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Complimcrds of 
 
 ADDRESSES 
 
 BY THE 
 
 Hon. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW, LL.D., 
 
 \ '■ 
 
 AT THE 
 
 h 
 
 DRveiling of the Statue of Gljristoplier Golumbus, 
 
 IN 
 
 Central Park, New York., 
 
 Saturday, Nlay ISth, 1894, 
 
 AND 
 
 BEFOBE THE 
 
 Literary Societies of the University of Virginia, 
 
 June IStti, 1894. 
 
 Cornell University Library 
 E660.D41 A2 
 
 Address at the unveiling of the statue o 
 3 1924 030 923 506 
 
 oiin 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 BY 
 
 CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW, L. L/D., 
 
 AT THE 
 
 Unveiling of tlie Statue of Gtiristoplier Golumbus, 
 
 IN 
 
 CENTRAL PARK, NEW YORK, 
 
 May 12th, 1894. 
 
 New York can add nothing to the glory of 
 Columbus, but she may enforce the lesson of his 
 life and discovery. The fire kindled by him on a 
 little island of the Western Hemisphere, amid the 
 darkness of the fifteenth century, has become the 
 flame which illumines the nineteenth with light 
 and liberty. Seed time and harvest have their soil 
 and seasons with humanity as with the earth. In 
 all ages and among all races, the winds and the 
 waves have borne the kernels of truth, and they 
 have been lost on the rocks and in the waters. 
 There were patriots before Runnymede, but their 
 blood fertilized that field for Magna Cliarta. 
 Patriots had labored and died in vain before the 
 Declaration of Independence in 1776. German Fed- 
 eration had been a Teutonic dream for two thousand 
 
2 
 
 years before Bismarck. Italian unity was the hope 
 of Italy for centuries before Garibaldi, Mazzini and 
 Cavour. The French Republic was the effort and 
 aspiration of the best thinkers and boldest actors 
 of France for a hundred years before Thiers and 
 Gambetta. The Yiking sailed along the coast of 
 North America and planted colonies upon its 
 shores five hundred years before Columbus. But 
 the time was not ripe and the people of Europe 
 were not prepared for America and its oppor- 
 tunities. 
 
 The brilliant and liberal reign of Lorenzo, the 
 Magnificent, at Florence, which closed as Columbus 
 sailed from Palos, had stimulated commerce, art 
 and learning. It had both awakened and opened 
 the mind in every country on the continent. 
 The literary treasures of the great library 
 of the Yatican were placed at the disposal 
 of scholars, and the revival of learning was 
 a marked feature of the period. The expul- 
 sion of the Moslems from Spain had relieved 
 Europe of the strain of warring creeds. Intense 
 intellectual activity was breaking the bonds of the 
 Middle Ages and preparing the way for independ- 
 ent thought and discovery. The statesmanship 
 and the guile of Louis the Eleventh in France, 
 and the concentration of power in Ferdinand and 
 Isabella in Spain, had broken down feudalism and 
 centralized authority. The road from the disman- 
 tled castles of the barons to the royal palace, and 
 from the royal palace to the representative 
 
assembly of the people, became the highway 
 of liberty. These wonderful and revolutionary 
 events were for a time the blessings only of the 
 favored few, the great and the learned. 
 
 It was reserved not for kings or nobles or the 
 mighty of earth to utilize th.e past and present for 
 the uplifting of the masses of mankind. We 
 may say reverently, as Christianity came for us 
 through the son of a carpenter, so tlie invention 
 which opened the way for christianizing the world 
 was wrought out by a humble artisan of Mayence. 
 The significance of types, and the prophecy of their 
 use, were made clear in the selection of the Bible 
 as their first work. The printing press 
 of Guttenberg, and the invention of paper 
 which tiad preceded it only a few years, 
 were the levers and tbe levelers of the future. By 
 bringing education within the reach of all, they 
 elevated the people to the understanding and prac- 
 tice of liberty, and equal opportunity and rights 
 battered down privilege and caste. 
 
 Incidents, which to the pious are special provi- 
 dences, and to others, trifling accidents, have often 
 altered the course of history. The marriage of 
 Isabella with Ferdinand enabled a liberal and 
 generous mind to influence a bigoted and miserly 
 one for the venture, certainly rash, perhaps blas- 
 phemous, into the unknown west, and made pos- 
 sible the voyage of ,Colambus. A hungry boy 
 stopped his proud and mendicant father at the 
 door of the convent of La Rabida to meet there in the 
 
person of the prior, the enlightened and learned 
 Father Juan Perega, the confessor of the Queen, 
 the only man living who had both the breadth 
 and independence to understand and believe 
 in the plans of the great navigator, and also 
 the confidence of her Majesty. It was a flight of 
 birds which changed the course of the Santa 
 Maria and her consorts and gave South America 
 to Spain and Portugal and the dominant power on 
 the northern continent to the Saxon race. Thus, 
 the United States, as distinguished from the Spanish 
 republics and the Portugese Empire and subse- 
 quent Republic of Brazil, is apparently an ac- 
 cident of an accident. It is really the result of 
 climate and conditions suited to the development 
 of that resistless strain in the blood, which circles 
 the globe with its conquests, and blended with 
 Teuton and Celt, with Latin and Scandinavian, 
 increases the power and the promise of our coun- 
 try. 
 
 Ferdinand was a typical representative of his 
 times. We must judge the men of every period by 
 their standards, not ours. Only fools are offended 
 at criticisms of the State or Church of the dark 
 ages, and only the ignorant claim that either was 
 so abreast with the thought or education of to-day, 
 that their substitution for present conditions would 
 receive now either welcome or hospitality. 
 The King believed the torture chamber bet- 
 ter than courts of justice. He knew of 
 no law which was superior to his an- 
 
tocratic will. He was frugal to meanness, 
 and devoid of generosity or integrity. He laughed 
 at Columbus when the great navigator was plead- 
 ing for the ships to find for him an empire, and he 
 cheated the dying hero of the rewards he prom- 
 ised and the honors he had pledged, when the em- 
 pire was won. To Isabella had been wafted across 
 space a breath of the purer air of the nineteenth 
 century. When we consider what she was, in 
 spite of the almost insufferable barriers of her en- 
 vironment, a sweet and mighty spirit seems to have 
 escaped from the bondage of the age, and in the 
 beautiful presence of the Queen, inspired the soul 
 of a saint and prophetess. She gave her jewels 
 for the fleet, and with undimmed faith waited 
 for the return which ended in triumphal pro- 
 cessions and royal greetings. She struck the 
 shackles from the Indian slaves which were 
 brought her as part of the booty of the New 
 World, and issued stern decreesagainst cruelty and 
 lust, but they were nuUitiedby her untimely death, 
 and myriads of innocent men, women and children 
 were consigned to nameless horrors and final 
 extermination. This favored land recognizes its ob- 
 ligations to its benefactress, in granting to woman 
 privileges and opportunities unknown in other 
 countries. It gives to her independence and con- 
 trol in her property. It opens for her the academy 
 and the university, and it yields to her a precedence 
 and power at home and in society which puts 
 within her grasp the substance of rights, 
 
6 
 
 which in the boasted age of chivalry were 
 only a flowery and pretentious sham. 
 
 Columbus was of that rare type of genius which 
 belongs to no age and rises above the errors, or su- 
 perstitions, or ignorance of his period. While 
 most of the learned, and all the unlearned, believed 
 the earth to be flat, he boldly proclaimed its 
 sphericity : while the same overwhelming majority 
 feared the monsters of the deep, who were waiting 
 beyond the western horizon to devour the daring 
 and sacrilegious mariners and destroy their ships, 
 he saw on the other side of the unknown sea limit- 
 less empire for his sovereigns, and myriads of souls 
 for the saving offices of his Church. He had sailed 
 to the farthest limits of the discoveries of the times. 
 He had investigated with unprejudiced and un- 
 clouded mind the evidences cast up from the ocean 
 of other lands and strange peoples. As sailor, 
 privateer and pirate, he had experienced the dan- 
 gers of hostile elements and armed enemies. As 
 geographer and mapmaker, he had absorbed all 
 the teachings of the past, and boldly placed upon 
 his maps the new continent, with its untold wealth 
 of gold and precious stones, and its unequalled 
 opportunities for the power and greatness of the 
 throne which would grant him the facilities of his 
 voyage. The conquest of Grenada and the expul- 
 sion of the Moors from Spain seemed to the states- 
 men of Europe an event of transcendent impor- 
 tance, but to this superb enthusiast it was a local 
 affair which delayed the plans for the capture of 
 a continent. 
 
The spiritual and temporal power, the pomp and 
 pageantry of Castile and Aragon, formed an array 
 unequalled, in the brilliancy of its King and Queen, 
 its prelates and statesmen, its philosophers and 
 soldiers, and in the splendorof their equipment, to 
 receive from Boabdil the keys of his capital, and 
 the capitulation of his kingdom. The enthusiasm 
 of the hour lifted the Spanish hosts to heavenly 
 ecstacy, all save one. This proud pauper, the 
 royal purple of his imagination giving dignity to 
 nis rags and majesty to his mein, looked coldly 
 upon the splendid spectacle. To the man who had 
 waited for years, because he would accept no other 
 terms with his fleet than the Admiralty of the 
 Ocean, the Vice Royalty of the Indies and one- 
 tenth the revenues of the Western Hemisphere, the 
 martial field before him was only a skirmish on 
 the battle line of the universe. 
 
 The faults of Columbus were the results of the 
 civilization and conditions of his times, from which 
 no man is great enough to wholly escape, but his 
 faith was his own. After the lapse of four hun- 
 dred years it is as impressive to us as it was 
 potent with his cotemporaries. It gave immortal- 
 ity to the humble Convent of La Rabida and its 
 noble prior. It clarified the atmosphere and dis- 
 pelled the darkness about Isabella, so that she 
 could grasp the great truth. It calmed the fears and 
 quelled the mutiny of the crew, and found 
 its reward in the glimmering light on San Sal- 
 vador, which for the sailors meant land at 
 
last, and for the Admiral the New World, of 
 which he had dreamed, for which he had suffered, 
 and now after discouragements and perils innumer- 
 able, had discovered. 
 
 In 1492, was issued the cruel edict, which con- 
 fiscated the property of hundreds of thousands of 
 Jews, and then expelled them from Spain. In the 
 same year the same sovereigns who issued this 
 edict equipped the fleet of Columbus for its im- 
 mortal voyage. The unhappy and unfortunate 
 Hebrews were landed upon the shores of Asia and 
 Africa, but nowhere did they receive either welcome 
 or hospitality. The little ships of Columbus as they 
 sailed out of the harbor of Palos passed the great 
 war vessels which were carrying these captive 
 Israelites from their homes. The royal frigates 
 were bearing them to fresh horrors and persecu- 
 tions, but the weak and deckless caravals of the 
 discoverer were, unknown to sovereign or servant, 
 guided by Divine Providence to the land where 
 all creeds and all races should dwell in the har- 
 mony of equal rights, and unite in contributing to 
 the power and glory of a government of organized 
 liberty. 
 
 The inspiring dream of Columbus was to utilize 
 the treasures of the New World for the redemption 
 from the infidel of the holy sepulchre at Jerusa- 
 lem. He believed that by virtue of his name, 
 Christopher, he was carrying Christ across the 
 sea to the heathen. The lust for gold made his 
 followers profane the name of the Prince of Peace 
 
9 
 
 with such outrages and cruelties, such torturings 
 and massacres of the confiding aborigines, as 
 caused even the fifteenth century to shiidder. He 
 died, with his dream of the rescue of the tomb of 
 the Saviour still a vision. He little knew, as he 
 lay helpless amidst the ruin of his hopes, that 
 though he had lost an empty grave, he had found 
 a perpetual asylum for conscience. He could not 
 forsee that while in their savage greed those with 
 him and those who came after, gave to the Indians, 
 not the light of truth, but consigned them to the 
 flames, and brought to them, not the gospel of love, 
 but fell upon them with sword and spear, yet the 
 country he discovered would be the bulwark and 
 hope of the Church. 
 
 The Pilgrim fathers fled from persecution in 
 England to religious liberty in Massachusetts. The 
 Highlanders who fought for Prince Charles Edward 
 Stuart found refuge in North Carolina. The 
 Quakers to be free from their tormentors sailed to 
 Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and they received 
 there with open arms the Grermans driven from 
 the Palatinate by Louis XIV. The Huguenots 
 escaping from France after the revocation of 
 the edict of Nantes, built happy homes on the 
 Hudson and under the shelter of the groves of 
 South Carolina. Ogelthorpe led the Teutons seeking 
 an opportunity to worship God according to their 
 lights, from Salzburg to Georgia. Irishmen saved 
 from the merciless conquests of Cromwell, scat- 
 tered all over the land to consecrate their altars 
 
10 
 
 and enjoy in safety their religion. Dutcli Prot- 
 estants came to New York, Swedisli Protestants to 
 Delaware, English Catholics to Maryland and 
 the English Church Cavaliers to Virginia. The 
 best contribution of Columbus to future genera- 
 tions was a continent for the cultivation of civil 
 and religious liberty. A state built upon the indi- 
 vidual and not upon classes or creeds is the source 
 and strength of American freedom. 
 
 It was the supreme good fortune of the United 
 States, that for its first settlers the conditions of 
 existence were labor, temperance and thrift. 
 The hostile savages, the rigors of the climate, 
 the virgin forests and the resisting soil de- 
 manded the indomitable energy and daunt- 
 less courage which fashion heroes and patri- 
 ots. Had there been gold mines in New En- 
 gland, New York and Virginia to excite the 
 cupidity of kings and tempt the adventurers of 
 Europe, and to demoralize the inhabitants of the 
 colonies, and take them from their homes and their 
 churches to the feverish excitement of mining 
 camps, there would have been little permanent 
 settlement or public sentiment. The farms on the 
 bleak hillsides of Connecticut and Massachusetts, in 
 the Mohawk Valley, along the Delaware and on 
 the James were fountains of national virtue and 
 springs of free thought and free speech. It was 
 the training and experience of necessity which 
 opened the avenues'' of opportunity for the people 
 of North America. It enabled the " embattled 
 
11 
 
 farmer" at Concord and Lexington to face 
 the veterans of European battlefields. It nerved 
 the members of the Continental Congress to brave 
 the terrors of treason, and confiscation and death, 
 by their bold and clear signatures to the Declara- 
 tion of Independence. It reared and trained a 
 race who could rescind slavery, though it was in- 
 terwoven with their political system from founda- 
 tion to turret, and after bloody battles between 
 those who upheld the one side and those who 
 favored the other, could reunite to labor harmoni- 
 ously for the welfare and strength of the purified 
 Republic. 
 
 The Columbian idea of discovery was to find a land 
 where gold could be mined from exhaustless stores, 
 a land flowing with rivers of diamonds and precious 
 stones. Limitless wealth, easily acquired, was to 
 enrich, beyond the dreams of avarice, the sovereigns 
 and people of Spain. Columbus had no conception of 
 the adventurous pioneer and thrifty emigrant. The 
 bell crowned Pilgrims, landing on Plymouth Rock 
 in midwinter with no other purpose than to found 
 a state for the enjoyment by all of just and equal 
 laws, would have aroused his wonder and contempt. 
 The imagination cannot picture his amazement, 
 could he have foreseen the marvelous results of the 
 Mayflower' s voyage. The wealth poured in such 
 abundant measure from the mines of the New 
 World into thej treasury of Spain, was a potent 
 factor in the fall of her power and prestige in 
 Europe. 
 
1? 
 
 The founders of our Republic welcomed with cor- 
 dial hospitality all who came to escape from oppres- 
 sion or better their condition. The immigrants, 
 who accepted the invitation and landed by millions 
 on our shores brought the qualities and purposes 
 which have added incalculably to the wealth and 
 glory of our country. While SouthAmerica and 
 Mexico were demoralizing Europe with gold and 
 silver, Europe was contributing to the United 
 States her farmers and artizans to gather from the 
 fruitful earth and produce in the busy factory an 
 annual and ever increasing volume of wealth ; wealth 
 which enriches, but does not enervate, which 
 stimulates invention, promotes progress, founds 
 institutions of learning, builds homes for the many 
 and increases the happiness of all. Four centuries 
 separate us from Columbus. Within this period 
 more has been accomplished for humanity than dur- 
 ing the four thousand years which preceded him. 
 
 We are here to erect this statue to his memory, 
 because of the unnumbered blessings to America, 
 and to the people of every race and clime which 
 have followed his discovery. His genius and faith 
 gave to succeeding generations the opportunity for 
 life and liberty. We, the heirs of all the ages, in 
 the plenitude of our enjoyments and the prodigality 
 of the favors showered upon us, hail Columbus — 
 hero — and benefactor. 
 
ORATION 
 
 BBFOEB THE 
 
 LITERARY SOCIETIES OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 June 12th, 1894. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 Hon. CHAUNCET M. DEPEW, LL.D. 
 
 It is botli a happy coincidence and a hopeful 
 omen that the college appoints the season of flowers 
 and fruits and promising harvests for its commence- 
 ment. A bright and beautiful world, through fields 
 and orchards, which are again repeating their con- 
 tributions to the stores which support life, wel- 
 comes these young reapers to their several tasks. 
 It eloquently teaches the lesson, that what has 
 been, may be, and with .the larger and surer re- 
 turns which science and knowledge can obtain. 
 The earth is an optimist and tells the faint-hearted 
 and despairing its annual story, that the oppor- 
 tunities for success are as great in the present as 
 they have been in the past, and are more varied. 
 
 Certainly in Virginia, with its record 
 of unmixed descent, as long and clear 
 
14 
 
 as that of any American commonwealth, 
 the influence of heredity will not be doubted. The 
 blood and the traditions of colonial and revolution- 
 ary times are still the potential power in the public 
 spirit and private lives of the people of this State. 
 In no department of human training and activity 
 are the history and teachings of the past so im- 
 portant as in an institution of learning. Oxford 
 and Cambridge are universities composed of many 
 colleges. The graduate carries through life the 
 diploma of the university ; but his mind and 
 character are moulded by his college. Each of 
 these venerable schools indelibly stamps its alumni 
 with the impress of its foundation and develop- 
 ment. 
 
 It is a singular fact that Yale and Harvard, and 
 the University of Virginia were each born from the 
 brain of a single founder. Elihu Yale, and John 
 Harvard builded their colleges that the Puritan 
 pulpit might be supplied with learned teachers. 
 Thomas Jefferson projected this University that 
 the state might be served by broad and liberal- 
 minded men. In two hundred and fifty years 
 these two great 'New England seats of learning 
 have evoluted beyond the dreams, and possibly 
 the wishes, of their creators. The orthodox 
 divine, if called from his ancient surroundings 
 and placed on the camj)us at Cambridge, amidst 
 its babel of creeds and option of faiths, would 
 first be bewildered at the marvelous growth 
 of his idea, and then doubt whether its 
 
15 . 
 
 growth and varied and splendid advan- 
 tages were not the devices of the devil to 
 draw students from the higher duties of a spirit- 
 ual life. Elihu Yale, if reincorporated under 
 the Cathedral Elms of New Haven and taken 
 by a student of to-day through the departments 
 and schools which so superbly equip as a university 
 the college he planted, and through the gymnasium, 
 the ball field and the boat house, which have sub- 
 stituted muscular training for scholastic retire- 
 ment, would find something of the teachings he 
 believed most important, but a freedom of thought 
 and action and a selection of churches by the 
 student which might make him doubt, from his 
 Puritan stand point, whether saving grace had not 
 been sacrificed to intellectual development. The 
 trend of the mind and the tendency of advancing 
 years is to enlarge the field of mental activity by 
 breaking down the barriers reared by the fathers 
 who distrusted liberty. The Puritan restric- 
 tions bred rebellion, and they have been swept 
 away, but Puritan pluck and energy, Puritan 
 ambition and indomitable purpose to explore and 
 to conquer are still the spirit and hope of Yale and 
 of Harvard. 
 
 When Jefferson founded his university upon a 
 theory directly the opposite of the famous Puritan 
 ministers and scholars a spasm of fear was followed 
 by predictions of disaster. We were in the 
 first quarter of the nineteenth century, but the 
 seventeenth and the eighteenth still held religious 
 
• 16 
 
 opinions by the throat. The results within these halls 
 have been a signal triumph for liberty. The free- 
 dom which was to sap the foundations of belief, and 
 send forth infidel youth to undermine the Church and 
 ultimately destroy society, has proved the bulwark 
 of Church and State. With eager and unham- 
 pered will it has sought for truth and found it. 
 Free and enlightened conscience and trained and 
 fearless judgment working together have wrought 
 out opinions and practices in harmony with 
 American faith and development. 
 
 There is nothing more poetic and pathetic in the 
 story of statesmen than the creation of the Univer- 
 sity of Virginia. The evening and the morning 
 "kissed each other, and the mellow splendor of the 
 setting sun prepared the world for the brilliant 
 light of the rising orb of day. The Sage of Monti- 
 cello had passed his three score years and ten, and 
 by age and eminent service to his country was en- 
 titled to peace and rest. The author of the Declara- 
 tion of Independence and the father of the bill 
 for establishing religious freedom, Washington's 
 Secretary of Slate, and President of the United 
 States for two memorable terms, found himself 
 when past seventy hopelessly involved in financial 
 difficulties. The burden would have crushed many 
 a younger man. But Jefferson, rising like the 
 Phoenix, from the ashes of his private fortune, pro- 
 jected a college, "on a plan broad, liberal and 
 modern." This noble foundation may not trace its 
 lineage back to the dark ages, and its three-quar- 
 
17 
 
 ters of a century may seem but a span to Oxford 
 or Heidelberg. The light of its birth is better than 
 •centuries of groping towards the dawn. It has no 
 rags to burn or prejudices to slough off. The for- 
 mulator in maxim of the rights of man is its 
 father, and his life and career are its inheritance 
 and inspiration. 
 
 Until the American experiment, the struggle for 
 liberty had been almost entirely upon spiritual lines. 
 Nations fought and civil wars raged for the su- 
 premacy of dogma. The learned few went from 
 the universities to lead the ignorant masses to life 
 and death contests for doctrines, and hecatombs 
 were slain and dynasties built up and overturned, 
 on the interpretation of creeds. Catholics and 
 Calvinists, Cavaliers and Puritans, took turns in 
 persecuting each other, or visiting the supposed 
 vengeance of the Almighty upon Baptists or 
 Quakers. These fierce and merciless combats had 
 wrought out the idea of religious toleration, when 
 the discovery of Columbus opened the way for 
 its exercise. The wilderness must be cleared 
 for the settlement and the city, and civil 
 liberty was impossible until religious free- 
 dom had been obtained. 
 
 The " peasants," said an Austrian chronicler in 
 the sixteenth century "do not count among the 
 estates of the realm because they have no voice in 
 the Diet." The peasants were the farmers and 
 artisans who formed seven-tenths of the population. 
 That all the people do count in the affairs of 
 
18 
 
 government is the essence of American liberty. 
 It :ferst found authoritative expression in Jeffer- 
 son's immortal crystallization "that all men are 
 created equal, that they are endowed, by their 
 Creator, with certain unalienable rights, that among 
 these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." 
 This declaration altered the course of the 
 ages. Unfettered conscience had ended the 
 efforts of the centuries to empower any 
 man to prescribe the only way by which 
 his neighbor could see God or find the path to 
 Heaven. Henceforth liberty meant man's material 
 welfare. It was always admitted, and is still undis- 
 puted, that a higher education is needed for his 
 spiritual adviser, and that it broadens his own 
 view of a spiritual life. But it has become fash- 
 ionable to deny the value of a college course except- 
 for the professions. 
 
 Self-made men loudly proclaim their superiority 
 in the practical affairs of the world. They be- 
 grudge the time and distrust the methods of the 
 university. They proudly point to accumulated 
 wealth and the success of gigantic enterprises, as- 
 the fruits of limited education and the larger op- 
 portunities of earlier training in business. The 
 educated intelligence of the country is the safety 
 of these arrogant accidents. Their insolent parade 
 of their wealth would inspire the meas- 
 ures for its destruction, if the wisdom which is 
 gained in the universities did not provide the pol- 
 icies by which the rights of all can be maintained. 
 
19 
 
 under free institutions. No state could survive 
 the revolutionary conditions under which, the pas- 
 sions or the prejudices of the hour should be for- 
 mulated into laws. The enactment of passion into 
 statute, and constitutions by proclamation, created 
 for France the horrors of her revolution and her 
 crazy quilt of governments, down to her present 
 and more constitutional Republic. They make the 
 Central and South American nations a travesty 
 upon law and order. 
 
 It is the sons of the colleges who have 
 been the creators and the saviors of our liber- 
 ties. It was the original genius and trained 
 ability of Jonathan Mayhew from a Boston 
 pulpit, which first sowed the seeds of American 
 independence. Edmund Randolph, of William and 
 Mary, and Samuel Adams, of Harvard, laid the 
 foundation upon which the Continental Congress 
 builded. They formulated the committes of cor- 
 respondence which brought the colonies together. 
 Brilliant orators fired the train whose explosion 
 shattered the chains binding us to the mother coun- 
 try, but it was George Mason and James Otis, John 
 Adams and Thomas Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee 
 and Robert R. Livingston, all college men, who had 
 stored the magazine with the powder of argument 
 and conviction. 
 
 The greatest peril to the young Republic was 
 after the last British soldier had sailed for home. 
 The new confederacy was tottering to its fall 
 under the assaults of those who thought that 
 
20 
 
 liberty was surer by the independence of their 
 colonies than in the union of states. The Union 
 was formed, and constitutional liberty on this con- 
 tinent established, by the leadership of educated 
 patriots. The strong, able and courageous men of 
 the field and the forum, who, though only partially 
 cultured, had been the victors of the battlefields 
 and towers of strength in the councils of the coun- 
 try, in the presence of the enemy, became narrow 
 and provincial when the pressure of danger was 
 removed. Alexander Hamilton carried New York 
 for the Constitution and the Union against the 
 military prestige and popularity of Governor 
 Clinton, whose indomitable but wrong-headed 
 patriotism would have kept his state independent, 
 Randolph, Madison and Jeflferson saved Virginia 
 to the Republic notwithstanding the fears and 
 the fire of Patrick Henry. The Federalist was 
 the gospel of freedom under a common flag, 
 and a text book for federal powers for all time. 
 Its work and beneficence were second only to 
 those of the Declaration of Independence, and made 
 secure the truths of that great document. Only 
 statesmen of large reading and wide learning conld 
 have written it, and they were Hamilton, Madison 
 and Jay, the flower of the colonial colleges of 
 Princeton and Columbia. 
 
 Courage is the common attribute of our race, but to 
 so die that the example inspires coming generations, 
 belongs to those who know the past and the pres- 
 ent for which they fight, and the significance to the 
 
21 
 
 future of the success of the cause in which they fall. 
 Nathau Hale, from Yale, standing alone upon 
 the scaffold in the midst of enemies, calmly- 
 said "I regret that I have but one life to give 
 for my country." Joseph Warren, of Harvard, a 
 Major General in rank, but vrithout a command, 
 hearing the firing at Bunker Hill, seized a gun and 
 ran to the trenches to serve as a private soldier. To 
 prudent Eldridge Gerry, who warned him of the 
 danger and predicted his death, he blithely replied, 
 as he was rushing to the front, ' ' Dulce et decorum 
 est pro patria mori.'" In these two sentences, 
 with the lives of their learned and cultured utterers 
 behind them, is condensed the literature of 
 patriotism, and the words and examples of Hale 
 and Warren present to posterity an ever inspiring 
 picture, whose background is formed by the un- 
 known and unnamed heroes of the Continental 
 army. 
 
 Insignificant incidents and important events are 
 closely related in the affairs of the world, and 
 trifles often turn the course of history. The 
 tourist gazes out of a window in the old castle on 
 the White Hill at Prague upon the ancient city 
 and distant landscape! It is diflicult for him to 
 realize that though, at the close of a turbulent de- 
 bate, three councillors were dropped from that 
 window to the ground so gently as scarcely to soil 
 their clothes, yet the assault brought on the thirty 
 years' war, in which fair provinces were made deso- 
 late, cities sacked and the map of Europe changed. 
 
22 
 
 Washington and Jeflferson, Madison and Lee, who 
 saw the dangers of slavery, and eai^nestly desired its 
 abolition, died with gloomy forebodings for their 
 country from the existence of a system which they 
 were powerless to destroy. Jefferson, in that broad 
 generalization which was the habit of his mind, 
 promulgated the doctrine which, nearly seventy 
 years afterwards, realized for his countrymen his 
 aspiration. He did not utter it for this purpose, 
 but it became, in the hands of Providence, the 
 weapon of death and the spark of the resurrection. 
 It strained the bonds of union to the point 
 of breaking upon the one question, which 
 the Fathers feared might end their Repub- 
 lic, and in removing the cause of our weak- 
 ness and decay, it re-united the states for an 
 eternity of mutual progress and patriotism. 
 
 The great debate continued for more than two- 
 thirds of a century, and kept the nation in the 
 throes of revolution. The expounders and defend- 
 ers of the warring ideas of indissoluble union and 
 federal compact were Daniel Webster, of Dart- 
 mouth, and John C. Calhoun, of Yale. From the 
 armories of argument, stored with the weapons 
 forged by their mighty minds and constructive 
 genius, the less gifted drew their armor and their 
 swords. In the press and on the platform, from the 
 academic stage and the floor of the Senate, the 
 opinions were uttered and enforced which were 
 educating two sections of the same people to irrecon- 
 cilable views of their government and constitution. 
 
2H 
 
 Bur. nothing was added in the long discussion by 
 the most eloquent or the most accomplished to the 
 ideas of these cultured and giant champions, these 
 superb representatives of the vigor and power, the 
 concentration and polish which the college gives to 
 its sons. Interest and passion relegated the great 
 . question to the arbi trament of war and the god of 
 battles, and brave men of the same race and tradi- 
 tions met with equal valor upon bloody fields. The 
 untrained volunteers illustrated the undiminished 
 force of the fire and courage which for centuries have 
 won famous victories, but the organizing and direct- 
 ing minds, handling with rarest skill and ability the 
 forces and elements with which they had to work 
 or cope, were on either side, the educated and 
 equipped graduates of that splendid national col- 
 lege on the Hudson, the West Point Military 
 Academy. 
 
 American liberty is the solvent which blends 
 into one people all nationalities and tongues and 
 creeds. We have to-day the living witnesses of its 
 beneficent power. Many of us were in the heat and 
 fury of the strife, and though it is hardly more than 
 a quarter of a century since our lines of battle were 
 drawn, you and I can cordially clasp hands under 
 the same flag and rejoice in being citizens of the 
 purest Republic and most powerful nation in the 
 world. We can do more. W^ithout prejudice or fear, 
 with calm judgment and common pride, we can 
 extol the genius and compare the merits of Ulysses 
 S. Grant and Robert E. Lee, of Stonewall Jack- 
 
24 
 
 son and General Sherman, and hail them as 
 brothers in the free and open guild of liberal 
 education. 
 
 A little learning is a dangerous thing ! 
 Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring ; 
 There shallow draughts intoxicate the hrain, 
 And drinking largely sobers us again. 
 
 Thus sang Pope, and his stanza has become one 
 of the maxims of the language. The rule would 
 not produce the best results in gratifications of the 
 appetite, and has its exceptions in matters of the 
 mind. Generalizations in some respects are like 
 dynamite bombs, they must be handled with care. 
 The effort to condense the truth frequently squeezes 
 out so much as to impair the value of the 
 residuum. The benefits and the blessings of 
 broad learning for all who can secure them are 
 not weakened because there have been phenomenal 
 successes without these advantages. 
 
 This is the age of the specialist, and he attains 
 eminent positions by the mastery of his depart- 
 ment. At some period in our careers we all follow 
 one line of life. But those are happier and stronger, 
 more generous and ingenuous, who have spent the 
 time for the more general discipline and larger 
 culture of the university first, and then brought 
 their trained and liberalized faculties to their chosen 
 pursuit. 
 
 Only the famous few are so superbly endowed 
 
25 
 
 that their careers seem to demonstrate the foolish- 
 ness of wasting years in the college. The Com- 
 modore Vanderbilts, the Greorge Laws, the Andrew 
 Carnegies and some hundreds of" others in business, 
 and Hugh Miller, in science and authorship, Robert 
 Burns, in poetry, Elihu Burritt, the learned black- 
 smith, in the acquisition of languages, and the wiz- 
 ard Edison, bewildering and blessing mankind with 
 his inventions, are, to the rest of the race, like 
 meteors to the myriads of stars in the universe. 
 Their creation and triumphs find explanation in 
 the first message flashed over the electric wires 
 " What God hath wrought." 
 
 They, and millions of lesser lights, are the 
 stumbling blocks of the Socialist. His theory of 
 absolute equality in social and material conditions 
 is hopelessly dissolved in dealing with superior 
 natural endowments. Every distribution is fol- 
 lowed by absorption by the thrifty from the thrift- 
 less, the industrious from the idle and the capable 
 from the incompetent. Beneath the calm current 
 of cotemporary events the far-sighted man sees the 
 combinations which will form the eddies and whirl- 
 pool beyond. Or he divines with unerring judg- 
 ment the happenings in the course of political, 
 financial or industrial revolutions. He will reap 
 the fruits of his sagacity, unless it is taken 
 from him by violence. Bessemer adds 
 more to the wealth of the world and 
 the employment and opportunities of his fellow- 
 men than the combined labor of fifty years has 
 
26 
 
 produced. The fortune lie wins is a commission 
 upon his contribution to the common fund of en- 
 joyment and independence too small to be appre- 
 ciated by the recipients of the bounty of his genius. 
 The only way the leveler can treat Bessemer and 
 Edison is to rob them or kill them. The one course 
 paralyzes ambition and communities die of dry rot, 
 and the other is the broad descent from civilization 
 to savagery. The life of liberty is equal oppor- 
 tunity for all, and subject to its proper contribu- 
 tion for the public welfare, the secure possession 
 to every one of his earnings and property. 
 
 The singular spectacle is presented to us to-day of 
 several thousands of men marching to Washington 
 to shout into the ears of the representatives of 
 seventy millions of people a message, which the con- 
 stituencies of the senators and members of Congress 
 have not sent nor authorized. The event empha- 
 sizes the wisdom of the fathers in placing the 
 capitol far from great cities. In a time of tempor- 
 ary and perhaps only local madness a mob might 
 overawe or frighten Congress into legislation in- 
 jurious to or not sanctioned by the people at large. 
 While the millions of law and order-loving citizens 
 were at home peaceably pursuing the industries 
 which supported their families and enriched the 
 Republic, a crowd of tramps or madmen might 
 seem, for the moment, the vox populi, vox Dei. 
 When the army of the " Commonweal," after chal- 
 lenging for weeks the attention of the world to its 
 movements, its mission, its origin, its effect upon 
 
27 
 
 communities from which it demanded supplies and 
 upon citizens whom it persuaded to abandon their 
 employments and join its ranks, ended its campaign 
 in a Washington jail for trampling on the grass, 
 Olympus gently rocked with the laughter of the 
 gods. But the movement has a very serious side. 
 It is a symptom of unrest, and in smiling at the 
 grotesqueness of its display we neither probe its 
 causes nor provide its remedies. 
 
 Education has not kept pace with progress. The 
 dissatisfaction in every country of the partially 
 educated with Church and State and Society, and 
 their efforts to overthrow them, are the evi- 
 dences of the truth of Pope's maxim, 
 and the success of the graduates of the scien- 
 tific, the polytechnic, the industrial and the 
 manual training schools — in other words of the 
 specialists — demonstrates the value of the excep- 
 tions to it. Socialism and anarchy are the present 
 terrors and future perils of all the nations of Con- 
 tinental Europe. The solution of these problems, 
 in the crowded communities of the old world, is 
 fraught with almost insuperable diflBculties, very 
 few of which exist with us. Our country is still 
 comparatively unsettled, our resources are only 
 partially developed and our possibilities for in- 
 dustry, for happiness and for homes are incal- 
 culable. The southern states offer almost bound- 
 less opportunities of agricultural and mineral 
 wealth, and only the scattered seeds of prosperous 
 
28 
 
 commonwealths and great cities cover vast regions 
 of the west, the northwest and the Pacific Slope. 
 
 It has been estimated that the inventions and dis- 
 coveries of the past fifty years have destroyed 
 sixty per cent, of the world's accumulated capital 
 and thrown out of employment forty per cent, of 
 its wage-earners, the one being the property ren- 
 dered valueless by new avenues for commerce, 
 superior methods in machinery or the discovery of 
 cheaper or better materials in manufactures, and 
 the other, the workers thereby displaced and com- 
 pelled to readjust their relations to physical or 
 mental labor. The victims of the merciless march 
 of this marvelous period may well long for the 
 ' ' good old times." The swiftly moving procession has 
 left them with impaired fortunes or obsolete voca- 
 tions. Steam and electricity, inventive genius and 
 discovery, have added to wealth and opportunity a 
 thousand fold more than they have destroyed, but 
 the rapidity of the revolutions have thrown out 
 of gear the order and arrangement adjusted by cen- 
 turies of trial, and produced an eager longing and 
 vague grasping for solidity and security. At each 
 new crisis the frightened citizens appeal to the gov- 
 ernment for help, and national paternalism becomes 
 the quest and danger of the hour. The success of 
 this idea would lead, to centralization of power, as 
 full of peril to the Republic as absolute state 
 sovereignty was to the Union. It would reverse 
 the beneficent lesson and legacy of Jefferson, that 
 " the government is best which governs least." 
 
29 
 
 Every period has its own perils. They 
 are the drastic processes by which, slowly 
 but surely, the many sides of truth are 
 evolved. To meet and overcome them is 
 the mission of progressive peoples. That they 
 exist from time to time is evidence of the ad- 
 vancement of nations to higher civilizations. 
 They are the obstacles which block the pathways 
 of reform and liberty. Stagnation is decay, and 
 communities and individuals are alike subject to 
 the eternal law which compels motion, which 
 must be either backward or forward. Nothing 
 stands still but death. The priest was the savior 
 of one age, and the soldier of another, but the 
 present needs for its leaders educated men. The 
 graduates of the colleges, as they take their 
 places in the schools and academies, in journal- 
 ism and business, in the professions and the 
 public service, must be the teachers for the 
 times. The task may not be easy, but its 
 difficulties form its fascination for honest- 
 thinking and courageous workers. The fierce 
 competitions of the hour compel the concentra- 
 tion of time and labor upon one's vocation for the 
 maintenance of his family and to secure a home 
 and competence for old age, or the care of the 
 helpless whom he may leave behind. Hence 
 few can enter public life. The uncertainties 
 of such a course, owing to the localization of rep- 
 resentatives and the shifting humor of localities 
 make its adoption a hazard and not a career. It 
 
30 
 
 is the highest duty of the liberally educated to 
 perform public service in private station. Their 
 practised ear can tell whether the vox populi is the 
 vox Dei. They know whether it is the bawl of the 
 demagogue or the cry of the well-meaning but 
 mistaken crowd. To unmask the one and first 
 check and then enlighten the other require inde- 
 pendence and boldness. 
 
 Great parties ever watchful of each other, and 
 anxious to serve the country wisely in order 
 to hold the government, or alert to sieze upon 
 and expose the errors or corruptions of the ad- 
 versary to regain power, are the stay and hope 
 of representative institutions. It is both a pleasure 
 and a pride to be loyal and enthusiastic for the 
 organization which professes your faith and prin- 
 ciples. There are times when the shibboleth of 
 party is a device for fraud or a shield for scamps. 
 Rascals may capture the machinery and the voters 
 be helpless in their toils. Then the educated man 
 should point the way to the rescue of the city or the 
 state. Smashing political machines never kills a 
 party. It often leads it through defeat to pure meth- 
 ods and subsequent victories. The government of 
 cities has become a menace to free institutions and 
 has discredited the popular j iidgment. It is not be- 
 cause people are less competent to govern them- 
 selves in crowded communities, but because rival 
 party organizations are so skilfully adjusted for 
 plunder that the citizen has no alternative. The 
 jobber and the robber pull tlieir hands out of the 
 
31 
 
 city treasury long enough to clap them together 
 and shout, " If you disturb us by bolting the 
 ticket, you will endanger the tariff or pass the 
 force bill," and the scared voter is defrauded out of 
 his municipal independence that he may save his 
 national measures. By divorcing the city and its 
 management, which is purely a matter of corporate 
 business, from the affairs of the nation and the 
 principles upon which it shall be governed, the 
 municipal problem is solved. 
 
 It is with imported errors and practices which 
 are foreign to our freedom and alien to our insti- 
 tutions, that we find it most difficult to deal. 
 Socialism and anarchy have no proper place in this 
 country and are not found among those born 
 within our borders, or who, though coming to us 
 from abroad, have come to accept our welcome and 
 enjoy our citizenship under our constitution and 
 laws. The institutions under which we live, and 
 which are stronger after the strain of a century, 
 develop and educate a citizenship which requires 
 neither armed regiments nor police forces to sup- 
 press its riots, or its organized assaults upon life 
 and property, upon law and order. Bloody lessons 
 and costly experience have taught the neces- 
 sity for more rigid supervision of immigra- 
 tion and more careful scrutiny of those who 
 would assume the responsibilities and enjoy the 
 priceless blessings of our equal rights. As the 
 competitive conditions of the country demand a 
 higher standard, the quality of the immigrants 
 
32 
 
 deteriorates and the dignity and safety of the 
 laborer, the peace of the community and the 
 moral and physical health of the people are alike 
 endangered. Let us establish quarantines against 
 disease and crime at the, places of embarkation 
 abroad and ports of entry at home, and then with 
 generous hospitality we will welcome all who will 
 contribute by their characters, their industry and 
 their loyalty to the support of our laws and the 
 perpetuity of American institutions. 
 
 American sense, intelligence and patriotism con- 
 fidently grasp and solve the problems which origi- 
 nate on American soil. Financial heresies may for 
 a time endanger the stability of our credit and 
 wreck our business, but they invariably yield 
 under fair and fearless discussion. Industrial 
 theories, which are wholly fantastic and grotesque, 
 or with truth and error deftly mingled, may cap- 
 ture states and send representatives to Congress, 
 but a campaign of education sooner or later con- 
 verts their believers to sounder principles. 
 
 The race question at the close of the civil war 
 was the most difficult one ever presented to any 
 people, and the sudden and complete revolution of 
 social, political, economic and industrial condi- 
 tions, aflEecting the entire populations of great 
 commonwealths, seemed to make the situation 
 hopeless. The smouldering fires of civil strife 
 and the heated passions of political parties 
 enormously increased the dangers and perplexities 
 of adjustment. It warped the judgment and in- 
 
33 
 
 fluenced the action of leaders and followers, that 
 the glittering and coveted prize of the possession 
 of an empire might depend upon the result of forc- 
 ing or fostering the natural laws of absorption and 
 assimilation of incongruous elements in social con- 
 vulsions. 
 
 The educated brains of the country never per- 
 formed more signal service than in the efforts they 
 made to maintain the rights of the states in the 
 management of their local affairs, and, through the 
 loyalty and devotion of its citizens, the power and 
 prestige of the United States. In any other coun- 
 try and in any other age, there would have been 
 provinces held by military force, or a renewal of 
 civil war, or local anarchy. But the principles of 
 constitutional government were so vigorous and 
 vitalizing that none of the historic tragedies 
 occurred which have heretofore attended the proc- 
 esses of control of grave internal disorders. Edu- 
 cation has been, and will be, the great and success- 
 ful factor in the peaceful settlement of a situation 
 once so critical and now so hopeful. 
 
 With renewed faith in the solvent and life giving 
 virtues of liberty, with restored confidence in the 
 fraternal and dispassionate judgment of each State 
 upon the trials of its neighbor and with a pas- 
 sionate devotion to the Union and its flag, which is 
 not confined by territorial lines, nor limited by 
 local prejudices, nor restricted by party, the whole 
 people now work together for their common inter- 
 ests in the glory and growth of the Republic. 
 
34 
 
 Governments have always been founded upon 
 masses and classes, but our institutions have for 
 their base and strength the individual as a unit. 
 To this factor of freedom every opportunity must 
 be offered of the school, the academy and the col- 
 lege. Government by majorities grows purer, more 
 beneficent and more powerful as intelligence in- 
 creases. The voice of the past is now seldom heard 
 in the din of clashing opinions and interests. Saint 
 Augustine and Saint Chrysostom, of the early 
 Christian era, commanded the attention of the 
 world. The schoolmen of the dark ages 
 led the thought of the times through uni- 
 versities, where thirty thousand students 
 were entered on the rolls. Luther and Melanchthon, 
 and Erasmus and Grotius, were spokesmen of the 
 effort for spiritual, intellectual and civil liberty, 
 which has incalculably affected the destinies of 
 mankind. The Puritan divines of the first hun- 
 dred years of Kew England settlement inspired 
 the thought and governed the course of the 
 colleges, and controlled the minds of the people. 
 Now, no one, outside the antiquaries and critical 
 few, reads the Fathers of the Church, the School- 
 men, the Leaders of the Reformation, or Cotton 
 Mather, or Jonathan Edwards. The body of truth 
 from which they derived their doctrines and con- 
 structed their systems is found in the open Bible, 
 by every fireside in the land. From its pages the 
 individual, according to his or her lights and op- 
 portunity, draws the lessons of life. 
 
35 
 
 The times are ripe for a closer union and a more 
 liberal and catholic opinion of the people of every 
 parc of the nnion towards each other. It is un- 
 worthy the heritage common to all, if the intel- 
 ligence of Virginia and New York happen to be 
 united upon great principles of governmental 
 policy, that they should peril the triumph of their 
 political faith because the prejudices of location 
 and environment divide them. However great 
 may have been the necessity for those of like 
 minds, culture and doctrines, to enlist under 
 hostile banners, the occasion no longer exists. 
 The friends and the foes of protection and free 
 trade, of metallic standards or fiat money, of 
 rigid or liberal construction of the Constitution, of 
 centralizing power or distributing it among the 
 states, of paternalism or individual efforts, should 
 be found north and south and east and west in 
 their proper camps, and keeping step on the march 
 to the music of their parties. This is the spirit em- 
 phasized under the shadow of the homes of Jeffer- 
 son and Madison. The Sage of Monticello and 
 John Adams, each the founder of a great party, 
 and bitter antagonists in the field, spent the even- 
 ing of their days in mutual correspondence and 
 labors for their common country. The cannon 
 and the church bells on the 4th of July, 1826, in 
 every city and village, in every town and ham- 
 let filled the air with the joy of a happy people, 
 and wafted to Heaven the souls of these immortal 
 patriots with the acclaim and incense of liberty. The 
 
36 
 
 Puritan and the Cavalier, united in securing the 
 independence of the colonies and the formation of 
 the Republic, divided only upon the principles on 
 which it should be governed, and reunited in their 
 declining years and retiremisnt from official service 
 for its progress and perpetuity, were welcomed 
 together on the same great day into the presence of 
 their Maker. From the heavens above come to us 
 the message of their lives and the lesson of their 
 deaths. They teach the debt which educated men 
 owe to the State and the duty which the State 
 owes to education. They indicate the places which 
 the colleges should hold in leadership and liberalism. 
 They impress upon us with added, emphasis as the 
 Republic expands in population, wealth and power, 
 the responsibilities resting upon each generation 
 to foster and preserve the institutions which Jef- 
 ferson and Adams and their compatriots created, 
 and which have proved to be elastic enough to meet 
 the needs of the most progressive of centuries, strong 
 enough to resist the strain of civil war, liberal 
 enough to permit the broadest freedom of thought 
 and action and conservative enough to keep and 
 transmit in their vigor and purity the principles of 
 liberty and the blessings of the union of the 
 states.