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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
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 Received 
 
 Accession No. / 
 
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 LATER SPEECHES 
 
 OF 
 
 CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 
 
 NEW YORK 
 THE CASSELL PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 31 EAST iyTH ST. (UNION SQUARE) 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1894, BY 
 THE CASSELL PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 THE MRRSHON COMPANY PRESS, 
 KAHWAY, N. J. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 , Introduction and Biographical Sketch . . . vii 
 
 X I. The Columbian Oration, delivered at the Dedicatory Cere 
 monies of the World s Fair at Chicago, October 21, 1892, i 
 
 II. Speech at Dinner given by New York World s Fair Com 
 missioners, at Delmonico s, December 21, 1891, . .21 
 
 III. Speech Nominating President Harrison for a Second Term, 
 
 at the Republican National Convention, Chicago, June 10, 
 1892, 29 
 
 IV. Address at Fourth of July Celebration at Woodstock, Conn., 
 
 1892, 38 
 
 V. Fourth of July Oration, delivered at Sing Sing, N. Y., 
 
 1876, 52 
 
 VI. Address at the Laying of the Corner-stone of the Grant 
 
 Monument at Riverside Park, New York, April 27, 1892, . 74 
 VII. Address at the Unveiling of the Statue of General Grant, at 
 
 Galena, 111., June 3, 1891, ...... 88 
 
 VIII. Address before the Legislature of the State of New York, 
 at the Services in Memory of General William Tecumseh 
 Sherman, March 29, 1892, . . . ... . 103 
 
 IX, Address at the Services in Memory of Charles Stewart Par- 
 nell, at the Academy of Music, New York, November 15, 
 
 1891, 124 
 
 X. Speech at the Laying of the Corner-stone of the World 
 
 Building, New York, October 10, 1889, . . . 142 
 
 XI. Speech at Celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the 
 Tribune, Metropolitan Opera House, New York, April 10, 
 
 1891, 149 
 
 XII. Oration on Horace Greeley at the Unveiling of the Statue 
 
 by J. Q. A. Ward, New York, September 20, 1890, . 160 
 
VI 
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 XXXVII. A Defense of Christianity before the Nineteenth Cen 
 tury Club, December 23, 1885, .... 476 
 XXXVIII. Response to Welcome from Railroad Associates in 
 New Vork Bay, on Returning from Europe, Septem 
 ber 16, 1891, 480 
 
 XXXIX. Speech at Dinner of the Montauk Club, Brooklyn, in 
 Celebration of Mr. Depew s Fifty-eighth Birthday, 
 
 April 23, 1892, 40,2 
 
 XL, Pamphlet Presented to Guests at Dinner given to his 
 Friends in Celebration of the Twenty-fifth Anniver 
 sary of His Connection with Railroad Interests, Jan 
 uary, 28, 1892, 49 8 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XI 
 
 and he has remained in that service ever since i. e., 
 for seven-and-twenty years. He was appointed the 
 attorney for the New York and Harlem Railroad ; and 
 in 1869, when this company was consolidated with the 
 New York Central, and became the New York Central 
 and Hudson River Railroad Co., with Commodore Van- 
 derbilt at its head, Mr. Depew was made the attorney 
 of the new organization, and was afterward elected a 
 member of its Board of Directors. As the influence of 
 the Vanderbilts expanded, and one road after another 
 was brought under their management, the range of his 
 official activity steadily extended. In 1875 ne was 
 promoted to be General Counsel for the entire Vander- 
 bilt system, and became a director in each of the seven 
 lines which it comprised. 
 
 In 1872 Mr. Depew consented to run for the Lieu 
 tenant Governorship on the Liberal Republican (Gree- 
 ley) ticket, and shared what he probably had foreseen 
 would be the fate of that party ; had there been much 
 likelihood of his election, it is quite possible that he 
 would not have been a candidate. In 1874 he was 
 made a Regent of the State University, and one of the 
 Commissioners to build the costly new Capitol at 
 Albany. Seven years later (in 1 88 1), when Senators 
 Conkling and Platt quarreled with President Garfield 
 and resigned their commissions, the Republican mem 
 bers of the Legislature, constituting a majority of that 
 body, met in caucus to ballot for successors to represent 
 the Empire State in the Senate. In the fierce and pro 
 tracted contest which ensued for a successor to Senator 
 Platt, Mr. Depew s candidacy developed far greater 
 strength than that of any of his rivals ; but when 
 
xi i INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Guiteau s crazy bullet laid President Garfield low, a 
 letter was read to the convention in which the writer 
 urged that partisan strife be brought to an end, and, in 
 order that it might cease at once, withdrew the name 
 that still led all others in the race. Mr. Depew was 
 not to be prevailed upon to enter public life unless it 
 could be done with dignity ; and the offer of the Sena- 
 torship by the Republican majority of the Legislature, 
 three years later, found him still less inclined to give up 
 his private career; for in the meantime (1882) he had 
 been elected Second Vice-President of the New York 
 Central Railroad ; and only one year later than this 
 offer was made, the soundness of his judgment in 
 declining it was emphasized by his elevation to the 
 Presidency of the road one of the largest and most 
 successful corporations in the world. 
 
 In the summer of 1888 Mr. Depew was a delegate at 
 large, from the State of New York, to the Republican 
 Convention at Chicago. The delegation cast its seventy 
 votes as a unit for New York s favorite Republican 
 son; and other admirers of his ability brought up 
 the number of votes cast for him on the second 
 ballot to 99. His strength as a candidate was gener 
 ally recognized ; but the influence of Mr. Elaine s sup 
 porters being cast in the scales in favor of Mr. Har 
 rison when the name of James G. Blaine was finally 
 withdrawn, the nomination went to the gentleman 
 who succeeded, and has in turn been succeeded by, 
 President Cleveland. But before Mr. Elaine s with 
 drawal Mr. Depew had shown that a nomination at all 
 hazards was not the goal of his own ambition. The 
 speech in which he informed the Convention that he 
 
IN TR OD UC TION. X i i i 
 
 was not a candidate for the Presidency was one of the 
 briefest, most forcible, and most dignified he had ever 
 made ; yet he had never made one which gave so 
 little satisfaction to his hearers, for it was felt that the 
 group of able and available candidates was grievously 
 lessened by his decision. 
 
 The presentation of Mr. Depew s name to the Con 
 vention was due to a belief that because it was the 
 only time since the organization of the party that all 
 divisions were healed and all interests united in the 
 Empire State, it would secure in that State the triumph 
 of the ticket. But the railway problem was found to 
 be one of such burning intensity in certain Western 
 communities, that the nomination of a man identified 
 with railroad interests might jeopard the success of 
 the ticket in commonwealths previously Republican. 
 Mr. Depew had therefore asked his own delegation to 
 consent to his withdrawal, and armed with that con 
 sent he addressed the Convention, assuring his hearers 
 that his course would leave no heartburnings in the 
 East, and that the delegation would " go home to a 
 constituency which was unanimously for me, to find 
 it unanimous in the support of whomsoever may be 
 the nominee of the Convention." Immediately after 
 refusing further votes, he re-entered the Convention as 
 a Delegate at Large from New York State, and it was 
 owing to his strenuous efforts more than to anything 
 else that General Harrison was nominated. 
 
 As nearly all the national leaders of the Republican 
 party were opposed to President Harrison s renomina- 
 tion in 1892, Mr. Depew decided that, to make an im 
 pression in the President s behalf, it was necessary for 
 
x i V IN TR OD UC TION. 
 
 him to become personally known to the delegates to 
 the National Convention ; he therefore accepted all of 
 the invitations he had received to deliver addresses 
 at Minneapolis, in the conviction that thus the 
 whole Convention would be met. He delivered a 
 lecture on Saturday night for the benefit of the 
 Press Club of Minneapolis, realizing for the Club 
 twenty-five hundred dollars ; made the oration at the 
 opening of the Convention Hall on Monday night ; 
 made another address on Tuesday afternoon at the 
 Opera House at a reception given him by the Sons of 
 New York resident in the Northwest ; and delivered 
 a speech in the evening to the Sons of the American 
 Revolution at St. Paul, thus making four appearances, 
 and speaking on as many subjects, before the great 
 majority of the Convention before it met. His speech 
 putting President Harrison in nomination for a second 
 term, which is included in the present volume, was one 
 of the ablest and most effective efforts of his life. 
 
 How fully it was appreciated by the President him 
 self was shown only a few days later, when Mr. Depew 
 was called to the White House to receive the offer 
 of the Secretaryship of State. President Harrison 
 assured him that he was the one man whose personal 
 qualities, whose popularity with the rank and file of 
 the Republican party, and whose acquaintance with 
 political leaders abroad would make him an adequate 
 successor to Mr. Elaine. " I can only offer you broken 
 bread to-day," he said, " but if I am re-elected it will be 
 a whole loaf." It was rumored that Mr. Depew had 
 received this offer, but it has never been positively 
 asserted. The following letter in which the reason of 
 
INTRODUCTION, XV 
 
 his declination is set forth the same reason that 
 impelled him to withdraw his name from the National 
 Convention of 1888 is an interesting and authorita 
 tive confirmation of the report : 
 
 43 WEST FIFTY-FOURTH STREET, 
 
 Mv DEAR MR. PRESIDENT : NEW YoRK J une l8 9 2 - 
 
 Since our interview on Saturday, I have given the most earnest 
 thought, and sought the best information, on which to base a 
 judgment upon the question of Secretary of State. The office is 
 one of the most attractive in the Government, and was rendered 
 doubly so by the cordiality of your tender of it. So prominent 
 and confidential a relation with yourself and your administration 
 would be in every way most agreeable to me. I throw aside in 
 considering the subject the large and remunerative trusts which 
 I must resign, and view the appointment as it may affect the 
 present campaign. 
 
 First, and above all other things, I am anxious for your success 
 in the coming election. That, in my judgment, is of the greatest 
 moment for the best interests of the country and for the future of 
 the Republican Party. Our canvass is extraordinarily free from 
 either defensive or explanatory matters and presents unusually 
 aggressive strength. One prominently identified with railway 
 management coming into the Cabinet at this late hour, and in 
 the heat of the campaign, might lead to an effort to raise new 
 issues in the few States where such questions are as yet unsettled. 
 If the question did, in any way, create a diversion or embarrass 
 ment it would destroy all the pleasure and pride which would 
 otherwise attach to this great office. I can do much more effective 
 work in the ranks, as I have been accustomed to, than in office. 
 
 Thanking you with all my heart for your generous confidence 
 and valued friendship, I am fully convinced thajj^it is my duty at 
 this juncture to decline your very kind invitation to become 
 Secretary of State. Faithfully yours, 
 
 CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 
 To His Excellency Benjamin Harrison, 
 President of the United States. 
 
xvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 For a man who has never held a political office of 
 national importance, nor made a profession of public 
 speaking, Mr. Depew is unusually well-known to his 
 fellow-men, having long filled the public eye almost as 
 largely as it has been filled by President Cleveland, 
 Mr. Elaine, General Sherman, or Henry Ward Beecher. 
 Indeed, he is probably the best-known American living 
 to-day, with the sole exception of the President of the 
 United States unless the office he has so recently 
 held may give Mr. Harrison a claim to popular pre 
 cedence. The name of Edison has penetrated to 
 remoter corners of the globe than that of Depew, but 
 it would hardly be claimed that the personality of the 
 great inventor was familiar to half so many men. The 
 President of the New York Central Railroad is almost 
 as accessible to the employees of that Company as 
 he is to its Directors as accessible as he is to the 
 reporters who daily haunt his office, and to whom he 
 unbosoms himself with freedom, providing them with 
 unlimited "copy" of a kind that is seldom "crowded 
 out," and winning their hearts by an urbanity un 
 tainted by affectation. And when he leaves England 
 after a round of social successes, Lord Rosebery tele 
 graphs, " Your departure eclipses the gayety of 
 nations." 
 
 Partly because he treats them so well, but chiefly be 
 cause they enjoy writing, and their readers hearing, 
 about him, the newspaper men are constantly telling 
 the public just how Mr. Depew looks and dresses 
 how he behaves in his office, at home, and at the public 
 dinner table how he conducts his railroad affairs and 
 prepares his speeches what he does when he stays at 
 
INTRODUCTION-. xxiii 
 
 reply to certain remarks of Mr. Julian Hawthorne s, is 
 preserved in the present volume. 
 
 Mr. Depew, though by no means- lacking in appre 
 ciation of the value of his achievement as an orator, is 
 modest enough to admit that his most labored efforts 
 are not necessarily the happiest. When his first 
 volume of speeches was in course of preparation, he 
 was told that a brief and informal reply to the friends 
 who welcomed him in the Bay on his arrival from 
 Europe, one summer, was to be included in the vol 
 ume, to the exclusion of a studied speech on the same 
 theme delivered shortly afterward at the Union League 
 Club. " It is worth two of the latter," said the com 
 piler of the book. " You are right," was his reply. 
 
 JOSEPH B. GILDER. 
 
LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 
 
 i. 
 
 THE COLUMBIAN ORATION, DELIVERED AT THE DED 
 ICATORY CEREMONIES OF THE WORLD S FAIR AT 
 CHICAGO, OCTOBER 21, 1892. 
 
 THIS day belongs not to America, but to the world. 
 The results of the event it commemorates are the 
 heritage of the peoples of every race and clime. We 
 celebrate the emancipation of man. The preparation 
 was the work of almost countless centuries ; the realiza 
 tion was the revelation of one. The Cross on Calvary 
 was hope ; the cross raised on San Salvador was 
 opportunity. But for the first, Columbus would 
 never have sailed ; but for the second, there would 
 have been no place for the planting, the nurture, and 
 the expansion of civil and religious liberty. Ancient 
 history is a dreary record of unstable civilizations. 
 Each reached its zenith of material splendor, and 
 perished. The Assyrian, Persian, Egyptian, Grecian, 
 and Roman Empires were proofs of the possibilities 
 and limitations of man for conquest and intellectual 
 development. Their destruction involved a sum of 
 
2 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OP 
 
 misery and relapse which made their creation rather a 
 curse than a blessing. Force was the factor in the 
 government of the world when Christ was born, and 
 force was the source and exercise of authority both by 
 Church and state when Columbus sailed from Palos. 
 The Wise Men traveled from the East toward the 
 West under the guidance of the Star of Bethlehem. 
 The spirit of the equality of all men before God and the 
 law moved westward from Calvary, with its revolution 
 ary influence upon old institutions, to the Atlantic 
 Ocean. Columbus carried it westward across the seas. 
 The emigrants from England, Ireland, Scotland and 
 Wales, from Germany and Holland, from Sweden and 
 Denmark, from France and Italy, from Spain and 
 Portugal, under its guidance and inspiration, moved 
 West, and again West, building states and founding 
 cities until the Pacific limited their march. The exhibi 
 tion of arts and sciences, of industries and inventions, 
 of education and civilization, which the Republic of 
 the United States will here present, and to which, 
 through its Chief Magistrate, it invites all nations, 
 condenses and displays the flower and fruitage of this 
 transcendent miracle. 
 
 The anarchy and chaos which followed the breaking 
 up of the Roman Empire necessarily produced the 
 feudal system. The people, preferring slavery to 
 annihilation by robber chiefs, became the vassals of 
 territorial lords. The reign of physical force is one of 
 perpetual struggle for the mastery. Power which rests 
 upon the sword neither shares nor limits its authority. 
 The king destroyed the lords, and the monarchy suc 
 ceeded feudalism. Neither of these institutions con- 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 3 
 
 sldered or consulted the people. They had no part, 
 but to suffer or die in this mighty strife of masters for 
 the mastery. But the throne, by its broader view and 
 greater resources, made possible the construction of 
 the highways of freedom. Under its banner races 
 could unite, and petty principalities be merged, law 
 substituted for brute force, and right for might. It 
 founded and endowed universities, and encouraged 
 commerce. It conceded no political privileges, but 
 unconsciously prepared its subjects to demand them. 
 
 Absolutism in the state, and intolerance in the 
 Church, shackled popular unrest, and imprisoned 
 thought and enterprise in the fifteenth century. The 
 divine right of kings stamped out the faintest glimmer 
 of revolt against tyranny, and the problems of science, 
 whether of the skies or of the earth, whether of as 
 tronomy or geography, were solved or submerged by 
 ecclesiastical decrees. The dungeon was ready for the 
 philosopher who proclaimed the truths of the solar 
 system, or the navigator who would prove the spheric 
 ity of the earth. An English Gladstone, or a French 
 Gambetta, or a German Bismarck, or an Italian Gari 
 baldi, or a Spanish Castelar, would have been thought 
 a monster ; and his death at the stake, or on the scaf 
 fold, and under the anathemas of the Church, would 
 have received the praise and approval of kings and 
 nobles, of priests and peoples. Reason had no seat in 
 spiritual or temporal realms. Punishment was the 
 incentive to patriotism, and piety was held possible by 
 torture. Confessions of faith extorted from the writh 
 ing victim on the rack were believed efficacious in 
 saving his soul from fires eternal beyond the grave. 
 
4 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 For all that humanity to-day cherishes as its best 
 heritage and choicest gifts, there was neither thought 
 nor hope. 
 
 Fifty years before Columbus sailed from Palos, 
 Gutenberg and Faust had forged the hammer which was 
 to break the bonds of superstition, and open the prison 
 doors of the mind. They had invented the printing 
 press and movable types. The prior adoption of a 
 cheap process for the manufacture of paper at once 
 utilized the press. Its first service, like all its succeed 
 ing efforts, was for the people. The universities and 
 the schoolmen, the privileged and the learned few of 
 that age, were longing for the revelation and preserva 
 tion of the classic treasures of antiquity, hidden, and 
 yet insecure, in monastic cells and libraries. But the 
 first-born of the marvelous creation of these primitive 
 printers of Mayence was the printed Bible. The 
 priceless contributions of Greece and Rome to the 
 intellectual training and development of the modern 
 world came afterward, through the same wondrous 
 machine. The force, however, which made possible 
 America, and its reflex influence upon Europe, was the 
 open Bible by the family fireside. And yet neither 
 the enlightenment of the new learning, nor the dy 
 namic power of the spiritual awakening, could break 
 through the crust of caste which had been forming for 
 centuries. Church and state had so firmly and dexter 
 ously interwoven the bars of privilege and authority 
 that liberty was impossible from within. Its piercing 
 light and fervent heat must penetrate from without. 
 
 Civil and religious freedom are founded upon the 
 individual and his independence, his worth, his rights, 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW, 5 
 
 and his equal status and opportunity. For his plant 
 ing and development a new land must be found, where, 
 with limitless areas for expansion, the avenues of prog 
 ress would have no bars of custom or heredity, of 
 social orders or privileged classes. The time had come 
 for the emancipation of the mind and soul of humanity, 
 The factors wanting for its fulfillment were the new 
 world and its discoverer. 
 
 God always has in training some commanding genius 
 for the control of great crises in the affairs of nations 
 and peoples. The number of these leaders is less than 
 the centuries, but their lives are the history of human 
 progress. Though Caesar and Charlemagne, and Hilde- 
 brand and Luther, and William the Conqueror and 
 Oliver Cromwell, and all the epoch makers prepared 
 Europe for the event, and contributed to the result, 
 the lights which illumine our firmament to-day are 
 Columbus the discoverer, Washington the founder, and 
 Lincoln the savior. 
 
 Neither realism nor romance furnishes a more strik 
 ing and picturesque figure than that of Christopher 
 Columbus. The mystery about his origin heightens 
 the charm of his story. That he came from among 
 the toilers of his time is in harmony with the struggles 
 of our period. Forty-four authentic portraits of him 
 have descended to us, and no two of them are the coun 
 terfeits of the same person. Each represents a char 
 acter as distinct as its canvas. Strength and weakness, 
 intellectuality and stupidity, high moral purpose and 
 brutal ferocity, purity and licentiousness, the dreamer 
 and the miser, the pirate and the puritan, are the types 
 from which we may select our hero. We dismiss the 
 
o LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 painter, and piercing with the clarified vision of the 
 dawn of the twentieth century the veil of four hundred 
 years, we construct our Columbus. 
 
 The perils of the sea in his youth upon the rich 
 argosies of Genoa, or in the service of the licensed 
 rovers who made them their prey, had developed a 
 skillful navigator and intrepid mariner. They had 
 given him a glimpse of the possibilities of the un 
 known beyond the highways of travel, which roused 
 an unquenchable thirst for adventure and research. 
 The study of the narratives of previous explorers, and 
 diligent questionings of the daring spirits who had 
 ventured far toward the fabled West, gradually 
 evolved a theory, which became in his mind so fixed 
 a fact, that he could inspire others with his own pas 
 sionate beliefs. The words " that is a lie," written 
 by him on the margin of nearly every page of a 
 volume of the travels of Marco Polo, which is still to 
 be found in a Genoese library, illustrate the skepticism 
 of his beginning, and the first vision of the New World 
 the fulfillment of his faith. 
 
 To secure the means to test the truth of his specula 
 tions, this poor and unknown dreamer must win the 
 support of kings and overcome the hostility of the 
 Church. He never doubted his ability to do both, 
 though he knew of no man living who was so great in 
 power, or lineage, or learning that he could accomplish 
 either. Unaided and alone he succeeded in arousing 
 the jealousies of sovereigns, and dividing the councils 
 of the ecclesiastics. " I will command your fleet and 
 discover for you new realms, but only on condition 
 that you confer on me hereditary nobility, the Ad- 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 7 
 
 miralty of the Ocean and the Vice-Royalty, and one- 
 tenth of the revenues of the New World," were his 
 haughty terms to King John of Portugal. After ten 
 years of disappointment and poverty, subsisting most 
 of the time upon the charity of the enlightened monk 
 of the Convent of Rabida, who was his unfaltering 
 friend, he stood before the throne of Ferdinand and 
 Isabella, and rising to imperial dignity in his rage, 
 embodied the same royal conditions in his petition. 
 The capture of Granada, the expulsion of Islam from 
 Europe, and the triumph of the Cross aroused the 
 admiration and devotion of Christendom. But this 
 proud beggar, holding in his grasp the potential 
 promise, and dominion of El Dorado and Cathay, 
 divided with the Moslem surrender the attention of 
 sovereigns and of bishops. France and England in 
 dicated a desire to hear his theories and see his maps 
 while he was still a suppliant at the gates of the camp 
 of Castile and Aragon, the sport of its courtiers and 
 the scoff of its confessors. His unshakable faith that 
 Christopher Columbus was commissioned from heaven, 
 by his name and by Divine command, to carry " Christ 
 across the sea " to new continents and pagan peoples, 
 lifted him so far above the discouragements of an 
 empty purse and a contemptuous court that he was 
 proof against the rebuffs of fortune or of friends. To 
 conquer the prejudices of the clergy, to win the ap 
 proval and financial support of the state, to venture 
 upon that unknown ocean, which, according to the 
 beliefs of the age, was peopled with demons and savage 
 beasts of frightful shape, and from which there was no 
 possibility of return, required the zeal of Peter the 
 
8 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 Hermit, the chivalric courage of the Cid, and the 
 imagination of Dante. Columbus belonged to that 
 high order of cranks who confidently walk where 
 " angels fear to tread," and often become the bene 
 factors of their country or their kind. 
 
 It was a happy omen of the position which woman 
 was to hold in America, that the only person who com 
 prehended the majestic scope of his plans, and the 
 invincible quality of his genius, was the able and 
 gracious Queen of Castile. Isabella alone of all the 
 dignitaries of that age shares with Columbus the 
 honors of his great achievement. She arrayed her 
 kingdom and her private fortune behind the enthu 
 siasm of this mystic mariner, and posterity pays homage 
 to her wisdom and faith. 
 
 The overthrow of the Mohammedan power in Spain 
 would have been a forgotten scene, in one of the 
 innumerable acts in the grand drama of history, had 
 not Isabella conferred immortality upon herself, her 
 husband, and their dual crown by her recognition of 
 Columbus. The devout spirit of the queen and the 
 high purpose of the explorer inspired the voyage, sub 
 dued the mutinous crew, and prevailed over the raging 
 storms. They covered with the divine radiance of 
 religion and humanity the degrading search for gold, 
 and the horrors of its quest, which filled the first cen 
 tury of conquest with every form of lust and greed. 
 
 The mighty soul of the great admiral was undaunted 
 by the ingratitude of princes and the hostility of the 
 people, by imprisonment and neglect. He died as he 
 was securing the means and preparing a campaign for 
 the rescue of the Holy Sepulcher at Jerusalem from the 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 9 
 
 infidel. He did not know what time has revealed, that 
 while the mission of the crusaders, of Godfrey of 
 Bouillon and Richard of the Lion Heart, was a bloody 
 and fruitless romance, the discovery of America was 
 the salvation of the world. The one was the symbol, 
 the other the spirit ; the one death, the other life. 
 The tomb of the Savior was a narrow and empty 
 vault, precious only for its memories of the supreme 
 tragedy of the centuries, but the new continent was 
 to be the home and temple of the living God. 
 
 The rulers of the Old World began with partitioning 
 the New. To them the discovery was expansion of 
 Empire, and grandeur to the throne. Vast territories, 
 whose properties and possibilities were little under 
 stood, and whose extent was greater than the kingdoms 
 of the sovereigns, were the gifts to court favorites, and 
 the prizes of royal approval. But individual intelli 
 gence and independent conscience found here haven 
 and refuge. They were the passengers upon the car 
 avels of Columbus, and he was unconsciously making 
 for the port of civil and religious liberty. Thinkers who 
 believed men capable of higher destinies and larger re 
 sponsibilities, and pious people who preferred the Bible 
 to that union of Church and state where each serves 
 the other for the temporal benefit of both, fled to these 
 distant and hospitable lands from intolerable and hope 
 less oppression at home. It required three hundred 
 years for the people thus happily situated to under 
 stand their own powers and resources, and to break 
 bonds which were still reverenced or loved, no matter 
 how deeply they wounded or how hard they galled. 
 
 The nations of Europe were so completely absorbed 
 
10 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 in dynastic difficulties and devastating wars, with 
 diplomacy and ambitions, that if they heard of they 
 did not heed the growing democratic spirit and intelli 
 gence in their American Colonies. To them these 
 provinces were sources of revenue, and they never 
 dreamed that they were also schools of liberty. That 
 it exhausted three centuries under the most favorable 
 conditions for the evolution of freedom on this conti 
 nent, demonstrates the tremendous strength of custom 
 and heredity when sanctioned and sanctified by religion. 
 The very chains which fettered became inextricably 
 interwoven with the habits of life, the associations of 
 childhood, the tenderest ties of the family, and the 
 sacred offices of the Church from the cradle to the 
 grave. It clearly proves that if the people of the Old 
 World and their descendants had not possessed the 
 opportunities afforded by the New for their emancipa 
 tion, and mankind had never experienced and learned 
 the American example, instead of living in the light 
 and glory of nineteenth century conditions they 
 would still be struggling with mediaeval problems. 
 
 The northern continent was divided between Eng 
 land, France, and Spain, and the southern between 
 Spain and Portugal. France, wanting the capacity for 
 colonization, which still characterizes her, gave up her 
 western possessions and left the English, who have the 
 genius of universal empire, masters of North America. 
 The development of the experiment in the English 
 domain makes this day memorable. It is due to the 
 wisdom and courage, the faith and virtue of the inhabit 
 ants of this territory that government of the people, 
 for the people, and by the people was inaugurated, 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. II 
 
 and has become a triumphant success. The Puritan 
 settled in New England and the Cavalier in the South. 
 They represented the opposites of spiritual and tem 
 poral life and opinions. The processes of liberty 
 liberalized the one and elevated the other. Washing 
 ton and Adams were the new types. Their union in 
 a common cause gave the world a republic both stable 
 and free. It possessed conservatism without bigotry, 
 and liberty without license. It founded institutions 
 strong enough to resist revolution, and elastic enough 
 for indefinite expansion to meet the requirements in 
 government of ever enlarging areas of population, and 
 the needs of progress and growth. It was nurtured 
 by the toleration and patriotism which bound together 
 in a common cause the Puritans of New England and 
 the Catholics of Maryland, the Dutch Reformers of 
 New York and the Huguenots of South Carolina, the 
 Quakers and Lutherans of Pennsylvania, and the 
 Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, and 
 religionists of all and opposite opinions in the other 
 Colonies. 
 
 The Mayflozuer, with the Pilgrims, and a Dutch ship 
 laden with African slaves, were on the ocean at the 
 same time, the one sailing for Massachusetts, and the 
 other for Virginia. This company of saints, and first 
 cargo of slaves, represented the forces which were to 
 peril and rescue free government. The slaver was the 
 product of the commercial spirit of Great Britain and 
 the greed of the times to stimulate production in the 
 Colonies. The men who wrote in the cabin of the 
 Mayfloiver the first charter of freedom, a government 
 of just and equal laws, were a little band of protestants 
 
12 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 against every form of injustice and tyranny. The 
 leaven of their principles made possible the Declara 
 tion of Independence, liberated the slaves, and founded 
 the free commonwealths which form the Republic of 
 the United States. 
 
 Platforms of principles, by petition or protest or 
 statement, have been as frequent as revolts against 
 established authority. They are a part of the political 
 literature of all nations. The Declaration of Independ 
 ence, proclaimed at Philadelphia, July Fourth, 1776, is 
 the only one of them which arrested the attention of 
 the world when it was published, and has held its 
 undivided interest ever since. The vocabulary of the 
 equality of man had been in familiar use by philoso 
 phers and statesmen for ages. It expressed noble 
 sentiments, but their application was limited to classes 
 or conditions. The masses cared little for them nor 
 remembered them long. Jefferson s superb crystalliza 
 tion of the popular opinion, that "all men are created 
 equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with 
 certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, 
 liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," had its force and 
 effect in being the deliberate utterance of the people. 
 It swept away in a single sentence kings and nobles, 
 peers and prelates. It was Magna Charta and the 
 Petition of Rights, planted in the virgin soil of the 
 American wilderness, and bearing richer and riper 
 fruit. Under its vitalizing influence upon the indi 
 vidual, the farmer left his plow in the furrow, the 
 lawyer his books and briefs, the merchant his shop, and 
 the workman his bench, to enlist in the patriot army. 
 They were fighting for themselves and their children. 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 13 
 
 They embodied the idea in their Constitution in the 
 immortal words with which that great instrument of 
 liberty and order began : " We, the people of the 
 United States, do ordain." 
 
 The scope and limitations of this idea of freedom 
 have neither been misinterpreted nor misunderstood. 
 The laws of nature, in their application to the rise and 
 recognition of men according to their mental, moral, 
 spiritual, and physical endowments, are left undisturbed. 
 But the accident of birth gives no rank and confers no 
 privilege. Equal rights and common opportunity for 
 all have been the spurs of ambition and the motors of 
 progress. They have established the common schools, 
 and built the public libraries. A sovereign people 
 have learned and enforced the lesson of free education. 
 The practice of government is itself a liberal education. 
 People who make their own laws need no lawgivers. 
 After a century of successful trial, the system has 
 passed the period of experiment, and its demonstrated 
 permanency arid power are revolutionizing the govern 
 ments of the world. It has raised the largest armies 
 of modern times for self-preservation, and at the suc 
 cessful termination of the war returned the soldiers to 
 the pursuits of peace. It has so adjusted itself to the 
 pride and patriotism of the defeated that they vie with 
 the victors in their support of and enthusiasm for the 
 old flag and our common country. Imported anar 
 chists have preached their baleful doctrines, but have 
 made no converts. They have tried to inaugurate a 
 reign of terror under the banner of the violent seizure 
 and distribution of property, only to be defeated, 
 imprisoned, and executed by the law made by the 
 
14 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 people and enforced by juries selected from the people, 
 and judges and prosecuting officers elected by the 
 people. Socialism finds disciples only among those 
 who were its votaries before they were forced to fly 
 from their native land, but it does not take root upon 
 American soil. The state neither supports nor per 
 mits taxation to maintain the Church. The citizen 
 can worship God according to his belief and conscience, 
 or he may neither reverence nor recognize the Al 
 mighty. And yet religion has flourished, churches 
 abound, the ministry is sustained, and millions of dol 
 lars are contributed annually for the evangelization of 
 the world. The United States is a Christian country, 
 and a living and practical Christianity is the character 
 istic of its people. 
 
 Benjamin Franklin, philosopher and patriot, amused 
 the jaded courtiers of Louis XVI. by his talks about 
 liberty, and entertained the scientists of France by 
 bringing lightning from the clouds. In the reckoning 
 of time, the period from Franklin to Morse and from 
 Morse to Edison is but a span, and yet it marks a 
 material development as marvelous as it has been 
 beneficent. The world has been brought into contact 
 and sympathy. The electric current thrills and unifies 
 the people of the globe. Power and production, high 
 ways and transports, have been so multiplied and 
 improved by inventive genius that within the century 
 of our Independence sixty-four millions of people have 
 happy homes and improved conditions within our 
 borders. We have accumulated wealth far beyond the 
 visions of the Cathay of Columbus, or the El Dorado 
 of De Soto. But the farmers and freeholders, the sav- 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 15 
 
 ings-banks and shops, illustrate its universal distribu 
 tion. The majority are its possessors and adminis 
 trators. In housing and living, in the elements which 
 make the toiler a self-respecting and respected citizen, 
 in avenues of hope and ambition for children, in all 
 that gives broader scope and keener pleasure to exist 
 ence, the people of this Republic enjoy advantages far 
 beyond those of other lands. The unequaled and 
 phenomenal progress of the country has opened 
 wonderful opportunities for making fortunes, and 
 stimulated to madness the desire and rush for the 
 accumulation of money. Material prosperity has not 
 debased literature nor debauched the press ; it has 
 neither paralyzed nor repressed intellectual activity. 
 American science and letters have received rank and 
 recognition in the older centers of learning. The 
 demand for higher education has so taxed the resources 
 of the ancient universities as to compel the foundation 
 and liberal endowment of colleges all over the Union. 
 Journals, remarkable for their ability, independence, 
 and power, find their strength, not in the patronage of 
 government, or the subsidies of wealth, but in the sup 
 port of a nation of newspaper readers. The humblest 
 and poorest person has, in periodicals whose price is 
 counted in pennies, a library larger, fuller, and more 
 varied than was within the reach of the rich in the time 
 of Columbus. 
 
 The sum of human happiness has been infinitely 
 increased by the millions from the Old World who 
 have improved their conditions in the New, and the 
 returning tide of lesson and experience has incalculably 
 enriched the Fatherlands. The divine right of kings 
 
1 6 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 has taken its place with the instruments of mediaeval 
 torture among the curiosities of the antiquary. Only 
 the shadow of kingly authority stands between the gov 
 ernment of themselves, by themselves, and the people 
 of Norway and Sweden. The union in one Empire of 
 the states of Germany is the symbol of Teutonic 
 power and the hope of German liberalism. The petty 
 despotisms of Italy have been merged into a nationality 
 which has centralized its authority in its ancient capi- 
 tol on the hills of Rome. France was rudely roused 
 from the sullen submission of centuries to intoler 
 able tyranny by her soldiers returning from service 
 in the American revolution. The wild orgies of the 
 Reign of Terror were the revenges and excesses of a 
 people who had discovered their power, but were not 
 prepared for its beneficent use. She fled from herself 
 into the arms of Napoleon. He too was a product of 
 the American experiment. He played with kings as 
 with toys, and educated France for liberty. In the 
 processes of her evolution from darkness to light, she 
 tried Bourbon, and Orleanist, and the third Napoleon, 
 and cast them aside. Now in the fullness of time, and 
 through the training in the school of hardest experi 
 ence, the French people have reared and enjoy a per 
 manent Republic. England of the Mayflower and of 
 James II., England of George III. and of Lord 
 North, has enlarged suffrage and is to-day animated 
 and governed by the democratic spirit. She has her 
 throne, admirably occupied by one of the wisest of 
 sovereigns and best of women, but it would not sur 
 vive one dissolute and unworthy successor. She has 
 her hereditary Peers, but the House of Lords will be 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 17 
 
 brushed aside the moment it resists the will of the 
 people. 
 
 The time has arrived for both a closer union and 
 greater distance between the Old World and the New. 
 The former indiscriminate welcome to our prairies, and 
 the present invitation to these palaces of art and indus 
 try, mark the passing period. Unwatched and un 
 healthy immigration can no longer be permitted to our 
 shores. We must have a national quarantine against 
 disease, pauperism, and crime. We do not want candi 
 dates for our hospitals, our poorhouses, or our jails. 
 We cannot admit those who come to undermine our 
 institutions or subvert our laws. But we will gladly 
 throw wide our gates for, and receive with open arms, 
 those who by intelligence and virtue, by thrift and 
 loyalty, are worthy of receiving the equal advantages of 
 the priceless gift of American citizenship. The spirit 
 and object of this exhibition are peace and kinship. 
 
 Three millions of Germans, who are among the best 
 citizens of the Republic, send greeting to the Father 
 land, their pride in its glorious history, its ripe litera 
 ture, its traditions and associations. Irish, equal in 
 number to those who still remain upon the Emerald 
 Isle, who have illustrated their devotion to their 
 adopted country on many a battlefield, fighting for the 
 Union and its perpetuity, have rather intensified than 
 diminished their love for the land of the shamrock, and 
 their sympathy with the aspirations of their brethren at 
 home. The Italian, the Spaniard, and the Frenchman, 
 the Norwegian, the Swede, and the Dane, the English, 
 the Scotch, and the Welsh, are none the less loyal and 
 devoted Americans because in this congress of their 
 
1 8 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 kin the tendrils of affection draw them closer to the 
 hills and valleys, the legends and the loves associated 
 with their youth. 
 
 Edmund Burke, speaking in the British Parliament 
 with prophetic voice, said: "A great revolution has 
 happened a revolution made, not by chopping and 
 changing of power in any of the existing states, but 
 by the appearance of a new state, of a new species, in 
 a new part of the globe. It has made as great a 
 change in all the relations and balances and gravita 
 tions of power as the appearance of a new planet 
 would in the system of a solar world/ Thus was the 
 humiliation of our successful revolt tempered to the 
 motherland by pride in the state created by her 
 children. If we claim heritage in Bacon, Shakspere, 
 and Milton, we also acknowledge that it was for liber 
 ties guaranteed Englishmen by sacred charters our 
 fathers triumphantly fought. While wisely rejecting 
 throne and caste and privilege and an Established 
 Church in their new-born state, they adopted the sub 
 stance of English liberty and the body of English law. 
 Closer relations with England than with other lands, 
 and a common language rendering easy interchanges 
 of criticisms and epithet, sometimes irritate and offend, 
 but the heart of republican America beats with respon 
 sive pulsations to the hopes and aspirations of the 
 people of Great Britain. 
 
 The grandeur and beauty of this spectacle are the 
 eloquent witnesses of peace and progress. The Par 
 thenon and the cathedral exhausted the genius of the 
 ancient, and the skill of the mediaeval architects, in 
 housing the statue or spirit of Deity. In their ruins 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 19 
 
 or their antiquity they are mute protests against the 
 merciless enmity of nations, which forced art to flee to 
 the altar for protection. The United States welcome 
 the sister republics of the southern and northern con 
 tinents, and the nations and peoples of Europe and 
 Asia, of Africa and Australia, with the products of 
 their lands, of their skill, and of their industry, to this 
 city of yesterday, yet clothed with royal splendor as 
 the Queen of the Great Lakes. The artists and arch 
 itects of the country have been bidden to design and 
 erect the buildings which shall fitly illustrate the height 
 of our civilization and the breadth of our hospitality. 
 The peace of the world permits and protects their 
 efforts in utilizing their powers for man s temporal 
 welfare. The result is this Park of Palaces. The 
 originality and boldness of their conceptions, and the 
 magnitude and harmony of their creations, are _ the 
 contributions of America to the oldest of the arts and 
 the cordial bidding of America to the peoples of the 
 earth to come and bring the fruitage of their age to 
 the boundless opportunities of this unparalleled exhi 
 bition. 
 
 If interest in the affairs of this world is vouchsafed 
 to those who have gone before, the spirit of Columbus 
 hovers over us to-day. Only by celestial intelligence 
 can it grasp the full significance of this spectacle and 
 ceremonial. 
 
 From the first century to the fifteenth counts for 
 little in the history of progress, but in the period be 
 tween the fifteenth and the twentieth are crowded the 
 romance and reality of human development. Life has 
 been prolonged, and its enjoyment intensified. The 
 
20 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES. 
 
 powers of the air and the water, the resistless force of 
 the elements, which in the time of the discoverer were 
 the visible terrors of the wrath of God, have been sub 
 dued to the service of man. Art and luxuries which 
 could be possessed and enjoyed only by the rich and 
 noble, the works of genius which were read and under 
 stood only by the learned few, domestic comforts and 
 surroundings beyond the reach of lord or bishop, now 
 adorn and illuminate the homes of our citizens. Serfs 
 are sovereigns and the people are kings. The trophies 
 and splendors of their reign are commonwealths, rich 
 in every attribute of the great states, and united in 
 a Republic whose power and prosperity, and liberty 
 and enlightenment, are the wonder and admiration of 
 the world. 
 
 All hail, Columbus, discoverer, dreamer, hero, and 
 apostle. We here, of every race and country, recog 
 nize the horizon which bounded his vision and the 
 infinite scope of his genius. The voice of gratitude 
 and praise for all the blessings which have been 
 showered upon mankind by his adventure is limited 
 to no language, but is uttered in every tongue. 
 Neither marble nor brass can fitly form his statue. 
 Continents are his monument, and unnumbered mil 
 lions, present and to come, who enjoy in their liberties 
 and happiness the fruits of his faith, will reverently 
 guard and preserve, from century to century, his name 
 and fame. 
 
II. 
 
 SPEECH AT DINNER GIVEN BY NEW YORK S WORLD S 
 FAIR COMMISSIONERS, AT DELMONICO S, DECEMBER 
 22, 1891, MR. DEPEW PRESIDING. 
 
 THE New York Commissioners are very glad to wel 
 come you here to-night. The National Commission 
 for the creation and promotion of the World s Fair, or 
 Columbian Exhibition, consists of three members from 
 each State. The New York members, Mr. Thacher, 
 Mr. Allen, and myself, have invited you to meet us, 
 not on account of the general interests of the Exhibi 
 tion, for its success as a whole is assured, but we wish 
 to consult with you as to the proper provision which 
 should be made for such a representation of our State 
 at the Exhibition as would be worthy of its position 
 among our sister commonwealths. 
 
 Unfortunately with us the question has been ob 
 scured by political claims aud considerations which 
 have not entered into the councils of other States, and 
 which have no place, legitimately or illegitimately, in 
 the consideration of the duties which devolve upon us. 
 
 This Exhibition is destined to be not only the most 
 phenomenal presentation of the industries, the arts, the 
 sciences, the education, and the civilization of this and 
 other countries, but its character is in all respects 
 purely national. The success of the Columbian Exhi- 
 
22 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 bition must not be impaired or retarded by local ambi 
 tions or jealousies anywhere. So far as New York is 
 concerned she has none. She has not acted in this 
 matter before because the time had not yet arrived. 
 She is now prepared to do her part in her own im 
 perial way. 
 
 Whenever a new State is organized there is always 
 fierce competition among rival cities for the position 
 of capital of the commonwealth. When the selection 
 is made controversy is forgotten, and the fortunate 
 place becomes thereafter the center of the official and 
 legislative life of the State. New York was the first 
 capital of the United States and continued so for many 
 years. The South and the West fiercely contended 
 for a change, and of course as the result of the con 
 troversy New York lost. Nevertheless she still remains 
 the first city of the continent and the center of its 
 enterprise and financial strength. Her size and 
 grandeur always have and always will unite all places 
 to dispose of her as the most dangerous competitor 
 before indulging in their own rivalries. But since 
 Washington became the capital New York has been 
 proud to be represented there by her ablest statesmen, 
 and to do her part to promote the glory and grandeur 
 of the Republic. 
 
 The great West beyond the Alleghenies, which has 
 made such marvelous growth in the last half-century 
 in population and agricultural and industrial wealth, 
 demanded and received the World s Fair for the city 
 of Chicago, which is in itself the most phenomenal 
 exhibit of American energy, enterprise, and civilization. 
 Whether the Exhibition had been at New York, 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 23 
 
 Chicago, St. Louis, or San Francisco, it would have 
 been, as it is now, the plain duty of each State to do 
 its best to promote an enterprise which means so much 
 for the industrial, agricultural, and educational inter 
 ests of our country. 
 
 The Centennial Exhibition of 1876 was a worthy 
 celebration of the completion of the first hundred 
 years of our independence. The country was still 
 staggering under the bankruptcy of the fearful panic 
 of 1873, but the exhibition placed our business upon 
 its feet and infused life and health into our credit. It 
 distributed to the remotest corners of our country that 
 instruction which materialized into new sources of 
 employment and development, and brought into circu 
 lation millions of dollars which otherwise would have 
 lain dormant or idle. 
 
 The exhibition two years ago at Paris saved the 
 French Republic from political destruction by turning 
 the commercial distress, which was prevalent through 
 out France, into happy and prosperous times. Three 
 hundreds of millions of dollars, or more, were in that 
 instance released from savings-banks and stockings, or 
 brought in from other nations to swell the tide of 
 French profit and progress. 
 
 Our Columbian Exhibition comes at a most oppor 
 tune time. The unprecedented crops which our fields 
 have produced this year, and the equally unprece 
 dented demand for our food products abroad will give 
 us for twelve months an exhilarating period of pros 
 perity. Farm mortgages will be paid off, new enter 
 prises will be started, old railroads will be extended, 
 and new ones will be constructed. Values will rise in 
 
24 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 the market price, everybody will be richer, and in 
 accord with the spirit and temper of our people, 
 credit will be strained to the utmost to realize the 
 largest returns from these phenomenal commercial 
 opportunities. In the ordinary course of financial 
 experience, over-trading and over-confidence, with 
 probably different relations another year between the 
 farm and the markets of the world, would be followed 
 by a corresponding collapse. But this great industrial 
 exhibition at Chicago will take up the frayed threads 
 of opportunity, too lavishly employed, and weave them 
 into new cables to draw the car of American progress. 
 The vast movement of peoples over railways, the 
 stimulus given to business at cities and railway centers, 
 the hundreds of millions of dollars brought into active 
 use which would otherwise be unemployed, will save 
 us as a nation from the dangers which threaten, and 
 crystallize into permanency thousands of enterprises 
 which otherwise would fail from lack of confidence or 
 capital. 
 
 The citizens of Chicago are to be complimented and 
 congratulated upon the courage and forethought which 
 have characterized their local preparations for this 
 grand event. They have already expended ten mil 
 lions of dollars of their own money, and their patri 
 otism and resources are not yet exhausted. But the 
 expense of this national enterprise should not be 
 wholly borne by the locality where Congress has 
 placed it. The nation should do its part to second 
 the efforts of the citizens of Chicago to make this 
 Exhibition surpass in every respect any ever yet held 
 in any country. 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEVV. 25 
 
 The grounds devoted to the Fair are more than 
 three times greater in area than the acres which the 
 Exhibition had at Paris in 1889. The buildings are 
 more numerous and very much larger than those which 
 astonished the visitors at the French capital. The 
 floor space in these magnificent structures \vill be five 
 times greater than at the Centennial Exhibition at 
 Philadelphia, and double that of the French Exhibi 
 tion at Paris. The cost of the preparations for the 
 Centennial was about five million dollars, of the French 
 Exhibition about ten millions, but for the Exhibition 
 at Chicago it will be seventeen millions. The build 
 ings themselves will be an industrial exhibition of the 
 highest character. They are designed by the most 
 distinguished of American architects. In proportion 
 and grandeur they excel the famed structures of other 
 lands. By modern invention and plastic art, the archi 
 tect is enabled to impress upon the eye all the effects 
 produced by the genius of Phidias and Praxiteles. 
 
 Our exhibition will be unique and distinct from its 
 predecessors at London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, in its 
 superb recognition of woman and her w r ork. A struc 
 ture equal in size and appointments to any except the 
 Machinery Hall at Paris, and designed by an American 
 girl, will demonstrate by its architectural beauty the 
 advance of women in this field, and the departments 
 housed in this superb structure, where woman s work 
 will be displayed, will fitly show what the United States 
 has done to ennoble and dignify womanhood, and give 
 her an opportunity to make her way in the arts and 
 industries. 
 
 At the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia, Morse s 
 
26 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 telegraph comprised almost the sum of our knowledge 
 of electricity ; but a building at Chicago twice as large 
 as Cooper Institute, devoted entirely to electrical appli 
 ances and inventions, will demonstrate by the advance 
 in one department the enormous progress of the coun 
 try in every department since then. 
 
 At the time of the Centennial Exhibition we had 
 45,000,000 people ; now our numbers reach the grand 
 total of 64,000,000. Then we had thirty-seven States, 
 but we have since added seven stars to our flag. Then 
 the product of our farms in cereals was about $2,200,- 
 000,000 ; now it is over $4,000,000,000. Then the out 
 put of our factories was about $5,000,000,000; now it 
 is over $7,000,000,000. Such progress, such develop 
 ment, such advance, such accumulation of wealth and 
 the opportunities for wealth wealth in the broad 
 sense, which opens new avenues for employment and 
 fresh chances for independence and for homes have 
 characterized no other similar period of recorded time. 
 
 It is an insult to the intelligence of our State to ask 
 what should be the place of New York in this grand 
 Exhibition. First in population, in manufactures, and 
 almost in agriculture; first in all the elements which 
 constitute a great and growing commonwealth, her 
 place in the emulous and friendly rivalry of sister States 
 in this grand Exhibition should be that which nature 
 and the enterprise of her people have given her. 
 
 Our markets are West, our competitors are West. 
 We must remove any prejudice that may exist against 
 our trade, and then command the markets by the 
 superiority and cheapness of our product. The oppor 
 tunity is before us to suffer great loss, or gain incaU 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 27 
 
 culable advantage. But aside from material considera 
 tions, New York has never failed, when patriotic effort 
 was demanded, to respond with volume and enthusiasm 
 which sustained her imperial position. In the presence 
 of this representative body, speaking for them and 
 through them for the people of the Commonwealth, I 
 can say to the country East and West, North and 
 South, " New York will be at the Columbian Exposi 
 tion, and she will be there in the full grandeur of her 
 strength and development." 
 
 The Columbian World s Exposition will be inter 
 national, because it will hospitably welcome and enter 
 tain the people and the products of every nation in the 
 world. It will give to them the fullest op ortunity to 
 teach us, and learn from us, and to open new avenues 
 of trade with our markets, and discover materials 
 which will be valuable in theirs. But its creation, its 
 magnitude, its location, its architecture, and its strik 
 ing and enduring features will be American. The city 
 in which it is held, taking rank among the first cities in 
 the world after an existence of only fifty years, is 
 American. The great inland fresh-water sea, whose 
 waves will dash against the shores of Jackson Park, is 
 American, The prairie, extending westward with its 
 thousands of square miles of land, a half-century ago 
 a wilderness, but to-day gridironed with railroads, 
 spanned with webs of electric wire, rich in prosperous 
 farms, growing villages, ambitious cities, and an ener 
 getic, educated, and progressive people, is purely 
 American. 
 
 The Centennial Exhibition of 1876 celebrated the 
 first hundred years of independence of the Republic of 
 
28 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES. 
 
 the United States. The Columbian Exhibition cele 
 brates the discovery of a continent which has become 
 the home of peoples of every race, the refuge for those 
 persecuted on account of their devotion to civil and 
 religious liberty, and the revolutionary factor in the 
 affairs of this earth, a discovery which has accom 
 plished more for humanity in its material, its intellec 
 tual and its spiritual aspects, than all other events since 
 the advent of Christ. 
 
III. 
 
 SPEECH NOMINATING PRESIDENT HARRISON FOR A 
 SECOND TERM AT THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL 
 CONVENTION, CHICAGO, JUNE IO, 1892. 
 
 Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention : 
 
 It is the peculiarity of Republican national conven 
 tions that each one of them has a distinct and interest 
 ing history. We are here to meet conditions and 
 solve problems which make this gathering not only no 
 exception to the rule, but substantially a new de 
 parture. 
 
 That there should be strong convictions and their 
 earnest expression as to preferences and policies is 
 characteristic of the right of individual judgment, 
 which is the fundamental principle of Republicanism. 
 There have been occasions when the result was so 
 sure that the delegates could freely indulge in the 
 charming privilege of favoritism and of friendship. 
 But the situation which now confronts us demands 
 the exercise of dispassionate judgment and our best 
 thought and experience. We cannot venture on un 
 certain ground or encounter obstacles placed in the 
 pathway of success by ourselves. The Democratic 
 party is now divided, but the hope of the possession 
 of power once more will make it, in the final battle, 
 more aggressive, determined, and unscrupulous than 
 
 29 
 
3 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 ever. It starts with fifteen States secure without an 
 effort, by processes which are a travesty upon popular 
 government, and if continued long enough will para 
 lyze institutions founded upon popular suffrage. It 
 has to win four more States in a fair fight, States 
 which in the vocabulary of politics are denominated 
 doubtful. 
 
 The Republican party must appeal to the conscience 
 and the judgment of the individual voter in every State 
 in the Union. This is in accordance with the princi 
 ples upon which it was founded and the objects for 
 which it contends. It has accepted this issue before 
 and fought it out with an extraordinary continuance 
 of success. The conditions of Republican victory from 
 1860 to 1880 were created by Abraham Lincoln and 
 Ulysses S. Grant. They were, that the saved republic 
 should be run by its saviors ; the emancipation of the 
 slaves, the reconstruction of the States, the reception 
 of those who had fought to destroy the Republic back 
 into the fold, without penalties or punishments, and to 
 an equal share with those who had fought and saved 
 the nation, in the solemn obligations and inestimable 
 privileges of American citizenship. They were the em 
 bodiment into the Constitution of the principles for 
 which two millions of men had fought and a half a 
 million had died. They were the restoration of public 
 credit, the resumption of specie payments, and the 
 prosperous condition of solvent business. 
 
 For twenty-five years there were names with which 
 to conjure and events fresh in the public mind, which 
 were eloquent with popular enthusiasm. It needed 
 little else than a recital of the glorious story of its 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DRPEIV. 31 
 
 heroes and a statement of the achievements of the Re 
 publican party to retain the confidence of the people. 
 But from the desire for change which is characteristic 
 of free governments there came a reversal, there came 
 a check to the progress of the Republican party and 
 four years of Democratic administration. 
 
 These four years largely relegated to the realm of 
 history past issues, and brought us face to face with 
 what Democracy, its professions, and its practices mean 
 to-day. 
 
 The great names which have adorned the roll of 
 Republican statesmen and soldiers are still potent and 
 popular. The great measures of the Republican party 
 are still the best part of the history of the century. 
 The unequaled and unexampled story of Republican 
 ism, in its promises and in its achievements, stands 
 unique in the record of parties in governments which 
 are free. But we live in practical times, facing practi 
 cal issues which affect the business, the wages, the 
 labor, and the prosperity of to-day. 
 
 The campaign will be won or lost, not upon the bad 
 record of James K^Polk or of Franklin Pierce or of 
 James Buchanan not upon the good record of Lincoln 
 or of Grant or of Arthur or of Hayes or of Garfield. 
 It will be won or lost upon the policy, foreign and 
 domestic, the industrial measures and the administrative 
 acts of the administration of Benjamin Harrison. 
 
 Whoever receives the nomination of this convention 
 will run upon the judgment of the people as to 
 whether they have been more prosperous and more 
 happy, whether the country has been in better condi 
 tion at home, and stood more honorably abroad under 
 
32 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 these last four years of Harrison and Republican 
 administration, than during the preceding four years of 
 Cleveland and Democratic government. 
 
 Not since Thomas Jefferson has any administration 
 been called upon to face and solve so many or such 
 difficult problems as those which have been exigent in 
 our conditions. No administration since the organi 
 zation of the government has ever met difficulties 
 better, or more to the satisfaction of the American 
 people. 
 
 Chile has been taught that no matter how small the 
 antagonist, no community can with safety insult the 
 flag or murder American sailors. Germany and Eng 
 land have learned in Samoa that the United States has 
 become one of the powers of the world, and no matter 
 how mighty the adversary, at every sacrifice American 
 honor will be maintained. The Bering Sea question, 
 which was the insurmountable obstacle in the diplomacy 
 of Cleveland and of Bayard, has been settled upon a 
 basis which sustains the American position, until arbi 
 tration shall have determined our right. 
 
 The dollar of the country has been placed and kept 
 on the standard of commercial nations, and a conven 
 tion has been agreed upon with foreign governments 
 which, by making bi-metallism the policy of all 
 nations, may successfully solve all our financial prob 
 lems. 
 
 The tariff, tinkered and trifled with to the serious 
 disturbance of trade and disaster to business since 
 the clays of Washington, has been courageously 
 embodied into a code a code which has preserved the 
 principle of the protection of American industries. 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 33 
 
 To it has been added a beneficent policy, supplemented 
 by beneficent treaties and wise diplomacy, which has 
 opened to our farmers and manufacturers the markets 
 of other countries. 
 
 The navy has been builded upon lines which will 
 protect American citizens and American interests and 
 the American flag all over the world. 
 
 The public debt has been reduced. The maturing 
 bonds have been paid off. The public credit has 
 been maintained. The burdens of taxation have been 
 lightened. Two hundred millions of currency have 
 been added to the people s money without disturbance 
 of the exchanges. Unexampled prosperity has 
 crowned wise laws and their wise administration. 
 
 The main question which divides us is, to whom 
 does the credit of all this belong ? Orators may stand 
 upon this platform, more able and more eloquent than 
 I, who will paint in more brilliant colors, but they can 
 not put in more earnest thought the affection and 
 admiration of Republicans for our distinguished Secre 
 tary of State. 
 
 I yield to no Republican, no matter from what State 
 he hails, in admiration and respect for John Sherman, 
 for Governor McKinley, for Thomas B. Reed, for 
 Iowa s great son, for the favorites of Illinois, Wiscon 
 sin, and Michigan. But when I am told that the credit 
 for the brilliant diplomacy of this administration 
 belongs exclusively to the Secretary of State, for the 
 administration of its finances to the Secretary of the 
 Treasury, for the construction of its ships to the Secre 
 tary of the Navy, for the settlement, so far as it has 
 been settled, of the currency question to Senator John 
 
34 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 Sherman, for the formulation of the tariff laws to 
 Governor McKinley, for the removal of the restric 
 tions placed by foreign nations upon the introduction 
 of American pork to our ministers at Paris and Berlin, 
 I am tempted to seriously inquire, who, during the 
 last four years, has been President of the United 
 States, anyhow. 
 
 Caesar, when he wrote those " Commentaries," which 
 were the history of the conquests of Europe under his 
 leadership, modestly took the position of ^Eneas when 
 he said, " They are the narrative of events, the whole 
 of which I saw, and a part of which I was." 
 
 General Thomas, as the rock of Chickamauga, 
 occupies a place in our history with Leonidas among 
 the Greeks, except that he succeeded where Leonidas 
 failed. The fight of Joe Hooker above the clouds was 
 the poetry of battle. The resistless rush of Sheridan 
 and his steed down the valley of the Shenandoah is the 
 lyric of our Civil War. The march of Sherman from 
 Atlanta to the sea is the supreme triumph of gallantry 
 and strategy. It detracts nothing from the splendor 
 of the fame or the merits of the deeds of his lieuten 
 ants to say that, having selected them with marvelous 
 sagacity and discretion, Grant still remained the 
 supreme commander of the national army. 
 
 All the proposed acts of any administration, before 
 they are formulated, are passed upon in Cabinet coun 
 cil, and the measures and suggestions of the ablest 
 Secretaries would have failed with a lesser President ; 
 but for the great good of the country and the benefit 
 of the Republican party, they have succeeded, because 
 of the suggestive mind, the indomitable courage, the 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 35 
 
 intelligent appreciation of situations, and the grand 
 magnanimity of Benjamin Harrison. 
 
 It is an undisputed fact that during the few months 
 when both the Secretary of State and the Secretary of 
 the Treasury were ill, the President personally assumed 
 the duties of the State Department and of the Treasury 
 Department, and both with equal success. 
 
 The Secretary of State, in accepting his portfolio 
 under President Garfield wrote : " Your administration 
 must be made brilliantly successful and strong in the 
 confidence and pride of the people, not at all diverting 
 its energies for re-election, and yet compelling that 
 result by the logic of events and by the imperious 
 necessities of the situation." Garfield fell before the 
 bullet of the assassin, and Mr. Elaine retired to private 
 life. General Harrison invited him to take up that 
 unfinished diplomatic career, where its threads had 
 been so tragically broken. He entered the Cabinet. 
 He resumed his work, and has won a higher place in 
 our history. The prophecy as made for Garfield has 
 been superbly fulfilled by President Harrison. In the 
 language of Mr. Elaine "the President has compelled a 
 re-election by the logic of events, and the imperious 
 necessities of the situation." 
 
 The man who is nominated here to-day, to win, must 
 carry a certain well-known number of the doubtful 
 States. Patrick Henry, in the convention which 
 started rolling the ball of colonial independence of 
 Great Britain, said : " I have but one lamp by which 
 my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experi 
 ence. I know of no way of judging of the future but 
 by the past." 
 
3 6 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 New York was carried in 1880 by General Garfield, 
 and in every important election since that time we have 
 done our best. We have put forth our ablest, our 
 most popular, our most brilliant leaders for Governor 
 and State officers to suffer constant defeat. The only 
 light which illumines with the sun of hope the dark 
 record of those twelve years, is the fact that in 1888 
 the State of New York was triumphantly carried by 
 President Harrison. He carried it then as a gallant 
 soldier, a wise senator, a statesman who inspired con 
 fidence by his public utterances in daily speech from 
 the commencement of the canvass to its close. He 
 still has all these claims, and, in addition, an adminis 
 tration beyond criticism and rich with the elements of 
 popularity with which to carry New York again. 
 
 Ancestry helps in the old world and handicaps in 
 the new. There is but one distinguished example of a 
 son first overcoming the limitations imposed by the 
 pre-eminent fame of his father, and then rising above 
 it, and that was when the younger Pitt became greater 
 than Chatham. 
 
 With an ancestor a signer of the Declaration of 
 Independence, and another who saved the Northwest 
 from savagery and gave it to civilization and empire, 
 and who was also President of the United States, a 
 poor and unknown lawyer of Indiana has risen by his 
 unaided efforts to such distinction as lawyer, orator, 
 soldier, statesman and President, that he reflects more 
 credit upon his ancestors than they have devolved 
 upon him, and presents in American history the 
 parallel of the younger Pitt. 
 
 By the grand record of a wise and popular adminis- 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 37 
 
 tration, by the strength gained in frequent contact 
 with the people in wonderfully versatile and felicitous 
 speech, by the claims of a pure life in public and in 
 the simplicity of a typical American home, I nominate 
 Benjamin Harrison. 
 
IV. 
 
 ADDRESS AT FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION AT 
 WOODSTOCK, CONN., 1892. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 I have been struck this morning, as I always am on 
 occasions where oratory is on tap, with the elasticity of 
 speech and the failure of the promise of the orators. 
 My friend General Hawley said to me as we were com 
 ing down in the carriage : " The practice of my piece 
 tells me I can get it off in three minutes, and I think 
 by saying it rapidly I can do it in two." It took him 
 thirty minutes. General Howard said: "I can read 
 my manuscript in fifteen minutes." He gave us twenty 
 minutes of extemporaneous talk, which was better than 
 his manuscript, and then he read for thirty minutes 
 more. I make no promise, because I am not on the 
 regular programme. I am a drafted subject, with a 
 speech that has been making itself, in one way or 
 another, for the past twenty-four hours. I am here as 
 a substitute for Postmaster General Wanamaker. He 
 did not send me his manuscript, and I never was 
 present on one of those occasions, and so will be unable 
 to repeat to you one of his famous Sunday-school 
 addresses. For eight years I have spent the Fourth of 
 July on the Atlantic Ocean. My vacation comes in 
 July and August, and every day that is taken out of it 
 takes about a year from my life. I believe that a man 
 
 38 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 39 
 
 who speaks as often as I do during the year should 
 during the month of July follow the example of the 
 town pump and dry up. To make a Fourth of July 
 speech, as I have done these eight years on an English 
 ship, under the British flag, to an audience composed 
 mostly of Englishmen who try to make you believe 
 they like it, is very difficult. It has given me a perfect 
 understanding of that thing of which we hear much in 
 politics, but which is said to be unpalatable to the 
 hungry man boiled crow. The ordinary Englishman 
 on the ship gives it a flavor with snuff, and then sneezes 
 the recollection of the day out of his mind when he 
 gets on deck. 
 
 General Howard rarely says a mean thing. It is not 
 in his nature, and I never knew him to do it until to 
 day. Knowing that I was disappointed in this trip of 
 mine across the ocean, because I stand as the only 
 American who is loyal to his mother-in-law, he abso 
 lutely turned to me and alluded to steamships. I have 
 been learning something since I have been here upon 
 this platform in regard to this spot. My friend Mr. 
 Bowen, whose accuracy and truthfulness I have never 
 doubted, says that the New England prophet and 
 preacher to the Indians delivered his addresses from 
 that hill. I asked him if he could support that histori 
 cal assertion by documents or the recollection of the 
 oldest inhabitant, and he changed the subject. But I 
 could not help thinking if Father Eliot is looking down 
 upon us to-day, as he doubtless is, how different must 
 seem to him the audience assembled in this grove and 
 the crowd to whom he was preaching in the Pequot 
 tongue 260 years ago. 
 
40 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 We all owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Bowen that 
 upon this spot where that reverend, famous, self-sacri 
 ficing, and eloquent missionary endeavored to convert 
 the Pequots he has created a park, " a thing of beauty 
 and a joy forever," for the pleasure of his neighbors 
 and the perpetuation of patriotism. 
 
 I believe in the Fourth of July precisely as General 
 Hawley quoted old John Adams. Old John Adams 
 never said it so well as Webster said it for him, but 
 that was not the fault of Mr. Adams. He put it in 
 the form of a prophecy. Unfortunately it was not 
 prophetic, but it did describe just exactly such a Fourth 
 of July as ought to be celebrated for all time to come 
 in every part of this country. When I was a boy, that 
 is the kind of Fourth of July that we had up in Peek- 
 skill. That three-pounder of mine, at four o clock in the 
 morning, I ranged in front of my father s house, waiting 
 for the rising sun to be greeted by the regulation ord 
 nance from Drum Hill, and then I joined in the general 
 salute. The firing of those cannons and the ringing of 
 those bells saturated the youth of that period with a 
 knowledge of the origin of this country, the principles 
 upon which it is founded, by the best way to teach 
 absorption. The proudest day of my life was when I 
 had an opportunity to participate as a principal in the 
 Fourth of July. I looked for years with awe at the 
 orator as he rode in the open barouche in the proces 
 sion. I listened to him with reverential attention. 
 The day came, the year I graduated, when I sat in the 
 back seat, on the right-hand side of the carriage, as the 
 orator of the day ; and when I stood on the platform 
 and got off the old familiar truths, I thought ambition 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 41 
 
 had culminated and there was no more in life to wish 
 for. But our civilization got too fine and too refined. 
 It became the fashion for about twenty years prior to 
 the Civil War to decry the Fourth of July. The 
 " 400 " in the great cities and the little towns, the 
 fashionable people, said noise is vulgar. Great heavens ! 
 That the American boy should be told that noise is 
 vulgar! If the poet failed to speak of the American 
 boy, I stand up for him now. On the Fourth of July 
 I like to see him touch off his cannon. I like to see 
 him shoot his pistol. I like to see him fire off his 
 crackers. I like to see him burn his fingers. I like to 
 see him come home at night yelling with pain and 
 hurrahing for his country ; and if he has oil and 
 plasters upon his face and hands for the next two 
 weeks, it is all right. 
 
 But it is not only the fashionable people who made 
 it unfashionable to celebrate the Fourth of July, but 
 the newspaper wits began to poke fun at the orator and 
 at his theme, and then came that most useful gentle 
 man in his place, but most disturbing element in our 
 civilization, outside of his place the college professor 
 and the Mugwump, and they said : " No more Fourth 
 of July in ours" (this is a temperance town, but I will 
 not explain the allusion), " because it cultivates and 
 perpetrates the national vice of brag." A Yankee who 
 would not brag on the fourth day of July is unworthy 
 of his birthright. No people have ever amounted to 
 anything in this world unless they have had a reverence 
 and a pride in their ancestry and their origin, unless 
 they have deified their heroes both in war and in states 
 manship. These assaults upon the Fourth of July 
 
42 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 closed the day for a proper celebration. These assaults 
 upon the Fourth of July shut up the doors of our 
 national university of patriotism. 
 
 We here, to-day, thank Henry C. Bowen that he has 
 opened those doors, and that he has kept them open 
 for twenty-one years. A classmate of mine was a mis 
 sionary for many years on the coast of Africa. He 
 took with him another college man who was in another 
 class in our time. I met him the other day and I said 
 to him : " Have you anything from the Coast of Africa 
 that will prolong life by adding to its humor?" "Well," 
 he said, " you know Brother Bumstead who went out 
 with me, and while I took my wife he went as a bach 
 elor. The New England Missionary Society thought 
 he would be much more useful if he had a wife, and so 
 they sent one out to him. The climate did not agree 
 with her, and she climbed the Golden Stairs. When 
 the news came back, the missionary society, still having 
 the same view, sent him another wife, and unfortunately 
 she became an angel. Then they selected a spinster 
 from the Berkshire Hills, who had withstood so many 
 New England winters they said she might beat any 
 African summer;" and my classmate said: " As Bum- 
 stead and I stood upon the sand when the ship came 
 in, his opera-glass was upon his eye intent upon the 
 only female on the deck, and he dropped the opera- 
 glass in the sand, and he said : Brother Brown, the ways 
 of Providence are mysterious and past finding out. 
 Red hair and for the third time ! I hope Brother 
 Bowen will have the Goddess of Liberty here with her 
 hair so red that it will paint the whole American con 
 tinent with the brightest vermilion for all time to come. 
 
CHAUNCEY M. ^fi^^g^^^ 43 
 
 There is this peculiarity about nations who properly 
 regard and properly reverence their origin, their heroes, 
 their founders, that no internal dissension and no ex 
 ternal foe can ever succeed in keeping them in subjec 
 tion. There is this peculiarity about nations and 
 peoples who have no imagination, no reverence for the 
 past, no glorifying and enlarging of their history that 
 they are easily conquered, and their territory dis 
 appears from the map of nations. The most remark 
 able example of this principle is the German people. 
 For two thousand years they have felt the buffets of 
 wars, of invasions ; but they never have been success 
 fully conquered and kept in subjection. The memory 
 of their chieftains who fought and finally defeated the 
 Roman legions under the greatest generals of ancient 
 times kept their patriotism alive, kept their determina 
 tion to be a free and united people always vigorous 
 and strong. The memory and the worship and the 
 enlargement of the heroism of Frederick the Great 
 unified the German people and created the German 
 Empire, the mightiest nation in Europe to-day. Be 
 cause Rome two thousand years ago was mistress of 
 the world, the Italian people, bearing it in mind, learn 
 ing it in their schools, having it stamped upon their 
 hearts and upon their brains, worked, labored, fought, 
 and died, until Rome once again was the capital of 
 Italy. 
 
 We have in our American list of the things to be 
 proud of one which is superior to that possessed by 
 any other nation now or any other nation which has 
 ever existed, and that is American liberty. Ameri 
 can liberty has a quality which no republic possessed 
 
44 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 in ancient, mediaeval, or modern times. The struggle 
 of people to be free has been going on ever since 
 Christ declared for the equality and the freedom of 
 mankind, but so firm, so strong, so steel-clasped, so 
 unbreakable were the shackles of custom, of caste, and 
 of privilege that for nearly two thousand years the 
 struggle for liberty in every country was the struggle 
 for the liberty of the few. The republics of Italy were 
 only republics in name, and died because they did not 
 have the divine spark to keep alive their institutions. 
 Runnymede is glorious, and the principles of Magna 
 Charta are the charter of liberty; but at the time it 
 was enunciated it was only liberty for the barons. The 
 Poles under Kosciusko and the Magyars under Kos- 
 suth, the Hollanders under William of Orange and the 
 English under Cromwell, did not fight for the liberties 
 which we understand and enjoy. The Pilgrims on 
 Plymouth rock were the real revolutionists and the real 
 rebels against British authority, kingly rule, and a state 
 Church. The charter framed in the cabin of the 
 Mayflower, with its declaration of just and equal 
 rights, was the dynamite which has blown up thrones, 
 broken the crust of caste, and destroyed the power of 
 privilege. It was the germ which, under the hand of 
 Jefferson, flowered into the Declaration of Independ 
 ence. To the resistless force of that Mayflower utter 
 ance of 1620, of the equality of all men before the law, 
 Cornwallis surrendered his sword at Yorktown and Lee 
 at Appomattox ! 
 
 The philosophers of the French Revolution thought 
 that they understood liberty, but they were misled by 
 the old idea that every man is absolutely at liberty to 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 45 
 
 do as he wishes, that he has surrendered certain of his 
 inalienable rights to the community, and in certain con 
 tingencies he may take them back. That is not Ameri 
 can liberty. That is a false doctrine. Cain believed 
 that when he killed Abel. But in the family of Adam 
 the liberty of every child, and of Adam and Eve them 
 selves, was a liberty to work out the best and highest 
 destiny possible to them, but with a due regard to the 
 rights of every other member of the family. There 
 was nothing surrendered because nothing w r as ever 
 granted to any man who wronged his neighbor. We 
 live in a period when it is our pride to say and it is 
 the truth that our nation is freer from perils and 
 dangers of every kind than it has been at any other 
 period of its existence. A nation that has uprooted 
 slavery; a nation that has throttled anarchy; a nation 
 that has overcome bankruptcy and risen triumphantly 
 with its integrity above the heresies of fiat money need 
 fear no peril for the future. 
 
 We behold to-day in Russia, with horror, the amaz 
 ing spectacle in the nineteenth century of the whole 
 power of the government brought to bear upon three 
 millions of Hebrews to treat them as aliens and as 
 enemies. They have been for three hundred years 
 the subjects and the citizens of the Russian Empire ; 
 and yet the whole power of the state, of its army, of 
 its civil force, is brought to bear to deprive them of 
 the opportunities of employment and to refuse them, 
 except within certain limits, the right to live in the 
 country where their ancestors have lived for ten to 
 twenty generations. It is because monarchical institu 
 tions, autocratic institutions, class institutions do not 
 
46 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 possess the power of assimilation and of homogeneity. 
 In the past fifty years fifteen millions of people have 
 come to this country from abroad. They belonged to 
 every race, they spoke every language but our own. 
 They worshiped in every form, under every symbol, 
 and in every creed. But American liberty solved the 
 problem. These people did not know about our insti 
 tutions, or understand them. They had been taught 
 to believe that liberty was license, and yet the solvent 
 power of American liberty made them citizens and 
 gave to the immigrant of a few years ago the same 
 rights before the law, and in making the law, that is 
 possessed by the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers. 
 These fifteen millions of people, under the operation of 
 this glorious principle, have become bone of our bone, 
 flesh of our flesh. They have aided in the develop 
 ment of the country; they have assisted in increasing 
 its wealth, its power, and its glory, and have marched 
 with equal step and equal love under the old flag for 
 the preservation of the glorious Republic which had 
 made them free. I have no patience with the weak- 
 kneed, spindle-shanked, hollow-stomached, water- 
 brained, and spirit-logged creatures who despair of this 
 Republic. 
 
 I have no sympathy and only contempt for watery 
 patriotism. I know men who invest abroad because 
 they see the shadow of an anarchy and communism 
 which is to touch their possessions. I know men who 
 live abroad to get out from under the American ava 
 lanche. I hope they will never return. We neither 
 want them, nor do we want the offspring of such 
 stock. What are our perils? In comparison with what 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 47 
 
 we have gone through and overcome, they are nothing. 
 Our dyspeptic friends talk about the glory of the old 
 time and how we have fallen away in manners and in 
 morals. Why, the early records spoke of the exceed 
 ing drunkenness among the clergy of Virginia, and 
 there is no such record attaching to any Church, in any 
 denomination, in any State, in any township of the 
 United States to-day. The eighteenth century, I have 
 just been informed since I have been on this platform, 
 had for its inventions by Americans two things the 
 lightning-rod and shingle nails but the nineteenth cen 
 tury has contributed more to the happiness of man 
 and the glory of God than all the centuries which pre 
 ceded it. General Washington s administration and his 
 Republic were rocked to the center by a whisky rebel 
 lion in a county in Pennsylvania, but in our time thirteen 
 States and a million of men, and Americans at that, in 
 arms against the Republic for its overthow, only placed 
 it on firmer foundations with purer liberty. Pah ! for 
 your good old times. The best time is to-day, except 
 to-morrow. 
 
 I like to brag on the Fourth of July. I was invited 
 by a clerical classmate of mine most of my classmates 
 became ministers, and I am glad of it, because they say 
 they keep praying for me, and I keep preying on my 
 fellow-men, and we are both satisfied he said : " Come 
 around to my church. I have a young minister from 
 New Haven who is going to try himself this morning." 
 So I went around. The young clergyman was tremu 
 lous and fearful, and he took for his text the verse: 
 " And Enoch walked with God : and he was not, for God 
 took him." He said that Enoch was not an Episcopa- 
 
48 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 lian, because he did not go to theater or dance. Enoch 
 was not a Methodist, because he never fell from grace. 
 Enoch was not a Presbyterian, because he believed 
 that there were other men as good as he. Enoch was 
 not a Baptist, because he did not think that the quantity 
 of water made any difference. But Enoch was a Con- 
 gregationalist, because he walked with God. Now, 
 Enoch was not a Russian under the Russian autocracy, 
 nor a German under the German Empire, nor an Italian 
 under the Italian Kingdom, nor an Irishman nor an Eng 
 lishman nor a Welshman under the British Queen ; but 
 he was all of them under the American flag, standing 
 within the borders of the American Republic, because 
 he walked with God and under the aegis of American 
 liberty ! We have the peril of the saloon ; but we will 
 overcome it. The saloon destroys eighty thousand 
 youths a year, and sends them to drunkards graves ; 
 but we will control it. That we have not yet found 
 the way is simply an incentive to the genius of the 
 American people, to the Government, to find the way. 
 We hear much said about the perils of great wealth, 
 but great wealth has been accumulated in this country 
 in the last fifty years because of great opportunities 
 of which masterful men availed themselves. That great 
 wealth is dissipated or squandered or distributed, and, 
 with few exceptions, disappears in the second or third 
 generation. My experience as an attorney and coun 
 sel for men of large wealth, with an unusual clientage 
 of that sort and of unusual number, for the past twenty- 
 five years, has been that eight-tenths of them lose their 
 fortunes in their lifetime. But while these men, owing 
 to the invention of the sewing-machine, owing to the 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 49 
 
 discovery of oil wells, owing to the discovery of mines 
 of thfe different metals, owing to the inventions with 
 electricity and with steam, have accumulated great for 
 tunes, because they could master the forces, they have 
 taken nothing from the country, but have added to it, 
 and millions have marched with them in the accumula 
 tion of money, though not so much. The country 
 never had so many homes owned by the occupants, 
 and never had such good incomes, such general distri 
 bution of property, and such good wages as it has 
 to-day. As I was riding up here yesterday afternoon, 
 Mr. Bowen pointed out to me a farmer s house in which 
 he said was born and reared, in this town, a man who 
 went out from this town and by his capacity to grasp 
 an invention in rubber and utilize it, has made ten mil 
 lions of dollars. Is this town the poorer? Some day 
 he will leave a million of it to the town. Henry C. 
 Bowen went out from this town a hundred or two 
 years ago to make his way in the world, and he has 
 made it. He cut a broad swath. The whole town 
 looked at him. He made a fortune I hope it is ten 
 millions and he came back here. And what did the 
 town lose, and what did it gain ? Part of what it 
 gained we are enjoying to-day. 
 
 You have the perils of immigration. Well, we do 
 not intend that this shall be the dumping ground of 
 the world. I would be willing to leave the formula 
 tion of the methods by which immigration should be 
 brought within safe limitations and restrictions to rep 
 resentatives of the Irish, German, Scandinavian, and 
 Italian societies of the United States. We want no 
 contract labor to pauperize our industries; no crimi- 
 
50 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 nals to prey upon our communities and fill our prisons; 
 no lepers to debase our blood and deplete our hgspital 
 funds. But we still have room for the honest, the 
 healthy, the industrious, and the intelligent, who come 
 to us to improve their condition and add to our na 
 tional strength. We have the peril of corporations, 
 but corporations are the creatures of the law, and the 
 people who make the laws have the control of them 
 in their own hands, and when the community say they 
 are afraid of a corporation, why, then, send an honest 
 man to the Legislature and fix the law to suit your 
 selves. 
 
 We have the peril of trusts; but if a trust is outside 
 of the law, let the legal authorities bring it within its 
 jurisdiction. If the law which permits the trust de 
 stroys competition, destroys business, restrains com 
 merce, then amend the law and make the monopoly 
 amenable to its power. 
 
 Fellow-citizens, this is the Fourth of July. The 
 Fourth of July gives perfume to the whole air which 
 encircles this globe. Every man, woman, and child 
 who breathes it, no matter where he or she is, feels 
 the better for it. There is not a liberal sentiment 
 where civilization is known that is not quickened on the 
 Fourth of July. It reaches the hut of the peasant, 
 and it enters the tent of the conscript. The one says: 
 " There is for me and for my children something better 
 than this hut." The other says : " Why should I fight 
 to uphold thrones and cut the throat of my brother to 
 maintain caste and privilege?" The Fourth of July 
 lifts the thought, the aspirations, the prayers of the 
 people of all countries to higher planes of living, think- 
 
CIIAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 51 
 
 ing, and dying. Why, it is a university, a college, a 
 high school, a common school it is a liberal educa 
 tion in patriotism and manhood. The Fourth of July 
 immortalizes Cromwell in Westminster Abbey, after 
 kings have hung his bones on the gibbet. It fills the 
 proudest panel in the proudest legislative hall in the 
 world the House of Lords with the picture of the 
 Landing of the Pilgrims. The Fourth of July created 
 the French Republic, and was the force with which it 
 broke the power of imperialism, of monarchy, of Bou- 
 langerism, of anarchy and communism, and perpet 
 uated the Republic s life. 
 
 All hail the glorious Fourth ! Let us, speaking for 
 ourselves and for all our sixty-three millions of people, 
 keep true to the conditions of the Fourth of July. Let 
 us deify the memories of Washington, of Hamilton, of 
 Jefferson, of Roger Sherman, of Oliver Ellsworth, of 
 John Hancock, of the two Adamses, of Schuyler, and 
 of Greene. Let us take new hope, new strength, from 
 each recurring celebration. Let grateful nations for 
 unnumbered generations proclaim what the Fourth 
 of July is, what it means, what it has done. Let our 
 own people march down the ages in each century, 
 gathering larger fruits from the lessons of this day, 
 with the Bible for their guide in morals and conduct, 
 the Constitution for their text-book of liberty and gov 
 ernment, and the flag for their symbol of patriotism 
 and of liberty, of faith and of good works. 
 
V. 
 
 FOURTH OF JULY ORATION, DELIVERED AT 
 SING SING, N. Y., 1876. 
 
 WE stand to-day in the presence of the most impor 
 tant hundred years in history. In everything which 
 adds to the comfort and happiness of man ; in achieve 
 ments which ennoble and adorn our common human 
 nature ; in discoveries which alleviate suffering, anni 
 hilate space, and increase the sources of wealth and 
 prosperity ; in the extension of Christian and philan 
 thropic efforts ; in scientific research ; in activity of 
 thought; in freedom of discussion, and in the spread 
 and growth of liberty, this century has no equal. It 
 has given us the steamship, the railroad, the telegraph. 
 It has bridged oceans, wedded seas, and belted the 
 globe with lightning. It has brought all nations in 
 close contact and under the influence of a common 
 and enlightened public opinion. It has overturned the 
 despotisms of ages, established widely representative 
 government and a recognition of the rights of the 
 individual man. It has enfranchised the slave, and 
 given to humanity and the world the American 
 Republic. 
 
 In the early days it was accounted that he would be 
 a fortunate and happy man who should see a century 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 53 
 
 of independence. Amid the hostile predictions of 
 its enemies, and the doubts of its friends, occasioned 
 by the utter prostration of business and credit, and the 
 disagreements and distrust which followed for a while 
 the Revolutionary War, a conviction grew that if the 
 nation, with its institutions intact, its liberties secure, 
 its territories unimpaired, passed the magic period 
 of one hundred years, its prosperity and greatness 
 were assured for endless generations. While in the 
 localities all over the land made sacred by the 
 blood of patriots and their great deeds, the people 
 are assembling to celebrate their several centennials, 
 and the grand panorama, with its pictured story, 
 beginning with Concord and Lexington and Bunker 
 Hill, majestically unfolds, with what emotions do 
 we entertain the crowding memories of those heroic 
 days! 
 
 As Antaeus in his battle renewed his strength 
 whenever he touched his mother earth, so shall the 
 Republic live as long as its children recall, to fol 
 low and imitate, the examples of their revolutionary 
 sires. 
 
 This day rounds and completes the first century of 
 the Republic, and we behold, and are the citizens of a 
 nation broader in territorial expanse, richer in material 
 wealth, stronger in every element of empire, exerting 
 a wider and more beneficent influence, and possessing 
 a grander freedom than dreamed of by its founders. 
 No survivor of the Revolution remains to us. We 
 cannot gather, as did the preceding generation, about 
 the knees of the aged veteran while he " shoulders his 
 crutch and shows how fields were won." The won- 
 
54 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 derful events which have intervened, our material 
 progress, the great Civil War, with its sorrows and 
 sacrifices so fresh in our memories, have relegated 
 to a dim and distant past the stirring incidents of 
 1776. I conceive no duty more urgent, no task more 
 grateful, than to gather and present whatever there 
 may be of history which sanctifies and enriches the 
 immediate spot whereon we stand. For any review 
 of the years from 1774 to 1783, from Concord to 
 Yorktown, would be sadly incomplete which did not 
 give a conspicuous position to our old County of 
 Westchester. 
 
 For ten long years the colonists struggled, petitioned, 
 remonstrated with the mother country for their rights. 
 They asked for no new privileges, no unusual powers, 
 but simply to be left undisturbed in the enjoyment of 
 rights guaranteed by their charters, and secured to 
 every subject of Great Britain by the successive victo 
 ries of a thousand years over the arbitrary pretensions 
 of the Crown. But a ministry goaded by greed and 
 financial embarrassments became the instruments of 
 tryanny to oppress, and of Providence to consolidate 
 and enfranchise, the American people. We had every 
 material and natural facility for manufactures and yet 
 were prohibited from making any article of wear, any 
 implement of agriculture, any weapon of the chase or 
 of war, or from buying them from any source but Great 
 Britain. With large surplus productions from our 
 industries, and every element of prosperous commerce, 
 we were forbidden to trade except with the mother 
 country ; we were taxed without a voice as to the taxes 
 imposition or expenditure ; we were commanded to 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 55 
 
 quarter and maintain the troops sent to keep us in sub 
 jection ; we were forbidden to assemble or bear arms ; we 
 were to have no longer any voice in the appointment 
 or control of our legislators, judges, county or town 
 officers; and the sacred right of trial by jury was to 
 be violated by the transportation of our citizens be 
 yond the sea for trial. While Adams and Hancock in 
 Massachusetts, Jefferson and Henry in Virginia, and 
 other colonial statesmen were eloquently protesting 
 against these tyrannies, and educating the people to 
 die freemen rather than live slaves, Westchester, in 
 her town meetings and county conventions, was pass 
 ing resolutions of encouragement and defiance ; and 
 her Jays and Van Cortlandts and Morrises in the State 
 Provincial Congress, and out of it, were doing more 
 than all others to keep New York true to the common 
 cause. On the loth day of August, 1774, the free 
 holders and inhabitants of the town of Rye met and 
 appointed John Thomas, Jr., Robert Bloomer, Zeno Car 
 penter, and Ebenezer Haviland, a committee to confer 
 with the other towns in the county, and the assem 
 bly spoke as follows : " This meeting, greatly alarmed 
 at the late proceedings of the British Parliament in 
 order to raise revenue in America, and considering 
 their late most cruel, unjust, and unwarrantable act of 
 blocking up the Port of Boston, having a direct tend 
 ency to deprive a free people of their most valuable 
 rights and privileges, an introduction to subjugate the 
 inhabitants of the English Colonies, and render them 
 vassals to the British House of Commons," Resolved, 
 1st, That " they would bear true allegiance to the King, 
 but only under the enjoyment of the same constitu- 
 
56 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 tional rights and privileges as the people of England." 
 2d, That " no man should be taxed except by his own 
 consent or that of his representative in Parliament/ 
 3d, That it was the " opinion of the meeting that the 
 Act of Parliament shutting up the Port of Boston was 
 a most rigorous and unjust piece of cruelty and des 
 potism." 4th. They advised unanimity and firmness 
 in the colonies ; and 5th. They called for a General 
 Congress, and agreed to abide by its decisions. Similar 
 resolutions declaring " that the Acts of the British 
 Parliament are arbitrary and oppressive, and should 
 meet the abhorrence and detestation of all good men," 
 were passed by the other towns, and in due time the 
 County Convention met at White Plains and acted in 
 the spirit of these resolutions. Such was the attitude of 
 this county, and such its public acts on the great ques 
 tions at issue, 102 years ago, and a year before the 
 battle of Concord. On the loth of May, 1775, another 
 great war meeting was held at White Plains, and after 
 the retirement of the Tory element, sent there to make 
 trouble, they unanimously resolved " to send Deputies 
 to meet the Deputies from the other counties, for the 
 purpose of electing delegates to represent the Colony 
 of New York, in the General Congress of all the Colo 
 nies at Philadelphia," and in the list of those delegates 
 occur the well-known county names of Colonel Lewis 
 Morris, Stephen Ward, Daniel Drake, Colonel James 
 Holmes, John Thomas, Jr., Jonathan Platt, Robert 
 Graham, and Philip Van Cortlandt. Among the reso 
 lutions of that County Convention was one of thanks 
 to the patriotic minority of the General Assembly of 
 the Province, who strove to commit that body, then 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 57 
 
 controlled by English and aristocratic influences, 
 to a support of the Sons of Liberty, who were 
 compelling the tea ships to sail out of the harbor 
 of New York without unloading their cargo, and 
 forcing the Royal Governor to return his stamps 
 to the English Government ; and the leaders in that 
 brave and gallant minority were John Thomas and 
 Pierre Van Cortlandt, the representatives from this 
 county. 
 
 In June, 1776, the Provincial Congress, sitting in 
 New York, alarmed by the near approach of the 
 British, adjourned to White Plains. They came in 
 no palace cars or comfortable coaches. Combining in 
 their office the civilian and the soldier, and wielding 
 the pen or the sword, as the exigency demanded, they 
 moved on horseback with Pierre Van Cortlandt, their 
 president, at their head ; and as often upon the jour 
 ney as the express of the commander-in-chief overtook 
 them, calling for immediate action upon some urgent 
 matter of supplying men, arms, or material of war, 
 they wheeled their horses together, convened their 
 body, passed the requisite legislation, and moved on, 
 their discussions distinguished by none of the gar 
 rulous and endless gabble of the modern legislature. 
 On the Qth of July, 1776, the Provincial Congress, then 
 in session at the court house in White Plains, received 
 the Declaration of Independence from the Continental 
 Congress at Philadelphia. Accompanying it was a 
 letter from John Hancock, burning with fervid patriot 
 ism and hopeful prophecy. In front of the court 
 house, in the presence of the Congress and the assem 
 bled people, the immortal document was read, and 
 
58 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 then and there they pledged their fortunes and 
 their lives that the late Colony and now Sovereign 
 State of New York should join with and stand 
 by the other Colonies in sustaining it to the end. 
 Early in 1776 the whole power of the British navy, 
 army, and Hessian mercenaries, was concentrated for 
 the capture of the City of New York, and Wash 
 ington marched to its defense with all the Conti 
 nental forces. 
 
 After the disastrous battle of Long Island and the 
 defeat upon Harlem Heights, the American troops 
 retreated into Westchester, and from thence till the 
 close of the struggle for six long and terrible years 
 it was the theater in which were enacted all the 
 horrors of war. Hostile forces marched and counter 
 marched across its fields. The terrible onset of open 
 combat, the ambuscade, the midnight surprise, red 
 dened with blood every hamlet and cross-road. The 
 Hessian, the cow-boy, and the skinner pillaged and 
 outraged at will, and the track of the marauder was 
 marked by the flames of burning houses and the wail- 
 ings of helpless women and children. The inhabitants 
 of the neutral ground could keep no stock, for it was 
 stolen; could have no furniture, for it was taken from 
 them or wantonly destroyed ; could raise no crops, for 
 they were carried to the camps ; could cut no grass, 
 for it was foraged ; and frequently, without regard to 
 age or sex, they were stripped of necessary clothing in 
 the depths of hard winters. But I cannot find that any 
 proposition for surrender was ever entertained, or 
 prayer for submissive peace ever uttered. Steadily 
 they furnished their quotas, to the patriot army, and 
 
CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 59 
 
 sullenly, defiantly, yet hopefully, battled for liberty 
 and peace. It was the aim of the British to make 
 New York City their center of operations and great 
 depot of supplies, to control the North River, and 
 make a junction with their forces in Canada, and cut 
 off the Eastern from the Southern and Western States. 
 For this purpose it was necessary to capture and hold 
 the Hudson highlands and West Point; but the latter 
 resisted both treason and assault, and the Westchester 
 hills, defended by her sons and their compatriots, were 
 never successfully carried and held. On the I2th of 
 October, 1776, the British landed on Throg s Neck in 
 this county, and by the iSth the whole English army 
 was encamped near New Rochelle, with the intention 
 of getting in Washington s rear and cutting him off, 
 or driving him to a disastrous retreat. But the Amer 
 ican general divined their purpose, and steadily and 
 skillfully withdrew his forces, interposing every ob 
 stacle to his adversary s advance, and frequently win 
 ning, in skirmish and sudden assault, those advantages 
 which distract an enemy and vastly inspirit a new 
 army. 
 
 General Sullivan attacked the vanguard on the 
 march, and astonished the veterans by the dash and 
 the steadiness of his raw troops. Colonel Rogers, a 
 Tory leader, had won great fame as a partisan ranger 
 in the old French and Indian wars; but with all his 
 wariness and prestige, Colonel Haslet, with a Delaware 
 regiment, surprised and defeated his command, and 
 killed or captured nearly every one of them near Nel 
 son s Hill, in the town of Mamaroneck ; while on 
 another road, Hand and his Pennsylvania riflemen en- 
 
60 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 gaged and completely routed a body of the dreaded 
 Hessians. In the meanwhile Washington had deter 
 mined to make a stand at White Plains, and for that 
 purpose had thrown up intrenchments through the vil 
 lage and upon the hills about. On the 2/th of Octo 
 ber, while examining the works already finished and 
 planning others, a light horsemen, at full speed, dashed 
 up and informed him that the enemy were in motion. 
 Washington rode to headquarters, was told that the 
 guards had been beaten in, cried to his officers : " Gen 
 tlemen, you will repair to your respective commands, 
 and do the best you can," and the battle began. It 
 was a trying moment for the Patriot Chief ; under him 
 was an army of whom two-thirds were raw militia, un 
 disciplined, ununiformed, badly armed ; while march 
 ing to the assault, in splendid array, were thirteen 
 thousand of the flower of the British and German 
 forces, veterans of many battlefields in many lands, 
 and armed and equipped with every known appliance 
 of war. 
 
 General Howe moved forward with one division of 
 the British to attack our intrenchments in the village, 
 while the other marched to assault the slight works 
 erected by the Americans the night before on Chatter- 
 ton s Hill. When opposite the village intrenchments, 
 the horsemen in advance were suddenly sent back in 
 disorder by the well-directed fire of our cannon, and 
 the general officers, hastily holding a consultation in 
 the field, immediately changed their course to the left, 
 toward Chatterton s Hill, where their first division 
 was already engaged. Here Howe made his great 
 mistake ; the intrenchments in the village were very 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 61 
 
 weak, composed only of earth and sods, on heaps of 
 cornstalks, and afforded no protection against cannon- 
 balls, and an attack upon them might have led to the 
 dispersion, if not the destruction of the American army. 
 With twenty pieces of artillery they opened a furious 
 cannonade upon the works on Chatterton s Hill to 
 cover their crossing of the Bronx, while young Cap 
 tain Alexander Hamilton, with a battery of two guns, 
 answered from the table-rock on the top. Slowly 
 General McDougall retires up the hill, contesting every 
 inch of ground, and successfully opposing his poorly 
 equipped patriots to the superb discipline of the 
 enemy; but on the one side are only discipline and 
 brute courage ; on the other are muskets which think, 
 and men who have for years pledged and taught that 
 " they were ready to sacrifice their estates, and every 
 thing dear in life- yea, life itself in support of the 
 common cause." Hamilton with his guns swept whole 
 platoons off the face of the hill, and drove them back 
 twice in confusion to the river ; but at length, out 
 flanked, outnumbered five to one, the Americans, 
 under cover of the support of General Putnam and 
 his reserves, withdrew to the intrenchments in the vil 
 lage, carrying off their wounded and artillery, and 
 leaving behind only their shattered fortifications. 
 The British rested upon their arms all night, and 
 fearing to pursue or continue the assault upon the 
 new position Washington had taken in the North 
 Castle Hills, retreated back to the Harlem River. 
 This battle kept open the all-important communica 
 tion with the East, the source of most of our supplies, 
 saved the highland passes, prevented the junction of 
 
62 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 the British in Canada and New York, and the dismem 
 berment of the Colonies. We pass by four eventful 
 years, and on an August day in 1780 see Benedict 
 Arnold and Washington at Peekskill. The latter has 
 just commissioned the former to the command of West 
 Point, the most important position in his gift the key 
 to the fortunes of the Republic. It is one of the dark 
 est summers of the whole revolutionary struggle ; dis 
 asters and defeats had dispirited the nation. Lincoln 
 surrendered at Charleston with five thousand men, and 
 vast materials of war. Gates was beaten at Camden, 
 with great loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners, and 
 his whole army routed and dispersed. The South was 
 prostrate, the East overrun, the credit of the Republic at 
 its lowest ebb. The remnant of the Continental army 
 shared the general gloom and distress, and was held 
 together mainly by the wisdom, prudence, influence, 
 and thoughtful solicitude of Washington. The Com 
 mittee of Congress reported: " The soldiers unpaid for 
 months, the provisions irregular and insufficient, the 
 medical department without supplies for the sick, and 
 every department of the service alike without money, 
 and not even a shadow of credit left," while the Con 
 tinental currency in which they were paid had so de 
 preciated in value that their families were suffering 
 from inability to purchase with it the necessaries of 
 life. At this most propitious moment for the enemy, 
 he determined at one stroke to end the war. If he 
 could capture West Point, he would gain possession 
 of much of the American munitions and armament ; 
 he could disperse Washington s army, open communi- 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 63 
 
 cation with Canada, and destroy the Colonies in detail. 
 He selected Benedict Arnold as the instrument who 
 should destroy the liberties of his country, plied him 
 with a bribe, and he fell. Arnold and Andre spent 
 the night and day together at Smith s house, opposite 
 Croton, concerting upon the price and the terms. 
 Arnold was to receive a stipulated sum and a position 
 in the British army, for so weakening and distributing 
 the forces at West Point as to make it an easy prey to 
 the enemy. Andre received from him all the papers 
 which explained the condition of the post and how its 
 garrison should be so disposed as to fall helpless vic 
 tims to captivity or death. 
 
 Upon the issue of that British major s successful 
 return to New York with those documents depended 
 results mightier than the men of that time knew. The 
 Cortlandt Town farmers had driven the sloop of war 
 Vulture down the bay, and cut off his retreat by water. 
 He essayed it by land. He had escaped numberless 
 perils, had passed the last American sentinel, and was 
 gayly humming a festive song in anticipation of victory 
 and promotion, when a fire-lock was suddenly presented 
 at his breast, and Paulding cried, " Halt ! " All the 
 power, wealth, and culture of Great Britain, in the 
 person of her Adjutant General, there confronted the 
 liberties of America in the custody of three humble 
 yeomen of Westchester ; they were without fortune, of 
 limited education, farmers sons; to them were prof 
 fered riches beyond any sum with which they were 
 familiar. Upon their action hung the happiness of 
 millions, but they had within them that virtue and love 
 
64 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 of independence which gold could not buy nor power 
 subdue. The money was spurned, treason was defeated, 
 Andre died the death of a spy, and his captors became 
 immortal. While time endures and patriotism is held 
 honorable, our county and our country will keep among 
 their most cherished recollections the names of Pauld- 
 ing, Williams, and Van Wart. 
 
 Upon the muster roll of the Continental Army 
 during the war appear the names of 231,791 men, and 
 but one traitor. A review of revolutionary West- 
 chester would be incomplete which did not set forth 
 some of those incidents that escape the notice of the 
 general historian, and are preserved by tradition and 
 in local annals, but which best illustrate the time, its 
 perils, its sacrifices, its sufferings, and its rewards. 
 Could we have watched with Enoch Crosby, the West- 
 chester spy, whose adventures suggested Cooper s im 
 mortal fiction, from his lofty crag in the highlands, 
 or bivouacked with Abraham Dyckman, or Cornelius 
 Oakley, or John Odell, the daring guides, while they 
 planned an attack upon a Tory camp, or sought to 
 avenge some bloody outrage, how well could we appre 
 ciate our ancestors daily lives ; how well understand 
 that the hills and valleys of this old county are holy 
 ground ! Cortlandt saw her chief village of Peekskill 
 twice pillaged and burned, and the surrounding country 
 ravaged time and again ; but in many an engagement 
 and skirmish the militia were successful. The memory 
 of Cornelia Beekman s dignity and courage, in defend 
 ing her person and home, is a pleasant recollection 
 of the townsfolk ; while upon Gallows Hill, Palmer the 
 spy expiated his crime, and old General Putnam penned 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 65 
 
 his famous message to Sir Henry Clinton s demand for 
 his release : 
 
 SIR : Edmund Palmer, an officer in the enemy s service, was 
 taken as a spy, lurking within the American lines. He has been 
 tried as a spy, condemned as a spy, and shall be executed as a spy, 
 and the flag is ordered to depart immediately. 
 
 ISRAEL PUTNAM. 
 
 P. S. He has been executed accordingly. 
 
 At Pine s Bridge the gallant Colonel Green the 
 conqueror of Count Dunop and his command were 
 overwhelmed by De Lancey s troopers, and nearly 
 every one of them put to the sword, while the enemy 
 ravaged Yorktown, sweeping off property and carrying 
 scores of residents to the prison-pens in New York ; 
 and the old Crumpond Church was reduced to ashes, 
 because it was the meeting place of the Town Com 
 mittee of Safety, and the British general said he would 
 "burn the damned rebel nest out, anyhow"; but he 
 fired only the shell, for the spirit of the old chapel 
 lived and grew in intensity and vigor. At the four 
 corners over here in Mount Pleasant, when Colonel 
 Thompson was struggling desperately with a superior 
 force of Hessians, and the winter air was warm with 
 the flames of neighboring dwellings, one of our horse 
 men, pursued by two British cavalrymen, stuck fast in 
 the deep snow, threw up his arms, and cried for quarter. 
 " We ll quarter you," they shouted, raising their sabers, 
 when the American, firing, halved them by killing one, 
 and the other fled. Over these roads, all about where 
 we are now assembled, rode Tarleton and his dragoons, 
 Emmerickand his Hessians, De Lancey and his Tories, 
 
66 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 plundering farms and dwellings, capturing and carrying 
 off well-known loyalists, and perpetrating every species 
 of outrage ; while upon their rear and flanks hung the 
 avengers, the hardy yeomanry of the district, fighting 
 from every rock and fence and tree. 
 
 While other portions of the country experienced 
 the horrors of war for a time, and then, by the cam 
 paign shifting to other quarters, were relieved, there 
 was no time when our county was free from the 
 tramp of hostile armies or the incursions of predatory 
 bands. 
 
 Bedford was twice burned ; the last time because (as 
 Tarleton said, who had been raiding over Poundridge), 
 " of the inveteracy of the inhabitants in not accepting 
 his offer to withhold the torch, if they would stop 
 shooting from behind barns and stone walls." Would 
 you understand more clearly the spirit of those times? 
 The English Colonel Fowler had turned the family out 
 of one of the stateliest mansions in the town of Mor- 
 risania. He gave a dinner party, and as he and his 
 guests were about to sit down the house took fire. 
 " Let it burn," he cried, " but bring the dinner out on 
 to the green ; " and while the flames crackled, and the 
 helpless inmates of that dwelling bewailed this wanton 
 destruction of their home, the wine glasses clinked 
 merrily, and the joke passed gayly around the table 
 upon the lawn ; but that night the swift avengers 
 routed his forces, and he died at the head of his com 
 mand with a Westchester bullet through his brain. 
 How Lieutenant Mosher whipped the enemy three 
 times outnumbering him at Harrison ; how Colonel 
 Armand destroyed the Hessians at Morrisania ; how 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DLPEW. 67 
 
 Colonel Aaron Burr captured De Lancey s dreaded 
 Refuge Corps under the very guns of the British fort 
 near King s Bridge ; how Colonel Hull surrounded the 
 most mischievous crew of Tories and Cowboys at Tar- 
 rytown when they were full of the spoil of successful 
 foray upon the people of the county, and in fancied 
 security were playing cards ; and how, while his guards 
 appeared on all sides, he, with grim humor, sprang 
 into their midst, swinging a big stick, and shouting, 
 " Clubs are trumps, gentlemen ; surrender or die ! " 
 These and scores of other county events, incidents, 
 and adventures, time fails me to narrate. 
 
 From the beginning to the close of the contest this 
 village, though the scene of no great conflict, was sub 
 ject to perpetual alarms, and frequently the theater of 
 bloody strife and furious retreat and pursuit. For 
 years the advance guard of the American army pa 
 trolled the Croton, and daily parties of patriots dashed 
 through these streets to attack or repel the Tory or 
 Hessian companies or British dragoons, sweeping 
 through the town for a midnight surprise of the 
 American guards. Among the first to arm and drill 
 to resist the encroachments of tyranny were the citizens 
 of this village. As early as 1774 a regiment was formed 
 here, and immediately after Concord and Lexington, 
 in June, 1775, under the command of Colonel James, 
 the director of the old silver mines, marched to Bunker 
 Hill. In 1779 Captain Hopkins, a gallant and dashing 
 cavalry officer, commanded a troop of light horse 
 stationed in this neighborhood. His company, largely 
 recruited from here, were fighting for their homes and 
 families. On the 3Oth of August, in that year, he 
 
68 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 attacked and routed Emmerick s corps of Tories and 
 Hessians, killed twenty-three in his first charge and 
 sent them flying toward Tarrytown ; there a strong 
 force of the enemy stopped the flight, and Hopkins, 
 largely outnumbered, retreated ; but when he came 
 upon these hills he made a desperate stand, drove 
 back the Hessians, and saved the village. In October 
 of the same year a British war vessel, the Bellona, lay 
 off in the bay. The quiet homes scattered over these 
 hill-sides offered a tempting opportunity for plunder 
 and destruction ; but of the party who landed all were 
 glad to escape with their lives, and the captain of the 
 ship and other British officers remained prisoners in 
 the hands of the vigilant Hopkins to exchange for the 
 unfortunate Continental soldiers who were suffering 
 and dying in the sugar house and prison ships in New 
 York. The winter of 1782 was memorable in the recol 
 lection of the old residents of this town. The expiring 
 embers of the long war flamed up with relentless fury. 
 Each side was alert and vigorous in attack and defense. 
 The guards of the Croton, sometimes the pursuers and 
 sometimes pursued by their enemies, were daily scour 
 ing these fields, and skirmish and battle were of con 
 stant occurrence. Sing Sing was a lively residence for 
 a peaceful citizen in those days. His most important 
 occupation each morning was to return devout thanks 
 that only his property had been plundered, and neither 
 his house burned nor his family murdered the night 
 before. About midnight a tramp of horsemen was 
 heard upon the snow, and like a flash rode by a regi 
 ment of Tory cavalry. Their prey was a body of 
 Americans under Captain Williams, stationed at the 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 69 
 
 Old Orser Farm on the Croton Road. Williams was 
 completely surprised ; his command cut to pieces ; some 
 of them chased down the bank out on to the frozen 
 river, and there killed, while Williams himself escaped 
 only by his superior skill as a swordsman and a horse 
 man. Cutting his way through the surrounding enemy 
 and followed by a British dragoon, he reined suddenly 
 to one side; the pursuing trooper, unable to stop, 
 dashed by, and as he passed, Williams cleaved him 
 down with aback-handed blow and carried his horse and 
 trappings in triumph to headquarters. From Teller s 
 Point, in 1/80, served by our townsmen, thundered a 
 single piece of ordnance upon the Vulture. Anxiously, 
 from Smith s house, Andre watched this cannonade ; 
 and when the British sloop of war weighed anchor 
 and dropped down the river, his heart sank within 
 him. His only escape was that journey by land which 
 ended in his capture and the salvation of the Republic. 
 That old gun, familiarly known as " Old White," 
 has for nearly a century, on each recurring anni 
 versary, aroused the echoes and the memories of 
 that eventful day. May it remain forever in your 
 possession as a cherished memento, and no other ne 
 cessity arise for its use than to recall recollections of a 
 glorious past ! 
 
 W T estchester was not only conspicuous in the begin 
 ning;, but was also the theater of the events which 
 
 o " 
 
 marked the close of the war. When Bunker Hill, 
 White Plains, Saratoga, and Monmouth had been fol 
 lowed by the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, 
 and the recognition of American Independence, Wash 
 ington and the English generals met at Dobb s Ferry 
 
7 LTFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 in this county, and completed the final arrangements 
 for the evacuation of New York, and the departure of 
 the last vestige of British power from the land. In 
 December, 1783, the curtain fell upon the closing act 
 in the drama of the seven years war. As the English 
 troops embarked from the Battery, Washington marched 
 down Broadway, his escort the Westchester light horse, 
 his surroundings a free, happy, enthusiastic people, hail 
 ing him with grateful cheers as the Father of his 
 Country. 
 
 I have thus endeavored, briefly and hurriedly, to 
 present Westchester s story during the revolutionary 
 period. Through its dark and bloody record run the les 
 sons of fidelity to principle, devotion to country, love of 
 liberty, and lofty public virtue, which this day is set apart 
 for us to reverently study and faithfully follow. Our 
 county to-day, within its original limits, has nearly as 
 much population and more wealth than had the whole 
 State in 1776. Compare Westchester then with now ; 
 see its thriving villages, its richly cultivated farms, its 
 splendid residences, its manifold industries, its schools 
 and academies, and we have the best illustration of 
 what we have gained by our fathers steadfastness and 
 courage. How our county responded to the call for 
 the preservation of the National life is within the re 
 cent recollections of us all. Nearly every battle-field 
 attested the valor and patriotism of her sons the stal 
 wart veteran dignifying the citizenship for which he 
 fought by the industrious pursuit of the avocations of 
 peace ; the wounded soldier whose empty sleeve or 
 burthened crutch eloquently voices his story, are the 
 living witnesses ; while the silent ones are the little 
 
CHAUNCEY M, DEPEW. 71 
 
 hillocks far away, the flag-crowned graves in the coun 
 try churchyards, the vacant seats by the family hearth 
 stones. 
 
 The Government which the Colonial statesmen 
 founded, and for which the Continental soldier fought, 
 has stood the wear and strain of a century. It has 
 repelled foreign foes, it has proved sufficiently com 
 pact and elastic to resist the shock of and successfully 
 subdue the mightiest civil convulsion of modern times; 
 it has eliminated slavery from its polity, and assim 
 ilated the freedmen by its laws ; it has extended its 
 boundaries far and wide, and created and adopted new 
 States, great empires in themselves ; it has received 
 with open hospitality the emigrant from every land, 
 and conferred upon him the equal rights of citizen 
 ship ; its people have enjoyed unparalleled prosperity 
 and progress in material wealth, and it has withstood 
 the corruptions which inevitably follow in the train of 
 great riches, to sap and mine all free institutions. 
 Summing up all these results, and enjoying the full 
 measure of all these blessings, while the Republic lives 
 let us fulfill the prophecy of old John Adams, and 
 welcome every recurrence of this day, " with thanks 
 givings, with festivity, with bonfires and illuminations, 
 and with every manifestation of exultation, gratitude, 
 and joy." 
 
 In the generous spirit of our time, and the broad 
 catholicity of this hour, we cultivate no resentments 
 and harbor no revenges. We remember Great Britain, 
 not as the land of George III. and Lord North, 
 but as the country of Chatham and of Burke. With 
 the same language and lineage, we no longer settle 
 
72 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 our difficulties by the bloody issues of war, but by 
 peaceful arbitration, and are rivals only in the race for 
 a better civilization and its beneficial results. No 
 scaffold stands amid the ashes of the rebellion, no dun 
 geon door closes upon a political offender ; but holding 
 out our arms to our Southern brother, we say, " You 
 fought for a system and an idea and failed ; by our 
 common memories, ancestry, and interest, unite with 
 us in strengthening, enlarging, and perpetuating the 
 Republic." We look abroad and behold restrictions 
 upon suffrage, and disabilities upon religions, disappear 
 from Great Britain ; France drifting into Republican 
 ism as the only stable government ; the German and 
 Italian peoples seeking for full nationality ; and we 
 hopefully await the time when the leaven of liberty 
 from America shall have regenerated the political con 
 ditions of every race. The contemplation of the sub 
 jects suggested by this day brings before the mind, in 
 all their grand proportions, the actors in the struggle 
 for independence, with their patriotism, statesmanship, 
 and public virtue. The men who led the armies, the 
 men who sat in the Continental Congress, the men 
 who framed the Constitution, have left behind them a 
 heritage of courage, ideas, and principles which will 
 preserve our institutions so long as they animate and 
 inspire the conduct and character of the nation. But 
 over and above them all of that age, and of every age, 
 like the Alps, which overwhelm you with their grandeur 
 as you approach, and whose summits are lost in the 
 clouds as you recede, towers the central figure of the 
 century George Washington. Our flag floats over us 
 to-day with no star lost or dimmed, emblematic of 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEVV. 73 
 
 more than ever before ; and as we are here gathered 
 under its protecting folds, shoulder to shoulder, heart 
 beat to heart-beat, in the full blaze of the rising sun of 
 the second century, and in its clear light, see before us 
 our duties and responsibilities ; with one voice let us 
 repeat that noble liturgy of liberty uttered by our 
 martyred president, Abraham Lincoln, " that this 
 nation shall, under God, have a new birth of free 
 dom ; and that government of the people, by the 
 people, and for the people, shall not perish forever 
 from the earth." 
 
VI. 
 
 ADDRESS AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER-STONE OF 
 THE GRANT MONUMENT AT RIVERSIDE PARK, NEW 
 YORK, APRIL 27, 1892. 
 
 Mr. President and Fellow-Citizens : 
 
 The predominant sentiment of General Grant was 
 his family and his home. As son, husband, and father, 
 his care and devotion were constant and beautiful. 
 While visiting the capitals of the Old World, he had 
 seen the stately mausoleums of their great soldiers or 
 statesmen resting in the gloom of cathedral crypts, or 
 the solitude of public places, far from the simpler 
 graves of their kindred. Under St. Paul s he saw the 
 massive tomb which incloses the remains of the Iron 
 Duke. He was impressed by the grandeur of the 
 Temple of the Invalides, the superb monument which 
 France erected with so much pride and tenderness over 
 the resting place of Napoleon. The perpetual cere 
 monial, the inhuman coldness, of these splendid tributes 
 chilled and repelled him. He had shrunk all his life 
 from display, and he desired to escape it after death. 
 To lie in the churchyard where slept his father and 
 mother would have been more in accord with his mind. 
 But he appreciated that his countrymen had a claim 
 upon his memory and the lessons of his life and fame. 
 He knew that where he was buried, there they would 
 
 74 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 75 
 
 build a shrine for the study and inspiration of coming 
 generations. 
 
 He selected New York because it was the metropolis 
 of the continent and the capital of the country, but he 
 made one condition. No spot must be chosen which 
 did not permit his wife to be by his side at the resur 
 rection. She had been the love of his youth, the com 
 panion and confidant of his maturer years. She had 
 made the humble cottage at Galena, the camp, the 
 White House, and the stately city residence, all 
 equally his home. He would have no monument, how 
 ever grand, which separated him from her during the 
 unnumbered years of the hereafter. At Arlington he 
 would have lain among the soldiers who had followed 
 and revered their great commander, but at Riverside 
 he will await the last trump with the partner of his 
 life and the mother of his children. 
 
 A Westminster Abbey or a Pantheon is impossible 
 with us. They are the indices of centralized power, 
 and that is contrary to the spirit of our institutions. 
 Paris has been France for centuries, and her thought 
 and action have controlled the country. The nation 
 has drifted helplessly in the turbulent current of the 
 passions or purposes of the capital. London is the 
 center of the policies and opinions of the British 
 Empire. It is both the official and the real home of 
 the Government, and also of the business, the intel 
 lectual and the political movements in the dominions 
 of the Queen. But our nationality is a sentiment 
 which cannot be localized by symbol. The vast terri 
 tory of the Republic, the diverse interests of sections, 
 and the strength of cities which focalize local opinions 
 
7 6 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 or prejudices, are disintegrating forces which will for 
 ever prevent the creation of a Walhalla in which 
 shall be gathered the bones or erected the statues 
 of those who, as soldiers, or statesmen, or citizens, 
 have deserved the conspicuous recognition of their 
 country. 
 
 The memory of our heroes, our patriots, and our 
 men of genius is one of the strongest of the bonds 
 which hold together our Union, and perpetuate our 
 power. But the altars upon which the fires of patriot 
 ism are ever burning are north, south, east, and 
 west. Washington is at Mount Vernon, Lincoln at 
 Springfield, Grant at New York, Sherman at St. Louis, 
 and Jackson at the Hermitage. Jefferson is at Monti- 
 cello, and Adams at Quincy. Irving rests among the 
 scenes immortalized by his pen at Sleepy Hollow, and 
 Longfellow amid the inspirations of his muse at 
 Cambridge. Every State cherishes the remains of its 
 citizens, whose illustrious achievements are the glory 
 of the country and the pride of their commonwealth, 
 whose works and lives are ever-living lessons of love 
 and devotion to the flag and Constitution of the 
 United States. 
 
 New York, in accepting this bequest of General 
 Grant, has assumed a sacred trust. Upon no munici 
 pality and its citizens ever devolved a more solemn 
 duty. From the tenderest motives, he took from the 
 National Government the task which it would most 
 loyally and lovingly have performed, and intrusted it 
 to this great city. The whole country is enlisted in 
 the army of reverence and sorrow, but he appointed 
 New York the Guard of Honor. Let the monument 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 77 
 
 which will rise upon this corner-stone be worthy of the 
 magnitude of the metropolis and the grandeur of the 
 subject. General Grant needs no stately shaft or mas 
 sive pile to perpetuate his memory. The Republic is 
 his monument, and its history during what must always 
 be its most critical and interesting period will be the 
 story of his deeds. But this memorial will continue 
 for coming generations an object lesson, teaching the 
 inestimable value of the Federal Union and the limit 
 less range of American opportunity. 
 
 A phenomenon of our times, and one of the chief 
 dangers to law and order, is the growth of the School 
 of Despair. The concentrated contemplation of ac 
 cumulated wealth, and the hopelessness of acquiring 
 it, paralyzes industrial energies and true ambitions, 
 and plants the seeds of socialism and anarchy. But 
 Lincoln, from the poverty of the Kentucky cabin, and 
 Grant from the narrow gifts of a log house in the Ohio 
 wilderness, became the central figures and the repre 
 sentative heroes of our age. They are types of the 
 glory of American citizenship. The rail-splitter of the 
 backwoods, the country lawyer, the President who 
 guided the ship of state with unequaled skill and 
 courage through the breakers which periled its life, was 
 in every position the same hopeful and dutiful Abra 
 ham Lincoln. The young captain in the Mexican 
 War, the Missouri farmer, harvesting and marketing 
 himself the product of his scant acres, the Galena tan 
 ner, living happily on six hundred dollars a year, the 
 victorious commander of a million of men, the Presi 
 dent of the United States, the hero, accepted as the 
 guest and peer of the kings and emperors of the World, 
 
7 8 LIFE AND LAl^ER SPEECHES OF 
 
 was, under conditions as humble as those of any of the 
 mass of his fellow-citizens who were striving for a liv 
 ing, and greater and grander than those which have 
 surrounded any of his countrymen, ever the same 
 simple and loyal Ulysses S. Grant. 
 
 Only under free institutions are such examples 
 possible. The avenues of preferment and opportunity 
 must be open alike to all. These great Americans 
 illustrate the processes by which masterful men forge 
 to the front, and the less capable or industrious find 
 their places in the ranks in every village and hamlet in 
 the land. They did their best wherever they were, 
 believing that their highest duty was to preserve the 
 liberty and the laws which barred no man s way, and 
 which protected and punished alike the rich and the 
 poor, the strong and the weak. The secret of good 
 citizenship and earnest effort is to be contented, but 
 never satisfied. All the Presidents of the United 
 States since General Washington have been poor men. 
 This is singular in a nation so intent upon the pursuit 
 of wealth. It demonstrates that there are other paths 
 to power, distinction, and happiness than the one upon 
 which we are pushing so madly. It reduces it almost 
 to an axiom that the roads to great fortunes and to 
 the Presidency are not coincident. 
 
 The schools cannot create heroes. They train and 
 discipline faculties as to which only opportunity can 
 reveal whether they are the gifts of a great commander. 
 We have learned confidently to rely upon the man 
 appearing when the emergency demands him. But 
 until then he stands in the rear ranks. 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 79 
 
 Full many a gem of purest ray serene, 
 
 The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear ; 
 
 Full many a flower is born to blush unseen 
 And waste its sweetness on the desert air. 
 
 It is the paradox of preparation for the mastery of 
 great events, that those who have been most con 
 spicuously in control of the Government, or the army, 
 have rarely been equal to the demands of revolution 
 or rebellion. Von Moltke is almost alone among emi 
 nent soldiers in having exhibited in youth the promise 
 so gloriously fulfilled in his prime. Caesar was a dissi 
 pated dandy. Wellington was a dull boy. The only 
 record of Napoleon at St. Cyr beyond the average was 
 that he was "very healthy." Grant preferred farming 
 to the army, and entered West Point with reluctance. 
 Standing near the middle of his class, he neither 
 secured the attention of those above, nor aroused the 
 envy of the cadets below him in scholarship. Neither 
 instructors nor fellow-students saw in the sergeant, 
 reduced to the ranks, the germs of the first strategist 
 of his time. As mighty convulsions of nature break 
 channels, and bring sources of supply to subterranean 
 streams converted by the earthquake into great rivers, 
 so the reserve powers and latent forces of some men 
 are brought into action only by the gravest responsi 
 bilities and grandest crises. Seward, Chase and Sum- 
 ner were the leaders of the dominant opinion of their 
 period. They possessed lifelong experience in public 
 affairs, and had won and deserved universal fame. 
 Seward was a great senator and a greater foreign 
 minister. He has had few equals as a diplomatist since 
 Talleyrand. Chase possessed rare judgment, and a 
 
8o LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 creative intelligence of the highest order. Sumner 
 added to unequaled learning and culture the gifts of 
 superb oratory, fired by the profoundest convictions 
 and emotions for human liberty. The calm retrospect 
 of the present clearly sees that either of them would 
 have proved a tragical failure in the fearful perils and 
 terrible ordeals so marvelously controlled by the 
 unknown Lincoln. 
 
 The Civil War demonstrated that our country was 
 singularly rich in excellent brigade, division, and corps 
 commanders. It developed three or four officers 
 capable of initiating and conducting military operations 
 with immense forces and on a large field, but only one 
 general. The more graphic and bloody pictures of 
 the War were the hapless fields, where the veteran 
 victors of many a fight, when in command of twenty- 
 five thousand men, rode with reckless courage and 
 dazed minds amid the confusion arising from their 
 inability to handle fifty thousand. The thinking 
 bayonets of citizen soldiers, and the invincible courage 
 characteristic of Americans, gave the Government the 
 best armies which ever marched or fought. They were 
 often under incompetent leaders, but never demoralized 
 or discouraged. Though decimated by disease, and 
 their ranks thinned by useless slaughter, they never 
 murmured or despaired. They had enlisted to save 
 the Union, and when, at last they had a commander 
 capable of directing their energies and planning their 
 movements, a general whose comprehensive mind 
 grasped the situation over the whole country, and 
 whose clear judgment discerned the weak points of the 
 enemy, and the places where his own strength should 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 81 
 
 be concentrated, they, at fearful sacrifice, but with 
 unfailing faith, did save the Union. 
 
 The intellect which tired of the routine of a soldier s 
 life in times of peace, which could not be roused to the 
 successful management of a farm or a surveyor s office, 
 which indifferently comprehended the duties of a clerk 
 or junior in a merchant s firm, was clarified by grave 
 perils and expanded under great responsibilities. 
 Grant at forty was an unknown and unimportant 
 citizen in a Western town, and at forty-two he was the 
 hope of the army, and the hero of the popular imagi 
 nation. Self-confidence is the attribute of great men 
 and of fools. By it the former illustrate their ability 
 and the latter demonstrate their folly. The average 
 mind needs and seeks both advice and assistance. 
 Grant was the most independent of generals, and the 
 result placed him in the front rank of the great cap 
 tains of the world. He rarely held councils of war, 
 and never adopted their conclusions. He sometimes 
 acted directly against the unanimous judgments of the 
 assemblage. General Sherman once remarked: "I lay 
 awake all night wondering where the enemy are, but 
 Grant don t care where they are or what they are 
 doing." This was because, having once prepared his 
 plans with reference to every known contingency, he 
 had so completely calculated his own resources and 
 his adversary s, that he could not contemplate dis 
 aster and never knew defeat. After the capture 
 of Fort Henry, Halleck, then commander-in-chief, 
 advised him to fortify his position, and picks, 
 shovels, and intrenching tools would be sent him. 
 Instead, he marched upon Donelson. When all his 
 
82 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 officers were of opinion that a sally in force from the 
 Fort was to be guarded against, he made up his mind 
 from the full haversacks found on the Confederate 
 dead that the enemy intended to retreat, and by 
 ordering an immediate assault captured Donelson and 
 gained his first real victory. When General Buell and 
 other commanders remonstrated with him for moving 
 from Pittsburg Landing, because there were not boats 
 enough to carry over the river one-third of his force 
 in case he was defeated, "There are more than suffi 
 cient to carry all there will be left of it," was the grim 
 answer, and he marched to the victory of Shiloh. 
 When General Sherman and all the able officers about 
 him protested against the perilous movement to get 
 below Vicksburg, and attack the city from the other 
 side, because his army would be cut off from its base 
 of supplies, "The North will cut off our supplies," he 
 said, "unless we succeed"; and the Fourth of July, 
 1863, became one of the glorious days in the annals of 
 war. For thirty days he led the Army of the Potomac 
 through the Wilderness, hurling it against the in 
 trenched positions of the enemy by day and moving 
 it by night to assault fresh defenses in the morning. 
 The country shuddered with horror at the carnage, and 
 called for his removal; his officers were affected by the 
 universal distrust of his movements; the mangled col 
 umns of troops, recoiling from the shot and shell which 
 plowed through their ranks from impregnable fortifica 
 tions, sometimes refused to attack again. But the re 
 sponse of the confident and imperturbable commander 
 to his soldiers, was the ever-recurring order, "By the 
 left flank, forward," and to his countrymen, "I will fight 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 83 
 
 it out on this line if it takes all summer." Criticis 
 ing cabinets, hostile congressmen, doubting generals, 
 and distrustful people all surrendered with Lee at 
 Appomattox. 
 
 No man can be truly great, unless he is also mag 
 nanimous. Grant was the most self-sacificing of 
 friends, and the most generous of foes. The underly 
 ing forces which stirred his feelings and prompted his 
 actions were a profound sense of justice and ardent 
 patriotism. The triumphant march from Atlanta to 
 the sea had aroused the enthusiasm and captured the 
 imagination of the people, who had been contemplating 
 with sullen anger the losses in the Wilderness and the 
 bloody but ineffectual battles about Richmond. They 
 demanded that Sherman be placed in supreme com 
 mand. Sherman, with that beautiful loyalty which he 
 always showed to his chief, loudly protested and re 
 fused, but Grant calmly wrote, "No one would be more 
 pleased at your advancement than I. I would make 
 the same exertions to support you, that you have done 
 to support me, and I would do all in my power to make 
 our cause win." In the rapid reversals common to 
 revolutions, after a few weeks Richmond had fallen 
 and Grant was the popular hero, the terms offered to 
 General Joe Johnston by Sherman had been con 
 temptuously countermanded by the Secretary of War, 
 and Grant had been sent to relieve Sherman and re 
 ceive the submission of the last Confederate army. 
 But Grant remained outside the camp, his visit 
 known only to a few, while Sherman submitted the 
 modified terms from Washington to Johnston, and 
 received his sword. Not until years afterward did 
 
84 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 he, General Sherman, know that he had been super 
 seded. 
 
 "Unconditional surrender, or I move immediately on 
 your works," were the conditions Grant offered Buck- 
 ner at Donelson ; but in the darkness of the night he 
 entered the prisoner s tent and said, "Buckner, you 
 must have lost everything: take my purse." He had 
 been for months making toilsome efforts to break 
 through the Confederate lines, but after the surrender 
 of their defenders he refused to go within them. The 
 failure to capture the Confederate capital had ex 
 hausted the resources and impaired the reputation of 
 all the generals who had preceded him, but when it lay 
 prostrate at his feet he sternly declined the triumph 
 of an entry at the head of his victorious army. A like 
 temptation had not been resisted by any conqueror of 
 ancient or modern times. But General Grant said : 
 These people are now and will be hereafter our breth 
 ren and fellow-citizens, and they must not be humili 
 ated." 
 
 It was difficult to win his confidence, but when once 
 gained, his heart, his efforts, and his fortune were at 
 command. Neither secret nor open enemies, neither 
 direct charges nor anonymous revelations, could dis 
 turb his friendship for anyone he had once trusted. 
 On that subject his mind was closed. In selecting 
 commanders for armies or expeditions he seldom made 
 an error of judgment. To Sherman and Sheridan he 
 gave unstinted praise. Both in public and private he 
 declared them to be the greatest generals of modern 
 times. He was so entirely free from envy or jealousy, 
 so enthusiastic in his admiration of these lieutenants, 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 85 
 
 that he awarded to them the larger share of credit for 
 the ultimate triumph of the Union cause. But these 
 same qualities, so creditable to his ingenuous and gen 
 erous nature, became the chief sources of his mistakes 
 and troubles, when he was treading with untrained 
 steps amid the quicksands of political and business life. 
 Though he commanded forces more numerous, and 
 maneuvered them over a territory more extensive than 
 any general in wars among civilized nations ; though 
 his campaign resulted in the capture of all the armies 
 opposed to him, and the submission of all the hostile 
 States and people, yet some foreign military writers of 
 eminence have assigned the higher rank among cap 
 tains to Lee. But their judgment is biased, as with 
 Wolseley, by service on his staff, or by enmity to the 
 great Republic. 
 
 It is the fate of the defeated side in civil wars that 
 one leader represents the lost cause, and all others 
 are buried in oblivion. The world knows little, and 
 remembers less, of those who represent dead issues or 
 disastrous revolts. The civil side of the Confederacy 
 will fill a small space in history, but the record of its 
 military achievements w r ill cover many pages. Its 
 representative will be, not Jefferson Davis, but Gen 
 eral Lee. No indefensible cause ever had so good a 
 defender as this conscientious and capable leader, and 
 few battles for the right a better one. He had been 
 educated to believe that his loyalty w^as to his State 
 against his country, and he gave to the service of the 
 Confederacy the prestige of a patriotically historic 
 name, the highest personal character, and military 
 genius of the first order. For three years he baffled the 
 
86 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 plans or routed the armies of successive Union com 
 manders. It is true that he had fewer men, and more 
 limited resources; it is true that he utilized his oppor 
 tunities with the rarest skill and wisdom ; but it is also 
 true that with interior lines, and a friendly population, a 
 general has great advantages. It neither detracts from 
 the fame, nor impairs the estimate of this consummate 
 soldier, that he was beaten by Grant. Great as he 
 was, he had met a greater. 
 
 The culminating triumph of General Grant was that 
 he received and returned the sword of Lee. The one 
 act typified the victory and perpetuity of the Union, 
 and the other that its defenders forever after would be 
 those who, with equal and unequaled courage, had 
 fought to save and to destroy it. 
 
 Grant s claims upon the gratitude of his countrymen 
 are many. He will have peculiar remembrance for 
 having, with President Lincoln, immediately recognized 
 that the Republic must live as the fathers had founded 
 it. American liberty is intrenched in the indissoluble 
 Union of sovereign States, and cannot exist with sub 
 ject provinces. Above Belmont and Donelson, above 
 Shiloh and Vicksburg, above the campaign in the 
 West and Appomattox in the East, rise the inestimable 
 services which he rendered in the peace and reunion of 
 his country, when he threw himself and his fame be 
 tween President Andrew Johnson s scheme of ven 
 geance and the Confederate leaders he had paroled, 
 and when again he threatened to draw his sword to 
 prevent a transfer by the same President to the same 
 leaders, of the power they had lost and the Govern 
 ment they had tried to destroy. 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW, 87 
 
 The most brilliant jewels in his crown of glory will 
 be that, though a conqueror in the field, he counseled 
 through life, and advised with his pen when in his last 
 hours his voice had failed, peace and reconciliation 
 among his countrymen, and that though a soldier 
 President, he successfully demonstrated the justice 
 and wisdom of settling disputes among nations, not 
 by war, but by arbitration. 
 
 The tendrils of loyalty and love stretch from this 
 monument to every soldier s grave in the land. The 
 members of the Grand Army of the Republic who have 
 gone before, and those who are here awaiting the sum 
 mons, present arms to-day to the memory of their old 
 commander. This Imperial City proudly and affec 
 tionately assumes the custody of his remains. The 
 people, called from the absorbing cares of life by his 
 natal day and this solemn ceremony, take up again 
 their burdens with lighter hearts, and brighter hopes 
 for their children and their children s children, because 
 of the career and the deeds of Ulysses S. Grant. 
 
VII. 
 
 ADDRESS AT THE UNVEILING OF THE STATUE OF 
 GENERAL GRANT, AT GALENA, ILL., JUNE 3, 1891. 
 
 THIRTY years ago your city of Galena numbered 
 among its citizens a man so modest that he was little 
 known in the community; a merchant so humble that 
 his activities were not Felt in your business. Three 
 years later his fame illumined the earth, and the calcu 
 lations of every commercial venture, and of every con 
 structive enterprise in the country, were based upon 
 the success or failure of his plans. He was then sup 
 porting his family on a thousand dollars a year, and 
 before the third anniversary of his departure from your 
 city he was spending four millions a day for the preser 
 vation of the Union. One of the patriotic meetings, 
 common at that period all over the North, was held 
 here to sustain President Lincoln in his call for seventy- 
 five thousand men to suppress the rebellion. The 
 ardor and eloquence of John A. Rawlins so impressed 
 an auditor whom none of the congressmen and promi 
 nent citizens on the platform had ever met, that he 
 subsequently made the orator his chief of staff and 
 Secretary of War. Someone discovered that Captain 
 Grant, a graduate of West Point and a veteran of the 
 Mexican War, lived in this city, and he was invited to 
 preside at the formation of a military company. He 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 89 
 
 was so diffident that few heard his speech of three sen 
 tences, but in that short address was condensed all the 
 eloquence and logic of the time. "You know the 
 object for which we are assembled. Men are needed 
 to preserve the Union. What is your pleasure?" He 
 organized and drilled that company, and led it to the 
 Governor at Springfield. By that march Galena lost a 
 citizen and the Republic found its savior. 
 
 While others were enlisting for brief periods he 
 besought the Adjutant General to assign him to duty 
 for the war, but the War Department had forgotten 
 him. He strugggled for days to work through the 
 brilliant staff into the presence of General McClellan, 
 but the young dandies scornfully and successfully 
 barred his way. It was soon seen that the obscure 
 military clerk in the office of the Governor of Illinois 
 was capable where all the rest were ignorant, and that 
 under his firm and confident hand order was evolved 
 out of chaos and raw recruits disciplined into soldiers. 
 Though he was unknown and unnamed to the public, 
 the executive recognized in him the organizing brain 
 of the military forces of the State. To a reluctant 
 President and hostile Secretary, the Illinois delegation 
 said, "Where most of the appointments are experi 
 ments, try Captain Grant as one of your brigadier 
 generals." Thus the commonwealth which had so 
 hotly pressed Lincoln for the chief magistracy of the 
 Republic assumed the responsibility for Grant as com 
 mander of the army. 
 
 These marvelous men were the products of that 
 characteristic intuition of the West which quickly dis 
 cerns merit, and then confidently proclaims its faith. 
 
90 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 Education and experience make old and crowded com 
 munities averse to leadership unless it has been trained 
 and tested. They accept nothing outside the record. 
 The fact that the conditions are new, and the emer 
 gency greater than the schools have provided for, are 
 stronger reasons for selecting only the men who have 
 approximately demonstrated their ability. For all the 
 ordinary emergencies of life the rule is excellent. But 
 it sometimes happens that the captain who has suc 
 cessfully weathered a hundred gales is saved from 
 shipwreck, in a hurricane, by the genius of a subordi 
 nate. It is not that the uneducated and untrained 
 can, by any natural endowment, be fitted for command. 
 Lincoln as a statesman had studied politics on the 
 stump and in congress, and Grant as a soldier had 
 learned war at West Point and in Mexico. The oppor 
 tunity had not come to either to stand before the 
 country with Seward, Sumner, and Chase, or with Scott, 
 Halleck, and McClellan. The East, following the tra 
 ditions and practice of the centuries, presented tried 
 and famous statesmen at the Chicago Convention, and 
 saw the Army of the Potomac led to defeat and dis 
 aster, for years, by admirable officers who were unequal 
 to the supreme perils of the handling of gigantic 
 forces upon a vast arena. The West gave to the coun 
 try for President the railsplitter of the Ohio, and, to 
 lead its forces in the field, Grant, Sherman, and 
 Sheridan. 
 
 Grant s career will be the paradox of history. 
 Parallels cannot be drawn for him with the great cap 
 tains of the world. Historians, by common consent, 
 place Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Julius Caesar, 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 91 
 
 and Napoleon Bonaparte in the front rank. But each 
 of them had learned the art of war by continuous 
 service and unequaled opportunities, and displayed 
 the most brilliant qualities at every period of their 
 achievements. Hannibal and Caesar had won universal 
 fame in the thirties. Alexander died at thirty-three, 
 grieving because he had no more worlds to conquer, 
 and Napoleon, at thirty-seven, was master of Europe. 
 But Grant, at forty, was an obscure leather merchant 
 in Galena. As a cadet at West Point, he had risen 
 only just above the middle of his class. As a sub 
 altern on the frontier and in Mexico, he had done no 
 more than perform his duty with the courage and 
 capacity of the average West Pointer. He had pur 
 sued agriculture with his customary conscientious care 
 and industry. He was not afraid to do the work of the 
 farm himself, nor ashamed to ride into St. Louis upon 
 the load of wood which he was to sell, nor to pile it up 
 for his customer, and yet almost any farmer in Mis 
 souri was more successful. Clients failed to retain him 
 as a surveyor, his real estate office had to be closed, 
 and he was not a factor in the tanners firm. 
 
 But the moment that the greatest responsibilities 
 were thrust upon him, and the fate of his country 
 rested upon his shoulders, this indifferent farmer, busi 
 ness man, merchant, became the foremost figure of the 
 century. The reserve powers of a dominant intellect, 
 which ordinary affairs could not move, came into action. 
 A mighty mind, which God had kept for the hour of 
 supreme danger to the Republic, grasped the scattered 
 elements of strength, solidified them into a resistless 
 force, and organized victory. He divined the purpose 
 
92 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 of the enemy as well as he knew his own plans. His 
 brain became clearer, his strategy more perfect, and 
 his confidence in himself more serene as his power 
 increased. He could lead the assault at Donelson, or 
 the forlorn hope at Shiloh, or maneuver his forces with 
 exquisite skill and rare originality of resources at 
 Vicksburg, as the best of brigade or corps comman 
 ders; or before Richmond calmly conduct a campaign 
 covering a continent, and command armies with con 
 summate generalship. At the critical hour during the 
 battle of Sedan, when the German Emperor and Bis 
 marck were anxiously waiting and watching their silent 
 general, an officer rode up and announced that two 
 corps of the German army, marching from opposite 
 directions, had met at a certain hour. The movement 
 closed in the French and ended the war. Von Moltke 
 simply said, "The calculation was correct." Grant 
 had not the scientific training and wonderful staff of 
 the Prussian field marshal, but he possessed in the 
 highest degree the same clear vision and accurate 
 reasoning. The calculation was always correct, and 
 the victory sure. 
 
 The mantle of prophecy no longer descends upon a 
 successor, and the divine purpose is not revealed to 
 mortals. There exist, however, in every age master 
 ful men, who are masterful because they see with clear 
 vision the course of events and fearlessly act upon the 
 forecast. By this faculty the statesman saves his 
 country from disaster or lifts it to the pinnacle of 
 power, the soldier plucks victory from defeat, and the 
 man of affairs astonishes the world by the magnitude 
 and success of his operations. It was pre-eminently 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 93 
 
 Grant s gift. Four days after the first shot was fired 
 at Fort Sumter, he wrote from Galena a letter to his 
 father-in-law predicting the uprising of the North and 
 the fall of slavery. Others saw only the commercial 
 spirit of the free States. He, far in advance of the 
 public men of the time, divined that superb patriotism 
 which inspired millions to leave the farm and the 
 family, their business and their homes, to save the 
 Union. While statesmen of all parties were temporiz 
 ing and compromising with the slave power, this silent 
 thinker, in the rear ranks of the people, pierced with 
 undimmed eyes the veil which had clouded the vision 
 of the nation for a hundred years. His calm judg 
 ment comprehended the forces in the conflict, and that 
 their collision \vould break and pulverize the shackles 
 of the slave. When taking observations, while stand 
 ing with his staff on a hill within short range of Fort 
 Donelson, he said, " Don t be afraid, gentlemen. Pillow, 
 who commands there, never fired at anything." His 
 assault would have been rashness, except that he knew 
 Pillow and Floyd ; and they both ran away and left the 
 besieged to their fate. At Shiloh, when all his assist 
 ants had failed or despaired, he turned the w r orst of 
 disasters into one of the most significant of triumphs. 
 His plans did not contemplate defeat. The move 
 ment he always made was "Advance." The order he 
 always gave was Forward !" \Vhen Buell told him 
 that the transports at Pittsburg Landing would not 
 carry away one-third of his force, Grant said, "If that 
 becomes necessary, they will hold all that are left." 
 His Vicksburg campaign was against all the teachings 
 of the military schools and the unanimous opinions of 
 
94 LIFE. AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 his council of war. A veteran strategist cried in indig 
 nant remonstrance, "You will cut loose from your base 
 of supplies, and that is contrary to all the rules." 
 Grant answered, "Unless we capture Vicksburg, the 
 North will cut off our supplies," and the sorely be 
 reaved and disheartened people were transported with 
 joy and hope by the Fourth of July message, "Vicks 
 burg has surrendered." The Western armies never 
 knew their resistless pow r er, until they felt the hand of 
 this master. No better or braver body of soldiers ever 
 marched or fought than the Army of the Potomac. It 
 lost battles through bad generalship, and generals by 
 camp jealousies and capital intrigues. Thousands of 
 its heroes fell in fruitless fights, but it never wavered 
 in its superb confidence and courage. At last it found 
 a leader worthy of itself, and after scores of bloody 
 victories ended the rebellion, under Grant. We are 
 not yet far enough from the passions of the civil strife 
 to do full justice to the genius of the general who 
 commanded the rebel army. England s greatest liv 
 ing general, Lord Wolseley, who served with him, 
 assigns him a foremost place among the commanders 
 of modern times. He possessed, beyond most leaders, 
 the loyal and enthusiastic devotion of his people, and 
 he was the idol of his army. In estimating the results 
 and awarding the credit of the last campaign of the 
 war, we must remember that General Lee had defeated 
 or baffled every opponent for three years, and that 
 after a contest unparalleled in desperate valor, frightful 
 carnage, and matchless strategy, he surrendered his 
 sword to Grant. 
 
 The number of men who have led their generation, 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 95 
 
 and whose fame will grow with time, is very few in any 
 nation. Their unapproachable position has been 
 reached because no one else could have done their 
 work. They appear only in those crises when the life 
 or future of their country is at stake. The United 
 States are surprisingly rich in having possessed three 
 such exalted intelligences in their first century Wash 
 ington, Lincoln, and Grant. The Father of his Coun 
 try stands among the founders of states and defenders 
 of the liberties of the people, as pre-eminently the 
 chief in both war and peace. It is the judgment of 
 his contemporaries and of posterity, that none other 
 of the soldiers or statesmen of the Revolution could 
 have won the war for independence, as commander of 
 the armies, or consolidated jealous and warring colonies 
 into a nation, as First President of the Republic. In 
 our second revolution, the administration of the Govern 
 ment, and the conduct of the war, equally required 
 supreme ability and special adaptation for the emer 
 gency. For the one was found Abraham Lincoln and for 
 the other Ulysses S. Grant. As we look back through 
 the clarified atmosphere of a quarter of a century of 
 peace, congresses and cabinets with their petty strifes 
 and wretched intrigues are obscured by the wisdom 
 and work of the martyr President. He was a man of 
 the people and always in touch with them. He 
 strengthened the wavering, lifted up the faint-hearted, 
 and inspired the strong. 
 
 From him came the unfaltering patriotism and 
 unfailing confidence which recruited the depleted army 
 and filled the exhausted treasury. Lincoln s faith and 
 power protected Grant from the cabals of the camp, 
 
9 6 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 from the hostility of the Secretary of War, from the 
 politicians in congress, and from his constant and ex 
 treme peril the horror of the country at a method of 
 warfare which sacrificed thousands of lives in battle 
 and assault for immediate results. But time has 
 demonstrated that this course was wiser in tactics and 
 more merciful to the men than a Fabian policy and 
 larger losses from diseases and exposure. Without 
 this impregnable friend, Grant s career would, on many 
 occasions, have abruptly closed. Without the general 
 in supreme command, upon whose genius he staked 
 his administration and to whose skill he intrusted the 
 fate of the Republic, there might have been added to 
 the list of illustrious patriots who have fallen victims 
 to the unreasoning rage of a defeated and demoralized 
 people, the name of Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 The most signal services rendered by Grant to his 
 country were at Appomattox, and in his contest with 
 President Johnson. The passions aroused by the Civil 
 War were most inflamed when the Confederacy col 
 lapsed. Grief and vengeance are bad counselors. One 
 serene intellect was possessed of an intuition which 
 was second to prophecy, and was clothed with power. 
 He saw, through the vindictive suggestions of the hour, 
 that the seceded States must be admitted to the 
 Union, and their people vested with all the rights of 
 American citizenship and all the privileges of State 
 government, or the war had been fought in vain. He 
 sternly repressed the expressions of joy by his troops, 
 as the vanquished enemy marched by, with his famous 
 order, "The war is over, the rebels are our countrymen 
 again, and the best sign of rejoicing after the victory 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 97 
 
 will be to abstain from all demonstrations in the field." 
 He gave to the Confederates their horses and belong 
 ings and told them to go home, cultivate their farms, 
 and repair the ravages of war. He assured all, from 
 Lee to the private soldier, that they would be safe 
 and unmolested so long as they observed their paroles. 
 To enter Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, 
 whose spires had been in sight of the besiegers so 
 long, would have been a resistless temptation for a 
 weaker man. But his mind was not on spectacular dis 
 play or triumphal marches over humiliated foes; it was 
 bent upon peace and pacification. I know of no scene 
 in our history so dramatic as the meeting between Lin 
 coln and Grant at the White House, three days after 
 the surrender at Appomattox. The President, who 
 had so loyally sustained the general, and the general, 
 who had so magnificently responded to the confidence 
 of the President, met for the last time in their lives. 
 Grant returned with deep emotion the fraternal grasp 
 of the only man in the country who fully understood 
 and was in complete accord with the policy of recon 
 ciliation and repose. The work of the warrior was 
 done, and the labor of the statesman begun. Yester 
 day it was destruction, to-morrow it must be recon 
 struction. That night the bullet of the assassin ended 
 the life of our greatest President since Washington, 
 and postponed the settlement of sectional difficulties 
 and the cementing of the Union for many years. It 
 gave the country the unfortunate administration of 
 Andrew Johnson, with its early frenzy for revenge and 
 determination to summarily try and execute all the 
 rebel leaders, and its later effort to win their favor by 
 
98 LIFE AND LA TER SPEECHES OF 
 
 giving them their States without pledges for the 
 Unionist or the freedman, and the Government with 
 out evidences of repentance or hostages for loyalty. 
 The one sent consternation through the South and 
 helped undo the work at Appomattox, and the other 
 unduly elated the controlling powers in the rebel 
 States, and necessitated measures which produced 
 deplorable results. Grant stood with his honor and his 
 fame between the raging Executive and the Confeder 
 ate generals, and prevented a reopening of the war; 
 he stood with drawn sword between the chief magis 
 trate and a revolutionary congress, and stayed another 
 rebellion. 
 
 There have been many Presidents of the United 
 States, and the roll will be indefinitely extended. We 
 have had a number of brilliant soldiers, but only one 
 great general. The honors of civil life could add noth 
 ing to the fame of General Grant, and it has been often 
 argued that his career in the presidency detracted from 
 his reputation. Such will not be the judgment of the 
 impartial historian. He was without experience or 
 training for public life, and unfamiliar with politicians 
 and their methods. The spoils system, from which he 
 could not escape, nearly wrecked his first administra 
 tion. His mistakes were due to a quality which is the 
 noblest of human virtues loyalty to friends. Even 
 at this short distance from scenes so vivid in our 
 memories, party rancor has lost its bitterness and 
 blindness. The President will be judged not by the 
 politics or policy of the hour, but according to the 
 permanent value to the Republic of the measures which 
 he promoted or defeated. The Fifteenth Amend- 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 99 
 
 ment to the Constitution was sure of adoption as one 
 of the logical results of the war. By it the Declaration 
 of Independence, which had been a glittering absurdity 
 for generations, became part of the fundamental law of 
 the land, and the subject of pride and not apology to 
 the American people. The President s earnest advo 
 cacy hastened its ratification. On great questions 
 affecting the honor and credit of the nation he was 
 always sound and emphatic. A people rapidly devel 
 oping their material resources are subject to frequent 
 financial conditions which cause stringency of money 
 and commercial disaster. To secure quick fortunes 
 debts are recklessly incurred, and debt becomes the 
 author of a currency craze. President Grant set the 
 wholesome fashion of resisting and reasoning with this 
 frenzy. Against the advice of his Cabinet and many 
 of his party admirers he vetoed the inflation bill. He 
 had never studied financial problems, and yet the same 
 clear and intuitive grasp of critical situations which 
 saved the country from bankruptcy by defeating fiat 
 money, restored public and individual credit by the 
 resumption of specie payments. The funding of our 
 war debt at a lower rate of interest made possible the 
 magical payment of the principal. The admission of 
 the last of the rebel States into the Union, and uni 
 versal amnesty for political offenses, quickened the 
 latent loyalty of the South, and turned its unfettered 
 and fiery energies to that development of its unequaled 
 natural wealth which has added incalculably to the pros 
 perity and power of the commonwealth. These wise 
 measures will ever form a brilliant page in American 
 history, but the administration of General Grant will 
 
ioo LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 have a place in the annals of the world for inaugurat 
 ing and successfully carrying out the policy of the 
 submission of international disputes to arbitration. 
 The Geneva Conference, and the judicial settlement of 
 the Alabama claims, will grow in importance and 
 grandeur with time. As the nations of the earth dis 
 band their armaments and are governed by the laws 
 of reason and humanity, they will recur to this benefi 
 cent settlement between the United States and Great 
 Britain, and General Grant s memorable words upon 
 receiving the freedom of the city of London 
 "Although a soldier by education and profession, I 
 have never felt any sort of fondness for war, and I 
 have never advocated it, except as a means of peace," 
 and they will hail him as one of the benefactors of 
 mankind. 
 
 He has been called a silent man, and yet I have 
 often heard him hold a little company in delighted 
 attention for hours by the charm of his conversation. 
 His simple narrative was graphic, his discussion lucid, 
 and subtle flashes of humor sparkled through his talk. 
 He said that when he spoke to an audience his knees 
 knocked together, and this was evident in his manner 
 and address, but the speech was often a welcome mes 
 sage to the country. As he was speaking one evening 
 with considerable embarrassment, he pointed to a 
 speaker who had just entered the hall, and said : "If I 
 could stand in his shoes and he in mine, how much 
 happier for me and better for you." Who of this 
 generation could fill that great place? As the years 
 increase, events crowd upon each other with such vol 
 ume that the lesser ones are crushed out of memory. 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 101 
 
 Most reputations are forgotten by the succeeding 
 generation, and few survive a century. In our thou 
 sandth year as a nation, the only statesmen or soldiers 
 of our first hundred years whose names will decorate 
 the celebration will be Washington and Hamilton for 
 the beginning, Webster for the middle period, and Lin 
 coln and Grant for the close. 
 
 General Grant was the product and representative 
 of the best element in our social life. Home and its 
 associations have been the training and inspiration of 
 our greatest and noblest men. They have come from 
 the class which had neither poverty nor riches, and 
 which was compelled to work for the support of the 
 family, and the education of the children. Its members 
 are God-fearing men, and loving, self-sacrificing women. 
 It gave us Lincoln from the farm, Garfield from the 
 tow-path, Sherman from the crowded house of the 
 brave and struggling widow, Sheridan from the humble 
 cottage, and Grant from the home of the country 
 storekeeper of the Ohio wilderness. These men never 
 lost their sympathy with every human lot and aspira 
 tion, or the homely simplicity of their early conditions 
 and training. Grant was clerk in the custom house 
 and President of the United States; a lieutenant in 
 Mexico and commander-in-chief of the armies of the 
 Union, numbering over a million of men ; the unknown 
 junior in a tanner s firm at Galena, and the guest of 
 emperors and kings. But the memory of the church 
 of his mother was ever visible in his reverent regard 
 for her teachings. The applause of soldiers for their 
 commander, of partisans for their chief leader, and of 
 the world for one of its most illustrious heroes was 
 
102 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES. 
 
 grateful, but the sweetest music for him was within the 
 family circle, in the loving companionship of his wife 
 and children, and the prattle of his grandchildren. 
 Though he received such honor and recognition abroad 
 and such distinction at home, he w r as always, whether 
 in the presence of royalty or of the people, a modest, 
 typical American citizen. 
 
 Through the verses of great poets runs a familiar 
 strain, through the works of great composers an oft- 
 repeated tune, and through the speeches of great 
 orators a recurring and characteristic thought. These 
 are the germs which exhibit the moving forces of their 
 minds. During the war "I propose to move imme 
 diately upon your works," "Unconditional surrender/ 
 "I shall take no backward step," "I propose to fight it 
 out on this line, if it takes all summer," are the beacon- 
 lights of the plans and strategy of Grant, the soldier. 
 At Appomattox, "The war is over," "The rebels are our 
 countrymen again" ; at the threshold of the Presidency, 
 "Let us have peace"; on his bed of agony and death 
 at Mount McGregor, when his power of speech was 
 gone, writing to a Confederate general by his bedside, 
 "Much as I suffer, I do it with pleasure, if by that 
 suffering can be acomplished the union of my country." 
 These sententious phrases are the indices of the labors, 
 the aspirations, and the prayers of Grant, the states 
 man and the patriot. 
 
VIII. 
 
 ADDRESS BEFORE THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE 
 OF NEW YORK, AT THE SERVICES IN MEMORY OF 
 GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN, MARCH 
 2 9 , 1892. 
 
 Senators and Members of Assembly : 
 
 The passions of civil war usually survive centuries. 
 We cannot yet impartially and calmly estimate the 
 ability and services of Hamilton and Jefferson. Their 
 names still stand for antagonistic principles and antag 
 onized followers. But the issues of the Rebellion were 
 buried with its dead. That struggle was unique, both 
 in magnitude and settlement. It was an earthquake 
 which rent asunder a continent and plunged into caver 
 nous depths millions of men and money, and the 
 shackles of the slaves. It closed, and the survivors, 
 freed from the causes of contention, were united for 
 the upbuilding of the new nation. Prior to the war 
 we were singularly provincial and insular, but we have 
 since grown to be as radically liberal and cosmopolitan. 
 Then our judgments of statesmen and measures were 
 governed by considerations which were territorial or 
 inherited. Now those who were- in the front and heat 
 of the great battle can fairly view and freely weigh the 
 merits of their friends and foes. We can eliminate 
 our feelings, our prejudices, and our convictions upon 
 
104 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 the purposes for which they fought, and contrast Grant 
 and Lee, Sherman and Joe Johnston, Sheridan and 
 Beauregard, as to the genius and ability with which 
 they planned and played the game of war, with equal 
 candor and better light than the historian of the future. 
 Yesterday General Sherman was the last of that trium 
 virate of great captains, Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan, 
 who were the most distinguished soldiers of our coun 
 try, and of our times, and a familiar figure in our midst. 
 His presence revived and embodied the glories and the 
 memories of the marches and the victories of the 
 heroes who fought, and of the heroes who had died, 
 for the preservation of the Union. To-day we com 
 memorate his life and deeds; and the Civil War is 
 history. 
 
 General Sherman s ancestors had been noted for 
 many generations for their culture, ability, and intel 
 lectual power. His father was a judge of the Supreme 
 Court of Ohio, and his grandfather of a Connecticut 
 court, while the grandfather of the Connecticut judge 
 was a Puritan clergyman, who came to Massachusetts 
 in 1634, in company with a warrior relative, Captain 
 John Sherman, the ancestor of Roger, the signer of 
 the Declaration of Independence. Much has been 
 said, but the whole can never be written, of the in 
 fluence of the Puritan stock upon the formation and 
 development of the United States, and the destinies 
 of mankind. They alone of all colonists emigrated, 
 not to improve their worldly condition, but to secure 
 liberty of conscience and to live under a government 
 of just and equal laws. All through the career of Gen 
 eral Sherman the spirit of Cromwell and the Cove- 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 105 
 
 nanter was the motive power of his action. His prin 
 ciple of war was to use up and consume the resources 
 of the enemy. The destruction of Atlanta and the 
 devastating march through Georgia and the Carolinas 
 were upon Puritan lines. The enemies of his country 
 were as much to his mind the enemies of the Lord as 
 were the Cavaliers of Prince Rupert to Cromwell and 
 his Ironsides. He was by nature the most genial, 
 lovable, and companionable of men, but the mailed 
 hand and merciless purpose followed any attack on the 
 things he held sacred. This appears not only in his 
 campaigns, but also in his dispatches to Generals Grant 
 and Halleck: "I will make the interior of Georgia feel 
 the weight of war." "The utter destruction of its 
 roads, houses, and people will cripple their military 
 resources." "I attach more importance to these deep 
 incisions into the enemy s country, because this war 
 differs from European wars in this particular: We are 
 not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people, 
 and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the 
 hard hand of war as well as their organized armies." 
 And in his letter demanding the surrender of Savannah 
 he says: "Should I be forced to assault, or the slower 
 and surer process of starvation, I shall then feel justi 
 fied in resorting to the harshest measures, and shall 
 make little effort to restrain my army, burning to 
 avenge the national wrong, which they attach to Savan 
 nah and the other large cities which have been so 
 prominent in dragging our country into civil war." 
 
 This was the language of the Puritan soldier. It 
 was born and bred in the children of the people who 
 first separated Church from state, and went to the 
 
106 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 stake for believing and declaring that the will of God 
 could be one way, and the will of the king the other, 
 and their allegiance was to the Lord. It was the same 
 conscience which beheaded Charles I., and afterward 
 threw the tea into Boston Harbor. Marston Moor, 
 Lexington, and the March to the Sea were fruits of the 
 same tree. Sherman was a soldier, educated by the 
 Government of the United States, and the Republic 
 was his love and his religion. The intensity of his 
 passion for the Nation would in other times and sur 
 roundings have made him a general in the Parlia 
 mentary army, or the leader of a New England colony. 
 I shall never forget a dramatic scene at a notable 
 gathering in New York, when Charles Sumner indi 
 rectly attacked President Grant, as a failure in civil 
 affairs, by ridiculing Miles Standish. General Sherman 
 was a stranger to a New York audience, and none 
 knew that he could speak. Few men would have 
 dared reply to the world-famed orator. But he had 
 assailed the two tenderest sentiments of General Sher 
 man his love and admiration for Grant, and his pride 
 in his profession of a soldier. Without any oppor 
 tunity for preparation, but without hesitation, he 
 immediately arose to meet this unexpected and surpris 
 ing attack. Defense, under such conditions, would 
 with most untrained speakers have degenerated into 
 abuse, but with Sherman it became the most impres 
 sive eloquence. It was a direct and simple statement 
 of his faith in his friend, and a description of the merits 
 and mission of the soldier which was like the brilliant 
 dash and resistless momentum of a charge of cavalry 
 through the broken squares of the enemy. It was a 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 107 
 
 speech Captain Miles Standish might have made after 
 250 years of American opportunity, and the mighty 
 soul of the Puritan captain seemed inspiring the 
 voice and the presence of his advocate. 
 
 The same qualities made him the most amiable and 
 lovable of men and the most rigid of disciplinarians. 
 His heart was easily touched and his sympathies 
 aroused by the distress or want or sorrow of others, 
 but he was the incarnation of the vengeance of the law 
 upon military crimes. A corps commander of the 
 Army of the Potomac once said to him: "General 
 Sherman, we had trouble in enforcing strict obedience 
 to orders, because the findings of the courts martial 
 had to be sent to President Lincoln for approval in 
 extreme cases, and he would never approve a sentence 
 of death. What did you do?" "I shot them first," 
 was the grewsome reply. 
 
 General Sherman was destined from his birth for the 
 career which has become one of the brightest pages in 
 his country s history. The hero among the early set 
 tlers of the Ohio valley was that brave and chivalric 
 Indian chief, Tecumseh, who had commanded the 
 admiration of the whites by his prowess, and their 
 good will by his kindness. He fought to exterminate, 
 but he could as quickly forgive as he fiercely and 
 savagely struck. The qualities of this wild warrior 
 became part of the characteristics of his namesake. 
 It was ruthless and relentless war with the enemy in 
 the field, but no commander ever granted more gen 
 erous terms to the vanquished, or was so ready to 
 assist with purse and influence a fallen foe. 
 
 His father, Judge Sherman, died suddenly, leaving 
 
io LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 his widow with little means, and a family of eleven 
 children. The helpfulness of the American family 
 when thrown upon their own resources, and the ready 
 and practical sympathy of American communities, so 
 extended as to convey, not charity, but compliment, 
 has no better example than in the story of this house 
 hold, and the success in life of its members. The 
 Bench and the Bar felt that the boys were the wards 
 of the profession. Ohio s leading lawyer and United 
 States Senator, the Honorable Thomas Ewing, said, 
 "Give me one, but the brightest," and the brothers 
 and sisters of the future captor of Atlanta answered, 
 "Take Cump, he is the smartest." This profound 
 jurist and keen observer of character saw the future 
 general in this quick, nervous, intelligent, pugnacious 
 boy, with his Indian warrior name, and appointed him 
 to the West Point Military Academy. His fertile and 
 versatile mind pushed its inquiries into too many 
 directions, and explored fields too diverse for that 
 methodical and accurate mastery of the curriculum 
 which makes a valedictorian, but not always a man. 
 Nevertheless, he stood sixth in his class, and was its 
 most original and attractive member. He had a fond 
 ness for topographical studies, and a keen eye and 
 natural and trained instinct for the opportunities for 
 defense and attack which could be utilized in the places 
 where he was stationed and the country over which he 
 traveled. 
 
 His first service was in Florida, and his duties carried 
 him, during his six years in the South, through South 
 Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, and the adjoining coun 
 ties of Tennessee. The great debate as to the powers 
 
CHAUNCEY M, DEPEW. 109 
 
 of the General Government and the reserved rights of 
 the States was at its height. General Jackson had 
 placed his iron heel upon John C. Calhoun and regis 
 tered the mighty oath, "By the Eternal, the Union of 
 these States must and shall be preserved." South Caro 
 lina was specially independent and defiant. Threats of 
 disunion met Sherman at every social gathering. Web 
 ster s masterly and unequaled argument and eloquence 
 had converted the North and thousands of broad- 
 minded men in the South to the idea that the United 
 States was a nation, with the right to use all the re 
 sources of the country to enforce its laws and maintain 
 its authority. The possibility of these questions being 
 decided by the arbitrament of war was ever present to 
 the suggestive thought of this young lieutenant. The 
 line of the Tennessee River, the steep ascent of Kene- 
 saw Mountain, the military value of Chattanooga and 
 Atlanta, were impressed upon the intellect of the 
 maturing strategist, to materialize twenty years after 
 ward in the severance and ruin of the Confederacy by 
 his triumphant March to the Sea. 
 
 Sherman had been brought up and trained in the 
 school of Hamilton, of Webster, and of Henry Clay. 
 His Bible was the Constitution. He had imagination 
 but no sentiment; passion, but no pathos. Believing 
 slavery to have guarantees in the Constitution, he would 
 have unsheathed his sword as readily against a John 
 Brown raid as he did at the firing upon Fort Sumter. 
 His imagination led him to glorify and idealize the 
 Republic. Its grandeur, its growth, and its possibili 
 ties captured and possessed his heart and mind. The 
 isolation and loneliness of the life in frontier forts 
 
no LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 destroy many young officers. Their energies are ex 
 hausted and their habits and principles demoralized by 
 dissipation, or their faculties paralyzed by idleness. 
 But the card table or the carouse had no attractions for 
 Sherman. His time on the plains was fully occupied. 
 He was building railroads across the continent on 
 paper, and peopling those vast regions with prosperous 
 settlements, long before they had any roads but the 
 paths of the buffalo, and any inhabitants but roving 
 tribes of wild Indians. He could never understand 
 the lamentation, so common, over the extermination 
 of the buffalo. The patient oxen drawing the plow 
 through the furrow, and the lowing herds winding 
 home at sunset, seemed to him to have replaced the 
 wild and useless bison with the sources of individual 
 and national wealth and happiness. He would have 
 destroyed the Indians, because with their occupancy 
 of extensive and fertile territories, which they would 
 neither cultivate nor sell, and the wars with them, 
 which frightened settlers from their borders, they re 
 tarded the development and checked the majestic 
 march of his country to the first place among the 
 nations of the earth. 
 
 This intense nationalist and accomplished soldier 
 was selected by the State of Louisiana to be the 
 superintendent and organizer of her State Military 
 School. The veteran who, bringing to the business 
 of banking little more than unswerving integrity, had 
 failed, and whose directness of purpose and trans 
 parent candor were disgusted with the law, found in 
 this field of instruction a most pleasant and congenial 
 occupation. He was at the head of a university which 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. HI 
 
 was fitting youth for careers in civil life, and training 
 them, if need were, to fight for their country. The in 
 stitution grew so rapidly and wisely that the attention 
 of the State authorities was attracted to its able and 
 brilliant principal. He did not suspect treason, and 
 they were organizing rebellion. To capture this born 
 leader of men was to start with an army. Social 
 blandishments, political pressure, and appeals to ambi 
 tion were skillfully applied to his purposes and prin 
 ciples. Suddenly the truth burst upon his frank 
 nature. He was poor, and had a large and helpless 
 family. He held an honorable, congenial, lucrative, 
 and permanent position. The future, if he abandoned 
 his place, was dark and doubtful, but the Union was in 
 danger, and he did not hesitate a moment. His letter 
 of resignation to the Governor of Louisiana reads like 
 a bugle call of patriotism : "As I occupy a quasi-military 
 position under the laws of the State, I deem it proper 
 to acquaint you that I accepted such position when 
 Louisiana was a State in the Union, and when the 
 motto of this seminary was inserted in marble over the 
 main door, By the liberality of the General Govern 
 ment of the United States. The Union : Esto per- 
 petua. Recent events foreshadow a great change, and 
 it becomes all men to choose. If Louisiana withdraws 
 from the Federal Union I prefer to maintain my alle 
 giance to the Constitution as long as a fragment of it 
 survives. . . On no earthly account will I do any act 
 or think any thought hostile to or in defiance of the 
 old Government of the United States." 
 
 Events move rapidly in revolutions, and the situa 
 tions are always dramatic. Captain Sherman is in 
 
H2 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 Washington, offering his services to the Government, 
 Lincoln is President, Seward Secretary of State, Chase 
 Secretary of the Treasury, John Sherman the new 
 United States Senator from Ohio, and old General 
 Scott in command of the army. Nobody believes 
 there will be war. It is the general conviction that, if 
 the Southern States are rash enough to attempt to 
 secede, the rebellion will be stamped out in three 
 months, and the campaign will be a picnic. Alone in 
 that great throng of office-seekers and self-seekers 
 stands this aggressive and self-sacrificing patriot. He 
 understands and appreciates better than any man liv 
 ing the courage, resources, and desperate determina 
 tion of the South. "They mean war," he cries; "they 
 will soon have armies in the field officered and led by 
 trained and able soldiers. It will require the whole 
 power of the Government and three years of time to 
 subdue them, if they get organized before you are on 
 them." Congressmen laughed at the wild talk of the 
 dramatic alarmist, old army officers significantly tapped 
 their foreheads, and said, "Poor Sherman, it is too 
 bad"; and the President answered coldly, "Well, Cap 
 tain, I guess we will manage to keep house." 
 
 The Confederate army had concentrated at Manas- 
 sas, threatening Washington. There were few West 
 Point officers available, and Captain Sherman was com 
 missioned a colonel and given command of a brigade at 
 Bull Run. He was the one earnest man among the 
 crowd of triflers in uniform and citizen s dress who 
 flocked to the field. Congress adjourned to see the 
 rebels run, and congressmen led the tumultuous flight 
 from the battle to Washington. Holding in hand all 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 113 
 
 there was of his brigade which had not stampeded, 
 exposing himself with reckless courage, and keeping a 
 semblance of discipline which did much to prevent pur 
 suit by the victorious enemy, Colonel Sherman rode 
 in to Washington to so freely acknowledge the faults 
 on the field, and so vigorously denounce the utterly 
 inadequate preparations for civil war, that he again fell 
 into disrepute, was again assailed as a madman, and 
 banished to the West. But Ohio never lost confi 
 dence in him, and demanded and secured his appoint 
 ment in the long list of brigadier generals. 
 
 The senseless clamor which frightened the Cabinet 
 and the War Office, by shouting "On to Richmond," 
 was not appeased by the disgrace and slaughter of Bull 
 Run and Manassas. The frightful recoil, which had 
 followed obedience to the popular cry, only infuriated 
 the politicians. If they could not put down the rebel 
 lion in a day, they could at least punish those who had 
 insisted upon the power of the Confederacy. There 
 was a significant display of that singular quality of 
 human nature which leads people who have been 
 warned against a rash act, to turn in defeat and disap 
 pointment and rend the prophet who foretold the re 
 sult. Sherman, from the more commanding position 
 of his superior rank, was once more announcing the 
 strength, power, and resources of the rebels in Ken 
 tucky and Tennessee. He boldly proclaimed that the 
 forces collected to hold those States were so absurdly 
 inadequate that another and more fatal Bull Run was 
 sure to follow, unless the means were equal to the emer 
 gency. The Government, the press, and the people 
 united in condemning his terrorizing utterances, and 
 
H4 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 for the third time he was sent into retirement as a 
 lunatic. Accumulating perils and providential escapes 
 from hopeless disasters speedily demonstrated that 
 this madman was a seer, and this alarmist a general. 
 
 Then, for the glory of the American army and the 
 incalculable advantage of the Union cause, came the 
 opportunity for the most brilliant soldier and magnetic 
 commander in our annals. The control of the Missis 
 sippi, the allegiance of the Border States, and the 
 existence of the Western army were in gravest peril at 
 Shiloh. Sherman was at the front on those two des 
 perate days, holding his men by his personal example 
 and presence. He was as much the inspiration of the 
 fight as the white plume of Henry of Navarre at Ivry. 
 Though wounded he still led, and though three horses 
 were shot under him he mounted the fourth. General 
 Halleck, then commander-in-chief of all the national 
 forces, reported to the Government that "General Sher 
 man saved the fortunes of the day on the 6th, and 
 contributed largely to the glorious victory of the 7th." 
 
 Critics and historians will forever discuss the men 
 and the movements of the Civil War. As time passes, 
 and future events crowd the record, most of the figures 
 of that bloody drama, now so well known to us, will 
 disappear. It requires, even after the lapse of only a 
 quarter of a century, an effort and a history to recall 
 many names which were then household words. But 
 Sherman s March to the Sea, like the retreat of Xeno- 
 phon and his ten thousand Greeks, will, through all 
 ages, arouse the enthusiasm of the schoolboy, the 
 fervor of the orator, and the admiration of the strate 
 gist. When at last, with a picked army of sixty thou- 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 115 
 
 sand veterans, Sherman was encamped at Atlanta, he 
 had grasped and materialized the factors of success in 
 the dream of his youth. He bombarded the President 
 and the commanding general with letters and tele 
 grams: "I can divide the Confederacy, destroy the 
 source of its supplies, devastate its fertile regions, and 
 starve its armies." "Give me the word go, " bur 
 dened the wires and the dispatch boxes. The Cabinet 
 said: "Your army will be lost, floundering in the heart 
 of the enemy s country and cut off from your base of 
 supplies." The headquarters staff said: "Turn back 
 upon the course you have traversed, and destroy 
 Hood s army, which threatens your communications 
 and your rear, and then we will discuss the question 
 with you." Sherman detached that most remarkable 
 general, Thomas, with a force sufficient, in his judg 
 ment, to take care of Hood, and that superb officer 
 vindicated the trust reposed in him by pulverizing the 
 rebel army. 
 
 At last the President gave an approval so reluctant 
 that it threw the responsibility upon General Sher 
 man, and Grant gave his assent. Said General Sher 
 man to me, in one of the confidences so characteristic 
 of his candid mind : "I believed that this permission 
 would be withdrawn, and sent immediately a detach 
 ment to destroy the wires for sixty miles. I never felt 
 so free and so sure as when the officer returned and 
 reported the work done. Years afterward I discovered 
 an official memorandum that, owing to the sudden 
 interruption by the rebels of communications with 
 Atlanta a message, countermanding the assent to Gen 
 eral Sherman to march across the country to Savannah, 
 
Ii6 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 could not be delivered. : Upon such slender threads 
 hang the fate of campaigns and the fame of illustrious 
 men. 
 
 The armies of Tennessee and of Georgia had the 
 dash and daring, the free and breezy swing and ways, 
 and the familiarity with their officers, characteristic of 
 the West. They idolized their fatherly but cyclonic 
 commander. This superb specimen of the pure Puri 
 tan stock, born and bred in the West, careful of every 
 detail which promoted their comfort and efficiency, 
 and careless of the form and dignity which hedge in 
 authority, won their love and admiration. Most 
 veteran armies, with their lines of communication and 
 supplies abandoned, marching into the enemy s coun 
 try, ignorant of the food and forage which might be 
 found, or the forces which might cross their path, 
 would have murmured or hesitated. But the soldier, 
 who with only a day s rations in his haversack, called 
 out to his grim and thoughtful general as he rode by, 
 "Uncle Billy, I suppose we are going to meet Grant in 
 Richmond," expressed the faith of his comrades. If 
 Richmond was their objective point, nor mountains, 
 nor rivers, nor hostile peoples, nor opposing armies, 
 could prevent Sherman from taking them there tri 
 umphantly. The capture of Atlanta had aroused the 
 wildest enthusiasm among the people. For the thirty 
 days during which the victors were lost in the interior 
 of the Confederacy, the North listened with gravest 
 apprehension and bated breath. Then the conquer 
 ing host were on the shores of the sea, Savannah was 
 laid at the feet of President Lincoln by their general 
 as a Christmas present, the Confederacy was divided 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 117 
 
 and its resources destroyed, and William Tecumseh 
 Sherman became "one of the few, the immortal names, 
 that were not born to die." 
 
 Having placed his army across all the roads by which 
 General Lee could escape from Richmond, Sherman 
 left his quarters to visit Lincoln, then with Grant at 
 City Point. 
 
 In April, 1861, Captain Sherman had informed the 
 President in the White House, that "he might as well 
 attempt to put out the flames of a burning house with 
 a squirt gun as to put down the rebellion with seventy- 
 five thousand men, and that the whole military power 
 of the North should be organized at once for a des 
 perate struggle" to be laughed out of Washington 
 as a lunatic. Four years had passed. Two millions 
 of men had been mustered in; five hundred thousand 
 had been killed in battle, or died in the hospital, or had 
 been disabled for life, and in March, 1865, General 
 Sherman stood in the presence of the President. It 
 was the original faculty of Mr. Lincoln, that he could 
 so acknowledge a mistake as to make it the most deli 
 cate and significant compliment. "Mr. President," 
 said Sherman, "I left in camp seventy-five thousand 
 of the best troops ever gathered in the field, and if 
 Lee escapes Grant, they can take care of him." "I 
 shall not feel secure, nor that they are safe," said the 
 President, "until I know you are back again and in 
 command." "I can capture Jefferson Davis and his 
 cabinet," said General Sherman. "Let them escape," 
 was the suggestion of this wisest of Presidents; "and 
 above all, let there be no more bloodshed, if that is 
 possible." General Joseph Johnston and the last 
 
n8 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 army of the Confederacy in Sherman s hands, the 
 terms of reconstruction and reconciliation which he 
 had heard from Lincoln in that final and memorable 
 interview submitted as the conditions of surrender, the 
 President s assassination and its dread consequences, 
 the contemptuous repudiation of his terms by Secre 
 tary Stanton, the grand review of his soldiers by the 
 cabinet and congress at Washington, the indignant 
 refusal of the proffered hand of the Secretary of War 
 in the presence of the Government and the people, the 
 farewell to and muster out of his beloved army and one 
 of the most picturesque, romantic, and brilliant military 
 careers of modern times came to a close. Its ending 
 had all the striking and spectacular setting of its 
 course; and its adventures, achievements, and surprises 
 will be for all time the delight of the historian and the 
 inspiration of the soldier. 
 
 The later years of most heroes have been buffeted 
 with storms, or have come to a tragic end. Caesar, in 
 the supreme hour of his triumph, fell at the foot of 
 Pompey s statue, pierced by the daggers of his friends. 
 Napoleon fretted out his great soul in the solitude of 
 St. Helena. Wellington lost popularity and prestige 
 in the strifes of parties. Washington was worried and 
 wearied into his grave by the cares of office and the 
 intrigues of his enemies enemies, as he believed, also 
 of his country. Grant s death was hastened and his 
 last days clouded by the machinations of politicians 
 and the crimes of trusted associates. But General 
 Sherman, in retirement, led an ideal life. Only Von 
 Moltke shares with him the peaceful pleasures of con 
 tent and of his people s love. 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. I1 9 
 
 The Fathers of the Republic were fearful of military 
 influence and apprehensive of dangers to liberty and 
 perils to the life of the young Republic. Some of 
 them even distrusted Washington and a dictatorship. 
 After him they set aside all the Revolutionary gen 
 erals and selected statesmen for Presidents. But, with 
 confidence in the power and perpetuity of the nation, 
 came the popular strength of the successful soldier. 
 None of our heroes have been able to resist the fasci 
 nations and the dangers of the chief magistracy, 
 except General Sherman. All of our great captains 
 would have led happier lives, and left their fame less 
 obscured, if they had spurned the temptation. In 
 nearly every canvass since Jackson, one or both of the 
 great parties have had military candidates. General 
 Sherman had such peculiar and striking elements of 
 popularity, that party leaders begged and besought him 
 to carry their standard. His election would have been 
 a certainty, and he knew it. But his answer was, "I 
 will not accept if nominated, and I will not serve if 
 elected." "In every man s life occurs an epoch when 
 he must choose his own career, and when he may not 
 throw off the responsibility, or tamely place his destiny 
 in the hands of his friends. Mine occurred in Louisi 
 ana, when, in 1861, alone in the midst of a people 
 blinded by supposed wrongs, I resolved to stand by 
 the Union as long as a fragment of it survived on 
 which to cling. I remember well the experiences of 
 Generals Jackson, Harrison, Taylor, Grant, Hayes, and 
 Garfield, all elected because of their military services, 
 and am warned, not encouraged, by their sad experi 
 ences." Not the least of the dramatic memories which 
 
120 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 will distinguish this most sincere and original actor in 
 the drama of life will be, that he will remain forever 
 the only American who refused the Presidency of the 
 United States. Though declining political preferment 
 for himself, he rejoiced in the honors bestowed upon 
 any member of his old army. "I am proud," he said, 
 "that Ben Harrison is our President ; that Foraker, 
 Hovey, Fitler, and Humphreys are Governors of the 
 great States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Kansas, all 
 my boys, " and he would have been wild with delight 
 if he could have added Slocum, Governor of New 
 York. 
 
 His daily walks were a series of triumphal proces 
 sions. The multitudes never obtruded upon his 
 privacy, but separated as he approached, and united, 
 when he passed, to express their individual and collect 
 ive affection and gratitude. The encampments of the 
 Grand Army were tame in his absence, but his presence 
 called together from fifty to a hundred thousand 
 comrades to greet "Uncle Billy," and rend the heavens 
 with the chorus of "Marching through Georgia." His 
 versatile genius met instantly and instinctively the 
 exacting requirements of an impromptu address before 
 a miscellaneous audience. He possessed beyond most 
 men the quick sympathy with the occasion, the serious 
 ness and humor, the fervor and story, the crisp argu 
 ment and delicacy of touch, which make the successful 
 after-dinner speech. He was the most charmingly un 
 conscious of conversationalists. In his effacement of 
 himself and cordial recognition of others, picturesque 
 narrative of adventure and keen analysis of character, 
 dry humor and hot defense or eulogy of a friend, his 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 12 1 
 
 talk was both a panorama and a play. He was always 
 a boy, with a boy s love of fun, keen interest in current 
 events, and transparent honesty of thought and expres 
 sion. He loved the theater; and the stage, feeling the 
 presence of a discriminating but admiring friend, was 
 at its best when General Sherman was in the audience. 
 
 He was delightfully happy in the applause and praise 
 of his countrymen and countrywomen. He felt that 
 it came from their hearts, as it went to his. Through 
 his course as a cadet at West Point and his career as 
 a young officer he revealed his innermost soul in fre 
 quent correspondence with the daughter of his adopted 
 father, who became afterward his wife, and whose wis 
 dom, devotion, and tenderness made his home his 
 haven and his heaven. No impure thought ever occu 
 pied his mind or unclean word passed his lips. There 
 was something so delicate and deferential in his treat 
 ment of women, the compliment was so sincere both 
 in manner and speech, that the knightly courtesy of 
 Bayard had in him the added charm of a recognition 
 of woman s equal mind and judgment. 
 
 He lived in and with the public. There was some 
 thing in the honesty and clear purpose of crowds 
 which was in harmony with his ready sympathy and 
 unreserved expression and action on every question. 
 He delighted in large cities, and especially in New 
 York. The mighty and yet orderly movements of 
 great populations were in harmony with his constant 
 contemplation of grand campaigns. His penetrating 
 and sensitive mind found rest and recreation in the 
 limitless varieties of metropolitan life. He so quickly 
 caught the step of every assemblage, that he was 
 
LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 equally at home among scientists and Sunday-school 
 teachers, alumni associations and national societies, 
 club festivities, chamber of commerce celebrations, 
 and religious conventions. He never hesitated to re 
 spond on any and all of these occasions to a call for a 
 speech, and always struck a chord which was so in 
 unison with the thought of his audience as to leave a 
 lasting impression. After the most serious and impor 
 tant of consultations or meetings, the small hours of 
 the night would often find him the honored guest, a 
 boon companion among bohemians, or old comrades; 
 but in all the freedom of story and repartee, of humor 
 or recitation, neither he nor they ever for an instant: 
 forgot that they were in the presence of General Sher 
 man. 
 
 He was entirely free from the intense and absorbing 
 passion for wealth which characterizes our times. He 
 knew little of and cared less for the process of money- 
 getting. The one place in the country where fortunes 
 were never estimated was his house, and his was the 
 only presence where riches, their acquirement, and 
 their uses were never discussed. He was satisfied with 
 his well-earned pay from the Government, and did not 
 envy those who possessed fortunes. In his simple 
 tastes and childlike simplicity, as he lived and moved 
 in the midst of the gigantic combinations and indi 
 vidual efforts to secure a larger share of stocks and 
 bonds and lands, he stood to the financial expansions 
 and revulsions of the day as did the Vicar of Wakefield 
 to the fashionable society of his period. 
 
 This soldier, citizen, and patriot, this model hus 
 band, father, and friend, held a place in every heart, 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. I2 3 
 
 and a seat by every fireside in the land. His death 
 carried a sense of personal bereavement to every house 
 hold, and plunged the country in mourning. The im 
 posing catafalque has attracted the curiosity of thou 
 sands as it has borne to the tomb eminent citizen or 
 soldier, but the simple caisson rumbling over the pave 
 ment, and carrying General Sherman to the side of his 
 beloved wife and adored boy in the cemetery, drew 
 tears from millions. His name and his fame, his life 
 and his deeds, are among the choicest gifts of God to 
 this richly endowed Republic, and a precious legacy 
 for the example and inspiration of coming generations. 
 
IX. 
 
 ADDRESS AT THE SERVICES IN MEMORY OF CHARLES 
 STEWART PARNELL, AT THE ACADEMY OF MUSIC, 
 NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 15, 1891. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 We are here to pay tribute to the memory of a man 
 who made an indelible impress upon his times and 
 performed incalculable services for his country. In 
 this audience are Irishmen of all creeds and widely 
 divergent views on questions affecting Ireland, who for 
 the evening and the occasion lay aside their antago 
 nism to plant a flower upon the grave of one of the most 
 eminent of their race. 
 
 The weaknesses and the errors of great leaders are 
 an inseparable part of the elements which affect their 
 fortunes while living, but, when they are dead, the 
 sum of their services to their people is their monument. 
 A career crowded with battles, persecutions, imprison 
 ments, defeats, and triumphs, concentrating in one 
 individuality the hopes and fears, the passions and 
 resentments of a nation for centuries, could not end 
 without leaving behind controversies which time and 
 opportunity alone can heal. 
 
 But we have not met to discuss or settle the party 
 differences of the hour. It is our purpose to recognize 
 and gratefully remember the wisdom, the patriotism, 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. I2 5 
 
 the courage, and the superb generalship with which 
 Charles Stewart Parnell organized and led his country 
 men to within sight of the promised land of self-gov 
 ernment. The historian at this period cannot write 
 the chronicles of Germany without Bismarck, of France 
 without Gambetta, of Italy without Cavour and Gari 
 baldi, or of Ireland without Parnell. 
 
 The history of modern Ireland begins with the cen 
 tury. Prior to that is a fearful story of wars, confisca 
 tions, executions, and transportations of whole popula 
 tions from their lands and homes. It is a monotony 
 of horrors. All European countries have been ravaged 
 by the armies of foreign invaders and devastated by 
 civil strifes, but with conquest or exhaustion has come 
 peace. Then have followed recuperation and pros 
 perity. Commerce has revived, manufactures have 
 flourished, internal improvements have been made, 
 new cities have been founded, and old ones have 
 increased in inhabitants and importance, and there has 
 been solid growth in population and wealth. 
 
 Ireland forms the solitary exception to the benefi 
 cent power of peace. Her industries have one by one 
 been paralyzed until few manufactures remain, and 
 those are confined to limited territory. Her popula 
 tion has been reduced nearly one-half in the last fifty 
 years. Her story is the paradox of nations. When 
 most at rest she has suffered the most misery. These 
 results must be due to either the conditions of climate 
 and soil, the temper and capacity of the people, or bad 
 government. The land is not to blame. The Emerald 
 Isle was fashioned by God to be an earthly paradise. 
 Its fertile fields invite agriculture and abundantly 
 
126 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 reward the husbandman. Its noble harbors ought to 
 shelter prosperous commerce, and hospitably entertain 
 the mercantile marine of the world, and its innumer 
 able locations for the successful development of varied 
 industries should attract capital and enterprise. It is 
 not the fault of the Irish people. Driven from home, 
 they^ have settled all over the globe, and are every 
 where distinguished for industry, enterprise, and thrift. 
 They take leading positions in the professions and in 
 business. They show special aptitude for politics, and 
 win distinction in public life. Then her condition must 
 be due to what Mr. Gladstone has recently character 
 ized as centuries of wrong, and what every Parliamen 
 tary leader in England for a half-century has, under the 
 pressure of the evidence of Royal Commissions, or 
 when telling the truth to undermine the party in power, 
 denounced in language as vigorous as the passionate 
 utterances of Irish patriots. 
 
 The forms of self-government, without the spirit of 
 liberty, work greater injustice than absolutism. The 
 autocrat can be forced to listen to the cry of his 
 people, but when they are misrepresented, or not repre 
 sented at all, in the federal congress, they have no 
 voice. There was no possibility of the Imperial Par 
 liament hearing or knowing or caring for the wrongs 
 or aspirations of Ireland until Parnell. He compelled 
 Parliament to hear and know and care. Parnell was 
 born one hundred years after- Grattan, and he entered 
 the British Parliament just a century after Grattan 
 became a member of the Irish Parliament. It was a 
 century of fruitless struggles, of fearful famine, of 
 patient waiting, breaking out occasionally into fierce 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 127 
 
 revolt, to be repressed with relentless ferocity, of 
 wholesale evictions of tenant farmers and vast emigra 
 tions to foreign lands. Grattan was the most eloquent 
 speaker of a period famous for its orators, and a com 
 manding genius when the country was rich in men of 
 genius. His unequaled appeals for liberty have been 
 the inspiration of the patriots of many lands and alien 
 tongues. He was himself the first-born across the seas 
 of the ideas of the American Revolution. The man 
 who took up the traditions of his failure and crystallized 
 them into the forces of success after the lapse of ten 
 decades, had neither eloquence nor spectacular genius, 
 but he possessed the tireless energy, the grasp of his 
 surroundings, and the directness of aim which command 
 the business senates of our day. 
 
 The nineteenth century was ushered into immediate 
 contact with its needs and possibilities by the superb 
 figure of Daniel O Connell. He began in 1800 his 
 glorious struggle for Catholic emancipation. Four- 
 fifths of his countrymen were denied the suffrage, and 
 two-thirds, on account of their religious faith, were not 
 permitted the ordinary rights of person and property. 
 He stood at the head of his people more like a prophet 
 of the Old Testament, who led by faith, than a modern 
 reformer. Napoleon, with the assistance of a vast and 
 complicated machinery, conscripted an army of hun 
 dreds of thousands of men, but O Connell attracted an 
 audience of half a million of people. He felt and 
 enforced the lesson of liberty that all men are equal 
 before the law. The majestic power of such a follow 
 ing behind such a leader conquered the prejudices and 
 convinced the judgments of Sir Robert Peel and the 
 
128 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 Iron Duke. The victor of Waterloo surrendered to 
 the united demand of Ireland voiced by her greatest 
 son. It was a signal triumph of moral force and con 
 stitutional method, where revolution had always failed. 
 
 The Liberator, as his countrymen lovingly named 
 him, found his victory incomplete, the redemption of 
 his people impossible under the operation of land laws 
 which were the legal cover for every form of persecu 
 tion and injustice. With the suffrage so restricted 
 that there was no popular representation, the Irish 
 delegation was filled with members blindly obedient to 
 one or the other of the two great English parties, and 
 indifferent or hostile to the interests of the vast non- 
 voting population whom they misrepresented. 
 
 It was not in the power of O Connell, or of any man, 
 to inform the British Parliament or the English con 
 stituencies of the real condition of Ireland, when the 
 large majority of Irish members denied the existence 
 of wrongs to be righted or evils to be remedied. 
 O Connell saw that the only possible relief was to have 
 all Irish questions relegated to an Irish Parliament, 
 and he boldly struck for a repeal of the Union. His 
 object was not to dismember the Empire, but to secure 
 the administration of Irish domestic affairs to the Irish 
 people a thought evidently suggested by the success 
 of the Federal principle in the United States. The 
 despair of O Connell was the birth of Home Rule. It 
 was the desperate groping in the dark for that idea, 
 which, perfected by disheartening defeats and dis 
 couraging betrayals, is to-day the aspiration of most 
 Irishmen, and the belief of the majority in England, 
 Scotland, and Wales. 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 129 
 
 The patriot and statesman saw the impending 
 famine. The combined operation of laws which sup 
 pressed manufacturing and varied industries, and drove 
 a whole population to agriculture, which permitted 
 neither freedom of transfer nor security of tenure, and 
 subjected whole counties to rack rents and evictions 
 by absentee landlords, was culminating in one of the 
 most frightful calamities which ever befell a nation. 
 He made one last grand and pathetic appeal. Parlia 
 ment was deaf, his colleagues from Ireland were indif 
 ferent, and O Connell died of a broken heart. 
 
 Three millions of people dependent on public relief, 
 a million dead from starvation and fevers, one-half the 
 population of the country seeking, in exile, homes and 
 an opportunity to live are the cold figures which crystal 
 lize results for the historian ; but the horrid details are 
 beyond the power of language to describe, or the 
 imagination to grasp. From the depths of this misery 
 sprang revolution, heroic efforts, desperate conspiracies, 
 every form of patriotic endeavor or wild unreasoning 
 vengeance, to be suppressed by an ever present and 
 overwhelming force. It was the opportunity of the 
 office-hunter and adventurer, of the Keoghs and Sad- 
 liers to secure by popular favor power which could be 
 bartered for place or pelf. 
 
 In a representative government, composed of differ 
 ent states, existing under diverse conditions, the pride of 
 empire, the sense of security, the feeling of nationality, 
 will always combine the united force of the whole 
 against the effort of any part to violently disrupt the 
 state. While the fight lasts and the fever of nation 
 ality is on, they will be blind and deaf to the just 
 
13 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 demand of the dissatisfied member. The necessity of 
 the disaffected and injured commonwealth is a com 
 petent and incorruptible leader, and a united and loyal 
 representation in the federal congress. Such a com 
 mander, with devoted followers, will know no party, 
 except that which recognizes his demands; will permit 
 no measures to pass until the petition of his people 
 has been heard and its prayer answered. 
 
 This ideal leader was Charles Stewart Parnell. The 
 time was not yet ripe for this new force. It was 
 a needed preparation, both for the Irish people and 
 the Imperial Parliament, that the old methods should 
 be fairly tried under a leader of ability and integrity. 
 He was found in that picturesque and most interesting 
 personality, Isaac Butt. He tried to consolidate Irish 
 representation for Home Rule. He was compelled to 
 accept candidates who cared more for their Liberal or 
 Tory affiliations than for Irish measures. He was 
 surrounded by members who feared the social ostracism 
 of London society, and longed for the rich places in 
 the British civil service. Yet this.brilliant, courageous, 
 undaunted patriot, struggling with poverty, besieged 
 by bailiffs, sacrificing his professional income to his 
 public duties, rose from every defeat, to begin anew 
 with unabated ardor and hope, his battle for justice 
 and liberty. His fight was within the lines of his 
 party, but he never succeeded in convincing its man 
 agers that Ireland had wrongs to redress, or in teaching 
 them that coercion was not the way to settle Irish 
 questions, and give peace to the Emerald Isle. 
 
 At the hour when the prospect was darkest, and the 
 Irish were despairing of their cause, there appeared 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 131 
 
 upon the field a champion who presented none of the 
 externals of heroism or leadership. No herald trum 
 peted his coming, no applause greeted his arrival. 
 His comrades had not noticed his presence, the enemy 
 was not aware of his existence. He hated publicity, 
 but was destined to be the most conspicuous figure in 
 the Empire. He disliked to speak, and whenever 
 possible, avoided the forum or the platform, but he 
 was to effectively voice the demands and principles 
 which had taxed the resources of the greatest orators 
 of a nation justly famed for eloquence. He was cold 
 in manner, undemonstrative, self-poised, imperturbable, 
 neither elated nor depressed, and yet he became the 
 idol of the most impulsive of peoples. 
 
 The weakness of leaders is their jealousy of talent 
 among their followers. Many a cause has been im 
 periled or lost, and many a party driven from power, 
 because the chief could not endure the praise bestowed 
 upon his lieutenants. Parnell welcomed ability, and 
 gave its possessor every opportunity for distinction. His 
 superiors in eloquence, like Sexton and Redmond ; in 
 literature, like McCarthy and O Connor; in journalism, 
 or popular appeal, like Sullivan, or O Brien, or Dillon, 
 or Harrington, were given the positions where they 
 could best serve. 
 
 If he had ambitions, other than for his country, they 
 were never apparent. If he had likes or animosities, 
 they never stood in the way of a useful man occupy 
 ing his proper place. The inspiration which started 
 him in his career, and guided him in his work, was the 
 motto of the Manchester martyr, " God save Ireland." 
 He saw that for Irishmen to plot against the Castle, 
 
r 3 2 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 or hurl themselves on the bayonets of the soldiery, 
 was madness. He proclaimed that any man who com 
 mitted a crime was a foe to Ireland. He found that 
 Home Rule was a subject for debate which the House 
 of Commons would wearily listen to and both parties 
 unite to kill. And yet he resolved to win by moral 
 force and constitutional methods. He became master 
 of the rules of the House, and then used them to 
 stop its business. With only three who dared follow, 
 he attacked six hundred and odd, intrenched in the 
 forms, the usages, and the traditions of centuries. 
 " No measures shall pass until the demands of Ireland 
 are granted," was his battle-cry. 
 
 Tories were shocked, Liberals indignant, Radicals 
 amazed, and the Speaker paralyzed. Isaac Butt feared 
 the result, and withheld his support. Shaw thought 
 the movement was not respectable, and most of the 
 Irish members agreed with him. Parliamentary pro 
 cedure is the growth of generations of representative 
 government. It is the pride and glory of England. 
 It preserves the Constitution, and crystallizes into law 
 the opinions of the people. It permits the weight of 
 popular sentiment to so balance parties as to put 
 power into the hands of the one which, for the time, 
 best voices public opinion. To interrupt the smooth 
 and accustomed working of this venerable machinery 
 was accounted little less than sacrilege, and believed to 
 be flat treason. Obstruction buried for the moment 
 partisan animosities and ambitions, and brought to 
 gether all elements to crush the obstructionist. 
 
 Though threatened with unknown perils and pun 
 ishment and the frightful possibilities of being named 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 133 
 
 by the Speaker ; though menaced with suspension, 
 and put under the ban of personal and social ostra 
 cism ; though treated with derision in the House 
 and contempt in the press, the undismayed and 
 unruffled leader stood with his little band across the 
 path of public business, demanding justice for Ireland. 
 He baffled the statesmen who had led the House of 
 Commons for generations by showing them that they 
 could neither stop nor suspend nor expel, for he was 
 acting strictly within their own rules, and righting 
 with weapons from their own armory. 
 
 Then, said Mr. Gladstone, " when you show us that 
 a majority of the members from Ireland want legisla 
 tion, we are prepared to listen and act." This proposi 
 tion could not be satisfactorily answered. Parnell 
 believed that the people of Ireland were with him, but 
 he knew, as did the House, that their representatives 
 were not. Senates do not go behind the senators to 
 canvass their constituents, and Parnell recognized the 
 fatal force of Mr Gladstone s proposition. 
 
 Party leaders, as a rule, are eminent and powerful 
 within recognized lines, and by the skillful handling 
 of men and measures. Great crises develop original 
 genius for the emergency, like Abraham Lincoln. 
 They win triumphs by methods which the veteran 
 soldier has learned neither in school nor on the field, 
 and which he either derides or distrusts. 
 
 Parnell was the most resourceful of men, with un 
 limited confidence in himself, and the rare faculty 
 which inspires unquestioning obedience in others. He 
 said to the Irish people: "If you believe in me, you 
 must be represented in Parliament by members who will 
 
134 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 act with me, and who can neither be misled, nor intimi 
 dated, nor bought. Give your answer to Mr. Glad 
 stone s challenge." 
 
 The response has no parallel in the history of the 
 electorate under free governments. It was, " Select 
 your own candidates, Mr. Parnell, and we will elect 
 them." Experience had demonstrated that under the 
 pressure and temptations at Westminster and the dis 
 integrating influences at home, something more than a 
 common sentiment was required to keep constituencies 
 solid and members constant. For this purpose Par 
 nell took control and perfected the machinery of the 
 Land League, which had been organized by Michael 
 Davitt. 
 
 It is difficult for Americans to appreciate the Irish 
 land question. Real estate, with us, is sold and ex 
 changed as freely as any other commodity. A bar 
 gain with regard to the soil has all the incidents of 
 other commercial transactions. But the land system 
 of Ireland had made a large majority of the popula 
 tion the tenants of a few landlords. The laws were 
 wholly on the side of the landowners, and adminis 
 tered by their agents. The comfort or misery of 
 millions of human beings, the peace or unrest of the 
 kingdom, was not dependent upon legislation, but on 
 the whim or wisdom of irresponsible and unrelated 
 individuals. The necessities of a spendthrift in Lon 
 don, losses at the gambling table at Homburg, or the 
 irritation of the lord against his vassals, would raise 
 rents beyond the possibility of their being earned, and 
 evict thousands to die by the roadside without compen 
 sation for improvements or opportunity for defense. 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW, 135 
 
 It is a frightful commentary on the situation that, 
 during the famine which carried over a million of men, 
 women, and children to their graves, there was plenty 
 of food produced in Ireland, but it all went for rent, 
 while the potatoes, the sole resource of the tenant, 
 rotted in the ground. The ship from America laden 
 with provisions for the starving passed, at the entrance 
 of the harbor of Cork, three vessels sailing out and 
 filled with export wheat. The British Parliament, the 
 most conservative of bodies, and ruled by landed 
 proprietors, became so impressed with these con 
 ditions that between 1870 and 1890 it enacted several 
 of the most sweeping acts ever put upon the statute- 
 book, for the relief and protection of the tenantry of 
 Ireland. 
 
 Thus, in gaining control of the Land League, Par- 
 nell had the deepest interests of the people as the 
 foundation for political sentiment and personal loyalty. 
 When he entered Parliament at the head of 83 out of 
 the 103 representatives from Ireland, he held in one 
 hand party power and in the other the homes and the 
 fortunes of his people. He had returned in triumph. 
 The Commons were bewildered. The calm and con 
 fident leader who had defied them with three followers, 
 now faced them with the larger number of the Irish 
 members behind him. " I have come with the 
 majority you demanded," he said; "will you listen, 
 now ? " 
 
 From that hour the Irish question became the 
 foremost factor in British politics, and Parnell the 
 most powerful member of the House of Commons. 
 The time-worn policy of coercion put him in Kilmain- 
 
136 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 ham jail, and it became not the cell of a criminal but 
 the palace of an uncrowned king. The ministry which 
 imprisoned him negotiated with him as with a con 
 queror. The question was not, on what terms will we 
 set you free, but on what terms will you accept 
 release? He did not mince matters. He demanded, 
 and was accorded, the settlement of arrears of rent, 
 the amendment of the Land Act, the abandonment of 
 coercion, and the retirement of Mr. Forster, the coer 
 cion minister. As Parnell, fresh from prison, entered 
 the House, Mr. Forster, the defeated minister, in a 
 memorable speech, placed upon the brow of the victor 
 this wreath : " I think we may remember what a Tudor 
 king said to a great Irishman in former times : * If all 
 Ireland cannot govern the Earl of Kildare, let the Earl 
 of Kildare govern Ireland. In like manner, if all 
 England cannot govern the Honorable Member for 
 Cork, then let us acknowledge that he is the greatest 
 power in Ireland to-day." 
 
 The Tories hailed his alliance with delight. The 
 members who had denounced him as an arch con 
 spirator, and believed him to be in league with 
 assassins, now embraced him as an associate and bid 
 high for his support. Local self-government became 
 a Conservative war-cry. The principle which had been 
 the contemptuous football of parties became the chief 
 plank in their platforms. 
 
 But Parnell was insensible to flattery and unmoved 
 by promises. He wanted measures and not pledges. 
 He was cordial with the party which was at the 
 moment most likely to adopt and pass his bills, but 
 he cared nothing for either party. He became the 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 137 
 
 potential force in the Government. He made and 
 unmade Cabinets. He hurled the Gladstone ministry 
 from power and defeated that of Lord Salisbury. He 
 compelled the adjournment of Parliament and an 
 appeal to the country. 
 
 The conversion of Mr. Gladstone to Home Rule for 
 Ireland is the most momentous event in the English 
 politics of our generation. He went to defeat and out 
 of power on the issue, and has steadily kept it as the 
 test of faith. The splendor of this statesman s acquire 
 ments and achievements obscures his defects and 
 weaknesses. He has had, in his time, no equal as the 
 leader of the opposition. Peerless as an orator, 
 resourceful, versatile, aggressive, positive, fertile in 
 attack, and skillful in retreat, he soon puts his adver 
 saries in the wrong, and regains the confidence of his 
 countrymen. It is only in power that he shows un 
 certainty of policy. When he is burdened with the 
 responsibilities of government, it often happens that it 
 is only after he has made up his mind that he is in 
 doubt. But in the heat of battle and the fury of the 
 fight this hero of many fields does not waver, and 
 Home Rule is a desperate struggle until an Irish Parlia 
 ment convenes on Dublin Green. He saw that Parnell 
 represented the Irish people, and formulated a Home 
 Rule bill to meet their demands. His defeat, coming, 
 as it did, through the defection of cherished friends, 
 intensified his ardor and confirmed his purpose. He 
 made the principle of Home Rule the cardinal doc 
 trine of his party, and challenged Tories and Liberal 
 Unionists to go to the country upon the issue. 
 
 Ireland no longer fights with one arm tied, and the 
 
I3 8 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 other held back by false friends. Parnell freed them 
 both. Ireland no longer struggles alone ; her cause is 
 the stake of one of the great parties of England, and 
 made so by Parnell. 
 
 Where all others had failed, he succeeded. The 
 weary waiting, the almost hopeless struggle of a cen 
 tury for local self-government, has nearly ended, and 
 the victory is practically won, because, with the exist 
 ing and growing sentiment and party support in Eng 
 land, Scotland, and Wales, backed by a united front 
 from Ireland, the first act of the Parliament to be 
 elected next year will be a complete and satisfactory 
 measure of Home Rule. 
 
 This is the triumph of Parnell. The laws now in 
 force for the benefit of Ireland, which are the direct 
 result of his efforts, would immortalize the memory of 
 any statesman, and give him high rank on the list of 
 patriots. During O Connell s time every act proposed 
 for the relief of the Irish people was killed, but nine 
 teen bills were passed suspending the writ of Habeas 
 Corpus, and twelve to facilitate evictions and enlarge 
 the area of crimes and punishments. Isaac Butt s 
 brilliant career presents to the historian years of 
 splendid effort and barren results. Not a single meas 
 ure of importance rewarded his labors. Upon Par- 
 nell s monument his grateful countrymen will inscribe 
 four acts which are a distinct recognition of tenants 
 rights, and long strides toward the redress of tenants 
 wrongs. 
 
 The lesson of Parnell s life is the superiority of 
 constitutional over revolutionary methods. He dem 
 onstrated that nothing is impossible for Ireland in the 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 139 
 
 Imperial Parliament, if her sons are both united and 
 wise. His agitation gave a distinct impulse to the 
 English democracy, and educated and strengthened 
 the radical element in British politics. I have often 
 heard the remark in London that Americans interest 
 themselves about Home Rule in Ireland only because 
 the Irish form so important a factor in the American 
 electorate. It is an ignoble reason for a popular sym 
 pathy which is universal in the United States. Our 
 hearts have often been touched by Irish distress, and 
 our minds and imaginations fired by our Irish fellow- 
 citizens, but Home Rule appeals to us as an Amer 
 ican principle. It has so superbly stood the strain 
 and been so elastic to the needs of a century of prog 
 ress, that resistance to its beneficent operation in 
 other lands arouses our interest and excites our 
 amazement. 
 
 Parnell appeals to us with peculiar force as the 
 grandson of Old Ironsides. The victories of the Con 
 stitution were the pride and glory of our young navy, 
 and are the inspiration of our White Squadron. At 
 every supreme crisis in Parnell s struggles were visible 
 the qualities inherited from our hero of the seas. At 
 his hour of greatest danger, when the Pigott conspir 
 acy was weaving about him a chain which threat 
 ened the destruction of both himself and his cause, 
 his indifference seemed callousness to crime, and when 
 completely vindicated and again the acknowledged 
 leader of a great Constitutional reform, and at the mo 
 ment of his greatest triumph, when Liberals, Radicals, 
 and Home Rulers were greeting him with cheers such 
 as never before resounded in the House, " Parnell 
 
14 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 stood there with his arms folded, a block of ice amid 
 the general flame." I saw Wendell Philips arouse the 
 coldest and most critical audience in New England to 
 madness and fury without making a gesture or raising 
 his voice above a conversational tone. The superbly 
 controlled passion of the speaker fired the minds and 
 imaginations of his hearers. Their leader of iron and 
 ice grew in the susceptible hearts and brains of Irish 
 men until he became idealized into a supernatural 
 figure sent by God for their deliverance. 
 
 Integrity and courage are common qualities in repre 
 sentative men, but with Parnell they were faculties and 
 forces. Gambetta molded a Republic out of chaos, 
 but his foes were scattered, defeated, humiliated, and 
 the vast majority of his countrymen were supporting 
 him. Cavour brought together the warring principal 
 ities of Italy and created Italian nationality, but he 
 was leading his people of one race and one creed to 
 the fulfillment of the dream of centuries. Bismarck 
 touched the springs of Teutonic patriotism and con 
 federated the German Empire, but his mighty hand 
 gathered the cords of unity which had long been wait 
 ing the grasp of a master. It was Parnell s task and 
 fame that he brought together four millions of his 
 countrymen who had been for generations torn by 
 bitter feuds among themselves, and then converted the 
 thirty millions of alien race and faith in the confed 
 erate states of the empire to see the justice of his 
 course, and join in demanding of the Imperial Parlia 
 ment that Ireland should be granted, for her domestic 
 affairs, self-government and Home Rule. 
 
 As the rays of the morning sun for coming ages pen 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 141 
 
 etrate the shades of the cemetery at Glasnevin, and 
 glance from the tomb of O Connell the Liberator to 
 the monument of Parnell the Deliverer, may they 
 illumine the homes of a contented, happy, and pros 
 perous people ! 
 
X. 
 
 SPEECH AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER-STONE OF 
 THE " WORLD " BUILDING, NEW YORK, OCTOBER 
 
 10, 1889. 
 
 Fellow-Citizens : 
 
 Two events happened within two years of each 
 other in the sixteenth century which have had greater 
 influence upon human rights and liberties than any 
 thing which has occurred during the Christian era. 
 These were the landing of the Pilgrims upon Plymouth 
 Rock, and the founding of the first newspaper in the 
 English language. The results which followed the 
 New England settlement have been singularly coinci 
 dent with the development of the freedom and power 
 of the press. The charter framed in the cabin of the 
 Mayflower was the genesis of the principle of the 
 equality of all men before the law, which is the spirit 
 of American liberty and the source of our national 
 progress and greatness. It created a system of gov 
 ernment subject to public opinion, and the neces 
 sity for the fullest and freest expression of the voice 
 of the people made possible the enfranchisement 
 and pervading force of the press. The first Ameri 
 can newspaper was founded 199 years ago, but, 
 following the traditions of the past, the royal 
 authority instantly suppressed it. The second effort 
 
CPIAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 1 43 
 
 of the censor to prohibit the criticism of officials and 
 the discussion of current questions created Benjamin 
 Franklin and lighted the fires of the American Revolu 
 tion. When royal Governors no longer dared to seize 
 and subservient legislatures to enact statutes to destroy 
 the press, that cunning fiction of the law, the greater 
 the truth the greater the libel, became a deadly instru 
 ment for vengeance and punishment in the hands of 
 unscrupulous and arbitrary authorities. But the facts 
 and fictions, the laws and precedents of other and older 
 civilizations were swept away by the rising tide and 
 resistless current of the new democracy. Here in the 
 city of New York that sturdy old editor, John Peter 
 Zenger, gave expression to the popular discontent and 
 exposed the iniquities and assailed the tyrannical acts 
 of the Government. The Governor ordered the Mayor 
 and Council to attend the burning of Zenger s paper 
 by the hangman, but they refused. After nine months 
 imprisonment he was finally brought to trial. Against 
 the wishes of the Governor and the instructions of the 
 Judge, the jury considered the truth of the alleged 
 libel a justification for its publication, and acquitted 
 him. The bonfires and the illuminations, the universal 
 popular rejoicing and applause which greeted the ver 
 dict, were the public manifestations that the people had 
 found and freed their tribune. 
 
 The bulletin first issued to privileged and official 
 people, though claimed to be the parent of the news 
 paper, was in no sense the modern press. The town 
 crier popularized the bulletin, but the memorable mid 
 night news of the Philadelphia watchman, which 
 announced the close of the Revolutionary War, 
 
144 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 " Cornwallis has surrendered and all s well," bears as 
 little relation to the extra of to-day as does a shooting 
 star to the comet which spans the heavens and illumines 
 the universe. When the Declaration of Independence 
 was proclaimed four weekly papers constituted the 
 journalism of the State of New York. The account of 
 Washington s inauguration in 1/89, though regarded 
 then, as now, as an event of incomparable significance, 
 was sluggishly diffused in the succeeding four weeks, 
 through the one hundred newspapers in the United 
 States. But the celebration of its centennial in 1889 
 was chronicled the next morning in over a thousand 
 dailies, and its lesson enforced in six thousand weeklies 
 in this Republic, and the story borne on the lightning, 
 preceding the sun and encircling the globe, was greeted 
 with the rising orb by the peoples of the earth as the 
 dawn of a better day. 
 
 It is more difficult to ascertain the elements which 
 make a powerful and successful journal than to dis 
 cover the qualities which have created our great men. 
 Horace Greeley once said that while it required extra 
 ordinary ability to build up a newspaper it needed 
 greater genius to destroy one. This was an epigram 
 matic estimate of the tremendous momentum of an 
 established journal. All famous papers differ in their 
 characteristics, and appeal to and voice the sentiments 
 of diverse constituencies, but are alike in their pro 
 nounced individuality and independence. The press 
 had no real rank among the forces of civilization and 
 society until the processes of evolution and develop 
 ment had produced the independent newspaper. The 
 party organ is as necessary among a free people as the 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 145 
 
 parties whose antagonisms secure healthy discussion 
 and promote good government. But the thick-and- 
 thin supporter of every measure, and defender of every 
 man bearing the label of its organization, is a memory 
 of the good old times. The great exponents of party 
 principles both follow and lead. They are too near the 
 popular judgment to be misled. Their prosperity no 
 longer depends upon patronage or subsidies. Their 
 fearless criticisms and significant warnings constantly 
 check the charlatans or knaves who work to the front in 
 every organization. Even the great leaders heed their 
 warnings and fear their opposition. General Jackson 
 could dismiss the National Intelligencer -and give instant 
 circulation and power to the Telegraph and Duff Green ; 
 and, with equal ease and ready acquiescence, the faith 
 ful on his order received their instructions and princi 
 ples from the Globe and Francis P. Blair. 
 
 But to-day the press sits beside the ministers in 
 cabinet council, participates in the discussions of the 
 senate, and shares the secrets of the executive session. 
 It is present at the consultations of the judges of every 
 court, and penetrates the recesses of the jury room. 
 The President no longer attempts to direct its utter 
 ances, but is of all citizens the most eager and atten 
 tive listener to its opinions. With all its power the 
 newspaper is the expression of popular ideas and 
 aspirations, and not their originator. The most 
 marked feature of the increase of independent thought 
 and individual action in our generation is the success 
 of journals which have no party ties, and are wedded 
 to no definite policy ; to-day friendly and to-morrow 
 hostile to the government. In this campaign, sup- 
 
I4 6 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 porting the candidates of one party and in the next 
 those of the other, and in many cases denouncing both, 
 they represent the constantly growing forces of intel 
 lectual discontent, the ever recruiting legions of 
 doubters and free thinkers, who without forming a 
 third party, account for shifting majorities, and curb 
 the arrogance and moderate the demands of blind 
 partisanship. 
 
 Our population may be divided into two classes a 
 smaller one which reads books and newspapers and a 
 larger one which reads newspapers only. For the mass 
 the press molds the opinions of the man and mars or 
 mends the morals of his family. After an hour s con 
 versation I can tell which one of our great metropoli 
 tan journals my friend habitually reads. It is trans 
 parent in his talk, and evident in his conduct. 
 
 The liberty of the press is so firmly established, and 
 upon such liberal lines, that it need fear neither the 
 condemnation of courts nor the verdicts of juries. Its 
 only restraint is the judgment and conscience of its 
 managers. The press performs one aggressive and 
 essential function ; little recognized, but of the utmost 
 public importance. It does service in great cities 
 which neither officials nor voluntary associations can 
 accomplish. It has fearlessly exposed corruption when 
 courts were paralyzed and citizens terrorized. It has 
 inaugurated reforms which have been the salvation of 
 municipal government. The absorption of the people 
 in great metropolitan centers in their private business, 
 and the absence of opportunity for general gatherings 
 and ordinary acquaintance, destroy public spirit and 
 leave the management of affairs to professional manip- 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 147 
 
 ulators, who often administer upon the property of 
 the people as if it were their personal estate. In these 
 conditions the press fulfills the functions of the mass 
 meeting, of the vigilance committee, of the council 
 of public safety and political reform. Without its 
 Argus-eyed watchfulness and courageous integrity, 
 government in these vast and crowded settlements 
 of struggling masses and clashing interests, of divers 
 nationalities and antagonistic civilizations, would be 
 a dismal experience and frightful failure. 
 
 The laying of the corner-stone of one of these 
 immense structures, which houses a great journal and 
 is the enduring monument of its success and power, is 
 an event of more than ordinary interest. Around and 
 in sight of us are buildings which express more elo 
 quently both the intellectual and material progress of 
 the country than its stately capitols or splendid palaces, 
 its furnaces or factories, its mills or its railroads. 
 The Pyramids and obelisks of the past, the national 
 monuments of every age, are symbols of force and con 
 quest. But these splendid structures, built by the 
 modern newspaper, are the results of a combination of 
 brains and business, of mental vigor and culture, of 
 ability in the conduct of affairs, of statesmanship and 
 common sense, which makes possible American litera 
 ture and perpetuates American liberty. Yonder rise 
 the stories and towers which will tell to all succeeding 
 generations the story and the glory of Greeley and 
 Raymond, of Bennett and Bryant and Dana. 
 
 Upon this spot will be erected a building worthy of 
 its wonderful surroundings and illustrating the strength 
 and influence of a great journal and the limitless oppor- 
 
*4 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES. 
 
 tunities this Republic offers to genius and pluck. The 
 growth of the World, since Mr. Joseph Pulitzer 
 became its proprietor, is the present marvel of news 
 paper history. It is only six years since he assumed 
 its ownership and management, and, from a daily cir 
 culation of less than ten thousand, it issues from its 
 mammoth presses millions of copies a week, and in the 
 reversal of the conditions which made it a profitless 
 enterprise, its income rears this massive pile. Starting 
 in a field apparently full, the New York World has 
 made for itself power, position, and influence unsur 
 passed among its contemporaries. 
 
 Twenty-six years ago a youth landed on these shores 
 from Hungary. He had neither money nor acquaint 
 ances nor friends in this strange land, and was ignorant 
 of our language. In the meridian of his manhood he 
 is now the proprietor of a successful journal in the 
 West and of this great metropolitan newspaper. The 
 structure which will rise above this corner-stone will 
 be not only an enduring monument to his ability and 
 energy, but will illustrate for coming generations the 
 assimilative power of our institutions and the equal 
 possibilities under them for all citizens, whether native 
 or foreign born, to attain fame and fortune. 
 
XL 
 
 SPEECH AT CELEBRATION OF THE FIFTIETH ANNI 
 VERSARY OF THE " TRIBUNE," METROPOLITAN 
 OPERA HOUSE, NEW YORK, APRIL IO, 1891. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 It is the pride and pleasure of the alumni of a col 
 lege to celebrate its centennial period. Then they 
 come together to express with renewed ardor and 
 enthusiasm their love and loyalty for Alma Mater. 
 They recall the founder of the university, the eminent 
 teachers who have adorned the faculty, the distin 
 guished men whose names are borne on the catalogue, 
 the unequaled services which the university has 
 rendered to the country and its civilization. Eloquence 
 and song are invoked to tell the story and enforce its 
 lessons. It is with like spirit and purpose that we 
 crowd this house to-night. I speak for the great body 
 of the Tribune alumni. No catalogue is large enough 
 to carry their names. They are all over the habitable 
 globe, and in every position and vocation in life. 
 From bench and bar, from pulpit and pew, from farm 
 and furnace, from mine and mill, from study and studio, 
 from stately palace and humble cottage, in budding 
 manhood and womanhood and tottering age, come the 
 greetings and the cheers of sympathetic millions of 
 people. They differ, as the poles and all that inter- 
 
 149 
 
T 5 LIFE AND LATEIt SPEECHES OF 
 
 venes, in material endowment and mental acquirement, 
 in conditions of life and habits of thought ; but they 
 have learned the Tribune s music and caught the 
 Tribune s step. They march together and they fight 
 together for cherished principles and patriotic purposes. 
 
 It is only a great party newspaper which can com 
 mand such continuing confidence and devotion. It 
 is by the common joys of many victories, and the 
 common sorrows of numerous defeats, that people 
 become attached to a leader or an organ. The in 
 dependent press has a recognized place and performs 
 a great and useful work under republican institutions. 
 But it can have no stable constituency. Its friends to 
 day may be its enemies to-morrow. The stones which 
 fly with impartial liberality from its weapons will in 
 turn hit each of its readers. But the element of human 
 nature which causes men to take the chances of suffer 
 ing a little, when they can witness the many suffer 
 more, is the prosperity and opportunity of the critic. 
 In the not infrequent periods when partisanship be 
 comes blind, and bad men and worse measures threaten 
 the public welfare, the mission of the independent 
 press is clear, and its work of incalculable benefit. 
 
 The leading organ of its party, however, comes to 
 the cross-roads debater as an ally, and to the fireside 
 as a friend. The reader buckles it on as his mental 
 armor, and grasps its arguments as his sword, and goes 
 fearlessly to do battle with his unregenerate neighbor. 
 " Why do you look so gloomy ? " said a traveler, riding 
 along the highway in the Western Reserve in the old 
 anti-slavery days, to a fanner who was sitting moodily 
 on a fence. " Because," said the farmer, " my Demo- 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 15 T 
 
 cratic friend next door got the best of me in an argu 
 ment last night. But when I get my Semi-Weekly 
 Tribune to-morrow, I ll knock the foundations all out 
 from under him." When I was a lad in the country, I 
 frequently observed a man drive in ten miles to the 
 village post office for his Weekly Tribune, and the same 
 person, when the term closed, came up to the academy 
 for his boy. I could see no difference in the affec 
 tionate tenderness and eager pleasure with which he 
 grasped his paper or embraced his son. 
 
 The party journal is our only popular school of 
 political economy. Its students never graduate nor 
 abate their enthusiasm. Its lessons are reiterated day 
 by day, as the truths of the Bible are enforced and re- 
 enforced in family worship. The voter and his repre 
 sentative receive their principles from the same source, 
 and the one judges the fidelity of the other by a com 
 mon standard. The utterance of the editor is the 
 opinion of the elector and the inspiration of the 
 senator. 
 
 Upon these lines the life of the Tribune has been 
 a half-century of unparalleled power and influence. 
 Americans love a good fighter and hard hitter. They 
 delight in the spirit which regards one victory as only 
 a preparation for another, and which rises from disaster 
 with indomitable vigor and invincible pluck. Every 
 body else might know the party was beaten, but the 
 Tribune never knows when such an event occurs. It 
 discovers instantly a weak point in the enemy s lines, 
 and rushes upon it with resistless fury. It rallies its 
 stampeded regiments and gathers in its stragglers, and 
 ever shouts, " Forward, forward." 
 
r 5 2 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 It has always possessed that rarest courage in a party 
 paper, the ability to break an idol if discovered to be a 
 sham or a fraud. While earnestly pursuing and ex 
 posing bad men on the other side, it has fearlessly 
 lashed corrupt leaders in its own ranks into disgrace 
 and oblivion. The black lines of the Tribune about 
 the condemned have been the party pillory for traitors 
 and rascals. But the brightest names in the history of 
 the country, during the last fifty years, have been 
 brought into prominence by the same journal. With 
 unerring instinct it has discovered signal ability for the 
 public service and illumined the pathway of its pos 
 sessor to place and power. It has rarely made a mis 
 take, and the roll of the illustrious statesmen who have 
 owed their fame and progress to the support of the 
 Tribune is the muster of the most brilliant and useful 
 members of the Senate and House, Cabinet Ministers 
 and Governors of States. 
 
 The consistent and persistent advocacy of party men 
 and political principles has not limited the field of jour 
 nalistic enterprise. Most welcome and delightful to the 
 older readers of our paper were the letters of Bayard 
 Taylor. Then traveling Americans were compara 
 tively unknown. They had not yet started upon that 
 universal pilgrimage which climbs mountains and delves 
 into caves, which penetrates forbidden places and ex 
 plores hitherto inaccessible regions, which walks famil 
 iarly through the courts of kings and touches elbows 
 with princes and nobles, and which questions every 
 thing, sacred or profane. Bayard Taylor personally 
 conducted his great constituency over Europe and up 
 the Nile ; he led them through historic scenes and 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. I 53 
 
 famous galleries, and put them in familiar intercourse 
 with men of genius and world-wide fame in literature 
 and art. Those of his readers who have since visited 
 familiar places have found the realities tame indeed, 
 compared with the realistic pictures impressed upon 
 their imaginations by this master word-painter. 
 
 The critical analyses of current literature by George 
 Ripley were worthy of equal recognition with the best 
 of the Edinburgh reviewers, while the historical contri 
 butions of Richard Hildreth and the rich diction and 
 ripe scholarship of Hassard elevated the standard and 
 dignified the position of American journalism. Ripley 
 gave thirty-one years of his learning and ability to the 
 Tribune. He founded the American school of literary 
 criticism. It was catholic, but just; liberal, but severe, 
 if its punishment only could kill or cure. The enthu 
 siastic love for his fellow-men, and for any movement 
 which could elevate mankind, made him sacrifice bril 
 liant opportunities in the pulpit to become the presi 
 dent of the famous Brook Farm Association, which 
 collected so many ingenuous minds, and when it failed 
 released to the country so many noble spirits who have 
 made an indelible impress upon their age. This same 
 superb unselfishness, wedded to his unfailing judgment 
 and universal acquirement, gave to the literature of 
 our country a censor and a friend. He probed its 
 faults, curbed its exuberance, and put authoritative 
 stamp and approval upon the efforts which have com 
 manded for American genius the recognition of the 
 world. 
 
 What Ripley did so superbly for the Tribune of 
 Greeley, and he and Hassard for the Tribune of Reid, 
 
154 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 in the field of literary review, has been repeated under 
 the present management of the paper in dramatic 
 criticism. Vitiated tastes and depraved appetites, 
 ephemeral applause and unstinted praise for every 
 thing, from nudity to inanity, which crowded the house, 
 had all tended to demoralize managers and degrade 
 the stage. Here again the Tribune had its own and a 
 purely original and sturdily American standard of art. 
 If it was pervaded by a Puritan flavor, it was the Puri 
 tanism of Milton modified by the traditions of Shak- 
 spere and Sheridan. It demanded purity of purpose, 
 elegance of expression, a visible touch of genius, and 
 an interpretation upon the models and close to the best 
 ideals of the stage. The undisputed chief of this school 
 is William Winter. 
 
 William E. Robinson and James S. Pike, William 
 H. Fry and George Alfred Townsend, Charles Nord- 
 hoff and John Hay, regularly or occasionally corre 
 sponding with the Tribune, have given to that depart 
 ment distinction and popularity. But the telegraph 
 and cable have either narrowed the sphere or utterly 
 obliterated the correspondent as we knew and loved 
 him in earlier days. One writer, however, by his con 
 spicuous ability, his unequaled grasp of the motives of 
 statesmen and the movement of parties, and his com 
 manding intimacy with the leaders in Parliament, in 
 literature, in science, in art, and in society, has over 
 come the conditions of his environment and stayed 
 the decree of fate. The Tribune holds undisputed the 
 palm and supremacy of foreign correspondence through 
 the masterful pen of George W. Smalley. 
 
 To have lived during these wonderful fifty years 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 155 
 
 just closed is a providential privilege ; to have done 
 anything in shaping the mighty events which separate 
 this half century from the rest of recorded time is 
 a decoration. That the Tribune has done much is 
 the inspiration of our gathering to-night. That Henry 
 J. Raymond should have worked upon the paper at 
 its beginning for eight dollars a week, and died in the 
 prime of life a statesman of national fame, a journalist 
 of great reputation, and the founder of a powerful 
 newspaper; that Charles A. Dana should have been 
 its managing editor under Horace Grecley in its youth, 
 on the pay of fourteen dollars a week, and to-clay be 
 the Nestor of his profession, full of well won honors 
 and well earned prosperity, the creator, the head, the 
 heart, and the controller of one of the greatest of 
 American journals, is evidence of the Tribune spirit, 
 and of the progress of the century, and an object 
 lesson to the young men of the land of the oppor 
 tunities and possibilities in this country for energy and 
 brains. 
 
 It is not by its inventions, marvelous as they are 
 and magical as are the results which they have pro 
 duced, not by its material progress and accumulation 
 of wealth, though both surpass the wildest dreams of 
 the statesmen and economists of the past, that this 
 period will be known in future ages. It is the expan 
 sion of the liberties of mankind, and the emancipation 
 of the people from the bondage of laws, of caste, and 
 of custom, it is the freedom of the slave, which will 
 mark this era. No advocate has been more nearly 
 right on all these great issues than the Tribune. It 
 requires courage of a high order, and principle w r hich 
 
15 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 no peril can shake, for an enterprise, which is in a sense 
 a business, to be right when it is both unpopular and 
 unprofitable. It grieves me to confess that, grand as 
 New York is in most of the elements which make a 
 great metropolis, she has in those critical years been a 
 laggard for liberty. She mobbed Wendell Phillips and 
 Lloyd Garrison when speaking for the slave. She 
 hunted negroes to their death when the life of the 
 nation was at stake ; and rioters have tried to murder 
 Horace Greeley and destroy the Tribune property ; 
 but undismayed by the threats against its prosperity 
 from the Philistinism of merchants who preferred their 
 business to humanity, unterrified by angry mobs and 
 raging rioters, the Tribune thundered day by day for 
 free soil, free speech, and free men. It awakened the 
 conscience of the nation and aroused the patriotism of 
 the people. 
 
 The birth of a butterfly has commanded the genius 
 of Darwin and the brush of Fortuny. The story of 
 the building of a state taxed the powers of the best 
 minds of the centuries from Aristotle to Macaulay, 
 from Hume to Bancroft. But the origin, influence, 
 and work of a great journal, properly told, would be 
 the photograph of its time. The limits of this occa 
 sion do not permit the effort, and the task belongs to 
 worthier hands. A few landmarks indicate the charac 
 ter of a continent. The financial crash of 1837, which 
 involved the country in common ruin, was brought on 
 by the free-trade tariff of 1832. Its results overwhelmed 
 its authors, and carried nearly every State for General 
 Harrison in 1840. The pressure of debt and bank 
 ruptcy was still upon the people. Their hopes were in 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 15 7 
 
 the new administration and its party in Congress, when 
 suddenly in the forefront of the hottest battle appeared 
 the Tribune. It came to voice the sentiment and 
 drive home the argument for the protection of Ameri 
 can industries. The tariff of 1842 was the fruit of the 
 victory. Commerce revived, trade was quickened, the 
 thrill of a new life was felt in farm and workshop, in 
 mill and mine. It was the beginning of a new era of 
 national development and general prosperity. 
 
 Flushed with the triumph in which it had borne so 
 conspicuous a part, the young journal grew with the 
 growth of the Republic. The old press which creaked 
 and groaned for six hours to throw off 6000 copies, has 
 developed into the marvelous machine which, rejoicing 
 in its strength and eager for the fray, hurls forth 50,000 
 papers printed, pasted, and folded every hour and cries 
 for more. But whether the Tribune was carried by 
 newsboys from the small and dingy rooms in 1841, or 
 loads express wagons and railway cars from the tall 
 tower in 1891, it was and is and has always consistently 
 been the recognized champion of the policy of protec 
 tion. There have been many defeats and frequent set 
 backs during this half-century of continuous struggle 
 with theorists without data, and reformers whose rest 
 less natures mistook change for progress. Others have 
 despaired or fallen fainting by the wayside, but the 
 unshakable faith of the Tribune has ever kept sure its 
 courage and confidence. The floods of misrepresenta 
 tion swept over the land after the legislation for pro 
 tection by the last Congress, but this journal not only 
 kept up the fight through its columns it sent mis 
 sionaries into the field, whose speeches, lectures, and 
 
T 5 8 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 debates in every part of the country are giving the 
 people, through the ablest professors, the benefits of 
 university extension. 
 
 One of the most striking developments of the modern 
 newspaper in the constant enlargement of its relations 
 to the state, to society, to the family, and to indi 
 viduals, is the way in which it originates and success 
 fully carries through public enterprises, patriotic 
 memorials, and benevolent movements. Chanties so 
 broad and comprehensive, and requiring such imme 
 diate action and large resources as to place them 
 beyond any ordinary voluntary efforts by persons or 
 organizations, are the easy and cheerful tasks of the 
 great journal. Thousands of children have been rescued 
 from slum and tenement to breathe the pure atmos 
 phere of the country and live for a while in contact with 
 clean lives and healthy homes by the Fresh-Air Fund 
 of the Tribune. 
 
 None of the eminent men in American journalism 
 were born to the purple. All of them have sprung 
 from the ranks. Greeley, Bennett, Raymond, Weed, 
 Dana, Reid, Childs, Pulitzer came from the people. 
 Personal experience taught them the hardships of 
 struggle, the pleasures of victory, the satisfaction of 
 independence, and put them in touch and sympathy 
 with the masses. Horace Greeley was an admirable 
 representative of those to whom Abraham Lincoln 
 belonged, and whom he loved to style " common 
 people." In the directness, vigor, and power of his 
 editorials he had no equals. He led and moved 
 millions, and no writer ever had a following so numer 
 ous and so loyal. He saw his cherished paper rise 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 159 
 
 from nothing to be one of the greatest of American 
 journals, and then suddenly threatened with ruin in the 
 catastrophe of 72 which caused his death. But he 
 left a successor who was equal to the emergency, and 
 better able to supply the needs and grasp the spirit of 
 the times. 
 
 From the sacred ashes of the first 
 
 Shall a new Rome in phoenix grandeur burst, 
 
 sang the poet in prophetic strain. The Tribune in 
 its hour of danger was rescued and placed upon sure 
 foundations, and raised to the height of power and 
 prosperity by the genius of Whitelaw Reid. He had 
 youth, indomitable courage, and training in the tradi 
 tions of the paper. He possessed experience with the 
 army and with public life at the national capital. He 
 won the devoted attachment of the old staff, and added 
 to it the enthusiasm and ardor of the able men of his 
 own period who gladly enlisted in his service. The 
 accumulated treasures of popular education, of benefi 
 cent measures formulated into laws, of minds opened, 
 fertilized, and quickened, of contributions to the glory 
 and greatness of the Republic, are the product of the 
 paper s first fifty years. Hail and God-speed upon its 
 second half-century to the Tribune founded by Horace 
 Greeley and edited by Whitelaw Reid. 
 
XII. 
 
 ORATION ON HORACE GREELEY, AT THE UNVEILING 
 OF THE STATUE BY J. Q. A. WARD, NEW YORK, 
 SEPTEMBER 2O, 1890. 
 
 WHEN the Latin poet Horace wrote that he had 
 reared for himself a monument more enduring than 
 brass, he voiced the career of his namesake two thou 
 sand years after. We have ceased to be hero-wor 
 shipers, and the statue is no longer the expression 
 of fame, but the index finger pointing to the worth or 
 worthlessness of its subject. Art and the architect 
 will live, but most of the works inspired by public "par 
 tiality or private munificence will be for the galleries 
 of the future like the unknown worthies of Rembrandt 
 and Van Dyck for those of our time. But we unveil 
 here the representation of the form and features of a 
 man who won immortality by his services to his 
 country and to mankind. Horace Greeley is our best 
 type of self-made men, and of the career possible under 
 American conditions. He soars far above the popular 
 ideal, which rises only to the appreciation of the 
 acquisition of money. He was very poor in his youth, 
 and never rich, but his poverty was of the kind pecu 
 liar to our people. It neither degrades nor discour 
 ages. It accustoms to self-sacrifice; it educates 
 fertility of resource ; it is the spur of ambition. It 
 
 1 60 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 161 
 
 sternly enforces the rule of the survival of the fittest. 
 It has been the parent of the majority of the Presidents 
 of the United States and of all our leaders of parties 
 and of ideas. 
 
 The son of a New Hampshire farmer, whose best 
 exertions could barely provide the simplest necessaries 
 of life for his family, educated mainly by his mother, 
 and compelled while yet a boy to assist his parents by 
 his labor and wages, enduring privation and hardship 
 that he might send them a larger share of his earnings, 
 his kindly and sympathetic nature absorbed that 
 knowledge of struggling humanity and cultivated that 
 sympathy with suffering which furnished the main 
 spring of his future activity. Hope and opportunity 
 are the only capital of millions of young men, to whom 
 the story of Horace Greeley is both lesson and guide. 
 At twenty, with shambling gait, poor and badly fitting 
 clothes, a most unpromising appearance and address, 
 utterly ignorant of the world, without friends or 
 acquaintances, and with only ten dollars in his pocket, 
 he was in New York seeking his fortune and knocking 
 vainly at the door of every printing-office in the city 
 for employment. Forty years afterward the land was 
 full of his fame and achievements. As a printer he 
 was the best in the composing-room, but he was not 
 satisfied. Determined to be independent and his own 
 master, he met with failure in business, but was not 
 discouraged. He tried with unabated cheerfulness and 
 undaunted courage the avenues open to his training 
 and abilities. Disaster and disappointment in one led 
 him, not to lie down and give up, but to return and 
 try another, until at last he found his place. His great 
 
162 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 work and invaluable services there are the significance 
 of this ceremonial. His penny daily paper died. His 
 high-toned and high-priced weekly found no support, 
 but his experience was education and preparation for 
 the great work of his life. His campaign paper, The 
 Log Cabin, was both a revelation and a revolution in 
 partisan literature. The young giant was now fitted 
 for his task and founded the New York Tribune. 
 
 Nothing is more remarkable in our history as a 
 people than the extraordinary difference in periods in 
 the production of great men. It does not meet the 
 case to say that emergencies bring them forth. If the 
 standard be the names which will survive and be cher 
 ished by posterity, then the wealth of one generation 
 emphasizes the poverty of another. Washington, 
 Hamilton, and Jefferson, then Webster and Greeley, 
 then Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman, and in literature, 
 Irving, and after an interval the glorious generation of 
 Longfellow and Hawthorne. Beyond all other pub 
 licists Daniel Webster and Horace Greeley forced the 
 issues which saved the country and gave them endur 
 ing places in our history. To Webster belongs the 
 distinction of having converted his countrymen from 
 states rights to nationality; to Greeley the enforce 
 ment of the freedom of the slaves. 
 
 The time between 1840, when Horace Greeley in a 
 large way influenced public opinion, to 1872, when he 
 died, will always remain remarkable from the magni 
 tude of the events with which it was crowded. It in 
 herited or originated and settled questions of vast 
 importance, not only to the United States, but to the 
 world. It was pre-eminently the period of revolution 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 163 
 
 and reconstruction. The men who guided opinion and 
 action required and possessed creative genius and 
 courage. During these years the slave power rose, 
 culminated, and crumbled. The fight against the 
 encroachments of slavery precipitated the Civil War, 
 and the results of the Rebellion involved the remodel 
 ing of our institutions. The issues were so vast and 
 far-reaching, they touched so nearly every interest and 
 every home, that small men could temporarily fill large 
 places. But the master minds who marshaled the 
 forces for this tremendous conflict, and saw its neces 
 sities and outcome, were few. Impartial history will 
 assign the leadership in this defense and crusade to 
 Horace Greeley. 
 
 William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips were 
 brilliant scouts, penetrating far in the advance, but 
 contributing comparatively little to practical results. 
 Lincoln, Seward, and Chase were the great commanders 
 in the field of debate and action. But it was the 
 intelligence of Mr. Greeley which forged the w r eapons 
 and furnished the ideas, which day by day with un- 
 equaled vigor and lucidity described the wrongs and 
 suggested the remedies, which carried into millions of 
 homes every week conviction and enthusiasm for free 
 soil and free men, which from an exhaustless reservoir 
 of intellectual resources provided arguments and illus 
 trations to statesmen, stump speakers, and country 
 editors. 
 
 It was an unpopular side and involved personal 
 danger and pecuniary loss, but Greeley never counted 
 the cost when he thought he was right. Society 
 ostracised, business men frowned, clubs passed resolu- 
 
1 64 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 tions of censure, and mobs threatened and howled, but 
 they never swerved him from his course nor checked 
 his pace. It was the fate of this master of controver 
 sies and indomitable fighter that time and again he 
 was the victim of popular fury to the advocacy of ideas 
 which afterward became the faith of the people. At 
 one point and another of the long and desperate 
 struggle every one of the political leaders hesitated, 
 faltered, and compromised with^ the enemy, but this 
 tribune of the people, speaking for the millions whom 
 he had inspired by his ardor and equipped with his 
 opinions, thundered for justice and against com 
 promise with wrong. During the long journey through 
 the wilderness, he was often compelled to hold up the 
 feeble arms of many a faint-hearted Moses. Though 
 always a non-combatant, yet when the flag was fired 
 upon all the fierce fire of his Scotch-Irish nature was 
 aroused. He would bring the whole power of the 
 nation immediately in the field and crush at one mighty 
 blow the rebellion and its cause. While generals were 
 issuing proclamations, congressmen squandering in 
 valuable time, the North incredulous as to the serious 
 ness of the struggle, and the rebel States with 
 admirable skill and energy bringing all their resources 
 to the front, he was shouting : "Action, action, action !" 
 He knew that the emergency demanded the instant 
 and overwhelming display of the power of the nation 
 or a long war, at fearful cost of life and money, and of 
 doubtful issue, with an ever-changing public sentiment. 
 His passionate prayer was for a glorious republic, 
 freed from the curse of slavery ; its liberty the union 
 and happiness of its people, its hospitality the hope of 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 165 
 
 the world. His marvelous faculty for condensing an 
 argument into a motto started the inspiring cry, "On 
 to Richmond." The whole country took it up, and 
 answered it in so savage a strain that the administration 
 ordered the march. 
 
 The holiday excursion, broken, decimated, demoral 
 ized, fled from Bull Run to Washington, to curse him 
 for their defeat. It was not for him to provide disci 
 pline or brains. But he was buried for a while under 
 mountains of obloquy and abuse. He was made the 
 victim of official stupidity, indiscretion, and incom 
 petence. 
 
 Two years elapsed, hundreds of thousands of lives 
 were lost, hundreds of thousands of homes were 
 wrecked, and thousands of millions of dollars were 
 spent or destroyed ; the Confederacy had been per 
 mitted to gather all its resources and to receive in its 
 partial success the encouragement of the foreign 
 enemies of the great Republic, and then, with the 
 people applauding, the best talent of the country in 
 command, and overwhelming forces behind the com 
 mander, the armies moved on to Richmond and 
 victory. 
 
 Sure of his great constituency, Greeley demanded 
 on behalf of twenty millions of people the emancipa 
 tion of the slaves. It startled the cabinet and terrified 
 congress. It was discussed with bated breath in the 
 church porch and on the public square. Though its 
 author was only a private citizen, the President was 
 compelled to reply. Mr. Lincoln s answer was a curt 
 dismissal of the plea, but in the epigrammatic form 
 which gave such force and popular effect to his utter- 
 
1 66 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 ances. With resistless logic, impassioned eloquence, 
 and unequaled lucidity, Mr. Greeley pressed the argu 
 ment home to the consciences of the men and women 
 of America. The rising tide of popular feeling beat 
 against the conservative battlements at Washington, 
 and one morning the world was electrified by the 
 Emancipation Proclamation. It was the offspring of 
 the imperious spirit and commanding influence of 
 Horace Greeley. The war was over, the Union tri 
 umphant, and slavery destroyed. He had lived to see 
 his prayers answered, and beyond his wildest dreams. 
 
 He had in him little of the spirit, of Simeon, when 
 he cried, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart 
 in peace." He devoutly believed that God had always 
 work yet to be done. His own grand, pure nature har 
 bored no grudge; his judgment was not clouded by 
 surviving enmities. As he would have gathered the 
 whole power of the loyal people, and crushed the rebel 
 lion at one blow; as he would have weakened the Con 
 federacy, and emphasized the reprisals of war by strik 
 ing the shackles from the slave; so, when Lee surren 
 dered at Appomattox, and the victorious armies of the 
 nation returned to their homes, his voice filled the land 
 with a generous and patriotic plea for peace and for 
 giveness. First of all our leaders, he clearly saw that 
 home rule, and not state rights, but state sovereignty 
 were the foundation principles of the Federal Union. 
 His lofty and daring spirit rose to the full height of 
 this conception of the future of our country when he 
 became a bondsman for Jefferson Davis. The act cost 
 him the Governorship of New York, and led to the 
 estrangement of friends, and loss of money. But it was 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 167 
 
 one of those staggering blows by which a strong man 
 wakes up his countrymen, though he may be killed by 
 the recoil. It enforced the not yet understood lesson 
 of Appomattox, that reconciliation and unity would 
 not come through drumhead courts-martial and trials 
 for treason. Still impatient for the burial of war issues, 
 for the blending of the people of the whole country 
 into a common Americanism, which would concentrate 
 their energies upon the development of the wealth and 
 resources of the land, and as he believed give to the 
 freedmen their political rights, he organized and led 
 the revolt of 1872. Its labors and anxieties sapped his 
 strength, its slanders and disappointments broke his 
 heart. But his victorious spirit heard the last words 
 of the great commander General Grant echoing his 
 sentiments, and has witnessed the nation advancing by 
 leaps and bounds in prosperity and happiness under 
 his policy. 
 
 Horace Greeley had profound faith in the power of 
 public opinion. He abhorred war and violence in 
 every form. He believed that ultimately and within 
 the Constitution public opinion would root out slavery. 
 He had intense disgust for the manipulation of caucuses 
 and the packing of conventions. He distrusted poli 
 ticians whose talent was wire-pulling. The voice of 
 the people was the sound for which he was always 
 listening. He originated the idea of a cheap daily 
 paper, and revolutionized the journalism of his early 
 days. His aim was not to make money, but to reach 
 the masses. His ambition in starting the Tribune was 
 to create a power which would broaden education and 
 liberalize culture, which should support its party with- 
 
1 68 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 out being its slave, which could fearlessly expose its 
 own rascals, as well as unmask the enemy; which 
 would give hospitable welcome to the discussion of 
 theories and reforms which promised to benefit man 
 kind. The ideal for which he worked was a newspaper 
 for the family, which would be free from prurient news 
 and putrid stories, and which parents would be glad to 
 have their children read. He was the first party editor 
 who was not governed by a subsidy for his paper or a 
 salary for himself. 
 
 He founded that paradox, an independent party 
 organ, which both follows and leads; which influences 
 conventions and instructs congressmen ; which more 
 frequently foreshadows platforms and candidates than 
 adopts them. Contemplating his idol and reviewing 
 his life, he uttered this plaintive prayer: "Fame is a 
 vapor; popularity an accident; riches take wings; the 
 only earthly certainty is oblivion ; no man can see what 
 a day may bring forth; while those who cheer to-day 
 will often curse to-morrow ; yet I cherish the hope that 
 the journal I projected and established will live and 
 flourish long after I shall have moldered into forgotten 
 dust; being guided by a larger wisdom, more unerring 
 sagacity, to discern the right, though not by a more 
 unfaltering readiness to embrace and defend it at what 
 ever cost ; and that the stone which covers my ashes 
 may bear to future eyes the still intelligible inscription : 
 Founder of the New York Tribune! 
 
 No man was ever more prone to make mistakes, but 
 few, if any, ever displayed so much honesty in acknowl 
 edging them. If, while pouring out his hot wrath 
 against the offender, he discovered his error, he 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 169 
 
 emptied the vial on himself. Fearless, impulsive, and 
 frank to a degree, what he thought he said and said it 
 hard. He indulged in no preliminaries, but struck out 
 straight from the shoulder. He detested subterfuge 
 or chicane, and his own mind and motives were trans 
 parent. He took the world into his confidence, and 
 told without reserve who and what and why he loved 
 or hated. The people appreciated and were proud of 
 his childlike simplicity and manly courage, and had un 
 questioning faith in the purity of his purposes. When 
 he was right he spoke as one inspired, and when he 
 was wrong his quick admission or wailing repentance 
 only deepened and strengthened his hold upon the mil 
 lions who love and follow a leader upon whose honesty 
 they can implicitly rely, and whose imperfections make 
 him one of themselves. 
 
 Democracies sometimes give the hemlock to genius, 
 but they always resent the appearance of perfection. 
 That Greeley would lose his temper, and rave and tear 
 like ordinary mortals, that he could be prodded into 
 the most awkward and chilling profanity filled them 
 with delight, and made this prohibitionist, abolitionist, 
 devout religionist, and fierce reformer a popular idol. 
 He was the most conservative of radicals and the most 
 radical of conservatives. Mmc. Roland, awaiting her 
 turn at the foot of the guillotine, gave voice to the 
 agony of her lofty spirit because of the degradation of 
 the revolution, in the cry of "O Liberty, Liberty, what 
 crimes are committed in thy name ! " 
 
 Reform has been the mask of demagogues and the 
 shield of thieves, the pretense of charlatans and the 
 shibboleth of fools, until the word is the incentive not 
 
1 70 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 to applause, but to inquiry. But he made the vocation 
 of reformer noble. He was willing to try all things, 
 yet ever holding fast to the good. That a principle 
 or policy was encrusted with age, sanctioned by tradi 
 tion, or sanctified by the approval of the past had no 
 influence upon his judgment; that it was new and 
 original, full of hopeful promise and the passion of the 
 hour did not sweep him off his feet. His clear vision 
 and the rifle-shot directness and swiftness of his reason 
 ing powers both made him the great editor, and 
 brought him at once face to face with the issue of a 
 contest, the results of a reform, or the remedies for an 
 evil. These qualities made him an unsafe party leader, 
 but an invaluable ally of his party and its leaders. He 
 cleared away the underbrush so rapidly, and built roads 
 and bridges over mountains and streams so fast, that he 
 often had constituencies at the front calling for their 
 laggard or timid congressmen to come on and take 
 their positions. The growth of many commanding 
 centers has localized in a measure the metropolitan 
 press, but through the weekly and semi-weekly he 
 spoke to the people of every State. The city importer, 
 the New England manufacturer, the Western farmer, 
 the Whig planter of the South, the California miner, 
 the logger in the forests of the Northwest, and the 
 mechanic and the laborer everywhere, made field and 
 mill, the camp at noonday and -at night, the cross-roads 
 and country churchyards, resound with controversies 
 triumphantly carried on with the ideas and arguments 
 of Horace Greeley. He saw a drinking custom about 
 his boyhood home, imbedded in the universal sentiment 
 of health and hospitality, making a community of 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 171 
 
 drunkards, and became the first to sign the pledge of 
 total abstinence, and kept it for life. The touch of his 
 mother s hand was always on his head, the pulsations 
 of her pious heart beating against his breast, and no 
 impure thought ever escaped his lips; he loved and 
 cherished his invalid wife with unswerving loyalty, 
 and was devoted to his children ; the labors of the 
 week closed for him on Saturday night, and the Sab 
 bath always found him in his accustomed seat in 
 church. 
 
 He advocated an amendment to the Constitution to 
 subject the employees of the Government to sensible 
 rules of civil service, thirty years before it found a 
 friend in public life. He thundered for the binding of 
 the Pacific Coast to the Atlantic States by continental 
 railroads, to be laughed at as a visionary, and welcomed 
 afterward as a benefactor. He proposed a homestead 
 law for the distribution of the public domain among 
 actual settlers, to find it ridiculed by all parties, and 
 then become the foremost plank in the platform of his 
 own party. 
 
 It is the weakness of many great minds to surround 
 themselves with small men. The contrast pleases 
 their vanity, and projects into prominence their 
 superiority. It was at once the strength and magna 
 nimity of Mr. Greeley that he called to his side the 
 ablest assistants, and he had the faculty for finding 
 talent and developing it. Among the most brilliant 
 names in journalism will be found those of his asso 
 ciates and disciples, Henry J. Raymond, George Rip- 
 ley, Bayard Taylor, James S. Pike, Margaret Fuller, 
 Park Benjamin, Sidney Howard Gay, and J. R. G. 
 
1 7 2 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 Hassard, among those who have joined the majority; 
 and in the long and distinguished list of the living 
 Charles A. Dana, Whitelaw Reid, John Hay, George 
 W. Smalley, Charles Nordhoff, William Winter, John 
 Russell Young, Amos Cummings, and Junius Henri 
 Browne. His kindly interest in young men attracted 
 them to him by the tenderest ties. He came to my 
 defense in a hot controversy over my official acts in 
 my youth, with the ardor and affection of a father, 
 when I scarcely knew him ; and, when in his last and 
 fatal fight he said he needed me, I followed him with 
 out question and ran for an office I did not want. 
 
 His personal peculiarities were some of the charms 
 of his intercourse. I recall him absorbed in warm dis 
 cussion at the table, devouring each course mechanic 
 ally and ignorant of its quality or quantity, and rising 
 in hot indignation when the taste of the Roman punch 
 led him to imagine that his host had endeavored to 
 impose upon his well-known temperance principles. 
 
 While Seward was Governor Mr. Greeley invited him 
 to dinner for the purpose of discussing the policy and 
 prospects of his administration and of the W 7 hig party 
 in the nation, but so intense and dramatic was the 
 argument and programme of the host that it was long 
 past midnight when they discovered that the dinner 
 had not yet been ordered. To see Horace Greeley 
 on the platform was to witness a signal triumph of 
 mind over matter. The shambling gait, the unfashion 
 able and never-fitting clothes, the awkward gestures, 
 and the piping voice roused the mirth and ridicule of 
 the audience. But as that vast and all-absorbing 
 intelligence presented the subject and unfolded the 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 173 
 
 argument ; as the exhaustless stores of memory fur 
 nished the facts, and that faultless intellect presented 
 the reasons; as the enthusiasm and fiery faith of the 
 orator captivated his hearers and bore them along upon 
 the torrent of his pure and vigorous English, they saw 
 only the grand head, the lofty brow, the radiant fea 
 tures which made him look like a god. 
 
 He died at the close of one of the most passionate 
 and envenomed of Presidential contests. He had elec 
 trified the country by a series of campaign speeches 
 unequaled for brilliancy and versatility, and had been 
 the target for unprecedented slander and abuse. 
 But with his departing spirit, the clouds were lifted 
 and his countrymen saw their gain in his life, their 
 loss in his death. His funeral fitly illustrated the 
 estimate of his contemporaries and the judgment of 
 posterity as to his place in the history of his times. 
 Workingmen lost their day that they might with tearful 
 eyes have a last look at the face of him who had done 
 more to dignify and elevate labor anc^ benefit the 
 laborer than any man living or dead ; and with the 
 President and cabinet, congress and the supreme court 
 as mourners, the Government adjourned to do him 
 honor. 
 
 "My life," he said, "has been busy and anxious, but 
 not joyless. Whether it shall be prolonged for few or 
 more years, I am grateful that it has endured so long, 
 and that it has abounded in opportunities for good not 
 wholly unimproved, and in experiences of the nobler 
 as well as of the baser impulses of human nature." 
 
 As the flickering spark was expiring, the Puritan 
 faith and hope, which had sustained him through all 
 
174 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES. 
 
 the trials of life, furnished his last words and found 
 expression in the triumphant utterance, "I know that 
 my Redeemer liveth. It is done." This statue will 
 stand for centuries as a fitting memorial and loving 
 tribute from his friends, but his monument is the pros 
 perity of the Republic from the great measures he 
 originated, the example of a worker s public-spirited 
 life, the broken shackles of the slave, and the great 
 journal which he founded. 
 
XIII. 
 
 SPEECH AT DINNER GIVEN BY THE OHIO SOCIETY, 
 AT DELMOXICO S, ON THE RETURN OF MINISTER 
 WHITELAW REID FROM FRANCE, APRIL 9, 1892. 
 
 ONLY twice in the history of the relations between 
 France and the United States as nations has France 
 been prominently and interestingly in the eye and 
 mind of the American people. First, when she gave 
 us the assistance which secured our independence, and 
 second, when there was negotiated with her a treaty 
 which will be of incalculable advantage to the people 
 of this country. In the first instance our Minister 
 was Benjamin Franklin, and in the second Whitelaw 
 Reid, both journalists. 
 
 By sentiment and service we are more closely bound 
 to France than any other European nation, and yet in 
 the rapidity of our own development and the crowding 
 events which hav brought us in commercial com 
 munion or collision with other nations, we have taken 
 little account of and given little thought to France 
 during the last hundred years. Her fleet, her army, 
 and her credit enabled us to bring our revolution to 
 a triumphant conclusion ; and the ideas of liberty 
 absorbed here by the French soldiers, and carried back 
 to France, revolutionized the continent of Europe. 
 Upon the lines of civil and religious freedom, and of 
 
I? 6 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 the ideas and the measures which tend to the promotion 
 of the happiness of mankind, France and the United 
 States have developed together. Their friendly rela 
 tions have been enormously strengthened by the moral 
 support which we gave the young Republic in its 
 struggle for the permanence of its free institutions ; by 
 the vigorous, wise, and enlightened course of the 
 American Minister who is our guest to-night. 
 
 Our poets, our orators, and our great writers, in cele 
 brating the glories of our Western Empire, have all 
 failed to recognize in epic verse and fitting phrase that 
 principal and perennial source of our prosperity, the 
 American hog. He, more than any other agency, has 
 solved the problem of the farm and the market. When 
 the Western farmer would be compelled to burn his 
 corn because the price at the seaboard would not 
 enable him to bear the cost of transportation, this in 
 telligent animal consumes the corn, chemically works 
 it up in his own person into profitable pork, and then 
 transports himself to market to clear the mortgage 
 from the farm and add to the wealth of his country. 
 
 The governments of the Old World have always 
 been jealous of our growth and prosperity, and fearful 
 of the penetrating and propagating power of American 
 ideas. They could not keep out Yankees, for they go 
 everywhere. They could not keep out Yankee inven 
 tions, for their adoption was necessary if they would 
 keep the pace in industrial competitions. They could 
 not keep out American wheat, because their fields 
 were insufficient to raise their own supply. But in 
 self-preservation and with marvelous unanimity, and 
 backing up the effort with the whole force of their 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 1 77 
 
 great armaments, they banished and then prohibited 
 the re-entrance of the American hog. For eleven 
 years this great staple of our country has been denied 
 admission. The popular sentiment was so strong in 
 favor of the prohibition that any attempt to remove 
 it threatened to hurl the government of the day from 
 power. It was to this most difficult task that Mr. 
 Reid applied his ability and his energy. His success 
 has moved the torpid pulse of the Chamber of Com 
 merce to enthusiastic gratitude, and has done more 
 for the commerce and wealth of our country than any 
 single diplomatic transaction of the last decade. 
 
 It is an old saw that every good American goes to 
 Paris before he dies. It is generally admitted that the 
 visit hastens that desired or lamented event. Paris is 
 known to our countrymen as the metropolis where 
 their women are gowned and their men bankrupted. 
 For the last three years we, which means virtually the 
 majority of the American people who travel, have 
 found in Paris a model American home, whose perfect 
 appointments made us proud of our country and whose 
 generous hospitality made us feel at home. 
 
 The position of an American Minister, among the 
 ironclad customs and inflexible traditions of the diplo 
 matic service in the older countries, is not a happy one. 
 According to immemorial usage the Ambassador, 
 in the absence of his sovereign, is the sovereign in per 
 son, or if his State is not monarchical he represents 
 the sovereignty of the commonwealth. Immemorial 
 usage assigns to the Minister only the dignity of a 
 diplomatic agent. To the great capitals like Paris all 
 the powers of Europe and Asia send Ambassadors, the 
 
I7 8 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 republics of South America and the Isthmus send 
 Ambassadors, and Hayti is represented by an Ambas 
 sador. Whenever the representatives of these govern 
 ments call upon the Foreign Minister of France, the 
 obsequious attendant throws open both doors of the 
 Foreign Office to the Ambassador- he opens one door 
 to admit the American Minister. At state receptions, 
 official functions, Presidential dinners, the American 
 Minister decorates the rear of the diplomatic pro 
 cession and sits next to Hayti at the foot of the table. 
 
 Our adherence as a nation to this Spartan simplicity 
 decorates the rhetoric of the Fourth of July orator as 
 to the prestige and power of the great Republic, and 
 degrades among his official associates the representa 
 tives of the great Republic. The American Minister, 
 who is thus officially handicapped and who has a 
 proper patriotic appreciation of the dignity and posi 
 tion which his government rightfully holds among the 
 nations of the earth, has a most difficult and delicate 
 task. But it can be truthfully said by everyone who 
 was on the spot to observe that, with tact which was 
 never at fault, and dignity which compelled recognition, 
 and assertiveness which was never offensive, and a 
 pride which was never arrogant, the grandeur and 
 glory of the Republic of the United States so pervaded 
 all official assemblages when the Minister was present 
 that, for the last three years, wherever the American 
 Minister has sat has been next to the head of the table. 
 
 New York stands to the people in all parts of our 
 country as does a great university to its young men. 
 The student who lias won academic honors in Ohio or 
 California, in Idaho or Indiana, comes to Yale or Har- 
 
CHAUXCEY M. DEPEIV. 1 79 
 
 vard. Thereafter for the rest of his life he is known 
 as an alumnus of Yale or Harvard. So the man who 
 has grown too large for his neighborhood or his State 
 in the West, the South, the East, or the North comes 
 to New York. Here he is welcomed without ardor, and 
 given such equal chance that in due time he may 
 stand in social rank among the Knickerbockers, or 
 find himself crystallized among the "four hundred." 
 
 It is this cosmopolitan spirit which gives New York 
 an Ohio Society larger than any to be found in any 
 city in Ohio, and a Southern Society stronger than 
 any organized in any city in the South. It is in this 
 spirit that we have more Germans than in any German 
 city, save Berlin, and more Irish than in any city in 
 the Emerald Isle. It was this attraction which brought 
 to us Ohio s great son General Grant, and caused him 
 to request that he might be buried upon our island ; a 
 request which I trust will soon be honored by a monu 
 ment erected over his grave worthy the great captain 
 and the great metropolis. It was the multiplied 
 charms of New York which drew here the most attract 
 ive soldier of our time and made him loved by us as 
 he loved us, another of Ohio s grand contributions to 
 the glory of the Republic, General Sherman. New 
 York welcomes the children of her adoption, when 
 they are worthy of her recognition, with the same 
 unstinted and generous gratitude or honor as she does 
 her children to the manner born. 
 
 I speak for her best impulses, for her vigorous man 
 hood, for her broad and catholic judgment, when I say 
 on her behalf to Whitelaw Reid, "Welcome! thrice 
 welcome, back to New York ! " 
 
XIV. 
 
 ADDRESS ON THE HIGHER EDUCATION, AT THE 
 FIRST PUBLIC MEETING OF THE ALUMNAL ASSO 
 CIATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI, AT 
 PIKE S OPERA HOUSE, JUNE 5, 1891. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 There could be no greater contrast, no better exhi 
 bition of the varying phases of our American civiliza 
 tion, than is presented in my experience of day before 
 yesterday and to-day. Then I stood upon a platform 
 at Galena; to-night I stand upon a platform in Cincin 
 nati. The difference is great. One was a town going 
 down-hill ; the other is a city rapidly advancing up 
 hill. But that was not my thought when I started to 
 express it. Then the sentiment of the hour was 
 national patriotism, as embodied and emphasized in 
 the career of General Grant; to-night it is liberal edu 
 cation, and what may be accomplished by it and 
 through it for any man capable of receiving its 
 benefits. 
 
 It is rarely that I make an apology, because I believe 
 that if it is necessary to apologize it is prudent not to 
 appear. I believe in the maxim that a scholastic occa 
 sion should be adorned with an address which has 
 received the polish of the file and of the thumb nail ; 
 but in the exigencies of a rapid trip, of the meetings 
 
 ISO 
 
CIIAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 181 
 
 of two great railroads, an oration delivered on the 
 unveiling of the statue of General Grant, I am here 
 without either my file or my thumb nail in use, 
 with an address prepared upon the car and in the 
 directors room of Mr. Ingalls to-day. I am here be 
 cause I am compelled to be by the one man in the 
 East and in the West who makes everybody do just 
 what he pleases. That man is my friend, Mr. Ingalls. 
 His speech, so fitting, so perfect, so scholarly, so admir 
 ably illustrating the business man in literature and the 
 literary man in business, furnished all that was neces 
 sary for a finished speech to-night. As to the rest of 
 it, he has commanded you here to hear me and me 
 here to talk to you without preparation, and we are 
 both his victims. Nothing better illustrates his sub 
 lime audacity, that quality which he did not get at his 
 alma mater, but which he brought from the granite 
 hills of Maine, which he resembles in some respects in 
 his facial outlines, in his hardened facial expression. 
 The sublime audacity was evidenced by standing here 
 before you and before me, the President of the New 
 York Yale Alumni, and asserting that Harvard was the 
 greatest university. 
 
 Shakspere has said I don t mean the Shakspere 
 who is the candidate for President of the Farmers 
 Alliance, of course, but I mean the great Shakspere 
 with that marvelous characterization which no other 
 human mind has been able to copy, that the ages of 
 man are seven. First (my verbal memory is bad ; I 
 must refer to some notes), the infant mewling in the 
 nurse s arms; then the whining schoolboy, with his 
 satchel, going reluctantly to school ; then the lover, 
 
LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 sighing like a furnace; then the soldier, seeking the 
 bubble reputation even in the cannon s mouth; then 
 the justice, fed upon capons, and full of wise saws and 
 modern instances; then the sixth age shifts into the 
 lean and slippered pantaloon ; then, the last scene of 
 all, that ends this strange eventful history, is second 
 childishness and mere oblivion,^sans teeth, sans sight, 
 sans taste, sans everything.^) That is the best presenta 
 tion, the most rapid picture of the mutability and the 
 moral of our poor humanity. 
 
 If Shakspere, with his myriad-minded grasp of all 
 things, could live to-day in our times, could see the 
 genesis and the evolution of an American city, he 
 would exactly reverse the process and would make his 
 last days the best estate. As I see it, not possessing 
 the eye of Shakspere, the American city has four 
 stages. First, the gathering of the intelligent and 
 adventurous spirits who have dared to pull up by the 
 roots the tendrils that bound them to home, and with 
 clear vision have selected a place which must be the 
 terminal and the reservoir of the transportation facili 
 ties, bringing a vast region roundabout. Then as the 
 city grows there is a wild rush, a struggle to get the 
 benefit of the commercial prosperity and the profits of 
 the incoming population. This rush, this hurry, this 
 competition is such that there is no possibility either 
 for intellectuality or for spirituality. Then the next, 
 third stage, the desire of those who have accumulated 
 fortunes to secure from their money something more 
 than the mere clothes and houses and horses which 
 money will buy. By their money, and by its posses 
 sion, having no ancestry behind them, they separate 
 
CIIAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. iSj 
 
 themselves from the mass of their less fortunate citi 
 zens and seek to establish a society whose exclusive- 
 ness shall be a barrier against all who are not as fortu 
 nate as themselves. That is not an attractive society, 
 and it is not a healthy condition. Up to this time the 
 purest and the deadest materialism has characterized 
 everything connected with the town. But in the 
 course of a generation the children have come on their 
 settled homes, have secured the benefits of a higher 
 education ; the wants of the city have drawn in the 
 professional men and the editors and the artists, and 
 soon it comes to pass that this dull, leaden mass of 
 matter is led by brains. When that period arrives, 
 when the man at the bar is the most accomplished man, 
 the minister the most eloquent man in the pulpit, when 
 you have the most accomplished and thorough man in 
 science, the best artist with the brush and with the 
 pencil, the best teacher and the most refined scholar, 
 and when they have made their impress, then they lift 
 that community bodily up to a higher plane; they 
 open to it a larger vista; they give to that city a better 
 fortune and a more brilliant promise, and they attract 
 to that town persons who will be a benefit to the people 
 of the town both young and old. Cincinnati reached 
 this last stage generations ago. Her art museum is 
 its visible and conspicuous sign. Her technical school, 
 the art treasures in the houses of her citizens, are the 
 evidences of this culture and this refinement. Still, 
 there are hundreds of such cities as this in the United 
 States; and it is no distinction to say that there is the 
 average of culture, of higher education, and of trained 
 intelligence in a town of 150,000 or 300,000 or 500,000 
 
l8 4 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 inhabitants; but if that town secures a university a 
 university whose scholarship becomes known at all- 
 then it has a distinction that at once takes it out of 
 the general census of prosperous American cities. 
 
 Precisely what a university does for the city in 
 which it is located it would be difficult to exactly 
 describe. Its influence is felt not only among the 
 educated, but the uneducated. It reaches every shop 
 and every store ; it reaches every palace and every 
 cottage; it reaches every courtroom and every church; 
 it reaches every office and every counter in the city. 
 You see it reflected immediately in the pulpit, in the 
 higher range and broader grasp of the preacher; the 
 judge notices it in the equipment of the lawyer who 
 appears before him with his argument ; the patient 
 notices it in the characteristics and talk of the phy 
 sician who comes into the sick room. It is felt within 
 the walls of the sanctuary; felt within the counting 
 room; in the railroad office; felt upon the football 
 and baseball field. 
 
 Not to recapitulate or weary with examples, I cite 
 only two. The first university of this country, Yale, 
 has impressed itself not only upon New Haven, but 
 the whole State of Connecticut. The Connecticut 
 man who settles somewhere in this country and he is 
 sure to leave the State as soon as he can and settle 
 somewhere else, instantly becomes one of the movers 
 in affairs in the locality where he makes his home. 
 Why? Because the inspiration of the old university is 
 behind him, and this equipment fits him for the public 
 and for leadership. Harvard dominates Boston. Bos 
 ton is the center of more concentrated intelligence than 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEll- . 185 
 
 is to be found in any spot of the same size in the 
 United States. It has more culture, more of that 
 peculiar flavor and atmosphere which come from con 
 tact with thinkers living and thinkers dead. Why? 
 Simply and purely because Harvard is there, not from 
 any peculiarity of climate or of race. 
 
 Mr. Hamilton Aide, who was here recently with 
 Henry M. Stanley and his party, has written within the 
 last week a book, as all Englishmen do, relating his ex 
 perience in this country, and in it he says that Boston 
 is the only place in the United States where he heard 
 conversation ; elsewhere, it was only talk. 
 
 Well, we hear much said, and especially Mr. Ingalls 
 and I do amid our associations and surroundings, to 
 the effect that a university education bars a man from 
 success in life, and it is only by exceptional ability 
 that he can escape from the limitations of this unfortu 
 nate environment. So says my friend Mr. Carnegie. 
 No man has ever put it better than Mr. Carnegie. It 
 is that if two boys start at the same age and the same 
 time, one becomes a clerk in the store, in the mill, in 
 the factory, or in the railway office, and the other goes 
 to school and then to college, at the end of eight 
 years the boy who went into the store, or the mill, or 
 the factory, or the railway office will have been climb 
 ing eight years, and the other boy will have been four 
 years at the preparatory school and four years at 
 college, and w r hen he comes out with his diploma he 
 must start where that young friend of his started 
 eight years before, and that young friend has eight 
 years with which he must catch up. Is that true? 
 The class of which I was a member at Yale College 
 
1 86 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 graduated one hundred young men. With the excep 
 tion of three there is not a single one of them that has 
 not made an independent position in life, and many of 
 them much more of a success than that. Of course 
 ours was an exceptional class. But then, in this kind 
 of calculation, every class that comes from a university 
 is exceptional. 
 
 You take the statistics of the millions of young men, 
 who, with the limited equipment of reading, writing, 
 and arithmetic, enter upon their places at an early age 
 in business of any kind, and it is the lamentable record 
 that only five per cent, out of the hundred per cent, 
 become independent of their employment and the 
 other ninety-five remain employees for the rest of their 
 lives. There are conspicuous examples to the con 
 trary none better than my friend Mr. Carnegie, none 
 better than Commodore Vanderbilt, none better than 
 George Law, none better than the masterful men with 
 out education whom everyone of you can name in the 
 towns or counties which you come from. But these 
 men had that quality of success, that God-given faculty 
 of leadership, which made them successes anyhow in 
 spite of obstacles, but would have made them infinitely 
 greater successes if they had been equipped. 
 
 In the hot competition of our modern life, with closer 
 populations, the competition growing hotter evey day, 
 only those get on who are best trained, best equipped 
 for the struggle. That young unfortunate of my 
 friend Carnegie coming out of the university, his head 
 full of history of the world, of rhetoric, of the examples 
 of ancient and modern times, of Greek and of Latin, 
 with little knowledge of the world and none of busi- 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 187 
 
 ness, what has he? He has a mind so trained that it is 
 obedient to his will, and he can tell it go here and stay 
 there, and to master that, and it masters it. And in 
 the course of ten years from the time he enters the 
 railway office he is the chief engineer, he is the head of 
 the freight department, he is the head of the ticket 
 department, he is the general manager, he is the vice- 
 president or the president, and the boy who started 
 with him and had eight years the start in the race is 
 a clerk in the ticket office. 
 
 It has been my fortune for twenty-five years as 
 attorney, as counsel, as business associate in many 
 enterprises, to become intimately acquainted with 
 hundreds of men literally hundreds of men who, 
 without any equipment whatever of education, have 
 accumulated millions of dollars. I never met with 
 one of them whose regret was not profound and 
 deep and poignant that he had not an education. I 
 never met one of them who did not lament either 
 the neglect of his parents, or his own poor oppor 
 tunities, that failed to give him this equipment. I 
 never met one of them who did not feel in the presence 
 of cultured people a certain sense of mortification 
 which no money paid for. I never met one of them 
 who was not prepared to sacrifice his whole fortune 
 that his boy should never feel the same mortification. 
 
 I was standing in a crowded reception of distin 
 guished people one night, men eminent in their walk in 
 life, and a man who has been exceptionally fortunate 
 both in money and in public life, and deserves it all 
 from his superior ability, but who had no advantages 
 of early education, called across the room to me arid 
 
1 88 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 said, "What is that statuary?" I looked at it and 
 I saw at once the trident, the lyre, and the helmet. 
 "Why," said I, "that is Neptune, Apollo, and Mi 
 nerva." "Oh, yes," he said, "the three graces." When 
 he got home and had a talk with the cultivated family, 
 he had ice on his head for a week. 
 
 I was introduced one evening to a brilliant audience, 
 on a literary occasion, by a man who delivered himself 
 in a very forcible and vigorous way, and who paid me 
 what he regarded as the highest possible compliment. 
 "Ladies and gentlemen," said he, "here is an orator 
 that doesn t have to, like Demosthenes, chew pebble 
 stones to clear his throat." 
 
 But what is success? Is it money? How much? 
 Is one hundred thousand dollars success? In some 
 places. Is five hundred thousand success? In some 
 places. There are sixty-three million people in this 
 country. They can t all be millionaires; nor half of 
 them, nor a quarter of them, nor one-fifth of them. 
 Then is the whole mass of these people to be counted 
 unsuccessful? That man would be a fool who stood 
 before an American audience and said that money-mak 
 ing and money-getting was not a success. It is a dis 
 tinct success of its kind. When money gives a man so 
 much power and influence, when it gives him so much 
 position, when with it he can do so much for his family, 
 for his comfort, for his culture, for the education and 
 the opportunities of his children, for generous benefi 
 cence to his fellow-man, one would be a fool to say 
 that a person who made money was not in that respect 
 a success. But there is a success which may not 
 come to everybody, but is still as distinct as the mil- 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 189 
 
 lions and more precious. That man would be false 
 to the first duty of American citizenship and the first 
 duty that a man owes his family, who did not use all 
 the powers that God had given him to secure a position 
 in life where his income \vould sustain him in inde 
 pendence. When a man has once got himself to a 
 place where his income, of which he is sure by his exer 
 tions, is sufficient to enable him to live comfortably, he 
 is successful. When, in addition to that, he has a 
 home, however humble, free from mortgage, and in 
 fee simple, he is an American success. All the rest is 
 mere addition just so much more of the same kind. 
 
 But there is a success which comes to the cultured 
 and the educated man, which gives a pleasure, a 
 joy, an exquisite delight different from anything 
 which money can buy. We all know the university 
 man and the woman who has graduated from one of 
 our first institutions for the higher education of girls. 
 We all know them, living in the community, either in 
 professions or in business. Leaders in the church with 
 their trained ability; leaders in every benevolent and 
 charitable enterprise; leaders in everything which pro 
 motes the culture and the art resources of the town ; 
 unable to reciprocate in kind the attentions of those 
 who live in the great houses, but welcome at the enter 
 tainments without which there is no entertainment, in 
 the great houses. 
 
 My friend, Charles Francis Adams, and a gentleman 
 whom I do not know quite so well, the young Emperor 
 of Germany, have both declared that the study of the 
 classics is a waste of time ; and yet I read the other 
 day that the professors of the German universities, 
 
190 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 which had tried by giving modern languages to one 
 class of students and the classics in the old way to the 
 other class, had given it as their unanimous opinion 
 that those who had studied the classics w r ere better 
 equipped, better trained, more thoroughly disciplined, 
 and more successful in life, both in business and in the 
 professions. Why, our language comes, in part, from 
 the Latin and the Greek. Our literature is in itself a 
 sort of Latin and Greek. The man or the woman who 
 knows Latin and Greek takes up the paper and reads 
 the editorial or the magazine and scans the page, or 
 the book of poetry or prose, and looks at the illustra 
 tions, and there is a meaning in the word with the Greek 
 or Latin derivation which comes to him unconsciously; 
 there is a suggestion of a classic flavor in the illustra 
 tion which gives them a delight; so that you find 
 university people readers to the day of their death, 
 and business people readers until they go into business. 
 In the older countries of the world the higher education 
 has always been a privilege. In these United States 
 of America a liberal education is a duty. There the 
 institutions of government rest upon thrones, rest upon 
 classes, rest upon caste. There the higher education 
 endangers the caste and undermines the throne. Here 
 liberty rests upon the intelligence of the people, and it 
 is pure or it is base according to the character of that 
 intelligence. Every college is an insurance company 
 against anarchy and socialism. Every fully equipped 
 and thoroughly educated boy and girl is a missionary 
 for the right in the state, in society, in religion, and in 
 morals. 
 
 In an older country, where education is a privilege, 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 19 1 
 
 the two universities of Oxford and Cambridge, each 
 accommodating about two thousand students, have 
 been sufficient for the millions of England for cen 
 turies; on the Continent less than a dozen great uni 
 versities have been sufficient for hundreds of millions 
 of people for centuries; but, in this country with the 
 state resting upon the broad intelligence and the 
 education of everybody, and upon that alone the 
 older foundations have proved to be wholly insuffi 
 cient to meet the demand for the higher education 
 of the people. I have no sympathy with those who 
 say that there are too many colleges in the land and 
 that it dissipates culture. Every State in this Repub 
 lic should have a State University liberally endowed 
 and generously maintained. The man of generosity 
 and of wealth who gives his money to a hospital gives 
 it well; who gives it to a home or asylum gives it 
 well ; but he who gives it to a college gives it better. 
 If I may return to the language of the railway, the 
 money which goes to the hospital goes for repairs. 
 But the line can never be made the same as new, the 
 earnings are not sufficient to maintain it in good con 
 dition. The funds coming from the outside to equip 
 that broken down man go for repairs. The money 
 which goes to the home and the asylum, where are the 
 incurable in body and mind, that is where humanity is 
 in the hands of a receiver, and the money goes to fur 
 nish the receiver with funds to keep the bankrupt con 
 cern going. It is all right, all right. But the money 
 which goes to the college or to the university goes for 
 construction ; it builds a new line and keeps it up new 
 cars and new locomotives. It runs into a ne\v territory 
 
IQ 2 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 where God s acres have never felt the beneficent in 
 fluence of the plow before; the line runs by the 
 streams where the mill can be built; the line runs by 
 points where cities can spring up ; the line runs through 
 valleys where homes can l>e founded, and carries out 
 and distributes right and left the missionaries of God 
 and of liberty for the salvation of the Republic. 
 
 You have had one conspicuous example in your 
 State of Ohio, which completes the whole argument of 
 a liberal education. In his own life it tells it all, and 
 that is the life of James A. Garfield. Suppose he had 
 remained upon the towpath of the canal; suppose his 
 mother had been another w r oman than what she was, 
 and had said she must have the earnings of that boy 
 and have them every day. He might have become a 
 captain of a canal boat. I have no doubt he would; 
 he possibly would have been a captain of a lake 
 steamer; and then when navigation did not pay he 
 had the energy and he had the brains he might pos 
 sibly have been a roadmaster on a railroad, or its 
 superintendent, or he would have got into some sort 
 of mill or factory, and possibly become its ow r ner and 
 a rich man, and maybe in the last years of his life got 
 to congress and wondered how he got there, and why. 
 But instead of that there was behind him a woman, his 
 mother, who knew the advantages of a liberal educa 
 tion ; who saw with maternal instinct the ingenious and 
 brilliant qualities of his mind, and what could be done 
 with it if that superb machine was trained and oiled 
 and worked up to its full capacity; and with great 
 sacrifice to her and to him she gave him the advantages 
 of one of the oldest and best equipped colleges of the 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 193 
 
 East. What was the result? He entered late in life 
 upon his work. The boys who were upon the towpath 
 of the canal with him had almost t\venty years the 
 start of him when at twenty-five he began ; but in the 
 school which he entered as a humble teacher in three 
 years he was its principal and professor, and in a year 
 more its president. In the army as a soldier, that 
 trained intellect was bent down upon the tactics with 
 a determination to command all the resources of 
 trained intelligence, and in three months he had mas 
 tered the tactics. Soldier general. In congress the 
 same equipment gave him a grasp of the institutions 
 of his country and what they made it. By diligent 
 application he speedily mastered the French language, 
 that he might read the best works upon finance. A 
 congressman, senator, President of the United States. 
 He left no great fortune, but he left a legacy which is 
 the hope of every boy of humble birth in this country, 
 no matter how modest his home. 
 
XV. 
 
 ADDRESS AT THE CELEBRATION OF THE QUARTER- 
 CENTENNIAL OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY, ITHACA 
 N. Y., OCTOBER 7, 1893. 
 
 THIS is an American anniversary. It celebrates a 
 life which is representative of American conditions 
 and opportunities, and a university founded to meet 
 the practical necessities of American youth. Cornell 
 was the first of the great colleges to cultivate a field 
 outside the lessons and traditions of the mediaeval 
 schoolmen. The most exquisite of pleasures is con 
 tact with the perennial youth of our alma mater. 
 Parties dissolve, friends grow cold, loved ones depart, 
 and age becomes a solitude, but a day with the 
 college revives the enthusiasms and ambitions of 
 the past and puts us in touch with the hopes and 
 aspirations of the present. Patriotic or commemo 
 rative celebrations are ephemeral. The centuries and 
 their divisions which mark the recurring natal days 
 of these great and ever growing centers of learning 
 are eternal. We admire or reverence past events as 
 we do statues or monuments, only when we are in 
 their presence. The fresh and stimulating influences 
 of college life are ever with us. Ideas are com 
 panions; facts are milestones. Head and heart are 
 united in the sentiments and emotions of this day. 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 195 
 
 The life of Ezra Cornell is a lesson and an inspira 
 tion. The study of his struggles and success is a 
 liberal education. Our meeting would lose much of 
 its significance if it failed to enforce the lesson of the 
 career and commemorate the character of the founder. 
 Sixty-five years ago young Cornell, who had just 
 attained his majority and started out to seek his for 
 tune, after a walk of forty miles rested upon one of 
 the hills overlooking this beautiful lake. This reti 
 cent Quaker was passionately fond of nature, and he 
 was entranced by the superb panorama spread out 
 before him. Few places on earth possess so many 
 scenic attractions. The only one I know which com 
 pares with it is the view from the Acropolis at 
 Athens with the plain of Marathon in front, the 
 Pentelic mountains behind, and the blue ^Egean in the 
 distance. 
 
 The young mechanic had neither friends nor 
 acquaintances in the village which nestled at his feet, 
 and his worldly possessions were all in a little bundle 
 on the end of the stick which served for staff and bag 
 gage wagon. He had no money and only a spare suit 
 of clothes, but with health, good habits, ambition, 
 industry, and a perfect knowledge of what he intended 
 to do, and an equal determination to do it, he entered 
 Ithaca a conqueror. No delegation of citizens met 
 him at the gates, no triumphal procession bore him in 
 a chariot, no arches spanned the streets, but the man 
 who was to make this then secluded hamlet known 
 throughout the world had done for Ithaca the great 
 est service it could receive by deciding to become 
 its citizen. Though poor, he was far removed from 
 
I9 6 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 poverty. His situation illustrates one of the hopeful 
 features of American conditions. Neither doubt nor 
 despair was in his mind. He had found his place and 
 knew he could improve it. He saw his ladder and 
 began to climb. It is the genius of our people to get 
 on, and it is the pleasure of the community to help 
 and applaud. Occasional failures test the metal of 
 the aspirant, and hard knocks develop grit or gelatin. 
 There are, unhappily, suffering and hopelessness and 
 helplessness incident to the practical workings of the 
 doctrine of the survival of the fittest, but vigor and 
 manhood win their rewards. 
 
 Faith and works were the principles of Ezra Cornell, 
 and the carpenter s bench a platform and preparation 
 for larger efforts. Adaptability and concentration of 
 effort have developed the resources of the country. 
 They have opened mines in the mountains and trans 
 formed the prairies from wild wastes to fields rich with 
 golden grain and dotted with happy homes. They 
 have suggested the inventions to meet the necessities 
 of the hour. They are American characteristics. 
 They belong only to a people who are not trained in 
 grooves and are not taught to plant their feet only in 
 the deeply worn molds made in the pathway of time 
 by the steps of their ancestors. With Mr. Cornell 
 these qualities were superlative gifts. As a carpenter 
 he improved the methods of his village master; as a 
 mechanic he devised machines which overcame unex 
 pected difficulties; as an unprejudiced practical man 
 he became familiar with the uses of electricity while 
 the professor was still lecturing upon its dangers. 
 
 Morse had discovered the telegraph, and if he had 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 197 
 
 lived in an earlier age he would have been either incar 
 cerated or incinerated. Bigots looked with suspicion 
 upon this possibly sacrilegious trifling with the light 
 ning, scientists doubted the utility of the invention, and 
 congressmen regarded it with distrust. The inventor 
 needed an undaunted and indomitable man of affairs 
 to demonstrate to capitalists its possibilities and to 
 the public its beneficence, and he found him in Ezra 
 Cornell, who saw its future, and upon his judgment 
 staked the accumulations of his life and the almost 
 superhuman labors of a decade. He owned electric 
 shares of the face value of millions, and went hungry 
 to bed because he had not the means to pay for a 
 meal, and his family suffered because they could not 
 be trusted for a barrel of flour. But neither want nor 
 debt nor the sheriff could wrest from him his tele 
 graph stock. I know of no more dramatic scene in 
 the lives of any of our many successful men than 
 the spectacle of this potential millionaire tramping 
 through the highways and byways of penury, suffer 
 ing, and sickness, upheld by his sublime faith in his 
 work and the certainty of its recognition. Suddenly 
 the darkness was dispelled and the day dawned. 
 People woke up to the necessity of the telegraph for 
 the government and for commerce, and Cornell s faith 
 had coined for him a fortune. 
 
 In a country like ours, where so many accumulate 
 great wealth, its proper use and distribution are 
 becoming questions of national as well as individual 
 interest. A half-century ago the subject was un 
 known; a quarter of a century ago the public thought 
 little and cared less about it; but to-day it threatens 
 
I9 8 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 to become the incentive to or the solvent of socialism. 
 The concentration of riches and the cultivation of 
 agrarianism have advanced with equal pace. The 
 recent political movements, which in some States 
 defeated both the national parties, were the expression 
 at the polls of the silent forces whose growth and 
 strength had been unnoticed. Though the principles 
 of the new faith are vague, incoherent, and apparently 
 absurd, the underlying power which welds and wields 
 them is hatred and distrust of property. 
 
 The objective point is at present the corporation. 
 But as the operation and necessity of this device for 
 transacting a business in which all as stockholders can 
 participate are better understood, the millionaire be 
 comes the target. It is at once the anomaly and the 
 danger of the crusade, that it enlists those who are 
 themselves property-holders, as farmers or house- 
 owners or tradesmen, against those who have more. 
 Selfish and ostentatious wealth is the most potent 
 agency for promoting the methods for its own diminu 
 tion and destruction by legislation, while the wise and 
 generous use of money builds barriers for its pro 
 tection. 
 
 The most arrogant and offensive manager of money 
 is often the man who has endured and suffered ad 
 versity and finally become a success. He proudly 
 boasts, "I owe nothing to the world," and "No one 
 ever did anything for me." He is neither s) 7 mpathetic 
 with the struggling nor sensitive to duty. As a money- 
 making machine he incurs the enmity of his fellows 
 and cares nothing for their good will. With an 
 increasing contempt for those who fail to get on in 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 199 
 
 business comes a growing disparagement of the value 
 of the work or services of others. He pays grudgingly 
 and gives regretfully, only under the resistless pressure 
 of his surroundings. In the lending of money he 
 practices the arts of the usurer, and in speculation 
 those of the gambler. The world gains nothing by 
 his life, and his heirs are his only beneficiaries at his 
 death. Such a man does infinite harm. He is at once 
 the excuse for and the irritant of the combination of 
 the elements which, either blindly or viciously, labor 
 for the destruction of our institutions and laws. He 
 has existed under all forms of government and society, 
 but it is in a republic that he becomes peculiarly 
 obnoxious, and the methods of reaching him seem 
 more accessible. 
 
 There are men who so use their wealth that the 
 whole community rejoices in their good fortune and 
 applauds the management of their trusts. Their course 
 sharply differentiates between property and its adminis 
 tration. They draw the fire from vested interests 
 upon whose integrity and safety the structure of society 
 depends, and concentrate it upon the unworthy steward 
 who defies the written laws of God and the unwritten 
 ones of men. A most noble and brilliant representa 
 tive of this class was the founder of this university. 
 Prosperity made him neither an idler nor a voluptuary. 
 It added fresh vigor to his work, enlarged his vision, 
 and broadened his sympathies. There were no mawk 
 ish sentimentalities nor theatrical surprises in his char 
 acter. He determined to devote a portion of his 
 fortune to the welfare of his countrymen and country 
 women, and decided that the best way was to give 
 
200 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 them the education and training with which to help 
 themselves. He had the self-made man s belief that 
 a successful career is possible to everyone who tries, but 
 he knew from sore experience how much more difficult 
 is progress for the poorly equipped in the sharp com 
 petitions of life. He did not give up money-making. 
 On the contrary, the more beneficent purposes to which 
 he found it could be applied, the harder he worked to 
 gain more. His was the ideal of the divine injunction 
 to be "diligent in business, serving the Lord." 
 
 In great crises in the history of nations, and in the 
 conjunction of events which produce revolutions in 
 the moral, the mental, or the physical conditions of a 
 people, God always provides the man for the emerg 
 ency. The causes which produce him and the results 
 which follow his actions may form an epoch in the 
 development of the race or only contribute to char 
 acteristics which mark a century. A Caesar, a Han 
 nibal, a Napoleon, a Peter the Hermit, a Luther, are 
 eras in the story of the world. The generations which 
 live in the period of the activities of such phenomenal 
 genius are either consumed by the burning heat of the 
 sun or blinded by its radiance. Centuries must elapse 
 before we can calmly contemplate their powers or 
 achievements, forgetting the frightful sufferings and 
 calamities through which their work assumed form and 
 permanence. 
 
 It is our happier lot to celebrate one of those minor 
 events which is not a revolution, but an evolution. 
 The government of the United States suddenly dis 
 covered that it had a duty to perform toward the edu 
 cation of the people. The Federal Constitution made 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEU . 201 
 
 it necessary to act through the States. Congress gave 
 for this purpose a large grant of land, and nearly a 
 million of acres came to New York. Schools strug 
 gling in financial difficulties, localities ambitious for an 
 institution of learning, and speculators seeking the pos 
 session of the prize threatened the confiscation or dis 
 sipation of the trust. The friends of higher education, 
 who had hoped for great benefits to the common 
 wealth from the wise administration of this fund, were 
 in despair. The wisdom and generosity of Mr. Cornell 
 saved the honor of the State and rescued the national 
 gift for education. He said : "Concentrate this en 
 dowment, which is the only way to get its benefits, 
 and I will add a half million dollars to it from my own 
 fortune." It is a significant commentary upon the 
 ignorance and greed of the times, and the progress 
 indicated by this celebration, that the State of New 
 York exacted from Ezra Cornell twenty-five thousand 
 dollars as a forced tribute for the privilege of giving 
 five hundred thousand dollars of his own money for 
 the permanent benefit of her people. 
 
 The selection and placing upon the market by the 
 several States of these lands had reduced their price 
 so low that but a fraction of the sum intended was 
 realized. Then the same business sagacity, foresight, 
 and indomitable courage which had carried the tele 
 graph to success again came to the public service. 
 The founder contracted with the State to carry these 
 lands and bear all the burdens of maintenance and 
 taxation until their value should be commensurate 
 with the purposes for which they were dedicated. 
 The trust impaired his fortune, increased his cares, and 
 
202 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 brought upon him a storm of criticism and slander, 
 but the strength and grandeur of this great and grow 
 ing university are the living monuments which vindi 
 cate his name and fame. 
 
 The figures and results marvelously demonstrate 
 the wisdom and sagacity of Ezra Cornell. The land 
 grant to all the States was 9,597,840 acres, of which 
 New York s alone was 989,920 acres. The whole grant 
 realized the sum of $15,866,371, of which New York s 
 part brought $6,661,473, or nearly one-half the money 
 for one-tenth of the land. Truly in this, as among the 
 many events which have made New York the Empire 
 State of the Union, when the clock struck the hour 
 the man among her people who was equal to the occa 
 sion answered, "Willing and ready." 
 
 It was my privilege, as a young man and the young 
 est member of the legislature, to sit beside Ezra Cor 
 nell. I learned to love and revere him. In those 
 days, so full of the strife and passions of the Civil War, 
 it was a wonder and inspiration to listen to the peace 
 ful plans of this practical philanthropist for the benefit 
 of his fellow-men. The times were big with gigantic 
 schemes for the acquisition of sudden fortunes, and his 
 colleagues could not understand this most earnest and 
 unselfish worker. To most of them he was a schemer 
 whose purposes they could not fathom, and to the rest 
 of us he seemed a dreamer whose visions would never 
 materialize. These doubters of a quarter of a century 
 ago esteem it a high privilege to stand in this presence 
 and an honor to have the opportunity to contribute 
 a chaplet to the wreaths which crown the statue of 
 Ezra Cornell. 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 203 
 
 I remember that a scheme had been perfected, 
 whose ramifications extended all over the State and 
 embraced the strongest men of both parties, to raid 
 the treasury upon a false assumption of the needs of 
 the canals. The measure was sprung suddenly upon 
 the House, and as chairman of the committee of ways 
 and means it was my duty to fight it. I was almost 
 wholly unprepared for the task. When the enemy 
 seemed about to triumph Mr. Cornell opened his desk, 
 took from it a carefully arranged mass of figures and 
 statistics, and placed them before me. "I have been 
 gathering these for several weeks," he said, "in order 
 to make a speech against this bill, but you need them 
 now." They gave such full and complete refutations 
 of the claims of the combination that at the close of 
 the debate the proposed act was defeated and its advo 
 cates so completely routed that it was never revived. 
 He cared more for the triumph of the truth than for 
 any fame he might gain as its advocate. It was this 
 utter oblivion to self which led him to sacrifice every 
 thing for this university, when once he had become 
 convinced of its necessity and laid its foundations. 
 
 It was the highest public spirit which moved him to 
 contribute a half-million of dollars to concentrate and 
 preserve the congressional land grant. It was the 
 nobility which rises above natural and justifiable indig 
 nation that made him submit to the toll of twenty- 
 five thousand dollars for the privilege of grandly giving 
 of his own. It was the spirit of which martyrs are 
 made that inspired him to carry the land grant through 
 years of financial depression, periling his fortune and 
 impairing his health with the burden, until finally the 
 
204 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 trust which would have brought only thousands 
 realized millions. It was the martyr to the purest and 
 loftiest sense of duty to his country and mankind who 
 buried the larger part of his estate, building the 
 railroads which connected his university with the 
 transportation facilities of the country. But he 
 secured for the people a seat of learning which will be 
 ever increasing in strength and beneficence, and for 
 himself the gratitude of all succeeding generations and 
 immortal fame. 
 
 Text-books and lectures are only part of an educa 
 tion. There is more growth without than within the 
 classroom. The faculty may be ever so faithful and 
 learned there is still much beyond them. The spirit 
 of a college indelibly impresses its students. With the 
 century-old foundations, it is the treasured memories 
 and traditions of a brilliant past. It is the force of 
 the accumulated achievements and examples of gen 
 erations of alumni, who have illustrated and illumined 
 the progress and glory of the Republic. It matters lit 
 tle to Yale or Harvard that their founders are scarcely 
 more than names with which nothing tangible can be 
 connected. It is much it is everything to young 
 Cornell that her sons can be inspired by such a founder. 
 
 The main object of the higher education through all 
 the ages had been to prepare men for the next world. 
 It had not been thought necessary to do much for 
 women, either for earth or heaven. The Puritans 
 started the college with the settlement, but it was to 
 train young men for the Christian ministry. We have 
 not yet entirely recovered from the belief that a 
 university career is worse than useless, except for the 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 205 
 
 pulpit, law, and medicine. But the founder of this 
 institution profoundly believed that the better fitted 
 a man was for his lifework, the better his preparation 
 for an existence beyond the grave. A successful 
 worker, in a nation of workers, he cared nothing for 
 speculative philosophies, but had unbounded faith 
 in the possibilities of an educated farmer or mechanic. 
 The materialism of our time is frequently denounced 
 and eloquently assailed. It is in a sense the protest 
 of the present against the past ; of the practical pro 
 gressists against the musty schoolmen. It gives our 
 people more and better homes. Its inventions add 
 immeasurably to the comfort and happiness of our 
 lives. Its enterprise and energy develop our resources 
 and increase our national wealth. Gross materialism, 
 which sacrifices everything to the mere accumulation 
 of money, merits the censure it receives; but the real 
 benefactors of the world in our age of hard struggles 
 and hot competition are those who clo most to fit both 
 heads and hands for the needs of the hour. Whatever 
 blessings have belonged in the past to him who made 
 two blades of grass to grow where only one did before, 
 are equally earned by the man whose locomotive or 
 electrical device or machine or engine has multiplied 
 power and simplified labor. Every scientific or mining 
 or technological or manual training school is the out 
 growth of and contribution to our higher materialism. 
 The new learning is not an assault upon, but an en 
 largement of, the old. The splendid results of ancient 
 methods keep firm their hold upon the colleges. The 
 training they give is equally beneficial for business 
 and the professions. 
 
206 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 It is the liberal education for ordinary pursuits 
 which this university has demonstrated to be one of 
 the great aims of teaching. "I would found an institu 
 tion where any person can find instruction in any 
 study," was the motto of the founder. It embraces in 
 its catholic hospitality both sexes and all conditions 
 in life. It is a trite truism that intelligence and virtue 
 are the safety of a republic. For our period intelli 
 gence requires a broader interpretation. The ordinary 
 equipment of the school is not sufficient now, though 
 it might have been with our fathers. It must be sup 
 plemented by both practical and scientific training for 
 one s chosen vocation. 
 
 The rule of the thumb was the orthodox faith of 
 the past and is the transparent weakness of the 
 present. Greek and Latin will continue to occupy 
 leading places in a liberal education. These languages 
 may be dead as spoken tongues, but they embalm the 
 priceless treasures of the past, which have more than 
 once rescued learning from the darkness and led the 
 mind of the age to the light. It is not everyone who 
 has the time, the disposition, or the ability to master 
 the classic curriculum and its attendant require 
 ments. There was no place for them within a period 
 so recent that it hardly antedates the day we cele 
 brate. 
 
 The academy of Plato flourished at Athens for nine 
 hundred years. It preserved and stimulated the intel 
 lectual life of the civilized world through all those 
 centuries. Justinian prepared the way for the Dark 
 Ages by closing this venerable seat of learning and 
 confiscating its endowments. But his practical educa- 
 
CHAUNCEY J7. DEPEW. 207 
 
 tion perished with the classical teaching which he 
 thought useless. 
 
 In this university Plato s academy and the new edu 
 cation can dwell harmoniously and work beneficently 
 on the same campus. The student has his choice 
 between higher education for mental discipline and 
 intellectual strength and pleasure, and higher edu 
 cation specifically for his vocation. His diploma 
 informs the world precisely what his alma mater has 
 given. 
 
 A review of the courses prescribed and permitted 
 here would have paralyzed Duns Scotus, amazed Eras 
 mus, and shocked Abelard. They would have felt 
 that they had touched the base earth and its ignoble 
 occupants. But we could not live in the clouds of the 
 Middle Ages. With us the earth is the Lord s, and its 
 dwellers his children, with equal rights and share in its 
 blessings and opportunities. All work in it or on it is 
 noble. 
 
 This experiment was hailed with derision and dis 
 trust. It had been settled by Plato s academy, and 
 never again doubted, that repose and retirement from 
 the activities of life were essential to study and 
 thought. The venerable grove and the moss-covered 
 and ivy-crowned hall were the symbols of learning. 
 "The roar of the steam engine, the shriek of its whistle, 
 the clatter of machinery, the fascination of the electric 
 motors, the handiwork of the architect, the engineer, the 
 surveyor, the farmer, the artisan, upon the campus will 
 destroy," said the teachers, "all concentration upon 
 text-books and reflection upon lectures." The issue 
 was confidently met and courageously fought. We 
 
208 LIFE AND LAJ^ER SPEECHES OF 
 
 are here to celebrate the success of the idea of which 
 Cornell is the chief exponent. From the chairs of the 
 faculties of many colleges, from the bench, the bar, the 
 pulpit, the doctor s office, and the editorial sanctum; 
 from the field, the farm, and the factory ; from the 
 counting room, the telegraph, and the railway, the 
 alumni of Cornell University are gathered to do loving 
 and reverent honor to the gifts which have lifted them 
 into both the practice and enjoyment of their several 
 pursuits. 
 
 Sir William Hamilton declared that "none of our 
 intellectual studies tend to cultivate a smaller number 
 of the faculties in a more partial and feeble manner 
 than mathematics." Dr. Whewell writes that "mere 
 classical reading is a narrow and enfeebling education," 
 while Herbert Spencer solves in his large way the 
 whole problem of study by his compact statement that 
 "to suppose that deciding whether a mathematical or 
 a classical education is the best in deciding what is the 
 proper curriculum, is much the same thing as to sup 
 pose that the whole of dietetics lies in ascertaining 
 whether or not bread is more nutritive than potatoes." 
 The wise liver finds food in the life and products of 
 the land, the \vater, and the air, and selects that which 
 nourishes him best. And so classics and mathematics, 
 history, literature and philosophy, physics, botany, 
 zoology, physiology and the structure of the mind, 
 politics, economics and science, intellectual develop 
 ment and manual training, are the component parts of 
 the equipment which the new 7 learning offers to the 
 student for his choice and needs. The variety and 
 excellence of the world, the multiplication and bene- 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 209 
 
 licence of its activities, are due to the fact that what 
 is meat for one man is poison for his neighbor. 
 
 The marvelous quarter of a century behind us has 
 no greater distinction than the advance in the educa 
 tion of woman. The doubts which surrounded the 
 movement have been dispelled by the splendid demon 
 stration of her ability to successfully compete with her 
 brothers in any and every field of intellectual study 
 and research. It is now urged that, when returning 
 home, she is so much better educated than the village 
 swain, she either rejects him and fails in her mission, 
 or, as his wife, despises him. Ignorance is no excuse 
 for keeping others ignorant. The alumnae of our 
 female colleges will see to it that their boys are edu 
 cated, and they are more and more every year the 
 most active and effective workers for greater facilities 
 and freer opportunities for study. Their co-education 
 at Cornell with the young men has cultivated the best 
 traits and most chivalric characteristics of American 
 manhood. Their ambition and success have stimu 
 lated every department of the university to more ear 
 nest effort and higher ideals. 
 
 The emancipation of woman from the crushing 
 slavery of a few overcrowded and wretchedly remuner 
 ated industries has increased incalculably both the sum 
 of human happiness and the well-being of our com 
 munities. Education has fitted her for fields which 
 needed her labor, and the world is the richer for her 
 skill and fidelity, and the better for her independence. 
 
 The eighteenth century produced only two inven 
 tions Franklin s lightning rod and a machine for 
 the manufacture of nails. The nineteenth, with the 
 
210 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 telegraph and telephone, the sewing machine and the 
 cotton gin, the railway and the steamship, and the 
 thousands of other motors of progress, has redeemed 
 and regenerated the globe. These marvels have 
 changed the relations of men to each other and revo- 
 
 o 
 
 lutionized their standing with the state. They have 
 proved hotbeds of democracy and encouraged des 
 potism. The pace has been too rapid for humanity to 
 adjust itself to the new conditions. Both society and 
 the commonwealth require educated intelligence for 
 their safety. The fathers built their republic upon 
 the individual. His independence was the keystone 
 of the arch which supported their institutions. The 
 mighty forces which the inventors have made obedi 
 ent to the service of man have so increased productive 
 power and energy that we live in an era of great 
 combinations. 
 
 Organization threatens the destruction of the indi 
 vidual. The corporation or the trust says he shall not 
 do business except as their employee or by merging 
 his plant in theirs, and the labor union says he shall 
 not work unless he does so by its rules and with its 
 permission. Aggregated capital, united to build up 
 and carry on important enterprises, causes labor to 
 create counter-forces for protection. The one attacks 
 the small producer or manufacturer and drives him 
 out of business, and the other prohibits the artisan 
 from individually accepting employment, no matter 
 what his skill, his desire, or necessities. The same 
 concentration of power has invaded the sphere of 
 politics. Our cities are governed by one or more 
 powerful leaders, who, without the responsibilities of 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 211 
 
 office, command the unquestioning obedience of the 
 office-holders, and our States are rapidly running into 
 the same conditions. 
 
 In 1862 Abraham Lincoln had upon his desk the 
 Emancipation Proclamation and the Land Grant Bill 
 to promote education. He signed them both. The 
 one was an essential complement of the other. Without 
 education, emancipation does not emancipate. The 
 freedman exchanges one thralldom for another. The 
 tendencies of our times are much plainer than the 
 remedies. It is utterly inconsistent with the welfare 
 of our people that conflicts between capital and labor 
 should always end in the primitive barbarism of a 
 condition of war, with either the citizen soldiers under 
 arms or semi-military private organizations doing 
 police duty. Educate, educate! Education is the 
 national necessity. It takes time for emigrants com 
 ing to our shores to fully absorb the principles of 
 American liberty, but their children can be so firmly 
 grounded in its truths in the schools that they will be 
 the best and bravest citizens of the state. 
 
 The grand mission of institutions like Cornell is 
 the training and graduating of men of independent 
 thought and action. The self-reliance which comes 
 from the conscious mastery of one s calling is inde 
 pendence, and, when supplemented by the teachings 
 and touch of the university, it is liberty. Every youth 
 who goes out into the world, from any department of 
 this college, becomes in the community where he 
 settles an influence for right thinking and right act 
 ing. He is a standard for better work in his vocation. 
 One of the difficulties of our situation is the mass of 
 
212 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 half-educated and badly trained young men who come 
 every year from our schools. Their equipment is too 
 superficial for the professions or for business, and they 
 have no preparation for the trades. They emphasize 
 by their necessities and their careers the call for every 
 possible extension of the new learning. It is both a 
 commentary upon the public necessity for education, 
 and a comfort for the future, that there can be found 
 in the ranks of socialism or anarchy in the United 
 States scarcely a single graduate of any high school- 
 classical, technological, or manual. 
 
 Cornell gives free education to nearly six hundred 
 students, the representatives of the assembly districts 
 of the State of New York. In doing this she fulfills in 
 fourfold measure the spirit and letter of her foundation. 
 But the Empire State should not permit its sons to be 
 a drain upon resources which have been so wisely 
 husbanded and so admirably administered. It should 
 generously recognize the splendid w r ork done at Cor 
 nell, and appropriate the means for the tuition of those 
 who are here and those who wish to come. Then 
 there would grow upon the shores of Cayuga Lake a 
 student republic rivaling any of those that greeted the 
 Middle Age revival of learning, and instinct with the life 
 and energy and aspirations of to-day. The picture and 
 the prospect should thrill the people of New York 
 with loyal pride. 
 
 A few years ago the University of Heidelberg cele 
 brated its five-hundredth anniversary. The heir to 
 the throne of the German empire presided, princes 
 responded to the sentiment, and around the great hall 
 hung the banners and armorial devices of the hereditary 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 213 
 
 rulers of the land. The spectacle was brilliant and 
 imposing, and the dazzling display of the emblems 
 of rank and power made it a memorable pageant. 
 When your eyes had become accustomed to the sheen 
 of the armor and weapons and jewels, and your ears 
 to the blare of the trumpets, you instinctively queried, 
 What lesson of these five centuries does this ceremo 
 nial teach? You saw the baron in his castle on the 
 Rhine, with his vassals at his feet; you felt the power 
 and glory of Teutonic valor and achievements; you 
 knew of the scholars and learned men who had passed 
 the portals of the university, but you felt that the 
 political, the social, and the material conditions of 
 the age of invention and democracy were not repre 
 sented. 
 
 It is the proud boast of Cornell that she is not only 
 abreast with the times, but is leading them. No 
 traditions retard her growth, and no legends obscure 
 for her the truth. She feels the movement of the 
 intellectual activities of the country and the throbbing 
 pulse of our industrial development. Her twenty-five 
 years are coincident with the unparalleled progress of 
 the United States since the close of the Civil War, and 
 her wonderful growth has been stimulated by its 
 impulse. 
 
 Said Mr. Gladstone tome: "If I had to select from 
 all the half-centuries of recorded time the fifty years in 
 which to pass my active life, I would choose the fifty 
 years in which I have worked. It has been fifty years 
 of emancipation." What is true of this most remark 
 able and powerful statesman is still more applicable 
 to this university. Her quarter of a century is the high- 
 
214 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 water mark of intellectual activity, scientific discovery, 
 realization of liberty, and material progress. Hero- 
 worship is the happiness and inspiration of youth, and 
 we have for this period Lincoln and Grant, and Sher 
 man and Sheridan, in statesmanship and arms in our 
 country, and Gladstone, Bismarck, Von Moltke, Thiers, 
 Cavour, and Gambetta abroad. Literature has been 
 enriched by Ruskin and Hawthorne, Taine and Emer 
 son, Longfellow and Tennyson, Bancroft and Green, 
 Whittier, Lowell, and Holmes. Scholars and scientists, 
 too numerous for record in the limits of this address, 
 have irradiated this era with the results of their 
 genius. 
 
 Edison and Bell and others have demonstrated the 
 limitless possibilities of electricity. The spirit of 
 invention and discovery has broken down the doors 
 which safe-guarded the secrets of nature, and let loose 
 the imprisoned forces of resistless energy and remorse 
 less power and tamed and trained them to the service 
 of man. The emancipation of the slave and the recon 
 struction of the States, the education of the freedmen 
 and the restoration of national unit} 7 and national 
 patriotism, are our object lessons in philanthropy and 
 statecraft of priceless value to this and coming genera 
 tions. 
 
 In the heroic age its honors and renown were for 
 those who had been most successful in killing their 
 fellow human beings. In our prosaic one, they are 
 reserved for those who do most and best to preserve the 
 lives, improve the health, increase the happiness, and 
 promote the welfare of the men and women of the pres 
 ent and the future. Philanthropy has by natural evolu- 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 215 
 
 tion grown from an impulse to a science. The indis 
 criminate giving which pauperized has become the wise 
 endowment for restoration to independence or the 
 training for leadership. Our benefactions assume two 
 forms, the one for repairs and the other for construc 
 tion. In the first are hospitals, homes, and asylums, 
 and in the second the school, the college, the univer 
 sity, and the library. Money yields its most satis 
 factory return when it is spent to open and smooth the 
 pathways of youth to opportunity and careers. The 
 investment compounds, and in compounding dupli 
 cates its beneficence with each generation of students, 
 while the benefactor has his fame freshened and en 
 larged by every recurring class till the end of time. 
 
 The enduring monuments of those who have pro 
 moted the growth of Cornell are fast filling the campus. 
 They are the buildings devoted to liberal learning 
 which they have erected or furnished and endowed. 
 Next to the founder comes the benefactor Henry W. 
 Sage, and next to him that noble, far-sighted and 
 unselfish woman whose eyes closed in death in the 
 belief that she had done all she could for the university 
 which she loved. Broadman and Barnes and White 
 and Sibley head the roll of honor, which will increase 
 with the annual celebrations of the founder s day. 
 
 "I would found an institution where any person 
 can find instruction in any study" is the chart, the 
 compass, and the beacon light for Cornell. It shows 
 all the oceans and continents of knowledge, it points 
 the course of safety, according as the student would 
 sail close to shore or fearlessly venture upon the 
 boundless deep, and it warns him to keep and permits 
 
216 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES. 
 
 him to remain within the lines for which he has the 
 ability, taste, and time. It is a motto under which 
 the sons of the laborer and the millionaire, of the 
 lawyer and the merchant, of the farmer and the 
 mechanic, meet for the enjoyment of its equal gifts 
 and opportunities. Cornell rounds her first quarter- 
 century with a record of growth, maturity, and power 
 unequaled in the history of colleges. Superb as is her 
 youth, it is still only the promise of the splendors of 
 her maturity and the ripened and softened grandeur 
 of her age. 
 
XVI. 
 
 ADDRESS AT THE OPENING OF THE DREXEL INSTI 
 TUTE OF ART, SCIENCE, AND INDUSTRY, PHILA 
 DELPHIA, DECEMBER I/, 1891. 
 
 "THE King is dead, long live the King," has little 
 application to our times. Ancient terms survive, but 
 they have lost their meaning. Words which conveyed 
 certain ideas to former generations express different 
 ones for us. The matchlock and the machine gun, 
 gunpowder and dynamite, represent the destructive 
 forces, past and present. The university of the school 
 men of the Middle Ages, of Abelard and Duns Scotus, 
 and of the scientific school and technological institute 
 to-day are object lessons as to the significance of edu 
 cation then and now. We talk glibly of progress and 
 the development which is the distinctive glory of our 
 century, but the pace is so rapid, and the results so 
 tremendous, that it is difficult to grasp either details or 
 conclusions. 
 
 The scientist, the sociologist, the political philos 
 opher, and the theologian each claims for his depart 
 ment special recognition for what it has accomplished, 
 and its advance beyond precedents. The educator is 
 compelled to admit their claims, and also to confess 
 that, owing to difficulties which were not of his creation, 
 it has been impossible for him to keep step with his 
 contemporaries. 
 
2i8 2JFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 All the conservatism of centuries has crystallized 
 about the university. Every radical effort to break 
 up old systems and proceed upon new lines has met the 
 combined hostility of faculty and alumni. They point 
 to results, to the long list of men eminent in the pro 
 fessions and in literature, whom the schools claim to be 
 their product and examples. 
 
 Far be it from me to detract in any way from the 
 glory of that splendid and self-sacrificing body of edu 
 cators who have made illustrious the title of teacher. 
 But the teachers have been so compassed and pinioned 
 by legend, tradition, and environment, that they have 
 been unable, except within a recent period, to emanci 
 pate the curriculum. 
 
 Steam, electricity, and inventions have hardened the 
 conditions of competition and multiplied indefinitely 
 the number of specialties. In the briefest time, and 
 almost without warning, we are brought face to face 
 with the problem that education and prosperity, edu 
 cation and a livelihood, education and morals, educa 
 tion and law, education and liberty are indissolubly 
 wedded together. 
 
 In the thirteenth century three volumes easily con 
 tained all the learning of that period. Now, from 
 twenty-five to thirty books of the largest size, and 
 edited under the most various and able authorship, do 
 not pretend to embrace in their encyclopedia the 
 knowledge and discovery in the world. 
 
 In the Middle Ages the people could be broadly 
 divided into two classes, the soldiers and the pro 
 ducers. The labor and skill of the farmer, the mer 
 chant, and the artisan were exhausted to support the 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 219 
 
 fighter. Education existed only for ecclesiastics. It 
 was wholly the privilege of the Church. As the na 
 tions grew r more civilized and their wants increased, 
 the priest became also the lawyer and the doctor. The 
 professions gradually emancipated themselves from the 
 priesthood ; but, nevertheless, down almost to our own 
 time, the higher education, the course in college or in 
 the university, was reserved for the liberal professions. 
 Even among the most enlightened peoples of Europe 
 education is still a privilege. In America it is a duty. 
 
 The first recognition of the imperative demands of 
 our period was when the optional opportunity broke 
 in upon the time-honored course of classics and mathe 
 matics. Then came the scientific school, to be looked 
 upon by the academic department as unworthy of its 
 equal recognition and degree. But the pressing neces 
 sities of practical life forced many collegians to go 
 through the scientific school as a post-graduate course, 
 and the university to give equal honors to all depart 
 ments of the institution. It is only within our own 
 generation that the perfection of the old education for 
 all the requirements of life has been questioned. The 
 groping after the desired results within the accustomed 
 lines led to the creation of that most abused and 
 misused word, "culture." 
 
 The Concord School gave it vogue and eminence. 
 With Emerson and his contemporaries it meant a full 
 mind, trained in college, earnestly and industriously 
 grasping all knowledge, impartially sifting testimony 
 and tradition, and with catholic judgment seeking the 
 truth and with a martyr s courage defending it. Cul 
 ture became popular. It was the badge of a higher 
 
220 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 order of selected mortals. It excused the universal 
 range of superficiality. It stood for a little informa 
 tion about everything, and no accurate knowledge of 
 anything. It became the veneer of the quack, and 
 finally the decoration of the dude. But it was not 
 culture, either in its loftier significance or in its 
 degraded use, which the times required. They needed 
 the practical training of youth for the new and sterner 
 realities which science and invention had created. The 
 old education simply trained the mind. The new 
 trains the mind, the muscles, and the senses. The old 
 education gave the intellect a vast mass of information 
 useful in the library and useless in the shop. The 
 superiority of the college graduate over the boy from 
 the common school, in the counting room or the mill, 
 was in his disciplined mind and confirmed habits of 
 work. The superiority of the graduate of the techno 
 logical institute is that he has passed the apprentice 
 period and learned more than the apprentice could 
 ever know. 
 
 Our time is full of hope for the optimist, and also of 
 despair for the pessimist. 
 
 If the Revolutionary fathers and their contemporaries 
 could be brought in contact with the realities of to-day, 
 they would feel that the world was upside down. In 
 stead of glorying in the achievements of the present- 
 in the mills, the factories, the furnaces, the superb 
 machinery, the wonderful tools, the complicated mech 
 anism, the hot competitions, and the individual 
 absorbed in the mass which characterize our day they 
 would wonder how they were to sustain themselves 
 with their equipment, and live. Our national pride is 
 
CH4UNCEY M. DEPEW. 221 
 
 promoted by contemplation of the giants of our history 
 in the senate, in the pulpit, at the bar, and in the pro 
 fessor s chair. It is the happy inspiration of youth 
 that the distinguished characters of the past are pre 
 sented through the lenses of the years in heroic pro 
 portions. It would not only be a sacrilege, it would 
 be a calamity, if modern criticism and research stripped 
 Washington of his majesty, Hamilton of his genius, 
 Jefferson of his democracy, Jonathan Edwards of his 
 intellectual superiority, or Daniel Webster of his peer 
 less pre-eminence, but for all practical uses of the 
 labyrinth and revolution through which we are passing, 
 the worthies of the past are as far from us as King 
 Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, or Wil 
 liam Tell with his arrow and his apple. 
 
 One of the most eminent of England s scientists has 
 elaborated the alarming proposition that in the destruc 
 tion of old methods, and the exacting requirements of 
 new conditions, a period might arrive when that nation 
 would die by starvation. The same articles which con 
 stituted its business and income would be manufactured 
 by other countries better and more cheaply, and it 
 would lose its market and revenues. It could not raise 
 its food, and would have no money to purchase from 
 abroad. Longer hours and lower wages might post 
 pone, but could not prevent the catastrophe. The 
 weeping philosopher says that formerly pestilence and 
 disease kept down population, and thus saved the 
 world from an excess of mouths to feed and bodies to 
 clothe, but now medical skill and sanitary science have 
 prolonged life. Wars, he argues, then served to pre 
 vent increase, but now all moral and political influences 
 
222 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 labor for peace. "I killed only a million of men, mostly 
 Germans," was Napoleon s ghastly protest against the 
 charge of murder, and yet that frightful numeral was 
 only a portion of those who fell victims to his wars. 
 
 The tendency of our times is for the people to mass 
 in crowded centers, where the immigrants add con 
 tinually to the difficulties and necessities of the com 
 munity. Competition is the law of our age, and the sur 
 vival of the fittest its fruit. Not only are individuals 
 and corporations subject to its power, but cities, states, 
 and nations. A line in a tariff bill in one country 
 throws out of employment and reduces to pauperism 
 tens of thousands in another. New machinery or 
 greater skill transfers the market for some product from 
 one place to its rival. The rolling mills of Alabama 
 may put out the fires in Pittsburg. The cotton mills 
 of Georgia may stop the spindles in Massachusetts. 
 Cheapness and excellence have become the factors of 
 prosperity, for nations and for towns. Our plain duty 
 is not to waste precious hours in vain regrets for the 
 good old times or wring our hands in helpless horror 
 over the difficulties of the present. The pace of prog 
 ress may have been faster than our preparations, but 
 experience has demonstrated that, when intelligently 
 met, the new is always better than the old. The man 
 who dies for a principle is a hero, but he who starves, 
 rather than abandon the methods which fed his fathers, 
 is a fool. It is only a generation since a carpenter 
 could also plan and build a house, and a single work 
 man make a wagon, or a knife, or a shoe, or a watch, 
 or any part of either. Machinery has so multiplied 
 and subdivided labor, and stimulated production, that 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 223 
 
 only a part of any manufactured article comes to the 
 individual, and upon that he must show exceptional 
 skill. The common school has been the foundation 
 upon which we have builded capacity and character, 
 and it has superbly done its work; but now the system 
 requires either to be strengthened, or to be supple 
 mented by institutions like the one whose opening we 
 celebrate. The unsolved problem which gives heart 
 aches to parents, and anxious thought to teachers and 
 preachers, is the constantly increasing class of young 
 men and women who have the rudiments of education, 
 but are trained neither for any trade nor any business. 
 They will not join the ranks of unskilled labor, and 
 cannot work beside the mechanic or artisan or expert 
 accountant. They fall into minor positions already 
 over-crowded, where compensation is small and pro 
 motion difficult. They are discouraged as they see 
 those who are better equipped and disciplined rise to 
 competence or independence. 
 
 The strength of our liberty has been that it recog 
 nized individuals and not classes. It is still and 
 always must be the pivotal principle of our institu 
 tions. It was possible in the earlier period and in 
 sparser settlements to carry the same idea into social 
 and business life. But the inventive genius of the cen 
 tury has radically changed our original conditions. It 
 has proved too strong for capital and trade organiza 
 tion combined. It has placed them in antagonism, 
 and it has united them for mutual protection. Inven 
 tion is the Frankenstein of our industrial life. It is 
 the soulless creation of human genius, and relentlessly 
 pursues its purposes. It inflicts untold misery upon 
 
22,1 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 the few, and confers equal benefits on the many. It 
 has destroyed the apprentice system. It has substi 
 tuted employer and employees, for master and appren 
 tices. Where individuals found work and instruction, 
 armies are attending upon numberless sections of com 
 plicated machinery. The skilled workman, who has 
 conscientiously learned his part, is suddenly thrown 
 out by a device which renders his tools obsolete. He 
 suffers hardship and privations until he can acquire 
 almost a new trade, or he drops into the crowded ranks 
 of unskilled labor. 
 
 Inventive talent can neither be curbed nor banished. 
 The necessities of our commercial success demand its 
 encouragement. The limited express train flies along 
 the rails at sixty miles an hour, but the cool and confi 
 dent photographer by the roadside utilizes the speed 
 of light, and imprints locomotive and cars as perfectly 
 upon the sensitive film as if they were standing still at 
 the station. So it is our duty to meet the emergency 
 of the hour by calling into play and exercise the latent 
 forces which God has implanted in man to subdue and 
 bend to his will the powers of earth and air. The 
 atheist says progress is a destructive agent, but gov 
 erned by natural laws which Deity can neither modify 
 nor repeal. The Christian believes that progress is 
 the development of opportunity for a higher and 
 better life, and the sons and daughters of the world 
 must be ready to throw aside the old and prepare to 
 welcome and work with the new. Civilization destroys 
 the wild game which is the support of the savage, and 
 he must earn his subsistence from the soil or die. The 
 old warrior wraps his mantle about him, and sinks 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 225 
 
 stoically into the grave; the young brave hurls himself 
 with vain but dauntless courage upon the Catling 
 guns or the bayonets of the soldiers, and his death- 
 song is the requiem of the hope and happiness of the 
 tribe. But for those who adapt themselves to the 
 situation are homes and comforts never known before, 
 and a moral and intellectual life which lifts them upon 
 higher planes of usefulness and enjoyment. Similar 
 losses and gains mark every milestone in the upward 
 march of man. 
 
 The common school is aroused by the clang of the 
 combat and seeks to better equip its recruits by even 
 ing classes. This method is a help, and a great one, 
 but it is still the old education of the head, and falls 
 short of the requirements of the hour. The college 
 joins in the good work of university extension, and 
 brings the benefits of its curriculum to the doors of 
 those who have neither the time nor the money to 
 enter its ancient portals. But whether its teachings 
 are given in venerable halls or in the lecture room of 
 the village, the benefit of its course of study must be 
 mainly for the minister, the lawyer, the doctor, the 
 journalist, and the business man. For the vast army 
 which must live by labor, and upon the results of 
 whose labor depends the welfare of the country, no 
 adequate provision has yet been made. 
 
 This splendid Institute of Art, Science, and Industry 
 leads the column and points the way. The manual 
 training school solves the problem of labor and indus 
 trial development. Here will be given instruction in 
 the principles of science, art, and mechanics, and their 
 application to the mill and the mine, the factory and 
 
226 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 the furnace, the shop and the engine. Here the 
 student, after he has mastered the principles, can learn 
 the details of his specialty, and grasp the intricacies of 
 machinery. In the art department his eyes will be 
 educated and his hands trained by drawing and per 
 spective, by studies in light and shade, by painting in 
 oil and water color, by theoretical and applied design, 
 decoration and ornament, and by architectural and 
 mechanical drawing. But physical methods will be 
 supplemented by thorough instruction in the theory 
 and history of art. In the scientific department the 
 secrets of the laboratory will be revealed, chemistry 
 and applied physics will solve the mysteries of nature, 
 and the wonderful works and properties of electricity 
 will become known. As the boy advances from the 
 elementary course he will receive instruction and be 
 come familiar with the workshop, and its machinery 
 and tools. He will grow skillful in the handling, 
 manipulation, molding, and carving of wood and iron. 
 Work on the bench, with the lathe, the drill, the plane, 
 and the screw, and the making of tools, will be com 
 mon and easy, and the student will practically run the 
 boiler and engine. 
 
 The graduates of this school will not be confined 
 within the narrow lines of the apprentice, nor bound 
 by the limitations of the specialist. Upon the broad 
 foundations of their training can be securely built 
 superior capacity for the paths of the industrial world 
 which they elect to follow. They will hail the inventor 
 as their friend, and follow with keen delight his dis 
 coveries and improvements. He may render obsolete 
 and useless the tools to which they are accustomed, or 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 227 
 
 the work which they produce, but their thorough 
 grounding in principles will enable them to instantly 
 understand his device, and adapt themselves to the 
 fresh roads they must tread or retire to the rear. 
 Disciplined intelligence, and harmoniously cultivated 
 minds and muscles, will give the economy in the use 
 of materials, and skill in handling of tools, which will 
 command the markets at home and abroad, against the 
 output of mills and factories where their brethren 
 vainly strive, under old conditions and training, to 
 keep pace with progress and earn living \vages in the 
 fierce strife and heat of modern competition. 
 
 It is a remarkable illustration of the failure of the 
 schools to divine and meet the changes of the century, 
 that the first suggestion of a manual training school 
 came from Victor Della-Vos, Director of the Imperial 
 Technical School of Moscow in 1868. The Centennial 
 Exhibition in the city of Philadelphia in 1876 gave to 
 educators in America and Europe an idea of its scope 
 and necessity. The old education had accomplished 
 splendid results during the first hundred years of our 
 Independence. We entered upon our second century 
 by an immediate experiment with the new. After 
 twenty-five years of trial this superb foundation is an 
 enduring monument to its success. 
 
 One of the chief glories of the new education is 
 the advantages it gives to women. It recognizes 
 and enforces their equal rights to every intellectual 
 and industrial opportunity which school or college 
 can give to men. It has created for them the 
 Harvard Annex and Barnard College, Wells and 
 Vassar, Wellesley and Smith. It has opened the 
 
228 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 doors of this institution that they may enjoy all its 
 privileges. 
 
 It was the disgrace and finally the ruin of Greek 
 civilization that wives were uneducated. Virtue and 
 ignorance, vice and culture, were companions among 
 the women of Athens. America has always been dis 
 tinguished for the consideration and justice accorded 
 to the gentler sex. And yet it is only within the last 
 half of the present century that a university course 
 upon the same plane as the highest of our college cur- 
 riculums has been attainable by girls. By following 
 our example and success, ancient Cambridge in Eng 
 land has startled the conservatism of the ages. 
 
 The proud ladies who danced the minuet at the 
 Inauguration Ball of George Washington as first Presi 
 dent never dreamed that modern development might 
 compel their great-granddaughters to enter the lists of 
 labor to earn a living. Our boasted progress has 
 known neither age nor sex. Tender youth and deli 
 cate womanhood have been compelled to meet its re 
 quirements. It threw upon woman burdens for which 
 she was unprepared. There were but a few things for 
 which she was trained, though she was fitted for many. 
 The overcrowding of a limited market destroyed inde 
 pendence, and has compelled women to accept any 
 pittance which avarice might grant. The tragedies of 
 the needle have filled the ocean with tears and the 
 land with sorrows. But from their splendid colleges 
 our girls have graduated equipped for the better posi 
 tions and pay of the important chairs in the schools of 
 the country both great and small, and for literature, 
 journalism, and art. From the technological and 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 229 
 
 manual training schools they invade the fields of elec 
 trical appliances and mechanical drawing, of photog 
 raphy and phonography, of architecture and decora 
 tion. It is still the reproach of our times that women 
 receive less pay than men for the same work, equally 
 well done. But chivalry is an emotion, not a habit, 
 and sentiment is left at the shop door in the business 
 world. It is through the power they acquire here, and 
 in institutions like this, that women will be able to 
 fight for and win their rights. 
 
 This institution is an object lesson in the proper use 
 of accumulated wealth. The essayist and the orator 
 make it the burning reproach of our period that we 
 sacrifice everything to money-getting, and that riches 
 are our God. But the mad desire for accumulation ex 
 isted before Croesus, and the passion for hoarding ante 
 dates the tragedy of Ananias and Sapphira. Quickly 
 made fortunes are the inevitable incidents of rapid 
 development. The greater the magnitude of the enter 
 prise, the more gigantic are the gains of the far-sighted 
 and audacious. The wider the scope of the invention 
 and its general use, the more millions flow into the 
 pockets of the inventor. Nearly all our rich men have 
 begun with nothing and made their own fortunes. No 
 sane man desires to destroy the opportunities to get on 
 which are so phenomenally frequent in this country, 
 because in a narrower sense he expects either himself, 
 or through his children, to enjoy their benefits; and 
 with broader views he rejoices in the marvelous results 
 in the founding of cities and settlement of States, and 
 in the increase of national power and prosperity which 
 have followed individual enterprise and energy. Under 
 
23 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 the old civilization no one questioned the rich man s 
 peaceful possession of his property but the king and 
 the brigand. Under the new civilization, legislation 
 tends toward the appropriation or the direction of the 
 disposition of estates. The worst enemy or the best 
 friend of wealth is its possessor. He can so selfishly 
 administer it as to rouse the hostility of the public and 
 recruit the ranks of socialism, or he can so wisely and 
 generously bestow his surplus that the community 
 will approve his work and protect vested interests and 
 rights. 
 
 No one remembers or cares how Peter Cooper made 
 his money, but neither this generation nor succeeding 
 ones will forget to be grateful to his memory for the 
 wise provision and endowments he made for the educa 
 tion of the people. Commodore Vanderbilt s control 
 of.and connection with railways will in time become a 
 tradition which few can recall, but his name will live 
 forever through the university he founded, and which 
 bears his name. Asa Packer s mining and transporta 
 tion companies are already administered by others than 
 his kin, and his work in their creation and development 
 has passed out of mind and mention, but the college 
 he established and enriched will ever keep fresh and 
 conspicuous his character and deeds. 
 
 The Drexel Institute is not a charity. It neither 
 offends the proud nor encourages the pauper. The 
 dangerous crank is the child and victim of competition. 
 This school will give him a full mind and healthy body. 
 It will so equip him and open avenues for his energies 
 that instead of dynamiting the successful, he will be 
 himself a success. It is a practical and beneficent illus- 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 231 
 
 tration of the Divine injunction, "Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbor as thyself," which extends the helping hand 
 and tenders warm and sympathetic encouragement to 
 the brother who wants to help himself. It is a noble 
 recognition of the needs of the youth of both sexes by 
 placing before them the weapons and the armor for the 
 battle of life, and training them in their uses. It will 
 nurture and instruct a better and broader womanhood, 
 a braver and more intelligent manhood, and a more 
 patriotic citizenship; and as the years increase and 
 graduates multiply, the Republic will be enriched in 
 its material prosperity, and receive new vigor and 
 earnestness in its moral and intellectual life. 
 
XVII. 
 
 ADDRESS AS PRESIDENT OF THE YALE ALUMNI ASSO 
 CIATION, AT THE ANNUAL DINNER AT DELMONICO S, 
 JANUARY 15, 1892. 
 
 Gentlemen : 
 
 The Yale Alumni of New York have assembled once 
 more to express their love for alma mater, and their 
 loyalty and affection for the president of the univer 
 sity. The year 1891 was a Yale year. The skies of 
 the college world reflected in azure firmament the tint 
 of the Yale blue, and the atmosphere vibrated with the 
 triumphal shouts of Yale. The Chamber of Commerce, 
 the New England Society, and other institutions have 
 concentrated upon them, in the hours of their annual 
 festivities, local attention, but a gathering of Yale men 
 suspends the revolution of the spheres, and commands 
 a listening world. 
 
 A distinguished doctor of divinity, who represented 
 a college celebrated for the rigidity of its theology, and 
 the liberality of its endowments, and also for its high 
 scholarship and good athletes, had his equilibrium 
 unbalanced because of the defeat of the orthodox 
 leader and his legions, on the ball field, by the congre- 
 gationalist Stagg. It was then that he remarked that 
 never since Joshua blew his horn about the walls of 
 Jericho had there been such a volume of wind instru- 
 
 232 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 233 
 
 ments, as were Yale speeches. So long as our victories 
 continue, we accept the illustration, and the relation 
 assigned us by the eloquent doctor. Joshua was a 
 Yale man. He was a blower, but an effective one. 
 The bands of the other colleges moved the small boy 
 to derisively follow the procession as it marched around 
 the town, but when Joshua blew his horn, the walls of 
 Jericho fell down. During the past year there have 
 been unprecedented harvests in the agricultural States, 
 and phenomenal corps of new students gathered in 
 New Haven. Prosperity has dissolved the Farmers 
 Alliance, and the glories of Springfield, and the Man 
 hattan Athletic grounds, have strengthened the Yale 
 spirit and given fresh fire to the quenchless enthusiasm 
 of her sons. 
 
 Changes which do not improve and reforms which 
 reverse true development have been the shadows upon 
 progress, and education has not escaped their bad 
 effects. The motto of our old college has never 
 changed. She promises to give a liberal education and 
 to teach the Christian religion. Her leading position 
 for two hundred years, her adaptation to the times, her 
 conservatism and her radicalism, have all demonstrated 
 that New England clergymen can do more than preach. 
 As I meet them in the rooms of the corporation they 
 are not quick and eager for the fee for attendance like 
 the thrifty business man who serves as a director in 
 railroad and financial corporations. They even pay 
 for their own lunches, or bring a sandwich in their hats. 
 But they will sit longer and work harder for nothing 
 than any trustees in the country. Wall Street may 
 smile at such weakness, but the world has reason for 
 
234 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 rejoicing in the results of their labors. The new edu 
 cation is an enormous advance upon old methods. It 
 is the necessity of our times. But its uses are for 
 industrial pursuits. It is the natural evolution of the 
 common school and the free academy. It will be their 
 auxiliary or their substitute. It trains men and women 
 for the vocations in life to which they feel called. As 
 it improves and becomes more perfect, the university 
 standard rises, and its curriculum becomes broader. 
 Nothing, however, ever can or ever will take the place 
 of a university course for those who have the time and 
 opportunity to follow it. Money-making or even 
 bread-winning is not the chief end of man. Colleges 
 produce cranks, but they are of the kind who become 
 the levers which move the world. They are those far- 
 sighted and courageous statesmen who dare be un 
 popular and aggressive and dangerous to the existing 
 order of things when power and patronage are vested 
 in slavery, or the saloon, or gambling. They are the 
 Galileos, who lie in dungeons in their own age, for the 
 discovery and assertion of truths which are the light 
 and guide of succeeding generations. The dangerous 
 crank, with his dynamite and pistol, never comes from 
 the university. He is the product of narrow culture 
 and narrower environments. The genius of this class 
 who knocked at Mr. Vanderbilt s door, and demanded 
 not money but brains, saw his real necessities. They 
 were discipline and method, self-restraint and self- 
 reliance, knowledge and how to find it, the indefinable, 
 yet inestimable faculty which comes from long and 
 intimate contact with ingenious minds studying the 
 same lessons, discussing the same topics, solving the 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 235 
 
 same problems, and intent on similar pleasures. In 
 short, he required a course and cure at Yale. 
 
 The materialist, like my friend Mr. Carnegie, attacks 
 a college education, because in his experience graduates 
 have not won the fortunes which have been accumu 
 lated by those who started early, and with a common 
 school equipment. His objection antagonizes only 
 one of the myriad advantages and pleasures of a col 
 lege course. No fortune could compensate for the loss 
 of the companionship and culture, the reading and the 
 lectures, the grasp of all things and the intimacy with 
 many, the trained faculties and conscious power which 
 come from the classroom and the campus. The fail 
 ures in life-work among university men is infinitesimal 
 in proportion to their numbers, compared with those 
 who never had their advantages. In my class of one 
 hundred there were three dead failures and one tramp, 
 but of the rest all have been successes, and twenty per 
 cent, of them distinguished in their vocations. T\vo of 
 them are Judges of the Supreme Court of the United 
 States. Recent statistics have demonstrated that 
 though college men constitute only one per cent, of 
 the voters, they hold fifty-eight per cent, of the best 
 offices in the Republic, and with less data, but prob 
 ably with equal truth, a careful student has estimated 
 that a common school education adds fifty per cent, to 
 the productive power of the laborer, and academical 
 education one hundred per cent., and a college educa 
 tion three hundred per cent. 
 
 It is and has been for many years a familiar charge 
 that we have too many conspicuous examples of poor 
 copies from foreign originals. Our dudes affect an 
 
2^ LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 English accent, and turn up the bottoms of their panta 
 loons when it rains in London, and many of our fash 
 ionable girls are the promising pupils of the French 
 governess, the French dressmaker, and the French 
 maid. However much of this may be true in our 
 literature, our morals, or our manners, our colleges have 
 developed and grown upon lines which are purely 
 American. 
 
 Oxford and Cambridge meet all the requirements of 
 English life, and Heidelberg, Leipsic, Bonn, and Berlin 
 are German ideals, but the boy whose life and work are 
 to be in this Republic will get an infinitely better edu 
 cation in an American college. Here is the peculiar 
 strength of Yale. In her teachings and traditions, in 
 her faculty and students, in her spirit and work, she is 
 national and American. It is said that at the Vienna 
 University where Abbas, the young Khedive of Egypt, 
 is being educated, a part of the campus is set apart for 
 the sports of princes, a part for dukes, a part for 
 counts, and none for commoners. At Yale, the wealth, 
 the position, and the powerful influences the man has 
 outside her walls count for nothing, but what he has 
 in him and what he does with it make his place and 
 standing. Yale is the democracy of mind and good 
 fellowship. 
 
 An Oxford man said to an American professor while 
 twenty thousand enthusiasts were shouting themselves 
 hoarse over the football game at the Manhattan Fields 
 on Thanksgiving Day, "Why don t these young gentle 
 men play on their college grounds?" "Because," an 
 swered the professor, "we are devoted to the scheme 
 of university extension, and in this important branch 
 
CHAUNCEY J/. DEPEW. 237 
 
 of a liberal education they are giving an object lesson 
 to the large class here assembled." Notwithstanding 
 its critics, and they are many, athletics have improved 
 both the manliness and the scholarship of our univer 
 sities. They have done more than all other things to 
 abolish the rowdyism and brutal horse-play upon the 
 weak of the earlier period. I am sure that none of the 
 students recently charged with gross outrages in the 
 "Dickey" Club at Cambridge were prominent athletes. 
 The day after the Thanksgiving battle, the champion, 
 Captain McClung, appeared in my office, with magnifi 
 cent physique and an abrasion of his nose, to request 
 me to deliver an address before the Y. M. C. A. at 
 Yale. He and Stagg belong to the Church militant 
 which is also the Church triumphant. 
 
 The difference between college and political repub 
 lics is, that the former steadily advance, and the latter 
 often halt or temporarily retrograde. The elective 
 system for instance, tentative at first, is conservatively 
 but steadily extended for optional studies in our uni 
 versities, at the same time that for purposes of govern 
 ment it is being abandoned in the State of New York. 
 But every venerable foundation is stronger and broader 
 with recurring years. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and 
 Columbia were never doing such splendid work, or 
 exerting such beneficial influence upon the education 
 of the country. Many others are equally worthy of 
 mention and honor. But these the oldest, and still the 
 first of American colleges, are leading the thoughts 
 and efforts of the Republic, and directing them to 
 higher standards of life, letters, and politics. 
 
 This occasion, though a little late, is the celebration 
 
238 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES. 
 
 of the wooden wedding of our president to the univer 
 sity. Five years have come and gone since Timothy 
 Dwight became President of Yale. It has been a most 
 eventful period for the old college. Three years more 
 and we shall celebrate the centenary of the assumption 
 of the presidency by his great ancestor, Timothy 
 Dwight. It is a unique distinction of the grandson 
 that he presides over a body of students who are 
 double in number the whole body of the alumni at the 
 close of his grandfather s term. In the five years of his 
 presidency, the college has become not only in name, 
 but in fact and spirit, a university. The students 
 entering this fall have exceeded those in all the classes 
 of the academical department when he was inaugurated. 
 The contributions and the endowments, and the build 
 ings which adorn the campus, and enlarge the useful 
 ness of Yale, are greater in amount and more in value 
 than the total of the quarter of a century which pre 
 ceded his presidency. 
 
 Dear old Yale, first in scholarship, first in national 
 spirit, first in manly sports, and first in the hearts of her 
 sons, maintains her proud position, and glorious tradi 
 tions, by having the best, the most liberal, and the 
 most wisely progressive of presidents. 
 
XVIII. 
 
 ADDRESS AT THE ANNIVERSARY EXERCISES OF THE 
 YALE LAW SCHOOL, AT CENTRE CHURCH, NEW 
 HAVEN, JUNE 25, 1889. 
 
 I DO not propose to pursue any of the subjects upon 
 which you have been instructed by this learned faculty, 
 nor am I prepared to compete with you with a thesis 
 upon some legal question as a part of the exercises 
 of graduation. The commencement orator usually 
 addresses himself to the professors and the elder mem 
 bers of the profession, but I came here to speak to you. 
 The most joyous of days is that which closes the doors 
 of the school and opens the gateway to the world ; the 
 most apprehensive, the one which marks the opening 
 of your clientless office ; the happiest, the first return 
 after the future is secure and success assured, to the 
 college scenes and associations. It is the privilege of 
 age and experience to indicate paths in the fields you 
 are yet to explore, to point out the dangers which 
 beset them, and the methods of safe and comfortable 
 travel. Most of the ideals of these closing hours 
 devoted to the confidential interchange of aspirations 
 and hopes will be shattered against the stern realities 
 of practical life, but their destruction will furnish the 
 lessons for sure foundations and permanent construc 
 tion. 
 
 239 
 
240 LIFE AND LA TER SPEECHES OF 
 
 At this hour all your thoughts are concentrated in 
 one word success. If your construction of success 
 was honestly analyzed, it would probably mean, to most 
 minds, the getting of money. The desire to acquire 
 property is the most potent force in the activities of 
 our people. It is the main-spring of our marvelous 
 development, and the incentive and reward of intelli 
 gent industry. It is alike the cause of the noblest 
 efforts and the most revolting crimes. That man would 
 be unfaithful to his family and to his own independ 
 ence who did not use every honorable effort, and prac 
 tice every reasonable economy, to secure home and 
 competence for declining years. But the lawyer who 
 makes this his sole aim is an unworthy member of the 
 noblest of professions and will never win its honors or 
 rewards. 
 
 The mastery of any calling involves a thorough 
 knowledge of its history and objects, and pride in its 
 pursuit. The law is at once the dryest of studies and 
 fullest of inspiration. Its relations to liberty, govern 
 ment, and the welfare of mankind, enlarge the vision 
 of the student, and the broader his learning, the more 
 eager is his enthusiasm. The discovery of the Pan 
 dects of Justinian in the sack of Amalfi saved the world 
 from relapsing into barbarism. This great codification 
 of the learning of centuries illumined the monastery, 
 liberalized the Church, roused the universities, checked 
 feudalism, taught justice to rulers, and their rights to 
 the people, and preserved civilization from being hope- 
 lessljfrlost in the darkness of the Middle Ages. But 
 while the light thus shed by the laws of an ancient and 
 extinct empire rescued Europe from the reign of brute 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 241 
 
 force and ignorance, and while the general principles 
 of justice are of universal application, yet the institu 
 tions of every people are the results of origin, race, 
 character, environment, and climatic conditions. It is 
 the glory of the ancestry from whom we derive our 
 laws, that though sometimes conquered, they never 
 lost their statutes and customs. All other nations 
 have fallen under the codes of the invader, but Wil 
 liam the Norman left untouched those sources of 
 justice and freedom which were found in Saxon juris 
 prudence. 
 
 The haughty barons who could not write their 
 names brought King John to the field of Runnymede. 
 At the point of their good swords they forced from 
 him Magna Charta, and with their hilts they stamped 
 upon it their arms, but the pen of the lawyers framed 
 it. These great jurists, loyal as the profession has 
 ever been to liberty, unrecognized then and unknown 
 now, so wisely drew the great charter of freedom that 
 it has been confirmed thirty-seven times, and to-day 
 needs neither amendment nor commentary. The 
 lawyers compelled Elizabeth, proudest of queens, to 
 surrender the monopolies which were ruining the king 
 dom, with an apology that she intended them for the 
 good of the people, which was at that period a most 
 valuable admission of popular rights. 
 
 Coke checked even the arbitrary Charles I. with 
 the judgment that the law was superior to the 
 sovereign s will, and Cromwell charged at Marston 
 Moor for principles learned as a student at law, and by 
 them raised England from the depth of degradation to 
 the pinnacle of greatness, while ruling at Westminster. 
 
242 LIFE A, YD LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 The early settlers of America were deeply imbued by 
 precept and example with Magna Charta, the Petition 
 of Rights, and the principles of the Common Law, but 
 they fled from ecclesiastical tyranny and the abuses of 
 privilege. They sought liberty, religious and civil. 
 In their hard struggles with savage man and inhospi 
 table nature, the simple economy of their state needed 
 no lawyers, and for quite a century they had none. 
 The minister and the magistrate both made the laws 
 and administered them. But those hundred years 
 were the nursery of the American lawyer. Equal con 
 ditions had led, not to communism or socialism for 
 they are alien to our race but to political rights com 
 mon to all. Every principle derived from the Old 
 World which strengthened the individual, and pro 
 tected him in his home, his family, his property, and 
 his citizenship, found fertile soil and grew with expan 
 sive vigor. The genius of this development was to 
 destroy privilege and promote equality. It was neither 
 a revolt nor a revolution against caste and class, for 
 neither was present to overcome, but it was a growth 
 which left them out. It was an evolution which peace 
 fully produced a commonwealth where their existence 
 was impossible. 
 
 As commerce and trade increased, communities be 
 came crowded, property was to be exchanged and 
 devised, and the multitudinous relations of civilized 
 life in cities and towns adjusted, lawyers became a 
 necessity. They were at once the advisers of the 
 people and the architects of the state. The more we 
 study, the more we admire the ability, integrity, cour 
 age, and patriotism of these Fathers of the American 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 243 
 
 Bar. They brought on the Revolution and made it 
 a lawyers war. The judges and statesmen of England 
 were amazed at the learning and power with which 
 they presented the Colonial protest, and made up the 
 American case. Chatham and Burke found in them 
 new inspiration for their eloquence, and fresh and 
 immortal defenses of liberty. The Constitution of the 
 United States is the only charter of government which 
 has withstood the shocks, and been equal to the prog 
 ress, of the wonderful century which closed with its 
 centenary. It \vas exclusively the work of the lawyers 
 of the convention. It is a singular fact that the laymen, 
 among the statesmen of the period, generally opposed 
 its adoption, and that it was carried before the people 
 and in the State conventions by the matchless elo 
 quence, prophetic fervor, and resistless logic of its 
 lawyer advocates. 
 
 This is the only country in the history of the world 
 where the courts pass upon and annul the acts of the 
 executive and legislative branches of the government. 
 The tyranny from which they suffered by the usurpa 
 tions possible under an unwritten Constitution led the 
 American people to limit by specific grants the powers 
 which they gave their rulers. The j udgment that the law 
 is unconstitutional paralyzes both President and con 
 gress. This idea is purely American. The most original 
 and creative enactment in the development of represent 
 ative government is the law creating the federal judi 
 ciary. There were no precedents to guide its framer, 
 and his success was due not so much to his vast learn 
 ing, as to his having absorbed the spirit of American 
 liberty. This majestic system enters upon its second 
 
244 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 century with unequaled luster, dignity, and power, 
 under the statutes almost unchanged which created it. 
 As the years advance and the merits of the founders 
 of the Republic are better understood, a foremost 
 place among them will be given to Oliver Ellsworth 
 of Connecticut, the author of our judiciary system, and 
 the patron saint of this university of law. 
 
 The profession by its training, obligations, and 
 opportunities becomes charged with the gravest 
 public responsibilities. The judges of the most 
 powerful of the three heads of our government are 
 drawn exclusively from its ranks. But the special fit 
 ness and official character of its members have given 
 them a potential voice in the executive and legislative 
 as well as the judicial administration of the Republic. 
 Nineteen of the twenty-three presidents of the United 
 States have been lawyers, and for eighty-two of the 
 hundred years of our Presidency the office has been 
 filled by a member of the profession. The lawyers 
 numbered twenty-four of the fifty-four signers of the 
 Declaration of Independence, and thirty of the fifty- 
 five members of the convention which framed the Con 
 stitution. In most administrations a large majority of 
 the cabinet have been lawyers, and I can remember 
 none in which their representation has not been equal 
 to those from all other vocations combined ; while 
 about two-thirds of the Senate and the controlling 
 minds in the House have always been bred to the Bar. 
 
 Under these conditions, the character and equipment 
 of those who are admitted become of supreme public 
 importance. The thoughtless clamor for free law 
 means, in the end, the destruction of the law itself, 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 245 
 
 through contempt for its interpreters and practitioners. 
 So long as the American democracy believes that its 
 courts are learned, fearless, and incorruptible, the 
 people are themselves the standing army which up 
 holds their judgments and enforces their decrees. As 
 the country increases in population, in wealth, in 
 crowded communities, in vast combinations of labor 
 and capital, in the elements which, in any disintegra 
 tion of society from wrongs or corruptions, come 
 together for the overthrow of existing institutions, the 
 salvation of our lives and property, of our families and 
 homes, of our rights and liberties, of our civilization 
 itself, depends more and more upon a judiciary which 
 commands the respect and confidence of the masses. 
 The men who are to settle estates, care for the inter 
 ests of women, of widows and orphans, administer 
 sacred trusts, defend the weak, right wrongs, fight 
 injustice or crime intrenched behind wealth and power, 
 and furnish the judges of the land, can neither be 
 ignoramuses nor knaves without weakening the whole 
 fabric of society and government in proportion to 
 their incompetence or rascality. 
 
 The Republic has passed through grave crises and 
 solved great problems. A people that has success 
 fully grappled with the vast property and political 
 interests involved in slave ownership, and, by peaceful 
 legislation and stern administration of the laws, reach 
 and extirpate the crime of polygamy in a populous 
 community wedded to the practice by the power 
 of unbridled passions and religious fanaticism, has 
 demonstrated to an extraordinary degree the faculty 
 for government. But questions of more universal 
 
246 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 moment will arise, and they will require all your 
 wisdom, patriotism, and courage. We are at present 
 sailing upon tranquil seas, with no clouds above the 
 horizon and no warnings from the barometer. It is at 
 such times that the prudent and experienced navigator 
 hopes for the best and prepares for the worst. The 
 discovery of gold in California and silver in the Sierras 
 and the Rocky Mountains, and of petroleum and 
 natural gas in Pennsylvania and other States ; the ab 
 normal development of our mineral resources, and the 
 invention of the telegraph, the telephone, the sewing- 
 machine, and other devices to economize labor and 
 stimulate production ; the rapid construction of rail 
 roads to meet the demands of a vast immigration, the 
 settlement of new Territories, the building of States, 
 and the magical creation of cities, have offered oppor 
 tunities unequaled in the world s history for the sudden 
 accumulation of enormous fortunes and the growth of 
 great corporations. 
 
 The present situation is a surprising commentary 
 upon the worthlessness of deductions drawn from 
 historical parallels in predicating similar results upon 
 the happening of like conditions to the American 
 people. The more profound and philosophic the 
 minds, the wider have they missed the mark. The 
 Fathers of the Republic apprehended the most fright 
 ful consequences from a mere suggestion of existing 
 facts. Webster, speaking at a time when there were 
 not three men in the country worth a million of dollars, 
 and not one worth five millions, and when corporations 
 were practically unknown, prophesied that in the con 
 ditions, as they exist in the United States to-day, there 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 247 
 
 would either be a restriction of suffrage or the destruc 
 tion of property rights, and Macaulay believed that the 
 great mass of voters would be reduced to a poverty 
 which would leave them without a dinner and unable 
 to find a breakfast,, and with no army to maintain order, 
 they would murder the rich and divide their estates. 
 While these fears were groundless, nevertheless the 
 restlessness of labor and its consolidation into powerful 
 organizations, occasional riots displaying the fiercest 
 passions and most destructive spirit, and spasms of 
 legislative fury against corporate investments, indicate 
 discontents and dangers, which it is folly to ignore 
 and criminal to neglect. They show further that 
 public-spirited and successful men and honest corpora 
 tions suffer from a keen sense of wrong against those 
 who have acquired fortunes by violence or fraud, or 
 the companies who have unjustly or tyrannically mis 
 used their franchises. 
 
 No intelligent man desires a return to the crude 
 conditions and primitive simplicity of the " good old 
 times." Notwithstanding great fortunes, there is a 
 wider and more universal distribution of property and 
 ownership of homes than ever before. In spite, or 
 rather because of invention, there is greater demand 
 and larger employment for labor, and better wages, 
 than at any other period in our history. 
 
 Universal suffrage, which, with the increase of 
 wealth, boded only evil to the imagination of the early 
 patriot, is the solvent of the security of society. Laws, 
 and not men, are our governors; the people make the 
 laws and respect and enforce their creations, but the 
 stability of order depends upon the intelligence of the 
 
248 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 voters. Here the lawyer s duty is plain and his mis 
 sion clear. Suffrage can, if it pleases, annihilate prop 
 erty and dissolve corporations; but the majority are 
 investors in land or personalty, and would fiercely 
 defend what they own. They do not wish the limit 
 fixed beyond which neither they nor their children 
 may go. The procession from the bottom, in its 
 upward march, is forever passing the unfortunate, who 
 are coming down from the top. The second or third 
 generation, with few exceptions, ends where the first 
 began. And yet if the laws were so framed, or were 
 so interpreted by the Courts, that any advantage was 
 given to one class of citizens not equally enjoyed by 
 all, the majority, in sternly seeking a remedy, might 
 overturn the very foundations of vested rights and 
 interests and plunge the commonwealth into chaos. 
 See to it that all the burdens of the state are equally 
 borne and its benefits open alike to all. Keep the roads 
 paved and free from obstructions by which the indus 
 trious, the honest, and the capable, with no additional 
 capital but character, can rise from any condition to 
 the highest honors of the Republic and the largest 
 rewards of business. Declamation is cheap and the 
 vocabulary of epithet large and easily accessible, but 
 they remedy no evils. An eminent jurist said to me 
 recently, that many ambitious lawyers in his State had 
 preached, from the stump and on the platform, that 
 railroad ownership was robbery, and its confiscation by 
 special taxation and unremunerative rates a patriotic 
 duty. They sought by this appeal to temporary inter 
 ests to become judges and congressmen, though they 
 knew that the general inculcation and adoption of the 
 
CIIAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 249 
 
 principle would end in communism, and the destruc 
 tion of the property of the people they professed a 
 desire to protect. The anarchist, ignorant of liberty, 
 madly plots and dies for the overthrow of law, order, 
 and religion ; but he is at least honest in his convic 
 tions and purposes. Fifteen years ago one man owned 
 a majority of the stock of the New York Central Rail 
 road, and a few others most of the balance. Now it 
 has ten thousand proprietors, and the large majority 
 of them are people of small property. This indicates 
 a process of distribution which will speedily change 
 the character and management of American corpora 
 tions. 
 
 The magnitude of modern enterprises, and the close 
 competitions of business, have rendered the massing of 
 the money of the many into one company a necessity 
 which seems to be steadily increasing. The only other 
 suggestion for carrying on the great affairs essential to 
 comfortable living in our complex civilization is for 
 the government to conduct them all. But experience 
 has demonstrated that then, as in the German rail 
 ways, the people get the minimum of service for the 
 maximum of price, and an army of officeholders keeps 
 its party in power, and prevents the reform of abuses 
 or the remedy of wrongs. We meet the question 
 better by a compromise which maybe wisely enlarged, 
 of state and national supervision. That the govern 
 ment should watch the management and bring it to 
 frequent accountability, that it should firmly protect 
 the public, the stockholder, and the employees, is the 
 present, if imperfect, solution of the corporation 
 problem. 
 
250 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 The gilded idiots who dissipate their time and 
 affect a social superiority over those who work, and 
 the millionaires who never remember that wealth is a 
 trust involving corresponding obligations to the public, 
 are exasperating sources of agitation against the con 
 ditions which make them possible. But without the 
 aid of primogeniture and entail to protect estates 
 against the operation of natural laws, plutocracy has, 
 in the infirmities of mankind and the division of ac 
 cumulations among descendants, the active principle 
 of disintegration and constant redistribution. 
 
 Masterful men always forge ahead. In the tribal 
 conditions they become chiefs. In war they are gen 
 erals. In politics the statesmen and party leaders. 
 In the professions they command the large incomes. 
 In journalism they control public opinion, and in its 
 modern development own great and profitable news 
 papers. In business they rise from nothing to be mill 
 and mine owners, merchants, contractors, millionaires. 
 
 Monarchies and aristocracies maintain barriers of 
 rank and caste over which these natural leaders cannot 
 climb, and they remain the slaves of the accident of 
 birth. But in democracies, where equal rights and 
 opportunities are shared by all, if it is decided to re 
 press the ambitious and successful, no improvement 
 has been suggested by our modern levelers upon the 
 ancient Grecian method of killing them. Perhaps if 
 they lived to the biblical period of several hundred 
 years, some action might be necessary, but God and 
 Nature have made laws, which, unless restricted in their 
 operation by human legislation, give to all men and 
 women their full opportunities to work out their own 
 
CHAUNCEY 211. DEPEW. 251 
 
 destinies, and provide the incentives to efforts and am 
 bitions which promote the enterprises and develop the 
 resources of the country, and enrich and invigorate its 
 intellectual life. 
 
 Evolution and environment easily developed in the 
 older states that indestructible union of liberty and 
 law which has given character and perpetuity to Amer 
 ican institutions. It produced those perfect condi- 
 tipns of freedom, protection, and equality which peo 
 ples have sought for ages through bloody revolutions, 
 and never before found. It has attracted to our 
 shores fourteen millions of emigrants, against the 
 superior advantages of soil and climate in Mexico and 
 South America, or equal material opportunities in 
 Canada. Most of this vast population have fled from 
 the oppression of laws made for classes and working 
 injustice and wrong to the masses. They have been of 
 incalculable benefit to the country, and without them 
 our development and resources would be fifty years 
 behind their present state. They have brought with 
 them industry, integrity, and an intense desire to better 
 their lives and improve the condition of their children. 
 But with many of them government was by tradition 
 and experience an engine for oppression ; and law, 
 the police, and the army, convertible terms. Here 
 these colonists discover no army to support the gov 
 ernment or enforce the decrees of the courts ; and the 
 village constable is only the impotent shadow of the 
 ever present and all-pervading minions of the bureau 
 of justice at home. Their good citizenship is the high 
 est possible tribute to the assimilating power of our 
 institutions, and to the common school, acting upon 
 
25 2 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 the parents through the children ; but chiefly to the 
 just and impressive character of our courts. But the 
 greed of contractors has unnaturally disturbed the 
 wages and employment of labor by importing large 
 bodies of men, whose ignorance has made them dupes, 
 and who are without family ties and the hostages 
 which homes give to society. Foreign nations also 
 abuse our hospitality by shipping to us their paupers 
 and criminals. The banding together of all European 
 governments, to repress socialism and expel its leaders, 
 is constantly recruiting the ranks of trained agitators 
 in our large cities, whose mission and teachings are to 
 bring into contempt, and then overthrow those bulwarks 
 of order and safety religion and law. Here we have 
 the elements which are always lying in wait for revolu 
 tion. The courage and dash of a handful of police at 
 the critical moment were all that saved Chicago from 
 destruction by general conflagration, and the infinitely 
 worse horrors of the sack. We can still welcome hon 
 est immigrants who seek the protection of our liberty, 
 and the opportunities open because of the equal and 
 impartial operation of our laws, but we must no 
 longer be the refuge for the rascals of the world, and 
 the asylum for the crimes and diseases of mankind. 
 Present protection and future safety alike demand a 
 prohibitory tariff upon those who come here to make 
 war upon our institutions, to be a burden upon our 
 communities, or to endanger our peace, our property, 
 or our lives. 
 
 Steam and electricity have made us one people, and 
 for commercial purposes unified the world. The 
 rapid and growing interchanges of nations demand the 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 253 
 
 adoption of the principles and the assimilation of the 
 procedure of the law all round the globe. The develop 
 ment of this reform will be attended by more benefi 
 cent results than any other event of modern times. 
 Nations and peoples will be brought into those close 
 relations where the higher justice and the nobler law 
 will attract study and enthusiasm, and new impetus be 
 given to the regenerating forces of civilization and 
 liberty. But there should be no conflict of laws 
 between the several States of the Union. The pres 
 ent condition of the divorce statutes is a disgrace to 
 our jurisprudence and a menace to the family. It is 
 contrary to the spirit of our federal compact, as it is 
 understood to-day, that husband and wife may be 
 indissolubly tied together in one commonwealth and 
 free to marry again in another, and their children be 
 legitimate in one jurisdiction and illegitimate across 
 the boundary line. While the different methods of 
 creating and dissolving, of controlling and taxing cor 
 porations, joint stock companies and trusts, whose busi 
 ness is spread over many States, and the same in all, 
 lead to confusion, litigation, and injustice. 
 
 But other public duties press upon the lawyer, 
 besides discussions and actions upon great questions 
 of general interest. It is his special function as a politi 
 cian to protect the court from thr Influence of politics. 
 The revolt against the abuses of tub appointing power 
 in other offices ended in the extreme of short terms 
 and frequent elections for judges. The result was 
 most unfortunate for the independence of the judiciary. 
 It made the judge the servant of the party bosses who 
 controlled the nominating conventions, and created a 
 
254 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 class of lawyers, without learning, who were retained 
 for their influence. Justice was indeed blind when all 
 the power of the judge s party was on the side of one 
 litigant, and her vision often could only be cleared by 
 having an equal division of political counsel. Crimes 
 against the ballot and the abuse of public trusts were 
 unpunished. Justice is of universal application, and 
 its dispensation ought not to be dependent upon the 
 claims of locality or party service. The longer the 
 term, and the more secure the tenure of the judicial 
 office, the higher will be the character of the Court, 
 the more potent the silent power of the law, and the 
 better the Bar both in learning and integrity. 
 
 It is the special function of the lawyer to actively 
 participate in the affairs of his community. He is the 
 spokesman for its patriotic observances, for the reforms 
 of its abuses, and for the enlargement of its functions. 
 He is the motive power in its educational, moral, and 
 charitable work. He is the force in the councils of his 
 party. But if he would succeed at the Bar he must 
 decline office. Public spirit and usefulness attract 
 clients, but service in Congress or the Legislature 
 closes his register. Capitalists and business men arc 
 vitally interested in legislation, and in the ability and 
 character of our law-makers, but they punish their 
 attorney if he enter >v iipon a parliamentary career, by 
 transferring their i.<_,- f ers. The most deadly assault 
 upon integrity and capacity in public life is made by 
 those whose fortunes and incomes are dependent upon 
 pure and wise enactments. They fear and despise the 
 professional politician, and yet do their best, by social 
 and business ostracism, to drive honorable ambition 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 255 
 
 from the public service and leave to the professional 
 politician the conduct of government. 
 
 Trust and confidence are the foundation of success. 
 Without them it is useless to begin and impossible to 
 advance. When clients find their secrets inviolable 
 and their property safe, business grows apace ; and 
 when in addition they discover the ability which so 
 fights as to win or deserve verdicts, the fortune of the 
 counsel is assured. Plodding men, who promptly pay 
 over their collections, easily pass the brilliant advocates 
 whose bank accounts reluctantly respond to the clients 
 call for their money. Many an unpromising future 
 has been redeemed by never letting the night pass 
 between the receipt of the payment and its transfer to 
 the owner, nor permitting the occasion to happen for 
 a reminder or a demand. The true lawyer is far more 
 absorbed in his case than if it was his personal 
 business, and he feels that a sacred trust has been put 
 in the keeping of his integrity, ability, and judgment. 
 He is never caught unprepared ; he asks no favors 
 because of his own negligence ; he has so mastered the 
 law and the facts that he knows the real issue, and his 
 enthusiasm and partisan ardor impress with their 
 earnestness and lucidity courts and juries. He rather 
 prevents than encourages litigation, and finds in the 
 end that his own best interests are promoted thereby. 
 Attorneys who add fuel to the feuds of the neighbor 
 hood, seek technical flaws in titles to compel settle 
 ments and secure peace, and hunt for skeletons in the 
 closets of the living and the dead, that pride or affec 
 tion may be compelled to pay, to avoid exposures, 
 which are certain to cause mortification, and may 
 
256 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 leave a stain upon the character or memory, are pub 
 lic nuisances and disgrace the profession. But when 
 they pacify quarreling friends, adjust the disputes which 
 threaten the partnership, and above all present in the 
 spirit of conciliation and forgiveness their faults and 
 interests to husband and wife, whose estrangement 
 threatens the wreck of the family in the divorce 
 court, they use their unusual opportunities to be the 
 benefactors of mankind. 
 
 That there are sixty thousand lawyers in the United 
 States, and that the profession is crowded, need dis 
 courage no one who deserves success. Part of them 
 have neglected their opportunities, and many have 
 mistaken their calling. The gifts of men are infinite 
 in character and degree, but the rarest is the faculty 
 for honest work. The carpenter and mason, the 
 painter and plumber, the lumberman and the stone 
 cutter, all furnish the place and materials for the crea 
 tions of the great architect. A famous lawyer told me 
 that in his early practice he carried to Webster a brief 
 he had been six months in preparing. That marvelous 
 intellect absorbed his labor in a night, and built upon 
 it an argument which illumined the case, and exhibited 
 controlling principles which neither opposing counsel 
 nor the court below had seen. Because Webster and 
 Curtis, Evarts and O Conor dominate their generations, 
 the remark has become trite that there is plenty of 
 room at the top. But while all may not reach their 
 level, persistent and intelligent industry will command 
 their recognition. Some men are the first scholars of 
 their class in college, and marvels of memory in the 
 law school who are never heard of afterward. They 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 
 
 257 
 
 have a talent for accumulation and recitation, but they 
 can neither use nor apply their material. They never 
 see the point in their case, nor discover the truth in 
 their doctrines. They are deficient in gray matter and 
 sense, and should find their places outside the liberal 
 professions before their careers are hopelessly ruined. 
 
 When, however, you are satisfied with your vocation, 
 then the golden hours for preparation for business, 
 when it comes, are in the early years of practice. The 
 whole field of human knowledge furnishes material for 
 use in after life. History and biography, literature and 
 science, philosophy and politics will add their share to 
 the fully equipped mind, while the law, and again the 
 law, becomes more thoroughly imbedded in memory 
 and assimilated in thinking. Busy men are often 
 carried safely through the latter half of their lives, by 
 drawing upon these invaluable accumulations of the 
 leisure period for the wise man, and the lazy one for 
 the fool. I sometimes think that there is no limit to 
 what a man can do ; if the idle hours usually given to 
 waiting for somebody or something, to worthless gossip, 
 to the social glass at the club in the afternoon, which 
 unfits you for work in the evening, and to the fascinat 
 ing luxury of empty-headedness, were hailed as special 
 gifts of Providence to be treasured and used for study. 
 
 Lord Coleridge, while on his visit to Yale, asked me 
 where he could find in this country the villages, so com 
 mon in England, where old lawyers, sixty years of age 
 and upward, who had from their investments fixed in 
 comes of from two to three thousand dollars a year, 
 and had retired from practice, could spend the remain 
 der of their lives in congenial companionship of edu- 
 
258 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES. 
 
 cated neighbors, with no other occupation than the 
 cultivation of a garden, and the mild excitement of 
 the whist club and tea party. I told him we had no 
 such lawyers. Few of them had accumulated that 
 amount of capital, and those who had were still rising 
 young men at the bar. Our curse as a nation is the 
 prevalence of false standards of success. It encourages 
 gambling, leads to breaches of trust, and is the daily 
 cause of the flight of the cashier with the deposits of 
 the bank, and of the attorney and executor with the 
 funds of the estate. Independent income, sufficient 
 for the maintenance of a comfortable home, is success. 
 After that it is a question of degree. It has been 
 demonstrated, by a multitude of long and honorable 
 lives, that work and an active interest and participation 
 in current events repair the waste of time and age. 
 " Nil admirari" is the aim of the student, and ends in 
 torpor and imbecility in the man. The history of our 
 country justifies optimism, and to keep pace with the 
 times requires enthusiasm. Do not fear that it will 
 impair the opinion of the community in the solidity of 
 your judgment to cheer; and hail as a special gift of 
 Providence the opportunity to laugh. Behind you are 
 the precepts and examples of great lawyers and judges, 
 whose learning and labors have enriched the world, 
 and achieved imperishable renown for the statesman 
 ship, the bench, and the bar of our country. Before 
 you are the fields in which these eminent men won 
 their laurels and received their rewards, and where the 
 larger opportunities of to-day give you hope, promise, 
 and welcome. 
 
XIX. 
 
 ADDRESS AT SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE 
 INCORPORATION OF THE PEEKSKILL (N. Y.) ACAD 
 EMY, APRIL 1 6, 1888. 
 
 I FELT seriously alarmed when Colonel Wright in his 
 speech gave you that glowing account of the glorious 
 oration from me which was to illumine this platform 
 and pass down the ages. I am not here, however, 
 with any set or formal address. I come as an old boy 
 of the Academy, gathering inspiration from the sur 
 roundings, and in familiar talk renewing, in reminis 
 cence, the most precious and tender memories of a 
 life. 
 
 The days spent at school are the ones a man never 
 wishes to forget. He recalls them with pleasure, and 
 visits again and again with ever increasing interest the 
 places hallowed by friendships formed or battles fought 
 during those happy years. In the competitions of 
 business or the jealousies of the professions or the 
 envious struggles of politics, the necessities of the fight 
 leave many pangs and inflict wounds which are never 
 healed. How different are the strifes of the school ! 
 Whether we won to-day or lost to-morrow, in the class 
 room, on the platform, in the debating society, or on 
 the athletic field, we remember only the generous and 
 
260 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 emulous rivalry of noble, loving, and forgiving hearts. 
 As we look back the gold of those dear old days shows 
 no alloy. To recall that early time is what brings me 
 here, in the firm belief that this day taken out of a 
 busy life and devoted to these recollections will be the 
 red-letter day of 1888. 
 
 It is wonderful how these trees and roads, and by 
 ways and rocks, recall long forgotten incidents. As I 
 was climbing the hill this afternoon, at the ancient 
 barrier to the grounds, I involuntarily dodged, as the 
 scene flashed upon me of the village boy who over 
 thirty years ago nearly made me a one-eyed monster 
 by a well-aimed ball of ice. That man is still living in 
 the village, but I have never been able to get even with 
 him. 
 
 I knew only two schools, Peekskill Academy and 
 Yale College. The ten years passed here and the four 
 in New Haven have in them the larger share of treas 
 ured meetings, greetings, and friendships, and of anni 
 versaries which are richer at each renewal. You young 
 gentlemen on the active list, who now fill these seats, 
 present the becoming uniform and military precision 
 of cadets. If the boys of forty years ago could be 
 materialized in this room, they would exhibit a won 
 derful contrast. In my time the students clothing 
 was made by the village tailor, and was of every style 
 and color. Many of the garments were cut and fitted 
 by frugal mothers from paternal patterns, and astonish 
 ing fits they were, and often the coats and pantaloons 
 were the father s cut down. Most knees were embel 
 lished with patches of different material and shade 
 from the original, as tributes to the devotion of the 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 261 
 
 owners to marbles, and every toe was double capped to 
 meet the wear and tear of steering the sled when 
 riding downhill. Someone said in an interview in 
 the newspapers recently, that he was at school with me 
 here and I was a poor player at " three old cat " and 
 baseball, but I am sure I could do them infinitely 
 better then than I can now. 
 
 I have never ascertained how many were graduated 
 at this institution during the ten years I was here. 
 But I am every day in the receipt of letters from all parts 
 of the country in which the writer states his wants, 
 and then says he was a student \vith me at the Peek- 
 skill Academy. The number of these people has 
 become so great that I am inclined to believe v on 
 the returns which are in, that all the boys whose names 
 appear in the catalogues of all the schools in the 
 country during my time here, were for a part of the 
 same period students at this academy, and all the 
 States are not yet heard from. 
 
 When San ford Knapp and I were boys in the village 
 and on these benches, he was one of the most gallant 
 of the lads. The thumbscrew and the rack could not 
 have extorted from him then such a statement as, in the 
 dry, matter of fact way of all good secretaries, he has just 
 made. He says that there is a lady in this audience 
 who was graduated here forty years ago. The absurd 
 ity of the charge is evident to any intelligent observer 
 who looks about the room. There is no woman visible 
 here who has been more than twenty years out of school. 
 And yet, as Mr. Knapp read the history and the 
 extracts from the old minutes, how long ago, how lost 
 in antiquity it all appeared. Forty years ago ! They 
 
262 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 span an active life, but they all seem as yesterday. 
 They are crowded with shadows, but to-day the facts 
 and the faces are all fresh and real. 
 
 I remember well the last time I stood upon this 
 platform as a student. My mind was not wholly intent 
 upon my valedictory. I had a young lady in my eye 
 then, and I see her here now, and I thought if, after 
 getting through college, she should crown me with her 
 approval as sweetly as she that day gave me her 
 bouquet, there could be little left in the world worth 
 striving for. The realities of a boy s life are delight 
 ful dreams. Long before I was ready this charming 
 person was married, and you will find, young gentle 
 men, that the girls upon whom your affections are 
 fixed and sealed with vows of eternal fidelity will be 
 married to other fellows long before you are ready. 
 
 I was visiting General Garfield at his Mentor home 
 during his Presidential canvass. In a free and easy 
 and cheering talk, so characteristic of the man, he gave 
 me a glimpse of his philosophy of life. I asked him 
 if, in his early struggles, he had idealized competence 
 and content. " Oh, yes," he answered, " I remember 
 years when I had a most definite idea of the future 
 which would satisfy me. I would have surrendered 
 every ambition and prospect in life for the certainty 
 of the principalship of a good academy for the rest of 
 my days." But his splendid career, his marvelous rise 
 by work and pluck from the half-hearted compromises 
 to the summit of success, will furnish the youth of 
 each generation an inspiring example of true American 
 ism and the rewards of honorable endeavor. At my 
 last commencement here, during the delivery of my 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 263 
 
 speech, I was wondering what would become of me ; and 
 as my eye fell on the three judges of the day, William 
 Nelson, the Rev. Dr. Halliday, and Dr. Lee, I thought 
 if, in the distant future and after many years of trial, 
 I might be as well-known and highly respected in the 
 village of Peekskill as either of those gentlemen, my 
 cup of happiness and prosperity would be brimful and 
 running over. 
 
 In the world s history fifty years amount to little. 
 As nations grow old fifty years would form but a frac 
 tion of their existence. But in the life of a school a 
 half-century is an epoch of far-reaching importance. 
 Every year during that period it has graduated, and 
 launched upon their careers, young men educated and 
 prepared for business and the professions. They 
 bring to their work and duties a trained ability that 
 easily makes them leaders among their fellows. In 
 peaceful pursuits, as in arms, drill and discipline are 
 resistless, in competition or in conflict with those who 
 are not equally fitted. Every boy has left this academy 
 to become an important factor in the welfare of his 
 community. He has proved a positive force for good 
 or evil wherever he has cast his lot. Here his char 
 acter has been strengthened, and he has been grounded 
 in morality and religion. He has been buttressed 
 and fortified on every side against all the shocks and 
 temptations which may assail him. He learns much 
 from books which are invaluable, but the greatest 
 benefit he receives is in the knowledge how to find 
 what he needs, and how to use what he finds. The 
 best part of his education is a disciplined mind. I care 
 little what a boy learns or remembers, provided he 
 
264 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 secures that trained, confident, and eager intellect 
 which hails difficulties with delight, and springs forward 
 with the athlete s spirit, glorying in the opportunity 
 and sure of success. 
 
 I never have been able to decide whether it was 
 better during the academic period to stay at home or 
 go abroad. There are great advantages, and much to 
 be said for both plans. But it seems to me that the 
 man who, as a boy, carried home every night the story 
 of his cares and pleasures, his praises and slights, his 
 defeats and triumphs, his failures and honors, and 
 poured it into the ever open ears and sympathetic 
 heart of his mother, and received from her for the 
 next day s conflict unfailing and unerring love and 
 encouragement, has the richer retrospect. And yet, 
 while at this hour these memories recall so vividly that 
 watchful, tender, saintly presence to whom I owe all 
 that I am which is worthy or good, the simple village 
 associations sent me to Yale, the greenest and most 
 guileless freshman who ever entered her venerable halls. 
 
 This academy is a living monument to a noble pur 
 pose, which has been pursued with fidelity and unself 
 ish devotion for half a century. Many schools on 
 older and stronger foundations have failed because 
 they lacked the true educator s spirit, which has 
 always prevailed here. It is exceedingly difficult for 
 us to conceive that fifty years ago Peekskill was as 
 little known as any modest hamlet in the country. 
 Now it is recognized everywhere as the hub of the 
 universe. 
 
 In those days the people of the village both went to 
 bed and got up early. There were good reasons for 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEVV. 265 
 
 retiring soon after the sun went down, but none for 
 rising at the primitive hours then in fashion, for there 
 were no worms about here which were worth anybody s 
 time to catch. Yet the two thousand inhabitants of 
 this sleepy old town awoke one morning and greeted 
 each other with the historic remark, " Peekskill must 
 have an academy." None of the famous mottoes of 
 history have borne better fruit. The plans of the 
 founders were very modest. The sum at which they 
 capitalized their enterprise was only two thousand 
 dollars. They meant that this institution should 
 stand worthily beside the best schools in the State, 
 but they did not rely on money to bring this about. 
 Two thousand dollars seems at the present so utterly 
 inadequate as to be ridiculous. To build and endow 
 a great seat of learning with such a sum sounds like 
 a chapter based upon the veracious Knickerbocker s 
 comic history of our forefathers. The money would 
 not to-day buy a telescope, a library, a laboratory, or 
 even equip that most essential adjunct of a modern 
 liberal education a gymnasium. Yet the academy 
 which began with the grant of this hill and two thou 
 sand dollars to-day completes its half-century of pros 
 perous and beneficent existence. Each year it has 
 grown stronger and more useful than the year before. 
 Other schools which were far richer and had infinitely 
 brighter prospects have failed, been dismantled, and 
 sold. Even their names have been forgotten, but this 
 grand old academy has taken and maintains a position 
 among the best in the land. The result is not due to 
 accident, but to wise and faithful work. But devoted 
 instructors, with two thousand or a hundred thousand 
 
266 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 dollars, could not have made this success unless they 
 had fixed their foundation in Peekskill and on this hill. 
 This spot was near enough to the metropolis to feel 
 the throbs of its busy life, and yet far enough away 
 to be free from its temptations. When the academy 
 was built the village knew neither the railway nor 
 the telegraph, but from this eminence the vision 
 swept a panorama of scenery more beautiful than 
 anywhere else on the Hudson, which means unsur 
 passed in the world. These hills were eloquent with 
 patriotism and the theater of deeds which have inspired 
 poets and orators. The " Old Oak," which still stands 
 sentinel at these doors, has repeated every night for a 
 hundred years, as the wind has moaned through its 
 branches, the story and the agony of the traitor who 
 was hung upon its limbs. . These mountains and passes 
 are rich in revolutionary reminiscences. They speak of 
 battles, marches, and ambuscades. They recall the 
 proud recollection that the invader never captured 
 these fastnesses. In remembering that, if the enemy 
 had successfully stormed these heights, he could have 
 conquered the country, we recall and commemorate 
 the fact that the Highlands of the Hudson, defended 
 by our fathers, were the impregnable bulwarks of the 
 Hudson. In sight, and but a short walk from here, is 
 "Old Drum Hill," the site of General Putnam s camp. 
 The echoes of that gallant soldier s guns are there so 
 imbedded in the earth and rocks that, by stamping 
 upon the sod, you can have at any time a patriotic 
 salute from the artillery of the Continental army. 
 
 Yonder to the north is the eyrie of Enoch Crosby, 
 the Spy of the Revolution, whose adventures inspired 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 267 
 
 the pen of Fenimore Cooper. On the other side of 
 the Hudson rises Dunderberg, and the thunder rever 
 berating amid its glens and resounding from Crow 
 Nest and Anthony s Nose, filled with awe Hendrick 
 Hudson and his crew: and the succeeding generations 
 of Dutch navigators thought, as they encountered our 
 Highland storms, that they saw by the lightning-flashes 
 the spirit of the old explorer and his companions 
 engaged in royal sport, and recognized in the noise the 
 rolling balls and falling pins as the game went on. 
 
 I have recounted only a part of the superb environ 
 ment of the Pcekskill Academy. I have learned from 
 my experience and observation, and the study of man 
 kind, the importance of associations. It is very rare 
 that one breaks away from and rises above his sur 
 roundings. The influence of the patriotic memories, 
 the noble deeds, the heroic struggles and sacrifices 
 taught by these monuments of the real and the super 
 natural in history and fiction, in legend or tradition 
 suggested by these mountains, of the grand and beauti 
 ful in the splendid scenery by land and river, within 
 sight of this school, in elevating the character, broaden 
 ing the minds, firing the imaginations, and making citi 
 zens, soldiers, and patriots of the boys in this academy, 
 cannot be estimated. But fortunate location and 
 happy environment would have availed little in the 
 growth and development of this seat of learning, had 
 they not been supplemented by the labors and devoted 
 services of a succession of noble teachers. The stand 
 ard of character and ability was high at the beginning 
 and has never been lowered. The true spirit of edu 
 cation has always pervaded these halls. Albert Wells 
 
268 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 was the principal in my time, and my instructor, 
 and to-day I reverently and affectionately recall his 
 memory, and those early associations. It is a source 
 of congratulation and rejoicing that in hale and honor 
 able age he lives to participate in our celebration. He 
 was not a great scholar, but a very good one. As a 
 teacher he had the spirit of Arnold, and impressed 
 upon his students the indelible imprint of his person 
 ality. He was frank and the soul of truth, impulsive 
 but just, and kept the standard of character and con 
 duct high by the decisive way in which he showed his 
 hatred of a milksop and his love for a manly boy. 
 His brother Noah taught the classics. He was a 
 bachelor, and the most timid, retiring, and bashful of 
 men. He was devoted to his work and did it con 
 scientiously. Uncle Noah was passionately fond of 
 Horace. He knew by heart the books of that wisest 
 and most modern of ancient poets. The school edi 
 tions in those days were not edited and expurgated as 
 they are now, and when he came to some doubtful 
 lines the crimson tide would flush his face, and he 
 would repeat, " That is very bad, but the fault is with 
 the times, Chauncey ; with the times, and not with 
 Horace." I accepted the explanation, but the spirit 
 of investigation was too strong to skip the passages. 
 These two preceptors were my only teachers, and it is 
 a rare pleasure to have this signal opportunity to honor 
 their memory and offer tribute to their worth. 
 
 We, of all the years since the foundation, are here 
 to greet with loyalty and pride our Alma Mater on 
 this her golden birthday. The older she gets, the 
 handsomer she grows. Age is a mighty element of 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 269 
 
 power and usefulness to an institution like this. The 
 moss-covered foundations and the ivy-twined walls 
 have a history which is in itself a liberal education. 
 The boy who sits at the desk and occupies the room 
 which, for half a century, has been filled with men 
 who became honorable or famous is the " heir of all the 
 ages in the foremost files of time." He receives an 
 inspiration, and is fired with an ambition and enthu 
 siasm which teachers and books cannot give, but which 
 add immeasurably to the power of teachers and books. 
 Eton and Rugby I grasp intellectually as great 
 names, but they convey to me no impression, recall no 
 memory, present no picture ; and the same is true of 
 East Hampton, Andover, Phillips Academy, and St. 
 Paul s, famous as they are among our American 
 schools. But Peekskill Academy is for you and me a 
 history, a poem, a life. It is childhood and boyhood, 
 manhood, and home. It is the bud and blossom, the 
 flower and fruitage of a career. It recalls the best and 
 purest associations of the past, and it stands for much 
 in our character, development, and success. With 
 hearts swelling with love and gratitude we, her gradu 
 ates, salute her reverently, and bid her God-speed 
 down the centuries. 
 
XX. 
 
 ADDRESS TO THE INDIAN AND NEGRO STUDENTS AT 
 HAMPTON INSTITUTE, VIRGINIA, APRIL 7, 1891. 
 
 I FEEL that I am an intruder here. I am sure every 
 one would rather listen to this music than to any tune 
 that I can play. I came to hear it myself. I have 
 never been so fortunate as to be able to hear your 
 singers in the North, and I have been immensely grati 
 fied in hearing them to-day. 
 
 I look upon this Hampton School as one of the 
 most interesting exhibitions in the United States. I 
 regard my friend, General Armstrong, as having accom 
 plished more for this country than almost any man 
 who fought for it has done since the war. The war, 
 which settled some questions, left us a great problem 
 which had to be solved by other means. The time for 
 the guns and bayonets and cavalry charge was past. 
 The time had come when a most interesting and per 
 plexing condition had to be met and overcome. It 
 is a fortunate peculiarity of the American people that 
 they never hesitate to grapple with a problem because 
 it is untried and difficult. We are a nation of experi 
 menters; the more difficult the situation, the more 
 interesting it is to us. Because it seems impossible is 
 the best reason to us for our determination to prove 
 its possibility. This is the spirit that has given the 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 271 
 
 world all the great American inventions. When some 
 thing new was needed, American talent was roused to 
 supply the want. When there was some great need 
 of humanity, America was ready with advocates, 
 teachers, and self-sacrificing missionaries. This was 
 the spirit that led an American to apply steam to 
 navigation, which has bridged oceans. This was the 
 spirit that led another American to apply electricity to 
 telegraphy, which has belted the globe with lightning. 
 This is the spirit which has given us the sewing- 
 machine, and all other American machinery that so 
 multiplies the power of man and the forces of nature. 
 But there was a problem that machinery could not 
 reach and science could not solve, a problem that 
 affected whole races of people. That problem my 
 friend General Armstrong set himself to solve at the 
 close of the war. 
 
 This assembly before me, and these songs I have 
 heard, tell the spirit that has solved this problem. 
 Nothing permanent had been done to alleviate distress 
 or elevate mankind in general, until Christianity came 
 with its spirit of helpfulness and good will, with its 
 recognition of the equal value, before God and before 
 the law, of every individual of every race. At the 
 time of the birth of Christ, two-thirds of the inhabitants 
 of the globe were slaves. It was the habit of the 
 Roman conquerors, when they captured a city, to carry 
 efway captive men, women, and children, and sell them 
 to slave dealers who always followed the army. They 
 took them to the markets and sold them men, women, 
 and children of every race whatever might be their 
 culture and learning and position and refinement. 
 
272 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 During the reign of the Caesars the conquests of Rome 
 became so frequent, and the accumulation of slaves 
 was so great, that in the island of Sicily cultivated 
 young men and young women were sold for twenty- 
 five cents apiece, branded with a hot iron on forehead 
 and cheek and sent on the plantations, where their 
 average length of life after they got there was one 
 month. Nobody cared ; it being cheaper to work 
 them to death and buy others than to feed them and 
 take care of them. 
 
 In one of your songs here to-day you have sung how 
 Christ, 
 
 King of kings, Lord of lords, 
 Broke the Roman Kingdom down. 
 
 That is the whole secret and the whole history of 
 our Christian civilization. It has taken two thousand 
 years, but the accumulated superstition and jealousy 
 of ages had to be overcome. 
 
 We in America had slavery imposed upon us, and it 
 cost millions of lives and thousands of millions of dol 
 lars to get rid of it. When America did get rid of it, 
 then it speedily ceased throughout the civilized world ; 
 and now there is no civilized nation where slavery 
 exists. The civilized nations of the world send out 
 their navies to prevent the slaver from reaching port. 
 Civilized nations combine to stamp out this evil where 
 it still exists in Asia and Africa. 
 
 But when the war struck the shackles from the limbs 
 of the slave, it left us millions of people who had not 
 been educated to fit them for self-government or for 
 citizenship, or for taking care of themselves and earn- 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 273 
 
 ing their own living. To these millions were given 
 at once freedom and its responsibilities, the right of 
 suffrage, and all the privileges of full manhood and 
 American citizenship. It was to them the most critical 
 period of their history. They had to show the world 
 whether they were worthy or unworthy of all these 
 great privileges. The world always moves steadily on, 
 and never stops for anyone. If people have capacity 
 or disposition to move on with it, it carries them along; 
 if they have not the capacity or disposition to move on 
 with it, like one of those great steam rollers they flatten 
 the street with, it just rolls on, and rolls over them. 
 
 Thus it became necessary for the colored people of 
 this country to demonstrate that they could be other 
 than children; to demonstrate that they had minds 
 that could be taught; that they had souls that could 
 be purified and ought to be saved. It is safe to say 
 that, twenty-five years ago, out of fifty millions of 
 people of this country, not five millions believed that 
 the colored people could be brought to a point where 
 they could safely be trusted with the powers of citizen 
 ship. More than half believed that they had not 
 minds and intelligence to become useful, responsible, 
 free men and women. There was but one way to test 
 the question. It must be tried on a plane large enough 
 for demonstration. It could not be decided in the 
 country schoolhouse with a few half-trained teachers; 
 or in the plantation church with a minister ignorant as 
 his people, where white people would come only to 
 laugh at the show he would make of himself. The 
 work had to be done by the same processes that other 
 races are tested by. How is it proved that the white 
 
274 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 race is worthy of citizenship and the powers of free men 
 and women? It is done through schools where there 
 are competent teachers, through opportunities to learn 
 and to demonstrate that they are fitted for citizenship. 
 Twenty-two years have passed, I am told, since this 
 experiment was tried by General Armstrong. So it is 
 of age. And what are the results? The results are 
 that hundreds of graduates have gone forth, in the same 
 
 o c> 
 
 spirit as the first apostles of Christianity; for the same 
 purpose ; each one a beacon light of truth, intelligence, 
 and morality, to lead their race up to higher and better 
 planes of living, and point out to them the larger 
 opportunities which had come to those who had edu 
 cated minds and trained hands, and to aid in their up 
 lifting through teaching and training and example to 
 happiness in this world and eternal happiness in the 
 world to come. Had this experiment failed, into 
 which General Armstrong has put his life, twenty-five 
 years would not have passed before the power of the 
 government that gave would have taken away again 
 every political privilege and relegated them to a posi 
 tion of wards and children of this country, but children 
 uncared for and unprotected. 
 
 The same is true in regard to the Indians. We 
 found the Indian in possession of the soil, and we 
 took it away from him. We have abused him in every 
 possible way that an intelligent people could a wild 
 people, by sending agents to rob him and then sol 
 diers to shoot him. These two processes have been 
 going on ever since Captain Miles Standish inaugurated 
 the gospel of the shotgun. But I am going to be care 
 ful not to mention any particular shotgun, for I always 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 275 
 
 get into trouble when I mention names. I alluded to 
 Winchester rifles in a speech once, and the next day I 
 received from the manufacturing company a letter and 
 a catalogue. I thought at least they might have sent 
 me a gun. Another time I alluded to the Kodak, 
 remarking that there comes a time in every man s life 
 when he only has to press a button and the rest is 
 done. A few days after, my little boy received a 
 Kodak. And once I had occasion to just mention 
 Pierce s Pellucid Pills, and I received a box by the next 
 mail. So now, in alluding to guns, it is the shotgun 
 in general that I do not believe in. 
 
 I once had the curiosity to ask General Sherman if 
 he was the author of the saying that "the only good 
 Indian is a dead Indian." He said no, that Miles 
 Standish was the author of it and he only stole it from 
 him, though he firmly believed in the doctrine. Gen 
 eral Armstrong undertook the most difficult of his 
 problems when he attempted to prove that the Indian 
 could be fitted for citizenship. 
 
 The experimental period is past. We have the 
 records of Indian Commissioners, and of intelligent 
 army officers that have seen the work of returned 
 Indian students from Hampton and Carlisle and other 
 schools, and it is most encouraging. The best of tests 
 was that of the ghost-dance craze last year, when the 
 people were carried away by the same sort of wave of 
 popular sentiment, of the influence of environment, 
 hereditary and tribal relations, which carried thirteen 
 States at once into rebellion; and, with one exception 
 caused by ties of relationship, every single student from 
 Hampton stood up bravely, manfully before his people, 
 
276 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 to warn them against their insane frenzy, and the 
 destruction into which they were blindly rushing, and 
 to lead them into practices which would make them 
 intelligent, useful, and law-abiding citizens of the 
 Republic. 
 
 I want to say this to all you young men and all you 
 young women : the only thing that succeeds in this 
 world is work! Nobody is ever pushed along by any 
 one else or by circumstances. I remember when I 
 started in life in a little village on the Hudson River, 
 with some fifty other boys of about my own age, with 
 much the same opportunities, and the same schooling. 
 None of us had any money. Some of us worked, and 
 worked hard and cheerfully ; others didn t work. Some 
 lounged about taverns, some played, while others 
 worked. I look back and I count up those who took 
 to the taverns; every one of them is dead; they led 
 miserable lives; they made their wives miserable and 
 their children paupers, and they sank into drunkards 
 graves. Then, those that were always looking for 
 something to turn up, and never used a spade to turn 
 something up for themselves every one is sitting now 
 holding a chair down in some corner grocery; holding 
 it down hard, and talking about this man and that one, 
 who in the village or out of it has been successful : 
 "That man has got to be a great preacher," and "that 
 man has got to be a judge," and "that man has got to 
 be a millionaire well, there s nothing like luck in this 
 world." Every time I go to my native town and go 
 round among those fellows, they say to me : "O Chaun- 
 cey! well, there s nothing like luck in this world, and 
 you ve got it." 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 277 
 
 Yes, there is luck in this world, but nobody ever had 
 it unless he reached for it ; unless he seized it, and 
 with all his mind and all his might developed his 
 opportunity when it came. There are plenty of apples 
 on the trees, but it s only those fellows who make a 
 spring and climb for them that get them. 
 
 There s another thing I want to say to you. Every 
 man and woman should have an honest pride in the 
 country, or the State, or the town he lives in, or the 
 institution where he was educated ; an overwhelming 
 sort of pride, that makes him think, "There never was 
 such a great country as ours. Nobody has lived in 
 such a good State or town. Nobody was ever gradu 
 ated from an institution that was quite so good as 
 Hampton." It is the same spirit you see above all in 
 a Boston man. A Boston man went to a little village 
 once and spoke at a Sunday-school picnic. Some 
 years afterward he went again and spoke to the same 
 Sunday-school. And he said, "Oh, the last time I was 
 here, there was such a dear little flaxen-haired boy sat 
 over there. He was a fine little boy, so good, so 
 studious; the finest little boy I ever saw. He always 
 came to Sunday-school, he always knew his catechism; 
 he never was naughty? Children, ivJiere do you suppose 
 he is noiv?" "In heaven," the children all shouted. 
 "Oh, no, children, better than that ; he is a clerk in a 
 store in Boston." 
 
 This is the spirit and I want you to remember it 
 who are educated in Hampton school that all young 
 men of Yale or Harvard or Princeton have an enor 
 mous pride in all the days of their lives. There is 
 nothing which causes so quick a movement of the 
 
278 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 pulse, such a rising flood in the veins telling of joy and 
 pride, like the mention of Yale to a Yale man, or of 
 Harvard to a Harvard man, or Princeton to a Prince 
 ton man, even if he has passed the allotted age of 
 man threescore years and ten. Now, I tell you 
 there is more to be proud of in Hampton Institute for 
 a Hampton boy or girl than there is for a Yale or 
 Harvard or Princeton student in Yale or Harvard or 
 Princeton. Why? Because the young man of Yale or 
 Harvard or Princeton is borne up by the whole influ 
 ence of his family and society. His family pushes him 
 along. The best schools educate him ; so when he 
 enters college he is fully prepared. Eight-tenths of 
 the prizes at those colleges are taken by graduates of 
 high schools and not by the graduates of magnificent 
 academies. If his family is poor, some church sees his 
 talent, and puts him through. So his whole atmos 
 phere is an atmosphere of help and encouragement and 
 applause. But for the colored boy or girl, or the 
 Indian, there is naught of this. Their families have 
 had no opportunities and have no understanding of 
 education. No school or educated minister is behind 
 them; no public contribution is taken up to pay their 
 way. They must have something in themselves which 
 is born for success; and when at last they have passed 
 through the course of this school, passed their exami 
 nations, graduated from the school and from the 
 manual trade shops; when at last they have their 
 diploma it is a diploma that has been won by them 
 selves, struck out of nothing, as Morse caught the light 
 ning from heaven. All such young men and young 
 women, when they look at their diploma hanging on 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 279 
 
 the wall of their home, should feel: "I am commis 
 sioned by this school, and by all there is behind it, to 
 make a good name myself and accomplish something 
 in the world for my people. I must lead my people 
 to higher lives. I must own my own home; I must 
 own my own farm; I must become a good carpenter, 
 or mechanic, or milliner, or housekeeper, or merchant, 
 and be one of the useful citizens who go to make up 
 the life of this nation. I must teach my people what 
 education and religion and morality can do." And 
 you must learn this: that the real power and position 
 of men or women is the measure which the com 
 munity puts upon them, according to how they live, 
 and think, and act, and speak. 
 
 This glorious Republic has made you free citizens, 
 and it is the best land in which any man or woman 
 ever lived, the best land for which any man or woman 
 can live or die. 
 
XXI. 
 
 ADDRESS BEFORE THE YOUNG MEN S CHRISTIAN 
 ASSOCIATION, NEW YORK, JANUARY 26, 1885. 
 
 IT used to be charged that the young Christians in 
 these Associations were all over fifty years of age and 
 bald-headed. I am glad to see by the great crowd of 
 young men in the galleries that this is no longer true, 
 except on this platform. Nevertheless, I feel embar 
 rassed in speaking to you upon topics so much better 
 understood by the clergy. Their daily thought, study, 
 and conversation make them ready at all times to accept 
 ably discuss the questions pertinent to this anniversary; 
 yet there is much encouragement in the fact that this 
 is peculiarly the mission and the work of the laity. But 
 for the Church this organization would not exist, and 
 yet its purposes are beyond the reach of the Church. 
 Within the pale of all sects, but attached to none, in 
 the broadest and most liberal spirit it is a Christian 
 democracy, ever strengthening itself by the fervid zeal 
 with which it gathers those who need its influences 
 within the enjoyment of its equal privileges. It is the 
 best illustration of the liberal tendencies of all evangeli 
 cal bodies. It enforces the lesson that, however they 
 may differ in creeds, all churches can unite in a work 
 whose common purpose is to benefit and elevate man 
 kind. This would have been impossible a century ago, 
 
 280 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 281 
 
 and it is the most hopeful and encouraging of the many 
 elements of our progress to-day. The great scientist 
 Professor Huxley, though a freethinker, told a friend 
 of mine who met him at dinner at Edinburgh, that the 
 one man who had done most for mankind in the last 
 two centuries was Wesley. The professor stated a 
 great truth. Wesley discovered the power of the 
 people, and their ability to govern themselves in 
 matters ecclesiastical. He created the laity, and it 
 became the mightiest, the freest, and the most elastic 
 of propagandas. Wandering through Westminster 
 Abbey, and passing the splendid tombs of kings and 
 warriors, the statues of statesmen, the busts of poets, 
 men of letters and men of genius, I stood before the 
 simple slab which bears the features of Wesley, and 
 under it read the inscription which was the secret of his 
 success: " I look upon all the world as my parish." 
 
 It is a terrible thought that the very splendor of our 
 civilization is the danger of our times. In the multipli 
 cation of the sources of wealth and prosperity, in the 
 utilization of all the agencies of nature to do the 
 service of man in mechanical, industrial, and intellect 
 ual development, this century is unparalleled. And 
 yet every element of progress carries with it the agen 
 cies of destruction, the greatest benefits find the most 
 dangerous evils marching along at equal pace. As 
 dynamite has made possible the tunnelling of the Alps 
 and the Sierras, the piercing of isthmuses by great 
 ship canals, and the illimitable expansion of the world s 
 commerce, and at the same time threatens, both in 
 the old countries and the-new, the very foundations of 
 society, so the necessities of the highest civilization 
 
282 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 and development fulfill the prophecy of the romancer 
 of the Arabian Nights, and let loose a genius with 
 equal and unequaled capacity for both mischief and 
 beneficence. The attendants and disturbers of our 
 splendid conditions are the socialist, the communist, 
 and the anarchist. In the simpler and more primitive 
 days, cities grew slowly by healthful and natural 
 increase, and the country was the conservative power 
 in the State. Business was so limited that it was capa 
 ble of management by small capital, and the masses of 
 the population were independent and self-reliant. A 
 multitude of men were the masters of their own pur 
 suits, with the attendant safety which comes from 
 responsibility and the protection of one s own property 
 and business. But the telegraph, the railway, and the 
 steamship have brought all nations into such close com 
 munion that trade and manufactures now require enor 
 mous capital. It is only by the aggregation of the 
 money of many in corporations that these means of 
 communication can be built and maintained, and they 
 have created competition so severe that the small 
 dealer is disappearing to become an employee in the 
 great factory or store. 
 
 The requirement of crowds of workers at common 
 centers to carry on these enterprises is concentrating 
 populations and activities of all kinds, both good and 
 evil, in great cities. To meet capital upon safer grounds 
 and for self-protection against injustice or wrong, this 
 countless army of the employed combined in societies, 
 brotherhoods, and unions under different names. 
 Thus, outside the farmer and the professions, these 
 two mighty forces of capital and labor, each unable to 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 283 
 
 live without the other, stand at best in relations which 
 are merely a compromise, subject to constant breaches. 
 A conflict involves the overthrow of law and order, 
 and the reign of anarchy and chaos. The conserving 
 influences, which will ward off disaster and make all 
 forces work together for the common good and better 
 condition of everyone, are to be found only in the 
 development of character and conduct along with in 
 telligence. It Is at this point that the state utterly 
 fails. It provides the common school, and not only 
 gives, but enforces universal education. But after the 
 young man has been launched into the world to win 
 his way as best he may, the state takes no further care 
 than to furnish a policeman to arrest him in case he 
 goes astray. It either directly licenses or indirectly 
 tolerates the saloon, the pool room, the concert hall, 
 the gambling den, and resorts of every kind, but its 
 only effort to keep or rescue the young man from any 
 or all of these influences is the policeman. I cannot 
 see why the common school system might not be so 
 extended in large cities as to provide public libraries, 
 reading rooms, courses of lectures, and other methods 
 of cheerful and homeful refuge for the stranger and 
 the homeless. But so long as the state cannot and 
 will not furnish this insurance for the future by the 
 proper care of young men, each community, for its 
 own safety and in its own best interest, must by indi 
 vidual effort perform the work. 
 
 And just here the Young Men s Christian Associ 
 ation fills the grandest of missions. The Church by 
 itself, as at present organized, cannot do this work. I 
 speak in the profoundest reverence and devotion, but 
 
284 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 the churches are necessarily, in a city like ours, in the 
 best sense, religious societies. They are for the spir 
 itual welfare and education of residents who have a 
 place and are known in the community. For them 
 and for their children the churches live and thrive. 
 In their practical workings it has been found impossi 
 ble to hurl into their midst, associating, as must needs 
 be, in pew and social gatherings, crowds of men whose 
 characters, habits, and homes are wholly unknown. 
 Much as this is to be regretted, and greatly as it dif 
 fers from the spirit of the early Church, yet it is, never 
 theless, true of most of the largest, strongest, and best 
 churches in all our large cities. Young men of spirit 
 will not force themselves where every pew is rented, 
 and they will not go to the missions, for that offends 
 their pride. But the Association says, " Come here," 
 and it gives them instruction, religious, secular, and 
 physical, cheerful surroundings and elevating com 
 panionship ; and in time, with characters formed, with 
 homes secured, with reputations established, they 
 bring new recruits into their places in the Association, 
 and become themselves pillars in the churches. 
 
 From all over the land, by thousands and hundreds 
 of thousands the young recruits are marching to these 
 working camps, the cities. The father says " Good-by, 
 my boy, be a man " ; the mother gives him all she has 
 to bestow her prayers and her tears ; the last sight 
 which fills his eyes and lingers forever in his memory, 
 as the turn in the road hides the old house, is her wav 
 ing farewell, and he never knows again what home is, 
 until he has created one for himself. 
 
 We are a home-loving people, and all our virtues are 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 285 
 
 fostered by the fireside. As the recognition of the 
 political equality of the individual is the basis of our 
 liberty, and the township is at the foundation of our 
 government, so the home nurtures and protects the 
 character, which saves the community from ruin and 
 from rot. No man who has never tried it, or come 
 into intimate contact with those who have, can know 
 the perils begotten of loneliness which surround the 
 young stranger in the metropolis. The whirl and 
 rush of the great city sweep past him, and take no 
 note of his existence. Man is a social animal and the 
 creature of his associations. It is a rare organization 
 which can resist or rise above them. The young 
 stranger knew everybody in the country here, nobody. 
 After the office, counting room, or workshop is closed, 
 what then ? He cannot stay in his room. Full of life 
 and human sympathy, beasts of prey, in alluring form, 
 lie in wait for him at every street corner. Does he 
 strive for clean manliness? They taunt him with 
 assertions hardest for a sensitive boy to bear, that hay 
 seeds and .clover blossoms still adorn his coat and 
 mark his rusticity. Does he say, " I am a Christian " ? 
 They sneer at his superstition, and invite him to that 
 broader freedom which breaks loose from servile 
 creeds into the largest liberty of thought and action. 
 He learns, often too late, that liberty with his friends 
 means only license, and indulgence ruin; that his 
 boasted freedom is only to burst the restraints of the 
 Ten Commandments, of the Golden Rule, and the 
 teachings of home. 
 
 At this point he is bound either to become a 
 dangerous force in society, threatening all security for 
 
286 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 life and property, or to enlist on the side of all that we 
 cherish as sacred and precious. The recruiting officer 
 of the Young Men s Christian Association slaps him 
 on the back and calls him " brother." He invites him 
 to a reading room where newspapers and magazines 
 keep him abreast with the religious, social, scientific, 
 and political thought of the hour; to the lecture hall, 
 where the leaders in every department of intellectual 
 activity give him the results of their studies and 
 researches ; to the gymnasium, where he prepares a 
 healthy body for a healthy soul, and to the religious 
 gathering, where he recalls the weekly prayer-meeting 
 in his village church. When his next letter reaches 
 his distant home on the mountain or in the valley, his 
 mother on bended knee offers the most grateful prayer 
 of her life for the Providence which has assured the 
 safety and future of her son, and at the same time 
 the state has secured a soldier who will die, if need 
 be, in the defense of its laws, and who is in a fair 
 way to become one of its most useful and successful 
 citizens. 
 
 I have had the opportunity to become personally 
 familiar with the workings of the Railroad Branch of 
 this Association. The results can hardly be over 
 stated. On the lines with which I am connected one 
 hundred thousand men are employed, and they repre 
 sent over a half-million people in their families. The 
 effect of the establishment of one of these societies 
 at a railroad center is marked and immediate. The 
 character of the service begins to improve. Salaries 
 and wages, which had been worse than wasted, are 
 spent upon the wives and children, and the surplus 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 287 
 
 finds its way into the savings-bank, and from there 
 into a homestead. In the streets and in the houses 
 intelligent thrift and happy and sober lives take the 
 place of slovenliness and carelessness. To many of 
 these men are intrusted the lives of the hundred 
 million passengers who annually travel over the rail 
 ways of the country. The demand for speed con 
 stantly increases the dangers of carriage. The steady 
 hand and clear brain of the locomotive engineer, of 
 the switchman at the crossing, of the flagman at the 
 curve, of the signal man at the telegraph, alone pre 
 vent unutterable horrors, and this Association does 
 more in fitting men to fulfill these duties for the 
 safety of the public, than all the patent appliances of 
 the age. 
 
 Individual benevolence and public spirit have done 
 much for our city. But Peter Cooper s Union, grand 
 as are its purposes, can reach but few. The Astor 
 Library,, broad as is its foundation and beneficent 
 its mission, is intended for students and the higher 
 scholarship, and to throw it open to indiscriminate 
 and universal use would defeat the object of its 
 creation and the most admirable work it accomplishes. 
 The Lenox Library is hedged about with so many 
 restrictions* that I have never been able to climb in ; 
 but then I have been a permanent resident of the city 
 only fifteen years. But while through a great popular 
 public library one of the crying needs of New York 
 can be met, yet here and now and every day, by 
 enlarging the facilities and the usefulness of this 
 
 * These restrictions have been removed since the delivery of Mr. 
 Depew s address. 
 
288 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES. 
 
 organization, which supplements intellectual food with 
 all the attractions and influences of companionship, 
 amusement, and home, can the liberal and the philan- 
 thropical, in largely benefiting others, secure an equal 
 measure of good for their city, their country, and 
 themselves. 
 
XXII. 
 
 SPEECH BEFORE THE NEW YORK STATE AGRICUL 
 TURAL SOCIETY, AT SYRACUSE, OCTOBER 1 6, 1890. 
 
 IT will not be expected that in the brief and busy 
 interval since my return from Europe a few days since 
 I have had the opportunity to prepare an elaborate 
 and exhaustive oration, but the invitation of the New 
 York State Agricultural Society to be present at the 
 dedication of its permanent home and the celebra 
 tion of its semi-centennial was too attractive to resist. 
 It does not need any profound study to discover sub 
 jects of the greatest interest connected with the agri 
 culture of the United States. Admitting our marvelous 
 progress in manufactures and the arts, the prosperity, 
 prominence, and power of the Republic rest upon the 
 farm. Of the seventeen millions of bread-winners in 
 the land, including the professions and those engaged 
 in commercial pursuits, ten million six hundred thou 
 sand are farmers, and of the thirteen millions whose 
 labor creates our productive wealth all may be assigned 
 to agriculture except two million and a half. 
 
 The progress of the United States during the fifty 
 years covered by your existence in the inventions, the 
 improved conditions and opportunities of its people, 
 the emancipation of labor and the universality and the 
 liberality of its culture, including our phenomenal 
 
290 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 material growth, may well make every American repeat 
 for himself the remark of Mr. Gladstone, that if he had 
 been presented the opportunity to select any half- 
 century of recorded time in which to live and work, he 
 would have chosen the last fifty years of his own life. 
 It is not so very long ago when it would have been 
 impossible for the annual address before the New York 
 State Agricultural Society to be delivered by the 
 President of the New York Central Railroad. He 
 would even have been a most unwelcome visitor upon 
 the ground. But it is one of the sources of the progress 
 and power of the American people that they are bur 
 dened neither by traditions nor inherited prejudices. 
 In older communities the vendetta of blood and 
 opinions passes down through succeeding generations. 
 The enmities, the politics, and the religion of the father 
 are those of the son. Daniel Webster, when reproached 
 for advocating a policy diametrically opposed to thai 
 which he had favored twenty years before, remarked 
 that it was the privilege of great minds to change their 
 opinions. In this respect all Americans possess Web- 
 sterian intellects. We have learned the important 
 lesson of development, which is adaptation to the con 
 ditions of the hour. The necessities and competitions 
 of to-day are too exacting to give us the opportunity 
 to waste our time over back numbers, and the rapidity 
 of our pace and the fulfillment of our whole duty do 
 not permit us to build bridges over dry streams. It 
 has been our experience as a people in every crisis of 
 our history, whether it was economic or financial or 
 patriotic, whether it affected our commerce, or our 
 Constitution, or the life of our nation, to be able to 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 291 
 
 meet the emergency and successfully overcome all 
 obstacles. 
 
 The railroad first developed the agricultural resources 
 of our country, then threatened their paralysis, and 
 now, under wiser administration on the one hand 
 and a more liberal understanding on the other, the 
 farm and the railroad are seen to be inseparably 
 united as allies and as partners. The blight of the 
 one is the bankruptcy of the other. At the time of 
 the organization of your society, fifty years ago, there 
 were three thousand miles of railway in the United 
 States, and to-day there are one hundred and seventy 
 thousand. 
 
 Every mile of new railroad brings into cultivation 
 one hundred thousand fresh acres. By keeping this 
 fact in mind we shall more clearly comprehend the 
 tremendous potentiality of this vast expansion of our 
 railway system. A half-century ago there were four 
 thousand millions of dollars invested in agriculture and 
 now there are eleven thousand millions. There were 
 then one million farms and now there are between four 
 and five millions. Within the last thirty years the 
 acreage devoted to corn has increased from fourteen 
 millions to seventy-eight millions, and the amount pro 
 duced from five hundred millions to two thousand 
 millions of bushels, while wheat in the same period has 
 expanded its area from eleven millions to thirty-eight 
 millions of acres, and the amount produced from one 
 hundred millions to five hundred millions of bushels. 
 Since 1 840 the land improved, and under cultivation, has 
 grown from one hundred and thirteen millions to three 
 hundred millions of acres. Our population since 1840 
 
292 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 has increased from seventeen millions to sixty-five 
 millions. 
 
 It was after 1840 that enterprise, capital, and credit 
 discovered the enormous profits, direct and incidental, 
 which could be derived from railroad construction. 
 This led to constant overbuilding largely in excess 
 of present needs, but the confidence of the investing 
 public in the growth and future of the country was so 
 great that there was no limit to the absorption of 
 stocks and bonds in the markets of both the Old World 
 and the New. Railroads were extended through the 
 wilderness and across the prairie for thousands of miles 
 where there was neither a ton of freight nor a carload 
 of passengers, but energy and business capacity pecu 
 liarly American were equal to the emergency. A can 
 vass, original in its inception and unequaled in the 
 intelligent activity of its execution, was inaugurated 
 among the populations of Europe for settlers along 
 these ghostly lines. 
 
 The railway managers rightly argued that with popu 
 lation upon the rich lands of the West would speedily 
 come a large and profitable business, and the rapid 
 growth of towns, villages, and cities. The eloquent 
 agent of the railroad, armed with maps and pictures, 
 entered the Irishman s cot, the German village, and 
 penetrated the mountains and the valleys of Scandi 
 navia. He presented to a down-trodden and hopeless 
 people, who had no opportunities for knowing any 
 thing of the continent beyond the sea, glowing descrip 
 tions of the promised land. There the farms were free ; 
 there was independence, liberty, and citizenship. There 
 were fortunes and the highest honors of the State for 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 293 
 
 their children. He facilitated, with cheap transporta 
 tion and instruction as to travel, their progress to their 
 new homes. Of the fourteen million three hundred 
 thousand of immigrants who came to the country after 
 1820, thirteen million five hundred thousand were 
 brought here after the commencement of this railroad 
 development. But the northwestern lines did not rest 
 their prosperity alone upon the European harvest. 
 They persuaded the farmer of New England to send 
 his boys to Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa, the farmer of 
 Illinois to send his boys to Kansas, and the farmer of 
 Kansas to send his sons to Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, 
 and Washington. 
 
 It is always painful to disturb the illusions or 
 shatter the sentiment which furnishes the poetry or 
 the eloquence of a people, but modern research is 
 busy destroying all the treasures of our childhood and 
 all the rhetorical opportunities of the platform. Poca- 
 hontas has been mercilessly sacrificed, the tradition of 
 Joan of Arc has been hopelessly impaired, and this 
 summer, upon the edict of the Swiss Canton, William 
 Tell has been effaced. The staple, never failing, and 
 always fresh figure for the art and eloquence of the 
 Fourth of July orator was the downtrodden and 
 oppressed millions who fled from tyranny to seek 
 liberty upon our shores. While thousands of them 
 undoubtedly did, we are compelled as candid students 
 of the economic forces which have caused our present 
 conditions, to bring this vast army of contributors to 
 our wealth under the business relations which led 
 them to emigrate, and destroy the poetry which so 
 often adorns the essay of the college commencement 
 
2Q4 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 and the patriotic anniversary. The results of this vast 
 expansion of population have been to absorb nearly 
 the whole of our public domain, and produce an enor 
 mous surplus of agricultural products. This great 
 army, spreading over the fertile acres of the West and 
 Northwest and receiving from the Government free 
 farms, introduced no variety in their agriculture, but 
 entered without exception into the planting and har 
 vesting of the same cereals. As a consequence we 
 have become not only the largest agricultural nation 
 in the world, but we dominate the prices of the prod 
 ucts of the farm in all the markets of civilization. 
 Our productiveness under these settlements, thus made 
 at a pace unknown to natural laws, and under such 
 tropical conditions, made the output of the farm thirty 
 per cent, greater than the absorbing power of the 
 country. We produced thirty per cent, of the food of 
 the world, and not only easily commanded the coun 
 tries which are compelled to buy from abroad, but so 
 lowered the price of wheat and corn and live stock that 
 we paralyzed the prosperity of agriculture all over the 
 world. 
 
 With the reduction in prices the farmers found the 
 railway rates an insuperable obstacle to the continu 
 ance of their business. Out of the fire and smoke of 
 one of the fiercest, and what threatened to be one of 
 the most disastrous controversies of our time, was 
 evolved one of the most beneficent and far-reaching 
 principles of the century, a principle which has always 
 been and still is denied by the railway managers of 
 Europe. It was that enormous volume of traffic, 
 economically handled in the largest possible cars and 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 295 
 
 drawn by the most powerful possible engines, would 
 so reduce the cost of transportation as to enable the 
 railway to carry it at rates unheard of before and still 
 make a reasonable return upon the investment. Under 
 the operation of this rule railway rates in the last 
 twenty years have gone down over one hundred per 
 cent., while the products of the farm have fallen about 
 thirty per cent. The rates of 1870 applied to the ton 
 nage of 1889 would have yielded for the year one 
 thousand millions of dollars more than the gross rev 
 enue of the railways of the United States, a sum larger 
 than their total freight and passenger receipts, almost 
 equal to our present national debt, and the same as 
 the war indemnity paid by France to Germany. But 
 this tremendous concession of a thousand millions of 
 dollars a year to the commerce of this country has 
 also stimulated that commerce to an extent almost 
 beyond the realm of imagination, and in return given 
 to the railways a business which is fairly remunerative. 
 But at the time when by this union of the railroad 
 and the farm the British market was entirely in posses 
 sion of the American farmer for his wheat, when his 
 corn, manufactured into the hog, was feeding Conti 
 nental Europe, when the despair of the foreign agri 
 culturists was leading them to so change their products 
 as to still further enlarge our opportunities, there was 
 perpetrated a crime against the prosperity of the United 
 States unequaled in its far-reaching results by any war, 
 pestilence, or famine of ancient or modern times. The 
 speculative activity and capital which had been suc 
 cessful in the stock market and produce exchanges 
 combined to corner the food supplies of Europe de- 
 
296 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 rived from America. The theory was that Great 
 Britain and the Continent might be made to pay a 
 tribute for bread and meat, which would return to a 
 syndicate of American gamblers sums surpassing the 
 spoils wrung by the Roman emperors from the con 
 quests of the world. It alarmed alike capitalists and 
 cabinets ; it stirred up the dormant energies of older 
 peoples and conservative governments; it stimulated 
 railway construction in India and Russia; it made the 
 fellah of the Nile, the ryot of India, and peasant of 
 Russia the competitors of the American farmer and 
 his necessities for the amenities and luxuries of the 
 highest civilization ; it so alarmed the governments of 
 England, France, and Germany that they put fatal 
 restrictions upon the importation of our live stock and 
 our pork. But while our foreign markets have thus 
 been in a large measure lost, our production of the 
 same cereals and of live stock has gone on constantly 
 increasing. 
 
 In view of the depression brought about by these 
 causes it becomes the highest duty of the American 
 statesman and the American farmer to look about for 
 remedies. The first act of the farmers of the United 
 States should be to intelligently organize. In the 
 present condition of the world organization is the 
 necessity of existence. Capital organizes in corpora 
 tions, labor organizes in trade unions, manufacturers 
 organize for protection. Farmers alone have failed to 
 unite in any efficient and practical way. Their agri 
 cultural societies are purely educational, their alliances 
 are largely the opportunity of the village lawyer to 
 exploit crude ideas upon corporations and capital as 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 297 
 
 the first round of the ladder upon which he hopes to 
 climb to the Legislature or to Congress. But the 
 farmers should be so banded together that they can 
 impress upon the government with commanding voice 
 their needs, that they can so educate each other in the 
 rotation and subdivision of crops as to relieve a sur 
 plus of any one product, that they can escape the 
 middleman who is now sapping the life of their busi 
 ness. The most advanced free-trader, while claiming 
 that the manufacturers of the country no longer need 
 protection, admits that the fostering of our infant in 
 dustries and the development of our natural resources 
 have led to our present commanding position as a 
 manufacturing country. 
 
 The farmers have always sustained the principle of 
 protection for manufacturers, believing that their 
 growth would create home markets of far more value 
 than any foreign possibilities. There are now imported 
 into this country yearly articles worth over three 
 hundred millions of dollars, the direct product of the 
 farm. If by intelligent legislation this money could 
 find its way to the agriculture of our own land the bene 
 fits would be incalculable. The farmers organization 
 should inscribe upon its banner the " three R s," Reci 
 procity, Retaliation, and Revenue. We have made 
 remarkable strides within the last year in the direction 
 of the practical application of the idea of " America 
 for the Americans." We have been brought into 
 closer relations and have better understandings with 
 the other countries upon the North and South Ameri 
 can continents. By a wise and judicious application 
 of the principle of barter and exchange broad avenues 
 
298 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 can be opened for our products into hitherto unknown 
 markets. By these methods each of the countries 
 participating can be mutually benefited and enriched. 
 So long as we maintain the protective policy we cannot 
 object to any tariff which may be imposed equally and 
 impartially by other governments, but when Great 
 Britain pretends to discover pleuro-pneumonia in our 
 cattle, when France and Germany claim that there is 
 trichinosis in our pork, and by these subterfuges keep 
 out our live stock and provisions while they freely 
 admit those of other countries, the duty becomes im 
 perative for us to show them the application of the 
 familiar rule, " one good turn deserves another." 
 
 It is as easy for us to declare that the wines of 
 Champagne, Burgundy, and the Rhine are adulterated 
 and the metals of Great Britain and Germany alloyed. 
 Let us establish a rigid governmental inspection at our 
 own ports upon our own exports and then say to Great 
 Britain, to France, to Germany, to Belgium, to Hol 
 land : " It is either the acceptance of our official 
 certificate or tit for tat." But before and beyond the 
 slow processes of governmental assistance there must 
 always be the immediate application of the beneficent 
 rule of self-help. The iron, the wool, and the cotton 
 manufacturers combine and have each their own stores 
 and depots. There is only a minimum of difference 
 between the price of manufactured steel, cotton, or 
 wool at the mill and in the market, but the unorganized 
 farmers are plundered beyond all rhyme or reason. 
 The combination of middlemen keep lowering the 
 prices for him ; lower them for the transportation 
 companies and maintain them for the consumers. 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 299 
 
 Milk, which has fallen from five or six to two or three 
 cents per quart at the country station, and one hundred 
 per cent, on the railway tariff, is still eight cents per 
 quart to the city family. The powerful combinations 
 for the slaughtering and selling of cattle, sheep, and 
 hogs, fix on the one hand the profit to the farmer, and 
 on the other hand the cost to the consumer. The out- 
 put of the fields presents a difference so wide that it is 
 absurd between the amount received at the barn and 
 in the store. 
 
 In the experience of modern competition the rule of 
 the thumb has seen its day. Success is impossible in 
 any vocation without the severest and most methodical 
 training. The technical school has made impossible 
 the engineer or the mechanic of the olden time. 
 Agricultural education has been the salvation of the 
 German farmer. A military system which conscripts 
 every youth into the army for three years, but credits 
 two of them to a liberal education in any department 
 of learning, has led the sons of the German farmers to 
 graduate in that branch at the universities, and thus 
 limited army service to one year. 
 
 This education, brought to bear upon the depression 
 produced by the enormous surplus from America of 
 wheat and corn, and their incidents, has largely coun 
 teracted the evil effects by an intelligent diversification 
 of the crops and products of the German farm. Our 
 farmers should so intelligently know the condition of 
 markets and the character of their soils and their 
 proper treatment, that when they find they have been 
 raising that with which the market is already over 
 stocked, they can change to those articles which are in 
 
3 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 greater and more profitable demand. This is to-day 
 the most important lesson in the practical duties of the 
 American farmer. There must also be a more uni 
 versal knowledge of the breeds of live stock which 
 yield the best returns. The distinction between 
 science and chance in this matter is the difference 
 between competence and poverty. 
 
 In my judgment, we are near the bottom of the grade 
 of agricultural depression, and will soon begin to climb 
 up the other side. 
 
 I belong to a farmers club of New York who are de 
 risively said to practice agriculture and till the soil on 
 Fifth Avenue. I must confess that the one creature 
 they most fear in this world is the man in charge of 
 their farms. They stand helpless in the presence of 
 his superior knowledge. But, though we may be in 
 the condition of Senator Evarts when he said to his 
 guests on his Windsor farm, " You may take either 
 milk or champagne ; they cost me just the same," yet 
 the experiments of the fancy farmer are adding at his 
 cost valuable contributions to agricultural science. At 
 the time of the organization of this society there was 
 but one agricultural newspaper in the United States. 
 To-day there are two hundred. Agriculture was then 
 taught nowhere, even in its most elementary branches. 
 To-day it finds a department in fifty of our colleges and 
 high schools. Mr. Hayseed and Mr. Wayback of the 
 caricaturist and of the stage are characters of the past. 
 Formerly the resident of the town, with his larger op 
 portunities, possessed the wider range and the more 
 accurate information, but to-day competition is so 
 sharp and the condition of life so hard and exacting 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 301 
 
 in the cities that their people read and know little be 
 yond their own pursuits ; but the farmer in the long 
 winter evenings and the other opportunities which 
 come to him reads with care his agricultural journal, 
 his religious weekly, and his party paper. In these 
 there is presented before each succeeding Sunday a 
 complete and comprehensive review of the history of 
 the world and the conditions of current discussion and 
 opinion upon all living questions, so that now the 
 country and the city, except in fashionable clothing, 
 have changed places. Mr. Curbstone finds himself 
 helpless in a discussion upon politics, religion, or 
 finance with the thoroughly informed and intelligent 
 Mr. Hayseed. 
 
 We must take into account always in our country, in 
 calculating the operation of economic forces, the swing 
 of the pendulum. It swung toward State s Rights and 
 brought on the Civil War ; it swung back to Nation 
 ality and saved the Republic ; it swung to fiat money 
 and brought on the panic ; it swung back to honest 
 currency and restored national and individual credit. 
 
 For the first three-quarters of our century the tend 
 ency of our population was to farms. With the 
 enormous activities and splendid opportunities which 
 invention and discovery have given to enterprise in 
 industrial centers, the rush is now to the village and 
 the city. The farmers boys no longer stay upon the 
 farm but go out to seek their fortunes in the crowded 
 mart. This result is going on not only in this country 
 but also in Europe. London, Paris, Berlin, and Rome 
 are increasing almost as rapidly in population as New 
 York or Chicago. The percentage of increase during 
 
302 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES. 
 
 the last ten years in our American cities has been be 
 yond all precedent, and yet we are none of us satisfied 
 but all want a recount. During this period the coun 
 try has remained stationary, or actually fallen off in 
 population. 
 
 Thus the ranks of the consumers are being enor 
 mously recruited, and out of all proportion to those of 
 the producers. It is the inevitable result that within a 
 brief period the farmers of the country will again find 
 within our own borders, and about their own homes, a 
 profitable market for all their products. 
 
 The English farmer first pays the landlord, then the 
 parson, then the Government, before there is any left 
 for himself, but three-quarters of the American farmers 
 own their own land and most of the remainder farm 
 upon shares, which is better than ownership, because, 
 in my experience, it gives them all the profits and im 
 poses upon them none of the burdens. 
 
 With agricultural prosperity before us, so certain 
 and so full of promise, the country can be confident of 
 its growth in wealth and happiness. 
 
XXIII. 
 
 THREE SPEECHES BEFORE THE " NEW YORK 
 FARMERS." 
 
 HOTEL BRUNSWICK, DECEMBER 15, l88/. 
 "FRUITS SUCH AS FARMERS GROW." 
 
 WELL, Mr. Chairman, I am glad that at last you want 
 a practical discussion of this question. We have heard 
 to-night of the beneficial effects of fruit-eating that 
 we knew about before but what we are here for is fruit- 
 raising, and on that subject I am an expert. I thought 
 when you spoke about rhetorical pyrotechnics that 
 you referred to my friend Cannon. I have heard him 
 go into pyrotechnics of a rhetorical sort which sur 
 passed anything I ever listened to in the Senate or out 
 of it ; and, if you had started to-night the question of 
 the protection of home industry in connection with 
 the recent extraordinary screed of the President of 
 the United States and had called him to his feet, you 
 would have, perhaps, learned how to raise fruit cer 
 tainly, if you had not learned how to raise fruit, you 
 would have found out how to raise sheol. 
 
 I came here for the purpose of finding out how 
 to do something with my farm up at Peekskill, on 
 which for the several hundred years we have owned 
 it, we have grown rocks mainly, and the personal 
 property of the family has not been improved by the 
 
 303 
 
304 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 product. I asked an ancestor of mine, my grandfather, 
 what he kept the farm for, and he said, " Some time or 
 other they will need stone piers in New York ; by that 
 time, you will be the owner of this farm and then you 
 will be the richest man in this country." But since 
 they have begun to manufacture and use this artificial 
 stone of which they make piers, they have ruined that 
 dream of my grandfather s and have driven me to 
 become a member of this society at an expense of 
 forty dollars a year, to find out how I could improve 
 that estate. I came here to-night, and by eating and 
 drinking this dinner have secured a digestion which 
 only fruit can remedy, if Dr. Barry is right for the pur 
 pose of discovering whether there is anything in the 
 line of fruit-raising which would add something to the 
 patrimonial income. The income of the farm, I would 
 state, since I have known it, has been principally taxes, 
 and they have been regular and steady never affected 
 by the drought indeed the only thing that has ever 
 impaired them has been hard times, which have post 
 poned their collection. 
 
 I was West recently in that region where I was 
 met and overcome by the St. Louis interviewer. I 
 went there with the idea that the only solid foundation 
 of wealth anywhere in this country was farming, so I 
 delicately insinuated as I rode through the places and 
 stopped at the stations that I was a member of the 
 New York Farmers Club. One man asked me if 
 farming in New York City consisted in cutting off 
 " cow-pons." I told him no, but I would like to know 
 how farming succeeded in his neighborhood, as I had 
 understood that all a man needed in order to prosper 
 
CHAUNCEY Jlf. DEPEW. 305 
 
 was a homestead of 160 acres, and then, growing wheat 
 at fifty-five cents a bushel, he sent it forth to feed the 
 starving millions of Europe, and soon became a mil 
 lionaire. He sat down and figured up to me what he 
 got out of it. He ciphered just how much the seed 
 cost him ; then how much his own labor amounted to, 
 with that of his hired man ; then the feed of his team ; 
 then how much he paid for the steam thresher ; then 
 the amount of railroad freights and elevator expenses, 
 and when he got the crop to market, he had a mort 
 gage on his farm. I did not know if his figures were 
 correct, but I found that many people in that country 
 had changed their occupation and gone from agricul 
 ture into raising corner lots, and that this was a most 
 phenomenally productive industry. 
 
 Among other places, I went to a city which five 
 years ago had two thousand inhabitants ; to-day it has 
 forty thousand. Every citizen seemed rich. They 
 told me, " This man is worth half a million, that man 
 a million, that man a million and a half, that man two 
 millions," and it grew somewhat monotonous, and I 
 said " What do you call a poor man here, if you have 
 any such person ?" and my informant replied, " A man 
 who is young and in excellent health and has one hun 
 dred thousand dollars has a fair start with us." They 
 pointed out to me lots along the principal streets which 
 they were selling at four thousand dollars a front foot, 
 without any buildings on them. One of the leading 
 citizens hired a tug and sailed with me in front of the 
 town, because the mud was so deep you could not 
 drive through the streets. I said to him, as I looked 
 over the unbroken forest extending to the pole, " I see 
 
30 6 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 everything here except a grave-yard. Have you a 
 cemetery ? or is the land so valuable that you bury 
 your relatives in the lake ? " My friend pointed to 
 some white stones in the distance and said, " That is 
 our cemetery, but it is getting too valuable for such a 
 purpose and we have got to take them up and plant 
 them over the hill. That, however, is not an unmixed 
 evil, for my lot is on the corner of the avenue which is 
 an extension of our principal street, and of course it 
 will become an exceedingly valuable property. It 
 necessitates the removal of my wife but, poor dear 
 girl, she won t mind it, because in her lifetime she was 
 immensely interested in the growth of the town." 
 
 Now, this fruit-raising is a most interesting subject. 
 I was afraid when the evening started with that extra 
 ordinary but charming address of our President, that 
 the discussion might degenerate into subjects which 
 would not meet the entire approval of Mr. Comstock. 
 He spoke in a familiar way of Venus and other lovely 
 but dangerous divinities of the ancients, and showed 
 an acquaintance with them which none of the rest of 
 us enjoy. But when Mr. Barry came on with his paper, 
 we were safely launched into the subject of the even 
 ing. There is nothing in the recollections of a man 
 who was brought up in the country which equals those 
 suggested by the orchard. All the poetic romancings 
 about meadows and fields only suggest the stone boat, 
 the plow, the rake, the harrow, and the scythe, and 
 everything which recalls hard work. But the real, solid 
 enjoyment of country life for a boy who was born 
 there, always centers about the apple tree. Under it 
 were gathered all the pleasures of existence in his early 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 307 
 
 life, as he recalls them in memory and reminiscence. 
 There is not a man about this table but can remember 
 the time when he could sit down in the orchard with 
 half a dozen other boys and eat his hatful of apples, 
 and everyone here would give all he is worth to be 
 able to do it again. 
 
 New York is the greatest State of the common 
 wealths which form our Union. Mr. Barry is right 
 about that, but Rochester, though a most charming 
 city, is not, as he thinks, all there is of the State. He 
 has tried hard to convey the impression that you can 
 only raise fruits fit to eat and which will bring good 
 prices in or about the Flour City. But then he is inter 
 ested in Rochester real estate, and we are not. The 
 fruit he praises is grown at Ellwanger and Barry s, 
 which is a most admirable place, and it is difficult any 
 where in the country to compete with them, but down 
 in Westchester, our local pride compels us to claim 
 that we have just as good fruits, though we don t get 
 as much for them, because they are not so well adver 
 tised. But friend Barry, with all his eloquence, never 
 can get us farmers to abandon champagne and drink 
 Barry s cider. He has tried to talk it up here to-night, 
 but it won t go down. This is not like the societies he is 
 accustomed to address, where they adopt the speaker s 
 views and buy his wares. We understand the business ; 
 some of us are in it ourselves. 
 
 In New England, when I was a student at New 
 Haven, they distilled a cider, a very peculiar beverage. 
 You wanted a guardian appointed after you had drunk 
 some of it, and it was at that time up in Connecticut 
 a test of orthodoxy. If a man did not murder any of 
 
38 LIFE AND LATER SPEECPIES OF 
 
 his family or friends after imbibing it, the vitalizing 
 and resisting power of grace and education was recog 
 nized, and he became an elder in the church and the 
 general executor for all the estates in the town ; and if 
 he did kill anyone he was acquitted on the plea of 
 emotional insanity. 
 
 A characteristic colonial clerical New England story 
 was told me by a very eminent divine, who traced his 
 ancestry back to Jonathan Edwards. He said that, 
 after a congregational convention, the deacons gathered 
 about were discussing, as they always do on such 
 occasions, the merits of their respective clergymen, 
 and one good deacon described his as a preacher who 
 could state the doctrines of the Church better than any 
 other man ; another deacon his, as one who was best 
 in describing the beauties of a Christian life ; another 
 his, as one who could bring out the sentiment and 
 poetry of the Old Testament, until finally a venerable 
 deacon said, " Well, our clergyman cannot do any of 
 these things as well as you have described. We don t 
 pay him any salary ; he owns a large farm and has got 
 to get his living from it and preach for us for nothing ; 
 but he is mighty moving in prayer in curcullio and 
 caterpillar time." 
 
 I was interested, as anyone must be who has visited 
 England, in the question asked by our friend Captain 
 Lloyd, but I think it answers itself for an American 
 who has been on the other side of the Atlantic in the 
 peach season. When I was there this summer, mine 
 host had upon his table magnificent peaches which had 
 cost him fifty cents apiece. They had been grown 
 upon the side of a wall and mostly under glass ; they 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 309 
 
 had a white pit and little flavor. I said to him, 
 " Peaches which would make your mouth water and 
 tears of joy run down your cheeks, are to-day piled 
 almost mountain high on barges beside the wharves 
 in New York and selling for fifty cents a basket, and 
 with two hundred peaches in each basket." " Well," 
 said he, " you Americans have always been remarkable 
 for the stories you tell." 
 
 This society, if it accomplishes nothing else, does 
 this at least we gather these experts from all parts of 
 this country and the world, and we publish a volume at 
 the close of the year which takes precedence of all the 
 agricultural reports of the United States. The Com 
 missioner of Agriculture told me, when I was last in 
 Washington, that the only chance he had of having 
 the Commissionership of Agriculture made a cabinet 
 office was by distributing these volumes containing the 
 transactions of our society among the members of the 
 Senate and House of Representatives. He said that 
 he had given a volume to several of the leading mem 
 bers of both houses and they had incidentally said, " If 
 such things as this can be done in an agricultural city 
 like New York, what might not be accomplished if 
 agriculture had a cabinet position in the Government of 
 this country ? " 
 
 As a railroad man, I am interested in the culture and 
 growth of fruits and cereals. I want agriculture to 
 prosper for the interest of the country at large, and 
 because we get our best business from the farms. The 
 larger part of the traffic which makes business for the 
 railroads comes from the land. These gentlemen about 
 me who mine, think they do much for railroads, but we 
 
310 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 are obliged to carry their ores for next to nothing, and 
 we buy rails of them, they say, for less than it costs to 
 produce them, and in that way they benefit us and we 
 foster the iron industry. The farmer, too, gets the best 
 of us every time. He controls the legislature and 
 taxes our roads and adjusts our relations to the public 
 about as he pleases, and we are popular largely in pro 
 portion as he makes money and we lose it, and so, as 
 dividends get low and produce high, the country grows 
 in harmony with railroad men and they are no longer 
 regarded as tyrants, usurpers, and oppressors of their 
 kind. If the time ever comes when the farm and the 
 railroad are brought into really universally harmonious 
 relations, then a railroad man can run for President of 
 the United States. 
 
 HOTEL BRUNSWICK, DECEMBER 19, 1889. 
 
 "COUNTRY ROADS." 
 
 I am always glad to be called upon by my friend, the. 
 President, at these meetings of the Farmers Club, 
 because every subject that arises here is the one sub 
 ject that I know less about than any other upon which 
 I have any information whatever. 
 
 There is a lesson, coming down from the patriotic 
 period, which might be usefully adopted by all the 
 gentlemen about this table, and that is the well-known 
 fact that Washington, after retiring from the office of 
 President of the United States, became a road-master 
 of his district. The good roads about Mount Vernon 
 were due to the same efficiency which had led the army 
 of the nation to success in the Revolutionary War, 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 3 11 
 
 and had aided in founding the American Republic. It 
 is also well known that Thomas Jefferson, after he 
 retired to Monticello, finding the roads all about that 
 country simply impassable, served for ten years as road- 
 master of the district. The same is true of Martin 
 Van Buren, and the same is true of almost all the great 
 statesmen of the country when they retired from public 
 life and went to their country seats. All of which 
 establishes the fact that the highest and most honor 
 able position that any man can hold in this country is 
 that of road-master of his neighborhood. 
 
 It seems to me Mr. Bronson has touched the real 
 source of good roads, so long as the State does not 
 appreciate what is its proper duty ; and that is, that 
 each gentleman who has his estate in the country 
 shall set an example. It may cost him somewhat more 
 than his legitimate tax ; but it will cost him infinitely 
 less in reputation, and he will gain infinitely more in 
 the satisfaction and gratification which he and his 
 family and his guests will feel in the good roads over 
 which they will drive about the country, or to and from 
 the station. 
 
 The most valuable paper, in my judgment, that has 
 ever been read before this association during the five 
 or six years in which I have been a member, is that of 
 Professor Trowbridge. It touches not only upon the 
 subject of the gentlemen who have country seats, but 
 also upon a very much deeper question ; and that is, the 
 prosperity of the country and the proper relations of 
 agriculture, when prosperous, to the general prosperity 
 of the Republic. Our magazines are just now full of 
 articles trying to show why agriculture is declining ; 
 
312 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 why farms do not pay ; why farmers sons go to the 
 towns ; and why, as was contended in a recent discus 
 sion of the subject, the farmers, who have heretofore 
 been the backbone of the country, and the conserva 
 tive element which has kept us from communism and 
 anarchism, because they voted on the side of property, 
 are to become hereafter tenants and peasants. Every 
 one at this table will admit that when the vast agricul 
 tural element of this country becomes simply tenants 
 and peasants, then the great vested interests, which 
 yield incomes and make wealth possible and life enjoy 
 able, are in danger. It is the independent property- 
 owning interest in this country, however small, which 
 furnishes the conservation of all other property, how 
 ever large. 
 
 It seems to me Professor Trowbridge has struck the 
 real keynote of agricultural prosperity in touching 
 upon what we all know to be, in a larger sense, the 
 real prosperity of the country, the cost of transporta 
 tion. Everybody knows that any district, new or old, 
 depends for its prosperity first upon facility of trans 
 portation, and, secondly, upon cost of transportation. 
 If facility of transportation is not provided, that region 
 remains a wilderness. If the cost of transportation 
 becomes excessive, that region becomes a wilderness. 
 So far as railroads are concerned, the natural laws of 
 competition whatever may have been the effects of 
 over-capitalization, or of building roads where they 
 never should have been built have reduced the cost 
 of transportation to a point where all districts that are 
 in immediate and easy contact with a railroad are pros 
 perous. But a factory beyond reach of the railway 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 313 
 
 station is impossible, and a farm beyond reach of a 
 railway station is abandoned. 
 
 Professor Trowbridge has hit the nail on the head in 
 saying that they are abandoned because the* cost of 
 transportation from the farm to the railway makes the 
 profitable raising of farm products absolutely impos 
 sible. 
 
 It therefore seems, to me to be the present duty 
 of this association of farmers to put their influence 
 behind that paper of Professor Trowbridge, and to 
 urge the Legislature of our own State of New York, to 
 begin with, to take up this subject in a broad and 
 statesmanlike way, and utilize the surplus in the 
 treasury, utilize the immense resources of the State 
 (which are now hardly touched) in carrying out a 
 proper system of internal improvements, which shall 
 include such a liberal policy toward the highways of 
 the State, that they will not only be comfortable to 
 ride upon, but will promote and continue the pros 
 perity which will make the State of New York the 
 Empire State of the country. 
 
 SHERRY S, JANUARY 19, 1892. 
 
 u ARBORICULTURE." 
 
 I have been overwhelmed to-night with the volume 
 of technical information. There have been more ex 
 pert professors at this meeting than at any I have 
 attended. Heretofore we have had pure theorists, 
 who have read papers upon things which they have 
 never practiced, and, as practical farmers, we have 
 been led to criticise their suggestions. They did 
 
3M LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 not in all cases tally with the results of our own ex 
 perience. But to-night we are amazed, overwhelmed, 
 instructed, carried away, filled fuller than we can 
 digest, with the individual experience of gentlemen 
 who have tried arboriculture practically, and appar 
 ently unsuccessfully, all over the United States. 
 
 I have always had a profounder admiration for Mr. 
 Dana than for any other living American as a jour 
 nalist, as a literary man, as an orator, as a political 
 economist, as a statesman. As a farmer I thought he 
 devoted himself entirely to chickens; but when he 
 hurled at us to-night these unused and unaccustomed 
 Latin derivations, indicating an intimate knowledge, 
 from the scientific standpoint, of the different trees, I 
 felt how little I had appreciated the accomplishments 
 of my fellow members. It seems there is really no 
 limit to Mr. Dana s acquirements. My judgment is 
 that without any literary assistance he could himself 
 publish an encyclopedia. All he would have to do 
 would be to take his own experience, his own knowl 
 edge, his own observations, and he would give us 
 something very much shorter and better than " The 
 Encyclopaedia Britannica," either American or English 
 edition. 
 
 We have had developed here a very remarkable 
 illustration of the varieties and capacities of this ex 
 traordinary country of ours. It has been demonstrated 
 that we call upon Japan, upon Norway, upon Sweden, 
 upon all parts of the world, to contribute to our 
 arboriculture ; and the contribution as a rule is of 
 very little effect. It has been demonstrated that there 
 are certain trees which will grow in almost any part of 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. t 315 
 
 the temperate zone except one, and that is, that what 
 grows on the south side of Long Island will not grow 
 on the north side. That condition exists nowhere 
 else in this country ; I think nowhere else in the world 
 within the same distance. 
 
 I have had my attention called to this matter in a 
 practical way. You know we Westchester men are not 
 theorists. We are simple, practical farmers. We have 
 recollections going down through an ancestry which 
 did not experiment, but adopted the results obtained 
 by their ancestors. Occasionally a Yankee would pro 
 ject himself into our community, who would mislead 
 our people into trying experiments. I remember the 
 first effort of that kind was when a dentist came to our 
 town of Peekskill, who, after practicing upon the 
 molars of the inhabitants, suggested to them in the 
 moment of excruciating agony that they could improve 
 the beauty of the place by planting ailantus trees. 
 The result was that Peekskill was lined with ailantus 
 trees. After ten years the drug-stores found their 
 largest custom consisted in the sale of different per 
 fumes which would counteract the extraordinary odors 
 produced by the ailantus. Then someone said the ail 
 antus trees were unhealthy, and they were all cut down. 
 Then along came another professor, who asserted that 
 the proper way to adorn a door-yard and a lawn in 
 Peekskill every house has a door-yard and lawn, and in 
 my youth they were pretty large ones was to have 
 shade shade was health as well as beauty. So we 
 planted elms and maples all around our places ; and 
 when I was preparing for college there was no house 
 within a radius of twenty miles of Peekskill that did 
 
316 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 not have trees planted so close that no ray of sunlight 
 ever entered ; and the first thing the proprietor did 
 when anyone came along was to point to his shade. 
 Then the philosopher appeared who said that shade 
 produced malaria, and malaria produced all the diseases 
 flesh is heir to. Then the ax came along and cut all 
 the trees off; and blue glass was inserted in the 
 windows. This state of things has prevailed all along 
 the Hudson, not only with the man who never left his 
 environment, but the New York gentlemen who had 
 come up and bought places all along the heights of 
 Irvington. 
 
 About ten years ago there traveled up the Hudson 
 River a man who had no particular reputation, who 
 seemed to belong to no special society, who was the 
 apostle of no particular university, but whose mission 
 seemed to be to produce beauty in towns. He charged 
 no price, and he always had large audiences, because 
 there was no admission fee to the village hall. He 
 talked to the neighborhood upon the necessity, from a 
 purely practical standpoint, of planting different trees 
 along the roadsides, and in that way so adding to the 
 beauty of the town that it would attract visitors and 
 increase the price of real estate. The result of his visit 
 is visible everywhere from Dobbs Ferry to Rhinebeck. 
 He did not go on the other side of the river, but went 
 up on our side. You can see the result of his visit all 
 over the plateau at Garrisons. One of the first who 
 attended his lecture at Cold Spring was Sloan; and 
 since then Sloan, without knowing one tree from 
 another, has been planting them miscellaneously. 
 Hamilton Fish and Edwards Pierrepont, and all of 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 317 
 
 those gentlemen along there, have been doing the 
 same thing. The result has been most interesting in 
 a picturesque way ; most charming in the landscape 
 development, and most satisfactory in the impression 
 it produced upon the visitor, who would say, " Why, 
 here are people who must have studied this question 
 of arboriculture to produce these superb results," and 
 who would never be undeceived until he asked the 
 owner as to the different trees and their characteristics. 
 
 After all, nature does quite as much as anything 
 else. I had the pleasure during the fall of visiting our 
 friend Colonel Cannon at that superb place of his at 
 Burlington. He drove me about the acres which he has 
 left as far as possible in a natural state, and pointed 
 with special pride at a forest of evergreens which con 
 cealed his house from the beautiful Lake Champlain. 
 It is one of the finest effects I know of in landscape 
 gardening anywhere in the United States ; and yet 
 Cannon is not entitled to the slightest credit for it 
 except that he left nature entirely alone. He did not 
 cut off the trees that he found there, but let them grow 
 as he discovered them and as nature intended they 
 should ; clearing up only enough to have his lawn, his 
 roads, his "house, his garden, and his outbuildings. By 
 the simple rule of devoting himself to the cultivation 
 of Delaware and Hudson on the one hand and nature 
 on -the other, he has an estate which is one of the most 
 beautiful in Vermont, and an income which enables him 
 to support it without any anxiety. 
 
 There is a broader view of this question which Mr. 
 Dana has often developed, and I regret to say that the 
 Sun is the only paper which does develop it, and that 
 
318 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 is the necessity of protecting the forests as they exist. 
 I believe the State of New York should buy the Adi- 
 rondacks. They should not be taken by tax title, and 
 then have some of the officers discover defects in the 
 title, and some speculator get the land by the payment 
 of taxes and interest. There is a great preserve. It is 
 the only one left in the State of New York, and the 
 State should take the money which has come back to 
 it from the General Government one-half of that fund 
 would do it and buy the whole of the Adirondack for 
 est and keep it as a perpetual resort for the recreation 
 of our citizens, for camping, fishing, all those things 
 which tend to promote health and virtue. In addition 
 to that, it would enable us to preserve the water which 
 is so absolutely necessary for our streams. The man 
 ner in which in this country we have squandered the 
 patrimony with which God has endowed us, is one of 
 the most extraordinary instances of fatuity ever exhib 
 ited. We take these great forests of Wisconsin and 
 other northwestern States and sell them for a small sum 
 to speculators, who sell them to other speculators at 
 so much stumpage ; and without rhyme or reason, or 
 regard for the necessities of the country above or below, 
 we clear off whole thousands and tens of thousands and 
 hundreds of thousands of acres, and thousands and 
 tens of thousands of square miles. The result is these 
 extraordinary floods now so common in the great rivers 
 of the West. I think if any statistician would apply 
 his mind to the subject, he would discover that the 
 actual damage to agricultural interests through the 
 denudation of the farms by these floods is infinitely 
 more than any product from the forests themselves. 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 3 1 9 
 
 The difficulty is that while a dozen lumber kings have 
 from $1,000,000 to $5,000,000 or $10,000,000, hun 
 dreds of thousands of farmers are injured in the pres 
 ent, and the country is injured for all time to come, 
 because farm lands have been denuded of soil by the 
 operation of these floods, which are the result of the 
 destruction of the forests. It seems to me the time 
 has come when organizations like this " Farmers " 
 Club should appeal to the intelligent and enlight 
 ened self-interest of the country, to so legislate, if 
 necessary, that we may have a department of the Gov 
 ernment for the care of this interest. If the Depart 
 ment of Agriculture is able to take care of the ques 
 tion, then let the power be conferred upon it for that 
 purpose. If it is not "able to take care of the question, 
 then let there be a Ministry of Forestry. A Minister 
 of Forestry could do as much for the Government as 
 our friend Jerry Rusk can by taking a scythe in his own 
 hands and showing how a muscular statesman can mow 
 the lawn in front of the Smithsonian Institution or by 
 distributing seeds among the citizens of the United 
 States. 
 
XXIV. 
 
 ADDRESS AT SECOND NATIONAL CONGRESS OF THE 
 SOCIETY OF SONS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 
 AT HARTFORD, CONN., APRIL 30, 1891. 
 
 WE in New York, having found for 250 years that 
 the Connecticut Yankee crosses our border, becomes 
 rich and prosperous within our territory, controls our 
 best business and runs most of our schools, marries the 
 daughter of the house in which he has become a part 
 ner, and inherits the farm or the estate, have deter 
 mined, as the only way of checking the raid and pre 
 serving the Empire State to ourselves, to make unlaw 
 ful in New York whatever is permitted and is lawful in 
 Connecticut. If a New Yorker happens to be included 
 in the penalties by which we thus are determined 
 to stop the aggressive spirit of Connecticut, it is the 
 misfortune of his association. 
 
 It is a tribute at once suggestive and unique to the 
 variety, diversity, and glory of our institutions that a 
 citizen can at four o clock in the afternoon leave a 
 commonwealth where the chief magistracy is filled by 
 a Governor who is also a Senator and in two hours and 
 a half be at the capital of a neighboring State where 
 the Governorship is filled by three persons. It demon 
 strates that it only requires half an official to govern 
 New York and three of diverse politics to manage the 
 affairs of Connecticut. 
 
 320 
 
CHAUXCEY M. DEPEW. 321 
 
 No people have ever founded a State which has 
 become a great nation, have ever preserved and en 
 larged their liberty, unless they had largely developed 
 the qualities of imagination and of sentiment. They 
 must deify the heroes to whose valor and statesmanship 
 they owe their origin. They must picture in the eye 
 of the mind the battlefields upon which their fore 
 fathers fought and conquered. They must see the 
 clash of contending armies, hear the roar of the mighty 
 hosts and the din of battle, and be enthused on patriotic 
 occasions with the fire and the spirit which animated 
 the men who created them as a power in the earth. 
 
 This Republic has advanced or stood still just in pro 
 portion as its people have revered the men of the Revo 
 lution and practiced the principles of the Declaration 
 of Independence and of Washington s farewell address. 
 Nothing but good results from the estimate and admi 
 ration in which posterity holds the character and 
 achievements of George Washington, the genius of 
 Alexander Hamilton, the statesmanship and patriotism 
 of Jefferson and the Adamses and their compatriots. 
 We have fallen, as a nation, into the grossest material 
 ism during the periods when the lessons of Independ 
 ence Hall and of Valley Forge, the inspirations of 
 Concord and of Bunker Hill have neither stirred the 
 blood of the people nor inspired the imagination of the 
 schoolboy. 
 
 The Civil War was a rude awakening to the heritage 
 we had received and the obligations we were under for 
 its maintenance and transmission to posterity. We do 
 not require societies to be formed, pamphlets issued, 
 pledges made to build more railroads, to develop more 
 
322 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 mines, to induce more immigration, to promote more 
 enterprises. But we do require more education. We 
 have the common school, which is at once our pride 
 and our glory ; we have the high school, the academy, 
 the college, the university ; schools for training in the 
 professions, in science, and in manual labor. But we 
 are deficient in schools of patriotism. You might as 
 well expect Christianity to thrive, conversions to follow, 
 the churches to be filled without instruction or knowl 
 edge as to the Passion, the Cross and the Resurrection, 
 as to believe in a patriotism which would place the wel 
 fare of the country before every other consideration 
 without the constant teaching and daily lesson in the 
 ideas, the deeds, and the men that created the United 
 States. 
 
 Every society like this of the Sons of the American 
 Revolution is a seminary of patriotism. To belong to 
 it is a liberal education in liberty. Fourteen millions 
 of people have landed in this country and become 
 absorbed in our population since 1820. Of our sixty- 
 three millions of population nearly one-half have no 
 ancestry or traditions which go back to the Revolution 
 ary War. It is our duty for the good government of to 
 day and the greatness and growth of the Republic in 
 the future that the unification of our people shall be not 
 only in loyalty to the flag and devotion to the Con 
 stitution, but in pride in the traditions and the history 
 of our past. 
 
 We want the emigrant of yesterday to say, with the 
 descendant of the soldier of the Revolution, " My 
 pride and inspiration are not in Frederick the Great, or 
 Louis XIV., or William the Conqueror. They are not 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 3 2 3 
 
 in a hero of England, or of Ireland, or of Wales, or of 
 Germany, or of France, or of Holland, or of Scandi 
 navia, but in George Washington." 
 
 One of the admirable results of the formation of 
 these societies and the requirements for membership 
 has been the necessity put upon those who wished to 
 join to consult their genealogical tree. Now I have 
 discovered among the benefits of a study of genealogy 
 that by having one s great-grandfathers judiciously dis 
 tributed among the nationalities I am able to attend, 
 as to the manner born, the annual banquets of the 
 Dutch, the Irish, the English, the French, and the 
 Yankee. 
 
 I find, since studying for this Society, that I can also 
 belong to several States. One of my claims to mem 
 bership is from Connecticut. My great-grandfather 
 was the Rev. Josiah Sherman, the brother of Roger, 
 the signer of the Declaration of Independence, and by 
 virtue of that descent I stand here to-night as a son of 
 Connecticut. For most of my active life I had thought 
 I was a Dutch Huguenot. My father and grandfather 
 and great-grandfather of that cult, up in Peekskill, had 
 taught to each succeeding generation with the family 
 devotions that the two things to avoid for a New 
 Yorker were a Yankee and the devil ! In the broad 
 cosmopolitan spirit which comes from the largest con 
 tact with the world, I have arrived at a period where I 
 have a sort of liking for them both. To make up for 
 the respect which I have hitherto failed to give, and 
 the many skits I have sent at my Connecticut ancestry, 
 I am willing, for a while, to do penance by going to 
 bed on Saturday night at six o clock and omitting on 
 
324 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 Sunday my customary affectionate kiss to my wife. 
 But in view of the possible political probabilities, some 
 what obscured at present by railroad associations and 
 New York indictments, I draw the line at the persecu 
 tion of Quakers and Baptists. 
 
 Fortunately we have in our country no pride of birth 
 which seeks to claim the right to wear armorial bear 
 ings and heraldic devices, to be connected with noble 
 houses and fallen aristocracies, but we ought to have 
 and ought to cultivate a quicker movement of the pulse 
 and a more pleasurable circulation of the blood when 
 we can find among our ancestors one or more who, by 
 tongue or pen or sword, contributed something to the 
 independence of this country and the formation of 
 this Republic. 
 
 The study of the past is the lesson of the present. 
 The story of the Continental Congress, of the conven 
 tion which formed the Constitution, of the marches, 
 the suffering, the privation, the victories, the final tri 
 umph of the Continental army, raises the regiments 
 which sweep resistlessly over the land and builds the 
 ships which are triumphant upon the wave when the 
 nation is in peril from foreign foe or domestic strife . 
 
 It was the love of nationality, the inherited, ineradi 
 cable belief in the necessity of the perpetuity of this 
 Union for the liberties of mankind and the elevation 
 of the world, which strangled slavery at the cost of 
 hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of treasure, 
 rather than divide the country peacefully upon the 
 lines of the States which were free and the States which 
 were slave. It is the memory of the Jeffersons, the Mad- 
 isons, the Pinckneys, the Marions ; of Charleston, of 
 
CHA UNCE Y M. DEPEW. 3 2 5 
 
 Cowpens, and of King s Mountain, which, when slavery 
 is gone, makes the Southern people of to-day as loyal 
 to the flag, as willing to spring to arms and sacrifice all 
 material interests for the preservation of the country 
 which is our common glory and our common hope. 
 
 The heredity of patriotic thought, utterance, and 
 ideas is the spirit which prevents the gross materialism, 
 calculating spirit, and the commercial necessities of the 
 time from absorbing the attention and paralyzing the 
 purposes of the national mind and heart. It is this 
 which, at the clarion call of duty, breaks the crust of 
 conservatism and the ties of interest ; locks the office, 
 abandons the counter, leaves behind the shop, marches 
 from the home to the field of duty and of danger. 
 
 A clerical friend of mine told me a capital story of 
 a Yale man who was the stroke oar of the crew and 
 the chief athlete on the football field. He entered the 
 ministry and spent years in missionary labor in the far 
 West. Walking one day through the frontier town, 
 a cowboy stepped up to him and said : " Parson, you 
 don t have enough fun. Take a drink." The minister 
 declined. " Well," he said, " Parson, you must have 
 some fun. Here s a faro layout. Take a hand in the 
 game." The minister declined. " Parson," said the 
 cowboy, " you ll die if you don t have some fun." 
 And he knocked the parson s hat off his head and hit 
 him a whack in the ear. 
 
 The old athlete s spirit arose, the science which had 
 been learned in the college gymnasium and forgotten 
 for a quarter of a century was aroused, a blow landed 
 on the jaw of that cowboy that sent him sprawling in 
 the street. The parson walked over him as if he had 
 
326 LIFE AND LAl^ER SPEECHES OF 
 
 been a door rug 1 , picked him up and dusted the side of 
 the house with him, and mopped up the sidewalk, and, 
 as the ambulance was carrying the cowboy off, he 
 raised his head feebly to the opening in the curtain, 
 and said: " Parson, what did you fool me for? You 
 said you had no fun in you. Why, you re chock full 
 of it." 
 
 So, when the trumpet sounds for war, the reformer 
 calls for recruits, the opponent of corruption which is 
 intrenched in power in office, in patronage, in the ele 
 ments which can make men prosperous or destroy 
 them cries for assistance, the traditions of the Revolu 
 tion, the lessons of liberty, the lives of the fathers, fill 
 the ranks and win the victory. 
 
 We have need to cultivate stalwart and robust 
 Americanism. We have passed the period when we 
 are dependent on other nations for anything. We 
 have a literature which has secured the recognition of 
 the world. We are first in inventions, in material prog 
 ress, in accumulated wealth, in average prosperity, 
 in general happiness. We want no more of the Ameri 
 canism which turns up its pantaloons every time it 
 rains in London. We want no more of the American 
 ism which affects a pronunciation of our glorious 
 tongue unknown to the dictionaries, but presumed to 
 be an echo of the British Isles. 
 
 We do not want an Americanism which is boastful 
 and puffed up, but one of the objects of this association 
 is to cultivate that knowledge of a glorious origin, an 
 unequaled century, a land developed in one hundred 
 years beyond any example in recorded time, and yet, in 
 its infancy, a nation to-day one of the most powerful 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 327 
 
 upon earth, an educational system which disseminates 
 at the public expense universal education, a patriotism 
 which is equal to all the requirements of troublous 
 periods and peaceful times, which, when thoroughly 
 appreciated and understood, will enable us to contem 
 plate the past, knowing the present and defining the 
 future, and say to our children, " The proudest title on 
 earth is to be an American citizen." 
 
XXV. 
 
 SPEECH AT DINNER AT DELMONICO S, AT THIRD 
 NATIONAL CONGRESS OF THE SOCIETY OF SONS 
 OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION (MR. DEPEW 
 PRESIDING), APRIL 30, 1892. 
 
 IT is one of the happy conditions of this patriotic 
 organization that it holds its anniversary meetings at 
 some place and at some time which recall a historic 
 event connected with the origin of the Republic. The 
 convention held here to-day is held in the place and 
 upon the anniversary of the inauguration of George 
 Washington, the first President of the United States. 
 Demosthenes gave as a rule of success in oratory, 
 " action, action, action." That rule constitutes the prin 
 ciple of ancient civilization. It embodies the idea that 
 the orator or the soldier rules the state. Demosthenes 
 governed the democracy of Athens, and Caesar, the 
 turbulent factions of Rome. The same was true in all 
 mediaeval and most of modern history, but the demand 
 of our time is " organize, organize, organize." Steam 
 and electricity have compelled the organization of 
 capital to carry on business enterprises and of laboring 
 elements to protect themselves. All movements, 
 religious, charitable, political, educational, or social, are 
 dependent upon some kind of corporate strength to 
 give them their permanency and power. The individ- 
 
 328 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 329 
 
 ual as a potential force has been absorbed in the mass. 
 The evolution of the American settlement is one of 
 the most interesting studies. At first it is a population 
 which is bent on earning a living and securing a home. 
 Then comes the church, around which centers and in 
 which originates every interest and every movement. 
 It is more than a place for religious worship. There 
 all matters pertaining to the neighborhood are dis 
 cussed ; there the young people meet and fall in love ; 
 there they are married, and from there they are buried. 
 In a very large and a very full sense, and a perfectly 
 proper one, it is the club of the town. Then come the 
 charitable organizations, and those whose object it is 
 to take care of members and promote social influences. 
 Then come the Shakspere and the Browning Societies ; 
 and finally patriotic ones whose objects are to develop 
 local history and to study the origin and growth of 
 their countries. In these scenes the Sons of the Amer 
 ican Revolution express the latest development of the 
 highest type of American civilization. 
 
 This patriotic movement gives us the National 
 Anthem at the close of the theater. It will ultimately 
 unfurl to the wind the national flag above every school- 
 house in the land ; and the young inquiring mind will 
 learn in the stars upon that flag the history of his coun 
 try. While we are the most universally educated peo 
 ple in the world, we know less in proportion to any 
 other nation about the history of the worthies of the 
 Revolutionary War. I have known a fashionable lady 
 who could repeat the names and pedigrees of those con 
 tained in Burke s British Peerage, but who did not 
 know whether Israel Putnam fell off a tight rope at 
 
33 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES. 
 
 Niagara Falls or was shot at Bunker Hill. It is refresh 
 ing, however, occasionally to meet with a type of fash 
 ionable life such as the Yankee girl at Woolwich 
 Arsenal, in England, who, when a British officer pointed 
 to some cannon and said, " We took them from your 
 grandfathers at Bunker Hill," said, " I suppose you 
 did, but I reckon we have kept the hill." 
 
 [Mr. Depew closed his remarks with an eloquent 
 appeal that in every public park in the land there 
 should be erected a statue representing the Continental 
 soldier ; the idea being that the personality represented 
 in such a statue would first invite curiosity respecting 
 the model and from this would grow an interest in the 
 study of history that history which the individual 
 carrying on his head his three-cornered hat had done 
 so much to institute, and from which the most interest 
 ing history of modern time has developed. Mr. 
 Depew s suggestion was received with great enthu 
 siasm.] 
 
XXVI. 
 
 FROM SPEECH AT BANQUET OF THE MINNESOTA 
 SOCIETY OF SONS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLU 
 TION, AT " THE ABERDEEN," ST. PAUL, MINN., JUNE 
 
 7, 1892. 
 
 THE study of the Revolutionary father gives us an 
 idea of the typical American. In Walter Scott s 
 memoirs of himself recently published, he says of 
 Fenimore Cooper, who was his guest : " Like all 
 Americans he had no manner." He did not mean 
 that he had no manners, but that he had not the 
 manner which belongs to those who are born under 
 the shadow of thrones and in the midst of the grada 
 tions of caste. The manners were the manner where 
 the subject is servile to his superior, proud with his 
 equal, autocratic with his inferior a manner made up 
 peculiarly of pride and of humility which sometimes 
 counts for a distinguished presence, which always 
 counts for deportment. But the American, who has 
 no superior but his Maker, who has no inferior (for 
 every man is his equal), who is compelled to make his 
 position in life by his own character, his own ability, 
 and his own exertions, acquires that easy, happy-go- 
 lucky, every-day manner which constitutes an American 
 subject. 
 
 Gentlemen of the Minnesota Society, General Porter 
 and I have met the societies in Connecticut, where 
 
 331 
 
33 2 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 they are enthused and kept alive by the Revolutionary 
 memories which surround them ; in New York, where 
 the battlefields are the inspiration of the order ; in 
 Virginia, where the history of the Father of his Country 
 and of the great deeds in the senate and the field are the 
 best history of the world, in that they teach how a 
 republic can be formed where men govern themselves. 
 But you here in the West have no battlefields ; you 
 have no surroundings which are historic ; you have no 
 traditions from the soil and from object lessons ; and 
 that you here can form associations like this and keep 
 them up, shows that the descendant of the Revolution 
 ary soldier and the Revolutionary statesman who 
 migrated to the West has carried with him, so that he 
 does not need to have the object lesson, the blood of 
 an ancestor who was a patriot and the memory 
 of deeds of which he is the glorious inheritor it 
 reflects credit upon the stock which enabled him 
 to do what he has done. I have noticed, in studying 
 curiously the strain of blood and of family, that the 
 men who are foremost in every community in the 
 United States, in almost every instance trace their 
 ancestry back to some man who took part in the for 
 mation of this Republic. When you have passed down 
 a hundred years, there are a great many descendants 
 from the original ancestor; when your President says 
 that the Western societies are larger than the Eastern 
 societies, it is because the energetic sons of these ener 
 getic sires a vast majority of them moved West in 
 order to build up a new country and carve out new 
 careers for themselves. Only a few of us who belong 
 to the remnant of the effete stock stayed at home. 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 333 
 
 My friend General Porter has spoken of the reminis 
 cences of General Washington. Nothing is so delight 
 ful as to learn some of the characteristics of those old 
 worthies which make them human. The Washington 
 who has been idolized was an impossible man. No 
 human being could have lived with him, and no woman 
 could have loved him. But as we get closer to him in 
 the traditions that come down from his military family, 
 we find that he had some human weaknesses like our 
 selves. I met at dinner, on the other side, a few sum 
 mers ago, one of the sons of Louis Philippe, the Duke 
 d Aumale. He said that when his father was an exile 
 here, he was a guest of General Washington. One 
 morning Louis Philippe got up unusually early, and, 
 walking around the street at Mount Vernon, he met the 
 general, and Louis Philippe said," General, you are an 
 early riser." The general said, " Yes, I rise early 
 because I sleep well, and I sleep well because I never 
 said anything which I cared to recall." It shows that 
 the Father of his Country had a respectful opinion of 
 his own opinion. The duke said that his father told 
 him that after he became king that remark of Wash 
 ington s led him to destroy two-thirds of the papers he 
 had prepared for the public, for, he said, after reflect 
 ing upon them overnight, he would be unable to sleep 
 as Washington did. General Cochran, whose father 
 was upon Washington s staff, told me that among the 
 young gentlemen upon the staff a conspiracy was laid 
 one day to break up the formality, and, if possible, 
 break down the dignity of the commander-in-chief, and 
 they selected for that purpose the most audacious of 
 their number that brilliant diplomat, orator, and wit, 
 
334 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES. 
 
 Governor Morse. At an appropriate time in the dinner, 
 just before the general was in the habit of leaving the 
 table, Morse told a story and then slapped the 
 general familiarly on the back and said, " Old gentle 
 man, what do you think of that ? " The general 
 looked up for a moment, then rose with great dignity, 
 and retired slowly from the room. No member of the 
 staff ever trifled with Washington again. 
 
 One of the great benefits of the formation of these 
 national societies is in a patriotic sense. Patriotism is 
 a sentiment. What we most need to cultivate in this 
 country is the unity of our institutions and the glory 
 of our nationality. The West has become so great, so 
 self-poised, and so confident ; the Pacific coast has 
 become so strong and so rich ; there is getting to 
 be such a strangeness and jealousy between the dif 
 ferent sections ; the press is so powerful in localities 
 while no newspaper is really national in its force ; that 
 we can see the growth of a local sentiment, fixed in 
 itself and more or less hostile to its neighbors, which 
 might some time or other so loosen the ties that bind 
 these States together that possibly another civil war 
 Avould be successful upon another issue than the one 
 which was put down by the moral forces of the coun 
 try. But if societies like this, national in their char 
 acter, with branches in every State, are cultivating, in 
 the literature which they distribute, in the speeches 
 which they make and then publish, in the education 
 which they give to their children, the idea and the sen 
 timent that the glory and the power of every man in 
 this country is the glory and power of the great Repub 
 lic under which we live, then the Republic lives forever. 
 
XXVII. 
 
 TWO SPEECHES BEFORE THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY 
 IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK. 
 
 EIGHTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION AT THE 
 MADISON SQUARE GARDEN CONCERT HALL, DECEM 
 BER 22, 1890. 
 
 " THE STATE OF NEW YORK ; THE CITY OF NEW YORK." 
 
 IT has been my experience for nearly every year of 
 the last twenty-five to speak to you on the subject of 
 the State and City of New York. But it remains as 
 fresh as the ever-flowing stream of Yankees into the 
 metropolis to seek their fortunes, and as varied as the 
 kaleidoscopic changes in the questions and spirit of 
 the times. This celebration is the most widely read 
 of our National banquets, because of its broad liberty 
 for plain speaking as well as high thinking. It is the 
 most significant of New York s many festive gatherings, 
 but is seldom graced by the presence of either the 
 Governor or the Mayor. The Governors of the Em 
 pire State, of either party, have rarely been in accord 
 with Puritan principles or Puritan practices. Some of 
 them have been emphatically and ostentatiously hostile, 
 because the Puritan wants too much thoroughness in 
 legislation upon the liquor traffic and too many safe 
 guards about the ballot. The Pilgrim is in favor of 
 Civil Service Reform, of open party methods, and 
 
 335 
 
33 6 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 honest money. This makes him for others of our 
 chief magistrates that most disturbing element in the 
 harmony the Sunday-school politician. Nevertheless, 
 the Yankee keeps on making trouble, and he always 
 will. He permits absolute quiet and rest neither to 
 the wicked sinner nor the weary saint. He is the 
 policeman of the Republic, sternly ordering the loafer 
 in politics and self-seeker in office to " move on." The 
 history of our Governors is one of the most interesting 
 examples of the theory of evolution. The first Gover 
 nor passed his term of office at the front, in command of 
 the State soldiers and fighting the British. Then came 
 a line of constructive statesmen, building the Common 
 wealth upon foundations which \vould make her 
 imperial among her sisters. 
 
 Afterward, through the reigns of Marcy and Silas 
 Wright, we had the era of martyr Governors, who ran 
 for office to carry by their personal strength New York 
 for the Presidential nominee of the party, and now for 
 several terms we have had the Presidential Governors 
 who wanted to carry the State for themselves. In 
 this last stage our Governors became famous athletes 
 and high jumpers. Our six millions of people applaud 
 their favorites as the heralds cry : " Governor and ex- 
 Governor will leap for the prize ! " The Puritan owns 
 much property and has a great influence in this city, 
 but he cannot be its Mayor nor an Alderman. The 
 Irish, with higher genius for municipal government, 
 beat him every time. 
 
 But he is an exceedingly lively critic of his rulers. 
 He does not like Tammany Hall, and .is against hall 
 government generally. He has lofty ideals for public 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 337 
 
 office, and does not approve of the appointment of 
 Patrick Divver as a Judge. In season and out of 
 season, for the last twenty-five years, I have pleaded 
 with the Yankees to acknowledge the debt the 
 Pilgrims owed to Holland. I did not ask for the 
 payment of their twelve years board bill, with 233 
 years interest, but simply a general confession of 
 judgment that nearly all the principles of civil and 
 religious liberty which they have embedded in our in 
 stitutions and planted in every new State were learned 
 in Holland. The day of truth is dawning. As a New 
 Yorker of New Yorkers, the rivers of Huguenot-Dutch 
 blood in my veins calls exultingly to the Yankee current 
 in the same veins : " The sons of the Pilgrims will rear 
 a monument of commemoration and gratitude on 
 the site at Delfthaven from which their forefathers 
 embarked upon that perilous voyage, so insignificant 
 with its little vessel and limited company, but fraught 
 with such tremendous consequences in civilization and 
 liberty." This event demonstrates that, while the 
 Yankee has been charged with claiming everything 
 worth preserving in American freedom as having 
 been contributed by himself, if you will only give him 
 time he will come out all right in admitting the part 
 which other races have played in our National drama. 
 He is always slow in recognizing merit in others. But 
 now the reproach that he never does is removed 
 and we know how long it takes he rises frankly and 
 generously to the occasion, after 230 years. The 
 world is full of grand memorials. But most of 
 them are monuments of personal vanity or national 
 pride. They teach no lesson and prompt no inspira- 
 
33 8 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 tion. Grecian temples tell us of religions which 
 have vanished, Egyptian pyramids and obelisks of 
 dynasties that are dead, Roman remains of empires 
 dissolved. The Column in Trafalgar Square, London, 
 perpetuates the victories of Nelson on the sea, and the 
 Vendome in Paris those of Napoleon upon the land. 
 They signify limitless human misery and limited 
 results. But the Pilgrim monuments at Plymouth, 
 Mass., and at Delfthaven, Holland, are inspiration 
 and aspiration. The mystic currents which unite them 
 are the treasures of mankind and the hopes of humanity. 
 They overtop all the monuments of ancient or modern 
 time, and are seen by all men. They typify the union 
 of all races in universal liberty, the demonstrated 
 triumph of self-government in the New World and its 
 possibilities in the Old. Well might Dean Stanley, as 
 he stood in Leyden Street, Plymouth, and contem 
 plated the majestic results of the combination of 
 Puritan faith and pluck with Dutch liberty, exclaim 
 with enthusiasm, " Truly, this is the most historic street 
 in the world." 
 
 The contrasts between the New Yorker and New 
 Englander are happily exhibited in the methods and 
 issues of the early Colonial elections. The New York 
 qualification for voters was ownership of land ; in 
 Boston it was membership in the Church. The Dutch 
 men had settled all their differences of creed by tolerat 
 ing them all, and their contests were upon local ques 
 tions and for the spoils of office. But while the 
 Pilgrims of Plymouth, who had spent twelve years in 
 Holland, were the apostles of religious liberty, the 
 Puritans of the Massachusetts Colony were banishing 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 339 
 
 all faiths but their own, and waging fierce battles over 
 the construction of their own doctrines. The famous 
 fight for Governor between Winthrop and Sir Harry 
 Vane was made upon the burning question of faith 
 and works. All the appliances at the modern polls 
 were used for the success of the candidates, except the 
 Australian ballot. The one side shouted and labored 
 for Winthrop and grace without works, and the other 
 for Vane and grace with works. Transferred to our 
 own times, the followers of the doctrine of grace with 
 works were in favor of the McKinley bill, and the sup 
 porters of the theory of grace without works are for 
 the free coinage of silver. But the election was an 
 object lesson in Puritan characteristics. The Puritan 
 settled one thing at a time, and concentrated his whole 
 mind on it. He was then hewing a straight path to 
 heaven, and temporal matters and state questions 
 could be laid on one side. He had risked life and for 
 tune in contests with crown and hierarchy in England, 
 and braved the perils of the sea to enjoy liberty of his 
 own conscience and to prevent the souls of his neigh 
 bors being lost by their fooling with their consciences. 
 He cared naught for material things money, property, 
 business, the things of this world. In the same spirit 
 he fought at Bunker Hill and triumphed at Yorktown, 
 threw his life and home into the contest for free soil 
 in Kansas, and for the freedom of the slave on John 
 Brown s scaffold at Harper s Ferry ; marched with the 
 Sixth Massachusetts through Baltimore to save the 
 Capital, and, closing his shop and bidding farewell to 
 his family, went with Sherman through Georgia to the 
 sea, and stood by Grant at Appomattox. 
 
34 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 Pastor Robinson had fully absorbed the spirit of 
 Dutch tolerance, and his parting sermon to the Pil 
 grims was the most important utterance from the pulpit 
 of those times: " The Lord," he said, " has more truth 
 yet to break forth out of his Holy Word. Luther 
 and Calvin were great and shining lights of their times, 
 yet they penetrated not into the whole counsel of God. 
 I beseech you, be ready to receive whatever truth shall 
 be made known to you." This was the hammer which 
 broke the shell of Puritan bigotry. It was the yeast 
 which fermented in the Puritan Church and rilled New 
 England with a multitude of creeds. It has taken from 
 the Puritan the hell he loved to contemplate for 
 others but it has brought him in goodly company 
 nearer to heaven. The Dutchman was easy-going, 
 prosperous, and contented. He was a good citizen, 
 but not a state-builder. The restless energy of the 
 Yankee disturbed him, and the New Englander s per 
 sistence and inquisitiveness aroused his distrust. But 
 it was these qualities which made New York, peopled 
 the West, created new States, built railroads, opened 
 mines, founded cities, and made these United States a 
 nation. The Dutchman was quite willing to admit 
 his infirmities, for they did not trouble him. He never 
 cared to know the reason why. The merit of the 
 Yankee, as a piece of human dynamite, was that he is 
 never satisfied. 
 
 " This is heaven," said Saint Peter to a newcomer, 
 who did not seem to appreciate his surroundings. 
 " Yes," said he, " I suppose so ; but I am from Boston." 
 The Puritan is quick to see the faults of others, either 
 in Church or State or individuals ; but he never admits 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW, 341 
 
 his own, unless it be to his Maker. I remember, when 
 a boy, my mother always made me attend Friday even 
 ing prayer-meetings in our village church at Peekskill. 
 An old Yankee deacon, who had sold me a pair of 
 skates which were of dull edge and soft metal, was 
 reciting his short-comings and offering a fervent petition 
 for mercy. He summed up the catalogue by saying: 
 " O Lord, I am morally and spiritually a man of 
 wounds and bruises and putrefying sores." As we 
 were leaving the church, in my rage about the skates, 
 I said: "Well, Deacon, you told the Lord the truth 
 about yourself to-night, anyway." I bear to this day 
 the scars resulting from this frank comment upon the 
 deacon. 
 
 The Dutchman was happy in his home, his Church, 
 and his r5arty. Others might wander far and do worse 
 or better ; but his physical wants fairly supplied, he 
 did not quarrel with his creed nor with his politics, nor 
 trouble himself about those of his neighbors. 
 
 But the Puritan had always an interrogation mark 
 before his face as large as the pothook which hung 
 from the crane in the ample fireplace of the colonial 
 kitchen. He was and is in faith an original thinker, 
 and in politics a Mugwump. He accepts the truths 
 of Scripture and then puts upon them his own inter 
 pretation. He is in thorough sympathy with the 
 
 John P. 
 
 Robinson, he 
 
 Said they didn t know everything down in Judee. 
 
 Against the Stuarts and the Episcopacy in the Old 
 World, against Democratic subserviency to the slave 
 
342 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 power and Whig fear of attacking, it in the New; 
 against party idols without souls, and bosses without 
 principles, he was and is always a kicker. The Dutch 
 man, with his mild tendency to superstition and fond 
 ness for legends, would have joined in the ghost dance; 
 but the Puritan would have examined the ghost. The 
 Yankee stops a panic or restores confidence by going 
 like a rifle ball straight for the mark. " Where was 
 Starvation Camp located ? " said a Hartford man, 
 through his nose, to the great explorer, Stanley. " On 
 the banks of the Congo," answered the traveler. 
 " Waal, then," said the Yankee, " why didn t you 
 fish?" But the crucial distinction, two hundred years 
 ago and to-day, between the New Yorker and the New 
 Englander is that the latter thinks his birthplace a 
 good starting point from which to emigrate, and the 
 former, wherever he may roam, longs and hopes to 
 pass the evening of his days and die in New York. 
 
 The Yankee returns once a year, on Thanksgiving 
 Day, to the Green Mountains or the Berkshire Hills, 
 and then goes back to his distant activities with an 
 impaired digestion, a torpid liver, and serene satisfac 
 tion with the accident which made him a citizen and 
 a power in a distant community. The first thing a 
 Yankee does on settling in a new town is to buy a 
 family plot in the cemetery, and the first act of a New 
 Yorker is to arrange for a pass back to the metropolis. 
 The rudest and most pathetic lament in the language 
 was that of the exile of the Tweed days, who, living in 
 lavish luxury in Paris, said : " I would exchange all the 
 palaces and opportunities of Europe to be a lamp-post 
 in New York." The New Yorker has no State pride 
 
(UNIVERSITY 
 CHAUNCEY M. Dfr&EWr. 343 
 
 which would subordinate his loyalty to the Republic, 
 to his duty, to his Commonwealth ; he has no munici 
 pal public spirit which would induce him to make sacri 
 fices for her supremacy, but he loves New York, and 
 his morning and evening prayer is to live and die 
 within her borders. 
 
 EIGHTY-SIXTH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION AT 
 SHERRY S, DECEMBER 22, 1891. 
 
 " THE CRANKINESS OF THE PURITAN." 
 
 THE most eminent authority in Europe on diseases 
 of the mind declares, in an article in our newspapers of 
 yesterday, that everyone who displays unusual intel 
 lectual activity and superiority is undoubtedly insane. 
 Accepting as true the diagnosis of this distinguished 
 French alienist, I am now addressing an exceptional 
 crowd of selected lunatics. The crank has become the 
 most prominent feature of our civilization. The news 
 papers are incomplete without daily chronicles of his 
 achievements. He possesses one advantage over ordi- 
 ary mortals in that he has never been interviewed. 
 The editor of " The Century Dictionary " a Yankee 
 of the Yankees is compelled to admit that the word 
 " crank " is not to be found in the Anglo-Saxon or 
 Early English, but, like the most of the good things 
 which the Puritan possesses, it came from the Dutch. 
 While Dr. Charcot claims that Shakspere and Milton 
 were insane, we, with true American progress, have 
 advanced much farther. As we have " evoluted " the. 
 
344 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 theory, it threatens to empty our prisons. The old- 
 fashioned way was to lock up people who endangered 
 life or property, or did deeds of violence on either, for 
 a statutory period, but the new idea sends them to an 
 asylum, to come out in a few months to the glory of 
 the professional gentlemen who have wrought a won 
 derful cure and the terror of the community who are 
 the victims of these experiments. The man who tries 
 to assassinate an eminent divine, or to dynamite a 
 millionaire, or who makes " ducks and drakes " of other 
 people s money is, of course, on the present theory, 
 insane, and therefore irresponsible. The Puritan was 
 not that kind of a crank. The most important article of 
 his faith was individual responsibility. He believed in 
 roasting the sinner here as a preparatory course for 
 matriculation into that lurid university below, where, 
 according to his view, no superiority in athletics would 
 ever secure graduation. The Dutch definition of crank 
 was a person who, when possessed of an idea, never 
 failed to keep it before the world, and if necessary 
 be very disagreeable in urging it upon his contem 
 poraries, and who never doubted himself. The Dutch 
 men invented the word after Puritan settlement in 
 Holland. 
 
 Nothing has contributed so much to false history as 
 the misuse of words. The Stuart kings persecuted the 
 Puritans because they would not accept the religion of 
 the throne. But these royal personages had no religion 
 as the devout Puritan understood the word. They 
 were dissolute in morals and depraved in conduct. 
 They arrayed all the power of the state on the side of 
 forms, whose substance was that the king ruled the 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV, 345 
 
 Church; but the Puritan placed against their authority 
 his conscience, which held that God governed the 
 king. The established order of things was loyally 
 accepted by the classes and the masses ; and for the 
 aristocracy and the gentry, for the men in the profes 
 sions and in business, for all which with us stands for 
 capital and vested rights, it seemed both heresy and 
 treason to preach reform. The prayers of the Church 
 at that time were like the affidavits of candidates now 
 as to election expenses, the margins were larger than 
 the texts. 
 
 The Puritan who was ready to fight and willing to 
 die for the privilege of worshiping God as he thought 
 right was the phenomenal crank of the period. He 
 was a perambulating can of moral dynamite, whose 
 explosion might liberate the souls and minds of men. 
 He was beyond dispute the most disagreeable of human 
 beings to all that constituted the social and political 
 power of his day. In the unequal contest of the hour 
 he and his coreligionists were persecuted, imprisoned, 
 executed, or exiled. But his fight was not for time, but 
 for eternity. Stuart kings are dead ; their thrones 
 have been taken from their sons, and their power trans 
 ferred to a house alien in blood and faith ; but the sons 
 of the Puritans govern half the world, and their princi 
 ples are the vital and energizing forces with the other 
 half. When the Mayflower sailed from Delfthaven 
 there were thirty sovereigns governing Europe, whose 
 names filled all the requirements of contemporary fame. 
 
 The departure of the Mayfloiver and her cargo of 
 1 20 passengers made no more impression upon the 
 politics or affairs of Europe than did the parting of the 
 
34 6 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 waters beneath her keel upon the Atlantic Ocean. 
 For 271 years the fight has been hot between the cranks 
 and the kings. The monarchs are forgotten, and their 
 kingdoms and principles merged or lost ; but the lead 
 ers of the Pilgrim band are for the New World the 
 canonized saints of civil and religious liberty. 
 
 The Dutchmen saw the splendid quality of the raw 
 material which came among them for refuge. They 
 understood that crankiness indicates surplus energies, 
 and determined to prepare it for power by opportunity 
 and education. They gave the free school to the Puri 
 tan children, the free press to the Puritan writers, free 
 churches for the Puritan religionists, and opened the 
 trades for Puritan artisans. The Dutch declaration of 
 independence was a liberal education in liberty, and 
 the Dutch Republic a model for state sovereignty and 
 national power. 
 
 After Pastor Robinson and Elder Brewer and their 
 flocks had been five years in the kindergarten of freedom 
 and toleration, the Pastor and the Elder were admitted 
 to the University of Leyden. The college authorities 
 apportioned to each of them, according to the custom 
 of the University, two tuns of beer every month and ten 
 gallons of wine every quarter, or forty gallons of wine 
 and twenty-four hogsheads of beer each year. Such 
 was the hospitality of the Dutch, and such the capac 
 ity of our Puritan forefathers. The orators who every 
 year at this banquet indulge in pleasing fictions of the 
 amazement and horror of the forefathers, if they should 
 drop in on these feasts, have not studied history. By 
 the time the ancestor had laid his degenerate descendant 
 under the table, his own mind could only have reached 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 347 
 
 the period of severe meditation. In an age when trading 
 companies were apportioning the New World and col 
 onizing it for commerce and profit, for the Pilgrims to 
 select the most inhospitable section of the Atlantic 
 coast for settlement, solely that they might enjoy free 
 dom of conscience in the wilderness, seems heroic now, 
 but was esteemed folly then. According to the stand 
 ard of the time it might be fanatical, but it was not 
 business. 
 
 The charter they framed on the Mayflower, for the 
 first time in the construction of government, pro 
 claimed an organization upon the basis of just and 
 equal laws. For that they would have been executed 
 for high treason in any country in the world except 
 Holland. The tremendous success of their experi 
 ment is the strongest lesson to us not to fear the truth 
 because of its advocates or our prejudices. These men 
 were the stoned and derided prophets of their period, 
 and the accepted guides of ours. Pastor John Robin 
 son was not only the broadest-minded preacher in that 
 bigoted age, but he had the elements of cranky heresy 
 even of our day. The words of his parting sermon to 
 the Pilgrims the night of their departure from Delft- 
 haven might disturb an ecclesiastical convention now. 
 He said : " And if God should reveal anything to you 
 by any other instrument of his, be as ready to receive 
 it as you \vere to receive any truth in my ministry ; 
 but I am confident that the Lord hath more light and 
 truth yet to break out of his holy Word. The Luther 
 ans, for example, cannot be drawn to go beyond what 
 Luther says ; and whatever part of God s will he hath 
 further imparted to Calvin they will die rather than 
 
34 8 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 embrace ; and so the Calvinists stick where he left 
 them. This is a misery much to be lamented, for 
 though they were precious shining lights in their 
 times, God hath not revealed his whole will to them." 
 
 This glorious recognition of progress and declaration 
 of open-mindedness to research and revelation, this 
 courageous confidence that light, more light, purifies 
 the atmosphere and illumines truth was not the expres 
 sion from Faneuil Hall of yesterday, but the utter 
 ance of a Puritan pastor of nearly three centuries ago. 
 It might have been both the text and argument of the 
 defenders of Phillips Brooks and Dr. Briggs. 
 
 The forefathers did not comprehend then the full 
 force of their liberal leader s teachings, but his lessons 
 have blossomed and fruited in their descendants until 
 New England has found as many paths to heaven 
 as there are Yankees on the earth. The trials, per 
 secutions, and isolation of the Puritans so centered 
 their thoughts in and upon themselves that they could 
 die for their own liberty ; but the devil was their 
 enemy, and all who disagreed with them were his fol 
 lowers. When at Lexington the farmers fired the 
 shot that echoed round the world, they had exorcised 
 the devil and could fight and die for equal liberty for 
 every man. They hung Mrs. Rebecca Nourseat Salem 
 for witchcraft ; but 260 years afterward they erected 
 a monument to her memory. The Puritan could 
 always be relied on to compensate and satisfy anyone 
 he had wronged if you gave him time. 
 
 The Puritans were not traders or men of commerce, 
 but state-builders. In their straits for money they 
 sent Captain Miles Standish to London. He succeeded 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 349 
 
 upon the pledge of all New England as security, includ 
 ing, of course, Plymouth Rock, in raising 150 sterling 
 at fifty per cent, interest. Now, whether money is 
 wanted to build a railroad or to help prevent a financial 
 cataclysm in England, the sons of the Pilgrims are the 
 lenders of the cash. They return good for evil by 
 reducing the rate of interest and charging a commis 
 sion. The acknowledged head of Yankee bankers is 
 the President of your Society. He has established 
 the high rule of honor, based upon Puritan principles, 
 that if millions of railroad bonds agreed to be taken 
 at a price cannot be marketed when the company is 
 ready to deliver them, though the engagement is only 
 a verbal promise, not enforcible at law, the word of a 
 Yankee banker is a contract under seal. 
 
 " These quarters are very pleasant," said an inmate 
 of Bloomingdale Asylum, " but I do not like Dr. 
 Brown, because he called me a fool." 
 
 " Oh," I replied, " Dr. Brown is a perfect gentleman, 
 and you must be mistaken." 
 
 " Well," argued the lunatic, " I overheard the doctor 
 say that I had a congenital and abnormal development 
 of the cerebellum, and if that isn t calling a man a 
 damned fool, I would like to know what is." 
 
 The Puritan has enjoyed the largest repute as a 
 fanatic and the highest distinction as a crank; but 
 whether it was the king or the Church which encoun 
 tered him they never, after the battle, thought him a 
 fool. He never threatens the life of an individual or 
 attempts to confiscate or appropriate private property, 
 but if commerce or business or vested interests are 
 intrenched in moss-covered wrongs, he attacks the 
 
35 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES. 
 
 wrong, no matter whom or what it hits or hurts. He 
 shakes the business world by throwing the tea in 
 Boston Harbor ; but by that act he vindicates an 
 immortal principle and creates a nation. He throws 
 conservative pulpits into convulsions of terror when he 
 proclaims that bleeding Kansas needs not Bibles, but 
 rifles. He knows that when the question is whether a 
 great territory shall be dedicated to freedom or slavery, 
 the border ruffian requires discipline with Winchesters 
 before he is prepared for the Bible lesson. He believes 
 slavery is a violation of Divine law and an outrage 
 upon the rights of man. 
 
 Four thousand millions of dollars are invested in 
 slaves, but he says there can be no property in man, 
 and he enlists, fights, and dies to break the shackles 
 from the slave. Our polite conditions have not 
 removed his crankiness, and I hope never will. He 
 can become unpopular with party leaders and office- 
 seekers by laboring for Civil Service Reform, and can 
 still arouse dormant consciences and fears by boldly 
 charging that an attempt to defeat the popular will, as 
 expressed in the votes of the people, by quibble or 
 trick in order to carry a Legislature, is an assault upon 
 the suffrage and a subversion of the ballot. All hail 
 the Puritan cranks, the Miltons, the Cromwells, the 
 Hampdens of the Old World, the Otises, the Adamses, 
 the Lloyd Garrisons, the John Browns, the Abraham 
 Lincolns of the New ! They are for humanity the 
 leaven of light and liberty. 
 
XXVIII. 
 
 SPEECH AT THE ANNUAL DINNER OF ST. DAVID S 
 SOCIETY, AT THE METROPOLITAN HOTEL, NEW 
 YORK, MARCH 2, 1891. 
 
 IT is many years since I have had the pleasure of 
 meeting the St. David s Society. I have met many 
 Welshmen in my life. This is the first time I ever saw 
 a company of Welshwomen. My boyhood apprecia 
 tion of a Welshman was a venerable man with a bald 
 head and a long beard, who, whenever he could get an 
 audience, sang of the glories and the woes of his race, 
 and accompanied himself in extemporized music on 
 his harp. My manhood and mature acquaintances 
 with the Welshman have led me to believe that in the 
 concrete he has the intellect of Gladstone and the 
 obstinacy of an army mule. 
 
 Three years ago I attended a national eisteddfod 
 at the Albert Hall, in London. All the bards were 
 present with their beards and their harps. The Prince 
 of Wales presided. He delivered a speech which for 
 tact, delicate flattery of national sentiment and easy 
 and forcible expression of the sentiment of the occa 
 sion, demonstrated that a royal personage can be an 
 orator. I remember one point which he made and 
 which was the success of the meeting that whatever 
 else might be the attributes of the heir to the throne 
 
35 2 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 of the British Empire, his principal glory was that his 
 title came from Wales. In the torrent of enthusiasm 
 which greeted the expression, from the ten thousand 
 Welshmen present, I was so borne along myself that I 
 came to the conclusion that his Royal Highness meant 
 it. 
 
 We try to analyze at these festivals of the various 
 nationalities which constitute our composite American 
 civilization what each has contributed to the glory, the 
 wealth, the power of the land we live in. I find on a 
 careful analysis of the claims of them all, that under a 
 broad generalization the Welshman may be said to be 
 the producer and the rest the consumers. The Welsh 
 man manipulates the raw material into riches, and the 
 rest toll the riches for a living. The Irish in a general 
 way undertake to solve municipal government. They 
 do it to their own satisfaction, whatever may be the 
 result to the taxpayer. But then, for this patriotic 
 service, they have to be paid, and that comes out of 
 the taxpayer and the treasury. The Frenchman runs 
 our restaurants and gives us art, and each of them 
 depletes our surplus, however much it may gratify our 
 inner man and cultivate our higher nature. The Ger 
 man, if he gets into the country, becomes an excellent 
 farmer, but under metropolitan and urban influences 
 he is a merchant, a trader, or a brewer. But the 
 Welshman delves into the bowels of the earth. He is 
 a miner. He brings out the coal and the ore. He 
 creates national wealth from that which, in its natural 
 bed, had no value. He gives to us the stream of 
 Pactolus, flowing with gold into national, State, and 
 municipal treasuries, into the banks of deposit and for 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 353 
 
 savings ; into the pockets of the workers and the stock 
 ings of the frugal housewives. He gives to us the 
 sources of our income, of the solid realities from which 
 we all derive our living. 
 
 Every country in Europe has been conquered and 
 subdued except Wales. That little spot of earth has 
 often been conquered, but never subdued. The 
 Romans, the Danes, the Angles, and the Norsemen 
 each in turn conquered and subdued England, and 
 gave to us that self-assertive and all-conquering indi 
 vidual whom we call the Anglo-Saxon. 
 
 The Cromwellian conquest of Ireland has been the 
 woe and the sorrow of two centuries. But the haughty 
 Norman noble, to whom Wales was assigned as a feof, 
 skinned alive the Welshmen whom he caught, but 
 failed by this drastic method to reduce to vassalage 
 those who lived within their skins. The Welshmen 
 are fixed in their opinions, both in religion and politics. 
 When once a Welshman has declared his fealty to his 
 party or his Church, you can safely leave him. He 
 does not need a guardian or a trained nurse. 
 
 No matter how many years you may be away, when 
 you return, you find him voting with that party and 
 attending that Church. It is because, having once, 
 after careful examination, satisfied his brain and his 
 conscience, he is anchored to his principles. Very few 
 Welshmen, therefore, become Mugwumps, and when 
 they do, their case is absolutely hopeless. A Welsh 
 Mugwump is always suspecting gangrene in his friends 
 and seeking to cure it by a red-hot poker, forgetful or 
 oblivious of the transparent sins of his enemies. 
 
 The sentiment says that " Uncle Sam is rich enough 
 
354 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES. 
 
 to give us all a farm." Uncle Sam s farms from which 
 a living can be gained without irrigation at the national 
 expense are all distributed. This does not disturb a 
 Welshman, because he seeks that which is under the 
 soil, and not the crop which he can find on top. The 
 Welshman has destroyed by his modesty the two most 
 pronounced and conspicuous sources of race pride in 
 our country. The Irishman claims that St. Patrick 
 one of the best of saints was an Irishman, and the 
 Yankee glories in the English Puritan who stood upon 
 Plymouth Rock. If Welsh history is good for any 
 thing, St. Patrick was born in Wales, and the cathedral 
 in which he was baptized still possesses the font; while 
 the captain of the Mayflower was Jones, a well-known 
 Welshman of that period, whose family outrivals even 
 that of Smith in our own country, and has contributed 
 enormously to that population which increases the 
 wealth and adds to the power of the land. 
 
 The best contribution of the Welshman to the land 
 we live in is his indomitable devotion to civil and 
 religious liberty. It was that which carried into the 
 Continental Congress for the Declaration of Independ 
 ence a larger representation of Welshmen in proportion 
 to their numbers than of any other nationality in the 
 Colonies. Whatever party is most liberal in its tend 
 encies commands the almost unanimous support of the 
 Welsh. Whatever cause enlarges the area of human 
 liberty within the lines of law and morality receives 
 the support of the Welsh. The Welsh can be always 
 found casting their votes, giving their influence and 
 yielding their enthusiasm to the cause which stands 
 most conspicuously for the Decalogue. 
 
XXIX. 
 
 ADDRESS AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER-STONE OF 
 THE MASONIC ASYLUM AND HOME AT UTICA, 
 N. Y., MAY 21, 1891. 
 
 FIFTY years ago a Freemason, who was rich in faith 
 but poor in purse, contributed a silver dollar as the 
 commencement of a fund for the building of a suitable 
 home for the craft in the State of New York, and an 
 asylum for its indigent members and orphans. No 
 investment ever before yielded such magnificent 
 returns. That brother must have had abounding hope 
 and expansive imagination, and yet the results have 
 surpassed his wildest dreams. 
 
 This last half-century has been full of marvels beyond 
 all other periods in the history of the world. It excels 
 in intellectual and material progress. Inventive genius 
 has so reduplicated the power of man and the forces 
 of nature that the wealth of the world and the happi 
 ness and welfare of its people have been incalculably 
 increased. Vast as are these exhibits of the develop 
 ment of the period, the best is the growth of this silver 
 coin. From it has accumulated a fund from which 
 over two millions of dollars have been expended in a 
 hall suitable in solidity and grandeur for the craft in 
 the Empire State, and hundreds of thousands have 
 been added for the care of the aged and infirm and to 
 provide the means for educating the orphans. We 
 
 355 
 
35 6 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 have celebrated the completion of that grand building 
 in New York, which is an external sign of the power 
 and permanence of masonry, which is not only suffi 
 cient for the demands of the craft for the present and 
 the future, but provides an income of over fifty thou 
 sand dollars a year for the charitable purposes of the 
 order. To-day we celebrate the beginning of the 
 practical application of the benevolent spirit of the 
 brethren which has been their dream in this State for a 
 hundred years. 
 
 There is no more important study for the statesman, 
 the philosopher, or the generous man than the bestowal 
 of gifts for the benefit of his fellow-men. Since St. 
 Paul announced that the three cardinal virtues were 
 Faith, Hope, and Charity, and the greatest of these was 
 Charity, this sentiment has grown and expanded until 
 now it finds expression in beneficent efforts all over 
 Christendom, but the prodigal liberality of the United 
 States places them in the front rank of humanitarian 
 nations. From the enforced taxation of all, and the 
 liberal purses of many, a golden stream constantly 
 flows into the hospital, the asylum, the home, the 
 school, and the work of Churches and parishes. When 
 the effort is so great and the distribution so vast, and 
 in many cases so indiscriminate, we stand upon the 
 danger line of pauperizing the recipients. The hospital 
 which nurses, cures, or mends the sick and the injured, 
 the asylum which cares for the incurable in body or 
 mind, or provides a home and its influences, with an 
 education, for destitute and orphan children, one and 
 all complete the purest and highest purposes of benev 
 olence. 
 
CH A UNCE Y M. DEPE W. 357 
 
 But there is a help which harms. It is always 
 proper to question whether the independence and self- 
 reliance of the individual are to be weakened. Vigor, 
 success, and good citizenship exist only among those 
 who, being capable and in health, rely not upon charity 
 but upon themselves for their own maintenance and 
 support and that of those w r ho are dependent upon 
 them. Work is health, virtue, and conscience. It 
 keeps the muscles strong, the mind clear, and the 
 morals pure. It is the spur which God himself applies. 
 It is the solvent of socialism, the motor of progress, 
 the spirit of liberty. Without it weeds grow over the 
 farmer s fields, his fences fall, his barns and buildings 
 decay, his largest crop is a mortgage, and its foreclosure 
 is his ruin. Without it the muscles of the mechanic 
 become flabby and his tools rusty and worthless. 
 Without it the merchant fails, and the spider safely 
 weaves his web across the door of the professional 
 man, which neither client nor patient ever enters. 
 
 Masonry was founded by workingmen. Its whole 
 mission and spirit is work. From the surplus of those 
 who are able and willing to do their part for themselves 
 and their brethren, the funds have been raised, and 
 will continue in larger measure to be contributed, for 
 the maintenance of those who are utterly helpless and 
 have no relatives upon whom they can rely, and for 
 that noblest of all efforts the substitution, as far as 
 human love can supply the want, of the care, the 
 tenderness and the thoughtfulness of father and mother 
 for the children of the craft who have lost both. In 
 the plastic years of youth the surroundings of the 
 street and of the gutter, of the saloon and the slum, 
 
35 8 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 train helpless childhood to crime and make it a dis 
 tinct danger to the perpetuity of the commonwealth. 
 But the children rescued, placed in the asylum, sur 
 rounded with proper influences, educated by compe 
 tent teachers, will go out into the world as the sons 
 and daughters of masonry ; the daughters to become 
 the virtuous mothers of the citizens who are to uphold 
 our liberty, and the sons to be the citizens who are to 
 do their part in every good work, to shed honor upon 
 their foster-mother, the craft, and to be sources of 
 power and influence in the Republic. 
 
 When an organization runs back beyond historic 
 records, and relies upon tradition for the story of its 
 origin, its career during a known period either justifies 
 or falsifies the tradition. An ancestry of virtue and 
 good words is a liberal education in both. The power 
 of the accumulated wisdom of the past is a resistless 
 impelling force upon the present. The architects, the 
 draughtsmen, the decorators, the wood-carvers, the 
 workers in precious metals, and the masons who were 
 building the famous temple of King Solomon, came 
 from every nation in the then known world. Their 
 union for mutual help, protection, society, and improve 
 ment was the marvel of an age when all navies were 
 pirates and all nations enemies. 
 
 Institutions do not survive through the ages by 
 accident ; they live only through the possession and 
 operation of everlasting principles. Dynasties have 
 disappeared ; thrones have crumbled ; whole races have 
 been annihilated ; governments have succeeded one 
 another with a frequency beyond the power of the 
 historian to record ; civilization itself has risen to the 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 359 
 
 highest excellence and then sunk in darkness and 
 oblivion. But Masonry has continued through the 
 centuries with the same spirit of universal brotherhood, 
 of equal democracy, as existed by legend among its 
 traditional founders. Belief in God and love for one s 
 brethren are ideas founded in divinity and humanity 
 which are absolutely indestructible. During all these 
 ages there have been no trials for heresy or rewards 
 for orthodoxy in Masonic lodges. The disciples of 
 Dr. Briggs and his adversaries are equally welcome. 
 The followers of Heber Newton and those who would 
 cast him out can find with us hospitable homes. The 
 advanced students who claim that they have found 
 errors in the accepted translation of the Bible which 
 necessitate a revision, and the associates of the good 
 old deacon who remarked, in regard to the translation 
 by the authority of King James which we have, that 
 the version which was good enough for St. Paul was 
 good enough for him, can all take equal and fraternal 
 rank with us. We are liberal enough to embrace all 
 creeds and all sects who acknowledge one supreme 
 and overruling Deity. How they shall worship him, 
 by what formula or under what diversity of doctrine, we 
 leave to their individual and independent consciences. 
 
 When the world has been plunged in savagery and 
 superstition, when continents have been drenched in 
 blood, when cruelty has immured in dungeons and 
 stretched upon the rack the disciples of civil and relig 
 ious liberty, the Masonic sign of distress has always been 
 recognized upon the battlefield or in the torture cham 
 ber, and with it the kinship of blood and brotherhood. 
 
 Secrecy is not potent for perpetuity. Secret socie- 
 
360 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 ties, political, religious, social, labor and national, have 
 been created by the million and have lived their brief 
 lives and expired. Organizations which have for their 
 object the pursuit of a policy in government, the prop 
 agation of a creed, or the improvement and strengthen 
 ing of a craft, form and dissolve with the recurring 
 years, and no trace of them is found in succeeding 
 centuries. Organizations formed, with the best inten 
 tions, for promoting the welfare of mankind by com 
 munity of property and interests, have flourished for a 
 brief period and then resolved into their original ele 
 ments because of their practical denial of the truth 
 that manhood and individuality are the eternal attri 
 butes of successful effort. The guild of the Middle 
 Ages still exists, but it has lost its purpose and power, 
 and survives only as an exhibit of mediaeval mum 
 meries and for the support of the corporators, who 
 thrive upon its accumulated funds. All societies, save 
 the one which celebrates to-day, are the creatures of 
 localities, nationality, or temporary emergency. But 
 Masonry, marching under the leadership of God and 
 the banner which bears the motto " Love thy neighbor 
 as thyself," with the peasant and the prince, the 
 mechanic and the merchant, the workingman and the 
 millionaire, the learned and the unlearned following 
 in equal rank and common step, knows neither race 
 nor nationality, neither caste nor conditions, as it 
 proudly and beneficently moves down the centuries. 
 
 The chief factor in education and the conservator in 
 society is association. The mighty movement of our 
 century threatens the destruction of the individual. 
 In the maelstrom of competition and crowded popula- 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 361 
 
 tions, each strives for himself at the expense of his 
 neighbor. The old tie of acquaintance and sympathy 
 is broken. Associations properly formed and culti 
 vated are the barriers against the flood which would 
 engulf the best elements of humanity. There is virtue 
 in secrecy, where no wrongs are contemplated behind 
 the closed doors, but only the mutual benefit of the 
 members. If the applicants are properly sifted, those 
 who pass into the inner circle are the survivals of the 
 fittest. In the attrition of ingenuous minds, discussing 
 freely all subjects under the rose, in the communings 
 of warm hearts and liberal souls, each gains from the 
 other a measure of strength, and the composite is a 
 more perfect man. Associations of men and women 
 engaged in similar pursuits accomplish most admirable 
 results, but mainly in the direction of their material 
 welfare. Trades Unions have their mission and their 
 sphere, which are essential to the proper working of a 
 great industrial community. 
 
 No society, however, can long harmoniously live 
 with increasing populations, unless there be some 
 method by which those of different pursuits, conditions 
 in life, intellectual acquirement, and success in the 
 battle for supremacy, can meet upon common ground. 
 This is one of the missions of political parties. It is 
 one of the great human benefits of churches. It is 
 the best of the results of academic and collegiate com 
 panionship. Every institution, every organization, 
 every association which tends to further the filling up 
 of social chasms, the harmonizing of labor and capital, 
 the bettering of the acquaintance of those whom cir 
 cumstances have antagonized but whose interest it is 
 
362 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 to be friends, is patriotic in its purpose and work. But 
 the leveler which brings the heir to the British throne, 
 when Grand Master of the order in England, upon the 
 same plane with the humblest of his subjects, which 
 causes the President, the Cabinet Minister, the Governor 
 of the State, the judge, the congressman, to sit satis 
 fied within the lodge under the authority of a Worship 
 ful Master who holds no public office, has no money, 
 and lives by the labor of his hands and the sweat of his 
 brow, is the Masonic order. 
 
 The rock upon which all societies and organizations 
 have split has been either Church or State. An 
 excursion into the fields of religion or politics has 
 paralyzed the principles of their origin, and their mem 
 bers have fled from warring companionship. By hered 
 ity, tradition, education, and affection men and women 
 are anchored to the faith of their fathers. No lodge 
 can survive the introduction of a dispute as to creeds 
 or the attempt to enforce one dogma as against another. 
 
 The stake no longer exists for those who would 
 rather be burned than recant, but the candidates for 
 martyrdom, for conscience sake, are as numerous in 
 one age as another. Noth with stand ing all that is said 
 in regard to the loose tendencies of our time, each year 
 is more securely religious than the past. Despite all 
 the tributes which are paid to the liberalizing tend 
 encies of our age, there is no loosening of faith upon 
 the essentials of truth or doctrine. While few societies 
 might attempt the hazards of religious discussion and 
 difference, the venture into politics is always attractive. 
 The ambitious aspirant for political favors is proverbi 
 ally reckless of consequences in the use of methods by 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 363 
 
 which he climbs to place and power. He will use his 
 pastor, and hazard a schism in the Church ; he will 
 cultivate his lodge, and risk its disruption. Broader 
 than the ambition of the individual is the allurement 
 which power holds out to an association comprised of 
 great numbers of citizens to make themselves felt as an 
 order in public affairs. They may secure the doubtful 
 laurels of a first or a second election, they may exist 
 for a few years as a disturbing element in political 
 calculations, but their destruction is as certain as the 
 perpetuity of the principle that governments must be 
 controlled by one of two great parties moving upon 
 conservative or liberal lines. 
 
 Masonry has been satisfied in all ages of the world 
 to be loyal to all governments under which it might 
 be, no matter what their form, but has afforded to each 
 member the fullest liberty as citizen or subject to 
 carry out and live up to his own ideas. It is only 
 within the walls of his own temple that, regardless of 
 autocracy, monarchy, or republicanism without, the 
 Mason stands upon the plane and square of a pure 
 democracy. Our order could live under Judaism, and 
 upon the completion of Solomon s Temple carry its 
 principles and faith into every part of the civilized 
 world. It could thrive under the Roman Empire with 
 out exciting the hostility or the jealousy of the Caesars, 
 During the Middle Ages violence and bigotry had 
 divided the world into masters and slaves. Voiceless 
 humanity, denied a hearing before any tribunal, and 
 groaning under untold wrongs, injustice, and outrages, 
 could only mutely appeal to Heaven for help. The 
 prayer to God for succor, for life, for liberty, must be 
 
3 6 4 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES. 
 
 made through temples builded in his honor. The 
 serf, the vassal, or the slave could neither design nor 
 erect them, but the brethren of the Mystic Tie, by the 
 strength of their association, had preserved their man 
 hood and independence. They were Free Masons. 
 They designed, erected, carved, and beautified those 
 superb cathedrals which were the religion of other 
 centuries and are the wonder of ours. 
 
 A hundred years ago, at Newburgh, when the Revo 
 lution had succeeded, and the Continental army was dis 
 banding, Washington and all his generals, standing 
 within the precincts of a Masonic lodge, of which they 
 were all members, could rejoice in the fact that the 
 Masonic principle of the equality of all men before the 
 law, had at last, after unnumbered centuries, become 
 the corner-stone of the Republic. A century of the 
 successful operation of this principle enables us to 
 comtemplate to-day a Government of sixty-three 
 millions of people possessing more power, enjoying 
 more happiness, delighting in more liberty, and richer 
 and more prosperous than those of any other nation 
 upon earth. We turn from Washington and his 
 generals and their great work in war, from the early 
 Grand Masters of our State, Robert R. Livingston, 
 who gave us our judiciary system, and DeWitt Clinton, 
 who created the Erie Canal and wedded the lakes to 
 the sea, to the duties of the hour. The past is superb 
 and secure. The present is peace. The future, under 
 the beneficent operations of the institution founded 
 here to-day, and kindred asylums which will be estab 
 lished in the different parts of the State, will open with 
 increasing years new avenues for chanty and fresh 
 reservoirs of benevolence. 
 
XXX. 
 
 SPEECH INTRODUCING HENRY M. STANLEY, METRO 
 POLITAN OPERA HOUSE, NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 
 II, 1890. 
 
 THREE years ago a distinguished American traveler 
 and explorer was delighting his friends in New York, 
 at a famous dinner given in his honor, with an account 
 of his adventures. He was jubilant over the promising 
 pleasures and profits of a lecture tour just begun, when 
 a cable was handed to him from King Leopold of 
 Belgium, summoning him to Europe. With character 
 istic promptness and energy he sailed the next morn 
 ing, and we heard of him soon after leading an expedi 
 tion into the wilds of Africa for the relief of Emin 
 Pasha. For nearly three years no tidings came of 
 him and he was mourned as lost ; but to-night Mr. 
 Stanley reappears to take up, where he dropped it at 
 the call of duty, the suspended lecture course of 1887. 
 
 It was said of a hero of the Revolution that, when 
 the courier calling the country to arms dashed by his 
 farm, where he was at work, he unharnessed his horse 
 from the plow and rode to Bunker Hill. After seven 
 years of marching and fighting, the victorious soldier 
 returned to his home to find the plow still in the 
 furrow as he had left it, and, as if his task had not 
 been interrupted, he finished turning the sod of that 
 
 365 
 
366 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 field before entering the house. The hero of the 
 Revolutionary story had utilized his vacation from 
 agriculture in founding a great Republic. Our guest 
 of to-night pieces the broken thread of his American 
 lecture trip with a continent, found and given to the 
 world for civilization, Christianity, and empire. 
 
 It is the glorious privilege of few men in any age to 
 become so completely the property of the world, and 
 identified with its history, that we can speak of them 
 in their presence, and they can speak of themselves, as 
 if their fame was already crystallized in the story of 
 their times. 
 
 We are preparing fitly to celebrate the four hundredth 
 anniversary of the discovery of America. We strain our 
 vision to pierce through the vista of the centuries and 
 view the personality of Columbus. But in greeting 
 Stanley we are repeating, in our republican way, the 
 pageant of the reception at the Court of Ferdinand 
 and Isabella, and will more accurately present for the 
 quadricentennial ceremonies o f the populous, prosper 
 ous, and cultured nations of Africa the character and 
 contemporaneous appreciation of their benefactor. 
 
 Many cities claimed to be the birthplace of Homer, 
 and already envious localities in the Old World are 
 prolific in parish registers which identify Mr. Stanley 
 with them. But no matter under what sun he first 
 saw the light, his great discoveries and wonderful 
 achievements have been made and performed by him 
 as an American citizen. His motto has always been, 
 " A man might as well march to meet his fate, as wait 
 to find it," and the results have been safety and immor 
 tality. It is a career intensely American and dramatic. 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 367 
 
 A merchant s education fits him for business, a soldier s 
 and a sailor s life for travel and adventure, the dangers 
 and opportunities of a war correspondent inure him to 
 hardship, and they all together cultivate fertility of 
 resource in perils of savages, perils of floods, and perils 
 of the wilderness. 
 
 The distinctive events which have given to civiliza 
 tion a knowledge of our planet, and pushed progress 
 around the earth, are the conquests of Alexander the 
 Great, the travels of Marco Polo, the discoveries of 
 Columbus, and the explorations of Stanley. The 
 Macedonian hero who sat sighing by the Ganges 
 because he had no more worlds to conquer was simply 
 a soldier seeking glory, mad with the excitement of 
 war and indifferent to its results or its miseries. The 
 Venetian merchant whose wondrous narrative has been 
 the amusing fiction of six centuries, and the reality of 
 ours, and who has made travelers tales and bouncing 
 lying synonymous terms, was bent only upon com 
 merce and trade. Columbus was hazarding everything 
 upon the possibility of finding the fabled El Dorado 
 and reveling in gold. But the advancing ages have 
 tended upward, and we are capable, in these so-called 
 practical and prosaic times, of unequaled effort and 
 supreme courage for a sentiment and for humanity. 
 The daring and gentle missionary, whose revelations of 
 the possibilities of Africa had interested all nations in 
 his work and in himself, had been given up as one more 
 martyr in the service of mankind^ and Stanley s first 
 effort was not commerce or conquest, but to find and 
 relieve Livingston. A free state, founded as a break 
 water against that sum of all infamies, the slave 
 
368 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 trade, the continent crossed, the mysteries of its lakes 
 and streams reduced to geographical certainty, the 
 problem of the ages the sources of the Nile success 
 fully solved, would seem to entitle the explorer to rest 
 and peace. But a Governor, his army, and his province 
 were situated somewhere in the dark unknown, and 
 beleaguered by fanatical and bloodthirsty foes. The 
 anthem of universal applause rises from all peoples 
 when Stanley reappears, bringing back to safety and 
 home Emin Pasha and his followers. The Paladins of 
 Charlemagne were the itieals of one century, and 
 Chevalier Bayard has been of many others. The one 
 represented resistless force, and the other knightly 
 courtesy upon the field of battle. The Christianity 
 and humanity of our day impel to grander deeds than 
 those which made immortal these warriors and knights, 
 and with results which render their achievements 
 utterly insignificant. The great powers of Europe 
 have taken the territories brought to light by the dis 
 coveries of Stanley, and divided them among them 
 selves, for the relief of their overcrowded populations, 
 and the building of greater Germanics and Englands 
 upon the fertile plateaus and along the rich valleys of 
 the Dark Continent. The dangers which threatened 
 civilization itself are indefinitely postponed by the 
 opening of these new fields for settlement and enter 
 prise, the savage nations of Africa will be redeemed, 
 and the earth enriched and Heaven recruited. 
 
 This summer, when the expedition of Stanley and 
 the partition of Africa were the first topics of discus 
 sion in court and camp, in society and the slums, a man 
 of the highest position and power on the other side of 
 
CIIAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 369 
 
 the sea said to me, " What, in your judgment, is 
 Stanley s greatest achievement ? " I replied, " It strikes 
 me, as an American, that it was his demonstration 
 that a reporter for a New York newspaper could reach 
 a position where he could so stir public opinion against 
 the British Ministry by his simple declaration that 
 England had been overreached in the agreement with 
 Germany that the Government was compelled to 
 modify it, and that then his statement that the terms 
 were fair restored confidence in the Administration." 
 
 Not satisfied with his adventures, his hair-breadth 
 escapes, his marvelous experiences, Mr. Stanley, finding 
 no more continents to explore, has essayed a journey 
 often tried, and by less intrepid men. In wishing him 
 a long life of health and peace and happiness, we con 
 gratulate him that in the state of matrimony he will 
 find that superior to the treasures of Africa are the 
 joys of connubial bliss. 
 
XXXI. 
 
 SPEECH AT THE NEW YORK PRESS CLUB S RECEP 
 TION TO SIR EDWIN ARNOLD, NOVEMBER 19, 
 1891. 
 
 I REALLY die! not understand that speeches were in 
 order this time. A young man, in whose veracity I 
 have had the greatest confidence for many years, called 
 on me yesterday, inviting me to be present here, with 
 the statement in writing, over his own signature, that 
 the sole object of the meeting was to shake hands with 
 Sir Edwin Arnold, and I came here with the rest of 
 you, prepared to perform that ceremony. But it 
 seems that that is the one which is to be omitted. 
 
 I feel that I am a working journalist myself. I 
 don t know anyone who every day in the year, year in, 
 year out, contributes any more, in one form or another, 
 to the daily press ; and when not contributing infor 
 mation, opinions about the things I know, I am the 
 subject of contributions from people who think they 
 know something about me. If Sir Edwin will write, 
 when he gets home, in a purely journalistic spirit, the 
 experiences which he has had in this country, they will 
 be the most interesting contributions from the other 
 side which we have had in many a day. It has been 
 the custom of his countrymen to travel through our 
 country on trains running anywhere from forty-five to 
 
 370 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEREW. 37* 
 
 sixty-five miles an hour, and then write a book of their 
 impressions. What they did not get from the car 
 window, or the hotel clerks, or the encyclopedia, they 
 gathered from the insular prejudices which they had 
 before they left home, and the compilation has not 
 been entirely satisfactory on either side of the water. 
 But the journalistic instinct which has been cultivated 
 so successfully by our guest has enabled him to come 
 in touch with the real people and the honest senti 
 ments of this country. A more admirable illustration 
 of his newspaper instinct could not be found than in 
 the incident which he narrated, where the Hon. Mr. 
 Booby ran his head with such disastrous results to him 
 self against the local journal. 
 
 Of course Sir Edwin will have to say his practiced 
 ear was somewhat shocked at the Boston patois and 
 the Connecticut accent and the Philadelphia effort at a 
 grasp of the English language and the -manner in which 
 an average Jersey-man treats our glorious tongue. But 
 it will be a source of gratification for him to note, 
 record, and tell the English people that he was under 
 stood in every part of our country. For they have 
 differences of pronunciation, even in Great Britain. 
 
 Your president has recently been criticising me upon 
 the ground that I was not an orator. Now I agreed 
 with him in that respect, and I was glad that he 
 informed our fellow-countrymen of the discovery which 
 he had made. But he made another statement in 
 regard to me which touched me on a sensitive point 
 on the one point on which I have a personal and indi 
 vidual pride and that was when he said that I was not 
 a soldier. Providence is always taking care of people 
 
37 2 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 who are maligned and abused, and accidentally I have 
 just been introduced to a gentleman, sitting here behind 
 the president, who states that he served with me when 
 I was resisting the malarious influences of Maryland in 
 behalf of my country. 
 
 There is one incident narrated by Sir Edwin, which 
 working journalists can all appreciate, and that is that 
 a journal starts off in Great Britain with paying a 
 leader writer two thousand five hundred dollars a 
 year, and then, a few weeks later, raises the salary to 
 five thousand dollars. We don t do as well as that 
 at the start, though we improve on it later. But 
 in this country journalists are proud of Sir Edwin, 
 because he has demonstrated that a newspaper man 
 can be something more than a journalist, if he has 
 time and opportunity. Not but that "journalist" 
 covers all the acquirements any man need aspire to. 
 But there is such a thing as rising above perfection in 
 one direction and to fame in another. That is what 
 Sir Edwin has demonstrated. He writes those superb 
 books of his, which are his fame, and the glory of our 
 English tongue ; which are among the best contribu 
 tions to the literature of our period ; and the question 
 they suggest to the American working journalist is 
 where he finds the time. 
 
 I think it enforces a lesson. The managing editor, 
 or an editor holding an important position on one of 
 our great papers, has many other things to do besides 
 grasping the opinion of the hour on current subjects, 
 and enforcing it daily in the columns of his paper. 
 He has largely to be a business man, an administrator 
 of affairs, and a manager of men, and in many ways a 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 373 
 
 vast deal more than the intellectual interpreter of the 
 opinions which should be presented in the journal upon 
 which he works. It is, therefore, impossible for him, 
 going home late at night, to arise in the morning and 
 devote himself serenely to the cultivation of the muses, 
 whether they be poetic, historic, or general. But Sir 
 Edwin has demonstrated that, under proper conditions, 
 nothing leads so admirably to the best of poetry as 
 journalism. 
 
 Our American people are divided into two classes, 
 journalists and poets. Every American is a poet. He 
 is a poet in the large way in which he describes and 
 frescoes what he does, or intends to do, or what he 
 possesses, and the journalist records his exaggerations. 
 But we are all glad, whether we are a club of jour 
 nalists or poets or artists or Bohemians, or whether we 
 are simply and purely American citizens, we are all 
 delighted to welcome Sir Edwin Arnold. As jour 
 nalists we are glad to welcome him because he is one 
 of the strongest and most representative men in the 
 journalistic profession in the world. As poets and 
 men of letters we are happy to honor him and to meet 
 him personally, because in the Republic of Letters, 
 which knows no nationality, no tongue, no race, he 
 holds one of the highest seats. As American citizens 
 we are rejoiced to receive him, because at a period 
 when all the influences of power, of place, of society, 
 of prestige, and of that which goes to make up influence 
 and recognition were against us in Great Britain, he 
 with a powerful pen and in a great journal spoke for 
 the integrity of the American Union and the triumph 
 of the nationality of the American Republic. 
 
374 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES. 
 
 When he meets audience after audience all over this 
 country, and is greeted with that applause, enthusiasm, 
 and cordiality which he has noticed, and will notice 
 still more as the knowledge of his coming is dissemi 
 nated, it will be not so much because of his journalistic 
 or his literary fame that he is welcomed as a brother ; 
 but because in our hour of need he tendered to us the 
 hand and the heart of a brother. 
 
XXXII. 
 
 SPEECH AT DINNER CELEBRATING THE SIXTIETH 
 ANNIVERSARY OF MR. BENJAMIN D. SILLIMAN S 
 ADMISSION TO THE BAR, NEW YORK, MAY 24, 
 1889. 
 
 APPRECIATING the compliment of your call, I yet 
 respond with reluctance at this late hour. Both as 
 presiding officer and guest, I have always felt when the 
 last speaker came after midnight, when all were wearied 
 and every man s eyes on the door, that the proper 
 thing to do was to kill him on the spot. It is subject 
 to such a peril that I proceed. I did not receive your 
 invitation till this morning and had no time to find a 
 fifteen-hundred-dollar friend to look up the facts in Mr. 
 Silliman s career. I regret the recent disclosure of my 
 secret, because, as I deliver about two hundred addresses 
 a year, the conclusion that I must give three hundred 
 thousand dollars per annum for the raw material, and that 
 I receive no pay for the manufactured article, may alarm 
 my creditors. But if any of my brethren of the bar 
 here to-night, or ambitious youths anywhere, desire 
 immortality as orators, the patent has expired and the 
 invention is theirs. 
 
 I have attended many meetings in this city called 
 to do honor to men eminent in literature and science, 
 
 375 
 
37 6 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 to soldiers, statesmen, and politicians, to Presidents, 
 Governors, and Senators. Many were honest expres 
 sions of admiration for great achievements, and many, 
 especially before the patronage was distributed, were 
 inspired by the motive of which the poet sings that 
 " hope springs eternal in the human breast." But this 
 gathering is unselfish and unique. It is distinct from 
 them all in combining reverence, esteem, and affection. 
 It is easy in provincial neighborhoods, where neither 
 opportunity nor temptation exists, for people to live to 
 extreme age and enjoy the mild approval of their 
 community. But the man who rises above the level in 
 our metropolitan life becomes at once conspicuous. 
 His vocation and avocations, his mental habits and 
 moral deficiencies, his dress and food, are the subject 
 of pertinent and impertinent discussion all over the 
 country. The glare of publicity penetrates and illu 
 mines his life and works. Sixty years of successful 
 activity under such conditions, rich in accumulated 
 applause and honor, not only draw together this dis 
 tinguished company to greet this venerable lawyer, but 
 they present a character which adds to the greatness 
 of our State and gives glory and an example to the 
 country. 
 
 Since Cicero wrote, the world has been speculating 
 upon the question of how to most profitably and 
 pleasurably pass old age. After we reach the fifties 
 the solution of the problem becomes imminent. A 
 client of mine who had accumulated millions, and 
 exhausted their power to purchase happiness, said to 
 me that after sixty the only resource left a man of 
 affairs was to drive a fast horse, and in the excitement 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 377 
 
 of the brush on the road keep up his circulation, and 
 in the rhythmic movements of the animal at high speed 
 find his pleasure. The ordinary course for the success 
 ful citizen is to retire from business and purchase a 
 place in the country. He imagines that he can repro 
 duce and indefinitely continue the vigor and delights 
 of his youthful recollections of the farm. The first 
 year he plants and plows, he builds barns and fences, 
 and is healthy and happy. The second, he tires and 
 becomes dyspeptic ; the third, he takes to patent 
 medicines ; and the fourth, the old churchyard receives 
 his body, and his heirs divide his estate. I heard 
 President Eliot, of Harvard, in a delightful talk in this 
 hall, describe as almost ideal the existence of two old 
 alumni of Cambridge, who breakfasted and then read a 
 favorite book, lunched on a cracker and a glass of 
 water, and read, dined and read, and so peacefully 
 passed their days. If the Yale alumnus of eighty-four, 
 in whose honor we are here, had pursued this course 
 there would have been no call for our gathering. We 
 see Bismarck at seventy-five ruling the greatest empire 
 in Europe, without a competitor for his place. Glad 
 stone, at eighty, is still the unchallenged leader of his 
 party. I met him last summer, dining out evenings, 
 and he was in the House of Commons every night, its 
 ablest and most alert debater. But he finds leisure, 
 besides, to interest himself and his countrymen in every 
 question of living moment, upon the platform and in 
 the papers. 
 
 The most delightful incident in London was to see 
 Simon Cameron at ninety, taking his first outing across 
 the water, doing all which fatigues the veteran tourist, 
 
37 8 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 and yet prancing like a colt among the multitudinous 
 lunches, dinners, and parties, where, among guests of 
 distinction, he was easily the most charming and dis 
 tinguished. I love to hear of that veteran of our bar, 
 David Dudley Field, after sixty-one years of continu 
 ous practice, to-day before the Court of Appeals at 
 Albany, to-morrow before the Supreme Court at Wash 
 ington, and in the summer recess attending interna 
 tional judicial conventions in Europe, and giving 
 instruction to ancient civilizations on the codification 
 of laws. Sidney Bartlett but yesterday argues his last 
 case on his ninetieth birthday, gayly returns the greet 
 ing of his friends, and dies, as becomes a great lawyer, 
 in the harness. And as significant as any or all of these 
 examples is the presence with us of our honored guest 
 and loving friend, in full mental and physical vigor, 
 and after sixty years of unremitting labor, still in active 
 practice. These great men have solved the problem of 
 the ages. Their examples teach us that the secret of 
 longevity and health, of continuing power and happi 
 ness in old age, is work. Work is the support of 
 youth. Work accumulates treasures material, bodily, 
 moral, and intellectual in manhood. Work is the 
 vital principle and pleasure of declining years. 
 
 Mr. Silliman, at eighty-four, and after sixty years of 
 professional labor, is a splendid witness for the present 
 as against the past. In the Church and in society, in 
 the club and in politics, in everything which interests a 
 public-spirited citizen, he marches with the procession 
 and leads his division. During his long career he has 
 many times seen the wrong triumphant, and frauds and 
 shams carry off the honors. He has seen the stage 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 379 
 
 occupied by pretenders, and the veneer cracked on 
 popular idols, on the bench, in official station, and in 
 the pulpit, so that the sawdust stuffing appeared. He 
 has witnessed the rise and rule and then the fall of 
 bosses whose power seemed buttressed against assault. 
 He has survived several total destructions and innu 
 merable deadly perils of the Republic. But observation 
 and experience have intensified his confidence in the 
 future, and the cheerful optimism to which he owes his 
 success and vigorous age. Each fall in the action and 
 spirit of Church or Government, in political morality or 
 social duties, has been less serious than the last, and 
 every rise from defeat or degradation has been to a 
 higher level than before. This old planet is a pretty 
 good place on which to live, and even heaven does not 
 tempt a \vise man to leave it until he is called. In 
 better government, larger liberty, broader humanities, 
 and fuller lives there has never been any time equal to 
 to-day since the dawn. But it will be better to-morrow, 
 and still to-morrow. 
 
 I asked an old lawyer who had heard Spencer, Elisha 
 Williams, Sibley, Cady, Hoffman and most of the great 
 advocates whose fame is the glory of our bar, if they 
 would be equally prominent in the contests of the 
 present. It was his judgment that, with the infinite 
 variety of new problems and the enormously enhanced 
 importance of the issues which now tax the powers of 
 the profession, they could not hold their own with 
 Evarts, Carter, Choate, and their peers. 
 
 Three years ago I attended the dinner given in Paris 
 in honor of the hundredth birthday of Chevreul, the 
 famous chemist and scientist. He had the day before 
 
380 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES. 
 
 read to the French Academy the ablest paper of the 
 session. I noticed that the old gentleman seemed very 
 anxious about a guest who sat beside him, and fre 
 quently checked him with touch or word. My host 
 said : " That gentleman is Chevreul s son, and on 
 occasions like this his festive tendencies are a source of 
 great trepidation to his father." " Well," I replied, 
 " but how old is the boy ? " " Oh/ he answered, " the 
 boy is seventy-six." I hope that when we assemble 
 here to celebrate Mr. Silliman s centenary, that Choate 
 will again preside, still jubilantly hilarious, with no 
 restraint upon his humor, and that we may all rejoice 
 in another view of that record of our guest, which is so 
 singularly pure that upon it the recording angel has 
 never dropped a tear. 
 
XXXIII. 
 
 SPEECH AT I22D ANNUAL BANQUET OF THE CHAMBER 
 OF COMMERCE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, AT 
 DELMONICO S, NOVEMBER 1 8, 1890. 
 
 I HAVE attended the meetings of the Chamber of 
 Commerce consecutively for a quarter of a century. I 
 began young. This is the first time that I have ever 
 heard it officially announced by the President of the 
 Chamber that the officials of the United States 
 blocked the way. 
 
 I have noted, as a student of banquets, that after 
 you have passed the sorbet and canvas-back, there is 
 an impatience and a hilarity, growing, I suppose, from 
 seriousness, that lead to a restiveness in the audience 
 which nothing can quell. For the first time in my 
 experience of twenty-five years I have seen this audi 
 ence silent, quiet, utterly immovable for a minute. 
 It was a tribute to American modesty. Every man 
 expected while facing the photographer, whose flash- 
 lighted picture was to immortalize our features for 
 posterity, to occupy a more conspicuous place than his 
 neighbor. The President has alluded to the gloomy 
 circumstances under which this body meets to-night. 
 The artist of the occasion seems to have anticipated 
 it. In the menu he has placed the shield of the Cor 
 poration of the Chamber of Commerce not where it 
 
382 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 usually is, at the head of the card, but upon the table 
 cloth, and over it is a bottle of champagne, and the 
 motto is " Excelsior." 
 
 [Turning to ex-President Cleveland, Mr. Depew 
 said :] 
 
 At a distinguished banquet held recently, my friend, 
 Mr. Cleveland, was placed by my friend, Mr. Springer, 
 in the Presidential nomination for 1892. If I should 
 complete the picture I would create the conditions of 
 1888, and place James G. Elaine in the field, and we 
 would start now. There is nothing like pleasing every 
 body. That s what I m here for. Reciprocity smacks 
 of elections. And when I speak of elections, especially 
 of the recent election, standing upon the same platform 
 with ex-President Cleveland, with my friend George 
 William Curtis, with my friend President Eliot of 
 Harvard, with my friend Horace White of the Post, 
 and my friend Mr. Miller of the Times, I feel lonesome. 
 I think Carl Scliurz should come to my assistance. I 
 feel like the Massachusetts corpse who was killed in a 
 railroad accident, and who remarked to the under 
 taker, "Old man, never mind the expense, but have 
 the sympathizers respectable." But reciprocity but 
 what is reciprocity, anyhow? If my friend, Bishop 
 Potter, will permit me, I will state that it is the Yankee 
 version of the Golden Rule, " Do unto others as they 
 do unto you." But this crisis you always get into 
 trouble if you mix religion and politics. 
 
 In its long and honorable career the Chamber of 
 Commerce has never met upon a more interesting 
 occasion than the present. It represents to-night 
 more than it has done during any one of its 122 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 383 
 
 years. The events of the last few days have revolu 
 tionized the thought and action of the world. They 
 have demonstrated that the real power in the govern 
 ment of Christendom is the man of business. The 
 merchants and the bankers have directed the thought 
 of the world, and become the leaders of its public 
 action. In all ages government has been controlled by 
 classes born to rule, and having little knowledge, by 
 training or opportunity, of business. It is so to-day in 
 all the countries of Europe and Asia. With us the 
 exacting cares and the competitions of business, to 
 gether with its brilliant opportunities, have largely left 
 the management of our public affairs to men unknown 
 in the commercial and financial circles of a country 
 whose people are wholly given to business. 
 
 It has always been the habit in times of great mer 
 cantile or financial distress to rely upon the Govern 
 ment for relief. In England the Bank Act is suspended 
 and enormous powers given to the Bank of England ; 
 upon the Continent the imperial treasuries are opened. 
 With us we frantically appeal to the Secretary of the 
 Treasury to rush into Wall Street and speculate in 
 Government bonds. But a crisis of unequaled serious 
 ness and magnitude has been met and its consequences 
 averted without asking the aid of cabinets or secre 
 taries, without the suspension of statutes or the viola 
 tion of law, by the commercial statesmanship of New 
 York and London. The event so startling in its revela 
 tions has also reversed time-honored prejudices. The 
 ideal of mercantile conservatism and wisdom has been 
 for generations the English banker, while light-headed- 
 ness and frivolity have been supposed to characterize 
 
3 4 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 the Frenchman. But when the British market is 
 threatened with a total collapse, the Bank of England 
 discovers that the imaginary airy frog-eater across the 
 Channel is serenely solvent, and, in the interest of 
 international commerce and good finance, will lend 
 fifteen million dollars at three per cent, when the 
 ruling rate is six. As they are appealed to, the bank 
 ing institutions of Italy, Germany, and Russia respond 
 with equal generosity. 
 
 This is international reciprocity of the broadest and 
 most beneficent character. It opens a vista of hope 
 for the nations, and of progress for the peoples, un- 
 equaled by any single event of our time. It demon 
 strates that the power of peace and war is passing from 
 the hereditary legislator and the accidental politician 
 to the bankers, merchants, and business men of Europe. 
 Steam and electricity have connected by indissoluble 
 links all the marts of Christendom. Commerce and 
 trade have interlinked and intertwined the interests of 
 all European nations under the government of the 
 merchants and the bankers. The details of the preser 
 vation of order and the pageantry of courts can be left 
 to public officials, but these new masters of the situ 
 ation will insist upon the rule of commercial principles 
 and the laws of trade ; they will insist upon the dis 
 banding of expensive and useless armaments; they will 
 create the possibilities for the sun of universal peace 
 to rise as never before and illumine the earth with its 
 refulgent rays, giving to mankind an era of prosperity 
 and happiness. 
 
 We in America were brought face to face with an 
 emergency and a liquidation involving amounts and 
 
CUAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 3 8 5 
 
 consequences which make insignificant the figures 
 which caused the catastrophies of 1857 and 1873. 
 The credit and the business of the country have been 
 saved from disaster by the coolness, the courage, the 
 wisdom, and the foresight of the banks of New York. 
 They banded together upon a principle of patriotic 
 reciprocity. They created conditions which made for 
 bearance possible to the debtor, which saved the man, 
 firm, or corporation whose credit was expanded, and 
 which reversed the axiom that the chain is no stronger 
 than its weakest part, by distributing the strength of 
 the strongest along the whole line. 
 
 But your sentiment calls for a larger discussion of 
 the principles of reciprocity and their application to 
 other fields. It even has a suggestion of something 
 connected with the late election. The size of this 
 calamity or triumph, as we may severally look upon it, 
 is such that we can all good-naturedly view the present 
 situation. As business men it is our privilege, and we 
 can demonstrate it to be our power, to direct the tre 
 mendous momentum of this triumphal car. 
 
 The events of the last few days have developed a 
 peril suspected but never felt. We sell to Europe hun 
 dreds of millions of dollars worth of breadstuffs, provi 
 sions, and live stock. They are consumed by the peoples 
 abroad, and the money pays the expenses of our farm 
 ing, opens new fields to the plow, gives us capital for 
 business, and the surplus increases our national wealth. 
 We sell other hundred millions of dollars worth of 
 cotton, which goes into garments which are worn out 
 across the sea, and that money comes back to still 
 further add to our prosperity and riches. We sell 
 
386 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 other hundreds of millions of railroad stocks and 
 bonds. That money goes into roadbed and rolling 
 stock, and by no process can be turned again into 
 cash. Suddenly a financial 1 cyclone strikes London, 
 Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and Frankfort. Argentines, 
 Turks, Egyptians, cannot be sold. Then their bankers 
 and investors pour upon us an avalanche of our stocks 
 and bonds, and say, " Take back your securities and 
 return us our money." We find we have made a call 
 loan, and must take up the collateral. Within the last 
 few weeks we have stood the strain of the repurchase 
 of all our bonds and stocks which Europe desired to 
 sell. It was a fearful test, but it has superbly demon 
 strated the strength of our financial situation, the 
 soundness of our credit, and the permanence of our 
 prosperity. 
 
 The eight thousand millions of dollars which are the 
 capitalization of the railways of the United States fur 
 nish the securities which are the basis of our business 
 and credit. But the breaking of the dam of this Euro 
 pean reservoir which we have been filling may pour 
 upon us a stream of securities which will reduce values 
 from twenty-five to fifty per cent. Such a contraction 
 would, at certain times, suspend the business of the 
 country, and bring about bankruptcy and ruin. These 
 tremendous possibilities will be averted as we become 
 rich enough to absorb our own securities, and loan our 
 own money for our own development. But to increase 
 our available resources, we must enlarge the area of the 
 markets for our surplus products. 
 
 The solution of our dangerous problems and the 
 solvent of our future prosperity lie largely in the direc- 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 387 
 
 tion of commercial reciprocity among the nations of all 
 America. An imaginary line, four thousand miles in 
 length, divides the United States from Canada. For 
 all the purposes of trade, tariff, and taxation, Canada 
 is independent of Great Britain. She has an area 
 larger than that of the whole United States. She pos 
 sesses incalculable resources which, under favoring cir 
 cumstances, could be developed. She has already a 
 population larger than the State of New York. She 
 needs our commodities, and we need hers in about 
 equal measure, and they could be exchanged to the 
 infinite advantage of both countries. The protection 
 ist, who believes that tariffs should be levied upon 
 the principle of protection ; the tariff reformer, who 
 believes that they should be exacted only for revenue ; 
 the free trader, who thinks that they should not be 
 imposed at all, could all agree upon the principle that 
 whatever tariff laws existed in the United States should 
 be adopted by the Canadian Parliament and become 
 applicable alike along all the coasts of this Republic 
 and Canada, as against the rest of the world. But 
 between themselves there should be the largest reci 
 procity and closest commercial relations. The unifying 
 processes of mutual prosperity produced by commercial 
 union would lead in a few years to political federation, 
 which would carry the American flag from the Falls of 
 Niagara to the North Pole. 
 
 South of us lie the Republics of the other America 
 and of the Isthmus. They have a population of 50,= 
 000,000 of people, and territories w^hich can comfort 
 ably support 1,000,000,000. Emigration is pouring in 
 there at the rate of 500,000 people a year. They 
 
33 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 require in constantly increasing quantities the bread- 
 stuffs, the provisions, the petroleum, the agricultural 
 machinery, the hardware and textile fabrics, most of 
 which we can furnish cheaper and better, and all of 
 which as cheap as any nation in the world. The con 
 ditions of our trade with South America are a stigma 
 upon us as a commercial nation. We buy from South 
 America $112,000,000 worth of goods ayear more than 
 we sell to them. This is paid in cash through London, 
 and the English banker collects from us over a million 
 dollars in commissions for the transaction of the busi 
 ness. 
 
 It is easy to imagine the incalculable advantages 
 which our farmers, merchants, manufacturers, and rail 
 roads would derive from reciprocal purchases from us, 
 if only to the extent of this $112,000,000 a year. 
 Imports to the value of $233,000,000 were sold into 
 two of the South American Republics in 1888. Our 
 farms and factories could have supplied every article 
 which entered those ports, but of this vast sum, the 
 United States only received $13,000,000. The rest 
 went to England, Germany, and France. Of the $742,- 
 000,000 worth of exports from the United States in 
 1888, only $69,000,000 went to the whole of Spanish 
 America. 
 
 In the dark ages of American politics, when the 
 whole country west of the Missouri River was called 
 the Great American Wilderness, \ve in this country 
 knew little or nothing of Mexico or the South Ameri 
 can Republics. The Monroe Doctrine became an 
 article of the creed of all parties. It has meant to us 
 for fifty years little more than that we are opposed to 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 389 
 
 European nations gaining foothold and power in 
 America. In the evolution and possibilities of the 
 last few years the Monroe Doctrine expands into the 
 continental idea of "America for Americans." It 
 covers the territory from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 
 from Cape Horn to the Arctic Circle, and includes in 
 commercial and reciprocal brotherhood one-quarter of 
 the inhabitable globe. 
 
 By an international line, constructed under the most 
 liberal and intelligent governmental assistance, the 
 railway system of North America should be connected 
 with that of the South American states ; by the most 
 friendly of monetary conferences a common coinage 
 might be agreed upon for use among all these Repub 
 lics. Inquiry has developed that the tariff and cus 
 toms regulations of the United States are already so 
 liberal to the products of South America that most of 
 them enter our ports free of duty, and that what we 
 most need to develop an increasing and prosperous 
 trade is quick and cheap communication by land and 
 sea. A few figures will exhibit our commercial poverty 
 in meeting this question. I give the figures for 1888, 
 showing the total number of steamships and sailing 
 vessels entering South American ports, and what pro 
 portion of them sailed from the United States : 
 
 STEAMSHIPS. SAILING VESSELS. 
 
 PORT. United United 
 
 Total. States, Total. States. 
 
 Bahia, Brazil 366 28 173 3 
 
 Valparaiso, Chili 216 I 365 22 
 
 Venezuela 1,155 J 93 6,39* 7 
 
 Bolivia 5,388 417 19 
 
 Uruguay 765 .... 592 16 
 
 Buenos Ay res.. 5,935 7,558 85 
 
39 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES. 
 
 The most of this commerce goes to England, France, 
 and Germany. Each of these countries has subsidized 
 the lines, and has thereby secured the trade of these 
 Republics. We have been kept from these markets, 
 which would enrich our farmers and enormously 
 increase the prosperity of our manufacturers, by adher 
 ing to certain principles of political economy. In a 
 new country like ours, constantly facing novel condi 
 tions and meeting with extraordinary opportunities, 
 most of the principles of political economy which 
 have heretofore guided the world had better be 
 relegated with athletics to the colleges of the Republic. 
 
 Lord Salisbury, the British Premier, within a few 
 days astonished an audience at the Mansion House in 
 London, composed of all that was most brilliant in 
 blood and culture in Great Britain, by acknowledging 
 the political power and commercial potentialities of 
 the American hog. With the control we already pos 
 sess of the markets of Europe in breadstuffs and pro 
 visions, we can relegate the burning question of the 
 pig and his international rights to the realms of 
 diplomacy, if wise legislation by Congress will give to 
 the American merchant the opportunity to carry the 
 product of the American farm to the republics of South 
 and Central America. As merchants, as bankers and 
 business men, we say to Congress, in the language 
 which advertises that most universal and productive of 
 our institutions, the " Kodak :" " You press the button, 
 we will do the rest." 
 
CHAUXCEY M. DEPEW. 39 1 
 
 SPEECH AT THE 1230 ANNUAL BANQUET OF THE 
 CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE STATE OF NEW 
 YORK, AT DELMONICO S, NOVEMBER 17, 1891. 
 
 I DOUBT if I shall say anything worthy of the re 
 porters recording. It is a rule generally observed by 
 veteran after-dinner speakers not to appear among the 
 volunteer toasts. That place is reserved for ambitious 
 gentlemen who have not yet tested their powers, and, 
 having tried them once, never do it again. After the 
 dinner committee has set the pace of the evening, and 
 selected all the sentiments their combined talent can 
 devise, there is nothing left for the skirmisher in the 
 rear a place where a skirmisher should never be. 
 
 There is, however, a certain suggestiveness about the 
 occasion to-night which possibly may allow the oppor 
 tunity for a remark here and there. I was especially 
 impressed with an observation of the Secretary of 
 the Treasury. One of my studies in life has been, 
 what are the processes by which men rise ? Mr. Wilson 
 has alluded to my efforts in that direction, and it is 
 evident that in his mind my processes are not suc 
 cessful. The Secretary of the Treasury naively con 
 fesses that the distinguished position which he has 
 attained in the hearts and in the estimation of his 
 countrymen has been due to the speeches which he 
 never made. 
 
 I think it will be admitted by everyone here that 
 I cannot be charged with climbing that ladder. I 
 will say r however, for the benefit of my friend, the 
 representative of the Administration, that the view 
 
39 2 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 which he took of the opinion of the Chamber of 
 Commerce in its action on silver is not the unan 
 imous opinion of that body. 
 
 The President of the Chamber of Commerce, in an 
 interesting address which he delivered here last year, 
 or the year before, which I still carry in my memory, 
 stated that he had read the record of the society from 
 the beginning down to that period. He is the only 
 man who ever engaged in light reading of that char 
 acter and survived. Among the enlivening incidents 
 which he dug out was that somewhere, many years 
 before the adoption of the Federal Constitution, this 
 Chamber passed a resolution in favor of maintaining 
 the parity of gold and silver, evidently looking forward 
 to the time when silver should be a needed commodity 
 in the currency, and when the genius of American 
 statesmanship would be equal to passing a measure 
 which would preserve its parity. And, in that connec 
 tion, I want to say that in my judgment one of the 
 wisest speeches the Secretary of the Treasury ever 
 made was the one which he uttered last night, not as 
 Secretary of the Treasury, but as a citizen of Ohio, 
 when he said that State would honor herself, do 
 credit to the country, and recognize statesmanship 
 equal to the best we ever had if it returned the author 
 of that bill, John Sherman, to the United States 
 Senate. 
 
 Agreeing with all that Mr. Wilson has said about 
 American public life and the position which the coun 
 try lawyer occupies in making our laws, there is no 
 division of sentiment among men of all parties in this 
 country, that for a man who has done so much for 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 393 
 
 good legislation, for honest money, for all that makes 
 distinction in public life, to leave it would be a public 
 calamity. 
 
 This dinner marks how the Chamber of Commerce 
 has become itself an illustration of the doctrine of 
 evolution. I remember a long period of years when 
 the dinner of the Chamber of Commerce was held for 
 the purpose of inviting politicians who knew nothing 
 of commerce to enlighten merchants upon their busi 
 ness. I have been present when a member of the 
 cabinet from a State which had no shipping delivered 
 an address of an hour and a half upon the establish 
 ment, and the method by which it could be established, 
 of a mercantile marine. That was the time when mer 
 chants of the City of New York utilized the Chamber 
 of Commerce banquet to rest their minds. 
 
 The next period was the one when the Chamber in 
 vited controversial political questions and their eminent 
 representatives. Then the member of the cabinet did 
 not hesitate to state what was the policy of the Ad 
 ministration, nor did a gentleman present on the other 
 side, if he happened to get the floor, hesitate to contro 
 vert the position of the member of the cabinet. Then 
 we had the discussion of the great industrial question 
 of the protective tariff and of revenue reform ; and 
 the dinner which was held before the last Presidential 
 election made that controversy the issue of the cam 
 paign of 1888. Mr. Lamar, then Secretary of the 
 Interior, was here, representing the Administration, 
 and took occasion, in a most eloquent and able address, 
 to set forth the view of the Administration, then first 
 pronounced, that the policy of this country should be 
 
394 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 revenue reform, looking ultimately to free trade. 
 Though a humble citizen in the ranks, coming after 
 ward I took occasion to say that speaking, as I 
 believed, for the party with which I was associated, we 
 accepted the issue, and if the Administration would 
 only put it forth as their policy in the coming campaign, 
 it would be met as frankly as it was boldly stated, and 
 the opinion of the country asked upon it. I am satis 
 fied with the verdict. 
 
 Now, having passed the political period, we come to 
 the higher plane, where the Chamber of Commerce in 
 vites for its orators and its instructors the most distin 
 guished clergy of the country, for the purpose of 
 enlightening them upon the great questions of how to 
 distribute their money, and how to get a proper educa 
 tion. The reason is that, in the intervening period, 
 the Chamber of Commerce has reached that point 
 where most of its members have retired from business, 
 and those who have not are rich enough to retire. So 
 they call upon the ablest expert in the United States 
 to instruct them what to do with their surplus. I 
 have heard Bishop Potter make many admirable 
 addresses and several extremely bold ones, but I never 
 heard him more clearly, succinctly, and lucidly state 
 the situation, as it applies to the audience before him 
 and the elements it represents, than he has to-night. I 
 think, if I might state the converse of his proposition 
 from a purely practical and a lay standpoint, I could 
 enforce his lesson by what I know and feel, and come 
 in contact with. We fear the forces of socialism, and 
 we dread the greater power of anarchy ; but socialism 
 does not spring from spouters, and anarchy does not 
 
CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE IV. 395 
 
 grow by the ravings of demagogues. They both come 
 from real conditions, and those conditions are the ones 
 which men of wealth either meet and relieve, or assist 
 in accentuating and making worse. 
 
 Every man in a responsible position who, in the em 
 ployment of labor and assistance, so manages as to 
 create the impression in the minds of his subordinates 
 and employees that he is master and they are slaves, is 
 a more efficient apostle of socialism than any of its 
 preachers. Any man who is believed to have a great 
 fortune and Abram S. Hewitt stated, in a recent ad 
 dress, that no man was rich except he had twenty 
 millions any man who is rich in that sense or in a 
 lesser sense, but especially in a larger one, who uses 
 his accumulation absolutely selfishly, and spends it 
 neither wisely nor unwisely for the public benefit, is an 
 apostle of anarchy more powerful than all the Hosts 
 and all the men of the type who were hung in Chicago. 
 
 But I am glad that, rising still higher above the mere 
 earthly plane of what you shall do with your money, 
 you come to the great professor of theology to know 
 what you shall do with your souls. There is no ques 
 tion that Professor Briggs is competent to speak 
 upon education in that line. He has a certificate from 
 the Presbytery. In inviting him here, instead of the 
 recognized representatives of orthodoxy, you have 
 indicated what kind of theology you desire. 
 
 A friend of mine who is in active business, and, in 
 the fierce competition of the Street, is compelled in 
 booming things to state facts sometimes with an en 
 larged vision which does not comport exactly with the 
 annual report of his company, said to a member of a 
 
39 6 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 finance committee, where I met him the other day, 
 who had to leave early in order to perform his work 
 on the revision, " My dear sir, make it as easy as 
 you can." 
 
 What we want is education. Not the education of 
 reading, writing, and arithmetic. That is merely to 
 earn a living. That is merely machinery. Not the 
 education which comes from the schools, even in its 
 best sense ; for that is only further equipment for prog 
 ress in life. I remember an old fellow up in West- 
 chester County whom I asked once what he read. 
 " Well," said he, "I never read much of anything; 
 but when times are pretty dull I sometimes take up 
 Daboll s Arithmetic, because a little of it goes a great 
 ways." But what we do want in the w r ay of education 
 is precisely that which seems to me to be symbolized 
 by Dr. Briggs: an education which by travel, by con 
 tact with the world, by a broad management of busi 
 ness, and by a liberal practice of the professions, puts 
 a man in such a position that he can take a comprehen 
 sive and a Catholic view of all questions, and is not 
 afraid to seek the truth, no matter how it is incrusted, 
 nor of the hammer which breaks the crust. 
 
 If there ever was a meeting of the Chamber of Com 
 merce when it could feel joyous and happy, it is their 
 gathering this year. There has been no time within a 
 decade when this body, representing so much as it 
 does of the commerce, of the finance, and of the 
 industrial conditions of this country, could be as con 
 fident of the conditions as they exist and of the 
 prospects as they seem. Speaking purely from a 
 transportation standpoint, and without any intention 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 397 
 
 of booming the corporation with which I am con 
 nected more than any other, the statement, as it comes 
 to me each week, of the phenomenal increase over the 
 corresponding week of the last year, and, running it 
 still further, of the week of the year before, tells the 
 story of that which is to come for every business in 
 the country ; for transportation is the barometer of 
 national prosperity or adversity. There is to be within 
 the next twelve months, and during them, a famine in 
 this land, but it is to be a famine of the means for 
 carrying the vast products of the soil. There is a 
 famine of cars, a famine of locomotives, a famine of 
 the methods by which our enormous harvest is to 
 reach the seaboard and go abroad where it is needed. 
 There are times when a great surplus of grain and 
 fruit is also attended with a lack of prosperity, for the 
 product is greater than the market will take. But this 
 year we have a phenomenal condition of a harvest 
 unequaled for many a year, of prices greater for cereals 
 and live stock than has been secured for them in the 
 past ten years, of the railways receiving full and remu 
 nerative rates for what they carry, and having more 
 than they can do, and of a demand upon the other 
 side, owing to the horrible conditions there, which will 
 take the whole of our surplus, and it will be unequal to 
 the demand. These conditions are going to make rail 
 ways unusually prosperous in their earnings, are going 
 to give more business to every house, no matter what 
 may be the particular article in which it deals, are 
 going to put an amount of money in the hands of the 
 farmer that he has not had in a long time before, are 
 going to lead to the construction of new lines of rail- 
 
398 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 way where they have not even been projected before 
 are going to make a demand for iron, for coal, and for 
 coke and there is going to pour back into this country 
 in the next year twice the surplus of import, of money, 
 over the amount we spent abroad, that we had last 
 year. 
 
 Now, then, for a little comment. This is the year, 
 as it was four years ago, preceding the presidential 
 election. My friend Mr. Mills says that the way to 
 preserve this prosperity is to have free trade, and an 
 income tax to carry on the government. My friend 
 Mr. Cleveland says that the way to preserve this 
 prosperity is to have revenue reform and honest 
 money. Statesmen of Mr. Cleveland s and Mr. Mills 
 party in the South and in the West say that the way 
 to preserve this prosperity is to have free trade and 
 the unlimited coinage of silver. My political friends 
 believe, and are anxious to go to the country on that 
 issue, that the only way to preserve this prosperity is 
 to have the protective principle so enforced that it will 
 protect wherever another mill can be built and another 
 man can be given employment who has no employ 
 ment now ; that the reciprocity principle shall be so 
 pushed that treaties of that character shall be made 
 with every country which has a surplus of the things 
 which we cannot profitably produce, and needs the 
 things of the factory or the farm of which we have a 
 surplus, and that the parity of silver and gold shall be 
 maintained in such a way that both metals shall be 
 used to the extent that the output of our mines will 
 afford, but that there shall be in the Treasury always 
 enough of gold and silver to keep silver equal with 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 399 
 
 gold, and the promise of the Government upon its 
 paper equal to gold. 
 
 SPEECH AT THE I24TH BANQUET OF THE CHAMBER 
 OF COMMERCE, NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 15, 1892. 
 
 I SUPPOSE that I am the only person present who 
 occupies an embarrassing position. A man upon the 
 platform, in the height of a political canvass, makes 
 promises which are difficult for him to fulfill. The 
 trend of events does not create the conditions for 
 which he has prepared his speech. I expected to be 
 here to-night attending the obsequies of a distinguished 
 friend of mine, and I had prepared a eulogium which 
 would be satisfactory to the spirit of the deceased. 
 Instead of that, I discover that I am a listener at a 
 Democratic ratification meeting. I find that the places 
 are changed. I am the corpse, but I feel that even the 
 moribund have privileges. 
 
 A classmate of mine, a preacher, was located in a 
 spiritualistic neighborhood, and the leader of the 
 spiritualists band died. His next friend came to see 
 the clergyman, and said : " We have something of the 
 old Puritan spirit left, though we have renounced it in 
 our practice, and we want our leader buried by Chris 
 tian ceremonial. Will you attend ? " My friend, the 
 clergyman, consented, in the best spirit of Christian 
 charity. He gave out the hymn ; read a passage of 
 Scripture, and made such remarks as he conscientiously 
 could. Whereupon the wife of the dead spiritualist 
 rose, and said that she had a communication from her 
 
400 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 husband. That critical spirit tore the eulogium to 
 pieces, ripped up the Scripture quoted, and denounced 
 the hymn. The surviving leader of the spiritualist 
 band came to the clergyman, and said : " We beg your 
 pardon. We had no idea that our leader would come 
 back here and act in this way, and we hope you will 
 forgive us." " My friend," the clergyman said, " I will 
 forgive you, because it is the first time in the many 
 ministrations that I have had of this kind in this parish, 
 that I have ever been sassed by the corpse." 
 
 My friends must pardon me if I now do a little 
 sassing on my own account. Two years ago I delivered 
 a speech at the Astor House upon a typical American. 
 That speech was used at the Chicago Convention suc 
 cessfully. It has been the sole Democratic campaign 
 document of this great canvass, and it has met with 
 equal success. I feel that I am somewhat responsible 
 for the conditions that I mourn. I cannot add any 
 thing to what I was alleged to have said on that occa 
 sion, because a greater orator than I has spoken ; it was 
 the American people who spoke last Tuesday. They 
 have pronounced Mr. Cleveland s eulogy. They have 
 pronounced it not in figures of speech, but in figures 
 which are disastrous to us. 
 
 I listened with the greatest interest to the addresses 
 of my Democratic friends here to-night. I have been 
 so absorbed attending our meetings that I had no 
 opportunity of going to theirs, and this is the first 
 time I have heard their speeches. If they were all of 
 the character, the fervor, the fluency, and the felicity of 
 that of Mr. Breckinridge, I can account for their success. 
 
 I regret that my friend Mr. McKelway, from over 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 4 O1 
 
 the river, from that County of Kings which is eternally 
 making trouble in the Democratic party, should have 
 thrown a brick at the selected candidate of the Demo 
 cratic party for the Senate. It made me grieve that at 
 this early day there should be those dissensions in the 
 party which promise anything but the happiness which 
 Mr. Cleveland ought to have in the first year of his 
 administration. 
 
 I sympathize somewhat with Mr. Cleveland in the 
 feeling he has expressed that too much is said about 
 business interests threatening this, or business interests 
 promising that ; and yet, as our friends have been out 
 of power for thirty years, and have not had the duty 
 thrust upon them of dealing with business interests, I 
 want to give them this word of warning : that business 
 interests have, like the wasp, a " business end " ; and 
 they had better be careful how they fool with it. 
 
 Five years ago this contest began in this Chamber 
 at this annual banquet. As a humble citizen I had 
 some part in it. Mr. Lamar, an eloquent and able 
 representative of his party, and one of the most 
 eloquent and able men of the country, was here as a 
 member of the cabinet of Mr. Cleveland, to deliver 
 the views of the Administration upon current questions. 
 He outlined the campaign of revenue reform, of a tariff 
 for revenue only, which was new to us. We listened 
 with profound interest and with grave speculation. 
 Coming after him, and feeling instinctively that I spoke 
 the sentiments of the party of which I was a member, 
 I said, " If that is a challenge, we, on our part, accept 
 it. We stand by a policy which has been ours for a 
 quarter of a century. We go into a new canvass next 
 
402 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 year. If that canvass can only be based upon the 
 broad lines of principles so distinct and acute upon one 
 side and the other, as a tariff for protection or a tariff 
 for revenue only, we accept it ; and abandoning the 
 discussion of candidates, which has been too much the 
 habit of parties, we will enter upon the broader and 
 nobler theme of party principles." 
 
 Mr. Cleveland shortly afterward sent his famous 
 message to Congress, which brought the question 
 before the people ; and in 1888 we went to the country 
 upon it, and we won. For four years that question has 
 been the uppermost one in all discussions in the press, 
 upon the platform, in private conversation, and in Con 
 gress. It has been again submitted to the people, and 
 they have declared that they wish to try the experi 
 ment. Now I say to my friends again, for I am here 
 as a moribund, I say to them again, that, having won 
 the election upon phrase and fable, they must put the 
 phrase into statute, and the fable into law. When I 
 spoke here five years ago, accepting on behalf of the 
 Republican party the challenge to this great contest 
 which was to reverse the policy of twenty-seven years, 
 I spoke as a politician, believing that it was an issue 
 upon which we could win. Having been defeated now 
 upon that issue, I speak as a business man, and I say 
 to this Administration that there will be no obstacles 
 placed by us to the accomplishment of their purpose 
 of testing this experiment ; there will be no delays of 
 legislation ; there will be no obstruction in either 
 House. The country has, by an overwhelming major 
 ity, asked that the experiment should be tried, and the 
 country is entitled to have it tried at once. 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPElV. 43 
 
 Up in Peekskill we had at one time that Millerite 
 excitement which went over the country, when Miller 
 predicted that on a certain night, at twelve o clock, the 
 world would come to an end. A very good and pious 
 man, a shoemaker of our village, believed in Miller s 
 doctrine. He left his business early on the last day, 
 locked up his store, and prepared himself and family 
 for the dread event. When twelve o clock had passed, 
 and it got to be one o clock, the shoemaker felt that 
 he must appeal to some higher power than Mr. Miller. 
 He said : " O Lord, if the millennium is to come, let 
 it come now, and then I shall be translated at once to a 
 land where the people wear no shoes, and shoemakers 
 are happy in doing nothing ; but if it is to be post 
 poned, let me know now, because I must get ready 
 Mrs. Brown s shoes for Sunday morning church or lose 
 the best customer I have." 
 
 This is the position of the country to-day. There is 
 no policy which can ruin this country. The policy of 
 protection which we have practiced for thirty years 
 has not succeeded in ruining us, even in the belief of 
 my Democratic friend from Kentucky. Perhaps the 
 policy of my friend here will not succeed in ruining 
 us. The country is so vast, its resources are so enor 
 mous, the genius of our people for business is so tre 
 mendous, that we rise to any emergency ; we overcome 
 any difficulty. The only question is, under which 
 principles and policy shall we be the more prosperous ; 
 for we shall have a certain measure of prosperity under 
 any policy which any Administration may adopt. But 
 if we are to be for the next year debating what is to be 
 the policy of the country, then we are to have a year 
 
44 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 of stagnation in business. We can handle a certainty 
 and adjust ourselves to it, whatever it may be. But 
 doubt is distrust, and distrust ends in bankruptcy. 
 This country never was so rich ; it never had so much 
 money to invest ; there never were so many enter 
 prises which were calling for capital ; and there were 
 never so many opportunities for capital to profitably 
 engage in business. Capital, however, remains locked 
 up. All the opportunities for employment which 
 capital gives are not available, through the caution of 
 capital and business until the capitalist knows upon 
 what principle he is to make his investment. Now if, 
 as my friend from Kentucky says, the country is full 
 of people who for the past twenty-seven years have 
 been struggling to earn a living, and are in the throes 
 of poverty, and are looking at the open door of the 
 poorhouse let them be kept there not one day longer 
 than is necessary. It will indeed revive the age of 
 miracles if free trade gives independence or riches to 
 the man who, with the great opportunities of the last 
 thirty years, has grown poorer every day and is now a 
 pauper. 
 
 Our friends have from now until the 4th of March 
 to formulate their measures ; and they have been study 
 ing the question for twenty-seven years. If, after 
 twenty-seven years, and from now until the 4th of 
 March, they cannot formulate the economical policy 
 which is to bring this great prosperity and millennial 
 period to our country, I shall despair of its being done 
 on December 10. 
 
 But we have had enough of politics, and the cam 
 paign is over. We made our fight, and it was an 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 405 
 
 honorable one for both sides. We have made it with 
 out malice or vindictiveness. It has closed with better 
 feeling than any preceding election which has been 
 had in this country for fifty years. The whole country 
 rises to Mr. Cleveland and salutes him as the President 
 of the United States. The people recognize the gravity 
 of the situation and the grandeur of the opportunity. 
 They appreciate that he occupies a position at once 
 critical and adventurous. If his policy is successful, 
 then he will stand during the century as the evangel 
 of measures which have accomplished more for the 
 prosperity and happiness of the people than the best 
 statesmen of the past have done. If, however, when 
 his policy has been fairly tried, the result shall be dis 
 appointment or failure, then Mr. Reid and I will 
 meet our friends at the Chamber of Commerce dinner 
 four years from to-night, and the Democratic corpse 
 will have the opportunity to " sass " us. 
 
XXXIV. 
 
 FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS AS PRESIDENT OF THE 
 UNION LEAGUE CLUB OF NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 
 II, 1886. 
 
 Gentlemen : 
 
 My friend Mr. Cannon says : " Now is a good time 
 for you to say something to the club." 
 
 Mr. Cannon s suggestions are always wise, and I 
 adopt his advice not to deliver a formal inaugural, but 
 to express my acknowledgments. Those who have 
 braved the frightful storm to-night to come here 
 deserve to be entertained by the choicest eloquence, 
 and while I cannot meet this demand, let me hope you 
 will not regret not having stayed out in the rain. In 
 common with all American citizens of proper age, I 
 have always regarded it as a possible and probable event 
 to be elected President of the United States, but never 
 in my most ambitious mood did I hope for or aspire 
 to the Presidency of the Union League Club. It is the 
 unexpected which gives the greatest gratification, and 
 in returning thanks for the honor with which you have 
 so pleasantly and cordially surprised me, I can only say 
 that it is the highest compliment of a lifetime. But it 
 is not to hear expressions, however deep, earnest, and 
 heartfelt, that we are met here to-night. There is no 
 nobler subject for thought, no more suggestive history, 
 than this club of which we are all proud to be mem- 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 4 7 
 
 bers. Of the vast numbers of men proposed but few 
 are nominated ; of those nominated but few are 
 elected ; and so our organization illustrates and 
 proves the truth and excellence of the Darwinian theory 
 of the survival of the fittest. 
 
 The Union League Club is the only such institution 
 in this country which owes its creation to the spirit of 
 unselfishness and sacrifice. Social clubs spring from 
 the desire of men for pleasure and companionship ; 
 race and national clubs glorify and aid their people or 
 country ; political clubs secure places and preferment 
 for their members ; but our patriotic founders organ 
 ized that they might give more effectively of their time, 
 their money, and their lives to the salvation of the im 
 periled Government. 
 
 Charity, which covers a multitude of sins, finds none 
 in its history which needs the oblivion of her broad 
 mantle, but her spirit dominated the birth of the club. 
 It was no ordinary assistance, no commonplace sub 
 scription that was required, but the messengers of mercy 
 Were to go upon the battlefields and into the camps 
 and hospitals, carrying relief, succor, love, and life ; 
 smoothing, if need be, the pathway to the grave, but 
 oftener restoring the sick or wounded soldier to health 
 and duty, or saving him for his home and the gratitude 
 of his countrymen ; and this was part of the early work 
 of the Union League. 
 
 It is the special pride and glory of our part in the 
 war of the rebellion that we first recognized the fact 
 that if four million of slaves were to be enfranchised 
 and incorporated into the body politic, they must be 
 permitted to assert their manhood and learn the value, 
 
4 8 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 of liberty by fighting and dying for it. When it armed 
 and equipped six thousand men for the army, it per 
 formed a great service, but when it raised and sent for 
 ward a colored regiment it accomplished a work of 
 inestimable value. Race hatred made even the streets 
 of New York unsafe for the freedman. He was hunted 
 like a wild beast by wild beasts in human form ; he was 
 hung on lamp-posts and starved and burned, and busi 
 ness boycott and social ostracism awaited those who 
 befriended him. Then it was that the Union League 
 clothed him in the uniform of the soldier of the Union, 
 gave him the flag of the Republic and the gun with 
 which to defend it, and, closing about the negro regi 
 ment, marched as its escort through Broadway. By 
 this act of moral courage the scales were removed from 
 the eyes of the American people, and in the manhood 
 of the freedman the South saw the collapse of the 
 Confederacy and the North the solution of the problem 
 of enfranchisement. Pursuing with undeviating steps 
 the principles it had established, that in a Republic all 
 men, without regard to race or creed or previous condi 
 tions, should be equal before the law, the club did not 
 relax its efforts until it had seen, and largely by its labor 
 secured, the adoption into the Constitution of the 
 United States of the results won by the sacrifice of so 
 much blood and treasure. 
 
 While at the close of the war other organizations, 
 formed with a like object, disbanded, their work done, 
 the far-sighted founders of this club clearly saw that in 
 a free government the battle is ever set between right 
 and wrong, between wisdom and folly, between truth 
 and fallacy, between patriotism and demagogy, and 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 4 9 
 
 they resolved to perpetuate an institution which should 
 be the best of social clubs, but in a broad and national 
 sense should struggle for the maintenance of sound 
 principles and the election of good men for the man 
 agement of the Republic. The safety and continu 
 ance of government by the people rest upon the ballot- 
 box. For a generation, at one time and another, the 
 expression of the popular will has been defeated by 
 fraud, and the temporary indignation of the defeated 
 party over, partisans congratulated each other upon the 
 success of the trick and schemed to beat it in the 
 future. The resentment over the false returns in 1868 
 would have died out as before, except that in this club 
 existed the power for organized and continued agita 
 tion. And it ceased not until the registry had been 
 secured and the Federal election laws enacted. In 
 doing this we builded better than we knew, for had it 
 not been for the Federal supervisor with the power of 
 the nation behind him, the intimidated vote and the 
 tissue ballot would have subverted the government. 
 It was necessary for the preservation of the rights and 
 liberties gained by the Civil War, that the party which 
 had successfully carried it on should administer the 
 affairs of the Republic until a loyal generation had 
 grown up, and this was secured only by the protection 
 which the election laws gave to the ballot. 
 
 At a time when both political parties and all politi 
 cians and public men believed that party success was 
 dependent upon the rigid enforcement of the rule that 
 to the victors belong the spoils, this club proclaimed 
 the necessity of civil service reform. The declaration 
 was received with universal derision, and contemptu- 
 
 OF TH* 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
410 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 ously dismissed from every political council in the land. 
 Government National, State, and Municipal was run 
 upon feudal principles. Public officers held that their 
 allegiance was, first, to the power which appointed them, 
 next, to their party, and lastly, to the service of which 
 they were the employees. Senators and Congressmen 
 rested their fortunes and their power, like the barons 
 of old or the daimios of Japan, upon the number of 
 their retainers who were supported by the State. But 
 to-day civil service reform is the creed of all parties and 
 has found recognition upon the statute book. It may 
 be temporarily defeated by subterfuges of " offensive 
 partisanship," but we have surely placed the public ser 
 vice upon the business basis of competitive examina 
 tion, of competence, of integrity, and of removal only 
 for cause. 
 
 The reforms inaugurated by this club, and its assist 
 ance in overturning rings and combinations, are part 
 of the best history of our country, our State, and 
 our City of New York, and while time does not allow 
 me to describe them in detail, no mention of our past 
 and present would be complete which did not enforce 
 our efforts for honest currency and sound finance. 
 Next to the suppression of the rebellion, no question 
 is of such vital importance. 
 
 This club represents in its membership a majority of 
 the business interests of the metropolis, and has always 
 had the courage to assert its convictions. The crisis of 
 " fiat money " was more perilous than the present. 
 With mills closed, industry paralyzed, and credit un 
 stable, popular passion sought, with blind energy, a 
 remedy or a victim. The wild cries against bondhold- 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 4 1 * 
 
 ers, coupon cutters, and banks consolidated the West 
 and South and drove them into a delirium for revolu 
 tion or unlimited and irredeemable paper. 
 
 This club furnished the nucleus for resistance and for 
 education ; by speeches and pamphlets it appealed to 
 the intelligence of the country, working with and 
 through every agency of popular expression, and in 
 the resumption of specie payments national and indi 
 vidual credit were preserved. Only theorists were in 
 terested in paper, but to-day a powerful and very 
 wealthy industry stands behind and furnishes the sinews 
 of war to the theorists in the fight for silver. The 
 West and the South are again consolidated by appeals 
 to prejudice, and argument is consumed in unreasoning 
 anger against what are termed money centers, cap 
 italists, national banks, and bondholders. 
 
 Men forget that labor has a larger stake than capital 
 in honest money. They forget that depreciated cur 
 rency, just in proportion as it is below the standard of 
 gold, robs first the producer and the wage worker. We 
 are a commercial nation, and our currency must con 
 form to accepted values. Our credit is of the highest : 
 let it not be impaired. Out of the depression of four 
 years we are entering upon a longer career of business 
 prosperity. It can only be retarded by our own folly. 
 We must not lose our gold by permitting the debased 
 dollar to drive it abroad ; we must not encourage an 
 unhealthy speculation, to be followed by bankruptcy ; 
 we must stop the compulsory coinage of silver. 
 
 It has been ever the pride and glory of the Union 
 League to welcome to its house, and to put upon its 
 roll of honor the heroes of the war, and to place their 
 
412 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 portraits in its gallery. As one by one they have 
 passed away, it has enshrined the deeds and memories 
 of the dead in imperishable form in its records, and 
 cherished with more loving regard the fast fading 
 remnant left behind. When only a few months since 
 the great chieftain was borne to his last resting place in 
 our city, and the whole nation formed his escort, the 
 procession was led by a soldier who seemed to typify 
 in his manly presence all the nobility and chivalry of 
 war, and to-day he follows his commander to the silent 
 land. General Winfield Scott Hancock has been our 
 guest at a reception memorable for its representative 
 character. We answered his appeal for help in the 
 crisis of his campaign with new regiments and with 
 money, and he was among our honorary members. Of 
 all our generals he was in appearance the ideal soldier. 
 His splendid physique, his martial bearing, and his 
 chivalric courage made him the idol of his troops and 
 endeared him to his countrymen. He stood like a wall 
 at Gettysburg and saved the North from invasion ; he 
 charged like a crusader at the Wilderness and snatched 
 victory from defeat. I remember, as if it were but yes 
 terday, McClellan s dispatch to his wife which thrilled 
 the country, " Hancock was superb to-day " ; and when 
 the account^ came of the conflict we learned that it was 
 the bayonet charge led by himself which turned the 
 tide of battle and saved the army. We drop our tears 
 upon his bier, we extend our tenderest sympathies to 
 her he loved so well and who was so worthy of his love, 
 and reverently lay in the grave the body of " one of the 
 few, the immortal names that were not born to die." 
 But great as have been the services of this club and 
 
CHA UNCE Y M. DEPE IV. 4 J 3 
 
 powerful as is its influence, its strength and perpetuity 
 are in its unequaled social opportunities and appoint 
 ments. Only dangers and emergencies of the most 
 urgent character will call citizens to a meeting or secure 
 sustained effort for progress or reform. The organiza 
 tions which have been formed for these purposes soon 
 die out. This great city is too large for the concen 
 tration of public sentiment in united effort for its best 
 interests. 
 
 Everyone believes the city capable of taking care of 
 itself ; we are deficient in local patriotism and pride, 
 and it is fashionable to decry and despise official life 
 and public men. I remember many years ago, that, 
 while a member of the Legislature, I performed some 
 service for New York which led some citizens to pay 
 me that highest form of metropolitan compliment and 
 reward a dinner. At the table were many of the 
 men who had the largest stake in good government by 
 controlling the greatest business interests and having 
 the most wealth. Not one of them could name his 
 alderman, his member of assembly, or his Senator. 
 Few of them ever voted, except at Presidential elec 
 tions, and none of them had ever attended a primary 
 or a caucus. But they were unanimous in decrying 
 the degeneracy of public life, in stating their distrust 
 of any business or professional man who took office, 
 and in complaining of bad government and exorbitant 
 taxation. Said the then largest merchant in the city, 
 " I never give credit to a man who takes office." I 
 answered, " If in a government by the people you 
 refuse to take part and treat with ostracism and con 
 tempt those who do, you alone are responsible for the 
 
4 1 4 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES. 
 
 low standard of official morals and bring upon your 
 selves all the bad legislation from which you suffer." 
 But in the congregations which the attractions of our 
 club bring here, a partial remedy is found for the dan 
 gerous and growing evil of private neglect of public 
 duty. It is both wise and proper that it should be a 
 party club, not in a slavish spirit of unquestioning sup 
 port of men and measures bearing the party stamp, 
 but in the broad spirit which can both criticise and 
 resent, and thus largely influence the action of the 
 political organization to which it belongs. We should 
 make this the best clubhouse in the world. Let its 
 cuisine be unapproachable, its service restful and com 
 forting. Let it be the home of art, and its library, its 
 reading rooms, its nooks and alcoves, its places for 
 amusement and recreation fitted for every taste and 
 refinement. Next to our homes, we should love to 
 be here. During each month the members in these 
 halls, in new acquaintances and in old acquaintances 
 ripening into friendship, would strengthen themselves 
 and increase the collective influence of the club. The 
 attachment which binds the collegian to his secret 
 society should be the loyalty which the Union League 
 receives. Then will it become identified with the best 
 efforts and most pleasurable hours of active life, and in 
 old age our choicest recollections will be of happy 
 days, of memorable nights, of noble friendships at 
 the club. 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 41$ 
 
 SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS AS PRESIDENT OF THE 
 UNION LEAGUE CLUB, NEW YORK, FEBRUARY IO, l88/. 
 
 I RETURN you my thanks for the confidence ex 
 hibited by this second election to the Presidency. It 
 is an honor the more highly appreciated as one knows 
 better the history and character of the club. I know 
 of no position outside of official life so grateful to a 
 citizen of New York. This organization differs widely 
 from the other clubs which form so large a part of 
 the social life of our city, in supplementing condi 
 tions for enjoyment equal to any of them, with an 
 origin identified with an heroic period and an active 
 and aggressive public spirit. 
 
 I am happy to report that the onerous and exacting 
 duties of the past year have left your presiding officer 
 in excellent health and with unimpaired powers. I am 
 led from my experience with the administration and 
 cares of this exalted position to doubt the reports, so 
 common in the daily press, that the labors and duties 
 of government are undermining the constitutions and 
 shortening the lives of those who have in charge the 
 destinies of the Republic. I believe their impaired 
 health and failing vitality are due to other causes than 
 the performance of official duty. It is true that the 
 President of the Union League is freed from those dis 
 sensions within and assaults from without which harass 
 the chief magistrate of the Nation. The President of 
 the United States canvasses the opinions of his party 
 and discovers, that so far as they are voiced by its lead 
 ing representatives and newspaper organs, there is a 
 
LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 startling unanimity in disapproval of his course and 
 anxiety that he may not be renominated. He looks 
 for comfort to the partisans who voted against him, 
 and finds them serenely contemplating a new campaign, 
 under their own banner and for one of their own faith. 
 But within these walls no strifes exist. There is 
 always substantial unanimity. It is not because there 
 is a dead level of common sentiment and opinion. It 
 is not for the reason that we are deficient in opinion 
 ated, bumptious, and egotistical members, or men of 
 marked, aggressive, and original ideas. Every element 
 of diverse and warring conditions is here, and we are 
 within ourselves a miniature republic. The reason 
 these antagonisms do not break out in revolt, in revolu 
 tion, and divide us into hostile camps, is because the 
 government of the club is a faithful reproduction of 
 the ancient Athenian democracy. Sixteen hundred 
 members agreeing in the main upon the great ques 
 tions which divide the country, and yet retaining the 
 healthy friction of individual differences, render a loyal 
 support to the management because in our democracy 
 each so frequently has the opportunity to participate. 
 The committees formulate our policy and opinions, and 
 once a month the whole club criticises, amends, dis 
 approves, or affirms. We admit that sixty millions of 
 people could not govern themselves in that way ; but 
 the Athenian democracy, which produced the greatest 
 poets, orators, philosophers, and statesmen of antiquity ; 
 which treated every citizen who believed the state 
 could not exist without him, to banishment or the 
 hemlock; which fostered and encouraged genius in 
 every department of human intelligence adopted as 
 
CHAUXCEY M. DEPEW. 417 
 
 the model for government by the Union League 
 Club, has given it permanence and power, and has 
 made it an important and ever present factor in 
 the public affairs of the Republic. 
 
 It would not be possible for any man to speak, in 
 acknowledgment of his elevation to the presidency of 
 this organization, without saying something of the 
 spirit which underlies it and in which it was born. 
 This club lives not in the past ; but it is proud of the 
 past. It is not dependent upon what has gone before, 
 but it has the inspiration of all the glorious things 
 which placed it in being and have been the impetus of 
 its life. It was created, not as clubs usually are where 
 men of similar pursuits, thoughts, inclinations, and 
 social tendencies gather for mutual amusement, recre 
 ation, and the passing of idle hours ; but at a time 
 such as never before existed and we trust never will 
 again, at a time when the country was in the throes 
 of a revolution which threatened the national life ; 
 which threatened to engulf every interest and even 
 liberty itself in a common ruin, this club sprang 
 into existence. For the past thirty years, no matter 
 what may have been said in derogation of this 
 city, New York has been the metropolis of the 
 nation. No matter what her government, or the criti 
 cisms upon it, the opinion of New York was vital in 
 the affairs of the nation and to its civilization and 
 progress. New York occupied much the same relation 
 to the country, and does to-day, as Paris long did to 
 France, though one not quite so potential. It was an 
 anomaly, it was insufferable, when the Republic was in 
 the very agony of dissolution, that the city of New 
 
41 8 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 York should be in sympathy with those who favored 
 its overthrow, and that its moral force should be on 
 the side of the destruction of our institutions. It was 
 to place New York where the city should be, to culti 
 vate and concentrate and give expression to the loyal 
 and patriotic sentiment of the metropolis ; it was to 
 infuse into our citizens a love of country which would 
 be felt from one end of the land to the other ; it was to 
 put down disloyalty here and rebellion elsewhere, that 
 the Union League Club was organized. It accom 
 plished that mission, and in the most signal way. 
 But the Union League Club is abreast of the times 
 and the questions of the hour. When the issues of a 
 purely patriotic character were settled, it lived on to 
 take the phase of a social club, retaining always its 
 natal spirit of interest in the public affairs of the day 
 and the expression of its views upon them. To the 
 Union League Club was largely due the impelling force 
 which carried through the Reconstruction Acts, and 
 put into the Constitution of the United States in per 
 manent and enduring form the results won upon our 
 battlefields ; which fought out in the press, in public 
 prints, and upon the platform the principles of sound 
 finance and honest currency, and maintained the 
 national honor and credit. 
 
 The club bears no animosities. It recognizes the 
 conditions as they exist to-day, and will meet those 
 which arise to-morrow without regard to the past. 
 When it was developed that the war was actually over; 
 that the great surging, resurrecting influences of uni 
 versal liberty and unification were felt in the develop 
 ment of industries in all parts of the land ; when the 
 
CHA UNCE Y M. DEPP: W. 4*9 
 
 South, disenthralled and regenerated, found in its new 
 life marvelous wealth and prosperity ; when it sent 
 here on the 2ist day of December last an eloquent 
 representative of its people, who, in a speech of twenty 
 minutes, won a national fame, because he recognized a 
 re-established brotherhood and oneness of national 
 spirit in every part of our land the first to welcome 
 and to cheer was the Union League Club. 
 
 We are in the midst of events which, on the surface, 
 appear to threaten revolution, the overturning of our 
 social relations, a permanent disturbance of the in 
 dustrial conditions of the country, the loss of credit, 
 and the paralysis of employment for labor and capital 
 but they are not. There is that seething and bubbling 
 of the elements which always precedes and accom 
 panies great industrial and national prosperity. There 
 never was a time when the signs were brighter for the 
 healthful investment of capital and the remunerative 
 employment of labor, for the development of the 
 vast, the incalculable opportunities for national wealth 
 and growth, than to-day. The anarchist sees that if 
 there is to be universal prosperity nobody will join in 
 the disruption of the state and society. The socialist 
 knows that if there is to be a well-paid and permanent 
 employment for labor, with its savings going into 
 banks and homesteads, he will have no following for a 
 general distribution of property, and the leveling of 
 all to the standard of the least competent, industrious, 
 and skillful. The labor agitator who has no other 
 vocation, who lives by assessing those whom he orders 
 to strike, who can prosper himself only in periods of 
 general distress, when men are looking anywhere and 
 
420 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 everywhere for help and relief would stop the good 
 times coming if he could, because in universal pros 
 perity there is no place for him, and he must work. 
 The Union League Club appreciates these conditions, 
 and its voice is heard from one end of the land to the 
 other in favor of law, of order, and all that tends to 
 prosperity, happiness, and content ; it is on the side of 
 the largest liberty of the individual to do as he pleases 
 with his muscles and brains to work when he likes 
 and be idle when he chooses, with no man or organiza 
 tion to molest or intimidate him. 
 
 We had, during the past year, a celebration in this 
 club which marked a most important event in the 
 history of the Republic. Great battles are not the 
 controlling causes of success in mighty revolutions. 
 There have been only fifteen decisive battles of the 
 world, according to authority, out of the hundreds of 
 thousands which have been fought. The occasion 
 which called us together was the twenty-fifth anniver 
 sary of the day when the first regiment of colored 
 troops, one which this club had raised, marched down 
 Broadway accompained by all our members. The 
 multitude and magnitude of the crises and events since 
 then have obscured its importance, and it seems to 
 belong to ancient history, but it is within most of our 
 recollections. It was the significant recognition by 
 the Union League Club of the lines upon which victory 
 must be won, of the broad, deep, and enduring founda 
 tions which must be laid under the reconstructed 
 Republic. It meant the citizenship of all men upon 
 like conditions, and their equality before the law. 
 When, to emphasize their work, this club marched 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 421 
 
 down Broadway with that regiment, braving a hostile 
 mob, and their wives, who had presented its flag, rode 
 along defying the social ostracism of the hour, the 
 news, flashing over the country and penetrating the 
 rebel line, inspired hope in the breast of every negro 
 and poor white, and was a revelation to the world of 
 the possibility and necessity of union without slavery, 
 and with full citizenship and the broadest liberty as 
 the common right of all. It meant the peace and 
 perpetuity of the nation. 
 
 We kept still abreast of the times when we recog 
 nized the full significance and spirit of that magnifi 
 cent gift which the French people made to America. 
 In our busy life, in the whirl and rush of our industrial 
 and material pursuits, the people of this country did 
 not for a while feel the generous spirit of this tribute. 
 It was first recognized in this club, and a committee 
 raised to prosecute the enterprise until its completion. 
 It was by the exertion of that committee, and the 
 triumphant efforts of the World newspaper, that the 
 pedestal was built and America put in a position to 
 honorably receive the Statue of Liberty. When Bar- 
 tholdi arrived, accompanied by the representatives of 
 the French Republic, they were received within these 
 walls, not only as guests, not only with ordinary 
 hospitality, but with all the honors the club could 
 bestow, and with the representatives of every depart 
 ment of the Government to join in the salutation and 
 welcome. It was telegraphed through the country, 
 and aroused the enthusiasm of the olden time ; flashed 
 by the cable under the ocean, renewing the memories 
 of a hundred years ago ; and the world saw that the 
 
422 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 friendship of nations, surviving the centuries and keep 
 ing pace with the years, could grow brighter as the 
 generations descend. 
 
 I desire to call your attention to a subject in which 
 I think the club can take a peculiarly appropriate and 
 important interest. There are at present no great 
 questions occupying our minds or time. But there 
 are matters outside of political issues, and in the field 
 of general discussion and controversy, which are impor 
 tant constituents of the forces of education and culture, 
 or rather the germs of national character. Among 
 them none are more important than the encouragement 
 and development of art. Our club has in its Gallery, 
 at each monthly meeting, the best pictures of the dif 
 ferent foreign schools, and on one memorable night 
 during the year we were gratified and surprised by the 
 success of the committee in collecting a remarkable 
 exhibition of the works of American artists. It was 
 here that the idea of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 
 originated and took practical and enduring form. Its 
 projectors found that New York, alone among the 
 great cities of the world, had no public gallery or collec 
 tion where the people could enjoy the pleasure of see 
 ing and studying the best results of the genius of all 
 ages on canvas and in the metals and stone. The 
 Metropolitan Museum, in its present and its promise, 
 redeems our city from the charge of utter and beastly 
 sordidness, and with municipal and individual benefac 
 tion it will become a grand treasury of the past and the 
 popular college for the future. But its best features 
 must necessarily belong to other civilizations than our 
 own. We have money and mines, factories and farms, 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 4 2 3 
 
 mills and telegraphs and railroads enough to give a 
 distinctively American character to our industrial life ; 
 we have at last a recognized national literature ; and 
 we want and must have an equally original and univer 
 sally recognized school of American art. The idiosyn 
 crasies produced by the commingling of all national 
 ities in our cities, the wild life of our plains, the 
 picturesque conditions of our frontiers and plains and 
 mining and hunting camps, and our unrivaled scenery, 
 present unequaled opportunities. Now every palace 
 and picture gallery, from Maine to the golden coast, is 
 filled with representations of court and castle scenes, of 
 queens drawing rooms, imperial reviews, German and 
 French soldiers, or cottage and tavern interiors of a 
 peasant life foreign to us. Neither historical characters 
 and events, nor popular incidents nor characteristics 
 nor scenery, recall or suggest anything except to travel 
 ers, and to them only the memories of an idle day. 
 
 We pay fabulous sums for these canvases, and in 
 many cases the buyer purchases names, not works of art. 
 He fears the sneer of the critic and Americo-phobiac ; 
 he would fight for his country s liberty or honor, but 
 would die sooner than encounter the suspicion that he 
 was ignorant of art, because his walls were hung with 
 American pictures. The American artist whose paint 
 ings sell for two hundred dollars at home goes abroad 
 for a few years, has his picture in the Salon, puts a 
 foreign prefix or affix to his name, and gets two thou 
 sand dollars, in addition to the duty, for anything he 
 does. It would promote patriotism and immeasurably 
 increase refinement and culture in its best sense, if, 
 under proper encouragement, American genius were 
 
424 LIFE AND LA TER SPEECHES OF 
 
 framing on undying canvases the glories of our history 
 and heroes, and the beauties of nature s noble .gifts, 
 and the novel situations presented by the original con 
 ditions of our complex national life. 
 
 I firmly believe in the policy and beneficial results 
 of a wise protective tariff, in encouraging and fostering 
 our industries and products ; but under the pretext of 
 revenue, when the surplus is so great that it already 
 threatens the peace and virtue of the country, interest 
 or ignorance puts provisions into the statutes which 
 threaten to bring the whole system into contempt. 
 An alien dealer, a sharp lawyer, and a careless com 
 mittee formed the combination which made possible a 
 duty of thirty per cent, on works of art. Genius knows 
 no limitations, whether of race, of territorial bounda 
 ries, or of time. The productions of the modern 
 Continental and English schools are among the noblest 
 works of any age. 
 
 For our enjoyment and education, until we have a 
 well-defined school of art, and always thereafter, as 
 parts of every well-selected gallery, we should freely 
 welcome these splendid creations. American artists 
 did not ask for this protection ; they have petitioned 
 for its repeal. The Art Committee of this club sent 
 out a circular to American artists, requesting their 
 views on the art tariff. Eleven hundred and ninety- 
 seven answers were for free art, and only seven for the 
 tariff. When in Europe recently, I found that young 
 American artists were given the same advantage in the 
 great studios and galleries as the citizens of the various 
 cities. No differences were known and no distinctions 
 made on account of nationality. But their position was 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 425 
 
 annoying and mortifying. Their fellow-students, the 
 English, French, German, Spanish, and Italians could 
 sneeringly say : " We give you freely every opportunity 
 which our older civilizations possess and we enjoy, and 
 you return the courtesy by putting a tariff of thirty per 
 cent, on our pictures. It marks your judgment of the 
 value of our works as against yours, with the same 
 training and masters. There is heredity in art, and we 
 have behind us Raphael, Titian, Murillo, Rubens, Reyn 
 olds, and a host of others ; you have nobody." The 
 influence of the Union League Club should be vigor 
 ously exercised for the recognition and development 
 of American art. While pictures are the most durable 
 and satisfactory of the investments of luxury, their 
 value often fluctuates by the caprices of fashion, but 
 the judicious discretion of our Art Committee could 
 make native works of merit standards of taste in every 
 collection. 
 
 The club should be represented at each annual 
 exhibition, and under the advice of its most competent 
 members select and purchase a few of the best. This 
 would come in time to be a decoration and medal, in 
 spiring the most brilliant efforts and emulous rivalry. 
 Our rooms, as the years advance, would mark the 
 progress and growth of American art and its steadily 
 increasing powe"r for larger conceptions and nobler 
 work, and many a genius who might otherwise die 
 unknown would reach fame and fortune by having 
 merited the favoring verdict of this club. 
 
 I have heard the fear expressed, and several times it 
 has come near breaking out into a temporary revolu 
 tion, that the insuperable antagonism between the 
 
426 LIFE AND LA TER SPEECHES OF 
 
 political and social elements of the club must lead in 
 time to the suppression of the one or the other. I do 
 not believe it. The political exigency arises infre 
 quently. The social conditions are here all the time. 
 While once in twelve months, perhaps, this club may 
 be called upon to express itself with no uncertain voice 
 upon public questions, during the rest of the year it 
 should be, and is, the very best of clubs in every sense 
 that constitutes a perfect one. The Union League, it 
 should be understood, while working in parallel lines 
 with one party, will never become its slave or unques 
 tioning follower. Its best influence is negative as well 
 as positive. There is no State or National Convention 
 of the Republican party which dares put before the 
 country nominees who would receive its disapproba 
 tion, because that would be the damnation of the ticket. 
 But, gentlemen, after all, we have here a home which 
 has no equal of its kind in this country or any other 
 a home which is full of rest, of recreation, of sentiment, 
 of reminiscence, and of good times. It is a most 
 peaceful, comfortable, companionable, and restful ref 
 uge for the tired worker, the weary brain, or the 
 lonesome member. Here we find our library, with its 
 cozy nooks, for the bent of every mind ; the reading 
 room, with its equipment for the occupation of every 
 hour ; the game room, with its appointments for 
 health, long life, and pleasure ; the art gallery, to grow 
 until it satisfies the varying tastes of the most culti 
 vated guests and members ; and all over the house, 
 retreats, and corners, and easy-chairs, where men can 
 drop, in congenial companionship, in rosy recollections, 
 in affectionate intercourse, the hot discussions of the 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 427 
 
 business or politics of the day, cementing the friend 
 ships of the past, and forming new ones for the future. 
 Gentlemen, the completed record of our club is a 
 most unique and glorious history. As the time rolls 
 on it will expand and develop in its social opportuni 
 ties, but never ignore the purposes of its creation. 
 While it will be each year a better club, it will also 
 become a greater power. 
 
 SIXTH INAUGURAL ADDRESS AS PRESIDENT OF THE 
 UNION LEAGUE CLUB OF NEW YORK, MARCH 
 12, 1891. 
 
 I FEEL that I ought to interrupt the business of the 
 evening to acknowledge the compliment of a sixth 
 election as your President. It is an honor unusually 
 gratifying and satisfactory. 
 
 The occasion presents suggestions worthy of our 
 earnest consideration. There are clubs and clubs, but 
 there is only one Union League of New York. The 
 history of this organization is unique and distinguished. 
 It owed its origin to the necessity for some practical 
 expression of the most ardent and devout patriotic 
 sentiments. It has never failed in its fidelity and sup 
 port of the best and highest public interest. When 
 the majority of the influences in this city during the 
 Civil War were hostile to the Government, this club 
 was the rallying-place of the friends of nationality and 
 liberty. Its members did not limit their enthusiasm 
 to resolutions and to speeches ; their money flowed 
 like water into the sanitary and hospital service for 
 
428 UFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 the army. They sent a Thanksgiving dinner to the 
 Boys in Blue on the Potomac ; they raised regiments 
 and equipped them for the service ; they had the 
 courage, at a time when it was unsafe for a colored 
 man to be seen in the streets of the city, to recruit and 
 equip a regiment of black men and march at their head 
 through hostile crowds down Broadway as the regi 
 ment departed for the war. 
 
 But the public services of the club have been equally 
 conspicuous and efficient during every year since. It 
 gave its influence to the measures of reconstruction ; 
 it did yeoman service for the restoration of specie pay 
 ment ; it was one of the ablest and most efficient com 
 batants of the heresies of fiat money, and an impreg 
 nable fortress of sound currency and honest finance. 
 It has steadily fought corruption and misgovernment 
 in the city and the State ; it began the battle for regis 
 tration and honest elections at the time of the fraudu 
 lent defeat of John A. Griswold for Governor in 1868, 
 and has labored industriously for any legislation which 
 would secure the untrammeled expression of the 
 popular will, the right of every citizen to cast one vote, 
 and the unquestioned count of that vote as it was 
 cast. 
 
 In this sense the Union League has been, is, and I 
 hope will always continue to be, a political club. It is 
 also attached in its general principles to one of the 
 great national parties, and that is one of the sources of 
 the strength and reputation of the organization. 
 
 There are innumerable clubs in the city of New 
 York. We have the most clubable population in the 
 United States, if not in the world, I find it quite the 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 429 
 
 natural thing to personally belong to eight of them. 
 Men can find in the successful and prosperous clubs 
 here exactly their own tastes and pursuits. Clubable 
 men in literature have their literary clubs ; in society, 
 their social clubs; in sporting matters, their jockey 
 and yachting clubs ; in college affairs, their university 
 clubs; while the journalists and reporters have their 
 own home, the players and dramatic authors theirs, 
 and the different trade organizations theirs. We even 
 keep alive the Greek-letter secret societies of our col 
 lege days, and have places where we can gather accord 
 ing to our race and European origin. The member 
 ship of any one of these organizations is a pleasure or 
 a necessity, but in no case a distinction. But a mem 
 bership of the Union League Club is a decoration. 
 Wherever the man who has this privilege may be in 
 the country, it gives him in that community at once 
 the position of belonging to a club of national power 
 and reputation. 
 
 The Union League never dictates nominations ; but 
 a deference to the sentiment of this club has elevated 
 the standard of nominations. The Union League con 
 spicuously failed, so far as any effort \vas made by its 
 members, to control the patronage of the present 
 administration, but the negative force of its approval 
 was such that the President appointed no man to 
 prominent position in New York unless he believed 
 his appointment was up to the standard of the Union 
 League. 
 
 There is no other organization in the country so 
 national in its character. Its honorary membership 
 has been sparingly bestowed, gladly accepted, and 
 
43 LIFE AXD LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 proudly acknowledged as an honor by the greatest 
 names in American history since Abraham Lincoln. 
 Leading statesmen in the different States in the Union 
 are rapidly becoming members. I believe that, if the 
 constitution were liberalized, we could have our pick of 
 the most distinguished leaders of the Republican party 
 in every State in the Union. 
 
 I wish that the Democratic party had in this city a 
 club of equal influence and strength, and that the 
 Independents, or Reformers, or whatever they may 
 call themselves, who are too wise or too good for 
 either party, could also in New York have a home 
 .which would be national in its representative charac 
 ter. I do not mean that these clubs should take the 
 place or perform the duties in any respect of national 
 or State or city committees, or of the organizations 
 which look after the detail of party management and 
 the practical conditions of party success, but that they 
 should in a large way voice the sentiment, uphold the 
 principles, sustain the policy, and suggest the measures 
 of their parties ; that they should speak out with 
 emphatic and controlling voice upon questions affect 
 ing the public welfare, locally and generally. 
 
 The reasons for this statement and appeal are more 
 far-reaching and profound than the triumph or defeat 
 of the measures of the hour, than the success or failure 
 of this or that party. The passion for nationality 
 which was the product of the Civil War has lost its fire. 
 The sentiment of nationality has no rallying center. 
 Insensibly we grow more provincial and sectional. 
 Capitals multiply as cities to which large territories are 
 tributary for trade and intelligence, increase in popula- 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 43 l 
 
 tion, wealth and local interests. The fear of centrali 
 zation was the bugaboo of the fathers of the Republic, 
 and has been the cause of most of our national dis 
 asters. The fear of the mob influences of great cities 
 upon the Legislature was the mistake of the founders 
 of the nation. So they put the State capitals in most 
 instances at points remote from great centers of popu 
 lation and trade, and for the national capital created 
 in the wilderness a home at a point where a city had 
 no reason for existence, except as the seat of govern 
 ment. In studying the results of metropolitan centers 
 in the Old World we can now see their mistake. Lon 
 don, Paris, Berlin, and Rome are focuses of national 
 thought, pride, and unity. To them run all the rail 
 roads and electric wires, all the currents of local 
 opinion and aspiration, of discontent or revolt. From 
 these capitals flow constantly to the remotest corners 
 of the country the wisest, the best, the strongest ex 
 pressions of the collective wisdom of the land. 
 
 The student of legislation at Washington and at 
 Albany has often been amazed by the spectacle of an 
 apparent frenzy, of a local excitement which existed 
 nowhere else in the country. There will frequently 
 arise heated controversies, resulting in the enactment of 
 measures which on the spot seem to be a demand of 
 the people, while the people exhibit no corresponding 
 interest, or else an adverse tendency. The atmosphere 
 of the capital is overcharged with electricity, and the 
 appliances of the neighborhood are not equal to carry 
 ing it off. Much bad legislation, which results harm 
 fully to the country and disastrously to its promoters, 
 proceeds from these causes. The representatives have 
 
43 2 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 been absent for a long period from their constituents, 
 and their associations and information are almost ex 
 clusively with and among themselves. There is noth 
 ing in the locality to keep them in touch with the 
 popular pulse of the nation. They lose the capacity 
 to judge accurately the wants of their districts or of 
 the nation at large. No one can be in London during 
 the session of Parliament and witness the members 
 meeting every day in the metropolitan press, at dinner- 
 tables, at their hotels and boarding-houses, on the 
 street and in the club, the representatives of every 
 material, industrial, commercial, educational, moral, 
 and religious influence in Great Britain, without feel 
 ing that it is impossible for Parliament not to know 
 from day to day exactly the opinion of the country 
 upon current measures and the trend of popular 
 thought. 
 
 New York is the real capital of the United States. 
 No matter in what direction a railroad may be con 
 structed or a telegraph wire strung, its ultimate ter 
 minus is New York. Every enterprise which is to 
 be promoted, every scheme for the development of 
 mines, of water-powers, or any other industry, seeks 
 this city for money. Every business which has ramifi 
 cations beyond the place where it is located has a 
 representative and principal office in New York. Men 
 who rise above the surface and outgrow the oppor 
 tunities of their neighborhoods all come here. The 
 intellectual forces of the Republic are likewise drawn 
 by irresistible laws within our borders. The national 
 committees of the two great parties have their head 
 quarters within our city, and conduct their campaigns 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 433 
 
 with the limitless opportunities which can be found 
 here and nowhere else. The capital of the nation can 
 never be moved from Washington, but everything 
 which reaches out from this real capital into every 
 part of the country is a power for good government 
 and perpetuity of the Union. 
 
 It is here and in this sense that the Union League 
 Club performs a national and patriotic mission. It is 
 a center which receives and reflects, and will do so 
 more and more as the years go by, the republicanism 
 of the United States. While performing this public 
 service, and conferring upon the party and Govern 
 ment inestimable benefits, the social side of our club 
 can be constantly developed and improved. In all 
 that constitutes a club home for clubable men it is now 
 equal to the best in the United States. But it should 
 be our effort to make it, as we can, from every club 
 point of view, the most attractive and agreeable club 
 in the world. In doing this we can also still confer 
 benefit upon the public. The efforts of this organiza 
 tion for the encouragement of American art have been 
 of great value and sensibly felt in the studio and 
 gallery. Our monthly exhibition is the most unique, 
 delightful, and important display of paintings to be 
 found anywhere in the country. It has brought to the 
 notice of picture buyers and picture lovers the fact 
 that a school of American art has already done work 
 of permanent merit, and is full of brilliant promise. 
 As the years roll by I believe that the periodical con 
 test as to whether this shall become a purely social 
 organization will more infrequently occur. The Union 
 League, with its unequaled past, its splendid history, 
 
434 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 its long roll of names honorable and distinguished in 
 the history of the country, will live through the cen 
 turies on its public side a power for patriotism and the 
 noblest results of free government, and on its social 
 side the best equipped, the best appointed, and the 
 most enjoyable of clubs. 
 
 SPEECH ON RETIRING FROM THE PRESIDENCY OF 
 THE UNION LEAGUE CLUB, JANUARY 12, 1893. 
 
 TO-NIGHT closes the seventh year of my service as 
 President of the Union League Club. To have been 
 so often the recipient of your confidence is one of the 
 most gratifying distinctions of my life. The occasion 
 is full of reminiscence and of sentiment. These seven 
 years have been crowded with events which have con 
 nected our club with the most important movements 
 of the day. They have renewed old associations, 
 strengthened old ties, and formed new and invaluable 
 friendships. At the close of the twenty-eighth year of 
 its existence this organization is the strongest political 
 force, in a certain sense, in the United States, and one 
 of the most social clubs in the world. 
 
 The closer the study, the stronger becomes our faith 
 in the influence of heredity. The man reproduces the 
 tendency and peculiarities of his ancestor. It is the 
 same with parties, with schools of learning, and with 
 organizations of every kind. The Union League, 
 when the Republic was in the greatest peril, was born 
 the child of patriotism and public duty. It attained 
 at once the full stature of vigorous manhood. It did 
 a memorable and glorious work in the salvation of the 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 435 
 
 country. The object of its creation was to save the 
 Union ; the purpose of its continued existence is to 
 serve the best interests of the nation. It is remark 
 able how consistently, year by year, the action of the 
 club has sustained the principles of its beginning. It 
 has always been abreast of every movement which 
 was for the public welfare, abreast of every crusade 
 which was against corruption. It has frequently 
 pointed the way long in advance to higher and better 
 results in the legislation of both the State and the 
 nation. 
 
 My first duty, upon my first election in 1886, was to 
 participate in the memorial services of the club for 
 General Hancock. He had been one of our honorary 
 members, and had occupied the place upon the roll 
 with Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman. He w r as intimately 
 and historically associated with the great events of 
 the war, and with one of the many patriotic actions of 
 the club. It was at the time, in 1864, when a general 
 gloom overspread the country, and the situation at the 
 front was desperate and disheartening. He was sent 
 to this city to recruit the depleted ranks of the Second 
 Corps, of which he was the commander. He came at 
 once to the Union League Club and appealed to it for 
 encouragement and assistance. The club raised for 
 him three hundred thousand dollars and recruited for 
 his corps 3159 men. Returning with these soldiers to 
 the Army of the Potomac, he distinguished himself in 
 the bloody battles of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania 
 Courthouse, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg. 
 
 There has always existed a sentimental friendship 
 between France and the United States. There have 
 
43 6 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 not been the close commercial relations and the ties 
 of language and blood between the two countries so 
 necessary to intimate and fraternal acquaintance, but 
 America has never forgotten the inestimable services 
 rendered by France in securing our independence in 
 the War of the Revolution, nor has France failed to 
 remember the lessons of liberty carrried back by 
 Lafayette and his compatriots, which, after a century, 
 have given to her also the benefits of a government of 
 the people, for the people, and by the people. One 
 of the most eloquent and able of Frenchmen, M. La- 
 boulaye, performed for us during the Civil War services 
 with his pen almost as great as those which in the 
 Revolutionary period had been rendered by Lafayette 
 with his sword. As France had secured a republican 
 form of Government, and the United States had re- 
 cemented its institutions in the best blood of its 
 citizens, it occurred to the patriots of France that a 
 perpetual memorial of the friendship of the two coun 
 tries and of what liberty had done for both should be 
 presented by France to the United States. The cor 
 respondence between Laboulaye and John Jay, then 
 president of this club, started the movement which 
 culminated in the erection of the Bartholdi Statue of 
 Liberty upon one of the islands in our beautiful 
 harbor. To emphasize the significance of this gift of 
 the French people, the French Government sent here 
 to the dedicatory exercises a delegation of her eminent 
 statesmen and citizens. This club gave to them a 
 reception which was as national in its character as the 
 dignity of the guests demanded. The cabinet and con 
 gress, the diplomatic service, the literary and artistic 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. ^37 
 
 world, the business and the professions of the United 
 States were all represented here by their most distin 
 guished members. The scene was hardly less impress 
 ive than the memorable one upon Bedlow s Island, 
 when the great statue was unveiled in the presence 
 of the two Republics. 
 
 The club also in 1886 started a movement for the 
 inauguration of the President of the United States on 
 the 3Oth of April instead of the 4th of March. The 
 evils of the short session at the close of an Adminis 
 tration, and the immense public advantage of the 
 additional time for sound legislation, were forcibly 
 presented. The sentimental view of perpetuating by 
 its recurrence the day on which the first President, 
 George Washington, was inaugurated, was impressively 
 stated. The question is as interesting and important 
 to-day as it was then. Either the 3<Dth of April should 
 be fixed upon for the reason so admirably given by 
 the club in 1886 for the inauguration of the newly 
 elected President, or else the newly elected representa 
 tives of the people should meet at once the President 
 elect in order that the last expression of the will of the 
 people might receive immediate attention. 
 
 In 1887 the club repeatedly gave expression to its 
 views upon matters of importance in our State. There 
 are two questions which are ever present and often 
 acute. They are both feared by politicians, but both, 
 like Banquo s ghost, will arise and continue to arise 
 until finally settled. These questions are the common 
 schools and some wise and permanent regulation of 
 the liquor traffic. Both of these subjects were actively 
 discusssed, and measures affecting them promoted in 
 
43 8 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 our State Legislature. The declaration of the club 
 upon the school question, sent to every member of 
 the House and Senate, was received with unusual 
 favor by the press and people. It read as follows : 
 
 "The free public school is the bulwark of the 
 American Republic. We therefore demand the un 
 qualified maintenance of the public school system and 
 its support by equal taxation. We are opposed to all 
 sectarian appropriations, and we denounce as a crime 
 against liberty and republican institutions any project 
 for a sectarian diversion or perversion of the school 
 fund of the State." 
 
 To the question of the regulation of the liquor 
 traffic our committee on political reform gave the 
 closest attention and the most thorough examination. 
 Its report, and that became the judgment of the club, 
 repeatedly reaffirmed that under conditions as they 
 existed in the State of New York high license is the 
 proper solution of the problem. The results gathered 
 from the beneficial experiences of other States were 
 collated in the most forcible manner, and the argument 
 pressed home that by a proper high license bill, once 
 enacted into a law, this vexed and vexing question 
 might be removed from politics, and the saloon be no 
 longer the dominant factor in our State affairs. The 
 Republican party of that year agreed with the position 
 taken by the Union League, and it will be in the 
 future one of the most interesting studies of the 
 political historian whether the party, having received 
 all the damage possible by the statement of its 
 principles and platform, would not in the end have 
 triumphed in the control of our State if it had had 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 439 
 
 the courage to consistently maintain the position then 
 taken. 
 
 But our club, having once been aroused on grave 
 political questions, ventured still further on the road 
 for good government. It boldly proclaimed the prin 
 ciple of such a reformation of the election laws of 
 our State as should free the ballot from intimidation 
 or fraud. We were the pioneers for ballot reform. 
 In season and out of season the Union League formu 
 lated its resolutions and published its views upon the 
 necessity of giving to the citizens a ballot so guarded 
 and yet so clear that the most ignorant voter could 
 not be misled in the expression of his judgment. That 
 the result was a travesty upon our effort, and upon 
 the true principles of the exercise of the electoral 
 franchise, is due to a monstrous perversion of the ad 
 mirable purpose for which the movement was inau 
 gurated. Ballot reform, like all other measures which 
 are for the benefit and protection of the people, may 
 be fooled with for a while, may be defeated for a time, 
 but like truth, crushed to earth, will rise again. 
 
 Our reception of Warner Miller in 1888 was a prac 
 tical reaffirmation of our position upon the proper 
 method of the settlement of the liquor question by its 
 compliment to him upon the superb fight which he 
 had made in the gubernatorial canvass. Eighteen hun 
 dred and eighty-eight also will be an interesting year 
 in the Union League calendar. With an earnestness 
 and concentration of effort unequaled in our annals, 
 we entered upon the battle for Harrison and Morton. 
 Every resource of the club was used to educate the 
 voter and promote the cause. Among the agencies 
 
440 UFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 which fought the battles of Protection against the 
 newly declared doctrine of Free Trade, promulgated 
 by Mr. Cleveland, none was more efficient than the 
 Union League. Its utterances had the force of intelli 
 gence, patriotism, and disinterestedness. The club 
 fights for principles and not for men. We declared in 
 April that the fight should be made upon the reduc 
 tion of war taxes and the abolition of a dangerous 
 surplus, and in the precise words of our resolution this 
 principle was adopted by the Republican National 
 Convention in June. When General Harrison was 
 elected we sent to him our greetings and congratula 
 tions, and we accompanied them with the memorable 
 message that he entered upon his duties with both 
 Houses of Congress with him ; that he was to make 
 his appointments as he thought best for the public 
 interest, and that the verdict of the people meant to 
 reduce taxation to the measure of the public needs, 
 and to reform and revise the existing tariff, to prune 
 away its extravagances and readjust its burdens with 
 a careful regard for the preservation and protection of 
 our manufactures, which had been fostered and main 
 tained by its aid. Eighteen hundred and eighty-eight 
 was a marking post in the milestones of the progress 
 of the Union League. It was in that year that we 
 celebrated our twenty-fifth anniversary, and recalled a 
 quarter of a century richer in events and bigger with 
 benefits for the future of the Republic, and for the 
 world at large, than any other quarter of a century of 
 recorded time. 
 
 Eighteen hundred and eighty-nine furnished the 
 club with many opportunities for the exercise of its 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 44 T 
 
 influence and the expression of its views. It gave its 
 cordial support to the Saratoga Republican ticket, and 
 reaffirmed its views upon high license and ballot 
 reform. 
 
 For the first time since the utterance of the patriotic 
 thought of "America for Americans" by Henry Clay, 
 the Republics of North and South America were 
 brought together in the Pan-American Congress at 
 Washington. It was a convocation which first practi 
 cally put in force our Monroe doctrine of a half-cen 
 tury ago. It spoke for the ending of European power 
 and influence upon the two continents, and for the 
 closer alliance, political and commercial, between the 
 republics of the New World. It promoted the en 
 largement of the area of our markets and of opportu 
 nities for the sale of our products. The Union League 
 cordially seconded the movement and emphasized the 
 National interest in the Congress by giving to the 
 delegates a reception within these walls memorable for 
 its significance and the distinguished men who partici 
 pated in the celebration. At the head of the delega 
 tion was the great Secretary of State, James G. Elaine. 
 And in this hall were gathered all that was most 
 eminent in the civil and military departments of our 
 Government. It was during this year that an event 
 occurred which specially reminded us of the struggle 
 in which our club was born. The cable announced 
 the death of John Bright. We met to pass proper 
 resolutions in his memory. The Union League had 
 always honored him because of the position which he 
 had taken in favor of our nationality during the Civil 
 War. Royalty, the aristocracy, the moneyed classes, 
 
442 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 the universities, and the social forces of Great Britain 
 were almost unanimously opposed to the National 
 Government in this great struggle for its life. John 
 Bright alone, among the conspicuous statesmen of Great 
 Britain, stood out for the forces which represented 
 freedom, the abolition of slavery, and the perpetuation 
 of the American Union. He appealed as no other 
 man could to the middle and working classes of Great 
 Britain, to that mighty power which has become since 
 that period the controlling force in the politics and 
 policies of the British Empire. He aroused them to 
 the defense of liberty and of our nationality. At the 
 time of our weakness, when foreign enmity was most 
 dangerous to us, he created the fire in the rear; he 
 aroused the potent influence of public opinion in 
 England which prevented Great Britain from recog 
 nizing the Southern Confederacy. 
 
 There has been of late years a persistent and deter 
 mined effort on the part of an able and aggressive 
 minority of the club to turn it from the purposes for 
 which it was created and make it a purely social 
 organization; but 1890 will remain a marked year in 
 the history of the Union League Club, because in that 
 year the question was thoroughly and exhaustively 
 discussed and then definitely determined. After many 
 meetings, at one of which there was a very full attend 
 ance, by an overwhelming vote a resolution was 
 adopted in these words: "Resolved, That this club 
 asserts that only Republicans should be admitted to 
 its membership." But 1890 will be remembered for 
 another most touching and tender reminiscence of the 
 principles upon which our organization was founded. 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 443 
 
 Principles are embodied in men, and they, whether 
 living or dead, become, in the imagination of the 
 people, the exponents of those ideas. There always 
 existed a peculiar and tender affection between the 
 members of the Union League and General Sherman. 
 His martial figure was the familiar attraction of our 
 social evenings and our monthly meetings. The 
 reception which we gave him was the flower and 
 fruitage of our love. No one who was privileged to 
 be present will ever forget that heroic presence, that 
 magnetic personality, that most romantic and original 
 intelligence. The dignity of his reception of our mem 
 bers in the full pride and panoply of successful war; 
 the genial flow of his wit and humor and anecdote at 
 the banquet table which followed ; the speech, like the 
 resistless charge of a squadron of calvary breaking 
 through the lines of the enemy and carrying the 
 banner of victory these are the pictures of memory, 
 which no words can fitly describe and no pencil 
 properly portray. In 1891, only a few months after 
 this honor to us and compliment to him, the club in 
 a body joined the ranks of the people of the United 
 States in bearing the hero to his last resting place. 
 
 The year 1891 is also distinguished for the most 
 exhaustive and vigorous report upon naturalization 
 and immigration which is to be found in the literature 
 of that most important and exigent discussion of the 
 day. Then, as always, the Union League was broadly 
 American in its ideas at the same time that it was 
 generously hospitable to those who were worthy of 
 our hospitality. 
 
 The year just closed was marked by the denuncia- 
 
444 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 tion by this club, in fitting terms, of the Election 
 Inspectors bill, which passed last year, whose purpose 
 was, so far as it had any purpose, to defeat in this 
 great city the fair expression of the popular will. 
 
 As always in Presidential canvasses, the club did its 
 duty, took its place, and made its fight in the Presiden 
 tial contest just closed. It mourns the result, but 
 for its efforts and for its exertions it has no regrets. 
 It believes that the truths for which it fought and the 
 principles upon which it w r as defeated, in common with 
 the Republican party, will yet triumphantly assert 
 their potency and popularity. 
 
 In this hasty review of the seven years of my admin 
 istration many things are omitted which will in due 
 time be recorded by the historian of the club. There 
 have passed from us, during that period, some of the 
 strongest and most active members of our organiza 
 tion. The rugged face and familiar figure of Jackson 
 S. Shultz, once president of the club; the perennial 
 presence, genial humor, and critical acumen of George 
 Jones, who, with Henry J. Raymond, was the founder 
 of the New York Times ; the cultured conversation 
 of Dr. Agnew; the wise counsels of John H. Hall, and 
 the loved faces and familiar forms of scores of others 
 have been lost to the club and to our circle during 
 these seven years. We give our tears and affectionate 
 greeting to their memory, but our living interests and 
 active work are with the Union League of to-day, to 
 morrow, and still to-morrow. Men may live and men 
 may die, but the club goes on forever. Its strength 
 is constantly renewed by an infusion of fresh and 
 vigorous Republican blood. The accessions are so 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 445 
 
 fully up to the standard of the present and the tradi 
 tions of the past that there is no occasion nor excuse 
 to regret the good old times. 
 
 While I have dwelt so much upon the public action 
 of the club, I do not forget its social side. In all that 
 constitutes a home for the bachelor, or for the man 
 whose family is abroad, or a restful and peaceful retreat 
 for the tired and weary worker, or social, literary, and 
 charming surroundings for one seeking genial com 
 panionship, this club has no superior in this country 
 or abroad. Its public spirit has not been confined to 
 action and expression upon public questions, but under 
 the wise guidance of Clarke and others it has been 
 a potent and constant protector and promoter of 
 American art and American artists. It has believed 
 and does believe that we have the scenery, the history, 
 the life, and the opportunity, and that we possess the 
 genius and originality to put them upon canvas which 
 shall be as attractive and immortal as any which adorn 
 the galleries of the Old World. 
 
 Let us always remember, while we maintain in all 
 possible ways the social attractions of our club, that 
 the power and potency of a membership of the Union 
 League is in its connection with and its activity in 
 every patriotic effort for the good of the nation or the 
 State. Let us never forget that the position which 
 the Union League holds in the United States, and the 
 respect given at Washington, at Albany, and every 
 where to its utterances, is not the creation of a day, 
 to be lightly lost and easily regained, but is the accu 
 mulated reputation of more than a quarter of a cen 
 tury. The Union League, with the loss of its public 
 
44 6 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES. 
 
 functions, would become the same in its purposes and 
 in the reasons for its existence as any one of the 
 scores of social organizations in our city. But so long 
 as it maintains its standard of the past its membership 
 is an honor and a decoration. There are some who 
 value the Union League for its club opportunities. 
 There are some who class it in their minds as one of 
 the organizations of different kinds to which they 
 belong. But there are others, and they constitute the 
 majority, who love the Union League. They love it 
 for its origin, its history, and its traditions. They love 
 it for the great and good men who have adorned its 
 list of membership. They love it because its life has 
 been the best part of their own work and aspirations. 
 They love it for the friendships they have formed 
 within its walls and the memorable scenes they have 
 witnessed within its rooms. They love it because it 
 is the Union League Club. 
 
XXXV. 
 
 ADDRESS BEFORE THE PRESS CLUB OF CHICAGO 
 JUNE 5, 1890. 
 
 WHEN I received the invitation of the Press Club of 
 Chicago to deliver its annual address, I supposed that 
 it desired a free and easy chat from a layman upon 
 journalism. It is the peculiarity of every individual 
 that he wishes to be thought distinguished for some 
 thing other than that upon which he has made his 
 reputation, and of every organization in the professions 
 or the trades that, on its commemorative occasions, 
 it desires to be advised by someone who knows 
 infinitely less about its business than it does itself. 
 But I soon discovered that your club wanted from 
 me neither criticism nor praise, but the discussion of a 
 subject common to us all. 
 
 It is, however, proper for me to remark that the rest 
 of the world is entitled to at least one day in the 
 year to discuss newspaper men. For 365 days they 
 oracularly direct us in our opinions, walk, and con 
 versation ; they give us our politics, our estimates 
 of public men, and our views upon all current ques 
 tions. The American people are eminently practical; 
 their wits are sharpened in their own affairs and 
 their thoughts concentrated and intent upon that 
 which immediately interests them. As a result the 
 
44^ LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 larger part of every community has no opinions until 
 it has read its party and religious papers. For a 
 man like me, who reads them all, the most curious 
 of studies is to gather the reflex of the editors views 
 in the confident expressions of my friends. Whatever 
 responsibility and it is great may rest upon the 
 lawyer with the liberal latitude allowed him under his 
 retainer; upon the preacher with his unrestrained 
 opportunity to speak; upon the teacher in molding 
 the minds of his students the largest responsibility of 
 all rests upon the journalist. A former generation 
 believed that liberty of the press would lead to such 
 license as to endanger public morality and destroy 
 private character. They feared that there could be 
 no redress for the assaults of the press except by per 
 sonal violence or murder. The results of a liberty far 
 beyond that dreamed of at any former period, a liberty 
 which is curbed by neither the law of libel nor the 
 verdicts of juries, have been found in the main entirely 
 satisfactory. Independence and opportunity have 
 created a journalistic conscience by which the common 
 consent of the press protects the individual against 
 unjust attack of any one of its members. 
 
 The question which has been assigned to me by your 
 committee is the "World s Fair," and the success or 
 the failure of this great enterprise will be dependent 
 in a great measure upon the view which is taken of it 
 by the press of the country. If there be not a general 
 agreement among the newspapers of the Republic as 
 to the character and extent of this exhibition and the 
 support which it should receive, it had better be aban 
 doned at the start. Bidden here to speak upon the 
 
CHAUXCKY M. DEPEIV. 449 
 
 "World s Fair," in one view I may appear as the cap 
 tive chained to the chariot wheels of the conqueror 
 for the purpose of gracing his triumph ; but a broader 
 and more generous conception is that after a healthy 
 and friendly rivalry as to location, we are now all 
 equally earnest and enthusiastic for a phenomenal suc 
 cess. I did all that I could, and exhausted every legiti 
 mate resource, to carry this great fair to New York. 
 The arguments of that controversy are now ancient 
 history. New York has no animosities, no jealousies, 
 no enmities, and I am here to say that all that it is 
 in her power to do will be done for the exhibition in 
 Chicago. No question more important, and none 
 affecting more nearly their prosperity and their pride, 
 has been presented to the American people in a quarter 
 of a century. The occasion is at once our opportunity 
 and our necessity our opportunity to show to the 
 nations of the world our marvelous growth in popula 
 tion, in settlement, in cities, in railroads, and our 
 development in agricultural, mineral, and manufactur 
 ing resources; our necessity, in presenting to commer 
 cial peoples of all races and climes a view of our surplus 
 in the products of mine and mill, of farm and factory, 
 which will furnish the incentives for barter and ex 
 change in all the marts of the world ; which, by absorb 
 ing that which we can produce beyond our needs in 
 almost infinite volume, shall burden the ocean with our 
 freights, shall re-create for us a merchant marine, shall 
 carry our flag once more upon every sea and into every 
 harbor, and employ and enrich our own people. We 
 forget that we are three thousand miles from the near 
 est of the older nations and that our traditional policy 
 
45 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 had prevented them from becoming acquainted with 
 us. The marvelous expansion of our own means of 
 intercommunication, and our familiar knowledge of 
 every part of our own country, have led us to believe 
 that the world appreciates us in equal measure with 
 our estimate of ourselves. But this is only the utter 
 ance of the Fourth of July orator, and the dream of 
 the schoolboy. Our flag has almost disappeared from 
 the seas, our freight is carried in foreign vessels, our 
 navy is a myth, and the resources of our diplomacy 
 are wholly unequal to the task of reaching the intelli 
 gence of foreign lands. 
 
 The all-pervading press, with the completeness of 
 its information and the majesty of its power, repre 
 sented in part by the Chicago Association, is unknown, 
 as we understand it, in other countries of the globe. 
 In the journals of Great Britain the United States are 
 dismissed daily with a brief paragraph as to the 
 markets, or a longer account of a crime, or a flood or a 
 fire, and in the Continental newspapers they are rarely 
 mentioned at all. To the European, the Asiatic, the 
 African, the Australian, education, as to the products 
 and positions of foreign countries, is largely from the 
 senses, the eye, the touch, and the ear. Our efforts to 
 reach the world through this, the only channel which we 
 possess, have been lamentably inadequate. Our first 
 exhibition in New York, in 1853, was managed by a 
 private corporation and not properly supported by 
 the Government, was opened by the President of the 
 United States and closed by the sheriff of the 
 county. Foreign exhibits were seized for its obliga 
 tions, and Horace Greeley, one of its managers, was 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 45 1 
 
 imprisoned in Paris for its debts. Our second exhibi 
 tion, the Centennial one of 1876, at Philadelphia, was 
 everything that a city and State and the intelligent 
 endeavor of patriotic citizens could create, but it 
 lacked the cordial co-operation of the Government to 
 make it all that it might have been. The grandest and 
 most satisfactory display of the products and the 
 civilization of the world ever gathered was the Exhibi 
 tion in Paris during the last summer. Its splendor 
 and completeness filled the observer with the proudest 
 comprehension of the products, the development, and 
 the progress of mankind. The visitor was lost in 
 wonder at the artistic and mechanical perfection and 
 resources, not only of the countries of Europe, but of 
 those of Asia and Africa, and the continental islands 
 of the South Seas. Russia and little Belgium, 
 Germany and territorially diminutive Holland, Italy 
 and Sweden and Norway, Great Britain and her de 
 pendencies around the earth, China and Japan, Egypt 
 and Algiers, the descendants of the tribes who 
 succored the children of Israel in their march for the 
 Promised Land, and of the people who fought against 
 Alexander in India, presented so fully the best results 
 of their skill and culture, of their products and pecu 
 liarities, that a walk through their department was 
 equivalent to a journey around the globe. It was 
 only when an American came to the limited space, but 
 partly filled, assigned to the United States, and saw 
 how utterly inadequate was the exhibit as a repre 
 sentation or even a suggestion of our advancement 
 and achievements in the arts, in mechanics, in indus 
 tries and inventions that, with the blood mantling his 
 
45 2 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 cheeks with mortification, he felt that our credit and 
 our reputation could only be established among trad 
 ing and commercial peoples by an exhibition in 
 America, the most majestic and comprehensive, and 
 an invitation to the nations and tribes of the earth so 
 hospitable and importunate as to bring them all with 
 in the boundaries of our fair. On that occasion the 
 Republic must wear all her decorations upon her 
 breast, and receive her guests with unstinted liberal 
 ity. Such a fair can only be created by the cordial 
 co-operation with you, not only of all the States, but 
 of the Federal Government. When European cabi 
 nets discovered that the invitation to the Philadelphia 
 Centennial really emanated from a corporation, they 
 decided not to give it any official recognition, and 
 they regarded the invitation itself as an insult to their 
 sovereignty. It was only when General Grant by a 
 second proclamation assured them that the invitation 
 was from the Government of the United States, that 
 they decided to recognize the exhibition, but that invi 
 tation necessarily carried with it the information that 
 the Government was absolved from all responsibility 
 for the administration or results of the fair. With the 
 knowledge now so universal about industrial exhibi 
 tions, we cannot hope to have the world properly 
 represented here, unless the invitation be from the 
 Government of the United States, in such form and 
 with such assurances that foreign ministers will under 
 stand that their people come here at the bidding of 
 and as the guests of the Republic. 
 
 There can be no hesitation, no backwardness, no 
 niggardliness in this matter. Either let us have an 
 
CUAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 453 
 
 exhibition national and international in its character, 
 fostered and fathered by the United States, or none 
 at all. Let the generosity of citizens, the efforts of 
 your great municipality, the assistance of your common 
 wealth be given without stint, but behind, to supple 
 ment all deficiencies and to meet all obligations, let 
 there stand the majesty of the United States. 
 
 It is not only to open trade with the world, not only 
 to show to other countries the perfection of our 
 machinery and the exhaustless resources of our farms 
 and mines, not only to bring together the citizens of 
 all portions of the country under conditions which 
 promote patriotism, that such an exhibition is valuable, 
 but it is invaluable as an educator. I met at the Paris 
 Exposition a delegation of workingmen and working- 
 women sent there by the liberality of a newspaper man 
 of the West ; but this single delegation, carried by this 
 phenomenal generosity across the ocean, will swell 
 here into the representatives of every trade, flocking 
 from every city, town, and village, coming from every 
 mine, mill, and factory to study the exhibits which 
 are the products of the accumulated skill of centu 
 ries, thus securing for our artisans favorable oppor 
 tunities for education, and for our country an instant 
 enrichment in the character and value of its pro 
 ductions. 
 
 The fair has been in all ages of the world the pro 
 moter of progress and the impulse of civilization. It 
 has been the conservator of commerce and peace. 
 Among the Romans and the Greeks difficulties of 
 transportation and the savage conditions of inter 
 national relations made their fairs mainly festivals for 
 
454 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 the exhibitions of physical skill and athletic sports, but 
 behind them the politicians and conspirators of the 
 day plotted for the possession of power or the over 
 throw of government. In the Middle Ages, when 
 might was right and law had ceased to exist, the only 
 traveler who was protected by common consent in his 
 person and goods was the merchant going to and re 
 turning from the fair. At the fair, feudal lord and 
 vassal, trader and college professor, priest, peasant, 
 and student, intermingling upon a common footing, 
 kept alive the flickering spark of liberty and learning. 
 These exhibitions, springing from small beginnings, 
 and in time creating powerful communities, led to the 
 formation of free cities where merchants and traders 
 resisted the robber barons and fostered commerce and 
 civilization. But it was only after the frightful revolt 
 against the tyranny of centuries had produced the 
 excesses of the French Revolution, and, in the ecstasies 
 of their enthusiasm for universal liberty and the 
 brotherhood of man, the French wished to share their 
 victory with the world, that for the first time an 
 international fair was held. 
 
 We have been passing through a period of centen 
 nials, with a passion for crowding events into century 
 packages and labeling and stowing them away for 
 reference at the end of the next hundred years. It is 
 a singular coincidence that this exhibition, with only a 
 four years interval, will be the centennial of the first 
 international fair. Nothing has more clearly marked 
 the development of this extraordinary century than 
 the worth of these international exhibitions. Steam 
 and electricity have made them possible, and the 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 455 
 
 inventions have enriched them beyond the dreams of 
 all the ages since the dawn of history. 
 
 Prince Albert opened the great World s Fair in the 
 Crystal Palace in 1851 with the declaration "that the 
 time had come to prepare for a great exhibition, not 
 merely national in its conception and benefits, but 
 comprehensive of the whole world." To it came six 
 millions of visitors. In 1861 again, London was the 
 scene of another exhibition with 6,200,000 of visitors. 
 The French in 1867 held their exhibition with still 
 increasing numbers and interest, and the world s last 
 effort at Paris in 1889 was housed in buildings costing 
 eleven millions of dollars, with thirty millions of people 
 crowding their booths and avenues. The most suc 
 cessful of the exhibitions since 1828 showed a hand 
 some profit, and the most disastrous, that of Vienna in 
 1873, on account of the depression caused by the panic 
 of that year, resulted in a deficiency of nine millions 
 of dollars, which was made up by the government, but 
 the Austrians and Hungarians have ever since regarded 
 it as the best investment ever made by their country, 
 because it brought their products into notice and 
 opened for them the markets of the world. 
 
 The Columbus quadri-centennial celebration will be 
 the only one within recorded time in which all the world 
 can cordially and fraternally unite. It is not sacrilege 
 to say that the two events to which civilization to-day 
 owes its advanced position, are the introduction of 
 Christianity and the discovery of America. The 
 dynamic forces of our Christian faith, in the destruc 
 tion of the buttresses of bigotry and oppression, and 
 the leveling up of the masses to common rights, could 
 
45 6 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 never have worked such marvelous results except for 
 the opportunities of a new country and an untrammeled 
 population. When Columbus sailed from Palos, types 
 had been discovered, but Church and State held intelli 
 gence by the throat. The compass had opened the 
 pathway across the seas, but feudalism had its foot 
 upon the neck of commerce. Hopeless ignorance and 
 helpless poverty were so burdened by caste and 
 customs, laws and traditions, that liberty lay bound 
 and gagged within impregnable prison walls. But 
 Puritans and Catholics, Huguenots and Lutherans, 
 English, Dutch, German, French, Swedes, most of 
 them fleeing for liberty to worship God according to 
 the dictates of their own consciences, willing to sacri 
 fice every material advantage and every earthly pros 
 pect for civil and religious liberty, and all of them 
 seeking commercial freedom, followed the track of 
 Columbus to the New World. Here was neither king 
 nor noble, neither caste nor privilege. The distance 
 was too great for paternal supervision, and self-govern 
 ment became the absolute necessity of the colonies. 
 With no guide but God, and no constitution but the 
 Bible, they worked out upon this continent, after many 
 hardships and trials and tribulations, the problem of 
 the equality of all men before the law. They founded 
 institutions which have withstood the test of foreign 
 invasion, of political passions, of party strifes, of individ 
 ual ambition, and the shock of the mightiest civil war 
 the world has ever seen. The influence of their suc 
 cessful experiment, following the lines of fraternal 
 blood back to the countries from which they came, 
 has revolutionized and liberalized the governments of 
 
CHAUNCEY J/. DEPEW. 457 
 
 the globe. The triumph of the principles of civil and 
 religious liberty upon this continent, the beneficial 
 effects of the common school, and the universal diffu 
 sion of education, have done more than all other 
 agencies in uplifting mankind to higher planes of inde 
 pendence and happiness. The children, the grand 
 children, and the great-grandchildren of Great Britain 
 and France, of Germany and Italy, of Spain and 
 Russia, of Scandinavia and of all the nations of Europe, 
 will say to their kindred in the fatherlands : "Welcome, 
 thrice welcome, to our States and homes; come and 
 see and learn." And then will the era of peace and 
 liberty dawn upon the world. 
 
 New continents beyond the ocean, which should 
 become the seat of great empires, and whose wealth 
 would redeem the Holy Sepulcher at Jerusalem from 
 the infidel, and evangelize the world, were the dream 
 of Columbus. Sustained enthusiasm has been the 
 motor of every movement in the progress of mankind. 
 Genius, pluck, endurance, and faith can be resisted by 
 neither kings nor cabinets. The triumph of Columbus 
 is a superb practical illustration of the apostle Paul s 
 tribute to the power of faith. His lofty spirit and great 
 purpose were undismayed by obstacles, defeat was an 
 incentive to new endeavor, and he so carried his 
 poverty that in the most brilliant court in Europe it 
 seemed a decoration. While following Ferdinand and 
 Isabella in their campaigns against the Moors, seeking 
 an audience and a hearing for his grand scheme, small 
 indeed seemed the battles, the sieges, and the victories 
 which absorbed the attention of the hour. The armed 
 chivalry of Spain, her marching squadrons, her gor- 
 
45 8 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 geous court, appeared to him the petty pageantry 
 which stood between the royal ear and the discovery 
 of a world. The most romantic picture of the period 
 was Boabdil, last of the Moorish kings, coming out 
 from Grenada and on bended knee surrendering to 
 Ferdinand and Isabella the keys to the city, while the 
 cross rose above the crescent upon the towers of the 
 Alhambra. While all Europe was ringing with acclaim 
 over this expulsion of the Mussulman, to one proud 
 and lofty figure standing aloof and unmoved, it seemed 
 of trivial importance compared with the grander con 
 quest so clearly outlined to his vision. 
 
 It was a happy omen of what America would do for 
 woman, that when statesman and prelate alike had 
 rejected the appeal of Columbus as visionary, and the 
 King had dismissed it with chilling courtesy, Isabella 
 comprehended the discoverer s ideas, saw the oppor 
 tunities of his success, appreciated the magnitude of 
 the results to her throne and to the world, and pledged 
 not only her royal favor, but her fortune and her 
 jewels to the enterprise. The American woman, with 
 her property rights guaranteed by American law, with 
 her equal position and independence, with her un- 
 equaled opportunities for higher education and for 
 usefulness, can say with pride to her brother, her lover, 
 and her husband, "You owe America to me." 
 
 Columbus stands deservedly at the head of that 
 most useful band of men the heroic cranks in history. 
 The persistent enthusiast whom one generation de 
 spises as a lunatic with one idea, succeeding ones often 
 worship as a benefactor. The ragged navigator at the 
 gate of the palace of Castile and Aragon outranks in 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 459 
 
 fame and beneficent endeavor all the kings and states 
 men and soldiers, not only of his own period, but also 
 of those which have come after. Following the lines 
 of his own great conception, this celebration in his 
 honor is not an empty pageant of music and artillery, 
 of banners and processions, but a gathering of the 
 representatives of the industries of mankind for the 
 purpose of enlarging the liberties, promoting the peace, 
 improving the condition, and broadening the intelli 
 gence of a race. 
 
 There has been no time since the inauguration of 
 our first President so auspicious for a national and 
 international exhibition in the United States. In 1876 
 we had only partially recovered from the most disas 
 trous financial panic of the century. The South had 
 not yet started upon its new development, and was 
 still suffering from the disorders and bitterness of 
 reconstruction. But now we are at the very consum 
 mation of peace and prosperity. We are on the pin 
 nacle of a century of unexampled growth, develop 
 ment, and progress. The vast region west of the 
 Missouri River, which was a wilderness in 1876, has 
 been fruitful in new States added to the Union ; the 
 railroad has penetrated along the valleys and climbed 
 to the mountain tops, carrying populations, opening 
 farms, developing mines, starting furnaces and mills, 
 building villages and founding cities. A generation 
 has grown up in the South which has caught the spirit 
 of progress and the pace of the times. The great 
 ranges so rich in coal and iron are furnishing wealth for 
 new Birminghams and Manchesters and Pittsburgs. 
 
 With the eager pursuit of wealth, as is common 
 
460 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 with all American communities, have come the perma 
 nent foundations of the schoolhouse and the church, 
 and the progress of intelligence and patriotism. The 
 whole country is ripe and ready for the inspection of 
 the world. 
 
 New York and Chicago were both founded upon a 
 broad commercial basis, while conquest and spoliation 
 marked the possession of their lands by other com 
 munities. The Dutch paid the Indians twenty-four 
 dollars for Manhattan Island, and the founder of Chi 
 cago gave to them five shillings for the site of this 
 city and three hundred miles roundabout. That the 
 Dutch played pitch-penny with poor Lo upon the 
 Battery, and won back the money, does not impair 
 the commercial integrity of the transaction. It was 
 only an object lesson to the savage upon the evils of 
 gambling. But there is no record that the purchaser 
 of Chicago made any effort to secure a return of his 
 five shillings. The city on the seaboard, starting from 
 a commercial basis, has become the metropolis of the 
 continent, and one of the three chief cities of the 
 world. This city upon the lakes is now the greatest 
 wonder of our western development, and with the 
 impetus derived from the success of this fair will be 
 the most phenomenal of modern communities. There 
 were sixty millions of dollars of new deposits in the 
 banks of Paris at the close of the French Exhibition, 
 and all France was enriched by the larger sums dis 
 tributed through the country. The hundreds of 
 millions of dollars which will be poured into your 
 midst will so quicken the pulse of your trade, so 
 attract population, so energize enterprise, that your 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 461 
 
 numbers, business establishments, and wealth will 
 mount up by leaps and bounds. You may not have 
 here the art treasures illustrating the genius of the old 
 masters, which have been the attraction of the exhibi 
 tions in Europe, nor the crown jewels which have 
 astonished their visitors, but you can have the price 
 less antiques and the best works of the greatest artists 
 of foreign schools, which the culture and wealth of our 
 citizens have brought to this country. You will not 
 exhibit, as did the Parisians, the dwellings of mankind 
 from the cave and lake cottage through Venetian, 
 Egyptian, Etruscan, Greek, Roman, and mediaeval 
 architecture, down to the last Parisian palace, but you 
 will, from the mound-dweller, from the Indian tepee, 
 and from the early settler s cabin, trace the rapid prog 
 ress of our people, within the memory of men still living^ 
 from savagery to conditions which not only materially 
 but artistically compare favorably with the accumulated 
 results of thousands of years in the Old World. 
 
 Above and beyond the material results of this 
 exhibition will be its stimulating influences upon the 
 patriotism of the people and the unity of the nation. 
 It is one of the paradoxes of progress that diffuse and 
 universal intelligence tends to provincialism, and local 
 pride and the refinement of the intellect to angles and 
 points. There was a time when the weekly Tribune 
 reached every town in the West, and Horace 
 Greeley s opinions were the bond of common senti 
 ment and national union, but the Associated Press 
 distributes with impartial hand the news of the world 
 to the newspapers in every city in the land. The 
 result is that the journals of every town go to the 
 
462 LIFE AND LA TER SPEECHES OF 
 
 public only as far as the train can carry them during 
 the morning hour, or before the family clock strikes 
 the note for retiring. Universal circulation all over 
 the country is no longer possible to any newspaper, 
 and the editorials of the local press mold the 
 opinions of the people. Under these conditions the 
 New York editor does not write for Chicago nor the 
 Chicago editor for St. Louis. If the Eastern or 
 Western or the Southern or Pacific Coast press treats 
 at all the interests of other sections, it is too often in 
 an unfriendly and critical spirit. It is in a tone which 
 depreciates or assails its distant countrymen, and 
 makes them not only rivals, but enemies. From this 
 cause multitudes in the East believe the West given up 
 wholly to the pursuit of money, and deficient in the 
 culture and refinement of long-organized and intelli 
 gent communities. Multitudes in the West regard 
 the people of the East as effete and weak excres 
 cences upon the body politic, or leeches in the form of 
 gold-bugs and coupon-cutters. The press of the South 
 inculcates a sectional pride and sensitiveness which sus 
 pects an enemy in the mildest critic and hostility in 
 every other section. But the fierce light of universal 
 publicity which will beat upon this Exhibition, and 
 the commingling here of citizens from every part of the 
 Union, will do much to demonstrate that we are one 
 people, with common interests and a common destiny. 
 Three years ago in London at dinner I sat beside 
 Robert Browning, the poet. He said to me, "Of all 
 the places in the world, the one which from its literary 
 societies sends me the most intelligent and thoughtful 
 criticisms upon my poetry is Chicago." 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 463 
 
 In this, the grandest temple of music the earth has 
 ever known, the queen of song who had enraptured 
 the sovereigns and the courts of Europe, sang to an 
 audience of sovereigns as appreciative, as enthusiastic, 
 and far more numerous than ever she had faced in the 
 capitals of the Old World. 
 
 With the broad, generous, and catholic spirit which 
 will inspire the visitors to this exhibition, the West 
 will discover that the East, with its conservatism, intel 
 lectuality, and prosperity, has not lost its vigor, and the 
 East will find that the West, with its stalwart force and 
 push and drive, is abreast of the East in intelligence, 
 culture, and refinement. While the East and the West 
 will meet the South here with fraternal greetings and 
 reciprocal respect, the representatives from every State 
 will learn anew the lesson that peace, prosperity, and 
 power can be strengthened and perpetuated only in 
 the Federal Union. 
 
 Let this International Fair be held; let the four- 
 hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America by 
 Columbus be celebrated; let it be commemorated by 
 an Industrial Exhibition grander in extent and volume 
 than any ever seen before ; let the Old World know 
 what their children have done in the New; let the 
 Stars and Stripes float from every roof and turret and 
 flagstaff; let the bands announce the opening and clos 
 ing of the Fair each day with the inspiring strains of 
 our national anthem, and we will separate from this 
 grand communion, impressed more deeply than ever 
 before with the fact that the proudest title on earth 
 is that of American Citizen. 
 
XXXVI. 
 
 ADDRESS BEFORE THE TWENTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL 
 CONVENTION OF THE BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMO 
 TIVE ENGINEERS AT PITTSBURG, OCTOBER 16, 
 1890. 
 
 ONLY an invitation of unusual attractiveness could 
 induce me to spend two nights on the sleeping car and 
 deliver an address, but your call to be with you for the 
 third time was an indication of the unabated friendship 
 which existed between us that demanded an equally 
 cordial recognition. My voluble and voluminous 
 friend, Mr. Powderly, said recently that at the meet- 
 J ng of the Locomotive Engineers of New England, 
 which I addressed in the Opera House at New Haven, 
 just before sailing for Europe, your Grand Chief, Mr. 
 Arthur, and I, edified the audience by falling into 
 each other s arms and kissing. While that event did 
 not take place, I am glad now as then to express the 
 esteem felt by everyone for the man whose ability and 
 conservatism have done so much to elevate and dignify 
 labor and to win for its efforts the respect of the 
 country. 
 
 This is the twenty-seventh annual convention of the 
 Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. During the 
 period of your existence and prosperous growth hun 
 dreds of labor organizations have been formed and dis- 
 
 464 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 465 
 
 solved. They have been started to carry out novel 
 theories or to put in practice unusual and untried proc 
 esses. The success of your body is due to its rigid 
 and unswerving adherence to the right principles upon 
 which it was founded. Association is the rule of our 
 time, and finds expression in the general laws upon 
 the statute book under which, with little expense or 
 formality, people with kindred objects can incorporate 
 for almost every conceivable purpose in business, 
 religion, benevolence, and the arts, or for literary or 
 social objects. 
 
 We have learned from experience several important 
 lessons. It has been demonstrated that socialism, 
 either with individuals or by the state, is incompatible 
 with our liberty, and cannot survive under our institu 
 tions. Over five hundred societies have been formed 
 to put in practice socialistic theories. They have been 
 headed by earnest, self-sacrificing, and devoted people, 
 and wrecked by disciples who could get along with 
 nobody in this world, and would never be received into 
 the next, and who fondly imagined that they could 
 create a better world of their own. It is clear that 
 success is impossible unless the manhood of the indi 
 vidual is secure, and his ability to improve his con 
 dition and rise above his surroundings is conceded. 
 That the fireman can become a locomotive engineer, 
 the locomotive engineer the master mechanic, the 
 master mechanic the superintendent of motive power, 
 the superintendent of motive power the superin 
 tendent or general manager of the railway and pos 
 sibly its president, is the law of our American develop 
 ment and the source of our national pre-eminence. 
 
466 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 But it must also be admitted that the individual has 
 liberty of thought and expression, and that the will of 
 the majority must be secured before action can be 
 taken. 
 
 No labor organization can permanently succeed 
 whose sole and only object is to increase wages 
 and diminish hours. It lacks the essential bond of 
 mutual sympathy and brotherly help in bearing or 
 lightening each other s burdens. The tendency of 
 such an organization is inevitably and rapidly to col 
 lisions and failure. The fundamental idea of your 
 brotherhood is, first, charity in support of the sick or 
 injured, and contributions to the families of the dead; 
 second, education, which perfects the artisan in the 
 theory and practice of his trade, and broadens him for 
 larger usefulness as a citizen; and, third, protection in 
 securing and maintaining your rights. Your record 
 is unexampled in the history of the contract between 
 employer and employees at home or abroad, in the 
 harmonious relations which have been maintained, and 
 in the intelligence and prosperity of your members. 
 We have in this country no accurate reports as to the 
 administration of the funds of labor organizations or 
 trade unions, but in England these returns are made, 
 and from them I gather that for the last year 
 jggQ the ten leading trade union organizations of 
 Great Britain expended $1,300,000 in charity and 
 insurance for their members, and only $120,000 in 
 labor disputes. 
 
 In the United States our pace is so rapid, and our 
 development so phenomenal, that without due con 
 sideration we rush rapidly to extremes. This is true 
 
CtiAUNCEY M. DKPEW. 467 
 
 both of capital and labor. The money required to 
 construct telegraphs, to build railroads, to establish 
 banks, was beyond the power of the individual, and so 
 the state permitted aggregated capital, representing 
 the contributions of many, to perform these works. At 
 the same time, through commissions, departments, and 
 state officers, the hand of the Government was con 
 stantly upon them for the protection of the public 
 against extortion or discrimination. But within a 
 few years everything, from pine lands to peanuts, and 
 from steel rails to sardines, has been organized into 
 some form of corporation or trust. This universal 
 effort to absorb the individual, to divide the people 
 into employing companies and employees, and to de 
 stroy competition, will inevitably end in disaster. 
 Hostile legislation and the laws of trade will leave only 
 the legitimate enterprises surviving. In the same way 
 and from the same causes there have been several am 
 bitious attempts to form gigantic labor trusts, which 
 should combine under one central and autocratic 
 authority every occupation in which a wage-earner or 
 a bread-winner could engage. In all such associations 
 of trades and occupations having nothing in common, 
 certain qualities of audacity, fluency of speech, and 
 capacity for manipulating caucuses and conventions 
 push to the front many men who know little of the 
 great interests confided to their care. Labor must be 
 as intelligent as capital upon its own grounds. The 
 committee which calls upon the employer or the rail 
 road officer must know its own business as well as he 
 does, otherwise from angry contentions because of 
 ignorance, comes the exercise of brute force, and 
 
468 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 violence fails to secure that which in nine cases out of 
 ten could have been had by intelligent presentation. 
 
 Hundreds of committees of our employees have been 
 to see me, and I can safely say that, after the full and 
 free discussion which always took place, not one of 
 them ever went out of my office except to carry back 
 a satisfactory message to its constituents. I do not 
 mean that what was asked was always granted, because 
 an intelligent committee, when it meets the president 
 of the railroad and sees the other side, always modifies 
 and sometimes abandons its demands. The reason for 
 these ready settlements was that the men understood 
 their own business, and knew precisely what they 
 wanted, and how much the company could afford to con 
 cede. But in the operations of what I may call the labor 
 trust I have had three experiences. A force of fifteen 
 men were located at one point on the line and, in com 
 mon with other trades in that neighborhood, were mem 
 bers of the local assembly. The chief of that assembly 
 was a shoemaker who had a quarrel with a passenger 
 conductor, and, to get even with the railroad, ordered 
 these men to quit work. They lost their places, with 
 all the attendant misery to themselves and their fami 
 lies, without knowing why they were ordered out, nor 
 have they ever to this day presented any statement. A 
 high official in the order called upon me by an appoint 
 ment made by his private secretary. In discussing 
 the alleged grievance which he came to correct, I 
 speedily discovered that he knew nothing either of the 
 character of the work, or the wages paid, or the hours 
 of service of the people whom he represented. He 
 then confessed that he never had been in the railroad 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 469 
 
 service, or worked an hour upon a railroad in his life. 
 Such representatives of organized labor bring it into 
 disrepute both with employers and with the public. 
 No matter how able a man may be as a cabinet-maker 
 or a carpenter or a mason, and no matter how compe 
 tent to represent his own trade, he would be absolutely 
 helpless in endeavoring to argue the claims of a 
 Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, and the Loco 
 motive Engineers, educated in the principles of the 
 Brotherhood, would never attempt to speak except of 
 that which they thoroughly understood their own 
 business and that of their brethren. A committee 
 called upon me last fall with a series of complaints 
 and demands, all of which were quickly and satisfac 
 torily adjusted. They then made a demand for the 
 Locomotive Engineers. I said to them, "Gentlemen, 
 that is a body able to speak for itself." They then said 
 that their object was to break up the organization of 
 Locomotive Engineers and to gather into the one or 
 ganization every department of the railway service, and 
 that if the management of the Central road would 
 recognize the claims of engineers only through them, 
 this result would be brought about, and upon a much 
 lower basis than the Brotherhood could admit under 
 their rules, and if we did not do so they would strike 
 and tie up the road. I said to them, "I regard the 
 Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers as the best 
 labor organization in the United States, as a safeguard 
 both to the public and to the corporation, against un 
 reasonable demands or intemperate violence, and you 
 may do your worst, but in a matter which affects the 
 Brotherhood I will recognize only them." That night 
 
470 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 the officers of the Brotherhood were informed, and 
 the concession made to them, and that threat of a 
 strike was never carried out. 
 
 The duties of a railroad to the public are now so 
 clearly defined and so well understood that all of us, 
 in whatever grade of service, are in a certain sense the 
 servants of the public. To close a line like the New 
 York Central, and inflict the attendant hardships upon 
 hundreds of thousands of people, and the enormous 
 losses upon business men and wage-earners alike, is so 
 great a calamity and so near a crime that those who 
 are responsible, and in the wrong, are bound to suffer. 
 Public opinion is the mighty arbiter on such an occa 
 sion. If against the corporation it cannot resist, but 
 must yield; if it be against the class of employees 
 which are causing the trouble, the road will surely win. 
 Years of successful trial, of fair, frank, and friendly dis 
 cussions with the employees of the Central, upon 
 questions in dispute which arose from time to time, 
 had led me to believe that a strike was impossible 
 upon the line of that road. In that trust I went 
 abroad on my annual summer holiday, only to have 
 my hopes roughly shattered while musing at Oberam- 
 mergau one Sunday evening on the happy lesson of 
 peace and good will among men taught by the Passion 
 Play, which I had been witnessing all day, by a cable 
 announcing that the words "Webster s Dictionary" 
 flashed over the wires had caused thousands to desert 
 their posts, and the greatest artery of commerce and 
 travel in the United States to be stopped. But you 
 were true to the relations which for many years had 
 been established, and sustained and reinvigorated my 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 47 l 
 
 fading faith in the efficacy of any effort to maintain 
 a satisfactory and permanent understanding between 
 capital and labor. The citizens of New York and of 
 the whole country owe to the Brotherhood of Loco 
 motive Engineers a debt of gratitude for the courage, 
 fidelity, and intelligence with which they stood by their 
 posts and performed their duties during the recent 
 troubles on the New York Central. 
 
 A locomotive engineer has necessarily the qualities 
 which make success in the railway world. The firemen 
 are the recruits for your Brotherhood, but there is 
 often complaint among them as to methods of promo 
 tion. Sometimes it is claimed that it should go only 
 by seniority of service. But there are firemen who in 
 fifty years would never become locomotive engineers, 
 while others, in a few years, make admirable ones. 
 Some men are too light-headed and will pull out of a 
 switch before the express has passed, or miscalculate 
 the time for the next turn-out, so that constant colli 
 sions are occurring with their trains. Some are too 
 bumptious, and will take their chances without first 
 receiving the orders of the train dispatcher. But the 
 true locomotive engineer is always a man of sense, of 
 quick thought and courage in an emergency, and in 
 peril a hero. With his train thundering along at the 
 rate of fifty miles an hour, and the safety of hundreds 
 of passengers dependent upon his judgment and skill, 
 his decision made instantly, and in the presence of 
 danger, saves the train from destruction many times 
 without the public ever being the wiser. He sees the 
 tottering bridge, the obstruction upon the track, the 
 open switch. The opportunity is before him to reverse 
 
47 2 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 and jump, or to stick to his engine and perform his 
 duties. In ninety-nine cases of a hundred he utters a 
 brief prayer, bids a mental good-by to his wife and 
 little ones at home, and rescues his train or goes calmly 
 to his death. In the riots of 1863, when the city of 
 New York was in the possession of a mob, trains of the 
 Hudson River Road were stopped, and hundreds of 
 women were in the depot at Thirtieth Street unable to 
 get to their homes. The rioters threatened to kill any 
 one who tried to move a wheel. An engineer instantly 
 volunteered and said "I will take that train up the 
 river." On either side of the road were men frenzied 
 with rage and with drink, ready for murder or any 
 desperate deed, but they were so awed by the calm 
 courage of this engineer that he was permitted to pro 
 ceed. This last summer, after forty years of service on 
 the Central, this engineer, Henry Millikin, joined the 
 silent majority. His name stands among the un 
 heralded heroes who are the pride and the glory of our 
 humanity. 
 
 Much has recently been said in favor of the owner 
 ship of railroads by the Government on the ground 
 that the employees would be in a better position. The 
 office-holder is never sure of his place, and no employ 
 ment is so insecure as that under the Government*. 
 The public danger of giving to an administration a 
 million additional appointments is too obvious for dis 
 cussion. But on the question of the independence, the 
 influence, the wages and treatment of employees under 
 the Government, I had two object lessons while in 
 Europe this summer. In Germany, where the railroads 
 are owned by the state, they are made part of its 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 473 
 
 military system. Locomotive engineers receive an 
 average of less than forty-five dollars per month, and 
 the men in other branches of the service are paid in 
 proportion. The discipline is rigid, and any insubordi 
 nation or violation of the rules subjects the offended to 
 punishment from which there is no escape. The wages 
 of the letter-carriers in England average about six 
 dollars a week. It costs quite as much to live in Lon 
 don as in New York. These men, finding the Postal 
 authorities paid no attention to their petitions, went 
 out on a strike. Their places were filled the next 
 morning and a policeman put beside each new em 
 ployee. Their meetings were broken up, and they 
 were not permitted to stand about or come near the 
 stations. They woke up, when too late, to a realization 
 of the disheartening fact that they were practically 
 fighting the British Empire and had arrayed against 
 them all its resources. 
 
 Libraries have been written upon labor and capital, 
 but they are mostly trash. Labor cannot live without 
 capital to furnish it employment, and capital, without 
 labor to enable it to increase and multiply, is as useless 
 as diamonds on a desert island to a shipwrecked and 
 starving mariner. When capital selfishly strives to 
 secure an unfair proportion of the profits by reducing 
 the laborer to conditions which endanger the health, mo 
 rality, and education of his family, it is certain to incite 
 a revolt which will end in its impairment or destruction. 
 When labor pushes its demands to a point where cap 
 ital receives no return or incurs loss, the business stops 
 and employment ceases. In the varying phases of our 
 complex civilization, and the conditions produced by 
 
474 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 machinery, invention, new industries, and rapid settle 
 ment, no general rule seems possible which shall be 
 applicable to all cases as a panacea for the antagonisms 
 between capital and labor. Every difficulty must 
 be solved upon its own merits. It is just here that an 
 intelligent labor organization, composed only of the 
 occupation which seeks to secure a right or redress a 
 wrong, can meet its employer upon grounds which will 
 show their mutual dependence and promote their 
 common benefit. It is just here that ignorance or 
 incompetence on the one side produces irritation and 
 resistance on the other, and capital loses its earnings 
 and labor its wages. 
 
 The period ought to come when the employees in 
 any industry shall not be arrayed in hostile camps over 
 the whole country against their employers in the same 
 business, when the combinations will not be of the 
 workers on the one hand and the officers or firms on 
 the other as against each other, but with good sense, 
 friendly feeling, and kindly tempered dispositions, they 
 shall meet upon common grounds for the common good, 
 and an overwhelming sense of common interest. Then 
 men of every grade of employment, from the President 
 down, in corporations like the New York Central or 
 the Pennsylvania Railroad, will be united in the loyal 
 endeavor to make the railroad which they serve the 
 best equipped, the most attractive, and the most 
 formidable in the field of competition ; to put it in the 
 position where its service will be the most satisfac 
 tory, and it will command the patronage of the public. 
 Then the communities dependent on these great lines 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 475 
 
 of transportation will feel the beneficent influence in 
 increasing populations and general prosperity, which 
 come so marvelously where the railroads are wisely 
 administered, and stockholders and employees alike will 
 share in the prevailing good times. 
 
XXXVII. 
 
 A DEFENSE OF CHRISTIANITY BEFORE THE NINE 
 TEENTH CENTURY CLUB, DECEMBER 23, 1885. 
 
 MR. [JULIAN] HAWTHORNE S case, stripped of its 
 brilliant illustrations and attractive presentation, is sim 
 ply this : Man is totally depraved by nature ; he is prone 
 to crime against others and vice against himself; the 
 Church and society keep him in order by a system of 
 punishments and rewards; to escape the one and 
 receive the other he suppresses his natural inclinations, 
 and lives and dies a hypocrite; the Church therefore 
 having failed totally to produce men and women who 
 are good from right motives, science and free thought 
 are developing a nobler manhood and womanhood 
 from within, and their creations, actuated by neither 
 sordid fear nor hope, will regenerate mankind. Start 
 ing as the author does from Calvin s premises, in which 
 I agree with him, he reaches conclusions which all 
 history and experience refute. The one society which 
 presented the ideal of science and free thought was 
 the Athenian at its best. But while the highest intel 
 lectual activity, speculation, and research existed among 
 the few, woman, until she unsexed herself, like Aspasia, 
 had no part or recognition, and the masses were neg 
 lected brutes or slaves. In the decay of the Roman 
 Empire the old heathen faiths had broken down, Chris- 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 477 
 
 tianity was not yet understood, and there was absolute 
 emancipation from creed or superstition, and the result 
 was, that for ages the world was peopled by wild 
 beasts, and the only existence of right was the suffer 
 ance it received from might. Liberty, learning, and 
 proper living thrived and spread only where the Church 
 best and most vigorously believed and disseminated 
 the teachings of the New Testament. 
 
 Look at England 150 years ago. Death was the 
 punishment for nearly every offense. To attend 
 public executions was one of the recreations of the 
 fashionable. To torture men and women in the 
 stocks was a popular amusement. The prisons were 
 hells of frightful crimes and hopeless sufferings. For 
 a gentleman to beat his wife was an entirely proper 
 thing. Now the prisons are reformed, and reforma 
 tion the object of confinement. The wounded, the 
 sick, the helpless, the insane, the aged, and the 
 orphan are nursed, tenderly cared for, cured, and be 
 friended in numberless hospitals, homes, and asylums. 
 Every one of these grand charities has sprung directly 
 from the Church as it is, both here and in England. 
 The disciples of science and free thought, in the ab 
 sorbing effort to find what they term their liberty, have 
 never had time or thought for the relief or elevation of 
 their fellow-men. 
 
 By self-sacrificing and modest people, who seek no 
 other reward than the approval of their conscience, 
 a grand work is done daily among the poor, in the 
 tenement houses, the missions, the industrial schools. 
 Women of the most delicate nurture and luxurious 
 surroundings brave everything in their labors. They 
 
47 8 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 are invariably the disciples of the churches. No free 
 thinkers are to be found among them. Last summer 
 in London I attended the Sunday morning service at 
 Westminster Abbey. The grandeur of the temple, 
 the glory of its associations, the splendid liturgy and 
 ceremonial of the Episcopal Church, formed fit and 
 lofty accompaniments for a sermon from Canon 
 Farrar, which in thought and diction could worthily 
 stand beside the best classics in our language. The 
 next Sunday I sat upon the wooden benches in the 
 plain meeting house of Mr. Spurgeon, and listened to 
 his homely but most powerful eloquence. No more 
 striking contrast within the Christian community was 
 possible. And yet I found that in like measure, but 
 each in its own way, the old Abbey and the Baptist 
 assembly were centers from which radiated, to every 
 part of London, every form of Christian education and 
 charity. London has many scientific and sociological 
 associations of world-wide fame, but the poor, the 
 needy, the helpless, and the lost of the great city know 
 them not. A better society never did and never will 
 exist than that in New England for its first 150 years, 
 and its whole life was dominated by the family Bible. 
 You are all familiar with the care and growth of 
 
 o 
 
 children. Fear and rewards have always been the ele 
 ments of their education. From the first dawnings of 
 intelligence they are taught that they will be punished 
 if they do wrong, and benefited both here and here 
 after if they do right. If this system were abandoned, 
 and an effort made to find some higher nature, which 
 would assert itself in a beautiful and reverent life, the 
 boy would break the windows, smash the looking- 
 
CHAUXCEY M. DEPEW. 479 
 
 glasses, maul his younger brothers and sisters, cut up 
 your best pictures, and finally cut your throat. The 
 old-fashioned way of arousing fears and inspiring hopes 
 does not make these children hypocrites. A con 
 science is gradually reared within them. By its teach 
 ings they act, because it is more gratifying in every 
 sense to rightly live; and these boys and girls, instead 
 of becoming broken or mean-spirited, are full of sensi 
 tive honor and pure aspirations. I confess I do not 
 understand the evangels of free thought. They use 
 a language of strange terms and beautiful generalities 
 which convey no meaning to me. It is probably 
 because my mind and education are both deficient. 
 Here and elsewhere I have listened with the most 
 earnest attention, but when they have tumbled down 
 my church and buried my Bible, and destroyed all the 
 foundations of faith, they have offered in return only 
 phrases, collocations of words, and terminologies as 
 mixed as chaos and as vague as space. 
 
XXXVIII. 
 
 RESPONSE TO WELCOME FROM RAILROAD ASSOCI 
 ATES IN NEW YORK BAY, ON RETURNING FROM 
 EUROPE, SEPTEMBER 1 6, 1891. 
 
 THE pleasantest day to me of all the year is the day 
 that I meet you on my annual return from Europe. 
 It brings us together in our old organization in a way 
 that proves to the world that, under certain circum 
 stances, corporations have souls. It shows that there 
 is at least one organization in the world, of the largest 
 capacity in capital invested and in the numbers em 
 ployed, the harmony of whose members is such that 
 for one day in the year they bury all conditions of rank 
 and stand on a plane, in a friendship which is purely 
 and simply a friendship that has been created by associ 
 ation in a common service. 
 
 These annual returns prove better than anything 
 else the variations and vicissitudes of our American 
 life. When I came back last year the New York Cen 
 tral s horizon was covered with clouds. We had trouble 
 in our organization. We had overcome it, it is true, 
 but it was a trouble affecting the movements of our 
 system, and affecting the results in our treasury. I 
 come back this year to find that within the round of 
 thirteen months, and with the same men, pursuing the 
 same policy, the Central never was so prosperous in 
 its whole career. 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 481 
 
 We are more richly laden than usual with the freight 
 that we bring from the other side. You have here 
 not only the president, but the treasurer, Mr. Rossiter, 
 who has been put in that frame of mind by the cabled 
 reports as to the condition of the "box" over which 
 he so ably presides that he has smiled all the way over 
 to such an extent that, if it had not been for his ears, 
 the top of his head would have been an island. We 
 have with us Mr. Cox, the most versatile of the gentle 
 men in the Grand Central Depot, who is the president 
 of a microscopical society for scientific purposes, and 
 who puts his microscope upon the statements of the 
 officers of the New York Central and the other roads 
 m the Vanderbilt system in a way that leads them to 
 wish that he knew more about scientific microscopies 
 and less about it when applied to finance. 
 
 We never had the pleasure of welcoming the Com 
 modore home, because the Commodore never went 
 abroad. It was not the fashion in those days for 
 Americans t$> go abroad. Now they don t do any 
 thing else. But we welcomed William H. repeatedly. 
 We have also welcomed Cornelius, and now we come 
 to the fourth generation, and following the traditions 
 of the family, we have William H. and Cornelius both 
 on board. 
 
 There is one face which I miss, and it was one of 
 the incidents which cast a gloom over our departure 
 from the Old World. On every one of these annual 
 visits of former years we have had with us Major 
 Bundy. I met Bundy in London in full health and 
 vigor. It was his first visit abroad, and he was enjoy 
 ing with immense zest and enthusiasm the things he 
 
482 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 knew so well by his wide reading and vast informa 
 tion. I received a telegram at Liverpool that he had 
 been stricken with apoplexy. Thinking that some 
 thing might be done to help him, I telegraphed to that 
 effect. I received in reply a telegram at Queenstown 
 that he had gone to his long home. Mr. Whitelaw 
 Reid, our American Minister, with the affection and 
 interest of a brother journalist, had done for him all 
 that generosity, liberality, and human aid could do to 
 make him comfortable and save his life. You will all 
 join with me in the sentiment that a more honest jour 
 nalist never wrote with pen than Major J. M. Bundy, 
 and a truer friend in cloud and in sunshine never 
 stood upon the earth. 
 
 It has been my custom to give you all the results of 
 my travel, so that, without expense to yourselves, you 
 could go with me everywhere and enjoy it, relieved 
 from the attendant circumstances. And the attend 
 ant circumstances are seriously injurious to a bank 
 account. 
 
 Having viewed so often the brilliant side of Lon 
 don s social life, it occurred to me that I would take 
 a view of its dark side. One Sunday morning, in a 
 garb which was a cross between that of a costermonger 
 and a pickpocket, I traversed the Whitechapel district. 
 It was a sight impossible to see anywhere else in the 
 world. The streets were so crowded that it was 
 almost impossible to wedge your way through. Every 
 few feet was some merchant, male or female, selling 
 the cast-off clothes or household furniture which came 
 to them after having been worn or used through a 
 dozen different grades before it reached Whitechapel. 
 
UNIVERSITY 
 
 CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 4 8 3 
 
 I saw rags held up there for sale that nowhere in 
 America would find any place except in the ash barrel, 
 and the ashman in picking it over would refuse to 
 carry them home. Such poverty, such misery, such 
 wretchedness, such a seething furnace of ignorance 
 and all the attendants upon hopelessness, I never saw 
 before and never expect to see again. I felt that this 
 great city, with its magnificent palaces, with every 
 evidence in part of it of the largest wealth, the greatest 
 luxury, the most liberal expenditure, rested upon a 
 volcano which only needed the force of civilization to 
 bring upon it a catastrophe which would shock the 
 world. 
 
 Within twenty minutes from that place you come 
 to the annual parade in Hyde Park of all that is most 
 splendid in rank, wealth, beauty, and dress in the 
 British Empire. Miserable as these people have been 
 always, their misery is a thousandfold intensified by 
 pauper immigration. Great Britain has established 
 no barrier, as we have, and imposed no rules whatever. 
 It is the dumping-ground of all Europe for misery 
 which must starve or go somewhere. It goes to Lon 
 don and competes there with a condition so much 
 better than its own that in the wages it accepts, in the 
 work it does, it is reducing the British workingmen 
 and workingwomen of the great cities to a dangerous 
 point for British peace and prosperity. It is a lesson 
 for us to take to ourselves, whether the barriers which 
 we have already should not be increased, and whether 
 notices should not be sent all over the world that "we 
 have sympathy, we have humanity, but keep your 
 paupers at home." 
 
4^4 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 I received a telegram from Cornelius Vanderbilt, 
 inviting me to join him for a trip through Turkey and 
 Greece. The thermometer was 50 in London and 104 
 in Greece, and I thought I would go, just for a change. 
 We read as we went along a lesson in women s rights. 
 All through the fields of Europe the women were 
 doing the plowing and the hoeing; the men were serv 
 ing in the army. All through the fields of Turkey, 
 Mahometanism is locking the woman up; she lives in 
 idleness at home, while her husband does the work. 
 The question which I propose to ask the women s 
 rights advocates in this country is, Would you rather 
 work in the fields as the women do in Central Europe, 
 or live in idleness in harems, as they do in Turkey? 
 
 The methods of agriculture are those described in 
 the Bible. They still thresh on a floor with the ox; 
 they still garner their grain and plow it with a stick. 
 The country where brigands operations occur is better 
 adapted for that than any country in the world. We 
 went for about three hundred miles at the rate of 
 about fifteen miles an hour on the Orient Express, the 
 pride of Turkey. The Turk, who has never been 
 accustomed to anything more rapid than a camel, 
 looks in awe and wonder at the movement of this 
 flying machine. This space of over three hundred 
 miles is like our alkali plains, and all around are the 
 bare walls of the Balkan Mountains. There are no 
 houses, no roads, and no bridle paths, very few stations, 
 and it is an ideal spot for holding up a train and com 
 mitting an outrage. They stopped a train two weeks 
 before us and took off four Germans without any 
 trouble and let them off for fifty thousand dollars. 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 4 S 5 
 
 They took off a wealthy farmer from the train ahead 
 of us, and got for him five thousand dollars. Their 
 mode of operation is to secure their victim and take 
 him into the Balkan fastnesses and send word to his 
 friends that they want so much money for his release 
 inside of ten days, and if it is not forthcoming they 
 send on one of his ears. The next day they send the 
 other ear, and the next day the nose, and so his family 
 finally receives him in sections. Our train, having upon 
 it opportunities never offered before to an enterprising 
 brigand, went through without interruption. There 
 were Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt, his two sons, and my 
 self. Brigandage in Turkey needs reorganization. It 
 ought to be put in the hands of a New York syndicate, 
 new officers put in command, and the enterprise put 
 on a business basis. Then I think it could be success 
 fully placed on the London market. 
 
 The most picturesque place in the world is Constan 
 tinople. The thing that struck me most in Turkey, 
 visiting that grandest of Eastern cathedrals, the 
 Mosque of St. Sophia, was this: When the Mahometan 
 conqueror had sacked the city he summoned all Greece 
 within this mosque, and told them that those who 
 embraced Mahometanism should be spared and those 
 who refused should be killed. He put his hand in 
 the blood upon the floor and smeared it upon one of 
 the great pillars of the temple, and said : "That hand 
 rules forever after this country." I looked at that 
 hand, and came to the conclusion that no glove store 
 in America could furnish it with a glove to fit. 
 
 We went to the tombs of the Turkish Sultans. 
 They do not bury them, but place them in wooden 
 
486 LIFE AXD LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 tombs with a cloth over them, because the Turk is 
 simply encamped in Europe. Around him are his for 
 tunate wives. The Sultan on the Turkish Easter 
 marries a new wife. If she conduces to domestic hap 
 piness and peace and their tempers agree, she becomes 
 a fortunate wife. Otherwise he divorces her, and that 
 is the reason why the Sultan when he dies leaves so 
 few of these fortunate wives. Every eligible man of 
 the first rank wants one of these fortunate widows 
 for his wife, because she receives a large dowry, and 
 her husband becomes the brother-in-law of the 
 Sultan. 
 
 Nothing afforded us greater pleasure than going 
 through the islands of Greece and visiting Greece it 
 self. Really it seemed wonderful for an old university 
 man to be sailing by these places, the names of which 
 had been pounded into him at the academy and 
 stamped in him at the college. I never before ap 
 preciated how tremendous is the hold of antiquity 
 upon all succeeding ages. The adventures of Ulysses 
 are the pride of the scholar, the emulation of the 
 voyager, of the explorer, and the sailor, and have been 
 for three thousand years, and yet they covered less 
 than three hundred miles. It is all in a space that in 
 these days of steam you can see in twenty-four hours. 
 The men who went to Troy could now get there in six 
 hours. 
 
 The most interesting day we had was when we went 
 upon the invitation of the American consul at Athens 
 to visit the platform of Demosthenes, I never before 
 understood the secret of Demosthenes s eloquence. 
 You climb up a hill to a plain several hundred feet in 
 
CHAUNCEY J/. DEPEIV. 4 8 7 
 
 extent. On each side of it are rough rocks rising about 
 forty feet. On one side is the platform of Demos 
 thenes, on the other side Mars Hill. A cut down 
 the face of this rock makes a platform about thirty 
 feet square, with three steps leading down to the 
 ground. They had cut out benches for the cabinet 
 officers of those times. On the top of the rock was 
 the Temple of Jupiter, and it was customary before 
 Demosthenes began to speak to pour out a libation to 
 Jupiter to give him inspiration for the delivery of an 
 address he had been three months preparing. The 
 American consul said to his Greek lieutenant Alci- 
 biades : "Pour out a libation to Jupiter on the rock." 
 As the rich red Greek wine ran over the rock an expres 
 sion of despair came over the face of Alcibiades such 
 as was never seen on human countenance before. 
 You stand on that platform, and then you under 
 stand the power of Demosthenes. Every citizen of 
 Athens was a member of the Legislature, and it 
 didn t cost him a cent to be elected. Demosthenes 
 would have before him on a great occasion possibly 
 twenty thousand or thirty thousand voters. Debate 
 was impossible. 
 
 The orator who could sway these legislators was the 
 dictator of the country. They had to vote viva voce, 
 and Demosthenes, by his commanding eloquence, easily 
 became the ruler of the Legislature. 
 
 I went up to Mars Hill and saw there the exact spot 
 where the Apostle Paul stood. I thought I would see 
 how far the Pauline eloquence and tenor could reach. 
 Away off on the other side of the plain were twenty 
 or thirty men engaged on a mountain road. I shouted 
 
4 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 with all my lungs, "Ye men of Athens, I perceive that 
 in all things ye are too superstitious." They sus 
 pended work for the rest of the day. 
 
 But there is a disappointment in Athens, and that 
 disappointment is the Maid of Athens. In view of 
 what I expected in the way of temptation from reading 
 Byron, that line about "Maid of Athens, e er we part, 
 give, oh, give me back my heart," and wanting to 
 carry that essential part of my anatomy back untouched 
 to my wife, I put a dinner plate inside of my vest 
 and went down to the beach, where all Athens 
 goes in the evening to get dinner. It is the same 
 beach where Demosthenes walked up and down, im 
 proving his oratory with pebbles. I gazed at the Maid 
 of Athens as earnestly and rapturously and as anxious 
 to be enamored as did the young friends who were 
 with me. But she is a disappointment. On Coney 
 Island, Narragansett Pier, at Long Branch or Sara 
 toga, Richfield Springs or Bar Harbor, at Pawling 
 or Peekskill we can beat her every day in the 
 week. 
 
 The thermometer of Athens was 104 in our room, 
 darkened and cool, and 122 in the shade in the park 
 in front. At night the thermometer went down to 
 95 and the mosquito came in. He had all the pecu 
 liarities with which I had been made familiar in 
 the New Jersey, Staten Island, and lower Westchester 
 mosquito. Ordinarily I would have killed him if I 
 could, but I let that Greek mosquito just fill his bill on 
 me. I said: "Old man, you have feasted on Demos 
 thenes, the blood of all the worthies of antiquity is 
 concentrated in you, but let my new, red American 
 
CHAUNCRY M. DEPhW. 4^9 
 
 blood mingle with the blue current of the ages," and 
 he let it. We were quite anxious to see the Tomb of 
 Agamemnon. I suppose that there is no character in 
 history so well impressed upon the boy as Agamem 
 non. He becomes familiar with him at both ends. 
 He gets him with strap and admonition, and he has 
 him like indelible ink, and we were anxious to see 
 where he was buried, and if he was dead we would 
 have liked to help bury him. As they have only a 
 narrow gauge road in Turkey, and the trains run 
 slowly, Mr. Vanderbilt got a special train. All opera 
 tions of every kind were suspended in Greece in aston 
 ishment over that special train. They never had had 
 such a thing before. We got up at four o clock in the 
 morning, and as we went to the station saw the people 
 lying on the sidewalks on account of the heat. It was 
 a little station. The train went on to a larger station, 
 where it could switch, and we rode across the plain, 
 hot and dusty, with the thermometer about 120 in the 
 sun, climbed the roughest kind of a mountain for about 
 an hour, and came to the Tomb of Agamemnon, being 
 a large tomb of circular form in the mountain which 
 would hold one hundred people. Then when we came 
 up we looked over that desolate mountain, that hot, 
 dusty, and desolate plain, over that wretched country 
 which is not worth five cents an acre, and came to the 
 conclusion that Helen was justified in running away. 
 She certainly could not stand the situation, and she 
 said to Paris, who was visiting the Court of Agamem 
 non, "Take me over to your father and mother," and 
 the Trojans, being a chivalric people, and having been 
 informed by Paris what kind of a country it was, said : 
 
49 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 "We will sacrifice our city before we will let any woman 
 of refinement and culture go back to such a place of 
 desolation." 
 
 We had a beautiful ride across the Adriatic and then 
 a feast at Venice, which recalled all the glories of the 
 Doges. Mr. Vanderbilt s courier arranged that I 
 should be accompanied to the station at twelve o clock 
 at night by a gondola with torches and fireworks and 
 colored lights in front and a gondola bearing a musical 
 and operatic troupe, vocal and instrumental. The 
 blaze of the fireworks, the red, white, and blue fire, drew 
 from the canals, every gondola in Venice. We went 
 in triumph to the station with one hundred gondolas 
 in our wake, with the fireworks and the music, and 
 the procession of the last Doge going out to marry 
 the sea paled into insignificance in comparison with 
 an American railroad president going to take an Italian 
 railway train. 
 
 There are few observations to make upon conditions 
 as they prevail on the other side, because you have 
 them here almost as well as you might have them 
 there. Two subjects which are agitating Europe to 
 day are the Russian persecution of seven million 
 Jews, and that most remarkable thing, the fall of 
 Bismarck. Three or four years ago, you will remem 
 ber, when I told you of meeting the Emperor when 
 Bismarck was in the height of his power, he was the 
 greatest figure in the world. He held down the work- 
 ingmen with an iron hand, fearing socialism, and he 
 was the lord over the capitalists and nobles on the 
 other. To-day the workingman looks upon him as an 
 enemy; the noble and capitalist follow power and are 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 491 
 
 with the Emperor, and he is without place, power, or 
 reverence, or anything that would solace the declining 
 years of a statesman so great that, one hundred years 
 hence, when the history of this century comes to be 
 written, he will be the foremost figure. 
 
XXXIX. 
 
 SPEECH AT DINNER OF THE MONTAUK CLUB, BROOK 
 LYN, IN CELEBRATION OF MR. DEPEW S FIFTY- 
 EIGHTH BIRTHDAY, APRIL 23, 1892. 
 
 I SHOULD be the most insensible of men if I did not 
 deeply appreciate the great compliment which you 
 pay me. While the occasion makes my heart beat 
 happily and arouses an honest pride, it presents no 
 subject for a speech. This is not a gathering of politi 
 cal friends, martyrizing themselves to become a medium 
 by which the orator can get his views before the coun 
 try. It is not a collection of reformers, ambitious to 
 have the speaker sit down because each one in the 
 audience thinks he could improve the subject much 
 better than the man on his feet. It is not a conven 
 tion to promote principles, float policies, or fresco men. 
 Gentlemen of all political parties, of all religious 
 creeds, of all professions and business pursuits, are 
 gathered in this room. That they meet to greet me is 
 a distinguished honor; that the occasion is my birthday 
 and decorates that natal hour with choicer flowers than 
 ever have enshrined it before; this celebration, called 
 for no public purpose or patriotic event or public 
 man, is a tribute to the resources of friendship and the 
 expansive properties of club life. 
 
 The twenty-third day of April is, of course, one of 
 
 492 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 493 
 
 the most important in the calendar. On it St. George 
 was born, Shakspere, and myself. St. George belted 
 the globe with his drum-beat and his flag; he became 
 our progenitor; on account of his failure to appreciate 
 the proper relations, national wise, between parents 
 and children, we found it necessary to first thrash him 
 and then declare our independence. That we have 
 since become the principal object of his admiration, is 
 due to our exertions and not to his teaching. But we 
 always extend him a cordial welcome, are hospitably 
 entertained when we go to the old home, and are ready 
 to render him any proper assistance if he should need 
 it and it is right for us to give it. 
 
 Shakspere died at fifty, and I am to-day fifty-eight, 
 with the consciousness of firmer health, fuller powers, 
 and keener enjoyment of life than ever before. I 
 believe that Shakspere died because he retired from 
 business. He had demonstrated, for the glory of the 
 human intellect, that "myriad minds" could be housed 
 in one brain, and then retired to Stratford to live at 
 ease. I have observed that health and longevity are 
 indissolubly connected with work. Work furnishes the 
 ozone for the lungs, the appetite, and the digestion 
 which support vigorous life, the occupation which keeps 
 the brain active and expansive. When a man from 
 fifty upward retires, as he says, for rest, his intellectual 
 powers become turbid, his circulation sluggish, his 
 stomach a burden, and the coffin his home. Bismarck 
 at seventy-five ruling Germany, Thiers at eighty 
 France, Gortschakoff at eighty-one Russia, Gladstone 
 at eighty-two a power in Great Britain, Simon Cam 
 eron at ninety taking his first outing abroad and enjoy- 
 
494 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 ing all the fatigues as well as the delights of a London 
 season, illustrate the recuperative powers of work. 
 These men never ceased to exercise to the extent of 
 their abilities their faculties in their chosen lines. I 
 have seen Gladstone moving along the street with the 
 briskness of a man of twenty-five. I have heard him 
 at the dinner-table discourse for hours upon every liv 
 ing question, as if he would live long enough to solve 
 each- one of them. I have sat with him in a box at the 
 opera when the movement upon the stage absorbed 
 him as completely as it did the musical critic in the 
 orchestra chair; but his judgment was moved by the 
 fresh enthusiasm of youth. 
 
 In the Old World the club is the home of the 
 bachelor and the widower, and the house of refuge for 
 the married man who is the victim of home rule. 
 While the American club has, as it ought, the virtues 
 and the attributes of that of the effete civilization of 
 Europe, it has other virtues which are American. 
 This gathering illustrates them. It is the gregarious 
 feature of the American club which is its principal 
 benefit. Its members leave at the door their politics, 
 their creeds, their professions, their shops. In a pure 
 democracy, with free discussion "under the rose," the 
 best qualities of each become the common property of 
 all. The tone, the character, the influence of the best 
 men meet under the best conditions, and convey moral 
 lessons which supplement those of the Church and 
 temperance lecture, which have more restraining 
 influence than the pledge. The Democrat discovers 
 that the Republican is not wholly bigoted, and the 
 Republican finds out that the Democrat is not wholly 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEIV. 495 
 
 bad ; the Episcopalian discovers liberality in the Presby 
 terian, and the Presbyterian rubs against something 
 besides form in the Episcopalian, while the Baptist dis 
 covers that a man can be spiritually clean without 
 being immersed. Youth is glorious, and yet when a 
 man of fifty and past looks back upon his mistakes, 
 upon the perils from which Providence and not his 
 own good sense has rescued him, perils which would 
 not have existed if he had had during the whole period 
 the mature judgment of to-day, he would not go 
 back and live his life over again. Secure in the accu 
 mulated possession of friends, of family, of realized 
 opportunity, he would not jump once more into the 
 stream and strike out for another shore. The glory of 
 youth is its ideals. We love to read of Burke s letter 
 to his constituents telling them that his conscience 
 was above their votes, and recognize our ideal states 
 man. We study the ideals of our Wirts and our 
 Storys and our Websters, and idealize the lawyer: of 
 the Jonathan Ed \vardses, and other giants of the pul 
 pit, and idealize the minister: of Robert Morris, the 
 patriotic banker of the Revolution, and idealize the 
 business man. 
 
 We have found as we have rubbed against them in 
 life that the statesman is often more of a schemer than a 
 patriot; that the great soldier is egotistical, garrulous, 
 and narrow-minded on all questions but armies; that 
 the lawyer sometimes substitutes tricks for settled 
 principles of law, and that the minister talks to the 
 galleries rather than to the souls of the congregation ; 
 while the business man makes a phenomenal success 
 upon standards which would reverse the Decalogue. 
 
LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 A calm review, however, and a judicial and impartial 
 examination of the many examples afforded through 
 an active and busy life, demonstrate that after all the 
 masses are better than their representatives. The 
 common sentiment of business is honest, of the pulpit 
 is pure and lofty, of the congregation is moral and 
 aspiring, of the law is just and noble, and politics has 
 principles and honest men. Thus believing, because 
 we know, we preserve our ideals. The woman who 
 married us in her young girlhood is still as fresh and 
 beautiful as on the day when she wore the orange 
 blossoms. We fight for our party and we fight for our 
 religion because we know they are right ; and the one 
 is best for this world and the other sure for the next. 
 
 And now, gentlemen, I take it that the lesson of the 
 hour is this: A multi-millionaire, who had a phenom 
 enal faculty for accumulating money, but enjoyed 
 neither books nor music nor social gatherings, once 
 said to me: "What is the use of all my money to me? 
 My house is larger, both in city and country ; my yacht 
 is finer, my horses are faster, my pictures are better 
 and more numerous than those of any of my neigh 
 bors, but they get about as much enjoyment out of 
 them as I do. I cannot eat as I would like without 
 getting dyspepsia, nor drink as I want to without 
 addling my brain, and I find that, except in getting 
 more of that of which I have already more than I 
 know what to do with, I get little out of life." That 
 man is a fool who does not wish to accumulate money 
 for independence, and for the benefit of his children; 
 but he is a bigger fool to sacrifice everything for that. 
 The college professor, intent upon his work and satis- 
 
CHAVNCEY M. DEPEW. 497 
 
 fied with his lot; the country doctor, the literary man, 
 the journalist, the member of the professions who has 
 time for his club and his friends, and his politics and 
 his church, never ask the question, "What do I get out 
 of life?" Life to them is one perpetual enjoyment, in 
 expanding opportunities, in enjoyable pursuits, and in 
 steadfast friends. 
 
 Well, gentlemen, I have preached my sermon; I 
 have given you my philosophy of life; I have touched 
 hands with you, and my heart has beat to-night in uni 
 son with yours. After all, the best things in this world 
 are its friendships and its opportunities. 
 
XL. 
 
 PAMPHLET PRESENTED TO GUESTS AT DINNER GIVEN 
 TO HIS FRIENDS IN CELEBRATION OF THE TWENTY- 
 FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS CONNECTION WITH 
 RAILROAD INTERESTS, JANUARY 28, 1892, 
 
 IT was in 1866. Engrossing attention to public serv 
 ice had interrupted the practice of my profession of 
 the law. The Republican party was largely predomi 
 nant. Partial friends urged that the prospects of a 
 political career were brilliant. I had retired at the 
 beginning of the year from the office of Secretary of 
 State,* had resigned the post of United States Minister 
 to Japan, to which I had been nominated and confirmed 
 by the Senate, and had been appointed Collector of 
 the Port of New York, which appointment was recalled 
 by President Johnson because of the refusal of the 
 Republican Senators to sustain his veto of the Civil 
 Rights bill. 
 
 The crossroads between a public and business life 
 had been reached. "Which way?" was the absorb 
 ing question. William H. Vanderbilt said: "We 
 want your service"; and the Commodore remarked, 
 "Chauncey, politics don t pay. The business of the 
 future in this country is railroading." The commission 
 was attorney for the New York and Harlem Railroad 
 
 * Of New York. 
 
 498 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 499 
 
 Company, but the duties covered everything official 
 or personal in which the Commodore was interested. 
 
 For the last eleven years of his life I was in almost 
 daily consultation with this remarkable man. He 
 accumulated the largest fortune ever made. His long 
 life was an uninterrupted succession of wars and 
 triumphs. He always fearlessly gave battle in the 
 fierce business competitions of his time, and never 
 lost. The most extraordinary fact in his career is that 
 he gained the majority of his vast wealth after he had 
 passed three score and ten. His methods of managing 
 the railway properties in which he acquired a control 
 ling interest were as original as the processes by which 
 he captured them. He cared little for details and 
 speedily wearied of them. He stated in general terms 
 the results he desired, and then expected the officers 
 of the companies to work them out. It was impossible 
 to explain to him a failure. 
 
 He had uniformly overcome difficulties, no matter 
 how great they were, and if the person charged with 
 the performance of a work outlined by his imperious 
 mind was unequal to the task, his resignation was 
 demanded and another took his place. For the busi 
 ness opportunities and requirements of his period, 
 Commodore Vanderbilt had unequaled genius, but for 
 the more exacting and scientific demands of the unde 
 veloped enterprises of the later time, his son, William 
 H., had greater talents. William H. loved details. 
 He wore out his life in the enormous labor of directing 
 the policy of his companies and keeping in touch with 
 all the particulars of every department of the business. 
 The overshadowing ability and prestige of his father 
 
5 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 alone prevented William H. from being recognized as 
 the foremost railway manager in this country. 
 
 The peculiarity of my connection with what is now 
 known as the Vanderbilt system is that during this 
 quarter of a century I have been in the closest confi 
 dential relations with the founder for the closing and 
 most important years of his life, with his son for the 
 whole of his active management of these properties, 
 with the elder grandson during the entire period, and 
 his brother the greater part of it, and have seen the 
 great-grandson pass his majority, and go through the 
 preparation in school and college to meet the broader 
 duties which are imposed upon wealth and power with 
 each generation. 
 
 It is a proud and satisfactory retrospect that no 
 frictions, differences, or criticisms have clouded these 
 years, but they present an unbroken and unusual 
 memory of pleasure in the work, gratification with the 
 growth of the plant, and happiness in the association, 
 friendship, and confidence of fellow-laborers in this 
 great field. The best part of the recollections of the 
 past and the enjoyment of the present consists in the 
 attachments formed with the men, living and dead, 
 who have stood and worked together during the quarter- 
 century whose completion we commemorate. 
 
 The most eloquent presentation of the lesson and 
 results of the hour will be a brief review of the de 
 velopment of our system and of the railways in the 
 Republic during the past twenty-five years. 
 
 It is hardly an exaggeration to claim that a history 
 of the development of railroading, as a science and as 
 a business, during the last twenty-five years, is an 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 501 
 
 epitome of its entire development. For, while the 
 first railway in the State of New York was opened for 
 business in 1831, railroading, during the first twenty- 
 five or thirty years of its history, was more a series of 
 experiments than an exact science. 
 
 The extraordinary development of the Vanderbilt 
 roads, so called, in the State of New York can best be 
 illustrated by a series of comparisons of a statistical 
 nature. For example, in 1866 the Vanderbilt roads in 
 the State of New York, comprising then the New York 
 and Harlem and the Hudson River railroads, extended 
 over only 281 miles of single track, and even with their 
 ramifications of double track, sidings, and spurs, the 
 grand total was only 463 miles. The total mileage in 
 New York State was 3178, and in the United States 
 36,827. In 1891 the New York Central and Hudson 
 River Railroad, with its leased and operated lines, 
 consisting of 16 roads, comprises 2353 miles of single 
 track, with a grand total of 5091 miles of all tracks. 
 In 1891 the total mileage of all railroads in the State 
 of New York is 7921, and in the United States 171,117 
 miles. 
 
 The following is a brief genealogical table of this 
 remarkably prolific expansion: In 1869 came the union 
 of the New York Central and Hudson River railroads, 
 to which the Hudson River Railroad contributed its 
 adopted branch, the Troy and Greenbush Railroad ; 
 in 1871 the Spuvten Duyvil and Port Morris Railroad 
 joined the family; in 1873 the New York and Harlem 
 Railroad, with its offshoot, the New York and Mahopac 
 Railroad, and the Dunkirk, Allegheny Valley and 
 Pittsburg Railroad were taken in ; in 1885 the West 
 
52 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 Shore Railroad, and in 1886 its extension, the New 
 Jersey Junction Railroad, were added; in 1890 the 
 Beech Creek Railroad formed an important addition 
 in Pennsylvania; in 1891 the Syracuse, Ontario, and 
 New York Railway and the Rome, Watertown, and 
 Ogdensburg Railroad, with its subsidiary lines, the 
 Oswego and Rome Railroad, the Niagara Falls Branch 
 Railroad, the Utica and Black River Railroad, and the 
 Carthage, Watertown, and Sackett s Harbor Railroad 
 completed the long list to date. Besides the above 
 leased lines, the Wallkill Valley Railroad is operated 
 under the same management, but as an independent 
 road. 
 
 The value of the property of the Hudson River and 
 Harlem railroads and their equipment in 1866 was 
 $28,000,000; in 1891 it is $166,500,000. The capital 
 stock and funded debt, which represent the public s 
 share in the enterprise, have increased from $13,700,000 
 and $13,300,000 in 1866, to $96,000,000 and $74,000,000, 
 respectively, in 1891. 
 
 To justify the change in the amount of the invest 
 ment and the value of the property, it is well to con 
 sider the relative income accounts of the two years. 
 We find that in 1866 the gross earnings were $7,600,000, 
 and in 1891 $39,400,000; the operating expenses, 
 which in 1866 were only $4,700,000, amounted in 1891 
 to $26,000,000, almost 100 per cent, of the entire capi 
 talization in 1866. 
 
 In 1866 the two roads carried 3,500,000 passengers 
 a distance of 123,000,000 miles, an average of 35 miles 
 each. In 1891 the 16 roads of the consolidated 
 company carried 20,500,000 passengers a distance of 
 
C1IAU^ 7 CEY M. DEPEW. 53 
 
 604,700,000 miles, an average of 30 miles each, a 
 decrease in average mileage, which serves to empha 
 size the expansion of the suburban business. 
 
 In 1866 the two roads hauled a little less than 
 800,000 tons a distance of 79,600,000 miles, an average 
 of 100 miles to the ton. In 1891 the 16 roads 
 hauled 19,500,000 tons a distance of 3, 105, 000,000 miles, 
 an average of 160 miles to the ton. 
 
 In 1866 the average passenger paid 2| cents for each 
 mile he traveled ; in 1891 he paid ly 9 -^ cents. In 1866 
 every ton of freight produced an average revenue of 
 4 T 6 o- cents for each mile it was hauled ; in 1891 com 
 petition and scientific development have reduced the 
 average rate to less than three-fourths of a cent for 
 hauling one ton of freight one mile. 
 
 To handle the business in 1866 the Vanderbilt roads 
 in New York State required 125 locomotives, 251 
 passenger cars, and 1421 freight cars of all sorts and 
 sizes. The length of the average box car was 28 feet 
 and its capacity 10 tons ; the average passenger car 
 was 40 feet long, and would seat 40 passengers. In 
 1891 the roll shows 1176 locomotives, 1232 passenger 
 cars, and 42,578 freight cars. The box car has been 
 lengthened to 34 feet, with a capacity of 22 tons ; the 
 coach is 54 feet long and carries 64 passengers in a 
 comfort unknown when railroading was young. 
 
 The fast express train of 1866 attained a speed of 
 34 miles per hour; the Empire State express of 1891 
 keeps up a speed of 51 miles an hour from the sea to 
 the lakes. Just for the sake of experiment, one run 
 was made of 436^ miles in 425! minutes, but that is 
 not a fair test of development in regular service. 
 
504 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 While the speed has so considerably increased, the 
 power has received development to an even greater 
 extent, in order to move the much heavier trains of the 
 present time. In 1866 the average passenger train, 
 including the engine, weighed 130 tons; the average 
 freight train from 200 to 250 tons. In 1891 some of 
 the mogul freight engines weigh, without any train 
 attached, 100 tons, while the limited passenger trains 
 weigh nearly 400 tons, and a freight train of 35 cars 
 weighs over 500 tons. 
 
 When I entered the service the depot and offices of 
 the Hudson River road in New York were at Thirtieth 
 Street and Tenth Avenue, and of the Harlem at Twenty- 
 sixth Street and Fourth Avenue. Since then the Grand 
 Central Station has been constructed and the four- 
 track viaduct and tunnels built to reach it. The road 
 way has been depressed through the city north of the 
 Harlem River. A third track has been added on the 
 Hudson River from Croton down. Two new tracks, 
 making practically another and auxiliary railway, from 
 Albany to Buffalo, have made the Central the only 
 four-track railway in the country. Commencing twenty- 
 five years ago with the Hudson River Railroad from 
 New York to Albany, 143 miles, and the New York 
 and Harlem from New York to Chatham, 128 miles, 
 the Vanderbilt system has expanded until, in addition 
 to the development in the State of New York hereto 
 fore mentioned, there have been acquired the Lake 
 Shore and Michigan Southern, the Michigan Central, 
 the Canada Southern, the New York, Chicago, and St. 
 Louis, the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. 
 Louis, the Chicago and Northwestern, the Chicago, 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 505 
 
 St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Omaha, and the Milwaukee, 
 Lake Shore, and Western, while the Boston and Albany 
 and the Chesapeake and Ohio work in such close alli 
 ance with the system as to be practically part of it. 
 
 From covering part of one State the system now 
 traverses nineteen States of the United States, and the 
 Province of Ontario in Canada. The Vanderbilt 
 system of railways passes through the following States: 
 Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, 
 Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, 
 Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Mis 
 souri, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyo 
 ming, and the Province of Ontario in Canada. 
 
 The marvelous extensions of the general railway 
 system of the Republic, and the growth of Territories 
 and States which has followed in the past quarter of a 
 century, have been accompanied by an equally remark 
 able and healthy change in the relations of the public 
 and the companies. The struggle was hardly begun 
 in 1866 between the people and the corporations. 
 The railroad was regarded by its owners as a private 
 business to be managed solely for profit, and by the 
 public as a necessary but conscienceless agent for the 
 carriage of freight and passengers, and to be kept in 
 check by savage assaults or reckless raids upon its 
 treasury or its earning power. 
 
 The principal business of the Legislatures came to 
 be railway legislation. Shippers flocked to the State 
 capitols to secure relief from discriminations, specula 
 tors to influence the price of stocks by promoting 
 attacks to put them down, and then killing their own 
 measures to put them up, and adventurers to prey 
 
506 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 upon all parties. Freight agents, clothed with unlimited 
 discretion, exercised their favoritism or their animosi 
 ties upon individuals and communities, but such officers 
 are now as extinct as the mastodon. 
 
 The struggle might have ended in the destruction 
 of the value of these properties and the permanent 
 crippling of their usefulness, but sense on both sides, 
 or rather the American genius and faculty for affairs, 
 has happily solved the problem. The railways have 
 come to acknowledge their popular obligations and 
 semi-public character, and the National Government 
 and the States have substituted wise supervision and 
 regulation for blind and unreasonable attacks. The 
 railway president who acted in equal disregard of 
 the public and of the interests of his stockholders is 
 a memory of the past. The present managers of 
 these vast interests, whose proper conduct is so vital 
 to the prosperity of commerce and the welfare of the 
 commonwealth, are, with a few exceptions, broad 
 minded and public spirited. 
 
 They are keenly alive to the grave responsibilities 
 which rest upon them, to the double obligation to the 
 people and their stockholders which requires both 
 statesmanship and business skill and judgment, and to 
 their duties to that great army of employees which calls 
 for the head of a general and the heart of a philan 
 thropist. 
 
 I may be pardoned for hailing as a happy omen for 
 the next quarter of a century that we enter upon its 
 first year with more abundant harvests, greater com 
 merce, and better promise of continuing prosperity for 
 pur country ; and for the railroads, more peaceful rela- 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 507 
 
 tions among themselves and with the public, and larger 
 earnings than at any other period in the history of the 
 United States. 
 
 The health of the host having been proposed by Mr. 
 Samuel D. Babcock, Mr. Depewsaid that it was a great 
 honor to be a co-laborer with such a distinguished 
 banker as J. Pierpont Morgan, who had made the 
 name of American banking the synonym oS success 
 around the world, and elevated it into the model which 
 leading bankers in other countries endeavored to 
 follow. 
 
 He could not deny that there were rivalries among 
 the various interests represented at the table.* There 
 was John Newell, for instance, the president of the 
 Lake Shore Road, who was in a continual struggle to 
 get more than his proportionate rate of freight on 
 through hauls out of the New York Central. 
 
 There was Mr. Ledyard, president of the Michigan 
 Central Railroad, who was continually telling Chicago 
 that it ought to send its freight to the Atlantic coast 
 by his road and not by Mr. Newell s. 
 
 There was Mr. Cox of the Canadian Southern, who 
 was continually trying to make Mr. Ledyard allow 
 a greater amount of freight to his road than was 
 possible. 
 
 There was his distinguished friend Colonel Cannon, 
 the veteran, who believed in sending everything by the 
 Delaware and Hudson Canal. 
 
 There was George Roberts, between whose Pennsyl 
 vania Railroad and himself there was supposed to be 
 
LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES OF 
 
 continued animosity; but he said that there never 
 could arise a question of personal and social impor 
 tance to himself that he would not cheerfully submit 
 to Mr. Roberts, and having obtained his advice, 
 implicitly follow it. 
 
 There was Mr. Corbin, of the Long Island Railroad, 
 who believed in mixing up steamboats and railroad 
 cars, and who had been charged with having one pas 
 senger on his trips across the Long Island Sound, 
 which charge, however, he had indignantly denied. 
 
 There was Mr. Fowler of the Ontario road, who 
 didn t have as much business as he wanted, sitting 
 next to Mr. King of the Erie, who had more than he 
 could attend to, and it might be that some of the 
 lightning would pass from one cloud to the other. 
 
 There was Mr. Wilbur, of the Lehigh Valley Road, 
 who was continually stretching out in all directions, 
 and some of his friends feared that the last stretch 
 would produce a greater strain than he could stand. 
 
 There was Mr. Mayer, of the Baltimore and Ohio, 
 who believed that the longest way round was the 
 shortest way there. 
 
 There was Mr. Clark, president of the New Haven 
 road, who was the Central s greatest competitor in 
 getting people into and out of this city, and who knew 
 how to get out of indictments better than any other 
 man. 
 
 There was Mr. Childs, of Philadelphia, who was a 
 whole institution in himself, grand and unique, a 
 publisher, philanthropist, and genius, the one only 
 Childs. 
 
 There was Mr. Ingalls, of the Big Four, who was 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 509 
 
 looking through a telescope at possible coming divi 
 dends of the Chesapeake and Ohio. 
 
 There was the enthusiastic and meteoric Dr. Seward 
 Webb, who was all the time astonishing everybody, 
 completing everything and making it all pay. 
 
 There was Mr. McLeod, of the Reading Railroad, 
 and President Sloan, of the Delaware, Lackawanna, 
 and Western Railroad, who were supplying the necessi 
 ties of the people, during this cold weather, because 
 their railroads coaled New York. 
 
 Then there were those with whom he was more 
 intimately associated as co-laborers Mr. Hayden, of 
 their own freight traffic department; Mr. Layng, of 
 the West Shore Railroad, and the young third vice- 
 president, H. Walter Webb, whose rapid experiences 
 in years past in the handling of difficult economic and 
 social problems in behalf of the New York Central 
 Railroad Company had won him universal approba 
 tion. 
 
 And then there was Mr. J. W. Alexander, of the 
 Equitable Life Assurance Society, who was present to 
 warn everybody of the dangers of this life and to com 
 fortably prepare to leave it by insuring themselves for 
 $200,000 apiece. 
 
 He had reserved to speak at the last of the one who 
 was first in his affections, and that was Mr. Cornelius 
 Vanderbilt. It was due to the coolness and breadth 
 of this gentleman s judgment, more than to any 
 other single agency, that the railroad properties of the 
 country were being brought into harmonious develop 
 ment, enabling the companies to more and more ably 
 serve the people and promote the national welfare. He 
 
510 LIFE AND LATER SPEECHES. 
 
 had inherited the genius of several generations, and 
 had proved on all occasions equal to the trust reposed 
 in him by all his associates and by the whole country. 
 No one in this world was kinder-hearted, more affable 
 in manners, quicker in financial sagacity, more con 
 servative of all good influences and powers, or entitled 
 to greater commendation and unalterable love. 
 
 THE END. 
 

 OCT 10 1932 
 
 13 J933 
 
 1 1983 
 
 DEC 
 FEB 101934 
 
 1933 
 
 30 1935 
 
 101937 
 MOV 11 1937 
 
 LD 21-50w-8,-33 
 
5 
 
 349 
 
 
 
 
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