Some after-dinner

and other talks.

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THE LIBRARY

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

Some after-dinner

and other talks.

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4ial

What was called th» Steel Banquet—" In honor of the men who had demonstrated the
practicability of convertInK Sciuthern white iron into gteel bv the open hearth, basic process "—
was held in ChnttanooKn, Tenn., en the eveninu of Miirili 13, 1891. The Tiniei of that city
pronounced it " the most nolahle event uf the kiiul in the hisl«iry o) the South." Said that journal :
•' Never before has there been a more ilistinKuished (.'alherinjc in our section. Not only was the
flower of Southern citizenthip represented iit the lmnc(Uet, but men of natii nal fame from all parts
of the country, and from the ranks of both poliiiial parties, joined in the occasion." The toast
responded to was " Our Country. One heart, ono band, one flag, one land, one nation evermore."

AMONG the most delightful experiences of my
life I count atrip which it was my privilege
to make through your section some two years
ago — in company with others, several of whom
are at this table — and as I look back upon it now,
the day of that trip, which stands out in my
^ memory, as perhaps the most enjoyable, was the
one spent here with you. Though so long a
6 time has since then elapsed, not one of the inci-
^ dents of that day's pleasure has yet come to be
5 dim in my memory. I recall them all, as if the
^,j occurrences were of yesterday, and running
r: through them, like a golden thread through a
^ fabric, is a grateful recollection of the exceeding
kindness and courtesy I met, while with you, at
the hands of every one with whom I came in

461463

contact. Such being the case, you can imagine
the readiness with which I accepted the invita-
tion to be here to-night. Not only am I glad to
meet you all again, but I rejoice in being per-
mitted to assist in doing honor to the gentlemen
to whom the compliment of this splendid ban-
quet has been extended.

I remember that in the invitation which I re-
ceived it was set forth with much exactness just
why these gentlemen have been thought deserv-
ing of this tribute, but it makes no difference to
me in what direction their efforts have been put
forth to serve you. It is enough for me to know
that they have contributed of their brains and
money to the rehabilitation of your section, be-
cause I hold myself, as every right-minded citi-
zen of the republic who dwells north of the
Potomac or the Ohio holds himself, always ready
to do honor to any one who has, by ever so little,
helped the South to its feet and its proper place
in the Union.

We still hear occasionally of jealousy and envy
between the sections, but I stand here to aver
that, so far as jealousy is concerned, there is no
single fact which so fills the great heart of the
North with gladness as that the South has re-

covered from its long prostration — that the
clouds which lowered above you have passed
away, and that the sunshine of prosperity is
now beating down upon your people. And as
for envy — why, gentlemen, there is nothing of
which the people of the North are so proud as
of your progress in manufactures— that you are
so fast coming to rival the North in everything
in which it has hitherto been considered the
North would always be without a rival.

And this is as it should be, because the war is
really over, though there are some with you, as
with us, who are apparently not yet aware of
the fact. Those with you are still declaring at
banquets like this, and upon other public occa-
sions, at great length and with much care, their
views with reference to issues that have been
dead and buried for more than twenty-five years.
Those with us are still cherishing and occasion-
ally flaunting an old shirt that once was bloody,
but so long ago that the stains of the blood have
faded out of it. Fortunately these peripatetic
ghosts are daily growing fewer, and let us unite
in prayer that a good God will soon take them
all home. It may be hard to part with them,
but when they shall have been " called in '' we

must try to bear their loss with Christian resig-
nation.

But we who constitute the rank and file — as
Lincoln called us, " the plain people " — of both
sections, we know and rejoice that the war is
ended. We have banished even the recollection
of it from our minds. As Thackeray replied to
the woman who asked what the English people
thought of Proverbial Philosophy Tupper,
" they don't think of him, madam " — so we don't
think of the war any more! As if there had
never been a difference between us, we have
joined hands, like brothers, as we are, in perfect
confidence, and all together with a will we are
pressing forward with our life work, in more
even rank and with more regular step than ever
before. For this glorious consummation God
be praised, and palsied forever be the tongue
now to suggest to either of us, distrust of the
other. Ours henceforward the sacred duty
jomtly to protect and perpetuate our precious
nationality, and we of the North are just as sure
of the good faith of you men of the South, in the
sacred trust, as we are of our own.

After I had accepted the invitation to be
with you to-night, I was for a while at a loss as to

what I could say to you that would be of inter-
est ; and, while turning the matter over in my
mind, I remembered that when your silver-
tongued and matchless Grady delivered that ad-
dress before our New England Society which
made him famous in a night, he asked us of the
North whether we meant " to let the prejudice
of war live in the hearts of the conquerors
after it had died out of the hearts of the con-
quered ? ''

Our answer to that question ?

Well, gentlemen, it has covered more than a
quarter of a century !

You heard it years ago when death stalked
through the streets of your city of Memphis.
You heard it again when the earthquake shat-
tered Charleston, and a cry of despair went up
from its every household.

You have long seen it all about you, in )'Our
almost every enterprise — your railroads, your
booming towns, your humming factories, roaring
furnaces and newly opened mines.

The guns were ranged about Charleston
harbor, but glorious old Virginia, mother of
States and of Presidents, had not yet declared
for war. One of her sons, more hot headed and

rash than the rest, impatient at her delay, hurried
to Charleston, and there, from the balcony of the
Mills House, urged the immediate shedding of
blood as necessary to fetch Virginia into the
strife. His speech was the signal — that night
the guns opened fire. At his word the flames of
civil war burst forth to rage and consume for
four long years. That — boy then, old man now
— sits to-night, an honored judge upon the bench
of one of the highest courts of our Empire State,
and we point to him, and to hundreds like him
in positions of similar eminence and trust
throughout the North, as our further answer to
Grady's question.

Well, gentlemen, it has occurred to me, that
as Grady, standing before our New England
Society, availed himself of the opportunity to
ask of the North a pointed question, I might
take the privilege, through your Chamber of
Commerce, to ask of the South a question just as
pointed.

No matter what other issues were involved
in the war that was between us, the reason why
the North entered the strife, and so lavishly
poured out its blood and treasure, was to vindi-
cate the inviolability of our nationality ; and no

matter what other result was accomplished by
the war, it established once and for all time the
supremacy of that nationality — that the republic
is more than any of its parts — the Union greater
than any of its States.

Now, 1 don't ask whether you, who were
born long ago to the other idea, who sucked in
with your mother's milk the later theories of
Calhoun and were reared upon them — I don't
ask whether you have so far changed in your
old age, that you fully and freely, without men-
tal reservation, accept that supremacy of nation-
ality which the war has fixed in our political
creed, immutable as the north star in the skies.

I stop right here, however, having spoken
the charmed name of Calhoun in your midst, to
declare that in all the length and breadth of your
Southland there is not one who holds the name
of the illustrious Carolinian in deeper reverence
than I do.

Calhoun was and has always been facile
prmceps of all your statesmen ! He was one of
the illustrious trio — America's greatest sons,
whose "names were not born to die."

But, gentlemen, nature to me is loveliest in
the spring-time, when the air is clear and pure,

the grass is green and the streams are running
full — not later, when the air is filled with buzz-
ing things, the grass is burnt brown, the roads
are dusty and the streams have run dry. So I
revere the memory of the great Carolinian in
the spring-time of his life, when in his youthful
enthusiasm he was full of a patriotism about
which there was nothing sectional or narrow ;
not later, when the juices of life had dried up
within him and he looked at everything through
jaundiced eyes. I revere him when in i8ii,as
chairman of the House Commitee on Foreign
Relations, he wrote a report on the President's
message which rang through the country like a
clarion, startling the people with the intensity of
its nationality, and fetching every American to
his feet ready to defend it. I exult in him when,
later, he urged the creation of great national
highways in order, as he put it, to " more closely
unite the sections," and asserted the right of
Congress under the Constitution to construct
and maintam them. I rejoice in him when he
advocated a national bank, and defended the
constitutional right of the government to estab-
lish and conduct it. 1 am proud of him when,
in 1816, he delivered his great speech on the

tariff, and made an argument in favor of the
protection of American industries which during
all the rest of his life he was not able to answer.
So you see, gentlemen, as far as Calhoun is con-
cerned, honors are easy between us — you revere
one end of his life and I revere the other,

(I don't know but that I have made a mistake
in this allusion to Calhoun. I'm led to think so,
because I see my friend, the grandson of the
grandfather, at the other end of the table, glar-
ing at me with blood in his eye, as if he meant
to jump on me with both feet when I shall have
taken my seat. But I am a stranger here — your
guest — and I look to you, men of Tennessee, to
protect me while among you from assault.
Perhaps, however, I may assuage the grandson's
wrath by a suggestion, which occurs to me, in
the way of a political tip to the other side of the
house. You Democrats I know are all at sea as
to the best name with which to head your ticket
in the next national campaign. Well, it may not
be a wise thing for me to do, but I can suggest to
you a name, the combination of which is as sure
to win in politics as the famous combination —
four-eleven-forty-four — is always sure they say
to win at the darkey's game of policy. That

name is Pat Calhoun! And why? Well, I'll
tell you wh3\ Because no man whose eyes
were first opened to the light south of Mason
and Dixon's line would ever think of voting
against the name of Calhoun. That end of the
name therefore would carry the South solid ;
while the other end of it would corral the sup-
port of the ruling element of the North, because
" begorra, divil a son of the ould sod is there
among us, that would dare to casht a vote against
a man by the name of Pathrick.")

But to come back to the question. I say, I
don't ask you, who have been brought up to
put your State before your country, whether
you have changed, but what I do ask is this:
How are you bringing up your youth?

Are you raising your boys to a patriotism
based upon the lines of their States, or are you
instilling into their young hearts a patriotism as
broad as the continent ?

I repeat that we of the North trust you men
of the South, as we do ourselves, in the sacred
care of our nationality ; but all the same, as
Grady put his question to us, so put I mine to
you : " Are you people of the South still, as of
old, teaching your boys at their mothers' knees,

in the schools and colleges, that their first love
and duty are owing to their States, or are you
teaching them, above all things else, to love and
honor their country, and that their first and
highest duty is always to the Nation ? "

Grady asked his question from the standpoint
of a Southern man, but I ask mine, not as a
Northern man, nor as a member of any political
part3^ but simply as your fellow -citizen of the
Republic — enjoying, with you all, the sublime
heritage of our nationality.

And as Grady left his question with us to con-
sider and answer, so, men of the South, I shall go
back to my home, leaving with you my question.

When on our trip through the South two
years ago we went to Rome, in the State of
Georgia. There is a beautiful monument there
to the memory of the Confederate dead, erected
upon the edge of a high cliff, from the base of
which the country spreads out like a map as far
as the eye can reach — a scene of surpassing
beauty.

Standing in the shadow of that monument we

saw from wide apart points in the horizon two
rivers flowing toward us. The closer they ap-
proached, winding their ways through the land-
scape, the nearer and nearer they came to each
other, till, just at the foot of the precipice and
directly beneath the monument, all distance be-
tween them vanished and their waters flowed
together — one mighty river, sweeping past the
height, on its way, resistless, toward the sea.

Those two rivers, it seemed to me, were
typical of us, the North and South ! Once, liice
the rivers, we were separated, but with the ad-
vancing years we drew nearer and nearer to each
other, till reaching the point of time when the
Confederate war had come to be but a monu-
ment and a memory, all difference between us
vanished, and we became one — a mighty nation,
sweeping, resistless on, to the fulfillment of its
destiny.

My friends, my brothers, more than towns
or cities or counties or States, let us love our
country.

The dear old Republic, circled by the beat-
ing billows, walled by the free air, arched by
heaven's blue, and lit by the eternal star of
hope — let us all love the Republic, and may

there never more be strife between us, except as
to which of us shall love it best !

U. S. Senator Manderson following, laid :

" I do not think any man ever occupied a more unenviable position than I do at this
moment. I stand upon the brilliant mosaic laid by the orator who has jnst closed his lips, and I
am at a loss for worus. Never have I heard, never have you heard, a more eloqaent response to
a toast."

The ChaUanooga Time* said ;

" The scene that followed ihe speech will long be remembered by all who witnessed it.
Battle* scarred veterans of the Northern and Southern armies rofte together and lustily cheered the
patriotic sentiments of the speech, and together waved the flags, the Stars and Stripes, with
which the room and tables were decorated."

II.

At the aniiunl bai.qutrt of the Postgraduate Medical Society, Hotel Brnniwick, May, 1891.

IF you wonder how it is that an outsider like
me has been permitted the privilege of a seat
with you at this banquet board, I would remark
that I am not entirely without right to be here,
because I have studied medicine — that is to say
once upon a time, when I was a young man, I
attended lectures. If, when you contemplate the
color of my hair, you are disposed to locate that
time somewhere about the close of the last cen-
tury — well, you are not very far from right.
But no matter just when it was ; for several
seasons I sat beneath the fluent Dunglison, heard
the stately Gross, watched the dramatic Pan-
coast, followed the metallic Bache and listened
to the unique Meigs, at the same time devoting
myself with equal assiduity to billiards, ten-pins,
boat-rowing and the other divertisements
peculiar to medical students. You've all been
there and you know how it is yourselves.

As the result of my — labors (!) I ultimately
got — I don't say I was entitled to — a diploma in
a green tin box, and I bloomed upon the world
a full-fledged M. D.

For some time thereafter I consumed much
midnight oil in studying maps, looking for a
place wherein to hang out my shingle. After
mature deliberation, however, I concluded to
hang it out nowhere, prompted to this conclu-
sion by the conviction that there was no room
for me at the bottom of the profession, and by
the suspicion that 1 hadn't the ability to climb
to the top, where, as Webster said, there is room
for everybody.

Since then, gentlemen, I have often thought
if I had decided otherwise how different would
have been the fate of some community, and I
have often wondered if that community, where-
ever it may be, ever dreams how close a call it
had and what it has escaped.

You remember the Confederate soldier who
at the close of the war felicitated himself by the
reflection, " them Yankees do 'pear to have got
the best of us, but I'll be goU durned if I hain't
killed as many of them as they did of me."
Well, if there is anything about which I feel

sure, it is that I would have killed more of any
community in which I might have located as a
doctor, than they possibly could have killed of
me! Perhaps, in my decision not to practice, I
made a mistake. I certainly think so when I
look into your faces, so suggestive of all the
creature comforts and so indicative of content-
ment with the lot of life. But if I did make a
mistake I am consoled by the reflection that I
erred, as they say Lincoln always did, on the
side of mercy — mercy to that community to
which I have referred.

Instead of going out into the world looking
for patients to devour — to devour my prescrip-
tions — I stayed here, and am associated with the
thousand doctors in daily attendance upon a
patient in a white marble building at the corner
of Wall street and Broad.

I dare say, gentlemen, that out of your com-
bined experience you think you know all about
patients ; but I tell you, until you have tackled
the patient I refer to, you have much to learn,
because of all patients that ever bothered doc-
tors that one is the boss. Like unto your
patients in many respects, it is unlike them in
that it never dies. Your patients always do —

at some time ! Your patients all pay for attend-
ance upon them, except, of course, those from
whom you can't collect anything ; at least, you
never pay for the privilege of attending anybody.
But it is very expensive at times to wait upon
the patient I refer to ; indeed, there have been
times when that patient has cleaned the doctors
out by the score. But otherwise than I have
stated the patient is like yours. It has its good
days and bad ones, up to-day and down to-
morrow ; now strong and likely to be better,
again feverish and certain to be lower. It has
its times of depression ; suspended animation ;
death seeming sure; rigor mortis set in ; but, as
I have said, the patient never dies; on the con-
trary, at 10 o'clock the next morning it is always
as lively as ever and ready for all its doctors.

And theWall street doctors — in some respects
they deserve much credit. For instance, for
their devotion to and concern about their
patient. It is no uncommon thing for them to
lie awake or to walk the floor all night on
account of it. Does worry about your patients
ever rob any of you of sleep? And in the matter
of professional etiquette — why, gentlemen, there
is not an instance on record of any of our doc-

tors tampering with one of your patients ! Have
not some of you at times meddled with our
patient to your sorrow ?

But seriously, I am very grateful for the in-
vitation to be here to-night, and I am proud of
the honor of being permitted to sit with you in
the enjoyment of this so delightful feast, because
though I know enough, of course, to know that
I don't know anything about medicine, I still
know enough to appreciate that of all the
great professions yours is the highest and noblest
to which one can devote himself.

I am aware that there are those who hold one
other profession higher and nobler ; but while I
would not by so much as a breath detract from
the beneficence of that profession, I feel that a
broken leg or a disordered liver occasions more
mental and physical discomfort and demands
more immediate relief than any spiritual irregu-
larity.

The doctor's presence is at times a matter of
life and death, but I have hardly ever known of
a case in which the dominie couldn't be waited
for till the next morning, unless, perhaps, it was
a case of matrimony, and then the trouble was
largely, I think, imaginary. If the contracting

parties could only have been made to believe it,
neither of them would have lost anything by
waiting till the next day.

We might possibly pull through without the
dominies, but the conscientious and skillful
physician is a vital need of every community.
We cannot, without the aid of his helping hand,
scramble over the ropes into the twenty-four-
foot ring of life; we turn to him after every
round to make us ready to answer to the next
call of time; and though we know he cannot
prevent the inevitable " knock out '' that waits
us all, we look to him to put off to as late a day
as possible the time of our throwing up the
sponge.

There are many reasons why you should be
proud of your profession, gentlemen; but I think
you ought to be specially proud of it because,
of all the professions, it has, within the last
quarter century, made the greatest and most
rapid progress. It has been a fad of mine to
collect books about the late unpleasantness
between the sections, till I have stacked up in the
corner of my library several hundred volumes
on the war. The other evening my friend, the
Hon. John Jay Knox, while looking them over,

turned to me and said: " I have a set of books
I would like to add to your collection, a dozen
volumes, published by the Government, the
medical and surgical history of the war; and
yet, " said he, " a prominent physician told me
the other day, to m}' surprise, that the books
have no value except as curiosities, because the
medical and surgical sciences have so far ad-
vanced since their publication. "

Gentlemen, I do not believe that a statement
like that could be made of any other of the great
sciences of the day.

But I have talked as long as I ought to and
have not yet said a word about the text assigned
to me. Frankly, gentlemen, the occasion is one
of so much jollity " all round " that I don't feel
like talking about anything so big and so serious
as "The Country," the toast for which I am
set down; and if I did I don't believe you are
in the mood to listen to me.

You remember that on the first Sunday after
Gen. Sherman had occupied the City of Mem-
phis, he was surprised that not one of the
churches was opened. Forthwith he ordered
that on the next Sunday they should all be
opened. Whereupon he was waited on by the

minister of the First Episcopal Church, who
confessed himself in a dilemma because the
prayer-book called for prayers for the President
of the Confederate States and he feared that
prayers for Mr. Davis might be offensive to the
General. " Oh, my, no I " said the bluff old
hero; " not a bit. I don't care whom you pray
for. If you want to pray for Davis, do so. He
needs your prayers, mighty bad. Abe Lincoln
is all right and can get on without 'em, "

Well, gentlemen, I think the country is all
right and can get on without speeches by me or
by anybody else; and so, without trespassing
further upon your indulgence, I yield the floor
to those who are to follow me and from whom I
know you are anxiously waiting to hear.

III.

At the opening of the home of the Southern Society of New York, on the evening of May 2,
1889. there waa a large assemblage, which inclmled the Governors of all but one or two of the
Soutnern States. These were In turn called upon to speak. When Governor Gordon's turn came,
the Chairman of the occasion said ; " I was about to introduce to you next, Governor Gordon,
but I see In front of me a gentleman who during a recent trip through the South, with a party of
which I waa one, met the Governor for the first time and fell head over heels in love with mm ;
and in order to give variety to the evening's proceedings, I now call on this gentleman — this
Yankee and Republican— to introduce to the assemblage kU friend, General John B. Gordon,
of Georgia."

YOU remember the story of the man, out on the
frontier, who was noted far and wide for
his wonderful faculty at profanity, and for his dis-
position upon every occasion to indulge in the
most marvelous embroidery of language. He
had been away from home, hunting, for a day or
two, and upon his return found that during his
absence the redskins had burned his house,
murdered his wife and children, destroyed his
fences, and run off his stock — had, in fact, com-
pletely cleaned him out. He contemplated the
scene of desolation for a while in silence, and
then gave expression to the pent up feeling of
his heart in the words, " this is simply too
ridiculous ! "

Well, I leave it to you, if the idea of any
man, especially an unknown Northern man like
me, introducing dear old battle-scarred Gordon,
of the lion's heart, the woman's tenderness, and
the silver tongue, to any audience, much less
to a body of Southern men like this — I leave it
to you, if it isn't simply too ridiculous ?

Introduce John B. Gordon ? Why, gentle-
men, he introduced himself to everybody, North
and South, more than a quarter of a century ago,
during the great scuffle — not only introduced
himself, but made himself at times, so they say,
a good deal too familiar on short acquaintance.
Indeed, if history tells the truth he had a very
taking way with him generally ; but after all,
not more so in war than he has since had in
peace. I remember a Centennial celebration a
few years ago in Philadelphia, at which he
made a little speech of not more than a dozen
lines, which no man could hear or read with dry
eyes, and which, because of the touch of nature
in it that makes the world akin, captured the
Quaker City and all its people, solid.

Your handsome President has made refer-
ence to a recent trip through the South. There
was such a trip, and the announced purpose of

it was to investigate the resources of that sec-
tion. The announcement was true as to every
member of the party but me. I accepted the
invitation to go because it was promised that we
should visit Atlanta, and that I would meet
Gordon, of whom I had heard and read so much.

Well, we had hardly crossed the Potomac,
after starting on our way, before I began to per-
ceive the people's regard for Gordon, and the
further South we went the more perceptible be-
came that regard on every hand. But when we
got within his own State — the State of Georgia
— why, I discovered that the mere mention of
the name of Gordon there brought kindness
to the faces of men, light into the eyes of
women, and laughter to the lips of children.
The very dogs — you may not know it, gentle-
men, but there are no dogs allowed in Georgia
except Gordon setters, and at the mention of
the name of Gordon every one of them promptly
wags his tail. And I did hear it said that in
certain sections of the State there are people so
benighted, that they spell God with a little g and
Gordon with a big one, but 1 don't believe a
word of it.

Do you think I was anxious to see this man ?

Well, I should smile I 1 met him first in Rome
— "the eternal city that sits upon her several
hills, and from her throne of beauty " looks
down upon the rest of the State of Georgia.
He stood in the market place surrounded by
the populace. A Roman toga was wrapped
around him, a laurel wreath was upon his brow,
a seraphic smile played about his so handsome
ugly face, and in his right hand was an open
bottle of ice-cold champagne. In one short hour
after I had met him I understood his people's
love for him ; in that brief time he had the collar
of his personal magnetism about my neck and
had led me captive.

But seriously, gentlemen! I remember the
fervor with which I used to declaim when a
boy, those words from Webster's reply to
Hayne, " Sir, let me recur to pleasing recollec-
tions — let me remind you that in early days no
States cherished greater harmony, both of prin-
ciple and of feeling, than South Carolina and
Massachusetts. Would to God that harmony
might again return I " And during these Cen-
tennial days those words have come back to me
over and over again. I recalled them the other
day when I saw the troops of the North and

South, of Massachusetts and South' Carolina,
swinging along the avenue between those solid
walls of hurrahing humanity, marching to the
same music and under the same flag, with no
rivalry between them now except as to which
shall most contribute luster to the stars and
brilliance to the stripes of that banner; and
1 said to myself, " Would to God that Webster
could have lived to see the day for the retui-n of
which he so longed, come back now to stay, let
us trust, forever." And as the troops went
marching by I couldn't help the feeling that so
long as those men stand together the flag will
be unchallenged by any power on the globe —
that those men, united, are invincible against
the armies of the world.

With this thought in my mind I pictured a
field of battle, I beheld the men of Massachu-
setts and South Carolina standing shoulder to
shoulder, in serried column, impatiently waiting
the word to charge, I saw Gordon in their front,
I heard him cry, " Forward, men, follow me ! "
and involuntarily I exclaimed, " Such troops,
under such leadership, amid the mingled strains
of Yankee Doodle and of Dixie, the combined
cheers of the North and yells of the South,

would capture hell from the devil, and plant the
stars and stripes in triumph and in victory on
the very shores of the lake of fire and brim-
stone ! "

But Gordon wants no more fighting ! He
tells me he has had enough ; yet all the same, for
him to do what I have pictured, to lead the
troops of South and North together against a
common foe, would be the proudest moment of
his life ; because Confederate though he was,
and Southerner though he is, there is not one in
all the land to-day, I know, who would more
gladly lay down his life in defense of the old
flag than John B. Gordon of Georgia !

Let us hope, however, that he may never
draw his sword again. Rather let us trust that
during the years which shall be his, his ways
may be those of pleasantness and his paths of
peace. And when the end shall come for him,
as come it must for each of us, when he shall
sink to rest, covered, as with a garment, by the
affection of those among whom he has dwelt,
upon the bosom of the State he has served so
well, they will pile up granite and rear brazen
statue to his memory ; but neither will last
as long as the monument that will be to him in

the hearts of his people ; because while grass
grows and water runs, while the hills lift them-
selves to the skies, and the oceans thunder upon
either shore, just so long will the people, not
alone of Georgia, but of all the South as well,
bear the name of Gordon in loving and grateful
memory.

IV.

At the banqiuft of the Chamber of Commerce, Rochester, N. Y., February 15, 1892— in re-
•ponie to ths toast " Unrestricted Immigration and our Naturalization Laws a peril to the
Republic."

I SHOULD be wanting in proper courtesy to
you, as I would certainly be unjust to myself,
if I did not preface what I have to say in response
to the toast, with a few words to assure you that
I appreciate the pirivilege of being here. To be
a guest at this board is an honor of which any
man, no matter how exalted or how prominent his
position, might well be proud. That the honor
has been extended to me, who am only an incon-
spicuous business man, I thank you. 1 thank
you too, that in calling upon me to talk, you have
assigned me a subject to talk about, in which I
am, as I think every American citizen, native
and foreign born alike, ought to be, deeply inter-
ested ; though of course I am aware that upon
this subject I can advance no new ideas — that 1
can only reiterate and emphasize what has been,
by others, already said, far better than I can
say it.

Though it is four hundred years since our
continent was discovered, we are yet as a nation
young. Young, however, as we are, we have
achieved such development and growth, that we
are already warranted in claiming for ourselves
first place among the nations of the earth.

Standing at the threshold of the second cen-
tury of our national existence, we may well look
back with pride, but, just as well, forward with
confidence. Indeed, it is difficult to estimate, if
we are to goon prospering, what will be our con-
dition and position a hundred years from to-day.
But, though, as Webster said, " the past at least
is secure," we have no guarantee for the future.
We know not what questions shall hereafter pre-
sent themselves to us, what problems will later
come up for our solution, what forces may to-
gether work against our well being. What we
do know, however, is that our future condition
will depend upon ourselves — upon our sleepless
watchfulness for signs of danger to the Republic,
and our constant readiness to guard against such
danger, no matter from what (luarter it may
threaten.

Chicfest among the factors that have contri-
buted to our national upbuilding, has been the

steady flow of immigration to our shores. The
people of the thirteen colonies were not enough
to develop all the resources of our Union ; hence
immigration came to be a necessity for us, and
we have done all in our power to stimulate it.
With wide open arms we have welcomed all
comers to our midst, and their coming has largely
increased our population, has filled up our waste
places and has added to our wealth and strength.

With our growth, however, the need of im-
migration has gradually come to be less, till we
are now, comparatively, independent of it. That
is to say, there are no longer endless tracts of
our fertile lands calling for settlement, nor is
there a demand for labor among us beyond the
capacity of our people to supply. On the con-
trary, though much of our territory is still unoc-
cupied, or sparsely settled according to the
standards of the Old World, our population is
now sufficient not only to meet all the demands
of labor upon it, but by its natural increase to
take up our vacant lands and to develop our
resources with all necessary rapidity.

While our need of it, however, has been de-
creasing, immigration has been steadily increas-
ing, till more than a thousand immigrants are

daily now landing- upon our shores ; but while
the bulk of immigration has been thus growing,
its quality has been as steadily deteriorating.

The population of the Colonies was mainly
composed of the English, the German, the Dutch,
the Scotch-Irish and the Huguenot-French, and
of these peoples, together with the addition of a
certain proportion from Ireland and the Scan-
dinavian countries — all of them readily assimi-
lable with us — our immigration has been, until
recently, made up. But, while the quality of
the immigration of even these people has been
growing less desirable, there have been coming to
us for the last ten or fifteen years an annually in-
creasing number from Italy, especially southern
Italy and Sicily, the Slavic countries, Russia,
Poland and Hungary, and Austria.

However worthy the people of these nation-
alities may, in instances, individually be, experi-
ence has demonstated that as a class there is but
little in common between them and us — that like
the Chinese, being of different races from ours,
they do not, to any appreciable extent, assimilate
with our people. Besides that, they are almost
entirely unskilled in any kind of labor, and as a
rule are illiterate and indigent to the last degree.

Therefore we stand to-day face to face with
the portentous fact that there are yearly pour-
ing in upon us nearly half a million persons
largely made up of those who are alien to
us in thought and speech and blood; half of
whom are without occupation of any kind, and
most of whom represent only the rudest forms
of labor.

These things constitute, as your toast so
tersely puts it, a peril, a grave peril to the Re-
public in more ways than one.

I have said that our population is equal to all
the demands of labor upon it. Indeed, our labor
market is in localities already overstocked. In
some of our large cities the struggle for exist-
ence is as fierce as anywhere in the Old World.
It is our boast, however, that this is the ideal
home of the workingman; that here his pay and
his condition are better than anywhere else.
Admitting the assertion to be true now, the
question forces itself, how much longer will it be
true if there shall continue to be dumped upon
us annually so large a number of persons ready
to work for almost nothing and able to live on
less? How long will it be, under such con-
ditions, before the pay of our workingmen will

461462

be pulled down to the level of wages elsewhere
paid — before our boast about the wage-earner's
enviable condition here will be but a byword
and a reproach ?

Its demoralizing effect upon our labor mar-
ket, however, is not the worst feature of our
latter-day immigration. A still worse feature of
it is, that it is gradually filling the slums of our
cities with the lowest and most objectionable
order of beings; that it is creating in our fair
land pauper and criminal classes for us to pro-
vide for and to protect ourselves against. The
last census shows that our foreign born citizens
already supply more penitentiary convicts than
are supplied by our entire native born popula-
tion.

In addition to this there have come to us of
late years, and they are still coming, many who
have brought with them theories and practices
in every way hostile to our American institu-
tions and disturbing of our peaceful conditions.
Already, in different parts of the country, there
are secret societies subversive of law and order,
and newspapers and periodicals openly advocat-
ing socialism in its worst forms, and anarchy
with all that is most revolting in its methods.

Absorbed as we are, however, in our daily con-
cerns, we give but little heed to the existence of
these facts, except when occurrences like the
crashing- of dynamite at Chicago, or the deadly
work of the stiletto in New Orleans, compel our
attention to them.

But perilous as this condition of things is to
the Republic, its peril is intensified and in-
creased by reason of our naturalization laws,
through the operation of which immigration is
all the while diluting and polluting the quality
of American citizenship.

Within comparatively a few days after his ar-
rival — before he has hardly had time indeed "to
get his sea legs off "—every immigrant that lands
upon our shores, no matter how imbruted his
condition, how vicious his tendency, or how in-
capable of comprehending its meaning, is armed
with the ballot and vested with all the rights of
those " native here and to the manor born.'' He
has a voice in our affairs equal with him who
breasted the battle in the Wilderness or at Get-
tysburgh in defense of our nationality, and
whose ancestor may have stood at Concord or
Bunker Ilill. Indeed, while the college-bred
and Ma3^flower-descended youth must stand

back from the polls and look idly on, the recently
landed immigrant takes his unchallenged place
in line, and records his say as to questions of
public policy that affect our well being, or ex-
presses his choice as to who shall be " the rulers

over us."

We hear, upon every hand, of corruption in
the government of our large cities ; but is it to be
wondered at, when we reflect that immigration
peoples the cities with poverty, ignorance and
vice, and that our naturalization laws make them
a power in the hands of the unscrupulous for the
purposes of ring rule and plunder?

But what shall we do to protect the Republic
against the peril of these things?

Clearly the first thing for us to do is to wake
up the intelligence of the people to a realization
of the peril. That done, prompt and effective
legislation with reference to it should be de-
manded of our national lawmakers. There are
laws bearing on the matter now upon our stat-
ute books, true — but the Hon. Henry Cabot
Lodge, of Massachusetts, to whom is due the
gratitude of all the country for his so correct
appreciation of the evils of our immigration and
his so earnest efforts to remedy them, he says,

" these laws and all other existing requirements
are vague, and the methods provided for their
enforcement are still more vague and indefinite."

It is not necessary, of course, that our doors
should be barred to all immigration. That
would be to falsify the boast that our country is
the asylum to which the unfortunate of every
land are welcome. Such a course would be
neither consistent nor wise, because our free land
is, and let us trust will always be, the haven of
refuge for all who are worthy of place among
us. But that we accord a welcome to such is no
reason why we should suffer our home — the land
in which we live, and are to live those who shall
come after us — to be made a cesspool, so to
speak, into which may be drained the offscouring
and the refuse, the sewage of the Old World.

Therefore, we should demand of Congress
such action, such immediate action, as will, not
alone in theor}^ but in fact — so far as human
ingenuity can devise ways to accomplish it — sift
our immigration, barring out from among us,
not only paupers, criminals, and the crippled
and diseased, but the illiterate as well, all those
indeed whose presence among us is, for any
reason, undesirable, and whose exclusion is de-

. 42

manded by our own preservation, which is the
first law of nature; by our duty to our working
men, who are more directly interested in this
matter than any one else; and by our duty to
the institutions under which we live.

In addition to this, steps should be taken
toward a radical change in our naturalization
laws.

Holding the views I do as to the proper func-
tions of the national government, I believe that
the interests of the whole country would be best
served by delegation to the national government
of the sole power to confer the rights of citizen-
ship. Failing that, however, I have no hesitation
in asserting my conviction that our naturaliza-
tion laws, beside being more exacting as to
qualification for citizenship, should also be, as
far as possible, uniform between the States.
But whether they be made uniform or not,
surely there is not an intelligent man in all the
land who does not agree with me, that the laws
are now, all of them, to a greater or less extent,
pitiably deficient in their requirements for citi-
zenship.

The laxity of these laws, of course, grew out
of what was once our need of population and

4:3

our desire to render acquirement of citizenship
as easy as possible. But that need having passed
away, I submit that the time has come when we
should raise the standard of fitness for citizenship
among us. Instead of the wretched bauble that
American citizenship is to-day, a thing to be had
for the asking, by anybody, even the most worth-
less, we should make it a thing worth waiting
for and working for — a thing to be dearly prized
and to be proud of, when had, by anybody.

And the first move in this direction should be
made right here, in our Empire State, for two
reasons : first, because this being the greatest,
grandest, proudest State in the Union, its stand-
ard of citizenship ought to be higher than that
of any other State; and, second, the ignorance
and pauperism and vice of the slums of New
York City, wherein gather and settle so large a
proportion of the vilest dregs of our immigration,
should be restricted, as far as possible, in their
capacity to work evil through the ballot-box.

However important may be any other of the
issues pressing upon our people, this, I dare
aver, is, by all odds, the most important matter
before the country to-day.

Questions of public policy generally affect

only our material concerns, and no matter how
they be decided, the nation, all the same, goes
forging on in its career. But this question
affects what should be dearest to every Ameri-
can citizen, native and foreign born alike, with-
out regard to politics — what should be most
sacred to every man sheltered by the flag and
protected by the Government — the integrity of
our nationality.

That nationality — its corner-stone was laid
and its foundation planted by our fathers
through long years of privation and of war. To
save it from destruction and to preserve it to us,
rivers of blood have been poured out in our
time, and countless millions of treasure spent.
To-day it stands, the sublimest structure on the
globe, arching the continent, its foundation
washed by the waves of either ocean, and on its
dome the clouds ! It has been our fathers' home,
it is ours; and as it has been by them saved to
us, so is it our holy duty to preserve it to those
who shall come after us. But if careless as to
who shall share its shelter with us, we let its
doors stand wide open, that all who choose may
enter, to make lodgment beneath its roof and to
take the bread out of the mouths of our own —

paupers to be a burden on us — the crippled and
diseased for us to care for — the iUiterate for us to
educate — the vicious to create discontent among
us — criminals for us to guard against — the mur-
derous with stiletto or with bomb — if we not
only admit all these and make them welcome,
but, in addition, vest them with authority in our
affairs equal to our own, and put into their
hands the power, if they so choose, to violate
the traditions of our home and to deface its fair
records — if we do this, then are we guilty of a
crime for which posterity will justly hold us to
account.

The Kofiuttr RiMl-Exprtu said: "The tpeeoh was listened to with the deepest interest
and when it was concluded every ^eet was on ois feet waving a handkerchief and cheering the
orator. After he had resumed his seat, be was ccirpelled to come forward aeain, and he made a
neat little speech expressive of his gratefiil appreciation of the reception extended to bim."

The Democrat and Ckronitle said : " It was not for some m.cments after be bed finished spcat
log that the toastmaster could announce the next speaker. Three cheers and a tiger were called
for and forthcoming. Then three tigers were given, and it looked as if a whole menagerie would
have to be let loose before the diners would be satlsCed."

At the Grant banquet, at Delnionico's, In honor of the General's birthday, April 27, 1891. The
Chairumn, In the intruduttion, made a very Haltering allusion to the speech delivered at the Steel
banquet iu Tenaesjsee.

THE loveliest trait about our Chairman, gen-
tlemen, is his readiness always to call down,
from the eminence upon w'hich he stands, kindly
and encouraging words to those in the valley, so
far below him that they can hardly hear the
sound of his voice. As for me, I am content if,
as I trudge along through the vale, I may catch
an occasional glimpse of his figure among the
clouds, and I shall be more than satisfied, if, when
1 have reached the end of my journey and been
put away, there can be truthfully inscribed upon
the stone which marks my resting-place, " Here
lies a man, who, while he lived, had wit and
brains enough to properly appreciate the jewels
that always showered when Joseph Choate
opened his lips."

I thank you, sir, for your so flattering allusion
to my talk in Tennessee. If what I said down

there had the approval of the folks at home, I am
glad of it. If I uttered a word conducing toward
a better understanding and a closer union be-
tween the sections, I am proud of it.

The occasion was, in many respects, sir, re-
markable. The company was made up about
equally of Northern and Southern men — as many
who had worn the gray as had worn the blue.
The Chairman of the evening, appreciating the
rare combination, called to their feet, alternately,
the old soldiers of either side, Federal and Confed-
erate, as pieces are pushed forward on the chess-
board — first a white and then a red, now a
knight and again a pawn.

For a while the affair progressed in the usual
way, but under the inspiration of its so peculiar
conditions, it ere long developed into a sort of
love feast. The men who had once faced each
other with hate in their eyes and death in their
hearts, hobnobbed like dear old friends, and
together rehearsed their erstwhile opposing ex-
periences. They vied with each other in asser-
tion of loyalty to the Republic, and at every
specially patriotic appeal, whether by a repre-
sentative of the North or South, they united in
cheering the speaker to the echo, and in waving

the flags, the stars and stripes, with which the
room and tables were profusely decorated.

I shall never forget the occasion, because
while I contemplated the scene and listened to
the speeches it seemed to me that, for the first
time, I sufficiently felt how blessed a thing it was
for us all, South as well as North, that the at-
tempt to disrupt the Union had failed, that in-
stead of our being a divided people we are more
closely united now than ever, that above us all
floats but one flag.

Because of that experience I better appreciate
my privilege in being here, and I realize more
fully than I have done before how immeasurable
and incalculable is our debt to the great soldier
whose memory we honor, and to all those with
him whose heroism and sacrifice have secured to
them who shall come after us, the heritage of our
nationality, unbroken and inviolate.

I group them — the heroes — all together, not
out of any disposition to detract one jot or tittle
from what we owe to our greatest soldier leader,
but because, if it be permitted the spirits of the
departed to revisit the scenes of earth, and his
spirit be hovering above us now, his great and
generous soul would be best pleased, I know, by

our not forgetting, in our gratitude to him, even
the humblest servitor of the cause for which
he fought.

On my way to Tennessee, through Washing-
ton and Virginia, and back through Kentucky and
Cincinnati, I saw a number of monuments erected
to those who were conspicuous in the great
struggle, and I passed several National ceme-
teries, in which the long and even lines of little
headboards, with no names upon them, only
numbers, told where sleep the thousands, " un-
known, unhonored and unsung," who gave for
us all they had — their lives; and more than once
since then, the thought has occurred to me that
those beneath the monuments, and those filed
away in the cemeteries, differ only as "one star
differeth from another star in glory," and that
they all together make up the splendor of our
National firmament.

The great leaders, whose fame will never die,
are the planets which stand out, each by itself,
clear and bright and sharp. Behind them are
the lesser leaders, the myriad stars, which,
though not so bright as the planets, but more
numerous, spangle the heavens. Behind them
arc the rank and file, whose forest of white head-

boards, like the indistinguishable stars, make up
the milky way — a great cloud of light that sweeps
athwart the sky.

And as the glory of the night is due to every
star that shines, whether it be one of the indis-
tinguishable mass or a flashing planet, so are we
owing to every soldier of the war, whether he
rode with waving sword at the head of a column,
or at its rear, with a musket, trudged.

But what tongue can frame in words our debt
to the master who conceived and pushed the
mighty campaign which knew no end till the last
expiring breath had been strangled out of the
rebellion, and in all the breezes between the
oceans there fluttered no flag but that?

We cannot measure, we certainly can never
pay, what we owe to Grant ; but what we can
do is this : we can show our appreciation of,
and manifest our gratitude for, what he did for
us. And how ? By banquets like this ? By
remembering his birthday, like Washington's?
By building a heroic monument ? Yes ! But
there is another, and still a better way, and that
is by cherishing and jealously guarding the
nationality for which he fought, and which he
saved to us and our children.

That nationality — it is the sublimest structure
on the globe. It arches the continent. Against
its foundations the waves of either ocean beat,
and on its dome rest the clouds. For more than
a century it has been our fathers' home. It is
ours, and, God willing, will be our children's !
In it is the light and warmth of human liberty,
and through its windows that light shines out,
guiding to its doors all the world.

Those doors have been never closed, and
through them have entered millions, welcome
all, to the shelter, to live with us and to share
all our privileges. For millions more there is
room in plenty and a welcome just as warm ; but
if we discover that we have been too generous
and have admitted many who are abusing our
hospitality, by violating our traditions, by creat-
ing disturbance and bringing disgrace upon the
household, what shall we do?

If we have no pride in our home and don't
care who occupies it with us, or, if we are all of
us too much engaged in trying to make money
to think about the matter, of course we will do
nothing I

But if we love our home and hold it dear,
shall we not call a halt to the incoming crowds,

and put a sentry at every doorway to bar the
entrance of any addition to the vicious element
that has obtained foothold among us? Shall we
not give it out at once, that, though we still keep
open house, we will, from now^ on, admit only
the worthy, those who come in good faith to
take up their permanent abode with us, to ac-
cept and obey our laws, and to be like us, Amer-
icans? Shall we not proclaim that we want no
colonists, that we will have no communists or
socialists, that we will drive away outlaws and
criminals, and that in no crook or crannv, anv-
where under our roof, is there room for one
anarchist with his bomb, or for a single member
of the infernal Mafia with his stiletto?

If, then, we want to show our gratitude to
Grant, and to those who with him fought, let us
appreciate the nationality which they preserved
for us. Let us make American citizenship a
thing to be earned and prized, rather than what
it for so long has seemed to be, a bauble to be
had by anybody, even the most worthless, for
the asking. Let us amend our immigration laws,
so that we may keep away from our shores
those whom we don't want with us, and let us
so revise our naturalization laws that only those

who can appreciate the privilege and are deserv-
ing of it shall be American citizens !

Do this, and no need to pile up granite or
rear brazen statue to perpetuate the great sol-
dier's memory ; because, so long as grass grows
and water runs, so long as the hills lift themselves
to the skies and the oceans thunder upon either
shore, just so long will his name and fame live
in the hearts of his countrymen.

To borrow a thought from the matchless
Phillips, in the far-off distant future, when we
shall have passed away, and been all of us long,
long forgot, the muse of history will put Pho-
cion for the Greek, Brutus for the Roman,
Hampden for England and Fayette for Fi"ance,
write Washington as the bright consummate
flower of our earlier civilization, and Abraham
Lincoln as the ripe fruit of our noonday ; then,
dipping her pen in the sunlight, she will inscribe,
side by side with the names of the father and
the saviour of their country, the name of the
unassuming gentleman, the loyal friend, the
peerless soldier and the sterling patriot, Ulysses
S. Grant.

VI.

At the banquet of the New York Southern Society, February 2i?, 1890» in the audience ball of
the Lenox L>ceuin, the President said : *' The next toast is the City of New York. This wa* to
have been Te8ponde<I to by his Honor the Mayor, but I repretto say I have juet received a tele-
gram from him to the effect that he is detained b^' public business in \Vashin^ton. Rather than that
the toabt should be passed, however, without response, I am going to call upon one of our guest*
to speak to it— a New Yorker whose voice you have beard before and will be glad I am sure to
bear again."

T PRESUxME you have all heard of the South
1 Carolinian who, having been at a dinner
party, and being- afterward asked who was at
table with him, replied, " Well, sir, I was there,
and another elegant gentleman from South Caro-
lina; two or three gentlemen from Virginia, a
man from Pennsylvania, a couple of fellows
from New York, and a son of a gun from
Boston."

However much we may be disinclined to ac-
cept the South Carolinian's method of classifica-
tion of the guests upon the occasion referred to,
we must all admit that he was right in that he
did classify them, because every occasion of the
kind, like this one to-night, is made up of at least
two classes of persons. First, the small class of
those who sit at the high table up there. They

are invited on purpose to talk, and they come as
full of speeches as a dog is of barks, and though
they often begin by expressing surprise at being
called upon, they would be dreadfully disap-
pointed if they were not called. Then there is
the class of those who fill these lower tables, to
which class, so respectable by reason of its num-
bers, I belong. When they are invited to a feast
they are expected to bring with them nothing
but good appetites, good thirsts and long ears.
And when I came here to-night I brought all
three. My appetite has been satisfied by a din-
ner so good that I can say of it, as Tim Camp-
bell remarked about Mrs. Whitney's dinner,
" There were certainly no flies on it." The
thirst I fetched with me was such that I've
no doubt many of you gentlemen would gladly
give a fifty-dollar bill for one like it right now,
but which has not been satisfied, 1 grieve to
say, because I was so unfortunately placed
between two distinguished Southern generals
that hardly a bottle got to me from either side ;
and as for my ears, if you don't think they are
long now, you may perhaps think so before I sit
down. As one of our class, of course I did not
come here to talk, and I think it was cruel of

your President to call upon me as he has done,
for the reason that like all the rest of us who sit
at these lower tables, I always need at least two
weeks' time in which to get up a good im-
promptu speech. And yet, when word came to
me, a few moments since, that because of the
unexpected absence from the table of our hon-
ored Mayor, there appeared to be no one to
answer to the toast of " The City of New York,"
and that the President wanted to know if he
might call upon me, I thought of the closing
chapter of that beautiful story, " Meh Lady," by
Nelson Page, of Virginia, in which the minister,
standing before the couple about to be married,
asked, "Who gives this woman to this man?"
and the old darkey said, " When he ax dat ques-
tion an' look at me, an' I think 'bout all de scuf-'
flin we done been throo,' an' ole Missus an' Marse
Phil all gone, an' dere ain' nobody to tek up
for de pore chile, I couldn't help it, so I says
when he ax dat question, ' Unc Billy ;' " and
when I thought of the Mayor being away, and
the toast to the great city in which we all have
so much pride being passed unresponded to, I
felt like Uncle Billy, that if there was no one
else to speak for it, rather than that it should be

passed in silence, I would — all incompetent and
unworthy and unprepared as I am — stand in the
breach ; and I call upon you gentlemen to wit-
ness whether history has presented such an in-
stance of sublime daring since the days of Ther-
mopylae ; especially in view of the difficulty to
be encountered in trying to make one's self heard
in this vast auditorium. Indeed, I would like
right here — parenthetically — to tender to the
managers of the Society a word of advice, if I
may do so without presuming — to the effect that
if the Society gives its next annual dinner in this
hall, a fog horn should be supplied before the
dinner to every speaker, and ear trumpets to all
the rest who attend the feast.

Speaking then for our great city, gentlemen,
I extend the cordial welcome of the metropolis
to your young Society, which has already at-
tained such proportions, and which bids fair to
outnumber in its membership all its sister socie-
ties. And on behalf of the city, wherein you
men of the South have made your homes, I con-
gratulate you upon this splendid scene, this glori-
ous banquet, these distinguished guests, these
boxes filled with fair women. No man with red
blood in his veins can help thrilling with pride

in our people and our country when he con-
templates this occasion and spectacle, and con-
trasts them with the state of things which existed
hardly more than a quarter of a century ago.
Then the cohorts of Lee were thundering at the
gates of the Capital, but were hurled back in
defeat of their attempt to capture it. To-night,
the men who were then defeated, and their sons,
have captured the metropolis of the Western
Hemisphere. The only difference between
Washington then and New York now is that
Washington didn't want to be taken, and that
New York just loves it !

We hear on every hand of the New South, and
we all rejoice in its triumphant progress. But
though by your courage and perseverance you
have builded a city in your every valley and
have located a factory on your every hill-top,
nothing that you have accomplished has borne
such convincing evidence of the success that
has crowned your struggle as this magnificent
banquet and gathering. More than everything
else you have done or said, these tell how com-
pletely the old South has passed away forever.
That vast concourse at New Orleans the other
day followed it to its grave, and as your honored

President has so eloquently said, thank God, you
have buried in that grave all the bitterness that
ever was in your hearts while the old South
existed.

But let us do better even than that ; let us,
both North as well as South, bury in the same
grave every evidence, nay, more — every recol-
lection that there was ever a conflict between
us ; bury them deep and cover them out of our
sight forever ; and as from the turf above that
grave shall spring tender flower and sturdy oak,
so may there grow in the big, warm, impulsive
Southern heart a constantly increasing tender
love, not for any section, but for our whole great
country ; and a sturdy loyalty, not to the flag of
any State, but to that banner which floats now
above us all, every stripe and every star and
every fold of which to-night beams with liberty
and with peace — liberty for all the millions that
shall gather beneath it, and peace which the
years of a century shall not shake.

VII.

At the banquet of the Typolbette Society— Hotel Brunswick— January 18, 1892.

1DARE say that when your worthy fellow-
member, Douglas Taylor — about whom one
of the best things is his name, and that is only half
as good as it might have been and would have
been if his parents had christened him Frederic
instead of Douglas — I dare say, I repeat, that
when he did me the honor to put me down for
a talk here to-night he chuckled at the apparent
incongruity of a Wall Street man talking to
printers. I suppose he thought there is no con-
nection between the printing press and the Stock
Exchange — between your business and mine.
But if he did think so, it is evidence of his lam-
entable ignorance, because the printing press is
almost as important a factor in our business as
it is in yours. You have heard a great deal
about water in connection with stocks, but you
may accept my assurance that Wall Street men
generally have very little use for water, either in

their business or out of it, exxept, of course, for
purposes of ablution. But they use printer's ink
in their business, largely and constantly, from
the lamb-alluring circular daily supplied to their
constituents, all the way up to that which is the
supremest work of the modern financier —
namely, the making of more wealth by the
printing of more stock.

So you see, gentlemen, there is a certain ap-
propriateness in my being with you, after all;
but while I would not have you think that your
Wall Street confreres are especially strait-laced,
I fear they might be disposed to kick, if, as their
representative here, I should put them upon
record as being in line with you printers, in un-
qualified admiration and approval of everything
that was in the career of your patron saint.

It is the habit of you printers to pass the in-
cidents of Franklin's career before you like the
scenes of a moving panorama, and to enthuse
about each, even the most commonplace of them,
as if no other boy, either before Franklin's time
or since, had started in life under difficulties, and
had, against all sorts of hard lines, achieved fame
or fortune, or both. But while admitting every-
thing for which Franklin deserved credit, there

were characteristics in his make-up and doings
in his life which do not appear to us Wall
Street men to be quite so admirable or so worthy
of emulation as they apparently are to you. In
the brief time allowed me to talk I can do no
more, of course, than merely hint at one or two
of these, but McMaster, who was certainly one
of the sage's most partial biographers, asserted
more than once that Franklin was " saving even
to stinginess." And I remember hearing it
cited, at this very table a 3-ear or so ago, as a
most meritorious fact and as a worthy example
of ecomomy, that when Benjamin was an ap-
prentice in London he always refused to chip in
with his fellow-workmen for the noon-day beer.
Now, if there is anything a Wall-streeter dis-
likes, it is a mean man, and that kind of a one
especially who manifests his meanness by a re-
luctance at appropriate times and in his regular
turn to "set 'em up.'' If, upon the occasions
referred to, the philosopher had offered to
match for the beer, the case would have been
different. That would have evidenced a specu-
lative disposition on the part of the sage, enti-
tling him to the respect of Wall Street, because,
in Wall Street eyes, the readiness to take a risk

in anything, from a mug of beer to a hundred
shares, is of all traits most to be commended
and encouraged.

Then, too, Franklin was a busybody, as was
certainly shown by the character of the essays
to which he devoted his earlier efforts. While
he was yet a young man and unmarried, and was,
therefore, of course unacquainted with the mys-
teries of feminine make-up — certainly didn't know
enough about woman's apparel to warrant him
in discussing it — he put out a pamphlet entitled
" Pride and Hoop Petticoats." Later, as if he
delighted in airing his ignorance of the subject,
he issued another and still more pretentious
pamphlet, entitled " Hoop Petticoats, Arraigned
and Condemned by the Light of Science and by
the Law of God.'' As if that were not enough,
however, he subsequently had the ineffable gall
to write and print and offer for sale a moderate
sized volume bearing the bumptious title, " Relief
for the Unhappy Women Who, as a Punishment
for the Pride and Insolence of Youth, Are
Forced to Remain Old Maids."

As these books are now out of print and we
don't know what they contained, of course we
cannot tell just why the old man was so down

on hoop skirts, nor are we able to discover how
he argued that they are condemned by the law
of God, nor do we know just what he proposed
with reference to old maids. But if you printer
men approve of that sort of thing, candidly, we
Wall Street men do not. On the contrary, we
think the philosopher might have been better
employed than in writing pamphlets against
petticoats, and as to his taking it upon himself
to advise about old maids — well, we think that
was impertinent to say the least, and evidenced
that the sage had an overweening conceit of
himself. Indeed, I have no hesitation in assert-
ing that, if any man ever was, it would certainly
appear from the record that Franklin was badly
"stuck on himself."

But to come back to McMaster, the so partial
biographer, he says on page 44 of his first life of
the philosopher, to quote his precise words, " It
was at this time " — that is, after Franklin had re-
turned from Ene:land and was foreman of
Kiemer's establishment in Philadelphia, " It was
at this time that Benjamin founded the Junto,
wrote his famous epitaph, grew religious,
composed a liturgy for his own use and be-
came the father of an illegitimate son." Now,

I make no doubt but that you printers
who back up Franklin in everything he did,
approve of all this, too ; but if you do approve
of it, then I want, for and on behalf of my
down-town coadjutors, right here to record a
protest.

Not, however, that we are intolerant. Far
from it. We take no exception to a Junto (what-
ever that may be); if any man wants one, he's
welcome to it. If anybody has a fancy for
writing his own epitaph, let him. We don't care
how religious any one may be — the more relig-
ious the better. If any fellow thinks the liturgy
that has been prepared for all of us don't suit
his case and prefers to fix up one for his own ex-
clusive use, we are agreeable. But further than
that we can't go with you. Right there we Wall
street men draw the line.

It may have been all well enough for Ben-
jamin. His wife took the youngster in and cared
for it. But Mrs. Franklin was an exceptionally
considerate woman. The rest of her sex ain't as
nice as she was. On the contrary, most of them
arc so queer and so prone to take exception to
all sorts of trifles, that it isn't safe to count on
any of them — always.

Then, too, as Franklin was unorthodox in
his religious views, so he was not orthodox in his
views on finance. He believed in the issuance
of paper money based on land, and he advocated
his theories with such consummate skill that his
State at one time put out ^30,000 of that kind of
currency. Well, I presume that you printers ap-
prove of this also ; but if the old man could come
back and should advocate that sort of thing down
our way, we would be inclined to regard him as
still another crank come to Wall street, and to
advise him to go West, young man, and join the
other cranks under the Farmers' Alliance ban-
ner.

But Franklin was a crank not alone in his
views upon finance. At one time he forswore
meat of all kinds and lived upon vegetables
only. Still, from what I have seen here to-night,
I am satisfied that even you draw the line there,
that you printer men are just as fond of all the
good things of this life as we Wall street men
are.

A truce, however, to nonsense, and one seri-
ous word before I resume my seat. I thank you.
gentlemen, for the privilege of being here. I am
glad to unite with you in doing honor to the

meinory of him whose birthday this is, who, if
not the most heroic figure in our country's his-
tory, was certainly one of the " all round "
greatest men that ever lived. There may have
been those who excelled him in one direction or
another; but if we can imagine a circle as repre-
senting the limitations of humanity, I dare aver
that the accomplishments of no other man have
so nearly as Franklin's filled that circle, reaching
out and touching its circumference at so many
points. Though we honor his memory it is not
necessary for us to deify him, or to speak of him
with extravagant reverence, as if he had neither
faults nor foibles. These he had, of course, but
they were evidence of his intense humanity, and
it is unworthy to refer to them seriously in the
light of such a record as he left. Great as he
was, however, in so many directions, he was
greatest in that his religion, like Burke's, waste
do good to his fellow-man. The inspiring mo-
tive of all his life was to promote the welfare of
his kind; and when his career on earth was done,
he might well, like Abou Ben Adhem, have asked
the recording angel to write him as one who had
not only loved his fellow-men, but had for near
a hundred years served them so well that though

we search the records of all the ages, it is difficult
to discover an equal benefactor of his race. I
congratulate you, gentlemen, that this man was,
like each one of you, a printer.

Though it is just'four hundred years since our
continent was first sighted, the national splendor
in which we all exult to-day has been the ac-
complishment of less than a century. Chiefest
among the factors of thatgreat work have been
the locomotive and the printing press. While
the conquest of the continent was going on, daily
the locomotive pushed a little farther, through
the wilderness, across the prairie and over the
mountain; but wherever it paused for a moment
to rest there the printing press was set up, and
through the wheezing of the one was heard the
clanking of the other.

When, however, the locomotive, resuming the
struggle, pushed along upon its mighty way, it
always left the press behind, and when — the con-
tinent conquered — it stood panting upon the
Pacific slope, wherever it had stopped between
the oceans, there was a printer setting type.

In that printer's fingers each of those tiny bits
of metal with a letter on its end became an en-
gine mighty as the locomotive, working with it

ever since in our great upbuilding — pushing us
to our place, first among the nations of the
earth.

All honor to the grimy man who stands with
his hand upon the throttle in the cab; but just
as much to him standing with stick in hand
before the font.

VIII.

At the Ixylng of the cornerstone ot the Mail and Express Building, August 19, 1691.

0\V little the Genoese navigator ever
dreamed that the continent he discovered
would be the empire of the future, the home of
near a hundred millions, the freest, thriftiest and
happiest people on the globe ! When Peter
Minuit bought the Island of Manhattan for
twenty-four dollars, how little he dreamed of the
great city to be built upon it, rivaling in splendor
the proudest cities of the world. When Robert
Fulton's heart beat fast with joy that the CUr-
inont, on its trial trip, stemmed the Hudson's
tide, how little he dreamed of the monster pal-
aces which now defy wind and wave in their
weekly trips across the ocean. When, nearly a
century ago, a daily newspaper was for the first
time issued in this city, how little its proprietors
dreamed of anything like what a New York news-
paper is to-day.

The first daily paper in our city — the Advcr-

tiscr, it was called — was not started till after the
press of the country had passed through the
Colonial and Revolutionary epochs of its exist-
ence.

The Colonial press disseminated news, but
dared no views in conflict with the authorities.
The press of the Revolution was unfettered, but
it subordinated everything to the one idea of the
country's independence. That independence,
however, achieved, organization of the nation
followed. The transition from dependence to
independence had resulted in parties, and the
land was full of conflicting views.which sought ex-
pression through the columns of the newspapers.

Then came what might be distinctively termed
the epoch of the party press, during which the
newspapers were almost wholly owned and con-
trolled by politicians and cliques.

It was at this juncture that the first daily
made its appearance in our midst.

Though the American newspaper was then
nearly a hundred years old, the Advertiser was,
in general character and make-up, but little, if
any, superior to the Boston Nezvs Letter or Piib-
lick Occurrences, which were the pioneer journals
on this side of the Atlantic.

During the continuance of the party press
epoch the newspapers increased largely in num-
ber, but not much in effectiveness till the coming
of the railway. When the locomotive came,
however, widening their reach and scope, they
took on new life, and rapidly developed in power
and influence. But with the advent of the rail-
way the sun speedily went down upon the slavish
party press, and then there dawned the better
day of independent journalism.

From that time the newspaper came to be
one of the chiefest factors in what has been our
so marvelous national development.

We are disposed to wonder that since our
shores were first sighted we have been able to
accomplish so much upon the continent ; but it
must be borne in mind that up to the beginning
of the present century there was hardly more
than a fringe of civilization along the Atlantic
coast — that our great upbuilding has been ac-
complished within less than a hundred years.

In this, the railway and the press have
wrought together. While the conquest of the
continent was going on, the locomotive daily
pushed a little farther, through the wilderness,
across the prairie and over the mountain, but

always following close behind its shriek was
heard the clank of the printing press.

The grimy man, with his hand upon the
throttle, leaning out of the cab window and
peering anxiously before him, and the dirty-
fingered man with a shade over his eyes, stand-
ing, stick in hand, before a font — these have been
the pioneers of our great advance in civilization,
wealth and power.

But while the press has done so much for the
country, the country has done as much for the
press. Our march toward the position we have
taken among the nations of the earth, with the
attendants of our career — rapidly increasing
wealth and culture, diversity of tastes and in-
terests, and constant widening of the horizon of
individual ambition — these things have pushed
us in all directions, but in none more than in the
field of journalism. The variety of invention,
the myriad applications of steam, the uses of
electricity, the development of industry and
spreading out of commerce, together with
the growth of democratic ideas, have not
only enlarged the field of newspapers, but
have stimulated their increase, and imparted
to them a power and responsibility beyond

what the newspaper men themselves have
realized.

Hardly more than fifty years ago, the English
traveler, Basil Hall, in his book about us, said :
" The conductors of American journals are gen-
erally shrewd but uneducated men." It is diffi-
cult to believe that the statement was ever true,
because as far back as any one of us can remem-
ber, journalism has been one of the great profes-
sions, numbering among its devotees the bright-
est, brainiest and " all round '' biggest men of
their day. Time would not suffice to name
those who, in the realm of American journalism,
have shaped the thought and policy of their
periods, and have not only left indelible records
upon, but have added luster to the pages of the
country's history.

Though Horace Greeley thought that " of
all horned cattle, a college graduate in a news-
paper office is the worst,'' a large proportion of
those now graduating from our leading colleges
are seeking places in the ranks of journalism, so
that the young man who comes to-day, note
book in hand, to get six inches of talk from you
for the morrow's paper, instead of being a
shabby party, redolent of beer, is far more likely

to be a dainty youth of the highest culture,
fresh from the shades of one of the great univer-
sities.

I have spoken of journalism as one of the
great professions. Is it not rather of all pro-
fessions the first ? Surely the head of a great
newspaper is the proudest position to be
achieved under a government like ours, which,
in freedom of the press, guarantees freedom of
thought— they go together, because as Thiers
put it, "the liberty to print is the liberty to
think."

Carlyle said, "Every able editor is a ruler of
the world "; and he is, in that he helps to make
the public sentiment which controls the universe.
Even Napoleon acknowledged the editor's sway,
when he proclaimed the journalist " a regent of
sovereigns, a tutor of nations," and declared
"four hostile newspapers more to be feared
than a hundred thousand bayonets." If what
Napoleon said was true then, it is certainly truer
now, because ever since then the bayonet has
been losing and thought gaining, till the highest
tribunal for the nation as well as the individual
to-day, is the bar of public opinion. At that
bar no monarch upon his throne is so potent as

the editor in his sanctum, who has the power, as
De Tocquevillc expressed it, " to drop the same
thought into thousands of minds at the same
moment."

The newspaper to-day is not an adjunct of, it
is a part and parcel of our daily life, almost as
much as the air we breathe or the food we eat.

Thoreau was one man out of a million in his
boast that he never read a newspaper, in his idea
that " all news is gossip, and they who edit and
who read it are old women over their tea. Read
not the times," exclaimed the would-be philoso-
pher, glaring over his specs, " read not the times,
read the eternities ;" and yet, when John Brown
lay wounded at Harper's Ferry, the Concord
crank admitted that he had been reading all the
newspapers he could put his hands on for more
than a week.

Not read the papers ? Why, dear old
Beecher was " dead right " when he said " every
worthy citizen now reads a newspaper. It is the
window through which we see all that is going
on about us. Without it a man is shut up in a
small room and knows nothing outside of him-
self."

Wendell Phillips declared that " the millions

have no literature, no school, almost no pulpit
but the press. The newspaper," said he, "is
parent, school, college, pulpit, theater, example,
counselor, all in one." And yet, wide and far
reaching as are each of these relationships, they
do not, together, half cover the case. The pro-
vince of the press, once merely to collect and
distribute news, is now to do everything.

A newspaper pierces the heart of the dark
continent — gropes its way through the Arctic
floes — answers the question, " what are you
going to do about it?" by hurling a bandit ring
from power — builds monuments to the heroic
dead — turns public institutions inside out and
lets in the glare of day upon them — flashes the
blinding light of its bull's-eye into the darkest
haunts of crime and fetches the evil-doer to the
bar of justice — protects the poor from extortion
by distributing among them the necessaries of
life at first hand prices — nay, more, it gathers the
little waifs in from the streets and feeds them,
and it takes the shrunken-faced babies of the
tenements, gasping for air, to where the sun may
shine upon them and they may drink in the
breezes of the sea.

Indeed, a newspaper is the people's faithful

and sleepless servitor and champion in more
ways than can be put into words. As many
headed as Hydra, as many eyed as Argus, as
many handed as Briaraeus, a great newspaper is
the nearest possible human embodiment of the
idea of omnipotence.

On a balcony, a few evenings since, I sat for
hours watching the restless ocean. Its surface,
as far as the eye could reach, was all the time
broken into waves crested with foam, while
along the shore, without a moment's ceasing, the
mighty breakers roared. Whenever through
the night I woke I heard the distant clashing of
the waters and the sea still pounding on the sand.
In the morning, the far-away billows were dash-
ing spray against the sunlight, and the surf, un-
ceasingly as ever, was beating on the beach.

It seemed to me the very embodiment of the
idea of constant agitation, and the thought was
impressive that the ocean's perpetual motion is
the guarantee of its purity — that so long as the
waves are clashing upon its surface, and the
breakers beating on its shores, there need be no
fear of impurity in its waters.

In the ceaseless agitation by the press of
everything which concerns us is the surest guar-
antee of purity in our affairs. While the air of
every hamlet and village and town throughout
the country is filled with newspapers, arguing
and discussing every question, no matter how
trifling, that affects the people, and the great
dailies of the cities are pounding upon every
issue of importance that confronts us, and beating
at the feet of every public man, there need be no
fear about impurity in our politics. Whatever
of such impurity there may be, the newspapers
will surely discover and bring it to the surface
and the people can correct it.

Thomas Jefferson said : " I would rather live
in a country with newspapers and without a
government, than in a country with a govern-
ment but without newspapers." Let us be grate-
ful that we live in aland with a government and
newspapers — a government the best the sun
shines on, and newspapers the plentiest, the
most enterprising and the altogether best upon
the globe.

IX.

At the cloae of the Soathem Society banquet In the Madiioo Square bailding, Febriury 23,
1891, ai the President was about diimisting the assembUge, there was a general call, to which
thlt waa the response.

" ''PHREE men about to indulge in a little bib.
1 ulous refreshment invited a fourth to join
them. He declined. They insisted. He refused
point blank. They asked why. He said for two
reasons. 'What are they?' they inquired.
* Well,' he said, ' the first reason is this : When
my poor old mother was upon her dying bed,
she begged me with tears in her eyes to swear
off, and before she died I promised her I never
would taste another drop.' ' Great Scott ! ' they
exclaimed, ' that one reason is enough, but since
you have two, what's the other?' 'The other
reason,' said he, ' is this : I've just had a drink and
I don't want another right away.' Well, gentle-
men, I haven't promised anybody living or dying
never to make another speech before your
society, but like the man who thought that his

having so recently had a drink ought to excuse
him from taking another right away, so it seems
to me that having been called to the front at
your last dinner, I ought not to be so soon again
pressed into service. 1 am free to confess, how-
ever, that T am not indisposed to respond to
your call, since to do so affords me opportunity
to congratulate you on this splendid banquet, to
thank you for the courtesy which has permitted
me to enjoy it, and, as a New Yorker, to voice
the cordial welcome which the metropolis always
extends to you men of the South. The more of
you that come to us, and the oftener you come,
the better for us all ; because, as the shuttle, the
more frequently it goes flashing back and forth
through the loom, the more closely it weaves the
fabric; so the oftener you come to us and we go
to you, back and forth across the imaginary line
which divides the sections, the more closely we
unconsciously knit the fabric of our nationality.

But glad as we are to welcome those of you
who come to visit us, to those who come to cast
their lot with us and to take root among us we
open wide our hands, our hearts and the doors
of our homes.

I dare say there was a time when you felt a

hesitancy at coming among us because the
average against you at the close of the war was
so great ; but if so there is no longer need for
any of you to be shy. The goodly host of
Southern hustlers that came here when they had
got through fighting, with their sharp eyes looking
out from under old Confederate hat brims, and
fetching with them nothing but their stout hearts
and clear heads, have long since settled that
matter. Transferring their field of operations
to Wall street and their weapons to valuable
Southern properties, these hustlers have squared
the account, and honors between us now are
easy. For every farm that was cleaned out on
your side during the recent unpleasantness you
may be sure some unfortunate among us has
been stuck with a thousand acres of Texas or
Arkansas land. For every house that was de-
stroyed somebody here is wearily now walking
with 500 shares of — well, say Cotton Seed, that
cost way up in the fifties. Indeed, if it be any
satisfaction to you to hear it, I dare aver that
for every mule that was killed on )'Our side
during the late scuffle, some poor devil of a
Yank has since been plugged with *a hundred
Richmond Terminal ' at a price he'll never see

again. Not that we take any exception to it,
however. On the contrary, we rejoice in it.
But we are glad that the hustlers have been so
few, because if there had been many more of
them, some of us who rejoice in new patent-
leathers to-night would likely now be standing
on our uppers.

No. We are as proud of every one of your
people who has achieved wealth or distinction,
or both, among us, as you are yourselves, and
we New Yorkers have specially delighted in
the proof which some of you have furnished
that there are other breeds of Yankees just as
cute as the breed that is raised in New England.
Indeed, gentlemen, there is no evidence of
Southern prosperity and thirft anywhere in
which we Northern men do not delight. We
rejoice that your fair Southland has so glori-
ously recovered from its long prostration, and
we are proud that your people are so fast com-
ing to rival us in everything in which we have
thought the North would be always without a
rival. This is as it should be. The day for
jealousy between the sections has gone by.
With the second century of our national exist-
ence we enter upon a new career. We are no

longer an association of State communities, but
are now one great, solid, puissant nationality —
so completely one, indeed, that the very lines
between the States are losing their distinctness
because of the frequent trampling upon them by
friendly feet. Hereafter forever there must be
no difference between us — that is to say, no
difference to affect the integrity of our national-
ity. There will be, of course, perpetual strife
as to questions of public policy ; but as the con-
stant motion of the water is necessary for the
purity of the seas, so the ceaseless agitation
about our public questions is vital to the purity
of our politics. But while the surface of the
ocean is broken into countless waves which roar
and clash against each other, down in its depths
the water is calm and undisturbed ; so, though
about the thousand and one issues, state and
national, which affect us, we split into as many
parties, to roar and clash against each other, be-
hind the parties stand the people of both sec-
tions calm and undisturbed — calm in their love
of country and undisturbed in their nationality.
While this is so, we may safely laugh at pessi-
mists, because despite all their gloomy forebod-
ings the future is safe and sure.

To steal a thought from your own meteoric
and matchless Grady, in the far off distant
future, when we shall have passed away and
been all of us long forgot, the clock of time will go
on, then as now, calmly ticking off the passing
years, and at every stroke which tells of another
year gone by, will be heard, following its own
echo round the continent, the cry of the watch-
men in the towers, 'all is well with the old re-
public — all is well I ' "

Delivered at the Business M&n's mealing at the close of the Faseett-FIower campaign,
October 29, H91, in Carnegie Hall— the audience numbering between four and five thousand
persons.

THIS has been announced as a business man's
meeting, and as one of the business men of
the city, in nowise a politician, I am here to mal<e
manifest, by my presence, my earnest sympathy
with the effort which is being put forth to ac-
complish good government for the State in
which Av*e live.

However uncertain may have been the issues
involved in any of the campaigns of the past,
the issue in this one is clearly and sharply
defined— so clearly and so sharply that no
man, it seems to me, who is desirous of the
welfare of the State, can be for one moment
in doubt as to how he ought to vote. Our city,
the Empire City, the proudest city of the Union,
which, in the order of things, ought to set an
example of good government to every other

city in the country, has long been firmly held
in the grip of a political organization, the in-
spiring motive and cohesive power of which
have always been, are now and always will be
that of public plunder. We know from the
sorr}' experience of the past how comparatively
futile are any efforts to shake off that grip from
the city ; but now this organization, this polit-
ical octopus, not satisfied with owning and
operating our imperial city, like Alexander sigh-
ing for new worlds to conquer, is reaching out
and trying to secure within its clutches our
great Empire State as well ; and the question
which presents itself to every voter in the com-
munity is, are you willing to enlarge the reach
and strengthen the grip of this octopus? — are
you willing to turn over our fair State to the
tender mercies of the Tammany tiger — or are
you not ?

This, stripped of all extraneous and confusing
complications, is the question, the only question
before the people, and our brilliant young leader
deserves the highest praise, not only for his
wisdom, but for his courage, m that he has so
persistently, in all his speeches through the
State, driven this question home.

Of course our friends, the enemy, don't like
the way in which Mr. Fassett talks. They think
he ought to discuss national issues. Well, so far
as I am informed, there is practically no national
issue involved in this campaign. The great
National issue, of course, is the tariff, and in
National politics men are Republicans or Demo-
crats as they believe in a high tariff or in a
tariff for revenue only. Now, here are two men
among us. One believes in a tariff for revenue
only, the other in a high tariff, and upon that
question and in National politics they are as
wide apart as the poles. But they are intel-
ligent men. They read that most able and
excellent of journals, the Evening Post, and from
perusal of its columns they know all about
Tammany Hall. As good citizens they are both
of them conscientiously opposed, of course,
to Tammany and all its methods. Now these
men don't want to hear discussion about the
tariff. What they do want to hear discussed is
the issue which is before us, and that is Tam-
many Hall, and there is no reason under heaven
why, though in National politics these men vote
dead against each other, they should not on
Tuesday next, together vote the anti-Tamman}'

ticket in favor of good government and against
the tiger.

So far as I have yet heard, the only reason that
has been urged by our friends the enemy, why
everybody should not vote for Mr. Fassett, is
that wretched old chestnut — so old and worm
eaten that I hate to handle it — to the effect that
he prevented the World's Fair from coming to
our city. Well, Mr. Fassett says he didn't pre-
vent it, and if anybody ought to know, surely he
ought. Whenever a high tariff man makes a pe-
culiarly sanguine or boastful assertion as to any
of the industries of the country, it is the habit
of our low tariff friends to climb up on the back
seats, and call him a tin-plate liar. Now, I don't
want to go so far as to call any man a liar — cer-
tainly I should not like to be so hard on anybody
as to call him a tin-plate liar; but from the evi-
dence which has been adduced i feel that we are
warranted in regarding the man who says Fas-
sett kept the World's Fair from commg to New
York, as at least a cast-iron prevaricator. But
suppose, for the sake of argument, we admit — if
there is any way to satisfy our Democratic
friends, let us do it if we can; so just to please
them let us admit — that Mr. Fassett did kill the

World's Fair. Then let us consider how much
he has saved to the city by his action. The
amount can be arrived at by a simple sum in the
old-fashioned rule of three. Any bo}" here with
a lead pencil in his pocket can do the sum,
though there is perhaps not one in this vast
audience with an imagination sufficiently vivid
to conceive what the result of the calculation
would be. The sum would read in this wise : If
it cost New York twelve millions of dollars to
let Tammany Hall, under William M. Tweed,
build one Courthouse, how much would it cost
the city to let Tammany Hall under its present
leadership construct all the buildings that would
be needed for the great World's Fair? — to say
nothing of the incidentals I However, it makes
no difference either way whether Fassett did
or did not kill the Fair. The election which
is before us, so far as I am informed, is not
for the purpose of affording the people an
opportunity through the ballot-box to wreak
vengeance upon whoever did kill the Fair. On
the contrary, the only purpose of the election,
as I understand it, is to afford the people an op-
portunity to say whether Tammany Hall shall
be entrenched at Albany or not, and the Fair

has nothing to do with the case. The Fair is
not before the house, but what is before the
house — the only thing before the house — is that
wretched tiger, with his fiery eyes, licking his
hungry chops and "a-lashin of his tail," and this
damnable iteration of the cry about the World's
Fair is only a miserable subterfuge, availed of
by our Tammany friends to fog the real issue if
possible, and to shut up our eyes to the existence
and the presence of that ferocious beast.

I remember once being in a little cross-road
store down in Virginia — you know the kind of
store I mean— the kind in the country in which
they keep everything, from a toothpick to a pul-
pit. Well, presently there slouched into the
store a very old darkey, evidently, by the way
in which he seemed to make himself at home,
a patriarch of the neighborhood. He leaned
back comfortably against one of the counters,
" chawin'," and for nearly half an hour was si-
lent, apparently lost in study of the wonderful
assortment of wares exposed for sale. By and
by his eye lit upon a pile of little round wooden
boxes upon a shelf on the opposite side of the
store, for all the world like miniature cheese
boxes. They contained axle grease. The old

man contemplated the boxes for a few moments
— then turning to the proprietor he said : " Mr.
Smiff, wot you axes for one of dem little cheeses
over dah ? " Mr. Smith replied: " Ten cents."
The old man ruminated for a while — then came
back at the proprietor — " If I buys one of dem
little cheeses over dah, Mr. Smiff, is you gwine
to chuck in some crackers for me to eat wid it ? "
The proprietor acceded to the cracker proposi-
tion, whereupon the old man relapsed again into
silence, as if calculating whether he could afford
the outlay. At length he went down into his
clothes — fished around for a while — discovered
and fetched up a ten-cent piece. Then he shuf-
fled across the store to the counter behind which
the proprietor stood, laid down the coin, re-
ceived in return for it a box of axle grease and
a brown paper bag containing half a pound of
soda crackers, and then pulling himself together
he left the store and went on his way rejoicing.
Some half an hour or so afterward, as I was going
up the road, I saw the old man seated on a log
by the roadside, Avith a jackknife carefully scrap-
ing the last of the axle grease out of the little
wooden box, and as carefully spreading it on
half a cracker. " Hallo, old man," said I to him

as I passed, "how does it go?" "Oh, well,
Massa," he replied, " it goes good enough, I
reckon. Dese yer crackers, I ain't got no fault
to find wid dem — dey's cheap enough — dey done
give 'em to me, you know — and dis yer cheese
— well, I spec's as how it's wholesome enough,
but, 'foh Gawd, it's de ransomest cheese I ever
struck.''

1 only told the story, ladies and gentlemen,
to point a moral and adorn a tale (a voice
—"The tiger's tail?")— no, let us cut that—
and to say that this talk about the World's
Fair is the ransomest political pretext I ever
struck.

I have said that the World's Fair nonsense
seems to be the only argument of our Tammany
friends in this campaign. Well, gentlemen —
I humbly beg your pardon. I mean, of course,
ladies and gentlemen. I was led into the dis-
courtesy, I presume, by the consciousness that
the women cannot vote. Oh ! if they only
could! What? Am I in favor of woman suf-
frage? Well, I should smile! If among the re-
forms that arc sure to come when Mr. Fassett
gets to Albany, we knew that woman suffrage
would be included, this would be a pleasanter

fight to make, the victory could be more easily
won and when won would be the more enjoy-
able. I am one of those who believe that every
woman is entitled in the sight of God, if not
before the law, to all the rights that any
man has, and to one more beside — that is, the
right of protection ! I want it distinctly under-
stood that I belong to the party of protectionists
— and from the applause with which you greet
the declaration, I should judge everybody else
in the building belongs to the same party.

I was going on to say that the World's Fair
" bogie '' is the only argument I have yet heard
advanced why we should not vote for Mr. Fas-
sett. But I am wrong. I have heard one more
argument, and that is because it is asserted that
Mr. Fassett is Mr. Piatt's young man. Well,
that statement is true to the extent that Mr.
Fassett is a young man, and I wish I was one.
" Drive easy," said the woman to the cabman, as
she helped her drunken husband into the cab,
" drive easy, please, my husband is so sick. " " Yis,
ma'am, I will dhrive aisy. Sure, he's moietey
sick, I can see that, but I wish I had his com-
plaint,'' said the cabby as he climbed up on the
box. I guess there are a good many of the old

boys, not only on our side of the house, but
among- the benighted followers of Tammany as
well, who wish they had Mr. Fassett's complaint
of youth. Yes, Mr. Fassett is a young man; but
as to his being Mr. Piatt's young man, I think I
know Mr. Fassett well enough to denounce that
assertion, if not as a tin-plate lie or a cast-iron
prevarication, at least as a pot-metal falsehood,
and to declare that Mr. Fassett is nobody's
young man — that is, of course, nobody's but Mrs.
Fassett's. He is her young man all the time, and
if he makes as good a Governor as he makes a
husband and father, the State will be most for-
tunate in his election.

However, let us not stand upon trifles. If it
will make our Tammany friends any happier,
let us frankly admit that Mr. Fassett is Mr.
Piatt's young man. But, having made the ad-
mission, then let us carefully consider whether
we wouldn't be better off— just a " leetle " better
off—with Mr. Piatt's young man than we would
be with Boss Crokcr's old man?

1 have heard a great deal said about those
whom we call Mugwumps or Independents — the
men of either party who sometimes vote with the
other party — and I have heard much said in their

disparagement, of wliich I have always disap-
proved, because, while I believe, of course, in
party organization and party fealty, I still more
firmly believe in ever}' man's independence of
political thought and action. It will be a sorry
day for the Republic, in my judgment, when all
men vote their party ticket blind and straight,
without thought as to whether it be for the right
or for the wrong. I think the surest guarantee of
the perpetuity of our institutions is the people's
independence — their readiness always, with refer-
ence to the thousand and one issues that are con-
stantly presenting themselves, to vote for what
commends itself to their conscience and intelli-
gence as right and best for the community, re-
gardless of party lines.

And it is upon this independence on the part
of our intelligent voters that 1 base my hope of
Republican success in this campaign — because I
think that throughout the State there are thou-
sands of life-long Democrats who appreciate the
danger which threatens — the danger that Tam-
many Hall will get control of the multitudinous
affairs of our great State ; and 1 believe that in
order to avert such a calamity these independent
Democrats will vote the anti-Tammany ticket.

We have already had indication that such will
be the case, in the recent action of Mr. Herman
Oelrichs and in the letter the other day published
of Mr. George William Curtis. Mr. Oelrichs has
always been a Democrat and says he always will
be one, but, strong and healthy and handsome as
he is, Tammany has at last got to be " too rich
for his blood."

We all know Mr. Curtis — that he was an old-
time Republican— an Abolitionist, when to stand
for liberty against slavery, as Richelieu said
about matrimony, "it took the courage of a
lion," but that for years he has been regarded as
the great Mugwump chief— the trump-card in
the hand of the Democracy. I say this, of course,
in no sense of disrespect, because to my mind
George William Curtis is the embodiment of
the very highest type of American citizenship —
a gentleman, a scholar and a statesman, like
Chevalier Bayard, " sans peur et sans reproche."
The course of these men in refusing to vote the
Tammany ticket cannot but have influence upon
intelligent and thoughtful men throughout the
State, and it encourages the hope I have ex-
pressed that many of the best Democrats will join
with the Republicans in the effort to save our

great Empire State from the blighting effects of
Tammany domination.

Burke said that the main purpose of all the
complex machinery of the Government of Great
Britain is to put twelve men in a box. The chief
end and aim of all our municipal existence is to
achieve good government for the community,
which is the choicest blessing that can come to
the aggregate man. And as I began, so I close —
it seems to me that no man who has the welfare
of the State at heart can be for one moment in
doubt as to how he ought to vote on Tuesday
next.

The Trihunf of Oi-tnber 30ih said : Th* vast audience »a* more than generous with iU
applause. Several limes he had lu slop for some moments until the cheering should cease. He
could easily be heard even in the furthest parts of the ereat hall. He told his stories well, and had
the honor paid him of having to give an encore. When be had seated himself the applause was
kept up until he was compelled to comtf lorward again to say : "This demonstration on your
part, ladias and gentlemen, alfords me more pleasure and gratification than somebody will feel on
Tuesday night, when be learns that he has been elect«d Governor." There were more cheers
at this.

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