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JU iH c ^ >> * c s M 'U 73 :Q ^ G i I I Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/addressesdeliverOOIiberich The Liberal Club, Buffalo. h [ORGANIZED, OCTOBER 29, 1891.] ADDRESSES DELIVERED BEFORE THE CLUB DURING THE THREE SEASONS. 1900-1903 IN THOUGHT, FREE; IN TEMPER: REVERENT ; IN METHOD, SCIENTIFIC. 1904. L^ HAUSAUER, SON & JONES, PRINTERS. BUFFALO. N. Y. HfcNRY r JENS Zhc Xibecal Club. RULES. Adopted October 2Q, l8gi. First. — This Club shall be known as The Liberal Club. Its object shall be the careful consideration at monthly dinners of subjects having to do with religion, morals, education and public affairs. Its discussions shall be in thought, free; in temper, reverent; in method, scientific. Second. — The officers of the Club shall be a president, two vice-presidents, a secretary, a treasurer, a topic com- mittee, a membership committee, and an executive or dinner committee. The president and vice-presidents shall be ex officio members of all committees, and the secretary and treasurer shall be ex officio members of the executive committee. Each committee shall have power to fill vacan- cies occurring in its number, and other vacancies may be filled by the president. Third. — The Club shall hold dinners in the months of November, December, January, February and March. Any member may bring one guest from out of town to any dinner on payment of two dollars. Fourth. — The Club shall hold an annual meeting in May, at which officers shall be elected for the ensuing year. At least one week before the annual meeting the president shall appoint a nominating committee of five, which shall make nominations for all offices. Fifth. — The dues shall be twelve dollars per annum. 4 * * Yh^^ Liberal club and shall date from the annual meeting. Any member whose dues shall remain unpaid for more than one month after notice has been sent him shall lapse from membership in the Club. Sixth. — ^The membership of the Club shall be limited to three hundred. Application for membership shall be considered by the membership committee, and one adverse vote shall be sufficient to exclude any candidate. Seventh. — These rules may be amended at any annual meeting of the Club by a two-thirds vote of all members, or at any time by a two-thirds vote of all the officers of the Club. Eighth. — (Adopted November 19, 1896). — All persons applying for membership in the Club shall sign an applica- tion card, which must be endorsed by two members of the Club not members of the membership committee. Each endorser must also write a letter of recommendation of the person endorsed, which shall accompany the card of applica- tion. OFFICERS OFFICERS AND COMMITTEES OF THE LIBERAL CLUB. 190J-1904. president: Robert R. Hefford. It) i c e ■ f> r a e i b e n t s : Henry P. Emerson, T. Guilford Smith. Secretatie: F. Howard Mason. Ureaeurer: George C. Bingham. Uopic Committee: Loran L. Lewis, Jr., Chairman. Walter L. Brown, Martin Carey, Luther P. Graves, Arthur W. Hurd. Aembevfbip Committee: George A. Ricker, Chairman^ Arthur E. Hedstrom, Henry G. Grant, George B. Montgomery, Knowlton Mixer. }Exec«tive Committee: John Lord O'Brian, Chairman, Robert K. Root, C. R. Shuttleworth. THE LIBERAL CLUB OFFICERS 1891-1904. l^re0t^«nt6: E. Carleton Sprague, 1891— 1895 John G. MiLBURN, 1895— 1898 C.W. Goodyear, 1898— 1899 John B. Olmsted, 1899— 1901 Henry W. Sprague, 1901— 1903 Robert R. Hefford, 1903— 1904 Vicesf>cesibent0: Thomas R. Slicer, 1891— 1892 T. Guilford Smith, 1891— 1893 JuDSON B. Andrews, 1892 — 1893 Dexter P. Rumsey, 1893— 1895 John G. Milburn, 1893— 1895 Ansley Wilcox, 1895— 1896 William H. Gratwick, 1895 — 1896 Herbert G. Lord, 1896 — 1897 RoswELL Park, 1896 — 1897 C. W. Goodyear, 1897— 1898 S.M.Clement, 1897— 1898 Wilson S. BissELL, 1898 — 1899 Charles G. Stockton, 1898 — 1900 T. Guilford Smith, 1899 — 1900 Adelbert Moot, 1900 — 1901 Rev. Samuel V.V. Holmes, 1900 — 1901 OFFICERS 7 R. R. Hefford, 1901— 1903 T. Guilford Smith, 1903 — 1904 Henry P. Emerson, 1903 — 1904 Secretaries: Paul C. Ransom, ; • ' '^Qi— 1^93 W. H. Gratwick, Jr., ....*... 1893— 1895 Charles L. Parke, 1895— 1896 William Burnet Wright, Jr., .... 1896 — 1900 F. Howard Mason, 1900 — 1904 Ureaeurers: John R. Williams, 1891— 1901 G. Barrett Rich, Jr., 1901— 1903 George C. Bingham, 1903 — 1904 dbafrmen of Uopic Committees: De Lancey Rochester, 1891 — 1892 Thomas R. Slicer, 1892 — 1898 Irving Browne, 1898 Ansley Wilcox, 1899 Herbert G. Lord, 1899 — 1901 Frank A. Severance, 1901 — 1903 Loren L. Lewis, Jr., 1903 — 1904 (Ebairmen of flJembcrsbip Committees: Henry A. Richmond, 1891 — 1895 William H. Glenny, 1895 — 1897 Edmund Hayes, 1897 — 1898 Henry W.Sprague, 1898 — 1900 George A. RiCKER, 1900 — 1901 8 THE LIBERAL CLUB Walter P. Cooke 1901 — 1902 Arthur Detmers, 1902 — 1903 George A. RicKER, 1903 — 1904 Cbafrmcn of Siecutive Committees: Francis Almy, 1891 — 1902 John M. Satterfield, 1902 — 1903 John Lord O'Brian, 1903 — 1904 MEMBERS LIST OF MEMBERS 900-1903. Harrison M. Angle, J. J. Albright, Francis Almy, Frederick Almy, Charles M. Armstrong, James Ash, Charles E. Austin, T. G. Avery, A. F. Aird, Edward G. Aldrich. B Charles H. Bailey, Howard A. Baker, Howard H. Baker, Nathaniel C. Barnum, Lucius E. Bartlett, Joseph C. Batchelor, George W. Benson, Morris Benson, George C. Bingham, Herbert P. Bissell, Wilson S. Bissell * George Bleistein, Jesse C. Bowen, Walter L. Brown, Frank Brundage, Adelbert G. Bugbee, O. C. Bugbee, Dr. Lorenzo Burrows, Jr., Edward H. Butler, J. A. Butler, Rev. Frederic C. Brown, Jos. B. Betts. George Cary, Walter Cary, Willis O. Chapin, John Chamberlain, R. M. Codd, Bernard Cohen, W. H. Collins, Franklin G. Cooke, Walter P. Cooke, William C. Cornwell, G. W. Creighton, William H. Crosby, Dr. J. N. Culbertson, John Cunneen, 10 Martin Carey, Dr. C. R. Ciitchlow, THE LIBERAL CLUB c Harris A. Covell, H. E. Crouch. F. W. Danforth, J. C. Dann, Ganson Depew, Arthur Detmers, Dr. Alfred E. Diehl, R. S. Donaldson, Charles F. Dunbar, Walter J. Dunham, Arthur D. Dana, Adolph Duschak, H. O. Duerr. Edward A. Eisele, A. J. Elias, Dr. Charles A. Ellis, H. L. Elmendorf, B Henry P. Emerson, William M. English, John G. EppendorfF, Edwin T. Evans. George W. Farnham, W. C. Farrington, Edward G. Felthousen, Clarence M. Fenton, James Fenton, Simon Fleischmann, Frank S. Fosdick, F. P. Franchot, Dr. Carlton C. Frederick Dr. Henry P. Frost, Robert L. Fryer, Henry C. French, Howard A. Forman. Edward Gaskin, Henry M. Gerrans, S. Ginsburg, Philip B. Goetz, Charles W. Goodyear, Frank H. Goodyear, Dr. Henry Y. Grant, Luther P. Graves, P. H. Griffin, Benjamin H. Grove, M. D., Elwood Grissinger. MEMBERS 11 H Alfred G. Hauenstein, Edmund Hayes, Arthur E. Hedstrom, R. R., HefFord, Dr. William R. Henderson, Raphael Herman, William H. Hill, Dr. George A. Himmelsbach Julius Hofeller, Theodore Hofeller, Allan I. Holloway, Rev. S.VanVranken Holmes, William H. Hotchkiss, George R. Howard, Dr. Lucien Howe, Dr. A. A. Hubbell, Rev. Charles F. Hubbard, Dr. A. W. Hurd, E. M. Husted, Edward B. Harvey, Louis B. Hart, John A. Hall. Dr. Carlton R. Jewett, Dr. Charles S. Jewett, Albert E. Jones, Dr. Allen A. Jones, Bert L. Jones, S. H. Jones, Joseph A. Jones, Dr. B. C. Johnson, J. C. Joseph, William H. Joyce. Dr. Vertner Kenerson, E. F. Knibloe, Dr. William C. Krauss, George P. Keating. Frank E. Lahey, Andrew Langdon, J. N. Earned, John Laughlin , Shumway H. Lee, William C. Letchworth, Dr. F. Park Lewis, L. L. Lewis, Jr., Paul M. Lincoln, H. H. Littell, Frank M. Loomis, Alfred Lyth. Allen McKnal, J. J. McWilliams, Elbert B. Mann, M Dr. Matthew D. Mann, William L. Marcy, J. H. Massey, 13 THE LIBERAL CLUB M George B. Mathews, George E. Matthews, Joseph B. Mayer, L. F. Messer, Dr. Herbert Mickle,* JohnG. Milburn, George C. Miller, W. M. Mills, Fred K. Mixer, Knowlton Mixer, George B. Montgomery, H. E. Montgomery, Adelbert Moot, H. H. Moyer, Josiah G. Munro, F. Howard Mason, Allan N. McNabb, Geo. E. More, H. G. Meadows. J. C. Nagel,* Horace A. Noble, N William P. Northrop, Joseph W. Noble. John Lord O'Brian, John B. Olmsted, John M. Olmstead, A. Oppenheimer, N. Oppenheimer. Charles W. Pardee, Dr. Roswell Park, Charles S. Parke, Dr. C. J. Patterson, Thomas Penney, Lauren W. Pettebone, Henry J. Pierce, Emile S. Pincott, James A. Pincott, George A. Plimpton, Henry W. Pope, Melvin P. Porter, William D. Porter, Russell H Potter, Pascal P. Pratt, W. G. Palmer, Austin R. Preston. Thomas T. Ramsdell, Richard F. Rankine, John E. Ransom, William W. Reilley, Dr. W. S. Renner, Edward R. Rice, MEMBERS R 13 G. Barrett Rich, G. Barrett Rich, Jr., A. C. Richardson, Henry A. Richmond, George A. Ricker, William A. Rix, James A. Roberts, Nathaniel Rochester, William A. Rogers, Dr. R. R. Ross, Robert K. Root, Dexter P. Rumsey, Frank Rumsey, Andrew J. Rich, Frederick B. Robins. John M. Satterfield, Henry L. Schwartz,* John Sedgwick, L. G. Sellstedt, Frank H. Severance, Walter J. Shepard, C. R. Shuttleworth, Louis W. Simpson, William F. Sikes, J. Fred Slocum, Carlton M. Smith, Dr. Lee H. Smith, Philip S. Smith, T. Guilford Smith, Dr. Irving M. Snow, C. A. Spaulding, Carleton Sprague, Henry Ware Sprague, Maurice C. Spratt, Dr. George S. Staniland, Wm. C. Staniland, Rev. B. H. StaufFer, Dr. George R. Stearns, Nathan Steigerwald, Dr. Charles G. Stockton, George M. Stowe, S. S. Spencer, Jr., George P. Sawyer, Edgar B. Stevens. Oscar T. Taylor, Albert G. Thorn, R. H. Thompson, A. G. Trackenberg, George H. Tryon, U. S. Thomas, Shirley Grey Taylor. U C. M. Underbill, Daniel Upton. 14 THE LIBERAL CLUB V Dr. P. W. VanPeyma, Frederick A. Vogt. Henry J. Warren, William Y. Warren, Henry M. Watson, F. J. Weber, Henry Wertimer, Charles B. Wheeler, Lester Wheeler, Pendennis White, William S. Wicks, Ansley Wilcox, Dr. Dewitt G. Wilcox, Grant B. Wilkes, George L. Williams, W Gibson T. Williams, John R. Williams, Robert H. Williams, Charles R. Wilson, C. Townsend Wilson, Waher T. Wilson, Frederick K. Wing, Wilham B. Wright, Jr., Fred R. Wheeler, Dr. Conrad E. Wettlaufer, Louis F. Wing, Shelton Weed, Wm. R. Waters. NON-RESIDENT MEMBERS. Col. D. S. Alexander, Rev. Samuel Colgate,* Frederick H. Green, Hon. F. W. Kruse, Hon. James S. Liddle, Albert B. Neil, Allen S. Olmsted, Jacob W. Olmsted, Edward H. Pratt, J. E. Pound,* C. W. Ricker, H. M. Swetland, Percy H. Wilson, N. G. Holland. HONORARY MEMBERS. Rev. T. R. Slicer, Rev. H. G. Lord. *No-w Deceased. ADDRESSES 15 ADDRESSES 1900-1903. igoo-igoi. PAGE Count Tolstoi and His Philosophy of Life . . 17 Mr. Ernest Crosby, Rhinebeck, N. Y. The White Man's Burden : What It Is and What It Is Not 59 Mr. Ernest Temple Hargrove, London, England. The Relations of the Public Schools to Business Life 89 Prof. Jeremiah Whipple Jenks, Cornell Uni- versity. The Relations of the United States to the Orient . 1 17^ His Excellency Wu Ting Fang, Minister from China to United States. The True Liberal I3( Rev. Thomas R. Slicer, New^ York City. The Eugene Field I Knew 158 Francis Wilson, New York City. igoi-igo2. The Cause of the Boer, 181 Commandant W. D. Snyman, South Africa. Stanley McKeown Brown, Toronto, Can. Education and Society, 233 Rev. Dr. Emil G. Hirsch, Chicago, 111. / 16 THE LIBERAL CLUB PAGE The Stage and the Actor, 261 Sir Henry Irving, London, England. The CiviHzation of Russian and Modern Socialism, 272 Prof. Alexander M. Chessin, St. Louis, Mo. English Administration in India, .... 301 Profl Henry Morse Stephens, Ithaca, N. Y. The Ideal and Practicable in College Education 340 Arthur T. Hadley, President of Yale University. I go 2-1 go ^. The Duties of the New Century, .... 358 Rev. Edward Everett Hale, D. D., Boston Mass. The Martinique Disaster, Mr. Angelo Heilprin, Philadelphia. Address given with Stereopticon Views. Unreported. Are We Worse than Our Fathers ? . . . . 384 Hon. Charles Emory Smith, Philadelphia. The Work of the United States in the West Indies, 408 General Leonard Wood, U. S. A. Our Contemporary Ancestors in the Southern Mountains, 445 William Goodell Frost, President of Berea College. fitet Blnnctt iDecembec 20, tdoo. COUNT TOLSTOI AND HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. MR. ERNEST H. CROSBY. I wonder what Tolstoi would say if he could see us discussing his philosophy in evening clothes after a banquet like this. I wnsh he were here in my place to tell you. I can imagine what the effect would be of having him sitting in my chair. In fact, I do not see why you should not have him. If your enter- prising Secretary can get Wu Ting Fang — isn't that his name .? — and other people, from distant places, I do not see why you should not have Tolstoi himself. But, I can imagine him sitting here as I saw him when I visited him in Russia some six years ago. You know his picture very well, — a plain-looking Russian peas- ant, with a loose kind of a blouse on, a belt around his waist — you could hardly call it a belt; it looked like a very-much-damaged trunk-strap, I think, more than anything else, — as shabbily dressed as a man could be dressed, only distinguished from the peasant in the field by his scrupulous neatness and by something in his face, a twinkle in the eye, under its shaggy gray eye-brows, which showed that he was a man who had done a great deal of thinking in his time. It would 18 /.\ ; l^r \ *^* • ; ^^^ I^^ERAL. CLUB. be a rather dramatic thing, would it not, to have him here ? — a subject worthy of some of the latest school of French artists. And I am inclined to think, in any- thing that he had to say, although a great deal of it you would not agree with, that there would not be a word that you would not receive with respect and I am sure when he sat down you would all feel that you had listened to a man, not only one of the most sincere men on earth to-day but actually one of the sanest men as well. It is quite fitting that Tolstoi should be presented in a dramatic way because to my mind he is one of the most dramatic of men — the least theatrical, but the most dramatic. It is the secret of the wonderful power of his novels. He is a man whom argument affects little; he is a man who, I am inclined to think, would gain little from the reading of books; he is a man who sees things dramatically in figures; he is a man who always selects the practical side, the side of action rather than the side of thought. The very first incident in his life which we are told had the effect of drawing him away a little from the conventional view of things, was a dramatic incident. It is told of him when he was a student only eighteen years old at the University of Kazan, he was invited to a ball at the house of a nobleman who lived in the country in the vicinity; it was a frightfully cold winter night; Tolstoi went out to this ball in a sleigh driven by one of the peasant coachmen that are so common in Russia. We must remember in Russia COUNT TOLSTOI AND HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 19 that there are only two classes. The middle class is only beginning to exist there. There are the rich and the nobiUty on the one side, and the peasants on the other — and the servant class, the coachman class. The other class that we are familiar with in our cities are really representatives of the peasant class. So Tolstoi was driven out to this ball by a peasant coachman. He went into the ball, passed the night in dancing, and finally, forgetting alto- gether the coachman in the sleigh that he had left out- side, when he came out, at an early hour in the morn- ing, he found his driver unconscious, very nearly frozen to death; it was necessary to rub him; chafe his hands and his feet for two or three hours before he was brought again to consciousness. That dram- atic incident had a tremendous effect on Tolstoi's mind, although he was only eighteen years old. He thought, **Why is it? Here am I, a fellow eighteen years old, who has never been of use to anybody; no- body knows whether I am going to be of any use to anybody or not. Why should I be enjoying all these things in this warm house, this palace of this noble- man, feasting on the fat things of the earth in a warmly heated ball-room, and why should this man — representative of the great peasant class that does N all the hard work of the country, be shut outside in the cold ?" It seemed to him to be a picture of the state of the society that he lived in and he was so affected by it that he threw up his college course, went back to his estate, where I visited him. Yasnaya 20 THE LIBERAL CLUB. Poliana, south of Moscow, — his father and mother had died and he was the owner of it himself — and he tried to devote himself to the advantage and benefit of the serfs who were living then on his estate. He tried that two or three years and did not find it very suc- cessful. Those of you who have had any experience in trying to introduce new discoveries in the way of machinery and the management generally of agri- cultural property, know that it is not an easy thing, in this country, to change the habits of an agricultural population. Tolstoi found it in Russia even more difficult, and after two or three years he was discour- aged; he gave it up as a bad job. He went back to Moscow and applied for a com- mission in the army. We find him going down to serve the active service, first in the Caucasus and then shortly after that, as the captain of a battery of artillery in the great Crimean War, and he actually served in the defence of Sebastopol until the capitulation of that city; saw all there was to be seen in one of the greatest wars of the century. We must remember that when Tolstoi condemns war absolutely, when he says that it is a piece of barbarity that we have no right to countenance at the end of the nineteenth century, remember he is not speaking like many of us who have had no experience in it; he is a man who has seen service and who came out of the test honorably, promoted from a lieutenant to a captain, for his services in that way; and I have been told by very good authori- COUNT TOLSTOI AND HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 21 ties that as the result of his army experience he describes better than any other master of fiction what warfare really is, not only in his great novel "War and Peace'* but in his military work called "Sebastopol" which gave an account of this very same war, which was one of the first things he ever wrote. At the end of the war Tolstoi had already begun to write. His reputation began to spread throughout Russia and he found the career of a novelist open before him. So he resigned his com- mission, went for the first time to St. Petersburg and was received at once into the best literary and fash- ionable society of that city. He tells us that for the next few years he passed his life in a great deal of dissipation. I often think that a great many of the very good men who are, you might say, freed from their sins rather late in life, take pleasure in picturing their sins as blacker than they really were, yet we know that the life of a fashionable man in Russia is very far from being what it should be. We know they are tre- mendous drinkers, they are tremendous gamblers. Tolstoi speaks of the large amount of money he lost in gambling. He also tells us of the number of duels he fought — a great many things which he would to-day totally disapprove of. Yet when we read his writings we were always impressed by the fact that there was a serious substratum in his character. He never was satisfied with the life he was leading; he was always looking for something 22 THE LIBERALICLUB. as a guide in life, always feeling the want of a working theory of life. He tells us about his visiting the great European capitals, getting letters of- introduc- tion to the principal writers, trying to find out from them something about their opinions as to what the life of man means, what the hereafter is to be, what the object of his life is, but he came back without any satisfactory answer. It was on that trip that another one of these dramatic pictures was presented to him that had a lasting influence upon his character. He was in Paris and he went to see a public execution by the guillotine. As you know, in Paris those execu- tions are open, on the public square. He went. I don't know why. I suppose as a novelist he thought every experience he could have was a valuable one. He went to see the execution. It had a remarkable effect upon him. He tells us that as he heard the head and the body drop separately into the box that was prepared for them beneath, that he felt not only in his mind, in his heart, but through his whole person that that was a wrong act and that no theory of government or progress of civilization could possi- bly justify it. It was the first idea that came into his mind, the non-resistant, anti-government ideas which afterwards became so prominent in it, and you will see there, as in the case of the frozen coachman, it was not a matter of reasoning; it was the picture that was presented to him that brought him to that con- viction. He came back from his foreign travels. Just at that time the serfs were freed; 1861, I think COUNT TOLSTOI AND HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 23 it was. Tolstoi, like a great many other good land- lords, went back to his estates in the country to try to fit the new freedmen for their freedom. He started a village school in his own village; taught there as principal himself; he started an educational news- paper that was largely circulated among the landlords of Russia. Something of those papers have been collected in three volumes and translated into French. I have them in my library and they are most interest- ing as giving an example of Tolstoi's ideas on educa- tion way back forty years ago. It shows that many of his new ideas were really in his mind at that time. He started out with the principle in teaching the chil- dren in school in his village that no child should be V taught anything that it did not want to learn, and carried that out absolutely. They would take up a lesson in the morning; if the children did not like that lesson he would take up some other lesson until he got a lesson that they liked. The children were never obliged to study in the school. He tells us that about twice a week some boy would jump up and run over back and get his cap and start for home and all the other children would follow, and beyond a few calm words of invitation the teachers never interfered in any way whatever. He says that happened only about twice a week after they had already been in school some two hours and he thinks the advantage he obtained from knowing that the other five days of the week they staid of their own accord, and even for those two days they staid a couple of hours, was 24 THE LIBERAL CLUB. quite worth all they lost even by the absence of those children for a part of two days. I am not sure that that is altogether wrong. I do not suppose it could be applied very well in a city as large as Buffalo, but we have got to take Tolstoi's word about his educa- tional experiments because we have no other witnesses to call, and he assures us that there were never any children in any part of the world so well educated as \the children of his town during the time of his experiment, and I am sure we will have to take that point as proven. For a year or two he found this edu- cational work sufficient to occupy his mind, but he tells us that at this time, when he was about thirty- four or thirty-five years old, that the great questions of Hfe and death which came up before him and insisted upon an answer fifteen years later, that they would have presented themselves to him then if it had not been for the fact that just at that time he happened to meet a lady who became Madam Tolstoi. His mind was diverted from these deep questions of eter- nity to the questions of this world, and he fell in love, he married her, and in the writing of his two great novels and in the raising of a large family of children in the country, he found his mind so occupied for the coming fifteen years that he had very Httle time left for the questions which after\vards came up. Those of > you who are famiHar with the novel *^Anna Karenina" will remember the courtship of Levin and Kittie. It is an actual transcript of Tolstoi's now life; the whole story of it was the story of his relations COUNT TOLSTOI AND HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 25 with Madam Tolstoi. When I went to Yasnaya PoHana, after having read that book for the first time, and I actually met "Kittie" — Madam Tolstoi — it was very much as though you should happen to meet "Agnes Copperfield" or "Ethel Newcome" or some other favorite of yours that you should never imagine to have been a being on the surface of the earth at all. It was a very curious and interesting experience to make her acquaintance. The next fifteen years passed. As I say, Tolstoi was busily occupied in writing his great novel. His family was growing up around him in the country. They very rarely went into town at all. Now take a look at Tolstoi at fifty: a man of very high rank; a man of very large landed estates; a man who had added very considerably to his wealth by the large income that he derived from his books; a man whose novels are being translated into all the civilized languages of the world, and who is recognized as one of the two or three literary leaders of the world; a man who is very happily married, who had a devoted wife who assisted him in his work, and a fine family of children growing up around him. I am sure anyone would say that it would be impossible for any man at fifty years of age to have been more fortunate than Tolstoi was. And yet he tells us that as he came to be fifty years \ of age he was so dissatisfied with his life that he found it difficult to keep ideas of suicide out of his mind. He tells us that there was a rope lying about the house and he hid it away in the closet so that he 26 THE LIBERAL CLUB. might not see it and be tempted to use it. He was a great sportsman, very fond of shooting. He gave up shooting altogether, for fear that some day, in a fit of the blues, he might be tempted to blow^ out his own brains. Now, of course, that, we will all admit and agree, was a most abnormal and unhealthy and im- proper frame of mind for a man to be in. I certainly have not a word to say in its favor. And yet I am inclined to think that the state of mind of a man or a woman who reaches the age of fifty years without any working theory of life, without any dea of what he is living for, without any idea of what he is coming to, who does not give any attention to those subjects, who loses himself in the business or the amusement of the day, — I am not sure that the state of mind of such a man or such a woman is not really more abnormal and unhealthy than Tolstoi's was. And we must remember that Tolstoi did not give way to these temptations. He was not a coward. Suicide is the act of a coward. He determined to grapple with these great questions and for the space of five long years he grappled with them until, to his own satisfaction at any rate, he suc- ceeded in overcoming them. I do not know whether you have noticed, but in all the great biographies, in all the great histories, you will find that the men who have been fitted to become leaders of their fellow men have been for a time led out to be tempted in the wilderness; to grapple with the great questions of life and death; to determine for themselves whether they are strong enough to answer them; that then COUNT TOLSTOI AND HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 27 they come back and give a message to the world. It seems to me that Tolstoi is one of those men and that this great struggle of his during the five years, of which I can only give you a very brief outline, shows that he is fitted to rank among those great historical characters. The first thing he did was to apply himself to the members of his own circle of society. He went to the religious people in his own circle, and he tells us that there were very few of them; he tried to find out what their ideas were; he did not care so much about their dogmatic beliefs, but with that dramatic and practical turn of mind of his he wanted to find out from them what their idea of a Christian life was, and as he came into their answers it seemed to him that they were deceiving themselves. They talked a great deal about love for God and love for their neigh- bor but he couldn't see that they lived in their out- ward lives differently from anybody else, and he got no lasting satisfaction there. Then he begun to study the scientific works of the day, — Spencer and Huxley, and the German philosophers, and particularly the new biological school, as it was at that time, the scientific learning of the day. He found it all very interesting, but it seemed to him that the scientific people were beginning at the very wrong end; that they tried to get hold of life as far away from them- selves as they could; if they could find it in a germ or microbe or protoplasm, then they were perfectly satisfied, but the life in their own souls they knew nothing about, had no advice to give with reference to 28 THE LIBERAL CLUB. it, and he got no satisfaction at all. He determined to go out into the country and see what he could learn from the peasantry. He had always been very fond of the peasants. As a boy he had been brought up in the country in that strange patriarchal life of the old Russian nobihty, and he had associated with the peasant children as a child; he had become acquainted with them again when he attempted to teach them after the emancipation of the serfs. Now he went back to them again, and it seemed to him that they had in their lives some kind of a practical answer to the question that he was putting. They worked very hard from morning to night; they did all the hard work of the Russian Empire; and yet they seemed to be more or less contented. One thing that struck him more than anything else was that they were not afraid of disease and death. In his own circle of society, even the most religious people, who talked about going to heaven when they died, the moment they got a serious symptom of any kind would travel all over the face of the earth to postpone their death and send for all the great doctors that were within reach and that could be obtained. To his surprise the peasants, when death came, seemed to think it was a natural thing. There was no re- bellion against it. That seemed to him a very sig- nificant fact. He concluded that there was a kind of faith that the peasants had that the people of his own class of society did not have. He made up his mind to try to find out what that faith was. He COUNT TOLSTOI AND HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 29 began to go regularly to the little church, which was pointed out to me, near his home in the country, — one of those curious white stucco churches, with green cupolas, — you will find these in pictures of Russia. He had not been accustomed to attend church for many, many years before. He went regularly to that church for many months. There was a great deal of the services that he could not approve of; there were a great many of the professed beliefs of that church that he could not accept, but he was so anxious to find out what the peasants' faith was that he stuck to it as long as he could, and it shows you the practical character of the man's mind that the thing which finally turned him away from the church was not any difficulty with its dogmas, but was a practical mistake, as it seemed to him. The war had just broken out between Russia and Turkey. Tolstoi went to church. In the first part of the service the priest would read that we ought to love our enemies and do good to those that persecute us, and so on, and then, at the end of the service, there was a prayer offered by order of the Russian Synod asking God to help the Russian armies to blow up the Turks with bombshells, or words to that effect. It seemed to Tolstoi such a totally inconsistent thing that it shocked him. From the very day that that prayer was said the first time he gave up going to that church. It seemed to him that a church which taught such inconsistent things must have something radically wrong in it. Now, what was he he to do ? He was not baffled yet. 30 THE LIBERAL CLUB. He began to study the Gospels for himself. It is almost pathetic to see the earnestness with which he went into that work. He began to study Greek again so that he might go into the originals. He made a complete commentary of the Gospels from one end to the other; an English translation of some of that has been pubhshed. I have two volumes. You have the Greek text on one side, the translation in English on the other. Of course, it was in Russian, in the original, and then a complete commentary under- neath by Tolstoi. Now, I must admit that even with the little knowledge of Greek that I have I could see that it was by no means a learned com- mentary. There were some little defects in Tolstoi's method, but whenever he came across a verse that he did not Hke, he left it out, — a very simple method. I wonder commentators have not thought before of ap- plying it; — entirely satisfactory to the commentator, at any rate. But even when you allow for such high- handed proceedings as that, it seems to me that that commentary of Tolstoi's is one of the best that I have ever looked at, and for that very reason, that he has this dramatic talent that I have been talking to you about. When Tolstoi reads the Gospels he thinks it over; he sees how Jesus said this and the Disciples said that and the whole thing is present before him as if it had happened today, in the streets in Buffalo and New York, for he seems to get the common sense meaning of it in a way that the most learned men have failed to get it, and this study of the Gospels COUNT TOLSTOI AND HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 31 led Tolstoi to a study of the Sermon on the Mount. He began to confine his attention to that. He read it over and over again, and every time those pas- sages, those familiar passages which speak of loving our enemies, loving those who persecute us, loving our neighbor, loving God with all our heart and soul, loving everybody, letting our influence go out upon them equally to the good and the bad, as the sunshine, upon the just and upon the unjust, — those always seemed to go deeper into his mind, into his heart, than anything else. Gradually he began, as he thought, to see what the secret of these Gospels is; that when Christ said we must love God with all our heart and our soul and our neighbor as ourselves, he eally meanrt what he said. *'Why," he thought, "I have heard those words read time and again for the last fifty years but it never entered my head before that anybody really meant them," and he began to make the experiment in his own mind of loving every- body more than himself as much as he possibly could, and as he gradually gave himself up to that mental exercise, the whole thing began to seem clear to him. This love for God and love for neighbor, taken as an actual experience and an exercise seemed like a new pair of spectacles with which to look out upon the world. He began to feel the most curious sensations in him- self. He tells us that as he began really to let his soul go out in love to others, he began to feel that there was an immortal essence in himself that was not 32 THE LIBERAL CLUB. going to die. He had never believed in the immor- taHty of the soul. He tells us that it is quite impos- sible, although so many books have been written on the subject, to prove the immortahty of the soul to anybody, but, he says, "if you let your soul go out in love to others you will feel its immortality, and that is the only way to prove it." He satisfied himself of the immortahty of the soul in that way. Now, what was Tolstoi to do ? His first impulse was what would have been the impulse, I expect, of any of us under the same circumstances, — to undertake some great charitable work. He rushed into Moscow, where there were so many poor people; he made up his mind to do what he could to establish some great charitable society to collect the superfluous wealth of the rich and to distribute it among the poor. Somehow or other he found it did not work. He expected the money that he gave to the poor people to unite them together in brotherly love. He found, instead of that, that as soon as he gave a rouble to a man that it seemed to be like a brick wall between them; — no unification, upon the basis of giving and taking, of that kind. By this time he got more ideas in his mind about manual labor — of which I will speak a little more later on — and he had got in the habit of going out into the suburbs of Moscow once or twice a week and sawing wood there for a certain length of time. One day he was walking into town between two wood-sawers, two peasants who had been engaged in sawing wood with him. They came across a beg- COUNT TOLSTOI AND HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 33 gar, — another one of those little dramatic incidents I have told you about. Each of them put his hand in his pocket, took out a small copper coin and put it into the beggar's hat. That set Tolstoi thinking. He said, "Now, it looks there as if we had done the same thing, but we haven't been doing the same thing at all." That copper coin represented so much labor, an hour or half an hour, or whatever it was, on the part of this peasant. He was giving himself; he was giving his own work. Besides that, he is a very poor man; he needs every penny that he can get; he will have to go without some — not luxury perhaps, some necessity to-night at supper because he has given that coin away; he has not only been giving himself and his own work but he has been depriving himself of something that he would have enjoyed. "Now, what have I been doing .? In the first place I don't know whether I have got this coin or not; it is such a small coin it is absolutely of no importance to me one way or the other. Then, where did I get it ? Why, let me see. That is a part of the rent that I got for some of my farms down at Yasnaya Poliana. What I have done with that coin is, I have taken it out of the pocket of a peasant in the country and I have put it into the hat of a peasant in the city. That is really all that I have had to do with it," And he began to see, according to his own ideas, at any rate, that charity, when it was based upon the superfluous wealth that comes in the way of unearned income, is not at all the same thing as the charity where a 3 34 THE LIBERAL CLUB. man gives the money that he actually earns himself and needs, and he began to think that this great so- ciety that he was going to found would not give the satisfaction that he expected it would, and just about that time he was filled with a feeling of revolt against the kind of life he had been living all his life long, — a life in which he had had every kind of luxury, in which everything had been done for him by others and in which he had done practically nothing for any- body else except writing very interesting and instruc- tive novels but always simply for the benefit of the class that lived in the same way that he did. He had been doing absolutely nothing for the great work- ing class to which he was indebted for so large a part of the things that he had been enjoying. He began to be filled with disgust for the fashionable life of Moscow, for the club life, for the social and the church life and all the rest of it, and he began from that time, not with any idea of theatrical effect, but because he could not help it, to dress as the peasants dressed; to go down into the country and live there as simply as he could; to get along without the luxuries for which he did not feel that he was giving a full return to society, and to remove all those differences which drew the line between him and the humble members of society in which he lived. Now, in considering. Tolstoi's behavior I think we ought to take into account the peculiarity of the Russian character. I believe that from my knowledge of Rus- sians, which has not been obtained from the Russian COUNT TOLSTOI AND HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 35 language at all — I don't read a word of Russian — but from reading translations of Russian books, and from those that I have met, they are the most absolutely logical people that ever lived. You persuade a Russian that autocracy is a bad thing, fully persuade him, and you will probably find him before night trying to blow^ ^ up the Czar. You persuade him that riches are a bad thing and the chances are you v^ill find him around the corner before very long with his pockets inside ^ out, giving away his last penny to the beggars in the street. Now, of course, that is not our way of be- having. We sometimes get new ideas into our minds. We are generally pretty cautious about them. We think them over for twenty or thirty or forty years and generally the ideas last longer than we do. You remember the story of the Irishman with the parrot. He had been told that parrots lived to be two hun- ydred years old, so he bought a young parrot, to see . whether it was true or not. That is often the way with us, with our new ideas, and generally we do not live long enough to find out. Now, there are ad- vantages in both of those methods. The logic of the Russian is a very fine thing and the caution of the American and the European is, also, a very fine thing in its way. I suppose perhaps a medium between the two would be the best thing of all. But when we judge Tolstoi and say that he has gone too far, in this or that or the other thing, we must remember that he has that logical characteristic of the Russians and when he has once made up his mind for himself that a 36 THE LIBERAL CLUB. certain course of action is the proper course, he goes ahead and performs it, no matter what the results may be. And now let us take up one or two of these peculiarities of his and see whether they are really so very peculiar after all. Take this matter of man- ual labor. It looks very funny for a man like Tolstoi to dress like a peasant and go out in the fields and plough and yet which is the desirable thing in the civ- ilization, is it the production of all-round men, or merely the production of merchandise ? Are we not making a far greater mistake, on the other hand ? Are we not beginning to think that the real measure of civiHzation is the number of bicycles, automobiles, ■^^ jimcracks of all kinds that we can turn out in a given period of time, no matter what effect the manu- facture of them may have upon human beings ? I do not believe men were made to spend ten hours a day in a factory making one very small and unim- portant part of some object of use. I do not believe it. To come to our own class of society; I do not believe that men were made to spend the greater part of their lives scribbling at desks in offices. I do not believe they were made for any such kind of work as that. That is to say, I do not believe they were made to have that as their sole work. And I think that when Tolstoi says that it is ridiculous to think that one part of the human race should have all their muscles developed and let their minds atrophy and that another part should have their minds de- COUNT TOLSTOI AND HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 37 veloped till you have the typical German professor, \vith nothing left except a beard and eye-glasses, with no chest, no health, nothing whatever but brains — it seems to me that the thing becomes a reductio ad absurdum and that the very desirable division of labor is really at least run into the ground. It seems to me that although Tolstoi very likely does go too far in the other way, that he is teaching mankind a lesson that mankind really ought to learn; that when we go knocking golf balls about, playing tennis, lifting up iron weights and doing all sorts of things very often for the purpose of supplying that exercise which a healthy all-round life would supply of itself, that we are just proving to our own satisfaction, if we would only pay attention to our own behavior, that the kind of life which we lead is not the kind of life which a man ought to lead. I do believe if we are going to have anything in the nature of a Utopian life upon this world that every human being will be called upon to develop his arms and his legs and his brains, all three together. And I fail to see anything pertinent or suggesting lunacy in a man like Count Tolstoi, when he tries as hard as he can to give an example, you may say, — a very poor and lame example, I admit, — but an example of what he thinks the life of a human being ought to be. I know we are accustomed to think that our civilization is a kind of finaHty. I don't believe it is. No kind of civilization ever was. I am in- clined to think that most of us, if we should ask our- selves, would think that things are going on as 38 THE LIBERAL CLUB. they are forever. Cities are going on and getting bigger and bigger and bigger, we think; lunatic asylums are going on and getting bigger and bigger and bigger, the number of lunatic asylums to the thousand increasing; prisons are going on, getting bigger and bigger, electrocution chairs are going to spread to all places all over the country; the number of tramps is going to get bigger, our millionaires are going to get bigger and vft are going to have more of them; our slums are going to get v^orse and worse; — I think that is the idea the average man has today. I was looking, at Niagara Falls, at the immense mills turning our forests into pulp, — and a good deal of it was lying about the streets of Niagara Falls when I was there, — that is really our idea of civilization, — and there is going to be more smoke in engines and more rushing up and down in trolley cars and up and down in elevators until the whole thing flies to pieces. I don't believe it. It is a mere episode. I admire the energy. Energy is a magnificent thing. God forbid that it is always going to be devoted to the ends that it is now devoted to, and God forbid, and I don't beheve it is going to be devoted to it, and if you study history you will find that it won't. Now, take this matter of education. I remember some years ago going into the University of El-Azhar in Cairo; there were a number of teachers sitting around the floor, and students, cross-legged, and they had some writing in their hands going "Wow-wow-wow" in this way, and I thought what a lot of consummate idiots COUNT TOLSTOI AND HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 39 they were. They had been studying the Koran for a number of years, — and it is a book, from my own knowledge, that is absolutely unworthy of study, and I thought "they'll never get a step farther," and I thought "what idiots they are — why are you not wise like me?'* Then I began to think about myself. I spent eight years of my life studying two dead lan- guages and when I had finished I couldn't read, write or speak either one of them. You know that is true. That is what our education amounts to. The monks of the middle ages have got most of our education. They have got their dead hand on it today as much as they always had. I have a boy of thirteen; I help him a good deal in his lessons; but the one thing I try to impress on him most is that most of the stuff that he is learning is rubbish — and he is rather in- clined to agree with me, too. Now, we have got an idea in our heads that learning languages is educa- tion — a perfectly idiotic idea. If you have lived in a city as I have, Alexandria in Egypt — which is a very polyglot city; everybody born there in the Levantine or foreign society knows about eleven languages just as well as their own; and they are the most unedu- cated people you ever met in your life. The knowl- edge of language has nothing to do with education. And I include in that the knowledge of your own language. Take spelling, for instance. We gener- ally think a man is uneducated if he does not spell well. I would like to bet any man here present that it is much more essential to spell most English words 40 THE LIBERAL CLUB. wrong than it is right. The school boy who spells "dead" d-e-d is a much more sensible animal than you or I who spell it d-e-a-d. You cannot deny that. Yet our children spend hours learning such nonsense as that. Take grammar. What a purely artificial thing grammar is. The object of grammar is to convey your ideas. The man who says *'them things" will convey his idea just as well as the man who says "these things." Perhaps, in a hundred years from now, "them things" will be right and "these things" will be wrong. I do not object to learning grammar, but I object to the thought that it constitutes an essential element in education. Where I live, at Dutchess County, I have a superintendent on my farm who cannot spell straight, cannot talk correct grammar, but he can do pretty much every- thing else under the sun. lie can build a house, he can lay a wall, go through an orchard, look at the trees and tell you how many barrels to get for your apples; he knows the price of everything; he can tend to sheep or cattle or horses when they are sick; he knows what you ought to do for them; he knows what feed they require; he knows when to plant this, how it grows, and when to reap it. Those are things worth knowing. They have something to do with nature and with actual life, and I often think, I some- times think, I will tell him when I see him mending a mowing machine, ^*My dear fellow, you're a thousand times better educated than I can ever dream of being." I have never said it, but I be- COUNT TOLSTOI AND HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 41 lieve I shall. But that is the way I feel towards that man. I think our ideas have got to be overhauled in very much the same way that Tolstoi thinks they should be taught. He thinks that children should be taught to love their neighbors as themselves and then try to be useful to their neighbors. And I think if you carry that out you will see it covers pretty much the whole field of activity. Now take the matter of caste. My time is pretty near up, but I want to say a few words about that. Take the matter of caste, rank, standing in the community, which Tolstoi wants to throw overboard in his own case at any rate. The idea of any kind of pride being based upon one man lifting himself above his fellow men is a scientifically incorrect idea. You cannot lift water above its own level. If I raise myself or think or estimate myself above my fellow men I must push them down just to the degree I raise myself. If I am a constituent part of the human race, any idea of mine to raise myself, estimate myself in value as being superior to them, is really degrading all the rest of the human race if it is raising me at all. It is a total misconcep- tion of the real human pride. This whole idea of "superior" persons I believe a thoroughly rotten, poisonous idea that we have got to get out of our minds; not that there are not superior persons, but that they are not generally the people who think they are superior persons. There is a pride, a pride of democracy, that I think most of us have very little idea of, — the pride by which a man feels that he is an \ 42 THE LIBERAL CLUB. elemental part not only of the human race, but of the universe, that he is a little microcosm of himself, that he is a brother not only of the king and the emperor, but of the tramp and the prostitute and that there is a little of everything in him and that the whole human race belongs to him and that he represents the v^hole human race. That is real pride. I believe there w^as some such idea of pride in the minds of the men who founded our republic and I believe we have got to keep true to that idea of pride if we are going to make this great democracy of ours a success and that we must resolutely resist the temptation to look upon ourselves as superior people who are to hand down benefits to the people who happen to be beneath us. Things do not grow from up down, they grow from down up. History shows that again and again and again. Then this matter — there are two or three other points I might go into; I haven't got time — this matter of wealth. (Cries of '^ Go on!" "Goon!"). This matter of wealth I think is a thing that has got to be left to everybody's individual conscience, but I think it is a very good practice for any one of us to think over our own sources of wealth, whatever they may be; to think how far we are earning our own living; to ^ think how far we are living on other people's earnings; we may perhaps be taking away from them that which they ought to have. I believe it is a salutary thing to think in that way; to think with reference to our own earnings, whether those earnings have been re- COUNT TOLSTOI AND HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 43 ceived for any real useful work to the community, and when I say community I mean not only to the wealthy, superior people of our own class but to the whole community, the community as a whole. And I think it is a salutary thing for us to think of the vast number of people who raise our food for us and our clothing and build our houses for us, and I do not think we ought to take it as a matter of course that whenever we want anything it has got to be ready and supplied. We ought to think about the pro- cesses by which those things come about and we ought to think whether it is not our duty to take a part — I do not say we are not doing it, but I expect a great many of us are not; I know I am not; — that we ought to take a part in supplying those things \ which are necessary for the life of mankind in this world. And then that wealth question involves that great question of land, and that alone we could spend a whole evening upon. Tolstoi thinks that either God or Nature, which ever way you please to put it, has supplied the human race with a globe to live on, and he thinks for one- tenth of the human race to \ charge the other nine-tenths rent for staying on that globe is an indefensible proceeding. I have never heard an argument raised on the other side and I do V not think anybody agrees with Tolstoi except a few cranks like myself. I think that is a matter worth V thinking about. I am not here in favor of any specific reform. Moses made an attempt to try to give every citizen of Israel a stake in the land. I think we have 44 THE LIBERAL CLUB. got to do something of the same kind if we want to have our legislation as just as the legislation of Moses was. Then, to come to the last point of Tolstoi's, this matter of war. I feel pretty strongly on that subject, as on a good many others, as you have seen, but it does not seem to me that there is very much room for argument there. The idea, at the end of the nineteenth century, that people should suppose that it can in any way assist the righteous settlement of a question to have the people who happen to be on the other side try to cut each other's throats and blow each other up with bombshells! It is just as ridiculous and silly as those old tests we used to have a hundred years ago, — making people walk across red-hot irons, making them go through the fire or under water, to see whether they were injured or not, for the purpose of finding out whether they were on the right or wrong side of some controversy. I tell you, my friends, here at the beginning of the twentieth century we ought to have discovered some other way of settling our disputes than by fighting and taking each other's lives, and I believe with Tolstoi that the \ right way to stop war is to stop making war, — a simple method that I do not suppose anybody will adopt, but it seems to me the right way and the sensible one, and I do not think once in a thousand years we will have to submit to any injustice if we undertai:e to submit to that simple way of putting an end to^war. How does Tolstoi himself carry out these ideas ? I COUNT TOLSTOI AND HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 45 admit, and I am sure he would be one of the first to admit, that he does it very imperfectly. In some ways I think he has done it very injudiciously. His house there at Yasnaya Poliana he has stripped of every kind of luxury. As I remember there was not a single mat on the floor; the service at the table was much simpler and plainer than I have ever seen in many a tenement house in New York. To be sure, his wife was not in the country when I was there; she was in the city; one or two of his daughters were there. Madam Tolstoi, to a considerable extent, has her own way. You must remember Tolstoi is a non- resistant, and that works very well in the domestic situation. (Laughter). Madam Tolstoi goes a good way with him, but when she puts her foot down, why he immediately yields. I do not know but it would be a very good thing to introduce into this country in the matter of marriages, always to have one of the parties a non-resistant. My own impres- sion is that usually it would be the husband, so far as my own experience goes and as the experience of the Tolstoi household goes. (Laughter). At any rate, that is the way it works there. It seems to me that Tolstoi lacks a little, strange to say, of the exterior artistic sense. He certainly has it in literature; nobody can question that. He has become so dis- gusted with the life of the fashionable class that he belonged to that he cannot bear to have about him any of those refinements of life that we are accustomed to associate with agreeable living. It seems to me \ 46 THE LIBERAL CLUB. there he has gone a great deal too far. If he could have combined his ideas somewhat with those of WilHam Morris, for instance; if he could have en- deavored to show the village people about him now they could make their surroundings artistic, and yet in a cheap and simple way, it might perhaps have been a better thing. And yet I cannot be sorry that to this extent he is a one-sided man. You really need a one-sided man to be of very much use in this world. It seems to me that Tolstoi is a direct suc- cessor of the Prophets of old — the men who, in old times, would go about in sack-cloth and ashes crying upon the people to repent. It seems to me that, without any intention on his part, that very dramatic instinct of his has made him a sort of a representation before men to attract their attention to the evils of the civilization they live in. All his books cannot have the influence that the knowledge has that there is one man there trying seriously, pathetically, to live what he thinks the life of a human being should be; that even where he fails and even where there is an element of sadness in admitting that he has failed, it is all the more a picture to draw our attention to him, to make us think what our own position is. And yet, though it is a dramatic picture of that kind, I do not want to leave the impression in your minds that he is in the slightest degree theatrical. He is a man who does not think in the least about what people think about him. I have often contrasted him in my mind with Victor Hugo, whose ideas were very COUNT TOLSTOI AND HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 47 \ much the same at Tolstoi's. Read "Les Miserables" and you will find in it again and again Tolstoi's ideas, in almost Tolstoi's words, and yet Victor Hugo had that element of the theatrical in him. Victor Hugo had all that love for his fellow men and especially for the French peasant. You may remember in that great funeral that Hugo had in Paris, he left special instructions in his will that he should be buried in a pauper's coffin, but he had the good sense to know that if he had tried to dress like a pauper during his life that he could not have carried it out; there always would have been the eye for the gallery, and he very wisely postponed it until after his death. Now, Tolstoi is a sort of a Hugo without that theatrical sense of playing to the gallery, absolutely devoid of it. Those things that he has done he has done because he cannot help it. Now, in conclusion, I want to tell you just one Httle story — it will take me about three minutes and then I will be done — to show how Tolstoi carries out his non- resistant ideas in his own family. I spent a couple of days at his country house in 1894. There was a very interesting Swiss governess there. Of course, she was a concession to Madam Tolstoi. I am quite sure Tolstoi does not approve of governesses. But she was there at any rate for the benefit of the younger children, and I had some very interesting talks with her, because of course I could ask her questions where I could not very well question members of the family — and she told me this story: Just two or three days 48 THE LIBERAL CLUB. before I arrived there his Httle daughter, who was then ten years old, had been out playing in front of the house with a village boy from the neighboring village; they got to quarreling about something or other; the boy had taken up a stick and given her a hard hit on the arm with it, so that her arm was quite black-and-blue. The little girl ran into the house crying. Evidently she had not read any of her father's books, because she rushed up to him and she said, " Papa, this naughty boy has hit me on the arm. Do come out and give him a whipping!" The govern- ess, hearing what was going on listened to see how Tolstoi would take this very natural demand. He took the little girl on his lap. "Why," he said, "my dear, what good would it do if I went and whipped that boy } Your arm would hurt you just as much." **Yes," "yes," — and she, as a little girl would, went on crying. "He's a naughty boy and you ought to whip him." ^'Why," he said, "my dear, what did that boy hit you for ? He hit you because he was angry at you. That means that for a few moments there he hated you. Now, don't you think that we ought to try to make him stop hating ^. If I go out there and give him a whipping he'll not only hate you but he'll hate me too and he may get into such a habit of hating that he may go on hating all the rest of his life. Now don't you think it will be a very much better thing if we can do something which will make him love us instead of hate us ? Perhaps it will change that boy's character all the rest of his life." COUNT TOLSTOI AND HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 49 By that time the Httle girl's arm did not hurt her very much and she began to be rather amused; she won- dered what her father was going to say; she was very fond of her father and wanted to please him. Well, he soothed her a little longer. He said, "Now I'll tell you what I'd do if I were you. That raspberry jam in the pantry there which we had for tea last night, if I were you Vd go and get a saucer and a spoon and some of that jam and take it out to that small boy. I'm inclined to think he'll begin to love us then and I think he would never think of such a thing as hitting a Httle girl again." Well, the little girl went. I do not know what her motives were. We will have to guess at it. The governess told me the story just a couple of days after she went to the country. She got the jam in a saucer and spoon and she took it out to the little boy. I am very sorry that «v all the rest I know of that story is that the boy ate the jam. I have never heard what his future history was. He may have committed all the crimes in the dec- alogue since that time. And I only tell the story as an example of Tolstoi's method at home. But I have often thought over that story. I know people have different opinions about it. I told it once to an audience down in New Jersey and an old man got up in the back of the house — they had a discussion after- wards — and said, "Mr. Crosby, I know what that boy would do," and I said "What?" "Why," he -. said, "he'd come up next day and hit her on the other arm." (Laughter). I have not found out to this 50 THE LIBERAL CLUB day whether that old gentleman was in earnest or not, but I am quite sure he was mistaken. It seems to me that Tolstoi's argument there is prefectly sound. It is likely it would be impossible to turn that boy into a good boy; I am not sure; but I believe Tolstoi's way of going at him was the only possible way of really making a good boy out of him. You can imagine that boy, after he got the whipping, — probably he knew he deserved it, but he would have gone down cursing and swearing to himself at the whole Tolstoi family. I believe he would have got more or less of a habit of hating people. Then if you try to imagine his feelings on the other hand, when the door opened and this little girl came out with the rasp- berry jam, his resistance of his rising feelings of re- sentment, then when you think what a rare thing perhaps it was to a little peasant boy, how he could not resist the temptation, and in what a shame-faced way he must have come forward and gulped it down, and how he must have gone down to his house con- vinced that those people up there on the hill were a great deal better than he was and if he was ever going to be a good man he must behave a little more in the way that they did, it seems to me that Tolstoi there did right, and it opens up a very broad ques- tion of ethics and penology which I will leave with you. After remarks by Mr. Taylor, Mr. Elmendorf, Mr. Larned, Mr. O'Brian, Mr. Detmers, Rabbi Aaron COUNT TOLSTOI AND HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 51 and Mr. Monroe, the discussion was concluded by Mr. Crosby as follows : I think almost all the points that have been made by gentlemen this evening are more or less well taken. I am very far from regarding Tolstoi as perfect and I know perfectly well that he is very far from regarding himself as such. My own view of what Tolstoi has done is this: he has taken that part of the Bible which appealed to his deepest self — and I am inclined to think that that is the only part of the Bible or any other book that any of us have any busi- ness to take — he has taken the part which appealed to his deepest self and that was the part which Christ said was the summing-up of the law and the prophets. So, certainly Tolstoi does not think that that is an in- vention of Christ's; he knows that it comes from the law and the prophets that you should love God with all your heart and your soul and your strength, and your neighbor as yourself. When Tolstoi began to take that thought seriously it seemed to open a new world to him, and I am inclined to think that anyman, woman or child who, for the first time, takes that thought seriously, will find that it will have very much the same kind of influence upon him, simply because it is the truth, not because anybody in particular said it; and the effect that it has had upon Tolstoi I have already dwelt on to a certain degree. It has had the effect of convincing him of the immortality of his own soul, but it has had the still further effect, as is shown very beautifully in a book that has just 52 THE LIBERAL CLUB been published by the Crowells, called "Miscellan- ies," I think, "of Tolstoi." There is one section of that, of twenty or thirty pages, which considers his thoughts upon God. Tolstoi used to be a complete agnostic; he did not believe in the existence of God at all; and yet, as you read those twenty or thirty pages, you begin to feel that he is what they used to call a god-intoxicated man; as much so as the Psalmist. Some of his writings in those Miscellanies are more like the Psalms than anything I have read since. They have convinced Tolstoi of the existence of a God who is in touch with his own soul and who is providentially arranging the affairs of this world, and the pessimism which Tolstoi was overwhelmed with has ended in the optimistic outlook. The gentleman on my right was perfectly correct in saying that in "War and Peace" the opinions of Andre were pessi- mistic, but that book was written long before Tolstoi had passed through the crisis of his own life. Now, the value of Tolstoi to civilization today seems to be this: that taking, in this intense sense, the desire to let his life go out in love to everything outside of him, he has brought that principle as a test for the institutions of the world as they are, and almost in every instance he has found that those institutions fail lamentably. Tolstoi never advises the over- throwing of those institutions; he would not lift his hand to overthrow them; but, he says, "When I think a thing is wrong I can't do it. I think war is wrong. I can't serve in the army. I think con- COUNT TOLSTOI AND HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 53 demning men to death or prison is wrong. I can't act as a judge. There are other things of that kind that I cannot do. I do not call upon you to follow my example until you have adopted my opinion,'* — and that brings in this whole quetstion of non-resis- tance. I do not go as far as Tolstoi has in that, yet I believe at bottom he is right. I believe that most of the ills of the world are caused by the use of force by sane men against sane men. There certainly is a point where a man is a lunatic, where he is in a de- lerium — as in the case of animals or a mad dog, — where it seems foolish to deny that force is a good thing to use. I am not at all quite clear as to whether Tolstoi would agree with me as to that. But when it comes to the management of sane people who can be reached by argument, I am fully of Tolstoi's belief that there are more crime and violence in the world y today because we try to use force to stop them than there would be if we did not try to use it. But Tolstoi does not even take that ground. He comes back again. He is the chief novelist of the day, as I think, someone has said here this evening. He only argues what is right for him. He says, "I want to love everybody. I do, to the best of my ability, I do love everybody, and when I love a man it is impossible for me, I cannot bring myself up to using violence against him. It is as impossible for me to put a bayonet into an enemy of my country as it would be for me to skin a baby," — and I expect most of us here have got far enough along in civilization to refuse to skin a baby, 54» THE LIBERAL CLUB even if it were to save five million lives. That is the way Tolstoi feels about a bayonet charge; that is the way he feels about hanging a man; that is the way he feels about using force around him in any shape. That is a very big question. He has written volume upon volume on the question. It is impossible to go into it tonight but I confess at the bottom of my soul I have very much that same feeling. If I really love a man in all my heart I cannot find it in my heart to use violence against him. It seems to me the wonderful thing about the history of Jesus is that it shows he felt that way. There is just that one incident about the money-changers in the temple, on the other side, and it seems to me it has done a great deal more service in the history of biblical criticism than it was calculated to do. If you read the account in St. John it simply shows that he used the ordinary whip of the country for the purpose of driving the cattle out of the temple and that he upset a certain number of tables. There is absolutely no proof of any kind and I do not believe it for a moment, that Jesus ever struck one of the men there with the whip and if he used it even for the cattle, I should say it was merely as a matter of form and as the ordinary way of driving. When we come down there to the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane where Peter cuts off the ear of the servant of the high priest, Christ tells him to put back the sword into the sheath, not on account of the individual peculiarities of that special occasion, but on the broad general principle COUNT TOLSTOI AND HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 65 that they that take the sword shall perish by the sword. Peter was not only acting in self-defense, he was acting in the far nobler character of a man who was defending his best beloved friend, and Christ rebukes him, laying down the broadest principle. Like almost all — like all, I should say, of the sayings of Christ, it is founded on the deep philosophical truth; if you take up the sword you will perish by the sword; that is, if you exert violence, you are going to create violence in the future. We have been living here on the earth I don't know how many thousands of years, each of us with his own ideas, each of us with his own desires of what he wants done and each of us determined in one way or another to force people to do what he wants. Tolstoi says we are taking the wrong method. If you love other people, you would say that you are taking the wrong method. Let us stop the violence which causes all these evils, and the best way for you and me to do it is to refrain from it and the little crime that will result from it will be far less than the crimes that are committed every day in the year. It does seem to me that that is a lum- inous thought. I do not expect everybody to accept it, but there is something in every man's heart that responds to that. It is a fact we are far too apt to rely upon force and violence as a means of attaining our ends; that sometimes it might be a good thing for us to forego the ends we have set our hearts upon if by so doing we could decrease the violence that exists in the world today. I believe that is a mes- 56 THE LIBERAL CLUB sage that is worth preaching; I believe it is a message that is worth preaching outside of the boundaries of Russia; I beHeve that the great value of Tolstoi in preaching it has been the fact that he has done it with such sincerity that nodody can question his intention. He may be inconsistent in some small matters. They are such small matters that they are hardly worth talking about. Now, as to this matter of sanity, and I have done. I do. not believe it is N possible for a man to be ahead of the times to any degree without lacking a little in sanity. It is im- possible. It is an abnormal position for a man to be in. And yet those are the men that are necessary to the world. We all remember that Christ's own family thought he was beside himself. That has been the criticism upon all men who have been ahead of their times. I believe it to a certain degree in the case of Tolstoi. It is a just criticism. He does these things too much from his own point of view. He criticises existing conditions a little too much without the sense of historical perspective, but I think that just for that reason his usefulness is increased; makes us criticise the institutions of the time, just as the abolitionists fifty years ago did their noble work in making us criticise the institutions of those times. ^ Every age has had its barbarisms, and it is a strange thing that in every succeeding age people think they have got rid of all the barbarisms that there are. Slavery was a barbarism fifty years ago; hanging men and boys too, for stealing a shilling, was a barbarism COUNT TOLSTOI AND HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 57 fifty years before that; examining witnesses by torture was a barbarism fifty years before that; burning crim- inals at the stake was a barbarism, imprisonment for debt was a barbarism. But here we are in the year 1900 and you wish me to believe there are no barbar- isms now, when the lesson of history is that there are always barbarisms, and you have got to have men like Tolstoi on ahead to show you what they are, — and one of them has been referred to this evening by Mr. Larned, and that is the barbarism of war, one of the most self-evident of all, and if we apply this same test of Tolstoi, love, — love your enemies, — to the question of war, I am inclined to think that the whole thing will melt away. I have never been in a position where I have had to wage war on anybody. I do not believe any of you ever have been, and I do not be- lieve by reading the newspapers and hearing what people are doing ten thousand miles away that we can find out, to our advantage, that there is any dan- ger of anybody waging war upon us. The things that cause the war are our armaments, the things that we are going to build now on this coast and on the Pacific coast, the ships, — are the things that are going to bring about war, and if we had no navy or army at all I believe we should have more influence in the world for the next hundred years than we are going to have with our army, and with our navy, and I am perfectly sure that there is no nation on the face of the earth that will ever pick a quarrel with us. Those are my sentiments and beliefs. Of course, I do 58 THE LIBERAL CLUB not expect many to agree with me but I do believe that Tolstoi, even if he lacks sanity, even if he does overdo things a little, is, by that very thing, doing a favor to the world, and by giving a dramatic expres- sion to his criticism of institutions as they are, he is making us think in a wayinwhich we all ought to think. ScconD Dinner. ^anuari; 24« I90t. THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN; WHAT IT IS, AND WHAT IT IS NOT. MR. ERNEST TEMPLE HARGROVE. I feel in no way fitted to respond to the open- ing remarks that have been made by our chairman. It would be impossible for one in my position to say anything that would be suitable. You have said what you have had to say and I think we had better leave it there. It reminds one, however, of how small the world has become, — that the people of this nation can join with the rest of the English-speaking world in regret at the death of a great Queen. The world has become small — too small from one point of view — because, passing from that subject and turning to the subject of this evening, it seems almost impossible to say any- thing which will not have an apparent bearing upon the politics of this country, and I do not pose as knowing anything whatsoever about the politics of this country. Further than that, as an English- man and yet as a pro-Boer, I have found in this country another illustration of the smallness of our world in the fact that feeling runs high even here in regard to the rights and wrongs of the war in South Africa. It is, of course, my object this evening to 60 THE LIBERAL CLUB say what I have to say without offending anybody, and as I see that the motto of your club is "In thought free; in temper, reverent; in method, scientific," I think that I shall be able to say what I have to say without hurting anyone's feelings. But at the same time, when one comes to deal with a more or less serious subject, I, for one, feel some trepidation, because after dining one gets into the habit of think- ing that men are not in the mood for serious talk. I can understand the freedom of thought after dinner; I can understand a certain amount of reverence after dinner; but the scientific spirit is something to be admired, something to be reverenced, when even it survives such an excellent dinner as we have had tonight. Now, the talk is to be about the white man's bur- den, what it is and what it is not, and, to be frank, I have not come with any set speech, but it seemed to me that a certain fellow countryman of mine, who, it has been suggested, was good enough to discover the Anglo-Saxon race, when he talked about the white man's burden left out a very important part of that burden, forgot to mention it. He said that we had a burden, that it was a burden of duty, and he did not mention what seems to me to be a very important element in that duty, — the duty of minding one's own business. You will remember perhaps that in Greville's Memoirs, under date, I think, October, 1856, he speaks of the rage for interfering in the internal affairs of other people which, he said, seemed THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN 61 to have taken possession and to have become a mania of the EngHsh people of his time. And if one looks around the world today, I think some of you perhaps will agree with me that the mania of which he com- plained in '56 has become international. It is no longer confined to England, it has become world wide. It has been said that we people in England are very busy imitating things American; it has been said that we are imitating all of your vices and none of your virtues; but it is also possible that we are responsible to some extent for things that have been taking place here. I do not know to what extent, and I do not wish to refer further to anything that has taken place here. My aim will be to deal with certain general principles and with one distinct, clear-cut proposition and that is this: That it does not pay to interfere arbitrarily in the affairs of other peoples; that one thing that we must learn is to mind our own business. Now, that does not mean by any means selfish isola- tion, because selfish insolation, if persisted in, must end, throughout the whole of nature, in stagnation, in death and in dissolution. Wherever you turn in nature, you will find that that is the law. And if we have a burden of duty it seems to me that one ele- ment of that duty is to act as an example to those who are supposed to know less than we do, not to catch them by the throat, to shake them and to say, "You shall conform to what we think to be right;" not to try and cram them into a little mould of our own devising, but to act according to principles of 62 THE LIBERAL CLUB right, and then to know, to have enough faith, not only in human nature but in universal nature, to feel confident that our example w^ill strike like Vulcan upon the hearts of others. Well, it has been said, further, that the Anglo-Saxon, the so-called Anglo- Saxon, is always something of a reformer and that it is in the nature of a reformer — that there is at least a tendency in his nature to rush out into external work and to leave perhaps those who are nearest and dearest to him to look more or less after themselves. If that be true it is at least regrettable. It is often met with, I think, among reformers because every good quality, as we all know, has its own defect; every virtue has its own defect; and the reform spirit — good in itself — is likely to run to that ex- treme, to run outside of the legitimate sphere of work and to begin to reform the universe, and that is just when the trouble begins. Now, what is true of indi- viduals is often true of nations, and it seems to me, speaking for myself, that in my own country there has been a certain tendency towards looking upon that country as a civilizing power with a mission. You will find that a great many Englishmen are so convinced that wherever the British flag goes there will go civilization, progress and education, that they will be perfectly prepared to admit that the United States of America would get along splendidly if it could be incorporated as a part of the British Em- pire, and I would even venture to suggest to you gentlemen, that there are many Americans who THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN 63 would say perhaps that if it were not for the darned conceit and cussedness of the average Englishman that those small islands over there would prosper wonderfully as States in the Union. We all of us believe in our flag. It is a very excellent belief. I think we ought to. But it is to be regretted that this belief is sometimes carried to an extreme. If we have a mission, if we have a civilizing mission, I think, as I have said in the first place, that we may civilize by example; but if we look right at home and see the condition in which our own countries are, I think we will find that there is a large field of labor right here where we live. In England at least, if you take up any daily paper, you will find statements such as this — I remember one I saw the other day: A member of the Sleaford Board of Guardians, speaking about how the poor live in his district, spoke of an old woman of 76, who had been living on three shillings a week — which of course, as you know, is 75 cents — for eight years; during that time she had had no new clothes whatso- ever and she had a fire in her room for only an hour a day in the winter, that she had no meat, and so on and so forth. No editorial comment of any kind was made on this fact, and you will find such facts in any daily paper you choose to take up. Such facts as that are looked upon as inevitable details in our civiliza- tion, unavoidable, and so there is no editorial com- ment, and yet you will find in the same paper, col- umns written about our duty in China to show these Chinese how a real Christian land, civilized country, 64 THE LIBERAL CLUB should behave; you will find columns about our duty in South Africa to show, among other things, how vastly we are superior to the Boers, and not one word about facts which stand out right in front of us and which are so near and so familiar that we think per- haps it is better to forget them, and so we proceed to forget them as examples of our civilization by pro- ceeding to confer the blessings of our civilization upon other people. And so it goes on. Now, this is said to be not only our manifest destiny but a highly profitable duty as well, and I will admit, at the begin- ning, that this policy of domineering interference in the internal affairs of others has temptations. Ex- cuses are made for it — many excuses. Now, of course, I am sorry myself that it does not occur to those people who are so anxious to civilize others, that these others might help to civilize us, and yet it would be strange if we had nothing to learn from the Chinese, nothing to learn from the Hindoos, nothing to learn from the Boers. It would be strange. And it would be stranger still when it is all said and done, if it were possible to lay down a standard, — a definite, fixed standard of civilization. Because, what is civilization anyhow ? Is not a civilized environ- ment that environment which best promotes the physical, the mental and the moral welfare of the individual ? What else is civilization ? If we look to the history of the past we shall find in the past — in Greece, for example — civilization has been more highly developed than it now is in some directions N THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN 65 and if we look around the world of the present day we shall find in some countries where, for instance, it is looked upon as a social crime to refuse anyone with- out a shelter, that in those countries, in some direc- tions, civilization is perhaps more advanced than even here. And so the more we read, the more we learn, the more we travel, the more we come to the conclu- sion, I think, that there is no such thing as an arbi- trary standard of civilization; that you cannot set up a fixed mould and proceed to cram everyone into that mould no matter what his color, religion or race may be. You have developed an extraordinary civiliza- tion in this country, but will you mean to say that all peoples, wherever they may be, should adapt them- selves to your ways, to your methods, should imitate you ? Not long ago, in the north of England — in Blackburn,asa matter of fact, — I was walking through the streets with a Boer, a Boer from South Africa, a Boer from Cape Colony; it was in the evening, about half-past six, and as we walked through the streets, out of all the factories there streamed boys and young girls, girls of i6, 17, 18, with shawls over their heads, with wooden clogs on their feet, pale-faced, anaemic; and he asked me where these people had been coming from, what they had been doing, and I explained to him to the best of my ability, something of the lives they were living; they were factory hands. His comment when he heard of this example of our civilization was to exclaim, *'My God!" He was not impressed, he did not tumble down and worship. He 5 66 THE LIBERAL CLUB had been accustomed to live in the open veldt. He was not a rich man, but he had his horse, he could hunt and shoot, and he lived under the free air of heaven and he loved it, and he w^as by no means envious of what he saw in this city of ours called Blackburn. And so, when it comes to the point, we shall have to stop and consider just what we mean by conferring the blessings of our civilization upon other people. Now, there are those, of course, who would not pretent that the colored man, let us say, is necessarily improved by wearing high white collars and patent leather shoes, but they would urge that wherever the flag goes there go Christianity and the Bible, and therefore they will argue that it is worth any sacrifice which can be made by us in order to bring Christianity and the Bible to the notice of heathen races. No one can believe more sincerely than I do in the need for a wider understanding of and a great r conformity to the real teachings that are to be found in the Bible, but I would suggest, as other people have suggested, that we might begin with ourselves; we might proceed to Christianize our- selves and we might wind up by Christianizing some of our missionaries. So far as one knows, the early disciples, the early missionaries, were not in the habit of going about with armed troops back of them to defend them from the possible hostility of the natives; they took their lives in their hands; they had faith in their mission and they went out into the world at their own risk. Now, why should not our missionaries THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN 67 do the same thing ? It is perfectly possible that there are people here and there on this earth of ours who know just as little as some of us here do about Christianity in itself, and therefore those people who are filled with an honest desire to spread the truths which are dear to them should be at perfect liber- ty to go where they want to go, and to carry those truths with them, but let them do it at their own risk. That was the rule in the past. Those early missionaries were left to die if necessary for the faith that was in them. You will see men going to foreign countries — I have seen it myself all over the world; I have seen it in India, I have seen it in New Zealand, I have seen it in almost every inhabited part of the world; men going insulting the religions, the customs of the people whom they wished to convert, and then because the people do not enjoy the process, because they often show their annoyance somewhat violently, you have an appeal to the protection of the home government and then the next chapter in the history is that you proceed to ram down the throats of these unfortunate natives what is called Christi- anity; you proceed to blow it into them with Maxim guns and rifles; and I think one of the most pathetic things in history was the case of the German Emperor — because it is always more agreeable to look abroad for these examples — the case of the German Emperor who said, "As Emperor of Germany, and above all, as a Christian, I demand the heads of these men." So it seems to me that this process of domineering 08 THE LIBERAL CLUB interference, of civilizing by force, is not, on the whole, likely to make these unfortunate natives appreciative of Christianity. Then there is another excuse put forward for this policy. It is put forward by people whom I would venture to call the pseudo-scientists; the people who speak of it as inevitable; the people who say our great civilization must sweep over these small obstacles in the shape of human beings, and it is for the good of the world generally that we should do it, we cannot help ourselves anyhow. Now, in the first place, let me suggest to you that it is the aim and end of science to do away with that word "Inevitable;" that it is the daily aim, the daily achievement of science to use nature instead of allowing us to con- tinue as the tools of nature; to use nature instead of being used by her. We have, as Anglo-Saxons, many tendencies, some of them good, some of them bad. Perhaps, as Anglo-Saxons, some of us lack sympathy; find it diflicult to put ourselves in the place of other people. Well, as a tendency, that, like any other tendency, can be overcome, and when it comes to possessing one's self of other people's property, — suppose that you have your pocket picked in the street and the man who has picked your pocket, when you catch him, excuses himself by saying, "Well, my great-grandfather was a thief and my great-grand- mother was a thief, and Fve got it in my blood and I can't help myself and it's an inherited tendency," — would you excuse him on that account ? And when THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN 69 it comes to stealing on a larger scale, I do not see the difference. And if we have this tendency, I say, sup- pose that we try to overcome it, — and therefore it is unnecessary to talk of it as being inevitable. There is no such thing in this universe as something that is absolutely inevitable. And then, there is no need to remind such an audience as this of what Herbert Spencer throughout the whole of his writings, of what Huxley — particularly in that last great essay of his on evolution and ethics — called attention to, when they said, and said over and over again, that it was a great mistake to misinterpret the Darwinian theory to the effect that the survival of the fittest always meant the survival of the physically strongest. You will remem- ber, of course, that Huxley spoke of the universal scheme of evolution, but for purposes of thought he divided this universal process into categories, one of which he called the cosmic process, the other of which he called the ethical or social process, and when dealing with the evolution of man he pointed out that man in the social state, such as we are supposed to be in, could no longer evolve by adhering to the cosmic process, according to which the strongest survived, but could only evolve by entering into the ethical process and taking part in the ethical process of development; he had to become a social being and unless he became a social being he would be left in this great race of progress; the ethical process became the line of least resistance and the best means of growth. And what is true of an individual is true of 70 THE LIBERAL CLUB a nation, and that which caused the downfall of the empires of the past was the fact that they clung to the cosmic process; that they clung to the belief that strength and brute strength alone would always give them victory, overlooking that deeper and more vital truth that once the social state is entered, then in order to survive, then in order to progress, it is necessary to become social, ethical, human. I do not wish to detain you long in these opening remarks because I am particularly anxious to meet with suggestions and criticisms and opposition. I think that a straightahead talk is much less interest- ing, as a rule, than something approaching a debate, so that I could deal with claims, further excuses, that are made for this policy, such as that "trade follows the flag" — a hopeless fallacy, an absolute absurdity which it is very, very easy to disprove by figures. You take the figures of the British Empire alone: they will prove to you over and over again that our trade with foreign countries increases at a much greater rate than our trade with our own colonies, although during the last fifty years the expansion of those colonies has increased enormously. I could give you figures, but I do not wish to detain you with those figures. Let me deal briefly with some of the penalties that we have to pay for this policy. I have tried to suggest that this rage for interfering in the aff"airs of other peoples, for interfering arbitrarily, almost paralyzes domestic reform. We cannot look after our home THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN 71 affairs when we are busy civilizing other people. Not only that, but it means a burden of increased taxa- tion such as, I think, this country does not dream of as yet. But, take our own figures once more, the figures of the British Empire, and there you will find that it is not the wars that cost so much money, — it is the wars that are diplomatically avoided, it is these annual scares for increased defense; because the moment that you become aggressive, even verbally, that moment you have to become vigorously defen- sive; you have to prepare for attack. So, bounding up year by year, you will find that we spend more and more upon our army and navy, sums out of all proportion, so far as their increase is concerned, to our income. You will find, for instance, that in 1859 we spent only twenty-one million pounds a year upon our army and navy and that then it went bounding up, year by year, until five years ago, it had reached the enormous figure of sixty-five million pounds a year, and that then, since that time, five years ago, it has reached the enormous total of one hundred million pounds a year, excluding the cost of this little war in South Africa, which has already cost us another hundred millons for defense — for the fun, I suppose, of civilizing other people. We have spent forty million pounds upon Egypt and the Soudan, and our trade, our annual trade, has increased only five hundred thousand pounds in the last ten years. But these are big figures and talking about them with a mechanic in the north of England, he said: 72 THE LIBERAL CLUB ''Well, they are big; they don't mean much to me, but I go by my own experience.'* He said, "Six months after the war in South Africa had broken out it cost me, an ordinary mechanic, earning thirty-five shillings a week, three shillings and six pence (or nearly a dollar) a week more to live." He said, "Those are the figures that speak to me." But one of the worst things, worse than taxation, in my opinion; one of the inevitable results of this policy is the growth of the central and military power at the expense of the local and civil power. Turn to Rome and you will find in Rome that this pohcy of domineer- ing interference centralized a continent in a city and converted a free people into so many slaves, converted a republic into an empire into the bargain; and, so far as my own country is concerned, I find that already a self-governing colony has been virtually and actually deprived of its autonomy — Cape Colony, — and you find exactly the same process taking place, centralization in a capital. And worst of all, there is this to be said about it: that once we get it into our heads that it is our duty to civilize others; once we get it into our heads that it is good for other people to have our flag flying over them whether they like it or whether they do not, then it becomes a matter of minor im- portance as to how that flag gets there. The great thing is that it gets there. And what do we find ? We find that conventions, that agreements, that undertakings are ignored and that all the tricks of a petty attorney are indulged in, — bluffing, cheating THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN 73 and all these things are looked upon, well, not exactly as justifiable but as not worthy of much attention, so long as the nation with whom we happen to be dealing is sufficiently small to make it impos- sible for it to maintain its rights. So much for the question from the point of view of the civilizing power. Now just two minutes from the point of view of the people being civilized, because, after all, I think we ought to take that into account. And let me quote right there what a Boer said to me in Praetoria, in South Africa, during the war. — Before I deal with that I think I will branch off forgone moment, with your permission, to say why I am talking as I am talking this evening. It may seem curious that an Englishman should come before you and speak thus freely of his own country. ("Hear!'* "Hear!" "Hear!" Applause.) I am glad to meet with that approval of my statement. Why do I do it ? According to the views of some people on patriotism, it would be only right and honorable for me to come here and maintain that everything that my country does is perfect; that "country, right or wrong," is the gospel that should be conformed to by every civilized being. It is a gospel to which I do not conform and I hope to Heaven never will. And which, gentlemen, is the truer patriotism; which is the more honorable course to pursue.? Should one support the action of one's country whether that action be right or wrong, or should one, on the other hand, strain every nerve in order to see that one's country goes right .? That 74 . THE LIBERAL CLUB is the question. It was said the other day when I was talking, somebody got up and suggested that phrase, "One's country right or wrong" — that at least while was war going on one should not say any- thing about it. But let me suppose for one moment that your brother is committing a murder, or a series of murders. Is it your duty to sit by and say "Well, he is my brother anyhow and I don't think it would be quite kind to interfere .?" Or, on the other hand, merely because he is your brother, would you try all the more to prevent the commission of the murder ? That seems to me to be the clearer line of duty. I do not mean to say that you should rush to the police as a first expedient. I say, go to his friends and if you have not sufficient strength to stop it by yourself, then privately try to get his friends and your friends to persuade him to desist and if neces- sary, in the case of a brother, use force to get him to desist. That seems to me to be the kindlier course. And then there is another view of it, there is the view of it which says, "Well, one's country ? yes; one must stand by it and work for it and suffer with it," — but there is also humanity; and I tell you gentlemen, that in England there are some men at least at this time who have been looking for years past to America as a possible example, as at least a reminder to their own country of what freedom means, of what independence means, and when they see an apparent danger hovering over this land, that instead of making for progress, instead of making for expan- THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN 75 sion of the higher and the better sort, that there seems to be a danger that this country will merely imitate the follies and the vices of the older lands of Europe, then they tremble, and it seems to me that at the present time, writ large in the sky, for all men to see, there is a warning, — this war of ours in South Africa, — which I look upon as a disaster. Defend it ? Never. Why defend it ? Take some of our best people in England at the present time. Take men like Herbert Spencer, like Frederick Harrison, like James Bryce, George Meredith, and the best of them, some of our best men as bitterly opposed to it as any men can be. We have been speaking of the Queen tonight. My profound and sincere belief is this, that if it had not been for that ruinous and abominable war the Queen would be alive today. Defend it ? Never. The best that can be hoped for is this: That the English people, my own country, will realize before it is too late that they have been misled, that they have been lied to, month by month and year by year, before this war and during this war, and that they have been deceived and have made a mistake in consequence. No one knows better than I do that the English people were honest and sincere when they entered upon it; they believed that they were going to the rescue of their fellow-countrymen who, it was said, were being outrageously treated by the Boers in South Africa. Nothing of the sort. I had the good fortune to spend some eight months there while the war was going on, to see Praetoria during the war, 76 THE LIBERAL CLUB and Cape Town during the war, to meet Boers and British, and I know better. And what is happening today in South Africa is what happened over a hun- dred years ago here and the only pity of it is that statesmen are dominating affairs in England at the present time who are instigated by the same motives, who are suffering from the same delusions from which Lord North and his peers suffered during our war with America. And now, to come back to the point, — and my time is nearly up — we were talking about this policy of domineering interference from the standpoint of the nation domineering, and then I suggested that we should consider it from the standpoint of the nations or peoples domineered, and I was going to quote to you what a Boer said to me in Praetoria during the war. The vast majority of the Boers, as you know, are profoundly religious, and they believe sincerely that because, from their point of view, their cause is just, therefore, from their point of view, God will undoubtedly give them victory in the end. But this particular Boer happened to be an agnostic; he was a barrister of the middle temple in England; he had been educated at Edinburgh University in Scot- land; he was an ordinary Boer, an average Boer, just the same. And I said to him, '*Well, will you go on fighting after we get to Praetoria, if we do get to Praetoria ?" He said, "Most certainly." "Well," I said, "Do you think you will have a chance ?" He said, "There is no question of chance." He said, THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN 77 "We've got to do it, and I tell you why: It is not for our own sakes, it is for the sake of our children." He said, "I have seen something of the world; I have seen India and I know there that the Hindoos have almost lost their manhood; they have been slaves for a thousand years; subjugated, first, by the Mussel- mans, then by the British; they have lost their self-reliance and they have become more or less liars and hypocrites; that is the tendency, and*' he said, "I have been to Egypt and I have seen the Fellahs and I know that the same thing is true there," and he said, **Do I want my children to live that sort of a Hfe ? No." He said, "It is a case of freedom or death and if we can't get freedom for them now we at least have the right to die fighting for their freedom and to leave that as a memory to them so that when their time comes they may do likewise." And that is the policy of domineering interference from one point of view, from the point of view of the people domi- neered — civilized. And you might turn to the Irish and you might say, "Well, there at least is a case of a people who have not lost their manhood although they have been subjected to a foreign power." Foreign ? Yes, from the point of view of the Irishman. But why is it that they have retained their manhood .? Because they have never become willing subjects. Now, that may seem a strange thing for an English- man to say, but how about Gladstone ? How about Bright ? How about the best men in our history ? How about those men during our war with you — 78 THE LIBERAL CLUB Chatham and Fox and Burke and the rest of them ? Didn't Chatham himself get up in the House and say, "I could almost pray that some terrible disaster would fall upon my country so that the eyes of my countrymen could be opened ?" Didn't he at least realize that it was necessary sometimes to face public opinion and to say, **This is not right and will end in disaster ?" If it had not been for those men where should we be today ? — the greatest names in our history; the men of whom we are now proud; called traitors, if you choose, at the time, and by many other names; that is a matter of no consequence, but they were the men who saw clearly that popular opinion of the hour was wrong and who came out and said so. And so it seems to me that from both points of view, whether you look upon it from the point of view of the civilizing power or of the people to be civilized, this policy is unfortunate and I hope at least that this country will never enter upon it as a policy to be lived by, by which the destinies of this country should be steered. I hope that this country, as it has been in the past, will continue to exist as an example to all nations of what a free people may become and may do. I hope that it will live forever, if that be possible, as a home of liberty, and I hope that in the years to come the English-speaking people throughout the world will co-operate, not in order to deprive weak people of what little liberty they may already possess, but in order to carry the benefits of freedom to all peoples who desire it. (Applause.) THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN 79 The topic was discussed by Messrs. Moot, Elmen- dorf, Dunbar, Frederick Almy, Powers, Taylor, Wil- cox, Monroe and Duschack, after which the discus- sion was closed by Mr. Hargrove as follows: Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: — I will not detain you two minutes, but there are one or two points that I think may fairly be dealt with. First of all, however, I want to thank you sincerely for the very merciful way in which you treated my opening re- marks. I am aware that in a talk of that sort it is almost necessary to — well, I won't say offend some people, but to say things of which they do not ap- prove, and I think you have acted up, to the fullest extent, to your motto in your very reverent reception of myself. Now, in regard to the missionaries, no one disputes the fact that there are excellent mission- aries, men who have done magnificent work. Every- one agrees to that, but I think the others will also agree perhaps with this, that there are missionaries who, let us say, lack tact. Because, suppose that a lot of Chinamen were to come to this country and were to begin to attack Christianity; were to ridicule your particular form of civilization ; were to insult and were to intrigue against your President; I think that some of you, some even in this room, might be somewhat roiled, and I think also that some of your \ roughs — because all countries have roughs — would even resort to violence to oppose what they would call these abominable foreigners coming around here and insulting everybody. So what I said in regard to the go THE LIBERAL CLUB missionaries was not levelled at all missionaries, but at what have come to be known, unfortunately, as missionary methods. Now, it struck me that a great many of the speakers were extraordinarily willing to leave the problems which confront it to the government. Of course, that is much the easiest solution, — say, "Well, nobody knows what ought to be done, but there's the govern- ment and they can do it." It was a fond — I was going to call it a fond delusion — but it was an old belief that both in this country and in England the people, The People, were responsible for the conduct of their government. We in England elect our own members of parliament, etc., etc., as you know, and we feel, whether our own party is in office or out of office, that we have a voice in the affairs of our country. So I think that it devolves upon every Britisher at least to concern himself in what is going on and to do what he can, to do what he feels called upon to do in regard to the action of his government, whether it is his own or whether it is the opposition. Of course, there was one very telling point made by one of the early speakers, when he said that so far as the Philippine question was concerned it was no longer a problem of whether the war was altogether reasonable or unreasonable, but whether one was an American or not. And I would suggest to him and to others who feel likewise — and I know that there are thousands and thousands of people both here and in England who feel the same way — that two wrongs THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN 81 will never make one right; that supposing, for the moment, that any particular war is wrong, it can never be made right by killing a few more people. However, supposing that you were involved in a law- suit as one of a number of trustees, or a committee of some company or society or whatever it may be; you enter upon that law-suit honestly, believing that you are in the right, that you have law on your side and that you also have justice on your side; and that half way through you learn facts which lead you to believe that you are in the wrong and that both the law is against you and the facts are against you. Now, what are you going to do ? Are you going to say, "Well, I must stick by the committee, I must see it through;'* or, are you going to try and convince your fellow-committeemen that you have made a mistake, and are you going to argue to the effect that you ought to stop this law-suit, seeing that you may lose it, and that even if you win it you will win it unjustly ? Particularly it seems to me that should be your course if you happen to be involved, let us say, with some poor widow or somebody of that kind who is not well off and who cannot afford to lose, and so on. Therefore I would suggest that one can remain an American always, one can remain a Britisher always, and work actively to persuade one's fellow-committee- men that a mistake has been made. That seems to me to be the patriotic thing to do, to be the reasonable thing to do and to be the just thing to do. Now, I want to emphasize one point that I did 82 THE LIBERAL CLUB touch on briefly in my opening remarks. No one can believe more profoundly than I do in my own people. No one can believe more sincerely that when they entered upon that South African war, they entered upon it conscientiously believing that they were doing the right thing, believing that there was no other way out of it, and I am convinced that what- ever this country has done has been done by the mass of the people with the same conscientiousness, with the same belief that it was the only solution of the trouble which confronted them at that moment. There is no earthly question in my mind about that. Unfortunately, so far as our war is concerned, I happen to know that we were misled; that the Eng- lish people were deceived. One of the last things I saw on the eve of leaving England for South Africa was an enormous placard in which, in hugh type, it said "Boer Outrages on Women" — a hopeless lie. Nothing in it at all, but it was done in order to keep the war fever up at boiling point. Now, we have in England a certain statesman — I want to defend him; I don't believe he is the scoundrel that some people would paint him to be; he is, from my point of view, a conscientious disciple of Machiavelli — conscien- tious, sincere, believing as genuinely as we believe in our particular belief, whatever it may be, that the end justifies the means. He dreamed a dream of a British South Africa; he saw the flag waving down there; he thought it would be good for the people, good for England and good for everybody and I don't THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN 83 think good for himself. I honestly do not think that came into his head so much except by way perhaps of reputation or something of that sort, but he thought that to have the flag waving there would be so good that it did not much matter how the flag was put there. In other words, that the end justified the means, and therefore he indulged in what I would call trickery in order to bring that end about and did it believing that it was all right. So you get at the course of the whole thing from one point of view, that there are people, and there always have been people, who think that there is one standard of right and wrong for individuals and another standard of right and wrong for nations, and we must evolve to the point when we will realize that ethical laws are laws of nature and that we cannot run up against them with impunity, that to do that is just as bad as run- ning up against Niagara Falls. To violate a law of nature means trouble and to violate a real ethical law means trouble, whether you do it nationally, or whether you do it individually. And I am afraid, in fact I am convinced, that in England we have run up against trouble. We have had it already and we shall go on having it, for the reason that our government has violated some perfectly plain, simple, every-day ethical laws, among others, "Thou shalt not steal." There is one final point. One speaker said that he was perfectly convinced that wherever the American flag waves that it would be the decision of the people of this country that the same laws and liberties — and 84 THE LIBERAL CLUB SO on and so forth — should go with the flag as you have here. It has been stated to me that the govern- ment of the City of Nev^^ York is not absolutely per- fect. A gentleman suggests that it is the usual game of deceiving the foreigner, but I simply give you the statement for what it is worth. Now, they have down there what they call a boss, and I want to put this to you: Supposing for one moment that it is a very corrupt form of government, and so on and so forth, — would you rather have Boss Croker or would you rather be governed and conquered by Emperor William of Germany, even on condition that the Emperor William of Germany should give you an absolutely perfect form of government } Without a moment's hesitation you would take your own boss, because you want the feeling ^'Well, he's an American anyhow; we can put him out if it gets too hot." And that seems to me to be a fairly reasonable point of view. I have suggested over and over again to my own countrymen in my own country, at various meetings, that if they were to be conquered by Germany and were to receive a really perfect form of government at the hands of Germany, that they would be unworthy of their name of Englishmen if they remained content under that form of govern- ment. So I would suggest to you that although we as Britishers, although you as Americans, may have the fullest faith in your flag and in its virtues, yet it does not follow that all people should look upon our flags as we look upon them. That is too much to THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN 85 expect. And so it seems to me that some people may reasonably occupy the position mentally that they would rather make a little hell of their own than let somebody else make it for them. (Laughter.) Finally — or, almost finally, — I am quite convinced of this : That if every American thought and spoke with what I would venture to call the sweet reason- ableness, to quote Matthew Arnold and Mr. Wilcox — but I do not think that the average Britisher feels exactly as he spoke, because if that were so we should have gone into South Africa stating beforehand that we were simply going to make reforms (as a matter of fact it was so stated); but we should not have changed our minds half way through, anyhow, and should not have annexed the country; that is where the difference comes in; and if we did temporarily occupy it, we should have declared very, very clearly, that it was only a temporary measure. Now, it has been stated quite freely that our flag is going to wave there for- ever. I for one remember that Sir Garnet Wolseley, as he then was, made exactly the same declaration in '79, when the British flag was flying at Praetoria when he said it should never come down so long as the sun shone. So even peoples, even Anglo-Saxons may change their minds, which is a good thing for us and for the rest of the world. Now, what is the fundamental diflference ? — this is final. Mr. Wilcox spoke somewhat to this eff"ect: That it might be one's duty in certain circumstances to adopt some alien race for their own good. Well, 86 THE LIBERAL CLUB I can conceive of it. But let us take this as an ex- ample, — it seems to me to be a not purely academic, but a very important distinction in attitudes of mind, — there is a row^ on your ov^n street; people in a house are cutting each other's throats; you go around, you feel it your duty — there is no policeman near, un- fortunately, and you go around and you try to stop all that throat-cutting, and you perhaps succeed. Nov^^ then, you find that you have run into a family of lunatics. The question is v^hether you are going to plume yourself on having become possessed of a lunatic asylum; whether you are going to take it into your back parlor; w^hether you are going to look upon yourself as blessed by Providence, or whether you are going to take the first opportunity to turn that over to the responsible authorities ? That is looking at it from one point of view, and that seems to me to be where the difference comes in. The — now I don't like to use the word ''imperialist," but I will use the word "jingo," because it is a genuine English word. The jingo dances with delight when he becomes possessed with a private lunatic asylum, and the anti-jingo, the pro-Boer, first of all, tries to get hold of a police- man to stop the row and then if he gets hold of a policeman perhaps goes in there with him but with regard, always with regard, always looking upon domineering interference as a misfortune — that is the point. So it comes to this: We must realize that what injures one injures all; that what benefits one benefits THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN^ 87 all. Independence is not sufficient; interdependence is a fact in nature. Isolation is an impossibility. No sane man, I think, will get up and demand that this or any other country shall wrap the cloak of exclu- siveness around it and keep aloof from the affairs of the world. You cannot keep aloof from the affairs of the world. You must expand. But there are ways of expanding. You can expand by grabbing other people's territory or you can expand legitimately by commerce, by trade, by civilization, by example. You can do what the trader does; you can put up your store, you can sell your goods, you can teach the people indirectly or you can do what some mission- aries unfortunately have done: go in, make a row, insult the people, abuse them and then call for Maxim guns. This world is a whole, is a unity, fundamen- tally; we all agree to that; and what we want to stick to, I think, as much as anything else, is the idea that we cannot injure any country, any people, without injuring ourselves and without injuring the whole world, and that whatever benefits us benefits all, — this great idea of interdependence; the interdepen- dence of nations; but the interdependence of nations does not mean universal empire, or should not mean universal empire, because you cannot have true inter- dependence, you cannot have real inter-action unless you have self-moving atoms, unless you have inde- pendence as the basis of your work. And so, I would suggest that if you look deep enough, there is not so much difference after all be- 88 THE LIBERAL CLUB tween us, because what we are all striving for is to do the right thing, and it seems to me that so long as we, all of us, — imperialists or anti-imperialists, or jingoes or pro-Boers, so long as we try sincerely and honestly to do the right thing from our own point of view, no matter how much we may differ from other people, it will come out all right in the end; it is bound to come out all right in the end, and so we can afford to have every faith and confidence not only in the future of our own countries but in the future of the whole world; and we need not fear because it seems to some of us that wrong has been done, we need not fear that wrong will always be done, because peoples learn; reaction is a law in nature; and so far as Great Britain is concerned, I believe, from the bottom of my heart, that Mr. Chamberlain, for one, honest Machiavellian though he be, will be destroyed politically by the very forces which he has evoked in order to bring on and in order to continue this war. There will be one of the biggest reactions in England that history has ever seen, an even bigger one than was seen after our war with you; it is only a question of time. It is beginning already, and if you will wait with patience you will see it come about. South Africa, from my point of view, is already virtually free, and it is only a question of time, — and I have enough faith in my own countrymen to believe that they will soon realize that a mistake has been made, — when without shame, they will do what they did towards the close of their war with the American Colonies. tTbirD Dinnct. flDatcb t, 1001. THE RELATIONS OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS TO BUSINESS LIFE. PROF. JEREMIAH WHIPPLE JENKS. During the last hour that I passed on the train before reaching Buffalo this evening, I was trying to choke down my disappointment at my late arrival (not having anything else to choke down), with the reflec- tion that you, at any rate, were enjoying yourselves here.* I take occasion to make that rather unselfish remark just now, because I am supposed to speak this evening on a topic that has to do with the sordid af- fairs of life. So, too, before I take up the discussion of the way in which we may best train our children to make money, I should like to state briefly my political creed. I fear that otherwise some of my fellow- teachers may think that I am attempting to encourage in the minds of our pupils, some ideals that are not of the highest. My political creed, so far as it is con- nected with this matter of education, can perhaps be best expressed in the words of James Russell Lowell, taken from his classic essay on Democracy, when he succeeded in stating better than any other person whom I know, the real purpose of a nation's life. *Owing to a delayed train, Prof. Jenks did not reach the Club until near the close of the dinner. 90 THE LIBERAL CLUB He said something like this: "The true value of a nation must be weighed in scales more delicate than the balance of trade. The garners of Sicily are empty now, but the bees from all climes still fetch honey from the tiny garden plot of Theocritus. On a map of the world you may cover Judea with your thumb, and Athens with a finger tip and neither of them figure in the prices current, but they still lord it in the thought and actions of every civilized man. Did not Dante cover with his hood all that was Italy six hundred years ago ? And if we go back a century, where was Germany outside of Weimar .? Material success is good, but only as the necessary preliminary to better things. The only measure of a nation's true success is the amount that it has contributed to the knowledge, the moral energy, the intellectual happi- ness and the spiritual hope and consolation of man- kind. There is no other, let our candidates flatter us as they may." Material success is good and it is worth our while to spend an evening in considering the way to get material success, but material success, as Lowell says, is only the necessary preliminary to better things in our nation's life. So we may also with profit go back to that earlier scholar-politician, Pericles, when in that famous funeral oration — in the Kerameicus over the heroes that had fallen at Marathon, he expressed the aim and purpose of Athens, as he understood it : "We, (the Athenians, he said), we aim at a life beautiful without extravagance, contemplative without unmanliness. \ PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND BUSINESS LIFE 91 Wealth with us is a thing not for ostentation, but for reasonable use, and it is not the acknowledgment of poverty that we think disgraceful, but the lack of endeavor to avoid it." Now, it has seemed to me that there is grave reason for complaint in our society that very many of our citizens do not show the proper sense of shame at the lack of endeavor to avoid poverty, and we do not have so just a view of wealth as did Pericles. We have, besides this, very many ills in our social life. Some of those ills it is thought that our public schools can perhaps cure, and it is the cure of some of those ills that I wish to speak of tonight. Not all of the ills connected with business life, not all of the ills connected with the poverty of our working people, can be cured by the public schools. Some of the faults of the workingmen, some of the evils that come to them, are matters that come from their personal characteristics. Those can be touched by the public schools, but it is frequently true that when a crisis comes men are thrown out of employment or meet with other misfortunes through no fault of their own, no matter how diligent, how intelligent, how able they may be. Those are ills that the public schools cannot touch. Perhaps we had better analyze briefly some of the preventable ills and some of the faults of the work- ingmen. We can perhaps best sum them up briefly under four heads. In the first place, the workingmen are in many cases ignorant. They lack the skill, the 92 THE LIBERAL CLUB knowledge that is necessary to give them a good livelihood. It is an unfortunate fact, it is a pitiful thought that, during all ages of the world's history, the great masses of men have been merely hewers of wood and drawers of water, mere servants for the comparatively few that could direct them, could tell them what to do. Many of the world's great thinkers from the days of Plato to the present, have thought that this was a condition that must always exist; that only the comparatively few were to stand above the dead level, not merely of mediocrity, but of abject submission so far as work was concerned. It has seemed to me that in these later days this dictum of Plato and Aristotle that the great mass must work in order that the philosophers and the thinkers might have leisure to advance society, is no longer true, owing to the great inventions of modern times; owing to the fact that most hand labor can be done now by the forces of nature. We may hope to see, later at any rate, the great mass of our working people, all of them, reaching positions of comfort in spite of their lack of skill, in spite of their ignorance. The second lack of our workingmen is this: Not so much that they lack absolute knowledge, but that their knowledge is inappropriate to the occasion; it is misfit knowledge. During the earlier part of the present century when in England the power looms first came into operation, we that know the hand looms in the cottages had to stand idle; the cottage weavers starved; many of their children died; the PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND BUSINESS LIFE 93 weavers themselves were riotous, breaking the power looms, destroying and burning the newer factories. Many of our social reformers speak of those acts of rioting as something blameworthy, and we all speak of any disturbance of the public peace as something that is to be condemned. Of course that is true, but though blameworthy, their acts are easily to be ex- plained. Through no fault of their own; through simply a shifting and changing of public conditions for which they were in no way to blame, they were forced to starve and to see their children dying. We might expect rioting for the purpose of securing bread. It was not so much their fault, although, of course, I do not wish in any way to excuse rioting. Their condition was the fate that came with advancing civilization. It is always true that with social prog- ress many must suffer. Misfit knowledge then is another cause of suffering. The third ill, or fault, that I have in mind is par- ticularly a matter of character. So far as my slight experience in business life goes and so far as the very much wider experience of many of my friends goes, many of our workingmen have this very grave fault: They are not fully faithful to their task. When the noon whistle comes, the work is stopped suddenly, the pick left hanging in the air, as they say; when the whistle for beginning work blows, the men start much more slowly, much more deliberately into their work; they are not so anxious to start as they are to stop. Again, many workingmen are careless about 94 ■ THE LIBERAL CLUB their tools; they are not exact with reference to the work that is done; they do not render the most care- ful account of work that is put into their hands. This lack of absolute trustworthiness is a weakness of character in the men themselves, and that state of mind certainly ought to be improved. I do not think that the workingmen alone are to be blamed along this line. The employers are often as much at fault. While the workingmen are very careful not to do too much, not to earn more than their wages, in many cases the employers are equally careful on their side not to pay more wages than the men earn. On both sides it is the unwillingness to give a full, fair, complete equivalent for what they are themselves receiving, and one side is as much to blame as the other. But from the standpoint of the suffering of the workingmen and from the standpoint of the good of society, the workingmen are certainly to be blamed for this lack of faithfulness in their work, carried out to the minutest detail. Not merely are they to be blamed, not merely does society suffer from that fault, but it is also true that in many cases they themselves are sufferers thereby. We all know how readily a young man who, in business, attempts to give his employer more than his task calls for, is at once promoted. I recall very distinctly an instance that came within my own knowledge. A young man entered the employ of a firm in which his cousin was a partner. The day before he began his work his cousin called him into his office and said, "John, PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND BUSINESS LIFE 95 today you are my cousin. I want to give you some advice. Tomorrow^ you w^ill be one of the v^orking- men. You'll be nothing more to me than anybody else. I'm a partner. On account of my relationship to you after today I shall show you no favors; I shall never mention you for promotion; you must get your promotion through the other partners. I have this advice to give: Don't be afraid that you are earning more than your wages; do everything that you can do that will benefit the firm and trust to the future for your pay." The young man followed the advice and in a very short time he had made a marked success. He was in a few years one of the partners. It is the old, old story, of course, of the good boy that becomes a partner, but nevertheless it is true, and it is a kind of story that may well be often repeated, because in many cases, if not in most cases, actual success does come from this willingness of spirit to do more than is asked. The third fault of the workingmen then is this: The desire to get rather more than they give. The fault is equally great, in my judgment, on the side of the employer. The fourth mistake, or fault, is this: The work- ingmen, speaking generally, fail to recognize their social obligations. Businessmen in general fail to recognize their relations to one another and their relations to society. A butcher in business sells meat to his neighbors to make money; he wants his profit; in nine cases out of ten he does not realize the fact that he is also rendering a great service to society, 96 THE LIBERAL CLUB and that if he fails to keep his shop clean, if he fails to sell meat that is healthful, he is doing a grave injury to society. He is in business for money making. He ought to realize also that he is in business to render service to society. So also with reference to men in any other line of w^ork. Any merchant, any manufacturer, any business man of any kind, cannot cut himself loose from his social obligations. Nine men out of ten think they do so very largely. They are in business for the sake of the money that is in it for them. This is natural, but at the same time they v^ill render much better service, and probably without lessening their profits very much if they will keep the social obligation also in mind. We ought, all of us, to recognize much more than we do what the complexity of our industrial life is, and how closely we are tied one to another. Think, for example, of this banquet this evening; think of the food that we have had here, of the clothes that we wear, of the pencil that the gentleman is using, any- thing of that kind, — how many people have con- tributed their service in order that we might have this bit of enjoyment tonight. Many of these things have come from across the sea. Workingmen have been toiling on the other side, and mechanics, ship- builders, sailors, by the hundreds, by the thousands* have been at work in order that some one little thing might be brought here to us. There is not a day passes, but that if we analyze to the bottom the production of any of the goods that we use, we shall PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND BUSINESS LIFE 97 find that thousands of men have been working for each one of us; and, if we have paid our debts in the honest way in whith we ought, we shall have rendered a return service and we shall have served also thou- sands of men. Now, this social solidarity, this rela- tionship of one man in the community to another, the inter-action and inter-relation of all business enterprises, is something that is not recognized by the workingmen, is not recognized by business men; but it ought to be so recognized, and it must be, before we can have the comforts in society as general as they might be. These are the faults that I wished to speak of, which we find continually. Can our public schools do anything regarding them so that social conditions will be improved ? What do our public schools do now to prepare workingmen better for life .? Refer- ence has been made here to the public schools of Buffalo. What I have to say has nothing to do with them. I know nothing about the public schools of Buffalo except that I hear them very well spoken of elsewhere. But what applies to most of the schools throughout the Union will probably apply, in part, to Buffalo. Now, what do the public schools in general throughout the United States do to remove these evils that I have spoken of? Do our public schools give manual skill, for example, that will help the ordinary workingman to earn his living ? Only, I should say, to a very slight extent. Let us think what we mean when we are speaking of the workingman. 98 THE LIBERAL CLUB We are speaking of probably nine out of ten of the people in the community. Of course, that does not mean that they work any harder than the people who are here this evening do. It means that they are ordinarily called workingmen because they are doing manual labor. Do our public schools do anything to fit people f(jr manual labor, skilled or unskilled, which so very, very many in the community must follow in order to make their living ? As I have said, very little. There are a few manual-training schools in the country. There are one or two in almost every large city. In most of our public schools there is the beginning of a manual training system that, it is to be hoped, will be very much developed in the com- paratively near future. But the amount of service now rendered is very slight. It is true the schools do teach reading, writing, arithmetic; they give a little something of skill in reading, of skill in figuring, that is useful in almost every line of work, but it is, after all, a very little as compared with what might be done. Take the second point: Do our public schools do anything to protect people from the effects of the misfit knowledge of which I have spoken .? People need adaptability. If a man loses one job he wants to be ready enough and prompt enough and with knowledge enough to turn his attention in another direction. This adaptability, too, must be not merely a matter of technical knowledge, it must be a matter also of willingness, because very many of our work- ingmen, when out of work, fail to take another job, PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND BUSINESS LIFE 99 because they are too proud to do so, thinking it beneath them to change their calling. I recall a wagon-maker, thrown out of his trade some years ago for the whole winter; there were plenty of opportuni- ties for him to make a dollar or a dollar and a half, sometimes even two dollars a day by shovelling snow or doing other unskilled work, but he was utterly unwilling to do anything of that kind ; he was a wagon- maker; he would do nothing else; and, in consequence, his daughter supported him during the winter, in good part. Now, our public schools can do something more, in my judgment, than they are doing now to take away from the great mass of people that spirit of unwillingness to do anything except in one specific trade in the community. Take the third point, the matter of training character so as to secure faithfulness. What are our public schools doing in that line ? Very much, I should say. More than in any other direction, and still there is much to be wished for. Our public schools teach punctuality, exactness, neatness; they teach also, that it is within the power of a person to v do a specific task and know when it is well and thor- oughly done. All those are essential qualifications for any business man, be he small or great. But even in this field there is something wanting: those things, in many cases, are taught as matters of com- pulsion. My children are prompt at school, because they are afraid to be late. They get their lessons well, because they are afraid to fail. Now, the spirit of 100 THE LIBERAL CLUB the successful business man, the spirit of the success- ful workingman, is not to do things well under com- pulsion. He must do them spontaneously, because he yfeels that it is his task to do them and that he wishes to do them well. Our public schools do not, I am afraid, get that spirit of spontaneous self-direction into their work and into the pupils' minds to the extent that is desirable. So with reference to the fourth point, the feeling of social responsibility. Is it not true that, speaking generally, we are taught in our schools that the indi- vidual pupil is to be developed for his own sake .? It is certainly true that in most of our teachers' gather- ings that is the thought that I see brought forward most often. "Teach this; teach it in this way; do this thing in the schools in order that the individual may be developed," and the other side of the matter, that he should be developed for the sake of society on account of the relationship that he has with others, is very frequently ignored. In our schools generally we find that our teachers have not themselves this consciousness of social inter-action, social solidarity that they ought to have and that they ought to put into their pupils' minds and hearts. Some little is done; much more might be done. What is the problem then left for our schools .? It is two-fold. First, to keep the children in the schools; second, to train them. Our pupils, as a rule, do not come to the schools long enough to get the full effect of the many good things that the schools are giving PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND BUSINESS LIFE IQI them. I do not know exactly what the situation may be here in Buffalo, but it is probably true that 70 per cent, of your children leave the public schools before they are 12 years of age. Under those circumstances we cannot expect to do very much. So that the first part of our problem is, how can we keep our children longer in the public schools ? The second part, how can we train them best while they are there ? Now, we can keep them in the public schools by making them feel that the public schools pay, and particularly if we can make their parents feel that the schools are of real value. Everyone of us, of course, more or less consciously, is trying to live up to his ideals. Those ideals may be lower, they may be higher; but we are working ahead for something that was put before us to strive for. That is true also with reference to the parents of our children in the public schools, and we cannot exert any influence upon them unless we see what their ideals are. Now, we usually say, we teachers, that we ought to train character; that character is the prime thing. So it is. But do our pupils, do their parents feel that .? Do they think that .? Can they, from the very nature of the case, have that in their hearts .? Is it not true that a man who is working every day, all day long, in order that he may get enough to eat, and then goes hungry part of the time, is likely to be thinking of something else than character development ? He is thinking of dinner. I recall very well a dear old lady friend of mine who worked all day long and half the 102 THE LIBERAL CLUB night caring for her household, caring for her children, doing her duty as she saw her duty from day to day, and I have heard her say, time after time, **0h, I'll be so glad when I get to Heaven, because then I think I can have a rest.'* The ideal that she had before her was rest; rest was the greatest happiness that she could have in Heaven. Now, when a person is feeling that way, he is not likely to look very much higher than ordinary physical comforts. And so I should say, speaking generally, that the parents of most of the children in our public schools are not looking primari- ly for the development of character in their children. What they want is the development of money-earning power. If they can get that, they will be satisfied with our public schools, and if they can feel that our public schools are giving that, they will let their children stay, otherwise not. The children themselves have, to a very great extent, as we all know, the same feel- ing; it comes from the same source. If then we speak of the problem of doing something more to develop money-earning power in order to hold the children in the schools to develop them in the best way intellectually, we must attack that problem directly. I, of course, do not need to go into detail with any such subject as that here. I could not. Substantially, I should say, the essence of the solu- tion of the whole problem is this, from the standpoint of the curriculum: give the children in the main a training that will be suited to the kind of life that they are going to live hereafter. That means, if you PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND BUSINESS LIFE 103 wish to use that technical phrase, give them manual training or commercial training in the broadest sense of that word; but it means, after all, a manual training, different from that usually found in our schools. We must make our schools take hold on life much more closely than they do now. In almost every community there are certain special kinds of business that the parents of the children chiefly fol- low. In many communities in large cities, in one section of the city one kind of business will be fol- lowed primarily; in another section another kind. The manual training can often, to a considerable extent, be adapted to the special needs of each par- ticular part of the city. At any rate, it can be so shaped that the parents of the pupils themselves will see that it is directly practical. In most of our manual training schools now the purpose of the teachers primarily is to develop the skill of the hand and the brain, to train the pupil himself. That is right, but we must go further than that; we have to convince the parents that that training is practical. The making of joints accurately and carefully is good; but giving that boy power to mend a chair at home or to fix his mother's lock would, in all proba- bility, have a good deal more direct effect upon the parent, making him feel that the work was practical. In another section of the city we might start com- mercial training in the same way, so that the parent could see that the children were learning the values of things, and the ways in which they were exchanged. 104 THE LIBERAL CLUB Since time will not permit the complete develop- ment of the subject, let me indicate the method fol- lowed in the training school of the University of Chicago, conducted by Prof. John Dewey, in connec- tion with the work of training teachers. The essen- tial thought is this: We must make the school as near like social life as possible; we must let the children see how our lives and our civilization have developed, in order that they may get interest in thatw ay in practical life. For example, in connection with the textile trades, wool or cotton are taken in the original state; the children are taught the conditions under which this wool or cotton must be spun into yarn; they are thus led to invent the methods of spinning; then they are led to invent the simplest kind of a loom for weaving yarn into cloth; later on, of course, they are shown the better kinds of loom. In like manner they are led by means of other inventions through the history of the race, seeing how these matters which touch our daily lives have been developed, and they understand it; they are living over the industrial life that people have lived before them; they are themselves living the life now that these pupils must live who engage in that kind of work hereafter, whether it be the cotton or wool manufacture. So, in connection with the products that I have spoken of, they naturally study the geography that goes with them. They learn where these products come from. In the other lines of training — cooking, for instance, — in the same way, they learn the elements of chemistry; PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND BUSINESS LIFE 105 in Still other manual work they learn the elements of physics that are constantly employed in industrial life. These examples show the thought that will go with this kind of manual training: the intention is to make the school as near like life as possible, and to connect the other studies of our public schools with the industrial training. Let reading and number work be subordinate. It will be more interesting if it has a definite purpose. I had the greatest trouble with my own little boy to get him to read. He did not care about fairy stories; "Robinson Crusoe" did not interest him; but at length I found him lying awake nights and spelling out, with the aid of pic- tures, the "American Boy's Handy Book," in order that he might learn how to make a sled, how to make a kite and fly it. The "American Boy's Handy Book" taught him how to read, when "Robinson Crusoe" and fairy tales could not do it. Of course, not all children have that taste, but very many have, and most children do have this practical way of looking at things. Most children are much more interested in finding out, for example, how their parents and grandparents and ancestors lived industrially than they are about the political movements of the early days, or, even in many cases, about the military movements, although most boys, at any rate, like war. So we should start with our school, at the begin- ning in the lowest grades, and this same idea of its relation to actual life should run through to the commercial high school, to the manual training high 106 THE LIBERAL CLUB school, to the technical school, to also our present Latin schools, because we want professional men of all kinds as well as merchants and artisans. The one thought: adapt the schools to life and to life as it is in the community, for all the different classes of the community, is the thought I have in mind. How w^ill that plan work out as regards the solu- tion of these difficulties among workmen of which I have spoken ? It will, in the first place, to a con- siderable extent, give the technical training, the technical knowledge needed; it will also, to a con- siderable extent, much more than anything we have now, give adaptability, the readiness to turn from one line of activity to another. The children will see the relations of things much better than they could do before. It will also, and it does also — it is not entirely a matter of experiment, by any means — it will also and it does also develop the other habits that tend to develop character, to as great a degree as our present system does; I will not say better than that. It will make people faithful, I mean. It does teach much better than anything we have in our public schools now the interdependence of one upon another, and the essential solidarity of all human interests. That comes from the nature of the case. The pupils have to work things out together. But there is one thing more of prime importance along that line. I believe that when the question is one of the development of character, of faithfulness, of showing these relations of one person to another. PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND BUSINESS LIFE 107 the chief influence, after all, is the teacher and the character of the teacher. I remember hearing Bishop Spaulding once a number of years ago before a teachers' gathering, in speaking of the essentials of education, say that, in his judgment, the only true education is that which comes from the immediate touch of soul with soul. If we stop to think of the effect upon ourselves that has been made by our teachers in schools, in college, or, if not limiting our- selves to the schools, we go outside and ask what the influences are that have shaped our mental habits most, we shall find that the chief influence has been some other person. The truest education, after all, is, in my judgment, the influence of a riper, of a nobler, of a higher, of a better nature upon one less mature. We must then look after our teachers, and if our teachers themselves are persons that have the spirit of faithfulness of which I have spoken, our children will get it. We are to be congratulated upon the fact, in my judgment, that speaking generally, our teachers do have this spirit of faithfulness and of devotion to their work, but if they had it to a greater degree, that means, if we were to get people of a higher type for our teachers than we have now, we should have a stronger influence upon our children than we have now. Is it not true after all that our children of the public schools, — (those of you who have children can judge whether I am right or not), — is it not true that they at times come home and in- stead of feeling that their teachers are higher and 108 THE LIBERAL CLUB better and nobler than they are, — people whom they would be glad to imitate, do they not rather make fun of the teachers, thinking that one is small and tricky and that another is trying to make them do something because she wants to escape some labor ? If I were speaking to teachers I should go more into detail with reference to the personal characteris- tics of teachers. But I am speaking to the people who pay the teachers. And that brings the matter up from another point of view: why is it that we do not have better teachers in our public schools .? If you go to teachers' gatherings you find that the chief complaint of superintendents is this: that our teachers are the same unskilled craftsmen that I have been speaking about in connection with business life. The great mass of our teachers — perhaps that is put- ting it too strong; very, very many of our teachers are the unskilled craftsmen who are not able to exert the influence that they ought to exert in the way of uplifting the pupils and giving them the sense of social responsibility. They have not the knowledge; in many cases they have not the strength of character; they have no adaptability to fit themselves to the conditions in which they work. They cannot recog- nize the differences in the individual characteristics of their pupils and in that way seize the opportunity to develop their pupils as they ought. Now, why do we have teachers of that kind .? Simply because we are unwilling to pay more. Often the difl^erence of ten dollars a month would make all of the difi^erence PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND BUSINESS LIFE 109 between an unskilled, ignorant, incompetent teacher and a thoroughly-trained one who could put into the pupils the social and faithful spirit needed. But there is also another side to the question: I say that we ought to have our children fitted for industrial life, because we all live in our business first, and we live in these higher interests afterwards. Nine out of ten of our waking thoughts are given to business; the other is given to these higher things that we set before us as our ideals. That is going to be true with our children just as much as it is with us, and under those circumstances we ought to see to it that they get business training, industrial training, in the highest and best way. Now, who are the people that we appoint to train our children in business ? As a rule, unmarried women who have had practically no experience in business. Now, to avoid misunder- standing, I should like to say that the best teachers that I know are women; I should like to say that I think women, as a rule, are as able and as good and as skillful teachers as the men are. But I still con- tend that, if we are going to give our children an all-around business training, if we are to give them the right idea of business life, if we are going to start our schools on the basis of our daily life and work outward, we should have our schools something like the life outside the school room. Outside our workers are half men and half women, speaking roundly; in our schools let us have the same proportion. Let us have the best women kept; we certainly could not do / 110 THE LIBERAL CLUB better; let the places of the others be taken by men as skillful as the best women whom we keep. This plan will cost a great deal more money, but it will be bringing our schools much closer to the kind of life that we want to train our children for. The reason why, in my judgment, to a considerable extent our schools have failed in practical training, is because we have been unwilling to pay to keep men in the public schools. That is why the women are there; we can get them cheaper. Just a few words in conclusion. We can make great changes in our public schools and in the influence of our public schools upon our children's lives; but we cannot hope to accomplish very much at once. In the first place, we must find our teachers, we must train them; in the second place, we must convince our people that our plan is the right one; in the third place, we must work out any problem of that kind through a series of experiments. It will take time, but the essential idea is right and the problem must be worked out in that way. So, after a time, we shall be able to make very great improvements. In the next place, we must not think that we can accomplish too much. The schools can do a great deal, but the schools cannot furnish brains; and it is of course true that very many people are not people of great intellectual ability. Nevertheless, it is true that everyone can be improved, and that our educa- tional and social conditions may be made vastly better than they are now, by careful training from the PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND BUSINESS LIFE m beginning, although we cannot hope for too great results. I was reading last evening a brief statement made by Booker T. Washington, with reference to his school at Tuskegee, his school for the negroes. In my judgment no other man in the United States today is doing so great a work in education, speaking generally, as is Booker Washington. In closing his autobiographical sketch that he has been writing for The Outlook, he gave the aims of his Institute, and told what he is trying to do for the young men and young women who study at Tuskegee. *Tn the first place,'* he said (I am not quoting his words literally), "We try to teach our pupils to take the problems of life that they meet now, and to solve them; we wish them to learn to do the world's work as it comes to them, now; in the second place, we try to teach every one of them to learn how, by means of his knowledge and his character, to support himself and others; and in the third place, we try to make every one of them feel that work is something that is noble and beauti- ful, and we try to instil into each of them a love of work and not a desire to avoid it." Those were the three things that that Institute is trying to do and the result of them has been this: that most of the pupils who left there, he said, had shown that they had common sense and self-control. So far as I can see, that Tuskegee Institute is taking up this educa- tional problem in the way that I have had in mind this evening. Mr. Washington is taking the life of 112 THE LIBERAL CLUB today as he finds it in the South, and he is fitting his pupils for it by direct industrial training, as the central thought, with all of the other culture influ- ences possible brought in to support that, to aid it and carry it out, and he is bringing into their minds the idea of the social relationships that exist between the diffierent people in the South, whites and blacks alike, and he makes them feel that they are all one great society. When, later on, we can get into our public schools all our children and can give them all a sense of the need for helpfulness, a desire to serve others, in the first place; and then can make them feel also that they have the capabilities for self direction, we, I think, shall have gone a long way toward preparing our pupils for the greater state that we all of us wish to see, which shall exist for truth and righteousness. After remarks by Messrs. Richardson, Lovell Fosdick, Bugby, Pincott, Ransom, Laughlin, Dusch- ack, Mann, Leach and Fenton, Professor Jenks closed the discussion as follows: In listening to this discussion it has been a matter of great comfort to me that the thought happened to occur to me at the outset to state my political creed. I knew that I was going to take up a subject that had to do with the sordid affairs of life, so it seemed worth while to say to begin with that I believed that "the only measure of a nation's true success" — in the words of Mr. Lowell — ''was the amount that it had PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND BUSINESS LIFE II3 contributed," not merely "to the knowledge" but also "to the moral energy, the intellectual happiness and the spiritual hope and consolation of mankind." That is my creed. Now, in connection with that, I should like also to say that I believe that those highest ideals can in many ways be best attained through training for business life. I think that Booker Washington w^as right when he put forward as one of the ideals of his school, to teach every one of his pupils to be able to make a living for himself and for others. I do not think that we can do our duty by our fellow-citizens unless we can earn our own living honestly. I think that the chief purpose why we should want to earn our living honestly, is in order that we may render service to others. So, also with reference to the suggestion that was made as to my putting business first and ideals after- ward, by two of the gentlemen here, — a word further. I believe that the problem of the public schools is very largely the same problem that the newspapers have. It is very difficult indeed to convert the world to high ideals through a newspaper unless you can make, in some way or other, your newspaper read- able enough so that at least part of the world will take it. Likewise in the public schools. You will remember that I had put forward as one of the first problems, that of making the schools attractive in order that we might get the pupils and hold them; then we could give them the higher ideals. We can hold them, not by lowering our ideals, necessarily, — 114 THE LIBERAL CLUB not at all; but by meeting their ideals first, and getting hold of them thereby; when we get them into our charge, then we can put forward these higher ideals that we have spoken of. The first duty of the schools, as was well said by the gentleman sitting at the farther table, is to train the pupils so as to get the best that we can out of them; to aid them to develop their own powers to the best degree possible; but I think we must do that for the sake of society as a whole. That comes into the development of character itself. I am, however, inclined to think that we should differ somewhat as to method. I believe that it is not necessary, in order to develop the powers of our pupils best, to give them any specific line of training, at least that line which we have been in the habit of giving during the earlier years. I believe that we can develop intellectual qualities and moral qualities just as well in a technical school as we can in a Latin school. So it seems to me that after all I may very fitly and properly come back to the key-note of what I tried to say, and put it in this way: We should make our schools take hold on life and take hold on life as it is. Now, first, we do have to make our living. There is no doubt about that. The larger part of our time is to be given to getting a living. We have all of us various desires to satisfy, but first we must satisfy our desire to eat. If we do not, we shall soon not be in a condition to have any further desires in this wor'd. I do not think that we should make getting a living the final PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND BUSINESS LIFE 115 purpose by any means, but that Is one prominent thing that should be brought forward. So, further, with reference to this crowd of misfit men that we are trying to get hold of — how shall we get rid of them best in society ? Is it not by holding them as children longer in our schools ? Is it not by so adapting our schools to social life as it is among us, that they will realize the interdependence of each person in society upon others ? How are we ever going to get our different classes in society in unison and harmony and working together unless we train all of our citi- zens so that they will recognize what these social con- ditions are ? We speak frequently of the lack of harmony that exists between the different classes in society. We all recognize that this strife exists in many cases. How shall we get rid of it ? Is it not by taking the children when they are young, putting them into the schools, and letting them realize there what the different conditions in life are, what inter- dependence there is between the different classes in society, until they can meet one another on an even plane ? A man is no better because he is rich, but neither is he any better because he is poor, as a great many people seem to think. The fact is that a per- son's goodness or badness depends upon what he does, upon his ideals, upon the use that he makes of the powers that God has given him. Now, the essential thought of this address may be summed up in this: I believe that our schools do exist — and I will put that forward as the only aim of our schools, if you 116 THE LIBERAL CLUB please, — to put each person, each child, into a condi- tion so that he can best use, for the good of society, for the good of all that are around about him, the powers that God has given him. They must be developed in him. He must by the development of his character and by understanding the nature of society, know how to use those powers for the sake of his fellow men. I jpourtb 2)lnner, a>arcb 10. tdOt. THE RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES TO THE ORIENT. HIS EXCELLENCY WU TING FANG, Chinese Minister to the United States. Mr. President — and I must follow the president's example in taking official notice of the fair sex who are here to-night, although they do not join us at our table, Ladies and Gentlemen — I am extremely grate- ful to the President for his complimentary remarks made concerning me. I remember, and I always con- sidered until now, that the highest compliment ever paid to me was that one day, many years ago, I won't say now — I was taken to be a lady. That was the highest compliment I consider that could be paid me. (Laughter). The flattering remarks made by the President just now I consider are only secondary to that compliment. (Laughter.) But, ladies and gentlemen, I feel that I shall disappoint you in one respect; on account of my onerous duties at Washington, of the busy life I am leading, I have not been able to prepare what I am going to say to-night with such care as I should wish. 118 THE LIBERAL CLtlB So, therefore, I ask the indulgence of the audience for the cursory remarks that I shall make, and I now would proceed to say what I think would be appro- priate to the occasion. First of all, let me say this: That the invitation of this club was extended to me by the energetic chairman, I think, Mr. Elmendorf, who I am sorry is not here to-night, and backed by some influential gentlemen, and I accepted condi- tionally. But I must also say this: I must repudiate the idea that I accepted this inviation in the hope of coming a Wu-ing the ladies. (Laughter). No, it is the other way. One of the eminent mem- bers of this club came to me, and in order to support and to induce me to fix a day, he strengthened his application by mentioning the Twentieth Century Club, of which he told me his good wife and many other eminent women and beautiful women were members. So you see that I was captured by this club with the assistance of the Twentieth Century Club. Now, ladies and gentlemen, you expect me to talk about the relations between the Orient and the United States. Fifteen centuries ago there was a fisherman who in his small boat was going up a stream. He was charmed with the scenery, full of peach trees on both sides of the stream, and he pulled as far as he could, forgetting time and distance. Suddenly he came to a stop at the top of the stream, but he was so fascinated with the beautiful scenery that he left his boat behind and proceeded on his journey along the pathway. He went on. At last he came to the foot of UNITED STATES AND THE ORIENT II9 the mountain. There he saw a hole, a gap large enough to admit of a person. Then he stooped down and crawled into the hole. Then, after crawling some distance, he came to the other side of the mountain. There he saw another scene quite different from what he was used to, full of, in fact, human beings, with children, dogs, chickens, and he was surprised to see this community in the heart of the mountain. He was surrounded by the people of this recluse com- munity and he had a talk with them, and after long conversation he found that this mountain community had been living there for over 500 years, excluded from the outside world, where many dynastic changes had taken place, and they did not know what was going on outside in the world. Now, China is in some respects like this recluse community in a miniature. China, up to 60 or 70 years ago, had been practically secluded and shut out from the outer world and during that time and for 40 more centuries she existed, but during that long period China did not remain idle. She developed herself in her own way. You may say peculiar way, but, nevertheless, she did progress and she did invent many things. Yes, fifteen or sixteen centuries before the Christian era the compass was invented and was used in journeys. The inventor of the compass was the Duke of Chow, and we call it the southern needle. Of course, your compass points to the north, but ac- cording to our view the compass points to the south, and hence all our compasses point to the south, but 120 THE LIBERAL CLUB it has the same effect as yours, because the opposite of the compass points to the north. So you may say it is peculiar, but still it has the same effect and the same use; it guides; it is the instrument invented by our people, many centuries before the Christian era, for navigation, for long journeys. Then, printing was invented. Of course, litera- ture — characters — v^as in vogue, and many other things, according to our authentic history, v^e had invented and v^ere in use. Then in regard to trade, practically we had no foreign trade in a modern sense of the word, but, nevertheless, we had some trade. That is, traders and merchants and travelers coming from the bordering nations and other nations in Asia; Arabians, Persians, Venetians, travelers used to come to China and trade with us, used to bring perfumes and spices to China, and they took back to their country silks, our famous silks and teas. And in regard to tea, we know how we make it and your people of some nations have now learned from us how to grow tea and they say that their tea is not inferior to ours. But, however, that is a matter of opinion. But I may say this : They may grow good tea, but they do not know how to make good tea. What is the use of having good tea if you do not know how to make proper use of it .? Here in this country and in other countries, when you drink tea you put in something else to spoil the good taste of the tea; youputin cream, sugar and, worst of all, lemon. I am afraid the ladies here won't agree with me, but, however, I am telling UNITED STATES AND THE ORIENT 121 what is my honest opinion. Of course, they have different taste from ours, but there it is. We have many things, many good things, in China, although during those centuries, 40 centuries, we had practically no foreign commerce or no foreign inter- course with outer worlds. Then, in regard to mor- ality and other things. We have our morals. Of course, our morality may in some respects differ from yours, but nevertheless it is a morality and we are accustomed to it. And one of the things which we look upon as most important to our civilization and to our national life is filial piety. What is filial piety ? I say filial piety is the thing upon which our civiliza- tion is based, upon which China is modeled, upon which the government is founded. Let me illustrate what I mean. Well, this rule, this principle, of piety is an ancient one, coming down from the most ancient sages in China, Yao and Shun, who flourished 23 or 24 centuries before the Christian era. And then after- ward it is enforced and elaborated bylater sages, such as Confucius and Mencius. . This filial duty, in a word, is the duty of juniors to superiors. That is to say, the subjects, the duty which the ministers of the state owe to the sovereign and the duty which children owe to the parents and that the younger people owe to the superior. Just to illustrate what I mean, take the case of parent and child — say parent and son. Well, the son having been brought up and educated at the expense of the parents, he is bound to show reverence to his parents; 122 THE LIBERAL CLUB he is bound to obey them; he is bound to support them; he is bound to love them and to respect them. Now, when a son does this, he is called a dutiful son, a filial son; but if he should be disobedient, if he does not support his parents, then he is disobedient,an undutiful son. In such a case, if brought to the notice of the court in China, the undutiful son will be pun- ished. But when a son is dutiful to the parent he necessarily must be a good member of the community and if he should become an official he would be loyal to the empire and patriotic to the nation, and when he is dutiful to the parent he would be good to his friends and he would be good to his own children. So, there- fore, this is the foundation of our creed. Of course, I am aware that in this country you have different morality; you are differently brought up and, in your own ways, you strike a different road, but, neverthe- less, we have been accustomed to traveling this road and we consider it is a good road for us. (Applause). Well, such is China, but within the last several decades, or 60 or 70 years ago, her door was practically forced open and she had to admit foreigners from all nations to come within her gates for the purpose of trade and for other purposes. In these days of inter- national intercourse between one nation and another, and in view of the world becoming smaller, of course China could not forever remain in her secluded posi- tion, but when her door was forced open to trade with foreigners, it was very unfortunate that the proper course was not taken. I say this not to blame any one UNITED STATES AND THE ORIENT 123 or any nation, but, nevertheless, it was an unfortunate way of doing. Of course, one reason was Western nations did not know our language, our customs, our manners; did not know our thoughts and they did things from their own viewpoint. They thought they knew what was right and they did it. But, on the other hand, our people think in a different way and we thought that the way that the foreigners adopted in forcing open the door of China to trade was not the proper way and hence this clash and collision. This is due more to misunderstanding than any other cause. The foreign nations wanted to trade with China and they thought by forcing her to trade they would be doing good not only to themselves, but for the in- terests of China. That is the way they looked at it. But the Chinese did not think in that way and hence there was the misunderstanding, and the consequence was, if you refer to recent histories of foreign inter- course with China within the last 50 years, wars have happened between several nations and China, all these through misunderstanding more than to any evil motive, and then it was aggravated by the trade in opium. Opium was imported into China at first against the wishes of the Government and the people, and hence we know how we had that war which is popularly known as the opium war. These and many other wars, another war, and other things that occurred have aggravated the situation, and, as I have just said, all this was due from misunderstanding 124 THt: LIBERAL CLVB on the part of the different nations and not the Chi- nese people. But now let bygones be bygones. I do not want to refer to the past events, because what has happened cannot be undone, but let us look to the present time and to the future. What shall we do to improve our relations, the present and the future relations between China and this great country and the other nations ? But here I would say, and it is with pleasure that I note that during the last 50 years the conduct of the American people of the American Government toward China has been always friendly, cordial, and we Chinese understand it and we reciprocate the friendly feeling. (Applause). During those 50 or 60 years of foreign intercourse wars have been waged against China, but not by your country against China, and local difficulties between American merchants and some officials may have happened, but all these have been settled with- out resort to war. And another thing I wish to say is that the Amer- ican Nation is the only nation which, by solemn treaty with China, has consented to prohibit the American people importing opium into China, and our govern- ment, on the other hand, has consented to prohibit the Chinese people from importing opium into this country, because we know that both nations know that opium is a pernicious drug and it ought to be pro- hibited; and of all foreign countries, to my own knowl- edge, the United States is the only country that has UNITED STATES AND THE ORIENT 125 entered into that treaty with that stipulation with China. (Applause). Well, as I have just said, now we must look to the present. Your Nation is great, but with your large manufactories, your large undertakings, you know that your produce is greater than the con- sumption of this country and there is surplus of goods to be exported. Of course, your export to other countries is very great, but, there is a large market for you in the East and in China. China is now open to the world. Her natural resources, as it is well known, are great. We shall have to construct railways. Her territory is just as great as this coun- try and railways must be constructed in China, and when that is done she will want railway materials and many other things from this country. Then her mines must be opened and developed. When that day comes she will have to look to this and other na- tions for machinery and other implements and for men to help her, to help her in developing her resources. And then we Chinese are known to be good trades- men. When our nation is fully developed you will find that our people are a nation of shopkeepers. We want to trade — just the same as you are. In that case we want your merchandise, just the same as you want our produce. We want many things that are needed in our country, and where shall we go .? We must go to those countries that can supply us. Take the case of flour, wheat flour. The export of flour to 126 THE LIBERAL CLUB China, to the north of China, has been increasing within the last few years at a tremendous rate. I am not able at this moment to tell you the figure, but it is increasing every year. On account of the constant famine with which wx are afflicted we must buy flour from your country. And then the kerosene oil. To my knowledge, kerosene oil is used everywhere in China. I have seen it used in the interior of China, bearing the mark of an American firm. This is a new trade, but it shows you clearly what a large mar- ket it is for your exports. Well, gentlemen, China being a great market for your production, it is for your people, who are known to be so enterprising and active to turn to that direction. Well, in going to China to trade, permit me to give you one or two points. When you go to China to trade, if you want to succeed, first of all you must remember that when you are in China you must not think that you are doing your business as if you were in Buffalo or in New York. You have to study the people. You have, to a certain extent, to accommo- date them. I do not mean to say that you should risk your capital to please them. You know the Chinese merchant, generally speaking, is proverbially hon- est; they do not cheat you; those people who have been to China can bear out what I say, that the Chinese merchants, in dealing with foreigners, are exceptionally honest. Cases have occurred where, without any written documents to show a binding contract, yet having promised by word of mouth to UNITED STATES AND THE ORIENT 127 purchase certain goods, when the time came, although the price of the goods lowered in value, they still ful- filled their verbal agreement. Well, as I said, with that being the case, here you have the honest people to deal with. Therefore, when you go there you have to know a little of their manners and customs. I do not wish to name the people of any particular country, but within my limited experience, although I am not a merchant, I have seen many things occur in the way the Chinese merchants have been treated by foreigners when they came to their store or to their house to buy goods. I have seen and have known many cases where they complained. A Chinese merchant goes to a foreign house to buy some goods. The foreign merchant, instead of treat- ing his customer in a polite way, says, "What do you want?" and then the Chinaman says, "I want so and-so." Well, then he looks at the book and names the price. Of course, the Chinese merchant will say **0!" — want to offer a price which he thought was reasonable. Then the foreign merchant will say "Well, no. This is the price. If not — maskee (can go.)" That was the way. That was the way it has been done in many cases. But there are per- sons of some nations, — of one particular nation I have in mind — who know how to deal with the Chinese. When they saw that was not the proper way to deal with the Chinese and those foreigners lost their cus- tomers, this nation's people adopted the more con- ciliatory way. 128 THE LIBERAL CLUB And do you know what this people do and they are doing ? They do this : When a Chinese merchant comes to his office, first of all, "How do you do? Sit down" — offer him a cigar and then, if he is a good customer, oflfer him a glass of champagne. That is the way. And then, you know, every foreigner has got a Chinese compradore — we call it compradore — that is, the Chinese manager, and then every year he asks the Chinese compradore to give a grand feast to entertain the Chinese customers who have been doing business during the year; and in addition to that, many of this class of people, they go to the Chinese customer. And another thing, they are contented with reasonable profits, and hence this class of mer- chants, foreign merchants, I mean, have increased year by year and you find in China the stores, the firms of this nation have increased every year, while many other firms of other nations have decreased. Well, this shows that a little civility on the part of the foreign merchant will go a long way to secure custom, because our people, our merchants, when they find a good man to deal with, they will always go to him and stick to him; they won't change; they are good friends to deal with; but it is not so with every nation; if you treat them properly they will always remember you. Well, gentlemen, I won't keep you any longer. The members of this club, most of them, I should think, are merchants, in business, and want to trade, to expand your trade, because it is human nature. Man UNITED STATES AND THE ORIENT 129 is never contented. The more business you have the better, therefore, if you should ever go to China or extend your commerce with Chinese, depend upon it, a little courtesy and civility on your part v^ill go a long way. And then you, in dealing with Chinese, need not stick to the strict formality which you observe in this country, because with our people word of mouth is just as good as a bond, and when you find a good customer, you can trust him on his word. Gentlemen, I know your people are intelligent; it is only necessary just to give you a hint and you understand what is necessary for your interests and with your prestige and your friendly feelings tow^ard China, and your good name, which is known in China, I am sure if you should ever extend your trade to the East, you will find many, many Chinese would trade with you. This club is a liberal club and I am sure the members are all liberal. Their liberality is shown tonight by the splendid banquet to which I am in- vited, and also by inviting the ladies to be present, although the ladies are not members. And still, gentlemen, I wish you would not only have a banquet here, but extend your operations in China. Gentlemen, I thank you for the kindness of in- viting me and I wish this Liberal Club may exist many, many years to come. fitib Dinner. Bpril 15, 1901. y THE TRUE LIBERAL. REV. THOMAS R. SLICER. I am in the habit of thinking that twice in my life I had a genuine inspiration: once was when I had the sense to accept the inviation to come to Buffalo as pastor of the Church of Our Father, and the other was that, being here, I had it suggested to me that The Liberal Club was a possibility. The idea of The Liberal Club was of course not original with any- body, because since Adam and Eve were driven out of Eden people have been getting together to dine and talk it all over. But in the midst of that "Liberal Club" meeting, the first meeting, to which the Presi- dent has referred, somebody asked me what I wanted in the way of a liberal club or in the way of a club at all, and I said I should like to have a club that would not only dine and hear good talk, but a club which should be "in thought free, in temper reverent and in method scientific." I am in the habit of think- ing that that motto dropped into my mind out of high heaven, for it certainly was not premeditated, and I attribute the success of The Liberal Club not only to its constituency, not only to the city that furnishes that constituency, not only to the fact that it fitted a THE TRUE LIBERAL 131 condition to which the organization immediately appealed, but also to the fact that the motto proved itself a sufficient constitution, and the peril which many clubs have encountered and upon which they have gone to pieces was not encountered by this club, for it had no constitution, no by-laws. It simply enjoyed good health without a constitution and had no by-laws to amend. So that the motto constituted a sufficient basis of union and served the very good purpose also of furnishing a test of the way in which a man thought, the temper in which he did his think- ing and the method by which he thought; that is, whether or not he was free in mind, reverent in spirit and scientific in the attitude of his mind toward all the things that he addressed. So that if a man wanted to come into The Liberal Club he had not to ask who were members; he had only to feel his own pulse and know whether his circulation moved freely; he had only to enter into the sanctuaries of his own mind to know whether he there had reverences that he treas- ured, and he only had to look into the world about him, of thinking men, to know whether his thought moved on scientific lines in accordance with mod- ern thought. So that I believe nobody who wanted to come has found any trouble about getting in, or of staying because the atmosphere was too rare. I have been most happy to accept the invitation of the topic committee to speak at this tenth anniver- sary, this rounding-up of the tenth year of your life, and when the invitation came it occurred to me that 132 THE LIBERAL CLUB as I had felt how apt the address of Mr. Sprague was, at the close of the second or third year I think it was, of your life as a club, when he spoke upon Liberalism, I might dare, with your added experience of the other seven years, to take the same subject, with that rad- iant background of his thought and with the sanc- tities that attach to his name, with the beautiful exposition of the true Liberal that he was and with the confidence of the club in that name inscribed again at the head of its official list, in the presence of his son*, — all these things made me feel that I might dare to address myself to the same general topic and so I ask you to consider with me tonight for a little while "The True Liberal." Liberalism is perhaps the most moveable term in the history of human thought. The reactionary you cannot well place, but you know the way he works. His engine reverses more easily than it goes ahead. The reactionary is the man who puts the brake on going up hill, who knows what it is to take it out of the horses; he is not content to get on, but he likes to see the team pull and so he puts the brake on going up hill and he and the horses and the attraction of gravitation and friction have it all out together. That is the reactionary, and he is the opposite of the lib- eral. The conservative is not the opposite of the liberal. The antithesis of liberalism is not conserva- tism, for the true liberal is a conservative. His ♦Henry Ware Sprague having been elected President at this meeting of the Club. THE TRUE LIBRERAL I33 business is construction. And certainly no better example of the true liberal in that sense could be quoted to you than your first president whose address made a signal impression upon my mind, as it did upon yours, for Mr. Sprague illustrated pre-eminently what has been said by Holmes of Emerson, that "he / was an iconoclast without a hammer, who removed our idols from their pedestals so gently that it seemed an act of worship." That is the constructive liberal- ism of which conservatism is an element. That is not the reactionary, however, who always harks back and runs over his anise seed track with just as much joy as though there was a real live fox at the other end of the trail. . The true liberal represents not a set of opinions. They are never the same in any age. The Roman Catholic astronomer of one age belongs to the same church as the man in his same official position who in another age condemned Galileo. The most con- serving influences of the world have moveable hori- zons; they have always the same center; but it is inevitable, as you rise in the scale of thought, that your heaven comes nearer and your horizon swings farther. That is inevitable. It is not you who move away; it is only you who move up, and one ascent after another being gained, as we rise to higher levels, we get new views. We get new views. The age in which we live negatives the idea that liberalism is a set of opinions. It is not even an intellectual state. The true liberal is endowed with a certain tempera- \ 134 THE LIBERAL CLUB ment dedicated to a certain office and pursuing an unmistakable end, and in doing this he means to see all there is to see, and to weigh all that is to come to him at its true valuation, and he is entirely ready to have his mind taken by its corners, as you would take an old grain bag, and shaken of every kernel that it ever contained, in order that the shaken-out grain may go to some mill that is ready to make grist and turn out the flour which shall be the provision of a hunger that is yet to be. That is the attitude of the liberal. So that I do not speak of a set of opinions. The only use that I see in a church is that it is a way of getting things done. It is a way of getting things done. I do not stand here to represent a liberal church, but a liberal temperament, pursuing its ends by methods that justify themselves by results. That liberalism we all stand for. Now, let me mark certain peculiarities of the true liberal that I may justify this thesis. In the first place, the true liberal is not too much concerned about his own freedom. It would be extremely difficult to have any child born into a free state other than free. And there is much of our condition in life that we take for granted. There are some things that we do not boast of nor talk about, and the true liberal is not concerned, as I have said, about his own freedom pre-eminently; for the purpose of being free is not for the sake of being free. That is incidental. The horse that is in the pasture, unbroken to bridle or harness, is absolutely free and absolutely of no THE TRUE LIBERAL 135 account, except in the prospect of his being broken to harness. His flowing mane and tail and sleeky sides and play of muscles under the skin are all interesting to the looker-on, but perilous to anyone who wants to put him to service. Now, the man who is inter- ested in his own freedom simply is the unbroken horse, and beside that careering creature out there in the pasture, tail and mane in the wind, showing his best paces over the sod and glad that he is alive, — beside him in his uselessness, unbroken, the veriest old cab-horse, driven by a night-hawk in New York City is doing the world's work better because he is broken to harness and he can pull a load. If he is not free he still knows his limitations, and one ele- ment of freedom is to know your limitations and not bruise yourself against them. So that the true liberal is not concerned pre-eminently about his own freedom. He takes that for granted. He finds himself in good health perhaps; he finds himself fairly well placed perhaps; he finds himself in good company, and then all he has to do is to turn his mind loose and watch it go and see what comes of it. And perilous things come of it at times. Such an illustration may be found in the story that I have told — to some of you, no doubt, of my friend in New York who is a barber. He illustrated these perils of free thought when you are only concerned about your own freedom. He was a German. I sat down in his chair and, after trying to improve nature by his attention to my personal appearance, he said to me, "Veil, Dochter, 136 THE LIBERAL CLUB I hafe my fiews apout religion." I congratulated him. I have known a great many people who had only glimpses and no views at all. "Veil," he says, "dere*s te Piple; dere's de Piple, for instance. I have my fiews apout de Piple." ''Well," I said, "That's a great thing, John, to have your own views about the Bible." "Veil, now," he says, "I gif you an illustra- tion how I vork dese tings out. Dere's dot story of Moses." I assented as well as I could under the edge of the knife. He says, "Who knows vat has become of Moses ?" "Well," I said, "Nobody knows what has become of Moses. The Bible says that he went up on the mountain and "God buried him," which, I suppose, is a poetic way of saying that nobody knows what became of him." "Oh, veil," he says, "I 'af vorked all ofdot out; I know all apout dot." "Well," I said, "What did become of him V "Veil," he says, "You know dot golden calf vich Moses mate ?" I said, "I remember there was a golden calf made by Aaron, the brother of Moses." "Veil," he says, "Moses mate dot calf, all right." He made dot out of the jewelery that the Egyptians gif to the Hebrews, didn't he .?" I said, "I believe that is the story." "Veil," he says, "Wot I tink is dot Moses took dot golden calf and he went up upon von site of Mount Sinai and he vent town upon te other." Well, of course, I contradicted that view; knowing to a cer- tainty that the other side of Mount Sinai ran off into the sea, I thought it highly improbable that Moses had gone down, but he held to his view, and he said, "Veil, THE TRUE LIBERAL I37 you may doupt it but I tell you dere*s anotter ting . about dot story. If dey had got more jewelry from the Egyptians he vould 'af mate a cow." (Laughter.) Now, this man was concerned for his own freedom and so he had devoted the gray matter of what he called in moments of humor his mind, to solving the problem for himself of how far away from the center of things he could get. That kind of liberal is to be met in every walk in life. You will always find him sitting on the edge of the universe with his feet over, swinging them in the abyss; he has all the motion of walking but there is nowhere to go. That is the kind of liberal who is concerned in his own freedom and only knows his liberalism as a form of protest against what has been thought. If you were a minis- ter of religion in — New York, for instance, — ^you would know what a vast variety this term "liberar* covers, not only one's own solid, sober and serious constitutency, busy with great work that falls to a historic church, but all kinds of things that blow in, as moths to the flame, for instance, as Mr. Olmsted so graphically and beautifully expressed it — the only trouble with his figure was that the bird was not big enough for the fire. But still, in a great city like that all forms of dissent appear, all manner of experiments with the mind. One of the most interesting aspects of liberal thinking now as it appears under this first head of my address to you, of people who are con- cerned only to be free, who want to shake themselves loose from all fetters, who wish to be liberated from 138 THE LIBERAL CLUB all bonds, who want to unlace themselves from the confinement of any restrictions whatever, — one of the most interesting is the phase that comes under its manifest aspects now in every city of what is known as the new psychology. It is a more various form of mental abberation than almost any other that can be named and ranges all the way from the soul taking revenge for its own neglect to a declara- tion by the man who fell over a chair in the dark last night, that there is no external world. These are but aspects of the same general condition of mind in which one wishes to be free on any terms. It is a good deal like the situation that you encounter in some of our new dependencies; you don't seem entirely to depend. This condition appears all the way from Tagalogs, who think they know what they want, to Igorrotes who only want to be let alone; all the way from people who, upon the coast at Manila, would form a constitution and improvise a state, to people in the high hills of Luzon who, if they may draw their bow to the arrow's head and discharge it at any game, do not care for the world's civilized intervention on any terms. This is the world in miniature that we have in the isles of the sea — and the world in miniature depending upon previous con- dition of servitude to some binding condition, depend- ing upon some new outlook which invites the prophetic element in the soul, depending upon some gift of the imagination that lifts with its wings the whole body of thought and is not simply a set of opinions, never THE TRUE LIBERAL IJiQ a set of opinions that can be fixed and staid, but only a state of mind, a temperament, a purpose, and that purpose never well served when it is concerned solely with being free. Now, the purpose of strength is to do the world's work. The purpose of mind is to promote the sane thinking of the world. The pur- pose of wealth is to vindicate the trusteeship of him who has it for the common good. Things are never ends in themselves. There is nothing that is an end in itself; nothing can have a line drawn about it and be isolated and segregated from the common condi- tion. The smallest insect that now in a few weeks will begin to crawl in the woods under the warming influence of the spring sun, however minute he may be, however insignificant he may be to your observa- tion, not even this little brother of the earth can have a line drawn about him but that he would protest if he had consciousness of it against the intervention of any limiting power and claim that the sidereal uni- verse and he were part of one system together. There is no possibility of such segregation, isolation. We cannot be an end to ourselves. For this reason, now, the liberalism of which we speak appears in every aspect of life; not simply in the field of religion, not simply in the field of philosophy, but in life's most practical aspects as well. It appears in the attitude of a man toward his earnings. I come upon two classes of people continually: One set who declare that they are the victims of an illiberal world and the other who declare that they will do what they 140 THE LIBERAL CLUB will with their own. And there is not much to choose between these two states of mind. There is much to chose between their condition, for the man who com- plains of an illiberal world is a poor man usually; a man who is struggling; he is often a man who does not struggle to much purpose; his conditions limit him, his limitations are too severe for him to bear easily; he is in narrow confines of a very small gauge, under the conditions of his life, but he is often an honest, hard-working man who has the idea that there is nothing that makes wealth in the world except labor, and by that he usually means — although the economists that he quotes do not say so — he usually means hand-labor, labor that tires the mus- cles, labor that makes a man sweat, labor that gives you so many hours of work as so much a day. Usu- ally he means that. That is his form of illiberalism. He does not know; he is not to blame, perhaps, for not knowing that there never was a day's work in material that did not express itself sooner or later in terms of thought; that the bridge that hangs over a great stream, as at St. Louis, as at New York, hung up in the head of the engineer, complete in every point, with every pound of strain calculated in the material that was to be used, and the material of such a grade, in order that the calculation might be made; it hung up in the engineer's head complete in every part before ever a wire was drawn or a pound of it was carried from pier to pier. It was labor in terms of thought, first, before it was labor in terms of THE TRUE LIBERAL 141 matter and of skill. That is his form of illiberalism. But he is only a representative of a common attitude of mind, the attitude of the man who insists that the thing that he is doing and the end that he serves and the purpose to v^hich he devotes himself is the only way of getting the world on. The other extreme is the man who is ruining a great state by a great rail- road, for instance, a railroad that will charge from the Pacific border of the State to its eastern border, a freight that is equal to the charge from the western border of the State to the eastern border of the conti- nent; a man who will collect from the farmers in the great valleys of California $i.oo out of every $3.00 as freight for the maintenance of the system to which he has devoted himself as a railroad magnate, and when he is asked to confer with the people of Cali- fornia quietly damns them and says "the railroad business will last his time." Well, it has. But that does not alter the fact that he invited perdition; that does not alter the fact that into the narrow crevice of his mind, by some mystery of Divine Providence, there was forced a vein of gold; — the world will live long enough to dig it out, melt it down and send it afield for the freedom of his kind. Now, on the other hand, we get a representative of liberalism as unregarding his own freedom in such a man as Mr. Carnegie. Mr. Carnegie has made a great discovery. It was not that he could sell out his steel holdings and get an income of fifteen millions a year, as he is credited with doing; that was not his 142 THE LIBERAL CLUB discovery; his discovery v^as that he v^as a trustee of v^^ealth. Mr. Carnegie is called self-educated; I should say well educated, though not completely informed; — a man may be only half informed and completely educated; because he may have the power of his faculties, to use them as he will, and the power to take his mind up whole and deposit it where he wants it to serve the end of that moment; he is educated if he can do that, no matter what he knows; Mr. Carnegie made the same discovery under his con- ditions that was made nearly a century ago by Thomas Wedgewood, the potter, in England. He and his brother, desiring that Coleridge should re- ceive from them an annuity, and knowing the sensi- tiveness of that old man's mind, wrote Coleridge a letter, saying: "I and my brother have a certain superfluity of riches and we long ago determined that we were not owners but trustees." Then he asks him to take this small annuity year by year as long as he shall live. Thomas Wedgewood and his brother made the same discovery: That you can coin your- self into your holdings, but that is not the end of liberalism unless you re-mint them into the circu- lation of the world. Now, you come to Mr. Carnegie, with this in his mind, and you approach him on an entirely different side. He said to me only three weeks ago, before he left for Scotland, 'T haven't the slightest interest in anything religious. No theology interests me whatever. I do not care for anything THE TRUE LIBERAL ^ I43 along that field. I do not say heaven is our home; I say home is our heaven." Well nov^r, he thought that was a discovery. He thought he had made a dis- covery. That is just one of the discoveries that is made independently by every man who is well placed in life as to his home conditions: He wants to post- ^ pone heaven and enjoy the folks. (Laughter.) But Mr. Carnegie's illiberalism showed itself in that re- mark in this particular. He is planting libraries until at a little dinner that was given him a while ago the names of the libraries that he had endowed made the frame of the menu, and yet when he said, "I am not interested in anything religious, theological, doctrinal, ethical; those things don't appeal to me," he forgot an important consideration; a delicate thing is the liberal spirit; it may be Hke an itching in the palm to get and then an effort to take it out of the hand that grasped it, and throw it away in the world's face that the world might benefit by the bestowal of it; and yet in another aspect of the mind the illiberalism appear: Mr. Carnegie forgets that if he were to go through the libraries that he founds and take from their shelves the books that deal with religion, whose inspiration is religion, whose phrases have been baptised in the fonts of sanctity, he would leave the shelves denuded of half their treasures, and he would see he had placed his money there to build a skeleton library out of which much had departed that was the very flesh and blood of its existence. Shakespeare would have disappeared at least by a 144 • THE LIBERAL CLUB. fourth; even the play with the title of Thomas Dekker, unnamable in this presence, would lose out of its pages the phrase, " The best of men That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer ; A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit, The first true gentleman that ever breathed." You remember this phrase in Thomas Dekker's play where he refers to Christ. So that Mr. Carnegie's liberalism of the hand and of the heart has this spot upon the radiance of its sun, this spot upon the luminous disc that is in the mid-heaven of our com- mercial life now; that he forgets that religion is a function of the human soul and that you can no more deny it than you can dismiss breathing as a function of the lungs or palpitation as the systole and diastole of the heart. So I insist that freedom, liberalism, is not for its own sake; it is not to be concerned with its own freedom. The French have a very good phrase concerning the man who is ''the slave of his own liberty." Let me tell you a story to illustrate this. A group of my friends were sitting to hear a paper upon social equality delivered by a woman; I think she does not know much philosophy, but she has an immense power of affection for the human race and when she goes up the road by my house in the summer the beatitudes train after her like a luminous garment; she was reading a paper upon social equahty and the audience was composed of all kinds of people, all kinds of liberals; there were Russian nihilists, who THE TRUE LIBERAL 145 are liberal — with dynamite; there were socialists, who are liberal — with the theory of social construction and are in the attitude of Archimedes, still, who had the lever and the weight but he had no fulcrum on which to put the lever that he might lift the weight; — he said if he could have a fulcrum for his lever that he could lift the world; he did not seem to remember that he ^himself would want standing-ground when he was working his lever. This paper was being read to an assortment such as I have sketched out in part only. Well, in this company was one Boston woman, of honorable antecedents, stopping somewhere this side of our simian friends; she was florid and large and comfortable and couldn't imagine social equality. Beside her sat a little sliver of a woman who reminds me of that passage from the Psalms, where it is written of man: *'Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels," — the literal translation of which is, **Thou hast made him just a shaving off deity." Well, that was her build; but in that narrow frame of hers the revolutions of thought had their way and great convulsions of the social order were enacted. These two women sat side by side, the woman who did not want any social equality and the woman who wanted anything there was in sight, and when the paper that my friend had read was over, the large and florid and kindly woman turned to the little sliver of a woman, who was an utter radical and said: *T don't seem to understand Mrs. So-and-so's position. I don't think that even Jesus taught 10 146 THE LIBERAL CLUB \ soc, \ ttr> social equality.'* "Didn't he ?" said the little woman, m disappointed in him.'' Now, that actually happened. There was no irreverence in her reply. She simply could not understand that in the world there is provision for both statics and dynamics, and that something must come to rest and everything cannot continually be in motion, and the power of meditation is as real a power as the power of revolu- tion. These are illustrations of what we get in the multitude we meet. It is an assorted world, a kaleido- scopic variety of all types of liberalism; you turn the tube and you get a new figure and you turn it again and get a new figure. Some of them mean something and some of them do not. There is your kaleidoscope and you look down the tube and you have a beautiful time. Now, the second condition of the true liberal is that he is always constructive. His intention is to build. He is a long time getting at it sometimes, he has so much land to clear, but that is the fault of the primeval forest; he has so much land to plant, but it is the fault of the stony ground that he is so long about it. He has so much land now prepared to sow with seed, but it is because of the wealth of his seed crop that it takes so long to put it in; but at last you go bowling along in the trains through Iowa, by miles of standing corn twice the height of a man and you wonder where the famine of the world is that shall be fed by all this. It is the constructive result of workers who work to that end, and the harvest THE TRUE LIBERAL 147 that is to be, the true liberal is always intent upon preparing. Now, the other kind of man who is not constructive but simply palliative, knows there is something the matter with the heart of the world. He understands that people are immensely uncom- fortable, either in their condition or in their mind or in their estate, and he proposes to modify their pain by making them unconscious of it. He is like the physician who sometimes, I suppose, must administer an opiate to ease the present suffering, but who has to wait at least in part until its effect disappears before he can discover what is the matter with his patient. That is the palliative process that is exercised by the man who is not a true Uberal but only wants people to be comfortable. That is the kind of person that thinks that reality is coincident with its definitions — the most pestiferous heresy that ever was promul- gated in the world; the heresy that took possession of the mind of the Christian Church in the fourth century and substituted the accuracy of opinion for the experience of life and forever after has been matching definitions together, matching them as children on the street, little Italian children, match pennies, at their game of early gambling. A kind of levity possesses such minds; — imagining that definitions are reality. To come back to my figure of the standing corn, if the definition were the reality, if the prescription were the medicine, if the formula were the fact, then you might cure the famine of India by sending them a cargo of cook-books. That is 148 THE LIBERAL CLUB an illustration of liberalism which is not constructive. It postpones the collisions of thought. It feels the fear of criticism and of that preparatory destructive v^^ork of criticism that in every field of thought has had to postpone the constructive period that was bound to succeed if men were faithful and devoted to the truth. I do not relish the critical attitude — most of all for the effect on the critic, for it makes him often sour, it even puts him into the ludicrous position that it is said the German professor was in when he engaged in discussion whether the name of the Deity in the Old Testament was to be pronounced "Jehovah" or "Yahreth," or "Jah:" nobody knew; but this professor offering prayer at a German uni- versity addressed the being he was supposed to repre- sent by one or the other of those representations, . "O, Thou, great Javah, whom that fool Gesemus insists on calling Jehovah." That is said to have taken place at the University of Leipsic. Now, that is the critical attitude that you deplore. It is the attitude of acerbity, the attitude of contention, the attitude of debate, the attitude of the suspended judgment, that is most upset in the constructive period that is sure to follow. But all criticism must be for the sake of construction finally or it is not true liberalism. In clearing of the ground, yes, cut away the forest and break up the furrow, thin out the stone, burn off the brush, keep back the weeds; when the sharp tooth of the harrow has followed the blade of the plow, sow it thick with the golden wheat that THE TRUE LIBERAL 149 shall feed the famine of the world; but the hunger of the world is all along the procuring cause of every axe-stroke and of every plowshare's thrust. More than this, the true liberal has moral passion. There is nothing more painful to the man who is in the business of liberalism than to find people who imagine that they are liberal without moral passion. That is, it is a kind of dilettante liberalism; it is a nice bric-a-brac liberalism; it would look just as well on a shelf as it does on their mind. It is a kind of thing that if you could get it crystallized you might take home and make an ornament. Frivolous liber- alism, fragile, curious, wanting in seriousness. Over and over again you are confronted with that kind. That has no moral passion. Let me tell you a story. I was in a company once where a lot of working people were having what they called a free-and-easy of song and recitation. I was to speak to them upon some civic topic, and this was the part of the pro- gramme that preceded and was supposed to get their minds into a state to endure what I had to say, a kind of coffee before the speech. (Laughter.) In the midst of this performance there came out to the front to sing a young woman about 20 years of age who had no palate. She had to sing. The tones were not bad, but there was no enunciation. "Now," I said to myself as I looked at that company — I was sitting facing them, — *T wonder what you will do; I wonder how your freedom and liberality and charity of mind will appear .? I know what respectable people 150 THE LIBERAL CLUB would do; I know what so-called society groups would do. They would shrug a shoulder and say Tt's too bad/ They would lift an eye-brow to each other to say, *Did you ever see the like ?' They would look askance, as much as to say, *Has she no friends ?' That is what they would do." So I watched what my working friends would do. A young fellow was playing the accompaniment of this girl who was singing under these conditions of limitation and dis- tress and who should not have been singing, of course. This young man who was playing the accompaniment was a weaver at ^8.00 a week, with his hands grimy . nd twisted; he seemed to know the accompaniments of all these songs. I watched to see what the company would do, and I give you my word there was not an eye-brow lifted, nor a shoulder raised, nor a look askance, nor the slightest sign which might have embarrassed that unfortunate girl, and when the song was over I found my eyes swim- ming because of the chivalry, the splendid loyalty, the stand-together-ness of it all. There was just enough applause to make her feel she had not failed. That is moral passion taking the form of brotherhood. And I told this story to a mill owner's daughter whose father employed 2,000 of these people and she said, "How very interesting!" This pet of wealth thought she was free. I knew that where her heart should be beating for her father's help, there were little fancies about the world, playing at hide-and-seek with the opportunity of a frivolous life; there was no moral THE TRUE LIBERAL 151 passion. The true liberal has a fire in his bones. He gets to the state of mind in which he does not care what becomes of him, provided the word that he has to speak goes on. You may burn him at the stake because he has to kindle a light by which men shall see their way; you may put him into prison because he is too dangerous to be abroad; you may expel him over the Russian frontier because, however mistaken, still really he seeks to reproduce the spirit and life of Christ; you may turn him from his geo- graphical studies and immune him in Russian prisons, as Kropotkin was for years, and he will dig his way out through the kindly earth of which he is geog- rapher and son at once. Moral passion is an essential of the true liberal. And finally, the true liberal not only is to be con- structive and have moral passion, but he must have an unswerving loyalty to truth, of which his con- fidence in the universe is the twin in his thinking. Now, there is a difference between truth and truths. Frederick Robertson long ago laid down the dis- tinction between veracity and truth. I am veracious \when I tell the thing as I see it; I am truthful when I tell the thing as it is. No man can rise above the opportunities of his own vision, but he can be ever looking ahead for a new vision to which he shall be true. The readjustment of the mind is his busi- ness. There is nothing settled for him forever be- cause the universe is not finished. In a world that is still in the making you cannot have fixed opinions 152 THE LIBERAL CLUB that are finished and tucked in and tied with a blue ribbon. If God is at work making worlds, is it too much for him to expect that his children shall be at work making thought ? If the Infinite and Eternal Mind be the mother-stuff of which all things are made, is it too much for the universe in its conscious intelli- gence to expect the thinking machinery of the world to be ever active and turning out new conditions of thought ? Why, that happens to the mind, that happens to every machine. On every machine there sit two little sprites, one called Friction and the other Rust, and Rust says, "If you stop, I'll eat you ^ up," and Friction says, "If you keep going I'll wear you out." There you are. Now, the devotion to truth is the lubricant that keeps you going without danger of being worn out. It is the gentle lubricant of thought; it is the spray that falls upon the mental mechanism that keeps it going without risk of clog or of rust or of friction. The loyalty to truth is a passion in the true liberal's mind. Is it commercial ? He wants to know whether centralization or small holdings are the true relation of the economic world. If he is a true man, aside from his own personal affairs, he is absolutely careless as to the answer, provided the answer is true. You talk to him; you say, "We are going to have the question discussed anew; here is a gentleman who will discuss the organization of labor, there is a gentleman who will discuss the centralization of power." "Very well," said he, "I will stand between them and I will hear the debate \ THE TRUE LIBERAL! 153 and I will get the conclusion that is true, if I can, and I will adjust my business and the ordering of my life to the conclusion, as I see it, when they get through." That is the attitude of the true liberal, while another type of man simply swears at Hanna or damns the trades unions. That is the illiberal attitude. That is not the attitude of moral passion, though it swears; it is not the attitude of the constructive liberal; it is not the attitude of the man who believes that this is an ordered world and there is no more chance in it for a mistake than there is for a miracle; that it never slips a cog, never drops a band, never has a pivot escape from its holdings. It is a world that runs all right. If I believed that God were only a procession of law I would try to hear his foot-fall and keep step. If I thought he was only a stream of tendency I would find out, if I could, where the stream rose, in what far, high hills of thought, between what banks it flowed, and into what sea it emptied itself and I would set the freight of my thought on that current and go with it to its own destiny. When Emerson said we must "trust the universe so far as to believe that such questions as the order of nature prompts us to ask the order of nature can answer," his was the statement of absolute faith. You do not speak into the void when you make your passionate inquiry to know the truth. You are concerned only to know. It was not for nothing that there grew up in the Yankee vocabulary the phrase "I want to know!" Perhaps the vulgarities of village life gave it illustration 154 THE LIBERAL CLUB sometimes. The too close contact of mere village com- munities made the "want to know" tend to gossip, but that inherent wanting-to-know that in New England had its root, was also the reason for the fact that under the snows of New England was kindled every conflagration that burned its way to moral reform in the first seventy-five years of this nation's life. Snows could not quench its fire nor the ice lay its barriers so that it should not have its way, and the fetter of the slave was melted first in the heart of New England, under its reticent exterior and then fell apart as Abraham Lincoln touched it with his pen. This passion to know, this fidelity to truth, liberates a man from all nice considerations of popu- larity. But he may go into a transaction, into the transaction of life, if you please, out of the loins of parents handicapped and disabled. I knew a man who was afraid all his life long because he was born from a woman whose whole life had been spent with struggle against heart disease and the fear of immedi- ate death; he had congenital timidity; I knew another man who went disgraced out of the army of the civil war, true in every other relation of life, but he could not stand the sight of blood and the firing of a gun. But to men born so, if there be in them the fidelity to truth, the passion to know, the devotion to the order of the world, sooner or later, out of their slack loins shall come a creature with a spine that will connect all the way down. They will not be in idle debate with themselves forever as to what this THE TRUE LIBERAL 155 or that man may say, but they shall sit down with Thoreau on the banks of Walden to watch that little panorama of the life of God and be content; they shall go into some hard place of business, and sooner or later somebody will find out that there is a man who has discovered *'to what heights of divinity a man must look up and upon what adamantine man- hood he must take his stand;" sooner or later the habit of the undiverted eye, the habit of the pulse that cannot be quickened by fear nor stilled by the inertia and weight of life, sooner or later the man of the free soul shall match the man of the free mind and he shall look to the heavens to watch for God while he bends his knee in prayer for the humblest need of life. (Applause.) Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, I will occupy only a moment in closing. I wish to thank the club again for its courtesy and kindness, which I believe to be more than courtesy, in asking me to this anniversary of the club that I hold very dear in my memory and of which I am, if I recall rightly, the first honorary member. I believe I was elected an honorary mem- ber after my removal. It was very kind of Buffalo to throw that life-line out to me in the wash and swirl of New York, so that I might be anchored somewhere. But I want to say a single word in closing. The extremely clever reference of Mr. Hubbard to my being a professing Presbyterian makes me feel that perhaps he forgot that I was already described as a 166 THE LIBERAL CLUB moth, seeking New York as a flame; the two things have a suggestion of an uninterrupted fire. But that is only by-play; that is part of my liberalism. What I really wanted to say was this: That the test of liberalism in the last analysis is spiritual sympathy, the ability to climb up, as Mr. Colgate has so grace- fully said, to climb up and see what the other man sees. Now, it is a very narrow ledge that does not afford footing for two. You simply do not take your stand there while he stands there and tell what you see and he tells what he sees, but you change places; he comes over and visits your ledge and sees what you see. The real leadership of Jesus of Nazareth — that most revered name in the history of human thought — the real secret of devotion and leadership in following as his disciple, is that he shows that there is a path to the height and because he is on the height telling what he sees, every devout spirit says there must be a path thither or he never could have reached it; I will go by the path and when I have looked once in his face for love's sake I will try to see what he sees. That is discipleship; that is spiritual sympathy; that is the communion of soul. That is the only liberalism that is worth while, — the effort to adjust relations in life so that the mutual contribution of each shall constitute the added power of all. That is the worth of it. And the final test of every man as to whether he is merely toying with thought, whether he is merely coquetting with free- dom, whether he is merely leading a small insurrec- THE TRUE LIBERAL 157 tion in the field of philosophy, for instance; the test is whether he is capable of spiritual sympathy and can work with the man who does not agree with his thoughts at all. If he stands that test he has grad- uated in the school of liberal thought. (Applause.) Siitb 2)inncr, Hptil 23, 1901. THE EUGENE FIELD I KNEW. FRANCIS WILSOK. One of the most eloquent American orators once said, on beginning a lecture, "It does not matter much what kind of a man a man's father is, it is his mother who counts." This was a most effective expression, for it pleased both the men and the women of his audience. Every man is willing to subscribe to a com- pliment to his mother — and every woman is willing to subscribe to a compliment to herself. Among the poets, the painters, the sculptors, the historians and the ballad-makers, the grand, the universal theme of mother — as it has deserved — has always received the full measure of affectionate attention. The father, on the other hand, among the poets, the painters, the sculptors, et cetera, does not appear to be a matter of much importance. Poetically and emotionally he appears to be a comparative nonentity. Indeed there seems to be very little use, either in song or story, for papa, who has been described as the left wing of the family guard which always wheels to the rear in active engagements. Who among us recalls instantly a great canvas by a great master with father as the principal theme .? Who among us can name THE EUGENE FIELD I KNEW 159 nstantly a great poem or a great story with father as the hero ? On the other hand, who cannot name instantly numerous glorious creations of Madonna mothers by master-hands and countless poems, in verse and stone, of mother and of mother's love ? So, to, in balladry, there appears to be little or no place for father. I do not recall a single popular song but one in which father figures prominently — and in that he is intoxicated and is being beseeched to come home, chiefly, it would seem, because the clock in the steeple is rapidly striking the slumber hours of the night. From whatever point of view we regard it, it seems conceded that the paternal as compared with the maternal relative is of minor importance, and back of most men and their greatness stands out in sweet relief the benevolent face of mother, — mother, mother, mother, always mother! I am far from wishing it to be believed that I am not in full sym- pathy with this condition of affairs; oh, no; but there are those who do not hesitate to say — and I am one — that fathers, good fathers, have duties and responsi- bilities in this life, duties and responsibilities which are not to be delegated to others, not even mothers, for, as Dr. Hervey has recently pointed out, even the most unpromising father has some peculiar ability, and his reward must come, I suppose, when he hears his child say: "Father can do that better than mother." .Differing, however, from most prominent men, Eugene Field inherited his mentality and his great fondness for children from his father, who was a man 160 THE LIBERAL CLUB of ripe intelligence and great tenderness. What Field's mother might have been to him he never knew, for she passed away when he was very young, leaving as a heritage to her son but the sweetest, the faintest recollection, which, however, was sufficiently strong to inspire him in after years to write that tender little poem running: "How fair you are, my mother. Ah, though 'tis many a year Since you were here, Still do I see your beauteous face, And, with the glow of your dark eyes Cometh a grace of long ago." Though Field had but the slightest recollection of his mother, and the most vivid remembrance of his father, to whom, as I have said, he was indebted for his mentality and the very nature of his feelings with respect to children, it has always seemed pathetic to me that amid all his beautiful effusions to sweet- hearts, friends, mother, brother, aunt, wife and children, not the single line of prose or poetry did he ever write or dedicate to his father. Nor is this to be taken as a lack of respect or a lack of affection, but, rather, as following out the line pursued in general by the poets, the painters, the philosophers, the his- torians and the ballad-makers. It may be urged in extenuation of this that father is not so romantic a figure, not so inspiring a creation as mother; but be that as it may, I shall always think that it is simply a conspiracy, conscious or unconscious, on the part of THE EUGENE FIELD I KNEW- 161 the elect of the world to deprive father of his just dues, to which father, somehow, has a very heroic way of submitting and will submit, I suppose, until the end of time. From his father, too. Field inherited his love of rhythm and prose invention, for the elder Field was wont to gather scores of children about him and hold them entranced by the narration of strange and fantastic tales of original make. He would also play to the children upon the violin. From which of his antecedents Field inherited his love of mischief — for mischievous he was — his quaint way of regarding most things humorously, I do not know. But I do know that it became so much a second nature to him that later on when his reputation for pathos grew and he felt it incumbent upon him to assume a serious- ness, — often I think when he felt it not, — I have more than once caught his eye in the midst of the effort and we have laughed outright. Many years ago, when by standing on tip-toe, I had begun to peep over the line which marks the distinc- tion between being known and unknown in the pro- fession of my choice, I met Eugene Field. It was a happy meeting for me, and the friendship which fol- lowed brought me great joy. I like to think, too, that it brought no displeasure to Field. It was a happy time to meet such a man, and it was Field's fate and an important part of his mission in life, I think, to come in contact with young men, that he might incite their ambitions and strengthen their resolutions. There is with most young men a crucial period of existence 11 162 THE LIBERAL CLUB when, having made some progress in the world, a little leisure, either for good or evil employment, comes to them. Guided by some unerring instinct, Field would discover many of these young men, just as he would march into a strange bookstore, and instinctively, intuitively — I almost said instincttui- tively — march up to the counter containing the rarest volumes, and then a few days, a few weeks, under the spell of Field's personal magnetism, which was very great, and these young men would imbibe enough literary enthusiasm to last a decade, aye, a life-time. A keen judge of human nature. Field seldom bothered with those who manifested uninteresting traits, but no trouble was too great for Field to take for any man, woman or child for whom he conceived a fondness. His recommendations of books to read, though some- times extraordinarily varied at first, according to the individual whose tastes were to be moulded, his recommendations were always leavened with the suggestion of a volume, the importance of which was significantly impressed, so that one would hasten not only to own but to read and to digest the volume recommended, and thus step by step, little by little, would Field lead his friend out of the darkness into the light of the world's great books, to the best books by the best authors, to the incomparable delights, to the Elysian fields of literature. Nothing in Field's life so became him, nothing was of more importance aside from his literary skill, than the splendid pioneer work he did, and did from sheer love of the thing, in THE EUGENE FIELD I KNEW. 163 developing in others the taste for reading, in mould- ing lovers of literature out of material oftentimes of the most unpromising character. I speak feelingly of the unpromising material, for I was perhaps Field's most unpromising pupil. To be able to help the world to a proper appreciation of the pleasures of literature, to direct others to thoughts that breathe and words that burn, is ample excuse for existence. Even to try to do this is much, but to make a practice of it, as Eugene Field did, by directing one's thought or one's attention to this word or that idea, as for example, the importance of the adverb in Lincoln's Gettysburg speech, "That we here highly resolve;" or, again, pointing out the imaginative quality of Chaucer's lines "Up rose the sun and up rose Emily" — to do this, I say, as Eugene Field did it throughout his life, and love to do it, was genius, absolute genius, most philanthropically, most unselfishly applied. It is said that the desire is common with most people to know not only what a great writer has written, but of what nature is the man who has pro- duced such attractive material, and the greater the distinction, the greater the contrast between the two, the greater the interest. Eugene Field and his work form so many contrasts that interest in the man and in the artist should never flag. As an illustration of this let me tell you of an anecdote characteristic of Field's humor, his frankness and his modesty. When he was connected with the Denver Tribune and in 164 THE LIBERAL CLUB receipt of a very small income, he was one day in- vited by a man of great wealth to an elaborate dinner. Notwithstanding the fact that it was midwinter, one of the many luxuries provided for the guests was a large glass bowl of luscious strawberries; these were passed to the guests, who helped themselves. When the bowl came to Field he pushed it gently aside and the astonished host noticing the motion said, "Why, what's the matter. Field .? Don't you like strawberries ?" and he said, "Oh, yes, I'm very fond of them, but I'm afraid it would spoil my appetite for prunes." One cannot fail to be interested in the type of character so unusual that it could introduce so im- portant a personage as the Hon. Carl Schurz to a vast political assemblage under a misapprehension. It happened much after this fashion: When Field was on one of the St. Louis papers he was delegated as a reporter to accompany Mr. Schurz on a political stumping tour through Missouri. At one of the places where the eminent gentleman was to speak the man who was to introduce him failed to put in an appear- ance and Field was asked to make the introduction. Advancing instantly to the front of the platform, thrusting his hand into his bosom which he puffed out in a super-dignified manner, he said, with a strong German accent, "Laties and chentlemen, I haf such a sefere kalt tonight that I can't speech, but I haf te pleasure for to introduce to you the eminent journalist, my frent, Mr. Eugene Field." It is said THE EUGENE FIELD I KNEW. 165 that Mr. Schurz had some difficulty in explaining the matter to the audience. One marvels all the more at this if he takes into consideration that Field at that time was almost wholly unknown. Some years ago when that wave of imitation astheticism swept over the country and we grew, or pretended that we grew, very fond of stained- glass attitudes and sun flowers and such, Field had great fun at the expense of the apostle of that cult. At Kansas City, I believe it was, where the apostle was announced to appear, just before his entrance into the city Field garbed himself in imitation of the gentleman, with velveteen clothes and a large sun flower in his button-hole and a Tam O'Shanter velvet cap, and in an open barouche paraded through the town bowing right and left to the astonished multi- tude. Now contrast those foolish, those boyish pranks with Field's "Little Boy Blue," which first brought him recognition as a poet: "The little toy dog is covered with dust, But sturdy and stanch he stands; And the little toy soldier is red with rust, And his musket moulds in his hands. Time was when the little toy dog was new, And the soldier was passing fair; And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue Kissed them and put them there. "Now, don't you go till I come," he said, "And don't you make any noise!" So, toddling off^ to his trundle-bed. 106 I'H^ LIBERAL CLUB He dreamt of the pretty toys, And, as he was dreaming, an angel song Awakened our Little Boy Blue — O! the years are many, the years are long, But the little toy friends are true I Aye, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand, Each in the same old place — Awaiting the touch of a Httle hand. The smile of a little face; And they wonder, as waiting these long years through In the dust of that Httle chair. What has become of our Little Boy Blue, Since he kissed them and put them there." Now contrast that again with Field's "Biblio- maniac's Prayer, a composition which has delighted and delights the booklovers of two hemispheres and has crowned Field one of the king-singers of biblio- mania. "Keep me, I pray, in wisdom's way That I may truths eternal seek; I need protecting care to-day, — My purse is light, my flesh is weak. So banish from my erring heart All baleful appetites and hints Of Satan's fascinating art. Of first editions and of prints. Direct me in some godly walk Which leads away from bookish strife. That I with pious deed and talk May extra-illustrate my life. But if, O Lord it pleaseth Thee To keep me in temptation's way, THE EUGENE FIELD I KNEW 167 I humbly ask that I may be Most notably beset to-day; Let my temptation be a book, Which I shall purchase, hold, and keep, Wheron when other men shall look. They'll wail to know I got it cheap. Oh, let it such a volume be As in rare copperplates abounds, Large paper, clean, and fair to see, Uncut, unique, unknown to Lowndes." Now contrast that, again, with Field's "Good-by — God Bless You!" — a composition in which he shows not only his pathos, but his love of the well of English undefiled : "I like the Anglo-Saxon speech With its direct revealings; It takes a hold, and seems to reach Way down into your feelings; That some folk deem it rude, I know, And therefore they abuse it; But I have never found it so, — Before all else I choose it. I don't object that men should air The Gallic they have paid for. With "Au revoir," "Adieu, ma chere," For that's what French was made for. But when a crony takes your hand At parting, to address you. He drops all foreign lingo and He says, "Good-bye — God bless you!" This seems to me a sacred phrase. With reverence impassioned, — A thing come down from righteous days^, Quaintly but nobly fashioned; 168 THE LIBERAL CLUB It well becomes an honest face, A voice that's round and cheerful; It stays the sturdy in his place And soothes the weak and fearful. Into the porches of the ears It steals with subtle unction, And in your heart of hearts appears To work its gracious function; And all day long with pleasing song It lingers to caress you, — I'm sure no human heart goes wrong That's told "Good-by — God bless you!" I love the words — perhaps because When I was leaving Mother, Standing at last in solemn pause We looked at one another, And I — I saw in Mother's eyes The love she could not tell me, — A love eternal as the skies, Whatever fate befell me; She put her arms about my neck And soothed the pain of leaving And though her heart was like to break, She spoke no word of grieving; She let no tear bedim her eye, For fear that might distress me, But, kissing me, she said good-bye, And asked our God to bless me." Now contrast that again v^ith Field's "Limitations of Youth," a composition in which more than in any other, I think, he enters more into the feelings of the boy, the real boy boy, the common-garden, every-day boy: THE EUGENE FIELD I KNEW 169 "Td like to be a cowboy an' ride a fiery boss Way out into the big an' boundless west; I'd kill the bears an' catamounts an' wolves I'd come across, An' I'd pluck the bal' head eagle from his nest! With my pistols at my side, I would roam the prarers wide, An' to scalp the savage Injun in his wigwam would I ride — If I darst; but I darse n't! I'd like to go to Afriky an' hunt the lions there, An' the biggest ollyfunts you ever saw! I would track the fierce gorilla to his equatorial lair, An' beard the canny bul that eats folks raw! I'd chase the pizen snakes An' the 'pottimus that makes His nest down at the bottom of unfathomable lakes — If I darst; but I darse n't! I would I were a pirut to sail the ocean blue, With a big black flag aflyin' overhead, I would scour the billowy main with my gallant pirut crew An' dye the sea a gouty, gory red! With my cutlass in my hand On the quarterdeck, I'd stand And to deeds of heroism I'd incite my pirut band — If I darst; but I darse n't! And, if I darst, I'd lick my pa for the times that he's licked me! I'd lick my brother an' my teacher, too! I'd lick the fellers that call round on sister after tea. An' I'd keep on lickin' folks till I got through! You bet! I'd run away From my lessons to my play. An* I'd shoo the hens, an' tease the cat, an' kiss the girls all day — If I darst; but I darse n't!" 170 THE LIBERAL CLUB And now, gentlemen, if I may be allowed just one more introduction for the sake of showing Field's remarkable versatility, compare all the foregoing with his beautiful "Dutch Lullaby:" "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night Sailed off in a wooden shoe — Sailed on a river of crystal light, Into a sea of dew. "Where are you going, and what do you wish ?" The old moon asked the three, "We have come to fish for the herring fish That live in this beautiful sea; Nets of silver and gold have we!" Said Wynken, Blynken, And Nod. The old moon laughed and sang a song, As they rocked in the wooden shoe. And the wind that sped them all night long Ruflied the waves of dew. The little stars were the herring fish ■ That lived in that beautiful sea " Now cast your nets wherever you wish Never afeard are we," J So cried the stars to the fishermen three! m Wynken, Blynken, And Nod. All night long their nets they threw To the stars in the twinkling foam — Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe, Bringing the fishermen home; 'T was all so pretty a sail it seemed As if it could not be. I THE EUGENE FIELD I KNEW 171 And some folks thought 'twas a dream they'd dreamed Of sailing that beautiful sea — But I shall name you the fishermen three: Wynken, Blynken, And Nod. Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes, And Nod is a little head, And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies Is a wee one's trundle-bed. So shut your eyes while mother sings Of wonderful sights that be. And you shall see the beautiful things As you rock on the misty sea, Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three: Wynken, Blynken, And Nod." And so, gentlemen, if contrast be what we seek, contrast what please us, we cannot fail, as I have said, to be interested in a type of man so unusual that he could turn from the most mischievous pranks and write a baby's lullaby, a lullaby so pathetic that it would wring tears from a politician. In one respect Field was like most people; he won no distinction, he achieved no success without a great deal of labor. It was a long time in the garden of life before Field got a bite at the sunny side of the peach. He seemed always to have wished to be an author, except at such times in a boy's life when he feels he is destined to become a great actor, and Field went much further in this respect than most people know. With a 172 THE LIBERAL CLUB friend he played through many of the smaller towns of Missouri and he even went so far as to provide him- self with costumes for many of the principal Shake- spearean characters. As was said of Thackeray, looking back at Field as he used to come out from day to day in the Chicago Daily News, it can scarcely be said that we realize how good was the literary food provided for our daily consumption. But gradually the name of Field began to be buzzed about and the deep regret now is that he could not have lived to a greater enjoyment of his fame, to have crowned or surpassed the best of his literary productions. I am far from being chauvinistic enough, far from being so lost in idolatry of Field, as to suppose him so great a man as Thackeray, whose reputation, whose fame is world-wide,while that of Field is as yet but little more than national. But perhaps no greater test of a man's ability is to be made than by comparing him with one whose powers are of an acknowledged supe- riority, and it is a very easy task indeed to trace many points of resemblance as well as of distinction between Thackeray and Field. To begin with, their hand writings were very similar, with the advantage I think, in point of beauty, with Field. Both drew badly, very badly, but Field never dreamed, as Thackeraydid, of makinga career as an artist. Both wrote odes to their pens. Field never wrote a "Henry Esmond" or a "Vanity Fair," but then Thackeray never wrote "A Little Book of Western Verse," or "The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac," but THE EUGENE FIELD I KNEW 173 Field was so much younger when he died than Thack- eray that one feels disposed to quarrel with Fate in carrying him off before he had quite rounded out his literary career. Known chiefly as a poet by those who have only read his verse, I make the prediction that Field's prose tales will outstrip in the race for fame his verse and will be quoted as models of style by those whose opinions command following and re- spect. Field, like Thackeray, had no great power of conversation; neither one was a man to be valued or valuable at a dinner table as a brilliant conversational- ist; neither shone in what might be called good society; neither courted it, both had very little time to give to it and both cared very little about it. Perhaps they felt, as Thoreau expresses it, that giving one's afternoons and one's evenings to society is like selling one's birthright for a mess of pottage. But then Field had a knack of imitation, a power of recitation that was quite beyond Thackeray, an accomplishment which made Field exceedingly popular wherever he went. Field detested shams just as Thackeray de- tested snobs, and so great was the aversion of both to humbug of every kind, that both laughed it down to the fullest extent of their capacity. Anthony Trollope says that Thackeray saw only the real in Hfe; Eugene Field saw not only the real but the ideal. Thackeray felt that more good could be accomplished by exposing the vices than extolling the virtues of mankind. In this they were scarcely in accord; for Field felt that mankind would be bettered for having 174 THE LIBERAL CLUB the purity and the innocence of childhood pathetically placed before him. With childhood and motherhood not merely idealized but fittingly realized Field felt that the world would be safe. In fine, the published writings of both of these men are full of pathos, full of humor, full of love and charity and tend always to truth, honor, manly worth and womanly modesty. The chief characteristic of Thackeray's writings is his fancy; so, too, is fancy that of Field's. A biog- raphy of Thackeray says that his chief personal char- acteristic was his almost feminine tenderness; and this tenderness Eugene Field exhibited not only in his writings but in his every-day intercourse; while to me his chief personal trait was his buoyancy of spirit, his enthusiasm, without which nothing can be accom- plished. If any black care mounted behind the horse Eugene Field rode — and I am afraid it did — it was known and exposed to few. To complete the picture of similarity between Thackeray and Field let me say that with their work incomplete both passed from life with an affection of the heart. The style of Eugene Field's writing is beautifully clear and lucid and always grammatical. He has succeeded in conveying to the reader all which the reader was intended to receive and with the least possible amount of diflSculty; he has also succeeded in conveying to the reader all that the writer in- tended to convey, and with great accuracy and pre- cision, so that according to the best authorities he may be considered, will be considered, as a master in THE EUGENE FIELD I KNEW 175 this respect. Whatever he says the reader cannot fail to understand; whatever he attempts to com- municate he always succeeds in conveying. The greatest that have written could do no more and the greatest that have written have often done less. I have heard Dr. Horace Howard Furness, the eminent Shakespearian scholar, say that for pure lilting quality nothing quite exceeded Byron's lines: "They say, dear Moore, your songs are sung — Can it be true ? You lucky man, — At midnight, in the Persian tongue, Along the streets of Ispahan." and it must be confessed they do lilt, but we all have our views, our feelings in this respect and the names of Byron and Moore are enough to incline most folks to Dr. Furness' opinion; but I think — and I have the courage to say — that Byron's lines, in their laughing, singing, dancing, rhythmic, litling quality do not excel, even if they equal, the same qualities in Field's "The Truth about Horace." Listen and judge for your- selves : "It is very aggravating To hear the solemn prating Of the fossils who are stating That old Horace was a prude; When we know that with the ladies He was always raising Hades, And with many an escapade his Best productions are imbued. * * * * He was a very owl, sir. And starting out to prowl, sir, 176 THE LIBERAL CLUB You bet he made Rome howl, sir, Until he filled his date; With a massic-laden ditty And a classic maiden pretty He painted up the city, And Maecenas paid the freight!" Of course, I have read purely with an idea of bringing out the rhythmic quality, but I will go further and say that the subject and the humorous treatment com- pare more than favorably with the Byronic quatrain. Of Field and his relation to children I have spoken elsewhere, but children were always fair game for Field and he never failed to make as deep an impres- sion upon them as possible. He had a quaint way of placing himself on a level with their little minds that was as winn ng as it was skillful. He was a man who mentally drank in much, filling his fancy daily, hourly, weekly, with what he saw, what he heard, what he read, and then pouring it all out again with delightful amplification. One of the complaints he made of some brother humorists was that they took no pains to read in order to supply themselves with material to prevent self-exhaustion. But Field read constantly and was ever perfecting his style from the best literature our language can pro- duce. Not long since I had a letter from the president of Knox College telling me of a Spenser's "Faerie Queen" belonging to the library there, the fly-leaf of which bore the name of Eugene Field, together with the information, in his own handwriting, that he had THE EUGENE FIELD I KNEW 177 Started to read the book on such-and-such a day and had finished it, I think, a day or two later. So that you see one cannot begin too early nor study too late if he wishes to become — as Field did not — suddenly clever. Field was ever proud of his newspaper reputation, and justly so, for it was through the medium of the press, as a reporter, as a special writer, as an editor, that he first attracted public attention and received public recognition. I heard him lay great stress upon his affection for the work, at a dinner given in his honor a few years ago at Philadelphia, a dinner at which the late John Russell Young presided. Another very graceful and exceedingly elegant ac- complishment of Field's was his letter-writing. He had a fine epistolary style and the collection or the publication of even a tithe of his correspondence would make delightful reading. The sight of his handwriting on the outside of an envelope was always a foretaste of something especially good inside, and I never broke the seal without chuckling in anticipation of the delights to come. For a man of long newspaper experience, during which Field must have had much beautiful manu- script ruined, for he furnished immaculate copy, for a man, I say, whose soul must have been greatly tried in this respect. Field was very moderate in his use of strong language. But as for oaths that were so rich that they were really nutritious, as was said of Lan- dor's, I fear Field had no great abhorrence. n 178 THE LIBERAL CLUB Let me give you one more example of Field*s per- sonal, not of his professional, fun, and I have almost finished. Not long since, during a visit to Indianap- olis, James Whitcomb Riley told me the following in connection with Field. He said, '*When Field, Bill Nye and I were associated in the lecturing tour we used to be very careful what we said to each other, for an opening in the game of conversation and narration often led to unexpected results. One day, as we were sitting at the window of a hotel in Broadway, after a prolonged silence, Field suddenly broke out with the exclamation or declaration that he had had a strange dream last night; upon its being inquired as to the nature of the dream. Field said *I dreamt I'd been dead fifty years and, coming back to life, I was inter- viewing the janitor of the little hall in the country town where we three appeared last night and I said to the janitor, "I suppose you have seen a great many kinds of entertainments in this hall .? " and he said, "Oh, yes; during a connection of over sixty years with the place it is only natural to suppose I have seen a great many kinds of entertainments, good, bad, and in- diflPerent.'" Then said Field, *Do you remember an entertainment that was given here by James Whit- comb Riley, Bill Nye and Eugene Field .?' whereupon the janitor broke out into an uncontrollable fit of laughter; when he had recovered sufficiently, he apologized and said that the mere mention of the name of Field was enough to convulse him. 'What did you say the names of the other gentlemen were V . THE EUGENE FIELD I KNEW 179 he said. *Nye. Nye. Bill Nye and James Whitcomb Riley, No/ he said, * I never heard of them. But I wish to say now and I wish to lay emphasis upon the declaration that that Eugene Field was the most ex- traordinary, the most brilliant and most finished artist that ever appeared in this town.'" Of Field as a friend, let me say, those of us who knew him nearly, warmed our spirits in his friendship as most people warm their bodfes at a fire. No mat- ter how dark, how obscure or how subterranean the bookstore, the moment Eugene Field stepped into it that moment it was ablaze with the light of his pres- ence. He seldom or never praised the performances, the actions of his friends, but he ever had the right word of encouragement for their ambitions, their as- pirations. Nothing could be more welcome to a sensitive soul than this; nothing could be more subtly effective. He was a great, good-natured, talented fellow, whose kindnesses and courtesies were many and frequent. The Eugene Field I knew was a fellow of infinite jest, but the Eugene Field I knew was also a fellow of infinite tenderness. The world is the sweeter for his presence in it and no greater meed of praise could be accorded him. His friends have sometimes thought to raise a statue to his memory. The finest structure in brass or stone that could be reared by the deftest hands would be feeble by com- parison with the monument he himself has raised in writing "A Little Book of Western Verse," "The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac," "The Horatian 180 THE LIBERAL CLUB Odes" and the "Little Book of Profitable Tales" containing that sweetest of all short stories," The First Christmas Tree." I have never been able to regard Eugene Field as dead, but rather as one who is visiting Olympus and becoming charmed with the conversation of the Gods, perhaps with that of his own favorite Horace, he has decided to tarry yet a while. If we grow impatient at his delay and he come not soon to us, we shall go to him. fixet Dinner, November 29, idOl. THE CAUSE OF THE BOER. COMMANDANT W. D. SNYMAN. The greeting that I have received at this banquet here this evening is only one of the many greetings that I have received of the American people since I have arrived in this country. I can assure you that when I received your invitation, when I reached New York, coming from San Francisco, on a mission to Holland to see the envoys and President Kruger, no man was more ready to accept that kind invitation than I was, not because I thought that I would be able to entertain such an intelligent audience as I knew I would have before me here this evening, but because I have that cause which I represent in this country buried deep in my heart. I accepted that invitation, as I say, not with the object, as I knew, that I would be able to entertain you as far as my speaking was concerned, because I would like you to understand immediately that having to address you here to-night in a language which is not my own, there is a great deal of difficulty; but, what I found everywhere else in this country, I know I will find also in this audience tonight, and that is that what- l82 THE LIBERAL CLUB ever my shortcomings may be in speaking your lan- guage, you will take the will for the deed. I feel thankful to you, gentlemen, for coming to hear what I have to say. I feel thankful to you, Mr. President, for the way that you have received us at the station and brought us to the hotel; I feel more thankful to find an opposing gentleman here to- night [Mr. Brown] who also wishes to say a few words. Had I known of his presence here I would naturally have suggested, considering that he was also in that part of the country, and to be fair and just toward my opponents, toward those people whom we are fighting in South Africa, to have had a debate so that you would have been able to have heard both sides of the question. But let me immediately say that I have nothing else to tell you except that South Africa is devastated from one end of the country to the other. There are two white races opposing one another today in that same country. If I look back to my native country — where I was born, my father and my ancestors were born, I may say for about three hundred years before that, and looking back in the way that I am now situated, I can hardly realize that I can still give a smile when I meet anybody outside. I am standing here before you tonight with my son, who is with me in this country. Here is a youngster who was sixteen on the 1 8th day of July last, who went with me into that struggle and left that country at the suggestion of President Steyn, to come to America and lay our THE CAUSE OF THE BOER. 183 cause before the American people. Now I know that a great many of our friends here, perhaps whose sym- pathies, by relationship as well as otherwise, are with the British peop'e, wi I differ with me when I ex- plain to them what I think has been the cause of that fearful struggle which is now existing in South Africa. You will remember that South Africa is divided into various territories. You know that there is the Cape Colony, which is the British Colony, and you also know that there is a colony which is called Natal which occupies the southern portion of South Africa, and that there are two republics comprising the Orange Free State and South African Republic. But these people who live in this country, especially the people of the nationality that I represent, are closely allied with one another, and so you will find that the Dutch-speaking population, which is the majority in the Cape Colony, are people who are closely allied to the burghers of the Orange Free State as well as the South African Republic, and you will find a son living in the Cape Colony a British subject and the father living in the Orange Free State — a republic — a burgher of that state. And therefore you can quite understand that in sym- pathy the Dutch-speaking races in South Africa are in unity with one another. But we, and myself, who lived in the Cape Colony, who were British subjects, enjoyed the government of that country, no doubt because we were carrying on a government under our own control, but at the same time we were loyal to the 184 THE LIBERAL CLUB British Crown, providing that the safety-valve re- mained, which we as a nation possessed in South Africa, especially those of us in the British terri- tories. The existence of the two republics was always a guaranty of good faith for us, as people living in the Cape Colony to be loyal to the British Crown; as I say we had a safety valve in the two republics beyond the Vaal and the Orange River. Now you will all understand that "war," as it has been termed by one of your eminent generals, "is hell." And my dear friends, war in South Africa, I cannot explain in any other way but that it "is hell" to-day. If you just for a moment think of the devastation, of thousands of farms being burnt down, blown up, thousands of women and children taken away from their homes — concentrated in camps, practically speaking, prison- ers, whose liberty has been taken away, and to be guarded by the ordinary "Tommy Atkins" as he is termed, — it will give you an idea what the present position is in that part of the country. Now, I know that you will always find that never are the people who have been responsible for a war the greatest sufferers in that particular war, but it is always the irresponsible persons; it is always those who are not responsible for any diplomatic part that has been played by the leading parties on both sides who today pay the penalty of that war. It is today the widow and the orphan of the burgher who suffer and who pay, as it were, the dearest penalty for the existence of that republic, as well as the widow and THE CA USE OF THE BOER. 185 the orphan of the British soldier in England and elsewhere. And, therefore, as I say, when I was asked to come and address you, I particularly wished to make it understood that it would be my duty to enter into what has happened in that country and explain what brought about this catastrophe as it is now at the present moment. I explained to you the position of the country, how we were in the Cape Colony and Natal, as well as the Orange Free State and the Transvaal Republic; that in the Cape Colony the majority of representatives in the Cape Legislature were representing the Dutch- speaking element in that house of Assembly, as well as people closely allied with the burghers of the two republics. We had with us then a gentleman who held a very prominent position, and I am now going to mention to you the name of Mr. Cecil John Rhodes, who was the first recognized premier and leader of the Dutch-speaking Africanders of the Cape Legislature. He was a man who allied himself with the greatest political association in the Cape Colony, better known as the Africanderbund. Mr. Rhodes is the man who was trusted by the Africanders to take the reins of the government; the Africanders believing that he was the only man and the best man for the welfare and prosperity of all concerned, a man who had the welfare of that country at heart. Being so entirely trusted by the Dutch-speaking Africanders, the greatest opposition that he had during his reign of office as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, eman- 186 THE LIBERAL CLUB ated from the ultra-Jingo party. Everybody, as I say, trusted him and looked upon him as the great man to take the reins of government of the country, and so trusted was he by people who were closely in relations with the people of the two republics, that no man knew what calamity was over the coun- try until all of a sudden came the outbreak of the Jameson Raid. Everyone was at peace. I still re- member living on my farm as a farmer the night before, the eve of the New Year's day, when we were going to have our sports; we were all together, every- one thinking that the world was at peace, — the next morning the telegraph wires were launching through the country the announcement that Dr. Jameson had crossed the borders with 450 men, with the object of overthrowing the republic and annexing it. By whom the raid was inspired I could not say at that moment — but when this matter was investigated, it was dis- covered that the Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, Mr. Cecil John Rhodes, the one man who had the the entire confidence of the Dutch-speaking Afri- canders in the Cape Colony, was the prime mover. He had used his official capacity as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony; and he was the instigator, he was the man who got Dr. Jameson to come with his armed force into the state. Hence, the immediate division between the two races in South Africa. Here was a friendly state broken into by armed men, as I say with the object of overthrowing it, for no other cause except what they themselves explained — that it THE CAUSE OF THE BOER 187 was to assist and help the suffering women and chil- dren of Johannesburg. Now, gentlemen, let us for a moment look back at that Jameson Raid, I am not going to dwell very much upon that, because I know it is ancient history to you. But what I have learned from history, I find illustrated today — that whenever a people is oppressed by a government, it is never necessary to hire those people to revolt against that government; every man will take such measures as lie in his power and revolt against that government without being re- munerated by his own party to do such an act. And we were told that these people were oppressed in Johannesburg by the Transvaal Government; that they had no rights, that they had received no justice and that consequently it was a movement which was started by Mr. Rhodes and Dr. Jameson with the object of revolting against the South African Re- pubHc. But what do you think of the Uitlander pop- ulation, when I tell you tonight that not a man of them, not a soul in Johannesburg, would accept any of those guns and ammunition which were served out to them unless they were paid the nice little sum of twenty-one shillings a day .? None of these gentlemen who tell the world that they were oppressed by that government would accept arms from the Relief Com- mittee which they appointed, nor would they fight at the very moment at which they were oppressed unless they were paid the nice little sum of twenty one shillings a day. How was Dr. Jameson, when Its THE LIBERAL CLUB within eighteen miles, to approach Johannesburg? They didn't know him; they didn't go and ask him. They received the nice little remuneration of 21 shil- lings a day, but none of them went out to help him to get into Johannesburg. That is to point out to you immediately how this matter was cooked up and worked up as a farce. Mr. Rhodes was a clever man, an able man; he saw that his raid was a mistake; he saw that he had been working on his own account; and that Kruger did a very wise thing in handing these people over to the British Government, so that they might be punished by the very government which he had claimed that hs was assisting. Mr. Rhodes was obliged to turn his de- signs in another direction. And so you will find, that with this sore in that country, that with every one with suspicion, with each of the two white races attached to one side or the other, that in 1898 this great petition of the 21,000 signatures was brought from the Republic appealing to the British Govern- ment, asking that the wrongs of these people should be redressed. Now what do you find ? On what do they base their argument ? That they as a people lived in that country; that they were being taxed in that country and that they had no voice in the gov- ernment of that country. Very well put; it was a very nice way of describing that petition. Well now, just let us look at the position of affairs before that Jameson Raid, and at what had happened in THE CAUSE OF THE BOER 189 that country. You all remember that in 1881 the very same people of the South African republic had to take up arms to get back their independence and their freedom, which were dear to them. After the independence was granted to the Boers and Kruger's Government was established in 1885, Johannesburg was discovered to be one of the greatest and richest gold fields in the world. In 1888 a rebellion broke out in the northeastern part of the South African Republic, and the laws of that country were then that every man who lived in Johannesburg immed- iately became a burgher of the state and that he might be called on by the government to defend when- ever that government and its country were threatened with any danger. So Johannesburg in 1888 had 40,000 inhabitants, and when the field cornet or commander, according to the laws and customs of that state, wanted 400 men to assist the other burgh- ers to repel this rebellion on the part of a native chief who was murdering women and children, these resi- dents flatly refused to serve. Here was President Kruger confronted by a barbarous native chief making raids into his country and when Kruger called upon his people who lived in this country to assist him, by giving their share of burghers, the aid was abso- lutely refused. So it was that he was obliged either to confront civil war in Johannesburg, or else to leave these people entirely alone and fight, as he afterwards did, a native chief with the aid of his own people, who struggled and fought and paid 190 THE LIBERAL CLUB dearly in blood for that country which they loved. Now, before I explain to you a little further; these very people in Johannesburg, were they satisfied that they had scored on the government of the country ? No. They held public meetings in Johnannesburg, at various places, and I happened myself to be at one where a gentleman who was an intimate friend of mine addressed an audience of about five thousand men and he said, "They," (meaning the gov- ernment of the Transvaal), *'want us to forswear our allegiance to the British Crown and swear alle- giance to the South African government. Gentle- men, I ask you, is not that against the traditions of the Englishman to swear against the allegiance of his own country and swear allegiance to another gov- ernment?" They shouted as one man, "Never!" and started singing, "Rule Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves; Britons never will be slaves." Now just look at this again. Here was a president of a state with a handful of burghers; here were 40,- 000 inhabitants, the number growing larger and larger every day, and when these people were called to assist the government they refused point-blank and said that they would not assist and that they would not become burghers. I ask you, as sensible men, to-night, don't you think that it was only right that Kruger and his Volksraad should change the law to such an extent that every man should first prove himself to be a true citizen of his state before that THE CAUSE OF THE BOER 191 State would give him political rights ? The dispute was concerning a difference of only about five or six years in the length of residence required, and the object of this war is to overthrow these states and ruin their independence. Now, I think I have ex- plained to you why the law was changed, why it was made to require fourteen years' residence and how the present quarrel arose. Now let us look at the objection. This opposition used, as I told you, the argument that it paid a large amount of taxes and that it had no representation. Well, I have explained to you why and wherefore that law was altered. Now let us just look and not go any further; let us just look for a moment. When the British forces attained their first success in South Africa in this war, the telegram that was sent by Lord Roberts, Commander in Chief of the British forces, after he was successful in capturing General Cronje at Paardeberg with 4,000 men — what was that telegram ? Did he say when he wired to his Queen, "Allow me to congratulate you, your Majesty; the franchise is safe for your subjects in this coun- try?" No. He said, "Allow me to congratulate you; Majuba Hill is avenged," practically letting the world know that he was not fighting as com- mander in chief for the oppressed Uitlander people in Johannesburg, or as they term it, for the franchise, but that he came as commander in chief to fight to avenge a catastrophe that fell to the British nation in 1881. These and other incidents will point out to 192 THE LIBERAL CLUB you that they are all fake troubles that were brought out. Now I know that when I argue with people in various ways and wish to point out to them that this war has been worked up with an object of overthrow- ing the two republics and annexing that country to the British Empire, a good many gentlemen will say that this aim is contrary to the freedom and the great- ness of the British nation. I thought so, too. Never was there a man more an EngHshman at heart than I was; never was there a man who lived in South Africa who thought more of the English people as a race than I did myself. And although I have been dis- appointed, I will explain later on that I have still hope that our freedom will come from Great Britain itself. But what I wish to explain to you is this: that when I saw how, in every way, this was forced on to the two republics; how I had tried in the Cape Colony with the little political influence that I had, to side with the progressive party, as they term them; how I was the first man as a public man in that country to forgive Mr. Rhodes for his Jameson Raid and to trust him again a second time; how I, as a man who took part in the general election of 1899, taking the part of Mr. Rhodes and his compatriots, thinking that no war would be waged against the two republics; when I realize all this, I can assure you that I was very much disappointed at the outcome and yet I was one of those, as I tell you, who did all that they possibly could in petitioning the High Com- THE CAUSE OF THE BOER 193 missioner, Sir Alfred Milner, in the Cape Colony, and through him petitioning the Queen, trying so to proceed through him and through other diplomatic means and not to force a quarrel between the British people and those peope. It was while presenting that peti- tion that I saw that the Governor of Cape Colony was there more as a delegate, carrying out the in- structions of Chamberlain, to carry out the project of annexing the country. So I, like the rest of my compatriots, when the question of right and wrong weighed on my mind, took my position irrespective of what the consequences would be. And so, gentlemen, as I have pointed out to you, when a man knows, as I knew, the strength and greatness of the British nation, how strong it was, what my penalty would be if I should fall into its hands, I think you must realize that such a man would weigh the question very carefully before he would give himself over and join a weaker and a smaller party to fight the greatest and strongest power in existence. And here I stand before you branded to-night as a rebel fighting against my own government. Now let us go back a little and just look over a few of these accusations that have been made against the South African Republic. Let us now take, for in- stance, the dynamite monopoly, as it is termed. Here you will find a question which has been raised; it has been said that the miner, the man who was working taking out the gold in Johannesburg, had to 13 194 THE LIBERAL CLUB pay an excessive tax on account of the monopoly that was on the dynamite which was manufactured in that state. Now, you will find that the difference in the cost of cases was first twenty-five shillings to twenty- seven shillings, as against the imported article It was called a monopoly. All that you can call it is a protective duty raised against the imported article. And what are you Americans doing here today ? Insisting upon protection in every shape and form to protect your own industries in your own state, — and that is all that Kruger did. But our op- ponents knew better at the time what the dynamite monopoly meant for them than a good many of the Boers themselves in that state for this reason: Kruger knew that this "monopoly" was the foundation and keystone of his independence; and I can just explain to you that after the war was in progress for about six or seven months, we had no less than fifty-two Arm- strong cannon that we captured from the British army from time to time, and if we had not had dynamite manufactory in Johannesburg and Pretoria then I tell you those guns would be useless, but having had that monopoly, as it is termed, it enabled the government, it enabled the Boer republics to manu- facture suflicient ammunition to work these Arm- strong cannon that we captured from the English. Do you blame Kruger for it ? That was one way of protecting independence by the dynamite monopoly. And you have again, on the other side, been told as a people — for our British friends through their litera- THE CAUSE OF THE BOER 195 ture have sent it broadcast through the world and so have poisoned the mind of the individual reader — that the Boer v^as barbarous, treacherous, dirty and unfit to govern himself; and so the individual reader never questioned the question of right and wrong of this war; when this war broke out he said, **Well, in the interest of civilization it is well that England should be victorious." Now, I do not think that I look so very much uncivilized as a Boer. I asked my friend here this evening if he did not have a differ- ent opinion of Boers when he got in South Africa coming from Canada, from the opinion he had of them before. Of course he told me, "Not if I met a Boer like yourself." Well, I am sorry that his opin- ion has not been changed because I think that those he met were in the field and there was not a British soldier in the field who looked Hke a human being. But I can assure you, gentlemen, that we in that country are as civilized as any country that I have had the pleasure of visiting and I have been through a good many of them now, and I am not ashamed to own up to you to-night that I belong to an unciv- ilized nation, the Boers of South Africa. (Applause). And then again, you have heard in reference to the two republics and their attitude toward the black races in that country, that the Boer is practically upholding slavery. This statement has worked its way a great deal into the minds of men of this country where I have been conversing with men in regard to religious aspects of the people. That is one of the 196 THE LIBERAL CLUB crudest things they have had to say against the Boer of South Africa. Now, I think no man could argue any better than to just take the law of the country in its form as it stands. Now, what do you find it to be in the Orange Free State ? Total prohibition to sell any liquors to the black races of the country. I dare say my friend who was there has found that the black races in South Africa are like children, and that we have already exterminated in the Cape Colony one race, better known as the Hottentot race, and that the negro races in that country, when once they are allowed to take hold of liquor, do not know where to stop; that you could exterminate them in ten years if yon gave them liquor, carte blanche, so that they could consume as much as they might like. For that reason the Orange Free State government passed a law totally prohibiting every one from selling to any black man a drop of liquor, unless it could be proved that the buyer wanted it for medicinal pur- poses, and you will find in the Orange Free State as well as in the South African republic, that no black man is allowed to buy a glass of liquor unless it is with the consent of his employer. What do you find in the Cape Colony .? You find canteens spread broadcast from one end of the country to the other, right at the doors of missionaries; you will find a church built on one side and a canteen on the other; you will find one native convert on one side and about five or six hundred native drunkards on the other, These are the laws of the English colony, govern- THt! CAUSE OF THE BOEB 197 ment under English rule, compared with that of the two republics. Now, I think that this should do away immediately with the saying that we are, as a people, favoring slavery. And take our church, which is the greatest and largest church in South Africa. We have more mis- sionaries working amongst the black races than any other country that has missionaries in that territory; we have in Zululand more missionaries than have the French, German, American and English countries, although that is a British territory. We have more missionaries in the centre of Africa, and what is more, one Sunday in every month is set apart, throughout the length and breadth of the country, as a day of collection for mission work in South Africa and amongst the native races of that country. I think that this will prove to you that as a people and as a government the two republics have taken the matter in hand and it shows what they have even given from the pocket to introduce civilization to the people; it shows that this accusation of favoring slavery, made against them, is unfounded and incorrect. But let us go a little further. Let us now see who are the Boers of South Africa. We are a representa- tive people of various nationalities. You will realize this when I tell you that to-day you will find a "Mur- ray" a Boer of South Africa, you will find an "Ander- son" a Boer of South Africa, you will find a man of an Irish name who is a Boer of South Africa, — and therefore you will find that we are not a nation built 198 THE LIBERAL CLVB of just one particular sect; but are raised from various peoples who have taken up their vocations in that part of the w^orld, and consequently I consider that we, as a white race in that country, are as good as any race that has developed itself. But now let us look at the attitude of the country. This war has been brought about with the object of annexing that coun- try which entirely belongs to the people who held and still hold it. Take, for instance, the history of the Boers since the trek of 1835, when they cleared out Natal and annexed it and colonized it and civ- ilized it, after paying, as I can assure you, the price of blood in several massacres that took place, where three thousand and where four or five thousand women and children were slaughtered and battered to pieces in one night. When the government was nicely estabhshed, the British government came and annexed it; said it belonged to them. The Boers could not fight, could not resist. They went into the interior and opened up the South African Republic. In 1876 the English quietly came, took down the Boer flag and hoisted the British flag. Some of the Boers took up their wagons and their belongings and went farther into the interior, and so you have to-day a little settlement called Importa, in the centre of Africa; but those who went lost more than three- fourths of their people in attack upon them. When the rest saw that it was fruitless to go farther into the country, they resisted, fought for their independence. It was through the noble eff"orts, through the great- THE CAUSE OF THE BOER 199 ness of one of the greatest statesmen in England, Mr. William Gladstone, that they were successful, for he gave that government of the Republic back and he is being admired by every Boer in South Africa for the noble deed he did. Did the British lose any prestige ? No. The Boers looked upon them v^ith thankfulness. The idea that is spread among people to-day that we are trying to drive the British out of the country as a race is absolutely untrue. Gentlemen, if you had only been at Pre- toria the day, when after the famous speech of Mr. Rhodes, advising the concentration of forces on the frontier, the government of the Transvaal Republic saw that now their only alternatives were either to hand over the country to the British, or fight for it — and fight at once! The Volksraad met and deliberated, there were about 20,000 men, women and children in Pretoria, and I do not think you could see a dry face. They knew that all was up, that everything had been done that could be done to try and persuade the British government not to concentrate their forces on the frontier and not to force the Boers to fight them for their country. We knew as a people that it was now going to be a hope- less struggle, but decided, — just as your forefathers in this country did, — that rather than be a party to any- thing dishonorable, and give up what really be- longed to us, we would fight and probably be ex- terminated as a race; but that we would fight for our independence and freedom, which is dear and sweet 200 THE LIBERAL CLUB to every man who breathes in this world. (Applause.) So you will find, gentlemen, that those people that were in Pretoria knew what was going to be the ulti- mate result. Every man there settled in his own mind that he was going to fight for it and that he was going to fight for it as long as he lived. Now the question arises among the American people today, and the point has also been used to a great extent to secure sympathy for us as a nation; — you are asked to-day, "What is the use of keeping on this struggle ? The ultimate result will be that Great Britain is going to be victorious, and consequently you are the only means of killing your women and children who live in that country." Well, gentlemen, American people, picture your prosperity and life as a nation to-day; then just think for a moment of your own history; just think now for yourselves when George Washington was there at Valley Forge with his men, barefooted, almost naked — and any man can go out this evening and feel the climate of this country, what it is on a winter night — suppose that he had said, "It's all up; what's the use ?" You can as only a young race even to-day picture what calam- ity would have been brought to you, had he sur- rendered when he thought it was all up. Had he given up, I think that you would have gone to his grave to-day and trampled dust on it. But no, it was his nobleness in those most trying days; he stuck to it; and although you got a little assistance from France, yet you must agree with me that it was the THE CAUSE OF THE BOER 201 right-minded Englishman after all, who was against that war, who foretold it, who came to your rescue and brought such a revolution of opinion in England that you are to-day having that freedom and that liberty which I am glad to say is enjoyed by every American citizen wherever I have met him. And it is for this reason that to-day the Boer of South Africa is still in the field, keeping on that struggle, and he will keep on as long as he lives. I had the pleasure of interviewing my old, aged President in Holland a little more than a week ago, and I said to him, "Now, here you are. Of course, I thought to come and see you on your dying bed, and I am glad to see that you are looking as well as you do." He said, "Well, I suppose my opponents say the wish is father of the thought, but," he said, "all I can tell you is to take the history of this war, you see how that matter arose, how that confusion among the burghers sprung up, how they fled from one portion of the country to the other against that overwhelming force of the British and yet you see that they are still fight- ing to-day," and he said, "I want you to remember as a Christian that right is might, and that God has shown all through this war, this great struggle, that He is on our side, consequently that is the reason that my advice will always be to fight, to keep on the struggle, because I am sure in my mind that the inde- pendence of that country is going to fall to its proper owners, and they are the Boers of those two repub- lics." When I landed here in New York I made the 202 THE LIBERAL CLUB forecast, when the people asked me when the war would be over, I said, "So long as England fights, so long the Boer will fight." And here to-night I repeat it. I think if you will follow up the history of this war in South Africa, with the small band of people that are still in the field fighting today, for you are told by the British forces how many Boers they have cap- tured and how many they have killed and wounded and how many are prisoners; if you will think of this it will seem to you a remarkable thing, — it is re- markable to me — to think that having had so often that information that the war is practically over, the situation still requires that not only from Great Britain herself, but also from the British Colonies re- enforcements should be sent to fight against the four small bands of people who are still struggling in that country. That will show you that that war is not over; that will show you that that war is going to be a war much longer. With this argument we are appealing to the British people, the right-minded Englishman. Now, speaking about our women and children in those concentrated camps, I know that you cannot quite understand their condition from what I can tell you in a few words tonight, but my wife wrote me a letter which she got through in some mysterious way the other day — I hope you won't give me away when you go to Canada, [the latter remark to Mr- Brown]; but anyhow I got it, and I am not sorry to tell you; and she wrote me and she said, "As long as THE CAUSE OF THE BOER 203 you live, may you never come to taste what I am tasting today." Perhaps from that sentence you may get some idea of what suffering and agony and death rages everywhere in the South African Re- pubHcs today. Now, when you get that from your wife, you must be an awful coward to be preaching surrender when you know that her heart is farther away from it as she suffers, than yours is at this present moment. And therefore it is not a war of a poHtical agitation on the Boer side,but it is a war of the individual; it is a war of every burgher, of every Boer man, of every Boer child and of every Boer girl. But let me for a moment ask myself the question, what is the use of my trying to solicit sympathy from you American people } Is it because I want to excite your feelings with the object of getting you to plunge yourselves into war with Great Britain ? Let me im- mediately inform you, no. But if you, as a nation, if you as a people who love your freedom and your lib- erty, would express yourselves openly through your Congress, denouncing that war in South Africa, or appealing to Great Britain, I tell you, I assure you — and doing so I perhaps will not be so appreciated by my friend here [Mr. Brown] — that Great Britain will be only too glad to know what your true feelings are, and to stop this war; she will be only too glad to get out of this fearful mess that she has gotten into, and therefore when I appeal to you, it is not an appeal to arms; but I appeal to you for your sympathy, and if 204 THE LIBERAL CLUB you people think that our cause is right and if you think it is just, say so Hke men, and I tell you it will help us a great deal. I have been through this coun- try — I think as many as thirty-five States, — and I have no less than ten governors who signed petitions that they are going to present to this coming Congress asking Great Britain, through the American people, to try and stop this war and bring it to a termination. And this is the only way that we are appealing to you people, and this is all we are asking for. You ask me tonight, "How long will that struggle be kept on?" I tell you, indefinitely; as long as England fights us, so long the Boer in the field will fight. And you will ask me, "How are you going to keep up your supplies of ammunition and arms?" I think my friend [Mr. Brown] can explain that better than I can, because he is better known on the other side in making up the accounts of how much guns and ammunition are captured from time to time, from the British (laughter); all I can tell you is that we have got the supplies; we have them and we are using them, and they are very good guns and ammunition, too, (Laugh- ter). But what I want to point out is to have you look at the military position of the two countries, of the two peoples. I can assure you that I must pay a tribute of respect to Mr. Brown here tonight, with the forces that he represented on the British side and must say that had England, her whole army, been like the Canadians and the Australians, then the proposi- tion would have been a great deal more difficult for THE CAUSE OF THE BOER 205 US than it has been in the past. (Applause.) But I think that those forces are now at home — and I learn that perhaps five hundred or six hundred are going to leave next v^^eek. I have been reading of a thousand that have been leaving the country ever since I have been in the country; they have not gone yet; I only hope that those Canadians vs^ill come to their better senses and not go, and leave England to fight her struggle herself; she ought to be able and strong enough to do so. Novi^, the question of military operations. Let us compare results — and that I am not going to do in any boastful v^ay to-night, — I am going to put practi- cal facts before you, and I only hope that my friend will acknowledge them. Let us now look at the two opposing parties, and what do you find ? You find the one man paid to defend this country against the other man who is fighting for his home, for his life, for his freedom and for his liberty. And, gentlemen, as long as a war lasts between opposing parties on those grounds, I tell you that it is as impossible as it is for me to touch Heaven tonight with my hand, for England to exterminate us as a people. It would be against the traditions of history and therefore my hope is that such will never happen, and it is for this that I consider that our chances are better to-day than they were twelve months ago. Twelve months ago you were told by Lord Kitchener that the war was practi- cally over; twelve months ago you were told by Lord Kitchener that he was raising only a small band of 206 THE LIBERAL CLUB people with the object of imprisoning those roving bands that were concealed in the field; and after twelve months you have to hear from England itself of re-enforcements going back to Africa, to do what ? To finish up the Boers who are fighting there. I read the London Times not long ago, and I just made up an account of the weekly edition, and I assure you that the Boers that were taken prisoners, the Boers that were wounded, in a week, through Lord Kitchen- er's reports that were sent to the war office, were act- ually more than ever they were when they entered the field from the beginning of the war. The Boers are still fighting. I have seen a man who brought a letter from President Steyn, and I shall read to you in con- cluding my remarks, his last words in his despatch to Lord Kitchener and then it will give you an idea of what he thinks of the situation. The methods of modern warfare have so entirely changed war that it is no longer a question of how people can cut up one another with bayonets, because your modern warfare kills at a distance. This is very advantageous to a Boer because he is a good shot, and the welfare of a soldier is to be a good scout and a good shot and a good horseman, and I think my friend will admit that those are feats that a Boer has in his mind from his youth, and the Boers are a people that can move from place to place. Indirectly we are appealing to the British nation. How.? We are going to appeal in this way: I have found that the friendship between man and man is THE CAUSE OF THE BOER 207 everlasting providing one friend keep his fingers out of another friend's purse. A nation is as patriotic as ever can be, providing the government keeps its fingers out of the tax-payer's purse, and you must remember by keeping on this war in South Africa, we are appeaHng to the British tax-payer, to his purse, to make up that million dollars which he has to pay out every day for this war. This is the appeal that we make, and it is by that means that we hope to find the revulsion of opinion come about in that country. I did not know that I was going to speak here to- night and that another gentleman was going to say anything. I will listen to what he has to say, and then, of course, I would like to reply briefly to his arguments. Let me thank you, gentlemen of the Liberal Club, let me thank you, Mr. President, for inviting me to come here. But before I conclude, I will just read to you the last concluding remarks of President Steyn to Lord Kitchener which will give you an idea of what the feelings are of the Boers in South Africa: "It is in the power of your Excellency, more than anyone else, to make an end of it and thus restore to this unhappy part of the world its former prosperity. We do not ask for magnanimity. We demand only justice. I enclose herewith the transla- tion of my letter in order that your Excellency may not become acquainted with the true contents of my letter, through a wrong tranilation, as happened not long ago with a letter which I had written to the Government of the S. A R., and which fell into the 208 THE LIBERAL CLUB your hands at Reitz, and was published, but in such a manner that it was hardly recognizable. Not only were some parts wrongly translated, but sentences included which I had never written, and other parts entirely omitted, so that quite a wrong interpretation was given to my letter. I have the honor to be. Your Excellency's obedient servant, M. F. Steyn." This is a very important letter and I am going to have it published. That is his last official reply to the proclamation of Lord Kitchener, in which he was going to banish every Boer that he caught after the 15th of September. Well, if he doesn't make haste he will have to wa t a long time before he catches them all. (Laughter.) Gentlemen this war is a brutal war. You would scarcely believe the death rate among our women and children, — if you only know the suffering — not that I wish to blame the British to this extent, or say that they are barbarous and to say that they wilfully starve our women and children, — but I say the surroundings are such that they cannot treat them in the manner in which they ought to treat the female sex of the opposing party. And keeping these women and children with the object of getting the Boer to surrender, has been the greatest and most cruel mistake made by Lord Roberts; he is only giving those people who are to-day in prison camps every opportunity to advise their husbands to fight until the last, because these women are reaping the benefit, as they think, of what they would have under another British rule. THE CAUSE OF THE BOER 209 Thanking you most heartily for the manner in which you have listened to the few remarks I have made, all I can say gentlemen, is that our cause is not as bad as it is painted, and that as sure as I am standing before you here to-night, as sure as I am speaking to you as an intelligent audience, so sure am I that the independence of that country will come to its proper quarters, and that is to the Boers of South Africa. (Applause.) Remarks of Mr. Brown, from the British Point of View. Mr. Stanley McKeown Browtiy who was correspond- ent of the Mail and Empire of Toronto, Canada, and who was in South Africa as such correspondent and at the scene of numerous engagements between the contend' ing forces, spoke as follows: I am sure that I feel highly honored in having been called upon this evening to say something to you — that is, from what I have seen. I have Hstened with a great deal of attention and a great deal of in- terest to the able and eloquent address that Command- ant Snyman put forth this evening. There is no doubt that the Boer cause has never, in all its history, been so ably expounded or had a more able exponent than Commandant Snyman, and I must congratulate the Commandant whom, I am glad to say, I can refer to now as a friend of my own, since we are discussing wars over the walnuts and the wine, you might say — a friend of my own, and I hope that we will part this 14 210 THE LIBERAL CLUB evening without having any bloodshed (laughter). Commandant Snyman fought at the battle and was in command of a regiment of Boers, of burghers, at Zand River, where I had the extreme feHcity and the very great pleasure of being wounded by one man of his own side; I do not know just who that gentleman was, but Commandant Snyman assures me that it was not he (laughter), otherwise there might be trouble. (More laughter.) He has gone in general over the subject most thoroughly, going back be- hind the years of the Jameson Raid which, as he said, is now ancient history. It is useless for me to try to expound on things that he has so ably explained, and I think explained in an unpartisan way, and if I may take up, from a British standpoint, allow me to say from a Colonial standpoint, and even more narrowly defining it, from a Canadian standpoint, I would be very pleased to take on where he left off. My time is limited. This I consider, and, of course, in justice to you gentlemen you must consider too, this is Com- mandant Snyman's evening, and very glad you all are, I am sure, to have him with you. At any rate, the general cause is too wide to go into in a very few minutes. The general cause has been outlined, as I said, by him. But the Boers, gentlemen, I think, were ready for this war for some years. It was proved conclusively and beyond a doubt that when they were ready to take to arms they had arms not only in their own places, but they had them distributed well and firmly throughout the whole country; not THE CAUSE OF THE BOER 211 only their own country, but they crept into our coun- try. They had the most modern equipment; they had the finest armament that any government could have. Of course, they were surrounded by their own gold-fields and it was very easy for them to obtain such equipment. No person can blame them for being well prepared. At any rate, this armament which they were then in possession of — and which, I am almost sorry to say, they are still digging up from out the ground (laughter) — stood them in very good stead indeed. But they were not, as he said, the small race, unsophisticated, as he would perhaps have you know. They were used to war, gentlemen; they had had almost annually a scrimmage with some of the black tribes there; they were used to firing and shoot- ing. So that when they met the British they had a fine training, indeed. They not only trained them- selves, they not only trained the elders and fathers of their families, but they taught the children to grow up with a spirit — as he refuted and as he resented; and if I am wrong I hope he will pardon me and cor- rect me — so that they had a sort of antipathy against the British; they did not like these red necks that we wore; we were called the "rooinecks" and there was certain objection to us and their war cry was **to drive the rooinecks into the sea." My object in tell- ing you this, or the reason I can give for saying this is, under my own personal experience, Mr. President and gentlemen of the Liberal Club, I saw their text books, in Boer farm-houses and where we had, in plain 212 THE LIBERAL CLUB English, the story of John Gilpin, they would put in some renowned statesman, — that Joseph Chamber- lain, or somebody else, was the renegade who ran through the town. They brought up their children to understand that the British were the people they must go against. In many cases I shall submit to you they were misled. The ordinary Boer is not as my friend Commandant Snyman is — not by any means. He is, as perhaps many British soldiers are, and as perhaps you. Com- mandant, were, during the war, bewhiskered and bent down. Of course, a dress suit will probably im- prove or enhance his appearance greatly. (Laughter.) If they could send those Boers who are fighting there to-night and let them march in, as we saw them march when we surrounded General Cronje with — not his four thousand two hundred, but his four thousand two hundred and twenty-one men (laughter) — if they could march in here, gentlemen, I am sure you would scarcely class them as either Daughters of the Revolu- tion or associate members of your Grand Army of the Republic. (Laughter.) They were told when the command of the cornet went around, some of them who are not as well up as my friend, who is also an ex- member of the Parliament, not as well up as he is, — these burghers were told in many instances "Come get your guns, rush out, the British are taking your homes away from you." And I can sympathize with Commandant Snyman and I can fully realize and ap- preciate his position, for, gentlemen, there is not one THE CAUSE OF THE BOER ^13 of US here, either speaker or listener, who cannot say, " Breathes there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land!" I don't blame a man for fighting for his home at all, but let him know the facts before he takes up arms. Another thing to show you that they were misled, to show you that many of them did not know the circumstances of the affair. I happened to 'be at Modder River when General Cronje's men were brought there, when they were sent down as British prisoners of war to Cape Town, and I spoke to one of them who seemed to be very well educated and I asked him what he thought of it and he said he was very glad that Cronje and himself and the rest had sur- rendered, "but," he said, "we are going down to Cape Town now, aren't we.?" I said "Yes. You will be glad to see the sea, won't you?" "Yes," but he didn't like the water very much, he admitted. He said, "Why should the British come over here and try to take our places away from us ?" He says, "Our Commandant told us, pointed that out to us and said that we never went over to London, England, and tried to take London, England." That just shows, gentlemen, I think, that some of them were misled. He was more educated than the ordinary Boer who scarcely knew what he was fighting for at all, in many cases. Of course I may say, and you all know, that the die has been cast. W^e Britishers have put our ^14 THE LIBERAL CLUB hand to the plow and it cannot be turned back; and if there was a seeming injustice about it, it must neces- sarily be overlooked, for, like Caesar, when he had crossed the Rubicon, we cannot turn back now. We have taken Boer prisoners on many occasions, and they have said that they would be good, neutral citizens at least, sometimes loyal citizens. Instead of that we find them breaking their parole, going out on commando again. And then another thing: at Bloemfontein and other centers that I might men- tion, that Commandant Snyman no doubt knows of, they were asked by proclamation, — a very mild one was issued stating that they should come in and sur- render their arms and go back to their farms and live peaceably. They came in and surrendered their arms, got their passes back to their farms, and in a few days what did we find ? We found that the Boer — and all credit to him in a certain way — was very wily; he had come and given us his old musket or his old flint lock, and in the cupboard or the cellar of his own home we found the new, modern Mauser. (Laughter.) Commandant Snyman — ^Quite true. Mr. Brown (continuing) — That is one of the wily arts which they are contriving and which they have contrived. In so far as his reference to prisoners, to ladies, women and children, being badly treated, gentlemen, I can only say that if what Commandant Snyman has said are facts, I am sorry for it, but I have seen both fighting and prisoners of war, women and children, in some camps, and never yet, under THE CAUSE OF THE BOER 213 my personal observation — and that is the only thing from which I can speak — have I seen a woman treated in any other way than human femininity should be treated. I think you will all agree that in decades past, in the whole history of British fighting or the British nation, you never yet have had to point to them, as to some other nations, where they have degraded womanhood, and I do not think it is the Briton's intention — if it is, it is far from what most of us hope — ever to maltreat or illtreat women. In the hospitals that I visited I saw Boer prisoners just as kindly treated as were our own prisoners. And Commandant Snyman told me this evening before the dinner, that when he had thousands of British prisoners passing through his hands he took a more noble, you might call it, interest in them than per- haps he would his own men. And, gentlemen, they were given all the medical attention that was possible. It seems to have been firmly impressed on their minds, the words which are true and noble words, almost now a memory; how e'er it be, it seems to me it s old enough to be good: "Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood." This war has brought up different things. One of the first noticeable events was shooting on the white flag. I think that I first noticed that occurring at the battle of Belmont, which was fought on the 23d of November, 1899. ^^ ^^^ British were about to rush a kopje and as the Boers were going at a kopje, they 216 THE LIBERAL CLUB had some occasion to put up a white flag, and when a correspondent who was in the same position that I was, — Mr. Knight of the London (England) Morning Post, — thinking that he had perfect security under that white flag, went forward to take a sketch of the surroundings, he found a veritable hail of bullets around him. That I think, perhaps — I may be mis- taken in the date of the occurrence — ^was the founda- tion of the shooting on the white flag. It has gone on repeatedly. I might, if time would permit, men- tion circumstance after circumstance that I do know of, — and in this case I speak whereof I know, — where the white flag has by them been used in — I hate to use too strong a term — used I think, in a very unfair way. Then at two other places where you, sir, [Com- mandant Snyman] had the good fortune to be present, and I was myself, we were under the brow oft he singularly high kopje that you know of there; we had our little ambulance stationed with the largest white flag that whitewash and red paint would make, and the Boers most deliberately, we proved it, most deliberately, shot on our red crosses there, so that our commander had to move to a place of safety and put our wounded and dying men among Boer residents so that they would have for themselves some protection. The Boer tactics, gentlemen, may be of interest to you. The Boer tactics are adequately and absolutely well fitted for that country. People have said, "Why don't they come out in the open and fight in squares and give us a good chance?" That THE CAUSE OF THE BOER 217 would have been the most unfortunate thing the Boers could have done in their lives. Gentlemen, and you, Mr. Commandant, perhaps know, that if you had come out in the open in a square, with the vast amount of armament and military equipment that we had there, we could have blown most of your burghers off the face of the earth in a few days. That would be a too hardy trick for you to presume on. They fight by getting behind rocks; they go through the country and resort to a system of sniping, it might be said; and no person can be blamed for taking the best advantage of the natural resources that the country presents. Now, what made the colonists such expert fighters through that country, or what gave them such renown throughout the world ? It was simply because they say the Boers had the best system and best tactics. They went along those lines. The British at the present time have 19 cavalry regiments there, they have ic6 infantry regiments in South Africa, of which 26 are militia; that is, those who have gone voluntarily, who are not fighting for pay, as the Commandant referred to. The Colonists, as I have said, on account of their adaptability and resourcefulness, proved to be the very best fighters that England could have got out there. We had not only the colonists to fall back on, but, gentlemen, if we had wanted it, we might have had some of the natives. The Chief, as you know, sir, of the Basuto tribe offered us thousands of men to come right in and go against the Boers, but Britain 218 THE LIBERAL CLUB said, "No; it is a white man's war, and if we have to bear the loss we will bear the white man's burden, so we went on without the assistance of the Basutoes, excepting the fact that we did take advantage of some of them for mechanical purposes and otherwise. — Commandant Snyman: — You have regiments of them now. Mr. Brown: — Well, not under arms. Commandant Snyman: — Oh, yes. Mr. Brown: — Properly enUsted ? Commandant Snyman — Yes, properly enlisted, with that slash hat and that khaki suit on. Mr. Brown: — Commandant Snyman has just told me that we have regiments of Basutoes fighting for us too — Commandant Snyman : — No, I say Kaffirs, negroes, not Basutoes. Mr. Brown: — I can simply say that I never saw regiments of negroes there, and until you see a thing you are not positive of it. (Laughter.) I am very glad to know that if that be the case, as I know, no doubt, since it comes from such a source as it does, that it is true — I am very glad that those Kaffirs with their low brows and their very small, or you might say, minimum amount of intellect, have still enough intellect to see that the British are in the right and that they are going to win. (Laughter.) There is, gentlemen, of course the pathetic aspect about war which no person can deny, and, as Com- mandant Snyman has said, referring to a trite saying THE CAUSE OF THE BOER 219 of one of your own American generals, "War is simply Hell." It is fine to sit around here and smoke and discuss things, eating and drinking and all feeling merry, but when you go through a country that is devastated, one that is burnt practically to the ground, when you go in and see the little Boer baby's play- things, — or perhaps you may take another little jaunt and go in and see the little Filipino's playthings (laughter) — then you will say to yourself that the women and children must be pitied. It is the men who have to face the stern realities of war, gentlemen, but those little babies who were taken out, they were taken away from their homes, so were their mothers and their sisters, and they are not to blame; and in that respect there is a great deal of pathos in it. But there are always two sides to a question. Think back in England. The Boers had so many thousands in the field, the British had so many more thousand in the field. Think of those burning hearts, those full-blooded hearts and those choking throats that for two or three years now have scanned the bulletin boards at the War Ofl&ce. And thus there is deso- lation not only among the Dutch of South Africa, but there is the greatest desolation, there is the greatest wrecking of homes in England, among our white and English-speaking people. Commandant Snyman : — That is what I said. That is quite true. Mr. Brown: — Well, Mr. President, I think I may interlude, I am not for war at all; I am more peace- 220 THE LIBERAL CLUB able than warlike; but I think there must be a silver lining to the almost endless cloud that seems to hang over the South African Republic. There is a lining like that to every cloud, it is said by the maxim, and we all hope for the interest of mankind and for the interest of the two white nations who are combating, one with another, that this silver lining will soon make itself apparent. Let those burghers, since they know that England is not going to turn back — more than that, England will not turn back — let them settle down and accept those terms. I may be wrong in saying that; England may be wrong in putting out her mandamus telling what they must do; but in the face of the facts, whether it be justice or injustice, it must come to an inevitable end. So, since hey are, as Commandant Snyman said, a civ- ilized and partially educated race, let them take that for granted; let them go and settle down and live in peace under British suzerainty; let them be an English-speaking colony, settled partly by England and partly by the Dutch; and although we may have two minds with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one, still, under that rule which England is willing to give, I think we can easily look forward to something grand and noble in the future. It is a good land, that South Africa; one-tenth of it has not yet been overturned by the hand of man; that soil is everywhere capable of cultivating, and capable of cultivating everything from the sturdiest palms or cacti to the finest and most delicate rose. Gentle- THE CA USE OF THE BOER 221 tiemen, such land must not go to waste; and it must at length be cultivated by wholly British interests, I think. It is, as the Bible might say, veritably a land flowing with milk and honey. It only needs, gentlemen, a gigantic system of irrigation instituted or organized by man, to make it one of the most prosperous and beautiful flower beds of the world. We have often been asked by different burghers, "What do you Canadians want to poke your nose into it for .?" I should tell him, if the burgher is quite right in asking us why we poke our nose in, tell him the feelings that overcame the people of Canada,tell him, I hope the feelings of the people in Australia and New Zealand; our feelings, sir, are these — ^you have de- scribed yours regarding your wife and children and your relations, and no person can blame a man for that; on our side I must tell you this: that in the month pf October, 1899, Canada, Ceylon, Australia and New Zealand,for the first time,became an active, integral part of the British Empire. Up to that time we had prided ourselves on British citizenship ;we had extolled the vastness of the empire of which we formed a part and we had boasted of a civil and religious freedom, although we had been but inactive partici- pants in that glorious liberty. When, a little more than two years ago, we heard that the dear mother- land was embroiled in a war with the South African republics, in which she would accept assistance from her colonial sons, then, as the Greek goddess Athene is said to have sprung full-armed from the forehead of 222 THE LIBERAL CLUB Jove,so did the latent loyalty which so long strangled and struggled in the hearts of the proud and patriotic British citizens spring forth and could not be repulsed save by Boer bullets and death on the battlefield. Such a spontaneous outburst, gentlemen, could not be overlooked, and whatever political differences our political leaders may have in Canada, whatever differences and discussions they have at present, on this one point at least they are agreed, that from now henceforth and forever the sons of Canada shall and will be wilHng to shed their very last drop of blood in upholding the glory and honor of our good old **Union Jack." (Applause.) One word and I have concluded. We sailed away with our different contingents — Commandant Sny- man said that he has heard of thousands of men going every week, but they have not gone yet. We have sent more than five thousand men already, Aus- tralia more than twelve thousand men, and I could quote the numbers for Ceylon and Zealand if neces- sary, and next December, if you live, sir, long enough, you will see six hundred more of the best equipped men from Canada, ready to go out and take their share in the battle again. When we landed at Cape Town and were sent north to join the first sons of the British Empire, your men were leaving Pretoria; the thought in our minds was that we were fighting a just battle and that we were going to do what was right; your men, no doubt, thought the very same thing; they came South and we came THE CAUSE OF THE BOER 223 North; we met halfway at Paardeberg, and we set- tled our differences; we took four thousand and two hundred of your men, and that made us think still more we were right. We have been called a greedy nation, but I hope, gentlemen, that our aggressiveness is also always tinged with progressiveness; and I think that if the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, the Orange River Colony, as it is now called, and the Transvaal, will come under our suzerainty amicably, if not by force, that they will agree with the millions of people who are now under British control and say that they will have just laws, equal rights for all men, the same as we have them in Canada, and that it will be one day of glorious prosperity for them all. In conclusion, gentlemen, the standard of British valor in peace and war has always been high and I hope that it may ever be high; the standard of Boer tenacity has been proven through this war to be lasting and to be efficient; we are still carrying out our almost interminable efforts, and at some future day one of us must win, and arguments that are put forth here, although they may enlist your sympathy on one side, I think there is only one inevitable con- clusion. There have been pictures drawn to-night of war and brief allusions to peace. War is some- thing desolate that we all want to keep away from — and I hope, since, as I stated before, that I am, not to use a modern slang phrase, I am "not for war," — some day we may be in that idealistic state where Tennyson said that, 224 THE LIBERAL CLUB "Till the war drum throbbed no longer, and the battle flags are furled In the Parliament of man, the federation of the world." — Mr. President, Mr. Commandant Snyman, after a while all the English-speaking people of the world, American, French, German, Dutch and whoever else want to join hands with us, will form one solid phalanx, human cordon around the world; then at last war may be done away with by some ultimate discovery of man, and we shall be, as Mr. Kipling beautifully expressed it in his poem on "The Future,** in a condition, "When earth's last picture is painted, and the tubes are twisted and dried. When the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest critic has died. We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it — lie down for an aeon or two. Till the Master of all Good Workmen shall set us to work anew!" (Applause.) Commandant Snyman: — Mr. President, I must reciprocate with my friend here and congratulate him on account of the moderate way that he has stated his case before you. I think it is the friendly faces that we both see that has turned our ideas to be more friendly towards one another. What I wished to explain, if my English was not to the point, I would like to explain again, in reference io the concentrated camps where the women and children are today THE CAUSE OF THE BOER 225 suffering, was that I do not blame the British Nation or say that they are treating them cruelly; but I said the surroundings and circumstances in which the British have themselves been placed, have made it so that whatever they would like to do they are not in position to carry it out and consequently these women and children are suffering more than the human tongue can ever explain. Another thing which I would like to explain to my friends here is this: every man is entitled to his own and every nation has its characteristic, and just for a moment to make a Boer an Englishman or to make an Englishman a Boer is a matter of impossibility; therefore, trying to annex those two countries, trying to conquer us as a people, is not going to make us the British nation. Never, never as long as he lives or I live, will that ever happen by that means. Only other ways would have accomplished it, and there was no man who had the reins better in hand than the very man who turned a traitor towards a good cause, and that was Mr. Rhodes. My friend, Mr. Brown, said that the Boers were armed to the hilt. No man is more agreeable to admit that than myself. Yes, sir, they were. But since when ? Since that notorious Jame- son Raid. Now, supposing that the Boers saw that here was a conspiracy moved by a man who was representing the very best class of people in the Cape Colony, in the person of Mr. Cecil Rhodes, making a raid into their country to overthrow the republic, annexing it, as they thought, and then let me tell you 16 226 THE LIBERAL CLUB if Mr. Rhodes had been successful at that time it would not have been in the interest of the Br'tish Empire, because Mr. Rhodes is no more an imperial- ist than what I am; what he did was for his own benefit. He didn't have the luck and consequently he couldn't use it. (Applause.) Supposing that Kruger and the Boers, after they saw that they couldn't trust their supposed friends, had remained silent and had not armed, and had disregarded the words of Mr. Rhodes, when he said in the Cape Colony, speaking on a different question, *Now is the time for Great Britain to concentrate her forces on the frontier of the two republics because the Boers will not fight; Kruger is only playing a bluff." Suppose Kruger had not in the meantime prepared himself; would you have called him a president worthy of the name, to be a president of a republic? No; you Englishmen in England, you Englishmen in Canada and Australia — and I know you perfectly — would have said, what a fool he was to mislead his people! But he guarded against that raid and he guarded against the biggest raid in the world. And what was it which precipitated this war ? The forcing, the marching cf the British troops onto the frontiers of the two friendly states while they were still engaging with one another to try and settle amicably a dispute which was an internal affair of the South African Republic And I am glad, I am proud of President Kruger: I am proud of every Boer who had his arm ready to defend that which belonged to him and for THE CAUSE OF THE BOER 227 which he paid very dearly — his character, his nation- aHty, his freedom, his liberty and all that belonged to himself and his wife and to his children! Whom have you got to blame today ? Are they not the men who were living in Cape Town, your spies that you had in the country, who served it, who investigated the police, who tried to find out from the Boer re- publics all that Kruger and the Boer, the sly Boer as you call him, was smart enough not to let leak out ? I think, gentlemen of America and you, my friend [Mr. Brown], had you but known what this war would mean to your country, what this war would mean to your nationality what you would lose in prestige as a great nation fighting a small band of people, — then you and your British statesmen would have been the last ones to defend this war, because I think you have come out with no credit as a fighting race. (Applause.) (Following Commandant Snyman, Mr. Albert E- Jones, a member of the Club, spoke upon the topic of the evening, presenting the British view. To these remarks Commandant Snyman replied, and he then continued — speaking in part as follows:) . . . .My friends wish to make out that I am a great man and that I am over and above the average of my people, as an educated man. Gentlemen, I am sorry to inform you tonight that I only take a very small place in my nation in South Africa: you will find many people from that country who can deal 228 THE LIBERAL CLUB with this question more ably than I can at this mo- ment, but it is because I know that it is a cruel war and a wrong war, and I know that England has never been justified for that war, that I am standing before you tonight. And my friend told you that England means to civilize us. God help us! What is such civilization, to take my life with the object of civiliz- ing me ? (Laughter.) And I tell you tonight that as dear as this country is to you, as close as my friend's sympathies are with England, so dear is the sympathy of the Boer with his country. My dear friends, let me ask and appeal to you once more, and I do not do it to play on your sympathies, — just think of it: we are fighting and defending what is our own and what we are justly entitled to defend. And don't you call us men for it ? Don't you think we are right in doing so ? And here England justifies her actions for the little children and for the starving w^omen and the death-rate that is so appalling, by saying that it is the fault of the Boer, because he defends his own rights. No, my dear friend [Mr. Jones] — let me tell you once and for all — you are here in Buffalo and to stay here, but if you were to be born over and born in South Africa you would be as mild in your arguments as my friend [Mr. Brown] has been here, because he has seen it. (Applause.) Gentlemen, I am only here to tell you actually what has taken place and I am not reading postscripts and I am not reading other people's letters; I am tell- ing you of my experience as a British subject in that THE CA USE OF THE BOER 229 country and that I have experience as a man who had the greatest admiration for the English and who still holds to that estimate, but any one is far wrong who thinks, when I say we appeal to the British nation, we appeal to the British nation that I am asking that the English will give us freedom under that flag. No, my dear sir. That is not what I am appealing for, to the English people; I am appealing to them for justice, to give us what belongs to us and nothing more, and if they would leave us alone you could live there and everybody could live there. It was because of the Uitlander population, that had the money and who made the money, and who got what they made out of that country, that the Transvaal Boer, as innocent and simple-minded as he is, cleared and moved away from the great civilized nation, to go and live in peace and take out the gold as he liked it and the best way he could. Your American people have been there, and they have not got gold, so hundreds of them have fought for us, and some of the noble deeds that have been done for our cause have been done by the American cow-boys who went from this country to fight with us. I may add that six American cow-boys chased six hundred Lancers over the hills and captured twenty-seven of them and brought them into our laager. (Applause and laughter.) Senator Laughlin: — Mr. President, I would like to ask the guest of the evening one question. Is it not a fact, sir, that President Kruger and his 230 - THE LIBERAL CLUB advisers had practically conceded all that the British authorities demanded except a question of two years as to the probation of citizenship before this war was commenced ? Commandant Snyman : — Yes sir. You will remember that at the conference that was held at Bloemfontein, the question there between Sir Alfred Milner in behalf of the British Government and Paul Kruger of the Transvaal, was a question of five or seven years. Kruger went back to Pretoria and called his Volksraad together and after dis- cussing the question two days, the Volksraad acceeded to Sir Alfred Milner's request of five years' resi- dence. As soon as that was known, the next morn- ing the whole of the pro-English Boers, supported by that particular gang of Cape Town, made one de- nouncement and said, "Here is one of Kruger's greatest and cleverest tricks if you will accept that. It is only to get the British way from the frontier of that country that he wishes to make that concession, and as soon as they are away he will revert to the old order of things," and to that President Steyn, the man who is now fighting in that country still, immediately sent a despatch to Sir Alfred Milner to be forwarded to the Dutch Government, in which he stated in his own person that he would give as security himself and his state, that if that law, as passed by the Transvaal, would be accepted by the Uitlander population, that that law would remain on the statute books of the country, and Sir THE CAUSE OF THE BOER 231 Alfred Milner — now Lord Milner — sent that des- patch with another portion of a despatch home to the British Government, but kept that portion in which President Steyn offered himself and his person as security as well as his state, and when Milner was twitted by some of the British there as well as in Cape Colony, he gave the lame excuse that the cable was interfered with. So that actually and practically, gentlemen, everything was acceded to at the last moment to avoid a war. But it was the country that they wanted, and they wanted to run over it. That is what has happened. (Applause.) Frank M. Loomis: — I would like to ask the guest of the evening, Mr. President, to say something in reference to the statement made by Mr. Jones, that you have not noticed as yet, so far as I have seen, and that was the statement that the Boer Government was an oligarchy and not in any proper sense a republic. Commandant Snyman: — ^You can only base your argument on the constitution of the country. The constitution and the law of the country is that the President is to be nominated by the people in general; that the President, after he is elected as President, becomes the head, as it were, of the Executive Council which is nominated by the members of the Volksraad; that is, the Congress which makes this Council its representative, and they are responsible to the Volksraad. The highest authority in the state is the Volksraad, and that is the body that is 232 THE LIBERAL CLUB elected the same as your members of Congress. They make the laws, and the president of the state has only authority to carry out these laws, but all he does with his executive council is to send them in for recommendation — the same as your Congress is doing in this country, and for the Volksraad to accept or reject them as they think best. But every- thing that is done is done practically by the Volks- raad, which is the representative body of the electors of the whole republic. And so, when it is said that Kruger is doing it, it is accusing a man of a certain power which he never possessed. But if a man tells me that Kruger was a strong man in that state, then I will believe it. He was prepared to meet his op- ponents in every way as far as he possibly could, and I think so far he has been a noble man. That is not what my British friends are after, as my English friend told me today. Eight years ago he was going to buy property — " But wait, a war is coming; don't buy it now." But as for his power, the constitution is plain on that, plain as a pike-staff. He is elected by the people, and the executive council with him is elected by the Volksraad, and anything that he in- troduces to the executive council can be rejected or accepted by the Volksraad. He proposes the meas- ures to be passed the same as a prime minister with his cabinet; and he is defeated or he is accepted, as the case may be. Mr. John B. Olmsted : — I would like to ask the Commandant on what terms, if he could so state it, THE CAUSE OF THE BOER 233 a peace could be negotiated; if there are any terms that the Boers propose to the British. Commandant Snyman: — There is always in a transaction a question of give and take, and I am not prepared tonight to answer the question. When that question is fairly gone into and people are quiet and can talk the matter over, we will concede, as a people, a great deal of our independence to terminate this war; but the feeling of every man tonight is to keep his own, and that is his independence. Resolutions were put and unanimously carried tendering the thanks of the Club to Commandant Snyman, Mr. Brown and Mr. Jones. SeconJ) Dinner. 3anuarg 15, 1002. EDUCATION AND SOCIETY. REV. KMIL G. HIRSCH. I am afraid, Mr. President, you were somewhat rash in your promises. You certainly spoke more truthfully when you said the club was unfortunate to-night, not merely on account of the regret of the absence of that worthy gentleman who was to preside, but on account of the speaker who is about to ad- dress you. When I received your kind invitation to pay Buffalo a visit, I was afraid that one or the other of the Topic Committee had seen my picture as I have seen it when I was out on a lecture tour. I happened to come into a town where I was billed for the evening and I found that the committee had been foolish enough to think that my countenance would be an added charm wherewith to procure patrons for the evening entertainment; at all events they had pasted what purported to be a representation of my father's son on the door of a drug store and it just so happened that the following inscription ran across my mouth: ''Open day and night." (Laughter.) Perhaps you were of the opinion that with a good dinner in the slot there would come a good speech, but I am afraid the results of the experiment will EDUCATION AND SOCIETY 235 teach you to do wiser things and better things here- after. (Laughter.) The deep and sustained interest in education which runs through the American mind and heart at the present time is one of the most hopeful symptoms of American life. Every beginning of a school year calls an army of young people across the threshold of unnumbered school houses. Every June divisions and brigades of young graduates are sent out into life to win fame for themselves. Call up before the American the theme of education and his heart will respond spontaneously. We have indeed a noble system; the foundation upon which our school plan rests is solid. Had the American public accom- plished nothing more than by example to teach the rest of the world what the obligation of the state is in the domain of education, the one hundred and twenty- five years of our national existence would still be remembered by posterity as most significant in the solution of problems bearing vitally upon the de- velopment of the race. But of late the opinions begin to diverge as to what should be the proper sphere and scope of education. While rich men are endowing most abundantly the higher institutions of learning and while our universities are develop- ing at a pace which takes away the breath of the older world, voices are not wanting to caution us against encouraging young people too rashly in enter- ing the more ambitious halls of higher learning. One who, by dint of his own energy, has risen to the chief- 236 THE LIBERAL CLUB tainship of one of the greatest industrial combinations that the last century in its dying year left to the new, has not hesitated to sound this note of warning: granting that for the professional man college and even university education be required and be profita- ble, he still contends that for those who must earn their living with the skill of their hands, time spent in the acquisition of the knowledge that the university and the college provide must be accounted wasted. He pointed to the lesson of his own life; he recounted the experience to which he could testify from personal intimate knowledge. He would have the masses leave the school when the thirteenth year has rounded its circuit and take up the hammer instead of the book; instead of pawing over the tomes of learning he would have them bend over the anvil; and doubt- lessly Mr. Schwab voiced the deepest conviction of many who are vitally interested in the welfare and the further industrial development of our nation. If we look back upon the history of education, we can at once comprehend wherein lies the strength of Mr. Schwab's argument and wherein we come across its weakness. Education, up to perhaps the present century, was regarded as a means to one of two ends. It was either considered as a method to enable men to wage successfully the battle of life, to win comfort and competency for themselves, to accumulate wealth, scale the rounds on the ladder reaching from the low rung of actual hampering conditions to the highest EDUCATION AND SOCIETY 237 rung of industrial independence and financial leader- ship. Over and against this utilitarian view was the other conception which would have education be a means to culture, regarding the struggle for existence as inconsequential in the solution of the educational equation; men pleaded for the enlargement of the sympathies, the widening of the intellectual and moral horizon and contended that these results could be attained only through a systematic mental-gym- nastic process, through the storing-up in the mind and heart of the best thoughts and a knowledge of the noblest developments that were recorded on the tablets of time. Industrial independence and com- petency on the one hand, culture on the other — were the two poles which were pointed out as the goals in the education theories of the days lying be- hind us. The common American mind inclined to the former view. Even in discussions that are now carried on, and carried on not without heat, in the city from which I hail, the note is still vibrating that the public school system shall serve primarily and perhaps ultimately only the end of equipping in a preliminary way the masses for the struggle for ex- istence. Therefore, whatever goes beyond the degree attained by the grammar schools is declared to be a luxury. High schools are denounced as fads; their legitimacy in the public-school system is questioned; the money every year appropriated for their main- tenance is held to be practically wasted, or to be an extortion practiced upon the masses of the taxpayers. 238 THE LIBERAL CLUB Those holding this view reinforce their decision by an appeal to figures and statistics; they tell us that of the boys and girls that enter the primary grades no more than sixty per cent, will proceed through the grammar grades and of that sixty per cent, again, at the utmost, twenty per cent. — and if the differentia- tion of the sexes be taken into consideration, not even three per cent, will presevere and go through the cur- riculum of our high schools. The moneys spent, therefore, they argue, for the maintenance and equip- ment of these high schools, are spent in the interest of a privileged class, and as the State should look only to the welfare of the majority, the maintenance of the high schools is declared to be not within the scope of a well arranged, methodical and justly carried out public school scheme. The utilitarian note prevails also in the demands that nothing shall be taught in the lower grades beyond the three R's and these three R's are considered to be sufficient to enable men and women to do their part in life, to face the problems of life with an open mind and a stout heart. Now, it must be granted that up to a certain point these defenders of the utilitarian theory have the better of the argument. It must be granted that a public school system maintained by public taxation cannot be indifferent to the practical results of the work done in the school. Life calls and those who must go out into life, must, by the necessities of our social organization, struggle for existence. Nature EDUCATION AND SOCIETY 239 has treated men with a stepmotherly hand. While the lion and the elephant find a banquet of life well spread, man alone, of all the tenants of earth, has to wrest from the earth the means of sustenance and the material wherewith to shelter himself against the inclemencies of the climate. This natural law cannot be modified and cannot be ignored. To meet what this natural law imposes is a necessity in the grasp of which every human being finds him or herself and education will certainly be defective if this necessity be ignored. Still, those who argue for the utilitarian application of educational systems and in the same breath would have the educational scheme limited to the rudiments of knowledge, seem to contradict in one part or the other of their arguments their main thesis. They still share the faith of a buried genera- tion of educational theorists; they are still adherents of a philosophy that nature has endowed every nor- mal man with a sufficient quantity of common sense; that common sense is the solvent for every perplexity. This common sense apotheosis is the precipitate, as you remember, of eighteenth-century philosophy, predicating of men absolute equality; the thinkers of those days who prepared the French Revolution and dipped the pen into the ink with which our own glor- ious Declaration of Independence was written, the thinkers of those days found in the common sense which they attributed to every normal man, the cor- roboration of their philosophical position, that men are created equal. They meant to regard common 240 THE LIBERAL CLUB sense as competent to decide without preliminary training, or further inspiration, or instruction, the deepest questions of fiscal policy. Men were to trust in their majority and the common sense majority was a declaration of God's own voice, rivalling in its thunder the very peals of Sinai and in its decision the very sweetness of the Sermon on the Mount. Com- mon sense was held to be sufficient, I say, to grapple with the problems of technique; expert knowledge was deemed unnecessary in those days, and, for a fact, the civilization that then prevailed, especially here in our western continent, was not complex; the problems presented by political and social life were simple. The common sense of the Anglo-Saxon settlers upon the narrow strip then under cultivation along the Atlantic ocean was indeed sufficient to find a solution for every political and industrial difficulty then staring them in the face. Common sense supplied with the rudi- ments of information, with a power to read, to write and to cipher correctly, was, in those days, for good reasons, held to be adequate to equip man for the struggle for existence. But in these our days it is plain that mere rudimentary educational knowledge does not keep its pledge. The men who argue for rudimentary education are also perhaps adherents of a theory equally prevalent with the other school of thinkers in the eighteenth century, that education, and especially education of the mind, the develop- ment of the intellectual faculties and powers, would be the most powerful and always effective counter- EDUCATION AND SOCIETY 241 weight to all the temptations to do wrong. "Build schoolhouses and you need not build almshouses; build schoolhouses and the population of the peni- tentiaries will decrease" — that was the sublime faith of the men of the eighteenth and of the beginning of the nineteenth century; not merely in this country, but perhaps the round world over. Men high in authority, men whose hearts were aglow with the love for their kind, called for the school to counteract the pernicious tendencies that perhaps might find a root and a lodgment in the plastic hearts of the young. Experience has taught us sadly that this faith in the efficacy, the omnipotence of education, rudimentary or even higher, has not been ratified. We know that we have multiplied our schoolhouses, we have in- creased our colleges, that our universities have ex- panded, their number has grown larger and larger and yet penitentiaries have not become a super- fluity, our penal institutions have not been found to be unnecessary, our almshouses are still populated, poverty has not been swept off the face of the globe, and, what is worse, pauperism, moral wretchedness, vice in all of its forms, is still exhibiting its rags, or its painted sepulchres, in the very streets of the cities that in themselves are monuments to the thrift, the industry, the energy of the most enlightened peoples on the earth. It is true that certain crimes are not committed by the educated; crimes of violence, crimes due to uncontrolled temper are more apt to be committed by men of a low degree of intellectuality 16 243 THE LIBERAL CLUB and of a limited range of information, but other crimes, crimes wherein intellect is required, are all the more easily executed if the intellect has been '^ trained, and the reasoning power sharpened. The forger, for instance, requires a certain degree of skill; he must be acquainted with the mysteries of arith- metic; he must know how to read. It is not true that the more of education is given to the people the less their temptation to rise up against those in authority over them. We know, for instance, that the chemist invents new combinations owing to his peeps into the secrets of nature. He arms the nations with new high explosives; but the very chemist who thus equips his nation with a stronger defense puts also , within the reach of an insane, an abnormal brain, or even of a vicious brain, all that is necessary for the possessor of that brain to carry out his nefarious plots and intentions. Electricity certainly is a triumph of man over the energies of nature. To bind the light- ning to our chariot, to tether to our vehicles carrying the products of our industry, the mysterious power which leaps from cloud to cloud, to chase away the horrors of the night and to rival by the brilliancy of a light hour in Buffalo the very stars of the heavens, tells in thousandfold voices of the triumph of man, his supremacy, his royal crownship and kingship over the forces that otherwise and erstwhile terrified him. But the same power which we have chained arms the burglar with a new tool. He utilizes for his own ne- farious intentions what civilization has brought. It EDUCA TION AND SOCIETY 243 is for him a new weapon in his warfare against and upon organized society. Therefore this childlike faith in the omnipotence of education, higher or lower, as a counteracting power or influence to vice and to crime must be relegated to the lumber room where are stored the beautiful visions of an age less tried and less steeled in the hard school of disappoint- ing experience than our generation may claim to be. Is education therefore a failure ? To a certain extent it has been a failure, and why .? The difficulty is easy to comprehend. At the root of all these theories is the one misconception that education is a process of transmitting information. The public schools in America have certainly since the days when I was an unfortunate victim of the then prevailing system, made rapid progress. When I was forced to attend public schools we were in the hands of teachers who had no higher notions of the amplification of their vocation than that they were the regulators of the process of tapping a barrel of knowledge and letting it out into our infantile brains by means of an auger or gimlet, — they opened at a certain hole made in our skulls and the hose was inserted into that hole and after a certain quantity of the fluid had run off*, the hose was withdrawn and the skull was plugged up again. The consequence was that most of us came from the school room with skulls thoroughly plugged up. (Laughter). We had a certain quantity of in- formation, it was true, disorganized information, that was called education. To a certain extent we have 244 THE LIBERAL CLUB not yet grown beyond this misconception of the im- plications of education. We still believe that edu- cation is a process of transmitting information; that it is the teacher's part to measure out the quantities — well shaken before taken — and to regulate the dose§ that must be safely given to the patient, — the poor child. And we believe that certain nostrums of ours, certain quack or proprietary medicines of ours, if . given in certain quantities, will make the recipient thereof an educated person. This view is rapidly disappearing, but in our public school system and even in our universities, the results of this misconcep- tion are still prevailing to too large an extent. That misconception led to a thought that education meant to equip the individual either for his pleasure or for the performance of a task which would be profitable. to HIM, the individual. I say either for his pleasure, for culture in the higher realms of education was also regarded merely as a means to the pleasure, to the spiritual or intellectual pleasure, of the cultivated per- son. That the individual owes something to society; that education coming from society shall not aim at giving to the individual something for the individ- ual's sake, but should aim to equip the individual to take his place in society as a worker and contribu- tor toward society's wealth, — this thought is only just now dawning upon the educational horizon and this thought is the redeeming gospel of the new education. It will at once break with the tradition that educa- tion is a means to make the recipient a better fighter EDUCATION AND SOCIETY 245 for himself in his struggle for existence; it will at once put an end to the exaggerated value put upon culture, a culture which is always selfish and a culture which therefore is always cramped and narrow, culture which at its best means merely to equip the possessor to spend a few hours — not profitably to another — but pleasurably and profitably to himself. That educa- tion is for society, because it is through society, is basic to our system. Otherwise there is no justi- fication for the insistence that the state as the state shall provide for education. If it is merely meant to equip the individual with better tools wherewith he may win a richer return from life, then the state as the organized force of society has no right and no call to provide for such an equipment. It is indeed held that the state must educate citizens and the state should educate citizens. This is, however, merely stating the proposition in other terms. The citizen has duties as well as rights; the citizen who knows what citizenship implies will not regard his life, his power, as his own. He knows that he owes what he is to the state, that he has obligations to the state; that to neglect these obligations is, in a republican form of government, high treason. The right to vote includes the duty to vote; the franchise of freedom involves the recognition that only those have a right to be free who will, of their freedom and in their free- dom, help the general life of others through political institutions. Therefore to say that the state must pro- vide for the public school because it is the state's duty 346 THE LIBERAL CLUB to train a future citizen, is stating merely that the state or organized society must provide for education because education has the intention and the ulti- mate purpose not so much to equip the individual for his individual struggle, or his individual pleasure; but to equip him to become a contributor, a creative co-operator in and to the vsrealth of society. If this is recognized, the question urged by Mr. Schv^ab as well as the arguments advanced by the defenders of culture studies and the opportunities of college and university research are at once found to be one-sided. There is truth in either position, but the higher truth is found and expressed on the higher level, under the influence of the recognition that education is meant and must be meant to equip the individual for a con- tributary w^ork in the great cause of all — the life of organized society. Our education has made thousands and thousands of men misfits. This cannot be denied. When we look abroad upon the ocean of life we find its shores strewn with wreckage. It is not merely the clothing merchant who has to deal with misfits; the criminal lawyer deals with misfits — if he himself is not one (laughter); the physician to-day deals with misfits; the clergyman certainly, also himself a misfit, finds his parish and congregation many to make him feel the comforts to a miserable one of having fellows in his wretchedness. The world is full of misfits. We find in round holes men who are square pegs; and again we find round pegs that have not found the EDUCATION AND SOCIETY 247 places where they belong. Here and there a man finds his own position. The laws that prevail in the general sphere cannot be applied to genius. Amer- ica has produced genius. The advantages of our then still unconquered continent, the necessities of our growing civilization, have aroused in many minds and many hearts the divine spark which flashes forth in the minds and in the hearts of only those that are above the level of the common majority, — men of genius. There may be genius in the pioneer farmer and there certainly was genius in the man who went out to reclaim the untamed west. There may be genius in the man that strips the rails — the man who by rail-splitting, by dint of his own untamed but divine energy, rises to the chair of the President of a nation and falls the last victim to seal, by his own blood, the new covenant of a renewed fraternity of states. These were men of genius. These men were evoked only under rare times and rare conditions. The conditions that prevailed fifty years ago in the west are rapidly passing away; we know that we are becoming, as it were, an ancient civilization — the pressure has increased and therefore all the more urgent is the call for an educational system which will do for the generation of to-morrow what the prairies did and the mountains did and the untouched forest did for the fathers who went out, God in their hearts and courage in their souls, the divine spark of manliness blazing in their brains, to carve out for themselves their future and to prepare the way, a 248 THE LIBERAL CLUB happy way, for those who were to come after them. (Applause.) Education to-day must be explorative, in the first place. Through the school men must be brought to find themselves; they must be able to discover for what nature, talent, or perhaps even genius, has des- tined them. As it is to-day, we apply one rule to all. Abnormal children either fall behind or go beyond the grade level. Those that are extraordinary, be they eccentric on account of weakness or eccentric on account of superabundance of strength, do not find furtherance, they find in many cases hindrance in the prevailing educational system, and many boys leave the school because it has lost all interest for them. Some, of course, are called away from the school by the social pressure; they must become bread-winners; young as they are, they must help the father and the mother to provide for the needs of a large and a grow- ing family. But these cases might be reduced to a much lower percentage if our public school were in- deed a station of exploration, an experimental labora- tory where certain studies and discipline were intro- duced with a view to helping the boy to discover for himself and the girl to find out what indeed nature and talent have destined them. As it is, we merely train the brain, and according to my opinion, the brain is trained largely along one-sided lines. The memory perhaps is developed; the thinking faculty not so much. We allow, in our ordinary school sys- tem, the hand to be neglected, and the heart in most EDUCATION AND SOCIETY 249 cases is also left out of consideration. The moral nature, through a confusion of what moral training implies, through the right principle that religion and religious influences of a sectarian kind shall not be given the privileges of our school system — the moral nature, I say, is also permitted to lie fallov^; it is not developed. We must, in our public schools, find means to train and therefore to explore the trinity of normal men's faculties: the brain, the hand and the heart; — the mind, the seat of intellect, the heart, the seat of emotion and of will, as it were; and the hand the executive organ. That can be done only if, in addition to what is commonly known as the literary studies — reading, writing, geography, history — a well- conceived system of manual training shall be intro- duced into every public school, from the kindergarten up through the high school, even unto the college. (Applause). As it is now, those whom nature has intended to be clerks perhaps find what they should find in our public schools; but those whom nature has intended to be workers with their hands, leave the public school as they enter it; nothing has been done to make them feel that they are gifted with the skill which the clerk does not need and the clerk does not possess; and both the clerk and the man who is to work with his hands go out into life, only in rare cases knowing what the depths of their souls contain, feel- ing the influence of a morality which shall speak of duty to them and not always of rights. You say that is impossible. I have the great pleas- 250 THE LIBERAL CLUB ure of inviting you to pay a visit to a school that was largely founded through my own instrumentality in Chicago. The kindness of the Czar of Russia in 1883 drove from the pale where five millions of Jews are horded together in a state of misery compared to which the fate of the Boer women in the concentra- tion camps of South Africa spells paradise; the kind- ness of the Czar of Russia in 1883 drove hundreds and thousands of Russian Jews across the ocean. They came to this country asking for shelter, begging for reception. At home they had been denied the privilege of breathing, the privilege of working, sim- ply because they would not accept the Greek Ortho- dox faith. Coming here, we, their nearer friends by reason of our racial affinity, and also through the higher spiritual efficacy of our religious sympathies with them, felt that we would not be true to our obli- gation to them or to the community at large if we stood by indifferent to this tidal wave of wretched- ness and misery. We found out that to reclaim the grown-up among them from the consequences of the tyranny which had lain upon them for 400 years was perhaps impossible; but we saw the hope of saving the young, of making them a type of the highest American spirtual incarnation in their bodies, and so in Chicago we resolved to establish a model school, primarily for the needs of the children of these Rus- sian Jewish refugees. From the kindergarten to the high school every study of the public school is also introduced into this school; but, besides the so-called EDUCATION AND SOCIETY 261 literary studies, we have from the lowest to the high- est grades a systematic elaboration of manual train- ing. What has been the result ? We have no more hours at our disposal than has the public school, and while in the public school the children leave the school, say forty per cent, in the third year and of the rest, the sixty per cent., not more than fifty will go to the graduating class of the grammar grade, and these children are all children of parents that work mostly for seven and eight dollars a week; in this school we do not lose from the lowest to the highest more than one-half per cent, of the enrolled scholars. Why this ? Because the interest of the children is sustained. The child wants something to do, not merely some- thing to learn. We know that. Helen's babies want to see the wheels go around, and Helen's babies will destroy the trumpet after they get tired of making noise. Yea, one writer on their life maintains that when the baby yells it is not a sign of physical discom- fort, but the baby, by raising a howl, is merely ^ indulging in exercises — wants to do something. (Laughter.) Even the baby is tired of doing nothing. And here in our public schools, after they have learned that there is nothing to do and the boy begins to whittle, that is an infraction of the rule; he destroys the property of society; the boy begins to whisper, he is a bad boy and he is sent home with a note; the chil- dren are complained about to the father and the mother. The boy grows tired of this; he leaves the school; he wants to help, he wants to do something. 262 '^HE LIBERAL CLUB This natural endowment of the propensity for doing something is utilized in the school of which I speak. But the result has also been that among these chil- dren of the poorest Jews — foreigners at that — we have succeeded in discovering some that were by nature gifted to become artists; others that were by nature intended to be engineers; others that developed a certain bent in another direction; and after they had passed through our school it was an easy matter for these to find the place for which they were fitted. Of the children in that school (in existence only since 1885) not one has ever been brought up before the juvenile court, while of the children of the same grade in the neighborhood, of one hundred children at least sixty are in regular turn brought before the juvenile court; not one case has come to the notice of the juv- enile court where the defendant was either a graduate or a pupil of this Jewish manual-training school. That was not due to the superior morality originally of these children, for their playmates, of Jewish faith, that had not entered that school, were among those who were arrested and brought before the juvenile court, but was due to the fact that those children found an outlet for their natural propensity to do something. A boy who runs around the street wants to do something. He will hurl a stone into a window; he is arrested. He wants to do something. He plays robber because he wants to do something. His imagination runs wild with him. He cannot utilize his imagination in construction. If the public school EDUCATION AND SOCIETY 253 — and the cost of my school is even less than that of the public school — were to conceive of the new im- plication of education, that education must be ex- plorative in order to fit the person for his proper place in society, half of the defendants in our juvenile courts would not be cited there; they would have found an outlet for their natural desire for activity. As it is, that natural desire now finds its vent in mis- chief, in destruction, where otherwise it would find its vent and its utilization in construction and in profitable and pleasurable work. Again, after the school has explored the character, my school takes these children according to their fitness and assigns them in the higher, so-called high- school grades, to different departments according to our discovery; those that have the artistic inclination are given the opportunity to develop that; those that are intended by nature, for the work of the artisan, are taken into the trade school. The organization of labor in our country has done away with the appren- tice system. The organizations of labor want to reduce the supply of hands. Therefore they have taken into their head the crude method of accom- plishing this desire by curtailing the privileges of ap- prenticeship in the different trades. Here is one of the greatest difficulties confronting the young Ameri- can, — what shall he do ? He cannot learn a trade systematically. Therefore, our educational system is defective. If we are to make our future citizens contributors to the wealth of society, we must see to 254 THE LIBERAL CLUB it that we provide them with the opportunity for learning that occupation through which they may become useful to themselves and to others. There- fore, in my school we have trade schools. These trade schools are not an expense, they are not a bur- den; they are even profitable; and this fact keeps them within our control because, instead of going as cash boys and earning two dollars a week, by learn- ing a trade, from the very beginning these boys and girls earn something which will help their fathers in the struggle for existence. Exploration and then op- portunity to develop is one of the rigid demands of the new implications of the educational system. There are others that are intended for the higher walks, as we call them, of life, — for professions. They, too, shall, through a well-constructed system of school discipline, find themselves and in the higher institu- tions of learning find what we give through the trade schools to those who must go into other channels. What will be now the effect upon society of a sytem carried out to the least and last detail of an education constructed along these lines .'* We know that dis- content is rife in every country. W^e believed twenty years ago that political emancipation would of itself lead to social contentment. We believed that political independence was the gateway to economic inde- pendence. The last twenty years have disillusion- ized us. It is true that the typical American whose eye has never reached out beyond the nation, who is of the narrow American mind that he believes that his EDUCATION AND SOCIETY 265 country is the best — and it is the best — and therefore concludes that his country has nothing to learn from other countries, it is true that this typical American would make an intellectual and a moral China of our beloved republic; especially these Americans shrug their shoulders and say, "Social discontent is an im- portation from abroad; make the bars more rigid against immigration; keep them out, these foreigners and the scorpion of discontent will soon be throttled and smothered." Let me grant, for argument's sake, that discontent of this kind is an importation from abroad. We know that we can import plague germs into this country and the plague germ will not spread unless there are conditions which prosper the plague germ. You can bring cholera over here. It is inocu- ous as soon at the conditions of the cities in respect to public hygiene have fortified them against the in- vasion of the germ. That is shown by the experience of Havana under American rule — formerly swept and devastated by yellow fever. This year the dreaded terror of the black vomit has been laughed to scorn. If the germ be imported there must be conditions in our country which make for spread of that germ. Some have said that this social discontent has been due to over-education, not to under-education. In Germany they have argued for restriction of the edu- cational privilege; they have said since the masses began to read and since petroleum has become so cheap they have spent their nights in reading. What did a laboring man a generation ago know of Marx 256 THE LIBERAL CLUB and of Lassale ? What did he know of the literature of the social agitators ? Nothing. Today he reads. Coal oil is cheap. Formerly he would have to read himself blind because the tallow candle flickered. Now he can go and turn on the electric light and turn it out — he reads and he reads. "Take them out of school and they will become contented.** No American will subscribe to this. That is treason to our flag. But discontent is there. And Germans have said the social discontent is largely a question of the stomach, the magen frage; it is a struggle for more to eat. The reason is misconceived of the fun- damentals upon which the social question has arisen. What is it that makes the workingman so discon- tented even in this country .? He feels that he is stinted in his humanity. It is not that he cries out against work, but work has become of such a kind that the joy has departed therefrom. Ruskin is right when he says life without work is bestiality, but work without joy is slavery. Formerly a work- ingman made a whole shoe, he constructed a work of art, he saw it grow, he saw it develop. Today we have reduced men to a mere little pivot in a great industrial piece of machinery — peg! peg! peg! peg! — the same, the same, in monotonous imitation, from morning till night, from morning till night, from morning till night. He does not know to what part he is adding the peg; he does not understand, does not see the relation between the peg and the hole. The joy, the artistic joy has gone out of his work and EDUCATION AND SOCIETY 257 therefore has also gone out of his Hfe. Here is the root. Our system of education is bound to counter- act this tendency to pessimism, to hypochondriac melancholy which is bound to result in social dis- content. Make men again masters of their work and that can only be done if the great laws of creative energy are known to men. The workingman needs the broader culture because the work he is bound to do has become narrower. He must know himself, feel that he is a creator. The factory system is not forever, it is not ultimate. I myself believe that, owing to progress in electricty, the time is not far distant when we can return to the better system of independent house industry. With the passing of the factory system the tenement house question will be solved; but until that day comes, we must supply the moral energy which will lift work again to the regions of artistic joy because it rests on the high peak of creative energy; and education, the public school system, from the lowest to the highest, must devote itself to the accomplishment of this result. Our political life too will be lifted to a higher plane. What is the trouble ? On the one hand we have today selfishness; we are too busy making money to devote time to the public welfare. Once in a while, every four years, we are stirred — the President is to be elected; but if in Buffalo the same conditions prevail as in Chicago, we deem the sale of a pair of trousers of vital importance in comparison to taking an interest in the selection of our alderman. If the 17 268 THE LIBERAL CLUB same conditions prevail here as they do in Chicago, we leave the administration of our city to such great statesmen as Hinky-Dink, a saloon-keeper, and Bath- House John, originally a bath-house attendant. They settle the complex questions of franchise priv- ileges; they legislate on public hygiene and public morality; they are "the boys;'* we are too busy; I am too busy writing sermons, you are busy writing briefs, the other one is busy writing prescriptions, the fourth one is busy writing checks, the fifth one is busy cut- ting coupons, the sixth one is busy cutting cloth to make a pair of trousers or an overcoat — we are too busy. Therefore, these men have made their busi- ness. Why are we too busy? Because from our earliest childhood we have been taught to believe that the highest aim of man is to make himself independ- ent, to work for himself and to have but little time left to work for others. And again, the politicians make politics their business. I don't blame them. Wher- ever there is a politician it comes because we have been derelict in our duties. Politics is also the scheme to make something for self, not for society. But, weigh it from the lowest to the highest, the idea ruling in education that it is meant for us to be something for others, our political life must of neces- sity be lifted into a clearer and into a healthier atmos- phere. I hope that I have not wearied you too much. I may sum up my weak argument by recaUing to you two pictures that I saw when on a visit in Paris in EDUCATION AND SOCIETY 259 1889. The French Government had intended, and had carried out that intention most successfully by a collection of historical pictures, to bring before the eyes of the people the spirit of the French Revolution and its subsequent results in the development of the various nations. In the hall where these pictures were on exhibition I found two by one and the same master; they were pendants, one to the other. Under- neath one was written the figure " 1789;" underneath the other, "1889." On the canvas devoted to the exhibition of the ruling passions, the guiding ambi- tions of the French Revolution, you beheld the people breaking its chains, people rising to arms; you saw in the background the ruins of the Bastile; you saw the multitude march behind a banner and upon that ban- ner, tinged in blood and haloed in a splendor which we call that of the sun, you found the inscription "Droit!" — rights; and 1789 was indeed the culminat- ing year of the philosphy of rights, — the rights of man, the rights of the nations to govern themselves, the rights of the lowest to political equality. On the canvas of 1889 the master had painted a conclave of workingmen, of students, of investigators, of his torians, of soldiers and of sailors, of bankers and of kings of industry. They were all apparently under the consecration of a high idea. Their faces did not betray struggle, but, on the contrary, they were wreathed in the smiles of peaceful contentment. But on the table toward which the eyes of all were turned was exposed something that looked like a Bible and 260 THE LIBERAL CLUB . on the open page was written in golden letters the legend "Devoir!" — duty. The painter caught the spirit of the new age, the successor of revolution. Revolution was under the consecration of the struggle for rights. Our twentieth century civilization must dedicate itself to the philosophy of duty and that philosophy will spell for the individual, not individual success, but contribution to the betterment of life, the deepening of soul and heart and mind, the strengthening of hand of all. From the All we come what we are; we are through the All. To the All therefore we must give back something of that which we call our own, which we, however, have only under our trusteeship. Enough of the philosophy of rights. Let today sound, and especially in the school room; let it there be carried into practical experience, the philosophy of duty, duty of man to man, duty to self and through self to others, duty of the citizen to the state, the state to humanity; duty, in other words, of the creature to the Creator, of the individual to society. (Great applause). XS:bitt> Dinner, ifebruars 4, 1902, 1 p. M. THE STAGE AND THE ACTOR. SIR HENRY IRVING. I have chosen as my object The Stage and the Actor, because I take it for granted that whenever you bestow on any man the honor of asking him to address you, it is your wish to hear him speak of the sub- ject with which he is best acquainted. I have set out upon the one subject to which my life has been devoted. It is a vast one. Writers, such as Vol- taire, Schlegel, Goethe, Schiller, Lamb, Hazlitt and others, have not disdained to treat it with that serious- ness which all art demands — which anything in life requires, whose purpose is not immediate and im- perative. For my own part, I can only bring to you the ex- perience of hard and earnest work for nearly fifty years, and out of this experience let me point out that there are many degrees of merit, both of aim, of endeavor and of execution. I want you to think of acting as it may be and as it is, whilst followed by men and women of strong and earnest purposes. I do not for a moment wish you to believe that only Shakespeare and the great writers are worthy of playing, and that only those efforts that have gathered themselves around great names are worthy of praise. 262 THE LIBERAL CLUB In the house of art are many mansions where men may strive worthily. All art is worthy and can seri- ously be considered so long as the intention be good and the efforts to achieve success be conducted with seemliness. The art of the actor has been defined " to fathom the depths of character, to trace its latent motives, to feel its finest quiverings of emotion, to compre- hend the thoughts that are hidden under words and thus possess oneself of the actual mind of the indi- vidual man." Talma, the great French writer, spoke of it as "the union of grandeur without pomp, and nature without trivialty.'* The effort to reproduce man in his moods is no mere trick of fancy carried into execution, it is a part of the character of a strong nation and has wider bearing on national life than, perhaps, we are aware of. Mr. Froude, in his survey of early England, gives it a special place, and I venture to quote his words, for they carry with them, not only their own lesson, but the authority of a great name in historical re- search. "No genius can dispense with experience. The aberrations of power, unguarded or ill guided, are ever in proportion to its intensity, and life is not long enough to recover from inevitable mistakes. Noble conceptions already existing, and a nobler school of execution, which launch mind and hand at once upon their true courses, are indispensable to transcendent excellence and Shakespeare's plays were as much the offspring of the long generations which THE STAGE AND THE ACTOR 263 had pioneered his road for him, as the discoveries of Newton were the offspring of those of Copernicus. No great general ever rose out of a nation of cowards; no great statesman or philosopher out of a nation of fools; no great artist out of a nation of materialists; no great drama, except when the drama was the pos- session of the people. Acting was the special amuse- ment of the English, from the palace to the village green, it was the result and the expression of their strong tranquil possession, of their lives, of their thorough power over themselves and power over circumstances. They were troubled with no sub- jective speculations; no social problems vexed them, with which they were unable to deal and in the ex- uberance of vigor and spirit they were able in a strict and hteral sense of the word to play with the materials of life.'* So says Mr. Froude. In the face of this statement of fact set forth gravely in its place in the history of a nation, what becomes of such bold assertions as sometimes are made regarding the place of the drama as being but a poor one, since the efforts of the actor are but mimetic and ephemeral, and they pass away as a tale that is told. All art is mimetic and even life itself, the highest and last gift of God to His people, is fleeting. Marble crumbles and the very names of great cities become buried in the dust of ages. Who then would dare to arrogate to any art an unchanging place from the scheme of the world's development or would con- demn it because its efforts fade and pass ? Nay, 264 I'HE LIBERAL CLUB more; has even the tale that is told, no significance in after years ? Can such not stir, when it is worth the telling, the hearts of men, to whom it comes as an echo from the past ? Have not more tales remained vital and most widely known which are told and told again, face to face, and heart to heart, when the teller and the listener are adding, down the ages, strength to one current of a mighty thought or a mighty deed, and its record ? Surely, the record that lives in the minds of men still is a record, though it be not graven on brass or wrought in marble. And it were a poor conception of the value of any art, if, in considering it, we were to keep our eyes fixed on some dark spot, some im- perfection, and shut our eyes to its aim, its power, its beauty. Poetry, painting, sculpture, music, archi- tecture; all have a bearing on their time and beyond it; the actor, though his knowledge may be, and must be, limited by the knowledge of his age, so long as he sounds the note of human passion, has something which is common to all the ages, and if he can smite water from the rock of one hardened human heart — if he can bring light to the eye or wholesome color to the faded cheek — if he can bring or restore in ever so slight a degree the sunshine of hope, of pleasure, of gaiety, surely he cannot have worked in vain. That the theatre is primarily a place of amusement and is regarded as such by its habitues, is, of course, apparent; but this is not its limitation. For authors, managers and actors, it is a serious employment to THE STAGE AND THE ACTOR 265 be undertaken gravely and of necessity; to be ad- hered to rigidly. The practice of the actor's art may be considered from different viewpoints, but there is a larger view — that of the state. Here we have to consider a custom of natural growth, specially suitable to the genius of a nation. It has advanced with the progress of each age and multiplied with its material prosperity. It is a living power to be used for good or for great evil, and farseeing men recognize it, based though it be in the relaxation and pleasure of the people, an educational medium of no mean order. How many are there who have had brought home to them, in an understandable manner, by stage plays, the costumes, habits, manners and customs of coun- tries and ages other than their own; what insight have they thus obtained into facts and vicissitudes of life, of passions and sorrows and ambitions outside the narrow scope of their own lives and which, yet, may and do mould the destinies of man. All this is edu- cation. Education in its widest sense — for it broad- ens the sympathies and enlarges the intellectual grasp To hold his place amongst certain progressing forces the actor must at the start be equipped for the work before him. No amount of training can give to a dense understanding powers of quickness and spontaneity, and on the other hand no genius can find its fullest expression without some understand- ing of the principles and methods of a craft. It is the actor's part to represent or interpret the ideas 266 THE LIBERAL CLUB and emotions which the poet has created, and to do this he must at the first have a full knowledge and understanding of them. For the consideration of the art of acting, it must never be forgotten that its ultimate aim is beauty. Truth itself is only an element of beauty and to merely reproduce things vile and squalid and mean is a de- basement of art. There is apt to be such a tendency in an age of peace, and men should carefully watch its manifestations. A morose and hopeless dis- satisfaction is not a part of a true national life. This is hopeful and earnest and, if need be, militant. It is a bad sign for any nation to yearn for, or even to tolerate, pessimism in their enjoyment and how can pessimism be otherwise than antagonistic to beauty ? Life with all its pains and sorrows is a beautiful and precious gift and the actor's art is to reproduce this beautiful thing, giving due emphasis to those virtues and those stormy passions which sway the destinies of men. Thus, the lessons given by ex- perience, by the certain punishment of ill doing and by the rewards that follow upon bravery, for- bearance and self-sacrificing are, in the mimic stage, conveyed to men. And thus every actor who is more than a mere machine and who has an ideal of any kind has a duty which lies beyond the scope of his personal ambition. His art must be to him some- thing to hold in reverence, if he wishes others to hold it in esteem. There is nothing of chance about his THE STAGE AND THE ACTOR 267 work. All, actors and audience alike, must bear in mind that the whole scheme of the higher drama is not to be regarded as a game in life which can be played with varying success. The present intention may be to interest and amuse, but its deeper purpose is earnest, intense and sincere. The chief glory of the actor's calling has been Wil- liam Shakespeare — poet, playwright and player. Shakespeare recreated the English stage while he was founding the greatest reputation of English literature. He was an actor before he attempted the writing of plays. He wrote the plays for the stage alone. His chief care was that they should be acted, not published, having a natural objection to his plays being printed as long as the acting right was vested in his own company, for there was no Dramatic Authors' Society in those days to protect an author's rights. One of the most remarkable characteristics of the Shakespeare plays is their con- summate stage craft. If Shakespeare had not been so familiar with the art of the stage he could never have written such acting plays. Shakespeare knew the stage as intimately as a watchmaker knows the mechanism of a watch. He wrote for the theater and succeeded where other poets have failed because he understands what is so much to a play, the art of con- struction — a great art in itself — which Shakespeare, as an actor, thoroughly had mastered. Of this there is no doubt. Many of the great dramatists of the Eliza- bethan era were actors, Beaumont and Fletcher were 268 THE LIBERAL CLUB actors; Ben Jonson was an actor. Very much of Shakespeare's life is unknown to us, although more is known of Shakespeare than of many of his contem- poraries. We sometimes read that Shakespeare des- pised the stage so much that he escaped from it as soon as he had made enough money. There is noth- ing to warrant such a statement. It is surely unreasonable to assume that a man must loathe an occupation, because he eventually retires from it on a competence. You are not bound to remain in harness to the day of your death. But as a matter of fact, Shakespeare continued to be an actor long after he became a man of substance. Halliwell-PhiUipps, a most clear-sighted student of Shakespeare, put this in a way that seems convincing: By the spring of i6oi,at the latest, if not precisely, Shakespeare had acquired a secure and definite com- petence, independently of his emoluments as a dram- atist, and yet nine years afterward, in 1610, he is discovered playing in company with Burbage and Heminge at' the Blackfriars Theatre. When, in ad- dition to this voluntary long continuance on the boards we bear in mind the vivid interest in the stage and in the purity of the acted drama, which is ex- hibited in the well-known dialogue in Hamlet, and that the poet's just wishes included affectionate recol- lections of three of his fellow players, it is difficult to believe that he could have nourished a real antipathy to his lower vocation. It is on the contrary to be inferred that however greatly he may have deplored THE STAGE AND THE ACTOR 269 the unfortunate estimation in which the theater was held by the immense majority of his countrymen, he himself entertained a love for it that was too sincere to be repressed by contemporary disdain. If there is among the defective records of the poet's life one feature demanding special respect, it is the unflinch- ing courage with which, notwithstanding his desire for social position, he braved public opinion in favor of a continued adherence to that which he felt was in itself a noble calling, and this at a time when it was not merely despised, but surrounded by an aggressive fanaticism that prohibited its exercise even in his own native town. Of course, we are confronted by the well-known difficulty in the iioth sonnet, which is supposed to reveal his antipathy to the actor's calling. He says : "Alas, 'tis true I have gone here and there, And made myself a motley to the view, Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear, Made old offenses of affections new; Most true it is that I have look'd on truth Askance and strangely: but, by all above. These blenches gave my heart another youth. And worse essays proved thee my best of love." Yet, the sonnets are one of the greatest problems in literature. There is an increasing conflict of authority as to their meaning and it is even disputed that the particular sonnet has any personal applica- tion to the poet himself. How are we to reconcile his seeming sense of degradation with Hamlet's im- 270 THE LIBERAL CLUB mortal tribute to the purpose of playing, '*whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 't were, the mirror up to Nature, to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure." No actor with such an ideal as that before him can truly feel that his name receives a brand from his ambition. I am sure I need not apologize for these excursions into a subject that so closely concerns the calling to which I have the honor to belong. It will not do to describe Shakespeare as a poet by the grace of genius, and an actor by the stress of lamentable accident. If Shakespeare never had been an actor we should never have had those marvels of dramatic literature. Shakespeare used the stage as a not unworthy instru- ment of his supreme mind, and, whatever the imper- fections of the theatre, it holds an honorable place amongst the agents of civilization. In Germany the theatre is a part of the daily life and recreation of the people, and is largely supported by the state. I doubt not that by and by every great city will have its own theatre built by its municipality, and probably the first of such English-speaking thea- ters will be reared here in America in your own great nation. Of the wisdom of state subsidy for the encourage- ment of the drama, I will say nothing — a drama in which the arts of poetry, music and painting blend with the knowledge of history and manners and customs of all people — a drama which affords to the THE STAGE AND THE ACTOR 271 most exacting intellect a delightful recreation if nothing more — the most intellectual recreation the mind of man has yet conceived. 4fourtb 2)inner, Jfcbruarie 13, 1902. THE CIVILIZATION OF RUSSIA. PROF. ALEXANDER S. CHESSIN. Before I speak of the civilization of Russia we should come to an understanding as to the meaning of the term civilization. If you look for it in the dictionary you will find that civilization means a state of being reclaimed from the rudeness of a savage life. You will then, naturally, look in the dictionary for the definition of savage life and you will discover that it is a state of not being civilized. Let me, therefore, first explain what I understand under the term civilization or culture. Culture, as the sum-total of all its attributes, em- braces four distinct groups which may be called the elements of civilization, namely, the religious, the political and the social-economic elements, and cul- ture in the specific sense of the relation of man to the outward world. To this last element belong the scientific, aesthetic and technic achievements of a nation. The civilizations of Egypt, China, Chaldea, India and Persia, which may be called aboriginal inasmuch as they seem to have sprung up independently at different points of the earth, cannot be said to have CIVILIZATION OF RUSSIA 273 developed any one of the four elements of civilization to a high degree of perfection. In those aboriginal civilizations religion, politics, social, economy and specific culture were not even distinctly defined and separated. Then appeared the civilizations with one of the four fundamental elements highly de- veloped, each civilization being characterized by the perfection of a different element. Rehgion was the glory of the Hebrews; culture, in the specific sense, the pride of Greece, while the greatness of Rome was due to the political genius of the Roman people. The social-economic element had not yet played a promi- nent part in any civilization. Universal progress — which does not mean advancing all the time in the same direction, but extending in all possible directions, covering the whole field of human activity — de- manded either that in subsequent civilizations the hitherto neglected social economic element become the most essential feature of progress, or that the new civilizations be more complete, more varied and characterized by the high development, not of a single, but of several elements at once. The Romano- Germanic type, which followed in the wake of Rome, fulfilled only the last of these expectations. The three fundamental elements which figured so prom- inently, but singly, in the civilizations of Palestine, Greece and Rome, appeared together in the new type and all three attained a degree of perfection of which Europe may well be proud. But the social-economic element forms the darkest side of the Romano-Ger- 18 274 THE LIBERAL CLUB manic type. It was left to another people to de- velop this so-far neglected feature of civilization. The social-economic element is the basis of the Slavic type of culture. Slavic culture, however, is not one-sided, as was that of Greece or Rome. Religion has always been an essential element of the Slavic type, and in Russia it is so deeply, so intimately linked with national life, that it forms the basis of patriotic feeling. The religious world-conception of the Slav does not differ from that of other Christian peoples, but the Slavs are an eminently more religious people than their Christian brethren in Europe. Compulsion or dom- inating influence played no role in the religious evo- lution of the Slavs. They did not adopt the new religion as a part of a civilization to which they were forced to bow; they did not become Christians be- cause they were conquered or subjugated by a Chris- tian people. Even the influence of foreign mission- aries was never exercised over the people. The nation took the first step toward adopting the new religion without an impulse from outside. Instinc- tively conscious of the insufficiency of their paganism and craving something more elevated, they invited apostles from all the churches of the world to come and teach them what they themselves only vaguely felt but did not know, and among all rehgious they chose the one which they considered the best and highest, and to this religion they have been faithful ever since. CIVILIZATION OF RUSSIA 275 Politically the Slavs are not credited with much sense or fitness, chiefly on account of the autocratic form of Russian government. Yet, is not the ex- istence of that mighty world-power in itself an evi- dence to the contrary ? Russia could not have emerged from the many and serious dangers w th which was threatened her very existence, without having identified herself with an autocracy. Cen- tralization was not only the natural outcome of politi- cal evolution, it was a necessity; moreover, a neces- sity fully realized by the people. Far from being imposed upon them, it was a form of government which they desired and supported. Respect for authority does not imply lack of self-respect. It is the privilege of the free to know how to obey. The absence in Russia of political freedom enjoyed by the states of Western Europe is not in itself an indication that the Russian is wanting in civic virtue. Euro- pean constitutionalism would be exotic on Russian soil; it would lack national foundations, without which it can bear no fruit. In regard to scientific, aesthetic and technic achieve- ments, Russia has not yet attained that stage of de- velopment in which these spheres of activity become clearly defined, and it is therefore premature to ex- press a positive opinion on this element of Slavic culture. This partial immaturity, despite an ex- istence of over one thousand years, does not indicate cultural inability on the part of the Slav. The mere duration of an existence is not what decides the cul- 276 THE LIBERAL CLUB tural progress of a nation. The determining factor in estimating such a progress is the stage of develop- ment, the period in the history of a people. History offers not a single example of a people among whom art, literature, science and industry flourished before political life was definitely shaped, and while it is true that some historic peoples successfully con- tinued such cultural activity even after having lost political independence, in no case has a nation de- voted herself to promoting purely cultural interests before having first attained such independence. Building up the state on secure foundations is the first act of a historic people and its fulfillment con- sumes an amount of energy proportional to the diffi- culties of the problem. Russia, from her earliest ex- istence, was exposed to invasion of barbaric hordes. She received all the blows from which she protected Europe and of the ten centuries of her existence the greater part was spent in struggles with the Tartars in the east and south, the Swedes in the north and the Lithuanians and Poles in the west. Not until the middle of the eighteenth century was the political stability of Russia firmly established. All the availa- ble energy of the nation was consumed to achieve this purpose. Until quite recently this character of national activity was reflected even in the educational system of the country which chiefly aimed to pre- pare young men for state service. This intense appli- cation to a political purpose left little opportunity for the development of purely cultural interests and CIVILIZATION OF RUSSIA 277 is ample historic justification for the comparatively low state of Russian culture. In regard to the fourth and last fundamental ele- ment of civilization, viz. : the social-economic, Russia claims more particular attention. Russia is the only large state that can boast of a land-owning popula- tion. In Russia there is no contradiction between political and economic ideals; no unprovided for and, therefore, dissatisfied mass of proletarians or un- employed; no labor questions; no anticipation of social-economic conflicts, as in Europe, which is threatened by military despotism and social revolu- tion, or in these United States, where the despotism of capital is wrangling with the not less despotic labor unions. In Russia the birth of every peasant child entitles him to a piece of land and a portion of com- munal property. The institution to which Russia owes her social economic and political stability, the institution to which is due the steady and rational conservatism of the great mass of the people, that most national of all institutions, is the so-called mir. Such being its importance, permit me to tell you, in as few words as possible, what is the Russian mir. The mir is a rural commune which formerly was based on land tenure alone. Emancipation has somewhat modified its original character by adding to it a new feature, namely, the joint payment of com- munal taxes and redemption dues. In explanation of the last term I may tell you that the emancipated 278 THE LIBERAL CLUB peasant, in receiving from the landlord and former master a piece of land, remunerated him for the loss. The money for this remuneration was advanced to the peasants by the government and was to be paid back into the imperial treasury in annual installments in the course of forty-nine years, at six per cent, in- terest. These annual installments constitute the above-mentioned redemption dues. Thus you see that the peasants are still debtors to the state and will remain so for eight more years, at the end of which time the total amount of redemption dues will be paid in and an era of greater prosperity will come upon a population which is to-day overburdened with the simultaneous payment of these dues and of state, province and village taxes. Returning to the wz/r, sometimes it is a single village. In this case the economic administration adapts itself exactly to the civil. Or, it may happen that a large village is divided into several rural communes. Then each commune has its economic administration, while the civil and political administration is com- mon to all. Again, a number of villages may form a single mir. Thus the size of the mir may vary from twenty or thirty to several thousands of fam- ilies. The members of the mir are linked together by the collective ownership of land and property, and since emancipation, as I have said, also by the joint responsibility to the imperial government for the pay- ment of redemption dues and of ordinary taxes. Both the enjoyment of collective property and the respon- CIVILIZATION OF RUSSIA 279 sibility for common dues and taxes to the state, are distributed among the members of the village com- mune by the mir as it thinks fit. Not individual peasants, but the mir being responsible to the im- perial government for the payment of dues and taxes, the government does not concern itself with their distribution among the members of the com- mune. This distribution of property and of taxes forms naturally the chief interest of the mir. Now, although the mir is based on the principle of equality, nevertheless, in the allotment of land and of other properties, and in the distribution of taxes, the mir does not follow this principle to the letter. In as- signing a share to a family the mir not only takes into account the number of its members but also their ages, health and means. It estimates the working capacity of every family and distributes the shares accordingly. Moreover, a fair distribution to-day will not be so five or six years hence, because in some families the number of members will have increased, while in others again it will have diminished. A new distribution therefore will be necessary to make the shares equal and just, the productive capacity of each family being again taken as the principle of dis- tribution. For a long time this equalization can be brought about by partial exchange and transfer of shares without upsetting the whole commune by a general redistribution. The system of allotment adopted depends entirely on the will of the par- ticular commune. In every case, however, each 280 THE LIBERAL CLUB family owns a homestead which is its hereditary pos- session and is not affected by the periodical redis- tribution of land. The imperial government never interferes in the internal affairs of the commune. In this regard the mir is a self-governing institution. The peasants have their own tribunals and laws, which differ in more than one respect from the imperial code. Equality of rights is coupled with complete social equality. Thus the self-government of the peasants is based on purely democratic principles, by virtue of which every member personally participates in all concerns of the community and has an equal share in its affairs. Each village has a starosta, or elder, a sort of mayor, who is elected by the mir. The starosta represents only the executive power. The authority resides in the assembly which is formed of all the heads of families. Sometimes these are women, because a wife may, by the death of her husband, become the head of the family and as such she has the right to vote in the assembly. Among Russian proverbs there are some which do not speak in terms of high respect of female in- telligence, as, for example, the saying that a woman's hair is long but wits are short; or, another, accord- ing to which woman has no soul but only vapor. Yet such is the spirit of fairness and of absolute equality among the peasants that in the Russian mir women enjoy more rights than are granted them by any European code of laws. Thus, it may come to CIVILIZATION OF RUSSIA 281 pass that a woman becomes the starosta or the mayor of a village. The absence of all formal procedure in the assem- bhes admirably illustrates the essentially practical character of the mir. An open space where there is sufficient room may serve as a forum. The discus- sions are occasionally very animated, but there is rarely any attempt at speech-making. If disputes arise, in no case is there any danger of the disputants coming to blows, as seems to be customary in the civilized parliaments of civilized Europe. "No class of men in the world,'* says Mackenzie-Wallace, "is more good-natured and pacific than the Russian peasantry. When sober they never fight and even when under the influence of alcohol they are more likely to be violently affectionate than disagreeably quarrelsome.'* Communal measures are generally carried by acclamation and should there be a diversity of opinion the minority submits without grumbling. The peasants are accustomed to work together in this way and to make concessions for the communal wel- fare and they bow unreservedly to the will of the mir. Therefore disagreements are extremely rare despite the fact that no measure can be taken by the com- munity without the unanimous approbation of all the members. It is generally admitted that the Proletariat in Europe and in countries which have adopted Euro- pean civilization is due chiefly to the expropriation 282 THE LIBERAL CLUB of the peasantry or small land-owners, Japan being the most recent example of this procedure. The communal system of Russia which secures for the peasants the possession of land effectually pre- vents the formation of a Proletariat. The land re- served for the peasantry cannot be encroached upon by the large land-owners or capitalists, and, as I have said, every peasant, by the simple fact of his birth, ac- quires almost an inalienable right to a share of this land. Thus the Slavs are the first historic people who may fairly claim that they are on the road to a successful solution of the intricate social-economic problem. Now, while in Russia the communal system and the endowment of peasants with land have developed a strongly conservative spirit in the great mass of the people and have saved Russia from social-economic difficulties, in Western Europe, on the contrary, the conditions created by feudalism were favorable to the growth of revolutionary ideas and social-economic conflicts. The political writers and philosophers of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, who so fearlessly attacked social iniquities in the face of a mighty feudal hierarchy, a militant church and a despotic royal power, no doubt suc- ceeded in stripping the throne and the altar of their prestige, but they were far from realizing the idea of justice and equality in the name of which they raised their cries. Their brave struggle, after all, benefited but a small minority of society, namely the educated CIVILIZATION OF RUSSIA 283 and well-to-do bourgeoisie or middle class, while the great mass of the people remained in a state of wretch- edness little better than in the old regime. Hence the Jacobinism of the intelligent fraction of society. Seeing that the claim of the people amounted to nothing because it did not involve the agrarian ques- tion, realizing at last that by purely political or relig- ious revolutions the ultimate goal of ownership, equaUty and freedom cannot be reached, the sup- porters and champions of the people raised the cry of economic quality and strove to achieve a complete social revolution in the sense of communal autonomy. The earlier philosophers, — Fourier, Saint-Simon, Robert Owen, — based their ideas of a perfect social organization on some abstract principle derived from human nature. The Utopian character and weak- ness of these doctrines being attributed by German philosophers to the human-nature point of view, Hegel and the large school of his disciples and followers sought the cause of social evolution outside man's nature. Hegel conceived history as a process sub- ject to law and thought he found the solution of the problem in what he called the Weltgeist, an absolute idea, which is as great an abstraction as the principles on which Saint-Simon, Fourier and Robert Owen based their philosophic speculations. Finally ap- peared the school of the so-called scientific socialism, which claims to rest on a real foundation, namely, on the immanent laws of economic evolution. This modern and latest form of socialism is the creation of s5i^V'=^ 284 THE LIBERAL CLUB Karl Marx and forms the basis of the socialist theories of to-day. The views of Karl Marx were publicly proclaimed in the manifesto of the Communist League at their general congress in London in 1847. It was the first clearly formulated exposition of the designs of the socialists. Among the measures demanded were ex- propriation of landed property and employment of rents for state purposes; abolition of inheritance and centralization of all credit by the formation of a national bank, with state capital and exclusive monop- oly; appropriation by the state of all means of trans- port, such as railways, canals, steamships, roads and so on; establishment of national workshops; institu- tion at pubHc expense of great industrial armies. State guarantee of an existence to all workmen was also demanded and labor was made a compulsory ob- ligation upon all equally. The manifesto declared that the purpose of the League could only be accom- plished by a violent overthrow of all existing arrange- ments of society and concluded with these words: "Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The Proletariat has nothing to lose in it but its chains. It has a world to win. Proletarians of all countries, unite!" But the year which saw the birth of the socialism of Karl Marx saw also the beginning of the schism in the revolutionary body which separated it into two radically opposed camps that were never to meet again except in the most violent collision; for in the CIVILIZATION OF RUSSIA 285 same year Proudhon definitely formulated the doctrine to which he himself gave the name of anarchism. Of course, anarchism was not born in a day. No doctrine ever is. Proudhon also had precursors. But the importance of a doctrine is measured not so much by what it proclaims as by the influence which it exercises on human progress, and the spread of anarchist ideas was due primarily to the influence of Proudhon. With him began the parting of the ways between anarchism and authoritative socialism. He is therefore rightly called the father of modern anarch- ism even though, almost in the same year and inde- dendently of him, anarchist doctrines were pro- pounded by Max Stirner in Germany and Josiah Warren in the United States. This contemporaneous appearance is worthy of note, as it shows the symp- tomatic character of the movement. "As far as priority of time is concerned," says Benjamin R. Tucker, editor of Liberty, and leader of the Boston school of anarchism, " the credit seems to belong to Warren, a fact which should be remembered by the stump orators who are so fond of declaiming against anarchism as an imported article. Of the purest Revolutionary blood, too, this Warren, for he descends from the Warren who fell at Bunker Hill." This claim to a doubtful honor is, however, readily dis- posed of if it be considered how little influence the school of Warren has exercised in this country. In fact, I should not in the least be surprised if to a great 286 THE LIBERAL CLUB many of you its very existence has been revealed for the first time to-night. The schism which v^as growing in the socialist camp came to light during the discussions of the famous International Workingmen's Association, founded by Karl Marx in 1864, after the dissolution of the Communist League. The International, like the Communist League which it replaced, aimed at the systematic promotion of associated labor by state means. It was based on practically the same princi- ples as those proclaimed in the programme of the League. Indeed, Marx began his inaugural address to the International with the very words which con- cluded the communist manifesto of 1874 and which have since become the motto of the party: "Prole- tarians of all countries, unite!" At the first congress held by the International after the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War and the Revolution of the Paris Commune in 1872, at the Hague, violent dis- sentions arose on the question as to the government of the society of the future. One party, guided by Marx maintained that without a centralized and supreme political authority the sociaHst programme could not be realized; the other, headed by Mikhail Bakunin, a Russian and an ardent disciple and fol- fower of Proudhon, declared that the Marxists would simply produce the old tyrannical regime in a possibly more intolerable form and that society should be reconstructed on purely anarchistic lines, that is, without government or authority of any kind. CIVILIZATION OF RUSSIA 287 Thus did anarchism, from a theory, spring into active existence as a violent reaction against the tyrannical rule of authoritative socialism. Anarchism, therefore, is the antithesis of socialism. It is a tend- ency tov^rard a state of society in which the rule of each individual by himself is the only government the legitimacy of which is recognized, while modern sociahsm aims to centralize all authority and put all activity and production in the hands of a supreme authority vested in the state. The natural outcome of the schism in the socialist body was that the International, after languishing a year or so, ceased to exist. But its fall did not check the growth of socialism. The congress held in Gotha in 1875 had especial significance in drawing together the divergent sections of German socialism, and its comprehensive programme may be regarded as the fullest and most authentic expression of the views of the whole body of European socialists. After stating that all wealth and all civilization spring from labor and that the whole fruit of labor belongs to society, it announced for its purpose the establish- ment by all lawful means — of a free state in a socialist society. It disclaimed the "iron law of wages" and set itself the task of putting an end to exploitation in all its forms and doing away with all political and social inequality. But the question as to the means and methods of attaining this object brought a new element of dissention into the socialist body and the strife reached a climax immediately upon the passing 288 THE LIBERAL CLUB of the Stringent anti-socialist legislation in Germany in 1878. The moderate faction, led by Bebel and Liebknecht, advocated a parliamentary course of action, while the extreme element, headed by Kassel- man and Most — the notorious editor of "Freiheit," — would be content with nothing short of a policy of general destruction, advocating all forms of armed insurrection and stopping at neither dynamite nor assassination. The question was brought before the socialist congress at Wyden in Switzerland in 1880, with the result that Johann Most and Hasselman were expelled from the party and full confidence was ex- pressed in the parliamentary leaders. At the same time the congress revised the programme of Gotha and effaced the word lazuful from the paragraph de- scribing the means by which the socialist party pur- posed to reach its aims. The new programme clearly showed that the difference between the moderate and the extreme sections was only one of expediency and not of principle. The victory of the padiamen- tary leaders, however, determined the character of the subsequent development of socialism and al- though the congress at Halle in 1891 refused to restore the word lawful in the above-mentioned clause in the programme of Wyden, the steady growth of par- liamentary methods and the gradual conversion of the socialist body into definite political parties, to- gether with a noticeable moderation in tone, may be said to form the characteristic features of the most recent evolution of socialism. CIVILIZATION OF RUSSIA 289 The evolution of anarchism, unfortunately, pro- ceeded in a very different way. We have seen how it sprung into active life as a reactionary movement, in violent opposition to the doctrine of authoritative socialism. At first it developed purely on lines laid out by Proudhon, and this early period of modern anarchism, with the exception of a few insignificant revolutionary attempts, is free from the outrages with which the name of anarchism is identified to-day. Indeed, the fundamental ideas of anarchism have no necessary internal connection with the so-called "propaganda of deed." Writing to Marx in 1864, Proudhon warned him against resorting to revolu- tionary action of any kind, as a means of promoting social reform. "That pretended means," he says, "is nothing more nor less than an appeal to force, to arbitrary power and is therefore a contradiction." Even in our days Elisee Reclus, the famous geographer and anarchist leader, delivered himself of the follow- ing remarkable utterance: "Anarchism is, above everything else, a humanitarian doctrine. It is the primary duty of whoever calls himself an anarchist to be kind and forbearing. If those who are responsible for the barbarous deeds imagine that by committing them they are doing a service to the anarchist cause, they are terribly deceived. The anarchist ideal is grand and noble; it must not be desecrated. Those among us who are guilty of dishonorable action, dis- honor the doctrine. Unfortunately, there are many such in our ranks." 19 290 THE LIBERAL CLUB Aside from the criminal propaganda of deed — which is an element foreign to anarchism and, as a matter of fact, only a manifestation of a revolutionary spirit, irrespective of any doctrine, — at bottom, all \ anarchist theories are harmless, because they are self-contradictory and utterly Utopian in character. Somebody has wittily said that the profession of faith of the anarchists may be summed up in two articles of an impossible law. First, there shall be nothing; ^ second, no one is charged with carrying out the above article. It would be more correct to substitute for this aphorism another by a not less witty writer. . ** Article one, there shall be everything; and, Article two, no one is held responsible for seeing that there is anything at all." Anarchists are right when they say that government implies compulsion; that any form of restriction imposed upon individual liberty is an indication of an imperfect state of society. The doctrine of "order through anarchy" undoubtedly conceives the highest form of perfect social organiza- tion. But these incorrigible Utopians fail to recog- nize the fact that even though government can be defended only on the ground of expediency and not of ethical principle, we cannot dispense with it as long as there remains one atom of human imperfection in this world. The idea of violence is logically and naturally in- compatible with the conception of "order through anarchy," and, in fact, violence and revolutionary methods have been adopted only by a small fraction CIVILIZATION OF RUSSIA 291 of the anarchists. Europe would like nothing better than to throw the odium of anarchist crimes on her traditional antagonist, Russia. She claims that the propaganda of deed is merely a piece of tactics bor- rowed from the Russian nihilists and that Mikhail Bakunin, who played so conspicuous a part in the disruption of the International, is the true apostle of the anarchism of action. This is a more or less intentional distortion of history. The anarchism of violence owed its birth to circumstances in which Bakunin had no share It is true that the Alliance founded by him in Geneva in opposition to the In- ternational in 1868 may be considered as the first society with avowedly anarchist tendencies, but it is beyond a doubt quite as true that the struggle be- tween the Bakuninsts and the Marxists ended in a crushing defeat of the anarchists. The influence of Bakunin, which has been greatly over-rated, was fast dying out toward the end of the seventies and every- where, except possibly in France, anarchism was on a downward path, seemingly, with no hope of raising its head again. What, then, caused the sudden out- burst of activity in a body that was to all appearances practically dead ? Gentlemen, it was the German anti-socialist legislation of 1878. This legislation raised a storm in the revolutionary elements of Ger- many and from that country it spread Hke wildfire over the entire continent of Europe. The repressive measures left to the socialists no means of constitu- tional agitation and the extreme section among them, 292 THE LIBERAL CLUB led by Most and Hasselman, merely seized upon this opportunity to give vent to their revolutionary in- stinct. Johann Most drew up a comprehensive guide for the propagandists of action, in which the use of poison, the dagger and the revolver was discussed in the minutest details and directions were given for the laying of bombs and explosives in palaces, churches and places of public gathering. This programme of class war, murder and incendiarism strongly ap- pealed to the representatives of "darkest Europe," not because they beheved in the anarchism of Johann Most — ^what does the rabble care for theories or doc- trines ? — but because to them it meant their own dictatorship, their own arbitrary rule. Only the lowest strata of the anarchists adopted this policy of violence and assassination. One portion of Most's pro- gramme, however, appealed to all the anarchists and had a far-reaching influence on the development of the entire movement. I have reference to the idea of the group which was universally adopted and forms the most characteristic feature of the anarchist organi- zation to-day, if one can speak of such a thing as an organization at all, seeing that these groups of three or four men are completely autonomous. The immediate consequence of Most and Hassel- man's agitation was, as we have seen, the formal expulsion of the violent section from the socialist party. But the revolutionary sentiment created by the German anti-socialist legislation could not be checked by the action of the Congress at Wyden. CIVILIZATION OF RUSSIA 293 Most*s following grew from day to day. His pro- gramme of violence attracted not only the disaffected members of the socialist body, but also a large con- tingent from the criminal arid the morbid elements of society. "Criminals/* says Lombroso, "usually take a large share in the initial stages of insurrections and revolutions, for at a time when the weak and im- pulsive are still hesitating, the impulsive force of ab- normal and unhealthy natures preponderates and their example calls forth epidemics of excesses." Thus did the anarchism of Proudhon and Bakunin, after receiving a crushing blow at the hands of au- thoritative socialism, suddenly spring into life again, but stained by the infamous baptism of violence re- ceived from Johann Most. Revolution, instead of being a means to an end, became an end in itself. The fatal programme of the London congress in July, 1881, opened with the announcement that "the revolutionaries of all countries are uniting into an International Socialist Revolutionary Workingmen's Association for the purpose of a social revolution.'* Headquarters were established in London and sub- committees formed in Paris, Geneva and New York. The programme demanded the annihilation of all rulers, state officials, nobility, clergy, capitalists and property-holders, by any and every means. The committees were to hold regular communications with one another, collect money for the purchase of poisons and weapons and designate places suitable for the laying of mines, and so on. Besides the cen- 294 THE LIBERAL CLUB tral committee in London an international executive committee and information bureau was established whose duty it was to carry out the decisions of the central committee. How successfully their infamous programme was adhered to in the decade following the year of the London congress has unfortunately been only too clearly demonstrated by the numerous outrages in all parts of Europe. Everywhere anarch- ism was revived in its new revolutionary form. Joseph Penkert in Austria-Hungary, Cafiero and Malatesta in Italy, but especially Peter Kropotkin, in the south of France, cleverly taking advantage of the discords prevailing among the socialists, infused new life in the dying anarchist body by fanning the revolutionary spirit into a flame. Among present-day anarchists no one's influence is greater than that of Peter Kropotkin. He is the apostle of the so-called communist anarchism which has replaced the collectivist anarchism of Proudhon. Kropotkin's motto is Everything belongs to all.'* "Heap together all the means of life," he cries, "and let them be divided according to each man's need." At the congress in Geneva in 1882 the followers of Kropotkin formally separated from every other social revolutionary party. They must be especially distinguished from the so-called individualist anarchist who repudiates the dogma of violence. The manifesto of the Geneva Congress ran something as follows: *'Our ruler is our enemy. Our enemies are the property-holder and the manufacturer. Our enemy CIVILIZATION OF RUSSIA 295 is the state, whether monarchical, oligarchical or democratic. Our enemy is every thought of author- ity, whether men call it God or devil. Our enemy is the law, which means oppression of the weak by the strong. We work for the annihilation of all legal institutions and are in accord with everyone who defies the law by a revolutionary act." At this congress, moreover, the collectivism of Proudhon and Bakunin was formally abandoned and a declara- tion was made in favor of communism on the lines laid out by Kropotkin. With Most's departure for America the Association founded by him at the London congress seems to have dwindled away. At any rate, the latest evolution of anarchism is marked by the complete absence of any central organization. To-day everything rests with the group, that is a voluntary association of rarely more than five men, united by personal bonds, sim- ilarity of occupation, close neighborhood or some such cause. These groups dissolve as readily as they are formed; but, although of the most varied and fluctuating character, they have one essential feature in common, namely, the complete individuality of each member. Indeed, the anarchist outrages of recent date have arisen almost exclusively from the initiative of individuals. This utter lack of organization, while rendering it difficult for the government of any country todealwithanarchists, isat thesame time a source of undeniable weakness. Anarchists may commit 296 THE LIBERAL CLUB isolated crimes, but they have not the power of bringing about a social revolution. Such, then, is the state of affairs to which Europe was led by a feudal civilization. The vain illusion of abstract rights temptingly pictured in the great re- publican device of "Liberty, Equality and Fra- ternity" only served to kindle in the hearts of the oppressed mass a desire, without giving the power of satisfying it, and drove the entire continent into a state of perpetual political, religious and social revolution. In Russia, a class war like that which developed into the socialism and anarchism of Europe was at no time possible, because in Russia there never existed a real aristocracy in the sense attached to this term in the West, where the feudal nobility derived its strength from historic rights and traditional preroga- tives. Nor is there in Russia a powerful bourgeoisie or middle class, sprung from the people and relying on popular support to attain supremacy. And yet from the time when the "window into Europe" had been broken, the no-longer-isolated Slavic empire could not altogether escape the contamination of the revolutionary spirit of the West. Every concussion in Europe was felt in Russia like the rumbling of a distant earthquake. These feeble echoes of Roma- Germanic revolutions assumed in Russia a mystic character peculiar to the Slavic race and found their expression in what has become generally known as Russian Nihilism. CIVILIZATION OF RUSSIA 297 The word "Nihilist" appears for the first time in Tourgeniev*s novel "Fathers and Sons," which gives a vivid picture of the movement, though with a touch of caricature in it. More serious and by far more characteristic of the time is the work from the pen of Chernyshevsky, who shares with Alexander Herzen the right to the name of apostle of Russian Nihilism. Like the founder and brilHant editor of the celebrated nihilist organ Kolokol ("The Bell"), Chernyshevsky drew his ideas from the philosophies of Hegel and Feuerbach. His novel "What is to Be Done?," written in exile in Siberia in 1862, became a sort of gospel with the Nihilists and was widely diffused and read, contributing perhaps more than any agitation towards the spread of Nihilist ideas. It is interesting to note in this connection another book from a more familiar pen of a great Christian Socialist. "What Shall We Do .?" is the title of a book by Count Tolstoi. "The answer to this question," exclaims the author, "was given by John the Baptist two thousand years ago: *He who hath two coats shall give one to him who hath none, and he who hath more than wherewith to feed himself shall do likewise.' People go far out of their way to find an answer which they have in the Bible," continues the author; "there is no other remedy for the evils of society than a re- turn to primitive Christianity." The name of Nihilist was used in Russia not as is commonly believed, to designate a man who recog- nized no authority of any kind, but one who bowed 298 THE LIBERAL CLUB before no authority and accepted no principle without critical examination. Russian nihilism is therefore far removed from either the socialism or the anarchism of Western Europe. In Russia nihilism was simply the spirit of intellectual revolt engendered by the reading of European philosophers, — Fourier, Saint- Simon, Robert Owen and especially Hegel and Proudhon. "Our nihilism," wrote Koshelev, in 1874, "is not, as in the West, the outcome of long falsely directed philosophical studies and ways of thinking, nor is it the fruit of an imperfect social organization. Our nihilists are simply radicals. They borrow negative views from foreign authors and repeat them and magnify them ad nauseam. The wind has blown nihilism to us and the wind will blow it from us again." This prophecy was realized sooner than expected even by its author. Russian nihilism died out after a sickly existence of some twenty years. What foreigners still persist in call- ing Russian nihilism is merely the revolutionary spirit of a band of misguided patriots who protest against what they call the despotism of an auto- cratic rule, and whose political ambition does not go beyond the desire of seeing the people represented in the government. Nihilism, therefore, is an episode of the past. I will not detain you by unfolding the tale of a move- ment that has but an historic interest to-day. If I devote a few words to nihilism at all it is only because this name has been both intentionally and uninten- CIVILIZATION OF RUSSIA ^99 tionally, but in every case falsely, coupled with that of anarchism. In Russia anarchism does not exist. The circumstance that Russian names appear among anarchist leaders in Europe does in no way indicate that the movement originated in Russia or finds sympathy among her people. Both Bakunin and Kropotkin imbibed their anarchist views on foreign ground and from foreign sources, and, what is more to the point, the seeds of their revolutionary agita- tion fell on absolutely barren soil at home, while they produced a rich crop in Europe, the birth-place and hot-bed of revolutionary ideas. In Russia the at- tempts at violence and the dogma of political assassi- nation speedily called forth social reaction, causing immediate rupture between the revolutionary ele- ment and the liberals who had hitherto given their hearty support to the nihilist movement. The outrages committed by the agents of "underground Russia" opened the eyes of society on the evil in- fluence of Western culture and ideas and a return to national traditions became the cry of the hour. As to the revolutionists, they were signally disillusioned. On one hand, the extraordinary measures of reprisal inaugurated by the government, and, on the other, the excessive nervousness of high ojfficials and of the Czar himself, instilled in the revolutionaries the feeling of a force which they did not in reality pos- sess. Frustrated in their attempts to draw the people into the movement, they fancied that the revolution which they strove to effect could be achieved by a 300 THE LIBERAL CLUB few desperate men. They failed to realize that the traditional autocracy of Russia is an indirect delega- tion of popular sovereignty and a tacit expression of the general will of the people and that the Czar is a truer representative of Russia than would be a par- liament or a congress. A handful of conspirators cannot change the destiny of peoples nor can a revo- lution be effected unless in conformity with national sentiment. Revolutions are not made — they grow. jffttb 2)fnner, SXcember 13, tdOt. ENGLISH ADMINISTRATION IN ASIA. PROF. HENRY MORSE STEPHENS. I never feel entirely a stranger in speaking before a Buffalo audience. Buffalo is the nearest city to the little burg in which I dwell and there is close enough connection between Buffalo and Ithaca, educational connection at any rate, to make me feel in a Buffalo audience as if there should be at least a section of my hearers with whom I may have a certain personal acquaintance. And it is without any further preliminary that I propose to turn almost immediately to the topic upon which I am asked to speak before you. But as a preliminary, let me state that I do not pro- pose to speak as an aggressive — John Bull, shall I call it .? — likely to arouse that spirit of controversy the echoes of which swept over for hours — I will put it that way — of the Lehigh Valley Railroad and penetrated into our community at Ithaca. I propose indeed not in any way to dwell as a eulogist upon the particular manners and matters that have concerned the government of the English in Asia, but rather to point out with a good deal, I trust, of absolute impartiality, the lessons made and the small 302 THE LIBERAL CLUB amount of successes absolutely attained. May I, as a preliminary, in order to clear the ground, state that I have no personal knowledge of India, that I have never been in India ? It is as well that such personal statement should be made. On the other hand, may I be egotistical enough to state what claims I have to speak before you to-night } Al- though myself never in India, my relatives for gen- erations always served in India, and it was my good fortune, after leaving the university in England, to be engaged for quite a considerable number of years as the correspondent for a Calcutta newspaper. As an employee of the India Office I once did a thing that no one ever does except for pay, read a gazetteer through for the purpose of compiling an index, and I owe much to that rigorous transaction, reading that gazetteer through three times, Mr. President, in order to compile an index volume. After that I had the good fortune to be employed to teach the young Indian civiHans, at the University of Cambridge in England, Indian history and administration. And therefore, ialthough I am quite ready to immediately announce that while I cannot speak with the personal knowledge of Indian affairs that possibly some of you may possess, yet during the last twenty years of my life it has been my business to be pretty closely in touch with Indian problems and with Indian affairs. When first I came to this country in 1894, fresh from England, I remember suggesting to the Uni- versity which I then had the honor to join, that I ENGLISH ADMINISTRATION IN ASIA 303 should give a course of lectures on Indian history. My reason was simple, — I had them all ready, wanted to deliver them. But the president of the University declared that there was no interest in India and that I must get up all my courses afresh. Years have passed and now I find a very considerable interest in India, and I presume that interest to be very largely on the lines that your president suggested just now, that since the United States has become an Asiatic power, she would like to see what other Asiatic pow- ers have been at; and that this newly-developed in- terest in Indian history and Indian administration — because it is newly developed — is largely due to the Asiatic complications due to the United States having become, as I say, as Asiatic power. And that interest seems to have been surprisingly developed of late. I had the good fortune to deliver a course of lectures for the Lowell Institute at Boston on the History of the Administration of India and for the first time was permitted to discuss Indian problems purely on the administrative side. It is, it seems to me, a yery great misfortune that most of the knowledge which educated people have of India concerns the more or less striking and dramatic episodes in the history of the English in India. They know about the Black Hole of Calcutta, a certain amount of information is current with regard to the governments of Clive and Warren Hastings, a certain amount of knowledge current with regard to the mutiny of the Bengal Army and the circumstances that surrounded thatj but am 304 THE LIBERAL CLUB I saying too much when I say that that is about the extent of the average knowledge of Indian history ? Certainly in England it is the average extent of knowl- edge of Indian history that is possessed. And yet it seems to me that the important thing is to try and get rid of these ideas of more or less romantic im- portance and to dwell rather on the history of the administration of India, because it is in the history of the administration alone that can be seen some precedents of interest, perhaps, in the government of Asiatic peoples by a European people. Let me now deal with two topics before I enter upon my main subject. I want first to clear myself entirely of that particular piece of cant which is in- dicated in a certain supercillious attitude sometimes to be found in English people but sometimes also among very — what shall I call them? — advanced Americans. They are fond of saying, "We are such a very young people that we don't know how to do these things," and so on. That same apolgetic atti- tude on the part of the Americans, that slightly nauseating attitude on the part of Englishmen, I would at once deprecate. It seems to me there is nothing more absurd than the expectation of direct imitation by a new and younger nation of the methods that may have been used by an older one. I always decline to declare, and always oppose the theory that one nation can learn from another. The United States will solve its own problems in its own way. I do not believe in preaching any imitative doctrine ENGLISH ADMINISTRATION IN ASIA 305 whatsoever. I think that the more one studies the history of the United States and the problems that it has solved, and solved v^ith wonderful success, in entire ignorance of European solutions, that it is absurd for an European to say "study our solution of these problems and follow us." My own belief is that the United States will solve its own problems as an Asiatic power. And the second point I wish to make as a prelirn- inary statement to clear the ground, is that I entirely understand the great difference that exists between the Indian question and the Filipino question. There are 300,000,000 people in India, there are 10,000,000 in the Philippine Islands to begin with. That means that it is a very much smaller problem. Also, in the Philippine Islands much has been done to clear the ground by previous European possession. There is an amount of Christianty and an amount of knowledge of European language namely, Spanish, in the Philippine Islands that did not exist in India when the English took control there and does not yet exist. The problem then is not identical and the fact that England has pursued certain methods in India does not necessarily indicate that those same methods are applicable to the Philippine Islands. And now, having made these two cautions, I will come to my main thesis, and yet it seems to me it is not uninteresting to see what have been the failures of the English in India, not with any idea of saying, "avoid them in the Philippine Islands," not with any 20 306 THE LIBERAL CLUB idea, in dealing with successes, of saying "imitate them in the Philippine Islands" because, as I say, the situation differs in a great many points; but be- cause to study the problems of administration of Asiatics upon a broad basis, even though it give not any exact example to be followed, may yet suggest some thoughts worthy of consideration. Now, with regard to the history of the English ad- ministration in India, I think it can be clearly pointed out that the problems were met in one way for fifty years, then in a different way, as the pendulum swung around, for another fifty years, and the pen- dulum then swung back into a sort of medium be- tween two extremes, and I propose to dwell at length on the two extremes and on the medium which was derived afterwards. With regard to the first prob- lems of administration as they face the English in India, I do not desire to attempt to go into the his- tory of the English in India or anything of that kind; but it is worth pointing out, as a remark preliminary to dealing with their administration in India, that it is often misconceived and it is often held for truth that the English went in for a grabbing policy in India and started in the eighteenth century to take India for themselves. Anyone who has ever studied the history of India knows how utterly false that proposition is. To begin with, India is not a coun- try, India is not a people and India is not a state; there is not an Indian people. There are great num- bers of people in India. India was a continent of ENGLISH ADMINISTRATION IN ASIA 307 many peoples that had to be dealt with and these peoples, owing to the Asiatic opposition of inter- mixture of blood, have been preserved in India in sort of layers or strata, and you can see all these different strata, representing different races, different ideas and practices, from the most savage Todas, those who live in holes in the ground, and the other races who live on rats and mice and such small deer, up to the Brahmins whose ancestors were highly cultivated philosophers centuries before the civilization of Eu- rope, as we have it to-day, took birth. India is a sort of a museum of peoples, but there is no Indian people. And further than that, India has been a great number of different states; but there has never been an Indian state. The people, though highly organized on Asiatic lines for purposes of industry and for purposes of agriculture, have never held to- gether and produced a political system. The result has been the people of India have been ruled by aliens for centuries, were in fact ruled by aliens at the time when the English merchants first timorously came there. The Great Mogul Empire was written of and the Great Mogul Empire was visited. It was an empire of foreigners — Mongolians, as the name shows. The peoples of India, whatever they might be, never showed political cohesion; the greatest strength was in the lower strata, in the village com- munity and in the industrial guild of the manufac- turing cities. They never had any political harmony and have been governed by foreigners for centuries 308 THE LIBERAL CLUB and centuries. The great foreign government of the Great Mogul — which never spread over the whole of India at any time; never spread down to the south of India; — went to pieces in the eighteenth century and some power had to regulate the relations of the peoples of India towards each other. The control of India was forced upon the English people — not sought by them. All students of the eighteenth century will know how the Mogul Empire fell to pieces in the year 1767. The Empire went to pieces and India became the prey to anybody, while Mara- tha leaders rode their horses up and down the length and breadth of India pillaging and murdering, in the absence of any political band, and the country abso- lutely went to pieces. Someone had to be there, and the peoples — not the people, but the peoples — of India expected there should be somebody to keep the peace, and it so happened that the great change in the world's civilization, due to the development, as Capt. Mahan has pointed out, of sea-power, indicated that the power that should appease the peoples of India should be a power based upon the sea — should be England or France. The struggle between the English and the French in India was brief. It ended in the triumph of the English, and the East India Company came to be the strongest force in India, the force to whom all moral duty pointed out the neces- sity, since they were the strongest power in India, of preserving the peace politically. The East India Company was a company of merchants who started ENGLISH ADMINISTRATION IN ASIA 309 in 150 years earlier by establishing factories in India for the purpose of collecting India commodities. How could a commercial company carry out the work of government ? Commercial company objected, commercial company objected with vigor; the di- rectors of that great company wanted to pay good dividends; they wouldn't be re-elected otherwise; — I beheve that is still probably true with regard to cor- porations to-day; — they wanted to pay good divi- dends and therefore they did not want to govern. Every possible opposition was made by the East India Company's directors from the very beginning to the acquisition of territory. They pointed out again and again that this thing was expensive; indeed, they refused to accept the territory of Bengal that fell into their hands after the victory of Clive. Clive sug- gested to the English crown that the English crown should take possession of Bengal. The person to whom he suggested it was that very wise and great statesman whose name is commemorated in the City of Pittsburg — it was the great William Pitt, who shook his head when the suggestion was made and declared that it would not be well to strengthen the Crown of England by the revenues of Bengal. He pointed out that the Crown was quite dangerous enough as it was and he refused to take possession of Bengal. Just as twenty years later his son, the younger Pitt, combated the idea of taking the direct government of Bengal by the English Parlia- ment for fear that the revenues thereof should be 310 THE LIBERAL CLUB used for the support of one political party. And therefore it was that circumstances in England, cir- cumstances connected with the position of crown and parliament, circumstances connected with the party system, caused everyone to impose upon a com- mercial company the business of government. Now commercial companies are formed for the pur- pose of earning dividends and not for the purpose of governing Asiatics. Considering then the attitude and the position necessarily adopted, it can be understood that the first results of the falling of the province of Bengal into the hands of the East India Company's commerical servants, bookkeepers and writers, was not likely to be comfortable for the people of India. The Company refused responsibility, the Crown of England refused responsibility, the Parliament re- fused responsibility, and the Company's servants in India made fortunes, and the period from the time of Clive to the period of Hastings in Bengal is a time during which the Company's servants made fortunes because no one would interfere with them. And then came the first period of English administration in India. The greatest Englishman that ever went to India, the greatest name in all Indian history, and by my faith, I believe one of the greatest names in English history, is the name of Warren Hastings (applause). It happens that that great hero of gov- ernment is hung up as a scarecrow for every crow to peck at, because it happened that a great orator whose passions were stronger than his sense, and ENGLISH ADMINISTRATION IN ASIA 311 afterwards a distinguished Review writer whose elo- quence and poHtical animosities were stronger than his historical judgment, chose to treat Warren Hast- ings as one of the most corrupt and most awful of men. The tremendous eloquence of Burke and the extraordinary descriptive faculty of Macaulay have been the cause for the pilloring of Warren Hastings. We know now that all the accusations made against Hastings by Burke and all the accusations revamped by Macaulay in that celebrated Review article, have been refuted, but, as Sir James Stephens says, in the preface to one of his books, refuting all of those accusa- tions, — "all the world reads Burke and Macaulay, but who will read my book?" The general public does not read Sir James Stephens' works except the lawyers, who find it useful I believe to read the digest of the law of evidence, but otherwise people do not go to Stephens to read the story and the entire refuta- tion of the charges made against Mr. Warren Hastings in that capacity, who — well, I mentioned one date; I am not going to talk a lot of dates — who, in 1772 took charge of the administration of Bengal and who adopted the rules of administration that were fol- lowed in India for 50 years. Mr. Warren Hastings differed very greatly from the other commercial gentlemen, clerks, bookkeepers and what not, who had gone out to India in the days prior to the conquest of Clive. His differ- ence lay in the fact that he went and lived in and among the people of India, that he took the trouble 312 THE LIBERAL CLUB to learn the language of the people of Bengal, that he learned their customs, that he could talk to them and could understand their methods of thought, realize that their method of civilization was not something to be spurned by the arrogant suzerain, something not worth looking at at all, but that it was a nation civilized and these people had a right to a law, literature and language of their own, and when the chance came to him which always comes to a strong man, he was the one man who understood the Bengali. It so happened that Mr. Hastings, in tak- ing charge of the government of Bengal, was able to take charge with a knowledge of Bengali ideas. To this day, as even Macaulay remarks of the time when he wrote that it was so, and it is true to-day, the one great name among the natives of Bengal, of all the Enghshmen that have ever been in India, is Warren Hastings, the man who knew them as they were. And it was this great man who, in taking control, re- solved to establish a system of administration in Bengal. Now, Mr. Hastings is a typical eighteenth century figure. That is to say, he had none of that nervous belief in Christianity that distinguished men of an earlier time of religious consideration; he was a man who looked at things very much with a rational- istic attitude of the eighteenth-century mind, and Mr. Hastings, therefore, was not inclined to try and force religoius ideas of Christianity upon the people of Bengal. On the other hand, he had studied, as the men of the eighteenth century had, his classics. ENGLISH ADMINISTRATION IN ASIA 313 He knew how Rome governed her provinces and he deliberately, in taking charge of the administration of Bengal, adopted the Roman theory. Do you re- member what is perhaps the most characteristic word with regard to Roman administration that appears in the whole of the Bible; it is in those five words that come in the Acts of the Apostles; "And Gallio cared for none of these things;" and that was exactly Mr. Hastings* attitude. He was not going to interfere with any of the things of the people who were to be governed by the East India Company as Rome had governed her provinces. What was their religion, what were their customs, what were their habits to him? "And Gallio cared for none of these things." Mr. Hastings, on taking control, first wrote to the Company that they must get rid of this pretense of not governing. That the administration had to be conducted by the Company didn't matter; if the company found it expensive, so much the worse for them, but it had to be administered by the Company. No longer could the mismanagement that led indi- vidual book-keepers to make fortunes continue. He therefore took possession of Bengal in the Company's name, transferred the headquarters to Calcutta and set to work to develop a system of administration. He divided Bengal up into a number of districts, at the head of each of which he placed a man named a collector, whose business was to carry out the spirit of government that had existed in the old Mahome- dan days. Each collector was to be the supreme 314 THE LIBERAL CLUB authority in the district, something like a French pre- fect of to-day; was to be the engineer, the sanitary authority, the judge, the ruler, the police authority of the district. "But," says Mr. Hastings, "observe the habits of the people." What law was to be ad- ministered .? The law to which they were accus- tomed. If they were Hindoos and there was a suit at law, Hindoo law was to apply; if they were Moham- medans, Mohammedan law; if the suit was between a Mohammedan and a Hindoo, the law of the de- fendant was to be administered. But it may be doubted, how did these collectors know the law .? They were not supposed to. They were to preside in court, with their assessors, Hindoo and Mohammedan, to help them. Indeed, they were to work as natives. What they had to help out was the uprightness of the British name; they had to carry out what decisions the English court might give. But they were to care for none of these things. This, then, was Mr. Hastings' idea; he so thoroughly believed in it that he refused to send men to govern until they knew the language of the natives and could use their assessors and their native assistants intelligently. With re- gard to the education of the people, it never occurred to him to introduce a new language. He spent some of his own savings in the magnificent college at Cal- cutta in which some of the natives might be educated in their own law and their own religion, and so clearly was this doctrine of Mr. Hastings carried into effect, that as the empire began to grow up in India under ENGLISH ADMINISTRATION IN ASIA 316 the management of other great viceroys and gov- ernors-general the same principles Yftvt applied everywhere. The Madras presidency was formed. Mr. Thomas Monroe went through the Madras provinces and there discovered what the Madrasses wanted — something quite different from what the Bengalis wanted — and gave it to them. When the presidency of Bombay was organized some years later the same tendency was observed. The full swing then of the tendency of administra- tion as founded by Warren Hastings acted for over fifty years, which was that the native ruler was to study and understand the different ideas of the dif- ferent native peoples and give them peace — as Mr. Kipling says: "By the peace among our peoples let them know we serve the Lord." That was the main aim of the Hastings idea of administration, — not to improve their morals. Mr. Hastings and the men that followed disapproved of missionaries entirely. Gallio, you remember, disapproved of missionaries. And it was with a strong idea not to bring in English ideas. They were to be ruled by their own ideas. So thoroughly was this carried into effect that the English troops used to turn to salute their idols on the way from their town to their country houses. After- wards was developed in Calcutta a course of dealing with trusts in charge of idol temples. I always re- member one case in particular; a certain pious Hindoo had left a piece of property the income from which was to be devoted to pouring melted butter upon the 316 THE LIBERAL CLUB head of a particularly famous idol. The property happened to lie, as property sometimes does, within the circuit of a growing city and the property became exceedingly valuable so that the revenues from that property when it came inside of the city of Calcutta, would have been enough to bathe that idol in melted butter day and night for a great many days and nights. That question had to come in court, and I believe the decision was that a certain amount was to be put to the temple and the balance was to be put for educa- tional purposes — sort of a safe way to spend a balance under those conditions. And the whole of this branch of jurisprudence, I say, developed by the determination of Mr. Hastings and his successors was, not to interfere in any jot or tittle with native ideas, native principles, native religions or native customs. Missionaries were carefully pushed out of the way. The first great missionaries to India of the Protestant faith had to live in one of the Danish settlements. It was not safe for them to live in Cal- cutta. They would be deported if they went there. Everything was done along these Gallio-like lines. In addition, I. should note that an important successor of Mr. Hastings, Lord Wolseley, the celebrated Irishman who made the English the power in India, developed one new thought, — not of administration, — but it is one to which I wish to allude. Wolseley discovered that the people of India preferred to have rulers who were descendants from their own old native rulers and that they had a fancy for being gov- ENGLISH ADMINISTRATION IN ASIA 317 erned by their own laws and their own people and pre- serving a semblance of their old liberties; and therefore it was that he developed feudatory India, developing the principle of controlling such native states through persons known as residents, allowing the rajahs, or whatever they might be, to continue, to all the face of the world, as governors of various states, while they had to do what the resident told them. This was a system since found sometimes useful in administering Asiatic peoples. It has been found as well at least to leave that appearance of sovereign independence, even if there is a resident or somebody who shall pre- vent the native ruler, on the one hand, from plotting against his suzerain lord, and, on the other hand, from over-oppressing his people. Matters were in this situation in India during what I have called the first period. The only person who added anything was Lord Wolseley, whose idea was not of painting the map of India red but of allowing many native states to continue under the control of residents. And the second stage develops, particularly owing to the eloquence of Mr. Wilberforce, who insisted upon what he should be allowed in India, partly ow- ing to an increasing knowledge of affairs in England. When Bengal was conquered, after Clive's victory at Plassey, the people in England knew as little about Bengal, I verily believe, as the people of the United States knew about the Philippine Islands at the time Dewey's fleet first appeared in Manila Bay. People in England knew nothing about it. After they had been 318 THE LIBERAL CLUB there fifty or sixty years they were flooded with in- formation of certain kinds. The pious people were very much disturbed by the practices they heard of Sati or widow-burning, troops saluting idols, female infanticide; and public opinion grew to such a strong effect that the second period was inaugurated by Mr. William Renting. Then begins the second period. Benting's idea was the reverse of that of Hastings. It was to introduce as many of the English things as possible. Take Sati or widow-burning. In the days of Hastings nobody interfered; if a widow wanted to burn herself, it was a custom of the country, nobody should interfere. But by the time the people had been reading of this fifty or sixty years, the people determined that should be stopped. Benting issued a decree; widow-burning was to cease. By the work of the residents of the various states widow- burning was put an end to in the various states of India. It is true the widows have not much to con- gratulate themselves on, because they are now forced to lead a most miserable life, dressed in sack cloth, if they survive their husbands. There was also a cer- tain sect of what might be called holy murderers or thugs who never had been interfered with before. These were worshipers of a goddess who, with appropriate religious ceremony, strangled trav- ellers on the highway and picked their pockets. Benting passed his decree against thuggings. An- other practice was female infanticide. Benting de- clared that infant girls must not be murdered to ENGLISH ADMINISTRATION IN ASIA 319 a greater extent than infant boys and that any female infanticide must cease. Very difficult to prove, female infanticide was, so the very simple way this ad- ministrator went about it was, wherever he found the proportion of girl babies was smaller than it ought to be, in a village, he quartered a company of troops in that village until there was the right pro- portion of girl babies, and there was a ready way of aiding matters. Human sacrifice was another matter interfered with in India. That had been quite com- mon. The last human sacrifice in India always struck me as rather strange as showing the relations between the east and west. In the mountains of India a boy was sacrificed in order that the chief should get a favorable decision in the privy council who sat in India. When one thinks of the venerable judges in the courts in London having their decision aflPected by cutting the throat of a little India boy, it shows how far the east is from the west. That was forbidden and they were given to understand that they must not burn their widows and they must not kill their girl babies, must not continue their holy murdering and must not have human sacrifices. The pendulum swung in that direction and very speedily, instead of clamor, caring for none of these things, the people of India were startled by being Europeanized as quickly as possible, and in that work of European- izing nothing was more important than what should be done with regard to education. Mr. Hastings and the men who belonged to his generation, were unable 320 THE LIBERAL CLUB to encourage the indigenous Hindoo and Mohamme- dan on education; — they have good sense, these Mohammedans and the Hindoos. But in the days of Mr. WilHam Benting there came to India Mr. Thomas B. Macaulay, afterwards Lord Macaulay, who, as a member of the council, knew all about Indian prob- lems and who instantly set to work to declare that the English language should be introduced for the general vehicle of education in India. There was a long discussion between a party known as the Orientalists and a party known as Englanders. These two par- ties struggled for a long time as to whether there should be a system of education based upon the English language. Macaulay won; Macaulay gen- erally did win any suit he was concerned in because he was so honestly convinced of the right of his cause and had such language at command to prove the entire imbecility of his opponents. Therefore the system was introduced of attempting to bring about the system of English; universities in English, col- leges to be founded, etc. The Anglo-vernacular schools were founded by which natives have been taught in private schools by natives. No doubt Macaulay's arguments were exceedingly eloquent, — likely he was right; it is not for one living three generations later to declare that he was wrong; but at any rate the English that he introduced is the sort of English that we know in England as Babu English. You may have heard of Babu English. It is not English, but it is a very interesting language. ENGLISH ADMINISTRATION IN ASIA 321 It is English as learned in India by people who cannot connote the English language because they have not kept the English surroundings. I sometimes wonder whether a Filipino-American language may not come into existence under the present system which would be as like English as Babu English may be. At any rate, the thing was to force upon the people of India a foreign medium, force upon them the EngHsh lan- guage. The development was swift after the days of Macaulay. Afterwards the government tried to Angli- cize India more. They were given a university and uni- versity degrees, they were endowed with the penny- post and were taught to write letters, which none of them could read; telegraph was established, railroads were started — all the advantages of the West were hurried upon them, and instead of being grateful they were amazed, and there are people to-day who consider that possibly it was a mistake to worry Western ideas quite so rapidly upon the people of India. There are people who think that the applica- tion of a different sort of civilization, with a sort of slap-bang effect upon a very old and indigenous civil- ization was somewhat of a mistake. But, whether or not, they hurried on and under Lord Dalhousie's ad- ministration — the greatest administrator England ever sent there from the days of Warren Hastings — the whole idea was to Anglicize them as near as possi- ble. Dalhousie was as earnest in his belief that he was doing good as Hastings was. The only thing was, he did not know anything about the people. Hastings 21 322 THE LIBERAL CLUB did; he had lived among them. Therefore it was Dalhousie who founded the university, postoffice, the telegraph and the rest of these things. Incidentally he knew more about things than Wolseley. So he began to abolish the feudatory system and annexed state after state, declaring that government under English rule was much better for the people, he knew it was better, than government under that sham native ruler with a resident whispering in his ear. That was the second period. In 1857 occurred the mutiny of the Bengal Army. I am not going to speak of the story of the great Sepoy Mutiny. It is quite true that it can be argued that the Sepoy Mutiny had nothing to do with the an- nexation of India. It may be clearly demonstrated that the Mutiny of the Sepoys was due to the serving out of cow's fat on cartridges to the soldiers, etc. Yet quite apart from the mutiny of certain soldiers was the fact that a large part of the inhabitants of India did sympathize with the mutineers, and in one very particular state above all others the people stood by the mutineers and murdered every Englishman they could get hold of. It looked as if there had been a false conception somewhere; and by the time the Sepoy Mutiny was put down and the govern- ment was taken over to the Crown, then came the question what policy should be adopted. Obviously the Dalhousie policy — go into specific reasons as you might — had not been entirely fruitful to all the peo- ples in India. Therefore the Crown issued its famous ENGLISH ADMINISTRATION IN ASIA 323 decree permitting adoption, from which time no native state in India has ever been annexed. There have been some annexations on the frontiers, like Upper Burma, but in the interior the same number of states exist to-day as existed in 1857. In other words, the lesson had been learned that even if the Englishman could not understand why the na- tive preferred the appearance of his native govern- ment, Hked to have his rajah and his long descended Hke from the sun or moon or stars, whatever it was; he liked to have his laws administered in his name, and even if the native knew there was a resident gov- ernor whispering orders, the resident was rather looked upon as a careful person who would prevent native government from becoming too arduous. The danger of over and too speedy annexation was learned. Men in the service were made to learn the languages of the people, greater encouragement was given — not to go back to Warren Hastings' time; widow-burning or Sati was not started over again, nor female infan- ticide, but there were no more tactics in the way of interfering with native customs or anything else. This, of course, brought the Indian administration of modern times greatly under the notice of the reHgious and moral people at home. Englishmen are well acquainted with the crusades that have con- stantly been made in regard to the people of India — noteworthy the question of opium The consump- tion of opium is a wicked thing, say the fanatics; therefore, people must not have any opium. And 324 THE LIBERAL CLUB the present government of India has, on the one hand, to learn to fight off the propositions made for trying to thrust EngHsh ideas too swiftly upon the peoples of India, while, upon the other hand, it has to prevent the vantage ground of loss that has already been gained. Very slowly in the administration of India have new ideas been introduced and still more slowly are they being introduced now. On the ques- tion of taxation, for instance, resort is now had solely, almost solely, to the old Asiatic practice of land- revenue. Asiatics do not understand taxes; they do not pay them; they do not know what they mean. They have been always accustomed to pay a certain proportion of the produce of the soil; it is known as land-revenue. The old Asiatic rulers carried on their expenses of government entirely, solely, from land- revenues. And by such means as this the introduction of tax- ation has been brought about. The same in regard to law. In a few matters in the penal code, and in the law of evidence certain maxims and ideas of Eng- lish law have been introduced, but very zealously are Hindoo laws preserved — for instance, in the admin- istration of wills and other matters. The danger of Anglicizing too fast and the danger of refusing to change at all have been learned and a middle course is now somewhat swingingly followed. I say some- what swingingly. Sometimes the House of Commons gets very angry and passes resolutions which it is very difficult for the viceroys of India to evade obeying. ENGLISH ADMINISTRATION IN ASIA 325 and at other times the necessities produced by certain practices in India that are invalid have to be inter- fered w^ith by the government. The point that I would then come to is that a study of Indian history does not go and give a number of specific lessons for the administration of other Asiatic peoples, but it at least shows the danger of extremes and the advisability of going slow. But I will take my next point. I am speaking to-night and I have writ- ten on English Administration in Asia, not simply in India, because I want to draw your attention specially to the fact that the lessons learned in India are applied Farther East and in those dependencies the government which should be most interesting to Americans, because the Asiatic peoples governed are Malays, the same essentially as the people of the Philippine Islands; that in the government in the Farther East the ideas learned in India have been applied. If many of you have looked at the Straits Settlements you must have noticed from the map that the English only hold three tiny little red patches, the little island in the great state of Singapore, the little island of Pulo Pinang and Malacca, but their power is all over that Farther East, and the reason it has not been painted red was because expansion did not take place there until after the Sepoy Mutiny. EngHsh government is predominant through the whole of the peninsula, but there have been no ad- ministrators. The Islands of Pulo Pinang and all sorts of other excellent little states there are ruled 326 THE LIBERAL CLUB by natives, but there is a British resident giving ad- vice and seeing that they build railroads, seeing that they establish schools, seeing that education is given in the indigenous language for primary education and that there are Anglo-vernacular schools v^hich will prepare children to go to the college at Singapore. In other words, the lesson that had been taught in India by the mutiny of 1857 was very much ap- plied in the Straits Settlements. All through the English dealings then in the Farther East, where they have had to deal with Malay peoples, — Malay peoples of the same stripe as the people of the Philippine Islands, but without the Spanish veneer, — where they have had to deal with Malay peoples they have dealt with them under the influence of the lessons learned in India. They preserved their state sovereignty, they worked through residents, they have worked slowly, they have not hurried to Anglicize the Malay peoples, and as a result there is peace. Go across the straits to the Island of Sumatra. The Dutch have been waging war there practically ever since the Dutch have been there, against the Achenese, but they can- not defeat them. The people who live there are hard- fighting Achenese. The story of the Dutch in the Farther East is, however, another story, as Kipling would say, and it isnotmy purpose to deal with them, but merely to lay emphasis on further certain points of the English administration in the East, because the mistakes learned in India have been applied, as I say, wherever Asiatics came under English control. ENGLISH ADMINISTRATION IN ASIA 327 Now I think you will admit that I have not been dealing with eulogy with the English administration. I have, rather, desired to point out where mistakes were made and how mistakes have been made. The government of the English in India to-day is by no means faultless. Any number of accusations have been brought against that government except one — and that is that the administrators that the English sent there are corrupt. That accusation is never made. That there may be mistakes in administra- tion — for instance the comment is made that it has been a mistake to give the people railroads too soon; to give them, before they know how to understand them, advantages of postoffice methods; that to force edu- cation on them too swiftly has been a mistake, is often said. But the duty that falls upon every fair stu- dent of Indian administration, I think, is, — although there is no period at which the English administra- tion cannot be criticised, and justly criticised, criti- cised from many different ways; — one thing at least was learned by those terrible ten years before Mr. Hastings took control: — to preserve the absolute purity of the administrators. And it may be asked then, what application might be possibly made from these somewhat loose re- marks in regard to the development of the administra- tion of the English in the Farther East, in regard to those great responsibilities of which your President spoke, which have fallen upon America as an Asiatic power? Not the duty of direct imitation, surely. 328 THE LIBERAL CLUB Not, on the other hand, the duty of attempting to confuse the Indian and the Filipino problems. As I say, the difference is great between them. The Spaniards, at any rate, have given a certain amount of Christianity and a veneer of civilization to many of the people of the Philippine Islands. But, v^ithout actually imitating anything in England, might not it be possible to argue that one lesson might be learned, and that is, the advantage of going slowly? I think that the student of England's work in the East and one who has known for generations of how that work has been done, realizes that every mistake the English committed in the East was committed because there had not been carefully appraised knowledge of conditions before changes were at- tempted. The English people do not yet know, after very nearly a hundred and fifty years of connec- tion as administrators of India, for over one hundred and forty years, do not know the conditions accur- ately of the peoples of India, although they have had men of science as administrators generations after generations, although the official publications on India run into the thousands. The people who are administering the government of India do not yet know the actual conditions in India. Do the people of the United States thoroughly understand the geography, the conditions, the manners and customs, the religion and so on of the people of the Philippine Islands ? If they do, why, then they can attempt bolder experiments than people can attempt in India; ENGLISH ADMINISTRATION IN ASIA 329 but if they do, they have managed in about three years, through expert agents whose names I do not happen yet to have heard, to have acquired a more perfect knowledge than has been acquired in 150 years of experience in India. I do not wish to speak sarcastically, but as a matter of fact it does seem perfectly startling to one whose business has been to study English administration, to see the — ^what may I call it? — the cock-sureness of the methods that have been applied to government in the Philippine Islands. I would not for one moment attempt to criticize those things in detail, but I merely gasp at the swift- ness with which the knowledge has been obtained on which, for instance, the present educational crusade is based. It may be that that educational crusade is going to be entirely successful; it may be that the sending out of these thousands of teachers there, the building up of these little red school-houses in the Philippine Islands, and especially the employment of the female school teacher, contrary to the usual ideas of Asiatics, may turn out to be entirely successful. It may be that a generation will see the Filipinos, as has been argued, well-balanced American citizens, with a knowledge of their political duties and rights and a thorough understanding of the law to be ad- ministered among them. The United States has done so many great things that no European who ever comes to this country can say that anything to the United States is impossible. But it does seem 330 THE LIBERAL CLUB very improbable — I think one may go as far as that; it does seem very improbable. The educational crusade in the Philippine Islands is one of the most extraordinary things that this generation has ever witnessed. The only thing like it at all v^as in the old days when the Portuguese first went to India and when they sent an equal number of missionaries and soldiers on every ship that they sent to India, with the idea of converting the people as swiftly by the missionaries as they killed off the other people with the soldiers. The only thing that ever approached it has been this wonderful educational crusade. Why, when I read that wonderful Hst by Mr. Atkinson, stating — I forget the number, I think it was two mil- lion pens, half a million black-boards and so many million spelling books and readers were all to be sent out at once and when I realized that all these most excellent young men and women — I had the pleasure in San Francisco of seeing six hundred of them start on a transport for Manila, — going out without the slightest hesitation on this magnificent educational crusade of theirs, — I was astonished and wondered whether the United States was going to make a new record, whether it was going to turn Asiatics into Americans by means of the little red school-house. It may. I sincerely hope "it may,'* but you will permit one who has paid some attention to these problems to feel just a little sceptical. I remember once having to read in my official capacity two great volumes called the Indian Educational Report, pub- ENGLISH ADMINISTRATION IN ASIA 33I lished in 1886. In these two great blue books were summed up the whole history of the efforts made to educate the people of India. Different theories were discussed; the sending of primary teachers, the at- tempt to use women as teachers (that I am sorry to say was entirely condemned so far as Hindoo practice went); the various schemes of sending large numbers of Hindoos over to England where their Babu lan- guage might be corrected by living in a country in which they would find the language spoken, and various measures that had been tried. But it seems that the superintendent in the Philippine islands — a gentleman, I believe, of much zeal and much vigor — has not thought of those things, but has immediately applied American principles to the Philippine Islands. Perhaps he had been witness of that absorption of the immigrant which is so remarkable in this country; the Polander, or whoever he may be, comes over and is sent to the American primary school and becomes a good American in, I think it is four years; and how successful that is. But he forgets a little, that in this instance the little new citizen, when he goes on his way to school and his way from it, is hearing the English language all the time and he gets the connota- tion of the English language all the time; that the newspapers that are sold in the streets and that he very often tries to sell, are printed in the English langauge; and that therefore there are circumstances that help him in the acquirement of the alien tongue. Those things won't exist in the back country of the 332 THE LIBERAL CLUB Philippine Islands, I think. And the difficulty, it seems to me, is enormous, and I should say that one of the points that a student of the history of the Eng- lish administration in Asia feels that perhaps he has a little right to deal with, is to try and warn such Amer- icans as he may have the honor to speak to, not to expect too rapid success from the educational crusade and to be very exceedingly proud if the educational crusade comes off in even the smallest degree. I hope that it may. It is then with such points as these, it seems, that it might be possible to have learned something from English experience, not with the idea of imitation, because I do not believe in that; but with the idea of seeing what has been done and has failed and with the idea of getting into the difficulties of the spirit in- volved in trying to change the character of a whole people from Asiatic to European. It is not an easy thing to do. Even those Asiatics who have come and settled in this country, like the Chinese, do not seem to have become Americanized very quickly, and the difficulty of Americanizing them over the other side of the Pacific, in the Philippine Islands, seems almost insurmountable. I could not help thinking the other day, as I was reading a famous essay of one of the greatest of all English thinkers, an essay published as far back as 1665, when I read that essay I was greatly struck by the wisdom of that great English thinker, when he remarks "It is a good thing to bring over from the plantations some of the savages that ENGLISH ADMINISTRATION IN ASIA 333 they may see the methods of civilization existing in the country," I could not help wondering whether, instead of the transport load of teachers to the Philip- pines it might not have been wise to have brought a transport full of Filipinos to the United States. It would have been cheaper. And again, when I read that remark of Bacon's where he says that after hav- ing made a foundation you should not harass it with customs duties but allow it to trade freely with all the world; where he gives that splendid piece of advice which the English did not follow; when I read that sentiment I could not help thinking that people who lived two centuries and three-quarters ago had looked into some of these famous problems to-day. And at last in that famous sentence of his where he says "It is a wicked thing indeed to desert a plantation when once founded" it seems to me we find a truth applicable to present conditions. We should recognize the fact that the civilization we have found has been possible; that whether or not the American people have taken unto themselves, that whether or not they like going to the Phihppine Islands, they are going to stay there; and that behind it all lies that great moral, "Make haste slowly, — in dealing with Asiatics, particular slowly." The Asiatic civilization is older than the European. The Asiatic is very difficult to move; it is very foolish of him to like his language and his living and his associations and his customs, but curiously enough he does, and he likes them with such ob- stinacy that you are not going to change him very 334 THE LIBERAL CLUB much except by force, — just like a Brahmin prisoner in a European jail will starve to death sooner than to eat food prepared by a prisoner of lower caste. So it will be a long, long time before many of the Malay characteristics can be extirpated from the Malay mind, from the Malay soul. Patience is the one thing that I think one learns the most in a study of EngHsh administration in Asia. Mr. Kipling puts this in four lines which I am very fond of citing as the concluding words in such a talk as this that I have given before you. I am sure that I am very much obliged to you for your patience in listening to such a disconnected dissertation and possibly a little quo- tation may do as a finish. In that little quotation, four lines written at the head of one of the chapters of Kipling's novel "The Naulauka," he speaks of the Aryan Brown in a way that is quite as applicable to the Malay Yellow or the Chinese Yellow or anybody else, and there is a fund of wisdom put into it. The lines run somehow like this : "Now it is not good for the Christian's health to hustle the Aryan brown: [I might add "the Mongolian yellow"] For the Christian riles and the Aryan smiles and he weareth the Christian down; And the end of the fight is a tombstone white with the name of the late deceased; And the epitaph drear: *A fool lies here who tried to hustle the East.'" (Applause). ENGLISH ADMINISTRATION IN ASIA 335 Pursuant to the custom of the club and at the re- quest of President Sprague, Professor Stephens closed the discussion as follows: The reason I accepted your invitation to say a word or two more, Mr. President, was that I might have the opportunity of echoing every word that Capt. Tilson has said in regard to the United States troops. It has been my good fortune to be acquainted enough with the old army, before '98, and I have seen some- thing of the new army since that time. I believe, from my soul, that every single word that the Cap- tain has said is absolutely and entirely true. My knowledge of the United States soldier shows him to be the most adaptable creature on earth and I think the United States soldier can be very satisfied with being regarded as maybe a little slovenly in the actual practice of the goose-step or the particular wearing of his accoutrements if he be, as I firmly believe him to be, all that you have represented. And it is for that reason that I rise, except that I would like to say just two things. One little thing occurred to me as the Captain was speaking, a little matter of Indian administration that I was going to speak of. When the Punjab, the great land of the five rivers, in which dwell the most stalwart people of India, was annexed in 1849, ^^ was resolved to hand over its government to the soldiers; that is to say, those officers of the army in India who had shown themselves most fitted to understand the nature of the people who had fought, were the men who were appointed commis- 336 THE LIBERAL CLUB sioners and deputy commissioners and were sent forth. The name of Sir Henry Lawrence does not suggest to the American people as it does to EngHsh people, or the name of Sir John Lawrence either, the ideal of almost perfect and sympathetic administra- tion. Sir Henry was a soldier and the men who fought under him for the administration of the Sikhs men — like Herbert Edwards and Rey- nold Taylor and James Abbott and others — were officers from the English army, detailed from their military duties and given absolute control over these military Sikhs. So well did they do their work, so well did they understand the people whom they governed, ready indeed to draw the sword if it were necessary, that they became such ideal admin- istrators that when the shock of 1857 came, the truest people, on the whole, to the English cause, the men who came down in their thousands under John Nicholson, a name still to conjure by in the frontier of India, the name of the old stalwart still worshiped in India; — these were the men who, under eight years of administration by sympathetic soldiers, were won over to the ideas of English government and who fought out bitterly the struggle against the Bengal Army. I suppose it would not be right to suggest that there might even possibly be a lesson there. But is it not, even distantly possibly, that it might be possible to find among the officers of the United States Army, men with the sympathetic knowledge to make them perhaps more admirable governors of Filipino ENGLISH ADMINISTRATION IN ASIA 837 provinces than even the best chosen and best selected of political circles ? And that little remark should be supplemented by the only other thing I had to say. Capt. Tillotson "roasted" me a little about "the little red school-house" and so on, but he v^ill do me the justice to say that I never said the scheme was impossible but only very, very, very improbable. (Laughter). The American nation is a record- breaker; I am perfectly ready to admit it; but it has got to break a tremendous lot of records with those Filipinos. It has got to break the different attitude towards women in Asia from that which exists else- where. The woman teacher, who is so marked a feature of the American civilization, is something al- most startlingly foreign to Asiatic ideas. The woman as a teacher does not really come into the scheme of Asiatic life. It may be that the sympathetic and tender valor of the American soldier may so impress the Filipino that the American schoolma'am may be accepted and may become an ideally successful teacher. But as I say, it will break a very big record indeed, a record I think of some thousands of years. But there is no reason why it should not. The United States has broken the records of a good many thou- sands of years and may break it again. I am sure that I hope it will. But my point in speaking was not to ridicule the idea of "the little red school-house" so much as to point out the very great improbability of its success, so that if successful, we — and I think I may count myself, for this purpose, as an American, 22 338 THE LIBERAL CLUB 2L teacher in an American university — we shall all be proud of the success if attained. But is it not wise also to be prepared with a knowledge of the fact that if it fails after all, it was an attempt to break a tre- mendously big record ? (Applause.) Also one little word which I think I did not dwell enough upon; it was suggested by something Capt. Tilson said, I suppose hardly a popular thing to re- mark, that if the United States does manage to bring about a record in civilizing the Filipinos, it will largely owe that possibility of breaking that record to their predecessors, the Spaniards. After all, it was the Spaniards that made these Filipinos the religious people they are, and it was the Spaniards who have managed to impose in Manila and in some of the bigger cities a certain varnish, I believe, of Spanish ideas and civilization; Filipinos have written books in Spanish; and it may be that that stage of Spanish control of the Filipinos may make it a Httle easier for another form of civilization to plant itself more quickly than in India where all the foreign domina- tion before the English had been that of Mongolians, like the Moguls, and not of European-speaking peo- ples. Those, I think, sir, are the only remarks that occur to me. Most certainly in my heart I believe that in this experiment the United States is going to take as an Asiatic power, it may be successful. One thing I know well; that is, that if any people in this world will rejoice at the success of breaking records, it will be the ENGLISH ADMINISTRATION IN ASIA 339 English people. After all that is said and done, with all their sense — and John Bull is a pretty arrogant sort of person; I have often heard it said that other peoples are perhaps very nearly as arrogant, but at any rate not quite; he is a pretty arrogant sort of person, but he does recognize good work — I can assure you that if the United States manages to solve the Filipino problem through little red school-houses, that I shall expect to see little red school-houses scattered from Calcutta to Cape Comorin, and over the whole of India there will be little red school houses and possibly as well, that great production of American civilization, the American schoolma'am teaching within them. (Laughter and applause). Slitb Dlnnet, Aarcb 27. t0O2. THE IDEAL AND THE PRACTICABLE IN COLLEGE EDUCATION. PRESIDENT ARTHUR T. HADLEY, OP YALE UNIVERSITY. I thank you most heartily for the welcome given. In one sense I hardly feel as if I needed an intro- duction here, for I am, partly at least, a Buffalo boy. Long years ago — I imagine before the majority of you were citizens of Buffalo — my grandfather and my uncle lived here; my uncle was a professor in the Medical College; and one of the pleasantest remembrances of my boyhood is the annually recurring visits to this city. I hardly know it now; your President's comparison of "The Deserted Village" seems to me singularly inappropriate. Every time I come here the frontiers of Buffalo move out a mile or two farther into the country; every time I come here the bank of my friend, Mr. Clement, has doubled its capital stock, (laughter) and altogether the diffi- culty is in recognizing anything that is growing so rapidly. But I am always pleased to have the op- portunity of renewing the Buffalo acquaintance, even when it involves making a speech. The subject, "The Ideal and the Practicable in College Education," I propose to take up in this COLLEGE EDUCATION 341 way: to show what are some of the different concep- tions of college work which prevail; to show the diffi- culties involved in carrying out any of these theories, and to see, if we clan, what combination or compro- mise among these theories will enable our colleges to do the best service to the world of education and to the larger world of public life and commercial organization. Fifty years ago it was pretty well understood what a college was. A man knew what he went for and he knew what he got. It might be good or bad, but it was a definite and tangible conception. The college was the natural way of preparation for one of the learned professions. There were certain professions set apart from other spheres of life by that distinctive name. Prior to entrance into these professions, a man, if he was ambitious, spent four years in the pur- suit of a course of study which was accepted as a factor inherited from the past. It had its merits or it would not have stood so long. But the reason a man took that course was not because he wanted the Latin and Greek and mathematics which it gave, but because that was the respectable thing to do; he took the course as he wore clothes of the regulation cut; he would no more have deviated from that course than he would have appeared on Main Street wearing kilts. It was not the convenience of the clothes, but the fashion that dictated it. Of course it was not confined to the learned professions; a great many men went to college and went to business afterwards, but 34,2 THE LIBERAL CLUB they took the college course with a view of getting the social stamp of an educated man; a sort of medallion to put on themselves to indicate that they belonged to a certain class of training. But, as the country advanced, the social distinctions were en- tirely broken down. People ceased to think of the learned professions as anything separate or different from the work of the rest of the world. There arose other callings requiring equally long and difficult training. The work of the engineer, in its various branches, the work of the artist, the work of the architect, all claimed a large amount of technical training. This broke down the line of distinction between the old-fashioned professional man and the rest of the community and it opened the question how the men who went into these callings should be fitted for their subsequent life. In other words, instead of classes in education, sharply marked off one from another, we had a gradation, from the physician who took so long in his training that he might be thirty years of age before he went into prac- tice, down to the man who went out of the primary school into the trade school to shorten his period of apprenticeship, and you could not say where the line of the techincally trained man ended and the un- technically trained man began. Now, this is the condition that we are in at the present day. We understand what we mean when we speak of primary education — a certain general training, common-school training that is needed for COLLEGE EDUCATION 343 the whole of society. We understand what we mean by techincal training, — training in medicine or theol- ogy or law or engineering or in the various branches of trade and industry, — but between the two there is a secondary training, in our high schools and in our colleges, of which we do not understand at the pres- ent day either the limits or the purpose. The reason for existence of the college is to-day — the practical reason for existence — amounts to this; into some of the professions and callings men are expected to go as soon as they leave the common school, into others they are not expected to go until they are sixteen of twenty or twenty-four or twenty-eight years of age; medicine being probably the one where the period of training lasts longest. Now, that makes a sort of an inter- mediate stage of varying length, very short for some, a year or two of a high school course, longer for others, four or five years, still longer for those who have the time and money to take an academy course and superadd a college course onto it. What are you to do with this secondary period of training inter- mediate between the primary school, which ends at a definite time, and the technical school, which begins at a varying or shifting, sliding-scale of age, — ^what are you to do in this strife ? Now, you can not fill it solely and simply with the old classical curriculum that we had fifty years ago. There are too many men going into the secondary education who are not bound by traditions, who do not feel the imports of these traditions. You must fill it in some way more 344 THE LIBERAL CLUB consonant to the demands of modern life. But how we are to fill this varying length of educational stage, this whole sphere of secondary education, is one of those problems on which the modern world is not agreed, and one on which it is very unsafe to dog- matize. There are two subjects on which general principles are most unwise to utter: education and religion. The instant you get a general principle stated, you will find somebody or some individual that will upset it entirely. I think in dealing with these matters that we should always use the caution that was exercised by Arch- bishop Temple not long ago when a young lady from Boston who was interested in the work of the Society of Psychical Research, happening to sit next him at dinner, said to the Archbishop, "What do you think of special providence?" "Hum!" said the Arch- bishop, "don't know what you mean." "Well," she said, "I can perhaps illustrate what I mean by this story: My aunt was about to sail for America and the night before sailing she dreamed that the steamship on which she had engaged passage was run into in mid-ocean and sunk, with great loss of life, and her dream was so vivid that she cancelled her passage, paid the forfeit, went home on another steamer, and, sure enough, the steamship on which she had originally engaged passage was thus run into in mid-ocean and sunk with much loss of life. Now, do you believe that was special providence .? "Can't \ say; never knew your aunt." (Laughter.) COLLEGE EDUCATION 345 Now, it is unsafe to dare to tell how "your aunt" should be educated until you know the individual in question. But speaking broadly and without any intention of dogmatism, I think we may divide people's ideas of college courses at the present day into three distinct groups. The first group would fill this period of secondary training in the place of an old classical course, with encyclopaedic knowledge; the second would push down the period of technical training into the period of secondary education and make the college a kind of preliminary technical school, shortening at the same time the college course; and the third would use the college simply as a means of general culture, just as they might send a boy to college, as they might send him to travel in Europe, believing that by going to Europe he will get quite as much as he would in going to college and be subjected to less temptations in the one case than in the other. I propose to criticise these three types of the use of the college course. Now, first, if the en- cyclopaedic idea of a college course, that this long period of secondary education should be used to give a man a little of all the kinds of knowledge which the modern world needs; that is a plausible theory. Here is a man who leaves the primary school at twelve or thirteen years of age; he is not going to begin his technical education, until he is twenty-one or twenty- two. What better use for the intermediate nine years, than to give him that conspectus of the field of human knowledge which he will never get after- 346 THE LIBERAL CLUB ward, which he will never have the time to get after- ward with equal facility ? Many a man who objects to a classical education says Latin and Greek take a large share of the time which might be spent in ac- quiring knowledge of things modern which are going to be really of use; knowledge of English and French and German; knowledge of the practical applications of mathematics; knowledge of descriptive science in all its various ways. Many would have the preparatory course formed by a typical high-school course of the present day; they would have the years of college life a continuation of a wide range of studies of the same kind. Now, the chief difficulty with our view of secondary education is that it does not work very well; that the boy who attempts to work over a large range of topics, passing from one thing to another, is V training the least valuable of his mental powers, the habit of acquisition. He acquires one set of things the first year, another the second. If he is a healthy \ boy, during the second year he forgets the things that he learned in the first year. Why, to take things from your own work, those of you who are lawyers, or business men either, can see how fatal it would be in a case that you are having this month if you were bothered with remembering all the details of a case V that you had last month or a year ago. The healthy man needs to forget. His brain is not a store-house to be filled full of useless lumber. If it were he never could find any piece of goods that he wanted. What would you think of a merchant who is accumu- COLLEGE EDUCATION 347 lating side by side on his shelves, goods of ten years past, in the manufacture, in the hope that in the long cycle the fashions will come around where the goods of ten years ago should suddenly become salable? You would say he was working on a wholly wrong principle. And yet the people who make acquisi- tion the main idea of education are working on this same principle. They are attempting to cram the boy with things that will be of use. Fortunately the boy will not cram. The human brain is wiser than the theories of these educators; it rejects the things of the earlier years before you come to the things of the later ones, and so no harm is done; but also, no good is done. I think it will be found that those courses of study which, year after year, attempt to cram the pupil with knowledge in its various details and in as wide a range as possible, fail to give even the training which the old-fashioned classical course, defective as it was in many ways, brought into the mind of the student. The second of these ideas of the college course is that it should be a preliminary stage of the technical school. The advocates of this theory complain that in medicine especially — to a less degree in law and theology and many other professions — the boy is so delayed in entrance that he gets to be twenty-five or thirty years old before he can see, even with a tele- scope, a remote chance of being even self-supporting. They therefore urge that these studies be carried down earlier into the work of education. Let the 848 THE LIBERAL CLUB college course prepare the boy in the general studies of which his professional school furnishes the more specific details. Some of them would combine with this a shortening of the college course, of the period of secondary education, though this is not true of all. Now, in this view of secondary education there are certain advantages. It is unquestionably true that we begin our professional life rather late at the present day; that we perhaps do not utilize to the best the forces of many men who could serve the people three or four years earlier than they do now. But when you attempt to carry it out as a theory of the college course you have several dangers. In the first place many a boy at the beginning of his college course has no idea for what profession he is fitted. If he takes technical training, he is better off taking it, not definitely as a preparation for his professional school work, but experimentally, one of the two or three lines to show what he has in him and what he can do. And again, those boys who take the college course as a preparation to technical work, do not, as a rule, thereby hasten their entrance into professional life very appreciably, for if you spread the work of a medical school over seven or eight years instead of four, if you spead the work of a law school or a divinity school over a corresponding number of years, you relegate the man to a school base which is very differ- ent from what he will be called upon in after life, and which prevents him from doing much more actual preparation in seven years than he formerly did in COLLEGE EDUCATION 349 three or four. It is an interesting thing also that although our colleges, our better colleges, many of them allow a boy to take his degree in three years without work that most of the men in this room would consider very hard, comparatively few stu- dents avail themselves of the privilege. If you make a new course only two years long, for the bachelor's degree, you will find men who will be glad to take the bachelor's degree in two years, but if you say the old course is not so terribly hard but that if you really work you can shorten the thing to three years, you will not find a large number that carry out the actual shortening. There is in the college life, in the old fashioned college course, a certain attraction of out- side interests and a certain demand on the part of parents that the boy should go into it not for the books alone, but as a step in social training, that the attempt to make it a preliminary of the professional school has thus far met with scant success. The third of these theories of which I spoke, the theory that would liken the college course to foreign travel, recognizes this social element in it. The advocates of this theory say, as Cardinal Newman, that a university is like a large capital. It has tra- ditions, it has stimuli intellectual and relations of all kinds which make the men who come under its influence broaden and feel the indefinable and un- changeable effects, and they would have the pupils left free to feel these eflPects; they would have a broad system of election in which the man could do what y 350 THE LIBERAL CLUB he felt to be to his taste, in which he would not be so overburdened with work which would prevent him from taking his part in athletics and society and would make him in these years a citizen of the world, inspiring and widening him in such a way as to be able to resist the narrowing tendencies of profes- sional and commercial life. Now, this view also is attractive; perhaps it has more basis of truth than either of the others, but when you come to leave a boy perfectly free thus to work out his own sweet will you get too often not inspiration, but dissipation. He goes to college, you do not tell him what he is going for, he never finds out. He is like the unfortunate Mr. Hyde at a funeral. You know the rhyme: "There was a young fellow named Hyde, At a funeral once he was spied, \ When asked who was dead, he giggled and said, *I dunno, I just came for the ride.'" (Laughter.) He does not even know what he has been sent to college for. He takes what comes, Micawber-like, and just about as much comes to him as to Mr. Micawber. Now, can we find among these different ideas, can we find any conception of the general purposes of the colleges which shall take what is good in all of them, which shall avoid, as far as possible, what is evil in them, and which we may be able in our efforts at col- lege reform to hold in sight as a goal .? I think we can, and though I do not not believe we are yet in a COLLEGE EDUCATION 351 position narrowly to define what we should do in the future, I think we can pretty well define the lines on which we must work. What shall we take as from the conception of the man whose belief is that the college should furnish a range of knowledge which shall prepare the student for the various things that may array him as an edu- cated man 'mid a world of educated men ? I think we may take this: we should give the stu- dent not acquisition of as many kinds of knowledge as possible, but training in as many kinds of power as possible; that we should teach him to do things; not to know specific facts, but to handle methods in such a way that when the facts are wanted he can get them. I spoke a few moments ago of the truth that mere knowledge is speedily forgotten, but training of hand and brain, training in the methods of acquiring knowledge, remains. The man who learns the con- tents of a book containing a series of propositions for- gets it; the man who learns the use of a book as an instrument, if he is really taught, does not forget it. One book that you have learned to use is worth more than fifty books which in succession you have learned by heart. That was the stength of our fore- fathers who knew no book but the Bible and in virtue of knowing the use of that one book con- quered a continent. That was the use of the old classical education. A man who has had more ex- perience perhaps than any one man in the country in the practical operation of railroads and in training 352 THE LIBERAL CLUB men for positions, the man who was the founder of the Altoona shopsof the Pennsylvania Railroad and is now in a high position in the executive of the road, told me that he would rather have a man who knew how \ to find what he wanted in a Latin dictionary quickly than a man who knew half the propositions in all the books of natural science in the world. The proposi- tions in the books of natural science will change. The habit of finding what you want in any place will serve you instead in finding something new which you want in some other place. That, I say, was the merit of the classical education, that it taught you the use of a thing. Its demerit was that it taught you the use of only a few things. We shall make a step backward if we substitute for the classical train- ing a cram on a broad variety of lines; we shall make a step forward if we can substitute for it a similar training on a larger variety of lines. How we can do that is not so easy to tell. This is one of those cases where it is easier to criticise than it is to con- struct. But I believe if we have the understanding of the fact that the learning of English is not the learning of the facts about English literature, that the learning of science is not the knowledge of individual propositions in the science, we can leave learning to the educators of the future, by their developments not merely of classical training, but of modern training and of manual training, for as long as manual training is not allowed to degenerate into shop-work, but be- comes laboratory work, as long as the pupil values COLLEGE EDUCATION 36t not the thing that he does but the accuracy of doing it, we have in this a most hopeful element in the secondary education of the future. "More kinds of power" must be our watchword if we are to resist the demand, the ill-judged demand, for more kinds of knowledge. And what of the second demand, the demand for earlier technical training ? The answer to this I have already foreshadowed. I do not believe that the college can advantageously be a vestibule for the professional school, but I be- lieve that it can, most advantageously, under the operation of the elective system, be a means by which the student shall find what profession and what technical school he is fitted for. We have among our students three or four distinct classes of temperament. We have the man of ob- servation, who is interested in science, from whom is made the engineer or the physician, according as he is or is not competent to handle mathematics, according as his balance of interest lies on one side or the other. We have the logical man, the man of books and ideas, who is interested in the communi- cation of propositions, who is fitted to be a teacher, who is fitted for one large side of the work of the lawyer, the journalist or the minister. And we have the man of affairs, who is fitted to be a man of business or a politician and who also can go into the work of the lawyer, the journalist or the engineer from an- other side. 23 364 THE LIBERAL CLUB There is a fourth temperament besides this, — the artistic temperament, but this temperament is so rare and the chance of making a mistake and thinking ^ you have it when you are only lazy is so great (laughter) that it is, on the whole, wise to encourage the student who has the artistic temperament to beHeve that he has the scientific temperament until he has shown unmistakably that he belongs to the class of geniuses. Now, I regard the elective system, when rightly applied and wisely used, as an invaluable feature, and, by the way, I may say that with the students in our colleges, earnest as they are, there is a readiness to take advice about the elective system and to use it rightly, not for "soft snaps" and easy choices, but for an actually serious preparation for future work. That makes it possible, if the adviser knows what he has in mind, to guide the student to a right use of it; it is possible, under the elective system I say, for the pupil so to arrange his courses on different lines that he shall know to which of these groups his tem- perament belongs and where he is best placed; to teach the student who wants to be a minister and ought to be a farmer, or to teach the student who expects to be a farmer and ought to be a minister, in either case, the error of his judgment while he is yet within the stage of secondary education, and can, without much loss, revoke his mistakes, rather than to have him learn that same thing after he has com- pleted his techincal training and gone out into the world, married and has three or four children and COLLEGE EDUCATION 356 can't change at all. This, it seems to me, is the sphere of the introduction of the preliminary tech- nical training in the college course, to show the stu- dent which class he belongs to and what he is fitted for. And, finally, with regard to the analogy of the university to foreign travel, with regard to that con- ception which would make it teach a man to see things larger than himself and to get into general relations to society. I believe that in the college, as distinct from the technical schools of the university and in those parts of the technical schools which are collegiate rather than technical in their work — for every scientific school has its collegiate as well as its technical part — I believe that this represents the noblest function of all. But it is not to be performed by letting the student alone. You cannot let down the bars of the pasture and tell the student to go in and take what grass best suits him and occasionally lift his head up, as a cow might, and contemplate how large the pasture is. Nothing will be done in that way. You must have collective influences at work in the college that, in books and in action and in society, will bring the student outside of himself, will educate him to an understanding of the largeness of the world in which he lives, will lead him to see that the importance of commerce and politics is not what he can get out of it in dollars and cents, but in the size of the world which he can move and in the in- fluence which he can have in doing for others. -/ 366 THE LIBERAL CLUB If I were asked what among the many services of the colleges at the present day was the most impor- tant, I should reply, their training in public spirit as distinct from the spirit of individual self-seeking. For that reason we may, I think, deprecate the spirit of reform which would too rapidly introduce utilitar- ian studies, whose interest is measured by the demands of the present day, for historical studies which teach us to judge the movements of that present by a meas- ure larger than the span of our own individual life. In the whole course, as it appears in the books, the effort should be to use literature and history and science not as a means of making money — that will come soon enough in the technical education — but as inspirations, to teach the student that money is not everything Far be it from me to deprecate these uses of money. As a political economist, I have seen only too well how money and the making of money is one of the most powerful levers in human progress, perhaps the mightiest means ever devised for making the interest of the individual subserve the interest of society. But let us not teach the student to con- found the means, however important, with the end, or to believe because by advancing himself he ad- vances others, that therefore others were created in order that he himself might be advanced. And in all this usefulness of the college course, the whole social organization and the whole athletic or- ganization may be made to co-operate. There is hardly a tradition in any healthy and well ordered COLLEGE EDUCATION 367 place of education, which does not tend to lead a man outside of himself, which does not teach him that life is to be valued from what he puts into it and does for others, rather than from what he gets out of others to appropriate for himself. Historic tradition, literary ideal, scientific discovery, athletic achieve- ment on the ball-field or the river, social organization and social life of the student's fellows, can, as every- one who has had the fortune to know inspiring teach- ers and inspiring companionship, be made to sub- serve for this common end of education in public spirit, of that broad education which shall make the members of our community fitted to be citizens of a true democracy because they will go into the govern- ment of that democrary not as a gain, out of which they can get what they can, but as a trust to be ad- ministered for their fellow-men (applause). iffrst Dinner, 'november 18, 1902. THE DUTIES OF THE NEW CENTURY. REV. EDWARD EVERETT HALE. President Henry W. Sprague spoke as follows: Our Dear and Honored Guest has undertaken to speak to us of the Duties of the New Century. That is a great topic and we are entitled to know what manner of man this is who speaks to us on such an important and far-reaching theme. That man is pretty well known to you now, ladies and gentlemen, but I want to read to you some words that have been said about him recently on a very important occasion. These are the words of Senator Hoar: "If I try to say all that is in my heart to- night I do not know where to begin. If I try to say all that is in your hearts or the hearts of his countrymen, I do not know where to leave off. Yet I can only say what everybody here is silently saying to himself. When one of your kindred or neighbors comes to be eighty years old, after a useful and honorable life, especially if he be still in the vigor of manly strength, his eye not dimmed nor his natural force abated, his children and friends like to gather at his dwelling in his honor and tell him the story of their gratitude and love. They do not care about THE DUTIES OF THE NEW CENTURY 359 words. It is enough if there be a pressure of the hand and a kindly and loving glance of the eye. That is all we can do now, but the trouble is to know how to do it. When a man's friends and lovers and spiritual children are to be counted by the million — I suppose if all the people in this country, and indeed in all the quarters of the globe who would Hke to tell their grati- tude to Dr. Hale would come together to do it, Boston Common would not hold them. I have never known anybody in my long life who seemed to me to be joined by the heartstrings to so many men and women wherever he goes, as Dr. Hale. Dr. Hale has done a good many things in his own matchless fashion. He would have left a remarkable name and fame be- hind him if he had been nothing but a student and narrator of history as he has studied and told it; if he had been nothing but a writer of fiction, the author of *The Man Without a Country,' or 'Ten Times One is Ten,' or *In His Name;' if he had done noth- ing but organize the lend-a-hand clubs now founded in the four quarters of the globe; if he had been noth- ing but an eloquent Christian preacher; if he had been nothing but a beloved pastor, if he had been only a voice which lifted to Heaven in prayer the souls of great congregations; if he had been only a public- spirited citizen, active and powerful in every good work and word for the benefit of the people; if he had been only the man who devised the plan that might have saved Texas from slavery and thereby pre- vented the Civil War, and which did thereafter save 360 THE LIBERAL CLUB Kansas; if he had been only remembered as the spirit- ual friend and comforter of large numbers of men and women who were desolate and stricken by poverty and sorrow; if he had been only a zealous lover of his country, comprehending, as closely as any other man has comprehended, the true spirit of the American people; — if he had been any one of these things, as he has been, it would be enough to satisfy the most gen- erous aspiration of any man, enough to make his life worth living for himself and his race. And yet, and yet, I do not exaggerate one particle when I say that Dr. Hale has been all these and more. (Applause.) This prophet is honored in his own country. There will be a place found for him somewhere in the house of many mansions. I do not know what will be the employment of our dear friend in the world whose messages he has been bringing to us so long; but I like to think he will be sent on some errands like that of the presence which came to Ben Adhem, with a great awakening light, rich and like a lily in bloom, to tell him that the name of him who loved his fellow- men led all the names of those whom the love of God had blessed." (Applause.) This then is the character of the man who is to speak to us to-night. Nothing can be added to praise like this. It is indeed a great privilege to hear the voice of prophecy of this man who for eighty years lived in the old century, lived so close to it, was so identified with all the great movements, all the great thought and all the great aspirations of that THE DUTIES OF THE NEW CENTURY 361 century, and who now, with youthful feeling and en- thusiasm, with freshness of spirit, turns his face for- ward and not backward, to the coming century, and will tell us to-night what will be its hopes and ideals, what will be its purposes, and what we should do to aid in the great work of the era that is just upon us. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Dr. Hale. (Applause.) Rev. Edward Everett Hale then addressed the club as follows: I am sure all of you will understand that the words which have just been read are the exaggerated words of a very, very dear friend, perhaps my dearest friend, and you know what allowance is to be made for the exaggeration of tender friendship. It is perfectly true that my memories run back half way to the period when the Boston school boys coasted in front of the headquarters of Gen. Haldimand and when he spoiled their coast for them. I heard that story told by one of the survivors of the delegation that waited upon the general. You may take me as a half-way man, half way between George III and Theodore Roosevelt. (Laughter). I should like to say a word before I launch on my subject,which shall show in a little way what a century is good for. In 1798 — I think that was the year, there was a young French gentleman in this country on his travels. His father had had his head cut off and he was here so that his head need not be cut off. He was afterwards known as King Louis Philippe, 362 THE LIBERAL CLUB King of the French, of whom Sir Robert Peel passed the rather half way eulogy when he died. Peel said in the House of Commons that King Louis Philippe, who had just died, was the greatest sovereign who ever sat on the throne of France since the fall of Napoleon. (Laughter.) That is one of these half way sort of compliments that good men have to give to other ones. This young Duke of Orleans — I believed they called him Duke of Orleans over here — he came out to see Niagara and as he rode back with his attendants, all of them on horseback — nobody thought of going any other way — met a young EngHshman, and these young gentlemen, somewhere around here on the prairies — he had his troop, two or three horsemen, around here somewhere — some one stopped him — says, "You are going to the Falls .?" He said he was. "Well," said he, " I have stopped at the house that there is there, and the man he is not good-natured and if I were you I wouldn't go in there, I would pitch my tent outside.'* And the Englishman thanked him and said he would. That house, Mr. President, was the City of Buffalo. Its hospitalities were not so well-known then as they are now. I am afraid if they had had to furnish this bill of fare they would not have succeeded very well. He went on, this English gentleman, went on, and came up to the Falls and spent a day and night there, pitched his tent as he was told to and came back again, and forty-three years after, when he was Lord Ashburton, he was in Washington on the business of the Ash- THE DUTIES OF THE NEW CENTURY 363 burton-Webster Treaty: my father was one of Mr. Webster's friends who was there to advise him about the boundary Hne, and Lord Ashburton told him the story. At that time the Falls of Niagara repre- sented: the Falls of Niagara one, Mr. Thomas Baring two, and the three men that took care of his horses, four, five and six. Just a hundred years after, I was at the Falls of Niagara and my excellent friend Mr. Stillman, whom I think some of you know, a most charming, accomplished engineer, was showing me around. It turned out in the course of the conversa- tion that the power house which we were in would work just as well if nobody was there as if anybody was there; that the six men who were in it were ornamental sort of people and that the windows might be shut, but they were afraid some boy might smash a window and a cat might get in and the cat might make a row; so there were six men detailed to keep the power house running, and it turned out that that power house was manufacturing — that was the little one; that was manufacturing only 20,000 horse- power a day and the big one was manufacturing 30,- 000 horse-power again, and Mr. Baring's horse was one horse and the other three horses picketed outside were four horses, and they would have struck if you had expected them to work more than ten hours a day. So that you had the contrast, I had the con- trast, as I was in that place, of the difference between four men and four horses in 1798, and 50,000 horse- power twenty-four hours a day in 1901. Well I put it 364 THE LIBERAL CLUB in my pipe and I smoked it. It affected me a good deal and I began looking around to compare the man of 1901 against the man of 1801. Well, you take this instance: We have a census of the steam engines in the United States in 1801. There were five steam engines in the United States at that time, and the largest of them had not the pov^er equal to the smallest of the locomotives which we have been hearing whistling since we sat here to-night. Some of you know how many hundred steam engines there are within half a mile of my voice to-night. I don't know. Certainly there are a good many more than five. So that, preaching in Washington early in the new century, I said — and that is the text of my speech to-night — I said that the average power of a man in Buffalo say, or in Washington or Philadelphia, or in any decent city in the United States, the aver- age power which that man controls, which the average man controls, is a thousand times as large as the power of the man a hundred years before. Everyone of us in this room, is, for practical purposes, a thou- sand times as strong as his grandfather or his grand- father's father was. I said that in a sermon pretty much as I say it here. I had the great good fortune of having among my hearers one of the coming men, if he has not come, the secretary of the great Com- mission which is at work at Scranton at this moment, Carroll Wright, — if anybody knows anything about such things Carroll Wright does, the head of the Labor THE DUTIES OF THE NEW CENTURY 365 Commission, you know, and studying things for years. I got a note from Wright the next morning, in which he said "Was that a rhetorical phrase of yours when you said a thousand men ? I thought you spoke as of somebody who knew about it." Well, I said in reply that I had given a little attention to it as far as I could, and I named for him six instances. I named this one of Mr. Baring and Philippe for one, and three or four more, five or six more, and I got a nice note from him — I wish I had it here now. He said, "Mr. Hale, I have submitted your note to the heads of departments in our bureau. They are all interested in the calculation and I am instructed to say that wherever you can, you may say that the average man is now a thousand times as strong as he was in 1801." So that I do not speak as a person coming over here from Boston to talk rhetoric to you; I am going to speak on the text of the Chief of Labor, the man that knows more about it than all the rest of us here do put together, and he says that I may say that each of us is a thousand times as strong as his great grandfather was in 1801. Now what are you going to do ? That is the great question. Here we are, a lot of giants going about with these deaf and dumb people behind us who can only scream when we tell them to scream and cannot scream when we don't. What are we going to do with them ? In other words what is this Twentieth Century going to achieve which the Nineteenth Century has not achieved ? You know we think of 366 THE LIBERAL CLUB you here as half Canadians, we speak of your speech as a little "Oh, yaas" and that you get a little bit of the British accent. So that I, like Dawson, who was the head of The American Physicist when he died, and the head of the McGill College at Montreal, I heard him say on a public occasion, when he was measuring his words, I heard him say, "What will the future say of us who are closing the Nineteenth Century, what will they say of the men between 1875 and 1900?" And then Dawson said, and he knew, " They will say, ' Who were these creatures who , having wrought out all the formulas, having got to the bottom of all nature's secrets, who understood all the princi- ples involved in all the natural laws, stood still and were afraid to use them, sat upon the beach and looked at the ocean and didn't dare swim in ?'" He said, "Why, these creatures, they are satisfied with the electric telegraph, they are satisfied with the tele- phone, they are satisfied with the steam engine, they are satisfied with the microphone; they are not going to use the transcendent powers that God has given them." That is what the first physicist in America said over to me, — that we were a lot of dis- satisfied, timid, cowardly creatures that would not use the power that God Almighty had put into our hands. I was talking with George Morrison six months ago; he is the king of the British engineers, you know, first engineer of the country they call him. Morrison told me that when a steamship sails from New York City THE DUTIES OF THE NEW CENTURY 367 on Saturday and arrives in Liverpool the next Friday she develops more power than Cheops had at hand to build the Great Pyramid. When I was a boy — that isn't long ago — the Great Pyramid was called one of the seven wonders of the world. I wrote a note to Long at once. He was Secretary of the Navy at the time. I told him to send sixteen cruisers around into Annapolis Bay and tell the men instead of holding the deck, to occupy six days in building sixteen pyra- mids up there in memory of the Spanish War. (Laughter.) That is the sort of power we are hand- ling, and I have undertaken to-night — it is a very small contract — to tell you what we ought to do with it in these thousand years that are before us. Mean- while God Almighty has been teaching us a good many things which the people in 1800 did not know. People in 1800 really thought they were children of the devil; they thought they were children of wrath; they thought nineteen twentieths of them were going to be damned in everlasting fire. And the people in 1901 know that that is not true. They know that we are all children of God, that we are at work with God and God is at work with us. They begin to know what the phrase "Children of God" means — sharing his nature. Now, what are we going to do with it .? We are going to do five things, and I shall speak of each of them. I have looked at my watch and have asked the chairman how long I shall speak and I shall subdivide it into segments accordingly. We are going to do five things. You men in this 368 THE LIBERAL CLUB room will have to take the working oar of the first and Joe Chamberlain and his kit will have to take the working oar of the second and the heir of Cecil Rhodes, whoever he is, will take the working oar of the third; but the first is, we are going to have a four-track railway extending from Hudson's Bay to Magellan's Straits, of the best possible equipment. It is to be the Pan-American Railway, and you gen- tlemen did more than you knew you did towards that when you founded your magnificent Pan-American Exposition here. (Applause). And it is not to be built for private profit; private profit will be an in- significant element in the work of the Twentieth Century. "All for each and each for all" is the motto of the twentieth century. (Applause). It is not to be built for private profit, but is to be built for the good of the whole, — a four-track railway of the best equipment from the southern end of Hud- son's Bay to Magellan's Straits. Second, a similar railway from Hamburg or St. Petersburg, or both, to the Pacific. It is only five or six thousand miles across. And that will be run in the same way, — and will be built. And I will tell you where the money is coming from when I am done. Will be built by Joe Chamberlain and the Emperor of Germany and a few other little fellows. That will be their contribu- tion. There will be a branch down to Odessa, four- track branch. And from Cairo to the Cape. That was Cecil Rhodes's. Why are these railways essen- tial ? That is the real point of the duty of the twen- THE DUTIES OF THE NEW CENTURY 369 tieth century. Why are they essential ? Because now nation and nation are not knit together; nations turn their backs upon each other. Because now class and class are not knit together; because now race and race are not knit together. Now, the mean- ing of this world is that it shall be one world of one blood, all the races of mankind. That is Paul's phrase, and a very good one. One blood, all races of mankind; that they all may be one, "as Thou, Father art in me and I in Thee," that they may be perfected into one, — that is the prayer of the Savior of the World when he was dying. And this whole world is to be made one world in the twentieth century and not half a dozen different worlds as it is now, and that can only be done by this system of inter-state and international communication, to be run, not for the benefit of this man, of this corporation, of this State of New York, of this United States, but by one for the benefit of the whole. I should like to be per- mitted to have my five minutes' allowance in speaking of the Pan-American road, for instance. How does it aflPect us in this room ? I am speaking in this room now to — certainly a tenth of the people hearing me have been to Europe in the last twenty years, many of you have lived in European cities, a great many of you can speak French and can speak Italian and can speak German, your wives and your daugh- ters have heard music in Dresden and other cities; how many of those gentlemen are there in this room, how many of those ladies are there who have been in 24 370 THE LIBERAL CLUB the City of Mexico; how many of you have been in Lima for the winter; how many of you have been in Bogota for the winter ? You know the Alps, you know parts of the Alps, — this man has been over that pass, that man has been over that pass, and that pass, and another; how many men know the passes of the Andes — so much superior in grandeur ? One hundred, fifty men in this room know the Falls of SchafFhausen — an insignificant little cataract as compared with the water-falls in South America. Those are instances that show that we do not know anything about these fifteen states with whom you allied us and the world in your great exposition here. And if I were to say to-morrow at a dinner, if I were to ask what did they do down at the Mexican Con- gress last fall when sixteen nations met together there, I am afraid that half the company would not know there was any Mexican Congress — and I am afraid two-thirds of them would not know what they did or what they did not do. Yet there was a con- gress in Mexico which brought sixteen nations into the confederacy of twenty-four nations existing before, so that now — twenty-four and sixteen are forty nations are knit into one under the bonds of the Hague conference and that because the Pan-American Congress sat in the City of Mexico. I think we might carry it a little into detail. You are here only 501 miles from the seaboard at Boston, as I am told when I buy my tickets. Now about salt-bathing and salt water; up at the north there, within 600 THE DUTIES OF THE NEW CENTURY 371 miles of us as the bird flies there is a bay, has beau- tiful beaches; it is not so far off from Buffalo as Bar Harbor is, where some of those ladies went last sum- mer to see what the styles were; it is not so far as Mil- waukee, Mr. Sprague; and that is called James Bay, the southern point of Hudson's Bay. There is rail- road communication more than half way there now and I am told my Toronto friends are getting through a railroad that is going all the way there. Suppose fifty of us agree here now that we will meet on the lOth of June next at James Bay and that we will hire the Hudson Bay steamer to take us down to Fort Church- ill and spend six or eight weeks there reading our Buffalo Commercial at 12 o'clock at night or playing ping-pong at 12 o'clock at night and not needing any light but the light of the sun! Let us start on such an enterprise as that to see what the northern end of the Pan-American Railway means and to see how far we should like to have a little excursion in that direction and then ask whether or not it would not be a nice thing when December comes around and the days are so awfully short as they are begin- ning to be now, and run down and go into a fine hotel which the Cape Alma people have opened down there recently at latitude 45 or 50, so that we could see the sun at midnight there; how much we should enlarge our lives if we would go loyally into this en- terprise for the bringing of all sorts and conditions of men together! Just now as we sat here at the table, I was asked how a certain great problem is to be 372 THE LIBERAL CLUB solved. One way is, easy communication between the north and the south. If our friends in Alabama do not want the black man or the mulatto at work there, there are plenty of people in this world that do want him at work. And I will close this part of my speech by just an allusion to the Valley of the Amazon ; the Valley of the Amazon, one of the first-discovered valleys of America. An English writer, not a crank, not a fool, but a careful student, declares to us that the civilization of the world of the future is to be around the Valley of the Amazon. As the civiliza- tion of the world was once around Athens and the iEgean Sea, as the civilization of the world was then around Rome and the Mediterranean, as the civiliza- tion of the world has been around London and Paris, this writer says the civilization of the world is to be around the valley of the Amazon; that we are going to live somewhere where we do not have to wear sheep-skins and goat-skins as we do here; that we are going to live somewhere where we shall not be de- pendent upon anthracite barons or anthracite labor- ers as we are here; that we are going to live somewhere where the good God of Heaven sends us light and heat every day, as much of it as we want or as little of it as we want, where you and I laugh and say *what fools these Englishmen are. Nobody is going there.' Suppose we should go back to 1803. There was one man of sense belonging in America then and he happened to find himself in Paris and his name was Robert Livingston and he was a New Yorker — I THE DUTIES OF THE NEW CENTURY 373 should think you would be proud of that — and one fine morning a man named Napoleon sent over to him and said, "I want to give you the Province of Louisiana; I want to give you all our claim on the Valley of the Mississippi," and Livingston says: "What is its use?" "You shall have to pay me a nominal price of fifteen million dollars." Livingston said, "It's a bargain." And we owe to that moment of Livingston's proud decision the fact that America is America today. Mr. Livingston knew that Jefferson wouldn't throw him overboard in a minute, as he would have done if he had dared; Livingston knew that Jefferson believed he did not have constitutional power to buy it, and he hadn't; Jefferson knew till he died that he did not have constitutional power. But Livingston was a New Yorker, an energetic New Yorker, a man who dared to look in the future; and he said, "It's a bargain," and Napoleon was held, and Napoleon said, "I have given England a mari- time rival that will sooner or later humble her pride," and Livingston wrote home to Jefferson and he said, "I know the price is enormous, but I have found people who will take it all off ouif hands and leave us the city of Orleans and the mouth of the Mississippi which is all we want. I know the price is enormous, but I have assured them that we won't send one im- migrant across the Mississippi in lOO years." That is what the wisest man in America said to the Presi- dent of America in 1803, "I have assured them that we will not send a man across the Mississippi in 100 374 THE LIBERAL CLUB years." Suppose instead of that, that Mr. Livingston had been a prophet Uke our friend the EngHsh author of whom I spoke just now ? Suppose he had said, " Before a hundred years are over there will be a city of two millions of people within 150 miles of this Mississippi River; the City of New Orleans will be thus and so; the City of St. Louis will be thus and so before 100 years are over that valley will have edu- cated a set of statesmen, before 100 years are over that valley will have educated a set of scholars, a set of soldiers, who will re-write the history of the world." Suppose he had made a prophecy of what the Valley of the Mississippi is today; how many of us now would say that Livingston was a crank .? That is the prophecy which is made to us of the Valley of the Amazon today; that the center of the civilization of the world, before the year 2002, is going to be in the valley of the Amazon. I don't say that it is so, but I say we have no more right to call a man a crank that says so than we should have had a right to have called Livingston a crank that day. The truth is thatVhat the world needs is an easier passage from place to place for its people. God Almighty has been pleased to place in Western Ark- ansas and beyond some of the finest lands in the world which answer to the sower with a larger meas- ure of harvest than any other, and you and I may travel three hundred miles from north to south through that region and we may see once an hour THE DUTIES OF THE NEW CENTURY 375 a smoke or a tank of water and that is all, and here is Mr. Bevington, here is Mr. Brown, here is Mr. Wright, here is Mr. Pritchard, here am I, put into great cities where we are trying to keep pure the morals of people who are crowded together at the rate of a thousand people to the acre. Do you tell me that God Al- mighty ever meant any such thing ? Not He. That is a piece of what people used to call deviltry, and that has got to be broken up by the arrangement which shall make it easy for the crowded tenement house of New York to discharge itself upon the fertile prairies of Arkansas. It shall make it easier for the oppressed black man in Alabama to settle himself in those waiting, empty valleys of the Amazon. Back and forth, back and forth the shuttle must fly and the civilization of the world is advanced as the shuttle flies. That is what we have got to do here, what you gentlemen have got to do here. I shall sit by and play on the pipe and be glad to see you do it. We have got to make a four-track railway between the Hudson Bay and the Straits of Magellan. Precisely in the same way, and I won't go into details, because that is not our part of the contract; precisely in the same way must Europe and Asia do the work which shall unite the western parts of the crowded European hemisphere with Asia and throw those people into the eastern part of that hemisphere, and I ought to say — yes, I do say — that the misery of China will be relieved in just the same way when you permit those Chinese people, crowded together as they are, to go 376 THE LIBERAL CLUB up on the immense wheat-raising districts of Siberia — rival to Manitoba — if only you would give them the chance which we are giving in Manitoba. That work has got to be done in Europe with, as I said just now, working branches down into Odessa and to the south. And in Africa — great Heaven, if they had had the wit to consider it five years ago this bar- barism and misery of the last years in the Cape would have all been over. Mr. Joe Chamberlain, the alpha of the nineteenth century, as I like to call him, would be spared the mission of love which he is undertaking to do with his dear wife to try to heal up the wounds which he himself has made; we should have South Africa in different condition from what it is now. There are three physical enterprises on which the world is committed — all for each and each for all — and now we here, anybody that speaks as I speak is called a crank and a fool, and why .? Mr. Booker Washington told you last night. Mr. Booker Wash- ington is telling somebody the same question to- night. It is because you have this question of race open before you and there is not a man in this room who dares say how that question is to be answered. All we can say is that there is a good God, that we are children of the Good God, that we are made in His nature and that what He does we can do; that we can ally ourselves to Him and that our hope is in Him; but the great duty before the American citizen of this hour is the reconciliation of the races; that this THE DUTIES OF THE NEW CENTURY 377 Anglo-Saxon race which knows how to rule so well, may be tamed and tempered in its ambitions and its audacities; that this black race which has so often shown itself tender, gentle, forgiving, which has shown itself, shall I say, to have a certain mastery in the fine arts, in music, of which we Anglo-Saxons cannot boast, that it shall contribute its share in a higher civilization. And if our red friends — there are not a great many of them; you had about half of them, I believe, at the exposition here last year, — if they should manage to teach us Anglo-Saxons how to live out of doors and how to tell the truth — I be- lieve that is one of their maxims — they would give us something; and really, although we do not believe much in Chinamen if we are on the other side of the Rocky Mountains, I never meet a man who has really known a pure-minded Chinaman but thought that the yellow race had something for us. The communion of the races, the bringing of the races to bear each other's burdens, the work which is begun at Hampton, at Tuskeegee, at Calhoun, at the Tenne- see School, if we can carry that to its twentieth power we have some chance, and that will be carried further and further by these very physical enterprises which must redeem Africa and Asia and Europe and Amer- ica altogether. Well, of course, before I have advanced halfway in what I have been saying, everybody has said, ^'Yes, but this man is a fool because he supposes that the nations are going to harmonize with each other in 378 THE LIBERAL CLUB this fashion instead of cutting each other's throats." Yes, this cannot be done if the nations cut each other's throats, that is true. Still there are some great examples there. I cannot help remembering that I should not have that woollen coat on my arm, should not have this linen shirt on here but that all Europe was at peace for two hundred years after Trajan's time, when the woollen coat was brought into Western Europe and the linen was brought in there — roses, peaches, candles, this table-cloth, everything the result of Europe at peace between the year 60 and the year 260. It wasn't necessary for people to cut their throats then. The great duty of the century, — I might have made my whole speech about it perhaps to advantage — is to see that nation does not make war against nation and that men need study arms no more. The great victory of the last century was the victory at the Hague, where they came together, eighty of the first men of the world, not the men of newspapers, not the men of cyclo- pedias, not the men of epaulets, but the foremost statesmen who had been working over the treaties of Europe and this diplomacy, those men came to- gether, — came together, by the way, absolutely hope- less — when the Hague conference met, the great body of people were absolutely hopeless of bringing anything to pass. But they had the great fortune of having among them a few leaders who were abso- lutely determined that something should come to pass, and, among ourselves privately I would say THE DUTIES OF THE NEW CENTURY 379 that they had the great good fortune to have the bar of the State of New York, led by such gentlemen as — well, Mr. Depew of whom some of you have heard, led by such gentlemen as Grover Cleveland of whom some of you have heard, led by such gentlemen as my friend Mr. Rogers here of whom some of you have heard; the Bar of New York had three years before this made its scheme for an international court which should hear the contests arising between all civilized nations, the first scheme put on paper by lawyers for that purpose, and they had at The Hague that scheme as the model on which to start the work, and your Andrew White and your Seth Low and your Frederick House, three New Yorkers, were in that delegation, and speaking perfectly reverently those men said, "As God lives, something shall come through here;" and in the English delegation they had our friend Lord Pauncefote, they had two or three gentlemen whom I need not here name; and in the Russian delegation they had Martens, I don't think the name is much known here, but they call him in Europe the chief justice of Christendom; Mar- tens has sat, I believe, at twenty-eight different arbi- tration courts as the one man selected by the different arbitrators to hold the balance; twenty-eight times has he made decisions which have resulted in peace in- stead of war, so over there they call him the chief justice of Christendom; and they had, as Mr. Mac- Veagh said the other day, they had God on their side; that is an important ally; and those men, with the 380 THE LIBERAL CLUB assistance of the good God, hammered away and pegged away so that we got the Hague conference and we got the court of tribunal before which the nations of the world could bring their questions for discussion. Well, then they began laughing at us. They said, "Why don't they appear?" "Why don't they appear ?" I am speaking, I dare say, to judges of the Supreme Court in New York who have at- tended at courts where nobody appeared. I know that for the first nine sessions of the Supreme Court of the United States, for two years and a quarter, nobody appeared with a case between state and state; the court met and adjourned and met and adjourned and met and adjourned, it was two years and three months before the Supreme Court of the United States heard a case; — and in less than three years we had the honor and our sister republic of Mexico had the honor of bringing the Pious Fund Claim before the Supreme Court of Nations. I am speaking to a great many intelligent gentlemen; I know something of it myself; and I venture to say that nobody in this room knows what the Pious Fund Claim was and nobody knows how it was decided, but we do know that it was decided and is off the books forever. (Ap- plause). And the next thing that is on them is the poor Chinese Emperor's needs — the Chinese Em- peror who was the only person of all the nations rep- resented who declined to accede to the Hague Tri- bunal, — is now the person on his knees requesting the Hague Tribunal to hear his case and to decide it. THE DUTIES OF THE NEW CENTURY 381 That is the advance which has been made. And now, for the century before us, that might be said to be the great duty, it is the duty of peace among the na- tions. Mr friend, Mr. Percival Lowell, and some of you gentlemen know the gentlemen in California and in Geneva who with our great telescopes are bringing the gospel to us of the planet Mars, the red planet, the planet of war, red because it was a red desert a hundred years ago, but no longer red — do you know that } — not so much red as it was; the inhabi- tants of the planet Mars at work, each for all and all for each, have been building the gigantic water-ways which carry down the snows as they melt from its Arctic and its Antarctic, to fertilize and to make green the red Saharas of the central parts of the planet. They haven't learned in Mars, they don't know every- thing, but they have learned how nation shall not make war against nation and that men need study arms no more. And if any gentleman asked in his mind how Dr. Hale and the prophets of the new cen- tury mean to pay for the four-track railways and the branches and the rest, we have got our lesson from the planet Mars. I sent the necessary figures to one of the most accomplished civil engineers in this coun- try and I asked him how much my four-track railways would cost thoroughly equipped and with the engines upon them, and it proves that as soon as you will tell me that I may set the engineers at work upon them we can build the railways, the three railways, double- tracked and equip them, for one-half of what it cost 382 THE LIBERAL CLUB the Continent of Europe in 1901 to maintain its military and naval expenses. (Applause.) I shall not have to ask Uncle Sam for a cent; he may throw away his money upon his steel ships as much as he wants to; I shall not have to ask Mr. Joe Chamber- lain or Mr. Balfour for a cent; they may build their fleets to be sold for junk at the end of twenty years if they want to. The Powers of Europe alone spent money enough in the last year on their military and naval expenses, which were not worth that [snap- ping finger] to them as they went by, to pay for my railways twice over. I can have two sets of railways if I can only persuade those sovereigns to cut off their war expenses for a single year. That is where we are going to pay for them. We are not going to make the gentlemen in Buffalo subscribe for the stock with any expectation of dividends. We are going to make the people of the world determine that nation shall not make war against nation and that men need study arms no longer. And I have a right to say, as I sit down, the prospect of these duties for the future is not so dark as twenty years ago it would have seemed, not so dark as ten years ago it would have seemed. The Emperor of Russia may not have been so great a fool as the gentlemen who write the best for you thought twenty years ago. It may be that the man who had read every treaty made in Europe for thirty years knew better what was in those treaties than the persons who had not read a word of them. It may be that when he said, THE DUTIES OF THE NEW CENTURY 383 "This is the time when it will be most possible for the nations of the world to come together and ar- range for a permanent tribunal before which they should settle their disputes," it may be that he knew what he was talking about. At all events from the moment that he spoke that great word, the cause of peace among the nations — and it is now four years ago nearly — has advanced with regular step. And if you and I can persuade ourselves to look for- ward and not backward, if we can persuade ourselves to look up and not down, if we can persuade ourselves to look out and not in, and if we can lend a hand in the great endeavors of the century, the fine duties of the century will be fulfilled at the end of the year 1999. (Applause.) 5anuats 16, 1903. ARE WE WORSE THAN OUR FATHERS? HON. CHARLES EMORY SMITH. It is a great pleasure for me to come here to-night. It is more than a pleasure. I know the high reputa- tion of this club; I know the great array of dis- tinguished men that you have brought to your board, and I esteem it not only a pleasure but a great honor to be invited to be one of that list. Your President has said that if we are worse than our fathers we know whom to hold accountable. The question is not yet answered, and I shall hold the President to his logic by saying that if we are not worse than our fathers then we know also whom to hold accountable. (Laughter.) I went to Michigan last week, upon invitation, to make substantially the talk which I shall make to- night, upon the same theme. There was an irreverent newspaper paragrapher in that town, a paragrapher who evidently had no respect for man or angel — and I broaden his classification so that there can be no mis- take about its including myself (laughter) — and he said, "Mr. Smith comes here to ask *Are we worse than our fathers .?' Never having heard Mr. Smith's father we are unable to answer the question." (Laughter.) If any of you are disposed to put the ARE WE WORSE THAN OUR FATHERS 385 proposition in the same way, let me remind you that there are some here, possibly not many, whose fathers I knew, and it might not be well to pursue the inquiry. (Laughter.) *'Our reverence for the past," said Theodore Parker, "is just in proportion to our ignorance of it. " That is an extreme and extravagant statement. We may not study all the steps and all the motives in the advance of social and civic life; we may not accurately measure all the lights and shadows in the advance of civihzation, but the general judgment of mankind is intelligent and fair, and without professing to weigh all the faults against all the virtues, the general judg- ment upon the men and events of the by-gone days is, in the main, reasonable and just. It is true that the verdict of history is often diverse and contradictory. History fights over again the flaming and strenuous battles of the past. The French historian exalts Napoleon and the English historian debases him. The rich color of romance often fades away under the glaring sunlight of penetrating research. The spirit of historical investigation in our day is far more searching and critical. We have now our true Frank- lin, our true Jefferson, even our true George Washing- ton, and within the last month we have had put forth what purports to be the true history of the American Revolution; and though of these figures the new portraiture may be a little less angelic than the old, it is at the same time a Httle more human. It has been quite the fashion to exalt the lofty virtues of the past 26 386 THE LIBERAL CLUB days in comparison with the assumed degeneracy of our times. We have recently passed through the centennial epoch, a period of centennial celebrations, from Lexington to the Washington Inaugural, com- memorating events w^hich established our independ- ence and made us a nation. It has been a period of patriotic fervor and of glov^ing panegyric and no eulogium which can be passed upon the transcendent importance of those great events in their relation to the political progress of mankind and upon the magestic actors can exceed the truth. The spirit which exalts what we call the heroic age of the Re- public and holds it up for our example and admiration is altogether right, but when it elevates the sires by decrying the sons, and when it exalts the past by be- wailing the present, it is time for a protest. If you tell me of the lofty virtues and illustrious deeds of the early days I answer, "Yes, but look about you and you shall find their match in our own times." If you tell me of the abuses and evils and wrongs of our day, I answer, **Yes, but search the records and you will find them blended even with Revolutionary glories." You shall not exceed me in reverent homage for the great ones gone forever by, but I summon you in turn not to believe that the age in which you live is worse than those which have gone before. We often hear it said that ours is a selfish and speculative era, and that under the influence of this greed public virtue has de- cayed. But this is no new complaint. "Where is virtue now .?" wrote Henry Laurens, president of the ARE WE WORSE THAN OUR FATHERS 387 Continental Congress in 1778, to George Washington, two years after the Declaration of Independence and in the very midst of the Revolutionary War, — "Where is patriotism now, when almost every man turns his thought to gains and pleasures and practices every artifice of Change Alley and Jonathan?" "Jona- than" being the name of a well-known resort of specu- lators in that day. The Revolution had its shadows as well as its splendors. The glories of Monmouth and Saratoga shot athwart a sky of darkness. The Continentals in 1776, and in the succeeding years bore no such proportion, nothing like it,to the fighting population as the Boys in Blue bore in 1861, and the succeeding years. The heroism of Trenton and the patient fortitude of Valley Forge sent their thrilling appeal to wrangling colonies that jarred and clashed even in their common revolt against the British yoke. The great need of the Revolutionary struggle was the adoption of the Articles of Confederation which were in reality the only authority and the only bond of actual union, and yet years went by without their ratification. Most of the colonies utterly neglected and disregarded the requisitions of Congress and New Jersey absolutely refused to obey them. This long delay in the ratification so encouraged Lord North that he declared to Parliament that it might implicitly rely upon the success of the British government. The delay caused the greatest uneasiness and anxiety on the part of our French ally and it undoubtedly greatly prolonged the war. And what was the cause 388 THE LIBERAL CLUB of that delay and discord ? Chiefly the jealousy of the colonies among themselves and their conflict over the division of the v^estern territory, a conflict w^hich was a struggle for territorial aggrandizement and which almost paralized the struggle for inde- pendence. It created such feehng that the ratifica- tion of the Articles of Confederation did not come till six years after the Declaration of Independence, and the result was such that Washington himself said that independence, respectability, consequence before Europe and greatness as a nation all depended on a change. The convention which framed the Constitu- tion of the United States was the grandest assemblage in the history of the world. It contained more of political wisdom and more of lofty inspiration than was ever gathered in any other hall. And it struck out, as Mr. Gladstone said, the greatest piece of con- structive statesmanship in the annals of time. Yet that body, with its almost Divine Wisdom, had its differences, its conflicts, its discord, its weakness. Luther Martin, who was a delegate from Maryland, said that for near a fortnight, **we were on the verge of dissolution, scarce held together by a single hair;" and even Washington himself, who presided over that convention, actually wrote to his friend Hamilton that he repented of having had any part in it and despaired of a favorable conclusion. When, finally, immortal success did crown its labors and the new government was successfully inaugurated, party spirit broke out with a fury which we have never seen equalled in our ARE WE WORSE THAN OUR FATHERS 389 day. For a time the overshadowing authority of Washington held it in check. But during his second term even the supreme influence of Washington v^as unable to quench the fires of party passion and they blazed out with a fury which we have never seen equalled in our times. From the day of the final success of the colonies in 1783, under Washington's leadership, his birthday had always been celebrated as we celebrate it now; but in 1795, while he was still President, in the last year but one of his term, the Houseof Representatives sullenly refused to partici- pate in the observance of that day and put a deliberate afl^ront upon the Father of his Country. We are accustomed to the charge of corruption and fraud, and we often think it belongs peculiarly to our own time but it was as common in the early days of the Republic as now. In the presidential election of 1796 for the choice of Washington's successor, charges of fraud were made and they were established to such an extent as would put the blush today upon any State where there is a pretense of fair elections. We have heard a great outcry in our day upon the charge that men have been called to the Cabinet for their services in improper methods of securing votes for presidential candidates. That charge, I believe, in its later application is entirely unfounded. But what of the past ? In the presidential election of 1800 there was a tie in the Electoral College between Jefferson and Burr. You remember at that time, though the candidates were specifically nominated for President 390 THE LIBERAL CLUB and Vice-President,they were not voted for as Presi- dent and Vice-President in the Electoral College but the candidate having the highest vote v^as declared President, and the one having the next highest vote was declared Vice-President. Jefferson and Burr were the candidates of their party for President,and Vice- President,and it happened that there was a tie between them. That threw the election into the House of Representatives; the vote of New York was vital; New York was then a pivotal State, as we have some- times since heard it called a pivotal State. Burr be- longed to New York. How was Jefferson to beat him on his own ground ? The ten members of New York who were to cast the vote of this State in the House of Representatives were under the dominating in- fluence of Edward Livingston. Jefferson could not approach that eminent man; no man could improper- ly approach him. But while the contest was still un- decided Jefferson wrote a letter to his brother, Robert Livingston, asking him if he would not like a seat in the Cabinet. Has history ever found any explanation of that curiously-timed inquiry except as a subtle, crafty and not over-scrupulous method of reaching the un- determined vote .? Nor was this all that there was of interest or suggestion in that memorable" contest. The decaying Federal Party, though beaten in the contest for President, before the people, still had con- trol of the House of Representatives and thus had the power to determine whether Jefferson or Burr should be President of the United States. Embittered by its ARE WE WORSE THAN OUR FATHERS 391 defeat the Federal Party was on the point of electing Burr to the Presidency. Until the tie came hehad never been dreamed of, even by his own party, as a candi- date for President; but the Federal Party came near elevating to the Chief Magistracy that crafty, adroit, unscrupulous conspirator who afterwards engaged in sedition against the United States and who became the murderer of the great statesman who was chiefly re- sponsible for his defeat, and it desisted from that pur- pose partly because it made better terms with Jeff"er- son and partly because Alexander Hamilton — to his undying honor be it said — gave his paramount in- fluence for the election of his ancient rival and his re- lentless antagonist. But Hamilton was not without his faults. When he found his party beaten he wrote a letter to John Jay, governor of the State of New York, asking him to convene the legislature in extra session for the purpose of changing the electoral law. The electors of New York were then chosen by the legislature. The old legislature was Federal; the new legislature, chosen in that action, was Republican or Democratic — whichever you please to call Jeffer- son's party (laughter) — and Hamilton asked Gov. Jay to convene the new legislature in extra session in order that it might change the electoral law and arrogate to itself the choice of electors, thus usurping the right lawfully belonging to the new legislature, an act more seditious and revolutionary than any act of any returning board of our time; an act which Gov. Jay, of whom Webster said that when the spotless 392 THE LIBERAL CLUB ermine of the judicial robe fell on John Jay it touched nothing not as spotless as itself, — an act which Gov. Jay rightly refused to entertain. I would not pluck a single leaf from the bright garland of Hamilton's un- rivalled fame; no man can surpass me in admiration of that consummate prodigy of American history, — Hamilton, the public disputatorat 17, the trusty aide of Washington at 20, at 28 almost the master spirit of the convention which framed the Constitution of the United States; at 32 the consummate leader and Secretary of the Treasury who touched the rock of the national resources and the streams of national credit gushed forth; Hamilton, at once soldier, legist financier, orator, statesman and pre-eminent in every realm; I believe, with Chief Justice Marshall, that Hamilton was the greatest man this country has ever seen, always excepting George Washington and per- haps excepting one who came later than Marshall, perhaps also excepting Abraham Lincoln. (Applause). But Hamilton, with all his genius and all his lofty patriotism, was human, as are the statesmen of today. No exceptional political code ruled even what we call the heroic age of the Republic. There were North and South then, as now, with their diverse interests and passions and ambitions. Hamilton, as a part of the great fiscal policy, insisted that the Nation should assume the debts of the States. He was right, because the States had incurred their debts in the creation of the Nation. The North favored his policy; the South opposed it. The two sections ARE WE WORSE THAN OUR FATHERS 393 differed also on the location of the national capital. The North wanted it on the banks of the Susque- hanna; the South wanted it on the banks of the Potomac. How were these differences to be recon- ciled except by the modern method of give-and- take ? — the North winning on the debt policy and the South winning as to the location of the capitol. In that agreement Jefferson concurred with Hamilton. It was about the only thing they ever did agree on, and it was as much a matter of parliamentary leger- demain as any legislative log-rolling of our day on a river-and-harbor bill. We are familiar with the legislative evil known as filibustering. Do we imagine that it is an invention of our own times .? Go back to the Pennsylvania legislature of 1787. It consisted then of one house. It had passed a resolution to adjourn sine die on the 29th of September. The Constitution of the United States had just been completed in that same city of Philadelphia and the transcendant question of the day was whether it should be ratified by the States. On the morning of the 28th of September a resolution was introduced calling a convention in Pennsylvania for the ratification of the Constitution and providing for the election of delegates. While the debate on this resoultion was proceeding and still unfinished, the legislature took a recess for dinner. The opponents of the Constitution and of a convention for its ratifica- tion were in a minority; but the presence of two of them at least was necessary to make a quorum. 394 THE LIBERAL CLUB During the recess, for the purpose of defeating the Constitution and the convention in itself to ratify it, all the members of the minority agreed to remain away. When the legislature reassembled in the after- noon it found itself without a quorum. It sent the sergeant-at-arms to summon the absent members, and with one accord they refused to come and the legislature was compelled to adjourn till the next day for want of a quorum. On the following morning, — which, mind you, was to be the last day of the session the recusancy of the recalcitrant members still con- tinued; they refused to attend. But their recusancy had been noised abroad and the city was deeply excited. The large body of the people assembled and proceeded to the tavern where the members of the minority were gathered together and they took two of them and dragged them violently to the hall of the legislature, thrust them inside, closed and guarded the doors while the legislature proceeded to complete its work. That was a method of securing and counting a quorum and of stopping filibustering which antedated the effective measure of resolute Tom Reed (applause) — of Tom Reed who passed away the other day amid the universal regret of the American people and with a universal tribute to the intellectual genius and to the dauntless courage which had made so deep and last- ing an impress on the parliamentary history of the United States. But mastery in these peculiar political arts was not limited to the Keystone State. BrilHant rivals were ARE WE WORSE THAN OUR FATHERS 395 found in the virtuous domain of the old Bay State. If Pennsylvania v^as the bold discoverer of filibuster- ing, Massachusetts v^as the accomplished and artistic inventor of gerrymandering. The state senators of Massachusetts had alv^ays been elected by counties. The general court or legislature had the pow^er, under the constitution, to divide the state into districts, but that pow^er had never been exercised. In 1812 the Jeffersonian Republicans, for the first time, se- cured a majority of both branches of the legislature and also carried the governor; and, in disregard of the uniform practice from the foundation of the state, they proceeded to cut the state up into districts. Some of these districts were fearfully and wonder- fully made; they stfepped over all natural lines; they disregarded not only geography but geometry, since some of them had only one of three dimensions — length without either breadth or thickness. They twisted and turned in every imaginable way in order to secure a majorty. It is related that the artist Stewart going one day to the office of the newspaper known as The Columbian Sentinel saw on the wall a map of one of these eccentric districts; observing its peculiar rambling configuration, he took a pencil and added a head, wings and claws and then turned to the eidtor and said, "There! that will do for a salamander." "Better call it a gerrymander," said the editor. (Laughter.) And how did he happen to hit on that name .? Because the governor who had approved and probably inspired that odious 396 'J'HE LIBERAL CLUB apportionment was none other than Elbridge Gerry, and so this which we know as so great a political offense derived its name from one who was, first, a member of the Continental Congress, then a signer of the Declaration of Independence, then Governor of Massachusetts, then Vice-President of the United States, and undoubtedly — I say it in all sincerity — a distinguished patriot. The poHticians gerryman- dered in that day as the financiers morganize in our day. (Laughter.) But Maryland was not behind Pennsylvania or Massachusetts or New York. If Pennsylvania was the inventor of filibustering and if Massachusetts was the inventor of gerrymandering, Maryland orig- inated and patented a little political device of its own. It borrowed gerrymandering, but not content with that, it proceeded further. The state senators of Maryland were chosen by an electoral college as the President is now chosen by an electoral coHege. In 1816 the Federalists lacked one of getting control of the electoral college of Maryland and so of controlling the Senate. The town of Annapolis was entitled to one elector and it had an Anti-Federalist majority. The Federalists, therefore, determined to secure that elector and gain a majority by importing a number of fictitious voters. A month or so before the election a body of strange laborers appeared in the town os- tensibly looking for work, but there was no job hunt- ing the man at that time except a political job. They remained about, however, apparently unconcerned at ARE WE WORSE THAN OUR FATHERS 397 the want of work, until about a week before the elec- tion the anti-Federalists suspected that some game was up. They penetrated it and fortunately suc- ceeded in baffling the game, but that scheme intro- duced a new chapter of political chicanery. And so if Pennsylvania was the inventor of filibustering and Massachusetts the inventor of gerrymandering, Maryland put its copyright on colonization. If there was any scheme of political art in which our honored and revered fathers were not consum- mate adepts it ought to be caught and labeled as the one missing link in the venerated hall of antiquities. (Applause and laughter.) But the adorations of those days manifested them- selves in some other ways. Robert Morris, who gave his entire private fortune for his country, was allowed to spend his latter days languishing in a debtor's prison. Edmund Randolph, of whom Jefferson said that it was his habit to give his opinions to his friends and his votes to his enemies, was driven out of Wash- ington's Cabinet on charges of public and private dishonor, though it is due to his memory to say that the recent researches of Monsignor Conway have done much to clear his fame. Timothy Pickering and Oliver Wolcott, who were respectively Secretary of State and Secretary of the Treasury in the latter part of Washington's administration and through Adams's, were accused of burning the public records in order to hide the evidence of wrong-doing. A little later the great John C. Calhoun said, when the ad- 398 THE LIBERAL CLUB ministration of John Quincy Adams came in, that it must be beaten at all hazards no matter what its measures — a declaration of wanton partisanship that would bring a storm of condemnation upon any leader bold enough to declare it in our day. The administration of Benjamin Harrison called a Pan- American congress at Washington, with the ap- proval of the American people of all parties, with general applause, but when the administration of Adams took steps toward the somewhat similar Panama congress it provoked a great party conflict and Martin Van Buren, with whose name you are not unfamiliar, then a senator from the State of New York and afterwards President of the United States, publicly said, "Oh, yes, they have beaten us by a few votes, after a hard fight, but if they had only taken the other side and refused the mission, we should have had them." In other words, the opposition was just as ready to take the one side as the other, without regard to the merits of the question, and it opposed the mission only because the administration favored it. I will not undertake to say that this principle is not sometimes applied in our own day. but I am sure that there is no senator of the United States who would dare affront intelligent public opinion by openly avowing such a code of conduct. We are apt to think that our modern life, on its social and moral side, hasgreatly deteriorated; certainly it is not without blemishes in spots. But, was the elder day free from stain .? The Due de Liancourt who was ARE WE WORSE THAN OUR FATHERS 399 the kindliest of all the early foreign visitors and ob- servers of this country, said, among other things that it would not be pleasant to quote, that whiskey diluted with water was the ordinary drink: and the great William Cobbett wrote that drinking was our national disease and that young men, even little boys of twelve years and under, could be seen every day going into the shops and tipping off their drams. The earliest temperance movement, so Henry Adams tells us in his history, had its cause in the scandal occasioned by the not infrequent intoxication of ministers at their regular meetings. Outside of the question of sobriety, the morals of the time were not without reproach. I am sure that the tone of Amer- ican society was far higher than that of England or of France at the same time; it was purer and more virtuous; with some coarseness, it was in the main pure and decorous. But at the National Capitol in public life, the standard of customs and morals was far below what it is today. Now it is extremely rare to witness intoxicated men at the National Capitol, but three-quarters of a century ago it was common, and even twenty-five years ago it was not infrequent. A more flagrant immorality was prevalent and wide- spread and it was so much the fashion that there were cases of conspicuous public men where there was the pretense, for the sake of being fashionable, without the reality at all. I do not hesitate to say that the standard of public life, so far as morals are concerned, is far higher to-day than it was in the 400 THE LIBERAL CLUB earlier days, that a more rigorous standard exists, and that for offenses which brought no obloquy or criticism then, a public man would be now practically ostracised. (Applause.) Now I fear that in my recollections on the past you will begin to think that I began with the wrong question and that instead of asking and answering "Are we worse than our fathers?" I am really propounding the question "Were our fathers worse than we are?" Let me not be misunderstood. I share the general regard for the past and recognize the grandeur and the greatness of the legacy that has been transmitted to us, — all the greater because of the difficulties under which it was achieved. It has been the fashion to paint only the sunlight. I have fairly touched on some of the shadows. To recog- nize the spots is not to be blind to the splendor of the sun. My issue is not with the exaltation of the past, but with the unjust disparagement of the present. In the comparison I deny the alleged decay and demor- alization of our times. Something of the halo that crowns and softens the mountain peaks of the past is the purple tint of distance. Much of the seam and scar that shades the present is the effect of im- mediate contact and will fade as it recedes in time. The faults and blemishes of the bygone heroes are forgotten and only their virtues remain. The frail- ties and the follies of the living are seen face to face and sometimes cloud the virtues as the hand covers the sun. ARE WE WORSE THAN OUR FATHERS 401 There has been the same disposition to exalt the past in other lands. Lord Macaulay observed a tendency to exalt the age of the Stuarts in compari- son with the age of Victoria. ** It may seem strange/' he says, "that society, while steadily, constantly moving forward with eager speed, should be con- stantly looking back with tender regret." It is, in a measure, unreasonable and unfair in ourselves to be constantly discontented with a condition which is constantly improving, but in truth there is constant improvement precisely because there is constant dis- content. If we were satisfied with the present, we should cease to contrive, to labor and to save with a view to the future, and it is natural that being discon- tented with the present we should overestimate the past. Macaulay is right. The world grows better as it grows older. Today is better than yesterday and tomorrow will be better than today. The ad- vance of civilization is the forward march of both the material and the moral forces. If the Mount Wash- ingtons don't seem to loom around us when we look backward, it is because we are all up on the table- land. The perspective is different and the conditions are different. Our fathers lived in the shadow and the solititude of the stage-coach and the tallow-dip. We live in the glare of an electric light which illumines every wrinkle. Our fathers lived in the days of small things. We live in the days of giant forces. We have evils which they could not know, evils which come with the growth of wealth and population and 26 402 THE LIBERAL CLUB power, with ring rapacity, with the evils of great cities and the conflict of great interests. But the compensating good of the day outweighs the evil. Never was education so broadly diffused, never was independent judgment so freely exercised; never was the sceptre of party chieftain or the greed of party convention so toned and swayed by intelligent public opinion; never did bigotry or passion, in church or state, exert so little influence; never did philanthropy and charity spread so far and wide their mantle of sweetness and of light. I remember that the last time I saw Ralph Waldo Emerson, just as I was entering on my profession, he spoke to me, with the philosopher's wisdom, of the dangers of hasty thinking and desultory reading which were incident to that profession, and he said to me, "Never let a day pass without taking half an hour, if you cannot take more, to read history." I am sorry to say that in the exigencies of a busy Hfe I have not followed the injunction as I ought to have done, but I am glad to pass it on, especially to the younger men whom I see about me, with a hope that they can obey it more faithfully than I, and, as I do so, I recall that other saying of Emerson that men who read history read unconsciously as superior beings. There are great figures like Pericles and Caesar and William of Orange and Cromwell and Washington and Lincoln that march along the highways of his- tory with the tongue of inspiration and with the sword of command; their flaming torch blazes the ARE WE WORSE THAN OUR FATHERS 403 pathway of destiny, their lofty fellowship enkindles and enobles the mind, and as you tread the stately corridors of the century under their guidance, with the wide influence of human experience and with the high motive of great achievement, new vistas open before the enraptured eye and you feel the quickening glow of the masters. There is profound inspiration in that reading of history. But let me tell you that there is a rich and a rare communion in the impulses, in the deeds, in the achievements of our own day. You are American citizens, proud of your common country, and will you indulge me in a single moment while I point to two or three or four events in the history of our own country which show you that you need not search the pages of history for lofty ideals, and high statesmanship ? For when, when before has any government or any nation, in all history, after triumphing over another nation in a great war, instead of exacting indemnity, actually paid consola- tion money as we paid consolation money to Spain after our great triumph ? (Applause.) When be- fore has any nation shown the magnanimity and the greatness to send back the soldiers of its vanished foe to their homes beyond the sea, as we sent back the soldiers of Spain, at our own expense, from Cuba and Porto Rico and the Philippines to their homes in the Iberian Peninsula .? When before has any government ever brought back its own dead de- fenders, even its unidentified defenders, from the place on distant soil where they had fallen, to be 404 THE LIBERAL CLUB buried in their own land, as we brought back our dead defenders from Cuba, to be buried, as I saw them buried, in the presence of the President of the United States and of all his cabinet and of ten thou- and reverent spectators who bowed their heads as the last requiem was sounded — as I saw them buried in our great National Cemetery at Arlington ? (Ap- plause.) When before has any government ever paid back to a dependent people every single dollar collected from them at the custom-house, as we paid back to the people of Porto Rico every dollar they paid under our tariff, to be expended by themselves for their own benefit ? When before has any nation, in all history, extended its arm to uplift a down- trodden people and rescue them from the thraldom of oppression, lift them up into the light and glory of liberty and progress, dower them with all the treas- ures of education and sanitation and justice and en- lightenment and then — with absolute power in its own hands, with its ward practically helpless at its feet — still faithfully fulfil every pledge and plant a new star in the firmament of the nations, as we did when we erected the free and independent Republic of Cuba ? (Applause.) When before has any na- tion, engaged in a great international embroglio with the Allied Powers of Civilization against a power of barbarism; insisted, upon the conclusion of the struggle, that the indemnity should be cut down to the lowest possible amount, offering to cut down its own demand one-half if its allies would do the same ARE WE WORSE THAN OUR FATHERS. 405 thing, standing for the reHef and rescue of China against the exacting demands of the foreign powers, as we have done through the last two years in our relations with the great power of the Orient ? (Ap- plause.) I am sure, my friends, that as you contemplate the work of your country during these years and these events, and as you see the lustre which has been brought to our flag by the action of our government, carrying out the spirit of the American people of all parties, I am sure that you feel as that American felt in Tien-Tsin two years ago when that great struggle was on. The story came to us at Washing- ton in an official report. You remember that the allied troops were assembled in the great Chinese city of Tien-Tsin preparatory to their march on Pekin for the rescue of the imprisoned Ministers of the various nations, and as they took up their line of march among the great array of spectators, there happened to stand two men side by side. One of them was an Australian; he had just come from that far off island, and, having lived in that isolated place all his life, he was not familiar with the uniforms or the flags. By his side stood an American — and, as you understand, the American knows everything. (Laughter.) The Australian asked him, as the line approached, what those uniforms were and what were the flags that were borne. At the head of the line came the stalwart Cossacks of the north, bearing the flag with the double eagle, 406 THE LIBERAL CLUB the yellow flag with the double black eagle, and the American pointed to them and said, "Those are the Russian troops and that is the flag of the Czar." And then came a body of sinewy and stal- wart men from Central Europe, bearing the flag of three colors, and the American pointed to them and said, "Those are the German troops and that is the flag of the Kaiser." And following them came a contingent of picturesque Sikhs of India with some of the red-coats, bearing the Union Jack, and the American pointed to them and said, "Those are the British troops and that is the flag of the Queen," — for the good Queen then reigned on the throne. And following them came a large contingent — for they furnished a large proportion of the alHed army — of those live, wiry, agile, swarthy little men coming from that power, from that nation which in forty years has sprung from barbarism to the foremost place in the East and almost to a position among the great powers of the world, and the American pointed to them as they came along bearing their curious flag with its strange emblem, and he said, "Those are the Jap- anese troops and that is the flag of the Mikado." And then, with swinging step and proud air, marching to the music which we know so well, came those whom we are accustomed to call the Boys in Blue, but who wore then there jaunty kahki uniform, and the Amer- ican, with his heart swelling with pride and exulta- tion, pointed to them and said, "Those are the Ameri- can troops and that flag of the glorious Stars and ARE WE WORSE THAN OUR FATHERS. 407 Stripes which they bear is my flag (applause) — not the flag of any Kaiser, not the flag of any Czar, not the flag of any Queen, gracious and benignant as she might be, not the flag of any Mikado, not even the flag of a President, for we know no distinction, but my flag, the flag of the individual citizen, the flag of the individual sovereign," for in this great Republic of ours we are all peers together, and that flag, with all the lustre it bears and all the glory it stands for and all the prestige it has gained, is your flag and it is my flag, and it is for us to believe in that flag and in its destiny. (Continued applause). iPouttb Dinner, /Iftatcb 7, t0O3. 1:00 p. M. THE WORK OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE WEST INDIES. GENERAL LEONARD WOOD. This talk will have to be very impersonal and familiar, for I do not make any claims at being able to have any other sort of talk with you. It has been and is a great pleasure to be here today. I have been dodging coming to the Liberal Club for some three years — (laughter) not because I did not want to meet the members, but because I am not par- ticularly fond of talking to large crowds of people. I will attempt to tell you something about the work in Cuba and how it was done, but before starting in I want to say that the work was made possible by the very broad and wise policy of President McKinley, and especially the attitude of the Secretary-of-War, Mr. Root. The President and the War-Secretary both were men who understood that the work was of such character that the man to whom it was entrusted must be given a free hand, subject only to general directions, and the instructions which President McKinley gave me when I finally went to Havana as Governor of the Island were characteristic of him. He said, " I'm going to send you down there with full authority and I want UNITED STATES IN THE WEST INDIES 409 you to get those people ready as soon as possible for a republican form of government. " He said, **I want them to have good schools and good courts; we want to fulfill our promise to them and turn them over." Those were all the instructions he gave me, and those were the only instructions which were ever issued. They were ample and the authorities at home sup- ported cordially the policy which was inaugurated. Mr. Root was directly in charge of insular affairs and his policy was one of absolute and cordial support. He allowed no overriding of local authorities, and his attitude was one that made whatever we did, to a certain extent, possible. The condition of affairs which lead to the war with Spain you all understand. We went into that country not only for sentimental reasons, but we had been con- sidering it for a couple of generations largely on the ground that Cuba, as maintained by Spain, was a nuisance, and that she menaced our health and kept our whole southern country in a condition of unrest from yellow fever. The history of the war is as well known to you as to me. The conditions which we encountered in Cuba were very dreadful. You have heard a good deal concerning them from the press, but the real difficulties were not in the physical condition of the inhabitants, but in the condition of inexperience and moral unrest which pervaded all the people. They had no confidence in themselves. They had never had a government; they had never had a general election; they had never owned a public school-house. 410 THE LIBERAL CLUB And it was out of material of this sort, which had existed for three hundred and fifty years as a military colony of Spain, and which, had among its inhabitants seventy per cent, or perhaps eighty per cent, of illiterates, that we were supposed to build up a repub- lic. The work was rather appalling and it had to be started from the bottom. And, strangely enough, the people who were called to do this work were al- most entirely officers of the regular army, and I think that perhaps the work done in Cuba furnishes as good an illustration of the safety of our army, so far as its relation to republican institutions is concerned, as any- thing can. I found that the regular army officer was a most conservative man in charge of civil affairs, that he rebelled immediately against any assumption of arbitrary authority, and that he gave full scope to civil institutions. And it was under men who had been trained as soldiers that the Republic of Cuba was built up and transferred, in a healthy state, in a little over two years and a half. The conditions of suffering in the island were very great at the time of our advent. Spain had always looked upon Cuba as an island in which she could with difficulty maintain troops. We expected to lose a large percentage of our army in the war, and on arriving in the Island we found conditions of disease which was simply appalling. The death rate in Santiago, a city of 40,000 people, was approximately three hundred per day. We were not able to get ac- curate statistics because the orders were to remove UNITED STATES IN THE WEST INDIES 411 the dead as rapidly as they were found, and they were found almost everywhere in the city. I know that in addition to the burial parties, we had to burn, for a number of weeks, about two hundred people a day who had died of highly contagious diseases. Accompany- ing this condition was one of starvation among the people. We had to provide for the immediate feeding of 350,000 citizens of the eastern end of the Island, and the work was done by sending couriers throughout the interior, telling them where food could be found, both on the sea-coast and at central points in the in- terior of the provinces. We devoted all our army transportation tothedistribution of food andalloursea transportation to the same purpose. In fact the army may be said to have laid down its arms as soon as we entered the city, and it became practically a corps of reconstruction and care-takers for the Cubans. We gathered the children and the widows and the sick into large communities in the different towns and pro- vided them with such clothing as we had available, and gave them appropriate foods and medicines. The extent of disease among them may be illustrated by one single instance. In a district on the north coast, when the Spanish troops pulled out, we found some 3,600 cases of smallpox, and we had to assemble and care for, in one group of hospitals, over 1,200. It is rather interesting for those present who do not believe in vaccination to know that a regiment of immunes, so called, — they were immunes until they reached Cuba, and then when their friends found that they were 412 THE LIBERAL CLUB going into yellow fever and smallpox, their senators decided that they were not immunes and they began to notify Washington that they had been enlisted under false pretenses : but eight hundred such men were vac- cinated and re-vaccinated and shipped into this small- pox district and made to care for some three thousand people sick with smallpox and none of them got it. Since then I have always felt that vaccination must have some influence. (Applause.) In addition to caring for the sick and distributing food through the province, we also had taken up the establishment of municipal governments. The work had to be done in a very crude and oflF-hand manner, but from the very first we attempted to give the people representation. I visited most of the towns in the province within the first six weeks and on arriving in a town always assem- bled the inhabitants and asked them to send to the municipal hall so many doctors, so many lawyers and so many tradesmen; in short, to get a representation of all classes of people; and when that assembly had come together they were asked to elect, within the next twenty-four hours, a mayor and a council, and in that way all the city councils were elected. Of course, it was a very primitive and ofF-hand way of doing business, but we hadn't much time. We did want to get governments elected by the people and not appointed by the military governor. And as soon as these city governments were established, a system of local taxation was put in force. Very small assessments were made upon the different store-keep- UNITED STATES IN THE WEST INDIES 413 ers and the people generally who were able to pay, and with the funds so gathered the municipality was started, and one or two clerks employed. The assess- ment records of property had been destroyed by Spain, and we were called upon to make a re-assessment of the entire Island of Cuba, and consequently our sys- tem of taxation at first had to be rather simple and somewhat crude. I found even in those early days that the people were very much interested in public schools. We were able to establish, in the first four months, something like 284 public schools in the Province of Santiago, and at the end of the year, on the first day of January, 1899, we had many public schools established, we had a condition of fairly good health, there was no actual suffering from lack of food, and we had accumulated a surplus of ;^ 16 1,000, 00 from Cus- toms revenues, and with that had entered into a con- tract for paving and sewering certain unhealthy por- tions of the City of Santiago. On the first day of January the whole island was transferred and the work still to be done in Santiago was done in the eastern part of the Island by General Brooke and by General Ludlow. The work of General Ludlow in Havana was particularly fine work. He cleaned up the city, established a model city government, and did a most excellent and efficient piece of administrative work. The municipal governments in other parts of the island were very much of the same order as those that had been established in the East. They were elected by the people without any definite electoral law, 414 THE LIBERAL CLUB but the more influential people simply designated the temporary municipal governments and under those governments the Island was being conducted. In the meantime the Cuban Army had been disbanded and gone to its homes. The Cuban orphans, to the extent of perhaps 18,000, had been collected in various parts of the island in large asylums, something over a hun- dred in number, and they were being fed and clothed. This was the general condition of afi^'airs in Decem- ber, 1899, when President McKinley sent me down to the Island — sent me to Havana, rather, as Governor of the Island. The work which General Brooke had contemplated and which he had started was the es- tablishment of a thorough school system for the island, and with that end in view a provisional school law had been drawn up and was about to be put in force; in fact, the law had been published but was not actually put into eflfect. Acting on this law we pushed forward the work of establishing schools and at the same time took up the work of writing a new school law. The school law finally adopted was a school law of the State of Ohio, translated into Spanish and made to fit local conditions, and under that school law thirty-eight-hundred-and-seventy-odd schools were established in about seventy days all through the island and school furniture was bought and the equipment and building of school-houses com- menced. We gave one order for school furniture which I think is said to be the largest order ever given in this country; it was for a hundred thousand complete sets UNITED STATES IN THE WEST INDIES 41fi of school desks, books and equipments, and amounted to about three-quarters of a million of dollars. Most of that material had to be shipped to interior towns and put up in buildings which were not built or designed for school-houses. Nearly four thousand buildings had to be rented. The school-law had to be circulated, all the school forms had to be put into Spanish and distributed among the people, and they had to be instructed in the use of them. In addition to that we had to gather up some four thousand native teachers, — for from the first the prin- ciple was adopted and stuck to to the end, of making the Cubans do their own work, and we began with the schools. The problem was not as difficult as it would seem, because all the schools were of primary grade. You see, there never had been any schools in Cuba, to speak of, except private schools, and when we started in with the public schools they all started on the same level as primary schools, and with these teachers, many of them poorly prepared for teaching, the first year's work was done. The school year closed at the end of about six months and we sent a thousand of these teachers to Harvard University, not because we thought they would learn much from books, for they did not, but we did expect them to learn a good deal from what they saw and heard, and we were not dis- appointed in that particular. They came back with new ideas of sanitation and general conduct of civil affairs. They knew what a decent house was and what modern sanitary arrangements in a house were, 416 I'HE LIBERAL CLUB and they came back with ideas of learning in a manner other than that in which they had previously lived, and in that way their trip was invaluable. All those teachers who remained in Cuba were compelled to attend summer schools. We gave the teachers an annual salary, a very high salary, a salary that is only exceeded in three or four cities of the Union, but we did that to get hold of the best class of Cuban men and women. We didn't want to start with cheap labor in the public schools. One of the conditions under which they were to receive their summer salary was that they should go to a summer school for teachers. These summer schools were conducted by American teachers who spoke Spanish, and in that way we put all our teachers to school during the first vacation, and at the end of that vacation we had a general examination for teachers under which they were given one year's certificates. That examination was very simple, but it impressed upon the teachers the fact that they must work if they were going to hold their places. The work of pushing the teachers for- ward has been system.atically followed. The next year we sent two hundred teachers to Harvard. These teachers were selected by competitive examination, and they did very excellent work, as they came back well equipped to teach in the summer schools of the following year. During all that summer also, we had over 3,500 teachers in the summer schools for two months, all hard at work. And the result of all that has been that the school system has advanced remark- UNITED STATES IN THE WEST INDIES 417 ably. There is a sincere interest among the people in their public schools, and if the system which we in augurated is kept up, and I believe it will be, they will soon have a thoroughly good school system, because the teachers are going ahead at as great a rate of speed as the pupils; that is, they are keeping well in advaned of their pupils. In addition to sending the teachers to Harvard, we entered into a contract, to run for ten years, which I am sorry to say has not been adhered to, with the New Paltz Normal School, by which we were to send sixty teachers the first year, and thirty every year afterward; the Normal School agreed to employ Spanish-speaking professors, and these teachers were to be given two years of normal-school training. We had sixty teachers, selected by competitive examination, and their standard was above the standard of the school. Their contract was very reasonable for any- body. It was at the rate of ;^3 0,000. 00 a year, about ^500.00 a head, which was as reasonable as one could expect. I hope that Mr. Palma will again see fit to renew that contract and maintain it until he has a well equipped corps of teachers who are ready and able to give proper normal training to Cuban teachers. In addition to the work of training teachers, we had to build school-houses. We found almost enough Spanish barracks and old Spanish military hospitals to supply us with school-houses; in fact we were able to convert these buildings, which were usually con- structed of stone, into school-houses. And to give you an idea of size, it is only suflScient to say that in 27 4,18 THE LIBERAL CLUB Havana, in the second story of one building, we were able to establish thirty-three school-rooms with a capacity of over fifty seats to the room. In addition to those school-rooms we had a large assembly hall in which two thousand students could assemble — lavatories, gymnasiums, rooms for sloyd, kindergarten work; and in other towns we had buildings in which we were able to put as many as twenty-two school rooms. This large school-house in Havana was equipped at an expense of about ;^io8,ooo.oo, and we had there at school every day, two thousand children. We picked out this particular building because it was in the poorest and worst section of Havana, and we wanted to reach those children first; because, as a rule, they were not able to go to the private schools. During the last year of the military occupation, we built schools at the rate of one school per day, ex- clusive of Sundays; that is, one school-room. We built three hundred and fourteen or fifteen rooms in the year, and we put, in the last two years, into schools and public education, ten-and-a-half millions of dol- lars. In other words, we put in twenty-five per cent, of all monies collected into the public schools in Cuba. There were a university and six high schools or academies. These institutions had been maintained for a long time. The university I think is older than any university in this country. I found the university with 406 students and 196 professors. (Laughter.) Those are actual figures. There were professors of Arabic and Hebrew and other things, who hadn't had UNITED STATES IN THE WEST INDIES 419 a Student for ten years. In fact one of the professors was living in France and had announced that he would return when he had any students. (Laughter.) They held their positions for life and their salaries ran from fourteen hundred to twenty-five hundred dollars per year. One of the most arbitrary acts of the military governor — and my decision was perhaps not good law, but it was sustained by the War Department — was when I decided that those were rights which depended upon sovereignty, and that with the fall of Spain, they lost their title. (Laughter.) I used to have the old palace full of superannuated professors. I remember one man. I was coming in one day; I saw a very elderly man going up stairs three steps at a time, and when he reached the top he fell down and we had to resuscitate him by throwing water on him, to find out that he was an old professor who was attempting to show that he was still physically able to hold his place. (Laughter.) After all these gentlemen were disposed of we held a competitive examination for reappoint- ment, of all professsors, both in the institutos and in the universities. They all came up, submitted to the examination and a sufficient number were appointed and the matter ended there. It is only fair to say that the people, as a whole, approved the action taken. They realized that the thing was a good deal of a humbug as it had been run, and they were glad to see the matter cleared up. The question of re-equip- ping the university came up, and it was re-established in the old arsenal on the high hill which overlooks the 420 THE LIBERAL CLUB City of Havana, one of the most charming locations in the city; the change in buildings and cost of equip- ment amounted to something over ;^350,ooo.oo and they were left with good laboratories, with an abso- lutely modern equipment,and,for the first time in their history, able and equipped to do modern scientific work. The same was true of the different institutos. They were put in as good buildings as we could find, and were equipped with modern apparatus, and the school system, as practically constituted, of this uni- versity in which the number of students had increased to about 800. There were six high schools or acad- emies, and a Httle less than 3,800 public schools in ad- dition. The number of students enrolled during the last year, out of a total population of 396,000 was 256,000 children. I do not mean to say that 256,000 children attended school during the entire year, but 256,000 different children were enrolled during the school year. The number of children who were on the rolls right through the year was about 180,000, and the daily attendance was, in round numbers, eighty per cent, of the enrollment. In addition to the pub- lic schools there were a large number of private schools maintained in seaport towns by merchants and pro- fessional men who had grown up in the habit of keep- ing their children at private schools, and I suppose 40,000 children in the island were attending those private schools. So that you can see that in propor- tion to the school population the government, as trans- ferred, had at school a percentage of children which UNITED STATES IN THE WEST INDIES 421 would compare favorably with that in many of our own States. In regard to santiation, our losses among troops during the first year of the occupation, from disease alone, were sixty-eight per thousand. Our losses during the last year were 1.68 per thousand. (Ap- plause.) As for the death-rate during the last year, we had fourteen deaths, but eight of these were accidental, — a number of the men were drowned; and only six were deaths from disease. And the record of the army for health, during the last two years of the military occupation of Cuba, was better than the record of the army in any part of the world, at home or abroad, and the death-rate in Havana, a city of 300,- 000 people, for nineteen months, was, by a very con- siderable margin, lower than the death-rate per thou- sand of the City of Washington; and the same may be said all through the island. We took Cuba as the most unhealthy piece of land in the world, and we left it as healthy as the most healthful of our northern and eastern States. (Applause.) And it is only fair to say that the work was done without the inaugur- ation of any extensive system of sewering, or paving or anything of that sort. We .were doing very ex- tensive work of that kind, but outside of the City of Santiago it had not been completed. And the results in Havana were obtained by simple cleanliness and strict attention to the details of the interior sanitation of houses and yards. You may suppose that that work was all done by Americans. It was not. The 422 THE LIBERAL CLUB Americans were at the head of it, but about seventy per cent, of the sanitary board of Havana v^as com- posed of Cubans. When I v^ent to Havana I found a very distressing condition of affairs. There was a great deal of feel- ing about our sanitary inspection of houses and they did not like the Americans coming in and ordering this, that and the other — as was very natural — and I decided to make the experiment of putting a lot of Cuban property-owners and Spanish property-owners on this board. My people at first thought it would not work, but I told them that we were right, and I believed that the truth was strong enough to stand alone, that we should get their support, and that it would be the best way out of it. So I put on the two largest house-owners in the City of Havana, Spaniards, and a couple of Cubans so that they had a voting majority in the board. The Americans had a rather lively time for a few weeks, but at the end of that time the sanitary measures and the sanitary reforms which we had been working for were adopted by the board, and up to the day of the evacuation we had no more trouble with the sanitary commission. And the general policy all through was to make the people of the Island do their own work, to make them govern themselves. Ninety-seven per cent, of all officials were Cubans, up to three months before the transfer; during those three months that remaining three per cent, of Americans were removed and at the date of transfer UNITED STATES IN THE WEST INDIES 4:26 there was not, to my knowledge, an American holding office in the Island. (Applause.) We found the people honest. People have often asked me why I haven't said more about the dis- honesty of the Cubans and Spaniards, and I haven't said much about it, but I have told a few of them that there wasn't much to say on the subject, — we had three per cent, of Americans, and that ninety-seven percent, of all the money we lost they were account- able for. (Laughter.) It is only fair to us to say, however, that those were the postoffice cases, and that outside of those cases there were no losses. There wasn't a penny lost by any officer of the army or by the civilians of any other department, excepting in one instance where there was a shortage in the accounts of a railroad owned by the Government, which was not of any particular consequence. The work in yellow fever you may be interested in. I will tell you just a word or two about it. In 1899, after we had cleaned up Santiago and thought we had the City absolutely clean and that yellow fever would never return, we had a most serious outbreak of yel- low fever. Out of fifteen officers at headquarters, five died in two weeks, and out of four hundred troops in the city, before we could get them out, one hundred and thirteen cases of yellow fever developed, and the losses were about thirty per cent. That opened our eyes to the fact that yellow fever existed independently of dirt. In 1900 in Havana, we had a similar condition of affairs. Out of sixteen officers at headquarters 424 1'HE LIBERAL CLUB four died in a few days, and there was a corresponding loss among Americans in the city. Havana was ab- solutely clean. Ludlow's work had been above criticism, and the city was as clean as you can get a town. All of us began to realize that we had been going on a false theory in regard to yellow fever. About that time Dr. Reed, Dr. Carroll and Dr. Lazarre came to Havana to study tropical diseases, principally yellow fever. After working seven months — during which time Dr. Lazarre had submitted to being bitten by a mosquito, which Dr. Reed believed to be the means of transmitting yellow fever, and the result of this bite had been a severe attack of fever and Dr. Lazarre had died; Dr. Carroll, who had also been bitten, had a severe attack of fever and came very near dying; — Dr. Reed came to me one morning and said that they had reached a point where it was necessary to prove what they believed to be a fact; that is, that yellow fever was transmitted only by mosquitoes; and that he wanted money and he wanted support; in other words, he wanted to be authorized to make experiments on human beings. I told him that he could take the money, and that he would have all the support necessary, provided he obtained the written consent of every person experimented on; that that person should be of sound mind and of full legal age — which is 23 years, in that country — and that the consul of the country to which he belonged should be informed of what was to be done. The amount of money to be paid was ^^300. 00 in gold to UNITED STATES IN THE WEST INDIES 425 each person. After a few days they gathered together fourteen young Spaniards from the mountains of northern Spain, mostly blonde, blue-eyed people, who had never been in Cuba before and who were very sus- ceptible to yellow fever. These men were put in quarantine foraweek so as to be sure that they had not already acquired fever; then they were put in a build- ing out in the country, carefully screened with fine wire, kept there several days more, and were then ex- posed to every possible form of yellow fever contagion. The beds in which yellow fever patients had died were sent there as quickly as they could be sent out; the clothing which they had worn at the time of death was sent out, and these men wore it; and many other things which I cannot tell you about; but they were exposed in every possible way. At the end of three weeks they all left this place healthy; they were all well. Most of them, as matter of fact, had gained weight; they were well fed and well taken care of. The same men were moved to another section of country, four or live miles away, and put in another building, similarly prepared and absolutely screened- in from all insects; they were kept there for three weeks. The period of inhibition of yellow fever is about five days, at the outside; usually from three to five is the period. They were kept there three weeks in order that they might pass at least four times the period so that there could be no consequence of fever subsequently developed having been acquired by this previous exposure. They were then all bitten by 424 1'HE LIBERAL CLUB four died in a few days, and there was a corresponding loss among Americans in the city. Havana was ab- solutely clean. Ludlow's work had been above criticism, and the city was as clean as you can get a town. All of us began to realize that we had been going on a false theory in regard to yellow fever. About that time Dr. Reed, Dr. Carroll and Dr. Lazarre came to Havana to study tropical diseases, principally yellow fever. After working seven months — during which time Dr. Lazarre had submitted to being bitten by a mosquito, which Dr. Reed believed to be the means of transmitting yellow fever, and the result of this bite had been a severe attack of fever and Dr. Lazarre had died; Dr. Carroll, who had also been bitten, had a severe attack of fever and came very near dying; — Dr. Reed came to me one morning and said that they had reached a point where it was necessary to prove what they believed to be a fact; that is, that yellow fever was transmitted only by mosquitoes; and that he wanted money and he wanted support; in other words, he wanted to be authorized to make experiments on human beings. I told him that he could take the money, and that he would have all the support necessary, provided he obtained the written consent of every person experimented on; that that person should be of sound mind and of full legal age — which is 23 years, in that country — and that the consul of the country to which he belonged should be informed of what was to be done. The amount of money to be paid was ;^300.oo in gold to UNITED STATES IN THE WEST INDIES 425 each person. After a few days they gathered together fourteen young Spaniards from the mountains of northern Spain, mostly blonde, blue-eyed people, who had never been in Cuba before and who were very sus- ceptible to yellow fever. These men were put in quarantine foraweek so as to be sure that they had not already acquired fever; then they were put in a build- ing out in the country, carefully screened with fine wire, kept there several days more, and were then ex- posed to every possible form of yellow fever contagion. The beds in which yellow fever patients had died were sent there as quickly as they could be sent out; the clothing which they had worn at the time of death was sent out, and these men wore it; and many other things which I cannot tell you about; but they were exposed in every possible way. At the end of three weeks they all left this place healthy; they were all well. Most of them, as matter of fact, had gained weight; they were well fed and well taken care of. The same men were moved to another section of country, four or five miles away, and put in another building, similarly prepared and absolutely screened- in from all insects; they were kept there for three weeks. The period of inhibition of yellow fever is about five days, at the outside; usually from three to five is the period. They were kept there three weeks in order that they might pass at least four times the period so that there could be no consequence of fever subsequently developed having been acquired by this previous exposure. They were then all bitten by 428 THE LIBERAL CLUB can shut them off from their food-supply — that is, their source of getting the poison — they become per- fectly harmless. The average life of mosquitoes is about thirty-nine days, and if you can keep the fever out of the island a certain length of time until all the infected mosquitoes die, it v^on't come back. The explanation for yellow fever appearing in ships which have been frozen up in the North is due to the fact that the mosquito hibernates, as do many insects, and comes out again in the spring, and probably most cases of those mosquitoes that were sent to the North and again developed fever in the Tropics, could be ex- plained in that way. In addition to sanitation — we found a bad con- dition of sanitary affairs — we found just about as bad a condition in the administration of justice. The system down there when a crime had been committed was to arrest the man who committed it and all the people who knew anything about it, and they were all bundled into jail together, and held awaiting trial. The result was that the matter of being a witness be- came rather unpopular. (Laughter.) There were no fees attached, and unless the man could give bond for his personal appearance or get some friends to vouch for him, he was simply locked up and kept in jail with the rest. When we went through the pris- ons in Havana — this was in December, 1899 — the condition was such that a special commission, of Cubans and Americans, was appointed, and 640 men were released from the prisons of the four western UNITED STATES IN THE WEST INDIES. 429 provinces on the ground that either there were no charges against them which would warrant their being detained, or that they had been held for as long a time awaiting trial as they would have been sentenced had they been found guilty and received the penalty. One man had been waiting for eleven years and there was nothing against him. These are not fairy tales, they are absolutely true statements. The judges said that they could not be released; they said there is no way of releasing a man who has not been tried; — but they were released. (Laughter and applause.) The re- organization of the courts was a more serious matter. We found that in the courts, as first organized, — the men appointed had been principally men from the Revolution who had been lawyers, and good ones usually, but still they were not always fitted for judicial work, and there was a great deal of complaint and a great deal of mistrust and distrust of the courts. My mail was burdened with complaints of people about the courts, etc., and the only way that suggested to me a reform for these courts was to keep a constant and rigid supervision of all prisons and all people de- tained. For that purpose a most energetic man was appointed inspector of prisons, and was charged with mspecting every prison in the island and every prisoner and filling out a blank form which recited the date of the man's arrest, the crime with which he was charged, the date of his preliminary hearing, the date of his final commitment, etc., etc.; he had to do that at least once in every four months. In addition to that 430 THE LIBERAL CLUB the various officers, including myself, made frequent and rigid inspections. The prisoners in the jail, for instance, were all lined up, and, in our presence ac- companied by the judge and the jailer and the local police officials, every man v^ras called up, and if he had not been tried promptly, we found out why he had not been tried; if there was any good reason, all right; if not, that case was noted, and if we found half-a-dozen such cases in a town the judge was cautioned. If we came back again and found a similar condition of affairs, there was usually a new judge. (Laughter.) There was no interference with the work of the courts, but there was an insistence that the courts should work. (Laughter.) And the people soon appreciated that their rights were being looked after. What we were trying to impress upon the Cuban people was that they had certain inherent rights, and that they should be treated in a certain way, and we were trying to teach them to insist upon these things, and as soon as they saw this sort of thing going on, and that a man's position did not protect him at all, matters took a great change for the better. Judges were appointed carefully, always on the recommendation of the best men we could find. By the "best men'' I mean the best judges in position, as a rule, — the members of the Supreme Court in Havana, who were all excellent men. Once the courts were organized in this way, they were given the fullest protection; the judges were then as- sured that their position was during good behavior; that they could be removed only after a trial by their UNITED STATES IN THE WEST INDIES. 431 peers, and all arbitrary interference with the courts ceased. But arbitrary interference was necessary to bring the courts up to a certain level,- -not with their procedure, but seeing that they proceeded. (Laugh- ter.) There were very few changes in the law. I shall always feel very grateful to Justice White of the Supreme Court. The night before I went down to Havana I had the good fortune to dine with him, and he said, " Don't worry about any changes in the code." He said, "The Code Napoleon, which is essentially the Code which is in force in Cuba, is a noble Code. I have grown up under it, and I am very fond of it, but you will find that the procedure needs a great deal of correction and simplification. " And for that purpose we got hold of the very ablest men we could get, and the work of modernizing the procedure was under- taken by those men. There were practically no changes in the law itself. The writ of Habeas Corpus was grafted onto the law, not only for protection while we were there, but for protection in the future in case they should lapse into those old conditions of locking a man up without a hearing and letting him be for- gotten. But the modifications in procedure were very considerable. The old system of incommunicado; that is, of locking a man up and permitting no one to have access to him, not even his lawyer, for a certain length of time; that was done away with, and it was insisted that every man arrested should have his pre- liminary hearing within thirty-six hours, and good cause must be shown for detaining him for any further 432 THE LIBERAL CLUB hearing unless the evidence then developed w^ere suf- ficient. In fact we perhaps leaned almost too far bacWards in our effort to correct old abuses. The courts were installed in modern court build- ings; free schools of typewriting and stenography were started, typewriters by the hundred were introduced into all the courts and every effort was made to sur- round the courts with a certain appearance of dignity. We gave them the best buildings that we could get, and we spent a great deal of money in equipping them; we supplied them with good libraries, with good furni- ture, and believed that we were increasing their own respect in bettering the surroundings in which they worked; for surroundings, among a Latin people, have a great deal more effect than they do here. We also established police courts. The system in a Latin country is that there are four courts; you have the municipal judge who tries certain minor offenses, but the important judge is the judge of first instance or the judge of inquest. He is really a grand jury of one. All men who are arrested are brought before this judge; he takes the testimony and he either commits or releases. If he commits, he commits for trial be- fore the lower court, which is the municipal judge, or, if it is a civil case, before himself or another judge of his own rank. If it is a serious case he commits ht- (ore the A uJiencia which corresponds to your superior court here. The judge of first instance has quite ex- tensive jurisdiction in civil affairs, practically none in criminal matters. The court above is called the UNITED STATES IN THE WEST INDIES 433 Audiencia. The Audiencia consists of three, five or seven judges, and they are always in session except on Sundays and hoHdays. And before those courts the work had always been rather slow and cumbersome, and it was in their equipment and in the simplification of the procedure before those courts that most work was done. Over all these courts was the Supreme Court of the Island to which an appeal was had in cassation. That is, an appeal upon errors in pro- cedure, etc.. In addition to the old system of courts, were established the police courts in order to free the Audiencias of the minor criminal cases, and to free the municipal judges of an enormous number of small cases. These courts were established in all towns where there were fifteen thousand people or more. In towns of a less population the duties of police judge were thrown upon the judge of first instance. The police judge has a jurisdiction without a jury of thirty days and thirty dollars. With a jury, the juries con- sisted of five men who were drawn just as they are here, and were from the qualified electors. Our suf- frage was a restricted suffrage. On a mere finding of guilty by a jury of five, the judge could then impose a sentence of six months and a fine of five hundred dol- lars, or both; but the total imprisonment in case of failure to pay the fine could not exceed one year. The trial in these courts was oral and summary, and, as you can readily imagine, an enormous amount of work was taken off the superior courts and they were left free to transact really important business. The average 28 434 THE LIBERAL CLUB was brought down in cases, before trial, to three months and sixty days; in all the cases growing out of the Island, to eighteen months, which is a remarkably low average of time for trials as a whole. The jury system had to be given up after a year-and-a-half. We struggled to make Cuban juries convict Cubans, — to find Cubans guilty of cock-fighting, lottery and gamb- ling, — and they never would do it; they decided that that was not one of the duties of citizenship and their decision was so emphatic that we had to do away with the juries; we couldn't do anything with them; and the powers of the judge were extended, and he was able to impose a sentence up to one year, I think, of imprisonment. The electoral law, the system of elections — I shall not have time to go over the whole of this thing, but I will touch upon these points which seem to be more important. As I told you, they had no elections; they had had elections under Spain, but these were elections in which the candidates of the Government were entered — and were elected. (Laughter.) There was no electoral law in force, there were no voting places. They did not know what a box for the deposit of ballots meant. We had to write an electoral law, put it into Spanish, get up all the forms, circulate them through the island, for months before the elec- tions, and send a hundred men, whom we had instruct- ed, from town to town, to teach people what the whole thing meant. After six months of pretty hard pre- liminary work we were able to hold our first general UNITED STATES IN THE WEST INDIES 435 municipal elections. The law adopted was essentially the law of this State, and the system of voting was the Australian system. The elections passed off peace- fully, and the people elected, as a whole, were satis- factory. Of course, the candidates were mostly from the Cuban Army, as might have been expected under the circumstances. They had been through a war, and they were the people who were dominant through that time. No American officer or civilian was pres- ent at any voting place or took any part in the elec- tions. We made these people do the whole thing themselves. There were some errors but boards of appeal were provided and the whole thing was essen- tially Cuban. Americans were entirely on the outside. We held three such general elections. The last thing was the election of the members of the Cuban Con- stitutional Convention. The suffrage, as I have told you, was a limited suffrage. The qualifications for voting were that a man must be 21 years of age, his antecedent record must be free from crime; that is, any penal offense; in addition to those general quali- fications he had to be able to read and write with facility his own language, or possess ;^250.oo worth of his property, or possess an honorable discharge from the Cuban Army, covering a certain period of service and antedating the surrender the City of Santiago; that is, the service antedating that time. The idea was to cover intelligence, property and patriotism. We believed that those were reasonable limitations, and they were so accepted by the people, and the 436 THE LIBERAL CLUB people who were elected to draw up and adopt a con- stitution for Cuba were elected under that law. This convention consisted of thirty-two members. They were in session about eleven months. They drew up and adopted a Constitution which in general lines, follows our own, and thatConstitution was approved, and is in force in Cuba today. They also drew up an electoral law in which they provided for unlimited suffrage, and when questioned as to why they had done it — because I knew they were all against it — one of them said that they were going to so arrange the law that it would amount to a restricted suffrage, and they did attempt it. Their law called upon the voter who was not already registered, to tell all he knew about his grandfather and whether he was self-sustaining, and as many of their grandfathers came from Africa, it was rather doubtful. In other words, there were many provisions in the law which it was impossible to fill out, and they knew it, and their purpose was to disfranchise the Spaniards who had become Cuban citizens under the Treaty of Paris and also to throw out the negro vote.; they had an opportunity to take a limited suffrage. But I didn't believe it wise to ap- prove the indirect method adopted, and those features were stricken out of the law, and they have straight unlimited suffrage until they are ready to limit it. The electoral law as adopted by them is essentially the electoral law which we have in force, minus the re- strictions on the suffrage. The general conduct of affairs by the Cuban Gov- UNITED STATES IN THE WEST INDIES 437 ernment since its transfer has been, so far as I can learn, most excellent. They are going on in a quiet and orderly way. They have reversed no regulations and orders v^hich we established. They seem to be carrying out our sanitary rules and regulations in good faith and they are governing their expenditure of money in a very careful way. The system of hospitals and charities I will run over very briefly. We found the Island, as I told you, over-run with poor people and with children, thou- sands of them, everywhere, without mothers or fathers. We had to gather those children up in great masses and put them in temporary buildings and take care of them. The policy of the administration was to avoid institutionizing children. We all believed that it was better to adopt the system of placing children out in good families, under very careful super- vision, rather than placing them in large asylums where they were simply united in a large mass and amounted to nothing, and when they reached adult age they were turned loose on the world without ex- perience and without ties of any kind. Consequently we adopted and pushed very vigorously the system of placing out children. At first we had perhaps eighteen thousand children on our hands. We were able to place in desirable famihes all of those children, with the exception of about eight hundred who were mostly crippled, deformed, blind, or who had something the matter with them. We brought to Cuba Mr. Homer Folks of this State, and he gave us about three months 438 THE LIBERAL CLUB of the most valuable assistance in drawing up and writing a new Law of Charities and Beneficence, a law which was especially designed to care for the children, adopting this general principle, which I have just stated, to provide for the care of the indigent, and having especial reference to the care of the insane. We found the insane in Cuba in a very distressing condition. It was not unusual to find ten or fifteen insane people in a httle room about ten feet long, eight feet high and six feet wide, just crowded up like animals at a menagerie. They were usually without clothing; their food was shoved in through a hole in the door, and their places were washed out occasion- ally. Those people were living under conditions which would have confirmed any temporary aberra- tion. Every effort in the new Law of Charities and Beneficence was made to surround the insane with a possible protection, and the most severe penalties were imposed upon judges and heads of charitable institutions or hospitals who did not strictly conform to those laws. It was provided in the law that the relatives of people committed should always have a chance to have the person committed brought before a competent tribunal to ascertain whether or not he should be longer kept in confinement. In fact every effort was made, — and the suggestions were mostly based upon Mr. Folks's very wide experience, — to safeguard the insane. So the old charitable institu- tions, which we found scattered through the island — for the Spanish law of beneficence had originally been UNITED STATES IN THE WEST INDIES 439 a very liberal one, but of course was a hundred or two hundred years behind the times; — were heavily en- dowed, but their endowments were oftentimes mis- placed and their incomes misused. And in addition to other work we had a consolidation of the endow- ments of these institutions. In some cases the endow- ment amounted to a million and in some to a million- and-a-half of dollars, invested in towns, etc. So that you can see, that in addition to other work, there was a good deal of such work in the department of charities. As we left the island we left it with four large charitable institutions, two of them were cor- rectional in character, one for boys and one for girls, and two were training schools. The total inmates were about eight hundred. At the reform school for boys and the reform school for girls, the inmates were all committed by the courts, and in the other schools they were usually orphans who were sent for training. We established also throughtout the Island a very good system of hospitals, one large hospital in each province. We brought to Cuba the best nurses we could get in New York, Philadelphia, Boston and other large cities; paid them large salaries, and es- tablished training schools for nurses on just the same grounds that you have them here, — a three years' course with a diploma granted by the University of Havana. These hospitals were well equipped. The average cost of equipment, it is safe to say, was from quarter-of-a-million to three-hundred-and-fifty thou- sand dollars. On the hospital for the insane we 440 THE LIBERAL CLUB spent nearly half-a-million dollars. We left Cuba equipped with institutions having four thousand beds, well equipped with modern instruments, good oper- ating rooms, good training schools for nurses, and with the best physicians we could get — all appointed, as a rule, by competitive examination or upon recom- mendation of the best medical men in the island. The number, — four thousand beds, — seems a large number for a million and six hundred thousand people, but the number was due to the fact that nearly all the country houses of Cuba were destroyed by the war, and the people today are living in little temporary houses with dirt floors, built up while they are re-estab- lishing their farms, and they are totally unfitted for the care of sick people. The hospital conditions as we established them, were made very ample for that reason. It will be eight or ten years before those people are able to properly care for their own sick in their own homes. In addition to the hospitals, the quarantine law was rewritten and essentially our quarantine law put in effect, and quarantine stations were established throughout the Island. The customs service was organized by Gen. Bliss with great ability. We had to build revenue cutters and custom houses, and equip the service in all the different ports. The cost of collection was brought to a point a little lower than the average cost of col- lection here, and no money was lost through the cus- toms service. Nearly all our collectors were Ameri- UNITED STATES IN THE WEST INDIES 441 cans, up to the last three or four months, but the men who actually handled the money, and most of the em- ployes, were Cuban. In short, the government as transferred was well organized and well equipped and it was free from debt. It had excellent school-system, an excellent system of charities and hospitals, a good quarantine and customs service. It had a new railway law in which many of the provisions we are now struggling for are embodied, such as the prohibition of rebates, etc. We found the railroad situation so distressing and the rates charged so arbitrary, that the government had to come in and regulate rates; but the regulation of rates was always subject to an appeal to the Supreme Court of the island, and it was understood and so de- cided that the government should not regulate or reduce rates to such a point as to amount to a con- fiscation of the property of the railroad. In other words, the rates should not be reduced below a point — that is, reduced by the government, — below a point which would insure a reasonable income on the actual value of the investment, including the services of em- ployes, etc., — with all of which you are more familiar than I. But it is, I believe, a good railway law, and it has been accepted. So that, as turned over to the Cubans, they were well equipped, so far as we could see, in most par- ticulars. They had had five general elections, three municipal ones and three for the ofliicials of their general government; they had no debts, and they had 442 THE LIBERAL CLUB ;^ 1, 6 13,000.00 of free money for allotment; their island was as healthy as any part of the Union, and their courts were operating freely and had public con- fidence. (Applause.) President Sprague: — Gen. Wood has said to me, gentlemen, that he would be very glad to answer any questions which any gentleman may put to him in relation to this very remarkable subject which he has portrayed. Mr. Frank Loomis: — Mr. President, I didn't un- derstand whether or not the Cubans now had uni- versal suffrage ? Gen. Wood: — They now have universal suffrage. They passed a law granting the people universal suf- frage, but they tied it up with a lot of conditions. For instance, as I started to explain, they called upon a man to tell all about his father and grandfather, etc., so that a Spaniard who had become a Cuban citizen would have to send to Spain and get all this data; it would cost him a lot of money and rather than do that he wouldn't have it, and the negro who came in from Africa in the 'sixties would naturally be a good deal embarassed in ascertaining whether or not his grand- father was self-sustaining. (Laughter.) There were many things of that sort which were insincere and not honest and they were stricken out, and the people were given straight universal suffrage. President Sprague: — Gentlemen, we have been highly entertained by the remarks of Gen. Wood, and UNITED STATES IN THE WEST INDIES 443 I would call upon Mr. Milburn to adequately express our thanks for his brilliant and instructive address, — for one of the most delightful occasions in the history of the Liberal Club. Mr. Milburn: — Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Liberal Club, it gives me a great deal of pleasure in your behalf to propose a vote of thanks to General Wood for his most interesting address. I am sure I cannot do justice to it off-hand and in a few cursory remarks. We must all have admired the simplicity and directness of his speech — a simplicity and direct- ness which, in my judgment, is the perfection of all speech. (Applause.) He has given us a great deal of information which is new to us, and it is informa- tion of the greatest value to American citizens, as it shows us what has been accomplished by American talent, American genius and American industry in settling a disturbed country with law, order and civilization. It shows to us and reassures us as to the future of what is likely to be accomplished in our possessions in the Far East. (Applause.) We have great problems to confront in that region of the world, a great responsibility rests upon the American people with regard to them. Our reputation as governors and as a civilizing power is at stake in what we ac- complish there. And for that reason, I, for one, have listened with the deepest interest to the extraordinary achievements in Cuba as inaugurated, and we sin- cerely hope that the problems there will be met with the same efficiency and the same success. (Applause.) 444 THE LIBERAL CLUB It is a great pleasure to have had this information given us directly by the man who is most responsible* owing to his untiring perseverance, energy and ability, for its accomplishment. (Applause.) We are glad to be positively sure that he really exists. (Laughter.) We have been told from time to time during the past two or three years, that he was to be present with us, only to be informed that he could not be, until some of us had almost felt that it was neces- sary to have more than the assurance of his achieve- ments that he was a real personality. (Laughter.) We are indebted to the detective skill of our officers in having at last, as we might say, caught him on the wing and brought him to us to give what the President has correctly expressed as one of the most delightful occasions in the history of the Club. Now that he knows us and that he is going to the Philippines, may I express, on behalf of all of you, the sentiment to him that when he comes back from the Philippines with greater work still achieved and with his honors thick upon him, as I know he will come back, that he will return once more to the Liberal Club and give us, in his own charming and delightful way, an account of what has been done there equal to the account that he has given us today of what has been accomplished in Cuba. (Applause.) General Wood, on behalf of the Liberal Club, I tender you our sincerest and deepest thanks for your most delightful and instructive address. (Applause.) Ififtb 2)inncr, Obavch 10, 1903. OUR CONTEMPORARY ANCESTORS IN THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINS. WILLIAM GOODELL FROST, LL.D. Down in Kentucky we call everybody brother and sister and there I have to begin a speech by explain- ing that while I was not born in Kentucky I propose to die there, which will be equally meritorious. (Laughter.) But, it is a real satisfaction to come back and speak in my native Empire State. I remember the time when as a small boy I visited Rochester to see a Wide-Awake procession in the Lincoln campaign, and when a little later I came to this city to hear Parson Brownlaw denounce An- drew Johnson. I am here tonight somewhat in the character of a discoverer, and a discoverer in our own land. It is a far cry from Roosevelt back to Daniel Boone, but if you set your face toward the southern mountains you can make that transition in twenty-four hours. The southern mountaineer needs a friendly interpreter. We hear of him when he has committed some homi- cide, when he has been overhauled by the "revenues,'* as the revenue officers are familiarly called in that region, but what he is, is hardly understood. When 446 THE LIBERAL CLUB you are whirled through some suburb of his great realm and see him lounging in awkward attitude and homespun garb at a railway station, he does not look either reckless or patriotic. You need to get inside his history and his feelings and awaken your own historic sense to understand and appreciate him. I am his confessed friend and advocate and wish to explain his condition in our country. Some twenty years ago, I took a walk through West Virginia with Gen. Shurtleff reviewing the Mc- Clellan campaign, as a summer vacation trip, and there came in contact personally with the condition of mountain life. Ten years after, when spending a year in Europe, I learned by cablegram that I had been elected President of Berea College, in Ken- tucky, I went to the great University Library and got hold of the United States Census and there dis- covered the extent of the mountain region. If you can call up to your imagination the map of our South- ern States you shall see grouped around East Ten- nessee the mountain backyards of seven other States, — the eastern part of Kentucky and Tennessee, the western part of the Virginias and Carolinas, the northern part of Georgia and Alabama, — a region, broadly speaking, two hundred miles wide and six hundred miles long, from the southern boundary of Pennsylvania to the Iron Hills of Birmingham, with great variety of surface and climate, but all a moun- tain realm and a country more isolated than any other inhabited by people of our race. OUR CONTEMPORARY ANCESTORS 447 Scotland is a mountain country but any Scot can go twenty miles and strike some arm of the sea; get into a boat and he is in touch with the world. Swit- zerland is a mountain country but it has had its Roman roads for centuries and even before that the inland lakes. But this vast empire, larger than all New England, as large as the German Empire today, has no inland lake, no seacoast, no navigable river, till recently no railroad, — that is isolation. The people there were discovered by old Cassius Clay before the War; that is, they were discovered to be a peculiar people though he did not realize how many they were, how vast their territory. Gen. Clay was one of the southern abolitionists, one of the slave-holding abolitionists, of whom there were many. After 1850 the southern abolitionists were driven out or put to silence except in eastern Ken- tucky; there were more of them there than elsewhere, and Mr. Clay had the virtue that the southerner best appreciates, courage. It was his pleasant cus- tom to go into a schoolhouse or a church or court- house and read a few verses from the Bible on the brotherhood of man, lay the Book before him; then he would read the Articles from the Constitution guar- anteeing the right of free speech, slap that book down onto the table and say, "Gentlemen, I know there are men here who don't care much for the law of God or the law of man. I have arguments for them" — and he would feel around for his bowie-knife and re- volver and then he was ready for a discussion. (Laugh- 448 THE LIBERAL CLUli ter.) The old gentleman has told me many times of his joy in discovering that in eastern Kentucky there was a set of men who owned land and did not own slaves. That is the sociological status and definition of the mountain white. I have used that term once and hope not to use it again tonight; but some of you have heard of them under that name, — a name of scorn, as you would scorn the name "Buffalo white." But they need a name. They call themselves "the mountain people," and that is their distinction from the "poor white trash." The poor white trash were the people who lived in the midst of slavery and owned neither land nor slaves and were degraded by actual competition with slave labor; they were compara- tively a slave people, much degraded really; while the mountain man has the independence of a land- owner, a surprising degree of independence, and is a survival, in spirit and temper, of colonial days. Now I wish to explain why he has fallen behind in the race of progress. Civilization is a state of society in which we each have the opportunity of borrowing other people's bright ideas. (Laughter.) It is humiliating to con- sider how few we have of our own. There are people in this room who have ideas that are strictly original with themselves, but the government has provided for those individuals; they have had them patented and copyrighted and made their reputations and their fortunes! When a new idea is born today in any part of the world, it is flashed from ocean to ocean OUR CONTEMPORARY ANCESTORS 449 SO quickly we can hardly tell where it started; we all become sharers of it. These ideas used to travel by sailboat; they used to travel by canalboat. My father's family came from Western Massachusetts to Monroe County, N. Y., and when the Hudson River was too short DeWitt CHnton lengthened it with the Erie Canal. That brought them the New York Tribune and took their wheat down to New York. It was one of the greatest pieces of states- manship in our country's history; it hitched the whole Lake Region onto New York City. And so it came to pass that the northern frontiersman was never cut off from civilization, the metropolis. Our north- ern frontier always had a back-tier to support it until the railroad came. But, in the days that succeeded the Revolution everybody went West. No man knew, — there had been no government surveys and reports in those times, — no man knew that Western Pennsylvania and Western Virginia were not as good as Western New York. So they were not fools for going into the mountain region of the South. They went West, as everybody went West. They found an abundance of good land for the first generation in the rich val- leys of that country. They took into those hills the civilization of their time. I have traced the history of many a family, — a young revolutionary soldier marries and puts his household "plunder" on two or three horses and goes ahead with his rifle into the mountains and settles in a select spot. He takes a 29 4-50 THE LIBERAL CLUB dozen books. The years go by and when the family estate is divided, each of his children has a book. (Laughter.) Another generation rolls by, the estate is to be divided again. The oldest child has a book. (Laughter.) And in that way the civilization which they took grew thinner and smaller with each gen- eration. Take such a man as Israel Gabbard. He went a hundred miles west of the settled parts of his time, married a Scotch-Irish girl named Elsbeth McAfee; they had a good many children; he named one of them Daniel, after Daniel Boone; he himself was finally killed by the Indians. His children di- vided up his estate and they were prosperous. They did not take the public school into that country, for the public school had not been invented. They had lived a generation in the mountains. They became shy of visiting their kinsfolk in the settlements. There grew up a prejudice and a mutual distrust and re- pulsion between the slave-holders of the seacoast and the mountain men who were not slave-holders. The social barrier became as high as the mountain bar- rier. The first generation lost reading; the next generation lost property; they had used up the valley land, they were obliged to take poorer land on the steep slopes and the thin soil of the high mountains. They ceased to be as prosperous as they had been. Perhaps the survivor of that next generation is Pales- tine Gabbard who is now keeping a moonshine still, a man eighty years old, well up on Hell-for-Sartin' Creek. That is a real creek, but when they estab-' OUR CONTEMPORARY ANCESTORS 451 lished a postoffice on it the government refused to adopt the name. Palestine's son, Budd Gabbard, went down the Ohio River on a raft of logs in 1861 and found there was a war going on. He enjoyed fighting, was a fine shot and enlisted. He was an uncomfortable soldier in camp but he made a splendid bummer in Sherman's march to the sea. And he came back after the Civil War with larger ideas than his father or his grandfather had ever had. When the public school system was set up he became a school trustee. At first he united with the other trustees in selling the district to the highest bidder and pocketing the proceeds. By and by one of our students taught in the neighboring district. They had so much interest there that Budd conceived the idea of having a sure-enough teacher in his district. Then he thought he would have his own daughter, Serepta, educated so that she could teach, and he decided he would raise some extra swine so that he could send a daughter to school. Then there was a disease among the swine and the whole matter went over for a year. The next year Serepta was fifteen years old and a lot of young men were " talking to her, right peart." Then when Mrs. Yocum was out giving Bible readings and inspecting schools and her horse cast a shoe near Budd Gabbard's cabin, she was in- vited in, staid all night, and Serepta made up her mind she would go to school. Now, this daughter of Budd the Union soldier, Palestine the moonshiner, Daniel the Indian fighter and Israel the Revolutionary 452 THE LIBERAL CLUB soldier, is very unconscious of her pedigree; but she rides into Berea on a big bay horse with a younger brother on behind to go back with the horse, a hot fall day, wearing a sun-bonnet and woollen mitts as a tribute to conventionality. She will be a joy and a problem to her teachers. (Laughter.) Now, this life of isolation, you cannot realize it till you have ridden with me a hundred miles up and down the beds of streams. That is the highway. You get direction for going from one county-seat to another and you go up the middle fork of the Ken- tucky River, turn off the second branch to the right, the third creek to the left and go to the headwaters, then go over the divide and strike the headwaters of another stream, — so you go. By the roadside, by the bridle path-side, by the creek-side, is the log- cabin. When the young folks begin, it is a little blind log-cabin. After the first year they cut out a win- dow; after they have a parcel of children they will build another log-cabin ten feet off and spread the roof from one to the other. That makes the double log-cabin, the Virginia log-house, the first type of the American architecture, with its horizontal pillars. Back of it are the cornfields so precipitous they must prop the pumpkins in the autumn, and every now and then you meet a citizen who, with a solemn face, tells you he has been lame every since he fell out of his cornfield. (Laughter.) And if the children of that cabin wish to see the world they have only the option of going up stream or down stream where OUR CONTEMPORARY ANCESTORS 453 they will see other cabins and cornfields like their own. Now, we have a fresh-air fund for the children of the cities so that they shall know the country. We need a fresh-idea fund for these children of solitude. This life of isolation is a life of deprivation. I remember the first time I rode into the hills with my wife. We stopped fifteen or eighteen miles from home and Mrs. Frost was curious to know whether the woman of that house would ever appear again and whether she came to Berea to trade, or went to Richmond, our county- seat. She said, "Why, my good woman, when you can*t get what you need down at this little store down at the branch, where do you go ?" The moun- tain woman smiled and said, " I go without." (Laugh- ter.) And it appeared that she had never been to a town or city in her life. It was too great an under- taking to mount her horse, take a child behind, a basket of eggs or chicken on one arm, hold an um- brella and ride seven miles. Some women do it. I have known Berea women to come thirty miles to get a piece of iron as big as your finger with which to mend a loom. We find people burning kerosene lamps without chimneys, — a barbarous thing; but with a little more consideration we realize that it is a very delicate matter to carry a lamp chimney on horse- back over twenty miles of road and we conclude that if we lived where they do we should live a good deal as they do. But we do not pity them for the lack of lamp chim- neys as we do for the lack of some other means of 454 THE LIBERAL CLUB illumination like schools and churches. There they are sadly behind. I am in the habit of saying that these people are not a degraded people, — they are people not yet graded up. But they are degraded in this: they have lost the great idea that a preacher must be an educated man. Two of our northern students are carrying on a mission Sunday-school four miles from Berea. Once a month a white man comes there to preach. The boys told him that his next appointment would fall on Easter Sunday. He was too proud to ask what Easter meant. But he went home, turned the leaves of his Bible and came up to the appointed time with a sermon on Queen Esther. (Laughter.) I am an honorary member of several associations of preachers of just that stripe. I try to be brotherly and help them. They are in a very embarrassing position. They have come to the point where the school teacher knows more than they do, and they have either got to get this new larnin', these new, high-heeled notions, or else they Ve got to fight it out. Some of them take one horn of the dilemma and some the other and it is rather difficult either way. There are no Protestant people in the world so destitute of good religious guides and instructors, although they are a deeply religious people with a great reverence for good things. When we come to understand them closely and intimately we see that they are leading a life of sur- vivals. You note it first in their speech — Shakes- pearean words that we have dropped. The past tense OUR CONTEMPORARY ANCESTORS 455 of '*help" in the mountains is "holp" as you find it in the old version of the psalms. The past tense of "drag" is "drug." The plural of "post" is "postes.** We ride up to a mountain cabin, and it is good form to wait outside the fence and hello to the man of the house; he comes to the door and calls off his dog and says, "Howd'ye, strangers.? Light and hitch your beast-es." They use the word "poke" for "bag." A *'pig in a poke" means a pig in a bag. I didn't know that until I went to Kentucky. They use the word "pack" for "carry." Prince Henry says to FalstafF, if you remember, "Come pack your boot nobly on your back." We say to a mountain man, " Have you a well here .? " ''No, we hain't got no dug spring; we pack out water from up the valley." Some of our ambitious students have sent in over a hundred words of this kind that have been published in the English "Dialect Dictionary." Still more surprising is the survival of the old English ballads. We find women who cannot read, whose mothers and grandmothers could not read, who can sing to you 'Barbara Allen." The hero, instead of coming out of the west country comes out of the western states; but when he dies he is buried under a yew tree, although none of them know what a yew tree is. These ballads, whose scenes are laid in circumstances of English town life that they have never known, are most interesting. Now and then the mountain bard will stop to explain to me the ballad he is singing, — "Stranger, a 'steed' means a 456 THE LIBERAL CLUB horse-critter." (Laughter.) Then there is the literature of the illiterate. There are certain jokes and stories and narratives that are always related in the same form. I heard a mountain preacher use this fine thing: "You can't help a-havin' bad thoughts come into your head, but you hain't no necessity for to set 'em a-cheer." (Laughter). I took that down, I spoke of it in a ministers' meeting in New York City. An aged man there who had been born in England, said that he had heard that same thing in England when he was a boy. Now, that is an un- printed piece of literature, a story that in its particular form, a jest, has been passed from mouth to mouth among these unlettered people. Then there is the survival of the colonial arts — I love a sun-bonnet — the colonial arts and fashions. A sun-bonnet doesn't hold up its hand like a modern hat and say "Look at me!" If you want to see the face of the wearer you must watch, you must get just the right angle, and then it will reveal a face pro- tected like the heart of a violet. And the wearer can spin and dye and weave. Mrs. Candace Wheeler, of New York City, a leader of fashions there in many ways, made a journey to Berea to study dye-stuffs. And this spinning is something to stand in awe of. None of our wives and sweethearts can spin. Our mothers had forgotten the art, but our grandmothers and our fore-mothers for countless generations were spinners. This had something to do with the making of the English race. Our girls have delicate fingers OUR CONTEMPORARY ANCESTORS 457 today for china-painting and piano-playing, because of the generations that have twirled the thread. We are encouraging these people to keep there fireside industries up. They are adapted to their present state of civilization. They are a great resource in the long winter when the people are shut up; when those streams that are their roadbeds have risen and the people have to stay at home, it is a great thing for them to have something to do. I brought a number of their textile products North some years ago just to prove that women who cannot read, who have these arts, this skill, this taste, this industry, are not to be despised. Immediately there sprang up a demand for that kind of thing. I promised my friends to provide a certain number of these bed-covers and yards of homespun and linen. When I went home and spoke to the mountain people about it, they said, "Well, President, if you are going to furnish any more than enough for our own folks, we shall have to raise some more sheep first." (Laughter.) But they have raised the sheep and we are beginning to send North quite a considerable product of these native looms, these surviving colonial arts. So we find them a hospitable, religious, patriotic and truthful people, and, in a word, they are our contemporary ancestors. We look upon them with some consideration and complacency and filial feeling. Even their killings are an honest survival. The high value that we set on human life, gentlemen, is a very modern sentiment. It did not spoil the ap- 458 "^HE LIBERAL CLUB petite of Henry VIII. to have seen a man executed before breakfast, not a bit; and the mountain man doesn't think much of killing his neighbor, for the simple reason that he does not object to being killed himself! You meet a fellow coming along the road with a gun cocked, his oldest son following a few rods behind with another gun. "Why, what does this mean? What are you looking for?" "Ike Garvin has give me notice. And now if Ike gets me the boy will get him, and if Ike gets the boy 77/ get him. See?" and with a pleasant smile he passes on ex- pecting that he or the boy will be shot in a few min- utes, but he is going to get his enemy, and he goes in the temper of a football player wholly wrapped up in his interest in the game. (Laughter ) You will notice that their homicides are never performed for purposes of reward. Surveyors in that region leave their tools out over night and find them in the morn- ing; doors are unlocked in our village. I feel myself as safe in any of those places as I do on your own streets here, — any man whose business is known. You go into the mountains and they will say, — "Who are you ? What is your business ? Where did you stay last night? Where are you going? Are you married or single ? How many children have you got?'* You tell them all those things and then you are one of them, and men who have been running from the sheriff have slept on the floor to give me a bed, and gotten up in the night to help me to my next appointment. That is a phase of hospitality. OUR CONTEMPORARY ANCESTORS 459 I am inquiring often, if I am traveling on a new road, for a good lodging place, and they say, "You turn that next creek up there and you'll find Sam some- body; he'll protect you." "Protect" is the word that they unconsciously use for "entertain." Well, this is not an extenuation of bloodshed, but we must remember that the whole South and the gen- tlemen of the South, in a large degree, carry arms today, just in the spirit in which the gentlemen of the time of Queen Elizabeth carried swords. The gen- tleman of the Elizabethan period felt that the gov- ernment was to protect him from the Spaniards and the French, and from the outside world, but that he was to protect his honor and household with his own right arm. And it is in that spirit that the South very largely carries arms today, and our mountain people especially; and with them the blood-feud of old Scotland was revived in Civil War time, — it ex- isted before that, — it has never fully died out in that solitary region. This valiant temper was turned to good account in war time. Everybody had forgotten that there were such people there, except Mr. Lincoln. The South- ern leaders fully expected that when the Southern States went into the Rebellion the mountain ends would go with them. Only last week in New York City I met a Southerner who said, "Those mountain people are no account. They are all descended from convicts and nondescript characters." Now, that was a despising of the mountain people which does 460 THE LIBERAL CLUB them wrong. There were a few ship-loads of con- victs who came to this country, but they were most V of them convicted for not attending the Estabhshed Church! (Laughter.) In the time of the Restora- tion Cromwell's soldiers came to this country in ship- loads and were called convicts. They were an inde- pendent-spirited people. They have on the whole the same names, the same legends, the same history as those who went to the more favored parts of the country, and if the scions of the people who settled in blue-grassed Western New York had gone instead to West Virginia, they would be groping in those moun- tains today. The Confederacy sold its bonds in England partly by the exhibition of a map of this country in which they showed how easy a thing it was to be for them to send an army from Wheeling, W. Va., to Cleve- land, O., and cut the North in two. The North was in the shape of a dumb-bell; New England was one of the bulbs, the Northwest was the other and Ohio was the handle. They sent Gen. Garnett to do that little piece of work. He was a West Pointer and a classmate of McClellan. He started from Rich- mond with flying colors, but when he got into the mountains he found himself on hostile territory. The mountain men burned his bridges, took informa- tion to the enemy, and he himself fell pierced by a bullet from a mountain riflle. He never got to Wheeling to begin his march on Cleveland. And just at the outset of the Civil War the mountain men OUR CONTEMPORARY ANCESTORS' 461 rose and made West Virginia secede from secession. They held Kentucky in the Union. (Applause.) Those of you who are old enough remember the thrilling times in East Tennessee They didn't hold Tennessee in the Union, but they held East Tennessee in the Union. Carl Schurz told me that he enlisted Union men as far south as the mountains of Alabama, whole regiments there, enlisted not as Alabama troops, but as United States regiments. And so it was that that whole region in the heart of the South was loyal and put 180,000 men into the ranks that followed the old flag. (Applause.) Now, that was a great make-weight in the scales of the Civil War. I don't allow that these people are ignorant. They are uninformed. The word '* ignorance" has a halo of disgrace about it. In the North it means the despising of learning, it means the neglecting of op- portunities, and it should not be applied to the moun- taineer. I would paraphrase the word, rather, and say they are not ignorant, but, like the patriarchs, are unaware of the distinctive features of modern life. For example, a girl came to Berea not many years ago who had never seen a gate. You could find young ladies perhaps in this city who has never seen a pair of bars. But this girl distinguished herself by climbing over the President's front fence right by the gate, because she didn't know what the gate was for! That is an example of a kind of lack of information / 462 THE LIBERAL CLUB that we can smile at, but which we cannot despise. That girl became a competent teacher. She wasn't to blame for not knowing that which was beyond her limited experience. Now, Berea having been started before the war, by Cassius M. Clay and John G. Fee, a stronghold of anti-slavery sentiment and free speech, of course, was suspended during the Civil War and had been with- out a president for many years when I was called there in 1893, ten years ago. I found that it had been forgotten — that it was like the Irishman's pig, little but old. There was a good plant of buildings for a school of three hundred students and the school had had the confidence of the mountain people. But I had at once to undertake the great work of develop- ing. I came back from Germany with a revelation of what ought to be done for the people of these eight States. This region, which I am calling Appalachian America, is one of the grand divisions of the Conti- nent. The people are all alike, in being a horseback people, in being a backwoods people, in being people who own land, in being independent people. Why, I am as much of a curiosity to them as they are to me. I remember speaking in Jackson County — one of my first speeches. They adjourned court for me to make a speech on education. It is a county that does not contain a railroad, telegraph, printing-press or a library of fifty books; its county seat at that time did not contain a church; but that county put more men into the Union Army in proportion to its people than OUR CONTEMPORARY ANCESTORS 463 any other county in the nation (applause); and I spoke to two hundred men not one of whom wore a collar. When I had finished one of the natives said, "Well, President, I could understand right smart what you were telling us. Hits this away" — the old Saxon neuter pronoun, not the Cockney "h" — "hits this away; we had an officer in our regiment from New York or somewheres what spoke the same dialect as you do." (Laughter.) Well, I bought a horse and a pair of saddle-bags and started out to invite these people to come to school; to see how they were living; to study up the additional adaptations that should be necessary for them. Then I went to Cincinnati to begin to find friends and get some business men of note onto our board of trustees, and develop to a programme for those three million people. One of my old pupils in a northern institution is on the Geological Survey at Washington. He kindly marked off for me two hundred counties in these eight States as being the mountain region of the South. The last census gave a population of over three million to those two hun- dred counties. This population has been increasing at a rapid rate. Their families are as large as the laws of nature will allow and this geometrical in- crease has brought the mountains to fullness so that in Eastern Kentucky I see that their average hold- ings are only 200 acres a man, and when you consider that those are upright acres (laughter) and many of them never can see the ploughshare, you see they 464 THE LIBERAL CLUB have about come to the point where they need a little instruction in agriculture. They must get more out of their land. They have exterminated the game, their rifles hang empty on their chimney-pieces, the best of their forest has been slaughtered. They need a friend. So v^e must find a problem of self-help that will put those independent people in step with the world. See how they differ from the Western fron- tier. We have a Western frontier of log-cabins and sod-houses still, in some places, but in those log- cabins and sod-houses you find college graduates; you find men from the East who have all the images and patterns of schools and institutions in their mind and they will be natural leaders and will build up according to the pattern of what they have seen, but there is no such leadership for the mountain men. Moreover, the Western frontier has social and in- dustrial ties with the East so that we naturally have helped every Western State in its educational foun- dations, but we have not helped this great Southern region. I suppose that a portion of these people, possibly a third of them, lie on the margin of the region and they may be reached by the natural prog- ress of civilization, but here are, I know, two million people, of Revolutionary ancestry, in the main, the purest American stock on the Continent, who are more destitute of all that goes with education than any other English-speaking people on the globe. And they are people whom it will pay to help. We must have a programme for them and make them OUR CONTEMPORARY ANCESTORS 465 understand it and bring them up to be a reinforce- ment to us in the good causes and the great work of the future of the RepubHc. Our first effort has been to estabHsh the public schools. Now, all the Southern States are inexperienced in the matter of public schools. Kentucky is doing well, according to its wealth, or, rather its poverty. Kentucky is a State with only one city in it, Louisville. Lexington is a town of less than 30,000 people and no manu- factures except whiskey. The richer portion of the State pays taxes to help the poorer portion. They have divided this mountain country into districts, — pretty large ones. They send the money into every district for a hundred days of school, but that money is administered by people who never went to school. It is administered in the way Budd Gabbard handled it. The teachers are incompetent, the parents haven't enough interest to send their children to school and the whole school system is in contempt. I have spent my summers in the work, and we have competent men and women likewise to ride through those mountains, to attend the teachers' institutes, to go out with tents and wagons and stereopticans and hold public meetings to rouse up the people to the value of their public school system; and plant here and there and another place a successful school; the example is contagious, and so we shall leaven the lump and that public-school money will at last do some good and be a force following in the right direction forever. And then we must take 466 THE LIBERAL CLUB hold of their industries. No man needs instruction in agriculture so much as the man with the poor land. We are supposed to be the only scientists in the world who are making a study of agriculture; our agricultural colleges are trying to make the successful agriculturists more successful. This valley land has been turned up a hundred years, has been cropped in corn ever since, — no rotation of crops. In those valleys the price of corn has not varied for years and years. No corn goes in or comes out, nor can. Teach the men to raise more stock. That is a crop that can walk to market. Then with our great army of school teachers we can make those ideas travel and thus we shall reach thousands of people who will never reach Berea and if they learn to pros- per from an educational centre, then their prosperity will advance the education of an entire generation. I have seen that programme working for ten years. We have a whole line of counties where, if our influence should now be withdrawn, I believe they would never go back. Now we want to hasten on and annex further and further counties. You will ask me about the capacity of these people. It is hard to judge of it, because one can never depend upon their having any particular piece of information. They will make the most ridiculous mistakes. You remember the woman who came down during the Spanish War with great agitation to a county-seat in Georgia, I think, and said she wondered the folks were not more torn up down there, as they had been OUR CONTEMPORARY ANCESTORS 467 up where she had come from, because it had been given out that "them Spaniards had flying squad- roons," and if some of them should Hght in their ter- ritory they were not prepared for them. (Laughter.) Now, why should a "flying squadroon" be any more improbable than an electric car ? They don't know what to believe and what not to. We shouldn't, if we were in their condition. I had a Massachusetts man in Berea teaching, one winter and spring. He told me that in higher arithmetic and geometry, where general information was not called for, simply appli- cation of a power of mind, these men did as well as the favored sons and daughters of the old Bay State. And we see many examples of their practical knowl- edge. For example, we disarm these fellows when they come to Berea. We had a good deal of trouble a year ago taking a revolver from a stalwart fellow from Letcher County. Well, we got his revolver. This year he came back to school, marched up the first thing and handed over his revolver in a very mild and lamb-like way. We discovered he had been prudent enough to bring two revolvers. (Laughter.) Now that kind of a fellow is worth educating. And then you will ask about their responses. Examples are better than anything else, and I will give you those that are typical. I remember the case of Lucinda Hayes, a beautiful, tall, black-eyed girl. She had walked in, fifteen or twenty miles, bare- footed, with her shoes in a basket with other belong- ings. She had kinsfolk in Berea who agreed to give 468 THE LIBERAL CLUB her her board to get into the institution. She wanted four dollars and-a-half. After getting acquainted with her, I told her I would lend her half that money and give her the other half. If I had given her all it would have dulled her ambition; she would have de- pended on me. If I had lent her all it would have discouraged her because four dollars and-a-half was too big a debt. I fixed it up with her in that way, term after term. I invested ;^50.oo finally, ;^25.oo in gifts and a ;^25.oo loan, portions of which she began to repay by bringing me farm produce from home. Then she disappeared. When she came back it was a very happy day for her and surprisingly happy for me. She had been to the treasurer's office and paid her debt; she was clothed, for the first time, with underclothing, overshoes and umbrella, and she had rented a room and brought another sister and they were going to be in school. We will never have to help Lucinda any more. She stirred the ambition of her district; she has awakened that end of the county. She was a good investment. Only this winter a man died in Berea that I thought a great deal of, because he was the first moonshiner that I had captured. When I was making that first sum- mer's tour, riding with one of Sherman's scouts, who was kin to half the county and comrade to the other half, I was speaking in the schoolhouses and they began to tell me of a mighty man whose dominions we were approaching. He had built his log castle at a point where three counties met, so that he could / OUR CONTEMPORARY ANCESTORS 469 bring up a point on the jurisdiction if he was arrested (laughter) and he was regarded with great respect by his neighbors; he had killed a neighbor and an officer there and had so much lead in him he daresn't go in swimming. (Laughter.) This mighty man came out to hear me talk on education. He never had heard anything but a political speech and a funeral sermon before. He followed me up and heard the same speech again in the afternoon. The next day I was many miles from there, but as I came to my school- house, there was his familiar gray horse fastened to the hanging limb of a beech tree. He heard that speech for the third time. The result was he packed up and moved with all his plunder to Berea, put five children in the school, the eldest being in the peni- tentiary at the time. That family was interrupted just in time. If he had been reached five years sooner, the eldest son would not have gone to the peniten- tiary. And, by the way, they say that for the smart- est boys in their mountains, the great chance to see the world and get educated has been either to go to the penitentiary or to enlist in the army and go to the Philippines. That is a short way to get a little ex- perience. But we are trying to give them an educa- tion nearer home than the penitentiary or the Philip- pine Islands. (Laughter.) Now one other thing. Perhaps this is as important as anything I have for you. See the relation of this population to the whole Southern problem. The Southern problem is riot the negro problem so much 470 THE LIBERAL CLUB as the white problem. The white people have con- trol of every office and all the machinery and most of the wealth, and the problem is how considerately they will treat the colored man and how wisely they will administer their own affairs. The old educated southern leaders are gone — Lamar and Hampton and Gov. Northen — and those men who had some discipline of mind and some knowledge of history. How are you going to deal with the great unedu- cated white masses of the South .? Well, a good place to begin is with these people who are ready for Yankee notions, these people who stood shoulder to shoulder with us in the Civil War. And they are just ready to overflow from their mountains. They have bought a row of blue-grass farms all along the Ken- tucky border; they are going to spread. They have the reddest, but not the bluest blood in the South, and I say to you if we can put the Yankee ideas of progress into these mountain people, it will affect for good the destiny of that great circle of Southern States. It is the most vital spot and the most hope- ful spot to touch the entire Southern problem. I am glad to get acquainted with a Club that takes such ar» interest in public questions and entertains the spirit that you do. Have you realized, gentlemen, that American patriotism is the biggest patriotism that ever was — that it has got to be so .? Patriotism, like other noble sentiments, began with a humble instinct. It was the family and tribal instinct, to /^ begin with. It used to be the hatred between we'uns OUR CONTEMPORARY ANCESTORS 471 and you'uns; then it extended to take in quite a lot of tribes and it was quite the thing for the Jew to love all the Twelve Tribes of Israel and despise the Gentiles; then for the Greek to love all the States of Greece and hate the territories. But our patriotism has to be wider and broader and deeper. It has to be continental American patriotism, and I am sure that you will agree with me. I was discussing with rather a benighted financier in a great city not long ago. He said to me, "My interests are in this city where I make my money." "Well," I said, "what should this city be if we should draw a blockade around it and cut off your advertisements that go off to the far parts of the land and your revenues that come in t Ought not your interests to be as wide as your rev- enues.?" And I believe you will agree with me further that this particular mountain population is an appealing one, — our kindred, the people that helped us in the Civil War, the people who are going to help us in the future. Why, their whole case is in Abraham Lincoln. He was a mountain man; he belonged to those families that had land and didn't have slaves. The world has wondered why he became a great American, born in circumstances about like those of the time of Alfred the Great and living through to the electric age, and yet none of the other boys of Hardin County have ever been heard of. Genius, we are told, does not sprout alone. Abra- ham Lincoln's mother had six books. She had a Bible and Pilgrim's Progress for religion; she had y 472 THE LIBERAL CLUB -^sop's Fables and Robinson Crusoe for literature; she had a Life of Washington and a History of the United States for politics. It was a very choice library. You can trace the influence of those six books in Lincoln's papers to the last. He read those books, he learned them by heart, he came to be able to talk like a book. He wanted something else to read and he went to the neighbors. They had noth- ing but the Bible. He canvassed the region. There were no other books. After months of search he did find a magistrate who had a copy of the State Statutes. That was the only other attainable book for young Lincoln. Now, I submit to you, gentlemen, if it had not been for the Divine Providence that put those six books into the Lincoln house his great soul might have been strangled in the birth. Now Lincoln has hallowed the log-cabin in a fashion as Christ did the manger, being born in it, and I can never pass one of those humble cabins in the moun- tains without thinking of the possible Lincoln that it holds and strenthening my resolution to do what I can to put some ray of hope, guidance and encour- agement into every mountain home. (Applause.) 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