"'Those opposed eyes,Which like the meteors of a troubled heaven,All of one nature, of one substance bred,Did lately meet in th' intestine shock,Shall now, in mutual well-beseeming ranks,March all one way.'"
John Ireland, Archbishop of Saint Paul, was born at Burnchurch, County Kilkenny, Ireland, September 11, 1838. As a boy he came to Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1849, and there obtained his secular education at the Cathedral School. He studied theology in France, in the seminaries of Meximieux and Hyeres. During the Civil War he was chaplain of the Fifth Minnesota Regiment. In 1875 he was consecrated bishop of Saint Paul. In 1869 he founded the first total-abstinence society in Minnesota and has lectured much on temperance in the United States and Great Britain. The following extracts, used by special permission, are from his lecture delivered before the New York Commandery of the Loyal Legion, New York, April 4, 1894.
John Ireland, Archbishop of Saint Paul, was born at Burnchurch, County Kilkenny, Ireland, September 11, 1838. As a boy he came to Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1849, and there obtained his secular education at the Cathedral School. He studied theology in France, in the seminaries of Meximieux and Hyeres. During the Civil War he was chaplain of the Fifth Minnesota Regiment. In 1875 he was consecrated bishop of Saint Paul. In 1869 he founded the first total-abstinence society in Minnesota and has lectured much on temperance in the United States and Great Britain. The following extracts, used by special permission, are from his lecture delivered before the New York Commandery of the Loyal Legion, New York, April 4, 1894.
Patriotism is love of country, and loyalty to its life and weal—love tender and strong, tender as the love of son for mother, strong as the pillars of death; loyalty generous and disinterested, shrinking from no sacrifice, seeking no reward save country's honor and country's triumph.
Patriotism! There is magic in the word. It is bliss to repeat it. Through ages the human race burnt the incense of admiration and reverence at the shrines of patriotism. The most beautiful pages of history are those which recount its deeds. Fireside tales, the outpourings of the memories of peoples, borrow from it their warmest glow. Poets are sweetest when they reecho its whisperings; orators are most potent when they thrill its chords to music.
Pagan nations were wrong when they made gods of their noblest patriots. But the error was the excess of a great truth, that heaven unites with earth in approvingand blessing patriotism; that patriotism is one of earth's highest virtues, worthy to have come down from the atmosphere of the skies.
The exalted patriotism of the exiled Hebrew exhaled itself in a canticle of religion which Jehovah inspired, and which has been transmitted, as the inheritance of God's people to the Christian Church:
"Upon the rivers of Babylon there we sat and wept, when we remembered Sion.—If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand be forgotten. Let my tongue cleave to my jaws, if I do not remember thee, if I do not make Jerusalem the beginning of my joy."
"Upon the rivers of Babylon there we sat and wept, when we remembered Sion.—If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand be forgotten. Let my tongue cleave to my jaws, if I do not remember thee, if I do not make Jerusalem the beginning of my joy."
The human race pays homage to patriotism because of its supreme value. The value of patriotism to a people is above gold and precious stones, above commerce and industry, above citadels and warships. Patriotism is the vital spark of national honor; it is the fount of the nation's prosperity, the shield of the nation's safety. Take patriotism away, the nation's soul has fled, bloom and beauty have vanished from the nation's countenance.
The human race pays homage to patriotism because of its supreme loveliness. Patriotism goes out to what is among earth's possessions the most precious, the first and best and dearest—country—and its effusion is the fragrant flowering of the purest and noblest sentiments of the heart.
Patriotism is innate in all men; the absence of it betokens a perversion of human nature; but it grows its full growth only where thoughts are elevated and heart-beatings are generous.
Next to God is country, and next to religion is patriotism. No praise goes beyond its deserts. It is sublime in its heroic oblation upon the field of battle. "Oh glorious is he," exclaims in Homer the Trojan warrior, "who for his country falls!" It is sublime in the oft-repeated toil of dutiful citizenship. "Of all human doings," writes Cicero, "none is more honorable and more estimable than to merit well of the commonwealth."
Countries are of divine appointment. The Most High "divided the nations, separated the sons of Adam, and appointed the bounds of peoples." The physical and moral necessities of God's creatures are revelations of his will and laws. Man is born a social being. A condition of his existence and of his growth of mature age is the family. Nor does the family suffice to itself. A larger social organism is needed, into which families gather, so as to obtain from one another security to life and property and aid in the development of the faculties and powers with which nature has endowed the children of men.
The whole human race is too extensive and too diversified in interests to serve those ends: hence its subdivisions into countries or peoples. Countries have their providential limits—the waters of a sea, a mountain range, the lines of similarity of requirements or of methods of living. The limits widen in space according to the measure of the destinies which the great Ruler allots to peoples, and the importance of their parts in the mighty work of the cycles of years, the ever-advancing tide of humanity's evolution.
The Lord is the God of nations because he is the God of men. No nation is born into life or vanishes back into nothingness without his bidding. I believe in the providence of God over countries as I believe in his wisdom and his love, and my patriotism to my country rises within my soul invested with the halo of my religion to my God.
More than a century ago a trans-Atlantic poet and philosopher, reading well the signs, wrote:
"Westward the course of empire takes its way.The first four acts already past,A fifth shall close the drama with the day;Time's noblest offspring is the last."
Berkeley's prophetic eye had descried America. What shall I say, in a brief discourse of my country's value and beauty, of her claims to my love and loyalty? I will pass by in silence her fields and forests, her rivers and seas, the boundless riches hidden beneath her soil and amid the rocks of her mountains, her pure and health-giving air, her transcendent wealth of nature's fairest and most precious gifts. I will not speak of the noble qualities and robust deeds of her sons, skilled in commerce and industry, valorous in war, prosperous in peace. In all these things America is opulent and great: but beyond them and above them in her singular grandeur, to which her material splendor is only the fitting circumstance.
America born into the family of nations in these latter times is the highest billow in humanity's evolution, the crowning effort of ages in the aggrandizement of man. Unless we take her in this altitude, we do notcomprehend her; we belittle her towering stature and conceal the singular design of Providence in her creation.
America is the country of human dignity and human liberty.
When the fathers of the republic declared "that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," a cardinal principle was enunciated which in its truth was as old as the race, but in practical realization almost unknown.
Slowly, amid sufferings and revolutions, humanity had been reaching out toward a reign of the rights of man. Ante-Christian paganism had utterly denied such rights. It allowed nothing to man as man; he was what wealth, place, or power made him. Even the wise Aristotle taught that some men were intended by nature to be slaves and chattels. The sweet religion of Christ proclaimed aloud the doctrine of the common fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of men.
Eighteen hundred years, however, went by, and the civilized world had not yet put its civil and political institutions in accord with its spiritual faith. The Christian Church was all this time leavening human society and patiently awaiting the promised fermentation. This came at last, and it came in America. It came in a first manifestation through the Declaration of Independence; it came in a second and final manifestation through President Lincoln's Proclamation of Emancipation.
In America all men are civilly and politically equal; all have the same rights; all wield the same arm of defense and of conquest, the suffrage; and the sole condition of rights and of power is simple manhood.
Liberty is the exemption from all restraint save that of the laws of justice and order; the exemption from submission to other men, except as they represent and enforce those laws. The divine gift of liberty to man is God's recognition of his greatness and his dignity. The sweetness of man's life and the power of growth lie in liberty. The loss of liberty is the loss of light and sunshine, the loss of life's best portion. Humanity, under the spell of heavenly memories, never ceased to dream of liberty and to aspire to its possession. Now and then, here and there, its refreshing breezes caressed humanity's brow. But not until the republic of the West was born, not until the Star-Spangled Banner rose toward the skies, was liberty caught up in humanity's embrace and embodied in a great and abiding nation.
In America the government takes from the liberty of the citizen only so much as is necessary for the weal of the nation, which the citizen by his own act freely concedes. In America there are no masters, who govern in their own rights, for their own interests, or at their own will. We have over us no Louis XIV, saying: "L'etat, c'est moi;" no Hohenzollern, announcing that in his acts as sovereign he is responsible only to his conscience and to God.
Ours is the government of the people, by the people, for the people. The government is our organized will.There is no state above or apart from the people. Rights begin with and go upward from the people. In other countries, even those apparently the most free, rights begin with and come downward from the state; the rights of citizens, the rights of the people, are concessions which have been painfully wrenched from the governing powers.
With Americans, whenever the organized government does not prove its grant, the liberty of the individual citizen is sacred and inviolable. Elsewhere there are governments called republics; universal suffrage constitutes the state; but, once constituted, the state is tyrannous and arbitrary, invades at will private rights, and curtails at will individual liberty. One republic is liberty's native home—America.
From the speech of President McKinley, in response to the toast "Our Country," at the Peace Jubilee banquet in Chicago, October 19, 1898.
From the speech of President McKinley, in response to the toast "Our Country," at the Peace Jubilee banquet in Chicago, October 19, 1898.
Mr. Toastmaster and Gentlemen:—It affords me gratification to meet the people of the city of Chicago and to participate with them in this patriotic celebration. Upon the suspension of hostilities of a foreign war, the first in our history for over half a century, we have met in a spirit of peace, profoundly grateful for the glorious advancement already made, and earnestly wishing in the final termination to realize an equally glorious fulfillment. With no feeling of exultation, but with profound thankfulness, we contemplate the events of the past five months. They have been too serious to admit of boasting or vain-glorification. They have been so full of responsibilities, immediate and prospective, as to admonish the soberest judgment and counsel the most conservative action.
This is not the time to fire the imagination, but rather to discover, in calm reason, the way to truth, and justice, and right, and when discovered to follow it with fidelity and courage, without fear, hesitation, or weakness.
The war has put upon the nation grave responsibilities. Their extent was not anticipated and could not have been well foreseen. We cannot escape the obligations of victory. We cannot avoid the serious questionswhich have been brought home to us by the achievements of our arms on land and sea. We are bound in conscience to keep and perform the covenants which the war has sacredly sealed with mankind. Accepting war for humanity's sake, we must accept all obligations which the war in duty and honor imposed upon us. The splendid victories we have achieved would be our eternal shame and not our everlasting glory if they led to the weakening of our original lofty purpose or to the desertion of the immortal principles on which the national government was founded, and in accordance with whose ennobling spirit it has ever since been faithfully administered.
The war with Spain was undertaken not that the United States should increase its territory, but that oppression at our very doors should be stopped. This noble sentiment must continue to animate us, and we must give to the world the full demonstration of the sincerity of our purpose. Duty determines destiny. Destiny which results from duty performed may bring anxiety and perils, but never failure and dishonor. Pursuing duty may not always lead by smooth paths. Another course may look easier and more attractive, but pursuing duty for duty's sake is always sure and safe and honorable. It is not within the power of man to foretell the future and to solve unerringly its mighty problems. Almighty God has His plans and methods for human progress, and not infrequently they are shrouded for the time being in impenetrable mystery. Looking backward we can see how the hand of destiny builded for us and assigned us tasks whose full meaningwas not apprehended even by the wisest statesmen of their times.
Our colonial ancestors did not enter upon their war originally for independence. Abraham Lincoln did not start out to free the slaves, but to save the Union. The war with Spain was not of our seeking, and some of its consequences may not be to our liking. Our vision is often defective. Short-sightedness is a common malady, but the closer we get to things or they get to us the clearer our view and the less obscure our duty. Patriotism must be faithful as well as fervent; statesmanship must be wise as well as fearless—not the statesmanship which will command the applause of the hour, but the approving judgment of posterity.
The progress of a nation can alone prevent degeneration. There must be new life and purpose, or there will be weakness and decay. There must be broadening of thought as well as broadening of trade. Territorial expansion is not alone and always necessary to national advancement. There must be a constant movement toward a higher and nobler civilization, a civilization that shall make its conquests without resort to war and achieve its greatest victories pursuing the arts of peace.
In our present situation duty—and duty alone—should prescribe the boundary of our responsibilities and the scope of our undertakings. The final determination of our purposes awaits the action of the eminent men who are charged by the executive with the making of the treaty of peace, and that of the senate of the United States, which, by our constitution, mustratify and confirm it. We all hope and pray that the confirmation of peace will be as just and humane as the conduct and consummation of the war. When the work of the treaty-makers is done the work of the law-makers will begin. The one will settle the extent of our responsibilities; the other must provide the legislation to meet them. The army and navy have nobly and heroically performed their part. May God give the executive and congress wisdom to perform theirs.
From the speech of Rev. Dr. T. DeWitt Talmage at the eighty-first annual dinner of the New England Society in New York, December 22, 1886.
From the speech of Rev. Dr. T. DeWitt Talmage at the eighty-first annual dinner of the New England Society in New York, December 22, 1886.
Mr. President, and all you good New Englanders:—If we leave to the evolutionists to guess where we came from and to the theologians to prophesy where are we going to, we still have left for consideration the fact that we are here; and we are here at an interesting time. Of all the centuries this is the best century, and of all the decades of the century this is the best decade, and of all the years of the decade this is the best year, and of all the months of the year this is the best month, and of all the nights of the month this is the best night. Many of these advantages we trace straight back to Forefathers' Day, about which I am to speak.
Well, what about this Forefathers' Day? In Brooklyn they say the Landing of the Pilgrims was December the 21st; in New York you say it was December the 22d. You are both right. Not through the specious and artful reasoning you have sometimes indulged in, but by a little historical incident that seems to have escaped your attention. You see, the Forefathers landed in the morning of December the 21st, but about noon that day a pack of hungry wolves swept down the bleak American beach looking for a New England dinner, and a band of savages out for a tomahawk picnic hove in sight, and the Pilgrim Fathers thoughtit best for safety and warmth to go on board the Mayflower and pass the night. And during the night there came up a strong wind blowing off shore that swept the Mayflower from its moorings clear out to sea, and there was a prospect that our Forefathers, having escaped oppression in foreign lands, would yet go down under an oceanic tempest. But the next day they fortunately got control of their ship and steered her in, and the second time the Forefathers stepped ashore.
Brooklyn celebrated the first landing; New York the second landing. So I say Hail! Hail! to both celebrations, for one day, anyhow, could not do justice to such a subject; and I only wish I could have kissed the Blarney stone of America, which is Plymouth Rock, so that I might have done justice to this subject. Ah, gentlemen, that Mayflower was the ark that floated the deluge of oppression, and Plymouth Rock was the Ararat on which it landed.
But all these things aside, no one sitting at these tables has higher admiration for the Pilgrim Fathers than I have—the men who believed in two great doctrines, which are the foundation of every religion that is worth anything: namely, the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of Man—these men of backbone and endowed with that great and magnificent attribute of stick-to-it-iveness. Macaulay said that no one ever sneered at the Puritans who had met them in halls of debate or crossed swords with them on the field of battle. They are sometimes defamed for their rigorous Sabbaths, but our danger is in the opposite directionof no Sabbaths at all. It is said that they destroyed witches. I wish that they had cleared them all out, for all the world is full of witches yet, and if at all these tables there is a man who has not sometimes been bewitched, let him hold up his glass of ice-water. It is said that these Forefathers carried religion into everything, and before a man kissed his wife he asked a blessing, and afterward said: "Having received another favor from the Lord, let us return thanks." But our great need now is more religion in every-day life.
Still, take it all in all, I think the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers are as good as their ancestors, and in many ways better. Children are apt to be an echo of their ancestors. We are apt to put a halo around the Forefathers, but I suspect that at our age they were very much like ourselves. People are not wise when they long for the good old days.
But though your Forefathers may not have been much, if any, better than yourselves, let us extol them for the fact that they started this country in the right direction. They laid the foundation for American manhood. The foundation must be more solid and firm and unyielding than any other part of the structure. On that Puritanic foundation we can safely build all nationalities. Let us remember that the coming American is to be an admixture of all foreign bloods. In about twenty-five or fifty years the model American will step forth. He will have the strong brain of the German, the polished manners of the French, the artistic taste of the Italian, the stanchheart of the English, the steadfast piety of the Scotch, the lightning wit of the Irish, and when he steps forth, bone, muscle, nerve, brain entwined with the fibers of all nationalities, the nations will break out in the cry: "Behold the American!"
I never realized what this country was and is as on the day when I first saw some of these gentlemen of the Army and Navy. It was when at the close of the War our armies came back and marched in review before the president's stand at Washington. I do not care whether a man was a Republican or a Democrat, a Northern man or a Southern man, if he had any emotion of nature, he could not look upon it without weeping. God knew that the day was stupendous, and He cleared the heaven of cloud and mist and chill, and sprung the blue sky as the triumphal arch for the returning warriors to pass under. From Arlington Heights the spring foliage shook out its welcome, as the hosts came over the hills, and the sparkling waters of the Potomac tossed their gold to the feet of the battalions as they came to the Long Bridge and in almost interminable line passed over. The capitol never seemed so majestic as that morning: snowy white, looking down upon the tides of men that came surging down, billow after billow. Passing in silence, yet I heard in every step the thunder of conflicts through which they had waded, and seemed to see dripping from their smoke-blackened flags the blood of our country's martyrs. For the best part of two days we stood and watched the filing on of what seemed endless battalions, brigade after brigade, division after division,host after host, rank beyond rank; ever moving, ever passing; marching, marching; tramp, tramp, tramp—thousands after thousands, battery front, arms shouldered, columns solid, shoulder to shoulder, wheel to wheel, charger to charger, nostril to nostril.
Commanders on horses with their manes entwined with roses, and necks enchained with garlands, fractious at the shouts that ran along the line, increasing from the clapping of children clothed in white, standing on the steps of the capitol, to the tumultuous vociferation of hundreds of thousands of enraptured multitudes, crying "Huzza! Huzza!" Gleaming muskets, thundering parks of artillery, rumbling pontoon wagons, ambulances from whose wheels seemed to sound out the groans of the crushed and the dying that they had carried. These men came from balmy Minnesota, those from Illinois prairies. These were often hummed to sleep by the pines of Oregon, those were New England lumbermen. Those came out of the coal-shafts of Pennsylvania. Side by side in one great cause, consecrated through fire and storm and darkness, brothers in peril, on their way home from Chancellorsville and Kenesaw Mountain and Fredericksburg, in lines that seemed infinite they passed on.
We gazed and wept and wondered, lifting up our heads to see if the end had come, but no! Looking from one end of that long avenue to the other, we saw them yet in solid column, battery front, host beyond host, wheel to wheel, charger to charger, nostril to nostril, coming as it were from under the capitol. Forward! Forward! Their bayonets, caught in thesun, glimmered and flashed and blazed, till they seemed like one long river of silver, ever and anon changed into a river of fire. No end to the procession, no rest for the eyes. We turned our heads from the scene, unable longer to look. We felt disposed to stop our ears, but still we heard it, marching, marching; tramp, tramp, tramp. But hush—uncover every head! Here they pass, the remnant of ten men of a full regiment. Silence! Widowhood and orphanage look on and wring their hands. But wheel into line, all ye people! North, South, East, West—all decades, all centuries, all millenniums! Forward, the whole line! Huzza! Huzza!
Speech of Theodore Roosevelt at the eleventh annual dinner of the Holland Society of New York, January 15, 1896.
Speech of Theodore Roosevelt at the eleventh annual dinner of the Holland Society of New York, January 15, 1896.
Mr. President, Gentlemen, and Brethren of the Holland Society:—I am more than touched, if you will permit me to begin rather seriously, by the way you have greeted me to-night. When I was in Washington, there was a story in reference to a certain president, who was not popular with some of his own people in a particular western state. One of its senators went to the White House and said he wanted a friend of his appointed postmaster of Topeka. The president's private secretary said, "I am very sorry, indeed, sir, but the president wants to appoint a personal friend." Thereupon the senator said: "Well, for God's sake, if he has one friend in Kansas, let him appoint him!"
There have been periods during which the dissembled eulogies of the able press and my relations with about every politician of every party and every faction have made me feel I would like to know whether I had one friend in New York, and here I feel I have many. And more than that, gentlemen, I should think ill of myself and think that I was a discredit to the stock from which I sprang if I feared to go on along the path that I deemed right, whether I had few friends or many.
I am glad to answer to the toast, "The Hollander as an American." The Hollander was a good American,because the Hollander was fitted to be a good citizen. There are two branches of government which must be kept on a high plane, if any nation is to be great. A nation must have laws that are honestly and fearlessly administered, and it must be ready, in time of need, to fight; and we men of Dutch descent have here to-night these gentlemen of the same blood as ourselves who represent New York so worthily on the bench, and a major-general of the army of the United States.
It seems to me, at times, that the Dutch in America have one or two lessons to teach. We want to teach the very refined and very cultivated men who believe it impossible that the United States can ever be right in a quarrel with another nation—a little of the elementary virtue of patriotism. And we also wish to teach our fellow citizens that laws are put on the statute books to be enforced and that if it is not intended they shall be enforced it is a mistake to put a Dutchman in office to enforce them.
The lines put on the program underneath my toast begin: "America! half brother of the world!" America, half brother of the world—and all Americans full brothers one to the other. That is the way that line should be concluded. The prime virtue of the Hollander here in America and the way in which he has most done credit to his stock as a Hollander, is that he has ceased to be a Hollander and has become an American, absolutely. We are not Dutch-Americans. We are not "Americans" with a hyphen before it. We are Americans pure and simple, and we have a right to demand that the other people whosestocks go to compose our great nation, like ourselves, shall cease to be aught else and shall become Americans.
And further than that, we have another thing to demand, and that is that if they do honestly and in good faith become Americans, those shall be regarded as infamous who dare to discriminate against them because of creed or because of birthplace. When New Amsterdam had but a few hundred souls, among those few hundred souls no less than eighteen different race stocks were represented, and almost as many creeds as there were race stocks, and the great contribution that the Hollander gave to the American people was the inestimable lesson of complete civil and religious liberty. It would be honor enough for this stock to have been the first to put on American soil the public school, the great engine for grinding out American citizens, the one institution for which Americans should stand more stiffly than for aught other.
Whenever America has demanded of her sons that they should come to her aid, whether in time of peace or in time of war, the Americans of Dutch stock have been among the first to spring to the aid of the country. We earnestly hope that there will not in the future be any war with any power, but assuredly if there should be such a war one thing may be taken for certain, and that is that every American of Dutch descent will be found on the side of the United States. We give the amplest credit, that some people now, to their shame, grudge to the profession of arms, which we have here to-night represented by a man, who, when he has the title of a major general of the army of the UnitedStates, has a title as honorable as any that there is on the wide earth. We also need to teach the lesson, that the Hollander taught, of not refusing to do the small things because the day of large things had not yet come or was in the past; of not waiting until the chance may come to distinguish ourselves in arms, and meanwhile neglecting the plain, prosaic duties of citizenship which call upon us every hour, every day of our lives.
The Dutch kept their freedom in the great contest with Spain, not merely because they warred valiantly, but because they did their duty as burghers in their cities, because they strove according to the light that was in them to be good citizens and to act as such. And we all here to-night should strive so to live that we Americans of Dutch descent shall not seem to have shrunk in this respect, compared to our fathers who spoke another tongue and lived under other laws beyond the ocean; so that it shall be acknowledged in the end to be what it is, a discredit to a man if he does not in times of peace do all that in him lies to make the government of the city, the government of the country, better and cleaner by his efforts.
I spoke of the militant spirit as if it may only be shown in time of war. I think that if any of you gentlemen, no matter how peaceful you may naturally be, and I am very peaceful naturally, if you would undertake the administration of the Police Department you would have plenty of fighting on hand before you would get through; and if you are true to your blood you will try to do the best you can, fighting or notfighting. You will make up your mind that you will make mistakes, because you won't make anything if you don't make some mistakes, and you will go forward according to your lights, utterly heedless of what either politicians or newspapers may say, knowing that if you act as you feel bound according to your conscience to act, you will then at least have the right when you go out of office, however soon, to feel that you go out without any regret, and to feel that you have according to your capacity, warred valiantly for what you deemed to be the right.
These, then, are the qualities that I should claim for the Hollander as an American: In the first place, that he has cast himself without reservation into the current of American life; that he is an American, pure and simple, and nothing else. In the next place, that he works hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder with his fellow Americans, without any regard to differences of creed or to differences of race and religion, if only they are good Americans. In the third place, that he is willing, when the need shall arise, to fight for his country; and in the fourth place, and finally, that he recognizes that this is a country of laws and not men, that it is his duty as an honest citizen to uphold the laws, to strive for honesty, to strive for a decent administration, and to do all that in him lies, by incessant, patient work in our government, municipal or national, to bring about the day when it shall be taken as a matter of course that every public official is to execute a law honestly, and that no capacity in a public officer shall atone if he is personally dishonest.
Speech of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at the 115th annual banquet of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, May 8, 1883.
Speech of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at the 115th annual banquet of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, May 8, 1883.
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Chamber of Commerce and Guests:—I am very much obliged to your president for calling upon me first, because the agony will soon be over and I shall enjoy the misery of the rest of you.
The first part of this toast—The United States—would be a voluminous one to respond to on a single occasion. Bancroft commenced to publish his notes on the History of the United States, starting even before President Lane established this Chamber, which I think was something over one hundred years ago. Bancroft, I say, commenced earlier, and I am not prepared to dispute his word if he should say that he had kept an accurate journal from the time he commenced to write about the country to the present, because there has been no period of time when I have been alive that I have not heard of Bancroft, and I should be equally credulous if President Lane should tell me that he was here at the founding of this Institution. But instead of bringing those volumes of Bancroft's here, and reading them to you on this occasion, I will let the reporters publish them as the prelude to what I am going to say.
I think Bancroft has finished up to a little after the time that President Lane established this Chamberof Commerce, and I will let you take the records of what he (Lane) has written and what he has said in their monthly meetings and publish them as the second chapter of my speech. And, gentlemen, those two chapters you will find the longest; they will not amount to much more than what I have to say taking up the subject at the present time.
But in speaking of the United States, we who are native-born have a country of which we may well be proud. Those of us who have been abroad are better able, perhaps, to make the comparison of our enjoyments and our comforts than those who have always stayed at home. It has been the fortune, I presume, of the majority here to compare the life and the circumstances of the average people abroad with ours here. We have here a country that affords room for all and room for every enterprise. We have institutions which encourage every man who has industry and ability to rise from the position in which he may find himself to any position in the land. It is hardly worth my while to dwell upon the subject, but there is one point which I notice in the toast, that I would like to say a word about—"May those who seek the blessings of its free institutions and the protection of its flag remember the obligations they impose." I think there is a text that my friend Mr. Beecher,[7]on the left, or my friend Dr. Newman,[8]on the right, might well preach a long sermon upon. I shall say only a few words.
We offer an asylum to every man of foreign birthwho chooses to come here and settle upon our soil; we make of him, after a few years' residence only, a citizen endowed with all the rights that any of us have, except perhaps the single one of being elected to the presidency of the United States. There is no other privilege that a native, no matter what he has done for the country, has that the adopted citizen of five years' standing has not got. I contend that that places upon him an obligation which, I am sorry to say, many of them do not seem to feel.
We have witnessed on many occasions here the foreign, the adopted, citizen claiming many rights and privileges because he was an adopted citizen. That is all wrong. Let him come here and enjoy all the privileges that we enjoy, but let him fulfill all the obligations that we are expected to fulfill. After he has adopted it, let this be his country—a country that he will fight for, and die for, if necessary. I am glad to say that the great majority of them do it, but some of them who mingle in politics seem to bank largely on the fact that they are adopted citizens; and that class I am opposed to as much as I am opposed to many other things that I see are popular now.
I know that other speakers will come forward, and when Mr. Beecher and Dr. Newman speak, I hope they will say a few words on the text which I read.
"OLD IRONSIDES"—THE FRIGATE CONSTITUTION—1812"OLD IRONSIDES"—THE FRIGATE CONSTITUTION—1812
Speech of Hampton L. Carson, delivered at the dinner of the Union League, Philadelphia, April 5, 1899, in honor of Captain Charles E. Clark, U. S. N., late Commander of the battleship "Oregon."
Speech of Hampton L. Carson, delivered at the dinner of the Union League, Philadelphia, April 5, 1899, in honor of Captain Charles E. Clark, U. S. N., late Commander of the battleship "Oregon."
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Union League:—It was my good fortune, some eighteen months ago, to be in the city of Seattle, when the "Monterey" was lying in the harbor under the command of Captain Clark. At the time of my visit clear skies, placid waters and silent guns gave little indication of the awful responsibility that was soon to be imposed upon the gallant commander. My boys, having met him, were, like myself, intensely interestedin the outcome of his voyage; and I can say to him that the pulsations of the engines which drove theOregonthrough fourteen thousand miles of tropic seas were accompanied by the sympathetic beatings of hearts which had learned to love and respect this great captain as he richly deserved.
The American Navy! The most concise tribute that I ever heard paid to the sailors of the United States was contained in the answer of a man from Indiana, who was an applicant for office under General Grant, just after the Civil Service rules had gone into operation. The applicant was apprehensive as to his ability to respond to the questions, but one of his answers captured the board of examiners as well as the president, and he secured the place. The question was, "How many sailors did Great Britain send here, during the war of the Revolution, for the purpose of subduing us?" and the answer was, "More by a——sight than ever got back."
When Louis XIV, in order to check what he perceived to be the growing supremacy of England upon the seas, determined to establish a navy, he sent for his minister Colbert, and said to him, "I wish a navy—how can I create it!" Colbert replied, "Make as many galley slaves as you can." Thereupon every Huguenot who refused to doff his bonnet on the street as the king passed by, every boy of seventeen who could give no account of himself, every vagrant without an occupation, was seized, convicted, and sent to the galleys. Could a navy of heroes be made of galley slaves! The history of the Anglo-Saxon race says "No."
On the twenty-second day of December, 1775, the navy of the United States was born on the waters of our Delaware. On that day Esek Hopkins, of Rhode Island, was placed in command of a little fleet of eight vessels—two of them ships, two of them brigs, the others very much smaller. The English officers sneered in derision at "the fleet of whaleboats." The rattlesnake flag—a yellow flag with a pine tree in the centre and a rattlesnake coiled beneath its branches, with the words "Don't tread on me"—was run to the masthead of theProvidence, being hauled there by the hands of the first lieutenant, John Paul Jones. That little fleet of eight vessels, mounting only 114 guns, was sent forth to confront a naval power of 112 battleships with 3,714 guns—not a single gun of ours throwing a ball heavier than nine pounds, while five hundred of the English guns threw a weight of metal of double that amount. Wasn't it an audacious thing? Why, it seems to me one of the marvels of human history when I reflect upon what was attempted by the Americans of 1776.
Look at the situation. Thirteen different colonies strung along a narrow strip of coast; three thousand miles of rolling ocean on the one side and three thousand miles of impenetrable wilderness on the other; colonies with infinite diversity of interests—diverse in blood, diverse in conditions of society, diverse in ambition, diverse in pursuits—the English Puritan on the rock of Plymouth, the Knickerbocker Dutch on the shores of the Hudson, the Jersey Quaker on the other side of the Delaware, the Swede extending fromhere to Wilmington, Maryland bisected by our great bay of the Chesapeake, Virginia cut in half by the same water way, North Carolina and South Carolina lying south of impenetrable swamps as inaccessible to communication as a range of mountains, and farther south the sparsely-settled colony of Georgia. Huguenot, Cavalier, Catholic, Quaker, Dutchman, Puritan, Mennonite, Moravian, and Church of England men; and yet, under the hammer stroke of British oppression, thirteen colonies were welded into one thunderbolt, which was launched at the throne of George III.
That little navy under Hopkins—where were those sailors bred? Read Burke's speech on the conciliation of America. They sprang from the loins of hardy fishermen amidst tumbling fields of ice on the banks of Newfoundland, from those who had speared whales in the tepid waters of Brazil, or who had pursued their gigantic game into the Arctic zone or beneath the light of the Southern Cross. That fleet of eight ships sailed from the Delaware on the twenty-second of December, 1775, and proceeded to the island of New Providence, among the Bahamas. Our colonies and our armies were without arms, without powder, without munitions of war. The very first exploit of the fleet was the capture, on the nineteenth of March, 1776, of 150 cannon, 130 barrels of powder and eight warships, which were carried in triumph into Long Island Sound. But what of American heroism when the soldiers of Howe, of Clinton, of Carleton, and of Gage came here to fight the farmers of Pennsylvania, of Connecticut and Virginia, and the gay cavaliers who loved adventure?The British soldiers had conquered India under Sir Robert Clive and Sir Eyre Coote; they had been the heroes of Plassey and Pondicherry; men who had subjected to British dominion a country almost as extensive as our own fair republic and containing one hundred and ninety millions of souls. Here they found themselves faced by men of their own blood, men in whose breasts burned the spirit and the love of that liberty which was to encircle the heavens. On the glory-crowned heights of Bunker Hill the patriots gazed at the rafters of their own burning dwellings in the town of Charlestown, and heard the cannon shots hurled from British ships against the base of the hill. Three times did scarlet regiments ascend that hill only to be driven back; the voice of that idiot boy, Job Pray, ringing out above the din of battle, "Let them come on to Breed's—the people will teach them the law."
When the evacuation by the British of the metropolis of New England was effected by the troops under the command of a Virginia soldier, General Washington, then for the first time did sectionalism and partisanship and divisions on narrow lines vanish; the patriots who had fought at Bunker Hill were now no longer to be known as the troops of Massachusetts, of Connecticut, or of Rhode Island, but henceforth it was the Continental Army. On the very day when the British were driven out of Boston, John Paul Jones, with that historic rattlesnake flag, and, floating above it, not the Stars and Stripes, but the Stripes with the Union Jack, entered the waters of Great Britain; and then it was seen that an American captain with anAmerican ship and American sailors had the pluck to push out into foreign seas and to beard the British lion in his den. The same channel which had witnessed the victories of De Ruyter and Von Tromp, which was the scene of Blake's victory over the Dutch, and where the father of our great William Penn won his laurels as an admiral, was now the scene of the exploits of an American captain fighting beneath an American flag for American rights inherited from old mother England, who, in a moment of forgetfulness, had sought to deprive her offspring of liberty. I know of no more thrilling incident in revolutionary naval annals than the fight between theSerapisand theBon Homme Richard, when Paul Jones, on the burning deck of a sinking ship, lashed his yard arms to those of the enemy and fought hand to hand, man to man, until the British colors struck, and then, under the very cliffs of Old England, were run up for the first time the Stars and Stripes—with a field of blue into which the skillful fingers of Betsy Ross, of Philadelphia, had woven inextinguishable stars; the red stripes typifying the glory, the valor, and the self-sacrifice of the men who died that liberty might live; and the white, emblematic of purity, fitly representing those principles to preserve which these men had sanctified themselves by an immortal self-dedication. And there, too, in the Continental Navy was Richard Dale, the young "Middy," who fought beside Paul Jones; and Joshua Barney; and John Barry; and Nicholas Biddle of Philadelphia, who later, in the gallant littleRandolph, in order to help a convoyed fleet of Americanmerchantmen to escape, boldly attacked the battleshipYarmouth; and when it was found that he was doomed to defeat, blew up his vessel, perishing with all his crew, rather than strike the colors of the newly-born republic.
All honor to the navy of the United States! I never can read of its exploits—peaceful citizen as I am—without my blood bubbling with a joyous sense of exultation at the thought that the flag which has swept the seas, carrying liberty behind it, is the flag which is destined to sweep the seas again and carry liberty, civilization, and all the blessings of free government into benighted islands far, far from hence.
Why, gentlemen, the story of the exploits of our little fleets reads like a romance. At the end of the Revolutionary War eight hundred British ships, fifteen of them battleships, had surrendered to the prowess of the American navy, together with twelve thousand five hundred prisoners captured by less than three thousand men; and in that war our country had produced the boldest admirals that, up to that time, civilization had known, and the greatest fighting naval heroes that the world had seen.
Then came the War of 1812, to establish sailors' rights upon the high seas, when the American navy again proved victor despite overwhelming odds. I have in my possession a list of the British and American vessels at the outbreak of that war; and if I were to represent them by something tangible in order to indicate the proportions of each, I would say, taking this box lid for example (illustrating with the stem of arose upon the cover of a discarded flower box), that if you were to draw a line across here, near the top, you would have sufficient space in the narrow strip above the dividing line to write the names of all the American ships, while the entire remaining space would not be more than sufficient for the English fleet, which was more than thirty times the size of its antagonist. The ships which under Nelson had fought at the Nile and had won imperishable glory at Trafalgar, coming into our waters, struck their flags time and again. The glorious old "Ironsides" (theConstitution) captured theGuerriere, theJava, theCyane, andLevant. TheUnited Statestook theMacedonian; theWaspdestroyed theFrolic, while on the lakes we point with pride to the victories of Perry and MacDonough. When battle after battle had been fought it was found that, of eighteen fixed engagements, seventeen were victories for the Stars and Stripes. And this over the greatest maritime war power of the world!
Philadelphia is honorably associated with the glories of our navy. Our early battleships, though not all built here, were planned and constructed by Joshua Humphreys, a Philadelphian, the predecessor of our great shipbuilder of to-day, Charles H. Cramp.
Need I speak of the navy from 1861 to 1865, or tell of the exploits of those gallant fleets which clove a pathway down the valley of the Ohio, of the Tennessee, and of the Mississippi, in order that liberty might ride unvexed from the lakes to the gulf? Need I dwell upon the part taken by the guest of this evening, who was an officer who fought under Farragut?
In our recent war with Spain there were some who, in doubting moments, yielded to that atrabilious disposition which has been so well described by Mr. Tomkins; who thought that our ships were not strong enough to hazard an encounter with the fleets of Spain. But meanwhile there was doubling "around the Horn" a battleship, with a captain and a crew whose marvelous voyage was attracting the eyes of the world. Night after night we took up the map, traced his course from port to port, and our hearts beat high, our lips were firmly compressed, the color faded from our cheeks with excitement, but our eyes blazed with exultant anticipation as nearer and nearer to Pernambuco did he come. We all now feel, judging of the possibilities by actual achievement, that had Captain Clark encountered the enemy's ships, he could and would have successfully fought and defeated the entire Spanish fleet. He carried his ship ready for instant actions, every man at his post. God bless that crew! God bless those stokers, far down below those decks, confident that the captain who commanded them was on the bridge, and that he would never flinch nor fail in the hour of trial! I have often tried to draw a mental picture of what the scene must have been when theOregonsteamed in to join the fleet before Santiago; when the white jackets on the yard-arms tossed their caps in the air, and southern tars gave back to Yankee cheers a lusty welcome to the man who for so long, against all odds, with no encouraging advices, with unknown terrors all about him, had never flinched from duty, and who, when the last summons came, respondedin the words of Colonel Newcomb,Adsum—"I am here."
On the morning of the third of July, 1898, there stood the frowning Morro Castle, the prison of the glorious Hobson; on the other side the fortress of Estrella; the narrow channel blocked by the wreck of theMerrimac; theBrooklyn, theOregon, theTexas, theIndiana, theIowaand theMassachusettsall watching that orifice. Then black smoke rolled from the tunnels of the enemy's ships, indicating that the tiger had roused him from his lair and was making a rush for the open sea. Up went the signal on the flagstaff of theBrooklyn, "Forward—the enemy is approaching." Then engines moved; then guns thundered their volleys; then sky and sea became black with the smoke of battle; and swiftly steamed theOregonin pursuit of theCristobal Colon. Beneath well-directed shots the monster reeled, like a wounded athlete, to the beach; and then from the flagstaff of theNew Yorkwere displayed those signals now on these walls before your eyes—"1-7-3; cornet; 2m-9m-7m"—which, translated, meant—and we of the League to-night repeat the words—"Well done,Oregon."
Captain Clark, the city of Philadelphia has always contributed her share to the building of the navy and to a fitting recognition of the heroes who have commanded our battleships. In the old churchyard of St. Mary's, on Fourth Street, sleep the bones of John Barry; and in the older churchyard of St. Peter's stands the monument to Decatur. We have with usalso the ashes of Stewart, who commanded "Old Ironsides" when she captured theCyaneand theLevant; and we have those of Bainbridge, who captured theJava.
In reading of the exploits of the master spirits of the past, I have sometimes wondered whether we had men of to-day who were their equals. My answer is this: I say to soldiers and sailors, whether of our Civil War or of the late war with Spain, you are worthy of your sires, you have caught the inspiration of their glowing deeds, you have taken up the burden which they threw upon your shoulders, and though in time to come you may sleep in unmarked graves, the memory of your deeds will live; and, like your sires, you have become immortal.
To fight for liberty is indeed a privilege. "Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery, thou art a bitter draught; and, though thousands in all ages have been made to drink thee, thou art no less bitter on that account. 'Tis thou, O Liberty! thrice sweet and gracious goddess, whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so till nature herself shall change. No tint of words can spot thy snowy mantle, nor chemic power turn thy scepter into iron. With thee to smile upon him, as he eats his crust, the swain is happier than the monarch from whose courts thou art exiled." So wrote Laurence Sterne.
And then Rufus Choate: "To form and uphold a state, it is not enough that our judgments should believe it to be useful; the better part of our affections should feel it to be lovely. It is not enough that ourarithmetic should compute its value and find it high; our hearts should hold it priceless—above all things rich and rare—dearer than health and beauty, brighter than all the order of the stars." In contemplating those mysterious dispensations of Providence by which the light which broke upon this continent two hundred years ago is now penetrating and illuminating the darkest corners of the earth, it will be a supreme satisfaction for us to know that our children and our children's children will have set for their imitation and encouragement the example of the heroism, the manliness, the courage, the patriotism and the modesty of the captains of to-day.