CO M M E M O R AT I O N A D D R ESS on the SEVENTIETH ANNIVERSARY ^^FOUNDINGV^KNOX COLLEGE AND THE CITY OF GALESBURG By ROBERT MATHER /\ • -:'■-,■ '-.^ ." .::' V .■ - > ■■•■■■ ■• -. v^y'rfi;'. J. ^ r ■\>'^' , t \ ,, s-im-fPtsiii^a OLD MAIN BUILDING, KNOX COLLEGE COMMEMORATION ADDRESS ^;//.^^ SEVENTIETH ANNIVERSARY (9//>^^ FOUNDING ^/KNOX COLLEGE AND THE CITY OF GALESBURG DELIVERED AT GALESBURG ILLINOIS, WEDNESDAY JUNE 12th, 1907 By ROBERT MATHER M • C • M • V • I • I Bail^r»y Bc0*Wiio» COMMEMORATION ADDRESS ON THE Seventieth Anniversary of the Founding of Knox College and the City of Galesburg, delivered at Gales- burg, Illinois, Wednesday, June 12, 1907 By ROBERT MATHER Ladies and Gentlemen: I fear that nothing that I can say wiU convey to you any sense of my appreciation of this op- portunity again to speak to a Galesburg and a Knox College audience. It was an unearned compliment to be asked to make this address be- fore you, and you do me undeserved honor to listen to me. You are all familiar with the story of Antaeus, the fabled Lybian ruler who challenged all strangers passing through his realm to wrestle with him. He was the son of Earth, and when- ever in his struggles his feet touched the ground his strength was renewed, so that no mortal could overcome him. I sometimes wonder how Antaeus would have fared had he been doomed to wrestle for a time in one of our great modern cities, with its stone pavements and its sewers Commemoration Address lying ever between his feet and the strength-giv- ing soil. How he must have sighed, after some ages of such struggle, for the reinvigorating fields of Lybia! It is with some such feeling that I come back to this place where what I know of the art of mental wrestling was taught me, and feel my feet touch earth again. What memories of the green fields of youth, and the blue skies of hope, and the golden atmosphere of inspiration, that touch brings back to me ! How the years roll back, and the days grow young again, and there come be- fore me, present and concrete and real, the college and the teachers that opened for me the door of opportunity. The pictures that a man's mind carries of the home and scenes of his youth must usually be re- drawn when, after long absence, he revisits the realities. Indulgent memory preserves to those cherished spots the perspective of youth, and paints large to the mind's eye the objects of its affection. But when the objects themselves are measured in the perspective of a wider experience and observation, the mental picture calls for re- adjustment. Buildings that loomed large to the vision of youth dwindle in size and in dignity; distances that seemed great are compassed in Commemoration Address shortened strides ; spaces that were open and vast become narrow and confined; and men whose figures stood high against the early horizon as- sume statures less heroic and more normal. There are exceptions to this general rule, and, in the matter of buildings, one exception that I have experienced in my infrequent home-com- ings is the old main building of Knox College. I have often wondered by what process of selec- tion, on the mere inspection of catalogues or bul- letins or other descriptive literature, a boy chooses one from a number of colleges he has never seen. What there can be in such a situation to appeal to the imagination and to determine the judg- ment of the youthful seeker after knowledge, has always been a mystery beyond my perception. There must be much of the stumbling of chance in the making of a choice in such darkness. Of course, I do not speak of the favored children of affluence who do not choose, but are sent, to col- leges and universities whose fame is an all- sufficient magnet, but of those boys of humble circumstance but impelling ambition, who must pinch from the meager means that but meet ne- cessities an almost impossible surplus for college needs. Fortunate the boy, in such a state, whose 5 Commemoration Address unguided choice turns him to such a college as Knox. But for the youth of that class who, like my- self, chanced to live in Galesburg, the choice was easier and more certain. Before the eye and the imagination of such a boy there stood in daily attitude of inspiration the old college building. To him it was the brick-and-mortar incarnation of learning itself. Behind its modest walls the world-compelling secret of Knowledge dwelt, and at its doors Invitation on tip-toe beckoned him to its possession. If only he could but pass the fearsome dragon yclept Entrance Examina- tion, that stood guard at the gates, the key and the scepter of Power would be within his grasp. For all this the college building stood to the Galesburg boy, and for all this it still potentially stands. The years have given ample opportunity for comparison, but have furnished no reason to wonder or to feel ashamed that the unpretentious pile of red brick once meant and promised so much. It still stands, to my spiritual and my physical vision, as an adequate expression of the college building. And I return to its presence with an abiding satisfaction that Time has taken nothing from its simple dignity nor robbed it of its features of appropriateness and sufficiency. Commemoration Address Another exception to the general rule which I have stated is furnished by the men whose figures filled the foreground of my vision through the college days. It soon became apparent after we had entered upon the work of the college course, that it was not, after all, the college building, or its class-rooms, or its library, or its equipment, that was really the college. There were times, of course, when we students thought that we were the college — times, also, when we felt that we were both the college and the town. But as these illusions, characteristic of the earlier years of the course, wore away or were worn away, and the deeper significance of our surroundings and our occupations was borne in upon us, we came to realize that the college consisted, in all that it was and did, of a small group of sober men. And how the figures of those men grew as the chang- ing needs of the college work brought us nearer, first to one and then to another! How our con- ception of their importance changed, as the hear- ers of recitations, the deliverers of lectures and the mentors of manners, grew into guides of our ambition, moulders of our character and f ramers of our destiny! And what a wealth and variety of character and of temperamental attributes that little group of men displayed to the student Commemoration Address minds which it was their duty and pleasure to uphft and ennoble. It makes one young again only to recall the unceasing enthusiasm of Pro- fessor Churchill, typifying, at the same time that it led and inspired, the very spirit of youth itself. How sweet the memory of serene Professor Comstock, calm and unmoved as the changeless science he taught ! What inspiration there was in the spiritual exaltation of Dr. Bateman, pointing the soul ever to thoughts beyond the daily task! Who among us is not stronger for contact with the high ideals, the stern resolve, the unbending devotion to duty, of Professor Hurd? And what a human touch there was in Professor Willard, who, austerity itself in the class room, joined in our sports on the campus and set before the eager eyes of youth a model of mature and well-poised manhood. My youthful estimate of the size of those fig- ures has never lessened. On the contrary, the farther time has removed me from the immediate influence of their lives and teachings, and the more I have seen of other men, the greater have they grown in dignity, in strength and beauty of character, and in aptitude and capacity for the tasks they performed. And the greater, too, has Commemoration Address grown my sense of appreciation of the silent tragedies of their simple lives. It may seem strange to you to attach the idea of tragedy to the quiet life of a college professor in a small and untroubled community. We are apt to link the conception of tragedy with the fact of some great upheaval. But there is a tragedy of the glacier, as well as of the earth- quake, though it moves without noise and de- stroys without explosion. And I can conceive of no simile more apt or pathetic than the picture of a strong man, confined by circumstance within a chasm of narrowed opportunity, overtaken and crushed by the slow-moving glacier of time. Understand me : I would not belittle the work of the men whose memories we now crown with our affection. It was, in a high sense, a great priv- ilege to them to have impressed upon so many plastic souls the mould of their own high char- acter and aspirations. For us who sat at their feet and had the opportunity to learn wisdom — though we did not — it was a great blessing that they so well performed, through us, their lofty duties to society. But what might not those men have made of themselves, with their brilliant talents, their tireless industry and their placid but persistent love of the pursuit of knowledge and 9 Commemoration Address truth, if fate had found for them seats in some well-dowered university, where duty as well as inclination would have forced them into fields of original research, and where greater freedom than was here possible from the daily grind of class-work, would have given them leisure for self -development and self-expression. What dis- coveries might they not have made; what books might they not have written; what reputations might they not have builded beyond the ken of their own school and the memories of a single stu- dent-body. We who were the beneficiaries of their self-sacrifice, and the unconscious instru- ments in the overloading of their burdens and the narrowing of their lives, may well sigh that these widened and broadening opportunities were de- nied them. It is a natural step to turn from thoughts of these great teachers to the deeds and virtues of the founders of the college. Three of the five whose names I have spoken reached back, in memory and active association, to the men who laid the foundation, and to those who first labored on the superstructure. They drew from the fount itself, and kept alive through their own direction of the aiFairs of the college, that in- spiration of self -consecration and of self-sacrifice 10 Commemoration Address that was the very spirit and meaning of the foun- dation. They spanned by their own Hves the life of the college, and kept the guiding hand of the present in touch with the benedictions of the past. Within the year that is closing, death has severed the last of these living ties and loosened our final hold upon the vital figures of our college history. The living body of the college spirit, which has heretofore been resident among us, has become a memory. It is fitting, therefore, that we pause at this time to refresh that memory, and to con- secrate ourselves anew to its preservation. Had precedent been followed, this meeting would have been held on the fifteenth of Feb- ruary. Whatever the circumstance that caused its postponement until to-night, I hold it a mat- ter of peculiar significance that we heed not dates in commemorating the founding of our college. The Act of the Legislature of Illinois, passed February 15, 1837, granting a Charter to Knox College, merely recorded a fact that already had vital existence. The passing of that Act might fittingly be deemed the laying of the corner- stone; the foundation already lay strong and deep beneath it. The laying of the corner-stone is a ceremonial that catches the eye and holds the attention, but the things that precede it are the II Commemoration Address verities that touch the heart and that call us here to do them reverence. While, therefore, we do well to set aside a certain day for our devotions, we do quite as well to use for that purpose any other day of the calendar. We are accustomed nowadays to the founda- tion and enrichment of colleges and universities by men of wealth. For myself, I am disposed to applaud such gifts from whatever source they come, for I know of no better way to consecrate money to the good of mankind and to purge it of whatever of sordidness may have attached to the making of it. I have no sympathy with the con- ception that money should not be accepted for high purposes merely because the man who ten- ders it ought not ethically, perhaps, to possess it. I can not forget that when our Lord advised the rich man to sell all that he had and give to the poor, He did not stop to ask whether the rich man had made his money in oil or steel, in stock manipulation or through rebates from cominon carriers. And I have always felt that the Saviour of men, in giving this advice, had as much in mind the good that would come to the rich man through parting with his money as that which would accrue to the poor in receiving its benefits. Indeed, it was as a means of salvation to the rich 12 Commemoration Address man himself, that this course of conduct was pre- scribed. He is not, therefore, to my mind, a comprehensive follower of Christ, who would deny to any possessor of wealth the means of grace and regeneration which the dedication of his money to educational or charitable purposes affords him. The giving of the rich out of their abundance, however, misses one of the elements of grace that was the distinguishing mark in the foundation of Knox College. The conception of the college had origin neither in the brain nor in the purse of the rich. Indeed, the real founder of Knox was not only not rich — he was poor. Nay — not only had he nothing, but, in the providence of God, there had been taken away from him even that he had. Educated for the service of God and dedicated to His ministry, the misfortune of fail- ing health had disappointed his ambition and forced the abandonment of his career. Here was poor soil indeed in which to look for the germi- nation of the seed from which a college should grow. Yet to this sorely stripped man, bare of worldly possessions, broken in health and bereft of his soul's hope to serve the Lord in His vine- yard, the vision came, and to him was given the strength to make the vision a reahty. Having 13 Commemoration Address nothing else to give, he gave his life to the en- dowment of this college. How paltry against such a life-gift are the money-gifts of the rich, which cost to the giver neither life, nor service, nor curtailment of pleas- ure, nor denial of desire! And how rich is the college that is thus endowed! Knox has never Hsted among her tangible assets this foundation endowment from George W. Gale, yet without that resource, and the similar gifts which its ex- ample inspired, the money means of the college would never have sufficed to perform its work. For, from Kellogg to JVIcClelland and the mem- bers of the present teaching staff, there has been neither president nor professor nor tutor at Knox who has not from year to year freely given to the college something of his life, that in better en- dowed institutions would have been, in part at least, compensated in money. We can not dwell too much upon the lasting influence of that foundation gift. It not only founded the college, but it gave character for all time to the institution it created. Not only was it a sacrificial offering in itself ; it has been until now the inspiration to sacrifice by others. Its first ef- fect was in the formation of that wonderful plan under which the exodus from the State of New 14 Commemoration Address York to the promised land of the West was con- ducted. Through this plan the example and in- fluence and effort of Mr. Gale had enlisted in the task of realizing his educational vision forty-five other earnest souls. Note that I say he had en- listed souls in his enterprise. Men and women they were of modest but not unsubstantial means ; but it was not their money alone that he sought, and it was not their money alone that he received. They gave of themselves, as well as of their sub- stance, and accompanied him not only as sub- scribers but as co-laborers in the work he had designed. The spirit of self-sacrifice that had inspired the enterprise and sustained the founders in their migration, failed not upon the successful comple- tion of their plans. Indeed, with the opening of the college doors the days of abnegation were but begun. Responsibility, it is true, passed to the newly created college organization, but its weight was not lessened nor was devotion relaxed. The mantle of Gale fell upon the shoulders of Kel- logg, and has been worthily borne by him and his successors until now. The true education of youth, whether con- ducted in the home, by the State, or through privately endowed institutions, is always a labor 15 Commemoration Address of love and self-sacrifice. We all know what of pain and suffering and self-denial comes to the loving parent in the performance of that sacred duty in the home. But we are apt to forget that something of those burdens is cast upon the shoul- ders of tutor and professor and college president whenever the responsibility for further education of the boy or girl is lightly transferred from the home to the college. And we know nothing at all — most of us — and think little, even if we know, of the weight of that responsibility upon the mind of the conscientious teacher ; of the sac- rifices he makes of himself, of his hopes and his pleasures in order that he may fit himself worthily to discharge that responsibility; of the strenuous struggle, often with inadequate equipment and resources, to enable himself and his department to keep pace with the winged march of modern research and discovery ; of the long, discouraging years of weary work, hardly compensated beyond mere daily sustenance, with no provision possible for age or misfortune or for loved ones left be- hind. Such burden, in full measure, has been the reward of those who have carried on the work of the founders of Knox, from Kellogg to Fin- ley and McClelland, with all their self-sacrificing aids. i6 Commemoration Address It is true that for the customary reward of our commercial age they did not look, and did not care. Their occupation was not merchandiz- ing, and their profits were not to be read in ledger or in bank account. But profits there should have been, otherwise would their efforts have been in vain. And profits there have been and are, in such measure as to justify their en- deavors and to satisfy their souls. Fifteen hundred persons have completed the prescribed course in the college founded and pre- served by the efforts I have traced. Between five and six thousand other young men and women have received more or less complete in- struction within her walls. They were youth of sober minds, seeking an education not because it was fashionable, but that thereby their lives might be made broader and more useful. Most of them were of humble means, to whom distant universities offered impossible opportunities, and whose thirst for learning must have gone un- slaked but for this fountain at their doors. Some have been children of the poor, pinched by pov- erty and working their way through college, yet finding in the perfect democracy of the college life and spirit unreserved welcome and unstinted 17 Commemoration Address opportunity, and winning often the highest hon- ors of the course. All of them have come within the influence of the spirit of piety, of self-sacri- fice and of devotion to learning and to high ideals of life and conduct that cemented the foundation and has pervaded the existence of the institution. I do not know how many of them have con- sciously realized it, but the benediction of the lofty purpose and consecrated endeavor of the founders and teachers has breathed upon them all and made them better. They have gone their ways into the four corners of earth, reflecting honor upon the school that reared them and spreading its influence beyond the reach of its fame. Many of them have won eminence in the sacred and learned and artistic professions, in the marts of trade, in journalism, in literature, in diplomacy, on the bench, in Congress and else- where in the service of their country. Others have achieved greater success in the living of per- fect lives that are not told in the newspapers. Statistics would weary you, and the bubble rep- utation usually reflects anything but the real emptiness it so often conceals, so I refrain both from figures and from personal mention. I hold it peculiarly significant, however, of the pervasive and continuing influence of Knox College as an Commemoration Address instrument of education, that by far the greater number among its graduates engaged in the pur- suit of any one occupation, are those employed in the consecrated task of teaching. It is not given to us to know how far the souls that have gone before now have cognizance of the interests and affections they left behind; but if George W. Gale could know what lives have been touched and what careers have been shaped by the instrument that he had conceived and created, he must feel that the tasks with which he burdened his frail body while here have borne for him an ample recompense. To the teacher who counts his compensation in cultured minds and ripened character formed under his instruction, Knox has been more generous than her salary lists certify. No finer present reward for human endeavor could be conceived than that accorded to Professor Hurd, who for nearly sixty years was here privileged to see an unending proces- sion of youth taking on, as they passed, some- thing of the impress of his own high soul. The story of the founding of Knox has its lessons of practical suggestion as well as of ethical and sentimental interest. They were not impractical visionaries or religious fanatics that clasped hands with George W. Gale in his ex- 19 Commemoration Address pedition for the establishment of a seat of learn- ing in the unsettled West. Hard-headed busi- ness men there were among them, devoted to the altruistic enterprise and earnest in its support, yet far-sighted enough to see that philanthropy planted in the fertile soil to which they were going would produce sufficiently to reward both the beneficiary and the benefactor. This feature I mention not in derogation of the single-mind- edness of the founders, but as a tribute to the soundness of their schemes and the sanity of their efforts. Indeed, I count it among the most praiseworthy of their acts that, of their own voli- tion, they bound their own fortunes, with con- tinuing ties of self-interest, to the fortunes of the college they created. In the establishment of the college the founders acted as promoters and organizers of a corpora- tion. We are told that, as an original endow- ment for the college, the founders with their own money purchased from the Government a half township of land at one dollar and a quarter per acre, and then, to supplement the initial gift, bought back from the corporation part of these same lands at an average price of five dollars per acre. They thus gave to the college in advance the anticipated increase in the value of the lands 20 Commemoration Address that was expected to flow from their own efforts in the estabHshment of the college and the build- ing up of a community about it. I betray no secrets of my profession when I say that such are not the methods by which the capital stock of corporations is ordinarily nowadays paid in. Having thus generously endowed with their labors, their lands, their money and their hopes the sanctified corporation they had created, the founders turned each to the lands he had re- purchased at four times their original cost, in the confident hope that the success of the college and the growth of a city around it, together with their own industry in the care and cultivation of their lands, would still further multiply the value of their possessions and thus reward their efforts. It was strong-hearted faith and enduring pa- tience that inspired that hope, and only the long labors of the pioneer, sustained by unwavering purpose and intrepid courage, made its realiza- tion possible. Yet the realization came, not al- ways, perhaps, to the founder himself, but with certainty to his children, and in rich abundance to their children after them. What a legacy one of those farms would be to-day — held in direct descent from one of the founders, multiplied in commercial value by the success of his philan- 21 Commemoration Address thropic efforts, made delightful as a place of residence by the proximity of the college and the cultured community which his piety and devotion had helped to found, and glorified by the act of renunciation through which the title was first ac- quired ! Who among us would not envy the for- tunate possessor of such an estate? And who, devoted to the laws under which we Hve, would deny to him the right to enjoy the pleasures and the profits of his possession? But let us suppose that the founders, instead of making distribution of the lands bought back from the college, had conveyed them to a private corporation, and had taken shares of stock for their respective interests. Shares thus issued at the rate of a dollar and a quarter per acre could justly be said to be fully paid, for that was the actual value of the lands at the time. Possibly an issue at the rate of five dollars per acre could have been justified, though three-fourths of that amount represented, not the value of the land, but the faith of the stockholders in its future. But if shares had been issued at the rate of one hundred dollars per acre, the transaction must have been condemned, if certain views now held had then prevailed, as a gross example of over- capitalization. Yet those hundred-dollar shares, 22 Commemoration Address I am told, would long since have commanded a most attractive premimn in the Galesburg mar- ket. I feel that I owe you an apology for obtruding upon such an occasion so sordid a thing as this kindergarten problem in corporate capitalization. But this was a risk that your Committee assumed on your behalf when a mere slave of commercial- ism like myself, instead of some emancipated man of letters, was asked to make this address before you. Besides, one part of the work of the founders lay in the domain of commercialism, and I deem that portion of their labors also worthy of commemoration. They founded the city of Galesburg as well as Knox College. I have no patience with the cant that speaks of this as an age of commercialism, as though that fastened upon the times a badge of degeneracy. In the development of man the desire for acquisi- tion and for traffic follows closely upon the pri- mal instinct for self-preservation and the secon- dary aspiration for companionship. It is, there- fore, the first spring of human conduct after those inspirations that are essential to preserve the race. It has been the directing spirit in all human development. We point to any promi- nent page in history only to see behind the pa- 23 Commemoration Address geantry of courts and camp the mercenaries of trade. There have been periods, it is true, that art has adorned, and literature ennobled, but they were times also upon which commerce had piled its riches. Our own national life dates from a revolt against the imposition of a tax upon tea. Our Federal Constitution grew out of the ob- jection to state regulation and taxation of inter- state commerce. One of the great works of Washington was not as soldier or as president, but as surveyor and promoter in estabhshing a line of water communication between the Ohio and the Atlantic in order that the commerce of the great northwest should flow to the American coast rather than to a Spanish port at New Or- leans. We fought Great Britain in 1812 because of her interference with our commerce on the high seas. It was the industrial as much as the moral aspects of the slavery question that forced the AVar of the Rebellion; and business is at the bottom of our problems in Cuba and the Philip- pines. The very vastness of our domain, the unparal- leled wealth of our natural resources, our geo- graphical isolation and our consequent freedom from wars and leisure for the occupations of peace — all have conspired to make us, perforce, 24 Commemoration Address a nation of traders. Problems of statesmanship and of war we have had from time to time, and in God's providence have solved them ; but these are not the occupations that have framed the national character. Indeed, the great problem that has occupied the activities of our people from the time when restless homeseekers from across the seas landed at Jamestown and Plymouth Rock until now, has been the very task to which the founders turned when they left the crowded East to plant a colony in the unvexed prairies of Il- linois. The development of our national re- sources, the opening of our lands to settlement, the planting of men upon the soil, the founding and upbuilding of towns — these are the occupa- tions that have invited the ambition, engaged the talents and occupied the time of our people. In their modest way the founders performed the labors that absorb the captains of industry of our days. They built a college in the hope that a town and a farming community might grow up around it and prosper with its prosperity. They invested their means in the enterprise, they staked their future upon it, they gave their energies to its direction, and they gathered and are con- cededly entitled to the profits which its success produced. 25 Commemoration Address They thus typified the mightier forces that since their times have undertaken the develop- ment and exploitation of our domain. Now a railway is built into unsettled territory, in the hope that people will come upon the soil, produce crops, build cities, demand the necessaries, the comforts and the luxuries of life, and thus fur- nish traffic to the railway and make the venture profitable. Or great coal fields or timber lands are developed, or mines opened, or mills or fac- tories or furnaces erected, all in the faith that the increase of our population and the growth of their demands mil justify the risk, multiply the investment and reward the effort. And from these beginnings all the complicated movements of modern commerce ensue. In all these projects we miss, of course, the spirit of piety and be- nevolence that inspired the deeds of the founders, but in all of them are present the courageous initiative, the bold hope and the earnest striving that not only marked the undertaking of the founders and made it successful, but are the dis- tinguishing features of our national character. To these traits of the national mind the task of developing the country, with its challenge to strength and daring, its exciting chance of suc- cess or failure, and its alluring promises of ac- 26 Commemoration Address complishment and of profit if the venture wins, has always made a strong appeal. And the re- sponse to that appeal has been a settlement of our territory, a development of our resources, a growth in population and an increase in wealth unparalleled in history. I would not have you understand that I think this is all there should be in a nation's life, or that I commend altogether the commercial spirit of our day. I am not sure that we have grown in intelligence, in grace and in love and charity for our fellow man in like ratio as we have grown great and rich. And I am quite sure that we make poor distribution of the rewards of all these tremendous efforts and, in consequence, set up false standards of success. We are much in- cMned to overlook the noble means employed in our commercial movements, and to see only the sordid end. We make too much of mere money, and measure men by their possessions rather than by their achievements or their character. I hold that the engineer who finds a line and builds a railroad through impassable mountains does a greater work and deserves better of his fellow men than the man who manipulates that rail- road's stock in Wall Street. It should be con- sidered a greater achievement to design or to con- 27 Commemoration Address struct a beautiful building like the New York Stock Exchange, than to make a fortune gambling within its walls. The discovery and perfection of the marvelous modern processes of steel-making is a greater achievement than either the organization or the conduct of a billion-dollar steel corporation. Yet, withal, our commercial activities present no cause for enduring shame or despair, for, in days of peace it is through a citizenship contentedly occupied in successful and honorable commerce that a nation wins its way to greatness. Permit me to emphasize the fact that I have used the term honorable commerce, and to direct your minds to some reflections which that term suggests. The great commercial enterprises of to-day are almost exclusively conducted by corporations. Against this fact of itself no intelligent criticism is directed. The corporation presents manifest and admitted advantages for the development of industrial opportunity, especially in making ef- fective the capital of scattered individuals who, but for this agency of co-operation, would not readily be brought into united effort. The cor- poration as an agency, therefore, is concededly a necessary and useful factor in our industrial 28 Commemoration Address life. But concerning the methods of organiza- tion, of management and of control of some of our great corporations, facts of late have been revealed that have shocked the conscience and stirred the anger of the people. Every form of crime conceivable of commission by or through or against a corporation has been displayed in proof — enormous over-capitalization of com- panies whose shares were to be sold to the public at fictitious prices under cover of respectable names; gross discrimination by common carriers and consequent oppression of competitors by the favored shippers; criminal misuse of the trust funds of great life insurance companies for the private benefit of individuals; the use of the favors and power of great railroad corporations for the private gain of the ofiicer wielding the power; the making of private profit by trustees for the stockholders in their dealings with the se- curities and property of the corporation. And with the commission of each of these offences there have been connected some of the greatest names in the world of industry and finance. The sensationalist and the demagogue would have us believe that the whole commercial fiber is rotten; and denunciation of "corporate management," 29 Commemoration Address without distinction of persons or corporations, fills the press and deafens the public ear. Let us be warned, in this inquiry, against the loose mental habit of generalizing from insuf- ficient premises. The eighth commandment was the law before our Anglo-Saxon system of juris- prudence was born or conceived; yet it has been universal human experience, from Sinai until now, that wherever articles of value are left un- guarded some human being will be found to ap- propriate them, in violation of that law. The generality of this experience, it is true, does not abate the condemnation of the crime or the prose- cution of the criminal, but neither, on the other hand, does the commission of the crime warrant an indictment against the human race. If the thief happens to be a man high in society and prominent in business or public affairs, the head- lines in the newspapers are justifiably larger, but the essential fact remains that one man has com- mitted a crime. And if a dozen, or a score, or a hundred of such thieves are uncovered, it does not yet follow that all men are thieves, or even that all other men engaged in like occupations are to be condemned. I make no apology for the crimes disclosed in these investigations, and I hold no brief for the 30 Commemoration Address culprits there discovered. But I have not, on account of these disclosures, lost my faith in my fellow man. The facts that have been made known are sensational and bad enough, in all con- science, but they touch only the edge of the field of corporate activity, and smirch but a spot of its broad expanse. The iifte«*ber^ of the dishonored you may count on your fingers; but their name is legion whose lives of honor, of rectitude and of probity have adorned the history of corporate management and dignified the commercial career. One figure only has been starred before the public in these investigations — the accused. The short and simple annals of the unsuspected lack the features of sensationalism that call for start- ling pages in the press, and printers' ink has not been wasted upon them. I speak for the man who has not had part in these inquisitions, and whose cause has not been heard — the average, honest, business man. And I assert, in spite of the sad spectacle of these revelations, the es- sential honesty and integrity of American busi- ness, of our business corporations, and of our business men. I deem it a privilege to be permitted to bear this message to an audience of youth, fitting themselves for life's activities. The path of op- 31 Commemoration Address portunity for many of you will lie through the very fields of industry occupied by these great corporations. It will be your fate to serve them, to aid in creating and upbuilding them — perhaps to control them. I would not have you believe that their methods are essentially dishonest, or that success in their service is won through dis- honor. It is not so. I should be but a poor mes- senger of hope to these youthful souls if, after twenty-five years spent in the midst of such ac- tivities, I should bring back to this school, where my own aspirations were moulded, a message of a different tone. It is with earnest conviction that I proclaim this gospel of the essential honesty of our busi- ness life. Of no time could this proclamation more confidently be made than the present, for an awakened corporate conscience, roused by re- cent events, has sharpened the sense of commer- cial integrity, and holds close to the eyes of cor- porate directors and managers their duties and their responsibilities. It is due to this common honesty, as well as to the generations that have not yet had their chance, that industrial oppor- tunity shall not be destroyed in the effort to cure the evils that recent revelations have laid bare. It behooves society, of course, in such a situation 32 Commemoration Address as the present, to try to throw greater safeguards around its treasures, but it would hardly be deemed a necessary or a wise precaution to tie the hands of all humanity. It might even be bet- ter that an occasional theft should still be possible than that all mankind should be thus affronted, and its possibilities for useful activity thus paralyzed. Do not misunderstand me. Wrongs have re- sulted from corporate over-capitalization, and they should be prevented. But they can and should be prevented without denying to the in- dustrial pioneer the right to capitalize not only his cash investment, but his risks, his faith, his labors and his hardships. Knox College would never have been founded had the law at the time limited the ultimate financial reward of the founders to a fair interest return upon the five dollars per acre invested in their lands. Nor do I argue against the regulation of the business of common carriers. It is now the full span of a generation since an honored alumnus of Knox College, sitting in the Supreme Court of Illinois, concurred in a decision which estab- lished the principle on which rests the power of the government to make such regulations. I have never questioned the soundness of that principle 33 Commemoration Address or feared for the consequences of its enforce- ment. I venture to hold the opinion, however, that it is neither just that regulations to be en- acted in enforcement of this principle should be conceived in a spirit of vengeance toward those who have offended against the laws, nor wise that commercial opportunity should be so limited that neither capital nor ambition shall longer be at- tracted to the activities that have made the nation commercially great. It may further be doubted whether, as a nation of individualists, we are quite prepared, without more consideration than has yet been given the subject, for bureaucratic con- trol of the methods of conducting our business affairs. It remains to be demonstrated that a government department can justly compute in advance the profits that should be permitted to any given industrial enterprise. We have yet to learn that the mere fact that a man holds a com- mission from the government throws around him the mantle of infallibility, or clothes him with the impenetrable armor of righteousness. There should be no fear of a wise and just de- cision of these questions if they were really an is- sue before the people. Our history presents no more impressive spectacle than the settlement in 1896 of a question purely economic, on which 34 Commemoration Address parties were sharply divided, and of which the debate had been earnest and exhaustive. But the questions to which I have referred present the anomaly of filling the public mind without divid- ing party opinion. In a free government like ours nothing is more to be feared than the license of uninstructed conviction. And concord of party policies, in a situation that has incensed the people, is not conclusive evidence of wisdom. But I fear that I weary you with these worldly thoughts. The light in which we love to look upon the founders is that which beats upon their higher purposes and illumines the unselfishness of their souls. In that light let us remember them. Seventy years now separate us from that completed act of theirs from which we count the life of college and community. Tradition only spans the space and tells us what manner of men they were. But it needs no longer tradition or living voice to tell the manner of things they did. Thereof the living memorial lasts in the spirit of the institution they founded. Consecrated to God, but to no creed; endowed by life-service rather than by weajth; founded in love and sus- tained by enduring self-sacrifice — let us dedicate ourselves to its continuance. 35 ^"^^■mB'^^^ L IBRARY OF CONGRESS iiilililllllillilillllll