Hi

The Lawyers Glub.
Gzecho-Slovato  Middle Burgpe,

x>

[n.p.]1918.

X

¦YmE'WJMiiviEi&sinrY- • ILUMR^ISBr •

T

>*-<*«

MEETING OF
THE LAWYERS CLUB

One 'if

undred and fifteen broadway
New York City

subject
CZECHO-SLOVAKO - MIDDLE EUROPE
ALSO
Presentation of Honorary Life Membership to
HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW

ADDRESSES BY

Professor THOMAS G. MASARYK
President Elect, Czecho-Slovakian Republic
Professor HERBERT ADOLPHUS MILLER
Chairman, Mid-European Union
Hon. GILBERT M. HITCHCOCK
Chairman, Comrriittee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate
Hon. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW
WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER
President of The Lawyers Club
Hon. JOHN B. STANCHFIELD
JOHN A. STEWART

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1918

The Lawyers Club
One Hundred and Fifteen Broadway
New York City

William Allen Butler, President
Altqn B. Parker, Vice-President Robert C. Morris, Vice-President
R. G. Babbage, Secretary
B. M. Fellows, Treasurer
Edwin J. Beinecke,
Chairman House Committee
BOARD OF GOVERNORS

R. G. Babbage
H. S. Black
Wm. Allen Butler
Edgar M. Cullen
Wm. C. Demorest
Ernest Hall
John Hays Hammond
Job E. Hedges
Charles Evans Hughes

George L. Ingraham
Robert C. Morris
Perley Morse
George McAneny
Ormsby McHarg
Morgan J. O'Brien
Alton B. Parker
John B. Stanchfield
John A. Stewart

COMMITTEE ON MEETINGS AND SPEAKERS
John B. Stanchfield, Chairman
Perley Morse, Secretary

Lindell Theodore Bates
George Gordon Battle
William G. Bibb
Cyril H. Burdett
R. J. Caldwell
Dean Emery
William Forster
Job E. Hedges
Walter E. Kelley
L. Laitlin Kellogg
Mess more Kendall
Bryan L. Kennelly
Alfred W. Kiddle
Harvey Murdock
W. A. Mitchell

Charles R. McSparren
Herbert Noble
William A. Prendergast
Royal E. T. Riggs
Lindsay Russell
J. H. Shaffer
A. H. Spencer
John A. Stewart
Walter B. Walker
James Harold Warner
Eugene C. Worden

William Allen Butler
Robert C. Morris
Alton B. Parker
Ex Officio

Meeting of
THE LAWYERS CLUB
Saturday, November 16, 1918, 12 :45 P. M.

GUESTS
Professor Thomas G. Masaryk,
President-Elect, Czecho-Slovakian Republic.
Professor Herbert Adolphus Miller,
Chairman, Mid-European Union.
Hon. Gilbert M. Hitchcock,
Chairman, Committee on Foreign Relations, United States
Senate.
Hon. Chauncey M. Depew,
Admiral Gaston Grout,
Personal Representative of His Excellency Andre Tardieu,
French High Commissioner.
Baron Serge Korff,
of Belgium.
Signor P. Triponi,
Italian Consul-General.
Brigadier General William B. Judson,
Personal Representative of Secretary of War.
Hon. Elbert H. Gary.
Chairman of the Board, United States Steel Corporation.
Hon. Thomas G. Patton.
Postmaster, City of New York. 3

HONORABLE JOHN B. STANCHFIELD:
It may not be amiss for me to say in the light of what has
transpired, that The Lawyers Club has reason, just reason, to be
proud of its accomplishments in the war. How well we suc
ceeded in the endeavor is best proved by what has been accom
plished. It is with feelings of great pride that I say to this
magnificent gathering that The Lawyers Club furnished to the
colors one hundred and fifteen men. We have contributed many
thousands of dollars to every charity and to every loan, and
when the last Liberty Loan was being floated we were assigned
a quota, with which the Committee expressed themselves as con
tent, of $50,000, and The Lawyers Club went ahead and raised
for the purpose of that loan in excess of $300,000. The flag
that hangs in the center of the hall will be a lasting testimonial
to the loyalty and the patriotism of the membership of this
organization. We concede now that the war is over, that the
questions that concern us to-day are quite as delicate and as
difficult to handle and call for quite as much patriotism and self-
sacrifice as did the period when we were converting this democ
racy into a warlike nation; and with that thought in view and
for the purpose of doing whatsoever we may in the cause of
the reconstruction of the nations of the world we purpose to
hold another series of monthly meetings. We are peculiarly
honored to-day. Out of the maelstrom of war have been evolved
new nations, new governments, and by the irony of fate there
was brought over the wires in the press of to-day from Berne,
Switzerland, this notice : "The Czecho-Slovak Republic was pro
claimed yesterday by the National Assembly." Professor T. G.
Masaryk was elected President according to an official dispatch
from France. I said that appeared this morning as a piece of
irony. Our distinguished guest did not have the information
until it was furnished to him at this luncheon to-day ; so we can
flatter and congratulate ourselves that we are first notifying him
of his election to the presidency of upwards of sixty millions.
A word and I will have done. There is but one cloud in the
horizon and that is the menace of anarchy, and speaking for
4

the management of The Lawyers Club let us all here and now
consecrate ourselves with ever - increasing devotion to the de
struction of the principle of anarchy. And in this country, where
to-day everyone, irrespective of race or color or creed or sex,
has and enjoys the right of suffrage, there is not to-day, there
cannot be, a place for the red flag. I take great pleasure in
introducing to this gathering as the Chairman of this occasion,
Mr. John A. Stewart.
JOHN A. STEWART, Esq. :
Mr. Stanchfield, Mr. President, Dr. Miller, Senator:
No harder task confronted George Washington, Alexander
Hamilton and the other great leaders of the American Revolu
tion in 1784 than faces Dr. Masaryk, first President of Czecho
slovakia, Dr. Miller, Jan Paderewski and those few others upon
whom will fall the grave responsibilities of constituting, upon a
basis of racial identity new self-governing states in that which
was to have been, by the decree of the Kaisers, the Autocracy
of Mittel-Europa. Not alone must our good-will go with them as they cross
the free seas to assume the task which has been thrust upon
them, but they must carry with them also our promise to give
to them that material help and friendly counsel, which, if we
withhold, now that the war is won, we are traitors to the cause
for which American blood has been shed.
In all the circumstances surrounding our belated entrance into
the war, we should feel that it is at least at last our high privilege
now to stand by and help, for only by so. doing can we win re
demption for the two years of our neutrality while Belgium was
being desolated. We may not forget that during the black months
from August 4th, 1914, to April 6th, 1917, it was the 60,000
American boys enlisted mainly with the Canadians that honored
in the observance America's traditional attitude towards little
nations defending themselves against the tyranny of might.
Therefore, it is not enough that we have put four millions of
S

men into uniform on land and sea; it is not enough that on land
and sea we have proved our manhood side by side with the best
of France and Britain; it is not enough that we have expended
fifty billions and more and mobilized our industries with an
alacrity and an efficiency that is unparalleled; it is not enough
that our citizens have given something ungrudgingly to feed the
hungry, clothe the naked and succor the sick — our sacrifice has
been relatively small as compared with that made by any of the
Allies. What we have spent has been hardly a year's income,
and this has been largely offset by profits. The horrors of war
have not been brought home to us, for only the presence of a
few wandering U-boats has given to us even remotely an idea
of what Belgium, France and England had to endure for four
years. Our citizens have not had to deny themselves any creature
comfort. For four years social life has gone on here almost as
if the world were at peace. In what accomplishment, then, shall
we take particular pride? What virtue in ourselves shall we
extoll? With what words shall we write down our history for
the past four years?
They that heard and heeded the first call to arms, alive to
humanity's grave danger and exemplifying their Americanism
under foreign flags, and they that since April, 1917, have donned
the uniform and have done each his or her part on the firing
line, in hospital, in every and any service that was demanded;
those who have gone about self-appointed and self-sacrificing
tasks with the Salvation Army and with other organizations that
have helped to sustain our fighting men — all these have kept the
faith for us, have given back to us much of our self-respect,
have upheld the American reputation for humanity ; have exalted
the American name, have realized and exemplified for us the
things for which America stands, have made real and vital those
Christian tenets to which, before this time, we had conformed
only with our lips. Yet the tardy part which we have taken in
the great war has conferred one great blessing upon us:
Let us be thankful to the Almighty that has brought us to
a consciousness of the glorious privilege which should be ours

when the war was over, and which now is ours in the constructive
work that lies before the world and which we can, if we will,
do more effectively than any other people.
If we would regain our rightful place in the esteem of
history, we must give all that we can in humane service, in wise
counsel, in constructive endeavor and in money. America now
faces the greatest and noblest task of her career, in this work
of reconstruction and of reconstitution. Some of our vast wealth
must be used to rebuild and upbuild, and all our fighting might
in mind and muscle must be used to protect in their peaceful
pursuits the Czecho- Slovaks, the Jugo-Slovaks, the Poles, the
Armenians and all those other aspiring and liberty-loving peoples,
who, through the travail of centuries, have kept alive in their
hearts the hope of freedom. When we give to these peoples it
must not be in the spirit of loaning ; when we loan to them it must
wholly be in the spirit of giving. In that we have spent billions
to help to destroy the tyranny of autocracy, now we must spend
equal billions to help to reconstitute Europe for democracy.
What does it advantage the world if with our help new
nations come into being, and we leave them, with fine words and
good wishes, to shift for themselves, and to become the prey
of Bolshevism, or imperial intrigue?
Are we so simple-minded as to believe that these sovereign
states so created can stand against the plot of present circum
stance and future possible international alignment unless we give
them not so much good-will and friendly wishes, but wise counsel
backed by cash? They must be helped to stabilize themselves.
Our people, through their government and through private busi
ness initiative, must join in underwriting Czecho-Slavonia, Jugo-
Slavonia, Armenia, and the Russia that is to be. We must help
them adequately not only to put their respective governments on
a sound financial basis, but we must aid their business men upon
generous terms to develop the natural resources of their respective
countries. Having aided in making them free, we must help them
to make ..their freedom permanently secure. If we do anything
7

less, if we stop short of this, we shall disappoint an admiring
world, give the lie to the traditions of our past, and make a scrap
of paper of the Declaration of Independence.
It is now my pleasant privilege, President Masaryk, to
introduce to you men and women whose "God speed you and
Good Luck!" will go with you as you sail the unmenaced seas
to take up the work which you have been appointed to do, and
to lead your people, free from the despot after many years,
safely across that zone of many dangers which lies between
war's desolation and anarchy and the happiness and peace of
the well-ordered and self-determined government which you and
your associates are about to found.
PRESIDENT-ELECT T. G. MASARYK, of Czecho- Slovakia :
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen :
My American friends, not only to-day but sometime since
I have been asked, "How do you feel, now that Germany and
Austria are defeated; how do you feel being the head of a new
government and state? You must feel very well. You must
be happy." I do not know whether I am happy, and I could not describe
my feelings. I have the feeling of responsibility. I should say
I have not the time to rejoice because I know I stand before
a huge problem, and I am conscious of the responsibility, not
only for my people but for all our nations with whom we will
be in union and co-operation. Not one of us must fail. That is
what I feel, and I am sure that all our nations in the East feel
the same. The task of this war, the aim of the future peace, is to
restore Eastern Europe for those who know history. I can say
in one word what is to be done. The old Eastern question is
to be solved. I mean by that, if we speak of reconstruction in
France, in England, in Italy and Belgium, there is nothing to
be reconstructed. There must be, of course, rebuilt what has
been annihilated and wasted — buildings, churches, villages — but
8

France has her own old institutions, her own civilization, her
government, her state, her policy. Not so in Poland or in Czecho
slovakia or with the South Slavs. We have not only to rebuild
but to create. We have to form a state. We have to settle the
boundaries. We have to establish new governments ; find the best
form of government and administration, and we must lay the
foundation for future civilization. That is only in the East of
Europe where this reconstruction work is waiting for the workers
of foreign nations and for workers of Europe and the new na
tions who are willing to help. The aim of this war is that these
nations which have been oppressed by Prussia, Austria-Hungary,
Turkey, and by old Russia — all these nations must be liberated.
You have a peculiar zone of smaller nations going from Finland
down to Greece — eighteen in all — and all of these eighteen nations
must be reconstructed, liberated and the foundation of future
peace must be laid here. That is the great task.
We must have a free Poland. That means not only like
the Germans wish to have it — the part of Russian Poland — but
of course Austrian Poland and German Poland too. Not only
a free Poland; we must have a free Czecho-Slovakia. We must
have a free and united Rumania ; we must have a free and united
Jugo-Slovakia. The Italians of Austria-Hungary — excuse me if
I speak of Austria-Hungary, that is of the past — I say, the
Italians must be redeemed. And then the nations in Western
Russia, the Balkans — all these nations must be free. On what
principle? The principle of democracy. That means on the
principle of nationality also. The principle of nationality is not
a kind of modern European Chauvinism. No. Nationality
means something quite different. It is the endeavor of every
nation — I say of every individual man — to unite with all man
kind. We don't strive only for the uniting of smaller nations,
but at the same time we are working for true internationalism.
We do not like to have a Chinese wall around these liberated
nations, but we say — and that is our first national platform —
the nation is the natural order of mankind, not the State of
Europe — the European State. Take Prussia, Austria, the old
9

Czaristic regime, wherever you look it is a state of dynasties,
and that is the practical dynasty state — an autocracy. We wish
to have a democratic state and such a state can only be founded
on the nations. Not a dynasty any more; the nations are the
real aim of administrative work. That is the new task in Europe.
Mankind, as your President has declared, must be liberated and
President Wilson says that is an American principle. Yes : but
not only American, it is the principle of all nations and of all
mankind. We accept it and we will live according to this noble
general principle.
You speak, my dear friends, of helping us and, as my
neighbor to the left expressed it, you must help by cash. That
is true in some sense, I say to some extent. But it is not only
money which governs and rules nations and governments, which
shapes the true relations of all mankind, it is the heart which
unites nations and all mankind. I am happy to say I found this
heart here in the United States, and I am happy to use this occa
sion now to thank you American citizens for the sympathy you
have shown not only to my nation but to all the nations who have
been oppressed and who fought with you for liberty and freedom.
Your government, your President, and the whole nation of the
United States helped us and with cash. I can tell you that yester
day I signed a document giving us a loan. It is therefore not only
sympathy but practical sympathy which your government and your
people have shown to us. Of course, I know America well enough
to know that you like to help if a man helps himself too. Be sure,
American friends, we won't bother you in vain. What we can.
/ do ourselyes^we .will do, and if we come _and-ask- for-help— you.
'"> can be sure that we nged,it, an4 as I told you -we- will -do our
"best to help ourselves quickly.
I suppose I dare say our nation showed that we know how
to help ourselves. Under the most indescribable circumstances
we have formed an army. We have revolted against Austria-
Hungary, and though I am humble enough, I dare say, my
American friends, that it was our nation and its revolution in
Austria-Hungary which brought about this downfall of Austria-
10

Hungary. Be sure of it, we won't ask your help — I repeat it —
if we can help ourselves.
One of the speakers pointed to the fact that it is our duty —
and I presume it is the duty of the National Government — to
destroy anarchy, not to let anarchy grow. Yes, that is true.
I know, and I am going home now thinking all the while what to
do. I have a plan. I feel my responsibility that our country
may show that freedom is not anarchy. I do not say that I will
manage by repression; no, gentlemen. I suppose the best means
to do away with some of the mistakes of freedom is to have
more freedom. Yes, freedom in every country, in every nation
must develop. No nation is free yet. We are growing. De
mocracy is in the very beginning. I imagine democracy is not
older than 200 years, whereas autocracy has had thousands and
thousands of years to develop and organize itself. Democracies
are in the beginning, and I know these nations in the East are
now in the beginning of their democratic era. We will be care
ful, and I would say we will be sensible enough not to misuse
liberty ; and so I see before me the great task of working in that
way with our government, that our republic be a member of the
European peoples and of all mankind.
It is not any more a question of German Mittel-Europa as
has been pointed out. No: we all have now the problem of
liberating mankind. Mankind as a unit, as a whole, must be
organized and the sense of this war is what those people who
provoked the war had no idea it would be. We say too, unite
the nations closer and unite all mankind. We in Bohemia and
Slovakia — I may point to this geographical fact, a kind of a
symbol if you like — we are the nearest to the United States. If
you come from the West to Europe you will find after your
friends in France and England and then Germany — the first na
tion which loves your nation is Bohemia. Go a step farther and
you will find the Poles ; you will find the Rumanians ; you will find
the South Slavs. All these nations look to you as their friend.
I feel like that. I feel that I am at home though not a citizen of
your noble nation. I may finish this my improvization — I did
11

not know that I would have to speak — I may finish with the
assurance that my nation as well as all other nations — the Poles,
the Rumanians, the South Slavs, and the Italians, now redeemed,
are thankful to you, to your Government and to your President.
You promised help. My American friends, I should say
the aim we have, and you can help us, is a very interesting task.
With a fair knowledge of Europe and of this Eastern question
you can make much. Your position is unique in this war. I take
it from a practical, so to say, human standpoint. You are not in
Europe. You have no territorial aims and you cannot have them.
Every nation in Europe must know and does know that it is the
principle of democracy you have been fighting for and you are
standing for. It is a wonderful thing for a great nation to fight
and work for a great principle. If it has been said "Noblesse
oblige," I would say a democracy obliges, and democracy obliges
you, my friends. You must-help us. . I. do not : ask_you.toJielp
us — you must! It is your duty because you are. andjnns±Jxe..the
best democrats and we will join you in democracy.
JOHN A. STEWART, Esq. :
As I sat here watching your faces as you listened intently
to what our friend, President Masaryk is pleased to call his im
provised remarks, but which you will all agree with me is elo
quence of the highest type, it occurred to me that only four genera
tions ago not counting this one, men and women of the United
States sat in the halls in this country under somewhat similar cir
cumstances, with the same posture towards the world and towards
mundane affairs as President Masaryk and Dr. Miller find them
selves in to-day. France had helped us to gain our freedom.
France had thrown into the scales in our interest that weight that
literally created out of chaos the United States of America, and,
therefore, Dr. Miller, it is with a sympathy that is not new-born,
that is not superficial, that we greet you here to-day. Now, sir,
permit me to introduce an audience which equal to any other like
number of men and women in the United States, stood from the
12

very first day of the war for that freedom, that liberty of thought
and mind and conscience without which life is not worth the
living. We congratulate you. I introduce you, sir, to this audi
ence of The Lawyers Club.
PROFESSOR HERBERT ADOLPHUS MILLER:
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen :
In spite of the high intellectual level which the Chairman
said was here, I am going to speak to you as a teacher. Four
years ago everyone in the world, almost, was afraid of the menace
of the Slavs. .Four months ago a very prominent official in the
United States said: "Who are the Czecho-Slavs and where do
they come from?". and when the reply was made, "ten million
allies lying between Austria and Germany," he was greatly
surprised. Only two months ago the editor of a prominent
magazine saw this map with the Czecho-Slovak Nation indicated
there in the middle, and he said : "What are the Czecho-Slavs
doing there in the middle of Europe, when we are reading about
them in Siberia?"
Now I think I am presuming on an average ignorance in
this audience with regard to the Czecho-Slavs. I do not want
you to get any misapprehension from the Germans. I am not
a Slav. I am American, born in America, but I have been taken
by Slavs to have been born and raised and educated in Europe.
All that is red on this map is Slavic. The large red is Poland
and Russia and the slightly different shades are the Czecho-
Slavs and the Jugo-Slavs and the Bohemians who are to-day
fighting as Slavs, who have predominant Slavic blood and Slavic
language. Now we will leave out of consideration for the time
the Slavs of Russia and I would like to say just a word about
the other Slavs. The general name, the generic term Slavs, in
cludes Russians, Ukranians, Poles, Czecho-Slavs and Jugo-Slavs.
Now the word Czecho-Slovak should not be taken as Jugo-Slavs.
Czecho is the name of a people and Jugo is the name of a people.
Jugo-Slav means South Slav. Now the Jugo-Slavs are composed
13

of the Slavonians who live up in the northern corner there, the
northwestern corner, the Croations, who are partly in what was
Hungary and Austria, the Slavs of Bosnia and Herzegovinia,
the Serbians of Serbia and the Montenegrins with some running
over beyond. Now those are South Slavs. All Slavs speak a
language which is very much alike — dialectic differences, alpha
betical differences. The Serbians, the Bulgarians and Russians
use the Cyrillic alphabet, Greek letters. The Poles, the Bo
hemians and Slavaks use the well-known obsolete Latin alphabet,
the Serbians and the Bulgarians belonging to the Orthodox
Greek Church. Most of the others are Roman Catholics. It has
been the policy of the Germans, the Turks and the Teutons to
use every possible means of dividing these peoples against one
another in order that they might rule them, so that there is
always the religious problem in the co-operation of these people ;
but I want to tell you that the most significant thing that this
war has brought about is the idealism of democracy as being
greater than any other state of man in the way in which religious
differences have been laid down in this struggle for freedom.
Last winter just after the declaration of war by the United
States against Austria-Hungary I attended a mass meeting of
Bohemians, Czechs and Slovaks to celebrate the event. The
two most popular speakers were the Roman Catholic priest and
the leader of the Bohemian Socialist party. Now there are cer
tain things which are very significant about this. The Poles
have been divided into three parts, and ruled most ruthlessly by
the Russians under the old Teutonic Czarism ; the German Poles
and the Austrian Poles. I think nothing in modern history is
more disgraceful than the way the Germans treated the Poles
down to the beginning of this war, when they were supposed
to be civilized. There is nothing more ingenious than the way
in which they tried to crush out nationality. But there is one
thing this war has shown the world, and that is that the soul of
a nation cannot be killed. Bohemia became a subject nation the
year the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock. It did not become
free again until the 19th of last October, and yet there is no
14

question about it, the only salvation for the Siberian and Russian
question that we could see six months ago — three months ago —
were the Czecho-Slovak soldiers in Siberia, and I feel very sure
that the idealism of President Masaryk, the self-control and
organization of the Czecho-Slovak soldiers as they come home,
the tremendously earnest spirit of the Bohemians and Czecho
slovaks in Moravia, are going to be the means by which the
center of Europe is going to be in the first place organized. And
now it has been stated, the vital danger is Bolshevism and
anarchy. There are among the Slavak people some institutions
which cannot very easily be understood by non-Slavs. You have
read a good deal about Russia. You know that down at the
bottom there was a vast amount of democratic organization, and
when revolution came there was at first, of course, a great out
burst of idealism. There was immediately an effort to organize
locally. It takes time to organize a great nation when you have
only the experience of local organization; but I want everyone
to remember that nowhere in the world have the simple demo
cratic organizations been preserved as among Slavs; and it does
not make any difference whether they are in Russia or Poland
or Czecho-Slovakia or Serbia, it is the same thing. The way that
Bolshevism can be destroyed and with your help and vast amount
of wealth and loaning power, is by out-idealizing the idealistic
element in anarchy. I want you to clearly understand that. These
people are revolting against age-long conditions. They are going
to the extreme to prevent those conditions from being perpetuated.
In the minds and souls of those peoples there is that ideal of
freedom which cannot be put down. We must have patience.
As President Masaryk has just stated, for hundreds of years
these peoples have not had the privilege of self-government.
They have not had the privilege of education in their own
language and in their own religion. It is going to take time;
it is going to take patience; it is going to take sympathetic
understanding; but this thing I know they are resolved upon,
and that is, that their economic institutions may not be given
up to outsiders. They want to help themselves, I know. You
IS

must help them in the most idealistic way that money ever went
to the service of mankind. We have got to remember that we
are in a new era; that idealism and the struggle for freedom
has been for the last four years the dominant note of humanity ;
that money must be only an instrument of life; and in the re
organization of these peoples you gentlemen who can lend money
must never for a moment forget that if you are going to help
in the reconstitution of the world that your help with money must
be in the most idealistic way that money was ever offered, and I
guarantee you that the peace of the world will be maintained by
these Slavs of whom the rest of the world have been so ignorant ;
if you will only be patient, if you will only understand; if you
will only help.
JOHN A. STEWART, Esq. :
If we have gained anything from the war; if it has been
helpful to us in any respect, it is in this, that it has seemed, and
I believe it has brought us to a realization, that the scheme of
things inaugurated by the fathers of this republic one hundred
and thirty-four years ago was as good as that ever devised by
man for the population which then existed here and which has
subsequently existed. In other words, the American idea
conceived by them is that of individualism, each individual
standing upon his own feet, with rights equal to those
of every other individual, prone sometimes to be a little self-
assertive, but by the same token equal to almost any task that can
be imposed upon a human being. In times of crises like that
through which we are just passing, we have always found the
means and the man to do the work. And therefore, my friends,
I take particular pleasure in thus characterizing the Chairman of
the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations as one who has risen
to the full stature of his task. Ladies and gentlemen, Senator
Hitchcock, of Nebraska, the Chairman of the Senate Committee
on Foreign Relations. 16

SENATOR GILBERT M. HITCHCOCK:
Mr. Masaryk :
I deserve the sympathy of this splendid audience, in the
position I now occupy, of appearing as the last speaker upon a
program which has presented so eloquently and so intellectually
the questions that you are here to discuss. I am very much
afraid, Mr. Chairman, of an anti-climax. I am a little in the
position of the Scotchman. You know it is said that upon a
continental train in the days before the war, if you traveled in
Europe you could detect the nationality of the passengers to some
extent by the manner in which when the train drew into a station
the passengers began to leave the car. First of all as the whistle
sounded and the train came to a stop, the American grabbed his
hand belongings and tore open the door and jumped onto the
platform before it was hardly safe, and when the train had come
to a stop if a man methodically picked up his belongings and
alighted, it was said he was English. And last of all the Scots
man, after all had left the carriage, rose from his place and took
what was left. Now, Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen : There
has been nothing left for me. It is an inspiring thought that in
these days of falling empires and crumbling governments, we
are entertaining here to-day as the guest of honor a man
destined to be the head of one of the world peoples revived upon
modern foundations. I appreciate the honor and I am sure that
you do. I cannot entirely agree with President Masaryk, how
ever, that there is more1 than the work of reconstruction neces
sary. He has described to you how during generations under
the heel of oppression his people and other peoples of central
Europe or eastern Europe have been ground into the very dust;
how their institutions have been destroyed; how an attempt has
been made to wipe out their culture and their civilization; but
after all, remember this : A people cannot be destroyed. I re
member when the great earthquake occurred in San Francisco,
we said San Francisco was ruined and so it seemed to me. Fire
swept over that great city and it seemed to be a thing of the
past. But the people remained, and from the ashes the beautiful
17

city soon arose again, more splendid than ever. And so with
Czecho-Slovakia; so with Poland; so perhaps with other of the
oppressed peoples of eastern Europe. They have endured. They
have persisted, and the presence to-day of this distinguished
scholar and statesman is evidence of that fact that the people of
Czecho-Slovakia have survived and cannot be destroyed and that
merely the placing of new foundations under that people is
needed to restore the government upon modern ideas. Mr. Chair
man, the end of this great war has brought us face to face with
the great problems of the war. Our part in it has been consider
able. We have not suffered as our associate nations have
suffered. We have not endured as they have endured nor had
as large a part in the great achievement. But there comes to
us at the present time a high important duty in preserving the
fruits of the struggle that has been gone through; and just as
to Great Britain has been given the naval leadership which won
the war ; just as to France was fortunately given in the presence
of General Foch the great military leadership which made victory
a year before we had thought it possible, so_ there Jiaj come to
the United States a great moral leadership in the diplomacy of
the final settlement of the questions of the war. Months before
victory seemed in sight, yes, in the very days when things were
blackest in bleeding France and suffering Belgium, in the very
time when it seemed almost impossible to think of victory, it
fell to the. Jot-of. lhe._great President of the United States to
declare the terms of peace. In declaring them jhe voiced the
spirit of America, way back on the 8th day of January of the
present year; and the declarations he then made, which were
accepted by the United States with practical unanimity, have
with very slight modifications, been accepted in principle by all
our associated nations in this struggle. It was a fitting climax
in the history of nations that there should come to this great
republic after only one hundred and fifty years of development,
the opportunity for a great moral leadership in settling the war.
When our country entered the war, late, it is true, too late some
people thought, not only the spirit of victory, but the issues were
18

raised to a higher level, into a new realm. People ceased to
think merely of boundaries. They began to think of great prin
ciples which were to be forever established as the achievement
of the war. We were in an altruistic position, a fitting climax
to other altruistic periods of our existence; we were not con
fronted with the imminent dangers of the European nations that
had suffered so much. We had nothing to gain in boundaries,
nothing jQ..,JippeJ,iQrJtod^
denrmti^e£«^^ We_ entered the
war for humanity, entered the war to save civilization and to
prevent Europe from reverting to the dark ages. So I say, ladies
and gentlemen, it is a fitting climax to some of the great periods
in the history of the nation that our Declaration of Independence
should practically be accepted in its leading principles as the
principles which are to settle this war and end wars forever.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain in
alienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness, and that to secure these rights governments are
instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the con
sent of the governed." That was our charter, and that is the
new charter of the world to-day, boiled down into less language
than any of us could write. And we have lived up to it. When
the Monroe Doctrine was announced the United States gave
protection to all the republics of the Western Hemisphere and
served notice on the conquest-mad nations of the old world that
they should not extend their conquests here. When the time
came the United States stepped forward and struck off the
shackles from the Cubans and gave the Cuban Island to the
Cuban people. When the Philippine Archipelago twenty years
ago fell into the control of the United States, we entered upon
an era of altruistic policy towards those ten million Philippine
people which stands to-day as the most sublime evidence the
world has ever known of a treatment by a great people of a
small one. ' Have you realized what we have done for the Philip
pine people, with nothing to gain from it, at the cost of hundreds
19

of millions of dollars to us. Eight thousand miles from our
shores in the very shadow of Asia, where ancient civilization is
crumbling into ruin, there is growing up to-day what is the
equivalent to an American Republic under the protection of the
United States. Seven hundred and fifty thousand Philippine
children are attending schools taught in English, and it will only
be a few years before the whole Philippine people will be speak
ing English instead of the fifteen dialects we found them with.
Shall we doubt, ladies and gentlemen, coming now to this great
epoch in the world's history that terminates with this terrible
war, can we doubt that the United States^will perform-its -duty
towards humanity everywhere, towards these struggling nations
one of which Prof. Masaryk represents; towards people every
where in the old world; and that our influence will be used to
write into the final treaty of peace such principles as will ever
lastingly guarantee not only permanent peace of the world, but
international justice; the right of self-government to people small
as well as large; and that thus will be achieved the ultimate
destiny of the United States as a world power. I thank you.
JOHN B. STANCHFIELD, Esq. :
May I not ask you to remain. There is one more act in the
drama of to-day. I give you my word — it is all a lawyer has
to give — that if you will remain a few moments you will enjoy
the treat of the afternoon. The Lawyers Club is about to confer
the honorary degree of life membership upon young Dr. Depew.
I am not in his class. Therefore, I will ask President Butler
who is, to say a word about the conferring of that testimonial.
WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER, Esq. :
Mr. Chairman, Honored Guests, Members of The
Lawyers Club :
It has always been my very pleasant prerogative to welcome
the ladies. The women of this country have done such a splendid
work in winning this war, that on this occasion, the first meeting
20

for the winter, it is fitting that some recognition from the club,
through me as its President, should go to them. Wherever I
have been, this past summer, the activities of the women and
their splendid backing of the men in war work has been evi
denced. It has been remarked that the women of this country
were becoming so efficient that very soon they would be able
to support their husbands. That is a fine outlook for the married
men. It is my very pleasant duty to-day to state that the Board
of Governors of this club has nominated for Honorary Life
Membership, a citizen of whom we are proud, Dr. Depew. He
is a member of our profession, has served in the legislature of
this State, has been president of the greatest railroad system in
the world, has represented the Empire State in the Senate, has
been connected with hundreds of humanitarian interests in this
city, and all through this war has raised his voice from day to day
in favor of every patriotic American sentiment. Dr. Depew,
everything in sight is yours. For thirty years you, as a resident
member, participated in the liabilities of this institution; hence
forth you are only interested in its assets. We look upon you not
as eighty-five years old, but as eighty-five years young. We hope
that you may be spared many years to enjoy the hospitalities of
The Lawyers Club. Rest assured that this comes to you as a
matter of our friendship, as a matter of our respect, as a matter
of our affection and regard. Once I heard you say that you
placed at the top of the assets of a lifetime "Friendship." This
is our act of friendship. Ladies and gentlemen, I have the honor
to present Dr. Chauncey M. Depew.
HONORABLE CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW :
Ladies and Gentlemen :
I suppose I have been introduced to audiences in 62 or 63
years that I have been on the platform, more times than any living
American. This is the first time, however, that my introduction
has been preceded by an eulogium of the women. Of course. I
21

have admired the ladies all my life, and done what I could to
make them happy, but I did not know they were to share in this
honorary degree. Do you know, if you live long enough, nearly
everything will come to you? It is a matter of time; and the
beautiful thing about it is that when you are advanced in years,
your stating the thing doesn't lead people to believe you are brag
ging about yourself because it is what comes in the course of
nature. Now I look back over eighty-five years — seventy of which
have been of intense activity. I have had my ups and downs
and good luck and bad luck, and losses and gains, but when I
come to sum it up I think I have got on the whole about what I
deserve. It is all a matter to what, during the later years, the
waves will cast up on the sands of time. If it gives to you
friends, notwithstanding your years; if it gives to you health;
if it gives to you work sufficient to keep your mental and physical
activities alive, then life is worth living.
Now, one of the great elements is hope, and I have been hop
ing for this honor for thirty years. But hope does not amount to
much without faith, and I confess that during these thirty years
faith has weakened. Still I had a lesson the other day in faith.
I was going up the Avenue when the Liberty Loan Drive was
on and in front of the Library was a great meeting addressed by
a lady. In my boyhood days in Peekskill a circus never went
through the town that I did not follow it, and joined the crowd.
Immediately there came to me that man you all know, that
enthusiastic gentleman whom I did not know. He said, "Senator,
glad to see you here ; how are you ?" I said, "Is that lady Miss
Blank? The sign up there says so." He said, "Yes, and she is a
crackerjack; she is the finest woman speaker in the world, and
the speech she is making now is the finest speech she ever deliv
ered." I said, "My dear friend, the noise around here is so great
I cannot hear a word." He said, "Neither can I."
Now I have always had faith in this Club because I was one
of the founders. It was a serious proposition. Mr. Hyde, of the
22

Equitable, created it. He was very resourceful and a great genius
and he built one of these immense modern buildings. But thirty
years ago down in this section of the town there was not that
flying from all parts of the world there is now. To-day from all
over the northern and southern hemisphere, and from Europe,
they are coming here to find offices, until every square inch of
ground goes up to the sky like a Kohinoor diamond. But it was
not so then. So how to utilize the upper floors. In the conclave
in which my friend here who introduced so eloquently, Mr. Butler,
was a member, someone suggested a dining club. "It has got to
be unique. Let us call it The Lawyers Club." "But," said some
body, "there are not lawyers enough with business enough." Then
came the bright idea : "Invite your clients and let them pay for it."
That settled the question, as it always does where lawyers are
concerned. So our Club has gone on. But I have had a unique distinc
tion in it. For twenty odd years I have been so much at Washing
ton, and when here I have been uptown, and I could not get down
here to enjoy these facilities. I made it a rule, however, to lunch
here once a year, and I lunched here on the day on which my
dues were payable. Then I attached to my bill for my lunch my
dues of $100 and the $100.75 put me in the front rank of
lunchers. No such lunch was ever had before or ever paid for,
and now I have the reward. But, my friends, I appreciate this
as any man must appreciate a compliment that comes from long
association, especially when those associates are such as the mem
bers of this Club. Leading lawyers, and great judges, during
these times, have been members of this Club and enjoyed its hos
pitality. It has been the gathering place of lawyers who have
been the ornaments of the profession, and I appreciate most
highly that I am now selected to receive this honor, and I thank
you for it.
But, my friends, you cannot help feeling the inspiration that
has come from the eloquent words of the gentlemen who have
addressed us — our friend the newly-elected President of this new
great republic of Czecho-Slovakia, our friend who has voiced its
23

aspirations, and that distinguished United States Senator Hitch
cock who is an ornament to the State which he represents, and
to the great body of which he is a member.
But my friends, we are here because it is an occasion of joy —
immense, uncontrollable, joy ; it is a joy to see a new nation born,
and born why? Because it is born out of the ultimate results of
our Declaration of Independence.
You know Professor Masaryk said that "you expect us to
do our part." My friends, we as young people used to read of
Xenophon and his 10,000 Greeks seeking safety. But we
have read with infinitely more spirit and enthusiasm in our
old age of 30,000 Czecho-Slovaks, prisoners in Russia, ordered
to be delivered to their oppressors and shot, who marched over
six thousand miles, not to save themselves but to reach a port
where they could join the armies of civilization and humanity on
the Western front. And all along that line destroying anarchy
and Bolshevikism and establishing orderly government.
My friends, there comes to my mind a little recollection just
now personal to myself which might be appropriate to the
occasion. I was thirty years ago at a hotel at Salzburg in Au
stria. The ladies will remember Salzburg as the place where a
Salzburgian had seven wives. The secret of how he managed
to be so lucky was revealed by the eighth who escaped and told
the story. It seems that after he got tired and wanted a new
one, he tied his wife to a bed-post and tickled her feet until she
died of convulsions, and then after the eighth revealed what was
the matter, they executed him and buried him alongside of the
seven so their spirits could comfort him. I visited them.
One day it was announced with great excitement in the hotel
that the old German Emperor was approaching. Soon he
came in accompanied by his staff and the present Emperor, then
a young man. The old man was feeble, but when he saw the
crowd he braced up like a grenadier and followed the iron
bedstead which he always carried with him, upstairs. The next
day the Major Domo of the party, with that knowledge from
24

secret service which is so peculiarly German, knew everybody
in the hotel, came to me knowing all about me, as much as I did
about myself, and said, "The old gentleman is in a very bad way
and we are in trouble." And then I had an opportunity of talking
to the staff and of seeing the young man. Two days afterwards
the Major Domo came to me and said : "The Emperor is leaving
to-day. There are two hundred English in this hotel, and they
are all on the upper landing; they are each one with a bouquet
and a spokesman with an address waiting for him to come down
so they can greet him." I may say there was only one other
American family in this hotel beside my own, and we sent the
old gentleman a bouquet the day he arrived and I wrote a little
address to him. He said the emperor was very much pleased
with the present. He was very much pleased with that address,
and if I would be with my little party — at the foot of the lift —
he would there greet us. So at the foot of the lift stood the other
family and my family. The Emperor was most cordial. The
young man, his grandson, who spoke English perfectly, inter
preted. I had a pleasant conversation with him and formed a
high idea of his ability, and then they went off. In half an hour
afterwards the waiting English with their bouquets discovered
they were gone.
Now the future of this young man at that time seemed very
hopeless. His grandfather seemed likely to live for many years ;
his father was in middle life and likely to live as long as his
grandfather, and yet in six months from that time the grand
father died, the son came to the throne, and in three months he
died; within nine months of that time that young man was
Emperor of Germany. Some years afterwards I was in London
and was to dine with an eminent English statesman, Lord Rose-
bery, to meet Mr. Gladstone. As I went in, I found my friend,
the host, in a high state of excitement, and he said : "In Punch
to-day is one of the most extraordinary cartoons that has ever
appeared in that paper. I have been down and bought the original
sketch." He had it hanging in his library as one of his choicest
possessions, though it was surrounded with priceless works of art.
25

It was "The Dropping of the Pilot." There was a picture of a
great German ship, and leaning, smiling and confident over the
rail was the youthful face of the German Emperor, and down at
the bottom of the steps, just going into the boat, was the discarded
pilot, Bismarck. And the English statesman said: "In that pic
ture there may be more history and peril to Europe than in any
thing that has occurred in this generation." The next time I saw
the Emperor was several years afterwards at the Diamond Jubilee
of Queen Victoria. From all the seven seas had been gathered
the vast fleet of the Island Empire, the Mistress of the Seas, to
greet their Queen, the Queen, on the sixtieth anniversary of her
reign. Suddenly there appeared among them a fleet of German
war vessels and everybody was deeply interested. It was the
German Emperor who at that time was arousing the curiosity and
apprehension of Europe. He came with the Prince of Wales on
the ship where I was. The Prince of Wales, as always, was most
affable, polite and cordial. The Emperor was very quiet and re
served, until the captain of our ship said: "Your Majesty, here is
a new gun just invented, a rapid firing gun." In an instant the
whole atmosphere of the Emperor changed. He was all over that
gun; he examined every part of it and then gave vast orders to
his fleet commander for its purchase. It was plain to see that his
whole thought and mind was military, and everybody said, "For
what?" And nobody appreciated it was for the conquest of all
the world. A few years afterwards I was in Paris. The Emperor had
made demands of France which would have led to war, and then
he had demanded the dismissal of the French Foreign Secretary
of State, something never known before. Then he asked that he
should have his hands free to crush France. That was stopped
by the emphatic "no" of his grandmother, Queen Victoria. But
from that time to this there has never been a moment when the
French people have not looked with apprehension and terror
across the Rhine. There has never been a moment when there
was not a threat, when there was not almost a movement to cross
the Rhine and repeat 1871 greater than before and crush France.
26

Finally that day came. We have seen it all; we have been
with the French heart and soul ; we have seen how wonderful was
their spirit, men, women and children, and to-day, on this very
day Foch, the great commander, enters Metz, which was the seal
of the surrender of France in 1871. My friends, when I think of
the Emperor and what he was, and what he had and what he
might be, when he had almost made an economic conquest of the
whole world and then started for physical conquest and lost it all ;
and where he is now, it seems below the dignity of the occasion,
but it really inspires a limerick that I heard many years ago :
Little Willie from the mirror
Licked the mercury all off,
Thinking in his childish error
It would cure his whooping cough ;
At the funeral Willie's mother,
Sadly said to Mrs. Brown,
'Tw^-3 " cXJ^x It waoacord day for Willie,
When the mercury went down.
Well, my friends, in judging the Emperor — and we are
judging him now very well all over the world — we must remem
ber that when he entered into this war every man in the Ger
man Army was for it and the general staff was threatening him
if he did not declare it. We must remember that every professor
in the German universities was for it. We must remember that
every preacher in the German pulpits was for it, and we must re
member that every man, woman and child in Germany was for it.
All sorts of punishments are offered or suggested. But, my
friends, physical punishments amount to little. I read the story
of Ravaillac, the assassin of Henry IV., and how on the third day
he commenced to laugh and his torturers said, "What are you
laughing at?" He said, "You have destroyed sensation; I don't
feel you any more." But the agony of the mind never dies. The
Kaiser has six hundred years of an ancestry that he worships, six
hundred years of the greatest inheritance that ever came to a
27

human being. Like a gambler it was risked on the throw of a
dice, and he lost, and for the rest of his life, if he lives ever so
long, he lives amidst sorrow, regret and bitterness. He is desert
ed by the Kings whom his vanity has hurled from their thrones,
cursed by the people of other lands, by his own people who have
suffered to much, and cursed by his own people. Why? Be
cause he did not win and bring them the loot which they hoped
to share. My friends, let us be just. But let us help to keep off
the dark cloud of anarchy until Germany can be so reconstructed
that throwing in the background the debt she owes for this war,
she can create a debt which will repay the sufferings from her
horrors. Now, my friends, here we are this day and really I want to
shake hands and embrace everybody. This day is the most joyful
in all the world. I remember the day on which it was flashed
through the country that Lee had surrendered at Appomatox to
Grant. There was wild joy, but with it was the feeling that it was
brothers differing from us and fighting for a different ideal who
had been whipped, and the rest of the world cared nothing about
it except to regret that the great American Republic with its ideas
had not been destroyed. But to-day for the first time in all the
world we get the ideal which Christ saw on the scaffold of Peace
on Earth and Good Will Among Men. To-day for the first time
in two thousand years all the peoples of this earth are rejoicing
because they are going to have the peace of the Cross and the
realization of the Liberty of our Declaration of Independence.
JOHN B. STANCHFIELD, Esq. :
In dismissing this audience I have but one word to say : We
thank you for your appreciation of this gathering. We ask you
to come again to our other meetings ; and is there anyone of this
audience now who has the hardihood to question my word when
I said the last would be the treat of the feast?

2,8

PRESS OP H. K. BREWER & CO.
58 UBEBTV STBKET. KEW YORK.,

3 9002 08954 2410

777 :
'7.XX-:

',