T. H After-Dinner Speeches And How to Make Them Speeches Selected and Introduction Written by WILLIAM ALLEN WOOD CHICAGO T. H. FLOOD AND COMPANY PUBLISHERS 1914 Copyrighted T. H. FLOOD & COMPANY 1914 SRU- URI, S14935V PREFACE. Looking over some publishers' lists recently for books of after-dinner speeches, I found only three volumes, which belong to what was originally an expensive set of books published four- teen years ago. It occurred to me that, as almost every one is at some time or other called upon to make an after-dinner speech, a small and inexpensive book, containing a choice new selection of speeches by some of the best-known speakers and by others who have happened to "hit it off" on some occasion, would be an acceptable addition to the publishers' lists. I found dozens of toast books consisting of short, hackneyed bits of verse or prose, which are as useless to the entertaining speaker as any- thing well could be, but I found nothing but the three volumes which contain material that could be used as examples of the art of after-dinner speaking. As good pictorial and plastic art is not copied, but is original, so is good speech-making, though the student of either studies the work of masters in the same line to see how the best has been produced. It has been my object to reproduce some of the best after-dinner speeches made for the purpose of pure entertainment or to impart elevated sentiment or interesting information and some containing timely discussion, speeches that can be absorbed without too much mental effort, to serve as examples of the art and, in an introduc- tion, to tell in a general way how to make a good after-dinner speech. Though I have written the introduction to instruct, I hope I have done so in such a manner that the instruction may be accomplished painlessly. To the many who can make good after-dinner speeches without instruction or example, the book may be diverting as entertainment and as a source of new points of view. On account of the characteristic freshness, intimacy and spontaneity of this form of address, combined with a quality of urbanity and good fellowship that is usually lacking in morf purposeful addresses, as well as those imaginings of social splenc PREFACE dor it seems to have a peculiar power of exciting, I have had much pleasure in reading the best examples such as are found in this book. I believe other readers will share the same pleas- ure. Several of my own speeches which have taken well I have included for the personal satisfaction of having them in print and because some of them are fair examples of the lighter kind of after-dinner address indulged in at familiar and informal gatherings. They may, however, only serve to emphasize the truth of the last part of Mr. Bernard Shaw's dictum that ''He who can, does; he who can't, teaches." In most instances the manuscript or copy for each address was left just as I came by it. Where applause was marked, it remains so. Doubtless the speeches not so marked received their due share of approval. I am indebted to many of those whose speeches are included here for permission to print them, to the families of others who are deceased, to the Century Company for permission to repro- duce the addresses of John Hay and Joseph Choate, and to John Lane for those of Lord Rosebery. WILLIAM ALLEN WOOD. INDIANAPOLIS, January 5, 1914. CONTENTS After-Dinner Speeches and How to PAGE Make Them William Allen Wood 1 Our Country Benjamin Harrison 29 The President William Howard Taft 33 The Standards of Leadership Woodrow Wilson 44 Remarks of William G. McAdoo, Toastmaster. The Memory of Washington Jules Jusserand 56 Remarks of Edmund Wetmore. The Iroquois Club James M. Dickinson 62 Remarks of James Hamilton Lewis. Our Guest Theodore Boosevelt 71 Remarks of James Hamilton Lewis. George Washington Henry Van Dyke 80 Abraham Lincoln Benjamin Harrison 85 No Mean City Benjamin Harrison 90 Our Profession The Law Joseph Hodges Choate 94 The Army Major-General Leonard Wood 107 The Day We Celebrate James M. Beck 115 Changes of Forty Years in America. . . .James Bryce 126 Remarks of A. Barton Hepburn. Frankness and Friendliness Between England and America Walter Hines Page 137 The Spirit of Self -Government Elihu Boot 147 Remarks of John Claflin. The Church Henry Codman Potter 156 Eton Lord Bosebery 160 Omar Khayyam John Hay 166 The Hasty Pudding Club Joseph Hodges Choate 169 Noblesse Oblige George William Curtis 175 The Colonies Albert Edward, Prince of Wales 180 To the Students' Corps and the Uni- versity of Bonn Emperor William of Germany 183 Hands Across the Sea George, Prince of Wales 187 The Noble Art of Printing George, Prince of Wales 191 India for Artists George, Prince of Wales 195 Rifle Shooting George, Prince of Wales 196 vi CONTENTS PAGE In Golden Chains Lord Coleridge 200 The Army Field-Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood 204 His Majesty's Ministers Lord Morley 207 Woman Horace Porter 213 New Orleans John Hay 219 Campaigning in Indiana John Worth Kern 222 Remarks of George T. Buckingham. The Joy of Life Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. . . 234 The Press Whitelaw Reid 238 Our Guests Edmondo Mayor Des Planches 241 Sport Lord Rosebery 243 Golf Lord Rosebery 250 The Progressiveness of Ideals Henrik Ibsen 253 The Regular Army of the United State. Ma jor-General J. Franklin Bell 255 The Responsibility of Having Ancestors. Woodrow Wilson 263 The Drama Arthur Wing Pinero 268 Our Countrywomen John Hay 273 Hail Columbia Benjamin Harrison 276 Literature James Russell Lowell 281 Harvard Commencement, 1885 Joseph Hodges Choate 285 The Critic of Literature Leslie Stephen 292 Illusions Created by Art Lord Palmerston 295 Our Jealous Mistress The Law William Allen Wood 299 The Law and the Lady Frederick G. Fleetwood 313 The Spirit of the Fathers William Allen Wood 316 The Rise of Science in the Pawpaw Dis- trict Meredith Nicholson 325 Remarks of George Barr McCutcheon. Where We Come From Newton Booth Tarkington. . . 334 Remarks of John T. McCutcheon. Corporations a la Mode William Allen Wood 338 Welcome to the Alumni Oliver Wendell Holmes 342 The Government Back Home Samuel Ralston 345 The Hoosier Abroad George Ade 351 An Introduction George Ade 354 At "The Sign of the Smile" William Allen Wood. 358 Indiana, Incubator of Immortals William Allen Wood 368 The Exiles' Toast Frank Norris 373 Your Health William Allen Wood 376 To the French Navy, and Other AAAressesRaymond Poincare 378 With a Health to President Poincare", by King George. AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES AND HOW TO MAKE THEM The fine flower of a life is the spirit of conviviality and good fellowship. There is a declaration in Ecclesiasticus that " glad- ness of heart is the life of men and the joyfulness of a man prolongeth his days." This lightness of spirit is not only an attribute of entertainment for entertainment's sake, but is often- times turned to practical business account. In the business of nations, diplomacy, where the finest adjustments of external relations as well as of personality and temperament as between the representatives of different powers may mean much in many ways to those powers, more is spent to promote sociability and good will than on all other items of expense put together. To illustrate, France pays her Ambassador to London eight thou- sand dollars a year in salary, gives him his home, and allows him thirty-two thousand dollars a year for entertaining and the courtesies and graces of society. The British Ambassador to France is given a total of fifty-seven thousand five hundred dollars, besides his home, most of which is used for social inter- course. In commerce, too, a certain amount of good fellowship has always been recognized as promoting commercial objects. Perhaps someone, some time, will write on conviviality as an economic factor. Brillat-Savarin barely touches the subject in his Physiology of Taste. The highest and most complimentary expression of this sociability and good fellowship is found, it is generally agreed, in an invitation to dine and to enjoy the good cheer, of whatever kind, that accompanies a dinner. In a pleas- ant essay entitled Conviviality Through the Ages, Mr. John P. Mahaffy, of Trinity College, Dublin, traces briefly the begin- nings of conviviality. He says, "Horace, in a well-known pas- sage of his Ars Poetica, makes the first starting point of 2 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES civilization to consist in common meals, in men's eating together peaceably instead of devouring their prey alone in dread of hos- tile interference. Agrestes homines victu faedo deterruit Orpheus, dictus ob hoc lenire tigres rabidosque leones, and he goes on to say how Amphion's lyre, that made the woods and the rocks to accompany him in orderly procession, was but an- other poetic expression for the same thing. Man could make no progress until he became social, and the most obvious way to make him social was to promote common and therefore more refined meals. The carnivorous animals may go hunting together, but when the prey is secured each becomes the enemy of his neighbor and retires with whatever portion he can seize, to devour it without interference. That is the primitive condition which Orpheus is supposed to have transformed. * * * It [conviviality] has, of course, a material, and it has also a spir- itual side. The former is the food and drink set upon the table, and the latter, the enhancements of the meal by music, recita- tion, conversation, as well as the intermediate elements of orna- mental serving, which frames the whole in flowers, serves it on precious plate, compels the guests to adorn themselves in har- mony with the rest, and so makes this moment in human life one of the most dignified, as well as one of the most agreeable, we can attain. For it delights many appetites and higher tastes at the same time. It is like an orchestral combination in which several kinds of instruments play their part." Relative to the spiritual adjuncts, Mr. Mahaffy says, "Nothing can equal the supreme value of brilliant or interesting conversation at a feast ; it even makes men and women forget their material wants. The French salons of the eighteenth century were, at their best, entertainments where the most trifling refreshments were served, nor are these mentioned as of any importance. People came to talk and to hear good talk. * * * The main addition to eat- ing and drinking, nay, even the main object, to which eating and drinking should only be stimulants, must always be social converse, the meeting of mind with mind, the hearing what others have to say, and telling them in exchange that which is pleasant, if not instructive. In Homeric days the duty was con- HOW TO MAKE THEM . 3 signed to a bard or minstrel, who recited the adventures of heroes to the listening and drinking company when eating had concluded. Such entertainments of a company by a single per- former are still common; they cannot be called conviviality." After-dinner speaking is an adjunct of true conviviality, and is the outgrowth of conversation and story-telling, where one's gifts are exercised more or less spontaneously, rather than of recitation and minstrelsy, the latter of which was oftentimes original, but was repeated over and over again by the minstrel in his wanderings. But companies have become so large and occasions have arisen of such a formal character, that, like the situation where one of a company recites or sings, all the company attend to the speaker, whose function is specialized like that of the recitationist or singer, and the entertainment is meant for all the company. Then there is the further development that public speeches are made at private and quasi-private dinners and that, although apparently they are only for the company assembled, they are reported by the press and are given to the world intentionally. A distinction may be made here between those after-dinner speeches which are very intimate and personal to a particular company and therefore of interest only to it and those of a more impersonal and generally interesting nature, without private features, such as are given usually before larger companies. The latter, especially, are the subject of this dis- cussion. It is obvious from the foregoing that preparation of some kind and more or less of consciousness of the qualities I am about to mention as being most pleasing to one's commensals (I am glad the late dictionaries have removed the "obsolete" from after this word) are as necessary in after-dinner oratory as in forensic oratory. On that account, I am frankly didactic in presenting these qualities. Nearly all addresses, both social and forensic, that are worth hearing are the result of successful training or are carefully prepared before-hand. One is oftentimes deceived by the ease and grace with which an orator delivers an address. Cicero said of Antonius, "All his speeches were, in appearance, the unpremeditated effusion of an honest heart ; and yet, in reality, 4 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES they were preconcerted with so much skill that the judges were not so well prepared as they should have been to withstand the force of them." To use a modern instance, take the celebrated Chicago Democratic Convention speech, the "cross of gold" speech, of William Jennings Bryan. It was this speech that se- cured him his first nomination for the Presidency. This is gener- ally supposed to have been a purely extemporaneous address, but, though its delivery was not prearranged and though it was given almost on the instant, Mr. Bryan explained its origin to a reporter thus: "I had begun to discuss the question of bimet- allism and was touring the South and West making addresses and organizing those parts of the country for the national con- vention of 1896. In the Chicago speech, I brought together some of the things I had been saying elsewhere. It was an extemporaneous use of thoughts and diction previously employed in the South and West. A single paragraph, giving my defini- tion of a business man, was about the only new thing in it. The concluding sentence, 'you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold,' had been used once before. Finding it impressive, I put it aside for a greater occasion." Many so- called extemporaneous speeches are like this in origin. Unless one is particularly skilled one should not take any chances of boring one's hearers by appearing before them unprepared. An invitation to deliver an after-dinner address, or toast, especially is an invitation to entertain and enliven the audience, not to tire it. The art of after-dinner address, technically speaking, is the art of entertaining by matter, method and manner of speech. We are chiefly concerned here with what constitutes the charm in each of these ingredients of a fine speech. Matter appeals to the intellect, in both its serious and jovial moods, method to the emotional understanding and taste, and manner to the heart, so far as a differentiation can be made approximately. Of course, all overlap and merge. In_a first rate after-dinner speech, then, we expect our intellect, our taste and our affections to be pleased. Good composition, .good style the expression of thought and HOW TO MAKE THEM 8 feeling in words, is the basis of good entertainment in after- dinner speeches. The use of words, sentences and paragraphs is governed by the same rules as in other composition, and as every educated person is familiar in a general way with their use, I shall not linger on these details. Mr. Barrett "Wendell, professor of English in Harvard University, whose discussion of the quality of " elegance," in his English Composition, I am using as the basis for the first paragraphs of my review of the subject of charm, particularly of charm in method, says that all style impresses us intellectually and aesthetically, through the corresponding qualities of clearness, force and elegance. Clearness means the ability to make one 's audience understand perfectly. Force is the quality that holds the attention it not only indicates a command over the emotions of the auditors by denoting the meaning, which is more the province of clearness, but it connotes, or implies, by suggestion the shade, degree, or kind of emotion the auditor should feel. It includes such a mastery of the technical methods of expression and such knowledge of the audience that the speaker can surround his words with just the atmosphere needed to make them most effective under any given circumstances. The attention of the reader is called particularly to the difference between connota- tion and suggestion, or fore-shadowing by manner, which will be mentioned later. Also, every speech should have unity, that is, it should group itself about one central idea; it should have coherence, that is, the relation of the different parts of -the composition should be unmistakable, and it should have a rela- tive proportion, balance, according to the importance of the dif- ferent divisions of the subject. The introduction and ending, particularly, should not take relatively too much time in this art where to be brief is usually to be wise. I have heard after- dinner speeches which were all jocular introduction and ending without even a thin sandwich of meat between. There are jus- tifiable exceptions to the rule of balance, however, and they are probably more numerous in after-dinner speeches than in other forms of address or composition, because one may some- times find, under the peculiar circumstances surrounding one's 6 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES appearance or the occasion, an unusual opportunity to entertain by violating to some extent this generally safe rule of composi- tion. One's taste must be the judge in cases of this kind. In- troductions and endings are oftentimes more or less personal, concerning the relation of the speaker to the audience and to the subject, and they should not be dwelt upon sufficiently or in a way to make the speaker open to the charge of egotism. As was said, we are to consider charm in matter, method and manner. Charm in matter consists in the selection of such subjects as are not offensive to one's audience and that have the greatest power of pleasing. Charm lies in the fact that one's subject matter and everything pertaining to it, and also one's purpose in presenting it are agreeable. The finest quality of subject matter is that showing a large sympathy with human- ity, both in good and evil. This sympathy should be shown positively and not negatively. One should never repeat repel- lent or disgusting truths and fancies. Even subjects that would require to be presented euphemistically had better be avoided as being out of keeping with the pleasant mood to be created. The sensibilities of many people revolt at even such expression relative to subjects they do not care to hear at all. I am speak- ing, of course, of making an address where one is not perfectly sure of one's audience. At any place where the speech-making is formal, though bearing all evidence of informality, one should not venture into subjects or illustrations which may be offensive even to one of the company. The after-dinner speech is a place for live topics of timely interest, for welcomes of one kind or another, for congratulations, for felicitations, for short reminis- cences and the recalling of delightful associations, and for those small items of personal, though temporary, interest to the company that easily engage the attention and warm the heart. Washington Irving has said, "Honest good humor is the oil and wine of a merry meeting, and there is no jovial companion- ship equal to that where the jokes are rather small and the laughter abundant." The continual slight novelty in matter, method and manner variety when not too disconnected, has a charm of its own. HOW TO MAKE THEM 7 "Honest good humor" and "jokes that are small," provided they are rightly used, are always acceptable and entertaining. After-dinner speeches should have some "body," however, some unity of theme, and should not consist merely of a number of jokes loosely strung together. The jokes should be apposite to some more or less serious thought which will appeal to the intellect. Charm in method, or elegance, as Professor Wendell calls it, is the quality of composition that pleases the taste, the quality that grows or diminishes with the discriminating ability of the speaker and audience. It is the most subtle of the qualities. I am taking for granted that most people who are called on to give after-dinner speeches will not be troubled too much about the matter of their speeches. More people fail, I believe, in method and manner than in matter. Elegance, the distinctly pleasure-giving quality, the simple decoration or lack of deco- ration that ingratiates the speaker with his hearers, is called by some beauty, by some charm, by others grace or ease or finish. It is the final quality in literature, written or spoken; it is the adaptation of means to purpose, and that ease and freedom from evidences of art which makes the finest art. Ars celare artem. We are conscious of elegance only by subtly feeling the won- derful ease of habitual mastery. Elegance is the poetry of ex- pression in prose. As Abbe Koux said, "Without eloquence, one is not a poet; without poetry, one is not an orator." John- son said of Addison's style that it was "familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious." Mr. Wendell says that the most salient trait of Addison's style is its politeness, its well- bred restraint, its complete freedom from any manner of excess. Addison had sustained urbanity of temper and his style ex- pressed it. But to be at once Addisonian and passionate, says Mr. Wendell, is impossible, yet passionate expression, the emo- tional quality, may be the quality that pleases the taste equally with the intellectual quality of clearness. But the emotional should be so stayed with the intellectual that it does not slop over. A proper balance here should be carefully preserved. "Sometimes," said Theodore Parker, "mere emotion impresses; 8 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES but it soon wearies. Superiority of ideas always commands atten- tion and respect." Real poetry of expression is always reserved to an extent that makes the reserve felt. To become an orator of high artistic qualities, so far as composition is concerned, one must cultivate the perception of what is fine in literary art, in- cluding what is well-balanced as between the intellect and the emotions, and must have the power of appreciating and enjoying the fine qualities in the work of masters. The secret of the fine- ness of poetry, the finest form of literary art, lies in the adapta- tion of word and sound to meaning, with the object of coming as near perfection of expression as human power can come. But being more or less poetic in one's expression and quoting poetry in an address are two very different things both are easily over- done, especially the latter, the first being more difficult of suc- cessful attainment. Poetry of expression in prose is in the nature of an intellectual and emotional climax, and should usually be handled as such. We all know how tiring it is to attend a grand opera and to hear the leading singer try to give the same emotional value to all passages try to sing to the utmost of his or her emotional ability every sentence, whether the significance of the sentence calls for it or not. The lack of contrast soon palls, and contrast is one of the elements of relief that enables us to enjoy sustained entertainment. So poetry of expression should be used discriminatingly and not contin- uously, even if one has the ability. A succession of quotations from the poets, more or less loosely strung together, sounds like a compilation and soon wearies the hearers. This is a more tiresome fault than the other, and, to the aesthetically minded, such an excess smacks of the nouveau cultive. Particularly should one avoid the " toasts," short quotations in verse or prose, from the current collections. Persons who amuse themselves incidentally by reading that sort of thing are already familiar with them. One's manner should be in harmony with one's meaning. That is the note of sincerity. Hazlitt defines manner as "the involuntary or incidental expression given to our thoughts and sentiments by looks, tones, and gestures." I have said before HOW TO MAKE THEM 9 that manner appeals to the heart. It is by a man's sincerity and truth and warm feeling, by his consistency, that we judge him and take him into our hearts. Lord Chesterfield said, ' ' Look into the face of the person to whom you are speaking, if you wish to know his real sentiments ; for he can command his words more easily than his countenance." Hazlitt adds, "We may perform certain actions from design or repeat certain profess- sions by rote. The manner of doing either will in general be the best test of our sincerity." There are doubtless actors off the stage who can simulate expression and all, and they are greater artists at after-dinner speaking for this very adaptability, whether they actually feel what they are saying or not; but in a general way any disparity between the words and the feelings of a speaker is detectable in his manner. We have all heard speakers enunciate most pleasant words, but with an expression of irony or sarcasm or other inharmonious feeling that really gave the lie to what they were saying, so far as their personal sincerity was concerned. Truth was expressed by them, but the atmosphere of truth was absent, and the truth seemed out of place. The speakers' eloquence could not reach us because we could not accept the speakers themselves. Inexperienced speakers often err thus by attempting that half-humorous minor key in which so many accomplished after-dinner speakers begin their addresses and, because of inexperience, or lack of subtle taste, produce a sad discord. La Rochefoucauld said that there is ' ' often as much eloquence in the tone of the voice, in the eyes, and in the air of a speaker as in his choice of words." This is true whether one speaks to entertain or to persuade. Lord Chester- field said that "the business of oratory is to persuade people, and to please people is a great step to persuading them." Whether to persuade be the exclusive business of oratory or not, we can accept the latter part of Chesterfield's quotation with- out question. Sincerity and consistency are necessary to our con- fidence and respect, and, except in the lightest of professional en- tertainment, these latter qualities are basic and necessary to our enjoyment of after-dinner oratory. At times when I have been in companies where professional story-tellers and enter- 10 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES tainers were engaged to amuse, I have felt as if I were at a vaudeville show listening to monologists rather than at a dinner. The individual responsibility of the gentleman who lends him- self to the entertainment of his friends after a dinner, the dig- nity and reserve he must maintain even in his wit and humor, the genuineness and freedom of his good will towards his audi- tors and the total lack even of a suspicion of selfish interest, are a part of the real charm of his position. Otherwise some paid entertainers might be just as delightful as able after-dinner orators. If, in happy mockery or harmless irony or sarcasm, a speaker reveal in his manner that we are to understand him not to be sincere, we accept him and get whatever amusement we can from his oratorical fancies; but if the disparity between the words and manner or words and real feeling of a speaker is unconsciously revealed as a truth, our disapprobation of man and manner spoils any amusement there might otherwise be in the speech, unless the amusement is at his expense, in the line of ridicule, and such amusement is not whole-hearted, being usually tainted with pity or disgust. As in the theatre, we can be amused by anything obviously meant to deceive, but we take umbrage at any attempt to impose on our intelligence by false representations or pose. To quote Hazlitt again, "The manner of doing anything is that which marks the degree and force of our internal impressions; it emanates most directly from our immediate or habitual feelings; it is that which stamps its life and character on any action; the rest may be performed by an automaton." It is not safe, however, to quote Hazlitt further, for the Englishman's idea of a happy manner would appeal to us now as rather a low comedy idea. In America "dry" humor, with only the most modest of gestures, is held in much higher esteem than that display of animal spirits accompanied by a tell-tale facial expression showing the raconteur's enjoy- ment of his own humor. Here we do not wish to have indicated to us by manner how we should feel, for we may not agree with the raconteur, nor do we want that feeling we are to experience foreshadowed by his expressions and the surprise of it lessened. We expect in the speaker that personal detachment from his HOW TO MAKE THEM 11 product which marks the greatest artists in all lines of art we are interested in the toast as an exhibition of the speaker's ability to express things which entertain us ; we are not so much interested in the man himself. Those evidences of self-appre- ciation shown by some speakers and those indications by their manner of what they want us to feel, are personal bids for our appreciation apart from the merits of the speech itself. The attitude of speakers should rather be that of submitting their thoughts and expression to the auditors for approval, without the superficial arts of an ordinary vaudeville performer. The detachment spoken of signifies superiority to one's material and control of it. It is not agreeable to us to hear a man con- vulsed with laughter at his own jokes or to see him possessed by his own rhetoric, or to hear him struggle to say something "fine" that is just out of reach of his clear conception, or beyond the grasp of his mental fibre, or too much for his limited vocabulary. We sometimes hear it said that, to be a good after-dinner speaker, the principal thing is to be natural. But that is not true, except in a modified sense. For just as a grapevine which is properly pruned and limited in its ramblings bears more and better fruit, so does the speech give most pleasure which is properly balanced and condensed so that we get the full meaning in fewer and better words. There are many who, when "natural," ramble over much space and say little, and, except when their manner of saying things is unique and attrac- tive in itself, they produce weariness instead of stimulating interest. It is well for a speaker to be natural if he is properly trained in expression or if he has an entertaining method of expression, but otherwise he had better cultivate that higher nat- uralness which is art. When it is advised to be natural, it is usually with the thought in mind of avoiding high-flown ex- pression and that "fine speaking" which corresponds to the "fine writing" mentioned in books on rhetoric. While it is not my purpose to go into details in this introduction as to the use of words, I wish to call attention in this connection to a common fault in after-dinner addresses, the unsophistication of applying 12 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES superfluously descriptive adjectives to persons and things whose distinctions are matters of common knowledge, as, for instance, "the illustrious Mr. Bryce," "the immortal Hugo," "the memorable discovery of anaesthesia" and the like, except where such adjectives, including that most commonly used, "distin- guished," are applied, when truly applicable, to persons present in the way of tribute and goodfellowship. I have heard after-dinner speakers in whom even defects of speech were attractive. Their "natural" form of expression assisted in entertaining for instance, I recall a speaker who had a defect of speech which made him hesitate and sometimes slightly stutter when he became a little worked up, and this, happening occasionally just before he made a point or discovered the surprise of a dialogue or joke, produced a suspense which, taken in connection with his droll expression, which likewise seemed to be waiting intently on the point or surprise, height- ened the interest in those who heard him. But instances of this kind are few among those with defects, their defects being usually as impossible to proper after-dinner speech effects as are the "natural" methods of expression in those who have no training in expression whatever. I except from the latter only those in whom nature is art, in whom there seems to be a nat- ural felicity of diction which, however, is more likely accounted for through the faculty of unconscious imitation than of nature pure and simple. But it may be, if one is inclined to philoso- phize about it, that those having an original or unique point of view and a faculty for verbal impressionism which illumines the mind with that radiant visional perception which a fresh, discriminating and flashing statement of truth always brings, are in reality the natural speakers, and the others, having the more common discursive methods, without distinction of mat- ter, are perversions of the natural. This is in line with the thought of Whistler, in his "Ten 'Clock," that art is not the product of civilization, that it is part of the infinite, and reigns by force of fact and not by election, so that among primitive peoples there was no article of daily use, of luxury or necessity, that had not been handed down from the design of a master HOW TO MAKE THEM 13 craftsman, and consequently all was beautiful. The amateur and the dilettante were unknown, and the artist alone produced, till a new class arose those who discovered the cheap and fore- saw fortune in the sham. The taste of the tradesman supplanted the science of the artist and art became the exception, not the rule. It is interesting as a speculation to consider whether the simple, succinct, direct, poetic, vital eloquence that sometimes emanates from uncivilized men, where we have well authenti- cated instances of it, is not, after all, the selected expression of the natural artist-orator, and whether a large part of the inane verbosity of the present day that passes for eloquence, particu- larly that of professional platform orators who speak not be- cause of the necessity for expression or an impulse to be agree- able but for the commerce of the chautauqua or the lecture course, is not a cheap imitation. This more primitive eloquence seems to bear about the same relation to the best of modern ora- tory that the poetic folklore of uncivilized peoples bears to the best poetry it is a genuine expression of beauty, if, perhaps, lacking in certain refinements of form. The savage does not have his sensitiveness to beauty dulled by the multiplicity of responsibilities and interests that affect civilized man. It is interesting, also, to question whether, like Phidias' sculpture in plastic art, the grandeur of Demosthenes and the charm of Lysias were not the culmination of spontaneous art in oratorical expression, before the cheaply imitative became so common through the favorable routine and monotony of a relaxed civili- zation. After-dinner oratory, to my mind, differs from other oratory chiefly in this, that it is meant to express and communicate ex- quisite sensibility and intellectual toleration rather than energy of will. One reason why many orators bore us is because they try to bring our energies of thought and will into antagonism with our energies of digestion. To produce a fine intellectual sensuousness, that is, by words and suggestions to make the mind dwell on the finer, warmer feelings and colors of existence, by memory of experience and by imagination to make one feel anew the pure joy of living, is the highest business of the after- 14 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES dinner" speaker7 He may use all the arts and tricks of rhetoric and composition to accomplish his end. He should be master of the art of variety, of surprise, of short, vivid description, of geniality, suavity and of all other elements of interest, relief and charm that are useful. He should be master of the art of convincing by impressions of truth rather than by arguments. The after-dinner speech is a place for gaiety and color in speech, for kindly facetiousness, wit, humor and all the aesthetic amenities. Aesthetic efforts become more or less conscious with the speaker and are not lost in moral fervor, as in oratory meant purely to persuade. Conscious artifice ceases to be peurile, as it seems in more serious oratory. All we require is that the effort of our speaker be successful, that we be entertained. We forgive him the conscious effort the more readily since the bet- ter we are entertained the less we notice it at the time some- times realizing later, but with pleasant recollection, the means used to command our attention and delight. It may be observed in passing that, for reaching those people in whom the process of persuasion is from the feelings towards the intellect, as it is said to be in women predominantly, this form of oratory is as effective as the forensic variety. I believe an infusion of it into the other kind is the most artful way of first commanding the atten- tion and good will of any audience. Loss of dignity and of high art, if any, will be compensated in quickness of effect. Many of our political orators have combined the methods to good advantage. Some things to be avoided in after-dinner speaking are the habit of apologizing and explaining, malicious or offensive irony and satire, unpleasant fault-finding, too apparent didacticism, giving statistics and lists, exhibitions of vanity and affectation, pretentiousness, discussion of matters of purely private inter- est, a mincing fastidiousness, undue elaboration of detail in fact, everything negative in effect rather than soothing or slightly stimulating and positive should be avoided. Variations of subject or manner introduced for the sake of contrast should be handled carefully and should be agreeable in themselves. The element of contrast is perhaps the hardest of all the proper HOW TO MAKE THEM 15 elements of interest to handle agreeably in after-dinner oratory. Since the art of the orator, like that of the actor, is ephemeral, disappearing largely with the disappearance of the orator from his activities, it remains for him to produce the best impression possible both by his creative instinct and by his ability to elim- inate from his efforts all that is disagreeable. Public memory is the orator's great immortality. He has the advantage of the actor in that he expresses himself in his own words, while the actor is repeating the expressions of a dramatic author, which gives no clue to the real inner personality of the actor, except, perhaps, in his choice of one variety of dramatic composition over another. In this respect he stands between the actor and the author of works which are only printed. The ordering of the speech may, of course, indicate the orator's manner, if the speech were properly delivered, but no reading of it can give exactly the tone and manner of delivery. With the advent of the phonograph we are enabled to some extent to preserve an orator's vocal expression, but in the few instances where I have heard both the speaker and a reproduction of his speech in a phonograph, the latter has appeared stilted on account of his special effort at articulating distinctly. The charm of person- ality had disappeared almost in toto. Public questions should not be discussed at length in after- dinner speeches except by those who can give the speech dynamic interest by their possible ability to influence largely changes they recommend or disapprove of, or in connection with the relating of experiences through which they have had some vital connection with the subject discussed. If President Taft, in his Lotos Club address, modestly questions the interest he may have for the company because, having been defeated for reelec- tion, he is to assume an inferior place in the activities of the nation, there is no reason for a practicing lawyer, a school teacher, or a merchant, in making an after-dinner speech, to air at length his comparatively impotent opinion on large ques- tions, unless, perhaps, he does it at a club formed to advance some particular interest or subject. Such speeches are not dynamic, even if they are timely. At such mixed companies 16 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES as one meets at dinners, the variety of interests and even pos- sible opposition of opinion renders it bad taste to dwell and argue on one line too long. The opinions even of an authority on a given subject are not to be aired at too great length at a dinner, and they are also of less interest on such an occasion, as a rule, than those of a person able to strongly influence their use or disuse. Opinions on public questions should usually be purely incidentals in after-dinner addresses. Besides, the ideal- istic side of such subjects entertains better than their more com- monplace, matter-of-fact side, provided the idealism is reason- able and not too far-fetched but this is true in all arts. And idealism, it may be remarked, often beats materialism at its own game as a practical agent for getting results, if results are looked for. Another word as to the preliminaries to making a speech. It is much better to prepare a speech, either by making notes, or by writing it in full to be committed to memory, than to trust to luck or inspiration of the moment. Continued reference to notes while speaking, however, with long intervals between par- agraphs, is an abomination. If notes are used, one should re- fresh the memory just before rising to speak and not during the speech itself. There are enough precedents for this prepara- tion. Most of the best after-dinner speakers prepare carefully. In many volumes of addresses you will find a few with foot- notes which say they were prepared for certain occasions, but owing to circumstances, never were delivered, showing that to the author of the speech preparation was customary. Repeated experience enables after-dinner speakers to prepare in a short time, and their efforts often seem spontaneous. But if it is necessary for the experienced ones to prepare, how much more necessary is it that the inexperienced should prepare. Many a man has launched his speech on a high plane to which he was unaccustomed, only to falter and fail at last. I have heard others, who had thought of a few good things worth saying, exhaust these in the first paragraphs and then slow down to dull, monotonous drivel. After a failure, thinking the next day of the bright things one might have said, one is likely to suffer a HOW TO MAKE THEM 17 feeling of disgust with oneself for having made a poor impres- sion and having neglected an opportunity to shine. While there is nothing more delightful and charming than a good impromptu speech, a good speech made without preparation by any but an experienced speaker is like a fine picture by an untrained artist done on the instant, "dashed off" as it were. Both are "flukes," more or less. An after-dinner speech should be "rich, rare and racy" in the best sense, and this takes preparation, either imme- diate or by long experience. Ease is the result of preparation. The after-dinner speech is, in a way, a distinct form of ex- pression just as is the short story. It is so short that even the longest should have unity of impression. If one undertakes to "tell a joke, make a platitude and give a quotation," which are said to be the ingredients of a good toast, about several distinct subjects, the speech is disjointed and even the most inexpert listeners soon have a feeling that something is wrong. The after-dinner speech is as much more a form of art than the "set" speech of considerable length on any given subject, as the short story is more an art form than the novel. Of course there is a disadvantage in making the short story, the sonnet, the after-dinner speech or any other form of expression a fixed type the disadvantage that the variety possible in subject mat- ter is impossible in the form, and that therefore pleasure in a variety of forms in the same class of production is largely nullified. However, the more after-dinner speeches I hear the more am I convinced that at once the greatest spontaneous pleasure, and the pleasure we feel we are right in enjoying (fol- lowing Sainte-Beuve 's idea that we should learn whether we are right in being pleased with a work of art) comes from those speeches that conform more to the type I am describing. But, if the after-dinner speech is as much more an art form than the "set" or forensic speech as the short story is more an art form than the novel, on the contrary, like the novel, which usually is a romance or has romantic interest, and unlike the short story, which may or may not be romantic, the after-dinner speech, at its typical best, is idealistic, full of that romantic, idealistic warmth which exists between men and women, or the 18 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES equal, if different, warmth of good fellowship which exists be- tween free, unprovincial, high-natured men of the world. There must be action, of a kind, in the after-dinner speech; the orator must proceed swiftly from remark to quotation to joke, or whatever the particular ingredients may be. He must knit all consistently together, unite them by a common or apropos thought, without too much delay over description, characteriza- tion, argument, a succession of stories illustrating the same point, or any other deterrent to a continuous and well-balanced inter- est in the speech as a whole. To get some place, mentally speak- ing, within a reasonable time-limit for an after-dinner speech, so that the speaker can stop when he should be done, requires that he have a variety of incidents and expressions all related to the topic in hand. A redundance of minor incidents, how- ever, is as fatal to action as a deficiency, and the main line of thought, in all circumstances, should always predominate in the minds of the hearers over any incident. Indeed, here is where one of the great arts of after-dinner speaking lies in keeping a variety of thought in proper sequence and properly subdued in relation to the main theme. This requires originality and ingenuity on the part of the speaker. The possibility of concerted action on the part of the audi- tors, the rising to drink a toast, for instance, and the various ways of showing approval, increases the intimacy of this form of address and, with its other characteristics, makes it the most intimately human of the formal products of men's brains. It has been suggested to me by a very distinguished man, president of one of the foremost universities of America, that after-dinner speeches should not be preserved, as being an attempt to make permanent what ought to be ephemeral. There is little to rec- ommend this suggestion, I believe, one might as well say a painter should not paint flowers because they are ephemeral, or that we should not preserve fruits because they are, in nature, ephemeral, and the taste of the preserved fruit, though it gives pleasure, is not exactly the same as the fresh fruit. There are many who enjoy reading after-dinner addresses, who get more pleasure out of reading a good after-dinner address than any HOW TO MAKE THEM 19 other form of speech. The intimately human quality, the ap- parent, if not real, informality of the address, gives it an appeal that is only equaled in print by the most intimate and confiden- tial essays. It is true some speeches are rather hard to read some of those printed here are not easy, unless one has the ora- torical spirit. It may be recalled of Fox that when someone asked him if he had read the speech of a certain parliamentary orator, he asked, "Does it read well?" and continued "For be sure if it does, it is a very bad speech." An orator's manner and modulation will oftentimes carry a particularly long and involved sentence to its end, preserving at the same time its meaning in perfect clearness. The same sentence printed may be much more difficult to read with clearness, at least on first reading. An orator, or one having the oratorical spirit, can usually get the orator's "swing" and so get the proper expres- sion and the thought on first reading. The long sentence may, at times, be necessary to get all the modifications of the thought to be expressed. It may be also more melodious. A long se- quence of choppy sentences is irritating, and soon destroys tho comfortable, informal rhythm of a speech. Rhythmical exact- ness, however, is not desirable in an after-dinner speech, for the speech must be characterized, to be more humanly interesting, by a certain freedom or looseness of style. An after-dinner speech with the comparative rhythmical exactness of Lincoln's Gettys- burg address, for instance, would not be successful in the sense I mean. There would be too much sublimity for the occasion, though sublimity in an after-dinner speech may be attained and be acceptable in a mildly impassioned climax, exhibiting a high order of thought, if the speaker is careful to let his hear- ers down again. An after-dinner speech is, I believe, the bet- ter for a short climax of feeling oratory or tasteful rhetoric, but the audience should be brought safely to earth again before the speaker sits. The short, concise toast of the type given at the banquets of the Royal Academy of Arts, of London, examples of which are contained in this book, is not an after-dinner speech in the best American sense. An American likes a plateful rather than a 20 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES single bite of any delectable intellectual morsel. There are in America, however, too many after-dinner speakers who try to supply a whole intellectual meal in one speech, and that without variety. Royal Academy audiences are, however, almost ideal in their responsiveness and sympathy, and are even quicker, I believe, than most American companies to applaud and cheer what they like. It should be noted that the spirit of an occa- sion has to be met not only by a speaker but also by his audi- ence. It is not fair in an audience to compel a speaker to try to force approval. Sometimes, therefore, a speaker fails when it is no fault of his own. An able speaker who has carefully prepared a speech has a right to be disappointed if there is no responsiveness. A cold, clammy audience is the bete noire of the postprandial orator, who, of all orators, is supposed to be in a most hospitable atmosphere. I have been to but few dinners, however, where, with the advent of the coffee and Havanas, the company did not relax into appreciative attention that was oftentimes emphasized by applause. For those who are timid when called on for a toast, the best advice I know is that given by Arthur Balfour in another con- nection, "Always have your audience and never yourself be- fore your mind when you are making your speech." Further- more, don't attempt to talk of something of which you know little or nothing. The man whose mind is full of a subject is in a fair way towards ease in presenting that subject. Many speakers are so engrossed with the matter and method of their speeches when presenting them that they have little room for self -consciousness. One should strive, then, for that poise where the presentation of one's thoughts and where one's audience occupy the major part of one's mind to the subduing of active self -consciousness which results in confusion. The most effective deterrent to independence in speaking is the habit of using notes while speaking. I have doubt as to their utility even as an assist- ance to a beginner, as the basis of the art of after-dinner speak- ing is an attitude of mind with which notes are bound to inter- fere as soon as one is on one's feet. The speeches contained in this book were selected for a HOW TO MAKE THEM 21 variety of reasons. They were not always selected because they are the best examples of the art of after-dinner speechmaking, though most of them are. In several of them will be found comments apropos of this type of speech. Some of the speeches are more, some less formal. Some of those made at the dinners of the Indiana Society of Chicago and at college society dinners contain humorous or whimsical fooling that is expected on these semi-formal occasions. The Clover Club and the Gridiron Club have been famous for speeches of this kind, but their speeches have always been unavailable for printing. On such occasions as are celebrated by societies of this kind, plays of fancy, extrav- agant humor, displays of sophisticated worldliness, an exaggera- tion of the virtues and importance of the participants, and a pardonable exhibition of sectional or society pride accompany the speeches, to the delight of the company. Men of national renown forget their dignity at such times and unbend to the demands of the occasion. Though I am not fitted by investigation to be the historian of convivial feasts and although I do not know positively that our current feasts and frolics, in which hosts and guests, men alone, take part, such as those conducted by the Gridiron Club, the Indiana Society of Chicago, the college fraternity to which I belong, and a few other societies, are unique and strictly modern, I believe them to be so. Entertainments have been given in con- nection with feasts from time immemorial, but these have been given, as a rule, by engaged entertainers of one kind or another for the benefit of the hosts and guests and not by the hosts and guests themselves. Jokes have been perpetrated by banqueters themselves to enliven their dinners, as we recall in the instance cited by Benvenuto Cellini in his Autobiography, of the feast in which himself, Michel Agnolo, the Sienese sculp- tor, and other artists belonging to the society of painters, sculptors and goldsmiths had part, but these have been inciden- tal and isolated instances. At this dinner the part of the enter- tainment previously prepared by the company for their own en- tertainment consisted chiefly of sonnets they themselves had written. Such well-organized, elaborate and previously pre- 22 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES pared entertainments, with some leeway for the conceit and impulse of the moment, given year after year, in which hosts and, occasionally, their guests, take part at men's dinners in America are, so far as I have been able to learn, peculiar to this time and to our people. At the Gridiron dinners held in Washington, members of the Gridiron Club, which is composed mostly of newspaper men, impersonate men of national prom- inence and take off current events in a humorous way. Usually the men impersonated are present as guests, including the Presi- dent, Cabinet members, diplomats, senators, congressmen, other officials and foreign guests. Rather elaborate properties are sometimes used in pulling off stunts. At the banquet of the Gridironers a month before Wilson went into office, the prin- cipal stunt was a mock inauguration. The inauguration proces- sion consisted of a detachment of the New Jersey National Guard, a club of Princeton professors, a contingent of Southern colonels hurrahing for the "Solid South," the Eata Bita Pie college fraternity, the Tammany phalanx, the "In-Bad Club" and a squad of suffragettes making clamor. When the din sub- sided the impersonator of the President-elect declared he didn't think much of the parade, inquiring the whereabouts of the Champ Clark Houn' Dog Club. The new president was obliged to be content with his inauguration, however, and was presented with a golden gridiron. He was assured that this being an era of economy and reform, he would have to serve without salary and traveling expenses. Hardly had the guests turned again to their terrapin when entrance was demanded and achieved by the Sigma-Pi-Pi-Sigma fraternity of the Yale law school, which insisted on initiating two new members to the club. The dinner was suspended for the ceremony. The neophytes were "Mr. William, of Cincin- nati," and "Mr. Theodore, of Oyster Bay," to be known in the order, respectively, as "Brother Bill" and "Brother Teddy." A discord in the band was explained by the inability of the neophytes to agree on a marching tune, one demanding the only tune he knew, "A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight," and the other wanting "Keller's Hymn of Peace." HOW TO MAKE THEM 23 Then there was disclosed the room where cabinet meetings are held. The President entered and inquired, " Where is my cabinet?" ''He will soon be here," replied the secretary. ' ' He ? You mean they. For that error of grammar you will translate five extra pages of Homer, ' ' retorted Mr. Wilson. The cabinet arrived, and it soon appeared that all the nine cabinet officers bore the features of William Jennings Bryan. The Presi- dent conducted his first cabinet council on the lines of a faculty meeting, and called on members for theses. As they sat about the cabinet board, Secretary of State Bryan was reminded that he had never before attended a cabinet meeting. He admitted he had not, but added, "I have made three attempts at it." Secretary of the Treasury Bryan declared he had not had a financial idea since 1896. Secretary of War Bryan declared he he was not Mr. Wilson's Secretary of War, but his own Secre- tary; that he was not in Mr. Wilson's cabinet, but in his own cabinet. Secretary of the Navy Bryan favored no more battle- ships until Lincoln, Neb., became a seaport. Attorney-General Bryan, residuary legatee of four hundred incomplete prosecu- tions, declared his trust policy to be "to bust those we can't trust, and trust those we can't bust," and explained that when a trust was reorganized "the small stockholders lose their stock quicker. ' ' The real trouble began when President Wilson undertook to frame his message, as the Bryan cabinet insisted on relieving him. Many good topics were declared to be reserved for four years, such as Philippine independence, government ownership of telegraphs and penny postage. But the cabinet agreed that for present consideration it might take up the protection of the fur seal ; the abolition of the turkey trot at inaugural balls, civil service reform and the rule of "the people." And as the cab- inet meeting broke up, each member left in the President's hand a little memorandum to this effect : "The thing to bear down on hard is one four-year term for the President of the United States." An incident to the drinking of the single toast of< the din- 24 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES ner, "To the President of the United States," was the bestowal on President Taft of a large gold gridiron bearing this inscrip- tion, "To William Howard Taft, President of the United States. as a token of Friendship from the Gridiron Club of Washing- ton, February 1, 1913." At these dinners guests are sometimes called on for im- promptu remarks on some subject, humorously stated, and are otherwise worked into the proceedings, all of which are con- ducted with a mock formality. Guests who are called upon are expected to enter into the spirit of the occasion and are never permitted to be tedious. They are promptly called down on some plausible excuse if they become so sometimes they are called down when they are not tedious. The resourcefulness and tact necessary on an occasion of this sort requires an expert master of ceremonies. The introductions made by the several toastmasters quoted herein will give ideas to other toastmasters as to the general nature of such introductions. Introductions should usually be short, except in those cases where the toastmaster is expected to start the ceremonies with a speech on his own account, as in the case of the Harvard Commencement address by Mr. Choate, which is included here. It is not too much to say that, whenever possible and it is usually possible except where the toastmaster presides by virtue of holding some other office the toastmaster should be selected with the same care as the other speakers. Sometimes an officer does not care to preside as toastmaster, but introduces another as toastmaster in a few appropriate words, as in examples given herein. Indications are frequent, in the introductions and proceedings, of the customs at American din- ners after the speaking has begun and only the embellishments of the dinner are left for a sort of ocular feast to accompany the "feast of wit and flow of soul." Incidentally, I may relate one version of the origin of toast- masters and toast lists. In the City Press, London, in the issue of June fourth, 1879, there appeared the following: "It is said that at one of the banquets of the Old East India Company, the Duke of Cambridge, who was always partial to dining in the HOW TO MAKE THEM 25 city, had to speak. Mr. Toole, who was one of the officials of the company and a man by no means wanting in confidence, said: 'Some of the gentlemen have some difficulty in hearing your Royal Highness; shall I give out what the toast is?' The practice was found to be so convenient that it was repeated on many future occasions and Mr. Toole developed into the great 'City Toastmaster.'" I cannot close this introduction without making, in behalf of after-dinner speakers in general, an appeal to hosts and ban- quet committees to observe the principles of gastronomy in serv- ing their feasts. I do this because I recall several instances of self-sacrifice on the part of speakers which should not be nec- essary at any time. A distinguished orator of whom I have heard was said to refrain from the pleasures of the table, except, perhaps, a wafer and a cup of coffee, when he was to speak, in order to be sure of his mental condition, undisturbed by an over- burdened and inactive stomach. In the days of his prime, din- ners were oftener heavy and conceived more from the standpoint of nourishment than from that of unique and delightful fla- vors. Occasionally we still come across such dinners and we still have after-dinner speakers who sacrifice half of their pos- sible enjoyment in order to be better able to please their com- mensals. Dinners as entertainment are not given primarily to nourish the guests but to provide unique, delicate and contrast- ing flavors and odors in easily digestible foods which combine well. If the proper foods are served, good digestion has an ally in the customary menu card. It has been demonstrated, by the Russian Dr. Pawlow, that food given in smaller quan- tities at intervals, as in our course dinners, excites the secretion of a much stronger gastric juice, thereby promoting digestion, than food served in "family" style, which favors the bolt- ing of food and the sacrifice of flavor to ravenous habits, which are always followed by dullness. Flavor itself is the excitant of the digestive processes, as psychologists have shown, and the host who would offer to guests as entertainment a dinner with a minimum of flavor would deserve, if there were after-dinner speeches, to have those guests on the program deliver a few 26 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES pages from an algebra, from the Patent Office Report, and from other like informing but unentertaining sources. Mr. Henry T. Finck, our American Brillat-Savarin, quotes, without vouch- ing for its truth, from a German writer who claims for Germany the origin of the menu card. It is related that, "at a meeting of the Reichstag in Regensburg, in 1541, Count Hugo of Mont- fort noticed one day at a banquet that the host, Duke Heinrich von Braunschweig, had before him a Zettel, or slip of paper, which he glanced at now and then. Being questioned, the Duke replied that it was a list of dishes that were to be served made for him by the chef so that he might save his appetite for those which he liked best." Montaigne records that the Roman Emperor Geta would have all his dishes served at the table in order according to the first letters of their names; as, for example, those that began with M : "mouton, marcassin, merlus, marsoin," etc., were all served together; and so of all the rest. I have seen it stated that this device was used by Geta in order to roughly foretell what would be coming later in order to save his appetite for those viands he preferred. As Mr. Finck says, the story gives the reason for a menu at every table d'hote meal, but I have a feeling that it can serve a higher purpose as an exciter of interest and appetite for what is to come and as a reminder of gastronomic delights, especially as a well-selected and well-balanced menu is likely to appeal to the taste of practically all the diners, and the normal man can enjoy all the courses without damaging his digestion or lessening his mental activity appreciably. The assthete is not much more likely to save his appetite for one dish in a properly arranged meal, and to concentrate his interest there, than is a music lover to promenade during a concert program except when his favorite compositions are being played. Besides, appetite has, to a certain extent, a cumulative quality, and if the diner has partaken of the proper viands before, he is likely to have the keener appetite for his favorite dish when it is served. The serving of foods at intervals according to a menu also fits another gastronomic ideal, for it permits the diner to intersperse the meal with conversation without inter- HOW TO MAKE THEM 27 fering with his enjoyment of the morsels before him. No epicure attempts to eat and converse at length at the same time, for the aroma and taste of food are only released by manipulating the food in the mouth, an act which makes conversation impossible for the moment. The enjoyment of food is unlike the enjoyment of cigars and coffee, whose easily diffusible fragrance is enjoyed in short puffs and sips without noticeably interrupting conver- sation. The cigars and coffee, then, it will be noted, logically come at the end of the meal not only on account of their physio- logical effects but also on account of their adaptability to social converse after eating. There is no question about the comple- mentary qualities, in completing entertainment, of dining and conversation, story-telling and speech-making. No better cita- tion can be made in proof of this than the natural taste of our forefathers. Note, in Ambassador Jusserand's toast to the memory of Washington, the following: "An account of what were after-dinner speeches at a time when Thule was still the end of the world and Columbus had not yet crossed the Atlantic has come down to us. The account is in very old-fashioned English and in alliterative verse; modernized it reads thus: 'When people are feasted and fed, fain would they hear some excellent thing after their food to gladden their hearts. * * * Some like to listen to legends of saints that lost their lives for our Lord's sake, some have a longing to hearken to lays of love, telling how people suffered pains for their beloved. Some covet and delight to hear talked of courtesy and knighthood and craft of arms.' " "These tastes and habits," continues the Ambassa- dor, ' ' have been handed down to us unimpaired. ' ' Will you not, therefore, hosts and committees, serve dinners that will not interfere with keen minds, facile tongues and willing ears ? And one other plea to hosts, never call on guests for speeches without asking their permission. If, as I have suggested, prep- aration is necessary with most speakers, they should have ample time to prepare if they wish to do so. Some otherwise good talkers become confused when called on suddenly and without warning, and some people are so timid that after-dinner speak- ing is entirely out of the question with them. 28 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES With the hope that this book will appeal to those who wish to become more familiar with the art of after-dinner speaking, I dedicate it to the men of America, where the art has already attained its highest development, and particularly to the law- yers, who, more than any other class of men, are called upon to speak at public and private dinners. WILLIAM ATJ.FN WOOD. OUR COUNTRY BENJAMIN HARRISON At every patriotic banquet, and at every banquet of a public, semi- public or political nature, there should be a toast to "Our Country," when there are toasts at all. Nothing surprised the editor of this book so much as the discovery that this toast is seldom offered on what might be called "state" occasions. Even when no formal response by way of an address is made, as where the presiding officer proposes the toast and it is drunk standing by the guests, this toast is proposed so seldom as to make its absence noteworthy. This toast should pre- cede that to "The President" and all other toasts that are commonly proposed. One of the largest banquets ever held in the United States took place in New York, the thirtieth of April, 1889, on the occasion of the celebration of the centennial of the inauguration of Washington as the first president, also commemorating the Revolutionary period begin- ning with the Declaration of Independence. The banquet was held in the Metropolitan Opera House, whose stage and auditorium were connected in one continuous floor which held over two hundred and fifty tables, arranged in double horse-shoe fashion and seating eight hundred guests. The room was elaborately decorated with flowers and flags, and eight thousand glittering glasses, much fine plate and many electric lights made the hall a place of shimmering beauty. The chief steward, stationed behind the President's chair, gave orders to the head chef by signals over electric wires, regulating the courses so that two hundred of the best drilled waiters served the guests almost simultaneously. The dinner cost some forty thousand dollars, the wine alone costing nearly sixteen thousand, there being twelve va- rieties and three cordials. The menu card was made in France. Be- hind and over the President's chair, surrounded by flowing American flags, was suspended a huge picture of Washington. As the banquet did not commence till eleven o'clock P. M., and as the President's speech was not given till near two o'clock A. M., the President was very tired after the day's celebration. Other toasts were given by ex-President Cleveland, ex-President Hayes, Chief Justice Fuller, Gen- eral William T. Sherman, Senator Evarts, James Russell Lowell, Presi- dent Charles W. Elliott, of Harvard, Hon. John W. Daniel, Governor Fitzhugh Lee, of Virginia, and Governor Hill, of New York, who, being 29 30 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES introduced by Mayor Grant, of New York City, welcomed the guests. There were present the Governors of thirty-six states. Bishop Potter made the invocation. As the President and distinguished guests entered, the band played "Hail to the Chief." Mr. Chairman and Fellow Citizens: I should be unjust to myself, and, what is more serious, I should be unjust to you, if I did not at this first and last opportunity express to you the deep sense of obligation and thankfulness which I feel for these many personal and official courtesies which have been extended to me since I came to take part in this celebration. The official representatives of the State of New York and of this great city have attended me with the most courteous kindness, omitting no attention that could make my stay among you pleasant and grat- ifying. From you and at the hands of those who have thronged the streets of the city today I have received the most cordial ex- pressions of good will. I would not, however, have you under- stand that these loud acclaims have been in any sense appro- priated as a personal tribute to myself. I have realized that there was in this occasion and in all these interesting incidents which have made it so profoundly impressive to my mind, that which was above and greater than any living man. I have realized that the tribute of cordial interest which you have mani- fested was rendered to that great office which, by the favor of a greater people, I now exercise, rather than to me. This occasion and all of its incidents will be memorable not only in the history of your own city, but in the history of your country. New York did not succeed in retaining the seat of national government here, although she made liberal provision for the assembling of the first Congress in the expectation that the Congress might find its permanent home here. But though you lost that which you coveted, I think the representatives here of all the States will agree that it was fortunate that the first inauguration of Washington took place in the State and the city of New York. For where in our country could the centennial of the event be so worthily celebrated as here? What seaboard offered so magnificent a bay on which to display our merchant and naval marine? What city offered thoroughfares so mag- OUR COUNTRY 31 nificent, or a people so generous as New York has poured out today to celebrate that event? I have received at the hands of the committee who have been charged with the onerous and exacting details of this demon- stration, evidence of their confidence in my physical endurance. I must also acknowledge still one other obligation. The com- mittee having in charge the exercises of this event have also given me another evidence of their confidence, which has been accompanied with some embarrassment. As I have noticed the progress of this banquet, it seemed to me that each of the speakers had been made acquainted with his theme before he took his seat at the banquet, and that I alone was left to make acquaintance with my theme when I sat down to the table. I prefer to substitute for the official title which is upon the pro- gram ["The United States of America"], the familiar and fire- side expression, Our Country. I congratulate you today, as one of the interesting features of this occasion, that the houses in these great thoroughfares dedi- cated to trade have closed their doors and covered up the insignia of commerce with the stars and stripes; that your great ex- changes have closed and your citizens have given themselves wholly to the celebration in which we are participating. I have great pleasure in believing that love of country has been inten- sified in many hearts by what we have witnessed today, not only in you who may be called and you who have been called to witness your love for the flag in battles on sea and land, but in these homes, among these fair women who look down upon us tonight and in those little children who mingled their piping cries with the hoarser shouts as we moved along your streets today. I believe that patriotism has been placed in a higher and holier fane in many hearts. These banners with which you have covered your walls, these patriotic inscriptions, must come down and the ways of trade be resumed again. Here may I not ask you to carry the inscriptions that now hang on the walls into your homes, into the schools of your city, into all of your great institutions where children are gathered, to impress them on the minds of the voung and teach them that the eyes of young and 32 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES old alike should look upon that flag as one of the familiar glories and adornments of every household and .public shrine in Amer- ica ? Have we not learned that not stocks and bonds, not houses and lands, nor the products of factories, are our country ? It is a spiritual thought that is in our minds it is the flag and what it stands for; it is the fireside and the home; it is the high emotions that are in our hearts, born of the inspiration which comes with the story of the fathers and of martyrs to liberty. It is the unconscious reminiscence which a community has of the deeds of those who died gloriously that that might live which we love and call our country, rather than anything that can be touched or seen. Let me add a thought due to our country's future. Perhaps never have we been so well equipped for war upon land as now, and we never have seen the time when our people were more smitten with the love of peace. To elevate the morals of our people; to hold up the law as that sacred thing which, like the ark of God of old, may not be touched by irreverent hands, and to frown upon any attempt to dethrone its supremacy ; to unite our people in all that makes home pure and honorable, as well as to give our energies in the direction of material advancement, this service may we render. And out of this great demon- stration let us draw lessons which shall inspire us to consecrate ourselves anew to this love and service of our country. "THE PRESIDENT." WILLIAM HOWARD TAPT. On November sixteenth, 1912, shortly after his defeat for re-election to the Presidency, Mr. Taft was given a dinner by the Lotos Club of New York City. There was present a distinguished and enthusiastic company. The President was accompanied to New York by several members of the Cabinet, Senator Elihu Root, and Major T. S. Rhoades, U. S. A., his military aid. The New York Times report said: "The President made what many of those who heard it said was one of the best speeches of his life. He looked and acted as happy as a boy out of school. * * * Mr. Taft sat beneath a cluster of American flags, in the center of which was the blue ensign of the President of the United States. * * * The menus, as is always the case at Lotos Club dinners, were beautifully engraved. The design carried on the cover the national coat-of-arms and lotos flowers stamped in gold, and underneath the lotos flowers the single word, 'Ohio.' * * * The president of the club, Mr. Frank R. Lawrence, introduced Mr. Taft, closing with a toast to 'The President,' and with the drinking of the toast the President arose to speak. The diners gave him a great welcome, and when at last the napkins ceased to wave and the cheers stopped, the President, talking in a conversational tone and in ex- tremely friendly fashion, began his speech." Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Lotos Club: The legend of the lotos eaters was that if they partook of the fruit of the lotos tree they forgot what had happened in their country and were left in a state of philosophic calm in which they had no desire to return to it. I do not know what was in the mind of your distinguished Invitation Committee when I was asked to attend this banquet. They came to me before the election. At first I hesitated to come, lest, when the dinner came, by the election I should be shorn of interest as a guest and be changed from an active and virile participant in the day's doings of the nation to merely a dissolving view. I knew that generally on an occasion of this sort the motive 33 34 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES of the diners was to have a guest whose society^ should bring them more closely into contact with the great present and future, and not be merely a reminder of what has been. But after further consideration, I saw in the name of your club the possibility that you were not merely cold, selfish seekers after pleasures of your own; that perhaps you were organized to furnish consolation to those who mourn, oblivion to those who would forget, an opportunity for a swan song to those about to disappear. This thought, prompted by the coming, as one of your com- mittee, of the gentleman who knows everything in the world that has happened and is going to happen, and especially that which is going to happen, by reason of his control of the Associated Press, much diminished my confidence in the victory that was to come on election day. I concluded that it was just as well to cast an anchor to the windward and accept as much real condolence as I could gather in such a hospitable presence as this, and, therefore, my friends, I accepted your invitation and am here. You have given me the toast of "The President," and I take this toast not merely as one of respect to the office and indicative of your love of country and as typical of your loyalty, but I assume for the purposes of tonight that a discussion of the office which I have held and in which I have rejoiced and suffered will not be inappropriate. It is said that the office of President is the most powerful in the world, because under the Constitution its occupant really can exercise more discretion than an Emperor or King exercises in any of the Governments of modern Europe. I am not disposed to question this as a matter of reasoning from the actual power given the President in the Constitutional division of governmental functions, but I am bound to say that the consciousness of such power is rarely, if ever, present in the mind of the ordinary individual acting as President, because what chiefly stares him in the face in carrying out any plan of his is the limitation upon the power and not its extent. Of course, there are happy individuals who are able entirely THE PRESIDENT 35 to ignore those limitations both in mind and practice, and as to them the result may be different. But to one whose training and profession are subordinate to law, the intoxication of power rapidly sobers off in the knowledge of its restrictions and under the prompt reminder of an ever-present and a not always con- siderate press, as well as by the kindly suggestions that not infrequently come from that hall of Congress in which im- peachments are intimated and that smaller chamber in which they are tried. In these days of progress, reform, uplift, and improvement, a man does not show himself abreast of the age unless he has some changes to suggest. It is the recommended change that marks his being up to date. It may be a change only for the sake of change, but it is responsive to a public demand, and therefore let's propose it. It is contrary to my own love for the dear old Constitution to suggest any alteration in its terms, lest it be regarded as a reflection upon, or a criticism of, that which has been put to the sacred use for one hundred and twenty-five years of main- taining liberty regulated by law, and the guarantee of the rights by law, and the guarantee of the rights of the minority and the individual under the rule of the majority. But yielding to the modern habit and just to show that though I am a conservative I am not a reactionary or a trilobite, I venture the suggestion that it would aid the efficiency of the executive and center his energy and attention and that of his subordinates in the latter part of his administration upon what is a purely disinterested public service if he were made ineligible after serving one term of six years either to a succeeding or a non-consecutive term. I am a little specific in this matter, because it seems necessary to be so in order to be understood. I don't care how unambitious or modest a President is; I don't care how determined he is that he himself will not secure his renomination (and there are very few, indeed, who go to that extent), still his subordi- nates equally interested with him in his re-election will, when- ever they have the opportunity, exert their influence and divide 36 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES their time between the public service and the effort to secure their chief's renomination and re-election. It is difficult to prevent the whole Administration from losing a part of its effectiveness for the public good by this diversion to political effort for at least a year of the four of each admin- istration. iWere this made impossible by law, I can see no reason why the energy of the President and that of all his subordinates might not be directed rather to making a great record of efficiency in the first and only term than in seeking a second term for that purpose. Four years is rather a short time in which to work out great governmental policies. Six years is better. Another suggestion I would make is that legislative steps be taken, for there is nothing in the Constitution to forbid it, bringing more closely together the operation of the executive and legislative branches. The studied effort to maintain these branches rigidly separate is, I think, a mistake. I would not add any more actual power to the Executive in legislative matters, nor would I give the legislative any more actual power in executive matters. The veto on the one hand and the confirmation of appointments and the ratification of treaties on the other I would not change. But it does seem to me that they need not be at arm's length, as they are now under our present system. It has been proposed twice in our history, after the fullest consideration by some of the wisest statesmen we have ever had, to pass a law giving to each department head a seat in the Senate and in the House, and a right to enter into the discussion of proposed legislation in either of the national legis- lative bodies. This would keep Congress much better informed as to the actual conditions in the executive departments. It would keep the department heads on the qui vive with reference to their knowledge of their own departments and their ability to answer appropriate questions in respect to them. It would necessitate the appointment to the Cabinet of men used to debate and to defend their positions, and it would offer an opportunity for THE PRESIDENT 37 the public to judge of the Executive and of his Government much more justly and much more quickly than under our present system. The ignorance that Congress at times has of what is actually going on in the executive departments and the fact that hours of debate and use of pages of The Congressional Record might be avoided by the answer to a single question by a competent Cabinet officer on the floor of either house is frequently brought sharply to the attention of competent observers. I think, too, it might perhaps promote the amenities between the two branches if this system were introduced. The rules of the two houses, as I am advised, forbid the use of abusive language by one member against the other house or its members. A somewhat close examination of the rules, however, of both houses, does not show that there is any limitation upon the parliamentary character of the language which may be directed against the President. As to him, the members pursue their own sweet will, and that sometimes leads them into language and epithetical descrip- tion of the Chief Executive that could hardly be called compli- mentary. If members of the Cabinet were allowed the floor their very presence would suggest, in the possibility of reply, moderation in discussing the Administration, which does not now at all times prevail. The strongest reason for advocating this change, however, is that the influence that the Executive shall have in shaping legislation shall be more in harmony with the responsibility that the people hold him to in respect to it. He is the head of the party that elected him, and as such, if Congress is con- trolled by the same political party, as it generally is, he is looked to to shape the Congressional policy and to secure the passage of the statutes which the party platform has promised. Now, with such a burden on him, he ought to have a greater means of bringing about what he wishes in the character of the legislation to be considered by Congress, and greater powers of persuasion to secure the adoption of such legislation than those which the mere right to send messages and the mere 38 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES opportunity of personal consultation with leading members of the House and Senate give him. I doubt not that the presence of able Cabinet officers on the floor of each house would give greater harmony of plan for the conduct of public business in both houses, and would secure much more valuable legislation in accordance with party plans than we have now. On the other hand, the system would enable Congress to come closer to the Executive, and pry more effectively into each act and compel a disclosure of the reasons justifying it immediately at the time of the act, and keep the public more quickly advised by the direct questions of hostile critics which must be answered, of the progress of business under Executive auspices. Of course, this is not the complete English system, because it does not give to the Cabinet the power to lead and control legislative action, as the British Government may in Parliament. But it combines so much of that which is valuable, and as it can be done by a mere act of Congress, I think it ought to be tried. One of the results of my observation in the Presidency is that the position is not a place to be enjoyed by a sensitive man. Lawrence Sterne said, ' ' The Lord tempers the wind to the shorn lamb." The experience in the Presidency toughens the hide of the occupant so as to enable him to resist the stings of criti- cism directed against him from the time he takes office until he lays it down. I don't know that this evil has been any greater in this administration than in a previous administration. All I know is that it was my first experience and it seemed to me as if I had been more greatly tried than most Presidents by such methods. The result, in some respects, is unfortunate in that after one or two efforts to meet the unfounded accusations, despair in the matter leads to indifference and, perhaps, to an indiffer- ence toward both just and unjust criticism. This condition helps the comfort of the patient, but I doubt if it makes him a better President. Of course, the reassuring formula that history will right THE PRESIDENT 39 one and will give one his just meed of praise is consolatory, but it is not altogether satisfactory, because the thought sug- gests itself that the time for remedying the injustice may be postponed until one is gathered to his fathers, and when he is not particularly interested in earthly history or mundane affairs. I think the period for successful muckraking is gradually drawing to a close. I hope so. The evil of the cruel injustice that has been done to many public men in this regard will certainly show itself in the future, and we must consider that the ebullition in muckraking literature is only one of the tem- porary excesses of the times, which is curing itself by tiring those whose patronage formed the motive for its beginning and rise. In so far as those criticisms are just, of course, they ought not to be avoided. In so far as they are based on facts, whether they are just or unjust, they must be taken at their value upon the consideration of the facts. But the query arises in respect to those criticisms and attacks that are made without the slightest reference to the facts, and merely for the purpose of invoking popular opposition and distrust, and with the hope that by constant repetition they can escape any possible refu- tation. The Presidency is a great office to hold. It is a great honor, and it is surrounded with much that makes it full of pleasure and enjoyment for the occupant in spite of its heavy responsi- bilities and the shining mark that it presents for misrepresenta- tion and false attack. I consider that the President of the United States is well paid. The salary by no means measures the contribution to his means of living which the generosity of Congress has afforded, and unless it is the policy of Congress to enable him in his four years to save enough money to live in adequate dignity and comfort thereafter, then the salary is all that it ought to be. Of course, the great and really the only lasting satisfaction that one can have in the administration of the great office of 40 AFTERrDINNER SPEECHES President is the thought that one has done something perma- nently useful to his fellow-countrymen. The mere enjoyment of the tinsel of office is ephemeral, and unless one can fix one's memory on real progress made through the exercise of Presi- dential power, there is little real pleasure in the contemplation of the holding of that or any other office, however great its power or dignity or high its position in the minds of men. I beg you to believe that in spite of the very emphatic verdict by which I leave the office, I cherish only the deepest gratitude to the American people for having given me the honor of having held the office, and I sincerely hope, in looking back over what has been done, that there is enough of progress made to warrant me in the belief that real good has been accomplished, even though I regret that it has not been greater. My chief regret is my failure to secure from the Senate the ratification of the general arbitration treaties with France and Great Britain. I am sure they would have been great steps toward general world peace. "What has actually been done I hope has helped the cause of peace, but ratification would have been a concrete and substantial step. I do not despair of ultimate success. We must hope and work on. The sustained mental work in the Presidential office is not, I think, so great as is generally supposed. The nervous strain is greater. As it should be, the President has a great many assistants to furnish him data and actually to prepare his letters and his official communications. If he is careful, of course, he corrects and changes these enough to put his own personality into them. His time is very much taken up with social functions, state and otherwise. This is inevitable with the affairs of state, and his actual time for real hard intellectual work is limited. That part of his time which is taken up with the smaller patronage of the office, that is, I mean, the local patronage, the postmasters and collectors, is, in my judgment, wasted, and ought to be removed by putting all the local officers in the classified civil service system, so that it shall be automatic in its operation and the President may not be both- ered, and the Congressmen and Senators may not be bothered THE PRESIDENT 41 with that which is supposed to aid politically, but which in the end always operates as a burden to the person upon whom its use is thrust. I observe that the question of how receptions are to be accorded to those who have business at the "White House is now under consideration, and I have been considerably amused at the suggestion that it would be possible to do the public business in the presence of everybody, so that all who are interested might draw near to the Executive Office and stand and see and hear the communications from those who enjoy appointed consultations with the head of the nation. This matter is always the subject of consideration at the beginning of each administration, and it always settles down to an arrangement which satisfies few people, but which allows those who have the most important business generally to have the easiest and longest access to the President. A President has just so much time to see people, and if the number of people is very great, as it always is at the beginning of an administration, the amount of time he can give to each is very limited. No matter what is done, it will be certain that some- body's toes are stepped on, and when I am asked what is the proper way of arranging receptions of people under conditions which exist, I am forced to tell the story of a gentleman who lived on Sascatchequarle Creek. He was asked how he spelled the name of the creek, and he said : * ' Some spells it one way and some spells it another, but in my judgment there are no correct way of spelling it." And now, my friends, I come to the final question which is of immediate moment to me, and in respect to which I observe some discussion and comment and suggestion in the press of the day, ''What are we to do with our ex-Presidents?" I am not sure Dr. Osier's method of dealing with elderly men would not properly and usefully apply to the treatment of ex-Presidents. The proper and scientific administration of a dose of chloroform or of the fruit of the lotos tree and the reduction of the flesh of the thus quietly departed to ashes in a funeral pyre, to satisfy the wishes of the friends and 42 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES families, might make a fitting end to the life of one who had held the highest office and at the same time would secure the country from the troublesome fear that the occupant could ever come back. His record would have been made by one term and his demise in the honorable ceremony I have suggested would relieve the country from the burden of thinking how he is to support himself and his family, would fix his place in history and enable the public to pass on to new men and new measures. I com- mend this method for consideration. I observe that our friend, Mr. Bryan, proposes another method of disposing of our ex-Presidents. Mr. Bryan has not had exactly the experience of being a President. He has been a "near President" for three times, and possibly that qualifies him as an expert to speak of what we ought to do with our ex-Presidents. He has been very vigorous in this campaign in helping to make me an ex-President, and if I have followed with accuracy his public declarations and his private opinions, he is anxious to perform the office of making my successor an ex-President after one term. As a Warwick and as a maker of ex-Presidents, I think we should give great and respectful consideration to his suggestion. Instead of ending the ex-Presidential life by chloroform or lotos eating, he proposes that it should expire under the an- aesthetic effect of the debates of the Senate. He proposes that ex-Presidents should be confined to the business of sitting in the Senate and listening to the discussions in that body. We may assume that he proposes that the ex-Presidents shall share the burden of the Vice-President as he listens to the soliloquies which the various members of that body pour into the Con- gressional Record, while the remainder of the Senators are engaged in more entertaining and less somnolent occupation. The ex-Presidents are to have seats in the Senate and join in the discussion, but not to vote. Why Mr. Bryan should think it necessary to add to the discussion in the Senate the lucubra- tions of ex-Presidents, I am at a loss to say. I cannot conceive THE PRESIDENT 43 of any reform in the Senate which does not lead to a limit in their debate. For many reasons, I object to Mr. Bryan's disposition of ex-Presidents. If I must go and disappear into oblivion, I prefer to go by the chloroform or lotos method. It is pleasanter and it's less drawn out. But, my friends, I have occupied your time too long in my cursory remarks, the subject of which at times may have seemed too sober and grave for lotos eaters, but as the office of the Presidency is still in my keeping, and as the thought of parting with it is perhaps the most prominent one that figures in my mind, I have ventured to discuss it in accents both grave and gay. I wish to express deep gratitude to you for the honor which you have done me in making me your guest tonight, and I close with a sentiment and a toast to which I most sincerely and cordially ask your unanimous acclaim: "Healtn and success to the able, distinguished and patriotic gentleman who is to be the next President of the United States." THE STANDARDS OF LEADERSHIP. WOODROW WILSON. Remarks of William G. McAdoo, Toastmaster. The twenty-fifth annual dinner of the New York Southern Society was held in the Grand Ball Room of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on Wednesday evening, the fourteenth of December, 1910. Mr. William G. McAdoo, president of the Society, acted as toastmaster. He said, Gentlemen of the New York Southern Society: It is customary on these occasions to drink a formal toast to the President of the United States. I want, this year, to make it more personal. The President has appointed a Southerner Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. I give you the health of William H. Taft, President of the United States. (The toast was drunk standing, and the company joined in singing "America.") In an audience composed of Southern men, I must admit that it is with reluctance that we give even to the President of the United States precedence over the ladies. But while we have respect for that great office, we must also show proper appreciation, as we are always glad to do, for that part of Southern life which is the best there is of it. A few days ago when people were crowding on a street car in Chicago, a Southern conductor was urging them to "step lively." An old woman plaintively appealed to the conductor with these words: "Won't you please, Mr. Conductor, wait long enough for an old and fat lady to get on board?" The conductor, with true Southern gallantry, replied: "Certainly, madam, where is she?" This sort of consideration and of deference to woman is indicative of the spirit of the South, and I ask you to rise and drink a toast which we make secondary only to that to the President of the United States the Ladies. (The toast was honored standing.) I will read you a quotation: "Absolute good faith in dealing with the people, an unhesitating fidelity to every principle involved, is the highest law of political morality under a constitutional government." Gentlemen, that sounds like an utterance of Abraham Lincoln, one of the greatest men whom God ever created. But, as a matter of fact, it is an utterance of Woodrow Wilson. It has a strange sound now; it seems almost heretical, but it is a tocsin of hope. It is a declara- 44 THE STANDARDS OF LEADERSHIP 45 tlon of promise; it gives hope to the people that the time has come wnen platforms and ante-election promises mean something. That man who keeps faith with the people, who observes inflexibly the promises made to induce his election, who maintains in public life the high standards which have characterized his private life, as Woodrow Wilson has, may obtain anything that he wants from, the people. The longer I live, the more I realize that the scarcest thing which Nature has contributed to mankind is backbone, and that is particularly true of the men who hold public office. They have one thing to say to the people before they are elected, and an entirely different thing to do after they have been elected. Woodrow Wilson is a notable exception to that rule, I prophesy, even before he has taken the oath of office as Governor of the State of New Jersey. I call to mind three conspicuous examples of men who have kept faith with the people, Abraham Lincoln, Grover Cleveland and Theo- dore Roosevelt. Each of them became a President of the United States. We have already drunk a toast to the President of the United States. I invite you, gentlemen, to drink to the health of a future President of the United States. I now have the honor, gentlemen, to introduce to you the Hon. Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey. Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : The very kind intro- duction I have just heard destroys my sense of identity. I am told by psychologists that our memories are the seat of our sense of identity, and that if I did not remember who I was yester- day, I could not for the life of me tell you who I am to-day. In view of the confused and unexpected happenings of the recent past, I find it difficult to remember who I was yesterday. I find myself in one respect (I hope in only one respect), resembling certain individuals I heard of in a story that was repeated to me the other day. A friend of mine was in Canada with a fishing party, and one member of the party was imprudent enough to sample some whiskey that was called " squirrel" whiskey. It was understood that it was called "squirrel" whiskey because it made those who drank it inclined to climb a tree. This gen- tleman imbibed too much of this dangerous liquid and the con- sequence was that when he went to the train to go with the rest of the company, he took a train bound South instead of a train bound North. Wishing to recover him, his companions tele- graphed the conductor of the south-bound train: "Send short 46 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES man named Johnson back for the north-bound train. He is intoxicated." Presently they got a reply from the conductor: "Further particulars needed; there are thirteen men on the train who don't know either their name or their destination." Now, I am sure that I know my name, but I am not as sure as Mr. McAdoo that I know my destination, and I have at the present so much to do that I don't think I am very much con- cerned where I land, provided I land on some people 's necks. Mr. McAdoo said I was one of those rare specimens that have backbone. If that is true, and I have reason to suspect it is, I deserve no credit for it, for I came of about as pure fighting stock as can be found on this continent, with a dash of that excellent fighting element known as "the Irish" in me. I have no documentary proof of that fact, but only internal evidence. There is something in me that takes the strain off my Scotch con- science occasionally, and gives me delightfully irresponsible moments. I was thinking, as I looked over this company of fellow- Southerners, that we were about to lose one of our distinctions. During the recent campaign in New Jersey, I was driving to the place of meeting where I was condemned to speak, and the gentleman who was accompanying me said: "I am feeling very uneasy. Here I have been working in a hopeless minority for twenty years, and now I am afraid it is fashionable to be a Democrat." If it should become fashionable to be a Democrat, we would lose one of our distinctions. We have prided our- selves upon being Democrats, but if it becomes common, at least it will not be a matter of pride ; and it looks very much as though it were becoming common. Then there will be some distinction that we will have to recover out of our past, so as not to mix with the common herd. After all, gentlemen, when we look back upon the past there are more things to be glad about than to be sad about. As I look back upon the past of the South, it seems to me to contain that best of all dynamic forces, the force of emotion. We talk a great deal about being governed by mind, by intellect, by intelligence, in this boastful day of ours ; but as THE STANDARDS OF LEADERSHIP 47 a matter of fact, I don't believe that one man out of a thousand is governed by his mind. Men, no matter what their training, are governed by their passions, and the most we can hope to accomplish is to keep the handsome passions in the majority. One of the handsomest passions is that sort of love which binds us to the communities in which we live ; and as I look back to my life in the South, and recall all the things we have said and read and written about that region to which our affection clings, it seems to me that the most conspicuous thing of all is the sense of solidarity among Southerners, the sense of a com- mon origin, a common set of ideals, a common set of purposes; a union, which cannot be severed, with the neighborhoods to which they once belonged. The peril of a man is detachment from the compulsions of a neighborhood, and what saves him is the integrity of his attachment to a neighborhood. If you have made a career which makes you hesitate, because of a touch of shame, to go back and see your old neighbors in the South, then, if it is not too late, reform. Turn right about face, and do something that will make you willing and proud to go back and see the old neighbors, because after all, those are the rootages of patriotism. A man cannot love a country in the abstract, a man cannot love a country that he has not seen and touched and been part of, and the real rootages of your patriotism are the rootages of your youth, those wells from which you drew all the first inspirations of your life and of your action. It pays to have gone through the fire, as the South has gone through the fire, because it means a body of chastened emotion. It means men who have submitted to the inevitable, and then, recalling those broader motives of the earlier day of the South, they turn again to the common love of country, and are devoting to the country the great impulses which have sprung out of neighborly men and loving women. There is another thing that Southerners have got out of the South which is a great capital to bank upon in the conduct of public affairs. There was a strange contradiction in the old 48 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES South, and it is to be found lingering as a characteristic in the modern Southerner. The old Southerner was a great indi- vidualist; nothing was so marked in him as his sense of his individual dignity. He resented nothing so much as having people impose their opinions upon him. And yet, at the same time, there went with that the compulsion, the absolute compul- sion, of common ideals. He was an individual, but he said to himself also that he was a Southerner, that he belonged to a Society, a Society in which there were definite rules of conduct from which even he, if he wished, did not dare to depart. There was in him a strange combination of individualism, plus sub- mission to common ideals ; and yet, when you think of it, that is the very analysis of a vital nation men of initiative, men who follow the impulses of their own characters, men who will not be put upon, men who will not be put into a common mould of opinion and obliged to conform to it, and yet men who do not wish to fling free from the understandings of communities, from the standards of nations, from the historic memories which con- stitute the compulsions for the present and for the future. That is the way you combine a free and a vigorous and united people. There went along with that, in the old South, something which, after all, is the essence of all movement together, namely, loyalty to leaders. Many of the things that I am saying can also be said with equal truth of some other parts of the country. They can be said of old New England, as well of the old South. I am not now discriminating by way of disparaging other com- munities, I am simply recalling to you what was characteristic of ourselves in the past ; and one of the chief of those character- istics was loyalty to leaders. And that for a very interesting reason, it seems to me. The old leaders in the South may be said to have been embodiments of the South itself. Do you remember the very interesting analysis that the historian Green gives of the power of Queen Elizabeth over her subjects? She was a sort of generalized Englishwoman; the impulses that she had were the impulses that were common to English men and women throughout her kingdom, so that her judgments they instinct- ively recognized as their judgments; her purposes for the coun- THE STANDARDS OF LEADERSHIP 49 try they at once accepted as their purposes. There was England embodied in an imperious woman, which makes of her one of the greatest figures and one of the great forces of history. When- ever you get a person who is an essential leader, you will find that he or she embodies a people. A leader may embody the worst part or the best part for the time being, but people must find their own selves expressed in those whom they follow. You remember that Elizabeth had the very interesting instinct always to lie to foreign governments, but she never lied to her English subjects. In the vulgar, they were "on to" her. If she had lied to them they would have known it, whereas she could lie to foreign ministers, and they didn't know it. She was the most consummate liar, and yet the most honest impersonation of England that English history has produced. I won't apolo- gize to the English people for that statement, because I take it from an Englishman. But, that will illustrate for you what I am thinking of when I am speaking of the relation of the old Southerner to his leader. His leader did not have to explain things to him, he knew what was in his mind ; he could go anywhere, for example to Congress, and could say anything he pleased for the impression that it would make upon Northern audiences; he didn't have to tell the people at home what he really meant or why he was saying it. He was their spokesman and embodiment. There were things that he said for others, but they understood. Do you remember that story that Polk Miller tells so admirably? and which I wish I could tell as well ! An old darkey went into a drug store in Richmond and said: ''Boss, will you call de Colonel on de telephone?" "Yes." And he called the Colonel. The old darkey said : * ' Colonel, dat 'ar mule done stall right in de main street right out yere in front of de store." "Yassah, I done tied strings roun' his ears, but he didn't budge." "What's dat? What's dat? Yassah, I built a fire under him, but it didn't do nothin' but scorch de hahness." "Yassah, yas- sah, I took de things out, but he wouldn't budge." "Yassah, yassah; what's dat? No sah, no sah, Colonel, I didn't twist his tail" "Yassah, yassah, another gen'lman twist his tail. He 50 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES looked like a Northe'n gen'leman." "What's dat, Colonel? Yassah, dey done take him to de hospital." "No sah, no sah, I ain't heerd yet." Now, you see that doesn't need any explanation to you. You ain't gwine twist his tail, you don't need to have the habits of the animal explained to you ; but the Northern gentleman did, in that case. All these things, gentlemen, though we may give them a whimsical turn, have a very serious import, because, look at the analysis we are now trying to make of our national life and of our national government. We hear a great deal nowadays about the contest of opinion between the powers which should be exer- cised by the federal government and the powers which should be exercised by the state. I must say I don't know "how to debate the question in its latest terms, because its latest terms are elusive; they vary from utterance to utterance, and I don't think there ought to be any sense of controversy about this thing. No sane man that I know is jealous of the power of the federal government. We wish the- federal government to exercise to the utmost its legitimate powers in the protection of our common interests and we want to find ways in which it may protect us within the field naturally and properly assigned to the action of the common government. There is no jealousy there, and there ought to be no contest or opposition there. But, don't you see that that is only one side of our character, this compulsion of common purposes, common ideals, common standards, and that, on the other hand, there is our instinct of individualism? We believe that as Southerners, and we believe it as Americans for I believe that in these respects the Southerner expresses in some unusually vivid way what belongs to all Americans. We do not wish individual initiative to be choked by the common action ; and what we are really striving for is the utmost variety of initiative, the utmost variety of energy, in the midst of action towards common purposes. That is the reason we are jealous to see the powers of the states wisely and energetically exercised ; not because they are in competition with the powers of the fed- eral government, but because they are in themselves the seat in THE STANDARDS OF LEADERSHIP 51 which resides so much of the energy and initiative and common sense of our own people. "We want to see every center of vitality exercise its energy to the utmost, and with the utmost intelli- gence; just as the individual must not be crushed by the com- munity, so the state must not be crushed by common action, not because of theoretical jealousies, but because of the nature of energy in human action. Crush the individual and the body declines in energy; crush the initiative of the locality, of the community, of the state, and there begins the decline of the common energy which lies back of the federal government itself. That is the reason it is no joke to be elected the Governor of the state. Now, all of that means that you must not look in any one place for your leader, you must raise up your leaders wherever you are. That is the price of energy and of action. You must multiply your leaders by the number of instrumentalities there are to lead, and you must insist upon it that wherever leader- ship is necessary, you will find a leader who will embody the community not simply somebody who is grinding his own axe, or who represents a small group of persons, but somebody who really represents the community and can be its spokesman and leader. That is the only real leadership; but you must demand a particular kind of leadership, which is more necessary at this time than it has ever been before in the history of this country. It will be difficult to find; you can get it only by disciplining your leaders, not by throwing the reins upon their necks and allowing them to have their own way. You must insist that your leaders combine self-assertion with self-sacrifice. You must demand of them that they take the lead fearlessly, and that the particular thing that they shall not fear shall be the conse- quences. I remember the story of a Mississippi steamboat captain who had to tie up because a fog lay low on the river. The upper decks of the boat were left above the fog. If you stood on the upper deck you could see the clear heaven above you, but all the river bottom lay shrouded in mist, and one of the passengers, 52 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES impatient to get on, said : ' ' Captain, why don 't you go ahead ? ' ' The captain replied: "I can't see the way." "Well," said the passenger, "you can see the north star." "Yes," said the cap- tain, "but we are not going that way." Now, it is all very well to see ulterior objects, it is all very well to have your eye upon distant goals, but don't steer by them ; steer by the channel of the river, steer by the thing near at hand, steer by the immediate task and duty, and oblige your men to combine with self-assertion, self-forgetfulness and self- sacrifice I believe that that was the spirit of the old leadership in the South, that men were willing to sacrifice themselves for what they believed to be a cause, knowing that political preferment and political success did not lie in any personal ambition for them. Every man must have a vision of what the people are being lifted to ; for, it is not individuals who are to seek political advance, it is communities that are to seek political advance, and the only real leaders are the leaders that lift them up, by never so little, to the new levels, that advance communities from achievement to achievement. There is another combination that they must make, and an equally difficult combination; they must combine energy with moderation. We talk about progressives and reactionaries, radicals and conservatives, and I think we use the words rather recklessly. Nothing is progress which does not progress, and some of the most radical courses perhaps are not progressive, because they are not feasible, and therefore progress does not lie in that direction. That is not the way in which the channel of the river curves, and you cannot steer that way. You must have energy, therefore, combined with moderation. An English writer once defined a constitutional statesman, by which he meant a statesman under a government controlled by public opinion, as a man of ordinary opinions and extraor- dinary abilities. That is a very good working idea. We do not want his opinions to be too extraordinary; it won't make any difference how extraordinary his abilities are, provided he shares THE STANDARDS OF LEADERSHIP 53 in some way the general opinion, shares it, perhaps, with a clearer vision as to what it is, but nevertheless sees in terms of the common life, and moves with moderation towards feasible ends. What we are really after in our day is adjustment, accommo- dation. We do not want a warfare of interests. We have tried too long to accomplish movement by the mere correlation of hos- tile forces by setting one set of interests against another, by sid- ing with capital against labor, or with labor against capital, as if they were not, deep down underneath the whole superficial view of the question, essential partners in the thing to be accom- plished. Until you get rid of the idea that business is the exploitation of somebody or of some thing, you will not have come even to the frame of mind which makes progress possible. You may pile profits mountain high by crushing out the com- munities, the energies upon which future profits depend; but, a well-served community is the only possible permanent basis for prosperous business. Well considered working men, working men dealt with fairly, dealt with generously, are the only men who will produce you the stuff that will yield you future profit. I have read in the textbooks of political economy about enlightened selfishness. I have never seen any selfishness that was enlightened. Selfishness is a state of utter darkness, it is a state of utter blindness, and if men could only see that generosity and public service are profitable, then the millennium would come along faster than it is coming. What we are seeking, as I just now said, is a programme, but not a programme of war- fare, not a programme of hostilities, not a programme of the accommodation of hostilities even ; we are not seeking that poor, negative, pale, colorless thing called a truce ; we are not seeking a peace which is a mere holding off of the action of passion. We are seeking the kind of peace which brings co-operation, which brings independence, which brings sympathies, which brings the release of all the handsomer motives of humanity. We are seeking accommodation. Every act, therefore, of public men and of private men, should have as its object to withdraw the veil from men's eyes, so that they can see their own affairs in the 54 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES terms of the neighborhood, in the terms of the community, in the terms of the life of the nation itself. When we see things in that vision, we shall have begun to see our way amidst the perplexities of modern business, and we shall then have not only a programme of action, but a programme of adjustment. Did you ever think of what you mean by liberty, by free- dom? I have pictured it to myself in this way: What is a perfectly free engine, a perfectly free locomotive? It is a loco- motive whose forces are applied with the least friction; it is a locomotive whose parts are so assembled that they will least interfere with each other; and when the great machine runs free, you mean nothing else than that she is running with per- fect adjustment. That, to my mind, is an image of the freedom of the body politic. When you are sailing a boat, and you say she is sailing free, what do you mean ? If you throw her up into the wind, if you are defying the forces of Nature, try it and see every stick and inch of canvas in her tremble, and hear the sailors say, "She is in irons," because she is not obedient to the forces of Nature ; but let her fall off a point or two, let her yield to the great forces of Nature, let them be her servant and not her antagonist, and see her run, see how then she skims over the water like a thing of freedom and a thing of beauty. There again it is a matter of adjustment, a matter of accom- modation, not a matter of resistance. I am free to go to tJhe top of this building, in a false sense of freedom, and jump off; but if I do, there won't be much freedom to boast of afterwards. Nature will say to me, "You fool, didn't you know the terms of your freedom? Didn't you know you would break your neck?" Well, I have got to know that under certain circumstances I will break my neck, before I am free. In other words, I cannot be free and a fool. Now, business wishes to be free of restraint. Very well, it cannot be free of restraint until it has found its perfect adjust- ment to the common welfare. How are you going to get this spirit that I have been speaking of expressed in action? Only by finding leaders if you can I cannot point them out to you by searching for leaders and finding them if you can, who THE STANDARDS OF LEADERSHIP 55 embody the people they are trying to serve; by understanding them, by having a catholic sympathy, by not being ready to take up the claim of any class against any other class, but by being ready, so far as in their power lies, to combine the interests of classes in a search for the common adjustment. When you find somebody like that great woman who presided in the spacious times of great Elizabeth, who will embody for you the just and common spirit of America, then you will have found the .way in which to express the forces of America. Now, I have said to you that I do not know where to point such a leader out, but I have this to suggest: you cannot find him until you know what you are looking for. If you are look- ing for a leader to express the interests of your class, you are looking in the wrong direction. That is not a leader, that is somebody to stir up antagonism. Look for somebody who does not represent your class any more than he represents some other class. A friend of mine said of the old adage that everything comes to the man who waits. "Yes, that is all very well if you add the proviso 'provided he knows what he is waiting for.' " You cannot stand at the corner and find the man you are look- ing for unless you know what he looks like, unless you know whom you are seeking; then if you know whom you are looking for, when he comes down the road you will know that you have got your man; therefore, our point of view, our object, our vision, is the first thing and the fundamental thing in the future of the nation. When you have had a vision of what you want, when you have fallen in love with that vision; when it has seemed to you the vision of a perfected nation, a nation per- fected by common purposes and love of what is just, then it will not be difficult to recognize the man who, in his character and purposes and ideals, fits that position, who seems to have the light of it upon his face, seems to follow the trail of its glory along the path that leads to genuine national achievement. THE MEMORY OF WASHINGTON. JULES JUSSERAND. Remarks of Edmund Wetmore, Toastmaster. In the absence of former Governor John Lee Carroll, of Maryland, General President of the Society of Sons of the Revolution, the Hon- orable Edmund Wetmore, a distinguished lawyer of New York, presided at the banquet of the General Society, which was held at the New Willard Hotel, Washington, Tuesday evening, April twenty-eighth, 1908. Mr. Wetmore said, in part, in accepting the responsibility of toastmaster and in introducing M. Jules Jusserand, the Ambassador from France to the United States: I can only occupy, but not fill, the place that is thus vacant. The most I can do is to promise you that I will be brief. I have no set speech, and it is extremely diffi- cult for me to speak extemporaneously without a set speech. [Laugh- ter.] I feel, in that sense, somewhat like the gentleman who said that when he had something to do before breakfast, he always took his breakfast first. [Laughter.] However, I should be tongue-tied indeed if I were unable to express the gratification and pleasure that we all have in greeting each other, at this, our triennial meeting, and in con- gratulating each other upon its success. If I may judge by what I have heard from my fellow members, never have they had a better time. It seemed as if Nature herself had suddenly put on her reful- gent summer robe to give us a warm welcome, as soon as we reached here. [Laughter.] It may be said, perhaps, that this was owing to the visit immedately preceding our own of the Daughters of the American Revolution [applause] ; but Nature is always personified as a female, and the feminine creation never dress for each other [laughter], therefore we may claim for ourselves the beauty Nature has spread before us. And, gentlemen, also I should be tongue-tied if I could not express the infinite pleasure that I have in meeting you, my brethren, from all over the country, upon such an occasion as this. I tell you that to shake hands with Tennessee and Colorado and Minnesota South, West, North makes States lines disappear; and I feel a sympathetic brotherhood with the men that I meet in these relations, upon the ground of our common patriotism, that nothing else that I come across in my intercourse with men can quite equal. [Applause.] After all, the most powerful influence down at the bottom of our national life 56 THE MEMORY OF WASHINGTON 57 is sentiment not affection, but true sentiment, real love of country, that patriotism which it is our object to nourish and renew and cher- ish. It is such meetings as this, it is looking into your faces, it is hearing you talk, that makes me know that beyond all political differ- ences, beyond all our troubles, beyond all the problems that we have to meet, there exists the feeling of love of country bound up with the love of our own home, so that the music of Home, Sweet Home, is heard in the rustling of our national flag, and when I see and feel thus, all doubt, all hesitation and unbelief in the future of our country melt away. [Applause.] Say what we may, she stands immovable. All our differences, all our troubles, all the things that divide us are only mere shadows and mists, like those at the base of the mountain; but our country itself God bless her "As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm, Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, Eternal sunshine settles on the head." [Applause.] And with that belief, gentlemen, do we come forward with the work of our Society, and the first toast of the evening is the toast to the memory of Washington. (The toast to Washington was then drunk in silence, all standing.) I have spoken of the love of country. It is still more, perhaps, to love a country not one's home; and it has been our fortune, in our nation's history, to have had the hand of friendship extended to us by a people moved by no other motive except enthusiasm for human freedom. True it is, that in 1777 Vergennes, a long and clearheaded statesman controlling the destinies of France, saw in the American Revolution the opportunity to lower the power and pride of England; but even in those days he could not have done it except that the people of France were behind him; and the real sentiment that brought France to our aid was that which induced the young Lafayette merely from the romantic love of human freedom to cast his lot with us and to set the example that a nation followed. [Applause.] When the news of the great alliance reached Valley Forge, Wash- ington had a celebration and gave with particularity the orders of the day, which still survive, and among them was that at one stage of the march past there should be huzzas for the king of France. A century and a quarter after that we will give the same cheer, slightly modi- fied, and I ask you to give three cheers for our sister republic of France, and will ask our friend, the French Ambassador, to answer. [Cheers and applause.] Mr. President and Gentlemen: Years ago, centuries ago, at 58 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES the time when our ancestors all lived in Europe, they used to gather together, as we do, on solemn occasions. They partook of banquets, and after the banquets they listened to speeches. An account of what were after-dinner speeches at a time when Thule was still the end of the world and Columbus had not yet crossed the Atlantic has come down to us. The account is in very old-fashioned English and in alliterative verse ; modern- ized it reads thus: "When people are feasted and fed, fain would they hear some excellent thing after their food to gladden their heart. * * * Some like to listen to legends of saints that lost their lives for our Lord's sake, some have a longing to hearken to lays of love, telling how people suffered pains for their beloved. Some covet and delight to hear talked of courtesy and knight- hood and craft of arms." These tastes and habits have been, I may say, handed down to us unimpaired, and it is to hear something about the same subjects that we are gathered together to-night. Indeed the very same subjects, legends of the saints included ; for was there not something holy in the task chosen for themselves by the heroes of the War of Independence, something holy in their deeds, something holy, too, in the way which they lost their lives, many of them, to gain for their descendants liberty? Courtesy, knighthood, craft of arms are also what we want to hear about. More courteous, better knights, harder fighters, truer to their pledge than those who under the American or French flag fought for independence had never been seen. What nobler knight than George Washington [great applause], that unwavering believer who knew success and reverses, knew glorious and sad days, but never knew fear or despair. His trust in the excellence of his country's cause was never shaken; when darkness was absolute and seemed meant to last forever, he felt that, contrary to all appearances, only passing clouds were darkening the sky, and that the sun would shine again on the victorious arms of the friends of liberty. His country, his knighthood, his craft of arms struck all those who approached THE MEMORY OF WASHINGTON 59 him, good judges themselves in such matters. To the same family of minds belonged that young Lafayette who had left wife, child, relations, all the pleasures of a brilliant life in the most brilliant capital of the world for the hardships of war in a foreign land, which, however, soon ceased to be a foreign one for him, so truly was he adopted by America and so good a son he proved to her. The same characteristics were in d'Estaing, Rochambeau and de Grasse; de Grasse whose sailors used to say : ' ' Our admiral is six foot tall, but during the fight he is six foot and one inch. " [Applause.] And such characteristics were not merely those of the men, but those of the two nations also, the characteristics of the humblest of those planters who, not without pangs of uncer- tainty, at first, as to what was for them the rightful course to follow, left their hearths to fight of their own free will, for their country that was to be, that might be, that was not yet. The same with France, who from the first, declared that what- ever she did, she would be merely an auxiliary, and her troops and fleets would be the subordinates of that admirable man George Washington; France who declared that whatever hap- pened she would not lay down arms before the Americans were free. In all which was also found " courtesy, knighthood and craft of arms." Lays of love were also among the favorite kinds of speech our ancestors of pre-American times like to hear. I wish a more eloquent voice than mine would tell you that lay of love, without parallel in the history of the world, the first stanza of which would speak of French enthusiasm and the last of Amer- ican liberty. For it must not be forgotten that if politics had, as was natural, something to do with the king's decision, it had little enough with the nation's passion for the American cause, and that passion was universal throughout France ; from palace to hovel it was the same. A striking proof consists in an order from the French Government to the physicians at Brest to be very careful in their examination of the privates admitted into the contingents sent to America. So keen was these plain men 's 60 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES desire to go that they would conceal any disease they might suffer from, or wound received in times past, in order to be selected and to be sent to America. Enthusiasm is catching. All people who happened to be in France in those days, French or otherwise, felt the effect thereof, and it is not one of the remembrances we least fondly cherish ; the fact that all foreigners who came to America and played a part in the great struggle started from France, came with French help, filled with an enthusiasm they had imbued on French soil for the American cause. Such was the case with that valiant de Kalb, a personal friend of Lafayette, a German who held a commission in the French army and whose statue at Annapolis recalls his glorious death; such was also the case with Steuben, who was induced to come by the French Minister of War, Count de St. Germain, for whom passage was provided at Marseilles on board a French gunboat, and who rendered such good service in teaching military discipline to the heroic but raw recruits at Valley Forge ; such the case also with Pulaski, who had distinguished himself in the Polish wars, and who enlisted at Paris on the personal intervention of Count Ver- gennes; the same with Kosciusko, drawn to America by the example of his French friends, and who fought for the United States before fighting for his own native land, great in good or bad fortune, equally respected through life by his friends and by his foes. Yes, to tell this lay of love and knighthood, of high aims and enduring results, a more eloquent voice than mine would be needed. A more eloquent one also to tell of the consequences of that war in which our forefathers united, so important for America and the whole world, when the seed of liberty, brought back from this country, was sown in France first, and by France in many other places. Years ago, before the crumbling trenches of Yorktown, amidst the smoke of the fight, three men stood, representing three great nations Washington, Rochambeau, Cornwallis. They had fought as enemies, but they were all of them men of heart who had done their best for what they considered their duty. THE MEMORY OF WASHINGTON 61 Each knew that the other was a worthy friend or a worthy opponent. Out of respect grows esteem and out of esteem friend- ship. If they were to come to life again they would not wonder at the change that has taken place, and they would rejoice at the thought that each of the three nations is now on terms of sincere amity with the other. As for us, more than recompensed by the success of our efforts, we consider it one of our national glories to have been the earliest well-wishers of these United States; and what we have been, I assure you, we are still. [Great applause and cheers.] (The band then played, and the members sang, "La Mar- sellaise.") THE IROQUOIS CLUB. JACOB MCGAVOCK DICKINSON. Remarks of James Hamilton Lewis, Toastmaster. The proceedings, in part, at the Twenty-fourth Annual Banquet of the Iroquois Club of Chicago, in honor of President Theodore Roose- velt, held May 10, 1905, were as follows: President Charles F. Gunther: Gentlemen, I take pleasure in presenting and, Mr. Presi- dent, in your accepting, the badge of the Iroquois Club as a souvenir of this evening. [The speaker then handed President Roosevelt an Iroquois Club badge, the acceptance of which by President Roosevelt was greeted with enthusiastic applause.] President Gunther: Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Iroquois Club, and Guests: It is with pleasure that I welcome you to our banquet board this evening, espe- cially so from the fact that we have with us our distinguished guest, the President of the Nation [loud cheering and applause], who has honored us with his presence. His voice has been heard in Chicago's halls before. I myself was pleased to be present to hear him speak at a banquet in the old Pacific Hotel many years ago when he was comparatively a young man, a new star rising in the East, where he had already made a name for himself; since which time the country has honored him in his strenuous life, ever onward and upward to his exalted station of today. I believe he has a warm spot in his heart for the metropo- lis of the West, the great city on the unsalted seas. [Applause.] He cannot ignore the fact that his personality captured our city In the last national election by winning for him the magnificent majority of about 110,000 [applause]; and that within five months later the same city gave a majority of 25,000 to the opposition party In politics to that of the President. [Applause.] We welcome our guest for his broad, patriotic spirit, for, like our- selves, he can arise above party prejudices and animosities, and we can say we are of one heart for our common country. [Applause.] We are a people with a government of parties, but whichever one is placed in power by the people, its leader at once becomes our Presi- dent, to be respected, loved and cherished as the honored leader of our nation, to support in the hour of danger without and discord within. [Applause.] We welcome you, Mr. President, because of the support and example you have given of a strenuous life to young 62 I'HE IROQUOIS CLUB 66 America. We welcome you for your courage in the hour of duty. When the nation called its sons to arms, you were foremost to bare your breast to defend its honor on the field of battle. [Applause.] We welcome you because you return to us from the western wilds, where you have conquered Bruin in his native mountain fastness. [Laughter and applause.] I also know that you have captured not only the scalps of the Iroquois chiefs, but their hearts [applause], which will be part of the trophies you will take with you on your return. We welcome you, Mr. President, to Chicago, not for ourselves alone, but for the others, and you have seen fit to lend your presence with a glad hand and a buoyant heart. And lastly we welcome you because you believe in the high and immortal principles of Thomas Jefferson, equal rights to all and special privileges to none [loud cheering and applause], and in the American spirit of 1776 that has builded up our constitutional liberties and dares to maintain and preserve them, and with this we greet our honored guest, and bid you all welcome to the banquet board. [Applause.] I am pleased to name as toastmaster of the evening the Honorable James Hamilton Lewis. [Applause.] James Hamilton Lewis: Gentlemen, I am unable to offer you any other justification for the transfer of these proceedings from the genial and accomplished President of the Club to myself than may be found in the reasons advanced by our distinguished guest, some time since, wherein I was qualified for the Vice-Presidency. We both as had many others in official life left our posts and entered the army in Cuba. He returned with brilliant reputation; I, with brilliant uniform. [Laughter and applause.] We both became candidates for the Vice-Presidency. He won. I, as was my habit, got beat. [Laughter.] During the campaign of 1900 mutual friends met us in the Auditorium Annex and began rallying us on our fates. The then Governor Roosevelt said, "Never mind, Lewis, the fact that I won and you lost merely shows that the country recognized in us both qualities to represent the Vice President. They know I could repre- sent the President part and you could represent the Vice." [Laughter and applause.] President Gunther, I accept the trust with appreciation. I shall discharge it without delay. In the moment, however, I beg to chal- lenge your attention to the scene which surrounds you; that we may note the presence of the distinguished head of a distinguished po- litical party sitting as a guest and counsellor of the official organi- zation of his political opposition an event in the political history of our nation unparalleled, save in the single instance of the entertain- ment of President James Monroe in Philadelphia by an antagonistic political society during that other era of good feeling in 1824. 64 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES The scene tonight may well reanimate the heart of the patriot, as it should quell the fright of him who fears that political rivalry will rend asunder the ties of the Union or party hatred snap the cords of affection which bind man to man. Marking the spirit which hovers over the object of this gathering and consecrates it to a broader fra- ternity in man and stronger unity in nation, the historian of the future may well take a new hope of his country and cry out, para- phrasing Philip of Falconbridge in King John, Now that our princes, which were late opposed, Sit side by side; Come the three corners of the earth in arms, And we shall shock them; For naught shall make us rue, If an American to himself do rest but true. [Applause.] The first of the toasts: "The Iroquois Club." Gentlemen, to your feet with lifted glass. This be the sentiment of an Iroquoisan: North or south, east or west; A rising glass to our honored guest. [The toast was drunk standing, amidst enthusiastic applause.] The Christian Advocate publishes that a little boy in Tennessee, answering his examination in anatomy, defined the spinal column as "a long wriggly bone running down a man's back, with the man's head and brains settin' on one end, and the man hisse'f settin' on the other." [Laughter.] Tennessee claims to be the backbone of the South. We grant her that unction. And while she sits upon that end of the consolation, we remind her that the head and brains of the other end have been transferred to the shoulders of Chicago. [Applause.] And while we accept the hostage with the acclaim of a proud conqueror, nevertheless we hear the moan of his first mother as she wails out, in the words of his favorite Odyssey, "Ulysses is gone, and there's none left in Ithaca to bend his bow." I have the honor to present to the toast that national statesman, international lawyer and orator, former distinguished Tennesseean, now illustrious Illinoisan, Honorable J. M. Dickinson. [Applause.] Mr. President, Mr. Toastmaster, and Gentlemen: All of us have not been fortunate enough to see Mr. Lewis in his brilliant uniform, but all of us can testify to the fact that he is uniformly brilliant. [Applause.] It gives us great joy to welcome to the security of a simple life the President, who, happily, has escaped THE IROQUOIS CLUB 65 the perils incident to the pursuit of savage beasts, which are no respecters of person. I feared for his safety lest the bears of Colorado should prove less considerate than those of Mississippi, which held a convention in the Sunflower cane-brakes for the purpose of considering the rumors of his proposed hunt in that state. [Laughter.] A little bear said: "Why does he want to kill us? We have always admired him for his strenuosity; we have never done nor wished him any harm. We are entitled to a square deal and an equal opportunity." [Laughter and applause.] "Let us combine and waylay him and avenge our- selves for this unprovoked assault on our lives." This proposi- tion was about to prevail when the patriarch of the forest arose and said: "Brothers, what you say is true. We could kill him, and under ordinary circumstances we would kill him; but if necessary we must sacrifice our lives for the good of the coun- try" [laughter and applause] "for they would go right off and lay it on the South." Eight here I desire publicly to refute the oft repeated slander that the President's Mississippi bear hunt was a fiasco. While in the hurley-burley of a chase in the dense forests and those of you who are hunters will appreciate this conditions were such that he did not in propria persona give the coup de grace, yet I am witness to the fact that he instigated the untimely tak- ing off of three bears, and he could be held as particeps criminis, if not as principal. [Laughter and applause.] In the short time allotted to me, I wish.to offer some thoughts upon this unique occasion, the conjunction of a Republican President and a Democratic Club. [Applause.] From the very nature of our political organism it is only through the vivifying power of political parties that governmental theories find prac- tical expression. Except in the earliest days of the Republic, before there was a crystallization of opposing principles and a clear party cleavage, all those who were dominant in the legis- lative and executive departments of the government were poten- tial because they were party leaders. Jefferson, Hamilton, Jack- son, Clay, Webster, Calhoun, Lincoln, Cleveland, McKinley and Roosevelt as independents might have descanted upon the times, 66 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES propounded fine theories, uttered, like a prophet of old, solemn warnings, but never without a party behind them could they have endowed their country with the greatness which has come from their resplendent achievements. [Applause.] The Iroquois Club was founded in 1880 for the purpose of adding to the organized strength of the Democratic party. Those who originated it, not only believed that it was the duty of every good citizen to take an active part in governmental affairs, but that their efforts could only reach their highest efficiency through party action. It is, I am told, the oldest political club in the state. It has survived the vicissitudes of party, rejoicing in its victories and maintaining its serenity of soul, giving hope and encouragement in times of adversity. [Applause.] As a club it has taken no part in factional discord, has indorsed no man for office except the nominees of the party, and has, from the beginning, maintained, not only emblazoned upon its shield but controlling its life, these principles: the separate independence of the judicial, executive and legislative departments of gov- ernment ; recognition of the Supreme Court of the United States as the proper tribunal for the final determination of all consti- tutional questions; an indivisible union of indestructible states; a strict maintenance of the public faith; public office a public trust, admission to which should depend upon proven fitness; appointments to subordinate offices to be from those who have shown their qualifications by open and competitive examina- tions; no removal of persons in subordinate offices for political opinion, or forced contributions for political purposes; the tenure of subordinate offices to be during good behavior; tariff for revenue only, at the earliest practicable period consistent with a due regard for present interests and the final needs of the government, and an immediate revision of the present sys- tems so as to equally and justly distribute its burdens. [Applause.] I believe, Mr. President, that upon an examination as to these cardinal doctrines with possibly some reservations on the tariff question [laughter and applause] that you could qualify for admission upon profession of faith. [Applause.] There is nothing in these principles that inculcates a morbid THE IROQUOIS CLUB 67 spirit of discontent, a narrow exclusiveness, or a settled perverse- ness that will not look out into the political firmament and, with admiring gaze, recognize the brilliancy of a fixed star of the first magnitude, because it belongs to a constellation not our own. [Applause.] Happily a broader and more catholic spirit per- vades our times than in 1844, when such a wild frenzy of political excitement swept over the country, with its emblematic displays of log cabins, cider barrels and coon skins, and a Demo- cratic or a Whig girl would prefer to remain a perpetual wall- flower rather than accept the escort of a political opponent. There is a tradition in Tennessee that two brothers, one a Democrat and the other a Whig, who were partners in the law, at the time of highest tension, dared not visit each other except at night, and then through the back yard gate. [Laughter.] The Iroquois Club, stronger in its Americanism than in its Democracy, rejoicing as citizens of our common country in all that sheds present luster upon it and gives assurance of future renown, with infinite pride opens wide its front gate to a Repub- lican and would place upon his brow a garland woven of all that is emblematic of patriotic pride in a President who illustrates in his public and private life the excellence of an honest, able and fearless Christian gentleman. [Applause followed by cheers.] It is a tribute, gentlemen, rarely, if ever, offered before. Our distinguished toastmaster has cited, I believe, one instance. The combination of high qualities that would evoke such a tribute is likewise rare. [Applause.] It is an expression of good will and confidence that even a President with unprece- dented victory has honored by his acceptance. It would in the calmest bosom cause a thrill of pleasure to know that his declara- tion, that not only in name, but in heart and sympathy he is Presideit of the entire country, has been accepted with a good faith a ad cordiality equal to that which inspired it. [Applause.] If it may seem to others that there is a spirit of magnanimity in giving this invitation, to us it seems that there is even greater magnanimity in the frank, cordial and generous way in which it has been accepted. [Applause.] Those of us who are Democrats wish that the President were 68 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES a Democrat. [Applause.] Not only would great honor be reflected upon our party, but what would we not hope for the future of the country if the principles which constitute our political faith had such an honest, able, fearless, and I may add successful exponent. [Applause.] Our Republican friends, whom we delight to have with us on this memorable occasion, justly exult that they have a right to take a peculiar pride in having given to the country such a chief executive. Americans all, putting country above party, we rejoice that we have a President whose ability and character command the respect and confidence not only of our own people but of the civilized world. [Applause.] There are two per- nicious vices which, unfortunately, too often characterize politi- cal parties: the insensibility to merit in opponents on the one hand, and envy on the other. Though living virtue we despise, When dead we praise it to the skies. It was to give public expression to this esteem in which our President is held and the appreciation of its significance, not only at home, but abroad, that this occasion was inaugurated by those who, in sustaining the great political party whose principles they have espoused as in their judgment best adapted for securing the permanent welfare of the country, so recently and ardently opposed him. It would be erroneous to suppose that, in considering the propriety of bringing about this event, any weight was given to his declaration that he would not be a candidate for re-election, and that consequently in tendering such a tribute there would be no risk of an estoppel when the great conflict for party supremacy shall again be waged in 1908. On the contrary, it could not be ignored that in the mighty workings of the vast problems of our national life, which, in times of peace to our country, were never so complicated and portentous as now, exigencies may arise which will so arouse the conclamatory and potential voices of a vast number of our people as to overwhelm the protest and bend the will of one man whose controlling passion is patriotism- [Applause.] I THE IROQUOIS CLUB 69 wish to say for the Iroquois Club, if such an event shall come, while sustaining our own party, and opposing political and economic principles with all of our power to conflicting political and economic principles, we shall never regret this public testi- monial to those high qualities of mind, heart and character which render our country so illustrious in the eyes of mankind and give us such just cause for national pride. [Applause.] No other people have continuously, through so long a period of time, been blessed with chief rulers so free from blame in public and private life as we in America have been; and for my part I would that a perpetual estoppel might be established against assailing, for mere election purposes, candidates upon unsubstantial grounds. Tacitus ascribed to a Roman emperor who, at that time, had the firmness of mind to despise the adulation that would erect a temple and a statue to be worshipped in his honor, these words : "Raised to a painful preeminence, if I sustain the arduous character imposed upon me, the measure of my happiness is full. These are my sentiments; I avow them in your presence, and I hope they will reach posterity. Should future ages pro- nounce me not unworthy of my ancestors, should they think me vigilant for the public good, in danger firm, and for the interest of all ready to encounter personal animosities, that character will be the bright reward of all my labors. [Applause.] These are the temples which I would erect. They are the truest temples, for they are fixed in the heart. It is there I would be worshipped, in the esteem and the affections of men, that best and most lasting monument. Piles of stone and marble struc- tures, when the idol ceases to be adored and the judgment of posterity rises to execration, are but charnel houses that moulder into ruin. I therefore now address myself to the citizens of Rome, and to the immortal gods. To the gods it is my prayer that to the end of life they may grant the blessings of an undisturbed, a clear, a collected mind, with a just sense of laws, both human and divine. Of mankind I request that, when I am no more, they will do justice to my memory, and with kind acknowledgments record my name and the actions of my life." 70 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES Mr. President, this seems to be a just delineation of the ambitions and aspirations which you cherish. We rejoice that we are partakers in that luster which they shed upon our country and, mindful of those who are to come after us and the heritage which they will have in all that may constitute the shame or renown of this Republic, we are confident that the historian can with truth record that these sentiments were persisted in by you to the end. [Applause.] "OUR GUEST." THEODORE ROOSEVELT. Remarks of James Hamilton Lewis, Toastmaster. At the dinner of the Iroquois Club, whose proceedings were given in the preface to Mr. Dickinson's speech, President Roosevelt re- sponded to the toast, "Our Guest." Mr. Lewis introduced him thus: When James Russell Lowell was Minister to England, he met the famous French historian, Guizot. The distinguished savant said to the Minister: "Mr. Lowell, how long do you feel that the institu- tions of your Republic will survive as they are at present devised?" To which Mr. Lowell responded: "Just as long, sir, as the sons shall be true to the ideals of the fathers." What is a more perfect ideal of our fathers than that ideal public servant in exalted station? Mr. President, I do not present you to the Iroquois Club. I present them to you. They are Democrats. Their Democracy is as your Republicanism. First to their flag ever loyal; to their country ever devoted, faithful to their fellowmen and true to themselves. [Applause.] Gentlemen of the banquet board, is it to be marveled that such as these sought the counsel, as to-night they delight in the companionship of a President of the whole people of the United States? One whose sentiment of public conduct is not partyism, but patriotism; [ap- plause] whose theme, in his commingling with mankind, is that of the Latin poet, Terence, saying "I am a man, and all things human touch me." A man whose impartial Americanism is as broad as the limits of the Union which it blesses, the purity of whose intentions is as lofty as were the Crusaders' in the quest of the Cross; whose valor as a soldier, whose justice as a ruler, has inspired affection in the hearts of the humblest, while it has commanded the salute of respect from the powerful of earth truly, one in whom The elements are so mixed that Nature might stand up And say to all the world, "This is a man!" Gentlemen, our guest the President of the United States, Hon- orable Theodore Roosevelt. [Loud and prolonged cheering and ap- plause.] 71 72 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES Mr. President, Mr. Toastmaster, and you, my hosts : I very deeply appreciate the honor of being your guest and guest of the city of Chicago this evening; and, Judge Dickinson, lest others may not share your robust equanimity [laughter] in looking at the possibilities of the future, let me add that I have not the least anticipation of Chicago's ever reversing that most complimentary vote which I so deeply appreciated last year, because it will never have the chance. [Laughter and applause.] And now, Judge Dickinson, while I disagreed with you as to the special application of the doctrine, let me say, as a decent American, that Judge Dickinson set forth the doc- trine to which every decent American should subscribe in what he said. [Applause.] Our country is governed, and under existing circumstances can only be governed under the party system, and that should mean and that will mean when we have a sufficient number of people who will take the point of view that Judge Dickinson takes that will mean that there will be a frank and manly opposition of party to party; of party man to party man; combined with an equally frank refusal to conduct a party contest in any such way as to give good Americans cause for regret because of what is said before election when compared with what is said after election. [Applause.] The frankest opposition to a given man or a given party on questions of public policy not only can be, but almost always should be, combined with the frankest recognition of the infinitely greater number of points of agreement than of the points of difference. And I have accepted your kind and generous invitation to come before you this evening, because the longer I am in political life the more firmly I am convinced that the great bulk of the questions of most importance before us as a people are questions which we can best decide, not from the standpoint of Repub- licanism or Democracy, but from the standpoint of the interests of the average American citizen, whether Republican or Demo- crat. [Loud applause.] There are foreign questions and there are domestic ques- tions. Our politics should, and in the great majority do; our "OUR GUEST" 73 political lines of difference should, and in the majority of cases do, disappear at the water 's edge, and when I had to choose a man to represent to a peculiar degree the interests of this govern- ment in one of the most important foreign negotiations of recent years, that concerning the Alaska boundary, I chose the best lawyer, one of the ablest public men, and one of the most fair- minded patriots that could be found in the country; and the fact that he was of opposite political faith did not interfere with Judge Dickinson doing that work well. [Applause.] That was a question that concerned the United States, all of the United States. Most questions that come up in Washington, as I think, Colonel Lewis, you will agree with me, are questions that go much deeper than party; are questions that affect the whole country, and the man would indeed be unfit for the position of President who did not feel that when he held that office he held it in the most emphatic sense as the representative of all the people. [Applause.] So, take something I have spoken of; having drawn an Illinois citizen, at least one by adoption, for one bit of work, let me speak of something that has happened more recently. One of the works Uncle Sam has on hand just at present is digging the Panama Canal and it is going to be dug. [Cheer- ing and cries of "Good," "Good."] It is going to be dug honestly and as cheaply as is compatible with efficiency but with the efficiency first. [Laughter and applause.] I wanted Congress to give me power to remodel the commission. It did not do it. I remodeled it anyhow, [laughter and applause] purely in the exercise of my executive functions; [laughter] and I made up my mind this time that I was not going to make the slightest effort to represent different sections of the country on that canal. I was going to try to have the whole country represented, and put the best man I could get in any given position without the slightest regard as to where he came from. And, while it was an accident, still I may mention it as a fortunate accident that the two most important positions were filled from Illinois [laughter and applause] Shontz and "Wallace from Illinois. 74 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES Now, gentlemen, those are external questions, as regards which the interests of the whole country and not the interests of any party or any section of the country must be considered, and humbly considered by the President. It is just as true of certain of our great internal policies. Some of those present will differ from part of what I am about to say. I believe, however, that sooner or later it will be found that the great bulk of our people agree with what I am about to say. Among the most vital questions that have come up for solu- tion because of the extraordinary industrial development of this country, as of all the modern world, are the questions of capital and labor, and the questions resulting from the effect upon the public of the organization into great masses of both capital and labor. I believe thoroughly in each kind of organ- ization, but I recognize that if either kind of organization does what is wrong, the increase in its power for efficiency that has resulted from the combination means the increase in its power to do harm; and that, therefore, corporations that is, organized capital and unions that is, organized labor, must alike be held to a peculiar responsibility to the public at large, and that from each alike we have the right to demand not only obedience to the law, but service to the public. [Applause.] Now, observe, there are two sides to what I have said, and we are very apt to hear only insistence upon one side ; sometimes the insistence upon this side, sometimes the insistence on that, but not as often as we should, insistence upon both sides of the question. I will take up first the question of organized capital. When this nation was created such a thing as a modern corporation not only did not exist, but could not be imagined. That is especially true of the great modern corporations engaged in interstate commerce. A century ago the highways of commerce were exactly such as they had been from the days of the dawn of civilization on the banks of the Nile and in Mesopotamia. All that could be done by waterways and by roads for wheeled vehicles drawn by animal power had been developed to a very marked degree, but sails, oars, wheeled vehicles and beasts of "OUR GUEST' 1 75 burden were, as they had been for many thousands of years, the only means of commerce, the only method by which indi- viduals or corporations engaged in commerce could act. Under such circumstances the fathers and founders of this Republic could not foresee, and therefore doubly could not provide for the conditions of the present day. We now have the great highways of commerce of an entirely different kind ; the water- ways, the road for wheeled vehicles, have sunk into absolute insignificance compared with the railway, and we therefore have, for the first time in history, a highway a highway for the commerce of all the people, under the control of a private individual or a private corporation. Now, gentlemen, let me in the first place insist upon this fact, that we should keep ever before us, that the men who have built up the great railway systems of this country, like the other men who have built up the great industries of this country, have, as a rule there are exceptions, but as a rule made their fortunes as incidents to benefiting and not to harming the country. As a rule benefit and not harm has come from their efforts, and in making fortunes for themselves they have done good to all of us. We have all benefited by the talents of the great captains of industry. I am speaking, as I say, as a rule, with full knowledge of the exceptions to what I say; but disre- garding those exceptions in making a general statement. We cannot afford to do damage to those men or to those corporations, in the first place, because we cannot afford to do injustice to any man, rich or poor. In the next place, because to do such damage to them would mean widespread damage among the wageworkers and among the general public. All of this I have said I wish kept in mind steadily in appreciating what I am going to say ; for, while acknowledging in the frankest manner the benefits that have come from the development of these great industrial enterprises, I also feel that we must recognize that the time has now come when it is essential, in the interests of the public, that there should be, and be exercised, a power of supervision and regulation over them in the interests of the public. [Applause.] 76 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES The state can properly deal with the corporation doing business within its own limits. The state cannot deal at all with the corporations doing business in many different states, and it is an absurdity at once ludicrous and harmful to leave it in the power of one state to create a corporation of gigantic size which shall do all its work in a number of other states, and, perhaps, with the scantiest regard to the laws of those states in which it actually does work. [Applause.] Personally, I believe that the Federal Government must take an increasing control over corporations. It is better that that control should increase or decrease than that it should be assumed all at once; but there should be, and I trust there will be, no halt in the steady process of assuming such national control, and the first step toward it should be the adoption of a law conferring upon some executive body the power of increased supervision and regulation of the great corporations engaged primarily in interstate commerce of the railroads. And my views on that subject could not have been better expressed than they were expressed yesterday, I think, by Secretary Taft, in Washington, as they were expressed by the Attorney General in his communication to the Senate Committee a couple of weeks ago. I believe that the representatives of the nation, that is, the representatives of all the people, should lodge in some executive body the power to establish a maximum rate, the power to have that rate go into effect practically immediately, and the power to see that the provisions of the law apply in full to the companies owning private cars just as much as to the railroads themselves. [Applause.] The courts will retain, and would retain, no matter what the legislature did, the power to interfere and upset any action that was confiscatory in its nature. I am well aware that the action of such a body as I have spoken of may stop far short of confiscation and yet do great damage. In other words, I am well aware that to give this power means the possibility that the power may be abused. That possibility we must face. Any power strong enough, any power which could be granted sufficiently great to be efficient, "OUR GUEST" TV would be sufficiently great to be harmful if abused. That is true of the power of taxation. It is perfectly possible for the body which has the power of taxation entrusted to it to use it viciously and harmfully against certain interests or certain classes. Nevertheless the power must exist; the power must be lodged in the representatives of the people; and so with the power of which I speak it must exist. It must be lodged in some body which is to give expression to the needs of the people as a whole, and the fact that it is possible that the power may be abused is not and cannot be an argument against placing it where we shall have a right to expect that it will be used fairly toward all. [Applause.] One thing I wish definitely understood: If the power is granted to me to create such a board, such a commission, or to continue in power, if I so desire, a commission or board, with increased powers, I shall strive to appoint and retain men who will do exactly the same justice to the railroad as they will exact from the railroad. [Applause.] False hopes are always raised by any measure of reform, because there are always people who expect the im- possible, and if the measure which- 1 advocate is enacted into law a good many people will expect that it will bring the millennium considerably nearer than it will ; and the men whom I appoint to execute that law will be, so far as my ability to choose them exists, men who will no more be frightened by an even well-meant popular clamor into doing any act of injus- tice to any great corporation than they will be frightened, on the other hand, into refraining from doing an act of justice because it is against the interests of some great corporation. [Applause.] In other words, I shall strive to see that that branch of the government, with its increased powers, is admin- istered as every branch of the government ought to be admin- istered, in a spirit of striving to do exact justice, justice to the man of great means just as much as and no more than to the man of small means. [Applause.] Now for the other side of the question. There have been a great many republics before our time, and again and again those republics have split upon the rock of disaster the greatest 78 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES and most dangerous rock in the course of any republic, the rock of class hatred. Sometimes the republic became a republic in which one class grew to dominate over another class, and for loyalty to the republic was substituted loyalty to a class. The result was in every case the same. It meant disaster, and ultimately the downfall of the republic, and it mattered not one whit which class it was that became dominant; it mattered not one whit whether the poor plundered the rich or the rich exploited the poor. In either case, just as soon as the republic became one in which one class sought to benefit itself by injuring another class, in which one class substituted loyalty to that class for loyalty to the republic, the end of the republic was at hand. No true patriot will fail to do everything in his power to prevent the growth of any such spirit in this country. [Applause. ] This government is not and never shall be the government of a plutocracy. This government is not and never shall be the govern- ment of a mob. [Great applause.] I believe in corporations. They are indispensable instruments of our modern industrialism, but I believe that they should be so supervised and regulated that they should act for the interest of the community as a whole. So, I believe in unions. I am proud of the fact that I am an honorary member of one union, but I believe that the union, like the individual, must be kept to a strict accountability to the power of the law. [Applause and cheers. Cries of "Good," Good."] Mayor Dunne, as President of the United States, and, there- fore, as the representative of the people of this country, I give you, as a matter of course, my hearty support in upholding the law, in keeping order, in putting down violence, whether by a mob or by an individual. [Cheers, with many standing waving handkerchiefs and napkins.] And there need not be the slightest apprehension in the hearts of the most timid that ever the mob spirit will triumph in this country. [Cheers.] Those immediately responsible for dealing with the trouble must, as I know you feel, exhaust every effort in so dealing with it before call is made upon any outside body. [Applause.] But "OUR GUEST" 79 if ever the need arises, back of the city stands the state, aud back of the state stands the nation. [Cheers.] And there, gentlemen, is a point upon which all good Americans are one. They are all one in the conviction, in the firm determination that this country shall remain in the future, as it has been in the past, a country of liberty and justice under the forms of law. [Applause.] A country in which the rule of the people is supreme, but in which that will finds its expression through the forces of law and order, through the forms of law expressed as provided for in the Constitution of the United States and of the several states that go to make up our nation. [Applause and three cheers for the President.] GEORGE WASHINGTON. HENRY VAN DYKE. At the annual banquet of the Society of Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York, held at Delmonico's, February twenty-second, 1910, the Rev. Henry van Dyke, lately selected by President Wilson as representative of the United States to Holland, responded to the toast, "George Washington." Mr. President, and brethren of the Sons of the Revolution: We are met here to-night to honor the memory of Washington, not because he was the first American, for his father and mother were before him; not because he was the only great American, because this land has not been unfruitful in noble manhood; but because George Washington was the first American whose greatness was acknowledged by all the world. There has been an impression abroad that Washington was the only great man that America has produced. I came across a curious illustration of that the other day in one of Byron's poems, his ode to Napoleon Bonaparte, written in 1814, ''The Days of Elba. ' ' He says, asking where we shall look for unselfish greatness : Yes one the first the last the best, The Cincinnatus of the West, Whom envy dared not hate, Bequeathed the name of Washington, To make man blush there was but one. That is a fine sentiment and a fine tribute, but we cannot join in it, because the glory of Washington, to my mind, lies in the fact that his greatest achievement was in leaving a standard of manhood to this country to which Americans have always looked up, and toward which they have worked and striven the greatest of them. We are inclined to believe nowadays that Washington be- longed to an extinct type, which is not true ; we are inclined to 80 GEORGE WASHINGTON 81 accept the statement nowadays that the American character has changed, and that America is now composed of a melange of foreign emigrants who have come in here and who have absolutely taken possession of the Republic. That is not true. Do you know, gentlemen, that we have never had a President of these United States, except one, whose ancestors did not come to this country before the Revolution? It was James Buchanan, the only man who sat in the Presidential chair in the United States whose ancestors did not come to this country before the Revolution, and his father came in 1783, and he was a Scotch-Irishman and, of course, he was an American before he came. This year our attention has been fixed by orators upon the great change that has taken place in American ideals and char- acters, as illustrated by the contrast between Washington and Lincoln. The change from the stately pillared mansion of Mount Vernon to the Kentucky log cabin; the change from the silver buckles and silk stockings to the cowhide boots of the rail splitter; the change from the great landed proprietor to the country lawyer quite a striking change, externally. There are some who regret it, but their regret reminds me of what one Irishman said to another after they had heard Bryan's speech in Madison Square Garden after his return from Europe. Patrick said, "Ah, Bryan is not the man that he used to be," and Michael said, "No, and he never was, either." And there are some who rejoice in this professed change and congratulate themselves upon it. Their gratulation reminds me of what a New England farmer said, who borrowed from Emerson a copy of his Plato, and when the farmer brought it back again, he said: "I kind of like that Greek fellow; he has got some of my ideas." But neither the regret nor the gratulation was justified, for really the change from Washington to Lincoln is not a change, only on the surface, and not in essentials. There is a continuity between the two men that if they could have seen each other would have made them stand together in whatever crises their lives had fallen. 82 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES So Washington was not the last American, nor was Lincoln the first American, though Lowell said so. Franklin was an American, and Alexander Hamilton was an American, and Philip Schuyler was an American, and John Jay was an Ameri- can. And every one of these men who had spirit enough to take his heritage from England or Scotland or France or Ireland and lay it on the shrine of liberty and equal rights was an American. Washington and Lincoln were rooted in the same soil of fundamental justice ; they expanded their manhood in the same hour of liberty. They were like the stately silver pine and the gnarled black oak, growing on the same hillside, and throwing abroad their branches for the shelter of mankind. I am struck, not by the difference in their dress, but by the resemblance in their hearts. They lived by and for the same aims; they hitched their wagons to the same star. It was Washington who saw most clearly the necessity of union, and he did most to make it possible and durable; and it was Lincoln who met the dangers which Washington had predicted for that union and saved it from disaster and ship- wreck. It was Washington who first gave to America the lesson of toleration and forgiveness, by his treatment of those who had calumnied and conspired against him in the Revolution, " for- giving all," he said, "for the sake of the common cause." And it was Lincoln who wrote the words of peace and reconciliation upon the firmament, when the lurid clouds of Civil War had rolled by, so that Jefferson Davis said of him, "Since the fall of the Confederacy, the South has suffered no loss so great as the death of Abraham Lincoln." It was Washington who saw the inconsistency and the shame and the peril of slavery, and it was Lincoln who ended it. Washington was a soldier who fought for the supremacy of just and peaceful law. And Lincoln was the lawyer who invoked the sword to defend a supreme equity. Both were too great for personal jealousy, were too noble for personal revenge ; GEORGE WASHINGTON 83 too great for personal affectation, whether it be reputation or self-sacrifice; too sincere for personal concealment. Neither of them had any secrets from his country. They served her as a whole with a clean and glad heart, and they asked no greater reward than simply to serve America. You know very well that neither of these men was what is called in ordinary terms a great orator; and yet both of them were magnificently eloquent. Washington used long words, Lincoln used short words ; and yet both of them used words for the same purpose, namely, to speak to the hearts of Americans and they did. And throughout the speeches of both there run these three things ; never a speech made by one of these men that does not have these three elements in it. First, a recognition of the nation's dependence upon the Almighty God; second, a strong emphasis upon the necessity of union and the sacrifice of fac- tional differences and sectional disputes; and, third, a strong insistence upon moral ideas, not commercial ideas, and moral ideas as a foundation of the nation's greatness. These are the three elements you will find in every speech made by either one of these two men. They were not skeptics, they were not cynics; they were believers. They were enthu- siasts; they were not plaster of paris saints, thank God. Washington had the power of indignation which at times led him to express himself in language which was not fit to print. Lincoln had a sense of humor which made him occasion- ally tell stories whose latitude was greater than their longitude. And for both of them for Washington's, you may say, dec- orative and explosive English, and for Lincoln's exuberant and sometimes eccentric humor we may find in both of these things the effort of a profoundly serious man to relieve himself at the moment of a burden which weighed upon him too heavily to be borne. And that is the truth; that is the simple truth. At heart they were both profoundly serious men; they were not triflers, they were not jesters; they were men in earnest. "When I die," said Abraham Lincoln, and he never said 84 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES anything more beautiful, "I want it said of me by those who knew me best that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow." "If I know my own heart," wrote Washington from Valley Forge this cold, dignified English squire that some of the historians have presented to us "if I know my own heart," said Washington, * ' I could offer myself a living sacrifice to the butcher- ing enemy, provided that would contribute to the people 's aid and peace." And I leave it to you, gentlemen, to say whether the keynote of both these sayings is not precisely the same. The love, the love of humanity, the sentiment of brotherhood that makes a man willing to give his life for those who are bound to him. I am tired of the talk which makes of Lincoln a rude, ungainly, jumping-jack jester ; I am tired of the talk that makes of Washington a proud, self-satisfied British squire. One of these men was great enough to refuse a crown, and the other was great enough to accept the cross for his country's sake. Let us learn to recognize in both of them the representatives of the true spirit of America. Let us learn to understand that Americanism does not reside in dress, or in manners or in accent. Americanism resides in the heart; it is devoted to the ideals of justice and liberty and truth and human brother- hood, and so beneath the sunlight which has fallen for these one hundred and eleven years upon America from the celebra- tion of Washington's birthday, we profess our creed, and cele- brate our heroic chiefs Washington, who lived to create the union; Lincoln, who died to save it. We celebrate a republic which belongs neither to the classes nor to the masses ; a republic which has room for the selfish aristocrats as well as for the noble democrats; a republic which speaks of self-reliance, fair play, common order, self -development ; and a country which belongs to all, from Washington to Lincoln, to Cleveland, to Roosevelt, to Taft. ABRAHAM LINCOLN BENJAMIN HARRISON This address was delivered at the Lincoln Day Banquet of the Marquette Club, Chicago, February twelfth, 1898. Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: A few weeks ago, when the pressure of other engagements made it apparent that it would be impossible for me to make any preparation suitable to the dignity of this occasion, I withdrew a previous acceptance of the invitation of the club. But the committee, with quite an undue sense of the importance of my presence, arranged to facilitate my coming and going, and promised for themselves, and for you, so far as they were able, if I would come, to be content with but a few words from me tonight. The observance of the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, which has become now so widely established, either by public law or by general custom, will more and more force the orators of these occasions to depart from the line of biography and incident and eulogy and to assume the duties of applying to pending public questions the principles illustrated in the life and taught in the public utterances of the man whose birth we commemorate. And, after all, we may be sure that that great, simple-hearted patriot would have wished it so. Flattery did not soothe the living ear of Lincoln. He was not unappreciative of friendship, not without ambition to be esteemed, but the overmastering and dominant thought of his life was to be useful to his country and to his countrymen. On his way to take up the already stupendous work of the presidency, he spent a night at Indianapolis. The arrival of his train was greeted by many thousands of those who had supported his candidacy. They welcomed him with huzzas, as if they would give him token of their purpose to stand by the results declared at the polls. Yet it seemed to me hardly to 85 86 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES be a glad crowd, and he not to be a glad man. There was no sense of culpability either in their hearts or in his ; no faltering ; no disposition to turn back, but the hour was shadowed with forebodings. Men did not shrink, but there was that vague sense of appre- hension, that unlocated expectancy of evil, which fills the air and disturbs the beasts of the field when the unclouded sun is eclipsed. When the column is once started in the charge there are cheers, but there is a moment when, standing at atten- tion, silence is king. Before us stood our chosen leader, the man who was to be our pilot through seas more stormy and through channels more perilous than ever the old ship went before. He had piloted the lumbering flatboat on our western streams, but he was now to take the helm of the great ship. His experience in public office had been brief, and not conspicuous. He had no general ac- quaintance with the people of the whole country. His large, angular frame and face, his broad humor, his homely illustra- tions and simple ways, seemed to very many of his fellow- countrymen to portray a man and a mind which, while acute and powerful, had not that nice balance and touch of statecraft that the perilous way before us demanded. No college of arts had opened to his struggling youth ; he had been born in a cabin and reared among the unlettered. He was a rail-splitter, a flatboatman, a country lawyer. Yet in all these conditions and associations he was a leader at the rail-splitting, in the rapids, at the bar, in story telling. He had a comparatively small body of admiring and attached friends. He had revealed himself in his debate with Douglas and in his New York speech as a man familiar with American politics and a profound student of our institutions, but above all as a man of conscience most kind in speech, and most placid in demeanor, yet disturbing the public peace by his insistence that those theories of human rights which we had all so much applauded should be made practical. In the broad common-sense way in which he did small things be was larger than any situation in which life had placed him. ABRAHAM LINCOLN 87 Europe did not know him. To the South and to many in the Northern states he was an uncouth jester, an ambitious upstart, a reckless disturber. He was hated by the South, not only for his principles, but for himself. The son of the cavalier, the man who felt toil to be a stain, despised this son of the people, this child of toil. He was going to Washington to meet misgivings in his own party, and to confront the fiercest, most implacable and powerful rebellion of which history gives us record. Personal dangers attended his journey. The course before him was lighted only by the light of duty; outside its radiance all was dark. He seemed to be conscious of all this, to be weighted by it. but so strong was his sense of duty, so courageous his heart, so sure was he of his own high purposes and motives and of the favor of God for himself and his people, that he moved forward calmly to his appointed work ; not with show and brag, neither with shirking. He was yet in a large measure to win Hie confidence of men in his high capacity, when the occasion was so exigent as to seem to call for one who had already won it. As I have said at another time, the selection of Mr. Seward for secretary of state was a brave act, because Mr. Lincoln could not fail to know that for a time Mr. Seward would over- shadow him in popular estimation, and a wise act, because Mr. Seward was in the highest degree qualified for the great and delicate duties of his office. A man who is endowed for the presidency will know how to be president in fact as well as in name, without any fussy self-assertion. He was distinguished from the abolition leaders by his fairness and kindness with which he judged the South and the slaveholder. He was opposed to human slavery, not because some masters were cruel, but upon reasons that kindness to the slave did not answer. "All men" included the black man. Liberty is the law of nature. The human enactment cannot pass the limits of the state; God's law embraces creation. Mr. Lincoln had faith in time, and time has justified his faith. If the panorama of the years from '61 to '65 could have been unrolled before the eyes of his countrymen would 88 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES they have said, would he have said, that he was adequate for the great occasion? And yet as we look back over the story of the Civil War he is revealed to us standing above all men of that epoch in his capacity and his adaptation to the duties of the presidency. It does not seem to be God's way to give men preparation and fitness and to reveal them until the hour strikes. Men must rise to the situation. The storage batteries that are to furnish the energies for these great occasions God does not connect until the occasion comes. The Civil War called for a president who had faith in time, for his country as well as for himself; who could endure the impatience of others and bide his time ; a man who could by a strong but restrained diplomatic correspondence hold off foreign intermeddlers and at the same time lay the sure basis for the Geneva award; a man who could in all his public utterances, while maintaining the authority of the law and the just rights of the national government, breathe an undertone of yearning for the misguided and the rebellious; a man who could hold the war and the policy of the government to its original purpose the restoration of the states without the destruction of slavery until public sentiment was ready to support a proclamation of emancipation; a man who could win and hold the love of the soldier and of the masses of the people; a man who could be just without pleasure in the severities of justice, who loved to forgive and pardon. Mr. Lincoln loved the "plain people" out of whose ranks he came, but not with a class love. He never pandered to ignorance or sought applause by appeals to prejudice. The equality of men in rights and burdens, justice to all, a govern- ment by all the people, for all the people, was his thought no favoritism in enactment or administration the general good. He had the love of the masses and he won it fairly, not by art or trick. He could, therefore, admonish and restrain with authority. He was a man who could speak to all men and be heard. Would there were more such ! There is a great need of ABRAHAM LINCOLN 89 men now who can be heard both in the directors' meeting and in the labor assembly. Qualities of heart and mind combined to make a man who has won the love of mankind. He is beloved. He stands like a lighthouse to show the way of duty to all his countrymen and to send afar a beam of courage to those who beat against the winds. We do him reverence. We bless tonight the memory of Lincoln. "NO MEAN CITY." BENJAMIN HARRISON. A response by ex-President Benjamin Harrison at a dinner given by the Commercial Club, Indianapolis, April 13, 1897, at which he was the guest of honor. "No Mean City." The Apostle Paul, when he used these words, was in the hands of a Roman guard that had come on the run to deliver him from a Jewish mob. The captain of the guard believed him to be the leader of a band of murderers, but he did not think that he should be lynched. Paul appealed for identification and for consideration to the fact that he was a native of Tarsus in Cilicia a citizen of "no mean city." To be ashamed of the city you live in is a lesser sorrow than to have the city ashamed of you, but still a heavy sorrow. There is great comfort when a column of residence is to be filled, and a Boston hotel clerk is watching the evolution of the name, in not being put to any disguise or ambiguous abbreviations. Is there a greater triumph in life than to lift your eyes from the register to the arbiter of destinies on the other side of the counter and see that his fear you might blow out the gas has been allayed? That Indianapolis is not an Indian reservation with a classical termination is now generally known in the Eastern states and also by some of our English kin. It seems that our English cousins only acquire geography by conquest, and only recognize political subdivisions that they make them- selves. The geography of lands to which they have lost title seems to go hard with them as witness the recent inquiry of a high English prelate whether New England was a part of Massachusetts. Paul used no superlatives in his reference to Tarsus; he reserved them for the city that hath foundations. He assumed that there was carrying force in the name itself; that the help of granulated adjectives was not needed "no mean city." 90 "NO MEAN CITY" 91 He left something to the captain's knowledge and imagination. He was proud of Tarsus; that is clear, and he was not a man to be satisfied with negations. The city had done something distinctively great, and I set out the other day, with the help of the encyclopedia, to see if I could find out what it was. I find, in the first place, that it was a great seat of learning. Its schools were of the highest excellence, and the fame of them was as wide as Greek and Roman scholarship. Strabo said they were superior to those of Athens and Alexandria. Paul was a man of letters, as well as of faith. He was a logician ; a non sequitur was an abomination to him, as it ought to be to a newspaper man. As he was proud of the schools of Tarsus, so we are of the schools of Indianapolis. It is "no mean city." As the schools of Tarsus surpassed those of Athens, so our public schools, judged by most competent educational experts, are not surpassed by those of any city of the United States. But what part, my friends of the Commercial Club, have you and I had in making our schools what they are ? We have paid our school taxes with more or less cheerfulness or with none at all. But has the Commercial Club or the Board of Trade ever tendered a reception to the faithful men and women who have placed the city of our love upon a pedestal of honor ? One of the oldest, most devoted and successful of our school workers recently said, "We rarely hear from the public save when someone wants to find a place on the payroll for a niece or a cousin. ' ' There are now, I am told, in our city, in addition to the truant class, one thousand children for whom there are no school accommodations. A general tax for public schools implies a school roof and a school desk for every child, and they should be provided. The compulsory education law of the last Legis- lature should be backed by a supporting public sentiment. We should have, not a listless, far-apart pride in our schools, but the pride of touch and participation. Our school board should know that while the Indianapolis public will tolerate no flinch- ing, no self-seeking, no rings, it will stand against all assaults that have their origin in self-interest, or in the egotistical assumption that the critic is infallible. 92 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES Tarsus was further celebrated for its magnificent roads, we are told. The "ships of the desert" that bore the products of the interior through the passes of the Tarsus to the sea did not have their roll intensified by the right foot finding a hole and the left a hillock. The roads were favorable to an even keel. A city that you cannot get to comfortably is a "mean city." And here we may raise the note of exultation an octave or two above that of Paul though there may be a perceptible quaver when the memory of a drive to Irvington or Crown Hill sweeps over the choir. But our great railway system saves us. "Where is there a city that offers such facilities of ingress and egress? They may not only come from the North and East, the West and the South but they may box the compass and still get here. If a man does not desire to go any place in particular, but has a fancy to travel "sou' sou' west" or "east by south," we can furnish him a smooth road. Tarsus was, besides, a free city and the seat of an important commerce. These were, so far as I know, the special distinctions of Tarsus. No doubt there were others that history has not preserved. But the ideal city must have other excellences. It must be a city where people diligently mind their own business and the public business, and do both with a decent regard to the judgment and rights of other men ; a city where there is no boss rule in anything ; where all men are not brought to the measure of one man's mind or to the heel of one man's will; a city whose citizens are brave and true and generous, and who care for their own; a city having the community spirit, but not the com- munistic spirit ; where capital is respected, but has no temples ; a city whose people live in homes, where there is room for a morning glory or a sweet pea ; where fresh air is not delivered in pint cups; where the children can every day feel the spring of Nature's green carpet; where people are not so numerous as to suggest that decimation might promote the general welfare ; where brains and manners, and not bank balances, give ratings to men; where there is neither flaunting wealth nor envious poverty; where life is comfortable and toil honorable; where municipal reformers are not hysterical, but have the habit of "NO MEAN CITY" 93 keeping cool; where the broad judgment of a capital, and not the narrowness of the province, prevails; where the commerce in goods is great, but not greater than the exchanges of thought and of neighborly kindness. We have not realized all these things. We count not ourselves to have attained, but we follow after. This is a commercial club; but, after you have exhibited sites and statistics to the man seeking a business location, he will want to know about the homes, the schools, the churches, the social and literary clubs ; whether it is a place where domestic life is convenient and enjoyable; where the social life is broad and hospitable; where vice is in restraint; where moral and physical sanitation have due provision; where charity is broad and wise a city to which men will grow attached, to which they will come back. Gentlemen, you may add these things to the trade statistics of Indianapolis. A city offering the most alluring inducements to commerce and production, it is preeminently a city of homes. OUR PROFESSION THE LAW. JOSEPH HODGES CHOATE. This address was given at a dinner of the Chicago Bar Association, February fourth, 1898. No language can express my gratitude for your cordial invitation to me as unexpected as it was undeserved or my appreciation of your truly overwhelming hospitality and your enthusiastic greeting. I recognize it as a spontaneous expression of that hearty sympathy and fraternal good will which this great and learned and powerful bar of the center of the continent feels for its brethren in the Atlantic states and in the nation at large. I am a lifelong believer in the brotherhood of the American Bar, and so I could not find it in my heart to decline your invitation, although to accept it seemed almost to imply that some merit of my own had brought it upon me. I had long heard of the unstinted hospitality of Chicago. I fully realized it on my arrival. No sooner had I reached the Auditorium than I was waited upon by the entire press of Chicago in a body. They tendered me the freedom of the city wrapped up in a newspaper. They opened their columns to me to address all mankind freely on every subject. They were very curious people. Their extreme youth demonstrated the truth of what I had heard, that Chicago relies for its best work upon its young men. Each one of them seemed to carry a kodak in his eye, and they took views of me from every quarter of the world, New York, Washington, Hawaii, Cuba, China and St. Petersburg. They came within an ace of taking my life. They told me of a thousand incidents in my career which never happened and put into my mouth a hundred jokes which I never uttered. They told me exactly how much I was worth, which my wife and children will be very glad to hear. At last one of them, more forward than the rest, declared, 94 OUR PROFESSION THE LAW 95 "Well, Mr. Choate, you must have attended at least a million dinners ! " As that, at one dinner a day, would carry me back, according to Dr. Schliemann, almost to the Trojan War and make me the pot companion of Agamemnon and Ulysses, or of Priam and Hector, I denied the soft impeachment ; I told them that my life was altogether quiet and domestic, that I always avoided the scorching glare of publicity when I could keep in the shade, and that I liked nothing so much as to be let alone. So they kindly took their departure, promising to be with me again to-night, and no doubt every child of them is among us taking notes, and "Faith, he'll print' em." As I flew hither on the wings of night in that marvelous train which brings us in absolute comfort and luxury a thousand miles in twenty-four hours, through cities, towns and villages teeming with riches and plenty, which to the pioneers of America would have been a journey of three months through the wilderness, I could not help thinking how time and space between New York and Chicago have utterly vanished; and how these two greatest cities of the Western Hemisphere are henceforth one in interest, in sympathy, in culture and in duty. The Greater New York may not include Chicago within its growing boundaries, but Chicago, with its far-reaching influence and power, will touch and embrace New York. In one respect you will have an immense advantage over us if New York is our gateway to Europe, Chicago is the gateway, East and West and North and South, not of our nation only, but of the whole continent. As was said of Rome in imperial days, "All roads lead to Chicago." Here the great throbbing center sends forth life to the whole body of America. These bands of steel which radiate from here in every direction are the arteries and veins which convey and reconvey the very life blood between the heart of the nation and its utmost extremities these tiny threads of wire reaching from Chicago to every city and village and almost literally to every household in the land, constitute the nervous system which keeps the whole alive with thought and soul and brain. One future, one hope, one destiny, awaits us all alike if 96 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES one section suffers, all the rest will suffer with it ; if one member perishes, the whole body will perish at the same time. And if there is, which I do not believe, a growing jealousy and strain between the East and West, Chicago, with her equal hold on both, must be the mediator, and we of New York may well envy the share which the bar of Chicago will take in such a con- ciliation. When I look around me on this great company of busy and successful lawyers, resting for a moment from their never-ending labors ; when I study the lines which time has traced upon their features, I can easily see that success in our profession rests everywhere upon the same foundation. It is the same old story of the sound mind and the honest heart in the sound body. The sound body is at the bottom of it all. The stomach is indeed the key of all professional eminence. If that goes back on you, you might as well throw up the sponge. And sleep without worry must cherish and nourish it all the time. Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care, The death of each day's life, Sore labor's bath, balm of hurt minds; Great nature's second course, Chief nourisher in life's feast. Why should we worry over miseries and troubles which concern our clients only, and not us at all ? Our entire responsi- bility ends when we have done our best, and the rest belongs to the judges and juries or the clients themselves, and if we fail, the fault lies with the former for being so dull, or so inappreciative of our efforts and arguments, or with the latter for having such bad and hopeless cases. Next comes that patient industry which never flinches and never falters. And then the "unconquerable will with courage never to submit or yield," which is success itself. I have known all the leaders who have flourished at the Eastern bar for forty years, and most of those from other parts of the country, and although no two of them were alike in physical or mental endowments, all agreed in this one moral quality a grim tenacity of purpose to hang on and hold out through everything and against every- OUR PROFESSION THE LAW 97 thing until the end was reached. Then sprinkle in the mental qualities, each to suit his own taste, and according to what he happens to have on hand. But last and more than all what Mr. Emerson said of character is far more true in our profession than anywhere else, that character is a far higher power than intellect, and character and conscience in the long run are sure to come out ahead. So, if I rightly read your lineaments, this great bar of Chicago is built up on health, industry, courage, brains, char- acter and conscience, and must hold its own against the world. When I recall some of the great names that have graced and ennobled the legal annals of this city and state, first and foremost always the immortal Lincoln, who, by sheer force of his intellect, in spite of every possible disadvantage, became eminent in his profession here, and then by genius in debate exposed to the listening nation the fatal question on which its destiny hung, and at last, by the matchless power of his sublime character, carried it through blood and fire to the triumphant solution of that question to a union never again to be shaken because founded on absolute and equal justice to men of every color, race and creed, and to that new birth of freedom which he proclaimed at Gettysburg. And, again, when I recall the name of Lyman Trumbull, through a long life a great champion in the legal arena and who once, in the very prime of life and the summit of his powers, had the good fortune to render a great service to his country, when, believing as he did that the great executive office of the nation itself was on trial, he east a decisive vote to preserve it, although at the sacrifice of his political prospects and power. When I remember the brilliant and accomplished Wirt Dexter, who transplanted from the old Bay State the prestige and tradition of a family of great lawyers and maintained it here with new and undiminished luster and then your own Goudy, so lately lost and so lamented, not here only, but wherever the capacity to solve great questions and handle great affairs by skill, by tact, by wisdom and by learning, was appreciated and honored. When I recall the signal service to the nation and to human welfare which the courts 98 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES of this region, both State and Federal, have rendered how when anarchy seemed on the point of gaming the mastery they have mastered it, by courage, by reason, by the intrepid exercise of the judicial power, without regard to personal danger or consequences, and how by the steady and wise labor of half a century they have built up your system of law and equity to a height which commands respect and authority in all places and in all courts I feel that New York can look to Chicago and Illinois for light and leading with the same faith and confidence that you in turn look back to her. When I contemplate your wonderful city and contrast it with what it was when I first saw it forty-three years ago, when it had but 80,000 inhabitants and its streets were almost sub- merged beneath the waters of the lake when I survey its com- merce, its manufactures, its parks and museums and charities, its grand boulevards, its splendid architecture and towering edifices above all, when I see, to use the language of Burke, how population shoots in this quarter of the land, I can realize how it was that the people of New York City, alarmed at your progress and jealous of your mighty strides to power, hit upon the scheme of Greater New York in the vain hope of keeping ahead of Chicago. They heard that your population was doubling every ten years that your area was expanding to an extent as boundless as the prairies that surround it that you had more money than you knew what to do with and were already becoming bankers and money lenders of Europe, and they determined by the artificial scheme of annexation to cir- cumvent you vain hope and foolish expectation! You will go on as you have before and continued until now. Here is to be the favorite home of the new American, that composite creature in whose veins the mingled strains of all the scattered branches of the Aryan race unite, with whose energy and daring and speed and wind and bottom the tired cities of the East will strive in vain to keep an even pace. We are all lawyers here to-night, and by courtesy we may for the occasion include even the judges as members of our craft. Although they have soared aloft on silken wings to a higher and OUR PROFESSION THE LAW 99 nobler sphere, they are not unwilling to return to us on nights like this, as the retired tallow chandler was wont to return to the shop on melting days. How delightful it is to meet them on an even keel and at short range, and speak our minds freely without fear of being committed for contempt. There's a divinity that doth hedge a judge, I know, but to-night the hedge is down and they are very fair game indeed. Let me speak of our noble profession and of some of the reasons we have for loving and honoring it above all others. In the first place, I maintain that in no other occupation to which men can devote their lives is there a nobler intellectual pursuit or a higher moral standard than that which inspires and pervades the ranks of the legal profession. To establish justice, to maintain the rights of men, to defend the helpless and oppressed, to succor innocence and punish guilt, to aid in the solution of those great questions, legal and constitutional, which are constantly being evolved from the ever varying affairs and business of men are duties that may well challenge the best powers of man's intellect and the noblest qualities of the human heart. I do not, of course, mean to say that among the ninety thousand lawyers whom the census counts in our seventy millions of people there is not much base alloy I speak of that great body of active and laborious practitioners upon whom rests the responsibility of substantial litigations and the conduct and guidance of important affairs. You will look in vain elsewhere for more spotless honor, more absolute devotion, more patient industry, more conscientious fidelity than among these. I am not unmindful of that ever-mooted question how we can, with the strictest honor, maintain the side that is wrong, and the suggestion that as only one side can be right in every lawsuit, we must half the time be struggling for injustice. But that vexed question has long been settled by the common sense of mankind. It is only out of the contest of facts and of brains that the right can ever be evoked only on the anvil of discussion that the spark of truth can be struck out. Perfect justice, as Judge Story said, "belongs to one judgment seat only to that which 100 AFTERrDINNEE SPEECHES is linked to the throne of God ; but human tribunals can never do justice and decide for the right until both sides have been fully heard." When Jeremiah Evarts, the father of my great master in the law and himself a truly great and righteous man, had graduated from Yale and was considering the law as his profession, this same question disturbed his honest and con- scientious mind, and he consulted Judge Ellsworth, afterward Chief Justice of the United States, who solved his doubts by advising him that any cause that was fit for any court to hear was fit for any lawyer to present on either side, and that neither judge nor counsel had the right to prejudge the case until both sides had been heard ; and he told him of Sir Matthew Hale, one of the most righteous lawyers and judges in English history, who began with the same misgivings, but modified his views when several causes that he had condemned and rejected proved finally to be good. Nor is ours the only profession in which the same question has been agitated, for we read in the life of John Milton that when his good old father had lavished a good part of his fortune upon his education at Cambridge until he had taken his degree of Master of Arts, having no other thought then that his son should devote his great character, intellect and eloquence to the church the youthful poet, after a full study of the question, decided for himself that he could not enter a profession which would require him to advocate what he did not believe to be true. Again, we love the law because among all the learned pro- fessions it is the one that involves the study and the pursuit of a stable and exact science. Theology, it is true, was once con- sidered an immutable science, but how has it changed from age to age and even from year to year. We were bred to believe that everything and every word within the four corners of Holy Writ was absolutely inspired truth. But now upon what unhappy times have we fallen, in which the props of our faith are being knocked from under us, day by day. Only a month or so ago the pastor of Plymouth Church announced that the sacred story of Jonah and the whale was only a myth ; that the whale did not swallow Jonah or hold him in his stomach for OUR PROFESSION THE LAW 101 three days or vomit him up on the shore at all and so that charming narrative, to which we had pinned our faith in youth and manhood as one inspired piece of history which we could and must believe, vanished forever from our mental vision. Not to be outdone by Dr. Abbott, another of our metropolitan divines has declared that in the deluge the waters did not cover the whole earth, and so we must abandon the delightful and tragic drama which has fascinated the world for thousands of years, of Noah and the ark and the destruction of the wicked, and the dove and the olive branch, and the only true theory of the invention of the rainbow. And, last of all, a distinguished bishop announces at a public dinner that nowadays nobody but printers believe in the existence of a personal devil. Why, without him, where shall we be? And who will foment the litigations for our successors to conduct or to settle ? And now it only remains for some great Chicago divine to discover that Nebuchadnezzar did not really eat grass that his skin was not really wet with the dews of heaven until his hair became as eagles' feathers and his nails as birds' claws. So will the foundations of our faith be utterly destroyed, and we can no longer cherish that signal chapter of religious history, which has come to us straight from Babylon to Chicago, and which was at the same time one of the greatest political triumphs on record and worthy of perpetual imitation, for how can we better dispose of our oppressors, of our unjust rulers, governors, judges, senators, than by turning them out to grass? And then as to medicine. How its practice and its theories succeed each other in rapid revolution, so that what were good methods and healing doses and saving prescriptions a generation ago are now condemned as poisons and nostrums, and all the past is adjudged to be empirical. Meanwhile, "the common law, like a nursing father, makes void the part where the fault is and preserves the rest," as it has been doing for centuries, and we are busy applying to each new case as it rises the same principles, the same rules of right and justice which have been established for many generations. We preserve the real fruit and throw away the rind. The 102 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES technicalities which have too long encrusted the law have been stripped away, and now, like Lord Mansfield, our judges try to solve every case by common sense and the sense of justice and the sense of honor, which, in their highest manifestation, constitute the most eminent and valuable judicial qualities. "We hear sometimes that the American bar has degenerated ; that it does not equal its predecessors in power and character and influence, but this I utterly deny. To the demands which each generation makes upon it it is always adequate. Times change and men change with them. The intense pressure of modern life and business leaves its mark upon our profession as upon every other vocation. What once could be said in three days must now be said in two hours what once could be done in a month must now be done in a day, and for one I do not hesitate to say that for skill, efficiency, utility and power the service which our profession lends to the community to-day has not been surpassed in any former generation. It must be so. Take from the Bar of New York, as it stands, a hundred of its leading practitioners in court and in office, and fifty of equal rank from the Bar of Chicago, and they will do more and better work than any equal number in any past age. So when these carpers who would laud the past at the expense of the present ask me if the bench of to-day is what it was in the olden time, I answer No, it is better qualified for the work it has to do than any of the old judges would have been. ' The bench, like the bar of every generation, is evolved from the character and condition of the age and the demands which it makes upon the profession. Take the Supreme Court of the United States as the most striking and illustrious example. When John Jay, the first Chief Justice, presided the court was almost always adjourned because there were no cases to be heard. All the time that Marshall presided the records were never printed the original manuscript record was handed along the bench for the several judges to examine. Webster and Pinkney and their compeers would go in from the Senate to the court, which sat three days in the week, and agree upon a day for argument two or three months ahead, and then OUR PROFESSION THE LAW 103 appear and argue without limit of time two or three days apiece, as the case might be. Arguments concluded, Marshall and Story could take the great cases to Richmond and to Salem, and have weeks or months to prepare those learned and elaborate opinions which really laid the foundations of our Federal law, and settled the Constitution upon an imperishable basis. Now, steam and electricity and the telegraph and the telephone and the intense pressure of business which has grown out of these, have changed the whole order of things, and I prefer to adapt the question to the changed conditions and to turn it end for end, and to ask: Could Marshall and Story and their associates, if now summoned to the task, do the work which Fuller and Harlan and their associates discharge so ably, so conscientiously and so well? The question answers itself: Let the dead past bury its dead. Gathering all the light it can from the past and responsible to the future for the results of its conduct, the living present suffices for its own work. There is one respect, I admit, in which we have declined and which, for one, I do greatly deplore the cultivation of the fraternal and social spirit among ourselves has been almost abandoned, and it ought to be revived and transmitted. In thirty years we have had but two Bar dinners in New York, and our younger brethren only know by tradition how those who preceded us mitigated the austerity of the law by constant social festivities how they went on circuit as a band of brothers and however lustily they might contend in the court room, outside of it they were boon companions. Our English brethren set us a most worthy example in this regard. In Shakespeare's time, when he haunted the Mermaid Tavern in compan" with Ben Jonson, he saw the barristers come in from the courts, and from what he saw he puts into the mouth of Tranio in "The Taming of the Shrew": Please ye we may contrive this afternoon, And quaff carouses to our Mistress' health, And do as adversaries do in law Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends. 104 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES The Inns of Court have been the scene of constant daily intercourse, and not rarely of the most jovial festivities. From the time of Charles the First, when they contrived their great historic masque for the entertainment of the King and Queen at court, a jollification in which the greatest barristers of the day, such as Hyde, afterwards Earl of Clarendon ; and as John Selden, whose delightful table talk has come down to us through two centuries and a half, and Attorney General Noy and Bull- strode Whitlock took an active part, down to the days of Lord Coleridge and Sir Charles Russell and Sir Frank Lockwood, whose recent death, so untimely and so lamented, has been a serious loss to the profession, both here and there, the London barristers have been the lights of each succeeding age the leaven that leavened the whole lump of English life and society. Let us imitate a little further their bright and shining example. Let us lead lives less dry less sterile less a matter of pure and unmitigated business. Let us each ride not only a horse, but a hobby also. Above all, let us get all the enter- tainment we can out of our work as we go along, for we may rest assured that if we postpone the fun of life until the work is done it will never come, for it will find us as dry and dusty as so many remainder biscuits after a voyage. So I trust that we in New York shall imitate your example, and that this occasion may be only the beginning of a real interchange of a living brotherhood between the Bar Associations of our two great and noble cities. But there is one respect in which the American Bar has far outshone not only its brethren in England, but in every other country of modern times. I mean in its great share in the conduct and shaping of public affairs. In all our history, among the gallant champions of liberty, the wise founders of free states, the framers and defenders of free constitutions and of the rights of the people under them, the lawyers of America have ever been foremost. I refer not now to official life, though all the great civil offices, State and Federal, have always been, are now, and always must and will be, to a large degree filled from their ranks ; but I speak of that lofty public and patriotic OUR PROFESSION THE LAW 105 spirit for the people's good which ought to animate the heart of every lawyer worthy of the name. When James Otis resigned his rich office as Crown Advocate to maintain the cause of the merchants and the people of Boston against the oppression of general warrants, refusing all rewards, saying, ' ' In such a cause I despise all fees," and delivered in the old State House that great plea for popular rights, so telling, so overwhelming, that John Adams, who was present, declared long afterward that on that day and in that room "the child Independence was born," he set the pace for all the future lawyers of America. When John Adams and Josiah Quincy, Jr., braved the popular wrath in their successful defense of Captain Preston and his British soldiers for their part in the Boston massacre and when Patrick Henry, in that little court house in Virginia, argued the Parson's cause and displayed for the first time his transcendent power as the people's orator, they embodied that public spirit which has animated the patriotism of the profession ever since. I believe that with one consent the common judgment of mankind would point to Hamilton, Webster and Lincoln as the three American lawyers whose actual public services had most largely contributed to the formation and preservation of the Constitution, on whose continuance the hopes of civil liberty for all coming time depend. God made them greater than the rest, and the opportunities came to them for great achievements which found each in turn ready and able for the service demanded. Hamilton's creative genius was displayed in the part he took in framing the Constitution, and again in securing its adoption, and finally in launching the new government in practical and successful operation under it, which probably surpasses any political service ever rendered by one man in our national history. To Webster I ascribe a share second to that of no other man in the final triumph of the Constitution and the Union over all their foes. It has been the fashion of late years to belittle him because of the infirmities of his declining years, but for two entire generations he was at all times and in all places inculcating in the breasts of the youth of America 106 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES that ardent patriotism which inspired his own that devotion to the flag which would compel them to follow it wherever freedom led and to the Union one and inseparable. So that at last when the fatal summons from Sumter sounded, though dead, he yet spoke to them, his heart, which had warmed, his brain, which had illuminated New England for them and their fathers seemed to live once more and under his inspiration still they marched to death or to victory but at all hazards, as he had taught them, to save the Union, without which all else was lost. Of Lincoln, why should I try to say more in this presence or in this city or state ? History has long since decided that to him under God the world owes it that government of the people, by the people and for the people has not perished from the earth. A thousand years from now his name will stand as bright as to-day as the synonym of freedom and free government. Oppor- tunities such as these three great representatives enjoyed and improved may not come to every or to any generation of American lawyers. But at all times, and especially in this our day, great public duties await us. So long as the Supreme Court exists to be attacked and defended that sheet anchor of our liberties and of our government so long as the public credit and good faith of this great nation are in peril so long as the right of property which lies at the root of all civil government is scouted, and the three inalienable rights to life, to liberty and the pursuit of happiness which the Declaration of Inde- pendence proclaimed and the Constitution has guaranteed alike against the action of Congress and of the States are in jeopardy, so long will great public service be demanded of the Bar. Let us magnify our calling. Let us be true to these great occasions, and respond with all our might to these great demands, so that when our work is done, of us at least it may be said that we transmitted our profession to our successors as great, as useful and as spotless as it came to our hand. THE ARMY. MAJOR-GENERAL LEONARD WOOD. At the banquet of the Sons of the Revolution, given at the New Willard Hotel at the time of the triennial meeting in Washington, the nineteenth of April, 1911, General Wood responded to the toast, "The Army." The General President, Mr. Edmund Wetmore, said in introducing General Wood: Our next regular toast is "The Army," by which we wish to ex- press our unfailing loyalty to that splendid body, an organization born with the flag and its invincible defender ever since. [Applause.] I shall call upon Major-General Wood, the distinguished chief of staff, to respond; but as an introduction, and before that, the New York Society wishes to add a small tribute of their own which comes most appropriately from the State of New York, although we feel perfectly sure it will be accompanied by the hearty good wishes of the whole Society. I will ask our fellow member, Colonel Ladd, to make the presentation. Col. William W. Ladd, of New York, said: General Wood, it has recently been brought to the attention of the Society of the Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York that Battery F of the Fifth Field Artillery, formerly Battery F of the Fourth Field Artillery, possesses a guidon which has historic value and which has relation to the early history of the country. That battery was organized on the first of March, 1776, and its first captain was Alexander Hamilton. [Applause.] Through the vicissitudes of service and the length of time that has elapsed since this guidon was presented to the bat- tery it is now in such condition that it should be replaced by a new one. The Society of Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York desires to present to the battery through you, sir, a new guidon, in all respects a faithful and exact copy of that which the battery has long carried and which perpetuates the historic fact to which I have alluded. It is not necessary for me at this time or in this place to make any extended mention of the services of Alexander Hamilton. It is sufficient to say that his brilliant talents and his varied accom- plishments, in whatever direction they were employed, were controlled and guided by devotion to duty and loyalty to country. In this con- nection it is worthy of remark that upon this guidon there is the 107 108 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES motto of the battery, "Faithful and True." And you, sir, know better than any one of us present that, phrase it as you may, those two words embody the foundation upon which is built all true military discipline. I have the honor, therefore, to ask that you will accept this guidon for presentation to the battery, to be borne by it in remembrance of the distinguished past of its organization and as an incentive to its members to continue to uphold that high standard of discipline and devotion to duty that characterizes our national army; and, further, to ever remind them that the Sons of the Revolution exist not merely to perpetuate and recall the memories of the past services to the country of their ancestors, but also to take a deep interest in the per- formance of their duty to the Nation by those in its service at the present day, and that the Sons of the Revolution welcome such an opportunity as this to bear witness to their affection and regard for the defenders of the flag. [Applause.] The orchestra then played "The Star Spangled Banner." The General President: General Wood. [Applause.] I wish to express to you, sir, and through you to the New York Chapter, my thanks for this guidon and, as a representa- tive of the army, to inform you that I shall forward it to the battery designated, in whose behalf I thank you and assure you ^hat it will be carried with honor and guarded as faithfully as was its predecessor. [Applause.] Speaking as an officer of the army, it is a great pleasure to find a society of this sort in existence in these days when there is so much to discourage the development, or rather the maintenance, of the old American military spirit. We hear every day that there is going to be no more war, and we earnestly hope that it may be so ; but we must, to a large extent, judge the future by the past. We know that the sun rose yesterday and we are certain that it will rise to-morrow. We know that wars always have taken place, and we are certain that they will occur in the future, perhaps not as frequently as in the past, but if less frequently, they will come much more suddenly, because most of the great nations are fully prepared for war and realize the importance of striking the first blow. They will, perhaps, be shorter, but, on the whole, less deadly than the protracted wars and close fighting of former days. The nature of man has not so changed as to warrant the THE ARMY 109 assumption that he will not fight when questions of vital interest are involved. We in the United States have drifted along for many years without serious thought of war or preparation for war. We have always felt that somehow or other we would rise to the emergency and, though wholly unprepared, succeed against an equally brave and well-prepared enemy. We have never yet in our military history met, unaided, a first-class power pre- pared for war. In the Revolutionary War we met such a power, it is true, but we did not fight that war unaided and we received at a most critical stage of the war the invaluable assistance of France [applause], an assistance which every soldier knows was of inestimable value in bringing the war to a successful termination. In 1812 we met the same country prepared for war, but extensively occupied with more important wars on the Continent. We were at that time a comparatively unimportant issue. In that war we put some 527,000 men into the field. The largest regular British force opposed to us at any one time on this continent numbered some 16,800 men. Our forces were defeated in every land battle except Lundy's Lane and New Orleans, the latter fought after the conclusion of the war. At sea we had to our credit a list of splendid actions between individual ships, but at the end of the war we had hardly a fighting ship afloat which was not under blockade. Our coast- wise commerce had been largely destroyed or abandoned, and the commerce of the enemy had been greatly increased. The Mexican War we fought against an enemy less strong and less prepared even than ourselves. The war, as a whole, was well conducted, and our success was pronounced. Our enemy, however, was not at that time a great power or in any way equal to us in resources. These were our three wars with foreign powers. In the Civil War we fought an enemy as unprepared as ourselves. Both sides learned the art of war together, and in both armies were found as good, if not the best, soldiers the world has ever seen, but it took years to do it and the unnecessary sacrifice of thousands of valuable lives. In those times when no nation had a thoroughly prepared 110 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES and equipped standing army, ready for instant service, there was more or less chance to prepare for war, and wars were usually preceded by considerable periods of preparation, but in these days, when oceans, instead of being barriers, are, for those countries which possess sea control a convenient and ready means of transporting troops, and when most of the countries with which we come in conflict have large and well organized armies ready to move at once, it behooves us to make reasonable prep- arations for war; and while we realize that in this country it is not possible to maintain a large army, we should foster the military spirit I don't mean a quarrelsome, braggadocio spirit, but the true military spirit. We should impress upon the youth of this country that they have an obligation to fulfill; that it is to prepare themselves to perform efficiently the duties of a soldier in time of war. We should take advantage of the oppor- tunity offered by the public schools to instruct in its use all boys old enough to handle a rifle. All public schools should maintain a military organization, not only for the purpose of instructing the boys in the use of the rifle and bayonet, but as a means of physical training and mental and physical discipline. There is an excellent bill now before Congress for the establish- ment of rifle shooting in the public schools. It is hoped that this bill may become a law, for the knowledge of the use of the rifle is rapidly passing away. Sixty or seventy years ago most of our people used firearms. To-day few people use them, and you would be surprised to know how small a proportion of our recruits know anything about the use of arms. And we have unconsciously drifted away from all military exercises and prac- tices, and have been content to say, "We have always come out all right. We can lick anybody that comes along." We may win out in war, but it will be at a tremendous cost unless we make preparation and involve the needless sacrifice of thousands of lives. This preparation should include, as I have stated, the instruction of all our boys in the use of the rifle and the bayonet, and the simple military exercises and in the maintenance of our army, not as a police force, but as a training school for the largest possible number of men. We should reduce our enlist- THE ARMY 111 merit period to the shortest consistent with thorough instruction. Thorough instruction can be given, as is seen all over Europe, in between one and two years, provided the army is so organized and assembled as to be freed from the police and other duties incident to maintaining many different posts with extensive grounds, roads and walks. Few changes could be more disastrous to our military service than lengthening the period of enlistment and consequently reducing the number of men under instruc- tion. Rather than lengthen the period of enlistment it would be well for us to consider what has already been done in foreign countries; namely, the enlistment for shorter periods than the regular enlistment of men who have certain educational qualifi- cations; graduates from the higher schools and universities, for instance. If we could give these men even a year of service and return them to civil occupations they would be a valuable asset in time of war. We do not want to keep men so long with the colors that their return to civil life is impracticable. Our policy should be, not to have the same men under instruction indefi- nitely; but to instruct as many different men as possible and return them to civil life, the better for their military training, with a greater respect for authority and the flag, and a higher sense of their responsibilities as citizens. A number of people have spoken about the mobilization down in Texas, and have said, with much satisfaction, "You see we are prepared for war;" and have shown a great deal of surprise, if not incredulity, when informed that, while the mobilization of 10,000 regular troops is a very simple thing, or of all our regular establishment, the mobilization of from 450,000 to 600,000 troops, most of them militia and volunteers, which would be necessary in actual war, would be a very difficult proceeding and would require, in our present state of preparation, several months. We are trying to prepare as thoroughly as we can for the day of trouble which we know is coming, just when no one can tell, but with our greatly increased sphere of influence, the possibility of conflict has been greately increased. I hope and feel sure that people of your kind will back the army in its efforts to prepare the militia for service in case it should be 112 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES called upon, and to create a wholesome public opinion on mili- tary matters, which will combat the emasculating type of senti- ment which we hear so much of to-day to the effect that all instruction which tends to make boys soldiers, or to build up the military spirit, should be eliminated from our public schools. For, heaven knows, if any race of men loses the fighting spirit when vital questions are involved and cannot be otherwise set- tled, such a condition marks the beginning of decadence. "We talk about the great cost of armaments. We spend on our army and navy proper perhaps two hundred million dollars per year, but we carry under the heads of army and navy many charges which do not directly belong to the army and navy, which are hardly preparations for war. You don 't hear a word said about the scores of millions of dollars dropped every year by tourists in Europe, or the two hundred and seventy-five million dollars which are sent out of the country to Europe to maintain families over there or to bring them over here. And you don't hear, in talking about armament, that every bit of the money is spent in this country ; that we buy little or nothing for our armament abroad ; that it is all work for Americans of all classes ; that the coal, the iron and steel, the materials which go into the arma- ment, are all practically made in this country. And that the money is spent in this country and goes into the pockets of our own people and is all part of the economic system. You hear nothing of that ; you hear only of the cost of the armament. The cost of armaments is considerable; but if you take the great countries of Europe to-day you will find that armaments and preparedness for war have been coincident with the increase of wealth, with the continuance of peace and with marked develop- ments in the arts and sciences. Europe has never known so long a peace as the peace which has existed among the great powers in recent years, and we all know that without thorough prepared- ness for war that peace, which has meant so much for Europe, would have been impossible. In America we ought to take a sensible view of the situation. We should support a policy of general military instruction in our public schools, that is, instruction in the use of arms, espe- THE ARMY 113 cially the rifle, and in the elements of military training. We should encourage the militia and insist upon its being placed upon the highest plane of efficiency. Our boys should be encour- aged to go into the militia. We should make every possible effort to eliminate politics from this service, for, under the present law, we must take the militia as organized as a part of the first line in the time of war, and it would be criminal to send the thousands of young men in this service into battle under uninstructed officers. The public should give the regular army the heartiest support. It is the principal military training school of the people. From its officers come the principal instructors of the militia. The greater number of men within reason that we can give a short period of military service the better. That is to say the more men we can bring into the military service for a sufficient period of time to teach them the use of the rifle and the essentials of the soldier's profession, the better prepared we shall be for war. It is with this end in view that we desire the continuance of short enlistments in the army and in the militia, and wish to turn the men back into civil life feeling sure that they will come to the colors in case of war. We know that, in Germany and France, military train- ing has resulted in no economic loss ; it has, in fact, resulted not only in increased economic efficiency, but it has resulted in mak- ing those who have had service not only better citizens but it has made them more efficient and dependable in public service. A man who has had good military training obeys and respects the flag and laws of his country to a greater extent than he who has not. His value as a workman is fully 20 per cent, greater than before his military training. He is better physically and mentally, better disciplined, has more respect for authority, and carries out more promptly and more exactly the instructions of his superiors. The main thing to be remembered is, that this service should be as short as consistent with efficiency, and should include as many men as possible. It is not our policy to build up militarism, but it is a wise policy to foster a proper military spirit and by all means in our power to build up a reasonably efficient and thoroughly equipped 114 AFTERrDINNER SPEECHES military establishment, which must include not only the regular army and militia, but a thoroughly trained and organized reserve, made up of men who have served one or more enlist- ments in these services. For, as much as we may desire peace and hope for arbitration, there will always be some matters which cannot be arbitrated and in the settlement of which wars will arise. To fail to recognize this is to court disaster. [Applause.] THE DAY WE CELEBRATE. JAMES M. BECK. At the banquet of the General Society of Sons of the Revolution, held at the New Willard Hotel, Washington, on April 19, 1911, the anniversary of the Battle of Lexington, during the triennial meeting of the Society, the Honorable James M. Beck, a leader of the New York bar and special Deputy United States Attorney General under McKinley to prosecute the Government suit in the Northern Securities case, responded to the toast, The Day We Celebrate. Mr. President-General, Your Excellency, Ladies and Gentle- men: I do not know whether you will regard it as a direful warning or as a pleasant reassurance when I tell you that I am not here with a prepared speech. This is not due to any lack of appreciation on my part of the dignity of the occasion or the especial interest of the toast to which the Society has done me the honor to assign me. It is rather due to a growing dislike on my part of serious after-dinner speaking, for reasons to which I will refer. Even if I were disposed to speak at any length, I should feel to-night in the position of Cordelia who, when invited to make the last of three after-dinner addresses before her father Lear, the favors being an equal portion of his kingdom, found that her sisters, Goneril and Regan, who from militant 'qualities were perhaps the original Daughters of the Revolution [laughter] had anticipated all that poor Cordelia could say, and therefore at the risk of losing the portion which the indulgent father sought to give her, could say "nothing." I shall not even have the self-satisfaction of the Puritan ancestor, from whom I derive my privilege to be a member of the Sons of the Revolution. He was an austere and unbending Puritan deacon, and, besides his other qualities, had the ability to deliver on occasion a very lengthy prayer in the meeting house. On one occasion he was delivering one of these lengthy precatory exhortations and had concluded it and said "Amen" to the very 115 116 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES great relief of all those in the meeting house. Suddenly he was seen to arise again and say, "My brethren, I have a very sor- rowful confession to make." Nobody knew what was coming, and everybody waited to see what this stern old Puritan was about to confess. Then he said, "My sisters and brethren, when I concluded that prayer Satan whispered in my ear, 'Eliakim, that was a good prayer.' And, I believed him." [Laughter.] Now, I can not lay that flattering unction to my soul to-night, for reasons that will presently appear. First I must comment upon a remarkable omission. Neither on the part of the experienced toastmaster, the head of our Society ; nor on the part of the distinguished Ambassador from France, the representative of the most gallant and courtly people on the face of the earth, [applause] nor from the Major-General [General Wood] of our army, from whom at least it ought to have been expected, nor from my very handsome and eloquent friend upon the left, Mr. Hackett, was there the slightest allusion to that parterre of loveliness upon my left [referring to the ladies present.] [Applause.] Either we Sons of the Revolution are hopelessly blind or we are in gallantry degenerate sons of worthy and always gallant sires. Certain it is, that in drinking to the memory of George Washington we should remember that he did not fail to pay a tribute to those women of the Revolu- tion who not only clothed his Continentals, but wove the very colors for which those ragged Continentals so bravely died. [Applause.] I recall that to Esther Reed, the head of the Philadelphia Women's Committee which sought to send clothes to Valley Forge for the army, Washington wrote substantially as follows : "The army ought not to regret its sacrifices or its sufferings when they meet with so flattering a reward as in the sympathy of your sex, nor can it fear that its interests will be neglected, when espoused by advocates as powerful as they are amiable." [Applause.] But, to hark back to what I started to say when I tried to make amends for the neglect of the preceding speakers, it seems to me there is a striking contrast between the dinner customs THE DAY WE CELEBRATE 117 of the present Sons of the Revolution and those forebears whose patriotic achievements given a raison d'etre for our organization. So far as my reading goes, after-dinner speaking as we know it now was unknown at the end of the eighteenth century. I do not doubt that our forefathers after discreetly dismissing the ladies to the drawing room, proceeded at once to drink the toast to the King; and then to the ladies; and these may have been the occasion of some short informal remarks, but the set speech on serious topics was at least unusual. Our forefathers preferred to see how quickly and expeditiously they could drink each other under the table. "We take these occasions more seriously and generally turn away the current of the gastric juices, by a series of speeches upon topics some of which are more or less alien to the joyful character of a public dinner. I have in mind dinners in New York when I have suffered martyrdom, when, for illustration, the necessity of a central bank was discussed for one hour after dinner. Can you imagine, for example, the great men who met in the " Mermaid" in the days of Queen Elizabeth days so quick in wit and intellectual brilliancy that Beaumont could write, in substance : "Oh, what things have we seen at the Mermaid, Heard words so nimble and so full of subtle flame, That it seemed everyone from whence it came, Had meant to press his whole life in a single jest And then resolved to live a fool the rest Of his dull life." Can you imagine "rare Ben Jonson" arising, and solemnly saying: "We have with us to-night a young gentleman who has come down from the country so recently that the straw is hardly out of his chin beard I believe he has written some sugared sonnets and some entertaining plays. It gives me pleasure to introduce Mr. William Shakespeare, who will speak upon the elevation of the stage." [Applause and laughter.] Or, can you imagine that other, the later but not greater Johnson Sam Johnson at those other great gatherings in the 118 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES "Mitre," rising and saying: "We are now finished with our dinner, and the post-prandial exercises will be begun. Mr. Burke will read a paper on the necessity of a central bank. Mr. Garrick will speak upon the influence of Shakespeare upon our stage. Sir Joshua Reynolds will speak upon Ancient and Modern Arts. ' ' I think most of the spirit and character of those rare occa- sions would have gone with the development of after-dinner speaking as we have it to-day. When the time for after-dinner speaking comes I always remember those lines of Gay. I think they were written in the "Beggar's Opera," if I am not greatly mistaken : "So comes the reckoning when the banquet's o'er, A dreadful reckoning, when men smiie no more." [Applause.] I am asked to speak to-night to the toast, "The Day We Celebrate. ' ' And here again I am handicapped because I cannot employ the rhetorical expedients which Mr. Edward Everett did on one of the anniversaries of Lexington and Concord. I remember once asking the late Senator Hoar whether the story was true as I had originally heard it from Doctor William H. Purness. He told me it was true. The story was that Edward Everett, having to deliver a formal oration on the battle of Lexington and Concord, before the time for delivering the oration asked whether there were any survivors of the battle in the neighborhood, and he was told that somewhere in the rural districts there happened to be two nonagenarians who had been among the embattled farmers. He sought them and then said, "I want you to come to the exercises, and when I reach a cer- tain apostrophe to the survivors of the battle, I want you to arise." And they said they would. When he came to that part in his address, and swelling with all the glory of his oratory, said : "And you survivors of Lexington and Concord," the two gentlemen arose upon their cue. And then he said to them, "Venerable sirs, be seated; it is I that should stand in your presence." [Laughter.] After the speaking was over one of these survivorr of the battle turned to the other and said, "I THE DAY WE CELEBRATE 119 don't know what was the matter with Squire Everett, first he told us to stand up and then he told us to sit down." [Laughter.] Speaking seriously, there is a value in recalling the epic achievements of Lexington and Concord. We are reminded of that beautiful spring morning when, just as the sun was casting its first shadows across the sward at Lexington, Pitcairn's red- coated grenadiers approached that little band under Captain Parker and ordered them to disperse. Captain Parker said, as you will recall, before Pitcairn's men came in sight, "If this war is to begin, it might just as well begin here and now." As a matter of fact, the incident itself was one of superb and yet seeming fatuous folly, for there was no question at all that the minute men, small in number and insufficient to cope with so powerful an adversary, could not stand their ground, and it seemed a needless effusion of blood ; for, with the first firing of Pitcairn's guns a few men fell to the sod, the Continentals dis- persed and the battle of Lexington was over. That which gives to this seemingly useless sacrifice of life its epic beauty is the fact that it was a deliberate act of martyrdom on the part of brave men. [Applause.] They could not have hoped for the slightest success, as the world measures success. They could not have imagined even faintly the illimitable possi- bilities that would flow from that first shot for American inde- pendence. They stood their ground against a superior foe with knowledge that some of them would be killed, and that appar- ently the martyrdom would lead to very little if any practical results; and it is that which gives to that greensward of Lex- ington the sacred character attributed by Byron to the Castle of Chillon when he said : "Thy prison Is a holy place And thy sad floor an altar, For 'twas trod by him whose very footsteps left a trace Worn as if the cold pavement were a sod, by Bonivard. Let none those marks efface, for they appeal From tyranny to God." [Applause.] Standing by itself, the incident was only one of a thousand 120 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES similar incidents in history incidents happening almost every day somewhere in the civilized world, where two armed forces meet and without declaration of war and without any of the conventionalities of an armed conflict, there is a clash, a flash of human passion and some men fall to the ground. To me the most significant thing about Lexington and Concord is not what took place then, but what preceded and succeeded the first shot of the embattled farmers. One of the most surprising things in the history of the world happened, for before the following Saturday night in that little, sparsely settled country, sixteen thousand men were mobilized and commenced the siege of Boston. Major-General Wood referred to the fact that the War Department had been complimented for the facility with which it, with all the marvelous facilities which have revolutionized the art of war, the facilities of the steamship and the railroad and the telegraph and the superb and magnificent organization, put so great a number of men upon the banks of the Rio Grande within a few weeks and yet these men of 1774, without steam- ship, railroad or telegraph, with no other means of intelligence than post-riders, without any ability whatever to have a common or central organization, unless the committees of correspondence should be so called, these men, farmers leaving their plows at the first word of the post-rider as he sped along the road, so well mobilized their forces that, as I have said before, within less than one week, by the following Saturday night, sixteen thousand men from the farms of New England were in front of Boston and besieging the armed force of General Gage. [Applause.] The swift uprising of the brave Tyrolese is not more heroic or wonderful. Up to that time it was common talk in the London coffee houses that we were a poor-spirited, weak, cowardly, infirm and incapable people who could not possibly defend ourselves; who, as I think one illustrious statesman said, were only lions as long as our English cousins were lambs and who would flee inconti- nently upon the first appearance of the bayonet of the red- coated regulars. But, from the time that those sixteen thousand men came so swiftly at the call of their country in front of the THE DAY WE CELEBRATE 121 gates of Boston, not only was there a nation which needed no formal declaration to make it a nation, but from that day to this there has never been a nation in all this world that has assumed that it could attack the United States of America with impunity. [Applause.] Whether or not we have a large standing army ; the resource- fulness of the American people, their ability to act in concert and to act effectively, was demonstrated in that week in April in a way that has never since admitted of any serious question. But far more remarkable to me, and I have never heard it commented upon, was what preceded ; because on the part of an individual as well as a nation, an act of self-restraint is infinitely greater than an act of aggression. The man who, like Horatio, in ' ' Hamlet, ' ' has the superb poise that Hamlet so much admired in Horatio, who can restrain himself and during gusts of popular passion respect the laws of his country and the rights of others, is greater than he who takes a city. For seven months preceding Lexington, Boston had been under martial law, its trade had been cut off from all parts of the world ; its governors had been ousted, or at least superseded, and their places taken by English generals. Their popular leaders were removed or threatened to be removed to England for trial. And before this little city of Boston, with streets little more than cow-paths, a relatively great army of red-coats was quartered, and yet in these seven months there never was the slightest destruction of property, or any effusion of blood, either on the part of the red-coats or the patriots. That is to me a remarkable thing. You cannot imagine the same conditions prevailing in South Africa or anywhere else, where the peace and good order could have been both preserved in a small locality with so much provocation, with such stability. And what is more remarkable, right after the Boston mas- mascre, which occurred at an earlier period when the British soldiers in obedience to military discipline had shot down some of the people in the streets during a riot, a trial was had, and who defended them? The leaders of the popular party, as I recall it, John Adams and Josiah Quincy, two leaders of the 122 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES American cause who had so profound a respect for the admin- istration of justice in the civil courts that they tendered their services to those who were regarded as the enemies of the popular cause, and, what is more, a Boston jury acquitted the soldiers who had fired the shots upon the people of Boston a magnificent demonstration of the supremacy of law and of the self-restraint of an Anglo-Saxon community. I remember the Attorney- General of England (Sir Robert Finley), speaking to the entire bar of England, at a banquet to the American bar in the Middle Temple, said that of all the things that impressed him most was that splendid respect of the Colonials for what was simply a soldier's duty when that jury had sufficient sense of fair play to bring in a verdict that must have been in the teeth of popular prejudice. Moreover, General Gage had threatened, during those seven months, that if any more attempts were made to hold popular gatherings, he would arrest the leaders and take them to England for trial. What was the result? Joseph Warren volunteered to speak in the Old South Church. And they say the church was so crowded that although among the audience were some of General Gage's officers, and some of them actually stood on the steps leading up to the rostrum of the speaker, yet so absolute was the respect on the part of the British grenadiers and upon the part of the patriots in Boston for law and order, that the meeting went on without the slightest interruption, and neither then nor subsequently was the peace of the community broken, until that historic morning, the day we celebrate, when Pit- cairn's men tried to seize the war treasury at Lexington and the contest took place on the greensward. I honor a soldier and have due admiration for that fidelity to duty which is willing to lay down the supreme sacrifice of life. With due appreciation of that fact, to me the self-restraint of the colonists, and of the British grenadiers, was the finest kind of a demonstration of moral vindication of that which is basic in oTir Society, of that, without which our constitution were mere paper, without which our republican institutions could 123 never endure, namely, a profound respect for the supremacy of law. Still finer expression of the same spirit can be found in what has never been appreciated in its true spirit. What was the Declaration of Independence? It was not the formal severance between England and the United States. On the two preceding days, July 2nd, the resolution had already been passed that declared that we were a free and independent and sovereign nation. The Declaration of Independence had for its sublime purpose and it is this consideration that makes it, in my judg- ment, the noblest state paper in human history it had the sublime purpose expressed in its noble preamble : ' ' When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one nation to dissolve the political bonds that unite it to another, a decent respect to the opinions of mandkind requires" mark the word "that they should declare the causes that impel them to the separation." In other words, in an age in which might was supposed to be right, in which war was conducted in a manner little removed from the lines of Alaric and Attila in which every successful war was ended by the wholesale spoliation of art galleries and insti- tutions of learning ; when war was declared without provocation, often without any declaration, and was pursued in the most heartless and inhuman way ; in that time of all times, when there seemed to be no conscience of mankind to which any appeal could be made, these simple farmers and settlers of the New World, in the same fine spirit that had sought to avoid the effusion of blood for seven months prior to Lexington, in effect said: "We have separated from England, but a decent regard to the opinions of mankind requires that we should declare the causes that impel us that is, morally justify us to the separa- tion. ' ' [Applause. ] In other words, there was the assertion of a conscience of mankind which rose higher than national interests or national prestige. It was the assertion that humanity was something bet- ter than nationality ; that a noble spirit of cosmopolitanism was something better than an exaggerated patriotism; that there 124 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES could and ought to be in every controversy between nations an appeal to that sovereign conscience of mankind in the hope that that conscience might some day be so developed that it would dispassionately vindicate that which is right and condemn that which is wrong. In this spirit this great country was founded. His Excellency, the French Ambassador, has said and it never occurred to me with the same force before that it was no selfish interest in France which impelled its intervention, but that France must have been touched by this appeal to the con- science and it was for that reason that it sent us its generous and noble Lafayette, its knightly Rochambeau, and the brave rank and file the unknown men whom we commemorated with our shaft but yesterday who so many years ago joined that ghostly army, of which the Abbe Perreyoe wrote: "Unseen by the cor- poreal eyes, but too clearly visible to the mind's eye * * * the great army of the dead, the army of the slain, the aban- doned, the forgotten, the army of cruel tortures and prolonged infirmities, which pursues its fatal march behind what we call glory." Something has been said to-night by Major-General Wood, that to some extent has prompted the line of thought that I have adopted, with regard to the limitations of arbitration. It seems to me that international arbitration must be accepted by every rational man as one of the appointed means whereby the conscience of mankind can be vindicated in some effective and practical way. And yet I believe it is true, as he has indicated, that a treaty of arbitration, no matter how sweeping and unre- stricted it may be, unless there is behind it a spirit of concilia- tion on the part of each contracting party and a sincere disposi- tion to be absolutely just and fair on every question that may arise, is futile. Because it is with an arbitration treaty precisely as it is with a paper constitution : It is good so long as there is a law-abiding spirit to breathe the breath of life into it; other- wise an arbitration agreement is mere red tape and parchment when made between two nations between which there may be hereditary antipathies based on racial antagonism, or conflicts THE DAY WE CELEBRATE 125 or vast and historic interests, which cannot be destroyed in a day, a week, a year, or a century. But certainly if we are to entertain a hope that the bow of promise will one day be seen, it will come not because of any too implicit faith in arbitration agreements which, in their unrestricted terms, may not be all that either contracting party can possibly mean because it cannot be that any and every question can possibly admit of arbitration between two great peoples I say it could come, not by the mere machinery of arbitration, but by slow and steady development of that great conscience of mankind to which the Declaration of Independence made its sublime and noble appeal a conscience of mankind never greater in the past history of the world than it is to-day; a conscience of mankind that gives us some grounds for hope that although the historic movements of races, like the great glacier in the valley of Chamouni, cannot be stayed by merely human forces, yet these glacier-like forces may be stayed by an invisible hand and dissolve from destructive ice into refreshing and fructifying streams. And, therefore, let us not hope that every American boy will so develop the martial spirit as to wish to arm and slay, but that there may grow in the heart of every American boy a feeling that, while he will not submit, as part of his country, to any intentional and deliberate wrong, yet that he is a part of that great humanity whose interests are higher than any nation, and that his country, as every other country, should appeal, as the great Declaration did, to the Supreme Judge of all the world for the righteousness of its intentions. [Applause.] CHANGES OF FORTY YEARS IN AMERICA. JAMES BRYCE. Remarks by A. Barton Hepburn. At the one hundred and forty-third anniversary banquet of the New York Chamber of Commerce, November sixteenth, 1911, at the Waldorf- Astoria, the president of the Chamber, Mr. A. Barton Hepburn, made the following preliminary address: We live in an age of marked transition, and let us hope that the transition is in the direction of progress. It is the era of the man, the individual, his wants, his interests, his welfare, as related to productive industry and the Gov- ernment. The spirit of individualism is equally militant in the field of commerce and in the arena of politics, and the strike and the vote are the tangible weapons which supplement appeal. [Applause.] Eng- land, so long looked upon as the bulwark of conservatism, has proxi- mately reduced the legislative power of her government to a single chamber. No republic has gone so far in the line of democracy, gone so far toward giving immediate legislative effect to popular sentiment as monarchical England. She has passed an old age pension law, whereby, without any contribution on the part of the recipients, people of certain age and financial need become pensioners of the nation. The same spirit which seeks to influence governmental action is assert- ing itself in industrial administration the world over. It demands that business enterprise be conducted in the interest of the general public with fairness, with uniformity and without discrimination. [Applause.] To this end governmental control and regulation have been invoked and have come, and have come to stay. The underlying purpose is altruistic and right, and instead of opposition it would seem to be our duty as well as our interest to aid the Government In order to insure a maximum efficiency with minimum interference. The policy of our Government as to corporations is to compel the large ones, commonly called "trusts," to resolve themselves into their con- stituent small ones, and to prevent the buying by one concern of a competing business, thereby preventing large aggregations of capital under single management, and thereby preventing monopoly, and all this in order to restore and compel competition the panacea, the crux of our governmental policy is competition. Other nations ap- proach the same problem in a different way and seek the solution in another manner. After the so-called "trusts" are resolved into the 126 CHANGES OF FORTY YEAES 127 separate corporations composing them, it remains to be seen whether the public will receive as good a service at as fair a price; it remains to be seen whether these segregated corporations will continue to contribute as largely annually to our international trade balance. The German government permits the formation of price pools, resulting in what we call "trusts," and then controls them. In the recent potash controversy the German government compelled all mines to enter into a pool restricting the output and fixing the price. As a matter of fact, the price was advanced $12 per ton beyond what an independent mine had contracted to sell for, covering a period of years, to an American concern. Even the legislative department of the Govern- ment was appealed to, and the Reichstag passed a law, the effect of which was to impose a penalty tax upon all potash mined and exported under this contract, beyond a certain percentage. By legislative enact- ment the advantage of this contract was destroyed, and the parties in interest, backed by our own Government, were powerless to pre- sent. Germany does not prevent the consolidation of business, nor the co-operation of separate concerns as to their management, nor indeed does Great Britain. In Canada, the enterprising successful builders of the Canadian Northern Railway, a transcontinental system, William Mackenzie and Donald Mann, are now Sir William and Sir Donald. William Van Horn, at the head of the Canadian Pacific Rail- way, is Sir William. Donald Smith, one of the great men of Canada, a builder of railways and a promoter of commerce, became Sir Donald, and is now Lord Strathcona. In other countries the successful build- ers and managers of industrial enterprises are knighted, with us they are indicted. [Laughter and applause.] The expansion and develop- ment of German trade and commerce under their national policy have been phenomenal. Contrast the growth of her shipping with the diminution of ours. In 1792 a law was passed denying American registry to vessels built abroad. That law stands to-day, modified so as to admit the importation of pleasure yachts. The importation of commercial ves- sels has been prohibited for 119 years prohibition is the limit of protection. Now mark the result: In 1792 over 88 per cent of our foreign commerce was carried in our own bottoms and under our own flag; in 1910 it was less than 9 per cent. In 1851 it was 72 per cent, and showed a steady decrease for the balance of the 19th cen- tury. Is it not about time that law was repealed and our people allowed to purchase vessels where they can buy them cheapest? Has not this 119 years of extreme protection proven a failure? [Applause.] Since it costs 40 per cent, more to build vessels at home than to buy them abroad, is it any wonder that our merchant marine has van- ished from the sea? Great Britain, Germany, Canada and other nations 128 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES are building vessels and planning routes with the avowed purpose of utilizing the Panama Canal when finished. Are our commercial inter- ests making any such preparations? How, under existing laws, could they hope profitably to compete? An enormous sum of money is being expended upon the Panama Canal, for which people are being taxed. It is to be hoped that the tolls collected will prove remunerative, for It is difficult to see what great advantage will accrue to commerce under the American flag if existing laws continue. [Applause.] In introducing the British Ambassador, Mr. Hepburn said: How- ever restrictive our laws as to material things may be, we open our arms wide to receive the great men of other nations. The gentleman who will first address you is accredited to our Government as the Ambassador of Great Britain. Years ago he was fully accredited to the hearts of the American people. [Applause.] He made a study of our commonwealth, and his analyses and his criticisms proved of the greatest value, predicated, as they were, upon facts and seasoned with justice. He enabled us to "see ourselves as others see us," who are keenly interested in our progress and our welfare. The extreme courtesy and kindness of the distinguished gentleman enable us this evening to see recent events from the vantage point of his trained observation and study, illuminated by his wide experience and great ability. The toast, "The Changes of Forty Years in America," will be responded to by His Excellency, Right Honorable James Bryce, British Ambassador. Mr. President, Your Excellency the Governor, Your Worship the Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen: I thank you most heartily for your grateful courtesy in toasting my Sovereign and in sing- ing a stanza of our national anthem. I assure you that when I receive, as I often do, and as the Englishmen who are present on these occasions, as I know they often do, such marks of good will and friendly sentiment on your part, they are not only a gratification to ourselves, but they are taken as a pledge o^ friendship by the people of our country. I have to thank you, Mr. President, for your kind references to myself and the members of this Chamber for the courtesy which I have always received from them. From the day when they were good enough to give me a special reception on the occasion of my first arrival in this country as a representative of Great Britain, it has been always a pleasure to me to meet you here. It has usually been a further pleasure to me, on the CHANGES OF FORTY YEARS 129 occasions when I have met you, to be able to say that the con- dition of Europe and of the world was one of peace which prom- ised to endure. That cannot be said this year ; and I am obliged to admit that in this year we have had more than our usual share of troubles. If we were living five hundred years ago, or if the beliefs of five hundred years ago still existed, there would be a very simple explanation for all the troubles that have simultaneously descended upon many different parts of the earth. It would be found in the conjunction, the worst conjunction I believe, according to astrologers, that could possibly occur, the conjunction of the planets of Mars and Saturn. [Laughter.] Those of you who are in the habit of studying the evening sky may remember that these two planets were very close to one another in the end of August, so close that they would have seemed in primitive ages to be likely to come into collision in the heavens. Who can venture to deny that extraordinary conjunc- tion in the heavens might be expected, according to the ancient astrologers, to be followed by remarkable troubles on earth ? So this year we have had troubles almost everywhere, even in what men used to call ''the unchangeable East," a thoughtless expres- sion, because as a matter of fact no part of the world has been changing more within the last forty years than the East. I can assure you, though indeed you need no such assurance, that your government and the government of Great Britain are cor- dially agreed in their disinterested desire and wish that the troubles which have lately descended upon China may soon come to a peaceful end ; and that that great and industrious nation, to which I am sure we all wish well, should be able again to resume the course of progress and enlightenment upon which she seemed to be entering. [Applause.] We are, you and I, perfectly disinterested in our good will for China, and we hope that these struggles, on such an unex- pectedly alarming scale, may soon be at an end. I am glad to say that there was one part of the world, where a year ago armed conflicts were feared and where they have been averted. I mean South America. This time a year ago I was in South America, and I may perhaps be permitted to say to you, as 130 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES New Yorkers, what a pleasure it gave me to find that over South America the people entertain the warmest sentiments of affection for your distinguished senior United States Senator, Mr. Root [applause] who had made an extended tour through South America about five years ago and who had left everywhere the most agreeable recollections of his personality. Well, gentlemen, I can congratulate you in this country that you have had less of these troubles which have been worrying the world than any other great nation. You, at any rate, have been left entirely free to occupy yourselves with your own domes- tic problems. [Laughter.] You have got plenty of them. I perceive that several of the speakers that are to follow me are going to deal with some of them, and there was a little fore- taste given in the remarks which fell from you, Mr. President, as to certain current questions. Now, upon all these current questions and domestic problems of yours I cannot say a word. The present is not for me ; I am strictly warned off from it. I must, therefore, confine myself entirely to the past, and I will venture to offer to you a few recollections bearing upon the contrast which I see now between the United States, as they are, and the United States as they were when I first knew them ; and I will venture, after these recollections, to make two or three reflections which are suggested by them. I remember hearing an anecdote, Mr. President, of an old beadle, as we call him in Scotland, who was attached to a Scottish church, and who had been in the habit for forty years of hearing the discourses, the very logical and argumentative dis- courses, which, according to old custom, the Scottish clergy of for- mer times used to deliver. The minister asked the old beadle one day, "John, mon," said he, "John, mon, don't ye think after hearing so many discourses from me you could now preach a sermon yourself?" To this the old man replied, "Well, Minis- ter, I winna say that I could just like preach a sermon, but I think I could draw an inference." [Laughter.] Now, perhaps I may try to draw an inference. At any rate, I feel pretty safe in venturing to talk about the past. When I was in public life in England I formed two rules of conduct CHANGES OF FORTY YEAES 131 two maxims. The first was that you ought never to refer to the mistakes of your own party. [Laughter.] Not because you are to be a blind partisan, not because you do not see the faults of your own party, but in the interest of economy of effort, because it is perfectly certain that the other party will refer to them [laughter] , and also in the interest of a higher efficiency, because it is perfectly certain that the other party will deal with them more forcibly. The second maxim was this, that you are always safe in dwelling upon the faults and follies of the past especially the distant past because, even if they cannot excuse them, they can at any rate palliate one 's own faults and follies. We can always speak quite freely about those who have gone before, and if they make grave mistakes ; so much the less heinous will those appear which we in our turn make. This thought emboldens me to say a few words to you about what I recollect of the difficulties the people of the United States had in the past. I came here first in the year 1870. The War of Secession was then only five years over, the South was still in a very troublous and distracted condition, and the chief prob- lem that occupied your minds, the chief source of danger and difficulty that you saw rising before you, was connected with the conditions of that section of the country. Large parts of it were then occupied by Federal troops. There was a great deal of Unrest and disturbance as well as a great deal of maladministra- tion and financial waste in some states. The prospect was full of anxiety. But within twenty years all that completely passed away, and now the South has been steadily growing in prosperity and in wealth, and is united to you in the North by a tie so close and by a friendship so true that never at any previous period of your history was the nation so entirely one as it is now. [Applause.] There was another problem to the significance of which you had only just begun to awaken, and that was the government of your cities. In the year 1870 this city was governed by a group of men headed by Mr. William Marcy Tweed, of whom, since they have all departed from this world, nothing need be said now 132 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES except that they were not deemed to be men of specially fastidious honor. [Laughter.] They were applying a large part of the city revenues to purposes which were not public purposes. [Laughter.] In the year 1871 you woke up to that state of things, and you began a series of efforts at reform ; and you were in that a pioneer to other cities, there being many other cities which were in very nearly the same plight in which New York then lay, so that now, at the end of forty years, if the govern- ments of all the cities in the United States are not yet perfect, still every one will admit that in pretty nearly every city and especially and most conspicuously in the City of New York, now far vaster than it was then, there has been a steady progress. Your administration is not only more upright and honest, but it is far more scientific and businesslike than it ever was before. [Applause.] And yet, gentlemen, no one can deny that you see clouds in your sky, that there is a disquiet among you, just as there is a disquiet everywhere in the world. The golden age apparently is not going to come in our time. There is a strife between labor and capital, a phenomenon which is sometimes acute here, although probably not so acute as it is in most of the great countries of Europe. There are those questions to which you, Mr. President, have just referred, the questions of the relation of business to government, the relations of law to corporations and combinations of capital, difficulties which arise very much less in Europe, and which in fact in Great Britain hardly arise at all. We find no serious difficulties in regulating railroads or any other corporations, and though there is no denying that they constitute an important problem for you here, still it cannot be an insoluble one. Why is it that these questions which did not exist as prob- lems in 1870 nobody then talked about strikes as a danger, nobody then talked about organizations of labor as a danger, nobody then thought that large corporations or combinations of capital constituted any menace to the community, why is it that they have arisen and now seem to throw heavy shadows across your sky ? CHANGES OF FORTY YEARS 133 While I must, of course, abstain from any discussion which could involve the expression of any opinion upon any contro- verted question, I may say that there never was a country in which economic conditions changing on so gigantic a scale as they have in the United States, were more certain to raise new issues. Your population has more than doubled within the last forty years, but your wealth, your exports, and that which is a good test of these things, your transportation facilities, have more than doubled, they have quadrupled, within the last forty years. The exports of the United States, which in 1870 were valued at three hundred and ninety-two millions of dollars, are valued now at one thousand seven hundred and forty-four millions of dollars. The estimated wealth which was then reckoned at thirty thousand millions of dollars is reckoned now at one hundred and twenty-seven thousand million of dollars. The miles of railroad that you had then were 53,000 as against 244,000 now. By all these tests your wealth and prosperity have quadrupled within those forty years, a thing that has never happened to any other country in the world. You have seen the growing up of enor- mous fortunes there were hardly any in 1870 you have seen the creation of labor organizations. In such changes it is inev- itable that new problems should emerge. There is nothing to surprise us in that, and I venture to submit that there is nothing to discourage us. Where these prodigious economic changes have come, and where this unexampled wealth and prosperity have flown in upon you in such an abundant stream, there difficulties must be expected comparable to the causes which produced them. Now, may I venture to say that it sometimes occurs to me when I think of the way in which we in England meet our difficulties, and the way in which you here meet your difficulties, that, per- haps, the fault that belongs to us in common, may perhaps be not the fault of thinking too much of ourselves, but that of excessive modesty and self distrust. We are not generally credited, either you or we, with being particularly modest nations. We are supposed to have a good opinion of ourselves based upon our past achievements, but really when one sees the amount of anxiety which is created both in England and here by the 134 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES emergence of these new problems which the progress of wealth and prosperity and power brings with it, may not our fault be that we have not sufficient confidence in ourselves, and that we do not sufficiently realize the strength of our national character and the intellectual and moral force which has carried us through all the troubles we have met in the past, and to which we ought to trust to carry us through similar troubles in the future ? How was it that you overcame those difficulties, to which I have referred, which confronted you in 1870? That is the inference I am now going to draw. You had a most difficult problem in the South ; a problem that was enough to perplex the most ingenious mind and to tax the calmest temper. But you overcame it by patience, by temperance, by faith in the principles of your government. You saw that the best thing was to leave the South alone and to trust to the action of natural forces, to treat the South as a sister going ultimately to return into friendship ; and the result has justified your policy. When you had the problem of city government to deal with you did not sit down supinely, but you made effort after effort to see how governmental conditions might be improved, how good citizens could be induced not to submit themselves entirely to the dominance of party spirit in municipal elections. The result has been that over the whole of the Union now conditions are better and good citizens are more active, and the methods of government are improving. Altogether the future is far brighter in municipal and state government than I think it has ever been before. The same is true of Civil Service Reform. Good citizens despaired of it in 1870. See what progress it has made since 1883 when the Pendleton Act was passed. [Applause.] These things were achieved by faith in yourselves and faith in the spirit of your institutions. There is a saying, attributed to Philip II. of Spain, that he and time were a match for any two others. Now, gentlemen, I certainly should not venture to cite Philip II. of Spain as a wise monarch, to whose opinion great weight ought to be attached, because if ever there was a king who did as much mischief as CHANGES OF FORTY YEARS 135 it was possible in his day and generation, and who contributed very largely to the declension of his country, and to those grievous misfortunes for which they suffered for three centuries after- wards, it was that misguided king. But there was a truth in the statement about time. Time is an important factor in human affairs, but only when it is used in order to give full play to reason. It is not time alone that makes things better. It is only because time gives a chance for patience, and thought and experience to work out solutions of difficulties. The value of time is, that if men would only be patient, if they would only restrain their passions, if they would only set their minds to think ques- tions out and to discover the best means of dealing with them, if they would only keep a cool head and not be betrayed by sudden emotion into foolish or violent action, they would always be certain in the long run to come out right. That was the way in which the constitutional difficulties that we have had at one time or another to grapple with in England were solved, and that was the way in which you succeeded in setting yourselves right after the Civil "War and in bringing the South into the happier state in which she is now. There is an old maxim of some famous Latin writer that the greatness of a nation is preserved by the same methods by which it has been won. That is to say, a nation that has become great will find itself safe in adhering to the principles and policy by which it grew to be great. You and our ancestors and your ancestors, when they lived together in the old country, as mem- bers of an undivided English people, and our people, since the division, and your people since the division, have been guided by two principles the principle of liberty and the principle of order. And the reason why we have succeeded more than most countries in becoming both great and free is because we have always adhered to the conjunction of these two principles of lib- erty and order. Our safety, gentlemen, and the way out of all our difficulties, seems to me to lie in adhering to those principles ; not to abandon any of our faith in individual freedom, in the self-reliance which belongs to men of our race, in the opening 136 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES of the freest and widest field for individual action and initiative, but at the same time, to hold fast to the severe and strict repres- sion of any resort to force and violence in the enforcement everywhere of the authority of the law. These are the principles by which you and we grew up great, and these are the prin- ciples by which every free government ought to be guided. You amongst all the nations of the earth are the least liable to suffer from the shock of jarring interests of different classes; least liable because you have between the capitalists on the one side and the wage earners on the other, a large class of intelligent voters who are able and intelligent enough to hold the balance fairly give them time between the interests of the capitalists and the interests of the wage earners, and to recognize that the interests of all classes are in the last analysis interwoven with one another, and that which is an injury to one is an injustice and an injury to all. [Applause.] No great European country is so happily situated as you are in having this great and impartial body of voters. Popular government is always on its trial. Every form of government is always on its trial. And you here in the United States are try- ing all those experiments which belong to popular government on the greatest scale, and more in the eyes of the world than any other country, because the world feels that the experiment that you try here, with your gigantic population and your certainty of wonderful further expansion is an experiment tried for the world, and an experiment of incomparable significance for the world's future. You have done more than any other people has ver done to give to the ordinary voter education, comfort, and the fullest chance of rising in the world and making the most of his life, and you will continue to render an inestimable service to the world and to free government everywhere, if you can prove that the ordinary voter, to whom you have entrusted political power, will approve himself to be zealous and upright and a capable citizen, who understands as the fathers of this republic understood, that peace and prosperity are the children not of freedom alone, but of freedom and order conjoined. [Prolonged applause.] FRANKNESS AND FRIENDLINESS BETWEEN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. WALTER HINES PAGE. The London Times of June 7, 1913, expressed itself editorially, in part, as follows: "An unusually distinguished company met last night under the auspices of the Pilgrim's Society to greet the new American Ambassador, Mr. Walter H. Page. There have been many such gath- erings on similar occasions in the past. They have become, indeed, a custom of British public life, and a custom the full meaning of which is to be found in its singularity. Nothing like it exists anywhere else. No Ambassador to this or any other nation is similarly honored. For the representative of a foreign power to be feted on his recall in the capital of the State to which he is accredited is common enough. But for the representative of a foreign Power to be hailed with wel- coming words almost at the moment of his arrival, when he has barely had time to present his credentials, and before he has given any token either of his personality or of his diplomatic policy, this is an expe- rience which, alone among the diplomatists of the world, is enjoyed by the American Ambassador to the Court of St. James. It is in- tended to be, we need hardly say, precisely what it is, a unique com- pliment, a recognition on our part that Great Britain and the United States stand to one another in a special relationship, and that be- tween them some departure from the merely official attitude is of all things the most natural. The presence and speeches last night of such men as Lord Roberts and Sir Edward Grey were meant to convince Mr. Page that the welcome extended to him, however local in form, is national in the feeling behind it, and that it would be against the grain of British instinct if no distinction were to be drawn between the American and other Ambassadors. Mr. Page very happily seized and responded to the spirit of the occasion. In a speech of equal modesty and humor, and refreshingly free from the 'clawless kitten' style of most Ambassadorial oratory, he touched frankly and feelingly on the common interests of Great Britain and the United States in the solution of common problems, and particularly on the many-sided appeal which his new mission and its opportunities for studying our ways and institutions and experiments make to him 'as a working member of the great English-speaking democracy.' Both in Mr. Page's speech and in the words in which his accomplished countryman, Mr. 137 138 AFTERrDINNER SPEECHES Price Collier, proposed the toast of the coming Peace Centenary the celebrations of which will be a pleasant incident of the new Ambas- sador's tenure Anglo-American relations and the bonds that unite the two peoples were handled as every man of sense would like them always to be handled, without any labored sentimentality and in a spirit of critical sympathy and mutual respect. * * * The literary traditions and associations which mark out the American Embassy in London from all other Embassies in all other capitals will assuredly lose none of their brightness under Mr. Page's care." Lord Roberts presided at the dinner, which was held in the Savoy Hotel, and Sir Edward Grey, Foreign Secretary, proposed the toast, "Our Guest." In part, Sir Edward said: But although, as I say, every cause has two sides, in the majority of cases it happens that we both want to put the same side, and of this I should like to assure Mr. Page that if as I suppose will be the case, seeing that his Government has taken an initiative of its own in the matter if he comes to us with pro- posals arising from the desire of his Government to find some way of making more remote the appeal to blind force between nations he will find in this country and from the British Government a ready response. [Cheers.] Of all great Powers in the world the United States is most fortunately placed for taking such an initiative. It is beyond the reach of menace or aggression from any neighbor in the American continent The idea of menace or aggression on land towards the United States is both physically impossible and intellectually unthinkable. And on either side they enjoy the protection not of a channel but of an ocean. [Laughter.] And, after all, with all those natural advantages they have also, we know, the capacity and re- sources if they desired it, to create both military and naval force greater than anything the world has ever seen. Now if, from such a quarter, peace proposals come they come beyond the suspicion of having been inspired by any feeling of pusillanimity, by any national necessity, or by any desire to secure an advantage in disarming or placing at a disadvantage any other nation who can injure them. In other words, if there are to be proposals to make war between other nations more remote, it is from the United States most certainly that these proposals could be made in the world at large with full dignity and with a good faith which is beyond suspicion. [Cheers.] As to the relations between the two countries and the two nations, we rely not on treaties, not on the diplomatic skill of governments, but we rely upon right and good feeling. [Cheers.] It is good feeling that dictates the articles and the speeches and decides public opinion. Mr. Page has had so much more experience than I have in forming public opinion that I speak with hesitation in his presence; but I do not think, especially perhaps in these days, when everything is speeded up, FRANKNESS AND FRIENDLINESS 139 when we have to write and speak perhaps more and more with less and less time for thought, it is more and more essential that things should be got not into men's heads but into their feelings. Right thinking is of comparatively little use as public opinion unless it arises from right feeling. It is not men's heads, but it is their hearts which decide public opinion. Lord Roberts, I won't trench on the next toast which is connected with 100 years of peace because I trust that, being on the eve of celebrating 100 years of peace between the two countries, it will be felt that in those celebrations is expressed much good feeling and good will between the two nations, that the peace between us is based not merely on community of interest, and not merely on kinship of race because, although there is a great kin- ship of race between ourselves and the United States, yet it is also true that the United States is made up of one nation in which there are several different stocks. Nor is the peace, strong as those bonds are, based entirely upon community of religion or language. I believe it is to be based on the sure and certain foundation of a feeling which is downright repugnance on the part of men on both sides of the Atlantic to the thought even of the relations between Great Britain and the United States being disturbed. [Cheers.] One thought more. Great as is the friendly feeling between us today, it is a friendly feel- ing which I trust will still grow and develop, but to whatever degree it develops and however strong it becomes, I believe it is their wish, and I am sure that it is ours, that that friendly feeling between the two countries, though it may serve as an example to all nations, should never be a menace to any. I thank you for having given me the pleasure and the honor of proposing this toast, and I ask you to drink the health of "Our Guest." [Cheers.] The toast was drunk amid cheers, the company rising and singing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow." Mr. Page, who was loudly cheered on rising, said: I do not know how to thank you adequately for so hospitable and generous a welcome. No man could take it to himself, least of all a man so little known to you as I am. You pay me this great compliment as the representative of the President and of the people of the United States ; and in their behalf I thank you heartily, and gratefully receive your friendly greeting. In turn, my errand here is to convey to you the respect and true friend- ship of the people of the United States; and, when you are pleased to receive me in so cordial a way, I feel that my busi- ness is most auspiciously begun. [Cheers.] The time has long) 140 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES passed when there was need, if need there ever were, of make- shifts and make-believe in our intercourse; and surely it argues well for the spread of justice and of fair dealing and for the firmer establishment of the peace of the world that the two great nations of English speaking folk speak frankly to one another. In our dealing blood answers to blood, and our fundamental qualities of manhood are the same. It is an inspiring spectacle and history can show none other such; these two great kindred nations, one on each side of the well-ploughed sea that unites them, standing, at the end of a century of peace, liberty-loving as of old, and for- ward looking, confident of the broadening of the bounds of freedom yet; regarding government as a living, everchanging instrument of human progress, made by man for man's advance- ment and not for the mere maintenance of any political creed, yet none the less cautious in experiment and change. This is an augury for the progress of the world that shames all struc- tures of society where man's lot is stationary, or where his philosophy is dipped in gloom. [Cheers.] But I thank you for myself also ; for I have observed that life among you sea- sons and mellows a man if he survive the fierce onslaught of your hospitality. [Laughter.] During these few days since I landed, I am ashamed to confess that more than once or twice I have been so taken unawares by its swiftness and its volume as to have been made ill at ease always, of course, on occa- sions when I should have liked to be most at ease. I must, then, ask your indulgence as of a man yet somewhat dazed. I find some consolation in the fact, which I have on high authority, that there is no anti-American party in this realm. Therefore, an American Ambassador may commit a reasonable number of dumb indiscretions, and it will be nobody's profes- sional duty to draw and quarter him. [Laughter.] The sea- soning effect of association with you I have observed in my friends and yours who preceded me here in official life. I have known them nearly all of recent years Mr. Lowell, Mr. Bay- ard, Mr. Phelps, Mr. Hay, Mr. Choate. Alas! that my dis- tinguished immediate predecessor did not live out his period of FRANKNESS AND FRIENDLINESS 141 service and have years left to enjoy among his earliest friends at home. Of the gentlemen that I have named, Mr. Choate alone survives, quite as young as he was when you knew him here. [Cheers.] All these came back to us from residence among you, as if they had come from a visit to a hospitable older home, with their knowledge of the family broadened and with a well-seasoned friendliness to all the world. To this list I must add Mr. Henry White, long the Secretary of the Embassy here and subsequently American Ambassador to France and to Italy, and Mr. William Phillips, who left you only last year. All these speak of their life among you as one who should say, "Carry my kindest greetings to my old friends." We hope, too, that residence in the United States of your distinguished representatives there has a similar effect. The other evening the Pilgrims of New York gave Mr. Bryce, your lately retired Ambassador, a farewell dinner to express the peculiar and universal esteem in which the American people hold the author of "The American Commonwealth." He served at Washington under three Presidents, and during the six years of his residence there he visited every one of our forty-eight states. Mr. Bryce, in fact, set a new standard for Ambassa- dors to friendly countries by making himself not only persona grata to the government to which he was accredited, but per- sona gratissima to the people. [Cheers.] At that dinner Mr. Choate presided. Mr. Choate, you know, has become a sort of public institution wherewith we do our most graceful acts of courtesy in New York. I had the pleasure, too, of making the acquaintance of your new Ambassador to the United States, Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, who by previous residence in Washing- ton made many friends among us and wliose charming qualities will win many more. [Cheers.] From my talk with these friends, from my own very brief experience here, and from many admonitions that I have received, I conclude that your habit is to drown your fresh American Ambassador in a flood of kindness ; to begin at once to work him very hard ; to make him earn his keep ; and to send him home in due time with the delusion that his hard-won enjoyment of life here was most 142 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES graciously vouchsafed by you another example of your skill in making self-governing men think that they owe their happi- ness to your management, and making them think so is truly making it so. [Laughter.] We have made great strides in recent years in becoming acquainted, and therefore in understanding one another. We can measure our closer knowledge of one another by old books which betray old moods. I have lately re-read Mrs. Trollope's book about the people of the United States and their manners, and the wonder is that the lady thought it worth while to make fun of us. [Laughter.] Almost the same thing could be said about what Dickens wrote about us. He was looking for picturesque effects. He saw individuals, and he made too sweep- ing generalizations. The anger with which their books were received showed merely that we did not then readily know one another in the days of sailing vessels ; and they are now only of historical value as illustrating? a stage of international acquaintance. Almost the same could be said of Mr. Lowell's essay "On a Certain Condescension in Foreigners." That appeared at a time of irritation, and he thought it worth while to turn the laugh on you. And since then I think we have cared perhaps too little what you thought or said of us. He remarked, you will recall, that "nothing is more hateful to gods and men than a second-rate Englishman, and for the very reason that this planet never produced a more splendid creature than a first-rate one"; and he asked you, in prose and verse, that, when you wished to please us, you should use some more dig- nified instrument in your dealing than a baby-rattle. All that, too, now seems trite and far-off. We have come a long way since then. If the old books that we wrote about one another give us a good measure of our constantly nearer approach to a complete understanding, so, too, do certain new books, notably, if my dis- tinguished countryman will permit me to say so, Mr. Price Collier's "England and the English, from an American Point of View," which has been widely read in the United States. His opinions concerning you I especially am debarred from dis- FRANKNESS AND FRIENDLINESS 143 cussing, not only because of his presence, but because of this delightful passage in explanation of his own frank dealing: "It would be no compliment to the British people to use the epicene style of ambassadorial compliment. A clawless kitten is not more harmless or more uninformmg than a foreign ambassador at a banquet. This is his business." That is a challenge to show one 's claws ; and his very next sentence pro- vokes a scratch: "As between men," he writes, "we all know that America does not like England and that Americans do not like the English." Well, America is a large country, and there are one hundred million Americans. Since every man of them is where he is be- cause he or his ancestors were displeased to be somewhere else, since wrangling for political freedom and religious freedom, and freedom of speech and freedom of most other things has been his particular business, it would be hazardous to say that all these very free men like any one thing or any one nation. But I can make a good case against Mr. Collier's contention by quoting further from Mr. Collier himself. He writes in another place: "The Saxons can only live in one way, and that is by ruling themselves. That any family, clan, tribe, or nation should wish to live under any other than this Saxon arrange- ment, is to them unthinkable. * * * Where in the history of mankind may one look to find such a magnificent assump- tion of virtue and omniscience, coupled with incomprehensible self-satisfaction?" I should say that to find precisely this same thing one may look to the United States; and I should say further that this is a proof that, as between men, we do not like you very much and are very much like you. We are very much like you, too, in this that the fatigue and despair that Mr. Collier finds in some other nations are not found in American or in English life, nor in the conduct of their affairs. There is no "throwing up of the hands in despair, no dyspeptic politics. ' ' As for the people of the United States, if I know them and their history, the tide of hope and of buoyant expectancy has not before run so high in their blood for a hundred years as it runs now. I now withdraw my claws 144 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES and leave you yourselves to deal with the rest of Mr. Collier 's most interesting and audacious book. [Laughter.] I thank you especially for permitting your American Ambassador to remain a human being through all the bewilder- ing experiences of your hospitality ; and, as a fellow-being and as a working member of the great democracy that you honor in honoring me, I hope to be permitted to continue and greatly to broaden my first-hand studies of government by observing your triumphs close at hand. For these are the finest fruits of your long civilization; and the thing that makes England England is your skill in ruling men. To men who have much land and small habit of the sea the British Empire is the unfathomable wonder of the world till one reflects that you did not build it by standing on this little island, but by stand- ing astride the seven seas. And even then the wonder is hardly less. An American historian, who knows the great things that have happened in the world, once said to me: "I have never passed the Foreign Office in that solid building in Downing street without a feeling of awe ; for it is there that the greatest work of government hi all the world has been done." And the old-time skill that has made so much of modern history seems not to have been lost in this year of grace. But it is other questions of government, also, that greatly interest an American resident in England your municipal government, for example, from which we may learn much; your activities in greatly broadening the area and multiplying the functions of local control, about which we in the United States have the same differences of opinion that you have. You are trying some interesting experiments. Those that turn out to be sound we hope to profit by. Those that are merely palliatives that coddle or pauperize men if there prove to be such perhaps we may be wise enough to avoid. You can hardly imagine how interesting the hundreds of questions that this mere hint will suggest are to an American whose life has been spent in the study of popular government as an instru- ment to make the lot of mankind happier, to make free men sturdier men, to make sure that the dominant qualities of our FRANKNESS AND FRIENDLINESS 145 race shall not only be preserved in our newer land and under our social and governmental forms, but if possible, that they may be bred in us more tenaciously. For it is the making of men that is our aim in the Great Republic the making of men rather than the maintenance of any set of political dog- mas ; and the organization of political society that shall main- tain all the efficiency of the race even the efficiency of many mingled races and at the same time hold fast to the natural development of our English-born freedom. That is our aim. For the world does not stand still. Freedom must ever move forward. "Wherever she stops on her way she is captured by somebody freebooter or friend and she is despoiled as often without malicious intent as with it. In addition to the problem of your cities, you have lessons of great value for us also in your country life. We, too, in spite of our vast rural areas, during the industrial era of the last half century, permitted the town to draw to itself a dis- proportionate part of the energy of our people. And in many regions of the United States there has been a definite retro- gression in rural life. Now the whole nation is waking up to this misfortune. The typical man in your land and in my land in the old time was the dweller in the country. The country home has ever been the best breeding place of English-speak- ing free men in every land. To restore the country homes of the masses to their place of domestic happiness and of economic independence is, I think, the chief aim of the people in the United States at the present moment. There is also the more aesthetic side of country life. Most of our students of the fine arts have sought other countries than England in their quest of instruction and inspiration. But there is one art that we hope to learn from you the art of not only making the land productive, but of making it beautiful also. Long ago Emerson wrote: " England is a garden. Under an ash-colored sky, the fields have been combed and rolled until they appear to have been finished with a pencil instead of a plough." On our wonderful continent all your old-world scenic effects may somewhere be reproduced and 146 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES others made such as are nowhere else possible. You will not quarrel with us if we make your gardens, your lawns and your landscapes oversea. Nature somewhere in our great con- tinental area gave us landscapes for every mood she speaks to us a various language. We are now getting ready to do our part in filling out her large artistic sketch, and, we hope, to make her voice heard in our literature also. Already I hope you know our John Muir, the interpreter of the Sierras and brother of the big trees, and more of his kind, if lesser. We mean to keep our land not only rich for growing wheat and maize and cotton, but to make it richer yet for its beauty and restfulness the home for the fittest man of the future the place the countrybred Englishman will wish to go when he dies, as well as while he lives. If you will be so kind as to permit me to live among you thus to learn what I can, as a working member of the great English-speaking democracy, which, with local variations, has in every part of the world the same large aims the aim to keep men free and to preserve the peace of the world permit me to live and work as befits that great nation of uncommon common men for whom I have the honor for the moment to be the frank and friendly spokesman, I shall feel like a wel- come visitor in the house of my kinsmen. I thank you heartily. [Loud cheers.] THE SPIRIT OF SELF-GOVERNMENT. ELJHU ROOT. Remarks by John Claflin. Mr. John Claflin, president, presided over the one hundred and forty-fourth annual banquet of the New York Chamber of Commerce at the Waldorf-Astoria, November 21, 1912. After Bishop Greer said grace, Mr. Claflin said: Having eaten our one hundred and forty- fourth annual dinner we may congratulate ourselves on our robust digestion and our youthful age. The youthfulness of our age I should be inclined to attribute to our corporate mode of life were I not ad- monished that corporate life in this country at the present time is under suspicion, and that corporate life which sustains and cheers itself by regular dinners and frequent lunches is likely to be inquired into by the Attorney General of the United States. I do not wish to drive the distinguished members of our Banquet Committee into im- mediate consultation with their legal advisers, and I will, therefore, not pursue this reflection further. [Laughter.] But if I may not safely dwell on the corporate youthfulness of our age, I may at least comment briefly on the age itself. One hun- dred and forty-four years! A brilliant thinker has said: "Man prob- ably dates from the Tertiary Period three hundred thousand years. He has developed more in the last three thousand than in the pre- ceding two hundred and ninety-seven thousand; more in the last three hundred than in the preceding three thousand, and in some respects more in the last fifty than in the preceding two hundred and ninety- nine thousand nine hundred and fifty years." This is a striking state- ment and it is supported by impressive facts. But let us extend the fifty years to one hundred and forty-four, back to the birth of the Chamber. James Watt was then finishing his steam engine. He found great difficulty in having a boiler made that would not leak, for up to that time, as another has said: "All the work that was performed was done by the human hand, and was performed badly." But when Watt's engine began to work efficiently it inaugurated a revolution. It marked the beginning of a control of natural forces which, year by year, has so marvelously increased the effective energy of man that it seems safe to say that the physical progress of the human race from the time man fashioned his first rude implement of stone, to the time of Watt, was not greater than its progress during the last one hundred and forty-four years. 147 148 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES Perhaps you will expect me to claim considerable credit for the Chamber on account of this contemporaneous progress. But no. I will simply suggest that most of the illustrious inventors who have made America foremost in the control of the powers of nature to man's use (some of them our own members), have often enjoyed the hospi- tality of the Chamber. What more natural than that after eating our dinners and imbibing our good cheer they should go forth inspired to surpass themselves and to astonish the world by new and wonderful inventions. [Applause.] You see I have claimed little for the Chamber on account of scien- tific progress. I shall claim more in another direction. The Cham- ber has always stood for good citizenship. During our one hundred and forty-four years there has been an evolution in free government more important to the individual, more conducive to his security and happiness, than all the astounding advances in physical science. This Chamber has witnessed the magnificent Declaration of Rights of 1776 and its maintenance by arms. It has witnessed the weakness of the loosely confederated states and their remarkable binding together by the wisdom and patience of the framers of the Federal Constitution. The Chamber has had a part, soir.etimes, I may fairly say, an important part, in the life, the trials, the progress of the nation since. It has been proud of what its members have done to make representative government a success, and it has never doubted the reality and the stability of the success. Latterly some able men have expressed anxiety lest the organic law prove inadequate to new needs. They have suggested difficulties; they have proposed extraor- dinary remedies. The Chamber has not shared their alarm. It has studied the national record of peace and war, adversity and pros- perity, for the past century and it has felt, and more than ever feels to-day, that the wisdom of the fathers was so far-seeing, so abundantly provident of adjustment to changes in national life, that we may well take courage and with abiding hope for the future we may thank God that we live under the Constitution of the United States. [Loud applause.] Our first regular toast this evening is to a wise expounder and strong defender of the Constitution. [Applause.] Let us drink to the health of our honored Chief Magistrate, the President of the United States. (The toast was drunk, every one standing and cheering.) Some weeks ago we hoped to induce the Governor of New Jersey to address us this evening. [Applause.] Since then there have been notable happenings [laughter] and the Governor of New Jersey has announced that he has been sentenced to four years hard work [laugh- ter] and that he is taking a preparatory rest. Let us hope that the THE SPIRIT OF SELF-GOVERNMENT 149 four years of work will be so fruitful of success to him, and of pros- perity to the nation, that the work will prove pleasant and not arduous. [Applause.] I propose the health of the scholar and states- man who is now President-elect of the United States, the Honorable Woodrow Wilson. (The toast was drunk with great applause, all standing.) In my early business life an esteemed partner introduced to our firm a young lawyer whom he characterized as of great ability and of remarkably sound judgment. We found that characterization true. Very soon others discovered the great ability and sound judgment, and the reputation of the young lawyer extended throughout the city. As his years increased his fame increased, and presently his reputation became national, and later, international, until the name of Elihu Root [applause] stood among the great names of the world in juris- prudence and in statesmanship. [Applause.] We are fortunate that while his influence and his interests are world-wide, he is devoting himself to the service of his native state. I know that every member of this Chamber will delight to join with me in wishing long life and happiness to the senior United States Senator from New York. [Ap- plause and cheers.] Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York : I thank you with entire sincerity and much feeling for your reception, and for the kind expressions which old friendship and the association of a lifetime have made it possible for your President to utter. However old I may come to be, I shall never pass out from under the impressions of reverence for the men who forty to fifty years ago made the Chamber of Commerce; and first among them in my memory stands the noble and inspiring presence of the father of your present President. [Applause.] I thought of those men when some dozen years ago a great excitement had carried a large number of people to the barren and unhabited land on the shores of Behring Straits. Fifteen thousand men found themselves there without government, with- out law, and without organization. In characteristic American fashion they proceeded to organize a Chamber of Commerce of Nome. [Laughter.] And they called upon the War depart- ment to send them some officers and men to enable them to execute the decrees of the Chamber of Commerce for the benefit 150 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES of the people on that shore. The call was responded to after the fashion in which the American army is all the time doing odd jobs for the promotion of peace and order ; and the Chamber of Commerce grew into an organized government. The Chamber of Commerce of New York has been rendering very much the same kind of service during all these one hun- dred and forty-four years. It has been giving impetus and form to public sentiment, the effects of which have been put in operation through the ordinary channels of governmental insti- tutions. The institutions themselves are empty forces but for the sentiment behind them; and the sentiment behind them is furnished by such men as I see before me here and by such institutions as this Chamber of Commerce. The real govern- ment of the country rests with such institutions and the men who compose their membership. My friends, the noise and excitement of a great presidential campaign is over; the stress and strain, the over-statements, the warping of judgment by personal considerations and by old associations have passed into memory, and we are all at rest; and during this period of rest, which in this active and vigorous and progressive country must be but short, it seems to be a good time for national introspection. I have been thinking whether, passing beyond and behind all the issues that we have been discussing, we can answer in the affirmative or the negative a crucial question, underlying them all, and that is this: Are we advancing in our capacity for self government? Are we maintaining our capacity for self government? All the rest is unimportant compared with that. If we have the spirit of a true self governing people, whichever way we decide the questions of the moment, we come through right. Whatever we do about the tariff or about the trusts, or about the railroads, or about wages, or about corporations, or what- ever we do about any of the issues before the American people, if we have at heart the true spirit of a free self-governing democracy, we come through right. [Applause.] "What is it? What is the spirit of a free self-governing democracy? What THE SPIRIT OF SELF-GOVERNMENT 151 are its essentials, and have we them to a greater or a less degree ? What is the tendency is it up or down ? Of course, a people to be self governing must have inde- pendence of character and courage; that we know we have. Throughout the length and breadth of our land the Americans have an attitude in which one recognizes no social or political superior, in which every man knows himself to be a man of equal manhood with all others and has the courage to speak his opin- ions and to maintain them; and we thank God for that. [Applause.] But that is not enough; that is not all. All histories of wild and savage people, all the histories of lawless and undis- ciplined men, all the histories of civil wars and revolutions, all the histories of discord and strife which check the onward march of civilization and hold a people stationary until they go down instead of going up, admonish us that it is not enough to be independent and courageous. Self-governing people must have the spirit which makes them self controlled, which makes every man competent and willing to govern his impulses by the rule of declared principle. And more than that, men in a self-governed democracy must have a love of liberty that means not merely one's own liberty, but others' liberty. [Applause.] We must respect the opinions and the liberty of the opinions of our countrymen. That spirit excludes hatred of our opponents. That spirit excludes a desire to abuse, to vilify, to destroy. All of us in foreign lands have felt the blood rush to the head, and felt the heart beat quicker, felt a suffusion of feeling upon seeing our country's flag floating in strange ports and in distant cities. That, my friends, is but a false sentiment unless it carries with it a love not only for the flag, but for the countrymen under the flag. True love of country is not an abstraction. It means a little different feeling toward every American because he is American. It means a desire that every American shall be prosperous; it means kindly consideration for his opinions, for his views, for his inter- ests, for his prejudices, and charity for his follies and his errors. [Applause.] The man who loves his country only that he may 152 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES be free does not love his country. He loves only himself and his own way, and that is not self government, but is the essence of despotism. [Applause.] Now as to that feeling I will not say that we have gone backward, but I will say that there is serious cause for reflection on the part of all Americans. Our life has become so complicated, the activities of our country so numerous and so vast, that it is very difficult for us to understand what our countrymen are doing. The cotton planters understand each other, the wheat farmers understand each other, the importers understand each other, the bankers understand each other, but there are vast masses of the people of our country who totally misunderstand others of our people, and that misunderstanding lies at the bottom of the spirit which I have attempted to describe as so necessary to real self government. The misunderstanding, and when I say misunderstanding it implies erroneous ideas, for there are hundreds of thousands of people, outside the great industrial communities who think you are a den of thieves, and there are hundreds of thousands of people who think that the manufacturers of the country are no better than a set of confidence men. Why, we have before us now great and serious questions regarding the financial prob- lem of the country, and this is what stands in the way of their solution: It is that the men who understand the finances of the country, the bankers and the merchants engaged in great operations, are under suspicion. Great bodies of people will not accept what they say regarding the subject of finance, a subject complicated by all the currents and movements of finance throughout the world; they will not accept what the experts say, what the men who understand the subject say, because they do not believe their motives are honest. So that the only one who can be heard is the man who does not under- stand the subject. How are we to reach any conclusion in that way? On the other hand, there are many in this room to-night who way down in their hearts believe that great bodies of the American people really want to destroy their business and con- THE SPIRIT OF SELF-GOVERNMENT 153 fiscate their property, that they are enemies to the men who are carrying on the vast business essential to our prosperity. Now, neither is true. One misunderstanding leads to con- duct which in some respect seems to justify another misunder- standing. Nobody in this country wants to destroy business, wants to destroy prosperity. I say nobody. Of course, there are always hangers on in every country who would like to destroy everything in the hope of picking up the pieces. But speaking of the great body of the people, they do not want to destroy prosperity, and when they do things, when they vote for measures, when they elect Representatives, leading you to think that they want to destroy prosperity, it is because they misunderstand you, and you misunderstand them. There is nothing more important to-day, than that by educa- tion and the spread of ideas, such misunderstanding shall be disposed and done away with, and that all Americans shall come to the spirit of popular government in which every American desires the prosperity and the happiness of every other Amer- ican, [great applause] every American naturally feels a trust in all Americans, because they are his brothers, fellow inheritors of the great system of constitutional law for the preservation of liberty and justice, of the same great traditions, the same noble ideals of human freedom and human opportunity. [Applause.] There is one other essential to the spirit of self-government, and that is justice. The manufacturer, the employer of labor, who is unwilling to be just to his workingmen is false to the ideals of his country. [Applause.] The laborer who, in the comparatively new-found power of organization, is unjust to his employer, is false to those great traditions in which rest the liberty of all labor. [Applause.] The willingness to do justice in a nation to every brother of our common land is the ideal of self-government. Further than that, the willingness to do justice as a nation is the true conception of self-government. [Renewed applause.] That rude and bumptious willingness to insult and deride, the result of ignorance, is wholly false to the true dignity and the true spirit of popular self-government. 154 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES We are now approaching a question which will test the will ingness of the American people to be true to the ideals of self- government and show that a democracy can be honorable and just. Sixty odd years ago Great Britain and the United States were owners of a great territory extending from Mexico to the frozen north, each with a great sea coast on the Atlantic and each with a great sea coast on the Pacific. It was of vital importance to both that the age-long problem of transit across the Isthmus should be solved; and they went into partnership to support and to stand behind the making of a canal across the Isthmus. They embodied their agreement in what we called the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850. Well, time passed. Noth- ing was done, largely, for a long time, because of the French experiment of canal building ; until finally a few years ago that partnership was dissolved and then a new agreement was made under which Great Britain retired from her position, and signed over to the United States all the rights she had under the part- nership agreement with the provision that the canal, when con- structed under the patronage of the United States or by the United States, whichever it might be, should be opened and made neutral upon the same terms that were specified in the original agreement, which were that the ships of Great Britain and the ships of the United States should have exactly the same treatment. Then Panama made to the United States a grant of the use and occupation of a strip of territory across the Isthmus to be used for the construction of a canal in accordance with the terms and stipulations in this treaty with Great Britain. The last session of Congress, however, passed a law which gives free transit to American ships engaged in coastwise trade when passing between our Atlantic coast and our Pacific coast, while tolls are to be imposed upon the British ships passing between British ports on the Atlantic and British ports on the Pacific, and upon all other foreign ships. Now, Great Britain claims that that is a violation of the treaty which we made with her and in accordance with which, by express provisions containing our grant from Panama, we are to build and open the canal. Con- THE SPIRIT OF SELF-GOVERNMENT 155 gress takes a different view of the construction of the treaty, and it has passed this law which Great Britain says violates it. The question is now, "What is to be done about it?" We have a treaty with Great Britain under which we have agreed that all questions arising upon the interpretation of treaties shall be submitted to arbitration; and while it seems hardly conceivable, yet there are men who say that we will never arbitrate the question of the construction of that treaty; but I say to you that if we refuse to arbitrate it, we will be in the position of the merchant who is known to all the world to be false to his promises. [Applause and cheers.] With our nearly four thousand millions of foreign trade we will stand in the world of commerce as a merchant false to his word. Among all the people on this earth who hope for better days of righteousness and peace in the future, we will stand, in the light of our multitude of declarations for arbitra- tion and peace, as discredited, dishonored hypocrites; with the fair name of America blackened, with the self-respect of Amer- icans gone, with the influence of America for advance along the pathway of progress and civilization annulled, dishonored and disgraced. [Applause.] No true American can fail to use his voice and his influence upon this question for his country's honor. [Applause.] We need to think about these deeper things, more important than anything we have been discussing in the campaign. For, if we are right fundamentally, we will solve all the questions. The spirit of a people is everything, the decision of a particular question is nothing, if we are honest and honorable. If we are lovers of liberty and justice, if we are willing to do, as a nation, what we feel bound to do as individuals in our communities, then all the questions we have been discussing will be solved right, and for countless generations to come Americans will still be brothers, as they were in the days of old, leading the world toward happier lives and nobler manhood, toward the realiza- tion of the dreams of philosophers and the prophets, for a better and nobler world. [Prolonged applause.] THE CHURCH. HENRY CODMAN POTTER. Address of Reverend Henry Codman Potter, Protestant Episcopal Bishop of New York, at the seventy-third annual dinner of the New England Society in the City of New York, December twenty-third, 1878. Daniel F. Appleton presided and proposed the toast, "The Church a fountain of charity and good works, which is not established, but establishes itself, by God's blessing, in men's hearts." Mr. President: I take up the strain where the distinguished Senator from Maine [James G. Blaine] has dropped it. I would fain be with him one of those who should see the typical New England dinner spread upon a table at which Miles Standish and John Alden sat, and upon which should be spread viands of which John Alden and Miles Standish and the rest, two hun- dred and seventy-three years ago, partook. I would fain see something more or rather I would fain hear something more and that is, the sentiments of those gathered about that table, and the measure in which those sentiments accorded with the sentiments of those who sit at these tables to-night. [Applause.] Why, Mr. President, the viands of which John Alden and Miles Standish partook did not differ more radically from the splendor of this banquet than did the sentiments with which the Puritans came to these shores differ from the sentiments of the men who gather in this room to-night. If it had happened to them as it happened to a distinguished company in New England, where an eminent New England divine was called upon to lead in prayer, their feelings would have been as little wounded as those against whom he offered up his petition; or rather, if I were here to-night to denounce their sentiments as to religious tolera- tion, in which they did not believe; their sentiments as to the separation of the Church from the State, in which they did not believe any more 'than they believed in religious toleration; their sentiments as to Democracy, in which they did not 156 THE CHURCH 157 believe any more than they believed in religious toleration those of us who are here and who do believe in these things would be as little wounded as the company to which I have referred. The distinguished divine to whom I have alluded was called upon to offer prayer, some fifty years ago, in a mixed company, when, in accordance with the custom of the time, he included in his petition to the Almigthy a large measure of anathema, as "We beseech Thee, Lord! to overwhelm the tyrant! We beseech Thee to overwhelm and to pull down the oppressor! We beseech Thee to overwhelm the Papist!" And then opening his eyes, and seeing that a Roman Catholic arch- bishop and his secretary were present, he saw he must change the current of his petitions if he would be courteous to his audience, and said vehemently, "We beseech Thee, Lord! we beseech Thee we beseech Thee we beseech Thee to pull down and overwhelm the Hottentot ! ' ' Said someone to him when the prayer was over, ' ' My dear brother, why were you so hard upon the Hottentots?" "Well," said he, "the fact is, when I opened my eyes and looked around, between the paragraphs in the prayer, at the assembled guests, I found that the Hottentots were the only people who had not some friends among the com- pany." [Laughter.] Gentlemen of the New England Society, if I were to denounce the views of the Puritans to-night, they would be like the Hot- tentots. [Laughter.] Nay more, if one of their number were to come into this banqueting hall and sit down at this splendid feast, so unlike what he had been wont to see, and were to expound his views as to constitutional liberty and as to religious toleration, or as to the relations of the Church to the State, I am very much afraid that you and I would be tempted to answer him as an American answered an English traveler in a railway carriage in Belgium. Said this Englishman, whom I happened to meet in Brussels, and who recognized me as an American citizen: "Your countrymen have a very strange conception of the English tongue; I never heard any people who speak the English language in such an odd way as the Americans do." "What do you mean?" I said, "I supposed that in the American 158 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES States the educated and cultivated people spoke the English tongue with the utmost propriety, with the same accuracy and the same classical refinement as yours." He replied: "I was traveling hither, and found sitting opposite an intelligent gen- tleman, who turned out to be an American. I went on to explain to him my views as to the late unpleasantness in America. I told him how profoundly I deplored the results of the civil war. That I believed the interests of good government would have been better advanced if the South, rather than the North, had triumphed. I showed him at great length how, if the South had succeeded, you would have been able to have laid in that land, first, the foundations of an aristocracy, and then from that would have grown a monarchy; how by the planters you would have got a noble class, and out of that class you would have got a king; and after I had drawn this picture I showed to him what would have been the great and glorious result ; and what do you think was his reply to these views? He turned round, looked me coolly in the face, and said, 'Why what a blundering old cuss you are!' " [Great laughter.] Gentlemen, if one of our New England ancestors were here to-night expound- ing his views to us, I am very much afraid that you and I would be tempted to turn round and say: "Why what a blundering old cuss you are!" [Renewed laughter.] But, Mr. President, though all this is true, the seeds of our liberty, our toleration, our free institutions, our "Church not established by law, but establishing itself in the hearts of men," were all in the simple and single devotion to the truth so far as it was revealed to them, which was the supreme characteristic of our New England forefathers. "With them religion and the Church meant supremely personal religion, and obedience to the personal conscience. It meant truth and righteousness, obedience and purity, reverence and intelligence in the family, in the shop, in the field and on the bench. It meant compassion and charity towards the savages among whom they found them- selves, and good works as the daily outcome of a faith which, if stern, was steadfast and undaunted. And so, Mr. President, however the sentiments and opinions THE CHURCH 159 of our ancestors may seem to have differed from ours, those New England ancestors did believe in a church that included and incarnated those ideas of charity and love and brotherhood to which you have referred; and if, to-day, the Church of New York, whatever name it may bear, is to be maintained, as one of your distinguished guests has said, not for ornament but for use, it is because the hard, practical, and yet, when the occasion demanded, large-minded and open-hearted spirit of the New England ancestors shall be in it. [Applause.] Said an English swell footman, with his calves nearly as large as his waist, having been called upon by the lady of the house to carry a coal-scuttle from the cellar to the second story, "Madam, ham I for use, or ham I for hornament?" [Laughter.] 1 believe it to be the mind of the men of New England ancestry who live in New York to-day, that the Church, if it is to exist here, shall exist for use, and not for ornament; that it shall exist to make our streets cleaner, to make our tenement-houses better built and better drained and better ventilated ; to respect the rights of the poor man in regard to fresh air and light, as well as the rights of the rich man. And in order that it shall do these things, and that the Church of New York shall exist not for ornament but for use, I, as one of the descendants of New England ancestors, ask no better thing for it than that it shall have, not only among those who fill its pulpits, men of New England ancestry, but also among those who sit in its pews men of New England brains and New England sympathies, and New England catholic generosity! [Continued applause.] ETON. LORD ROSEBERT. On October twenty-eight, 1898, there was a great gathering of old Etonians (never slow to celebrate their own good fortune) at the Cafe 1 Monico to say "good-bye" and wish "good luck" to the Earl of Mlnto, Governor-General of Canada, Lord Curzon of Kedleston, Viceroy of India, and the Rev. J. E. C. Welldon, Bishop of Calcutta. Lord Rosebery, as a distinguished old Etonian, was in the chair, and pro- posed the toast of "Our Guests" in the speech which is here printed. Appreciations and Addresses, delivered by Lord Rosebery, edited by Charles Geake. This is, I think, in some respects the most remarkable dinner at which I have had the honor of assisting. So brilliant is the gatherin ; that I would almost seem to require a pair of smoked glasses to contemplate the various dazzling celebrities who owe their various successes to Eton, and who are assembled round this table. And I should be for my part extremely uneasy at my position in the chair were it not that I well understand that, on an occasion like this, the best services a chairman can render is to say as little as possible and to obliterate himself. I remem- ber a story that the late Lord Granville used to tell me for dinners to outgoing Viceroys and Governors had not been hitherto unknown they were habitual. Lord Granville was a guest at a dinner to an outgoing Governor of very indifferent powers of speaking, and as the Governor designated labored through his speech Lord Granville in sheer weariness cast his eye on the notes of the speech that lay before him and saw marked in red ink, copiously underlined, the words, ' ' Here dilate on the cotton trade." I forget the end of the story, but with a man of Lord Granville 's readiness of resource it is not difficulty to surmise that those notes disappeared on the instant and that the orator very soon followed their example. I shall not be guilty to-night, and I trust that the numerous Viceroys who bristle around me 160 ETON 161 and who are announced to speak will not either, of dilating on the cotton trade, and I think that that is a course that will meet with your approbation. But there is another reason that makes it impossible to speak long on this occasion. There is a theory, well known to the Foreign Office, that every ship of war is, wherever it may be found, the territory of the country to which it belongs, and on that hypothesis I hold that this apartment, which bears all the characteristics of a London coffee-room of the most refined and brilliant kind, is after all, Eton territory is Eton; and no one who has had experience of the debates of Parliament, or even of the conversation of Etonians when we were Etonians, will think for a moment otherwise than that brevity is the soul of wit. The words "rot" and "bosh" would have been applied not, perhaps, improperly to any one who exceeded the limits of perhaps three or four minutes. This leads me into a vein of thought which is not without its complications. If this is Eton territory, one at most feels as if the celebration should be essentially Etonian in more ways than one, and I seem to see, through a glass darkly, the vision of our Viceroys and Bishop- designate drinking "long glass" as part of their initiation. On the present occasion there is no "long glass" present, or I am sure that I should receive your support in moving that that ceremony should be undergone. Yet, after all, there are circumstances in this gathering that are not so hilarious. It is pretty clear that we are all of us a long way from Eton, a long way from ' ' bosh, ' ' a long way from "rot," and the other associations that I have endeavored to recall. We are not, indeed, without connection with Eton. We are honored to-night with the presence of the Provost and the Headmaster; but otherwise our associations with Eton are get- ting somewhat dim and distant. They are represented chiefly by the presence of our relations in the first, second and third generation who are privileged to be pupils within its walls, and I am not sure that there is not an intensified feeling of gloom at finding that you have among your juniors at Eton a Viceroy of India and a Bishop of Calcutta going forth in the full 162 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES maturity of their powers to discharge those important functions. But, after all, that is a fate that had to come to all of us at some time or another. We had to draw a lengthening chain, lengthening daily as regards our connection with Eton. We must be prepared to see our successors grow up, and we must it sounds trite to say so be prepared to feel a little older every day. But there is one consolation in getting older as an Etonian that you keep the pride that has always been in you since you went to Eton, the pride of the prowess of your school. I never knew but one Etonian who said he did not like Eton, and he very soon went to the devil. At any rate, whether we are privi- leged to be Viceroys or Bishops, or have to lead a life of greater obscurity, we at any rate may glory in this that we belong to the school that with an everlasting current of eternal flow turns out the Viceroys and the Bishops and the Ministers of the Empire that the Empire requires. The Duke of Wellington said and I am sure you will expect this quotation that in the playing-fields of Eton he did not know how far they were to extend, what deserts they were to encompass the battle of Waterloo was won. But a great deal more than the battle of Waterloo has been won in the playing- fields of Eton, and that somewhat presumptuous list that is printed on the back of our bill of fare calls to mind how in at least two great dependencies of the Empire the Indian Empire and, if I may so call it, the Canadian Empire Eton has played a conspicuous part. What, for example, would Canada have done without Eton, when out of the last six Viceroys all but one are Etonians? And although my friend Lord Aberdeen is an unhappy exception, I do not doubt but if he could have been he would have been an Etonian. Is there not something pathetic to us in our Alma Mater going on turning out the men who govern the Empire almost, as it were, unconsciously? But, although I speak in the presence of the Provost, of the Head- master, of Mr. Durnford, of Mr. Ainger, of Mr. Marindin, and of other great guides of Etonian thought, they will not, I think, dispute the proposition when I say that, however great the learning that Etonians take from Eton may be, the highest and ETON 163 best part of their education is not the education of the brain, but the education of the character. It is character that has made the Empire what it is and the rulers of the Empire what they are. I will not dilate longer on this theme. I wish only to play a slightly conspicuous part on this occasion, and, after all, if we were once to begin to dilate on the merits and the glories of Eton, we should not separate to-night. There is another reason that appeals to me to curtail these remarks. One of our distinguished guests, though he was born and nurtured and trained at Eton, has up to very lately occupied the position of headmaster of an establishment which I perhaps ought not to name on this occasion, but which I am sorry to say is painfully present to our minds about the middle of July. I have no doubt Mr. Welldon's Etonian experience has moulded Harrow into something more like Eton than it used to be. Of course, of that I have no personal experience or knowledge; but this I do know, that, making a great sacrifice, as men call sacrifice, in position and perhaps prestige, giving up one of the most envied of all English positions, he is going out to take the Bishopric of Calcutta under circumstances which must com- mend him to all brother Etonians. He is going to fill the See of Heber, animated, as I believe, by the principles of that noble hymn which Heber wrote, and I firmly believe that one result of his stay in India will be that he will have imparted a new breath of inspiration to Indian Christianity. I next come to my old college contemporary, Lord Minto. To most of us he is better known as Melgund, to some of us as Rowley. Lord Minto 's position raises in my mind a controversy which has never ceased to rage in it since I was thirteen years old. I have never been able to make out which has the greatest share* in the government of this Empire Scotland or Eton. I am quite prepared to give up our fighting powers to Ireland because when we have from Ireland Wolseley and Kitchener and Roberts I am sure that Scotland and Eton cannot compete. But when, as in Lord Minto 's case, Scotland and Eton are com- bined, you have something so irresistible that it hardly is within the powers of human eloquence to describe it. Lord Minto 164 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES comes of a governing family indeed at one time it was thought to be too governing a family. Under former auspices it was felt that the Elliots perhaps bulked too largely in the adminis- tration of the nation. At any rate, whether it was so or not, it was achieved by their merits, and there has been a Viceroy Lord Minto already. There have been innumerable distinguished members of the family in the last century, and there has also been a person, I think, distinguished above all others that Hugh Elliot who defeated Frederick the Great in repartee at the very summit of his reputation, and went through every adventure that a diplomatist can experience. And now Lord Minto goes to Canada. I am quite certain, from his experience, from his character and knowledge, from his popularity, that he is destined to make an abiding mark. Lastly, I take the case of our friend who is going to under- take the highest post of the three, because, after all, it is one of the highest posts that any human being can occupy. He goes to it in the full flower of youth, and of manhood, and of success a combination to which everyone must wish well. Lord Curzon has this additional advantage in his favor that he is reviving a dormant class, the Irish peerage. Some might think that that implied some new legislative or constitutional development on the part of her Majesty's Government, but it would be out of my place to surmise that to be the case. But, at any rate, sure I am of this that Lord Curzon of Kedleston has shown in his position at the Foreign Office qualities of eloquence, of debating power, of argument, which have hardly been surpassed in the career of any man of his standing. I cannot say it would be difficult to say that he has done so in defense of difficult posi- tions, because that would be at once to raise a political issue of the very gravest kind. But I am quite sure that no Under- secretary has ever had to defend in the House of Commons any but positions of difficulty, and I think the foreign situations are always of that character. I am quite sure that when Lord Curzon has had to defend these situations he has defended them with not less than his customary success. He has devoted special study to India. I believe he has even entered into amicable ETON 165 relations with neighboring potentates. He will pass from his home of Kedleston in Derbyshire to the exact reproduction of Kedleston in Government House, Calcutta. We all hope that in his time India may enjoy a prosperity which has of late been denied to her, and that immunity from war and famine and pestilence may be the blessed prerogative of Lord Curzon's Viceroyalty. I have only one word more to say before I sit down, and it is this I think we all must have in our minds, at least some of us must have in our minds, some immortal words on the occasion of this gathering so interesting and even so thrilling. Do you all remember the beginning of the tragedy of "Mac- beth?" The first witch says : "When shall we three meet again, In thunder, lightning, or in rain?" The second witch replies: "When the hurly-burly's done, When the battle's lost and won." Surely these significant words must be present to us to-night. You are sending out three eminent men on three vitally important missions to different parts of the Empire. Two of them, at any rate, go for periods of five years, and we must think even in this moment of triumph and of joy of the period of their return, "When shall we three meet again?" That must be in their minds, too ; but this at least we may be sure of : if we. are here present, or some of us, to greet them on their return when the hurly-burly's done and when the battle is not lost for we exclude that when the battle is won, they will have a tale of stewardship which is nobly undertaken and triumphantly achieved, one which has helped to weld the Empire which we all have it at heart to maintain, one which will redound to their own credit, and which will do if even but a little for there is so much to be added to to add to their glory and the credit of our mother Eton. I propose the health of Lord Minto, Lord Curzon, and the Kev. J. E. C. Welldon. OMAR KHAYYAM. JOHN HAY. This address was delivered at the dinner of the Omar Khayyam Club, London, December eighth, 1897. Mr. Hay was the guest of the Club. I cannot sufficiently thank you for the high and unmerited honor you have done me to-night. I feel keenly that on such an occasion, with such company, my place is below the salt ; but as you kindly invited me, it was not in human nature for me to refuse. Although in knowledge and comprehension of the two great poets whom you are met to commemorate I am the least among you, there is no one who regards them with greater admiration, or reads them with more enjoyment, than myself. I can never forget my emotions when I first saw FitzGerald's translations of the Quatrains. Keats, in his sublime ode on Chapman's Homer, has described the sensation once for all: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken. The exquisite beauty, the faultless form, the singular grace of those amazing stanzas were not more wonderful than the depth and breadth of their profound philosophy, their knowledge of life, their dauntless courage, their serene facing of the ultimate problems of life and of death. Of course the doubt did not spare me, which has assailed many as ignorant as I was of the literature of the East, whether it was the poet or his translator to whom was due this splendid result. Was it, in fact, a repro- duction of an antique song, or a mystification of a great modern, careless of fame and scornful of his time ? Could it be possible that in the eleventh century, so far away as Khorassan, so accom- plished a man of letters lived, with such distinction, such 166 OMAR KHAYYAM 167 breadth, such insight, such calm disillusion, such cheerful and jocund despair? Was this Weltschmerz, which we thought a malady of our day, endemic in Persia in 1100? My doubt only lasted till I came upon a literal translation of the Rubaiyat, and I saw that not the least remarkable quality of FitzGerald's poem was its fidelity to the original. In short, Omar was a FitzGerald before the letter, or FitzGerald was a reincarnation of Omar. It is not to the disadvantage of the later poet that he fol- lowed so closely in the footsteps of the earlier. A man of extraordinary genius had appeared in the world; had sung a song of incomparable beauty and power in an environment no longer worthy of him, in a language of narrow range ; for many generations the song was virtually lost; then by a miracle of creation, a poet, twin-brother in the spirit to the first, was born, who took up the forgotten poem and sang it anew with all its original melody and force, and with all the accumulated refine- ment of ages of art. It seems to me idle to ask which was the greater master; each seems greater than his work. The song is like an instrument of precious workmanship and marvelous tone, which is worthless in common hands, but when it falls, at long intervals, into the hands of the supreme master, it yields a melody of transcendent enchantment to all that have ears to hear. If we look at the sphere of influence of the two poets, there is no longer any comparison. Omar sang to a half-barbarous province; FitzGerald to the world. Wherever the English speech is spoken or read, the Rubaiyat have taken their place as a classic. There is not a hill-post in India, nor a village in England, where there is not a coterie to whom Omar Khayyam is a familiar friend and a bond of union. In America he has an equal following, in many regions and conditions. In the Eastern States his adepts form an esoteric set; the beautiful volume of drawings by Mr. Vedder is a center of delight and suggestion wherever it exists. In the cities of the West you will find the Quatrains one of the most thoroughly read books in every club library. I heard them quoted once in one of the most lonely 168 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES and desolate spots of the high Rockies. We had been camping on the Great Divide, our "roof of the world," where in the space of a few feet you may see two springs, one sending its waters to the Polar solitudes, the other to the eternal Carib summer. One morning at sunrise, as we were breaking camp, I was startled to hear one of our party, a frontiersman born, intoning these words of somber majesty: 'Tis but a tent where takes his one day's rest A Sultfin to the realm of death addrest; The Sultan rises, and the dark Ferrash Strikes and prepares it for another guest. I thought that sublime setting of primeval forest and frown- ing canon was worthy of the lines ; I am sure the dewless, crys- talline air never vibrated to strains of more solemn music. Certainly, our poet can never be numbered among the great popular writers of all time. He has told no story ; he has never unpacked his heart in public; he has never thrown the reins on the neck of the winged horse, and let his imagination carry him where it listed. ' ' Oh ! the crowd must have emphatic war- rant," as Browning sang. Its suffrages are not for the cool, col- lected observer, whose eyes no glitter can dazzle, no mist suffuse. The many cannot but resent that air of lofty intelligence, that pale and subtle smile. But he will hold place forever among that limited number who, like Lucretius and Epicurus, with- out rage or defiance, even without unbecoming mirth, look deep into the tangled mysteries of things; refuse credence to the absurd, and allegiance to arrogant authority; sufficiently con- scious of fallibility to be tolerant of all opinions; with a faith too wide for doctrine and a benevolence untrammeled by creed, too wise to be wholly poets, and yet too surely poets to be implacably wise. THE HASTY PUDDING CLUB. JOSEPH H. CHOATE. In the preface to his "American Addresses," published by The Century Company, Mr. Choate says, "The celebration of the centennial of the Hasty Pudding Club was another interesting occasion at Har- vard, where, since the days of its most distinguished founder, Horace Binney, it has been the centre of undergraduate fun and recreation. I am not sure but that some of its members have derived as much benefit from its associations as from the more serious curriculum of the University, and am certain they cherish a livelier recollection of them. At all events, the centennial of the Club was deemed a suit- able occasion for the choicest spirits to come together, and make good its renowned motto of 'concordia discors,' and when I was called upon to lead their revels, I was by no means reluctant to do so." The time of the Club's centennial was November twenty-fourth, 1895. Brethren: We have come together to celebrate the founda- tion of the Hasty Pudding Club, a signal event in the history of Harvard, for it has certainly done a vast deal to mitigate the austerities of college life, and to alleviate its "most distress- ing occurrences" perhaps as much as all its other institutions combined. We call it our centennial, but the mists of tradition have thrown a halo of uncertainty about the origin of the Club which probably can never be quite cleared up. If we can recall the words of Theodore Lyman's Pudding Song (and you will per- mit me to adopt it as part of my address to-night), its first con- ception was in the good Old Colony days soon after the landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock, and Miles Standish himself took part in its foundation in company with a famous Indian warrior. Some words in the song are a little archaic, but you will like it none the less for that. This song had a great cur- rency in the Club in the old days, although it seems since to have fallen into "innocuous desuetude," but I am sure that it will set the keynote for this august occasion, if we all join in 169 170 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES singing it under the lead of Lyman's classmate, Reed, who knows its history well. Long since, when our forefathers landed On barren rock bleak and forlorn They left their little boat stranded, To search through the wild woods for corn. Soon some hillocks of earth met their gaze, Like altars of mystical spell; But within finding Indian maize, Amazement on all of them fell. Quoth Standish: "Right hard have we toiled, A dinner we'll have before long; A pudding shall quickly be boiled By help of the Lord and the corn." At that moment the warwhoop resounded O'er mountain and valley and glen, And a Choctaw chief savagely bounded To slaughter those corn-stealing men. "Ha! vile Pagan!" the Captain quoth he, " 'Tis true that we've taken a horn, But though corned we all of us be, We ne'er will acknowledge the corn." Then with a wooden spoon held in his hand, He seized his red foe by the nose, And with pudding his belly he crammed In spite of his struggles and throes. The victor triumphantly grasped The hair of his foe closely shorn, While the savage he struggled and gasped, O'erpowered by heat and by corn. "Be converted!" the good Standish said, Or surely by fire you will die, Though on boiled thus far you have fed, We quickly will give you a fry." Then straight was the savage baptized, In pudding all smoking and warm, While the Parson he him catechized Concerning the cooking of corn. THE HASTY PUDDING CLUB 171 Then the Puritans chanted a psalm With a chorus of, "Hey-rub-a-dub," And amid gentle music's soft charm They founded the great Pudding Club. And now that in this delightful harmony we all have mel- lowed together, from Dr. Wyman of the class of 1833, whom we joyfully greet here to-night as the patriarch of us all, to the latest neophyte of 1897, we can take our stand on the solid groundwork of history and locate the actual organization of the Club in 1795 by Horace Binney, of Philadelphia, and Judge White, of Salem, who shared with him the first honors of the class of 1797, and Dr. John Collins Warren of the same class, all three of whom afterwards became very eminent citizens of the United States. These men certainly in their youth thus ren- dered a great service to the college for their own day, and for all coming time, by the promotion of sociability and by advanc- ing good fellowship among the members of the Club. From that day to this, the Club has been true to its original motto of "Concordia discors," and has well maintained the standard of innocent and reasonable recreation amid the serious duties of life. The only wonder is that the students of a college in which the curriculum included Horace had not learned long before how "dulce est desipere in loco." That is exactly what we have been doing in the last hundred years, and we mean to go on doing it forever. Now, brethren, a word of explanation. When I came here this evening I found that no arrangement had been made as to who should sit at the central table, and I took the liberty of inviting these venerable men who sit around me, following the old rule of the college that the members should enter the banquet hall and take rank according to the years of their respective classes, much as Lowell laid down in his essay, that those should have the best chance to eat the dinner who had the poorest teeth to eat it with, and the poorest ears to hear the speeches. My first duty is to tell you how deeply sensible I am of the honor that you have conferred upon me in asking roe to preside over your deliberations this evening. It is an honor that can 172 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES come only once in a hundred years. It came in a most opportune time for me, as testifying to the respect that the rising generation entertain for those of us who are passing beyond them in the march of years, for I had just read in a New York newspaper that some of the younger legal lights had spoken of Mr. Carter and Mr. Choate as "moss-grown old fogies" who must soon yield their places to the younger members of the bar. It is not the first time that I had a difficult honor thrust upon me by the Pudding. In 1851 I was classed among its lyric poets, and then, like Horace, I struck the stars with my head sublime. But the stars were not damaged. I had a big head for a few days or more, but nothing came of it. That was my first and last poetic utterance. Doubtless the grim discipline of the Puritans held on too long at Harvard. But even in the grimmest of Puritan days we might have borrowed the chaste language of Milton, who invented the most excellent motto for the cardinal principle of the Club : "Mirth, admit me of thy crew, To live with her and live with thee, In unreproved pleasures free." Or what will you say to the words of our American bard, Joel Barlow, who, as tradition tells, first suggested the rich inspira- tion of Hasty Pudding: "I sing the joys I know, the charms I feel, My morning incense and my evening meal; The sweets of hasty pudding. Come, dear bowl, glide o'er my palate and inspire my soul. Never was there an association of men who had so good a right to celebrate their centennial as this Club. A century looks down into the pot and finds it bubbling and singing and gurgling with the same jovial note that it had when Horace Binney ladled it out to feed the men of 1795. It was not their hungry palates, but their hungry souls that were aspiring for food. How busy our College had been in the process of gestation before the time we celebrate to-night THE HASTY PUDDING CLUB 173 in breeding heroes for the State in the coming days that were to try men's souls! You all remember how Harvard suffered, when those deadly days of peril came. There were men present at the foundation of the Club whose fathers had seen the college buildings converted into barracks for the colonial soldiers. There were buxom matrons, who, as maidens, had seen the hand- some Virginia General flourish his sword under the shadow of the old elm as he took command of the New England troops, or, as Lowell put it, always putting the right word in the right place, "He had come to wield our homespun Saxon chivalry." But better days had come. Those days of want and famine and pestilence had passed away. Those trying days of hardship after the war, almost perilous as the war itself, had been strug- gled through. Washington was President, and Jay's treaty, which caused so much strife and commotion, had just been ratified by the Senate. It was a time of far brighter days; it was the dawn of a new era for America, the time of a new departure. I am always accused, at Harvard dinners in New York, of speaking by the catalogue. "Well, let the names upon the Pud- ding catalogue of this century tell their own story; let us see if, by the mingling of play with work, anybody has suffered. Let us see whether, by making out of duty itself the merriest play, we have failed in any instance. What say you to this? Did Channing and Buckminster and James Walker and Phillips Brooks, lead their followers into the verdant pastures with less of divinity itself, because they had disported themselves in former years in the Club? Did our historians, Bancroft and Prescott and the recently lamented Parkman contribute any less delightful lessons to their countrymen because they had gathered around the crackling fire of the Pudding? Did our orators, such men as Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner and Robert C. Winthrop, speak with less inspiration because, in their boyhood days they had indulged in the ribald laugh and tried their first eloquence before their brethren of the Pudding? Were the lips of our two great poets, Holmes and Lowell, touched with less divine a fire because they had lisped their first numbers 174 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES to their brethren of the Club, in whose records they stand imperishably recorded? Now I am not inclined to claim for the Hasty Pudding Club all the success that has come to Harvard College. But when I see its history outlined as we have it to-night, when we see the cream of the college in successive generations enrolled in its ranks, and participating in all great deeds, all great services, all great triumphs for the public good, it behooves us to keep this Club pure and sweet and good as it always has been, and one of the great influences for education and truth and good morals at Harvard for all time. NOBLESSE OBLIGE. GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. George William Curtis, at the Harvard Alumni dinner in Cam- bridge, June twenty-ninth, 1881, responded to this toast. At this time he received the honorary degree of LL.D. from Harvard. Mr. President and Gentlemen: In the old Italian story the nobleman turns out of the hot street crowded with eager faces into the coolness and silence of his palace. As he looks at the pictures of the long line of ancestors, he hears a voice, or is it his own heart beating? which says to him, noblesse oblige. The youngest scion of the oldest house is pledged by all the virtues and honor of his ancestry to a life not unworthy his lineage. Mr. President, when I came here I was not a noble- man, but to-day I have been ennobled. The youngest doctor of the oldest school, I, too, say with the Italian, noblesse oblige. For your favor is not approval only; it is admonition. It says not alone, "Well done," but "Come up higher." I am pledged by all the honorable traditions of the noble family into which I am this day adopted and of which this spacious and stately temple is the memorial. Christo et Ecclesice. That is your motto. And yet, as I look around this hall upon the portraits of your ancestry, as I think of the eminent men, your children ; and above all when I read in yonder corridor, rank upon rank, in immortal lines, the names of the heroic youth, Integer vita scelerisque puris, these cold stones burn and glow; and as I think of our great legend, "Fair play for all men," imperish- able because written in their hearts' blood, I feel that to your motto one word might well be added, Christo et Ecclesia et Civitati To Christ, to the Church, to the Commonwealth. [Applause.] A complete and thorough education, Milton tells us, is that which fits a man for the performance of all public and private 175 176 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES duties in peace and in war. That, sir, is the praise of this col- lege. For as the history of religious liberty in America shows what Harvard College has done for the Church, not less do the annals of the continent attest what it has done for the State. There was never a good word to be spoken, nor a strong blow to be struck, nor a young life to be sacrificed for political or civil liberty, that Harvard College in the person of her children was not there. [Loud applause.] That is the lesson which I read in your pages to-day. From your Samuel Adams in Faneull Hall, your James Otis in the courts of law, your Joseph Warren upon Bunker Hill, through all the resplendent succes- sion down to your Charles Sumner in the forum, your Reveres, your Shaw, and the shining host of their brethren in the field, attest the glory of Harvard in the persons of her children. "The applause of listening senates to command, The threats of pain and ruin to despise; To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land And read their history in a nation's eyes." And, sir, I say this the more gladly that I am here officially, the representative of another university. The University of the State of New York is composed of all the chartered col- legiate institutions of that great commonwealth, and as a regent of that university I offer the right hand of fellowship to Har- vard College of all the colleges of the Empire State. [Applause.] "We delight to believe, gentlemen, in the State of New York, that at least the origin of our public school system is one with yours. Religious heroism founded New England; commercial enterprise settled New York. But the Pilgrims brought to Plymouth and the Dutch traders brought to the island of Man- hattan the schoolmaster, the birch the birch, Mr. Chairman, which your tingling memory, I am sure, records as being so much better in its bark than in its bite. [Laughter.] The birch of the first schoolmaster on the shores of the Hudson was cut from the same tree with that of your Master Cheever and your Master Moody on the shores of Essex, training Yankee boys for Harvard College. [Laughter and applause.] And although. NOBLESSE OBLIGE 177 sir, with the magnanimity of New York, we freely admit that twenty years before there was a Latin school in that city New England already had this college, and although as late, I think, as 1658, the nearest place to which a young Dutchman could be sent for training in the Latin language was the town of Boston ; yet we remember, also, that if New York lagged a little in her Latin she was stoutly the defender of the English tongue ; and it is among our proudest traditions in that State that New York first maintained the freedom of the English press upon the continent against European power. [Applause.] And yet, sir, to make my story quite complete, and to adhere strictly to the truth of history, I am obliged to add that the royal governor bitterly complained that those who asserted the freedom of speech in New York were tainted with Boston principles. [Laughter and applause.] Yet, gentlemen, I assure you that we have our extreme con- solation. Our earliest annals in the State of New York inform us that one sachem of the five nations of New York was in the habit of driving a whole tribe of New England Indians before him [laughter] ; and it is even recorded, despite the observations and implications of his excellency the Governor, that one New York sachem had been known to be reverenced throughout Massachusetts Bay. [Laughter.] I am afraid, sir, that the bay has lost all of its reverence for the New York sachem [loud laughter] ; and happily for us, sir, as your President knows, the most ferocious of our native tribes in the City of New York, the tribe of Tammany, now confines itself to internecine war. [Laughter.] And yet, when I look upon the President who fills this chair to-day ; when I think of that other gentleman who will fill the chair at the Phi Beta Kappa dinner to-morrow ; when I look here and there upon those gorgeous feathers and that war paint which has gathered to these council fires from beyond the Connecticut, I cannot but feel that the New York braves are here to-day in some force. [Laughter and applause.] And when I recall that event to which our President has alluded, that foray of the New York sachems upon the New England tribe known as the Overseers, and how they returned to their 178 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES city dancing if you will permit me the expression jigs of joy and brandishing their Harvard club in triumph [laughter], I cannot help feeling that history is reproducing itself, and that we have seen the New York sachems in most civilized war- fare, not wielding the scalping-knife, but simply brandishing the bellows [laughter and applause], and blowing their enemy away. [Applause.] And even this day, sir, as our tribes upon the shore of the Hudson look across to Massachusetts, it is no longer, as I have said, with the scalping-knife in their hands; but they shake their heads sorrowfully, even in Tammany hall, and as they see you, they repeat unconsciously the sentiment of the English statesman, "That damned morality is sure to be the ruin of everything." [Loud laughter and applause.] When the first deputation came from the New Netherlands to the new Plymouth, the historian tells us it was like the meet- ing of friends and comrades. We are assisting here and now at the last meeting of these two colonies, and your smiling presence attests that it is still a meeting of friends and comrades. If our Cornell sometimes modestly excels with the oar [laughter] ; if our Columbia, not in some unknown New London of a New England, but in the neighborhood of old London in old England, teaches the crews of English colleges a boating skill like the Thames upon which it was displayed "strong without rage, without o'erflowing full;" if our Knickerbocker bat and ball are sometimes wreathed with the laurels of friendly victory ; yet, sir, in all the collegiate institutions, not in New York alone, but throughout the country, as I am sure the gentleman on my right, President Oilman, will attest, there is no grudging of any honor- able precedence to this venerable mother, the Alma Mater of colleges as well as the nourishing parent of sound learning in America. [Applause.] And here, gentlemen, if anywhere in the country, and to-day if on any day in the year, is proven the faith of one of our most distinguished sons, spoken forty years ago on one commencement day. "Neither years nor books have availed to extirpate the prejudice then rooted in me that the scholar is the favorite of heaven and earth, the excellency of his country, the prince of NOBLESSE OBLIGE 179 men." His own life has amply vindicated his words. Like a strain of commanding music, it has won the hearts of his coun- trymen gladly to acknowledge the value, the dignity, the immortal power of the scholar, in Ralph Waldo Emerson. [Loud applause.] Led by the great examples, by the inspiring associations, by the elevated consecration of this university, shall not every commencement day send us forth such reinvigor- ated resolution to live worthily of this mother, that every man we meet, even the New York sachem, shall wish they were sons of Harvard? [Loud applause.] THE COLONIES. ALBERT EDWARD, PRINCE OP WALES. At the banquet given at Mansion House, London, July sixteenth, 1881, by the Lord Mayor of London, Sir William McArthur, to the Prince of Wales, as President of the Colonial Institute, and to many governors, premiers and administrators representing the colonies, the Prince, later crowned King of England as Edward VII, responded to the toast proposed by the Lord Mayor, "The health of the Prince of Wales, the Princess of Wales, and the other members of the Royal Family." My Lord Mayor, Your Majesty, My Lords, and Gentlemen: For the kind and remarkably flattering way in which you, my Lord Mayor, have been good enough to propose this toast, and you, my lords and gentlemen, for the kind and hearty way in which you have received it, I beg to offer you my most sincere thanks. It is a peculiar pleasure to me to come to the city, because I have the honor of being one of its freemen. But this is, indeed, a very special dinner, one of a kind that I do not suppose has ever been given before; for we have here this evening representatives of probably every Coloney in the Empire. We have not only the Secretary of the Colonies, but Governors past and present, ministers, administrators, and agents, are all, I think, to be found here this evening. I regret that it has not been possible for me to see half or one-third of the Colonies which it has been the good fortune of my brother, the Duke of Edinburgh, to visit. In his voyage round the world he has had opportunities more than once of seeing all our great Colonies. Though I have not been able to see them, or have seen only a small portion of them, you may rest assured it does not diminish in any way the interest I take in them. It is, I am sorry to say, now going on twenty-one years since I visited our large North American Colonies. Still, though I was very young at the time, the remembrance of that visit is 180 THE COLONIES 181 as deeply imprinted upon my memory now as it was at that time. I shall never forget the public receptions which were accorded to me in Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island, and if it were possible for me at any time to repeat that visit, I need not tell you gentlemen, who now represent here those great North American Colonies, of the great pleasure it would give me to do so. It affords me great gratifi- cation to see an old friend, Sir John Macdonald, the Premier of Canada, here this evening. It was a most pressing invitation, certainly, that I received two years ago to visit the great Australasian Colonies, and though at the time I was unable to give an answer in the affirma- tive or in the negative, still it soon became apparent that my many duties here in England, would prevent what would have been a long, though a most interesting voyage. I regret that such has been the case, and that I was not able to accept the kind invitation I received to visit the exhibitions at Sydney and at Melbourne. I am glad, however, to know that they have proved a great success, as has been testified to me only this evening by the noble Duke [Manchester] by my side, who has so lately returned. Though, my lords and gentlemen, I have, as I said before, not had the opportunity of seeing these great Australasian Colonies, which every day and every year are making such immense development, still, at the International Exhibitions of London, Paris and Vienna, I had not only an opportunity of seeing their various products there exhibited, but I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of many colonists a fact which has been a matter of great importance ad great benefit to myself. It is now thirty years since the first International Exhibition took place in London, and then for the first time Colonial exhibits were shown to the world. Since that time, from the exhibitions which have followed our first great gathering in 1851, the improvements that have been made are manifest. That in itself is a clear proof of the way in which the Colonies have been exerting themselves to make their vast territories of the great importance that they are at the present moment. But 182 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES though, my Lord Mayor, I have not been to Australasia, as you have mentioned, I have sent my two sons on a visit there ; and it has been a matter of great gratification, not only to myself, but to the Queen, to hear of the kindly reception they have met with everywhere. They are but young, but I feel confident that their visit to the Antipodes will do them an incalculable amount of good. On their way out they visited a colony in which, unfortu- nately, the conditions of affairs was not quite as satisfactory as we could wish, and as a consequence they did not extend their visits in that part of South Africa quite so far inland as might otherwise have been the case. I must thank you once more, my Lord Mayor, for the kind way in which you have proposed this toast. I thank you in the name of the Princess and the other members of the Royal Family, for the kind reception their names have met with from all here to-night, and I beg again to assure you most cordially and heartily of the great pleasure it has given me to be present here among so many distinguished Colonists and gentlemen con- nected with the Colonies, and to have had an opportunity of meeting your distinguished guest, the King of the Sandwich Islands. If your lordship's visit to his dominions remains impressed on your mind, I think your lordship's kindly recep- tion of his Majesty here to-night is not likely soon to be for- gotten by him. TO THE STUDENTS' CORPS AND THE UNIVERSITY OF BONN. EMPEROR WILLIAM, OF GERMANY. In the fall of 1877, Prince William, then eighteen years of age,, began a two years' course of study at Bonn University, which is "the intellectual nursery of hereditary monarchism," the conservator of the approved political principles of the Empire. To Bonn come the young princes and others of the high born classes for their education and for more thorough grounding in loyalty to their station, to the royal house, and to the Empire. In college the prince was a member of the Borussia Korps, an association largely made up of representa- tives of the highest classes, and as Emperor he still attends the annual festivities of the old Bonn Borussians residing in Berlin. On the occasion of the festival held in 1887 in commemoration of the founding of the Borussia Korps, he personally visited Bonn as an alter Herr, or alumnus, and took part in the celebration. It is recalled of him that, as a young man, he was an enthusiastic Korpsbruder. That he associated frequently with the fellows of the Borussia (which corre- sponds in a way to our American college fraternities) and that he attended their Kommers, elaborate drinking bouts, accompanied in the German fashion by singing, where he won the approval of his companions by showing more than average capacity for drinking the favorite German beverage and other spirituous refreshments. At the sixtieth anniversary of the Borussia mentioned, in answer to a toast In honor of the Hohenzollern dynasty, the Prince rose and thanked those present for their fidelity to the monarchic principle, pointed out that the colors of the Borussia, black-white-black, were also those of Prussia and the Hohenzollerns, and remarked that while foreigners had said these colors were scarcely gay enough, they corresponded with the history of Prussia and his house, which recorded many trials and vicissitudes. The Iron Cross, he said, in its severe plainness, was a most fitting symbol of these struggles, which had lasted through cen- turies. The colors were a spur to young Borussians to emulate their forbears in the strict fulfillment of duty. Three years after his accession, the Emperor was visiting at Bonn in May and took part in the initial Kommers of the summer term, making the following speech. It may be regarded that a Kommers (from the Latin, meaning "intercourse") is always given at the begin- 183 184 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES ning and end of each term in honor of the Fuchskommers (freshmen) and of those "going down" the Abschiedskommers. I beg to offer the last speaker and the entire Bonn Seniors' Convent [an association of all the students' korps] assembled here my thanks for the cordial welcome you have given me. I especially thank the Seniors' Convent and all the students of Bonn for the beautiful torchlight procession which they arranged for last night in my honor. I rejoice at the good feeling mani- fested among the students by the arrangements, which were so tactfully and so courteously conducted by the Seniors' Convent. I trust that these good relations will long endure and that this harmonious feeling may be a model for the relations existing in the Seniors' Convent and the general body of the students in all other German universities. I agree entirely with the remarks of the previous speaker concerning the importance of korps life and its educational significance in the subsequent life of the student. I recognize in the korps the sentiments of the Bonn Seniors' Convent, the familiar, the well-tried, the old sentiments still subsisting in your hearts, and I see that you still continue to bear in mind the significance, the aims and the objects of the German stu- dents' korps. It is my firm conviction that every young man who joins a students' korps will receive the true direction of his life from the spirit which prevails in it. It is the best education which a young man can get for his future life. And he who scoffs at the students' korps does not understand their real meaning. I hope that as long as there are German korps students, the spirit that is fostered in their korps, and by which their strength and courage are steeled, will be preserved, and that you will always take delight in handling the duelling blade. Our students' duels (mensuren) are often misunderstood by the public at large. But that must not concern us. You and I who have been korps students know better. Just as in the Middle Ages jousts and tournaments served to steel men's cour- age and physical strength, so the spirit and customs of our korps serve to supply us with that degree of fortitude which is needed TO THE STUDENTS' CORPS AND BONN 185 when we go into the world and which German universities will furnish as long as they exist. You have been good enough to refer to my son to-day, for which I especially thank you. I hope the young man will also in time be introduced in the Sen- iors' Convent of this university and that he will then meet with the same friendly sentiments that were extended to me. Ten years after the preceding address, the Emperor, at the Kom/mers held in honor of the Crown Prince, when the Emperor's wish expressed in the preceding address was fulfilled, replied to an address made to him by a student: My dear young commilitones, there was no need for you to devote any special consideration or lay any special stress on the feelings which thrill through my heart when I find myself once more in dear Bonn among the students. Before my mind's eye rises a glorious, bright picture, full of sunshine and happy contentment, which in those days filled every moment of my existence. Joy in life, joy in people, old as well as young, and above all joy in the young German Empire, even then growing in strength. The wish, then, that above all fills me at the present moment, when I am sending my dear son in turn to take his place in your midst, is that a student life equally happy as that which I enjoyed may be in store for him. And how, indeed, could it well be otherwise? Why, Bonn, beautiful Bonn, is so accustomed to the hustle and stir of youth in the heyday of life, and seems as though created by nature for this very purpose. * * * Bonn lies on the Rhine, the river where grow our vines, the name of which is endeared to us by our legends, the river where every castle, every town, speaks to us of our past. Father Rhine shall cast his spell and exert his influence also over the Crown Prince. And when the merry winecup circles and a cheerful song resounds, your spirit, filled with the glad moment, shall rejoice and rise in exaltation as befits high-spirited German youths. Yet let the spring from which you quaff your draught of joy be clean and pure as the golden juice of the vine, let it be deep and lasting as Father Rhine. (The Emperor then dwelt on German history and politi- 186 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES cal subjects. Referring to Boniface and Walter von der Vogel- weide, to Goethe and Schiller, he said:) They exerted a uni- verse influence and yet were Germans in a limited sense. They were personalities, men. We need such men now more than ever. May you strive to become such yourselves. But how can this be possible? Who will help to attain thereto? One and One alone, whose Name we all bear, who has borne and purged away our sins, who lived before us, and worked as we work, our Lord and Savior; may He implant moral earnestness in your hearts, that your motives may ever be pure and your aims ever noble. Love of father and mother, love of home and country, are founded on love for Him. Then will you be secure against allurements and temptations of every kind, above all, against vanity and envy, and be able to sing and say, "We Germans fear God, and naught else in the world." Then shall we take our place in the world, firmly established and pursuing our civilizing mission, and I shall close my eyes in peace if only I see such a generation springing up to gather round my son. Then Germany, Germany above everything ! In this confident expectation I call "Prosperity to the University of Bonn I" HANDS ACROSS THE SEA, THE NOBLE ART OF PRINTING, AND OTHERS. GEORGE, PRINCE OP WALES. The present King George of England, as Prince of Wales, was a favorite after-dinner speaker on the many occasions expected to be graced by the presence of royalty. The first address, Hands Across the Sea, was delivered at the annual dinner of the Royal Colonial Institute, May fourth, 1908. The Noble Art of Printing was deliv- ered at the eighty-second anniversary festival of the Printers' Pen- sion, Almshouse, and Orphan Asylum Corporation on May twenty- first, 1909. India for Artists was delivered at the Royal Academy banquet on May fourth, 1907. The National Rifle Association was delivered at a dinner of that association July eighth, 1909. Though not an after-dinner address, it may be of interest to lawyers to note King George's reply to the address of the Benchers of Gray's Inn, June twenty-ninth, 1901, on their Majesties' visit to the city after the Coronation. "This Ancient Society," said the King, "has for centuries occupied an honorable place among the Inns of Court. The training of those who devote their lives to the study and practice of the law is a function of primary importance in a civilized State. That great structure of reason and experience to which each genera- tion makes its contribution, and which has been building since the remotest antiquity, has in our age reached a form and refinement worthy of the respect of all nations. "But no system of jurisprudence, however modern, however elab- orate, can secure justice unless it is conducted by men of simple integrity and honor. The personal character of individuals, the ob- servance of a strict professional standard, are the necessary allies of good laws and careful judgments. Your duty has been to safeguard and renew the honorable traditions of the Bar. The Courts of Jus- tice, those who resort to them, and the public in general owe much to the Inns of Court and to their Benchers for the vigilance with which they maintain the reputation of the Bar in this country for fearless integrity and instructed good feeling. These are above the value of the highest gifts of forensic eloquence, and not less necessary than learning itself. "We thank you heartily for your warm expressions of devotion and affection to our Throne and persons. You may be assured of our cor- dial good wishes for the prosperity of your Society, which has had 187 188 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES in the past the favor of our predecessors, and to-day includes two members of our family on its Bench." HANDS ACROSS THE SEA. As president of the Royal Colonial Institute, to which office I had the honor of being appointed on the resignation of the King after his Majesty's accession, it is most gratifying to find myself supported here to-night by so many distinguished per- sons, some of whom I had the pleasure of meeting in different parts of the world. For I see around me citizens of our over- seas Dominions; some who now occupy, or have occupied the highest positions in the colonial service. And we welcome with pleasure to-night a future Governor-General of the Common- wealth of Australia my old friend Lord Dudley. He takes with him our heartiest good wishes on his appointment to that high and responsible post, in which he succeeds Lord Northcote, whose departure from Australia is, I am well aware, most deeply regretted by its people. With our thoughts for the moment on the Commonwealth, I cannot refrain, even at the risk of striking a note of sadness, from alluding to him who was chosen as the first Governor-General of federated Australia, Lord Linlithgow, whose loss we, who knew and loved him so keenly, deplore. During the time that has elapsed since I first went to sea, in 1879, I have been able to visit almost every part of our Empire. I am deeply sensible of my good fortune; and, without boast, I may claim that probably no one in this room has landed on so many different portions of British soil as I have. Under the circumstances it would be strange, indeed, if I had not acquired some of that knowledge of Greater Britain with which Mr. Price so kindly credits me; still more if I did not take a deep and continuing interest in the progress and welfare of these Dominions beyond the seas. And there is, moreover, the lasting impression of the loyal, affectionate welcome, the gen- erous hospitality, which, whether to my dear brother and me as boys, or to the Princess and myself in later days, was univer- sally extended to us. Nor shall we ever forget the many kind HANDS ACROSS THE SEA 189 friends made during those happy and memorable experiences. This summer I shall again cross the Atlantic in order to rep- resent the King at the celebrations of the first colonization of Canada by Champlain three hundred years ago. Such experiences have, of course, only afforded glimpses and impressions, but sufficient to gain at all events a slight acquaintance with these countries, with their peoples and insti- tutions. They have enabled me to form some idea of our Empire, to realize its vastness, its resources, its latent strength. They have brought home to me the fact, so well expressed in a recent article in one of our reviews, that "to-day, by England, we do not mean these islands in the Western Sea, but an Eng- land which is spread over the whole surface of the world." I have ventured to introduce a toast which has not been hitherto proposed at these annual gatherings; it is the toast of "The British Dominions Beyond the Seas." It does not seem to be out of place when we consider that one of the first objects of this Institute is to develop the true spirit of Empire, and to strengthen those links of kinship which will bind forever the vast and varied portions of the oversea Dominions with the Mother Country. Events move so quickly that we are apt to forget how much has been achieved in this direction. Modern Science has done wonders in making time and distance vanish. It is astounding to realize what has been accomplished in secur- ing quick, constant, and continuous communication between the different provinces of the Empire since, say, the accession of Queen Victoria. At that time there was only one small railway in the colonies, and that was in Canada. The first steamer from England to Australia did not run till 1852 ; it is only fifty years ago that the first submarine cable was laid between Great Britain and America ; telegraphic communication was only estab- lished with Australia in 1872, with New Zealand in 1876, and South Africa in 1879. But in this short space of time how marvelous has been the progress! We have seen how the Canadian Pacific Railway has helped to make a nation, how railways have transformed South Africa and spanned the Zambesi at the Victoria Falls. To-day, thanks to railway 190 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES development, we are opening up fresh and important cotton- growing areas in Nigeria and elsewhere. Mr. Price has told us of the great scheme of the Murray navigation, with its enormous possibilities. We also hear rumors of the promotion of similar enterprises in other parts of the world. Electricity now carries in a few minutes messages between every portion of the Empire, and even keeps us in touch with our fleets, and with those power- ful steamers which have brought us within a few days of the great continent of America, But, though we have been successful in many ways, we must not lose sight of our common interests, aims, and objects, in the fulfillment of which there must be mutual efforts, mutual self- sacrifice. Does such co-operation as we would desire really and fully exist? Undoubtedly there has been a great improvement in this direction. We earnestly hope that progress may be made in thoroughly grappling with imperial defense, and in strength- ening military organization in time of peace no less than in war. I also commend to your consideration the importance of reci- procity in educational matters. As Chancellor of the University of the Cape of Good Hope, I trust that the old Universities of these islands will always maintain sympathetic relations with those of younger portions of the Empire. We know what has been done through the Rhodes Scholarships. Oxford four years ago chose for her Regius Professor of Medicine Dr. Osier, one of Canada's most distinguished sons; while Professor Bovey, though born in England, has been brought from McGill Uni- versity to be Rector of the important Imperial College of Science and Technology now being established at Kensington. A new means of intercourse and interchange of thought between the members of the Anglican Church throughout the Empire has been initiated in the coming Pan- Anglican Congress, which assembles in London next month; and I believe that every preparation is being made to give to its members a hearty wel- come throughout the country. Is there not much to be accom- plished by strengthening these social relations; by the Mother Country making it clear to her children that they are always certain of finding here a home, not in name only, but in reality, NOBLE ART OF PRINTING 191 and the same warm-hearted hospitality as is always extended to us in every portion of the globe where the British flag flies? I have endeavored to touch lightly on the vital necessity for reciprocal action between those at home and our brethren beyond the seas. We must foster now and always the strongest feel- ings of mutual confidence and respect. By methods of educa- tion, by unity of action in everything that leads towards the noblest ideals of civilization, by utilizing the great powers of science, and by means of defense by sea and land, we must strive to maintain all that we esteem most dear. If we hold hands across the sea, we shall preserve for future generations a noble heritage, founded upon the highest patriotism, and knit together by the ties of race and of mutual sympathy and regard. THE NOBLE AET OF PRINTING. I am sure that the Queen and the Princess of Wales indeed, all the members of our Family are ever ready to identify themselves with and support the charitable undertakings which, as the Duke of Maryborough has truly said, are an essential fea- ture of our public life. He has been good enough to allude to the visit which the Princess and I made to the establishment of the King's printers and to the offices of the "Daily Tele- graph." It was most interesting to have this glimpse into the great printing world, where we were astonished at the wonder- ful mechanical appliances, both in the work of the compositor, in the stereotyping, and in the actual printing machinery; and it was a pleasure to see the favorable conditions and surround- ings in which this work was carried out. As to myself, the Duke was far too flattering in his allusions to whatever I have been able to do in the discharge of my many public duties. I can only assure you how happy I am to be associated with you all in helping a charity on behalf of those from whose labors we derive some of the most precious blessings of life. In pro- posing this toast, I recall the names of those to whom this duty has been entrusted in the past. The King presided at your dinner in 1895. Lord John Russell did so at the first festival in 1828, and among his many distinguished successors were Mr. 192 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES Disraeli, Mr. Gladstone, Charles Dickens, Tom Taylor, Dean Stanley, and my late uncle, the Duke of Cambridge. Those came to plead the cause of this great charity and is it not one which has claims upon us ? The printer is the invisible friend of all who have written, all who have read. The print- ing press is the source of the life-blood of the civilized world. Stop its pulsations, and collapse, social, commercial, and politi- cal, must inevitably follow. The noble art of printing has been the generous giver of knowledge, religious, scientific, and artis- tic. It has been the instrument of truth, liberty, and freedom ; and it has added to life comfort, recreation, and refinement. And yet how comparatively recently in the world's history did mankind become possessed of this priceless gift! In 1637, we are told, the Star Chamber limited the number of printers in England to twenty. Fifty years later, except in London and at the two Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, there was scarcely a printer in the kingdom. The only printing press north of the Trent was at York. In 1724, there were thirty-four counties, including Lancashire, in which there were no printers. In 1901, the last Census showed that in England and Wales there were over one hundred and seven thousand men and nearly eleven thousand women employed in printing and lithographic trades. Until the License Act was abolished in 1695, there was only one newspaper in these islands, the "London Gazette." Its total circulation was eight thousand copies, much less than one to each parish in the kingdom ; and no political intelligence was allowed to be published without the King's license. Since 1760, the "London Gazette" has been printed by the house of Harrison ; and the head of that firm the fourth direct descend- ant, is present here to-night. To-day there are some thirteen hundred daily, weekly, and monthly publications in London alone. In 1771 the House of Commons issued a proclamation forbidding the publication of debates, and those printers who defied it were summoned to the Bar of the House. To-day "The Times" supplies us with almost a verbatim report of Parliamentary debates by five o'clock the next morning. In 1852, we are told in the life of Delane, the daily issue of "The NOBLE ART OF PRINTING 193 Times" was forty thousand, the "Morning Advertiser" seven thousand, and the remaining principal London papers an aver- age slightly over three thousand each. To-day the machines of many of the London morning papers turn out upwards of twenty thousand copies per hour, so that within a period of a little more than half a century the circulation of the London Daily Press has increased from tens to hundreds of thousands. In the Colonies and India there has been a corresponding devel- opment in the art of printing. The official account of the visit which the Princess and I paid to India in 1905 was published in Bombay, and in all its details was the result of Indian work, and would, I imagine, bear comparison with the best of our home productions. With regard to the printer's life, while legislation and the general advance of civilization have done much both as regards his wages, hours of work, and his surroundings, it is probable that the keen competition and modern requirements render it more strenuous than ever before. The profession is to be con- gratulated upon still maintaining the old system of apprentice- ship for a term of seven years ; while within the excellent classes formed in the technical institutions, both in London and in the provinces, the apprentices are able to supplement the knowl- edge obtained in the workshop, where the work has become every year more and more specialized. I hope it will not be con- sidered out of place if I remind my friend, the American Ambassador, who has been kind enough to support me this evening, that the great Benjamin Franklin worked as a printer for nearly two years in London, and that the printing press which he used is now in the possession of the Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. It is an interesting fact that various circumstances have combined to remove to a considerable extent book printing from London to the country ; but, beside the daily and weekly newspapers, most of the magazines and periodicals are still printed in London. As most of the daily papers go to press after midnight, we may say that, practically, London sleeps while the printers are working; and, while we regard it as a matter of course that our newspapers are on the breakfast 194 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES table every morning, do we realize the industry, thought, atten- tion, and accuracy which have been bestowed on their pages not only by the printer, but by the correspondent and the reporter? Members of Parliament and public men are, I imagine, quick to recognize with gratitude and consideration the care with which their utterances are dealt with in the columns of our newspapers. Sir Robert Peel, speaking once on this subject, said: "We ought to consider ourselves greatly indebted to the gentlemen of the Press, for who of us, as we sit at our breakfast table in the morning, would like to see our speeches of the previous night reported verbatim?" Perhaps I have said enough to recall what we owe to those on whose behalf this charity was founded some eighty years ago, a charity that was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1865. Its work is excellent ; and in my humble opinion it possesses one special characteristic which should appeal to the charitable public it is provident, it is based upon self-help, and therefore it encourages thrift. Every member contributes 5s. annually, and the pensions are fixed according to the number of years of membership. At the same time, the funds of the institution are largely supported by those who are not candidates for its assistance, I mean the general public. At present a sum of six thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight pounds is distributed annually among four hundred and eighteen recipients. The almshouses accommodate thirty-two inmates, while the orphan children of the printers are supported, clothed, and educated in selected schools. Two days ago the Princess and I had the pleasure of visiting the almshouses. We can testify to the bright, cheerful, and comfortable homes in which the inmates pass the declining days of their life. The past year has been a successful one, and there is still much to be done. More than a hundred deserving cases, many of them over seventy years of age, still remain upon the candidates' list. The most prominent feature of the year has been the continued issue of "Printers' Pie." Apart from the substantial sum which it has contributed to the fund, its issue has been of the greatest benefit in bringing the work of the Corporation before the benevolent public. But INDIA FOR ARTISTS 195 the success of the Corporation is largely due to that host of helpers who sacrifice valuable time and work to assisting in its administration and management. To those who have generously acted as stewards of this festival and to Mr. Mortimer, the Cor- poration's most excellent secretary, I ask you to join with me in expressing our heartfelt thanks. May I refer to one of our guests present here to-night, Mr. J. R. Haworth, who worked for many years as a compositor in London. He has founded a pension, and in other ways has contributed most generously to the funds of this charity. I trust that he will forgive me for mentioning the fact that he is in his eighty-ninth year. He is also one of the ablest bell-ringers in the Kingdom. I feel that I have but imperfectly described the history, the aims, and achievement of this splendid institution. So, in con- clusion, I will quote Dean Stanley's beautiful words, which were used by him thirty-seven years ago when he appealed on its behalf. He said: "Those of us who have read the endless works which come from the teeming press of our day must remember that, behind the innumerable sheets, the vast moun- tains of type, and the constant whirl of machinery, there stands an army of living friends, unknown, unseen, through whose attentive eyes and over whose busy fingers, the light of God, the light of the world, the light of knowledge, the light of grace, streams out in continuous rays to every corner of our streets and of our homes. It is for us to repay that anxious labor, that straining care, that wasting vigilance, and to see that, when they are dead and gone, to those also in the dark corners of their bereaved homesteads shall flow the light of consolation, cheerfulness, and comfort." INDIA FOR ARTISTS. I recall the fact that, thirty years ago this month, my dear brother and I joined the Navy. Yesterday I took my eldest son to the Royal Naval College at Osborne. Although I fear my son will not be able to make the Navy his profession, as I did, I know he will receive an excellent education there, and he will become connected with that splendid service to which I am 196 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES myself so devoted. I hope, too, that he will make friends among those who are to be our future naval officers. The last time I had the pleasure of speaking at the Academy dinner, two years ago, the Princess and I were about to visit India. All our anticipations were more than realized in that marvelous country. Alas! I am not an artist; but, in speaking to this distinguished company, I am bold enough to suggest a visit to that wonderful land, which everywhere seemed to appeal to one's artistic feel- ings and sympathies. You must remember that in India, as elsewhere, times are changing; the streets in the ancient cities are vanishing, and Western ideas, tastes, and fashions are slowly but surely asserting themselves. Still, I venture to say that there is ample scope for the painter in landscape. He will find, for instance, all the picturesque surroundings of the old- world customs of the Rajput prince, the quaint, peaceful life of the villages, the beauty of the great silent jungles, and the gorgeous sunset effects of the desert. The student of architec- ture will find endless resources in the earlier Middle Age buildings, both Mohammedan and Hindu. To my mind I have never seen anything more beautiful than the palaces, mosques, and tombs at Agra and Delhi; and surely the portrait painter would find a large and possibly a profitable field for his talent. I should like to remind you that one of the earliest Royal Academicians journeyed to India more than one hundred and twenty years ago, and did much work there, I believe, with some considerable pecuniary profit. I have had the pleasure of seeing one of his most famous works in the church of St. John at Calcutta. I am happy to think that the beautiful monu- ments of India are so well cared for. No one who went to India could fail to be grateful to Lord Curzon for all that he did to preserve the great architectural treasures of that country. RIFLE SHOOTING. In proposing to you the toast, "The National Rifle Associa- tion," on the completion of the first fifty years of its existence, and in wishing it continued and increasing prosperity, I will endeavor to lay before you very briefly what it has accomplished RIFLE SHOOTING 197 in that period. Before doing so, I should like to say how delighted I am to see my old and valued friend, Lord Wemyss, present on this occasion. He was one of the original founders of the Association fifty years ago; and I can assure him how all the members of the Association here to-night welcome him and rejoice to think that he is still with us, full of life and enthusiasm. Formed in 1860, when there seemed a danger of foreign invasion, the Association has continually striven to fulfill the terms of its charter, "to encourage rifle shooting throughout the Empire." At the same time, it has largely contributed to the development of our military arms. The competitions and standard of excellence set up by our Association have appealed to the best instincts of our country and the King's Oversea Dominions ; and men have assembled from far and near to com- pete in friendly and sporting rivalry. In this way we may claim that the Association has become a strong link in the chain which, I fervently trust, will ever unite us with our brothers across the seas. In 1860 few men in this country were accustomed to the use of the rifle; and the Swiss were invited to attend our first meeting to show us their skill, while only two hundred and ninety-nine of our riflemen competed that year for the Queen's prize. But the development of shooting under the direction of this Association was rapid, and by 1878 more than two thousand two hundred assembled in annual competi- tion. In this country, and throughout the Empire generally, thousands of men were encouraged and took up shooting, and soon created a spirit of healthy rivalry among themselves. Unfor- tunately, an erroneous idea has grown up that the competitor at Bisley and elsewhere makes profit out of his skill. A very limited number may perhaps do so ; but the expenses of the vast majority are certainly double what they may win in prizes. The spirit of this Association has been the true British spirit of doing well for the sake of doing well; and I feel that the public understands how greatly the Association has contributed to the development of all forms of rifle shooting in the Dominions. 198 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES We must all recognize the immense changes that have taken place in rifle shooting in the past few years, and how much more important the rifle shooting of an army becomes year by year. I feel sure that the endeavor of the Association will always be to combine as far as possible the requirements of military shoot- ing with the sentiment of that large number of civilian riflemen who attend our meeting at Bisley. In spite of the great diffi- culty in obtaining range accommodation, and bearing in mind that the rifleman must largely pay his own traveling expenses and the cost of his practice, still, this Association, starting with deliberate firing at fixed distances annually, has now established competitions to meet with every requirement. Willingly do its members subscribe and enter for contests under rapid-firing conditions, at disappearing and moving targets, with miniature rifles, with revolvers and pistols, and no less with weapons of the highest precision at long ranges; and there has been a remarkable increase of youthful competitors in the Ashburton Shield, the Cadets Match, and other similar competitions. In 1908 the competitors devoted quite one-sixth of their money towards competitions under other than fixed bull's-eye condi- tions. While the Association has encouraged direct competition with the service arm at its annual meetings, it has done more by its system of awards, which has developed shooting in the counties, and has attracted our brothers from all parts of the Empire. It has been the means of establishing no less than one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight clubs for miniature rifle shooting and upon the initiative of its present Chairman has started a boys' camp which gives promise of the greatest success. With regard to the development of arms, in 1860 the service weapon was the long Enfield muzzle-loader, but the competitions of this Association created a rivalry amongst gun makers. To show how far from perfect was our then service weapon, the experiments of the late Mr. Metford, both with rifles and with ammunition, commencing about 1862, resulted in our present weapon. He, in concert with the late Sir Henry Halford, established a standard which has survived till now. These men, EIFLE SHOOTING 199 with many others, have shown what can be done with the rifle in long range shooting, and have been instrumental through this Association in producing weapons and ammunition of their present accuracy and rapidity of fire. I trust that all here will agree with me that the Association has always discharged a national duty in a truly national spirit; and I ask you to join in wishing that its useful work may ever increase and prosper. IN GOLDEN CHAINS, LORD COLERIDGE. On September eighth, 1883, at a banquet given by the City of Bos- ton to visiting representatives attending the Foreign Domestic Exhi- bition, then being held, Lord Coleridge gave this toast, which was heartily applauded. Mr. Mayor, Your Excellency and Gentlemen: I assure you that I rise to return thanks on this occasion with feelings of the most unfeigned gratitude gratitude to you, sir, for the gracious manner in which you have been pleased to propose this toast; to you, gentlemen, for the cordial manner in which you have been pleased to accept it. It is true that on more than one occasion during my very short sojourn in America I have been compelled to inflict a speech upon long-suffering American audiences. [Laughter.] In the stately city of Albany ; in the cheerful, picturesque, homely, delightful city of Portland, the charms of whose men and whose women I shall never forget, and once more, to-day, in this city. And yet I can truly say that never in my life till now, or not more than now, rising to return thanks to this toast in this splendid and magnificent city, have I so earnestly and unfeignedly desired that some more adequate example of my dear old country was before you ; that there was some more competent and adequate exponent of the learning and eloquence and the refinement of Englishmen than an old and weary lawyer, who, although by some accident he chances to have attained and to hold all but the very highest and proudest station in the great profession to which it is his pride and privilege to belong, has never ceased to wonder how he came to hold it. [Laughter and applause.] Nevertheless, the kindness and cordiality of this greeting will be remembered. Dum memorisse mei, dum spiritus kos regit artus. [Applause.] I am quite conscious that such a greeting as you have been pleased to extend to-night is made to my country, and not to 200 IN GOLDEN CHAINS 201 me ; or, if made to me, because I am an Englishman, and because I represent to you in some faint measure the great country from which I come. [Applause.] I knew enough from news- papers and other authentic modes of information [laughter] of the kindly and cordial feeling entertained in American cities toward my beloved sovereign, not to be surprised when "I heard ''God Save the Queen." But I will confess to you, gentlemen, in spite of all I have heard of American cordiality and Ameri- can hospitality, I was for a moment surprised to hear "Rule Britannia" played on these shores of the Atlantic. Upon that great ocean, heretofore, the two great nations have contended, with equal courage, I hope I may say, but not always (in the nature of things it could not be), with equal success. If we could point to the battle of the "Chesapeake" and the "Shan- non," you can point to the battle of the "Java" and the "Con- stitution," and your victory in that combat is, through the medium of mezzotint engravings, one of the earliest recollections of my childhood, because, although it was long before I was born, yet a near relative of my own was an officer in the "Java" and for some time a prisoner in America, and I can testify that he never forgot to his dying day either the gallantry of American seamen or the kindness of American people. [Applause.] Gentlemen, the welcome that has been extended to me since I landed at New York has followed me here. I am here as the guest of this ancient and famous Commonwealth ancient I say, as far as things in America can be ancient as I have said, the guest of this Commonwealth, at the hands of Your Excellency, the Governor of this State. [Applause.] And I must say that His Excellency has spared no pains, no trouble, no thoughtful care, to make my stay in this place happy and cheerful, and, to use the English word, thoroughly comfortable. I thank you and I thank him most cordially and warmly for this welcome. I thank him for another thing. He has changed sticks with me, gentlemen [laughter], and he has given me in return for one of no value a very valuable and excellent stick. In the "Iliad," when Glaucus exchanged his golden armor for the mail of 202 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES Diomede, ill-natured people said he was afraid. I think no man, ill-natured or good-natured, will say your Governor is afraid of me. But, as I have told him in private, so I say in public, he sends me back to Europe with this proud and con- solatory feeling that I am the only man in the world that ever got the better of General Butler. [Loud laughter and applause.] Gentlemen, passing away from the kindness and cordiality and generosity of General Butler, how am I to rise to the heights which the recollections of Massachusetts and of Boston would fain invite me to aspire to? I speak in the neighborhood of Bunker Hill, in the neighborhood of "T Wharf," which, a friend of mine has told me since I came into this room, has nothing to do with the Boston tea-fight. I scorn such strictly historic accuracy. I believe faithfully that that admirable beverage, which you have brewed ever since, has been improved since the fight at ' ' T wharf. ' ' I have seen your old State House, with the lion and the unicorn upon it. I have seen your noble buildings in which your two houses assemble, with General Burgoyne's cannon in the ante-chamber. I have seen Faneuil Hall, a plain but magnificent building. I have seen that most magnificent building within a few miles of this place the Memorial Hall of Harvard University. Gentlemen, these things are full of interest and history; and I don't believe men who tell me you have no history. It may be that you have a short history, because you cannot help it; but you have a great his- tory. You have a history of which any commonwealth may justly and rightly be proud. [Applause.] You know forgive my vanity if I say I know, too that you bred Benjamin Franklin, and Daniel "Webster, and Joseph Story, and Theodore Parker. Daniel "Webster, whose hand I was priv- ileged as a boy at Eton to press, when he was in England as your representative, and whose eloquence I have humbly studied ever since ; Story, a household word with every English lawyer ; Parker, perhaps one of your highest and greatest souls. [Applause.] Hawthorne, if you will forgive me the expression of a foreigner, is perhaps, taken altogether, almost your fore- most man of letters [applause] ; Longfellow, the delight and IN GOLDEN CHAINS 203 darling of two hemispheres ; Holmes, the Autocrat of the Break- fast Table [applause] , the autocrat, if he chose, of every dinner table, too but there I am told he is content to play the part of a constitutional sovereign. Emerson, as broad and as strong as one of your long rivers, and as pure ; Lowell, I am proud to say, my own honest friend [applause], your representative at this moment in my own country. Like Garrick in Joshua Rey- nolds' picture, he excels in either tragedy or comedy, and is delightful whether as Hosea Bigelow or as James Russell Lowell, skilled with equal genius to move the hearts of his readers whether to smiles or tears. And Howells, the last of your American invaders who have taken England by storm. [Applause.] These are your glories, these are the men who make your history. These are the men, forgive me for saying, of whom you ought to be proud, if you are not heartily proud. [Applause.] Gentlemen, in the person of a very humble Englishman on the one side, and of this great company on the other, let me think that England and America have met together to-night, that they have come together and may ever stay together. [Applause.] Gentlemen, we are one, as Washington Allston said, and most truly said, the great painter and the poet who worked in this city, and who lies not far off in the Cambridge churchyard, we are one in blood, we are one in language, we are one in law, we are one in hatred of oppression and love of liberty. [Cries of "Good" and loud applause.] We are bound together, if I may reverently say so, by God Himself in golden chains of mutual affection and mutual respect, and two nations so joined together, I am firmly convinced, man will never put asunder. [Loud and prolonged applause and cheers.] THE ARMY. FIELD MARSHAL SIR EVELYN WOOD. The London Times, of Monday, the second of May, 1910, said: "The Anniversary banquet of the Royal Academy of Arts took place on Saturday evening at Burlington House. The guests, who included the Prince of Wales, were welcomed by the President, Sir E. J. Poynter. There was, as usual on these occasions, a very brilliant company, representative of all that is most distinguished in society, literature, science, and art. A guard of honor of the Artists' Rifles was mounted in the court-yard. The staircases were profusely decorated with, flowers and foliage. The string band of the Royal Artillery played during the evening, and the Children of the Chapels Royal sang a number of glees." In introducing the toast, The Imperial Forces, the President said: The Navy and Military Forces of the Empire are now the subject of my toast. A fortunate era of peace has not called for action on the part of either branch of the Imperial Forces, and, as far as I can gather, the efforts of our gallant sailors and soldiers are devoted to their better organization and the never ceasing preparation for the always possible, but, it is to be hoped, far distant contingency of war. [Cheers.] The high, character of the men of whom the Services are composed is a guarantee to the country that they will neglect nothing to promote efficiency, whether it depend on their own initiative or in seconding the policy of their official chiefs. [Cheers.] I give you the toast of the Imperial Forces. With the Navy I am permitted to couple the name of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Edward Seymour, whose term of fifty-seven years of active service has, as every one will be sorry to learn, come to an end with his birthday to-day [cheers], and with the Army that of Field Marshal Sir Evelyn. Wood [cheers], who has kindly consented to charge himself with responding for it Since I had the honor of replying to the toast of the Army in this gallery twelve months ago I have had opportunities of watching a considerable body of troops engaged in autumn manoeuvers, with which mimic war I have been associated since 1871. Last September some of the marches were long and the daily operations were prolonged. I have been studying the 204 THE AEMY 205 Army since 1854. In the sad Crimean winter of 1854-5 I served in the trenches with eight battalions, in which seventy-three out of every hundred men died from starvation and want of clothes. Those old soldiers, with a noble reticence, never murmured. "Mr. Punch" records the only sarcastic remark which I remem- ber to-day. He depicts two soldiers who were half naked. One is saying, "Bill, they say they are going to give us a medal." "Really! Perhaps they will give us a coat to put it on." [Laughter and cheers.] The soldiers who were at duty were mostly fit only for a convalescent home, and could apparently scarcely crawl; but even in the darkest night when the Rus- sians made a sortie those indomitable men would charge eagerly forward in response to the shout of any officer whose voice they recognized. [Cheers.] I am often asked whether our soldiers of to-day would fight as their predecessors did. It is an inter- esting subject for consideration. Personally I have no doubt but that the better educated and more fully instructed soldiers I saw in the Thames Valley last September would fight as well as those men with whom I served fifty-six years ago. [Cheers.] The private soldier is now better instructed, but the tactical skill of the officers, a subject to which I have given attention for some thirty-five years, has improved beyond what I had thought would have been possible. [Cheers.] Since my last command five years ago I have visited the camps of instruction every year, and have noticed continuous advance. I believe that this improvement in tactical training has been greatly helped by one of my fellow guests here to-night, my friend and comrade, General Sir John French. [Cheers.] You may be willing to hear an unbiased opinion of the Ter- ritorial Forces from one who told you last year, and who still maintains that the nation in arms is the only safeguard for the home defense of the United Kingdom. [Cheers.] As Chair- man of an Association I get side lights on many officers. More- over, two of my three soldier sons have in the last month been employed in teaching classes of officers of the Territorial Forces. [Cheers.] They are filled, as I am, with admiration for the zeal shown by these gentlemen in acquiring military knowledge. 206 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES [Cheers.] As I have expressed such an opinion you will not think I wish to depreciate Territorials when I venture to suggest that, while your hanging committee has doubtless during the last month been obliged for want of space to reject many pic- tures showing great promise, yet the standard of the work sent in would have been incomparably higher if all the artists had been properly taught in the first instance. The same argument applies to trained and partly-trained soldiers, and we ought to remember that if our Territorial Forces are ever to be employed in the defense of our hearths and homes they will have to fight nations trained to arms for many generations. [Cheers.] The gifted author of "The Happy Warrior" wrote in a poem, "We live by admiration, hope, and love." I love the Army, admire the spirit of the Territorial Forces, and hope that many here to-night may live to see universal service for home defense. [Cheers.] HIS MAJESTY'S MINISTERS. LORD MORLEY. At the Royal Academy Banquet of 1910, the President, Sir E. J. Poynter, said, in proposing the toast of his Majesty's Ministers: The Parliamentary recess has permitted the escape from town of most of his Majesty's Ministers, and I am only expressing the wish of every one present in hoping that they will return from a much needed holiday refreshed by a rest from the prolonged and severe labors of the Session. [Cheers.] We are fortunate, however, in that one, and he not the least distinguished member of the Government, graces our table by his presence to-night. Lord Beaconsfleld once asked what his Majesty's Ministers have to do with the Royal Academy. It is, per haps, as Lord Salisbury once suggested in this room, in the appre- ciation of favors not yet bestowed that the Royal Academy invites the members of the Government to its table [laughter], though I wouH rather think that it is a desire on the part of the Royal Academy to give honor where honor is due. [Hear, hear.] Certainly, the Academy would wish for nothing better than that the fine arts should receive liberal consideration from the Government; and we may con- sider that the appointment of the Committee of the House of Lords on the decoration of the Houses of Parliament, to which I referred last year, is a step in the right direction towards the Government's recognition of art. [Cheers.] In any case, if the Government has not been liberal in itself I mean liberal in the financial sense [laughter] it has been the cause of liberality in others; and we may hope soon to see in the series of paintings now being executed in one of the corridors of the House of Lords the results of the generous donations from private individuals which Lord Stanmore's committee has called forth. [Cheers.] We have also to acknowledge substantial aid from the Treasury towards an exhibition of pictures which will shortly be opened at Buenos Ayres, thus converting what might have been a purely private speculation into an enterprise of some national importance. Thus our debt to his Majesty's Ministers does not con- sist entirely of gratitude for future favors. I am permitted to asso- ciate with this toast the name of Viscount Morley, who is here not only as the representative of his Majesty's Government on this occa- sion, but as an honorary member of this Academy, on whom we look with peculiar regard. [Cheers.] 207 208 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES I am quite sure that all my colleagues whom I am called upon to represent to-night sincerely regret their absence from this anniversary of the most exhilarating and inspiring scenes. I have myself attended many of these gatherings. I have responded more than once for Literature, and now it is my duty to respond for the Government of the day. I feel fully the responsibility of that position. You will all recognize how diffi- cult it is for one to transform oneself from a response for Literature to a response for the Government of this enormous realm and Empire, for which we are in our several degrees responsible. The President expressed the hope that the Ministers would return from their various cruises refreshed and relieved. [Laughter.] I wonder whether you will agree with me I think you will that if his Majesty's Opposition would follow the wholesome practice to which his Majesty's Government have now committed themselves and were to forswear for a good solid month all further appeal to the eloquence of the platform and Senate, whether the country at large would not be just as much refreshed and relieved as the orators and statesmen them- selves. [Laughter.] Even those who, like Friar Tuck in the great novel, delight in giving and receiving blows will, I think, admit that you may have too much of a good thing; and that for many months past we have all of us not those of us who cul- tivate the ideal and the beautiful, but those of us who are engaged in the political fight had enough of that particular good thing. [Laughter.] Refreshment and relief from work! There is no doubt that the burdens and responsibilities of great office are heavy. The cares of State I do not care which party bears them are a heavy burden. [Cheers.] But though a heavy burden, they have in them an exhilarating quality. All those who are concerned in saying ' ' Aye " or ' ' No " to great decisions of policy feel that there is something in that which makes them bigger and more elevated in character, whatever their views may be. My own definition of hard work is that it is deciding. It is not reading great multitudes of papers. It is saying "Yes" or "No" to this or that definite question. That we bear as we HIS MAJESTY'S MINISTERS 209 best can. Politicians, like painters, are subject to critics, and are, perhaps, tormented by them. [Laughter.] I understand that is so. As far as politics are concerned, our burden of criticism is heavy if you attend to it. [Laughter.] If we were always scrupulously fair I am speaking of politics, not of the competition of artists if we were always strictly candid, if we were always mindful of that most tiresome and vexatious truth that there are two sides to almost every question, if we were careful to regard unverified quotations in debate, or a rather stretched representation of our opponent's case as a mortal sin, what would become of politics? There would be no politics [laughter] ; but there they are. To-night I do not for- get for a moment the august audience to which I am speaking. I do not forget that we have in this assembly to-night, as every year when this anniversary occurs, men who are called to the highest responsibilities in the administration of the greatest affairs. We have in this room men who are accomplished in all the arts. We have men who have achieved conspicuous success in every walk of life. [Cheers.] It would ill become me in say- ing a word of thanks to you for the greeting that you have given to the present toast, to launch upon I am sure it would be unwelcome any observations of mine upon the ideal, upon the functions of the imagination, upon the relations of art to social life, or of speculations as to the nature of beauty. I should be the rashest of men if I were to enter upon that kind of topic. It is true, as the President was gracious and kind enough to mention, that I am an honorary member of this Academy; but still I say the opposite of what Giotto said, still I am not a painter. [Laughter.] I will not embark on that theme. I tremble lest in my position, in which I think I succeed Bishop Creighton, I should be called upon to tell you to-night all about the Greeks and the Romans. [Laughter.] You all remember what Squire Western said in, perhaps, the greatest of English novels, when they had been talking of the ideal and of this and that. "Well now, let us talk about the State of the nation, or something that everyone under- stands all about." [Laughter and cheers.] You have heard 210 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES to-night from Admiral Seymour that he considers the state of the Navy entirely satisfactory. You have heard from my friend Field Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood that he has got some designs of his own as to ulterior universal compulsory service. [Cheers.] I observe that this illustrious assemblage rather assents [laughter and cheers], but when I look round, with all respect to my betters, I wonder how many here are going to accept that doctrine of universal compulsory service, either in their own proper persons or otherwise. But this is not an occasion for the discussion of that question, and I doubt whether in either House of Parliament it will be at this moment favor- ably received. Still, Sir Evelyn Wood has said that, on the whole, he regards the efforts of my right honorable friend, the Secretary of State for War, as being satisfactory as far as circumstances will allow him to go. In responding for his Majesty's Ministers I am glad to notice that I have the Navy on one side entirely satisfactory, and that I have the Army on the other hand carried to as high a pitch of perfection as it could be, subject to the restriction of the service not being uni- versal and compulsory. I think, on the whole, this toast is justified so far as the Navy goes, and so far as the Army goes. There is all the rest of the field of government and adminis- tration left undefended. [Laughter.] If I were to attempt to survey the whole field of government and of administration you would not be very easily or shortly released. So far as that Department goes in which my own responsibility is most immediately and gravely concerned, this is not an occasion for going into all the difficulties aye, and dangers that we have for the time surmounted. Speaking as one who is responsible to Parliament and this country for that enormous task, and speaking with entire thankfulness, I think for the moment the circumstances are satisfactory and hopeful. We believe that we have overcome great difficulties, that we have prepared the way for a further advance in the same direction towards, I fervently hope and believe, the .same satisfactory end. But the Indian problem is enormous. Its perils are not easily grasped by the HIS MAJESTY'S MINISTERS 211 people of this country; but, for the time, I do believe that we are not entirely undeserving of your approval. [Cheers.] It would sound rather absurd would it not ? to talk of the Ministry without any reference to some difficulties that are now around us. I am sure you will all believe that I am the very last man who would abuse your hospitality by talking of any- thing that would be disagreeable to anybody in this room. I should like to say one thing, and I promise that no offense shall be given even to those who, though they have magnanimously drunk the health of his Majesty's Ministers, perhaps do not altogether wish them a long life. [Laughter.] I was talking the other day to a very distinguished traveler who had just returned from visiting some of our most important Colonies, and he said to me: "Well, the impression is that the old country is rather failing, that there is a sort of atmosphere of decadence about it." All I can say is, with a pretty good opportunity, I think, of judging, I do not believe a word of it. [Cheers.] It is quite true that this country, both the great political parties in it, and all the political parties and they are now more than adequate in numbers [laughter] they are in a position, we shall all agree, of singular difficulty. Why? Because certain questions, containing in them the seeds of great change and new departure, have come to the front. We are at the cross- roads, and I think the country, though it is not convenient for the immediate moment, is taking its time for needful delibera- tion as to the particular road it shall follow. Nobody will deny the importance of the machinery of government, but the real thing, you will all agree, the foundation of all things, is the character of your people. [Cheers.] I, for one, after a great many years, too many years, of public life, of close contact with great bodies of men of all classes, declare that I see no sign whatever that the people of this kingdom are not just as sane, just as honest, just as brave, just as high-hearted as they ever were in the best periods of our history. [Cheers.] But, the croakers say, "The politician, what of him?" Well, I have only one circumstance to remind this assembly of, and that is 212 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES that there have been two or three debates on the highest themes that can test the quality of public men. There have been two or three debates in both Houses, and I do not scruple to say that in both Houses and on both sides no debates have ever shown more admirable temper of mind, a more elevated desire, each party taking its own view, to find out what is the best for the prosperity of the community and the power of the State. [Cheers.] I think you will forgive me for having skated on this thin ice, but if you are to talk about a Ministry and about political affairs, it is as well to present to anybody who is good enough to listen to you the real aspect of the thing. [Hear, hear.] I will only add one word more as to what the President said upon the relations of the Royal Academy to the Government. He said honor was given to whom honor is due, and he admits that the Government have been the cause of liberality in others even though not entirely liberal themselves, in that they have accepted seven new frescoes, the gift of seven peers, for the corridors of the Parliament of Westminster. [Cheers.] I sup- pose not the most ardent of Single Chamber men will look that gift in the mouth. Then on the other side, I understand that the Royal Academy is going to present a picture which is to be accepted and placed in St. Stephen's Hall in the Palace of Westminster. There is one very small thing, for which I think a zealous, active, and most intelligent friend of art and taste, Mr. Harcourt, deserves great credit. He has acquiesced in the demolition of and is going to demolish that small stable, which has made many of us tremble for many a long year, close to the National Gallery. It is going to be demolished and the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery will be left in their own splendid and glorious isolation. I thank you very sincerely for the patience with which you have been good enough to listen to me and for the cordiality with which you have received the toast. [Cheers.] WOMAN. HORACE PORTER. General Horace Porter, late Ambassador to France, responded to the toast Woman at the dinner of the New England Society in New York City, December twenty-second, 1883. This is perhaps the most famous toast of this well-known speaker. Mr. President and Gentlemen: When this toast was pro- posed to me, I insisted that it ought to be responded to by a bachelor, by some one who is known as a ladies' man; but in these days of female proprietorship it is supposed that a mar- ried person is more essentially a ladies' man than anybody else, and it was thought that only one who had had the courage to address a lady could have the courage, under these circum- stances, to address the New England Society. [Laughter.] The toast, I see, is not in its usual order to-night. At public dinners this toast is habitually placed last on the list. It seems to be a benevolent provision of the Committee on Toasts in order to give man in replying to Woman one chance at least in life of having the last word. [Laughter.] At the New England dinners, unfortunately, the most fruitful subject of remark regarding woman is not so much her appearance as her disap- pearance. I know that this was remedied a few years ago, when this grand annual gastronomic high carnival was held in the Metropolitan Concert Hall. There ladies were introduced into the galleries to grace the scene by their presence; and I am sure the experiment was sufficiently encouraging to warrant repetition, for it was beautiful to see the descendants of the Pilgrims sitting with eyes upturned in true Puritanic sanctity; it was encouraging to see the sons of those pious sires devoting themselves, at least for one night, to setting their affections upon "things above." [Applause and laughter.] Woman's first home was in the Garden of Eden. There man first married woman. Strange that the incident should have 213 214 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES suggested to Milton the "Paradise Lost." [Laughter.] Man was placed in a profound sleep, a rib was taken from his side, a woman was created from it, and she became his wife. Evil- minded persons constantly tell us that thus man's first sleep became his last repose. But if woman be given at times to that contrariety of thought and perversity of mind which some- times passeth our understanding, it must be recollected in her favor that she was created out of the crookedest part of man. [Laughter.] The Rabbins have a different theory regarding creation. They go back to the time when we were all monkeys. They insist that man was originally created with a kind of Darwinian tail, and that in the process of evolution this caudal appendage was removed and created into woman. This might better account for those Caudle lectures which woman is in the habit of deliver- ing, and some color is given to this theory, from the fact that husbands even down to the present day seem to inherit a gen- eral disposition to leave their wives behind. [Laughter.] The first woman, finding no other man in that garden except her own husband, took to flirting even with the Devil. [Laugh- ter.] The race might have been saved much tribulation if Eden had been located in some calm and tranquil land like Ireland. There would at least have been no snakes there to get into the garden. Now woman, in her thirst for knowledge, showed her true female inquisitiveness in her cross-examination of the serpent, and, in commemoration of that circumstance, the ser- pent seems to have been curled up and used in nearly all lan- guages as a sign of interrogation. Soon the domestic troubles of our first parents began. The first woman's favorite son was killed with a club, and married women even to this day seem to have an instinctive horror of clubs. This first woman learned that it was Cain that raised a club. The modern woman has learned it is a club that raises cain. Yet, I think, I recognize faces here to-night that I see behind the windows of Fifth avenue clubs of an afternoon, with their noses pressed flat against the broad plate glass, and as woman trips along the WOMAN 215 sidewalk, I have observed that these gentlemen appear to be more assiduously engaged than ever was a government scien- tific commission in taking observations upon the transit of Venus. [Laughter.] Before those windows passes many a face fairer than that of the Ludovician Juno or the Venus of Medici. There is the Saxon blonde with the deep blue eyes, whose glances return love for love, whose silken tresses rest upon her shoulders like a wealth of golden fleece, each thread of which looks like a ray of the morning sunbeam. There is the Latin brunette with deep, black, piercing eye, whose jetty lashes rest like silken fringe upon the pearly texture of her dainty cheek, looking like ravens' wings spread out upon new-fallen snow. And yet the club man is not happy. As the ages roll on woman has materially elevated herself in the scale of being. Now she stops at nothing. She soars. She demands the coedu- cation of the sexes. She thinks nothing of delving into the most abstruse problems of the higher branches of analytical science. She can cipher out the exact hour of the night when her husband ought to be home, either according to the old or the recently adopted method of calculating time. I never knew of but one married man who gained any decided domestic advantage by this change in our time. He was an habitue of a club situated next door to his house. His wife was always upbraiding him for coming home too late at night. Fortunately, when they made this change of time, they placed one of those meridians from which our time is calculated right between the club and his house. [Laughter.] Every time he stepped across that imaginary line it set him back a whole hour in time. He found that he could leave his club at one o'clock and get home to his wife at twelve; and for the first time in twenty years peace reigned around that hearthstone. [Laughter.] "Woman now revels even in the more complicated problems of mathematical astronomy. Give a woman ten minutes and she will describe a heliocentric parallax of the heavens. Give her twenty minutes and she will find astronomically the longitude of 216 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES a place by means of lunar culminations. Give that same woman an hour and a half, with the present fashions, and she cannot find the pocket in her dress. And yet man's admiration for woman never flags. He will give her half his fortune; he will give her his whole heart; he seems always willing to give her everything he possesses, except his seat in a horse-car. [Laughter.] Every nation has had its heroines as well as its heroes. Eng- land in her wars had a Florence Nightingale ; and the soldiers in the expression of their admiration, used to stoop and kiss the hem of her garment as she passed. America, in her war, had a Dr. Mary Walker. Nobody ever stooped to Mss the hem of her garment because that was not exactly the kind of garment she wore. [Laughter.] But why should man stand here and attempt to speak for woman, when she is so abundantly equipped to speak for herself. I know that is the case in New England; and I am reminded, by seeing General Grant here to-night, of an incident in proof of it which occurred when he was making that marvelous tour throughout New England, just after the war. The train stopped at a station in the State of Maine. The General was standing on the rear platform of the last car. At that time, as you know, he had a great reputation for silence for it was before he had made his series of brilliant speeches before the New England Society. They spoke of his reticence a quality which New Englanders admire so much in others. [Laughter.] Suddenly there was a commotion in the crowd, and as it opened, a large, tall, gaunt-looking woman came rush- ing toward the car out of breath. Taking her spectacles off from the top of her head and putting them on her nose, she put her arms akimbo, and looking up said: "Well, I've just come down here a runnin' nigh onto two mile, right on the clean jump, just to get a look at the man that lets the women do all the talMnV [Laughter.] The first regular speaker of the evening [William M. Evarts] touched upon woman, but only incidentally, only in reference to Mormonism and that sad land of Utah, where a single death may make a dozen widows. [Laughter.] WOMAN 217 A speaker at the New England dinner in Brooklyn last night [Henry Ward Beecher] tried to prove that the Mormons came originally from New Hampshire and Vermont. I know that a New Englander sometimes in the course of his life marries several times ; but he takes the precaution to take his wives in their proper order of legal succession. The difference is that he drives his team of wives tandem, while the Mormon insists upon driving his abreast. [Laughter.] But even the least serious of us, Mr. President, have some serious moments in which to contemplate the true nobility of woman 's character. If she were created from a rib, she was made from that part which lies nearest a man's heart. It has been beautifully said that man was fashioned out of the dust of the earth while woman was created from God's own image. It is our pride in this land that woman's honor is her own best defense ; that here female virtue is not measured by the vigilance of detective nurses ; that here woman may walk through- out the length and the breadth of this land, through its highways and its byways, uninsulted,unmolested, clothed in the invulnerable panoply of her own woman's virtue ; that even in the places where crime lurks and vice prevails in the haunts of our great cities, and in the rude mining gulches of the West, owing to the noble efforts of our women, and the influence of their example, there are raised up even there, girls who are good daughters, loyal wives and faithful mothers. They seem to rise in those rude sur- roundings as grows the pond lily, which is entangled by every species of rank growth, environed by poison, miasma and corrup- tion, and yet which rises in the beauty of its purity and lifts its fair face unblushing to the sun. No one who has witnessed the heroism of America's daughters in the field should fail to pay a passing tribute to their worth. I do not speak alone of those trained Sisters of Charity, who in scenes of misery and woe seem Heaven's chosen messengers on earth ; but I would speak also of those fair daughters who came forth from the comfortable firesides of New England and other States, little trained to scenes of suffering, little used to the rude- ness of life in camp, who gave their all, their time, their health, 218 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES and even life itself, as a willing sacrifice in that cause which then moved the nation's soul. As one of these, with her graceful form, was seen moving silently through the darkened aisles of an army hospital, as the motion of her passing dress wafted a breeze across the face of the wounded, they felt that their parched brows had been fanned by the wings of the angel of mercy. Ah ! Mr. President, woman is after all a mystery. It has been well said that woman is the greatest conundrum of the nineteenth century; but if we cannot guess her, we will never give her up. [Applause.] NEW ORLEANS. JOHN HAY. This address was prepared for the occasion of the Secretary of State's visit to New Orleans with President McKinley in 1901, but was not delivered. I am glad of the opportunity to express in behalf of my col- leagues, as well as myself, our grateful appreciation of the recep- tion we have met with in this superb Southern capital. However your kindness may have exceeded in some cases our personal deserts and I speak especially of myself, I am sure that so far as our intentions are concerned, we have deserved your good will. I make bold to say that in a long period of observation of public affairs I have never known an administration more anxious than the present one to promote the interests of every section of the country. I need not say where our inspiration, our directing force, comes from. If you want to see an American, body and soul, through and through, in every fibre of his being devoted to the welfare of his country his whole country he is your guest this evening. And as this genial air naturally predisposes our Northern hearts to expansion and confidence, I will venture to say that those of us who are with him are like him except in fame and ability. We are all Democrats, we are all Republicans, we are all Americans. We have no principles which will not equally suit the climate of Massachusetts and that of Louisiana. Per- haps, in the department with which I am more immediately con- cerned, we have been working rather more in the interest of the South than in that of other sections. We have done our best to extend your markets by reciprocal treaties and other measures, and to clear away all barriers to an Isthmian Canal under Amer- ican ownership and control. We have felt it was time for the South to share in the general prosperity, and we know every sec- tion will profit by what benefits one. 219 220 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES Will you allow me one personal word to express the pleasure with which I find myself here ? My boyhood was passed on the banks of the Mississippi but so vast is the extent of the territory traversed by this mighty river "which drains our Andes and divides a world," so cosmical in the range of climate through which it passes, that when I was young, its northern and southern regions seemed alien and strange to each other in all aspects save those of patriotic national pride. To us for a part of the year it was a white and dazzling bridge, safe as a city street for sleigh- ing and skating, framed in by snow-clad bluffs ; but we loved to think that far away to the South it flowed through a land of perpetual summer, fragrant with fruits and ever blooming flow- ers, blessed continually with days of sunshine and nights of balm. "We thought of you without envy, but with joy that your enchanted land was ours also that we, too, had a share in your goodly heritage. All through my childhood New Orleans was to me a realm of faery, a land of dreams. And when I grew older I read with delight your history and your literature the one filled with romance in action, the other constantly distinguished by the touch of Southern grace and Latin art. I always wanted to see for myself the beauty of this region, to study on the spot the secret of its charm. But the strong gods Fate and Circumstance con- tinually prevented until this day. Now I have come, and found, like a famous queen of the East, that the half has never been told. I am less fortunate than Her Majesty of Sheba as she was young and enjoyed the Oriental leisure ; while I am old and in an Amer- ican hurry. I shall always be glad, though, even of this tantaliz- ing glimpse. But the one piece of advice I shall venture to give to those of you who may not know the North, is, don't put off your visit too long. Come and see us while you are young, and this excludes nobody, for you all are young. I have never seen so much youth and beauty as in the last few days. Men who are contemporaries of mine, who according to the calendar and the army lists ought to be passing into the lean and slippered pan- taloon, who won world- wide fame in the sixties, men who fought Grant and Sherman to a standstill, have the looks, the spirit and the speech of boys. I can only conjecture that they have sue- NEW ORLEANS 221 ceeded whera Ponce de Leon failed in discovering the fountain of Perpetual Youth, and naturally enough, are keeping it a secret from the rest of us. CAMPAIGNING IN INDIANA. JOHN WORTH KERN. Remarks by George T. Biickingham, Toastmaster. At the sixth annual dinner of the Indiana Society of Chicago, held at the Congress Hotel the tenth of December, 1912, Mr. Kern re- sponded to this toast. A short time after this dinner Mr. Kern was elected by the Indiana Legislature a United States Senator. Mr. George T. Buckingham said in introducing Mr. Kern: I see that Indiana art maintains its old time popularity. We now expect to place on exhibition an example of thirty-third degree politics. The next speaker is past master of the art of campaigning, about which he intends to discourse. It might be stated, however, that campaign- ing in Indiana is not what it used to be. It has degenerated, and entirely lacks the enthusiasm which marked it when I was a boy in an Indiana school. At that time the citizens were divided into two dis- tinct classes the members of our party and horse thieves. This could be verified by the statements at any political meeting. In order to cause our party to triumph, and suppress the enemies of good government who opposed us, it was necessary to march many miles attired in a bearskin hat, carrying a large oil lamp hung on a long stick, and wear a cape made out of oilcloth. Only in this way could the country be saved. The oil skin cape was for the purpose of permitting the oil lamp to drip on it. A procession made up in, this manner, headed by a brass band, would take from three minutes to two hours to pass a given point three minutes, as indicated by the opposing newspapers, edited by persons with small respect for the truth, two hours according to the veracious account of your own partisan newspaper. It was customary for candidates for office to apprise the people as to the precise shortcomings of the rival candi- dates, the latter being frequently defaulters, and invariably traitors. Nobody but traitors ever ran on the other ticket There were no independents or mugwumps. If a man was born a Republican or a Democrat he was supposed to live and die in that faith, otherwise he was a "turn coat," a term much dreaded by all persons with proper feelings. There was a zeal and earnestness in the old time campaigns which is sadly missing in the present-day political discussions. However, 222 CAMPAIGNING IN INDIANA 223 as to these latter-day campaigns, I know little. The distinguished gentleman will be able to enlighten you on that subject. He has demonstrated his absolute ability in the management of both the old and the modern kind of campaign, and he will tell you exactly how it is done. This, however, is under one pledge, namely, in hav- ing unfolded to the members of the Society the exact method of gaining a senatorial toga, you are not to make use of that informa- tion by moving back to Indiana and becoming candidates yourselves. I have now the great pleasure of introducing to you the Honorable John W. Kern. [Prolonged applause.] Mr. Chairman and Fellow Indianians: I am reminded by a remark just made by the toastmaster of how the Democratic heart was made glad in the town of Kokomo, where I hailed from, many years ago by the unexampled fairness of a Republican editor. Soon after a Democratic meeting there he was fair enough to say that the Democratic procession was an hour and three-quarters in passing a given point, but then cruelly added that the point was a saloon. [Laughter and applause.] I have come up here to-night to this great city ; I have come right from the midst of the plain people to speak a few words of truth and soberness to you plutocrats of Chicago who in the years gone by turned your backs upon the cranberry marshes, the turnip fields and the blackberry patches of good old Indiana, leaving some of us behind to assume the burden of the great responsi- bility which you have sought to shirk. [Laughter.] We can all recall the time when we, too, hoped to leave the cranberry marshes and turnip fields and blackberry patches and come up here and join you gentlemen in your very noble occupation of absorbing the wealth of the world. It is a very delicate duty which I have to perform here to-night, and I am very greatly perturbed as I look out on the faces of this splendid audience. I feel very much in the condi- tion of Bill Ring's clock. Bill was a celebrated Indiana politi- cian. He told me once in confidence that they had a clock in their house that was in such condition that when it struck six and when the hands were at half past four, then the family knew it was twenty minutes to two. [Laughter.] In order to establish any right to membership in the Indiana 224 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES Society of Chicago I may be pardoned if I state that I was born in the village of Alto, which is situated four miles and a half southwest of that beautiful and classic city, Kokomo. [Renewed laughter.] That you may know something about the population of Alto I will say to you that in the campaign two years ago, the campaign of 1908, it was my fortune to be called upon to speak in the City of Utica, New York, the home of my distin- guished and honorable competitor, Sunny Jim Sherman. I hesi- tate about mentioning that campaign. It is a sort of a sad epoch in my life. [Laughter.] It was recalled to me last night over at South Bend by my friend Wilbur D. Nesbit, who has taken a place over in the gallery there ; I was wondering who it was that voted the Demo- cratic ticket in the campaign of 1908 and who it was voted for me for Vice-President, and he vouchsafed the information last night that he was the other fellow that cast that ballot. [Laughter.] When I arrived in Utica I was met at the station by a com- mittee of distinguished Democrats, who informed me that on that day a gentleman from Indiana, an old time friend of mine, had called there and had expressed his regrets that he would not be able to attend the meeting which was to be held on that occasion, but he left a letter for me. When I went to the hotel I opened the letter. It was from a gentleman who is one of the most dis- tinguished tramp printers in this country, formerly a citizen of Kokomo. He stated in the letter that he had come into Utica that day on a freight train; that his necessities were such that he would be compelled to go to work in a printing office at six o'clock that evening, and he said he thought it was too bad that a distinguished citizen of Kokomo like himself would be unable to greet a distinguished citizen from Kokomo like myself, although such was the case. A little further down he said : ' ' You are per- haps as well advised as any man in the country as to the exact population of Alto, Howard County, Indiana. This is to assure you, my dear friend, that I have more drinks under my belt right now than there are people in the town. ' ' [Prolonged laughter and applause.] CAMPAIGNING IN INDIANA 225 When your committee on censorship notified me that they were satisfied with the subject selected by me, namely, "Campaigning in Indiana," I assumed that I had a very great task before me, and at considerable pains I prepared a sort of a romantic serial on that subject, treating the subject campaign by campaign for thirty years. [Laughter.] I supposed, of course, that I would have the whole evening to myself. [Renewed laughter.] I did not expect to finish it in one evening, in fact. My idea was to commence at the beginning of my political career I will not give you that date [laughter] and give you this evening in the course of an hour and a half that I thought might be allotted me, the history of the campaigns of Indiana down to the tragic campaign of 1896; and then at the culmination, which I presumed would be held down on George Ade's farm next summer, I would com- plete it and bring it down to date. But when I discovered later that other gentlemen were expected to say something on this occasion I saw how impossible that kind of work would be ; espe- cially when I learned that a gentleman, my distinguished friend, John L. Griffiths, had been brought across the sea to talk to you, I made up my mind that according to all well-known principles of international policy he ought to be given some of the time. [Laughter.] So I have been called upon to revise the work and to reduce the work as originally planned, and with your kind permission I will commence at the latter end of my campaign and speak briefly, as briefly as I can, about some things that hap- pened in the late campaign. It was a very agreeable campaign all the way through [laughter] ; but no part of it was quite so agreeable as the conclu- sion. [Renewed laughter.] Of course, it is a sort of happy sub- ject for me to talk about, when I look abroad over the country and see the beneficent results that followed that election when I see how happiness has begun to prevail in most of the homes and when the cost of living has been reduced so that we can get a square meal here for ten dollars a plate, I feel in quite a satis- fied frame of mind as to the result of our labors in the recent campaign. In fact I think I am in very much the same frame of mind as 226 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES a friend of mine down at Kokomo, in Indiana, in the campaign of 1876. His name was Jacob Moss, a name readily recognized by many of the gentlemen present. His politics had not been made known up to the time of that campaign. He belonged to the great army of unclassified. Jacob was engaged in the second- hand furniture business and in divers other businesses not neces- sary to name here. [Laughter.] Nobody, as I say, knew his politics until 1876, when he finally declared himself unqualifiedly in favor of the election of "Blue Jeans" "Williams for Governor of Indiana ; and with the zeal of a new convert he went out and bet very promiscuously on the result of the election. "When the election was over, after collecting his bets, which consisted of divers articles of clothing and watches and hats and money, he entered a place of rendezvous in Kokomo, which I regret to say was a place where liquor was sold in less quantities than a quart at a time [laughter], and he found there a large number of literary and scientific gentlemen who assembled there night after night to discuss politics and literary and scientific matters, and such matters as might properly be brought before them. [Re- newed laughter.] This evening Mr. Moss came on arrayed like a lily of the valley. He had on a black silk hat, he never had one before or since, but he won it on the election. He had on a pair of nice glasses which he never had worn before, but which he won on the election. He had on a new suit of clothes he had won on the election. His pockets were full of money that he had won on the election, and he carried a new gold-headed cane. He walked up to the end of the bar and invited those present to join in a drink, and in Kokomo in those days a second invitation was not necessary. [Laughter.] Those literary and scientific men arose as one man and each took his accustomed place at the bar and after the glasses were filled Mr. Moss, who was the host of the occasion, felt called upon to make a few remarks, and this was what he said : "Gentlemen, the Democrats told us if we elect Williams we have better times. By jimmy, I feel a difference myself already." [Laughter.] After the eighth of November I can quite sympathize with Mr. Moss. As I look out over this audience, a splendid audience made up CAMPAIGNING IN INDIANA 227 of distinguished and handsome gentlemen, I am reminded of an audience that I addressed in Indiana at one of the last meetings in the late campaign. That meeting was held at Abe Martin's home in the County of Brown. I was thinking of the similarity of the audiences. [Laughter.] Do you know about Brown County, the home of Abe Martin? Let me tell you something about it, let me digress for a moment. It is located within fifty miles of Indianapolis and within twenty miles of the exact centre of population of the United States. Up to four years ago it had no railroad. It is made up of hills and rocks. Its people are a primitive people, very similar in appearance to my father and your father and our grandfathers in the years gone by. Men who looked very much like those brave sturdy pioneers who settled in Howard and Marshall and Clinton and Cass Counties seventy- five years ago, and who with their strong right arms conquered a wilderness and made it blossom as a rose. [Applause.] In Brown County there is not a rich man and not a pauper. There is held in Brown County the circuit court, which occupies about three weeks during the year. The jail is without a tenant and so is the poorhouse. The people are poor and honest and patriotic. There never was a licensed saloon in Brown County. [Prolonged applause.] A larger per cent of its people belong to churches than those of any other county in Indiana, and when the Union was in danger Brown County sent out more men to the Union Army than there were voters in the county. [Applause.] And after thus referring to the religious and patriotic tendencies of the people of Brown County, it is unnecessary for me to say that Brown County gave the biggest Democratic majority, propor- tionately. [Laughter.] Indianians always look alike to me. You thought I was joking when, I made the comparison of chat Brown County audience with this splendid audience. There was not a swallow-tail coat in that audience; there isn't one in the county; and the women who would be found there dressed in a decollete gown would be arrested promptly for indecent behavior. What is the point of similarity? Those old men who sat before me on that occasion were clad in their home-spun garments, had bright eyes, clear AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES heads and clean hearts; the same kind of bright eyes and clean hearts that are in this audience here to-night. There was not a man in that audience who would not have esteemed it a distin- guished privilege to go out in the hour of the country's danger and pour out his blood in defense of the honor of his country. You men are made of the same material. So no matter whether the audience of Indiana is made up of home-spun people of Brown County, or not, or by splendid gentlemen like yourselves, there is the same spirit of patriotism and the same devotion to the dear old commonwealth amongst them all. [Applause.] When I was in Brown County, I heard this story: A man from Indianapolis was down there and ran across a native who was a little more thrifty than his neighbors. He was driving a team of mules, and desiring to strike up a conversation, the Indianapolis man said to the Brown County citizen: "That is a likely team of mules you have. What does a team of mules like that cost down here?" The other said: "I gave one hundred and sixty acres of land for this team of mules." "Is it possible, one hundred and sixty acres of land ? " ' ' Well, ' ' said the Brown County man, ' ' it was this way ; the original trade I had with the man was that I was to give him eighty acres for the mules, but when we came to the lawyer's office I found out the darn cuss couldn't read, so I slipped another eighty acres in on him." [Laughter.] Now to return to the subject of the late campaign and I return to it with some degree of hesitancy [laughter] in some respects it was the most remarkable campaign ever waged in Indiana, and we have had some great campaigns in Indiana. I have been engaged in several of them myself. My opponent [Senator Beveridge] declared at the commencement of the cam- paign that the old order had changed, and all things had become new, and I had not been in the campaign three weeks until I agreed with him in every particular as far as that was concerned. In previous campaigns the leaders of the two great political par- ties have gone out and defended their respective parties and plat- forms. In previous campaigns there has been a battle royal between the leaders of the two parties and between the two par- CAMPAIGNING IN INDIANA 229 ties themselves ; but in this campaign it was all changed. If you will bear with me, you Hoosiers, I will give you a bird 's-eye view of the late campaign as I now remember it. In the first place, I started out with a talk in favor of tariff reform, using all the stock arguments that have been used for one hundred years in favor of tariff reform. [Laughter.] My distinguished Republican opponent came back at me with a proposition that he was one of the true tariff reformers of the country himself and one of the principal ones. So that took in a very large degree the tariff question out of the campaign. [Renewed laughter.] I then started out with a very fierce denunciation of monopolies and the criminal trust, which I claimed were playing havoc with the interests of the plain people of the country; but my words had scarcely fallen from my lips until he made a more vicious assault upon the criminal trusts than I could possibly make, and not only that but he declared that all the trusts in the country were in Indiana at that minute doing all they could to defeat him. So the trust question was largely out of the campaign. [Renewed laughter.] In speaking of certain financial problems I took occasion to pay my respects to Wall street, whereupon he declared that Wall street was fighting him in the campaign and that he was perhaps the most dangerous foe that Wall street or the Wall street inter- ests had; so we said good-bye to Wall street. [Laughter.] In order to make some kind of an affirmative fight on me he declared in favor of the conservation of the natural resources of the coun- try. Of course I came back at him, reminding him that in speeches made before the war that is, the Spanish- American war [laughter] in speeches I made before the Spanish- American war I had taken advanced ground on the subject of the conservation of the natural resources of the nation and I had kept up that battle to this hour. He then came back at me with a plea for civic righteousness, whereupon I assured him and the people that I was the original Jacob Townsend and the apostle of the plain people. It was my turn to say something on him then, and I began 230 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES with an account of a vote he had cast on the ship subsidy scheme ; and he in due time retorted that while he had in an evil moment voted for the ship subsidy scheme, he had seen the error of his ways, never would do so any more, and now he was a more bitter opponent of the ship subsidy scheme than I ever dared to be, and so that took that question out of the campaign. [Laughter.] I declared in favor of the income tax and so did he. He declared in favor of laws punishing the employer of child labor, and so did I. And so we had it. Finally he settled down on a line, and I settled down on a line. He introduced into the campaign this kind of a subject: he came to the defense of Mary of the Vine-Clad Cottage. We had a Mary of the Vine-Clad Cottage on every hill and valley in Indiana, so that there was only one thing left for me to do. I seized upon forty-cent bacon, and so we came down the stretch for a good while neck and neck, he at every jump giving forth the most eloquent defense of Mary of the Vine-Clad Cottage, and I calling on the people of Indiana to rise in their might and bring back the Democratic days of the good old hog and hominy of the Jackson administration. [Laughter.] So it was that forty-cent bacon triumphed over Mary of the Vine- Clad Cottage, and Mary is now mourning in her cottage, refusing to be consoled. Oh, it was an inspiring campaign, a campaign that called for great leadership, called for great mental effort, and both of us, I think, are to be congratulated that we escaped dire brain attacks after the tremendous mental efforts we were compelled to exert during that campaign. It shows you business men how few are the real differences between us after all. It is so different from the old time campaigns the old campaigns where Indiana neigh- bors refused to speak to each other ; the old time campaign where there was an entire lack of political toleration. As suggested by my friend here, each man regarded his political opponent as an enemy of the country, a man who had not sense enough to come in out of the rain. Those days are already passing, and I hope they are passing forever, and if I should be elected to the Senate of the United States, as I hope to be in accordance with the expressed will of the people, I shall go to Washington recognizing CAMPAIGNING IN INDIANA 231 the idea and having the notion that the differences between the two political parties of this country are becoming more imaginary than real ; I shall go there to represent not a party but to repre- sent the whole people of my native commonwealth [applause], thoroughly imbued with the idea that I shall serve my party best by serving my country in a patriotic and conscientious manner. The old days of campaigning, as I have suggested, are pretty nearly past. We have no more of the glee clubs, we have no more of the goddesses of liberty, no more of the great political proces- sions, but political questions are now settled by the people in their own homes. People have the advantage of daily newspapers and telephones, and they form the habit of thinking for themselves, and the habit of voting for themselves ; and no party in my judg- ment will continue long in power in this land unless that party remains true to its pledges and keeps faith with the people three hundred and sixty-five days in the year. [Prolonged applause.] I will not undertake to detain you with the many reminiscences of Indiana campaigns. There used to be a time when campaign speakers were interrupted now and then, and the interruptions were frequently of the character which greatly confused the orator. I remember Senator Voorhees telling me a story one time as to an interruption that came to him during the delivery of a speech in Sullivan County, Indiana. Senator Voorhees conceived the idea that the Democrats had put down the rebellion [laughter], and he was in the habit of going about with a string of Union generals, commencing with Hancock and running down through to Rosecrans I used to have the list myself and after convinc- ing, as he thought, the people that a very large majority of them were Democrats, on that occasion he said, ' ' Of course, everybody knows that a large majority of the rank and file of the Union Army came out of the Democratic party. How is it," he said, "in this old Democratic Gibraltar of Sullivan County? What do you say here ? Were not a very large majority of the Union sol- diers who went out in time of war Democrats?" An old, long- haired fellow sitting down in front rose up and replied, "Yes, and gol dern them, they drafted us." [Prolonged laughter and applause.] 232 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES I have Had a few interruptions myself which confused me greatly. I remember one by a man at Auburn, Indiana, in the campaign of 1884, at a time when political excitement was very high. I was invited to speak there, and they had a torchlight procession of two hundred women belonging to the best families of DeKalb County. On that occasion I was speaking away the best I could, and a man directly in front of me said that I was a liar. He had a very loud voice. [Laughter.] That was not all he said. [Renewed laughter.] There was a sulphurous adjective prefixed to the word "liar." [Laughter.] I had not said any- thing of any consequence to call out anything of that kind, as I supposed. [Renewed laughter.] I hardly knew what kind of a retort to make. There wasn 't much room for argument about it, he seemed so positive. [Prolonged laughter and applause.] I could not say that I would see him after the meeting was over, because he was a very large man. But I was extricated from the dilemma by five or six of the stalwart sons of DeKalb County seiz- ing that man and throwing him bodily over the fence surrounding the place where the meeting was held. The meeting then pro- ceeded. I understood afterwards he was going to sue the Demo- cratic party on account of the assault perpetrated on him on that occasion. Of course he thought he was provoked, I assume, in making the charge he made against me, but the suit was never brought for the reason that after the election was over there were no assets of the Democratic party anywhere to be found. [Laugh- ter and cheering.] These are some of the tribulations that come to one in a political campaign in Indiana. But it is a great old state. "We are proud of Indiana, all of us. We are proud of George Rogers Clark and his courageous men who first ran up the American flag on Indiana soil in 1779, and who defended that flag with their blood and with their lives. We are proud of the men who fought in 1812 under General William Henry Harrison at the battle of Tippecanoe. We are proud of the six hundred men who marched across the Rio Grande and marched on and on in a foreign country until they saw the flag of their nation waving in everlasting glory over the halls of the Montezumas. Proudest of all are we of the CAMPAIGNING IN INDIANA 233 two hundred and fifty thousand brave men of Indiana who marched forth at their country's call in 1861 and 1865; of the men who charged with Hooker through the clouds at Lookout Mountain; of the Indianans who helped to resist Pickett's mad charge at Gettysburg ; or fought under McClellan at Antietam ; or marched with Sherman to the sea. We are proud of those Indiana men of the later generations, those sons of Indiana who, side by side with the sons of Alabama, charged up El Caney's heights under the leadership of Roosevelt. We are proud of them all; proud of our men of literature ; proud of our statesmen ; proud of our sons and daughters ; and with this pride in our hearts may we not to-night, and should we not to-night, take on a new vow of fealty and go hence each resolved that in the years to come he will do his full share in maintaining the honor and glory of the com- monwealth we all love. I thank you. [Prolonged cheering and applause.] THE JOY OF LIFE. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Mr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, now of the United States Supreme Bench, responded to the following toast at a banquet given in his honor by the Suffolk Bar Association, Boston, March seventh, 1900, upon his elevation to the Chief Justiceship of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. When he stood up to respond the entire company arose and cheered him. Gentlemen of the Suffolk Bar: The kindness of this recep- tion almost unmans me, and it shakes me the more when taken with a kind of seriousness which the moment has for me. As with a drowning man, the past is telescoped into a minute, and the stages are all here at once in my mind. The day before yesterday I was at the law school, fresh from the army, arguing cases in a little club with Goulding and Beaman and Peter Olney, and lay- ing the dust of pleading by certain sprinklings which Huntington Jackson, another ex-soldier, and I managed to contrive together. A little later in the day, in Bob Morse 's, I saw a real writ, acquired a practical conviction of the difference between assumpsit and trover, and marvelled open-mouthed at the swift certainty with which a master of his business turned it off. Yesterday I was at the law school again, in the chair instead of on the benches, when my dear partner, Shattuck, came out and told me that in one hour the Governor would submit my name to the council for a judgeship, if notified of my assent. It was a stroke of lightning which changed the whole course of my life. And the day before yesterday, gentlemen, was thirty-five years, and yesterday was more than eighteen years ago. I have gone on feeling young, but I have noticed that I have met fewer of the old to whom to show my deference, and recently I was startled by being told that ours is an old bench. Well, I accept the fact, although I find it hard to realize, and I ask myself, what is there to show for this half lifetime that has passed? I look 234 THE JOY OF LIFE 235 into my book in which I keep a docket of the decisions of the full court which fall to me to write, and find about a thousand cases. A thousand cases, many of them upon trifling or transitory mat- ters, to represent nearly half a lifetime ! A thousand cases, when one would have liked to study to the bottom and to say his say on every question which the law ever has presented, and then to go on and invent new problems which should be the test of doctrine, and then to generalize it all and write it in continuous, logical, philosophic exposition, setting forth the whole corpus with its roots in history and its justifications of expedience, real or sup- posed. Alas, gentlemen, that is life. I often imagine Shakespeare or Napoleon summing himself up and thinking: "Yes, I have writ- ten five thousand lines of solid gold, and a good deal of padding I, who have covered the milky way with words which outshine the stars ! " " Yes, I beat the Austrians in Italy and elsewhere ; I made a few brilliant campaigns, and I ended in middle life in a cul-de-sac I who had dreamed of a world monarchy and of Asiatic power ! ' ' We cannot live in our dreams. We are lucky enough if we can give a sample of our best, and if in our hearts we can feel that it has been nobly done. Some changes come about in the process: changes not neces- sarily so much in the nature as in the emphasis of our interest. I do not mean in our wish to make a living and to succeed of course, we all want those things but I mean in our ulterior intel- lectual or spiritual interests, in the ideal part, without which we are but snails or tigers. One begins with a search for a general point of view. After a time he finds one, and then for a time he is absorbed in testing it, in trying to satisfy himself whether it is true. But after many experiments or investigations, all have come out one way, and his theory is confirmed and settled in his mind ; he knows in advance that the next case will be but another verification, and the stimulus of anxious curiosity is gone. He realizes that his branch of knowledge only presents more illustrations of the universal prin- ciple ; he sees it all as another case of the same old ennui, or the same sublime mystery for it does not matter what epithets 236 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES you apply to the whole of things, they are merely judgments of yourself. At this stage the pleasure is no less, perhaps, but it is the pure pleasure of doing the work, irrespective of further aims, and when you reach that stage, you reach, as it seems to me, the triune formula of the joy, the duty and the end of life. It was of this that Malebranche was thinking when he said that, if God held in one hand truth and in the other the pursuit of truth, he would say : ' ' Lord, the truth is for thee alone ; give me the pursuit." The joy of life is to put out one's power in some natural and useful or harmless way. There is no other. And the real misery is not to do this. The hell of the old world's literature is to be taxed beyond one's powers. This country has expressed in story I suppose because it has experienced it in life a deeper abyss of intellectual asphyxia or vital ennui, when powers conscious of themselves are denied their chance. The rule of joy and the law of duty seem to me all one. I confess that altruistic and synically selfish talk seem to me about equally unreal. With all humility, I think "Whatever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might," infinitely more important than the vain attempt to love one's neighbor as one's self. If you want to hit a bird on the wing, you must have all your will in a focus, you must not be thinking about yourself, and, equally, you must not be thinking about your neighbor; you must be living in your eye on that bird. Every achievement is a bird on the wing. The joy, the duty, and, I venture to add, the end of life. I speak only of this world, of course, and of the teachings of this world. I do not seek to trench upon the province of spiritual guides. But from the point of view of the world the end of life is life. Life is action, the use of one's powers. As to use them to their height is our joy and duty, so it is the one end that justifies itself. Until lately the best thing that I was able to think of in favor of civilization, apart from blind acceptance of the order of the universe, was that it made possible the artist, the poet, the philosopher, and the man of science. But I think that is not the greatest thing. Now I believe that the greatest thing is a matter that comes directly home to us all. When it is said that we are too much occupied with the means of living to THE JOY OF LIFE 237 live, I answer that the chief work of civilization is just that it makes the means of living more complex ; that it calls for great and combined intellectual efforts, instead of simple, uncoordinated ones, in order that the crowd may be fed and clothed and housed and moved from place to place. Because more complex and intense intellectual efforts mean a fuller and richer life. They mean more life. Life is an end in itself, and the only question as to whether it is worth living is whether you have enough of it. I will add but a word. "We are all very near despair. The sheathing that floats us over its waves is compounded of hope, faith in the unexplainable worth and sure issue of effort, and the deep, subconscious content which comes from the exercise of our powers. In the words of a touching negro song : ' ' Sometimes I 's up, sometimes I's down, sometimes I's almost to the groun'," but these thoughts have carried me, as I hope they will carry the young men who hear me, through long years of doubt, self -distrust and solitude. They do now, for, although it might seem that the day of trial was over, in fact it is renewed each day. The kindness which you have shown me makes me bold in happy moments to believe that the long and passionate struggle has not been quite in vain. [Applause.] THE PRESS RIGHT OR WRONG. WHITELAW REID. At the one hundred and eighth annual banquet of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, held May fourth, 1876, the late Whitelaw Reid, the then distinguished journalist, and recently Ambassador to England, responded for the press. The toast as an- nounced was "The Press right or wrong: when right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be set right." Mr. President: Lastly, Satan came also, the printer's, if not the public's devil, in propria persona! [Laughter.] The rest of you gentlemen have better provided for yourselves. Even the Chamber of Commerce took the benefit of clergy. The Presi- dential candidates and the representatives of the Administration and the leading statesmen who throng your hospitable board, all put forward as their counsel the Attorney-General [Alphonso Taft] of the United States. And, as one of his old clients at my left said a moment ago, "a precious dear old counsel he was." [Laughter.] The Press is without clergymen or counsel ; and you doubtless wish it were also without voice. At this hour none of you has the least desire to hear anything or to say anything about the press. There are a number of very able gentlemen who were ranged along the platform I utterly refuse to say whether I refer to Presidential candidates or not but there were a number of very able gentlemen who were ranged along that table, who are very much more anxious to know what the press to-morrow morn- ing will have to say about them [laughter], and I know it because I saw the care with which they handed up to the reporters the manuscript copies of their entirely unprepared and extempore remarks. [Laughter.] Gentlemen, the press is a mild-spoken and truly modest insti- tution which never chants its own praise. Unlike Walt Whitman, 238 THE PRESS RIGHT OR WRONG 239 it never celebrates itself. Even if it did become me one of the youngest of its conductors in New York to undertake at this late hour to inflict upon you its eulogy, there are two circumstances which might well make me pause. It is an absurdity for me an absurdity, indeed, for any of us to assume to speak for the press of New York at a table where William Cullen Bryant sits silent. Besides, I have been reminded since I came here, by Dr. Chapin, that the pithiest eulogy ever pronounced upon the first editor of America, was pronounced in this very room and from that very platform by the man who at that time was the first of living editors in this country, when he said that he honored the memory of Benjamin Franklin because he was a journeyman printer who did not drink, a philosopher who wrote common sense, and an officeholder who did not steal. [Applause.] One word only of any seriousness about your toast ; it says : ' ' The Press right or wrong ; when right, to be kept right ; when wrong, to be set right!" Gentlemen, this is your affair. A stream will not rise higher than its fountain. The Hudson River will not flow backward over the Adirondacks. The press of New York is fed and sustained by the commerce of New York, and the press of New York to-day, bad as it is in many respects and I take my full share of the blame it fairly deserves is just what the merchants of New York choose to have it. If you want it better, you can make it better. So long as you are satisfied with it as it is, sustain it as it is, take it into your families and into your counting-rooms as it is, and encourage it as it is, it will remain what it is. If, for instance, the venerable leader of your bar, conspicuous through a long life for the practice of every virtue that adorns his profession and his race, is met on his return from the very jaws of the grave, as he reenters the court-room to undertake again the gratuitous championship of your cause against thieves who robbed you, with the slander that he is himself a thief of the meanest kind, a robber of defenseless women I say if such a man is subject to persistent repetition of such a calumny in the very city he has honored and served, and at the very end and crown of his life, it is because you do not choose to object to it 240 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES and make your objection felt. A score of similar instances will readily occur to anyone who runs over in his memory the course of our municipal history for the last dozen years, but there is no time to repeat or even to refer to them here. And so, Mr. President, because this throng of gentlemen, gath- ered about the doors, pay me the too great compliment by remain- ing standing to listen when they have started to go home let me come back to the text you gave me, and the sentiment with which we began: "The Press right or wrong; when right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be set right." [Applause.] The task in either case is to be performed by the merchants of New York, who have the power to do it and only need resolve that they will. I congratulate you, gentlemen, on the continued attractions of the annual entertainment you offer us ; above all, I congratulate you on having given us the great pleasure of meeting once more and seeing seated together at your table the first four citizens of the metropolis of the Empire State: Charles O'Connor, Peter Cooper, "William Cullen Bryant, and Charles A. Dix. I thank you for the courtesy of your remembrance of the Press; and so to one and all, good-night. [Applause.] "OUR GUESTS." EDMONDO MAYOR DBS PLANCHES. At the banquet at the centennial celebration of the founding of West Point, held at West Point, June eleventh, 1902, Signer Edmondo Mayor Des Planches, then Ambassador of Italy to the United States, responded for the guests of the occasion. Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Cabinet, Colonel Superin- tendent of the Military Academy, Gentlemen : I have the honor, speaking in the name of your foreign guests, to thank you heartily for the kind invitation extended to us, in order that we might participate in this gathering, which can rightfully be considered a family festival, and to thank you also for the generous hospital- ity you offer to us. We accepted your invitation with the warm interest we take in every American event. Upon our arrival here, our natural feeling of curiosity was immediately changed to one of admira- tion, because everything calls it forth irresistibly, from the beauty of the remarkable location to the minutest details, as far as revealed to us, of this institution, one of the finest of its kind in the world. Within these walls many remembrances of your history recur to our minds. We recall that Sherman, the audacious leader of the "march to the sea;" that McClellan, whose genius checked the invading armies of Antietam; that Sheridan, who snatched victory from defeat in the valley of the Shenandoah, and his adversary, Early ; that Thomas, the hero of Chickamauga, and his opponent, Hood ; that Grant, the glorious victor ; Lee, the glorious vanquished, of the last battles of the Civil War, and many others whose deeds of valor have filled all lands with wonder, have graduated here. When an institution has such a glorious past, it will have a similar glorious future. To my admiration, I confess, was joined at first a certain, yes, 241 242 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES and even a double surprise the surprise of finding an already old institution in your young country and that of finding myself, a man of peace, among warriors. But into this centennarian Academy passes a spirit of perpetual youth as these brave and bold generations succeed one another; and even non-military men, like myself, can appreciate the immense benefits of such a school, in which you not only prepare young men for possible wars, but also give them the most desirable education that youth can receive in our times, exercising them in such qualities as are considered the best in human nature, the most necessary in social life, the most successful in the citizen of modern States, for the battles of life and the pursuit of liberty. I am, for my part, an advocate of military education. I would wish that every citizen might be trained in a military school ; not so much, of course, for the technical knowledge he acquires, but for the establishment of his moral character upon a firm basis. In a military school youth learns the great virtue of discipline, and discipline is a condition of order ; youth develops its innate feelings of honor, and honor is a guarantee of integrity in private and public life, of the f ulfillment of duty in peace as in war ; in a military school youth grows in an atmosphere where no material interests are concerned, where self-abnegation, sacrifice, devotion to the country, are the ideals constantly before the mind. I profess that a perfectly good soldier is almost necessarily a good citizen ; that a perfectly great soldier is almost necessarily a great citizen. The history of your country could supply many examples of this truth. But what example could I evoke more opportunely, in this place, in this moment, than the example of your great Washington, the world does not know whether greater as a soldier or as a citizen, of Washington with whom originated the idea of a military academy for his country ? With these sentiments, with this example before us, I beg, Mr. President and gentlemen, to drink, in the name of your foreign guests, to the prosperity and greatness of the United States Mili- tary Academy of West Point. SPORT. LORD ROSEBEEY. In 1897 Lord Rosebery's bay filly, Mauchline, won the Gimcrack Stakes at York August Meeting. One consequence of this was that later in the year (on December seventh) Lord Rosebery, as the owner of the winning horse, had to reply (as he did in the following ad- dress) to the toast of his health at the annual dinner of the York Race Committee and the Brethren of the Ancient Fraternity of York Gimcracks. The actual form of the toast proposed by Lord Wenlock was: "Success and perpetuity to the Gimcrack Club, coupled with the name of the Earl of Rosebery, the owner of Mauchline." It is notorious that Lord Rosebery's success in "classic" races has been the occasion of some controversy. His own observations on the point, written when he was Prime Minister in June, 1894, should not be forgotten. "Like Oliver Cromwell," he said, "whose official position was far higher than mine, and the strictness of whose principles can scarcely be questioned, I possess a few race horses, and am glad when one of them happens to be a good one." Appreciations and Addresses, delivered by Lord Rosebery, edited by Charles Geake, and published by John Lane. I find myself compelled to respond, or honored by responding, for the club which I meet to-night for the first time, and with which therefore I cannot be so intimately acquainted as some of you; but there is another difficulty still. I have won this race three times in my life, but I do not ever remember being asked to dinner before. Whatever be the cause, it is only of recent years that I have become acquainted with the dinner of the Gimcrack Club, and what makes my task more difficult is that I understand that, owing to the precedents of late years the Gimcrack Club having been in relation to the Turf very much the same as the Lord Mayor 's dinner stands in relations to politics it is given to the guest of the evening to deliver himself of some dissertations on current turf matters, and to offer suggestions for some violent reform. Of that I am quite incapable. If you welcome me here under those pretenses, I must tell you at once that I am an 243 244 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES imposter. I very seldom go to races, and if I go to see a particu- lar race I usually arrive not long before the race takes place, and go very soon after it has taken place. As regards the rules of the Jockey Club, there was a time when I used to know something about them, but they have been so changed and modified since that I am informed by experts there are only two people who, in the belief of the most credulous, have any thorough acquaintance with them. One is Mr. Wetherby and the other is Mr. James Lowther, and I am not perfectly sure of Mr. James Lowther. In those circumstances it is a matter of embarrassment to know what I am to say to you to-night. I cannot extol the merits of the animal which won the Gimerack Stakes, to which I am indebted for this honor, because, except on the occasion when she won this historic event, she displayed no marked excellence, and offers no prospect of it. But, after all, I can always give advice with the perpetual prerogative of a person who has noth- ing to say. I am a little alarmed, I confess, at the juvenile remin- iscence of my friend Lord Wenlock, because I am afraid that it may encourage my sons to take in their turn to racing. If I am asked to give advice to those who are inclined to spend their time and money on the turf, I should give them the advice that Punch gave those about to marry " Don't." That, I admit, is a dis- couraging remark for an assembly of sportsmen and I perceive that it is received in the deadest silence. I will give you my reasons for that remark. In the first place, the apprenticeship is exceedingly expensive; in the next place, the pursuit is too engrossing for any one who has anything else to do in this life ; and, in the third place, the rewards, as compared with the disap- pointments, stand in the relations of, at the most, one per cent. An ounce of fact is worth a ton of exhortation, and I will give you my experience; and it will be an exceedingly genial and pleasant dinner if everybody truthfully gives us his. I will give you my experience of the Turf, and you shall judge whether I have not some foundation for the advice that I give. A great many years ago too many years ago from one point of view and at an early age much too early from every point of view I conceived the ambition to win the Derby. For a quarter SPORT 245 of a century I struggled. Sometimes I ran second, sometimes I ran third, very often I ran last ; but at last the time arrived when, as Lord Wenlock reminded you, I was about to realize the fruition of my hopes. I was with the second Ladas about to win the Derby, and I ought to have been the happiest of men. Well, after a quarter of a century of fruitless expectation, I won the Derby. But what was the result ? I at that time held high office, as Lord Wenlock has also reminded you, under the Crown. I was immediately attacked from quarters of an almost inspired char- acter for owning racehorses at all. With very little knowledge of the facts, and with much less of that charity "that thinketh no evil," I was attacked with the greatest violence for owning a racehorse at all. I then made the discovery, which came to me too late in life, that what was venial and innocent in the other offices of the Government in a Secretary of State or a President of the Council, for example was criminal in the First Lord of the Treasury. I do not even know if I ought not to have learnt another lesson that although without guilt and offense, I might perpetually run seconds and thirds, or even run last, it became a matter of torture to many consciences if I won. But my trouble did not end there. Shortly afterwards we had a general election, and I then found that, having received abundant buffets on one cheek from the smiter, I was now to receive them on the other. I was then assailed, or rather those associated with me were assailed, not because we were too sport- ing, but because we were not sporting enough. Leagues and associations with high-sounding names and unerring principles were started to attack my unfortunate supporters, on the ground that we were not supporters of sport, I having already suffered so severely from having been too much a sportsman. I say then I have a right to give advice, having suffered on both sides for being too sporting and for not being sporting enough. That is my experience. I then hoped that my troubles were over. I withdrew into the sanctity of private life, and I felt that then, at any rate, fortune could no longer assail me, and that I should be enabled to pursue what I believe is facetiously called "the sport of Kings" without any particular detriment. But here again I 246 AFTER-DINNEE SPEECHES am mistaken. Last year I thought, as so many of us have thought, that I possessed the horse of the century, and I believe that I did own a very good horse until he was overtaken by an illness ; but I at once began, as foolish turfites do, to build all sorts of castles in the air to buy yachts and to do all sorts of things that my means on that hypothesis would permit. From the very moment I began to form these projects the curse fell upon me. From October first, 1896, to October first, 1897, I ran second in every race in which I ran, except two, which I won, and I think that, when I advise those who are about to race not to do so, I am justi- fied by the experience which I have laid before you in so harrow- ing a manner. Is there no compensation to those who pursue a sport which is carried on under such difficulties ? I myself am of the opinion that there are friendships formed and a knowledge of the world formed on the Turf which are invaluable to any man who wishes to get on in life. There was a famous lady who lived in the middle of this century, Harriet, Lady Ashburton, who summed up her view on the subject in a remark which has been preserved by the late Lord Houghton. She said, "If I were to begin life again I should go on the Turf merely to get friends. They seem to be the only people who really hold together I do not know why. It may be that each man knows something that would hang the other, but the effect is delightful and most peculiar." If that was the cause of Turf friendship, the effect would be most peculiar ; but of this I am perfectly certain that is not the real basis of Turf friendship. I know nothing that would hang any of those I have known on the Turf, and I am quite sure that if anybody on the Turf, or if anybody, had known anything that would hang me about three years ago, I should not be in life at this moment. But there must be more than friendship more than secrets which are too dangerous for people to carry about with them to constitute the real bond of union on the Turf. Of course, many men say that it is gain. I do not think any- body need pursue the Turf with the idea of gain, and I have been at some trouble to understand why I and others, under singular difficulties, have pursued this most discouraging amusement. I SPORT 247 see my trainer looking at me from a distant table with an inquir- ing eye. He could tell you probably better than I could tell you ; but, so far as I am concerned, the pleasures of the Turf do not so much lie on the race course. They lie in the breeding of a horse, in that most delightful furniture of any park or enclosure the brood mare and the foal in watching the development of the foal, the growth of the horse and the exercise of the horse at home ; but I do not believe that even that would be sufficient, if we had not some secret ambition to lure us on. It is obviously not in being winners of the Ten Thousand Guineas and such races, for these are practically unapproachable; but after very careful analysis from all the facts that have come under my observation, I believe it to be an anxious desire of aspirants for fame con- nected with the Turf to become the owner of what is called "the horse of the century." Whether they will ever do so or not is a matter of very great doubt in all their minds, and how they are to set about it must be a matter of still more anxious inquisition. There is the method of purchase, but I speak in the presence of a number of gentlemen, some of whom perhaps breed horses for sale or have horses for sale, and I therefore do not venture to speak of that method with disparagement ; but I do not think the horse of the century will ever be acquired at auction. Then there is the method of abstract theory and historical law. There is an idea that by some con- nection with Byerley Turk which in itself has a horrible flavor of the Eastern Question about it that you may acquire the horse of the century. Lastly, there is the method of numbers that new-fashioned method of numbers. You do something on paper that looks like a rule-of -three sum, and in a moment you have the horse of the century. I am not sure that we do believe in any of these ways. I believe the goddess of Fortune plays a great part in the production of the horse of the century. "What we who are striving to produce that miraculous animal can fold to our bosom is this, that the century is drawing to a close, and that possibly we may have better luck in producing it in the twentieth century than we had in producing it in the nineteenth. There was a rela- tive of mine, whose name may have been known to some of you 248 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES V, as an eccentric lady, who lived in the East I mean Lady Hester Stanhope. She also dreamed of having a miraculous animal of this description. She expected to possess a mare which should be born with a back like a saddle, which should carry a prophet into Jerusalem with Lady Hester by her side. She obtained the horse, but the prophet never arrived. And across all these dreams of the future there is one cloud in the horizon. We fancy that we feel the sobering influence of the motor-car. As yet it is only in its infancy ; it is, as yet, rather given to afford a mild sensation of notoriety to its patrons, combined with a considerable smell of oil and a rattle of wheels. We may not yet imagine Lord Lons- dale hunting the Quorn hounds or inspecting a foreign army from the back of a motor-car. We may not yet be able to realize his Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, leading home the victorious locomotive in the national race on Epsom Downs. Let us hope, at any rate, for the best. I believe that so long as institutions like the Gimcrack Club are kept in full vigor and are not allowed to die out we have a fair prospect of racing before us. I must say one word in conclusion about the toast committed to my charge. It is that of the Gimcrack Club, and I see opposite me an engraving of the picture, which I am so fortunate as to possess, by Stubbs of that very beautiful little animal. I am not quite sure why it is that the Gimcrack Club was founded, and founded in York, because as a matter of fact I looked over his performances this morning and find that out of his very few defeats two of them took place on York racecourse and his vic- tories were usually in the south of England. We can never account for these things, and it is at any rate a great thing to have kept alive the memory of that gallant little horse which, I do not sup- pose, stood over fourteen hands when alive for nearly a century and a half in this ancient and venerable city. He was a horse which I think anybody would fear to possess now, with the con- ditions that he was to run two or three four-mile heats every week for fifty pounds ; yet having been so valuable and admired as to found a club of his own, he constantly changed hands, and was once even allowed to become the possession of a foreigner. That, I think, is perhaps a danger that we escape. There must have SPORT 249 been heavy hearts in York when Gimcrack became the property of a Frenchman. But he was reclaimed and lived to a good old age, and so has immortalized himself. But let me draw one con- cluding moral. This is the one hundred and thirty-first dinner of the Gimcrack Club. He lived one hundred and thirty years ago. How many poets, how many philosophers, aye, how many statesmen, would be remembered one hundred and thirty years after they had lived 1 May we not draw from this fact the con- clusion that the sport that we honor to-night, which we believe was never better and purer than at this moment, never more honest in its followers, never pursued with greater interest for the honor, as apart from the lucre, of the Turf, may we not draw this conclusion that this sport will not perish in our land what- ever its enemies may do, and that, however festive its celebration to-night may be, a century hence our descendants will be toasting the Gimcrack Club and hailing what I hope will be a more reputable representative of the winner of the Gimcrack Stakes ? GOLF. . LORD ROSEBERY. Lord Rosebery was not himself swept away by what has been called the "Great Golf Stream." But he has allowed himself to be publicly identified with the game. In May, 1897, he took part in the opening of the Edinburgh Burgess Golfing Society's Club House at Barnton, near Dalmeny. At the consequent Cake and Wine Banquet, he was made an honorary member and was presented with a set of golf clubs. "But though you may take a horse to water, you cannot make him drink," his editor comments on Lord Rosebery and his address on this occasion. I am sincerely indebted to you for the honorary ticket of membership and for the set of golf clubs that you have been so good as to present to me. I should be very glad to think that the membership would cease to be honorary, and that I might be able to take my part in the amusements of the club, but I think that would require very mature consideration. In the meantime, at any rate, I shall preserve the book and the clubs as the trophy and memorial of an agreeable meeting. And, even if I were unable to make use of the clubs myself, there are two young gentlemen with whom I am connected and for whom I am responsible who, I think, would very likely take them off my hands if I neglected to make use of them. In correspondence with the secretary of the club, he told me that he hoped I would make a short speech under the veranda to which I willingly acceded but that my principal speech would be made upstairs. I rejoined that I did not propose on this occasion to make any principal speech, because it struck me as an occasion of a neigh- borly, friendly, and informal kind, and I think I should dissipate all the charm of the meeting if I were to laboriously get up a speech on golf from one of the popular handbooks and deliver a lecture amid the covert smiles of my audience. After all, however, it is not uninteresting to know what are 250 GOLF 251 the impressions of the pursuit, with which you are thoroughly conversant, when regarded from an outside point of view and I myself, of course, am only an outsider ; but I do say one special recommendation of golf a recommendation which will increase on me as I grow older is that it is a game that can be pursued to an advanced period of life. In that respect it is like the royal game of tennis the illustrious game of tennis. But then tennis is a game that has very few facilities of the courts for playing it, whereas golf requires very little but assisted nature for its development. I am told that the game of fives is also a game that can be practiced in extreme old age, but I suspect that those who try to carry out that theory will find that the game of fives, like the highest statesmanship of Europe, requires an iron hand within a velvet glove, and I for one should be very sorry to expose my hand to the game of fives with the slightest hope of being able to write a letter for many weeks afterwards. It is, I think, a very leading advantage of the game of golf, but of course it is an advantage which has, I suppose, secured to a large extent its universal popularity. Scotland has once more now conquered the world by her game of golf. There is no common in England which is so lonely or so deserted as not to expose to view two gentlemen followed by a couple of boys with a bundle of clubs. In my own neighborhood of Surrey, where I am quite certain that golf was never heard of till ten or twelve years ago, our walks abroad are rendered almost as dangerous as the facing of a battery in time of war by the enormous num- ber of metropolitan golfers who hurry down to enjoy their favor- ite pursuit. That would seem almost to be sufficient praise in itself, but I think there is a very considerable drawback, and at the risk of being torn to pieces before I leave this room I will mention what the drawback is. The other day I was speaking to an old friend of mine tortures shall not wring his name from me, because his life would not be safe. He said, "I hear you are going to open a golf clubhouse next week. I wonder at that because I always thought it a very dull game." My censure and criticism of golf is at the other pole to that of my friend. My dread of learning 252 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES it, my dread of coming among you as an actual member is this, that it is far too engrossing and absorbing. When a man is once seriously inoculated with the love of golf he is of very little use for other pursuits of society. I know one gentleman at least of considerable possessions and large business transactions who declines to open his letters on the morning on which he is going to play golf for fear anything in them should distract his atten- tion ; and a short time ago, without trenching on the strict bar- rier that divides us happily from politics to-day, I saw it as a charge against a distinguished statesman that he gave too much time to golf and not enough to the House of Commons. I say, then, when a man in middle life makes a deliberate choice of golf as his amusement, knowing these facts and viewing the infatua- tion of his friends, he is making a choice second only in gravity to the choice of a wife. I myself shrink, I am bound to say, without further knowledge, therefore, from becoming an actual member of your club, but for reasons I gave before I give you my most hearty good wishes for your welfare and prosperity, and I may at least avail myself of the privilege that you have conferred on me of inviting my guests to come and take a game over the links, and if so to watch as a dispassionate philosopher the progress of the game. I shall only gain in your esteem by not making myself a golfer actually and practically without a much longer and more serious consideration of the prospect that it involves. THE PROGRESSIVENESS OF IDEALS. HENRIK IBSEN. Several of Ibsen's banquet speeches have been translated by Arne Kildal, of the Library of Congress. They are all short. In an intro- duction to the book containing these speeches, Professor Lee M. Hol- lander says, "Ibsen never made any pretensions to being an orator. He lacks the full-throated eloquence, the lyric fervor, and all the other attributes of the public speaker. * * * His is a nature that abhors platitudes, has a direct hatred of the commonplace, the current coin, the phrase. His most abject figures are Steensgaard and Hjalmer Ekdal, ready speakers both. In fact, a genuine ironist rarely is an effective speaker, and hardly ever wishes to be. Thus Ibsen is ever negative sceptical, first of all, about public comprehension en masse; wishes to pour cold water on enthusiasm cool down to reflection, rather than carry away and fire up the profane crowd with his own ideals. Like Kierkegaard, greatest individual of modern times, he insists on appealing only to the individual, holding unions, clubs, and the like, in contempt. Under such circumstances, it is hardly proba- ble that the carefully prepared utterances * * * found immediate appreciation apart from the personality of the speaker. Viewed as declarations of faith, summarizing the general conclusions he had arrived at for the time, they are veritable gems of concise and incisive statement. * * * In his sparing use of adjectives he reminds one of Lessing. No superfluous words, no emotional dross." Ibsen has been called a great egotist, but, essentially, he was not that. At a Danish students' banquet in Copenhagen in October, 1885, he said, "I do not like at all to hear my praises sung so loudly. I prefer solitude, and I always feel an inclination to protest when the health of an artist or a poet is proposed with a motive such as: There stands he, and there far away are the others. But the thanks given me contain also an admission. If my existence has been of any importance, as you say it has, the reason is that there is kinship between me and the times. There is no yawning gulf fixed between the one who pro- duces and the one who receives. There is kinship between the two. I thank you for the kinship I have found here among you." The fol- lowing address was given at a banquet in Stockholm, September twenty-fourth, 1887. 253 254 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES Ladies and Gentlemen: My most sincere thanks for all the friendliness and good understanding which I have at this time received proof of here. A great happiness is experienced in the feeling of possessing a greater country. But to reply fully to all the words of praise of which I have just been made the object lies beyond and above my power. There is, however, one par- ticular point in these utterances which I should like to consider for a moment. It has been said that I, and that in a prominent manner, have contributed to create a new era in these countries. I, on the contrary, believe that the time in which we now live might with quite as good reason be characterized as a conclu- sion, and that from it something new is about to be born. For I believe that the teaching of natural science about evolution has validity also as regards the mental factors of life. I believe that the time will soon come when political and social conceptions will cease to exist in their present forms, and that from their coalescence there will come a unity, which, for the present, will contain the conditions for the happiness of mankind. I believe that poetry, philosophy and religion will be merged in a new category and become a new vital force, of which we who live now can have no clear conception. It has been said of me on different occasions that I am a pessimist. And so I am, in so far as I do not believe in the everlastingness of human ideals. But I am also an optimist in so far as I firmly believe in the capacity for procreation and development of ideals. Especially, to be more definite, I am of the opinion that the ideals of our time, while disintegrating, are tending towards what in my play " Emperor and Galilean" I indicated by the name of "the third Kingdom." Therefore, per- mit me to drink a toast to that which is in the process of forma- tion, to that which is to come. It is on a Saturday night that we are assembled here. Following it comes the day of rest, the festival day, the holy day whichever you wish to call it. For my part, I shall be content with the result of my life's work, if this work can serve to prepare the spirit for the morrow. But above all I shall be content if it shall serve to strengthen the mind in that week of work which will of a necessity follow. I thank you for your attention. THE REGULAR ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES. MAJOR GENERAL J. FRANKLIN BELL. At the dinner of the General Society of Sons of the Revolution, held at the New Willard Hotel, in Washington, April twenty-eighth, 1908, after the band played My Old Kentucky Home and after three cheers were given for the United States Army, General Bell responded to this toast. Mr. President, Brethren of the Sons of the Revolution : Since the band has displayed the fact that I am a Kentuckian [applause and cheers] , I presume it will be considered quite appropriate if, instead of discussing the Army of the United States, I should discuss war, because it seems to be the genius of my State to get up wars on its own account [laughter] whenever occasion, fit or unfit, arises. [Laughter.] So much has been said of the past to-night, that I am almost ashamed to begin a few remarks about the future by referring to the past; yet I, too, have a serious message, and so, to point a moral, you will permit me to refer to the earliest efforts of mankind in the line of war, to trace the causes of war to what I think will soon become the only possible cause. In the earliest stages of the existence of man, he had little time for anything else but to maintain existence and protect him- self against the wild beasts of the forest. Tradition furnishes no clue when man first began to use against man the crude weapons which he had devised to protect himself from the wild beasts. But, beginning with the first warlike king of Egypt, with the conflict of the four Kings against the five Kings in the Vale of Sidon, and continuing to the present date, men have continued to fight each other, until now it is estimated that some 6,680,- 000,000 have died in battle. And notwithstanding this gruesome record, men continue to fight each other, and, in my opinion, will still continue to do so until the coming of the millennium. Now, what application have these supposed historical facts 255 256 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES to our own situation, our own future? Let us examine the causes of war. The first wars of which history gives us any account were predatory in their nature. When men began to collect in groups and make clearings and cultivate the lands along the coasts, and prosperity resulted in the accumulation of property, less favored beings from the mountains came down to prey upon their more fortunate neighbors below. This led to a portion of the people standing guard while the rest cultivated the soil; and when they were attacked in some unexpected quarter by these mountain hordes the men who were tolled off as guards must fight desperately until succor and reinforcements arrived from among the workers. And that is the profession of the soldier, with its foundation in the idea of the self-sacrifice of some for the benefit of all. [Applause.] The next wars with which history were concerned were religious wars ; and, according to history, Christians inflicted far more damage on each other in their intensive conflict than they ever suffered from the hands of pagans. Next we come to wars of aggrandizement national aggran- dizement and, passing those by without remark, we come to the wars based on national grievances, on national resentments, or upon the ambitions or the resentment of kings. Next we find record in history of wars for conquest. Next, wars conducted because of disputes in trade. Gentlemen, all the wars I have thus far mentioned, until the last, have ceased to be popular in this civilized age I should have said ceased to be possible ; but nearly all recent wars have been based upon trade disputes or upon a desire for commercial supremacy. This is a type of war which cannot cease to exist, and why ? Upon trade supremacy absolutely rests sometimes the very salvation of a nation. Is there any nation on earth so puerile, so cowardly, that it is liable to give up its very existence without a struggle? A nation without courage is not liable to harbor any other virtue very long. Let us examine for a moment what connection, what influence, possibilities of this character may have for our country in the future. At the present time England supports 558 inhabitants THE REGULAR ARMY 257 to the square mile, whilst the United States has but 26. Were it not for the capacity of England to maintain its foreign trade, people would starve to death in less than a year. Practically every nation, almost all the old nations on earth, all the inhabitants of the Old World, have learned by experience that they must have foreign trade to promote the welfare and prosperity of their people. Even we in the United States, notwithstanding the fact that we have been so busy developing our own resources, which are still almost boundless, in an undeveloped state, find ourselves seeking foreign trade find ourselves seeking investments for our surplus capital in foreign countries. And why is this? Simply and solely because, gentlemen, when agricultural develop- ment has reached a certain stage in proportion to population, this is no longer a remunerative source for investment of capital. We ought not to have much difficulty in foreseeing a time when pos- sibly we also may badly need foreign trade to maintain our pres- ent standard of prosperity and of living among the masses. It may seem a far cry, when England is so prosperous with 558 people to the square mile, to begin to fear that a country having only 26 people to the square mile should some time need succor from the outside to maintain its prosperity. But, gentlemen, just pause and think for a moment how much an American likes to spread himself. Why, it takes about fifty times as much room for him to feel comfortable in as the average citizen on earth. It is no impossible thing that within the lives of some of our children we may find it very difficult indeed to maintain the standard of living now enjoyed by our laboring classes, to main- tain the prosperity which this country has on an average not the prosperity of last year, not the prosperity of any other boom period, but just the average prosperity the day may soon come when it will be very difficult for us to maintain that prosperity without foreign trade. Now, what is necessary in order to main- tain foreign trade ? Do you think the nations on earth who are now struggling tooth and toenail for all the trade they can possibly get are going to allow the United States to have its share merely out of generosity, merely out of altruism ? Do you suppose the United States can sit down and simply do nothing 258 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES and yet maintain its share of the trade of the world? The man who entertains such a thought can never have perused the pages of a single history. How has England acquired its enormous and wonderful com- mand of the commerce of the world ? Read your histories, gen- tlemen! You will find that there have been long-headed, wise, wonderfully far-sighted statesmen who have been pursuing one policy steadily, without hesitation and without variation, and that policy is to acquire vantage points over the face of the earth from which it could protect its trade on the sea. I have in my hand a small map in outline, which you see is fairly well besprinkled with names. Every one of these names is that of a coaling station, a fortified naval base or a fortification which serves as a refuge for the navy of England in its opera- tions over the broad sea of the universe. When you come to look at the dates when many of these places were acquired, you will find they go back as far as the fifteenth century; and as early as the middle of the seventeenth century there was scarcely a statesman in England that had not come to realize the impor- tance of coaling stations conveniently distributed throughout the civilized world. Has the United States a policy of this character? Has the United States any national policy ? We grant we have a Monroe doctrine one feature of a policy. We have recently announced another twin trouble-maker with the Monroe doctrine the Open Door. Is anyone so simple as to think that the United States can maintain those doctrines merely by their announce- ment? Have we forgotten the sage advice given by him who was the greatest in war, greatest in peace, and greatest in the hearts of his countrymen, that the best way to maintain peace was to be prepared for war ? [Applause.] I have sometimes quoted a remark by the great German statesman Bismarck, that the Lord looks after geese and the weak-minded and the United States. [Laughter.] When we stop to consider how our people, blessed by the best country, the most prosperous condition, the most boundless resources that a young nation was ever possessed of on earth; when we stop to THE REGULAR ARMY 259 Consider that in gazing at this wonderful prize, we have for- gotten, or failed to see, that we might need something outside of that sometimes; when we stop to consider how short-sighted we have sometimes been, we feel that Bismarck was not joking after all. Has any of us forgotten that a great and much-beloved Presi- dent on one occasion desired our people to permit him to purchase for a comparatively nominal sum a small island situated in the Atlantic near our coast, which the country then possessing it was willing and anxious to sell; that, supported by popular opinion, our Congress declined to give the authority, and that within the past four or five years we have been trying in vain to purchase that island at the cost of many millions? Have we forgotten that Hawaii was almost forced upon us? And yet in these few years which have passed since that island was literally and absolutely presented to an unappreciative people, within a few years since that happened, our people have come to be a unit in regarding it as one of the greatest blessings we possess for the defense of our Pacific coast. Gentlemen, less than six months ago the librarian of one of the principal libraries in the United States told me that about the year 1808 our whaling fleet covered both oceans, the Pacific and the Atlantic ; that it got to be the pastime of whalers to hoist the American flag upon every unoccupied or unclaimed island that they came across and send word home that they had taken possession of this and that island in the Pacific. In those days nobody wanted them, and bye and bye some statesmen, unques- tionably inspired by good motives, but now, in the light of this day, recognizable as mistaken ones, came to the conclusion that we were violating the sage advice of our grandfathers to avoid entanglements, and published that list of islands to the world, renouncing any control thereof by the United States; and in less than twenty years' time the United States Government tried to buy one of those islands which had been picked up by another Government for $10,000,000, and has not got the island yet. Now, gentlemen, we indulge in "hot air"; it is a common American habit. We easily become puffed up with pride when 260 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES we have accomplished anything which we think is something great. As a consequence, we are swelling with pride that our fleet, probably one of the best equipped, the most modern, most powerful fleet that ever sailed the ocean, has accomplished the task that no other fleet has ever accomplished on earth. [Applause.] I am very glad of that applause, because the next remark I shall make won't be applauded. Has it occurred to a single one of you, gentlemen, that our fleet could not possibly sail around the Horn if war existed? Impossible! A Voice: What is the use? General Bell : I hope you will never live to see the day when it will be useful! In war, every neutral port is closed to our fleet ; we have not a coaling station, we have not a harbor of refuge, we have not a thing of that character from Guantanamo to San Francisco, excepting the Samoan Islands, which are away out in the Pacific Ocean. Now, who could do it ? Nobody but England, unless they have an alliance with South American countries. And why? Because in the middle of the seventeenth century England took possession of the only harbor in the Falkland islands, which lie off the coast of South America and within striking distance of the Straits of Magellan. Now, a gentleman a moment ago asked me, "What is the use of it?" There won't be any use of going around the Horn after the Panama Canal is constructed. However, I would like to elaborate and show that there is great use of getting our navy into the Pacific. We think enough of foreign trade right now to want our share of the trade of China. It has been estimated that if the standard of living among the Chinese was raised equal to that which now exists in America it would be like creating five Americas. If the standard of living was raised fifty per cent., it would be the equivalent, in a trade way, of adding 200,- 000,000 to the population of the earth. In the year 1905 I read in statistics in the United States the astounding fact that the tonnage which entered the harbor of Hong Kong was greater than that entering any other harbor THE REGULAR ARMY 261 on earth, not excepting London, or Hamburg, or New York. Now, what does this mean ? Simply that that is the distributing station for the Orient, mostly for China; and yet it is a well- known fact that the trade of China is but just scratched, and that only along the coast. The people of China have begun to awaken. There is a wonderfully quiet, domestic, peaceful lesson going on in China. This is indicated by the fact of the abolition of the ancient and classical customs, the desire for Western learning, the construction of modern means of communication, of telegraph and railways. There is not now a principal town in China not connected with Peking by wire, whereas a few years ago a telegraph line was unknown. Now the capital of China is connected with Hankow the Chicago of China by a rail- road. There is a railway projected from Canton to Hankow. A railway from Peking into Mongolia is being constructed by Chinese capital. Within the recollection of all of us at the present time, the internal trade of China was conducted by wheelbarrows. The delay in the construction of railroads in China has been caused by the guilds of Barrowmen. This shows the backwardness of a country which has 400,000,000 of people, and which is but beginning to develop. You can realize what the trade of this country must necessarily be. And now, I congratulate myself that I am speaking to a Society inspired solely by patriotism. Is it best that we should continue to worship a fetich, to oppose every protection which we owe to future generations of unborn posterity, when we have the opportunity to acquire vantage points and facilities without war- fare, is it wise that we should throw it away? Should we not think of the debt we owe to posterity? Should we not cease to be influenced by preconceived convictions ? Should we not begin to inquire earnestly what is good for the nation? Should we, not endeavor to organize and to instruct public opinion ? Should we, because the masses have been too busy to consider questions of state should we continue the policy of laissez-faire and allow our opportunities to serve our people in the future to go agley? I am sure there is no American citizen who is not just as anxious 262 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES to promote the interests of his Government as any other citizen. All he needs is to have his attention turned in the proper direc- tion, to be persuaded to investigate for himself, and then the public, the American public, can be safely trusted to be right when it has taken the trouble to ascertain the right. I thank you. [Applause.] The band then played "The Star-Spangled Banner." THE RESPONSIBILITY OF HAVING ANCESTORS. WOODROW WILSON. At the seventeenth annual dinner of the New England Society In Brooklyn, the twenty-first of December, 1896, Woodrow Wilson, then a professor in Princeton University, responded to this toast Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen: I am not of your blood ; I am not a Virginia Cavalier, as Dr. Hill [David J. Hill] has suggested. Sometimes I wish I were; I would have more fun. I come, however, of as good blood as yours; in some respects a better. Because the Scotch-Irish, though they are just as much in earnest as you are, have a little bit more gayety and more elasticity than you have. Moreover, they are now forming a Scotch-Irish society, which will, as fast as human affairs will allow, do exactly what the New England societies are doing, viz. : annex the universe. [Laughter.] We believe with a sincere belief, we believe as sincerely as you do the like, that we really made this country. Not only that, but we believe that we can now, in some sort of way, demonstrate the manufacture, because the country has obviously departed in many respects from the model which you claim to have set. Not only that, but it seems to me that you yourselves are becoming a little recreant to the traditions you yearly celebrate. It seems to me that you are very much in the position, with reference to your forefathers, that the little boy was with refer- ence to his immediate father. The father was a very busy man ; he was away at work before the children were up in the morn- ing and did not come home till after they had gone to bed at night. One day this little boy was greatly incensed, as he said, "to be whipped by that gentleman that stays here on Sundays." I do not observe that you think about your ancestors the rest of the week; I do not observe that they are very much present in your thoughts at any other time save on Sunday, and that then 263 264 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES they are most irritating to you. I have known a great many men descended from New England ancestors and I do not feel half so hardly toward my ancestors as they do toward theirs. There is a distant respect about the relationship which is touch- ing. There is a feeling that these men are well and safely at a distance, and that they would be indulged under no other cir- cumstances whatever; and that the beauty of it is to have descended from them and come so far away. Now there are serious aspects to this subject. I believe that one of the responsibilities of having ancestors is the necessity of not being ashamed of them. I believe if you have had persons of this sort as your forefathers you must really try to represent them in some sort of way. And you must set yourselves off against the other elements of population in this country. You know that we have received very many elements which have nothing of the Puritan about them, which have nothing of New England about them ; and the chief characteristics of these people is that they have broken all their traditions. The reason that most foreigners come to this country is in order to break their traditions, to drop them. They come to this country because these traditions bind them to an order of society which they will no longer endure, and they come to be quit of them. You yourselves will bear me witness that these men, some of them, stood us in good stead upon a very recent occasion : in last Novem- ber. [Applause. "Hear! Hear!"] We should not at all minimize the vote of the foreign born population as against the vote of some of the native-born population on the question of silver and gold. But you will observe that there are some things that it would be supposed would belong to any tradition. One would suppose it would belong to any tradition that it was bet- ter to earn a dollar that did not depreciate, and these men have simply shown that there are some common-sense elements which are international and not national. One of the particulars in which we are drawn away from our traditions is in respect to the make-up and government of society, and it is in that respect we should retrace our steps and preserve our traditions ; because we are suffering ourselves to drift away KESPONSIBILITY OF HAVING ANCESTORS 265 from the old standards, and we say, with a shrug of the shoul- ders, that we are not responsible for it ; that we have not changed the age, though the age has changed us. We feel very much as the Scotchman did who entered the fish market. His dog, being inquisitive, investigated a basket of lobsters, and while he was nosing about incautiously one of the lobsters got hold of his tail, whereupon he went down the street with the lobster as a pendant. Says the man, ' ' Whustle for your dog, mon,. " ' ' Nay, nay, mon, ' ' quoth the Scotchman. "You whustle for your lobster." We are very much in the same position with reference to the age; we say,, whistle to the age ; we cannot make it let go ; we have got to run. We feel very much like the little boy standing in the asylum, standing by the window, forbidden to go out. He became contemplative, and said : "If God were dead, and there were not any rain, what fun orphan boys would have." We feel very much that way about these New England traditions. If God were only dead; if it didn't rain; if the times were only good, what times we would have. The present world is not recognizable when put side by side with the world into which the Puritan came. I am not here to urge a return to the Puritan life; but have you forgotten that the Puritans came into a new world? The conditions under which they came were unprecedented conditions to them. But did they forget the principles on which they acted because the conditions were unprecedented? Did they not discover new applications for old principles ? Are we to be daunted, therefore, because the conditions are new? Will not old principles be adaptable to new conditions, and is it not our business to adapt them to new conditions? Have we lost the old principles and the old spirit ? Are we a degenerate people ? We certainly must admit ourselves to be so if we do not follow the old principles in the new world, for that is what the Puritans did. Let me say a very practical word. What is the matter now ? The matter is, conceal it as we may, gloss it over as we please, that the currency is in a sad state of unsuitability to the con- dition of the country. That is the fact of the matter; nobody can deny that ; but what are we going to do ? We are going to 266 AFTER-DINNEE SPEECHES have a new tariff. I have nothing to say with regard to the policy of the tariff one way or the other. We have had tariffs have we not, every few years ever since we were born ; and has not the farmer become discontented under these conditions? It was the effort to remedy them that produced the silver movement. A new tariff may produce certain economic con- ditions; I do not care a peppercorn whether it does or not, but this is a thing which we have been tinkering and dickering with time out of mind, and in spite of the tinkering and dickering this situation has arisen. Are we going to cure it by more tinkering? We are not going to touch it in this way. Now, what are we going to do? It is neither here nor there whether I am a protectionist, or for a tariff for revenue, or whatever you choose to call me. The amount you collect in currency for imports is not going to make any difference. The right thing to do is to apply old principles to a new condition and get out of that new condition something that will effect a practical remedy. I do not pretend to be a doctor with a nostrum. I have no pill against an earthquake. I do not know how this thing is to be done, but it is not going to be done by having stomachs easily turned by the truth ; it is not going to be done by merely blinking the situation. If we blink the situation I hope we shall have no more celebrations in which we talk about our Puritan ances- tors, because they did not blink the situation, and it is easy to eat and be happy and proud. A large number of persons may have square meals by having a properly adjusted currency. We are very much in the condition described by the reporter who was describing the murder of a certain gentleman. He said that the murderer entered the house, and gave a graphic descrip- tion of the whole thing. He said that fortunately the gentleman had put his valuables in the safe deposit and lost only his life. We are in danger of being equally wise. We are in danger of managing our policy so that our property will be put in safe deposits and we will lose only our lives. We will make all the immediate conditions of the nation perfectly safe and lose only the life of the nation. This is not a joke, this is a very serious situation. I should feel ashamed to stand here and not say 267 that this is a subject which deserves your serious consideration and ought to keep some of you awake to-night. This is not a simple gratulatory occasion, this is a place where public duty should be realized and public purposes formed, because public purpose is a thing for which our Puritan ancestors stood, yours and mine. If this race should ever lose that capacity, if it should ever lose the sense of dignity in this regard, we should lose the great tradition of which we pretend to be proud. [Applause.] THE DRAMA. ARTHUR WING PINERO. At the annual banquet of the Royal Academy, London, May fourth, 1895, Mr. Pinero responded to this toast, which was coupled with that to Music, Sir Alexander Mackenzie responding to the latter. Your Royal Highness, My Lords, and Gentlemen: There ought to be at least one strong link of sympathy between certain painters and certain dramatists, for in the craft of painting, as in that of play-writing, popular success is not always held to be quite creditable. Not very long ago I met at an exhibition of pictures a friend whose business it is to comment in the public journals upon painting and the drama. The exhibition was composed of the works of two artists, and I found myself in one room praising the pictures of the man who was exhibiting in the other. My friend promptly took me to task. "Surely," said he, "you noticed that two-thirds of the works in the next room are already sold?" I admitted having observed that many of the pictures were so ticketed. My friend shrugged his shoulders. "But," said I, anxiously, "do you really regard that circum- stance as reflecting disparagingly upon the man's work in the next room ? ' ' His reply was, ' ' Good work rarely sells. ' ' [Laugh- ter.] My lords and gentlemen, if the dictum laid flown by my friend be a sound one, I am placed to-night in a situation of some embarrassment. For, in representing, as you honor me, by giving me leave to do, my brother dramatists, I confess I am not in the position to deny that their wares frequently "sell." [Laughter.] I might, of course, artfully plead in extenuation of this condition of affairs that success in such a shape is the very last reward the dramatist toils for, or desires ; that when the theatre in which his work is presented is thronged nightly no one is more surprised, more abashed than himself; that his modesty is so impenetrable, his artistic absorption so profound, that the 268 THE DRAMA 269 sound of the voices of public approbation reduces him to a state of shame and dismay. [Laughter.] But did I advance this plea, I think it would at once be found to be a very shallow plea. For in any department of life, social, political, or artistic, nothing is more difficult than to avoid incurring the suspicion that you mean to succeed in the widest application of the term, if you can. If, therefore, there be any truth in the assertion that ' ' good work rarely sells," it would appear that I must, on behalf of certain of my brother dramatists, either bow my head in frank humilia- tion, or strike out some ingenious line of defense. ["Hear! Hear!"] But, my lords and gentlemen, I shall, with your sanction, adopt neither of those expedients. I shall simply beg leave to acknowledge freely, to acknowledge without a blush, that what is known as popular success is, I believe, greatly coveted, sternly fought for, by even the most earnest of those writers who deal in the commodity labelled "modern British drama." And I would, moreover, submit that of all the affectations displayed by artists of any craft, the affectation of despising the approval and support of the great public is the most mischievous and mislead- ing. [Cheers.] Speaking at any rate of dramatic art, I believe that its most substantial claim upon consideration rests in its power of legitimately interesting a great number of people. I believe this of any art; I believe it especially of the drama. Whatever distinction the dramatist may attain in gaining the attention of the so-called select few, I believe that his finest task is that of giving back to a multitude their own thoughts and conceptions, illuminated, enlarged, and if needful, purged, per- fected, transfigured. The making of a play that shall be closely observant in its portrayal of character, moral in purpose, dig- nified in expression, stirri ig in its development, yet not beyond our possible experience of life ; a drama, the unfolding of whose story shall be watched intently, responsively, night after night by thousands of men and women, necessarily of diversified tem- peraments, aims, and interests, men and women of all classes of society surely the writing of that drama, the weaving of that complex fabric is one of the most arduous of tasks which 270 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES art has set us ; surely its successful accomplishment is one of the highest achievements of which an artist is capable. I cannot claim it would be immodest to make such a claim in speaking even of my brother dramatists I cannot claim that the thorough achievement of such a task is a common one in this country. It is indeed a rare one in any country. But I can claim I do claim for my fellow-workers that they are not utterly unequal to the demands made upon them, and that of late there have been signs of the growth of a thoughtful, serious drama in England. ["Hear! Hear!"] I venture to think, too, that these signs are not in any sense exotics ; I make bold to say that they do not consist of mere imitations of certain models ; I submit that they are not as a few critics of limited outlook and exclusive enthusiasm would have us believe I submit that they are not mere echoes of foreign voices. I submit that the drama of the present day is the natural outcome of our own immediate environ- ment, of the life that closely surrounds us. And, perhaps, it would be only fair to allow that the reproaches which have been levelled for so long a period at the British theatre the most important of these reproaches being that it possessed no drama at all perhaps, I say, we may grant in a spirit of charity that these reproaches ought not to be wholly laid at the door of the native playwright. If it be true that he has been in the habit of producing plays invariably conventional in sentiment, trite in comedy, wrought on traditional lines, inculcating no philo- sophy, making no intellectual appeal whatever, may it not be that the attitude of the frequenters of the theatre has made it hard for him to do anything else ? If he has until lately evaded in his theatrical work any attempt at a true criticism of life, if he has ignored the social, religious, and scientific problems of the day, may we not attribute this to the fact that the public have not been in the mood for these elements of seriousness in their theatrical entertainment, have not demanded these special ele- ments of seriousness either in plays or in novels? But during recent years, the temper of the times has been changing; it is now the period of analysis, of general restless inquiry, and as this spirit creates a demand for freer expression on the part of THE DRAMA 271 our writers of books, so it naturally permits to our writers of plays a wider scope in the selection of subject, and calls for an accompanying effort of thought, a large freedom of utterance. At this moment, perhaps, the difficulty of the dramatist lies less in paucity of subject than in an almost embarrassing wealth of it. The life around us teems with problems of conduct and character, which may be said almost to cry aloud for dramatic treatment, and the temptation that besets the busy playwright of an uneasy, an impatient age, is that in yielding himself to the allurements of contemporary psychology, he is apt to forget that fancy and romance have also their immortal rights in the drama. ["Hear! Hear!"]. But when all is claimed for romance, we must remember that the laws of supply and demand assert themselves in the domain of dramatic literature as else- where. What the people, out of the advancement of their knowl- edge, out of the enlightenment of modern education, want, they will ask for; what they demand they will have. And at the present moment the English people appear to be inclined to grant to the English dramatist the utmost freedom to deal with questions which have long been thought to be outside the province of the stage. I do not deplore, I rejoice that this is so, and I rejoice that to the dramatists of my day to those at least who care to attempt to discharge it, falls the duty of striking from the limbs of English drama some of its shackles. [' ' Hear ! Hear!"] I know that the discharge of this duty is attended by one great, one special peril. And in thinking particularly of the younger generation of dramatists, those upon whom the imme- diate future of our drama depends, I cannot help expressing the hope that they will accept this freedom as a privilege to be jealously exercised, a privilege to be exercised in the spirit which I have been so presumptuous as to indicate. It would be easy by a heedless employment of the latitude allowed us to destroy its usefulness, indeed to bring about a reaction which would deprive us of our newly granted liberty altogether. Upon this point the young, the coming dramatist would perhaps do well to ponder ; he would do well, I think, to realize fully that freedom in art must be guarded by the eternal unwritten laws 272 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES of good taste, morality, and beauty ; he would do well to remem- ber always that the real courage of the artist is in his capacity for restraint. [Cheers.] I am deeply sensible of the honor which has been done me in the association of my name with this toast, and I ask your leave to add one word a word of regret at the absence to-night of my friend, Mr. Toole, an absence unhappily occasioned by illness from which he is but slowly recovering. Mr. Toole charges me to express his deep disap- pointment at being prevented from attending this banquet. He does not, however, instruct me to say what I do say heartily that Mr. Toole fitly represents in any assemblage his own par- ticular department of the drama; more fitly represents his department than I do mine. I know of no actor who stands higher in the esteem, who exists more durably in the affection of those who know him, than does John Lawrence Toole. OUR COUNTRYWOMEN. JOHN HAY. In his Retrospections of an Active Life, Mr. John Bigelow says: "By official proclamation President Johnson set apart the first Thurs- day of December, 1865, as a day of national thanksgiving. The American residents and visitors in Paris deemed it an occasion to be celebrated with more than usual ceremony. The result was that at eight o'clock on the evening of the seventh of December some two hundred and fifty-three of our countrymen sat down to a dinner in the spacious dining-room of the Grand Hotel in Paris, then regarded by travelers as the most elegant public dining-hall in Europe. "After a succession of speeches, the chairman closed the enter- tainment with a toast to 'Our Countrywomen,' and asked Colonel John Hay, then Secretary of the Legation in Paris, to respond to it. As this was probably the first public speech Mr. Hay had ever made, and though nothing he then said could possibly add any luster to his subsequent career, it may justly be said that it was more successful than the first public effort in oratory either of Sheridan or of Beacons- field. He replied, in part, as follows:" My Countrymen and I would say my countrywomen, but that the former word embraces the latter whenever opportunity offers I cannot understand why I should have been called upon to respond to this toast of all others, having nothing but theoreti- cal ideas upon the subject to be treated one, in fact, I must be presumed never to have handled. [Laughter and applause.] I have been called up, too, by a committee of married men. I can think of no claim I have to be considered an authority in these matters, except what might arise from the fact of my having resided in early life in the same neighborhood with Brigham Young, who has since gained some reputation as a thorough and practical ladies' man. [Great laughter.] I am not conscious, however, of having imbibed any such wisdom at the feet of this matrimonial Gamaliel as should justly entitle me to be heard among the elders. 273 274 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES So I am inevitably forced to the conclusion that these hus- bands cannot trust each other's discretion. The secrets of the prison-house are too important to be trusted to one of the prison- ers. So ignorance of the matter in hand has come to be held an absolute prerequisite when anyone is to be sacrificed to the exigencies of this toast. I really do not see why this should be so. It is useless for husbands to attempt to keep this thin veneering of a semblance of authority. The symbols of government they still retain deceive nobody. They may comfort themselves with the assurance of some vague invisible supremacy, like that of the spiritual Mikado or the Grand Llama, but the true Tycoon is the wife. A witty and profound observer the other day said: "Every husband doubtless knows he is master in his own house, but he also knows his neighbor's wife is master in hers." [Laughter and cheers.] Why should not you, husbands of America, admit this great truth and give up the barren scepter? Things would go much easier if you ceased the struggle to keep up appearances. The ladies will not be hard on you. They will recognize the fact that, after all, you are their fellow-creatures, and you can be very useful to them in many little ways. They will doubtless allow you to pay their bills, take care of their children, and carry their votes to the ballot-box just as you do now. You had better come down gracefully, and, above all, let no feeling of discovered inferiority betray you in evil speaking of the domestic powers. There have been recent instances of dis- tinguished gentlemen, no doubt instigated by rebellious husbands, who have recklessly accused these guardian angels of your fire- sides of being extravagant and frivolous. These things are never uttered with impunity. I would not insure the life of one who libels the ladies for less than cent per cent. "Discite justitiam moniti et non temnere Divas!" which, as you may not understand the backwoods pronunciation of the classic warning, I will translate with a freedom befitting the day we celebrate : OUR COUNTRYWOMEN 275 'Now, all you happy husbands, Beware the rebel's fate! Live in obedience all your lives, Give up your latch-keys to your wives, And never stay out late." [Laughter and loud cheers.] "HAIL COLUMBIA." BENJAMIN HARRISON. On the eve of the New Year which ushered in this century, the new building of the Columbia Club, a Republican organization of Indianapolis, was dedicated. General Harrison's was the last name on the card, and he responded to the toast "Hail Columbia." My toast has great scope. I do not think of anything but that may, without glaring inappropriateness, be connected with it. A late speaker should always choose such a toast. Where the antecedent orators are addicted to ranging, it is the only way to save an untrodden fence corner with a few clumps of bunch grass dry but nutritious. I do not speak of flowers, for I foresaw that there would not be enough left for me to make a boutonniere, after our Senators [Fairbanks and Beveridge] and Mr. Griffiths had been heard! Columbia should have been the name of the western hem- isphere the republican half of the world the hemisphere with- out a king on the ground the reserved world, where God sent the trodden spirits of men to be revived ; to find, where all things were primitive, man's primitive rights. Royal prerogatives are plants that require a walled garden, that must be defended from the wild, free growths that crowd and climb upon them. Pomp and laced garments are incon- gruous in the brush. Danger and hardship are commoners. The man in front is the captain the royal commission to the con- trary notwithstanding. The platoon and volley firing by the word would not do the open order, one man to a tree, firing at his own will and at a particular savage, was better. Out of this and like calls to do things upon his own initiative, the free American was born. He thought he might get along with kings and imperial parliaments if they were benevolent, and did and allowed what he wished, but they were forever doing their own 276 HAIL COLUMBIA 277 pleasure, as the way of absolutism always is. And so he found it necessary first to remonstrate and then to resist. Now a remonstrance implies an argument. The acts com- plained of must be shown to have infringed a right. At first he talked of English rights, but it was not long before he began to talk about human rights. The British Parliament was, under British law, supreme could repeal the Magna Charta. He turned to the Colonial charters. Surely they were irrevocable grants but the crown courts held otherwise. What kings and parliaments had given they could take away. And so our fathers were driven to claim a divine endowment and to allow it to all men, since God had made all of one blood. To write the argument otherwise was to divest it of its major premise. The grand conclusion no king or parliament can rightfully take God's gift of liberty from any man was thus riveted to the eternal throne itself. We made for our convenience an excep- tion in the case of the black man ; but God erased it with a sponge dipped in the white man's blood. This divine law of individual liberty allows the restraints that are necessary for the general good, but it does not allow either man or a civil community to exploit for selfish gain another man or another community. The so-called Anglo-Saxon and especially the American branch of that great family should reverently and humbly thank God for the pre-eminent power and influence he has given to it ; for organized freedom and for astounding wealth. Verily, He hath not dealt so with any other people. The gifts of wealth and power, whether to man or nation, are, however, to be soberly taken and wisely used. I estimate the gift of the governing faculty to be God's greatest gift to the Anglo-Saxon, and in the Constitution of the United States, with its division of powers, its limitations upon the governing departments and its sublime reservations in the interests of individual liberty, I see the highest achievement of that most rare faculty. I have no argument to make, here or anywhere, against ter- ritorial expansion, but I do not, as some do, look to expansion as 278 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES the safest or most attractive avenue of national development. By the advantages of abundant and cheap coal and iron, of an enormous surplus of food products, and of invention and economy in production, we are now leading by a nose the original and the greatest of the colonizing nations. Australia and New Zealand loyally send their contingents to South Africa but Great Britain cannot hold the trade of her colonies against American offerings of a better or cheaper product. The Central and South American states were assured of our purpose not only to respect, but to defend, their autonomy, and finding the peace and social order which a closer and larger commercial intercourse with the world will bring, offer to our commerce a field the full develop- ment of which will realize the El Dorado. Hail to Columbia, the home of the free, and from which only freedom can go out ! The tune of "Hail Columbia" has for me some unpleasant associations. Before we started on the Atlanta campaign it was proclaimed in orders from division headquarters that the first strain of "Hail Columbia" should be the call of the First Brigade. And so it became associated with falling tents and wet and weary marches. When, after much marching and some fighting, we had spread the scant canvas allowed us ; had rinsed our only, or our extra shirt, and hung it out, with our wet blan- kets, to dry; had found the most adaptable concaves of a bed of poles; had just received the infrequent mail from the hands of our faithful chaplain, and were deep in the long-distance newspaper account of what we had done and were about to do from some near hilltop the first strain of "Hail Columbia" rang out, and the temptation to substitute another spelling of the first word, or at least to shorten the sound of the "a," was irresistible. The "general" came next, and after an interval, just long enough for the resumption of the wet shirt and the rolling of the blankets, the "assembly," and quickly afterwards, "to the colors." When we were in line, "Hail Columbia" had done its dreadful work, demolished a camp and scattered among its unsightly debris the fragments of a broken commandment. Then for the first time a human control of this diabolical enginery appeared in the shape of an orderly with a long white envelope HAIL COLUMBIA 279 stuck in the belt that supported his bloodless saber. Now, I like to know where I am going before I pack my trunk. Is it strange that I still feel the impulse to reach for my overcoat when I hear "Hail Columbia"? And now, hail to the Columbia Club an association of loyal, liberal-minded Republicans organized, not to control primaries or to divide the spoils of office, but to maintain the ascendency of Republican principles and to promote friendliness and good will among its members. I recall the occasion and the circumstances of your organization, and the ardent readiness with which you on every occasion rendered honor and service to me as the party's candidate, and as your neighbor. These things abide in my memory ; they are stored where no vicissitudes of life can disturb them. But they are more than mere pleasant reminiscences. They are bonds of friendship and inspirations to duty. The decapitation of the ex-President, when the oath of office has been administered to his successor, would greatly vivify a somewhat tiresome ceremonial. And we may some time solve the newspaper problem, what to do with our ex-Presidents, in that conclusive way. Until then I hope an ex-President may be permitted to live somewhere midway between the house of the gossip and the crypt of the mummy. He will know, perhaps, in an especial way, how to show the highest honor to the presi- dential office, and the most courteous deference to the President. Upon great questions, however especially upon questions of constitutional law you must give an ex-President his freedom or an ax and it is too late give me the ax. Any Democratic friends who may share your hospitality to-night will pardon me for saying to any of them who have cast beguiling looks towards me, that the Democratic party has never been less attractive than now. No plan of reorganization suggests itself to me except that suggested by a waggish lieu- tenant of my regiment to a captain whose platoons were inverted. He said, ' ' Captain, if I were in your place, I would break ranks and have the orderly call the roll." Perhaps even this hopeful programme may fail for an inability to agree as to the roll and as to the orderly. 280 . AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES Gentlemen of the Columbia Club, I congratulate you upon the opening of this magnificent clubhouse and thank you with a full heart for your many acts of kindness. LITERATURE. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. When Sir Henry Irving was to leave England for a professional tour of America in 1883, a banquet was given to him on July fourth, in London. Lord Chief Justice Coleridge occupied the chair. Vis- count Bury proposed the toast Literature, Science and Art, Mr. Lowell responding for Literature, Professor Tyndall for Science, and Alma Tadema for Art. My Lord Coleridge, My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen: I confess that my mind was a little relieved when I found that the toast to which I am to respond rolled three gentlemen, Cerberus-like into one [laughter], and when I saw Science pull- ing impatiently at the leash on my left, and Art on my right, and that therefore the responsibility of only a third part of the acknowledgment has fallen to me. You, my lord, have alluded to the difficulties of after-dinner oratory. I must say that I am one of those who feel them more keenly the more after-dinner speeches I make. [Laughter.] There are a great many diffi- culties in the way, and there are three principal ones, I think. The first is the having too much to say, so that the words, hur- rying to escape, bear down and trample out the life of each other. The second is when, having nothing to say, we are expected to fill a void in the minds of our hearers. And I think the third, and most formidable, is the necessity of following a speaker who is sure to say all the things you meant to say, and better than you, so that we are tempted to exclaim, with the old grammarian, "Hang these fellows, who have said all our good things before us ! " [Laughter.] Now the fourth of July has several times been alluded to, and I believe it is generally thought that on that anniversary the spirit of a certain bird known to heraldic ornithologists and I believe to them alone as the spread eagle, enters into every American's breast, and compels him, whether he will or no, to 281 282 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES pour forth a flood of national self-laudation. [Laughter and cheers.] This, I say, is the general superstition, and I hope that a few words of mine may serve in some sort to correct it. I ask you, if there is any other people who have confined their national self-laudation to one day in the year. [Laughter.] I may be allowed to make one remark as to a personal experience. For- tune has willed it that I should see as many perhaps more cities and manners of men as Ulysses ; and I have observed one general fact, and that is that the adjectival epithet which is prefixed to all the virtues is invariably the epithet which geo- graphically describes the country that I am in. For instance, not to take any real name, if I am in the kingdom of Lilliput, I hear of the Lilliputian virtues. I hear courage, I hear common sense, and I hear political wisdom called by that name. If I cross to the neighboring Republic Blefusca for since Swift's time it has become a Republic I hear all those virtues suddenly qualified as Blefuscan. [Laughter.] I am very glad to be able to thank Lord Coleridge for having, I believe for the first time, coupled the name of the President of the United States with that of her Majesty on an occasion like this. I was struck, both in what he said, and in what our dis- tinguished guest of this evening said, with the frequent recur- rence of an adjective which is comparatively new I mean the word "English-speaking." We continually hear nowadays of the " English-speaking race," of the ''English-speaking popula- tion." I think this implies not that we are to forget, not that it would be well for us to forget, that national emulation and that national pride which is implied in the words "Englishman" and "American," but the word implies that there are certain peren- nial and abiding sympathies between all men of a common descent and a common language. [Cheers.] I am sure, my lord, that all you said with regard to the welcome which our distinguished guest will receive in America is true. His eminent talents as an actor, the dignified I may say the illustrious manner in which he has sustained the traditions of that succession of great actors, who, from the time of Burbage to his own, have illustrated the LITERATURE 283 English stage, will be as highly appreciated there as here. [Cheers.] And I am sure that I may also say that the chief magistrate of England will be welcomed by the bar of the United States, of which I am an unworthy member, and perhaps will be all the more warmly welcomed that he does not come among them to practice. He will find American law administered and I think he will agree with me in saying ably administered by judges who, I am sorry to say, sit without the traditional wig of Eng- land. [Laughter.] I have heard since I came here friends of mine gravely lament this as something prophetic of the decay which was sure to follow so serious an innovation. I answered with a little story which I remember hearing from my father. He remembered the last clergyman in New England who still continued to wear the wig. At first it became a singularity and at last a monstrosity; and the good doctor concluded to leave it off. But there was one poor woman among his parishioners who lamented this sadly, and waylaying the clergyman as he came out of church she said, "Oh, dear doctor, I have always listened to your sermon with the greatest edification and com- fort, but now that the wig is gone all is gone." [Laughter.] I have thought I have seen some signs of encouragement in the faces of my English friends after I have consoled them with this little story. But I must not allow myself to indulge in any further remarks. There is one virtue, I am sure, in after-dinner oratory, and that is brevity; and as to that I am reminded of a story. The Lord Chief Justice has told you what are the ingredients of after- dinner oratory. They are the joke, the quotation, and the platitude ; and the successful platitude, in my judgment, requires a very high order of genius. I believe that I have not given you a quotation, but I am reminded of something which I heard when very young the story of a Methodist clergyman in America. He was preaching at a camp meeting, and he was preaching upon the miracle of Joshua, and he began his sermon with this sentence: "My hearers, there are three motions of the sun. 284 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES The first is the straightforward or direct motion of the sun ; the second is the retrograde or backward motion of the sun; and the third is the motion mentioned in our text 'the sun stood still.'" [Laughter.] Now gentlemen, I don't know whether you see the application of this story I hope you do. The after-dinner orator at first begins and goes straight ahead that is the straightforward motion of the sun. Next he goes back and begins to repeat himself that is the backward motion of the sun. At last he has the good sense to bring himself to the end, and that is the motion men- tioned in our text, as the sun stood still. [Great laughter.] HARVARD COMMENCEMENT, 1885. JOSEPH H. CHOATE. On June twenty-fourth, 1885, Mr. Choate presided at the gathering of Harvard alumni to welcome James Russell Lowell, who was re- turning from the Ambassadorship to England after a continued absence of eight years in the diplomatic service. Mr. Lowell was the most distinguished living graduate of Harvard, and on this occasion many of his most eminent fellows assembled to greet him. After an interval of years, Mr. Choate succeeded him as Ambassador at the English post. The occasion referred to by Mr. Choate in the first paragraph of this address, when there was a promise of conflict, was the Harvard Commencement of 1883, when General Butler, Governor of Massachusetts, was refused the degree of Doctor of Laws, which it was the custom of the Board of Overseers to confer on the Governor of the State. The Governor attended the exercises, and it was thought that he might retaliate in his address the slight that was put upon him. Mr. Choate made a conciliatory speech, and General Butler made an equally friendly reply, which, he afterwards admitted, he had not intended doing. Now that you have banqueted upon these more substantial dainties, which the Delmonico of Harvard has provided, I invite you to partake of the more delicate diet of tongues and sounds the favorite dish at every Harvard dinner where, of course, every alumnus expects to get his desert. We have assembled for the two hundred and forty-ninth time to pay our vows at the shrine of our alma mater, to revel in the delights of mutual admiration, and to welcome to the commencement of actual life one hundred and seventy-five new brethren that our mother has brought for to-day. [Laughter.] Gentlemen, it is your great misfortune, and not a little to my embarrassment, that I have been called upon on two occasions to stand here in the place of the president of your choice, and to fill the shoes of a better man, and if I shuffle awkwardly about in them, you will remem- ber that they are several sizes too large for me, and with higher heels than I am accustomed to wear. [Laughter.] On a former 285 286 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES occasion, in view of the incompatibility of sentiment among authorities [laughter], I did what I might to stem the tide of seemingly irrepressible conflict, and, by your counsel and aid, with apparent success. "Grim visaged war" did smooth "his wrinkled front," and peace and harmony prevailed where blood had threatened. [Laughter.] But how, gentlemen, can I hope to fill your expectations to-day, when you have justly counted upon the most popular of all your divines and the most fervent of all your orators, who should now be leading your counsels here? But Phillips Brooks, having long ago mastered all hearts at home, has gone abroad in search of new conquests. [Applause.] When last heard from he was doing well in very kindred company; for he was breakfasting with Galdstone, the statesman whose defeat is mighty as victory [applause] ; the scholar and the orator, who would exchange for no title in the royal gift the lustre of his own great name. [Applause.] But I have no fears for the success of this occasion, notwithstanding the absence that we deplore, when I look around these tables and see who still are here. In the first place, you are all here [laughter and applause], and when the sons of Harvard are all together, basking in the sunshine of each other's countenance, what need is there for the sun to shine? And then, President Eliot is here. [Applause.] I remem- ber that, sixteen years ago, we gave him his first welcome to the seat which had previously been occupied by Quincy, Everett, Sparks, Felton, and Walker, and to-day, in your names, I may thank him that he has more than redeemed the pride and promise of his earlier days. While it cannot exactly be said that he found Harvard of brick and left it marble, it can truly be said that he found it a college and has already made it a university [applause] , and let us all hope that his faithful reign over us may continue as long as he has the strength and the courage to carry on the good work that he has in hand. And then, the Governor of the Commonwealth is here [applause], always a most honored guest among the alumni of HARVARD COMMENCEMENT, 1885 287 Harvard. [Applause.] Governor Winthrop attended our first commencement, and I believe that all the Governors in unbroken succession have followed his example. To-day, too, we are honored with the presence of the Vice- President of the United States* [applause], and now that Har- vard has assumed national proportions, what can be more fitting than that we should welcome to our board one of the chief representatives of the national government? He comes to us fresh from Yale, and if we may believe the morning papers a very large if, I admit if we may believe those veracious journals, the eminent Vice-President yesterday at New Haven gave utterance to two brief and pithy sentiments, one of which we shall accept with absolute, unqualified applause, and the other of which we must receive, if at all, with a modi- fication. "Yale," said he, in short and sententious words, which are the essence of great men, and which we are all so fond of hearing and reporting, "Yale," said he, "is everywhere." Gen- tlemen, I would say with this modification, yes, Yale is every- where, but she always finds Harvard there before her. [Applause.] Gentlemen, the rudeness of your manner broke off my sentence [laughter] she always finds Harvard there before her, or close alongside or very closely in her rear; and let us hope that her boys at New London to-morrow will demon- strate the truth of that. [Applause.] The other sentiment that he uttered, and that which needs no qualification, is that public office is a public trust. [Applause.] Gentlemen, in say- ing that, he stole Harvard thunder. That has been her doctrine since the days of John Adams ; and I am sure that you must be perfectly delighted to hear from this eminent man that old doctrine of ours reinforced. But, gentlemen, better than all the rest, once more at home in his old place among us again is James Russell Lowell. [Applause. All rose for three cheers and nine "rahs."] Eight years ago he left us for the public service. Men who did not know him wondered how poetry and diplomacy would work together, poetry, the science of all truth, and diplomacy, that * Thomas A. Hendricks. 288 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES is sometimes thought to be not quite so true. Well, if you will allow me, I will explain his triumphs abroad by a wise saying of Goethe's, the fitness of which I think you will recognize. "Poetry," said he, "belongs not to the noble nor to the people, neither to the king nor to the peasant; it is the offspring of a true man." It is not because of the laurels that were heaped upon him abroad, not because he commanded new honor for the American scholar and the American people, and not because his name will henceforth be a new bond of union between the two countries ; but we learned to love him before he went away, because we knew that from the beginning he had been the fear- less champion of truth and of freedom, and during every year of his absence, we have loved him the more. So, in your names, I bid him a cordial welcome home again. [Applause.] You will be pleased to hear that Dr. Holmes [applause] has been inspired by this interesting feature of the occasion to mount his Pegasus once more and ride out to Cambridge upon his back ; and soon you will hear him strike his lyre again in praise of his younger brother. [Applause.] But these are not all the treasures that are in store for you. Dr. James Freeman Clarke, after twenty-five years of continuous service on the Board of Overseers, from which he now retires by the edict of the Constitution, will tell you frankly what he thinks about you and about them. And then, to the Class of 1835, on the fiftieth year of its graduation, the crowning honors of this day belong, and I am pleased to say that their chosen spokesman, although pretending to be for the moment an invalid he wrote to me that he was no better than he should be [laughter] he is here to speak for them. For us who have been coming up to Cam- bridge for the last thirty years, I would like to know what Harvard commencement without Judge Hoar would be. Who can forget the quips and cranks and wanton wiles with which he has beguiled many an hour that promised to be dull; and how he has, I will not say sobered, but dimmed some of our lighter moments by words of wisdom and power. So, in your name I say: "Long life and a green old age to Judge Hoar, and all the members of the class of 1835." [Applause.] HARVARD COMMENCEMENT, 1885 289 Then, gentlemen, all these new doctors of law why, Harvard, returning to an ancient custom, has been selecting them from her own sons, and to-day it may truly be said that the Univer- sity has been growing rich and strong by degrees. [Laughter.] You will be glad to hear all of them speak for themselves. Of one of them, Dr. Carter, I will say from intimate knowledge, that he leads us gallantly at the bar of New York, and all his associates rejoice in his leadership. He has recently rendered a signal service to the jurisprudence of that great State by contributing more than any other man to the defeat of a code which threatened to involve all the settled law of that com- munity in confusion and contempt. And now, as I have told you who are to speak to you, I should sit down. I believe, however, it is usual for the presid- ing officer to recall any startling events in the history of the college. Gentlemen, there have been none. The petition of the undergraduates for what they call a fuller civil and religious liberty, in being relieved from compulsory attendance on morn- ing prayers, was denied. The answer of the overseers was well conceived that, in obedience to the settled rules and regula- tions of the college, of which that was one, they would find an all-sufficient liberty. That idea was not original with them; they borrowed it from Mr. Lowell, when he said and sung in his sonnet upon the reformers Who yet have not the one great lesson learned, That grows in leaves, Tides in the mighty seas, And in the stars eternally hath burned, That only full obedience is free. The only other incident in the history of the year is the suc- cessful effort that has been made in searching out the history of John Harvard, and about that the president of the college will tell you in good time, who he was, whence he came, and where he got the fortune and the library which he contributed along with his melodious name to the college. He gave half of all he had, gentlemen, and out of that modest fountain what vast results have flowed. May no red-handed vandal of an AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES undergraduate ever desecrate his statue that stands at the head of the Delta. [Applause.] And now, brethren, would you have your statue crowned? Would you, too, become immortal? Would you identify your names with the glory of the college? The way is open and easy. Follow exactly the example of the founder. Give one equal half of all you are worth to the college, and if you wish to enjoy your own immortality, do it to-morrow while you are yet alive. [Applause.] If you shrink from that, die at once and give it to them now. [Applause.] Other people possibly will rise up and call you blessed, whatever your own may do [laugh- ter] ; so you will relieve the president of more than half the labors of his office. I did want to say a word about another matter the elective system but President Eliot tells me I had better not. He says that the Board of Overseers of the college, are incubating on that question and that there is no telling what they may hatch out. Now, don't let us disturb them, gentlemen, at any rate, while they are on the nest. We might crack the shell, and then the whole work would have to be done over again. But, as you now seem to be in good mood, let me say one single word about this elective system. I don't care how they settle it. I hope they will give us the means of sustaining and fortifying their decision when they make it. We alumni at a distance from the college are often stung to indignation by the attacks that are made upon us by the representatives of other colleges. One would think, by the way they talk down there at Princeton that Harvard was going to the everlasting bow-wows; that the fountains of learning were being undermined and broken up; that, as Mr. Lowell again said: The Anglo-Saxondom's idee's breakin' 'em to pieces, And that idee's thet every mon doos jest wut he damn pleases. I suppose the truth about the elective system is that the world moves on and colleges move with it. In Cotton Mather's time, when he said that the sole object of the foundation of a college was to furnish a good supply of godly ministers for the HARVARD COMMENCEMENT, 1885 291 churches, it was well enough to feed them on Latin and Greek only. Now that young men when they go out into the world have everything to do about taking part in all the activities of life, for one, I say let them have the chance to learn here any- thing that they can possibly wish to. [Applause.] And I hope that our President will persevere in one direction at least, until he can say truly that whatever is worth learning can be taught well at Harvard. This is well expressed again in an idea of Mr. Lowell's, who always has ideas enough, if divided, to go around even among us: New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth; They must upward still, and onward, Who would keep abreast of truth. I hope you will be very patient with all the other speakers. I advise them, as the hour is late and the afternoon is short and there are a great many of them in number, each to put a good deal of shortening in his cake, which I have omitted. This is a rule that never is applied to the presiding officer, and I am afraid it never will be. [Applause.] THE CRITIC OF LITERATURE. LESLIE STEPHEN. This Is an example of the Royal Academy type of toast. Mr. Stephen responded to "Literature" at the annual banquet of the Academy In London, April twenty-ninth, 1893. Sir Frederic Leighton, presiding, spoke of literature as "that in which is garnered up the heat that feeds the spiritual life of men." Mr. President, Your Royal Highness, My Lords, and Gentle- men: When a poet or a great imaginative writer has to speak in this assembly he speaks as to brethren-in-arms, to persons with congenial tastes and with mutual sympathies, but when, instead of the creative writer, the Academy asks a critic to speak to them, then nothing but your proverbial courtesy can conceal the fact that they must really think they are appealing to a natural enemy. I have the misfortune to be a critic [laughter], but in this assembly I must say I am not an art critic. Friends have made a presumptuous attempt to fathom the depth of my ignorance upon artistic subjects, and they have thought that in some respects I must be admirably qualified for art criticism. [Laughter.] As a literary critic I have felt, and I could not say I was surprised, to find how unanimously critics have been condemned by poets and artists of all generations. I need only quote the words of the greatest authority, Shakespeare, who in one of his most pathetic sonnets reckons up the causes of the weariness of life and speaks of the spectacle of "Art made tongue-tied by authority, And folly (doctor-like), controlling skill." The great poet probably wrote these words after the much misrepresented interview with Lord Bacon in which the Chan- cellor explained to the poet how " Hamlet" should have been written, and from which it has been inferred that he took credit 292 THE CRITIC OF LITERATURE 293 for having written it himself. [Laughter.] Shakespeare natu- rally said what every artist must feel; for what is an artist? That is hardly a question to be asked in such an assembly, where I have only to look round to find plenty of people who realize the ideal artist, persons who are simple, unconventional, spon- taneous, sweet-natured [laughter], who go through the world influenced by impressions of everything that is beautiful, sublime, and pathetic. Sometimes they seem to take up impressions of a different kind [laughter] , but still this is their main purpose to receive impressions of images, the reproduction of which may make this world a little better for us all. For such people a very essential condition is that they should be spontaneous ; that they should look to nothing but telling us what they feel and how they feel it; that they should obey no external rules, and only embody those laws which have become a part of their natural instinct, and that they should think nothing, as of course they do nothing, for money; though they would not be so hard- hearted as to refuse to receive the spontaneous homage of the world, even when it came in that comparatively vulgar form. [Laughter.] But what is a critic ? He is a person who enforces rules upon the artist like a gardener who snips a tree in order to make it grow into a preconceived form, or grafts upon it until it develops into a monstrosity which he considers beautiful. We have made some advance upon the old savage. The man who went about saying, "This will never do," has become a thing of the past. The modern critic if he has a fault has become too genial; he seems not to distinguish between the functions of a critic and the founder of a new religious sect. [Laughter.] He erects shrines to his ideals, and he burns upon them good, strong, stupefying incense. This may be less painful to the artist than the old-fashioned style ; but it may be doubted whether it is not equally corrupting, and whether it does not stimulate a selfish- ness equally fatal to spontaneous production; whether it does not in the attempt to encourage originality favor a spurious type which consists merely in setting at defiance real common sense, and sometimes common decency. 294 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES I hope that critics are becoming better, that they have learned what imposters they have been, and that their philosophy has been merely the skilful manipulation of sonorous words, and that on the whole, they must lay aside their magisterial role and cease to suppose they are persons enforcing judicial decisions or experts who can speak with authority about chemical analysis. I hope that critics will learn to lay aside all pretension and to see only things that a critic really can see, and express genuine sympathy with human nature; and when they have succeeded in doing that they will be received as friends in such gatherings as the banquet of the Royal Academy. [Cheers.] ILLUSIONS CREATED BY ART. LORD PALMERSTON. Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston, responded to this toast at the annual banquet of the Royal Academy, London, May second, 1863. It is characteristic in length and tone of most of the Academy toasts. Mr. President, Your Royal Highnesses, My Lords, and Gen- tlemen: I need not, I am certain, assure you that nothing can be more gratifying to the feelings of any man than to receive that compliment which you have been pleased to propose and which this distinguished assembly has been kind enough so favor- ably to entertain in the toast of his health. It is natural that any man who is engaged in public life should feel the greatest interest in the promotion of the fine arts. In fact, without a great cultivation of art no nation has ever arrived at any point of eminence. We have seen great warlike exploits performed by nations in a state, I won't say of comparative barbarism, but wanting comparative civilization ; we have seen nations amassing great wealth, but yet not standing thereby high in the estima- tion of the rest of the world; but when great warlike achieve- ments, great national prosperity, and a high cultivation of the arts are all combined together, the nation in which those condi- tions are found may pride itself on holding that eminent posi- tion among the nations of the world which I am proud to say belongs to this country. [Loud cheers.] It is gratifying to have the honor of being invited to those periodical meetings where we find assembled within these rooms a greater amount of cultivation of mincf, of natural genius, of everything which constitutes the development of human intel- lect than perhaps has ever assembled within the same space elsewhere. And we have besides the gratification of seeing that in addition to those living examples of national genius the walls are covered with proofs that the national genius is capable of 295 296 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES the most active and admirable development. [Cheers.] Upon the present occasion, Mr. President, every visitor must have seen with the greatest delight that by the side of the works of those whose names are familiar to all, there are works of great ability brought hither by men who are still rising to fame ; and, therefore, we have the satisfaction of feeling that this country will never be wanting in men distinguished in the practice of the fine arts. [Cheers.] One great merit of this exhibition is that whatever may be the turn of a man's mind, whatever his position in life, he may at least during the period he is within these walls indulge the most pleasant illusions applicable to the wants his mind at that time may feel. A man who comes here shivering in one of those days which mark the severity of an English summer, may imagine that he is basking in an African sun and he may feel an imaginary warmth from the representa- tion of a tropical climate. If, on the other hand, he is suffer- ing under those exceptional miseries which one of the few hot days of an English summer is apt to create, he may imagine himself inhaling the fresh breezes of the seaside; he may sup- pose himself reclining in the cool shade of the most luxuriant foliage; he may for a time, in fancy, feel all the delights which the streets and pavements of London deny in reality. [Cheers and laughter.] And if he happens to be a young man, upon what is conventionally said to be his preferment, that is to say, looking out for a partner in life, he may here study all kinds and descriptions of female beauty [laughter and cheers] ; he may satisfy his mind whether light hair or dark, blue eyes or black, the tender or the serious, the gay or the sentimental, are most likely to contribute to the happiness of his future life. [Cheers.] And without exposing himself to any of those embar- rassing questions as to his intentions [laughter] which some- times too inquisitive a scrutiny may bring [much laughter], without creating disappointment or breaking any hearts, by being referred to any paternal authority, which, he may not desire to consult, he may go and apply to practical selection those principles of choice which will result from the study within these walls. ILLUSIONS CREATED BY ART 297 Then those of a more serious turn of mind who direct their thoughts to State affairs, and who wish to know of what that august assembly the House of Commons is composed, may here [pointing to Phillip's picture behind the chair], without the trouble of asking an order, without waiting in "Westminster Hall until a seat be vacant, without passing hours in a hot gallery listening perhaps to dull discourses in an uninteresting debate they may here see what kind of thing the House of Commons is, and go back edified by the sight without being bored by dull speeches. [Cheers and laughter.] Now don't, gentlemen, imagine that I am romancing when I attribute this virtue to ocular demonstration don't imagine that that which enters the eye does not sometimes penetrate to the mind and feelings. I will give you an instance to the con- trary. I remember within these walls seeing two gentlemen who evidently, from their remarks, were very good judges of horses, looking with the greatest admiration upon the well-known pic- ture of Landseer, "The Horseshoeing at the Blacksmith's;" and after they had looked at it for some time one was approach- ing nearer, when the other in an agony of enthusiasm said: "For heaven's sake, don't go too near, he will kick you." [Cheers and laughter.] "Well, gentlemen, I said that a public man must take great interest in art, but I feel that the present Government has an apology to make to one department of art, and that is to the sculptors; for there is an old maxim denoting one of the high functions of art which is " Ars est celare artem." Now there was a cellar in which the art of the most distinguished sculptors was concealed to the utmost extent of the application of that saying. We have brought them comparatively into light ; and if the sculptors will excuse us for having departed from that sage and ancient maxim, I am sure the public will thank us for having given them an opportunity of seeing those beautiful works of men of which it may be said : ' ' Vivos ducunt de marmore vul- tus." I trust, therefore, the sculptors will excuse us for having done, not perhaps the best they might have wished, but at least for having relieved them a little from the darkness of that 298 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES Cimmerian cellar in which their works were hid. [Cheers.] I beg again to thank you, gentlemen, for the honor you have done me in drinking my health. [Loud cheers.] OUR JEALOUS MISTRESS THE LAW. WILLIAM ALLEN WOOD. This toast is a combination of two toasts, one of which was given at a bar dinner, with a few personal allusions eliminated. Gentlemen of the Bench and Bar: I hope it does not seem to you that your committee, having given you bread in the way of these epicurean delights, now offers you a stone in the form of a toast on the law. It may be as well to reassure you by saying I shall not "talk shop" so far as the discussion of any particular legal question is concerned. I consider this a purely recreational occasion, and hope that the serious part of my address will not prove wholly incompatible with that idea. It is plain, however, from your affluent appearance that you can afford both bread and stone if you want them. Indeed, on account of your appearance of very great prosperity, I am per- suaded to believe that some lawyers actually get those prepos- terously large fees we read about, and that the jokes at the expense of the profession in this regard have some foundation in fact. When I was advised several days ago that I was to speak this evening on this subject, I began to try to think of some- thing pleasant and stimulating to say. Having a high regard for our profession myself, a regard in which I have been con- firmed many times by histories of one kind or another, by social, political, and legal philosophers, and above all, by the many evidences of preferment shown by the public at large towards us, I thought I would note in the current fiction I should read between that time and to-night what authors now prominent before the public think of us, if they give us their attention at all with the purpose, of course, of using it here to-night to give us a little more chest expansion on account of things in general and ourselves in particular. What was my surprise 299 300 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES and dismay to find in the only two pieces of literature I read that mentioned our profession that there are those who have, apparently, a decidedly shabby opinion of us, even when taking into account that the opinions are expressed in fiction. Being confronted to-night with an imperturable complacency that does not seem to leave further capacity for chest expansion, I am inclined to believe a higher power has interfered and has meant me to quote from these books to try to puncture this compla- cency. However, before doing so, I will administer a dose of tonic in the way of a fine example of appreciation of the law I found in a news item in one of our city papers a few evenings ago. This dispatch, which I have culled for your entertainment, is from a smaller city of Indiana and is a masterpiece of the reporter's art. With the exception of the name of the gentle- man it concerns, the item reads as follows: "William (or Big Bill) Jenkins, who was sheriff two terms, who made a race for mayor on the Republican ticket, who has been in half a dozen business enterprises and weighs more than three hundred pounds, is going to Indianapolis next month to attend law school. Some weeks ago Jenkins entered a law office to see how he would like the profession and appeared in a few cases in a justice of the peace court. He believes he has found his vocation. Jenkins a year ago mixed up in a sensational divorce case following a marriage that caused another woman to assault him. He then married his assailant. There was plenty of law in the varied phases of Jenkins' matrimonial troubles and he was compelled to pay enough large fees to cause him to think well of the pro- fession. He was a bricklayer when elected to office. ' ' So you see that, through sore tribulation and wide experience of businesses and life and a taste of our work, another has felt a "calling" to serve the country in our high profession. I am sure we are glad to be confirmed in our choice by this recent happy example and to applaud our State that such appreciation of the law has been rewarded by almost instant admission to our midst. It may be that a bar composed of such ill-trained members incited Dick the butcher, in King Henry the Sixth, to say, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." It is not necessary, I OUR JEALOUS MISTRESS THE LAW 301 believe, to emphasize to this audience the tip in this item that the payment of large fees breeds respect for the profession in those who pay. You will note from the quotations from current literature, when I come to them, that our literary brethren seem to regard our profession as a hard, unsympathetic and unprogressive one. It has occurred to me that the chief virtues of the law, its delib- eration, its stability, strict reasonableness and firmness, are what make it seem to many people a hard-hearted profession. It is true that if these virtues are at all overdeveloped, the ten- dency is towards hardness, but through all the ages the law has been subjected from time to time to corrective influences, both philosophical and emotional in their origin, which have kept it surprisingly humane. Aristotle, the philosopher, said that per- fect law-givers have had more regardful care of friendship than of justice, and Aristotle's philosophy has been a power ever since it was given the world. Coming down to recent times, we find in Hugo's Les Miserables a powerful piece of fiction whose leading idea, presented in an emotional form, has had a con- stantly softening effect on the law. I can do no better than present its idea in the language of Amiel, who, in 1863, wrote in his journal, "I have been turning over the thirty-five hun- dred pages of Les Miserables, trying to understand the guiding idea of this vast composition. The fundamental idea of Les Miserables seems to be this : Society engenders certain frightful evils prostitution, vagabondage, rogues, thieves, convicts, war, revolutionary clubs and barricades. She ought to impress this fact on her mind, and not treat all those who come in contact with law as mere monsters. The task before us is to humanize law and opinion, to raise the fallen as well as the vanquished, to create a social redemption. How is this to be done? By enlightening vice and lawlessness, and so diminishing the sum of them, and by bringing to bear upon the guilty the healing influence of pardon. At bottom is it not a Christianization of society, this extension of charity from the sinner to the con- demned criminal, this application to our present life of what the church applies to the other? Struggle to restore a human 302 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES soul to order and to righteousness by patience and by love, instead of crushing it by your inflexible vindictiveness, your savage justice! Such is the cry of the book." Amiel then points out that the book is great and noble, a little optimistic and Rousseau-like, somewhat fanciful in its superficial notion of evil, ignoring those delinquents who love evil for evil 's sake ; that the great and salutary idea of the book is that honesty before the law is a cruel hypocrisy, in so far as it arrogates to itself the right of dividing society according to its own standard into elect and reprobate, and then confounds the relative with the absolute. The leading passage, in which Javert reverses his whole moral system, shows us social charity illuminating and transforming a harsh and unrighteous justice. To-day we have Galsworthy's drama, Justice, which has had such an effect on that talented member of Parliament, Winston Churchill, that he at once set about prison reform in England because of it. The law is not necessarily hard, but it is necessarily firm. It cannot take account of pure sentimentalism in performing its function. It is necessarily punitive in the maintenance of order, even when we take the relative instead of the absolute view of crime. It presupposes a broad education of the head as well as the heart. It is true it sometimes begets a cer- tain vulgar cocksureness, which arises from the supposed infalli- bility of precedents and takes the place of that admirable cer- tainty born of a union between the mind and the heart in com- mon approval of an opinion, but that again is a tendency that is an exaggerated virtue. We, as lawyers, cannot adopt what seems to be the current and popular idea that life is largely experimental, empirical, and that the value of all laws may be tested by the individual, who can adopt what suits his person- ality and disregard, or cleverly evade, those which do not. The experience of the race must count for something, and the individual must be made to assimilate and take for part of his adopted traits and customs what the race has declared in law to be righteous and just, whether he has personal oppor- tunity to experiment and pronounce on them or not. The individual must be made, whether willing or not, to assume his OUR JEALOUS MISTRESS THE LAW 303 share of personal responsibility for the maintenance of our inherited civilization, and there must be no privileged char- acters, either natural or artificial. "We, as lawyers, must insist on the virtue of the stability, firmness, reasonableness and ines- capableness of the law, especially now when ridiculous senti- mentality runs riot in the land so that in almost every play of the underworld one sees, the clever criminal, who is the hero, is rewarded for his crime with the hand of the beautiful, inno- cent heroine, when he should be sent to hard work in a peni- tentiary. In a book advertisement I read a few days ago the publishers said the author " shows the same delightful love for human sins and frailties that he shows in his other books." If it is true that we tend to become like that which we habitually admire, such an attitude on the part of any considerable part of our population would not augur well for the future of our country. Do not understand me as decrying education of the heart. I believe that, of all men, the lawyer must be the man of all-round education. And while I think that to know the law, to comprehend its basic principles and the lines of reason- ing growing out of them, and to be able to think in line with them, is a liberal education in itself, still, to have one's mind so specialized in the law of precedents and decisions that it can only think in accordance with them, is to undergo a distressing and repellant paralysis of the intellectual faculties and a prac- tical crowding out of the natural and beneficent altruism of the heart. I do not believe the judges and lawyers of any age have more nicely balanced the two elements of a proper opinion, have more sanely tempered justice with mercy, than those of to-day. As the Mikado has it, I believe they try to the best of their ability to "make the punishment fit the crime." Hand-me-down opinions are no longer put on every case of a general class. Especially in the application of justice to juvenile offenders, such occupants of the bench as Judge Lindsey, of Denver, and the late Judge Stubbs, of Indianapolis, have promoted the custom of taking the measure of the individual offender, of considering his or her welfare and the individual and social reaction that may Come from punishment of one kind or another under the law, 304 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES which results in a tailor-made opinion for each case considered. Thus the law and the demands of a reasonable altruism are both met satisfactorily. This kind of justice also gives the lawyers appearing on opposite sides of a case the opportunity of being more honest with themselves and with the judges. Both need not claim to be absolutely right, each claiming that the other is absolutely wrong, inhibiting to some extent thereby the swift and accurate conclusion of justice. The story is told of an English lawyer who had several professional wigs hanging in a wardrobe of his office a common business wig, a chancery wig, a house of lords wig, and a court wig. A friend visiting the office inquired about them and was told the purpose of each. "And where," said the friend, "is the honest lawyer's wig?" "That," replied the lawyer, "is unfashionable and unprofes- sional." I may remark that the modified system of justice in England and America has made the honest lawyer's wig both fashionable and professional. I have wandered, in a way, in what seemed to me an alluring philosophical bypath, from the subject of how we appear to the literary public. I hope my speech will not sound like a com- pilation by Lord Avebury, better known here, perhaps, as Sir John Lubbock, if I now use these other quotations. Of the two I mentioned to you, I was particularly amused with the lan- guage of the lawyer in The Dream Play, by the lately deceased Norwegian dramatist, Strindberg. It is something over which we can shed festive tears, if tears be necessary. Picturing his work and social condition as he sits in his law office, this char- acter says, "Look at these walls. Does it not look as if the wallpaper itself had been soiled by every conceivable sin ? Look at these documents into which I write tales of wrong. Look at myself no smiling man ever comes here; nothing is to be seen here but angry glances, snarling lips, clenched fists and every- body pours his anger, his envy, his suspicions upon me. Look my hands are black, and no washing will clean them. * * * At times I have the place fumigated with sulphur, but it does not help. I sleep near by and I dream of nothing but crimes just now I have a murder case in court oh, I can stand that, OUR JEALOUS MISTRESS THE LAW 305 but do you know what is worse than anything else? that is to separate married people ! Then it is as if something cried way down in the earth and up there in the sky as if it cried treason against the primal force, against the source of all good, against love, and do you know, when reams of paper have been filled with mutual accusations, and at last a sympathetic person takes one of the two apart and asks with a pinch of the ear or a smile, the simple question : what have you really got against your hus- band? or your wife? then he, or she, stands perplexed and cannot give the cause. Once, well, I think a lettuce salad was the principal issue; another time it was just a word mostly it is nothing at all. But the tortures, the sufferings these I have to bear. Do you think anybody dares to be friendly with me, who has to collect all the debts, all the money obligations of the whole city?" This is, perhaps, as much as we could expect from that gray country whose authors have invented such marvelous technique in writing, but concern themselves with subjects that are so morbid and depressing. Not to mention particularly the ridiculousness of a lawyer's filling reams of paper with accusations the client cannot remember or with those involving the lettuce salad, the attitude towards the law here is as if, to use a medical comparison, a doctor took the same diseases as his patients and suffered all the tortures his patients suffered, or as if, from a weak, unfortified quality of sympathy, he sometimes became hysterical with pain for his patients. Ours would be a most unattractive profession if our members were like the lawyer presented by Strindberg. Our relation to our clients, like the physician's relation to his patient, should and must be strictly professional, as I believe it is in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. If we were to worry over the troubles of our clients, if we acted with any extensive interest in their affairs beyond the purely professional one, we soon should be in the insane asylum. No client has a claim on our emotional interest and sympathy, though we often do extend this to our friends in distress, and when we have put at the service of our clients the best of our skill and ability in the law, the best con- sidered conduct of their affairs, without any personal interest 306 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES or bias, and always with approved professional conduct on our part, then we owe them nothing more. From observation and personal experience, furthermore, I have not seen that anything more than this on our part is beneficial to them, or the object of special appreciation on the part of our clients. One of the most talented and perhaps the most popular of authors now in the public eye and, I may say, one who should know better is the Englishman, Arnold Bennett. Let me read what he says of the British bar in his novel, Whom God Hath Joined. The principal character of the story went into Chan- cery Lane, London, and here, says the author, "hidden away in ten thousand lairs behind a chaotic jumble of facades in all styles from venerable Tudor to the ludicrous terra cotta of late nineteenth century, the least productive and yet the most necessary of professions practiced its mysteries, flourishing on the imperfections of humanity, taking and never giving, destroying and never creating, ' ' Hear that ! ' ' concerned with neither beauty nor intellect, eternally busy with nothing but the altercations of dishonesty and avarice, the apportionment of gain, the division of amassed property, the pilgrimages of money and the neat conclusion of disasters in proper form. Round about lawns and fountained gardens, trim alleys, spacious squares, and obscure courtyards, this singular profession, which mankind has united to curse, to revile, and to honor, labored amid dirt and old usages, often in bizarre and foolish raiment, at operations sometimes useful, sometimes of an inconceivable fatuity, but invariably attended by rite and ceremony. From Chancery Lane to Sardinia Street, from Holborn to the Embank- ment, justice, a commodity unknown to nature, ' ' he is evidently not learned in science "was retailed with astonishing results. Precedent reigned; and the whole population was engaged in a desperate battle for the sacred legal principles that that which has been must continue to be, no matter what the cost." And this from a man who, only through the beneficence of the law and the continuance of the principle of personal rights in the product of one's own brain, draws his tens of thousands, and, I dare say, his hundreds of thousands of dollars of royalties from OUR JEALOUS MISTRESS THE LAW 307 his books and plays in the English-speaking world. Fully pro- tected by the law he holds up to ridicule, he has eyes and sees not. He would be the first to appeal to the law for protection were his rights invaded were some piratical publisher to take advan- tage of his popularity and try to evade our copyright laws. But the hands that caress are quite used to being bit, and we, in our good nature and indulgence, forgive our offenders; and I hope some of us, some time, will have the opportunity to force on them respect for the law by the happy method suggested by the news item I read you. Still it would be a relief for some master- hand in the drama or novel to faithfully draw a high type of lawyer and to present the law in its true light. In my late read- ing I have failed to find this. I offer my idea free and uncopy- righted to any maker of fiction who is inclined to use it. We must turn to history and philosophy, it seems, to get our just dues. But I shall not detain you to cite history and philosophy in our support. I shall not recall our very constructive functions in contemporary business. I shall not even take time to point out at length our great conservative function, so well described by De Toqueville, as a balance-wheel in our government, though I wish to say that the lawyers are the best guaranty that in this democratic government our undertakings, as President Hadley, of Yale, suggests, be confined to those matters of policy which have been thoroughly discussed and have preeminently commended themselves to the whole people. I believe that the greatest faults of the two greatest party leaders of our time, Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Bryan, the former in his last campaign for the candidacy, have been their sudden appeals with ideas new to the people by which they apparently intended to take the people by storm. In appealing to the people's impulses they have not appealed to the best form of government by public sentiment, and have met defeat in consequence. I believe there is a reaction in public sentiment against any man who tries to force his opinions on the people and make a party issue of some question the people have not had time to consider. I yield to no one in reasonable admiration for Mr. Roosevelt, but I believe the general con- 308 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES damnation of him by the bar of America when he advocated at a most injudicious time the recall of judges was justified, and that it is an example of one of our functions which I believe makes for the ultimate security of our form of government. The people may later adopt the ideas of a leader, but they usually refuse to act till they have digested the questions or are impressed with their desirability by an apparent preponderance of enlight- ened opinion, which the bar is so useful in helping to form. The law then is not hard or unsympathetic, but reasonable, considerate and deliberate. There is, as a matter of fact, as much place for " temperament" in the law as in other occupa- tions. It is temperament that makes such a play as Gals- worthy's Justice effective in suggesting modifications of the law, and it is the responding temperament in the law-makers which brings these modifications about. Temperament, in its true sense as a personal quality, is only that sensibility I spoke of, a union of the sight of the heart and mind which seeks truth in its larger aspect. And as for connoisseurship, we have that in the law as in the arts. I know of a Virginia professor who has the best notes and lectures on real property of any lawyer in America, and there are several books on various subjects of law whose authors show as much knowledge of the composition of their several subjects as a whole as any craftsmen in painting, sculpture or architecture show in their arts. These books, the opinions of certain judges, the speeches of certain advocates, the conduct of cases by certain skilled lawyers, all appeal to discriminating legal minds and furnish variety and warm inter- est in this profession of ours. But now, what is the personal relation of the law to us as lawyers? If the law is taken too much for granted by others, if its larger effects government, order, peace, the adjustment of rights and wrongs, and the like are not seen by our literary neighbors but are lost sight of on account of its small faults, which we all acknowledge, we still must uphold it and espouse it in all its righteousness and dignity. We must view it in its larger relations sub specice eternitatis. Law is the time-long fact of material organization and the age-long fact of social OUR JEALOUS MISTRESS THE LAW 309 organization. Through it in its social aspect we learn to view particular conduct in the light of universal conduct. The chal- lenge of the law to us is that we broadly view it with that detachment and respect only through which we can comprehend it and properly interpret and apply it. The law is moral and artistic, and includes in its broader phase all the righteousness and art of living. Whatever rules of living con- tribute to our permanent happiness and welfare, have in them the elements of law, even though they be paternalistic. It is true, as Hegel said, that where the aesthetic sense is deep enough, it is an unconscious moral sense and tends to keep men pure and right, and the moral sense, in its perfection, becomes also the aesthetic. Any law which violates the rules or principles of eternal justice and happiness is a bad law in fact, it is not a law in the real sense, because it lacks the essential element I have just mentioned as belonging to laws. Professionally, law, like every other proper business, has a moral side, and this moral side, the ideal aspect of our bread-getting employment, is the attainment and preservation of the highest skill in its technique. It is usual to consider as the ideal side of the lawyer his absolute honesty towards his client, his squareness in all his dealings with him. But this is the ideal side of his character as a man and is aside from his character as a lawyer. If a lawyer does not deal justly with his client, both as between themselves and in the larger and better sense of justice, acting, I might say, at the same time as the citizen-advocate of society as well as of the client, considering the client's relation to mat- ters of citizenship and public policy, he is a dishonest man ; but if he does not know the law sufficiently to serve his client's interests to the best of the opportunities of the law and to understand his client's proper legal relation to society, he is to that degree a dishonest and incapable lawyer. Becoming a skilled craftsman in the production, interpretation and applica- tion of the law is more, then, than mere personal honesty. It embraces not only that principle but also the knowledge and use of the rules of law and that generous and elevated altruism and social concern which lifts us above pure utilitarianism into that 310 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES clearer atmosphere where enters as a consideration in our enjoy- ment of our profession the honor of its labor and the art of its practice. Our great heritage in the law is that accumulated spirit of right and justice and the reasons therefor, which have been kept alive by professional pride and which are rendered more exact or better adjusted to contemporary customs and ideas of right by the professional opinion of to-day. This justifies us in expecting from the public that discriminating praise which tends to sustain in us our best qualities and which the public, with all its quips at our expense, does, I believe, give us not only by the word of historians and social philosophers, but shows in spirit by giving us instinctively, it would seem, more of the honors within its gift, more of those positions where we act as trustees of its general welfare than it gives to any other class of our citizenship. It is much as if the public recognizes what De Toqueville so ably called to attention that the lawyers add a conservative, stable and safe quality to democratic institutions and that they are the only aristocratic element aristocratic in the political sense which can be advantageously and perma- nently combined with them. By elevating the lawyer the public testifies in the strongest possible way to the respect and honor in which it holds us. The interests of the people and our interests are indissolubly connected. And it is this interrelation that makes a matter of vital importance the attainment of pro- ficiency in the technique of the law and proficiency in the dis- cernment of the most delicate shades of meaning in the philoso- phy of the law and also in compounding all the elements of the law for the strongest possible showing within the law for one's side of a case, which may mean life or death, liberty or punishment to an individual or to some part of society. This attainment is possible only to those who love the craftsmanship of the profession. And to the man who has this proficiency, with this touch of affection and pride, and that high standard of professional conscience which is above mere personal honesty to that man the law is an inspiration second to that of no OUR JEALOUS MISTRESS THE LAW 311 other profession, unless it be that of the clergy. And if society is above the individual and if to serve men with the best of earthly blessings is to serve God best, as the Bible declares, then there is no profession, to that man or to us, superior to the profession of the law. To such a man as I have described, the law is an art. It has capabilities for that finish and completeness which skill trans- lates into art, and, like other arts, ceaseless striving is necessary to raise it to that high level and to keep it there. It has well been said that the law is a jealous mistress. We are in everlast- ing and happy bondage to her. On you, gentlemen, and on all other lawyers who not only know the letter of the law but understand it in this true way devolves the high service to the profession and to mankind of preserving in it its supremely vital excellences, that they may not perish from inward decay. On you who love the law falls a mantle of perfected skill and that high ambition which refuses to tolerate the slovenliness of haste in the work of the law and the vulgarity of that com- mercial instinct which uses it purely for private gain. Speak- ing from the purely utilitarian standpoint, however, I do not believe that there is any handicap whatever in this view of the law, for I have observed that the men of greatest eminence in the profession have been of this high quality, and also, I believe they have made, on an average, the most money out of the law. Public opinion penalizes the man who does not have a proper regard for the honor of his profession. To use a strictly up-to- date comparison in the realm of sportsmanship, it is the nervy driver with the greatest knowledge of mechanics, the greatest care that all its laws are obeyed, and the greatest respect for the rules of the sport, who is most likely to win the "classic" five-hundred-mile motor race these days, and he is also the man who is likely to get the big purse. The high sportsmanship of our profession is the high honor of it. And so, gentlemen, I give you our jealous mistress, the Law. For that consolation which some of our contemporary literary men refuse us, I wish to quote and to honor by coupling with 312 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES her in this toast an ancient literary man, that appreciative oriental sage who said, "The men in the market are despicable, and the handicraftsmen are rude, and the merchants are avari cious, but it is the lawyers who are the kings of the people." THE LAW AND THE LADY. FREDERICK G. FLEETWOOD. Mr. Fleetwood, of the Vermont Bar, felicitously responded to this toast at a meeting of the Vermont Bar Association. Mr. President and Brothers in Law: The Law and the Lady ; the one always troublesome to a lawyer, the other equally vexatious to a bachelor. Both are uncertain, variable, varying, requiring constant interpretation. The one harks back to prece- dent, the other is a creature of the compelling present. The authority of the one rests on the written opinion, the authority of the other fastens itself to the spoken word. The centuries bound the age of the one, the other never crosses the great divide of forty years. Reason fortifies the one, emotion controls the other. The great commandment of the one is, "Thou shalt not;" the credal statement of the other is, "I will." Both delight in declarations and pleas. Rejoinders are rare in the one but persistently present in the other. Replications appear in the one, supplications are the life of the other. Mergers are common to the one while the other is never merged or submerged but is ever paramount. Estoppels often bar the application of the one but never control the conduct of the other. Both fre- quently use the aid of twelve good men and true. The relations of the Law and the Lady have been three- phased. First came the period of infraction, then the age of subjection and finally the era of enfranchisement. The first lady of the land did what we commensals are doing, she ate what she ought not. Disaster followed her, dyspepsia follows us. As a penalty for her transgression she was cast out of the garden of Eden along with her husband with no reduction of sentence through good behavior. She should have been placed upon probation, which would not have harmed her and might have purged her. As it is we are tainted, tinctured and tar- 313 314 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES nished with this great fault of our forbears. In revenge for this disregard of its precepts the law at once overwhelmed the lady with punishments. Moses had no faith in her vow but allowed her husband or brother to disallow it. She could not inherit, when men were born to the household. She could not obtain a divorce, for that right was reserved exclusively to the husband. Buddha classed her as a mere chattel without freedom, liberty or rights. The Roman law, at least to the time of the luxurious Augustus, gave her no privileges. She could neither be tutor, curator, witness or surety. She could make no will, could not contract, was unable to adopt or to be adopted. She was even under the complete control of husband or kinsman. The com- mon law continued her disabilities. Her property became her husband's, she could not sue or be sued singly and was other- wise laden with heavy burdens. If a woman committed the crime of simple larceny, sentence of death could be passed upon her, while a man for the commission of the same offense was only punished by being burned in the hand or given a few months of imprisonment. If a baron killed his femme it was the same as if he had killed a stranger. If a femme killed her baron she was punished as in case of treason, and it was the same as if she had killed her king. The modern law looks with disfavor upon the early subjuga- tion of the lady and has freed her from nearly all restraints. Like Minerva, who sprang full-armed from the brain of Jove, she is now strongly fortified by the law and can enter upon the contest of life on an equality with men. In Vermont few rights and privileges are now denied her. The suffrage has not been conferred upon her, but ere long we men may be desirous of granting her that right in order to purify conditions of our own creating. The hour demands that I should now leave the subject and the presence of the lady. The rules of court can be compressed into small compass, but the rules of courting cannot be indexed, copied or revised, they spring from the heart and make captive the head. THE LAW AND THE LADY 315 The truth of the matter is, the lady is above the law. To apply to her the fine phrase of Virgil, "By her mien she reveals herself a goddess," the goddess of our hearts and homes. Statutes cannot define her affections, constitutions cannot limit her sympathy, the opinion of the court cannot abridge her sacri- fice. Her law is life and the soul of her life is love. THE SPIRIT OF THE FATHERS. WILLIAM ALLEN WOOD. An appreciation given at an annual dinner of the Indiana Society of Sons of the Revolution. Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Sons of the Revolution : You flatter me to-night by assigning me a subject that is so rich in opportunity for high thought and embellished rhetoric. It is a subject with which I can scarcely bring myself to dally, lest it seem I am trying to lower it from the elevated plane on which, at our best, we are wont to conceive it. Spiritual things are spiritually discerned, and I believe that, had your committee been a little less myopic in its discernment, some other of you, with greater spiritual insight than myself, would have been chosen to make this response. The reverence with which we regard the fathers ia no whit lessened by the foresight mankind is trying to exercise through eugenics, the promotion of peace, and many other agencies for the benefit of posterity. Ruskin beautifully said, "Consider whether we ought not to be more in the habit of seeking honor from our descendants than from our ancestors; thinking it bet- ter to be nobly remembered than nobly born; and striving so to live, that our sons and our sons' sons, for ages to come, might still lead their children reverently to the doors out of which we had been carried to the grave, saying, 'Look, this was his house, this was his chamber.' " And Tennyson gave us this fine reflection: Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere, From yon blue heavens above us bent, The kind old gardener and his wife Smile at the claims of long descent. Howe'er it be, it seems to me Tis only noble to be good; Kind hearts are more than coronets And simple faith than Norman blood. 316 THE SPIRIT OF THE FATHERS 317 But the implication in both, true as they are in a general way, is that heredity is only physical and, perhaps, social. "To be nobly remembered," as Ruskin puts it, presupposes, however, a person to remember who is capable of appreciating the nobility of those who have been high and good in character. In the quotation, Ruskin makes use of such persons, "the sons and sons' sons for ages to come." And this brings me to the point that there is a spiritual as well as a physical heredity, and that the care we are taking now that the posterity of this generation shall have advantages that we have not, is part and parcel of the strong, fine spirit that divine selfishness that made the fathers seek a habitation where economic and spiritual oppres- sion should affect them less. We are too much accustomed to think of heredity in its physical and social aspects only; espe- cially when Mendel, Galton, Thompson, Davenport and the others who have studied hereditary influences and effects assure us that character and personality are likewise transmissible. Gal- ton, in his book Hereditary Genius, says, "I propose to show a man's natural abilities are derived by inheritance under exactly the same limitations as are the form and physical features of the whole organic world." In a lecture he said, "Whether it be in character, disposition, energy, intellect or physical power, we each receive at our birth a definite endowment, allegorized by the parable in St. Matthew, some receiving many talents, others few, but each person being responsible for the profitable use of that which has been entrusted to him." In biology we read of the continuity of the germ-plasm, that physical link of the individual with the race and the determiner of our physical destinies. In the study of the character we should have an expression that would be analogous to that, an expression which would suggest the continuity of the spiritual quality inherent in the germ-plasm and in the people of a certain line of descent who have not, through adulteration with greatly inferior stock and by degraded life, wiped out the advantageous spiritual qualities they have possessed. Please do not think, from my insistence on a spiritual heredity, that I do not recognize the profound effect of environment and training, for like Teufels- 318 AFTER-DINNEB SPEECHES drb'ckh, "I, too, acknowledge the all but omnipotence of early culture and nurture." Luther Burbank has said that heredity is the sum of the effect of all past environment. I am dragging you through this labored introduction in order to establish a point of view and to suggest to you that you have a more intimate association of qualities in common with the fathers than, perhaps, you had thought of; in a moment we will examine what was the spirit of the fathers this generation should admire in them, that it should cultivate in itself and that it should strive, through right living and proper mating, to transfer to posterity. I may remark here, as a further scientific digression, that the distin- guishing characteristics of particular strains are considerably modified by mixtures with strains of different characteristics, but that through the beneficence of nature, which tends to pre- serve the strongest characteristics in each of two uniting strains, and through the apparently fortuitous principle of atavism, which is likely to reproduce later a characteristic that has been temporarily lost, those distinguishing characteristics are likely in the end to dominate again, reinforced by characteristics that have been acquired through advantageous mixtures. It is the glory of our common humanity that, while one family line may be preserving and developing one fine trait, another family line may be preserving and developing another fine trait, and a felicitous union of the two makes progeny superior to either. I mention this because I believe there is as much latent bravery and spirit of self-sacrifice for principle to-day as there was in the days of the Revolution, having only to bring to witness what we know of the heroes of the Civil and the Spanish wars, to recall only the most important conflicts within the memory of most of those here. The failure of a characteristic to secure expression does not indicate it has failed of transmission. As the blood that flows in your veins is not only derived from one or more men who fought in the Revolution in the case of one of our members, eleven of his direct ancestors have been proved to have served in the cause of American Independence but, in some instances, has been reinforced by the blood of those who THE SPIRIT OF THE FATHERS 319 took part in our later struggles, I have no fear of encountering in you a lack of discernment of any appreciation of the spirit of the fathers I might offer, or of striking an unsympathetic chord in you when I praise them for physical bravery which was based on spiritual strength. Then, too, we are not so far removed, on the average, from the Revolution after all in our Indiana Society now are two men whose immediate fathers were soldiers in the Revolutionary war so that the spirit of '76 in you should still, to an appreciable extent, respond to the spirit of '76 in your Revolutionary ancestors. And knowing so many of you well, as I do, I truly believe that if you were quartered, you would show, both ways, red, white and blue all the way through. History long past history changes in its phases as does science. One historian uses facts combined with some imagina- tion and produces a good historical story; another discovers documents on some phase that changes what has been written. So historical truth, as presented to us, is variable, as have been scientific and religious truths. I shall not, therefore, try to dig deep into history. If there was one great fault our colonial ancestors had, it was their persistence in seeking absolute truth. One of the greatest of modern preachers, F. W. Robertson, expressed the proper attitude with regard to truth, I believe, when he said "truth is composed of two opposite propositions, and should therefore be taught suggestively and not dog- matically." Most of our ancestors came to this country to rid themselves of oppression of one kind or another religious, political, or industrial but as soon as they got here they became as absolute and oppressive in their views as had been their oppressors. Yet their attitude in general, notwithstanding their dogmatism, was admirable. The oppression of established religion and of aristocratic domination that sent some of our progen- itors here, and the industrial oppression, or at least the seek- ing of a more favorable industrial environment, that sent others, was all due to their innate desire for liberty proportioned to their conception of opportunity in life. When this oppression followed them over here and England tried to impose on them 320 AFTER-DINNEK SPEECHES taxation without representation, trial across the seas, and other forms of injustice, they showed that supreme sign of spiritual and physical vitality in any individual or people, the will to fight. Whatever may be said for the glories of peace, and much can be said, nothing appeals to me so strongly as the offer of one's life for a principle when there is no other way to secure the right. It is trite but true that man cannot give anything more precious than his life. Life is the jewel for which we sur- render all other jewels, except where love of right, as we con- ceive it, or of some other human life dominates our own desire to live. So that when a soldier, who, with a strong love of life, but with a dominating patriotism, bares his breast to the enemy's sword and shell, he is entitled to the highest praise that man can give and the highest reward God can bestow. It is the core of heat, the virtue of fight, that makes every other virtue effective. It is the spirit of fight that keeps man at his physical and spiritual best. This is recognized by contemporary psychologists who, arguing for peace, offer substitutes for war in the form of industrial competition. But as the highest forms of industrial competition are more or less cooperative, it is a poor substitute. I do not believe a substitute ever will be found for war or for the spirit which begets it, though I do not believe it is necessary that that spirit should always find exercise in war in order to insure its preservation. The instinct for life and for right are perpetual, and our own intelligence will, I believe, keep us from becoming like tame birds who do not recognize the difference between the master and the fowler, and meet disaster through their tameness. The spirit of fight will still live in us, and if there come other times when it must be shown, it will arise spontaneously, doubtless, as it has in the past. The fighting spirit was all the more credit to our ancestors, since they belonged to a race in which life was most precious, most vital, most worth preserving. In any race which is indi- vidually progressive, in which collectivism and individualism are properly balanced, that is, where collectivism is only so far developed as to insure the greatest amount of the highest type of individualism, there life is held in highest esteem. But there THE SPIRIT OF THE FATHERS 321 is no doubt that the ideals of a country are more precious than the lives of its citizens. Lives are to be spent but ideals are to be maintained as long as they are ideals. China and India have lives innumerable, but these countries could well afford to sacri- fice half their lives for ideals and ideas that would develop the rest. Life means mastery and assimilation of the outward forces of existence to our own betterment. The eagle and the lion are not kings of bird and beast by accident, but because their striv- ings were in the directions in which they excel. And our Anglo- Saxon progenitors, and our Colonial fathers, and our Revolution- ary sires were not the innumerous but progressively triumphant conquerors and kings among men because they were complacent yielders to conditions as they existed. The democratic Puritan was always a rebel in attitude. The spirit of '76 was near a century and a half old in him before it flashed into rebellion against the English nation. The aristocratic Cavalier, likewise, having developed through industrial conditions a beneficent oligarchy that permitted him to follow the hounds in fox hunt- ing, while the New Englanders were still imbued with the spirit that had made their parents find their chief amusement in specu- lation as to how many angels or souls I forget which could be accommodated on the point of a needle the Cavalier, also, inheritor of fighting spirit, rushed to arms as soon as his rights were threatened from without. And so, when war was declared, the people of the states were forged into a nation through the heat of the spirit of fight. The townsman of Massachusetts and the country gentleman of Virginia put away personal differences of opinion in view of the common enemy that was more threaten- ing to their peace and safety than either. They, of common Anglo-Saxon origin, were foremost to oppose their mother coun- try. The Dutch, with a phlegmatic love of ease, passive in nature, without the audacity of will that characterizes either political, religious, or industrial genius this admirable people, though industrious in their small ways, contributed little to the ferment resulting in the rebellion. Likewise with the Germans of Pennsylvania and I have a Pennsylvania German strain and the other people of other origins. It was the Anglo-Saxons 322 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES with the spiritual and material ambition that dignifies manhood, the Anglo-Saxons with desire for knowledge, culture, refinement, justice, wealth, luxury, that stood guard at the portals of their land and fought the enemies who would despoil them of their liberty and opportunities. And it is the ideals of these Anglo- Saxons that we must maintain now and in the future in America so that the prediction of Gobineau that " America is likely to be, not the cradle of a new race, but the grave of an old race" will not be fulfilled. The Greeks called man anthropos, which, I am told, means "one with face turned upward." If this be an interpretation of man, our ancestors were men. The faces of the fathers were ever turned upward, whether their minds were trying to fathom the mystery of sin and suffering in New England, or whether they were solving industrial prob- lems over their tobacco and toddy in the balmy, perfume-laden air of Virginia. The New England pine, with its bristly branches, and the fascinatingly beautiful magnolia of the South fitly symbolize the personalities of the two most prominent groups of our common ancestry, with both of which we, with modern sympathies, have so much in common. At this banquet board sit those who enjoy the fruits of our ancestors' struggles, not alone against native and foreign nations, but with nature, in transforming wildernesses into fruitful fields. We are the product of a long and varied fight by a vigorous, virile, dominating race. When we think that neither Dutch, French nor Spanish settlers of America have left a single endur- ing law or a single enduring institution the code Napoleon in Louisiana being a weak exception on the part of the French we realize a little what a powerful strain we come from. The true American has always been a fighter, and always will be if he progresses, and if I might suggest a line of fighting activity to keep sharp our instinct for both spiritual and physical self- defense and progress, I would suggest the field of municipal politics, where an occasional skirmish with corrupt machines on the part of good citizens would in many places secure us better government right at home. The spirit that will take men to local and national primaries, under inconvenience to business, in bad THE SPIRIT OF THE FATHERS 323 weather, is more akin to the spirit of the fathers than selfish industrial competition. And let me emphasize that it is our nature, our blood, our spirit that is the arbiter not only of our own destiny but also of the destiny of our country. The country is as much dependent on us to-day as it was on the fathers in the beginning ; it is not so much we who are dependent on the coun- try. Herbert Spencer, in his autobiography, says, "Whereas in the days of early enthusiasm, I thought that all would go well if government arrangements were transformed, I now think that transformation in governmental arrangements can be of use only in so far as they express the transformed natures of citi- zens." Our descent in time, then, from our colonial fathers should correspond in the ascent of personal responsibility in the less spectacular fields of government and, to avoid extremes of socialism and other harmful ends, in our accountability for our neighbors. In this, perhaps, somo of us Sons are remiss. But, in time of national danger from without, I feel I know what the Sons would do there would not be one who, in spirit, at the blast of the war trumpet, would not thrillingly leap to the front, unsheath his sword and stand at salute, whether or not the body have capacity for fierce conflict. Notwithstanding my praise of the spirit in men that makes them dare everything for what they believe is right, there is a futility in war to-day, so far as the individual man is concerned, that did not exist in the time of the fathers. Permit me to close my remarks with an observation by Mr. E. V. Lucas, in his "Wanderer in London. I have no comment to make on it. Mr. Lucas visited the museum of Old Whitehall Palace. There is a collection of artillery in the vaults, old and modern guns, naval and field guns, shells and grenades, and all the paraphernalia of war. "All these," says Mr. Lucas, "can be studied here under the direction of an old soldier whose work never flags and who shows you with much gusto how to work a Maxim gun which fires 670 rounds a minute and at 2000 yards can be kept playing back and forth on a line of men 400 yards long. 'Acts like a mowing machine,' says the smiling custodian, 'beautiful! Cuts 'em down like grass ! Goes through three at once sometimes, one 324 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES behind the other.' " "It was with the unique and perplexing capabilities of this machine," continues Mr. Lucas, "perfected A. D. 1904, in my mind, that I emerged into Whitehall again, and was conscious instantly on the other side of the way of the Horse Guard sentries, each motionless on his steed. 'I know what's in store for you,' I thought to myself, 'cuts 'em down like grass. Goes through three at once sometimes. ' Such things make it almost a work of supererogation to be born: reduce a mother's pangs to a travesty; at least when she is the mother of a soldier. How odd it all is ! Nature on the one hand building us up so patiently, so exquisitely, cell on cell, and on the other Sir Hiram Maxim arranging for his bullets to go through three at once ! It is too complicated for me. I give it up." THE RISE OF SCIENCE IN THE PAWPAW DISTRICT. MEREDITH NICHOLSON. Remarks of George Barr McCutcheon, Toastmaster. At the fourth annual banquet of the Indiana Society of Chicago, held at the Congress Hotel, December the eleventh, 1908, Mr. Joseph H. Defrees, president of the Society, made the opening remarks and read telegrams from several distinguished members and invited guests who could not be present. He happily complimented the committees on their work, and then said: It becomes my privilege, gentlemen, to Introduce to you the Lord of Graustark, and of many other titles which denote royalty, Mr. George Barr McCutcheon. [Applause.] He is to be our toastmaster this evening. Mr. McCutcheon spoke as follows: I have always maintained that the chief duty of a toastmaster is to be as brief as possible. Let him attain his end as speedily as possible and he'll be praised for his logic, if for nothing else, especially by gentlemen who are down for speeches later on. If he is a good toastmaster, he can make a hit by saying little; if he is a poor one he can make a still greater one by saying less. [Applause.] So you see, the rule works both ways, and I am not going to take any chances by doing either way if I can help it. The principal function of a toastmaster presiding over an Indiana banquet, of course, is to remind the Indianians assembled that they come from the most glorious state in the Union. [Applause.] He is reasonably safe in making such an assertion if he waits until the banquet has progressed as far as this one has. Even those unlucky persons who emanate from other states and who happen to be here as our honored and welcomed guests are not now in a position I almost said condi- tion to dispute the statement. At least, you can't do so politely. [Laughter and applause.] In any event, we'll all agree that at a commonwealth banquet it doesn't so much matter what state we're from as what state we're in. [Laughter and applause.] So we will admit, for the sake of argument, that those of us who came from Indiana have the right and reason to feel proud of the fact I never go to New York but that I say to myself, "Thank Heaven, I came from Lafayette!" And, gentlemen, those of us who came from Lafayette are no longer unique in our glory. Just recently we acquired the right to say that the prize steer at the live stock show came from Lafayette. [Applause and laughter.] 325 326 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES I lived In Indiana for thirty-five years and I am happy to say I have never outgrown it. Whatever it is, I have had it since I was born; you may travel the world over and you'll never find an Indlanian who is thoroughly cured of his birth. [Laughter and applause.] In strange lands, when you tell them you are from Indiana, they may ask you if the buffalo and the Hoosier are still running wild, but you have the satisfaction of knowing how ignorant the rest of the world is. I think it is in Boston where they still believe that there is nothing west of Buffalo but buffaloes. [Applause and laughter.] To show you how small we are as individuals, I was recently in- troduced to a very distinguished and aged capitalist in New York. I could see by his manner that he had never heard of me. My friend mentioned two or three of my books. He was very polite but also non-committal; I am sure he had never heard of them. Then my friend said that I was a brother of John McCutcheon. It conveyed nothing to him. As a last hope and perhaps jestingly it was men- tioned that I was one of the group of Indiana authors. "Indiana," he exclaimed, perking up at once, his face beaming. "Why, I once knew a man from Indiana." We became very chummy after that, talking about this friend of his whom I had never seen or heard of, a fact which seemed to surprise him. I explained that perhaps the gentle- man had left Indiana before I was born. And it seems that he had. As a matter of fact, he died before I was born. But he was from Indiana, and as such I was willing to rejoice over him, dead or alive; it is one of our unwritten laws. [Laughter.] Indiana makes more laws than any state in the Union and breaks fewer of them openly. If you meet an expatriated Indianian any- where in the world, he does not ask you at once how the folks are at home. He always asks, first of all, "Well, what's the Legislature doing out there now?" [Laughter.] But I am afraid I am drifting. My duty is to present to you, in a few well chosen words, the gentlemen who are to do the real work of the evening. So many bright men have come from Indiana that it is always a source of wonder that there are still so many bright ones there. Don't misunderstand me; I am not paraphrasing the remark credited to one of our most distinguished citizens. I simply mean to say that our supply never gives out; it doesn't even run low. The Indiana Society of Chicago has had three banquets. It is reasonably safe to assume that we have had nearly all that is physical of the fourth annual feast But we have not had the best of it; four fine Hoosiers are yet to be served. [Applause.] Now, if you will per- mit me to express the hope that I have not outstayed my welcome, as we say in Indiana, and to thank you for the honor you have bestowed upon me, I will proceed at once with such trifling formalities as the KISE OF SCIENCE IN PAWPAW DISTRICT 327 introduction of gentlemen whose names are already household words and who are quite as well known in Chicago as they are in Indiana even to the envious, unhappy millions who have no place at our board to-night. It seems that it is an easy thing for an Indianian to be an author; but it is quite another thing to be a successful one, [laughter and applause] one whom everyone in the land talks about in a kindly way as if he were speaking of a personal friend. The first speaker of the evening has achieved this. He has achieved even more; he has been blazoned from Indianapolis to Calcutta, and while he is not yet as well known in India as he is in Indiana, you can find his books there. We'll pass by "The House of a Thousand Candles," and we'll not linger in "The Port of Missing Men." "The Little Brown Jug of Kildare" you all know what its influence has been in the literary world during the past three months. But, aside from literature, it has also been a grave and potent factor in other directions. I am reliably informed that "The Little Brown Jug" actually carried Indiana in the last election. [Applause and laughter.] Gentlemen, permit me to intro- duce the man who evolved "The Little Brown Jug," Mr. Meredith Nicholson, of Indianapolis, who will tell us of The Rise of Science in the Pawpaw District. [Prolonged applause.] Mr. Toastmaster and Gentlemen : I am very glad to have an opportunity to identify myself with this distinguished body of real Hoosiers, for the reason that in some quarters it has been intimated that I am a Swede. [Laughter and applause.] For several years I was in exile in Colorado, and while there I noticed that a great many Swedes in distress appealed to me, and by the time I was leaving there I grew a little tired of this. So finally when a man applied to me one day in the street and wanted to get back to his native fiords and asked a little help, I said, after I had given him a little de-Bryanized silver [laughter] I said, "Would you mind telling me, now that this little commercial transaction has been concluded, why you have applied to me?" "Why," he answered, "is you not a Swede? Is you not Nick Olson?" [Laughter.] It has been said on authority of a good book which was not written in Indiana that a good name is rather to be chosen than great riches. My name has been a source of embarrass- ment to me for a number of years. Some of you gentlemen who may be acquainted with the Indiana Penal Code have heard 328 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES of the Nicholson Law. I did not write that Nicholson Law. [Applause and laughter.] I won't say that I don't approve of it, but I am not the author of that particular work, though it has been to me a source of very great embarrassment. Some of you gentlemen who do not enjoy my intimate per- sonal acquaintance may not know that I am what they call down where I come from an " old-fashioned Hoosier Fried Meat Demo- crat." [Applause and laughter.] At one time I had some slight political aspirations. I thought last summer that I heard the call of the people. I thought the people had risen. [Laugh- ter.] If they wanted to rise, I was not going to do anything to set them back, so I offered myself as a candidate for the State Senate. It was an organization spoken of occasionally with respect by the people, and it seemed to be of good moral character. [Laughter and applause.] I had seen how my young and blithe friend, Senator Beveridge, enjoyed being a senator. Of course, there is not much difference between being a United States senator and a senator from Marion county. Sometimes when I have read these terrible exposures of senators I have felt that it is more respectable to be a senator in the Indiana Legislature than in Congress; but, I offered myself, under our new primary law, and at once got into a lot of trouble. I am afraid that our Indiana Democrats, whom I love dearly, know more about the Penal Code than they do about Indiana fiction. [Laughter and applause.] I was an author, but they only knew the author of the Nicholson Bill. That was one trouble I got into when I went out for the franchises of the people, and another thing was that the Civic League endorsed me [laughter and applause] ; they called attention to my moral character. Now, my moral character, gentlemen, is a thing I have never pointed to ; I have never bragged about it, and it was impudent of the Civic League to call attention to it. There I was getting letters from temperance societies, taking me for the author of the Nicholson Bill and the man who has done so much to put down the rum power, and here was the Civic League call- ing attention to my qualifications for the office. Now, in my party, gentlemen, qualifications do not qualify. [Laughter and RISE OF SCIENCE IN PAWPAW DISTRICT 329 applause.] I was defeated. The saloons even spent money to defeat me. Now, the gentlemen here who know me well under- stand that I never did anything to hurt a distillery or a vineyard. In my poor weak way and up to my limited capacity, I have done all that I could to help them pay dividends. [Laughter and applause.] But I must pass into history as a man who was caught between the Civic League and the rum demon. [Laughter.] You hear a great deal about Indiana politics and Indiana literature, but you hear less about Indiana science. I have undertaken to speak of science because there is a subject on which my qualifications to speak take on perfect magnificence and splendor. I don't know anything about science, for unlike Mr. Ade and several of the McCutcheons [prolonged laughter and applause] I did not enjoy a scientific education. I won't say before this intelligent body, with all these educators present on this matter of science I won't say that I don't think the earth is round, but I will say that nobody has ever proved it to my entire satisfaction. [Laughter and applause.] The only science that I really ever grasped was the science followed by Professor Robert Fitzsimmons. I have always regretted that I did not take that up; it would help me with the critics. [Applause and laughter.] The science of medicine has always appealed to me particularly. It has gratified me to see how much of the Hoosier flora has been used in the science of medi- cine. Where would the human race be but for our rhubarb and our sassafras? The fruit of the pawpaw is the greatest nerve tonic in the world, and it is a fine pomade for the hair. Nobody who has ever used it for axle grease would accept any worthless imitation. [Laughter.] I have known a good many of the medical fraternity. A surgeon of my acquaintance in Indianapolis was lately called down into one of our southern counties to a very obscure place to perform an operation. When he got there, he found it was an emergency operation; the man was very ill. He made such hurried preparations as he could and took such precautions as he could in the humble cottage, and found that night was com- 330' AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES ing on. He looked at the window, and every window pane had a face; the whole country-side had come to see this cutting scrape. So, as it was a little dark and the place ill-lighted, he wanted somebody to hold the lamp during the operation, and a gentleman stepped forward and offered his services. "Now," the surgeon said, "I don't want any nonsense about this. If you are squeamish and not used to the sight of things of this sort, you'd better go out and get somebody else." "Oh, no," the man said, "it will be all right," and he took the lamp and came up and stood over the scene of the operation. The surgeon had his sleeves rolled up and was ready, but he wanted to give the man a last chance, and he said: "You are not used to chloroform, and if this kind of thing makes you sick, I don't want you to do it ; there is to be no fainting in this, or anything of that kind. " " Oh, ' ' said the man, ' ' you need not be afraid of me; I'm the village undertaker." [Laughter and applause.] I have some data that at an auspicious time I propose to file relating to Science in Indiana, and the first item dates back to 1648, when the Indians in Terre Haute first used toadstool sauce as a dressing for their broiled dog. [Laughter.] They found it easy to make, so they began to can this sauce and sent it as a peace offering to tribes with which they were at war, and this marked a very good tendency in Indian warfare. It trans- formed into pleasant pastime what had been merely a brutal enjoyment. [Laughter.] An humble school teacher in Morgan County in 1817 made the remarkable discovery that a hickory rod about five feet long when applied to the legs of a twelve-year-old boy would induce perpetual motion. [Laughter.] In 1856, it was discovered that the trains of the Monon railroad running down the main hall of the Lahr House at Lafayette would cause insomnia. [Prolonged laughter and applause.] The first white man that gave the first Indian a quart of Peoria whiskey invented paralysis, which had not been known to the Indians. [Laughter.] A farmer in Kokomo discovered in '49 that it was necessary to tap maple trees to make maple syrup, and he thereupon began to make it as a by-product of RISE OF SCIENCE IN PAWPAW DISTRICT 331 car-waste. [Laughter.] An Indiana chemist sitting in his laboratory late at night discovered that the sugar of commerce was identical with the Tippecanoe river sand. [Laughter.] Dur- ing a thunder storm, a mound builder first discovered electricity while leaning against a sycamore tree near Vincennes. [Applause.] Patiently swallowing a million kilowats, he smiled and looked up and said, "Here is where I anticipate Benjamin Franklin. ' ' [Laughter.] The value of water for bathing purposes was known early among our people. [Laughter.] This has been disputed, how- ever, by the statisticians of Massachusetts. [Laughter.] In poultry culture, we have not been idle. While he was taking an agricultural course at Purdue University, Mr. George Ade delved deeply into this branch of science. Mr. Ade has done nothing in literature that aroused greater admiration than his charming brochure entitled, ' ' The Cultivation of Broilers on the Great White Way." [Prolonged laughter and applause.] In his seventeenth year, while a student at DePauw Univer- sity, a sorrel youngster named Beveridge discovered that his own voice had hypnotic power; thereupon, he went out and invented a machine which has become the wonder of political dynamics. [Laughter and applause.] The fact that the Sunday school ice cream is deadly poison was first learned by a Fort Wayne boy in 1862. After a long and painful illness, he resolved to lead an evil life. [Laughter.] One of the early settlers of Zionsville was slightly winged in a fight with the Indians. After the fight he stood up and found he had been scalped. Now any of you gentlemen who have been scalped will know that if you try to scratch your head after being scalped it is very embarrassing. [Laughter.] This poor pioneer hastened into the nearest village and organized our first Anti- Vivisection Society. [Laughter and applause.] In the spring of 1908, that eminent philosopher, Tom Mar- shall, of Columbia City, found a four-leaved clover and pinned it on his coat and went into a trance and saw that Governor Frank Hanly was going to try to purify the Republican party by having a special session of the Legislature. Mr. Marshall 332 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES resolved at once to become the Democratic candidate for gover- nor. On the morning of the fourth of November, he telegraphed the Patent Office as follows: "Please send papers at once; I have found and nailed down the psychological moment." [Applause.] I would like to mention some even more illustrious names than those I have mentioned in connection with Indiana science. In the first quarter of the nineteenth century there lived at New Harmony one of the most remarkable groups of scientists that ever assembled in America. Here was William McClure, the founder and for twenty years the president of the American Academy of Science ; Gerard Troost, who had been a teacher in Pestalozzi's school in Switzerland. A wonderful book for that time was his work on American Conchology, printed in New Harmony and handsomely illustrated. James B. Eads, the great engineer, was born at Lawrenceburg and lived for a time at Brookville. It was Eads who built the first bridge across the Mississippi at St. Louis. Why he should have thus brought St. Louis in contact with the United States I don't know. [Laughter.] William T. Hornaday, a native of Hendricks County, is head of the Zoological Park of New York. Pro- fessor H. W. Wiley, the distinguished chemist in the Agricul- tural Department at Washington, a native Hoosier, taught nine years at Purdue University and was state chemist. Thomas Moore, a native of Indianapolis and a graduate of Wabash Col- lege, discovered the methods of inoculating soil so that old, worn-out earth may be made again productive, a discovery of inestimable value to the country. I need not go further in mentioning the distinguished educators, like the Gouchers, who have done much to bring renown to Indiana. I must not miss George Reisner, who was at thirty years of age in charge of the most important excava- tions made in Egypt. He is classed among the best, and he leads every other Egyptologist in excavating mummies and introduc- ing them to the public. I once heard Reisner lecture on his excavations in Egypt, and I am confident that he dug up more Egyptians than ever died. [Applause and laughter.] RISE OF SCIENCE IN PAWPAW DISTRICT 333 This is a very superficial glance at some of these names, which I have done largely to offset the great clamor about Indiana authors, because I really think science is respectable. [Laughter.] I should fall far short of my purpose if I failed to mention Purdue University and Rose Polytechnic Institute, which have done so much to elevate and hold high the standard of Indiana scientific education. [Applause.] We all know that states differ as the stars differ one from another in glory, and you will pardon me if I state that, by means of this Society here, you keep alive the thoughts of home and tease yourselves with homesickness. There are indubitable differences between the states ; and those of you who elect to live in Illinois, dwelling as we may say in partibus infidelium, please us by your remembrance, and it helps us all back home at our work, and we put in a little better lick because we know you are not ashamed of us but are always ready with the glad approv- ing hand. I thank you, gentlemen. [Prolonged applause.] WHERE WE COME FROM. NEWTON BOOTH TABKINGTON. Remarks of John T. McCutcheon, Toastmaster. The third annual banquet of the Indiana Society of Chicago was held at the Congress Hotel the evening of January twenty-eighth, 1908. The master of ceremonies, Mr. John T. McCutcheon, the well- known cartoonist, introduced Mr. Tarkington as follows: Gentlemen, It is a great pleasure to introduce a man you have all heard about. He has written many great things. If I were to refer to him as "The Gentleman from Indiana" you would suspect to whom I was referring. If I were to say that he's "The Man from Home," I might also reveal the identity of the next speaker, all of which would be bad tactics in a toastmaster. I must say that we have with us to-night one whom we all delight to honor; one whose name is a household word; one whose work has reflected much glory on your state and given much gratification to his fellow statesmen. Perhaps you may have an inkling of his identity. Down at Purdue University in the early 90's we all predicted that he would be a great man if he only tried, but we feared that he would not try. He has fooled us and succeeded. Gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to introduce Mr. Booth Tarking- ton, who will respond to the toast, Where We Come From. Mr. Toastmaster and Gentlemen : I feel that the least I can do to show my appreciation of your kindness in allowing me to be here to-night would be to have prepared you in some manner for the kind of speech I am going to make. A long time ago I was a candidate for the Indiana Legislature, and the campaign managers told me that I would have to make speeches. I did; that is, I made two. [Laughter.] Those speeches attracted the attention of William Jennings Bryan in his own newspaper. You may feel that I am speaking too much of my own achieve- ments, but I cannot refrain from reminding you that The Com- moner referred to me and my orations, devoting several para- graphs which led up to an important place among the editorials. It said: ''Mr. Tarkington made two speeches during the recent 334 WHEEE WE COME FROM 335 campaign. On the first occasion he is reported to have suffered so from stage fright that he was unable to utter a syllable. From what we have read of his second effort we think it is a pity he didn't have it both times." [Laughter.] Unless it be considered too wide a digression, I might best state that in spite of my oratory I succeeded in being elected, but I hope, however, your commit- tee didn't invite me to address you to-night from the same motive that brought me the solid vote of the farmers in Marion County. Friends of mine were out on election day who asked a group of farmers whom they were for. ' ' We are all for Tarking- ton out here," they said. "We want him to get in." This puz- zled my friends a little, because they couldn't think of anything I had done to arouse any particular enthusiasm among the farm- ers. So one of my friends asked them why they were so strong for me. "Why," they said, "we want to see what the darned fool will do." [Laughter.] "From" is not the important word in my speech, as it is in that sentence, "the wise men came from the east." Of course they did. We emphasize where we come from, because no mat- ter where we go we are always from Indiana. We don't quit being from Indiana. Hoosiers we remain. I never knew but one man who did quit. He went abroad when he was about eighteen or twenty, and he stayed too long. In time he gave up being from Indiana altogether and became a British subject. Why, I almost hesitate to speak of the horrible punishment which overtook him. "Vengeance is mine," saith the Lord, and in time he smote. This young man had tried to look like an Englishman for so long, he had talked like one so long, that at last you could not tell him from one, and if that is not a horrible punishment I don't know what it is. [Laughter.] Pride of birthplace is a conspicuous quality. Of course for some places there is no pride at all. I don 't know that anybody ever selected Southern Patagonia to be born in, deliberately, nor Timbuctoo. If anybody did select one of these places he prob- ably didn't brag of his birthplace in after years. We probably might add London to this list. No Londoner ever showed any particular excitement about being born in London. If two Lon- 336 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES doners, strangers to each other, met by accident in the middle of the Sahara, it probably would not develop at all where they were born. They were born some place, but if it were to develop, it would excite the same enthusiasm in them as a Beethoven sonata would in a ham. [Laughter.] But it seems to me Hoosiers would find each other out and have elected a President of the United States from Indiana within ten minutes after they arrive, even if they got no further from home than the lobby in a hotel near Columbus, Ohio. The fact is, none of us has ever quite got over being from Indiana. It seems as if we were not sure we deserved it. And wherever we go the fact that we are from Indiana seems to have something of the pleasantness of good news. So we mention it. [Laughter.] Not that we brag. We leave that to our friends in the suburbs, our good neighbors and friends in the bordering states. When I was in college one of my club-mates was a Ken- tuckian. You know the style of his patriotism. It is only neces- sary for me to mention that he was from Louisville. You know that the first thing he worships is Louisville, then Kentucky, then the Deity, then the United States as a whole, concluding with Indiana. [Laughter.] One day we were discussing the population of our different great cities, and the Kentuckian carelessly remarked that the population of Louisville was 250,000, whereupon a gentleman from. New Jersey drew forth the table of the census, giving the official figures at Louisville of 175,000, a difference of 75,000 from the Kentuckian 's statement. The company looked to see him show some signs of confusion, but he didn't even blush. On the contrary he coolly explained that just before the reports of that census were to be closed in Washington the census taker for the largest ward in Louisville was hurrying to catch the last mail that would get to Wash- ington in time, when he fell down a well and was drowned, and unfortunately the books showing just 75,000 names were under him arm at the time and it took so long to fish them out and get them properly blotted that the reports closed without them. [Laughter.] He said the circumstances were familiar to every Kentuckian, and I haven't a doubt that you could not have WHERE WE COME FROM 337 found a citizen in the length and breadth of Louisville that would not have corroborated his statement. Our neighbors do seem to stretch the facts a little sometimes, but I don't see that we can altogether blame them. So often they seem to feel it is an absolute necessity. And it is not alto- gether owing to our superior virtues that we do not stretch the facts about Indiana. It is because you cannot. You cannot lie about Indiana. It is all true. Anything of any kind that any Hoosier ever said about Indiana is true. For instance, George Ade, when in Rome two years ago, told a cardinal that Indiana was one of the thirteen original states. [Laughter.] Isn't thai true? Of course it is. Indiana is not only one of the thirteen original states, it is the most original state there is. [Laughter.] There was a time, as we all know, when the great life pur- pose of our eastern cousins seemed to be to make fun of Indiana. They did bravely. At least their jokes were founded on facts, and traces of these old traditions are still found among them. I have known men to mention Indiana in an eastern hotel as containing a cosmopolitan people like a group photograph of a Christian Endeavor Society in the early ages. [Laughter.] The common easterners express surprise that we do not regard the term "Hoosier" as a taunt. A taunt, when we know it refers to the people of Indiana ! Of course we do not claim there are not some pretty poor specimens amongst us here and there. You find them in Indiana just as you find bad people in a church, and for the same reason they come there to get better. [Laughter.] We know that our Indiana is a young state. Old only in honor and in the affections of her sons, and in the pride of their heritage that they are from Indiana. In the words of the Hon. H. P. Sherman, of Decatur: "Well, we know the green old state of Indiana will go crashing down the ages with her head up and her tail over the dashboard." [Laughter.] I, however, mixed the metaphor. Every man of us holds to this same sentiment, and I thank you for the honor and privilege of being with you to-night. [Applause.] CORPORATIONS A LA MODE. WILLIAM ALLEN WOOD. This toast was delivered at a dinner of the Phi Gamma Delta col- lege fraternity. Brother Toastmaster and Brothers: I suppose there are those among you who think corporations served a la mode are corporations roasted. That is indeed a popular way to serve them, but it is neither a very palatable nor a fair way, and the corporations and myself are too good friends for me to treat them in that manner, at least seriously. Being a lawyer of the corporation variety, I fall within a class that has met some share of undiscriminating public condemnation. The public seems to think the corporation lawyer is like a certain divinity student of whom I once heard. He went from the divinity school to preach a trial sermon, and, on his return, was greeted by one of the professors in the institution. "How did you get on with your sermon ? ' ' inquired the professor. ' ' First rate, first rate, ' ' said the student. "What was your text?" asked the professor. " 'How shall ye escape if ye neglect so great a salvation?' ' answered the young man. "A good text," said the professor, "and how did you treat it?" "First," said the student, "I showed 'em. how great this salvation is, and, second, I showed 'em how to escape if they neglected it." The function of the corporation lawyer is not, I assure you, without arguing the point, to show the corporations how to escape the laws when they violate them, but it is a constructive function, a coordina- tion of law and righteous business practice that is as valuable to the commercial life of America to-day as was the judicial practice of Lord Mansfield, of England, to the Law Merchant of his time and since. So I feel quite respectable when I stand before you and acknowledge that, in an humble way, I am a lawyer of the corporation kind. Moreover, I may state that I do not need either your assistance or your sympathy in my pro- 338 CORPORATIONS A LA MODE 339 fessional condition, as it is a matter of judicial record, in the case of Latta versus Lonsdale, 107 Federal Reporter, that "cor- poration lawyers have the opportunity and are quite able and capable of taking care of themselves." John Kendrick Bangs has defined the "Copperation" as "a Creature devised by Selfish Interests to secure the Free Coinage of the Atlantic Ocean," and adds: "Little drops of water, Plenty of hot air, Make a copperation A pretty fat affair." I myself have defined the corporation, but in so serious a way that I am afraid it would make you weep after Mr. Bangs' juicy definition, so I shall not impose my own on you. If there are some of you who like the corporations roasted, the foregoing will suffice, I hope, with the following additional stanzas which I shall recite, following the elocutionary precedent set by some of our brothers: "A copperation is a beast, With forty-leven paws That doesn't ever pay the least Attention to the laws. "It grabs whatever comes In sight From hansom cabs to socks And with a grin of mad delight It turns 'em into stocks. "And then It takes a rubber hose Connected with the sea And pumps them full of H 2 O's Of various degree. "And when they're swollen up so stout You'd think they'd surely bust They souse 'em once again and out They come at last a Trust. "And when the Trust is ready for One last and final whack They let the public in the door To buy the water back." 340 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES If you still have an appetite for roasted corporations, I refer you to Hazlitt's essay, On Corporate Bodies, or to the speeches of the disap-" peerless" leader of the Democratic party, which show up the corporation as the right bower of His Satanic Majesty. We hear much of water in stock to-day. But you have noticed, perhaps, that few discover the water in stock except those who dabble in it. The American people have a fatal tendency to play with the corporation, to indulge themselves in beautiful green and gold certificates that look like government bonds, to take shares in some pot of gold at the end of a rain- bow, even when the company would appear to be like that of which dear old Colonel Carter's financial agent said, "I couldn't raise a dollar in a lunatic asylum full of millionaires on a scheme like the Colonel's." But we have to look with indulgence on this frailty of our compatriots they are getting experience, and, like most of mankind, experience is the one thing they can't accept without paying in full for it. The emotions and the imagination always command their price even when intelligence is selling at a discount. The American people are great, but they are not quite up to old Noah yet he is the only person so far who has been able to float a company when the whole world was in liquidation. I am very heartily an advocate of the corporate form of busi- ness organization, Brother Fijis, and I could cite many eminent authorities who have the same attitude. Woodrow "Wilson, presi- dent of Princeton University, has said: "I don't see how our modern civilization could dispense with corporations. I don't see anything but the utmost folly in entering upon a course of destruction in respect to the present organization of our economic life." Our brother in Phi Gamma Delta, Edward Alsworth Ross, professor in the University of Wisconsin, who writes bril- liant essays for the Atlantic Monthly on sin and society, says: "Corporations are necessary. In resenting corporate sins we must follow the maxim, 'Blame not the tool, but the hand that moves the tool.' " If I were able, brothers, I would serve the corporation to you, not roasted, but accompanied with the praise 341 of whipped cream, glaced fruits, preserved marrons, and other delicacies and with Chateau Yquem or sparkling Chambertin or Veuve Cliquot, and bunches of violets, and an orchestra playing Viennese waltzes on the side. In fact, the corporation is to the corporation lawyer, as your best girl is to you, a Parfait Amour. But the corporation is its own excuse; it is attracting more favorable notice on the part of the intelligent public all the time already two-thirds of the business of the country is conducted under the corporate form, and great minds are at work trying to perfect this form of business conduct so that it will be a per- fect machine, and so that the souls of its officers and directors will serve in lieu of a corporation soul, and so that both the unit of organization and the members who compose it will be openly responsible for all their acts to the state, to the public, and to one another. The only effective way to unify the membership of a large number of men in lodges, unions, clubs, secret societies, fraternities, so as to make them a practically responsible business person, so they may stand before the community and say, ""We are here to deal honestly with you, but if you think you have not been accorded all your rights, we can easily be reached through the law which unites us into a business unit, by which we can be brought to justice as a unit, under one name, so as not to compel you to sue a collection of us as individuals" the only effective way, I say, to unify a society to this end is to incor- porate it. The length of an after-dinner speech, it is said, should corre- spond to that of the ballet dancer's skirt, "qui commencait a peine et finissait deja," and, to follow the formula, I must be ending. It was an enthusiastic member of another fraternity, which I shall call Beta Kappa Delta because there is no such fraternity, who exclaimed in concluding a speech, "Old Beta Kappa Delta ! There she stands with her glorious past. Let us drink to her memory." It is unnecessary to comment on the appropriateness of that toast. But, thank goodness, we Fijis can say, "Ever young Phi Gamma Delta! There she moves from a glorious past to a more glorious future. Let us drink to her vigorous, throbbing life." WELCOME TO THE ALUMNI. DR. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, as president of the day, at the annual dinner of the Harvard Alumni Association, in Cambridge, July nine- teenth, 1860, inaugurated the practice of public speaking at the Harvard dinners with this address. That year also took place the inauguration of President Felton, an event to which the speaker alludes in his reference to the "goodly armful of scholarship, ex- perience and fidelity" once more filling the "chair of office." Brothers, by the side of her who is the mother of us all, and friends, whom she welcomes as her own children: The older sons of our common parent who should have greeted you from this chair of office, being for different reasons absent, it has become my duty to half fill the place of these honored, but truant, children to the best of my ability a most grateful office, so far as the expression of kind feeling is concerned; an unde- sired duty, if I look to the comparisons you must draw between the government of the association existing de jure and its gov- ernment de facto. Your President [Robert C. Winthrop] so graces every assembly which he visits by his presence, his dig- nity, his suavity, his art of ruling, whether it be the council of a nation, the legislature of a State, or the lively democracy of a dinner-table, that when he enters a meeting like this, it seems as if the chairs stood back of their own will to let him pass to the head of the board, and the table itself, that most intelligent of quadrupeds, the half-reasoning mahogany, tipped him a spon- taneous welcome to its highest seat, and of itself rapped the assembly to order. [Applause.] Your first Vice-President [Charles Francis Adams], whose name and growing fame you know so much better than his bodily presentment, has not been able to gratify your eyes and ears by showing you the lineaments and stirring you with the tones inherited from men who made their country or shaped its 342 WELCOME TO THE ALUMNI 343 destinies. [Applause.] You and I have no choice therefore, and I must submit to stand in this place of eminence as a speaker, instead of sitting a happy listener with my friends and classmates on the broader platform beneath. Through my lips must flow the gracious welcome of this auspicious day, which brings us all together in this family temple under the benignant smile of our household divinities, around the ancient altar fragrant with the incense of our grateful memories. This festival is always a joyous occasion. It resembles a scattered family without making any distinction except that which age establishes, an aristocracy of silver hairs which all inherit in their turn, and none is too eager to anticipate. In the great world outside there are and must be differences of lot and position; one has been fortunate; another, toiling as nobly perhaps, has fallen in with adverse currents; one has become famous, his name stares in great letters from the hand-bills of the drama of his generation ; another lurks in small type among the supernumeraries. But here we stand in one unbroken row of brotherhood. No symbol establishes a hierarchy that divides one from another ; every name which has passed into our golden book, the triennial catalogue, is illuminated and emblazoned in our remembrance and affection with the purple and sunshine of our common Mother 's hallowed past and hopeful future. We have at this time a two-fold reason for welcoming the return of our day of festive meeting. The old chair of office, against whose uneasy knobs have rested so many well-compacted spines, whose uncushioned arms have embraced so many stately forms, over whose inheritance of cares and toils have ached so many ample brows, is filled once more with a goodly armful of scholarship, experience and fidelity. The President never dies. Our precious Mother must not be left too long a widow, for the most urgent of reasons. We talk so much about her maternity that we are apt to overlook the fact that a responsible Father is as necessary to the good name of a well-ordered college as to that of a well-regulated household. As children of the Col- lege, our thoughts naturally centre on the fact that she has this day put off the weeds of her nominal widowhood, and stands 344 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES before us radiant in the adornment of her new espousals. You will not murmur, that, without debating questions of precedence, we turn our eyes upon the new head of the family, to whom our younger brothers are to look as their guide and counsellor as we hope and trust through many long and prosperous years. Brothers of the Association of the Alumni ! Our own exist- ence as a society is so bound up with that of the College whose seal is upon our foreheads, that every blessing we invoke on our parent's head returns like the dew from Heaven upon our own. So closely is the welfare of our beloved Mother knitted to that of her chief counsellor and official consort, that in honoring him we honor her under whose roof we are gathered, at whose breast we have been nurtured, whose fair fame is our glory, whose pros- perity is our success, whose lease of long life is the charter of our own perpetuity. I propose the health of the President of Harvard University : We greet our brother as the happy father of a long line of future alumni. THE GOVERNMENT BACK HOME. SAMUEL RALSTON. At the banquet of the Indiana Society of New York, held December fourteenth, 1912, at the Plaza Hotel, Governor Samuel Ralston, of Indiana, responded to this toast. Mr. Toastmaster and Hoosier Exiles: I have traveled a thousand miles to bear you a Hoosier greeting, and if I had journeyed a thousand times that distance I should have been compensated a thousand-fold by your cordial reception. What- ever changes this great metropolis has made in your Hoosier characteristics, it has not taken from your hospitality or lessened your interest in the success of those who have continued to live in the old home. It has become a maxim, once in love with Indiana, always in love with Indiana. I was told a story a few days ago that illustrates how strongly the Hoosier is attached to his state. On an occasion when St. Peter was examining candidates for the land of bliss, a fellow was handed to him in halter. Upon his reception he was tied to a post to await his turn for inspection. He soon gave signs of restlessness and occasionally surged back on his halter-strap in an effort to break loose. A bystander inquired what was wrong with him. St. Peter promptly replied, "Oh, that fellow is a Hoosier and the fool wants to go back to Indiana. ' ' I assure you that those who have kept in shape the house you left will not regard it as an evidence of mental weakness should you desire to return to the old home, whether it is situ- ated on the romantic banks of the beautiful Wabash or is nestled among the thriving industries bordering on Pogue's Run.* All the "Marys' vine-clad cottages" are suggestive of beautiful sentiments and are naturally calculated to woo the exile back *A small stream running through the centre of Indianapolis. 345 346 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES to the haunts of former days, where God's sunshine and land- scape and limitless bounties inspire and console, encourage and reward the sons of men. It was true that the earth moved as Galileo maintained, although he paid the penalty of pioneership for discovering and proclaiming the truth. The experience of Galileo has been the experience on a broader scale of governments and of peoples. Ridicule frequently popularizes, rather than detracts, from those whom its shafts are designed to injure. There was a time when the citizen of Indiana winced under the appellation "Hoosier," but that time has forever passed. Her sons and daughters of industry, versatility and genius have spoken and the world has harkened. Her history is enriched with names, too numerous to repeat, that have brought to her imperishable fame. As typical of the large class they represent in their particular field of labor, her Maclures and Owens, her Egglestons and Tarking- tons, her Wallaces and Nicholsons, her Dunns and Howes, her Blackfords and Mitchells and her Hendrickses and Harrisons have all spoken the word of authority, and following its utter- ance "Hoosier'' has become the most significant word in the dictionary of Indiana democracy, shedding honor upon every one who wears it. I shall not try to lure you away from your present home by anything I say to-night. Ties formed in new associations grow rapidly in strength under favorable circumstances and are pre- served with a zealous interest. I am determined to say noth- ing that will give your new love a right of action against me for damages for the alienation of your affections. I respect the law of the stars: what love has united, let no man put asunder. Much as I regret your moving out from the old home back yonder toward the western sun, I still find it in my heart to com- mend you for becoming citizens of the Empire State. You chose wisely after you resolved to choose at all. Here liberty is held sacred. Here wealth abounds beyond the border lines of the imagination, and charity is dispensed with a free hand. Here the elements have wrought heroically. The earth has been tossed THE GOVERNMENT BACK HOME 347 skyward and your hills and palisades bathe in the first rays of the morning glory. You have your bays. You have your ocean and you have the rolling, tumbling waters of your Niagara, and you have many other advantages bidding you look upward in grateful apprecia- tion, but there is one thing you do not have, and neither God nor man can give it to you. You do not have James Whitcomb Riley's Old Swimmin' Hole. "Thare the bullrushes growed, and the cattails so tall, And the sunshine and shadder fell over it all; And it mottled the worter with amber and gold Tel the glad lillies rocked in the ripples that rolled; And the snake-feeder's four gauzy wings fluttered by Like the ghost of a daisy dropped out of the sky, Or a wownded apple blossom in the breeze's controle As it cut acrost some orchurd to'rds the old swimmin'-hole." But there are things in the life of a people more significant than mountains, waters and fields. Their conception of man's relation to man as expressed in their form of government and the laws they enact indicate more accurately the factor they have been in the world's progress than do things not of their handiwork. Measured by this test, both New York and Indiana can point with glowing pride to their record. It was on Golden Hill in this city so long ago as 1770 that American blood was first shed for American liberty. This was a natural sequence of the passage of the charter of liberties by the Colonial Assem- bly of New York in 1683, in which the people were for the first time recognized in this country as the source of government, and in which it was solemnly declared that "the supreme legislative authority shall forever be and reside in a Governor, Council and the people met in General Assembly." Accompanying this recognition of the people as the source of government was the announcement of that other fundamental principle of civil government that there should be no taxation without representation ; and this proclamation, let it not be for- gotten, was made almost a century before the war our fathers 348 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES fought to cast off the power imposing taxation without repre- sentation. Shedding the first blood for American liberty; being the first in this country to hail the people as the source of govern- ment, and being the first of the American Colonies to promul- gate the American doctrine of no taxation without representa- tion, New York deserved to witness the first serious setback given the British Army, in the defeat of Burgoyne at Saratoga. If your adopted state had never done anything more toward the achievement of American independence and the founding of the American Republic than to be the first to shed her blood for them ; to be the first to recognize the people as the source of government; and to be the first to maintain that taxation with- out representation is tyranny, still she would have given to posterity ono of the brightest pages in the world's history. It would be presumptuous, indeed, for Indianans to claim more glory for their state than is justly due her older sister. The latter has had the advantage over the former of many years' experience in statecraft and yet Indiana is not without honor for the contributions she has made to our national fortunes. You will not forget that in our Civil war she offered up the first life on the field of battle and the last life on the field of battle that the indissolubility of the American Union and the univer- sality of American freedom might be forever established. In that war she sent to the front one soldier or sailor out of every three inhabitants, including children. It is the philosophy of Indiana that the grandeur of a state depends upon moral qualities. Superior numbers do not neces- sarily mean superior virtues. Territory is not always synony- mous with honesty, nor wealth with patriotism, but love of coun- try supported by sacrifice is a people 's highest ethical expression. Out in Indiana we have learned that material progress is safe progress so long as wealth does its part in suppressing vice, eradicating disease and maintaining an enlightened democracy. Vice, disease and ignorance, unbridled, do not exist where society is sound and democracy is sane. For this reason the masses of Indiana without regard tQ THE GOVERNMENT BACK HOME 349 party affiliations have their faces to the rising sun. They recog- nize that certain fundamental principles underlying our gov- ernmental structure are indispensable if our government is to continue to guarantee the protection of life, liberty and prop- erty; but they hold that the fundamentals of the American Republic are not antagonistic to but in harmony with and essential to a progressive spirit. The fathers of this republic builded broadly and wisely. They were evolutionists in the best sense of that term. They believed that American statesmanship would successfully meet any crisis in our national life through the adaptability of our organic law to the demands and needs of the people, either by means of a wise interpretation or by an orderly amendment. Imbued with the spirit of the builders of our nation, the citizenship of Indiana believes that any antag- onism existing between property on the one hand and the public interest on the other will ultimately be solved in a manner to do justice to both. Both have rights and the legiti- mate rights of both must be respected and preserved. But in solving the questions between property and the pub- lic, we Hoosiers propose to discriminate. Property has rights. Privilege has none. The issue suggested by the political and commercial problems of the day is not one between the rich and the poor. Rather it is one between honest investment and the profits of promoters between money and water; between legiti- mate increment and extortions of greed. We are not hostile to wealth in Indiana. We believe in it as we believe in the pursuit of happiness, but we hold that the dominant force in American life must be men not dollars. We stand ready, therefore, to recognize as representing the highest order of statesmanship the party or the man devising a scheme for the sanest control of American industries with as little regulation as possibles. But I must conclude. When the British Commander at Ticonderoga asked General Allen by what authority he demanded the surrender of the British fort, the American general replied, "In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Con- gress." I leave with you the thought that Indiana has become great because in moving forward with the work assigned her in 350 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES the sisterhood of states, she has yielded obedience to an over- ruling will and the laws of the land. From your old friends in the state you first loved I bring you the assurances of their solicitude that you do not forget that "The winds of Heaven never fanned, The circling sunlight never spanned The borders of a better land Than our own Indiana." THE HOOSIER ABROAD. GEORGE ADE. At the fourth annual banquet of the Indiana Society of Chicago, held at the Congress Hotel, December the eleventh, 1908, George Ade gave the following response: It may be that your ovation arises from the fact that I am going abroad shortly to remain a long time. [Laughter.] The subject assigned to me is "The Hoosier Abroad." Therefore I shall speak now regarding the Indiana Society of New York City. [Laughter and applause.] Horace Greeley said, "Young man, go west." Horace believed that the west would be easy for any man brought up in the east. A great many eastern men acted on his advice and came out to the middle west. The resi- dents of the middle west looked them over and said, "If that is what they have back east, it should be comparatively soft for us, ' ' so they all started back east, with the result that to-day the most distinguished pugilists, journalists and muckrakers in New York City are natives of Indiana or one of its dependent states. [Applause and laughter.] It is very difficult to account for these men from Indiana going to New York, except on the theory that good men are needed nearly everywhere. It does not seem possible that any Hoosier would go to New York that is, would go there volun- tarily to live. It is all right to go down there to spend your income that is to spend a year's income in a week; but to think of getting up three hundred and sixty-five days in the year and looking out of the window and seeing that same parade of benevolent faces up Fifth Avenue is awful. [Laughter and applause.] One reason why the Hoosier when he is abroad lands up in New York is that we are very popular in New York. The aver- age New Yorker is deeply interested in Indiana, just as he is 351 352 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES in Abyssinia, Patagonia and Mesopotamia. [Applause and laughter.] You take a man in New York, who lives in a hall bedroom and cooks his meals on an oil stove, and gets up every morning and spends his daily income on a Martini cocktail and a bunch of violets, and who has spent half the morning in get- ting the proper knot in his necktie, and his idea is that Indiana is out near Spring Falls, New York, and is probably one of the lesser suburbs of that great city. [Laughter.] Every Hoosier who can afford it should go to New York at least once a year. It is an uplifting experience for residents of the corn-belt to go into a nice, refined center and mingle with those nice quiet people you meet in the all-night restaurants in New York. [Laughter.] He has absolute confidence that it will finish a little ahead of Babylon and somewhere between Sodom and Gomorrah. [Applause and laughter.] The real town for the Hoosier abroad is London. As you alight from the train you see a large triumphal arch with the following: "Welcome Americans. Your money is not good here." [Laughter and applause.] In a few days I shall start for Europe once more. I know I shall suffer every day when I am away and wish every twenty minutes I was back on the lake front. The only real purpose of going over is to excite the envy of your friends up to the time of your departure from home. All the rest of it is hard work riding for many hours in railway cars, and checking luggage, and lining up for your ship, and all those hardships incident to foreign travel; but the homecoming pays up for all of this. I will never forget that occurrence on our last trip abroad. I had been perambulating through the temples of Egypt, and had seen the new and old splendors of Rome, and looked among the boule- vards of Paris, and paid the customary visit to the top of the Alps. Then, one morning, I arrived near home, and the road ran straight ahead for miles through a level stretch of corn fields, with here a red house with a white barn, and there a white house with a red barn. It was not scenery, unless you have seen scenery upon a checkerboard. Well, I came upon an old friend, and he was stringing a barbed wire fence, and he looked up when he THE HOOSIER ABROAD 353 saw me and asked, "Well, George, how does it seem to be back in God's country?" [Applause.] And he hit the nail on the head. One good thing about the Hoosier abroad is that he never ceases to be a Hoosier. In the first place, he could not be any- thing else if he tried to. You take Uncle Jack Goudy when he went to Paris. He did get so far as to sacrifice a portion of his Ridgeville whiskers, but he never accomplished the French lan- guage. One morning a man walked into his office and said, "Bon jour, Monsieur," and thereupon Uncle Jack sent for an interpreter. [Laughter and applause.] John C. New and Romeo Johnson remained in England many years and never wore monocles. [Laughter.] I believe that the real people abroad like a man who is him- self and who is not trying to be someone else. Some people said that Booth Tarkington had been relegated to the "never land," and then, while they were making this complaint, Booth came to the front with "The Man from Home," which, in my opinion, is the most satisfying justification of the American that has ever been put on the stage. [Applause.] I don't believe that the average Hoosier when abroad waves the American flag. He simply sits back and sizes up things and puts his thumbs in his vest and draws his own conclusions, which are about as follows: "Most of the things which the Europeans have and we have not, we are sure to get in time. Many of the things we have and they have not, they will never be able to get; but some things they have and we have not are things we don't want." So, striking a balance, we say we are fairly well satisfied to be simply what we are. [Prolonged applause and cheers.] AN INTRODUCTION BY GEORGE ADE. At the seventh annual banquet of the Indiana Society of Chicago, George Ade was toastmaster. His general introduction on this familiar occasion follows: Gentlemen, I am glad to announce tonight that the Indiana Society of Chicago is the largest, noisiest and most belligerent seven-year-old infant ever brought up on the bottle. [Laughter and applause.] When we founded this organization our principal anxiety was to rally a crowd. Now, our great problem is to find a room big enough to hold all of the Hoosiers and near-Hoosiers and would-be-Hoosiers who come to dine with us. At our first round-up we met in a small room just across the street from here. To-night we have overflow meetings all up and down Michi- gan avenue. [Laughter.] At this moment there are seven hun- dred people in the Pompeian room who will come up and join us if the slightest encouragement is given. [Laughter.] Sev- eral of our guests who had to take tables in the next block are now waiting to receive telephone messages to come up to headquarters and hear the speeches. Why do people who a few years ago taunted us with refer- ence to Hooppole township and Posey county now prostrate themselves before us and resort to all sorts of trickeries and fawning deceptions in order to gain admittance to these annual feasts ? My friends, there is a reason. It is not because our dinners are better than other dinners. It is not on account of our notorious literati, because the more literary they are the less entertaining they seem to be. The only peculiar merit of the speeches delivered at our dinners is that they are few in num- ber and any man speaking more than forty-five minutes is 354 AN INTRODUCTION BY GEORGE ADE 355 privately asphyxiated by order of the Executive Committee. [Laughter.] No, gentlemen, I will tell you why there is a general and insane desire to attend these dinners. At our past gatherings, which were small and exclusive, each person found at his place a simple card showing what victuals were to be served. Above this bill of fare was a picture the same old picture, the seal of our beloved state. You will find it on your menu card to-night. In the background the sun is either rising or setting behind two mountains. There are no mountains in Indiana, but that fact did not seem to hamper the artist. [Laughter.] In the foreground a man is chopping down a tree, strictly in violation of advice given by the Indiana Forestry Association. [Laughter.] A large shaggy animal, either a buffalo or a Bull Durham, is so alarmed by this sudden outburst of physical activity in a community supposed to be immersed in speculative philosophy that it is dashing madly off in the direction of Chicago, where it will find a more congenial atmosphere. [Laughter.] As I say, each man attending received a square meal, a picture of a man chopping down the tree, and about 2,000 cubic feet of hot air. That was all. But after a year or two some of the committees became ambitious. The simple menu card was elaborated into a folder containing views of historical spots. Next year it was a beau- tiful folio of scenes illustrating Indiana novels and plays. The next committee had to go one better, so it put at each plate a combination cartoon album, song book and portrait gallery. Last year each guest received a libelous volume called " I-knew-him-well. " [Infant and other early portraits of prominent members.] This year the committee, in a delirious attempt to out-do all previous committees, put at each plate a box containing twelve books. Our premium list has become so attractive [laughter] that people who haven't the slightest interest in the Indiana Society, and are bored to death when we stand up here and praise each other and try unsuccessfully to blush at our own greatness 356 APTEE-DINNER SPEECHES these people come to our dinners merely to obtain our expensive souvenirs. [Laughter.] Fifty years hence, when all the authors represented in our Hall of Fame have passed beyond, each set of books given out here to-night will be worth at a conservative estimate five hundred dollars. [Laughter.] The astute Chicago business man figures around until he gets an invitation to our dinner, comes down here, dines and wines and smokes with us epicures, gets two or three musical programs on the side, takes in our high class vaudeville, and then goes home with $500 worth of books under his arm, and credits himself with $490 profit on the deal. [Laughter.] Any social organization which appeals to the commercial instinct is bound to be a success. But the question arises, whither are we drifting? What will be our finish? What will the committees next year do to overshadow the stupendous 3-ring, elevated platform and hippo- drome track affair that we are pulling off here to-night ? What can they do ? They will have to give the dinner at the Coliseum, put a Carnegie Library at each plate and charge $35 a ticket, refusing to honor those purchased of scalpers. [Laughter.] While our local society has been making history, other sons of Indiana have been doing press-work for the grand old state. The most sensational operatic success of this season has been Orville Harold, singing "William Tell" in London. The Lon- don public has gone wild over him, and no wonder for his home is in Muncie, Indiana. Five years ago he was driving a delivery wagon. To-day he and John Shaffer are the most prominent figures on the operatic stage. [Laughter.] During the world's championship ball games, the most sen- sational play, next to Baker's home run, was executed by a young man playing with the New York Giants. When his team seemed hopelessly beaten he went to bat with two men out, smashed a two-bagger, cleaned the bases and brought victory to his team. This young man was Otis Crandall, from Wa- dena, Indiana, near Brook [the country home of Mr. Ade]. [Laughter.] In financial circles the most startling development of the AN INTRODUCTION BY GEORGE ADE 357 year was the meteoric showing made by the boy broker of Boston, who sold a million dollars' worth of mining stock before being interrupted. [Laughter.] He got $25,000 from Harry Lauder, thereby establishing a world's record. [Laugh- ter.] I am sure you will be delighted to learn that this young man was born and bred in Lafayette, Indiana, his mother con- ducting a boarding house just across from the Grand Opera House. [Laughter.] Wherever things are happening and men of action are in demand, there you will find the Hoosier State ably represented. In passing, I need only mention the fact that during the recent important developments in Los Angeles, the McNamara boys of Indianapolis took a very prominent part. [Laughter.] Some of the Hoosiers we have long honored by absent treat- ment are sitting down with us to-night. I am going to call on a few of them to arise in their places and speak to us. But before I do so and in order to make sure that a quorum is present we are going to have a roll-call of the counties. The human megaphone in the gallery will call the names of the counties. When the name of your home county is called please respond with "Here" in a loud, resonant voice. Remain stand- ing long enough to be identified and receive an ovation, and then be seated. [Laughter.] Please respond promptly. Proceed with the roll-call. (The roll of Indiana counties was then called, and the various responses were made.) Mr. Ade : Gentlemen, the secretary reports that a quorum is present, so we will proceed to business. (Mr. Ade then intro- duced those who responded to toasts.) AT "THE SIGN OF THE SMILE." WILLIAM ALLEN WOOD. The Boys' Club Association of Indianapolis is a benevolent organization which provides club facilities, including a gymnasium, a library and reading room, and baths; industrial training in electricity, woodworking and printing; and a summer camp, for nearly a thousand young boys of the city. In this address the work of this organization is explained. The principal club house has outside the door a wrought-lron scrollwork sign bearing a Venetian lamp, and depending from the sign a frame containing a picture, the smiling and radiantly happy face of a boy, with a jaunty cap set well back on the head. Underneath the frame is the inscription, "The Sign of the Smile." Mr. Chairman, Friends and Fellow-Workers: The common, or garden, variety of boy and all normal, healthy boys are of this variety is more or less of a problem in every community. He is especially a problem in urban communities. This fact arises out of the nature of the animal. Please do not have a difference with me because I call the boy an animal, for Plato went further and said, "A boy is the most vicious of all wild beasts." I do not recall in just what spirit or connection Plato said this, but it may be that he had good personal reasons for so expressing himself. It does not require much imagination to see Plato fleeing the wrath of Greek youth, striding off before their missiles much as a friend of mine, who, when he had an engagement to entertain the boys of our club one Christmas evening and kept them waiting outside till he tardily arrived this was under the old regime and the old rules, suffered their disapproval by being pelted roundly with snowballs till he could gain the shelter of the club house. He afterwards suggested to us, with at least a little more surface urbanity than Plato seems to have displayed, that we change the name of the Boys' Club to the Imperial Order of Imps, the Amalgamated Masters of Mischief, or some other more appropriate title. 358 AT "THE SIGN OF THE SMILE" 359 I have said that the boy problem arises out of the nature of the animal. But I am constrained to divide the responsibility of this problem, to release the boy somewhat from the respon- sibility of being a boy. Let us review the situation a moment. In primitive times the boy was the child of Nature, his element was the wilds. Before the explorer had lifted the veil of the mysterious land which the elemental boy inhabited, before the frontiersman had begun to clear the way for civilization, neces- sity and the joy of life taught the boy to cope with the primal ele- ments of nature, making him active, vigorous, strong and manly. He learned how to be skillful in the fashioning and use of the bow and arrow, in the building and paddling of the canoe, in constructing ovens of earth and stones to cook his food and in sewing skins and weaving grass and the hair of animals for his clothing. The forest and the waters provided him with his necessities and with opportunity for healthful sports. In his camp life the boy heard with rapt attention wonderful tales of mystery, embellished liberally by the imagination of his older associates ; he heard of deeds of valor in tribal warfare and of struggles for life and death with the elements and with wild beasts; and he worshipped and obeyed the heroes of his tribe, whose skill and bravery he ever dreamed of emulating. Such was the boyhood of the child of Nature, and such is the boy- hood for which the savage instincts of every natural, healthy boy yearns. Pioneer boyhood is the next step in the advance of civiliza- tion. The white man came and made clearings in the forests. He built his log cabin and struggled from morning till night to assist nature to yield him larger stores to satisfy his less simple and more civilized wants. The pioneer white boy played less and worked more than his little savage cousin. But he, too, loved Nature and was on speaking terms with her. He, too, hunted and fished and trapped and climbed trees and swam. He, too, struggled with the elements, with wild beasts and with savage cunning and treachery, and he, too, was strong, courageous, resourceful, industrious and self-reliant. Gradually, however, cabin was added to cabin, board and 360 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES brick houses were built, and pioneer communities became the rural and small town communities of established civilization. More and more property became private, and with this privacy came the first serious inhibition to the unrestrained activity of the boy, the property fence. Yet the boy had much latitude here and was not usually disturbed when playing on neighbor- ing land that did not belong to his own family. And the forest and the brook and the river were near by, game was still to be captured, the songs of the birds were an almost constant melody in his ears, and there were green fields, sand bars, swimming holes, barns and haylofts which gave him opportunity for play and exercise in joyous combination. The boy was still a com- panion of Nature. But as population multiplied, as the demand for the com- forts and luxuries of an advanced civilization increased, as the commercial spirit became the dominant spirit, and as industry became better organized, centralized and specialized, people were thrown into closer and more interdependent contact, social life became more complex, the identity of the individual was sub- merged in the masses and Nature's wilderness was transformed into the city wilderness. Our chief of individualists, the boy, that part of the genus living in the city, now finds instead of grass, dirt, cobblestones, and asphalt; instead of scalable trees, telephone, telegraph and trolley poles, or trees trimmed beyond his power to climb them; instead of a pure, clear atmosphere, smoke and soot; instead of the sounds of the forest, the birds' songs, and the lullaby of waving branches, grating, rasping, and rumbling noises; instead of a free view of the sunrise and the sunset, instead of that other "soft eye-music of slow- waving boughs, ' ' the constant sight of rows of ugly tenements, of unin- teresting if magnificent mansions, and that supreme sign of triumph of commerce over good taste, the modern billboard. Here the clear brooks and rivers are polluted with waste and sewage, and his swimming holes, formerly bottomed with clean sand, are bestrewn with vegetable cans or are filled up entirely. Here most property is private property upon which he must not trespass, while upon public property in the form of parks AT "THE SIGN OF THE SMILE" 361 and boulevards, he must not run or shout or play on the grass or pick flowers or climb trees or use as gymnasium horses the park benches, which are intended for him to sit upon while he reflects upon the beauties of the artificial landscape about him and the thoughtfulness of his elders in providing the means of developing his aesthetic make-up. Here other pleasures and activities, most of them perfectly natural and harmless in them- selves, have been converted into crimes; for the city fathers have decreed that he must not loiter or be loud and boisterous, or play ball, or build bonfires, or throw stones or snowballs, or use slingshots, or air-rifles, or any other dangerous weapon in the public street. But he is still a child of nature, an individualist, a lover of liberty and independence, an explorer, an adventurer. He is restless under restraint, but is plastic under the right kind of direction. He is fond of the hunt and he builds a tent or a hut in the back yard or in some vacant lot and in true marauder fashion ravages his mother's cupboard, or, in some exceptional cases, appropriates the neighbors' fruit and fowls, and any articles or implements he considers necessary to his natural existence. His happiest moments are when he is doing these things, or when he is undisturbed in his crude retreat, enjoying the fruits of his labor, cooking his meal in a dirt oven, smoking mullein leaves or cornsilk, perhaps, and discussing with com- rades the exploits of his real or imaginary heroes Indians, cow- boys, outlaws, pirates, sleuths, soldiers, prize-fighters, police, and baseball players. He prefers this free life, this natural, resilient, simple existence of his little savage prototype to the ridiculous customs and conventionalities and innumerable rules and regulations of a complex and so-called advanced civilization. His savage nature demands that he live close to nature. His so- cial instinct finds expression and must find exercise through tribal organizations called "gangs." He has a tribal dialect that, to be used, requires no knowledge of intricate grammatical con- struction, and a collection of whistles, calls and warwhoops which require no practice in the art of music to reach their highest delight and purpose. The normal boy must play, make believe, 362 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES show off, assert himself, and be loyal to something or some- body. He has energy that must have an outlet, and that he himself wants to direct. He has a creative spirit and a sense of personal responsibility that, if crushed, means ruin to his proper growth. I have sketched the historical changes in the conditions of boy life and the natural requirements of the boy. I think you will admit that civilization must share with the boy's nature the responsibility for the gap between his requirements and what our cities have to offer for his development. We, then, have to meet in some way the requirements of the boy; we cannot bend him to our small opportunities. We will have many broken windows, many scratched walls, many belittered streets if we do not furnish the boy a place of his own to spend his energies. The boy has to do something, and we may as well recognize that fact. There is a biological axiom that, in the development of the individual person, he goes through the same stages of development that his race or kind has gone through in its growth to its present status. The boy cannot help going through the stages, in feelings and habits, that the savage and the country boy goes through, and, if he could, I would not give much for the resulting growth called a boy. We must not blame him, but we must sympathize with him and help him. It is here we find the function of the Boys' Club. The cause of the Boys.' Club is the cause of the city boy living under unnat- ural and deteriorating conditions which endanger the physical and moral preservation of the race. It cannot restore nature to him, but it supplies him with a building where, under an experienced leadership that encourages rather than suppresses, that suggests rather than dictates, he has ample opportunity during the fall, winter and spring to exercise his play instinct, his social instinct, his creative instinct, and to preserve and develop his sense of individuality and personal responsibility; where he has a swimming pool and shower-baths in place of a swimming hole or river ; where a gymnasium substitutes for trees, fences, and haystacks; where he plays innocent games instead of shooting craps on the street; where good lively stories of AT "THE SIGN OF THE SMILE" 363 adventure take the place of Diamond Dick and Jesse James; where industrial work in woodworking, printing and electricity give him an opportunity to make toys or needful things for himself instead of breaking up other people's property. And then, in summer, he has our camp, out in the real country, where he can climb trees, hunt, fish, swim in a large, clean swimming hole, drink delicious spring water, help cook his own meals, tramp over the hills, play shinny, ride horseback, pick flowers and wild fruit, and see the colorful skies for miles around. I cannot claim to be versed in pedagogics, and I am present- ing only a phase, perhaps, though an important phase of this subject. But if you will permit me, I will review for a moment some ideas of Rousseau which vindicate us in our attitude towards the boy. I remarked that the boy is plastic under proper direction. Proper direction is difficult to obtain, but we may congratulate ourselves on having obtained a director who seems to be a natural director of boys according to the best traditions of proper direction. Rousseau says that if children are not to be required to do anything as a matter of obedience, it follows that they will learn only what they perceive to be of real and present value, either for use or enjoyment, and what other motive, he inquires pointedly, can they have for learning ? We must, then, he says, arouse in the pupil the desire to learn, and the child's present interest is the only motive power that takes us far and safely, adding that what we are in no hurry to get is usually obtained with speed and certainty. Rousseau notes that we will make the boy stupid if we are always giving him directions, always saying come here, go there, stop, do this, don't do that. If the grown-up's head always guides him, his own mind will become useless. He says that boys are like savages, who, because of their independence and self-reliance are keen of sense and subtile of mind. They are not like peas- ants who become dull and clumsy because they have always done what they have been told, or what their fathers did before them. Boys are Nature's pupils and our excellent superintend- ent has the difficult task on his hands a task he proves fully 364 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES equal to of controlling, as Rousseau suggests, without precepts. It is a spontaneous method of education, as spontaneous as the ideas and impulses in the heads and and hearts of the boys. So we do not try to take the impishness out of our boys, but, in line with Rousseau's suggestion that "you will never succeed in making wise men if you do not first make little imps of mischief," we try to preserve in them their natural impishness and to direct it in line with their selfish impulses of present interest. I might emphasize present interest more still, for such future interests as are emphasized in the Sunday school and in the Y. M. C. A. are here purely incidental, so as not to confuse the child-mind with the mission of boys on earth, and so that they will not suffer a reaction later that will be a detriment to their whole future and their essential religious life. If we are not a Sunday school, a church or a home, yet we can suggest to the boy's mind the glory of the resurrection we hope for by the beauty of a June sunrise, we can make our God as literal to his pagan fancy as any pagan god has ever been to any boy's fancy through the appreciation of the lyric colors of a sunset, and the sense-delighting taste of the fruits so abundantly provided for us. We can suggest God to him in everything he sees, hears and feels, and make his religion as practical as our education tries to be. This leaves special doctrines for his family and church to care for, if he must have special doctrines. Our motto is memento vivere rather than memento more, which, if I do not know much of pedagogics, appeals to my common sense as being much more important at this stage of life. And let me differentiate further : the Y. M. C. A., on account of the annual dues which at present puts it beyond the financial reach of most of the boys we care for, is, if not a rich young man's club, at least a club for young men of moderate means. Besides, ordinarily it does not take care of the younger ones as we do. As a single instance of our ability to do effective work let me cite the instance of a certain boy who has attended, without cost, except for the materials he used and a nominal fee to save his self-respect, the evening classes in electricity at the Boys' Club. There is no other place in our city where he could get what AT "THE SIGN OF THE SMILE" 365 he has got there at the time he has got it. His father, edu- cated by our gracious commonwealth, acquired a hazy notion of arithmetic from a book using as "examples" things in which he as a boy was not interested and with which he might never come in contact; he learned 'some grammar from Harvey, a fact one would now be much inclined to doubt; he does retain some knowledge of geography, his only use for it being the satis- faction he gets out of it when reading newspapers and tales of foreign lands; he absorbed some history, which is also purely a personal satisfaction, and some physiology from a book which does not mention what is now the most popular of our insides, the vermiform appendix. And though during several years thus taught he learned more than readin', 'ritin', and Arithmetic, his son, who will go through a book in a week that was taught his father in three or six months, is now, at fourteen years of age, making fifty per cent more in wages than his father and does not work more than three-quarters of the time his father works. This is to some extent due to our trying to make method and curriculum square with nature, and not trying to make nature fit our idea of what method and curriculum ought to be. In the application of the theory of disciplined liberty we, in our limited field, preceded the followers of Dr. Mon- tessori, and that without any knowledge of her work. We do not stand for less discipline, but for more unconscious discipline and our greater function seems to be the opening rather than the filling of our boys' minds. And yet we have been signally suc- cessful in promoting in our boys the four fundamental qualities necessary for personal efficiency health, or physical soundness; intelligence, or mental soundness; trustworthiness, or moral soundness, and industry, or soundness in action. And so we have the Boys' Club. We preserve for the boy all those semblances of freedom which make his mind and his will the more ready to subject themselves to direction when the superintendent deems it necessary. Our baths are a con- stant and silent invitation to him to enjoy a shower in primal nakedness; our library is an invitation to satisfy his natural curiosity and interest; our gymnasium, to enjoy exercises and 366 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES gain bodily strength ; our industrial shops, to play at work and work at play and to acquire ability in skilled labor. He is sur- rounded by opportunities to acquire a sound mind in a sound body, and, through the variety of interests open to him, to grow in perfect balance in accord with 'that other Greek adage of "nothing too much." Joubert said that " children need models rather than critics" and, through the training of successive gen- erations, our older boys to a large extent furnish these models for the younger. Joubert said also, "Too much severity freezes our faults and fixes them; often indulgence kills them. A good praiser is as necessary as a good corrector. Education should be tender and severe, not cold and soft." I have observed the truth of this assertion in the results of the methods of our superintendent. I think no one will disagree with me when I say we have one of the most popular as well as one of the most effective institutions in Indianapolis, and I believe this is be- cause we have an institution which is preventive in its nature and which appeals directly to the hearts and intellects of all our people. Ours is the stitch in time that saves nine. "When it is necessary to take nine stitches, when institutions are curative in their nature, there enter many disagreeable things that we are free from. These institutions deserve our sympathy the more on that account. Briefly, I do not know how long it will be before our educational function will be taken over by the public school system when we can become purely a recreational institution but it will not be until the schools handle the prob- lem as we are handing it. The late superintendent of our city schools (Mr. Calvin N. Kendall) said we are fifty years ahead of the times in our methods of education. We can at least con- gratulate ourselves that we are not behind the times. And meanwhile we are extending our good influence in the various communities where we have houses by becoming social centers, places for the young to dance and for their friends and parents to meet together in clubs and otherwise. And so, I repeat, we have the Boys' Club, a place of joy which may hold the balance between the worst and the best in the lives of many boys; a place where "the least of these" are AT "THE SIGN OF THE SMILE" 367 doing useful and beautiful things in developing their own char- acters. At "The Sign of the Smile" they are always welcome, and I am sure we all hope it may be for them always, "The Sign of the Smile." INDIANA, INCUBATOR OF IMMORTALS. WILLIAM ALLEN WOOD. This response was made at the banquet of the Fifty-ninth Ekklesia of the Phi Gamma Delta college fraternity. The Ekklesia was held at the University of Chicago, and the banquet at the Hotel del Prado. Brother Toastmaster and Brother Fijis: I was notified late this evening by way of The Convention Fiji that I was to give a toast to-night on Indiana, Incubator of Immortals. I assure you that only state pride prevented me from refusing to re- spond, and there may be those who, when I have finished, will say that I had done my state 's reputation a better turn by keep- ing silent, and that, therefore, my one reason is a poor one. Your calling on a somewhat unpracticed speaker on such short notice recalls the story of a certain Episcopal lady of devout inclina- tions who, the rector noticed, bowed her head not only when the name of the Christ was pronounced in the services, but also whenever the name of Satan was mentioned. The rector felt that this was highly improper and expostulated with the old lady, saying, "I notice, madam, that you bow your head not only when we mention the name of Christ, but you also bow at the name of the devil. You know that is not in accord with the customs of our church." "Yes, I know that," said the old lady, "but you know it pays to be polite and you never can tell what may happen. " Now, as I am a very devil of a speaker, I feel that your calling on me is only an effort to be polite. So much for an apology, which, like the quotation, the platitude, and the story, seems, from its frequency, to have become an established requisite in American after-dinner speeches. It is grateful to me to note that the gentleman who composed this program recognized, perhaps subconsciously, the literary pre-eminence of the Hoosier state. Some of the other toasts are plain Phi Gamma Delta, The New York Club, The East, 368 INDIANA, INCUBATOR OF IMMORTALS 369 The West, and so on, but when the thought of Indiana came into his mind he spontaneously concocted that beautiful allitera- tion, Indiana, Incubator of Immortals, which is a verbal cocktail that must delight the heart of every Hoosier here. Indiana is indeed the incubator of immortals ; it is a literary lallipaloosa, a dinger in diction, and every one of us from Indiana will admit the truth of your program maker's soft impeachment. In Indiana we are not limited in vocabulary, but express our- selves in literature both in the occasionally sesquipedalian nomenclature of our literary craftsman and brother, Meredith Nicholson, and sometimes in the brain leaks of the fellow townsman of the Chicagoans present, George Ade. Moreover, we are a good people in Indiana. When we swear we do not do so from violence of temper and wicked emotions, but, in line with our love of literature and art, we swear merely from the love of the assonance of comminatory sounds. So those of you who have not visited our cultured and virtuous state know not what opportunities you have missed for the broadening of your edu- cation and the embellishing of your personalities. We of In- diana give you a hearty invitation to visit the incubator of immortals, where you may be born again rehatched, as it were in a cultural way. However, to show you that Indiana's abun- dant development of immortals is not an unmixed glory, arous- ing as it does the envy of less fortunate commonwealths, I will tell you the story of a Boston woman who, filled with the pride of her own state and city, visited the Indiana building at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St. Louis. Like many another Easterner, she had no idea how rich we were in celebrities. This good dame, lorgnette in hand, started in to look at the portraits of our prominent men as they appeared on the walls of the Indiana building. She viewed with a fair degree of complacency the portraits of Meredith Nicholson, George Ade, Booth Tarkington, George McCutcheon, William Vaughn Moody, David Graham Phillips, Wilbur Nesbit, Charles Major, Theodore Dreiser and the others of the younger generation of literary lights, before she came to the older men who have added to Indiana's fame. She was beginning to get on her mettle, though, 370 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES when she came to the older men and her pride was on the verge of resenting our monopolistic display of creators of literature. She fixed her glass on a picture and exclaimed with offended sur- prise, "And Edward Eggleston. Huh!" Then she passed to another picture, fixed her glass again, and exclaimed, "And Maurice Thompson. Huh!" To others, "And James Whitcomb Riley and John Hay. Huh!" To another, "And General Lew Wallace. Huh!" Then with an indignant flourish of her binocular at what she considered our preposterous claims, with chin in air she said to an attendant, "And, pray, where are Shakespeare and Milton?" Being of a liberal turn of mind, gentlemen, I am not averse to letting you into the secret of Indiana's greatness. In one of the greatest of recent novels, the strong men, the men of kern intellect, fine feeling and great vitality, came from the country that was heavily wooded, the country where grass and shrubs clothed the earth closely, where pure water flowed from abundant springs, where people looked up to the sky and enjoyed its delightful blue, where shifting clouds of ominous gray and black, or of white and gold and pink and lavender, left vivid emotions of epic grandeur or lyric joy in the hearts of the beholders. It was such a country from which the immortals of Indiana have arisen. It is the country to which belong our own Fiji giants Wallace, Eggleston, Thompson, Ridpath, Nich- olson, and a possible president of the United States, Charles W. Fairbanks. Kipling wrote : "I have written the tale of our life For a sheltered people's mirth, In Jesting guise but ye are wise, And ye know what the jest is worth." And you of Indiana know what my jest at our beloved state is worth. Let every loyal Indiana Fiji stand and drink to the grand old state. (About fifty men from Indiana stood and drank the toast proposed by the speaker, "To Indiana.") Our worthy president and toastmaster, Brother Newton INDIANA, INCUBATOR OF IMMORTALS 371 Baker, who can detect psychological influences from great dis- tances, will appreciate the reason why Indiana is the incubator of immortals. And this psychological influence suggests that those of our brothers who attend the agricultural colleges of our nation can get even with the chaps from literary colleges and fulfill a great opportunity in the direction of general cul- ture by becoming their state's foresters and landscape gardeners, thus placing their states on an equal competitive footing with Indiana and other commonwealths that grow poets and the producers of the six best sellers. Let no one decry the oppor- tunities of our agricultural schools in forwarding general culture. If there is anything in this theory of the influence of environ- ment, and if the evidence of our eyes and hearts is to be believed, those of us who have come in contact at this Ekklesia with the representatives of chapters at agricultural and technological schools must have come to a conclusion that will forever settle an old question that has been recurrent at every convention of this fraternity for years. Surrounded by influences that stand for effective and practically productive work, these men come to us full of life and action, full of sincerity of purpose, full of aspiration for service, and with an outlook that is devoid of much of the haziness that characterized the outlook of those who have been taking classical courses. Who will say that the fraternity has not been benefited greatly by getting into these schools that send us such virile men? After all, as a college president said recently, ' ' Culture is what is left when what you have learned at college has been forgotten," and we must admit that the evidences of true culture are just as many in our men from Purdue, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from Illinois, and other schools that are predominantly agri- cultural and engineering, as they are in the men from Indiana, from Yale, Columbia, Stanford, or any other that is pre- eminently literary and scientific in its curriculum. Let us con- gratulate ourselves on an insight that permitted us to admit these chapters and that will, I hope, permit us to admit many others of the same kind, as we to-day admitted Iowa State. It 372 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES was a "furriner" who discovered America, as the Irish immi- grant said, and it will doubtless be found, when the history of the fraternities is written, that, though these associations were formed in the first place to promote classical scholarship, the men from the technological and agricultural schools will have contributed as much to the development of fraternities and to the attainment of the fraternities' highest functions as the men who, like myself, took courses in the liberal arts. Indiana, brothers, is midway between the east and the west not physically, in a strict sense, but from the standpoint of the sense of communities. And from this central position we hold out one hand to you, brothers of the East, and the other to you, brothers of the West, and form the connecting link in that great golden chain that is nation-wide. My one great wish to-night is, brothers, that you of the Pacific and you of the Atlantic may have the same deep sense of the solidarity of Phi Gamma Delta that we of Indiana have, and that our one-ness of purpose, in whatever direction we purpose, may bring about a greater and grander fraternity than any of which we have dreamed. THE EXILES' TOAST. FRANK NORRIS. The Phi Gamma Delta college fraternity, whose members are popularly known as the "Fijis" (Phi G's), has the distinction of in- cluding many literary lights. It is to this group of "Greeks" that Lew Wallace, Maurice Thompson, Meredith Nicholson, Arthur Colton and Frank Norris have belonged. No member was more enthusiastic than Norris, who instituted what is known as the "pig dinner," a banquet accompanied by ceremonies peculiar to this body, and which the chapters of the fraternity, since Norris' death, call the annual "Norris." Every Thanksgiving, The Poodle Dog Caf6, of San Francisco, wap reserved for the Fijis of local chapters and the resident alumni, and a dinner was served especially for this party, Norris, a member of the University of California chapter, among them. At the dinner held on the occasion of the California-Stanford football game, Thanksgiving of 1901, Norris was unable to be present. But he sent "The Exiles' Toast," printed here, which is as intimately characteristic of the force, virility and good fellowship of the man as anything else he ever wrote. "Gesundkeit! Ach mein lieber vriendts, dot note she gome to-day, You're dinin' bei Der Poodle in der same ol' jolly vay; Vile me, Ach Gott, der lieber Gott, I've rit me down undt vept Dat your kind invitationing I can not yet agcept. Der Poodle! Doan'd I know her blace? Say, blind mein eyes oop tighdt Undt standt me bei der Plaza on, I findt der Haus all righdt. Der glass-vare I Ve ge-broken dere, der sboons I hef ge-stole ! Der viskey Chimmie Vhite hef drunk from aus der sugar bowl ! Ach, dose vere days, der Gibbs he knows, undt Mairsch he knows ut, too, Undt Hethauern could ree-member yoost a leedle ting or two, Undt dot poy Earnie Hoentersohn, he's leedle, put, oh my! lie nef 'r sets his schooner down until he's drunk her dry. 373 374 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES Undt utzt Wallie Every-bit, who alleways knows ut alle; Undt Gibbons "loaf-of-vomen" he leads Shermans at Lunt's Halle. Undt, den, Ach hoch das Vaterland! dere iss der soldier man,* Der terror of der Sbaniards in der charge of San Jooan, Der awful Captain Sailf ridge, he's a howlin' martinet (Ven speakin' to him, touch der cap. He loafs dose etiquette). Undt Booksie Balmer he gomes, too, dot quiet leedle poy Dey galls him vhen he's vairy goot, der sewing circle's joy. Undt Hoomphries, he's der sly one, undt he knows der historie Von efry Fiji chapter in der land from sea to sea. Undt Pilly Shmidt undt Emory, dey dose deir leedle stunts Fallutin' mit der "Younger Set" each Saturday at Lunt's. Hi alle you Grads, you lucky Grads, who dis T'anksgiving Day Can shtop at home, joost tink of us, der Exiles far avay. Dere's Chunky in Geneva, undt dere's Corbett in Paree, Undt D-doodle's gone to Noo Orleans, undt in Noo York dere's me; Undt Hooston's in St. Louis, undt dere's Rethers Gott knows vair Ve sits undt vaits undt vatches undt ve groan undt tear der hair ; Ve reckons oudt der difference in der time undt efry one, Ve says oudt loud, "Dey hef kicked off, der game hef joost begun," Undt ve ain'dt dere to see ut played, undt ve ain'dt dere to yell, Undt ve ain'dt dere to see der team joost knock 'em into Hell. Vail, ven you all sits down again to eat dot Poodle lunch, You alle joost try to vancy dat ve're mit you in der bunch. Here's to der team! Bei Gott stand oop dis ain'dt no usual drink; Stand oop. Hands 'round between us alle, it is der gommon link. Standt oop it is der Exiles' Toast ve're mit you alle to-day; Ve're back vonce more in der ol' blace, undt back again to schtay. * These lines to be accompanied by the discharge of musketry [rattling of steins on the table]. THE EXILES' TOAST 375 Standt oop, stand oop; vrom East undt Vest, ve've gome to be mit you ; Wre dinin' at Der Poodle joost as vonce ve used to do. Dis day ve show eur colors undt let alle der eagles scream, For ve're dinin' at Der Poodle undt ve're drinkin' to der team." Very fraternally, FRANK NOERIS. YOUR HEALTH! WILLIAM ALLEN WOOD. This toast was proposed at a small private company. It is repro- duced here because of the historical allusion, whether accurate or not, to the origin of health drinking. This happy company has asked me to interrupt the festivi- ties at this point to express to you, our guest, on behalf of us all, our appreciation of you as a friend, a companion, and all the best that is implied in the expression, "a good fellow." We wish to back up the material expression, in the form of this feast in your honor, with our word, which comes from our hearts, that we shall greatly miss your kindness, your graciousness, your brilliant mind and your good cheer from among us. With the permission of the company, I shall recall an incident of far-away times when the Danes were in England and it was customary with them, while an Englishman was drinking, to take that opportunity to stab him much as the hunters in Africa now take advantage of wild animals when quenching their thirst at waterholes, to kill them. To guard against this Danish treachery, the English entered into an understanding among themselves to be mutual pledges of security, while drink- ing, and, therefore, when the Englishman of that somewhat formal period drank in the presence of his friend, his plea to that friend was expressed somewhat in this fashion : ' ' Sir, I am afraid that some malicious Dane will stab me or cut my throat while I am drinking. I therefore beg of you the favor to watch carefully that I may drink in safety." The friend should reply, "Sir, I will pledge you and be your surety." The thirsty one then continued, "I am greatly obliged to you, sir; your health, that you may live till I have done drinking, and save me from his wicked intentions." This is said to be the origin of the drink- ing of healths. One might infer from all the ceremony that the 376 YOUR HEALTH! 377 English of those times were long and heavy drinkers, but, be that as it may, as the famous comedian says, the custom is some- what picturesque to us as we visualize it now. You, sir, are among friends and may drink freely at this board to-night, and so much do we esteem you, and so much do we believe the community esteems you, that if there were one among us here or one in the community who, personifying the ancient Dane and trying to stab you, during a period of inattention, or, as we say, behind your back, with that modern weapon of malice, the hateful, lying word, we are sure he would not be successful, for we, your friends, here and in the city, pledge you we would be your sureties. And in the faith that we are to some extent held in a like esteem and that you would so pledge yourself to us, we drink your health. Gentlemen, to the health of our friend and guest ! TO THE FRENCH NAVY AND OTHER ADDRESSES. RAYMOND POINCABE. On the eighth of June, 1913, President Poincarg attended the French naval review at Toulon. In the evening, at a banquet in his honor on board the dreadnaught Michelet, he made the following address, which is reproduced in his native language. Messieurs: Le merveilleux spectacle que nous avons eu la joie et la fierte de contempler hier et aujord'hui me laisse le regret de n 'avoir pu assister plus longtemps aux manoeuvres qu'accomplit, depuis plusieurs semaines deja, notre vaillante flotte de la Mediterranee. J'aurais eu grand plaisir a suivre pendant quelques jours les evolutions tactiques de nos escadres et a voir notre arm.ee navale executer au moins, sous mes yeux, un des trois themes d 'operations qui etaient indiques; mais il ne m'a pas ete donne de participer autant que je 1'eusse desire a ces exercices maritimes. J'emporte cependant, des heures trop courtes que je viens de passer a bord, une impression qui ne s'effacera point. Des hier matin, a ma sortie de Toulon, lorsque les quatre escadres se sont portees dans un ordre majestueux au-devant du Jules-Michelet, j'ai senti toute la beaute d'une grande force disciplined et methodique, maniee par un chef dont 1'esprit et la volont6 vigilante sont presents a la fois sur toutes les unites. [Vifs applaudissements.] Le simulacre de combat qui a eu lieu ensuite, et qui nous a donne une si emouvante fiction de la realite, I'intrepidite ,des attaquee entreprises jsuccessivement par les sous-marins et les torpilleurs, la splendide revue qui a couronne ces deux inoubliables journees, tout a demontre, une fois de plr.s, la valeur de notre materiel naval, 1'infatigable devouement de nos officiers, 1'heureux entrainement de nos equipages. [Applaudissements.] Dans son patriotisme eclaire, le pays supporte depuis de 378 TO THE FRENCH NAVY 379 longues armies, sans lassitude, les lourdes charges que lui im- posent 1'entretien et le perfectionnement de ses moyens de defense. II salt que, pour tre sur d'eloigner de nous, si jamais elles se produisaient, les menaces de guerre ou les tentatives d 'humiliation, nous avons le devoir d'etre toujours forts, tou- jours calmes et toujours prets. [Nouveaux applaudissements.] Le Parlement, qui est I'interprete des sentiments de la nation, ne recule devant aucun sacrifice pour porter au plus haut degre" de puissance notre outillage militaire et naval, pour mettre nos armees de terre et de mer en mesure de f aire face avec le plus de celerit6 possible a des ev6nements inopines. Nous avons pu constater ici que tant d 'efforts ne demeurent pas steriles. Sur quelque batiment qu'ils naviguent, & quelque rang de la hierarchie qu'ils servent, nos marins pratiquent avec une sim- plieite touchante les vertus les plus nobles. L 'esprit de dis- cipline, d 'abnegation, d'heroisme sont devenus chez eux une seconde nature. La France elle-meme peut se mirer dans les yeux de ses braves enfants. Elle y voit briller d'un eclat inaltere" toutes ses qualites traditionnelles. [Vifs applaudissements.] Et je veux unir aujourd'hui dans un meme temoignage de gratitude et d 'admiration nos marins et nos soldats. Elle aussi, notre armee de terre, a le regard obstinement fixe sur le drapeau. Elle aussi s'empresserait tout entiere & la voix de la patrie, le jour ou la France en peril appellerait ses enfants a son secours. Elle aussi n'a qu'une ambition: c'est de demeurer, & toute heure et en toute occasion, digne de la confiance nationale. [Applau- dissements repetes.] Je leve mon verre en 1'honneur de la marine frangaise; je lve mon verre en 1'honneur de nos troupes de toutes armes et je vous convie, messieurs, & boire avec moi a la Republique et a la France! [Applaudissements prolonged.] At the dinner given to the delegates from the Comitfi France- Amfirique, given on the seventeenth of June, 1912, in Paris, on their return from placing Rodin's statue, La France, a gift of France to America, at the foot of the monument erected in honor of Samuel Champlain on the border of the American lake bearing his name, M. PoincarS, who was then president of the council and minister of for- 380 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES eign affairs, speaking after M. Hanotaux, of the French Academy and President of the Comlt6 France-Am6rique, the American Ambassador, Myron Herrick, and others, said: Mesdames, Messieurs: Je ne veux pas laisser se terminer ce charmant banquet sans acquitter envers le Comite France- AmSrique line dette gouvernementale. [Sourires.] Vous venez de donner une nouvelle preuve de ce que peut, pour le Men public, ce que vous appeliez tout k 1'heure 1'indi- viduel dans International, c'est-a-dire, laissez-moi le definir autrement: la libre initiative de citoyens Iqrsqu'elle est pro- voquee et soutenue par un homme de haute intelligence et de grand coeur comme notre eminent ami M. Gabriel Hanotaux. [Vifs applaudissements.] Des que les fitats de New-York et de Vermont eurent entrepris d'eriger un monument commemoratif a propos du triosieme centenaire de Champlain, notre ambassadeur a "Wash- ington, dont on faisait tout a 1'heure un eloge si merite, a, bien entendu, informe le ministere des Affaires etrangeres de ce pro jet amical. Nous ne pouvions demeurer insensibles a cet hommage spontane que deux fitats de la grande Republique americaine se proposaient de rendre a Tun des plus illustres enfants de la vieille France. Mais, vous l'avouerai-je, Messieurs, le ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, livre a lui-meme, aurait ete probablement fort embar- rasse pour trouver une combinaison qui nous permit de nous associer dignement a cette commemoration. On tourna tout naturellement les yeux vers le Comite France- Amerique, qu'on savait toujours pret a resserrer nos liens avec les nations du Nouveau Monde et qui, en effet, saisit avec empressement cette heureuse et nouvelle occasion de rapprochement et d 'accord fraternel. C'est ainsi, Messieurs, que fut ouverte, sous les auspices du Comite, cette fructueuse souscription, grace a laquelle un chef- d'oeuvre de notre genie national put etre place la-bas, sur les bords de ce lac Champlain dont Hanotaux faisait tout a 1'heure une description si pittoresque, et y perpetuer 1'image de notre Patrie. [Applaudissements.] TO THE FKENCH NAVY 381 C'est ainsi egalement que fut recrute'e cette mission volon- taire qui est allee representer aux fitats-Unis et au Canada et y representer avec quel 6clat, vous le savez 1 'esprit frangais, les lettres frangaises, 1'art frangais, 1 'eloquence frangaise, le courage frangais, bref toutes ces vertus eternelles de la race & laquelle appartenait Samuel Champlain. [Applaudissements.] Le gouvernement, Messieurs, ne pouvait que suivre d'une pensee sympathique, et malheureusement lointaine, cette bril- lante delegation. Et c'est avec une reconnaissance emue et un peu envieuse que j 'ai regu les radiogrammes et les cablogrammes qui me signalaient les etapes successives de ce voyage triomphal. Maintenant, comme le disait Hanotaux, le reve est termine; mais apres le reve, par bonheur, il reste la realite, et la realite, c'est une nouvelle oeuvre d 'union et de Concorde, fecondee par le souvenir et consacree par le culte commun des grands morts. [Vifs applaudissements.] Je bois, Messieurs, a 1 'entente, intellectuelle, morale et 6conomique de la France et des nations amSricaines. [Vifs applaudissements.] On the occasion of the visit of President Poincarfi to England In 1913, a banquet was given In his honor at Buckingham Palace on June twenty-fourth. The London Times of June twenty-fifth gave the follow- ing account of the banquet: "The State Banquet at Buckingham Palace was a very brilliant affair. There were one hundred and thirty distin- guished persons at the banquet, and they were seated at fourteen sep- arate tables. In the middle of the banqueting room was an oblong table, at which sat the King and Queen, the President, members of the Royal Family, and Ambassadors. The tables were lighted from gold candelabra and massive electroliers set high in the partially arched roof, and shaded by cut glass. The floral decorations were in the French national colours, the red of the Tricolour being supplied by choice English roses, the white by orchids, and the blue by delphinium. The tables were tastefully decorated with these blooms set in golden vases, and the famous gold plate from Windsor was set off with mag- nificent effect. A guard of honour of the Yeomen of the Guard formed a cordon round the whole range of the tables." After the banquet the King proposed the health of the President In the following terms: Je suis on ne peut plus heureux, Monsieur le President, de vous souhaiter la bienvenue dans ce pays et de vous dire combien Je suis 382 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES sensible & la courtoisie que vous me tgmoignez en me faisant visite si tot apres votre installation dans l'6minente et haute position que vous occupez. Les rapports que nos deux nations voisines ont entre elles depuis bien des si&cles ont permis & chacune de profiter de la culture intel- lectuelle et de la prosp^rite" mate>ielle de 1'autre: un accroissement progressif de respect, de bienveillance et d'accord mutuel en est le rfisultat. Depuis la signature, en 1904, des actes diplomatiques, qui ont si amicalement mis un terme a nos differends, les deux nations ont coopfirfi harmonieusement et cordialement aux affaires d'un int6rt international, et elles se sont senties attir6es Tune vers 1'autre par un mme Int6rt et un but identique. Nos Gouvernements ont constam- ment en vue le maintien de la paix et des deux cOtes nous nous eff ergons de parvenir a ce noble but. Ces derniers mois, lorsque de graves questions Internationales se succgdaient, 1'esprit de confiance et de franchise mutuelle, avec lequel la France et la Grande-Bretagne ont abordg ces divers probl&mes, a prouvfi qu'il Gta.it d'un avantage inestimable. Nous 6prouvons une vive satisfaction a constater qu'en presence des difficults serieuses que 1'Europe a traversed, tous les efforts des grandes Puissances in- t6ress6es n'ont pas cessg de tendre vers la paix. Je m'estime parti culierement heureux d'avoir comme hote un homme d'6tat aussi distinguS par ses services, et de reputation si haute que son nom n'est pas seulement eminent parmi ceux des hommes politiques, mais qu'il occupe une place dans cette illustre AcadSmie, que, depuis pres de trois siecles, fait la gloire de la France et 1'envie de 1'Europe. Je d6sire aussi vous faire part, Monsieur le President, de ma vive appreciation de vos sentiments de respect et d'estime a 1'Sgard de mes illustres pr6d6cesseurs : la Reine Victoria et mon Pere bien-aim6. Deux fois dans le courant de 1'annge derniere, vous avez exprim6 ces senti- ments d'une maniere aussi aimable qu'^loquente. Je vous assure, Monsieur le President, qu'ils m'ont profond6ment 6mu et qu'ils resteront toujours graves dans ma memoire. Je leve mon verre pour vous souhaiter, Monsieur le President, bon- heur et prosp6rit6; pour vous assurer des voeux sinceres que je forme afln que la grande nation frangaise jouisse d'un glorieux avenir et que les relations entre nos deux pays se continuent dans une etroite intimitS et avec une vitality inalterable. The President said in reply: Sire, Le cordial accueil que vent bien me faire Votre Majeste, les marques de sympathie qui me sont prodiguees, depuis mon arrivee, par le Gouvernement Royal, rempressement TO THE FKENCH NAVY 383 que met le peuple de Londres & feter le repr6sentant de la France, provoqueront, chez mes compatriotes, un mouvement general de joie et de reconnaissance. En saisissant avec gratitude 1 'occasion que Votre Majeste m'a si aimablement offerte de lui rendre visite des cette annee, je me suis tout & la fois propose de lui donner elle-meme un gage de mes sentiments personnels et d'apporter & la grande nation britannique le fidele souvenir de mon pays. Pour me faire ce soir 1'interprete de 1 'opinion frangaise, je n'ai qu'& me rappeler les eloquentes demonstrations dont j'ai ete maintes fois le temoin; comme 1 'annee derniere, sur les rives de la Mediterranee, lorsqu'en des solennites que Votre Majeste a la bonne grace de n 'avoir pas oubliee, une foule enthousiaste acclamait la tenue martiale des equipages royaux; ou, comme hier encore, lorsqu'a mon depart de France, la Normandie fremissante multipliait les vivats a 1'adresse de 1'Angleterre. L'amitie que unit les deux nations est aujourdTmi, chez 1'une et chez 1'autre, profondement enracinee dans 1'ame populaire. L'histoire et le temps se sont charges de la cultiver eux-memes. Elle etait en germe dans l'estime traditionelle que les siecles ont developpe entre la Grande Bretagne et al France, et qui n'a pas laisse de grandir jusque dans les dissentiments passes. Le jour ou ont ete heureusement reglees les questions qui semblaient mettre en contradiction, sur plusieurs points du globe, nos interets respectifs, les deux peuples ont enfin c6d6 & leurs dispositions naturelles; leur mutuel respects s'est peu & peu double d 'affection et & la courtoisie de leurs relations anciennes 8 'est ajoutee sans peine une confiante intimite. Au cours des graves evenements qui se sont succecle depuis quelques mois qui ont tenu 1 'Europe si longtemps en alerte et qui ne sont pas sans lui causer encore des preoccupations s^rieuses, nos deux Gouvernements ont pu apprecier, tous les jours, les bienfaits d'une entente qui leur a permis d'etabh'r entre eux une collaboration constante, d'^tudier, en plein accord, les problemes poses et de ce concerter aisement sur les solutions desirables. Dans cette co-operation quotidienne, ils n'ont pas cesse de 384 AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES s 'employer & conjurer 1 'extension on la reprise des hostilite's et a prevenir, entre les Grandes Puissances, des conflits dont les con- sequences seraient incalculables. Comme 1'Angleterre, la France s'est f elicited de pouvoir travailler & cette oeuvre de paix avec le concours perse'verant de toutes les Chancelleries et elle continuera, du meme coaur, & faire effort pour que Tharmome, dont 1'Europe a donn6 1 'example salutaire, ne soit pas troublee dans 1'avenir. Je 16ve mon verre en 1'honneur de Votre Majeste, de Sa Majeste la Reine qui m'a accueilli avec tant de gracieusete, de Sa Majeste la Reine Alexandra, de Son Altesse Royale le Prince de Galles, qu'il m'a ete tres agreable de revoir a Paris cette annee, et de toute la Famille Royale. Je bois ^ la prosperity et a la grandeur du Royaume-Uni A 000 737 078 6