B 1,319,887


GRAD
828
H412a




I




IA  t   X  l*  — Y
I'
L~-:,. I".i ~




s
I




i
I
I




t




I
I




I




ADDRESSES OF
JOHN HAY








0
" J. f:.         6,v to:: 'to    0   0,
* "a*:    C, %,I,::
0          4,   0   * 0




e
I




- ~




ADDRESSES OF


JOHN HAY:It
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1906








Copyright, 1890, 1906, by
THE CENTURY Co.
Copyright, 1904, by JAMES D. HAGUE
Copyright, 1906, by THE CRITIC CO.
Published October, 1906


THE DE VINNE PRE86




CONTENTS
PAGE
I FRANKLIN IN FRANCE.......   1
II OMAR KHAYYAM........      43
III SIR WALTER SCOTT........  51
IV SPEECHES BEFORE THE AMERICAN SOCIETY
IN LONDON........      61
v A PARTNERSHIP IN BENEFICENCE...  75
VI SPEECH AT THE ANNUAL DINNER OF THE
ROYAL SOCIETY........  81
VII SPEECH AT THE ANNUAL DINNER OF THE
LITERARY FUND.......    87
VIII SPEECH AT THE OPENING, BY MISS HELEN
HAY, OF THE ROBERT BROWNING
GARDEN..........  97
IX INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT..... 103
x AMERICAN DIPLOMACY......    111
XI A FESTIVAL OF PEACE.......  127.
XII WILLIAM MCKINLEY.......    135
XIII AT THE UNIVERSITIES....... 177
v




CONTENTS
PAGE
XIV COMMERCIAL CLUB DINNER..... 191
xv NEW ORLEANS......... 201
XVI THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC.. 207
XVII PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT.....      217
XVIII EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.... 227
XIX LINCOLN'S PAITH.......       235
xx THE PRESS AND MODERN PROGRESS.. 241
XXI FIFTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY 261
XXII AMERICA'S LOVE OF PEACE....   303
XXIII LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE IN THE TIME
OF LINCOLN.                   319
xxrv CLARENCE KING.......           343


vi




FRANKLIN IN FRANCE
PREPARED FOR THE MERCHANTS' CLUB OF CHICAGO,
DECEMBER, 1904, BUT NOT DELIVERED, OWING TO THE
DEATH OF A BROTHER OF MR. HAY.  PUBLISHED
IN THE CENTURY MAGAZINE FOR JANUARY, 1906








FRANKLIN IN FRANCE
W      HEN the men of the Revolution threw
into the game of war their lives, their
fortunes, and their sacred honor, they meant
to stand by their solemn professions. They
intended to fight the battle out-to stand or
fall with the principles they had announced.
They were ready for death and defeat, but they
were resolved on life and victory. They held
success to be their immediate duty. They were
not greedy of glory; they wanted liberty. And
they were anxious to gain this inestimable good
in the quickest possible way. They cast their
eyes over-seas to search for what help might
come from abroad. If there was among the nations of Europe a sense of wrong, a jealousy,
or an antipathy to England which might be useful to their cause, a motive of interest, a spirit
of gain, which might be caught and set to work
3




FRANKLIN IN FRANCE


for the new and struggling freedom, they
were ready to use them. The gnomes working
for the heroes was a well-worn myth. They
knew they were fighting the battle of the human
race. Let the human race lend a hand, if it
would.
So, one of the early acts of the Continental
Congress was to form a secret committee to
correspond with friends abroad. It was composed of five members, Benjamin Franklin,
John Jay, Thomas Johnson, John Dickinson,
and Benjamin Harrison-names we all recognize yet. The committee was a strong one.
Franklin was the most skilled diplomatist in
the colonies, by natural aptness and by technical experience. So the bulk of the work naturally devolved upon him. He began correpondence with British Liberals, Dutch Lawyers, French Doctors, and Spanish Princes. It
took at least six months to exchange letters
between Paris and Philadelphia. We can now
scarcely imagine the sickening weariness of
hope deferred in those days.
To France, as the traditional enemy of England, all eyes were naturally turned. Mr. Jay
relates a singular incident, which powerfully
4




FRANKLIN IN FRANCE
impressed many minds, of an old gentleman
who arrived in Philadelphia in 1775, and offered to the Congress then in session, in good
Parisian English, the assistance of the King
of France, in stores, arms, ammunition, and
money. Being asked for his name, credentials,
and other ambassadorial baggage, he drew his
hand across his throat and said politely but
positively, "Gentlemen, I shall take care of my
head." No tombstone was ever more discreet
than this old gentleman. He disappeared the
next day from Philadelphia, and took such
good care of his head that the keenest-scented
annalists have never discovered a trace of him.
If we were inclined to be superstitious, the only
two circumstances we know of him-his
Parisian accent and his tender care of his
head-might induce us to take him for,St.
Denis. This and other incidents made men
think and talk much of France. No letters
came from Franklin's correspondents. The
committee resolved to send an ambassador to
France; and a candidate turned up the moment
he was wanted-Silas Deane, of Connecticut.
It is a curious fact, and one which shows how
our nation sprang at once fully developed into
5




FRANKLIN IN FRANCE


being, that our first foreign minister was a defeated member of Congress. A quiet legation
is the stuffed mattress which the political acrobat wants always to see ready under him in
case of a slip.
Silas Deane sailed to France and soon set on
foot very extensive business operations for the
assistance of the colonies. With the aid of that
strange mixture of charlatanry and genius,
Caron de Beaumarchais, he sent a large quantity of valuable stores to America, and a small
quantity of worthless officers. He had the
favor and the secret assistance of the court.
The virtuous and far-seeing Turgot, who
knew there was much to lose and little to gain
by the American alliance, after protesting in
vain against the Beaumarchais interest, had
been dismissed the cabinet. The Comte de
Vergennes assisted the colonies privately with
one hand, and with the other dexterously
stroked the right way the fur of the irritated
British lion.
It was thought best, however, that stronger
hands should take charge of this business. On
September 26, 1776, Congress elected an embassy to France, consisting of its two most
6




FRANKLIN IN FRANCE


illustrious names. The choice of Franklin and
Jefferson shows how vital the French alliance
had come to be considered. Jefferson declined.
Congress elected in his place Arthur Lee of
Virginia. Mr. Deane was also retained in the
embassy.
When Franklin was elected in secret session
he turned to Dr. Rush and said in shopman's
phrase, "I am an old remnant-you may have
me for what you please." He was seventy
years old and the most famous American of that
day. He sailed in the swift sloop of war Reprisal, Captain Wickes, which captured two
prizes on the way; and about six weeks later
he descended at the Hotel de Hambourg, in the
Latin Quarter. I dined there once, for Franklin 's sake. I hope the kitchen was better in
his day.
It was a wonderful France that he found.
The old dispensation was drawing nigh its end,
and no one dreamed it. The new daylight was
dawning and the darkness comprehended it
not. The best king of his race wa-s sitting on
his thorny throne, doing, according to his feeble lights, his best for the people who should
one day slay him. Over his weak head were
7




FRANKLIN IN FRANCE


gathering the storms that had been brewing
for centuries. His ancestors had eaten the
sour grapes of tyranny, and his innocent teeth
were set on edge.
Through long ages of wrong and rapine and
murder this great, patient France had submitted to its masters. These are not phrases.
The kings and great lords robbed and
killed their vassals with no thought of accountability. It was not a hundred years since the
young Prince Charolais invented that humorous amusement of shooting tilers on the roofs
of houses and seeing them roll and tumble into
the street-from mere gaiety of heart, says
the chronicler. Still in many parts of France
that odious right of seigneurie was retained,
which made peasant husbands loathe the face
of their first-born. And everywhere there was
no right of the poor that the rich man greatly
respected. There was no feeling of the plebeian which the noble thought worth caring
for. The monarchy was still the most splendid
of Europe. The court was more brilliant than
anything the world will ever see again. There
was an appearance of wealth and movement in
the great cities. But in the fields there was
8




FRANKLIN IN FRANCE
gaunt famine and dull, hopeless misery.
D'Argenson says that in 1738, an era cited as
one of peace and prosperity, "men died thick
as flies, in poverty and eating the grass of the
fields." Rank had prepared its own destruction by its crimes. Its part in the play was
over. The groans of suffering humanity were
not yet heard, but of God. He would take care
of his little ones in due time.
This vast French monarchy was undermined.
The enormous power, built up with labor and
pain by a long line of kings from Charlemagne
to Louis le Grand, was gone: not the less utterly gone that no one saw it go, and no one
had as yet marked its absence. It had grown
by fitful though continual advances through
the English wars of the Charleses, plucking always prerogative from the bloody fields of
disaster. It had grown stout and plethoric, fed
with blood and nourished with crimes by that
quaint and pious knave, Louis XI. Before he
died it was out of its nonage, and it flourished
on without much effort on the part of the subsequent kings. In the reign of Louis XIV it
reached its acme. So great a king as Louis
never lived. Yet he was the most commonplace
9




FRANKLIN IN FRANCE


of men, were he not king. His reign was glorious, people say. That is, a great army and
able generals, whom he let alone, fought
frightful and useless battles which impoverished France and gained nothing. He encouraged arts and literature, by giving to Moliere
and Racine, and the rest of those Titans, about
the same distinction and favor which he would
have given to a clever dancing-master. He
built Versailles. This is the masterpiece, the
outward manifestation of the consummate
bloom, of European king-craft.  This stupendous work was the last great effort of the
royal prerogative-the last great enterprise
which a king has undertaken without at least
attempting to persuade the people that it was
for their benefit. But this vast pile and these
lordly pleasure-grounds say cynically to the
world, "The King is the State."  Monarchy
has never recovered from the strain of that
effort. It is the infallible symptom of decadence in a man or a government when it undertakes works which cannot pay expenses. The
Pharaohs perished when their Pyramids were
finished. Napoleon went to Moscow to meet
his evil genius. Every country town in Amer10




FRANKLIN IN FRANCE


ica has the ruins of a fine house called somebodyy's "Folly."
This great King Louis died in a miserable old
age, and they carted him off to St. Denis with
small ceremony, and his great-grandson, Louis
XV, reigned in his stead. But the regent of
Orleans ruled over France in the babyhood of
the King. We know what this candid prince
thought of his own rule. He said one day to
the Abbe Du Bois, his prime minister, "A devil
of a kingdom, this-governed by a sot and a
pander!" A good-natured man, this Duke of
Orleans, thoroughly corrupt, with good intentions that were never fulfilled, with amiable
qualities that led to nothing but shames and
crimes. Breathing a poisoned air from his
birth, moral health was impossible to him. He
meant well to the people, but his vampires
drew their blood and coined it to supply those
mad revels of the Palais Royal that our decent
age refuses to describe. His reign served to
grade the passage from the Fourteenth to the
Fifteenth Louis.
And here the last word of the monarchy is
indeed said. When a king like Louis XV becomes possible, then the world begins to ask
11




FRANKLIN IN FRANCE


whether it may not get on without kings. The
life of this unspeakably mean creature seems
meant to show us how questionable is any
system that may sometime give to utter depravity a practical omnipotence of mischief.
There may have been others as licentious, as
cowardly, as cruel, as false, as avaricious as
he. But no other man could set these sordid
vices up in the sight of the world, and by the
accursed alchemy of power turn them to graces
and examples to be praised and followed by all
who were weakly loyal or meanly servile. This
was the work of Louis the Well-beloved. He
rolled in the garbage of vice so that the purple
could hardly be clean again. He depraved and
corrupted the court, so that from the courtier
class nothing more was to be hoped. You would
not pardon me if I should give you a catalogue
of his enormous and cowardly crimes. One
who reads attentively the memoirs of those
times comes back as from a visit to a charnelhouse. The tone of levity in which these horrors are recorded is the most saddening thing.
This man was so flattered and fawned upon
that his conscience went to sleep disgusted, and
he really thought he was rather a good sort of
fellow.
12




FRANKLIN IN FRANCE


That he might play out his part to the end he
was granted robust health and long life. His
last sin found him out, and he crowned a despicable life by a loathsome death. He was
riding in the park and he saw a peasant's
funeral go by. He rode up and asked who was
dead. He turned pale at the answer-it was
the name of his last victim. But some dreadful fascination induced him to question again.
What did she die of? "Smallpox, sire!"
Gasping for horror, he dashed away to the
palace and lay down to die. Carlyle has drawn
with the unpitying hand of an avenging angel
the scenes of that unedifying death-bed. The
polluted soul broke loose at last, and sped away
to its own place. The church blessed the parting. We will try to be charitable, too; but we
are irresistibly reminded of one of the few
bitter things that Franklin ever said: "If
such souls escape, it is not worth while to keep
a devil.'
The courtiers rushed to; congratulate Louis
XVI and Marie Antoinette on their accession
to the throne. But they fell on their knees and
said: " IIelp us, 0 God! We are too young to
govern. I
It was a true presentiment that saddened for
13




FRANKLIN IN FRANCE


the youthful and virtuous monarch this first
moment of power. He did not see, as we do, the
full extent of the monstrous debt that monarchy owed to the moral equilibrium. He did
not fully appreciate the deplorable state of his
realm, in finance, in agriculture, in every incident of national life. Least of all did he understand the mighty power of public opinion,
which had been stealthily gaining ground
through the last two reigns. A power had
grown up never contemplated by earlier kings.
A race of audacious thinkers had arisen-a
modern growth for France. Under the great
Louis, literature was encouraged, as cooking
was, as music was, as tailoring was, to add to
the splendor of the court. But under the Regency the new spirit came to light. The Regent
loved letters for their own sake. He had a
sentimental love for freedom, even; and if he
had not been a Bourbon he might himself have
been a patriot. Under him began that powerful impulse of research and philosophical speculation that continued amid neglect or impotent, fitful persecution under the reign of
Louis XV and reached its lordly stature and
attained its predestined purpose in the wreck
and chaos of the Revolution.
14




FRANKLIN IN FRANCE


The first conspicuous name among those who
led the van of this great intellectual movement was Montesquieu, who began at twenty
by writing an argument against the eternal
damnation of the heathen, and through a long
and busy life sent forth, in rapid succession,
those bold and brilliant disquisitions that
opened to the mind of France a vastly wider
horizon of political speculation than ever had
been dreamed of before. His "Spirit of
Laws" alone ranks him with those great original geniuses that clasp hands in spirit
across the gulf of ages. He was the earliest
of the philosophers. He shines almost sole in
his generation, clear as the morning star, unconscious of the red tumult of the coming
dawn. Then came Voltaire, who ran with
that lightning-flash of intuition through the
whole cycle of letters and science and politics,
finding nothing good or venerable, touching
with the Ithuriel spear of wit and logic every
department of human affairs, and discovering everywhere only hopeless disease-as the
wild humor caught him, now mocking like a
fiend, now weeping like a pitying angel; and
Diderot, with his great genius and incomplete
character, his gigantic schemes 'and his little
15




FRANKLIN IN FRANCE
life, his mighty collaborators in the Encyclopedia, d'Alembert, de Prades, Dumarsais,
and the incomparable Turgot, whose genius
and virtue shine together, a beacon in those
dark days-all these, working confusedly,
without plan, were building up that vast edifice of public opinion which was to harbor and
protect the free thought of the century.
Never before had there been seen such
activity in the natural sciences. Buffon and
Malesherbes were busy plucking its mystery
out from the heart of nature.
In the world of metaphysics there was a
vast and restless energy, with results always
more disheartening. Condillac deduced all
moral and mental phenomena from sensation.
Helvetius, adopting the theories of Condillac,
went mercilessly through to atheism and pure
selfishness. The age was so corrupt, they
cynically hailed this theory of absolute selfishness as the new gospel and cried, "This
man has told everybody's secret.   ("C'est
un homme qui a dit le secret de tout le monde.")
The mind of the world seemed dropping
into mere materialism, when a shabby fellow
came to Paris and spoke a word that the
16




FRANKLIN     IN  FRANCE
world was vaguely waiting for. This was
Jean Jacques Rousseau, who, weak, wicked,
half mad as he was, demonstrated the impotence and barrenness of this materialist philosophy, and prepared, more than any other,
the minds of men for the reception of the wild
evangel of the Revolution. There was never
a shabbier prophet sent on earth, but the lesson he taught was simple and necessary. He
recalled to the world what the wits had forgotten-that there are such facts as God,
and love, and liberty.
Floating at random in the writings of that
century, we find scraps of prophecy not half
understood by their authors and not at all by
the world. Leibnitz said in 1704 that a revolution was coming by which the great would
lose and the world profit. Chesterfield said
(1753), "Before the end of this century the
trades of king and priest will lose half their
value."  D'Argenson in 1739, in his great
treatise on decentralization, practically eliminated the aristocracy,-aristocrat though he
was,-calling them the drones of the hive, and
enunciated the sublime doctrine that, though
equality was impossible, it should be the aim
17
2




FRANKLIN IN FRANCE
of all governments to attain it. Voltaire said
in 1764, with the dim regret of an old prophet
who should not see the coming of the rosy
footsteps on the mountains of the future,
"Young men are lucky-they will see fine
things." But Diderot came nearest the true
spirit of the Pythoness possessed when he
said in 1774, "The public execution of a king
will change the spirit of a nation forever."
These utterances sound startlingly clear
and distinct to us after the fact. But then
they were voices crying in the wilderness, and
the world, if it heard them at all, smiled indulgently and tapped its wise forehead.
Countless vague and indistinct systems of
government had been shaped in philosophic
garrets. But of late young men hadbegun to
study constitutions-the Greek, the Roman,
the English, and, later, those almost perfect
specimens of statecraft afforded by the constitutions of the American Colonies, which
were styled by Tom Paine the grammar of
politics. They were to liberty what grammar
is to language, defining its parts of speech
and practically constructingthem into syntax.
The tempest in America was manifestly shap18




FRANKLIN IN FRANCE
ing the current of free thought in France.
Thus did our nation, even in its godlike babyhood, teach the doctors in the temple of
liberty.
I, have delayed you some time with this
resume of the state of thought and opinion in
France at the arrival of Franklin, but I think
you would pardon me if you knew how much
I had rejected. It seemed necessary to say
this much to explain in some measure the
immediate and enormous popularity that
greeted the American envoy. The world of
pomp and glitter and tradition had in reality
passed away. The age of ideas had dawned.
To the sight of the world Franklin came as
the agent of certain revolted colonies of
England to seek material aid to sustain the
hard-pushed  rebellion.  But to the   enlightened eye of history he is an envoy from
the New World to the Old, addressing to its
half-awakened heart and conscience the soulstirring invitation to be free. No fitter choice
was ever made by any nation in any age.
There was too heavy a sea running to have
any incompetence on the quarter-deck.
An interest which we can scarcely compre19




FRANKLIN IN FRANCE
hend was taken in that day in natural science.
Franklin was, by universal consent, the
greatest natural philosopher of his time. He
was hailed as the confidant of nature-the
playmate of the lightning, a Prometheus unpunished.  The brightest constructive and
critical energies of the best minds were devoted to the solution of political problems.
And here, they said, was a man who had
founded many states upon the principles of
abstract justice, and had consolidated them at
last into a superb model republic. For this
hasty generalization had seized the foreign
mind, always too apt to regard leaders instead
of masses, and it was long before the millions
of Americans got their due abroad.
Thus it came that the great heart of liberal
France went out at once in a quick rush of
welcome to Franklin. He was the point that
attracted the overcharged electricity of that
vast and stormy mass of active thought. He
became the talk of the town. They made
songs about him. They published more than
one hundred and fifty engravings of him, so
that his fur cap and spectacles became as
familiar as the face of the King on the louis




FRANKLIN     IN  FRANCE
d'or. The pit rose when he entered a theater.
These are not trivial details. Those spontaneous honors, paid to an alien citizen by a
people so long the victims of degrading tutelage, showed the progress they had made toward liberty. In honoring him they honored
themselves. They vaguely felt he was fighting their battle. They read in his serene and
noble countenance the promise of better
times.
He lived in free and generous style, in a
fine house in Passy, to your right as you may
have stood in Exhibition years on the ramp
of the Trocadero and looked over the flashing
Seine at the Festival of Peace in the Field of
Mars. The company one met there was the
best in France-the true elite; that is to say,
elect. I will give you a few of their names:
La Rochefoucauld, Morellet, Buffon, Turgot,
Malesherbes, d'Alembert, Condorcet, d'Holbach, Cabanis, Necker, Mirabeau.  I utter
only names, yet how each starts a spirit!
These men, princes all by intellect and many
of them by birth, were proud of the friendship of Franklin. I must mention one curiously characteristic expression of Ralph
21




FRANKLIN IN FRANCE


Izard, who was taken by Congress from the
bosom of one of the first families of South
Carolina, and sent as minister to Tuscany. He
accepted the mission as readily as did in our
times a defeated Western senator who, on receiving a despatch from an old public functionary whose name has escaped everybody's
memory, —"'V ill you accept the mission to
Bogota?"- replied in five minutes by lightning, "Of course I will. Where the capital D
is Bogota?"   Mr. Izard never found out
where Tuscany was, but spent some years in
Paris in geographical studies.  He was at
Franklin's, one evening, in the company I
have mentioned, and said sneeringly, "Why
could n't we, have some of the gentlemen of
France? "  What a faithful forerunner of
Preston Brooks!-except that slavery had
seventy-five  years  longer  to  elaborate
Brooks, and so produced a more finished
work.
It is needless to say that the adulation
which Franklin received did not injure him.
Honest praise never hurt any one. It is only
men who are meanly flattered that are ruined
by it. He went energetically about his work.
22




FRANKLI      IN IN  FRANCE
For a year his position as envoy was unrecognized by the court, but none the less the
French government paid the greatest deference to his representations. Frequent fittings
to and from Versailles to Passy; numerous
mysterious interviews in Franklin's library
with M. Gerard of the Foreign Office (afterward minister to the United States), usually
ending in a fresh shipment of arms to America by the sympathetic firm of Hortalez & Co.,
or a replenishing of the exhausted exchequer
of the colonies. The mystery which hung
about the firm of Hortalez & Co. has never
been wholly cleared; though now it appears
that Beaumarchais-the immortal creator of
Figaro-was Hortalez, Beaumarchais was
the company and the shareholders and the
board of directors of that public-spiritedfirm.
The French government seems to have been
the rock from which, on Franklin's periodical
smiting, gushed forth the streams that kept
the mill of Hortalez in motion. But the secrecy necessary to throw dust in the wideawake eyes of the English ambassador was in
the end the cause of woes unnumbered to
Beaumarchais. He lived to appreciate in
23




FRANKLIN IN     FRANCE
bankruptcy and ruin the serpent-toothed ingratitude of two republics.
The French government, true to the ruinous policy of that day, omitted no effort to
cripple England by secretly aiding the colonies; but while the issue of the war remained
doubtful, they held aloof from open alliance.
The position of our diplomacy abroad seemed
almost hopeless at one moment, when Lord
Howe was in Philadelphia and a clever young
officer named Andre was quartered in Franklin's house, amusing himself with the philosopher 's electrical apparatus, and contenting
himself, for all loot on departing, with the,
sage's picture.
It may amuse some of you who were made
merry by Mr. Seward's famous sixty days' reprieves to our late rebellion, to know that
Franklin used in Paris a thousand times the
same expressions as those by which the sage
of Auburn quieted from time to time the semirebel diplomatic corps at Washington. He
never lost heart, however gloomy the situation. He called our disasters blessings in
disguise, and when asked one day if Howe had
really captured Philadelphia, - he answered,
"No. Philadelphia has captured Howe."
24




FRANKLIN     IN FRANCE
This was the dark hour. But it passed, and
the first streak of day was the news of the
surrender of General Burgoyne. The war
was not half over, but its issue was certain
from that day. Only the blind obstinacy of
the King of England could have protracted
it to such brutal and bloody lengths. The
French Jupiter saw that the Yankee wagoner
was himself getting out of the mire, and so
concluded to give him a serious lift. The
treaties of alliance and of amity and commerce between France and the United States
were signed on February 6, 1778.
It was the sunburst to the colonies after a
troubled dawn. The tattered and frost-bitten
soldiers of Valley Forge were paraded to receive the joyful news, and the army of the republic shouted, "Long live the King of
France!"  Washington issued a general order saying it had "pleased the Almighty
Ruler of the universe propitiously to defend
the cause of the United American States, and
by finally raising up a powerful friend among
the nations of the earth to establish our liberty and independence upon a lasting foundation." The act of France gave us a standing
abroad which we had hitherto lacked. A
25




FRANKLIN     IN FRANCE
man's character is made by himself; his reputation exists in the minds of others.  Our
Declaration asserted our independence, the
French alliance proved it. Even before 1776
we were a nation; but until our treaties with
France the world regarded us as a rebellion.
This first great act of our diplomacy was
as dignified in form as it was valuable in
substance. The struggling transatlantic revolt met the proudest monarchy of Europe on
terms of absolute equality. By a strange
equation of prophecy, the negotiators seemed
to recognize the possibilities of the crescent
republic and the waning dynasty. " There shall
be a firm, inviolable, and universal peace and
a true and sincere friendship between the
Most Christian King, his heirs and successors, and the United States of America."
There is no note of patronage or subservience
in these words, nor in these: "If war should
break out between France and Great Britain
during the continuance of the present war between the United States and England, his
Majesty and the said United States shall
make it a common cause, and aid each other
mutually with their good offices, their CQUni26




FRANKLIN IN FRANCE
sels, and their forces, according to the exigence of conjunctures, as becomes good and
faithful allies.... Neither of the two parties shall conclude either truce or peace with
Great Britain without the formal consent of
the other first obtained; and they mutually
engage not to lay down their arms until the
independence of the United States shall have
been formally or tacitly assured by the treaty
or treaties that shall terminate the war."
The effect of the treaty was immediate and
most important. Even before it was made
public, the rumor of it powerfully affected the
courts of the world. Lord North introduced
into the House of Commons proposals for
conciliation which, if they had been presented
in time, would have been gladly accepted by
the colonies; but the water had passed by the
mill. The American Congress promptly rejected these belated propositions. The British
ambassador quitted Paris in justifiable anger;
war ensued between England and France. On
February 13, 1778, in the harbor of Brest,
Paul Jones, in the Ranger, had the satisfaction of seeing the American flag saluted for
the first time by the guns of a foreign power.
27




FRANKLIN IN FRANCE
The American navy was born and entered at
once on its career of glory. The battle under
the starlight between the Bonhomme Richard
and the Serapis set a standard of heroism
which may always be emulated but never excelled. In the summer of July, 1778, a stately
fleet, under Count d'Estaing, brought to
America the first French minister and four
thousand  troops.  Spain   joined  France
against England, through no sympathy with
the colonies, but in pursuance of her European policy. And the final harvest of the
French alliance was gathered in the crowning
victory at Yorktown.
More than a year before, Franklin had been
received with joyous enthusiasm by the
people of France-for the French people had
already come into existence. Now the court
was to have the privilege of knowing him.
Immediately after the signing of the treaty,
he was presented at Versailles and took the
palace by storm. One of those trifling chroniclers so dear to the readers of history tells
us that he went without the flowing wig required by the full dress of those days. It
was not an act of audacity, but a lucky acci28




FRANKLIN IN FRANCE


dent. There was not a wig in Paris large
enough to harbor the great brain of the philosopher. A perruquier had brought him a
wig on that memorable morning, and, after
repeated efforts to put it on, dashed it
angrily to the floor. "Is the wig too small?"
asked the placid doctor.   "No, monsieur;
your head is too big!" roared the disgusted
artist. So it came that Franklin went to court
in the majesty of his own silver hair.
Franklin wore, when presented to the most
brilliant court of Christendom, a full suit of
plain black velvet, white ruffles at wrist and
bosom, white-silk stockings, and silver buckles-the dress that the world is familiar with
in Stuart's great revolutionary portraits.
This was perhaps the first time, since heralds
first went on embassies, that an envoy approached a sovereign in his own every-day
garb.
Franklin was received in the dressingroom of the King. The monarch "had his
hair, undressed, hanging down on his shoulders-no appearance of preparation to receive
the Americans, no ceremony in doing it."
There have not been, since embassies and al29




FRANKLIN IN FRANCE
liances and wars were invented, many more important interviews than this, and a. man must
have the soul of a milliner if he thinks that
the simplicity of this international greeting
detracts anything from its dignity. For my
part, I am pleased to think of this fine tableau
of the perfect Pallas birth of American. diplomacy displayed in the strong light of that
historic day: the contrasted figures of the
good, weak Louis and the great, wise Benjamin, greeting so simply, where the Republican paid conventional homage to the King,
but where in reality the dying Past stood in
the large presence of the great free Future.
Franklin became the fashion of the season.
For the court itself dabbled a little in liberal
ideas. So powerful was the vast impulse of
free thought that then influenced the mind of
France,-that susceptible French mind that
always answers like the wind-harp to the breath
of every true human aspiration,-that even
the highest classes had caught the infection
of liberalism. They handled the momentous
words- Liberty and Human Rights in their
dainty way, as if they were only a new game
for their amusement, not knowing what wa-s
30




FRANKLIN IN FRANCE


to them the terrible import of those words.
It became very much the accepted thing at
court to rave about Franklin. The young and
lovely Queen, Marie Antoinette, was most
winning and gracious toward him. The languid courtiers crammed natural science to
talk with him. The small wits who knew a
little Greek called him Solon and Aristides
and Phocion. It is sad to think of the utter
unconsciousness of these amiable aristocrats.
They never dreamed that this man Franklin
was a portent and a prophet of ruin to them.
He was incarnate Democracy, and they petted him! They never imagined that in
showering their good-natured homage upon
this austere republican they were sowing the
wind which would ripen in an awful harvest
of whirlwinds. Later, when the whirlwinds
had hardly got beyond the frisky stage of
their development, the Queen lamented bitterly the folly of these ovations to the great
democrat. There was one sagacious head
that was wisely shaken over these indiscretions while they lasted. Joseph II, Emperor
of Austria, brother to the Queen, who was in
Paris on his travels, and who was as much of
31




FRANKLIN IN FRANCE


a democrat himself as an emperor can be,
when his sister rebuked his coolness on the
American question, replied, "Madam, the
trade I live by is that of a royalist."
Court incense could not turn the philosophic head any more than the loud acclaim
of the people. When Franklin found himself
the honored guest of royalty, his thoughts
reverted to those far-away days of boyhood
when his father used to quote to him, in the
old candle-shop at Boston, the words of the
wise man, "Seest thou a man diligent in his
business? he shall stand before kings." The
old sage heard the echo of that paternal voice
resounding over half a century, and a new
and strange light, as of prophecy fulfilled, illumined the immortal words.   Surely no
man ever lived more diligent in his business.
Surely no man ever stood, with more of the
innate dignity of upright manhood, before
kings.
It was in this year of 1778 that Voltaire returned to Paris after an exile of thirty-seven
years. It was like a visit to posterity. The
France he had left existed no more. A new
France, with a people and a public opinion,
32




FRANKLIN IN FRANCE


had come into the world, as bright, as critical, as aspiring as his own turbulent youth
had been. The old man coming from the
tranquil shades of Ferney, where he had
dwelt for many years, still as his shadow, was
dazed and bewildered by this fresh and vivid
life, by this quick intellectual movement, this
fervid homage of an intelligent people who
had been born since he was young. He had
lived so long that he had gained the unquestioning reverence due to the consecrated past.
He breathed the sweet but deadly incense of
posthumous fame. He was smothered under
immortelles.
But before his frail life went out in the
gale of popular adoration, he and Franklin
met several times. At the first interview he
laid his shadowy hands upon the head of
Franklin's grandson and blessed him in the
name of God and liberty. They met again
on the platform of the French Academy. The
crowd caught sight of the two patriarchs and
clamorously roared that they should embrace,
"a la frangaise."  The two venerable men
rose, approached, and kissed each other, to
the wild delight of the entire vast assembly.
3            33




FRANKLIN IN FRANCE
Rarely has a stranger contrast been seen in
the world than when these two great geniuses
clasped hands and kissed before that shouting people. They were both old men. But
Voltaire belonged to a world that was passing
away, and Franklin to a world just coming
into being. Voltaire stood in the evening of
his days, weary with conflict, glad of the coming rest, his work all behind him, forever.
Born in the foulest days of monarchy, his
alert and vivid intelligence had gone forth
like the raven from the ark and had flown
over the whole wide waste of earth and had
found no green or healthful thing in church,
or state, or society. Everywhere unpitied
suffering and unpunished crime, the cry of
the desolate going up forever unheard.
Whatever was, was wrong, and he armed his
spirit for indiscriminate war. The work of
his marvelously laborious life was therefore
almost purely destructive. The ruins of the
systems he had helped demolish were his
only monument. To what better destinies
was Franklin born! He came to the light
among the stern, God-fearing Puritans. He
grew up in a society whose virtues, say what
34




FRANKLIN IN FRANCE


you will, are as yet unequaled in history, and
whose faults were those of earnest men. In
dewy freshness and freedom as of the primeval morning, he and his great coadjutors
began their beneficent work. They had nothing to destroy. Their godlike mission was
to create. A struggle with outside resistance,
and the mighty work was accomplished.
Each effort of Franklin's life for the advancement of freedom and science had been
founded on faith in God, from which springs
belief in the innate goodness of man, and perfection of nature. God is good. His works
are good.   Doing good is doing his will,
and is best. So, as he saw the shadows
of the coming night grow long about his
path, he could hope that, though he might
pass away, his work would never perish. The
torch he had lighted would pass from hand
to hand down the ages. His labor would not
be in vain as long as the lightning lived in the
cloud or the thought of freedom in the mind
of man.
This is the lesson we draw from this
strange greeting of Franklin and Voltaire:
to teach is better than to deny, to love and
35




FRANKLIN IN FRANCE
trust is wiser than to hate and doubt, to
create is nobler than to destroy.
I have spared you many details of the diplomatic work of Franklin in these eventful
years. You care only for results, and those
you all know. Franklin, by the mere force
of his personal character, obtained such influence with the French government that he
rarely asked for anything that was not
readily granted. He obtained from France
the fleet of De Grasse and the army of Rochambeau. But, what was of vastly more importance, he obtained those timely grants of
money from Versailles that saved us and
helped "to bleed the French monarchy to
death." And he kept the hands of the government from the heroic Paul Jones, and enabled him to inaugurate our naval history
with a burst of glory amid which his dandy
figure already stands half mythical in the
light of his apparently impossible exploits.
And finally he lent his masterly hand to the
framing of the Treaty of Paris, by which
drums were silenced and flags furled over the,
globe, and the United States took "the place
among the nations of the earth to which the
36




FRANKLIN IN FRANCE


laws of nature and of nature's God entitled
them.
His work abroad was over, and he begged to
be permitted to return to the land he had so
nobly served. But it was only in the spring of
1785 that Congress passed their resolution
allowing the Hon. B. Franklin, Esq., to return
to America and appointing the Hon. Thomas
Jefferson, Esq., in his stead.
Franklin's journey from Paris to the seashore was one long festival. At the considerable towns which he passed the authorities
received him with public honors and the great
nobles disputed the privilege of entertaining
him at their chateaux. It was not a republican demonstration.  The old regime honored itself in its last days in nothing more
than in its cordial appreciation of this artisanphilosopher.
This may have been one reason why Franklin, one of the most sagacious observers that
ever lived, had apparently no clear perception of the tremendous change that was imminent in France. He heard in the court
circles dilettante ideas of liberty discussed.
The King was trying to redress in his in37




FRANKLIN     IN  FRANCE
efficient way the deep-rooted wrongs of ages.
There was a kind of false philanthropy in
fashion. There was a specious show of revival
of trade and commerce. There were two men
at court-an old and a young man-who represented the new time, the vast and earnest
future, but Franklin never seemed to recognize the significance of their attitude.  For
one of these men was himself and the other
was Lafayette. He had returned from America matured by varied experience, educated
by intercourse with the immortal rebels, perfectly attuned to the strange and swelling
music of the age. He stood alone, calm and
severe amid the gay crowd of courtiers, a
chivalrous stoic among the amiable epicures
of the decadence, at once a protest and a
prophecy. VWhile Franklin lived in Paris the
personages of the dreadful scenes of '93 were
scattered quietly over France, waiting for
destiny to give their cue. Mirabeau he often
entertained at Passy, for the wild young rake
always loved letters and felt at home with
philosophers.  Danton was a broad-shouldered, briefiess barrister, unknown out of the
Latin Quarter.  Robespierre was copying
38




FRANKLIN IN FRANCE


briefs at Arras, a dreamy enthusiast who
fainted at the sight of blood. Marat came to
Franklin one day, looking dirty and disreputable, with the smell of the Count d'Artois's
stables about him, and with a scheme to destroy the British with elementary fire; and
Charlotte Corday was a sweet little girl, the
light of a quiet household in Normandy. And
down in an Italian island, wearing out the
seat of his trousers on a Corsican schoolbench, was a moody, olive-complexioned boy
named Buonaparte, who was to inspire the
superb free France with so blind and mysterious a passion that she would follow him
with unflinching adoration through slaughter
and outrage to the gates of ruin.
All unconscious of these vivid colors scattered as yet unrecognizable in the loom of
fate, Franklin sailed home to receive a welcome full of love and reverence, to be seized
after scanty repose and put again in harness,
to cooperate greatly in framing the Constitution-" work not unworthy men who strove
with gods." Two of the last incidents of his
life are lovingly remembered. It was he who
introduced the motion in the Constitutional
39




FRANKLIN     IN FRANCE
Convention to open their meetings with
prayer. His last Public act was to indite from
his death-bed, as president of the Society for
the Abolition of Slavery, a noble and touching appeal "for those unhappy men who,
amidst the general joy of surrounding freemen, are groaning in servile subjection," in
which the warm heart of the aged philanthropist seems united to the unerring conscience
of the glorified saint. It is fitting that this
beneficent and symmetrical life should be
closed with this large utterance of humanity.
Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson, in their
mature age, scorning the dictates of a vulgar
prudence, deliberately put on record their
detestation of this growing crime. They at
least believed in the words which make the
Declaration immortal: "All men are created
equal."  I am glad to remember, too, that
Lincoln, not many days before he went to
join the august assembly of just men made
perfect, said to me, "A man who denies to
other men equality of rights is hardly worthy
of freedom; but I would give "even to him all
the rights which I claim for myself." A plain
phrase, but all the law and the prophets is
in it.
40




FRANKLIN     IN FRANCE
Franklin died in the night of the 17th of
April, 1790. It is related that his last glance
fell upon a picture of Christ on the cross.
It was the first great sorrow of the young
nation. The people mourned for him. Madison made a speech of five minutes, and Congress wore mourning for a month-extraordinary honors in those days, from which we
have somewhat worn the gloss since then.
The news reached France in June. The
titanic games had begun. The mighty throes
by which a nation was born were darting
through the convulsed frame of society. The
unchained Revolution, on which many had
built absurd and fantastic hopes, was nearing
that stage where many sank into equally absurd and fantastic despairs. Mirabeau was
then the rugged and sparkling crest of the
topmost wave. It was his clarion voice that
announced to the National Assembly the
death of the statesman and philosopher of
two worlds, and sank into the wailing notes
of a dirge as he recounted his virtues and
glory. The delicate and sympathetic heart of
France responded in a demonstration unique
in the world's history. The Assembly and the
nation turned for a time from their stupen41




FRANKLIN IN FRANCE


dous work to pay due honors to this alien
tradesman. The hurricane stopped short in
mid-career to waft a breath of tender regret
to the grave of a citizen, growing green in the
dewy hush of sunset a thousand leagues
away.


42




OMAR KHAYYAM
ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE DINNER OF THE
OMAR KHAYYAM CLUB, LONDON, DECEMBER 8th,
1897. MR. HAY WAS THE GUEST OF THE CLUB.








OMAR KHAYYAM
J CANNOT sufficiently thank you for the high
and unmerited honor you have done me
to-night. I feel keenly that on such an occasion, with such company, my place is below the
salt; but as you kindly invited me, it was not
in human nature for me to refuse.
Although in knowledge and comprehension
of the two great poets whom you are met to
commemorate I am the least among you, there
is no one who regards them with greater admiration, or reads them with more enjoyment,
than myself. I can never forget my emotions
when I first saw FitzGerald's translations of
the Quatrains. Keats, in his sublime ode on
Chapman's Homer, has described the sensa,tion once for all:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken.
45




OMAR KHAYYAM
The exquisite beauty, the faultless form, the
singular grace of those amazing stanzas were
not more wonderful than the depth and breadth
of their profound philosophy, their knowledge
of life, their dauntless courage, their serene
facing of the ultimate problems of life and of
death. Of course the doubt did not spare me,
which has assailed many as ignorant as I was
of the literature of the East, whether it was the
poet or his translator to whom was due this
splendid result. Was it, in fact, a reproduction
of an antique song, or a mystification of a great
modern, careless of fame and scornful of his
time? Could it be possible that in the eleventh
century, so far away as Khorassan, so accomplished a man of letters lived, with such distinction, such breadth, such insight, such calm
disillusion, such cheerful and jocund despair?
Was this Weltschmerz, which we thought a
malady of our day, endemic in Persia in 1100?
My doubt only lasted till I came upon a literal
translation of the Rubaiyat, and I saw that not
the least remarkable quality of FitzGerald's
poem was its fidelity to the original. In short,
Omar was a FitzGerald before the letter, or
FitzGerald was a reincarnation of Omar.
46




OMAR KHAYYAM


It is not to the disadvantage of the later
poet that he followed so. closely in the footsteps of the earlier.  A  man of extraordinary genius had appeared in the world; had
sung a song of incomparable beauty and
power in an environment no longer worthy of
him, in a language of narrow range; for many
generations the song was virtually lost; then
by a miracle of creation, a poet, twin-brother
in the spirit to the first, was born, who took up
the forgotten poem and sang it anew with all
its original melody and force, and with all the
accumulated refinement of ages of art. It
seems to me idle to ask which was the greater
master; each seems greater than his work.
The song is like an instrument of precious
workmanship and marvelous tone, which is
worthless in common hands, but when it falls,
at long intervals, into the hands of the supreme master, it yields a melody of transcendent enchantment to all that have ears to
hear.
If we look at the sphere of influence of the
two poets, there is no longer any comparison.
Omar sang to a half-barbarous province; FitzGerald to the world. Wherever the English
47




OMAR KHAYYAM
speech is spoken or read, the Rubaiyat have
taken their place as a classic. There is not a
hill-post in India, nor a village in England,
where there is not a coterie to whom Omar
Khayyam is a familiar friend and a bond of
union. In America he has an equal following,
in many regions and conditions.    In the
Eastern States his adepts form an esoteric
set; the beautiful volume of drawings by Mr.
Vedder is a center of delight and suggestion
wherever it exists. In the cities of the West
you will find the Quatrains one of the most
thoroughly read books in every club library.
I heard them quoted once in one of the most
lonely and desolate spots of the high Rockies.
We had been camping on the Great Divide,
our "roof of the world," where in the space
of a few feet you may see two springs, one
sending its waters to the Polar solitudes,
the other to the eternal Carib summer. One
morning at sunrise, as we were breaking
camp, I was startled to hear one of our party,
a frontiersman born, intoning these words of
somber majesty:
'T is but a tent where takes his one day's rest
A Sultan to the realm of death addrest;
48




OMAR KHAYYAM


The SultAn rises, and the dark Ferrash
Strikes and prepares it for another guest.
I thought that sublime setting of primeval
forest and frowning ca-non was worthy of the
lines; I am sure the dewless, crystalline air
never vibrated to strains of more solemn
music.
Certainly, our poet can never be numbered
among the great popular writers of all time.
He has told no story; he has never unpacked
his heart in public; he has never thrown the
reins on the neck of the winged horse, and let
his imagination carry him where it listed.
"Oh! the crowd must have emphatic warrant," as Browning sang. Its suffrages are
not for the cool, collected observer, whose eyes
no glitter can dazzle, no mist suffuse. The
many cannot but resent that air of lofty intelligence, that pale and subtle smile. But he will
hold a place forever among that limited number who, like Lucretius and Epicurus,-without rage or defiance, even without unbecoming
mirth,-look deep into the tangled mysteries
of things; refuse credence to the absurd, and
allegiance to arrogant authority; sufficiently
conscious of fallibility to be tolerant of all
49
4




OMAR KHAYYAM


opinions; with a faith too wide for doctrine
and a benevolence untrammeled by creed, too
wise to be wholly poets, and yet too surely
poets to be implacably wise.


50




SIR WALTER SCOTT
ADDRESS AT UNVEILING OF BUST, WESTMINSTER
ABBEY, MAY 21st, 1897.




I
I
I
I




SIR WALTER SCOTT
ACLEVER French author made a book
some years ago called "The Forty-first
Armchair." It consists of brief biographies
of the most famous writers of France, none of
whom had been members of the Academy. The
astonishment of a stranger who is told that
neither Moliere nor Balzac was ever embraced
among the "Forty Immortals" is very like
that which has often affected the tourist who,
searching among the illustrious names and
faces which make this Abbey glorious, has
asked in vain for the author of "Waverley."
It is not that he has ever been forgotten or
neglected. His lines have gone out through
all the earth, and his words to the end of the
world. No face in modern history, if we may
except the magisterial profile of Napoleon, is
so well known as the winning, irregular features, dominated by the towering brow, of the
53




SIR WALTEIR SCOTT


"Squire of Abbotsford."  It is rather the
world-wide extent of his fame that has seemed
hitherto to make it unnecessary that his visible
image should be shrined here among England's
writers. His spirit is everywhere; he is revered wherever the English speech has traveled, and translations have given  some
glimpses of his brightness through the veil of
many alien tongues; but the vastness of his
name is no just reason why it may not have a
local habitation also. It is therefore most
fitting that his bust should be placed to-day
among those of his mighty peers, in this great
Pantheon of immortal Englishmen.
In this most significant and interesting
ceremony I should have no excuse for appearing, except as representing for the time being
a large section of Walter Scott's immense constituency. I doubt if anywhere his writings
have had a more loving welcome than in America. The books a boy reads are those most
ardently admired and the longest remembered;
and America reveled in Scott when the country was young. I have heard from my father,
a pioneer of Kentucky, that in the early days
of this century men would saddle their horses
54




SIR WALTER SCOTT


and ride from all the neighboring counties to
the principal post-town of the region when a
new novel by the author of "Waverley" was
expected. All over our straggling states and
territories-in the East, where a civilization
of slender resources but boundless hopes was
building; in the West, where the stern conflict
was going on of the pioneer subduing the continent-the books most read were those poems
of magic and of sentiment, those tales of bygone chivalry and romance, which Walter
Scott was pouring forth upon the world with a
rich facility, a sort of joyous fecundity like
that of Nature in her most genial moods. He
had no clique of readers, no illuminated sect
of admirers, to bewilder criticism by excess of
its own subtlety. In a community engaged in
the strenuous struggle for empire, whose
dreams, careless of the past, were turned in the
clear, broad light of a nation's morning to a
future of unlimited grandeur and power, there
was none too sophisticated to appreciate, none
too lowly to enjoy those marvelous pictures of
a time gone forever by, pleasing and stimulating to a starved fancy in the softened light of
memory and art, though the times themselves
55




SIR WALTER SCOTT


were unlamented by a people and an age whose
faces were set toward a far-different future.
Through all these important formative days
of the Republic, Scott was the favorite author
of Americans, and, while his writings may not
be said to have had any special weight in our
material and political development, yet their
influence was enormous upon the taste and the
sentiments of a people peculiarly sensitive to
such influences from the very circumstances of
their environment. The romances of courts
and castles were specially appreciated in the
woods and prairies of the frontier, where a
pure democracy reigned. The poems and
novels of Scott, saturated with the glamor of
legend and tradition, were greedily devoured
by a people without perspective, conscious that
they themselves were ancestors of a redoubtable line, whose battle was with the passing
hour, whose glories were all in the days to
come.
Since the time of Scott we have seen many
fashions in fiction come and go; each generation naturally seeks a different expression of
its experience and its ideals, but the author of
"Waverley, " amid all vicissitudes of changing
56




SIR WALTER SCOTT


modes, has kept his preeminence in two hemispheres as the master of imaginative narration.
Even those of us who make no pretensions to
the critical faculty may see the twofold reason
of this enduring masterhood. Both mentally
and morally Scott was one of the greatest
writers that ever lived. His mere memory, his
power of acquiring and retaining serviceable
facts, was almost inconceivable to ordinary
men, and his constructive imagination was
nothing short of prodigious. The lochs and
hills of Scotland swarm with the imaginary
phantoms with which he has peopled them for
all time; the historical personages of past centuries are jostled in our memories by the characters he has created, more vivid in vitality
and color than the real soldiers and lovers with
whom he has cast their lives.
But probably the morality of Scott appeals
more strongly to the many than even his
enormous mental powers. His ideals are lofty
and pure; his heroes are brave and strong, not
exempt from human infirmities, but always devoted to ends more or less noble. His heroines,
whom he frankly asks you to admire, are
beautiful and true. They walk in womanly
57




SIR WALTER SCOTT
dignity through his pages, whether garbed as
peasants or as princesses, with honest brows
uplifted, with eyes gentle but fearless, pure in
heart and delicate in speech; valor, purity and
loyalty-these are the essential and undying
elements of the charm with which this great
magician has soothed and lulled the weariness
of the world through three tormented generations. For this he has received the uncritical,
ungrudging love of grateful millions.
His magic still has power to charm all wholesome and candid souls. Although so many
years have passed since his great heart broke
in the valiant struggle against evil fortune, his
poems and his tales are read with undiminished
interest and perennial pleasure. He loved with
a simple, straightforward affection man and
nature, his country and his kind; he has his
reward in a fame forever fresh and unhackneyed. The poet who as an infant clapped his
hands and cried "Bonnie!" to the thunderstorm, and whose dying senses were delighted
by the farewell whisper of the Tweed rippling
over its pebbles, is quoted in every aspect of
sun and shadow that varies the face of Scotland. The man who blew so clear a clarion of
58




SIR WALTER SCOTT


patriotism lives forever in the speech of those
who seek a line to describe the love of country.
The robust, athletic spirit of his tales of old,
the loyal quarrels, the instructive loves, the
stanch devotion of the uncomplicated creations
of his inexhaustible fancy-all these have their
special message and attraction for the minds
of our day, fatigued with problems, with
doubts and futile questionings. His work is
a clear, high voice, from a simpler age than
ours, breathing a song of lofty and unclouded
purpose, of sincere and powerful passion, to
which the world, however weary and preoccupied, must needs still listen and attend.


59




I




SPEECHES BEFORE THE
AMERICAN SOCIETY IN LONDON




I




SPEECHES BEFORE THE
AMERICAN SOCIETY
IN LONDON
FAREWELL BANQUET GIVEN TO MR. AND MRS. BAYARD,
MAY 7th, 1897.
I HAVE no suitable words to express my
appreciation of the most kind and flattering
language of the Lord Chief Justice, and of the
amiability with which you have received the
mention of my name. There is no time to
develop the thought that the Lord Chief
Justice has expressed of the duties of an ambassador. I can only say that I adopt his
words in their entirety, and that the dearest
wish of my heart is that the happy relations
now subsisting between the two great nations
may be not only continued, but, if possible,
drawn still closer during the time that I shall
hold the office of ambassador. When your
chairman kindly invited me to come here this
evening, and Mr. Bayard added the sanction
of his own friendly request, I could not deny
63




SPEECHES BEFORE THE


myself the opportunity of passing so delightful an evening in your company, but I stipulated that I was to come here not in an official
capacity, but as an American, temporarily
resident in London, to add the tribute of my
regard to your distinguished guest. You will,
therefore, not expect me to abuse your kindness by taking any extended part in the evening's proceedings; but I must express the
pleasure I feel at being here.
Mr. Bayard and I-if I may couple great
things with small-have been cordially opposed to each other all our lives, and I doubt
not we are still opposed in almost every matter
of public moment upon which men of good will
may differ; but I have always been happy and
proud of his personal friendship. I have always appreciated the dignity, the charm, and
the grace of his character, and I have shared
with all his friends the pleasure they took in
tne unexampled affection and popularity which
he has conquered in England. There are successes which provoke neither envy nor emulation. It would be most injudicious for any
immediate successor of Mr. Bayard to attempt
64




AMERICAN SOCIETY IN LONDON
to rival his brilliant career, or to try to replace
him in the regard of the British people. Such
an attempt could end in nothing but disaster.
None but Ulysses himself could bend the bow
of Ulysses. I could only rival Mr. Bayard in
singleness of purpose to preserve intact the
most friendly relations between the United
States and England. He will always be remembered as our first Ambassador, and as
much more than that. He has gained the affectionate esteem, not only of the Government
and the governing classes, but of the masses
of the population in these islands. Since the
great French Revolution, which brought the
people forward as the principal factor of
sovereignty, it has been a fashion of French
Kings and Emperors to call themselves Emperors and Kings, not of France, but of the French.
In like manner it would not be inappropriate to
speak of Mr. Bayard, not so much as Ambassador to England, as Ambassador to the
English. I join you heartily in wishing him
and his family God-speed, a prosperous voyage, and many years of health and happiness
at home.
65
5




SPEECHES BEFORE THE


INDEPENDENCE DAY BANQUET,
MONDAY, JULY 5TH, 1897.
I AM glad to be here on this slightly dislocated
Independence Day. The Fourth of July is a
necessary and wholesome antidote to our
American vice of modesty. There was a good
deal of discussion and some agitation among
the newspapers of America, some years agoand there was a good deal less of public interest in the question-as to what flower could be
most properly adopted as our national emblem.
I have forgotten how the discussion was decided. It probably never was decided at all.
The great advantage of newspaper discussions
is that they do not need to be decided. I have
no doubt as to what the decision ought to have
been. The national American flower ought to
be the violet-the emblem of modesty and selfeffacement. I have never been at a Fourth of
July meeting of Americans without being impressed that this quality of modesty might be
pushed too far. It would be most unwise to
attempt to change this shrinking and shy character of the American people into anything
that savored of arrogance and self-assertion,
66




AMERICAN SOCIETY IN LONDON
but if there is one day in the year on which we
might be justified in letting the eagle scream
a little, it is this day-or the day before.
Dr. Potter has praised me and Mr. Reid, but
not a word had been said in praise of Uncle
Sam; and yet I think we have a right on a day
like this to blow our own trumpet a little, or
-to use the words of Walt Whitman-to
sound our barbaric yawp over the roofs of the
world. If this were the time for criticism,
we might find many little things to censure, but
let us think how many things we have to rejoice
over. There is no country in the world, I believe, where there is more freedom, more enterprise, more public and private morality, than
in America. The great historian, Mr. Henry
Adams, in his admirable history of the earlier
administrations, says there are two characteristics of this new people and this new nation
which are clear: we are sure to be intelligent,
and we are sure to be good-natured. Every
year that has passed of our national existence
had proved that assertion. We have had few
quarrels. When we have been forced to fight,
we have fought without much malice, and although we have sometimes, perhaps, been less
soft-spoken than we might have been, yet we
67




SPEECHES BEFORE THE
have practised with reasonable consistency, for
more than a hundred years, the old-fashioned
doctrine of "Peace on earth, good will towards
menI." We desire peace and amity with the
whole world. I need not say how sincerely we
desire it with that great people whose guests
we are, and to whom we are bound by so many
ties. The affection that goes out from our
hearts to England simply proves that the blood
in our veins is true to the original spring. The
unity with England in this year of Jubilee
shows how near together the two countries are
in spirit, though sundered by so many leagues
of the "unsociable sea." We are absolutely at
one in our appreciation of the great and good
Sovereign who, in her long and happy reign,
has shown how compatible are the highest
qualities of a monarch with the purest virtues
of private life. Such a reign, however indefinitely prolonged, can never be too long for
the happiness of her people.
THANKSGIVING DAY BANQUET,
NOVEMBER 25TH, 1897.
THE great body of the peoples of England and
of the United States are friends. There is, of
course, no doubt of that-any other relation
68




AMERICAN SOCIETY IN LONDON
would be madness. If there ins one class of
men in either country who more than all others
appreciate that fact, and the necessity of it, it
is the great lawyers of America and the great
lawyers of Great Britain. The reason for this
is not far to seek. It is to be found in that
intense respect and reverence for order, liberty, and law which is so profound a sentiment
in both countries. Strong as that sentiment
is in England, it is naturally not less strong in
America, where we feel ourselves, and are
grateful to acknowledge, that we are the
fortunate heirs of English liberty and English
law. With respect to the national festival of
thanksgiving, it injures no one. There can
never be too much gratitude in the world; and
seventy millions of voices praising God together will not justify the adding of a single
ironclad to any navy in the world.
INDEPENDENCE DAY BANQUET, JULY 4TH, 1898.
I SHOULD be much to be commiserated if I were
expected to say anything new and original in
proposing the toast which has been confided
to me. A hundred and twenty-one celebrations
like this have exhausted the resources of
69




SPEECHES BEFORE THE


eulogy; we must be content to repeat the
phrases of our fathers. But there are some
words which never pall upon the ear; there are
songs which have gained in melody for centuries; and the praise of this day will not seem
stale to any audience of Americans until. the
nation begins to falter and halt in its triumphant march of progress. Thank Heaven! it is
beyond the power of prophecy to foretell that
day of evil omen to the world.
To how many people to-day the thought must
have occurred-how fortune seems to favor
this day of all days in the year; how history
seems determined to regild it from time to time,
consecrating it anew to glory and use. First
in Philadelphia in 1776; then in 1863 a double
splendor lighted upon it, illuminating a continent from Vicksburg to Gettysburg; and now
the world is spanned with its brilliancy from
Santiago to Manila, from the Antilles to the
Antipodes.
This year all the omens are with us. The
presence at this board of so many of the most
eminent representatives of English life seems
like a visible sign and symbol of the new amity,
too long delayed, between the two great
70




AMERICAN SOCIETY IN LONDON
branches of the English-speaking people. For
many reasons this will be a memorable year;
for none more than for the lucid recognition,
by the British and American communities alike,
of the fact that, reversing the text, the ways of
pleasantness between them are the ways of
wisdom, and that variance is mere folly and
madness. We are glad to think that this is no
passing emotion, born of a troubled hour; it
has been growing through many quiet years.
I am reminded of a little parable. A friend of
mine, known and honored by all of you, who
had taken a castle in Scotland, wanted to display the British and American flags from its
topmost tower. But not wishing to give either
precedence over the other, he had the two flags
sewed together, so that one side displayed the
Stars and Stripes and the other the meteor
flag of England. The combination was rather
-I will not say heavy, but weighty, and in the
still days of midsummer it drooped upon the
staff. But when a breeze came the twin flags
unfolded the splendor of their colors, and when
a gale blew they stood stiffly out to the air, proclaiming their attachment to every quarter of
the sky. So my friend drew the moral which
71




SPEECHES BEFORE THE
I see you recognize before I utter it. The
attachment was formed long ago, but it needed
rough weather to show it to the world.
Now that the day of clear and cordial understanding has come which so many of us have
long desired and waited for, may we not hope
it is to last for ever? It threatens no one; it
injures no one; its ends are altogether peaceful and beneficent. We shall still compete with
each other and the rest of the world, but the
competition will be in the arts and the works
of civilization, and all the people of good-will
on the face of the earth will profit by it.
Whenever I speak on this auspicious day I
have to brace myself against the temptations
of saying too much. We do not want to be too
robustious and forthputting, especially in the
presence of these our good friends who have
been so kind as to share our modest revels.
But let us never forget, as we think we have a
right to remember, that this day has been a
day of good augury to mankind. When all
allowances are made, all censures duly
weighed, when we have confessed that there
are many things among us which need to be
mended or ended, the fact remains that the
72




AMERICAN SOCIETY IN LONDON
great experiment our forefathers set on foot
has resulted in enormous good, not only to
ourselves, but to the world. Even the mighty
motherland is the richer by the consequences
of that sharp wrench by which we tore ourselves free. We have been preaching for a
hundred years, not always consistently, not
always in the best taste or with purest accent,
a gospel, the tendency of which is for ever towards the light, and the result of which has
been the breaking of fetters, the freeing of
those who sat in darkness, the lifting of cruel
burdens from the shoulders of the poor. It is
sometimes said that we exalt this mass to the
detriment of the individual-but the system
which in our earliest years gave us a Washington and in our later years a Lincoln, is not
likely to condemn the race to monotonous
sterility and decay. There are those who think
that in our keen pursuit of material gain we
may have lost our pristine loyalty and devotion. But I am old enough to have seen, at
an insult to the flag, a million peace-loving men
rushing to arms and crowding "the road of
death as to a festival. "
I am not permitted to discuss the events of
73




AMERICAN SOCIETY IN LONDON
the hour, but I make bold to predict that at any
time of need the nation will be found as prompt
and efficient in war, as clement and generous in
victory, as in those days which a great English
poet sang about in these splendid lines:
'-Lo! how fair from afar!
Blameless in victory stands
Thy mighty daughter, for years
Who trod the winepress of war,
Shines with immaculate hands;
Slays not a foe, neither fearsStains not peace with a scar.
The men of our race have never proved
themselves unworthy of good fortune in the
hour of success. The nation which ended a
vast rebellion without an execution or a bill
of attainder may be trusted always to be
moderate and magnanimous in victory. I believe that when the bitterness of our present
troubles shall have passed away, both parties
will be found to have profited by the issuethe one by the assertion of a principle which
will conduce to the peace of the world, and
the other by the removal of burdens and
responsibilities which had grown too heavy to
be borne.
74




A PARTNERSHIP IN BENEFICENCE
SPEECH AT EASTER BANQUET, MANSION HOUSE, LONDON, APRIL
21st, 1898, IN RESPONSE TO THE LORD MAYOR'S TOAST TO THE AMBASSADORS AND FOREIGN MINISTERS PRESENT ON THIS OCCASION




I




A PARTNERSHIP IN
BENEFICENCE
AM honored in having the privilege of
thanking you, on behalf of all my colleagues
as well as myself, and the countries which we
represent, for the cordiality with which this
toast has been proposed and the kindness with
which it has been received. In this place, the
civic heart of London, the home of a traditional
and princely hospitality, whence from time
immemorial the only challenge that has gone
forth has been one inviting the world to that
wholesome competition in civilizing arts which
benefits all parties to it, we cannot but accept
this courtesy in the spirit in which it is tendered, and in return wish success and prosperity to England and to British trade and commerce, in the full assurance that all the nations
of the world will profit more or less directly
by every extension of British commerce and
the enterprise and enlightenment that go with
it hand-in-hand.
77




A PARTNERSHIP IN BENEFICENCE
Perhaps I may be pardoned if I say
a word about my own country.     Knitted
as we are to the people of Great Britain
by a thousand ties, of origin, of language,
and of kindred pursuits, it is inevitable that
from time to time we should have occasions
of discussion and even of difference. We hear
sometimes that we are thought to be somewhat
eager and pertinacious in the pursuit of our
own interests. If that is so, I can say, I hope
with no impertinence, and in a spirit rather of
pride than of contrition, that it merely goes to
show of what stock we are. But this truth is
unquestionable-that for now nearly three
generations of men there has been peace between us and friendly regard, a peace growing
more solid and durable as years go by, and a
friendship that I am sure the vast majority of
both peoples hope and trust is to be eternal.
The reasons of a good understanding between
us lie deeper than any considerations of mere
expediency. All of us who think cannot but
see that there is a sanction like that of religion
which binds us to a sort of partnership in the
beneficent work of the world. Whether we will
it or not, we are associated in that work by the
78




A PARTNERlSHIP IN BENEFICENCE
very nature of things, and no man and no
group of men can prevent it. We are bound by
a tie which we did not forge and which we cannot break; we are joint ministers of the same
sacred mission of liberty and progress, charged
with duties which we cannot evade by the imposition of irresistible hands.
It may be trite and even tedious for me
to refer again at this distance of time to
the mighty pageant of last June, but I may
ask leave to recall one incident of the naval
review, which will long be remembered by
those who saw it. On the evening of that
memorable day, when all the ships lay enshrouded in darkness, the commander of the
Brooklyn ran up the British and American
colors, and then at a given signal turned upon
those two kindred flags the brilliant rays of
her searchlights. In that high illumination
shrined in clear radiance far above the obscurity that hid the engines of destruction and
preparations for war, those friendly banners
fluttered, proclaiming to the navies of the
world their message of good will. The beauty
of the scene lasted but a moment; it passed
away with much of the splendor and magnifi79




A PARTNERSHIP IN BENEFICENCE
cence that adorned the historic day; but may
we not hope that the lesson and the inspiration
of that spectacle may last as long as those
banners shall float over the seven seas, carrying always in their shadow freedom and
civilization?


so




SPEECH AT THE ANNUAL DINNER
OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY
UNDER THE PRESIDENCY OF LORD LISTER, NOVEMBER 30th, 1897




I, i. I.i
I




SPEECH AT THE ANNUAL DINNER
OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY
MIGHT begin by pleading the brevity of the
notice which has been given me of the undeserved honor which lay in wait for me on
entering these hospitable walls. But as I
should have been almost equally unprepared,
no matter what notice I might have received,
I need not dwell upon this detail.
I never have been able, I never shall be, to
speak adequately in this place, or to such a
company. If I have one qualification, I have
only one, to appear before you. As the commission I hold is the sole reason for my being
invited here, so the only personal aptitude I
possess, for raising my voice among you, is the
feeling that I am in harmony with those sentiments of world-wide concord and amity
which form the dominant note of all that is
83




SPEECH AT THE ANNUAL DINNER
ever said when men of science or men of learning meet on either shore of the Atlantic.
I regret I have not even the smattering of
science which would enable me to put on the
appearance of saying anything instructive or
amusing. The only reason why I do not stand
entirely mute is that I am unwilling by silence
to seem insensible to the great compliment
paid me in assigning me to this honorable duty.
It is in bodies of men like this, onboth sides of
the sea, in institutions like your own and similar ones of more recent date and narrower
resources in America, that there exists one of
the strongest bonds of union among the two
great branches of our race. They are held together by the common love and pursuit of universal truth, by devotion to the best interests
of mankind, by a kindred passion for light and
progress. These are among the strongest incentives to harmonious action known among
men. In your pursuits everything unites,
nothing divides. The results of science are all
gain and no loss.
The triumphs of war are bought by tears
and anguish on both sides; the successes of
diplomacy and of trade are often attended by
the discomfiture of one of the parties; but the
84




OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY
whole world is brightened and made more
agreeable by the achievements of Morse or
Faraday; the genius of Lister and of Morton
diminishes beyond computation the whole vast
sum of human suffering; and every discovery
or invention, on either side of the ocean, the
product of the searching, self-denying scholars
of our race-Edison or Lord Kelvin, Graham
Bell or Bessemer, Darwin or Marsh - is at
once thrown into the common stock of the
world's intellectual riches, profiting every one
and injuring none.
It is for this reason that I-though I have
no other right to sit among scholars or men of
science,-since the object of my mission here
is to do what I can to draw closer the bonds
that bind together the two Anglo-Saxon
peoples,-it is for this reason that I am glad
to come here and to offer my tribute of profound respect to these eminent men who, under
the auspices of this venerable Society, are doing so much to hasten the coming of the day
when misunderstandings and misconception
shall fade away in the light of truth and widening knowledge, and universal peace "shall
lie like a shaft of light across the lands, and
like a line of beams athwart the sea."
85




I




SPEECH AT THE ANNUAL DINNER
OF THE LITERARY FUND
UNDER THE PRESIDENCY OF THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE
MAY 17th, 1898








SPEECH AT THE ANNUAL DINNER
OF THE LITERARY FUND
M     Y LORD DUKE, my Lords and Gentlemen: I have no words to express my gratitude for the courtesy with which Mr. Justice
Madden has mentioned my name, and the extreme amiability with which you have received
it. I had some hesitation in accepting the kind
invitation of Lord Crewe to come to this dinner.
My connection with Literature, I knew, had not
been sufficiently distinguished to entitle me to
any such invitation. But I remembered the
principle on which a four-in-hand club was organized some years ago in America; there were
eligible two classes of the community, those
who drove four-in-hand, and those who would
like to if they could. I felt that under some
such category as the last I might ask to be admitted to the company of men of letters, and
perhaps the fact that one is not to be ranked
89




SPEECH AT THE ANNUAL DINNER
amongst the famous writers of the world
makes him all the freer in speaking of the
things of the spirit, as in doing so he is not
magnifying his own office. Though, to do them
justice, this consideration has not always kept
the seers and the poets tongue-tied. Horace
talks of having built for himself a monument
more lasting than bronze. My old friend Walt
Whitman delighted in speaking of himself as
"one of the roughs, a Cosmos, a man no more
modest than immodest."  And an Egyptian
poet, beside whom Horace and Whitman seem,
almost equally modern, has said in the dim
days before Moses, " To all professions but one
there is some objection; only the scribe is,
without question, pre-eminent. " And, after
all, there are some subjects on which exaggeration is well-nigh impossible, and one of them
is the masterful influence of the best Literature. The mightiest kings reign and die and
are forgotten, or only their names remain; but
great writers have a tenure of power unlimited
by ages. I read with delight when I was a
child the late Mr. Kinglake's " Eothen, " and I
have never forgotten the chapter in which he
describes himself toiling over wretched roads
90




OF THE LITERARY FUND


to visit a ruined temple of the Paphian Venus.
Why did he-why do all of us make these
world-wide pilgrimages to temples and fanes
which are nothing but crumbling stones and
broken shards? The gods are gone; they can
do nothing for us, whatever they once may have
done, to cure life's fever and pain. They have
lost the blessed power of illusion. We go, as
Kinglake did, because of a verse of Virgil, a
line of Homer, which has consecrated those
shrines for ever. As you sail by the coast of
Sicily it is most likely that you think not so
much of the stirring events of history of which
it has been the theatre, as of some verse, some
phrase of Theocritus which has made it an
enchanted land. The fascinations of Cleopatra
live more surely in the lines of Shakespeare
than in the sculpture and paintings on the massive walls of Denderah.
There is no term, no date to really great Literature. The Book of Job comes home to our
hearts as though it were written yesterday.
Even when the works of the master singers
are gone and have perished from men's memory, their fame lives on for countless ages like
the life of the spirit when the body is dust. We
91




SPEECH AT THE ANNUAL DINNER
need no poems of Sappho to be sure that she
was one of the greatest of poets. It must be
confessed that it is only among the firstborn
of genius that we may expect this immortal
royalty. For the common run of us, we can
adopt the sad sincerity of the remark of Mr.
Howells, when, speaking about that pathetic
complaint so common among young writers,
of the oblivion which is to overtake them hereafter, he says, "We do not dream, in our innocence, of that shoreless sea of oblivion in
which we welter all our lives." In such a. company as this, I hesitate to hint at the mortality
of literary fame. I might borrow a leaf from
the book of a French clergyman who was
preaching before Louis XV. He had been told
that the king was not pleased at any reference
to his latter end; but, carried away by the
fervor of his discourse, he was so unlucky as
to say, "Brethren, we must all die," then, remembering the august presence in which he
stood, he added, "at least, most of us." I think
I may go that far even here.
But whatever our rank in the hierarchy,
whatever our span of existence, the glory of
the writer, in which the highest as well as the
92




OF THE LITERARY FUND


lowest may share, is that in his art there is
something which transcends the ordinary laws
of demand and supply. The most considerable
efforts of genius have been either ill-paid or
not paid at all. The most eminent philosophers
and historians, from the time of Aristotle and
Thucydides down to our own days, have regarded very little, if at all, the material gain
of their work. If there had been no such thing
as money in the world, "Lycidas" and "In
Memoriam" would have been written all the
same. Keats and Shelley, had they been paupers or millionaires, would still have given
forth those immortal notes, twin Memnons
smitten by the morning light. The worst-paid
poet in America produced the most exquisite
lyrics to which our country has given birth.
Edgar Poe received with pathetic gratitude
the few dollars which were grudgingly doled
out to him for those masterpieces of a melody
so fine and magical that they seem like music
heard in dreams. A new song by Burns would
be worth how many guineas? But all the
guineas in Threadneedle Street will not give
us another. Unquestionably, the amount of the
literary product is increased by just and
93




SPEECH AT THE ANNUAL DINNER
proper compensation. The quantity of Literature produced can be augmented by money,
but quality is beyond the power of gold.
We hear it sometimes said that the gods are
vanished and that only the half-gods remain.
It cannot be denied that on both sides of the
Atlantic a great constellation of stars has left
the heavens all at once. Perhaps we are to
pass through an hour or two of dubious twilight, but even if this condition is admitted, this
Dichterdaemmerung, we cannot forget that the
twilight is a phase of the dawn as well as of
the night. Literature can never perish from
the earth, and English Literature, like the
British Empire, can never be wholly swallowed
up in darkness. Somewhere, always, in that
immense expanse the sun will be shining. Even
if your soil should lie fallow in the Metropolis
for a time, at the ends of the earth there will be
fecundity and bloom. Even if the tuneful choir
should rest for a few bars in England-of
which, I am bound to say, I see no sign whatever, -the English lark, though he spring from
Canadian meadows or the Indian jungle, will
still be heard singing at Heaven's gate. I do
not speak of my own people, because I have no
94




OF THE LITERARY FUND


time to enumerate the young writers who, beyond the sea, are beginning to flame in the
forehead of the morning sky. It is, therefore,
with no spirit of pessimism, no looking backward with despair to the great departed who
were my contemporaries, but forward, with the
brightest hope, the fullest confidence, to the
vast future, that I welcome, and give thanks
for, the old and ever new toast of Literature.


95








SPEECH AT THE OPENING,
BY MISS HELEN HAY, OF THE
ROBERT BROWNING GARDEN
YORK STREET, WALWORTH, LONDON, JUNE 13th, 1898








SPEECH AT THE OPENING,
BY MISS HELEN HAY, OF THE
ROBERT BROWNING GARDEN
J AM sure you will not expect me to make a
speech this evening. I came merely to pay
my homage to the illustrious memory of Browning and my tribute of respect to the excellent
work which is going on here in his name. It
seems to me that nothing could be more appropriate; the name of Browning stands as a symbol of intellectual energy and moral earnestness and is most fittingly used in any effort to
uplift and enlighten men. Especially is it an
appropriate symbol in all attempts to benefit
the people; for though he unquestionably belonged to the great aristocracy of genius and
character, there never was a more uncompromising democrat in the essential, underlying
principles of true democracy. To him all men
were equal in the sight of God. He believed
99               * '..::




SPEECH AT THE OPENING OF


in equality of rights, equality of opportunity,
equality in the individual sacredness of soul
of every man and every woman. And the first
of all rights-the right to the light-he always
upheld and vindicated with all the power of
his wonderful poetry and the examfple of his
blameless life.
This is the spirit which breathes through all
his work, beginning with the "veined humanity " of " Bells and Pomegranates, I "developing
in fullness and splendor through all the stately
procession of his songs, to reach that noble
climax of music and color and radiance which
finally charmed and conquered the world in
" Men and Women. " From beginning to end,
from youth through glorious manhood to
serene old age, his lyre was always true tothe one unfaltering tone, which taught the
innate dignity of human nature,-its right always to learn, always to aspire.
We may be sure, therefore, that this most
laudable effort to keep alight in this the most
densely-populated region of London the torch
of moral and intellectual culture is one of the
things he would heartily have, commended
while living, and upon which his glorified
4 *   *      *     100
* o*~v




THE ROBERT BROWNING GARDEN
spirit, if it were permitted to revisit the scenes
of his earthly pilgrimage, would be certain
to look with lofty and benignant approval.
I wish to say nothing more except to thank
you from the bottom of my heart, on my own
behalf and that of my daughter, for the most
amiable and kindly way in which you have received us, and for the pleasure we have enjoyed in being with you this evening, and most
of all for the kindly and cordial words of sympathy with our country which we have heard
not only from the speakers but from this audience. You may be sure that no words of
goodwill however strong, however enthusiastic, can be uttered in England that will not find
instant and adequate response on the other
side of the Atlantic. For myself, of whom you
have spoken but too kindly, I can only say
that a frank and warm friendship with England has been one of the passions of my life.
The hope of it I have cherished ever since I
knew anything, and I am glad that I have lived
long enough to see the dawn of it upon the
horizon.


101








INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT
LETTER TO THE POET LAUREATE




I




INTERNATIONAL
COPYRIGHT
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Washington, May 23, 1899.
M     Y DEAR MR. AUSTIN: I owe you many
apologies for my delay in answering
your letter, of which I am ashamed to give the
date. I think you would pardon me if you
knew how my time has been occupied. Even
now I shall not attempt to write a letter like
yours. Long before it reached my hands it
had been read with enjoyment wherever there
are readers who care for good thoughts expressed in perfect English. I cannot vie with
you in such a competition. Nor can I discuss
the subject of copyright with any such authority as you possess. The laurel you bear makes
you the dean of contemporary English literature. My place in the world of letters is too
inconsiderable to give me any title to speak for
105




INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT
American authors, and the post I hold for the
moment in the Government not only confers
no power over legislation, but even restricts to
some extent that liberty of criticism and suggestion which would be my right as a private
citizen.
I am, however, as you assume, greatly interested in the subject of international copyright. I sympathized, and, to the extent of my
ability, co-operated with the efforts of men
more energetic and capable than myself to reform our objectionable copyright system and
to have the present arrangement enacted into
law. I think you do something less than justice
to the law itself and to the Congress that enacted it. There were many interests opposed
to it, and it required no little patience and care
to bring together the different groups of
opinion favorable to the principle involved.
The law as passed was not what everybody
wanted, but it was the only settlement within
reach, and it was in itself, I venture to say, if
not perfect in all its provisions, a most laudable
and beneficent act. Its good effects have surpassed the expectations of its friends.
From inquiries I have recently made I am
106




INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT


led to believe that the operation of the law has
not profited American publishers to anything
like the extent they anticipated, and while it
has certainly been an advantage to American
authors, they have not been its chief beneficiaries. English writers have profited largely
by the protection afforded them, and English
publishers have reaped great advantage by
establishing branch offices in this country,
which have enabled them to handle their
English business at inconsiderable expense
and to extend their profitable operations here.
It is not in its application to pure literature
alone that our law of copyright ought to be
judged. In the department of art it affords
absolutely perfect security to producers, all
rights in paintings, etchings, drawings, sculpture and architectural plans being reserved by
simple registry at a nominal fee. The same
is true of musical works of all sorts. Recent
legal decisions have taken the highest ground,
following the purpose of the framers of the
law, in affording to music the most liberal protection. Dramatic works also receive the most
ample security. They are better protected, I
am informed, than even in England.
107




INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT


It is in the matter of the manufacture of
books alone that the complaint of the English
author is founded, and I cannot but think that
the hardships which are alleged to proceed
from this source are somewhat exaggerated.
The operation of the law has been in the main
of enormous value to English authors, both in
their financial returns and the spread of their
fame and influence. In many cases the prices
of literary work under the action of the law
have more than doubled. The world of English
letters was never so prosperous as now. The
hardship of compelling the manufacture of
English books in America has greatly decreased with the constantly diminishing cost of
the work, and where a book impresses a publisher as worthy his attention the question of
the outlay for printing is hardly regarded.
Where such a book has not seemed of sufficient
value to be reprinted here, the author has, of
course, been free to import a foreign edition,
but I am told there has not been an instance in
which this has operated disadvantageously to
a later edition of the work or to the author's
next book.
The growth of respect for literary property
108




INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT
has always been proportionate to the familiarity with literary exchange, and since the passage of our law the security conferred upon
many people formerly indifferent to the subject has created for the copyright law a body
of new supporters. It is a great advantage to
feel that no backward step will be taken, and
the almost unanimous voice of American men
of letters, including the entire league of American authors and not a few of our most prominent publishers, is in cordial sympathy with
your own lofty and generous aspiration for the
absolute freedom of literary exchange throughout the world.
I know you will pardon the inadequacy of
this reply to your most gracious and magrnanimous letter, and let me say in conclusion with
what sincere cordiality I welcome and return
your expressions of good will. Your genial
words have found only sympathetic echoes
throughout this country. We are, and from
the nature of the case must always be, keen
competitors in the work of the world, but, whatever details may intervene of political or commercial rivalry, the blood in our veins, the
history in our memories, must always make us
109




INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT


yoke-fellows in the weighty tasks laid upon us
which make for civilization and for righteousness.
Believe me, my dear Mr. Austin, with happy
memories of our last meeting, and pleasant
anticipations of the next, faithfully yours,
JOHN HAY.


110




AMERICAN DIPLOMACY
SPEECH IN REPLY TO THE TOAST OF "OUR RECENT DIPLOMACY"
AT NEW YORK CHAMBER OF COMMERCE DINNER
NOVEMBER 19th, 1901




I
i




AMERICAN DIPLOMACY
I NEED not dwell upon the mournful and
tragic event by virtue of which I am here.
When the President lay stricken in Buffalo,
though hope beat high in all our hearts that
his life might be spared for future usefulness
to his country, it was still recognized as improbable that he should be able to keep the
engagement he had made to be with you tonight, and your committee did me the honor to
ask me to come in his place. This I have sometimes done, in his lifetime, though always with
diffidence and dread; but how much more am
I daunted by the duty of appearing before you
when that great man, loved and revered above
all even while living, has put on the august halo
of immortality! Who could worthily come into
your presence as the shadow of that illustrious
Shade?


8


113




AMERICAN DIPLOMACY


Let me advert, but for a moment, to one
aspect of our recent bereavement, which is
especially interesting to those engaged, as you
are, in relations whose scope is as wide as the
world. Never, since history began, has there
been an event which so immediately, and so
deeply, touched the sensibilities of so vast a
portion of the human race. The sun, which
set over Lake Erie while the surgeons were
still battling for the President's life, had not
risen on the Atlantic before every capital of the
civilized world was in mourning. And it was
not from the centers of civilization alone that
the voices of sorrow and sympathy reached us;
they came as well from the utmost limits of the
world, from the most remote islands of the
sea; not only from the courts of Christendom,
but from the temples of strange gods and the
homes of exotic religions. Never before has
the heart of the world throbbed with a sorrow
so universal. Never before have the kingdoms
of the earth paid such homage at the grave of
a citizen. Something of this was naturally due
to his great office-presiding, as he did, over
the government of a, nation holding in fee the
certainty of illimitable greatness. But no ruler
114




AMERICAN DIPLOMACY
can acquire the instinctive regard and esteem
of the world without possessing most unusual
qualities of mind and character. This dead
President of ours possessed them. He, was
strong; he was wise; he was gentle. With no
external advantages beyond the mass of his
fellow-citizens, he rose by sheer merit and will
to the summit of distinction and power. With
a growth as certain and gradual as that of an
oak, he grew stronger and wiser with every
year that he lived. Confronted continually
with new and exacting situations, he was never
unequal to them; his serenity was never
clouded; he took the storm and the sunshine
with the same cheery welcome; his vast influence expanded with his opportunities. Like
that Divine Master whom he humbly and reverently served, he grew continually "in favor
with God and man."
One simple reason why the millions of this
country mourned him as if they had buried a
brother, and why all the nations of the earth
felt that his death was a loss to humanity at
large, was that he loved his fellow-men. There
were literally no bounds to his lavish good will.
In political genius, in wisdom for government,
115




AMERICAN DIPLOMACY


in power of controlling men, he was one of the
elect of the earth-there were few like him; but
in sentiment and feeling he was the most perfect democrat I ever met. He never knew what
it meant to regard another man as his inferior,
or as his superior. Nothing human was alien
to him. Even his death was in that sense
significant. He was slain in the moment when
with that delightful smile we knew so wellwhich seemed like the very sunshine of the
spirit-he was stretching forth a generous hand
to greet the lowest and meanest unit in that
crowd of many thousands. He made no demagogical parade of his sympathy with the
masses, but this sympathy was a part of his
life. He knew no interest which was not theirs;
their welfare was as dear to him as the blood
in his own veins; and in spite of calumny and
falsehood the people knew it, and they loved
him in return.
Others will rise and labor and do good
service to the Republic. We shall never lack
good men when the emergency calls for them.
Thank God! we do not lack them now. But it
may well be doubted if in any century of the
glorious future before us, there will ever ap116




AMERICAN DIPLOMACY


pear two such sincere, high-minded, self-respecting lovers of the people as the last fifty
years have shown us in Abraham Lincoln and
William McKinley.
But the world must go on, though the greatest and best beloved fall by the way. I dare to
come to you, because you have asked me, and
he would have wished it, for he held that our
personal feelings should never be considered
when they conflicted with a public duty. And
if I fall immeasurably below the standard to
which he has accustomed you, the very comparisons you draw will be a tribute to his
memory.
I am asked to say something about our diplomacy. You want from me nothing but the
truth; and yet, if I confine myself to the truth,
I can not help fearing I shall do my profession
a wrong in the minds of those who have been
in the habit of considering diplomacy an occult
science, as mysterious as alchemy, and as
dangerous to the morals as municipal politics.
It must be admitted that this conception of the
diplomatic function is not without a certain
historical foundation.
There was a time when diplomacy was a
117




AMERICAN DIPLOMACY
science of intrigue and falsehood, of traps and
mines and countermines. The word "machiavelic" has become an adjective in our common
speech, signifying fraudulent craft and guile;
but Machiavel was as honest a man as his time
justified or required.  The King of Spain
wrote to the King of France after the massacre
of St. Bartholomew congratulating him upon
the splendid dissimulation with which that
stroke of policy had been accomplished. In the
last generation it was thought a remarkable
advance in straightforward diplomacy when
Prince Bismarck recognized the advantage of
telling the truth, even at the risk of misleading
his adversary. It may be another instance of
that naff credulity with which I have often been
charged by European critics when I say that
I really believe the world has moved onward
in diplomacy as in many other matters. In my
experience of diplomatic life, which now covers
more years than I like to look back upon, and
in the far greater record of American diplomacy which I have read and studied, I can say
without hesitation that we have generally told
squarely what we wanted, announced early in
negotiation what we were willing to give, and
118




AMERICAN DIPLOMACY
allowed the other side to accept or reject our
terms. During the time in which I have been
prominently concerned in our foreign relations,
I can also say that we have been met by the
representatives of other powers in the same
spirit of frankness and sincerity. You, as men
of large affairs, will bear me out in saying
there is nothing like straightforwardness to
beget its like.
The comparative simplicity of our diplomatic methods would be a matter of necessity
if it were not of choice. Secret treaties, reserved clauses, private understandings, are impossible to us. No treaty has any validity until
ratified by the Senate; many require the action
of both Houses of Congress to be carried into
effect. They must, therefore, be in harmony
with public opinion. The Executive could not
change this system, even if he should ever
desire to. It must be accepted, with all its difficulties and all its advantages; and it has been
approved by the experience of a hundred years.
As to the measure of success which our recent
diplomacy has met with, it is difficult, if not impossible, for me to speak. There are two important lines of human endeavor in which men
119




AMERICAN DIPLOMACY


are forbidden even to allude to their success
affairs of the heart and diplomatic affairs. In
doing so, one not only commits a vulgarity
which transcends all question of taste, but
makes all future success impossible. For this
reason, the diplomatic representatives of the
Government must frequently suffer in silence
the most outrageous imputations upon their
patriotism, their intelligence, and their common honesty. To justify themselves before the
public, they would sometimes have to place in
jeopardy the interests of the nation. They
must constantly adopt for themselves the
motto of the French revolutionist, "Let my
name wither, rather than my country be
injured. "
But if we are not permitted to boast of what
we have done, we can at least say a word
about what we have tried to do, and the principles which have guided our action. The
briefest expression of our rule of conduct is,
perhaps, the Monroe Doctrine and the Golden
Rule. With this simple chart we can hardly
go far wrong.
I think I may say that our sister republics
to the south of us are perfectly convinced of
120




AMERICAN DIPLOMACY
the sincerity of our attitude. They know we
desire the prosperity of each of them, and
peace and harmony among them. We no more
want their territory than we covet the mountains of the moon. We are grieved and distressed when there are differences among them,
but even then we should never think of trying
to compose any of those differences unless by
the request of both parties. Not even our
earnest desire forpeace among them will lead
us to any action which might offend their
national dignity or their just sense of independence. We owe them all the consideration
which we claim for ourselves. To critics in
various climates who have other views of our
purposes we can only wish fuller information
and more quiet consciences.
As to what we have tried to do-what we are
still trying to do-in the general field of diplomacy, there is no reason for doubt on the one
hand or reticence on the other. President
McKinley in his messages during the last four
years has made the subject perfectly clear.
We have striven, on the lines laid down by
Washington, to cultivate friendly relations
with all powers, but not to take part in the
121




AMERICAN DIPLOMACY
formation of groups or combinations among
them. A position of complete independence is
not incompatible with relations involving not
friendship alone, but concurrent action as well
in important emergencies. We have kept always in view the fact that we are preeminently
a peace-loving people; that our normal activities are in the direction of trade and commerce; that the vast development of our
industries imperatively demands that we shall
not only retain and confirm our hold on our
present markets, but seek constantly, by all
honorable means, to extend our commercial
interests in every practicable direction. It is
for this reason we have negotiated the treaties
of reciprocity which now await the action of
the Senate; all of them conceived in the traditional American spirit of protection to our
own industries, and yet mutually advantageous
to ourselves and our neighbors. In the same
spirit we have sought, successfully, to induce
all the great powers to unite in a recognition
of the general principle of equality of commercial access and opportunity In the markets
of the Orient. We believe that " a fair field and
no favor" is all we require; and with less than
122




AMERICAN DIPLOMACY
that we can not be satisfied. If we accept the
assurances we have received as honest and
genuine, as I certainly do, that equality will not
be denied us; and the result may safely be left
to American genius and energy.
We consider our interests in the Pacific
Ocean as great now as those of any other
power, and destined to indefinite development.
We have opened our doors to the people of
Hawaii; we have accepted the responsibility of
the Philippines which Providence imposed
upon us; we have put an end to the embarrassing condominium in which we were involved
in Samoa, and while abandoning none of our
commercial rights in the entire group, we have
established our flag and our authority in Tutuila, which gives us the finest harbor in the
South 'Seas. Next in order will come a Pacific
cable, and an isthmian canal for the use of all
well-disposed peoples, but under exclusive
American ownership and American control
of both of which great enterprises President
McKinley and President Roosevelt have been
the energetic and consistent champions.
Sure as we are of our rights in these matters, convinced as we are of the authenticity of
123




AMERICAN DIPLOMACY
the vision which has led us thus far and still
beckons us forward, I can yet assure you that
so long as the administration of your affairs
remains in hands as strong and skillful as
those to which they have been and are now confided, there will be no more surrender of our
rights than there will be violation of the rights
of others. The President to whom you have
given your invaluable trust and confidence, like
his now immortal predecessor, is as incapable
of bullying a strong power as he is of wronging
a weak one. He feels and knows-for has he
not tested it, in the currents of the heady fight,
as well as in the toilsome work of administration?-that the nation over whose destinies he
presides has a giant's strength in the works of
war, as in the works of peace. But that consciousness of strength brings with it no
temptation to do injury to any power on
earth, the proudest or the humblest.  We
frankly confess we seek the friendship of all
the powers; we want to trade with all peoples;
we are conscious of resources that will make
our commerce a source of advantage to them
and of profit to ourselves. But no wantonness
of strength will ever induce us to drive a hard
124




AMERICAN DIPLOMACY
bargain with another nation because it is weak,
nor will any fear of ignoble criticism tempt us
to insult or defy a great power because it is
strong, or even because it is friendly.
The attitude of our diplomacy may be indicated in a text of Scripture which Franklinthe first and greatest of our diplomats-tells
us passed through his mind when he was
presented at the Court of Versailles. It was a
text his father used to quote to him in the old
candle shop in Boston, when he was a boy:
"Seest thou a man diligent in his business, he
shall stand before kings." Let us be diligent
in our business and we shall stand-stand, you
see, not crawl, nor swagger-stand, as a friend
and equal, asking nothing, putting up with
nothing but what is right and just, among our
peers, in the great democracy of nations.


125




I



A FESTIVAL OF PEACE
ADDRESS BEFORE THE NATIONAL EDITORIAL ASSOCIATION,
PAN AMERICAN EXPOSITION, BUFFALO, JUNE 13th, 1901




I




A FESTIVAL OF PEACE
LAST night, as I looked from my window at
this marvelous creation, lined in fire upon
the evening sky, and to-day, as I have walked
through the courts and the palaces of this
incomparable exhibition, the words of the
prophet have been constantly in my mind:
"Your old men shall dream   dreams; your
young men shall see visions. " We who are old
have through many hopeful years dreamed this
dream. It was noble and inspiring, leading to
earnest and uplifting labor. And now we
share with you who are young the pleasures of
beholding the vision, far nobler and more inspiring than the dream.
This ideal of the brotherhood of the nations
of the Western World is not a growth of yesterday. It was heralded when the country was
young by the clarion voice of Henry Clay; it
9                129




A FESTIVAL OF PEACE
was cherished by Seward and Evarts, by
Douglas and by Blaine.
Twelve years ago we held the first reunion
of the American republics. Much was said
and done, destined to be memorable in our
history, opening and blazing the way along
the path of peace and fraternal relations. We
have made steady progress; we have grown
from day to day to a better understanding, until now we are looking to our coming conference in the City of Mexico, in which we have
the right to hope that with larger experience
and profounder study of the great problems
before us results still more important and
beneficial will be reached.
As a means to these ends, as a concrete realization of those generous dreams which have
led us thus far, we have this grand and beautiful spectacle, never to be forgotten, a delight
to the eyes, a comfort to every patriot heart
that, during the coming summer, shall make
the joyous pilgrimage to this enchanted scene,
where lake and shore and sky, the rich, bright
city throbbing with vigorous life, and in the
distance the flash and the roar of the stupendous cataract unite their varied attractions in
130




A FESTIVAL OF PEACE


one charm  of powerful magic such as the
world has seldom seen.
There have been statesmen and soldiers who
have cherished the fancy in past years of a
vast American army recruited from   every
country between the Arctic and the Antarctic
seas, which should bind us together in one immense military power that might overawe the
older civilization. But this conception belongs
to the past, to an order of things that has gone,
I hope, forever. How far more inspiring is the
thought of the results we have here now! How
much more in keeping with the better times
in whose light we live, and the still more
glorious future to which we look forward, is
the result we see to-day of the armies of labor
and intelligence in every country of this New
World, all working with one mind and one
will, not to attain an unhappy pre-eminence
in the art of destruction, but to advance in
liberal emulation in the arts which tend to
make this long-harassed and tormented earth
a brighter and more blest abode for men of
good will!
Our hearts have glowed within us as we have
surveyed at every turn the evidences of the
131




A FESTIVAL OF PEACE


equality and fraternity of progress under skies
so distant, under conditions so varying, as
those which obtain between Alaska, and Cape
Horn. I remember how, at a World's Fair in
Paris, a great writer exclaimed: "What a
prodigious amount of intelligence there is in
the world!" We can say, with hearts full of
gratitude and pride: How prodigious is the
progress of intelligence and industry in this
New World of ours!
All the triumphs of the spirit and of the
skilled hands of labor, the garnered treasures
of science, the witcheries of art, the spoils of
earth and air and sea are gathered here to
warn, to delight, to encourage and reward the
ever-striving, the indomitable mind of man.
Here you have force, which enables men to
conquer and tame the powers of nature; wealth,
not meant, as Tennyson sang, to rest in
moulded heaps, but smit with the free light to
melt and fatten lower lands; beauty, not for
the selfish gratification of the few, but for the
joy of the many to fill their days with gladness
and their nights with music; and, hovering
over all, the sublime, the well-nigh divine conception of a brotherhood of mutually helpful
132




A FESTIVAL OF PEACE


nations, fit harbinger and forerunner of a
brotherhood of man.
God forbid that there should be in all this
the slightest hint of vain glory, still less of
menace to the rest of the world. On the contrary, we cannot but think that this friendly
challenge we send out to all peoples, convoking
them also to join in this brotherly emulation,
in which the prizes are, after all, merely the
right to further peaceful progress in good
work, will be to the benefit and profit of every
country under the wide heaven.
Every great achievement in art, in science,
in commerce, communicates to the' universal
human spirit a salutary shock which in everwidening circles spreads to regions the most
remote and obscure, to break at last in lingering ripples on the ultimate shores of space and
time. Out of a good source evil cannot flow;
out of the light darkness cannot be born. The
benignant influences that shall emanate from
this great festival of peace shall not be bounded
by oceans nor by continents.


133




I




WILLIAM McKINLEY
MEMORIAL ADDRESS BY INVITATION OF THE CONGRESS
DELIVERED IN THE CAPITOL AT WASHINGTON
FEBRUARY 27th, 1902








WILLIAM McKINLEY
OR the third time the Congress of the
United States are assembled to commemorate the life and the death of a President
slain by the hand of an assassin. The attention
of the future historian will be attracted to the
features which reappear with startling sameness in all three of these awful crimes: the uselessness, the utter lack of consequence of the
act; the obscurity, the insignificance of the
criminal; the blamelessness-so far as in our
sphere of existence the best of men may be held
blameless-of the victim. Not one of our
murdered Presidents had an enemy in the
world; they were all of such pre-eminent purity
of life that no pretext could be given for the
attack of passional crime; they were all men
of democratic instincts who could never have
offended the most jealous advocates of equality; they were of kindly and generous nature,
137




WILLIAM McKINLEY
to whom wrong or injustice was impossible;
of moderate fortune, whose slender means nobody could envy. They were men of austere
virtue, of tender heart, of eminent abilities,
which they had devoted with single minds to
the good of the Republic. If ever men walked
before God and man without blame, it was
these three rulers of our people. The only
temptation to attack their lives offered was
their gentle radiance-to eyes hating the light
that was offense enough.
The stupid uselessness of such an infamy affronts the common sense of the world. One can
conceive how the death of a dictator may
change the political conditions of an Empire;
how the extinction of a narrowing line of kings
may bring in an alien dynasty. But in a wellordered Republic like ours, the ruler may fall,
but the State feels no tremor. Our beloved and
revered leader is gone-but the natural process of our laws provides us a successor identical in purpose and ideals, nourished by the
same teachings, inspired by the same principles, pledged by tender affection as well as
by high loyalty to carry to completion the immense task committed to his hands, and to
138




WILLIAM McKINLEY


smite with iron severity every manifestation
of that hideous crime which his mild predecessor, with his dying breath, forgave. The sayings of celestial wisdom have no date; the
words that reach us, over two thousand years,
out of the darkest hour of gloom the world has
ever known, are true to the life to-day: "They
know not what they do." The blow struck at
our dear friend and ruler was as deadly as
blind hate could make it; but the blow struck
at anarchy was deadlier still.
What a world of insoluble problems such an
event excites in the mind! Not merely in its
personal, but in its public aspects, it presents
a paradox not to be comprehended. Under a
system of government so free and so impartial
that we recognize its existence only by its benefactions; under a social order so purely
democratic that classes can not exist in it, affording opportunities so universal that even
conditions are as changing as the winds, where
the laborer of to-day is the capitalist of tomorrow; under laws which are the result of
ages of evolution, so uniform and so beneficent
that the President has just the same rights and
privileges as the artisan; we see the same
139




WILLIAM McKINLEY
hellish growth of hatred and murder which
dogs equally the footsteps of benevolent monarchs and blood-stained despots. How many
countries can join with us in the community of
a kindred sorrow! - I will not speak of those
distant regions where assassination enters into
the daily life of government. But among the
nations bound to us by the ties of familiar
intercourse-who can forget that wise and
high-minded Autocrat who had earned the
proud title of the Liberator? that enlightened
and magnanimous citizen whom France still
mourns? that brave and chivalrous King of
Italy who only lived for his people? and, saddest of all, that lovely and sorrowing Empress,
whose harmless life could hardly have excited
the animosity of a demon. Against that
devilish spirit nothing avails-neither virtue,
nor patriotism, nor age nor youth, nor conscience nor pity. We can not even say that
education is a sufficient safeguard against this
baleful evil-for most of the wretches whose
crimes have so shocked humanity in recent
years are men not unlettered, who have gone
from the common schools, through murder, to
the scaffold.
140




WILLIAM McKINLEY


Our minds can not discern the origin, nor
conceive the extent of wickedness so perverse
and so cruel; but this does not exempt us from
the duty of trying to control and counteract it.
We do not understand what electricity is;
whence it comes or what its hidden properties
may be. But we know it as a mighty force for
good or evil-and so with the painful toil of
years, men of learning and skill have labored
to store and to subjugate it, to neutralize, and
even to employ its destructive energies. This
problem of anarchy is dark and intricate, but
it ought to be within the compass of democratic
government-although no sane mind can
fathom the mysteries of these untracked and
orbitless natures-to guard against their aberrations, to take away from them the hope of
escape, the long luxury of scandalous days in
court, the unwholesome sympathy of hysterical
degenerates, and so by degrees to make the
crime not worth committing, even to these abnormal and distorted souls.
It would be presumptuous for me in this
presence to suggest the details of remedial
legislation for a. malady so malignant. That
task may safely be left to the skill and patience
141




WILLIAM McKINLEY
of the National Congress, which have never
been found unequal to any such emergency.
The country believes that the memory of three
murdered comrades of yours-all of whose
voices still haunt these walls-will be a sufficient inspiration to enable you to solve even
this abstruse and painful problem, which has
dimmed so many pages of history with blood
and with tears.
Before an audience less sympathetic than
this, I should not dare to speak of that great
career which we have met to commemorate.
But we are all his friends, and friends do not
criticize each other's words about an open
grave. I thank you for the honor you have
done me in inviting me here, and not less for
the kind forbearance I know I shall have from
you in my most inadequate efforts to speak of
him worthily.
The life of William McKinley was, from his
birth to his death, typically American. There
is no environment, I should say, anywhere else
in the world which could produce just such a
character. He was born into that way of life
which elsewhere is called the middle class, but
which in this country is so nearly universal as
142




WILLIAM McKINLEY
to make of other classes an almost negligible
quantity.  He was neither rich nor poor,
neither proud nor humble; he knew no hunger
he was not sure of satisfying, no luxury which
could enervate mind or body. His parents were
sober, God-fearing people; intelligent and upright; without pretension and without humility.
He grew up in the company of boys like himself; wholesome, honest, self-respecting. They
looked down on nobody; they never felt it possible they could be looked down upon. Their
houses were the homes of probity, piety, patriotism. They learned in the admirable school
readers of fifty years ago the lessons of heroic
and splendid life which have come down from
the past. They read in their weekly newspapers the story of the world's progress, in
which they were eager to take part, and of the
sins and wrongs of civilization with which they
burned to do battle. It was a serious and
thoughtful time. The boys of that day felt
dimly, but deeply, that days of sharp struggle
and high achievement were before them. They
looked at life with the wondering yet resolute
eyes of a young esquire in his vigil of arms.
They felt a time was coming when to them
143




WILLIAM McKINLEY


should be addressed the stern admonition of
the Apostle, "Quit you like men; be strong."
It is not easy to give to those of a later
generation any clear idea of that extraordinary
spiritual awakening which passed over the
country at the first red signal fires of the
Civil War. It was not our earliest apocalypse;
a hundred years before the nation had been
revealed to itself, when after long discussion
and much searching of heart the people of the
colonies had resolved that to live without liberty was worse than to die, and had therefore
wagered in the solemn game of war "their
lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor."
In a stress of heat and labor unutterable, the
country had been hammered and welded together; but thereafter for nearly a century
there had been nothing in our life to touch the
innermost fountain of feeling and devotion;
we had had rumors of wars —even wars we had
had, not without sacrifices and glory-but nothing which went to the vital self-consciousness
of the country, nothing which challenged the
nation's right to live. But in 1860 the nation
was going down into the Valley of Decision.
The question which had been debated on
144




WILLIAM McKINLEY
thousands of platforms, which had been discussed in countless publications, which, thundered from innumerable pulpits, had caused
in their congregations the bitter strife and dissension to which only cases of conscience can
give rise, was everywhere pressing for solution. And not merely in the various channels
of publicity was it alive and clamorous. About
every fireside in the land, in the conversation
of friends and neighbors, and, deeper still, in
the secrecy of millions of human hearts, the
battle of opinion was waging; and all men felt
and saw-with more or less clearness-that
an answer to the importunate question, Shall
the nation live? was due, and not to be denied.
And I do not mean that in the North alone
there was this austere wrestling with conscience. In the South as well, below all the
effervescence and excitement of a people perhaps more given to eloquent speech than we
were, there was the profound agony of question and answer, the summons to decide
whether honor and freedom did not call them
to revolution and war. It is easy for partisanship to say that the one side was right and that
the other was wrong. It is still easier for an
10               145




WILLIAM McKINLEY
indolent magnanimity to say that both were
right. Perhaps in the wide view of ethics one
is always right to follow his conscience, though
it lead him to disaster and death. But history
is inexorable. She takes no account of sentiment and intention; and in her cold and
luminous eyes that side is right which fights in
harmony with the stars in their courses. The
men are right through whose efforts and
struggles the world is helped onward, and
humanity moves to a higher level and a
brighter day.
The men who are living to-day and who were
young in 1860 will never forget the glory and
glamour that filled the earth and the sky when
the long twilight of doubt and uncertainty was
ending and the time of action had come. A
speech by Abraham Lincoln was an event not
only of high moral significance, but of farreaching importance; the drilling of a militia
company by Ellsworth attracted national attention; the fluttering of the flag in the clear
sky drew tears from the eyes of young men.
Patriotism, which had been a rhetorical expression, became a passionate emotion, in
which instinct, logic, and feeling were fused.
146




WILLIAM McKINLEY


The country was worth saving; it could be
saved only by fire; no sacrifice was too great;
the young men of the country were ready for
the sacrifice; come weal, come woe, they were
ready.
At seventeen years of age William McKinley ).
heard this summons of his country. He was
the sort of youth to whom a military life in
ordinary times would possess no attractions.
His nature was far different from that of the
ordinary soldier. He had other dreams of life,
its prizes and pleasures, than that of marches
and battles. But to his mind there was no
choice or question. The banner floating in the
morning breeze was the beckoning gesture of
his country. The thrilling notes of the trumpet
called him-him   and none other-into the
ranks. His portrait in his first uniform is familiar to you all-the short, stocky figure; the
quiet, thoughtful face; the deep, dark eyes. It
is the face of a lad who could not stay at home
when he thought he was needed in the field.
He was of the stuff of which good soldiers are
made. Had he been ten years older he would
have entered at the head of a company and
come out at the head of a division. But he did
147




WILLIAM    McKINLEY
what he could. He enlisted as a private; he
learned to obey. His serious, sensible ways,
his prompt, alert efficiency soon attracted the
attention of his superiors. He was so faithful
in little things they gave him more and more to
do. He was untiring in camp and on the
march; swift, cool, and fearless in fight. He
left the army with field rank when the war
ended, brevetted by President Lincoln for
gallantry in battle.
In coming years when men seek to draw the
moral of our great Civil War nothing will seem
to them so admirable in all the history of our
two magnificent armies as the way in which the
war came to a close. When the Confederate
army saw the time had come, they acknowledged the pitiless logic of facts, and ceased
fighting. When the army of the Union saw it
was no longer needed, without a murmur or
question, making no terms, asking no return,
in the flush of victory and fullness of might,
it laid down its arms and melted back into the
mass of peaceful citizens. There is no event,
since the nation was born, which has so proved
its solid capacity for self-government. Both
sections share equally in that crown of glory.
148




WILLIAM McKINLEY
They had held a debate of incomparable importance and had fought it out with equal
energy. A conclusion had been reached-and
it is to the everlasting honor of both sides that
they each knew when the war was over, and
the hour of a lasting peace had struck. We may
admire the desperate daring of others who
prefer annihilation to compromise, but the
palm of common sense, and, I will say, of enlightened patriotism, belongs to the men like
Grant and Lee, who knew when they had
fought enough, for honor and for country.
William McKinley, one of that sensible million of men, gladly laid down his sword and
betook himself to his books. He quickly made
up the time lost in soldiering. He attacked his
Blackstone as he would have done a hostile entrenchment; finding the range of a country law
library too narrow, he went to the Albany Law
School, where he worked energetically with
brilliant success; was admitted to the bar and
settled down to practice-a brevetted veteran
of 24-in the quiet town of Canton, now and
henceforward forever famous as the scene of
his life and his place of sepulture. Here many
blessings awaited him: high repute, profes149




WILLIAM McKINLEY
sional success, and a domestic affection so pure,
so devoted and stainless that future poets, seeking an ideal of Christian marriage, will find in
it a theme worthy of their songs. This is a subject to which the lightest allusion seems profanation; but it is impossible to speak of William McKinley without remembering that no
truer, tenderer knight to his chosen lady ever
lived among mortal men. If to the spirits of the
just made perfect is permitted the consciousness of earthly things, we may be sure that his
faithful soul is now watching over that gentle
sufferer who counts the long hours in their
shattered home in the desolate splendor of
his fame.
A man possessing the qualities with which
nature had endowed McKinley seeks political
activity as naturally as a growing plant seeks
light and air. A wholesome ambition; a rare
power of making friends and keeping them;
a faith, which may be called religious, in his
country and its institutions; and, flowing from
this, a belief that a man could do no nobler
work than to serve such a country-these were
the elements in his character that drew him
irresistibly into public life. He had from the
150




WILLIAM McKINLEY
beginning a remarkable equipment: a manner
of singular grace and charm; a voice of ringing
quality and great carrying power-vast as
were the crowds that gathered about him, he
reached their utmost fringe without apparent
effort. He had an extraordinary power of
marshaling and presenting significant facts, so  L
as to bring conviction to the average mind.
His range of reading was not wide; he read
only what he might some day find useful, and
what he read his memory held like brass.
Those who knew him well in those early days
can never forget the consummate skill and
power with which he would select a few pointed
facts, and, blow upon blow, would hammer
them into the attention of great assemblages in
Ohio, as Jael drove the nail into the head of the
Canaanite captain. He was not often impassioned; he rarely resorted to the aid of wit or
humor; yet I never saw his equal in controlling
and convincing a popular audience by sheer
appeal to their reason and intelligence. He did
not flatter or cajole them, but there was an
implied compliment in the serious and sober
tone in which he addressed them. He seemed
one of them; in heart and feeling he was one
151




WILLIAM McKINLEY
of them. Each workingman in a great crowd
might say: That is the sort of man I would like
to be, and under more favoring circumstances
might have been. He had the divine gift of
sympathy, which, though given only to the
elect, makes all men their friends.
So it came naturally about that in 1876-the
beginning of the second century of the Republic
-he began, by an election to Congress, his
political career. Thereafter for fourteen years
this Chamber was his home. I use the word
advisedly. Nowhere in the world was he so
in harmony with his environment as here; nowhere else did his mind work with such full
consciousness of its powers. The air of debate
was native to him; here he drank delight of
battle with his peers. In after days, when he
drove by this stately pile, or when on rare occasions his duty called him here, he greeted
his old haunts with the affectionate zest of a
child of the house; during all the last ten years
of his life, filled as they were with activity and
glory, he never ceased to be home-sick for this
Hall. When he came to the Presidency, there
was not a day when his Congressional service
was not of use to him. Probably no other
President has been in such full and cordial
152




WILLIAM McKINLEY
communion with Congress, if we may except
Lincoln alone. McKinley knew the legislative
body thoroughly, its composition, its methods,
its habits of thought. He had the profoundest
respect for its authority and an inflexible belief
in the ultimate rectitude of its purposes. Our
history shows how surely an Executive courts
disaster and ruin by assuming an attitude of
hostility or distrust to the Legislature; and, on
the other hand, McKinley's frank and sincere
trust and confidence in Congress were repaid
by prompt and loyal support and co-operation.
During his entire term of office this mutual
trust and regard-so essential to the public
welfare-was never shadowed by a single
cloud.
He was a Republican. He could not be anything else. A Union soldier grafted upon a
Clay Whig, he necessarily" believed in the
"American system"-in protection to home
industries; in a strong, aggressive nationality;
in a liberal construction of the Constitution.
What any self-reliant nation might rightly do,
he felt this nation had power to do, if required
by the common welfare and not prohibited by
our written charter.
Following the natural bent of his mind, he
153




WILLIAM McKINLEY
devoted himself to questions of finance and
revenue, to the essentials of the national housekeeping. He took high rank in the House from
the beginning. His readiness in debate, his
mastery of every subject he handled, the bright
and amiable light he shed about him, and above
all the unfailing courtesy and good will with
which he treated friend and foe alike-one of
the surest signatures of a nature born to great
destinies-made his service in the House a
pathway of unbroken success and brought him
at last to the all-important post of Chairman
of Ways and Means and leader of the majority.
Of the famous revenue act which, in that capacity, he framed and carried through Congress,
it is not my purpose here and now to speak.
The embers of the controversy in the midst of
which that law had its troubled being are yet
too warm to be handled on a day like this. I
may only say that it was never sufficiently
tested to prove the praises of its friends or the
criticism of its opponents. After a brief existence it passed away, for a time, in the storm
that swept the Republicans out of power.
McKinley also passed through a brief zone of
shadow; his Congressional district having been
154




WILLIAM McKINLEY


rearranged for that purpose by a hostile
legislature.
Someone has said it is easy to love our
enemies; they help us so much more than our
friends. The people whose malevolent skill
had turned McKinley out of Congress deserved
well of him and of the Republic. Never was
Nemesis more swift and energetic. The Republicans of Ohio were saved the trouble of choosing a Governor-the other side had chosen one
for them. A year after McKinley left Congress
he was made Governor of Ohio, and two years
later he was re-elected, each time by majorities
unhoped-for and overwhelming. He came to
fill a space in the public eye which obscured a
great portion of the field of vision. In two
National Conventions, the Presidency seemed
within his reach. But he had gone there in
the interest of others and his honor forbade
any dalliance with temptation. So his nay was
nay-delivered with a tone and gesture there
was no denying. His hour was not yet come.
There was, however, no long delay. He became, from year to year, the most prominent
politician and orator in the country. Passionately devoted to the principles of his party,
155




WILLIAM McKINLEY


he was always ready to do anything, to go anywhere, to proclaim its ideas and to support its
candidates. His face and his voice became
familiar to millions of our people; and
wherever they were seen and heard, men became his partisans. His face was cast in a
classic mold; you see faces like it in antique
marble in the galleries of the Vatican and in
the portraits of the great cardinal-statesmen
of Italy; his voice was the voice of the perfect
orator-ringing, vibrating, tireless, persuading
by its very sound, by its accent of sincere conviction. So prudent and so guarded were all
his utterances, so lofty his courtesy, that he
never embarrassed his friends, and never offended his opponents. For several months before the Republican National Convention met
in 1896, it was 'evident to all who had eyes to
see that Mr. McKinley was the only probable
candidate of his party. Other names were
mentioned, of the highest rank in ability, character, and popularity; they were supported by
powerful combinations; but the nomination of
McKinley as against the field was inevitable.
The campaign he made will be always memorable in our political annals. He and his
156




WILLIAM McKINLEY


friends had thought that the issue for the year
was the distinctive and historic difference between the two parties on the subject of the
tariff. To this wager of battle the discussions
of the previous four years distinctly pointed.
But no sooner had the two parties made their
nominations than it became evident that the
opposing candidate declined to accept the field
of discussion chosen by the Republicans, and
proposed to put forward as the main issue the
free coinage of silver. McKinley at once accepted this challenge, and, taking the battle for
protection as already won, went with energy
into the discussion of the theories presented
by his opponents. He had wisely concluded
not to leave his home during the canvass, thus
avoiding a proceeding which has always been
of sinister augury in our politics; but from the
front porch of his modest house in Canton he
daily addressed the delegations which came
from every part of the country to greet him in
a series of speeches so strong, so varied, so
pertinent, so full of facts briefly set forth, of
theories embodied in a single phrase, that they
formed the hourly text for the other speakers
of his party, and give probably the most con157




WILLIAM McKINLEY
vincing proof we have of his surprising fertility of resource and flexibility of mind. All this
was done without anxiety or strain. I remember a day I spent with him during that busy
summer. He had made nineteen speeches the
day before; that day he made many. But in
the intervals of these addresses he sat in his
study and talked, with nerves as quiet and a
mind as free from care as if we had been
spending a holiday at the seaside or among
the hills.
When he came to the Presidency he confronted a situation of the utmost difficulty,
which might well have appalled a man of less
serene and tranquil self-confidence. There had
been a state of profound commercial and industrial depression, from which his friends had
said his election would relieve the country. Our
relations with the outside world left much to
be desired. The feeling between the Northern
and Southern sections of the Union was lacking in the cordiality which was necessary to
the welfare of both. Hawaii had asked for annexation and had been rejected by the preceding Administration. There was a state of
things in the Caribbean which could not per158




WILLIAM McKINLEY
manently endure. Our neighbor's house was
on fire, and there were grave doubts as to our
rights and duties in the premises. A man
either weak or rash, either irresolute or headstrong, might have brought ruin on himself and
incalculable harm to the country.
Again I crave the pardon of those who differ
with me, if, against all my intentions, I happen
to say a word which may seem to them unbefitting the place and hour. But I am here to
give the opinion which his friends entertained
of President McKinley, of course claiming no
immunity from criticism in what I shall say.
I believe, then, that the verdict of history will
be that he met all these grave questions with
perfect valor and incomparable ability; that in
grappling with them he rose to the full height
of a great occasion, in a manner which redounded to the lasting benefit of the country
and to his own immortal honor.
The least desirable form of glory to a man
of his habitual mood and temper-that of successful war-was nevertheless conferred upon
him by uncontrollable events. He felt the conflict must come; he deplored its necessity; he
strained almost to breaking his relations with
159




WILLIAM McKINLEY


his friends, in order, first-if it might be-to
prevent and then to postpone it to the latest
possible moment. But when the die was cast,
he labored with the utmost energy and ardor,
and with an intelligence in military matters
which showed how much of the soldier still survived in the mature statesman to push forward
the war to a decisive close. War was an
anguish to him; he wanted it short and conclusive. His merciful zeal communicated itself
to his subordinates, and the war, so long
dreaded, whose consequences were so momentous, ended in a hundred days.
Mr. Stedman, the dean of our poets, has
called him "Augmenter of the State." It is
a noble title; if justly conferred, it ranks him
among the few whose names may be placed
definitely and forever in charge of the historic
Muse. Under his rule Hawaii has come to us,
and Tutuila; Porto Rico and the vast archipelago of the East. Cuba is free. Our position
in the Caribbean is assured beyond the possibility of future question., The doctrine called
by the name of Monroe, so long derided and
denied by alien publicists, evokes now no challenge or contradiction when uttered to the
160




WILLIAM McKINLEY


world. It has become an international truism.
Our sister republics to the south of us are convinced that we desire only their peace and
prosperity. Europe knows that we cherish no
dreams but those of world-wide commerce, the
benefit of which shall be to all nations. The
State is augmented, but it threatens no nation
under heaven. As to those regions which have
come under the shadow of our flag, the possibility of their being damaged by such a change of
circumstances was in the yiew of McKinley
a thing unthinkable. To believe that we could
not administer them to their advantage, was
to turn infidel to our American faith of more
than a hundred years.
In dealing with foreign powers, he will take
rank with the greatest of our diplomatists. It
was a world of which he had little special
knowledge before coming to the Presidency.
But this marvelous adaptability was in nothing
more remarkable than in the firm grasp he
immediately displayed in international relations. In preparing for war and in the
restoration of peace he was alike adroit, courteous, and far-sighted. When a sudden emergency declared itself, as in China, in a state of
11              161




WILLIAM McKINLEY
things of which our history furnished no precedent and international law no safe and
certain, precept, he hesitated not a moment to
take the course marked out for him by considerations of humanity and the national interests. Even While the legations were fighting
for their lives against bands of infuriated
fanatics, he decided that we were at peace with
China; and while that conclusion did not hinder
him from taking the. most energetic measures
to rescue our imperiled citizens, it enabled him
to maintain close and friendly relations with
the wise and heroic viceroys of the south, whose
resolute stand saved that ancient Empire from
anarchy and spoliation. He disposed of every
question as it arose with a, promptness and
clarity of vision that astonished his advisers,
and he never had occasion to review a judgment or reverse a decision.
By patience, by firmness, by sheer reasonableness, he improved our understanding with
all the great powers of the world, and rightly
gained the blessing which belongs to the peacemakers.
But the achievements of the nation in war
and diplomacy are thrown in the shade by the
162




WILLIAM McKINLEY


vast economical developments which took place
during Mr. McKinley 's Administration. Up to
the time of his first election, the country was
suffering from a long period of depression, the
reasons of which I will not try to seek. But
from the moment the ballots were counted that
betokened his advent to power a great and
momentous movement in advance declared itself along all the lines of industry and commerce. In the very month of his inauguration
steel rails began to be sold at $18 a ton- one of
the most significant facts of modern times. It
meant that American industries had adjusted
themselves to the  long  depression-that
through the power of the race to organize and
combine, stimulated by the conditions then
prevailing, and perhaps by the prospect of
legislation favorable to industry, America had
begun to undersell the rest of the world. The
movement went on without ceasing. The President and his party kept the pledges of their
platform and their canvass. The Dingley bill
was speedily framed and set in operation. All
industries responded to the new stimulus and
American trade set out on its new crusade, not
to conquer the world, but to trade with it on
163




WILLIAM McKINLEY
terms advantageous to all concerned. I will
not weary you with statistics; but one or two
words seem necessary to show how the acts of
McKinley as President kept pace with his professions as candidate. His four years of administration were costly; we carried on a war
which, though brief, was expensive. Although
we borrowed two hundred millions and paid
our own expenses, without asking for indemnity, the effective reduction of the debt now
exceeds the total of the war bonds. We pay
six millions less in interest than we did before
the war and no bond of the United States yields
the holder 2 per cent on its market value. So
much for the Government credit; and we have
five hundred and forty-six millions of gross
gold in the Treasury.
But, coming to the development of our trade
in the four McKinley years, we seem to be
entering the realm of fable. In the last fiscal
year our excess of exports over imports was
$664,592,826. In the last four years it was
$2,354,442,213. These figures are so stupendous
that they mean little to a careless reader-but
consider! The excess of exports over imports
for the whole preceding period from 1790 to
164




WILLIAM McKINLEY


1897-from Washington to McKinley-was
only $356,808,822.
The most extravagant promises made by the
sanguine McKinley advocates five years ago
are left out of sight by these sober facts. The
"debtor nation" has become the chief creditor
nation. The financial center of the world,
which required thousands of years to journey
from the Euphrates to the Thames and the
Seine, seems passing to the Hudson between
daybreak and dark.
I will not waste your time by explaining that
I do not invoke for any man the credit of this
vast result. The captain can not claim that it
is he who drives the mighty steamship over the
tumbling billows of the trackless deep; but
praise is justly due him if he has made the best
of her tremendous powers, if he has read aright
the currents of the sea and the lessons of the
stars. And we should be ungrateful, if in this
hour of prodigious prosperity we should fail
to remember that William McKinley with sublime faith foresaw it, with indomitable courage
labored for- it, put his whole heart and mind
into the work of bringing it about; that it was
his voice which, in dark hours, rang out, herald165




WILLIAM McKINLEY


ing the coming light, as over the twilight waters
of the Nile the mystic cry of Memnon announced the dawn to Egypt, waking from sleep.
Among the most agreeable incidents of the
President's term of office were the two journeys
he made to the 'South. The moral reunion of
the sections-so long and so ardently desired
by him-had been initiated by the Spanish war,
when the veterans of both sides, and their sons,
had marched shoulder to shoulder together
under the same banner. The President in
these journeys sought, with more than usual
eloquence and pathos, to create a sentiment
which should end forever the ancient feud. He
was too good a politician to expect any results
in the way of votes in his favor, and he accomplished none. But for all that the good seed
did not fall on barren ground. In the warm
and chivalrous hearts of that generous people,
the echo of his cordial and brotherly words will
linger long, and his name will be cherished in
many a household where even yet the Lost
Cause is worshipped.
Mr. McKinley was re-elected by an overwhelming majority.  There had been little
doubt of the result among well-informed
166




WILLIAM McKINLEY


people; but when it was known, a profound
feeling of relief and renewal of trust were
evident among the leaders of capital and of
industry, not only in this country, but everywhere. They felt that the immediate future
was secure, and that trade and commerce might
safely push forward in every field of effort and
enterprise. He inspired universal confidence,
which is the life-blood of the commercial system
of the world. It began frequently to be said
that such a state of things ought to continue;
one after another, men of prominence said that
the President was his own best successor. He
paid little attention to these suggestions until
they were repeated by some of his nearest
friends. Then he saw that one of the most
cherished traditions of our public life was in
danger. The generation which has seen the
prophecy of the Papal throne-Non videbis
annos Petri-twice contradicted by the longevity of holy men was in peril of forgetting the
unwritten law of our Republic: Thou shalt not
exceed the years of Washington. The President saw it was time to speak, and in his characteristic manner he spoke, briefly, but enough.
Where the lightning strikes there is no need of
167




WILLIAM McKINLEY
iteration. From that hour, no one dreamed
of doubting his purpose of retiring at the end
of his second term, and it will be long before
another such lesson is required.
He felt that the harvest time was come, to
garner in the fruits of so much planting and
culture, and he was determined that nothing he
might do or say should be liable to the reproach
of a personal interest. Let us say frankly he
was a party man; he believed the policies advocated by him and his friends counted for
much in the country's progress and prosperity.
He hoped in his second term to accomplish substantial results in the development and affirmation of those policies. I spent a day with him
shortly before he started on his fateful journey
to Buffalo. Never had I seen him higher in
hope and patriotic confidence. He was as sure
of the future of his country as the Psalmist
who cried, "Glorious things are spoken of thee,
thou City of God." He was gratified to the
heart that we had arranged a treaty which gave
us a free hand in the Isthmus. In fancy he saw
the canal already built and the argosies of the
world passing through it in peace and amity.
He saw in the immense evolution of American
168




WILLIAM McKINLEY
trade the fulfillment of all his dreams, the reward of all his labors. He was-I need not say
-an ardent protectionist, never more sincere
and devoted than during these last days of his
life. He regarded reciprocity as the bulwark
of protection-not a breach, but a fulfillment
of the law. The treaties which for four years
had been preparing under his personal supervision he regarded as ancillary to the general
scheme. He was opposed to any revolutionary
plan of change in the existing legislation; he
was careful to point out that everything he had
done was in faithful compliance with the law
itself.
In that mood of high hope, of generous expectation, he went to Buffalo, and there, on the
threshold of eternity, he delivered that memorable speech, worthy for its loftiness of tone,
its blameless morality, its breadth of view, to
be regarded as his testament to the nation.
Through all his pride of country and his joy of
its success, runs the note of solemn warning, as
in Kipling's noble hymn, "Lest we forget."
Our capacity to produce has developed so enormously and our products have so multiplied that the
problem of more markets requires our urgent and
169




WILLIAM McKINLEY
immediate attention. Only a broad and enlightened
policy will keep what we have. No other policy will
get more. In these times of marvelous business
energy and gain we ought to be looking to the future,
strengthening the weak places in our industrial and
commercial systems, that we may be ready for any
storm or strain.
By sensible trade arrangements which will not
interrupt our home production we shall extend the
outlets for our increasing surplus. A system which
provides a mutual exchange of commodities is manifestly essential to the continued and healthful growth
of our export trade. We must not repose in fancied
security that we can forever sell everything and buy
little or nothing. If such a thing were possible, it
would not be best for us or for those with whom we
deal.... Reciprocity is the natural outgrowth of
our wonderful industrial development under the
domestic policy now firmly established.... The
period of exclusiveness is past. The expansion of
our trade and commerce is the pressing problem.
Commercial wars are unprofitable. A policy of good
will and friendly trade relations will prevent reprisals. Reciprocity treaties are in harmony with
the spirit of -the times; measures of retaliation are
not.
I wish I had time to read the whole of this
170




WILLIAM McKINLEY
wise and weighty speech; nothing I might say
could give such a picture of the President's
mind and character. His years of apprenticeship had been served. He stood that day past
master of the art of statesmanship. He had
nothing more to ask of the people. He owed
them nothing but truth and faithful service.
His mind and heart were purged of the temptations which beset all men engaged in the
struggle to survive. In view of the revelation
of his nature vouchsafed to us that day, and
the fate which impended over him, we can only
say in deep affection and solemn awe," Blessed
are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."
Even for that vision he was not unworthy.
He had not long to wait. The next day sped
the bolt of doom, and for a week after-in an
agony of dread broken by illusive glimpses of
hope that our prayers might be answered-the
nation waited for the end. Nothing in the
glorious life that we saw gradually waning was
more admirable and exemplary than its close.
The gentle humanity of his words, when he saw
his assailant in danger of summary vengeance,
"Don't let them hurt him"; his chivalrous care
that the news should be broken gently to his
171




WILLIAM McKINLEY
wife; the fine courtesy with which he apologized
for the damage which his death would bring to
the great Exhibition; and the heroic resignation of his final words, "It is God's way. His
will, not ours, be done, " were all the instinctive
expressions of a nature so lofty and so pure
that pride in its nobility at once softened and
enhanced the nation's sense of loss. The Republic grieved over such a son-but is proud
for ever of having produced him. After all, in
spite of its tragic ending, his life was extraordinarily happy. He had, all his days, troops
of friends, the cheer of fame and fruitful labor;
and he became, at last,
On fortune's crowning slope,
The pillar of a people's hope,
The center of a world's desire.
He was fortunate even in his untimely death,
for an event so tragical called the world imperatively to the immediate study of his life
and character, and thus anticipated the sure
praises of posterity.,
Every young and growing people has to
meet, at moments, the problems of its destiny.
Whether the question comes, as in Egypt, from
a sphinx, symbol of the hostile forces of omnipotent nature, who punishes with instant death
172




WILLIAM McKINLEY
our failure to understand her meaning; or
whether it comes, as in Jerusalem, from the
Lord of Hosts, who commands the building of
His temple, it comes. always with the warning
that the past is past, and experience vain.
"Your fathers, where are they? and the
prophets, do they live forever?" The fathers
are dead; the prophets are silent; the questions
are new, and have no answer but in time.
When the horny outside case which protects
the infancy of a chrysalis nation suddenly
bursts, and, in a single abrupt shock, it finds
itself floating on wings which had not existed
before, whose strength it has never tested,
among dangers it can not foresee and is without experience to measure, every motion is a
problem, and every hesitation may be an error.
The past gives no clue to the future. The
fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do
they live forever'? We are ourselves the
fathers! We are ourselves the prophets! The
questions that are put to us we must answer
without delay, without help-for the sphinx
allows no one to pass.
At such moments we may be humbly grateful
to have had leaders simple in mind, clear in
vision-as far as human vision can safely ex173




WILLIAM McKINLEY
tend-penetrating in knowledge of men, supple
and flexible under the strains and pressures of
society, instinct with the energy of new life and
untried strength, cautious, calm, and, above all,
gifted in a supreme degree with the most surely
victorious of all political virtues-the genius of
infinite patience.
The obvious elements which enter into the
fame of a public man are few and by no means
recondite. The man who fills a great station, in
a period of change, who leads his country successfully through a time of crisis; who, by his
power of persuading and controlling others,
has been able to command the best thought of
his age, so as to leave his country in a. moral
or material condition in advance of where he
found it-such a man's position in history is
secure. If, in addition to this, his written or
spoken words possess the subtle quality which
carries them far and lodges them in men's
hearts; and, more than all, if his utterances
and actions, while informed with a lofty
morality, are yet tinged with the glow of
human sympathy, the fame of such a man
will shine like a beacon through the mists
of ages-an object of reverence, of imitation,
174




WILLIAM McKINLEY
and of love. It should be to us an occasion
of solemn pride that in the three great crises
of our history such a man was not denied
us. The moral value to a nation of a renown such as Washington's and Lincoln's
and McKinley's is beyond all computation. No
loftier ideal can be held up to the emulation of
ingenuous youth. With such examples we can
not be wholly ignoble. Grateful as we may be
for what they did, let us be still more grateful
for what they were. While our daily being,
our public policies, still feel the influence of
their work, let us pray that in our spirits their
lives may be voluble, calling us upward and
onward.
There is not one of us but feels prouder of
his native land because the august figure of
Washington presided over its beginnings; no
one but vows it a tenderer love because Lincoln
poured out his blood for it; no one but must
feel his devotion for his country renewed and
kindled when he remembers how McKinley
loved, revered, and served it, showed in his life
how a citizen should live, and in his last hour
taught us how a gentleman could die.


175




I




AT THE UNIVERSITIES
HARVARD-PRINCETON-CALIFORNIA








AT THE UNIVERSITIES
ON RECEIVING THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF LAWS,
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, JUNE 25th, 1902
A SCIENTIFIC friend was saying to me today that the one thing nature insists upon
is equilibrium, which may be called the physical
equivalent of justice. I suppose we only arrive at it by a process of oscillation; and I am
led to accept this opinion by the kindness I
have here received. Such occasions are perhaps intended, in the order of things, to make
amends for much that public men have to meet
in their daily lives. When you are too kind,
it may not be unwholesome for us to consider
that there are arrears to make up. If we know
we have done nothing to deserve such kindness, we also know ourselves incapable of the
infamies which are laid to our charge. In
future, when I am unduly chastened, I shall
reflect that Harvard has put to my credit a
179




AT THE UNIVERSITIES
fund of supererogatory merit which may keep
me solvent, in any stress of weather.
Let me say, Mr. Chairman, with profound
sincerity and gratitude, that I shall always regard the honor I have received from this
renowned University as my strong shield and
defense against misconception from without
and against discouragement from within.
There is something in the complex traditions,
in the accumulated intuitions of a great organism like this that seems to confer on it an
extra-human power of getting at essentials, of
seeing the man under his faults and follies, of
taking into account, as we hope Heaven does,
the intention, under all contradictions and imperfections. In the case of him with whom I
was to have visited you last year, who deprived
himself of the great pleasure of being here
only in obedience to the highest and tenderest
sense of duty, who hoped still to come to harvest your greetings, but who has received instead, from no mortal hands, peace and blessedness eternal-in his case, I say, it required
no special acumen to see his deserving. It was
easy to recognize that rare combination of
matchless abilities and the purest purposes,
180




AT THE UNIVERSITIES
and that incomparable genius for government
which, united with exalted patriotism, had
compelled as it will always compel, success and
glory. And if I may compare a cedar on Lebanon to a weed in the wall, I will be so bold
as to say that in paying me this too generous
compliment, not warranted, I keenly feel, by
anything I have accomplished, you have, I believe, intended to give your lofty recognition
to the purpose with which I entered upon office
and the motives which have so far guided me
-and these, I trust, are not altogether unworthy even of the high commission you allow
me to bear in your name.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for what you
have said of my branch of the public work; we
have labored under the same roof at kindred
tasks; we have sat at the same council table.
Now that you have promoted yourself to the
superior rank of private citizenship, your intimate knowledge of the things whereof you
speak makes your approval doubly grateful.
The rest of us will be indeed happy if, when
we go, we can leave behind us a record so substantial and so stainless. I thank all of you,
gentlemen, for the kind manner in which you
181




AT THE UNIVERSITIES


have received the Chairman's remarks. Perhaps I may be pardoned for saying a word in
reference to the subject. There is little of the
occult or the esoteric about the conduct of our
diplomacy in modern times. The principles
which have governed me are of limpid simplicity. We have sought in — all things the interest and honor of our own country. We have
never found this incompatible with a due regard for the interest and honor of other
powers. We have treated all our neighbors
with frankness and courtesy; we have received
courtesy and frankness in return. We have
set no traps; we have wasted no energy in
evading the imaginary traps of others. We
have sometimes been accused of credulity; but
our credulity has not always gone unjustified.
Once all the world said to us: "How can you
believe a story so preposterous?" and a few
weeks later all the world believed it, with joy
and thanksgiving. There might be worse reputations for a country to acquire than that of
always speaking the truth, and always expecting it from others. In bargaining we have
tried not to get the worst of the deal; remembering, however, that the best bargains
are those that satisfy both sides.
182




AT THE UNIVERSITIES


It must be confessed our horizon is expanding; we are now too big to shirk our fair share
of responsibility; let us hope we may never
be big enough to have outgrown our conscience. We owe it to our past to be true to
our history; we owe it to our future not to be
false to our ideals. And this we cannot be
under the leadership of that militant son of
Harvard who now sits in the seat of Washington whose education, begun here, has been continued in the mountains of the West, in varied
and exacting civil administration, in the storm
and stress of battle, and on the comely height
of supreme power.
You may be sure that the fair renown of
Harvard will never suffer in the hands of
Theodore Roosevelt.
There are many crosses and trials in the life
of one who is endeavoring to serve the commonwealth, but there are also two permanent
sources of comfort. One is the support and
sympathy of honest and reasonable people.
The other is the conviction dwelling forever,
like a well of living water, in the hearts of all
of us who have faith in the country, that all we
do, in the fear of God and the love of the land,
will somehow be overruled to the public good;
183




AT THE UNIVERSITIES


and that even our errors and failures cannot
greatly check the irresistible onward march of
this mighty Republic, the consummate evolution of countless ages, called by divine voices
to a destiny grander and brighter than we can
conceive, and moving always, consciously or
unconsciously, along lines of beneficent
achievement whose constant aims and ultimate
ends are peace and righteousness.
ON RECEIVING THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF LAWS,
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, OCTOBER 22, 1900
MY gratitude for this distinguished honor is
not diminished-it is rather enhanced-by the
sense of my personal unworthiness of it. I
accept it, Sir, with deep appreciation, for I am
allowed to interpret it as a sign of your approval of the manner in which I and my
colleagues in the Government-under the direction of the President-have conducted the
foreign relations of the country for the past
two years. They have been years of much
labor and many perplexities and if any measure of success has attended our efforts, it has
been due, not to any strength or ability of mine,
184




AT THE UNIVERSITIES
but to the fact that our course was so clearly
marked out for us by a century of national traditions, from which we have never swerved.
We have believed in the country as our fathers
did, in its high and beneficent destiny, and, so
believing, we needed to admit no other considerations than those of the national welfare;
we had to hearken to no voices but the call of
duty and honor. I hope I may say-even in
this presence-that the light which has guided
me has been at least of kin to that "bright
effluence" which has made this great University for so many generations a radiant
beacon to the continent, of sound learning and
pure morals. In the brief space of public
service which may yet be mine, I can have no
loftier inspiration than the desire to become
less unworthy of the honor you have done me
and the responsibility you have to-day laid
upon me.
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, MAY 15, 1901
MR. PRESIDENT, Ladies and Gentlemen: It is
not difficult for you to appreciate the feelings
of profound depression with which we, the
185




AT THE UNIVERSITIES
associates of the President in this journey, appear before you to-day. He had long looked
forward to the pleasure of meeting you in person; until an hour ago he had not abandoned
that hope. But the serious condition of Mrs.
McKinley's health has made it impossible for
him to leave the city of San Francisco to-day.
He charged us therefore to come in his stead,
and express his profound feelings of sorrow
and regret that he is not able to be with you.
I can well appreciate your sense of disappointment; I hope you can sympathize a little with
ours.
President McKinley would have come to
you, with enthusiasm as warm as yours, with
sympathies as quick as those of the youngest
among you, to bring to you some of his garnered sheaves of experience and of wisdom.
It is afflicting to me that I am forced to stand
before you, and to plead in forma pauperis,
with empty hands.
The President would have told you how he,
as well as the rest of us, from the moment of
our entrance into this wonderful State of California, has been charmed and delighted with
everything he has seen and all he has met. You
186




AT THE UNIVERSITIES
have, indeed, a goodly heritage. It would be
hard to find in any land so much of material
beauty as we have seen since we came over the
mountains and deserts into these verdant valleys-marvelous in.color, in fruitfulness and
charm. It is a country of easy miracles. Everything is possible to such a State and such a
people. Underlying all the radiant attractiveness which the outward aspect of nature everywhere displays, there is the element of force
and greatness which is equally unmistakable.
The beauty of California is not the " fatal
gift" of which Filicaja sang in words of more
melody and bitterness than perhaps ever were
compressed into fourteen lines of literature.
The beauty of this imperial State, instead of
being a source of weakness and disaster, as
that of Italy has been, through troubled centuries, to her,-is an element of strength and
power. It is like the proud beauty of an Empress, gilding her crown with transcendent
luster, rather than that of a peasant, which attracts the notice of a marching soldier. This
mighty state, a powerful member of an invincible Union, has nothing to fear from the
cupidity or envy of any passer-by. You are
187




AT THE UNIVERSITIES
born to great destinies-you are fated to great
fortunes. An important present is yours, a
vaster future awaits you. And since I have
spoken of Italy, I will refer once more to the
thought, which has been much in our minds
since we arrived here, of that famous aphorism
of Goethe, "Beyond the Alps lies Italy." Beyond the ruggedness of the mountains, the
amenity of these laughing valleys; beyond the
gray waste of the desert, this paradise of fruitage and bloom. But the words of the sublime
poet are still more applicable to you in a moral
sense. In the march of political and social
culture, your Alps are all behind you. The
difficulties and dangers through which you
gained your position in the world, have passed
away forever. Now new and greater achievements await you, the conquests of the intellect,
the victories of the spirit. And in these, as in
your material development and in the onward
progress of your State, you need dread no
rivals, you need shrink from no competition.
It is evident that among all your advantages,
the greatest of all, that of public spirit, of civic
pride and devotion, is not lacking. A shining
proof of this is in this magnificent institution
188




AT THE UNIVERSITIES
of learning, the fruit of an enlightened public
policy, and of intelligent private munificence.
It is impossible to set bounds to the far-reaching influence of an establishment like this and
like your sister university at Palo Alto. You
start, in full-statured youth, where the institutions of the old world have arrived after ages
of successful effort and development. Who
can compute the power for good, in all the
future, of these great centers of illumination,
rising full-orbed in the very dawn of your history? How profound the significance of the
fact that here, at the utmost verge of this vast
continent, stands an Oxford, a Cambridge,
ready made!
Young men and women of California!-your
Alps are passed: your Italy lies before you.
You have only to enter in, and take possession
of your magnificent inheritance. In the name
of the President, I bid you God-speed on your
way.


189




,r                           -




COMMERCIAL CLUB DINNER
PREPARED FOR THE COMMERCIAL CLUB OF CHICAGO, DECEMBER,
1904, BUT NOT DELIVERED, OWING TO THE DEATH OF A
BROTHER OF MR. HAY'S








COMMERCIAL CLUB DINNER
CHICAGO, 1901
AM glad of the privilege of expressing the
heartfelt gratitude of all my associates, and
my own also, for the more than princely hospitality of Chicago. We have received much
kindness. We have seen many splendid sights,
but Chicago itself has been the most glorious
of all. I hardly believe you know how magnificent you have been during the last few days.
To do the greatest things in the grandest. manner, and to think little about it, seems to me
the distinguishing characteristic of this wonderful place.
One of the first men of letters, one of the
deepest thinkers of England, while expressing
his regret that so few people in Europe had
seen the greatest spectacle of modern times,
the Chicago Fair, said to me: " The fault was
partly in the people of Chicago. They do not
advertise themselves enough. "  Whenever I
come to Chicago I am struck anew by the
13               193




COMMERCIAL CLUB DINNER


justice of the observation and by the reasons
for it. The fact is that such a thing is impossible; because in the first place you are too busy
with other matters to give the advertising
sufficient attention, and besides, no advertising
could do justice to Chicago.
It is a city which has always occupied a large
place in my thoughts. It is the home of many
of my dearest friends. It is the great emporium
of the State in which I passed the days of my
childhood and my youth. It is, in a certain
sense, my twin. I was born in the first year of
its civic life. We were young together, but
there, I am sorry to say, the parallel ends.
Aurora and Tithonus were young together;
but the one grew old and gray, while the other
flourished in immortal beauty and youth. In
the days when Chicago and I were both young,
it was my lot to see a good deal of the outside
world, and it was always a pleasure to me, in
viewing what was most interesting and picturesque in decaying civilizations to think, by
way of contrast, of the brilliant and vigorous
municipality that was swiftly taking shape on
the shores of Lake Michigan, unlike anything
hitherto seen. I talked about it as young men
194




COMMERICIAL CLUB DINNER
will about things that interest them, and was
sometimes goodnaturedly rallied on my vehement claims and large prophecies. But whenever I come here I see how far beyond the possibilities of brag are the simple facts of your
marvelous growth. The boasting of the traveling man, the prophetic raptures of poets are
alike inadequate. Chicago speaks for herself,
in a, language of her own, a language the world
must learn to interpret, for Chicago is a fact
in which the world is concerned.
No other city so epitomizes the prodigious
strength, the unlimited promise of the country
and the age. The gigantic heart of the continent seems beating and throbbing here, sending its currents of warm vitality through every
vein of the country. On one side you have the
prairie, levelled as by the hand of Providence
for the building of an imperial city whose
bounds no man can foretell: on the other, the
lake, in its endless facilities for commerce,
seems only an extension of the mighty mart.
What is this we heard the other day of forty
miles of shipping delayed by a temporary obstruction of your great water way? Your
geographical position insured you greatness
195




COMMERCIAL CLUB DINNER
when the world was made; and all modern history has wrought for your prosperity. But all
this peerless store of opportunity would not
have availed, had it not been for the alert and
indomitable spirit of your people. The aboriginal dwellers in this region were called
Illini-which is by interpretation Men. It was
men who built this town.
Opportunity alone never made a man or a
city. "The skirts of happy chance" must be
grasped with a firm hand. The man, or the
municipality, fated to greatness, makes profit
out of storm or sunshine, out of weal or woe,
out of luck or disaster. Of the two capital
events in your history, the Fire and the Fair,
one an almost incalculable calamity, the other
the greatest opportunity of the age, it is hard
to tell which contributed most to the growth
and prestige of Chicago. From the smouldering embers of that wide desolation of 1871 rose
the public spirit of this stalwart town, like an
invincible weapon, forged in flame and tempered with the chill of adversity, ready for any
achievement. And when, in 1893, the time and
the occasion met, to show whether Chicago was
worthy of her immense prosperity, she seized
196




COMMERCIAL CLUB DINNER
the chance with a strength of grasp and a certainty of touch, that fixed her place at once and
forever in the world of civilization. Never
again could envy or malice say that this city
was given too much to the pursuit of material
gain. I know of no other town on earth which
would have been capable of the magnanimity,
the generosity to rivals, the sublime disregard
of money, shown by Chicago in that year of inspiration and power. In the presence of that
splendid largeheartedness, envy died; rivals
became enthusiastic collaborators; and the result was worthy of the lofty qualities which
produced it. It proved the fallacy of the
opinion, so often expressed, that beauty in art
and architecture is a symptom of decay. We
saw the people of a great, young, thriving
commercial community of their own initiative
build at enormous expense, without prospect
or hope of pecuniary profit, the most exquisitely beautiful creation the world has yet seen.
Happy are all we who saw it! It bloomed in
its vast white symmetry on the shore of the
Lake like some divine miracle of a flower-as
perfect in beauty, as transitory in duration. It
passed away like a dream or an exhalation.
197           ^;.;:




COMMERCIAL CLUB DINNER
But it will remain in our minds among the
richest of our recollections, fruitful forever of
a fonder pride of country, of a deeper respect
for human nature.
All these things rush to our thoughts when
we come to Chicago, a city of so great a past,
even in its mighty youth, and dowered with the
certainty of a future so transcendent. Not only
of itself, but as a type and symbol, it is worthy
the serious attention of mankind. It symbolizes not merely the strength, the resources, the
enterprise, the multifarious activities and intelligence of this magnificent State, of this
glorious West, of this beloved and powerful
Union of States; but, in its highest qualities, it
is a type of all that is freest and most ma-sterful in the spirit of the age, in the aspirations
and progress of the world. It would be futile
and inane to say that a community so cosmopolitan had not its shadows as well as its
lights; with the universal virtues it must have
the faults which are universal; it would be presumption even to say what is right and what is
wrong in a system of things so complex and so
portentous. The fact transcends all theory
and all criticism. The discords we perceive. d198




COMMERCIAL CLUB DINNER
may be parts of a stupendous harmony too
great for our appreciation-a superhuman
composition through all of which beats the
pulse of an abounding and ever-growing life,
the rhythm of a swelling song, whose leading
motives are democracy, freedom and light.


199








NEW ORLEANS
PREPARED FOR, BUT NOT DELIVERED ON, THE OCCASION OF THE
SECRETARY OF STATE'S VISIT TO NEW ORLEANS WITH
PRESIDENT McKINLEY IN 1901




a




NEW ORLEANS
AM glad of the opportunity to express in
behalf of my colleagues, as well as my own,
our grateful appreciation of the reception we
have met with in this superb Southern capital.
However your kindness may have exceeded in
some cases our personal deserts-and I speak
especially of myself,-I am sure that so far as
our intentions are concerned, we have deserved
your good will. I make bold to say that in a
long period of observation of public affairs I
have never known an Administration more
anxious than the present one to promote the
interests of every section of the country. I
need not say where our inspiration, our directing force, comes from. If you want to see
an American, body and soul, through and
through, in every fibre of his being devoted to
203




NEW ORLEANS


the welfare of his country-his whole country
-he is your Guest this evening. And as this
genial air naturally predisposes our Northern
hearts to expansion and confidence I will venture to say that those of us who are with him
are like him except in fame and ability. We
are all Democrats, we are all Republicans, we
are all Americans. We have no principles
which will not equally suit the climate of Massachusetts and that of Louisiana. Perhaps, in
the Department with which I am more immediately concerned, we have been working
rather more in the interest of the South than
in that of other sections. We have done our
best to extend your markets by reciprocal treaties and other measures, and to clear away all
barriers to an Isthmian Canal under American
ownership and control. We have felt it was
time for the South to share in the general prosperity, and we know every section will profit
by what benefits one.
Will you allow me one personal word to express the pleasure with which I find myself
here. My boyhood was passed on the banks
of the Mississippi-but so vast is the extent
of the territory traversed by this mighty river
204




NEW ORLEANS
"which drains our Andes and divides a
world," so cosmical is the range of climate
through which it passes, that when I was
young, its northern and southern regions
seemed alien and strange to each- other in all
aspects save those of patriotic national pride.
To us for a part of the year, it was white and
dazzling bridge, safe as a city street for sleighing and skating; framed in by snow-clad
bluffs; but we loved to think that far away to
the South it flowed through a land of perpetual
summer, fragrant with fruits and everblooming flowers, blessed continually with days of
sunshine and nights of balm. We thought of
you without envy, but with joy that your enchanted land was ours also-that we, too, had
a share in your goodly heritage. All through
my childhood New Orleans was to me a realm
of faery, a land of dreams. And when I grew
older I read with delight your history and your
literature-the one filled with romance in action, the other constantly distinguished by the
touch of Southern grace and Latin art. I always wanted to see for myself the beauty of
this region, to study on the spot the secret of
its charm. But the strong gods Fate and Cir205




NEW ORLEANS
cumstatnce continually prevented until this
day. Now I have come, and found, like a
famous queen of the East, that the half has
never been told. I am less fortunate than Her
Majesty of Sheba-as she was young and enjoyed the Oriental leisure; while I am old and
in an American hurry. I shall always be glad,
though, even of this tantalizing glimpse. But
the one piece of advice I shall venture to give
those of you who may not know the North, is,
don't put off your visit too long. Come and
see us while you are young-and this excludes
nobody, for you all are young. I have never
seen so much youth and beauty as in the last
few days. Men who are contemporaries of
mine, who according to the calendar and the
army lists ought to be passing into the lean and
slippered pantaloon, who won world-wide fame
in the Sixties, men who fought Grant and Sherman to a standstill, have the looks, the spirit
and the speech of boys. I can only conjecture
that they have succeeded where Ponce de Leon
failed in discovering the fountain of Perpetual
Youth, and naturally enough, are keeping it a
secret from the rest of us.


206




THE GRAND ARMY OF THE
REPUBLIC
ADDRESS AT THE THIRTY-SIXTH NATIONAL ENCAMPMENT, G. A..,
WASHINGTON, D.C., OCTOBER 6th., 1902




I




THE GRAND ARMY OF THE
REPUBLIC
COMRADES OF THE GRAND ARMY:
IN the name of the President and in his stead,
I bid you welcome to Washington. I need
not say that on every inch of American soil,
wherever that starry banner waves, you are
at home, and need no formal words of welcome.
But especially in this capital city of the Republic you fought to preserve, you are the children
of the house; the doors are always open to you.
Wherever you turn, you are reminded of the
history of which you are a part. From the
windows of that White House the eyes of many
comrades have looked upon this field whose
names belong to the ages-Lincoln, Grant,
Hayes, Garfield, Harrison, McKinley, and
Roosevelt. In the beautiful squares other comrades salute you from the bronze horses of the
monuments where your love and loyalty have
14               209




THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC
placed them. Across the winding river, the
heights of Arlington show the white tents of
Fame's eternal camping ground, where your
friends and brothers repose. And, casting its
gigantic shadow over this bivouac of yours, the
unequaled obelisk of Washington towers to
the clouds-the loftiest structure ever reared
by man in memory of the loftiest character in
human history.
A peculiar interest attends this gathering.
Never again shall all of us meet in a camp like
this. Not often shall the youngest and strongest
of us come together to renew our memories of
the past, and our vows of eternal devotion to
the cause to which in those distant days we
swore allegiance. Thirty-seven years have
passed since some of us, wearing crape on our
arms and mourning in our hearts for Abraham
Lincoln, saw the great Army which he loved
pass before the White House in the Grand Review. Many of you marched in those dusty
columns, keeping step to the rhythm of drums
and trumpets which had sounded the onset in a
hundred battles. The banners blew gaily out
-what was left of them; they were stained with
the weather of long marches; they were splen210




THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC
did in the rags and tatters of glorious victories.
There was not much of pomp or state about that
solemn march. But the men in the street that
day-many of whom I have the honor of seeing
before me-afforded their own country, and
the rest of the world, a lesson which shall never
be forgotten, though its tremendous import
was not immediately perceived. In fact many
inferences were drawn at the moment which
the lapse of a few months found altogether
false. One trained observer of events in the
Old World said: "These splendid fellows will
give you trouble; it is too fine a force to be disbanded easily." He reasoned from the precedents of the past, unaware that we were
making new precedents. Since then the world
has learned the lesson of that hour. The normal
condition of the Republic is peace, but not the
nerveless peace of helplessness. We do not
need the overgrown armaments of Europe.
Our admirable regular force, with its perfect
drill and discipline, though by far the smallest
in the world in proportion to population, is
sufficient for our ordinary wants; but when
the occasion calls, when the vital interests or
the honor of the country are threatened, when
211




THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC
the national conscience is aroused, an army
will spring from the soil, so vast, so docile, so
intelligent, so formidable, that it need not fear
to try conclusions with any army on the face
of the earth.
But that was only half the lesson; the other
half was equally important-that when that
citizen Army has done its work, it makes no
claim, it exacts no conditions of disbandment,
but melts away into the vaster body of the
nation, as the foam-crested sunlit wave melts
back into the profound depths of the ocean.
The great host of 1865 ceased to exist as an
armed force; but in every town and hamlet of
the land it lived as a part of the body politic
-a nucleus everywhere of courage, patriotism, and self-sacrifice. This was a new product the Republic might proudly show to the
world, saying, "These be the peaceable heroes
I breed from great wars."
There were many brilliant deeds done in the
war that resulted in enduring fame to fortunate individual soldiers; but the disbandment of that army, flushed with victory and
idolized by the country, reflected honor upon
all our race, a glory in which individual claims
212




THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC
are lost, like atoms of cloud in the crimson
splendor of a stormy sunset.
For four years you showed yourselves good
soldiers-equal to the best the world had seen.
For thirty-seven years you have been good
citizens; and who shall say in which capacity
you have wrought best for the Republic? Each
year you come together with thinned ranks but
undiminished spirit to feed anew the undying
flame upon the altar of patriotism. I should
not have said your ranks are thinned, for the
place of each fallen comrade is filled with a
loving memory. And who can ever forget the
faces which never had a chance to grow oldthe brave young warriors who fell in battle
and gained the prize of immortal youth? For
them there is no shadow of struggle or
poverty; no trouble of gray hairs or failing
strength; no care of the present nor fear of
the future. The unfading light of morning is
forever in their eyes; the blessing of a grateful nation hallows their names. We salute
them with loving tears, from which the bitterness is gone. We hear their young voices in
the clear notes of the bugle and the murmur of
the fluttering flags. Our answering hearts
213




THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC
cry, "Hail and farewell, young comrades, till
we meet again!"
Our fathers ordained that in this Republic
there should be no distinctions; but human
nature is stronger than laws, and nothing can
prevent this people from showing honor to
all who have deserved well of the country.
Every man who has borne arms with credit
has earned and is sure to receive a special
measure of regard. And it is our peculiar
privilege to remember that our armies and
navies, regular and volunteer, have always
been worthy of esteem. In distant generations, under different flags, in conflicts great
and small, by land and by sea, they have always borne their part nobly. The men who
fought at Louisburg beneath the meteor flag
of England; the men who stood with Washington at Yorktown; with Lincoln in the Black
Hawk War; with Crockett at the Alamo; with
Taylor at Buena Vista; with Grant at Vicksburg; and with Lee at Appomattox were of
the stuff of which not only soldiers, but
citizens, are made. And in our own time the
young men who stormed the hill of San Juan,
and have borne our flag with such honor to
214




THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC
the forbidden city of Pekin and the jungles of
Luzon, have shown that their progenitors bred
true. The men of to-day are as good Americans as the men of yesterday, and the men of
to-morrow, with God's blessing, will be the
same. The dominant characteristic of every
American army that has ever stepped to the
tap of a drum has been valor and humanity.
They have-in the long run-carried nothing
but good to any land they have occupied. As
our comrade McKinley-of blessed memorysaid: "The flag has never floated over any
region but in benediction."
By order of the President of the United
States, these historic grounds, the property
of the Nation, are during this Encampment
dedicated to your use. They will receive from
your presence an added sacredness and value.
In the history of the twentieth century, which
is opening with such brilliant promise, not
the least luminous page will treat of this meeting of the Grand Army of the Republicsoldiers and citizens whom the Republic delights to honor.


215




I




PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
SPEECH AT OHIO SOCIETY BANQUET, NEW YORK,
JANUARY 17th, 1903




0
I
I




PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
A DISTINGUISHED American some time
ago leaped into unmerited fame by saying, "Some men are born great-others are
born in Ohio." This is mere tautology, for a
man who is born in Ohio is born great. I can
say this-as the rest of you cannot-without
the reproach of egotism, for I have suffered
all my life under the handicap of not having
been born in that fortunate commonwealth.
Indeed, when I look back on the shifting scenes
of my life, if I am not that altogether deplorable creature, a man without a country, I am,
when it comes to pull and prestige, almost
equally bereft, as I am a man without a state.
I was born in Indiana, I grew up in Illinois,
I was educated in Rhode Island, and it is no
blame to that scholarly community that I know
so little. I learned my law in Springfield and
my politics in Washington, my diplomacy in
219




PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT


Europe, Asia and Africa. I have a farm in
New Hampshire and desk room in the District
of Columbia. When I look to the springs from
which my blood descends the first ancestors I
ever heard of were a Scotchman, who was half
English, and a German woman, who was half
French. Of my immediate progenitors, my
mother was from New England and my father
was from the South. In this bewilderment of
origin and experience I can only put on an
aspect of deep humility in any gathering of
favorite sons, and confess that I am nothing
but an American. After all, that is something
to be thankful for. There is a story that, in
the early war days, two thoughtful Mugwumps
met-they were Mugwumps before the letter,
for that illuminating name was not yet invented,-and one said to the other (mingling
the mutual cuttle-cloud of their gloom), "We
are going to the Devil." "Yes," said the
other, "and we ought to be thankful we have
a Devil to go to." I am glad, if I cannot boast
of a State, I at least have a nation to call myself by.
And yet, where a man is born is not a matter
for personal boasting. I have never met one
220




PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
who chose his own birthplace; but the man is
indeed fortunate who chooses the right place
to be married in. This Mr. Hoyt and I didand it is, I am sure, altogether owing to that
lucky chance-for lucky chances are gregarious
and like to flock together-that the greatest
honors of our lives have come to us to-nightthat he is your President and that I am your
guest.
I lived a little while in Ohio and was very
happy there, but, obeying a call which seemed
to me imperative, I went to Washington some
twenty years ago. I might have been pardoned
for thinking I had not left Ohio, for every great
department of national activity and power was
under the direction of a citizen of that masterful state. The President was an Ohio man,
equally distinguished in character and achievements; the finances of the country were in the
strong and capable hands of John Sherman;
the army gladly obeyed the orders of Tecumseh Sherman, with Phil Sheridan as second in
command; while at the head of our august
Supreme Court sat Chief Justice Waite; the
Executive, the purse, the sword and the scales
of justice, all in the hands of men from a state
221




PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
which naturally breeds men who know how to
make war, to make money and to make laws.
And as I ought, before I take my seat, to
say a word at least bearing on the subject of the
toast to which I am supposed to be responding
-what a roll call of great names is found in
the Presidents from Ohio. The two Harrisons, old and young Tippecanoe; Grant, one
of those simple great men for whom history
has so sure a partiality; Hayes, the ideal republican citizen; and those twins in fate and
fame, so like in destiny and so different in
temperament and in methods, Garfield and
McKinley-all Ohio men by birth or adoption,
all illustrious in peace and war, citizens and
soldiers, too, without reproach.
And the list, great as it is, is still open for
indefinite expansion.
But I imagine your toast referred more
especially to our actual President, our young,
gallant, able, brilliant President Roosevelt.
I am glad to be called on to say in his absence
what few men would be hardy enough to say
to his face-for, like all men of high courage
and manliness, he is inhospitable to flattery.
In the great roll of our Presidents -all of them
222




PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
men of mark, of lofty character and ideals, not
one name among them smirched by the slightest stain of personal corruption or wrongdoing,
all of them showing to the world clean hands
and high aims-he holds now, he will hold forever, a distinguished place. The most famous
of German poets has said, "A talent is formed
in the solitudes, a character in the torrent of
the world." Our President has had the advantage of both these environments. From
the cloistered life of American college boys,
sheltered from the ruder currents of the world
by the ramparts of wealth and gentle nurture,
he passed, still very young, to the wild and free
existence of the plains and the hills. In the
silence of those vast solitudes men grow to full
stature, when the original stuff is good. He
came back to the east, bringing with him, as
Tennyson sang, " the wrestling thews that
throw the world." His career since then has
been singularly varied. He has gone rapidly
forward and upward because that was the law
of his being. He does not disdain the garland
of fame, but he finds his highest enjoyment in
grasping the tools that fit his hand. He has
his high ideal of public work set forth by the
223




PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
greatest teacher and ruler that ever lived,
"Whosoever will be chief among you, let him
be your servant."
It does not distinguish an American President to be honest, nor to be brave, nor to be
intelligent, nor to be patriotic. They have all
been all of these. These qualities are postulates of the position. But the nation is to be
congratulated when all these desirable attributes are heightened and tinged with that
ineffable light which, for want of a more descriptive term, we call genius. It is this which
makes honesty a scorching flame against fraud
or corruption; which makes courage an
inspiration to others in battle or in council;
which raises intelligence to the quick flash of
intuition and patriotism to a religious fervor
of consecration, and it is this which makes
Theodore Roosevelt the man and the President
he is.
And, finally, I, whose memories are of a
generation of which few survivors remain, feel
like congratulating you who are young, in the
words of the dying Voltaire on the eve of the
splendors and the marvels of the French revolution, which he was not to witness, "You
224




PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT


young men are going to see fine things." In
the six years which remain of President
Roosevelt's term-if my arithmetic is wrong
I am open to correction-you will see what a
stout heart, an active mind, a vital intelligence,
a wide range of experience, a passion for
justice and truth and a devoted patriotism can
accomplish at the head of a nation which unites
the strength of a mighty youth to the political
sense which is the rich inheritance of centuries
of free government.


15


225




I




EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN
PREPARED FOR DELIVERY ON MR STEDMAN'S
SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY OCTOBER 8th, 1903








EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN
I ESTEEM it a great privilege to be with
you to-night and to be allowed to offer, if
only by my presence, my tribute of affection
and regard to one of my oldest and most valued
friends.
I am glad to congratulate him on this cheerful anniversary; why should we not call it his
Coming of Age! Certainly our felicitations
have a far more sure and substantial basis than
those which greet the young heir on his twentyfirst birthday. In that case, how hidden in
clouds, how shrouded in uncertainty is the
future! No man may tell whether the days
which confront the youth have more of blessing
or bane, more of joy or sorrow, more of honor
or disgrace. His fate is before him, her features
hidden in a veil. She shows him a, road, whose
windings are wrapped in mist. Nothing can
guarantee the exit - neither wealth, nor station, opportunity nor the devotion of friends.
All these strong supports may be beaten down
229




EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN
like weeds by the blows of Circumstance, or the
stoutest defenses may be betrayed from within
by a treachery of temperament. But on a birthday like this we celebrate, the years of a man's
life have dropped their veils of mystery; the
book is wide open for all to read; the varied
landscape of the long journey is revealed by
the gentle rays of the westering sun; all the
shadows are left behind. Happy the man who,
like our dear and honored friend, has no favors
to ask of the apocalyptic light; whose life is
one consistent story of noble effort and brilliant performance; who can look back on the
past without a blush and forward to the unknown without a fear.
It is a life-I will not say for our friend to
be proud of-for we know too well the dignified and philosophic poise of his character to
associate with it any idea of vainglory,-but
it is a record and career of which his friends
are justly proud. He was born a, poet and he!
has lived faithful to the goddess; but you would
seek in vain for any sign of poetic license in his
life. He has shown that the highest gifts are
compatible with the most rigorous industry,
the most stainless honor. He has never turned
230




EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN
away from his ideals, nor has he ever despised
the homely virtues of our workaday world.
Great poet, honorable man, good citizen,what better lot could any mother pray for at
the cradle of her child?
I began to hear of Stedman while he was
hardly more than a boy, at a time when perhaps we thought more of the things of the
spirit than we do now. The great Boston choir
of poets was then in its meridian splendor; a
younger trio were singing in the Middle
States, Taylor, Stoddard and Boker, differing
widely in character and circumstances but
bound together in true friendship and a genuine love of Poesy, as they liked to call it-and
after these, with the light of an auspicious
dawn on their shining foreheads, came the
three young heirs of fame, Stedman and
Aldrich and Howells. All the others have gone
to their celestial rewards, but these three are
happily with us to enjoy the sweetness of a
righteous renown in the land of the living.
I remember how in an hour Stedman grew
famous with that Tyrtaean ballad which rang
like a reveille in the troubled and clouded
morning of the great war, where the poet's
231




EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN
voice gave forth the deep inspiration of the
prophet. It was when the scaffold was building for John Brown. I have not lost the
sonorous refrain in forty years:
"But, Virginians, don't do it, for I tell you that
the flagon
Filled with blood of John Brown's offspring was
first poured by Southern hands,
And each drop of old Brown's blood, like the red
gore of the dragon,
Shall flame a vengeful fury hissing through your
wasted lands,
And Old BrownOssawatomie BrownWill trouble you more than ever when you've
nailed his coffin down."
IT is not given to many prophets to read
their prophecies, transferred from the future
to the perfect tense, in the history of their
times.
As Mr. Stedman began, so he continued.
There has not been a year of his life in which
he has not done some good and permanent
work in literature, made some conscientious
and valuable contribution to criticism, borne
some brave and cogent testimony in behalf of
232




EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN
good taste, good morals and good citizenship.
The standards of this country in letters and in
life are higher because he has lived.
We offer him, on this day on which he begins what Victor Hugo called la jeunesse de
la viefjlesse, our heartfelt congratulations,
in which love, admiration and gratitude
are mingled, for all he has done and for all
that he is.


233




I




LINCOLN'S FAITH
REMARKS, FROM PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S PEW, ON THE
ONE-HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NEW YORK AVENUE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, WASHINGTON, D. C., JUSTICE
HARLAN PRESIDING, AND PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
BEING ONE OF THE SPEAKERS, NOVEMBER 16th, 1902




I




LINCOLN'S FAITH
M R. PRESIDENT, Mr. Justice: Ladies and
Gentlemen: I could not find it in myheart
to detain you, at this hour, even for a moment,
by any words of mine. But perhaps you may
consider that you have time to listen to one or
two phrases uttered in this city many years ago
by that great man to whom Mr. Justice Harlan
has just alluded. Some of you, I am sure, share
with me the memories to which this occasion
and place give rise, of the days when I have
sat in this church with that illustrious patriot
whose fame even now has turned to something
remote and legendary. But whatever is remembered or whatever lost, we ought never to
forget that Abraham Lincoln, one of the mightiest masters of statecraft that history has
known, was also one of the most devoted and
faithful servants of Almighty God who has
ever sat in the high places of the world. From
237




LINCOLN'S FAITH
that dim and chilly dawn when, standing on a
railway platform at Springfield half veiled by
falling snowflakes from the crowd of friends
and neighbors who had gathered to wish him
God-speed on his momentous journey, he
acknowledged his dependence on God and
asked for their prayers, to that sorrowful yet
triumphant hour when he went to his account,
he repeated over and over in every form of
speech, his faith and trust in that Almighty
Power who rules the fate of men and of nations. To a Committee of Presbyterians who
visited him in 1863, he said: "It has been my
happiness to receive testimonies of a similar
nature from, I believe, all denominations of
Christians. This to me is most gratifying, because from the beginning I saw that the issues
of our great struggle depended on the Divine
interposition and favor." A year later he
said, among other things, to a Committee of the
General Conference of the Methodist Church:
"God bless the Methodist Church; bless all the
Churches, and blessed be God who in this our
great trial giveth us the Churches." I will not
multiply extracts from those hundreds of public utterances, nor will I quote the sublime
238




LINCOLN'S FAITH


words of the Second Inaugural which sound
like a new chapter of Hebrew prophecy; as
these might be classed among the official
speeches of rulers which recognize the power
for good of the ordinary relations between religion and wise government. But I will ask
you-and this shall be my last word-to listen
to a few sentences in which Mr. Lincoln admits
us into the most secret recesses of his soul.
It is a meditation written in September 1862.
Perplexed and afflicted beyond the power of
human help, by the disasters of war, the wrangling of parties, and the inexorable and constraining logic of his own mind, he shut out the
world one day, and tried to put into form his
double sense of responsibility to human duty
and Divine Power; and this was the result. It
shows-as has been said in another place-the
awful sincerity of a perfectly honest soul, trying to bring itself into closer communion with
its Maker.
" The will of God prevails. In great contests
each party claims to act in accordance with the
will of God. Both may be and one must be
wrong. God cannot be for and against the
same thing at the same time. In the present
239




LINCOLN'S FAITH


civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose
is something different from the purpose of
either party; and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best
adaptation to effect His purpose. I am almost
ready to say that this is probably true; that
God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not
end yet. By His 'mere great power on the
minds of the now contestants, He could have
either saved or destroyed the Union without
a human contest. Yet the contest began. And
having begun, He could give the final victory
to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds. "


240




THE PRESS AND MODERN
PROGRESS
ADDRESS AT THE OPENING OF THE PRESS PARLIAMENT OF THE
WORLD, AT THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE EXPOSITION,
ST. LOUIS, MAY 19th, 1904








THE PRESS AND MODERN
PROGRESS
THANK you, Mr. Chairman; I thank you,
gentlemen-all of you-for your too generous and amiable welcome. I esteem it a great
privilege to meet so many representatives of
an estate which, more than any other, at this
hour controls the world. It is my daily duty
in Washington to confer with the able and
distinguished representatives of civilized sovereigns and states. But we are all aware that
the days of personal government are gone forever; that behind us, and behind the rulers we
represent, there stands the vast, irresistible
power of public opinion, which in the last resort
must decide all the questions we discuss, and
whose judgment is final. In your persons I
greet the organs and exponents of that tremendous power with all the respect which is due to
you and your constituency, deeply sensible of
243




THE PRESS AND MODERN PROGRESS
the honor which has been done me in making
me the mouthpiece of the sentiment of appreciation and regard with which the nation
welcomes you to this great festival of peace
and of progress.
It is possible-if you will pardon a personal word from me-that the circumstances
of my life may have commended me to the
notice of President Francis, and may have led
him to invite me here to-night to take part in
this occasion in the dual capacity of host and
guest. My years of newspaper work might
entitle me to a modest place in your membership, while the valley of the mighty river which
rolls by the wharves of St. Louis can never
be considered by me otherwise than as my
home. The years of my boyhood were passed
on the banks of the Mississippi, and the great
river was the scene of my early dreams. The
boys of my day led an amphibious life in and
near its waters in the summer time, and in the
winter its dazzling ice bridge, of incomparable
beauty and purity, was our favorite playground; while our imaginations were busy
with the glamour and charm of the distant
cities of the South, with their alluring French
244




THE PRESS AND MODERN PROGRESS
names and their legends of stirring adventure
and pictures of perpetual summer. It was a
land of faery, alien to us in all but a sense of
common ownership and patriotic pride. We
built snow forts and called them the Alamo;
we sang rude songs of the cane-brake and the
cornfield; and the happiest days of the year
to us who dwelt on the northern bluffs of the
river were those that brought us, in the loud
puffing and whistling steamers of the olden
time, to the Mecca of our rural fancies, the
bright and busy metropolis of St. Louis.
The historical value of the Mississippi is
not less than its geographical and natural finportance. Its course through the pages of our
country's story is as significant as the tremendous sweep of its waters from the crystal lakes
which sleep beneath the northern stars to the
placid expanse of the Gulf of Mexico. Its
navigation was a prize fiercely contended for
by every chancellery of western Europe.
Many suitors have looked upon it since that
gallant Prince Charming, Hernando de Soto,
parted the curtains of its repose, and all have
found it fair. It aroused equally the interest
of the Briton, the Iberian, and the Gaul. When
245




THE PRESS AND MODERN PROGRESS
by virtue of one of the strangest caprices of
the great game of diplomacy ever known, it
became our cherished possession, it gave rise
to the fiercest political contests, the most farreaching combinations. When the accumulated
passions and purposes of a hundred years at
last burst forth in a tempest of war, it became
the center of a world's breathless interest and
was flooded with the fatal and terrible light
which plays about the battlefields of fame and
"shines in the sudden making of splendid
names." So long as its waters roll to the sea,
so long will the world remember the high
resolution with which Grant and Sherman
hewed their way southward and the chivalrous
courage with which Johnston and Pemberton
opposed them. So immense is the value of
that silver bar that binds together the framework of the wedded States.
We celebrate this year, with the generous
assistance of a friendly world, the most important event in the history of this great valley, an event which in far-reaching and lasting
results is surpassed by few in the life of the
nation. It is perhaps true that to the philosophic mind all periods are critical-that
246




THE PRESS AND MODERN PROGRESS
every hour is the end of an era and the beginning of a new order of ages. But to us
ordinary observers there occur from time to
time crises in history when the line of cleavage
between the old and the new is clear and distinct, where the aloe blooms, where the avalanche leaves the mountain top, where the
leisurely march of events is quickened to the
dynamic rush of irresistible destiny. The
transfer of this imperial domain from
European to American control was one of
those transactions which render the period of
their accomplishment memorable for all time.
In no other act did the men who made the
Revolution-"men," as Lowell called them,
"with empires in their brains"-more clearly
show their marvelous prophetic insight. The
United States was, in 1803, a feeble folk, with
hardly enough population to occupy the long
Atlantic seacoast; with the great spaces of the
Middle West scarcely yet picketed by adventurous pioneers; with imperfect means of
defense against a world which still looked
askance at the half-known upstart which
might prove dangerous hereafter; with the
heavy cares incident to the building of a new
247




THE PRESS AND MODERN PROGRESS
nation upon yet untried foundations. But
weighty as were their responsibilities they did
not hesitate to assume others weightier still.
To an undeveloped empire they seized the occasion to add another still wilder and more
remote. Upon their half-finished task they undauntedly superimposed another full of exacting and perilous possibilities. In their robust
faith in the future-their fearless confidence
in the force of the new democracy-difficulties
were not considered and the impossible did not
exist. To men of that strain, in an enterprise
which promised usefulness and glory, toil and
danger were only irresistible attractions.
While we should give due credit to the individual instrumentalities by which this great
transaction was brought about, we should not
forget the overwhelming influence exerted by
the unseen Director of the Drama. Whether
we call it the spirit of the age, or historic
necessity, or the balance of power, or whether
we reverently recognize in the matter the hand
of that Providence which watched over our infancy as a people, we can not but admit that
the acquisition of this vast territory was, in
one way or another, sure to come. A wise
248




THE PRESS AND MODERN PROGRESS
diplomacy hastened it; a timid conservatism
might have delayed it; but it was written in
our horoscope. The surest proof of this lies
in the eminent personalities by whom the purchase and sale were made. Jefferson was the
last man in America of whom we could have
expected this departure on the field of illimitable expansion, and Napoleon was, of all the
sovereigns of Europe, the least likely to give
up so vast an extent of empire.
One of the most brilliant and tenacious
dreams of Bonaparte was to establish on the
right bank of the Mississippi a Latin empire
reaching from the Gulf to the Pacific Ocean,
extending in future ages the glories of France
to the sunset seas. The principle dearest to
the heart of Jefferson was that of a strict construction of the Constitution, which in his view
forbade the exercise by the General Government of anything but expressly delegated
powers. It would have seemed like a contradiction in terms to expect either of these
statesmen to agree upon a proposition which
radically contravened the inmost convictions
of each of them. But the nature of things was
more powerful than either a Bonaparte or a
249




THE PRESS AND MODERN PROGRESS
Jefferson. No human influence could have
controlled either of them, but the stars in their
courses were still stronger, and they gladly
obeyed the mandate of fate, which was in each
case the mandate of an enlightened patriotism. France, divesting herself of this rich incumbrance, was the better fitted for the supreme gladiatorial effort that awaited her, and
Jefferson gained an immortal fame by preferring an immense benefit to his country to
consistency in a narrow construction of the
written law.
No man, no party, can fight with any chance
of final success against a cosmic tendency; no
cleverness, no popularity, avails against the
spirit of the age. In obeying that invincible
tendency, against all his political convictions,
Jefferson secured a conspicuous place in history; while the Federalist politicians who
should have welcomed this signal illustration
and proof of the truth of their theory of the
power of the Government they had framed,
through the influence of party spirit faltered
in their faith and brought upon their party a
lasting eclipse through their failure to discern
the signs of the times. President Roosevelt,
250




THE PRESS AND MODERN PROGRESS
in the memorable address with which he dedicated last year this exhibition, used, in relation to this subject, these striking words: "As
is so often the case in nature, the law of development of a living organism showed itself in
its actual workings to be wiser than the wisdom of the wisest."
A glance at the map of Europe gives an idea
of the vastness of this acquisition. It covers
a space greater that that occupied by France,
Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Spain, and
Portugal; it overlaps the familiar world of
history and literature. In its ample field grew
up fourteen of our Commonwealths; a taxable
wealth of seven thousand millions of dollars
accumulated there and a population of sixteen
million souls have there found their home,
drawn not only from our elder communities,
but from the teeming hives of humanity-the
officinag gentium-in every land beneath the
quickening sun.
But more important than the immense
material increase in the extent and resources
of the new Republic was this establishment of
the principle, thus early in its career, that it
was to assume no inferior position to other
251




THE PRESS AND MODERN PROGRESS
nations in its power to acquire territory, to
extend its influence-,in short, to do all that
any independent, self-respecting power might
do which was in accord with public morals,
conducive to the general welfare, and not prohibited by the Constitution. Though the Federalists failed to embrace this great opportunity and thereby brought upon their party
an Iliad of woes, the precedent had been set
for all time for their successors. The nation
had outgrown its swaddling clothes. Even
the most impassioned advocates of strict construction felt this time that it was the letter
that killeth and the spirit that giveth life. The
nation moved on its imperial course. The new
chart and compass were in our hands. The
national principle once established, *other
things were naturally added unto us. Lewis
and Clarke, following and illustrating the
great law of westerly migration, pushed
through the wilderness and planted our banners by the shores of the Peaceful Sea. In the
process of years Texas and the wide expanse
of New Mexico came to us, and California,
bringing a dower of the countless riches that
for unknown ages had veined her hills. Even
252




THE PRESS AND MODERN PROGRESS
the shores of the ocean could not long check
the Eagle in his marvelous flight. The isles
of the uttermost seas became his steppingstones.
This, gentlemen, is the lesson which we are
called to contemplate amid the courts and the
palaces of this universal exhibition; that when
a nation exists, founded in righteousness and
justice, whose object and purposes are the
welfare of humanity, the things which make
for its growth and the increase of its power,
so long as it is true to its ideals, are sure to
come to pass, no matter what political theories
or individual sentiments stand in the way.
The common good will ultimately prevail,
though it "mock the counsels of the wise and
the valor of the brave." I know what snares
may lie in this idea-how it may serve as the
cry of demagogues and the pretext for despots.
Woe be unto the nation which misuses it! but
shame and disaster is also the portion of those
who fear to follow its luminous beaconing.
From every part of the world you have
gathered to share in this secular festival of
historic memories. You represent not only
the world-wide community of intelligence, but
253




THE PRESS AND MODERN PROGRESS
the wonderful growth in these modern days
of universal sympathy and good will-what
our poet Bayard Taylor, speaking on a similar
occasion in Vienna, and adding, I believe, a
new word to the German language, called
Weltgemuethlichkeit. Of all the phenomena
of the last hundred years there is none more
wonderful than that increase of mutual knowledge which has led inevitably to a corresponding increase in mutual toleration and esteem.
The credit of this great advance in civilization
belongs to the press of the world. It is true
that it is the modest boast of modern diplomacy
that its office is the removal of misunderstandings-that, so far as intentions go, its ways are
pleasantness and its paths are peace; but how
slight are the results that the best-intentioned
diplomat can attain in this direction, compared
with the illuminating blaze of light which the
press each morning radiates on the universe!
We can not claim that the light is all of one
color, nor that there are not many angles of
refraction; but, from this endless variety of
opinion and assertion, truth at last emerges,
and every day adds something to the world's
knowledge of itself. There is a wise French
254




THE PRESS AND MODERN PROGRESS
proverb, "to understand is to pardon," and
every step of progress which the peoples of
the earth make in their comprehension of each
other's conditions and motives is a step forward in the march to the goal desired by men
and angels, of universal peace and brotherhood.
Upon none of the arts or professions has the
tremendous acceleration of progress in recent
years had more effect than upon that of which
you are the representatives. We easily grow
used to miracles; it will seem a mere commonplace when I say that all the wonders of the
magicians invented by those ingenious oriental
poets who wrote the Arabian Nights, pale before the stupendous facts which you handle in
your daily lives. The air has scarcely ceased
to vibrate with the utterances of kings and
rulers in the older realms, when their words
are read in the streets of St. Louis and on
the farms of Nebraska. The telegraph is too
quick for the calendar; you may read in your
evening paper a dispatch from the antipodes
with a date of the following day. The details
of a battle on the shores of the Hermit Kingdom-a land which a few years ago was
255




THE PRESS AND MODERN PROGRESS
hidden in the mists of legend-are printed and
commented on before the blood of the wounded
has ceased to flow. Almost before the smoke
of the conflict has lifted we read the obituaries
of the unsepultured dead. And not only do
you record with the swiftness of thought these
incidents of war and violence, but the daily
victories of truth over error, of light over
darkness; the spread of commerce in distant
seas, the inventions of industry, the discoveries
of science, are all placed instantly within the
knowledge of millions. The seeds of thought,
perfected in one climate, blossom and fructify
under every sky, in every nationality which
the sun visits.
With these miraculous facilities, with this
unlimited power, comes also an enormous responsibility in the face of God and man. I am
not here to preach to you a gospel whose lessons are known to you far better than to me.
I am not calling sinners to repentance, but I
am following a good tradition in stirring up
the pure minds of the righteous by way of
remembrance. It is well for us to reflect on
the vast import, the endless chain of results,
of that globe-encircling speech you address
256




THE PRESS AND MODERN PROGRESS
each day to the world. Your winged words
have no fixed flight; like the lightning, they
traverse the ether according to laws of their
own. They light in every clime; they influence
a thousand different varieties of minds and
manners. How vastly important is it, then,
that the sentiments they convey should be
those of good will rather than of malevolence,
those of national concord rather than of prejudice, those of peace rather than of hostility.
The temptation to the contrary is almost irresistible. I acknowledge with contrition how
often I have fallen by the way. It is far more
amusing to attack than to defend, to excite
than to soothe. But the highest victory of
great power is that of self-restraint, and it
would be a beneficent result of this memorable
meeting, this (ecumenical council of the press,
if it taught us all-the brethren of this mighty
priesthood-that mutual knowledge of each
other which should modify prejudices, restrain
acerbity of thought and expression, and tend
in some degree to bring in that blessed time
When light shall spread, and man be liker man
Through all the seasons of the Golden Year.


17


257




THE PRESS AND MODERN PROGRESS
What better school was ever seen in which
to learn the lesson of mutual esteem and forbearance, than this great exposition? The
nations of the earth are met here in friendly
competition. The first thing that strikes the
visitor is the infinite diversity of thought and
effort which characterizes the several exhibits;
but a closer study every day reveals a resemblance of mind and purpose more marvelous still. Integrity, industry, the intelligent
adaptation of means to ends, are everywhere
the indispensable conditions of success. Honest work, honest dealing, these qualities mark
the winner in every part of the world. The
artist, the poet, the artisan, and the statesman,
they everywhere stand or fall through the
lack or the possession of similar qualities.
How shall one people hate or despise another
when we have seen how like us they are in
most respects, and how superior they are in
some! Why should we not revert to the ancient wisdom which regarded nothing human
as alien, and to the words of Holy Writ which
remind us that the Almighty has made all men
brethren?
In the name of the President-writer,
258




THE PRESS AND MODERN PROGRESS
soldier, and statesman, eminent in all three
professions and in all equally an advocate of
justice, peace, and good will,-I bid you a
cordial welcome, with the prayer that this
meeting of the representatives of the world's
intelligence may be fruitful in advantage to
the press of all nations, and may bring us
somewhat nearer to the dawn of the day of
peace on earth and good will among men. Let
us remember that we are met to celebrate the
transfer of a vast empire from one nation to
another without the firing of a shot, without
the shedding of one drop of blood. If the press
of the world would adopt and persist in the
high resolve that war should be no more, the
clangor of arms would cease from the rising
of the sun to its going down, and we could
fancy that at last our ears, no longer stunned
by the din of armies, might hear the morning
stars singing together and all the sons of God
shouting for joy.


259








FIFTY YEARS OF THE
REPUBLICAN PARTY
JACKSON, MICHIGAN, JULY 6th, 19M04








FIFTY YEARS OF THE
REPUBLICAN PARTY
A CENTURY is but a moment of history;
it has often happened that several of
them have passed away, since men began to
record their deeds, with little change in the
physical aspect or the moral progress of the
'world. But at other times-of intense action
and spiritual awakening-a single generation
may form an epoch; and few periods of equal
duration in political annals have been so
crowded with great events as the fifty years we
celebrate to-day. Under the oaks of Jackson,
on the 6th of July, 1854, a party was brought
into being and baptized, which ever since has
answered the purposes of its existence with
fewer follies and failures and more magnificent
achievements than ordinarily fall to the lot of
any institution of mortal origin. And even
the beginning of the end is not yet. This
historic party is only now in the full maturity
263




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
of its power and its capacity for good. We
look back upon a past of unparalleled usefulness and glory with emotions of thankfulness
and pride; we confront the future and its
exacting problems with a confidence born of
the experience of difficulties surmounted and
triumphs achieved in paths more thorny and
ways more arduous than any that are likely to
challenge the courage and the conscience of
the generation which is to follow us. It is meet
that at this stage of our journey we should
review the past and read its lessons, and in
its light take heart for what lies beyond.
The Republican party had a noble origin. It
sprang directly from an aroused and indignant
national conscience. Questions of finance, of
political economy, of orderly administration,
passed out of sight for the moment, to be taken
up and dealt with later on. But in 1854 the
question that brought the thinking men together was whether there should be a limit to
the aggressions of slavery; and in 1861 that
solemn inquiry turned to one still more portentous,,Should the nation live or die? The
humblest old Republican in America has the
right to be proud that in the days of his youth
264




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
in the presence of these momentous questions
he judged right; and if he is sleeping in his
honored grave his children may justly be glad
of his decision.
It was not so easy fifty years ago to take
sides against the slave power as it may seem
to-day. Respect for the vested rights of the
Southern people was one of our most sacred
traditions. It was founded on the compromises
of the Constitution, and upon a long line of
legal and legislative precedents. The men of
the Revolution made no defense of slavery in
itself; Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and
Franklin deplored its existence, but recognized
the necessity of compromise until the public
mind might rest in the hope of its ultimate extinction. But after they had passed away, improvements in the culture and manufacture of
cotton made this uneconomic form of labor for
the time profitable, and what had been merely
tolerated as a temporary necessity began to
be upheld as a permanent system. Slavery
entrenched itself in every department of our
public life. Its advocates dominated Congress
and the State legislatures; they even invaded
the pulpit and grotesquely wrested a few texts
265




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
of scripture to their purpose. They gave the
tone to society; even the Southern accent was
imitated in our schools and colleges.
If the slaveholders had been content with
their unquestioned predominance, they might
for many years have controlled our political
and social world. It was natural for the conservative people of the North to say: "We deplore the existence of slavery, but we are all
to blame for it; we should not cast upon our
brethren in the South the burdens and perils
of its abolition. We must bear with the unfortunate condition of things and take our
share of its inconveniences." But the slaveholding party could not rest content. The ancients said that madness was the fate of those
judged by the gods. Continual aggression is
a necessity of a false position. They felt instinctively that if their system were permanently to endure it must be extended, and to
attain this object they were ready to risk
everything. They' rent in twain the compromises which had protected them so long. They
tore down the bulwarks which had at once
restricted and defended them; and confiding in
their strength and our patience, they boldly
266




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
announced and inaugurated the policy of the
indefinite extension of their "peculiar institution. "
Once embarked upon this fatal enterprise
they left nothing undone which could contribute to the catastrophe upon which they were
rushing. The Whig party had gone to ruin in
1852 on account of the impossibility of combining the scattered elements of opposition to
the party of pro-slavery aggression; but they
themselves furnished the weapon which was to
defeat them. In May, 1854, after several
months of passionate debate, to which the
country listened with feverish interest, Congress passed the bill organizing the Territories
of Kansas and Nebraska, omitting the restrictions of the Missouri Compromise which excluded slavery from them. This action at once
precipitated the floating anti-slavery sentiment
of the country. A mighty cry of resolute indignation arose from one end of' the land to
the other. The hollow truce, founded upon the
legitimate compromises which had been observed in good faith by one side and ruthlessly
violated by the other, was at an end. Men began to search their consciences instead of the
267




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
arguments of political expediency. A discussion of the right and wrong of slavery became
general; the light was let in, fatal to darkness.
A system which degraded men, dishonored
women, deprived little children of the sacred
solace of home, was doomed from the hour it
passed into the arena of free debate. And even
if we shut our eyes to the moral aspects of that
heartless system, and confined ourselves to the
examination of its economic merits, it was
found to be wasteful and inefficient. The
Americans are at once the most sentimental
and the most practical of peoples-and when
they see that an institution is morally revolting, and, besides, does not pay, its fate is
sealed.
Yet the most wonderful feature of that
extraordinary campaign which then began,
and which never ceased until the land was
purged of its deadly sin, was that even in the
very " tempest and whirlwind of their passion "
the great leaders of the Republican party kept
their agitation strictly within the limits of the
Constitution and the law. There was no general demand for even an amendment to the
organic instrument. They pleaded for the
268




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
repeal of unjust statutes as inconsistent with
the Constitution, but did not advocate their
violation. Only among the more obscure and
ardent members of the party was there any
demand for the abolition of slavery, but the
whole party stood like a rock for the principle
that the damnable institution must be content
with what it had already got, and must not be
allowed to pollute another inch of free soil. On
this impregnable ground they made their
stand; and the mass convention which assembled here in 1854, while the vibrations of
the thunder of the guns and the shoutings of
the birthday of Liberty yet lingered in the air,
gave a nucleus and a name to the new party,
destined to a great and beneficent career. Before the month ended, the anti-slavery men of
five more great States adopted the name "Republican," and under that banner Congress
was carried and two years later a national
party assembled at Pittsburg and nominated
Fremont and Dayton, who failed by a few
votes of sweeping the North.
Who of us that was living then will ever forget the ardent enthusiasm of those days? It
was one of those periods, rare in the life of any
nation, when men forget themselves and, in
269




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
spite of habit, of interest, and of prejudice,
follow their consciences wherever they may
lead. In the clear, keen air that was abroad,
the best men in the country drew deeper
breaths and rose to a moral height they had
not before attained. The movement was universal. Sumner in the East, Seward in New
York, Chase in Ohio, Bates in Missouri, Blair
in Maryland, all sent forth their identical appeal to the higher motive; and in Illinois,
where the most popular man in the State boldly and cynically announced, "I don't care
whether slavery is voted up or voted down,"
a voice, new to the nation, replied, " There are
some of us who do care. If slavery is not
wrong, nothing is wrong"-and Abraham Lincoln came upon the field not to leave it until
he was. triumphant in death.
I have no right to detain you at this hour in
recounting the history of those memorable
days. Two incidents of the long battle will
never be forgotten. One was the physical and
political contest for the possession of Kansas,
carried on with desperate courage and recklessness of consequences by the pro-slavery
party on the one side, and, on the other, by the
270




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
New England farmers whose weapons of aggression were Bible texts and the words of
Jefferson, and whose arms of defense were,Sharpe 's rifles. With words that ring even now
when we read them, like the clashing of swords,
the Slave State men claimed Kansas as their
right and the Free State men replied in the
words of the prophet before Herod, It is not
lawful for you to have her. And when the
talking sharpened to the physical clinch, the
praying men fought with the same ferocity as
the men who cursed. In the field of political
discussion the most dramatic incident of the
fight was the debate between Lincoln and
Douglas. Not many of you saw that battle of
the strong, where each of the gladiators had
an adversary worthy of his steel, where the
audiences were equally divided, where the
combatants were fairly matched in debating
skill and address, and where the superiority
of Lincoln was not so much personal as it was
in the overwhelming strength of his position.
He was fighting for freedom and could say so;
Douglas was fighting for slavery and could not
avow it. The result of the contest is now seen
to have been inevitable. Douglas was reelected
271




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
to the Senate but had gained also the resentful
suspicion of the South, which two years later
disowned him and defeated his lifelong ambition. Lincoln became at once the foremost
Republican of the West and a little later the
greatest political figure of the century.
If there is one thing more than another in
which we Republicans are entitled to a legitimate pride, it is that Lincoln was our first
President; that we believed in him, loyally
supported him while he lived, and that we have
never lost the right to call ourselves his followers. There is not a principle avowed by
the Republican party to-day which is out of
harmony with his teachings or inconsistent
with his character. We do not object to our
opponents quoting him, praising him-even
claiming him as their own. If it is not sincere,
it is still a laudable tribute to acknowledged
excellence. If it is genuine, it is still better,
for even a Nebraska Populist who reads his
Lincoln is in the way of salvation. But only
those who believe in human rights and are
willing to make sacrifices to defend them; who
believe in the nation and its beneficent power;
who believe in the American system of protec272




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
tion championed by a long line of our greatest
and best, running back from McKinley to
Washington, and, as Senator Dolliver so truthfully said, "to the original sources of American common sense"; only those who believe in
equal justice to labor and to capital; in honest
money and the right to earn it, have any title
to name themselves by the name of Lincoln, or
to claim a moral kinship with that august and
venerated spirit. I admit it would be little less
than sacrilege to try to trade upon that benignant Renown, whose light "folds in this orb
o' the earth. " But we who have always tried
to walk in the road he pointed out can not be
deprived of the tender pride of calling ourselves his disciples, and of doing in his name
the work allotted to us by Providence. And I
hope I am violating neither the confidence of
a friend nor the proprieties of an occasion like
this when I refer to the ardent and able young
statesman who is now, and is to be, our President, to let you know that in times of doubt and
difficulty the thought oftenest in his heart is,
"What, in such a case, would Lincoln have
done?"
As we are removed further and further from
18               273




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
the founders of our party and their mighty
work, their names and their fame rise every
year higher in the great perspective of history.
The clamor of hatred and calumny dies away.
The efforts made to weaken the hands of Lincoln and his associates are forgotten. The survivors of those who so bitterly attacked him
and his cause, which was the cause of the
country, are now themselves astonished when
confronted with the words they then uttered.
But it was against a political opposition not
less formidable and efficient than the armed
force beyond the Potomac that the Union men
of that day, and their President, had to struggle. It was not merely the losses in battle, the
waste of our wealth, the precious blood of our
young men, that filled Lincoln's heart with
anguish and made him old before his time, but
it was the storm of partisan hostility that
raged against him, filling the air with slanders
and thwarting his most earnest and unselfish
efforts for the country's good. But in spite of
it all he persevered, never for a moment
tempted by the vast power he wielded to any
action not justified by the moral and the organic law. I have always liked the inscription
on the medal which the workmen of France, by
274




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
one-cent subscriptions, caused to be struck
after his death: "Abraham Lincoln, the honest
man. Waged war. Abolished slavery. Twice
elected President without veiling the face of
Liberty. " This was an achievement new to the
world: that a man and a party, armed with an
authority so unquestioned and so stupendous,
in the very current of a vast war, should have
submitted themselves so rigidly to the lawand never have dreamed there was anything
meritorious about it. Then, if never before,
we proved we were as fit to be free as the men
who achieved our freedom.
The world learned other lessons in swift succession. We disbanded our army-sent them
home to earn their livings as simple citizens
of the land they had saved, without terms or
conditions: they asked none; they wanted
peace; they were glad to get to work. And
there were no reprisals, not a man punished
for rebellion or treason; not an act of violence
sullied the glory of victory. The fight had
been fierce, but loyal; we at least wished the
reconciliation to be perfect. Then came the
paying of our debts. To whom is the credit
due of that enormous task, that sublime effort
of common honesty, if not to the party which
275




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
against every assault of open and covert repudiation stood by the country's honor and
kept it free from stain?
Let me hurriedly enumerate a few of the
events in the long and fruitful career of the
Republican party which seem to us to entitle
it to the confidence of the country and the final
approval of history. After the war was ended
and peace reestablished with no damage to the
structure of the Government, but, on the contrary, with added strength and with increased
guaranties of its perpetuity, it remained to be
shown whether the power and success of the
Republican party were to be permanent, or
whether, born of a crisis, it was fitted to cope
with the.problems of daily national life. It
had destroyed slavery, or, perhaps we might
better say, it had created the conditions by
which slavery had committed suicide. In the
absence of this great adversary, could the
party hold together against the thousand lesser
evils that beset the public life of modern
peoples-the evils of ignorance, corruption,
avarice, and lawlessness, the prejudices of race
and of class, the voices of demagogues, the
cunning of dishonest craft, the brutal tyranny
276




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
of the boss, the venality of the mean? I think
it is not too much to say that the last forty
years have given an answer, full of glory and
honor, to that question. The Republican party,
in the mass and in detail, has shown its capacity
to govern. By the homestead law, with equal
generosity and wisdom, it distributed the immense national domain among the citizens who
were willing to cultivate it and who have converted wide stretches of wilderness into
smiling homes. It built the Pacific Railroad,
which has bound the Union together from East
to West by bands of steel and made the States
beyond the mountains among our most loyal
and prosperous commonwealths. It redeemed
our paper currency and made all our forms of
money of exactly equal value, and our credit
the best in the world. By persistent honesty in
our finances-in the face of obstacles which
might have daunted the hardiest statesmen
it has reduced our interest charges so that in
any mart on earth we can borrow money
cheaper than any other people. In the financial
revulsions to which all communities are subject, we are able, thanks to our laws and our
administrative system, to meet and pass the
277




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
most violent crises without lasting damage to
our prosperity. We have, by the patient labor
of years, so succeeded in reforming and regulating our civil service that patronage has almost ceased to cast its deadly blight upon the
work of our public servants. Human nature
is weak and offenses happen; but they are
almost always found out and are punished
without mercy when detected. By persistent
adherence to the policy of protection, we have
given to our industries a development which
the fathers of the Republic never dreamed of;
which, besides supplying our home market, has
carried our manufactures to the uttermost
ends of the earth.
History affords no parallel to the vast and
increasing prosperity which this country has
enjoyed under Republican rule. I hasten to
say we do not claim to have invented seedtime
and harvest, and industry and thrift. We
are a great people and success is our right;
God is good to those who behave themselves.
But we may justly claim that the Republican
party has been in power during these years of
marvelous growth, and we can at least bring
proof that we have not prevented it-and this
278




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
is no slight honor for a party to claim. I will
not at this moment speak of the important acquisitions of territory we have made, which
render us in many ways the predominant
power in the Pacific. But out of the territory
we already possessed, fourteen new States
have entered the Union.    The census of
1850 gave us 23,000,000 of population-the
last one, 76,000,000. The number of our farms
-the total of our cultivated acreage-has increased fourfold. Our corn crop is five times
what it was; our wheat crop, six times. The
capital invested in manufacturing has growna
from five hundred millions to ten billions;
where it employed less than a million artisans,
it now employs more than five millions; and
while the number of workingmen has increased
five times, their wages have increased tenfold.
The value of manufactured property is thirteen times what it was when the Republicans of
Michigan met under the oaks. The real and
personal wealth of the country has grown in',
this amazing half century from seven thousand
millions to ninety-four thousand millions. Our
railroads have grown from a mileage of 16,000
to one of 200,000. Our imports and exports
279




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
have gone up by leaps and bounds to the same
monstrous proportions. And finally, let us
hasten to say, as the other side will say it for
us, instead of the $47,000,000 which supplied
our modest needs in 1850 we now collect and
spend some $700,000,000 annually. I can only
add what Speaker Reed replied to a Democratic statesman who complained of a billiondollar Congress: "Well! this is a billion-dollar
country. "
Of course our opponents, who have got far
enough from the men and the events of the
great war period to admit they were not without merit, will say-for they must say something-that we have fallen away from that high
level. Now, I am grieved to confess that I am
old enough to have seen something of the beginning, as well as of the present, of Republican Administrations, and I venture to say that
no eight years of government in our history
have been purer from blame or have conferred
greater benefits upon the country than the eight
years of McKinley and Roosevelt which claim
your approval to-day. I need not hesitate to
refer to it, although I have been associated
with both Administrations; so little of their
280




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
merit is mine that I may speak of them without
false modesty. Our national finances have
never in our history been so wisely and successfully administered; our credit never stood
on a basis so broad and so strong. Our twopercents command a premium in all marketsno other country on earth can say as much.
We paid abroad the other day fifty millions of
gold in a single transaction without producing
a ripple in exchange. The vast expenditure
made necessary by our enormous increase in
every element of national growth is collected
with the utmost ease and expended with perfect honesty. Our protective system, loyally
and intelligently carried out and improved in
the last seven years, not only fills our Treasury with the means of national expenditure,
but has carried our industries and our commerce to a height of prosperity which is the
wonder and envy of our neighbors, who are
trying to emulate our progress. In the relations between labor and capital, always a
subject of deep concern in democratic governments, we have improved both in the letter and
the spirit. How could it be otherwise when
labor knows that McKinley and Roosevelt have
281




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
watched over its interests as a brother might,
and capital knows that its rights will be sacredly guarded so long as it is true to its duties?
As to our place in the world it has simply
followed and naturally complemented the
steady improvement in our domestic condition. A country growing so fast must have
elbowroom-must have its share of the sunshine. In the last seven years, without aggression, without undue self-assertion, we have
taken the place that belongs to us. Adhering
with religious care to the precepts of Washington and the traditions of a century, and
avoiding all entangling alliances, professing
friendship to all nations and partiality to
none, McKinley and Roosevelt have gone
steadily forward protecting and extending
American interests everywhere and gaining,
by deserving it, the good will of all the world.
Their advice has been constantly sought and
sparingly given. By constant iteration their
policy has been made plain. We do not covet
the territory nor the control of any other
people. We hold ourselves absolutely apart
from any combinations or groups of powers.
We favor no national interests but our own. In
282




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
controversies among our neighbors we take no
part, not even tendering good offices unless at
the request of both parties concerned. When
our advice is given, it is always on the side of
peace and conciliation. We have made, it is
true, great acquisitions, but never of set purpose nor from greed of land. In the case of Hawaii, the will of the people of those islands coincided with the important interests we have
to guard in the Pacific. In the Samoan treaty
we freed ourselves from a useless and dangerous entanglement, and in place of an undesirable condominium we gained possession of the
best harbor in the South Seas, retaining, at
the same time, all our commercial rights in
the archipelago. The diplomacy of McKinley
and Roosevelt has been directed principally
to our present and future interests in the Pacific, on whose wide shores so much of the
world's work is to be done. They have constantly kept in view the vast importance of that
opening field of our activities. The long negotiations for the "open door " in China; the
steadfast fight we made for the integrity of
that ancient Empire; President McKinley's attitude throughout the Boxer troubles, so se283




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
verely criticized at the time and so splendidly
approved by the results; the position President Roosevelt has since held and now holds
in regard to the neutrality of China in the present war-have all been dictated by one consistent policy, of taking care that our interests
receive no detriment in the Pacific; that while
we wish no harm to anyone else, we shall see
that no damage is done to our people, no door
is shut in our face.
The negotiations begun by McKinley and
successfully completed by Roosevelt for the abrogation of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, which
impeded our freedom of action in building an
Isthmian canal, was a part of the same general plan of opening a field of enterprise in
those distant regions where the Far West becomes the Far East. In this matter we were
met in the most frank and friendly spirit by
the British Government, as also in the matter
of the Alaskan boundary, which was settled
for all time by a high judicial tribunal removing a cloud upon our title to another great
Pacific possession. And to close this record
of success-monotonous because gained by appeals to reason rather than force, without
284




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
parade or, melodrama-came the treaty with
Panama., by which we finally gained the pathway across the Isthmus by a perpetual grant,
ensuring the construction of an American
canal under American control, built primarily
for American needs, but open on equal terms
to all the people of good will the world over.
All the foreign policy of McKinley and
Roosevelt has been marked with the same
stamp of honesty and fair dealing, confessedly
in American interests, but treating our friends
with equity and consideration. They have
made more treaties than any two preceding
Presidents; and the conclusion of the whole
matter is that we stand to-day in independent
though amicable relations to all the rest of the
world-without an ally and without an enemy.
If the Government for the last seven years
had done nothing else, it would have entitled
itself to an honorable place in history by the
manner in which it has handled the questions
of the islands whose destiny has been so interwoven with our own. The war with Spain was
carried through with incredible swiftness and
energy, without a shadow of corruption, without a moral or a technical fault. A hundred
285




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
days sufficed for the fighting. Diplomacy then
did its work, and our commissioners brought
home a treaty so just and so beneficial that it
was impossible to unite the opposition against
it. Then came the far more difficult and
delicate task of administration. You remember
the doleful prophecies of evil with which the
air was filled; that we had not the habit nor
the ability to govern outlying possessions; that
the islands would be cesspools of jobbery and
fraud; that the enterprise was conceived in
violence and would go out in disaster. And
now you know the result. The Republic never
is in default of men to serve it worthily when
the Chief of the State is honest and able; when
he has the eye and the will to choose the best
men and will be satisfied with no less. So in
Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines we got
the best we had. Wood, Allen and Hunt, and
Taft have each in his place wrought a great
work and gained a righteous fame. Cuba and
Porto Rico are free and enjoying-the one
under her own banner, the other under the
Stars and Stripes-a degree of prosperity and
happiness never known before in all their
troubled story.
286




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
As to the Philippines, the work done there
by Judge Taft and his associates will rank
among the highest achievements of colonial
administration recorded in history. Never
since their discovery has there been such
general peace and order; so thorough a
protection of the peaceable and restraint of
evil doers; so wide a diffusion of education;
so complete a guaranty to industry of the fruit
of its labors. And when they see this energetic
and efficient government carried on, free from
the venality and bribery which formerly
seemed to them a necessity of existence, then,
indeed, they are like them that dream. The
principal evil from which they still suffer has
its origin here. Some well-meaning peopleand others not so well meaning- are constantly
persuading them that they are oppressed and
that they will be given their liberty, as they
choose to call it, as soon as the Republican
party is overthrown in this country. These
are the true enemies of the Filipinos, and not
the men who are striving with whole-hearted
energy and with consummate success to ameliorate their condition and to make them fit for
self-government and all its attendant advan287




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
tages.  The so-called anti-imperialists confound in their daily speeches and writings two
absolutely unrelated ideas-the liberty, the
civil rights, the self-government which we have
given the Filipinos, and the independence
which the best of them do not want and know
they are unable to maintain. To abandon them
now, to cast them adrift at the mercy of accident, would be an act of cowardice and
treachery which would gain us the scorn and
reproach of civilization.
Our opponents sometimes say we have no
right to claim the credit of the great deeds of
the last half-century-that we could not have
accomplished them without the aid of Democrats. Nothing truer was ever said; and it is
one of the chief glories of our annals, and it
forms the surest foundation of our hopes for
the future. The principles upon which our
party is built are so sound, they have so irresistible an attraction to patriotic and fairminded men, that whenever a time of crisis
comes, when the national welfare is clearly at
stake, when voters must decide whether they
shall follow their prejudices or their consciences, we draw from other parties their best
288




PIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
men by thousands. Bright among the brightest of those who founded our party shine the
names of Democrats; and when the war came
on, the picked men of that party rallied to the
colors. Douglas, shortly before he died, declared his unfaltering support of Lincoln. The
sun would go down before I could name the
Democrats who fought like heroes for the
country.  Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Dix,
Sickles, Logan-in short, an innumerable host,
Democrats all, rushed into the field and thereafter fought and worked with the Republicans
while life lasted. And that vast majority of
Lincoln's in 1864 would have been impossible
had not myriads of Democrats, casting their
life-long associations to the winds, listened to
the inward monitor which said, "'Choose you
this day whom ye will serve. "
As it was then, so it has been in after years.
When the attempt was made to repudiate, in
whole or in part, the national debt; or to
abolish the system of protection to American
industries, founded by Washington and Hamilton, and approved by the experience of a hundred years; or to degrade our currency at the
demand of mere ignorance and greed-in all
19               289




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
these cases we saw the proof of the homely
adage that you may lead a horse to the
water but cannot make him drink. In spite of
organizations and platforms, in spite of the
frantic adjurations of gifted orators, hosts of
patriotic Democrats walked quietly to the polls
and voted as their consciences dictated, in the
interests of the public welfare rather than of a
party. Even in so lofty and restricted an
arena as our Senate, we have seen the ablest
and most adroit organizer of his party fail in
the most energetic effort of his life to induce
his party to reject a great national benefit because it was offered by Republican hands.
Half the Democratic Senators said this was
no question for pettifogging politics and voted
for an American canal across the Isthmus.
We are not claiming that we monopolize the
virtue or the patriotism of the country. There
are good men in all parties. I know far better
men than I am who are Democrats. But we are
surely allowed, in a love feast like this, to talk
of what has been done by the family, and at
least to brag a little of the Democrats who
have helped us. We get their votes for one
reason only-because we started right and in
290




FIFTY YEARS OF IRTEPUBLICAN PAIRTY
the main have kept right. We invite accessions
from the ranks of our patriotic opponents, and
we shall get them in the future, as we have in
the past, whenever we deserve them. We shall
get them this year, because this year we do
deserve them. We come before the country in
a position which cannot be successfully attacked in front, or flank, or rear. What we
have done, what we are doing, and what we
intend to do-on all three we confidently
challenge the verdict of the American people.
The record of fifty years will show whether as
a party we are fit to govern; the state of our
domestic and foreign affairs will show whether
as a party we have fallen off; and both together
will show whether we can be trusted for a while
longer.
Our platform is before the country. Perhaps
it is lacking in novelty. There is certainly
nothing sensational about it. It is substantially
the platform on which we won two great victories in the name of McKinley, and it is still
sound and serviceable. Its principles have
been tested by eight years of splendid success
and have received the approval of the country.
It is in line with all our platforms of the past,
291




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
except where prophecy and promise in those
days have become history in these. We stand
by the ancient ways which have proved good.
It would take a wizard to guess what a dainty
dish our adversaries will set before the sovereign people to-morrow. Their State conventions have given them a rich variety to choose
from. As to money, they range all the way
from Bedlam to Belmont; as to tariff, the one
wing in Maryland is almost sane, the other
wants raving free trade and dynamite for the
custom-houses. When they discuss our island
possessions, some want to scuttle away and
abandon them out of hand; others agree with
that sensible Southerner who said: "What 's
the use talking about expansion. Great Scott!
we 've done expanded!" One thing is reasonably sure: they will get as near to our platform
as they possibly can and they will by implication approve everything McKinley and Roosevelt have done in the last four years. They
will favor sound finance and a tariff which will
not disturb business; rigid honesty in administration and prompt punishment of the dishonest; the Monroe Doctrine and an Isthmian
canal. To be logical they ought to go on and
292




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
nominate the Republican candidates who are
pledged to all these laudable policies.
But they will not be logical. They do not
care to oppose our policy; they merely deny
our sincerity in avowing it. They cannot deny
the soundness of our principles; they pretend
themselves to hold them. But the function of
an opposition is to oppose, and as they are
otherwise destitute of an issue they seek to
make a few by attributing to us principles we
have never dreamed of holding and policies
which are abhorrent to us. And distrusting
the effect of these maneuvers in advance, they
announce their plan of campaign to be not proanything, but anti-Roosevelt. This is a mere
counsel of desperation, and the Republicans
will gladly accept the issue.
Even on this narrow issue they will dodge
most of the details. Ask them, Has the President been a good citizen, a good soldier, a good
man in all personal relations? Is he a man of
intelligence, of education? Does he know this
country well? Does he know the world outside? Has he studied law, history, and politics? Has he had great chances to learn, and
has he improved them? Is he sound and strong
293




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
in mind, body, and soul? Is he accessible and
friendly to all sorts and conditions of men?
Has he the courage and the candor, and the
God-given ability to speak to the people and
tell them what he thinks? To all these questions
they will answer, Yes. Then what is your objection to him? They will either stand speechless or they will answer with the parrot
cry which we have heard so often: He is
unsafe!
In a certain sense we shall have to admit
this to be true. To every grade of lawbreaker,
high or low; to a man who would rob a till or a
ballot box; to the sneak or the bully; to the
hypocrite and the humbug, Theodore Roosevelt is more than unsafe; he rs positively
dangerous.
But let us be serious with these good people.
What are the coefficients of safety in a Chief of
State? He should have courage; the wisest
coward that ever lived is not fit to rule. And
intelligence; we want no blunder-headed hero
in the White House. And honesty; a clever
thief would do infinite mischief. These three
are the indispensables. With them a, man is
all the more safe if he has a sense of proportion, a sense of humor, a wide knowledge of
294




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
men and affairs; if he seeks good counsel; and,
finally, if he is a patriot, if he loves his country,
believes in it, and seeks in all things its interest
and its glory. Any man may make mistakes;
but such a man as this will make few, and no
grave ones.
Such a man is our President and our candidate. He is prompt and energetic, but he takes
infinite pains to get at the facts before he acts.
In all the crises in which he has been accused
of undue haste, his action has been the result
of long meditation and well-reasoned conviction. If he think rapidly, that is no fault;
he thinks thoroughly, and that is the essential.
When he made peace between the miners and
the operators, it was no sudden caprice but the
fruit of serious reflection, and this act of
mingled philanthropy and common sense was
justified by a great practical result. When he
proclaimed anew the Monroe Doctrine in the
Venezuela case his action was followed by the
most explicit acceptance of that saving policy
which has ever come to us from overseas. He
acted very swiftly, it is true, in Mississippi,
when the best citizens of a town threatened the
life of a postmistress for no fault but her color.
He simply said, "Very well, gentlemen; you
295




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
may get your letters somewhere else for a
while."
And as to the merger suits, now that people
have come to their senses they see that his
action in that case was as regular as the
equinox. He was informed through legal
channels that a statute had been violated. He
did not make the statute, but he was bound by
his oath to execute it. He brought the proceeding which it was his duty to bring. The courts,
from the lowest to the highest, sustained his
action. He did what it would have been a high
misdemeanor not to have done. The laws in
this country are made to be obeyed, whether it
is safe or not. It is always unsafe to disobey
them.
But there has been more noise made over his
suddenness on the Isthmus of Panama than
elsewhere. It is difficult to treat this charge
with seriousness. The President had made a
treaty with Colombia at her own solicitation,
which was infinitely to her advantage, to inaugurate an enterprise which was to be for
the benefit of the world. He waited with
endless patience while Bogota' delayed and
trifled with the matter, and finally rejected it,
296




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
and suggested new negotiations for a larger
sum. Panama, outraged by this climax of the
wrongs she had already suffered, declared and
established her independence. The President,
following an unbroken line of precedents,
entered into relations with the new Republic,
and, obeying his duty to protect the transit of
the Isthmus as all other Presidents had done
before him, gave orders that there should be
no bloodshed on the line of the railway. He
said, like Grant, "Let us have peace," and we
had it. It will seem incredible to posterity that
any American could have objected to this. He
acted wisely and beneficently, and all some
people can find to criticise in his action is that
he was too brisk about it. If a thing is right
and proper to do, it does not make it criminal
to do it promptly. No, gentlemen! That was
a time when the hour and the man arrived together. He struck while the iron was white
hot on the anvil of opportunity, and forged as
perfect a bit of honest statecraft as this generation has seen.
We could desire no better fortune, in the
campaign upon which we are entering, than
that the other side should persist in their an297




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
nounced intention to make the issue upon President Roosevelt. What a godsend to our orators! It takes some study, some research, to
talk about the tariff, or the currency, or foreign
policy. But to talk about Roosevelt! it is as
easy as to sing "the glory of the Graeme." Of
gentle birth and breeding, yet a man of the
people in the best sense; with the training of
a scholar and the breezy accessibility of a
ranchman; a man of the library and a man of
the world; an athlete and a thinker; a soldier
and a statesman; a reader, a writer, and a
maker of history; with the sensibility of a poet
and the steel nerve of a rough rider; one who
never did, and never could, turn his back on a
friend or an enemy. A man whose merits are
so great that he could win on his merits alone;
whose personality is so engaging that you lose
sight of his merits. Make their fight on a man
like that! What irreverent caricaturist was it
that called them the Stupid party?
In our candidate for the Vice-Presidency we
have followed the old and commendable custom
of the Republic, and have nominated a man in
every way fit for the highest place in the nation,
who will bring to the Presidency of the 'Senate
298




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
an ability and experience rarely equaled in its
history.
I have detained you too long; yet as I close I
want to say a word to the young men whose
political life is beginning. Anyone entering
business would be glad of the chance to become
one of an established firm with years of success
behind it, with a wide connection, with unblemished character, with credit founded on a rock.
How infinitely brighter the future when the
present is so sure, the past so glorious. Everything great done by this country in the last
fifty years has been done under the auspices of
the Republican party. Is not this consciousness a great asset to have in your mind and
memory? As a mere item of personal comfort
is it not worth having? Lincoln and Grant,
Hayes and Garfield, Harrison and McKinley
-names secure in the heaven of fame,-they
all are gone, leaving small estates in worldly
goods, but what vast possessions in principles,
memories, sacred associations! It is a start
in life to share that wealth. Who now boasts
that he opposed Lincoln? who brags of his
voting against Grant? though both acts may
have been from the best of motives. In our
299




FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY
form of government there must be two parties,
and tradition, circumstances, temperament,
will always create a sufficient opposition. But
what young man would not rather belong to
the party that does things, instead of one that
opposes them; to the party that looks up,
rather than down; to the party of the dawn,
rather than of the sunset. For fifty years the
Republican party has believed in the country
and labored for it in hope and joy; it has
reverenced the flag and followed it; has carried
it under strange skies and planted it on farreceding horizons. It has seen the nation grow
greater every year and more respected; by just
dealing, by intelligent labor, by a genius for
enterprise, it has seen the country extend its
intercourse and its influence to regions unknown to oup fathers. Yet it has never abated
one jot or tittle of the ancient law imposed on
us by our God-fearing ancestors. We have
fought a good fight, but also we have kept the
faith. The Constitution of our fathers has
been the light to our feet; our path is, and will
ever remain, that of ordered progress, of liberty under the.law. The country has vastly increased, but the great-brained statesmen who
300




FIFTY YEARS OP REPUBLICAN PARTY
preceded us provided for infinite growth. The
discoveries of science have made miraculous
additions to our knowledge. But we are not
daunted by progress; we are not afraid of the
light. The fabric our fathers builded on such
sure foundations will stand all shocks of fate
or fortune. There will always be a proud
pleasure in looking back on the history they
made; but, guided by their example, the coming
generation has the right to anticipate work not
less important, days equally memorable to
mankind. We who are passing off the stage
bid you, as the children of Israel encamping
by the sea were bidden, to Go Forward; we
whose hands can no longer hold the flaming
torch pass it on to you that its clear light may
show the truth to the ages that are to come.


301




I




AMERICA'S LOVE OF PEACE
ADDRESS AT THIRTEENTH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF PEACE
BOSTON, OCTOBER 3d, 1904




I
I




AMERICA'S LOVE OF PEACE
I ESTEEM it a great honor and privilege to
be allowed to extend to you the welcome of
the Government and the people of the United
States of America on this memorable and
auspicious occasion. No time could be more
fitting for this gathering of a parliament of
peace than to-day, when at the other end of the
world the thunder of a destructive and sanguinary war is deafening -the nations, while
here we are preparing to settle the question of
a vast transfer of power by an appeal to reason
and orderly procedure, under the sanction of
a law implicitly accepted by eighty millions of
people.
And as if heaven had decided to give
a sign of deepest significance to the hour of
your meeting, it coincides with the commitment
to eternal peace of all that was mortal of our
dear and honored co-laborer in this sacred
cause. George Frisbie Hoar had many titles to
glory and honor. Not the least of them was


20


305




AMERICA'S LOVE OF PEACE
the firm and constant courage with which,
through all his illustrious life, he pleaded for
humanity and universal good will.
No place could be more suitable than this
high-hearted city, which has been for nearly
three hundred years the birthplace and the
home of every idea of progress and enlightenment which has germinated in the Western
World. To bid you welcome to the home of
Vane, of Winthrop, and of Adams, of Channing
and Emerson, is to give you the freedom of no
mean city, to make you partakers of a spiritual
inheritance without which, with all our opulence, we should be poor indeed. It is true that
this great Commonwealth has sought, with the
sword, peace under liberty. We confess that
many wars have left their traces in the pages
of its history and its literature; art has adorned
the public places of this stately town with the
statues of its heroic sons. But the dominant
note of its highest culture, its most persistent
spirit, has been that righteousness which exalteth a nation, that obedience to the inner
light which leads along the paths of peace.
And the policy of the nation at large, which
owes so much of its civic spirit to the founders
306




AMERICA'S LOVE OF PEACE
of New England, has been in the main a policy
of peace. During the hundred and twenty
years of our independent existence we have
had but three wars with the outside world,
though we have had a most grievous and dolorous struggle with our own people. We have
had, I think, a greater relative immunity from
war than any of our neighbors. All our greatest men have been earnest advocates of peace.
The very men who founded our liberties with
the mailed hand detested and abhorred war as
the most futile and ferocious of human follies.
Franklin and Jefferson repeatedly denounced
it-the one with all the energy of his rhetoric,
the other with the lambent fire of his wit. But
not our philosophers alone-our fighting men
have seen at close quarters how hideous is the
face of war. Washington said, "My first wish
is to see this plague to mankind banished from
the earth"; and again he said, "We have experienced enough of its evils in this country to
know that it should not be wantonly or unnecessarily entered upon." There is no discordant note in the utterances of our most
eminent soldiers on this subject. The most
famous utterance of General Grant-the one
307




AMERICA'S LOVE OF PEACE
which will linger longest in the memories of
men-was the prayer of his war-weary heart,
"Let us have peace."  Sherman reached the
acme of his marvelous gift of epigram when
he said, "War is hell." And Abraham Lincoln, after the four terrible years in which he
had directed our vast armies and navies,
uttered on the threshold of eternity the fervent
and touching aspiration that "the mighty
scourge of war might speedily pass away."
There has been no solution of continuity in
the sentiments of our Presidents on this subject up to this day. McKinley deplored with
every pulse of his honest and kindly heart the
advent of the war which he had hoped might
not come in his day, and gladly hailed the
earliest moment for making peace; and President Roosevelt has the same tireless energy in
the work of concord that he displayed when he
sought peace and ensured it on the field of
battle. No Presidents in our history have been
so faithful and so efficient as the last two in
the cause of arbitration and of every peaceful
settlement of differences. I mention them together because their work has been harmonious
and consistent. We hailed with joy the gen308




AMERICA'S LOVE OF PEACE


erous initiative of the Russian Emperor, and
sent to the conference at The Hague the best
men we had in our civic and military life.
When The Hague Court lay apparently
wrecked at the beginning of its voyage, threatened with death before it had fairly begun to
live, it was the American Government which
gave it the breath of life by inviting the Republic of Mexico to share our appeal to its jurisdiction; and the second case brought before it
was at the instance of Mr. Roosevelt, who
declined in its favor the high honor of arbitrating an affair of world-wide importance.
I beg you to believe, it is not by way of boasting that I recall these incidents to your minds;
it is rather as a, profession of faith in a cause
which the present Administration has deeply
at heart that I ask you to remember, in the
deliberations upon which you are entering, the
course to which the American Government is
pledged and which it has steadily pursued for
the last seven years. It is true that in those
years we have had a hundred days of warbut they put an end forever to bloodshed which
had lasted a generation. We landed a few
platoons of marines on the Isthmus last year;
309




AMERICA'S LOVE OF PEACE


but that act closed without a shot a sanguinary
succession of trivial wars. We marched a
little army to Peking; but it was to save not
only the beleaguered legations, but a great imperiled civilization. By mingled gentleness
and energy, to which most of the world beyond
our borders has done justice, we have given to
the Philippines, if not peace, at least a nearer
approach to it than they have had within the
memory of men.
If our example is worth anything to the
world, we have given it in the vital matter of
disarmament. We have brought away from
the Far East 55,000 soldiers whose work was
done, and have sent them back to the fields of
peaceful activity. We have reduced our Army
to its minimum of 60,000 men; in fact, we may
say we have no army, but in place of one a
nucleus for drill and discipline. We have threefourths of one soldier for every thousand of
the population-a proportion which if adopted
by other powers would at once eliminate wars
and rumors of wars from the daily thoughts
of the chancelleries of the world.
But fixed as our tradition is, clear as is our
purpose in the direction of peace, no country
310




AMERICA'S LOVE OF PEACE


is permanently immune to war so long as the
desire and the practice of peace are not universal. If we quote Washington as an advocate
of peace, it is but fair also to quote him where
he says: "To be prepared for war is one of
the most effectual means of preserving peace."
And at another time he said: "To an active
external commerce the protection of a naval
force is indispensable. To secure respect to a
neutral flag requires a naval force organized
and ready to vindicate it from insult or aggression."  To acknowledge the existence of an
evil is not to support or approve it; but the
facts must be faced. Human history is one long
desolate story of bloodshed. All the arts unite
in the apparent conspiracy to give precedence
to the glory of arms.   Demosthenes and
Pericles adjured the Athenians by the memory
of their battles. Horace boasted that he had
been a soldier, non sine gloria. Even Milton,
in that sublime sonnet where he said, "Peace
hath her victories no less renowned than
war," mentioned among the godly trophies
of Cromwell "Darwen stream with blood of
Scots imbrued." In almost every sermon and
hymn we hear in our churches the imagery of
311




AMERICA'S LOVE OF PEACE


war a-nd battle is used. We are charged to
fight the good fight of faith; we are to sail
through bloody seas to win the prize. The
Christian soldier is constantly marshaled to
war. Not only in our habits and customs, but
in our daily speech and in our inmost thoughts
we are beset by the obsession of conflict and
mutual destruction. It is like the law of sin
in the members to which the greatest of the
Apostles refers: "Who shall deliver us from
the body of this death?"
I am speaking to those who recognize the
lamentable state of things and who yet do not
accept it, or submit to it, and who hope that
through the shadow of this night we shall sweep
into a younger day. How is this great deliverance to be accomplished?
We have all recently read that wonderful
sermon on war by Count Tolstoi, in which a
spirit of marvelous lucidity and fire, absolutely
detached from geographical or political conditions, speaks the Word as it has been given
him to speak it, and as no other living man
could have done. As you read, with an aching
heart, his terrible arraignment of war, feeling
that as a man you are partly responsible for all
312




AMERICA'S LOVE OF PEACE


human atrocities, you wait with impatience for
the remedy he shall propose, and you find it is
-Religion. Yes, that is the remedy. If all
would do right, nobody would do wrongnothing is plainer. It is a counsel of perfection, satisfactory to prophets and saints, to
be reached in God's good time. But you are
here to consult together to see whether the
generation now alive may not do something to
hasten the coming of the acceptable day, the
appearance on earth of the beatific vision. If
we can not at once make peace and good will
the universal rule and practice of nations, what
can we do to approximate this condition? What
measures can we now take which may lead us
at least a little distance toward the wishedfor goal?
I have not come to advise you; I have no
such ambitious pretensions. I do not even
aspire to take part in your deliberations. But
I am authorized to assure you that the American Government extends to you a cordial and
sympathetic welcome, and shares to the utmost
the spirit and purpose in which you have met.
The President, so long as he remains in power,
has no thought of departing from the traditions
313




AMERICA'S LOVE OF PEACE


bequeathed us by the great soldiers and statesmen of our early history, which have been
strictly followed during the last seven years.
We shall continue to advocate and to carry into
effect, as far as practicable, the principle of
the arbitration of such questions as may not be
settled through diplomatic negotiations. We
have already done much in this direction; we
shall hope to do much more. The President
is now considering the negotiation of treaties
of arbitration with such of the European
powers as desire them, and hopes to lay them
before the Senate next winter. And, finally,
the President has only a few idays ago promised, in response to the request of the Interparliamentary Union, to invite the nations to a
second conference at The Hague to continue
the beneficent work of the Conference of 1899.
Unhappily we can not foresee in the immediate future the cessation of wars upon the
earth. We ought therefore to labor constantly
for the mitigation of the horrors of war,
especially to do what we can to lessen the sufferings of those who have no part in the
struggle.  This has been one of the most
warmly cherished wishes of the last two Ad314




AMERICA'S LOVE OF PEACE
ministrations. I make no apology for reading
you a paragraph from      the message which
President Roosevelt sent to Congress last
December.
There seems good ground for the belief that there
has been a real growth among the civilized nations
of a sentiment which will permit a gradual substitution of other methods than the method of war
in the settlement of disputes. It is not pretended
that as yet we are near a position in which it will
be possible wholly to prevent war, or that a just
regard for national interest and honor will in all
cases permit of the settlement of international
disputes by arbitration; but by a mixture of prudence and firmness with wisdom we think it is
possible to do away with much of the provocation and excuse for war, and at least in many cases
to substitute some other and more rational method
for the settlement of disputes. The Hague Court
offers so good an example of what can be done in
the direction of such settlement that it should be
encouraged in every way.
Further steps should be taken.  In President
McKinley 's annual message of December 5, 1898,
he made the following recommendation:
"The experiences of the last year bring forcibly
home to us a sense of the burdens and the waste
of war. We desire, in common with most civilized
nations, to reduce to the lowest possible point the
damage sustained in time of war by peaceable trade
and commerce. It is true we may suffer in such
315




AMERICA'S LOVE OF PEACE


cases less than other communities, but all nations
are damaged more or less by the state of uneasiness
and apprehension into which an outbreak of hostilities throws the entire commercial world. It should
be our object, therefore, to minimize, so far as
practicable, this inevitable loss and disturbance.
This purpose can probably best be accomplished
by an international agreement to regard all private
property at sea as exempt from capture or destruction by the forces of belligerent powers. The
United States Government has for many years
advocated this humane and beneficent principle, and
is now in a position to recommend it to other
powers without the imputation of selfish motives.
I therefore suggest for your consideration that the
Executive be authorized to correspond with the
governments of the principal maritime powers with
a view of incorporating into the permanent law
of civilized nations the principle of the exemption
of all private property at sea, not contraband of
war, from capture or destruction by belligerent
powers."
The President urged this beneficent scheme
with an earnestness which gained the willing
attention of Congress, already predisposed to
it in spirit, and on the 28th of April of this year
he was able to approve a joint resolution of
both Houses recommending that the "President endeavor to bring about an understanding
among the principal maritime powers with a
316




AMERICA'S LOVE OF PEACE


view of incorporating into the permanent law
of civilized nations the principle of the exemption of all private property at sea, not contraband of war, from capture or destruction
by belligerents."
It has not been thought advisable by the
President during the past summer to call the
attention of the powers to a project which
would necessarily be regarded by two of them,
and possibly by others, with reference to its
bearing upon the deplorable conflict now
raging in the Far East. But as we earnestly
pray that the return of peace may not be long
delayed between the two nations, to both of
which we are bound by so many historic ties,
we may confidently look forward at no distant
day to inviting the attention of the nations to
this matter, and we hope we may have the
powerful influence of this great organization
in gaining their adherence.
The time allotted to me is at an end. I can
only bid you Godspeed in your work. The
task you have set yourselves, the purpose to
which you are devoted, have won the praise of
earth and the blessing of Heaven since the
morning of time. The noblest of all the beati317




AMERICA'S LOVE OF PEACE


tudes is the consecration promised the peacemakers. Even if in our time we may not win
the wreath of olive; even if we may not hear
the golden clamor of the trumpets celebrating
the reign of universal and enduring peace, it
is something to have desired it, to have worked
for it in the measure of our forces. And if you
now reap no visible guerdon of your labors the
peace, of God that passes understanding will
be your all-sufficient reward.


318




LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE
IN THE TIME OF LINCOLN
FROM " THE CENTURY MAGAZINE " FOR NOVEMBER, 1890




II




LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE IN
THE TIME OF LINCOLN
T HE daily life of the White House during
the momentous years of Lincoln's presidency had a character of its own, different
from that of any previous or subsequent time.
In the first days after the inauguration there
was the unprecedented rush of office-seekers,
inspired by a strange mixture of enthusiasm
and greed, pushed by motives which were perhaps at bottom selfish, but which had nevertheless a curious touch of that deep emotion
which had stirred the heart of the nation in the
late election. They were not all ignoble; among
that dense crowd that swarmed in the staircases and the corridors there were many wellto-do men who were seeking office to their own
evident damage, simply because they wished
to be a part, however humble, of a government
which they had aided to put in power and to
which they were sincerely devoted. Many of


21


321




LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE
the visitors who presented so piteous a figure
in those early days of 1861 afterwards
marched, with the independent dignity of a
private soldier, in the ranks of the Union
Army, or rode at the head of their regiments
like men born to command. There were few
who had not a story worth listening to, if there
were time and opportunity. But the numbers
were so great, the competition was so keen, that
they ceased for the moment to be regarded as
individuals, drowned as they were in the general sea of solicitation.
Few of them received office; when, after
weeks of waiting, one of them got access to the
President, he was received with kindness by a
tall, melancholy-looking man sitting at a desk
with his back to a window which opened upon
a fair view of the Potomac, who heard his story
with a gentle patience, took his papers and referred them to one of the Departments, and
that was all; the fatal pigeon-holes devoured
them. As time wore on and the offices were
filled the throng of eager aspirants diminished
and faded away. When the war burst out an
immediate transformation took place. The
house was again invaded and overrun by a
322




LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE


different class of visitors-youths who wanted
commissions in the regulars; men who wished
to raise irregular regiments or battalions without regard to their State authorities; men who
wanted to furnish stores to the army; inventors
full of great ideas and in despair at the apathy
of the world; later, an endless stream of officers
in search of promotion or desirable assignments. And from first to last there were the
politicians and statesmen in Congress and out,
each of whom felt that he had the right by
virtue of his representative capacity to as
much of the President's time as he chose, and
who never considered that he and his kind were
many and that the President was but one.
It would be hard to imagine a state of things
less conducive to serious and effective work,
yet in one way or another the work was done.
In the midst of a crowd of visitors who began
to arrive early in the morning and who were
put out, grumbling, by the servants who closed
the doors at midnight, the President pursued
those labors which will carry his name to distant ages. There was little order or system
about it; those around him strove from beginning to end to erect barriers to defend him
323




LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE


against constant interruption, but the President himself was always the first to break them
down. He disliked anything that kept people
from him who wanted to see him, and although
the continual contact with importunity which
he could not satisfy, and with distress which he
could not always relieve, wore terribly upon
him and made him an old man before his time,
he would never take the necessary measures to
defend himself. He continued to the end receiving these swarms of visitors, every one of
whom, even the most welcome, took something
from him in the way of wasted nervous force.
Henry Wilson once remonstrated with him
about it: "You will wear yourself out.y" He
replied, with one of those smiles in which there
was so much of sadness, "They don't want
much; they get but little, and I must see them."
In most cases he could do them no good, and it
afflicted him to see he could not make them understand the impossibility of granting their
requests. One hot afternoon a private soldier
who had somehow got access to him persisted,
after repeated explanation that his case was
one to be settled by his immediate superiors, in
begging that the President would give it his
324




LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE


personal attention. Lincoln at last burst out:
"Now, my man, go away! I cannot attend to
all these details. I could as easily bail out the
Potomac with a spoon. "
Of course it was not all pure waste; Mr. Lincoln gained much of information, something
of cheer and encouragement, from these visits.
He particularly enjoyed conversing with officers of the army and navy, newly arrived from
the field or from sea. He listened with the
eagerness of a child over a fairy tale to Garfield's graphic account of the battle of Chickamauga; he was always delighted with the wise
and witty sailor talk of John A. Dahlgren,
Gustavus V. Fox, and Commander Henry A.
Wise. Sometimes a word fitly spoken had its
results. When R. B. Ayres called on him in
company with Senator Harris, and was introduced as a captain of artillery who had taken
part in a recent unsuccessful engagement, he
asked, "How many guns did you take in?"
"Six, " Ayres answered. " How many did you
bring out?" the President asked, maliciously.
"Eight." This unexpected reply did much to
gain Ayres his merited promotion.
The President rose early, as his sleep was
325




LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE


light and capricious. In the summer, when he
lived at the Soldiers' Home, he would take his
frugal breakfast and ride into town in time to
be at his desk at eight o'clock. He began to
receive visits nominally at ten o 'clock, but long
before that hour struck the doors were besieged
by anxious crowds, through whom the people
of importance, senators and members of Congress, elbowed their way after the fashion
which still survives. On days when the Cabinet
met, Tuesdays and Fridays, the hour of noon
closed the interviews of the morning. On other
days it was the President's custom, at about
that hour, to order the doors to be opened and
all who were waiting to be admitted. The
crowd would rush in, thronging the narrow
room, and one by one would make their wants
known. Some came merely to shake hands,
to wish him Godspeed; their errand was soon
done. Others came asking help or mercy; they
usually pressed forward, careless, in their
pain, as to what ears should overhear their
prayer. But there were many who lingered in
the rear and leaned against the wall, hoping
each to be the last, that they might in tete-atete unfold their schemes for their own ad326




LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE


vantage or their neighbors' hurt. These were
often disconcerted by the President's loud and
hearty, "Well, friend, what can I do for you?"
which compelled them to speak, or retire and
wait for a more convenient season.
The inventors were more a source of amusement than annoyance. They were usually men
of some originality of character, not infrequently carried to eccentricity. Lincoln had
a quick comprehension of mechanical principles, and often detected a flaw in an invention
which the contriver had overlooked. He would
sometimes go out into the waste fields that then
lay south of the Executive Mansion to test an
experimental gun or torpedo. He used to quote
with much merriment the solemn dictum of one
rural inventor that "a gun ought not to rekyle;
if it rekyled at all, it ought to rekyle a little
forrid. " He was particularly interested in the
first rude attempts at the afterwards famous
mitrailleuses; on one occasion he worked one
with his own hands at the Arsenal, and sent
forth peals of Homeric laughter as the balls,
which had not power to penetrate the target
set up at a little distance, came bounding back
among the shins of the bystanders. He accom327




LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE


panied Colonel.Hiram Berdan one day to the
camp of his sharpshooters and there practised
in the trenches his long-disused skill with the
rifle. A few fortunate shots from his own gun
and his pleasure at the still better marksmanship of Berdan led to the arming of that admirable regiment with breech-loaders.
At luncheon time he had literally to run the
gantlet through the crowds who filled the corridors between his office and the rooms at the
west end of the house occupied by the family.
The afternoon wore away in much the same
manner as the morning; late in the day he
usually drove out for an hour's airing; at six
o 'clock he dined. He was one of the most abstemious of men; the pleasures of the table had
few attractions for him. His breakfast was
an egg and a cup of coffee; at luncheon he
rarely took more than a biscuit and a glass of
milk, a plate of fruit in its season; at dinner he
ate sparingly of one or two courses. He drank
little or no wine; not that he remained always
on principle a total abstainer, as he was during
a part of his early life in the fervor of the
"Washingtonian" reform; but he never cared
for wine or liquors of any sort, and never used
tobacco.
328




LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE


There was little gaiety in the Executive
house during his time. It was an epoch, if not
of gloom, at least of a seriousness too intense
to leave room for much mirth. There were
the usual f ormal entertainments, the traditional state dinners and receptions, conducted
very much as they have been ever since. The
great public receptions, with their vast rushing
multitudes pouring past him to shake hands, he
rather enjoyed; they were not a disagreeable
task to him, and he seemed surprised when
people commiserated him upon them. He
would shake hands with thousands of people,
seemingly unconscious of what he was doing,
murmuring some monotonous salutation Iflas
they went by, his eye dimn, his thoughts far
withdrawn; then suddenly he would see some
familiar face,-his memory for faces was very
good,-and his eye would brighten and his
whole form grow attentive; he would greet
the visitor with a hearty grasp and a ringing
word and dismiss him with a cheery laugh that
filled the Blue Room with infectious good nature. Many people armed themselves with an
appropriate speech to be delivered on these
occasions, but unless 'it wvas compressed into
the smallest possible space it never got utter329




LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE


ance; the crowd would jostle the peroration
out of shape. If it were brief enough and hit
the President's fancy, it generally received a
swift answer. One night an elderly gentleman
from Buffalo said, "Up our way, we believe in
God and Abraham Lincoln," to which the
President replied, shoving him along the line,
"My friend, you are more than half right. "
During the first year of the administration
the house was made lively by the games and
pranks of Mr. Lincoln's two younger children,
William and Thomas: Robert, the eldest, was
away at Harvard, only coming home for short
vacations. The two little boys, aged eight and
ten, with their Western independence and enterprise, kept the house in an uproar. They
drove their tutor wild with their good-natured
disobedience; they organized a minstrel show
in the attic; they made acquaintance with the
office-seekers and became the hot champions
of the distressed. William was, with all his
boyish frolic, a child of great promise, capable
of close application and study. He had a fancy
for drawing up railway time-tables, and would
conduct an imaginary train from Chicago to
New York with perfect precision. He wrote
330




LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE


childish verses, which sometimes attained the
unmerited honors of print. But this bright,
gentle, studious child sickened and died in
February, 1862. His father was profoundly
moved by his death, though he gave no outward
sign of his trouble, but kept about his work the
same as ever. His bereaved heart seemed
afterwards to pour out its fullness on his
youngest child. "Tad" was a merry, warmblooded, kindly little boy, perfectly lawless,
and full of odd fancies and inventions, the
"chartered libertine" of the Executive Mansion. He ran continually in and out of his
father's cabinet, interrupting his gravest labors and conversations with his bright, rapid,
and very imperfect speech-for he had an impediment which made his articulation almost
unintelligible until he was nearly grown. He
would perch upon his father's knee, and sometimes even on his shoulder, while the most
weighty conferences were going on. Sometimes escaping from the domestic authorities,
he would take refuge in that sanctuary for the
whole evening, dropping to sleep at last on the
floor, when the President would pick him up
and carry him tenderly to bed.
331




LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE


Mr. Lincoln's life was almost devoid of
recreation. He sometimes went to the theater,
and was particularly fond of a play of Shakspere's well acted. He was so delighted with
Hackett in Falstaff that he wrote him a letter of warm congratulation which pleased the
veteran actor so much that he gave it to the
"New York Herald," which printed it with
abusive comments. Hackett was greatly mortified and made suitable apologies; upon which
the President wrote to him again in the kindliest manner, saying:
Give yourself no uneasiness on the subject...
I certainly did not expect to see my note in print;
yet I have not been much shocked by the comments
upon it. They are a fair specimen of what has occurred to me through life. I have endured a great
deal of ridicule, without much malice; and have
received a great deal of kindness, not quite free
from ridicule. I am used to it.
This incident had the usual sequel: the
veteran comedian asked for an office, which
the President was not able to give him, and
the pleasant acquaintance ceased. A hundred
times this experience was repeated: a man
whose disposition and talk were agreeable
332




LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE


would be introduced to the President; he took
pleasure in his conversation for two or three
interviews, and then this congenial person
would ask some favor impossible to grant, and
go away in bitterness of spirit. It is a cross
that every President must bear.
Mr. Lincoln spent most of his evenings in his
office, though occasionally he remained in the
drawing-room after dinner, conversing with
visitors or listening to music, for which he had
an especial liking, though he was not versed in
the science, and preferred simple ballads to
more elaborate compositions. In his office he
was not often suffered to be alone; he frequently
passed the evening there with a few friends in
frank and free conversation. If the company
was all of one sort he was at his best; his wit
and rich humor had free play; he was once
more the Lincoln of the Eighth Circuit, the
cheeriest of talkers, the riskiest of story tellers; but if a stranger came in he put on in an
instant his whole armor of dignity and reserve.
He had a singular discernment of men; he
would talk of the most important political and
military concerns with a freedom which often
amazed his intimates, but we do not recall an
333




LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE


instance in which this confidence was misplaced.
Where only one or two were present he was
fond of reading aloud He passed many of
the summer evenings in this way when occupying his cottage at the Soldiers' Home. He
would there read Shakespere for hours with
a single secretary for audience. The plays
he most affected were "Hamlet, "Macbeth,"
and the series of Histories; among these he
never tired   of "Richard   II."   The terrible outburst of grief and despair into
which Richard falls in the third act had a, peculiar fascination for him. I have heard him
read it at Springfield, at the White House, and
at the Soldiers' Home.
For heaven's sake, let us sit upon the ground,
And tell sad stories of the death of kings:
How some have been deposed, some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed;
All murdered:-For within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court; and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene
To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks;
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
334




LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE


As if this flesh, which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable,-and humored thus,
Comes at the last, and with a little pin
Bores through his castle walls and-farewell, King!
He read Shakespere more than all other
writers together. He made no attempt to keep
pace with the ordinary literature of the day.
Sometimes he read a scientific work with keen
appreciation, but he pursued no systematic
course. He owed less to reading than most
men. He delighted in Burns; he said one
day after reading those exquisite lines to
Glencairn, beginning, "The bridegroom may
forget the bride," that "Burns never touched
a sentiment without carrying it to its ultimate
expression and leaving nothing further to be
said."  Of Thomas Hood he was also excessively fond. He often read aloud "The
Haunted House."   He would go to bed with
a volume of Hood in his hands, and would
sometimes rise at midnight and traversing the
long halls of the Executive Mansion in his
night clothes would come to his secretary's
room and read aloud something that especially
pleased him. He wanted to share his enjoyment of the writer; it was dull pleasure to him
335




LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE


to laugh alone. He read Bryant and Whittier with appreciation; there were many poems
of Holmes's that he read with intense relish.
"The Last Leaf" was one of his favorites; he
knew it by heart, and used often to repeat with
deep feeling:
The mossy marbles rest
On the lips that he has pressed
In their bloom;
And the names he loved to hear
Have been carved for many a year
On the tomb;
giving the marked Southwestern pronunciation of the words "hear" and "year."   A
poem by William Knox, "Oh, why should the
Spirit of Mortal be proud?" he learned by
heart in his youth, and used to repeat all his
life.
Upon all but two classes the President made
the impression of unusual power as well as of
unusual goodness. He failed only in the case
of those who judged men by a purely conventional standard of breeding, and upon those so
poisoned by political hostility that the testimony of their own eyes and ears became untrustworthy.'I He excited no emotion but one
336




LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE


of contempt in the finely tempered mind of
Hawthorne; several English tourists have
given the most distorted pictures of his speech
and his manners. Some Southern writers who
met him in the first days of 1861 spoke of him
as a drunken, brawling boor, whose mouth
dripped with oaths and tobacco, when in truth
whisky and tobacco were as alien to his lips
as profanity. There is a story current in England, as on the authority of the late Lord
Lyons, on the coarse jocularity with which he
once received a formal diplomatic communication; but as Lord Lyons told the story there
was nothing objectionable about it.  The
British Minister called at the White House to
announce the marriage of the Prince of Wales.
He made the formal speech appropriate to the
occasion; the President replied in the usual
conventional manner. The requisite formalities having thus been executed, the President
took the bachelor diplomatist by the.hand, saying, "And now, Lord Lyons, go thou and do
likewise."
The evidence of all the men admitted to his
intimacy is that he maintained, without the
least effort or assumption, a singular dignity


22


337




LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE
and reserve in the midst of his easiest conversation. Charles A. Dana says, "Even in his
freest moments one always felt the presence of
a will and an intellectual power which maintained the ascendancy of the President." In
his relations to his Cabinet "it was always
plain that he was the master and they were the
subordinates. They constantly had to yield
to his will, and if he ever yielded to them it was
because they convinced him that the course
they advised was judicious and appropriate."
While men of the highest culture and position
thus recognized his intellectual primacy there
was no man so humble as to feel abashed before him. Frederick Douglass beautifully expressed the sentiment of the plain people in
his company: "I feel as though I was in the
presence of a big brother and that there was
safety in his atmosphere. "
As time wore on and the war held its terrible course, upon no one of all those who lived
through it were its effects more apparent than
upon the President. He bore the sorrows of
the nation in his own heart; he suffered deeply
not only from disappointments, from treachery, from hope deferred, from the open as338




LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE


saults of enemies, and from the sincere anger
of discontented friends, but also from the
world-wide distress and affliction which, flowed
from the great conflict in which he was engaged and which he could not evade. One
of the most tender and compassionate of men,
he was forced to give orders which cost thousands of lives; by nature a man of order and
thrift, he saw the daily spectacle of unutterable
waste and destruction which he could not prevent. The cry of the widow and the orphan
was always in his ears; the awful responsibility resting upon him as the protector of an
imperiled republic kept him true to his duty,
but could not make him unmindful of the intimate details of that vast sum of human misery
involved in a civil war.
Under this frightful ordeal his demeanor
and disposition changed-so gradually that it
would be impossible to say when the change
began; but he was in mind, body, and nerves
a very different man at the second inauguration from the one who had taken the oath in
1861. He continued always the same kindly,
genial, and cordial spirit he had-been at first;
but the boisterous laughter became less fre339




LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE


quent year by year; the eye grew veiled by
constant meditation on momentous subjects;
the air of reserve and detachment from his
surroundings increased. He aged with great
rapidity.
This change is shown with startling distinctness by two life-masks-the one made by
Leonard W. Volk in Chicago, April, 1860, the
other by Clark Mills in Washington, in the
spring of 1865. The first is of a man of fiftyone, and young for his years. The face has a
clean, firm outline; it is free from fat, but the
muscles are hard and full; the large mobile
mouth is ready to speak, to shout, or laugh; the
bold, curved nose is broad and substantial, with
spreading nostrils; it is a face full of life, of
energy, of vivid aspiration. The other is so sad
and peaceful in its infinite repose that the famous sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens insisted,
when he first saw it, that it was a death-mask.
The lines are set, as if the living face, like the
copy, had been in bronze; the nose is thin, and
lengthened by the emaciation of the cheeks;
the mouth is fixed like that of an archaic
statue; a look as of one on whom sorrow and
care had done their worst without victory is on
340




LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE


all the features; the whole expression is of unspeakable sadness and all-sufficing strength.
Yet the peace is not the dreadful peace of
death; it is the peace that passeth understanding.


341








CLARENCE KING
FROM THE "CLARENCE KING" MEMOIRS PUBLISHED FOR THE
CENTURY ASSOCIATION
fqol




I




CLARENCE KING
WE sometimes, though most rarely, meet
a man of a nature so genial, of qualities
so radiant, so instinct with vitality, that in
connection with him the thought of mortality
seems incongruous.  Such men appear as
exempt from the ordinary lethal fate of the
rest of us as the "happy gods" of the Greek
poets. They are not necessarily fortunate or
prosperous, but whatever their luck or their
accidents they seem as independent of them
as actors are of their momentary disguises.
The law of their nature is to be radiant;
clouds are to them a transient and negligible
condition. While they live they are surrounded by an atmosphere of universal regard
and admiration, and when the end comes,
though the mourning of their friends is deep
and sincere, it is tinged with something exquisite and splendid, like the luxury of purple
345




CLARENCE KING


and gold that attends the close of a troubled
and electric day.
Such a man was Clarence King. While he
lived, it was our habit to believe that no real
evil could befall him; and now that he is dead,
-although we know we have lost something
from life which made it especially precious
and desirable, yet there remains a souvenir
so delightful, so filled with tenderness and inspiration, that there are few pleasures the
world contains so valuable as his memory in
the hearts of his friends.
He possessed to an extraordinary degree
the power of attracting and attaching to himself friends of every sort and condition. The
cowboys and packers of the plains and the
hills; the employes of railroads and hotels;
men of science and men of commerce; the
Senate and the clergy-in all these ways of
life his friends were numerous and devoted,
bound to him by a singular sympathy and
mutual comprehension. When in middle life
-if we may use this expression in reference
to one who was always young-he went to
Europe, he continued the same facile conquest
of hearts. In this he was aided by a remark346




CLARENCE KING


able ease in acquiring a colloquial command
of languages. Having occasion to go to Mexico, he put in his pocket a small Spanish
Dictionary and without the aid of a Grammar
got by heart some thousand nouns and verbs
in the infinitive, so that on arriving at
Guaymas he was master of a highly effective
and picturesque jargon which delighted the
Mexicans and carried him triumphantly to the
mines of Culiacan. Afterwards he acquired
a correct and grammatical knowledge of the
Castilian. It was the same in France. He
had read French from   childhood, but had
never spoken it. On arriving in Paris, where
he was conducting some important business,
he did not pause to gain familiarity with the
spoken idiom. He attacked it with the energy
of a cavalry charge, and though at first he
made havoc of genders, moods and tenses, he
took it as we are told the Kingdom of Heaven
is taken, by violence. In a few weeks he was
speaking the language with perfect ease, and
was an equally welcome guest in financial,
artistic and literary circles. In England
nothing describes his success but the well-worn
phrase of Dickens. He was "the delight of
347




CLARENCE KING


the nobility and gentry" and not of them only,
but he made friends also in Whitechapel and
Soho, and even to some in the submerged
fraction, the most wretched derelicts of civilization, he brought the ineffable light of his
keen comprehension and generous sympathy.
I introduced him once to a woman of eminent
distinction, one of the first writers of our
time. Afer he had gone, she said: "I understand now the secret of his charm. It is his
kindness."
It is not for me to speak of his commanding
place in the world of science: his associates
and colleagues will keep that phase of his life
in remembrance. I think his reputation as a
great physicist suffered somewhat from the
dazzling attractiveness of his personality. It
was hard to remember that this polished trifler, this exquisite wit, who diffused over every
conversation in which he was engaged an iridescent mist of epigram and persiflage, was
one of the greatest savants of his time. It was
hard to take seriously a man who was so
deliciously agreeable. Yet his work on Systematic Geology is a masterpiece of practical
and ordered learning, and his treatise on The
348




CLARENCE KING


Age of the Earth has been accepted as the
profoundest and most authoritative utterance
on the subject yet made.
If he had given himself to literature, he
would have been a great writer. The range
of his knowledge, both of man and nature, was
enormous; his sympathy was universal; his
mastery of the word, his power of phrase, was
almost unlimited. His literary product is considerable and will keep his name alive; but it
bears no appreciable proportion to the literary treasures he squandered in his daily and
nightly conversation. I recall, with the sharpest regret of my own incapacity of memory,
the evenings by my fireside, when he poured
out in inexhaustible profusion his stores of
fancy and invention. There were scores of
short stories full of color and life, sketches of
thrilling adventure, not less than half a dozen
complete novels, boldly planned and brilliantly
wrought out,-all ready for the type or the
pen; which now-an infinite pity!-are only
of the stuff that dreams are made of.
Few men had so quick and so sure an eye
for art. In that first visit to Europe, to which
I have alluded, he seemed like one to whom
349




CLARENCE KING


all the scenes he visited had been familiar in
some antecedent state. His time was limited,
and his pace, therefore, amazingly rapid. He
swept through Spain like a breeze. He had
apparently no preferences. In the space of a
few weeks, he covered the whole field; he knew
the masterpieces of classic and modern painting; he was familiar with the syncopated
melodies of Cuba and Malaga and Andalusia;
he was an aficionado in fans, embroideries
and bronzes. Nobody has felt more keenly
the melancholy charm of Castile; the proof is
in that exquisite idyll of the Helmet of Mambrino. Fastidious as he was, he was yet easily
pleased by whatever was natural and genuine.
I remember his horror-in the midst of his
enthusiasm over Spain-at meeting an eminent
man of letters from New England who had
found nothing in the Peninsula to suit him,
and who wound up by expressing his disgust
that "from Salamanca to Cadiz you could not
get a fishball."
All over Europe he scampered with the
same vertiginous speed, and the same serene
and genial appearance of leisure, and perfect
satisfaction and delight with all he saw. The
350




CLARENCE KING


art of Holland was as enchanting to him as
that of Spain and Italy. His admiration of
the great men of the past never rendered him
unjust to the men of the present. His wide
sympathies comprehended Velasquez and Fortuny in a kindred appreciation. He became
at sight the friend of Mesdag and Israels. I
took him to the studio of Gustave Dore, and
in five minutes they were brothers and were
planning an excursion to Arizona to sketch the
war dances of the Apaches. A few days later
the robust Alsatian, who seemed built to last
a hundred years, was dead, stricken down by
the terrible pneumonia of those years.
In England, while as I have said his success
was universal with all classes, his closet intimacies were with men who were occupied with
the things of the spirit. Ruskin took him to
his heart, entertained him at Coniston, and
offered him his choice of his two greatest
water-colors by Turner. "One good Turner,"
said King, "deserves another," and took
both.
Few men ever can have lived who loved
knowingly and ardently so many things. All
the arts gave him joy; his mind was hospitable
351




CLARENCE KING


to every intellectual delight, the simplest as
well as the most complex. In music he enjoyed Beethoven and the latest rag-time; in
painting he reveled in the masterpieces of all
the schools; in poetry his taste was as keen
as it was catholic; in literature he liked all
styles except the tiresome; for years he read
a chapter of higher mathematics every night
before going to bed. He had the passionate
love of nature which only the highest culture
gives-the sky, the rock, and the river spoke
to him as familiar friends.
I imagine that in comparing our impressions
of him, the thought which comes uppermost
in the minds of all of us, is that Clarence King
resembled no one else whom we have ever
known. The rest of our friends wa divide into
classes; King belonged to a class of his own.
He was inimitable in many ways: in his inexhaustible fund of wise and witty speech; in
his learning about which his marvelous humor
played like summer lightning over far horizons; in his quick and intelligent sympathy
which saw the good and the amusing in the
most unpromising subjects; in the ease and the
airy lightness with which he scattered his
352




CLARENCE KING


jeweled phrases; but above, all in his astonishing power of diffusing happiness wherever
he went. Years ago, in a well-known drawing
room in Washington, when we were mourning
his departure from the Capital, one of his
friends expressed the opinion of all when he
said, "It is strange that the Creator, when it
would have been so easy to make more Kings,
should have made only one."


353




I








I




-11








A




I
0- - "'t, .",
3
-11
I,4, 4   , I
lll",   -  lel- V',
I    I
1




It
II
M)
4'
VI


0 —


DECKT6 90


ii niiiItutTh F- R F1AN
3 9015 00571 2826
PmdingqProservatt- JAN  19


K


DO NOT REMOVE
OR
MUTILATE CARDS


-- 1.... - -- I                                                                                                  I
-I