LINCOLN ROOM UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY MEMORIAL the Class of 1901 founded by HARLAN HOYT HORNER and HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER L I E> R.ARY OF THE U N IVLRSITY or ILLINOIS Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://archive.org/details/addressesdeliverOOnatio ABRAHAM LINCOLN Schneider PORTRAIT PRESENTED TO THE REPUBLICAN CLUB, FEBRUARY 12, 1909, BY THE LINCOLN DINNER COMMITTEE. ADDRESSES DELIVERED AT THE LINCOLN DINNERS OF THE NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB IN RESPONSE TO THE TOAST ABRAHAM LINCOLN 1910-1927 PRIVATELY PRINTED FOR The National Republican Club 1927 Copyright, 1927 BY The National Republican Club This Edition is limited to five hundred copies of which this copy is Number 3o:b PRINTED BY THE TENNY PRESS 33-35 West 17th Street New York City CONTENTS ADDRESSES BY— Page Robert C. Morris 9 Michael Clune 13 William Howard Taft 27, 105 Seth Low 35 George von L. Meyer 63 Frank W. Gunsaulus 39 Theodore Roosevelt 67 Otto T. Bannard 83 Charles 0. Maas 87 Chauncey M. Depew 95 J. Van Vechten Olcott 119 William Carter 123 Nathan Goff 149 Edward C. Stokes 161 James R. Sheffield 181, 219 Simeon D. Fess 187, 399 J. Adam Bede 203 S. Parkes Cadman 227, 469 Warren G. Harding 239 Robert W. Bonynge 247 Charles D. Hilles 255 J. Percival Huget 263 Nicholas Murray Butler 285 W. Warren Giles 295 Job E. Hedges 311 Charles Reynolds Brown 329 Irvine L. Lenroot 347 Nathaniel A. Elsberg 361 Mrs. August Belmont 367 James W. Wadsworth 371 Calvin Coolidge 377 Charles E. Hughes 407 James M. Beck 421 John MacCrate 437 William M. Calder 451 Curtis D. Wilbur 455 Frank B. Willis 465 PREFACE The National Kepublican Club, conscious of its responsibility and opportunity, provides in this volume its second contribution to American letters — the addresses delivered at its Lincoln Day dinners from 1910 to 1927. Volume I long ago won a place for itself in the esteem of those who reverence Lincoln as perhaps the finest source of patriotic inspiration. Within the covers of this book will be found eloquence, wis- dom, history — loving tributes prompted by contemplation of the character and deeds of the mightiest and kindliest soul of the 19th century. The addresses herein contained now are in permanent form. The restless rush of a competitive age, especially here in New York, endangers the spiritual. A volcanic period sends its ruin- spreading scoria over flower and vine — ^the flood of years its un- welcome erosion detritus. As in the physical so in the spiritual. The noble contributions inspired at recurring Lincoln anniver- saries were in danger of submergence until they were gathered into permanent printed form. They now become a lasting me- morial. As such, the twin volumes will appeal to student, pub- licist, historian, philosopher. The work of compiling and editing was entrusted to members of the club by President Calder, whose co-operation greatly facil- itated the task. In a familiar essay Emerson says: "We shall one day see that the most private is the most public energy; that quality atones for quantity, and grandeur of character acts in the dark, and suc- cors them who never saw it/' Lincoln's character has done just that. It follows that the testimony from warm, loyal hearts — from those who have been ennobled — will in turn radiate the spirit of the Great Eman- cipator. EMANUEL HEETZ, CHARLES T. WHITE. New York, 1927. THE TWENTY-FOURTH AITNUAL LINCOLN DINNEK of the REPUBLICAN CLUB of the City of New York At the Waldorf-Astoria FEBRUARY 12, 1910 Addresses of MR. ROBERT C. MORRIS REV. MICHAEL CLUNE, D.D. PRESIDENT TAFT ROBERT C. (CLARK) MORRIS Lecturer on French Law, Yale "University; Counsel for the United States before TJ. S. and Venezuelan Claims Commission; Agent and General Counsel repre- senting the TTnited States before the Mixed Claims (TJ. S. and Germany) Commission; President of the Na- tional Republican Club, 1909 ; Author of several works. ADDEESS OF T MR. ROBERT C. MORRIS President of the Club Ladies and gentlemen, I ask you all to rise to drink a toast — The President of the United States. Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen: On the 25th day of last September, the Republican Club of the City of New York was thirty years old. In that long period of years its policy has been broadly patriotic, and not confined to the narrow limitations of partisanship. Early in its career, inspired by a sentiment of patriotism, it began the formal observation of the anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, and we can congratulate our- selves, not only that we have held these celebrations for nearly a quarter of a century, but that they have been so uniformly worthy of their subject. Our Lincoln celebrations have been pre- eminent for the great men they have called together and for the spirit they have always manifested of devotion to a great life and a great cause. If we could bring together here to-night all those who have graced these occasions as our guests of honor, we should have almost every leader of the Republican party in the last twenty-five years. Our honored guest of this evening is the fourth President of the United States whom we have enter- tained on Lincoln's birthday — Benjamin Harrison, William Mc- Kinley, Theodore Roosevelt. All these have stood upon this plat- 10 THE KEPUBLICAN CLUB form and paid their tributes to their immortal predecessor. That we have been brought into close personal touch with Lincoln is illustrated by the fact that we have had here, as one of our guests of honor, Hannibal Hamlin, his own Vice-President, and a long succession of men who knew him intimately, from the rugged and honest Hawley to the courtly Evarts, the brilliant IngersoU, the witty and graphic Porter, who have furnished us with anecdotes, characterizations and flashlight glimpses into the darkest periods of the War of the Rebellion, which the historian who desires a true portrait of Lincoln cannot safely ignore. At our earlier celebrations our orators were wont to dwell upon the fact that Lincoln was a Eepublican, and they apparently loved to remember that he had made war in the face of Demo- cratic ridicule and had achieved his great results in spite of Democratic opposition. That feeling, natural enough twenty-five years ago, is gradually giving way. We no longer selfishly claim Lincoln as our own particular property; we long since gave him freely to the Nation and to the World. Strongly as Lincoln loved the Republican party and believed in its principles, it was not his first love. Greatly as he loved the Northerners, among whom his lot was cast, they did not take the foremost place in his af- fection. Greatly as he detested slavery, there were things that he hated far more. Before the Republican party, his first affec- tion was the loyal American citizen — worse than even slavery itself, in his estimation, was a disunited and disorganized country. There was nothing that Lincoln would not have sacrificed to ac- complish this fixed and fundamental purpose — to preserve in its integrity this broad land. Genius may perhaps be defined as the ability to concentrate the mind upon one grand idea, and national unity was the one thing that Lincoln clearly saw. You will re- call the broadside of Greeley in the "Tribune'' when he called ADDRESS OF MR. ROBERT C. MORRIS 11 upon the President for the immediate emancipation of the slaves. Lincoln's answer was masterful, not only in its expression, but in its enunciation of the sentiment which guided his course. The fundamental purpose of the war, he said, was not the freedom of the slave, but national unity. "If I could save the nation with- out freeing any slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do that; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that." To-day, thank God, we have a united and prosperous country. We do not face the critical problems that Lincoln faced, but we ■till have abundant opportunity to give expression to his uni- versal patriotism, his broad and farsighted devotion to a great governmental ideal, and as loyal American citizens we can re- joice in the fact that we have entrusted the policies of this great nation to the safe and sure hands of Lincoln's worthy successor, our distinguished guest of honor here to-night, William H. Taft. REV. DR. MICHAEL CLUNE Clergyman — Lecturer — Publicist. ADDRESS OF REV. MICHAEL CLUNE Mr. Chairman, Mr. President, honored guests and clubmen: Our Ship of State is now flying silken flags and floating ma- jestically over golden seas. I remember when it was dismantled and at the mercy of furious storms; when scarcely a star of hope twinkled in its darkened sky, when wreckers were waiting upon rock-bound coasts to plunder it; when pirates followed it with the hope of boarding it, when wave after wave threatened to engulf it. In these latter days we have seen oil poured upon the troubled waters with saving effect. In the awful storm of which I speak no oil would be efiicacious. It was only blood that could calm the waves and keep the ship afloat. And because the vessel was freighted with human destiny and was the object of human hope a libation of blood was poured out so large that it covered the sea and caused a great calm. There is danger of our under-estimating the men who founded the Southern Confederacy. They were men of singular ability. They reduced politics to a science. It was the happiness of the few through the misery of the many. Mr. Lincoln, whose name we honor to-night, also reduced poli- tics to a science. It was the happiness of the many through the avoidable misery of none. He could, at the date of his election, say, with Job, as his whole 14 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB life said afterward, "The ear that heard me blessed me, and the eye that saw me gave witness to me. Because I had delivered the poor man that cried out and the fatherless that had no helper. The blessings of him that was ready to perish came upon me and I comforted the heart of the widow. I was clad with justice as with a robe and with judgment as with a diadem. I was an eye to the blind and a foot to the lame. I was the father of the poor and the cause that I knew not I sought out. I broke the jaws of the wicked, and from between his teeth I took away the prey." When freedom was brought forth on this Continent, an after- birth of slavery was suffered to remain. As in the physical, so in the political body, this after-birth poisoned the blood and threatened death. The republic, a poor convulsed patient, was brought so low that only consummate skill and martyr patience and womanly tenderness could save its life, and yet the uncouth backwoodsman of Illinois performed this task so well that he gave the Nation renewed and higher life, struck the chains from the limbs of millions and left a name that has become the poor man's heritage and that will grow brighter and sweeter in the annals of men till time shall be no more. Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky on February 12, 1809, of poor parents, in a wretched cabin. Yet in no palace of all this earth was there ever ushered in a life so pregnant with human weal. To find a birth greater for human purpose than Mr. Lincoln's, we must go lower than the Kentucky cabin. We must go to the bulrushes of Egypt or the manger of Bethlehem. His early manhood was described in his own pathetic sentence, **the short and simple annals of the poor." In 1833 he entered into partnership with a worthless drunkard and was left by that partner in debt. He paid every dollar of the obligations, although ADDEESS OF E£V. MICHAEL CLUKE, D.D. 15 it took him twelve years to do it. He had not learned onr modern way of paying fifty cents on the dollar. Like Washington, he learned to survey, but unlike Washington, he acquired none of the land which he surveyed. Like Sherman, he took a hatred of slavery by seeing men and women auctioned in New Orleans. He was elected to Congress in 1846. He voted for the Wilmot Proviso. He introduced resolutions regarding Polk's responsibil- ity for the Mexican War, and declined a renomination. Now, that would naturally have ended the public life of Abta- ham Lincoln, but if anyone supposes that that life was not then high, august and full, he does not know the man. There is no real success accidental. It is the glory of America that it has private citizens who would adorn any station. When Lincoln returned from Congress his powers were both mature and pro- found. This may seem the after-thought of flattery. Happily no flattery can excel the evidences extant. No description of Dante's pathos can rival his own portrayal of it, "Only the exile can know how bitter is the bread of dependence and how steep are the stranger's stairs." The richness of Shakespeare's imagina- tion can be given in no other words so well as in his own, "Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace to silence envious tongues." And so the tale of no flatterer can inspire the awe of Mr. Lin- coln, that the words of record give to every thoughtful mind. In speaking in Congress on the Mexican War, Mr. Lincoln said: "Mr. Speaker, let us beware of military glory. It is a rainbow made of drops of blood. Like the fascination of the serpent, it charms only to destroy." In an address upon Young America occur these words: "I wonder if Young America asks itself how many generations of profound intellects labored and passed away in producing the alphabet." With these deep thoughts Lincoln united a tenderness that 16 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB sought expression in poetry at his mother's grave and a sense of humor that never failed. He knew a farmer that was not greedy about land. "All I want," says the farmer, "is what jines mine." In a trial, Lincoln once had for an opponent a lawyer who spoke readily and interminably to an ignorant and impressible jury. Lincoln saw that he must counteract the impression made by the shallow prattler and addressed the jury as follows: "My opponent seems unable to both speak and think at the same time. I have no doubt if he stopped speaking he could think and you all realize that when he doesn't think he can speak. He reminds me of a steamer on the Sangamon river. It had a seven-foot whistle and a five-foot boiler, and when the whistle blew the steam was exhausted and the vessel stopped." Lincoln's oppo- nents once persuaded a liveryman to rent him a horse so slow that it would not take him in time to a convention. "Do you keep the horse for funerals?" said Lincoln on his return. "Oh, no!" said the man demurely. "I am glad you don't," said Lin- coln, "for it would not take the corpse to the grave in time for the resurrection." When Lincoln challenged Senator Douglas to debate it was looked upon as rather presumptuous. Douglas was the better known and Lincoln acknowledged with candor and humor his opponent's advantage over him. He was a presidential candi- date and men already saw post-offices and judgeships in his jovial face. But, added Lincoln, who can see anything of that kind in my poor homely face? Douglas asked if Lincoln would marry a negress. Lincoln answered: "There may be senses in which the negro is inferior to the white man, but in the right to eat the bread which his own hands have earned he is the equal of Judge Douglas or of any man alive." Douglas insisted on repeating a disproved and obnoxious statement. Lincoln finally said that the ADDRESS OF REV. MICHAEL CLUNE, D.D. 17 falsehood had been so long dead that it had become bloated. It reminded him of a woman whose husband's corpse had been in the water until eels gathered in the clothing. When the widow was asked what disposition was to be made of the body, she answered : "Take out the eels and set him again." As the debates progressed the politicians chafed Lincoln on Douglas's superiority, and asked him to acknowledge his defeat. Said he: "I shall to- days ask Douglas a question that he must answer yea or nay. If he answers it one way he will lose the North. If he answers it the other he will lose the South." The question was this : "If all the citizens of a territory, except one, were opposed to slavery could that one keep slaves?" Douglas, after many efforts to evade the question, answered no. He lost the South and by that loss Lincoln became President. His inauagural was the first of a series of State papers, the most marvellous in the history of the race. In the first message to Congress occurs this paragraph: "In the issue of this contest is involved the destiny of the species. It is now to be determined whether all republics have this inherent and fatal defect; that they must be too strong for the liberties of their people or too weak to preserve their own life." Side by side with this high oratory was a homely sense of perception never equalled except in Aesop. I know that it will appear rash to say that anyone was homelier personally than Mr. Lincoln. But unless Greek art has woefully wronged Aesop, Lincoln was an Adonis in compari- son to him. In great crises, however, there was a similar resource- fulness in the great slave and the great emancipator. Once Aesop's master had given some grapes to two of the other slaves to be kept in a cool, shady place by the running water against supper. The sun was warm on the Grecian hills. Forbidden fruit seems always sweetest; the slaves' teeth watered for the 18 THE EEPTIBLICAN CLUB grapes and they finally ate them, trusting to a cunning defense. They knew that Aesop stuttered when excited. They thought he would be flogged before he could explain. They knew he would then make no explanation through resentment, and they boldly accused him of stealing and eating the grapes. Their plan worked well up to a certain point. Aesop could not speak plainly. He was ordered to strip, but by face and gesture he pleaded eloquently for delay. This being granted, he brought from the kitchen lukewarm water, swallowed it, and putting his finger in his mouth threw it up again. Then pointing to the slaves he intimated that they should do the same. In their case with the lukewarm water came up the partly digested grapes. When the Albany convention upbraided Mr. Lincoln with vio- lating the Constitution, he replied that a sick man must some- times take emetics, but that no doctor would give emetics to a patient after he becomes well. To those who censured his mercy toward deserters he was sometimes able to give a practical lesson. Thaddeus Stevens, one of the loudest declaimers against execu- tive pardons^ was asked by a prominent neighbor to intercede for her son. Stevens' refusal would have cost him hundreds of votes, and he accompanied the lady to the White House with the best grace he could. Lincoln took in the situation at a glance, and said he would be guided by what Mr. Stevens thought was righf. Thaddeus said pardon him. The President wrote the pardon and handed it to the mother. The lady was delirious with gratitude, but restrained herself until outside the executive chamber. Then she broke out vehemently, "It's a lie, it's a lie." Said Stevens, "what's a lie." "Why, they told me at home that Mr. Lincoln was homely, and he is the handsomest man I ever saw." This brings to mind the old verse: ADDRESS OF REV. MICHAEL CLTJNE, D.D. 19 "The sweetest faces that we know Are not merely those of beauty, And the blessedest paths in which we go Are the homely paths of duty." Mercy was not the only fault ascribed to the President by a growing and aggressive section of the party that elected him. He was accused of not hastening the abolition of slavery. Lin- coln hesitated, because he knew the difficulties of the situation. His reasoning, like the procession of the equinoxes, was slow and sure, and influenced by supernal forces, and beyond shallow computation. He knew that no human mind could conceive and that no human arm could execrute the details of the great re- demption. He knew that, as of old, the door lintels of all the faithful homes in the land would be sprinkled with blood, and all the first born of the oppressors would be slain before the children of bondage would be let go. He knew that human jus- tice ripens in the light of truth as wheat ripens in the light of the sun, and he looked anxiously over the heavens and the earth for a sign that the moral harvest-time had come. With the delegation of Chicago ministers urging emancipation, and with the Cabinet considering emancipation, his humor was only the thin veil under which he hid his anxious scrutiny. To the min- isters urging their divine commission to have him free the slaves, he put two objections. First: Was it reasonable to suppose that God would not reveal His will to him directly who had asked earnestly in prayer to know it? Secondly: Was it probable if God sought outside agency He would send it through Chicago ? To the members of the Cabinet, who thought the President's humor- ous reading an ill-timed prelude to great business, he gave matter worthy of their and our profoundest consideration. He said that he submitted a document to their judgment about whose oppor- 20 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB tuneness and phraseology, he asked their criticism. He could not seek their advice as to its scope. To do so would be disingenuous. He continued: "When the Rebels invaded Maryland I promised my Maker that if they were driven out I would take it as the sign for which I had prayed so long, that He wanted the slaves freed. They were driven out and I consider the matter closed." I believe the capture of Vicksburg to have been the greatest victory of the war. There is not the halo around it which en- velops Gettysburg or Winchester or Appomattox, but in future fame, I think, it will surpass them all. As a single incident, 60,000 men waded waist deep in water for 100 days and without profit. The siege was long of doubtful issue. A few days before the surrender, bluff Ben Wade went to the President and urged the removal of Grant as a drunken and incompetent butcher. Lincoln good-naturedly replied, "Senator, that reminds me of a story." "Yes," replied Wade, petulantly. "It is all story, story with you. You are on the road to hell, sir, with this govern- ment, and you are not more than a mile off this minute." "Sen- ator, that is about the distance to the Capitol, is it not?" replied Lincoln. Lincoln's extreme relief over the capture of Vicksburg was evidenced by the cordiality with which he received General Thayer, the first participant in the campaign, whom he met after the victory. The President was bubbling over with graciousness and enthusiasm, and the General ventured to ask a rather pre- sumptuous question. "Mr. President, what about Mexico?" "Ah," said Lincoln, "that reminds me of a story. Deacon White and Elder Jones were friends from childhood and pillars of the same church. Toward middle life a misunderstanding arose be- tween them which deepened with the years. Deacon White being taken deathly sick, the minister said to him: ^Deacon, it is not ADDRESS OF REV. MICHAEL CLTTNE, D.D. 21 godly for you to die at enmity with your brother.' Other friends persuaded Elder Jones to visit the dying man and a reconcilia- tion was effected. As the elder was leaving the sick room, the dying man said : 'Jones, if I get well the grudge stands.' " "So," said the President, "we are now very sick, but if we get well I shall tell Louis Napoleon to take his troops out of Mexico." One day Lincoln found Stanton foaming at the mouth with rage, a General had disobeyed him. "Why don't you write him?" said the President. "I shall," said Stanton. "Make it good and strong," said Lincoln. "It will be strong enough," said Stanton. The letter being written was admired by both. "By whom shall I send it?" said the great Secretary. "Why, you don't intend sending it, do you?" said the President. "Certainly, said Stan- ton. "I wouldn't," said Lincoln, "that letter was written to re- lieve your mind, not to worry the General." An admiring friend once said to Mr. Lincoln : "I suppose you are offered a great deal of advice." "Yes," replied the President. "I sometimes feel like the traveler who was caught in the woods at night during a thunder storm. The dense foliage hid the lightning and caused the thunder to reverberate. The traveler did not feel that he had many claims upon the Almighty, but finally ventured this modest petition: 'Lord, if it is all the same to you, I would like more light and less noise." Lincoln's dislike of cant is shown in the story of the cadaverous adventist asking in sepulchral tones of a good-natured official the use of the Springfield Town Hall to announce the second coming of Christ: "My friend," said the ofiicial, "there must be some mistake; if Christ was in Springfield once he would never come a second time." His opinion of the native American or A. P. A. Society is shown in these words: "We began by saying that all men are equal. We made an amendment that all men are equal. THE REPUBLICAN CLUB except negroes. Some want to make a second amendment that all men are equal, except negroes and Catholics. When that amendment passes I hope I may live in Russia where I can take my despotism pure and simple without the base alloy of hyroc- risy." Mr. Lincoln's political success was gained by a ministry of goodness. Common sense and patience were his instruments against deceit. An English nobleman having commiserated him upon the great losses in the army, Lincoln asked him how he knew the losses were so great. The nobleman answered, "from the newspapers." Lincoln said the newspaper reports were as de- fective as "Nigger rithmetic." He then explained: "One darkey said to another, *Sam, if there are three birds on a fence and I shoot two, will not there be one left?' *No,' said Sam, *the other will fly away.' " The practical sense of Lincoln saved the coun- try, but displeased the politicians. Lincoln would not argue with them whether the seceded States were in the Union or out of it. He said their relation to the TJnion was changed and should be restored at the earliest possible moment. He refused, on July 4, 1864, to sign a severe reconstruction law, and greatly offended a majority of his party in Congress. He was accused of imbecility and arrogance in a document signed by B. F. Wade, on the part of the Senate, and H. W. Davis, on the part of the House. In his message to the Congress, in December, 1864, he urged an amendment to the Constitution prohibiting slavery, and referred to the inflammatory address in these words: "Neither you nor I, gentlemen, can escape our responsibility. Neither your ability nor my mediocrity can remain hidden in obscurity. The lurid glare enveloping us will light us down in honor or in dishonor to the remotest period of time. It is, therefore, now to be de- termined by us whether we shall nobly defend or meanly betray the last hope of earth." The radical discontent with Lincoln ADDRESS OF REV. MICHAEL CLUNE, D.D. 23 manifested itself in the Cleveland convention. This gathering numbered about 400, and nominated Fremont for the Presidency. Lincoln being asked his opinion of the nomination, repeated from Scripture : "And there was gathered unto him every one that was in debt and every one whose hand was against his brother, and every one who had no fixed abode, and there were gathered in all about 400 men.'* Being pressed for further views of the con- vention he told this story: "Two Irish emigrants being in a large wood, a tree toad croaked about their heads. As they were un- used to forest life they tried anxiously to discover the origin of the sound. Finally one said to the other, *What is the use of looking any more? it is only a noise.' " When Lincoln was re- elected it was seen that his homely sense and goodness had united the North and had disunited the South. In his last message to Congress he appalled the Southern heart and paralyzed the South- ern arm by pointing to the time when the North, by immigra- tion, would teem with countless millions, and the South, by famine and the blockade, would be reduced to a graveyard. In the peace negotiations preceding the collapse of the Confederacy, Lincoln would not recognize Davis's title as President of the Con- federacy. When reminded that Charles I. treated with the in- surgents on equal terms, he replied: "My only clear recollection of the transaction is that Charles lost his head." Although Lin- coln would not honor Davis, he was opposed to punishing him, and took a quaint way of avoiding it. A few days before the fall of Richmond, Grant said to him: "Mr. President, we can so take Richmond that we can capture Jeff Davis and we can so take Richmond that he will escape; what shall we do?" Said the President: "I will tell you a story: An Irishman, who had taken the pledge from Father Matthew, was with a crowd of drinking companions. He said finally to the bartender, 'Could 24 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB you put a little whiskey in that lemonade anonst to me?' 'Yes,' replied the bartender. 'Well/ replied the other, 'Be sure you do it anonst to me.' " Jeff Davis escaped. I have quoted extensively from Lincoln's speeches because I believe they should be committed to memory by our youth. When the shock of the Civil War came, Webster's speeches for the Un- ion helped to unite and nerve the North. In a much higher sense the Lincoln classics will stimulate Americans in the strug- gles that are to come. It is said that our next war will be a social one. May God avert such calamity. If, however, it should come, where, outside of the Christian Scriptures, could good men find such inspiration as in the close of the last inaugural: "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." Although President Lincoln knew his own transcendent abil- ity, he always said that the main reliance of the Union was upon God and the movements of the armies. That high reliance did not fail. The armies of Grant and Sherman and Sheridan brought the Rebellion to a close and the Confederacy disappeared as a nightmare disappears before the day. And then for the great President came a few days of rest and peace. His clouded brow relaxed. His wearied face grew calm. He saw the world at his feet. He saw the nation that he had saved wild with gratitude. He saw the race that he had enfranchised begin its improvement. In sweetest fancy he saw the waving hands and he heard the grateful plaudits of untold millions that are yet to be. And then there was the report of a pistol, with the hiss of a bullet, and ADDRESS OF REV. MICHAEL CLUNE, D.D. 25 in this world Mr. Lincoln saw and heard no more. There was mourning in all the land. From the palace of the merchant prince to the cot of the late slave were wailing and wringing of hands. For the great heart that had yearned over the country was still and cold, and the eyes that rained down tears when Ellsworth fell were dim forevermore. As the President had God's name ever upon his lips and God's work in heart and hand, may we not fondly hope that as the clouds rifted above his country's horizon he saw a glimmering of the infinite dawn, and that those few days of unwonted exalta- tion were to him the prelude to the unending peace? WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Twenty-seventh President of the United States. Born at Cincinnati, Ohio, September 15, 1857. Yale, 1878, second in a class of 121. Solicitor General of the United States, 1890-92. First Civil Governor of the Philippine Islands. Secretary of War in cabinet of President Roosevelt. President of United States, 1909-13. Chief Justice of United States, 1921. Mem- ber of the National Republican Club. ADDRESS O; PRESIDENT TAFT [President Taft's address was devoted almost wholly to na- tional issues of the period, and is carried only in part. — Editors.] Mr. President, gentlemen of the Eepublican Clnb, and fellow- gnests: The birthday of the man whose memory we celebrate to-night is an appropriate occasion for renewing our expressions of respect and affection for the Republican party, and our pledges to keep the part which it plays in the history of this country as high and as useful as it was during the administration of Abra- ham Lincoln. The trials which he had to undergo as President, the political storms which the party had to weather during the Civil War, the divisions in the party itself between the radical anti-slavery element and those who were most conservative in observing the constitutional limitations, are most interesting reading, and serve to dwarf and minimize the trials through which the Republican party is now passing, and restore a sense of proportion to those who allow themselves to be daunted and discouraged, in the face of a loss of popular confidence thought to be indicated by the tone of the press. We among the Republicans may be discouraged when we con- sider our own dissensions, but when we look to the possibility of any united action on the part of the Democrats for any policy or 28 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB any line of policies we must take courage. It was General Grant who said that when he first went into battle he had a great deal of fear, but he overcame that feeling by maintaining in his mind the constant thought how much more afraid his opponent was. And so, we, who find ourselves at times given over to the thought that Bepublican control is at an end should not forget to con- sider not only our own factional strife, but also that of our ancient enemy. If the Democratic party were a solid, cohesive opposition, guided by one principle and following the same eco- nomic views as a whole, the situation would be far more dis- couraging than it is. The Republican party has been the party responsible for the Government for the last seventeen years. It has discharged those responsibilities with wonderful success. The problems growing out of the Spanish "War and those which have come from the rapid accumulation of wealth, and the greed for power of its accumulators, it has fallen to the party to meet, and while they have not yet all had a perfect solution, the record is one of which we have no reason to be ashamed. Mr. Roosevelt aroused the country and the people to the danger we were in of having all our politics and all our places of govern- mental authority controlled in corporate interests and to serve the greed of selfish but powerful men. During his two terms of office, by what almost may be compared to a religious crusade, he aroused the people to the point of protecting themselves and the public interest against the aggressions of corporate greed, and left public opinion in an apt condition to bring about the reforms needed to clinch his policies and to make them permanent in the form of enacted law. But as an inevitable aftermath of such agitation, we find a condition of hysteria on the part of certain individuals, and on the part of others a condition of hypocrisy manifesting itself in ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT TAFT the blind denunciation of all wealth and in the impeachment of the motives of men of the highest character, and by demagogic appeals to the imagination of a people greatly aroused upon the subject of purity and honesty in the administration of govern- ment. The tendency is to resent attachment to party or party organization, and to an assertion of individual opinion and pur- pose at the expense of party disciple. The movement is toward factionalism and small groups, rather than toward large party organizations, and the leaders of the party organization are sub- jected to the severest attacks and to the questioning of their motives without any adequate evidence to justify it. I am far from saying that the Republican party is perfect. No party which has exercised such power as it has exercised for the last seventeen years could be expected to maintain either in its rank and file or in its management men of the purest and highest motives only. And I am the last one to advocate any halt in the prosecution and condemnation of Republicans, how- ever prominent and powerful, whose conduct requires criminal or other prosecution and condemnation. It should be well under- stood that with the Republican party in its present condition, with its various divisions subjected to the cross fire of its own newspapers and its own factions, any halt or failure on the part of those in authority to punish and condemn corruption or cor- rupt methods will be properly visited upon the party itself, how- ever many good men it contains. We shall be called upon to respond to the charge in the next campaign that the tariff, for which we are responsible, has raised prices. If the people listen to reasonable argument, it will be easy to demonstrate that high prices proceed from an entirely different cause, and that the present tariff, being largely a re- vision downward, except with respect to silks and liquors, which 30 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB are luxuries, cannot be charged with having increased any prices. But this will not prevent our Democratic friends from arguing on the principle of "post hoc, propter hoc," that because high prices followed the tariff, therefore they are the result of it. And we must not be blind to the weight of such an argument in an electoral campaign. The reason for the rise in the cost of necessities can easily be traced to the increase in our measure of values, the precious metal, gold, and possibly in some cases to the combinations in restraint of trade. The question of the tariff must be argued out. The prejudice created by the early attacks upon the bill and the gross misrepresentations of its character must be met by a careful presentation of the facts as to the con- tents of the bill and also as to its actual operation and statistics shown thereby. I believe we have a strong case if we can only get it into the minds of the people. Should disaster follow us and the Republican majority in the House become a minority in the next House, it may be possible that in the Democratic exercise of its power, the people of this country will see which is the party of accomplishment, which is the party of arduous deeds done, and which is the party of words and irresponsible opposition. I only want one more word. From time to time attacks are made upon the administration, on the ground that its policy tends to create a panic in Wall Street and to disturb business. All I have to say upon that subject is this: That certainly no one re- sponsible for a Government like ours could foolishly run amuck in business and destroy values and confidence just for the pleasure of doing so. No one has a motive as strong as the administration in power to cultivate and strengthen business confidence and business prosperity. But it does rest with the National Govern- ment to enforce the law, and if the enforcement of the law is not consistent with the present method of carrying on business, ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT TAFT 31 then it does not speak well for the present methods of conducting business, and they must be changed to conform to the law. There was no promise on the part of the Kepublican party to change the anti-trust law except to strengthen it, or to authorize mo- nopoly and a suppression of competition and the control of prices, and those who look forward to such a change cannot now visit the responsibility for their mistake on innocent persons. Of course the Government at Washington can be counted on to en- force the law in the way best calculated to prevent a destruction of public confidence in business, but that it must enforce the law goes without saying. I am glad to be present at this meeting of the Eepublican Club of New York and here meet your distinguished Governor, whose name is such a power before the people of this State and of the country, that to lose him as a candidate for Governor by his vol- untary withdrawal is to lose the strongest asset that the Eepub- lican party has in the State to enable it to win at the next election. I am glad to be here at the meeting of the Eepublican Club on Lincoln's birthday, because my knowledge and information with respect to the club is that it stands for stalwart Eepublic- anism, believes in party organization and party discipline, but in- sists on the highest ideals and methods in formulating the policies of the party and carrying them out. THE TWENTY-FIFTH ANNUAL LINCOLN DINNER of the REPUBLICAN CLUB of the City of New York At the Waldorf-Astoria FEBRUARY 13, 1911 Addresses of HON. SETH LOW HON. GEORGE von L. MEYER REV. DR. FRANK W. GUNSAULUS, D.D. EX-PRESIDENT THEODORE ROOSEVELT SETH LOW Born 1850, died 1916. Mayor of Brooklyn, 1882-86. President Columbia University. Delegate to the Hague Peace Conference, 1889. Mayor of New York, 1902-03. President of National Bepublican Club. Member of the New York Constitutional Convention, 1915. ADDRESS OF HON. SETH LOW President of the Club Ladies and gentlemen, guests and members of the Republican Club, fellow citizens and fellow Americans: The Republican Club of the City of New York welcomes you here to-night in the be- loved and inspiring name of Abraham Lincoln. We gather here year after year on Lincoln's Birthday fondly to recall the man and his achievements; to pay grateful homage to his memory, and to baptize ourselves anew, if it may be, with his spirit. Lincoln's problems are not our problems; but if we are to solve our problems of to-day as Lincoln and the men of his generation solved theirs, we must do it in Lincoln's spirit with the same national point of view, with the same largeness of heart, with the same great patience and with the same complete trust in the plain people. A year or two ago it was my good fortune to take part at Alton, Illinois, in the 50th anniversary celebration of the Lin- coln-Douglas debate, which was held in that place. There I came upon this incident. Our townsman, Horace White, whom many of you know as an old man now, was then a reporter for the newspapers; and he went through that pilgrimage with Abraham Lincoln throughout that whole debate. One day he said to him: 36 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB "Mr. Lincoln, why don't you turn the laugh oftener on Judge Douglas?" as of course Lincoln was abundantly able to do. Lin- coln's reply was: "Well, first of all, I am so dead in earnest about this business that I do not feel like turning the laugh on anybody; secondly, I doubt whether turning the laugh on a man makes many votes. In the last analysis it is the argument that counts." I think we must approach our problems of to-day with that same dead earnestness, and we, too, must remember that in the last analysis it is the argument that counts. But the President of the Eepublican Club has not the floor this evening. The time is dedicated to our guests who are here to speak to us at the invitation of the Eepublican Club; and I have the very great pleasure of introducing to you as the first speaker a man whose reputation as a preacher is nation wide, and a man who as the head of the Armour Technical Institute is now carry- ing out in practice that old Biblical idea, that the head cannot say to the hand: "I have no need of you,," and the hand cannot say to the head: "I have no need of you." Dr. Gunsaulus is one of the very few men born in Ohio whom it has been my privilege to know, who does not hold public ofiice; but he comes from Il- linois, the State from which Lincoln went to the Presidency, and in Illinois, like Lincoln, he has pretty much everything he wants. I have now the great pleasure of introducing Dr. Frank W. Gunsaulus : REV. DR. FRANK WAKELEY GTJNSAULTJS lecturer; Yale Theological Seminary; Professional Lecturer, "University of Chicago. ADDRESS OF REV. DR. FRANK W. GUNSAULUS Mr. Toastmaster, ladies and gentlemen: It is a very uncom- fortable incident, I assure you, which it is mine to meet, that I am announced as one who is to deliver an oration on Abraham Lincoln. You cannot conceive of an oration as the fitting mode of portraiture for this simple and sublime man. For there was never an influential personality in human annals, save William the Silent, whose temper of soul, insight, deliberation and faith in the unspoken and unspeakable right and its future so lifted him beyond and so set at naught the oratorical speech as have the mental and moral excellences of Abraham Lincoln. He be- longs, as the vigorous Stanton said, at his passing from us, "to the ages." The orator's art is evanescent, ile must have his triumph at the moment. The painter leaves his canvas; the architect lives in his cathedral; the poet reigns through ode or sonnet; the sculptor fastens his achievement in marble; the musician bequeaths his efforts at expression through his score; but the orator's audience will be gone soon, never to reassemble, and unless his oration is so free from oratory that it may safely be left to the dryest of printed pages, its own fires duly quenched, he must be content with results that ill consort with the calm and majesty, the clear-eyed and half-adoring ages which belong to Abraham Lincoln. 40 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB When that great road which patriotism has contemplated is completed between Washington and Gettysburg, it has been pro- posed by a distinguished friend of mine who does not care for orations, that every so-called orator may be compelled to walk and meditate on the fall of oratory for the entire distance from the Capitol of the nation to that glorious place made so renowned in history of public speech by something which was more than an oration — the message of the greatest man of his time in the greatest hour of modern history, Abraham Lincoln^s Gettysburg address. I wish to-night to accomplish another purpose than that at- tained by elegance of speech or brilliancy of portraiture. It is my desire simply and in the spirit which I hope the genius of Abraham Lincoln has given to us, to note something of the edu- cational value of Lincoln's character and career in the republic. And, not vainly to recur to what I have said, one of the very first things which I think needs to be considered with reference to this matter of public speech and Lincoln's total influence upon the American mind is here illustrated. I mean the excellence of his by-product. He was not a great orator of either the academic or popular type. Yet he has influenced American speech more than even Webster and Wendell Phillips. He has taught us the supremacy of character, the might of intellectual integrity, while he has shown that eloquence is the illumination of things true, lovely, and of good report, that the brain and heart and con- science of humanity need only this illumination to obey these divine behests; that the simple is the sublime; and that he who would be trusted to lead a whole people themselves made eloquent with a cause must himself be the mouthpiece of sound thinking, noble emotion, and unfailing conscience, whose messenger he is, and whose message when truly proclaimed is always eloquence. ADDRESS OF REV. DR. FRANK W. GTJNSAULUS, D.D. 41 Without detracting for an instant from the genius of Edward Everett, we often make the comparison between the oration of Edward Everett and the simple and sublime statements of our great President at the dedication of the Gettysburg battlefield. He was following then the fortunes of true Republicanism, of real Democracy, for the units of democracy — the material out of which republics are to be made and by which they are to be saved — these abide in the hearts, in the consciences, in the brains of all men; and after all they are most deeply obedient, not to the swift and splendid movement of the orator, but rather to the earnest, sincere progress in men, of reason, of love, and of a sound mind. The higher art which never knew an artifice in Lincoln's utterance will appear when the loftier arches of the temple of liberty and law shall spring upward from the granite bases of his address at Gettysburg. It has the immortal and re- publicanizing function abiding in his personality as a man of men and in his ideas and ideals which command all men. Compare for a moment, my friends, the great orator, William Ewart Gladstone, with Abraham Lincoln. Ask to-night if there has been in the tide of human affairs a notable volume of utter- ance so certain to be forgotten by the coming student of those fundamental principles which create and re-create nationalities, as the magnificent eloquence of the gpreat English Commoner. On the other hand, years as they pass make it clear that at the moment when the oratorical genius of Gladstone, the oratorical passion, as Bagehot tells us, which led him to see everything as material for his superb art, had seized this material and he stood in the House of Commons, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, to say that Jefferson Davis had ''created a new nation" — at that mo- ment which was nearly fatal for his renown amongst the lovers of justice and liberty, he was only oratorical. Afterwards, when 42 THE REPUBLICAN CLTJB he had, as he says, learned more of the safety of free govermnent, his was often an eloquence so appaling and so clothed with the instinctive and prophetic vision of Lincoln that America is willing to hear again and again the praise he gave our Constitu- tion, whose spirit was saved by Lincoln. When a moment has come which creates for the orator his pitfall, when the imagina- tion and the fancy, and that fusion of thought and feeling, that radiancy of feeling over thought, have complete control of the mind; when all this gives to a Gladstone his intellectual and spiritual outlook, there stands at Washington, in all the cer- tainty and light of his moral consciousness, a plain man, whose eminent contribution to the eloquence of mankind is not so much a critical personality, who, highly employed, disdains mere ora- tory, as a real messenger who is incarnating a message that must be made real and plain to the common people, whose interpreter and prophet also he is. Lincoln's attitude and temper were anti- monarchial. He never dictated, nor was the national mind ever overborne or even dazzled by him. Here is a characteristic which inheres in our republicanism. The uncle of Washington stated it when he said to Washington as a young man, and he was right : "Avoid a dictatorial style." There is a human way of saying anything, and there is a way of saying the same thing which puts that same thing outside of the interest of an audience. This is of the unrepublican manner. It inheres in a despotic type of mind. The oratory which announces itself, either when mounted upon the traditions of the past or some lonely eminence of genius, which is isolated from the experience of the public mind and imperious over it, has come with the history of monarchies, rather than republics. The oratory of republicanism never speaks at a man, hardly ever to a man, but always with a man. Such was ADDRESS OF REV. DR. FRANK W. GUNSATJLXJS, D.D. 43 the eloquence of our ^eatest Republican, Abraham Lincoln. The secret of Abraham Lincoln's power in speech lay in the educative value which he gave to the process of reasoning, the growth of conscience, the nourishing of noble emotion in the na- tional consciousness. It was not a performance before men; it was not a conflict with men; it was an exciting within men of all generous impulses, the revealing within men of high and original vision, the emancipating and strengthening from within men of each man's unsuspected moral purpose, and the touching of strings of music within the human soul which the soul had never named to itself; and all the power of Abraham Lincoln in the creation of that new republic, which is a republic of thought and inspiration and high ideals, was manifested in the astonish- ing mental and moral utterances by which he simply gathered the manhood of his audience and gave it all back to his audience in fresh statement and winged power. In him, as he spoke, every man saw glorified that which every man had contributed out of his own soul to the great and revealing soul of the orator himself. As Abraham Lincoln enters his second century we see the same form and feature which have educated republican sentiment of the finest type and hope. There drift from the regions to which he has gone the same genial winds bearing fragrance and in- spiration and music; but it is all a part of his essential repub- licanism. It is so near, so human; it so commands by persuading us of its excellence. No wonder is it that so many still seek to look like him or speak like him. In this many have been feeble and they have driveled, of course. As Lincoln has survived our oratory about him, so he passes on, having successfuly lived be- yond the story teller. In it all, more and more, we behold a man without whose entire personality it is impossible to conceive of the greatest fortunes of the republic. So much an unit was he, 44 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB such an integral career was woven of one and the same texture, so constructed was his eminence of the constant and inviolable moral fibre, that we must have him all, and all of him, for our education. The first ting that comes to a man interested in the education of the republic, it seems to me, is the emphasis which Lincoln's character and career gives to his early advantages, the advantages most of all likely to be possessed, if not at first enjoyed, by a majority of those that compose the republic — and by these I mean of course what he loved to call "the common people." I mean what he also called "the plain people." What were some of these advantages which were made such because they were and are of this kind of American, for Abraham Lincoln? They were mighty; they were all-powerful in the creation of his char- acter. Goethe says that our greatest education is the education we give ourselves. Lincoln educated himself in the best of all schoolrooms, if one is seeking a fresh and fadeless sort of power. Nature — American nature — was his schoolhouse. Skies that bended over his head are our symbols of infinity. The waters that ran close to his feet are yet filled with music. The stars at night and the clouds by day guided the mysterious fancies of his wondrous nature. They will guide ours, if we are willing. All the winds that came upon the cheek of this boy came with an influence that entered by thrilling sympathies into his thoughts and character. He gained, then and there, the most luminous, juicy and growing vocabulary which can come to any speaker. I mean the vocabulary of nature. He learned from nature, this great schoolroom, by such processes of growth as forebade him ever being satisfied with or misled by the machinations of the politicians or efforts of any to substitute machinery for growth in nation-building. Give a man nature in the early years and ADDRESS OF REV. DR. FRANK W. GUNSAULUS, D.D. 45 put him into any profession where he shall have to explain or enforce truth, and he will use the language of growth. He knows the tragedy and mystery of the breaking seed. He is not sur- prised at the rain falling on the just and the unjust. He is an evolutionist, not a revolutionist. He cannot endure for a mo- ment unnatural processes which are proposed through legislation alone to the end of manufacturing a state of affairs which, there- fore, has no inner vitality. It has also no power of growth and, therefore, it is denied the possibility of being improved. All the way through Abraham Lincoln's political manner of thinking there is the movement, the method, the ideal of growth, as in nature; and all the way through his dealings with men there come out of that great schoolroom in which he sat as a student under the tutelage of the Almighty, illustrations, metaphors, sly hints that are as sweet as the wind and as bright as the stars, and the use of nature's own phrases by so sincere a man made the national mind more natural and vital. Has your boy the ad- vantages of such a schoolroom? Another advantage this boy had was the advantage of poverty. Nicholas Poussin, having failed to reach the height towards which his genius seemed to point and having thus disappointed his best friends, was met one day by a serious-minded artist who knew beauty and truth together, and he said: 'Toussin, you lack one thing, and only one to make you a great painter." I sup- pose the rich painter put his hands in his pockets and touched the coin so much like the coin which you and I grasp in days of bargain and sale and luxury, when false ideals of life and education permit us to neglect the unpurchaseable. He was thinking he might be able to buy this superior thing. "No," said his friend, "the thing without which you shall not become a great painter is something you cannot buy; it is poverty." 46 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB When God gets in earnest about a man on this planet, he strips him of everything that shall in any way overweight him or hinder his course towards the realizing of the truest ideals. All the way through the history of that moral genius which identi- iies itself with the great experiences of nations, there work the healthful limitations that keep the soul strong and the organiz- ing elements of humanity in their richness and their activity. These are met in the gift of poverty. He had another immense advantage in his education. He was a man of labor. Has your boy that advantage? Is the American youth of to-day limited in any possible manner so that, as Emerson hints, like the shot in the steel walls of the cannon there is an inevitable direction in his life? Are we not denying our boys to-day the culture of labor? Here was a man whose brain reached to the very ends of his fingers. Gray matter had gotten into that man's arms. His sinews, strong as steel, were as responsive to that brain as the strings of a violin were responsive to the touch of Paganini. The whole man was surcharged with all those spiritualities that abide in the finer and higher dome of soul. You will never have a great American until every American in the most republican man- ner shall win in himself the gift and privilege of labor. No man is educated in his head alone. The church can take the heart. The school can take the head. Life's necessities can take the hand. The school will never be a great school until it takes all of the man, head, hand and heart. Until the head is filled with heart's blood to give these ideas warmth and passion, and until the hand has done what the head dreams and what the heart feels is duty, there is no clearness. There is no intellectual mas- tery until a man can thus distribute his brain over his entire body and pervade and unify his faculties with soul. Abraham Lincoln was trained, as great men have been trained ADDRESS OF REV. DR. FRANK W. GUNSATJLTJS, D.D. 47 for national and international revolution and evolution, in the camp of the foe. When Providence wished to lift Holland out of the perils of the sea and make her master of the ideals of those Puritans and Pilgrims who should come to her coast to learn how to hold town meetings, when the Holland represented at this table and in this city in such generosity of genius and public spirit was to hurl the Spaniard back, God had educated his Wil- liam the Silent in the court of Charles the V. of Spain. When there came the moment in this same long conflict for justice and freedom and the battle was to be fought for republicanism and righteousness in England, God gave to the blood of the Stuart a kinsman of Charles the I., the impulse and the ideal; and the young Roundhead felt the muscles of the Cavalier at Hinchin- brook. So Oliver Cromwell was prepared by the royalist to take off a royal head. When heaven had gathered the people of earth to look toward the American colonies, and here God sought to deliver the land's destiny and give her a spiritual fortune through the self-education of free men under law. He educated His Washington in the army of a British soldier; made him a surveyor at the order of the British throne. At length, when God would smite slavery and destroy its hateful presence, He bred His Lincoln in a slave State, educated his conscience in sight of the monster's activity. In those early hours when he was recipient of all the impressions that unfold in the lifetime of wisdom, his open eye beheld its tyranny and cruelty. Lincoln never mistook the mighty power of greed, pride and ambition behind human slavery. There he became familiar with the re- sources and the tremendous activities that came out of the haughty and athletic wickedness of the slave power, and his knowledge of the better humanity of the South, which, like Jef- ferson and Washington, hated or feared slavery, never failed him. 48 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB This was not an uneducated man. For the most part, ladies and gentlemen, this is the kind of education that the great mass at the base of this pyramid called the American public must have. Out of these advantages the best servants of progress have been educated — shall we not say, without them none has been edu- cated? It would be better indeed for the top of the pyramid if we had the education of nature, the education of the limitations of poverty, the education of labor, all so continuously working at the bottom that our democracy on which we rest so broadly- based might guarantee us a true aristocracy. This boy's whole life gave the impulse of naturalness and an essential republican- ism to all his activity, because he was not a child of privilege, and because he could certainly understand this, that at the very bottom of this pyramid is a democracy out of which there shall come the aristocracy of intellect and the aristocracy of character whose leader he was. The essential power in any truly Republican State must al- ways lie in its ability to continue intelligently the history of the past. The great man of a republic is a man who must so honor the past in his own personality, in the quality of his mind, in his temperament, in his attitude towards all questions of life, as to bring the whole past up to date in a living personality and influence. He must harvest the years that are gone in order that in his seed bag there may be the most golden grains for the larger harvest of the future. Here was the secret of the greatness of Abraham Lincoln. Here is his essential republicanism. He knew enough of man's soul and history to see that republicanism is not a matter of yesterday. He had so vast a retrospective that when he spoke he had room for the massiveness of his thought; and freety did he move around with the great centuries behind him. They were ADDRESS OF REV. DR. FRANK W. GUNSAULUS, D.D. 49 in his consciousness. He saw that just government received its invincible impulses toward freedom from the alliance of freedom and law in the long past, with which he was perfectly familiar. He had the first profound and enlightening history of man in the Bible which he knew so well. As he walked with Moses out from Egypt and followed him as he should follow him at the last in history, dying as Moses died this side of Canaan, never realizing here how much man loved and honored him, cruelly murdered as Moses was kissed to sleep by the lips of Almighty God, he could not stop at Sinai. He went on in his own moral development and he saw while he mused at the foot of the cross on Calvary the true vision of man's worth. He obtained there an estimate of the common man, so much more clear to him in the long years of his public work, that whether black or white, bond or free, he knew that a man in God's eyes was worth the tragedy of the Cross. He saw that the marks of valuation upon any man were marks which had been placed there through the agonizing hours of Gethsemane and that midnight of Golgotha. Here was and is your truly progressive Christianity, and here was and is all ad- vancing republicanism. He saw that institutions exist for hu- manity, and not humanity for institutions. He studied the Man of Galilee as He took into His one hand a certain institution, the Sabbath, a most delicate thing, the most elusive thing that any thinker may handle, for it is not a visible institution, but an in- visible one. He saw Him put humanity in His other hand, and behold, the Sabbath was outweighed by humanity, and Jesus Christ said, "The Sabbath belongs to man and not man to the Sabbath." He had found the illumination of a principle. So Lincoln demonstrated that an institution at best is only a con- stitution embodied, and it can be reformed in the interest of 50 THE REPUBLICAN CLTJB humanity or it may be abolished, and constitutions may be amended. He knew as he studied the advance of man in accordance with the conception of man's worth whose truth was established at that Cross, something of the necessary features to be anticipated in the picture of humanity. Have I anticipated, and do you say Lincoln had no such culture from books as will permit us to be- lieve that he was conversant with these principles or under the sway of these inspirations? Let us look at the facts. So far as I have investigated, book for book, this man Abraham Lincoln had the best library of any public man of his period. Five of those books constitute a library of higher educative quality than any five feet of books I ever heard of, especially if this five-foot library be without the Bible and William Shakespeare. What were five of the books ? The life of Washington, the Constitution of the United States, Shakespeare, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and above them all, the Bible. He may have added Eobinson Crusoe and Aesop's Fables. Recent investigation upon my own part reaching through twenty-five years and to many of Lincoln's intimates makes me sure of the five books just mentioned. Many another man, as Lincoln did, has learned English history from Shakespeare, and then relearned it by the light of the progressive revelation of truth in the Bible. His story-telling genius was not less grandly imaginative at a solemn crisis, because it was liberated by John Bunyan. There was as much of the mystic in Lincoln as in Dante. But his mysticism was never mistiness. He found not only history, but a vaster look and appreciation of the geography of human nature delineated by Shakespeare. His study of Washington, whose work he was to continue and help to con- summate, as Washington continued and helped to consummate the work of the Pilgrim Fathers, Oliver Cromwell, the Norman ADDRESS OF REV. DR. FRANK W. GUNSAULUS, D.D. 51 Barons at Runnymede, and Alfred who was nine centuries away — this study of the man Washington, along with his study of the Constitution which Washington had made possible, and Lincoln was to make a living thing, brought the soul of our emancipator and statesman into close relationship with all these movements and men which have advanced the cause of just and free gov- ernment, each occasion surpassing the preceding in its ample statement or fine achievement as the ages came and went. Every such man as Washington as he is studied in the frame of the event he precipitates and masters, or in the monumental word he leaves for us, seems to say as he passes on: "Upon our heels a fresh perfection treads Born of us, yet fated to excell us." This "fresh perfection" was Lincoln, and he comprehended the past so fully and vitally that all the present he lived in, it blos- somed for the future. Consider the deeper history of that State- paper he left to his time and nation — the Emancipation Proclama- tion! So clearly did he comprehend the advance of liberal ideas, the conquest of justice over injustice, that the past easily fell into his hands. How gracefully this gaunt, awkward, magnifi- cent figure gathered the past, and set himself walking from cen- tury to century with the great men! Here were the eminent milestones — the State-papers of Anglo-Saxon civilization, every one of them born out of a revolution produced by the fundamental ideas which Lincoln found in the Lord's prayer with its father- hood of God and its brotherhood of man. All these revolutions are wheels within wheels; they serve the larger evolution. Here, a thousand years ago, stood Alfred, with his ten dooms and his treaty of Wedmore, which was the result of an education, the result of the rude eloquence sounding in the woods and on the ■ tOi-i/^f '"•"'^«'rv«:,U,«o„ 62 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB shores in behalf of the rights of the common man — ^the man with- out privilege. The careful and serious measurement of the future which had been developing with this eloquence was a measure- ment of the strength and of the influence of the foe. This first State-paper was only a beginning. Years passed, and this most radical product up to that time, the treaty of Wedmore, had be- come a platform. On that platform, there stood in that age men like the Lincoln of ours, men of reason, men of judgment, men of great kindness, men of pervasive goodness. They argued and appealed, and out of their eloquence there came the second great State-paper, Magna Charta. Then respectability in politics said "This is impossible ; beyond this is midnight or peril," but at once that great document became a platform. Standing on Magna Charta, another race of reasoning patriots came, who argued and placed before the popular heart inspiring ideals, and out of that great State-paper, Magna Charta, there came triumphantly the Mayflower compact. Here conservatism stopped, and Europe said, "It is dangerous for society that men should go a step further than this." But the fact was that the men who reasoned out Alfred's treaty of Wedmore and compelled the utterance of the Magna Charta were only primitives and progenitors, and as the treaty of Wedmore invited an eloquence and stimulated an argu- ment that produced Magna Charta, so Magna Charta stimulated an eloquence and nourished an argument that produced the May- flower Compact. And here was a new platform. Here stood an- other race of eloquent men. The argument, the assault upon wrong, all these came; and out from that argument and assault against injustice there came the Declaration of Independence. Conservatism cried, "This is the end!" But was the human soul dead? Had God abdicated and left the Divine throne vacant? Were the elements that create human liberty and law and foster ADDRESS OF EEV. DR. FRANK W. GUNSAITLTJS, D.D. 53 civilization to fail to make good the doctrines of that Declara- tion of Independence ? The continuity of progressive ideas is like a chain with links of steel, or rather like an evolution in which the lower finds its reason for being as it is completed in the higher form. Alfred with his treaty of Wedmore made necessary the Great Charter with the Norman barons, and the quickened mind of a new era made necessary the Mayflower Compact among men like Bradford and Carver of Plymouth.. The same forces made necessary the Declaration of Independence as it left the hands of Thomas Jefferson. Was civilization to stop? Some- times, when I hear the solemn protestations of what is called con- servatism, it seems to me that only a total lack of understanding of human history can account for the somnolence of the dreaming out of which these feeble objections to progress come. This tre- mendous stream is organized in the heights of the ideal, this flood of our ideas, hopes, admirations and loyalties in the direc- tion of the good which is seeking the sea and will never stop until it reaches the ocean, singing its way down from the moun- tain snows in the land of high emprise, has its impulse from the throne of God — and I aver that the thought that this current shall stop with even our present achievements in popular gov- ernment is the contradiction of all intelligence and of all history. It was as certain that if Alfred and the treaty of Wedmore in time so worked their ideas into men that they produced Magna Charta, and Magna Charta and the Norman Barons likewise pro- duced the Mayflower Compact, and the Mayflower Compact and the Pilgrims produced the Declaration of Independence, then a new era of argument and eloquence would come. It did come, and in turn there came also the greatest State-paper of them all — the Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln. Every great leader of Republicanism must be himself the true recipient 54 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB of historical currents. He must do more than embody them in institutions. He must incarnate and communicate their spirit, their purpose, their achievement unto and into his fellow men. Because he made true republicanism contagious and progressive, Abraham Lincoln is worth more than anything Abraham Lincoln said or did. The personality that conveys this quality of mind to all others — the quality of mental self-respect with the ability to receive out of the past and give unstained to the future all precious legacies — this is indeed the central living shrine of the very genius of our republican nation. The conflict thus attained — for heroic humanity attains crises — was indeed a collision of the mightiest ideas of government the world has known — the two aged, and yet unaging concep- tions of human society. The quivering point of the tragedy was this, that it all occurred in the soul of Abraham Lincoln. The two seas met and swirled in his great heart. There were two distinct and powerful currents of political philosophy, very old indeed, which swept over the England of the Seventeenth Cen- tury; and they came to this land. Both of them proceeded vis- ibly out of the heart of what came to be a civil war — the only civil war with which our own in 1860-1865 may be compared. One of these streams arrived and was content in our Southland, created the city of Jamestown, then a hamlet, named after a royal despot, a king who persecuted Puritanism because absolu- tion in government was hostile to its ideals. Propitious, indeed, was every soft wind; and the soil welcomed to its luxury the grace and gayety and more formal religiousness of the Cavalier. On and through the South this movement made its way, after its own manner. It preserved its aristocracy of manner and its pride of birth. To our Northland there came another movement — that of the English parliamentary body which had sought to ADDRESS OF REV. DR. FRANK W. GUNSAULUS, D.D. 55 recover the prerogatives of popular government from the Crown which had usurped them. In other towns and by other names, these two movements had met in the olden time. Only a little time agone, upon the hills of Nottingham, and upon the hills of Northampton, they had marshalled their armies. Here at Not- tingham stood the royalists and the regiments of the popular party. Here was privilege; and there upon the hills of North- ampton stood equal rights. One was armed in the person of the Cavalier ; the other was armed in the person of the Puritan. Here on the Nottingham heights is an idea, and the idea on this side is that "might makes right." Here on the Northampton heights is the idea that "right makes might." On this side also, where the Cavalier camps, is the idea that government belongs to the classes and not to the masses. On the other side, where the Puritan camps, is the idea that government belongs to the masses and not to the classes. At Marston Moor these gigantic ideas collided. But they could not conclude their contest, even through a long war at that age, in England. It required a greater field. Per- haps it may be a somewhat doubtful tale, but we have loved to think of a night when Hampden and Cromwell, holding the Great Remonstrance in their hands, agreed to come to New Eng- land if the Great Remonstrance failed to pass Parliament. It did not fail. But the vision implied therein was too large for the old England, and the idea that government belongs to the masses and not to the classes, that right and right alone is might, did perforce reach and constitute a New England, as the other idea came with the Cavalier to our beautiful Southland and ordered its life and progress. The next engagement of these same forces was our first revolution, under Washington; the latest, — let us hope, the last by the sword alone, — was our second revolution, under Abraham Lincoln. 56 THE EEPTJBLICAK CLTTB Now, I am not here to-night to tell you that the Cavalier was everything bad, and the Puritan everything good. New England held slaves also, but slavery did not and could not pay in a ter- ritory dominated by the ideas of Puritanism. We have lost much in the North, indeed, because the Puritan was so far separated from the Cavalier; and in the South we have lost much because the Cavalier was so far separated from the Puritan. But their conceptions of government were here. Here they battled, con- tending, at first not one against the other, but together against a common foe, when Washington, the child of the Cavalier, un- sheathed his sword under the elm at Cambridge and in the land of the Puritan. Never, not even then, had these ideas met in such relationship that their power could be tested. Each waited the contest, until slavery stretched its black hand out for our American territories. Never until the awful fact of Civil War came, out of the eloquence of Webster and Hayne, and out of the willing heroism of the American people to meet a dire neces- sity; never until the atonement had to be made for all the years of wrong, did these ideas confront one another in all their strength. The glory that we ascribe to our God to-night, the gratitude that we give to Heaven, in my judgment, reaches its highest point of praise, when we thank our God that, in Abra- ham Lincoln, the South and the North met each other. In this man there were the Puritan and the Cavalier; he was a man of the South with the ideals of the North. This mighty heart felt the contending armies within its own throb of pain which is usually the pain of progress. The coming ages will consider what is meant — such a mighty interchange of personalities and ideals in him ! It was manifestly important that he should be a man of the South. His sympathies as a man, his genial soul so like the climate, so like the loveliness ADDEESS OF REV. DR. FRANK W. GTJNSAULUS, D.D. 57 of the home of the South, his whole nature touched, vivified, warmed, fructified by the infiuence of the South, in a thousand ways — these play within the glory of Abraham Lincoln. Heaven be thanked for this, above all, that in spite of the sting and the slander of the long Civil War, there never was a serious claim that he did not love the South. His clemency and justice with mercy was his tribute to his sympathy to the South. This is the Republicanism that we need, in all the crises of our national life; for here was a man who gathered into a heart that broke with agony, these contending currents, which lifted Cromwell and Hampden and Rupert and Charles the First into eminence and tragedy. Into one heart all these came; into one brain these were found entering, slowly, until at length, at last, the war being over, he was incarnating both North and South. There is no other figure in history, so far as the record of civil wars is made, that indicates in the slightest degree, a comparison with this man in his ability to unite, in spite of their war, dis- severed sections and contesting ideas. The manhood that Abra- ham Lincoln will inspire will always have the rigor and vigor of the Puritan and the aspiration and grace of the Cavalier. Finally, my friends, in our history which is still to be written, we shall find nothing so attractive as the ability which grew out of all these events, to engage or guide or lead differing men, variant mental moods and apparently antagonistic personalities. It was into Lincoln that there came both the Cavalier and the Puritan; and it was because into Lincoln's hour of writing the second inaugural there came and were entertained in his brain Webster with his reply to Hayne; Clay, with his speech of 1850; Jackson with his decisive word and vote against nullification, — it was because into that comprehensive mind these men could come and move easily, that the fate of the Republic was so com- 58 THE REPUBLICAN CLTTB prehensive in its beneficence. The catholicity of the man, the large hospitality of his soul, — these, and the training of our leader which invited the society of these illustrious souls from the history of the past and the experience of the present of which he was master, made it possible when he came to deal with the future which his young manhood saw before him, for him to in- clude in every public action to manage and to direct almost a multitude of men who could agree on nothing save loyalty to him. Apparently antagonistic minds came into the kindly grip and obeyed the ardor and the conscience of this mighty man. I think of your Seward with his culture and his heroic pioneer work as an anti-slavery man, manifesting an ability to write a State-paper so great as that which crossed the sea, manifesting also a greatness under his leader of such a sort that this same document did not cross the sea until Abraham Lincoln had made such changes as saved us from war with England. I think of Stanton, imperious, irascible, singularly able, forthright as a patriot, a man of high traditions; of Chase, with his Olympian forehead and his boundless ambition, minister of finance, master of jurisprudence, of all that Cabinet formed of such sinew and nerve, and think also of this plain but lofty man gathering them all into his hands. What genius, also, to discover and sustain, when he resolved that he would carry forward the impulse of Bepublicanism by putting a sword into the hand of one of the most renowned heroes that ever lived, your father, Ulysses Simp- son Grant! Republican leadership, ladies and gentlemen, is the expression of that power in a man which enables him so to respect the con- science and abilities of other men with whom he is associated, that, like excellent pieces of artillery, he may turn these instru- ments of warfare in the direction of a righteous conviction and ADDRESS OF REV. DR. FRANK W. GUNSATJLUS, D.D. 59 thus execute the judgment of Almighty God. Let the Repub- licanism, which is enough honorable to follow, be loyal to the power of such men who gather the whirlwinds and transform, them into a thunderbolt against any wrong which creates a new crisis of national life and progress. There was Wendell Phillips, of whom the South said he was "an infernal machine set to music;" the orator of all orators, but he was also impatient and hostile, until Lincoln brought him under the spell of a patience more powerful than his words of flame. Lincoln-like, our Republicanism must be so mighty a stream that whatever honest idealism may do shall be swept in its current and hurry on the advance to the sea. Lincoln could do much that he did, because Phillips had followed Edward Everett from platform to platform at the time when Mr. Everett and Robert C. Winthrop were trying to re-unite the States, by adding stones together to make a monument to George Washington, who hated slavery. As I say, he followed Everett with his portrait of Washington; but Phillips painted another portrait, and this was one of a man as black as midnight, painted to make the nation see that a white soul under a black skin means yet a man. When the orator went out to see the unfinished monument at the Capitol City — for God had ordained that it should be impossible to complete a monu- ment to George Washington that by any subterfuge whatever should perpetuate the slavery which he tried to expel from the American continent, he said to Mr. Lincoln's friend, ''You tell Mr. Lincoln that even yet I am saying that men may pile their monument to the clouds and they may build it of marble or of granite; but if it is put together by injustice, the pulse of the weakest girl will in time beat it down." My own father told this to Mr. Lincoln, and the President thanked God for the orator. There were tears upon the haggard cheek, and they were tears 60 * THE EEPUBLICAN CLUB that had not dried, in the tremendous passion of the hour when Charles Sumner entered the room of the President. Only the day before, Mr. Beecher, with his overflowing heart and his manly patriotism, had been there. "What shall I do with all these good men?" said he, "God has created these men, and they are great men. We must be great enough to work together.'* I call that true Republicanism. The reverence which Abraham Lincoln had for true-hearted men had its roots in his appreciation of the fact that goodness is greater than greatness. He saw that statesmanship is the art of finding in what direction Almighty God with all good men are going and getting things out of God's way which, by God's grace, is also the way of excellent humanity. Everybody may help, not because he is great enough, but because he is good enough. So clearly did he understand this, that when Sumner came with a little flag made for Abraham Lincoln and sent to him by a Massachusetts girl, and out of her poverty, and the scholarly Senator said what is yet true, that "the red is for valor, the white is for purity, the blue is for justice," Abraham Lincoln said, "We will make all these things true ; all these things shall be true." I seem to see him standing now, looking back upon the problem and its glorious solution. The voice of history is saying all these things are true; the flag is safe; and the Re- public shall endure. GEORGE von LENGERKE MEYER TJ. S. Minister and Plenipotentiary to Italy, 1900-05; to Russia, 1905-07; Postmaster-General, 1907-09; Sec- retary of the Navy, 1909. ADDRESS OF HON. GEORGE von L. MEYER Mr. Toastmaster and ladies and gentlemen: It is perhaps not generally known that Lincoln's military activities during the Civil War included naval operations as well as military opera- tions on land. His orders and instructions to commanders of joint expeditions required the most perfect co-operation. He did more than merely approve plans submitted to him; he originated many of them. His mind readily solved most of the war problems sub- mitted to him, though the men and means were not always avail- able for success. Lincoln had the greatest confidence in the integrity of the Hon. Gideon Welles, his Secretary of the Navy, and in the ef- ficiency and ability of Captain Gustavus Vasa Fox, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy; through the latter he maintained close relations with all naval operations. Throughout the war Lincoln's custom was to spend a portion of every evening with Captain Fox in the telegraph office at the Navy Department, and through his relations with him and the Secrtary of the Navy, he was in close touch with every detail of naval operations of the Civil War, including all independent and co-operative movements, and he clearly defined the relations between the naval and military services as strictly co-operative, rather than subordinating one to the other. Lincoln is reported as saying; "The Mississippi is the backbone 64 THE EEPUBLICAN CLTTB of the rebellion; it is the key to the whole situation; while the Confederates hold it they can obtain supplies of all kinds, and it is a barrier against our forces." Lincoln's personal interest in Farragut's campaign was so great that when the Admiral hesitated about ascending with his ocean- going vessels from New Orleans to Vicksburg, Lincoln sent him, through the Navy Department, imperative orders to proceed up the Mississippi to meet the fleet of the Mississippi River flotilla from above. His admirable judgment is evident in all his orders regarding naval affairs during his entire administration. While entirely ignorant of technical and tactical details, his power of logically arranging groups of facts gave him a clear insight, and better still, real foresight in all larger strategical questions. (The remainder of Secretary Meyer's address had reference to the Navy.) THEODORE ROOSEVELT Governor of New York; Vice-President and after- wards President of the United States. ADDRESS OF EX-PRESIDENT THEODORE ROOSEVELT Mr. President, and my fellow members and friends : I am deeply touched by your meeting and thank you for it. If there could have been anything wanting on this occasion when I am to meet you, my fellow citizens of the city where I was born, it was sup- plied by having present and speaking, as you have just heard him speak, a man from the State where my mother and my mother's people were born; for I am half a Georgian, Judge, and it made me feel very proud to sit here and listen before you New Yorkers to the Georgian who teaches us that Georgian and New Yorker alike are Americans first and foremost. I want to speak a word or two on a couple of topics not sug- gested by my theme before I touch on that. I want to say how glad I am to hear the way in which the club, the members of the club here to-night, have responded to the two appeals made to them to uphold the hands of President Taft, both, in his effort to secure the fortification of the Panama Canal. And in addition to what has been said about reciprocity with Canada I would like to make this point: It should always be a cardinal point in our foreign policy to establish the closest and most friendly relations, of equal respect and advantage, with our great neighbor on the north. And I hail the reciprocity arrange- THE REPUBLICAN CLUB ment because it represents an effort to bring about a closer, a more intimate, a more friendly relationship of mutual advantage on equal terms between Canada and the United States. It was a pleasure to hear the able Secretary of the Navy, who has done so much for the navy, allude to the voyage of the battle fleet. When I was going through Europe last spring, it interested me to find that the two things done by America during the last ten years that had most vividly impressed not only the imagina- tion of the people, but the minds of the great statesmen and sov- ereigns of Europe, were the voyage of the battle fleet and the building of the Panama Canal ; because, mind you, gentlemen, for- eigners do not care a rap what we say about our own greatness; they are utterly unaffected by any Fourth of July oration; but -they care a gerat deal for proof that we are able by deed to make good our words. Until we sent the fleet of battleships around the world foreign nations felt sure we could not do it, because they did not think they could; and it opened the eyes of all of them to what our fleet was. I take a certain half hu- morous pleasure in looking back to the comments made by the press of my native city upon both those enterprises when I in- itiated them. Do you remember the double-leaded editorials, that "the fleet shall not leave the Eastern coast" ; but it did leave the Eastern coast. And I remember one prominent United States Senator, in an interview, saying that there was not enough money to take the fleet around the world, and that it should not go, as no money would be given. As I then explained, there was enough money to take the fleet out to the Pacific, and it was going to the Pacific ; then if the Senator in question did not wish it to return, why it would stay in the Pacific. The fleet went, and the money came, and the fleet returned. Now, the Judge has told you of the protest made by those very worthy ladies of ADDRESS OF EX-PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT both sexes — I am using the most respectful terms that are com- patible with truthfulness — against the fortification of the Canal. The Judge also read to you the recently published documents containing the statements of the British official representatives, their Cabinet Minister and their Ambassador, as to our right to fortify the Canal. I can add to that my own personal experience. I had as Governor made a public statement in opposition to the treaty as drawn up in 1900, stating that I trusted it would not be adopted, because it invited other powers to join with us in guaranteeing the neutrality of the canal, and because it pro- hibited our fortifying the canal. I became President, by the lamentable chance of the assassin's bullet. Just prior to the signing of the second treaty, the treaty under which we are now acting, Mr. Hay came to me at once, almost as soon as I had reached Washington, certainly within a few weeks, and said that he wanted to talk with me over the proposed Panama treaty with Great Britain. I said, Mr. Secretary, does it meet the two re- quirements that I said I laid down? He answered yes, and he showed me the letters from Lord Lansdowne and Lord Paunce- fote, explicitly recognizing our right to fortify the canal. He showed me the correspondence from which the Judge has read, and immediately afterwards I received Lord Pouncefote and told him how glad I was that the treaty had been arranged as it was, because if there had been any question of the right of the United States to fortify the canal I would never have consented to send the treaty to the Senate. He said he understood this perfectly, and that his government had explicitly stated that the treaty in no way debarred the United States from fortifying the canal if it so desired. Then came the treaty with Panama, in which we outright received the right to fortify; it gave me great pleasure to hear the Judge speak of our treaty with Panama. 70 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB By the way, if there ever was any act of my administration for which I felt there was absolute ethical justification, it was the handling of that Panama situation. To let yourself be held up by bandits does not show good nature. It shows timidity. I did not intend that any set of bandits should hold up Uncle Sam. But I did intend that Uncle Sam should behave with absolute justice, and with more than justice, with generosity toward the weaker neighbor with which he dealt ; and although the Republic of Panama could exist only by virtue of the guarantee of neutral- ity that we gave, yet we scrupulously treated Panama just as we would have treated the most powerful country on the face of the earth. If there is a great work that must be done, a nation can only take one of two positions: that it will do it, or that it won't interfere with anyone else doing it. Now, we took the position that we would not have anyone but ourselves dig the Panama Canal. Good; I was glad we took it, but when we took that position we had to dig it ourselves. And my friends, I ask you to think of what the feeling of this country would be if we yielded to the demands of maudlin sentimentality and declined to fortify that canal, and some power that was about to go to war with us — for it might act first — or was at war with us, seized the canal. Do you suppose that a power engaged in a life and death struggle with us would hesitate to act in any way that would hurt us most? Of course not. Mind you, no power except England and Panama is bound to respect the neutrality of the canal. If we ever get engaged in war, we would need be thrice foolish if we did not understand that we have to be pre- pared to defend ourselves from an attack on whatever was vital to our interests. Fortunately for us as a nation, the foolish peo- ple who protest against the fortification of the Panama Canal will ADDRESS OF EX-PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 71 fail in their effort, and the canal will be fortified; for if it were not, and this country were ever at war, our children's children would hold in execration and as infamous forever, the memory of those men, and especially those public men, who prevented the United States from guaranteeing its honor and its interest by fortifying the Panama Canal. To-night we are gathered to do honor to the memory of Abra- ham Lincoln, and to me has been assigned the duty of speaking of Lincoln and progressive democracy. I speak of progressive democracy in its genuine sense; for the Republican party was founded as the genuine progressively democratic party of this country. The founders of our Government, the men who made the Con- stitution and who signed the Declaration of Independence, tended to divide into two groups, those under Hamilton, who believed in a strong and efiicient government, but who distrusted the peo- ple; and those under Jefferson, who did not believe in a strong or efficient government, but who in a certain sense did trust the people — although it was really distrust of them to keep the gov- ernment weak. And therefore for decades we oscillated between the two tendencies, and could not develop the genuine strength that a democracy should have until Abraham Lincoln arose, until he and the men with him founded the Republican party on the union of the two ideas of combining efficient governmental force with genuine and whole-hearted trust in the people. In the fine oration of Dr. Gunsaulus, to which we have listened to-night he has pointed out something that I wish not only every man here, but all men in similar gatherings throughout this Union, would remember. He has pointed out the fact that in every great crisis the genuine representative of the men who made the progressive movement in the last great crisis, is the man 72 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB who is true to the spirit of that movement, and who is ready when necessary to ignore its letter in favor of its spirit. Let me just work out that idea with you for a moment. If the Baron who signed Magna Charta had refused to sign it and had confined himself to praising the deeds of King Alfred, he would not have been a progressive baron. What he had to do was to apply to his own days the spirit that actuated King Al- fred in his days. The men who signed the Declaration of Inde- pendence were the heirs of those who made Magna Charta; but if they had confined themselves to re-establishing the principles of Magna Charta, we would not be an independent nation to-day. They were the heirs of the men of Magna Charta in spirit, and therefore they did not confine themselves to praise of Magna Charta, and refused to go beyond it. They applied the principles which had stood for progress during the early thirteenth century to the needs of the late eighteenth century, and therefore they in their turn made progress. To stand still and refuse to go beyond the point reached by the thirteenth centUry men would have meant Bourbonism in the nineteenth century. Abraham Lincoln was the real heir of George Washington. The men of Lincoln's generation were true heirs of the men of the Revolution, of the men who made and adopted the Constitu- tion just because they applied the old principles according to the new methods necessary in order adequately to meet the new and changed conditions. They showed themselves to be the heirs of the great men of the past, because they met the problems of the present, not by refusing to use other methods than those that had solved the problems of the past, but by using the new methods necessary in order that the old principles could be applied to the new needs. Abraham Lincoln and his associates founded the Eepublican ADDRESS OF EX-PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 73 party as a progressive party, as a party of dynamics, not a party of statics. It was not formed to keep unchanged the old meth- ods which had served so well two generations before, in the face of new conditions which those old methods were unfit to meet. That attitude was the attitude taken by the cotton Whigs — excellent gentlemen, good, conservative, high minded gentlemen who did not trust the people, and were afraid of meeting the new issues. Dr. Gunsaulus has shown how that brilliant, although hopelessly erratic friend of freedom, Wendell Phillips, followed Mr. Everett around when Mr. Everett was engaged in the vain effort to show that Lincoln was a firebrand and a danger, and that the new problems before the American people did not need any new meth- ods to solve them. The men of Mr. Everett's type to-day revere Lincoln because he is dead, but ©bject to anyone who is alive who follows Lincoln's lead. We to-day can show our loyalty to Abra- ham Lincoln and his fellows; can show that that loyalty is not merely a loyalty of the lips, but a loyalty of the heart, by ap- plying their principles to the living issues of the present ; not by confining ourselves to praising them for the way they applied those principles to issues that are dead. Now, another thing: I have used the word ^'progressive." I regard it as absolutely essential that the Republican party should be the party of progress, should be the progressive party. But I do not believe, and you do not believe, in making terminology into a fetich. Abraham Lincoln was progressive compared to Buchanan and Fillmore; compared to Wendell Phillips and John Brown he was conservative; and he was right in both positions. In other words, Abraham Lincoln recognized the fact that in working out a great and lasting reform there is need of both trace work and breeching work. You must drag the wagon along when it needs dragging, and if it starts to go down hill 74 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB too fast you have got to hold it back. Let me illustrate just what I mean by speaking of a matter in Congress as to which there seems to have been wide divergence among Republicans, the pro- posed constitutional amendment providing for the election of Senators by popular vote. Now, I am one of those who emphatically believe in the elec- tion of Senators by popular vote. At present, they are trying the other system, with singularly ill success at Albany. By popular vote, at least we would know whether we could or could not elect anyone. Our ultra-conservative friends speak with bated breath, with horror, over the proposed change. I ask their attention and yours to the fact that the proposal to change the election of Senators into direct election by the people, is only a proposal to make, as regards Senators, the change we have already made as regards President. The founders of the Constitution had not advanced as far as Abraham Lincoln had. That is not to their discredit in the least. As Dr. Gunsaulus pointed out, the men who made Magna Charta would not have known what to make of the Dec- laration of Independence, or of the Constitution of the United States; too many centuries lay ahead of them. What the men of Runnymede did was to meet in a spirit of sane progressiveness the needs of their own day; they met them in the right spirit; and it was for the men of a subsequent day to show the same spirit, and meet different needs. Now, the men who founded our government, who founded the Constitution, felt that it would not be safe to allow the people directly to elect either the Presi- dent or the Senators; remember, I am not blaming them in the least; they were wise to go ahead slowly; but we would be very foolish not in our turn to keep on going ahead. They felt that the people ought to be contented with electing Congressmen, and ADDRESS OF EX-PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 75 for two or three elections the electoral college functioned in ac- cordance with that theory, until a very great danger arose in connection with the first election of Mr. Jefferson, when Aaron Burr, whom nobody had thought of for President, came within one electoral vote of being made President. We have changed that system so completely that we now have what is, in actual practice, a direct election for President. The members of the electoral college no longer liave any function except registering the popular will. Now the proposal to elect the Senators by popular vote is noth- ing whatever but a proposal to continue the same movement as regards the Senators that the country has put through as regards the President; and to me it seems an idle absurdity to talk of its being a danger to give to the people the same chance to vote directly for one house of the Legislature that they had from the beginning in voting for the other house of the Legislature, and that they have insisted upon assuming in voting for President. But unfortunately, in their zeal for that principle, some advo- cates of it in Washington have, in order to get votes for it, coupled with it a provision that, so far from being progressive, is in a high degree, retrogressive. I mean the provision depriv- ing the United States of part of its present authority over the election of Senators. A Senator is elected by a State; but he takes his oath of allegiance not to that State, but to all the United States. The Senator from Georgia, when he takes his oath, becomes my representative, Judge, exactly as he is yours. The Senator from New York when he takes his oath becomes your representative, Doctor, just as much as he is mine. The Senators are officers of the United States Government, and the whole people of the United States are concerned in their election, and I hold that it is an unpardonable act of retrog^^ession to 76 THE EEPTJBLICAN CLUB diminish by a fingerweight the power of the United States in passing upon and controlling the election of Senators of the United States. Now, friends, I want to take another illustration. I am not going to keep you very long. You are very patient. I want to take another illustration. In 1777 the founders of the Constitu- tion met to adopt the Constitution. They met — as has been ad- mirably pointed out in certain masterly decisions by Judge Speer — they met primarily because it had been found, by actual ex- perience, that to allow the commerce between the States and among the States to be controlled by the whim of each State resulted in absolute chaos. The Constitution conferred absolutely unlimited and absolutely exclusive powers upon the national gov- ernment to control all inter-state commerce. The power could not be more explicitly given. I do not ask for a particle of in- crease of this power by the national government. All I ask is that it exercise efficiently that power by creating the instruments necessary to meet the totally changed conditions of to-day. Our people as a whole are resolutely bent that the power shall be exercised. If the United States as a whole does not exercise it, the States will begin to try to exercise it themselves. If they do so, then sooner or later, and absolutely inevitably, the Supreme Court will decide that no State can directly or indirectly control inter-state commerce within its boundaries. The Supreme Court will decide, because it will have to decide, under the plainest doctrines of the Constitution, that no State can accomplish this by subterfuge or by indirection any more than it can do it by direction. The United States Government must alone exercise this power. People ask me why we should exercise control over big cor- porations and not over small corporations? I think the answer ADDRESS OF EX-PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 77 is perfectly easy. All of us here deal in our private capacities with a good many different men, with the grocer, the carpenter, the blacksmith, the butcher and a number of other men; and we are able to get along perfectly well with them because they are just about our size. As regards our relations with them sub- stantially the old methods and old principles of a century or two centuries ago still obtain. If one of us is dealing with a grocer and the grocer does not give us good stuff for our money, we change the grocer; and if we do not pay the grocer, the grocer won't sell us anything. This is all right, because the grocer has a great many cus- tomers, and there are a good many grocers; you can change from one to the other, and he can avoid the customers that do not pay their bills. But suppose the grocer becomes a captain of in- dustry and extends his business so that, whatever it is, coal, oil, railroads, sugar, whatever it is, it is a business that extends over a great many different States. Then he inevitably joins with others and a great corporation is formed, a great artificial indi- vidual ; and we can none of us deal adequately with that individ- ual because we are no longer dealing with somebody of our own size; we are dealing with somebody immensely larger than our- selves. We can change the grocer; but if there is only one rail- way and we want to go on a journey, we must go on that railway; we cannot walk; and if we want to ship our goods we must ship them by that railroad. If a corporation controls practically all of a given commodity, or enough to determine the price of that commodity, we have to deal with that corpora- tion whether we like it or not. This means that we can deal under the ordinary conditions of competition with the smaller men around us, with the men of our own size in the ordinary relations of life, but when we come 78 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB to a great artificial creation of the law, a great corporation, which does business on an enormous scale in a great many States, there is no one of us big enough to deal with it by himself. Accordingly we have to invoke the aid of the only entity that is big enough to deal with it, and that is Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam's method of dealing with the great corporation should in principle be just precisely like our method of dealing with the individual grocer or butcher or baker or carpenter. In the first place Uncle Sam should insist upon having justice done to him, done to the people; and, in the next place, he should be scrupulous in doing justice in return to the corporation. It is just as it is with us in private life. When Uncle Sam deals with a railway he ought to behave just as one of us does with his grocer or baker. If we cheat the grocer out of his money he cannot go on with the busi- ness; and, on the other hand, if we decline to look at his bills, it does not show soundness of heart on our part; it shows weakness of head. Uncle Sam should deal with a railway, for instance, just in the same way. He should be scrupulous so to treat it that it can have an ample return, that the investor shall have ample re- turn on the investment; if there is any doubt it should be re- solved in favor of the investors. But Uncle Sam should have, and gentlemen, don't forget that the American people are bound that he shall have the power to get fair play in return and to get it not as a favor but as a right. And friends, this movement for fair play, this movement for juster conditions — conditions which shall be such that in this country a man shall have a living wage for his work, and that there shall be square treatment of every man by big corporations — this movement should not become, and if we are wise we will not permit it to become, a contest of the have-nots against the haves. I should mourn beyond measure if the progressive move- ADDEESS OF EX-PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 79 ment became a movement led by violent men who hoped person- ally to profit by it; and I ask you here and the men like you to take the lead in that movement jUst because I wish to see it led as the great anti-slavery movement was led, as the great move- ment for the union of the country was led, by men who hoped for no personal gain from the success of their principles, but who acted as they did only because they felt a burning in their souls to respond to the demands made for compliance with the immutable laws of righteousness. Friends, I believe in perfecting every governmental instru- ment, I believe in passing every law that will make this more genuinely a government of the people, more genuinely a govern- ment of justice; that will enable us more and more surely to drive special privilege out of every stronghold. I believe in pass- ing such laws; but woe to us as a people if we think that we shall be saved by laws alone. South of us there have been and there are now certain republics in Central America and in north- ern South America where they have had exactly our constitution, practically exactly our laws, where on paper their system has been just like ours, but where the results have worked out as differently from ours as night is different from day, because the men behind the laws have been totally different. No law that can be devised by the wit of man will avail unless the average citizen is a decent man who believes in the fundamental and primary virtues of courage, of honesty and of common sense. And you here, you here like all the rest of our people, have upon you a great burden; you have more than the burden of the suc- cess of this nation, great though that burden is. Two things struck me especially as I talked with the people of the different sections of Europe last spring. Wherever I went I found that the oppressed man, the man who felt that artificial 80 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB conditions made his life hard for him, the man who felt that he received less than justice, and that he did not get the full chance to which he was entitled, the chance to develop his talents and to show the stuff of which he was made — I found that such a man always looked toward America as the golden land of promise, the land that had at least partially realized the ideal of fair and just treatment as between man and man. . But, together with that feeling I found another, which made me feel as sad as the first made me feel proud; for together with that feeling went the feeling of doubt as to whether we really had in this country realized the goal that we had set ourselves to realize. Every time a story of business or political corrup- tion or of lawless violence among us is sent to the other side, it is a subject for sneering mirth on the part of every reactionary, on the part of every foe of popular government; and it saddens the hearts of those who hope that we here in America shall be able to show that the Democratic experiment on a gigantic scale can succeed, and that people can govern themselves and yet act, not only with justice toward one another, but with honesty in their private and in their public relations. I suppose if we do not act as we ought to for the sake of ourselves and for our children, if our pride in our own future, and in our own nation, is not sufB.cient to make us upright and honest in public and private relations, that it is useless to appeal to other motives; and yet, oh, my friends gathered here to-night, I feel that we are bound to conduct ourselves with honesty, aggressive and fearless honesty, that we are bound to make this republic a success — not merely in the things of the body, but as regards the things of the spirit — not only for our own sakes, and for the sake of our children, of the children that are to come after us, but because if this republic falls, we shall have dimmed forever the bright and golden hopes of the watching nations of mankind. THE TWENTY-SIXTH ANNUAL LINCOLN DINNER of the REPUBLICAN CLUB of the City of New York At the Waldorf-Astoria FEBRUARY 12, 1912 Addresses of MR. OTTO T. BANNARD MR. CHARLES 0. MAAS HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW PRESIDENT TAFT ADDRESS OF MR. OTTO T. BANNA RD President of the Club Ladies and gentlemen: For twenty-six successive years, The Republican Club of the City of New York has gathered together the faithful, for the worship of that marvelous American, Abra- ham Lincoln. It is, as it were, our Club religion, and it is well for us, each year, to turn our thoughts to the story of his life and its accomplishments. We adore his memory, not only because he was the saviour of the Nation, not only because he was the liberator of the slaves, but because we love the man. It was his human sympathy, his understanding, his innate sincerity, his charitable patience, and, above all, his absolute honesty. He was known as '^Honest Old Abe," and everyone knew it. Toward the end of his first term as President, his political fortunes seemed to hang in the balance, and it is difficult for us to realize, now, nearly half a century later, that when he was nominated for his second term, in June, 1864, at Baltimore, there was a wave of discontent in many of the States and grave doubts were freely expressed whether he could be elected if he were nominated. Noisy demands were made that his candidacy be withdrawn, and Lincoln himself was haunted by dark forebodings of political de- feat. But long before election, the plain people realized that power was safe in his hands, and that, above all, he was honest, 84 THE REPUBLICAN CLTTB and enthusiasm grew until, long before the election, the nation had made its decision, and from the east and from the west could be heard that glorious song, **We are coming. Father Abraham, three hundred thousand strong"; and they did! Ladies and gentlemen, we are grateful to-night for the pres- ence of the ladies above us. They are at once our blessing and our inspiration. We are grateful to-night for our guests, men of distinction and importance, generously giving us an evening from their busy lives. We are more than grateful for the pres- ence to-night of the head of our party, the highest officer of the nation, and on this twenty-sixth annual meeting we have the twenty-sixth President of the United States. I propose the toast to "Honest BiU Taft!" GHAELES 0. MASS Successful New York lawyer and brilliant orator. Attorney for the Government in France during the World War period. ABDRESS OF MR. CHARLES O. MAAS Mr. President, fellow members of the Republican Club, ladies and gentlemen: In a wondrous play of Maeterlinck a boy and a girl are taken to a burial ground near midnight to see the dead arise from their graves. In fear and trembling they await the momentous hour. The clock solemnly strikes twelve. The children, huddled together, look about them. The graves open — but instead of spectres arising therefrom, beautiful lilies spring forth, perfuming the air. And the little girl, utterly astounded, says: "But where are the dead?" And the boy, realizing with marvelous intuition what he saw, replies: "Why, sweet, there are no dead." Within the past week men and women have assembled to sing paeans to the master Dickens. To them he is not dead. He lives. And so we come together year after year — not only you and I — but all of the people of this indestructible Union — and with our hearts attuned to cathedral chords of most majestic music, we do homage to Abraham Lincoln — who is not dead but who lives and who shall live as long as man is born to do his labor upon this footstool of the Lord on High. Human clay loses its identity and becomes dust; human achievement is changeless, and, like truth itself, is of the perpetuities. The lesson of Lincoln, so deep- reaching in its purity, its simplicity and its nobility, spells to us 88 THE EEFTJBLICAN CLUB in plainest terms the very love taught by Buddha, by Confucius, by Moses and by Christ — the love of humanity. This great teacher has become of the immortals because in crisis virtue triumphed over all things; because, in the deafening maelstrom of murderous conflict, in the maddening forum of public con- troversy where poisonous shafts of criticism and of abuse were hurled at him, he calmly fulfilled the giant task for which he had been selected — and loved his enemies in the doing thereof. "He raised his hands not to strike, but in benediction." Hatred, malice, meanness and cruelty were as foreign to his nature as obscenity is to saintliness. Generosity, kindliness, sympathy and forgiveness were as much of him as is the song to the night- ingale. He who loves to read of him may go into the vast library that records his character, his work, his humor and his genius in sweet poesy, in noble essays, in brilliant orations and in ma- jestic biography — and when all is read, the great soul-gripping thought that remains uppermost in the mind is: Here was a man who loved the American people more earnestly, more selflessly than any being in all of our history — and here in turn was a man whom the people loved and will continue to love in increas- ing strength — if such a thing be possible — ^more deeply and more devotedly than any leader known to mankind. The soul union between Abraham Lincoln and the people whom he championed was celebrated before the altar of God Himself. And the wonder of it all is that such was the genuineness, the self-abnegation of this being that the thoughtful men of the South admired and respected him despite the blinding passions engendered by the conflict. Do you remember the story written by Mary Andrews? Lin- coln had left the White House for a walk. It was the day after the Gettysburg speech — an oration so titanic that it awed its ADDRESS OF ME. CHAKLES 0. MAAS 89 hearers into deep silence instead of stirring them to cheers. They wonld just as soon have applauded the lord's Prayer. Lincoln had been disappointed. He felt that though his heart had spoken, he had not touched his people as he craved. He had not even read the newspapers which proclaimed his words in tones of far greater praise than those accorded to the finished effort of Everett. A boy all out of breath from running and with tears streaming down his cheeks, stumbled against him and almost fell. ''What's the trouble, sonny?" said Lincoln. The lad told him he was looking for a lawyer; his brother, a Confederate officer, was dying in the prison hospital and wished to make his will. Lin- coln said, "Why, I used to be a lawyer — I'll go with you." They came to the man's bedside. The will was drawn and executed. The officer then said to Lincoln, "I've never liked a stranger as much in short order before." The magic of this marvelous per- sonality was ever drawing souls to him. And then the officer be- gan to talk of Lincoln. "Have you read his speech of yesterday in the papers?" said he. "No," replied Lincoln, "I haven't." And then this sick man asked his boy brother to read it aloud. "Fourscore and seven years ago," the fresh voice began — and ended with those immortal words: "We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this Nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth." And then the Confederate said: "It is a wonderful speech. To feel that your enemy can fight you to death without malice and with charity — it lifts country, it lifts humanity to something worth dying for. That man is inspired by principle and not by animosity in this fight. Oh, how I wish that I could put my hand in his before I go, and I'd like to tell him that I know what we are all fighting for, the best of us, is the right 90 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB of our country as it is given us to see it." And then came the death struggle, and this man died with his hand placed in that of Abraham Lincoln — where he wished it. Here was the perfect tribute. At the portals of death there was given to this man a vision of the truth as the whole South sees it to-day. Lincoln's life was devoted to the proposition that the Union was perpetual; that the rich and beautiful South belonged to and was part of the Nation's life blood, and with prophetic vision he saw the land of the magnolia and the orange blossom again restored to the confederation of States, so that her magnificent destiny could best be fulfilled. "We are not enemies but friends," he said. And he prayed that the whole people should be led back to the ''perfect enjoyment of union and fraternal peace." And do you remember that he said, "Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other"? He of all men knew the conflict was based on sheer difference of principle, and yet with all of his soul he felt that the Union must be preserved at whatever sacrifice. And to-day when the roll call of the States in both of our great national conventions begins with resonant "Alabama" and Alabama an- swers "Present"; and, continuing, the noble roster peals forth the name of mighty "Massachusetts" and Massachusetts answers ^'Present," and again continuing, calls for glorious "Virginia" to answer to her name, and Virginia answers "Present" — and so on and on until every State and Territory has answered "Present" — a swelling chorus thrown to the heavens by a reunited family in fulfillment of this man's prayer — a noble oratorio that compels the very soul of us to fall upon its bended knees in thankfulness to-day, when all wounds are healed and all rancor is forgotten, the sunny South challenges the proud North, not to conflict, not to strife, but to excel it in undying love for Abraham Lincoln. ADDRESS OF MR. CHARLES 0. MAAS 91 Ask any honest man to-day who lives in the South, ^'Would you have your Capitol at Richmond?" And the answer would come back as swift and as sharp as a rifle speaks, "No, the Capi- tol at Washington is good enough for me." And if he were a man of thought he would add, ''When Lincoln abolished slavery he freed the masters more from the slaves than he freed the slaves from the masters. Slavery was the father of indolence, the creator of caste, the blight of progress, the death of ambition. When the master lost his slaves he became independent instead of remaining dependent. For the first time he stood upon his own feet. The purchase of labor substituted for the purchase of men quickened his pulses to accomplish things in the great field of human equality. The spirit of Americanism as we now under- stand it was breathed into his nostrils. And thus it is that you hear the glad bells of prosperity ringing down the Valley of the Mississippi." And thus it is, my friends, that Lincoln still lives to-day and that his achievement has permitted me, born and bred as I was in the City of New Orleans, to speak of him in loving tones for the Southland. Many have endeavored in prose and in poetry to explain this man — and none has succeeded. To explain Shakespeare would be a task equally impossible. And just as the man from Strat- ford, without scholastic attainment, gave us the most price- less treasures in all literature, so the man from Kentucky, equally hampered, gave to us through the sermon of his life a force in the uplift of humanity that shall never spend itself while men feel and think. Genius shall ever be incomprehensible to us who are only permitted to eat of its fruits. And yet it is good to dwell upon the human phase of Lincoln. Aside from the exalta- tion that was his and that makes him an ever-living pyramid of strength and example to our national being, it is a joy to regard 92 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB him just as a man. Why did the people love the man Lincoln so much? Why is it that, whereas you and I so pride ourselves upon the incalculable asset of the few genuine friendships that are ours in life, he was looked upon by thousands upon thousands not merely as their leader but as their friend? Indeed, I write him down as the sincerest friend in the deepest sense of the word that the people ever had. Assuredly this was due to his utter unselfishness, coupled with infinite sympathy and love for his fellows. Of course, he loved those of the fair sex. How could he do otherwise? And yet a charming woman who knew him well in his young manhood said, "Indeed, I think the only thing we girls had against him was that he always attracted all the men around him." He was essentially a man's man. He was a great cosmopolite. He understood men and reveled in associa- tion with them. He was so beloved because he gave no food to self. He never obtruded — ^he cared not for the lime light — his marvelous humor was not employed to gain him a reputation as a raconteur, but to make a point or to rivet an argument. His soul fabric as contrasted with his intellect was so marvelous in its texture that it developed an infinite capacity for friendship. And so I understand the tears and the anguish of his friends — ^the whole people — when his body fell. Joseph Eoux said: "We call that person who has lost his par- ents an orphan; and a widower, that man who has lost his wife; but he who has known the immense unhappiness of losing a friend, by what name do we call him? Here every human lan- guage holds its peace in impotence." The men who mourned Lincoln's loss have nearly all passed away. But the miracle of it all is that this capacity for friendship of which I speak was so illimitable that those who knew him not and who have come after him also are his friends. Nay, Lincoln is not dead. He ADDEESS OF ME. CHAELES 0. HAAS 93 has been called the gentlest memory in all the world. He is more than this. He is a living, breathing spirit that suffuses the soul of every man and woman who loves this land of ours, always calling forth the best, the noblest, the most patriotic that is in us to the perpetuation of the greatest representative government that has ever thrived under the eye and under the blessing of Almighty God. CHAUNCEY M. (MITCHELL) DEPEW TT. S. Senator from New York; Famous after-dinner speaker; Actively associated with Republican party and politics throughout a long life and distinguished career. ADDRESS OF HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW Mr. President, for a man who congratulated himself that he was going to attend a dinner and hear the President and great orators, that he had no responsibilities, that he should enjoy what was offered, both in the solid and fluid, without stint, when he is sitting, preliminary to that, alongside of his wife as she is taking her tea at six o'clock, to receive a telephone message like the one which has just been reported by our presiding officer to speak within an hour in the place of two of the most distinguished men in the country, is enough to disturb a nervous man. General Garfield once said to me, "You cannot take too many chances without hurting your reputation.'* ''No man who has made a reputation should attempt to speak unless he has been notified long before and had ample opportunity for preparation; but some day, though you keep this up, and you will make a speech, on a short call, and the failure of it will be so phenomenal, that it will end the reptuation of a lifetime." Remembering that, last summer I called a classmate of mine, and had him compile eight volumes of my speeches and so I say, as did Daniel Webster, or somebody else — I don't remember who — "The past, at least, is secure." When a man speaks extemporaneously, he is apt to be apolo- gizing for it for some time afterwards. There have been distin- 96 THE EEPUBLICAK CLXTB gnished examples of that in our recent history. I remember the charming lady who was doing the best she could, distributing tracts before she got on the paltform to speak, and in handing one to a cabby, he said to her, ^'Excuse me. Miss, I am happily married, and I don't believe in divorce"; the tract was entitled, "Abide with me." I was pleased with the speech of our President, Mr. Bannard, in which, after complimenting everybody who came here to this entertainment, he said that "without the inspiration of the women, where would we be?" Look at him, look at him, at his time of life, and he is not married yet! Now, an occasion like this necessarily leads to a comparison be- tween the past and the present. The first speech I ever heard Mr. Lincoln make, was the one that he did not make. It was at Peekskill. The whole population had gathered for the ten min- utes in which he was to address us on his way to Washington. The local celebrity, who had been in Congress with him, repre- sented the people for the welcoming speech, and before the wel- coming speech was concluded, the train moved off with Mr. Lin- coln laughing. In 1864, there devolved upon me, as Secretary of State, the duty of collecting soldiers' votes, because the Legislature was Republican, and the Governor, Horatio Seymour, was a Demo- crat, and so they didn't give it to the Governor. I stayed three months in Washington, and Stanton, Secretary of War, refused to ^ve me the information necessary to reach the New York sol- diers in the field with ballots. New York had over 300,000 sol- diers scattered over the South. In great rage, after being roughly turned down by Stanton, I was going out of the War Office one afternoon, when I met Mr. Washburn, who at that time was the special representative and most intimate friend of Mr. Lincoln. ADDRESS OF HON. CHATTNCEY M. DEPEW 97 I told him what was the matter, and he said, "What are you go- ing to do?" I said, "I have got to clear my own skirts. I am going to New York to publish in the papers that the administra- tion will not give me the localities where the New York troops are, and so they cannot vote." He said, "Look here, Depew, that beats Lincoln." "Well," I said, "then give me the voters' ad- dresses." He said, "You don't know Abe. He is a great Presi- dent, but he is also a great politician, and if there was no other way of getting those votes, he would go around with a carpet bag and collect them himself." Within an hour, I was summoned into the presence of a changed Secretary of War, so polite that I didn't know him, and on the midnight train I went off with the locations of the troops. Now, there has been much criticism about a President work- ing, while he is in office, for re-election, but here is the example, after fifty years, of the man whom we are celebrating here to- night, who would have gone around with a carpet bag to collect the votes if there was no other way of getting them. And I am sure our President, Mr. Taft, is justified in doing what he can in that line, as he did so magnificently in his speech here to-night. It certainly is dramatic for one who has that recollection of the year preceding the presidential election of Mr. Lincoln, to again, nearly fifty years afterwards, be in the hall with a President, the year before his re-election, with the condition virtually un- changed. It reminds me that possibly nothing changes in this world. Certainly, in my long experience in public life, I have found that nothing changes in the fundamentals; the change is only in the scenery, the surroundings, and the dramatic effect. We celebrated, in December, the landing of the Mayflower. Why? Because, in the cabin of the Mayflower, was enunciated that charter which first gave the principle of equality of all men 98 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB before the law. We celebrated here, this last week, the first treaty ever made by the United States, the treaty with France which gave to us Lafayette, Rochambeau, and DeGraff, and the French army and the French navy, and the credit and munitions of war, which enabled us to win our independence. We celebrate to-night Mr. Lincoln and his administration of fifty years ago, and we will celebrate, on the twenty-second of this month, Wash- ington's birthday, with all that it means. Last summer I was in France, and I went out one Sunday to Versailles, where all Paris goes, and I accompanied the crowd as they went through that marvelous palace of Louis XIV, and as they paused in the little room, with its memories of Napoleon, of the Empress Josephine, and of Marie Antoinette. What struck me more than anything else, accustomed as I have been, all my life, to go to historic places in America where there was enthusiasm and reverence, was that those people went by as sightseers and as tourists, because Versailles, with its memories of the Bourbon kings, and of Napo- leon, and of an absolute autocracy, and of an empire, conveyed nothing to them. Their memories were only of the thirty-odd years of the republic. But we are what we are to-day because of our traditions, and our traditions never change; the traditions of equality before the law enunciated in the cabin of the Mayflower, the traditions of the Declaration of Independence in Independence Hall, the tra- ditions of Washington and what he stood for and what he ac- complished, and to-night, the traditions of what Lincoln stood for. We are here now as a Republican club, and Lincoln was a Re- publican President. All sides of him have been superbly pre- sented. The tribute which our President paid was finely said and deserved, that he was the President of all parties; and that beautiful tribute, so eloquent and appreciative, by the orator of ADDRESS OF HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 99 the evening, as to Lincoln's characteristics, from a Southern man, was equally deserved. But Lincoln was a partisan, and Lincoln was a Eepublican. We are now here to-night as partisans and Eepublicans, most of us. Lincoln stood for what? For the questions of his day. Have they changed? They have changed only in form. We have not the slave labor question any longer, but we have labor questions which are to be decided upon broad principles, as Lincoln would have decided them if they had arisen in his time. He had to provide revenue for the purpose of supporting the army and car- rying on the Government. He had to develop the resources of the country which would support the people here, if we won, and while we were fighting. Now, what did he do? He inaugurated and carried through the most drastic measure of protection of American industries that any President ever suggested. It was absolute protection, not so high but that it furnished revenue, and yet high enough to cause the development of one industry after another, and to continue to the laboring man of this coun- try that measure of wage which makes him more independent, and with greater possibilities and hopefulness than ever existed before in any country in the world. Now, we come down to our own time, and we have meeting us, and meeting President Taft, very much the same things that met Lincoln, so far as the fundamentals are concerned, or the principles upon which we fight. And I want to say, as a veteran campaigner who has stumped this country for different Presidents for fifty-six years, that that speech of forty minutes made here to-night by President Taft will be the text-book of the campaign. We will all copy from it, we will all take texts from it, and we will make the welkin ring all over the country with the promises 100 THE KEPUBIICAH CLTTB which it contains, and when it results, as it will result, in his election next November, we will say, "Taft, you did it!** Now, I was reading to-night in an English paper the speech made by Shuster in London, and it gave me an understanding of those great principles for which Lincoln stood, for which Wash- ington stood, and for which every statesman in America who is successful must stand. He says, in effect, '1 went to Persia, com- missioned to put her finances in order. I found universal cor- ruption. I found the money was ample, but it was all diverted to the personal use of grafters, from royalty down. I said to the first constituent assembly, elected by the people, that Persia ever had in all her history, from the time of Cyrus the Great, *Will you give me power to do as I have a mind to?* And they said, *Yes' unanimously. 'Then,* he said, 'I found there was money enough for all purposes, and I began to collect it, and to apply it to the legitimate purposes of the real resurrection of Persia, so that she could stand upon her liberal principles, and go ahead, when Russia suddenly said, 'That is not what you are here for; what we want is demoralization and bankruptcy, because that is our opportunity to seize Persia.' '* Well, my friends, contrast that with the principles that have been at the bottom of American policies in treating with other countries. Contrast it with our treatment of the Philippines, of Cuba, of Hawaii, contrast it with what we did when one of the greatest of our secretaries of state, our own club member, Elihu Boot, made his famous visit, as Secretary of State, to the South- ern Republics. Somebody says — I don't know who; Governor Black, with his marvelous memory will recall it — that there will never be any- thing but war tumult and revolution south of the Gulf of Mexico, but the policy of the American Government, under Roosevelt, ADDRESS OF HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 101 and under Taft, is g^iving to those American republics on the Isthmus and in South America greater stability than ever be- fore, because we stand behind them and say, ''We don't want your territory, we don't want an inch of your land, we don't want any influence with you except to protect you under the Monroe Doctrine, but what we do demand is that you shall work out your own salvation on the eternal principles of our Declara- tion of Independence and of the charter of equal laws of the Mayflower." And that is dollar diplomacy! Now, Lincoln was President fifty years ago; Taft is President to-night. Lincoln was a candidate for re-election fifty years ago; Taft to-night is a candidate for re-election. What is the differ- ence between the two men? Mr. Taft is the product of the school, of the college. He is the product of the best culture that America can give. He is the product of the training which has g^ven him that judicial mind which has enabled him to decide more questions than any other President in my time, and decide them right; which has enabled him to present more constructive and progressive legislation, and secure it, than any other Presi- dent of my time, and yet, as a scholar and as a judge, he lacks the faculty of advertisement and a brass band. If he had those two qualities, he would be absolutely resistless. Every dead wall in the country, and every farmer's fence, and every home, would be filled with pictures and flaming eloquence which would indi- cate that the salvation of every man, woman and child, had been secured, built up and riveted, and with another term would be fenced in and white-washed over head, and nothing more could be done by any human being. Now, we come to Lincoln. He was a different man. No one in any country ever started life so unpromisingly as Abraham Lincoln. Nothing equals the poverty and hopelessness of a poor 102 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB white cabin in the South, and especially at that time. And yet he came out of that, but there was in him the wonderful genius which nobody can account for. You can't account for Milton or Shakespeare. You can't account for Lincoln. What did he represent? The first books he got hold of, he read over and over. First was the Bible, next was "Pilgrim's Progress," and next was "Aesop's Fables," and next was Weem's "Life of Washington." Now, those made him a story teller, because Weem's "Life of Washington" has probably within its pages more stories that never happened to Washington, than any book ever written. In Weem's "Life of Washington" you find the cherry tree story, and nowhere else. And yet that lie has done infinite good to all the youths of the country, because it was a fundamental lie in the defence of the truth. "Aesop's Fables" furnished him with stories. I found out this about Lincoln, that he never argued anything. He simply told a story, or else cracked a joke, but it met the thing on all fours, so that if you were on the opposite side you had nothing to say. My old friend, John Ganson, the ablest lawyer we had in Western New York, was a war Democrat, and he supported Mr. Lincoln. He was a fine looking, very dig- nified man, with a very impressive appearance and way of talk- ing, and he had not a spear of hair on his head or anywhere about his face. He went up one day, he told me, to Mr. Lincoln, when things looked very bad at the front, and everybody was discouraged, and he said, "Mr. President, you know, sir, that I am a war Democrat. I am leaving my party to support your measures, because I believe in the country first and the party next. Now, things look very bad at the front, and I think, with this relation to you and your administration, I ought to know just how things are. How are they, sir?" Mr. Lincoln looked at him for a minute, and then said, in his quizzical way, "Gan- ADDRESS OF HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 103 son, how clean you shave!" There was a party of New York financiers who went down to Washington, and the New York financier is a mighty able man — in Wall Street. But he sees the present, and he wants to provide for that. The financial situa- tion was frightful, because gold was so reduced in volume. They said: "Mr. President, we are here representing the financial in- terests in the financial center of the country, and we think that the best thing to do is to take the gold out of the treasury and give it to the people." But Mr. Lincoln knew that what little gold there was in the treasury was all the basis the country had for its credit and the enormous volume of paper currency which had been put out. Now, did he argue that question with those financiers? No, he knew they would beat him out of sight in an argument, but he said to them: "Gentlemen, out in Illinois, when I was practicing law, the farmers were troubled because of a disease among the hogs that was carrying them off and likely to destroy the whole of that industry. Someone suggested that the way to cure the hogs was to cut off their tails. So they cut them off, and they were cured. The next year the same disease came back, but they all died because there were no tails." Now, no man recovers from his environment and the infiu- ences of his birth, and the associations of his childhood, no matter how great may be his opportunities afterwards, no matter how wonderful the culture that has come to him, nor how great his ability to take advantage of it. The environment of his humble home will always cling to him, and always be in evidence. Now, Lincoln passed the whole of that formative period of his life among a frontier people. He had singular and original experi- ences. He loved to be down at the country store, or the country bar room, although he never drank, and there exchange stories and listen to stories among those adventurous and original peo- 104 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB pie. He loved to go around the circuit, and when they reached the county towns they all stopped at the same hotel and they stayed up all night — the judge and the lawyers and the witnesses, and the grand and petit jury men — swapping these experiences. I asked him once, ''Where do you get so many stories?^* And he told me that it was in this way that I have just described. So he got into the habit, much to the disgust of Chase, who was a "turvey drop," and of other people around him, of meeting questions with these stories, most of which were not in print. On the other side, there was another Lincoln formed on his daily reading of the Bible, which he knew by heart, and Bun- yan's "Pilgrim's Progress," which he knew by heart. The Eng- lish language, in its noblest form as it is to-day, has been formed by the King James version of the English Bible. It has been literature, pure and undefiled, which has given to our writers, in the English tongue, their distinction, and inspiration. That formed Lincoln's style. It also formed the basis from which he built up those principles of eternal truth which led to the Eman- cipation Proclamation, which led also to his infinite charity, which would have eradicated many evils had he lived to go through his second term. It was the education from this founda- tion which gave to the world those two imperishable productions, that oration which will live forever, the Gettysburg speech, and that finest State paper ever written by a President, and which never can be copied, Lincoln's second inaugural address. ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Gentlemen of the Republican Club of the City of New York: This is Lincoln's birthday. We are met to celebrate it. We can- not claim Lincoln as belonging exclusively to us Republicans, or treat his name as a mere party symbol. He belongs to the country and to the world as one of its great characters. But the fact is that during his whole career, and especially during that part of it in which he disclosed those traits that made him great, and that have rendered his memory sacred, the principles that he followed and that he was able to vindicate and put far on the way of becoming the foundation stones of the Republic, were the principles of the Republican party; and the reason why the Republican party may not now claim him exclusively as one of their great leaders and their great saint, is not because the party stands for something different from what it stood for when Lincoln was at its head, but it is that, being a party of progress, it has achieved and made of permanent acceptance by the whole people the thing for which it fought and in which it followed Lincoln's leadership. Men praise Lincoln to-day and attack the Republican party, although forgetful of the fact that in Lincoln's life the man and the party were so closely united in aim and accomplishment, that the history of the one is the history of the other. The truth is 106 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB that the history of the last fifty years, with one or two exceptions, has been the history of the Republican party — ^the progress that has been made by the Eepublican party in the legislative and executive power entrusted to it by the people at large. There are those who look upon the present situation as one full of evil and corruption and as a tyranny of concentrated wealth, and who in apparent despair at any ordinary remedy are seeking to pull down those things which have been regarded as the pillars of the temple of freedom and representative govern- ment, and to reconstruct our whole society on some new prin- ciple, not definitely formulated, and with no intelligent or in- telligible forecast of the exact constitutional and statutory re- sults to be attained. With the effort to make the selection of candidates, the enactment of legislation, and the decision of courts to depend on the momentary passions of a people neces- sarily indifferently informed as to the issues presented, and with- out the opportunity to them for time and study and that delibera- tion that gives security and common sense to the government of the people, such extremists would hurry us into a condition which could find no parallel except in the French revolution, or in that bubbling anarchy that once characterized the South American Republics. Such extremists are not progressives — ^they are polit- ical emotionalists or neurotics, who have lost that sense of pro- portion, that clear and candid consideration of their own weak- nesses as a whole, and that clear perception of the necessity for checks upon hasty popular action which made our people who fought the Revolution and who drafted the Federal Constitution, the greatest self-governing people that the world ever knew. The Constitution was framed to give to all men equality of right before the law, and the equality of opportunity that such equality of right before the law was intended to secure. A review ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT TAFT 107 of the history of this country, with the mutations in the personal fortunes of the individuals that have gone to make up the peo- ple, will show that never in the history of the world has there been such equality of opportunity in these United States, and it has been secured by upholding as sacred the rights of individual liberty and the rights of private property in the guarantees of the Federal and State constitutions. It has been said, and it is a common platform expression, that it is well to prefer the man above the dollar, as if the preservation of property rights had some other purpose than the assistance of and the uplifting of human rights. Private property was not established in order to gratify love of material wealth or capital. It was established as an instrumentality in the progress of civilization and the uplifting of man, and it is equality of opportunity that private property promotes by assuring to man the results of his own labor, thrift and self-restraint. When, therefore, the demagogue mounts the platform and announces that he prefers the man above the dollar, he ought to be interrogated as to what he means thereby — whether he is in favor of abolish- ing the right of the institution of private property and of taking away from the poor man the opportunity to become wealthy by the use of the abilities that God has given him, the cultivation of the virtues with which practice of self-restraint and the ex- ercise of moral courage will fortify him. Now I am far from saying that the development of business, the discovery of new and effective methods of using capital have not produced problems which call for additional action by the Government to prevent the abuses of the concentration of wealth and the combination of capital. Moreover, in order to tempt in- vestment, we have doubtless in times past permitted the State to pledge to individuals privileges more permanent and of wider 108 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB scope than the public interest demanded, and we have permitted the establishment of corporations and the acquisition of power through the corrupting use of money in politics, so as at times to give to a few dangerous control in legislation and government; but during the last ten years much progress against such abuses has been made in this regard. Statutes have been passed, notably the anti-trust statute and the interstate commerce law and its amendments, to restrain a misuse of the privileges conferred by charter, and if need be, there is nothing in the future of the country to prevent, and everything in the principles and history of the Eepublican party to forecast, progress in this direction. Indeed the only progress that has been made of a real character in these respects has been made by the legislation and execution of those whom the Republican party has put into power. In so far, therefore, as progressive policy in politics means the closer regulation of State-given privilege, so as to secure its use for the benefit of the public, and to restrain its abuse for the undue profit of the grantee of the privilege, the Republican party is entitled to be called truly progressive. Its statesmen drafted and passed the anti-trust law of 1890, and its successive administrations have gradually brought that to be a controlling force in the proper limitations upon business combinations in this country. It holds itself in readiness to facil- itate business still more by the adoption of a Federal Incorpora- tion act, which on the one hand will give security to legitimately used capital, and on the other hand secure more certain compli- ance with the limitations of law by the great combinations of capital in industrial production whose chief business is in inter- state commerce. When the interstate commerce law was a dead enactment upon the statute books of the country and its violation was universal ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT TAFT 109 by all the railroads engaged in traffic between the States, the Re- publican party passed the rebate bill, the rate bill, and finally in this administration the comprehensive amendment of 1910 which has now brought the railroads within the complete control of the Interstate Commerce Commission and the courts. In what respect does this Interstate commerce law now need amendment? Certainly there have been no suggestions of weight to show that it is not working well; that the railroads are not striving to comply with its terms, and that the evils and defects in the railroad service to the public are not within complete remedial effect by invoking the application of the present statutes. Now I admit that we have progressed in our ideas since the last century in the general view that the Government is more respon- sible for the comfort, safety and protection of the individual than it was thought to be under the ''laissez faire'* Jeffersonian doc- trine of government. We have come to recognize that the com- mon law as it affected the relation of the employer and the em- ployee was a law framed under the influence of the employer, and that the principles that obtained in that law, said to be based upon public policy, could not be justified by any proper modern view. For that reason we have adopted a new employers' liability act, regulating according to a juster rule the contract of employ- ment between the interstate commerce railroads and their em- ployees, and there is about to report now a Congressional commit- tee which will recommend a so-called workmen's compensation act, which offers legal compensation to every workman injured in the business in which he is employed, as if he were insured against accident. We have provided a mining bureau law looking to the devising of remedies for the saving of miners' lives through government research, out of the expense of the Federal treasury; we have 110 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB passed a statute providing for mediation and arbitration between railroads and their employees which has worked with marvelous success and reduced strikes to a minimum. It has come to be the fashion to attack our courts on the ground that they are not sufficiently progressive in their sympathies and are too much bound by the letter of the law, and do not yield in their construction of statutes to the popular view of what the law ought to be rather than what it actually is in written or customary form. The suggestion is made by which Judges are to be subject to the discipline of popular elections whenever the conclusions they reach do not suit the people, or their decisions are to be submitted for confirmation or rejection by a vote of the people. Such pro- positions undermine existing governments, and are directed toward depriving the judiciary of the independence without which they must be an instrument of either one man or majority tyranny. The Eepublican party, I am very certain, as a national party, respecting as it does the Constitution of the United States, the care with which the judicial clauses of that fundamental in- strument were drawn to secure the independence of the judiciary, will never consent to an abatement of that independence in the slightest degree, and will stand with its face like flint against any constitutional changes in it to take away from the high priests upon which to administer justice the independence that they must enjoy of influence of powerful individuals or of power- ful majorities. The Kepublican party is not blind to the defects in the admin- istration of justice in this country. It is not blind to the neces- sity for changes in its procedure, in the expedition with which its judgments are rendered, in the cheapness with which justice may be obtained and in the certainty of punishment for crime. ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT TAFT 111 It is conscions that the delays and expense of litigation tend to deprive the poor litigant of an equality of opportunity with the wealthy plaintiff or defendant, as the case may be, and that there is great room for improvement in the manner of administering justice; but this is far, very far, from a change in the structure of our courts by which the "ratio decidendi" of judgments is to be changed from that of law and eternal and uniform justice to that of the voice of the majority in individual instances. The Republican party is as progressive as any party in its desire to perfect the judicial procedure of the country. Steps are now being taken looking toward progress in that direction. So too with respect to the tariff. The Republican party is not a hidebound tariff party. It has changed its position from that Chinese wall and the imposition of customs duty sufficient to make the tariff as high as possible on everything that needs to be protected. It has come to a much more reasonable view, to wit, that the tariff rates on merchandise imported ought not to exceed those which will furnish living protection to the industries of this country with which such imported merchandise will come into competition. The Republican party has come to recognize that high tariff duties encourage combinations of capital by sup- pressing competition to take advantage in the domestic price charged, of the excessive rates of duty, and that that is a much safer system which limits the duties to the measure of the differ- ence between the cost of production here and the cost of produc- tion abroad than to the wholesale system of imposing high rates in order to secure protection at the expense of everything else. So far as is consistent with the maintenance of the industries in this country under living conditions of reasonable profit, the Republican party is in favor of a revision and reduction of rates on imported merchandise. The only proposition it insists on is 112 THE REPTTBLICAN CLTTB that the facts in respect to the amount of protection needed by established industries in this country shall be ascertained after a full and complete report by an impartial tribunal, upon the facts governing the production of such merchandise abroad and in this country. In other words, gentlemen, the Republican party has taken its position and must maintain its position in favor of as little disturbance of the business of the country as possible in re- spect to tariff changes by requiring that these changes shall only take place schedule by schedule, and then only after a full ascer- tainment of the facts by a non-partisan tariff board or commission which shall enable Congress and the public at large to know what must be the necessary effect of the proposed legislation. This I consider a progressive policy of the utmost importance to the country's business. Heretofore we have had protective tariffs, revenue tariffs, and all put upon the statute book with little or no reliable evidence as to what effect the tariff was going to have. With the system of separate schedules and a tariff commission, business disturbance can be reduced to a minimum. While the tariff will not be taken out of politics, a discussion of it will be brought to an intelligent knowledge of the facts and with the issues clearly drawn rather than to a general denunciation on the one side and a general affirmation on the other. In matters of conservation and in respect to all those activities of government, like those of the Agriculture Department, and such other branches of the government as are directed to the assistance and comfort of the people, the Republican party is necessarily the more progpressive of the two. Under the construc- tion which the Republican party has always given to the Con- stitution, while the institutions of civil liberty and private property were sacredly maintained, the general provisions of the ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT TAFT 113 Federal Constitution have proved wide enough to enahle the General Government under Republican legislation to assume many burdens under which the strict construction of the Constitution, traditionally asserted by the Democratic party would have been impossible. The Republican party has been progressive also in its view that this great Government, prosperous, strong, independent and responsible, owes a duty to weaker peoples and nations to assist them in their struggle for better things whenever occasion arises which puts this Government in the attitude of trustee or guardian or counsellor and friend of such less fortunate peoples. We Republicans believe in peace. We believe in pushing as far as we may the principles of arbitration to secure peace. We believe in the ultimate establishment of an arbitral court into which any nation may draw any other nation to answer a com- plaint and abide judgment; but charged as we have been with actual government, we do not allow ourselves to be blinded by a mere fetich and to fail to make proper preparations against pos- sible present dangers, because in the future we may hope that those dangers will ultimately disappear. Therefore, we are in favor of a suitable army to maintain law and order and protect our interests and carry out our duties in the many parts of the globe where we are called upon to act to-day. We are just now completing the Panama Canal, and in the protection of that canal we shall need 3,000 or 4,000 more sol- diers. The same thing is true of Hawaii, an island which is next to us by the will of the people, and to which we owe the debt of adequate protection. We have an army of mobile troops not more than one to a thousand of our population, and now it is proposed by our Democratic friends in Congress to reduce that army by eliminating one-third of our Cavalry. They would cut 114 THE EEPTJBLICAN CLUB out some of the best Cavalry in the world, five reg^imeiits which are needed for a nucleus of a larger army should we ever be sud- denly called into war. For the same reason they propose to de- part from the time-honored practice of adding to our navy each year two battleships by cutting them off altogether this year. In considering our many responsibilities in different parts of the world, I think this is a great mistake. Certainly the diminution in the additions to the fleet ought not to be contemplated until the Panama Canal is completed. In other words, our Democratic friends are doing the very thing that they are always reputed to do, they are doing the wrong thing at the right time. With un- failing accuracy they have selected as their policy that which is least defensible under existing conditions. I have not enumerated and could not because time would not permit, the many measures for which the Republican party is responsible — ^the postal savings banks, the parcels post, the cor- poration tax, the maximum and minimum clause of the tariff, free trade with the Philippines, the successful administration of colonial governments, the negotiation of the Japanese and other treaties, the satisfactory solution of the question of immigration — all have claimed the attention of the party and of those of its representatives responsible in the legislature and the executive, and the obligation for action has been felt and responded to. I have said this much to show that the Republican party since its beginning, more than fifty years ago, has always been a pro- gressive party and it has always recognized its responsibility by action. It has never hesitated to assume the burden of new legis- lation to accomplish good results, and it has never allowed its re- spect for the constitutional principles upon which this Govern- ment is founded to interfere with remedial action and progressive legislation within the limitation of those constitutional principles ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT TAFT 115 to make the Government more useful to the people; and as its construction of the powers of the general government is a more liberal one than that of its old-time opponent, the Democratic party, it may be counted upon to respond much more promptly to modern needs in this regard than its old-time opponent. If we have a record in the last ten years, and especially in the last three years, of responding to popular needs by legislation specific- ally adapted to afford the proper remedies, why should we not be sure of winning a vote of confidence from the people? It is true we were beaten in 1910, but that was by a defection of Repub- licans through what I must think was a misunderstanding, but not by a change from Republicans to the Democratic party. Their defection reduced the vote of the Republicans but did not increase the vote of the Democrats, showing that what they were waiting for was to give the Republican party what they considered a "locus poenitentiae" and an opportunity of still proving the gen- uineness of its promises in the platform of 1908. That we have done so in the last two sessions of Congress, and that we are prof- fering definite results for a return of complete power, I think everyone who has followed the course of national events will real- ize. We know what we propose to do; we offer a definite pro- gram; show definite results, and we believe that these results are what the people wish. We do not hesistate to ask for their sup- port. The arguments of most Democrats in favor of a return to their party have a general likeness. We have first a general de- nunciation of conditions, said to be due to the Republican party, which every man would deprecate, but the existence of which, and the Republican party's responsibility for which, depend chiefiy upon the authority of the speaker alone. Then the state- ment of general good results that must be accomplished by fol- lowing the principles of the Democratic party and of Jackson and 116 THE REPTJBIICAN CLTTB Jefferson, without specification as to what they are, and finally a pressure for an invitation to that party to assume power. There is nothing definite in what is said; nothing definite promised; only general denunciation and general promises. They speak of a spirit of unrest everywhere. They don't de- scribe what that unrest depends upon, and if they do, they don't tell how it is to be remedied or what legislation will accomplish it. We are going to have a four months' campaign from the mid- dle of June until the first of November. In that time the people will have the right and opportunity to ask of each party what it proposes to do, and it will not be sufficient to answer that they propose generally to introduce good legislation and execute it. The question is what legislation they will enact, how are they going to formulate it and how execute it. Four months will test the substance of the criticisms and of the proffers of new policies which are to be offered by either party, and it is because of my confidence that the Republican party can point to definite deeds already accomplished, to laws already on the statute books and being enforced and carried out to a useful purpose, and to pro- posed statutes with a clear description of the terms and effect of such statutes that I confidently rely upon an ultimate verdict by the people in favor of the old Republican party, the party of Lin- coln and of Grant, the most progressive party in the history of this country or any other country, the party of achievement and not of broken promises, the party of liberal effective government in which far-sighted economy is the watchword, without that spasmodic penuriousness which ignores great national needs on the score of political emergency, the party that stands by the fundamental principles of free and well-ordered government, pre- serving the rights and equality of opportunity of the individual, and not interfering with the only steady practical progress that is possible. THE TWENTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL LINCOLN DINNER of the REPUBLICAN CLUB of the City of New York At the Waldorf-Astoria FEBRUARY 12, 1913 Addresses of EEV. DR. WILLIAM CARTER, D.D. HON. J. VAN VECHTEN OLCOTT ADDRESS OF HON. J. VAN VECHTEN OLCOTT President of the Club The chair appreciates perfectly that the most important duty he has to do is to present the speakers, but will venture to tres- pass for a minute or two to read a letter which has just been received from the President of the United States, who is, as most of you know, now in Philadelphia. The Club tried to get him to come over again to us, but Philadelphia wanted him, too, and he said in view of the fact he had been with us last year, and had recently been with most of us on the fourth of January, that his duties were in Philadelphia, but he has asked me to read to you this letter: *'I regret my inability to attend the Lincoln dinner of the Eepublican Club of the City of New York this year. A prior promise takes me to Philadelphia on this occasion. I am in full sympathy with your annual ob- servance of the birthday of the great President, the great American. Such observance should mark Febru- ary twelfth in every American community, to stimulate the courage and optimism that cannot fail to result from a calm consideration of the character of Lincoln and of the great crisis through which he carried his stricken country. When we analyze the awful problems of the time in which he lived and consider the successful solu- 120 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB tion which he brought about by his God-given patience, his calm confidence, his all-embracing charity, and his wonderful foresight, we ought to look with renewed courage toward the solution of the grave problems of the present day. "President Lincoln stood steadfastly by the Constitu- tion. He defended loyally and unswervingly the funda- mental law of the land. His steadfastness and loyalty brought triumph and national greatness out of the dark- est period in the history of the country. Misrepresenta- tions and perversions of the principles and of the words of Lincoln cannot be too positively resented even now, for the lessons handed down to us from Abraham Lin- coln properly applied still solve the problems of to-day and of to-morrow and make for a greater and freer and nobler America. Sincerely yours, "WILLIAM H. TAFT." When I read that letter I thought of it in connection with this menu of our dinner to-night, in the upper left-hand corner of which is depicted the log cabin in which Abraham Lincoln was born, and on the other side the proposed memorial to be erected in the city of Washington to him, I thought the simplicity and majesty were so well combined, that majestic simplicity which characterized Lincoln; that marvelous calm in times of stress; that wonderful majesty when all was disturbing, and so I was glad to have received such a letter as that from the President which said that not too often could men who believed in the Constitution, who loved their country, celebrate the birthday of Lincoln. The Republican Club welcomes its guests. The Republican Club of the City of New York is proud to remember that this club was the first to have these annual celebrations. Now, on ADDRESS OF HON. J. VAN VECHTEN OLCOTT 121 the twenty-seventh of them, it is gratifying that no other attrac- tion can keep the men who are most determined to conserve the government from attendance here — can prevent this dinner's oc- currence, or cause their attendance where possibly some people are trying to claim for themselves the distinct political descent from Lincoln. Mark my words, there is no one who does not depend upon the Constitution as the fundamental principle of our government, who can take upon himself such possession with- out a bar sinister upon his escutcheon. No one was more conservative than Lincoln. No one more absolutely depended upon the principles of the Constitution. No one was more fearful of vsdld fancies and vagaries. Probably no one vdll ever be as great as Lincoln, but we can say that the present President of the United States has tried with his utmost efforts to carry out the ideas that were believed in by the founders of the Constitution and by Abraham Lincoln, the anni* versary of whose birth we celebrate to-night. EEV. DR. WILLIAM CARTER Born in England, 1868. Distinguished Presbyterian Clergyman, located at Throop Avenue Presbyterian Churcli, Brooklyn. ADDRESS OF REV. DR. WILLIAM CARTER Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: I realize that I am in a somewhat peculiar position here to-night, as my name does not appear upon the program as one of the speakers of the evening. I have heard that high-balls taken before dinner give an edge to one's appetite, but I cannot speak concerning the same, as, being a preacher, I have not had experience along that line, but I can bear witness to this fact, that "low-balls" have a very distinct depression upon one's appetite, and, indeed, take it all away, for while I was sitting very calmly in the library of the Union league Club this morning, the President of this Club came to me, and as calmly suggested that I take the place of the Honorable Mr. Spooner, and make the speech on Lincoln here to-night. I had expected to come as Chaplain of the occasion and enjoy a free dinner; I was looking forward to it indeed with a great deal of pleasure, but when this was put before me all thoughts of enjoying the dinner were absolutely taken away, and I had to immediately get my mind in motion to see what I would say at the dinner. It makes me think of the story of the darkey. A darkey preacher who was preaching on the text: "Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money, 124 THE REPUBLICAN CLTJB come ye, buy and eat; yea, come buy wine and milk without money and without price." And after finishing with a very earnest peroration, he invited all the darkies to come up, ''for salvation am free!" he said; "Salvation am free. Salvation am free !" and then immediately he announced, *'De bredren will now pass t'roo de audience to take up de collection!" Someone in a back row, however, got up and said, ''Hold on there, Bruder Smith, I thought you said salvation am free ? Now you are sayin' that the bredren will pass troo de audience and take up a col- lection. How do you 'splain dat?" And the preacher said: "Jes* you hold on a minit, Bruder Jones, and I will 'splain dat to yo* satisfaction. Now, you' go down hyah to de ribber, and de water am free ain't it?" And the man said, "Sho, certainly!" And then the preacher said, "But yo' take dat same water and have it piped up to yo' house, and when it comes troo' yo' faucet, de water am still free, but yo' got to pay for the piping!" Well, now I find I've got to pay for the piping to-night. I trust, however, you won't have to "pay the piper" afterwards, and I trust the fragmentary remarks I have tried to gather to- gether — as a preacher must always be ready as a minute-man to speak — I trust these fragmentary remarks of mine may go into some homogeneity and order, that they may fix this great char- acter upon the minds and hearts of all of us as we are here gathered to-night to do honor to Lincoln's name! The currents of history, like the sources of our great rivers, rise ofttimes in obscure places, are small within themselves, and gain their depth and volume only from the gradual accretion of other streams as tiny and obscure, which, flowing in, either near the source or far away, make at last the mighty torrent that rushes onward to the sea. Thus in the year 1619, three currents of stupendous history ADDRESS OF REV. DR. WILLIAM CARTER, D.D. 125 took their rise in things small and insignificant in themselves, that were nevertheless destined to swell at last into a mighty torrent that would sweep over the whole of this great continent and over all the world. The first was the arrival at Jamestown, in the newly-established Colony of Virginia, of a Dutch man-of-war that, because of stress and need, was anxious to exchange or sell certain goods and chat- tels that they had with them, for supplies of food and drink, and, the transaction being closed by the Lieutenant-Governor of the Colony, was recorded by one of the local historians of that time in these significant words: "About the last of August, came in a Dutch Man of Warre that sold us twenty negars," or negroes. The second was the first advancement of the idea among the Puritan refugees at Leyden of setting sail for this new-found land and establishing here a place where they might worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences, which idea was put into practical effect when they landed on Plymouth Rock, the following year. The third was the birth in Norwich, Norfolk County, England, in this same year of 1619, of a boy named Samuel Lincoln, who was to become, in the Providence of God, the great progenitor of that mighty man whose birth we celebrate to-day. Mark, now, how the currents fiow into one another and gain breadth and volume in their onward flow. The Puritan emigra- tion and settlement of New England moved the lad, born the year it was first thought of, to leave his native land at the age of eighteen, and settle at Salem, Massachusetts, in 1637. The slaves of Virginia — purchased by the Jamestown people, the year Samuel Lincoln was born, and the voyage of the Mayflower planned — had been repudiated by New England and the new- 126 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB found traffic confined to the South, so that even in those early days, the lines were sharply drawn between the North and the South on social, economic and moral measures, as well as on geographical divisions. Notice also the birthright that the ages were preparing for the future emancipator and martyr to the truth. Samuel Lincoln in his English home imbibed the principles of the Puritans from all of his environment. He left his home because of them and settled in New England, where he was indoctrinated all the more with the faith and hope and sturdy steadfastness of the Pilgrim Fathers, who endured so much for consciences' sake in all those trying times. The lines as between slavery and freedom were also being accentuated before this young lad's eyes, and thus as far back as 1637, when Samuel Lincoln landed here — aye, as far back as 1619, when he was born and the first slaves sold in Jamestown, we can see how history, destiny and highest Provi- dence were molding and fashioning the birthright to be be- queathed to that noble son of Anak, who was to do such wondrous things for God and for his fellow men. I know that there has been some doubt about this early an- cestry, that Lincoln himself could not go back beyond his grand- father, who, he said, emigrated from Rockingham County, Vir- ginia, to Kentucky, in 1781. He does admit, however, that his grandfather's ancestors had moved to Virginia from Berks County, Pennsylvania, and that there was some claim of kin to the New England family of the same name, though he had not followed it to its source. The world was not as interested in Abraham Lincoln then as now. There was no biographer, no genealogist to trace back the family most carefully to its beginnings, but since those last ten years of his life, when his sun was in the meridian, when his ADDRESS OF REV. DR. WILLIAM CARTER, D.D. 127 name and fame were national and international, when every move of his was noted and every cranny of his life illuminated by the intensest public interest and pardonable curiosity — since also that last sad stroke that made him a martyr to his cause and made his immortality all the more glorious and assured — investi- gators by scores and hundreds have pored over family records, traced back family histories and brought the past so close into the present that we can inquire minutely, if we will, into almost the daily life and history of all that line from Samuel Lincoln in Norwich to Lincoln the Emancipator and martyr to a holy cause, whose blessed memory we honor here to-night. He had mixed up in him, then, the Puritan spirit, from his English and New England ancestors, the Quaker blood froni his Pennsylvania forebears, for history avers that they were Quakers, and the inborn chivalry and courtesy of the South from his Vir- ginia and Kentucky sires. Above all, he had a blood inheritance of natural antipathy and spiritual abhorrence against slavery as an institution from the time his Puritan and Quaker ancestors had revolted from it and his Virginia and Kentucky father and grandfather had seen it at its best and its worst. He was, in- deed, by birth and ancestry, by training and environment, all un- consciously prepared by all the ages for his allotted task. The rise of Lincoln's destiny, then, lay in those three significant events of 1619 — the sale of the first slaves at Jamestown, Vir- ginia, the decision of the Puritans to emigrate to America, and the birth of Samuel Lincoln in Norwich, England, destined later to migrate with the later Puritans and found his house and fam- ily here, but the flood-tide of that destiny was not reached until, as a young man of nineteen, Abraham Lincoln stood in the slave market of New Orleans and saw for the first time human beings sold like cattle to the highest bidder. Then it was that the 128 THE REPUBLICAN CLTJB streams of destiny reached their widest and deepest volume; then it was that the Puritan and Quaker spirit rose to the fore; then it was that all the chivalry and nobler manhood of Virginia and Kentucky cried aloud, as the rough backwoodsman from a Ken- tucky log-cabin, but from the world's great heart, his soul in- flamed, his moral nature all aroused, muttered through his clenched teeth, "If I ever get a chance at that thing, I'll hit it hard !" And he did ! So hard, indeed, that the shackles fell from over three million human bondmen, and broke forever the power that slavery had held in this country that we love and honor and revere ! For over half a century there has been a continuous discussion as to what really caused the war, and many have said repeatedly that slavery had nothing to do with it, that it was wholly a question of State rights. This is at once both an affirmation and a denial and is really but a subterfuge to hide the moral issue beneath the political. Let it be understood definitely by us at the outset, then — not by any dictum of mine, but by the incon- trovertible facts of history, that slavery was first, last, and all the time the issue of all issues that was at stake in that awful struggle. State Rights of course was in it, but, mark the sig- nificant fact, it was State Rights about slavery. In 1828, the question of State Rights had been joined when South Carolina questioned the rights of the Federal Government to impose domestic duties for foreign importations upon them that were unwelcome and oppressive, but there was no war! In 1830 Webster made his famous ''Reply to Hayne" on the same question, and Hayne, representing South Carolina, and Webster representing the Federal Government, both said things as fiery and denunciatory as were ever said in the days preceding '61, but there was no war! ADDRESS OF REV. DR. WILLIAM CARTER, D.D. 129 In 1832, the State of South Carolina passed its * 'Nullification Ordinance," declaring void certain acts of the United States Con- gress, imposing certain duties upon them as a State, and threat- ening to secede from the Union if the duties were insisted upon, but — though Andrew Jackson as President did insist, and threat- ened direst punishment if they still rebelled — there was no war! State Rights alone, then, were not sufficient and never would have been sufficient to plunge this nation into fratricidal strife. Mark now, however, the sequence of events when a moral is- sue is joined to this State principle, and how quickly were then released the dogs of war. In 1820, the Missouri Compromise had been passed, whereby slavery was "forever limited" — mark the words "forever limited" — to all that territory south of 36 degrees 30 feet, Missouri being in general fixed at its northern boundary in the West. In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska bill had repealed the Missouri Compromise, notwithstanding the solemn promise of 1820, and given permission to these territories to say whether they would admit slavery into their midst or not, and immediately the issue was joined, and war became inevitable! This set State Eights in its entirety before the nation. State Rights to go back on its word! State Rights to repeal a most solemn promise that had been effected as a compromise between discordant elements, thirty-four years before! State Rights to decide a moral issue, no matter how it would affect the States about it! This is not politics, now remember. This is morals, and the moral issue being thus joined, there was no doubt in men's minds as to what the natural outcome must of necessity be. In 1857, Abraham Lincoln, standing in the old Court House at Peoria, Illinois, said with a peculiar and a solemn emphasis: "Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature, opposition 130 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB to it, in the love of justice. These two principles are in eternal antagonism and, when brought into collision, shocks and throes and convulsions must follow ceaselessly. Repeal the Missouri Compromise ! Repeal all compromises ! Repeal the Declaration of Independence! Repeal all past history! You cannot repeal hu- man nature! It will still be held in the abundance of man's heart, that slavery is wrong, and out of the abundance of his heart he will continue to speak!" Aye, they would "still continue to speak," not only because their hearts were full then, but because they had always been full against this horrid system. Of the five framers of the Dec- laration of Independence in 1776, there was only one who had not definitely declared against slavery, and that was Chancellor Livingstone, and of his attitude later, there was little doubts Thomas Jefferson, the writer of that immortal document, declared in solemn words that when contemplating slavery, "he trembled for his country when he remembered that God was just!' John Adams declared, time after time, his abhorrence of the whole system, and said: "Every measure of prudence ought to be as- sumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United States." Roger Sherman, the fourth of the framers, three years before the adoption of the Constitution, or in 1784, voted for the first prohibitory bill against slavery ever introduced into the United States Congress, or the Congress of the Confederation, as it was then called, while Benjamin Franklin, the last but by no means the least of the signers of that famous document, was President of the first Abolition Society ever founded in America. In 1787, when the Constitution was finally adopted, of the thirty-nine framers of that great instrument, twenty-one of the thirty-nine definitely put themselves on record by their votes in Congress from time to time as being either opposed to slavery ADDRESS OF REV. DR. WILLIAM CARTER, D.D. 131 without qualification, or, granting the permission of it under stress, declared that it should be entirely in the hands of the Federal Government rather than that of the States or Territories — taking clear and definite issue with the question of State Rights, as it was then first advanced, while only two of all the thirty-nine ever voted in favor of State Rights or slavery in any way. The sixteen who did not go on record by their votes did not evade the subject, but for various reasons were either not pres- ent or not recorded in the voting, for among these sixteen were such noted Abolitionists or anti-slavery men as Benjamin Frank- lin, Gouverneur Morris and Alexander Hamilton, while not one of the sixteen was ever known to be in favor of slavery, unless we perhaps except John Rutledge of South Carolina. At the convention in Philadelphia, indeed, where the Constitution was finally adopted, had it not been for South Carolina and Georgia the question of slavery would have been settled for all time, by a definite article against it in that instrument. South Carolina and Georgia, however, insisted upon its recognition, as the final condition of their joining the Union, but the words ''slave" and "slavery" were definitely excluded from the Constitution, ''be- cause," as Madison significantly puts it, "they did not choose to admit the right of property in man!" Washington was opposed to it, and provided for the emancipa- tion of his own slaves in his will, and to Jefferson he said, time after time, it was "among his first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery in this country might be abolished by law!" Denmark had abolished it in 1792, England in 1811, as far as Africa was concerned; France in 1815, owing to the efforts of that noblest type of Africa's blood, Toussaint L'Ouverture of San Domingo fame, and England finally abolished it for all her col- 182 THE REPXTBLICAN CLUB onies in 1833 through the lifetime zeal of William Wilber force, one of nature's gpreatest noblemen. Russia, even — despotic Eussia — ^had freed her serfs in this same fateful year of 1861. Why not liberty-loving, free America? If these nations were thus doing it, why not we ? We were the last of all the great powers of the world to keep this canker-worm within the body politic and let it eat away our manhood and our pride. Why not we also cut away the ulcerous, leprous sore and rid ourselves of this foul thing that was rotting in our system and dragging us down to judgment and to death? Ay, why not we? That was the query through all those weary years — Why not we? William Lloyd Garrison asked it in the *^Liberator'* from 1831 until the fact was finally accomplished and they called him an erratic and a crank. Elijah P. Love joy asked it in Alton, Illinois, in 1837, and a pro-slavery mob brutally killed him for his courage and persistence. Wendell Phillips asked it in Faneuil Hall in that same year, and they tried to jeer and hoot him down. Harriet Beecher Stowe asked it in 1852 in her "Uncle Tom's Cabin,'' and she was called a stirrer up of sedition and a revolutionist of the most obnoxious type. Charles Sumner asked it in 1856 even in the Senate, and Preston Brooks of the "chivalrous South" — that for the moment, however, forgot her chivalry — beat him like a bully in the very Senate chamber and left him there half dead. Erratic, mis- guided, impulsive old John Brown asked it at Ossawattomie in that year also, and stopped the slave-holding raiders of Missouri from bringing their human chattels into the place of his abode. He asked it again at Harper's Ferry in 1859, in a more insistent, arbitrary, and let us all admit, lawless way, and they hanged Mm for his insolence and insistence. Yes, law-breaker, zealot, blind fool, if you will, but rugged old ADDRESS OF REV. DR. WILLIAM CARTER, D.D. 133 John Brown was following a true principle, though in a wrong and lawless way. He believed with the Declaration of Inde- pendence that all men were created "equal," that among the in- alienable rights of man were ''life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." He knew that the slave had neither liberty, equality nor happiness. He longed to give them to him, by lawful means if possible, but, since he had waited so long and they would not use the lawful means, he then resolved to use the unlawful, and, failing there, they hanged the hot-headed, misguided, flaming- souled patriot, but the nation that gathered 'round his grave, though it condemned not Virginia for doing it, nevertheless, put a new song in its psalmody as from East to West and North to Southern Mason and Dixon's line, the schoolboys and the men, the farmers and the factory hands, the merchants and mechanics — the bone and sinew of this great republic began singing in a mighty diapason that reached all 'round the world: "John Brown's body lies a moldering in the grave, But his soul goes marching on!" Yes, Lincoln, mighty prophet of those troublous times said: "It will still be held in the abundance of man's heart that slavery is wrong, and out of the abundance of his heart he will still con- tinue to speak." Speech, however, is not sufficient for all things, and it was not sufficient for such things as these: "We live in deeds, not years, in thoughts, not breaths. In feelings, not in figures on a dial! We should count time by heart throbs. He most lives Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best!" Actions were what were necessary now. In 1858, at Spring- field, Illinois, while accepting the nomination of his party for 134 THE EEPUBLICAN CLUB Senator and preparing to go forth to battle against Douglas to win the majority in the State Legislature, Lincoln fearlessly said; "A house divided against itself cannot stand! I believe this gov- ernment cannot permanently endure, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved, I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other!" This was meeting the issue squarely and without equivocation. Its meaning could not be misunderstood. It was virtually a chal- lenge to those who felt with him to come out and declare them- selves and a gage of battle to his enemies to be picked up if they listed. It lost him the Senatorship, but it gained him the Presi- dency two years later. It was a handle on which Douglas laid hold to warn his constituents in Illinois against such "revolu- tionary ideas," as he called them, but it stirred the sober, second thought among the people of this great land and the general opinion in that second thought was that "Old Abe was right!" The East became curious to see and hear this marvelous back- woodsman. New York invited him to come and deliver an ad- dress, and in that speech in Cooper Union, February 27, 1860, — the most logical, powerful and convincing speech that I have ever read— Abraham Lincoln virtually captured the Presidency, or rather, insured what had already been captured by his "House- divided-against-itself" speech in 1858. New York was satisfied with him. Then Connecticut wanted to hear him, and so New Haven's classic crowd sat at the feet of this gaunt, ungainly philosopher of the West, and applauded all his reasoning. Then Meriden, Norwich, and Bridgeport desired him, and in all these places Connecticut was ready not only to applaud to the echo, but to subscribe her name also to the new philosophy of this strange, plain, earnest man whose lot it was ADDRESS OF REV. DR. WILLIAM CARTER, D.D. 135 to shoulder the burden of a nation and bear unflinchingly within himself its hardships and its dangers for the public weal. So was it in Rhode Island, so was it everywhere upon this Eastern trip, and when in May of that same year the new-formed party met, which had for its object the settling of this great problem and national disgrace, Abraham Lincoln was overwhelm- ingly the choice for Presidential leader, and New York, in the person of William M. Evarts, was the one that finally moved that that choice be made unanimous, which was carried amid great enthusiasm. The challenge then had been accepted by his friends. It re- mained now to be seen whether the gage would be taken up by his enemies and the enemies of the Union. The election came November sixth. The results were most definite and conclusive. Lincoln received not only the electoral vote, which was more than twice that of Breckenridge, his near- est competitor, with Douglas, his old-time rival, last of all, but he received also the popular vote which placed him far above them all and left no doubt in the minds of the people both North and South as to what the desire of the nation really was. That settled it. The die was cast. The Rubicon was crossed. The South had read the handwriting on the wall, and imme- diately took up the gage of battle. As soon as the result of the election was announced. South Carolina immediately withdrew from the Union, and her Senators presented their resignations. When Congress assembled, December third. South Carolina did not respond to the roll-call. Her place was empty, as she sat at home, like Achilles sulking in his tent. Then Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, and Texas rapidly followed. They seized all forts and arsenals within their midst, and Fort Sumter resisting, it was besieged as early as January, 1861, and defended 136 THE REPUBLICAN CLTJB until April 13th, most nobly by its commander, Major Anderson. They were still waiting for the master mind. The mine had been prepared, the powder laid, the percussion cap set, but the signal to fire the mine was not given until after March 4th, when Lincoln was inducted into office and gave his first inaugural. It was for this they waited. What would this man say? How would he look upon their acts thus far? What decision would he make as to the future? These were their questions and they were all answered as he stood before that assembled multitude and said, that day, decisively: "No State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union * * * acts of vio- lence within any State, or States, against the authority of the United States, are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances. * * * Xo the extent of my ability, I shall take care, as the Constitution expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States." There was no mistaking this language, and yet it was not said as a dictator or tyrant, but as a man who loved his country as a whole better than any one part of it — as a loyal, patriotic man to others he wished to remain loyal and patriotic. *'We are not enemies, but friends," he said, in closing; "we must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every lov- ing heart and hearth-stone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." Yes, Lincoln, prophet, seer and optimist, thy words shall, in- deed, at last prove true — but first must come Sumter and Gettys- burg, Lookout Mountain, Vicksburg and New Orleans, the Battle of the Wilderness, the fall of Richmond, and the last great chap- ADDRESS OF REV. DR. WILLIAM CARTER, D.D. 137 ter at Appomattox Court House, after four weary, wearing, bloody years have passed away! They listened not to his tender appeal to their better natm-es. Their worst was rampant then. Sumter was vindictively beset again. She fell and not till then did this gaunt, lonely, loving- hearted man take drastic action. In his inaugural he had said: "There needs to be no bloodshed or violence; and there shall be none unless it is forced upon the national authority." The mat- ter had now been forced upon him, however, and most quickly did he act. Sumter fell April 13th. On April 16th, Lincoln sent out his call for seventy-five thousand men, and from Mexico to Cali- fornia, from San Diego to Sandy Hook, the loyal, patriotic souls responded and furnished him far more than he had asked. Bull Eun with its defeat and panic came in July, and would have daunted any less heroic soul than his. He never jBUnched! He knew now that heroic measures were necessary. He sent out a call, not for seventy-five thousand men for three months, as the first had been, but one for a hundred thousand men for three years, and then there came a cry from the hills and valleys, the mountains and the plains, all over this broad land: **We are coming, Father Abraham, A hundred thousand strong!'* Why the readiness? Why the willingness? Why the enthus- iasm of those times? Because they realized with Lincoln that slavery was wrong, ''that man, whatever his color, creed, or pre- vious condition of servitude, was entitled to life and liberty as well as the pursuit and blessings of happiness," that "God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth!" 138 THE REPUBLICAN CLTJB ' "For mankind is one in spirit and an instinct bears along 'Round the earth's electric circle the swift flash of right or wrong, Whether conscious or unconscious, yet humanity's vast frame Through its ocean sundered fibres feels the flush of joy or shame; In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim!" It was the same spirit then that moved Lincoln that now was moving them. He had, indeed, infused his spirit into the nation. They were all beginning to realize, as never before, the brother- liood of man, the solidarity of the race, the rights of all to lib- erty and equality before the law. They knew that to enforce this principle, after two hundred and forty years of opposition to it in the land they loved, would take zeal and faith and patience as well as courage and determination. Yet they flinched not, as he flinched not, but rallied with enthusiasm for a three- years' service, not only a hundred thousand strong, but what proved afterwards a vast host of almost a million men, determined to do and dare and die for the great principle of human freedom! Yes, it took faith and courage on their part, but think of the faith and courage it took on the part of this man on whom the final responsibility rested! He could never have done it in his own strength. He was not, indeed, relying on it, but only on the strength of God! General Sickles- tells us that after he was wounded at Gettys- burg he was taken to Washington, where Lincoln immediately visited him in the hospital, and while there, Sickles asked him what he thought of the victory at Gettysburg, and what he had been doing or preparing to do during that awful battle, and ADDRESS OF REV. DR. WILLIAM CARTER, D.D. 139 Lincoln replied: *'Well, Sickles, if you want to know what I was doing about that time, I will tell you. There is one room in the White House where there is very little furniture, and I went in there and shut the door and got down on my knees, and said to the Lord: 'You know. Lord, I have done all I can. This is your struggle. Lord. I've done all I can!' And then I cried out with all my heart: *0h, God, give us the victory!' Then suddenly it occurred to me to say: 'Oh, that I might have some token by which I could be assured of a victory' Then such a sweet spirit came over me, such an indescribable spirit, that I was assured of a victory before I even heard the news!" And yet this man is said to have been irreligious, is said to have been anything but a Christian! Well, all I have to say is to reply as he replied when they were falsely accusing Grant of drinking whiskey, "I wish we had more of the same brand!" Ah, that there were more Christians like him! More with the same faith and trust in God in time of trial and of danger! He ''cried unto God in the battle and He was entreated of him because he put his trust in Him." It was God who gave him the victory, not only at Gettysburg, but at Vicksburg, Chatta- nooga, Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, at Fort Donel- son, Fair Oaks and Richmond, until on April 9, 1865, at Appo- mattox Court House, the God of Battles gave him the final vic- tory as Lee surrendered and peace cemented still more closely the bonds of an indissoluble and glorious Union. Many there were assisting him; nor would I withhold in any wise the meed of praise their great deeds merit, but, remember, it was God and Lincoln who gained the final victory, through their arms. There was Grant, that man of noble name and immortal mem- ory! Sherman, that intrepid, fearless soldier and leader of men! 140 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB Sheridan, that dashing, brave and loyal leader who could infuse whole regiments with his marvelous spirit, and many others of like power and prominence. Let us not forget, however, the man in the ranks, the man that carried the gun, the men that came from the farm and forge and factory, from the shop and store and office, the men of "the rank and file,'* for these were the men upon whom God and Lincoln depended — these were the men who saved the nation with their blood. "Soldiers pass on from this rage for renown. This ant hill commotion and strife. Pass by where the bronzes and marble look down With their fast frozen gestures of life; On, out to the nameless, who lie 'mid the gloom Of the echoing cypress and pine, Your man is the man of the sword and the plume, But the man of the musket is mine! "I knew him, by all that is noble I knew, This commonplace hero I name; I've marched with him, camped with him, fought with him, too, In the swirl of the fierce battle flame; Laughed with him, cried with him, taken a part Of his canteen and blanket and known That each heart throb of this chivalrous prairie boy's heart Was an answering stroke of my own! "I knew him. All through him the good and the bad Ran together and equally free. And I judge, as I trust Christ will judge the brave lad, For death made him noble to me. ADDRESS OF REV. DR. WILLIAM CARTER, D.D. 141 In the cyclone of war, in the battle's eclipse, Life shook out its lingering sands, And he died with the names that he loved on his lips, His musket still grasped in his hands. Up close to the flag my hero went down, In the salient front of the line. You may talk as you will of the men of renown, But the man of the musket is mine!'* Yes, these were the men that Lincoln so ably used, who re- sponded so nobly to his call. He had not temporized, remember. He had not won the victory through yielding in any jot his principles. He had not sought in any way to hide those prin- ciples. He stood for liberty and human equality. He in- sisted that now slavery was a greater question than State Eights, as the former had been the bone of contention that had brought the latter to the front. He stood unswervingly for its abolition, and yet in it he wished to be fair and just to all. In March, 1862, he sent a special message to Congress, recom- mending the passage of a resolution offering pecuniary aid to those States that would adopt even a gradual abolition of slavery, but the Act, though passed, was utterly ignored by the South. In April of the same year, he signed a bill emancipating all the slaves of the District of Columbia, but with financial compensa- tion to the owners. On July 12th of this year, also, he called the representatives of the border slave States to the executive mansion and again proposed financial compensation if they would consent to emancipate their slaves themselves, but all to no avail. Then, and not till then, did he take the final step — after he found they would not listen to his pleas, and refused his offers of compensation, if they would liberate of themselves their slaves — then came the climax when on January 1, 1863, he issued his 142 THE AEPUBLICAN CLUB immortal Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that "all per- sons held as slaves within said designated States are and hence- forward shall be free!" No wonder that the world applauded as it did. No wonder that he was heralded as the great emancipator! All the world loves liberty! All the world is ever ready to applaud any man who tries to give it to the oppressed. "When a deed is done for freedom, through the broad earth's aching breast. Runs a thrill of joy prophetic traveling on from East to West, And the slave, where e'er he cowers, feels the soul with- in him climb To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sub- lime Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem of time!" Ay, it was the energy not of one century alone, but of two centuries and more! It was all the energy that had been stored up since that first slave sale in Jamestown in 1619, when liberty- loving Americans felt they should be forever free. It was for this they fought. On this issue the battle had been joined and the strife continued throughout four bloody years, and at Appo- mattox the South yielded under force of arms what had been offered them in peace and brotherly forbearance, and slavery was forever banished from our midst! One man labors, however, and another enters into the fruits of his labor. Even in the very hour of triumph, the man who had brought it all about was stricken down by an assassin's bul- let, and on April 15th, just six days after Lee's surrender, the spirit of this heroic soul went out in silence and in darkness up to God. ADDRESS OF REV. DR. WILLIAM CARTER, D.D. 143 I say in silence, sir, because to him was permitted no last fare- well to sorrowing loved ones, no parting benediction on the cause he loved so well. I say in darkness, because the night had come for us through which we could not even see the stars because of the bitter tears that blurred our vision. It was hard and bitter that the end should come thus and yet it was the crowning glory of a glorious life. A martyr's death made his immortality more definite, more glorious and assured. It invested his memory with a tenderness, a sacredness that otherwise might be wanting with the many. It made his enemies, even, take the second thought, and in that second thought, there was given to them a glance of that noble, self-sacrificing and humane spirit that drew even them at last in friendship unto him and his ideals. It invested liberty with a new meaning, freedom with a deeper significance, and the flag with a greater sacred- ness, not only for ourselves, but for all the world. The world had sneered somewhat at our pretensions to military greatness, had pointed with such pride to their own legions, their own achievements and their own battle-scarred flags that ours was largely forgotten, but after Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Kichmond and Appomattox, we made them think of it and of all it meant, not only to this country, but to all the world! ''Boast of your war-trained captains, Kaiser, Emperor, Czar, Prate of your serried warrior host and babble of might afar; Point to your brilliant banners that follow the car of Mars, But, pray that they never meet in strife the flag of the Stripes and Stars! 144 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB *Tlag of the freezing army that famished in Valley Forge, Flag that a viking flung aloft and hnmbled the Cross of George; Flag that was torn by statesmen, now mended nor shows the scars, Flag of the nation, hail, all hail, the flag of the Stripes and Stars!" This was the work which Lincoln did. He loved the flag, he made others either love or respect it, and though he died to do it, the sacrifice was well worth while and gave him a place in the world's great heart that time cannot move or misplace. Secretary Stanton, sitting at his bedside as he breathed his last, said with a catch in his voice, but with solemn and prophetic utterance: "Now he belongs to the ages!" Yes, "Now he belongs to the ages!" The South joins in his praise as well as the North. A re-united and harmonious country loves to-day to do him honor! "Now he belongs to the ages!" America cannot claim him as theirs alone. He fought for a universal principle that makes the whole world kin, and in every land throughout the world his name is honored and revered! Now he belongs to the ages! Yes, not only in this land for which he died, have marbles and bronzes been erected in his memory that to-day will be crowned with flowers, but far across the sea these mute memorials to his name also stand to testify to the love and gratitude of the world for this noble-hearted man. Yes, "Now he belongs to the ages !" Throughout all the world to-day, men are remembering him, not because of these visible tokens only, but because of the monuments of love and gratitude ADDRESS OF REV. DR. WILLIAM CARTER, D.D. 145 more enduring far than those of bronze or marble, which the thousands and millions of this world's liberty-loving souls have erected to his memory within their minds and hearts! Placing his name, indeed, where Milton once placed another's, we may truly say: "What needs my Lincoln for his honored bones The labor of an age in piled stones, Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid Under a starry pointed pyramid? Dear Son of Memory, great heir of fame, Thou needs not such weak witness of thy name! Thou in our wonder and astonishment Hath built thyself a livelong monument, And so sepulchred, in such pomp doth lie That Kings for such a tomb Could wish to die!" THE TWENTY-EIGHTH ANNUAL LINCOLN DINNER of the REPUBLICAN CLUB of the City of New York At the Waldorf-Astoria FEBRUARY 12, 1914 Addresses of HON. NATHAN GOFF HON. EDWARD C. STOKES NATHAN OOFF Senator from Virginia; Secretary of the Navy, 1881; U. S. Circuit Judge (Clarksburg, Virginia). ADDRESS OF HON. NATHAN GOFF Mr. Toastmaster, ladies and gentlemen: It is sometimes em- barrassing to speak after such an introduction as that. It makes one think that likely too much may be expected of him, and if that be true to-night, what a fearful ordeal I have to go through, for after the wonderful, brilliant, eloquent and historical review of the history of this land and Abraham Lincoln, what is there left for mortal to-night to say? A gentleman talking with me this evening as I came into the hall stated, "Senator, what are you to talk of to-night? Will you give me a copy of your ad- dress, that I may hand it to the press?" and I said, "I beg your pardon, but I cannot. I never wrote a speech in my life." Then he said, "Will you tell me what you are going to talk of?" I said, "I will tell you what a friend said to me." I wonder if that friend did not know what the Governor from the shores of Jersey was going to say. I wonder if he did not know there was nothing left to say. There is a grand old Biblical story of the gleaners, those that passed through the harvest field, gathered the few stray grains of hay, or wheat, or rye that might be left, and it is said there that a few in sympathy dropped a few sheathes for the gleaners. Can anybody tell where the few were dropped to-night? Now, I am just going to talk to you a few moments this evening, just around the outskirts, as it were, and 150 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB I beg the pardon of my brother, the Senator from Idaho, when, if I take much more of the field, I pray that God may have mercy on his oratorical soul. Now, your distinguished and elo- quent Toastmaster has said that I knew Abraham Lincoln, and probably while we are discussing that wonderful character, it would be just as well that I commenced in saying what he meant by that allusion. It so happened that the fates decreed that I should be born south of Mason and Dixon's line in Virginia, and paradoxial as it may appear, the loyalty to the flag that was always mine made me a traitor to Virgina. In my boyhood days I loved the banner of my fathers. My college friends, the boys of my youth, went the other way. I loved the old flag. I loved the Union of the States. I enlisted under the banner of the blue and through the wars of the republic, from the first battle fought, when blood was shed in the State of Virginia, down to the sur- render of Appomattox, as God gave me to see my duty as a soldier under that flag. In the vicissitudes of war there, as it came to many, I fell into the hands of the enemy. I yielded, as I was compelled to do with the overwhelmingness of that enemy, and I awoke, finding myself in the prison of Libby. Those who fought and who honestly likely believed that I was a traitor to my State and that my father was, also thought, having me in their power, they would show what a traitor to Virginia meant. He was to be tried for treason, but it so happened that at that time that there came in the Federal power a Confederate major, I holding the rank of a major in the Union Army. That man had been tried as a spy before I was captured. I knew the in- cidents attending his trial, because he was tried and convicted before I was so captured. I know that under the laws of war he was justly convicted. I knew from my readings as a school- boy of the agony it was with which he, who was first in war, ADDRESS OF HON. NATHAN GOFF 151 first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen, signed the death warrant of Andre. It was his imperative duty so to do. The powers that reigned in the Confederacy selected your speaker as a hostage for that man, and said, *'As you do unto Almsley, so we will do unto Goff," and sent that word to the administra- tion at Washington. I expected but little relief. Weary weeks and months went by with that shadow over me. Weary weeks and months was I told it is but a short time till the hangman's noose shall be mine, and one morning I was enlivened by a fiag of truce note brought to me generously by my keepers. I read it eagerly. It said, *'Young man, be cheerful; you are not forgot- ten. The men in charge at Washington have not forgotten their soldiers." The name signed to that was the greatest name in the history of humanity or civilization. The name of one who, in enduring bronze and chiseled marble, will live through all time and into eternity. A man among men, a statesman among states- men, a martyr among martyrs, a President among Presidents, God's grandest gift of man to man, Abraham Lincoln. Surely, I took heart; surely, I was encouraged. I wrote him a note in reply, doubting very much that it would ever reach its destination, but it did, and the archives of the War Department show it, and in reply to that note — and pardon me if I do not say what I VTrote — but in reply to that note he wrote again and he said, *'Boys like you are worth more in the Federal Army than all of the Confederate majors we have got, and you are coming home." I use those words, ''you are coming home," because a few short weeks afterwards he said that to me again. I went home. I left the miserable cells of Libby. I left the dark walls of the pentitentiary at Salisbury. I went down the broad bosom of the James on a Confederate truce boat, and as I rounded the bend in that beautiful river, and God's sunshine was just break- 152 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB ing over the level valley, I saw the magnificent steamer, the City of New York, coming up, and the beautiful flag of the coun- try floating. It was the loveliest sight that God Almighty ever let human eyes gaze upon. I landed at Annapolis, and I was a little startled to receive a notice there, handed me by Major Mulford, the Union Commissioner of Exchange, and it read, "You are directed to report immediately to the Secretary of War at Washington." I was quite a boy. I was a little scared. I did not know exactly what it meant, but as a matter of course, being a soldier, I obeyed the order, and I presented myself the next day to the Secretary of War, a great secretary, a great man, Edwin M. Stanton. He said, "Young man, the President directed me to send that order. I will give you a letter of introduction to him," and he wrote it on those papers that so many of us are familiar with, with "War Department" at the head : "The bearer of this is the Major Goff you directed to be exchanged. E. M. Stanton." These little notes are at my museum to-day. I hardly know what else to call it — very valuable to me, too; at least, dear mementoes of those early days of my life. I took it to the White House. I entered that old cabinet chamber. It was crowded to excess, and I waited my turn. In those days so great was the throng that they formed in line to pass the Chief Executive. I saw some of the incidents that our friend alluded to to-night. I saw the praying wife, the supplicating mother, the begging father, the aged, the young, the boy, the girl, all passing in review. I looked on the face of that wonderful man then for the first time. He had a kind word for all. It was a wonderful, indescribable face, so full of human charity, of pity, of desiring to aid all. I saw him take by the hand one by one, and I could tell when he said an encouraging word. His own face lighted and the smile on the countenance of those that he ADDRESS OF HON. NATHAN GOFF 153 Spoke to indicated it. I saw when he deemed it his duty to hesitate for a moment. I felt for those who felt discouraged, for I knew not what might be coming for myself, but finally I reached him. The great throng passed through, and as I ap- proached him, looking at me, studying me, reading from my uni- form that I was a Major in the Federal Army, reading from my apeparance that I was not very well — for six months in a Con- federate prison does not contribute to one's personal appearance — and he said, ''Major, you are not very well, are you? Can I do anything for you?'* and I handed him the card, and he took it, looked at it, dropped it. "Not very well; should think not. Come with me," and almost with his great arms around me he took me into the library. He said, "Stay here; rest here until I am through with this audience; it will not be long." That was my first introduction to this man. I waited for him, and he came in a short time. He said, "I have some questions to ask you. I do not ask you to answer them this evening. Take them with you, write your answers, and give them to me to-morrow. Do not come when the rush and the crush is here, and do not come as you came to-day. This card in writing will bring you into the library, and I will see you there." I took those ques- tions. They related to the suffering soldiers in Confederate prisons. At that time the exchange had been suspended and men had filled the prisons of the South, both at Libby, Belle Isle and Andersonville, and they were dying by the score, and the great heart of this man went out to them. I found that lie had propounded the same questions to a number of others who came back from Southern prisons, and by their answers was this great President and Commander-in-Chief to determine the course that he would take, as to whether or not those soldiers were to be brought home. As God gave me to see my duty, I answered 154 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB those questions, and the next day, according to his directions, I was there and presented them, and there with him was his great Secretary of War. Now, then, he said, "Young man, read the answer to your first question," and I did. "Now, the second," and I did; and he turned to the Secretary and said, "I told you so, Mr. Secretary. Now, the third"; I did. "That is in accord- ance with their answers, Mr. Secretary. Now, another" ; and I did. I should, in order that you may understand a remark that he made, have stated a moment ago that he said to me, "What did you do those weary, dreary months in prison?" I said, "I had chosen the profession of the law before I entered the army. I brought certain volumes and read them. I brought Blackstone and Chitty and Parsons, and I can repeat almost every word they have. I had nothing else to do." Well, he went on then with his ques- tions and his conversation to the Secretary. He said, "Mr. Stan- ton, this is terrible." Mr. Stanton said, "Yes." "Mr. Stanton, don't you think the boys had better come home?" "Mr. Presi- dent," his reply was, "I have discussed that matter with you in substance." "Mr. Secretary, I think the boys will come home." "Mr. President, it is not war"; and he made a remark then as to the truth of which I could but testify, and as to which I was a walking, talking, living example. "Mr. President, do you realize that you are sending twenty-five or thirty thousand strong men into the army of the Confederacy, and receiving back twenty-five or thirty thousand walking skeletons?" But Abra- ham Lincoln, great as he has been portrayed; Abraham Lincoln, who has been pictured so friendly here to-night; Abraham Lin- coln, from whom none of us can take his glory or none of us add to his fame, said, "Mr. Stanton, the boys are coming home," and then in remembrance of what we had talked of the day before, when I was resting on the lounge and he was talking with me, ADDRESS OF HON. NATHAN GOFF 155 he said, "Young man, you have won your first case.'* Now, that was the Abraham Lincoln that I knew, and that I have endeav- ored to portray to you to-night, keeping in mind my last remark ; what more can I say of him? Leaving that subject then, what else is there for me to talk about? My friend, Borah, is going to talk of the Republican Party. That is a subject that anyone, it seems to me, especially in the presence of such an audience as this, can talk about, but I am not a preacher, you see. Then, as my friend suggested to me, there is not anything left for me to talk about, unless it is the tariff. Well, anyhow, I am just go- ing to detain you a few minutes to say that I am a protective tariff man, and I have been so from my boyhood. Born in that Southern land that I have told you about, looking at its won- derful topography, impressed with its magnificent wealth, a stu- dent in its colleges, driving over the magnificent mountainway from tidewater Virginia to Transylvania and the Ohio Valley, I could but be impressed with that magnificent gift that God Al- mighty had given to His children of man, and yet all was as quiet as the grave. The magnificent, pristine forest stood un- touched; the wonderful development of coal had never been mined. Boy as I was, I could but wonder "why it is," and the question that I solved was the question that you elucidated to- night, the question of slavery. I lived in a land where slavery prevailed and all the men around me were owners of slaves. Now, until the discovery of the cotton gin and the information that it gave to the South, that slavery and cotton production would make them immensely wealthy, there had been no pro- tective tariff. I mean a high protective tariff, a protective tariff that in fact protects. Why was this situation existing in Vir- ginia and through the South ? Any student of the history of this country knows this fact: That early in the nation, when our 156 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB fathers founded the republic, it was as Madison, the expounder of the Constitution, said upon this question of protection, "We are all Bepublicans, and we are all Federalists," and George Washington, when he signed the first protective tariff, realized that fact, and under it the Colonies or the States then prospered as no country had ever before prospered. Our English rulers looked with envy upon the Colonies when they attempted to be independent, so far as manufactures were concerned. The English Parliament passed an Act that it shall be unlawful for the Colo- nies to manufacture woolen goods. It shall be unlawful for the Colonies to establish mills and factories, and then, finally, when the Colonies did establish the mills, the Parliament passed an Act. Now, think of it, men of New York! They passed an Act that the establishment of mills and factories in the Colonies are hereby prohibited and the Colonial Governors are hereby re- quired to do what ? To abate them within sixty days as nuisances. No wonder then we were dependent upon the English or foreign countries for our manufactured articles. Now, presto, change. Under this Act that I have just alluded to, all over the land our mills and our factories sprang up. Employment was given to labor. We made our own manufactured goods. We ceased to import. That continued down to the time in substance — there were some little restrictions when we had what we might call the Walker Tariff Act. The country had been prospering before. All over the land mills closed down. Over in Pennsylvania, where I spent some of my boyhood days with some college friends, the furnaces died out. There was no longer smoke from the stacks. My Democratic friends called the era in our history under the Walker Act a golden era. They had plenty of money, they said. Plenty of money! Where was it? The money was in the Federal treasury, but it was not in the pockets of the people. ADDRESS OF HON. NATHAN GOFF 157 There were disasters throughout the land, from one end to the other. The only citations that I want to make to you to-night are a few historical references, and I have deemed it wise to confine them as far as practicable to Democratic efforts. If I quote a Republican effort, they say, "Why, oh, yes, as a matter of course; that is all right; we expected you to do that." Now, I want to call your attention to the reference to the condition of the country on this question made by President Jackson. Now, old Hickory — old Andy Jackson — was a pretty good President, after all. He said — now I am quoting from his message of De- cember 4th, 1832, and that I beg you to remember was a pro- tective tariff era. These are his words : "Our country presents on every side marks of prosperity and happiness unequalled perhaps in any other portion of the world." A Democratic President. Now came the tariff for revenue of 1832 to 1842. Under it, all of you who are familiar with the history of our country, recall the conditions that I have just pictured. Now I read from the message of President Polk of December 8th, 1846: "Labor in all its branches is receiving an ample reward, while education, sci- ence and wages are rapidly enlarging the means of social happi- ness. The progress of our country in her career of greatness, not only in the vast expansion of our limits and in the rapid in- crease of our population, but in its resources and in its wealth and in the happy condition of our people, is without an example in the history of nations." Then came the revenue tariff of 1846. Now I invite your attention particularly to what is known as the Walker Act. Under it, as I have stated, our factories were closed. At that time the water went by our mills, but the wheels did not turn. President Filmore, in his message of December 2nd 1851, used these words: "The value of our exports of breadstuffs and provisions, which it was supposed the incentive of a low tariff 158 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB and large importations from abroad would have greatly aug- mented, has fallen from $68,000,000 in 1847 to $26,000,000 in 1850. The policy which dictated a low rate of duties on foreign merchandise, it was thought by those who established it, would tend to benefit the farming population of this country by increas- ing the demand and raising the price of agricultural products in foreign markets. The foregoing facts, however, seem to show incontestably that no such result has followed." Now, one more quotation and I leave the subject, and that was from the last Democratic President in his message to Congress, December 8th, 1857: "The earth has yielded her fruits abundantly, has bounti- fully rewarded the toil of the husbandmen. Our great staples have commanded high prices until within a brief period our manufacturing, mineral and mechanical occupations have largely partaken generally of the prosperity. We have produced all the elements of material wealth in rich abundance, and yet, notwith- standing all these advantages, our country in its monetary inter- ests is at the present moment in a deplorable condition; in the midst of unsurpassed plenty in all the productions and in the elements of national wealth, we find our manufactures suspended, our public enterprises abandoned and thousands of useful laborers thrown out of employment and reduced to want." That condi- tion is existing over in Washington to-day. We have to-day an administration — let me give you the exact figures, because it is monstrous. I want to show it to you. It will take but a moment of your time. We have to-day a minority administration, the President receiving 6,293,120 votes. William H. Taft received 3,485,082 votes. Theodore Roosevelt received 4,119,582 votes. Eugene V. Debs received 901,839 votes. Eugene W. Chaflin re- ceied 206,487 votes. Now, here is the question. The aggregate vote against President Wilson was 8,741,680, while President ADDRESS OF HON. NATHAN GOFF 159 Wilson's vote was 6,293,000. Now, there are the figures showing that President Wilson is a minority President on the votes of the people by 2,244,856 votes. I say that is monstrous, and yet I say it is a tribute to our Eepublican form of government be- cause from one end of the land to the other there has been ac- quiescence in that decision, and he was constitutionally elected. I allude to it to-night to ask my friends of this country not to do that thing again unless the Eepublican Party — and it is the party that all men ought to love, because it is the party of liberty and freedom, the party that is not a party of mere expediency, a party that hews to the chalk lines, let the chips fall where they will — unless, I say, we do get together upon that, this thing will be repeated in the fall election and repeated in the next Presi- dential election. Now, one word and good-night. The flag that we all love so, the flag for which the fathers of the Republic contended, typifies to-night all that men hold dear in civiliza- tion. Wherever it floats it is welcomed by the people who under- stand existing conditions. It stands everywhere as typifying what the great Republic is to-night, the land unto which the eyes of the weary and the down-pressed of all countries are turned. Do not let us interfere with it. Let us picture it as it is to-night and let us see by our votes that we continue in the future what has been in the past. EDWAKD C. (CASPER) STOKES Member New Jersey Assembly and Senate; Ez-Gov- crnor of New Jersey. ADDRESS OF HON. EDWARD C. STOKES Mr. Toastmaster, ladies and gentlemen: Eising as I do on this occasion with a timidity and modesty that always characterizes a Jersey man, your cordial welcome is all the more appreciated. I realize the hazard of one who lives in the solitude of my State attempting to ask for the metropolitan ear and to challenge the metropolitan taste. As I survey these galleries with my bachelor eyes, my misfortune, not my fault, I am compelled to confess that New York republicanism is somewhat in advance of New Jersey methods in proselyting for the future. I did not know, until I looked over the scene to-night, that there were so many Repub- licans in this section. Had I had that information last fall, you would have heard of a Macedonian cry from New Jersey to come over and help us, for, my friends, despite the prayers of your Chaplain, Dr. Carter, and the eloquence of Senator Borah, there was a deficit over there when the votes were counted last fall, but perhaps that is a selfish view to take of the situation, for as I understand it, you, on that occasion, were engaged in the more patriotic and laudable work of fusing with your opponents, in order to enable them to clean house. I approach this subject with no little misgiving. I have been most royally entertained here to-night. I have been introduced to eight of my predecessors who were assigned the same toast that 162 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB has been assigned to me, and at their presentation I was greeted with the remark that **this gentleman delivered the finest speech ever heard in this hall on that subject" and then I wished that I had stayed home. I congratulate you, Mr. Toastmaster and members of this Club, upon being, as I understand it, the first organization to annually preserve in fitting ceremony the memory of the greatest of Ameri- cans and a Republican who, even our so-called Progressive friends cannot criticise. I say "co-called Progressive." I do not admit that that term belongs exclusively to them, because the Repub- lican Party has been the progressive party of this nation since the days of John C. Fremont. Ages have their different customs. This world is what it is to-day because of those who have gone before, and this man came into the world under conditions dif- ferent from those of to-day. There was not an electric light, or a telegraph, or a telephone, or railroad. He was born out in the wilds of the Kentucky woods, in a cabin without a window or a door or a floor. He was without a cradle. He had no godfather but poverty, and no inheritance but hardship. Though men knew it not, that lowly born babe was to be the Moses of the new world and they called him Abraham Lincoln. He was country bred, as many great Americans were. He was a child of the woods. He drank in their sweetness and their fragrance, their patience and their purity, their silence and their melancholy, and from them he gathered courage and endurance and self- reliance. He walked the pathway of trial from boyhood to man- hood. He lost mother and sister in his early years. We pass laws to-day forbidding boys and girls from working until 16 or 18 years of age, until we are growing up a race of hot-house darlings, without the habits of industry. This man worked on a boat at the age of eight. He lived for a year in a three-faced ADDRESS OF HON. EDWARD C. STOKES 163 cottage, one side exposed to the weather and the storm. He knew the hardships of the pioneer's winter. He was glad at times to earn ten dollars a month, and he never complained of the high cost of living. He never had a year's schooling in all his life, and in his day school consisted of the rudest cabin, with teachers who boarded out. One of the early educators of that day said he boarded in a house consisting of a single room, 15 feet square, inhabited by a man and his wife, ten children, three dogs and two cats. Aside from this, his schooling consisted of his moments of respite from work and his hours by the light of that famous pine knot by night, with a shingle for a blackboard, a jack knife for an eraser and a piece of charcoal for a pencil, and yet this man, without any early educational advantages, became the master of the English tongue. Emerson himself, a child of culture, ranks him with Aesop, and the great French litterateur, Montalembert, commends his style as a model for princes to copy, and the common people rank him easily first by adopting many of his phrases into the current speech of man- kind. Upon a wall of Brasenose College at Oxford, England, there hangs a letter which he penned to a bereaved mother, who had given five of her sons to the service of the Republic, as a specimen of the finest English ever written. There it hangs in the place of honor, above the trained scholarship of the ages. Why, Oxford is six centuries old. It has been the centre of literary movement. From it have gone forth generations of learned men, philosophers and poets and theologians and his- torians; William Pitt, the friend of America; Fox, the g^eat English writer; Johnson, the lexicographer; Burke, the prose poet; and yet this old university, with its six centuries of piled up learning, stretches its hand across the Atlantic and places the laurel crown upon the brow of this uneducated child of the west 164 THE REPXTBLICAN CLUB as a master of the finest English ever penned. Upon an old east- em wall is this picture; A king is making of his crown a chain, and by his side a slave is making of his chain a crown. Under- neath is this inscription: "Our lives are what we make them, no matter of what they are made." So Abraham Lincoln illustrates the possibility of American opportunity and shows what can be accomplished by every boy of honest poverty and ambition, and he stands as a splendid refutation of the cry of the Socialist that things are unevenly divided, because it was the hardship and poverty and discipline which were the advantages that made him finally the great chieftain of the land.. Lincoln's life, with its meagre schooling, is none the less a plea for education. He strove hard to overcome the disadvantages of early youth. He walked forty-four miles to get a copy of Elackstone, and he read one hundred pages of it as he walked back. He was a man of few books. You know the list : Pilgrim's Progress, Eobinson Crusoe, Aesop's Fables, History of the United States, Life of Washington, the Bible, and later Shakespeare. These constituted his accessible library, but he knew those books thoroughly and, knowing a few books thoroughly, he was better equipped than his competitors who knew many books superficially. Lincoln illustrates the power of concentration which enables a man to hit the bull's-eye and which comes from a thorough mastery of the subject, and he stands in marked contrast to some of that superficial education to-day, which spreads itself over many fields and covers topics too numerous for the grasp of thought and leaves the student with a bird's eye of everything and an accurate view of nothing. The superintendent of compulsory education at Chicago has in his possession a thousand volumes, taken from juvenile offenders, which tell an appalling story of the kind of literature upon which ADDRESS OF HON. EDWARD C. STOKES 165 these unfortunates feed and the sources whence they derive their first knowledge of wrongdoing and crime. One of the greatest evils of this land is the habit of light and superficial reading. Most of us to-day simply read the headlines and draw our con- clusions, without ever reading the news articles. As a rule, these are inaccurate enough. Loose and superficial reading de- generates the mind, unfits it for close reasoning and leads it to hasty conclusions. I do not know whether I am a reformer or not. My friends think I am. My opponents say the contrary, but if I had the power to be an efiicient reformer, I would strike out from the newspaper and magazines and the publications of this land, all reference to crime and wrongdoing, and bigamy and divorce and other social ills. The strongest characteristic of the human mind is imitation. It is so much easier to copy than to be original. If you will put before the youth of this land a good picture, the reaction will be good. If you put before the youth an evil picture, the re- action will be evil, and, my friends, the evils in this land are advertised out of all proportion to their frequency. Why, if some man or woman goes wrong, and I speak with impartiality on this subject as a bachelor, their pictures occupy the front page of the newspaper, but you never hear a word about the thousands and thousands and thousands, aye, millions of men and women, God-fearing, who live happy married lives in their American homes. The business men of this country are honest, the vast majority, yet, my friends, because now and then one goes wrong, we have been passing laws and we are continuing to pass laws that treat the business men as though they were not safe to be trusted with the affairs of this nation. You know, I sometimes wish — I am not in office now, I am just a has-been — I sometimes wish that the American business 166 THE EEPUBLICAN CLUB man could be treated with the same consideration which we show to the Mexicans. That is, I mean I wish the American business man could be left alone to settle his own affairs, just as we are letting the Mexicans alone to settle their affairs. Well, that is just thrown in on the side, with apologies to Senator Borah. I suppose you have read Hawthorne's story of the Great Stone Face. It illustrates the influence of an ideal upon the life of a boy. Every morning as that boy goes out from his little cottage he sees this great stone image, that typifies to him all that is great and good in human character, and seeing it often, he grows to like it, and, growing to like it, he becomes like it. Such is always the influence of companionship with the great and the good. Abraham Lincoln's mind was never tainted with excur- sions into the light and the forbidden. He was not one of those miserable philosophers who claim that in order to avoid evil you must know something about it. The books he read were moral, intellectual, uplifting, and upon these as a foundation was reared a character fit for a martyr's crown. It is a little difficult to tell when the American type of man first appeared in this country. You know we are a cosmopolitan people. We are composed of all races. We are French and Italian, and German and English, and Russian and Hungarian, and Irish officially. The men who signed the Declaration and who wrote the Constitution, and the officers who led the armies of the Revolution were, for the most part, English gentlemen. Washington was an English country squire. Hamilton was noted for his aristocratic dignity and bearing, and even old Ben Frank- lin, that old commoner, who lived in that slow city of Philadel- phia in his woolen hose, was the idol of the fine ladies and great nobles of the courts, as though he had been born a marquis. Brave men as they were, our forefathers were men of powdered ADDRESS OF HON. EDWARD C. STOKES 167 wigs and ruffled shirts — they are coming back in style — and of knee breeches and shoe buckles. They would have graced the halls of St. James or Versailles. They never knew the democracy of this land, as we understand it. Indeed, that democracy had not yet appeared. Events were rapidly culminating in a typical Americanism. The Revolution had died out. The problems of that war had been solved, and the principles of American life were coming to the test. As Abraham Lincoln put it, there were always two principles that had been in conflict and always will be. One is the divine rights of kings and the other the common right of humanity, and it is the same principles, no matter what form it takes. It is the principle which says you labor and toil and earn bread and I will eat it. Puritan and Cavalier founded here a system that opened a new land for the freedom of human conscience. When England tried to subdue them, they con- quered, and the republic was born, but they left shackles upon the limbs of men. Our forefathers never intended that slavery should be permanent. Lincoln conclusively proved that in his famous Cooper "Union speech. Franklin said all the prayers sent to Heaven by the Virginians were mere blasphemy while slavery lived. Jay said that all prayers sent to Heaven in the name of liberty were in vain, so long as slavery continued. Jefferson drew the line where the black wave of slavery should be stayed. Mason mourned the penalty which his descendants must pay for the sins of their father, but slavery grew and multiplied con- tinuously, and all the compromises of Clay and Webster — as com- promises always do — only served to intensify the controversy. The hour of culmination was near at hand. The repeal of the Missouri compromise, the passage of the fugutive slave law, the Kansas-Nebraska struggle, the Lincoln-Douglas debate, and John Brown's raids followed each other in rapid succession. They were 168 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB the pre-natal struggles of true Americanism. Abraham Lincoln's training had been all American. He said in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, "I never had a political sentiment that did not spring from the Declaration that guarantees freedom, not only to this land, but to all mankind, and if this country cannot be saved without surrendering that principle, I would rather be as- sassinated on the spot than sacrifice it." In 1858 came the Lin- coln-Douglas debates. Douglas was one of the leading men of the country; the expected candidate of his party for President, as he afterward was, and Lincoln's selection to cope with this little giant of the West marked him as a rising man. When those debates were finished, Lincoln's fame was national, and he was everywhere heralded as the champion of the new Ameri- canism. In reply to Judge Douglas' charge that he was advo- cating social equality between white man and black man, he said: "I know of no reason why the black man is not entitled to all of the rights in the Declaration; life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. He may not be Judge Douglas' equal in many respects, perhaps not in mental and moral endowment, but in the right to eat the bread which his own hand earns, without asking anyone's leave, he is my equal, Judge Douglas' equal and the equal of any living man." "When," said Lincoln, "a man governs himself, that is self-government, but when he governs another man without that man's consent, that is despotism." Trite remark, you say. Ah, yes; but it required courage to say it in those days, because those were the days in which Garrison was dragged through the streets of cultured Boston, with a rope around his body, by an angry mob, because of his abolition senti- ments. Those were the days when, in Lincoln's own State, Love- joy was killed while defending his printing press against rioters, because he had issued anti-slavery documents. Into the throes ADDEESS OF HON. EDWARD C. STOKES 169 of this controversy, into this atmosphere, tense and vibrant with the silence that portended the coming storm, Lincoln threw that prophet-like declaration which brought this nation face to face against itself: "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I do not believe that this Union can exist half slave and half free. I do not expect to see the Union dissolved. I do not expect to see the house fall, but I expect it will cease to be divided." The battle was on. This first great American, as Lowell called him, had raised a banner which was finally to triumph at Appomattox. Lincoln's whole heart was bound up in the preservation of the Union. That had been the theme of his early speeches and the hope of his administration. To him the Union was the paramount issue, and although many well-meaning anti-slavery advocates condemned him because he refused to make slavery the para- mount issue of the war, Lincoln steadfastly and courageously re- fused to be diverted from his purpose. Lincoln was not a per- sonal President. He was a constitutional President, and he stood by the Constitution, though it protected slavery, with a hostile army in front, and doubting and timid friends in the rear. Lin- coln had all kinds of advice. Most public men do. It is one of the remarkable things about the American people that they will spend their tempers and energies and their money, before the Corrupt Practice Act was passed, in electing the only man fit to be elected to a particular position, and as soon as he is elected, they commence to tell him how to manage affairs. A delegation from the Evangelical Church of Chicago visited Lincoln, to urge him to issue forthwith the proclamation of universal emancipa- tion. Lincoln understood public sentiment better than they, and he knew the time was not yet ripe for that step, and yet the delegation was of such a character he could not deny it, although 170 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB he could not accede to its request, and his answer shows the dip- lomatic skill of the man and his ability to handle men and situa- tions. He said, **I am approached with entirely opposite views, by religious men, both of whom claim to represent the divine will. Either one or the other must be mistaken; perhaps in some respects both. I trust you will not regard it irrelevant if I sug- gest that if God is revealing His will to others upon a matter so intimately connected with my duty, it is not improbable that He would say something to me about it"; and the delegation withdrew, silent, if not satisfied. He wrote to Horace Greeley, who, with an editor's right, was then trying to run the affairs of government. "My paramount object is to save the Union and not to save or destroy slavery. If I can save the Union by freeing none of the slaves, I will do that. If I can save the Union by freeing all of the slaves, I will do that. If I save the Union by freeing some of the slaves and leaving others alone, I will do that." Lincoln relied upon the intense love for the Union. He knew that the speeches of Web- ster and Clay, and thousands of others, had made the Union sacred. He knew that for the Union millions had knelt at the altars of slavery, and he believed that for the Union millions would kneel at the altars of liberty. After trying every ex- pedient and failing in all, he knew that either slavery or the republic must die, and so upon the 1st of January, 1863, he took his pen and wrote the word "Liberty" across the banners of his army. And just as the heart of Constantine was uplifted of old by the sign of the Cross in the sky, so from this moment the soldiers of Lincoln stepped with firmer and holier tread. That one act accomplished more for mankind than ever was permitted mortal man to do. It changed the whole aspect of the war. It brought to the North the friendship of the humanitarians of the ADDRESS OF HON. EDWARD C. STOKES 171 earth. The old world might want to see the republic dissolved, but they could not stand openly for slavery. It not only freed four million slaves and other millions yet unborn, but it did more. It made a soldier of the black man, and be it said to his credit, 120,000 of them shouldered their muskets and marched to consummate emancipation for all mankind. Lincoln never lost faith in the people. He was not a demagogic pretence to mould party politics. He believed in the people. He trusted them. He was loved by them. He drew his inspirations from them. He dwelt in their hearts and their homes and their sanctuaries, and he did what so few public men do, and what too many Republicans are not doing in these days. He never failed to answer his critics on all possible occasions. He never hid be- hind that cowardly plea of contemptuous silence. He was always talking to the people, either by letters or through the press, tell- ing them his policies, and they in turn trusted him as their pro- phet and their shepherd, and when he called, they came with their all to the altar of sacrifice. History paints no picture like it. Sons of pious ancestors, striplings from college, students from theological seminaries, young lawyers in their offices, mechanics from their benches, lumbermen from the forests, farmers from their plows, all with one refrain in their hearts and one song on their lips: We're coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand strong. Other allies crowd that picture, just as the children of Israel gave to the building of the temple; so these people of the North gave nearly three billions of dollars in popular loans. They suffered an increase of seven-fold in their taxes. Out of every twenty able-bodied men, they offered up nine to the sacrifice. Science lent its aid to build bridges and roads to speed the progress of the army. Surgeons gave their experience and skill. The most re- 172 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB fined and gentlest women of the land left homes of comfort and went down to the front, to nurse the wounded and dying. Con- gregations gave up their clergymen, until five thousand ministers marched with the army to keep unsullied the moral and religious character of the men. Do you wonder that Abraham Lincoln trusted this responsive host and that with his hand in theirs he marched through storm, cloud and gloom until the sunlight broke again upon the most magnificent exhibition of Christian democ- racy this world has ever seen. His life is a series of dramatic pictures. I see him now in 1831. He is just entering Sangamon County, Illinois, for the first time. He is coming down the fork of a river by that name, in a little canoe, penniless, friendless, begging for the necessaries of life. I see him thirty years later. He is leaving the State of Illinois amidst the glad acclaim of his fellow citizens; the post- master of New Salem, with its little fifteen houses, has become the head of the nation. The captain of a volunteer backwoods military company has become the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States. The transition from the simple citizenship of Abe Lincoln to the chieftainship of this land is marvelous to contemplate, and could be witnessed in no other co^intry, and he takes the helm of the Ship of State in the midst of a tornado. Seven States had seceded before he takes the oath of office. Four more follow. The army is scattered in hostile States, its officers resigning and joining the service of the Con- federates. The navy scattered to the ends of the earth. Members of Congress talking treason in the streets of Washington, and resigning; the Supreme Court unfriendly to the Union; Europe hostile; the treasury bankrupt. Tremendous problems for this untried man, yet he faces it just as he faced the hardships of his boyhood days, and in the storm and stress I see him smile and I ADDRESS OF HON. EDWARD C. STOKES 173 hear him say, "Let us helieve that through the clouds the sun still shines." I see him now as a man of war. He arms two millions of men. He gathers half a million horses. He drives his artillery twelve hundred miles in a single week. He fights over six hun- dred battles. He spends three billions of dollars. He suspends the act of habeas corpus. He holds in the hollow of his hand the power of life and prison and death. A single word from this man a million men spring to their arms, regiment on regiment, brigade upon brigade, corps on corps; another word and they march through forests, across streams, over fields; cannon may rend them, half their number may fall, and at another word from this man half a million more spring to take their places in the carnival of death. Power on the one side, difiiculty on the other; hostile armies in front, timid and harping friends in the rear. A weaker man would have followed the easy pathway of a despot, but this giant of the West never falters, and in all of the grandeur and the power he wielded he remains the simplest, kindest, gen- tlest man, grieving with the orphan's grief and shedding his tears upon the soldier's grave. No man can thoroughly understand the character of Lincoln without a recognition of his faith in God. He believed implicitly in God. As he left Springfield, he said to his friends and neigh- bors : "I go to assume a duty and responsibility greater than that assumed by any President, save perhaps Washington. He could not have succeded without the aid of divine Providence, upon whom at all times he relied. Upon that same Almighty power I place my reliance. Pray for me that I may have divine assist- ance, without which I cannot succeed, but with which I cannot fail." Whenever Bishop Ames and Bishop Simpson went to Wash- ington, both of them clergymen of the Methodist Church, they 174 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB called upon the great emancipator at the White House, and they never were allowed to leave until they were invited into a private room for a word of prayer. Lincoln believed in the efficacy of prayer. Great man as he was, Lincoln was a human man, and he was so great that he was easily approachable. Only small minds are compelled to surround themselves with ceremony and meticulous forms. Lincoln was the same to the pleading mother as to the imperious King; the same to the private soldier as to the com- manding General. He did not patronize the one; he did not bend to the other. He was a simple, great, good man. And he had a heart. That is what every public man should have — a heart as well as a head. He could not endure suffering in any form. Why, he would ford an icy stream to succor a whining dog, and he would stop in the midst of his journey to gather up some fallen fledgling and restore them to their nests. Some of these old vet- erans will tell you that in spite of his great Secretary of War and commanding generals, at the instance of a pleading father, mother, brother or son, he pardoned soldier after soldier, because he said, "The enemy are shooting enough of our boys without our shooting any more," and when he had granted pardon he never could rest until he was assured that the orders reached the place of execution before the execution occurred. In one case, a wife of one of Mosby's men, who had been caught in our lines, tried and sentenced to be shot, came to Lincoln to plead for her husband. Lincoln heard her plea, and he said, "Madam, was he a good husband and a good father, or did he drink and abuse you?" "Oh, no," said the poor woman, "he was a good husband and a good father, and we cannot do without him. The only fault he had, he was a fool about politics. He was born in the South. I was born in the North, and if you will ADDRESS OF HON. EDWARD C. STOKES 175 only pardon him and give him to me, I will see that he never fights against the North again." *'Well," said Lincoln, ''I will pardon him, and I will turn him over to you for safe-keeping," and the poor woman, overcome with joy, broke down into hys- terical weeping, and then Lincoln, to relieve the situation, looked at her and said, "Why, my good woman, if I had known this would have given you so much trouble, I would not have pardoned him." On another occasion, a father was pleading for the life of his son, who had been sentenced to be shot as a deserter, and after hearing his plea, Lincoln called in one of his secretaries and said, "Telegraph General Butler to suspend execution in this case until further orders from me." The father looked at him and said, "Mr. President, I cannot take that message to that boy^s mother. She is distracted now and almost hysterical with anxiety, and she will fear lest you change your mind and execute her boy." "Well," said the President, "you know I have to do the best I can with this administration, and my generals tell me that my mercy is destroying all discipline as it is, but you go home, and you tell that boy's mother that if he lives until they get further orders from me, when he does die people will say that Old Methuselah was a babe compared with him." Lincoln said, "I want it said of me that I plucked a thistle and I planted a flower wherever a flower would grow." Lincoln's humor was keen and logical, and not light and frivolous, as is sometimes thought. His stories always illustrated a point. They drove home an argument. They made a link in the chain of logic. He was so plain in his method of speech he could be understood by all. His humor was at times like a parable. On one occasion, when some of our good ministerial friends went down to Washington to complain of General Grant, the only man who at that time was winning vie- 176 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB tories, because they said General Grant was drinking too much whiskey, Lincoln's reply to the delegation that if they could only tell him what kind of whiskey Grant drank he would give it to the rest of his generals, was a sufficient answer to the charge, whether true or false. When our dear old friend, Horace Greeley, was complaining because Lincoln was not treating the advances of the South in proper spirit and did not send a Peace Commission to treat with the Peace Commissioners from the Confederate States, who had taken refuge up in Canada, Lincoln saw the humor of the situation and he took Greeley at his word and appointed him on that Commission. Of course, Greeley failed. And Lincoln's judgment was again vindicated. When Valland- ingham in Ohio was tried for seditious utterances and sentenced by the court, and was then posing as what his friends termed a martyr to judicial tyranny, Lincoln's humor again came to the relief of the situation. He suspended the sentence of the court, and he ordered that poor Vallandingham be conducted to his friends in the South, where he could rest in peace and safety The whole country laughed, and the danger was over. Lincoln's magnanimity and humor often exposed the insincerity and hypocrisy of his foes, and yet no words of ridicule, no forms of opprobrium, no license of cartoon were too great or too bitter to be used against this gentlest and kindest of men. It is one of the strange characteristics of us American people, who claim to love fair play, that we delight at times in ex parte criticisms of our public officials, without any knowledge on our part of the motives which actuate them or the reasons for their judgment. "Judge not, that ye be not judged," is too often forgotten in this land. Eeference to this injustice, which at times almost broke Lincoln's heart, is made only as an observation in the treatment of our public men and a reminder that Lincoln lived long enough ADDRESS OF HON. EDWARD C. STOKES 177 to silence his critics and his foes. London Punch, one of his bitterest revilers, wrote these four lines upon the occasion of his death : "Besides this corpse which has for winding sheets The Stars and Stripes he lived to weave anew, Between the mourners at his head and feet, Say, scurrile Jester, is there room for you?" Ah, yes, Lincoln's charity was a mantle broad enough to cover all. After all, time is the test. And Lincoln has escaped oblivion, and his face and his fame grow dearer and greater and clearer as the years roll on, just as does Moses in Israel or Shakespeare in literature, because he was a great, good man. When the curtain fell upon that final scene at Appomattox, Lincoln was the supreme victor of the hour. He had freed the slave. He had saved the Union. He had vindicated his wisdom and judgment before the world, and at that moment he went down to Richmond and he walked up the landing towards the Capitol Square, and as he entered that square someone touched him on the arm and said, "Look, Mr. Lincoln, there is your flag waving over the Capitol." Lincoln looked up and he saw the Stars and Stripes floating over the house from which Jefferson Davis had just fled, and a look of ineffable gratitude lit up his coun- tenance as he realized that the consummation of his lifetime had come, and that those colors waved over the doom of the Con- federacy and the triumph of the Union cause. The circumstances of his death need no review. Amidst the general rejoicing of his countrymen, this hero of peace and war fell upon his completed work, April 14th, 1865; his eyelids closed, and his head fell upon his breast in peace. The age of miracles we are wont to say is gone, but the age of an ever-living personal God, who guards our footsteps as He 178 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB watches the spirit's flight is still our heritage. Lincoln's fame and greatness and character cannot be measured by human standards. He came and went as a messenger, and shall we not believe that that lowly babe, born out in the wilds of the Ken- tucky woods, was sent to save the Union and to free the slaves, and that when his work was done God called him back to his home in the skies? All about us are the things he left. There's the black man and his freedom. There's the schoolboy with his declamation. There's the fireside circle with his story and picture. There's his greeting in the poet's lines, and his homely face in the sculptor's art. There's the justice of American institutions he regenerated and the equality of privilege and opportunity he bequeathed. There's his glory, shining in that unsullied flag that carried lib- erty to Cuba and a new message of hope to the brown-skinned race at Manila, and there above the rancor of faction and the tumult of debate is heard the sweet obligate of his malice toward none and charity toward all. The master spirit of the republic, he touches the cords of memory and wakes the better angels of our nature, the nation's vicarious sacrifice, his birth a sacra- ment, his life a prayer, his death a benediction. ABRAHAM LINCOLN Copyright 1892, hy Thomas Johnson FROM A PHOTOGRAPH IN THE POSSESSION OF L. E. CHITTENDEN. ETCHED FOR THE REPUBLICAN CLUB AND DISTRIBUTED AT ITS DINNER FEBRUARY 12, 1892. THE TWENTY-NINTH ANNUAL LINCOLN DINNEK of the REPUBLICAN CLUB of the City of New York At the Waldorf-Astoria FEBRUARY 12, 1915 Addresses of HON. JAMES R. SHEFFIELD HON. SIMEON D. FESS HON. J. ADAM BEDE JAMES B. SHEFFIELD Fire Commissioner, New York City; Member of New York Assembly; United States Ambassador to Mexico since September, 1924. ADDRESS OF HON. JAMES R. SHEFFIELD Ladies and gentlemen, guests and fellow members of the Re- publican Club: It is my privilege, on behalf of the Republican Club of the City of New York, to bid you welcome to our cele- bration of the birth of the greatest of all Americans — Abraham Lincoln. For twenty-nine years this Club has met to honor his memory, to renew allegiance to the patriotic principles for which he lived, and to keep unsullied the political faith in which he died. It was the first institution of its kind in the country to establish this annual custom, and it has striven to make Lin- coln's Birthday, throughout the land, truly a national holiday. It believes that in all history, and among all peoples, there will be found no other man whose birth, life and death better fit him for a Nation's hero, and a Nation's Saint; and, believing this, it bids you, as you gather here to-night, to remember that 106 years ago to-day Abraham Lincoln was born. His place of birth was as humble as that of the Child of Beth- lehem — a Kentucky hovel in the midst of a rude clearing in the far-off edge of that great western wilderness, where the mother of a greater than kings had scarce the comforts of a manger in which to lay her babe. His eyes opened only on poverty. His preparation, too, took place in the wilderness, and the whole 182 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB mighty purpose of his coining was wrought within less than four and a half years. But, within these years, he had changed "all men are created equal" from a phrase to a living fact. He had freed a race. He had saved a nation. Truly the Eepublican Club of the City of New York does well to strive to make Lin- coln's Birthday a national holiday. It is a common saying that the time has long since passed when any one party can claim Lincoln as its own. I do not agree with that. I do agree that only that party, if such there be, by which our common humanity is lifted to a higher plane and a nobler purpose, and which struggles to maintain the political faith and the standards of constitutional government for which he lived and died, is entitled to claim as its own the priceless heritage of Lincoln's name. There is such a party. The presence here to-night of two of its youngest leaders — ^the Governor of New York and the United States Senator-elect of New York, as well as its elder statesmen, to pay tribute to his memory, is evidence that his spirit and his teachings survive in and still inspire the great historic party which twice elected him President of these United States. The party and the principles he believed in then are the same party and the same principles you and I believe in to-day. He believed in equal opportunities for all men, rich and poor; so do we. He believed no man should be discriminated against because of race or creed, or color; so do we. He believed in a protective tariff — so do we. He believed in political progress, without revolution; so do we. He believed in a Constitution, interpreted by the courts, and not by the mob; so do we. He believed in leadership by the Ex- ecutive, but never in executive usurpation of the powers of Congress; so do we. He believed in a government for all ADDRESS OF HON. JAMES R. SHEFFIELD 183 the people, and by all the people, and so do we. "There is not a principle avowed by the Republicans to-day," said John Hay in 1904, ''which is out of harmony with his teachings or inconsistent with his character." And on the authority of that devoted friend of Lincoln, his brilliant biographer, and our Re- publican Secretary of State — I rest my belief that the Repub- lican Party alone, for more than half a century, has kept the Lincoln faith and fought the Lincoln fight. And at just this time, in the history of nations, when civiliza- tion itself is on trial, and when our own beloved country de- mands not needy and deserving Democrats, whether at the head of foreign affairs in Washington, or at their foot in San Domingo, but men of serious minds, deep wisdom, high ideals, and broad and non-sectional patriotism, the people of this coun- try will turn again, as they did in 1860, to the party of Lincoln, not as partisans, but as patriots; not for political advantage, but for national honor and international respect. It is to this end, and in the name and spirit of Lincoln, that the Republican Club invites to this feast, irrespective of party allegiance, all lovers of the liberty and the land, to save which he gave the last full measure of human devotion. And in his name and spirit it cordially welcomes back our former comrades in arms. In the words of Lincoln: "May not all, having a com- mon interest, re-unite in a common effort to serve our common country." Let us study the causes of our past party differences as philosophy to gain wisdom from, and not as wrongs to be re- venged. In that spirit, let us re-unite with all, having a com- mon interest in a common effort to serve our common country, to re-establish prosperity for business, sanity in government, safety in finance, work for the unemployed, dignity for high office, re- spect for constitutional authority and for those nobler ideals and 184 THE EEPUBLICAN CLTTB traditions which have been the foundation and corner-stone of this great American Republic. This, as I read my Lincoln, would be Lincoln's way. It would be malice toward none, it would be charity for all. It would be the triumph of Lincoln's party, for the good of the land he died to save. And now, having expressed the welcome of the Club and the meaning of the feast, it is my pleasure and privilege to extend a welcome to the special guests of the evening. SIMEON D. PESS Of Yellow Springs, Ohio; head of the American history department in Ohio Northern University from 1889 to 1897; director of the college of law 1897 to 1900; vice-president of Ohio Northern University; called by President Harper to the University of Chi- cago in 1902; president of Antioch College, 1907 to 1917; vice-president of Ohio constitutional convention, 1912; represented Sixth Ohio District in Congress from 1913 to 1915 and the Seventh District from 1919 to 1923, 63rd to 67th Cong):esses, inclusive; chairman <©f Committee on Education, member of the Rules Com- mittee and Library Committee in the House; he was aiominated for the United States Senate at the Repub- lican primary August 8 and elected November 7, 1922. Member of Interstate Commerce, Library, Printing, Contingent Expenses, and Public Buildings and Grounds Committees of the Senate. ADDRESS OF HON. SIMEON D. FESS Mr. President, Governor Whitman, members of the Republican Club of New York City, ladies and gentlemen : The theme of Abra- ham Lincoln is one quite inviting to me, before any audience, but before such an audience, in a great metropolis, made up of the representative men of that city, and in the interests of a Club bearing the name of the party of which Mr. Lincoln is our first and greatest President — it is an honor that is not a small one ; and, therefore, I come to you to speak briefly upon his character, and want now, at the outset, to express my gratitude for the honor that is carried in this invitation, so to speak. Within two months from now, fifty years ago, Abraham Lincoln died. He died at the time when our nation was divided; one-half of the population desiring to crucify him; the other half of the nation divided ; some of them friendly, others unfriendly ; and yet, with- in the lapse of a half century, he has the most loved name, and is regarded as the sweetest character that the new world has yet produced. It is a splendid tribute to Americanism. Some men are judged in history by what they say; others are judged by what they do; and still, others, by what they are. Mr. Lincoln, in a peculiar manner, might be judged by all three ; for it is a paradox that this boy, who never had had a slate, or a slate pencil, as a pupil in a school; who never owned a lead pen- 188 THE EEPUBLICAN CLUB cil or a piece of paper; who had no chance to be in school more than six months, all told, according to his own story, in the providence of God, would develop so that he would speak the purest English of any man that spoke on a political platform in his day; that is a paradox I cannot fully explain. His speeches attracted the attention of the best rhetoricians of America, and when, after one of his speeches, a famous professor went to him and asked him about the secret, and told Lincoln that he had been going to hear him from time to time, and taking parts of his speeches into his rhetoric class, the next day, to use them as the finest specimens of English that he had ever read, Mr. Lincoln was astonished and said, '^Why, I did not know I had any such power." Mr. Lincoln could well be judged in history by what he said. Just as he was about to reach his fiftieth milestone, passing his forty-ninth year, in that little country city, out in Springfield, Illinois, he spoke to a convention, and there gave utterance to a sentence which pronounced him at once, not a man of Illinois, confined to the limits of one State, nor to the limits of the nation, but a man who was quoted by the London Times, and by every great publication on the continent of Europe; here is the sentence: "A house divided against itself cannot stand; I do not believe that this government can permanently endure, half slave and half free." That proposition was spoken to a convention that had endorsed him for Senator, for the position then occupied by Stephen A. Douglas. It was pronounced re- volutionary, and yet no man up to that time had, with such prescient genius, ascertained the inevitable movement that was not to cease until it was impossible for a slave to stand under the flag of this country. It was Lincoln in 1858 who made this statement. Four years before, speaking to a great mass in the fair gound, he said: "Broken by it, I too may be; bow to it, I ADDRESS OF HON. SIMEON D. FESS 189 never will" — in reference to slavery. It was in 1854, when forty-five years of age, that he made that challenge. Just six months after the famous announcement of "The house di- vided against itself," in a debate with the Little Giant of the West, he propounded this question: ''Can the people of any terri- tory, in a lawful way, against the will and wishes of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from the territory prior to the formation of a State constitution?" "Why," his friends said, "Mr. Lincoln, you must not press that question; if you do, you never can be elected to the Senate of the United States." Mr. Lincoln said, "Hear me; if Douglas answers yes, he loses the South; if he answers no, he loses the North; and if he answers it, yes or no, he will never be the President of the nation, and I am looking for bigger game." That was in 1858. In this city that makes possible this scene before us, two years later, down here, at Broadway and Ninth Street, in the Cooper Union, Mr. Lincoln delivered what many believe to be the greatest speech of his life, when measured either from the standpoint of the rhetorician or the logician. No man up to that time had put the issue so clearly, and no man ever put it afterward more clearly; and yet how simple: "If the South admits that we are right, they could readily grant all that we ask; if the North would admit that the South is right, we could readily grant all that they ask; but our believing slavery wrong, and their believing slavery right, is the precise point upon which turns the whole controversy; but, believing it wrong, as we do, we can still afford to leave it where it is; but can we, when our votes will prevent it, allow it to extend into new ter- ritory?" That was the issue, and it had never been put so clearly before. That speech made Lincoln the big figure that compelled his nomination the same year at Chicago. He was 190 THE EEFUBLICAN CLUB elected on November 6th of that same year; he went to Washing- ton by way of New York; his trip carried him via Cincinnati, Columbus, Pittsburgh, then through Cleveland, Buffalo, Albany, New York, Philadelphia, on down to Harrisburg, Baltimore, then to Washington. When he got to Philadelphia he was honored by being asked to raise an American flag over Independence Hall. Listen to one sentence that he delivered: "What is the principle that has kept these States so long together? It is not the mere fact of separation from the Mother Country, but it is the prin- ciple found in the Declaration of Independence, adopted in this hall, from which I take my political principles, so far as I know myself, which gave promise, not alone to the people of this coun- try, but to all the people of all the world, that ere long the weight shall be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and all shall have an equal chance." "Now, my fellow citizens," he continued, "can the nation be saved upon that basis? If it can, and I can help to save it, I am the happiest man in it, but if it cannot, I was about to say, I would rather be assassinated on this spot than to surrender the principle." That was the 22nd of February, 1861, the anniversary of the birth of the Father of his Country, and but a few days before Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated; and when he was inaugurated on the 4th of March, speaking from the east side of the capitol — think of his words, and note their significance: "We must not be enemies, we must be friends; though passion may have strained, it must not break the bonds of our affection; the mystic cords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot's grave to every heart and hearth- stone, all over this broad land, will swell the chorus of the Union, when touched again, as it surely will be, by the better angels of our nature"; and yet, when he thus spoke, he was not at all undecided as to his purpose, but everybody knew that as ADDRESS OF HON. SIMEON D. FESS 191 the reins of government, or rather the scepter of power, was slipping away from the imbecile hands of his predecessor, and was now held in the hands of an untried man, who, in due time, as your President has well said, after only four and a half years of trial, will prove him to be the greatest executive probably that our nation has yet produced, although inexperienced and untried. But this utterance, great as it was, is not the high water mark of the Lincolnian expression. Suppose you go to the British Museum to-night, and ask the authorities there, where there are books enough if put on a single shelf to make forty miles of books — what is the finest short speech ever uttered in the English language? — do not be surprised when they hand it to you; everybody will immediately recognize its source — "Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this Continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are equal." I could quote that speech in full in three minutes. When Lincoln finished it, Edward Ever- ett, the orator of the nation, as well as for the occasion, walked over to Lincoln, took his hand and said: Mr. President, I cer- tainly would be a happy man if I could flatter myself that I had put the issue as clearly in two hours and a quarter as you have put it in two minutes and a quarter." This was Mr. Lincoln on the 19th day of November, 1863, on the battlefield of Get- tysburg. What he said is regarded as the finest and shortest speech in our language. But I do not think that the Gettysburg speech reaches the high water mark of Mr. Lincoln's expression. Judged by the standard of Mr. Emerson, that the secret of an orator must be in the sentiment expressed; if you take that basis of comparison, the second inaugural must be remembered. March 4th, 1865, just a month and eleven days before his life went out, standing in the same place where he had stood four years before, 192 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB looking^ back over four years of carnage, where he could have counted 2,265 engagements, in the greatest war known to man up to that time, in which millions of property had been destroyed, 600,000 soldiers. North and South, had filled the graves that were premature, because of the struggle; remembering that he as the speaker who was then to address the thousands facing him had been called by the orator from Boston, Wendell Phillips, "The slave hound of Illinois, whom we will gibbet by the side of the infamous Mason of Virginia" — this is Lincoln who, standing in front of the Capitol on that March noon, looking out over his audience with all of this abuse in his mind, said what your President quoted a while ago: "With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us go on in this work and finish it; bind up the Nation's wounds; care for the fatherless and the widows, and for the soldier who shall have borne the brunt of battle" — ^that, in my judgment, is the high water mark of all Mr. Lincoln ever uttered in his life; it is the inaugural address spoken on the 4th of March, 1865. So, ladies and gentlemen, when I say he could be judged by what he said, I have a good basis, I think, for that statement; and then, if you would ask, can he be judged for what he did? — I answer, most certainly; but I do not know how to delineate in brief his achievements. I do not know that I have heard a more beautiful, brief statement of the achievements of this man than was given a while ago by the President of your Club, — it was beautiful. Mr. Lincoln, without educa- tion, as the world estimates that term, and yet probably the greatest political thinker of his day as well as the greatest master of political utterance — don't say he was uneducated; he was un- educated in books, but I would rather know men, and know little ADDRESS OF HON. SIMEON D. FESS 193 or nothing of books. I have in mind some examples of per- sons who know too much theory and not enough business. Mr. Lincoln never would take the position that he should control business, because he had never been in business, and had, there- fore, no prejudices against it. The life problem presented to Mr. Lincoln, before he came to his great career, was such a discipline of his power that he was prepared to do the work that was to come to him later on. He would not be called a great lawyer, and yet he was a successful pleader, as the word would go at that time. Mr. Lincoln would not be called a rhetorician, since his language was expressive rather than elegant. He did not know that he was one of the greatest logicians of the country, for he expressed surprise when complimented. He was a logician, without probably knowing what logic meant. I do not know how to explain it, but nobody could argue with him vTithout discomfiture. You remember he had seven debates with Mr. Douglas. In some of those debates Douglas resorted to every art known to the barrister. At times he attempted to ridicule him. At the close of the first debate, the favorites of Lincoln hoisted him upon their shoulders and carried him from the ground. Douglas declared to an audience the next night — the debates did not come in successive nights, but Douglas went on making political speeches between the dates of the debates, as you understand, and he referred to the fact of Lincoln's friends taking him upon their shoulders, and said Lincoln was so badly defeated that his friends had to carry him to the hotel. Lincoln at the next meeting, referred to the report. Douglas said, ''You are too serious, I meant that in humor." Mr. Lincoln said, "No, you did not mean it in humor; you meant that the people should believe it, and the only way that I can 194 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB answer you is to challenge this audience when I get through to-night, if I cannot pick you up in my arms and carry you to the hotel, and put you to bed, then you are right, when you said that I had to be carried off." Nobody could play with Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Douglas once said, "Why, Lincoln says he is an abolitionist. The abolition party was killed eight years ago, by the fugitive slave law, and if he is still an abolitionist, he is in his tomb." Lincoln replied, "I want to congratulate you; you are going to hear a fellow talk from the grave." Measured by what this man did — think of the slavery issue! Going down the Mississippi, in his early manhood, and witness- ing a slave auction, he said : **If I get a chance to hit that thing, I will hit it hard." In due time he reaches the Presidency, and he has his oppor- tunity. Probably our country's greatest editor, Horace Greeley, of this city, criticised Lincoln pretty severely because he did not act quickly upon this sensitive issue. Mr. Lincoln's reply to the editor was certainly suf&cient to set at rest his purpose on this issue. One of the most striking statements of his life, announcing a great principle of action, was at the close of that letter, in which he said, "I will accept new views as soon as they are proved to be true views." Mr. Lincoln was not hide-bound upon any particular theory. He believed in universal freedom and yet he resisted Horace Greeley; he resisted Wendell Phillips; he resisted William Lloyd Garrison, the Tappan Brothers, as he did most of the great abolition leaders, and still became the greatest emancipator of the world. What would have happened if he would have gone quickly with the wishes of these people ? Why, he would have split the North, and would have made the pre- servation of the Union impossible. Mr. Lincoln said, "What I do about slavery I do because it will help me to save the Union; ADDRESS OF HON. SIMEON D. FESS 195 What I do not do about slavery, I do not do, because it won^t help me to save the Union." To this principle Mr. Lincoln adhered and has to his credit the great achievement of not only freeing the slave — the whole race — lifting it out of the chattel- hood of American degradation into the atmosphere of American civilization, but he saved the Union at the same time, the greatest achievement in the history of government. The sensitive point in this sensitive question were the four neutral States; what are you going to do with Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri? The way those slave States were saved from joining the Confederacy is due most largely to the manner and spirit of this beautiful soul, who would say, '^Come, let us reason together about this thing." To Henry Davis, of Mary- land, he would say: "Davis, hold Maryland, hold Maryland; if you can divide the South upon the sensitive question, the victory is already begun." That displays the genius of a great states- man. If I were to be asked what is the secret of his power, I would answer in the language of one of the world's greatest editors, who knew Lincoln as well as any man living, in the words of Charles A. Dana of this city; Dana not only knew him, but he was most capable of giving an opinion. Dana said his ability was in his control of men. He multiplied his influence by the number of men he used. In this way the distinguished New Yorker, William H. Seward, was one of the great men that became the strong arm of Abraham Lincoln in the Cabinet; Ed- win M. Stanton, another, and others like those two; and when Mr. Dana told me at one time — "I, being a student of Lincoln, sought for information and desired it first-hand" — when he told me that Lincoln had controlled his Cabinet, I said: "He certainly did not control Stanton, did he? Stanton was an Ohio man, and we Ohioans do not think he controlled him — not because he is 196 THE REPUBLICAN CLTTB from Ohio, mind you, but because Stanton seemed to have his own way." Dana laughed and said, ''Control him? he would just let Stanton blow and storm until he blew out, and then he just wrapped him around his fingers like putty," and I suppose that is true; I repeat that the control of men was Mr. Lincoln's great secret; what then was the secret of this ability? Two things, humor and tenderness. The most humorous character in our history in public life and yet the most beautifully pathetic nature we have known. Humor — at one time George B. Mc- Clellan, thinking that Mr. Lincoln was interfering with the operations on the field, it is said, sent this telegram to Presi- dent Lincoln, to protest that he was not free to move in the slightest item without first getting instructions. Let me read the telegram, just as tradition has reported it, in regular army style: "Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, Com- mander-in-Chief of the armies of the United States of America; My dear Sir, I have the honor to inform you that my army has captured seven cows; what shall I do with them?" The reply was not in regular army style, but it was in the Lincolnian style, brief, and to the point; here it is: "George, milk 'em — Abe." I think that that is the finest bit of humor in the life of Lincoln, because it turned the laugh upon the one who had initiated the quarrel, and did it without sarcasm. If you can do that with your opponent, you are a Lincoln in that much. It would not be fair to see him on that side, without seeing the other side. I was distressed, as the President was, a while ago, and as all of you were, when there was an attempt to ridicule Lincoln in this room. He was not a buffoon, friends; that (pointing to a life- size portrait of Lincoln over the speaker's table) is not an ugly face; that is the most beautiful face in American history. ADDRESS OF HON. SIMEON D. FESS 197 The beauty is in the soul of the man; it lies back of that rough contour. You see there the sweetest spirit; the deepest in humanity, the broadest in comprehension, and the sweetest in disposition, that ever functioned in American politics; and we do him, ourselves, and the country wrong when permitting any at- tempt to make him out a buffoon. Many people thought that of him in his day. Mr. Stanton once said: "We have got to get rid of this baboon," and when it reached Mr. Lincoln's ears, what do you think he said — he laughed and said, "Did Stanton say that?" They said he did, and one fellow said, "I would not endure these insults." "Insults," said Lincoln, "he did not insult me"; he said "I was a baboon, and that is a matter of opinion, sir." That is another glimpse of the humor of the man. The tenderness — how touching — let me give you just one incident, and let it go at that. He so frequently went through the hospital at Washing- ton to cheer up some poor soldier who probably was dying by inches, to say to him some word of comfort. I was speaking of this at one time when a Mr. Greer, one of my auditors, who had been badly wounded in the Civil War, and who was in the hospital where Lincoln visited. At the close of my address he came and said, "I will never forget the first time I saw Mr. Lin- coln. I was in the hospital, right near the entrance, and I must have been asleep, for when I opened my eyes there stood, bending over me, a tall figure; and as I opened my eyes, he took his broad palms and began to stroke both sides of my face, talking to me, asking me whether I was suffering; he soon stepped back two or three paces — I did not know who he was. He looked over the cots. I will never forget," said Mr. Greer, "the tones of that voice, and that sad face, when he said, 'My God, my God, the responsibility of this war ; it must rest somewhere, if it rests upon me, I must have relief.' " My friend said, "The moment I heard 198 THE KEPUBLICAN CLUB him say, *if it rests upon me/ it dawned upon me that it was Presi- dent Lincoln. It was too much for me, and I began to cry. Mr. Lincoln noticed it. He immediately changed from a sad face to a face wreathed in smiles, and stepped up to me, and put his left hand upon his left knee, stooped over and began to stroke my forehead with his right hand, and said, ^Don't cry, my boy; why, you are as tough as a pine knot; the rebels can't kill you; you will get out all right.' " This man said, *^That is the medicine that got me out of that hospital. It was Lincoln's * Tough as a pine knot.' " Here is the place he so often went — ^it was in this hospital where this beautiful and pathetic scene took place. He was spending some time at the hospital, much of the day, and had just gone out to get into the carriage, when he was accosted by someone, perhaps a guard, who said, '^Mr. President, in an apartment you did not visit, is a rebel soldier. The surgeon says he must die. This soldier learned you were here, and he wants to see you." Mr. Lincoln turned to the party with him and said, "Just wait, and I will return soon" ; he went with the guard and was led to the cot where the poor rebel soldier was dying; Lin- coln took his hand, and asked him what he could do for him. All that the poor fellow said was, "I knew they were mistaken; I knew they were mistaken." I presume, my friends, that that soldier had been taught, as I was taught. I was rocked in a cradle in Ohio, over which was sung the lullaby, "Old Abe Lin- coln is dead and gone, hurrah, hurrah." I am not the only son of Ohio who was taught that he was a traitor. Many, many people in my own beloved State did not understand him. This poor fellow had been taught that he must have been a traitor, but upon first sight, he broke out and said, "I knew they were mistaken." When Mr. Lincoln asked him what he could do, he said, "The Doctor says I cannot get well, and there is nobody ADDRESS OF HON. SIMEON D. FESS 199 here I know and I wanted to see you." The President said, "What can I do?" He said, "I wanted to ask you to forgfive me for the part I have taken in this war." Mr. Lincoln said, *'Ask God to forgive you, my boy; of course I will forgive you, but ask Him to forgive you," and at this juncture stooped to take his hand in the President's two hands, like that, and said, "I have been here much of the forenoon; I am a very busy man, I must go. Is there anything now before I go?" And the dying request of that Confederate soldier was made to the President, "Oh, I thought if you did not care, you might stay and see me through." There stood the President of this nation, with the tears dropping upon his coat sleeve; the President of this Re- public weeping over a dying Confederate soldier, who had done all in his power to clip the brittle thread of hope upon which the life of the nation was suspended — and the President weeping over him because he had asked to be forgiven. That is the pathetic side of Mr. Lincoln, and is a beautiful picture of what he was. If I were a painter, I would not paint Mr. Lincoln at the time when he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, that is great; but the abolition of slavery had to come, and would have come; but the greatness of Lincoln is shown where this great soul is weeping over a dying rebel boy. It is a combirxation of humor and tenderness which enables him to control men, and is the measure of what he did. May I be indulged, just in a sentence, to say this? — that while I have come to speak to you of Lincoln, and must do it briefly, though it is a great subject, absolutely unending, may I say to this Club, and to your friends, that he was the first President of the greatest political party that is known in the history of Na- tions? He is our first President. Now, what would he do, if he were here to-day? My first statement is that he would make a 200 THE REPUBLICAN CLTJB sharp distinction between Republican prosperity and Demo- cratic psychology, — that is the first observation I make. He would never appeal to prophesy, but he would appeal to his- tory; he would not look to promises, but he would look to per- formances, and he would at once discriminate between what is and what was; in other words, national prosperity means the Democracy out of business; Democratic prosperity means the country out of business. Lincoln would see that distinction; and in the language of your President, so well said — ^Lin- coln, the President of the war time, when the executive had to be powerful, never forgot that the White House was the place where the law was to be enforced, while Capitol Hill is the place where the law is to be made. He recognized that there is a difference between the executive and the legislative — the one cannot be both and, more than that, Lincoln, while he would maintain the fruits of peace, would never have landed our troops at Vera Cruz, unless he meant to do something when he got there. They would not have been marched up the hill, and then down the hill again. I have a right to speak in this way, my friends, for I am the Republican on the floor of the House, who, when our troops were landed, spoke in an appeal, for Republicans, to desist from their criticism of the Mexican policy. Why? Because the landing of the troops at Vera Cruz was an act of war, and we were at war the moment the troops landed. But we went there — we don't know why; we came back — we don't know why. It is "Watchful waiting," we are told. But Business says it is ''Wakeful watching." My friends, Mr. President, I do not dare to get on that theme. I have been living in Washington, and I become pretty intense when I allow myself to dwell upon such a national policy on a Lincoln anniversary, and so I just bid you good-night. J. ADAH :BEDE Bom on farm in Lorain County, Ohio, 1856. Printer. Reporter on newspapers West and South. Member 58th to 60th Congresses. Engaged in farming, editorial work and lecturing. Lives at Pine City, Minn. ADDRESS OF HON. J. ADAM BEDE Mr. Chairman, Governor, Senator, Gentlemen of the Repub- lican Club of New York, and the Ladies in the galleries: In addressing you at this late hour, and after the speakers who have preceded me, I feel very much like a humming bird among the eagles of oratory; but I take courage, like the young lady who was working for Mrs. Pankhurst in London. She had been out one day doing a little work — she had burned a duke's country home; she had slashed a couple of pictures in an art gallery — but she really did not feel that she had done a full day's work, and she returned to headquarters. She was condoling with some of her co-workers. They said, "Talk it over with Mrs. Pank- hurst; she will not feel bad." She went to the chief, Mrs. Pank- hurst, who said, ^'You did the best you could, did you not, my dear?" She said, "I certainly did, but don't feel satisfied." "Oh," says Mrs. Pankhurst, "Ask God, She will help you." I feel a little bit like a banker who, when a distinguished citizen came in to open up a new account, in which there seemed to be some profit in prospect, patted him metaphorically upon the back, and said, "My dear Mr. Jones, you must remember we shall always try to make your interests our interests"; and so while they have assigned me the topic of patriotism, I had not known it until to-night, and while I shall touch upon that theme, I shall also say a few words for your entertainment. 204 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB I could not help thinking when the Governor was speaking to you of the boys that come to your great city from the farm, for I know that New York itself is largely made up in its won- derful commercial capacity of boys who come from the rural districts. I feel sorry for any man who is not born on a farm. I feel sorry for that man who is not reared on a dairy farm. I feel sorry for that man, who, as a boy, has never had to go out bare-footed after the cows on a frosty morning in October or November; who has never kicked the cows, and made them get up and then warmed his feet where the cows had been lying down. That is the first lesson in American politics. That is what the Democrats did to us two years ago, and it is what we are going to do to them two years hence. We are merely going to pass it along, and I have not come here to abuse Democrats. I feel sorry for them. It is hard enough just to be a Democrat, without being abused for it. Now, I believe in two great political parties — one in power, and the other almost in; one running the Government, and the other watching it while it runs it — and the reason I vote the Repub- lican ticket, one of the reasons is, because it seems to me that the Democrats make the best watchers — any way, they have had the most experience, and it is everybody for his specialty. "Watchful waiting" belongs to them and doing things belongs to the Republican Party. A friend of mine told me, as a boy — he is now a literary man —that sixty or more years ago, up in the back woods of Michigan, half a dozen men were sitting around a whale oil lamp, and wondering what they would do for lights when the whales were all gone. They thought they would have to go to bed when it was dark, and be good; but other things have come along. The world has been illuminated. Things are better than they were. ADDRESS OF HON. J. ADAM BEDE 205 and we are going on upwards, and onwards to better things. So let us not be disconsolate, for the world is getting better. Some folks think it is getting worse, and do you know why? — merely because you read the news. You get it every day; if it was not censored in Europe, there would not be an item in the war that would not be read every morning, within twelve hours of the time it happened; under ordinary conditions, there is not a thought worth remembering, born on the face of the earth, that is not read within twenty-four hours. News consists largely of things that are written. A man can live with his wife for half a century, but they say nothing about it; but if he lives half a day with another woman, you read it the next morning. News consists of the unusual thing, and reading the un- usual thing. The ordinary, every-day virtues of the Ameri- can people are never printed. You would not have time to read them if they were printed — there are too many of them. But most of these unusual things are things that ought never to happen at all, at least from my standpoint — the divorce cases, kidnapping, scandals, flying machine accidents, railroad wrecks, mining disasters — Democratic victories, and things of that sort — but one by one we eliminate them, and ultimately the world will be even better than it is to-day. I know we are drifting a little bit into Socialism. The President wants to buy ships. My good friend, Mr. Bryan, wants to buy railroads and cotton, and wants to buy — he wants to buy cotton, and in a little while you will own pretty nearly everything. Why, I have been out against Socialists for a year and a half; I have had 150 de- bates with different distinguished Socialists of the United States, and their whole plea is that you are to get what you produce, or its equivalent. No man of real genius can take out of the world as much as he puts in, nor ought he if he could. There 206 THE EEPTTBLICAN CLUB are so many not capable of living np to the standard of producing enough for them to live up to the American standard. Somebody must do the surplus work. Tell me, how could you pay Abraham Lincoln an equivalent of what he did for the American people and the world? How could you pay William Shakespeare for his dramas? The Bank of England could not pay in cash or credit the debt the world owes to him for what he did. You could not pay Edison for his inventions, or Marconi, or any of the great intellects of the world ; and, as it is with them, so with the great captains of industries; they have been doing things, too, and I do not want to mislead anyone as to my opinion on those things. To my mind, it is not so much a question of what a man accumulates as it is what sort of a trust he is for it, after he has accumulated it. Someone told Napoleon of a great victory, a great memorable victory that had been achieved in the history of the world — and Napoleon asked, "What did the victor do the next day?" That is the big thing— what do you do the day after your victory? So it is in political life; so it is in commercial life, as well as in the military field. It is not how much accumulation, but what sort of trustees are you for it, after you have accumulated it. Under Republican prosperity no man standing alone on the map of America could become a millionaire by himself. It takes a large population, even in America, with our productive power, to make a millionaire. Therefore, society owns an equity in the fortune that he produces, in so far as to say it shall be used for the good of society, and not for its hurt, and, beyond that, we take no interest; but up to that point so- ciety has its equity, and I think the standards of our civilization to-day recognize it, and because of that lifting it to higher stand- ards we are going on to greater achievements. But I did not come to talk to you on that line; it is only an oversight. ADDRESS OF HON. J. ADAM BEDE 207 In 1859 a lawyer appeared in the court of the State of Illinois, in the interest of an Illinois railroad, and asked for the con- tinuance of a cause, because their chief witness, the engineer of the road, was not present. Two years later the lawyer was President of the United States, and the engineer was the Com- mander of the American Army. One was Abraham Lincoln, and the other George B. McClellan — so quickly are we transformed in this wonderful republic, that we pass from the humblest posi- tion, from the humble captain and engineer, to the command of an army; from a country lawyer in the backwoods of a county in Illinois to the President of the United States. Abraham Lin- coln in his life brought the Government a little closer to the people, and in his death he drew Heaven a little closer to the earth; and yet, Lincoln might have lived and died, and gone to his reward without becoming to the Nation a known character. Certain events produced him. It could not have been without his heredity, perhaps, without his environment; but, certainly not without the great events that preceded the war. I know that Daniel Webster is roundly abused for what is known as his 7th of March speech; but I doubt, without that speech, Abraham Lincoln would have been President of the United States, because you had to hold back the war for a decade; you had to have the compromises of 1850; you had to have the repeal of the Missouri compromise of 1854; you had to have the campaign for Senator in Illinois; in 1858 you had to have the John Brown raid, and the execution in 1859, and you had to have his lecture in the Cooper Union in the same year; and, it was a lecture — not a political speech, although he talked on politics. But a committee in your city, looking around for someone that could fill the hall for a benefit, had the name of Abraham Lincoln suggested, because he had had the debates with Stephen A. Doug- 208 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB las, and they wrote him and told him they would give him $200 if he would come and give them an address, and he came; and, as has been said to-night, it was the greatest political speech ever made on American soil, and all those things led up to the career that made him President of the United States. But you had to have also a Convention, held in Chicago; you had to have a stampede at that Convention; without all those things it would have been a citizen of New York, and not a citizen of Illinois, that would have occupied the White House between 1861 and 1865; and then, you had all these things to lead up and bring about the split in the Democratic Party; you had to have a Stephen A. Douglas and a few other men like that, to help to break up the party, so that you could have a Lincoln; so, all these things converged, and without them Lincoln would not have occupied the peculiar niche that will be forever his. For, while Edwin M. Stanton did once speak of him as the baboon, in the White House, yet it was also Stanton, standing by the death- bed, that first uttered the words— "that now he belongs to the ages." But I wonder if the people have forgotten the conditions of the country when Abraham Lincoln became President ? We know that things went a little bit slowly when he first came in, but do we ever think why? After his election, and preceding the taking of office, a wonderful reaction came over the people of the United States. They saw the Union breaking up; they saw the Southern Senators going out from the Capitol of the Nation; they began to feel and tremble, and an amendment to the Con- stitution was offered in Congress, making slavery perpetual, of- fered by men from the North, passed by the Congress of the United States, submitted to the States of the Union for their adoption, adopted by the State of Maryland and the State of ADDRESS OF HON. J. ADAM BEDE 209 Ohio, and God knows how many more States might have adopted it, but for the war coming on, and the whole thing being forgot- ten. Have we forgotten those things? and do we not know the real trials that Abraham Lincoln confronted when he went to the White House on the 4th of March 1861? An amendment offered by the Northern people that would make slavery per- petual, for the exact words are these: "No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Con- gress the power to abolish or interfere within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor and service by the laws of the said State"; so that is what Abraham Lincoln confronted. The whole of the North who had condemned Webster in 1850, now went one hundred per cent, further than he did, and did things that tied the hands of the President for a time, until he could bring back the senti- ment of the Nation to act in accord with his own sentiment — for Abraham Lincoln knew that the Emancipation Proclamation, like the Declaration of Independence, was as true one thousand years ago as it is to-day — but what good would it have done to have posted up the Declaration of Independence on the forest trees of Germany, when Germania was contending with the Romans; and what would have happened if President Lincoln had issued his Emancipation Proclamation a year later than he did? You have to do the right thing at the right time to get results, political or otherwise, and therefore we had this great, wise leader to lead us on to this higher standard, as rapidly as he could lead the people, for he was convinced he had to wait till the great major- ity of the people who had solved the real problems of this Nation could catch up with him. In 1862 he lost his own State of Illinois. In fourteen Congress- men only three were elected favorable to him. Indiana went 210 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB against him. Ohio went against him; Pennsylvania went against him; the State of New York went against him, and it was only the border States of New England that saved the situation and npheld his hands. Therefore, I say, he had some troubles of his own; and even in 1864 — for he was "a man of trouble and ac- quainted with grief" — in 1864, after he had been nominated, he might still have been defeated for re-election had not the Union Armies achieved great victories. The fall of Fort Morgan, the taking of Mobile in Alabama, the conquest of Sherman in the Shenandoah valley and other victories of that sort brought the people to their senses, to see that Lincoln was on the right track, to uphold his hands and give him a triumphant return; but, let us also in passing remember that while the tariff bill was passed on the 2nd of March, 1861, signed by Buchanan and not by Lin- coln, passed before the war came on, still they did not have to make a general revision of the tariff to meet even the war ex- penses; they merely added internal taxes and fixed up a few schedules of the tariff, and everything went on because they had a Kepublican tariff bill already adopted. It was along in 1860, if I remember accurately, the income of this Nation was only thirty million dollars and the deficit was twenty millions. Under the last Democratic administration our total expenditures at that time were annually between fifty million dollars and sixty mil- lion dollars a year, while your City of New York, I think, now spends something over two hundred million, but we are doing things that we did not use to do. The world is moving at a little different standard, and we are a little more able to meet the burdens of our time than we were a couple of generations ago. Now as to patriotism, if I have got to say a word on that— the best definition of patriotism would be the life of Abraham Lincoln. I would call patriotism, if you had to define it in words: "Edu- ADDRESS OF HON. J. ADAM B£D£ 211 cated or refined selfishness as regards your own country.'* Patriot- ism is only a sort of selfishness. You like your country better than you do the other fellow's. You do not have to hate the other fel- low's country, but you love your own ; any more than you have to hate the other woman because you love your wife. But you have a kind of selfish interest in your wife and your own home, and then your altruism reaches out over the neighborhood; but we have been moving pretty rapidly under this Republican patriot- ism in the last fifty years. Why, I have lived about half the length of the world myself — I think as many things have been done during my life-time that have been done in all the history of the world before. Is it any wonder that we occasionally get a little dizzy ? We are going faster than we can readjust ourselves sometimes. That is why we let the Democrats come in to stop it for a little while. What will to-morrow be the progress on the farm? I can remember back to the days of the scythe and the sickle, and all those things. All those things we do not have now, but in those days a multitude of people might have starved in India and we never heard of it; and if we had heard, we were powerless to render them aid. Thanks to the ocean cable, to the telegraph, to the fast steamship; thanks to the modern implements upon the farm there is not an acre of ground on the face of the earth to-day whose products cannot feed the hungry on any other face of the earth, and it has largely come under the platform of the Republican Party. Why, as I heard a Chautauqua lecturer say — he says, "In the alphabet of agriculture there is no such word as flail." We have been moving on. Why, within — almost within — my own life- time we have harnessed the waters, and made the remorseless flood our servant; or we have congealed the waters into solids to make them serve the purposes of sanitation in their dormant state ; 212 THE REPUBLICAN CLTJB or created it into vapor, to bear the burdens and move the com- merce of the world. We have spoken to the storm-stricken ship in mid-ocean, and a thousand passing craft have sped to its relief. We have invented the diving ship that traverses the very bot- tom of old ocean, and is now employed as a servant of destruction in the greatest war on earth; and, leaving the domain of fish and beast for that of birds, we have moored the biplane in the golden Archipelago of the Milky Way and triumphed in the very conquest of the air. When I went to Congress in 1902, I voted for a little ap- propriation for Professor Langley to experiment with a flying machine. Well, in this wonderful civilization, we have overtaken the fish and beast, and we are catching up with the birds. The world has been moving on, and it is just a little bit hard to adjust ourselves to changing environment, and sometimes we get disturbed; sometimes we vote the wrong ticket; sometimes we sit up and hate our neighbors. I went around this country two years ago, handing out the wisest kind of advice, very little of which was consumed at that time, but they will eat out of my hand in another two years. We have got all kinds of legislation in the West. I notice that up in Michigan a bill has just been introduced fining any woman under forty years of age who wears false hair, or puts powder on her face. Where is she going to put her powder? Out in Wisconsin they have a eugenic law there. I have never read it carefully, but I am told they require every knock-kneed man to carry a bow-legged girl, and if that is not patriotism what is it? I was home for Christmas. Talking about thinking in Continents, I have been all over the United States, spoken ADDRESS OF HON. J. ADAM BEDE 213 in every State where they would listen to me, and in keep- ing with the introduction of your Chairman — I have had children born in most of the States of the Union. When I was home for the Christmas holidays, I said to one of my little girls— (Cries of "What State?")— Someone says, "Which State?" Well, it is a kind of Lone Star State, the North Star. I said to my little girl, "I see that the roses are not blooming like they were when I went away; what is the matter with them?" I said. "Oh," she said, "You are just joking; you know roses cannot bloom in the winter time in Minnesota." "Well," I said, "I do not know about that." I said, "If the rose bush was not rooted to the earth, if when it saw the cold weather coming, it could get up and walk to the house, and sit down by the fire- side, and look out of the window on the sunlight, it would bloom in the winter time." I said, "Do you know what is the matter with the rose bush — it cannot adjust itself to the wonderful en- vironment of Minnesota; the seasons come too swift; so it waits till the sun comes back in the spring and then it blooms again," and do we carry out the lesson I told here, that all that was the matter with man and woman was their adjustment to their environments. If we, too, were tied down, if we had to remain like the rose-bush out on the landscape, we, too, would perish; but it is because of our ability to adapt ourselves to the wonder- ful environment that we endure in this wonderful civilization. If every time a new machine is invented that distributes Capital and Labor, we can, without discontent, and without hate, adjust ourselves to a new environment that can be produced, you will lift your civilization up, and you go on to further conquests, but if you cannot adjust you are going to die, and it is not only true physically, but it is true spiritually, and the reason that Abra- ham Lincoln is living in glory to-day is because he could adapt 214 THE REPUBLICAN CLTJB himself to a spiritual environment. He lived that life; he was in touch with the environment produced by the Creator of all things, and only in that way, by adjusting ourselves to worldly and spiritual environments, shall we receive the better life here and the higher life which we trust is yet to come. Now, I did not intend to speak too seriously. I wanted to say there are a few things yet to be done. I was holding a debate, as I said, with a Socialist, and speaking of such men, as I see here to-night- — wealthy men, I presume you are — why, the Socialist said, **Talk about such men as that," naming a few very wealthy men, he said, "When they die you won't have to bury them" — he said, "They are so crooked that you can screw them into the ground;" but I think that the wealthy men of this Nation are thinking to-day as they never thought before. They are meeting and solving the great problems of this great republic; they have a high patriotism; there is more of it to the square mile, there is more of it in proportion to the popu- lation in America to-day than ever before in its history. You only need to strike the pipe and the patriotism will demonstrate itself. The world, as I have said, is moving on. It was by the firesides of Dixie and Pennsylvania and New York and New Eng- land that American liberty found its first birth, and came to full fruition, and it is by the twenty million firesides in this great land to-day that American problems and American patriotism must be worked out, and the destiny, not only of our Nation, but of the world, be determined. But just let me say in closing that if there were only grown folk in America our patriotism might die away; but so long as we have one-fourth of our population in public and parochial schools and college halls there can come no danger. If we, who are older-grown, forget the lessons of liberty, they are learning ADDRESS OF HON. J. ADAM BEDE 215 them anew. They have upon their room walls the portraits of all the heroes. They see Washington at Cambridge; they see him at Valley Forge; they see him at Yorktown; they see him cross- ing the Delaware. They see him on all the battlefields of the Revolution, but best of all, they see him in the dignified retire- ment in Vernon as he beholds the waving flag of Old Glory above the Capitol. They drink in the inspiration of the fathers, and they know why this Nation was born. They see Lincoln at Gettysburg, with face sad but sanctified, as he tells the world the story of Govern- ment by the people and for the people. They have seen here for the last time upon this Continent the clanking chains of slavery, now stricken from every limb, and they know why this Nation has fought and lived. They see Dewey at Manila, and Sampson at Santiago. They see the Stars and Stripes as the Emblem of love and liberty, floating above the crumbling castles of hate; they hear the groans of despotism, and they know why this Na- tion shall never die. "Columbia, to glory arise, The Queen of the World and the child of the Skies. Thy genius commands thee with raptures behold, While ages on ages thy splendors unfold.*' THE THIRTIETH ANNUAL LINCOLN DINNEE of the EEPUBLICAN CLUB of the City of New York At the Waldorf-Astoria FEBRUARY 12, 1916 Addresses of HON. JAMES R. SHEFFIELD REV. S. PARKES CADMAN, D.D. ADDEESS OF HON. JAMES R. SHEFFIELD Ladies and Gentlemen, Guests and Feliow-members of the Kepub- lican Club: We meet in memory of Abraham Lincoln. In his name, and on behalf of the Republican Club of the City of New York, I bid you cordial welcome. Of all our national heroes, he is the one we love best. Of all our public holidays, his birthday is the most truly American. Of all the noble things for which this Club has stood, nothing reflects greater honor upon it than this annual commemorative feast. For this is its thirtieth consecutive Lincoln Dinner. If it had done nothing more than inaugurate this custom, now followed throughout the land, the Republican Club would have justified its existence and won an enduring place in the halls of fame. But it did far more than that. It was upon the petition and urgent insistence of this Club that this day was, in 1896, made a legal holiday in the State of New York, and it was largely through its initiative and effort that over twenty commonwealths have now declared the 12th of February to be a legal Saint^s day. It seems, therefore, especially appropriate that we should gather at the invitation of the Republican Club. In no spirit of vain glory, but of honorable pride ; in no spirit of partisan advantage, 220 THE KEPUBLICAN CLUB but of deepest patriotism, it welcomes to this feast all lovers of Lincoln and of the liberty and union to which he gave the last full measure of human devotion. It believes that the setting apart of one day in each year to enable men to rivet attention upon what he did and what he was would make better Americans of us all, no matter from what racial stock we spring, from what shores we come, or under what party banners we march. It is not amid the clashing interest of men, the activities of trade, the noise of machinery, or the clinking of gold, that pat- riotism is fostered and love of country made supreme. It is only when the hum of industry is stilled, when the banks, the shops, the busy marts of trade, the offices, the courts and the schools are closed, when men are freed from the engrossing cares and duties of the hour, that opportunity is given to think deeply of God and country and our obligations to each. It is only at such a time that men, recalling his life and his death, may commune with the great spirit of Lincoln, and, in the silence of a world at rest, almost hear the anguished heart-beats of this human savior of a race. It is then that the laborer, released from his daily toil, may remember what Lincoln did to make labor free; that youth may learn the lessons taught by the majesty of his life and the mar- tyrdom of his death; that wealth and power may pause to be dedicated anew to the keeping of this land a land of equal op- portunity and equal rights for all men, rich and poor, and that all of us, on this one day of each year, may assemble together and search our consciences to see if we are striving to make THE America we possess worthy of THE America he died to save. And so we hold this Lincoln Dinner; and we here each year repeat the story of his life, — not because it is not fully known ADDRESS OF HON. JAMES R. SHEFFIELD 221 to all men, but because it is one of the two great stories the world never tires of hearing and that never grows old. There are characters of whom the last word will never be said. For twenty centuries the civilized world has listened with rapt attention to the oft-repeated story of the cross, and yet, at the end of almost two thousand years, the story of His life still thrills the multitude, and the symbol of His death still points humanity to heaven. There is mystery as well as majesty in true greatness. Sim- plicity is an attribute of the strongest man and the sweetest child. He who possesses all of these will forever be an inspira- tion for the songs and eloquence of mankind. It is no disparagement of the age in which Lincoln lived that his true greatness was not seen until his death. The processes of growth in blades of grass, in flowers of the field, in trees of the forest and in the children of men, are hidden from our eyes. We sometimes see only when the product is ready for the reaper. We miss the plant until the flower unfolds. We vaguely saw the forest, but we did not see the tree until its stately top ap- peared above its fellows, and even then its full stature was only known when the woodsman's axe had lain the giant prone upon the earth. As the tenderest wild flower may spring up amid the desola- tion of a wilderness, as the rarest orchid may grow upon the trunk of a dying tree, as the noblest pine may start within the crevice of a rock, so the fairest flower of civilization and man- hood may start in a wilderness, surrounded by poverty and nurtured by want. So it actually did start in the silence of a great wilderness 107 years ago to-night. I like to think upon that lowly beginning, not because it was so humble, but because it was so in keeping with the great 222 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB mother-heart of nature when she plans her mightiest triumphs. And as he began so he grew. Strength is the result of effort. Fettered by no luxury, bare-footed, bare-headed, bare-handed, he fought and struggled with man and nature, up through the growing years, until the wild plant of a Kentucky forest blos- somed into the perfect flower of a completed manhood, and mind and body and spirit were ready for the supreme test. Who cares now that his walk was awkward and his features plain? We remember only that the homely beauty of that face was indelibly stamped with the soul of the Creator, and his awkward but never-faltering footsteps led a people to the saving of a nation and the freedom of a race. Such was Abraham Lincoln. His life and his memory now belong, as Stanton said "To the ages.'^ As he lived for all men and for all time, no one people, no one age, and no one Party, can ever claim him as exclusively its own. But the precious inheritance of the political doctrines in which he believed, the political principles for which he fought, and the Party faith in which he died, rests as a sacred trust upon the Kepnblican Party alone. This is a Government of law administered, not by men, but by parties. Every free representative Eepublic is ruled by Party Government. Philosophers, reformers, and many men who are neither, would have it otherwise. But facts are stubborn things, especially in a Republic — and two parties, one dominant and the other almost dominant, are among the established facts to be reckoned with when your business is the government of Repub- lics. Lincoln knew these truths far better than most. It was just sixty-six years ago, the 27th of this month, that Lincoln made his memorable address in Cooper Union. He spoke as patriot and American, but he also spoke as a Republican. And ADDRESS OF HON. JAMES R. SHEFFIELD 223 this Club, true to its traditions, fearlessly maintains that the Party to which Lincoln appealed from the platform of Cooper Union was his Party then, and it is ''his'* Party now. Through victory and defeat, in spite of abuse from without and betrayal from within, caring little who carried the banners, so long as they beckoned humanity sanely onward and upward, to a high political plane and a nobler national life, this Republican Party is the only one that through all its history has never lost touch with Lincoln. It is the same Party that twice elected him President of the United States; that unwaveringly upheld his efforts through four awful years of civil war; that stood back of and made ef- fective the Emancipation Proclamation; that for the first time in history made good in fundamental law the paper declaration, ''All men are created free and equal,'' and has continued to make good that declaration in every State in the Union where that party has held control; that with "malice toward none" bound up the Nation's wounds and fulfilled with honor every national obligation at home and abroad ; the same Party that has ever been guided by his teaching; inspired by his example and the first to do reverence and honor to his imperishable meipory. It faces to-day, as it faced in 1860, a Presidential election. It sees again dangers to the Republic, peril to our national interests, and free government — here and elsewhere throughout the world — on trial for its very life. Is it mere chance that it goes again, as it did in 1860, to that City on the shores of Lake Michigan where it first nomi- nated Lincoln, there to re-write the old confession of Party faith, and to choose from its own Party membership one who will re- establish the Presidential dynasty of Abraham Lincoln? Oh, Lincoln! Abraham Lincoln! When the great Party of 224 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB your love and your allegiance meets in June in the City of Chi- cago, may it still be guided by your spirit and inspired by your example! May it realize that in doing honor to your memory it will do honor no less to its history and itself! Following your teaching, it will reaffirm its belief in the things that have made this country great, and this people free. It will make clear its purpose that no man or group of men, however great, can jeop- ardize the liberty of any other man, however weak, and that above the hissing of traitors at home, or the roar of artillery abroad, shall be heard the voice of America demanding from a world in arms that its honor be maintained and its every right respected. EEV. S. PABEES CADMAN Pastor of the Central Congregational Ghnrcli, Brook- lyn. Born in England, and worked in the coal mines as a young man. Hethodist minister. Noted author, scholar and orator. ADDRESS OF REV. S. PARKES CADMAN, D.D. Mr. Toastmaster, Governor McCall, fellow-gnests, ladies and gentlemen: To pass from the vexed affairs of a ravaging catas- trophe to the historic memory of Lincoln is as if one were sud- denly transferred from the heat and clamor of a crowded assembly to the lofty summit of the mountains; the ocean's grey expanse breaking at their base, the silent stars burning in the vaults above. Those who speak of him have been extensively antici- pated; they are gleaners in fields from which much has been al- ready reaped. The most sagacious and discerning minds at home and abroad have scrutinized his every phase; some, with a keen sympathy for the man and his policies which hampered judicial estimal;e; others, with an aversion for them which disfigured their reckonings; none with that confessed superiority that could adequately measure his elusive genius. There is no truly great and satisfactory biography of Lincoln. Nor is there likely to be until the writer shall appear who can do for him a similar work to that done by Carlyle for Cromwell. The epoch in which he became the transcendent figure projected its hate and discord into succeeding eras. Although a kindlier sentiment prevails now, and none save minor and useless attempts are made to influence history against him, the difficult role he undertook was not vcdth- out risks to his reputation. He did not reach his present emi- 228 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB nence in a semi-miraculous way. The fate of those who essay radical changes by enforcing unwelcome truths was visited on him. If ardent supporters idealized him, opponents equally ar- dent heaped venomous misrepresentation on his public acts. Men who had been deprived of economic privileges in their essence unjust and unholy assailed him with fanatical virulence. They specifically resented his sturdy belief that liberty was an essential part of the good of everything; a belief which animated his wisest statesmanship and prevented him from making shipwreck of his personal honor. To it can be ascribed his inflexibility against festering iniquities inflicted upon the helpless and en- slaved, whose lot was our standing reproach among the nations. It directed him with commanding simplicity until through sac- rifice he attained a sufficient habitation for his purposes, and consummated them in the largest fashion available. It won for him the approval of his own and of the universal conscience. His final months brought a certain grandeur to the predestined martyr, who gathered to himself in the sunset hour those asso- ciations which have made his name the treasured heritage of a people exceptionally rich in such bequests. He escaped the con- tempt of the enemy and obtained the world for his tomb, though he needed neither tomb nor epitaph to proclaim a life than which no braver nor better glows in the golden roll of American publicists. We complain of the indifferent, listless, ignorant multitudes which do not know how they inherited freedom. But as touch- ing Lincoln they have never been apathetic nor inarticulate. Public opinion has moved in swift, warm, living currents around his memory. Every instinct of justice and mercy has added to their impetus. Domestic provincialism could not retard them. It is commonly agreed among English-speaking races and races ADDRESS OF REV. S. PARKES CADMAN, D.D. 229 which do not speak English that no other magistrate of his century, and few indeed of any century, exceeded Lincoln in their contribution to social progress and betterment. Gladstone, who democratized an Empire; Bismarck, who inaugurated the stern methods which are now being tried out in blood and fire; Cavour, who recreated a nation; Webster, who expounded our constitutional doctrines with rare dignity and force, have no such right and title as Lincoln has received in the development of the higher civilization. European chancelleries acknowledge his authority. The Premiers of Great Britain invoke his pre- cedents in behalf of their propositions. The literary and polit- ical circles of England hold him in reverence. *'The London Times" and ''The Spectator" quote his speeches. The plain folk indorse his interpretations of democracy as understood not alone by us, but by Christendom's faithful devotees. His words have gone out to the ends of the earth: they bid fair to survive all else connected with the Civil War. Their seed is in themselves, the appreciation and respect with which they are treated is per- haps the most moving tribute to his worth. Simply to discover how he came to this distinction involves many factors we have not time to discuss. His main lines of genealogy, the limitations and discipline of his environment, the theories he accepted, and how they moulded his action, the mo- tives at the root of his steadfast intentions, the constant inter- ference of obscure poverty followed by unused prominence, and above the rest, a vivid realization of the unbroken continuity of his career, are prime requisites in an accurate portrayal of the man. As we survey these causes and effects we are conscious that whatever leaps to light he never shall be shamed. Distin- guished personalities frequently pain and disappoint us on nearer view. We are exhorted to spread the mantle of charity over 230 THE BEFXJBLICAN GLTTB their shortcomings, to avow that the king can do no wrong. To set down what they actually were, without fear or prejudice is a thankless but wholesome task. It dwarfs heroes, robs char- acter of a spurious greatness, shows the leprosy beneath the pur- ple. Yet the disillusionment is just and beneficial. To avoid the truth is always an expensive offense. Fortunately for us, this proud natal day brings with it little to blame, much to praise, more for which to be thankful to the gift and the Giver. Even his failings leaned to virtue's side. A calm retrospect leaves us vindicated in our nobler beliefs. The fierce light which beats upon every nook and cranny of his being reveals nothing which, in the severer sense, is detrimental. His conquest was the prize of his courage. Underneath his humane complacency lay a fortitude which grappled with adverse circumstances, and wrung out of them his opportunities. His earnestness was moral, still more so was his abhorrence of oppression. He did not shrink from the hazards of conflict, nor from the confessions of defeat. The temper which brought creeds to the test of practice made him oblivious to affront. To attempt, to persist, to stand in his own place, and having done whatever could be done, to continue to stand, were traits which made him the foremost captain of his age. The rugged primitiveness of his demeanor, and his sin- gular humility and approachableness, were not always indicative of the majestic will concealed beneath them. The mire and ma- lignancy he encountered could not detain him; he forged steadily ahead toward a goal to which he had been appointed, clearing the path for others who had less prescience. Nor was this hardi- hood stimulated by an optimistic outlook. Few were optimists in the dark years from 1850 to 1865. He knew that the political gospel of Webster, Clay, Calhoun and Douglas was exhausted, that the Nation chafed beneath its artificial boundaries. Yet ADDRESS OF REV. S. PARKES CADMAN, D.D. 231 the deep dejection that weighed upon him clarified his vision. For faith is born in such extremities, and because he trusted God and trusted the people, he was delivered from that fear which has a thousand eyes to plague its beating heart. His choices were upheld by the course of events; his prediction that after the night of tempest, when brother slew brother, not knowing whom he slew, the sun would rise on erstwhile bondsmen who no longer went forth scourged to unrequited toil, was splendidly fulfilled. The beginning remains the supreme moment. The coarseness of Lincoln's early life has always attracted us. Roses blooming on an icy waste are scarcely less phenomenal than to find our chieftain in the woods of a frontier State. That his conditions as a boy and a man have been exaggerated is beyond doubt. But when soberly considered they leave ample margin for wonder and bewilderment. The best explanation of his emergence lies in the intellectual and ethical endowments of his remoter ancestry. Like Washington and Franklin, he came of an ancient stock which had already given us Alfred, Cromwell, Milton, the elder and the younger Pitt, and the Colonial Masters. Whatever their tribe has done or undone, it has produced a lineage of exalted spirits who held, in varying degrees, that perfect obedience to a perfect law makes perfect liberty. That they did not achieve this, is nothing against them. At the least, they approximated toward it as their polar star, distant but never dim, by whose aid they navigated the stormiest seas. Their vital conception of law as a habit of the mind restrained their individualism; they could live alone and also in ascertained communism; they could think for themselves and also in unison. It was granted to Lincoln that he should express his gifts in correspondence with the popular mind. But this is the vocation of the oracle rather 232 THE REPUBLICAN CLTJB than of the gronndling. And those who imagine that he always waited for counsel from an agitated commonwealth have only to note him at a crisis to be undeceived. Horace Greeley would tell a different story, has told it. His debate with Douglas is the best tribute to his thoroughness of analysis, comprehensive sym- pathy, skilful and constructive use of necessary principles, in the era prior to his Presidency. For Douglas was a true patriot, a doughty antagonist, and when unseduced by the exigencies of partisanship, a formidable pleader. But Lincoln's resources of brain, his acute perception of his fellows, and his relieving be- nevolence, were moralized by his detestation for slavery. What has been deemed intuitional rather than logical in his argument, in reality, was reasoning carried to the nth power. It rested on a rational basis as broad and as firm as eternal righteousness. Moreover, his batteries were masked. Here was no strut, no pose, no undue stiffness, nor purple patch, no heart-foam, of meaningless rhetoric. The telling phrase, the sure word, the luminous metaphor, were at his call. He was not baffled by the excessive gravity of Sumner, nor the artificialism of Chase, nor the truculence of Stanton, nor the meticulous egotism of Mc- Clellan, nor the occasional ineptitude of Seward. Those who dwell on the surface have found it difficult to detect the full resonance and completeness of Lincoln's nature. If the heart makes the theologian, surely it has something to do for the statesman. Hence what he pondered and said was so subtly in- terwoven, so original and arresting, yet if the premises we cher- ish were accepted, so plainly true, that it could only be rejected by denying the standard doctrines on which all alike professed to rest their cause. As a political thinker, it is vain to compare him with Burke. But he never suffered his talents to be deflected, and Burke did. As a lawyer, he had no legal lore comparable ADDRESS OF REV. S. PARKES CADMAN, D.D. 233 with that of Jessel, or Cairns, or Field. But he interpenetrated what law he knew with the innate justice on which every law depends for its sway. The literature and learning of his con- temporaries were not at his disposal. He made no reference to the poets and prose authors who sang and wrote in his behalf in New England. What originality he had diverted itself with spor- adic and perishable works of humor. This chosen lyric — *'0h, why should the spirit of mortal be proud," indicated his lowliness of soul rather than correct taste. But gain was in the loss; he knew and loved the Bible and Shake- speare. From these classics, and from the vast and hidden prov- inces of his personality, he acquired by tenacious effort, a vigor and an ease of style which the pressure of his service enlisted and brought to the front. I have studied the acumen of his closely woven argument, alluring to the most fastidious reader, each part related to every other part, and to the whole, and mounting to its conclusion as surely as the eagle soars above the plain, until I knew not which excelled, the matter or the man- ner of his discourse. Throughout its appeal shone that gleam from the Uncreated Radiance which redeems and glorifies even commonplace sentiment. Without a suspicion of pharisaism, or the tendency to mere platitude, at intervals he girded himself for the fray, and became the prophet of the nations, the superb advo- cate of verities which wake to perish never. The Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural suffice as fine specimens of an inevitable rectitude which captured his constituents and justified democracy. Nor did he spend his strength on petty issues. There were adroit dealings in his handling of affairs which sustain the charge that he was a politician. But politicians have far more regard for major concerns than is supposed by purists, and when Lincoln came to the gulf between right and wrong he was a 234 THE EEPTJBLICAN CLUB Rock, a Refuge, a House of Defense. "May I be damned in time and eternity if I ever break faith with friend or foe!" he cried, when asked to repudiate his allegiance to his convictions. No land-locked soul, hemmed in and stagnant, but a living arm of the Oceanic Being out of Whom he drew; such was Abra- ham Lincoln. He shared in the mystery of Godliness as well as that of genius. The mingling of pathos and power, of tragedy and triumph, in his entire fabric, his complexity and his sim- plicity; the balance and adjustment of his varied endowments; and their unreserved consecration to the grandest interests, have made him our paragon. Not a cold and monumental saint, but a divine-human creature, toiling, suffering, enduring, treading a path of darkness and of death, submitted to the cruel caprices of an outrageous fortune, compelled to witness the slaughter he abominated in behalf of a Union dearer than life itself, crowned with a belated triumph to which his ending gave additional and melancholy splendor, we can never dismiss him from recollection. His shining covers every quarter of the firmament. His work abides. He becomes more necessary to us and to the anchorage of those to whom he gave everything he had or was, while the years pass. Others fade on the historic canvas, he stands out more conspicuously, even the minute blurs and blots heightening our gratitude. Democracy is never so hapless as when leaderless, inchoate, infirm of aim. That those who bear his political name may inherit his spirit is the fervent aspiration of our citizenship. And if, in this babel of voices, we are sometimes puzzled, and ask, "What is this Republic? What is it meant to be and to do? Wherein are we its loyal and obedient sons?" there can be no better answer than the life and teachings, the death and memory of Abraham Lincoln afford to every one of us. We know, beyond a peradventure, the sovereign conceptions of God, of man, of ADDRESS OF REV. S. PARKES CADMAN, D.D. 235 society, which ordained his magnanimity, his tranquil confidence, his unselfish and exemplary career. Knowing these, happy are we if we actualize them, without fear or favor, strong to achieve in that faith and toil which gave him the Amaranth. THE THIRTY-FIRST ANNUAL LINCOLN DINNER of the REPUBLICAN CLUB of the City of New York At the Waldorf-Astoria FEBRUARY 12, 1917 ADDRESS OF HON. WARREN G. HARDING WARREN 6. HARDING Twenty-ninth President of the "United States. Na- tive of Ohio. Hember of the Ohio State Senate, and United States Senator from that State preceding his election as President of the Nation. Publisher of "The Marion Star." Scholar and orator. [Note by Editors: This address was delivered at the dinner of the Lincoln Memorial University in Washington, February 12, 1922. The theme and treat- ment was the same as at the Republican Club of the City of New York in 1917.] Ox . r 1. ADDREI8 OF PRESIDENT WARREN G. HARDlK^Li TO Mr. Toastmaster and guests: No human story surpasses the fascination and the inspiration of that of Abraham Lincoln. The republic pays tribute to-night, and most of the world is doing him reverence, because in his unshaken faith the world finds its own hopes mightily strengthened. Our words are all feeble, be- cause we are dealing with the Master Martyr, the supreme leader in a national crisis, the surpassing believer in a fulfilled destiny, and a collossal figure among the hero-statesmen of all the ages. Turning over, in the last few days, the promise I had made to add my own to the testimonies that here are to be spoken, I have been impressively reminded of the greatly revived interest in everything concerning Lincoln which has marked the past few years, notably the last two. I have been thinking of how many times, in the recent years of the world^s trial and travail, I have received books, letters, articles, published literally all over the world, about Lincoln. One cannot but have observed how greatly the thoughts of people have turned to this man of vision, the great emancipator, who spoke with the voice of the common peo- ple for truth and for freedom. One cannot have failed to note that as the fortunes of mankind have confronted tribulation and distress, the minds of men have turned to this son of the yearn- ing, eager, earnest, simple people, and have sought in the story 240 THE REPUBLICAN '^^^ of his life for guidance in th^ ^o^r of humanity's trial. To me, this has been a portent of -^pe> a justification of faith, a reason for confidence that me* '^iU ^^ot only guide the bark of civiliza- tion through the ycorms which beset it, but will at last bring it into the port o^ a better and happier day. It does aot seem hard to understand why in times like these in wiich we live there should be such a renascence of sentiment for Lincoln, of renewed interest in the great lessons of his life. For men have come to think of him as they have not thought of others among the merely human characters of history. Lin- coln has appealed to them as one who manifestly was brought forth with the destiny or consecrated by an infinite hand to ren- der a particular service, to save a nation, to emancipate a people, to preserve in the world the fruits of the American experiment in and for democracy. Surely it is not strange that the eyes and interest of a world should turn to him now, when all mankind feels the need for such leadership and service and direction as he gave. A world, a civilization, an epoch — all these are facing the bitter need for the moral purpose, the noble aspirations, the high courage, that he interpreted to our America in the days of its crisis. More, humanity itself needs to drink of the cup of un- failing confidence which enabled him to stand erect and un- shaken amid discouragements and criticism which would have crushed any less than a master heart and soul. The world to-day sees civilization brought to its supreme test. Its trial came when it might least have been expected. At the very apex of material advances, when science and industry and invention and culture seemed to have united in justifying man's proudest estimate of his destiny, there came among the nations such a clash of ambitions, such a confusion of ideals, such a crash of conflicting aims and aspirations, as it had never known ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT HARDING 241 before. It brought bewildering confusion, and overwhelming amazement to those who had been esteemed the wisest among their kind, and who in the folly of their wisdom had been most certain that such a thing could never happen. And in the very face of havoc wrought, of the utter futility of it all, we still wonder that it could have been. But the sobering and destroying realization has come at last, that in its eagerness to harness and dominate the material forces of the world, humanity had lost its anchorage to the ultimate things of the higher, the nobler, the spiritual universe. Turning now, in the midst of the wreckage, to seek for whatever can be trusted as safe and strong and lasting, it is not to be wondered that people turn anew the pages of Lincoln's story. In very truth, his soul is marching on. To him it has been given to leave a living heritage of vital power and supreme inspiracion to the race. Out of Lincoln came the proof that lofty achievement is not in ideals alone, but in that spiritual and material justice which is the wholesome blending of infinite purpose and man's capacity for fulfillment. I spoke a moment ago of the multiplicity of present day writ- ings about Lincoln. They embrace everything from the geneal- ogist's delvings into his ancestry, to the psychologist's and the moralist's searchings into his innermost motives and objectives. Nothing that might possibly reveal any phase of his life and work has been accounted trivial. We are coming year by year to a more truthful and understanding appraisal of him. But all the researches of scholars and efforts of students have brought us little store of real understanding, have taught us well nigh noth- ing concerning the supreme providential purpose which permits such a light to shine now and then upon a generation of men. 242 THE EEPUBLICAN CLUB We know not whence come such great souls, such simple wisdom, such capacity for sacrifice and service. But we do know that as men contemplate this strange career and study its wonders and its lessons, they are at least planting in their minds and hearts a certain vague realization of what Lincoln was and meant; a consciousness of his personal significance to them; and with all this, a keen aspiration for some little participation in such a bestowal of selfiessness, sacrifice and service as was the life of Lincoln. That aspiration, I firmly believe, is fixed in a greater number of human hearts to-day than it ever was before. It may be somewhat vague and unformed, yet we readily recognize that it represents something like the aspirations of a race for a new incarnation of the spirit and the leadership of Lincoln. Doubtless it is vain to hope that another such as he will be given to us ^nd to our time. But to the extent that we shall prove ourselves worthy of such a leader, to that extent we shall be the better able to save ourselves without him. The task which men face throughout the world now is one with which they must cope as God intended. Their hope, their salvation, their destiny, must at last be in their own hands. They will save themselves if they will forget themselves. Probably the task would be less difficult if humanity would get a little nearer to God. In times like these, the fullest, truest service that any nation or any so- ciety can render to itself, will be the service which is conceived in unselfishness and rendered without thought of immediate gain, or even of ultimate personal advantage. We drink from memory, we find inspiration in example, we are exalted by the eternal truths which Lincoln saw and proclaimed, but the highest usefulness in these things is their practical pre- servation, so as to reveal to all the people a true understanding ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT HARDING 243 of Lincoln's transcending eminence. His snpreme gift was not in construction, his was the mastery of preservation. And the call of the world to-day is for preservation, for the preserved civiliza- tion which is the best judgment of human intelligence since the world began. THE THIRTY-SECOND ANNUAL LINCOLN DINNER of the REPUBLICAN CLUB of the City of New York FEBRUARY 12, 1918 ADDRESS OF HON. ROBERT W. BONYNGE ROBERT W. BONYNGE President of the National Republican Clnb dnring the World War. Member of Congress from Colorado. Appointed by President Harding a member of the Mixed Claims Commission, "United States and Germany. Authority on finance. Born in New York, 1863. ADDRESS OF ROBERT W. BONYNGE President of the Club Guests and fellow members of the Club: On behalf of the Ee- publican Club of the City of New York, I bid you, one and all, a cordial welcome to our thirty-second consecutive celebration of the anniversary of the birth of the immortal Abraham Lincoln. As we meet here to-night to pay homage and tribute to the name and fame and the life and character of that greatest of all expounders and advocates of popular government among men, the cause for which he lived and died is engaged on the other side of the globe in a titanic struggle for existence with all the forces of tyranny and autocracy. Amid the clashing of arms, the roar- ing of cannon, the bursting of shell and with all the instruments of death and destruction which human ingenuity could devise, this transcendently important issue to civilization and human progress is now being settled, for all time to come, on many a battlefield in Europe. Somewhere over there, in that awful conflict with its fright- ful carnage and slaughter, our boys, our sons and relatives, drawn from every section of the country and from all ranks of society — American citizens all — are bravely and gallantly doing their part to safeguard for mankind the liberty and freedom preserved for us by him in honor of whose birth, in a humble log cabin in Kentucky 109 years ago to-day, this meeting is being held. 248 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB Mindful of these facts and remembering the suffering and sac- rifices of our allies ; of stricken but indomitable Belgium, of brave and gallant France, of fighting and heroic Italy, of resolute and unconquerable Great Britain and her colonies, as well as the sac- rifices made and to be made by our own people, your Executive Committee decided to forego this year the usual public Lincoln banquet given by this Club for thrity-one years on this sacred day in our political calendar. We believed it would be more in keeping with the spirit of the times and with your wishes and desires to assemble on this occasion and under these circumstances in this Temple of Republicanism, here to commemorate fittingly and patriotically the memory of Abraham Lincoln and endeavor to draw from his teachings inspiration for the discharge of our duties of the present and the determination and the courage, at whatever cost, to transmit to our posterity in all its integrity the priceless inheritance he bequeathed to us. It is not as partisans we meet here to-night. Immediately upon the declaration of war, the Republican Club of the City of New York, true to the teachings of Abraham Lincoln, willingly and cheerfully sacrificed its partisanship upon the altar of patri- otism. From that day to this no partisan note on the war or its issues has been sounded within the walls of this Club House. We have not known and will not know in this crisis any distinction between patriotic American citizens striving to uphold our coun- try's cause. The administration at Washington is our admin- istration. It matters not to us by what political party it was elected to power. It has had and will continue to have our enthusiastic and united support in the prosecution of the war. We will continue as free American citizens but not as partisans to consider, discuss and determine in the good old American fash- ion what measures we believe necessary for the successful prose- ADDEESS OF HON. ROBERT W. BONYNGE 249 cntion of the war, and that whatever the decision of the ma- jority may be, we will give our whole-hearted support to the measures adopted. Neither is the memory of Abraham Lincoln the sole property of the Republican Party. We take a pardonable pride in the fact that we gave him to the Nation. The Nation has in turn given him to the world. His memory is now not only the prop- erty of all American citizens, but of all the free peoples of the earth. His spirit is to-day animating the allied forces of democ- racy of the world in the life and death struggle with the com- bined forces of autocracy. His work is not finished. It will not be finished until his conception of popular government and the rights of the people shall be accepted by all the civilized nations of the world. The story of his life and his deeds are known to us all. His writings, his sayings, his political principles have furnished the theme for countless speeches and the text for innumerable vol- umes. We are familiar with them. We love to hear the old stories repeated, but our supreme duty to-day, as I see it, is to subject ourselves to a rigid and search- ing self-examination to determine whether we are living true to his teachings, keeping his faith pure and undefiled and doing in this great crisis what he would have us do if here to lead and direct us. We can only judge what he would have us do by considering what he did in his day of trial. We know that in the darkest day of our history, when the life of the Nation was literally hanging in the balance and all around him were gloom and despair, his brave soul never fal- tered or wavered. We know he was subjected to abuse and vilification, his per- 250 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB sonal appearance and characteristics brutally caricatured, his views and opinions scoffed at by members of his own Cabinet; but through it all he maintained a patience and self-composure that seemed more than human and kept his mental vision cen- tered only on the main objective for which he summoned the forces of the Nation — ^the salvation of the Union and the pre- servation of popular government. We know he had a marvelous faculty for understanding men and of utilizing in the country's service the ability and talents of others. He knew neither friendship, religion nor politics in the selection of his advisers. In his first Cabinet he had four Democrats and his personal rival in his own party for the Presi- dential nomination. There sat the courtly Seward, who had so little regard for the ability of Lincoln that he obligingly offered to relieve him of the responsibility of his office. We know he did not hesistate to change advisers when the country's interest demanded the change. He displaced Simon Cameron, the political leader of Pennsylvania, as Secretary of War as soon as his unfitness for the post became apparent. In his place he named the best qualified man in the nation for the office, but a man who had been his most bitter critic and who called him "the original guerilla" — ^the great Secretary of War, Edward M, Stanton. We know he had absolute faith in the people. He said, "I have faith in the people. Let them know the truth and the country is safe." We know he welcomed constructive criticism and advice. He was the most, and sometimes the worst, advised man of his generation. We know he never permitted himself or any one around him to suggest defeat or compromise. With him our cause was just ADDRESS OF HON. ROBERT W. BONYNGE 251 and therefore could not fail. With him justice and righteous- ness were not matters open to negotiation or subject to compro- mise. And so this lonely man, this majestic man, with abiding faith in the justice of his cause and its ultimate triumph, un- moved by passion and undisturbed by criticism, pursued uner- ringly his course, which, to use his own language, was "as plain as a turnpike road," until victory was won and this government "of the people, by the people and for the people" was preserved not alone for us, but for all the liberty loving people of the earth. May we not from our knowledge of what Abraham Lin- coln did in his day of great trial, understand what Lincolnism, if I may use the term, means to-day. Plainly, it means that we must not permit ourselves, because of mistakes made or temporary defeats or set-backs suffered, for one moment to lose our faith in the ultimate triumph of our cause. It means sacrifice, devotion and loyalty on the part of all our people. It means the mobilization and utilization of all our national resources for the accomplishment of the great purpose for which we have taken up arms. It means that the united and patriotic support by all our peo- ple to those charged with the management of the war. It means calling to the Nation^s service the best trained, the best equipped and the most competent men to serve their conn- try, regardless of political considerations. It means stamping out inefficiency wherever found in the pub- lic service. It means that having taken up arms in defense of our liberty there can be no compromise of the issue until we shall have made secure for all time the right of free governments to exist with- 252 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB out the constant dread and menace of attack from any military power, however invincible it may believe itself to be. We have indeed received a sacred trust. May we prove worthy of it! May we here to-night catch something of the spirit of Lincoln and Lincolnism. Let ns here to-night in this home of Kepublicanism, individually and as an organization, once more renew our allegiance to the principles and tenets of Abraham Lincoln, our faith in the people whom he loved, our trust in popular governments and with clasped hands and hearts beating in unison offer up ourselves and all we hold dear to th3 cause for which he so nobly lived and heroically died; for then and then only shall we be entitled to call ourselves worthy disciples of Abraham Lincoln. THE THIRTT-THIRD ANNUAL LINCOLN DINNER of the REPUBLICAN CLUB of the City of New York At the Waldorf-Astoria FEBRUARY 12, 1919 Addresses of HON. CHARLES D. HIILES REV. J. PERCrVAL HUGET, D.D. ADDBESS OF HON. CHARLES D. HILLES President of the Club The Lincoln Dinner of the Eepublican Club is a fixed feast which has been celebrated annually, without intermission, since 1890. As a club we have attained our fortieth birthday. Since the last occasion on which we commemorated the birth of the great Emancipator, the Club has recruited into its membership five hundred and five men, and to-night its register stands at 1900 strong, embracing representatives of the party from forty- four of the forty-eight States, and from all of the territorial possessions. The Club advocates, promotes and maintains principles of Ee- publicanism. It associates itself with the living movements of the hour. No civic obligation is more important than that of stamping out the evil of indifference to political duties. Through political organizations and clubs, and through these alone, shall we solve the problems of consummate interest that have direct contact with the life and property and happiness of every citizen. The founders of the Club raised no great barriers to member- ship. The controlling conditions are good citizenship, ardent and patriotic Americanism, and loyal and stalwart Republicanism. The Club is exclusive and provincial only in these respects, and 256 THE REPUBLICAN CLTTB it welcomes to membership the men of our political belief who possess these essential qualifications. We make no fetish of a long waiting list. I know and greatly admire the headmaster of a thorough New England preparatory school who admits that there is an unwarranted degree of false pride in the more or less impress- ive — and, at times, inflated — boast of long waiting lists at such schools, and who says that at the school over which he presides there is a waiting list of one; that *'he" is the one; and that he is waiting at the front door, with arms extended, for all bright, ambitious, promising boys. I think it will not be considered an indecorum, or a species of indirect publicity, to say at this time that our Club is hospitable to men of character who are bent upon promoting the cause of good government in city, State and Nation. The movement to expand the membership and to extend the useful activities of the Club is gathering momentum. In a presidential year every Re- publican Club worthy the name must be revitalized, and we in- vite to fellowship with us, all who subscribe to the tenets of our political faith, and are otherwise eligible, particularly those who believe, as we do, that in this fateful year of 1920 there rests upon every true lover of this country a solemn obligation to dedicate to public affairs such portion of his time, his talents and his energy as may be required to wrest all branches of our national government from the withering grasp of a greedy, blundering and incurably incompetent horde of "deserving Democrats." The Republican Party was brought into being in order that the "Union" might be saved. It must be reinstated in order that the Republic may survive, and it must begin the renaissance of the Nation by driving the party of sectionalism and socialism from the citadel of power to the end that order be brought out ADDRESS OF HON. CHARLES D. HILLES 257 of chaos, confiscatory laws be repealed, private property seized for the ends of the war be restored to its rightful owners, con- structive legislation be enacted, and the exact nature and degree of the just obligations we owe as an important and potential mem- ber in the family of nations, and such as are owing to us, be ascertained and fulfilled. This is a task of greater magnitude than any which the nation has been called upon to perform since the Civil War. We have met to-night to commemorate not alone the birthday of a man than whom there never was a gpreater, but also an epoch in American history which was so closely intertwined with that man's life that the man himself and the great events of which he was the leading figure will never be dissociated. It has been most truly said that every great period of history has turned on the soul of a single man. In every great cause, the question and the man melt; but the man is much the larger term in the equation. Never short of Divinity itself has that fact been more fully developed than in that period when this country emerged from the darkness of a lower civilization and planted its feet firmly on the rock of eternal justice and assured freedom to all men, of whatever color or whatever race. In that period Abraham Lincoln came to the fullness of his mental and spiritual powers, and in that period the Republican party was born. Lincoln did not create the Republican party; nor did the Republican party make Lincoln. Each was the prod- uct of the mighty forces of the time. Each was the result of the bursting of very degrading bonds. At the end of sixty years and each succeeding year it became clearer and clearer that it was the voice and the soul of Lincoln that led strong men throughout the land to those higher levels of national and political life and morality which forever silenced those who fostered a part of the 258 THE EEPUBLICAN CLUB population towards and protected slavery, engendered sectional- ism, and produced a most pernicious form of aristocracy. It was inevitable that American manhood would revolt, that the ideal- ism which is the heritage of all Americans would assert itself, but something more was needed than a mere rebellion against an intolerable condition. A prophet, a leader, an inspirer was necessary to call those great moral forces of the nation into full play, to make them cohesive and to guide them in the paths of justice and of righteousness. Every great emergency begets the man, and so at the moment the need was the greatest the leader appeared. We who are the sons of the founders of that political party which, as a whole, has had a greater influence upon the affairs not only of our own country, but upon those of the world, than any political party that ever existed — we who have inherited traditions that belong to the Eepublican Party and to it alone, do well to memorialize and to celebrate on each successive anni- versary of Lincoln's birth the greatness of his life and of his utterance of those doctrines and those eternal principles upon which our party was founded and which have been the most potent influence in the development and upholding of this great nation. Which is the most important event to remember on this anni- versary night? The birth of Lincoln in 1809, or the birth of the Republican Party in 1854, and its coming into the full flower of strength and national character under the leadership of Lincoln six years later? Republican principles and Lincoln's ideals and leadership were so much a part of each other that we could not observe the one event without in fact commemorating the other. And this Re- public may forever rejoice that with the occasion there arose the ADDRESS OF HON. CHARLES D. HILLES 259 man. He had been unconsciously preparing for it for half a century. *'His intellect seemed daily to expand and to become more and more robust as the load upon it in such an unparalleled epoch became ever more severe." As we look back after this lapse of nearly sixty years we find him more and more standing in the forefront amongst all but a very few of the great leaders chosen to guide the Nation through the stress and storm of its national life, in the genuineness and vision of his leadership. Notwithstanding he felt malice toward none, he was not **too proud to fight," and he didn't win re- election by the boast that he had kept us out of war. He was no timorous guide; he was no false prophet. In the highest pos- sible degree he was the Chief Magistrate of all the people, even of those whom it was necessary to chasten. In the noblest sense he reflected public opinion, born of conviction, never because it was popular only. Always he led. The inspiration of his lofty ideals and his high integrity won him the love of his country- men and made him their spiritual and true leader. And for this quality of genuine leadership, of sane leadership, of disinterested leadership, of humility in his hours of triumph, and of willingness to take counsel in his hours of doubt, this country has given thanks for more than half a century. The crying need of the age is leadership, leadership of the type and character of Lincoln; leadership possessed of vision in keeping with the demands of the hour and the portend of the future; leadership founded in nobility, humility and dignity, symbolizing the strength and spirit of American citizenship, the greatness of the obligation as well as the opportunity of this Re- public; a leadership akin to such as Lincoln's. Such a leadership found its expression in Lincoln who faced every reverse with serenity, adversity with hope, and met recreancy with charity. 260 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB In the course of his struggles frequently starvation stared him in the face, yet there was never bitterness in his soul nor rancor in his heart. He met every issue squarely and never evaded it. He was born among the trees; was reared in the timber; he tra- versed the wide and open prairie; he sailed the streams and breathed the air of freedom; he communed with the stars and the heaven above. He was tall and upstanding, erect in figure as in character. He brought to manhood a ripe experience, a confidence born of successful struggle, a patience born of adver- sity, a sympathy born of denial, a charity born of suffering, a soulfulness born of humility, and a Godliness born of faith and Divine understanding. Possessing these attributes he came to ihe fullness of his power for service to his people, to his country and to all mankind. The influence of his spirit has grown and lived until to-day it is embraced and invoked not only in this Republic, but in all the four corners of the globe. One of our American poets has appropriately, beautifully and truly por- trayed Lincoln thus: "A blend of mirth and sadness, smiles and tears; A quaint "knight errant" of the Pioneers; A homely hero born of star and sod; A peasant prince; a masterpiece of God." These recurring birthdays of our noble national characters come to us much as the other days of the year. It is for us to make them memorable, to dignify them, to turn them to patriotic and constructive purposes. The days come to us as blocks from the quarry, one very like another, and, if we are wise, we secure for the task of shaping them, of ornamenting them, of turning them to useful account, workmen of the first order, workmen of vision, of skill and of achievement. One of these skilled workmen is the senior Senator from New ADDRESS OF HON. CHARLES D. HILLES 261 York, Senator Wadsworth. He is one of the relatively few young men in American public life who, at an early age, dedicated him- self to the public service and made painstaking and adequate preparation for his career; who has the advantage of the back- ground of several years of careful training and useful service in the legislative halls of our own State; and who rendered a serv- ice during the great war as a member of the important commit- tee on Military Affairs of the United States Senate (of which committee he is now the capable chairman), which service was not surpassed in importance by that rendered by any of his col- leagues. The Senate is now called upon to solve problems which are even more formidable than they are numerous. The reac- tion which always follows a great war has set in. We have had some severe ordeals, but it is clear that we must expect that the coming ordeals will be severer still. There has been, and there will be, submitted to the Congress a group of questions, as a part of the program of reconstruction, which, taken together, will determine whether we are to have our larger liberties restored and are, or are not, to be a self-governing people. Senator Wadsworth's courage, fidelity to duty, consistent course of action, mental equipment, vision, virility and demon- strated leadership of men combined to advance him to the front rank in the counsels of the Senate, of the party, and of the Na- tion, and have made his public services well-nigh indispensable. He took the seat made vacant by the voluntary retirement of Elihu Root, and he is a promising, worthy and fit successor to that New Yorker who filled a place of shining fame in the eye of the world. REV. JAMES PERCIVAL HUGET, D.D. Clergyman, Brooklyn; Lecturer; Author of "What Would Lincoln Say to This Generation?" and other pamphlets. ADDEESS OF REV. J. PERCIVAL HUGET, D. D. In the year 1809 there entered the life of this world a group of men who were destined to write their names in fadeless letters upon the pages of the history of humanity. In 1845 one of them, Alfred Tennyson, published his "In Memoriam.'' Although Ten- nyson in all probability had not at this time even heard the name of the yet unknown Springfield lawyer, there are lines in the poem which J. A. MacDonald, of the Toronto Globe, applies to Lincoln, saying, "his name alone seems to answer as the great original." I have also been told that James A. Garfield made the same application in his memorial address in Congpress. "Dost thou look back on what has been, On some divinely gifted man Whose life on low estate began, And on a simple village green. Who bursts his birth's invidious bar. And grasps the skirts of happy chance; And breasts the blows of circumstance, And grapples with his evil star. Who makes by force his merit known. And lives to clutch the golden keys; And moulds a mighty state's decrees, And shapes the whisper of the throne. 264 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB And mounting on from high to higher, Becomes on fortune's crowning slope The pillar of a people's hope — The center of a world's desire." Lincoln was the man of the hour. He was also the man of the century. Stanton said at his death bed, "Now he belongs to the ages!" Never has there been greater need than to-day, in America and throughout the world, for the ideal and the spirit of the Great Commoner. It is no idle question, then: "What would Lincoln say to this generation?" It is a question the very asking of which is significant, and the answer to which — if answer can truly be made — will furnish light and guidance greatly needed in a perplexed and troubled time. It is not my purpose to repeat the familiar story of his life, nor recount his achievements. He needs no tribute of mine. His place and fame are secure. None has ever worded this bet- ter than Lowell in his Commemoration Ode: "He knew to bide his time, And can his fame abide; Still patient in his simple faith sublime, 'Till the wise years decide. Great captains, with their guns and drums, Disturb our judgment for the hour. Then the silence comes; And, standing like a tower. Our children shall behold his fame, The kindly-earnest, wise, foreseeing man; Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame; New birth of our new soil, The first American." ADDRESS OF REV. J. PERCIVAL HUGET, D.D. 265 Certainly Lincoln is entitled to a hearing — none more so at sucli a time. His words will have weight and value, the weight of wisdom and the value of vision. He is entitled to a hearing by reason of his deeds. His services to his generation, — all generations; — to his land, — all lands and all people — these entitle him to a hearing. He merits a hearing because of the greatness of his mind, the power of his intellect, the clarity of his reason, the sanity of his judgment, that quality of his thought which enabled him to pierce through the unimportant and to penetrate beneath the secondary and superficial, to strip off the inconsequential and the accidental, and to go straight and unfailingly to the real issue and to reach the real truth. He commands a hearing by virtue of the rare worth of his life, the strength and sincerity of his character, the simplicity of his spirit; by virtue of his unselfishness and sacrificial devotion to a great cause, his loyalty to truth and justice; his sublime and unwavering belief in righteousness, and in its certain victory; his simple and unfaltering faith in God and His moral govern- ment of the world. "What would Lincoln say?'' Who dare attempt an answer? Who is wise enough, unselfish enough, prophetic enough to speak in this troubled hour the clear, sane, healing, illumining words he would utter if he were but here to speak to his countrymen and to the world? There is but one way by which such a question may be an- swered; namely, by the repetition of words he uttered in the great public addresses of his lifetime — and the application of the great and enduring wisdom of these words, interpreted in the light of his life and his spirit, to the problems of our own day. In such a way an answer to the question may be had, and such 266 THE EEFVBLICAN CITTB an answer will be worth the seeking and worth pondering in our hearts when it is found. It is one of the most remarkable facts in our history that this man, born in most humble circumstances, whose youth and early manhood were spent upon the frontier, — ^this man who had all told scarcely more than six months of regular schooling, who walked six miles to borrow an English grammar and twenty miles to borrow his first law books, — should, when he reached the maturity of his power and the day of his opportunity, have delivered addresses ranking with those of Patrick Henry and Daniel Webster; two of them, the Gettysburg Oration and the Second Inaugural, among the greatest ever uttered in our Eng- glish speech, or in any speech at any time. During the five or six years immediately preceding his Presi- dency and during the slightly more than four years he was in office he delivered a series of the greatest addresses in our history. By the use of certain passages from six to eight of these speeches I propose to answer the question I have asked. The address which Lincoln himself considered as perhaps as able a speech as he ever made was delivered in 1854, first at the State Fair at Springfield and later at Peoria. It was called forth by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise in which action Shephen A. Douglas had been a leader. It was really the begin- ning of that great debate between Lincoln and Douglas which continued for four years, culminating in that series of joint dis- cussions which had so much to do with the history of this nation. This address, dealing with a matter which is no longer a problem in our political life, is referred to at this time simply because it was upon this occasion that Lincoln first attained national prom- inence, and also first began to deal with public problems upon the high level of right and justice; which attitude of mind and ADDRESS OF REV. J. PERCIVAL HTJGET, D.D. 267 method of speech, increasing as the years went on, made him more and more like the ancient Hebrew prophets in personal conviction and public utterance. Before passing to a further consideration of some of the ad- dresses from which lessons are drawn for our present day, we must notice briefly the most dramatic episode in all Lincoln's career — the delivery of "The Lost Speech of Bloomington." It was in 1856. The convention for the organization of the Eepub- lican party had assembled in Bloomington. There were in at- tendance many earnest, even fanatical, men of different parties. They were discordant, envious, even hostile. There was need for some one to unify them, to fuse them by the heat of mingled passion and logic into a real unity of spirit and purpose. Aware of the momentous nature of the occasion and stirred to great pas- sion, not alone by his hate of slavery but by the threat of dis- union, Lincoln, on this occasion, more than at any other, gave way to that fiery nature which ordinarily he kept so well under control. It is recorded that he spoke slowly at first then with increasing fire and fervor until he fused the discordant elements by the fire of a great passion ; so that his hearers arose from their chairs and with pale faces and quivering lips pressed uncon- sciously toward him. The whole man seemed to be ablaze with passionate earnestness which communicated itself to his hearers so that never was an audience more electrified. The very re- porters, such as Joseph Medill, later editor of the Chicago Trib- une, became so absorbed that they forgot to take notes; and Lin- coln himself, appealed to later to reproduce the address, was un- able to set down in order either his thoughts or his language, so that only fragments of the lost speech exist to this day. Herndon, later his law partner, declared that the Bloomington speech was the one grand effort of Lincoln's life; that it was 268 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB then that the inner fires broke forth; that Lincoln felt and ut- tered words of enduring justice; that he seemed as one standing before the throne of eternal right. A great crisis in the political life of the country had been met. Though the words of the speech are not recorded it is written upon the pages of our na- tion's history. The speech delivered at the meeting of the Republican State Convention in Illinois in 1858 has its importance in marking the dividing of the ways for Lincoln and for the party for which he became the acknowledged leader. One way led to compromise and evasion, the other way led to the enunciation and acceptance of moral principles as regnant in public affairs. When Lincoln showed the advance draft of this address to certain advisers he was urged to change it and omit a certain passage. These ad- visers declared that to utter the words he had in mind at that time would be fatal to his political prospects, and that it would mean political suicide. But more than once did Lincoln commit political suicide, and more than once did he emerge as by a resur- rection. In answer to his counsellors he said, "The time has come when these sentiments should be uttered; and if it is de- creed that I should go down because of this speech, then let me go down linked to the truth — let me die in the advocacy of what is just and right." The particular quotation from this speech from which it derives its very name is ''a house divided against itself cannot stand." Lincoln, of course, was referring to the institution of human slavery. He declared that the government could not endure permanently half slave and half free, but that it must become all one thing or all the other. The application of this warning against a divided house is evi- dent in its force and timeliness. In this great time we must guard against anything divisive, against class distinction, against ADDRESS OF REV. J. PERCIVAL HUGET, D.D. 269 whatever militates against real national unity. That man, who- ever he may be, who, for private advantage and selfish ends — or even for the promotion of the interests of a party — seeks to set North against South, or East against West, interest against in- terest, or class against class, is at this time a traitor to his land and to humanity. The unity of our citizenship must be main- tained. There is no room for a divided loyalty. Partisanship must end at the water line. All men under the flag must be whole-heartedly committed to the great cause to which we have pledged our support. There is also a wider application in the field of international unity. A world divided against itself cannot stand. The day has passed when one part of humanity can live under one condi- tion and another part under another. The world must become all autocratic or all democratic. In a new sense it must become all slave or all free. This is the far reaching significance and must be the far reaching outcome of the world war. The future must be controlled by kings or be free peoples. The world has become too small to be divided. The next speech to which attention is called was delivered in Clinton, 111. During a speech earlier in the day Douglas had charged Lincoln with being in favor of negro equality, a charge which at that time and in that part of the State he thought would work serious damage to Lincoln. But Lincoln was brave enough to meet the challenge. In his speech that evening he said: ''Judge Douglas charges me with being in favor of negro equality. I am guilty of hating servitude and loving freedom. While I would not carry the equality of the races to the extent charged by my adversary, I am happy to confess before you that in some things the black man is the equal of the white man — in 270 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB the right to eat the bread his own hands have earned he is the equal of Judge Douglas or any living man." Judge Weldon, who was present, says when Lincoln spoke the last sentence he had lifted himself to his full height, and as he reached his hands toward the stars of that still night then and there fell from his lips one of the most sublime expressions of American statesmanship. '^The effect was grand, the cheers tremendous." It must be remembered that this was said before the Civil War, when it took high courage and high statesmanship to declare the rights of men then slaves. If Lincoln were among us to-day he would with like passion declare the rights of the common man. That democracy in which we believe and for which we fight was also very dear to his heart. He stood as champion of the rights of the humblest citizen. To him a place equal to the most favored was rightfully to be given to the humblest toiler. So must we in this our day also ever recall that the men who perform the labor, bear the burdens, endure the sorrows of the world, must be reckoned with by all who seek to rule. Before the law and in fundamental human rights all men are equal! A second application of the sentiments of this address may properly be made in the discussion of the rights of peoples. Lin- coln would give heartiest support to that phrase which our Presi- dent has uttered and which is certain to have large place in the shaping of the peace that is to come — "the self-determination of peoples." It is perhaps not too much to say that this will be the final outcome of the present war, that the time has come when every national group bound together by ties of race and custom and language must be given freedom to work out its own destiny. The world has long enough suffered the injustices of alien rule. As in his discussion of the slavery question Lincoln declared that ADDRESS OF REV. J. PERCIVAL HUGET, D.D. 271 no man is good enongh to own another man, so would he now voice the gprowing conviction of the world that no race is good enough to control the destinies of another race. He put the mat- ter most clearly when he said, "When the white man governs himself, that I acknowledge is self-government; but when the white man governs himself and another man besides, that I call despotism." The Lincoln-Douglas debates during the summer and fall of 1858 may be treated as one utterance, repeated and amplified at many times and places. It was the great series in which Lincoln met the "Little Giant." Douglas is thought of by many, espe- cially of the younger generation, simply as the opponent of Lin- coln. He died while the Civil War was still raging and his re- markable genius and his final high patriotism may not be fully known to men of the present date. He was indeed a man of most remarkable ability. Think of this youth of twenty walking into Winchester, 111., in 1833 with thirty-seven cents in his pocket; who, in less than fifteen years, and before he himself was thirty- five years of age, had been first a clerk at an auction sale ; second, a teacher; then a student of the law, and later admitted to the practice of his profession; Attorney General of the State; Reg- istrar of Deeds by the President's appointment; member of the State Legislature; Secretary of State; Justice of the Supreme Court; member of the lower house of the United States Congress; and United States Senator. It is only justice also to recall his later services. Although the election of Lincoln to the Presidency resulted from the defeat of Douglas himself and thereby wrested from him the great prize which had been the ambition of his life, yet in the time of the nation's great need he rose above selfishness and self-seeking to the level of the true patriot. The story is recorded that at the 272 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB very moment of Lincoln's inauguration, Douglas held the famous high hat which Lincoln had removed and for which he was awk- wardly seeking a resting place. I have learned from one well informed of the events of that period that, when Sumter was fired upon, within a few hours' time Douglas was seen wending his way to the White House where he was closeted for more than an hour with Lincoln in one of the most momentous conferences which ever transpired in our history. What transpired in that conference we do not know, but Douglas immediately thereafter telegraphed to his supporters in Illinois and issued a public statement to the million Northern Democrats who had voted for him urging them all to the support of the Union. He also immediately returned to Illinois and in that then divided State before a joint meeting of the two houses of the Illinois Legislature urged the State to stand by the Union and to support the President. It is perhaps not too much to say that Douglas contributed by these patriotic acts very largely to the preservation of the Union. In challenging Douglas to these joint debates, Lincoln mani- fested a far-seeing political sagacity. He so conducted the cam- paign that though Douglas won the immediate prize of re-election to the United States Senate, he did so upon a platform which re- sulted in the division of the Northern and Southern Democracy and which consequently made possible the election of Lincoln as the first Republican President. These debates aroused enar- mous interest. They were in very truth battles of the giants. They have been characterized as the greatest debates in history. I select a typical sentence from the debate at Galesburg, 111., now recorded on a bronze tablet opposite the main entrance to Old Main at Knox College: "They who contend that one who wants to own slaves has a right to do so are blowing out the moral lights around us." Here Lincoln clearly put the issue of ADDRESS OF REV. J. PERCIVAL HUGET, D.D. 273 human slavery upon moral grounds. This had heen done before by such radical abolitionists as Garrison and Lovejoy, and now Lincoln as a political leader and spokesman for a party lifted a matter before discussed upon the levels of political expediency to the higher level of ethics. In such a time as this there is need for the voice that should declare that the issue of statesmanship must finally be met on the level of moral principles, that the ultimate controlling ele- ments in international relations must be the questions of justice and of righteousness. They seek to blow out the moral lights around us, to overturn the very bases of national security and human progress who declare, in false philosophy and by inhuman deeds of unhallowed war, that a people which desires for itself power and supremacy and a place in the sun has a right to dis- regard international law, violate treaties, invade and oppress neutral nations, and endeavor to gain military advantage and ill- won victory by the devices of the savage. No measure of scien- tific advancement can claim exemption from the solemn judgment of the nobler sense of humanity when that science is used in the interest of organized barbarism. As Lincoln wrote on one oc- casion, "Men are not fiattered by being told that there is a dif- ference of purpose between the Almighty and them. To deny it, however, in this case, is to deny that there is a God governing the world." In just such words would he again denounce those whose unholy aims and aspirations run counter to the ethical sense and moral judgment of the civilized world. What was in some respects the greatest public success of Lin- coln's life was the Cooper Institute speech delivered in this city early in 1860. Lincoln had received an invitation from a young men's society in Plymouth Church to come to Brooklyn and de- liver a lecture. For it he was to receive $200. He had been 274 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB neglecting his law practice and was in need of money and this fee looked very attractive to him. At the same time he was fearful that the young men would lose money by the venture and so accepted with some hesitation. His concern was the greater when he reached New York and found that the original plan had been abandoned and that the address was to be delivered in Cooper Institute. But when the night arrived that great building was thronged with an audience which contained prac- tically every man of prominence in the political, intellectual and business life of the metropolis. Lincoln was escorted to the plat- form by Horace Greeley and David Dudley Field. William CuUen Bryant presided. Joseph Choate, who was present, declared that Lincoln came an unheralded stranger and went away wearing the laurels of a great triumph. When he spoke he was transformed, his eye kindled, his voice rang, his face shone and seemed to light up the whole assembly. For an hour and a half he held his audience in the hollow of his hand. The grand simplicities of the Bible with which he was so familiar were reflected in his discourse. It was marvellous to see how this untutored man by mere self-discipline and his own unchastened spirit had found his way to the grandeur and the strength of absolute simplicity. He concluded with the familiar sentence, "Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end do our duty as we understand it." It was with a similar faith in the triumph of righteousness that Lincoln replied to a delegation of ministers who waited upon him in the White House and whose spokesman said, "Let us pray that the Lord may be on our side.'' Lincoln's reply was imme- diate — "Let us rather pray that we may be found on the Lord's side." There is a phrase in this sentence from the Cooper Institute ADDRESS OF REV. J. PERCIVAL HUGET, D.D. 275 speech which must not be forgotten. Lincoln not only called to our minds the fact that right makes might, but added the further words we must always hear and obey, ''in that faith let us to the end do our duty as we understand it." High and solemn words! And words which we may well take to heart; as, with no seeking of either private or public gain, with no end or purpose beyond that openly avowed, with passions disciplined and restrained — but yet with a holy indignation at wrongs revealed — we enter the mighty and momentous struggle for the life of the world, for civilization and righteousness, for the rights of little peoples and common men, and for the future peace of the world. If the Cooper Institute speech was one of the great triumphs of Lincoln's career the first Inaugural was one of the most path- etic and yet as viewed from the standpoint of history, deeply impressive moments in his life. Lincoln perceived, as perhaps few men of his time did, how great was the likelihood of serious difficulty with the South, and how greatly to be dreaded and earnestly to be avoided was the war which he foresaw. Deter- mined above almost everything else that the Union should be pre- served at whatever cost he labored most earnestly to persuade the people of the Southern States that they would be dealt with justly and that the issues which were dividing North and South might be worked out without the terrible experience of war. He therefore pleaded with the South not to precipitate strife by hasty action. In this first Inaugural is this notable passage, "We are not enemies but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break the bonds of affec- tion. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle- field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when 276 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." In this Inaugural address he uttered this sentence which we may well ponder in this day, "Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people?" Confidence in the people! When have kings and autocracies ever been willing to trust the people? Yet reformers and patriots have ever turned at last from rulers and nobles to the masses. And here the Great Commoner, who had come from the cabin of the pioneer, who knew and trusted common folks, voiced a senti- ment which is almost an echo of the long unanswered question of the centuries, "why should we not be willing to trust the utli- mate wisdom and justice of the people?" There is no other way out for Democracy. For popular government the way out is the way ahead. The only cure for the mistakes and failures of free- dom is in a larger and truer liberty! There are two addresses by Lincoln which by virtue of their noble language and exalted thought, their fitness for the time when uttered, and their lasting value, rise above all his other words and above everything uttered by his contemporaries. These are the Gettysburg Oration and the Second Inauagural. The Gettysburg Oration was delivered on November 19, 1863, upon the occasion of the dedication of a national cemetery on the field of the decisive batle of the war. It is said that the in- vitation to President Lincoln was almost an afterthought, that the original plans of the committee did not include provision for the address which has become so famous; but that finally, as a matter of propriety, an invitation was extended to the President, and upon his acceptance of the invitation a place for him on the programme was designated. The address, so brief and yet so complete, followed a masterly oration by Edward Everett. ADDHESS OF EEV. J. PEHCIVAL HUGET, D.D. 277 Though occupying scarcely more than two minutes of time it con- tained every element of a great oration. The first sentence set forth as fully as could have been done in an hour's time the historic background. *Tour score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new Nation, conceived in lib- erty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." The second sentence gives in few words a characteriza- tion of the great conflict. "Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure." The next two sentences give the local setting and occasion, "We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live." Then Lincoln goes on to say, "It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we cannot consecrate — we can- not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract." Then came one of the most sublime and daring moments in human speech. Lincoln had come to dedicate a few acres of ground as a soldier's cemetery. He lifted his eyes to the faces of the living. Beyond them he saw yet others, a nation of men and women committed to a great cause. Beyond them he saw their children, generation after generation of men and women yet to come. It may be that he saw yet more — the nations of the earth! Speaking almost like a prophet of old he turned from the dedication of the resting place of the dead to the dedication of a people to a great cause. He said, "It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. * * * That here we highly resolve that these dead shall not 278 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB have died in vain; that this Nation, nnder God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the peo- ple, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." That moment, that solemn act of dedication — by one, who, in very truth stood as a prophet of the eternal God in behalf of hnman liberty, made it impossible that America should perma- nently stay out of this war. There are three points at which application can most fittingly be made to-day. First, as Lincoln said more than fifty years ago so say we now, *'These dead must not have died in vain. And second, of course, is the inescapable application of the words which have become so familiar to us all, "government of the peo- ple, by the people, for the people." It is for democracy that the world is struggling. It is for the rights of people that the bat- tles have been fought and that the armies of the nations are still embattled. But there is a third point in this address which I confess I had not until recently noticed or felt in its full power. As Lin- coln closed it was with the assertion and prophecy that popular government should not perish; but he did not say from the State of New York or from the United States of America, or from this or that nation. He did say, "it shall not perish from the earth." That vision will not be fully made real until every man the world around lives under a government in which he has a voice and a part, and which is constituted and administered in his behalf. The Second Inaugural was delivered when the end of the war was almost at hand. In it the discerning reader will find the presence of a vision of the future and wise plans for reconstruc- tion and reconciliation. Lincoln was much of a mystic, and in ADDRESS OF REV. J. PERCIVAL HUGET, D.D. 279 these last years of his life he became more and more imbued with a sense of divine purpose and leadership. Beyond all question he became convinced also that the great task ahead was that of dealing with the South after the war had ended. In Lincoln's far-seeing plans there was no bitterness nor hatred, no evidence of an intolerance in victory; but such a magnanimity and such a brooding tenderness in his whole attitude toward the States which he declared could not ^'return" to the Union for they had never been out of it; such a longing for the healing of every hurt and binding up of every wound that be became almost Christ- like in his purpose and even in his death. For it may be that a wiser history can discern that in the very laying down of his life Lincoln did more for the real restoration of the Union than he could have done even had he lived. His death had in it the quality of an Atonement. His blood was the price of national Kedemption. His spirit, his words, his deeds, his death, all wrought together for the accomplishment of a great Reconcil- iation. This longing for reconciliation breathed throughout the Sec- ond Inaugural address so nobly that the London Times called it "the most sublime State paper of the century." The two closing paragraphs indicate the basis of moral judgment and of Christ- like charity upon which this address spoken to North and South both was framed. 'Tondly do we hope — fervently do we pray — that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three 280 THE REPUBLICAN CLUB thousand years ago, so still it must be said, *The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.' ''With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firm- ness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the Nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations." How timely do all these words of the Martyred President seem. It is as though they had been uttered but yesterday. It is as though he himself once more stood before us to declare unto us the great truth for the seeing of which our own eyes had been too blinded and for the hearing of which our ears too deafened by the tumult of a terrible time. Across the years his voice sounds clear. He proclaims the unalterable truths of justice and of judgment; he lays firm the bases of a new era upon the im- movable foundations of a broad humanity and an enduring lib- erty; he gains for us the sharing through his prophetic foreseeing of the vision of the future of a world redemmed from slavery and fear and highly dedicated by the sacrifices of heroes to the well being of all the peoples of the earth. Such were the words of Lincoln. And such is his message to our day. He being dead yet speaketh! "And so they buried Lincoln? Strange and vain! Has any creature thought of Lincoln hid In any vault, 'neath any coffin lid, In all the years since that wild spring of pain? 'Tis false — he never in the grave has lain. You could not bury him although you slid Upon his clay the Cheops pyramid Or heaped it with the Rocky Mountain chain. ADDRESS OF EEV. J. PERCIVAL HUGET, D.D. 281 They slew themselves; they but set Lincoln free. In all the world his great heart beats as strong, Shall beat while pulses throb to chivalry And burn with hate of tyranny and wrong. Whoever will may find him anywhere Save in the grave! Not there, he is not there!'* (James S. Mackey.) THE THIRTY-FOURTH ANNUAL LINCOLN DINNER of the NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB At the Waldorf-Astoria FEBRUARY 12, 1920 Address of DR. NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER DR. NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER Publicist; President of Columbia University, New York City; Author of many volumes on Educational and Political affairs; Honored by the conferring of a number of University Degrees, and of Foreign Dec- orations. ADDRESS OF DR. NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER It was my good fortune to be born and brought up under the shadow of the name and the fame of Abraham Lincoln. It is family tradition that I was raised in my mother's arms to see him pass, but unfortunately no trace of so memorable an event was left on an infant's memory. His portrait hung on the walls of my childhood home. His words were constantly quoted with reverence, and the Gettysburg Speech was early committed to memory as if it were part of Holy Writ. The still youthful veterans of the Civil War hailed his name with choking voices and with tears in their eyes, and the emancipated slave threw himself on his knees and raised his eyes to Heaven at the sound of Lincoln's name. What manner of man was this who had be- come the idol of a free people and the very incarnation of their loftiest spirit and their noblest ideals? Years have passed and his stately, somber figure stands out every day more clearly against the background of history. Little by little one comes to understand the full meaning of Lowell's noble description of Lincoln in the Commemoration Ode as The kindly, earnest, brave, foreseeing man, Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame. New birth of our new soil, the first American, 286 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB and then to comprehend the farseeing vision of Stanton when, as he turned his grief -stricken face from the death-bed of Lincoln, he exclaimed: "And now he belongs to the ages." Surely no citizen of New York can be asked to stand upon the platform at Cooper Union to speak to the public without bearing in mind that that place is famous forever because Abraham Lin- coln spoke there. Surely no American can go unmoved to Spring- field and stand uncovered before the tomb of Lincoln without feeling that he is at Liberty's greatest shrine. Surely no Ameri- can can visit the old Cabinet Room at the White House and look from its windows out across the low-lying ground and over the Potomac to the Virginia shore, without remembering that in that room Lincoln struggled with hope and with despair; that in that room Lincoln's breaking heart was compelled to listen to bitter and caustic criticism alike of his policies and purpose, and that from that very window he had been able to see the watch-fires of a hostile army while he counted the hours until he should hear that the capital was still safe. From whatever side we approach Abraham Lincoln we are stirred to our depths by the feeling that in him there dwelt and lived and spoke the very spirit of all that is best in America. What new thing can be said of Abraham Lincoln? Oratory has long since exhausted its most sonorous periods. Poetry has sung both its dirges and its paeans, rhetoric has piled epithet upon epithet and praise upon praise; yet Abraham Lincoln rises above it all. There is a wonderful line in Mr. Drinkwater's gripping drama: "Lonely is the man who understands," he writes. May not this perhaps be the key to the character of Abraham Lincoln? Abraham Lincoln understood. He saw deep down into the workings of the human heart and he felt, as a skilled phy- sician feels the pulse of his patient, the slightest movement of its ADDRESS OF DR. NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER 287 elemental passions. He pierced at a glance the workings of the human mind, and with a bit of humor or with an epithet he would strip the mask of hypocrisy, or selfishness, of meanness, of vanity or of treason from the shrewdest human face. Abraham Lincoln was lonely because he understood. Here is the secret of the pathos of the man; here is the answer to the question why, in our search to understand Lincoln, he so constantly eludes us. He could understand each one of us, but no one of us can fully understand and interpret him. There is something compelling about the conception of a cen- tury of years. One century slips noiselessly into another, to be sure, but human imagination has marked off the centuries as if high barriers were built between them. The nineteenth century, as we can already see, was a century of transition. The political and the social revolutions that were begun as the eighteenth cen- tury drew to its close, marched steadily and constructively for- ward through the nineteenth. The industrial revolution which has transformed our economic and our social life, is the very child of the nineteenth century. That century was a period rich in human discovery and human achievement. It saw luxuries pass first into comforts and then into necessities of life. It watched a constant and striking succession of scientists, histo- rians, poets and prophets from Goethe to Walt Whitman. Yet as we stand off from the nineteenth century and try to interpret its meaning in history, two great figures stand out clearly from all this as representative of its main opposing forces. Each is the figure of a man of modest beginnings, who rose to great eminence and exceptional power and who will always live in history. The one was animated by the ambition to rule, and the other by the zeal to serve. The one gathered up in his own hands all the forces of reaction and hurled them in the face of the onward- 288 IJATIOXAL HEPUBLIGAU CLUB marching armies of freedom. The other called upon these armies of freedom to follow where he led, and through them dedicated a nation to the cause that government of the people, by the peo- ple, for the people should not perish from the earth. The one endeavored to turn backward the hands upon the face of the clock of time, the other gladly watched and guarded those hands as they steadily ticked out the progress of the race. The one man was Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French, who had conquered Continental Europe at forty, and who died at fifty-two in exile on the lonely rock of St. Helena. The other was Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth President of the United States, who had yet to achieve his fame at the age when Napoleon was sent into exile, and who was murdered at fifty-six by the devilish spirit of hate, and died amid the tears and the fervent blessings of his stricken fellow-countrymen and of an anxious world. Great personalities are the embodiment and the spokesmen of great forces. They are more than persons, they are events. Napoleon imposed his mighty will upon France at thirty, an age at which Lincoln was still struggling with poverty and living in relative isolation. Napoleon represents genius at its highest and its worst. His was a stupendous combination of military with civil genius, of wide comprehension with grasp of minutest detail, together with prodigious vitality of mind and body. Lord Dudley wrote of Napoleon: "He has made all future renown impossible." One wonders. Lincoln, on the other hand, was the true child of his race and of his people. Without formal school training or discipline, with- out pretence to scholarship, his was a nature in which mind com- bined with heart and heart with mind, to create a personality unique in all history. His qualities were not super-human, but intensely human. His natural wisdom, his native wit, his deep ADDRESS OF DR. NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER 289 and sincere human sympathy, his intuitive grasp upon the prin- ciples and ideals of American life and government, all united to make him the representative of America before a vote had been cast for his name. The people only acknowledged and ratified what Divine Providence and nature had done. Yet it was of this man that Wendell Phillips angrily cried out: "Who is this huckster in politics? Who is this county court advocate?" Napoleon and Lincoln are wide as the poles asunder. The forces that they summoned to their aid and the ideals for which they fought are everlastingly at war. From the very beginning of history the principle of force and the principle of freedom have struggled for mastery over the minds and the hearts of men. All history is the long story of this amazing contest. The tide of battle has ebbed and flowed, now in Asia, now in Africa, now in Europe, now in America, but steadily the armies of freedom have gained ground. Not always have they been able to hold it. Sometimes they have been driven back from advanced positions and a thousand years have passed before a new forward move- ment could be begun. When Abraham Lincoln said : "This nation can not exist half slave and half free," he was but applying to the United States the principle, equally true, "This world can not exist half despotism and half democracy." A world that produces a Napoleon and a Lincoln must be at war until Napoleon overcomes Lincoln, or Lincoln overthrows Napoleon. In this ever- lasting conflict each human being must choose his captain and fight until final victory is won. He must choose Napoleon and the rule of force, or Lincoln and the rule of freedom. He can not serve both masters. Few could have foreseen after Napoleon's banishment that in just a hundred years his challenge would be heard from the lips of another monarch. Few would have believed that after Water- 230 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB loo there would come a Chateau-Thierry, an Argonne Forest, or a Verdun. Yet they did come, and the old battle was never more fiercely fought than in the years just passed. The cause of free- dom, thank God, has conquered that enemy, and now turns stern- faced and valiant to confront other and subtler foes. There are among us allies of Napoleon who do not wear military uniforms and who do not bear arms. With stealthy tread and whispering voices they go about spreading the doctrine that lib- erty is dead; that men are bound by invisible chains, and that the law, together with the order which it preserves and the liberty which it ensures, is a curse, not a blessing. It is insinuated that the law is a manacle put upon human hands by those who would dominate through cunning rather than by conquest. All this is to pave the way for a new attack by the disciples of force and of world domination, although the methods are new and the declared purposes quite different. Their aim is an autocracy — not of a monarch, but of a mob. These attacks on liberty are just as real and perhaps quite as dangerous as if made on open fields of battle with cannon and machine guns and poison gas. To lead us to resist and to repel these new attacks, we summon the spirit of Abraham Lincoln. He knew, few men ever knew so well, that law has been made by free men to protect liberty and to hold open the door of opportunity by the doing of strict justice between man and man. He knew, few ever knew so well, that human liberty is as much in peril from the many as from the one. He knew, few ever knew so well, that obedience to law, respect for law when law is built upon the foundation of civil liberty, is the cornerstone of any form of civil society that is to endure. Listen to his own words : Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well- wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revo- ADDRESS OF DR. NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER 291 lution never to violate in the least particular the laws of his country, and never to tolerate their violation by others. . . . Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prat- tles in her lap; let it be taught in the schools, in semi- naries and in colleges ; let it be written in primers, spell- ing books, and in almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the po- litical religion of the Nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay of all sexes and tongues and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars. Napoleon was a great law-giver; but for him law was to estab- lish and assure order upon a foundation of force. For Lincoln, law was to establish and assure order upon a foundation of free- dom. The nineteenth century was the scene of two great com- bats over human ideals. The twentieth century is still young and has its history to make. Wise men will expect the old combat to be constantly renewed, for no Utopia is in sight. We must take sides with Napoleon or with Lincoln. The twentieth century Napoleon may be a Lenine or a Trotsky, and the twentieth cen- tury Lincoln may be born in some other land than ours, but the driving forces will be the same, the animating ideals will be the same. As the nineteenth century so in the twentieth, the world can not exist half despotism and half democracy. Either Napoleon or Lincoln must win. Every real American hearing in his heart the cry of threatened liberty, will re-echo the old war song, to which the Boys in Blue so cheerfully marched two generations ^go: ''We are coming. Father Abraham, a hundred million strong." THE THIRTY-FIFTH ANNUAL LINCOLN DINNER of the NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB At the Waldorf-Astoria FEBRUARY 12, 1921 Address of REV. W. WARREN GILES, D.D. REV. WILLIAM WAREEN GILES Clergyman, Author, Lecturer. ADDRESS OF REV. W. WARREN GILES, D. D, Judge Olcott, honored guests, ladies and gentlemen: I am go- ing to present to you the greatest co-ordination of intelligence, aflfection and will to which America ever gave birth — our Mar- tyr President, Abraham Lincoln. How shall we account for him? Given West Point and you can explain Grant; given Dartmouth and you can explain Webster; given Harvard and you explain Seward; given Princeton and you can explain Wilson. But given a log cabin in a Kentucky wilderness with no Latin Grammar within a hundred miles, how are you going to explain the man who overtops them all? Listen to a story, the bare recital of which eclipses every classic epic. It has been told on the stage, in the films, by the historians, by the biographers, by the essay- ists, by the orators, by the dramatists, by the clergy. My pre- sentation to-night can only be original in the statement of my personal impressions and personal appraisal of the mightiest and most lovable figure of American history. On the 12th of February, 1809, in the midst of a terrific bliz- zard, Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin on Rock Creek Farm, Kentucky. At the hour of his birth, his father was absent in Elizabethtown buying supplies, and being snow-bound by the blizzard, did not arrive home until a day after the event, when he found the neighbors looking after Mrs. Lincoln, the new born NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB babe, and their little daughter Sarah. While his mother was going down into the valley of the shadow to bring forth the babe that was to become immortal, she was alone save for her six- year-old daughter Sarah; and the little cabin was cold, dark and without food. Had it not been for Isom Enlow, a neighbor seek- ing shelter at the Lincoln cabin from the storm, Thomas Lincoln might have come home to find a candidate for the cemetery in- stead of the White House. While waiting for the storm to sub- side, Enlow had sustained the young mother, little Sarah, and the baby, by feeding them broth made of hot water and wild turkey grease, the grease being used by Kentucky riflemen to lubricate their firearms. Not very appetizing for the poor mother I but remember she was freezing. Enlow little realized the worth of the babe he snatched from death. Such was his birth, and it reminds you not a litle of one two thousand years before. After a happy childhood with his mother, Lincoln removed with his parents to Pigeon Creek in southern Indiana. Here another cabin was built. And here, a few months later, Lincoln, with his own childish hands, helped fashion the coffin, dig the grave and prepare for burial the body of his beloved mother. It hurt him deeply. He could not understand why his "angel mother," as he called her, could not have been spared. Think of it ! no clergyman came until the next Spring when the belated funeral was held. During his years in Indiana he grew strong. He was the ath- letic champion of the neighborhood and had read every book known to be within a radius of fifty miles. His sister Sarah breathed her last in the Indiana cabin shortly after the passing of his mother. In 1828, when Lincoln was nineteen, his rest- less father "trekked" for Illinois where they arrived in August and, in that Fall, built a cabin in Coles County. Abraham broke ADDRESS OF REV. W. WARREN GILES, D.D. 297 ground for a crop the next Spring and in the Autumn of that year, 1829, Thomas Lincoln gave the big boy his liberty. With his axe and a few clothes tied in a bundle, Abraham set out to conquer the world. He struck out West along an old Indian trail, and spent the Winter splitting rails in the bottoms of the Sangamon river. Twenty-five years later, when he became a celebrity, two of those rails were carried in a political procession. At this juncture he conceived the idea of building a flat boat and taking a cargo of farm products to New Orleans. He found a backer, built the boat, and was then and there elected to his first office — captain of a flat boat. While drifting down the Sangamon to the Illinois, the boat stranded on the milldam at the little town of New Salem. It was here Lincoln got his first glimpse of Anne Rutledge. One look into her lovely eyes and the Emancipator of the slaves be- came the slave of the greatest tyrant on earth, Cupid. Then he struck the Mississippi and for weeks, floating with the current, thought and thought and thought. At New Orleans he sold his cargo and boat to good advantage and, while preparing to start home, visited the old slave market. There he saw men stripped, whipped, chained, abused, sold, out- raged. It filled him with fury. He remarked to his cousin, John Hanks, who accompanied him: "If I ever get a chance to hit that thing I will hit it hard." Thirty-two years later he signed his name to a paper freeing every slave in America. He "hit it hard." Lincoln and Hanks worked their passage back to St. Louis by "firing" on a steamboat, and walked thence to New Salem, where Lincoln got a job as a millhand at the Rutledge mill, owned by Anne Rutledge's father. You can see whom he was thinking about those moonlight nights when he was floating 298 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLTJB down the Mississippi. Later he accepted a clerkship in the store of M. T. Offut. Here, because of his studious habits, he became the butt of the "Clary Grove Gang," a crowd of loafers led by the athletic champion, Jack Armstrong. Their annoyance of Lincoln culminated in a battle royal in which the raw-boned son of Kentucky not only gave Armstrong the beating of his life, but stood off his whole crew. Meantime Lincoln had become a boarder at the Rutledge home and there constantly met the lovely Anne, who was engaged to John MacNeill, the catch of the community. One day the "catch of the community" explained to Anne that his real name was not MacNeill, and that he was going to New York to see his parents and find out what it might be. He did; and, greatly to her advantage, Anne never heard of him again. It was then that this sweet soul turned to the noble and sympathetic Lincoln. Immediately there developed one of the sweetest love-idylls in American history. Lincoln gave his heart to this girl, and under the old oak at Salem (still standing), they pledged their lives to one another. For a while all was as lovely as a moonlit sea, then the little girl, stricken with a mysterious fever, began to cough and fade, and fade and cough, until one day she said: "Abe, lift me in your arms and carry me to the window, where I can see the sun set." He did; a little later the sun set, and the old, old fashioned death came into the room and the soul of the only woman that the greatest of the Americans ever loved, went home and left him alone. He never got over it. At this juncture the Black Hawk war broke out. He went; was glad to go. When he returned he found that his partner in the store had drunk up all the stock and left him with a debt of $1,100. He agonized to pay that debt, but paid every cent of ADDRESS OP REV. W. WARREN GILES, D.D. 299 it. Later he said: "That debt was the greatest obstacle in my life." In 1834 he was elected to the State Legislature. This took him to Springfield. Here he met the celebrities of the State in- cluding Stephen A. Douglas. In 1836, removing to Springfield, he undertook the study of the law. When he arrived, because he had kept such perfect faith with his creditors, he had only seventeen dollars with which to buy bedding for his room. It was then he was helped by old Joshua Speed, who shared with him his room and bed. Little did Speed realize that he was sleeping beside the man who was to be the country's greatest President and saviour. It is delightful to recall that Speed lived to see him in the White House and visit him there. While at Springfield he developed his gift for public speaking and was acclaimed in debate and the councils of the State. In 1847 he was elected to the National House of Representatives. In 1855 he became a candidate for the United States Senate. Fearing defeat, he threw his strength to a good friend named Lyman Trumbull. In 1854, by the most iniquitous kind of trickery, the Missouri Compromise was repealed. This meant the extension of slavery into new territories about joining the Union. Lincoln saw that the Constitution would soon become "a scrap of paper" if the South triumphed. Stephen A. Douglas, who was the United States Senator from Illinois, favored the South. Lincoln, to put his case before the people, challenged Douglas to a joint debate. Douglas accepted. From August to October these two giants staged the most spectacular political battle ever fought. In seven different cities they addressed thousands. Do not forget that Douglas, until he met Lincoln, was by all odds the greatest debater and the most accomplished leader in the country. He no more doubted 300 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB his ability to humiliate Lincoln than he doubted his leadership in the Senate. To his astonishment he found that he had locked horns with a Colossus in whose grip he was as helpless as a child. Lincoln left him in the dust of defeat. These seven speeches made Lincoln. In 1860 the Republican Party demanded his nomination for the Presidency. Douglas was the Democratic nominee. Lincoln, the Samson of the backwoods, defeated Doug- las, the Beau Brummel of the drawing room. It broke Douglas' heart. Brother men, I have said that, given West Point, you can ex- plain Grant. Given Dartmouth, you can explain Webster. Given Harvard, you can explain Seward. Given Princeton, you can ex- plain Wilson. But given nothing but a cabin in a Kentucky wilderness, or a country store in an Indiana village, how are you going to explain Lincoln, the man who wrote finer English than Gladstone, framed more convincing arguments than Doug- las, enunciated more profound policies than Seward? You sim- ply cannot. To this hour he remains the most unfathomable mystery of American history. In the meantime the clouds were gathering. Secession was threatened; and when Lincoln was elected President over Doug- las, the South, hesitating no longer, began seizing all the Fed- eral property within its area. With an untried rail splitter in the White House, they never had a doubt of the issue. Lincoln's job began the moment he exchanged his linen duster for official broadcloth, and never ceased until shot to death five years later. I need not tell you that he lived in hell. For him as for Andrew Jackson, the White House was the abode of torment. In the first place, the three leaders of his Cabinet, Seward, Stanton and Chase, secretly despised him, and cordially hated him. Se- ward was one of the most conceited prigs of the period. Lincoln ADDRESS OF REV. W. WARREN GILES, D.D. 301 had defeated him in the nominating convention and made him Secretary of State to salve his feelings. It was a huge mistake. Seward, like all small men, showed his appreciation by patroniz- ing Lincoln, apologizing for him, tolerating him, laughing at him rather than with him. Stanton, the Secretary of War, looked at Lincoln, asked ''who this lanky gawk might be," and proceeded to snub him. The insults that Lincoln endured from Stanton during the next five years would have stirred resentment in hell. He was a big, rough, conceited know-it-all, with a bushel of coarse brains, but no culture. He specialized in annoying Lin- coln. The third man who distressed Lincoln was Chase. Chase was as cold as ice, and as glinty as broken glass. There was no more heart in Chase than in a piece of railroad iron. He envied and detested Lincoln, so much so, that with rare double dealing he inspired a fault-finding committee, when things were at their darkest, to wait upon Lincoln and take him to task. I do not recall who served on that committee, but I know that Horace Greeley and Henry Ward Beecher were among those who thought the country "needed a change." It did — from Seward, Stanton and Chase. Believe me, gentlemen, not one of these three ever initiated, proposed or conceived one single original policy for the salvation of this Union between '61 and '65. And if any one of them had been in Lincoln's chair, the North would have been de- feated as decisively as it ultimately triumphed. Talk about statesmen! These men weren't even good clerks. When Lincoln was not cuddling Seward to keep him at his job, he was smoothing down Stanton to conciliate his bad humor, or drinking tea with Chase to warm the coccles of his icy heart. Think of it ! Men whom Theodore Roosevelt would have pitched out, men whom Woodrow Wilson would have dismissed with a sneer, Lincoln in the goodness of his heart tolerated for five 302 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB years. Tolerated while the sadness, the terror, the agony of Bull Bun, Ball's Bluff, Fredericksburg, Antietam, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg were crushing his very soul. Imagine bearing all that, with not a man in your Cabinet upon whom you could lean ! It was hell. Brother men, no man in history ever carried a heavier burden than Abraham Lincoln during the first two years of the war. It was a story of daily defeat. At night he walked the floors of the White House in agony. During the day he walked the hos- pitals of Washington in tears. His greatest comfort seemed to be realized in visting the poor little lads brought in wounded from the battlefields of Virginia. He would stroke their heads, write letters to their mothers, and bid them an affectionate good- bye. Surrounded by conspirators, the victim of constant in- trigues, the butt of the idle jesters of his Cabinet, truly, like Jesus of Nazareth, he trod his winepress alone. And yet he was not alone. Because he was a man of destiny, he was a man of God. For I tell you that the Abraham, who left Chaldea and journeyed to Canaan, was never more completely the child of the Eternal than the Abraham, who, under far humbler condi- tions, left the Kentucky wilderness and journeyed to the White House. His greatest anxiety came with the battle of Gettysburg. Lee had invaded Pennsylvania to avail himself of his last chance. For three days the blue and the gray struggled with desperation. Finally with the charge of Pickett's division, Lee threw in his best and last battalions. The Union line faltered and retreated to a stone wall at Cemetery Hill. Here they rallied and, with a fire that no mortal man could endure, they held the flower of Lee's army and drove it back in retreat. The Union was saved. The white-faced man of the White House fell on his knees and thanked ADDRESS OF REV. W. WARREN GILES, D.D. 303 God in tears. Strangely enough, at this juncture, his best be- loved son was taken from him. The night that child died, Lincoln divided his time between a ball given at the White House, to keep up the spirits of the North, and that boy's bedside in the Presidential suite. Can you imagine a greater burden? After Gettysburg the scenes of the war shifted rapidly and bloodily. The Wilderness, Lookout Mountain, Missionary Eidge, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, Five Forks, and then the surrender of Lee at Appomattox! When the news of Lee's surrender reached the White House the Cabinet was in session. Lincoln read the dispatch to his associates and then with a voice quivering with gratitude said: "Gentlemen, let us return thanks to Almighty God." They knelt then and there and did it. Peace at last! The nation's greatest President has seen of the travail of his soul and is satisfied. Now he will rebuild the na- tion. But, alas, for human hopes! Before he can square himself for his greatest task, the most cowardly of assassins fired the shot that stole away the life of the greatest of the Americans. It was a crime without sense or sentiment. It hurt the South as much as it horrified the North. In 1886 I lived in the house with and knew the brother of John Wilkes Booth, the assassin. May I say that if I have ever known an embittered soul, it was his. He told me, not once but many times, that the most distinguished member of his family was not Edwin, the actor, but John Wilkes, the murderer. I shall never lose the impression of horror. Thus ended one of the strangest and most unaccountable lives in hu- man history. Brother men, do yon realize that though Abraham Lincoln never studied philosophy, he was one of the most highly trained thinkers of the nineteenth century? Do you realize that though he never studied literature, he has produced, next to Shakes- 304 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB peare, the finest specimens of English in the English language? At this honr, next to the twenty-third psalm, the ten command- ments, the Sermon on the Mount, and the Lord's Prayer, there are no words more completely in the minds and mouths of the American people than his speech at Gettysburg, a speech in- scribed on the walls of the college from which Gladstone gradu- ated as the finest utterance of our mother tongue. How will you account for his marvelous facility in the use of words? There is but one answer. As a man of destiny he was a man of God. In his great soul God lives. Through his melancholy lips God spoke. With his strong honest hands God wrought. If an honest man is the noblest work of God, Abraham Lincoln must rank among His great creations. There is not a stain upon him; not one. No woman made a fool of him. No designing politician made a dupe of him. No Daugherty, Doheny or Sinclair ever blinded his judicial eyes with a gift. He came to the people without a cent, and he died as poor as he came. He was buried from the house of the nation, in a tomb built by the nation, at the nation's expense. As a people we thank God that he went to his grave without spot or wrinkle. No most heartless investi- gator, prying into his past, can say, "He was all right, but " "He would have been better if " There are no disjunctive "buts" or hypothetical "ifs" to be lamented in the case of Abra- ham Lincoln. His life was as clean and straight as a marble shaft. Because God abundantly enriched him with His wisdom, Lin- coln was able to read men as easily as you read your evening paper. The patronizing Seward, the coarse, cavalier Stanton, the double-faced Chase never deceived him. He knew them as well as he knew the poor little drummer boy, whom he held in his arms while dying. He understood them as thoroughly as he ADDRESS OF REV. W. WARREN GILES, D.D. 305 did the over-tired sentinel who was sentenced to death for being asleep on post, because he had marched twenty-three hours, tak- ing another man's place. He knew them as well as he knew the poor blacks to whom he brought the one thing a white man will never surrender — FREEDOM. He knew all men and loved them impartially. Though he made war on the South, there is no name next to Robert E. Lee's more revered in the South to-day than Abraham Lincoln's. And because he loved all men, next to Paul of Tarsus, he has brought a greater blessing to more men than any other man of history. His Emancipation Proclamation, signed in opposition to the wishes of his Cabinet, stands at this hour the greatest single act in the history of humanity since the landing of Columbus. While the colored race survive and have minds to think and hearts to feel, they will acclaim him as, next to Christ, their greatest benefactor. His capacity for work was enormous. He had assistants but no advisers. He had clerks but no confidants. He listened to everybody patiently and did what he thought independently. He had a job which he could no more delegate than you can dele- gate the act of breathing. God called him to save this nation, and God saw to it that it was saved. A man of prayer, his belief in God was absolute. On his knees he was a child; but on his feet, addressing the nation, a giant. Could any but an inspired believer touch men's hearts as he did. You talk about eloquence ! I tell you that at this hour, there is no man in public life even comparable to him. Not one! And there is no utterance of the last four administrations comparable to his second inaugural. Speaking of the dreadful retributions of war, he said: ''Woe unto the world because of offences; for it must needs be that of- fences will come, but woe to that man by whom the offence 306 NATIONAL EEPUBLICAN CLUB Cometh. If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offences which, in the province of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to HIM? Fondly do we hope, earnestly do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hun- dred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid with another drawn by the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, 'The Judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.' " That speech was made more than half a century ago, and from that day to this nothing has ever touched it in spiritual power. His great soul took its flight just thirty-five days later. It was his last utterance and was worthy of the man who now "belongs to the ages." I remember his funeral. It is the first recollection of my life. I was five years of age at the time. On my aunt's balcony in Union Square, I saw the marching soldiers who had just returned from the war. I heard the muffled drums as they beat time for the tramping hosts ; and then I saw the funeral car bearing his casket. Though fifty-six years have passed, I see it to-night as clearly as I see you. It made an impression which I shall never lose. To-night, Mr. President, on behalf of the Republican Club as well as my own, I want to place on his dear brow one more crown, the crown of him who died that we might live in the possession ADDRESS OF REV. ^. WARREN GILES, D.D. 307 of those liberties without which we must live in vain. "Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friend." Thank God, he did it. He did it. Good night, ladies and gentlemen, I thank you heartily for your kindly attention. THE THIRTY-SIXTH ANNUAL LINCOLN DINNER of the NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB At the Waldorf-Astoria FEBRUARY 12, 1922 Addresses of HON. JOB E. HEDGES CHARLES REYNOLDS BROWN JOB E. HEDGES Born in Elizabeth, N. J., 1862. His father died in battle. Graduate of Princeton, 1884, and Columbia Law School, 1886. LL.D. from St. Lawrence University and University of Pittsburgh. For years a famous after-dinner speaker. Endowed with wit and philo- sophical powers. Author of "Common Sense in Poli- tics." ADDRESS OF HON. JOB E. HEDGES Mr. Toastmaster and ladies and gentlemen: There is one thing made absolutely clear to me to-night, and that is that the provi- dential gift of humor that Lincoln had has not been transmitted. At least, not so you'd notice it. For a lecture course, I think the Republican Club of the City of New York is now in the front rank. If you believe in centralization, you have had it. If you believe in States' rights, you have had it. If you believe in the derelicts of Westchester County, you have had them. It has been the ambition of my young life to speak at a banquet of the Re- publican Club on the anniversary of Lincoln's birthday, and I am going to have a very narrow escape. The pathetic interest with which men who preceded the last speaker look around and inti- mate that they are going to hurry is one of those second-story propositions that you read about but don't see. I don't know anything about this Interstate Commerce Act. I never traveled on a pass, and I couldn't get far enough with any surplus of my own to have an interstate experience. I am satisfied, however, that if Abraham Lincoln, in the dark days of the Rebellion, had thought he was chargeable with as many things as he has been made chargeable with, or that he had accomplished as many things as have been credited to him, he would have been so nervous that his sense of humor would not have saved him any 312 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB more than it has saved this evening. And I am told on very high authority that it is dangerous in these days to be other than tragic. You have just got to be serious or people won't under- stand you. The press have gone, some of the audience have gone, some are going, and I don't care. I don't want mine printed. Those who have left went because they knew it would be all right ; those who have tarried have remained because they couldn't leave. I don't know why. There are so many topics in the public mind nowadays that it is difficult to find a field into which a man can jump and have it all to himself. I don't know whether it is a Federal proposition or not, but even our domestic relations are regulated. We can't marry nowadays until we try it, and after we are married the Federal government steps in and tells us what we must do. It isn't a question of States' rights; it is a question of the rights of the human home. A man has a right to live. And now they are circumnavigating the air, I suppose so that everything else will look so small to them, so they can see it all. I intended to speak to-night on the subject, if I had had the time, of an Empire State, and yet I noticed that the Toastmaster said that the orator of the evening was not to be here, and that thirty years ago, when I was a child in arms, he went over to Philadelphia and found Beck. The Republican Party found him about five years ago, and I am glad we did. A recent convert is always desired. But it struck me, not so much from my experi- ence here to-night, which has been pleasant, though painful, that among the ills of this Republic — and you have to have somebody ill before you can cure him — that what we are suffering from is an over-production of great men, who know all things about all topics, and feel sorry for the rest of us, and that there is an awful dearth of men who aren't certain about anything, but are trying within the limits of their capacity to find out what is the ADDRESS OF HON. JOB E. HEDGES 313 real thing about anything. I am one of that class, possibly prominent by the smallness of the class. It doesn't make an awful sight of difference how many divisions there are among people, provided there are more than two, yourself and the rest — then it is dangerous. I don't know of any country that gets saved as often as this does, during the war, during campaigns, during banquets — any old time you can find some one to save this country if you will give him time enough. I could save it myself if I had more than seven minutes, but I haven't. Never- theless, I think there are a lot of things we can do. I don't think that Washington can make a non-resident change his en- tire nature. I think that New York is an Empire State ; I looked that up, and it isn't your fault that you don't get the result of my researches. I know what the aggregate wealth of New York State is; I know the per centum of her increase in population; I know the amount of other people's bank deposits in the State of New York; I know the per capita wealth of the State of New York, and it is an Empire State all right. I have heard of this Philadlephia place, too, but I didn't dare go there until I had arrived at the state of manhood — I wouldn't take a chance — and yet it seems to me that in all this learning we have had, and I am for it, that there is one thing that we have overlooked, and that is the undesirability of law excess. I never knew of a statute. State or Federal, that could reduce a thirst; I never knew of a statute. State or Federal, that could prevent a man wanting something he didn't have; I never knew a law that could make a man spend money wisely according to somebody else's notion; I never knew of a law that could incul- cate a moral proposition into a human heart, and there never will be one while we are here, and if the signers of the Declara- tion of Independence had thought that their successors in Ameri- 314 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLTJB can citizenship looked to law to teach a man his duty toward his God and his fellow-man, they would have adjourned and given up, and we wouldn't have had a Constitution. It wouldn't have been a terrible thing if we hadn't had; we would have been here just the same. That Constitution has stood for a good many things. It has just occurred to me, however, and notwithstand- ing these vociferous demands that I hear for me to continue, that the Empire State that we want to look for as American citizens is in the human heart, and if it isn't there it needn't be in the laws. And organization, and concentration and State rights, or Federal interference cannot and never will make an American citizen. If he isn't one by instinct, he never will be except by the example of others — and who are the others? That's all. Who are responsible for it? What is the object of saying that you shan't issue stock against property that don't exist, if men will sign a certificate and say it does exist? That's all. We believe men in this country. Except in the single in- stance of the worship of a Creator by a man according to his re- ligious belief, no man in this country can divorce himself of re- sponsibility to everybody else. There is only one test that I know of, and that is if you have a right, are you exercising it rightly? If you have a public privilege, are you exercising it in the best interest of the public regardless of whether the Dis- trict Attorney is County or Federal? If you have been given something that enables you to profit and you are entitled to profit, have you a right to profit at the expense of everybody because you think there is no evidence against you? A thing is right or wrong, and the man who exercises a public privilege not in the interest of the public has received something that he isn't entitled to have, and whether you call it grand larceny, or a trust, or a concentration of aggregate wealth, it is just as bad. ADDRESS OF HON. JOB E. HEDGES 315 I don't know of any way for people to change other people ex- cept by changing themselves first. It don't make any difference to me how bad the other man is; I have a hard enough time with myself, and it takes me just about twenty-four hours a day to keep within the lines and limitations of the Penal Code. But I know this, that, whether I am caught at it or not, if I have left undone a public duty I am disloyal to my country. I can't date back to the war, but my people can, thank God, and I inherit my belief in this country. I can define the Republican Party, wether anybody else can or not, and it is that aggregation of men, right or wrong, who never dodge a responsibility; it is that aggregation of men that can be led, but not driven; it is that combination of men that will follow their mental and moral superiors and will crush their mental and moral inferiors, and it is that aggregation of men, taking their inspirations from the foundation of this government and from the pathetic scenes of the Civil War, who believe whatever we are or whencesoever we come, we cannot enjoy unless we transmit ; and a man who sullies the commercial life of this country, the man who violates the sentiment of this country that every man shall have a chance and not just talk it, is just as bad as the man who strikes an overt blow at her physical existence, in my judgment. If I had time to-night and didn't feel that I were trespassing upon your patience, I might yield to a desire to give you my own definition of an American citizenship, of an imperial State — not the imperial State. We know what the imperial State is. (Cries of "Go on!" "Go on!") Not at all; not at all. I may be on the committee next year, and I will put myself on the pro- gram where I belong. But these gentlemen who talk about statistics, these gentlemen who write reports, these gentlemen who compare us with other countries, waste time. We are not 316 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB going to have any war with other countries. Why, we would buy most of them while the war was on. Nobody is going to fight us. They know their business. There is not an army on the face of this earth that could march from New York to San Francisco, whether we had an army or not. They would be stoned to death. But what I want to see is that kind of a con- dition, not where we take any satisfaction in trying to fool any- body else, but where we quit trying to fool ourselves. We don^t fool ourselves. If the average man in this country knew how many ether people there were who were "on to him," he would fade away; only they don't say anything about it, that's all. They are too gentlemanly. Don't let's fool ourselves; don't let's be here on the night of Lincoln's birthday and give all our thought and sympathy to the fact that Lincoln did his duty. Why, of course, or we wouldn't be here. If I didn't know Gen- eral Howard so well, and I had heard him when he looked over this crowd guess that there were seventeen hundred here, I would have thought he had been doing what I know he never does. Lincoln lived just at the right time. He knew about all there was to know, but he didn't brag about it; and Lincoln didn't waste any time, either, in telling other people that they knew nothing. He allowed them the right of having an opinion. Just think of Lincoln living to-day and being notified that he had been nominated, and ordering water. The certificate never would be filed. If that is the test, Lincoln couldn't have run for office in this generation. Lincoln was a great man; Lincoln was on the level with Lincoln — quite an important thing to be. Lincoln didn't have to give out interviews to let his family know where he was nights. An American is good enough for me. I am not a pessimist. This is a pretty good country; we have a pretty good lot of people scattered around this country, but you can't ADDRESS OF HON. JOB E. HEDGES 317 fool them any. Once in a while you can lead them astray, just a litle bit; then a man takes to himself the idea of great leader- ship, and then something happens to him, and it is in a small note of four or five lines, sometimes called political obituary. When we get together and discuss our duties, don^t let us necessarily read them only out of the statute book — they are not there — they are in the human heart, and I would rather have a man whose heart beats right than a man whose head works too fast. I had rather have a man who can smile than a man who has to speak in such a deep tone of voice you can't tell whether he is swear- ing or praying; I would rather have a man who believes that he has a duty to somebody else and fulfills it and says nothing about it, than a man who can arise on the 4th of July and take an American flag and wear it out in thirty minutes; I believe in that kind of American patriotism that don't require an audi- ence; I believe in a man who has American notions, whether there is a reporter present or not; I believe in that kind of cit- izenship that fights when we are attacked from the outside ancT persuades when we are discussing matters of our own affairs; I believe in that kind of country loyalty and State loyalty that looks around to see who it is that said it, and then something happens. I was discussing — and with this I close, because it is to-morrow — I was discussing the other day at a celebrated club on Fifth Avenue a few simple doctrines of what I thought were necessary for a man who had a belief in his country, and I was met by the proposition that ''you are a politician." Well, I am glad of it. I am for it. I want to write a book some day; I want to redefine what conservatism means. It means that yon are a little scared, that's all. I want to redefine what socialism means — that means you are not scared. I want to define what a protected interest is, but I want to find out where it came from 318 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB first. I want to find out if you have a right to protect it, and then I am strong for protecting it. I am not afraid about the subject of State unity. No one can affect that unless the States want it. If they want it, they will have it ; if they want to give it up, they will give it up, and nobody is going to make them. You can't make American people do things. They get nervous about it; and when they get nervous and begin to compare notes then they do things, and when they do things they are real things. But, away and above it all — and enjoying your applause as much as any man who lives — and I'd lie if I said I didn't, and I won't lie — I believe in that kind of patriotism that when a man is about to indulge in any act of any kind his only refrain is: "My country, 'tis of thee; Sweet land of liberty." and if he can square his conduct by that, he is a good citizen; and if he can't, he is not a good citizen, whether the District Attorney is State or Federal. (Editor's Note — Job E. Hedges was one of the speakers at the Lincoln Dinner of the Middlesex Club in Boston, Mass., on Feb- ruary 12, 1919. In view of the brevity of his New York Lincoln Dinner speech, the compilers of this volume have included por- tions of the Boston speech. — Emanuel Hertz, Charles T. White.) ADDRESS OF HON. JOB E. HEDGES At the Lincoln Dinner of the Middlesex Club, Boston Mr. Toastmaster and gentlemen: I would be lacking in cour- tesy as well as intelligence not to admit at the outset that an invitation from this Club is a command. I do not always obey commands, but I am glad to be here. I am glad to have heard a toastmaster who understood that one of the purposes of the evening was adequately to stand his speakers on their feet with a running start. It is a pleasure to me to have this table graced by Governor Coolidge. We have heard about him, in New York. And I never could quite understand what all this fuss was about, over Gov- ernor Coolidge. He certainly could not have done less and main- tained his self-respect. He could not have done less without vio- lating his oath of office. But the charm of it was the modesty in the ordinary everyday business way in which he did it. It did not put him under any very great mental or moral strain to do that which, had he abandoned, would have made him lose his self-respect. Therefore we want to give him full meed of praise, but don't let's spoil him. I rejoice to be among Eepublicans, too — living in New York. That is, Eepublicans who are such all the year round and know where they are — not spasmodic Republicans who arrive at their intellectual conclusions from their subconscious rhetorical pos- NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB sibilities, but who take to it naturally and cultivate it, and then it becomes a habit. And a decent habit saves a great deal of wear and tear on the conscience. If one can form his prin- ciples gradually by a sort of natural affiliation until they be- come a conviction, then the way is easy. I have been a Eepub- lican ever since I can remember, both by inheritance and adop- tion. I tried it on once in New York. The Governor (indicating Governor Coolidge) was more successful than I was. It took two men, however, to beat me. And I am glad to be here on a Lincoln Day, and so much has been said about Lincoln that may- be it is not necessary for me unduly to indulge in particular specifications. I would like to interpret for a moment if I may — it is rather a broad field but everyone is taking a broad field — oilr situation in which we find ourselves on this day. My principles politically and otherwise are very simple. I believe in an overpowering Providence; I believe in the Constitution of the United States; I believe in the Ten Commandments; and I respect the Fourteen Points. Lincoln is wonderful to me for what he was not. Lincoln never got himself mixed up with the principles. Lincoln never thought he personified a principle, and Lincoln never believed that, being a principle, everyone had to bear allegiance. His proposition was that the principle was the important thing and that everybody else was an agency. That is sound. That word "agency" sometimes gets into our campaigns when we want to represent the common people, and the things that are done to the common people these days in the name of uplift are beyond the realm of human understanding. Lincoln had one very great advantage as a leader — he had been a follower. He knew a lot about American politics because ADDRESS JF HON. JOB E. HEDGES 321 he had participated in them. He knew the voters because he had gone to the polls. He understood their motives because he had been in intimate contact with them. And therefore he did not talk at them, but talked to them, which makes a great dif- ference. We have become in this country a whole nation of orators. We save this country every four years regularly. And the country has gone on for one hundred and forty odd years and prospered, despite everything anybody or any party could do to it ; which persuades me that there is a God. And, Presbyterian as I am, my faith personally has once or twice been shaken on the doctrine of predestination. Lincoln will live long after he ceases to be read. Most men only live when they are being heard, or when the papers quote themselves to them. An obituary notice is sometimes less de- vastating to human judgment than is a headline, because when a man believes in headlines written about himself, his mind has begun to decay and he has lost his sense of proportion. And when a man thinks he is a genius then the whole question is over. We spend the most of our time in this country looking for geniuses, and we do not need the geniuses because a genius, as a rule, is sorry for everyone else and because he thinks he is not appreciated. What we need is a large crop of plain, ordinary, everyday, balanced, sound minds, and among those I would like to classify Governor Coolidge. Now this Government of ours is a very peculiar thing and Abraham Lincoln knew it better than any man of this time. There is no need of comparing our great men; they cannot b(F compared. Washington was the creator of this country, Lincoln was its saviour, Roosevelt was its vitalizer. And its perpetuator will be the plain, everyday men who seek principle as against publicity, who understand what this nation means, and will pay 322 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB the fair price in service. That is the test of Americanism to-day, and that is what we have got to live up to. I don't care who comes here. I am vitally interested in what he does when he gets here. My people did not come from as far back in time as some of yours did — but they are just as good. They were not under the strain that compelled them to start earlier. They were satisiied with conditions as they were and came over at a more convenient season. They did not bring anything with them, and therefore they are analogous to your people. Abraham Lincoln was a silent prayer. And no man can pray understandingly in my judgment who is not delicate enough in his spiritual make-up to get in contact with a higher power, com- fortably. I have known men to pray — and I would not speak flippantly — effectively and attractively, but they don't start any emotion anywhere, they don't help anybody else. I have known people to remain on their knees so long that they got muscle- bound. I would rather have a man pray in a little less respect- ful attitude and be able to respond to a cry for help before mur- der is committed. I may be wrong about that and I have no pride of opinion about it, but I know this, that the time has come when we have all got to decide, not emotionally, not senti- mentally, but contractually, whether we size up to our citizen- ship, and that citizenship we all know is predicated on three or four very simple litle everyday things, so simple that we have forgotten them. Theoretically every citizen is capacitated to vote yes or no on every problem that comes before this country. The fact is that he is not. The theory is sound, but the man is unqualified. He has not the opportunity. And no one is qualified, really. But everybody is qualified from the smallest unit to appoint someone who shall represent him in a continually increasing load of re- ADDRESS OF HON. JOB E. HEDGES 323 protest. And the heart protest is an appeal against something that is wrong. The heart does not measure, it understands. And when the heart acts, the brain decides the degree of service we are going to give to sustain our beliefs. And this is an affirmative country, acting negatively. There is no need of praising Lincoln, no need of passing our time in encomiums. If from a Lincoln banquet men can leave the room mentally refreshed, with an added inspiration, with an intensity of desire to perform service, if they can do that, Lin- coln has not lived in vain. I venture to say that the future of this world in a measure may depend on what the English-speaking people do together. That means high duty, high responsibility, and we cannot dodge sponsibility. And to avoid responsibility, even, we have got ourselves so organized that we have something that we call "di- rect primaries," lest the people shall get together and confer on something and take a responsibility, and have a platform of faith, and a declaration of principles. So in my city we have a subter- fuge. We have an unofficial convention. It is unmoral in the State of New York to admittedly meet together for the purpose of agreeing on civic policies. It is good law in New York City to meet together in private, in secret, and agree on something, to put it over, and if it goes over to claim the people did it. That is just plain, ordinary, everyday bunk. Lincoln understood one thing better than any man that has ever been in this country. He knew that emotion is the thing that decides matters as compared with mere legal, analytical argument. Ambition and avarice are dangerous. When com- bined, they are most destructive, and in spite of many things I read, I believe that the great reforms in this world, and I believe it truly, have come from a heart protest rather than a brain 324 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB it. But that union is a heart union. A union not to respond to each man's loss of self-respect, of religious backsliding. The American people can be led, they can be persuaded, they are the most lovable, delightful, helpful people in the world. There is something about our atmosphere when people get here. If they try to breathe it — why, a man cannot live in this country and not be better, if a man really lives here. But if his mind is else- where, he is only tarrying here. He has got to contribute of course, and the test of generosity is not how much you give but how much you have got left. I know in my own heart and I wish it were not so. I would like to have us idealized. I am a great believer in this country. 1 am glad to speak at the same table as a gentleman who came irom the other side of the line. My father was killed at Peters- l)urg. But this country is so great that he and I can sit here without the difference of a heart-beat. Their lives have been made hard; they have been deprived of their hope, their joy and their existence. Wherever there is suffering our minds have got to be. There is a great deal of difference between living isolated and living geographically. And you cannot live isolated, geo- graphically, if there is a means of communication. Only some- one has got to decide how you are going to communicate. I be- lieve in sending missionaries to foreign lands. That is one of the doctrines of my church, and the Bishop's. But I would not give two cents for a ton of missionaries who thought they ought not to go. But when you get a heart that wants to go and a mind that tells it to go, and it goes and makes the sacrifice and per- forms its duty in the presence of the great God, you have ac- complished something. Now, what is this "Americanism"? Let us analyze it for a moment, and I will stop. It is not something that starts in the ADDR.i:SS OF HON. JOB E. HEDGES 325 United States. Americanism antedates the United States by cen- turies. Americanism started on Mount Sinai. It was at Calvary. It was at every place for its inspiration where there was a human heart longing for something better, and that entrusted its affairs to the care of a great God. That is where Americanism started. Anywhere on this earth that a human being yearned for some- thing better and was willing to pay the price, or sacrificed to get it — and you know how your forebears came here — that was the incipient point of Americanism. I do not know so much about the laws, I do not know much about labor and capital, but I do not believe there will ever be established a status quo between those interests until each one of them recognizes a primal obligation to government, before they have the right to consider their individual preferment. And that is not contact but that is spiritual government. And so with the inspiration of Lincoln. Without going into details, with no thought that I can add one other chaplet to the millions that adorn his spiritual brow, I want to say that what we can do when we are in doubt, when we are trying to trust to logic to work out the future — let us harken back to the spiritual ancestors of this country, let us synchronize our thoughts with their conduct, let us be manly enough then to again be sentimental. Let us understand that people in the aggregate are no different than the individual, but they are more dangerous. This is a spiritual country or it is nothing. This country is kept going by the God-fearing men and women of all denominations and beliefs who practice of human charity, who treat their government as a God-given instrument under which to live and carry on their lives as laid down in Holy Writ. And the man who cannot conceive of a God cannot conceive of the United States. A man who cannot conceive of a heartbeat, and a heart- 326 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB beat outweighs a syllogism, a man who cannot read another heart has no heart. I would have them come from anywhere. I would have our discussions tempered by our belief in our institutions. And I recall just one word, and with that I close. I recall one phrase of Washington at a time when everything seemed lost and the hearts of the patriots and the most faithful sank within them. But Washington, understanding the psychology of the people, in addition to its law, as did Lincoln, said: "Take from me the scattered and dejected fragment of my power, take from me all that I have left and give me a banner and let me plant it upon the mountain- tops of ecstasy and I will take my country and set her free." This country has never accomplished anything by judicial in- terpretation or Constitutional Amendment or anything else, that counted anything in the great scheme of life, that was not ac- companied by the great spiritual emotion which we call a moral sense. And as the philosophers had their theory that these spheres go through space and with an awful speed strikes to- gether and make a note called the harmony of the spheres, I want to leave this last word, that I hope if that is true — and let us believe that it is, for the sake of imagination — that this great people on this wonderful sphere, going through the vast limitless spaces put there by the great Almighty, that the note that we will strike will be the note that Lincoln struck, an al- legiance to God, a duty to our brother man, and a sacrifice of all that is in him to the great theories of Constitution which next to the Divine Book is the most important physical thing in this world to-day. REV. CHARLES R. BROWN Clergyman and lecturer; Dean of the Divinity School, Yale University. ADDRESS OF REV. CHARLES REYNOLDS BROWN You may possibly be interested in knowing how this study of a great man's life originally came about. When the new century was ushered in, the event was celebrated in San Francisco at a large banquet for men at the Merchants' Club. The Committee of Arrangements provided four addresses on "The Achievements of the Nineteenth Century." Dr. David Starr Jordan, President of Stanford University, was asked to speak on **The Greatest Scientific Discovery of the Nineteenth Century." He very nat- urally named *'The Principle of Organic Evolution" and devoted his address to indicating the bearing of that principle upon sci- entific thought during the closing decades of the century. Pro- fessor Charles M. Gayley, the head of the English Department in the University of California, was asked to speak on "The Great- est Book of the Nineteenth Century." He at once excluded all scientific works as not belonging to pure literature. After dis- cussing the merits of various authors he named Goethe's "Faust" as the greatest literary production of the hundred years. Mr. Fairfax H. Whelan, a business man in San Francisco, was asked to speak on "The Greatest Mechanical Invention of the Nine- teenth Century." He surprised us all — and no one knew in ad- vance what choice any one of the four speakers had made. We expected something of an electrical nature^ but he named "Bes- 330 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB semer Steel," the cheaper process of converting pig iron into steel, on the ground of its wider utility. He maintained that the greatest invention was the one which served the interests of the largest number of people. I was asked to speak that evening on "The Greatest Man of the Nineteenth Century"; and the after- dinner speech that night has by that same process of "organic evolution" gradually shaped itself into this longer address. It might seem a futile task to seek to name the greatest man in any century. It is not easy to compare one great man with another. And "Comparisons are odorous," Dogberry said. His English was a trifle lame, but he had a show of facts on his side. Those earnest debates which we used to have thirty or forty years ago in the country lyceums as to which was the greater man, Columbus who discovered this country or Washington who fathered it, did not really get us anywhere. They gave the young budding orators a chance to get on their legs and try their powers, but the purpose of the discussion was defeated by the difficulty of reducing the various fractions of the total human achievement to a common denominator so that they might be compared. It is not easy to compare a great military commander with a man who is great in literature; or a great statesman with a great scientist. Yet straight in the face of all these difficulties I am undertaking to name to you the greatest man of the Nine- teenth Century and to justify my choice, if I may, at the bar of your own judgment. In entering upon this discussion I would offer these considera- tions as furnishing us a valid principle of selection. We may say that a great man is a man who makes some significant period of history different from what it would have been apparently but for his influence. Then when we come to measure the size of that section of history, the value of the interests involved and the ADDRESS OF REV. CHARLES REYNOLDS BROWN, D.D. 331 permanence of the work accomplished, we may readily determine the degree of his greatness. If in all those three regards he stands higher than any other man of his time, he may justly be regarded as the greatest man of the period. Now, we find in the Nineteenth Century a certain historic event which in my judgment was the most significant and in- fluential occurrence of the hundred years. I refer to the Civil War, fought out here in our own land in 1861-65. You may measure that war any way you please — by the extent and value of the territory at stake; or by the number of men in the field, exceeding that of any modern war until the recent Great War in Europe; or by the conscientiousness and enlightenment of the opposing hosts — it was a war fought not by paid mercenaries, but by citizens who knew why they were there and for what they were fighting; or by the far-reach of the principles involved in their bearing upon the fate of a great nation threatened with disruption, upon the interest of human freedom and upon the cause of democracy, touching as it does the development of the rank and file of the race — you may measure that war any way you please and, I believe, you will regard it as the most significant occurrence of the century. Now, in bringing the various issues in that war to a successful conclusion — in freeing four millions of our fellow-beings from slavery; in preserving a government which stands perhaps as the nearest approach to a successful democracy on a large scale thus far in history; and in closing the debate upon certain questions which had troubled this Republic for decades and now trouble it no more — in bringing those issues to a conclusion, many great men wrought together and the credit for the outcome does not belong solely to any one man of the group. It was a gigantic task to bring a free, prosperous and resolute 332 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB people, intelligently and conscientiously divided in their political judgment, to submit to the will of the majority, as expressed on the field of battle, and then to go on together. To go on in what has proved to be not slumbering hatred nor smoldering rebellion, but in actual, growing, joyous unity — it was a gigantic task! Seward and Chase and Stanton did their appointed work and they did it well. Grant and Sherman and Farragut accomplished their terrible task with thoroughness. Henry Ward Beecher, William Lloyd Garrison and Harriet Beecher Stowe, to each one of these belongs a place of honor! And to a great unnumbered host of plain men and women who fought and thought, who gave and prayed for the Union, to each one of these our gratitude is due! But to one man more than all the rest belongs the highest place in that struggle and I named him that night as the greatest man of the Nineteenth Century, the first martyred President, Abraham Lincoln. Now I hope that this choice did not proceed simply from the fact that I am an American myself and love my own country and its people as I could love no other. And I feel that I am a good deal of an American. My family has been here a long time. My ancestors landed at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. They had their trunks all unpacked and their household arrangements all in good running order when those Pilgrim Fathers finally got around in 1620. We were glad to see them when they came. They were good people and were destined to make an important contribution to the life of the Nation. But we were here first. And we have not been moving away nor dying out. 1 do not know how it may be with other family stocks, but I feel thor- oughly sure that when Gabriel blows his trumpet, in every tele- phone book and city directory from Eastport, Maine, to San Diego, California, there will still be pages and pages of "Browns." ADDRESS OF REV. CHARLES REYNOLDS BROWN, D.D. 333 I feel, therefore, that because I belong to a large family and to a family which has been here a long time, I am a good deal of an American. But nothing splendidly human is ever foreign to any lover of his race. I have tried to study the work of great men in other lands. I hope the choice of Lincoln did not spring simply from the fact that he wrought with certain issues which interest my own mind and heart more than other issues might. I have tried to study the work of great men in other fields of endeavor. From that excursion into other lands and other lines of effort I came back all the more firmly persuaded that the highest place of honor in the Nineteenth Century belongs to that President of the United States. Let me name what I would regard as the four main elements in Lincoln's greatness. First, his combination of lofty idealism with practical sagacity in bringing things to pass. He had his ideals. They hung in his sky as definite and as illuminating as the visions of a seer. The abolition of slavery, the preservation of the Union, the healing of the breach between the North and South, the welfare of the entire American people! Toward those ideals he steadfastly set his face. But he was always a concrete rather than an abstract idealist. He had a way of seeing what ought to be and of seeing how it could be. Then he showed himself able to get in and do it. This combination of lofty idealism which gave him the moral passion of a saint or a reformer, together with the well-seasoned sagacity of a practiced diplomat, made him a statesman of the first order. He was a great man and he was a good man. If we were start- ing out to canonize some of our American Protestant saints I should be in favor of beginning with Abraham Lincoln. But his 334 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB goodness was always of the homely, useful type. It was not the abstract, doctrinaire, John the Baptist sort of goodness which demands for its exercise that it be taken off into the desert to live on locusts and wild honey, without wife or child, without citizenship or business connection or any of the normal relation- ships of life. Like the Son of Man, Abraham Lincoln "came eat- ing and drinking." He came building his high ideals into an every-day order of plain fact. He was just as desirous as Emerson ever was of hitching his wagon to a star. His Gettysburg Address and his Second In- augural, classics they are in political utterance, show that he could hitch his wagon nowhere else than to the highest star in sight. But he was always willing to have all four wheels of the wagon on the ground. He was ready to get down and grease the axles so that his own particular wagon-load of effort might run with the least possible friction. He was there encouraging the team by such homely words of cheer as made him one of the plainest of men. He was, throughout his illustrious career, a concrete idealist. Before Lincoln died he had the joy of seeing the slaves all freed by his Emancipation Proclamation. He saw the Union pre- served without the loss of a single State. He saw the armed re- bellion brought practically to an end. He saw the great volun- teer armies of Grant and Sherman ready to be mustered out and to be returned to their homes and to peaceful industry. And he must have known that to this magnificent result he, more than any other one man, had contributed. It had told tremendously upon his strength; body, brain and heart had all been taxed to the utmost. If we were to measure his term in the White House, not by the lapse of days, but by the consumption of vitality, it would be drawn out into a con- ADDRESS OF REV. CHARLES REYNOLDS BROWN, D.D. 335 siderable portion of the allotted three score years and ten. And I feel confident that I am correct in asserting that the assassin's bullet only anticipated an event which would not have been long postponed when once the reaction from the terrible stress of war times had set in. And if Lincoln could have looked ahead and could have fore- seen the speedy end of his career, he might have said, as did the prophet of old, "It is enough! Now let thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen the salvation of my people Israel." His great ideals had all become accomplished facts. I would name, therefore, as the first element in his greatness, the com- bination of lofty idealism with practical sagacity in bringing things to pass. The second element I would name would be his power of com- prehending men of extreme views. It was Frederick W. Robert- son who used to maintain that the truth, as a rule, does not lie with either extreme. Nor does it lie (as many soft-hearted and soft-headed people like to think) with the golden mean, the half- way position, the compromise which misses the strength of both extremes. The truth, Robertson maintained, lies rather in the recognition of certain deeper underlying principles which make possible the strength of both the extremes. Now in that quality of insight Abraham Lincoln was a past master. He had come into prominence chiefly by his anti-slavery speeches in the Douglas debates. He had been elected to the Presidency by the votes of tens of thousands of men who knew very little about him, except that he was a man who hated slavery. But the moment he was elected, he refused to be re- garded as the advance agent or the general manager of the aboli- tion movement. He refused to wear the tag of any section or of any party or of any particular school of political opinion. He 336 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLTJB insisted that now he was President of the whole United States, North and South, loyal and rebellious, bond and free. He was their President and he was there to serve their interests as best he might. He was roundly scolded for taking this broad view of the mat- ter by the extremists of both types. Wendell Phillips, a finished Harvard scholar, a polished Boston gentleman, a wonderful orator — ^in my judgment almost the finest we have produced in this land — but a man singularly defective in good judgment, scolded away at Lincoln in a most abusive fashion. He called him ^^a mere huckster in politics." He called him "the slave-hound from Illinois" because in the early years of his administration Lincoln allowed fugitive slaves to be returned to their masters in the border States. And Horace Greeley, an earnest, warm-hearted, forcible, blun- dering man up to the day of his death, scolded away at Lincoln in the columns of the New York Tribune, making that paper a great hindrance when it could have been a mighty help. The New York Tribune at that time was the political Four Gospels, and Acts, and Epistles all bound into one, for a great many peo- ple here at the North. The old farmer out here at the Four Corners did not know exactly what he did think about things until he got his "weekly Trybune," as he called it, and set down to read what Horace Greeley had to say about it all. Lincoln listened to them all and was unmoved by them all. He also had the abolition of slavery a good deal at heart, but he also had a responsibility which those gentlemen did not share, and which they were not always able to see. He had the Eman- cipation Proclamation in his heart a long, long time before his wise head approved its issuance or before his right hand wrote ADDRESS OF REV. CHARLES REYNOLDS BROWN, D.D. 337 it out in firm lines. He knew that its hour had not yet come and so he calmly waited for the fullness of time. Away over at the other extreme in those days were the War Democrats and other men of their way of thinking. They be- lieved in the Union, but they had no money to spend and no blood to spill in freeing slaves. They insisted that Lincoln was saying altogether too much about abolition and was moving altogether too fast in that direction. Their scolding was ofttimes only sec- ond to that of the extreme abolitionists like Wendell Phillips and Horace Greeley. Lincoln knew that the underlying principle in that great strug- gle was the preservation of the Union, the maintenance of the integrity of our country. He was accustomed to say, "If I could save the Union by freeing all of the slaves, I would do that. If I could save the Union without freeing any of the slaves, I would do that. If I could save the Union by freeing part of the slaves and leaving the rest alone, I would do that. What I do, I do because I believe it serves the cause of the Union. And what I leave undone, I leave undone because I believe that serves the cause of the Union." He knew full well that the Union would not "continue to exist half-slave and half-free." But he knew also that the only prin- ciple upon which he could draw together those men of extreme views was the preservation of the Union, the maintenance of the integrity of our common country. I would name, therefore, as the second element in his greatness his power of comprehending and in the end of utilizing men of extreme views by keeping to the front the deeper underlying principles. The third element I would name would be his ability to keep «los« to tJve hearts of the people in symuathetic fashion and ye^ 338 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB lead them steadily in those lines of action which he desired them to take. It was James Russell Lowell, in his essay on Lincoln, who said that there was "a certain tone of familiar dignity, a kind of fireside plainness" about the man not only in his con- versation and in his speeches, but even in his State papers. He did not have the air of a man who was laying down the law to the country. He showed, rather, the attitude of one who was taking the whole country into his confidence and talking matters over with it as one neighbor might discuss the questions of the day over the back fence with his neighbor. His word was ever, "Come, now, let us reason together about this matter." He respected the people too much to bully them. He respected the people too much to flatter them. There was in him nothing of the demagogue. He reasoned with them in serious fashion and in confident expectation that the same considerations which had persuaded his mind would persuade theirs. In that way he gathered to himself their consent and approval. On the day that he died I suppose he was the most absolute ruler in Christendom. Never a Czar of all the Russias had such power over his people as Abraham Lincoln had over the loyal people of this land. Now, that is leadership of the highest type. The finest quality of leadership, whether it be in ward politics, or in a Woman's Club, or in a baseball nine, is not the leadership which goes about fussy and bossy insisting constantly on having its own way. It is the leadership which offers its suggestions and policies so quietly, unobtrusively, and winsomely that the people accept them and act upon them without realizing that they are being led. They see the whole matter so clearly that they feel as if they were merely following the wise dictates of their own judgment. His successful maintenance of this sympathetic touch with the people was due, in large measure, to these three qualities: his ADDRESS OF REV. CHARLES REYNOLDS BROWN, D.D. 339 integrity, high and holy enough for all its tasks, yet sufficiently simple to walk upon the ground! his common sense! We call it '^common," I do not know why; it is anything but common. I mean the plain straightforward way of looking at things and of saying things. When Lincoln talked, the people knew exactly what he was driving at. They did not have to have an English translation of it. He never used those long words which would not go into a suitcase without being folded twice. He used the short, terse, expressive words of the King James Bible and of Shakespeare, the two volumes which ha read most. He was a man of great common sense And in the third place, his sense of humor, of which he had a very abundant store! It sometimes became a source of irritation to serious-minded men like Seward and Stanton in the stress of war times. It was one of the ways in which Lincoln sought a momentary relief from the severe men- tal strain of his high office. There is something about the psychology of an average Ameri- can which warms up to a combination like that. Give a man integrity, common sense, and a sense of humor, and he has in him the main essentials necessary for leadership. As a leader of men he moved slowly, feeling his way at times rather than rushing ahead in pellmell fashion after the manner of ill-advised reformers. He kept ahead of the people, but not too far ahead. His method at this point has been finely indicated by Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Here was place for no fair-weather sailor — the new pilot was called to the helm in a tornado. In four stormy years his endurance, his fertility of resource, his magnanimity, were sorely tried and never found wanting. By his courage, his justice, his even temper, his fertile counsel, his humanity, he stood a heroic fig- 340 NATIONAL REPXTBLICAN CLUB ure in the center of a heroic epoch. He is the true his- tory of the American people in his time. Step by step he walked before them, slow with their slowness, quick- ening his march by theirs, the true representative of this continent, an entirely public man, the father of his country, the pulse of twenty millions throbbing in his heart, the thought of their minds articulated by his tongue." The final element in his greatness which I would name was his political unselfishness and moral integrity. He was both great and good. The main issues with him were the preservation of the Union, the abolition of slavery, the welfare of the whole American people, rather than the success or the fame or the po- litical advancement of Abraham Lincoln. He desired not that he might save the country but that the country might be saved, let the credit for the achievement go where it would. He felt the full sense of his responsibility in that tenure of office. The South had said in 1860, ^'The election of Lincoln means secession." When Lincoln became President the Southern States, according to their threat, began to pass their Acts of Se- cession. Lincoln must have asked himself: "Am I to end the line of Presidents of the United States? If so, what will be the ver- dict of history upon me? Or, on the other hand, am I to be that pivotal man upon whose wisdom and strength may turn the pos- sibility of such a Union as we have never enjoyed to this hour?" It was enough to make any man self-conscious and to fill him with an undue sense of his own importance. It was a time of political selfishness. Even the gravity of the situation did not shame the petty ambitions of smaller men. When we take up the account of some of the military heart- burnings and squabbles of that day they make sorry reading for ADDRESS OF REV. CHARLES REYNOLDS BROWN, D.D. 341 a patriot. There were men who seemed to be thinking more about the amount of gold on their shoulder straps than of the service they might render in the field, or the victories they might win for the flag. It is a mood which has not entirely passed. It only required two hours to fight the Battle of Santiago de Cuba in our Spanish War, but it took more than two years to settle the ques- tion as to whom the credit should be given, to Sampson or Schley. And the question has not been settled yet to everybody's satis- faction. It was not only in military and in naval life, but in political action as well, that men sometimes betrayed the quality of selfish- ness. Seward, Chase, Stanton, Gideon Welles, and almost every other man of the period seemed at times to have his own little ax to grind whenever the public grindstone was not otherwise engaged — and sometimes, alas, when it was. Among them all Lincoln bore himself steadily in the spirit of absolute disinter- estedness. Now, in closing, may I suggest a certain parallel ! I do it with the utmost reverence, and I trust, without the slightest offense to the religious sentiments of anyone who may read these lines. I am not instituting a comparison, but I would suggest a certain parallel between the life of the greatest man of the Nineteenth Century and the life of the Greatest of all the Centuries, the Son of Man. Both were of humble birth. God makes his great ones from the dust of the ground, breathing into their nostrils the breath of his own mighty life as they become living souls. Lincoln's birthplace was a log cabin and Jesus was born in the manger of a stable. Lincoln's father was a carpenter by trade and Jesus is referred to in the Gospels as ''the son of the carpenter." 342 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB The words which Jesus used in his opening address there in the synagogue at Nazareth might have been incorporated bodily into Lincoln's First Inaugural. *'The spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and to set at liberty them that are bruised." Both Lincoln and Jesus were lovers and users of the story, the parable, the homely sayings which the common people would hear gladly and readily carry away in their minds. Both Lincoln and Jesus were hindered in their work by the moral extremists and bigots on the one hand and by the moral dullards and slow of heart to believe the good things God had in store for the people, on the other. Of Lincoln's personal appearance it might have been said as it was said of the promised Messiah: "There is no form nor comeli- ness in him that we should desire him." The characteristic gravity of Lincoln's face and the sadness which sat upon him almost overpoweringly during his years in the White House, how it reminds us incessantly of the One who was called "A Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief." And to complete ^hat significant parallel, you will all remem- ber that it was on Good Eriday, the anniversary of the Crucifixion of the Savior of Mankind, that Lincoln met his death. It would seem as if somehow in the Nineteenth Century as in the First, there could be no remission of the dreadful sin of slavery with- out the shedding of blood — the most precious blood we had. What a strange suggestive parallel! It seems no accident that the American Lincoln bore the Hebrew name of Abraham, Father of the Faithful, in whose work for righteousness all the nations of the earth have been blessed. It seems no accident that when ADDRESS OF REV. CHARLES REYNOLDS BROWN, D.D. 343 Lincoln entered the city of Richmond near the close of his life, as Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem in the last week of his earthly life, the colored people of Richmond were almost ready to fall down and hail him as a kind of second Messiah to their race. He surely marks one of the highest reaches of that Chris- tian civilization which the coming of the Son of Man made possible. THE THIRTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL LINCOLN DINNER of the NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB At the Waldorf-Astoria FEBRUARY 13, 1923 Address of HON. IRVINE L. LENROOT IRVINE L. LENROOT 3om in Superior, Wis., January 31, 1869; admitted "to the Bar in 1897; elected to the Wisconsin Legis- lature in 1900, 1902 and 1904; elected Speaker of the Assembly in 1903 and 1905; elected to the 61st, 62nd, 63rd, 64th and 65th Congresses. On April 2, 1918, elected to the Senate to fill the unexpired term of the late Senator Husting. On November 2, 1920, re-elected for term ending ISIarch 4, 1927. ADDRESS OF HON. IRVINE L. LENROOT Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen: I was very glad to accept your invitation to be your guest upon this day, celebrated by every true American. In paying tribute to Lincoln there is no division among us, either geographical or partisan, but we who are Re- publicans are proud of the fact that while he belongs to all the people through all the ages, he was of our political faith, and in- deed has been the inspiration of the Republican Party, not only while he lived, but to this day, in all its worthy ideals and accomplishments. To-day, more than at any time since Lincoln's death, do we need to pause and study him. Of all the great men known to history, he is surpassed by none. He was great not because of his remarkable intellectual ability, but because in him there were represented in the fullest degree the qualities, the aspirations, and the patriotism of the great common people of this nation from whom he sprang. He was honest, not only according to ordinary standards of honesty, but he was honest as measured by the strict- est rule of integrity known to either morals or religion. To his sympathy there were no bounds. As for four long years he bore the burdens of this Government, so he bore the sorrows of its people. The way before him was often dark, difficulties piled up like mountain barriers, but with a sublime confidence in Him who is 348 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB greater than armies, he was unafraid. His only desire was to know the right way and, when satisfied as to that, nothing could change him from his course. His great heart went out to this nation. He clearly saw that should the form of government founded by the fathers be a failure, then indeed there was no hope for democracy anywhere. Born in the cabin of a pioneer, reared amidst the rudest sur- roundings, he became our greatest American citizen. His sim- plicity, his lofty patriotism, his great mind and big heart will be an inspiration to all men for all time. Lincoln was misunder- stood and by many unappreciated during his life, but now look- ing across the span of years, beholding him in his true propor- tions for what he was, the prophecy of the poet has been fulfilled, who said: "Great captains, with their guns and drums, Disturb our judgment for the hour. But at last silence comes, These all are gone, and standing like a tower, Our children shall behold his fame. The kindly, earnest, brave, foreseeing man, Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, New birth of our new soil, the first American." Lincoln lived and wrought through a most critical period of our history. We are proud that he was the first Republican President of the United States and that the principles he taught and the standards he created have been the foundation principles of the Republican Party. Because of his wisdom and his states- manship our country not only survived the shock of internal war, but received a new birth from which has followed our wonderful progress. Since then the greatest war in history has been waged and the ADDRESS OF HON. IRVINE L. LENROOT 349 forces of right have won the victory upon the battlefield. But peace in Europe seems much farther off to-day than when Ger- many surrendered. We do not know what the morrow may bring forth, whether peace will come, or whether Europe is upon the verge of another war, a war which will leave nothing but ruin and disaster for all who participate in it. Time alone will tell. But this we know — that the statesmen of Europe, victors and vanquished are not dominated by the spirit that Lincoln had. We can all sympathize with France, with so much of her fair territory devastated, with her millions of brave men lying be- neath the sod, with her fear of a future Germany with military strength renewing the contest. We can sympathize with the German people too who feel that the reparation terms are greater than they can bear, that nothing but economic ruin faces them. But it is unfortunate that Germany has not seen fit to do her utmost to pay her obligations, to maintain the value of her cur- rency, and then rely upon the sympathy and the help of the world to secure for her such terms as would enable her to resume an economic place in the world, but without any possibility of a return to military power. All of the nations of Europe are in- sisting that they are awaiting the voice of America to save them, and we are given to understand that we are lacking in our duty to civilization in holding aloof. But the truth is that most of them hope that the voice of America shall be raised in their be- half, to assist them to accomplish their particular aims and pur- poses, selfish though they may be. I wish there could be a har- monious voice in America in this European crisis. But we should frankly face the fact that there is not, and will not be, in favor of any of the nations of Europe so long as they pursue their present policies. However, it ought to be possible for all of America to unite in a voice so strong as to be heard across the 350 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB sea, declaring that no help will come from ns to assist any nation in evading its just obligations upon the one hand, or assisting any nation in crushing or exploiting any people upon the other. There is but one way to peace in Europe. Germany must pay to the utmost of her ability to pay and yet live and occupy a place in the family of nations. France must not seek to crush the German people, nor must she or England or Italy exploit weaker peoples for selfish advantage and Imperial domination. Above all, hatred between the different nations must not be fostered nor passions kindled, but friendship and goodwill must Be the aim of all. Europe needs the charity of Lincoln, but it also needs his sternness against wrong by whomsoever committed. Would that every man and woman in Europe to-night could read and apply those immortal words of Lincoln, ''With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the batle, and for his widow and his orphans to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among our- selves, and with all nations." I hope the time is near at hand when America's voice for peace and justice to all of Europe will be welcome and heard, and heeded. We know that whenever that opportunity arrives President Harding and Secretary Hughes will not only be willing but eager to give expression to it, but I am not in favor of the United States Senate deciding the time when action shall be taken, or building up false hopes in an^ nation of Europe that the United States is ready to help it as against others, regardless of justice and right. It should be clearly understood too that the United States has not a dollar to help any nation to maintain huge standing armies ADDRESS OF HON. IRVINE L. LENROOT 351 or to enable them to assist one nation in fighting another. A few months ago we were given to understand that England was finan- cing Greece to fight Turkey and France was financing Turkey to fight Greece. But I have faith that reason will soon prevail in Europe, that just settlements will be proposed both upon the part of Germany and upon the part of France, and among all other nations where dissensions exist. When reason does return, then the voice of America should be heard. We should not remain aloof. We must not isolate ourselves from the rest of the world, but realize that we are part of it and have a responsibility to it. This we can do without any surrender of our sovereignty or independence. We shall never surrender to any League or Association of Na- tions the right to determine for us when and how and where we shall engage in war. No American boy shall ever be sent to fight and die anywhere except with the voluntary action of his own Government. But, important as the European crisis is to us, both from a humanitarian standpoint, and from the standpoint of our own vital interests, we should remember that our first duty is to make civilization safe in America. There is unrest and discontent among us. Business is halting and uncertain, and everyone is trying to blame someone else for the condition in which we find ourselves. But the Government, whether Republican or Democratic, is usually held responsible for everything that does not suit us. Now Government is to blame for some things. It has some sins of commission, but more of omission. It has done some things it should not have done and left undone some things which should have been done, but there are also economic laws of trade, of supply and demand, that no legislation can violate any more than we might prevent 352 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB the tides of the Atlantic Ocean by passing a law that the tide should not rise to-day. One of the causes of unrest and discon- tent is that while more than four million of our boys were called to the colors, and two million of them reached France while other people toiled and sacrificed time and money, there were yet others who made huge fortunes out of the war. This will al- ways be a blot upon us. Whenever we are engaged in war there should be to the fullest extent possible equality of sacrifice. No man should profit by it. What kind of patriotism is it, that sends some of our boys to die and pays out unconscionable profits to others who stay at home? Should war ever again come upon us, I hope that the draft will be applied not only to those who wear the uniform of a soldier, but to every industry to the end that never again shall there be war profits to either the man who owns our factories or to the men who work in them. We are menaced to-day by two dangers — those who, possessing economic power, use it to oppress others, securing unconscionable profits for themselves, sometimes through grants of special priv- ileges by Government, State or National, and others who would tear down all that has been builded in one hundred and forty-six years of progress. No man can be a good citizen who would follow the simple plan that: '^They shall take who have the power, And they shall keep who can." and no man can be a good citizen who denounces everything that is, the good with the bad. Equality of opportunity is what has made our nation favored above all other lands. It must be preserved if the Republic is ADDRESS OF HON. IRVINE L. LENROOT 353 to endure, but equality of opportunity will be of little value un- less we also protect the rewards of industry and perseverance. We have with us to-day perhaps more than ever before the demagogue who denounces every man who has acquired property, however honestly, and he is the enemy of the Republic equally with what are termed the predatory interests. He seizes upon every grievance, fancied or real, and capitalizes it for his own political profit. He does not desire to better the class to whom he appeals — indeed he desires their condition shall become worse instead of better, for discontent and unrest are the bread of life to him, and a happy and contented people would leave him with- out any occupation. But merely denouncing the demagogue and malefactor of wealth gets us nowhere. We must do what we can, based upon sound business principles, to relieve existing conditions. We must get the facts before the people as to the cause of our troubles and convince them that while there are some things that the Gov- ernment can do for them, there is no magic of legislation that can bring prosperity to our people. Above all, we must avoid group or class distinction in dealing with our problems. This seems to be the day of blocs, each thinking too largely in terms of selfish advantage for its own bloc, with too little con- sideration for the rights of others. In the solution of our prob- lems there must be no North, no South, no East, no West, but we must encompass within our vision our entire country from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Canadian border to the Gulf, and we must legislate for the welfare of all the people. Blocs are not new in Congress and I confess I have not much sympathy for some who are denouncing them. I have been in Congress fourteen years and there have always seen blocs there, though not carrying that name, nor visible to the eye. We always have 354 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB had tariii' blocs, manufacturers' blocs and other blocs, each seek- ing advantage for itself. Now that other groups have formed blocs is not surprising, for good may come out of it all if there shall be created in the public mind the determination that selfish advantage and special privilege to the public injury must be abolished for all time. I believe this is coming and there is a growing realization that we must seek for general prosperity for all our people and not for any particular group or class. Blocs are not in themselves an evil, but they become so whenever they seek special privilege against the public interest. We must more fully Americanize America. This is said to be the melting pot of nations. Anyone who comes here from other lands who is not willing to be melted into a good American cit- izen should not be permitted to remain. There must be no little Germany, no little Italy, and no other little nationality here, but just one America. We should make it clear to every immigrant that his entry here is a privilege and not a right. That for that privilege he must not only obey our laws but cheerfully support them. That he must learn our language and become acquainted with our institutions. That until he acquires the status of citi- zenship, it is not for him to criticise our Government or advocate a change in its laws. We should say to him that to citizens of America belongs the right and privilege of government and that until he is naturalized if he does not like our government as it is, and advocates tearing it down, he had better go back to the land from whence he came or we will send him there. Never has there been greater need for patriotic party and in- dividual service than now, in the solution of our many problems. Shall our party maintain the high ideals and purposes which Lin- coln gave to it? Shall its party platforms speak the voice of its thoughtful men and women who seek nothing but the general ADDRESS OF HON. IRVINE L. LENROOT 355 good? Shall it continue to be a worthy instrument of service to the American people, preferring to go down to defeat, fight- ing for principles which it espouses, than win without having any? Shall we seek to succeed upon the strength of our own cause or merely upon the weakness of our opponents? The achievements of President Harding in the Limitation of Armament Conference, in economy in government expenditures, in reducing taxes, in improving the distressed condition of our farmers, in settling the British debt, should be pointed to by every Republican with pride. But we must not rely upon what the Republican Party has done. Every citizen has the right to ask what are the principles of any political party that abide not only for a single campaign, but serve as a compass and guide to all its endeavors. We Republicans may answer that our Party has always stood for the rights of the individual, for equal opportunity for all. We believe in a central government, strong enough to secure pro- tection for the enjoyment of human rights, but beyond that point the rights of the State must be respected. Has not the time come for a general declaration of Republican principles, to be applied to every problem, foreign and domestic, that concerns us? Should we not make it plain that our Party stands first and always for service, first to our own people, and second to the world? No Party has any right to live except as it seeks to make of America a better place to live for every man and woman in it. Service affording equal opportunity, striving always so to legis- late and govern that every citizen shall have the chance to make a success in life, and if failure comes he alone will be to blame, should be our aim. Should we not apply to every problem that 356 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB comes before us this question: How can it be solved to best serve the whole American people? When we find unrest and discontent shall we be content to de- nounce demagogues who take advantage of it, or shall we diag- nose the cause of the discontent and try to find a remedy? When we find some special privilege existing to the public injury, shall we shut our eyes to it, or shall we remove it when we have the power? Shall we denounce all organizations of labor and de- fend all organizations of capital? The Republican Party should be the friend of all men and women in every walk of life who seek nothing from their Gov- arnment, except their just rights, and desire only the general welfare. Is it not possible to have a general declaration of prin- ciples of the Republican Party that will be its guide to-day, to- morrow and in all the years to come? Principles that will not only be declared but adhered to so that all may know that we are trying to make of America a better place for all of its people? But, you may ask, how shall we determine upon principles ex- cept in the ordinary way at national conventions? My answer is, that we must first have a sentiment within the party that shall govern and control our party convention. It is not my pur- pose to attempt to indicate any formula that might be agreed upon, but we could well start with the proposition that the Re- publican Party must stand for the protection of every legitimate right of every human being in America, laboring man, capitalist, farmer, whatever his vocation in life may be, and equal oppor- tunity for each man and woman to make the most of his life. Then there ought to be patriotic men and women of every walk of life within our party, having no selfish interest to serve, who ADDRESS OF HON. IRVINE L. LENROOT 357 would be willing to discuss with each other matters of concern to the country, and surely upon many matters at least they could find common ground upon which they all could stand. I believe that the overwhelming majority of our laboring men, our farmers and our business and professional men desire only the common good, that the Government shall serve only the gen- eral welfare, and that they would be much more interested in having their party stand for definite principles which shall con- trol the candidates, than they are in candidates who shall de- clare their own principles. In other words, I suggest a return to responsible party government, which can be secured only if our party has definite aims and purposes supported by its mem- bership and to which its candidates must adhere if they would remain within the party. I can think of no better occasion than this, while our thoughts are full of Lincoln, and his greatness and his service, to suggest to this organization that it has the opportunity to create a senti- ment for a declaration of principles in the next convention, that shall represent the best thought of the most patriotic men and women in our party, who will, in suggesting them, give less heed to winning an election and more heed to our party, courageously meeting our problems and standing for the welfare of all America. I have an abiding confidence in the future of America because I have an abiding confidence in the judgment and the patriotism of the American people. They may suffer injustice for a time, they may be led astray sometimes by false leaders, but they will never permanently depart from the principles upon which this government was established under Washington, preserved under Lincoln, and carried across the sea by our boys who fought upon the battlefields of France. 358 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB May the Eepublican Party be the instrumentality of greatest service to the American people, and may that be the highest ambition of our party. May Lincoln ever continue to be its chief inspiration, and may its future be even more glorious than its past. • THE THIRTY-EIGHTH ANNUAL LINCOLN DINNER of the NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB At the Waldorf-Astoria FEBRUARY 12, 1924 Addresses of HON. NATHANIEL A. ELSBERG MRS. AUGUST BELMONT HON. JAMES W. WADSWORTH PRESIDENT CALVIN COOLIDGE NATHANIEL A. ELSBERG Pormer State Senator from New York City. Presi- dent of tlie National Republican Club. Distinguished jurist and orator. ADDRESS OF INATHANIEL A. ELSBERG President of the Club Mr. President, members of the National Republican Club, ladies and gentlemen: For thirty-eight successive years the members of the National Republican Club have gathered with their guests to pay tribute to the memory of Abraham Lincoln on the anni- versary of his birth. At several of these gatherings we have been signally honored, as we are to-night, by the presence of the President of the United States — indeed to-night the honor is doubled by the attendance of the gracious lady who is the First Lady of the Land — and at all of them we have had interpreted for us the Lincoln spirit and the lessons of Lincoln's life in the terms of their application to the problems of the current day. The picture changes, and it should change, for when community life becomes static rather than dynamic it is very near decay; but the triumphs of the human spirit endure, and light the back- ground of the changing picture with a radiance that is all their own. That history is philosophy teaching by example, may or may not be correct as a definition, but certain it is that its su- preme honors have been reserved for the immortal few who in the examples of their lives and purposes and sacrifices have fur- nished the spiritual stepping stones on which the race has climbed to higher things. It is the recognition of this, which, as the years roll on, is steadily increasing the majesty of Lincoln's stature NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB and the magic of his name. It is this which makes the lessons of his life of never-ending application as we seek solutions for the problems of our own times. And it is this which, as one stands in that noble building, the Lincoln Memorial in Washing- ton, and regards his statue — in which, more than in any other statue I have ever seen, the sculptor has succeeded in putting a soul into marble — it is this which gives one that swelling of the heart and quickening of the conscience which only the thought of the greatest spiritual leaders can evoke. For one must look beyond the things which he accomplished to find the explanation of the influence of Lincoln on the thought and feeling of the world. To save a nation and consecrate it anew to liberty under law, great achievement though it was, was not enough to make of him the towering figure which he has become. Eather is the explanation furnished by the soul, the spirit, by which the achievement was informed and the appeal of which to the best and highest impulses of men and women every- where no artificial boundaries of race or creed or nationality or geography can take away. And that is why, if there be in any spot on earth a movement to uplift the weak or succor the op- pressed, to give to peoples broader rights, to trample out the weeds of cruelty and wrong, it never fails to draw both strength and inspiration from the spirit which in life abode in Lincoln's homely form and now has its eternal dwelling among the stars. So deeply — more so perhaps than in any other case in profane history — ^has the unadorned worth of a human soul impressed it- self on the heart and the imagination of mankind. Do not fear that I shall usurp the prerogatives of the speakers of the evening. I know that the most becoming quality in a presiding officer is that gift for silence which has been so widely ADDRESS OF HON. NATHANIEL A. ELSBERG 363 heralded as a characteristic of our guest of honor, but which — may I add — in his case yields to the superb gift of using speech, not, as Voltaire said, to disguise thoughts, but to let his hearers know exactly what he thinks and where he stands. I should and shall be brief. And yet I feel that I would not faithfully trans- late your wishes into words, if I failed to express to our guest of honor something of the welcome with which we greet him here to-night, something of the regard and loyalty we have for him, something of our appreciation that he has come here and will speak to us this evening. Six times in our history, fate has called the Vice-President to serve as President of the United States, and it was but natural that on each occasion the Nation's sorrow for its fallen leader was mingled with anxiety as to what the future had in store. Three of those occasions happened in the lifetime of most of the men and women in this audience, and from our contemporary experience as to them, and from what we have read about the three occasions that preceded them, we know the circumstances which in each case attended the induction into office of the suc- cessor designated by the Constitution. Varying have been those circumstances, but surely none had in them a more intense appeal to patriotic feeling than the midnight scene in a farmhouse in Vermont — in surroundings no different from those of millions of other modest American homes — where a father, in the fullness of his own honored years, had the unexampled privilege of ad- ministering to his son the oath of office as President of the United States. The thrill which the story of that scene brought to countless American hearts was due, not so much to the stirring of our sense of the dramatic, as to our realization of the fact that this indeed was typical of America — the America of our hopes and of the ideals of its founders, the America which in the beau- 364 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB tiful words of Lowell in his essay on Lincoln, has shown us once more how much of truth, how much of statecraft, await the call of opportunity in simple manhood when it believes in the justice, of God and the worth of man. And so it was that when in the gloom of the trying hours which followed President Harding's death, we turned our faces to New England, with the age-old question on our lips, "Watch- man, what of the night?" — we received our answer in the sim- plicity and dignity of that unprecedented little family gathering, the answer that **the morning cometh," inspiring us anew with the evidence it gave, and revivifying our American faith, that whatever the blows or vicissitudes of fate, God reigns, and the Government at Washington will continue to live. And the justi- fication for that faith is fortified afresh by the restraint and calmness under stress, by the fine balance between respect for public opinion on the one hand and contempt for unworthy partisan clamor on the other, and by the undeviating purpose to protect the integrity of this Government against assaults from either within or without the ranks of his own party, which his countrymen hail as qualities of him who occupies the White House. Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. MRS. ATJGTTST BELMONT Prominent in social and philanthropic work. ADDRESS OF MRS. AUGUST BELMONT Mr. President: On the morning of November 18, 1863, a spe- cial train drew out from Washington, carrying a distinguished company. The presence with them of the Marine Band from the Navy Yard spoke a public occasion to come, and among the travellers there were those who might be gathered only for an occasion of importance. There were Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States; there were heads of departments; the General-in-Chief of the Army and his staff; members of the Cabinet. In their midst, as they stood about the car before set- tling for the journey, was a man sad, preoccupied, unassuming. Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, journeyed with his party to assist at the consecration of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg. At eleven o'clock on the morning of the day following, on November 19, 1863, a vast silent multitude billowed, like waves of the sea, over what had been not long before the Battlefield of Gettysburg. There were wounded soldiers there who had beaten their way four months before through a singing fire across these quiet fields, who had seen the men die who were buried there; there were troops, grave and responsible, who must soon go again into battle ; there were the rank and file of an everyday American gathering 368 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB in surging thousands; and above them all, on the open air plat- form, there were the leaders of the land, the pilots who to-day lifted a hand from the wheel of the Ship of State to salute the memory of those gone down in the storm. At last, as the orator of the day finished speaking and took his seat, a tall, gaunt figure detached itself from the group on the platform and slouched quietly across the open space and stood facing the audience. A stir and a whisper brushed over the field of humanity, as if a breeze had rippled a monstrous bed of poppies. This was the President. A quivering silence settled down and every eye was wide to watch this strange, disappointing appearance, every ear alert to catch the first sound of his voice. People stopped breath- ing, as if they feared to miss an inflection. A loose-hung figure, six feet four inches high, he towered above them; a man awk- ward and ill-dressed; a man of no grace of looks or manner, in whose haggard face seemed to be the suffering for the sins of the world. That these were his people was his only thought. He had something to say to them: * 'Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this Continent a new Nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that Nation, or any Nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that Nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or to detract ADDRESS OF MRS. AUGUST BELMONT 369 The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased de- votion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this Nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." JAMES W. WADSWORTH, JR. IS. S. Senator from New York. Born at Geneseo, N. Y., August 12, 1877; received preparatory education at St. Mark's School at Southboro, Mass.; graduated from Yale 1898; enlisted as private Battery A, Penn- sylvania Field Artillery, and served with that organi- zation in the Porto Rican campaign in the summer of 1898; mustered out at Philadelphia at the close of the war. Returning home, he engaged in livestock and general farming business near Geneseo, N. Y., and later assumed the management of a ranch in the Panhandle of Texas; married Miss Alice Hay, of Washington, D. C, 1902; elected Member of Assembly from Livingston County 1904, and re-elected 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908 and 1909; elected Speaker of Assem- bly for the session of 1906, and re-elected for the sessions of 1907, 1908, 1909 and 1910; elected United States Senator for the State of New York November 3, 1914, defeating James W. Gerard, Democrat, and Bainbridge Colby, Progressive. Re-elected November 2, 1920, defeating his Democratic opponent, Hon. W. Walker, by more than 50,000 plurality. His term expired March 3, 1927. ADDRESS OF HON. JAMES W. WADSWORTH Mr. President, Mr. Chairman, fellow members of the National Bepublican Club, ladies and gentlemen: A few moments ago we listened to a splendid reading of those beautiful words of Abra- ham Lincoln, delivered at Gettysburg. How refreshing is their simplicity! And when we remember some of the circumstances surrounding that event, our reverence for the author of those sentences must needs be increased, if indeed that is possible. The words were scribbled on a very ordinary piece of paper, as Mr. Lincoln sat in the train on the way from Washington to Gettysburg that day. His own modesty — and perhaps it was a mixture of modesty and sincerity — led him to think little of them. Indeed, he was on the point of throwing away the paper upon which the words were written, when his secretary picked it up and kept it. And to the other orator of the day Mr. Lin- coln expressed his doubt as to whether he had properly voiced the sentiments which should accompany such an occasion. It was, indeed, the simplicity of his words, as well as their beauty, which gave them life and uplifted a nation. How well it would be if that same simplicity of utterance and of living, if you please, might prevail far and wide over this land to-day. There is nothing mysterious in the human truths upon which our great government is founded. Our trouble has been to express those truths from time to time in language which people can under- stand. Occasionally, we are blest with such utterances, and the speech at Gettysburg was one of them. 372 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB How well it would be if in the midst of our hectic existence, the mad competitions of modern life, we would remember that after all the problems of life and indeed the problems of our government are essentially simple. A very simple proposition was uttered by the President of the United States last night when he, in language which we can all understand, stated the proper functions of the executive as compared with those of the Senate. He performed a great public service and he stated a truth. In his presence I am bold enough to quote him again. Some years ago when he was Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in one of his public utterances he said, ^'Men do not make laws, they discover them." No more truthful sentiment was ever uttered than that. I am optimist enough to believe that we are learning by experience here in America, and that we are discovering certain fundamental truths which we hope to trans- late into statutes. Among them is that Government cannot spend money until someone else earns it ; that when Government reaches out its long arm and taxes the people, it takes away from them a portion of the dollars that they have earned; and that when Government takes away an undue proportion of the earnings of men and women who work for a living, and spends them ex- travagantly, it commits an offense against the people impossible of forgiveness. More and more we have come to learn the truth of that situation and, as an evidence of our realization of where dollars come from, before the Government gets them, the Presi- dent and his Secretary of the Treasury propose a revision of the tax laws of this country along sound and sensible lines. That is but one of the truths that we are coming to learn — but one of the problems that confront the Government at Washington. But reverting again to the complications of modern life and its tendency, I think we are learning another thing, and that is ADDRESS OF HON. JAMES W. WADSWORTH 373 that Government, to be understood, and indeed to be controlled by those who set it up, should be a simple government. Perhaps I may emphasize for just a few moments the tendency of the day in that regard. I am prompted to do so, by reason of my mem- bership upon a joint committee of the two Houses, charged with the study of the reorganization of the executive departments of the Government. I think the members of that committee had an idea when they started out upon the task, that they knew some- thing about the Government of the United States. We have been working at it in steady hearings for six weeks, and to use a col- loquialism, *'We don't know the half." The ramifications of the Federal Government to-day have reached such a stage that I honestly doubt whether any man alive can be entirely familiar with them. As our modern economic system and social order de- velops, it has become the feeling and desire of many peoplo that the Federal Government should do more and more for the citizen and, responsive to that desire, for many years the Congress has enacted statute after statute, multiplying the functions of the Federal Government, until we have reached a point where, as I say, it is difficult to comprehend; and it is fast resulting in the building up of a bureaucracy, far removed from the direct con- trol of the people, remote, mysterious, sometimes irresponsible. With a nation of a hundred millions of people, living over a con- tinent, it would seem to be essential that if government is to remain within the control of the people, it be kept as simple as possible, so that everyone can understand it and, that if we are to make a success in our great experiment of self government, the people shall keep within their own control the administra- tion of those things which they can manage in their localities, as well, if not better, than they can be managed from Washington. I would not urge at this time retracing the steps of our recent 374 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB governmental development to any considerable degree, but I think it is the duty of every thoughtful man and woman to give some heed to the possibility of the continuance of this tendency. For to-day the Congress is bombarded with various propositions which, if carried out, will inject the Federal Government into many a new field of activity and tend to build it up to even greater dimensions, and thus, to my way of thinking, remove it further from the control of the people. One need not dwell upon the terrific strain imposed upon the Chief Executive and the Federal Government as the result of all this. You are all familiar with it. One might not be concerned about the future were it not for the suggestions for new under- takings which are now before us. There are those who would bring about Government ownership and operation of all the rail- roads, of all the telegraph companies and of all the telephone companies. There are those who would have the Federal Gov- ernment purchase the entire wheat crop and hold it and sell it as a commercial proposition. Proposals of this kind would launch our Government into new fields, commercial fields surrounded with terrific difficulties, and tend to bring about a situation in which, I honestly believe, it would become so top heavy that it would crash to the ground. There is one point upon which I beg your indulgence in this connection. A proposal is being made for the Federal Govern- ment to contribute from its treasury to the support of undertak- ings at present carried on in the several States. It is the prin- ciple of Federal aid, so-called. I served six years at Albany and I think I know something of the Albany Government. I have had nine years at Washington and I know but little of the Fed- eral Government, but enough to know that the people of this State, for example, are competent through their own government ADDRESS OF HON. JAMES W. WADSWORTH 375 to take care of their own affairs, and that nothing in the way of efficiency will be gained through the State surrendering to the Federal Government at the price of Federal money the control of those things which they have had under their control for a cen- tury or more. If I would make one plea — and perhaps this plea would better come from an old-fashioned Democrat ; and if I am charged with be- ing one, I insist I am pretty lonely, because I cannot find any others — if I would make one plea, it is that we give our thoughts and our efforts toward maintaining the simplicity of our Governmental machinery and keeping it as close to the people as possible. And I think there is no better agency to guard our institutions in that respect, to preserve them, to perfect them, to strengthen them, to bring them home to public understanding, than the great po- litical party to which you and I belong and which is so splen- didly led by the President of the United States. CALVIN COOLIDGE President of the United States, was born in Plym- outli, Vt., July 4, 1872; lawyer; A.B., Amherst Col- lege, 1895; LL.D., Amherst, 1919; Massachusetts House of Representatives, 1907-8; mayor of Northampton, 1910-11; Massachusetts Senate, 1912-15; president of the Senate, 1914-15; lieutenant governor of Massachu- setts, 1916-18; governor of Massachusetts, 1919-20. Was married on October 4, 1905, to Miss Grace A. Goodhue. Nominated for Vice-President by the Re- publican National Convention, 1920, and elected on November 2, 1920. On August 2, 1923, succeeded to the Presidency. "Unanimously nominated for Presi- dent by the Republican National Convention at Cleve- land in June 1924, and elected on November 4, 1924. ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT CALVIN COOLIDGE Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: I am very grateful for your cordial reception. I rejoice with you in the possession of such a Senator as James W. Wadsworth, Jr. He represents you with a capacity that is unexcelled in the Senate of the United States. Fittingly representing the great State of New York, his invitation would be enough to bring me here, but when it is supplemented by an occasion of this kind, to address an organi- zation that represents what you represent, and on an anniversary such as this, it is by no means to be declined. One hundred and fifteen years ago to-day Abraham Lincoln was born. How great he became can not yet be accurately meas- ured, although nearly sixty years have passed since his death. Probably there has been no one justly entitled to be called "the greatest man in the world." As there are many different talents, so there are many different kinds of greatness. This makes comparisons somewhat barren of results. But measured by abil- ity, achievement, and character, America has long placed Wash- ington and Lincoln as the two men in our history preeminently entitled to be termed "truly great." In this opinion we have the general concurrence of mankind. While others approach them, they are not outranked by any of the other figures which all of civilization has produced throughout its record of thou- sands of years. 378 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB In a way all men are great. It is on that conception that American institutions have been founded. Perhaps the differ- ences are not so great as many suppose. Yet there are differ- ences which set off some men from their fellows. What those differences are in a particular case is a matter somewhat of per- sonal opinion. To me the greatness of Lincoln consisted very largely of a vision by which he saw more clearly than the men of his time the moral relationship of things. His great achieve- ment lay in bringing the different elements of his country into a more truly moral relationship. He was the Commander-in-Chief of the greatest armies the world had then seen. They were vic- torious. Yet we do not think of him as a conqueror. He di- rected the raising and expenditure of vast sums of money. Yet we do not think of him as a financier. The course which he fol- lowed cost many lives and desolated much territory. Yet we think of him not as placing a burden on the Nation but remov- ing one from it, not as a destroyer, but as a restorer. He was a liberator. He struck the fetters not only from the bodies but from the minds of men. He was a great moral force. When Lincoln had finished his course, he had made the founda- tion of freedom stronger and firmer on which to build national unity. Strengthening that principle was the chief accomplish- ment of his life. He pointed out that the Nation could not en- dure half slave and half free. The mighty work which he did finally left it to endure all free. He restored national unity by restoring moral unity. The questions which he considered in his day we need have no hesitation in concluding were finally and definitely settled. There is no difference of opinion, no argument about them now. The conclusions which he drew have long since been the settled policy of our country. ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT COOLIDGE 379 The conflicts of his time have passed away. New developments have taken place, new problems have been met. The industrial struggle which came, lasting up to the days of the World War, for increased compensation to wage earners, for the bettering of their conditions, while it has never been fully settled, does not appear at present to be acute. The rewards of labor engaged in commerce, transportation, and industry are now such as to afford the most liberal participation in all the essentials of life. What this tremendous opportunity now held by the wage earner, if wisely and justly administered, will mean to the well-being of the Nation is almost beyond comprehension. It opens up the prospect of a new era in human existence. It justifies the asser- tion that while America has problems, it is not lacking in the ability and the courage to comprehend and solve them. It is a warrant for confidence in the future. That national unity for which Lincoln laid the foundation re- quires perpetual adjustment for its maintenance. How great our country really is, how diversified are its interests, is almost beyond the comprehension of any one man. Yet great and diversified as it is, any pretense of sound morals or sound economics requires that each part, each section, and each interest, should be looked upon by the Government with like solicitude, all sharing the common burdens, all partaking of the common welfare. There is no sound policy which is narrow, or sectional, or limited. Every sound policy must be national in its scope. It is always necessary to determine what will be good for the whole country. The necessary observance of these principles requires, at the present time, that a large amount of attention should be given to agriculture This is an interest on which it is estimated that more than forty millions of our people are directly or indirectly dependent. It represents an investment several times as large as 380 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB that of all the railroads of the country. It has an aggregate production of over $8,000,000,000 each year. Yet with all these vast resources of production and consumption, and the vast pur- chasing power for the products of the farm, which is represented by the prosperity of our industry and commerce, with here and there an exception, agriculture as a whole languishes. Production has outrun the power of distribution and consump- tion. The farm population is not increasing, but the improved methods of tillage and inventions in farm machinery have all contributed to increase the per capita output. It is in this direc- tion that the agricultural schools and colleges have placed their major emphasis. Their education has been substantially all on the side of improved methods of production and none on the side of distribution, consumption, and marketing. When there is a dif&culty which affects so large a population, so large an area, and so important an interest as that of agri- culture, it is distinctly a national problem. It scarcely needs to be pointed out that agriculture is of vital importance to the coun- try. It is the primary source of sustenance, enterprise, industry, and wealth. Everyone ought to know that it is basic and funda- mental. Without a healthy, productive, and prosperous agricul- ture, there can be no real national prosperity. It is perfectly obvious that there is something radically wrong when agriculture is found in its present state of depression at a time when manu- facturing, transportation, and commerce are on the whole in a remarkable state of prosperity. No one would deny, I suppose, that industrially we are very flourishing. Every standard by which prosperity is measured, whether it be production, movement of freight, corporate earn- ings, employment of labor, or bank clearings, all point to the same conclusion. Disregarding the abnormal war-time condition. ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT COOLIDGE 381 for every important enterprise, save agriculture, the year 1923 undoubtedly holds the record. Earnings have been very greatly increased, and except here and there, as in the case of some rail- roads, must be looked upon with a great deal of satisfaction. But agriculture has only partially revived. Its position has been improved, and the returns for the year are nearly 30 per cent in excess of two years ago. But the great food staples do not sell on a parity with the products of industry. Their average price is little above the pre-war level, while manufactures are about 50 per cent higher. The farmer is not receiving his fair share. The result has been a decrease in the value of farm lands, the choking of the avenues of credit vTith obligations which are worthless or doubtful, the foreclosures of mortgages, and the suspension of a large number of banks. To this depression there have been other contributing causes, but the main difficulty has been the price of farm produce. Very likely you are wondering why agriculture should be dis- cussed here in this metropolis. One reason is that I want to emphasize as forcibly as possible your very intimate dependence upon agricultural welfare. That great interest cannot be affected without the necessity of your being affected. The farm is one of the chief markets for the industries of the Nation. You have a direct economic and financial interest. You cannot long prosper with that great population and great areas in distress. You have a political interest. The people of those numerous States have an enormous influence upon the making of the laws by which you are governed. Unsound economic conditions are not conducive to sound legislation. The farm has a social value which cannot be overestimated. It is the natural home of liberty and the sup- port of courage and character. In all the Nation it is the chief 382 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB abiding place of the spirit of independence. I do not need to dwell upon the moral requirement for the equitable distribution of prosperity and the relief of distress by the application of every possible and sound remedy. This problem is not merely the prob- lem of the agricultural sections of our country; it is the problem likewise of industry, of transportation, of commerce, and of bank- ing. I bring it to you because I know that in part it is your problem. I have already encouraged organization and co-oper- ative marketing that organized agriculture may cope with or- ganized industry. I have promoted tariff investigations for in- creased rates on wheat. I have extended relief through the War Finance Corporation and the Federal reserve bank system. I shall not now discuss the details of legislation or enter upon a presentation of peculiarly agricultural remedies. I made spe- cific recommendations in my message to the Congress, and there are bills pending for carrying my suggestions into effect. What I am most anxious to impress upon the prosperous part of our country is the utmost necessity that it should be willing to make sacrifices for the assistance of the unsuccessful part. I do not mean by that any unsound device like price fixing, which I oppose, because it would not make prices higher but would in the end make them lower, it would not be successful and would not prove a remedy, but I do mean that the resources of the country ought to come to the support of agriculture. The organization recently perfected to supply money and management for the larger aspects of agriculture ought to have your sympathetic and active support. I am glad financial America is moving in that direction. It will be less work and less expense for you to meet this situa- tion in this way, for you will meet it; you will be affected by its economic, political, and moral results. When an examination is made to ascertain some of the causes ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT COOLIDGE 383 of these conditions, among the first which suggest themselves is the amount and the method of national taxation. Out of an in- come of about $60,000,000,000 a year the people of this country pay nearly $7,500,000,000 in taxes, which is over $68 for every inhabitant of the land. Of this amount the National Government collects about $3,200,000,000, and the State and local govern- ments about $4,300,000,000. As a direct burden this is a stu- pendous sum, but when it is realized that in the course of our economic life it is greatly augmented when it reaches the con- sumer in the form of the high cost of living, its real significance begins to be appreciated. The national and local governments ought to be unremitting in their efforts to reduce expenditures and pay their debts. This the National Government is earnestly seeking to do. The war cost of more than $40,000,000,000 is already nearly half paid. Amid the disordered currencies of the warring nations our money is, and has been maintained, at the gold standard. Our budget has long since been balanced, and out debt-paying program is at the rate of $500,000,000 each year. In spite of all these expenditures, the next fiscal year has an estimated surplus revenue of over $300,000,000. This represents a great financial achievement in the past three years. In the first place, it was necessary to provide for more than $7,000,000,000 of short-term securities. These have all either been paid or refunded, so that they will become due in the future at orderly intervals, when they can be retired or further extended. When it is realized that such large loans were made in a way that not only left business undisturbed, but was scarcely perceptible to the public, the skill with which Secretary Mellon managed them can well be appreciated. Coincident with this was the even greater task of reducing na- tional expenditures. Through legislative enactment and execu- 384 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLTJB tive effort this has gone steadily forward, and is now proceeding from day to day. Under the watchful care of the Budget Bureau every department is constantly striving to eliminate all waste and discard every unnecessary expense. Every reasonable effort has been made to secure the liquidation of our international debts. The largest, which was that of Great Britain, and which amounted with accumulated interest to $4,600,- 000,000, has been settled on terms that provide for its payment over a period of 62 years. Interest runs at 3 per cent until 1933, and after that 31/2 per cent. This calls for payments in the immediate future of $160,000,000 and more a year. They have the option to pay us in our own bonds, and in its practical work- ing this agreement does not involve cash payments to this coun- try, but simply a mutual cancellation of debts. The funding of the British debt was one of the greatest of international financial transactions. It had its effect on business confidence, which was world wide. It demonstrated the determination of a great em- pire faithfully to discharge its international obligations. In this respect it was much more than a financial transaction, it was an exhibition of the highest type of international honor. It showed that the moral standards of the world were going to be maintained. All of this has laid the foundation for national tax reduction and reform. In time ef war finances, like all else, must yield to national defense and preservation. In time of peace finances, like all else, should minister to the general welfare. Immediately upon my taking office it was determined after conference with Secretary Mellon that the Treasury Department should study the possibility of tax reduction for the purpose of securing relief to all taxpayers of the country and emancipating business from un- reasonable and hampering exactions. The result was the pro- ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT COOLIDGE 385 posed bill, which is now pending before the Congress. It is doubt- ful if any measure ever received more generous testimony of ap- proval. Opposition has appeared to some of its details, but to the policy of immediate and drastic reduction of taxes, so arranged as to benefit all classes and all kinds of business, there has been the most general approbation. These recommendations have been made by the Treasury as the expert financial adviser of the Gov- ernment. They follow, in their main principle of a decrease in high surtaxes, which is only another name for war taxes, the views of the two preceding Secretaries of the Treasury, both of them Democrats of pronounced ability. They are non-partisan, well thought out, and sound. They carry out the policy of re- ducing the taxes of everybody, especially people of moderate in- come. They give to the country almost a million dollars every working day. The proposed bill maintains the fixed policy of rates gradu- ated in proportion to ability to pay. That policy has received almost universal sanction. It is sustained by sound arguments based on economic, social, and moral grounds. But in taxation, like everything else, it is necessary to test a theory by practical results. The first object of taxation is to secure revenue. When the taxation of large incomes is approached with that in view, the problem is to find a rate which will produce the largest re- turns. Experience does not show that the higher rate produces the larger revenue. Experience is all in the other way. When the surtax rate on incomes of $300,000 and over was but 10 per cent, the revenue was about the same as when it was at 65 per cent. There is no escaping the fact that when the taxation of large incomes is excessive, they tend to disappear. In 1916 there were 206 incomes of $1,000,000 or more. Then the high tax rate went into effect. The next year there were only 141, and in 386 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB 1918 but 67. In 1919 the number declined to 65. In 1920 it fell to 33, and in 1921 it was further reduced to 21. I am not making any argument with the man who believes that 55 per cent ought to be taken away from the man with $1,000,000 in- come, or 68 per cent from a $5,000,000 income; but when it is considered that in the effort to get these amounts we are rapidly approaching the point of getting nothing at all, it is necessary to look for a more practical method. That can be done only by a reduction of the high surtaxes when viewed solely as a revenue proposition, to about 25 per cent. I agree perfectly with those who wish to relieve the small tax- payer by getting the largest possible contribution from the peo- ple with large incomes. But if the rates on large incomes are so high that they disappear, the small taxpayer will be left to bear the entire burden. If, on the other hand, the rates are placed where they will produce the most revenue from large in- comes, then the small taxpayer will be relieved. The experience of the Treasury Department and the opinion of the best experts place the rate which will collect most from the people of great wealth, thus giving the largest relief to people of moderate wealth, at not over 25 per cent. A very important social and economic question is also involved in high rates. That is the result taxation has upon national de- velopment. Our progress in that direction depends upon two factors — personal ability and surplus income. An expanding prosperity requires that the largest possible amount of surplus income should be invested in productive enterprise under the di- rection of the best personal ability. This will not be done if the rewards of such action are very largely taken away by taxation. If we had a tax whereby on the first working day the Govern- ment took 5 per cent of your wages, on the second day 10 per ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT COOLIDGE 387 cent, on the third day 20 per cent, on the fourth day 30 per cent, on the fifth day 50 per cent, and on the sixth day 60 per cent; how many of you would continue to work on the last two days of the week? It is the same with capital. Surplus income will go into tax-exempt securities. It will refuse to take the risk incidental to embarking in business. This will raise the rate which established business will have to pay for new capital, and result in a marked increase in the cost of living. If new capital will not flow into competing enterprise the present concerns tend toward monopoly, increasing again the prices which the people must pay. The high prices paid and low prices received on the farm are directly due to our unsound method of taxation. I shall illustrate this by a simple example: A farmer ships a steer to Chicago. His tax, the tax on the railroad transporting the animal, and of the yards where the animal is sold, go into the price of the animal to the packer. The packer's tax goes into the price of the hide to the New England shoe manufacturer. The manufacturer's tax goes into the price to the wholesaler, and the wholesaler's tax goes into the price to the retailer, who in turn adds his tax in the price to the purchaser. So it may be said that if the farmer ultimately wears the shoes, he pays everybody's taxes from the farm to his feet. It is for these reasons that high taxes mean a high price level, and a high price level in its turn means diffi- culty in meeting world competition. Most of all, the farmer suf- fers from the effect of this high price level. In what he buys he meets domestic costs of high taxes and the high price level. In what he sells he meets world competition with a low price level. It is essential, therefore, for the good of the people as a whole that we pay not so much attention to the tax paid directly by a certain number of the taxpayers, but we must devote our 388 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB efforts to relieving the tax paid indirectly by the whole people. Taken altogether, I think it is easy enough to see that I wish to include in the program a reduction in the high surtax rates, not that small incomes may be required to pay more and large incomes be required to pay less, but that more revenue may be secured from large incomes and taxes on small incomes may be reduced; not because I wish to relieve the wealthy, but because I wish to relieve the country. The practical working out of the proposed schedules is best summarized by the Treasury experts, who find that $92,000,000 a year will be saved to those who have incomes under $6,000; $52,000,000 to those who have incomes between $6,000 and $10,000; and that less than 3 per cent of the proposed reduction would accrue to those who have incomes of $100,000 or more. A married man with two children, having an income of $4,000, would have his tax reduced from $28 to $15.75; having $5,000, from $68 to $38.25; having $6,000, from $128 to $72; having $8,000, from $276 to $144; and having $10,000, $456 to $234. In order to secure these results, the administration bill pro- poses to reduce the tax on earned income 25 per cent, and the normal tax on unearned income also 25 per cent. This would apply to all incomes alike, great and small, and would provide general and extensive relief. Further reductions would be se- cured by increasing the amount of income, exempt from sur- taxes, from $6,000 to $10,000. Such surtaxes increase progres- sively until on incomes of $100,000 or more they reach the maxi- mum of 25 per cent which, with the normal tax of 6 per cent, make large incomes pay in all 31 per cent. It is also proposed to repeal many troublesome and annoying rates, such as admis- sion taxes and sales taxes, the existence of which is reflected in the increased cost of doing business and the higher prices re- quired from the people. ADDHESS OF PRESIDENT COOLIDGE 389 That is the tax measure which has been proposed, and which has my support. Because I wish to give to all the people all the relief which it contains, I am opposed to material alteration or to compromise. It is about as far removed as anything could be from any kind of partisanship. At least, I do not charge that there is any party or any responsible party leadership that admits it is opposed to making taxes low and in favor of keeping taxes high. But the actions and proposals of some are liable to have just that result. I stand on the simple proposition that the country is entitled to all the relief from the burden of taxation that it is possible to give. The proposed measure gives such re- lief. Other measures which have been brought forward do not meet this requirement. They have the appearance of an indirect attempt to defeat a good measure with a bad measure. You have heard much of the Garner plan. Brought forward to have something different, it purported to relieve the greatest number of taxpayers. It gave not the slightest heed to the indirect ef- fect of high taxes, or to the approaching drying up of the source of revenue and consequent failure of the progressive income tax, or to the destruction of business initiative. It is political in theory. When the effect of its provisions was estimated, it meant a loss of revenue beyond the expected surplus. It is impossible in practice. The people will not be misled by such proposals. It is entirely possible to have a first-class bill. I want the country to have the best there is. I am for it because it will reduce taxes on all classes of income. I am for it because it will encourage business. I am for it because it will decrease the cost of living. I am for it because it is economically, socially and morally sound. But the people of the Nation must understand that this is their fight. They alone can win it. Unless they make their wishes known to the Congress without regard to party this bill will not pass. I urge them to renewed efforts. 390 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB Since August, 1919, the public debt has been decreasing. About $4,500,000,000 has been paid off. This means a reduction in interest of almost $200,000,000. It is of the utmost importance, in order to be able to meet a fast approaching foreign competi- tion, that to keep business good and prevent depression we re- duce our debt and keep our expenditures as low as possible. These are the economic reasons why the granting of a bonus would jeopardize the welfare of the whole country. It is esti- mated that under the bonus bill which was vetoed, if all the beneficiaries had taken the certificates which it was proposed to issue, the plan would have cost $225,000,000 annually for the first four years, and a total of $5,400,000,000. This would more than destroy all the great labor which the country has gone through for the purpose of reducing its debt. It would mean the indefinite postponement of any tax reduction, another increase in the cost of living, more drying up of the sources of credit, and a probable raising of the rates of interest ; all of which would result in infiation and higher prices, with the grave danger of ultimate disaster to our financial system. We have been through one period of deflation. Nearly all the men on the farms and many of the men in business have not yet recovered from it, and the country certainly does not want to take the risk of another like experience. A few months of good times are worth more to the service men themselves than anything they could receive in the way of a bonus. But this question goes deeper than that. I am aware that some men made money out of the war. Most of them lost what they made, but not all. No doubt there are some such who are justly to be criticized for greed and selfishness. Unfortunately they would not pay the bonus. It would have to be paid by the country. I have already undertaken to demonstrate that taxes ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT COOLIDGE 391 are paid by the great mass of the people. It is necessary to con- sider whether there be any moral justification for placing all the people under this great burden, in order to pay some money to a part of the people, many of whom do not want it and are offer- ing pronounced objection to it. A very large body of the service men do not want the bonus, and object to being taxed in order that it may be paid. Their request is entitled to just as much consideration as the request of those who do want it. They are just as eager now to save their country from financial disaster as they were formerly to save it from military disaster. They are entitled to be heard. This question ought to be decided in accordance with the welfare of the whole country. No one doubts the patriotism of those who advocate the bonus. No one denies that the country owes a debt, which it never can pay, to those who were in the service. Their disabilities must be recompensed, their health restored, their dependents supported; all at public expense. They are entitled to the highest honor. But the service they rendered was of such a nature that it can not be recompensed to them by a payment of money. America was not waging war for the purpose of securing spoils. The American soldier did not enter the service for the purpose of se- curing personal gain. I have lately undertaken to define the outline of the foreign policy of the present Government. Nothing has occurred since my message to the Congress that requires any change in that policy. The prospect of a European settlement, however, has arisen, which holds some promise. Three Americans of outstand- ing and well-seasoned ability have been called to give their ex- pert assistance and advice. They do not represent our Govern- ment. Their only official standing comes from their being agents of the Reparation Commission Yet they can not help being NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB Americans, and will bring to their problem not the point of view of the American Government but, what may be more effective, the point of view of the American mind. Without doubt any settlement would call for a European funding and financing, which would be of doubtful success without American participa- tion. The export of such capital as is not required for domestic business, and which the American people feel can be profitably done, having in view the financial returns, enlargement of our trade, and the discharge of the moral obligation of bearing our share of the burdens of the world, entirely in accordance with the choice of our own independent judgment, ought to be en- couraged. Our Government does not want war anywhere. It wants peace everywhere. It does not look with sympathy upon the manu- facture or sale of arms and munitions by which one country might make war upon another country. It recognizes, however, that every government must necessarily maintain some military estab- lishment for national defense and the policing of its own domain. For such incidental purposes there could be little criticism for our Government or private interests, having the necessary equip- ment, to furnish it. But it is a traffic which we wish to dis- courage, rather than encourage. We do not believe in great arma- ments. Especially are we opposed to anything like competitive armaments. While the present time does not appear propitious for a further effort at limitation, should a European settlement be accomplished, something might be hoped for in that direction. The United States stands ready to join with the other great powers, whenever there appears to be reasonable prospect of agreement in a further limitation of competitive armaments. A situation has recently arisen in Mexico which has caused some solicitude. We recognize that the people of that country ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT COOLIDGE 393 have a perfect right to set up and pull down governments without any interference from us, so long as there is no interference with the lawful rights of our Government or our citizens within their territory. We do not harbor the slightest desire to dictate to them in the smallest degree. We have every wish to be friendly and helpful. After a long period of shifting and what appeared to us to be unsubstantial governments in that country, we recent- ly reached the opinion that President Obregon has established a Government which is stable and effective, and disposed to observe international obligations. We therefore recognized it. When dis- order arose there. President Obregon sought the purchase of a small amount of arms and munitions from our Government for the purpose of insuring his own domestic tranquility. We had either to refuse or to comply. To refuse would have appeared to be equivalent to deciding that a friendly government, which we had recognized, ought not to be permitted to protect itself. Stated in another way, it would mean that we had decided that it ought to be overthrown, and that the very agency which we had held out as able to protect the interests of our citizens within its bor- ders ought not to be permitted to have the means to make such protection effective. My decision ran in a counter direction. It was not a situation of our making, but one which came and had to be met. In meeting it, I did what I thought was neces- sary to discharge the moral obligation of one friendly govern- ment to another. The supremacy of the Obregon Government now appears to be hopeful. Whatever may be the outcome, we are not responsible for it. We did what I believed was right to do under the circumstances. It was done, not for the purpose of protecting any particular individuals or interests, but to exercise a legal right, while at the same time throwing our influence in favor of orderly procedure and evidencing our friendship toward 394 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLTJB the friendly Government of Mexico. Any other course would ap- pear to me to be unworthy of our country. I propose to continue whatever course of action is customary between friendly governments. While I trust no further action may be necessary, I shall continue to afford protection in accord- ance with the requirements of international law. I propose to protect American lives and American rights. Lately there have been most startling revelations concerning the leasing of Government oil lands. It is my duty to extend to every individual the constitutional right to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. But I have another duty equally constitutional, and even more important, of securing the enforce- ment of the law. In that duty I do not intend to fail. Character is the only secure foundation of the State. We know well that all plans for improving the machinery of government and all measures for social betterment fail, and the hopes of progress wither, when corruption touches administration. At the revelation of greed making its subtle approaches to public officers, of the prostitution of high place to private profit, we are filled with scorn and with indignation. We have a deep sense of hu- miliation at such gross betrayal of trust, and we lament the undermining of public confidence in official integrity. But we cannot rest with righteous wrath; still less can we permit our- selves to give way to cynicism. The heart of the American peo- ple is sound. Their officers, with rare exceptions, are faithful and high-minded. For us, we propose to follow the clear, open path of justice. There will be immediate, adequate, unshrinking pro- secution, criminal and civil, to punish the guilty and to protect every national interest. In this effort there will be no politics and no partisanship. It will be speedy, it will be just. I am a ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT COOLIDGE 395 Republican, but I can not on that account shield anyone because he is a Republican. I am a Republican but I can not on that account prosecute anyone because he is a Democrat. I want no hue and cry, no mingling of innocent and guilty in unthinking condemnation, no confusion of mere questions of law with questions of fraud and corruption. It is at such a time that the quality of our citizenry is tested — unrelenting toward evil, fair-minded and intent upon the requirements of due process, the shield of the innocent and the safeguard of society itself. I ask the support of our people, as Chief Magistrate, intent on the en- forcement of our laws without fear and without favor, no matter who is hurt or what the consequences. Distressing as this situation has been, it has its reassuring side. The high moral standards of the people were revealed by their instant reaction against wrongdoing. The officers of the Govern- ment, without respect to party, have demonstrated a common purpose to protect Government property and to bring guilt to justice. We have the trials and perplexities of our day, but they seem insignificant compared with those which taxed the genius of Lincoln. The Government maintained itself then; the Govern- ment will maintain itself now. The forces of evil do not long tri- umph. The power of justice can not long be delayed. The moral force of Lincoln is with us still. "He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep." THE THIRTY-NINTH ANNUAL LINCOLN DINNEE of the NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB At the Waldorf-Astoria FEBRUARY 12, 1925 Addresses of HON. SIMEON D. FESS HON. CHARLES E. HUGHES ADDRESS OF SENATOR FESS Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen: Listening to the recital of the galaxy of great men who have appeared on the Lincoln anniversary is enough to be bewildering to anyone who is given the honor to address such an audience as this on the character of Lincoln. There isn't anything new that any of us can say, there is no subject that has been so thoroughly discussed in the years that have gone as the subject of the mar- tyred President. Yet, with so much said about him, his active career covered such few years. When he was elected to Congress in 1846 he submitted as a part of the Congressional Directory a brief paragraph. Let me read it as he wrote it: "Born, February 12, 1809. "Education, defective. "Profession, lawyer. "Captain in the Black Hawk War. "Four times elected member of the Legislature, and "Now a member of Congress." He was not a candidate for re-election when his term expired. He retired to his profession, and not until 1854, on the occasion of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, was this spirit aroused, and he came to the public with a defiant call against the threat- ened extension of slavery. In that year he made this statement: "Broken by it I too may be, bow to it I never will." 400 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLTJB Four years afterward he was nominated for the position of Senator, a position then occupied by the Little Giant of the West, Stephen A. Douglas. He addressed the Convention that nominated him, and his first sentence was pronounced revolutionary. It was in that speech that he said: "A house divided against itself cannot stand. This government cannot permanently endure half slave and half free." Before he pronounced that statement there was a conference of a dozen of his friends, the leading men that thought with him, and when he told them what he intended to say, they pro- tested and said it would ruin him. He listened to their protest, and ended it by saying: "Friends, this thing must not be further deferred. If I am to go down to defeat because of this speech, then let me go down linked with truth, let me die doing what is right and just." When the twelve men withdrew, others of his most intimates came to protest, and his reply was: "Before God, I believe it is right, and I am going to make the speech." He made it, and that utterance made him an international fig- ure, for he was quoted throughout the world in the largest pub- lications of Europe. That was in 1858. The night after he made this speech Douglas attacked him in the City of Chicago. Lincoln spoke in Chicago the night after Douglas spoke, and he used a remarkable statement in that Chicago speech: "I am not educated, I do not speak good English; I meant to say so and so." ADDRESS OF HON. SIMEON D. FESS 401 And then he proceeded to say what he thought he had said down in Springfield. ''Ladies and gentlemen," Lincoln said that night: "I am not educated, I do not speak good English," and yet the world to-day concedes him the master of spoken English, the son of the unlettered pioneer of the West, came to the position of speaking a purer English than anyone who lived in his day, either educated or uneducated. That to me is the great- est wonder, the most difficult thing to explain, because he said: "I never went to school more than six months all told." He never had a slate or a slate pencil, as a pupil he never had any paper or a lead pencil, but he would go to the open fire and take out a piece of charcoal, whittle it to a point for his pencil, and then on the back of the fire shovel he would figure; or he would go out and get a board, and with a draw-knife shave it smooth, and then write and figure on that. You who are familiar with his life will recall him lying flat on his back in the floorless cabin, with his head next to the fire, by the light of a burning knot, and there under those circumstances taking his first lesson in English. If you were at the British Museum to-night, and should call for the finest short speech ever spoken in the English language, the highest authority in English in the world would hand to you at once a speech that I could now repeat in three minutes and which begins: "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought to this Continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal," and so on. 402 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB If you should proceed in the address you would reach the point where he says: "The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it will never forget what they did here." That master of English thus spoken, pronounced to be the finest short speech in the English language, was not a Shake- speare, was not a Milton, was not an Emerson. He was the un- educated plainsman of the West, Abraham Lincoln, at Gettysburg. I am of the opinion that while that is the high water mark in the expression of Abraham Lincoln, there is one sentence, if not the finest example of the balanced sentence from the standpoint of rhetoric was found in his speech de- livered sixty-four years ago this month in the City of New York, the first time he spoke in the east. After having won a remarkable reputation in Illinois, having come on into Indiana and Ohio, he was invited by the forward looking ele- ment of this city to come here to the metropolis. He was escorted to the platform by Horace Greeley, and David Dudley Field, and the president of the meeting was none other than William CuUen Bryant, who introduced this westerner as a distinguished citizen of the United States. He made this address in Cooper Union, re- garded to-day as the finest example of the balanced sentence that is found among the choice specimens of rhetoric. Ladies and gentlemen, up to that time the issue was not very clearly drawn, but after he had spoken here there was no further doubt. I re- call two sentences. Referring to the right and the wrong he said: "Did we think slavery right, we could concede all that the South wants. Did they concede it wrong, they could ADDRESS OF HON. SIMEON D. FESS 403 accept what we demand; but our thinking it wrong and their thinking it right is the precise point upon which turns the whole controversy. Thinking it wrong, as we do, we can afford to leave it in the states where it is protected under the Constitution, but thinking it wrong as we do, can we afford to allow it to exend into the new territory?" There was the whole issue clearly stated in but a single sen- tence, and after Abraham Lincoln had spoken in Cooper Union in this city there was no longer any doubt as to who was the leader, and what was the issue to be fought. It was on the 4th of March, 1865, that Mr. Lincoln delivered what I regard as the high water mark of Lincolnian expression. He had a background of four years of war, he had been called all the bad names that could be expressed in language. He had been bitterly assailed, and in the face of this storm of abuse, this even-tempered, mild-mannered leader, expressed the convictions of a nation in a prose poem: "Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away; but if it be God's will that it shall continue until all the wealth that has been piled up by 260 years of unrequited toil shall have been sunk into the earth, and every drop of blood that has been drawn by the lash shall be repaid by another drop drawn by the sword, yet as it was said centuries ago, it still must be said, *His judgments are righteous altogether.' With malice toward none" — no one could have said that but Lincoln in that day — "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us go on and finish the work, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for the fatherless and the widows, and for him who has borne the brunt of battle," and so on. t 404 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB That was pronounced the day after it was uttered, or soon after it was uttered, by the London Times, as the most sublime utterance of the century, and in my judgment it is the high water mark of all the utterances of this remarkable man. Yet in 1858 he had said in an apologetic manner, "I am not educated, I do not speak good English, and probably I was misunderstood in what I meant to say." The secret of this man's power is the subject of much specula- tion. I think that Charles A. Dana expressed it when he said that the power of Abraham Lincoln was in his control of men; and when he was asked what were the elements that gave Lin- coln that control, his reply was, ^'A combination of wonderful humor and a depth of pathos." Both of these qualities are won- derfully pre-eminent in the life of this remarkable man. I think I know two of the elements that the world will accept as being fundamental and most significant in the life of Lin- coln. The first was his wonderful faith that right will triumph in a contest with wrong. He had faith in the people. He never feared that the people enlightened would go wrong. The second was his remarkable faith in God. Now, I speak as a layman, as a student of his character. I believe that I may assert with fair accuracy that many great religious natures have occupied the presidential chair, but no one with a profound religious nature like that of Abraham Lincoln. I think he was the most pro- foundly religious man that ever occupied the presidential chair. He left us when he was but 56, and yet he was called "Old Abe Lincoln," dead and gone. "Hurrah, hurrah," was the note of his enemies when he left his field of activity. Our country has gone on for more than sixty years, or about sixty years, since he left us. We have had great men to take his place. Our party is to be congratulated upon the numerous successors that have ADDRESS OF HON. SIMEON D. FESS 405 filled this oflElce. I think since that day there has been probably the most wonderful period in the evolution of industrial neat- ness that the world has ever seen, and we have had marvelously complicated problems. It seems to me to-day that our problems never have been more complicated, and we have never had greater need for men of the type of Abraham Lincoln. Ladies and gentlemen, even at the risk of saying what might seem to be not in the best taste, I want to say that, measured from the standpoint of problems complicated both in number and degree, measured by the great and brilliant solution of those problems, the administration that now is in charge at the Capitol of our nation will not suffer in comparison with anything that has ever gone before it. When the dispassionate judg- ment of the American people, removed from the nearness of the problem, is made up, I know that I am speaking now the verdict of history, American history will give to our Secretary of State the highest rank for brilliancy and achievement in our foreign affairs that America has yet produced. No bit of news that has come from official quarters has left greater distress of mind and disappointment than the announcement that the pres- ent Secretary of State will not continue in his official position after the end of his administration. The nation can ill afford to lose the services of one whom I regard as the most brilliant Sec- retary of State in the history of American diplomacy. CHARLES E. HUGHES Secretary of State in Harding administration. Twice Governor of New York. Justice of the "United States Supreme Court. Republican candidate for President in 1916, receiving 254 electoral votes as against 277 for Wilson; Chairman of the Conference on Limitation of Armament in Washington. Presi- dent of the New York Union League Club, 1917-19. Born in Glens Falls, N. Y., April 11, 1862. Lives in New York City. Address of HON. CHARLES EVANS HUGHES Mr. President, fellow members of the Republican Club, ladies and gentlemen : It is very good to come home. It was under such tender min- istrations that I had my political birth, and it will be the great- est happiness to expire officially in your arms. We honor the memory of Lincoln for his inestimable services in saving the Union at once undivided and with a new birth of Freedom, for the beacon light of his humanity. He was so abundantly representative that he stands alone. He is our ideal and our test. The test is not one of achievement, but of equality. Washington gave us our country, but not only did he give us the country, he endowed it. We do not have to fight over the battles of the Revolution, but we are ever on the battlefield where we need his poise, his dignity, his incorruptibility, his genius for leadership. Lincoln not only saved the Unon, but he incarnated the spirit which alone can preserve the Union. How many proph- ecy in his name, and in his name attempt to cast out devils and do mighty works, devils sometimes attempting to cast out devils; but how few who inscribe their name upon his banners emulate his patience, his love of the tests of reason, his magnanimity; how few there are to illustrate the balanced judgment which was 408 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB made possible by his acumen, his sympathy, his clarity, his humor ? The value of this anniversary is to bring us to the measurement of our attainments. Peoples have struggled for freedom and to maintain freedom and have had their soldiers and their enthusi- asts and their martyrs and their dictators, but there is but one Lincoln, because he was at once the brain and the heart of de- mocracy. Since Lincoln's time we have tripled our population, and mul- tiplied many times our national wealth. But how shall we preserve these advantages? Let me go back, Senator Fess, many years before Lincoln said that he was not a master of English, to a speech that he made as a young man, only 28 years of age, in which he said, "At what point is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reaches us, it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we must live through all time, or die by suicide." We do not propose to commit suicide, but if we preserve our advantages it will be because we have organization, because we have organic life, because we appreciate the essentiality of in- stitutions, because we realize the advantages of the institutions we possess. Who are those who would disturb our peace? We cannot af- ford to look with unconcern upon the organized efforts that are being made to poison the minds of our youth upon whom we must depend for the preservation of our institutions, who would seek them in their experience, who would lead them to menace their own future. What do they want? Do they desire security? Where else in the world can they find the security that they enjoy here? Wherever their ideas prevail, there in exactly like proportion is life secure only as it is lived in subservience to ADDRESS OF HON. CHARLES EVANS HUGHES 409 tyranny. True, we need to perfect the instrumentalities of our security. We need a better administration of justice, we need improvement in our criminal procedure, we need a greater respect for law, and a greater desire to be obedient to law as the neces- sary expression of the democratic will, not as imposed upon us from without. We need respect for law, because it repre- sents the genius of our Constitution, which is that we shall live under law. Security? Who would look for security in dis- integration ? Is it liberty that is desired? But this is the land to which the oppressed of all lands would flee. Here we have liberty of speech, and liberty of assembly, to the very limit of tolerance consistent with the existence of organized authority itself. We have an un- censored press. We have the liberty to go about freely without espionage, without restraint. Here we have the liberty of wor- ship, to follow the dictates of our own conscience, the liberty of education, opportunities free to all. Now, I know there are many who chafe under restraints that they do not like, but bear in mind that these restrictions are im- posed through the operation of laws adopted according to con- stitutional methods, and neither in their genesis nor in their purpose have they the slightest resemblance to the manifold im- positions of despots who seek to entrench themselves in power. This is yet, and will be, the land of liberty. Is it opportunity that is desired? It lies on every hand. The only threat there is to liberty is the danger of undermining the confidence which is the vital breath of enterprise. There is one delusion that some seem to be unable to escape, and that is that labor can exist without labor. Labor here has greater ad- vantages in its circumstances, in its conditions, in its rewards, than it has ever enjoyed in the history of the world. Every lover 410 NATIONAL REPXTBLICAN CLUB of mankind desires to put an end to abuses, to correct conditions that are regrettable. In every community groups are at work studying these conditions, endeavoring to improve the social hy- giene, and opportunity was never so lavish. Is it justice that is wanted? Who shall dispense it? Shall it reside in the caprices of officials, or shall we follow our tradi- tion and our practice of having a system of law administered by men of utmost impartiality and with sound learning, a system of law which may be corrected and modified by the representatives of the people ? We need to improve the furnishings of our house, but we do not propose to tear down our house, or have it torn down by those who do not like houses. ; Xet us be grateful for the measure of progress that has been achieved as we look about for further opportunities. When I was a boy in this city you could see on election day on many a corner voters openly bought and marshalled as they were pur- chased, to the ballot box. Such a thing as that could not be seen to-day, and there are many here who have forgotten that it ever existed, and perhaps have never known that it existed. I have seen it myself as a youthful and entirely unofficial observer. We have made, when you consider conditions in earlier days, the greatest progress, so that it can be said, that whatever our dif- ficulties may be, and they are numerous enough, they are due less than ever either to political despotism, or to political corruption. We live at a time when we are witnessing the distress of democ- racy, the distress of representative government. Numerous par- ties, the difficulty of maintaining coalitions, the general dissatis- faction with the accomplishments of weak administrations, have put parliamentary government to a very severe test, a test which in some countries it is unable to meet. Pure democracy, of course, is impossible with vast populations, and if representative govern- ADDRESS OF HON. CHARLES EVANS HUGHES 411 ment fails, there is no alternative to dictatorship. In this coun- try, as my learned friend, the Senator from Connecticut has ob- served — and I observe with delight that, having accomplished miracles in uncovering the treasures of ancient Peru, he is now digging down to discover the very treasures of the Constitution — we have, as he has indicated, the greatest possible safeguards against danger, because through our system of distributive powers we have avoided as far as possible the risk of a total loss; but, we have the most complicated arrangement of government on earth, and if these safeguards are to be preserved they must be studied and appreciated. We have states because we had colonies, first col- onies and then states, with their separate traditions, with their jealousies, with their determination to be the supreme sovereign so far as the interests of their local administration are concerned. Let us be thankful, let us be thankful that while these divisions into states may seem to be artificial, we should recognize that they are unchangeable because founded in sentiment and prac- tice, buttressed so that they cannot be shaken. Let us be thankful that they provide for decentralization of govern- ment. No one who looks upon Congress would desire to add burdens to those bent shoulders. They have all they can stand in Washington, and we must, as has been observed by Senator Bingham, do all we can not merely to maintain the theory of the state within the province of the state. It does no violence whatever to the theory of the Union within the range of national exigency and required power; but let us understand that the theory of the state must be backed up and supported by prac- tice in the state to give efficient local government. The reason so many turn to Washington is that they are disappointed at home. But, let me observe further, that if, for example, the citizens of New York City have not organizing ability 412 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLTIB and interest enough in civic affairs to look after their obvious needs, their most apparent and essential needs, they have no oc- casion to talk about lost motion at the Capitol of the country. We have, thank God, a judicial system — and I don't think the people of this country have ever appreciated it more than at this time. I think that the Supreme Court is safe for a long time to come against the attacks of demagogues. I do not agree with those who think that it is necessary to popu- larize it. It stands there, informed by experience and learning, as the best devisable method to maintain the balance of the Con- stitution both with respect to local government and the federal government, and with respect to the guaranteed rights of individ- uals. Let us appreciate our system, not simply as theory, but because in practical working it gives us a balance of competing interests, it gives us a sense of social security, and it protects us against the extreme hazards of law which we see in every country which depends upon a centralized government and a parliamen- tary system. In the speech to which I referred a moment ago, young Lin- coln said that we must supply the pillars of the temple of liberty hewn out of the solid quarry of sober reason. If we preserve our advantages in the future it will not be because of the re- sources of mine, or of forest; it will not be because of our skill in agriculture or in industry or in the arts ; it will be because we have a talent for organized effort, it will be because we are able to work together to obtain results. The test will be in our temper, in our reasonableness, and the great lesson for America to-day, it seems to me, is a very simple one, to be reasonable in dealing with one another. We have, I know, the extreme diffi- culties that are created by vituperative assault, but even they create less danger, they are less dangerous than ever before. ADDRESS OF HON. CHARLES EVANS HUGHES 413 We are growing in the grace of reasonableness. Observe our newspapers. Now, I would not accuse our newspapers of any undue reticence or excessive sobriety in statements, but when you consider the earlier days, and the rancor that was exhibited, we have reason to be gratified that many of our leading journals not only in their news columns, but in their editorial comments, show a desire to be fair to opponents, show the desire to give truth its chance to be mighty and prevail. We had occasion not long ago, at the last election, to test the extent to which the American peo- ple liked vituperative politics. They voted on that proposition, and they voted it down. And, what could be more heartening than to see the forces of discontent routed in the interest of the candidacy of a man of the old fashioned virtues and sobriety and serenity and common sense — Calvin Coolidge. But, to be reasonable requires not simply regard for facts, desire to ascertain the facts, but it requires sustained attention. The former is easy; the latter in these days of fleeting observation, of many enticements and diversions, is quite difficult. Even in the newspaper world what is three months old is new. Nearly every day I am asked about matters which have been fully disclosed long ago. Unintelligent discussion thrives upon poor memories. If you will observe, if you are watchful, you will note that those who wish to make the worse appear the better reason lie very low while the facts are being developed, and then, after the facts are all published and attention is taken up with some other matter, come out with their mischievous statements and half truths, relying, too frequently with success, upon the lack of memory of a busy people. If I may be pardoned for a digression, I suppose nothing was ever so publicly stated and discussed as the Naval proposals at 414 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB the Washington conference. At the very beginning of that con- ference the American delegation set forth its proposals, stated not generally but in detail, what ships were to be scrapped, what ships were to be retained, the parties to the agreement, and in all particulars giving the theory, the principle, the actual concrete example of its obligation with respect to the proposed agreement for the limitation of armament. The proposal went throughout the world, was discussed not only in foreign offices but discussed in every newspaper and periodical, taken up by every expert. Three months were spent in the consideration of the proposals, then there was a treaty, a treaty publicly stated, its terms given, the technical naval details worked out by experts and presented. Then the treaty with the report of the American delegation went to the Senate, and was there debated and approved by a vote of 74 to 1, with the remaining 20 on record in favor of it. You would think that was publicity to the nth power, you could not conceive of greater publicity, or anything more thoroughly understood, and yet for months wC have been treated to news items, to syn- dicate articles, to editorials proceeding on the assumption that the American people either knew nothing about it, or had entirely forgotten what they had learned. But, some things do stick. The difficulty, as I was pointing out, is not in giving information to the public so much as in halving it stick. What shall we have? Not merely a generous disposition to be all things to all men, not an open mindedness with the receptivity of a sieve. We want some- thing that will be retained, something that can be built upon. Senator Fess eloquently alluded to Abraham Lincoln's poverty of opportunity in his youth. Well, that poverty of opportunity had a corresponding advantage in that while he did not have much to learn with, what he did learn he never forgot. I wish that more of our young men could go to that school. We need to ADDRESS OF HON. CHARLES EVANS HUGHES 415 repeat his reasonableness. That is what we need so conspicuously in our international relations. John Bassett Moore, the distin- guished editor sitting in the Permanent Court of International Justice, skid a profound thing when he said, "International Wars will cease when Civil Wars cease. Within the state there is legal organization and sanction beyond anything yet put forth in the international sphere, while the very phase 'civil' implies that war it outlawry." If there is a disposition that will keep peace among mankind it must be shown, and will first be shown, in the main- tenance of domestic tranquility. How much we need this spirit of reasonableness in our attitude toward foreign peoples! We have a desire to be a leader in this hemisphere, to promote the cause of peace, but to accomplish that purpose we must show our respect for our neighbors. We must recognize and show by our practice that we do recognize their independence. We must give them wise and impartial as well as friendly counsel. We wish to avoid entanglements and committments throughout the world. Why ? Not that in some contingency that may arise we will have an arbitrary choice. Quite the contrary, that we may in any contingency that may arise speak as an enlightened people ac- cording to our sense of duty, unfettered by committments made at a time which could not take that contingency into account. We need, as we look over the world, to recognize that our independence is not to satisfy our pride, but to give us opportunity — and it is a great opportunity we have, with an unmistakable influence, because we can co-operate throughout the world with a detachment and freedom from age-long national and racial ambi- tions, can make our contribution wherever we can do so, without forfeiting our just independence. Oh, if the turbulent spirits who strive to foment ill will, to turn friends into enemies, to set up barriers between well-disposed peoples by lying imputations of 416 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB improper motive, would only be quiet, if we could have advisers who would be as astute to get us out of trouble as they are to put us into trouble, if those who voice their patriotism the loudest would do less harm to their country; if we could have, not an ig- noble pacifism or a truculent chauvinism, but simply a noble rea- sonableness, no bounds could be set to the just influence of this country in its foreign relations. In conclusion, let me point to the words of Lincoln, in that speech which he made as a young man, one of the best speeches that he ever made, in which he said that our fathers had had the task of possessing this goodly country and of erecting here the political edifice of liberty, that it was ours to see that the former never received the foot of an invader, and that the latter was never torn by usurpation or weakened by decay, and that we should hand on these institutions to the latest generation that fate might make it possible for the world to know, and this, he cried, justice to ourselves, gratitude to our fathers, regard for our posterity, love for our species in general, requires us with im- perative duty to perform. President Coolidge sent the following letter The commemoration by the National Republican Club of President Lincoln's birthday is always a notable event, and I wish you would number me among those who will present their felicitations at the gathering to- morrow evening. The club has made a continuing and highly important contribution to maintaining the high- est appreciation of the splendid American tradition which the immortal work of Lincoln has left to the Nation. CALVIN COOLIDGE. THE FORTIETH ANNUAL LINCOLN DINNER of the NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB At the Waldorf-Astoria FEBRUARY 12, 1926 Addresses of HON. JAMES M. BECK HON. JOHN MacCRATE JAMES K. BECK Pormer Assistant Attorney General and Solicitor General. Native of FMladelphia. Noted author, scholar and orator. ADDRESS OF HON. JAMES M. BECK Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen: While it is a great satis- faction to me to break bread again with my fellow members of the Republican Club, yet I have some sad thoughts to-night in recalling one who has so often graced this board and delighted the members of the National Republican Club. He was a man "of infinite wit and of most excellent fancy." The humor of Abraham Lincoln, his homely but sagacious common sense, and above all his moral courage, also characterized in a high degree, our late fellow member, Job Hedges. Peace to his dust! This is a day of sacred memory. Lincoln has reached that stature among the immortals that any eulogy would be an idle superfluity. One need only say of him as he in turn in matchless phrase said of Washington: "In solemn awe pronounce the name and in its naked, deathless splendor, leave it shining on." My purpose to-night is to challenge your attention for a little while to a theme suggested by the memory of Lincoln, and I have called it "Lincoln and Democracy," but perhaps a better title would be "The Gettysburg Address Sixty-three Years Later." Before doing so, let me say a word in passing about that Gettysburg address. 422 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB I suppose that if you were to take a vote of a thousand of the most cultivated men in our English-speaking world as to the five greatest orations in the English language, the oration at Gettys- burg would be on almost every list. I remember with interest reading some years ago in the "Lon- don Times" that Lord Curzon, himself a very eloquent man, speak- ing at Oxford said that he regarded the speech at Gettysburg, not merely as one of the great speeches of the world, but the supreme classic of the English language. Now this is so not simply because of its beautiful diction, nor because it contains any novel thought, for there is no idea in the Gettysburg address that Pericles did not anticipate in his immortal oration over the fallen of Marathon. Webster, already quoted by the Brooklyn jurist, in the same speech from which he quoted, said that the three essential requisites of a great ora- tion were the man, the subject and the occasion, and all three were united on that November day in 1863, the man bearing upon his stooping shoulders the weight of an agonized country and appealing to human imagination as another "Man of Sor- rows and acquainted with grief" was the man. The subject, the undying one, the beauty, the holiness of dying for one's country; and the occasion, the dedication of a cemetery, for he stood with the ever-widening rows of the new-made graves of the fallen at Gettysburg about him. The speech contained, as you will recall only 367 words, and could not have taken more than a few min- utes in its actual delivery. (What a happy after-dinner talker Abraham Lincoln would have been!) The words were trans- figured by the three requisites to which Webster referred, for those matchless words were as the stained glass windows of a mediaeval cathedral, and through those stained glass pieces there ADDRESS OF HON. JAMES M. BECK 423 came streaming the great personality, the noble occasion and the sublime dignity of the theme. Before addressing myself to that phase of the theme in which he made the most famous and undying affirmation of his belief in Democracy, I cannot, in passing, but also note that in this speech there was no suggestion of that spirit of perverted pacif- ism now so audible in the world, which condemns war without distinguishing between the just and the unjust. We need his solemn admonition in that respect to-day, for there runs through the veins of all the great allied nations in the great war, a subtle poison, the suggestion, as we are increasingly told, that there was no right or wrong in the greatest of all wars ; that all the nations were blindly plunged into that vortex by "war psychosis," or, as some say, that that war was nothing more than an economic fatal- ity. If that were true, the World War was the supreme tragedy of all mankind. If you were to take the dead of America alone, exceeding 120,000, and if they in ghostly array were to start at to-morrow's dawn to march from the Washington Arch to Grant's Tomb, the sun would be setting, the night would be far advanced before the last of the heroic victims had passed a given point, and if you were to take the dead of France, and if they marched in a similar ghostly array under the Arch of Triumph and down the Champs Elysees, it would take fourteen days and fourteen nights before the last dead hero had passed under that great arch of victory. Were all these young men, who went out in the May morn of their youth to defend a cause in which they believed, merely the victims of a delusion? Is the noble thought of the poem 'Tlanders Field" only sentimental folly? Such is the teaching of contemporary literature, and pacifist plays and books multiply to show the needlessness of the sacrice. The right and the wrong 424 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB are being ever more daily confused, but there are some, thank God, who believe that there was an everlasting right and an everlasting wrong in that struggle, and that the dead who fell in it, including our own dead, consecrated the ground in which they lie quite as much as the fallen at Gettysburg. Lincoln was a great moralist. The dominant note of his ad- dress was the solemn dedication by the dead of the living to what he called the unfinished task. He called upon the living generation and upon all successive generations to take a high resolve "that the dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth." This exaltation of popular government was not original with Lincoln, even in its literary form. Webster had used substan- tially the same words and he, in turn, had been anticipated by John Marshall. All three simply echoed the opening words of the Preamble to the iConstitution of the United States, when, as with the sonorous blast of a mighty trumpet, the American peo- ple said for the first time in history: *'We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure do- mestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, pro- mote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." It does not follow that Lincoln's famous phrase as to "govern- ment of the people, by the people and for the people" is a mere flourish of rhetoric. On the contrary, it had at the time it was spoken, a terrible significance. The hereditary ruling classes of ADDRESS OF HON. JAMES M. BECK 425 nearly every European nation in 1862 and 1863 were aiming by secret diplomacy to destroy this Kepublic by open intervention. They had determined that government of and by the people should perish from the earth. The thunder of Meade's cannon was America's answer and when the last echo died away in the distant hills, Lincoln could proudly say that "government of the people, by the people and for the people — all the foreign intrigues to destroy this republic to the contrary notwithstanding — shall not perish from the earth." When the framers of the Constitution uttered in trumpet tones the words, "We, the people of the United States, do ordain and establish * * * this Constitution for the United States of America," popular government was not the accepted common- place in political science that it has since become. The American people then were under the age-long feudalistic conception that in some individual or class there existed by divine command, and as an hereditary privilege, that supreme power which we call "sovereignty," and that the rights of the people were only such as the Sovereign might, by grace, concede, or such as could be wrung from him by force. With the Declaration of Independ- ence one hundred and fifty years ago, we rejected the idea of sovereignty. The word will not be found in either the Declara- tion or the Constitution. It was "We, the people," that ordained. The idea of a separate sovereignty thereupon became non-existent for us. Two epoch-making changes were then beginning — the age of the machine and the age of democracy, and between them there is a very close relation. A century and a quarter passed, and at the beginning of the World War the conception of the sovereignty of the people was almost universally accepted in Western civili- zation, even though the form of government might be that of an 426 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB empire or a monarchy. Democracy had become the great ideal, a "pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night" to the struggling masses of the old world, and when our War President gave an inspiring call to battle in 1917, when he said that the "World must be made safe for democracy," he received an answer- ing echo from other lands than our own. And yet this effective war shibboleth, this very effective shibboleth of President Wil- son, contained, however, one philosophical error. It assumed that democracy was an end, of which the world is simply the means, whereas, in truth, the welfare of the world is the end and democ- racy is but a means. Forms of government are, in themselves, never ends, but merely means, and there is at least a half truth in Pope's famous couplet: "For forms of government let fools contest; That which is best administered, is best." The greatest of all teachers said of another human institution that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sab- bath, and truly we could paraphrase it and say that democracy is made for man and not man for democracy. When the greatest war of history had ended, and the roar of the last gun on the long battle line had died away in distant echoes, it seemed indeed that "government of the people, for the people, and by the people" had been vindicated and that the world had been made "safe for democracy." Never in a thou- sand years had there been such a dissolution of ancient forms. Crowns had fallen "thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks of Vallambrosa." Ancient dynasties perished; kingdoms fell and empires of a thousand years vanished into thin air. In- deed, as President Wilson passed through Europe and the masses arose to acclaim him with hysterical enthusiasm, it seemed as if ADDRESS OF HON. JAMES M. BECK 427 the existing governments of even the victorious nations were crumbling. And then a mighty change came over the world's dream of democracy. A reaction, swift and terrible, against parliamentary government, through which alone democracy can ever function, swept over the world like the shadow of a huge eclipse. Eussia destroyed the rule of the Czars, but substituted a class tyranny infinitely worse than the rule of the worst of the Czars. China became a Republic in form and to-day half a dozen would-be dic- tators are struggling for supremacy. Italy accepted the rule of a dictator, who, however beneficent his autocratic rule may be, loses no occasion to flout democracy. Spain accepted the rule of a military dictator, and now democracy has yielded to a dictator in Greece, the very land that gave us not only the idea but the very word democracy. What is more significant is the disintegration of parliamentary government in three governments that are in form democratic. In Germany, the paralysis of parliamentary institutions is such that its President has threatened a dictatorship unless the state of political chaos is brought to an end. In France, there have been three Cabinets in less than a year and for want of a gov- ernment that will function, the talk of a dictator grows ever more ominous. But more amazing, England, the mother of de- mocracies and which alone among all the great nations has in the last decade become in form more democratic than any other na- tion, is, in fact, trembling at the possible domination of a Labor oligarchy, which disdains the organ of democracy, the ballot box, and prefers to work its will by "direct action," an euphoni- ous term for choking the community into submission by a threat of starvation. To-day, one hundred and fifty years after the Declaration of 428 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB Independence, almost sixty-tliree years after Lincoln spoke at Grettysburg, democracy seems to be in more serious danger than at any time since Jefferson, like Chanticleer, proclaimed its red- dening morn. Human progress moves in a constant series of ascending and descending curves, or, to change the metaphor, its forces are at times centripetal, and at times centrifugal. Man has, through- out all history, passed through a ceaseless cycle of integration and disintegration. Every age that has been marked by the con- centration of power in the hands of a few has been followed by a redistribution of that power among the many and, in turn, every democratic movement, when it has spent its force, has been succeeded by a period of the integration of absolutism. I could take English history, but I would not weary you with it, and show that from the time of William the Conqueror there was the ceaseless process of integration and disintegration. No present fact is more signi^cant than the reaction in many nations against democracy and in favor of one-man power. It matters not whether the one man be called a czar, emperor, king or dictator — ^the essential fact is his power. To-day half of the oldest nations of Europe are in the grasp of dictators. The revolt is not against democracy as a social ideal, for it was never of more vital influence in that respect, but against the inefSciency, and at times venality of parliamentary forms of government. The World War has revealed, as in a vast illumination, the fact that democracy is not workable unless there be a people who are politically capable of self-government. The founders of our nation recognized this. Washington, Franklin and Hamilton all said that the success of the government they had just created would depend far more upon the people than upon the wisdom of the Constitution. If people fail to take an intelligent interest ADDRESS OF HON. JAMES M. BECK 429 in their government, and if they are unprepared to show the spirit of self-restraint, which I have elsewhere called ^'constitu- tional morality," there can be no successful democracy. Moreover, as we all know, democracy must necessarily de- pend to some extent upon its machinery. It can only be effective through a system of two parties, and not through more. The moment that the people disintegrate into blocs, it is not the rule of the majority, which we call democracy, that prevails, but, in- evitably, the rule of the minority. Nothing more strikingly illustrates this than the political his- tory of England in the last fifty years. In form it has grown increasingly democratic. The electorate has increased in a cen- tury from 500,000 to 21,000,000, and the power of hereditary privilege, as centered in the Crown and House of Lords, is al- most non-existent. The disintegration in England in recent years of the party system into at least three blocs, has resulted in minority rule, for the conservative government of Bonar Law and the labor government of Ramsey MacDonald only represented a minority of the people, even as Mr. Wilson's first election was the act of a minority only. The recent history of England, more- over, shows more strikingly than that of any other nation the portentous threat to democracy of the disintegration of the peo- ple into classes. The labor movement in England, like that of the Soviets in Russia, has long since lost its faith in the ballot- box or in democracy. The Labor Party believes in direct action, meaning thereby the coercion of the nation by a threat to de- stroy the necessities of existence by a general strike. The trans- port workers, the railway workers and the miners form a power- ful triple alliance, and have shown in recent years their power to dictate to the government and even to control its foreign policies. When the Bolshevists were at the gates of Warsaw in 1920, the 430 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB "triple alliance" notified the government that if it aided Poland, there would be a general strike in England and at once the gov- ernment succumbed. A similar threat a few years ago resulted in compulsory action by the government to compel the owners of the mines to give up for three months their profits and the gov- ernment granted a subsidy to the miners of $50,000,000 to keep the peace. Last summer a like threat was used to compel the nationalization of mines and railways, and all that the impotent government could do was to purchase a peace until next May, by a subsidy to the miners of nearly $100,000,000. Let no one in this country be blind to the fact that a successful revolution in England through this power of direct action might have a significant repercussion in this country, and might destroy that "government of the people, by the people, and for the peo- ple," of which Lincoln spoke, and for which he gave his hearths blood. It is easy for a people to be content with popular government when prosperity is general. Let there be in this nation a pro- longed period of adversity and our institution will be brought to a real test and the prophecy of Lord Macaulay, voiced nearly seventy years ago, may have a terrible vindication. Nor have we wholly escaped the destructive effect upon democ- racy of the bloc system in politics. Much legislation and even amendments to the Constitution have been forced through under the threat of vigorous and well-organized minorities, which either held the balance of power, or threatened public men with defeat unless they voted against their conscience. Let us not lay the "flattering unction to our souls" that we have finally and completely solved the great problem of popular government. It is still, to use the words of Lincoln, "an unfin- ished task," and to it the living, from generation to generation, ADDRESS OF HON. JAMES M. BECK 431 must still dedicate themselves. Our institutions are not static but always in a state of flux. The sound instinct of the Ameri- can people still accepts democracy. In determining its merits, regard must be had for what might be called the ponderables and the imponderables. Measured by the ponderables and the waste, the inefficiency and at times the gross corruption, democ- racy has shown in large cities, which are little better than run- ning sores — I say, measured by those ponderables many thinking men would wonder whether democracy may not be something of a delusion; but the American people believe in democracy, be- cause of a great imponderable. What led Lincoln to believe in it, namely, that it is the only form of government that is con- sistent with the self-respect of a proud and a great people; that it gives hope to the masses and raises them in intellectual and moral stature. The average man, even though plunged in a slough of despond of an inefficient and at times corrupt government, yet he sees with the faith of Lincoln, beyond him the delectable mountains, and he struggles out of the morass and struggles on to the heights beyond. Such was the spirit of Washington and Lincoln, and it is this invincible faith, triumphing over fear, that has made them the two great leaders of democracy, and as long as democracy can produce such products, it simply vindicates itself. Let me call, if I may, your attention to this very striking fact, although it is probably familiar to most of you. The first Presi- dential election that I ever took an interest in was the Tilden- Hayes campaign. I followed it with profound attention, and, with the plastic memory of youth, I can remember almost every important detail in it. In the election of 1876, 82 per cent of the electorate voted; in 1896, only 80 per cent voted; in 1900, 73 per cent voted; in 1908, 66 per cent voted; in 1912, 62 per 432 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB cent voted; in 1920, the percentage had fallen to 48 per cent, although the fundamental principles of the Constitution were un- der direct challenge by Senator LaFollette, and in 1922, 38 per cent of the electorate voted. In other words, from 1876 until 1922, the percentage of American citizens who took enough interest to put a piece of paper in the ballot box once a year had shrunk from 82 per cent to 38 per cent. You may say that is in large part accounted for by the fact that woman suffrage is a novelty. Well, England has woman suffrage ; Germany has woman suffrage, and at the last Parliamentary election in those two countries, 80 per cent of the English electorate voted, and in Germany 89 per cent. You know the fact is that citizens can be divided into two classes. I sometimes call them the Philip Nolans and the Nathan Hales. Philip Nolan, you remember the man in the story of Edward Everett, "The Man Without a Country," who damned his country and was condemned to be carried forever during his lifetime upon a warship, and the officers and the crew that car- ried him in that endless journey up and down the seas of the earth were forbidden even to mention the name of the United States in Philip Nolan's presence, and when he died he said that his punishment was greater than he could bear, and he begged them to bring to his bedside the flag of the country upon which he had spat, and he reverently kissed its folds. There is more than one way of damning a country. A man can damn his coun- try by neglecting to vote. That is a very slight service. He can damn his country by taking no interest whatever in public af- fairs, and allow the swift current to go on to the inevitable abyss if the people of the country do not awaken to their responsibili- ties. A smug man, who has filled his granaries with wealth, and who cares nothing for anything except the protection of that wealth, as to which he regards the Constitution of the United ADDRESS OF HON. JAMES M. BECK 433 States as a kind of a haven of refuge that will protect him; that man who does not lift a finger, even on election day, to cast a ballot, but prefers to spend it on the golf links, he damns his country quite as effectually as Philip Nolan. Then as to the Nathan Hale. I want to tell you a story about Nathan Hale, because it so beautifully illustrates the ideal for which Lincoln stood. A man of affairs once told me this story. He was a man, if I mentioned his name, would be very well known to most of my audience. He was motoring through Con- necticut, as I recall the story, with three or four other men of affairs. All of them were self-made men. All of them had be- come exceedingly successful, measured by the dollar standard, and, after the fashion of self-made men, they were rather self-com- placently talking of their respective careers, and what a wonder- ful ascent they had made up the ladder of success, and my friend told me that suddenly he saw silhouetted across the sky the bronze figure of a young man with his arms behind his back, and they stopped the motor car, and they went up to look at it, to see what the statue was, and they found the man's arms were tied behind him. It was young Nathan Hale upon the scaffold, and they read upon the pedestal his dying words, "My only re- gret is that I have but one life to give to my country," and my friend told me that he and his fellow men of affairs were so ashamed of their habit of boasting and their complacency about their extraordinary skill in the amassing of their millions, when they saw what this simple boy a hundred and more years ago had done, and how he had glorified his sacrifice by words that a Lincoln would have appreciated more than anyone else, that the self-praise stuck like Macbeth's amen in the throat. I have trespassed too long, but just one final thought in con- nection with this problem, this everlasting problem, this unfin- 434 NATIONAL EEPUBLICAN CLUB ished problem, not of making the world safe for democracy quite as much as making democracy safe for the world, and making it promotive of the public welfare. Let me then simply say in con- clusion that it must also be remembered that the comparative success of popular government in America is due in large part — I would say in most part — to the Constitution of the United States, which is not either wholly democratic or wholly undemo- cratic. That great charter of government rejected the idea of the Divine right of democracy — ^that is, the Divine right of the majority to rule under all conditions and under all circumstances. It did provide as a matter of necessity that within a limited sphere of action, the rule of the majority should take effect until that vote was reversed, but with respect to the foreign relations of our government, for example, the majority should not rule, but only such a preponderating majority as would command two- thirds of the Senate, and as for reforming the structure of the government, the highest exercise of popular power to determine the form of government under which we live, that great Con- stitution said there should be no change in what had been so wisely devised in 1787, unless the majority was so enormously preponderating that three-fourths of the States of the Federal Union would concur in it. Democracy was further restrained by checks and balances, by our system of fixed tenures, and above all, by that great power that makes our form of government the envy of the world, the power of the Supreme Court, its power as the great conscience of the nation to say to any act of Con- gress, even though it were passed unanimously by Senate and by the House and signed by the President of the United States, yet if it transgresses the Constitution, the Supreme Court has the power to say that such a law, passed with seeming or nominal unanimity, is null and void. Abraham Lincoln devoutly believed ADDRESS OF HON. JAMES M. BECK 435 that the Constitution was the whole law and the prophet of free government. His faith in that Constitution has been amply vin- dicated, for in all the violent storms of the last twenty-five years, which, as I have said, have swept away kingdoms and empires as dust before the wind, in all the tremendous convulsions of this most hectic period in human history, the most stable government, the least unchanged government has been that of the Constitu- tion of the United States. To-day it is the oldest written com- prehensive form of government in the world. The stream of time that has washed away the dissoluble fabric of other paper con- stitutions has left untouched its adamantine strength. "We, the people," thus begins the preamble — "We, the people, ordain this Constitution, and we, the people, must preserve it." Well can we recall on Lincoln's birthday his concluding address at Gettys- burg : "Let us hereby highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth." JOHN HacCRATE Justice of the New York Supreme Court. Popular Brooklyn orator. Member of 65th Congress. ADDRESS OF HON. JOHN MacCRATE Mr. Toastmaster and ladies and gentlemen: A year ago I was able to escape inflicting this agony on you and on myself. I served in the Congress with Simeon D. Fess, now Senator from Ohio. When I was asked to speak, I said to your committee, "There is no man in the country who has made a more thorough study of the life of Abraham Lincoln than Fess." You asked me to come, and I thought I had gotten rid of your committee forever. I am sorry, and I know when I am finished you will be sorry that they did not get rid of me and I of them. It is an awful place to go and get a speaker for a great dinner — that is, to Brooklyn, a place where men find the hour of eleven o'clock the hour for retirement — to come over to the metropolitan city and on an occasion in this great hotel to attempt to stand where men contemporaneous with and friends of Lincoln stood; those who served with him in high places, those who bore the brunt of battle; those who helped carry his dead body to the grave at Springfield — to stand in such a place under such circumstances would awe even men who thought themselves qualified to speak. I have read the list of those who on other occasions have ad- dressed you. I find none of them an immigrant, and perhaps I might stir up your minds by way of remembrance by giving you the impression that an immigrant has of this man that you call 438 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB the saviour of the Eepublic, and we call the inspirer of youth. When he was nominated for the Presidency, his friends in New York selected Thomas Hicks to make a portrait. He went to Springfield and stayed there for several days. When the por- trait was finished it was brought back to New York, and Horace Greeley looked at the head and said, "That is a head to go to the country with"; and Hicks relates that when he had finished the portrait, he turned to Abraham Lincoln and said, ''You are to be the next President of the United States of America, and the peo- ple would like to know the place you were born," and Hicks says, "There came across that melancholy face a look I had not theretofore seen, as if he were searching back through the years and seeing things that other men had not seen, and then he took a memorandum book and wrote, 'I do not know the exact place where I was born, since my parents are dead, but it was on Nolan's Creek.' " I have often wondered what was the thought that flashed through the brain of Lincoln when they asked him the question: "Where were you born?" Perhaps it was that he saw again the form of Nancy Hanks, and heard her beautiful voice tell him childhood's tales, and he thought it was an awful long way from Nolan's Creek and Kentucky to become the candi- date of a great party for the Presidency, and oft I am reminded that the father of the man is indeed the boy, and you who would understand and seek to understand Lincoln the man, can never forget that Nancy Hanks died when he was eight years of age, and the tear tracks on that boy's face were never laughed away as long as he lived, and when you read his first inaugural ad- dress and hear him say, "The mystic chords of memory stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave," you must also think of him as seeing, tied with the mystic chords of memory, that mother's grave in Indiana, and whatever men may say of the ADDRESS OF HON. JOHN MacCRATE 439 father of Abraham Lincoln, he himself did say, "All that I am I owe to her." This lad, who lost his mother in youth, had a wistful look. Walt Whitman never bent the knee to humans; this vagabond among the poets and writers of America, never truckled to men in high place, yet he said, '*When I looked upon that dark brown face and that wistful eye, I had never seen the artist who had caught its full significance. It needed the master hand of two or three centuries ago to take from off that face and place on canvas that wistful look." The wistful look of a boy who, early lost his mother, wooed by immortality early in life, that wooing continued until the bullet of Booth carried him through the gates of immortality; and as you think of Nancy Hanks, let me remind you of another boyish incident in the life of this man, carried out eventually when manhood's estate had been reached. They asked him one time, "Do you remember the War of 1812?" and he answered, so say Nicolay and Hay, only this: 'I had been fishing and I had caught a little fish, and I was on the road home with the fish, and I met a soldier, and because I had been taught at home always to be good to soldiers, I gave him the fish." From Kentucky's creek to the banks of the Potomac and the District of Columbia was carried this teach- ing of his home, always to be good to soldiers, and when you read those messages that gave Stanton so much agony, for reprieve here and pardon there, it is well to remember that on the road from Nolan's Creek with one fish, he gave that fish to a soldier. And with all the supplies of a great nation at his command, he fed the Army and Navy of the Union, blessed by the memory of a deed of a lad, barefooted, with but a single fish. This lad with his one fish, and the soldier on the creek in Kentucky, starts out in life, as I have said, with tear-stained cheeks, and starts amidst 440 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB privation, and he chose for his poet the poet Burns, the plowman poet of Ayr, who said: "In poverty's low, barren vale fog, mists obscure, in- volve me 'round; Though oft I cast a wistful eye, nae ray of fame was ever found." And who did also declare that: "Dunghiirs sons, dirt and mire, May to patricians' rights aspire." And who exultingly called out: *^Ye see yon birkie ca'd a lord, Wha struts, and stares, and a' that; Though hundreds worship at his word. He's but a coof for a' that." And then this poet, Lincoln, through his life found in love and in politics the sentiments which he himself held, and he with Burns rebelled against that righteous rigidness, majestic though it be, but the majesty which it possesses is the cold majesty of the glacier or the iceberg. The God of those rigidly righteous was the God only of the winter time, and never the God of the springtime and the flowers, and Lincoln found in the wild utter- ances of the young Burns a hearty response to his own rebellion against the religion that has not charity, and never knew the precept, "Let him that is without sin cast the first stone." But not only this poet Burns was woven into the life of this lad Lincoln, but early he came across another poem by another Scotchman, and that was: "Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?" ADDRESS OF HON. JOHN MacCRATE 441 My friends, from the day he first learned that, I am told, until his death closed his lips, he repeated it far more than any other poem, even those of Shakespeare whom he also loved and knew by heart; and you remember the last two sentences of that poem are: "Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain, We mingle together in sunshine and rain, And the smile, and the tears and the songs and the dirge, ; Shall follow each other, like surge upon surge. 'Tis the wink of an eye; 'Tis the draught of a breath, From the blossom of health to the paleness of death; From the gilded salon to the bier and the shroud — 0, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?" Into his life went this poem and all of its significant expres- sions forming the two-sided man that America afterward learned to love — the man most practical in his politics, with a mysticism such as men in monasteries have. He loved the real, but he loved also the ideal. For him that which is must be recognized and dealt with, but that which ought to be was never forgotten. He declared in a letter to the companion of his youth and the counsellor of his older age, "You and I both unfortunately dream dreams of Elysium that nothing earthly can ever hope to realize," and yet this man who dreamt such dreams knew intimately the practical politics of his day as no man in his time knew those politics. When, as a youth, as a member of the State Legislature of Illinois, he wrote a letter like this: "I have tacked a rider onto a bill to relocate the road from New Salem to your township, and I have named you as one of the Commissioners." 442 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB His was not that morality of politics which denies to friends a road past their door, if that road is just as good as a road past a political enemy's door. And this characteristic of practical gratitude was with him, even in the Presidency. You remember that Senator Sherman of Ohio went to him and said: "Mr. Lincoln, you can't remember that there is anyone but old line Whigs in the Republican Party," and he became sad and said, **Why, they are all old-time friends of mine." And you remember that Charles Dana went from New York to him and said: "Mr. Lincoln, your friends in New York think that you do not do enough for them," and he said, "Perhaps that is so," and immediately began the redistribution of the patronage of the State. Lincoln never reached the time when he believed that it was good morals to build up political enemies at the expense of your own political friends; and this man Lincoln, as a candidate for Congress and as a candidate for the State Senate, knew his po- litical precincts with precision. He could tell you the number of Whigs; he could tell you the number of Americans; he could tell you the number of Know-Nothings in each of the precincts of his Congressional district and the State Senatorial district. When he was interested in the candidacy of Fremont for the Presidency, he wrote this: "There are seventy papers in this State against the administra- tion," and then he enumerated the ones that were opposed to Fillmore and those that were opposed to Fremont. This man knew that government can never be administered until you first win the elections and he never counted it beneath the virtues of a ADDRESS OF HON. JOHN MacCRATE 443 man to know how to win an election. First win and then ad- minister was the rule that he laid down for his followers. I speak this wise, my friends, on this occasion, because Lord Charnwood in his biography says; "It was a perverse fate that ever preserved the letters of Lincoln in which he dealt with political machinery. Oh, happy the fate that kept this man human in the eyes of posterity. Oh, happy the fate that tells the tale that this man believed. He never counseled his soul when he came in contact with the crowd. He be- lieved that it was not only the privilege, but the duty of the man who aspires for administrative place, high or low, to know the thoughts of the common people, to know even the lowliest election districts. And thus this man has been preserved to posterity as an example for all who aspire for place and power in the republic." His matchless eloquence was not the creation of the moment, but in the campaigns and candidacies for local, legislative, State, Congressional and Senate place, he moulded the phrases that made him famous. On the hustings he began to let the world see that the man ambitious for public place can yet keep his soul clean from disgusting immorality, and blended with this practical side of Lincoln there was the other side, the ideal side. Webster was his ideal of eloquence. Early in his youth he had learned from Webster's speeches on Washington and Adams that clearness, force and reasonableness are the qualities which make for con- viction; that true eloquence indeed does not consist in words. It cannot be brought from afar; labor and learning may toil for it, but they will toil in vain. The graces taught in schools, the costly ornaments and contrivances of speech shock and disgust men when their lives, and the fate of their wives, their children NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB and their country hang on the decisions of an hour. Often words lose their force, rhetoric is vain and elaborate oratory con- temptible. Lincoln, taking these lines from Webster, began to fashion the speech with which he would eventually captivate, not only the common crowd, but the intellects of the world, and this man not only took from Webster the lessons in oratory, but he took from Webster the principles which guided him in his constitutional attitude subsequent to his entrance into the Presidency. Would you know where Lincoln gathered his first inaugural speech? Then read this March 7th speech of Webster, dedicated to the people of Massachusetts. In that speech Webster declared : ''There can be no such thing as peaceable secession. I will not state what might disrupt the Union, but, sir, I see as clearly as I see the sun in the heavens the result of that disruption; that disruption must result in war, such a war as I will not describe in its two-fold character." And then Webster said: "What am I to be? am I to be an American no more; am I to be a sectional man; am I to be a local man; am I to be a separatist, with no country in common with these men who gather here? Where shall the flag of the Kepublic remain? Who shall gather together the fabric of a de- molished government? Who shall reconstruct the stately prin- ciples of constitutional liberty? Who shall frame together the high architecture which holds together national sovereignty with States' rights, individuality secured, with popular prosperity?" As Lincoln looked out delivering his first inaugural address, these lines of Webster's seemed to run through all he said. Of course it was Seward who supplied the "mystic chords of memory" sentence at its conclusion. But friends, this man Lincoln, the ADDRESS OF HON. JOHN MacCRATE 445 idealist, as he stood there with outstretched hands, declaring that these mystic chords of memory would yet vibrate again, was looking back with that ideal love he had for the man Wash- ington, for the man of revolutionary days, and he was declaring in that sentence his hope that the ambition which he had real- ized to become the President of the United States should not be frustrated. To be the President after the struggle of a life and not have Kentucky in it, was a vain accomplishment, and as he looked out on that assemblage, the idealist was attempting to hold together the Union which he loved more than life itself, and he was beckoning to the spirit of Washington, to the spirit of Madison and Jefferson in Virginia, to the spirit of "Old Hick- ory" from Tennessee and North Carolina and South Carolina. He was calling for Kentucky to hold to the Union, because the idealism of his life could not conceive of a world in which the Union he loved should be severed, but the day came when the idealism, expressed in 1858, was made manifest. In 1858 he had declared a house divided against itself cannot stand. You re- member Herndon was the only one to advise him to deliver that speech. They came and said, "Lincoln, you are a fool; it will destroy you; it will destroy the party"; and he said, "This thing has been retarded long enough. If I must be defeated because of this speech, let me go down, linked to truth," and as one reads those words in 1858, one remembers that he loved, besides the poet Burns, the tinker Bunyan, and he had read and memorized Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," and you will remember that they indicted Christian and Faithful because they had caused com- motions and division in the town, and they brought old Faithful up for trial and the pronouncement of judgment, and you re- member what Bunyan says: 446 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB ''Now Faithful, speak for thy God, Fear not the wicked*s malice nor their rod, Speak boldly man, the truth is on thy side, Die for it and your life in triumph ride." And then Faithful declared: "I have set myself against that which has set itself against Him that is higher than the house.'* And there we have the book of his boyhood, idealized and translated into those memorable, never-dying words: "A house divided against itself cannot stand." And whence came this sentence? In his youth his father was a carpenter. On the plains of Palestine another carpenter's son had said these same things: "A house divided against itself can- not stand," and across the centuries those words had come and hit the soul of another carpenter's son, and looking on the rot- ten timber of slavery, and the foundations of the house called America, this carpenter's son declared it could not stand divided, and launching his great body, and soul, and brain, against the rotten timber of slavery, this man, the carpenter's son, who came out of Kentucky, pushed the timber out of the house called America, and the idealism that was rampant in his youth be- came glorified and victorious in his age, and he, the carpenter's son, laid his own body and his blood between the parts of the house and cemented it so that it shall stand forevermore. My friends, another speaker has been given the subject of Lin- coln and Democracy. I will not trespass further on your time, but I simply add these closing words, it must be in the realm of the immortals that laughter is permitted, and if it is permitted, to-night Abraham Lincoln is laughing exceedingly. ADDRESS OF HON. JOHN MacCRATE 447 The other day in Congress and the Senate they passed a res- olution, calling on the executive to do something with reference to the coal situation, and I suppose that Abraham Lincoln to- night has gone down the corridors of the halls of immortality and found Theodore Roosevelt or some other man like him, and said, "They are still playing the same old game in the States; they are still doing the same old things." In June the States' rights people declared the Federal Government has no right to empty our beer cans. In February the States' rights people de- clared the Federal Government ought to fill our coal bins, and as one who comes from foreign shores, and who passed from the steer- age through this gate of opportunity, I close with this statement to you, my good friends : You need not fear for the future of this Kepublic, if those who were born here and those who have come here, grasp hand and hand and declare as they look upon the house no longer divided, in the words of Webster, "I too, thank God, I am an American." THE FORTY-FIRST ANNUAL LINCOLN DINNEE of the NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB At the Waldorf-Astoria FEBRUARY 12, 1927 Addresses of HON. WILLIAM M. CALDER HON. CURTIS D. WILBUR HON. FRANK B. WILLIS REV. S. PARKES CADMAN, D.D. WILLIAM M. CALDER President of the National Republican Club. Brook- lyn Congressman. United States Senator from New York, 1917-1923. ADDRESS OF HON. WM. M. CALDER President of the Club There has been distributed throughout the room a souvenir of this occasion, in which is incorporated a famous Lincoln manu- script. This manuscript is an exact copy of the speech of President Lincoln at the White House, in response to the serenade which occurred two days after his second election in 1864. It is a rather historic document, which I am sure will be exceedingly interest- ing, not only tonight, but as the years go by. I call it particu- larly to your attention, because I am sure after you have read it, you will take it home and treasure it as really one of the important events of this occasion. For forty-one years this club has celebrated the birthday of Lincoln. We have gathered at this board America's most dis- tinguished citizens. In the earlier days those who were here were Lincoln's contemporaries. In later years, many men who had a part in maintaining the ideals of government for which he gave his life. The men who founded this club and laid down the policy of keeping alive the splendid accomplishments of the great Emancipator, were convinced that they could render no greater service to their country than to constantly bring home to the minds of our youth the period in our nation's history in which Lincoln was the all-important factor. We have had here during these forty years, Presidents Harrison, McKinley, Roosevelt, Taft, 452 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB Harding and Coolidge; Governors Morton, Black, Odell, Hughes, Whitman and Miller; Senators Hiscock, Evarts, Warner Miller, Depew, Root, and the present distinguished senator, who is also here tonight. Senator Wadsworth. We have had cabinet mem- bers, senators, representatives and governors of other states; dis- tinguished clergymen, lawyers, educators and leaders of industry, all of them gathered here to pay their tribute to the memory of this great American. This club, my friends, has preserved some of the addresses made at these dinners — in fact, most of those made before 1909 have been published, and before the Lincoln Dinner next year, we are hopeful that the Lincoln orations of the recent past will also be in book form. CURTIS D. WILBUR Secretary of the Navy in the Coolidge administra- tion. Native of Iowa. Chief Judge of the Superior Court, California. Unitarian minister in Portland, Ore. Author and historian. ADDRESS OF HON. CURTIS D. WILBUR Ladies and Gentlemen of the Republican Club: No man can enter this city and contemplate its great buildings without pon- dering upon the fate of nations, and wondering whether sixty centuries from now people will be digging in the ruins of a city to ascertain something of the civilization of that city, as ancient Nineveh was; whether there will be here, sixty centuries from now, a population distinct from this population, carrying on its civilization and extending it in new and untried fields, but with ever-progressing spirit. If that should be the case, I venture to say it will be because in a very large measure the spirit of Abra- ham Lincoln will have permeated those who followed us, as his spirit has permeated those who have served since he was Presi- dent of the United States. Abraham Lincoln once said in his whimsical fashion: **God must have loved the common people because he made so many of them." In this fashion he gave to us evidence of his faith in the everyday man. We are here to-night, celebrating ths birth of Lincoln upon a piece of land in Kentucky, given by the State of Virginia to the United States of America as a pledge to the new union of the faith of that State in the Union of the States — from there to In- diana and later to Illinois. He was raised a pioneer upon land 456 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB given by the nation to his father as a part of the great program of dividing the land from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean among the common people who would take advantage of the gift to im- prove the land and develop the country. He was raised in con- tact with the common people. Abraham Lincoln believed in a just God, and when he stood in 1860 before an audience in the City of New York to there declare his faith and his convictions at Cooper Union, he closed with those memorable words: **Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it." Abraham Lincoln believed in this nation as formed by our forefathers; and upon the battlefield of Gettysburg, in the midst of that great Civil War, he declared, in that memorable address, his faith in a government conceived and dedicated, as this was, to liberty and to the equality of man. He called upon his fellow- citizens upon that battlefield to renew their consecration to the principles which had given birth to this nation, and adjured them to come to the aid of the "government of the people, by the peo- ple and for the people, to the end that there might be a new birth of freedom, and that that government should not perish from the earth." He saw in the Civil War a test of our institu- tions ; he saw in that war, while it was being fought, a test as to whether or not it were possible to get men together in this type of government and keep them together, as against the pressure of internal conflict, and that war determined favorably with this nation the test whether a republican organization, as it was, could endure against internal dissension. President Wilson saw in the war clouds of Europe enveloping this nation, as he saw the marching armies of Germany coming westward and pushing their ADDRESS OF HON. CURTIS D. WILBUR 457 way eastward again, a test of this nation whether a republican form of government could endure upon the same globe where an autocratic and despotic form of government, devoted to militarism and determined through the dynastic control to use that mili- taristic power to advance its own ends at the expense of its neighbor. The nation stood that test. There is to-day facing us a test which does not perhaps seem to be critical to us. It seems far away; but we are confronted with the dictatorship of a minority of the proletariat in the great nation. There has been an overturning of a dictatorship, a czar has been exchanged for that, a minority, and we are called by this group, the enemies of government, imperialistic. These words sound strange in the ears of those who participated in forming the government and have participated in that government, devoted to the equality of man. A homogeneous whole in which there is no top and no bottom, no class, no distinction. We have felt that this govern- ment was like a pyramid, which, homogeneous in all its parts, if overturned is equally high; and while we do not have revolu- tions, we have the constant rotation in our offices, a change of leadership, so that the man to-day who is president may to- morrow be a college professor, and the man who to-day is a college professor may to-morrow be president. We have the man in the log cabin, Abraham Lincoln, the rail splitter, wielding the power of president, and we have another man coming from the farm in Vermont. Our President to-day is wielding the power of that great office. There has been one result of the Civil War, developed during the period that has passed since the War, which I wish to em- phasize in the phrase used by Abraham Lincoln, "government by the people." There have been other governments of the people, and there have been governments, most of them who claim to be 458 NATIONAL EEPITBLICAN CLUB for the people, but in the new sense we have been feeling in these years that this government is owned by the people. All of its powers are exercised by the people. If you look on the shelves of a law office, you will find a great mass of legislation, not only by the Congress of the United States, but also by the several State legislatures; you will find a vast mass of judicial decisions, grow- ing in volume, and one of the reasons there has been this large volume of legislation and judicial decisions has been because of the growing conviction that, after all, this government was established to carry out the wishes and the will of the people, and if in any particular it does not do so, they have retained the right and the ability to make the necessary change. The immediate result of the Civil War was the amendment of the Federal Constitution, the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments. Familiar as you all are with these amendments to the Constitution, I doubt if anyone who is not a member of the legal profession has fully apprehended the extent of the signifi- cance of this great charter of liberty. Not only were slaves freed by the thirteenth amendment, but by the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the Federal Constitution with reference to the United States who not only had within his own State the rights of a citizen of that State, but in every other State the rights of a citizen of the United States. These principles enunciated in these amendments have been the subject of consideration by the judges in all of our courts, and volumes have been written ex- pounding them, elaborating and developing them. In reference to Abraham Lincoln, the great Emancipator, I believe that we are apt to think of him as liberating four million slaves, who, up to the time of the Emancipation Proclamation, were regarded as property; but Abraham Lincoln saw the prob- lem in a larger aspect. He did not so much desire to liberate ADDRESS OF HON. CURTIS D. WILBUR 459 individual slaves as lie desired to eradicate from the minds of his fellow citizens the consent to slavery. He wished to root out from the hearts of the people of America a consent to slavery, and acceptance of it as a public institution, and his efforts were directed towards that end. He was content slavery should be excluded from the territories, so that when these new States, with their citizens, came into the Union/ they would come in as free States. He did not intend or desire to interfere with the institu- tion in those States where it was firmly established, but he be- lieved if men generally recognized that this inherited institution was wrong, that it would ultimately pass away; and in defining the issue between the North and the South, he defined it as the issue between those who, on one side, believed that slavery was right and desired its extension, and on the other side, those who believed it wrong and desired its suppression. We are here building on the foundations laid down by our fore- fathers, building upon the principles Abraham Lincoln wrought out. We are enjoying the new birth of freedom of which he spoke. We have done this in our civil government, county, mu- nicipal, State and national. I want to turn your thoughts, while I speak of the building of a nation, to two great monuments — memorials in the city of Washington, one of them to George Washington. It was begun in 1848 and suspended in 1852, and v/hen Abraham Lincoln, look- ing out of his White House windows towards the Potomac, was cogitating upon the subject of his Gettysburg address, he could see this unfinished monument standing about 150 feet above its foundations, with the unused derricks still upon it, and when he reflected upon this government as an unfinished and untested in- stitution, he had before him this uncompleted monument to the founder of his country; but that monument is now completed. 460 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB It stands a magnificent structure, recommenced in 1880 by a re- united people, and completed in 1884, but there still is at that level of 160 feet a very definite line. And now the statue of Abraham Lincoln gazes out across the Mirror Pool to the com- pleted monument. We can easily imagine the spirit of Lincoln rejoicing in the completed monument, and noting with pride the line which marks the passage from slavery to freedom. Slave labor built the monument, the blood and tears of the slaves min- gled with the mortar; but from this point on a united nation has given us the perfect monument, and it has been completed without the taint of slavery; and so of this nation, however kindly we may feel towards those who, from tradition and contact, felt themselves compelled to accept slavery, we in the meetings for the framing of the Declaration of Independence, or in the meetings for the framing of the Constitution of the United States, or in the councils of the nation or State, we note that up to that point there was that consent in the hearts of a great majority of our people towards the institution which has been since withdrawn, and the monument of this great State and government which is being built, is being built without that ele- ment in it; it is free. There has been a new birth of freedom, but to-night we are here primarily as Republicans, and it is proper to say something concerning the work of the Republican Party in connection with this building. It is enough for us to- night to remind ourselves that it was the Republican Party that placed Abraham Lincoln in the White House and sustained him, with every loyal citizen joining hands during the Civil War, re- elected him during that war, and upon his untimely assassina- tion, took up the work where he left it, and in county boards of supervisors, and in city councils. State legislatures. State con- stitutional conventions, and in Congress, and the Presidential ADDRESS OF HON. CURTIS D. WILBUR 461 chair, have carried on during these years, and the building which has been erected has in a large measure been erected by the efforts of the Republican Party who made Lincoln possible, and who in turn were revivified by his support. This is not the time to compare the efforts of this party we love with that of another party. It is enough for us to-night to say that this party has never been lagging behind in progress, looking towards human betterment, towards the development of the free- dom of the ballot, towards the participation of every citizen in the councils of the nation. It was given birth — this party — in the principles of freedom, and it has incorporated that principle in every act, and insofar as there has been a failure to liberate and extend liberty in the hearts of its members and in the gov- ernment when in control, it has been faithful to that which brought it forth. Lincoln has done much for the United States of America. Can we say to-night that he has also done much for the people of the world? Our hearts were touched in the early years of the World War, but indications here and there that the great men of the nations who felt themselves almost overwhelmed by the awful carnage which had been forced upon them, were drinking in of the spirit of Abraham Lincoln, his courage in ad- versity, his patience, his persistence, his resourcefulness, in en- couraging the allied leaders to gather their forces together, with the conviction that they would win; but it was not only in the spirit of Abraham Lincoln that victory was finally achieved. It was the United States of America and its prosperity, due to the united putting of the soldiers from the North and from the South, shoulder to shoulder, on the battle fields of France, that finally brought the victory. We need not to-night compare the effort of this nation with any other. We know that with- out the effort of this nation, the result, humanly speaking, 462 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB at any rate, would have been different. So I would like to think to-night of Abraham Lincoln, picked at by politicians, sneered at, looked down upon, yet patiently and persistently working out, as he thought, the destiny of a free people upon this Continent, but under God working out the destiny of civilization. I ask you if without the union of the States, without the pros- perity of the States, without the spirit of liberty, we would have been successful in the World War? I was thrilled not so long ago, when I picked up a book by General Maurice, the English General, who wrote on the last four months of the war, and what a thrilling book it was, that sudden change from a defensive in which heart-broken men strove to hold the line, to that of of- fensive, which went on day after day, until victory was achieved. The marching of thousands, tens of thousands and millions of men, yes, the actual slaughter of millions of men in this four months, and at the conclusion of his book, after this picture of this awful war, with its blood and its toil, he summed up in a word the contributions of the various nations who had engaged in it, but closed with this thought, and it harked back to the words of Abraham Lincoln in New York City at Cooper Union in 1860, for he said: '*If this victory is to be ascribed to any one cause rather than any other cause, it must be ascribed to the faith of the allied people in the principle that 'right makes might.* " So we have the testimony of this soldier, with all his technical knowledge, that after all it was this man's faith which per- meated the free people of the earth and gave them the victory. FRANK B. WILLIS Born at Lewis Center, Delaware County, Ohio, De- cember 28, 1871; educated in the common schools and at Ohio Northern University, Ada, Ohio, where he afterwards was for several years a teacher; admitted to Ohio Bar in 1906; served in 74th and 75th General Assemblies of Ohio; elected to House of Representa- tives in the 62nd and 63rd Congresses, resigning his seat January, 1915, to become Governor of Ohio, suc- ceeding the Hon. James M. Cox; elected to "United States Senate, November 2, 1920; became member of Senate January 13, 1921, by appointment of the Gov- ernor of Ohio, to succeed the Hon. Warren G. Hard- ing, resigned. ADDRESS OF HON. FRANK B. WILLIS Ladies and gentlemen, it would be exceedingly difficult to say anything new about Lincoln, or to say very much that would be new to you concerning the policies and the history of the Repub- lican Party, and yet it is fitting, I think seroiusly, at least once a year, that we all of us should give some thought to his great leader, this greatest of Americans, this greatest of Republicans. Within a year I was at Springfield, 111., and I stood at the spot where, in 1858, Abraham Lincoln had stood, and, I think, with a gentleman who was his friend and who was present at that meet- ing — this man, Mr. John Bunn — told me that he had known Lin- coln for many years. He had heard him speak upon many occa- sions, but he said as Abraham Lincoln arose to speak on that occasion, there was a light in his eyes that he had never seen there before; there was a strength in the figure that had never appeared before. He walked out to the edge of the platform and looked out over the sea of faces, and stood there for a min- ute or two, until as his auditor told me, the silence became al- most oppressive, and then here is what he said, as he began to speak — remember this was 1858— he said: "We are far into the fifth year since the initiation of a policy with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, not only has the agitation 466 NATIONAL EEFUBLICAN CLUB not ceased, but it has continually augmented. In my opinion it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. A house divided against itself cannot stand. The Union cannot permanently endure half slave and half free. I do not expect the house will fall; I do not expect the Union will be dissolved, but I do expect it will cease to be divided." That was said in 1858. Bold, courageous, prophetic words they were, that indicated that this man had vision and courage. The war was some distance off. Few men would have admitted that there was to be a war; and yet, peering through the mist and clouds of debate, this man saw what was coming, and he saw it well and in his heart he harbored no hate. You recall what he said years ago as he stood at the front of the Capitol, delivering his first inaugural address, just the last words of it. He said, "I am loath to close" — ^he was not speaking simply to the great crowd that had assembled in the plaza, but speaking over their heads to the southland whence he came and which he loved. He said: "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though patience may have strained, it must not break, our bonds of affection. The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every battle field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet again swell the hearts of the Union, when touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." And when, on the occasion that was referred to and eloquently described by the Secretary, when our boys went beyond the sea to keep the old flag in the air, and not simply to fight for a theory but to protect American rights which had been ruthlessly assailed, when they went away, the boys from Alabama and the boys from Maine, the boys from New York and the boys from Mississippi, marching shoulder to shoulder, their going was a realization of the prophecy of ADDRESS OF HON. FEANK B. WILLIS 467 Abraham Lincoln, "We are not enemies, but friends." So he had patience, he had courage; he was big enough to understand and not to hate, and then even when victory was all but in sight, do you remember what he said in his second inaugural address? He had been talking about the ravages of war, and had been saying that peace did not at that time seem so distant as it had at one time. He said, again thinking of the South and speaking to the South as well as to the North — he said: "Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any man should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not that we be not judged. The Almighty has His own purposes. Woe unto the world because of offenses, for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh. If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which in the providence of God must needs come, but which, hav- ing continued through His appointed time, He now wills to re- move, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in the living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away, yet if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsmen's 250 years of unre- quited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3,000 years ago, so still it must be said *The judg- ments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.' " He had courage, and one other thing, and then I will leave this branch of the topic, because seriously I want to talk some 468 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB of politics before I get through here, if my time does not run out and you don't; yet I like to think about this great — first great Republican. My secretary, Mr. Charles A. Jones, who as my friend Senator Wadsworth knows very well, spent a year in China within the last five years, has told me something that to me is an eloquent tribute to Abraham Lincoln. This boy went up the Yangtse River as far as he could by steamboat, and then went over hundreds of miles up the river on rafts, in canoes, and then organized a caravan and went away into the interior of China, 2,000 miles almost from the sea, up yonder amongst the mountain peaks that are clad in the everlasting snow, way up almost to the plateau of Thibet, and yet there in those land-locked valleys where the foot of white men had not before trod, there upon the mud walls of the pitiful little huts in which the poor people lived, there he found upon those walls rude woodcuts of Abraham Lincoln. How did they know about him? How did they find out about him? We do not know, but in that inscrut- able way that the human race has somehow, they understood that this man was their friend. He belonged not simply to Illinois, nor to this country, but to the world. A great American poet said, "Four things a man must learn to do if he would keep his record true, to think without confusion clearly, to love his fel- low men sensibly, to act from honest motives freely, to trust in God and heaven securely." Somehow these poor people under- stood that here was a man that loved his fellow men sensibly. ADDRESS OF REV. S. PARKES C ADM AN Mr. President, fellow guests, ladies and gentlemen: I have listened with the greatest possible interest to these excellent speeches which have preceded the few remarks I am about to make. I admire the dispassionate and judicial tone of the Sec- retary's address, and also the enthusiastic and exhilarating qual- ities of this inimitable speech delivered by our good friend, the Senator from Ohio. I strongly suspect that he is of the Methodist persuasion. Senator Willis: You bet. I don't work at it. Rev. S. Parkes Cadman: Be it far from me. Be it far from me to introduce any frigidity which might perhaps hint of a glacial period of reflection following on this warm movement which has been established among us. In one respect, however, we are a unit, and I am only playing a sort of second host to my dear friend. Senator Calder, in saying what I have to say. We are a unit, not only in our own nation, almost without exception, but in the world at large, in our tribute to this glorious man whose very name kindles emotion in the heart and music in the memory. There are only a few such names, by no means as many as we sometimes allocate in words and in analytic appealing to ourselves, only a very few. Most of the writers speak their fill and disappear, and the men at arms have but a temporary fame, 470 NATIONAL REPXTBIICAN CLUB but out of the skies of each succeeding period here and there, very rarely, a star arises into the ascendancy and retains it. Among these, only two are absolutely sure of what we sometimes lightly speak of in a rhetorical humor, immortality. If I were inclined to say it about any two Americans, I should certainly say they were George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. We are not alone in that verdict. We have succeeded in the rise of intellectualism, backed by morality, in passing these boundaries which so often restrain, as the Senator's speech showed you, what otherwise might be wise political action. We have passed the boundary under the leadership of great spirits who, to quote a Glasgow author, "have the world for their tool," and among these supremely is this enigma, this constant source of mystery and marvel, this unexplained and perhaps inexplicable problem of humanity, the difficulty arising out of his very vast- ness, and the blending of so many opposite characteristics in his full orbed nature, in whose honor we have met to-night. Only the other day I heard of a single collector who had 1,600 items of Lincolniana, and he is only as you see one among many, and as for the volumes which have been written about Mr. Lincoln, they are translated into fourteen of the languages of first rate nations, and some of which would be considered second rate, and since I last had the privilege of addressing this club, I believe Lord Charnwood has written his excellent biography of Mr. Lin- coln, and so has Carl Sandburg, treating him with especial em- phasis upon the first fifty-two years of his life; the four years of vortex in which he later moved, and the further life of Lin- coln by my friend. Dr. William E. Barton, is simply filled with a wealth of detail, not unimportant in some respects, vital for the clearing up of prejudice and misinformation concerning this man, and if I were asked to quote to those who severely criticize ADDRESS OF REV. S. PARKES CADMAN, D.D. 471 democracy to-day, an apologium for our own form of government, to which we stand pledged forever, because it has in it that lib- erty under law which is an essential part of the good of every- thing, I should certainly revert, as I have often done, and will doubtless continue to do, to Abraham Lincoln. The very name stirs emotions too deep for praise, and when we think of the glory, and the terror, the triumph and the tragedy of his marvelous career, where is there a theme for the use and treatment of dramatic imagination in the whole realm of history, outside of the Bible, and not altogether outside of it either, which better lends itself for such treatment than the career of this marvelous man. Sometimes to-day we meet with blase persons, satiated with past experience. As Byron said earlier, even at a later date, there's nothing left in life but the canker and the dream. Behind this hectic improvement — a mechanical age which sometimes scares the life blood out of human existence — ^there is this deep satiety which as you, who studied history, know fell upon the ancient Eoman world. It established the modern inquisition, and some of these followers of that inquisition resemble hyenas, lunatics, make gar- bage appeals for anything they can find which paints a hero in an earthbound attitude or a humiliating position. Well, they have scanned him of whom we speak to-night with meticulous scrutiny, as you know, and they have told us of his emotional uprushes, his inability to choose men who were either loyal to him or co-operative, and also of his love affairs, not that there was anything in them savoring of unworth or the slightest taint of dishonor, but nevertheless marked by some vacillation of his, possibly laziness, the melancholy which ran through his hot veins, all this has been rehashed and may be stated here again to show that on this historic occasion and in this great club we are not sacrificing history to eulogy. But when they have been stated, 472 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLTJB when the last thing has been said by those who advocate the necessary humiliation of our common nature, the net result is indeed, so far as I can judge, negligible, absolutely negligible. I appeal to the men here and to the women who know us bet- ter than we know ourselves, where is there a man, taking him all in all, whether in our own circle here immediately or in the circles of the near past to which Mr. Lincoln belongs, into whose book of life we can look and look again and find so little to blame, so much to praise, so much to love, so much to revere? And if the youth of this nation is to maintain the self -reverence and self-knowledge and self-control which alone can lead our people to sovereign power, and not even these merely diplomatic and statesman-like measures — if the future is to be assured beyond the rate of infirmity or even discrepant policy, it will have to revert to the wisdom of this great father; to the obedience of his justice and to the knowledge of his spiritual discipline. There is no other way out. Our system of government does not account for our supremacy, notwithstanding that some excited leaders would make you believe it is. Personal character behind gov- ernment is the great motivating force of permanence and suc- cess in the sons of men and nations. Lincoln seems to me always a great example, if you will allow me to say so — he is a great example to this literature of ours, to all men who bear the heat and burden of the day. In the first place, we are not to forget he belonged to an old stock. Perhaps nothing is more misleading from the strictly scientific viewpoint than claims of long descent. Sometimes when I hear those who make that claim, I cannot help but feeling that assent would be a relief for every- body concerned, and if there is anything which has caused more suspicion, and properly so, as to its truth, by its exaggerations, it is the utterance of those who are convinced that by the accident ADDRESS OF REV. S. PARKES CADMAN, D.D. 473 of birth they received some mysterious power which does not belong to their fellow men. In this respect Mr. Lindein was an aristocrat, and the mere incident of the temporary sojourn of his father in something savoring of a pioneer does not for a mo- ment impugn the main issue. He could no more have grown in other centers of the world than where he and his father grew than you could produce lilies on an iceberg. He belonged to the great breed of magistrates who, for a thousand years, have al- lowed their genius to flow in the direction of government, con- stitutionalism, the debating of gi-eat public issues and the carrying on of the mighty traditions of Eome as a first class political and social organization. England has been premier in that respect. Whatever we may have to say about her or against her, she is still the mother and mistress of other peoples, born to a certain sort of brave and solemn freedom, which lives to-day, so that it may exist to-morrow. Out of that blood he grew, as we know, and the difference between his growing and that of Washington was practically infinitesimal. Both belonged to one great breed, and by finding here, as they did, though under totally different conditions, ample room for the development of their particular genius, they added to the luster of this government by taking advantage of their opportunities and widening the bounds of free- dom. That is the business of government. That is why we are here. That is an advantage which may well prove a victory. We have to stand for those principles in government which awaken public policy which neither listlessness nor mad endeavor can ever utterly abolish or destroy. It was Mr. Lincoln's inborn fortitude, intellectual and moral integrity, which enabled him to become perhaps the best trained man who ever entered the White House. Lack of opportunity shows itself in ignorance of the real meanings of life, and especially in the ability, as you know, do develop the 474 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB soul of a man and enable him to light his lamp and gird his loin and induce others to follow. In this respect how educated he was, how far his career contributed to its great climax at the last! Think for a moment of his physique, his honesty and Homeric face, for if you look upon this picture above me, you will see how completely it resembles the picture of Homer, with a certain massive significance, and behind the eyes sadness. What a face! Where else can you find anything like this, so utterly incarnate of true divinity, so far removed from the bad ways of men which register themselves in the human countenance? Such was Lin- coln as you and I know him from these replicas and paintings and statues which bring him down to us, who are not privileged 1;o see him, as a few remaining survivors have been, face to face, ^nly last summer, or the summer before, on my way to one of those international conferences of a few religionists who have finally come to the conclusion that it is more important to be- come a Christian than a Baptist, I happened to stand under the statue of Lincoln in England. I was 3,000 miles from home. I never saw Lincoln as I saw him on that particular day. The fact is, I could not see him at the time, I am not ashamed to own it. Lincoln, our Lincoln, the Lincoln of the world, humanity's man, as no other statesmen has been in the last 150 years, excepting no man! Now, ladies and gentlemen, there you have the tribute to his moral majesty as well as to his intellectual equipment, and in that equipment, as you know better than I do, he had, in the first place, a gift very highly cultivated of intellectual analy- sis. He could take a situation and resolve it into its elements. Behind that was comprehensiveness, the thing that most men lack to-day, because the aftermath of war is prejudice and bit- terness, expressed in manifold ways. Do you suppose if Lincoln were living now he would have any patience with your 100 per ADDRESS OF REV. S. PARKES CADMAN, D.D. 475 cent Americans who hate the Jew and damn the Protestant, or condemns out of hand his brother Catholic? Do you suppose any part of this rigid and disfiguring racial prejudice and passion which to-day in many centers usurp parties, and tore the last Democratic political convention of the nation to fragments, could have any lodgment in the breast of Abraham Lincoln? Ten thousand times never; everybody knows that who knows any- thing. It is sometimes slightly appalling that men in their enthusiasm for the part, should lay violent hands upon the whole and destroy that which he planted with the sweat of his brow and watered with his blood. Therefore, if Lincoln promised us anything new for this age, he promised it only if we return to the spirit of magnanimity without which our intellectual gifts are apt to corrupt and foster suspicion and make a cynic of him who beneath his supposed wisdom is a fool of the first class. You also know he was not only devoted to the nation, he was also devoted to the interests of humanity at large. The Senator made that point, the Secretary made it, and elucidated it, both of them with remarkable skill, and within the bounds of its true meaning. When the London Spectator, which is perhaps the leading journal of Great Britain and her daughter nations, was passing through the great war, it quoted Mr. Lincoln's speeches at the head of its main columns every week. When fifty thousand men of Britain and her sister or daugh- ter nations had fallen in one single week on the Marne, Lincoln's speech at Gettysburg was quoted at the top of this column; whereupon the authorities of Oxford University took it and placed it in bronze upon the walls of that ancient seat of learning, because it was the greatest example of elevated political thinking, expressed in the finest and most suitable language known to these Englishmen. Now, they have statesmen of their 476 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLUB own, and I do not have to bother as a rule — they have John Bright, some of whose words are the greatest I have ever read, uttered in defense of and support of Mr. Lincoln's policies. They had Gladstone, and, thank God, his memory is still untar- nished by these hyenas. They have Peter Younger, who died a broken man while in the service of his country, saying with his last breath, after Napoleon's victory at Austerlitz, "roll up the map of Europe, we shall not need it again for half a century." They had Pitt the Elder, who stood up in the House of Lords and said, "I rejoice to hear America has rebelled." All these men they had, and yet they came back to our martyr's grave, the out- come of a great personality wedded to a new type of constitu- tional democracy, and found in Lincoln's words their inspiration and guidance while passing through a hell of suffering and loss. Therefore, he is not only the property of this land, he is the property of all lands, and we shall measure our ability to judge freedom and right and to determine its values and to distinguish it from the license for which so many — as the Senator has shown, especially in the opposite party, in an unlicensed mood, which means something very different to liberty when they apply it. The ability to know and distinguish shall be measured, it seems to me, by the esteem, the reverence and love we pay to the memory and the service of the matchless and incomparable Abra- ham Lincoln. "What is more, so far as the future of this nation is concerned — I am simply an occupant of the cloister — I have to maintain my sacred solitude and watch the great men manipu- lating the affairs of the nation who one by one may come and go. There is a certain worry encompassing them as well as joy. Little did I think when Mr. Harding went to the White House he would find that the path of glory led but to the grave. You men here may feel the throb of honorable ambition is in you too. ADDRESS OF REV. S. PARKES CADMAN, D.D. 477 Do not forget what the great Bishop said as he stood over the coffin of the dead king of France. He said, ''How vain is man and how vain are all his desires." That comes to us as we look upon the past. Let me say that so far as the future is concerned, I make no predictions. One thing I feel sure of, and that is that there are crusades to be undertaken, if ours is to be a progressive system of government, in behalf of the justifiable expansion of its powers and benefits, for the future, as have been so success- fully and sensibly undertaken, as the Secretary showed in his speech, in the past. We are not suffering from the delusion, I hope, that we have arrived, that there is nothing left for us to seek. So long as war lasts, gluing together the pages of history with use- lessly spilt blood, the rising tide of conscience in enlightened nations will continue to question the possibility of its extermina- tion. Very much of the trouble we are experiencing with the so-called inferior races, which, by the way, is a term I rather despise, is due to the fact that they have been taught to look upon the white man, if not with terror, with a certain kind of contempt for the way in which he preaches, pays for and organ- izes wholesale murder. I am not a pacifist. I do not believe in unilateral disarmament. I believe, as the Senator has well said, in being prepared with police powers and any other necessary expansion to support just and lawful ethics and protect life and civilization. All this I believe, but I ask you if the boundaries are so fixed to-day that there is an eternal decree, keeping nations from this legitimate intercourse, which shall make the white race more sure of its future than it is now, or shall the ancient past come back to us with its blood stain and records of ruin; Greece herself torn asunder and destroyed by her dissensions, and even mighty Rome was robbed of her young men by constant wars un- til she crumbled and gasped. Shall that be our lot? I do not 478 NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CLTTB think so. I believe the spirit of Mr. Lincoln will maintain force where force is necessary, and where war, Mr. President, redeems a state of things worse than itself, for the days to come, and for an indefinite period to which I assign no limits; but I also be- lieve, because I am a Christian man and ambassador of the liv- ing God, for justice and righteousness, that no such fruit as Lincoln was could ever have been grown on our tree as a nation, had not that tree been meant to produce the fruit in the days to come which justifies its cost. He was not born to waste away beneath the corroding touch of time. He did not die on that awful Friday night that the things for which he had ventured everything should be lost in some future gigantic bloody scufile in which all the scientific forces of men continued to stab wisdom to the heart. He died like his great Lord before him, to make us good and capable in handling matters right for our children. That great inheritance he has bequeathed to us. I thank you.