HENRY CABOT LODGE

[Fragment of a speech of Abraham Lincoln at the Republican banquet in Chicago, December 10, 1856. The rest of this speech, if it was ever reported, is presumably no longer extant, as it is not published in any collection of Lincoln's speeches.]

Gentlemen:—We have another annual presidential message. Like a rejected lover making merry at the wedding of his rival, the President felicitates himself hugely over the late presidential election. He considers the result a signal triumph of good principles and good men, and a very pointed rebuke of bad ones. He says the people did it. He forgets that the "people," as he complacently calls only those who voted for Buchanan, are in a minority of the whole people by about four hundred thousand votes—one full tenth of all the votes. Remembering this, he might perceive that the "rebuke" may not be quite as durable as he seems to think—that the majority may not choose to remain permanently rebuked by that minority.

The President thinks the great body of us Fremonters, being ardently attached to liberty, in the abstract, were duped by a few wicked and designing men. There is a slight difference of opinion on this. We think he, being ardently attached to the hope of a second term, in the concrete, was duped by men who hate liberty every way. He is the cat's-paw. By much dragging of chestnuts from the fire for others to eat, his claws are burnt off to the gristle, and he is thrown aside as unfit for further use. As the fool said of King Lear, when his daughters had turned him out of doors, "He's a shelled peascod."

So far as the President charges us with a desire to "changethe domestic institutions of existing States," and of "doing everything in our power to deprive the Constitution and the laws of moral authority," for the whole party on belief, and for myself on knowledge, I pronounce the charge an unmixed and unmitigated falsehood.

Our government rests in public opinion. Whoever can change public opinion can change the government practically just so much. Public opinion, on any subject, always has a central idea, from which all its minor thoughts radiate. That central idea in our political public opinion at the beginning was, and until recently has continued to be, the equality of men. And although it has always submitted patiently to whatever of inequality there seemed to be as matter of actual necessity, its constant working has been a steady progress toward the practical equality of all men. The late presidential election was a struggle by one party to discard that central idea and to substitute for it the opposite idea that slavery is right in the abstract, the workings of which as a central idea may be the perpetuity of human slavery and its extension to all countries and colors. Less than a year ago the Richmond "Enquirer," an avowed advocate of slavery regardless of color, in order to favor his views, invented the phrase "State equality," and now the President, in his message, adopts the "Enquirer's" catch-phrase, telling us the people "have asserted the constitutional equality of each and all the States of the Union as States." The President flatters himself that the new central idea is completely inaugurated; and so indeed it is, so far as the mere fact of a presidential election can inaugurate it. To us it is left to know that the majority of the people have not yet declared for it, and to hope that they never will. All of us who did not vote for Mr. Buchanan, taken together, are a majority of four hundred thousand. But in the late contest we were divided between Fremont and Fillmore. Can we not come together for the future? Let every one who really believes, and is resolved, that free society is not and shall not be a failure, and who can conscientiously declare that in the past contest he has done only what he thought best—let every such one have charity to believe that every other one can say as much. Thus let bygones be bygones; let past differences as nothing be; and with steady eye on the realissue, let us reinaugurate the good old central ideas of the Republic. We can do it. The human heart is with us: God is with us. We shall again be able not to declare that "all States as States are equal," nor yet that "all citizens as citizens are equal," but to renew the broader, better declaration, including both these and much more, "that all men are created equal." [Applause.]

This historic "Cradle of Liberty" yields to no building in America, save perhaps Independence Hall, in interest. Faneuil Hall, in Boston, was built in 1740, by Peter Faneuil, a wealthy merchant, and presented to the town for a town-hall and market uses, to which it has been devoted ever since. In 1761 it was injured by fire, but was rebuilt by the town in the following year. In 1805 it was considerably enlarged and improved. During the troublous times which preceded the Revolution, it was the scene of most exciting public meetings; and the great patriot orators of that day sounded from this platform the stirring notes that gave the chief impulse of patriotism to the whole country.]

Faneuil Hall

[Speech of Henry Cabot Lodge, delivered at a banquet complimentary to the Robert E. Lee Camp of Confederate Veterans, of Richmond, Va., given in Faneuil Hall, Boston, June 17, 1887. The Southerners were visiting Boston as the special guests of the John A. Andrew Post 15, Department of Massachusetts, Grand Army of the Republic. At the banquet Commander William B. Daley, of Post 15, presided. On either side of the presiding officer were seated, Col. A. L. Phillips, commander of the visiting camp, ex-Solicitor Gen. Goode of Virginia, the Hon. George D. Wise of Virginia, Governor Ames of Massachusetts. Mr. Lodge [now United States Senator from Massachusetts] responded to the toast, "The Blue and the Gray."]

Mr. Chairman:—To such a toast, sir, it would seem perhaps most fitting that one of those should respond who was a part of the great event which it recalls. Yet, after all, on an occasion like this, it may not be amiss to call upon one who belongs to a generation to whom the Rebellion is little more than history, and who, however insufficiently, represents the feelings of that and the succeeding generations as to our great Civil War. I was a boy ten years old when the troops marched away to defend Washington, and my personal knowledge of that time is confined to a few broken but vivid memories. I saw the troops, month after month, pour through the streets of Boston. I saw Shaw go forth at the head of his black regiment, and Bartlett, shattered in body but dauntless in soul, ride by to carry what was left of him once more to the battle-fields of the Republic. I saw Andrew, standing bareheaded on the steps of the State House, bid the men God-speed. I cannot remember the words he said, but I can never forget the fervid eloquence which brought tears to the eyes and fire to the hearts of all who listened. I understood but dimly the awful meaning of theseevents. To my boyish mind one thing alone was clear, that the soldiers as they marched past were all, in that supreme hour, heroes and patriots. Amid many changes that simple belief of boyhood has never altered. The gratitude which I felt then I confess to to-day more strongly than ever. But other feelings have in the progress of time altered much. I have learned, and others of my generation as they came to man's estate have learned, what the war really meant, and they have also learned to know and to do justice to the men who fought the war upon the other side.

I do not stand up in this presence to indulge in any mock sentimentality. You brave men who wore the gray would be the first to hold me or any other son of the North in just contempt if I should say that, now it was all over, I thought the North was wrong and the result of the war a mistake, and that I was prepared to suppress my political opinions. I believe most profoundly that the war on our side was eternally right, that our victory was the salvation of the country, and that the results of the war were of infinite benefit to both North and South. But however we differed, or still differ, as to the causes for which we fought then, we accept them as settled, commit them to history, and fight over them no more. To the men who fought the battles of the Confederacy we hold out our hands freely, frankly, and gladly. To courage and faith wherever shown we bow in homage with uncovered heads. We respect and honor the gallantry and valor of the brave men who fought against us, and who gave their lives and shed their blood in defence of what they believed to be right. We rejoice that the famous general whose name is borne upon your banner was one of the greatest soldiers of modern times, because he, too, was an American. We have no bitter memories to revive, no reproaches to utter. Reconciliation is not to be sought, because it exists already. Differ in politics and in a thousand other ways we must and shall in all good-nature, but let us never differ with each other on sectional or State lines, by race or creed.

We welcome you, soldiers of Virginia, as others more eloquent than I have said, to New England. We welcome you to old Massachusetts. We welcome you to Boston and to Faneuil Hall. In your presence here, and at the soundof your voices beneath this historic roof, the years roll back and we see the figure and hear again the ringing tones of your great orator, Patrick Henry, declaring to the first Continental Congress, "The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American." A distinguished Frenchman, as he stood among the graves at Arlington, said, "Only a great people is capable of a great civil war." Let us add with thankful hearts that only a great people is capable of a great reconciliation. Side by side, Virginia and Massachusetts led the colonies into the War for Independence. Side by side they founded the government of the United States. Morgan and Greene, Lee and Knox, Moultrie and Prescott, men of the South and men of the North, fought shoulder to shoulder, and wore the same uniform of buff and blue—the uniform of Washington.

Your presence here brings back their noble memories, it breathes the spirit of concord, and unites with so many other voices in the irrevocable message of union and good-will. Mere sentiment all this, some may say. But it is sentiment, true sentiment, that has moved the world. Sentiment fought the war, and sentiment has re-united us. When the war closed, it was proposed in the newspapers and elsewhere to give Governor Andrew, who had sacrificed health and strength and property in his public duties, some immediately lucrative office, like the collectorship of the port of Boston. A friend asked him if he would take such a place. "No," said he; "I have stood as high priest between the horns of the altar, and I have poured out upon it the best blood of Massachusetts, and I cannot take money for that." Mere sentiment, truly, but the sentiment which ennobles and uplifts mankind. It is sentiment which so hallows a bit of torn, stained bunting, that men go gladly to their deaths to save it. So I say that the sentiment manifested by your presence here, brethren of Virginia, sitting side by side with those who wore the blue, has a far-reaching and gracious influence, of more value than many practical things. It tells us that these two grand old commonwealths, parted in the shock of the Civil War, are once more side by side as in the days of the Revolution, never to part again. It tells us that the sons of Virginia and Massachusetts, if war should breakagain upon the country, will, as in the olden days, stand once more shoulder to shoulder, with no distinction in the colors that they wear. It is fraught with tidings of peace on earth and you may read its meaning in the words on yonder picture, "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable."

[Speech of John D. Long, Secretary of the Navy, at the banquet of the Fall Festival Celebration, Chicago, October 9, 1899. The Secretary was introduced by the toast-master, Hon. Melville E. Stone, to speak in response to the toast, "The Navy."]

Mr. President and Gentlemen:—Your toast to the Navy is all the more a compliment because you are a thousand miles from the sea. It signifies the place that the Navy has in the hearts of all the people and how much they all alike share its glories. It has always been dear to the American heart, and has contributed some of the most brilliant pages in American history; but its exploits during the recent war have given it a stronger and broader hold than ever before. Besides, it is not a department which pertains to any section of the country nor to any class among the people; it is one of the fundamental elements of American popular growth. It is as much the product of our schools, our homes, and common life, as is the shop of the mechanic, the warehouse of the merchant, the harvest of the farmer. Jack hails from the inland hamlet as well as from the seaport town.

The Admiral commanding one of our great squadrons, winning a victory unprecedented in naval history, is the son of a prominent financial business man; another, the son of an Irish laborer, working in a ditch by his father's side, went from it to the Naval academy. Every congressional district in the Union is represented there by its cadet.

The result is that the splendid body of naval officers who to-day so highly command the confidence and admiration of the people are themselves the immediate representatives ofthe people, and of their common intelligence, spirit and standards. Our late antagonist had officers and men of undoubted bravery. But in education, versatility, ability to plan and do, and to meet emergencies: in short, in what Mrs. Stowe called "faculty," our superiority was such that the battle was won the moment it began.

In this connection I remind myself that in Congress the Naval Committees of the Senate and House are made up also of men from all parts of our common country. That great branch of our government which nurses the Navy and provides for it is also representative of all the people. Indeed, your own great city, with all its tremendous commercial and industrial interests, has contributed a member of that committee, who has put his heart into our naval development, rendered signal service in that behalf, and by his recent voluntary study of naval affairs abroad has prepared himself for still more valuable work—your able representative in Congress, and my good friend, George Edmund Foss.

I can the more properly, gentlemen, join with you in your appreciation of the Navy because, although its head, I am yet only temporarily connected with it and can look at it from the outside. I sometimes think, however, that the great public, applauding the salient merits, overlook others which are quite as deserving.

You cheer for the men behind the guns; you give swords and banquets here and there to an Admiral—and both most richly deserve the tribute—but remember that all up and down the line there are individuals whose names never got to your ears—or, if so, are already half forgotten—who have earned unfading laurels. No man in the Navy has rendered such service, however great, that others were not ready to fill the place and do as well. The Navy is full of heroes unknown to fame. Its great merit is the professional spirit which runs through it; the high sense of duty, the lofty standards of service to which its hearts are loyal and which make them all equal to any duty.

Who sings the praises of the chiefs of the naval stations and bureaus of the Navy department, who wept that there were no battles and glory for them; and who, remaining at their departmental posts, made such provision for the fitting out, the arming, the supplying, the feeding, the coaling, theequipping of your fleets that the commanding officer on the deck had only to direct and use the forces which these, his brothers, had put in his hands?

Who repeats the names of the young officers who pleaded for Hobson's chance to risk his life in the hull and hell of the Merrimac? Who mentions the scores of seamen who begged to be of the immortal seven who were his companions in that forlorn hope?

In the long watch before Santiago the terror of our great battleships was the two Spanish torpedo-boat destroyers, those swift, fiendish sharks of the sea, engines of death and destruction, and yet, when the great battle came, it was the unprotected Gloucester, a converted yacht, the former plaything and pleasure-boat of a summer vacation, which, without hesitation or turning, attacked these demons of the sea and sunk them both. I have always thought it the most heroic and gallant individual instance of fighting daring in the war. It was as if some light-clad youth, with no defence but his sword, threw himself into the arena with armored gladiators and by his dash and spirit laid them low. And yet who has given a sword or spread a feast to that purest flame of chivalrous heroism, Richard Wainwright?

Who recalls all the still more varied services of our Navy—its exploits and researches in the interest of science, its stimulus to international commerce, its surveys in foreign harbors, its charting of the sea and marking of the pathway of the merchant marine, its study of the stars, its contributions—in short, to all the interests of an enlightened and progressive country?

May I suggest, therefore, that with this broader view of our Navy, as not an outside conception of our institutions, but an integral part of them, it is a partial conception that criticises its recent development and its continued developments in the future? It has not only given dignity and variety of service and strength to your government, but think how it is linked in with all your industrial interests, with the employment of large bodies of labor, with the consumption of all sorts of material stimulating marine construction, building docks, and contributing to this business activity and prosperity which are the features of this thrifty town. It is not too much to predict that the development of our navyis the beginning also of a new era of our merchant marine, in maritime construction, and, hence, in maritime transportation, of the American bottom carrying the American flag again on all the oceans of the globe.

In the war with Spain our fleet was ordered to Manila because there was a Spanish fleet there, and every military interest demanded its capture or destruction. When that was done, every military interest required, not that our fleet be withdrawn, but that our hand on the enemy's throat should there remain until his surrender. When that surrender came, and with it the transfer of the sovereignty of those islands from Spain to the United States, every consideration demanded that the President should hold them up, not toss them into the caldron of anarchy, and when violence began should restore order, yet stretching out always in his hands the tender and opportunity for peace and beneficent government until Congress in its wisdom shall determine what their future status shall be. What more, or what less, should he do and do his duty? [Applause.]

[Speech of Seth Low at the 112th annual banquet of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, May 11, 1880. George W. Lane, the second vice-President of the Chamber, presided, and called upon Mr. Low to respond to the tenth regular toast: "The Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York—its Past, Present, and Future."]

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Chamber Of Commerce:—If the historian wished to convey to your minds some idea of the antiquity of this Chamber, he would scarcely do it, I think, by saying it was founded in 1768. So few besides the reporters would personally recollect those times. He would rather tell you that it dates back to an epoch when each absentee from the annual dinner was fined five shillings sterling for the offence. Think of that! How eloquently it seems to tell us that there was no Delmonico in those days. I can understand how a people that punished such a slight to commerce in such a way, would rebel at stamp acts and other burdens of the sort. The Revolution itself seems to get a new interpretation from this early custom of the Chamber. [Laughter.]

But, perhaps, a better way of making vivid to this generation the age of this body, would be to say that it dates back to a time when New York actually had a foreign commerce of its own, carried on chiefly under the American flag. It sounds like a fairy tale to one who counts the ensigns in our harbor now, to be told that tradition speaks of a day when the Stars and Stripes floated over a larger fleet of common carriers on the highways of the world—at least, so far as American business was concerned—than even that omnipresent banner of St. George. Strange, is it not, that a nation which surpasses all others in its use of machinery onthe land, should have been content to yield up the sea, almost without a struggle, to the steamships of the older world? Events over which we have had no control have had much to do with it, I know; but is a single misused subsidy to keep us off the sea forever, or so long as the dominion of the steamship lasts? Are we to wait until England can build our steamers for us, and hear her say, as we run up the Stars and Stripes to the mast-head of the ship which she has built: "See, Brother Jonathan, how cheap these subsidies which I have given all these years enable me now to build for you!" It may be we must wait for this, but let us hope for a happier consummation. Nevertheless, Mr. Chairman, this Chamber does date back to the time when we had a commerce of our own. [Applause.]

In glancing over our old records, it is interesting to see what a perennial source of discussion in this body have been the pilots of the port. They have been mentioned, I think, even the past year. The first formal reference to the pilots appears in 1791, and the minutes ever since teem with memorials, protests, bills, measures, conferences and the like.

A story is told of a Chinese pilot, who boarded the vessel of a captain who had never been on the China coast before, and who asked the captain one hundred dollars for his fee. The captain demurred, and the discussion waxed warm, until the white head of an old China merchant appeared in the companion-way, and caught the pilot's eye, when he cut the dispute short by crying out: "Hi-ya! G'long olo Foxee! ten dollar can do!" [Laughter and applause.]

I apprehend there is much wisdom in this appeal. In the olden days, the complaint against our pilotage system was not only that it was costly, but that it was inefficient; and so even more costly in the losses of vessels and cargoes than in fees. But, after half a century of contest, the present system was reached in 1853, and it is, beyond dispute, acknowledged by underwriters and by merchants that, as a system, it has worked well—uncommonly well. If, therefore, the present dispute between the merchants and the pilots be, as I understand that it is, in all its vital points a dispute as to fees, I recommend to the merchants and to the pilots the Chinese method of adjustment—by compromise. Do not let us expose to the hazard of legislative interferencea system which is not likely to be bettered, and which gives us certainly efficient pilotage, because we cannot all at once get by compromise a reduction in our favor quite equal to what we think our due. [Applause.]

But what can I say, Mr. Chairman, of the Chamber of to-day? The subject is full, very full, of interest and of other good things. "May good digestion wait on appetite, and health on both." It is curious to see, all along the history of the Chamber, how coming events have cast their shadows before. In 1837 the Chamber petitioned Congress to improve the navigation at Hell Gate; in 1846 they approved a report suggesting as feasible a railroad across the continent to the Pacific; and in 1852 they asked Congress to remove the mint from Philadelphia, intimating pretty plainly that Philadelphia was too insignificant a place to enjoy so great a luxury. The first two achievements have been accomplished. The mint is almost due in Wall Street. Let Philadelphia hear and tremble. [Applause.]

When I think, Mr. Chairman, of the influence the Chamber wields, and of the influence it ought to wield, it seems to me one thing of all others should be avoided. The Chamber ought never to be put upon record in an important matter until full discussion upon fair notice has preceded action, whenever this is possible. Sometimes I have thought the action of the Chamber was somewhat the result of chance, even with reference to questions of great importance. If the Chamber is to continue free, as in the main it has been free, from being used for personal ends, and at the same time is to exert an influence at all commensurate with its power as a representative of commercial New York, the action of the Chamber ought to be the result of intelligent discussion. I would only suggest one definite thing. Why might not the notice of each monthly meeting state the items of unfinished business that may come up, and also give notice, so far as possible, of the matters to be submitted by the Executive Committee? The attendance at our meetings would be better, I am sure, if men knew when matters of interest to them were to be discussed.

Glancing towards our future, I seem to see the day when Judge Fancher shall sit in a telephone exchange and receive his testimony in ghastly whispers from unseen mouthswhen the president of the Chamber shall take the ayes and nays of a meeting whose component parts are sitting in a thousand counting rooms in this city. But I never can seem to see the day when the annual dinner can be conducted by the members except face-to-face. At all events, we can wait till Edison perfects the electric light, before asking him to make a dinner available with Delmonico fifteen miles away. [Laughter and cheers.]

In 1861 the Pacific Mail Steamship Line was petitioned for, or, at least, a mail line on the Pacific, between the United States and the Orient world, and that, while the nation was engaged in a mighty struggle for its life. The Pacific Mail Line to the East, the Pacific Railroad across the continent, the superb government buildings at Washington,—all constructed, in whole or in part, while the nation seemed to be strained to its utmost by the demands of a civil war,—these things are to me among the mightiest evidences of the faith of the men of those days who, while the present seemed to be surcharged with duties and burdens for their hands, still laid hold upon the future with such powerful grasp. Are we, of the Chamber of Commerce, worthy of the blessings that have come down to us out of the glorious past? If we wish to be, we must live partly for the future as did they.

We need a building of our own, commodious, and in some way proportioned to the great interests we represent. We need a fire-proof building for the safe-keeping of our records. Once already in our history our seal has been returned to us from an obscure shop in London. Our Charter was rescued from an old trunk in the Walton house on Pearl Street, and our historic paintings were only discovered after long loss, as the result of the fire of 1835. The Chamber of Commerce is standing now at the door of Congress, and asks them to sell at public auction the site of the old Post Office, for not less than three hundred thousand dollars and to pay to the Chamber from the proceeds of the sale the sum of fifty thousand dollars, originally subscribed, in the main, by members of the Chamber when that site was purchased from the General Government a few years ago. It is the purpose of the Chamber to buy this plot, and to build there a building worthy of itself and of this great city. [Applause.] But so far we ask in vain.

The House Committee of Ways and Means has reported our bill favorably, but Congress does nothing. The Chamber wants this plot, not so much because of the fifty thousand dollars it has ofquasiinterest in it, but because of its eligibility. The Chamber believes it deserves well of this community and of the nation, and, so believing, it asks of Congress the passage of this bill.

I look back over the past twenty years, and I find the Chamber of Commerce has been always alive to encourage gallantry, to reward conspicuous service, and to relieve distress. Eighteen hundred thousand dollars—almost two millions of dollars—has been given by this Chamber in these twenty years. The money has not all come from members of the Chamber, but the Chamber has always been recognized as the fitting leader and minister in this city in deeds of public spirit. [Cheers.]

In 1858 it celebrated the completion of the first Atlantic cable, by giving medals of gold, with generous impartiality, to the officers of the British ship "Agamemnon" and the American ship "Niagara" alike. And in 1866 it feasted the distinguished and persevering American citizen whose pluck and courage, with reference to this cable, no disaster and no faint-heartedness anywhere could dismay.

In 1861, in token of gratitude and of patriotic admiration, the Chamber placed a medal of bronze upon the breast of every officer and private who sustained the national honor in the defense of Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens.

In 1862 it sprang to the relief of famished Lancashire; in 1865 our own sufferers in East Tennessee and in Savannah partook of its bounty; and in 1871 the bread cast upon the waters by Rochambeau and Lafayette, a hundred years before, returned through the ministry of the Chamber in an abundant harvest to the war-stricken plains of unhappy France.

In 1865 the Chamber honored itself by giving testimonials to the officers and crew of the "Kearsarge."

In 1866 it presented to the widow of a Southern officer in the United States Navy several historic swords, sending with them a purse, "in recognition of the valuable services rendered to our country by the father and son, and as a token that gratitude for fidelity to the flag of the Union is an abiding sentiment with the citizens of New York, descending from generation to generation."

The cities of Troy, Portland, Richmond, Chicago, three of them when swept by fire, and Richmond when cast into gloom by the fall of the State Capitol, all in turn have realized, through the prompt action of the Chamber, the large brotherliness of commercial New York.

And, finally, in 1876, at Savannah, and in 1878, through the whole southwestern district of the country, and again in 1879 at Memphis, the contributions made through the Chamber of Commerce gave substantial relief to the distressed victims of yellow fever. Thus has the Chamber contributed to promote a union of hearts throughout the broad expanse of this great Union of States. Thus has the Chamber done what it could to show that the spirit of commerce is a large and a liberal spirit, too large to be bounded by the lines that divide nations. Thus has the Chamber shown itself not unworthy of the Empire State of the New World. May the future of the Chamber be in every respect worthy of the past. [Loud applause,]

[Speech of James Russell Lowell at the Harvard Alumni dinner at Cambridge, Mass., June 30, 1875. Mr. Lowell was the presiding officer.]

Brethren of the Alumni:—It is, I think, one of the greatest privileges conferred upon us by our degree that we can meet together once a year in this really majestic hall [Memorial Hall], commemorative of our proudest sorrows, suggestive only of our least sordid ambitions; that we can meet here to renew our pledge of fealty to the ancient mother who did so much for the generations that have gone before us, and who will be as benign to those who, by-and-by, shall look back and call us fathers. The tie that binds us to our college is one of the purest, since it is that which unites us also with our youth; it is one of the happiest, for it binds us to the days when we looked forward and not backward, for in hope there is nothing to regret, while in retrospect there is a touch of autumn and a premonition of winter.

In this year of centennials, when none of us would be surprised if a century plant should blossom in our back yard [laughter], when I myself am matured, as I look to complete my second centennial on Saturday afternoon [laughter and applause], there is a kind of repose, as it seems to me, in coming back here to sit in the lap of this dear old nurse who is well on toward her three hundred, and who will certainly never ask any of us to celebrate her centennial either in prose or verse. To this college our Revolution which we are celebrating this year is modern. And I think also one of the great privileges which she confers upon us is that she gives us a claim of kindred stillwith the mother country—a claim purely intellectual and safe from the embitterment of war or the jealousies of trade. It was an offshoot of Cambridge and Oxford that was planted on the banks of the Charles, and by men from Cambridge and Oxford; and when I visited those renowned nurseries of piety, scholarship, and manliness of thought, my keenest pleasure in the kindness I received was the feeling that I owed the greater part of it to my connection with Harvard, whom they were pleased to acknowledge as a plant not unworthy of the parent stock. [Applause.]

In their halls I could not feel myself a stranger, and I resented the imputation of being a foreigner when I looked round upon the old portraits, all of whom were my countrymen as well as theirs, and some of whom had been among our founders and benefactors. In this year of reconciliations and atonements, too, the influence of college associations is of no secondary importance as a bond of union. On this day, in every State of our more than ever to be united country, there are men whose memories turn back tenderly and regretfully to those haunts of their early manhood. Our college also, stretching back as it does toward the past, and forward to an ever-expanding future, gives a sense of continuity which is some atonement for the brevity of life. These portraits that hang about us seem to make us contemporaries with generations that are gone, and the services we render her will make us in turn familiar to those who shall succeed us here. There is no way so cheap of buying what I may call a kind of mitigated immortality,—mean by that an immortality without the pains and penalty attached commonly to it, of being dug up once in fifty years to have your claims reconsidered [laughter]—as in giving something to the college. [Applause.] Nay, I will say in parenthesis, that even an intention to give it secures that place of which I have spoken. [Laughter.] I find in the records of the college an ancestor of my own recorded as having intended to give a piece of land. He remains there forever with his beneficent intention. It is not certain that he didn't carry it out. The land certainly never came to me, or I should make restitution. [Laughter and applause.]

Consider, for example, William Pennoyer; how long ago would he have sunk in the tenacious ooze of oblivion, not leaving rack nor even rumor of himself behind. No portrait of him exists, and no living descendant, so far as I know, and yet his name is familiar with all of us who are familiar with the records of the college, and he always presents himself to our imaginations in the gracious attitude of putting his hand into his pocket. [Laughter.] And tell me, if you please, what widow of a London alderman ever insured her life with so sure return or perdurable interest as Madame Holden. Even the bodiless society,pro propaganda fide,is reincorporated forever in the perpetuity of our gratitude. It is the genteelest of immortalities, as the auctioneer would call it, the immortality of perfect seclusion.

The value of such an association as this as a spur to honorable exertion is also, as it seems to me, no small part of its benefit. Leigh Hunt, says, somewhere, that when he was writing an essay he always thought of certain persons and said to himself, "A will like this, B will rub his hands at that"; and it is safe to say that any graduate of this college would prefer the suffrages of his brethren here to those of any other public. And when any of the sons of Harvard who has done her honor and his country upright service, meets us here on this day, it is not only a fitting recognition, but a powerful incentive, that he receives in the "Well done" of our plaudits. I had hoped that we should have heard to-day the voice of one graduate of Harvard who sits almost immediately upon my right. [Charles Francis Adams.] I will not press upon his modesty, but I will ask you to bear witness once more that Peace hath her victories, and more renowned than war [long continued applause]; and honor with me those truly durable years of service and that of victory, which if it hath not so loud an echo as that of the battle-field, will be seen to have a longer one. [Renewed and loud applause.] It appears to me that there is nothing more grateful to the human heart than this appreciation of cultivated men. If it be not the echo of posterity, it was something more solid and well-pleasing. But better and more wholesome than even this must it be, I should think, for men spending their lives in the dusty glare ofpublic life, to come back once a year to our quiet shades and be, as Dr. Holmes has so delightfully sung, plain Bill and Joe again. It must renew and revive in them the early sweetness of their nature, the frank delight in simple things which makes so large a part of the better happiness of life.

But, gentlemen, I will not longer detain you with the inevitable suggestions of the occasion. These sentimentalities are apt to slip from under him who would embark on them, like a birch canoe under the clumsy foot of a cockney, and leave him floundering in retributive commonplace. I had a kind of hope, indeed, from what I had heard, that I should be unable to fill this voice-devouring hall. I had hoped to sit serenely here with a tablet in the wall before me inscribed:Guilielmo Roberto Ware, Henrico Van Brunt, optime de Academia meritis, eo quod facundiam postprandialem irritam fecerunt.I hope you understood my Latin [laughter], and I hope you will forgive me the antiquity of my pronunciation [laughter]; but it is simply because I cannot help it. Then on a blackboard behind me I could have written in large letters the names of our guests who should make some brief dumb show of acknowledgment. You, at least, with your united applause, could make yourselves heard. If brevity ever needed an excuse, I might claim one in the fact that I have consented at short notice to be one of the performers in our domestic centennial next Saturday, and poetry is not a thing to be delivered on demand without an exhausting wear upon the nerves. When I wrote to Dr. Holmes and begged for a little poem, I got the following answer, which I shall take the liberty of reading. I don't see the Doctor himself in the hall, which encourages me to go on:—

"My Dear James:—Somebody has written a note in your name requesting me to furnish a few verses for some occasion which he professed to be interested in. I am satisfied, of course, that it is a forgery. I know you would not do such a thing as to ask a brother rhymer, utterly exhausted by his centennial efforts, to endanger his health and compromise his reputation by any damnable iteration of spasmodic squeezing. [Laughter.] So I give you warning that some dangerous person is using your name, and taking advantage of the great love I bear you, to play upon my feelings. Don't think for a moment that I hold you in any way responsible for this note, looking so nearly like your own handwriting as for a single instant to deceive me, and suggest the idea that I would take a passage for Europe in season to avoid all the college anniversaries."

I readily excused him, and I am sure you will be kind enough to be charitable to me, gentlemen.

I know that one of the things which the graduates of the college look forward to with the most confident expectation and pleasure is the report of the President of the University. [Applause.] I remember that when I was in the habit of attending the meetings of the faculty, some fourteen or fifteen years ago, I was very much struck by the fact that almost every matter of business that required particular ability was sure to gravitate into the hands of a young professor of chemistry. The fact made so deep an impression upon me that I remember that I used to feel, when our war broke out, that this young professor might have to take the care of one of our regiments, and I know that he would have led it to victory. And when I heard that the same professor was nominated for President, I had no doubt of the result which all of us have seen to follow. I give you, gentlemen, the health of President Eliot of Harvard College. [Applause.]

[Speech of James Russell Lowell at the Harvard Alumni dinner at Cambridge, Mass., June 28, 1876. Mr. Lowell, as President of the Alumni Association, occupied the chair.]

Brethren:—Though perhaps there be nothing in a hundredth year to make it more emphatic than those years which precede it and which follow it, and though the celebration of centennials be a superstitious survival from the time when to count ten upon the fingers was a great achievement in arithmetic, and to find the square of that number carried with it something of the awe and solemnity which invests the higher mathematics to us of the laity, yet I think no wise man can be indifferent to any sentiment which so profoundly and powerfully affects the imagination of the mass of his fellows. The common consent of civilized mankind seems to have settled on the centennial commemoration of great events as leaving an interval spacious enough to be impressive, and having a roundness of completion in its period. We, the youngest of nations, the centuries to us are not yetgrown so cheap and commonplace as to Napoleon when he saw forty of them looking in undisguised admiration upon his army, bronzed from their triumphs in Italy. For my own part I think the scrutiny of one age is quite enough to bear without calling in thirty-nine others to its assistance. [Applause.]

It is quite true that a hundred years are but as a day in the life of a nation, are but as a tick of the clock to the long-drawn æons in which this planet hardened itself for the habitation of man, and man accommodated himself to his habitation; but they are all we have, and we must make the best of them. Perhaps, after all, it is no such great misfortune to be young, especially if we are conscious at the time that youth means opportunity, and not accomplishment. I think that, after all, when we look back upon a hundred years through which the country has passed, the vista is not so disheartening as to the indigestive fancy it might at first appear. If we have lost something of that Arcadian simplicity which the French travellers of a hundred years ago found here,—perhaps because they looked for it, perhaps because of their impenetrability by the English tongue,—we have lost something also of that self-sufficiency which is the mark as well of provincials as of barbarians, and which is the great hindrance to all true advancement. It is a wholesome symptom, I think, if we are beginning to show some of that talent for grumbling which is the undoubted heirloom of the race to which most of us belong. [Laughter and applause.] Even the Fourth-of-July oration is edging round into a lecture on our national shortcomings, and the proud eagle himself is beginning to have no little misgiving at the amplitude between the tips of his wings. [Laughter.]

But while it may be admitted that our government was more decorously administered one hundred years ago, if our national housekeeping of to-day is further removed from honest business principles, and therefore is more costly, both morally and financially, than that of any other Christian nation, it is no less true that the hundredth year of our existence finds us in the mass very greatly advanced in the refinement and culture and comfort that are most operative in making a country civilized and in keeping it so. [Applause.] When we talk of decline of public and private virtue I think that we forget that that better former day was a day of small communities and of uneasy locomotion, when public opinion acted more directly and more sharply, was brought to bear more convincingly upon the individual than is possible now. But grant that though the dread of what is said and thought be but a poor substitute and makeshift for conscience,—that austere and sleepless safeguard of character, which, if not an instinct, acquires all the attributes of an instinct, and whose repeated warnings make duty at least an unconscious habitude,—after all, this outside substitute is the strongest motive for well-doing in the majority of our race, and men of thought and culture should waste no opportunity to reinforce it by frankness in speaking out invidious truths, by reproof and by warning. I, for one, greatly doubt whether our national standard of right and wrong has been really so much debased as we are sometimes tempted to think [applause]; and whether the soft money of a sentimental sort of promises to pay has altogether driven out the sterling coin of upright purpose and self-denying fulfilment. [Applause.] I could wish that this belief, almost, provided it did not mislead us into prophesying smooth things, were more general among our cultivated class; for the very acceptance of such a belief tends in large measure toward its accomplishment. No finer sentence has come down to us from antiquity, no higher witness was ever borne to the quality of a nation, than in that signal of Nelson's: "England expects every man to do his duty." [Applause.]

Brethren, I thought on this occasion of the centennial celebration of our independence it was fit that some expression should go forth from us that should in some measure give contradiction to the impression that the graduates of Harvard College take a pessimistic view of their country and its institutions. [Applause.] Certainly I know that it is not true, and I wish to have that sentiment expressed here. Our college takes no official part in celebrating the nation's first completed century; she who is already half-way through her third has become too grave for these youthful elations. [Laughter.] But she does not forget that in Samuel and John Adams, Otis,Josiah Quincy, Jr., and John Hancock, she did her full share toward making such a commemoration possible. [Applause.] As in 1776, so in 1876, we have sent John Adams to represent us at Philadelphia, and, perhaps with some prescience of what the next century is to effect, we have sent with him Madame Boylston as his colleague [applause]; and it may be that Alma Mater in this has possibly shown a little feminine malice, for it is to a silent congress that she is made her deputy. [Laughter and applause.] And in the hundred years since we asserted for ourselves a separate place and proper name among the nations, our college has been no palsied or atrophied limb in the national organization. To the jurisprudence, to the legislation, the diplomacy, the science, the literature, the art of the country, her contribution has certainly not fallen short of its due proportion. Our triennial catalogue is hung thick with our trophies from many fields. I may say in parenthesis, gentlemen, brethren of the alumni, that I am glad the July number of the "North American Review" is not yet published. In the January number there was so disheartening a report of everything—I am glad to say our religion is excepted, we have grown perhaps in grace—but we had no science, we had none of this and none of the other.

Brethren, we whom these dumb faces on the wall make in imagination the contemporaries of eight generations of men, let us remember, and let us inculcate on those who are to fill the places that so soon shall know us no more, let us remember, I say, that if man seem to survive himself and to be mutely perpetuated in these fragile semblances, it is only the stamp of the soul that is eternally operative; it is only the image of ourselves that we have left in some sphere of intellectual or moral achievement, that is indelible, that becomes a part of the memory of mankind, reproductive and beneficent, inspiring and admonitory.

But, brethren, as Charles Lamb said of Coleridge's motto,Sermoni propriori, this is more proper for a sermon than for a dinner-table. But birthdays, after all, gentlemen, are serious things; and as the chance of many more of them becomes precarious, and the approaching birthday of the nationbegets in all of us, I should hope, something of a grave and meditative mood, it would be an indecorum to break in upon it too suddenly with the licensed levity of festival. You are waiting to hear other voices, and I trust my example of gravity may act rather as a warning than as precedent to those who are to follow me.

Brethren, at our table there is always one toast, that by custom and propriety takes precedence of all others. It is, I admit, rather an arduous task to pay the most many-sided man a different compliment year after year, and the President of the University must pardon me for saying that he gives a good deal of trouble to the President of the Alumni, as he is apt to do in the case of inefficient persons generally. [Laughter and applause.] One eminent quality, however, I can illustrate in a familiar Latin quotation, which, with your permission, I will put in two ways, thus securing, I should hope, the understanding of the older and younger among you: "Justum et tenacem propositi virum." [Mr. Lowell evoked considerable laughter by pronouncing the Latin according to the continental method.] I give you the health of President Eliot.

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