lace, and the young Republic, borne down by his death, rose only by a mighty struggle from his grave. In this age, when the mighty movements of business require strong combinations of men and capital ; when the value of a single newspaper is reckoned by millions ; in stagnant times, monopoly furnishes a topic ever fresh, and at all times provides the happy conditions under which the drum and trumpet of the professional ter- rorist never fails to draw a crowd at the corner, to whom, after having swallowed his famous mixture in equal parts of a down-trodden people and a subsidized Press, he can exhibit his always successful performance of asphyxiation by fright, from which recovery is only possible by jingling the contribution box. But while a free Press exists, monopoly is impossible. It can dis- perse the most courageous combination, and frighten the largest capital. Under its assaults, moving to ac- tion the people and every agency of government, the inevitable issue is reformation, dissolution, or bank- ruptcy. Within the past year, the momentary alarm, lest a combination might be formed strong enough to mo- nopolize the Press, illustrated the popular appreciation of the inestimable value of this essential liberty, and demonstrated that the newspaper can no more be cor- nered or controlled than the air we breathe, or the ele- ments of the immortality of the soul. The Press at any center which to-day failed to reflect public opinion and protect the public interests, would be followed to- morrow by new issues meeting the popular demand CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE IV. 381 and receiving the popular support. The country Press lives and thrives notwithstanding the overshadowing influence of the great metropolitan journals. It was never so vigorous, able, and independent as it is to-day. It voices the needs of its neighborhood, and speaks with power upon all general questions. Its collective expression is the common judgment of the country. The critical, creative, and educational efforts of the Press have reacted upon itself; but the highest and most deserved compliment which can be paid the news- papers that it has steadily kept in the van of develop- ment and progress. In the sternest application of the doctrine of the survival of the fittest, it has nothing to fear. It is constantly enlarging the demands to be made upon itself, and exhausting every field of thought and inquiry, and ransacking every corner of the globe to satisfy them. The public insists that its reviews of books shall be as comprehensive as an article of Macau- lay's; that its report of a convention of specialists shall condense and present the latest discoveries of science ; that its account of a military campaign shall be written by a correspondent who passed upon the field through all the perils of the fight, and whose description shall excel in accuracy and precede in time the official re- port. Thus, by the very law of its being, in its perfect freedom, it teaches the teacher, instructs the scientist, and runs the Government. The present generation has not the robust vigor of the last. They reveled in the ponderous editorials of the National Intelligencer, and waded with delight through dreary dissertations signed by Publius and Agricola, and all the well-known names in the Roman Directory. A first-class freight train 3^2 ORA TIONS AND SPEECHES OE could not now carry the weight of one of those papers. Spend one day among the old files, and then an hour with our great metropolitan journals, and it will do more than all else to cure sentimental regrets for the good old times, and promote devout thanksgivings for the intellectual life and light of the Nineteenth Cent- ury. And one thing which particularly marks the pres- ent newspaper on its human side is its humor. This best of faculties given by God, to cheer a journey beset under the most favorable conditions with many trials and discouragements, long held in contempt, has at last assumed its proper place. The funny editor has ceased to be a clown and has become a power. His column is the one first read and most enjoyed or dreaded. Unsupported, he takes a local paper at Danbury or Galveston or Toledo, or Burlington or Milwaukee or Detroit, and gives it a national circulation. He fills with clippings the most obscure weekly, and upon the editorial page of the largest daily enforces the lesson that the man or cause must be trebly entrenched in honesty and justice that can withstand the power of ridicule. As a people we are more intense, more absorbed in business, live under a greater strain, and have fewer holidays and recreations than any other nation. An American crowd out for enjoyment is a melancholy spectacle, because it cannot shake off its cares, though none so quickly appreciates and keenly enjoys humor. It is for the newspapers to cease to rebuke and to give it some encouragement in public iife. It is but the en- forcement of a well-worn argument to furnish the fright- ful examples of Tom Corwin and his might-have-been, CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 3&3 if he had never laughed, or how many years ago Proc- ter Knott might have reached the Governorship of Kentucky, if he had not spoken upon Duluth. It only needs to sit in the gallery and listen to the common- place platitudes of some Senator or Member gifted with mother-wit, but afraid of his dignity, to understand the capacity of men to become useless and tedious bores. It only needs, in order to appreciate the force of the full exercise of all natural endowments and its re- ward, to read the story of Abraham Lincoln. The most important effect of its liberty and growth upon the Press itself, has been to elevate journalism from a trade to one of the liberal professions. Train- ing as well as aptitude is necessary for success. Few men, comparatively, think they are fitted to be law- yers, doctors, or clergymen, but there is no one in the United States, of reasonable age, who doubts his abili- ty to occupy the editorial chair. The great mass of young men entering the world from the colleges every year have it in their minds to do newspaper work, if nothing better offers. Briefless barristers and bron- chial ministers are perpetual candidates for possible vacancies. These constitute that vast herd which Hor- ace Greeley used to consign to Coventry under the generic term of "horned cattle." Every name eminent in literature or politics in this country, or in England, is to be found upon the list of contributors, but they were not editors. For them it was a highway tempo- rarily opened by necessity or opportunity. If more hardly pressed by thronging thousands than other vo- cations, it has the larger field from which to select the best. While the equipment of the editor differs wide- 384 ORATION AND SPEECHES OF ly from that of the other professions, in a sense it in- cludes them all. While his privileges are great, his motto should be the old chivalric one of Noblesse oblige. I have been acquainted, under circumstances of more or less intimacy, with most of the prominent men in every department of life during the past quar- ter of a century, but in readiness and versatility of re- source, in the power of instant and intense industry at will, in the ability to bring at once and upon call all their resources and information to the question at hand, in the rare faculty of watching and thinking at the same moment, none of them have compared with Horace Greeley and Henry J. Raymond. The first American editor set his own types himself, worked off his edition upon his press and distributed his papers in person. One hundred and twenty-three years have passed, and now the great machines which are the marvels of modern invention throw out four million copies of dailies and twenty-eight millions of weeklies. Ninety-eight years ago the first daily news- paper was started in New York, and now there are one hundred and fifteen in this State and one thousand in the country. It was three weeks after the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed in Philadelphia before it reached Thomas Jefferson's newspaper at Williams- burg; now Puck's girdle about the world in forty min- utes, transformed from airy phantasy to sober fact, prints in the morning journal the story of the day as it has happened in every land and clime under the sun. Spurgeon's Sunday sermon in London appears in a Chicago newspaper on Monday, and, for the first time in history, within the present week a Chinese ambassa- CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 385 dor in Europe has revealed to a reporter the secrets of Celestial diplomacy, to be cabled and printed the same day in a New York journal. The great factor of modern civilization is association. It has bridged rivers and seas, it has constructed the railroad and the telegraph, it has made possible politi- cal revolutions, state and municipal reforms, sacred, scientific, and social progress. It solves the problem of how the unlimited power and unrestricted liberty of the Press shall be maintained with safety to the commu- nity. This anniversary marks the thirty-third year, the limit set for a generation, of your existence. The laws of your association, written and unwritten, are the life of its members, and upon the broad principles of your charter rest the purity and dignity of your profession and the security and fostering care of the vast trust committed to your keeping. 386 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF A XXXI. Talk to Young Physicians — Address to the Graduating Class of the Syracuse Medical College, June 14, 1888. Ladies and Gentlemen : It is an anomalous situation for a man who is rush- ing by express trains to the political convention which is to name the next President of the United States, to be diverted from his course into a quiet by-way of study and literature; but having in mind the dangers and ac- cidents of politics, it may be wise for him to make friends with the medical profession. Certainly, there could be no safer retreat to start from or return to than a college commencement. Graduating day is the most interesting period in life. It crystallizes in deathless memory the pleasures of the past and the aspirations of the future. Behind is the dream ; before the awaken, ing. Student years form a romance which grows in interest and beauty as you recede from them, and all experiences afterward are the harsh realities of a career. Whether you succeed or fail, the associations which end to-night will be the one asset upon which the sheriff cannot levy, and which no fortune could tempt you to part with. The vocation chosen by a young man is governed CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 3 8 7 oftener by accident than inclination. But the manner in which it is pursued is controlled neither by luck nor chance. The liberal professions are crowded with in- competents. I know ministers who should be palace- car conductors, poor lawyers who would have been good drummers or clerks, and medical men who are more dangerous to their patients than the disease they treat, who were destined by nature for the farm or the factory. The world is a workshop full of misfits, and misfits are always cheap. It requires both faculty and courage when you have discovered your mistake to drop your tools and start again ; but if all the doctors, lawyers, and ministers who never can get on in their professions would get out and find other fields of labor, it would be infinitely better for themselves and the country. A living stream of new applicants for public favor and support pours through the portals of the schools of medicine, law, and theology. It is estimated that doctors are thus manufactured in such large num- bers that they form one to every three hundred inhabi- tants. At first view this seems very discouraging, but the situation has many compensations. So many are wholly unfit or badly prepared, that while they increase the miseries of mankind they add to the business and profits of those who are capable. The competitions of modern life have become so keen that there are no opportunities for the lame and the lazy. The first must find their proper pursuits, and the second must work or go to the wall. I have no faith in mottos or maxims or rules for suc- cess, and though often asked, never have any to give. A young man who has good health and governs his 338 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF conduct by a conscientious answer to the ever-present question, Would my mother approve? and gives tire- less attention to his business, is certain to succeed. It is impossible for every one to win fame or fortune or both, but the man who earns a living, even in a very modest way, feels the inspiration of independence and has safely passed the precipice of failure. Repi- nings for riches and angry envy of prosperity weaken the moral tone and mental fiber. They paralyze effort and end in empty vaporings in the bar-room and empty larders at home. The opportunities for accumulating large fortunes rarely come to the members of the liber- al professions. Their compensations are in the posi- tion and influence accorded to their culture and train- ing. With them, self-support is success, and when the surplus surely comes and with it home, larger comforts, and fair competence for declining years, they enjoy a measure of happiness and content rarely found with the use and care of great wealth. I have learned both by experience and observation that the only real and lasting enjoyment in life is to be found in work. Everything which man creates decays when neglected, but nothing in nature or art goes to pieces so fast as man in idleness. The conditions of health, happiness, development, mental, moral, and physical vigor and unimpaired faculties for old age, are found only in the full exercise of all our powers to the limit of their capacity. I know men who were completed when they graduated. Their thought and talk have never gotten beyond college politics and the rivalries of the secret societies. They are human phono- graphs, and the echo of their undergraduate voices of a CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 3 8 9 bygone generation touches no sympathetic chord in the activities of to-day. Such men have always been nerveless idlers and in middle life are hopeless failures. Sir Henry Holland, when past eighty, returning from his annual vacation to find his carriage awaiting him at the depot, and completing his round of calls upon his patients before reaching his house ; Mr. Gladstone, at seventy-eight, more diligent in public duty than any member of his party, and yet finding time for excur- sions in the classics, modern languages, and the scien- ces, and to maintain a controversy in defense of the Bible and Christianity, furnish unanswerable testimony to the sustaining and regenerating power of work. When a young man is sure that he has found the call- ing best suited to his abilities and training, whether the professions or the farm, business, or mechanical indus- try, three rules will invariably carry him through, — stick, dig, and save. In a republic work is honorable, and a man has no place in the community and receives little of its con- sideration unless he contributes something to the move- ment of the complicated machinery of society. The effect of our American example is seen all over Europe. It has given to labor recognition and dignity in coun- tries where formerly, and within recent recollection, it was a badge of servitude. But while every pursuit has its claim upon the gen- eral welfare, the profession you have chosen is entitled to more than ordinary consideration. Necessarily experimental, it furnishes boundless opportunity for cranks and frauds. Human suffering is an easy field for quacks who live upon the credulous and the weak. 39° OKA TIONS AND SPEECHES OF The strongest natures, when overtaken by disease, are easily imposed upon by the confident promise of health. It is only in curing the sick that profit and prosperity come soonest to the most brazen pretender. But the profession, with rare courage and sacrifice, has always been true to its ideals and to progress. It has waged unceasing warfare against the mysterious, which fools the ignorant and degrades the standard of practice. Its history is one perpetual trial of suggestions and dis- coveries, and it has subjected them all to severest tests, rejecting the false and adopting the true. It refuses gain which comes with deceit, and mercilessly disciplines the offenders against its code. The marvelous advances in the healing art, by which suffering has been allevi- ated, life prolonged, and human happiness immeasura- bly increased, have been due to the conscientious devotion of physicians to that nobler side of their work by which their brethren and the world receive at once and without hindrance or cost the benefit of their discoveries. The history of medicine is the story of civilization. The standard of the profession is the barometer of the cultured intelligence of the country. As the Greeks were the most refined and best educated of all the na- tions of antiquity; as they so excelled in art and litera- ture that their works remain the models for all genera- tions; as they alone of the ancients questioned all things and dismissed what could not be proved; so their doctors became the founders of a medical system which was vigorous enough to outlive the ages and elas- tic enough to embrace the developments of time. Esculapius, "the blameless physician," in the heroic CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 39 r period made medicine a mystery and became a god; while Hippocrates, in the light of Attic civilization, gave the world in nearly a hundred books the results of all the researches of the past, and is venerated as the "Father of Medicine." During the conquering and bar- barous times of the evolution of the Roman, the physi- cian was a slave, and the fate of torture or freedom sharpened the wits of a knave, but in the Augustan age he was the honored companion of the Emperor and his contributions led in the advance of science and dis- covery. In the dark ages the profession again fell into the depths of superstition and was filled with impos- tors, but in the glorious awakening and emancipation of the mind which followed the invention of printing, the school of medicine grew to be the noblest depart- ment of the university. The progress of science and invention, which is the marvel of this century, is fully equaled by the less heralded advance of medicine. The blameless physician and Grecian deity would find his supernatural powers paralyzed in the presence of one of your final examination papers, and Hippocrates and Galen would be compelled by this learned faculty to enter as freshmen and take a full course before they could receive an honorary degree. With Americans the faculty of reverence has attached to it scientific in- quiry and philosophic research. We worship the fath- ers, but we idealize them first. If we can adopt the maxims, the examples, or the principles of antiquity, they are all the better because they are old, but for us age sanctifies nothing. We have passed the period of the superstition which ascribed miraculous power to the seventh son of the seventh son. He cured disease 39 2 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF by putting the plaster on himself; we reverse the pro- cess and put the plaster on the patient. In no state or country has the progress of your pro- fession been more remarkable than in New York. While searching the records of this Dutch colony for quite another purpose, I found this historically valu- able entry under date of February 5, 1652: "The Col- onial Council order that ship's doctors arriving at the port of New Amsterdam shall not be permitted to prac- tice medicine or surgery without the consent of Doc- tor La Montaigne." The good doctor was the only physician on Manhattan Island. Orders of the Coun- cil were equivalent to statutes, and this was the first law for the protection of American industry ever passed on this continent. In the midst of the heated controver- sies of the hour on this great question, you gentlemen may congratulate yourself that the Father of American Medicine was also the founder of our protective sys- tem. One hundred years after, in 1765, King's Col- lege in New York had a medical department, and Dr. John Jones, its Professor of Surgery, published a work upon field hospitals and the treatment of the wounded, which was the text-book of the staff during the Revo- lutionary War, and its suggestions were adopted by the army surgeons of the veteran armies of Europe. Now it is the just pride of our State that its medical colleges in equipment and instruction compare favora- bly with the world-famed schools of Vienna, London, and Paris. I congratulate your city upon the possession of a school of such high standard and character. Far- sighted energy and enterprise have made Syracuse an CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 393 important industrial center, and its solid growth in the past fifty years has been phenomenal. But there comes a period in the life of every prosperous community when its successful citizens must recognize the debt they owe to society, and the highest interests to them- selves and their children are best served by intelligent and open-handed liberality. A noble band of public- spirited physicians give time and hard work here, prac- tically without charge, that this community may not be cursed by badly equipped and incompetent doctors. They require a year more in their curriculum than their rivals. They know that the rush of students is to the places where they can quickest receive their diplomas. But this faculty, preferring perfection to profit, and quality to quantity, made a degree from Syracuse a guarantee of faithful study, and ability skillfully to treat injuries and diseases. The Vanderbilt endow- ment of a million of dollars, the Carnegie and Loomis gifts, each of many hundreds of thousands, have done much to plant in New York City the best opportuni- ties in the United States for a medical education. In- dividually or by combined action you have among your citizens the men who should build upon this noble foundation. Give to this college a building worthy of your city; let it have a hospital and dispensary for the most beneficent of charitable work and medical train- ing; equip it with the most advanced appliances for physiological, anatomical, and chemical work, and you will have in your midst an institution which will be an enduring honor to your city and a source of incalcula- ble benefits and blessing to the suffering in all condi- tions and to the poor. 394 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF The progressive spirit of this institution happily rec- ognizes that among the many avenues opening for work for woman, medicine should give her a cordial welcome. As a nurse she is always the comforting and minister- ing angel of the sick-room, and the opportunities for her usefulness as a physician are as boundless as the complex ills which flesh is heir to. The students who have this day been graduated should remember that their first duty is to keep so fully up with the best thoughts and most valuable discov- eries in every field of activity that they cannot be nar- rowed by their specialty. To-day all the resources of science are devoted to the discovery of new remedies, and nature has no secret or sanctuary safe from the as- saults of the indomitable seekers after truth. Daring experimentalists are testing and finding healing virtues in the venom of deadly reptiles, and the mineral and vegetable kingdoms are constantly forced to yield cura- tive elements of priceless value to the pharmacopoeia. The doctor who simply marches abreast of the progress of his profession must be broadly educated and a dis- criminating student. It will be many years before your practice occupies all your time, and this is your golden opportunity. Sir Astley Cooper, the most fa- mous of English surgeons, received in fees his first year $25. At the end of six years his practice netted only $600, but in his fifteenth year a patient flung into his lap a check for $5000 for a single operation, and his income grew from that time until it reached $100,000. You will not all be Sir Astley Coopers, but your early struggles may be cheered by his story. The Emperor Augustus granted to doctors only, of all the citizens of CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 395 Rome, the exemption of their property from taxation. I suppose the imperial treasury did not lose much by this generosity, but I hope you may be so prosperous that you will long for the return of the Augustan Age. Keep in mind Daniel Webster's famous remark to the young man who complained that the profession was overcrowded : "There is plenty of room at the top." During the period when you have little to do, read ; upon some method if you can — if not, read without method. The process not only broadens a man with a wealth of varied information, and a view of the whole field of knowledge, but it suggests congenial excursions into politics, theology, philosophy, and sociology which invigorate and fertilize the mind, and give a stronger grasp on your profession. It does more ; it stores away in the memory an exhaustless stock of incalculable value in busier years. Acquire the habits of improving the odd minutes. The majority of men employ the un- avoidable waits, between the scenes of our daily family drama, in preparing for either the idiot or the insane asylum. They do nothing and think less, or get mad. They are the types of the friend we know so well who spoils the trip or party by storming first about, and then at, the one who is the cause of the delay, or of the good deacon who responded to his pastor's earnest compli- ment that, no matter who slept, he was always awake and attentive : "Yes, doctor, when you are preachin', I sits and thinks of nothin'." The cause is always your sweetheart or your wife. Women are rarely prompt, and the reason is either the bonnet or the baby. Ac- cept the inevitable as a special dispensation of Provi- dence. Take up your book and read until she appears 39 6 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF Then do not swear or rave, but compliment her cordial- ly; she deserves it; and if you have the high privilege, also kiss her, and you will both doubly enjoy the enter- tainment or the journey, and in time the things read during these intervals will prove a liberal education. As soon as you are able to support a wife, marry. God and nature bless the union. Real happiness and the growth and preservation of all the virtues are best found in the family and home. But many a promising career has been spoiled by recklessly assuming the bur- dens of a household without adequate income. It often mortgages and weights a man so that he cannot pursue his profession, and, under pretense of affection, he de- ceives his wife and inflicts upon her untold privations and misery. His education and opportunity give a physician un- usual influence in the community. He cannot escape the responsibilities of citizenship, and is specially charged with high public duties. He has the training of a leader, and holds confidential relations to a large constituency. He should always be a partisan, but will rarely find excuse for the practice of mugwumpery. Hostile political parties, ever watchful and critical of each other, are the safeguards of liberty. Within the organization he can become a potential factor for re- form and the nomination of the best men. But doctors cannot accept office without losing their patients. Their relations are purely personal and confidential, and cannot be delegated to a partner or friend. Physicians and railroad men are about the only people who must abandon their business when they enter the public ser- vice. If they do conclude to sacrifice private emolu- CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 397 ment for official honors, the one finds his calling no disqualification, while the other is informed that for his vocation the spirit which hung witches, banished Bap- tists, and branded Quakers still actively survives. The profession of medicine is peculiarly rich in in- spiring examples and courageous charity. The fury of the fighting upon the battle-field makes cowards brave and brave men heroes. But amid flying shot and burst- ing shells, in the calm and cool possession of every fac- ulty, the surgeons face death in the presence of hor- rors which appall the stoutest hearts. No soldier lead- ing a forlorn hope ever presented a tithe of the sus- tained daring of the doctors who have repeatedly left homes and dear ones to meet the deadly pestilence in the plague-stricken cities of our land. Their deeds were unheralded. No trumpets inspired the charge. The only sounds which greeted them were the despairing cries of the sick and the groans of the dying. Fame had for them no promise, and their only reward was the consciousness of duty nobly done. We live in a charitable age. Vast sums are yearly given to found and endow educational institutions, to build hospitals and to equip houses and asylums for the helpless and unfortunate. But the gratuitous services rendered by physicians every day to the poor are larger contribu- tions in proportion to their incomes and estates than any of the noble donations which have given fame to the generous. They meet the requirements of the purest benevolence, for the left hand literally knoweth not what the right hand doeth. I read and read again the "Vicar of Wakefield," and it seems to me the most beautiful idyl in our literature. 39 8 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF And yet the life of every conscientious doctor presents a picture full of romance in the realities of his experi- ence, of character which strengthens the weak, of bright and breezy hopefulness which encourages the des- pairing, and of deeds and thoughts which so sanctify him that his presence elevates society. I owe much to such a one at whose house in my student days I was always a welcome guest, and whose philosophy of life, so genial and quaint, as he soliloquized during the rides on his daily rounds, was far better than any lessons which came to me from my learned professors. Such a man is the community's best friend. At the festival he is the soul of the entertainment, and in the house of mourning or distress he is the source of comfort and help. He is the confidant of all the lovers, makes up their quarrels, and secures their happiness. He dis- covers the skeleton in the family closet, and drags it out and buries it ; he brings husband and wife together and saves them from separation and disgrace. He finds out the promise of the boy, and successfully plans a way for carrying him through college and for the acquirement of a profession. He has the confidence of quarreling neighbors, and, as arbitrator or common friend, adjusts their differences and brings them to- gether. In his daily walk and conversation he preaches from a perambulating pulpit lessons, principles, max- ims, doctrines, and proverbs, which in time form a large part of the opinions and virtue of his constituency. The rush and worry, the wear and tear, the rapid pace of our American life irritates our nerves and ren- ders us peculiarly sensitive to impressions. The per- sonality of the doctor, his disposition, his habits, and CHAUNCEY M. DEPElV. 399 his character, form a large part of his success or failure. The vain and pompous doctor, who thinks so much of himself that he fails to appreciate the weakness and watchfulness of the sick, leaves behind him a sense of neglect and indifference which neutralizes his medicine. The discursive and argumentative doctor airs his opin- ions on politics or theology to aching bones and fevered brains until only weakness keeps the outraged victim from murder. The grossest injury to the helpless pa- tient, absorbing with every breath the spirit of her en- vironment, is the polluting presence of the doctor sat- urated with whiskey or tobacco. But when the clean, cheerful, and hopeful physician enters the room, he brings in comfort and health. The sufferer knows that this man is able and skillful, that his brain and heart are full of the case, that his sympathies follow his efforts, and the potentiality of his powders is intensified by the inspiring magnetism of his personality. He is welcomed with faith, and blessings follow his departure. He exorcises despair and is the victor over death. Gentlemen, we of the world bid you hail and God- speed. Let this prayer of your friends be the moving purpose of your lives: That you will be devoted to the best interests, to the purity and progress of your noble profession, and reflect honor upon your Alma Mater. 4°o ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF XXXII. address at the tenth annual meeting of the Board of Management of the Bank Clerks' Mutual Benefit Association of the City of New York, December 3, 1878. Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: It seems to me eminently fit and proper that this Association, connected as it is with the bank system of the country, should hold its annual meeting in the de- clining hours of the present year. For the past twelve months the institutions to which you belong, and your- selves, have been peculiarly upon trial before the Ameri- can people. It has been widely proclaimed throughout the country that the national banks were the minions of despotism, and their officers the instruments of tyranny. Orators have said before applauding audi- ences that the institution ought to be abolished, and the employees ought to be hung. I congratulate you that the enlightened sentiment of the American people has found that one of the wisest of our institutions is the National Bank, and that universally it is managed with ability and with integrity. And from the report of the President here to-night, and the expression upon the faces of the bank officers and employees whom I see within this hall, I feel assumed that they have no fears CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 4° I in regard to the continuance of their institutions, or the perpetuity, until its natural end, of their individual existences. You belong, gentlemen of the banking fra- ternity, to one of the oldest guilds into which society divides itself when once organized. From the earliest dawn of history there has been a finance system. There is no study so interesting and so improving to the individual in his social and domestic relations, to the merchant in his trade and commerce, to the states- man providing for the welfare of his country, as a sound system of finance. Job was familiar with bankers in his prosperity, and knew usurers in his adversity. The Bible mentions both in the Old Testament — bankers and lawyers — but nowhere speaks in complimentary terms of either. I have endeavored to find some rea- son for this. One may have been that the ancestors of our profession were not worthy of commendation ; but I think the better and more reasonable view to take is that eighteen hundred years of Christianity, culture, and progress have brought the world up to the proper appreciation of both bankers and lawyers. In pagan times, when there were wealth and commerce, the temples of the gods served for banks. The great shrine of a Diana at Ephesus, and the more famous one of Apollo at Delphi, were the safe-deposits of the com- panies of antiquity, in which peasants and princes left their possessions for safe keeping, which received money and paid interest upon it, and loaned money to those who wanted it ; but they proved that bankers, as such, make poor churchmen, and churchmen who are wholly such make poor bankers; for greed overcame piety, and with the loss of piety there fled reverence for the 4^2 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF depository, and both were robbed. Gibbon says that the few hundred years of the height of Roman imperial power were the happiest of human days, and the happi- est men of all that period — in that gross, materialistic view — were the Roman bankers. The power under which they prospered stretched out its arms until it embraced all known climes and all known people, and the vast tribute of the world, pouring into the Eternal City, was controlled by the bankers. They were gov- erned by no laws of usury. Money was merchandise, and was governed by the trade value of the hour; and they accumulated fortunes, and lived in splendor and magnificence, and surrounded themselves with the sen- suous enjoyment of art and sculpture, in a manner which their successors have never equaled. In all time com- merce has been successful, and has prospered only in those places where sound and honest finance presided. At various times in the history of the world, its great trade centers have been Geneva, Florence, Venice, Amsterdam, Holland, England ; but in each, whenever speculation, through prosperity, has outrun the ability to meet the promise when it became due, then, in the inevitable crash which followed, Commerce and Pros- perity have both folded their wings and flown to that spot where they could find wiser and better treatment. There is nothing so inspiring, nothing which produces such high endeavor and grand results in this world, both to nations and to trades and professions, as an honorable background of glorious achievement ; and it is one of the incentives that to-day make banking so honorable, and make the profession the synonym of high integrity and truthfulness, that for so many ages CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 4°3 it has accomplished such important results, and pro~ duced such mighty and powerful men. In this country we have but a hundred years of national life, yet into that hundred years we have crowded such progress, such magnitude of achievement, such history and revo- lution, that those hundred years present a spectacle and a background equal to a thousand years of more peaceful states. And yet so recent is our ancestry that all nationalities look beyond our dawn to the lands from whence they sprang for inspiration. The Irish go back to Ireland to hear poetry, and song, and eloquence; the English point to Magna Charta, and the common law, and Shakespeare, and Milton; the Dutch point to civil and religious liberty as their contribution ; and, while we are indebted to all the countries for all they have done, it is the pride, the glory, the special boast of the bankers of New York, that they have contributed more to the finance of the Old World than they have derived from it. It is the wisdom of the banking system of New York which has made her imperial among her sister States, and made her metropolis the financial center of this continent. It was in New York and out of her experience, that the true system of modern banking was evolved : that the paper promise of the bank should be met, not in the vaults of the bank, but by public funds held by the State to redeem it, whatever became of the banks. When Sir Robert Peel, succeeding as finance minis- ter to the control of the destinies of England, after years of bankruptcy and disaster, and years of an irre- deemable paper currency, saw the effects of this system of New York, he instantly incorporated it in the finance 404 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF system of the old country, and from that day to this there have never been those old and terrible commer- cial revulsions in Great Britain ; and from that day to this the Bank of England note has never been discred- ited or dishonored. And when the United States Gov- ernment needed, in its trial, a system large enough and elastic enough to meet its great and expansive needs, it looked to New York and adopted as the national system the well-tried system of our own State. Prior to that, how was it? Why, in the old days of the State laws, every man, when he engaged in a transaction, whether it was great or small, took his pocket-book on one side and his "bank-note detector" on the other; and before he concluded the transaction, he looked over the "detector" to see whether the bill he received be- longed to a bank that had burst the day before, and ere the sun went down he got rid of that bill, for fear it would be a worthless piece of paper in his pocket, because it was the bill of a bank that would burst before the morrow. But under the system of New York, adopted into our national system, no such results are any longer feared. In our ordinary relations, in our trifling domestic concerns, in our great commer- cial transactions, we do not care whether the national bank-note in our pocket or in our hand was issued by the bank of California or Maine ; we do not care whether by an institution in the mountains of Colorado or in the northwestern wilderness; we know that Uncle Samuel holds the bond that will pay it, whatever be- comes of the bank. I remember once hearing Mr. Lincoln tell a story of the New York bankers. He said that when the Merru CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 4° 5 mac escaped from Hampton Roads, and scattered our little wooden navy as if they had been skiffs and row- boats, and when it was thought that within a week she would be in the harbor of New York, levying tribute on the city, the bankers of New York went down to see about it; and Mr. Lincoln narrated how the door of the audience room opened, and in they came, in black broadcloth and immaculate linen, and their spokes- man arose and said : "Mr. President, we represent three hundred millions of dollars. The gentlemen compos- ing this committee are worth fifty millions themselves. The Merrimac within a week will be destroying our property in New York. We have paid our taxes when- ever called upon, and contributed as we thought we ought, and we demand that the Government shall do something to support us"; and Mr. Lincoln, with that peculiar twinkle in his eye, by which he was enabled with a few expressions to slide an unwelcome visitor out of the door before he knew it, said : "Gentlemen, the Government is in serious straits. It has done all that it can do. It has no money, and its credit is bad- ly impaired ; but if I had as much money as you say you have got, and I was as 'skeered' as you seem to be, I would go back to New York and do something or other to take care of that property myself." Now while Mr. Lincoln in that jocose way — because he could do noth- ing else — got rid of this committee, yet if he had been asked to express his real opinion as to services which the banks and bankers of New York had rendered to the nation, it would have been one of unaffected admi- ration and praise, because it was the banks of New York which subscribed for the first fifty millions of dollars that 4°6 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF paid the arrearages to the troops, and enabled the con- test to go on in the great Civil War; and from time to time, as the credit of the country went down, and as its securities depreciated, it was the banks of New York which rallied and took them and furnished the funds that kept the armies in the field and the navies upon the sea, until the unity and nationality of the Republic were secured. In looking back over the history of the country, and recalling its earliest period, we bring forward only those names in our imagination which have been famous in the field or in the council. Instantly before our eyes pass in review the names of Washington and Wayne and Greene ; instantly before our eyes pass in review the names of Jefferson and Madison and Hamilton; and there was one man in the revolutionary era, without whose genius and patriotism Washington could not have kept his armies in the field, and the Federal Con- gress could not have continued its existence. That man first contributed his private fortune, and then, with a skill and a resource and a genius unparalleled in the history of finance, without credit abroad, without re- sources at home, he devised the schemes and furnished the money that kept the Continental soldiers fed and clothed and armed, and kept the few ships upon the ocean until independence was secured, and the Repub- lic of the United States recognized everywhere; and that man was Robert Morris, of Philadelphia — banker. And when, in our last great contest, it's history comes to be written up, and its records read in the future, there will, outside of its generals and its statesmen, be one name that will shine conspicuous — the name of CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 4° 7 that cabinet officer who raised the enormous sums and devised the systems that did it ; that kept a million of men in the field until the nationality of the country and the perpetuity of its liberty and its institutions were secured ; and that man, to whom we will be for- ever grateful, was Salmon P. Chase. Now then, gentlemen, you are bankers, engaged in bank business, and in an avocation which you have taken up for a life pursuit ; but in this country, with its great opportunities, with its vast demands, with its imposing duties upon every citizen, no man, whatever his calling, can be a mere specialist. There is no rule in this land or this political system which makes one man make blades and another handles for jack-knives, and do nothing else and know nothing else for all their existence. I have a poor opinion of that man who carries home to his dinner-table and his fireside his books and ledgers and nothing else. I have a poor opinion of that man who takes to both places vacuity and semi-idiocy. To bank officers, probably more than to most business men, opportunities occur. Banking hours begin late and they close early; and outside of them are the opportunities for that attention to public duties, for that broad and liberal culture, for that pur- suit of the specialty which accords with taste or which we have taken up, that so broadens and enlarges a man that he not only becomes greater in the vocation he has adopted, but more useful to everybody and more grateful to himself. I met last summer, in the White Mountains, a gentleman of large affairs, who, outside of business, had devoted himself to the micro- scope until he had mastered all organic life. I knew a 408 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF man in large business affairs, who, in the hours of the morning and evening, became one of the best amateur artists of his day ; and I have known others to learn languages or to have some special talent. To such men when shipwreck comes, as it may, in the over- throw of the institution in which they work, they do not sink down and groan because they cannot find just the chair that they sat on all their lives, but in the ver- satility of their structure they look around and find some plank that floats them safely to the shore. To- day, one of the most scientific men in England is also one of England's most successful bankers. Samuel Rogers managed his banking business to the admiration of men in his own vocation, and at the same time so cultivated his muse that he gave delight, and still gives it to succeeding generations, and is "the banker-poet" of all time. And, gentlemen, there is one other duty devolving upon you on account of your intelligence and position in the community, and that is to give dignity and in- tegrity to public life. I was dining several years ago, when in active public life, with a score of the richest men in the city of New York. The conversation ran upon taxes, and upon the burdens imposed upon prop- erty ; it ran upon the rascality of public life and offi- cers, and they declared that no man could be a politi- cian and hold office, and at the same time receive the confidence or have the respect of the business com- munity. I found that not one of those gentlemen had ever attended a primary meeting. They never voted except on rare occasions, and not one could tell his im- mediate representative from his own district in the CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 4°9 municipal or in the state legislature; and I said to them, as I say to all such men now, in this free country, which lives only by the intelligence of its masses: "I hope you will be taxed and punished until you learn that the institutions that rest upon your shoulders must be borne by you ; and public life, to be respected, must receive from you respect and support." Now then, gentlemen, since the organization of banks in this city there have been fifty thousand men con- nected with them in one way and another. Through their hands have passed fifty thousand millions of dol- lars. They have been the custodians of the secrets of individuals, and of firms, and of corporations. Summon them here to-night. Let them stand in grand battle- array — this vast army who have served these great interests at limited compensation. Call the roll of those who have defaulted or been faithless to their trust, and they would not make the staff of a major- general. It is not for every man to become a Peabody or a Morris, but so long as out of the system such men came, so long in the system such men reside. It is not the conspicuous who alone make success in the world. The bank president, no matter how eminent he may be, would lose his eminence unless he was backed and sup- ported and sustained by the integrity and ability of the efficient corps who surround him; and the man who diligently performs his duty, however light it may be, is fit to receive his own praise, and the promotion to follow it when, as it surely will, it comes. One of the proudest instances that I know of, in all those that stand out among the anecdotes of history, is that of the private soldier of France, La Tour d'Auvergne. 4io ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF He lived to die in the ranks, and yet he won for him- self a fame far beyond that of the generals under whom he marched. First in the foremost ranks, last in the retreat, he fell upon his hundredth battle-field, fighting boldly for his country; and the imperial decree was that forever upon the muster of his company his name should stand, and that every morning at roll- call it should be called, and the sergeant should step from his ranks and answer: "Dead upon the field of honor." Now then, gentlemen, you are met here to-night for the purpose of celebrating your first decade. Ten years is not long in the history of an institution like yours; and yet it is ten years full, as I gather from the report of the President, of honorable record, and of charitable, admirable deeds. Men perform their duties, not so much by the size of the compensation, if it be adequate for their wants, as by the certainty of the place and the sureness of the compensation. These gentlemen who belong to the Association know that their banks will not fail. They know their places are secure. They feel that promotion will come as the opportunity offers and as it is well earned, and this Association seeks to take from them that great care that saps the energies of a man — the fear that in his age or infirmity, or in his death, there may be no provision. The Permanent Fund to-night stands $80,000. If these banks knew thoroughly their own interests; if these bank-directors and stockholders knew thoroughly their own best needs, — they would, while reducing their capital, re- serve out of the fund which they pay back to the stock- holder an amount that would make, before the first of CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 4" January, that Permanent Fund an even $100,000. And I trust that an enlightened spirit of wisdom and of self- interest may lead them to understand that their inter- ests are identical with those of this excellent Associa- tion ; and I trust that when next you gather, we can congratulate you upon a grand success. 412 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF XXXIII. address at the laying of the corner-stone of the College Building given by William H. Vanderbilt to the College of Physicians and Surgeons, April 24, 1886. Ladies and Gentlemen: The most instructive and pleasurable of our public assemblies are those which commemorate the better ele- ments of our common humanity. The fierce competi- tions of our industrial conditions present the possibilities of unequal success and provoke the antagonisms which threaten social order and security. As the less fortu- nate drift into hostility to their more successful breth- ren, and those who by their own ability or by inheritance have been lifted above the struggles of life lose sight of and sympathy with the workers, the internal relations of crowded communities become dangerous and intoler- able. At this point the man of wealth who founds or endows an institution which shall contribute in a large and permanent way to the welfare of the people be- comes a statesman as well as a philanthropist. He brings us back to first principles in this recognition of our common origin and interests. We discover that what he is all may become, and that at some time he or his father began with no other capital than brains, CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 413 character, and health. The currents of human sympa- thy again flow and throb between the avenue and the alley, the cottage and the palace. Each recognizes that not by revolution or anarchy, but by the ordinary mutations of fortune they may change places, and upon the prosperous is impressed the lesson of the responsi- bilities of their position, and upon the poor the oppor- tunities which are open under our institutions to them- selves or their children. But how most wisely to invest the money which is to carry out a charitable purpose is not an easy prob- lem. It is often partly wasted to gratify the vanity of the donor. Mr. Vanderbilt had become familiar by his own sufferings, so patiently endured that none but his intimate friends knew of them, with the beneficent effects of medical skill and the possibilities of its growth. With his strong common-sense he saw that here was practically an untried field where the advancement of science might work out the most beneficent and benevo- lent ends. Libraries, hospitals, and art and literary institutions existed in numbers, each doing in its own way admirable work. While in the Old World govern- ments fostered schools of medicine, here their only pat- rons were the profession, and there was not a single great endowment in the land. To build a college to be called by his name was a temptation, but in a city where so many excellent universities already existed, he saw that the wiser use of his money was to develop and enlarge an old institution whose age, traditions, and experience were of incalculable value, and consti- tuted a permanent capital which wealth could not cre- ate. In selecting the College of Physicians and Sur- 414 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OE geons, he chose the oldest, and the equal in rank and equipment of the best. The story of this school is the history of the progress of medicine in America for a hundred years. Ninety-nine years ago a small body of young physi- cians in this city formed a society with the title of this college, declaring that their purpose was "to counteract as far as possible the evil influences brought to bear upon the profession, to serve the poor, and to improve medical science." They established the first free dis- pensary New York ever had, and within its walls gave gratuitous attendance on the poor, and lectures and instruction to students. Four years afterward, in 1791, they came with a full corps of professors and sixty-one students, and a memorial unanimously indorsing them from the County Medical Society, to the Regents of the University of the State of New York, praying to be taken under their "protection." The movement inspired im- mediate and universal interest. Old doctors bearing diplomas from Edinburgh, Paris, and Vienna hailed it as the dawn of a new and hopeful era in the progress of their profession in the Republic, and to the young it was full of brilliant promise. That grizzly and gallant warrior and patriot, Baron Steuben, who was a mem- ber of the Board of Regents, came down from the ster- ile farm which the State had voted him as a reward for his services in the Revolutionary War, to examine and report, and upon the recommendation of himself and his fellow-committeemen the Legislature on the 24th of March, 1791, authorized the Regents in their discre- tion to incorporate the College of Physicians and Sur- geons, provided its capital did not exceed ,£60,000, and CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 4 1 5 the Regents appointed its professors and conferred its degrees. Thus successfully started, the young college began its prosperous and progressive, but adventurous and aggressive career. But its pathway was not clear. The Regents approved of this law and appointed a commit- tee to prepare a charter for the young university. The Trustees of Columbia College protested against the granting of this charter on the ground that they were authorized to establish a medical school, that they had the business much at heart and were proceeding as fast as possible, with the prospect and intention of effecting all the objects which the rival school could accomplish if permitted by the Regents under the Act of 1791. They successfully fought off affirmative action until the 1 2th of March, 1807, when the coveted charter was se- cured. By this charter the Medical Society of the City and the County of New York was incorporated as the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and Dr. Nicholas Romayne — who had originated the first medical school in 1787, petitioned for collegiate recognition by the State in 1791, and nobly kept the faith till the victory of 1807 — became its first President. The contest which Columbia College and her medical department began in 1792 was now taken up with renewed vigor by the Physicians and Surgeons assuming the offensive. They demanded that the College school should be merged with them, and Columbia recognize the Physicians and Surgeons as its medical department. The Regents and the Legislature became involved in this contest, and the marvelous patience and learning of Chancellor Kent were exhausted in an effort to settle it. But it con- 4*6 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF tinued until in 1814 that ancient and venerable seat of learning surrendered unconditionally and accepted your terms. The Regents expressed their profound satisfac- tion in this result by reporting "that from the medical college thus united, and embracing the most eminent medical talent of the State in one splendid seminary, the most beneficial consequences may be anticipated." But the battle for sole supremacy was not yet over. A number of professors seceded, and procured authority from Rutgers College, New Jersey, to open in this city a medical school and confer upon its graduates the Rutgers degree. The Legislature was appealed to; State pride was invoked ; the question became one of the political issues of the time. The Physicians and Surgeons again triumphed, by the passage of a law declaring that degrees conferred upon the sacred soil of New York by the chartered colleges of foreign govern- ments should be void; and this was one of the reasons put forth by New Jersey for the retaliatory legislation under which for half a century she exacted toll by way of state tax from our citizens crossing her borders. With the growth of the city this feeling gave way to a generous recognition of all worthy comers into this ex- haustless field of education and usefulness. The medical colleges of New York are no longer enemies, but friendly rivals, emulous in that strife for excellence by which each stimulates the others ; and all combined form a splendid New York University of Medicine. Large endowments to any of them are of benefit to all, because none can be lifted to a position which the rest will not soon crowd, in this most happy contest to discover and impart those things which will CHAVNCEY m. depew. 417 prolong life, heal the sick, restore the crippled and in- jured, and alleviate suffering. The history of this Col- lege furnishes an illustration of the moral progress of the century. In the good old times, the doctrine that the end justifies the means received frequent and most authoritative approval. The State in 1808, and again in 1 8 14, resorted to that most insidious and demoraliz- ing form of gambling, the lottery, to put money into its treasury for the endowment and development of literary institutions and to promote higher education. From the first of these lotteries this College received $5000, and from the second $30,000, and without other public assistance has struggled and expanded until, after a lapse of seventy-two years, it becomes one of the strongest and best appointed schools in the world, through the medium of the splendid benefaction we this day commemorate. Upon these grounds, donated by William H. Vanderbilt, his gift erects, furnishes, and endows a building equal to all the requirements of the present and the needs of the future. Mr. William D. Sloane builds the Maternity Hospital, and the gener- osity of his wife endows all the beds, making them free ; while the four sons create the Clinic, which will be a vast dispensary, giving without charge to the poor, for all time, medicines and the best professional attend- ance, as a memorial to their father, more grateful to him if living and to his spirit now that he is dead than stately shaft or gorgeous mausoleum. The advances made by practical medicine in the past hundred years have kept pace with the wonderful de- velopment of this century in every department of hu- man thought and energy. The brilliant discoveries in 41 8 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF chemistry have unfolded the mysterious processes of life and death. The microscope has found the germs which spread disease, carry infection, and propagate pestilence, and science is experimenting for their con- trol or extermination. Invention and observation have stimulated each other, until the functions, the opera- tions, and the condition of every part of living men are seen by a diagnosis as clear and complete as the beaten pathway of truth, while pharmaceutical chemists have found new remedies and discovered the active princi- ple of those known before, so that the revelation and location of diseases have been followed by the finding of the drugs by which they may be stayed or cured. To meet the requirements of this tremendous and beneficent revolution medical education is no longer didactic, but clinical or experimental. Object teach- ing creates the modern physician. The lecturer of to- day is no longer a theorist, but a demonstrator of what the student can see. The laboratory, the hospital, and the dispensary are all necessary for his instruction. To extract the virtues from plants and minerals, to com- pound the elements which nature furnishes for cure, to walk the hospitals, to examine the endless forms of disease which flow through a dispensary, must be his daily life. To gather these in any institution has here- tofore required a capital beyond other resources than those of the Government, and hence the American physician has not felt fully equipped until he has received at London, Paris, or Vienna these practical lessons. Now a million of dollars, a private benefac- tion, renders possible the construction and equipment of a medical college superior to any ever known in this CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 4*9 country, and equal to the best in the world. With this endowment, and the impulse and inspiration which will follow it, New York will become the center of medical learning, education, and acquirement for the American Continent. Great fortunes involve grave duties from which there is no escape. The administration of a vast estate is a trust of far-reaching responsibilities. The law does not and cannot say how one shall use it, but the jury of the world is day by day taking testimony, and every right- minded man wants its favorable verdict. He must not squander, or waste, or hoard, and so long as it is ac- tively employed it does a public service. Strong and masterful men who create and hold together and man- age great enterprises which give employment and wages to thousands of people, and who keep their fortunes ac- tive in the conduct and development of business, are practical benefactors and philanthropists. They are of necessity the hardest workers in their system and often crushed by its weight. But they cannot stop at the point where their roads or mills, mines or factories, fur- nish the means of living to the healthy and able-bodied. They must contribute in liberal measure for the young, the helpless, the infirm, and the aged. In this they are laying up for themselves not only treasures in Heav- en, where moth and rust do not corrupt, nor thieves break through and steal, but the sweet incense of grati- tude and praise ever wafted to their memories. Said John Howard, the philanthropist, when dying of dis- ease contracted in the service of the unfortunate : "Let my monument be a sun-dial. I would be useful after my death." 420 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF William H. Vanderbilt led a life of work and care. He knew merit, and recognized, rewarded, and pro- moted it in numberless ways; and he despised idlers, pretenders, and shams. He wanted his fellow-men to look through the wealth he was administering to the best of his ability and see him as he understood him- self, claiming no superiority to which he was not fairly entitled, trying to do his duty as a man and a citizen, living temperately, loving his friends, and willing to help in every good or public work. He was proud of New York, and besides his conspicuous gifts for the Obelisk and this college, he contributed in an unobtru- sive way vast sums for its religious, benevolent, art, and educational enterprises. This great city, with its marvelous growth, its cosmopolitan character, and its limitless future, is the most interesting of social and political problems. The world in miniature lives and works and illustrates all civilizations within its walls, and the time is not distant when the pulsations of its thought and commerce will move the world. From this foundation will rise an institution which will give New York the first rank in the most beneficent of the sciences. May it be also an example inspiring others to those deeds which are possible only to a few, but wisely bestowed may make our metropolis supreme in every department which educates, elevates, and enno- bles the race. CHA UNCE Y M, DEPE W. 421 XXXIV. address before the graduating class of the Columbia College Law School, at the Acad- emy of Music, New York, May 17, 1882. Gentlemen : This is the most interesting period of your lives. Behind is the preparation, before preparation and appli- cation of the stores you have and those you will acquire. The hour of graduation is always full of precious memo- ries and bright anticipations. The final review of the work done and its results, the last lingering words of admonition and advice, the separation from teachers and classmates, the sundering of ties never to be re- united, except in memory, the God-speed, the good-by, and you are alone amidst the contending forces, necessi- ties and ambitions of real life. Are you ready? The world is a generous adversary. Sooner or later it yields its prizes of independence and honor to those who merit them. The profession welcomes you with open arms. It places neither jealousies nor obstacles in the way, but with its cordial greeting gives encourage- ment and assistance. Trades-unions limit the number of their apprentices, and resist by every process the ac- quiring of their crafts ; but the temple of the law has its doors always open for those who would study and prac- 42 2 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF tice its principles and teachings. You will never think you know so much as you do to-night, and your future will be dependent upon how far you appreciate the fact that you have only found the road and how to travel it. All about us are the wrecks of those for whom the clock struck twelve when they received their diplomas. The valedictorians of the college, the brilliant victors of the moot courts who fail to fulfill the promise of their youth, have neglected to continue the study and lost the enthusiasm to which they owed their triumphs on mimic battle-fields. Business men may have a lucky stroke of fortune ; preachers may buy or borrow ser- mons; quacks may win riches by a patent medicine, but the lawyer can rely on no one but himself. He is like the knight in the ancient tournament, when the herald sounded the trumpet, and he rode down the lists — whether he splintered his enemy's lance, or was unhorsed himself, depended upon his own prowess and skill. Upon his advice men risk their character and fortunes. In the exigencies of the trial, he wins or loses by his own knowledge of his case, his ability to draw from a well-stocked armory the principles to meet unexpected issues, his readiness to seize and turn to instant advantage testimony which can help, or avert the force of that which can harm, by his trained ability to so discern and analyze amidst the mass of conflict- ing evidence the truth he seeks, and so present his cause to the court and jury that he brings them both to his own convictions. This can only be done by thorough preparation and laborious study continued all through life. The early years before a practice comes are full of CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 423 opportunity and danger. Some fall out from weariness and hopelessness. But there never yet was a man who deserved success, and doggedly and persistently pur- sued, who did not win it. "You will hear me yet," said Disraeli, as he sank into his seat amid the jeers and laughter of the House of Commons. It took years de- voted to study in every department before the threat was accomplished : but when recognition came, the man was so magnificently equipped that he at once stepped into, and ever afterward held, the leader's place. The despised Jew, rising to be the commander and oracle of the oldest and proudest of aristocracies, the Prime Minister of the most enlightened and powerful of em- pires, and a Peer of England, remains a bright beacon, lighting the way from exertion to triumph. But it is very difficult, with no immediate motive to offer in- centive, to study and read while waiting for clients. It requires discipline, and is discipline. It tests the ques- tion of fitness for the work of the profession. The benefactions of the wealthy have built and stored great libraries, and the opportunites for learning are all about us. The vast resources of history enlarg- ing the understanding by familiarity with the events and men of all times, the development of mankind, and the progress of civilization, give a comprehensive and permanent grasp of the principles learned in the schools by a knowledge of their origin, incidents, and accidents ; the broad and inviting fields of general literature equip with accuracy of language, fertility of illustration, and that indefinable force which all recognize as power. In some branch of general reading, the mind finally strikes a subject for which a special faculty exists, and enthusi- 424 ORA TIONS AND SPEECHES OF asm and aptitude furnish the superiority which paves the way to vocation and success. As the law controls all the relations of life, regulates international disputes, and settles the rights and redresses the wrongs of all classes, conditions, and pursuits, so from the limitless range of inquiry and knowledge no weapon comes amiss. All great lawyers have been remarkable for the ex- tent and versatility of their acquirements. The works of Bacon and Brougham, Talfourd's delightful life of Charles Lamb, Chief-Justice Marshall's Washington, and Wirt's Patrick Henry, the contributions of Kent and Story, are marvelous monuments of improved oppor- tunities outside the law, strengthening and gracing its profession and practice. But how, except a man has extraordinary endowments, can all this be done? Your studies have made you familiar with the value of method, and yet odd hours are a lifetime. I said to Henry J. Raymond when he was writing the life of Lincoln: "How is it possible for you, editing a great daily newspaper, and immersed in public affairs, to find time for the research necessary to gather the mate- rials, and for the composition of this work?" He an- swered : "An hour conscientiously devoted every morn- ing before breakfast will soon fill a library." When I graduated at Yale, that wonderful old man, the elder Professor Silliman, then in his eightieth year, said ; "Young gentlemen, as the result of my experience and observations, I have one piece of advice to give you : improve with reading the odd five minutes." It is as- tonishing how many of them there are. President Garfield made it a rule, from which he never deviated, CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 425 to read ten lines of the classics, and three pages in some book of solid worth, every day, and he was the best informed and most accomplished public man of this generation. Some men fail because they have mistaken their call- ing. The patient research, unflagging zeal, and faculty to sift and discriminate, is not granted to every one, even if greatly gifted in other ways. For the best in- terests of the man and the world, the moment the dis- covery is made the profession should be abandoned. Putting square pegs in round holes ruins both the peg and the hole. Many are struggling with poverty and despair in the law, who would benefit society and en- rich themselves in the management of affairs. Two graduates of a law school have been to me within a few years, and each said: "I have thoroughly tested the question and find I have mistaken my vocation. My talent is for business alone." One was willing to begin as a brakeman and work up to be President, and the other preferred starting in the more attractive uniform of a conductor; but I honored their modesty and cour- age. Burke and Fielding and Cowper and Gray failed at the law, and earned undying fame in statesmanship or literature, while American journalism and letters owe their best contributions and purest fame to the early discovery and rectification of this mistake by Bryant, Longfellow, and Irving. The country is full of successful merchants, manufacturers, and railroad man- agers who have deserted the law, for which they were not fitted, and followed the bent of their genius, but who are nevertheless superior to their fellows in the same pursuits, because of their training in and famili- 426 ORA TIONS AND SPEECHES OF arity with the grand fundamental principles of juris- prudence. Integrity of character and fidelity to opinions and duty are the first requisites of a good lawyer. The property of a client which comes into his possession can neither be borrowed nor loaned. It is a sacred trust, to be instantly and scrupulously accounted for. Because of laxity to this principle, without dishonesty in intent or result, I have seen many a brilliant and promising career stopped ; and many a conscientious plodder, by his fidelity and quick payments, win both honor and income, and become the custodian of large interests and estates. But in a broader sense must his integrity be conspicuous. It is safe to say he can never be bribed to betray his client, and that he will not misappropri- ate the funds in his hands. For though holding larger trusts than all other vocations combined, and without security, the record of the profession in its fiduciary re- lations is of unexampled purity. But he must not be intimidated. A new tribunal judges and prejudges causes, before which he cannot plead, and that is trial by newspaper. The press controls the Government, and makes and unmakes public men; and in the natu- ral tendency to magnify power, it influences the ad- ministration of justice. Having decided in advance the merits of a controversy, or the guilt of the accused, it assails with vigor the unpopular side. With the clouds thus thrown about the case, and which threaten to involve them, some lawyers decline, or, if retained, perform their duty with apology and timidity; but de- terred neither by misrepresentation nor unpopularity, the advocate, true to his oath and office in proportion CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 427 as such difficulties surround him, will rise with mightier effort to vindicate by his courage and learning, in be- half of his client, both his honor and his profession. It is not alone by the brilliant triumphs of the advo- cate, but as adviser and friend, that the lawyer finds his sphere of largest usefulness. He discourages suits, and encourages settlements. He cools the passions and promotes the interests of his clients. He incul- cates justice by making it profitable. He mediates be- tween warring neighbors and secures the confidence and friendships of both. He discourages litigation, and, while promoting good fellowship, in the end in- creases his own retainers. He becomes an educator and benefactor in that broad sense which points out the right and enforces it. While dissenting utterly from Brougham's maxim, to stand by his client right or wrong, and even if it involves the ruin of his country, he finds the law so unsettled by conflicting decisions, the facts so subject to the lights and shadows of ignor- ance, memory, and prejudice, that he rarely will have a case or client to which or whom it will not be his duty, with devotion and enthusiasm, to give his best efforts, leaving to the skill of his adversary, the learning and guidance of the judge, and the verdict of the jury, the vindication of the right. The vast enterprises of our times, the enormous profits of business and speculation, the rapid accumu- lation of gigantic fortunes, the intensity of industrial activities, the limitless expansion of production and commerce, the palaces of the wealthy rising on every side, and the adulation to and power of money, are the hope and despair of the profession. These elements 428 ORA TIONS AND SPEECHES OF enlarge the limits of practice and narrow the possibility of competition, in the acquisition and fruits of riches. New issues to be settled, new relations to be adjusted, corporations and individuals to be advised, and large in- terests to be protected, increase the demand for trained, skilled, and able counselors far beyond the supply, while the distractions of society and luxury, and the temptations of other pursuits, enervate and deplete the ranks as fast as they are recruited. The sooner the young lawyer emancipates himself from this absorbing mania for fortune, the better for his usefulness and fame. The wonderful creations and profits of inven- tions, the ventures of the street and the exchange, the concentration of forces by which one man, with ma- chinery, reaps the harvest sown by thousands, are not his opportunity. In an age when steam and electricity reduplicate the powers and profits of business, his re- wards are derived only from his own exertions. While exacting full and fair returns for his skill and acquire- ments, his success is in knowledge and its power, in the superiority of intellectual over material forces, in his unquestioned influence in society and the State, and, with prudence and frugality, in an income which guarantees his independence, a competence for his old age, and an estate for his family. Nations have preserved their liberties, and patriots have won glorious victories, by the examples and inspi- ration of the past. Heroic sacrifices, grand achiev- ments, memorable battle-fields, the triumphs of states- ' men in the Cabinet, of orators in the Senate, of advo- cates in the forum, are the incentives to high endeavor and solid progress. We are "the heirs of all the ages CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 429 in the foremost files of time," and the accumulations of all the past are our inheritance. But no other pro- fession or pursuit has behind it exemplars and a history- like the law. Its teachers have been the foes of anar- chy, misrule, and tyranny, and its principles form the foundation of governments and the palladium of rights. Call the roll, and you summon God's chosen ministers of civilization and reform. It was not Pericles, but Solon and his statutes, who made possible Grecian power and progress ; it was not her legions, but her twelve tables, which made Rome the Mistress of the World ; it was not the defeat of the Moslem hordes, but the discovery of the Pandects, which preserved Eu- rope ; it was not the Norman Conqueror, but the com- mon law, which evolved constitutional freedom out of chaos, revolution, and despotism. Bacon, Coke, Black- stone, Mansfield, Brougham, Erskine, Curran, Marshall, Hamilton, Jay, Livingston, Kent, Story, Webster, and hundreds of others, who by the law, and through the law, have done more for peoples and States than all the warriors of the world, are here to welcome you to their fellowship. In the sack of the Italian city of Amalfi, a copy of the Pandects was discovered, the study of the civil law sprang up all over Europe, and its administration passed from the hands of the ecclesiastics to its trained pro- fessors. In revenge, the Council of the Church held at Amalfi decreed that no lawyer could enter the King- dom of Heaven ; but the lawyers have requited this anathema, by largely converting the nations from the Hell of Arms to the Heaven of Arbitration. Few of the Barons at Runnymede could read, and their sword-hilts 43° ORA TIONS AND SPEECHES OF were their marks, but the lawyers improved upon their demands, by grafting upon the Great Charter those Saxon liberties for the individual embodied in that noble sentiment of the last will of King Alfred, that "it was just the English should forever remain as free as their own thoughts." It was the courts and not the commons which convinced the great and arbitrary Queen Elizabeth that there were limits to the royal prerogative, and warned Charles the First that taxation without representation might cost him his head. When submission and servility were threatening the integrity of English institutions, it was Chief-Justice Coke who steadied wavering patriotism with the grand sentiment "That power which is above law is not fit for the King to ask or the people to yield." King James the First — pedantic, pig-headed, and a tyrant — said: "I will dis- pense justice in person and reverse decrees at will." The judges firmly replied : "That, by the Constitution, can only be done by men learned in the law." "Then I will show what common-sense and common honesty can do," said the King, "by sitting with you." But on the third day he abandoned the judgment-seat cured, saying: "When one side speaks, the case is clear, but when the other closes, upon my soul I cannot tell which is right." English statesmen had guaranteed the protection of slavery in the West Indies ; and the property and prosperity of thousands were dependent upon the pledge. The policy of the Government, the interests of trade, were all enlisted in its support ; but when Lord Mansfield said: "I know the promises of the Cabinet and the immense sums of money involved. Since, however, the question is before me, fiat justitia CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 43 I ruat caelum; a slave cannot breathe the air of Eng- land" — then was human slavery doomed all over the world. It was as a law student that Cromwell learned those principles which caused him to pledge fortune and life to the motto, " that resistance to tyrants is obedience to God"; and when the gay Cavalier went down before the resistless charge of his Ironsides, the freedom and development of the English-speaking world were assured. He established peace and liberty at home, and enlarged the power and possessions of his country abroad, and though Charles the Second, by violating the law, might squander this glorious inheri- tance, and disinter the remains of the great Protector, and hang them at Tyburn, his spirit crossed the seas in the Mayflower and founded this Republic. There were one hundred and sixty crimes for which men and women were put to death in the time of Blackstone; Sir Matthew Hale hung for theft and burned for witchcraft ; but surpassing all the theories and labors of other philanthropists, the humanity and learning of Romilly, Mcintosh, and Brougham formu- lated into practical legislation those beneficent opin- ions, by which only for treason and murder shall a man forfeit his life. The American Revolution was not a sentiment, but a principle. It was not only an outburst of patriotism, but a struggle for the maintenance of law. We remem- ber now only the heroes of the battle-fields, but it was a lawyers' war. The long and terrible contest against civilized and savage foes in the effort to break the French power on this continent, which ended in the tragic and immortal fate of Wolfe and Montcalm at 43 2 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF Quebec, inured and trained the people to arms, but the lawyers taught them their rights. It was the liberties guaranteed Englishmen by the Magna Charta, the Habeas Corpus, the Bill of Rights, and the common law, for which they fought. Glorious as are the lives, and precious the memories, of Washington, Greene, Putnam, and Wayne, they only maintained in the field the ideas which the Bar and the Bench, whose mem- bers are almost forgotten, embodied in addresses to the King and Parliament, and in the Declaration of Independence, and after the soldier had sheathed his sword in the National and State Constitutions. These documents are instinct with the doctrines for which for hundreds of years their fathers had died in battle, re- sisted the Crown from the Bench, and shed their blood upon the block. On the 9th of September, 1777, the first term of the Supreme Court of our State was held at Kingston. That Constitution which has served as a model for the United States and most of the States, had just been adopted. The seven nationalities represented on the committee of thirteen which framed it illustrated and foreshadowed the cosmopolitan and tolerant charac- ter of the people of New York. Burgoyne, with his army of veterans, victors of many European battle-fields, was marching with apparently resistless force from Canada, and Sir Henry Clinton was gathering soldiers and sloops of war to meet him at Albany. Patriot and Tory alike saw in the success of the movement the ruin of the American cause. It was the darkest hour of the struggle, and within a few weeks the village and court-house were burned by the enemy. Almost within CHA UNtE V M. DEPE IV. 433" the sound of the guns and war-whoops of the advanc- ing foe, with calm confidence and dignified assurance, that great jurist, Chief-justice Jay, charged the Grand Jury in the following words: "The infatuated sove- reign of Great Britain has, by destroying our former constitutions, enabled us to erect more eligible systems of government on their ruins, and by unwarrantable attempts to bind us in all cases whatever has reduced us to the happy necessity of being free from his con- trol in any. But let it be remembered that whatever mark of wisdom, experience, and patriotism there may be in your Constitution, it is yet like the beautiful sym- metry of our first parents, to be animated by the breath of life; from the people it must receive its spirit, and by them be quickened. Let virtue, honor, the love of liberty and science, be and remain in the soul of this Constitution, and it will become the source of great and extensive happiness to this and future generations." Ours is and always has been a government controlled by lawyers. In this De Tocqueville recognized its greatest claim to stability and expansion. The profes- sion has contributed seventeen of the twenty-one Pres- idents of the United States, and filled Cabinets and councils. It may be that their rule has been charac- terized by compromises and makeshifts, but it has suc- cessfully adapted an untried system to new and unex- pected emergencies. Its radicalism has always tended to the preservation of liberty, the maintenance of order, and the protection of property. Lawyers can be agitators without becoming communists, and re- formers without being demagogues. They have codi- fied the laws, brushed away the subtleties of practice, 434 OR A TIONS AND SPEECHES OP abolished those fictions of law and equity which de- feated justice, and secured to women the administra- tion and disposition of their property; and yet liberties are always so enlarged as to preserve essential rights. Alexander Hamilton so settled the law of libel and the liberty of the press that his brief became part of the constitution of States and the law of England, and yet he devised the financial system which carried through the Revolutionary War. Salmon P. Chase died Chief-Justice of the United States, and yet it was his scheme of credit which sustained the nation in its great contest. The Geneva arbitrators and the Electo- ral Commission, with the lawyers' tribunal and weapons, peacefully settled questions of international contro- versy and governmental succession, which in all former times were decided by the wager of battle or bloody civil strife. The paramount question of the present hour is how the conditions of to-day can be adjusted to the accept- ed doctrines of the past. Steam and electricity and the unification of business and social relations have obliter- ated State lines. Centralization has been the fear of former generations ; Caesarism is the temporary mad- ness of the present. But, with a commercial people, the imaginary evils of the one and illusory perils of the other face the imperative necessities of law and busi- ness. That men and women should be married in one State and divorced in another, their children legitimate in one jurisdiction and illegitimate in another, is an offense against morals and a disgrace to our jurispru- dence. That railway, express, telegraph, and insurance companies are subject to varied, contradictory, antago- CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 435 nistic and imperfect regulation and taxation in each commonwealth where they operate is the opportunity of the agitator, the despair of the manager, and the danger of the investor. The school of Jefferson did not foresee the effect upon our institutions of inven- tion and discovery. It is for the lawyer-statesman, whether in or out of office, to first eradicate time- honored prejudices, and then, by adjustment upon a broad, comprehensive, and national basis, to prove the elasticity and capabilities of constitutional freedom in a federative republic. Despotisms and democracies converge in the effort to control personal conditions and business principles by laws and regulations. With the one it leads to tyran- ny, with the other to the curse of over-legislation, and its constant modification and repeal, unsettling trade and values. If the Legislature met but once in four years, not a single interest would suffer, and security and stability would promote prosperity. Among an an- cient people every man who proposed a new law did so with a rope around his neck, signifying his willingness to be hung if it worked badly. If that rule prevailed with us, the multitude of public executions would en- force, as no other experience could, that wise maxim : "That Government is best which governs least." The duty of a lawyer to his profession and the State compels him to be a politician ; but until success is assured he cannot be an office-holder. His training fits him to educate public sentiment and resist popular delusions, but he cannot enter public life without los- ing practice. Many a young man has gone to the Legis- lature expecting to find by the acquaintance and repu- tation it gives a speedy road to clients and income, 43 6 ORA TIONS AND SPEECHES OF and discovered that he has permanently lost both. It is said that there are three thousand college graduates in this city who cannot earn a living; it is because theory has outweighed practice, and educated sense has eradicated common-sense. Remember that every man knows more than you think he does, and the great mass mean to do right, and respect justice according to their lights. You have studied the architecture of the Temple of the Law, with its base covered with Egyptian hieroglyphs and Hebrew texts, its Roman columns and Grecian capitals, its massive handiwork of Norman and Saxon ; but it has often been leveled to the ground. Though full covenant deeds have been found in mummy cases; though Solon enacted statutes upon wills, debtors, creditors, and bankruptcy, parent and child, and pensions to soldiers; though the Rho- dians had a maritime code centuries before Christ, and Athens consuls and courts of admiralty; though Cic- ero borrowed money upon mortgage, and Rome recog- nized the principle of compensation for private prop- erty taken for public use, — force and corruption swept away every vestige of law and shred of right, and the world retrograded to barbarism and despotism. For dark ages following this brilliant civilization, upon the grave of every principle of justice and equity, might was the only right. The teachings of the Nazarene have brought nations and races into harmonious rela- tions, established the worth and independence of the individual, and given perpetuity to law and justice. You are the custodians, exponents, and defenders of the law thus regenerated and disenthralled, and your future is dependent upon your own industry, integrity, and manhood. CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 43) XXXV. address at the eighteenth anniversary of the Working-Women's Protective Union, Chickering Hall, New York, February 6, 1882. Ladies and Gentlemen: The report which has been read to-night by the Treasurer of this society, and the address to which you have listened from my friend Judge Gedney tell the whole story. We are called together on one of the most practical of missions and of objects. It appeals, it is true, to our sympathies and our compassions, but it appeals more nearly and closely to our sense of right and jus- tice. We are here for the purpose of assisting an organization whose object is to equalize the strong with the weak, the poor with the rich, so far as their simple rights are concerned. Its object is that there shall be no oppression, under forms of law or outside of it ; but that, in our own community at least, the letter as well as the spirit of the law shall be practically enforced — that all men and all women are equal before it. We are proud of this great city of ours, and yet it is great and powerful and rich, not alone on account of its great business enterprises ; of its commerce ; of its 43 8 OR A TIONS AND SPEECHES OF financial ability ; of its great warehouses and its great capitalists and financiers, — but because it provides for the stranger; looks out for the weak and the oppressed ; succors the distressed, and fairly administers the law. It may be all very well in great capitals of the Old World for these things to be neglected, because, under a strong government, there is a great standing army, and on the borders of the city the fort and the trained soldiery are ready, at any moment, to tear down the barricade, to suppress the riot, and to put down the insurrection. But here are we in the third city in the world in population, and with nearly two millions of inhabitants, three-fourths of whom have no property, and depend upon their daily exertions for that which shall support and sustain them. Life is secure, and property is secure. Why is it that, in a community like ours, where there is no standing army, no forts, no soldiery, no war ships, we can have our great ware- houses filled with the richest fabrics from all the world ; that our banks and our trust companies can have their vaults crowded with the wealth of the continent ; that our streets and avenues can be filled with the palaces of the wealthy, within which they can enjoy their luxury as safe in their lives, in their families, and in their prop- erties, as if they were surrounded by a standing army? Why is it that we have peace, order, and security here without any of these appliances? It is because, without the aid of government, and without the assistance of an army, the wisdom of the people erects the hospitals which look after the sick and the injured and those who are unable to look after themselves; erects the asylums and the homes that CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE IV 439 take care of the distressed and the poor; erects the schools that look after the street Arab, and educate him who has no home, no father, no mother— aid him to obtain employment and an honorable living — a wis- dom which looks after the rights and the justice of the poor, and sees that they have them, under all circum- stances, as is exemplified by this society. Now it took thousands of years and oceans of blood to establish that great fundamental principle of Anglo- Saxon liberty — that a poor man's home is his castle. Be it ever so humble, though made of logs and thatched with straw, without that man's consent the king cannot enter it. But while it took so much to establish this great principle— that the smallest item of property, that the littlest corner of land is safe, and secure, and protected, so that the strongest and the most powerful combination cannot wrest it from the possessor, there was also built up and established a great array of tech- nicalities and of instrumentalities and of machinery, which only lawyers understand and courts can adminis- ter, and which are so expensive that the very machinery reared and constructed to protect property is often used for the purpose of oppression. The simple rea- son for this is, that while it is all but impossible to take property from him who has it and to whom it be- longs, it is almost impossible for the poor to collect their own from the strong who hold it in their grasp. Now it is at the dividing line where justice is done in the name of law, and justice is violated under the forms of law, that an association like this, organized for the purpose of leveling up and equalizing, comes in and sets at work, for the poor and the oppressed, the 44° OR A TIONS AND SPEECHES OF machinery of the law. Then the strong and the weak are equalized, and the rich and the poor stand before the court upon an equal foundation. Years ago — and you all remember it, it was one of the scandals of this city — great establishments, employ- ing hundreds and hundreds of working-girls, grew rich by defrauding them. It is one of the most painful ele- ments of our human nature that, when avarice gets possession of a man, and the desire to acquire takes entire control of his soul, that moment humanity and compassion and a recognition of the rights of others are completely and fully worked out, as if they were never put in him. These people were in the habit of discharging every Saturday night a certain percentage of their employees, and not paying them, knowing that with the great sur- plus of labor their places could be supplied the next week. The money thus withheld passed to the swell- ing tide of profits. There was another class who were in the habit of doing just that which Judge Gedney described here to- night — sending shirts or clothes, or mantillas or cloaks, whatever it might be, — and when at the end of the week the poor woman, who had been working night and day, locked her children in the attic room and sped along with hungry form to the place where she was to receive her pittance, and put her work upon the coun- ter, she was informed that the work did not suit. The price of her week's work may have been two dollars or three dollars, but what did that mean to her? Why, it meant that on Monday morning she could not pay the rent. It meant that the Sunday must be passed with- CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 441 out food for these children or medicine for the sick. It meant that she must face the alternative of the street or the river. Now, just at this moment, in again steps the agency of this Society. The poor woman cannot set the machinery of the law in motion — the money which she is to collect is too small to tempt a lawyer if he got the whole of it, and the court would not recognize or look at her; but she goes to the counter of this society, and instantly a lawyer is set in motion and the machi- nery of justice is put upon its wheels, and a messenger, armed with justice and vengeance, goes into that man's shop and takes him by the throat and says: "That woman's pay, or go to court" ; and if he don't pay, he goes there, and when he leaves, it is either to jail to stay there until he pays, or else it is with the admonition of the indignant judge ringing in his ears. He leaves with a hole burned through his pocket by the money which has been extracted and triple costs added at the same time ; with a vacant place in his bosom, where a conscience which he has plucked out once was, but with something rattling around in its place which very much resembles remorse. But it is not alone men who do these acts of fraud and injustice. It is one of those anomalies that I have never been able to account for, that women are more cruel to each other than men are to them ; and among the worst oppressors, as I learn from the records of this Society, of the poor women of New York, are the women employers who have these great fashionable establishments where dresses, cloaks, and hats are made. There is many a ball at Delmonico's to which the lady 44 2 OR A TIONS AND SPEECHES OF comes in a dress which is the jealousy and agony of all her sisters, and the despair of the Jenkins who tries to describe it, — and yet this dress is sown with tears and fraud ; there is many a beautiful creature, tripping by to church, whose "love of a bonnet" environs a shapely head and beautiful face, that completes all that the poet said — When she tied her bonnet under her chin, She tied a young man's heart within ; and yet while that young lady has duly paid for her bonnet, the person of whom she bought stole it — stole it out of the scanty earnings of poor women whom she did not pay. But this society is no respecter of women under such circumstances, and they must "walk up to the captain's office and settle," or suffer the con- sequences. Now there is another, and the hardest case of all. There is many a fine lady moving in the best society and riding in her carriage, whose extravagances are be- yond her income or her allowance, and the easiest per- son to cheat or to put off is the seamstress. She can ring the door-bell, and the magnificent footman can say no ; or if she is admitted, the answer is, "Next week" — "Next month" — "Later." I remember hearing a story recently of a bereaved gentleman who had lost his inti- mate friend, and he went to the florist and ordered a pillar of flowers, and he wanted put in it, in red flowers, the letters S. Y. L. The florist, most curious, said, "My friend, will you please tell me what S. Y. L. stand for?" "Oh, certainly, my dear sir— See You Later." I had no reference to my friend Mr. Tilden in telling that story. But this Society, armed with the processes of the law, CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 443 brushes aside that footman, and enters that door, and says to my fine lady: "See and settle now." There is another mission which this Society performs, and that is in procuring employment. There are one hundred thousand working-women in this city, and they get, on an average, only about two or three dol- lars a week, and they have no other means of support. For two thousand years Christianity has been endeav- oring to ameliorate and elevate the condition of women. Amongst savages they are beasts of burden ; among barbarians and Mohammedans they are toys and slaves ; but among us, notwithstanding that my friends the Women's Suffrage Association have not got all they wanted, women have every right that man has and every privilege, except the right to vote, — and the right to vote would not protect her in just the things that we are looking after to-night. But with all these privileges have come corresponding responsibilities. No longer a toy, no longer a plaything, the equality of the woman is recognized in her power to hold prop- erty and transact business. She is treated as a busi- ness person, and must assume its responsibilities — must earn her living. Now, I know of nothing more helpless than the con- dition of these one hundred thousand working-women. There are one hundred thousand working-men in this city, but they get three times the pay for the same labor, and this is the disgrace of our civilization — that discriminations exist where women and men perform the same or equivalent labor. But to the man the ave- nues are already opened, and with the boundless enter- prise of our people new avenues are opening. To him are 444 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF given the elements of ambition and hope. He knows that with energy, with thrift, and with honesty there is certainty of advancement, and the possibility of a grand success. Our avenues and our broad streets are full of the magnificent palaces of men who have been porters, who have been laborers, who have been mechanics, have been apprentices, have been sailors, and to-day are great capitalists, swinging great enterprises and living in affluence and luxury. Every working-man knows that what has been can be, and that the oppor- tunities are as good to-day as they ever were. But there are no palaces, no great houses, no cot- tages even, which tell the working-woman that one of her class and opportunity has ever risen above want to competency, much less to affluence. For her there is only the possibility, and no more, of an unfurnished and scant lodging, and the scant clothing of the poor for her to-day, and the same to-morrow, and no bet- ter than it was yesterday. There is nothing to me that so strongly illustrates the angelic nature and hopeful faith that we ascribe to women as that these one hundred thousand women, under these circum- stances, denied hope in this world, cheerfully work on, ask no charity, perform all their duties, preserve their purity, and simply expect a reward when the grand day comes. The eloquent figures of to-night, showing that forty- six thousand women have received aid from this Society, and that two hundred and forty-five thousand applications have been made and answered, speak more eloquently than anything that can be said on this plat- form, or in cold type, of the mission, of the uses of CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 445 this Society. Another of its objects is to widen the field of woman's work. There was a time when everybody said that the only thing that a woman could do was to sew or to teach, and that all others were not honorable ; but we have gradually grown to that condition of affairs where we recognize the fact that any work is honorable which is honest. It may not be over-clean, so far as physical conditions are con- cerned, or over-neat. It may not be elegant or grace- ful. It may not meet the approval of Oscar Wilde, but yet so long as it meets a want and is useful, it is hon- orable for both men and women to engage in it. Now the great difficulty of our people is their edu- cation. In our community no education meets the objects for which it is put on foot, unless the man and the woman are taught to earn a living. We are sub- ject constantly to commercial reverses. The panic comes along and the great house goes down, and the bank topples over, and the rich man of to-day is the poor man of to-morrow. But unfortunately most of our teaching is of such a character that neither for the poor, nor the moderately poor, nor the rich — neither for the clerk, nor the mechanic, nor the merchant, is the daughter taught anything by which she can earn a living, if the hour of necessity comes. I was brought up in the country. There they do things differently, and look out more practically for the real ends of life. There may not be so much sentiment and poetry — there may not be so many lilies or sunflowers in button-holes — there are plenty of them in the fields, — but there is a real practical understanding of the needs of life. Every- body appreciates the advice which Micawber, when he 446 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF was in jail for debt, gave to David Copperfield : "Cop- perfield, my boy, income one pound, expenses twenty shillings, sixpence — result misery ; income one pound, expenses nineteen shillings, sixpence — result happi- ness." But when the -panic comes along, and the great house tumbles in ruin or the bank passes into the hands of a receiver — in the exigencies of our fashion- able and society life in New York, everybody has lived up to the full extent of his income, and there is not a dollar left for next day — now, then, the daughters of that house, instead of being able to assist, in their help- lessness become burdens which accelerate the ruin. The kitchen is to them as unknown a world as central Africa, and they do not know anything more about the sewing-room than they know about integral calcu- lus. But it is possible to have an education which shall practically teach girls how, in case of necessity, they may do something to help themselves and others, at the same time that they have just as many of the 'olo- gies,' and just as many of the languages, and just as much of the veneer conversation that is put on in our schools, without any detriment to it whatever. I know two honorable exceptions : a man worth three millions of dollars told me that his daughters, during the past year, had earned in a few months one hundred dollars per month simply in decorating china for one of our great stores. A gentleman whose grandfather was a rich man, and who is himself the inheritor of the prop- erty, said : "Every one of my daughters has learned a trade, and can earn her own living if the great need comes." CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 447 Now then, under such circumstances, if that senti- ment prevailed, and that education were universal, it would be easy to enlarge the sphere of woman's work, so that in every place where her deftness, her skill, her keen and quick perception of the wants and needs of customers, or the wants and need of the work were wanted, then she would be able; and when all those fields were open, then, instead of the overcrowded sew- ing-women bringing sewing down to seventy-five cents a dozen for shirts ; then, instead of the overcrowded sewing-women bringing cloaks down to thirty-five cents a dozen for the making, they would go out from the crowded ranks of the stores, they would go into every other rank, and labor would become scarce and wages would rise there, while in the new ranks they would receive better work, and women would come to have earnings as large as men's, and there would be as much hope for them as there is for the working-men of the metropolis. I heard a story last summer in New England of a sailor who shipped with a captain who was harsh and cruel and obstinate, and when they were out upon a whaling voyage, the mate shouted out in regard to the whale : "There she blows and there she breaches" ; and the captain said: "I don't see no blows, and I don't see no breaches" ; and the mate shouted again : "There she blows, and there she breaches"; and the captain said again : "I don't see no blows, and I don't see no breaches." Once more the mate cried out : "There she blows, and there she breaches" ; and the captain said : "Mate, if you believe there she blows and there she breaches, lower the boat and go and get her." 44^ ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF He lowered the boat and got her and brought her alongside, and she tried out eighty barrels of oil, and the captain said; "Mate, you have done well; I will speak of you to the owners of the ship and you will be complimented, and maybe you will be promoted." "But, " said the mate, "I don't want none of your mentions, and I don't want none of your compliments, and I don't want none of your promotions — all I want is common civility, and that of the commonest kind." Now this Society gathered here to-night asks your contributions to secure for the working-women of New York, not charity, not compassion, not sympathy, but common justice, and that of the commonest kind. CHA UNCE Y At. DEPE W. 449 XXXVI. ADDRESS BEFORE THE ANNUAL CONVENTION OF the Psi Upsilon Societies of the Various Colleges in the United States, held at Syracuse, May io, 1882. Gentlemen : It is a pleasure and privilege to meet with you here to-day. I come not as a teacher, but as an elder brother, to greet the active workers in Psi Upsilon. I leave for a moment the cares of an arduous profession, the duties of an active business, the engrossing de- mands of an all-surrounding materialism to renew these associations of early manhood. A life has little in it worth living, which cannot frequently return to the memories, the aspirations, the hopes of its beginning. By occasional draughts from these fountains daily duties cease to be the routine of the treadmill, work becomes a recreation, the hardening processes produced by contact and contest with selfishness and viciousness are arrested, and our confidence in human nature, its purity, its development, its possibilities, is sustained and enlarged. It is proper that you upon the threshold and I in mid-career should reason away our hour for discussion in reviewing the necessity, the uses, and the duties of a liberal education. 45° ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF The guild of higher education is the most liberal of all orders. Unlike other unions, there is no limit to its membership or restriction upon the number of those who shall be trained for admission. It is a pure democ- racy, where honors are only worn by those who win them, and cannot be transmitted or inherited. It has no secrets ; but while it explores the whole field of knowledge, its discoveries are for the benefit of all mankind. Its object is to lay broad and deep the foun- dations, by such mastery of language, science, and lit- erature as best prepares the way for the professions, the arts, the humanities, and the liberal pursuits of life, trains and develops the intellect, and adds to the strength and manliness of character. It is the duty and destiny of the human race to improve its condi- tion. Through all the trials and tribulations of the ages it has been true to this destiny. Its history is one of progress and development. For centuries, however, its story is the biography of isolated and eminent indi- viduals. Conquerors and philosophers stand out in start- ling prominence from the groveling and ignorant masses about them. There was for long periods no healthy or permanent growth ; only as education has been free alike to all has society as a whole improved. Students echo the statement that there is nothing new under the sun, but all the arts we have were once known and then lost. That is because the secret of them was con- fined to the few and kept from the masses. Education has been the great leveler and elevator. The mighty revolutions produced by the invention of gunpowder, printing, steam, and electrical appliances, the enlarge- ment of liberty and law, the triumphs and beneficent CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 451 results of science and mechanism, have followed and accelerated the diffusion of liberal culture. We live in a time when the average intelligence is higher the purity and perfection of society greater, and the essential liberties larger than ever before. As the demand for trained workers, and the necessity for thorough preparation, increase, so do the difficulties in the way of solid learning. Speed is the virtue and vice of our generation. We demand that morning-glories and century-plants shall submit to the same conditions and flower with equal frequency. The inventive genius of mankind has provided labor-saving machines for every necessity and luxury. By it industries have been stimulated, and the results of labor reduplicated beyond the power of language to state. One man takes the place of a hundred workers; the labor which formerly required a year is now performed in a day, and time and space are annihilated. State-building in earlier times was the process of centuries; now it is the easy outgrowth of a decade. The iron rail is laid through the wilderness, and the next summer the industrious immigrant gathers the harvest which feeds the world. This vast and incalculable multiplication of power, this grasp and utilization of all the forces of nature, pro- jects and successfully executes enterprises whose magni- tude surpasses the dreams of the Arabian romancer. The Orient has listlessly listened for ages to the story- teller's tales of the wonders worked by mighty genii, and the fairy phantasies created by Shakespeare have been the delight of the world, but they are both sur- passed by the daily commonplaces of our time. Indi- viduals accumulate fortunes whose income exceeds the ( 45 2 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF revenue of kingdoms, and every State in the Union can boast of a millionnaire whose wealth reduces to com- parative poverty the traditional treasures of Croesus and Crassus. There is fever in the blood and fire in the brain. The people are possessed with this fierce energy of industrial and material progress. Cortez, Pizarro, and De Soto sought not more recklessly El Dorado and the Fountain of Youth, than does our population the sudden accumulation of riches. To the luxuries which wealth could always command are now added the control of great enterprises, the concentra- tion of power, the social distinction and adulation which formerly belonged to lofty lineage or great achieve- ments in arms, the arts, or literature. The contagion of the conflict, the fruits of its victories, affect almost alike the ignoble, the ingenuous, and the ambitious; and the few for its possession, the many for its uses and oppor- tunities, plunge with absorbing anxiety into this strug- gle for money. The Church, the College, the Forum, the Senate, all feel the pressure and the effects of this consuming passion. Hence the danger and difficulties which now threaten liberal culture. Amid the din and clash, the rush and roar of industrial activities and speculative excitements, the young man finds it very hard to secure the time, repose, and encouragement necessary to lay that firm and solid foundation without which a liberal education and broad healthful development of the intellectual fac- ulties are alike impossible. No greed is so unsatisfac- tory, no economy so wasteful, as that which begrudges or saves the years necessary for thorough preparation. It is mainly from the ranks of the common people that CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 453 the army of liberal education is recruited. From farm and workshop come the men who will dare and suffer in the service of learning; their goal is knowledge, their destiny to wield its power. The successful and opulent desire that their sons shall become also opulent and successful at the earliest possible moment. Precept and example impel only to those studies which can easiest be made practically available. They besiege the doors of the university, the law school, the medi- cal college, clamoring for a short road to business. The colleges recognize the demand, and enlarging the boundaries and loosening the discipline of the curri- culum, permit the substitution of elective studies to those who have neither the ability nor experience to elect, and grant diplomas for bread-and-butter equip- ments. Some not satisfied with this are rushed in a year through business, or commercial, or other spe- cialty colleges, and boast that while their compan- ions are digging amid the bones and dust of the buried past, they, having purchased a ready-made suit of mental clothing, are achieving independence and fortune. Father and son, anxious for immediate re- sults, say these precious years when a practice might be secured, or a business established, cannot be spared for dead languages, science, philosophy, and literature, which are not essential in the practical work of the profession, or merchandise, or manufactures. If they select engineering for their vocation, that school is best which puts them soonest in the field. If they are inclined to literary pursuits, their ambition is not to produce work which will contribute to learning, adorn the library, and win solid fame, but by popular and 454 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF ephemeral processes to sell the millions of trash, and win the fortunes which shall compensate for forgetful- ness and oblivion. If they aspire to the pulpit, they spurn the weary years and tireless labor by which alone the sources of faith and truth are explored and mastered, and their studies are to so gild the Gospel and culti- vate the social graces as to secure the wealthiest church and largest salary. If law or medicine is to be their avocation, they will learn only so much as will most speedily bring fees and retainers, and leave the battle for the right in society and government to reformers and politicians, and the ministering to the poor and suffering and the defense of the weak and the wronged to philanthropists and fools. This teaching and prac- tice have filled the land with narrow-minded, partly in- formed, and bigoted specialists, useless to themselves or the world outside their avocation, and not great within it, and with shallow idiots who, fresh from the tailor's block and hair-dresser's chair, gabble about art and beauty and aesthetics and "culchaw." But while Arkwright with his spinning-jenny en- abled one set of fingers to do the work of thousands, Fulton with his steamboat created modern commerce, Howe with his sewing-machine indefinitely multiplied the results of labor, Whitney with his cotton-gin revo- lutionized a continent, and the Corliss engine concen- trated a century in every cycle of the sun, there is no royal road to learning; application, work, continuity, and enthusiasm are its conditions. It is true, the dead languages are not in daily use in the pulpit, the forum, or business ; that science, philosophy, history, belles let- tres do not of themselves cure souls or patients, win CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 455 causes or coin money. It is true that modern lan- guages with their exhaustless stores of priceless learn- ing claim equal regard and study. But those better and more safely navigate the stream who know it from source to delta, and whose vision is not bounded by the territory where they ply their trade. The lan- guages not only give grace and accuracy to the expres- sion of thoughts, open the treasure-houses of knowl- edge, furnish the weapons to overcome error and prejudice, but through them Wilkinson wrote the lives of Pharaohs who had been forgotten before his- tory was born, and Layard and Rawlinson have dug from under the Tower of Babel and deciphered the library of Nebuchadnezzar, and by its testimony over- thrown the speculations of infidelity, corroborated the Bible, and buttressed the faith of Christendom. Science has made plain the secrets of animate and in- animate nature, and philosophy has mapped the mind. Companionship and familiarity with the worthies, the thoughts, the achievements, and the discoveries of other times so influence character, so enlarge the intel- lect, so increase the ability to grasp and sift and find the truth, that one so privileged is promoted in his vocation from a soldier to a knight ; his work is not labor, but love ; and while he adorns and honors his specialty, his manhood adds to the value and influence of his citizenship. We are the heirs of all the accumu- lations of the past, but we cannot prove our title and secure our inheritance by the decree of the surrogate or the award of the courts of probate; it comes only through the honest acquisition of a liberal education. While such a man comes later to his life work, he 45 6 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF makes not only a better preacher, lawyer, doctor, edi- tor, or man of affairs, but outside his profession he pos- sesses resources for pleasure to himself and influence over others which add immeasurably to the enjoyment of living. Two races of men planted thousands of years ago the germs of all the civilization and culture we possess, the Egyptians and the Greeks. With the Egyptians learn- ing was a mystery. It was subdivided into branches, and these were the exclusive hereditary property of families. They shared neither with each other nor the world the things they knew. Only those initiated through mystic rites could enter the order, and they only to one degree. The result was, that their art and learning were of the earth, earthy, and have perished. Their pyramids, obelisks, columns, sphinxes, testify to the grandeur and materialism of their culture, but of their sages, philosophers, poets, not even a name sur- vives. The education of Greece, on the other hand, was free and open to all. Her schools and gymnasiums had doors on every side. All that she knew or discov- ered was the common property of the world. Emula- tion stimulated inquiry, and freedom gave birth to genius. Phidias and Praxiteles, Demosthenes, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, Pericles and Leonidas, are house- hold names to-day. They instruct in the studio, teach in the college, legislate in the senate, and fight in the field. Her art, eloquence, philosophy, literature, and patriotism have been the inspiration, admiration, and despair of succeeding centuries. We have adopted this free system, and upon its preservation, development, and use depend the growth of society and the pros- CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 45 7 perity of the nation. The people have built and en- dowed universities and libraries. The generous bene- factions to Harvard and Yale, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, and the Vanderbilt, the Astor and Lenox libraries, with scores of kindred efforts, attest the value placed by those who have and those who have not enjoyed its benefits upon a liberal education. As the encourage- ment of the State and the contributions of the liberal have thus furnished us our opportunity, so do we owe, in return, a larger recompense than our personal suc- cess. It is to be public-spirited, generous in our efforts to aid our fellows in the never-ending strife between truth and error, to do the best we can, whatever we undertake to do at all, and as preachers be more than doctrinaires, as teachers more than machines, as law- yers more than advocates, as editors more than parti- sans, illustrating anew each day that knowledge is power and American men of culture understand its proper use. Thus the men whom scholarship has blest are true to the high duties of their order, and bless the state and mankind. Far be it from me to disparage diligence in business, or discourage the accumulation of independence and fortune. That man would be un- true to his mission, his family, and his happiness, who failed to do thoroughly his work, and prudently pro- vide for those dependent upon him and for his own old age ; but he can neither, like a miser, hoard for his sel- fish gratification the learning he has acquired, nor neg- lect the larger responsibilities imposed in a free govern- ment upon educated men. The great motors of modern progress have come from the universities. They have not been accidents, 45 8 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF but the developments of learning. They have been evolved from the patient processes of the schools, and the wealth, comforts, luxuries of mankind are due to the teachings of the colleges. In the laboratory of the University of Glasgow the application of steam to the arts and mechanics was discovered, by which the world has accomplished more in the last century than during the whole period since the birth of Christ. By thoughtful and intelligent experiments at Princeton electricity was utilized, and under man's control the lightning belts the globe, furnishes an illuminating medium which rivals the sun, and suggests the possibility of a new force moving the industries, incalculably accelerating produc- tiveness and power. The study of astronomy and its revelations have created the science of navigation, and made upon the trackless ocean beaten highways for commerce. From science and mathematics have come the principles underlying and suggesting all the marvel- ous inventions which are the pride and glory of our age ; while by chemistry the elements have been wrung from Nature to enable the physician to cure diseases, mitigate suffering, and prolong the span of human life. The universities in all ages have been the nurseries and citadels of liberty. When Church and State con- spired together to crush the last vestiges of civil and relig- ious freedom ; when independence died upon the scaf- fold and the block; thought was incarcerated in dun- geons, and conscience was burned at the stake and tor- tured on the rack, and Abelard, brilliant and beautiful, groping in the dark for truth, fled to the wilderness, fifteen thousand students gathered about him, and for their own government organized a pure democracy. CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE VV. 459 At Oxford, Paris, Berlin, Prague — wherever a univer- sity existed, — their student republics, built upon Abel- ard's model, trained and graduated the Apostles of Lib- erty. It was the student who precipitated the revolu- tion of 1848, which altered the map and liberalized every government in Europe. With a million of sol- diers and a million of policemen to uphold despotism and suppress liberty in Russia, the spirit of her colleges keeps the Czar a prisoner in his own palace. From their professors' chairs at Wurtemberg and Prague, Huss and Luther started the Reformation, to which we chiefly owe our modern civilization. Knox went from the University at Aberdeen to thunder in the presence of Mary Queen of Scots those terrible truths which made Scotland the home and center of culture and religious inquiry, and that sweet and mighty Oxford pro- fessor, John Wyckliffe, in giving to the people the Eng- lish Bible, started a movement which ended in the Declaration of our Independence, and the formation of the American Republic. The knights of the order to which these men be- longed cannot be idle. The repose of learning is delightful; quiet companionship and enjoyment of fa- vorite authors and the solitude of congenial study full of refined and quiet pleasure; but such is not their mission. Religious revulsions, social revolutions, popu- lar elections, the making of laws, the direction of those forces in free communities and states which are con- stantly working good or evil, demand attention and direction. Man is ever struggling for real or imaginary emancipation. His enemy exists, or he creates it. It may be against genuine injustice that he rebels, or, 460 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF ignorant and misled, against those conditions and re- straints absolutely essential to safety and order. In his effort to throw off the tyranny of forms he would uproot all faiths. In his protest against inequalities of fortune and position he wages an indiscriminate war- fare against capital, careless or forgetful of the fact that powerful combinations and vast resources are necessary in conducting the great enterprises which in our time develop national wealth and promote individual pros- perity and happiness. Educated intelligence keeps radicalism within proper limits, and forces it to con- serve the highest purposes, by harnessing it to the car of progress. The masses have been so educated, and society as a whole so elevated, that the destinies of mankind can no longer be changed or controlled by Cromwells or Napoleons. Atheism assails the Church, communism order, socialism society, financial heresies credit, State Rights the Republic, and they can only be met and overcome by the resistless logic of superior knowledge. The Oneida Community reforms, Mor- monism topples toward its downfall, Greenbackism is dissipated by the resistless force of educated public opinion and enlightened conscience. The captains, the teachers, the leaders in every community who produce these results are and must be the men who have re- ceived a liberal education, and are inspired by public spirit. The stability and beneficence of our Government is due to the fact that neither standing armies, nor state churches, nor illiberal laws, nor hereditary orders of nobility, repress and restrain ; but the scholars of the land, engaged in its practical pursuits, upon the ros- trum, from the pulpit, through the press, in the discus- CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 4 6 * sions at the corners, controvert or hold in or direct dangerous principles or elements. The liberally educated young men in our country should be politicians; but it is almost impossible for them to be office-holders. Office, unless they have first secured at least a moderate competence, endan- gers their independence, retards their success, and may spoil their career. Public life has been in all free states the highest and noblest of ambitions. To guide the Republic, command listening senates, and promote the national welfare, fill the full measure of duty and fame. But the same causes which threaten solid learning have changed the representative opportunities. The energy of business, its absorption of all classes, its de- mand for uninterrupted time and attention, and the increase of the cost of living, have nowhere produced such marked effects as upon our statesmanship. The legitimate expenses of an election almost equal the salary of the representative, and the exacting duties of the place prevent his successful management of either a professional or mercantile vocation. The rap- idly increasing labor of properly administering the Gov- ernment of this vast and growing Republic adds daily to the difficulties of the situation. Men of affairs, in- stead of applauding the public spirit of one of their number who enters the public service, regard him with distrust and withdraw their confidence and credit. Hence the halls of Congress are gradually filling up with wealthy men and professional place- men. The glorious school in which preceding gener- ations were trained for grand careers is almost dis- banded. Convictions yield to expediency, and the 462 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF ability to guide and the courage to resist are leaving their accustomed seats. By combinations and cun- ning, mediocrity occupies positions it cannot fill, and the "machine" runs for the suppression of dangerous ability and the division of all the dividends of honor and power among its directors. The leaders are depend- ent upon followers who have no livelihood but office, and who desert the setting, and worship the rising sun, with a facility which surpasses the Middle Age courtier, who cried, "The King is dead ; long live the King." The necessity for manipulation for re-election — of re- election for a vocation — gives no opportunity to master those great questions uponwhose wise solution depends the destiny of the commonwealth, and the representa- tive, devoured by a consuming anxiety about his for- tunes, and having failed to study the needs and princi- ples of government, is blown about by every shifting current of the popular breath. When he falls, because he has builded upon the sand, if he has passed the period when adaptation is possible to new pursuits, he closes his career as a doorkeeper, a claim agent, or a department clerk. There is not at this hour in public life a single recognized and undisputed leader of a great party, or the progenitor of accepted ideas. The Congressional Record is a morass of crudity and words, whose boundless area and fathomless depths none have the courage to explore. The Washingtons, Adamses and Jays of the first period, the Hamiltons, Jeffersons and Madisons of the second, the Websters, Clays and Calhouns of the third, and the Sewards, Sumners, Chases and Lincolns of the fourth, have no successors of equal power and influence. The debates of to-day CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE IV. 463 are unread, but the utterances of these statesmen were the oracles of millions. Has the talent which made these men eminent died out? Oh, no. It is practicing law, editing newpapers, managing manufactories, mines, and commerce, building railroads, and directing trans- portation. If then those who fill the leaders' place cannot lead, so much greater the responsibility and duty which rests upon the liberally educated to so watch and ward, so understand and teach, so discuss and act, that an intel- ligent and vigilant public opinion shall hold in its grasp and direct for its purposes Presidents, Cabinets, and Congresses. Never fear but that, if they are true to their mission, whenever one of those mighty crises comes which threaten the stability of our institutions and demand the services of the loftiest patriotism and genius, from the ranks will spring other Websters and Clays to the council, other Sewards, Chases, and Stantons to the Cabinet, other Lincolns to the Presi- dency, and other Grants, Shermans, Sheridans, and Thomases to the field. The privilege of freely criticising is granted only to those who can greatly boast. We need have no regrets for the past, or anxiety for its return. No time is so good as the present, no period, no country, so rich in liberty and opportunity as ours. Races have lived and died; nations have flourished and perished; heroes, martyrs, and sages have left priceless legacies, and we are their heirs and the beneficiaries of all the experi- ence, the examples, and the accumulations of the past. The most radical, we are also the most conservative, of states. We can canonize William Lloyd Garrison as 464 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF a reformer, and dismiss Dennis Kearney as a dema- gogue. Extremes find unexpected safety-valves in a freedom of speech which amounts to license, and seeking walls to tear down, beat against the empty air, while Conservatism, in our written constitutions, our adoption of the common law, our reverence for the fathers, our independent judiciary, finds rights pro- tected and wrongs redressed. Genius, which was mis- understood, or ignored, or persecuted, or put to death, in its own time, receives the recognition and applause of ours. Plato was sold into slavery, and Socrates com- pelled to drink the hemlock. Cicero pleaded to bought juries; Sidney and Russell, though heroes with us, were martyrs in their own age. Galileo was forced to deny his philosophy, and Bacon's contemporaries said his works were like the "Peace of God, which passeth all understanding." The wits and worthies of the time of Queen Elizabeth and Queen Anne are more thor- oughly appreciated and largely read by this generation than by all which have preceded. While even the ear- lier part of this century doubted and opposed the railroad, tried to prevent the introduction of gas, and sneered at and fought the telegraph, this decade wel- comes and encourages all invention and discovery, art and letters. Twenty years ago Emerson, the trans- cendentalist, and Darwin, the evolutionist, were alike the objects of almost universal sneers and scoffs; and now the world, assigning to each the highest place in his sphere, stands by reverently with bared head while the one is buried beneath the Concord elms, and the other is laid away in Westminster Abbey, among Eng- land's mighty dead. CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 465 A recent tragedy, which shocked and stilled the world, brought before his countrymen a glorious exam- ple of the scholar in public life. While performing with rigid exactness all the duties of his calling, he never neglected the claims the community had upon his citizenship and culture. He found time every day for his alloted lines from the classics, and pages in some book of solid worth. When he enlisted in the army, he mastered the curriculum of West Point in three months, and won Kentucky by crossing a swollen river, when the engineers could suggest no remedy, upon a bridge constructed from recollections of Caesar's Commentaries. He learned the French language to get readier access to the great works upon finance, when his Congressional duties demanded a solution of that vital question ; and reasoning from original princi- ples, founded in his college life, impressed upon the Supreme Court of the United States a new bulwark of liberty. The broad foundation he laid at Williams, his loyalty ever after to learning, and the uses and duties of knowledge, developed the backwoods boy into the learned scholar, the good teacher, the successful sol- dier, the accomplished lawyer, the eloquent orator, the equipped statesman, and the lamented President James A. Garfield. 466 OkATlONS AND SPEECHES OP XXXVII. address at the opening of the new building of the New York Produce Exchange, May 6, 1884. Mr. President and Gentlemen.- The opening of this Exchange marks an important era in our national development. The wildest dreamer of the preceding generation would not have hazarded the prediction that in thirty years the merchants of this city engaged only in the handling of domestic food products would have required and possessed the re- sources to build a palace of commerce costing three millions of dollars. The modest rented room which met all your wants in i860, expanding into this superb structure in 1884, illustrates the agricultural and com- mercial progress of this country in the last quarter of a century. The startling splendor of the facts reduces to ordinary experiences the wild creations of "The Ara- bian Nights." This Exchange is an example of how the things most dreaded by our fathers are welcomed and utilized for the most beneficent purposes in our day. The one nightmare disturbing the dreams of the past was the dread of centralization. From some relic of those times still lingering among us we hear an occa- sional echo of the old universal cry. But out of the CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 467 Civil War the Republic came, with more power in the General Government than the Federalists demanded, and upon the grave of State Rights has grown an intense and absorbing Nationalism. This tendency is seen in older countries in the unity of Germany and Italy, and of peoples of a common race everywhere. The same principle prevails in trade. But instead of the evils anticipated, it has made possible the wonderful results which we here in part celebrate. It has covered the land with the network of railways which carries the settler to the virgin fields and distributes, the world over, the products of his industry. It has built the steamship and the telegraph. It proves the immortal- ity of man that he always controls the mighty forces which he conjures. He is never their victim, but always their master, and his Frankensteins are the useful ser- vants of his will. Within the memory of most of you it was possible for a single man to grasp all the agen- cies necessary for business success, and fight his way alone with limited resources. But now that steam ap- plied to transportation by land and sea comparatively eliminates time and distance between the places of sup- ply and demand ; now that the conditions of all the markets of the world are known in every market during all the hours of 'Change; now that the mer- chant must know the prospects of coming crops, the supply on hand at home and abroad, the price of money in America and Europe, the fluctuating freight rates in times of railway or steamship troubles ; except for exchanges like this, all business would be con- centrated in the hands of a few men with enormous capital. But just here, combinations like yours avert 4 68 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF the dangers and receive the benefits of these tremendous conditions of modern trade. Your association reaches out and gathers the information ; it places in the hands of all its members alike the factors of the busi- ness problem ; and then it is not so much the magni- tude of the capital as the skill in solution which deter- mines success — then every one, with an equal chance, according to his means and ability wins a living, a competence, or a fortune. Thus commerce becomes in our civilization the strongest force in the conservation of law, order, and property. There is nothing new under the sun, and our freshly imported socialists and communists in their wild ravings present the passionate appeals of the op- pressed and injured of earlier times, without knowing their history or possessing their justification. Most of the great landed estates in Europe were acquired by the ancestors of the present owners by conquests marked with all the horrors of arson, slaughter, and slavery. The natural revulsion of the Saxon farmer tilling his own acres for a Norman master whose iron collar of ser- vitude he wore riveted about his neck, was to the des- truction of everything which represented or strength- ened the dominant class. But with the absolute equality of all men before the law ; with the prohibi- tion of primogeniture and entail and the tying-up of vast estates for generations; with all the avenues of honor and thrift open and unobstructed, the reasons for the revolt have passed away. Four hundred years ago one-half the population of Scotland was begging from door to door, because there was no diversity of labor and therefore no employment. The great industrial CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 469 trouble to-day in Ireland is the policy which has kept her purely agricultural and deprived her of manufac- tures and trade. Commerce enforces the law and the lesson that the accumulations which make possible great enterprises, prosperous manufactories, the opening and working of mines, and the cheap and rapid hand- ling of all the products of the earth, the forge, and the loom, are necessary, if great populations are to be main- tained, made happy and enriched by employment and opportunity. The rich man who has no sympathy with the poor insults his own beginnings or the hard-work- ing father or grandfather to whom he owes his wealth. The poor man who would level all property rights stands in the way of the welfare and rise of his children. The fortunes and misfortunes of business where the State grants equal conditions to all, prove that, while no man will willingly give his work and brains that others may live at his expense, if what he honestly wins is his own then the universal incentive for fortune, for competence, for a homestead, for provision for the family and the helpless and beloved, produces the marvelous develop- ment of material resources, and the frequent and re- markable example of individual prosperity, which are the pride and wonder of our time. Commerce demands for its operations, first of all, security. No pirates by sea or robbers by land may prey upon it. Neutral states and warring territories must respect, and insurance protect it from losses by the elements. And so we have that confidence which begets credit, the handmaid of enterprise, courage, and brains. With credit men of capacity outstrip the slow and cautious movements of capital, and in the utiliza- 47° ORA TIONS AND SPEECHES OF tion and encouragement of invention and discovery, agriculture, manufacture, and the trades of every kind receive new development and impetus. The other requisites are freedom of labor and adequate and rea- sonable transportation. These principles in all ages have made commercial centers the nurseries and asylums of liberty and civilization. The Phoenician traders, the forefathers of the modern merchants, built the splen- did cities of Tyre, Sidon, and Carthage, which were the home of the arts and the barriers to despotism. The supremacy of Greek letters and liberty were due to the commercial instinct of the race, while the warlike Roman, conquering and destroying one after another all the ancient marts of trade, reduced the people to bar- barism and poverty, till in his despair the barbarian sprang at the throat of his oppressor and strangled him. No picture of human misery equals that presented in the Middle Ages, where the robber barons plundered and outraged all without their castle walls. The world, sunk in misery, was sinking into savagery, but the merchants in the Hanseatic League and the cities of Holland preserved freedom, saved learning, rescued civilization, and kept religion alive. When the cities of the League, after five hundred years of successful struggle, surrendered their autonomy to Bismarck's idea and the German Empire, it was the last and most fitting concession to the triumph of law and the secur- ity of commercial rights in modern government. It was a commercial company which conquered India and added three hundred millions of subjects to the British Crown. It is commercial enterprise which supports Stanley on the Congo, and adventurous explorers all CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 4 7 I over Africa, and which will bring the Dark Continent and its people within the lines of civilization and Chris- tianity. Having secured all the elements necessary to its suc- cessful prosecution, trade is no longer monopolized by great companies like the East India, the South Sea, and the Hudson Bay. The individual, emancipated and free, asserts himself in business as in the State. Competition stimulates and limits his enterprises. By far the greatest and most important branch of modern commerce is feeding the toiling millions for whom our complex civilization has afforded other occupations than tilling the soil. The limitless acres on our prairies and in our valleys, brought by rail within easy reach of the seaboard, and by steamer in close connection with all the markets of Europe, furnish to us the opportu- nity of supplying food for the world and draining its wealth into our industries and treasuries. Have we the statesmanship, the patriotism, the business ability to profit by the situation? A few figures will illustrate by what rapid steps we have reached this power for enormous production. In 1850 there were one million five hundred thousand farms in the United States; in 1880 there were four millions. In 1850 we raised five hundred and ninety-two million bushels of corn, and in 1880 we raised one billion and eight hundred million. In 1850 we raised one hundred million bushels of wheat, and in 1880 we raised four hundred and sixty million. In 1873 the balance of trade turned in our favor by the exports of these products, and continued in increasing volume year by year until at its height, in 1 88 1, the cereals of the country had repaired all the 47 2 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF losses of our greatest panic. American competition drove the British farmer into bankruptcy, and the Con- tinental one to despair. Two thousand men own the soil of Great Britain, and the tenant farmer pays from five to ten dollars per acre a year rent. Onerous taxes to support standing armies and vast military establish- ments bear with crushing severity upon the German, French, and Russian agriculturist. One-tenth of the best labor of the land is idle in the army. The average assessment to support these great organizations is four dollars per head of the population, while in our great West the annual rent of an English farm buys a home- stead in fee, taxes are nominal, and transportation the cheapest in the world. Unless England breaks up her vast landed estates into small holdings, unless the nations of the Continent disband their armies, the mar- kets of Europe must be ours, and they can only be lost to us by our own folly. The exhaustlessly fertile land along the Nile and in the other granaries of the ancient world possess all their pristine productiveness — bad government has for ages cursed them with desolation, — but with England, powerful everywhere in the East, and looking for cheap food for her operatives, that by cheaper labor she may be able to undersell with her manufactures all competitors, these Oriental fields might blossom and bear as of old. We can conjure this right Spirit, and already he shows dangerous signs of life. In the time of Pliny, Egypt ruined the Italian farmer, and in the time of Pompey, Italy was given over to vast grazing farms and her agriculturists driven to cities or the legions, because Egyptian wheat could be bought in Rome for seven cents a bushel, which cost CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 473 the Italians a dollar a bushel to raise. Two years ago the speculators of Chicago, acting upon a theory which might have been well enough if food products could have been purchased by Europe only from America, by gigantic corners and other artificial processes drove the price of wheat up to fabulous figures. The effect was magical, and roused to efforts to share in this wonder- ful wealth of annual harvest peoples who had slumbered for centuries. The Russian railways penetrated the rich mold along the Black Sea, and elevators were built at Odessa. English capitalists furnished seeds and im- plements to the patient Hindoo, and the British Govern- ment ran railroads through the valleys of India. The Greek Islands awoke to a new life, and the banks of the Nile once more responded to intelligent culture. And now we are exporting gold instead of grain, and accu- mulating debts instead of dollars. In the wheat pit of Chicago in a single year was buried more of the future prosperity of the Republic than the sum of all the traf- fic which flows through the great city would mount up to in a decade. It is in this field of activity that the New York Produce Exchange can fulfill a most patriotic and pow- erful mission. It handles seventy-five per cent, of the exports from the country, and its legitimate transac- tions reach the enormous money value of ten millions of dollars a day. It is organized to deal in the food products of the Republic, not to gamble with them. In noble and memorable words its constitution recites that "the purposes of our institution shall be to incul- cate just and equitable principles in trade." Under this banner the interchanging surplus of harvest and manu- 474 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OE factures of temperate and tropical climes and diverse industries will bless and enrich the land. You are a great commercial congress, and can represent the opin- ions and interests of the lonely homesteader following the furrow across the prairies of Dakota, the giant farmer plowing by steam-power the fields of Minne- sota, the toiling millions dependent upon active capital and prosperous trade in the great cities and manufactur- ing towns. To one and all of them the honest handling of the harvest and the control of the markets of Europe is a question of life or death. Greed, which penal laws cannot reach or patriotism curb, can be defeated by education and intelligence. Let some of the mil- lions now squandered by the Government in the vain effort to turn turtle ponds into inland seas, and trout streams into navigable rivers, to perpetuate some local statesman, be wisely spent in organizing a bureau of in- formation so vast and yet so accurate that misrepresen- tations as to the daily prospects of the crops at home and abroad, as to the supply on hand in domestic and foreign markets, as to the prices in the world's marts, and the conditions of transportation, will be impossible, and make all their factors at all times accessible to every citizen. Then audacity cannot play upon credulity, and fiction upon ignorance, and a ring of speculators regulate at will the ebb and flow of our national life. Let the morning and evening trains, as they rush across the farms and along the highways, carry the signals of the Weather Bureau, so that the advantages of the property may be utilized by every husbandman. Concentrate upon the national Capital your wisdom and experience to avert the evils of debased currency, to be followed by CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 475 ruined credits. A Chinese wall of silver dollars of fluc- tuating and depreciated value artificially built about our business must result in untold calamities, and a constant and alarming drain of gold. The necessity of their position has intensified the natural hostility of our foreign competitors. Every art invented and per- fected in centuries of fiercest rivalry among commercial peoples is used to defame our food products. Our reputation for sharpness and smartness is enormously en- hanced for the purpose of supporting wholesale charges that disease or adulterations form with us common and applauded forms of fraud. The German Chancellor and the British Parliament have given their great authority to assist in these assaults upon our credit and good name. This question has become one of the gravest national and international importance. The truth is now so rapidly and universally diffused that neither the falsehoods of traders, nor the orders of autocrats, can long sustain misrepresentations if every basis for them be taken away. The New York Produce Exchange has heretofore done great service in this good work, but with the new strength and prestige which are to-day so conspicuously presented acting both as a representative and custodian of our honor and prosperity, formulating rules, conducting investiga- tions and enforcing justice with the utmost vigor and impartiality, and instantly and fearlessly vindicating those who are unjustly attacked, and exposing those who are guilty, it must eradicate every justification for slander, establish beyond the possibility of dispute the purity of the products we export, the integrity of the men who raise or manufacture, and of the American 47 6 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF merchants who trade in them. The statue of Thomas H. Benton, at St. Louis, with outstretched arm point- ing to the West, holds a scroll bearing the legend, "Behold the East." Never since the three Wise Men followed the star to the manger of Bethlehem has there been such resurrection power in the eastward cur- rent as now. It flows with ever-increasing volume through the Golden Gates of the Pacific, gathering in strength and beneficence as it rolls across the conti- nent. This magnificent home of commerce marks its course and growth, and this grand city, the metropolis of the continent, is its creation. The forces which have made can unmake, and the outcome is almost abso- lutely in your own hands. Patriotic, cosmopolitan, hos- pitable, broad, healthy, and vigorous, as the merchants of New York have ever been, they will continue to be in a nobler and larger' sense under this dome, and the architects of the past will be the successful builders of the future. CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE IV. 477 T XXXVIII. he Politics of the Future.— Address at the Complimentary Banquet to Mr. S. S. Pack- ard, GIVEN BY THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OF Packard's Business College, at Delmonico's, June 2, 1883. Ladies and Gentlemen: Your President pays me the high compliment of hav- ing never failed in an effort of this kind, but if that be true, nevertheless to every man comes his first time, and I feel that to-night will bring me to this sad period, because of my youth and inexperience. We have come to-night to pay a deserved tribute and to award a well-won honor to our guest. He has distinguished himself in the best and most useful of all callings — that of the teacher. As such, he has fitted thousands of young, men for the battle of life, and in token of their gratitude they tender him this testimo- nial, and ask us to witness and to help. They render him that most gratifying of all earthly tributes when they say : "We have been successful, and we owe it to your teachings." He has thus built up for himself a constituency which will remain more true and faithful to him than the following of any politician — a constitu- ency who bear him always in remembrance, and who feel that they can only repay the debt they owe him 47& OR A TIONS AND SPEECHES OF by living up to the teachings and the examples which he has given them. What are to be the politics of the future? I think Mrs. Croly has indicated them in a measure. They are certainly not to be the politics of the past. I know of no one who could treat this toast so well as my friend opposite, Major Bundy. He has done more thinking and able writing on the subject than any editor in America; and yet he is not discouraged. It is the finest illustration of the axiom that "hope springs eternal in the human breast." He long ago discovered that he was pursuing an evanescent something, which "never is," but always is "to be" ; but he has also found it and contributed to make it a theme of ever-present discussion. In the past we have followed leaders and organizations rather than ideals and ideas. "Vote for the Devil incarnate if regularly nominated," has been the shibboleth for many years, and has held in its grasp even those who knew that his Satanic Majesty con- trolled the nominations. I doubt if it is possible to have any old-fashioned, nervous, and passionate poli- tics where there is a high order of education. There is a sort of feudal fidelity in the politics to which we have been accustomed which requires the kind of men described by Mrs. Croly. They must be faithful fol- lowers, caring more for men than measures, and while understanding little of party principles, rendering un- questioning devotion to the party flag. But the broader and better education of to-day has broken the sway of leaders, and emancipated the thought of the masses. It has produced such an amount of independent action based upon individual CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 479 judgment as to destroy all the old methods of popular success. In the immediate future, pending this transi- tion period, parties will play a subordinate part, and leaders none at all. Though it is a higher ideal, I do not look for very beneficial results speedily following. Its first and unfortunate effect has been to create a widespread indifference to both practical and theoreti- cal politics. In a republic nothing can be more danger- ous than general apathy and neglect of public duties. The second result has been the fostering of a feeling of almost contempt for public life. The position of Representative formerly gave of itself recognition and distinction ; it was an honor, and its influence and power compensated for the loss of profitable vocations and income ; but now it adds nothing to social dignity, and is a bar to business success. A professional man who accepts official position loses practice, and a busi- ness man loses credit. The very existence of free government depends upon its law-makers and adminis- trators being the representatives of the best elements among its people : they must be foremost in intelli- gence and integrity ; but if public life is tabooed by the commercial, business, and industrial classes, whose prosperity is wholly dependent upon good government, then the politics of the future are full of uncertainty and danger. We need not look for this condition and promise. This country has progressed so rapidly, its development has been so wonderful, the material suc- cess of hundreds of thousands has been so great, that artificial conditions have formed about us. Income and its expenditure have become essential to that sort of social recognition which all men want and all women 480 OR A TIONS AND SPEECHES OF will have. This formerly followed the honors won in public life, but that is no longer the case, and with the vastly increasing expenses of living, the means to meet them cannot be honestly earned in politics. The salaries attached to official positions have not kept pace with the growth of the country, nor is it possible or proper for them to do so. And to give the time required to enact laws for fifty millions of people leaves a man no opportunity for practice or business. Thus we run the risk of having but two kinds of pub- lic men : those who are very rich, and those who, hav- ing no other occupations, must and will live by and out of their places. I was in Washington at the close of the last session of Congress, and one of the most distinguished mem- bers of that body said to me: "I tell you, Depew, this is one of the saddest days of my life. At least a half-dozen of our very best and most able members, most of whom have been here for over ten years, have been carried out by the tidal-waves in the last election. They are experienced, accomplished, and conscien- tious, and the country can ill afford to lose their ser- vices, but they have been left at home. They have lost their business and its connections, and are too old to begin anew. They cannot stand at the bottom at their time of life, with the burdens which are on them, and they must either find a position in some of the departments or starve." The only remedy for this evil is to give more per- manency and security to public life. The civil service, with most beneficial results, is doing its work in the administrative branches of the Government. In our CHA UNCE V M. DEPE IV. 48 1 representation we must silence the howl of the claims of locality. Then when a man has shown exceptional ability, patriotism, and usefulness, if he fails in one dis- trict, his party can return him from another: thus all his time and talents will be given to the Republic ; thus will the honor become so great, that its possessor, without fortune or other means than his salary, will occupy the foremost place among his fellows; thus will we escape the danger of having a public service filled by those who are simply fourth-rate attorneys or mutton-headed millionaires. And I trust also that in the politics of the future some voice will be given to our wives, our sisters, and our daughters. An active and intelligent interest on their part in the vital ques- tions of the day will give to the politics of the future that purity and higher tone and earnestness by which the loftiest patriotism and the most intense materialism can supplement and support each other, giving to the country the best of governments and the largest pros- perity. 4^2 ORA T10NS AND SPEECHES OF XXXIX. address on the tenth anniversary of the Organization of the Railroad Branch of the Young Men's Christian Association of New York, January 4, 1887. Ladies and Gentlemen: I am glad to see that your numbers have increased so much since I was here one year ago ; whether it is because you have all joined since then, or you were not all here at that time, I don't know, but I take it that it is because of the additions to the Association. Our chairman was too modest to-night when he spoke of the ten years since this organization was founded, because without him it would not have been created, and except for his constant aid and advice it would never have reached the position which it has attained to-day ; and when I look forward to the next ten years, to the usefulness, the enormous growth, and the influences which are to spring from the building upon the corner yonder, also built by Mr. Vanderbilt, I believe that the effect of the work in that building on the intellectual, moral, and physical health of the men belonging to the various railroads that cen- ter at the Grand Central Station will extend to every rail- road in the United States, and that the managers will see to it that an institution so useful, an influence so CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 4§3 grand, shall be established on their own lines, and buildings of the same character erected out of their own funds at all the principal centers where their men gather. I was struck with one remark made this afternoon in a conversation with Mr. Morse, the Secretary of the International Committee, which looks after this branch. He said that since this room was opened the influence had been far-reaching, embracing not only the men employed here, but the management of other roads themselves; and alluded to the establishment of branches elsewhere as a result of the success which has been attained here. It impressed upon my mind the thought that has been there a long time, that there is but one railroad in the United States — the New York Central — and that all the others are branches. The last time I met Morse was in Germany last summer, and like all good Americans I wanted to go to Strasburg and see the wonderful clock in the fa- mous cathedral. You know about that clock ; it strikes, and the Apostles come out. They belong to the mechanism which is wound up to go 999 years, and not to stop till the last moment of time. Whether it will fulfill its inventor's claims I do not expect to live to see. Well, I went on the railroad from Baden- Baden with my family to see that clock. We had fifteen minutes leeway when we arrived, and it took seven minutes to get from the depot to the cathedral. When half-way to Strasburg I discovered that we were twelve minutes late, and I offered the German con- ductor a month's salary if he would make up the time. He told me the next day when I went back that he did not get the idea through his head till he came 4^4 ORA TIONS AND SPEECHES OF down the next morning. He would never do for a con- ductor on the New York Central. You know how it is with German railways — they are run by the Govern- ment. There are some people who want the railways run by the Government here. Well, a railway run by the Government goes this way : an express train makes twenty miles an hour, and stops every twenty minutes for refreshments ; and a way train runs twelve miles an hour, and stops from thirty to sixty minutes at each station. When we reached the depot we had just five minutes left. I had telegraphed for a carriage, and I tumbled my wife and her mother, and "little buster" and myself into it, and the courier got on the box and told the coachman to go ahead, and then he waved his umbrella and shouted to all the people to get out of the way. The first dog that saw us coming gave a yelp, and that started all the dogs in Strasburg barking and running after us in full chorus; people jumped to one side and shook their heads, and we got to the door of the cathedral just as the crowd was coming out — it was all over. When I got inside, the first man I saw was Morse ; he was smiling at me like a brightly shining tin-pan on a farmer's fence, because I got left. He said : "Depew, when I want to get anywhere in time, I go over night." He would not do for a conductor on the New York Central. Now, very few of us appreciate precisely the amount of growth that starts from nothing and in ten years reaches sixty associations and ten thousand mem- bers ; but it is like everything connected with the rail- ways in this country — for that matter, with everything else in this country — a marvelous growth. It is diffi- CHA UNCE V M. DEPE IV. 4§5 cult to undertand or comprehend that it is less than sixty years since the first locomotive was seen in America; less than sixty years since the first one was built by that grand old American, Peter Cooper. Uncle Peter saw the locomotive that was brought over here from England, and keeping alert, as he always did, and up with the progress of the times, he thought that whatever an Englishman could do an American could do a great deal better. And so he built his locomotive — the "Tom Thumb." The stage-coach was not going to give up so easily, and they put a swift horse on and beat him — the locomotive ran by a band passing around a cylinder, and the band slipped off — but that is the last time for sixty years and forever, that the stage-coach will out-run the locomotive. There were only thirteen miles of railroad then in the United States; now there are one hundred and thirty thousand. A fifty-ton engine takes seventy-five cars of twenty tons each and draws them along with- out an effort ; and as for speed, Mr. Vanderbilt and I ran all day long, a short time ago, making an average of fifty-four seconds to the mile, running time, and without apparently going at half the speed. But the greatest, the most satisfactory, feature of railroad development is the men engaged in operating the roads. With those who are actually in the service, and those who contribute by supplies, one-tenth of the working force of the United States is in the railroad service ; and that tenth includes the most energetic men and most intelligent among the workers of this magnifi- cent country. There are ten million working-men in this country, and six hundred thousand are directly 4S6 ORA TIONS AND SPEECHES OF employed in the railway service. With their families they constitute a larger population than the largest of the States. They are a republic in themselves, and yet they are the most loyal, the most law-abiding, and most useful and patriotic of citizens. They do not seek aggrandizement themselves; they do not seek by secrecy and force to accomplish selfish purposes or to do injury to anybody; they simply try to live in a brotherly way among those who are engaged in other pursuits, and to labor for the improvement of the coun- try and the elevation of themselves and of their breth- ren. Now if this republic of railroad men, in these days when all classes of labor are organizing, should organize, with their societies, their pass-words, their officers, their signs, and their grips, they would con- stitute one of the most powerful as well as intelligent forces in this Republic for good or for evil. They must necessarily, on account of the business they do and the responsibilities which devolve upon them, be men of character, men of intelligence, and men of health ; for upon them devolve a larger responsibility and a greater duty than upon any of the workers in other pursuits. Men who are engaged in tilling farms, in manfactures, or other lines of business, are all depend- ent upon the railroads. The railroad man is in a sense the servant of them all : he it is that makes the farm worth anything; to him are entrusted the prod- ucts, the goods, and the lives of the people of the country; it is necessary that he above all others should be a man upon whom reliance can be placed — a man of character, of courage, of strength. The railroad is a republic which refutes the theories CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 4 8 7 that come from long-haired men who never work them- selves. The worst service that is done to the work- ingmen of this country is the lip service of men who never work and could not be made to work. Now we are told that we are in the midst of a con- dition of affairs where the conflict beween labor and capital has become so acute and intense that labor is crushed and can never rise. We are told that the opportunities which existed in one period of our his- tory for a man to better his condition have gone, and that they will never come back again. We are told by the reporters that my friend Henry George said, in a speech at Paterson, that the condition of the laboring man is worse than that of the Southern slaves ever was. Well, I am a worker myself — my condition is a good deal better ; you are all workers, and know how absurd is all such talk. The railroad refutes these theories practically. The railroad has its rules, its con- stitutions, its discipline ; but what organization amounts to anything without discipline and rule? Rules and discipline are not to oppress anybody, not to take away anybody's rights ; but they are to protect the public who use the railway on the one hand, and they are to protect the employee who works for the railway on the other; to see that he is not killed by his fellow- employees; to see that no carelessness plunges him to his death ; to see that he is not robbed or cheated by his superior officers ; to see that he, as well as every- body, is protected. There is no democracy like the railway system of this land. Men are not taken out of rich men's par- lors and placed in positions of responsibility. Men 488 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF are not taken because they are sons of such, and put into paying places in the railway system ; but the superintendents all over the country — the men who officer and man the passenger, the freight, the motive power and accounting departments — all of them come up from the bottom. And are you going to stop this thing? No; there are no men being born, or to be born, who are to be by inheritance the superintendents, treasurers, comptrollers, auditors, the freight and ticket agents, the conductors, the yard-masters— who are to be the master-mechanics, the foremen of the shops of the future. They are not born. They have got to be made, and come from the bottom up. And in every one of these departments to-day, in every rail- road in the United States, in the humblest positions, earning the smallest salaries, are men who within the next twenty-five years are to fill all these places by promotion. Don't tell me there is no chance to rise in this country. There are vacancies to occur in the next thirty years in thousands of positions of power, and every one of them will be filled by men who prove, by coming up grade by grade, that they have got brains and courage and power to fit these offices. There is another advantage with railroad men, and that is the permanence of their employment. Skilled mechanics have lay-offs, and hard times when there is no work, and periods when through no fault of theirs they are compelled to take up any kind of labor which offers ; but the employees of the railroad are rarely dis- turbed, and almost every good position on our road is filled by a man who has been with the company more than twenty years. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 489 The best thing I remember connected with myself (and a personal incident is always a good one) is, that when I graduated from Yale I thought I would lead a life of scholastic ease. I thought I would read and write a little, take it easy, and have a good time. I had a hard-headed old father of sturdy Holland-Dutch ancestry. He had money enough to take care of me, and I knew it ; and when he discovered that I knew it and intended to act accordingly, it was a cold day for me, and he said to me : "You will never get a dol- lar from me except through my will. From this time forth you have got to make your own way." Well, I found I had a hard lot of it — nobody had a harder one — and the old gentleman stood by and let me tussle and fight it out. I bless him to-night with all the heart and gratitude I have for that. If he had taken the other course, what would I have done? I would have been up in Peekskill to-night nursing a stove, cursing the men who had succeeded in the world, and wondering by what exceptional luck they had got on ; but having to dig my way along I got beyond everything my father ever dreamed of; but it was done by fourteen hours, or sixteen, or eighteen hours work a day, if necessary. It is done by temperance, by economy; when you make a dollar, spend seventy- five cents and put the other twenty-five by. Don't bury savings in a stocking, or put them in Nickel Plate Bonds, but put them in Government bonds, or in a house and lot. Well, the question occurs, as to this vast body of young men, who have before them the opportunity to rise, to share great places in all the railroads of the 49° ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF country, ''How are they to be trained, saved from temptation, and made better?" Now, I suppose that every well-ordered man in the community works about ten hours a day. (As I say, I work fourteen hours a day, and have for twenty years.) I suppose that he takes seven hours for sleep, two hours for his meals, that is nine ; he has at least four hours left. What is he going to do with them? These four hours, if I figure it rightly, amount to two months in a year. No man can stand still. When God created us he did a fortu- nate thing for us: he made us so that we must either go back or forward. A man knows more to-day than yesterday, or he knows less. A man who sits down and bottoms a chair, and gets up and goes to his meals, and then goes back and bottoms a chair again, in the course of five years will be the biggest dunce in the community, and his opinion will not be worth knowing. He will lose his power for work and will not be worth three cents an hour. A man is just like a locomotive always running on an up-grade: Ambition is the engineer, Hope the fireman; the stations where he stops to take in coal and water are Home, the Church, his Society, whatever it may be, associations like this, or the Library. There are no brakes on that engine, and when he stops and the engineer and fire- man jump off, the engine goes down. Now he has four hours a day, or two months in a year. What is he going to do with them? A gentleman in the com- munity — an exceedingly pleasant gentleman — steps up to him and says: "I'll tell you what to do, my friend." And that gentleman is called the Devil. Some people don't believe in a personal Devil; T do. I meet him CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 491 every day in my life, and he is one of the most agree- able fellows I know. Now he says: "Don't mope around home ; don't be bothering your head with the women ; let the children go to school and take care of themselves: don't be sitting down and reading books and all that sort of thing; what you want is recreation." Yes, that's so, he does want recreation ; he has been at work, perhaps, all night. It may be he is a conductor or fireman, or he has been all day in the yard or shop. He wants recreation, so the Devil takes him into a pool-room and says: "Play a game; bet your money." There is one element, one instinct, dormant in every man born into this world, and that is the instinct of gambling. It is there, and if the temptation comes, it is bound to be aroused, and once aroused it is the most difficult passion to suppress. The instinct is inflamed, and that young man goes home to his wife feverish, irritable ; comes home an- other night more irritable, more feverish ; his home becomes the last place he wants to see ; he anticipates his wages ; borrows against them, if he is in a place where he can do it ; he steals ; and then he becomes a thief and fugitive; and that settles him. Or the Devil takes a young man by the arm and says: "Come into the saloon — here is a free lunch, free billiards, free dominoes; take them." Then he says to him as he goes out : "Are you going to allow the generous land- lord to provide all these things and then pay his own rent?" "What shall I do?" "Take adrink." "Alone?" "No; treat somebody, call up the boys." In a little while he takes him again. He becomes intoxicated ; he arouses the notice of his superior officers; he is 49 2 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF discharged; he goes from a house into rooms; from rooms into a single room ; his wife becomes wretched and miserable; she does what she can to earn some- thing, and his children, from being promising and beau- tiful, begin to weaken, go out into the streets and form associations, and find them at home in his own lan- guage and conduct, that make them subjects for the criminal classes of the future. Now it behooves railroads, charitable men, religious men, and men who are neither charitable nor religious, but who have homes to take care of and lives that they value and want to preserve — it behooves them to provide the recreation for this man. Give him a room more comfortable than the saloon ; larger accommoda- tions than the saloon ; games where there is no gam- bling ; libraries where he can select what is in his bent of mind to read ; lectures of the best that the mind of men who have devoted their lives to a specific pur- pose can produce ; the stereopticon that will place upon the canvas, almost as real as nature, the cities and places of interest throughout the world ; get him to bring his wife with him, his children with him, and make him feel that he is a man, grown larger to-day than he was yesterday, to be larger to-morrow than he is to-day; that his children are coming up and helping him along; that the important places in the railway, as they become vacant, are to be his. Twenty-five years ago in Peekskill I knew every man, woman, and child in that place. I was active in every work in the town ; I belonged to the fire-company ; I made all the speeches on every occasion, and espe- cially at the target shoots. I have presented more CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 493 plated ware from men who wanted to be Congressmen, county officers, Members of Assembly or justices of the peace, and who contributed them as prizes for the annual target shoot, than you could count ; and in that way I became acquainted with almost everybody in Peekskill. And it has been a study with me to mark boys who started in every grade of life with myself, to see what has become of them. I was up last fall and began to count them over, and it was an instructive exhibit. Some of them became clerks, merchants, manufacturers, lawyers, doctors. It was remarkable that every one of those who drank is dead ; not one living of my age. Barring a few who were taken off by sickness, every one who proved a wreck and wrecked his family, did it from rum and no other cause. Of those who were church-going people, who were steady, industrious, and hard-working men, who were frugal and thrifty, every single one of them, with- out an exception, owns the house in which he lives, and has something laid by, the interest on which, with his house, would carry him through many a rainy day. Now it is the women that suffer in these things. When a man becomes debased with gambling, with rum or drink, he doesn't care ; all his finer feelings are crowded out. The poor women at home are the ones who suffer — suffer in their tenderest emotions; suffer in their affections for those whom they love better than life. Let this grand work go on and multiply and remul- tiply for the safety of the community, the safety of the State, and of this Republic, which we all love and hope will continue forever. 494 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF w XL. ashington irving, the father of american Literature. — An Address before the Irv- ing Club, of Tarrytown, N. Y., April 16, 1887. Gentlemen of the Irving Club: Nothing affords me more gratification, as a citizen of Westchester County by birth and heredity, than the fact of your existence as a club — as a club organized in memory of Washington Irving. We have in this coun- try St. Andrew's societies ; we have St. George's societies : we have St. Patrick's societies ; we have St. Jonathan's societies; every one of them intended to celebrate something on the other side, and nothing here, except of recent importation. But we have become old and venerable enough in this country to have societies which shall celebrate something that is purely, absolutely, and originally American. You have organized to celebrate the birthday, on each recurring anniversary, of the father of American literature, and your club takes its place as a purely American organi- zation, to celebrate that which is purely American in its origin, in its characteristics, in its results, in its form. I look forward to the time when the difficulties which have been described shall no longer attend the traveler making a pilgrimage to Sunnyside. We go, CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 495 on the other side, to visit the home, the workshops, of the great intellects that have become world-wide in their fame, the common heritages of all times and races. There is no inspiration I know of to equal that of going through the rooms in Stratford-upon- Avon — the rooms where Shakespeare was born, — touching the things associated with him in tradition, viewing all that constituted the resources of his genius. There is nothing that I know of to equal a visit to Abbotsford, where are the weapons of the warfare depicted in Scott' chivalric romances; where is his picture gallery, with all the facts from which he got the inspiration that gave us Scottish life and Scottish legend ; the going up into his workshop, sitting down at the very desk where were created those romances and those poems which gave him fitly the title of the "Wizard of the North." There is nothing so inspiring as to go to the home of Bobby Burns; to see the very bed on which he first breathed the breath of life ; to see the old Bible from which he was instructed; to go into the room where he passed his evenings with his father and his mother, and to see there the manuscripts that have become the home-inspiring love of every nationality the globe over. And I hope the time will come when, the descendants of Irving having no further use for it, Sunnyside will become to Americans, and to all visiting America, a rich museum, a home and an inspiration, so that, with no other formality than a mere presentation at the door, the workshop of the father of American literature shall be the common heritage of us all. There is nothing so inspires the American to the manner born as the name of Wash- ( 49 6 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF ington Irving. It makes no difference whether he was born in New York State, or in regions that were unknown wildernesses when Irving lived and wrote ; he represents to us the first breaking from the chrysa- lis of that literature which is destined in time to be dominant among the literatures of the world. J He owed his distinction to heredity and to accident. We are living in a time when the peculiarities of mental forces are being intently studied. The mind-reader comes to the front ; he may be the charlatan of to-day, or the philosopher of to-morrow. He may be a char- latan, but some of his workings are beyond explana- tion, or as wonderful in their exposure as in their deception. He professes to look into our minds. Whether he does or not we do not know, as far as we are concerned, but we see extraordinary results that we cannot explain so far, or understand. And looking through these things I, the most practical of men, engaged in the most practical of occupations, have come to the conclusion that in the development of the mind and the growth of the moral and nervous forces, we may reach a point, and things may be accomplished, which now seem impossible. But I believe that great minds and great geniuses are largely the results of accident, and that thousands die out in darkness because the accident has not occurred — the opportunity has not been presented. Take Washington Irving. His life was to be devoted to mercantile pursuits, and if a little accident had not occurred to him in his earliest child- hood, I believe that his life would have followed out the incidents of his heredity — that he would have dickered and traded all his days. But while an infant CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 497 in his nurse's arms on Broadway, during the passing of what would have been in old Roman times a trium- phal procession, indicating the resurrection of the Re- public, the Father of His Country placed his hands upon his head and gave him his blessing. After that time it was simply impossible for Washington Irving to follow out the instincts of heredity, and to live simply for making money. If Washington had never touched him, then in the efflorescence of youth he might have appeared occasionally in the poet's corner of a local paper, and the rest of his life would have been devoted to trade. But as the representative of his country he grew from actuality into ideality ; he felt the touch of those baptismal hands upon his head in early youth, inspiring him to something greater, grander, brighter, more universal than trade or commerce. In other words, they touched the internal sources of the fire of genius that might otherwise have remained hidden. This is no fancy picture, no phantasy of theory. We see his genius first developing in the ludicrous pres- entation of the things and the men around him. With that, under ordinary circumstances, his genius would have been content. He showed thereby simply that he was a clever photographer; he photographed the peculiar presentations of human nature about him in ludicrous forms. But when pushed on by the unseen hands of the ghostly spirit of Washington that had baptized him in his babyhood, he got to the other side; mingled with the inspirations of his ancestors, Scotch and English; stood in Westminster Abbey; grasped and breathed in the old breath of English life, and the best elements of English thought. Then the 49 8 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF photographer disappears, and the artist comes to the front. Then for the first time was the spark of genius struck out, and kindled into flame. You saw some- ing in it that you recognized in the wits of Queen Anne's time, in the genius of Queen Elizabeth's period. A copyist, but beneath the copyist you saw the genius that might swell out into the grandest results of human achievement. And as the dead hand of Washington still reaches out, he grows larger in experi- ences of travel, he is more grandly developed in the diplomatic mission to Spain, until you find that the born genius comes out. The pinched, common Irving disappears, and the world-wide representative of litera- ture in its best and widest form becomes personified under the name of Washington Irving. And this spirit follows him through his legends, through his biogra- phies, through his stories of travel, until he rests at Sunnyside on the Hudson, an old man. He feels that for him the days are numbered ; he knows that the word has come through him to recognize the Ameri- can literature whose existence it had denied ; he feels that for him is immortality wherever genius is recog- nized, but he feels that his work is not done. The unseen hand that baptized him in his youth is still pushing on. He says: "I will crown my life, I will end my days by writing the history of the man who cre- ated me." There are other stories of George Washington that are childish ; there are other stories that are mere chronicles of his deeds; there are other stories that are mere collections of his correspondence ; but there is one story only which represents George Washington as CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 499 he was— man, soldier, patriot, stateman, sage, savior of his country— and that is the story written by Wash- ington Irving. Now you go, as I have gone, for a quarter of a cen- tury, up and down the Hudson River, day by day, and there is no journey you take, I care not how often you take it, that does not recall Washington Irving. I never in my life have crossed Spuyten Duyvil Creek, that I did not see Anthony Van Corlear valiantly plunge in and fight the moss-bunkers to reach the other side. I never in my life have come by Sunnyside that I was not touched by the poetry, by the phantasy, by the history that I never knew the full reality of till I stood in the house at Stratford-on-Avon, at Abbottsford, in the house of Burns. I never go to my home at Peeks- kill, where I was born, which looks out on the finest bay, the noblest sheet of water in the world, which puts into simple insignificance the Bay of Naples, and gaze across at the old Dunderberg, and the punchbowl, and St. Anthony's Nose, which enclose it, that I do not think of that storm which sent the echoes reverber- ating from one peak to another, till all that is sublime in nature was exhibited in Peekskill Bay. And how many other associations there are ! Going across the marsh beyond Tarrytown I look beyond the river and see the bridge where Ichabod Crane on that famous night saw the head of the ghost taken up and hurled at him, and his courtship and his usefulness were alike ended. And I see the old church of Revolutionary times, and I know that there in its peaceful graveyard rest the remains of the one man whose name in Ameri- can literature is inspiration and fame. Then, as the 50Q ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF Catskills appear in view, with all their weird character- istics, I feel that Rip Van Winkle has crossed the stream, and is losing his way in their fastness. And if, as often chances, there is a storm, I hear in the reverb- erations of the hills the ghostly crew of Hendrick Hudson, teaching him the inevitable — for what? I do not think we in America have ever appreciated the wonderful philosophy of Washington Irving. There are libraries in Germany for developing and explaining the philosophy of Goethe. But what is the teaching of the myriad-minded man who was the genius of Ger- many? It all goes out into that wonderful poem and romance of "Faust." And what does that teach? That the Spirit of Sensuality, among the thunders and light- nings of the Brocken, leads the old man whose soul is sold to him to perdition. But who cares for an old man? The gold of Faust's life was gone ; there was nothing left for him to teach ; and in his old age, when his powers were decaying, and his usefulness was gone, in a dream of wild sensualitv he surrendered himself to death for its gratification. His fate teaches no lessons; the world has met with no loss. But in Rip Van Winkle a chord is touched of more world-wide significance than any that is touched in Faust. Washington Irving has taken a youth given over to intemperance, to idleness and to utter inability to control any of his desires. And what does he do with him? He leads him through a life wherein is exhibited his utter uselessness to himself — a curse to his family, a perfect and constantly spreading example of evil to all about him. He carries him up to the mountains, as Goethe carried his hero to the Brocken. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 501 And he is dropped into — a dream ; not into perdition. At the end of twenty years he comes forth — for what ? The critic of the past says, "For a joke." The critic of the present says, "For humor." Ah, no; they do not understand the philosopher. He comes forth, after twenty years of sleep, for a deeper lesson than Faust ever taught. He comes back to the scenes of his youth to find that his son, who ought, in this country, to have been a man of vigor and enterprise, taking a leading part in political and social things, is a drunkard, an outcast, a loafer, the worthless curse of the com- munity — a reproduction of himself in his destruction of all social ties and disregard of all political duties, an example of all that is bad for the community about him. No lesson of temperance, no lesson of a decent life, of industry, of adherence to the principles of virtue, was ever taught more plainly, more beautifully, and with more living and practical force, than in the story of Rip Van Winkle. Now, to show you how little, in our time, in this home of Mammon and of Philistinism, Washington Irving is understood, I record simply an incident that occurred at our dinner two or three years ago. When the dinner was over, a couple of the most successful brokers on Wall Street stood at the door, and one of them asked me to come out, and I went. They said : "Depew, what is all this about?" "Well," I said, "we are celebrating the birthday of Washington Irving." And then one of them, after looking up at Dr. Peters for a little while, said: "Well, isn't the old gentleman a little full?" Now, it is one of the missions of the Irving Club to educate such Philistines. I sometimes 502 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF think, as I muse on the literature of America, in the little time I have for musing — I, who have only a few hours which should be devoted to sleep, which I give to literature and to thought, only a few hours on the Sunday, which should be given to devotion, but which I give to literature and to thought— I have sometimes mused, when another century shall have passed by, and its jury comes to pass upon the first century of the Republic, what reputations will live? Our literature for the last hundred years is rich in poetry — one of whose writers is in Westminster Abbey, — rich in fic- tion, rich in the works of historians and philosophers. Who will live? I believe that when the jury of the second century comes to pass upon the first, that there will be larger poets than the first has created, greater philosophers than the first has known, more comprehensive historians than the first has seen, essay- ists of a grasp far beyond anything that the first has contemplated. And I believe that in the second cen- ury there will be but two names that will live to be enshrined in the temple that it passes down to the third, of all that it received from the first, and those two names will be Washington Irving and Fenimore Cooper. And that will be for the fact that they are simply and only of America — that they have occupied their genius with things that are entirely and only American. By that time the Indian race will have disappeared from the continent, to be remembered only as a dream. Lo, the poor Indian, will then have been etherealized to a form in which he would not know himself. And Fenimore Cooper will live, not because his romances are the equals, or the superiors, of Scott's CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 5°3 or of Thackeray's or of Dickens's, but because they represent the Indian as the second century will love to recreate him, and will paint him in its pictures, and will present him in its comedies and tragedies. And Washington Irving will live because the Hudson will live. So long as the Rhine is the inspiration of Europe, so long will the Hudson be the inspiration of the romance and the poetry of America. And every spot upon the Hudson, as the centuries roll on, will be more picturesque and more beautiful, because around it centers so much that will carry the undying fame and memory of Washington Irving, the Father of American Literature. 5°4 ORA TIONS AND SPEECHES OF F XLI. rom a Speech before the College Republican Campaign Club of Princeton, New Jersey, October 13, 1884. An eminent college President has said that there has been no time since the war when a young man knew how he could honorably serve his country. Surely this is a pessimistic view to present to the cultured youth of America. It is too narrow a basis for college men to stand upon. What questions have occupied the statesmen of the world for the last twenty years? In Germany, unity of the race, with imperialism ; in Italy, consolidation of the people, with constitutional monarchy ; in France, republicanism not yet attained ; in England, the extension, with restrictions, of the suf- frage at home, the extension of English trade interests abroad ; while, in the United States, problems of far greater moment in themselves and in their relations to the welfare of mankind have been successfully solved, and invariably by the Republican Party. Four millions of slaves have not only been freed, but they have been made sharers in political power and responsibility, and peaceably incorporated into the body politic. The Civil War has been settled with marvelous moderation and mercy. The currency has been funded. The CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 505 debt has been reduced one-half, credit restored, the finances placed upon a sound basis, specie resumption secured, and the Republic has enjoyed a period of unparalleled growth and prosperity. The statesman- ship which accomplished these results has not been surpassed in our history. To devise and successfully carry through the measures which sustained and trium- phantly bore the Government through all these trials demanded the best culture, training, ability, and sensi- tive honor in the land. The broad and comprehensive mind of your President, James McCosh, could never, under any circumstances of excitement, disappoint- ment, or exasperation, have been led into a declaration like this which comes to us from Harvard, nor will Harvard herself indorse the hasty expressions of her distinguished President. All of you cast this time your first vote. I know of no occasion more solemn than this act, when the State recognizes your manhood, and in exercising your rights as citizens you become both sovereigns and statesmen. For to the extent of your influence each determines for himself the government for fifty-five million of people for four years to come. Upon the ballot-box as an altar you are wedded to the political principles of your life. That they will largely govern your whole conduct and career all experience teaches. If I may follow the marriage figure, on the one side she beckons you, whose face is ever turned to the past. Her judg- ment is guided by the prejudices of the dark ages of the Republic, and her mind is clouded by exploded legends and superstition. Her wedding-robes are stained with the best blood of the country, poured out to 506 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF pursue or prevent her follies or her crimes, and in the vain effort to bring her in sympathy and accord with his patriotism, his requirements, and his aspirations, the young man who espouses her will cry out with the Apostle, "Oh, wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" On the other side, in all her radiant beauty, stands the daughter of liberty. At her touch the shackles have fallen from the slave, by her inspiration Union and Freedom were saved for mankind. For her the soldier marched. By her the hero was pensioned and the rebel forgiven, and the Republic as it is, many- fold better, greater, richer and happier than it ever .was, bears tribute to her genius. The one controlling prin- ciple governing all about her is that, forever, to-morrow and to-morrow shall be a grand and beneficent ad- vance from yesterday. Beside me, as I was speaking last week, sat a venerable man of ninety-five years. Said he : "I want to cast one more vote before God takes me home, and if there is any lesson derived from my long life and from the eighteen ballots I have cast for Presidents of the United States, the nineteenth and the last will be given for the Republican Party." From this long record, covering the most important period of our history, turn back to the present, and a first vote is to be thrown in this year of startling significance. The eldest son of James A. Garfield becomes of age on November first, and votes on No- vember fourth. With him is a memory which over- shadows that ballot. His father was the typical American, who went from the towpath to the plow, from the plow to the school, from the school to the CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 5°7 academy, from the academy to the college, from the college to the professor's chair, and thence among the scholars of the land ; the citizen who, when the drum beat to arms, became the soldier, the Colonel, the Brigadier-General, the Major-General, every step made in battle ; the citizen who, at the call of civic duty, went from school-board to the Legislature, from the Legislature to Congress, from Congress to the Chief Magistracy of the Nation, from the Presidency to a martyr's grave. You and I believe that in the dread unknown the loved ones who have gone before hover over and in numberless ways direct those who linger here, and with that record and the spirit of his great father behind him the son of Garfield will cast his vote for Blaine and Logan. 508 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF T XLII. he Friendships of Politics. — From a Speech at the Dinner given by State Senator Mc- Carthy to the Senate of New York, Febru- ary 20, 1884. There is one theme suggested by a gathering like this upon which too little is said, but that little is pure misrepresentation. It is the comment that friendships in politics are impossible, and that the rela- tions of men active in public affairs are more selfish, uncertain, and treacherous than in any other depart- ment of life. Those of us who have been practical workers for years know how false is this generalization. When a man has passed forty years of age the friends of school or college days are dead or lost. These fierce competitions of business, with its sharp and mer- ciless struggle for the mastery, confine one's confidences to his partners of the hour. Old associates die, and after the tears of the moment they are forgotten ; they move away, and after the embrace and good-by comes oblivion ; they become bankrupts, but our sympathy and regrets do not reach our pockets or transfer our capital to their use for the restoration of their fortunes. So that men would be left without any of the unsel- fish attachments of youth, without that enthusiasm for a man or a cause which makes the term "the boys" CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE IV. 5°9 equally applicable to the young and the old, and become isolated, narrowed, dried up within the family circle, were it not for the associations of politics. Believ- ing in the same principles, members of the same party, inspired with that esprit de corps which, in all ages, has formed, in times of trial, heroes, patriots, martyrs, men work together in the caucus or convention, fight together at the polls for the triumph of a common cause, and shout or share in victory or defeat. They will open their pocket-books to contribute money, and close their places of business to give their time for candidate or friend without hope or expectation of any other reward than his success. They will endure dis- comforts, hardships, travel, rough riding over country roads to elect a favorite. They will make exertions and sacrifices to help a companion who is down, when business and other friends pass by on the other side. From such men, sure of the attachments behind them, and in close communion with the popular pulse, comes our best statesmanship. They may be new to public life, but they are familiar with public affairs, and take broad and healthy views of current questions. Great popular convulsions have occasionally projected into \ representative positions the dainty gentlemen who ignore politics and despise politicians. Their work is worthless and their careers visionary. Their ignorance makes them the easy prey of sharpers, their vanity and opinionatedness keep them above and beyond popu- lar sympathies and desires. Their perpetual posings as probable Governors or Presidents render them the most unsociable and uncomfortable companions of all human creatures, and the closest communion with 510 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF them which is either possible or desirable is the oppo- site side of a ten-acre lot. Our host of to-night, who has full rounded the Psalmist's span of threescore and ten, with his mental and physical vigor unimpaired, overcoming the ordinary and usual cares and weak- nesses of age by active interest and participation in the living issues and contests of the day, surrounded here by colleagues who, without regard to party affiliations, are his personal friends, and sustained at home by hosts of men who have become attached to him by a half-century of political warfare, is a splendid example of the preservative and conservative tendencies of the friendships of politics. CHAUNCEY At. DEPEW. 5 11 XLIII. SPEECH AT THE DINNER GIVEN TO SOUTHERN GOV- ERNORS by the Southern Society of New York, May 2, 1889. Gentlemen : I was never more impressed with the fact that the inspiration and the home of oratory is in the South than by the speech just made by the Vice-President of the United States. We have been trying here in the North for a quarter of a century to get him to make a speech without avail, and lo ! the first time he is brought before an assemblage of Southern men, he at once follows in the footsteps of Calhoun, Clay, and Henry. The finest speech Mr. Morton ever made in my presence was last autumn, when he said to me : "Depew, if I were you, situated as you are, and with your responsibilities, I wouldn't think of accepting a Presidential nomination." I took his advice, and left the field open for the Vice-Presidential nomination to come to the State of New York. I never realized this until after the election, when it was too late. This episode has given me doubts as to whether the law is a good profession for a young man to follow. I rather think that to be really successful one should be a banker. I can speak for New York in bidding you welcome, $12 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF for I can trace my lineage back to her early settlers — even if I was not in the Centennial quadrille. New York loves the stranger— and to take him in. During this week she has forgotten her commercial supremacy in her efforts to show her hospitality to her visitors. The significance of this celebration is understood very little by any of us, and it will be better under- stood by those who read, or hear my recent oration read, at the celebration one hundred years hence. I was much impressed when I saw the men of all nations parading the streets yesterday with the Stars and Stripes waving above them, seeing nowhere the red flag of communism, or the black flag of anarchy, and I felt that they had been baptized in the spirit of patriotism, New York is the home of all people, no matter from whence they come, and I would like to have the South- ern people in particular consider the metropolis their abiding-place, for none are more welcome than they. I hope that the Southern people will aid us in correcting the abuses at elections — abuses that threaten the integ- rity and honor of our Government — and I believe they will. The danger that confronts us in this direction is most serious, but our people, whether of the North or South, are equal to overthrowing it, and I know they will. This is no time for pessimists. I would like to see the whole sky of the future — top, sides, horizon and all — painted red. I learned the Southern spirit well as treasurer of the fund for the establishment of a home for Confederate soldiers at Austin, Texas. I am sorry to say that the fund raised was not large, but the subscriptions were many, and in very small sums — widows' mites, as it CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 5*3 were. Eight-tenths of these contributions came from men who had fought in the Federal Army through the War. I am glad they were in the majority of the subscribers. It shows that we can love a foe who had the courage to fight and die for his opinions. It showed that we can rise above humanity to heavenly traits. 5*4 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF XLIV. An Interview with Emperor William. Probably the briefest speech Mr. Depevv ever made in public was in presenting a tribute of flowers to Kaiser Wilhelm I., in be- half of the Americans sojourning at Salzburg. The occasion was described as follows, in a cablegram dated Salzburg, August 12, 1886: EMPEROR WILLIAM of Germany arrived at Salzburg to-day on his way from the meeting at Gastein to Berlin. A journey of four hours in a carriage to the station and three hours travel by rail, with the mercury at 90 , told on his ninety years, and he appeared feeble. The American guests of the hotel here sent flowers to him with expressions of respect. On leaving Salzburg he requested the Americans to assemble in the large hall of the hotel, where he shook hands cordially with each man, woman and child, and spoke to them all in German. His grandson, Prince William, son of the Crown Prince, translating his remarks, said : "The Emperor thanks the Americans for their court- esy, and expresses his profound admiration for the American people." Chauncey M. Depew answered : "The three millions of Germans in America are among our best citizens, but what they give to us takes noth- ing from their love for the Fatherland. They have CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 5*5 taught to fifty million Americans the deepest esteem and veneration for their Emperor and the great peo- ple he so wisely governs." The Prince expressed for the Emperor renewed thanks for these cordial sentiments. The Emperor took the Americans' basket of flowers with him in his car. 5*6 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF s XLV. Withdrawal from the Presidential Race. peech at the republican national conven- TION at Chicago, June 22, 1888. Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Con- vention: I came here as a delegate-at-large from the State of New York, neither expecting nor desiring to appear in this Convention or before it in any other capacity. After my arrival, the representatives of New York, by a unanimous vote, presented my name to this Conven- tion. It was done for State reasons, in the belief that because it was the only time since the organization of the Republican Party that all divisions were healed and all interests united in the Empire State, it would secure in that commonwealth the triumph of the ticket. Under these conditions personal considera- tions and opinions could have no possible weight. Since then a discussion has arisen which has convinced me that my vocation and associations will raise a ques- tion in hitherto certain Republican States which might enable the enemy to obscure the great issue of the future industrial prosperity of this country, which unless obscured in some way will surely win us success this CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 517 fall. The delegates from New York have voted to continue in this support so long as ballots were to be taken, but under the circumstances, after the most ear- nest and prayerful consideration, I came to the conclu- sion that no personal considerations, no State reasons, could stand for a moment in the way of the general success of the party all over the country, or could be permitted to threaten the integrity of the party in any commonwealth hitherto Republican. In our own State, by wise laws and wiser submission to them by the railroad companies, the railway problem has been so completely settled that it has disappeared from our politics. But I believe that there are communities where it is still so active that there may be danger in having it presented directly or indirectly. Under these circumstances, and after your vote this morning, I called on the delegation from my own State and re- quested them to release me from further service in that capacity. They have consented, and my only excuse in appearing here is to give the reasons for their action, and for the appearance of my name, and to express my heartfelt thanks to gentlemen from the States and Territories who have honored me with their votes. The causes which have led to this action on the part of the Representatives from the State of New York, will leave no heartburnings amtfng the people in that State. The delegation will go home to a constituency which was unanimously for me, to find it unanimous in the support of whomsoever may be the nominee of the Convention. 518 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF R XLVI. eply to Friends who Greeted Him in New York Bay, on His Return from Europe, Sep- tember 13, 1888. My Friends: If you are as glad to see me as I am to see you, there has never been a happier party cruising about New York Bay. On the other side I was advised by shrewd politicians, who informed me that I had a brilliant political future before me — a fact which was empha- sized before I went away from home — that I must not make Mr. Blaine's mistake and come home in a British steamer. As home rule has not progressed sufficiently to give us an Irish line of steamers, I did the next best thing and took a German boat. And I must say that from sauerkraut to seamanship everything on it was sublime. Politics on the other side of the water are so mixed that I am glad there are none in this recep- tion. In England they have concluded that the Re- publican Party favors free whisky, and they think that consequently the Democratic Party favors prohibi- tion ! A distinguished Englishman informed me that he thought free trade would stand a better chance in this campaign if the Democrats were not all teeto- talers. Only one thing is better than going abroad ; that is CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 5 x 9 getting back. Nothing cultivates and develops the American spirit more than a visit abroad. If all our Anarchists and Communists and dissatisfied elements could be put in a position to spend three months in the study of Europe, they would come back better Ameri- cans. And any satisfied American who can do the same is sure to return an enthusiast, with red, white and blue flags all over his coat. England's hospitality is delightful, but the most satisfactory country to live and to die in is the United States. When he goes abroad for the first time, the Ameri- can looks after the antique, including the baronial cas- tle in which his ancestors were born, and which he usually finds out is only one story high. He visits the places where from degradation arose the principles of liberty; the cathedrals that symbolized in stone the religion of the race until it was expressed in a better f orm — the spirit ; he sees the wonderful canvases of the masters, and returns a broader, richer, fuller man. The second time he goes abroad it is generally for the scenes ; but he returns convinced that there is no scenery in the world that equals that of the United States. On his third visit he wishes to study the institutions of the Old World, and he finds that there can be no comparison. Rich in antiquity Europe may be, but in all that pertains to the present or the future America is vastly in the lead. When he goes abroad the Ameri- can delights to meet the great men who make the history of their day, and the more he can mingle with them the better for his education, his statesmanship, his citizenship. This year I had an hour's talk with him who com- 520 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF mands the attention of the civilized world in his states- manship — William E. Gladstone. He said to me: "Sixty years ago I read Chief-Justice Marshall's Life of Washington, and I was forced to the conclusion that he was quite the greatest man that ever lived. The sixty years that have passed have not changed that impression, and to any Englishman who seeks my advice in the line of his development and equipment, I invariably say : "Begin by reading the Life of George Washington." I also met John Morley and Arthur Balfour, and while it would not be right to repeat our conversation, I may say that I formed the impression that types continue the same in all ages, whatever be the modifications of environment. If these two men could be placed back- in the times of the Stuarts, I am convinced that Mor- ley would be a Roundhead and Balfour would be a Cavalier. One thing, my friends, that impresses an American abroad more than any other, is the infinite superiority of our economic and industrial system, especially as he realizes that the whole Continent is an armed camp. He sees there ten million men at the command of govern- ment for war purposes, with all business based on the need of being ready for the great war daily expected. He sees all the young men of Europe in the barracks or marching on the highway, with the women driven into the field to labor. He sees half the population daily drilling in the art of murder, and the other half taxed to support them in their hideous work. When you see this picture and then compare it with our coun- try, with an army invisible except with the aid of a microscope, and with a navy that a canal-boat can run CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 521 down ; when you see a system under which no burden can be put upon the people, save that which they will- ingly bear to meet an honest debt incurred in a war for their preservation ; when you see everything har- monized to work for the best development of the coun- try and the highest improvement of its citizenship, then you feel when you come back that truly there is no place like home. 522 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF T XLVII. he Christian Faith.— Reply to John Fiske, at a Meeting of the Nineteenth Century Club, March 3, 1886. I NEVER felt so absolutely out of place. I am a prac- tical man, overwhelmed with the cares of business. It is exceedingly difficult for me to get on the plane of philosophic thought. I am a practical man. I believe in the Old Testament and the New Testament precisely as they are presented by Christianity. I am in antag- onism to Mr. Wakeman, who dismisses the Bible as entirely a mess of legend, and with Prof. Fiske, who accepts it with an interpretation entirely his own. It was the atheism of France that taught license for liberty and led to the French Revolution. Where are those old philosophies and the old philosopher? They are dead, while Christianity survives. The school of atheism led to despair. Materialism soon found that every violation of the moral law could go on consistently with its teachings. So pantheism and positivism have followed only to be destroyed, and now we have the school of humanity and the cosmic philosophy coming close to the borders of Christianity as expounded by John Fiske. They tell us there is no more Creator, only a cosmic CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE IV. 523 dust. Who made the dust? There is only protoplasm, indeed. Who made protoplasm? They tell us of evo- lution from dust to monkey and then to man ; but all the scientists have never found the missing link. The simple gospel of the humble son of a carpenter, preached by twelve fishermen, has survived the centuries and out- lives all other philosophies of eighteen hundred years. I am not versed in the terminology of the philoso- phies. I believe them to be of little use to reach the hearts and to influence the actions of simple men. There is no liberty that lasts in the world, and there is no government which has liberty in it that lasts, that does not recognize the Bible. What is the object of all theology? It is to reach the human heart and to con- trol the actions of men as they are. How many of us can even understand what the philosopher says? You might take the whole Stock Exchange and read Kant to them, and it would be utterly incomprehensible to them. Not so with the teachings of the Golden Rule. They could understand at least what that means. I read Mr. Wakeman's pam- phlet last night. They tell us God must disappear; that prayer is begging; that the Holy Communion is cannibalism. When did such a religion send out a missionary? When you show me a colony of ten thou- sand people who have come to live decently by its teachings, I may believe it. But I say now that the Christian faith of my mother is good enough for me. If we believe this faith, what harm? If we disbelieve it, and thereby do wrong, what of our future? 5 2 4 ORA TIONS AND SPEECHES OF XLVIII. argument by chauncey m. depew before the United States Senate Committee, Jan- uary ii, 1890, on the Quadri-Centennial Celebration. Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee : The New York Delegation expresses its thanks to the Committee for according to it a hearing on a day when so many could attend. We are here to the num- ber of over a hundred. Most of the delegates leave large business interests and pressing duties at home, and they fairly represent the activities and enterprise of New York City and State. The object of their visit is to impress upon you the claims of New York for the World's Fair of 1892. Any American who visited the great Exhibition at Paris last summer was impressed with the fact that there was a great necessity upon the people of the United States in the near future to have one which would be equal, if not better. It was in all respects the most superb collection of the evidences of the de- velopment of different nations in their arts, industries and mechanical work which has ever been gathered. The nations of Continental Europe, of Asia, of Africa, of Great Britain and her dependencies round the globe, Mexico and the South American republics, in their CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE IV. 5 2 5 buildings and in their exhibits presented superb illus- trations of their products and skill. The United States alone was utterly deficient in any adequate representation of its resources, its inventions, or its mechanical powers. The impression left upon the representatives of the different peoples of the earth was that America might have vast area, great popula- tion and free institutions, but that for commercial pur- poses, in the interchange of commodities which the world needed, or in supplying those which were re- quired by its different markets, she was unequal to the competition with older nations. The main attraction of the American exhibit was petrified wood from Ari- zona. An English delegate, desiring to alleviate my mortification, said : "Your country's exhibit of petrified wood is unequaled in this Fair." The effect of this has been to do incalculable injury to our commercial future. The commissions appointed by the several governments and the merchants from all parts of the globe carried back to their people accounts of the products and manufactures which cannot fail to be enormously bene- ficial to the countries which were properly represented, and injurious to the United States. It will take a quar- ter of a century by the ordinary methods of trade to place the United States properly before the world. The largest manufacturing nation is compelled in the most marked and the quickest way to exhibit its re- sources and skill. This can only be done by an inter- national fair in the United States so comprehensive as to fitly present all that we have and all that we can do, and so broadly national and hospitable as to invite and secure the attendance of every other nation. So that 526 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF at the threshold of this discussion we must dismiss the fallacy which has been urged by the advocates of St. Louis and Chicago, that this is a national and not an international fair. Unless international, there is no purpose in holding it. The marvelous development of transportation lines and methods of rapid communica- tion within the United States has put into the posses- sion of every market so intelligently the products and opportunities of every other market, that no purely national fair would either add to our information or to our prosperity. It is in this sense of an international fair, held for the purpose of impressing upon the world the fact that we can supply the articles needed for its necessities and its luxuries, as well and as artistically made, and as cheaply sold as they can be purchased anywhere else, that New York becomes the only place where such an exhibition can be successfully held. All the visitors from abroad will come first to New York. If, in addition to the 3000 miles of ocean travel, there is presented to them the further necessity of breaking bulk, and traveling with their goods a thousand miles into the interior, it would deter many of them from coming. The experience and the expense of the carrying of goods and of persons among the older nations of the world is such as to make them dread great distances of land travel, carrying with them valuable and bulky goods. It has been urged that, because only 125,000 Americans visited the Fair at Paris, and possibly not more than 75,000 foreigners would visit the Fair in America, they are not to be considered as an important element in the success of the undertaking. CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. S 2 7 But, while there will probably be 30,000,000 of visi- tors to the Exposition, whose gate money will pay its expenses, and whose presence will attract the merchant and the manufacturer and the artist to exhibit, the 100,000 foreigners who may be there will represent hundreds of millions of people, to whom they are to carry a favorable or an unfavorable report of the com- mercial opportunities of the United States. We have had recently in Washington two congresses, one the Pan-American, and the other the Maritime, which num- bered less than 100 delegates to each, and yet the one was the expression of the statesmanship and the com- mercial aspirations of Mexico and the South American republics, and the other represented authoritatively the position upon questions affecting the great highways of commerce upon the ocean, the opinions to be crystal- lized into international law, of all the maritime nations of the globe. So the commissioners from the various States, and the keen-eyed merchants who bring their wares, will carry back to every port which a steamer can enter or where a flag can float, the story of the vast resources, of the wonderful inventions, of the unequaled mechanical skill, of the enormous surplus of manufac- tured products to be stimulated by opportunity, which the world wants and which America wants to sell. No fair has ever been successful unless held in the metropolis of the nation which authorized the exhibi- tion. When, freed from sectional ambitions or jeal- ousies at home, we view with impartial eye the situa- tion abroad, we all admit that exhibitions held for Great Britain at Liverpool or Manchester, for France at Lyons or Marseilles, for Italy at Florence or Naples, 5 28 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF for Germany at Dresden or Leipzig, would be failures; while it has been demonstrated from past experience that exhibitions held at the metropolis of any country, like London or Paris, are successful in attracting all that there is of the country in which the city is located, as well as all the world besides. I saw two years ago an attempted Universal Exposi- tion at Liverpool, which, though excellent in every way, attracted little attention even in Great Britain ; while two local exhibitions, held within the past three years in London, one called "The Healtheries" and the other called "The Italian," were almost equal to the French Fair of last summer in attendance, in value and variety of exhibits and in results. This was due to the great resident population within cheap and quick transit, and the vast number of strangers always present in London and who made part of the daily crowds at the fairs. No one will dispute that New York is the metropolis of this continent. Its population, its resources, the representative character of its business, the fact that three-fourths of the imports of the country come to its harbor, all make it such. There is not a cotton or woolen mill, a furnace, forge or factory, a mine at work or projected in the United States, which does not have its principal office in the city of New York. There is no project of any kind, whether to build a railroad, to bring agricultural terri- tory into settlement and market, to develop the re- sources of the New South, to open iron or coal veins in Virginia, Tennessee or Alabama, which does not pass all other places and come to New York. If it is unsuc- cessful there, it goes nowhere else. The conventions of CHA UNCE V M. DEPE W. 529 all the trades, which are annually held for mutual bene- fit, take place in New York, and are all closed with an annual banquet, which I invariably attend. A panic in New York is the paralysis of the country. Prosperity in New York means immense freight upon the railways, and enormous production from farm and factory and mine. New York does not influence, but simply records as the barometer the conditions of trade and produc- tion all over the country. To make a fair successful, a population immediately in contact is absolutely necessary. The French Fair had its thirty millions of visitors, and its 200,000 a day, because it was in the midst of a great resident popula- tion, which, for a few cents, and with the least loss of time, could repeatedly visit the Exhibition. St. Louis and Chicago present the most fallacious of arguments in their famous "circles of population." A circle about St. Louis, of 500 miles to the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, may have twenty-seven millions. A similar circle about Chicago, to the North Pole and the Pacific Ocean, may have twenty-five millions. A similar circle about New York may have twenty-two millions. A similar circle about Washington may have twenty millions; and, without much difficulty, by this process of calculation we shall have within these circles, for the purposes of this Fair, three or four hundred millions of people, and yet not include over one-half of the present located population of the United States. A similar circle drawn with Peekskill as a center — a village upon the Hudson where I was born — takes in the Hudson River and the Mohawk valleys, with their continuous villages and cities and unequaled scenery, 53° ORATIONS AMD SPEECHES OF includes New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, New- Haven, Hartford, and Baltimore, and presents a com- pact population which in wealth, in ability to travel, in appreciation of exhibitions and determination to visit them, is unequaled anywhere in the country. But then, Peekskill is deficient in hotel accommodations and in internal lines of travel necessary to carry vast masses to a fair ground and to take them comfortably away. Besides, Peekskill is not here asking for the Fair. The success of an exhibition is in populations in contact with the fair. Take a point centrally located at Jersey City, and draw about it a radius of equal diameter and extent to a line drawn from a point at Lake Michigan around the boundaries of Chicago, and you have a larger population than there is in the city of Chicago. You cross the river by ferry, and you have on the island of Manhattan the city of New York, with 600,000 more people than there are in Chicago. You cross to Long Island by the Brooklyn Bridge, and a circle again thrown out, covering again the same territory on Long Island as is included in the boundaries of Chicago, has more population than there is in Chicago. So that, within what might properly be called the city of New York, there are three Chicagos and a half. Then, taking Central Park as a center, within a radius of 200 miles, including the points from which people can come in the morning and to which they can go back at night, there are 8,000,000 of people. The lunch-basket and dinner-pail brigade — the real sup- porters of a fair, who can get there for a minimum of five cents and a maximum of $2 — to the number of not less than 8,000,000 are tributary to the New York CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 531 Exhibition. That of itself makes it a phenomenal success, and can be met by no similar fact from any other place on the American continent. The transportation question is one little understood, because it has been little studied. The success of the Paris Exposition was largely due to its location upon a park which had been reserved for military purposes in the heart of Paris, and was accessible from populous centers by a ten to twenty minutes' walk and by every line of transportation in the city. On any important day there will be present at the Exhibition at the time it closes 200,000 people. It is absolutely essential that an exhibition be closed at a specified hour, when the curtains are drawn over the booths and the ropes across the avenues inside the grounds. Then 200,000 hungry, tired, cross people, many with babies and young chil- dren, are discharged from the various exits, wild to get to their homes and lodging-houses or to catch outgoing trains and steamboats. A steam railroad, conducting its ordinary business, could run every five minutes a train of ten cars, carry- ing sixty people each, or 6000 an hour. A cable road could do about the same on a headway of two min- utes; surface roads not quite so well. It would not be possible, in any place where they think of locating the Fair in either St. Louis or Chicago, to discharge over 25,000 people an hour, and that would take for your 200,000 people eight hours. The first day of the block would be the last of the Fair. The location of New York upon an island makes it wonderfully adapted to the easy distribution of large masses of people. The Museum buildings in the Cen- 53 2 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF tral Park are in the center of population, and the loca- tions outside of the Park will be in easy and near connec- tion by electric roads. There are seven lines of horse- cars, two lines of elevated roads, and two lines of steam railroads connected with the ground. These carry New York Central trains to the interior of the State and the West, Harlem trains up the territory back of the Hud- son, and New Haven, Boston and Albany, and New York and New England trains to New England. In addition, a twenty minutes' walk, or, with the transpor- tation which would be provided, a ten minutes' ride to the river on either side, furnishes the piers and docks where steamboats and ferries can bear them up and down the Hudson, to Staten Island, to Long Island, up the Sound and 'across to Jersey City to the network of roads which run out from there to all parts of the country. Few of the promoters of this great enterprise have contemplated the enormous responsibility which the city assumes which undertakes to make it successful. The French Exposition cost, in round numbers, ten mil- lions of dollars. Of this five millions were contributed by the Government of France and the city of Paris, and four millions raised by a lottery, and the rest by the sale of concessions, the grounds being entirely con- tributed by the city. With the differences in cost of labor and material we must add 30 per cent. It would be unsafe to begin a Fair unless at least twelve millions of dollars were pledged. So far as I have been able to ascertain, Chicago and St. Louis have each about four millions which might be called available. New York has a guarantee fund of five millions of dollars, sub- CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 533 scribed under a contract which is binding upon the sub- scribers and their estates. The Committee on Legislation have unanimously adopted a bill asking the Legislature to authorize the city of New York to expend ten millions of dollars in buildings and grounds. There is no doubt about this authorization. Part of it will go for the completion of the Museum of Natural History and of the Museum of Art, to the completion of both of which the city is already pledged. This will furnish fifty-two acres of floor-room in fire-proof buildings. These buildings will be connected, through the subway which adjoins them, by an electric road, and over it a promenade can be built which will present a horticultural garden of un- equaled beauty ; while in the grounds north of the Park, which comprise Morningside and Riverside Parks and lands already promised, there are several hundred acres for a machinery hall and such other structures as may be required for the purposes of the Exhibition. New York, therefore, comes here, not only as the metropolis of the country, not only as the gateway to the continent, not only with the unequaled location where the ships can sail to the docks adjoining the Ex- hibition, but with the money pledged which makes the Fair an unquestioned success. Besides, New York has in her two museums art treasures exhibiting the progress of civilization for thousands of years, which have cost $5,000,000 and are of priceless value. These could not be transported to any other place. Then the wealth and opportunity of a century have accumulated in New York in private collections, treasures gathered from the monuments and 534 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF tombs of the ancients, from the sales of rare collections in Europe and the dispersion of galleries and art treas- ures, which, in the aggregate, are not equaled in any city in the world. All these, in the fire-proof buildings of the Museum of Art, would be available for the pur- poses of this Exhibition, to make it a phenomenal triumph. The Exhibition will be held from May to November. During that period at Washington, at St. Louis, at Chicago, it is a question of pajamas and palm-leaf fans. But an exhibition requires comfortable clothing, and the disposition and the physical power to move fast and far. St. Louis admits the phenomenal heat of the Democratic Convention of 1884, which put an end to National conventions being held within her borders. Chicago claims that Lake Michigan is her refrigerator and her reservoir. While gasping for breath one mid- night in the great Lake City, with my pajamas hanging on the bed-post, I remarked to my Chicago friend : "What is the matter with the refrigerator?" He said: "In every well-regulated household there are occasions when the hired man neglects to put the ice in the box." During the months of July and August the swelter- ing foreigner, wishing to see the inhabitants of these cities, would find them in New York and the sea-coast adjacent. New York has become the largest watering- place in the world. The ante-bellum Southerner, if he passed the White Sulphur Springs, went to Saratoga, to the White Mountains, to Sharon Springs; but the New South comes to New York, where it can drive in Central Park, stand on the Brooklyn Bridge on moon- light nights, sail up and down the unequaled Bay and CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 535 the unrivaled Hudson, go to Coney Island or Long Branch and take a plunge in the surf, and enjoy the forty theaters and one hundred concert halls which furnish amusement in the evening. Twenty-five thousand strangers, fifty thousand at the outside, would be the limit of St. Louis. The Repub- lican Convention last June in Chicago, which brought possibly a hundred thousand, crowded the town to the extent of discomfort — I remember it crowded me, — while the Centennial of the Inauguration of George Washington last April in New York brought there a million of visitors, who were amply accommodated and made scarcely a visible addition to the enormous crowds which are the normal characteristic of the me- tropolis. At Coney Island, at Long Branch, at Rock- away, at Long Beach, at the innumerable places of resort within an hour of the city, a million of people can be comfortably accommodated over night, with the attractions of surf and air unequaled anywhere else upon the coast, and unknown in the interior. The ex- hibition fails in one of its objects unless it is educa- tional. American artisans, mechanics and working men and women can there see the best results in metals, in wood and in textile fabrics from the shops and looms of the world. Expensive transportation will prevent their visiting a fair, but steamships in which they can be cheaply carried and housed will bring them from all along the Atlantic coast to the gates of the New York- Fair. The Southern Society in New York has more mem- bers than there are in any club in any city in the South. The Ohio Society of New York numbers more 53 6 ORATIONS AND SPEECHES OF citizens of Ohio than any club in the cities of that State,, and has just furnished one of its members to be Ohio's next United States Senator. The same is true of the Pacific Coast, and of the West and Northwest. There are in New York more Irish than in Dublin, more Germans than in any city in Germany save two ; and Italians enough to make one of the group of cities third in population in Italy. New York with her har- bor, her Hudson and East rivers, her Brooklyn Bridge and Bartholdi Statue of Liberty, her museums, parks and theaters, her race-courses and her seaside resorts, is alone the most attractive exhibition on the American continent. Politics have been suggested. The bugaboo of Tammany with the tiger's head, the shining teeth, the whisking tail and the polished claws stands on a Nation- al platform facing the Republican party. Well, I have lived all my life right under those claws, and every once in a while we pull them. The idea is that some of the ten millions or more expenditure which this Fair is to create may get into the hands of Tammany, and enable it to hold the State of New York during the next four years, and to carry it in 1892. But under the bill which we have drafted, the expenditure of the money is left entirely in the hands of the corporators named in the bill now on your desk — 103 men, of whom 60 are Re- publicans and the rest are Democrats of all shades. But they are all gentlemen of honor and integrity, who would assume the responsibilities of this trust as a public duty. While there has been some chaff and ridicule and raillery and pleasantry in the discussion of the claims CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE IV. 537 of Washington and St. Louis, of Chicago and New York, I can say for New York that there has been no feeling other than the warmest, the kindest and the most respectful for those other cities and their ambi- tions. We appreciate the public buildings and the un- equaled situation of Washington ; the history, the loca- tion in the Mississippi Valley and the future of St. Louis; and the marvelous growth, expansion and de- velopment, not only in commerce and trade, but in all the elements which constitute a great city in art and culture, of Chicago. Wherever the Fair may go, New York, so far as so great a city can, will do her best to make it a suc- cess. But if this committee will dismiss all claims of locality, all efforts to add to the prosperity of a city or section, and look at the whole country, its needs and opportunities for the World's Fair, and the place where the whole country would be most benefited by the Exhibition, the decision cannot fail to be New York. If the Government should to-day appropriate to every family in the United States the money which would carry them to one place, with the distinct under- standing that they could select no other, the vote, with a unanimity unequaled in the expression of desire, from Maine to the Gulf, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, among farmers, ranchmen, mine-men, mer- chants, artisans, professional men, journalists, artists, would be "Take me to New York." THE END.