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 American addresses / 
 
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AMERICAN ADDRESSES 
 
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AMERICAN 
 ADDRESSES 
 
 BY. 
 
 JOSEPH h: (SiOATE 
 
 NEW YOHK 
 
 THE CENTURY CO. 
 
 1911 
 
 S 
 
 it) 
 
Copyright, 1911, by 
 The Century Co. 
 
 Published, October, mi 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THIS volume of addresses, delivered at vari- 
 ous times and places in America and in- 
 tended as a companion book to that which I 
 published last year containing addresses deliv- 
 ered by me in Great Britain, hardly requires any 
 extended preface or explanation. 
 
 Banging through a period of nearly fifty years, 
 from 1864 to 1911, they recall for the most part 
 events and associations with which I was closely 
 connected, and men whom I greatly honored and 
 loved, and so in a way they form a part of my 
 own life. 
 
 I have given the first place to my kinsman, Eu- 
 fus Choate, because of my personal relations to 
 him and my great obligations to him, and because 
 now, after the lapse of more than fifty years since 
 his death, he still stands as the most famous and 
 fascinating of American advocates. The lustre 
 of his fame is not dimmed and the charm of his 
 personality is as familiar and as beloved as ever. 
 Few men and women now living have ever seen 
 or heard him, and his published orations and 
 speeches give but a faint idea of the wonderful 
 power of his presence and his voice, but the tradi- 
 tion of his matchless eloquence will linger for 
 generations to come. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 At this distance of time I may venture to pub- 
 lish the letter of introduction which he gave me 
 when I went to New York, a homeless stranger, 
 in 1855. He was then at the zenith of his fame 
 and Mr. Evarts, to whom it was addressed, had 
 already, although only thirty-seven years old, 
 attained marked eminence in the profession. The 
 letter, an exact fac-simile of which is reprinted 
 here, is strongly characteristic of the writer's 
 warm heart and tender sympathy and of his lofty 
 standard of life. It did indeed ' ' smooth my first 
 steps " and pave my way to fortune, as it resulted 
 in my forty years' connection with Mr. Evarts, 
 during which I had to live up to it as best I might. 
 
 _ _ Boston 24 Sept. 1855 
 
 My dear Mb. Evarts 
 
 I beg to incur one other obligation to you by intro- 
 ducing the bearer my friend and kinsman to your kind- 
 ness. 
 
 He is just admitted to our bar, was graduated at Cam- 
 bridge with a very high reputation for scholarship and 
 all worth, and comes to the practice of the law, I think, 
 with extraordinary promise. He has decided to enroll 
 himself among the brave and magnanimous of your bar, 
 with a courage not unwarranted by his talents, character, 
 ambition and power of labor. There is no young man 
 whom I love better, or from whom I hope more or as 
 much and if you can do anything to smooth the way to 
 his first steps the kindness will be most seasonable and 
 will yield all sorts of good fruits. 
 Most truly 
 Your servant and friend 
 
 RuFUS Choate. 
 vi 
 

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PREFACE 
 
 After reading this letter, who will wonder that 
 gratitude and affection have prompted me to 
 accord to him the first place in this volume of 
 addresses? 
 
 The adventures and achievements of naval 
 heroes are among the most thrilling in human an- 
 nals, and those of Admiral Farragut stand out in 
 glowing colors. Americans will always honor his 
 memory as one of the saviors of their country in 
 the days of its deadliest peril. The simplicity of 
 his character, his unsullied and lofty patriotism 
 and his unmatched exploits which restored the 
 integrity of the Union by sea, and led the way to 
 Grant's final victories on the land, make him one 
 of the greatest and most brilliant figures in our 
 history, and I greatly valued the invitation to pro- 
 nounce his eulogy at the unveiling of St. Gau- 
 den's statue in Madison Square, which will, I 
 think, stand the test of time as that great sculp- 
 tor 's masterpiece. 
 
 The wounds and scars of our Civil War are fast 
 healing, and that frightful struggle has come to 
 be looked upon as the only means under Provi- 
 dence of curing the one fatal defect in our 
 Constitution which permitted slavery, and of 
 rebuilding upon imperishable foundations the 
 Nation which in the fullness of time must 
 be the greatest of all. But while the war 
 lasted its horrors blighted the lives of the 
 women on both sides. The women of the 
 South suffered anguish and misery unspeakable, 
 but those of the North were not a whit behind 
 
 vii 
 
PEEFACE 
 
 them in their ardent and patriotic devotion. It 
 was their enthusiasm and exertions that led to 
 the formation of the United States Sanitary Com- 
 mission, which, throughout the war, did such 
 splendid service for the relief of the sick and 
 wounded, under the presidency of Dr. Bellows of 
 immortal memory, and sustained its great efforts 
 from the beginning to the end. In April, 1864, 
 when the Government was straining every nerve 
 to bring the war to a close, and the Sanitary Com- 
 mission was in great need, the women of New 
 York organized the famous Sanitary Fair, which 
 proved to be a wonderful financial success. Gen- 
 eral Dix presided at the opening and breathed the 
 same spirit as he did in 1861, when he wrote, ' ' If 
 any man attempts to haul down the American flag 
 shoot him on the spot ! " and I esteemed it a great 
 privilege to speak on that occasion for the women 
 whose labors brought to that Commission a gen- 
 erous sum of money, encouraged the Government 
 itself, and inspired to new exertions our strug- 
 gling heroes at the front. 
 
 The breaking up of the Tweed Eing in 1871 by 
 a universal uprising of the city of New York, and 
 the rescue of the municipal government and treas- 
 ury from the grasp of that infamous band of rob- 
 bers, after its depredations had amounted to 
 many millions, has been too often told to need 
 repetition here. The people of the city, without 
 distinction of party, vested all their power for 
 that purpose in the Committee of Seventy citi- 
 zens, of which I had the honor to be a member. 
 
 viii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 I was made chairman of its Sub-committee on 
 Elections, whose duty it was to select candidates 
 for all the offices to be filled in November, and to 
 conduct the campaign at that election. Although 
 we were all amateurs and wholly unpracticed in 
 political arts, that duty was successfully per- 
 formed, and resulted in the triumph of the people 
 at the polls and the restoration for the time being 
 of honest municipal government. My address in 
 making the report of that committee at the mass 
 meeting of the Cooper Institute in October fairly 
 reflected the public sentiment in that fearful 
 crisis. Although I fear that most of my colleagues 
 on the committee are long since dead, I have 
 thought that a portion of that address would still 
 be of interest to those who believe that the only 
 way to preserve our great city from corruption, is 
 for all the citizens at all times to perform their 
 public duty, whatever sacrifice of time and private 
 business may be necessary. 
 
 " The Young Lawyer," " Our Profession," 
 * ' Trial by Jury ' ' and ' ' The English Bar ' ' were 
 grateful contributions to the noble profession to 
 which I owe so much. The immense and constant 
 service which it has rendered in the creation and 
 conservation of the national spirit, and in the 
 making and administration of the laws, entitle it 
 to the grateful recognition of the nation, which 
 I hope it will always receive in spite of the fre- 
 quent calumnies to which from time to time it is 
 subjected. 
 
 My native city, old Salem, in Massachusetts, is 
 
 ix 
 
PREFACE 
 
 very dear to me. My ancestors were among its 
 inhabitants from the very beginning, even before 
 Endicott landed there with the first " founders." 
 There is no city in the land that cherishes more 
 quaint traditions and more interesting historical 
 associations, or which can successfully challenge 
 the enterprise and courage of its sailors and mer- 
 chants who helped to lay the foundations of 
 American commerce. Hawthorne, in his " Twice 
 Told Tales," and " The House of the Seven Ga- 
 bles," has celebrated it in the most loyal and 
 loving spirit, and is himself the brightest gem in 
 its crown, and when I was invited as a son of Sa- 
 lem, after an absence of more than a quarter of 
 a century, to take part in the celebration of the 
 250th anniversary of the landing of Governor 
 Endicott, I responded gladly for the Salem people 
 abroad and did my best to recall some of the 
 charming associations of our old home and the 
 spirit of its unique history. 
 
 Harvard College has a wonderful hold upon its 
 sons. They are proud of its history and of the 
 service which it has rendered to the country as 
 a leader in the great cause of education, and they 
 are vain enough to point to the names in its cata- 
 logue since 1642, which have been identified with 
 every great national cause of freedom, progress 
 and light. They never tire of sounding its 
 praises, sometimes, perhaps, in a provincial, but 
 always in a loyal spirit. As I have received the 
 full measure of its honors and owe it an immeas- 
 urable debt of gratitude, I have not hesitated to 
 
PREFACE 
 
 reprint brief addresses delivered at two memor- 
 able Commencement gatherings of Harvard grad- 
 uates. 
 
 In 1883, when General Butler was Governor of 
 Massachusetts, the corporation of the College fol- 
 lowing its custom from time immemorial, of rec- 
 ognizing the newly elected chief magistrate of the 
 Commonwealth, had voted to confer on him the 
 degree of Doctor of Laws, but this had been ve- 
 toed by the Board of Overseers, whose consent 
 was necessary. This led to a great deal of agita- 
 tion and discussion among the Alumni, and much 
 excitement ensued. 
 
 General Butler had annoimced his intention of 
 attending the Commencement exercises in his offi- 
 cial capacity, as all his predecessors since the 
 foundation of the college had done, but so strong 
 was the feeling against him that the elected Presi- 
 dent of the Alunmi, who had long been his severe 
 political critic and adversary, refused to serve, 
 and as vice-president I was called on to take his 
 place. An unusual throng of the graduates at- 
 tended, and much apprehension was expressed 
 lest the Governor might improve the occasion by 
 way of retaliation, to say something unkind of 
 the college, as he had been known to do before, 
 and so everybody expected a disturbance or at 
 least something resembling it. But their expecta- 
 tions were doomed to a happy disappointment. 
 In opening the proceedings, I made a conciliatory 
 speech, appealing to that close bond of loyalty 
 and mutual friendship which had always 
 
 xi 
 
PREFACE 
 
 united the College and the Commonwealth. His 
 Excellency then arose and fairly turned the tables 
 upon everybody, by making an equally friendly 
 and a very dignified reply, but he confided to me 
 afterwards that it was quite a different speech 
 from that which he had expected to make when 
 he entered the hall. He was certainly true to the 
 traditions of his office, and his audience treated 
 him with the utmost courtesy. 
 
 It was again my good fortune in 1885, in the 
 absence of Phillips Brooks in Europe, to preside 
 at the Commencement exercises at which a great 
 gathering of the Alumni assembled to welcome 
 James Eussell Lowell on his return from the 
 English mission. I had not at that time the 
 slightest idea that I should long afterwards suc- 
 ceed him as Ambassador at that post. He had 
 been continuously absent for eight years in the 
 diplomatic service, in which he had added vastly 
 to his already great prestige and distinction. He 
 was much the most distinguished of the living 
 graduates of Harvard, and his return home after 
 such a long absence was naturally recognized as a 
 signal event. Many of the most eminent of his 
 fellows had assembled to greet him, and great 
 was the joy of the occasion. His brilliant career 
 as a poet, his renown as a man of letters, his 
 services to the cause of freedom, and his success 
 in upholding the honor and dignity of his country 
 abroad, all appealed most strongly to our hearts, 
 and we joined in giving him an extraordinary 
 welcome. 
 
PEEFACB 
 
 The celebration of the centennial of the Hasty 
 Pudding Club was another interesting occasion 
 at Harvard, where, since the days of its most dis- 
 tinguished founder, Horace Binney, it had been 
 the centre of undergraduate fun and recreation. 
 I am not sure but that some of its members have 
 derived as much benefit, from its associations as 
 from the more serious curriculum of the Uni- 
 versity, and am certain that they cherish a livelier 
 recollection of them. At all events, the centen- 
 nial of the Club was deemed a suitable occasion 
 for its choicest spirits to come together, and make 
 good its renowned motto of " concordia discors," 
 and when I was called upon to lead their revels, 
 I was by no means reluctant to do so. 
 
 The Union League Club, during the Civil War 
 (which brought it into being as a champion of 
 " Unconditional Loyalty ") and for many years 
 afterwards, was more devoted to public affairs 
 than it has been of late, and was often the scene 
 of warm demonstrations of public spirit. No 
 heartier greeting was ever extended by it on be- 
 half of the whole country, than to those brave 
 Englishmen who had had the wit to appreciate 
 and the courage to support our cause of Liberty 
 and Union, when Lincoln was struggling divinely 
 to maintain it, and when almost all the world 
 seemed to be banded against us. During my term 
 of service as President of the club, we had the 
 honor of welcoming two of these truly historical 
 characters. Lord Houghton and the Hon. William 
 E. Forster, and I was proud to be the spokesman 
 
 xiii 
 
PEEFACE 
 
 of the club in thanking them for befriending us 
 when we needed friends so sorely. No apology 
 seems needed, therefore, for introducing here the 
 address of welcome to Lord Houghton, who as 
 Monckton Milne s had found in America hosts of 
 readers and admirers, even before he championed 
 our cause. 
 
 In 1905, after fifty years' service in the New 
 England Society (which strives to keep alive the 
 traditions and the principles of the Pilgrim and 
 the Puritan founders of Massachusetts), I was 
 asked, as the sole survivor of the members pres- 
 ent who had attended the celebration of 1855, to 
 give an account of that occasion. It had occurred 
 at a critical point in our history, half way be- 
 tween the compromise measures of 1850 and the 
 election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. The fatal 
 Kansas-Nebraska bill had been passed and was 
 fast dividing the country into two hostile camps, 
 the one determined by force, if need be, to resist 
 the further extension of slavery, the other by the 
 same means to extend its domination over our 
 whole area. But the spirit and the hope of com- 
 promise were still warmly cherished by the con- 
 servative classes. On that occasion the presence 
 and eloquence of two noble citizens, Dr. Oliver 
 Wendell Holmes and the Eeverend Dr. John Pier- 
 pont, a glorious champion of Liberty, had made 
 the day memorable, and I was glad that I had 
 preserved a record of it. 
 
 My welcome home by the Pilgrims touched me 
 quite as deeply as any distinction conferred upon 
 
 xiv 
 
PEEFACE 
 
 me abroad, and I have thought it not immodest 
 to include my address on that occasion. 
 
 I also wished to record the gracious generosity 
 and good will of Earl Grey, Governor General of 
 Canada, who, at my suggestion, restored to our 
 nation the portrait of Franklin, which in 1777 was 
 taken by John Andre from Franklin's house in 
 Philadelphia, and which had hung as a precious 
 possession in Earl Grey's ancestral home in Nor- 
 thumberland for one hundred and thirty years. 
 
 The story of Florence Nightingale's life was 
 really told for the benefit of all the trained nurses 
 of America, who had assembled to celebrate the 
 semicentennial of the foundation by her of the 
 first training school for nurses, by which she con- 
 ferred countless blessings on mankind. 
 
 The rest of the addresses, tributes to such great 
 citizens as Phillips Brooks, Dr. Eichard Salters 
 Storrs, James Coolidge Carter, Carl Schurz and 
 Charles Follen McKim need no further intro- 
 duction from me. 
 
 I fully realize the miscellaneous character of 
 these addresses, all of which were prepared in 
 " moments snatched from the iron grasp of an 
 engrossing profession," and I commit them to 
 the indulgent favor of such of my friends as may 
 be interested in their various subjects. 
 
 Joseph H. Choate. 
 Stockbeidge, Mass., September 14, 1911. 
 
 XV 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface v 
 
 Rupus Choate 1 
 
 Address at the unveiling of French's statue of Bufus 
 Choate in the Court Mouse, Boston, October IS) 
 1898. 
 
 Admiral Farragut 27 
 
 Address at the unveiling of St. Gaudens ' Statue of Ad- 
 miral Farragut in New Yorh, May S5, 1881. 
 
 The Metropolitan Sanitary Fair .... 51 
 Address at the opening of the Metropolitan Sanitary 
 Fair in New York, April 5, 1864. 
 
 The Tweed Ring 61 
 
 Address at the meeting of the Committee of Seventy at 
 Cooper Institute, New Yorlc, November 3, 1871. 
 
 Lord Houghton 77 
 
 Address at the reception given to Lord Houghton, by 
 the Union League Club in New Yorlc, November S3, 
 1875. 
 
 The Young Lawyer 85 
 
 Address at the Nineteenth Annual Commencement of 
 the Columbia Law School, New York, May 16, 1878. 
 
 Salem 99 
 
 Address at the Fifth Half-Century Anniversary of the 
 Landing of John Endicott, at Salem, Massachusetts, 
 Salem, September 18, 1878. 
 
 Harvard Commencement, 1883 113 
 
 Address at the Harvard Alumni Dinner in Memorial 
 Hall, on Commencement Bay, Cambridge, 1883. 
 
 xvii 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Harvard Commencement, 1885 123 
 
 Address at Cambridge to the Alumni of Harvard, June 
 
 24, 1885, on the occasion of Mr. Lowell's return 
 from England. 
 
 Phillips Brooks 135 
 
 Address at Music Ball, New TorTc, at the Memorial 
 Service to Phillips BrooTcs, February 16, 189S. 
 
 The Hasty Pudding Club 143 
 
 Address at the Club's Centennial, November 24, 1895. 
 
 Earl Grey and Franklin's Portrait .... 153 
 
 Address at the dinner of the Pilgrims of the United 
 States to Earl Grey, Governor-General of Canada, 
 New Yorlc, March SI, 1906. 
 
 Dr. Storrs's Jubilee 163 
 
 Address at Dr. Storrs's Jubilee, Brooklyn, November 
 
 25, 1896. 
 
 Our Profession 175 
 
 An address before the Chicago Bar Association, Friday, 
 February 4, 1898. 
 
 Trial by Jury 197 
 
 Address before the American Bar Association, Saratoga, 
 August 18, 1898. 
 
 Return to America 243 
 
 Address at the Banquet of the Pilgrims Society of New 
 York, in Eonor of Mr. Choate's return to America, 
 June 9, 1905. 
 
 The New England Society in 1855 .... 253 
 Address before the New England Society inthe City of 
 New York, December 22, 1905. 
 
 James Goolidge Carter . 271 
 
 Address before the Bar Association of the City of New 
 York, March 13, 1906. 
 
 Carl Schurz ... 297 
 
 Address at the Schurz Memorial Meeting, New York 
 November 21, 1906. 
 
 xviii 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The English Bar 305 
 
 Address before the New TorTc State Bar Assooiation, at 
 Albany, N. Y., January 16, 1907. 
 
 Charles Pollen McKim 325 
 
 Address at the McKim Memorial Meeting, at the New 
 Theatre, New YorJc, November S3, 1909. 
 
 Florence Nightinsale 341 
 
 Address at the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of 
 the First Training School for Nurses, New YorJc, May 
 18, 1910. 
 
 SIX 
 
EUFUS CHOATE 
 
RUFUS CHOATE 
 
 Address delwered at the unveiling of French's statue of JBufiis 
 Choate in the Court House, BostOfi, October 15, 1898. 
 
 I DEEM it a very great honor to have been in- 
 vited by the Suffolk Bar Association to take 
 part on this occasion in honor of him who still 
 stands as* one of the most brilliant ornaments of 
 the American Bar in its annals of two centuries. 
 Bearing his name and lineage, and owing to him, 
 as I do, more than to any other man or men — to 
 his example and inspiration, to his sympathy and 
 helping hand — whatever success has attended my 
 own professional efforts, I could not refuse the 
 invitation to come here to-day to the dedication 
 of this statue, which shall stand for centuries to 
 come, and convey to the generations who knew 
 him not some idea of the figure and the features 
 of Eufus Ghoate, Neither bronze nor marble can 
 do him justice. Not Eembrandt himself could re- 
 produce the man as we knew and loved him — for 
 until he lay upon his death-bed he was all action, 
 the "noble, divine, godlike action" of the ora- 
 tor — and the still life of art could never really 
 represent him as he was. 
 
 I am authorized, at the outset, to express for the 
 suTviving children of Mr. Choate their deep sense 
 of gratitude to the generous donor of this statue 
 of their honored father, and their complete appre- 
 ciation of the sentiment which has inspired the 
 
 3 
 
EUFUS CHOATE 
 
 city and the court to accept it as a public treasure, 
 and to give it a permanent home at the very gates 
 of the Temple of Justice, at whose shrine he wor- 
 shipped. They desire also to express publicly on 
 this occasion their admiration of the statue itself, 
 as a work of art, and a faithful portrait, in form 
 and feature, of the living man as he abides in 
 their loving memory. The City of Boston is 
 certainly indebted to Mr. French for his signal 
 skill in thus adding a central figure to that group 
 of great orators whom its elder citizens once 
 heard with delight — Webster, Choate, Everett, 
 Mann, Sumner and Garrison. In life, they divided 
 the sentiments and applause of her people. In 
 death, they share the honors of her Pantheon. 
 
 It is forty years since he strode these ancient 
 streets with majestic step — forty years since the 
 marvellous music of his voice was heard by the 
 living ear — and those of us who, as students and 
 youthful disciples, followed his footsteps, and 
 listened to his eloquence, and almost wor- 
 shipped his presence, whose ideal and idol he 
 was, are already many years older than he lived 
 to be; but there must be a few still living, and 
 present here to-day, who were in the admiring 
 crowds that hung with rapture on his lips — in 
 the courts of justice, in the densely packed assem- 
 bly, in the Senate, in the Constitutional Conven- 
 tion, or in Faneuil Hall consecrated to Freedom — 
 and who can still recall, among life's most cher- 
 ished memories, the tones of that matchless voice, 
 that pallid face illuminated with rare intelligence, 
 
 4 
 
RUFUS CHOATE 
 
 the flashing glance of his dark eye, and the light 
 of his bewitching smile. But, in a decade or two 
 more, these lingering witnesses of his glory and 
 his triumphs will have passed on, and to the next 
 generation he will be but a name and a statue, 
 enshrined in fame's temple with Cicero and 
 Burke, with Otis and Hamilton and Webster, with 
 Pinkney and Wirt, whose words and thoughts he 
 loved to study and to master. 
 
 Many a noted orator, many a great lawyer, has 
 been lost in oblivion in forty years after the grave 
 closed over him, but I venture to believe that the 
 Bar of Suffolk, aye, the whole Bar of America, 
 and the people of Massachusetts, have kept the 
 memory of no other man alive and green so long, 
 so vividly and so lovingly, as that of Eufus 
 Choate. Many of his characteristic utterances 
 have become proverbial, and the flashes of his wit, 
 the play of his fancy and the gorgeous pictures 
 of his imagination are the constant themes of 
 reminiscence, wherever American lawyers assem- 
 ble for social converse. What Mr. Dana so well 
 said over his bier is still true to-day: "When 
 as lawyers we meet together in tedious hours and 
 seek to entertain ourselves, we find we do better 
 with anecdotes of Mr. Choate, than on our own 
 original resources." The admirable biography of 
 Professor Brown, and his arguments, so far as 
 they have been preserved, are text books in the 
 profession — and so the influence of his genius, 
 character and conduct is still potent and far 
 reaching in the land. 
 
 5 
 
RUFUS CHOATE 
 
 You will not expect me, upon such an occasion, 
 to enter upon any narrative of his illustrious ca- 
 reer, so familiar to you all, or to undertake any 
 analysis of those remarkable powers which made 
 it possible. All that has been done already by 
 many appreciative admirers, and has become a 
 part of American literature. I can only attempt, 
 in a most imperfect manner, to present a few of 
 the leading traits of that marvellous personality, 
 which we hope that this striking statue will help 
 to transmit to the students, lawyers and citizens 
 who, in the coming years, shall throng these 
 portals. 
 
 How it was that such an exotic nature, so ar- 
 dent and tropical in all its manifestations, so truly 
 southern and Italian in its impulses, and at the 
 same time so robust and sturdy in its strength, 
 could have been produced upon the bleak and 
 barren soil of our northern cape, and nurtured 
 under the chilling blasts of its east winds, is a 
 mystery insoluble. Truly, "this is the Lord's do- 
 ing, and it is marvellous in our eyes." In one of 
 his speeches in the Senate, he draws the distinction 
 between " the cool and slow New England men, 
 and the mercurial children of the sun, who sat 
 down side by side in the presence of Washington, 
 to form our more perfect union." If ever there 
 was a mercurial child of the sun, it was himself 
 most happily described. I am one of those who 
 believe that the stuff that a man is made of has 
 more to do with his career than any education or 
 environment. The greatness that is achieved, or 
 
 6 
 
EUFUS CHOATE 
 
 is thrust upon some men, dwindles before that of 
 him who is born great. His horoscope was pro- 
 pitious. The stars in their courses fought for 
 him. The birthmark of genius, distinct and in- 
 effaceable, was on his brow. He came of a long 
 line of pious and devout ancestors, whose living 
 was as plain as their thinking was high. It was 
 from father and mother that he derived the flame 
 of intellect, the glow of spirit and the beauty of 
 temperament that were so unique. 
 
 And his nurture to manhood was worthy of the 
 child. It was "the nurture and admonition of the 
 Lord." From that rough pine cradle, which is 
 still preserved in the room where he was born, to 
 his premature grave at the age of fifty^niue, it 
 was one long course of training and discipline of 
 mind and character, without pause or rest. It 
 began with that well-thumbed and dog's-eared 
 Bible from Hog Island, its leaves actually worn 
 away by the pious hands that had turned them, 
 read daily in the family from January to Decem- 
 ber, in at Genesis and out at Bevelations every 
 two years ; and when a new child was born in 
 the household, the only celebration, the only fes- 
 tivity, was to turn back to the first chapter, and 
 read once more how * ' in the beginning God crea- 
 ted the heaven and the earth," and all that in 
 them is. This Book, so early absorbed and never 
 forgotten, saturated his mind and spirit more 
 than any other, more than all other books com- 
 bined. It was at his tongue's end, at his fingers' 
 ends— always close at hand until those last lan- 
 
 7 
 
EUFUS CHOATE 
 
 guid hours at Halifax, when it solaced his dying 
 meditations. You can hardly find speech, argu- 
 ment or lecture of his, from first to last, that is 
 not sprinkled and studded with biblical ideas and 
 pictures, and biblical words and phrases. To 
 him the book of Job was a sublime poem. He 
 knew the Psalms by heart, and dearly loved the 
 prophets, and above all Isaiah, upon whose gor- 
 geous imagery he made copious drafts. He pon- 
 dered every word, read with most subtle keen- 
 ness, and applied with happiest effect. One day 
 coming into the Crawford House, cold and shiver- 
 ing — and you remember how he could shiver — he 
 caught sight of the blaze in the great fireplace, 
 and was instantly warm before the rays could 
 reach him, exclaiming, " Do you remember that 
 verse in Isaiah, * Aha ! I am warm. I have seen 
 the fire'? " and so his daily conversation was 
 marked. 
 
 And upon this solid rock of the Scriptures he 
 built a magnificent structure of knowledge and 
 acquirement, to which few men in America have 
 ever attained. History, philosophy, poetry, fic- 
 tion, all came as grist to his mental mill. But 
 with him, time was too precious to read any 
 trash ; he could winnow the wheat from the chaff 
 at sight, almost by touch. He sought knowledge, 
 ideas, for their own sake, and for the language 
 in which they were conveyed. I have heard a 
 most learned jurist gloat over the purchase of the 
 last sensational novel, and have seen a most dis- 
 tinguished bishop greedily devouring the stories 
 
 8 
 
EUFUS CHOATE 
 
 of Graboriau one after another, but Mr. Choate 
 seemed to need no such counter-irritant or blis- 
 ter, to draw the pain from his hurt mind. Busi- 
 ness, company, family, sickness — ^nothing could 
 rob him of his one hour each day in the company 
 of illustrious writers of all ages. How his whole 
 course of thought was tinged and embellished 
 with the reflected light of the great Greek orators, 
 historians and poets; how Eoman history, fresh 
 in his mind as the events of yesterday, supplied 
 him with illustrations and supports for his own 
 glowing thoughts and arguments, all of you who 
 have either heard him or read him know. 
 
 But it was to the great domain of English lit- 
 erature that he daily turned for fireside com- 
 panions, and really kindred spirits. As he said in 
 a letter to Sumner, with whom his literary fra- 
 ternity was at one time very close : ' ' Mind that 
 Burke is the fourth Englishman — Shakespeare, 
 Bacon, Milton, Burke ": and then in one of those 
 dashing outbursts of playful extravagance, which 
 were so characteristic of him, fearing that Sum- 
 ner, in his proposed review, might fail to do full 
 justice to the great ideal of both, he adds : ' ' Out 
 of Burke might be cut 50 Mackintoshes, 175 Ma- 
 caulays, 40 Jeffreys and 250 Sir Eobert Peels, 
 and leave him greater than Pitt and Fox to- 
 gether." In the constant company of these great 
 thinkers and writers he revelled, and made their 
 thoughts his own; and his insatiable memory 
 seemed to store up all things committed to it, 
 as the books not in daily use are stacked away in 
 
 9 
 
RUFUS CHOATE 
 
 your public library, so that at any moment, with 
 notice or without, he could lay his hand straight- 
 way upon them. What was once imbedded in the 
 gray matter of his brain did not lie buried there, 
 as with most of us, but grew and flourished and 
 bore fruit. What he once read he seemed never 
 to, forget. 
 
 This love of study became a ruling passion in 
 his earliest youth. To it he sacrificed all that the 
 youth of our day— even the best of them — con- 
 sider indispensable, and especially the culture and 
 training of the body; and when we recall his pale 
 face, worn and lined as it was in his' later years, 
 one of his most pathetic utterances is found in a 
 letter tO his son at school: " I hope that you are 
 well and studious,, and among the best scholars. 
 If this is so, I am willing you should play every 
 day till the blood is ready to burst from your 
 cheeks. Love the studies that will make you wise, 
 useful and happy when there shall be no blood at 
 all to be seen in your cheeks or lips." He never 
 rested from his delightful labors — and that is the 
 pity of it — ^he took no vacations. Except for one 
 short trip to Europe, when warned of a possible 
 breakdown in 1850, an occasional day at Essex, 
 a three days' journey to the White Mountains was 
 all that he allowed himself. Returning from 
 such an outing in the summer of 1854, on which 
 it was my great privilege to accompany him, he 
 said: " That is my entire holiday for this year." 
 So that when he told Judge Warren so playfully 
 that " The lawyer's vacation is the space between 
 
 10 
 
EUFUS CHOATE 
 
 the que&tion, put to a witness and his answer," it 
 was of hjnaself almost literally true. Would that 
 he had realized his constant dream of an ideal cot- 
 tage in the old walnut grove in Essex, where he 
 might spend whole summers with his books, his 
 children and his thoughts. 
 
 His splendid and blazing intellect, fed and en- 
 riched by constant study of the best thoughts of 
 the great minds of the race, his all-persuasive elo- 
 quence, his teeming and radiant imagination, 
 whirling his hearers along with it, and sometimes 
 overpowering himself, his brilliant and sportive 
 fancy, lighting up the most arid subjects with the 
 glow of sunrise, his prodigious and never-failing 
 memory, and his playful wit, always bursting 
 forth with irresistible impulse, have been the sub- 
 ject of scores of essays and criticisms, all strug- 
 gling with the vain effort to describe and crystal- 
 lize the fascinating and magical charm of his 
 speech and his influence. 
 
 But the occasion and the place remind me that 
 here to-day we have chiefly to do with him as the 
 lawyer and the advocate, and all that I shall pre- 
 sume very briefly to suggest is, what this statue 
 will mean to the coming generations of lawyers 
 and citizens. 
 
 And first, and far above his splendid talents 
 and his triumphant eloquence, I would place the 
 character of the man — pure, honest, delivered 
 absolutely from all the temptations of sordid and 
 mercenary things, aspiring daily to what was 
 higher and better, loathing all that was vulgar 
 
 11 
 
EUFUS CHOATE 
 
 and of low repute, simple as a child, and tender 
 and sympathetic as a woman. Emerson most 
 truly says that character is far above intellect, and 
 this man's character surpassed even his exalted 
 intellect, and, controlling all his great endow- 
 ments, made the consummate beauty of his life. 
 I know of no greater tribute ever paid to a suc- 
 cessful lawyer, than that which he received from 
 Chief Justice Shaw — himself an august and serene 
 personality, absolutely familiar with his daily 
 walk and conversation — ^in his account of the ef- 
 fort that was made to induce Mr. Choate to give 
 up his active and exhausting practice, and to take 
 the place of professor in the Harvard Law School, 
 made vacant by the death of Mr. Justice Story — 
 an effort of which the Chief Justice, as a member 
 of the corporation of Harvard, was the principal 
 promoter. After referring to him, then, in 1847, 
 as " the leader of the Bar in every department 
 of forensic eloquence," and dwelling upon the 
 great advantages which would accrue to the school 
 from the profound legal learning which he pos- 
 sessed, he said: " In the case of Mr. Choate, it 
 was considered quite indispensable that he should 
 reside in Cambridge, on account of the influence 
 which his genial manners, his habitual presence, 
 and the force of his character, would be likely to 
 exert over the young men, drawn from every 
 part of the United States to listen to his instruc- 
 tions." 
 
 What richer tribute could there be to personal 
 and professional worth, than such words from 
 
 12 
 
EUFUS CHOATE 
 
 such lips? He was the fit man to mould the char- 
 acters of the youth, not of the city or the State 
 only, but of the whole nation. So let the statue 
 stand as notice to all who seek to enter here, that 
 the first requisite of all true renown in our noble 
 profession — renown not for a day or a life only, 
 but for generations — is Character. 
 
 And next I would point to it as a monument to 
 self -discipline ; and here he was indeed without a 
 rival. You may search the biographies of all the 
 great lawyers of the world, and you will find none 
 that surpassed, I think none that approached him, 
 in this rare quality and power. The advocate who 
 would control others must first, last and always 
 control himself. ' ' Every educated man, ' ' he once 
 said, '' should remember that ' great parts are a 
 great trust,' " and, conscious of his talents and 
 powers, he surely never forgot that. You may 
 be certain that after his distinguished college 
 career at Dartmouth — first always where there 
 was none second — after all that the law school, 
 and a year spent under the tuition of William 
 Wirt, then at the zenith of his fame, could lend to 
 his equipment, and after the five years of patient 
 study in his office at Danvers, where he was the 
 only lawyer, he brought to the subsequent actual 
 practice of his profession an outfit of learning, 
 of skill and research, which most of us would 
 have thought sufficient for a lifetime ; but with him 
 it was only the beginning. His power of labor 
 was inexhaustible, and down to the last hour of 
 his professional life he never relaxed the most 
 
 13 
 
RUFUS CHOATE 
 
 acute and searching study, not of the case in hand 
 only, but of the whole body of the law, and of 
 everything in history, poetry, philosophy and lit- 
 erature that could lend anything of strength or 
 lustre to the performance of his professional 
 duties. His hand, his head, his heart, his imagi- 
 nation were never out of training. 
 
 Think of a man already walking the giddy 
 heights of assured success, already a Senator 
 of the United States from Massachusetts, or 
 even years afterwards, when the end of his 
 professional labors was already in sight, 
 schooling himself to daily tasks in law, in 
 rhetoric, in oratory, seeking always for the 
 actual truth, and for the " best language " in 
 which to embody it — the "precisely one right 
 word ' ' by which to utter it — think of such a man, 
 with all his ardent taste for the beautiful in 
 every domain of human life, going through the 
 grinding work of taking each successive volume 
 of the Massachusetts Reports, as they came out, 
 down to the last year of his practice, and making 
 a brief in every ease in which he had not been 
 himself engaged, with new researches to see how 
 he might have presented it, and thus to keep up 
 with the procession of the law. Verily, " all 
 things are full of labor ; man cannot utter it : the 
 eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled 
 with hearing." 
 
 So let no man seek to follow in his footsteps, 
 unless he is ready to demonstrate, in his own per- 
 son, that infinite work is the only touchstone of the 
 
 14 
 
EUFUS CHOATE 
 
 highest standing in the law, and that the sluggard 
 and the slothful who enter here must leave all 
 hope behind. 
 
 Again we hail this statue, which shall stand 
 here as long as bronze shall endure, as the fit rep- 
 resentative of one who was the perfect embodi- 
 ment of absolute loyalty to his profession, m the 
 highest and largest and noblest sense; and, if I 
 might presume to speak for the whole American 
 Bar, I would say that in its universal judgment 
 he stands in this regard pre-eminent, yes, fore- 
 most still. Truly, he did that pious homage to 
 the Law which Hooker exacted for her from all 
 things in Heaven and Earth, and was governed 
 by that ever-present sense of debt and duty to the 
 profession of which Lord Bacon spoke. He en- 
 tered her Courts as a High Priest, arrayed and 
 equipped for the most sacred offices of the Temple. 
 He belonged to the heroic age of the Bar, and, 
 after the retirement of "Webster, he was chief 
 among its heroes. He was the centre of a group of 
 lawyers and advocates, the ablest and the strong- 
 est we have known, by whose aid the chief tribu- 
 nal of this ancient commonwealth administered 
 justice so as to give law to the whole country. 
 Such tributes as Loring and Curtis and Dana lav- 
 ished upon his grave can never wither. Each 
 one of them had been his constant antagonist in 
 the great arena, and each could say with 
 
 ^' ** experto credite quantus 
 
 In clypeum assurgat, quo turbine torqueat 
 
 hastam." 
 
 15 
 
EUFUS CHOATE 
 
 One after the other, they portrayed in words 
 not to be forgotten his fidelity to the Court, to 
 the client and to the law, his profound learning, 
 his invincible logic, his rare scholarship and his 
 persuasive eloquence, his uniform deference to 
 the Court and to his adversaries — and more and 
 better than all these — what those specially inter- 
 ested in his memory cherish as a priceless treas- 
 ure — his marvellous sweetness of temper, which 
 neither triumph nor defeat nor disease could ruf- 
 fle, his great and tender and sympathetic heart, 
 which made them, and the whole bench and bar, 
 love him in life, and love him still. 
 
 He magnified his calling with all the might of 
 his indomitable powers. Following the law as a 
 profession, or, as Judge Sprague so justly said, 
 " as a science, and also as an art," he aimed 
 always at perfection for its own sake, and no 
 thought of money, or of any mercenary considera- 
 tion, ever touched his generous and aspiring 
 spirit, or chilled or stimulated his ardor. He 
 espoused the cause of the poorest client, about 
 the most meagre subject of controversy, with 
 the same fidelity and enthusiasm as when millions 
 were at stake, and sovereign States the combat- 
 ants. No love of money ever planted the least 
 root of evil in his soul; and this should not fail 
 to be said in remembrance of him, in days when 
 money rules the world. 
 
 His theory of advocacy was the only possible 
 theory consistent with the sound and wholesome 
 administration of justice — that, with all loyalty to 
 
 16 
 
EUFUS CHOATE 
 
 truth and honor, he must devote his best talents 
 and attainments, all that he was, and all that he 
 could, to the support and enforcement of the 
 cause committed to his trust. It is right here to 
 repeat the words of Mr. Justice Curtis, speak- 
 ing for himself and for the whole Bar, that ' ' Great 
 injustice would be done to this great and eloquent 
 advocate, by attributing to him any want of loy- 
 alty to truth, or any deference to wrong, because 
 he employed all his great powers and attainments, 
 and used to the utmost his consummate skill and 
 eloquence, in exhibiting and enforcing the com- 
 parative merits of one side of the cases in which 
 he acted. In doing so he but did his duty. If 
 other people did theirs, the administration of jus- 
 tice was secure." 
 
 His name will ever be identified with trial by 
 jury, the department of the profession in which 
 he was absolutely supreme. He cherished with 
 tenacious affection and interest its origin, its 
 history and its great fundamental maxims — ^that 
 the citizen charged with crime shall be presumed 
 innocent until his guilt shall be established beyond 
 all reasonable doubt; that no man shall be de- 
 prived by the law of property or reputation until 
 his right to retain is disproved by a clear pre- 
 ponderance of evidence to the satisfaction of all 
 the twelve; that every suitor shall be confronted 
 with the proofs by which he shall stand or fall; 
 that only after a fair hearing, with full right of 
 cross-examination, and the observance of the vital 
 rules of evidence, shall he forfeit life, liberty or 
 
 17 
 
RUFUS CHOATE 
 
 property, and then only by the judgment of his 
 peers. 
 
 Regarding these cardinal principles of Anglo- 
 Saxon justice and policy as essential to the main- 
 tenance of liberty and of civil society, he stood 
 as their champion 
 
 " with spear in rest and heart on flame," 
 
 sheathed in the panoply of genius. 
 
 To-day, when we have seen a great sister re- 
 public on the verge of collapse for the violation 
 of these first canons of Freedom, we may justly 
 honor such a champion. 
 
 But he displayed his undying loyalty to the 
 profession on a still higher and grander scale, 
 when he viewed and presented it as one of the 
 great and indispensable departments of Govern- 
 ment, as an instrumentality for the well-being and 
 conservation of the State. "Pro clientibus saepe; 
 pro lege, pro republica semper." 
 
 I regard the magnificent argument which he 
 made on the judicial tenure in the Constitutional 
 Convention of 1853 as the greatest single service 
 which he ever rendered to the profession, and to 
 the Commonwealth, of which he was so proud. 
 You will observe, if you read it, that it differs 
 radically in kind, rather than in degree, from all 
 his other speeches, arguments and addresses. 
 
 Discarding all ornament, restraining with care- 
 ful guard all tendency to flights of rhetoric, in 
 clear and pellucid language, plain and unadorned, 
 laying bare the very nerve of his thought, as if 
 
 18 
 
EUFUS CHOATE 
 
 he were addressing, as no doubt he meant to ad- 
 dress and convince, not alone his fellow delegates 
 assembled in the convention, but the fishermen of 
 Esses, the manufacturers of Worcester and 
 Hampden, and the farmers of Berkshire — all the 
 men and women of the Commonwealth, of that 
 day and of all days to come — he pleads for the 
 continuance of an appointed judiciary, and for the 
 judicial tenure during good behavior, as the only 
 safe foundations of justice and liberty. 
 
 He draws the picture of " a good judge pro- 
 foundly learned in all the learning of the law ;" 
 " not merely upright and well intentioned; " 
 " but the man who will not respect persons in 
 judgment; " standing only for justice, " though 
 the thunder should light upon his brow, ' ' while he 
 holds the balance even, to protect the humblest 
 and most odious individual against all the powers 
 and the people of the Commonwealth ; and ' ' pos- 
 sessing at all times the perfect confidence of the 
 community, that he bear not the sword in vain." 
 He stands for the existing system which has been 
 devised and handed down by the Founders of the 
 State, and appeals to its uniform success in pro- 
 ducing just that kind of a judge ; to the experience 
 and example of England since 1688; to the Fed- 
 eral system which had furnished to the people of 
 the Union such illustrious magistrates ; and finally 
 to the noble line of great and good judges who 
 had from the beginning presided in your courts. 
 He then takes up and disposes of all objections 
 and arguments drawn from other States, which 
 
 19 
 
EUFUS CHOATE 
 
 had adopted an elective judiciary and shortened 
 terms, and conclusively demonstrates that to 
 abide by the existing constitution of your judicial 
 system was the only way to secure to Massachu- 
 setts forever " a government of laws and not of 
 men." 
 
 It was on one of the red-letter days of my 
 youth that I listened to that matchless argument, 
 and, when it ended, and the last echoes of his 
 voice died away, as he retired from the old Hall 
 of the House of Representatives, leaning heavily 
 upon the arm of Henry Wilson, all crumpled, di- 
 shevelled and exhausted, I said to myself that some 
 virtue had gone out of him — ^indeed some virtue 
 did go out of him with every great effort — ^but that 
 day it went to dignify and ennoble our profession, 
 and to enrich and sustain the very marrow of the 
 Commonwealth. If ever again the question 
 should be raised within her borders, let that argu- 
 ment be read in every assembly, every church and 
 every school-house. Let all the people hear it. 
 It is as potent and unanswerable to-day, and will 
 be for centuries to come, as it was nearly half a 
 century ago when it fell from his lips. Cling to 
 your ancient system, which has made your Courts 
 models of jurisprudence to all the world until 
 this hour. Cling to it, and freedom shall reign 
 here until the sunlight shall melt this bronze, and 
 justice shall be done in Massachusetts, though the 
 skies fall. 
 
 And now, in conclusion, let me speak of his 
 patriotism. I have always believed that Mr. Web- 
 
 20 
 
EUFUS CHOATE 
 
 ster, more than any other one man, was entitled 
 to the credit of that grand and universal outburst 
 of devotion, with which the whole North sprang 
 to arms in defense of the Constitution and the 
 Union, many years after his death, when the first 
 shot at Fort Sumter, like a fire bell in the night, 
 roused them from their slumber, and convinced 
 them that the great citadel of their liberties was 
 in actual danger. Differ as we may and must as 
 to his final course in declining years, the one 
 great fact can never be blotted out, that the great 
 work of his grand and noble life was the defense 
 of the Constitution — so that he came to be known 
 of all men as its one Defender— that for thirty 
 years he preached to the listening nation the cru- 
 sade of nationality, and fired New England and 
 the whole North with its spirit. He inspired 
 them to believe that to uphold and preserve the 
 Union, against every foe, was the first duty of the 
 citizen; that if the Union was saved, all was 
 saved; that if that was lost, all was lost. He 
 moulded better even than he knew. It was his 
 great brain that designed, his flaming heart that 
 forged, his sublime eloquence that welded the 
 sword, which was at last, when he was dust, to 
 consummate his life's work, and make Liberty 
 and Union one and inseparable forever. 
 
 And so, in large measure, it was with Mr. 
 Choate. His glowing heart went out to his coun- 
 try with the passionate ardor of a lover. He be- 
 lieved that the first duty of the lawyer, orator, 
 scholar was to her. His best thoughts, his noblest 
 
 21 
 
RUFUS CHOATE 
 
 words were always for her. Seven of the best 
 years of his life, in the Senate and House of Rep- 
 resentatives, at the greatest personal sacrifice, he 
 gave absolutely to her service. On every impor- 
 tant question that arose, he made, with infinite 
 study and research, one of the great speeches of 
 the debate. He commanded the affectionate re- 
 gard of his fellows, and of the watchful and listen- 
 ing nation. He was a profound and constant stu- 
 dent of her history, and revelled in tracing her 
 growth and progress from Plymouth Rock and 
 Salem Harbor, until she filled the continent from 
 sea to sea. He loved to trace the advance of the 
 Puritan spirit, with which he was himself deeply 
 imbued, from Winthrop and Endicott and Carver 
 and Standish, through all the heroic periods and 
 events of colonial and revolutionary and national 
 life, until, in his own last years, it dominated 
 and guided all of Free America. He knew full 
 well, and displayed in his many splendid speeches 
 and addresses, that one unerring purpose of free- 
 dom and of Union ran through her whole history ; 
 that there was no accident in it all; that all the 
 generations, from the Mayflower down, marched 
 to one measure and followed one flag ; that all the 
 struggles, all the self-sacrifice, all the prayers and 
 the tears, all the fear of God, all the soul-trials, 
 all the yearnings for national life, of more than 
 two centuries, had contributed to make the coun- 
 try that he served and loved. He, too, preached, 
 in season and out of season, the gospel of Na- 
 tionality. He was the faithful disciple of "Web- 
 
 22 
 
EUFUS CHOATE 
 
 ster, while that great Master lived, and, after his 
 death, he bore aloft the same standard and main- 
 tained the same cause. Mr. Everett spoke noth- 
 ing more than the truth, when he said in Faneuil 
 Hall, while all the bells were tolling, at the mo- 
 ment when the vessel bringing home the dead 
 body of his lifelong friend cast anchor in Boston 
 Harbor : "If ever there was a truly disinterested 
 patriot, Eufus Choate was that man. In his po- 
 litical career there was no shade of selfishness. 
 Had he been willing to purchase advancement at 
 the price often paid for it, there was never a 
 moment, from the time he first made himself felt 
 and known, that he could not have commanded 
 anything that any party had to bestow. But he 
 desired none of the rewards or honors of success." 
 He foresaw clearly that the division of the 
 country into geographical parties must end in 
 civil war. What he could not see was, that there 
 was no other way — ^that only by cutting out sla- 
 very by the sword, could America secure Liberty 
 and Union too — but to the last drop of his blood, 
 and the last fibre of his being, he prayed and 
 pleaded for the life of the nation, according to 
 his light. Neither of these great patriots lived 
 to see the fearful spectacle which they had so 
 eloquently deprecated. But when at last the 
 dread day came, and our young heroes marched 
 forth to bleed and die for their country — their 
 own sons among the foremost — they carried in 
 their hearts the lessons which both had taught, 
 and all Massachusetts, all New England, from 
 
 23 
 
RUFUS CHOATE 
 
 the beginning, marched behind them, " carrying 
 the flag and keeping step to the music of the 
 Union, " as he had bade them, and so I say, let us 
 award to them both their due share of the glory. 
 
 Thus to-day we consign this noble statue to the 
 keeping of posterity, to remind them of ' ' the 
 patriot, jurist, orator, scholar, citizen and friend, ' ' 
 whom we are proud to have known and loved. 
 
 24 
 
ADMIRAL FAEEAGUT 
 
ADMIRAL FARRAGUT 
 
 Address delivered at the unveiling of St. Gaudens' Statue of 
 Admiral Farragut in New Yorlc, May ^5, 1881, 
 
 THE fame of naval heroes has always capti- 
 vated and charmed the imaginations of men. 
 The romance of the sea that hangs about them, 
 their picturesque- and dramatic achievements, the 
 deadly perils that surround them, their loyalty to 
 the flag that floats over them, their triumphs 
 snatched from the jaws of defeat, and deaths in 
 the hour of victory, inspire a warmer enthusiasm 
 and a livelier sympathy than is awarded to equal 
 deeds on land. Who can read with dry eyes the 
 story of Nelson, in the supreme moment of vic- 
 tory at Trafalgar, dying in the cockpit of his flag- 
 ship, embracing his beloved comrade with, " Kiss 
 me, Hardy! Thank God, I have done my duty," 
 on his fainting lips, bidding the world good-night, 
 and turning over like a tired child to sleep and 
 wake no more? What American heart has not 
 been touched by that kindred picture of Lawrence, 
 expiring in the cabin of the beaten Chesapeake, 
 with " Don't give up the ship," on his dying lips? 
 What schoolboy has not treasured in his memory 
 the bloody fight of Paul Jones with the Serapis, 
 the gallant exploits of Perry on Lake Erie, and 
 of McDonough on Lake Champlain, and the other 
 
 27 
 
ADMIRAL FARRAGUT 
 
 bright deeds which have illuminated the brief 
 annals of the American navy? 
 
 We come together to-day to recall the memory 
 and to crown the statue of one of the dearest of 
 these idols of mankind — of one whose name will 
 ever stir like a trumpet the hearts of his grateful 
 countrymen. 
 
 In the first year of the century — at the very 
 time when the great English admiral was wearing 
 fresh laurels for winning, in defiance of order",, 
 the famous battle of the Baltic, one of the blood- 
 iest pictures in the book of naval warfare — there 
 was born on an humble farm in the unexplored 
 wilderness of Tennessee, a child who was, sixty 
 years afterwards, to do for America what Eng- 
 land's idol had just done for her, to rescue her in 
 an hour of supreme peril, and to win a renown 
 which should not fade or be dim in comparison 
 with that of the most famous of the sea-kings of 
 the old world. For though there were many great 
 admirals before Farragut, it will be hard to find 
 one whose life and fortunes combine more of 
 those elements which command the enduring ad- 
 miration and approval of his fellow-men. He 
 was as good as he was great — as game as he 
 was mild, and as mild as he was game — as skillful 
 as he was successful, as full of human sympathy 
 and kindness as he was of manly wisdom, and as 
 unselfish as he was patriotic. So long as the 
 republic which he served and helped to save shall 
 endure, his memory must be dear to every lover 
 of his country, and so long as this great city shall 
 
 28 
 
ADMIRAL FAEEAGUT 
 
 continue to be the gateway of the nation and the 
 centre of its commerce, it must preserve and honor 
 his statue, which to-day we dedicate to the com- 
 ing generations. 
 
 To trace the career of Farragut is to go back to 
 the very infancy of the nation. His father, a 
 brave soldier of the Eevolution, was not of the 
 Anglo-Saxon stock for which we are wont to assert 
 a monopoly of the manly virtues, but of that 
 Spanish race, which in all times has produced 
 good fighters on sea and land. His mother must 
 have been a woman fit to bear and suckle heroes, 
 for his earliest recollection of her was upon the 
 occasion when, axe in hand, in the absence of 
 her husband, she defended her cottage and her 
 helpless brood of little ones against an attack 
 of marauding Indians, who were seeking their 
 scalps. Like all heroes, then, he was born brave, 
 and got his courage from his father's loins and 
 his mother's milk. The death of the mother and 
 the removal of the father to New Orleans, where 
 he was placed by the Government in command of 
 the naval station, introduced the boy to the very 
 scene where, more than half a century afterwards, 
 some of the brightest of his proud laurels were 
 to be won, and led him, by a singular. providence, 
 to the final choice of a profession, at an age when 
 children generally are just beginning their school- 
 ing. The father of the renowned Commodore 
 David Porter happened to fall ill and die under 
 the roof of Farragut 's father, and his illustrious 
 son, whose heart overflowed with gratitude for 
 
 29 
 
ADMIRAL FARRAGUT 
 
 the hospitable kindness which had welcomed his 
 dying father, announced his intention to adopt a 
 child of that house, and to train him up in his 
 own profession. 
 
 That happy conjunction of great merit with 
 good fortune which attended the future Admiral 
 through his whole life, was nowhere more sig- 
 nally marked than in the circumstance which thus 
 threw together the veteran naval commander, al- 
 ready famous, and soon to win a world-wide name 
 for skill, and daring, and enterprise, and the boy 
 who, in his own last years, was destined to eclipse 
 the glory of his patron, and to witch the world 
 with still more brilliant exploits. 
 
 The influence of such a spirit and character as 
 Porter's on that of a dutiful, ardent and ambi- 
 tious boy like Farragut, cannot be overestimated. 
 It was not a mere nominal adoption. Porter took 
 him from his home, and became his second father, 
 and with him the boy lived, and studied, and 
 cruised, and fought, having thus ever before him 
 an example worthy of himself. No wonder that 
 he aspired to place himself, at last, at the head 
 of the profession into which his introduction had 
 been under such auspices ! 
 
 Behold him, then, at the tender age of nine 
 years the happy recipient of a midshipman's war- 
 rant in the United States Navy, bearing date De- 
 cember 17, 1810 ; and two years later, on the break- 
 ing out of the war with Great Britain, making his 
 first cruise with his noble patron, who, as Captain 
 Porter, now took command of the Essex, whose 
 name he was to render immortal by his aehieve- 
 
 30 
 
ADMIEAL FAREAGUT 
 
 ments beneath her flag. It was in this severe 
 school of active and important service that Mid- 
 shipman Farragut learned, almost in infancy, 
 those first lessons in seamanship and war which 
 he afterwards turned to practical account in wider 
 fields and more dangerous enterprises. His faith- 
 ful study of all the details of his profession, 
 guided and inspired by that ever present sense 
 of duty, which was the most marked character- 
 istic of his life, prepared him, step by step, for 
 any service in the line of that profession which 
 time or chance might happen to bring ; and when, 
 at last, in March, 1814, the gallant little frigate 
 met her fate in that spirited and bloody encounter 
 with the British frigate Phebe and the sloop of 
 war Cherub, off the port of Valparaiso, a contest 
 which brought new fame to the American navy, 
 as well as to all who bore a part in it, the boy of 
 twelve, receiving an actual baptism of fire and 
 blood, was found equal to the work of a man. He 
 seems never to have known what fear was. If 
 nerve makes the man, he was already as good as 
 made. He thus describes this first of his great 
 fights in his modest journal : 
 
 " During the action, I was like ' Paddy in the 
 catharpins,' a man on occasions. I performed 
 the duties of captain's aid, quarter gunner, pow- 
 der boy, and, in fact, did everything that was re- 
 quired of me. I shall never forget the horrid im- 
 pression made upon me at the sight of the first 
 man I had ever seen killed. It staggered and 
 sickened me at first, but they soon began to fall 
 around me so fast, that it all appeared like a 
 
 31 
 
ADMIRAL FARRAGUT 
 
 dream, and produced no effect on my nerves. I 
 can remember well, while I was standing near the 
 captain, just abaft the mainmast, a shot came 
 through the waterways and glanced upwards, kill- 
 ing four men who were standing by the side of the 
 gun, taking the last one in the head and scattering 
 his brains on both of us. But this awful sight did 
 not affect me half as much as the death of the 
 first poor fellow. I neither thought of nor no- 
 ticed anything but the working of the guns. ' ' 
 
 He never was in battle again until forty-eight 
 years afterwards, when he astounded the world 
 by the capture of New Orleans, but who can doubt 
 that that memorable day in the Essex, when her 
 plucky commander fought her against hopeless 
 odds, only lowering his colors when she was al- 
 ready sinking with all but one of her ofificers and 
 more than half of her crew on the list of killed 
 and wounded, was a lifelong inspiration to his 
 courage and loyalty, that it planted forever, in 
 the heart of the boy, that starry flag, which, as 
 an old man, he was to bear at last, through blood- 
 ier conflicts still, to final victory? 
 
 It is wonderful how that half century of rou- 
 tine service in a navy that had nothing to do, in 
 times of profound and unbroken peace, prepared 
 and equipped him for those immense responsi- 
 bilities and novel undertakings that were finally 
 thrown upon him. One would naturally suppose 
 that fifty years of dead calm — waiting for dead 
 men's shoes while there was no fighting to kill 
 them off — ^no active service anywhere — would 
 
 32 
 
ADMIRAL FAEEAGUT 
 
 have benumbed the energy and stifled the ambition 
 of an ordinary man and have unfitted him alto- 
 gether for action, when at last the day of action 
 came. But Parragut was no ordinary man. He 
 magnified his calling when there was nothing else 
 to magnify it, and by being faithful over a few 
 things fitted himself at a moment's notice, to be- 
 come a ruler over many. Porter, in his report to 
 the Government, had commended him for bravery, 
 but regretted that he was too young for promo- 
 tion. The close of the war left him at the very 
 bottom round of the ladder, but with a heart full 
 of generous ardor and an unflinching will to do 
 his duty, and so to climb, step by step, to the 
 top, on which he ever kept a steadfast eye. The 
 faithful midshipman was indeed the father of the 
 future admiral. The boy that never shirked 
 moulded the man that never flinched and never 
 failed. 
 
 The traditions of the little American Navy of 
 that early day were proud and glorious ones — 
 and well calculated to fire a youthful heart with 
 generous enthusiasm. It had carried off the hon- 
 ors of the war, and on the lakes and on the ocean 
 in skill, pluck and endurance it had coped success- 
 fully with the proud flag of England — the undis- 
 puted mistress of the seas — arrogant with the 
 prestige of centuries, and fresh from the conquest 
 of her ancient rivals. Its successful commanders 
 were recognized as heroes alike by their grateful 
 countrjTuen and by a generous foe, and furnished 
 examples fit to be followed and imitated by the 
 
 33 
 
ADMIRAL FARRAGUT 
 
 young and unknown midshipman whose renown 
 was one day to cast theirs all in the shade. 
 
 It was neither by lucky accident nor political 
 favor, nor by simply growing old in the service, 
 that Farragut came in time to be the recognized 
 head of his profession. From the first he studied 
 seamanship and the laws of naval warfare as a 
 science, and put his conscience into his work, as 
 well in the least details as in the great principles 
 of the business. So as he rose in rank he grew in 
 power, too, and never once was found unequal to 
 any task imposed upon him. Self-reliance ap- 
 pears to have been the great staple of his charac- 
 ter. Thrown upon his own exertions from the 
 beginning, buoyed up by no fortune, advanced by 
 no favor, he worked his own way to the quarter- 
 deck, and by the single-hearted pursuit of his 
 profession was master of all its resources and 
 ready to perform great deeds, if a day for great 
 deeds should ever come. 
 
 Had that protracted and inglorious era of peace 
 and of compromise, which began with his early 
 manhood and ended with the election of Lincoln, 
 been continued for another decade, he would have 
 passed into history without fame, but without 
 reproach, as a brave and competent officer, but 
 undistinguished in that bright catalogue of manly 
 virtue and of stainless honor which forms the mus- 
 ter roll of the American navy. But when treason 
 reared its ugly head, and by the guns at Fort Sum- 
 ter roused from its long slumber the sleeping 
 courage of the nation to avenge that insulted flag 
 
 34 
 
ADMIRAL FARRAGUT 
 
 — that flag which from childhood to old age he 
 had borne in honor over every sea and into the 
 ports of every nation — his country found him 
 ready and with all his armor on, and found among 
 all her champions no younger heart, no cooler 
 head, no steadier nerve, than in the veteran Cap- 
 tain, who brought to her service a natural genius 
 for fighting and a mind stored with the rich ex- 
 perience of a well-spent life, and then, at last, all 
 that half-century of patient waiting and of faith- 
 ful study bore its glorious fruit. 
 
 Much as the country owes to Parragut for the 
 matchless services which his brains and courage 
 rendered in the day of her peril, she is still more 
 in debt to him for the unconditional loyalty of 
 his large and generous heart. Born, bred, and 
 married in the South, with no friends and hardly 
 an acquaintance except in the South, his sym- 
 pathy, while there was yet time or room for sym- 
 pathy, must all have been with her ; ' ' God for- 
 bid," he said, " that I should ever have to raise 
 my hand against the South! " The approaching 
 outbreak of hostilities found him on waiting or- 
 ders at his home in Norfolk, surrounded by every 
 influence that could put his loyalty to the test, 
 in the midst of officers of the army and navy, all 
 sworn like him to uphold the flag of the Republic, 
 but almost to a man meditating treason against it. 
 Could there have been a peaceful separation, could 
 those erring sisters have been permitted, as at 
 least one great Northern patriot then insisted 
 they should be permitted, to depart in peace, he 
 
 35 
 
ADMIRAL FAERAGUT 
 
 would doubtless have gone with his State, but 
 with a heart broken by the rupture of his country. 
 But when the manifest destiny of America for- 
 bade that folly, there was but one course for 
 Farragut, and there is no evidence that his loyalty 
 ever for a moment faltered. 
 
 Other great and manly hearts, tried by the same 
 ordeal, came to a different issue, and, perhaps, 
 history will do them better justice than we can. 
 But, now that it is all over, now that a restored 
 Union has made them fellow citizens once more, 
 we cannot refuse to recognize the manhood with 
 which they struggled even to their fall. 
 
 No candid Northern man can read at this dis- 
 tance of time, without emotion, the heartrending 
 letter of General Lee to Scott, resigning his com- 
 mission, and redeeming his sword for Virginia, 
 although history has pronounced it treason; but 
 this we may say, and must say, that Lee and all 
 who followed his example loved their State in- 
 deed, but forgot and betrayed their country, while 
 Farragut, when the issue came, knew only his 
 country ; loved only his country and meant still to 
 have a country to love. Not a single moment 
 could he hesitate, and when Virginia, who had 
 only a few weeks before elected delegates by a 
 large majority, pledged or instructed to maintain 
 her allegiance, was suddenly and treacherously, 
 as he expressed it " dragooned out of the Union," 
 he could not sleep another night on the soil of Vir- 
 ginia. At ten o'clock in the morning on the 18th 
 of April, 1861, news came to Norfolk that the or- 
 
 36 
 
ADMIRAL FARRAGUT 
 
 dinance of secession had passed — and Farragut's 
 mind was made up ; he announced to his faithful 
 wife, that for his part, come what might, he was 
 going to stick to the flag; and at five in the after- 
 noon they had packed their carpet bags and taken 
 the first steamboat for the north. That stick to 
 the flag should be carved on his tombstone, and on 
 the pedestals of all his statues as it was stamped 
 upon his soul. Stick to the flag shall be his pass- 
 word to posterity, to the latest generations — for 
 he stuck to it when all about him abandoned it. 
 He was 
 
 " Faithful found 
 Among the faithless — faithful only he." 
 
 It is a striking coincidence, recalling the most 
 critical and gloomy hour through which the coun- 
 try was then passing, that when the steamboat 
 which bore Farragut northward flying from se- 
 cession, and hastening to lay his sword at the feet 
 of the President, arrived at Baltimore on the 
 morning of the 19th of April, the brave boys of 
 the Massachusetts Sixth Regiment had just been 
 fired upon in the streets, as they were marching 
 to the rescue of the imperilled capitol — the pave- 
 ment was still wet with their blood, the first blood 
 of the Rebellion for slavery, just as eighty-six 
 years before, at that very day and hour, the com- 
 mon at Lexington had been crimsoned with the 
 blood of the ancestors of those very lads, the first 
 that was shed in that other rebellion which, for 
 freedom's sake, at once became a Revolution. 
 
 37 
 
ADMIEAL FAERAGUT 
 
 What a day for Massachusetts to celebrate! 
 Mother of Liberty, as she is ! Lincoln and his dis- 
 tressed Cabinet at Washington stood in sore need 
 that day of the voice and the presence and the 
 sword of every patriot, and the timely coming of 
 so great a naval captain as Farragut to the rescue 
 was as good to their souls as the arrival of a 
 friendly squadron, as events soon proved. 
 
 Never was a nation less prepared for naval 
 war than the United States in April, 1861. Forty- 
 two old vessels, many of which were unseaworthy, 
 the remains only of a decrepit peace establish- 
 ment, constituted our entire navy ; and all at once 
 we had three thousand miles of exposed sea-coast 
 to blockade and defend, our own great sea-ports 
 to protect, rebel cruisers to pursue, and American 
 commerce to maintain, if possible. The last was 
 utterly impossible ; the merchant service took ref- 
 uge under other flags, and our own almost van- 
 ished from the seas, where it had so long proudly 
 floated. But the same irresistible spirit of loy- 
 alty, the same indomitable will to preserve the 
 imperilled Union, which brought great armies all 
 equipped into the field, soon created a fleet also 
 that commanded the respect of the world, and 
 placed the United States once more in the front 
 rank of naval powers. 
 
 The active services of such a man as Farragut 
 could not long be spared, and when that great 
 naval enterprise, the opening of the Mississippi, 
 was planned — an enterprise the like of which had 
 never been attempted before — ^he was chosen by 
 
 38 
 
ADMIRAL FAERAGUT 
 
 the Government to lead it, by the advice of his 
 superiors in rank, and with the universal approval 
 of the people, on the principle of choosing the 
 best man for the service of greatest danger ; and 
 he accepted it on his favorite maxim, that the 
 greatest exposure was the penalty of the highest 
 rank. His experience was vast, but there was no 
 experience that would of itself qualify any man 
 for such a service. 
 
 It was upon his personal qualities that the 
 country relied. Success was absolutely neces- 
 sary. The depressing reverses of the first year 
 of the war, the threatened intervention of foreign 
 powers, and the growing arrogance of the Confed- 
 eracy forbade the possibility of a failure. And 
 all who knew Farragut knew that in his lexicon 
 there was no such word as — fail. When he saw 
 the gigantic preparations that had been made, he 
 had said that he could take New Orleans, and 
 everybody knew that he would take it, or pay his 
 life as the forfeit. " I have now attained," said 
 he, " what I have been looking for all my life — a 
 flag — and having attained it, all that is necessary 
 to complete the scene is a victory. If I die in 
 the attempt, it will only be what every officer has 
 to expect. He who dies in doing his duty to his 
 country, and at peace with his God, has played 
 out the drama of life to the best advantage." He 
 put his trust in God, and in his own indomitable 
 will, and none of Homer's heroes had more im- 
 plicit faith in the God of Battles than he was wont 
 to express. In every trying moment he looked 
 
 39 
 
ADMIRAL FARRAGUT 
 
 to Him as his leader, and after every victory he 
 gave to Him the praise. 
 
 But still, like Sydney, he believed that God only 
 helps those who help themselves, and acted on 
 Cromwell's advice, " Trust in God, my boys, but 
 keep your powder dry." So he wrote from Ship 
 Island, " God alone decides the contest, but we 
 must put our shoulders to the wheel. ' ' And when 
 he was putting the Hartford into action, he 
 crowded her with guns wherever a gun could be 
 worked. It was Farragut's peerless courage that 
 ironclad his wooden frigate, and carried her 
 safely through the hellish fire of the forts. He 
 had that two-o 'clock-in-the-morning kind of cour- 
 age of which Bonaparte boasted, and defined as 
 "unprepared courage — that which is necessary on 
 an unexpected occasion, and which, in spite of the 
 most unforeseen events, leaves full freedom of 
 judgment and decision." Happy was the day, 
 therefore, for us all when Farragut, on his own 
 merits, was put in command of by far the most 
 powerful naval expedition that had ever sailed 
 under the American flag, for one of the most peri- 
 lous enterprises that any fleet had ever attempted. 
 
 The sun would set upon us if we were to un- 
 dertake this afternoon to tell the story of the 
 capture of New Orleans. The world knows it by 
 heart, how when Farragut gave the signal at two 
 o'clock in the morning, the brave Bailey, in the 
 Cayuga, led the way, and how the great admiral, 
 in the Hartford, in two short hours, carried his 
 wooden fleet in triumph through that storm of 
 
 40 
 
ADMIRAL FARRAGUT 
 
 lightning from the forts, and scattered and de- 
 stroyed the whole fleet of rebel gunboats and iron- 
 clads, and how it pleased Almighty God, as he 
 wrote at sunrise to his wife, to preserve his life 
 through a fire such as the world had scarcely 
 known. Thus, in a single night, a great revolution 
 in maritime warfare was accomplished, and a 
 blow struck at the vitals of the Confederacy which 
 made it reel to its centre. New Orleans, the key 
 of the Mississippi — the Queen City of the South, 
 was taken never to be lost again, and the opening 
 made for all those great triumphs which soon 
 crowned our arms in the West. But victory found 
 our brave captain as modest and merciful as the 
 conflict had proved him terrible, and history may 
 be searched in vain for greater clemency shown 
 to a hostile city captured after such a struggle 
 than that with which the Federal commander, un- 
 der circumstances of the utmost aggravation and 
 insult, treated New Orleans. 
 
 In all his subsequent service on the Mississippi 
 — in clearing the river at Vicksburg and running 
 the batteries of Port Hudson, we find him exhibit- 
 ing the same great traits of character, on the 
 strength of which, at New Orleans, both friends 
 and foes had united in pronouncing him a hero 
 of the first class. The same fertility of resource 
 — the same contempt of personal danger— the 
 same caution in his designs, and the same resist- 
 less energy in execution, and withal, the same gen- 
 tleness and modesty always. 
 
 " You know my creed," he says, on the day 
 
 41 
 
ADMIRAL FARRAGUT 
 
 after his gallant passage of the terrible batteries 
 of Port Hudson, ' ' I never send others in advance 
 where there is a doubt; and being one on whom 
 the country has bestowed its greatest honors, I 
 thought I ought to take the risks which belong 
 to them, so I took the lead. I knew the enemy- 
 would try to destroy the old flag-ship, and I de- 
 termined that the best way to prevent that result 
 was to try and hurt them the most." 
 
 The ardent loyalty of his officers and men, who 
 loved and believed in him, and whom his own cool- 
 ness and courage inspired, the generous applause 
 of a grateful country, and the faithful support 
 of the Government, who realized his merits, sus- 
 tained him through all those trying months and 
 years, while the final triumph of the cause of the 
 Union, so long promised and expected, seemed 
 ever receding like the horizon before him. 
 
 But, at last, he got the chance that his hopeful 
 heart had longed for— to strike that fatal blow at 
 Mobile, which forever sealed up the Confederacy 
 from all intercourse with the outer world, and 
 hastened its final dissolution, making hopeless, on 
 its part, any further struggle in the West, while 
 Grant and Sherman and Sheridan and Hancock 
 were dealing its death blows in Virginia and 
 Georgia. 
 
 The battle of Mobile Bay has long since become 
 a favorite topic of history and song. Had not 
 Farragut himself set an example for it at New 
 Orleans, this greatest of all his achievements 
 might have been pronounced impossible by the 
 
 42 
 
ADMIRAL FAEEAGUT 
 
 miKtary world, and its perfect success brought 
 all mankind to his feet in admiration and homage. 
 As a signal instance of one man's intrepid cour- 
 age and quick resolve converting disaster and 
 threatened defeat into overwhelming victory, it 
 had no precedent since Nelson at Copenhagen, de- 
 fying the orders of his superior officer, and re- 
 fusing to obey the signal to retreat, won a triumph 
 that placed his name among the immortals. 
 
 When Nelson's lieutenant on board the Ele- 
 phant pointed out to him the signal of recall on 
 the Commander-in-Chief, the battered hero of the 
 Nile clapped his spyglass with his only hand to 
 his blind eye, and exclaimed: " I really do not 
 see the signal. Keep mine for closer battle fly- 
 ing. That's the way I answer such signals. Nail 
 mine to the mast! " and so went on and won the 
 great day. 
 
 When the Brooklyn hesitated among the fatal 
 torpedoes, in the terrible jaws of Fort Morgan, 
 at the sight of the Tecumseh exploding, and sink- 
 ingwiththe brave Craven and his ill-fated hundred 
 in her path, it was one of those critical moments 
 on which the destinies of battles hang. Napoleon 
 said that it was always the quarters of an hour 
 that decided the fate of a battle ; but here a single 
 minute was to win or lose the day, for when the 
 Brooklyn began to back, the whole line of Federal 
 ships were giving signs of confusion, while they 
 were in the very mouth of hell itself, the batteries 
 of Fort Morgan making the whole of Mobile 
 Point a living flame. It was the supreme moment 
 
 -13 
 
ADMIRAL FAERAGUT 
 
 of Farragut 's life. If he faltered all was lost — 
 if he went on in the torpedo-strewn path of the 
 Tecumseh he might be sailing to his death. It 
 seemed as though Nelson himself were in the 
 maintop of the Hartford. " What's the trou- 
 ble? " was shouted through a trumpet from the 
 flagship to the Brooklyn. " Torpedoes," was the 
 reply. " Damn the torpedoes," said Farragut. 
 " Four bells, Captain Drayton, go ahead, full 
 speed," and so he led his fleet to victory. 
 
 The painters and poets have vied with each 
 other in depicting the hero of Mobile Bay lashed 
 in the shrouds of the Hartford, as she sailed 
 through that fiery storm of shot and shell, leading 
 her companions to glory. That was, indeed, no 
 holiday station, for, in nineteen months of actual 
 service, the flagship had been struck already not 
 less than two hundred and forty times, but never 
 once had a hair of that head, which always showed 
 in the most exposed position on the vessel, been 
 touched. No wonder that his crews and officers 
 believed that he bore a charmed life, and were 
 always ready to follow in the same spirit wher- 
 ever he dared to lead — no wonder that this last 
 sublime self offering of their dear leader to the 
 God of Battles, whom he trusted, inspired every 
 man in the fleet to almost equal confidence and 
 daring, as it did. 
 
 Van Tromp sailed up and down the British 
 channel, in sight of the coast, with a broom at his 
 mast-head, in token of his purpose to sweep his 
 hated rivals from the seas. The greatest of Eng- 
 
 44 
 
ADMIRAL FAEEAGUT 
 
 lish admirals, in his last fight, as he was bearing 
 down upon the enemy, hoisted on his flagship a 
 signal which bore these memorable words : ' ' Eng- 
 land expects every man to do his duty ' ' — words 
 that have inspired the courage of Englishmen 
 from that hour to this ; but it was reserved for 
 Farragut, as he was bearing down upon the death- 
 dealing batteries of the rebels, to hoist nothing 
 less than himself into the rigging of his flagship, 
 as the living signal of duty done, that the world 
 might see that what England had expected, Amer- 
 ica, too, had fully realized, and that every man, 
 from the rear-admiral down, was faithful. 
 
 The creative genius of the young and brilliant 
 artist, who produced this noble statue of Farra- 
 gut, which has to-day been unveiled, to stand for 
 centuries in this busy highway of American life — 
 presents him, as he stood in that crowning hour 
 of victory, the very incarnation of courage and 
 loyalty, commanding the homage of his country- 
 men, and the admiration of mankind. That terri- 
 ble era of fraternal bloodshed, which witnessed 
 his conflicts and triumphs, can never be forgotten, 
 but the great Civil War will be worth all its 
 frightful cost — if it has realized in the heart of 
 every American the lessons of Farragut 's life, 
 and his supreme conviction, that the people of 
 these thirty-eight States have but one country, 
 that unconditional allegiance to the Union — to the 
 Union for Liberty only — is the sole condition of 
 citizenship, and that whoever hereafter lifts his 
 hand against its Flag must be forever dishonored. 
 
 45 
 
ADMIEAL FAERAGUT 
 
 The golden days of Peace have come to last, as 
 we hope, for many generations. The great 
 Armies of the Eepublic have been long since dis- 
 banded — our peerless Navy, which, at the close of 
 the war, challenged the wonder of the world, has 
 almost ceased to exist — but still we are safe 
 against attack from within and from without. 
 The memory of our heroes is ' ' the cheap defence 
 of the Nation, the nurse of manly sentiment and 
 of heroic enterprise " forever. Our frigates 
 may rot in the harbor — our ironclads may rust at 
 the dock, but if ever again the flag is in peril, 
 invincible armies will swarm upon the land, and 
 steel-clad squadrons leap forth upon the sea to 
 maintain it. If we only teach our children 
 patriotism as the first duty, and loyalty as the 
 first virtue, America will be safe in the future as 
 she has been in the past. 
 
 When the war of 1812 broke out she had only 
 six little frigates for her navy, but the valor of 
 her sons eked out her scanty fleet, and won for 
 her the freedom of the seas. In all the single en- 
 gagements of that little war, with one exception, 
 the Americans were victors, and, at its close, the 
 Stars and Stripes were saluted with honor in 
 every quarter of the globe. So, when this war of 
 the Eebellion came suddenly upon us, we had a 
 few ancient frigates, a few unseaworthy gunboats, 
 but when it ended, our proud and triumphant navy 
 counted seven hundred and sixty vessels of war, 
 of which seventy were ironclads. We can always 
 be sure, then, of fleets and armies enough. But 
 
 46 
 
ADMIEAL FAEEAGUT 
 
 shall we always have a Grant to lead the one, and 
 a Farragut to inspire the other? Will our future 
 soldiers and sailors share, as theirs almost to the 
 last man shared, their devotion, their courage 
 and their faith? Yes, on this one condition, that 
 every American child learns from his cradle, as 
 Farragut learned from his, that his first and last 
 duty is to his country, that to live for her is honor, 
 and to die for her is glory. 
 
 47 
 
THE METROPOLITAN SANITARY FAIR 
 
THE METROPOLITAN SANI- 
 TARY FAIR 
 
 Address delivered at the opening of the Metropolitan Sanitary 
 Fair in New York, April 5, 1864. 
 
 THE ladies of the Executive Comipittee, for 
 themselves and for all the generous women 
 who have given their time, their services and their 
 hearts to this glorious enterprise, and in the 
 sacred name of charity, which is the watchword 
 of New York to-night, accept at your chairman's 
 hands these bountiful treasures, which the wealth 
 of this great metropolis and the universal loyalty 
 of Americans at home and abroad, have poured 
 out at their feet to-night — and they pledge them- 
 selves here anew to finish the good work which 
 they have begun, and, with the aid of this gener- 
 ous public, to fulfil the high and holy trust on 
 whose behalf they have solicited these lavish 
 alms. Standing here for the moment to represent 
 those whose hearts have prompted and whose 
 hands have planned this wonderful Fair, and 
 speaking as with their lips, I shall not presume to 
 eulogize them. They are themselves their all-suf- 
 ficient eulogy. Their own works do praise them ; 
 and he must indeed be gifted with a better elo- 
 quence than human lips have ever uttered, who 
 
 51 
 
THE METROPOLITAN SANITARY FAIR 
 
 can add to the lustre of that imperishable chaplet 
 of praise, with which their own great labors of 
 love and mercy in these three years have decked 
 the brows of the women of America. 
 
 It is the women of a country, in whose hands its 
 destiny reposes; and no cause that is not great 
 enough to command their devotion, and pure 
 enough to deserve their sympathy, can ever wholly 
 triumph. But the wholeness of their devotion and 
 the ardor of their sympathy are the tests, that the 
 cause which has called us together to-night is one 
 of the grandest and purest that ever appealed to 
 the heart of man. It is the cause of our country, 
 bleeding from the living veins of her brave sons. 
 Thousands and tens of thousands of our sick and 
 wounded heroes now languish in the hospitals 
 of the Sanitary Commission, from the Potomac 
 to the Mississippi, and thousands and tens of 
 thousands more will be added to their number in 
 the months of battle that are already impending 
 over us. It was to save and succor these martyrs 
 to our liberties that that noble institution was 
 founded, and to hold up the drooping hands of the 
 institution itself the women of all the cities of 
 the North, with a spontaneous and contagious im- 
 pulse, have devoted the entire winter to the work 
 of these fairs. 
 
 You all know what great things have been 
 done elsewhere — how the cities of the East and 
 of the West have vied with each other in their 
 efforts and achievements; and how at last even 
 Brooklyn, jealous of her independence and fear- 
 
 52 
 
THE METROPOLITAN SANITARY FAIR 
 
 ing to be swallowed up in spite of the broad 
 waters of the East river, has taken time by the 
 forelock, and, rousing herself to unknown vitality, 
 has poured a flood of wealth into the treasury of 
 the Commission. And now, with these bright 
 examples before her, it remains to be seen what 
 New York shall do. 
 
 The hopes of the managers may seem to some 
 extravagant; but the highest figures that have 
 yet been named must surely fall short of the true 
 result. And why should not this great me- 
 tropolis, rolling in wealth, plunged to the lips 
 in luxury, not only surpass each one of her 
 sister cities in this strife of love, but even 
 do more than all the rest together? Why should 
 she not wipe from her escutcheon the unhappy 
 stains of the last summer* by the bright eon- 
 summation of this glorious winter? Surely, 
 if ever there was a time and a city which ought 
 to respond to the sufferings of our gallant sol- 
 diers, it is New York to-day. Why, what have the 
 men of New York been doing while these our 
 brethren have been bleeding and dying? Let 
 Wall street answer; let the bloated fortunes of 
 her merchants and tradesmen answer ; let the pur- 
 ple and fine linen in which her citizens go clothed 
 tell; let the diamonds and jewels on the necks of 
 her daughters speak — aye, let this bright and 
 shining company itself reveal the story. Be- 
 hind that living rampart of flesh, which the 
 breasts of a million of our fellow-citizens in arms 
 
 *The bloody draft riots of 1863. 
 
 53 
 
THE METEOPOLITAN SANITARY FAIR 
 
 have formed, we have followed the giddy pursuit 
 of wealth, and have bought and sold and gathered 
 in our gains as quietly and serenely as if the 
 peace of the nation had never been ruffled. Why, 
 then, should we not give, and give largely, to this 
 great cause? Yes, for us, the effeminate men of 
 New York, who have shared with the women all 
 the benefits and profits of the soldiers' toils and 
 woes there is no escape from the stern calls of 
 the hour. Our country has but two great needs 
 in this day of her peril — ^men and money — as 
 everybody knows. Take, then, your lives in your 
 hands, and go forth to battle for the liberties 
 which your brave fathers won. Or, if you shrink 
 from that — if you love your lives too well to give 
 them to your country — then there is but one al- 
 ternative — ^you must pay down now and here a 
 generous ransom. If, in the midst of war and 
 carnage you will enjoy such luxuries as life and 
 peace and plenty, you must pay roundly for 
 them. You cannot keep all your life, and all 
 your treasure, too. One thing or the other, * ' your 
 money or your life," is what America and the 
 ladies demand of every man of us to-night. 
 
 And now, if you will look around you at all the 
 wonders of the Fair, you will see that the ladies 
 have spared no pains to satisfy every taste, how- 
 ever fastidious, and to draw the money from every 
 pocket, however reluctant. Is your soul glowing 
 with the love of art? Go feast it in yonder gal- 
 lery of pictures, the most magnificent which the 
 American sun has ever lighted. Or, if dead to 
 
 54 
 
THE METEOPOLITAN SANITARY FAIR 
 
 the beauties of art, you would study nature, and, 
 as Bryant hath it, " hold communion with her 
 visible forms," go forth to the wigwam of Bier- 
 stadt, and visit the red men and women of the 
 wilderness — sweet children of nature — arrayed in 
 primitive simplicity, sounding the war-whoop on 
 the peaceful pavement of Fourteenth Street, 
 amusing themselves and their visitors with the 
 innocent sports of the tomahawk and the scalping 
 knife. Or, perhaps a love of the marvellous has 
 seized possession of your soul. There is food 
 even for you ; for, lo ! the old ' ' Curiosity Shop ' ' 
 opens its portals, wherein you can see the seven 
 hundred wonders of the world and the glory of 
 them, and all without extra charge. Here, too, is 
 food for the hungry in most ample stores. To- 
 morrow the Knickerbocker Kitchen, on Union 
 Square, will open its doors, and, if rumor is to be 
 trusted, the good things there to be served up 
 by ladies of the purest Dutch descent will have 
 such magic virtues that a fortnight's board in 
 that mushroom edifice will transform the most 
 cadaverous and ill-conditioned exiles from New 
 England into the sleek and unctuous image of 
 those primeval Dutchmen to whose memory that 
 establishment is dedicated. 
 
 But you must go and look for yourselves for 
 these and all the other glories of the Fair. You 
 can hardly go amiss in any direction, in 
 the honest endeavor to empty your burden- 
 some purses — and be sure that no less than 
 this is expected of you. I do not know that 
 
 55 
 
THE METEOPOLITAN SANITAEY FAIR 
 
 positive orders have been given to the police to 
 arrest and detain every man who is found leaving 
 the premises with money in his pockets; but, of 
 course, those oflScials know their duty and will dis- 
 charge it fearlessly. 
 
 But I should fail to do justice to the feelings 
 of those for whom I speak if I did not express 
 their heartfelt gratitude to all who have con- 
 tributed in any manner to this auspicious opening 
 — to the citizens at large, of every trade and call- 
 ing — ^to the kindred sympathy of the people of 
 New Jersey — to our gallant firemen — to the hun- 
 dred distant cities and towns that have organized 
 their charity into generous gifts — to the loyal 
 Americans in foreign lands — and, above all, if I 
 should fail to offer a special tribute of thanks 
 and praise to the countless friends of the soldier 
 among the poor, who, from every quarter and in 
 every possible form, have poured in their little 
 offerings of love, whose grateful incense must 
 call down the blessings of Heaven upon them and 
 us. And may I not venture, without the fear of 
 suspicion or envy, to say that the ladies are in- 
 debted more than to any other class of our citizens 
 to the generous artists of New York for their un- 
 rivalled zeal and devotion to the good work? 
 Others have given of their money and their sub- 
 stance ; but the artists have transferred their very 
 life-blood to the canvas, and given each the child 
 of his brain to the cause. They have placed the 
 cap upon this beautiful column, which the ladies 
 have raised, and given us that noble gallery, 
 
 56 
 
THE METROPOLITAN SANITAEY FAIR 
 
 which lends to the whole Fair a dignity and a 
 beauty which no other Fair has shown. And now, 
 what remains but that we should all, with all our 
 might, second the glorious exertions of the man- 
 agers ? And when the Fair is ended and the grand 
 result is known, as our gallant armies march out 
 to strike that gigantic blow, which shall, as we 
 hope, send this foul rebellion reeling to its last 
 retreat, let it bear to them the glad tidings that 
 they carry with them the hearts and the hopes and 
 the prayers of twenty millions of loyal Ameri- 
 cans; and that for as many as fall or faint by 
 the way all the strong arms of the nation will be 
 ready to save them, and all its fair hands to heal 
 their wounds or soothe their dying hours. 
 
 57 
 
THE TWEED EING 
 
THE TWEED RING 
 
 Address delivered at the meeting of the Committee of Seventy at 
 Cooper Institute, New Tork, November 3, 1871. 
 
 AT last, fellow-citizens, for the first time in 
 many years, we can once more hold up our 
 heads like men, and declare without any sense of 
 shame that we are citizens of the great and glori- 
 ous city of New York. Until within the last three 
 months we exhibited to the world a truly humilia- 
 ting and disgusting spectacle. A city of a million 
 free inhabitants, the metropolis of the Continent 
 in every sense of the word, the centre of its 
 wealth, its intelligence and its influence ; the seat 
 of its commerce, and the starting point from 
 which all its greatest enterprises proceed, had, 
 nevertheless, become, by the apathy of its citizens 
 and their absolute desertion of all their civic 
 duties, the victim and the prey of a gang of politi- 
 cal miscreants whose villainies were without a 
 parallel. Every avenue and department of the 
 mimicipal service fairly reeked with corruption. 
 Robbers sat without disguise at the head of the 
 Department of Public "Works, in the City and 
 County Treasury, in the administration of the 
 Central Park, and their hirelings and dependents 
 filled almost every office. From these points of 
 power the band of conspirators exercised a gross 
 
 61 
 
THE TWEED RING 
 
 and brutal tyranny over the people of the city, 
 more grinding than civilized men had before sub- 
 mitted to. 
 
 Far worse than " taxation without representa- 
 tion," which all history has declared to be suffi- 
 cient cause for revolution, it was highway robbery 
 under the pretense of taxation, with no pretense 
 of representation whatever, and before we knew it 
 we had been literally plundered of twenty millions 
 of the public money. At last the press — true to its 
 functions as the guardian of the public liberties — 
 sounded the alarm. The people awoke from their 
 long slumber, assembled in haste for mutual pro- 
 tection, and resolved, as the only remedy for the 
 wrongs they had suffered, to take their own af- 
 fairs into their own hands. And now two months 
 of vigorous and united action have changed the 
 whole aspect of affairs. The general scorn and 
 contempt which rested upon us has, in all quar- 
 ters, been changed to sympathy and fraternal 
 encouragement, because we have shown a determi- 
 nation to take care of ourselves, and have re- 
 solved, at all hazards, and by whatever means 
 may be necessary, peacefully if we can, but if not, 
 then in some other way, to recover our mutilated 
 liberties and vindicate our civil rights. 
 
 It is true that we still wear the shackles, and 
 our necks still show a fearful galling from the col- 
 lars they have borne so long. But we no longer 
 wear our fetters meekly, and are prepared for the 
 struggle, however desperate, that shall cast them 
 off. We no longer kiss the rod of our oppressors, 
 
 62 
 
THE TWEED EING 
 
 but now have snatched it from their grasp, and 
 mean henceforward to give blow for blow. We no 
 longer lie still with the bedclothes over our heads, 
 pretending to be asleep, while these burglars are 
 rifling our pockets and our safes, but have raised 
 the hue and cry, and joined in full pursuit, and 
 mean not to let go the chase until we have hunted 
 the scoundrels down. 
 
 Eealizing at last the deadly peril into which 
 the body politic had been plunged by your own 
 shameful neglect, and convinced that it could only 
 be rescued and restored by the removal of the 
 cause of the mischief and the return of all good 
 citizens to the performance of their public duties, 
 you created the Executive Committee of Seventy 
 to represent and to guide you in that 
 great enterprise, to search out and ascertain the 
 full extent of the mischief that had been done, 
 to recover the moneys that had been stolen, to 
 bring to justice the chief criminals, to summon to 
 your aid the legislative and executive powers of 
 the State, to obtain the repeal of the City Charter, 
 to exterminate from office the Ring and all its 
 minions, and finally, in the words of your resolu- 
 tion of September 4, " To assist, sustain and di- 
 rect a united effort by the citizens of New York, 
 without reference to party, to obtain a good gov- 
 ernment and honest officers to administer it." 
 
 It was the fulfilment of this latter duty, so 
 far as it might be accomplished, that was in- 
 trusted to the Committee on Elections, whose pro- 
 ceedings your chairman has requested me to re- 
 
 63 
 
THE TWEED EING 
 
 port to you. It was obvious at the outset, in the 
 conduct of this great movement of reform, that 
 you had no idea of confiding your municipal af- 
 fairs to either of the political parties to the ex- 
 clusion of the other, and that both alike, so far as 
 their past participation in those affairs was con- 
 cerned, were the objects of your supreme distrust. 
 You had no choice between a corrupt Democrat 
 and a corrupt Republican, and were perfectly 
 well aware that the Eing of malefactors who had 
 usurped the powers of taxation and government, 
 and were enriching themselves without labor at 
 the public cost, was composed of political prosti- 
 tutes from both the party organizations, and 
 that they found the real secret of their power in 
 the mutual betrayal of their trusts, and if better 
 chance or greater cunning had given to the base 
 men of one party the lion's share of the spoils, it 
 was only the want of opportunity, and not of evil 
 purpose, that had prevented their associates of 
 the other party from perpetrating just as great 
 iniquities, and carrying off just as much plunder. 
 With a view, therefore, to rally the good men of 
 all parties, and of every creed, color and condi- 
 tion to a united effort for an honest government, 
 your Committee on Elections was composed of 
 equal numbers of Democrats and Eepublicans, 
 and they were instructed to forget their politics, 
 to confer with all organizations, parties, societies 
 and individuals who might desire to co-operate 
 for the common good, and to bring about as nearly 
 as possible a complete union of all citizens upon 
 
 64 
 
THE TWEED RING 
 
 one reform ticket for all the city and county of- 
 fices and for the Senate and Assembly. With 
 the State tickets it was wisely concluded that 
 we had nothing whatever to do, since the question 
 of city reform united the support of the honest 
 portion of both the great parties of the State. 
 To these directions the Committee on Elections 
 have faithfully adhered. They have preferred 
 none because they were Republicans. They have 
 rejected none because they were Democrats. 
 They have counselled with all and closed their 
 doors upon none. 
 
 They claim credit for some forbearance, for 
 much patience and an unfailing purpose to unite 
 the entire opposition to Tammany, and they are 
 happy to announce to you that that purpose has 
 been substantially accomplished, and that, with 
 some few exceptions, of which I shall presently 
 speak, a substantial union of the friends of reform 
 will speak with one voice and cast a consolidated 
 vote on election day. It was manifest from the 
 first that the movement which you inaugurated 
 at your first meeting had aroused a response as 
 hearty as the call was loud, that all classes of so- 
 ciety were profoundly agitated, and that a general 
 determination pervaded the community to drive 
 out the Ring, and put honest men in their places. 
 But there was a total want of organization ; there 
 was a countless number of associations, each with 
 a distinct head and under a different name. There 
 were all kinds of Democrats, hailing from all sorts 
 of halls, generally with harmonious and musical 
 
 65 
 
THE TWEED EING 
 
 names, but not very harmonious spirits. There 
 were Apollo Hall Democrats and reform Demo- 
 crats, German Democrats, independent Democrats 
 and Union Democrats, lukewarm Democrats and 
 Democrats fiery hot, but none, I believe, profess- 
 edly cold-water Democrats. And even the Repub- 
 licans were divided. We found that the Republi- 
 can party of this city had what it was pleased to 
 call " wings " ; and although we Republicans, 
 when gathered in family council, don't allow any 
 criticism from outsiders, yet I in this Union meet- 
 ing, as a Republican, from the beginning to the 
 end, devoted to its general policy and proud of its 
 record, may be permitted to say here that these 
 two wings of the Republican party in this city 
 are the strangest and most uncomfortable pair 
 of pinions with which any political bird was ever 
 encumbered. They will neither fold together, 
 spread together nor flap together. Each goes in 
 a different direction and on its own hook, and 
 is more likely to hit the other and make the 
 feathers fly from that than from any common 
 enemy. 
 
 Besides, like the wings of an ostrich, they are 
 very small compared with the general bulk of 
 the bird, and seem designed for no better pur- 
 pose than to make a great noise and flapping and 
 frighten innocent persons and young political 
 children ; and, as to locomotion and progress, why, 
 a bird with one wing would get along a great deal 
 better. But, nevertheless, out of all this jarring 
 discord and these many associations pulling in 
 
 66 
 
THE TWEED EING 
 
 different ways, and each having purposes of its 
 own to serve, second only to the great object of 
 reform, and sometimes, I am sorry to say, not 
 quite second to that, substantial harmony has 
 grown at last, and, especially in regard to the 
 county ticket, there has been a perfect union. So 
 that, for once, we can show you all the different 
 kinds of Democrats of whom I have spoken feed- 
 ing at the same trough; and as to the Eepubli- 
 cans, the lions of the Custom House are actually 
 lying in the same bed with Horace Greeley's 
 lambs. 
 
 And here your Committee on Elections is 
 bound to recognize and acknowledge with grati- 
 tude the very great service rendered to the cause 
 of union and reform by a body of citizens assem- 
 bled in a convention which was, I believe, without 
 a precedent in our political history. The Coun- 
 cil of Political Eeform, an organization created 
 some time ago for the general purposes indicated 
 by its name, composed of respectable citizens of 
 all parties and organized in every ward of the 
 city, invited a representation of men of every 
 party, creed, nationality, color and class to meet 
 in convention and to nominate a complete list of 
 officers for the ensuing election, and, having called 
 them together, the Council of Eeform left them to 
 take their own counsels and action, uninfluenced 
 by any policy or dictation of its own. The con- 
 vention so assembled at Chickering Hall embraced 
 every interest in the whole city. There were gath- 
 ered in harmonious action, Democrats and Ee- 
 
 67 
 
THE TWEED EING 
 
 publicans and men who had never voted with 
 either, Christians and Israelites, Catholics and 
 Protestants, Americans, Germans, Irishmen, Ital- 
 ians and Frenchmen, capitalists and workingmen, 
 rich men and poor men — all under the one name 
 of citizen, and all in the single interest of reform. 
 They selected, with infinite care and after a 
 broad survey of the whole field, a ticket which, 
 with some inconsiderable changes, not only re- 
 ceived our approval and indorsement, but that also 
 of the united councils of both branches of Eepub- 
 licans and the Democratic reform party, and that 
 is the county ticket which we present for your 
 suffrage. It consists of the nominees for Judges 
 and for Eegister, and bears at its head the name 
 of George C. Barrett for Justice of the Supreme 
 Court. Of Judge Barrett, I need not speak to 
 this company at length. An Irishman by birth, 
 but a loyal American by education and growth, 
 thoroughly identified in spirit with his adopted 
 country — he is young, talented, well qualified by 
 professional education and experience for the 
 office — is the spontaneous choice of the great body 
 of the reform party, and determined, if elected, to 
 do honor to his high office. Of his only competi- 
 tor for that high office, it is, perhaps, enough to 
 say that his name is Thomas A. Ledwith. I de- 
 sire to speak only in kindness of Judge Ledwith, 
 especially as you, in your wisdom, selected him to 
 act with us in the cause of reform. His most 
 sanguine friends have not ventured to state that 
 he has any qualifications for the station to which 
 
 68 
 
THE TWEED RING 
 
 he aspires, and so I will waste no time in proving 
 that he has none ; but this, I think, we may justly 
 say, that his nomination by Tammany Hall was 
 intended as a deadly blow at the cause of reform, 
 and that he is supported by men inside of Tam- 
 many, who hope to gain his local support for their 
 own candidates ; and by men outside of Tammany, 
 who, indeed, at first joined the standard of re- 
 form, and began to battle against the walls of that 
 stronghold of corruption, intending, not to de- 
 stroy it utterly, as we mean to do, but merely to 
 make a breach and get inside themselves, and turn 
 its guns against us. And so, as soon as the back 
 door was open to them, they glided swiftly in, and, 
 abandoning the advancing column, joined the 
 ranks of our enemies. Clearly, then, it is our 
 first duty to defeat Ledwith, and we shall do it. 
 Of the rest of the judiciary ticket, which is ap- 
 proved and endorsed by everybody outside of 
 Tammany, and of the gallant German who is our 
 nominee for Eegister, I need not speak. In re- 
 gard to the Aldermanic ticket, you will observe 
 a discrepancy as to six out of fifteen names be- 
 tween the nominations approved by us and the 
 names placed upon the combined tickets of Apollo 
 Hall and the Eepublieans. We endeavored to 
 make that union perfect, but the trouble lay with 
 one wing of the Eepublieans, who oflFered us 
 names, some of which we disapproved of and re- 
 jected, but offered on our part to accept an equal 
 number of unexceptionable names in their stead, 
 which was declined. But if our united forces 
 
 69 
 
THE TWEED EING 
 
 prevail, we shall have a working majority of the 
 Board of Aldermen, and as that body will come 
 into existence only to expire, we must be content 
 with that. 
 
 And now, not to weary you with any more de- 
 tails, we commend to your support the entire 
 ticket of Assemblymen, from the First District to 
 the Twenty-first, who have received our endorse- 
 ment. We have studied the whole island, from 
 Kingsbridge to the Battery. We have taken coun- 
 sel from all sides in every district, and with no 
 other object in view than to combine and concen- 
 trate the entire strength of the movement upon 
 unexceptionable candidates — ^have made the selec- 
 tions which have been announced by the press. 
 We could choose but one in each district, and 
 have doubtless disappointed the others. But now 
 that the choice has been made, if it shall be rati- 
 fied by you a new aspect will be put upon the 
 situation in each district. It will henceforth be 
 certain that the Tammany candidates or your 
 candidates must certainly be elected. There is no 
 room in any district for any third man, and if any 
 faction, party or organization in the name of re- 
 form shall insist on going to the polls with any 
 other candidate than the one adopted by you, they 
 can only do so in the interest of Tammany Hall. 
 Honest motives will be no excuse — such votes 
 must tell for Tammany and against the people — 
 and we must all labor in our respective Assembly 
 districts to concentrate the whole strength of the 
 
 70 
 
THE TWEED EING 
 
 movement upon these candidates. Here in the 
 Assembly districts we fight the fatal battle of this 
 war. If we fail to carry the Legislature, this citj'^ 
 will not be a safe place for honest men to dwell 
 in, the reign of the Ring will be perpetuated, and 
 under the disguise of a city government, rapine 
 and plunder will continue to destroy our rights 
 and absorb our property, and life itself will be in 
 peril. 
 
 There is but one subject more to which I am 
 instructed by the Committee on Elections to in- 
 voke your attention, but that is so full of fearful 
 peril and iniquity that I fairly shudder to enter 
 upon it. Fellow citizens, you have thoroughly 
 alarmed your wicked enemies in the very heart 
 of their stronghold; they tremble before your 
 righteous wrath; they see the fatal halters dan- 
 gling very near their necks, and have resolved 
 upon a desperate and wicked resistance. Satis- 
 fied that upon a fair vote they will be outnumbered 
 and driven from the field, they have resorted to 
 a most damnable and deadly plot to circumvent 
 and defeat you. They have determined by a 
 false canvass of the votes to count their candi- 
 dates in, and so to murder your majorities. To 
 this end, the Mayor, in whom the city charter has 
 vested the sole power of appointment, has given 
 to the Eing the whole list of inspectors and poll 
 clerks throughout the city, and with them the ex- 
 clusive power to count and declare the votes. And 
 he has refused the formal request made to him by 
 ihe opposition, for a recognition of their rights 
 
 71 
 
.TPIE TWEED EING 
 
 under the law and their share of those appoint- 
 ments. Here, then, is a crime before which all 
 the other villainies of the Eing pale and dwindle. 
 The theft even of twenty millions of dollars is 
 nothing when compared with this high-handed and 
 atrocious blow at the very life of the State. 
 
 " Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, 
 nothing ; 
 'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands." 
 
 But this wholesale filching and slaughter of the 
 suffrage is a deadly thrust at the very source and 
 fountain of our liberties. Let not him escape the 
 responsibility of this matchless crime, who alone 
 had the power to prevent it and refused to do so. 
 On this one outrage, which involves all the rest, 
 let us appeal to our brethren of the State and 
 the Nation to come to the rescue of our liberties 
 and their own, which it alike imperils. 
 
 But in the meantime what else can we do? 
 Why, by attending to our duties on elec- 
 tion day, we can watch for and detect the crime, 
 and, perhaps, in a great measure, prevent it. 
 It is with a view to this duty that our com- 
 mittee has appealed to you to close all your 
 places of business and to devote the en- 
 tire day to your duties as citizens. Do you think 
 that these inspectors and poll clerks will dare 
 to cheat you before your very eyes, if they 
 see by the numerous presence of courageous citi- 
 zens at the polls that you are determined to de- 
 fend your rights 1 Depend upon it, they will not. 
 
 72 
 
THE TWEED RING 
 
 But you have everything at stake on that day, and 
 I tell you that there is a great and crying need 
 of the attendance and the services of just such 
 men as compose this audience to aid our commit- 
 tee on election day, to man the polls, to defend 
 the boxes and to watch the counting of the votes. 
 Every substantial and courageous citizen who will 
 volunteer is worth twenty hirelings in such a 
 service. There are enough of you in this hall to- 
 night to defend our rights ia every election dis- 
 trict and effectually to prevent this meditated 
 massacre of your dearest rights. Will you do it? 
 Will you for once sacrifice business, ease and com- 
 fort to save so great a stake? We are fearfully 
 in earnest in demanding it, and we exhort you, if 
 you would not have all your great efforts para- 
 lyzed and be defrauded of all your votes, to enlist 
 as soldiers for this one day's battle, and to enroll 
 your names to-morrow morning at the headquar- 
 ters of the committee, to bear your part in this 
 decisive contest. 
 
 73 
 
LOED HOUGHTON 
 
LORD HOUGHTON 
 
 Address delivered at the Beoeption given to Lord Houghton, by 
 the Union League Club in New York, November S3, 1875. 
 
 IN seeking this opportunity to pay our respects 
 to the distinguished gentleman who now hon- 
 ors us with his presence, we certainly could not 
 hope by our modest reception to equal the bounte- 
 ous hospitality which has been showered upon 
 him at the hands of private citizens in every city 
 that he has visited — or to add to the warmth of 
 that cordial greeting which has attended his steps 
 throughout his wanderings in the United States. 
 The familiar maxim by which in the earlier years 
 of his manhood our guest is believed to have 
 trained his Muse, appears to have been practi- 
 cally applied in an altered sense to his lordship 
 at every stage of his American pilgrimage — 
 Nulla dies sine linea. No day without a line to 
 come to dinner. Whatever pleasures and what- 
 ever perils belong to that peculiar institution of 
 the Anglo-Saxon race, as Emerson calls it, he 
 must have already fully experienced. We must 
 congratulate ourselves and him that he has hap- 
 pily survived them all, with health and strength 
 still unimpaired, for, having done so, he stands 
 before us to-night a living argument to the robust 
 and hardy vigor of the British constitution, of 
 
 77 
 
LORD HOUGHTON 
 
 which he is so worthy a representative. Neither 
 can we offer him, at a meeting of the Club, the 
 charms of the feminine presence with which, if he 
 was not misreported on a recent occasion, he has 
 been honored and delighted during his stay among 
 us. It was only yesterday that I read in the news- 
 papers of a high tribute paid by him to the wit 
 and the beauty of the women of America. Had 
 we kaown in season that his Lordship cherished 
 that gentle enthusiasm, had we supposed it possi- 
 ble that a peer of England would be open to those 
 tender influences — ^we might have put in practice 
 the theory of natural selection as the occasion 
 would have justified, and have surrounded him on 
 this last night of his stay in America with such 
 a glittering array of loveliness, as would have set 
 his " poet's eye in a fine phrenzy rolling," and 
 perhaps some future edition of " Palm Leaves " 
 or of " Poems of Many Lands " would have con- 
 tained some stanzas to the women of the West 
 by Lord Houghton, that in delicacy and sweetness 
 would have matched the lyric tributes which 
 Monckton Milnes was wont to pay to the far- 
 famed graces of the Orient. 
 
 No, we have sought this occasion not so much 
 for his own pleasure as for ours, having little 
 to offer him but the honest expression of that 
 high consideration and regard which has long 
 been felt for his lordship in the United States. 
 "We desired an opportunity to look upon one 
 whose name has been associated for a whole 
 generation with those things that tend to elevate 
 
 78 
 
LOED HOUGHTON 
 
 and improve the condition of mankind. Many of 
 lis from childhood have been accustomed to hear 
 of him as one of the men of letters of England, 
 who, by their devotion to good learning and po- 
 lite literature, have been missionaries of knowl- 
 edge and pleasure to all who speak and read the 
 English tongue. Some of us have read his books. 
 
 — And books, we know, 
 Are a substantial world, both pure and good, 
 Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood 
 Our pastime and our happiness will grow. 
 
 We have heard by tradition and report of his 
 generous sympathy for humanity in all its suffer- 
 ing forms, that the cause of oppressed nationali- 
 ties has found in him a constant advocate and 
 friend — whether Poland, the bleeding victim of 
 her rapacious neighbor — or Italy, suffering the 
 accumulated miseries of centuries — or Greece, the 
 classic heir of ancient woes. "We have been told 
 also that the promptings of a generous and manly 
 heart have led him to support at home all meas- 
 ures for the reform and amelioration of the crimi- 
 nal classes, and to alleviate the distresses of the 
 poor, and that he wears the well-earned title of a 
 friend of humanity. We have not forgotten his 
 stout assertions of the right of freedom in re- 
 ligion, and remember his statement made when it 
 was not yet altogether popular — that " religious 
 equality is the natural birthright of every 
 Briton." 
 
 But, after all, the chief and immediate title of 
 
 79 
 
LORD HOUGHTON 
 
 Lord Houghton to our special regard and grati- 
 tude is in the manly stand he took with certain 
 other liberal statesmen of England on the occasion 
 of our late Civil War, by which they proved them- 
 selves the steadfast and effective friends alike of 
 their own country and of ours. Not more from 
 political considerations, I think, than from a natu- 
 ral, instinctive, Anglo-Saxon love of fair play — 
 because they could not help it — they insisted — and 
 none more emphatically than our guest of this 
 evening — ^that England should observe a real and 
 honest friendship to America. To borrow words 
 of his own: 
 
 Great thouglits, great feelings came to them, 
 Like instincts, unawares. 
 
 He will pardon me, I know, for refreshing your 
 recollection from the Debates with regard to one 
 or two things which he said in his place in the 
 House of Commons. When the seizure of the 
 Alexandra was under discussion, in April, 1863, 
 which you will remember as one of the very dark- 
 est periods we ever passed through — ^it was in 
 that month that President Lincoln, in accordance 
 with a resolution of the Senate, set apart a day 
 of fasting and prayer for the whole people to 
 humble themselves before Almighty God for the 
 deadly scourgings of the war — it was then that, 
 after hearing some violent words spoken in Par- 
 liament tending to measures which, if adopted, 
 would force us in our crippled condition into the 
 desperate extremity of war with England, he 
 
 80 
 
LOED HOUGHTON 
 
 said, after regretting the violent language to 
 which he had listened : 
 
 Sir: I trust that peace will continue for many reas- 
 ons, but above all for this. For us to talk of war, for 
 England, armed to the teeth — England, with all her 
 wealth and power, to talk of war against a nation in the 
 very agonies of her destinies, and torn to the vitals by 
 a great civil commotion, is so utterly ungenerous, so re- 
 pugnant to every manly feeling, that I cannot conceive 
 it possible. Honorable gentlemen opposite talk of act- 
 ing in a gallant spirit. Is it to act in a gallant spirit 
 for a strong man to fight a man with his arms tied, with 
 his eyes blinded ? And that is what you propose to do — 
 you, with the wealth and power of England — when you 
 seek to promote war with the United States. 
 
 Happily for us such friendly and generous 
 words and counsels prevailed, and we escaped that 
 untold calamity. And again, a little earlier, when 
 our blockade, the maintenance of which was so ab- 
 solutely essential to the successful prosecution of 
 the war, pressed so hard upon their own domes- 
 tic prosperity as to provoke appeals to the British 
 Government to disregard and ignore it, he 
 scouted the idea, and after arguing that the block- 
 ade was as effective as in the nature of things it 
 was possible to make it, he said: 
 
 I have always regarded a disruption of the American 
 Union as a great calamity for the world, believing with 
 De Tocqueville that it would do more to destroy political 
 liberty and arrest the progress of mankind than any 
 other event that can possibly be imagined. * * * The 
 
 81 
 
LORD HOUGHTON 
 
 Americans are our fellow-countrymen. I shall always 
 call them so. I see in them our own character repro- 
 duced with all its merits and all its defects. They are 
 as vigorous, as industrious, as powerful, as honest and 
 truthful as ourselves. And I can never for a moment 
 disassociate the fortunes of Great Britain from the for- 
 tunes of the United States of America. 
 
 No wonder that Lord Houghton finds many- 
 friends in America. I need not assure him that 
 we appreciate and reciprocate these generous sen- 
 timents, uttered in those dark hours of our sorest 
 need, and that we join our prayers to his for per- 
 petual peace and friendship between these two 
 nations, that are of but one interest, one tongue, 
 and one blood. 
 
 In the name, my lord, of this Club, which may 
 modestly claim to represent a portion of the in- 
 telligence and the public spirit of New York, sup- 
 ported as it is to-night by the presence of her 
 Chief Magistrate and of many other eminent citi- 
 zens, who, without regard to politics or creed, 
 have assembled with it in your honor, I bid you a 
 most cordial and hearty welcome. 
 
 82 
 
THE YOUNG LAWYEE 
 
THE YOUNG LAWYER 
 
 Address delivered at the Nineteenth Annual Commencement of the 
 Columbia Law School, New ¥orJc, May 16, 1878. 
 
 THE pleasant duty has been assigned to me of 
 welcoming these graduates, all overflowing 
 with youth and therefore with hope, to the ranks 
 of an honorable profession which one of the great- 
 est of its members has declared to be as ancient 
 as magistracy, as noble as virtue, as necessary as 
 justice. As an elder brother, with all my heart I 
 bid them a most cordial and hearty welcome ; and 
 your cheering and applauding presence is suffi- 
 cient to assure them what a vast company of 
 clients awaits them, embracing the grave and the 
 gay, the severe and the lively, the strong, the 
 rich and the fair— so that it remains only for 
 themselves by their lives and labors to deter- 
 mine whether they shall make of this arduous 
 calling on which they are entering a noble and 
 beneficent science or a low and degrading trade, 
 for it must be the one or the other according to 
 the spirit in which it is pursued. 
 
 When we read in the census that there are al- 
 ready 60,000 lawyers in the United States, it might 
 seem at first blush that the addition of 200 more 
 in a single group was altogether superfluous— and 
 that there is danger of having too much even of 
 
 85 
 
THE YOUNG LAWYEE 
 
 so good a thing. Have we not lawyers enough? asks 
 the press daily. Have we not too many? echoes 
 the heedless voice of society. I answer no; we 
 have not honest lawyers enough— not healthy 
 lawyers enough; not learned lawyers enough, and 
 as the Columbia College Law School is expected 
 to produce none but the best, we may safely hail 
 the coming of all she chooses to send into the 
 world. 
 
 That there is a considerable amount of idle and 
 thoughtless prejudice in the world against 
 lawyers cannot be denied, but that is because— 
 and this it will be well for these young gentlemen 
 to remember— the whole profession has to suffer 
 for the faults and vices of its worst and lowest 
 members. We are a band of brothers, and if a 
 single brother turns out to be a rascal, as now and 
 then unfortunately does happen, why the fair 
 name of the whole family suffers with him, of 
 course. 
 
 The Pilgrim Fathers of New England appear 
 to have had a unique and intensified grudge 
 against the craft, doubtless because the envious 
 clergy ruled them with a rod of iron, and wished 
 to maintain an undivided sway. So for the first 
 fifty years of the colony they got along with- 
 out any, and then with sparing hand the General 
 Court admitted two attorneys to practice, but 
 with the special proviso that they should do noth- 
 ing to darken the cause or confuse the counsels 
 of the Court— a rule which I fear might decimate 
 the profession, if strictly applied to-day. So the 
 
 86 
 
THE YOUNG LAWYER 
 
 press, arrogant in its unbridled power, too often 
 teems with unfriendly criticisms of our conduct. 
 The stage, catering to the taste of the galleries— 
 not filled as they are to-night— produces the typi- 
 cal lawyer in the role of an unscrupulous and 
 vulgar pettifogger. And English fiction never 
 tires of reproducing the same type of character at 
 our expense, because no play and no novel is 
 quite perfect without its villain, and we must con- 
 fess that nobody can fill that part better than a 
 wicked lawyer, who violates his oath and perverts 
 to the destruction of mankind the) talents, the 
 learning and the skill which were designed only 
 for its protection and to promote its happiness. 
 But however satire and fiction may find enter- 
 tainment in the vices and frailties of our more 
 weak and wicked brethren, the honest and unan- 
 swerable voice of history tells quite another 
 story. It exhibits a learned, a fearless and an in- 
 dependent bar as the pride and ornament of every 
 civilized country. It shows that many great tri- 
 umphs of statesmanship have been achieved by its 
 disciples; that wherever great blows have been 
 struck for the rights of man, some brave lawyer 
 has been in the thickest of the fight; that the 
 champions of popular liberty have been recruited 
 always from our ranks; that whenever the tor- 
 rents of arbitrary power have threatened to over- 
 whelm and engulf it, some Coke or some Erskine, 
 scorning the wrath of kings and scouting the 
 friendship of princes, has stood forth in its de- 
 fense; and that, on the other hand, when popu- 
 
 87 
 
THE YOUNG LAWYEE 
 
 lar fury rose in a tidal wave for the destruction 
 of the innocent victims, some Otis was found 
 standing in the breach. In short, if the personal 
 liberty of all under the protection of equal laws 
 is the end of government and the object of civili- ' 
 zation, then lawyers can safely challenge the men 
 of other professions to show a larger share in the 
 whole work of human progress. 
 
 In view, then, of the possibilities of great and 
 heroic service to mankind which the legal pro- 
 fession holds out to its ardent and able votaries, 
 and of the high and useful duty of promoting jus- 
 tice, which its daily pursuit involves, I deem it 
 no idle form of words to congratulate at all times 
 those who stand upon its threshold, qualified and 
 equipped to enter upon it. But never, as it seems 
 to me, has there been a more fortunate and prom- 
 ising time in our country than this, for you who 
 with earnest hearts and singleness of purpose pro- 
 pose to devote your lives to this useful and honor- 
 able calling. While you who now stand in the first 
 flush of manhood were yet hardly out of your 
 cradles, the land was deluged in the blood of civil 
 carnage, and all the horrors of the greatest war 
 of the century were devastating its fields and lay- 
 ing w^ste its homes. In the midst of arms the 
 laws were silent and the administration of justice 
 was practically suspended throughout half our 
 borders. During all the years of your boyhood 
 and youth the evil results of the war on the civil 
 and social life of the people were being made 
 manifest. Eioting for a few years in that wan- 
 
THE YOUNG LAWYER 
 
 ton extravagance, that drunken dream of imagi- 
 nary wealth, which was begotten by the flood of 
 worthless paper money made necessary by the 
 war, our people long since awoke to their fatal 
 error, and five long and miserable years of bank- 
 ruptcy and financial ruin which followed that era 
 of bloated fulness are but just drawing to a close. 
 
 I know it is a common delusion that lawyers 
 flourish in the midst of all these miseries, and 
 fatten like vultures by devouring the carrion of 
 commerce and picking the bones of trade. But 
 never was there a more false and hollow delusion. 
 Lawyers flourish best when the whole community 
 is prosperous, and suffer with all the rest when 
 trade and commerce decline. And never I believe 
 has the rank and file of the profession suffered 
 so severely and been reduced so near to starva- 
 tion as in these last miserable years of general 
 failure and commercial disaster. 
 
 But even now a brighter day is dawning. These 
 countless bankruptcies which are being daily 
 recorded are but the wrecks and debris washed 
 ashore by a storm that has already passed. We 
 can thank God that the public credit at least is 
 already restored; the skies are already clearing. 
 Old fashioned economy and honest living have 
 come again; and you, whose professional lives 
 are all in the future, will see a new and grander 
 era of prosperity than the past has witnessed. 
 When all these idlers in turn have been driven 
 back, as they will be, where they belong, to work 
 upon the soil— the true source of all our Ameri- 
 
 89 
 
THE YOUNG LAWYER 
 
 can wealth— these fifty millions of people, all 
 working for an honest living, will bring back 
 again the golden age, whose wealth and pros- 
 perity shall be as real and solid as that of this 
 paper one has been delusive and imaginary. 
 
 But I would not for a moment encourage the 
 thought of holding out the law under any circum- 
 stances as a money-making profession. It loses 
 its character as a liberal science as soon as money- 
 making becomes the ruling motive. If that is 
 your object I advise you to abandon all idea of be- 
 coming lawyers, and sfeek for some more congenial 
 and profitable pursuit. You may be sure that 
 every tallow chandler and pork merchant will 
 outstrip you in the race for wealth. Mr. Web- 
 ster's oft-quoted saying that "Lawyers work 
 hard, live well and die poor" is true in nine cases 
 out of ten, and always will be. The love of money 
 is the root of all evil in the law as in the rest 
 of life, and when it once becomes the fashion the 
 degradation of the profession has already begun. 
 
 The lawyer who is inspired to promote litiga- 
 tion for the sake of profit to himself is not a whit 
 better than the doctor who should scatter broad- 
 cast in the community the seeds of pestilence, for 
 the fees which it might bring in — and the advocate 
 or the counsellor who defends the public or the 
 private plunderer for a share of his spoils is justly 
 condemned as an accomplice in his crimes. On 
 the other hand, honorable poverty has been in 
 every generation the true cradle of professional 
 character and success. No other motive but the 
 
 90 
 
THE YOUNG LAWYEE 
 
 spur of necessity seems powerful enouglx to fur- 
 nish tte aspirant for forensic honors with the 
 necessary grit, and to carry him through the toil, 
 the drudgery and the self-sacrifice which alone 
 will enable him to master the science and to raise 
 his head above the dead level of mediocrity. Lord 
 Eldon spoke from his own actual experience, and 
 told a hard truth, when to the young barrister who 
 asked him the way to eminence he answered: "If 
 you've got any money spend it. If your wife's 
 got any spend that, and then work like a dog till 
 you are Lord Chancellor." And Erskine, that 
 most consummate of modern advocates, when he 
 made his debut at the English bar just one hun- 
 dred years ago in that splendid achievement in 
 Westminster HaU, which dazzled the eyes of the 
 British public, and raised him at one leap from 
 obscurity and poverty to fame and competence, 
 told the same story of himself, when amid the 
 congratulations that poured in upon him, being 
 asked how he had had the courage to stand up 
 so boldly against Lord Mansfield, he answered 
 that he thought his little children, whom he had 
 left hungry at home that morning, were plucking 
 his robe, and he heard their voices crying, "Now, 
 father, is the time to get us bread." 
 
 And now, as you have asked me to address you, 
 I suppose you expect me to give you a little ad- 
 vice; and whether you expect it or not, I will ven- 
 ture to do so, since advice is about all that lawyers 
 ever have to give. I should say, then, that the 
 sound practical lawyer is composed of three parts 
 
 91 
 
THE YOUNG LAWYEE 
 
 —the physical, the moral and the mental, and 
 it is hard to tell which of the three is the most im- 
 portant ingredient. I place the physical first, 
 because without a sound and healthy body, a 
 lawyer can no more reach the high places of the 
 profession, than a spavined and broken-winded 
 racer could win the Ascot Cup. Those ancient 
 anatomists who located the seat of the mind in 
 the stomach were not so far wrong, and I have 
 known lawyers with that great organ iron-clad, 
 who achieved a tolerable measure of apparent 
 success with a very moderate allowance of brains. 
 The bar, at any moment you choose to survey it, 
 furnishes in a physical point of view the happi- 
 est illustration of Darwin's great theory of the 
 survival of the fittest, that can be found in mod- 
 ern society. At the word "go" all start on the 
 same line with equal hope and expectation; but 
 one after another, the sick, the infirm, the fat, the 
 lazy and the self-indulgent, drop out of the race, 
 and a few gaunt champions maintain the contest 
 for the foremost places in middle and later life. 
 In these days of intense action and close compe- 
 tition there is no career which calls for more ath- 
 letic training and more heroic regimen than that 
 of the ambitious advocate in one of our great 
 cities. I should say, then, as the first piece of ad- 
 vice to every young lawyer, look out for your 
 body; don't go into the struggle unless certain 
 that you can rely upon that, and then preserve and 
 strengthen it by exercise, by temperance, and all 
 the sleep that it will hold. 
 
 92 
 
THE YOUNG LAWYER 
 
 And next in the scale I place the moral ele- 
 ment, as necessary to the composition of the sound 
 practical lawyer. If you can't be honest, and 
 must still live by your wits, why, in heaven's 
 name, choose some other calling— any other 
 rather than this, whose special province and duty 
 it is to aid in dealing out exact and equal jus- 
 tice to all men. Turn peddler, turn anything you 
 can lay your hand to, but don't try to turn a dis- 
 honest penny in the sacred temple of justice. I 
 know there are sometimes dangerous examples 
 of wicked lawyers who have grown rich by chi- 
 canery and plunder, and rare and exceptional 
 cases of men reaching high places at the bar, who 
 had thrown their conscience overboard, and ex- 
 hibited the loathsome and disgusting spectacle of 
 great talents and opportunities given them for the 
 highest good of their fellowmen, perverted into 
 instruments of fraud and crime. But you may be 
 sure the scorn and contempt of mankind pursue 
 them, and better were it for any one of you that 
 a millstone were hung about his neck and be cast 
 into the sea than to aspire to follow after such 
 false lights. So, too, there are quacks at the bar 
 as well as in the doctor's office, but generally their 
 prosperity soon fails them; first the profession 
 spots them and then the community, and by and 
 by they lose their clients and go into politics, 
 where their peculiar gifts and pretensions find 
 more appropriate scope. The fact is that in every 
 liberal profession whose privileges are undefined 
 as ours are, it is only the conscience of the indi- 
 
 93 
 
THE YOUNG LAWYER 
 
 vidual practitioner that can save tlie whole craft 
 from quackery, and so my second piece of advice 
 to you is to keep in your sound bodies somewhere 
 a conscience ever lively and quick and cultivated, 
 if you would honor the calling to which you as- 
 pire. 
 
 And, thirdly, it must be admitted that, next 
 in importance to sound health and clear con- 
 science, brains are necessary to complete the 
 qualifications for admission to the bar. Genius 
 will do, of course, if you happen to have it, 
 but as you probably have not, I wouldn't count 
 on that. Genius is a century plant. One cen- 
 tury may produce an Erskine and the next a 
 Webster, but it isn't to be looked for in every 
 graduating class, and so I would advise you to 
 fall back on common sense. Common sense and 
 common honesty combined with uncommon in- 
 dustry will make a successful lawyer, and give a 
 man an honorable place in any generation at the 
 bar. But let no man imagine that in our profes- 
 sion he can travel on his intellectual muscle alone, 
 however good its fibre may be, without lifelong 
 study and unremitting labor. Doubtless you feel 
 more learned now— fresh from your lectures and 
 text-books— than you will at any future period of 
 your professional life. It takes several years for 
 the faithful student of law to find out how little 
 he knows and how much he has to learn. Of 
 course Professor Dwight has taught you many 
 things, but if his reputation does him justice, not 
 more than a hundredth part of what he knows — 
 
 94 
 
THE YOUNG LAWYER 
 
 and it will take you many years yet to master the 
 other ninety and nine. The bane of our profes- 
 sion of late has been the dangerous facility of ad- 
 mission to the bar after an infinitesimal term of 
 study, and we owe the Court of Appeals a great 
 debt of gratitude for its recent order by which 
 even the graduates of the Columbia College Law 
 School are required to add another year of prac- 
 tical study, before they can be admitted to prac- 
 tice as attorneys. Jerrold's advice to the young 
 author may be taken to heart by every candidate 
 for admission to the bar. "Don't take down the 
 shutters until you've got something to show in 
 the window." 
 
 And even with the present prolonged term, our 
 preparation here in America is far short of what 
 it ought to be, and far behind that which many 
 foreign schools demand. Study, then, all the law 
 you can and be ready for your opportunity, which 
 sooner or later comes to every man. If it finds 
 him ready it bears him on to honor and success. 
 But the reason why the whole history of the bar 
 is strewn with failures, is that the opportunity, 
 when it does come, fails to find the lawyer ready 
 to embrace and improve it. And while I am on 
 the subject, let me urge every man of you, how- 
 ever much he may study the law, to study daily 
 something else. Ours is not only a learned but a 
 liberal profession, and no more stupid notion ever 
 prevailed than that a good lawyer is hurt by the 
 highest culture in some other direction. The 
 daily practice of the law without some liberal 
 
 95 
 
THE YOUNa LAWYER 
 
 culture does narrow and benumb the faculties, 
 and unfit them for anything outside the furrowed 
 rut of practice. I know of few spectacles so 
 pitiable as that of a successful lawyer, past mid- 
 dle life, satiated with the gains and even perhaps 
 with the honors of a generous practice, who finds 
 himself tired already of his profession, and yet 
 unable to do anything else or enjoy anything else, 
 because he has long since forgotten everything 
 else that he ever knew, or perhaps never cared 
 to know anything else. 
 
 And so I say, add some other subject or study 
 to your legal studies, and don't let go of it when 
 you get into busy life. Every lawyer should have 
 a hobby for his mind to ride in the open air of 
 knowledge, and ride it every day— history, 
 science, politics, language, literature— anything 
 rather than law alone. So only can you be wholly 
 true in manhood to the dreams of your youth, and 
 carry their freshness with you into maturer 
 years. 
 
 96 
 
SALEM 
 
SALEM 
 
 Address delivered at the Fifth Half Century Anniversary of the 
 
 Landing of John Endicott, at Salem, Massachusetts. 
 
 Salem, September 18, 1878. 
 
 THE Salem people abroad for whom you bid 
 me speak, take, I am sure, a lively interest 
 in this two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of 
 the landing of Governor Endicott. Not indeed 
 that the blood of Endicott has ever wandered far 
 or in copious streams beyond the borders of New 
 England! The fact is that the Endicotts, the 
 "Winthrops and the Saltonstalls have flourished 
 too well upon the parent stock, and have been too 
 much prized at home to be driven, except on rare 
 occasions, by inclination or by necessity, to seek 
 their fortunes beyond the domains of New Eng- 
 land, which they helped to plant and to establish. 
 See how they present themselves before us to-day. 
 Fair types of all the past ! Endicott, the supreme 
 judge, well representing the old colonial gover- 
 nor! Winthrop, bringing to the shrine of his 
 honored ancestry a personal fame which is bet- 
 ter, far better, than to have been the governor of 
 any State, even of Massachusetts! Saltonstall, 
 my respected teacher in the law, the most worthy 
 son of a man whom all Salem has ever delighted 
 to honor! But after all a great share of the glory 
 
 99 
 
SALEM 
 
 of Endicott and of Winthrop was in their follow- 
 ing, in that band of devoted followers who came 
 with them and after them, and helped them to 
 make their great enterprise a success — those cul- 
 tured gentlemen; those sturdy yeomen, all of the 
 purest English stock, who established and extended 
 the boundaries of this ancient city, who organ- 
 ized, under the guidance of Endicott, its first 
 church, who built its first houses, who laid out 
 its first streets, and whose descendants after- 
 wards, in many generations, started its com- 
 merce and pressed it to the furthest confines of 
 the globe, so as to make the name of Salem re- 
 spected and honored on the shores of all the con- 
 tinents. It is from these men that we trace our 
 proud lineage, and it is this that makes the sons 
 of Salem proud of the place of their birth. 
 
 Of course, Mr. President, it requires great 
 forecast for a man to select a birthplace of which 
 he shall always be proud; but he must indeed be 
 an unreasonable creature, who having America 
 for a contiaent and Massachusetts for a State, 
 Essex for a county and Salem for a native town, 
 is not entirely satisfied. Of course a man born 
 anywhere can get along somehow. I suppose 
 that the native of Topsfield, or of Middleton, or 
 of Beverly, if he repents promptly, and moves 
 into Salem and does well there, may plead some 
 excuse for his original sin, and if he be of a lively 
 imagination may even begin to boast of it. Why, 
 Cicero boasted of being bom at Arpinum, and 
 Hufus Choate on Hog Island ; but it was after the 
 
 100 
 
SALEM 
 
 one had become the great orator of Rome, and the 
 other of Boston, and so, by their own fame, as it 
 were, had extended the boundaries of the cities 
 of their adoption to embrace the humble, but, 
 thanks to them, historic places of their birth. 
 
 But Salem, Mr. President, is so old, so queer, 
 so unique, so different from all other places upon 
 which the sun in his western journey looks down, 
 so full of grand historical reminiscences, so typi- 
 cal of everything that has ever occurred in the an- 
 nals of American life, that he who has had the 
 good luck to be born here may really claim it as 
 a peculiar distinction. You have heard all day, to 
 the going down of the sun, of its historic glories, 
 and I will not repeat them to your additional fa- 
 tigue; but I want to remind you of one thing, 
 and that is that the man who is bom in Salem 
 must pay the penalty of that distinction. And 
 chiefly in being just a little older to the cubic inch 
 than any other man bom at exactly the same mo- 
 ment in any other part of North America. How, 
 sir, could it possibly be otherwise, with human 
 beings born and bred in these old houses, which 
 have cradled so many of our race for upwards of 
 two centuries, that humanity itself has got used 
 to being started here, and finds itself an old story 
 at the beginning? I wish to suggest it as an in- 
 teresting and at the same time subtle inquiry for 
 the scientists of the Essex Institute to 
 compare the new-bom Salem baby with 
 an infant bom at the same moment in Kansas, or 
 Colorado, or Montana. I venture to say that the 
 
 101 
 
SALEM 
 
 microscope would disclose a physiological differ- 
 ence. The microscope would ascertain a slight, 
 perhaps a very slight mould of antiquity, but 
 which all the waters of Wenham could never wash 
 off. How can a man bom in Derby street or Nor- 
 man street— Norman, who came over with Co- 
 nant, who was here long before Endicott arrived 
 — or Essex street — a highway for the Indians be- 
 fore even Conant thought of coming— how can 
 such a man ever feel like a new and absolutely 
 young creature? No, Mr. President, he can not 
 do it. This stale flavor and tinge is bred iu our 
 bones. It is in the marrow, it is in the red cor- 
 puscles of the blood, it is in the roots of the tongue 
 and of the hair, and you can no more rub it out 
 than the farmers of Massachusetts can weed out 
 the white weed and the woad-wax that Grovernor 
 Endicott brought over as choice garden plants. 
 Friction with the world doesn't destroy it in the 
 least. 
 
 And so it is that you may know a Salem man 
 wherever you meet him, the world over. He car- 
 ries about him a little "Auld lang syne" that 
 shows where he came from. Sometimes it is in 
 the cut of his jib, and sometimes of his coat; 
 sometimes it is the way in which he cuts across 
 a street corner, always slanting, never at right 
 angles; or from his style of shortening things, as 
 the way he utters some familiar words. He never 
 takes off his c-o-a-t but his cote; he never rides 
 upon the road, but always on the rode; and if you 
 should pick up a final g, in " ing," you may be 
 
 102 
 
SALEM 
 
 pretty sure that some of the Salem people are the 
 unfortunate ones who have dropped it; but if 
 you can hear him say " git," of course you will 
 know his very origin and almost the street from 
 which he came. Now in this family meeting, as 
 an illustration of this subject, perhaps you will 
 pardon me for telling a little personal anecdote. 
 A short time ago I was arguing a case in our court 
 of appeals at Albany with some earnestness, and 
 there sat by me a gentleman bred and born in 
 the South. He listened with attention, and when 
 I got through he congratulated me, " but," 
 said he, " I would have given a hundred dollars if 
 you hadn't said ' git.' " Well, Mr. President, how 
 could I help it? Governor Endicott said it, all 
 my progenitors in this town have said it for two 
 hundred and fifty years, and so, I believe it is more 
 than half right. 
 
 Well, perhaps we ought not to allow a stranger 
 to indulge in these free criticisms of ourselves, but 
 I am not a stranger. Though not familiar in these 
 streets for the last quarter of a century, I claim 
 to be a Salemite of the Salemites. My maternal 
 ancestors were here for untold generations. They 
 must have been here. It is diflScult to identify 
 their names, because you know when you go back 
 eight generations you have about 128 progeni- 
 tors, in that degree, and some of them must have 
 been here with Conant. They must have gone 
 down on the end of Derby wharf with him to wel- 
 come Endicott. The orator of the day didn't 
 mention the circumstance because he didn't know 
 
 103 
 
SALEM 
 
 it. You must not smile at that for an anachron- 
 ism, because I challenge any antiquarian to go 
 down upon that venerable pile and view its foun- 
 dations and its structure, and give it anything 
 short of an antiquity, long before Endicott 
 thought of coming here. Well, they helped to 
 raise, these maternal ancestors of mine, helped to 
 raise the First Church which it has been the boast 
 of the Essex Institute, after 200 years, to resur- 
 rect and restore. They were in that hooting and 
 howling crowd that followed Cassandra South- 
 wick, strapped to a cart's tail and whipped 
 through the streets of this ancient city. And 
 then later they were in that other procession, with 
 death at the head and Cotton Mather at the rear, 
 that marched from St. Peters street to Gallows 
 Hill with the victims of the witchcraft delusion. 
 They were at the North bridge when Colonel Les- 
 lie made his unceremonious retreat, and went 
 whence he came. They listened to the Declara- 
 tion of Independence, first read on Salem com- 
 mon; and on the quarter deck and before the 
 mast, for many generations, they contributed to 
 create, through all the periods of its progress and 
 decline, the commerce of Salem. So I claim to be 
 to the manor bom and to have a right to speak 
 of Salem and of Salem institutions as I think. 
 
 And, knowing this, I suppose, Mr. Chairman, 
 it is that you have called on me of all this com- 
 pany to speak for the Salem people abroad. Well, 
 I will say only, a few words. We make up the 
 great mass of the population of Salem. Almost 
 
 104 
 
SALEM 
 
 all Salem people go abroad and very few of them 
 remain at home. I believe you number about 
 25,000 within these ancient walls. We, the Salem 
 people abroad, count ourselves by hundreds of 
 thousands. You may find us on all continents, 
 in every country, in almost every city, on all 
 oceans, and on all isles of the sea. "We engage in 
 all sorts of occupations, providing only they are 
 honest— for you will bear me witness, Mr. Chair- 
 man, that honesty is a Salem trait. Not to dilate 
 upon their virtues and their merits, I would say 
 that they are all doing pretty well. I think I may 
 say of them, as you have heard said so much to- 
 day of their ancestors, that they live lives of 
 honesty, of industry, and of economy, and that 
 makes up the great staple of Salem character at 
 home and abroad. 
 
 They remember with gratitude this ancient 
 city, and above all the schools of Salem; and 
 what they got in them they regard as her best 
 legacy to her departing children. In those palmy 
 days of Salem, Mr. Chairman, when I was a 
 child, education was no joke. The business of 
 life began with us in earnest as soon as we 
 had learned to speak. There was no playing or 
 dallying for the children till they were seven 
 or eight years old, as is now too often the 
 case. At three years old the great business of ed- 
 ucation must have been fairly started. Why, sir, 
 I perfectly remember at the age of two and three- 
 quarters being led by the distinguished judge of 
 the district court of the southern district of New 
 
 105 
 
SALEM 
 
 York* — who had then attained the ripe age of 
 four, and who I may say in passing, even then ex- 
 hibited those marked judicial qualities of mind 
 and character which have recently attracted the 
 attention of the President of the United States — 
 being led by him to that ancient seminary f for be- 
 ginners in Sewall street adjoining the black- 
 smith's shop of Benjamin Cutts, which as far sur- 
 passed all modern kindergartens as these excel 
 common infant schools. 
 
 Well, then, at the age of seven, the boys of 
 Salem of this district were transferred to the 
 central school in Court street, under the shadow 
 of the old court house, to be thrashed for the per- 
 iod of three years under Abner Brooks, of blessed 
 memory. Felt, in his "Annals of Salem," has 
 made one curious and inexcusable blunder, which 
 for the truth of history I wish to correct. He de- 
 clares that the whipping post that used to stand 
 in the rear of the old court house was not used 
 after 1805. I know better. I can swear from 
 personal knowledge that it was still in active use 
 in 1839, and can show you the very spot. Well, 
 then we were transferred to the High School 
 under the gentle, the patient, the ever faithful 
 Rufus Putnam, the best model of perfection in a 
 teacher, I believe, that even Salem has ever seen. 
 
 And last, not least, came that glorious old es- 
 tablishment in Broad street, the public Latin 
 school, the schola publica prima, which had stood 
 
 * The Hon. William G. Choate. 
 t Miss Lewis 's infant school. 
 
 106 
 
SALEM 
 
 from the foundation of the colony, which sent 
 George Downing, who proved to be one of its 
 worst boys, to Harvard college to joia its first 
 class, and which had sent a long procession, two 
 hundred years long, of the flower of Essex 
 chosen from the homes of Salem, to grad- 
 uate at Harvard college; and at last, after 
 our time, was merged in the High School. I re- 
 joice to have seen, within a few days, our 
 old master, still living and walking these streets ; 
 and I hope he has been here to-day to 
 enjoy the prosperity and gratitude of all his old 
 pupils. I am sure they will joia with me in 
 sajdng that no living citizen of Salem can show a 
 record of so much done for the welfare and good 
 name of this city as he. He was harsh sometimes, 
 we thought. He had a monogram. They were 
 not much in fashion in those days, but he had 
 one that he applied to the hands and legs and 
 backs of refractory pupils. It was " 0. K. 0. K. 
 O. K.," and anybody who went to the public 
 Latin school could translate it as "an awful cut 
 from Oliver Carlton's awful cowhide." Well, it 
 was not as bad as it seemed. It was a most im- 
 partial institution, beca^^se it mattered nothing at 
 all to the master hand that wielded it, whether it 
 fell on the aristocratic back of an Endicott or a 
 Saltonstall, or the more common cuticle of a 
 Choate or a Brown. This we can say with literal 
 truth of it, I think, namely, that it was more 
 honored in the breach than in the observance. 
 And then, the finer arts which Salem added to 
 107 
 
SALEM 
 
 the education which she ofifered to her children. 
 Who has forgotten Jacob Hood, who taught the 
 boys pretty much all the music they ever knew? 
 His fame as a composer and teacher may be more 
 limited than that of Mendelssohn or Liszt, but 
 they never had such hard subjects to deal with, 
 and his success was wonderful because he taught 
 some of us to sing who never had made the at- 
 tempt before. And then the lighter and more fan- 
 tastic art to which this temple* in which we sit 
 was dedicated. I would like to have these tables 
 swept away, and see whether we have forgotten 
 all the painful teachings of those days. Why, this 
 is the very spot; and when I look up and down 
 these tables this afternoon and see so many of the 
 fair forms we left behind us— we the Salem peo- 
 ple who have gone away— how the thirty years 
 that have intervened disappear and slip away! 
 How young they all appear again, how slender, 
 how fresh, how fair! Why, Mr. Chairman, let 
 me tell it as an historical incident, that on the 
 very spot where you now sit I have seen the 
 daughters of Governor Endicott, in the seventh 
 generation, take steps that would have won ap- 
 plause from their stem Puritan ancestor himself,, 
 if he had been permitted to look upon them. 
 
 But the day is passed; the sun has already set. 
 I wanted to say something of some great names 
 that have shed such lustre upon Salem. There is 
 one that I will not omit, because, in my judgment, 
 and I believe in that of many of the sons and 
 
 * Hamilton Hall, the Assembly Hall of Salem. 
 108 
 
SALEM 
 
 daughters of Salem abroad, it is the dearest and 
 most precious jewel in the diadem of imperial 
 Salem. I give you the memory of Nathaniel Haw- 
 thorne, a native of Salem, descended from her ear- 
 liest settlers! So imbued was he with the genius 
 of her sons, and so deeply has he enthroned it in 
 his matchless works, that though its ancient 
 buildings should crumble, though the forests 
 should grow again between these historic rivers, 
 and the place be forgotten where Salem was, her 
 name, her traditions, and the spirit of her history, 
 will still be familiar so long as men can read in the 
 English tongue " The Twice Told Tales," and 
 " The House of the Seven Gables." 
 
 109 
 
HAEVARD COMMENCEMENT 
 1883 
 
HARVARD COMMENCEMENT 
 
 1883 
 
 Address delivered at the Harvard Alumni Dirmer in Memorial 
 Mall, on Commencement Day, Cambridge, 1883. 
 
 IHAEDLY know how to begin. My head swims 
 when I look down from the giddy and some- 
 what dangerous elevation to which you have un- 
 wittingly raised me. Here have I been seated for 
 the last hour between the two horns of a veritable 
 dilemma. On the one side the president of the 
 university,* on the other His Excellency the Gov- 
 ernor of Massachusetts,! whom to-day we welcome 
 to the hospitalities of Harvard. As to our worthy 
 president— you all know him— you know how he 
 strikes— always from the shoulder— a true Har- 
 vard athlete, and how idle it is for any ordiuary 
 alumnus to contend with him. And as to His Ex- 
 cellency, a long professional observation and some 
 experience of him have taught me that he, too, 
 like the president, is a safe man to let alone. 
 
 Well, I assure you that I have found a most 
 safe and comfortable seat. I have got along splen- 
 didly with both by agreeing exactly to everything 
 that each of them has said. For you know the 
 horns of a dilemna, however perilous they may 
 be to their victims, never can come in conflict 
 with each other. And so, seated right between 
 
 * President Eliot, t General Butler. 
 113 
 
HARVAED COMMENCEMENT 
 
 them, if you take care to hold on, as I have done, 
 tight to each, you are sure to find safety and re- 
 pose. " Medio tutissimus ibis." I accept it as a 
 happy omen — prophetic, I hope, of that peace and 
 harmony which shall govern this meeting to its 
 close. And now, brethren, I am at a loss whether 
 to thank you or not for the honor you have done 
 me in calling me to preside on this occasion, for 
 it was only when the alumni of Harvard had lost 
 their head that they invited me to supply its 
 place. I sincerely regret the absence from this 
 chair to-day of that distinguished gentleman* who 
 should have occupied it, in deference to your 
 wishes, expressed by your ballots. His character, 
 his eloquence and his life-long loyalty to Har- 
 vard would have graced and adorned the occa- 
 sion and we all lament his absence. But, though 
 the association of the alumni is for the moment 
 without a head, Harvard College still lives, and 
 to-day is younger and fresher, more vigorous and 
 more powerful, than ever before. 
 
 "With the pious devotion of elder children, we 
 have come up here to-day to attend upon our 
 venerable Alma Mater in the hour of her annual 
 travail, and gather about her couch with patient 
 reverence to witness the birth of the latest addi- 
 tion to the family— those 205 new pledges of her 
 never-failing and ever-renewing creative power. 
 We wish them Godspeed on that journey of life 
 which they have to-day so auspiciously begun. 
 The degree conferred upon them this morning is 
 
 * Senator George Prisbie Hoar. 
 
 114 
 
HARVARD COMMENCEMENT 
 
 an assurance to the world that they start in the 
 race with more or less learning— some of them a 
 good deal more and some of them a good deal 
 less, but let us hope that every man of them has 
 got and carries away with him what is far bet- 
 ter than all their learning, and what it has been 
 our boast to believe that the training of Harvard 
 has always tended to cultivate— an honest and 
 manly character, a hatred of all shams and hum- 
 bugs, an earnest purpose to make the most of 
 themselves, and to serve their times as men and 
 their country as good citizens and patriots. 
 
 I think we may well congratulate each other 
 upon the dignified and proud attitude which Har- 
 vard University now presents to the country and 
 to the world, and that she has made more real 
 and lasting progress in the last fifteen years than 
 in any prior period of her history— a progress 
 due in large measure to the hopeful wisdom and 
 the tireless energy of President Eliot. He found 
 here a local college whose administration, whose 
 standard, whose system, had undergone no radi- 
 cal change for generations ; and to-day he presents 
 her to the world, a great and national university, 
 and the national features and relations of Har- 
 vard are now its most striking and attractive 
 ones. No State— not even Massachusetts— can 
 any longer appropriate her. No city, not even 
 Boston, can any longer claim her for its own. 
 She belongs henceforth to the whole country, and 
 is justly regarded at home and abroad as the one 
 typical American university. Perhaps we of the 
 
 115 
 
HARVARD COMMENCEMENT 
 
 alumni who live in other and distant parts of the 
 country can appreciate this change better than 
 those of you whose lives are spent almost within 
 the shadow of her elms. The tide is setting to- 
 wards Harvard across the whole continent. Her 
 examinations, carried first to New York and then 
 to Cincinnati, and then to Chicago, and at last to 
 the Pacific Coast, have raised the standard of 
 education and the quality of the schools through- 
 out the whole country; and this influence is yearly 
 increasing. And the diplomas of her professional 
 schools now carry into all the States an assur- 
 ance of new and increased fitness for the com- 
 mencement of professional life. 
 
 The best test of your success, Mr. President, is 
 that other colleges are rapidly beginning to adopt 
 and accept your systems and your reforms. Even 
 the meagre little that Harvard has yet done for 
 the education of women is beginning to bear fruit 
 elsewhere. To-day, Columbia, forced by the pres- 
 sure of public opinion, with tardy and reluctant 
 hand, is beginning to dole out to women a few 
 stale and paltry crumbs that fall from her boun- 
 tiful table, in distant imitation of the Harvard 
 Annex. Of course Harvard will, by and by, do a 
 great deal more for them than she has done yet, 
 and Madam Boylston, who alone of her sex has 
 held her solitary place on these walls for nearly 
 a century, among these shades of learned men, 
 looks down upon me with smiling approval when 
 I say that somehow or other, sooner or later. Har- 
 vard will yet give the women a better chance for 
 
 116 
 
HARVARD COMMENCEMENT 
 
 education, as Cambridge and Oxford have al- 
 ready done. 
 
 No enumeration, Mr. President, of the glories 
 of Harvard would be quite complete which 
 omitted to refer to the athletic development of 
 these later days. Voltaire wrote to Helve tins— 
 ' ' The body of an athlete and the soul of a sage are 
 what we require to be happy." How prophetic 
 of to-day's curriculum at Harvard. To-morrow 
 at New London will put our muscle and our met- 
 tle to the test. Let us pray for the pluck and 
 the wind and the bottom of the Harvard crew. 
 
 I must not prolong these pleasing bits of elo- 
 quence, or else His Excellency will begin to sus- 
 pect that we sons of Harvard think a little too 
 much of ourselves. Nothing, nothing could be 
 farther from the truth than that. Yet I need not 
 assure him, because he knows it already, that it 
 is our true boast that an overweening modesty is 
 the leading Harvard attribute. But let me, before 
 closing, refer to one or two special incidents of the 
 day. It is now 245 years since John Harvard 
 died in Charlestown, bequeathing his fair name, 
 his library and the half of his estate to the infant 
 college in the wilderness, then just struggling into 
 existence and matriculating its first freshman 
 class of nine. He surely moulded better than he 
 knew; he died all unconscious of the immortality 
 of glory that awaited him, for it was not till after 
 his death that the General Court voted, in recog- 
 nition of his generous gifts, to change the name of 
 the little college at Newtown to Harvard College. 
 
 117 
 
HARVARD COMMENCEMENT 
 
 And now, after eight generations of graduates 
 have been baptized in his name, a pious wor- 
 shipper at his shrine,^ turning his face towards 
 Mecca, has presented to the alumni a bronze 
 statue of our prophetic founder, which is to be 
 erected at the head of the Delta, and to stand for 
 coming ages as the guardian genius of the col- 
 lege. Let me read the letter which precedes the 
 gift; and I will say that the writer and the giver, 
 a gentleman here present, from whom and of 
 whom I hope we shall hear more by and by, is Mr. 
 Samuel J. Bridge, of Boston. The letter is as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 To THE President and Fellows op Haevaed College: 
 Gentlemen — I have had the pleasure of offering you 
 an ideal statue in bronze, representing your founder, 
 the Eev. John Harvard, to be designed by Daniel C. 
 French, of Concord, and to be placed in the west end of 
 the enclosure, in which Memorial Hall stands. If you 
 do me the honor to accept this offer, I propose to eon- 
 tract at once for the work, including an appropriate 
 pedestal, and I am assured that the statue can be in 
 place by June 1, 1884. I am, with much respect, 
 
 Samxjbl J. Beidqe. 
 
 I am sure, gentlemen, that I can assure the gen- 
 erous donor in your name of the hearty thanks of 
 all the alumni of the college, those who are here 
 to-day and those who are scattered throughout the 
 country and the world. 
 
 Other generous gifts commemorate this occa- 
 sion — a marble bust of General William F. Bart- 
 
 118 
 
HAEVAED COMMENCEMENT 
 
 lett, of the class of 1862— a hero if God ever made 
 one, a martyr, who was fourteen years dying for 
 his country of wounds that he bore for her— is 
 placed in this hall to-day to stay as long as mar- 
 ble shall endure, in the fit company of heroes and 
 martyrs to whom its walls are dedicated. Colonel 
 Henry Lee, by and by, will formally present it 
 to you, and also a bust of Ealph Waldo Emerson, 
 sacred forever within these walls. Surely, if Har- 
 vard had never produced anything but Emerson, 
 she would have been entitled to a front rank 
 among the great universities. 
 
 But, brethren, I know you are all impatient 
 to hear those you have come to hear. You can- 
 not wait any longer, I am sure, to hear from our 
 excellent president his annual message of com- 
 fort and distress. He will tell you all that the col- 
 lege in the last year has done for you, and all that 
 you ia return, in the years to come, are expected 
 to do for the college. It will also be your privil- 
 ege to hear from the people of Massachusetts, as 
 represented in the person of His Excellency the 
 Governor, who has come here to-day by the in- 
 vitation of the president and fellows, which he 
 accepted in deference to an ancient custom not 
 easily to be broken. You all remember, gentle- 
 men, that intimate and honorable alliance that has 
 existed between the college and the State for now 
 nearly two centuries, out of tender regard for 
 which, tradition assures us that every Commence- 
 ment, begiiming with that of 1642, has been graced 
 by the presence of the governor of the Common- 
 
 119 
 
HAEVARD COMMENCEMENT 
 
 wealth. And, for one, I hope the day may be far, 
 very far, distant when the governor of Massachu- 
 setts shall fail to be welcomed on Commencement 
 day within the walls of Harvard. In the name of 
 Massachusetts, we greet him, remembering, as we 
 may fitly remember, in this place sacred to heroic 
 deeds, that it was he who, at the call of Andrew, 
 led the advanced guard of Massachusetts, in 
 which certain sons of Harvard were a part, to 
 the rescue and the relief of the besieged capital; 
 that Lincoln set his seal upon that service by com- 
 missioning their commander, as a major general 
 of the United States, and that it did not need that 
 diploma to prove that he bore and they followed 
 to the front the ancient standard of Massachu- 
 setts, in the spirit of Sidney's motto, which the 
 State has made its own — ense petit placidam, sub 
 libertate quietem. 
 
 120 
 
HAEVAED COMMENCEMENT 
 
 1885 
 
HARVARD COMMENCEMENT 
 
 1885 
 
 Address delivered at Cambridge to the Alumni of Harvard, June 
 S4, 1885, on the occasion of Mr. Lowell's return from Eng- 
 land. 
 
 NOW that you have banqueted upon these more 
 substantial dainties, which the Delmonico 
 of Harvard has provided, I invite you to partake 
 of the more delicate diet of tongues and sounds — 
 thef avorite dish at every Harvard dinner — where, 
 of course, every alumnus expects to get his desert. 
 We have assembled for the two hundred and 
 forty-ninth time to pay our vows at the shrine of 
 our alma mater, to revel in the delights of mutual 
 admiration, and to welcome to the commencement 
 of actual life one hundred and seventy-five new 
 brethren that our mother has brought forth to- 
 day. Gentlemen, it is your great misfortune, and 
 not a little to my embarrassment, that I have been 
 called upon on two occasions to stand here in the 
 place of the president of your choice, and to fill 
 the shoes of a better man, and if I shufQe awk- 
 wardly about in them, you will remember that they 
 are several sizes too large for me, and with higher 
 heels than I am accustomed to wear. On a for- 
 mer occasion, in view of the incompatibility of 
 
 123 
 
HARVAED COMMENCEMENT 
 
 sentiment among high, anthorities, I did what I 
 might to stem the tide of a seemingly irrepressible 
 conflict, and, by your counsel and aid, with appa- 
 rent success. " Grim visaged war " did smooth 
 '' his wrinkled front," and peace and harmony 
 prevailed where blood had threatened. 
 
 But how, gentlemen, can I hope to fill your ex- 
 pectations to-day, when you have justly counted 
 upon the most popular of all your divines and the 
 most fervent of all your orators, who should now 
 be leading your counsels here? But Phillips 
 Brooks, having long ago mastered all hearts at 
 home, has gone abroad in search of new conquests. 
 When last heard from he was doing well in very 
 kindred company; for he was breakfasting with 
 Gladstone, the statesman whose defeat is as 
 mighty as victory, the scholar and the orator, 
 who would exchange for no title in the royal gift, 
 the lustre of his own great name. But I have no 
 fears for the success of this occasion, notwith- 
 standing the absence that we deplore, when I look 
 around these tables and see who still are here. 
 
 In the first place, you are all here, and when 
 the sons of Harvard are all together, basking in 
 the sunshine of each other's countenances, what 
 need is there for the sun to shine ? 
 
 And then. President Eliot is here. I remember 
 that, sixteen years ago, we gave him his first wel- 
 come to the seat which had previously been occu- 
 pied by Quincy, Everett, Sparks, Felton and 
 Walker, and to-day, in your names, I may thank 
 him that he has more than redeemed the pride and 
 
 124 
 
HARVARD COMMENCEMENT 
 
 promise of his earlier days. While it cannot ex- 
 actly be said that he found Harvard of brick and 
 left it marble, it can truly be said that he found 
 it a college and has already made it a university, 
 and let us all hope that his faithful reign over 
 us may continue as long as he has the strength 
 and the courage to carry on the good work that 
 he has in hand. 
 
 And then, the Grovernor of the Commonwealth 
 is here, always a most honored guest among the 
 alumni of Harvard. Governor Winthrop attended 
 our first commencement, and I believe that all 
 the Governors in unbroken succession have fol- 
 lowed his example. 
 
 To-day, too, we are honored with the presence 
 of the Vice-President of the United States, and 
 now that Harvard has assumed national propor- 
 tions, what can be more fitting than that we 
 should welcome to our board one of the chief 
 representatives of the national government? He 
 comes to us fresh from Yale, and if we may be- 
 lieve the morning papers — a very large if, I ad- 
 mit — if we may believe those veracious journals, 
 the eminent Vice-President yesterday at New Ha- 
 ven gave utterance to two brief and pithy senti- 
 ments, one of which we shall accept with abso- 
 lute, unqualified applause, and the other of which 
 we must receive, if at all, with a modification. 
 " Yale," said he, in short and sententious words, 
 which are the essence of great men, and which we 
 are all so fond of hearing and reporting, ' ' Yale, ' ' 
 said he, " is everywhere." Gentlemen, I would 
 
 125 
 
HAEVAED COMMENCEMENT 
 
 say with this modification, " Yes, Yale is every- 
 where, but she always finds Harvard there before 
 her." Gentlemen, the rudeness of your manner 
 broke off my sentence — " She always finds Har- 
 vard there before her, or close alongside or very 
 closely in her rear; and let us hope that her 
 boys at New London to-morrow will demonstrate 
 the truth of that." The other sentiment that 
 he uttered, and that which needs no qualifica- 
 tion, is that public office is a public trust. Gren- 
 tlemen, in saying that, he stole Harvard thunder. 
 That has been her doctrine since the days of John 
 Adams ; and I am sure that you must be perfectly 
 delighted to hear from this eminent man that old 
 doctrine of ours reinforced. 
 
 But, gentlemen, better than all the rest, once 
 more at home in his old place among us again is 
 James Eussell Lowell. Eight years ago he left 
 us for the public service. Men who did not know 
 him wondered how poetry and diplomacy would 
 work together, poetry, the science of all truth, 
 and diplomacy, that is sometimes thought to be 
 not quite so true. Well, if you will allow me, I 
 will explain his triumphs abroad by a wise saying 
 of Goethe's, the fitness of which, I think, you will 
 recognize. " Poetry," said he, " belongs not to 
 the noble nor to the people, neither to the king nor 
 to the peasant ; it is the offspring of a true man. ' ' 
 It is not because of the laurels that were heaped 
 upon him abroad, not because he commanded new 
 honor for the American scholar and the American 
 people, and not because his name will henceforth 
 
 126 
 
HAKVAED COMMENCEMENT 
 
 be a new bond of union between the two countries ; 
 but we learned to love Hm before be went away, 
 because we knew that from the beginning he had 
 been the fearless champion of truth and of free- 
 dom, and during every year of his absence, we 
 have loved him the more. So, in your names, I 
 bid him a cordial welcome home again. 
 
 You will also be pleased to hear that Dr. Holmes 
 has been inspired by this interesting feature of 
 the occasion to mount his Pegasus once more and 
 ride out to Cambridge upon his back; and soon 
 you will hear him strike his lyre agaia in praise 
 of his younger brother. But these are not all the 
 treasures that are in store for you. Dr. James 
 Freeman Clarke, after twenty-five years of con- 
 tinuous service on the Board of Overseers, from 
 which he now retires by the edict of the Consti- 
 tution, will tell you frankly what he thinks about 
 you and about them. And then, to the Class of 
 1835, on the fiftieth year of its graduation, the 
 crowning honors of this day belong, and I am 
 pleased to say that their chosen spokesman, al- 
 though pretending to be for the moment an inva- 
 lid — he wrote to me that he was no better than he 
 should be — he is here to speak for them. For us 
 who have been coming up to Cambridge for the 
 last thirty years, I would like to know what Har- 
 vard commencement without Judge Hoar would 
 be. Who can forget the quips and cranks and 
 wanton wiles with which he has beguiled many an 
 hour that promised to be dull ; and how he has, I 
 Avill not say sobered, but dimmed some of our 
 
 127 
 
HAEVARD COMMENCEMENT 
 
 lighter moments by words of wisdom and power. 
 So, in your name I say : ' ' Long life and a green 
 old age to Judge Hoar, and all the members of 
 the class of 1835." 
 
 Then, gentlemen, all these new doctors of law — 
 why. Harvard, returning to an ancient custom, 
 has been selecting them from her own sons, and 
 to-day it may truly be said that the University 
 has been growing rich and strong hy degrees. 
 You will be glad to hear all of them speak for 
 themselves. Of one of them, Dr. Carter, I will 
 say from intimate knowledge, that he leads us 
 gallantly at the bar of New York, and all his 
 associates rejoice in his leadership. He has re- 
 cently rendered a signal service to the jurispru- 
 dence of that great State by contributing more 
 than any other man to the defeat of a code which 
 threatened to involve all the settled law of that 
 community in confusion and contempt. 
 
 And now, as I have told you who are to speak 
 to you, I should sit down. I believe, however, it is 
 usual for the presiding officer to recall any star- 
 tling events in the history of the college. Gentle- 
 men, there have been none. The petition of the 
 undergraduates for what they call a fuller civil 
 and religious liberty, in being relieved from com- 
 pulsory attendance on morning prayers, was de- 
 nied. The answer of the overseers was well con- 
 ceived — that, in obedience to the settled rules and 
 regulations of the college, of which that was one, 
 they would find an all-sufficient liberty. That 
 idea was not original with them ; they borrowed it 
 
 128 
 
HAEVAED COMMENCEMENT 
 
 from Mr. Lowell, when he said and sung in his 
 sonnet upon the reformers — 
 
 Who yet have not the one great lesson learned 
 
 That grows in leaves, 
 
 Tides in the mighty seas, 
 And in the stars eternally hath burned, 
 
 That only full obedience is free. 
 
 The only other incident in the history of the 
 year is the successful effort that has been made 
 in searching out the history of John Harvard, and 
 about that the president of the college will tell 
 you in good time, who he was, whence he came, 
 and where he got the fortune and the library 
 which he contributed along with his melodious 
 name to the college. He gave half of all he had, 
 gentlemen, and out of that modest fountain what 
 vast results have flowed. May no red-handed 
 vandal of an undergraduate ever desecrate his 
 statue that stands at the head of the Delta. 
 
 And now, brethren, would you have your statue 
 crowned? Would you, too, become immortal? 
 Would you identify your names with the glory of 
 the college? The way is open and easy. Follow 
 exactly the example of the founder. Give one 
 equal half of all you are worth to the college, and 
 if you wish to enjoy your own immortality, do it 
 to-morrow while you are yet alive. If you shrink 
 from that, die at once and give it to them now. 
 Other people possibly will rise up and call you 
 blessed, whatever your own may do ; so you will 
 
 129 
 
HARVAED COMMENCEMENT 
 
 relieve the president of more than half the labors 
 of his office. 
 
 I did want to say a word about another matter 
 — the elective system — but President Eliot tells 
 me I had better not. He says that the Board of 
 Overseers of the college are incubating on that 
 question, and that there is no telling what they 
 may hatch out. Now, don't let us disturb them, 
 gentlemen, at any rate, while they are on the nest. 
 We might crack the shell, and then the whole work 
 would have to be done over again. But, as you 
 now seem to be in good mood, let me say one sin- 
 gle word about this elective system. I don't 
 care how they settle it. I hope they will give us 
 the means of sustaining and fortifying their de- 
 cision when they make it. We alumni at a dis- 
 tance from the college are often stung to indig- 
 nation by the attacks that are made upon us by 
 the representatives of other colleges. One would 
 think, by the way they talk down there at Prince- 
 ton that Harvard was going to the everlasting 
 bow-wows; that the fountains of learning were 
 being undermined and broken up; that, as Mr. 
 Lowell again said: 
 
 The Anglo-Saxondom's idee's breakin' 'em to pieces, 
 And thet idee's thet every mon doos jest wut he damn 
 pleases. 
 
 I suppose the truth about the elective system 
 is that the world moves on and colleges move with 
 it. In Cotton Mather's time, when he said that 
 
 130 
 
HAEVAED COMMENCEMENT 
 
 the sole object of the foundation of a college was 
 to furnish a good supply of godly ministers for 
 the churches, it was well enough to feed them 
 on Latin and Greek only. Now that young men 
 when they go out into the world have everything 
 to do about taking part in all the activities of life, 
 for one, I say let them have the chance to learn 
 here anything that they can possibly wish to. And 
 I hope that our president will persevere in one 
 direction at least, until he can say truly that what- 
 ever is worth learning can be taught well at Har- 
 vard. This is well expressed again in an idea of 
 Mr. Lowell's, who always has ideas enough, if 
 divided, to go around even among us : 
 
 New occasions teach new duties; 
 
 Time makes ancient good uncouth; 
 They must upward still, and onward, 
 
 Who would keep abreast of truth. 
 
 I hope you will be very patient with all the 
 other speakers. I advise them, as the hour is 
 late and the afternoon is short and there are a 
 great many of them in number, each to put a good 
 deal of shortening in his cake, which I have omit- 
 ted. That is a rule that never is applied to the 
 presiding officer, and I am afraid it never will be. 
 
 131 
 
PHILLIPS BROOKS 
 
PHILLIPS BROOKS 
 
 Address delivered at Music Hall, New Toric, at a Memorial Ser- 
 vice to Phillips BrooTcs, February 16, 1893. 
 
 ME. CHAIEMAN : This goodly array of hon- 
 ored clergymen of all sects, Catholic and 
 Protestant, Christian and Hebrew, that have come 
 here to-night to speak of the great preacher and 
 the good bishop, is itself a noble tribute to his 
 memory and his fame. His heart was large 
 enough, his religion was broad enough, to embrace 
 them all; and they honor themselves as well as 
 him by joiaing hands around his grave, as the 
 children and servants of one Father who has made 
 of one blood all races of men. 
 
 Standing alone among them as a layman, and 
 a Gentile, but as one who, from the time that we 
 were college boys together, knew and honored and 
 loved him, I may speak for a few moments of him 
 personally by the great and dear name of Phillips 
 Brooks — a name that he has made grander and 
 nobler than any title which the world or the 
 Church could bestow ; of the man who was greater 
 than the bishop ; of the man whose heart went out 
 to all his fellow-men. 
 
 Truly he was bom great, and to a greatness 
 wholly different from that which some achieve 
 by their struggles and their triumphs, and some 
 
 135 
 
PHILLIPS BEOOKS 
 
 have thrust upon them by accident or by chance. 
 Nor was his birth and breeding, in Boston, fifty 
 years ago, a happy accident. He was not a crea- 
 ture of one day or of one generation. All the 
 generations, from the landing at Boston down, 
 contributed to his grand qualities and his noble 
 gifts. His first renowned ancestor, John Cotton, 
 who landed in Boston in 1633, had electrified, by 
 his eloquence in the churches of England, aU the 
 faithful disciples there, and when driven out by 
 the accession and tyranny of Archbishop Laud, he 
 came to America, the common refuge of the op- 
 pressed. From that day until his death he led, in 
 sacred things, the people of Massachusetts. And 
 it is truly wonderful in how many points this last 
 glorious descendant of his resembled him of whom 
 it is written, that beyond all things he had the 
 genius for oratory, particularly for the oratory of 
 the pulpit. Of him, too, as of his great descen- 
 dant, the story is told, that, so majestic and im- 
 pressive was his commanding appearance, that 
 sin always stood rebuked in his presence ; so that 
 when he visited the tavern in the town of Derby, 
 where he ministered in the church, the landlord 
 begged him to depart, because he was never able 
 to swear when that man was under his roof. And 
 when John Cotton died, all New England mourned 
 for him. The whole colony turned out as mourn- 
 ers, just as to-day the greater colony of States are 
 mourning in a common sorrow for his most 
 worthy descendant. 
 To this great progenitor, through six genera- 
 136 
 
PHILLIPS BROOKS 
 
 tions of worthy preachers and teachers and mer- 
 chants, we trace his pedigree. And the saintly 
 women, in many generations, who in the ever-ex- 
 panding multiple of his ancestry carried his blood 
 back to the foundation of the settlement — they 
 gave their virtues to warm and enlarge and en- 
 rich his tender and womanly heart. 
 
 All the greatest and best qualities of Puri- 
 tanism, purged of its dross, its follies, and its sins, 
 were manifested in him. Its tolerance, evolved 
 after two centuries of struggle with its own intol- 
 erance ; its ever-living sense of duty as the guide 
 and the object of life; its unfailing and untiring 
 industry, recognizing the gospel of hard work as 
 next after the Gospels of the evangelists ; its aspi- 
 ration always for a higher and a better state ; its 
 allegiance under all circumstances to the universal 
 brotherhood of man ; its enthusiasm under all cir- 
 cumstances for freedom — all these great qualities, 
 and all that flowed from them, all these were cen- 
 tred in him. So that it might well be said that 
 he was the last, the ripest, the best fruit of the 
 New England discipline to which the world owes 
 so much. 
 
 And then, what marvellous gifts he had! A 
 mind of a power such as few men possess; elo- 
 quence, wit, magnetism; that wonderful gift of 
 persuading and influencing other men. And yet 
 the thought never entered his soul of using any 
 one of these rich gifts for his own aggrandize- 
 ment. He spent them all as freely as he received 
 them, in the service of his fellow-men. He never 
 
 137 
 
PHILLIPS BEOOKS 
 
 drew one selfish breath or spent a self-indulgent 
 hour. When the report came, the day after his 
 death, that he had left a considerable fortune, it 
 seemed like an aspersion upon his character. We 
 knew that it could not be so. And when the re- 
 port was corrected and the truth came to be 
 known, it turned out that he had gone out of the 
 world as poor as he came into it, and that he had 
 spent all and followed his Master. 
 
 Well do I remember, as if it were but yesterday, 
 when my eyes first rested upon him, as he en- 
 tered the chapel at Harvard College, in the fresh- 
 man class, forty-four years ago — a tall and slen- 
 der stripling, towering above all his companions, 
 with that magnificent head, that majestic face, 
 already grave and serious, but with those great 
 brown eyes lighting it, beaming with brotherly 
 love and tenderness. And from that hour to this 
 he has been the boast, the delight, the glory of the 
 college: and when I hear, as sometimes from 
 thoughtless and ignorant lips I do hear, asper- 
 sions upon the good fame of Harvard, my answer 
 always is, " Phillips Brooks. By their fruits ye 
 shall know them." 
 
 And now let me cast one flower of love upon 
 his still fresh grave. To the young men of Massa- 
 chusetts, of New England, of America, he has 
 been a living and a saving grace for two entire 
 generations. As a boy, he showed them the ex- 
 ample of an absolutely blameless life and con- 
 duct, and of utterly unsullied purity. As a man, 
 he has been their guide, their counsellor, and their 
 
 138 
 
PHILLIPS BROOKS 
 
 friend. Ah, how well he understood their condi- 
 tion, their exposure, their frailties, their tempta- 
 tions, their lofty aspirations, and their infinite 
 possibilities ! By no barren precepts, by no sol- 
 emn exhortations, but always with the sympathy 
 of that warm and brotherly heart that was beat- 
 ing and palpitating for them in his breast, how 
 easily he won their confidence, how completely he 
 commanded their obedience, how nobly he led 
 them always up to wiser and better things ! 
 
 To give you one familiar and well-known illus- 
 tration of how, by one gentle word, by one sym- 
 pathetic thought, he could melt and subdue and 
 rally them — the story is told that, when he was 
 a college preacher, a group of his young friends, 
 after a night of folly and debauchery, were found 
 huddling together over the remains of an expiring 
 fire, unfit for duty, hollow with shame for them- 
 selves and one another; and the great and good 
 doctor came to make them a morning call. Not 
 one word of rebuke, not one breath of censure, 
 but a kindly morning greeting, a few minutes of 
 pleasant chat, and then, as he rose to go, he laid 
 his hand upon the head of the leader and said, as 
 he left them, " Well, boys, it doesn't make you 
 feel any better, does it ? " That gentle treatment 
 reached them, and they arose and followed him. 
 
 Well may the mothers of America — yes, and 
 the fathers of America, too — weep for Phillips 
 Brooks, when they think of their boys. For 
 where, where will they find such another guide, 
 such another refuge, such another friend? 
 
 139 
 
THE HASTY PUDDING CLUB 
 
THE HASTY PUDDING CLUB 
 
 Address delivered at the club's Centennial, November S4, 1895. 
 
 BRETHEEN.='We have come together to 
 celebrate the foundation of the Hasty Pud- 
 ding Club, a signal event in the history of Har- 
 vard, for it has certainly done a vast deal to 
 mitigate the austerities of college life, and to 
 alleviate its ' ' most distressing occurrences ' ' — per- 
 haps as much as all its other institutions com- 
 bined. 
 
 We call it our centennial, but the mists of tradi- 
 tion have thrown a halo of uncertainty about the 
 origin of the club which probably can never be 
 quite cleared up. If we can recall the words of 
 Theodore Lyman's Pudding Song (and you will 
 permit me to adopt it as part of my address 
 to-night), its first conception was in the good Old 
 Colony days soon after the landing of the Pil- 
 grims on Plymouth Eock, and Miles Standish 
 himself took part in its foundation in company 
 with a famous Indian warrior. Some words in the 
 song are a little archaic, but you will like it none 
 the less for that. 
 
 This song had a great currency in the club in 
 the old days, although it seems since to have fal- 
 len into " innocuous desuetude," but I am sure 
 that it will set the keynote for this august occa- 
 
 143 
 
THE HASTY PUDDING CLUB 
 
 sion, if we all join in singing it under the lead of 
 Lyman's classmate, Eeed, who knows its history 
 well. 
 
 Long since, when our forefathers landed 
 
 On barren rock bleak and forlorn 
 They left their little boat stranded, 
 
 To search through the wild woods for com. 
 Soon some hillocks of earth met their gaze, 
 
 Like altars of mystical spell; 
 But within finding Indian maize, 
 
 Amazement on all of them fell. 
 
 Quoth Standish : ' ' Right hard have we toiled, 
 
 A dinner we'll have before long; 
 A pudding shall quickly be boiled 
 
 By help of the Lord and the corn." 
 At that moment the warwhoop resounded 
 
 O'er mountain and valley and glen. 
 And a Choctaw chief savagely bounded 
 
 To slaughter those corn-stealing men. 
 
 "Ha! vile Pagan! " the Captain quoth he. 
 
 " 'Tis true that we've taken a horn, 
 But though corned we all of us be, 
 
 We ne'er will acknowledge the com." 
 Then, a wooden spoon held in his hand, 
 
 He seized his red foe by the nose, 
 And with pudding his belly he crammed 
 
 In spite of his struggles and throes. 
 
 The victor triumphantly grasped 
 
 The hair of his foe closely shorn, 
 While the savage he struggled and gasped, 
 
 O'erpowered by heat and by corn. 
 144 
 
THE HASTY PUDDING CLTJB 
 
 " Be converted! " the good Standish said, 
 
 " Or surely by fire you'll die, 
 Though on boiled thus far you have fed, 
 
 We quickly will give you a fry." 
 
 Then straight was the savage baptized 
 
 In pudding all smoking and warm, 
 While the Parson he him catechized 
 
 Concerning the cooking of corn. 
 Then the Puritans chanted a psalm 
 
 With a chorus of, " Hey — rub-a-dub," 
 And amid gentle music's soft charm 
 
 They founded the great Pudding Club. 
 
 And now that in this delightful harmony we 
 have all mellowed together, from Dr. Wyman of 
 the class of 1833, whom we joyfully greet here to- 
 night as the patriarch of us all, to the latest 
 neophyte of 1897, we can take our stand on the 
 solid groundwork of history and locate the actual 
 organization of the club in 1795 by Horace Bin- 
 ney, of Philadelphia, and Judge White, of Salem, 
 who shared with him the first honors of the class 
 of 1797, and Dr. John Collins Warren of the same 
 class, all three of whom afterwards became very 
 eminent citizens of the United States. These men 
 certainly in their youth thus rendered a great ser- 
 vice to the college for their own day, and for all 
 coming time, by the promotion of sociability and 
 by advancing good fellowship among the members 
 of the club. From that day to this the club has 
 been true to its original motto of " Concordia dis- 
 cors " and has well maintained the standard of 
 
 145 
 
THE HASTY PUDDING CLUB 
 
 innocent and reasonable recreation amid the seri- 
 ous duties of life. The only wonder is that the 
 students of a college in which the curriculum in- 
 eluded Horace had not learned long before how 
 " dulce est desipere in loco." That is exactly 
 what we have been doing in the last hundred 
 years, and we mean to go on doing it forever. 
 
 Now, brethren, a word of explanation. When 
 I came here this evening I found that no arrange- 
 ment had been made as to who should sit at the 
 central table, and I took the liberty of inviting 
 these venerable men who sit around me, following 
 the old rule of the college that the members 
 should enter the banquet hall and take rank ac- 
 cording to the years of their respective classes, 
 much as Lowell laid down in his essay, that 
 those should have the best chance to eat the din- 
 ner who had the poorest teeth to eat it with,, and 
 the poorest ears to hear the speeches. 
 
 My first duty is to tell you how deeply sensible 
 I am of the honor that you have conferred upon 
 me in asking me to preside over your delibera- 
 tions this evening. It is an honor that can come 
 only once in a hundred years. It came in a most 
 opportune time for me, as testifying to the respect 
 that the rising generation entertain for those of 
 us who are passing beyond them in the march of, 
 years, for I had just read in a New York news- 
 paper that some of the younger legal lights had 
 spoken of Mr. Carter and Mr. Choate as " moss- 
 grown old fogies " who must soon yield their 
 places to the younger members of the bar. 
 
 146 
 
THE HASTY PUDDING CLUB 
 
 It is not the first time that I have had a diffi- 
 cult honor thrust upon me by the Pudding. In 
 1851 1 was classed among its lyric poets, and then, 
 like Horace, I struck the stars with my head sub- 
 lime. But the stars were not damaged. I had a 
 big head for a few days or more, but nothing 
 came of it. That was my first and last poetic 
 utterance. 
 
 Doubtless the grim discipline of the Puritans 
 held on too long at Harvard. But even in the 
 grimmest of Puritan days we might have bor- 
 rowed the chaste language of Milton, who in- 
 vented the most excellent motto for the cardinal 
 principle of the club : 
 
 " Mirth, admit me of thy crew, 
 To live with her and live with thee, 
 In unreproved pleasures free." 
 
 Or what will you say to the words of our own 
 American bard, Joel Barlow, who, as tradition 
 tells us, first suggested the rich inspiration of 
 Hasty Pudding: 
 
 " I sing the joys I know, the charms I feel, 
 My morning incense and my evening meal ; 
 The sweets of hasty pudding. 
 
 Come, dear bowl, glide o'er my palate, and inspire 
 my soul." 
 
 Never was there an association of men who 
 had so good a right to celebrate their centennial 
 as this club. A century looks down into the pot 
 
 147 
 
THE HASTY PUDDING CLUB 
 
 and finds it bubbling and singing and gurgling 
 with the same jovial note that it had when Hor- 
 ace Binney ladled it out to feed the men of 1795. 
 
 It was not their hungry palates, but their hun- 
 gry souls that were aspiring for food. How busy 
 our College had been in the process of gestation 
 before the time we celebrate to-night in breeding 
 heroes for the State in the coming days that were 
 to try men's souls! You all remember how Har- 
 vard suffered, when those deadly days of peril 
 came. There were men present at the foundation 
 of the Club whose fathers had seen the college 
 buildings converted into barracks for the colonial 
 soldiers. There were buxom matrons, who, as 
 maidens, had seen the handsome Virginia General 
 flourish his sword under the shadow of the old 
 elm as he took command of the New England 
 troops, or, as Lowell put it, always putting the 
 right word in the right place, " he had come to 
 wield our homespun Saxon chivalry." 
 
 But better days had come. Those days of want 
 and famine and pestilence had passed away. Those 
 trying days of hardship after the war, almost 
 as perilous as the war itself, had been struggled 
 through. Washington was president, and Jay's 
 treaty, which caused so much strife and commo- 
 tion, had just been ratified by the Senate. It was 
 a time of far brighter days ; it was the dawn of 
 a new era for America, the time of a new depar- 
 ture. 
 
 I am always accused, at Harvard dinners in 
 New York, of speaking by the catalogue. Well, let 
 
 148 
 
THE HASTY PUDDINa CLUB 
 
 the names upon the Pudding catalogue of this 
 century tell their own story; let us see if, by the 
 mingling of play with work, anybody has suffered. 
 Let us see whether, by making out of duty itself 
 the merriest play, we have failed in any instance. 
 What say you to this? Did Channing and 
 Buckminster and James Walker and Phillips 
 Brooks, lead their followers into the verdant pas- 
 tures with less of divinity itself, because they 
 had disported themselves in former years in the 
 club? 
 
 Did our historians, Bancroft and Prescott 
 and the recently lamented Parkman contrib- 
 ute any less delightful lessons to their country- 
 men, because they had gathered around the crack- 
 ling fire of the Pudding? Did our orators, 
 such men as Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner and 
 Eobert C. Winthrop, speak with less inspiration 
 because, in their boyhood days, they had indulged 
 in the ribald laugh and tried their first eloquence 
 before their brethren of the Pudding? Were the 
 lips of our two great poets. Holmes and Lowell, 
 touched with less divine a fire because they had 
 lisped their first numbers to their brethren of the 
 club, in whose records they stand imperishably re- 
 corded? 
 
 Now I am not inclined to claim for the Hasty 
 Pudding Club all the success that has come to 
 Harvard College, But when I see its history out- 
 lined as we have to-night, when we see the cream 
 of the college in successive generations enrolled 
 in its ranks, and participating in all great deeds, 
 
 149 
 
THE HASTY PUDDING CLUB 
 
 all great services, all great triumphs for the pub- 
 lic good, it behooves us to keep this club pure and 
 sweet and good as it always has been, and one 
 of the great influences for education and truth 
 and good morals at Harvard for all time. 
 
 150 
 
EAEL GEEY AND FEANKLIN'S POETRAIT 
 
EARL GREY AND FRANKLIN'S 
 PORTRAIT 
 
 Address delivered at the dinner of the Pilgrims of the United 
 
 States to Earl Grey, Governor-General of Canada, New 
 
 Yorlc, March 31, 1906. 
 
 THE pleasant duty has been assigned to me to 
 propose the health of Earl Grey, Governor- 
 General of the Dominion of Canada. 
 
 I regard it as a great privilege to be able to 
 perform this service and a very great honor is 
 conferred upon The Pilgrims by the presence of 
 our distinguished guest. "We welcome him not 
 only on personal but on public grounds, and on 
 both we give him the heartiest greetings. 
 
 Lord Grey is no stranger in the United States. 
 Long before he was called to the exalted office 
 which he now fills, he had been a frequent visitor 
 among us. He had made the acquaintance of 
 many of us in divers parts of the land, and as 
 wherever he goes he is sure to make friends, he 
 had found that he left behind him on his last voy- 
 age home, before he became Governor-General of 
 Canada, a host of admiring friends. And then we 
 welcoxae him, on public grounds, because he is the 
 personal representative of his august sovereign 
 the King of England, who ever since he came 
 among us as a youth in 1859 or 1860 has been the 
 
 153 
 
EAEL GEEY AND FEANKLIN'S POETKAIT 
 
 constant and steadfast friend of the United 
 States. Since his accession to the throne he has 
 lost no opportunity to manifest his good-will to 
 our country, its government and its people. So 
 that if we failed to welcome his personal repre- 
 sentative with all the honors, we should indeed be 
 guilty of great neglect and ingratitude. 
 
 And then he comes before us as the represen- 
 tative of a great nation— the Dominion of Can- 
 ada, our nearest neighbor, whose boundaries 
 march with ours for thirty-five hundred miles 
 from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 
 
 In the presence of the Secretary of State I speak 
 with bated breath. But as I no longer live under 
 his instructions or by his will, I can, for the first 
 time in many years, enjoy the great privilege of 
 being without a master and of saying what I 
 think and what I feel. And I do feel that this 
 great Dominion of Canada is a nation with which 
 we ought not only to be at perpetual peace, but that 
 all possible questions remaining unadjusted be- 
 tween us should be setttled as soon as possible. She 
 is not only our nearest neighbor, but our most spir- 
 ited and ambitious rival, and her prosperity is ad- 
 vancing with leaps and bounds quite as vigorous 
 as our own. It was well said by her distinguished 
 Prime Minister in the eloquent fervor of the last 
 campaign in Canada, that while by the conces- 
 sion of all mankind the nineteenth century be- 
 longed to the United States, the twentieth century 
 so far belonged to Canada. And she is certainly 
 showing it. The development of her vast re- 
 
 154 
 
EAEL GREY AND FRANKLIN'S PORTRAIT 
 
 sources of every possible description, tlie opening 
 of her wonderful agricultural lands— so ricli, they 
 say up there, that if you scatter grains of wheat 
 in the morning a whole harvest is ready for gath- 
 ering before night; all this is attracting thou- 
 sands and tens of thousands of our own fellow citi- 
 zens over the border in exchange for those whom 
 our counter attractions draw away from her. I 
 do not say which way the balance lies; I shall 
 leave that for Lord Grey to determine, as no 
 doubt he can. 
 
 But we have a neighbor there to reckon with, 
 such as we never thought long years before the 
 twentieth century began. She is likely to become 
 very soon not only a formidable but very success- 
 ful competitor, and if she goes on as she has been 
 proceeding for the last five or ten years, we shall 
 soon find her able to feed the mother coimtry 
 without any help from us, and we shall have to 
 find new markets for our surplus products. One 
 civilization, one law, one hope, one aspiration per- 
 vades the people of both countries, and they are 
 so much alike that on my recent visit to Canada 
 I found that when you crossed the border, you 
 could only tell by the change of flag under which 
 jurisdiction you still were. 
 
 I referred to the hope I entertain that, for the 
 purpose of maintaining and making absolutely 
 sure for all the future peace and harmony be- 
 tween us, every unsettled question should be 
 brought to an early determination. 
 
 Nobody knows, nobody can ever tell how soon 
 155 
 
EAEL GREY AND FEANKLIN'S PORTRAIT 
 
 an international question of trifling importance 
 may become of serious consequence. It was my 
 recent privilege, on a visit to Lord Grey at Otta- 
 wa, to come into personal contact not only with 
 the distinguished Premier, that great orator and 
 statesman, Sir "Wilfrid Laurier, but also with 
 most of the other members of his government; 
 and I found, so far as I could judge from con- 
 stant and repeated conversations, a tone not only 
 of sympathy and of friendship, but of a great de- 
 sire on their part that all questions that lie be- 
 tween us should be forever removed. I believe 
 they all can be. I don't know that you can ever 
 settle the fisheries question as long as fish swim, 
 so that some new form of question as to bait or 
 sinker may not afterwards arise. But with that 
 exception I believe it is possible to place the re- 
 lation of these two great rival friendly nations 
 on a basis that will secure harmony without any 
 fear of interruption for all the future. And it is 
 on that ground that I particularly welcome the 
 presence here of the distinguished Chief Magis- 
 trate, the Governor-General of Canada. 
 
 Lord Grey's ancestors, several of them, have 
 been persons of great interest to the American 
 people. When the second earl, his grandfather, 
 achieved that wonderful performance in states- 
 manship of carrying the Reform Bill in '32, 
 sweeping away the whole system of rotten bor- 
 oughs that had existed from the days of the Plan- 
 tagenets and the Tudors, and substituted in its 
 place a more reasonable and equitable distribu- 
 
 156 
 
EAEL GEEY AND FEANKLIN'S PORTRAIT 
 
 tion between the different parts of the kingdom, 
 he accomplished a work that, while it regener- 
 ated England, appealed directly and immediately 
 to the sympathy and to the admiration of the 
 American People. 
 
 But it is to a more remote ancestor of his that 
 I wish particularly to call your attention to-night, 
 I mean his great grandfather Major-General Sir 
 Charles Grey, who was raised to the peerage and 
 became the first Earl Grey; because his experi- 
 ence in America furnishes us with an incident 
 which I believe will be the chief feature of this 
 notable occasion, and will give complete pleasure 
 and satisfaction not only to you but to all the 
 American people. 
 
 When the British forces were in possession of 
 Philadelphia in that dismal winter of 1777, this 
 celebrated ancestor of Lord Grey, second in com- 
 mand under Lord Howe, or Sir Henry Clinton, I 
 forget which it was, was in occupation of the 
 City, and he and his Aide-de-Camp, Captain John 
 Andre, were, I believe, in the actual possession of 
 Franklin's house on Market street, in that city. 
 They had for a while a very good time there, and 
 in the dining-room, where they carried on their 
 revels, there was a fine portrait of Benjamin 
 Franklin himself, which he and his family re- 
 garded as one of the best that had been painted. 
 Well, after a few months they had to leave Phila- 
 delphia a little more suddenly than they had en- 
 tered it, what loose-tongued soldiers call "skee- 
 daddling " they had to execute in a hurry; and 
 
 157 
 
EAEL GEEY AND FEANKLIN'S POETRAIT 
 
 somehow or other in the confusion of their depart- 
 ure this fine portrait of Franklin disappeared 
 from the walls of his dining-room, and was packed 
 up with other miscellaneous baggage and was 
 seen no more in Philadelphia. 
 
 Franklin could stand it very well, for he was 
 over in Paris achieving that wonderful perform- 
 ance of his which secured the independence of 
 America, in the form of the Treaty of Alliance 
 with France. I suppose, that as they could not 
 get hold of him, they regarded it as a very suit- 
 able mode of capture to make a prisoner of his 
 portrait to show to their friends at home. Well, 
 how it got to England exactly nobody can tell, it 
 is so many years and ages ago. Eichard Bache 
 says, in a letter to Franklin, "Captain John 
 Andre took excellent care of the house and every- 
 thing in it, but when he went away he took your 
 portrait that hangs in the dining-room." I sup- 
 pose that Andre before his death gave it to Gen- 
 eral Grey. And since that time, for one hundred 
 and thirty years, it has hung upon the walls of 
 Lord Grey's ancestral mansion in Northumber- 
 land and has been as an heirloom, a cherished 
 treasure, generation after generation in his fam- 
 ily. And now Lord Grey, in full sympathy with 
 that universal enthusiasm for the memory of 
 Franklin which has animated all the world in 
 commemoration of the two hundredth anniver- 
 sary of his birth, in full recognition of the happy 
 feeling that prevails now and ought always to 
 prevail between the two peoples, and with the 
 
 158 
 
EAEL GREY AND FRANKLIN'S PORTRAIT 
 
 purpose of doing alLthat he possibly can do to 
 promote and advance the harmony of the Eng- 
 lish-speaking world as represented by these two 
 nations, has concluded to restore to the United 
 States as a free-will offering this portrait that 
 has hung for so long upon his ancestral walls. 
 About a month ago he wrote a letter to the 
 President of the United States making formal 
 presentation of this portrait, and it is now on its 
 way to its original home, passing through the 
 hands of our American Ambassador ia London; 
 and I hope that it will arrive in time to take part 
 — as Franklin himself cannot except in spirit — in 
 that great celebration of Franklin's 200th birth- 
 day in Philadelphia, that is to come off on the 
 20th of April. 
 
 Gentlemen, I envy Lord Grey this rare oppor- 
 tunity to perform such a signal act of grace and 
 lofty purpose. I am sure that it will command 
 the approval of his own people and will secure 
 to our guest of this evening the lasting admira- 
 tion and affection of all the people of the United 
 States. 
 
 159 
 
DE. STOERS'S JUBILEE 
 
DR. STORRS'S JUBILEE 
 
 Address delivered at Dr. Storrs's Jubilee, Brooklyn, November Z5, 
 
 1896. 
 
 TO a man who has never lived in Brooklyn, 
 but at this moment wishes he always had, 
 this night and this assemblage are a startling 
 revelation. A whole city gathering for the sole 
 purpose of doing honor to its foremost citizen, to 
 recognize, to reward and applaud him. You may 
 search the aimals of American cities in vain for 
 such a spectacle. You must go back to Athens, 
 Venice or Florence, in their palmiest days, to 
 find such an exhibition of civic spirit or of civic 
 pride as Brooklyn shows to-night. I deem it a 
 very great honor to have been invited here to- 
 night to sum up for the people the case of Dr. 
 Storrs. To be recognized as his life long lover, 
 admirer and follower is a great compliment, and 
 greater still to be a spokesman for this assembly, 
 for I am absolutely certain that all that is just 
 and honest and true, all that is pure and lovely 
 and of good report in Brooklyn, if there be any 
 virtue, if there be any praise, it is all represented 
 and centered here to-night in honor of him. At the 
 same time I do not wonder that after the ten days' 
 exhausting services to which Brooklyn has de- 
 voted itself, you have had to send across the river 
 
 163 
 
DR. STORES 'S JUBILEE 
 
 for a fresh supply. It is not for me to say that 
 the Brooklyn supply of eulogy is not inexhausti- 
 ble, or that Dr. Storrs has yet received all that he 
 can stand, but I come as a New Yorker and an 
 American to say that Brooklyn, great as she is, is 
 not great enough to contain him; that the waters 
 of the East river are not swift enough or deep 
 enough to cut us off from our share in his fame, 
 in his character and in his work; that they be- 
 long to all America and are a part of the solid 
 gold in her territory which can never be reduced. 
 My neighbor, Seth Low, has said that New 
 York tried to get Dr. Storrs and failed. Well, 
 that may have been so, but our motto in 
 New York is, if at first you don't succeed, try 
 again, and New York has got him at last in spite 
 of himself. I do not know that in his presence I 
 ought to venture to say anything about Greater 
 New York, but I do not see him now, and so will 
 take courage and say what I was going to say; 
 that we are all one city in name and shall be one 
 in fact as soon as Mr. DeWitt and Mr. Low have 
 mastered the terrible problems that are racking 
 their brains. Minerva sprang full panoplied from 
 the brain of Jove, and it is said that even Jove 
 himself, and one would hardly wonder at it, had 
 a terrible headache, yet Greater New York is ex- 
 pected to spring, perfect as Venice in her prime, 
 from the brains of Messrs. DeWitt, Low and 
 Gleason and their companions. 
 
 I am glad that Mr. Low came here and deliv- 
 ered himself so well to-night, because you can 
 
 164 
 
DR. STOEES'S JUBILEE 
 
 all realize, after he has accomplished that great 
 work, how empty his head will be. It seems to 
 be a rule to quote Dr. Storrs to-night. I want to 
 quote a saying of his, if I rightly recollect it, in 
 his admirable address upon the opening of the 
 bridge. He said that "the isolation of New York 
 would soon be absorbed and lost in the growing- 
 community of Brooklyn." Well, that seems to 
 be coming to pass now, and our only consolation 
 across the river for it is, that at any rate we shall 
 be sure of him as a fellow citizen. The scientists 
 tell us that no physical force is ever wasted, or 
 lost or ended. We whisper into the telephone, 
 and the vibration, even though it be less than one 
 one-hundred thousandth part of an inch, affects a 
 diaphragm one thousand miles away and our ex- 
 act voice, just as it is uttered here in Brooklyn, 
 exact in tone, loudness, pitch and quality is heard 
 by the listening ear in Chicago and St. Louis. 
 So they tell us (these things are very hard to be- 
 lieve) — that the light from the furthest fixed star 
 has been traveling steadily undiminished for 
 more than one hundred years to greet our eyes to- 
 night, and to reassure us that the hand that made 
 it is divine. If this is true of physical 
 forces, how much more true is it of the spiritual 
 and the moral and the intellectual forces! In 
 these days, when steam and electricity have an- 
 nihilated space and time, and the press on the 
 wings of the morning carries to the uttermost 
 part of the earth every word spoken that is worth 
 while and every deed done that is worth know- 
 
 165 
 
DR. STOKES'S JUBILEE 
 
 ing, it needs must be that a man who has lived as 
 Dr. Storrs has lived, who has spoken, who has 
 written as he has written, must be, as he is, the 
 common property of the whole nation. 
 
 I want to correct another error which seems 
 to have crept into some of the remarks made 
 here to-night. I want to say that Brooklyn has 
 not made Dr. Storrs all that he is to-day. 
 Of course propinquity, environment, does a great 
 deal, and I admit that no man can live in Brook- 
 lyn fifty years without showing the marks of it. 
 You can do a great deal for a man. Your fresh 
 and breezy atmosphere on the heights, where he 
 lives— fresh every morning from bay or from 
 the sound— your genial, social life, your great 
 charities, your mental culture and your artistic 
 development, your churches, your schools, and li- 
 braries, your early retiring habits, and your sound 
 sleep, must tell in the end, long before fifty years 
 have passed. But there are things in the makeup 
 of a man that even such a city as Brooklyn cannot 
 accomplish. A man owes something in that mat- 
 ter to his father and mother. The men who do the 
 great deeds and think the great thoughts and 
 live the grand lives, owe it in the main to the stuff 
 that is bom in them and not for what is put on 
 from the outside. Let us see. In this very in- 
 stance the powerful brain, whose effulgence lights 
 and enamors a whole community of one million 
 and a quarter people, the voice that lifts and car- 
 ries a great audience upon its vibration, filling 
 every ear with the thrill of harmony delighting 
 
 166 
 
DE. STOKES'S JUBILEE 
 
 all, the personal presence whicli as it walks by 
 the way attracts an.d delights, as by a magnetic 
 power, and influences all who come within its 
 reach, the vigor of constitution and the power of 
 labor that ennoble the man and enable him to bear 
 all the responsibilities, all the trials, all the 
 achievements of three score years and ten, and 
 the great heart that responds in sympathy to the 
 sorrows of friends or lights up in joy at their 
 joys, or kindles in fiery indignation at their sins, 
 all these are the gift of God, of nature, of the 
 father and the mother and who knows how many 
 progenitors before them. 
 
 Dr. Hohnes, who always had a ready answer for 
 every question, is said to have replied to an 
 anxious mother who put to him the question, 
 " Doctor, at what age should the education of a 
 child begin? " " Madam, at least 100 years be- 
 fore he is born." Now if Dr. Hohnes had seen 
 Dr. Storrs in his cradle— it seems rather odd to 
 imagine Dr. Storrs in his cradle, but he was there 
 once, and not very long ago either, — and let me 
 tell you, dear young women, that he kicked as lus- 
 tily and crowed as loud, if not a little louder, than 
 your baby did when he was taken from his bath 
 this morning— now. Dr. Holmes would have said 
 this child's education began 200 or 300 years, in- 
 stead of 100 years, before he was born. Let us 
 see. When Spenser, the first great master of 
 verbal music in the English tongue, lighting the 
 age of Elizabeth with the sweet sunshine and 
 poetic luxury of the " Faery Queen; " — when 
 
 167 
 
DR. STOERS'S JUBILEE 
 
 Bacon taught men a new way of thinking and 
 brought the human intellect back from the direst 
 depths of superstition, in which it had long been 
 groping, into the bright highway of reason and 
 intelligence on which it has marched to triumph 
 until now; — when Shakespeare, with that mar- 
 velous, poetic, creative insight unlocked the se- 
 crets of the human heart, and laid bare all its mo- 
 tives and movements, with a searchlight more 
 keen than that with which the Roentgen rays now 
 inspect the interior of our poor bodies; — when 
 Milton, in lofty tone and noble spirit that lifted 
 the English language among the tongues of men, 
 produced his great book to justify the ways of 
 Grod to man; — ^when Cromwell, by his Ironsides, 
 smote the royal hosts with the sword of the spirit, 
 and lighted an inextinguishable fire of liberty for 
 the Anglo-Saxon race; — when the revisers of the 
 English Bible gathered at Hampton Court at the 
 summons of King James, and gave us that match- 
 less book, the only book, the one book for readers, 
 thinkers, scholars, speakers, men, women and 
 children— if we can have but one book, 0, save us 
 that — when Burke, speaking to empty benches in 
 the House of Commons all those magnificent ora- 
 tions, was teaching all the coming orators of Eng- 
 land and America how to speak; — all these were 
 laying the foundation of education for this child. 
 How well he has followed what they taught, 
 how faithful a pupil he has been at their feet you 
 all know ; and I am certain, if you were to rob him 
 now of the company of these kindred spirits, 
 
 168 
 
DE. STORES 'S JUBILEE 
 
 with whom lie has kept such glad communion for 
 these fifty years, his heart would soon begin to 
 fail. And then, too, we must remember, keeping 
 our eyes outside of Brooklyn still, we must re- 
 member that this man was bom in New England 
 and that she claims her share in this great jubi- 
 lee. Now no man can choose the place of his 
 birth. If we could what a mess of it we should 
 make, and how different our fates would be. But 
 what a great piece of luck it was to be born in 
 Braintree of all places in the world. Suppose 
 this man had had the choice between Brain- 
 tree and Deadwood, and had chosen the wrong 
 place, where would he, where would Brooklyn, 
 where would you have been to-night? The fruit 
 of the brain tree must be reason, knowledge, 
 wisdom, intelligence, invention, fancy, imagina- 
 tion, wit, humor, all those qualities that Cicero 
 enumerates as goiug to make up the perfect ora- 
 tor. Now there are orators and orators. You 
 need not try to tell a Brooklyn audience what a 
 real orator is. They know the real thing by sight 
 and by sound from the other kind, the other kind 
 that we have heard a good deal of lately. In 
 face and figure they are to all outward appear- 
 ance very much alike, but for all other qualities 
 they differ as much from each other as Apollo 
 and Phaethon. 
 
 I would like to tell you a mythological story. 
 I will awaken the tale in your mind where it has 
 been slumbering in the gray matter. It is a theo- 
 logical tale, too. Apollo was the god of the light, 
 
 169 
 
DR. STOEES'S JUBILEE 
 
 the day. Prophecy, poetry and music followed in 
 his train. He drove the fiery steeds of the sun. 
 He kept them well in hand, and as he traversed 
 the lands and the skies he carried light and 
 warmth and order and peace and universal har- 
 mony among gods and men. Phaethon was young, 
 aspiring, scatter brained, and he thought that if 
 he could only drive that fiery team for one day he, 
 too, might sit in the great white palace, and might 
 rule over gods and men. He started out ia the 
 morning on a chariot adventure. Hope elevated, 
 joy lighted his crest. But soon he drove too 
 near the serpent in the hopes of getting the apple 
 from his grasp. The fiery steeds took fright. He 
 lost his head and dropped the reins. His flash- 
 ing wheels set the world on fire. People thought 
 they could see the approaching dissolution of the 
 world beginning to shape itself. They thought 
 that everything was going to the dev— destruc- 
 tion— I meant to say destruction. They went home 
 and told their wives and children they would 
 have to give up everything; that all was lost if 
 Phaethon was not captured. At last a mighty 
 thunderbolt answered their prayer. It was the 
 vox populi vox dei, dashing the mad charioteer 
 from his place. Peace was restored and order, 
 prosperity and everything good went on as be- 
 fore. 
 
 I do not like to go on after my time has come 
 to go off. I wanted to say a word about New 
 England influence. I shall say a serious word. 
 All the generations from the Mayflower down 
 
 170 
 
DR. STOEES'S JUBILEE 
 
 were busy in shaping the future of Dr. Storrs. It 
 was not for nothing that for two centuries they 
 shunned delight and lived laborious days. Their 
 toil, their suffering, their sacrifices, their heroism, 
 their zeal for education at any cost, their fidelity 
 to God, their sense of duty overruling all senses, 
 all appetites, all passions— all these were worked 
 into the strain of descent that was the rich in- 
 heritance of their children. And so I say that 
 when Dr. Storrs came here in the freshness of his 
 manhood and gave himself to this church and to 
 this city, Massachusetts from the landing of the 
 Pilgrims, New England from the beginning came 
 with him and has been represented in him incar- 
 nate here for the last fifty years. 
 
 And then the days that tried men's souls, the 
 revolutionary days, were busy in training him. 
 Why, there is not an event in all that war which 
 was waged for our liberty, that is not as familiar 
 to him as the objects in his study. On the 19th of 
 April his waking dreams are of the lantern hung 
 out from the tower of the old North church. He 
 sees the ride of Paul Eevere, the battle on the 
 ground where his people saw the dawn of Amer- 
 ica and then, going on to Concord, he reads with 
 Emerson how 
 
 By the rude bridge that arched the flood, 
 Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, 
 Here once the embattled farmers stood, 
 And fired the shot heard round the world. 
 On June 17 he stands in imagination on Bunker 
 Hill, where it was first demonstrated that the 
 
 171 
 
DR. STORES 'S JUBILEE 
 
 raw militia of America could withstand the 
 trained veterans of Europe, and he witnesses that 
 retreat more glorious than any victory, and so 
 through all the periods of the war he is abso- 
 lutely at home. 
 
 And then, too, the great civil triumphs he 
 knows of as well. On the Fourth of July he stands 
 under the old liberty bell with John Hancock and 
 his associates as they put their names to the 
 Declaration of Independence. On the 17th of 
 September he stands again in the same spot with 
 Washington, Franklin and Hancock, to sign the 
 great Constitution under which America was to 
 live and be free forever. On the 30th of April he 
 is in fancy in front of the old Federal Hall in 
 Wall Street, and sees the father of his country 
 take his solemn oath ever to support that Con- 
 stitution. 
 
 These things are woven in his brain. But I 
 must keep you no longer from what you have 
 come here to-night to hear, for I believe it was 
 not to hear Mayor Low, nor anything that I 
 could say, but that which attracted you here to- 
 night was the certainty that there would be a 
 response to the citizens of Brooklyn by him who 
 is so dear to all your hearts. Length of days 
 is in the right hand of God. May He pour it out 
 in the fullest measure upon the head of his 
 faithful servant, may he live longer than I have 
 time to tell his years, ever beloved and respected, 
 and as old time shall call him to his end may 
 goodness and he fill up one monument. 
 
 172 
 
OUR PROFESSION 
 
OUR PROFESSION 
 
 An address delivered before the Chicago Bar Association, Friday, 
 February 4, 1898. 
 
 NO language can express my gratitude for 
 your cordial invitation to me — as unex- 
 pected as it was undeserved — or my appreciation 
 of your truly overwhelming hospitality and your 
 enthusiastic greeting. I recognize it as a spon- 
 taneous expression of that hearty sympathy and 
 fraternal good will, which this great and learned 
 and powerful bar of the centre of the continent 
 feels for its brethren in the Atlantic states and 
 in the nation at large. I am a life-long believer 
 in the brotherhood of the American Bar, and so 
 I could not find it in my heart to decline your in- 
 vitation, although to accept it seemed almost to 
 imply that some merit of my own had brought it 
 upon me. 
 
 I had long heard of the unstinted hospitality 
 of Chicago. I fully realized it on my arrival. No 
 sooner had I reached the Auditorium than I was 
 waited upon by the entire press of Chicago in a 
 body. They tendered me the freedom of the city 
 wrapped up in a newspaper. They opened their 
 columns to me to address all mankind freely on ev- 
 ery subject. They were very curious people. Their 
 extreme youth demonstrated the truth of what I 
 
 175 
 
OUE PROFESSION 
 
 had heard, that Chicago relies for its best work 
 upon its young men. Each one of them seemed to 
 carry a kodak in his eye, and they took views of 
 me from every quarter of the world, New York, 
 Washington, Hawaii, Cuba, China and St. Peters- 
 burg. They came within an ace of taking my 
 life. They told me of a thousand incidents in my 
 career which never happened, and put into my 
 mouth a hundred jokes which I never uttered. 
 They told me exactly how much I was worth, 
 which my wife and children will be very glad to 
 hear. At last one of them, more forward than 
 the rest, declared, " "Well, Mr. Choate, you 
 must have attended at least a million dinners." 
 As that, at one dinner a day would carry me back, 
 according to Dr. Schliemann, almost to the 
 Trojan war and make me the pot companion of 
 Agamemnon and Ulysses or of Priam and Hector, 
 I denied the soft impeachment; I told them that 
 my life was altogether quiet and domestic, that I 
 always avoided the scorching glare of publicity, 
 when I could keep in the shade, and that I liked 
 nothing so much as to be let alone. So they kindly 
 took their departure, promising to be with me 
 again to-night, and no doubt every child of them 
 is among us taking notes, and " Faith, he'll print 
 'em." 
 
 As I flew hither on the wings of night, in that 
 marvellous train which brings us in absolute com- 
 fort and luxury a thousand miles in twenty-four 
 hours, through cities, towns and villages teeming 
 with riches and plenty, which to the pioneers of 
 
 176 
 
OUE PEOFESSION 
 
 America would have been a journey of three 
 months through the wilderness, I could not help 
 thinking how time and space between New York 
 and Chicago have utterly vanished ; and how these 
 two greatest cities of the Western Hemisphere 
 are henceforth one in interest, in sympathy, in 
 culture and in duty. The greater New York may 
 not include Chicago within its growing boun- 
 daries, but Chicago, with its far-reaching influ- 
 ence and power, will touch and embrace New York. 
 In one respect you have an immense advantage 
 over us — if New York is our gateway to Europe 
 — Chicago is the gateway. East and West and 
 North and South, not of our nation only, but of 
 the whole continent. As was said of Eome in im- 
 perial days, " all roads lead to Chicago." Here 
 the great throbbing centre sends forth life to the 
 whole body of America. These bands of steel 
 which radiate from here in every direction are 
 the arteries and veins which convey and reconvey 
 the very life blood between the heart of the na- 
 tion and its utmost extremities — ^these tiny 
 threads of wire reaching from Chicago to every 
 city and village and almost literally to every 
 household in the land, constitute the nervous sys- 
 tem which keeps the whole alive with thought and 
 soul and brain. 
 
 One future, one hope, one destiny awaits us 
 all alike — if one section suffers, all the rest will 
 suffer with it — ^if one member perishes the whole 
 body will perish at the same time. And if there 
 is, which I do not believe, a growing jealousy and 
 
 177 
 
OUE PROFESSION 
 
 strain between East and West, Chicago with her 
 equal hold on both must be the mediator, and we 
 of New York may well envy the share which the 
 bar of Chicago will take in such a conciliation. 
 
 When I look around me on this great company 
 of busy and successful lawyers, resting for a mo- 
 ment from their never-ending labors, when I study 
 the lines which time has traced upon their fea- 
 tures, I can easily see that success in our profes- 
 sion rests everywhere upon the same foundation. 
 It is the same old story of the sound mind and 
 the honest heart in the sound body. The sound 
 body is at the bottom of it all. The stomach is 
 indeed the key of all professional eminence. If 
 that goes back on you, you might as well throw 
 up the sponge. And sleep without worry must 
 cherish and nourish it all the time. 
 
 Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care, 
 
 The death of each day's life, 
 
 Sore labor's bath, balm of hurt minds. 
 
 Great nature's second course 
 
 Chief nourisher in life's feast. 
 
 Why should we worry over miseries and trou- 
 bles which concern our clients only, and not us at 
 all? Our entire responsibility ends when we have 
 done our best, and the rest belongs to the judges 
 and juries or the clients themselves, and if we 
 fail the fault lies with the former for being so 
 dull, or so inappreciative of our efforts and argu- 
 ments, or with the latter for having such bad and 
 
 178 
 
OUE PROFESSION 
 
 hopeless cases. Next comes that patient industry 
 which never flinches and never falters. 
 
 And then the ' ' unconquerable will with courage 
 never to submit or yield, ' ' which is success itself. 
 I have known all the leaders who have flourished 
 at the eastern bar for forty years, and most of 
 those from other parts of the country, and al- 
 though no two of them were alike in physical or 
 mental endowments, all agreed in this one moral 
 quality — a grim tenacity of purpose to hang on 
 and hold out through everything and against 
 everything until the end was reached — Then 
 sprinkle in the mental qualities each to suit his 
 own taste, and according to what he happens to 
 have on hand — But last and more than all what 
 Mr. Emerson said of character is far more true 
 in our profession than anywhere else, that char- 
 acter is a far higher power than intellect, and 
 character and conscience in the long run are sure 
 to come out ahead. 
 
 So, if I rightly read your lineaments, this great 
 bar of Chicago is built up on health, industry, 
 courage, brains, character and conscience, and 
 must hold its own against the world. 
 
 When I recall some of the great names that 
 have graced and ennobled the legal annals of this 
 City and State, first and foremost always, the im- 
 mortal Lincoln, who by sheer force of his intellect, 
 in spite of every possible disadvantage, became 
 eminent in his profession here, and then by genius 
 in debate exposed to the listening nation the fatal 
 question on which its destiny hung, and at last 
 
 179 
 
OUE PROFESSION 
 
 by the matchless power of his sublime character 
 carried it through blood and fire to the trium- 
 phant solution of that question — to a Union never 
 again to be shaken, because founded on absolute 
 and equal justice to men of every color, race and 
 creed, and to that new birth of freedom which he 
 proclaimed at Grettysburg. And again, when I 
 recall the name of Lyman Trumbull, through a 
 long life a great champion in the legal arena, and 
 who once in the very prime of his life and the 
 summit of his powers, had the good fortune to 
 render a great service to his country, when, be- 
 lieving as he did that the great executive office of 
 the nation itself was on trial, he cast a decisive 
 vote to preserve it, although at the sacrifice of his 
 political prospects and power, — ^When I remem- 
 ber the brilliant and accomplished Wirt Dexter, 
 who transplanted from the old Bay State the 
 prestige and tradition of a family of great law- 
 yers and maintained it here with new and undi- 
 minished lustre — and then your own Goudy, so 
 lately lost and so lamented, not here only, but 
 wherever the capacity to solve great questions 
 and handle great affairs, by skill, by tact, by 
 wisdom and by learning, was appreciated and 
 honored. When I recall the signal service to the 
 nation and to human welfare which the courts of 
 this region, both State and Federal, have ren- 
 dered — how when anarchy seemed on the point 
 of gaining the mastery they have mastered it — 
 by courage, by reason, by the intrepid exercise 
 of the judicial power, without regard to personal 
 
 180 
 
OUR PROFESSION 
 
 danger or consequences, and how by the steady 
 and wise labor of half a century they have built 
 up your system of law and equity to a height 
 which commands respect and authority in all 
 places and in all courts — ^I feel that New York 
 can look to Chicago and Illinois for light and lead- 
 ing, with the same faith and confidence that you 
 in turn look back to her. 
 
 When I contemplate your wonderful city, and 
 contrast it with what it was when I first saw it 
 forty-three years ago, when it had but 80,000 in- 
 habitants, and its streets were almost submerged 
 beneath the waters of the lake — when I survey its 
 commerce, its manufactures, its parks and muse- 
 ums and charities, its grand boulevards, its 
 splendid architecture and towering edifices — 
 above all when I see, to use the language of Burke, 
 how population shoots in this quarter of the land, 
 I can realize how it was that the people of New 
 York City, alarmed at your progress and jealous 
 of your mighty strides to power, hit upon the 
 scheme of Greater New York in the vain hope of 
 keeping ahead of Chicago. They heard that your 
 population was doubling every ten years — that 
 your area was expanding to an extent as bound- 
 less as the prairies that surround it — that you 
 had more money than you knew what to do with, 
 and were already becoming the bankers and 
 money lenders of Europe, and they determined 
 by the artificial scheme of annexation to circum- 
 vent you — ^vain hope and foolish expectation. 
 You will go on as you have before and continued 
 
 181 
 
OUE PROFESSION 
 
 until now. Here is to be the favorite home of 
 the new American, that composite creature in 
 whose veins the mingled strains of all the scat- 
 tered branches of the Aryan race unite, with 
 whose energy and daring and speed and wind and 
 bottom, the tired cities of the East will strive in 
 vain to keep an even pace. 
 
 We are all lawyers here to-night, and by cour- 
 tesy we may for the occasion include even the 
 judges as members of our craft. Although they 
 have soared aloft on silken wings to a higher and 
 nobler sphere, they are not unwilling to return 
 to us on nights like this, as the retired tallow 
 chandler was wont to return to the shop on melt- 
 ing days. How delightful it is to meet them on an 
 even keel and at short range and speak our minds 
 freely without any fear of being committed for 
 contempt. There's a divinity that doth hedge a 
 judge, I know, but to-night the hedge is down and 
 they are very fair game indeed. 
 
 Let me speak of our noble profession and of 
 some of the reasons we have for loving and hon- 
 oring it — above all others. 
 
 In the first place, I maintain that in no other 
 occupation to which men can devote their lives, is 
 there a nobler intellectual pursuit, or a higher 
 moral standard, than that which inspires and per- 
 vades the ranks of the legal profession. To estab- 
 lish justice, to maintain the rights of men, to 
 defend the helpless and oppressed, to succor in- 
 nocence and to punish guilt, to aid in the solution 
 of those great questions, legal and constitutional, 
 
 182 
 
OUE PROFESSION 
 
 which are constantly being evolved from the ever 
 varying affairs and business of men — are duties 
 that may well challenge the best powers of man 's 
 intellect and the noblest qualities of the human 
 heart. I do not, of course, mean to say that 
 among the ninety thousand lawyers whom the 
 census counts in our seventy millions of people, 
 there is not much base alloy — I speak of that 
 great body of active and laborious practitioners 
 upon whom rests the responsibility of substantial 
 litigations and the conduct and guidance of im- 
 portant affairs; you will look in vain elsewhere 
 for more spotless honor, more absolute devotion, 
 more patient industry, more conscientious fidelity 
 than among these. 
 
 I am not unmindful of that ever-mooted ques- 
 tion, how we can, with the strictest honor, main- 
 tain the side that is wrong, and the suggestion 
 that as only one side can be right in every law- 
 suit, we must half the time be struggling for in- 
 justice. But that vexed question has long been 
 settled by the common sense of mankind. It is 
 only out of the contest of facts and of brains 
 that the right can ever be evolved — only on the 
 anvil of discussion that the spark of truth can 
 be struck out. Perfect justice, as Judge Story 
 said, " Belongs to one judgment seat only — to 
 that which is linked to the throne of God — but 
 human tribunals can never do justice and decide 
 for the right until both sides have been fully 
 heard. ' ' When Jeremiah Evarts, the father of my 
 great master in the law, and himself a truly great 
 
 183 
 
OUE PROFESSION 
 
 and righteous man, had graduated from Yale and 
 was considering the law as his profession, this 
 same question disturbed his honest and conscien- 
 tious mind, and he consulted Judge Ellsworth, 
 afterwards Chief Justice of the United States, 
 who solved his doubts by advising him that any 
 cause that was fit for any court to hear was fit 
 for any lawyer to present on either side, and 
 that neither judge nor counsel had the right to 
 prejudge the case until both sides had been heard, 
 and he told him of Sir Matthew Hale, one of the 
 most righteous lawyers and judges in English his- 
 tory, who began with the same misgivings, but 
 modified his views when several causes that he 
 had condemned and rejected proved finally to be 
 good. 
 
 Nor is ours the only profession in which the 
 same question has been agitated, for we read 
 in the life of John Milton that when his good 
 old father had lavished a good part of his fortune 
 upon his education at Cambridge until he had 
 taken his degree of master of arts, having no 
 other thought than that his son should devote his 
 great character, intellect and eloquence to the 
 church — the youthful poet after a full study of 
 the question decided for himself that he could not 
 enter a profession which would require him to 
 advocate what he did not believe to be true. 
 
 Again, we love the law because among all the 
 learned professions, it is the one that involves 
 the study and the pursuit of a stable and 
 exact science. Theology, it is true, was once con- 
 
 184 
 
OUE PEOFESSION 
 
 sidered an immutable science — but how has it 
 changed from age to age and even from year to 
 year. We were bred to believe that everything and 
 every word within the four corners of Holy Writ 
 was absolutely inspired truth. But now upon 
 what unhappy times have we fallen, in which the 
 props of our faith are being knocked from under 
 us, day by day. Only a month or so ago the pas- 
 tor of Plymouth Church announced that the sacred 
 story of Jonah and the whale was only a myth, 
 that the whale did not swallow Jonah or hold him 
 in his stomach for three days or vomit him up on 
 the shore at all — and so that charming narrative, 
 to which we had pinned our faith in youth and 
 manhood as one inspired piece of history which 
 we could and must believe, vanished forever from 
 our mental vision. 
 
 Not to be outdone by Dr. Abbott, another of 
 our metropolitan divines has declared that in the 
 deluge the waters did not cover the whole earth, 
 and so we must abandon the delightful and 
 tragic drama which has fascinated the world for 
 thousands of years, of Noah and the ark, and 
 the destruction of the wicked, and the dove and 
 the olive branch, and the only true theory of 
 the invention of the rainbow. And last of all a 
 distinguished bishop announces at a public 
 dinner that nowadays nobody but printers be- 
 lieve in the existence of a personal devil. Why, 
 without him, where shall we be? And who will 
 foment the litigations for our successors to con- 
 duct or to settle? And now it only remains for 
 
 185 
 
OUE PROFESSION 
 
 some great Chicago divine to discover tbat Nebu- 
 chadnezzar did not really eat grass — that his skin 
 was not really wet with the dews of heaven, until 
 his hair became as eagles ' feathers, and his nails 
 as birds' claws. So will the foundations of our 
 faith be utterly destroyed, and we can no longer 
 cherish that signal chapter of religious history, 
 which has come to us straight from Babylon to 
 Chicago, and which was at the same time one of 
 the greatest political triumphs on record — and 
 worthy of perpetual imitation, for how can we 
 better dispose of our oppressors, of our unjust 
 rulers, governors, judges, senators, than by turn- 
 ing them out to grass? 
 
 And then as to medicine, how its practice and 
 its theories succeed each other in rapid revolu- 
 tion, so that what were good methods and healing 
 doses, and saving prescriptions a generation ago, 
 are now condemned as poisons and nostrums, and 
 all the past is adjudged to be empirical. 
 
 Meanwhile, *' the common law, like a nursing 
 father, makes void the part where the fault is and 
 preserves the rest," as it has been doing for cen- 
 turies, and we are busy applying to each new 
 case as it arises, the same principles, the same 
 rules of right and justice, which have been estab- 
 lished for many generations. We preserve the 
 real fruit and throw away the rind. The techni- 
 calities which have too long encrusted the law 
 have been stripped away, and now, like Lord 
 Mansfield, our judges try to solve every case by 
 common sense and the sense of justice, and the 
 
 186 
 
OUB PROFESSION 
 
 sense of honor, whicli, in their highest manifesta- 
 tion, constitute the most eminent and valuable 
 judicial qualities. 
 
 We hear sometimes that the American Bar has 
 degenerated, that it does not equal its predeces- 
 sors in power and character and influence, but this 
 I utterly deny. To the demands which each gen- 
 eration makes upon it, it is always adequate. 
 Times change and men change with them. The 
 intense pressure of modern life and business 
 leaves its mark upon our profession, as upon 
 every other vocation. What once could be said in 
 three days must now be said in two hours — what 
 once could be done in a month must now be done 
 in a day, and for one I do not hesitate to say that 
 for skill, efficiency, utility and power, the service 
 which our profession lends to the community to- 
 day has not been surpassed in any former genera- 
 tion. It must be so. Take from the Bar of New 
 York, as it stands, a hundred of its leading practi- 
 tioners in court and in office, and fifty of equal 
 rank from the Bar of Chicago, and they will do 
 more and better work than any equal number in 
 any past age. 
 
 So when these carpers who would laud the past 
 at the expense of the present, ask me if the Bench 
 of to-day is what it was in the olden time, I an- 
 swer No, it is better qualified for the work it has 
 to do than any of the old judges would have been. 
 The Bench, like the Bar of every generation, is 
 evolved from the character and condition of the 
 age and the demands which it makes upon the 
 
 187 
 
OUE PEOFESSION 
 
 profession. Take the Supreme Court of the 
 United States as the most striking and illustrious 
 example. When John Jay, the first chief justice, 
 presided, the court was almost always adjourned 
 because there were no cases to be heard. All the 
 time that Marshall presided the records were 
 never printed — the original manuscript record 
 was handed along the bench for the several judges 
 to examine. Webster and Pinkney and their com- 
 peers would go in from the senate to the court, 
 which sat three days in the week, and agree upon 
 a day for argument two or three months ahead, 
 and then appear and argue without limit of time — 
 two or three days apiece, as the case might be. 
 Arguments concluded, Marshall and Story could 
 take the great cases to Eichmond and to Salem, 
 and have weeks or months to prepare those 
 learned and elaborate opinions which really laid 
 the foundations of our Federal law, and settled 
 the Constitution upon an imperishable basis. 
 Now, steam and electricity and the telegraph and 
 telephone and the intense pressure of business 
 which has grown out of these, have changed the 
 whole order of things, and I prefer to adapt the 
 question to the changed conditions and to turn it 
 end for end and to ask: Could Marshall and 
 Story and their associates, if now summoned to 
 the task, do the work which Fuller and Harlan 
 and their associates discharge so ably, so conscien- 
 tiously and so well? The question answers itself: 
 Let the dead past bury its dead. Gathering all 
 the light it can from the past, and responsible to 
 
 188 
 
OUR PROFESSION 
 
 the future for the results of its conduct, the living 
 present suffices for its own work. 
 
 There is one respect, I admit, in which we have 
 declined, and which for one I do greatly deplore 
 — the cultivation of the fraternal and social spirit 
 among ourselves has heen almost abandoned, and 
 it ought to be revived and transmitted. In thirty 
 years we have had but two Bar dinners in New 
 York, and our younger brethren only know by 
 tradition how those who preceded us mitigated 
 the austerity of the law by constant social festivi- 
 ties — how they went on circuit as a band of broth- 
 ers — and however lustily they might contend in 
 the court room, outside of it they were boon 
 companions. 
 
 Our English brethren set us a most worthy 
 example in this regard. 
 
 In Shakespeare's time, when he haunted the 
 Mermaid Tavern in company with Ben Jonson, 
 he saw the barristers come in from the courts, and 
 from what he saw he puts into the mouth of Tra- 
 nio in the Taming of the Shrew: 
 
 Please ye we may contrive this afternoon, 
 And quaff carouses to our Mistress' health, 
 And do as adversaries do in law — 
 Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends. 
 
 The Inns of Court have been the scenes of con- 
 stant daily intercourse, and not rarely of the most 
 jovial festivities. From the times of Charles the 
 First, when they contrived their great historic 
 masque for the entertainment of the king and 
 
 189 
 
OUE PROFESSION 
 
 queen at court, a jollification in which the greatest 
 barristers of the day, such as Hyde, afterwards 
 Earl of Clarendon, and John Selden, whose de- 
 lightful table talk has come down to us through 
 two centuries and a half, and Attorney General 
 Noy and BuUstrode Whitlock, took an active part, 
 down to the days of Lord Coleridge and Sir 
 Charles Russell, and Sir Frank Lockwood, whose 
 recent death, so untimely and so lamented, has 
 been a serious loss to the profession, both here 
 and there, the London barristers have been the 
 lights of each succeeding age — the leaven that 
 leavened the whole lump of English life and so- 
 ciety. 
 
 Let us imitate a little more their bright and 
 shining example — ^let us lead lives less dry — 
 less sterile — ^less a matter of pure and unmiti- 
 gated business — let us each ride not only a horse, 
 but a hobby, also — above all, let us get all the 
 entertainment we can out of our work as we go 
 along, for we may rest assured that if we post- 
 pone the fun of life until the work is done it will 
 never come, for it will find us as dry and dusty 
 as so many remainder biscuits after a voyage. So 
 I trust that we in New York shall imitate your 
 example, and that this occasion may be only the 
 beginning of a real interchange of a living broth- 
 erhood between the Bar Associations of our two 
 great and noble cities. 
 
 But there is one respect in which the American 
 Bar has far outshone not only its brethren in 
 England, but in every other country of modern 
 
 190 
 
OUR PROFESSION 
 
 times. I mean in its great share in the conduct 
 and shaping of public affairs. In all our history, 
 among the gallant champions of liberty, the wise 
 founders of free states, the framers and defend- 
 ers of free constitutions and of the rights of the 
 people under them, the lawyers of America have 
 ever been foremost. I refer not now to official 
 life, though all the great civil offices. State and 
 Federal, have always been, are now, and always 
 must and will be, to a large degree filled from 
 their ranks — ^but I speak of that lofty public and 
 patriotic spirit for the people 's good, which ought 
 to animate the heart of every lawyer worthy of 
 the name. When James Otis resigned his rich 
 office as croAvn advocate, to maintain the cause 
 of the merchants and the people of Boston against 
 the oppression of general warrants, refusing all 
 rewards, saying, " in such a cause I despise all 
 fees," and delivered in the old State House that 
 great plea for popular rights, so telling, so over- 
 whelming, that John Adams, who was present, 
 declared long afterwards that on that day and in 
 that room " the child Independence was born," 
 he set the pace for all the future lawyers of 
 America. When John Adams and Josiah Quincy, 
 Jr., braved the popular wrath in their successful 
 defense of Captain Preston and his British sol- 
 diers for their part in the Boston massacre — and 
 when Patrick Henry, in that little court-house in 
 Virginia, argued the Parsons' cause, and dis- 
 played for the first time his transcendent power 
 as the people 's orator, they embodied that public 
 
 191 
 
OUR PROFESSION 
 
 spirit which has animated the patriotism of the 
 profession ever since. 
 
 I believe that with one consent the common 
 judgment of mankind would point to Hamilton, 
 Webster and Lincoln as the three American law- 
 yers whose actual public services had most largely 
 contributed to the formation and preservation of 
 the Constitution, on whose continuance the hopes 
 of civil liberty for all coming time depend. God 
 made them greater than the rest, and the oppor- 
 tunities came to them for great achievements 
 which found each in turn ready and able for the 
 service demanded. Hamilton's creative genius 
 was displayed in the part he took in framing the 
 Constitution, and again in securing its adoption, 
 and finally in launching the new government in 
 practical and successful operation under it, which 
 probably surpasses any political service ever 
 rendered by one man in our national history. To 
 Webster I ascribe a share second to that of no 
 other man in the final triumph of the Constitution 
 and the Union over all their foes. It has been 
 the fashion of late years to belittle him because 
 of the infirmities of his declining years, but for 
 two entire generations he was at all times and 
 in all places inculcating in the breasts of the 
 youth of America that ardent patriotism which in- 
 spired his own — that devotion to the flag which 
 would compel them to follow it wherever freedom 
 led and to the Union one and inseparable. So 
 that at last when the fatal summons from Sumter 
 sounded, though dead, he yet spoke to them, his 
 
 192 
 
OUE PEOFESSION 
 
 heart, which had warmed, his brain, which had 
 illuminated New England for them and their fath- 
 ers seemed to live once more — and under his in- 
 spiration still they marched to death or to victory 
 — but at all hazards as he had taught them to save 
 the Union without which all else was lost. 
 
 Of Lincoln, why should I try to say more in 
 this presence, or in this city or state? History 
 has long since decided that to him under God the 
 world owes it, that government of the people by 
 the people and for the people has not perished 
 from the earth. A thousand years from now his 
 name will stand as bright as to-day as the syno- 
 nym of freedom and free government. Oppor- 
 tunities such as these three great representatives 
 enjoyed and improved may not come to every or 
 to any generation of American lawyers. But at 
 all times, and especially in this our day, great 
 public duties await us. So long as the Supreme 
 Court exists to be attacked and defended — that 
 sheet anchor of our liberties and of our govern- 
 ment — so long as the public credit and good faith 
 of this great nation are in peril — so long as the 
 right of property which lies at the root of all civil 
 government is scouted, and the three inalienable 
 rights to life, to liberty and the pursuit of happi- 
 ness, which the Declaration of Independence pro- 
 claimed and the Constitution has guaranteed alike 
 against the action of Congress and of the States, 
 are in jeopardy, so long will great public service 
 be demanded of the Bar. 
 
 Let us magnify our calling. Let us be true to 
 193 
 
OUE PROFESSION 
 
 these great occasions, and respond with all our 
 might to these great demands, so that when our 
 work is done, of us at least it may be said that we 
 transmitted our profession to our successors as 
 great, as useful and as spotless as it came to our 
 hands. 
 
 194 
 
TEIAL BY JJTRYi 
 
TRIAL BY JURY 
 
 Address delivered before the American Bar Association, Saratoga, 
 August IS, 1898. 
 
 WE meet at a most auspicious moment. Since 
 this Association last assembled for its 
 annual conference tlie nation has been engaged 
 in a war which has absorbed all thoughts, and 
 necessarily distracted us from those peaceful pur- 
 poses which annually bring us together. But now, 
 with unexpected suddenness, at the cost of great 
 treasure and much precious blood of our heroes, 
 the truly noble object of the war has been accom- 
 plished, and peace is already in sight. It might 
 perhaps be expected that in accepting the very 
 great honor of delivering the annual address pro- 
 vided by your constitution, I should enter upon 
 a discussion of some of those important questions 
 which must arise out of the consequences and re- 
 sults of the war. 
 
 It is obvious that all such questions, as they 
 arise, must naturally engage the best thought 
 and the noblest and most patriotic exertions of 
 our profession, which has always exercised a 
 controlling influence upon controversies about 
 Constitutional power and national policy, and to 
 whose special keeping is entrusted the study of 
 those principles of right and justice, which must 
 
 197 
 
TEIAL BY JURY 
 
 govern the conduct of nations, as well as of the 
 individuals who compose them. 
 
 At all the great and critical points of our 
 national progress the American Bar has found 
 its appropriate spokesman for the public 
 honor and the public safety. When Otis, against 
 the malignant power of the British Crown, 
 pleaded for the right of every citizen to be 
 secure against tyranny in his person, his home 
 and his papers, and set the ball of freedom 
 rolling — ^when Henry led the friends of Colonial 
 rights in Virginia and shook the Continent by 
 the thunder of his eloquence — ^when Hamilton 
 by the main strength of his arguments car- 
 ried the Federal Constitution against a defiant 
 majority in the New York Convention — ^when 
 Webster by his majestic speech inculcated in the 
 hearts of Americans that flaming spirit of nation- 
 ality which saved the Union twice and will pre- 
 serve it forever ; — when Fessenden and Trumbull 
 sacrificed their political fortunes to rescue the 
 great office of the Federal Executive from de- 
 struction, they furnished examples for the law- 
 yers of all times to stand at all hazards for public 
 justice and for public honor. 
 
 But it seems to me that it would be out of 
 place for us to-day to undertake to pronounce, 
 as the organized representatives of the Amer- 
 ican Bar, upon the possible, but as yet unformu- 
 lated, questions in diplomacy, in policy, and in 
 public law, which will naturally follow upon such 
 a momentous struggle and such overwhelming 
 
 ]98 
 
TRIAL BY JUEY 
 
 victories by sea and land. In the meantime, I 
 prefer, as I hope you prefer, to rely upon the 
 wisdom and the patience, the courage and the 
 firmness, of the President and his constitutional 
 advisers, who have conducted the campaigns of 
 our gallant army and navy to swift and sweep- 
 ing victory. 
 
 You will remember that only two years ago in 
 this very presence, the Lord Chief Justice of 
 England, in his admirable discourse before you on 
 arbitration, declared, with your unanimous ap- 
 proval, that there may be even greater calamities 
 than war, and that national dishonor is one of 
 them. Nothing can be more certain now, than 
 that we should have incurred real national dis- 
 honor if we had any longer refrained from inter- 
 vening for the rescue of our oppressed and down- 
 trodden neighbors. In that intervention war was 
 the last argument and the only really effective 
 one. The God of Battles and the judgment of the 
 Nations have completely vindicated that step, and 
 I have no fear that ambition for dominion or lust 
 of glory will bring upon us any calamity or dis- 
 honor whatever. 
 
 In truth, the generous, the magnanimous terms 
 of peace offered to our fallen and prostrate foes 
 have already demonstrated that. The Constitu- 
 tional Power to declare war is in Congress, but 
 the equally important power to make peace rests 
 with the President, subject to the subse- 
 quent approval of the Senate as to the terms of 
 the treaty. It rests safely with him, and 
 
 199 
 
TRIAL BY JURY 
 
 for one I am not in favor of intruding upon him 
 too much outside advice and assistance. The war, 
 of course, could not cease until every foot of 
 American soil was purged of the last vestige of 
 Spanish power ; but in war, as in law, the beaten 
 party must pay the costs, and in settling the 
 terms of peace, we meet novel problems and seri- 
 ous and unexpected responsibilities, which the 
 triumph of our arms has imposed upon us in both 
 hemispheres. These responsibilities we cannot 
 shirk if we would, and would not if we could, and 
 in dealing with them the government must not 
 be held too rigidly to purposes and expectations 
 declared before the commencement of the war, 
 and in utter ignorance of its possible results. 
 
 If that had been the rule, our fathers would 
 never have been permitted to declare and main- 
 tain their independence, for it was only a month 
 before the battle of Lexington, that Frank- 
 lin declared to Lord Chatham that he had 
 travelled far and wide in America and had 
 found not one man, drunk or sober, who was 
 in favor of independence. If that had been 
 the rule, the proclamation of emancipation could 
 never have been issued, and the shame of 
 slavery would still blot the stars upon our flag; 
 — for at the outset nothing was more distinctly 
 declared by Lincoln and his advisers, than that 
 slavery, where it existed, would not be interfered 
 with. In war, events change the situation very 
 rapidly, and only when the end crowns the work 
 shall we truly comprehend the great questions 
 
 200 
 
TRIAL BY JURY 
 
 which await us. In the meantime, let us trust the 
 President, who has our national honor most truly 
 and wisely at heart. 
 
 Recurring, then, to the more strictly profes- 
 sional objects of our meeting, and selecting a topic 
 pertaining to the science of jurisprudence, which 
 this Association was organized to promote, I have 
 thought that you would indulge me for a brief 
 hour in considering a subject to which I could 
 bring at least the results and convictions of a 
 large experience, and which I have greatly at 
 heart — a subject so trite, that perhaps nothing 
 new can be said about it, which has been more dis- 
 cussed than any other, but which yet remains a 
 subject of ever fresh and vital interest to every 
 American lawyer and citizen — ^the trial by jury. 
 
 Since you last met, a thrilling event of prime 
 importance in its relations to jurisprudence has 
 occurred in France, which must have arrested the 
 attention of every thoughtful observer, and have 
 led especially those sagacious theorists, who have 
 never tired of denouncing trial by jury, and those 
 experimental philosophers and legislators who 
 are always seeking to limit or to mutilate it, or 
 tamper with it in some way or other, to recon- 
 sider the matter and to think once more whether 
 we should not do better to let it alone, or only 
 sustain and improve it so as to preserve it invio- 
 late, as the Constitution of the United States and 
 those of most of the States require. 
 
 You will readily recall the main incidents of the 
 trial of Zola, An army officer belonging to a race 
 
 201 
 
TEIAL BY JURY 
 
 obnoxious to the hatred and jealousy of the 
 French people, accused of an infamous crime, 
 hounded by a licentious press, had been tried and 
 convicted by a court martial, and after the most 
 shameful degradation, had been condemned for 
 life to solitary confinement upon a rock in the sea, 
 eating out his heart with despair more biting than 
 the talons of the vulture or the beak of the eagle. 
 He protested his innocence, and scores of the best 
 men in France declared their faith in it also, 
 among them statesmen and oiScials of high rank 
 and character, and before long it became apparent 
 that, whether guilty or innocent, he had been con- 
 demned practically unheard, and the Government 
 declared that " reasons of State " forbade that 
 the truth should be known. 
 
 It was at this point that Zola, the most noto- 
 rious at least, if not the most powerful, of 
 French writers, with a courage and a chivalry 
 never surpassed, took up the unhappy victim's 
 cause, proclaimed his innocence, and chal- 
 lenged the authorities to bring himself to trial 
 for his accusation against the court mar- 
 tial, which, as he declared, had covered the ille- 
 gality of the conviction of Dreyfus by the judicial 
 crime of consciously acquitting the real criminal. 
 
 The government took up the challenge, and then 
 followed a trial, which, for reckless and cruel dis- 
 regard of every principle of right and justice 
 known to us, is surely without a precedent in mod- 
 ern history, and yet it purported to be a jury 
 trial. A jury was sworn, but apparently its sole 
 
 202 
 
TRIAL BY JURY 
 
 function was to register the edict of the govern- 
 ment, the army and the press, which demanded 
 conviction. Of course, the defendant was pre- 
 sumed to be guilty until he should prove himself 
 to be innocent, but every effort of himself and his 
 counsel to elicit the truth was thwarted. A hos- 
 tile audience, with which the court room was 
 packed, was permitted to cover the accused with 
 contumely. " Conspuez Zola! " greeted his en- 
 trance. Invective from Court, prosecutor and 
 witnesses took the place of evidence and argu- 
 ment. There was no right of cross-examination, 
 no law of evidence; witnesses who were sum- 
 moned defiantly stayed away ; those who came re- 
 fused to testify further than they chose, and were 
 suffered to harangue the jury for the prisoner 
 and against the prisoner, and ' ' retired amid irre- 
 pressible applause." Hearsay was the main 
 staple of the proceedings. A perfect pandemo- 
 nium prevailed throughout the trial, and at the 
 end of two weeks, as everybody had known from 
 the beginning, the heroic defendant was convicted 
 and sentenced, and his principal witnesses were 
 degraded or dismissed from the public services.* 
 However satisfactory such a method of admin- 
 istering criminal justice may be to the French 
 people, who cling to it through all changes of gov- 
 ernment, it could not but excite horror and dis- 
 gust throughout the Anglo-Saxon world. The 
 proceedings were read wherever Zola's fascin- 
 
 * ' ' Zola, Dreyfus, and the Republic, " by F. W. Whitbridge : 
 Political Science Quarterly, June, 1898, page 159. 
 
 203 
 
TEIAL BY JUEY 
 
 ating romances had preceded them. Every safe- 
 guard of personal liberty enjoyed in England and 
 America for two centuries had been violated. We 
 could not read the account of the trial without 
 contrasting it with our own trial by jury, or with- 
 out the pious utterance from every lip, " Thank 
 God! I am an American." 
 
 Heroic Zola ! It is pleasant to think of him en- 
 joying the free air of Switzerland after all, having 
 taken French leave of his country, instead of rot- 
 ting in the dungeon to which her despotism under 
 a republican mask would have consigned him. 
 
 This signal event, so shocking to our sense of 
 justice and right, has done more, I am happy to 
 believe, than whole volumes of argument to 
 strengthen and perpetuate our faith in our wholly 
 different system of procedure for the ascertain- 
 ment of facts on which life, liberty or property 
 are to be brought in judgment. It will help to pre- 
 serve in its integrity our precious trial by jury, 
 by which no man can be deprived of life or liberty 
 by the sentence of a court until his guilt has been 
 proved beyond all reasonable doubt to the unani- 
 mous satisfaction of twelve of his fellow citizens, 
 and no man can lose reputation or property by 
 judgment of a court, until by a clear preponder- 
 ance of evidence his right to it has been disproved 
 before a similar tribunal. 
 
 I do not appeal to mere sentiment or popular 
 prejudice in defence of this, which I believe to be 
 the best method yet devised for the determination 
 of disputed questions of fact in the administra- 
 
 204 
 
TEIAL BY JURY 
 
 tion of justice. There is no need of such appeals 
 — and if I were weak enough to resort to them, 
 they would be wasted upon an assemblage of law- 
 yers like this. 
 
 The truth is, however, that the jury system is so 
 fixed as an essential part of our political institu- 
 tions ; it has proved itself to be such an invaluable 
 security for the enjoyment of life, liberty and 
 property for so many centuries; it is so justly 
 appreciated as the best and perhaps the only 
 known means of admitting the people to a share, 
 and maintaining their wholesome interest in the 
 administration of justice ; it is such an indispens- 
 able factor in educating them in their personal 
 and civil rights ; it affords such a school and train- 
 ing in the law to the profession itself; and is so 
 imbedded in our Constitutions, which, as I have 
 said, declare that it shall remain forever invio- 
 late, requiring a convention or an amendment to 
 alter it — that there can be no substantial ground 
 for fear that any of us will live to see the people 
 consent to give it up. 
 
 For the trial of persons charged with crimes, I 
 do not believe that any material alteration of its 
 character will ever be adopted. It is so much 
 better that ten guilty men should escape than 
 that one innocent man should suffer. In truth, in 
 these days of multiplied statutory crimes and mis- 
 demeanors, a large majority of guilty men do 
 escape by not being found out, by not being ac- 
 cused, by not being brought to trial after indict- 
 ment, and largely, too, by setting aside the ver- 
 
 2C3 
 
TEIAL BY JURY 
 
 diet by Courts of Appeals, so that our established 
 public policy seems to lean against any harsh or 
 rigid or arbitrary application of the criminal 
 laws. 
 
 But accepting, as we must, the rule that the de- 
 fendant 's guilt must be established beyond all 
 reasonable doubt before he can be convicted, it is 
 hard to see how, as long as three, or two, or one 
 honest man on the jury has a reasonable doubt, 
 the prisoner can justly be deprived of the benefit 
 of it without destroying our cardinal rule. But 
 the insuperable answer to any change so far as 
 criminal trials are concerned, is the question what 
 substitute will you provide — and none has ever 
 been suggested that would command the approval 
 of lawyers or of laymen. 
 
 Let me call your attention to two cases in the 
 Court of Appeals in New York, which will illus- 
 trate the necessity of the absolute inviolability of 
 the jury in criminal cases for which I contend, 
 one of long standing, and one just announced, both 
 of which resulted in the reversal of convictions 
 for murder, and which must, as I believe, com- 
 mend themselves to general approval. In the cele- 
 brated Ccmcemi case,* a juror being taken ill and 
 unable to go on with the trial, the Government 
 and the prisoner's counsel in his presence con- 
 sented that the case should go on to a verdict with 
 the remaining eleven jurors, and the defendant 
 was convicted — but the Court reversed, upon the 
 ground that a jury of eleven was a tribunal for 
 
 * People vs. Cancemi, 18 N. Y. 128. 
 206 
 
TRIAL BY JUEY 
 
 the trial of felony tmknown to the common law, 
 and that it was too dangerous a precedent to estab- 
 lish. It held that the public had a vital and in- 
 alienable interest in the preservation intact of 
 this constitutional tribunal, which it had created 
 for the trial of crimes — that if the prisoner could 
 waive one juror he could waive eleven, and create 
 a tribunal of his own ; and then, how could a man 
 on trial for his life be competent to determine on 
 the sudden as to the wisdom or safety of going on 
 with a juror lost, and who else could be empow- 
 ered to decide for him? The other was the Shel- 
 don case,* decided but yesterday, where the trial 
 judge kept the jury out eighty-four hours and so 
 compelled a conviction, and the Court of Appeals 
 reversed on the ground that the prisoner was 
 convicted by force and not by reason or evidence ; 
 a result which all the world must approve. 
 
 There is one serious infirmity in trial by jury 
 in criminal cases in times of great excitement, 
 especially when the more boisterous portion of 
 the press undertakes, as it generally does, to pre- 
 judge the case and to condemn the accused un- 
 heard. The jury, under such circumstances, find 
 it hard to resist the impression of public senti- 
 ment so loudly proclaimed. The courage and 
 firmness which stood as an effectual barrier 
 against the wrath and tyranny of kings, and which 
 won for the petit jury so much of its prestige and 
 glory in English history, are certainly likely at 
 times to fail, when confronting the outraged sen- 
 
 * People vs. Sheldon, 156 N. Y. 268. 
 207 
 
TRIAL BY JURY 
 
 timent of that more potent and dangerous despot, 
 an enraged democracy. 
 
 Fortunately, such tempests of popular fury 
 are very rarely directed against innocence, and 
 other tribunals do not withstand their fury 
 while the storm lasts, any better than the jury. 
 Judges of the first instance, and even the local 
 tribunals of appeal, have been found equally 
 powerless to stem the tide. Study the reports 
 of our own Court of Appeals in recent years, 
 and you will find more than one instance of pub- 
 lic wrath in our great metropolis, fanned into 
 a devouring flame by some lawless newspapers 
 and a somewhat lawless investigating commit- 
 tee, where the trial Court, unconsciously in- 
 fluenced and loudly sustained by public opinion, 
 committed fatal errors against the prisoner, which 
 were confirmed by the local tribunal of appeal, 
 and it was only when the storm had passed and 
 the atmosphere cooled, that the Court of last re- 
 sort, sitting in the remote capital, corrected the 
 error, and each time with the unfortunate result 
 than an apparently guilty prisoner, who had been 
 convicted upon illegal evidence or rulings, escaped 
 altogether. 
 
 One other charge against trial by jury in crimi- 
 nal cases is the possibility of corruption and brib- 
 ery of individual jurors. But in my judgment, 
 the common estimate of the extent of this danger 
 is greatly exaggerated. There are but a few well 
 authenticated cases of such crimes in the jury 
 box. I have had little to do with the trial of 
 
 208 
 
TRIAL BY JURY 
 
 criminal cases, but in an experience of more than 
 forty years in the trial of civil cases before juries, 
 I cannot recall one case where I had reason to 
 believe that corruption or bribery had reached a 
 single juror. And if you can show me a few 
 authentic cases of such infamy in the jury box, 
 I will undertake to match them with an equal 
 number of similar crimes committed by judges 
 who have been properly exposed and punished. 
 
 No! with all its defects and faults, which can- 
 not be denied or disguised, there is no danger of 
 trial by jury in criminal cases being supplanted 
 in the confidence of the American people — nor has 
 any possible substitute for it ever been seriously 
 suggested. 
 
 It is for the integrity, efficiency and utility of 
 trial by jury in civil causes that I am chiefly con- 
 cerned, and would most earnestly plead to-day 
 with my professional brethren, who are naturally 
 responsible for public sentiment on such a subject. 
 For I cherish, as the result of a life's work near- 
 ing its end, that the old-fashioned trial by a jury 
 of twelve honest and intelligent citizens remains 
 to-day, all suggested innovations and amend- 
 ments to the contrary, the best and safest practi- 
 cal method for the determination of facts as the 
 basis of judgment of courts, and that all attempts 
 to tinker or tamper with it should be discouraged 
 as disastrous to the public welfare. 
 
 You may say that I am contending for an ideal 
 tribunal. On the contrary, I speak for what is not 
 only possibly, but actually within the reach of 
 
 209 
 
TKIAL BY JURY 
 
 every State and every community — ideal only for 
 the purpose designed, as when we say that a par- 
 ticular man would make an ideal judge, an ideal 
 senator, or an ideal general. 
 
 Let me say what I understand by a jury trial ; 
 that picturesque, dramatic and very human trans- 
 action, that arena on which has been fought the 
 great battle of liberty against tyranny, of right 
 against wrong, of suitor against suitor; — that 
 school which has always been open for the in- 
 struction and entertainment of the common peo- 
 ple of England and America, that nursery, that 
 common school of lawyers and judges, which has 
 had five times more pupils than all the law schools 
 and Inns of Court combined — for there are ninety 
 thousand lawyers in America, of whom four-fifths 
 probably never saw the inside of a law school. 
 
 Well, the first and most essential element in a 
 jury trial is a wise, learned, impartial and compe- 
 tent judge — a judge qualified by his character, 
 learning and experience, to preside over and con- 
 trol the proceedings, and to advise the jury as to 
 the discharge of their duties. Add to the ordinary 
 modicum of legal learning, courage, honesty and 
 common sense, and you have the kind of a judge 
 I mean. If we say that an adequate supply of 
 such judges, possessed of these ordinary qualities 
 of manhood cannot be found, we libel our own 
 profession, we befoul our own nest wherein they 
 are bred. Of course, they cannot be had, if we 
 apply to judicial nominations our favorite demo- 
 cratic idea that one man is as good as another for 
 
 210 
 
TRIAL BY JURY 
 
 any office ; of course they cannot be had if selected 
 for partisan services; of course they cannot be 
 had if appointed by a boss, or if they are required 
 or allowed to pay for their nominations, directly 
 or indirectly; but they can be had if selected on 
 their merits from the gladiators in this same 
 arena, as England has selected her judges since 
 1688, always with assured success. They must be 
 had, if our institutions are to be preserved. 
 
 And then there are the twelve honest and intel- 
 ligent jurors, drawn from the body of the com- 
 munity, sworn to pass upon the issue, and to re- 
 turn whence they came when their task is done. 
 If we say that the average citizen is not equal to 
 the duty, we belie our American manhood, we con- 
 tradict the whole course of judicial history, and 
 we fail of our duty to the communities of which 
 we form a part, which rely upon us implicitly for 
 the legislative machinery by which juries are to 
 be secured. 
 
 And then you must have the earnest and loyal 
 advocates, sworn to do their whole duty; which 
 means to employ all their powers and attain- 
 ments, and to use their utmost skill and elo- 
 quence, in exhibiting the merits each of his own 
 side of the case. In doing so, as Mr. Justice Cur- 
 tis well said, the advocate only does his duty, and 
 if the adversary does his, the administration of 
 justice is secured. I omit not the indispensable 
 presence of the public, an ever essential feature 
 in this great historic forum, for justice, though 
 blind to the parties and to everything but the 
 
 211 
 
TEIAL BY JURY 
 
 merits of the case, must never be secret. It is the 
 sacred possession of the people in whose name 
 and by whose authority it is done. 
 
 Do you say again that this is an ideal pic- 
 ture? Who of you has not seen it? Who of 
 you does not know that it is not only possible, 
 but can be and ought to be the actual and every 
 day scene in our Courts? I well remember wit- 
 nessing such an administration of justice by 
 Chief Justice Shaw and his associates in the 
 Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, aided 
 uniformly by juries representing the best citizen- 
 ship of that grand old State, and by a 
 group of advocates whose superiors the world 
 has never known, disposing of great causes in the 
 presence of a bar instructed, and of a public edu- 
 cated, by the noble spectacle. I have witnessed 
 the same scene in the city of New York, under the 
 administration of Chief Justice Oakley and Judge 
 Duer and their associates, and coming down from 
 those early days to the present, I have seen it a 
 hundred times since, down to the last term of 
 our Federal Court, when I saw an important and 
 intricate cause disposed of by as good a jury as 
 ever sat, under the guidance of a faithful and com- 
 petent judge. 
 
 Are we willing to admit that the Bench, the Bar, 
 the intelligence of the community from which the 
 average juror is drawn, have so degenerated in 
 the last fifty years, or in our generation, that this 
 great tribunal, which has commanded the confi- 
 dence and approval of all English speaking people 
 
 212 
 
TRIAL BY JURY 
 
 for centuries, is no longer adequate for our pub- 
 lic needs? For one, I refuse to believe that. I 
 know that the Bar of to-day is adequate for the 
 duties of to-day — ^that it can furnish material for 
 the bench worthy of the great service of justice. 
 And I feel quite sure that the average standard, 
 not only of morals but of intelligence in our 
 American communities which furnish our supply 
 of jurors, has not receded, but has actually ad- 
 vanced in the last half century. 
 
 This trial by jury for which I stand, is not only 
 ancient as magistracy, rich in the traditions of 
 freedom and of justice, glorified by the prestige 
 and the prowess of all the great advocates of our 
 race, but it is the proudest and most delightful 
 privilege of our whole professional life. It alone 
 atones for and mitigates all the drudgery and 
 painful labor of the rest of our professional work. 
 Here alone we feel the real joy of the contest, that 
 gaudium certaminis, which is the true inspiration 
 of advocacy. Here alone occur those sudden and 
 unexpected conflicts of reason, of wit, of nerve, 
 with our adversaries, with the judge, with the wit- 
 nesses; those constant surprises, equal to the 
 most startling in comedy or tragedy. Here alone 
 is our one entertainment, in the confinement for 
 life to hard labor, to which our choice of profes- 
 sion has sentenced us, and here alone do the 
 people enter into our labors and lend their coun- 
 tenance to our struggles and triumphs. Sorry, 
 indeed, for our profession will be the day when 
 this best and brightest and most delightful func- 
 
 213 
 
TRIAL BY JURY 
 
 tion, which calls into play the highest qualities of 
 heart, of intellect, of will and of courage, shall 
 cease to excite and to feed our ambition, our sym- 
 pathy and our loyalty. 
 
 Let me now consider the principal evils and 
 mischiefs incident to and perhaps inseparable 
 from this much prized trial by jury, for which all 
 sorts of nostrums and legislative innovations have 
 been suggested as radical cures. The existence 
 of some cannot be denied, but I am persuaded that 
 the force and effect of each of them has been 
 grossly exaggerated, and that they can all be 
 remedied, not by any material alteration, but by 
 a better administration of the system as it now 
 exists in our Federal courts, and in the vast ma- 
 jority of States whose constitutions still require 
 that it shall be preserved inviolate. 
 
 And first and most common is the complaint of 
 the rule of unanimity, which requires the entire 
 votes of the twelve to render a verdict. To listen 
 to the impassioned arguments of those who seek 
 to destroy this ancient and time-honored rule of 
 unanimity, you would think that in almost every 
 jury impanelled there is among the twelve one 
 Judas ready to betray the cause of justice, or one 
 crooked stick which by no amount of application 
 can be made to fit in with the rest. But, in truth, 
 the discharge of a jury because they are unable 
 to come to an agreement, and the consequent ne- 
 cessity of a new trial is a comparatively infre- 
 quent event. 
 
 So far as the imperfect statistics which I have 
 214 
 
TRIAL BY JURY 
 
 been able to gather show, only about three or at 
 most four per cent, of all jury trials end in a dis- 
 agreement. 
 
 There is a certain percentage of cases so doubt- 
 ful and so difficult, that the disagreement of the 
 jury, instead of being a disaster, is a positive 
 good, as leading the parties to such a compromise 
 as they ought to have made before carrying the 
 case into Court — or if that fails, in giving an 
 opportunity for new light and re-consideration. 
 Take, for instance, the Sheldon ease, to which I 
 have already alluded — to be sure it was a crimi- 
 nal case, but the same considerations will apply 
 in this respect to a civil case — how much better 
 it would have been for the cause of justice and the 
 spirit of truth, if, instead of making the decision 
 the result of a contest of physical endurance 
 among the twelve, they had been discharged after 
 a reasonable number of hours and a new jury en- 
 trusted with the case. A new jury can always be 
 impanelled at the next term, and no great delay 
 is involved. 
 
 Again, where very great amounts are involved 
 and the contest is extremely close — and these are 
 the cases, I think, in which the largest percentage 
 of disagreements occur, a second trial is not an 
 unmixed evil — a second trial is better than a 
 wrong decision. The truth is discoverable, of 
 course, in every case, but how often on the first 
 trial in such cases is some evidence omitted or 
 misunderstood, from lack of preparation or of 
 knowledge — which, being cleared up on a second 
 
 215 
 
TRIAL BY JURY 
 
 trial, makes the truth more obvious and dis- 
 cernible. 
 
 So clearly is this recognized in the public policy 
 of the State of New York, as embodied in its 
 statutes, that in actions for the recovery of title 
 to land, so apprehensive are the State and the 
 law, of accident, or surprise, or negligence, or 
 lack of knowledge of evidence, that even after one 
 full trial and verdict rendered, either party may 
 have the verdict vacated and a new trial, as mat- 
 ter of right, on payment of costs. So jealously 
 is the right guarded, and so much better is it 
 deemed, both for the parties and the public, that 
 there should be a right decision than a quick de- 
 cision. 
 
 Again, if I may rely upon my own experience 
 and observation, the disagreement when it does 
 happen is quite as likely to be the fault of the 
 judge as of the jury. The failure of the judge 
 to perform his most important duty, to explain 
 to the jury the proper legal bearing of the evi- 
 dence upon the issues of fact which it is their sole 
 province to decide, is the most frequent cause of 
 disagreement. It sends the jury in an intricate 
 case to their consultation room without a proper 
 understanding of the questions submitted to 
 them. Some judges at nisi prius are lazy, and 
 some don't care what the verdict is to be, and 
 some care too much ; and the least appearance of 
 partiality in the judge is apt to awaken the jeal- 
 ousy and resentment of some more or less intelli- 
 gent juryman. Juries are, as a rule, extremely 
 
 216 
 
TRIAL BY JURY 
 
 jealous of their province of deciding the facts, and 
 anything like invasion of it by the judge very 
 properly tends to excite their alarm. Perhaps I 
 may cite an actual case in my own experience, 
 which I tried twice. Each time the jury dis- 
 agreed, necessitating a third trial. Both dis- 
 agreements were directly traceable to the clear 
 manifestation of pressure or bias on the part of 
 the judge. It was a speculative case for damages. 
 The tort was plain enough, and the question was 
 how much damages. On the first trial the judge 
 charged so strongly for the plaintiff, and on the 
 second trial another judge charged so strongly 
 for the defendant, that in both cases the jury, 
 instead of taking an average verdict, as is the 
 only way in such cases to reach a verdict at all, 
 revolted and disagreed. 
 
 This leads me to say that the vast majority of 
 eases brought to trial before juries are cases 
 where the principal, if not the only question to be 
 determined by them, is the amount of unliquida- 
 ted damages ; and for the decision of such a ques- 
 tion there can be no reasonable doubt that the 
 average of the estimates of twelve sensible lay- 
 men is far safer, and far more likely to approxi- 
 mate to the just estimate, than the assessment of 
 one man, however learned and instructed in legal 
 questions he may be. There is something in the 
 technical training and habit of mind of the judge, 
 that tends really to unfit him to pass alone upon 
 such a question ; and for his caprice, his prejudice, 
 his error of judgment, there is no check or balance 
 
 217 
 
TRIAL BY JUEY 
 
 and no cure ; and so long as the power of the judge 
 who tries the case to reduce the verdict for mani- 
 fest excess, or to set it aside for manifest insuf- 
 ficiency, is reasonably exercised, any practical 
 danger of injustice is eliminated. 
 
 So let me say, and again upon the same author- 
 ity of personal experience and observation, that 
 for the determination of the vast majority of 
 questions of fact arising upon conflict of evidence, 
 the united judgment of twelve honest and intelli- 
 gent laymen, properly instructed by a wise and 
 impartial judge, who expresses no opinion upon 
 the fact, is far safer and more likely to be right 
 than the sole judgment of the same judge would 
 be. There is nothing in the scientific and techni- 
 cal training of such a judge that gives to his 
 judgment upon such questions superior virtue or 
 value, and we cannot be too frequently reminded 
 of the valuable opinion on this point, of one of our 
 clearest and broadest minded judges, Mr. Justice 
 Miller, given as the deliberate result of a quarter 
 of a century's experience in the chief court of 
 the nation.* 
 
 "It is of the highest importance," he says, 
 ' ' that in a jury trial the judge should clearly and 
 decisively state the law, which is his peculiar 
 province, and point out to the jury with equal 
 precision the disputed questions of fact arising 
 upon the evidence, which it is the duty of that 
 
 * " The System of Trial by Jury," Samuel F. Miller; 21 Am. 
 Law Bev. 859. 
 
 218 
 
TRIAL BY JURY 
 
 body to decide. Without this a jury trial is a 
 farce. 
 
 ' ' An experience of twenty-five years on the 
 bench, and an observation during that time of 
 cases which came from all the courts of the United 
 States for review, as well as of cases tried before 
 me at nisi prius, have satisfied me that when the 
 principles above stated are faithfully applied by 
 the Court in a jury trial, and the jury is a fair 
 one; as a method of ascertaining the truth in 
 regard to disputed questions of fact, a jury is in 
 the main as valuable as an equal number of judges 
 would be, or any less number. And I must say, 
 that in my experience in the conference room of 
 the Supreme Court of the United States, which 
 consists of nine judges, I have been surprised to 
 find how readily those judges came to an agree- 
 ment on questions of law, and how often they dis- 
 agreed upon questions of fact, which apparently 
 were as clear as the law." 
 
 But the great objection to dispensing with the 
 rule of unanimity, and requiring the decision of 
 a majority or of two-thirds or three-quarters of 
 the jury to control, is the certain danger of hasty 
 and therefore of unjust or extravagant verdicts. 
 It is not to be forgotten that with every verdict 
 when carried into judgment property passes, or 
 claims to money or property are determined. The 
 rule so long insisted upon by the English and 
 American people, that the right to the property 
 or money in question shall not pass until the 
 whole jury is satisfied, by the clear preponder- 
 
 219 
 
TRIAL BY JURY 
 
 ance of evidence, that it ought to pass, is not too 
 great a security by which the sacred right of 
 property ought to be held. The right of property, 
 as Mr. Webster said at Plymouth in 1820, is the 
 corner stone of civil society, and its sanctity can- 
 not be safely invaded or impaired. 
 
 The secrets of the jury room generally leak out 
 after they are discharged, and it very rarely hap- 
 pens that a majority, and seldom that two-thirds 
 or even three-quarters, are not united on the first 
 ballot, and if you make their vote decisive you 
 will have a hasty verdict; while experience has 
 often shown that intelligent discussion in the jury 
 room is just as effective as it is anywhere else, 
 and often results in converting the majority to 
 the real truth. The prejudice of juries, so far 
 as it affects their conduct, is always and natu- 
 rally for the weak against the strong, for the poor 
 against the rich, for the individual against the 
 corporation, and it sometimes sways the whole 
 to the very verge and even beyond the verge of 
 injustice. And if you break down the barrier 
 which lies in the rule of unanimity, and which has 
 heretofore for ages been the only sufficient safe- 
 guard of property, you wUl be likely to cause a 
 great deal more injustice than you will cure by 
 such a change. Imagine a jury roused to even 
 just indignation by the oppression, or miscon- 
 duct of a rich individual or gigantic corporation 
 against an unfortunate plaintiff, and not re- 
 strained by the cooler sense and judgment of the 
 three or four most conservative or intelligent of 
 
 220 
 
TRIAL BY JURY 
 
 their number, and you can easily foresee what 
 havoc they would make with the rights of property. 
 
 It takes no prophet to foretell that the great 
 contests in the courts in the coming generation 
 are to be against and in defence of the right of 
 property, and I can conceive of no more destruc- 
 tive and fatal weapon, which its adversaries could 
 secure in advance, than the abolition of this rule 
 of unanimity, excluding practically the votes of 
 the more conservative, the more deliberate, the 
 more just members of the tribunal. 
 
 Coming down then to the isolated instances 
 where juries disagree by the dissent of one from 
 the decision of the eleven, whether the one be a 
 crank or, as sometimes happens, the only man 
 who is right, I submit that the cases of such dis- 
 agreement are very rare indeed, not one per cent, 
 of jury trials, and present no good reason for a 
 change in the rule which, in the general, has 
 worked well in the whole history of our litiga- 
 tion. I decline to discuss the question of bribery 
 and corruption in this connection, for its occur- 
 rence is so nearly infinitesimal that I do not be- 
 lieve in its existence. 
 
 Nor do I overlook the fact that learned essay- 
 ists and philosophers without number, who prob- 
 ably never sat upon a jury or participated in the 
 trial of a cause, headed by Bentham, who failed 
 as a lawyer and hated all form of litigation, and 
 had a special aversion to Blaekstone, have de- 
 cried the rule of unanimity. On such a question 
 better fifty years of experience than a whole 
 
 221 
 
TRIAL BY JUEY 
 
 cycle of theories. And I treat with equal indif- 
 ference that constant torrent of declamation from 
 the periodical and the newspaper press, which 
 declares that the effect of the rule of unanimity- 
 is to create popular discontent, and to bring the 
 administration of justice into contempt. I be- 
 lieve that the great mass of the people, whose 
 rights and interests are herein chiefly involved, 
 are satisfied with the rule as it now stands, and 
 cannot and ought not to be argued out of it. 
 
 But I do not forget that certain judges of the 
 very highest repute, to whom we owe all defer- 
 ence and honor— Mr. Justice Miller among them 
 —have declared themselves in favor of some de- 
 parture from the ancient rule of unanimity— and 
 that a report was once made to this Association, 
 by a majority of its standing Committee on Ju- 
 dicial Administration and Remedial Procedure 
 in favor of such a change— that by the consti- 
 tutions of three or four states which include less 
 than ten per cent, of our people, a verdict by nine 
 of the jury has been directly provided for— and 
 that by those of four or five other states, indirect 
 provision in the same direction has been made, 
 by authorizing the legislature, under prescribed 
 limitations, to enact laws to the same effect— and 
 that in Scotland, a verdict by three-quarters of 
 the jury has long been permitted. 
 
 But it is fair, I think, to say, that the judges 
 referred to, however eminent, represent but an 
 infinitely small proportion of judicial opinion on 
 the subject, that their suggestions on this point 
 
 222 
 
TRIAL BY JURY 
 
 were rather obiter dicta, without any statement 
 of reasons, and that they had for the most part 
 been long removed in appellate tribunals from 
 direct touch with msi prius affairs ; — that the re- 
 port of your committee referred to, after a very 
 brief discussion, was consigned to an oblivion 
 from which it has never emerged— that the few 
 States which have by their constitutions made the 
 direct change, adopted it under social conditions 
 differing somewhat from those of the older states 
 that maintain the old rule; — that although in 
 those states the new method is said by some to 
 work well, there is no evidence that anywhere it 
 works on the whole any better than the old rule ; 
 — that the legislatures which have received con- 
 stitutional permission to make such change have, 
 as I understand, hitherto wisely refrained from 
 making it; — and that as to Scotland, her whole 
 system of judicial administration is peculiar, and 
 that her course in this regard, however satisfac- 
 tory to her own people, has never suggested to 
 the English people or government the idea of fol- 
 lowing her example. 
 
 Upon the whole, the English people and ours 
 maintain sound and wholesome views on this im- 
 portant subject, which ought not to be disturbed, 
 especially in these times, when the aggressive 
 ranks of socialism and populism are disposed to 
 strike at the right of property, the foundation of 
 civilized society, and would naturally seek to con- 
 vert the jury box into a weapon of offense. 
 
 The next formidable charge against the com- 
 223 
 
TRIAL BY JURY 
 
 mon law trial by jury is to accuse it of a great 
 share in the law's delay. But I deny the charge 
 absolutely and altogether. There is nothing in 
 the whole realm of litigation so short, sharp and 
 decisive as the ordinary jury trial. From the 
 first moment when the impanelling of the jury be- 
 gins, down to the last when the verdict is re- 
 corded, there is no pause or interruption except 
 such as the natural wants of those concerned, for 
 food and rest and sleep require. It would not be 
 possible to devise a mode of trial which in its act- 
 ual operation would more absolutely preclude de- 
 lay. As compared with the abominable system 
 of references which is the practical substitute for 
 it, a trial by jury is like the lightning's flash. 
 These references hang on for months and gener- 
 ally for years; they wear out the life blood of 
 the parties, and pile up an accumulated mass of 
 expense for the fees of lawyers, referees and 
 stenographers, fatal to the patience and endur- 
 ance of clients. Why, I have one in my hands to- 
 day which began in September, 1864, has sur- 
 vived both parties, all the witnesses, and a long 
 succession of referees, and will still live on to be 
 buried Avith the surviving counsel. 
 
 In these days too, when in trial by the judge 
 without a jury, written and printed briefs are to 
 be submitted after the oral argument, indefinite 
 delays ensue. 
 
 No, the charge of delay against juries and jury 
 trials is wholly without foundation. 
 
 But there are most grievous delays between 
 224 
 
TEIAL BY JURY 
 
 the joining of issue of fact and the opportunity 
 to try the case before a jury, and further grievous 
 delays between a just and righteous verdict and 
 the realization of the money or property repre- 
 sented by it— delays at both ends, for which the 
 jury are in no wise responsible, and which are 
 the direct result of vicious legal machinery, capa- 
 ble in a large degree of alleviation and cure. It 
 is to these that I bespeak your most careful at- 
 tention; for here, as it seems to me, this associa- 
 tion owes a duty to the profession and to the 
 conununity the constant performance of which 
 it ought not to shirk. 
 
 These codes of procedure, which have taken the 
 place of a simple practice regulated by rules of 
 court, have become so cumbrous and impossible; 
 — they afford and create such opportunities for 
 delay; — they provide for and contemplate such 
 countless preliminary motions, each a litigation in 
 itself ; — that there seems no way out but to cut the 
 Gordian knot and return to the ancient practice. 
 Take our own New York Code alone, the degener- 
 ate mother of so many illegitimate offspring. It 
 has grown to a monster of more than 3,600 sec- 
 tions, each section pregnant with some procedure 
 — and while, unhappily, in our City, it takes 
 nearly two years, except in preferred cases, to 
 reach a jury case for trial, every intervening week 
 from the day of its commencement may be filled 
 with a distinct and separate motion. Surely this 
 fruitful source of delay could be and ought to be 
 cut up by the roots. 
 
 225 
 
TEIAL BY JURY 
 
 The long waiting for a jury case to be readied 
 on the calendar is in many cases a denial of jus- 
 tice. If ten jury terms constantly at work, for 
 instance in our City, are not enough to keep the 
 calendar down, twenty ought to be assigned to 
 sit until the docket is cleared. 
 
 The avoidable delays subsequent to appeal, 
 waiting for years for the appeal from judgment 
 on the jury's verdict to be heard and disposed 
 of, ought also to be remedied and prevented for 
 the future. Of course my experience is mostly 
 confined to the New York courts, but there it 
 does now take nearly three years from verdict to 
 final judgment in the Court of Appeals, making 
 five years from commencement of suit to the re- 
 covery of one's just dues by suit, and all this de- 
 lay—not an hour of it chargeable to the jury- 
 avoidable and therefore inexcusable. 
 
 It is very clear now that we made a great mis- 
 take in the Constitutional Convention of 1894 
 in revising the judiciary article, in not re- 
 taining the clause which provided for the 
 appointment of a special commission when neces- 
 sary for clearing off all arrears of appeals. No 
 wonder that suitors tire and resort to set- 
 tlements, arbitrations, and board committees for 
 a prompt and speedy adjustment of their 
 controversies. Such a result, however brought 
 about, is a direct benefit, for litigation is a posi- 
 tive evil. But for the thousands upon thousands, 
 the vast majority of suitors in every community 
 who remain and claim their rights in the 
 
 226 
 
TRIAL BY JUEY 
 
 courts, these intolerable grievances by delay 
 ought to be remedied, so that the administration 
 of justice may not be brought into contempt, 
 and this unjust and wholly undeserved stigma, 
 falsely imputed to trial by jury, be forever re- 
 moved. 
 
 There is one other serious evil after verdict 
 which the common sense and sound judgment of 
 our judicial brethren might and should reduce, 
 if they cannot altogether remove it without new 
 legislation. I mean the granting of new trials for 
 trivial and unsubstantial errors, in the charge 
 of the trial judge, or in the admission or rejection 
 of evidence. Where, for such errors which do 
 not go to the root of the action or defence, a new 
 trial is granted, I think that your universal ex- 
 perience will testify that a second jury, in at 
 least twenty-nine cases out of thirty, finds the 
 same verdict over again— making the whole pro- 
 cedure between the two verdicts a total loss of 
 time, expense and labor. And so, as the judges 
 should exercise a liberal discretion in reducing 
 excessive verdicts in cases of unliquidated dam- 
 ages, they should exercise a like discretion in 
 other cases, and never grant a new trial, even for 
 manifest errors, where it is clear that no posi- 
 tive harm has resulted and substantial justice 
 been done. 
 
 Eeview by appeal is only designed for par- 
 ties really aggrieved, and in jurisdictions where 
 full power to this extent does not already rest 
 in the courts, it ought to be provided. Juries 
 
 227 
 
TRIAL BY JUEY 
 
 are naturally jealous of any interference by the 
 Courts with their exclusive domain, and their will 
 must finally prevail upon the facts. In the cele- 
 brated case of Shaw vs. Boston & Worcester R. 
 R. Co.,* the Supreme Court of Massachusetts set 
 aside the first verdict of $10,000 for error. The 
 second jury gave $18,000 and the Court set it 
 aside on the same ground again. The third jury 
 gave $22,500, and then the Court denied the mo- 
 tion to set it aside as excessive, but gave up the 
 unequal contest and let it stand. 
 
 The only other important defect attributed to 
 the trial by jury as conducted from time imme- 
 morial, is the too prevalent notion that it per- 
 mits to the trial judge too great a power in con- 
 ducting the trial and guiding the deliberations of 
 the jury. And so jealous have the people in some 
 of the States become of such imputed interference 
 of the judges with the fimctions of the jury, that 
 in several States, instead of taking measures to 
 improve their breed of judges, statutory contri- 
 vances have been devised to curtail and impair 
 what seems to me to be the necessary function of 
 the court, as an inherent part of the tribunal, 
 without which its duties cannot be well and prop- 
 erly performed, whereby frequent failure of jus- 
 tice must eventually result. 
 
 As an illustration of these devices the New 
 York Legislature at its last session was asked 
 to pass a bill, said to be a literal copy of recent 
 enactments of other States providing not only 
 
 * Gray 45. 
 
 228 
 
TRIAL BY JURY 
 
 that the judge in charging the jury shall only in- 
 struct them as to the law of the case, but also 
 that no judge shall instruct the jury in any case 
 unless such instructions are reduced to writing, 
 and that a charge once made shall not be modified 
 — and various other similar devices for shorten- 
 ing the arm of the court in jury trials have been 
 proposed and occasionally enacted. 
 
 I can conceive of nothing better adapted than 
 all such devices for mutilating and emasculating 
 trial by jury, marring its symmetry, and destroy- 
 ing its utility as the best means of ascertaining 
 the truth of the facts for judgment. That they 
 are an unconstitutional invasion of the rights of 
 the court and the people, in a State whose con- 
 stitution like that of New York provides that 
 trial by jury, in all cases in which it has been 
 heretofore used, shall remain inviolate forever, 
 may be claimed with great force and probable 
 success. They seem to be clear and palpable en- 
 croachments by the legislature upon the judiciary 
 department, as was well explained by Mr. Jus- 
 tice Brown in the admirable paper read by him 
 before this Association in 1889, and by Mr. Jus- 
 tice Field in the judicial opinion which he cited. 
 
 But aside from that, my objection is that they 
 tend to disable and impair the jury itself, so far 
 as they tend to deprive it of the rightful and nec- 
 essary aid and assistance of the court. If the 
 first provision merely means that the court shall 
 not attempt to thrust upon the jury its opinion on 
 the questions of fact, it was wholly unnecessary— 
 
 229 
 
TRIAL BY JURY 
 
 it always was the law— and no self-respecting 
 judge ever would or did interfere with that ex- 
 clusive province of the jury. But as I under- 
 stand, as generally construed and applied in 
 States where they have been enacted, these provi- 
 sions operate to limit the court to the submission 
 in writing to the jury of bald propositions of law 
 on legal questions in the case, without any com- 
 ments or advice upon the relevancy, or applica- 
 tion, or relative force of the testimony on the is- 
 sues of fact which they are to decide. 
 
 The proper functions of the judge in a jury 
 trial were never better expressed than by Lord 
 Bacon in his charge to Mr. Justice Hutton in 
 handing him his conunission to the Court of 
 Common Pleas, "That you be a light to jurors to 
 open their eyes and not a guide to lead them by 
 their noses." And when those great judges to 
 whom I have already referred as models in the 
 conduct of jury cases, to whom we look for ex- 
 ample as young painters look to the old masters, 
 Chief Justice Shaw and Chief Justice Oakley, 
 charged the jury, having kept in their hands all 
 the threads of the evidence from beginning to 
 end, whether the trial lasted a day, or a week, or 
 a month, they stated clearly to the jury what the 
 distinct questions of fact were upon which they 
 were to pass. They then proceeded to go over 
 the testimony and point out its application to 
 those issues, and to instruct the jury by what rule 
 and standard they were to measure the relative 
 weight and credibility of conflicting pieces of tes- 
 
 230 
 
TEIAL BY JUEY 
 
 timony, in applying them to the questions to be 
 decided by them. And the result was that when 
 the judge's charge was finished, the jury under- 
 stood the case as they had never realized it till 
 then, they understood what questions they had 
 to decide, and what material they had for mak- 
 ing up their decision. How they should decide 
 those questions was their own business, and those 
 great judges never presumed to suggest or inter- 
 fere; and there is no doubt that that was jury 
 trial, according to the uniform course of the com- 
 mon law both in England and America. 
 
 But you will say that all our judges are not 
 Shaws or Oakleys. Neither were they in those 
 days. Those were the great models. The others 
 differed in degree rather than in kind, and so 
 they do now. But if your judges don't suit you, 
 get better ones. Don't remove the ancient land 
 marks of the constitution and law, and turn trial 
 by jury into a farce. There is no doubt that jury- 
 men require such aid and assistance to enable 
 them to perform their proper duty, and that 
 whatever tends to deprive them of it, in whole or 
 in part, to that extent weakens their capacity and 
 impairs their usefulness. 
 
 It is impossible for twelve jurymen, laymen of 
 average or even of superior intelligence, unac- 
 customed to the application of evidence to issues, 
 called from their several vocations for the ser- 
 vice of the court, however patient and attentive 
 they may be, — without aid from the court to carry 
 along all the evidence as it falls from the lips of 
 
 231 
 
TRIAL BY JURY 
 
 witnesses for a week or a montli, — to apply each 
 piece of testimony to the issues, and pack it away 
 in their minds as they go along, — to measure the 
 results of cross examination upon the direct tes- 
 timony ,^to weigh the evidence of the one side 
 against that of the other. They are necessarily 
 intent for the moment upon each word of testi- 
 mony as it drops from the lips of the witnesses. 
 In a long trial the general effect of the evidence 
 upon their minds is vague and indefinite, their 
 memory of details far from clear, the conflicting 
 arguments of counsel confusing, and they natu- 
 rally look to the judge to be the light, as Lord 
 Bacon says, to open their eyes to see their way 
 through the labyrinth, and find the clews that 
 shall conduct them to the truth. 
 
 Take the Tichborne cases— the civil and the 
 criminal trials both— those master-pieces of trial 
 by jury, those colossal specimens of adjudication, 
 full of great masses of conflicting evidence— the 
 lost baronet's own mother had actually recog- 
 nized the claimant as her son— the civil trial last- 
 ing 103 days and the criminal 188 days, where 
 Counsel at the Bar summed up for weeks, and 
 Lord Chief Justice Cockbum charged the Jury 
 for 18 days, recalling to their minds the whole 
 evidence on both sides, and instructing them how 
 to apply it to the issues, with the result that the 
 Jury, to whom the whole case, without that mar- 
 velous charge, would have been a perfect maze, 
 were led to the light and the truth. What a farce, 
 what an insult to judicial genius, what a re- 
 
 232 
 
TEIAL BY JURY 
 
 proach to law, what a hindrance to truth and jus- 
 tice, if Parliament had said to the jury at the 
 close of the evidence and the summing up of 
 counsel : ' ' You can have no aid from the Court ! 
 all it can do is to hand you written statements of 
 propositions of law, upon which you will retire 
 and decide the case the best way you can ! ' ' 
 
 No, for common assault and battery cases these 
 new devices may not stand in the way of Justice, 
 but when great and complicated cases arise— as 
 they are likely to arise any day, when men's pas- 
 sions are excited— when long and complicated 
 trials ensue, on which great interests depend, they 
 are intolerable stumbling blocks. 
 
 But you will justly ask, is there no defect, no 
 drawback, no decadence in this much boasted 
 trial by jury? and is there no improvement, no 
 remedy which you can suggest as the result of 
 forty years experience, as a participant in this 
 mode of trial! and you will very properly expect 
 from me an answer to these questions. 
 
 Well, I do admit the existence in some degree 
 of the very faults which I have been considering, 
 but the result of my experience and observation 
 has been, that in the general estimate their ex- 
 tent is grossly exaggerated. And if you have fol- 
 lowed me thus far and read between the lines of 
 my address, you have seen that I have no faith 
 in the legislative remedies which have been ex- 
 perimentally applied, because they tend generally 
 to impair the integrity, the efficiency, and the 
 utility of this great and time honored tribunal, 
 
 233 
 
TRIAL BY JURY 
 
 and because they do not propose— there has never 
 yet been proposed— any adequate substitute to 
 take its place. 
 
 But if you would have jury trial as it has been 
 and ought still to be, if you would make it still 
 worthy of the high encomiums which have been 
 pronounced upon it by great jurists and great 
 lawyers since 1688, and worthy of the confidence 
 which it still enjoys with the great mass of the 
 people, for whose security and safety all courts 
 exist ; — if you would transmit it to posterity as a 
 heritage from the past improved and not im- 
 paired by your keeping; there is an obvious and 
 an open way. If you would have trial by jury 
 as it has been exhibited in those wholesome and 
 impressive instances to which I have referred, 
 you must lend your aid to make the component 
 parts of the tribunal what they can be and should 
 be, and to furnish better jurors, better judges and 
 better advocates to conduct the proceeding. 
 
 That the general grade of jurors especially in 
 our large cities can be raised to the ideal stan- 
 dard there can be no doubt, and generally the 
 existing statutes are ample. It is neglect and 
 abuse in executing and admifeistering them, neg- 
 lect and abuse for which I think the commis- 
 sioners, the courts and the bar are largely re- 
 sponsible, that bring into the jury box too often 
 too much of the refuse of our city directories, 
 too much of ignorance and incapacity, and allows 
 the men of business, of property and of character 
 to escape the arduous and responsible duty. 
 
 234 
 
TRIAL BY JURY 
 
 What lawyer practising at the bar, what Bar 
 Association in any state, has ever taken any pains 
 to see to it, that the power of selection entrusted 
 to official hands is so exercised as to bring fit 
 men to this important service? Have our judges 
 taken due care in exercising the power entrusted 
 to them to compel the reluctant to serve? Take 
 for instance the city of New York with its six 
 or seven hundred thousand voters, and its an- 
 nual need of ten or twenty thousand jurors, a list 
 to be selected by a commissioner appointed for 
 the purpose. "Will anybody pretend to say, that 
 if the duty of selection is properly performed, a 
 body of men amply qualified can not be had for 
 the service of the State, and ignorance, incapacity 
 and low character in all respects excluded from 
 the first approach to the jury box? Let me give 
 you an illustration which shows what the faithful 
 discharge of the duty of selection will accom- 
 plish. In the Circuit Court of the United States 
 for the Southern District of New York, petit jur- 
 ors are selected by the clerk and a designated 
 commissioner under the supervision of judges 
 who take pride in securing competent jurors. In- 
 stead of selecting from the vast list of voters men 
 who are not known, as seems to be the too com- 
 mon method, they select only those who are 
 known for character, for intelligence, for merit 
 and fitness, and the result is that a panel of twelve 
 for the trial of any case can always be had repre- 
 senting the general intelligence of the community 
 and even better, and entirely worthy of the 
 
 235 
 
TRIAL BY JURY 
 
 palmiest days of jury trials. And competent men, 
 having been thus selected, must be compelled to 
 serve. Too great exemptions are allowed, too 
 paltry excuses accepted, and the very men who 
 by their weight and character would leaven the 
 whole lump escape altogether. 
 
 Jury duty is a great political and public ser- 
 vice, as much so as voting or military service, or 
 the payment of taxes, and no fit men ought to be 
 allowed to escape from the liability to perform 
 it. I know how irksome it is— I know how thank- 
 less it too often appears to be ;^but if our politi- 
 cal institutions are worth saving, if this cardinal 
 feature of free and popular government is to be 
 preserved and transmitted entire, this peculiar 
 form of public service must be performed by citi- 
 zens fit for the duty ; voluntarily if they will — but 
 by force of compulsion if need be ; — and it is very 
 largely in the hands of the Bar and of the courts 
 to see to it that this is done. But we mustn't wait 
 till our case is called, and a battalion of incom- 
 petents lined up for our choice. If we strike at 
 the fountain and insist upon the proper selection 
 of the lists by the constituted authorities, we 
 shall clear the whole stream from pollution, and 
 any legislation necessary to that end we ought to 
 devise. 
 
 And then I insist that the judge who presides 
 in the Court is the keystone of the arch in the 
 jury trial, that he must be permitted to have con- 
 trol of the proceedings from beginning to end, 
 and be indeed a clear light to open the eyes of the 
 
 236 
 
TRIAL BY JURY 
 
 jurors. The selection of Judges lies largely in 
 the hands of the bar, whose members generally 
 compose by a large majority the judiciary nomin- 
 ating conventions of both parties. All that can 
 be done— all that ought to be done in each in- 
 stance is to select with sole regard to merit and 
 fitness, the best man that can be had for the 
 judicial seat. I will not insist without regard 
 to party— although I thiuk so— but without re- 
 gard to the dictation of any party machine or of 
 any party despot. 
 
 You may be republicans or you may be demo- 
 crats, but you are lawyers and citizens first, and 
 you owe this duty at least to your profession and 
 your country. By common consent, the American 
 people, in all but four of the States, have long ago 
 abandoned an appointed judiciary, as inconsistent 
 with their theory of republican institutions, and 
 have insisted upon the election by the people of 
 every judicial officer. But under the system of 
 boss rule, the only part the people are permitted 
 to take in the selection of judges is simply to 
 choose between two candidates, each selected by 
 an irresponsible despot, who generally makes his 
 choice for personal or party allegiance, with just 
 as much and just as little regard to merit and 
 fitness as his own partisan necessities require or 
 dictate. How long will the bar submit to be the 
 instruments of such a power? 
 
 There is one other abuse against which we can 
 at least utter an indignant protest. I mean the 
 toleration of judicial candidates who are williug 
 
 237 
 
TRIAL BY JURY 
 
 or permitted to pay for their nomination or to 
 pay their party for their election. No matter 
 what their personal or professional qualifications 
 in other respects may be, such a means of reach- 
 ing the office cannot but degrade the Betich. Ima- 
 gine John Marshall, or James Kent, or John Jay 
 contributing ten thousand dollars or any other 
 sum to his party, as a condition precedent to tak- 
 ing office! Could it have been said of either of 
 them that the judicial ermine touched nothing 
 less spotless than itself when it fell upon his 
 shoulders? 
 
 And finally the advocates, the third great fac- 
 tor and component of the trial by jury. They at 
 least are in your hands, and they must rise or fall 
 to the standard which you fix. They are not a 
 class set apart, like the English Barristers, by 
 special training and office for the work of the 
 court room, but are necessarily eliminated by ac- 
 cident, by ambition, by personal faculties, for 
 this peculiar service. In the long run the doc- 
 trine of selection operates. It is necessarily the 
 survival of the fittest that groups them by them- 
 selves, but the fountain cannot rise higher than 
 its source, and their courage, their honesty, their 
 training and fitness will always be measured by 
 the standard which the Bar at large exemplifies, 
 imposes and demands. 
 
 Give us then competent jurors, able judges and 
 honest, fearless and learned advocates, and trial 
 ^7 jury) which I am sure the people of America 
 are determined to maintain, will still be the best 
 
 238 
 
TEIAL BY JURY 
 
 safeguard of their lives, their liberties and their 
 property. 
 
 This Association necessarily looks to the future 
 for the results of its annual conferences, and its 
 earnest work. Our individual labors are nearly 
 finished, but we can do much to clear the field 
 for our sons, for the youth who as we hope will 
 follow in our footsteps. The best hopes of our 
 noble profession have always been, as they al- 
 ways will be, in its youngest ranks, and this was 
 never so true as at this very moment. The stan- 
 dard of legal education has never before been 
 advanced to its present height. The young men 
 who come annually from the Law Schools to re- 
 cruit our ranks, are better equipped and quali- 
 fied—far more so than we ever were— to enter 
 upon the arduous and responsible duties that 
 await them. Let us preserve and restore and 
 transmit to them in all its wonted vigor this an- 
 cient and noble tribunal— to arouse their am- 
 bition, to stimulate their ardor, to stir their elo- 
 quence, to seal their devotion, and if in turn they 
 prove true to the dreams of their youth— which 
 are always of lofty aims and high ideals— our 
 jurisprudence will indeed have been advanced. 
 
 239 
 
EETUEN TO AMERICA 
 
RETURN TO AMERICA 
 
 Address delivered at the tanquet of the Pilgrims Society of New 
 
 York, in honor of Mr. Choate's return to America, 
 
 June 9, 1905. 
 
 IT is quite impossible for me to make an ade- 
 quate reply to your most affectionate and 
 flattering address of welcome. 
 
 Five weeks ago to-night, at the Mansion House, 
 in London, I could not express half I felt of grati- 
 tude, of friendship, of pain at parting, when, in 
 the presence of an assembly truly representative 
 of all that is great and good in Great Britain, Mr. 
 Balfour and Lord Lansdowne, in behalf of the 
 English people, among whom I had lived so long, 
 bade me godspeed and farewell. And now, in an 
 equally representative assembly of all that I 
 honor and love in America, made up, indeed, of 
 the men with whom I have summered and win- 
 tered for more than forty years, with a sprink- 
 ling here and there of young men who have, as it 
 were, grown up at my feet and who are very dear 
 to me, you, in behalf of my countrymen, give me 
 an equally affectionate welcome home. 
 
 If I could feel that I deserved half of the praise 
 and benediction lavished upon me on either oc- 
 casion I should be so vain that my head would 
 strike the stars ; but in truth and in deed I do 
 not. 
 
 243 
 
RETURN TO AMERICA 
 
 It was my unique privilege to serve as Ambas- 
 sador in two centuries, in two reigns, and under 
 two of the most celebrated Presidents of the Uni- 
 ted States, and all the time my duties in England 
 were very easy, very simple, and extremely pleas- 
 ant. Toward my own countrymen who visit Eng- 
 land in such increasing number every year, there 
 was, of course, but one cardinal rule to follow: 
 That the Ambassador represented no party, no 
 section, and no social class, but was the equal 
 servant of all alike. 
 
 So that whether Mr. Bryan came, who fairly 
 represented 6,000,000 of our countrymen, with 
 whose political faith I was at variance, or a Re- 
 publican ex-President whom I had heartily sup- 
 ported, I was at the service of both alike— to 
 bring them in contact with the leading men of 
 the nation, and to put the limited resources of 
 the Embassy at their command. And I am bound 
 to say that in these two instances they were ob- 
 jects of equal interest to British statesmen, al- 
 though I confess a feeling of disappointment 
 when I had taken Mr. Bryan to the Bank of Eng- 
 land, and saw him handling gold bullion in its 
 famous vaults with apparent zest, to find that it 
 seemed to have no effect on his political faith. 
 
 Sometimes indeed the more exacting of my 
 countrymen demanded a little more than I could 
 do for them; as to breakfast with the King, or to 
 stay at Windsor Castle, or to visit private estab- 
 lishments, to which I had myself no access, but on 
 the whole, they were habitually reasonable, and 
 
 244 
 
BETURN TO AMERICA 
 
 I found it a great pleasure to minister to the 
 wants and convenience of my countrymen as far 
 as possible. And the American Society in Lon- 
 don, which pla3^s a great part in that city in aid- 
 ing distressed and stranded Americans, was al- 
 ways a great help to the embassy. 
 
 Then, as to the people of England, I had ex- 
 press instructions from President McKinley to 
 do all that I could to maintain and promote the 
 friendship and good-will that already existed be- 
 tween them and our people, and, following the ex- 
 ample of my distinguished predecessors, I moved 
 freely among them and studied their institutions, 
 their customs, and their social life, and from the 
 day that I landed until I left, I met with nothing 
 but kindness, hospitality, and good-will extended 
 freely and cordially to me as the representative 
 of my countrymen. 
 
 And I feel sure that almost every man, woman, 
 and child in Great Britain is friendly to us, and 
 that, as a people, they are determined always to 
 be on good terms with the United States. I did 
 what I could to make them better acquainted with 
 our institutions, our history, and our great men, 
 being assured that better acquaintance is all that 
 is needed to perfect and perpetuate our mutual 
 friendship. They manifested great interest in 
 our National heroes, in such men as "Washington, 
 Franklin, Hamilton, and Lincoln. 
 
 But there is one living American who appeals 
 very strongly to their imaginations and is the 
 universal subject of interest, curiosity, and ap- 
 
 245 
 
RETURN TO AMERICA" 
 
 plause, and if his name were submitted to their 
 suffrages it would command the same overwhelm- 
 ing support that it does among his own country- 
 man. You will not require me to mention his 
 name. 
 
 The history of our diplomatic relations with 
 Grreat Britain in the last six years is familiar to 
 you all. Two great and difficult questions which 
 threatened to disturb, which did, in fact, disturb 
 the perfect harmony which ought always to pre- 
 vail, have been forever disposed of and set at 
 rest, and there is nothing left of sufficient conse- 
 quence to disturb the happy repose of Lord Lans- 
 downe and Mr, Hay, who are the responsible au- 
 thorities, and entitled to the credit of all that has 
 been done. 
 
 Their conduct of our relations which are no 
 longer regarded on either side as foreign rela- 
 tions, has been on both sides fair, square, and 
 aboveboard, frank, honest, and sincere, and it will 
 be happy for both countries if the same spirit 
 shall continue to animate our official intercourse. 
 
 There is another potent factor at all times ex- 
 ercising strong influence for harmonious and cor- 
 dial relations between the two countries. I mean 
 the happy and earnest influence of his Majesty, 
 the King, derived, I am quite certain, from both 
 his father and mother, and greatly strengthened 
 by his pleasant recollections of his early visit to 
 America. 
 
 You will remember that at the time of the Trent 
 affair, which brought such tremendous strain up- 
 
 246 
 
RETURN TO AMERICA 
 
 on our peaceful relations, the Prince Consort, then 
 I believe already overtaken by his mortal illness, 
 acting of course for and with the Queen, ren- 
 dered a great service to both countries and saved 
 the situation, by modifying a hostile dispatch 
 which had been prepared for transmission to 
 America. And I desire to bear witness that on 
 every occasion, of which I had knowledge, the 
 late illustrious Queen and the present sovereign 
 of Great Britain have been steadfast in the faith, 
 that any trouble between England and America 
 would be a calamity to be avoided by all honor- 
 able means, a belief in which both the Presidents 
 under whom I have served have fully shared, and 
 on which I have always acted. 
 
 So I may sincerely disavow the somewhat lav- 
 ish praise which your Chairman has bestowed up- 
 on me, in giving me altogether too much credit 
 for the happily almost perfect relations which 
 now exist between the two nations. They have 
 been drawn together by the force of political 
 gravitation, their interests are largely the same, 
 their principles are identical, their civilization is 
 one and the same, and it will be strange indeed 
 if, when in pursuit of the same object of com- 
 mon interest to both, while each moves in its 
 own independent orbit, they do not confer, con- 
 cur, and co-operate to bring about the same ends. 
 
 So if you ask me to tell you in a word the re- 
 sult of my present knowledge of both countries, 
 I would say that each has a vast deal to learn 
 from the other; that each has infinite reason to 
 
 247 
 
RETURN TO AMERICA 
 
 be proud of its own institutions which it has 
 worked out by itself by historical evolution, and 
 that each can confer priceless benefits on the other 
 and upon the world by constant intercourse and 
 hearty cooperation. 
 
 The American Embassy and its successive in- 
 cumbents have every reason to be grateful to the 
 English Court, Government, and people for their 
 constant friendship. There is but one drawback 
 to its complete success and perfect prestige, and 
 that is the want of a permanent home, the prop- 
 erty of its own Government, where the residence 
 of the Ambassador shall be fixed and all the 
 business of the Embassy be conducted. While 
 all of the other great powers who maintain em- 
 bassies in London have such permanent homes, 
 each its own property, the United States and 
 Turkey alone lead a floating and nomadic exist- 
 ence; each successive Ambassador hunting for a 
 house which shall suit the length of his own per- 
 sonal purse. 
 
 I believe that hardly two successive Ministers 
 or Ambassadors of the United States in London 
 have occupied the same house. They have wan- 
 dered from Baker street to Portland place, from 
 Cromwell road to Lowndes square, and from 
 Eaton square to Carlton House Terrace, and I 
 myself had to move from one house to another in 
 the midst of my term, because the owner, natu- 
 rally enough, wanted to live in his own house. At 
 last, however, by the courtesy and sufferance of 
 my landlords, the Viceroy of India and the Prime 
 
 248 
 
RETTJKN TO AMERICA 
 
 Minister of Great Britain, I found places from 
 which to float the Stars and Stripes. But what I 
 maintain is that a great Nation like ours, rich, 
 powerful, and ambitious, should have a house of 
 its own on which to float the National flag on the 
 Fourth of July and on all other great days, with- 
 out leave or license from Viceroy or Premier or 
 anybody else. 
 
 My own position in the matter was graphi- 
 cally depicted, after I had been house hunting for 
 about a month, by a poem in a newspaper, which 
 represented a forlorn and travel-stained stranger 
 wandering about the streets of London, always 
 hunting, hunting, hunting, but finding nothing. 
 At last at midnight the police, having grown sus- 
 picious of him, touched him on the shoulder and 
 said: " You must move on. Sir; you must go 
 home." " Home," said he, " home? I have no 
 home; I am the American Ambassador." 
 
 The present arrangement by which our coun- 
 try, almost alone among the nations represented 
 at London by embassies, goes without a home of 
 its own is undemocratic, unrepublican, and unbe- 
 coming to the dignity of a great nation. It is un- 
 fair to the President, because it limits his choice 
 every time. He ought to be able to lay his hand 
 upon the shoulder of whomever he considers the 
 very best man among our eighty millions to rep- 
 resent the nation in each of the capitals of Eu- 
 rope, whether he has a dollar of his own or not. 
 
 What we ought to have is a permanent em- 
 bassy, spacious in area and simple in character, 
 
 249 
 
EETUEN TO AMEEICA 
 
 suitable for the representative of a republic, prop- 
 erly equipped and adequate for the purpose, in 
 which each successive Ambassador would reside 
 as a matter of course, the Nation alone being 
 responsible for its dignity and fitness, and I hope 
 that all of you who have any political influence 
 will urge this modest reform. 
 
 250 
 
THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY IN 1855 
 
THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY 
 IN 1855 
 
 Address delivered before the New England Society in the City of 
 New York, December M, 1905. 
 
 I THANK you for this cordial greeting. Noth- 
 ing that I experienced in England gave me 
 more pleasure than this welcome from my old 
 friends and companions in this Society which 
 is so dear to my heart. I am sorry to find my- 
 self for the first time before you so situated that 
 I do not feel at liberty to play to the galleries— 
 the most absorbing, the most fascinating, the 
 most bewitching game that man can play. You 
 have only to look into the galleries to see that 
 neither bridge, nor golf, nor foot-ball with all its 
 drawbacks and halfbacks and quarterbacks, fur- 
 nishes any sport so delightful as that. 
 
 I listened very carefully to what your Presi- 
 dent in his eloquent and impressive opening ad- 
 dress said, and I got one idea from him that bore 
 directly upon this subject. He said— and he will 
 correct me if I misunderstood him— that the 
 whole object and result of the Puritan training 
 was to fit us better for companionship with su- 
 perior beings. I listened most faithfully to what 
 our great President of Harvard said, and he told 
 you how much we had improved under coUectiv- 
 
 253 
 
THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY IN 1855 
 
 ism and under individualism, and he hardly knew 
 under which the more, and yet, in this respect of 
 training for companionship with these superior 
 beings, it does not seem to me that we have made 
 any progress at all in these two hundred and 
 eighty-five years that have elapsed since the land- 
 ing on Plymouth Eock. That is, if Longfellow 
 rightly tells us the history of the relations of 
 John Alden and Priscilla Mullen. 
 
 I am a little sceptical on this question of a 
 steady and permanent improvement, upon which 
 President Eliot and Mr. Crothers have lavished 
 so much earnestness and enthusiasm. That last 
 result of scientific culture in Massachusetts that 
 Mr. Crothers has told us about— the gypsy moths 
 imported first, their destructive work, and then 
 the hostile insects that were imported afterwards 
 to prey upon them— that was not a new idea at 
 aU. That is not an advance on New England 
 science; it is merely a repetition in another form 
 of the story of the triumphant scientific experi- 
 ment of the New England farmer one hundred 
 and fifty years ago, who crossed his bees with 
 fireflies in order that they might work all night. 
 
 To-night I have been recalled here from a re- 
 mote past, a veteran who lags superfluous on the 
 stage— I believe the only survivor present of 
 those who attended the festival of this Society 
 fifty years ago. If there is any other gentleman 
 who was present on that occasion let him now 
 speak. None? Then none have I offended or 
 overlooked. When I was in Egypt they showed 
 
 254 
 
THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY IN 1855 
 
 me the bodies of some prehistoric men who had 
 been resting in the sand— not mummies, but peo- 
 ple who had been resting in the sand for some- 
 where between five and ten thousand years; and 
 they had been dug up and brought to the Medi- 
 cal Museum for the purpose of teaching the men 
 of to-day lessons in anatomy, physiology, archae- 
 ology, and human history. And so the President 
 has summoned me— and he had a right to, he had 
 a right to — because I was actually present and 
 he has asked me seriously to tell you some of 
 the incidents and details of the celebration of this 
 Society fifty years ago — in 1855. 
 
 "Well, the circumstances, and especially the 
 political circumstances, that surrounded the So- 
 ciety and this city at that day must be recalled. 
 It was half way between the passage of the com- 
 promise measures of 1850, fugitive slave law and 
 all, which were believed to have settled the slav- 
 ery question forever, and the election of Lincoln 
 in 1860, which, as history proved, did settle it for- 
 ever. The Kansas-Nebraska bill had just been 
 passed, and had shown the utter futility of moral 
 means (or immoral means) for putting an end 
 to that evil which lay at the very root of the 
 honor and the life of the nation. Men's minds 
 were divided, distracted. Some clung to the tra- 
 ditions of the past and cried, "Peace, peace!" 
 when there was no peace, or possibility of peace. 
 Some looked to the inevitable and irrepressible 
 conflict as the only cure for existing evils, and 
 the great majority were still halting between the 
 
 255 
 
THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY IN 1855 
 
 two opinions, thinking one way one day and the 
 other the next. And New York was the neutral 
 ground on which it was easy and safe to express 
 every form of opinion; but her commerce, her 
 destiny as the one great port of the continent, 
 pleaded always that there must be no disturbance 
 of existing conditions, and, above all, that there 
 must be no war. She was then a comparatively 
 small city— only 500,000 inhabitants, all living be- 
 low Forty-second street— as compared with her 
 present expanded area of 330 square miles, I be- 
 lieve it is, and four millions of people. There 
 were no great fortunes yet in those days. There 
 were some rich men— I doubt if any as rich as 
 the richest citizen of Cambridge to-day; but they 
 were paltry in comparison with the colossal ac- 
 cumulations of to-day. Men came here in those 
 days to make their fortunes, and not a single 
 one had yet appeared of those millionaires, of 
 every race and nationality from every part of 
 the country, who, having made fortunes else- 
 where, now come here to spend them, and who 
 have thus changed the whole social life of the 
 city. State rights were still largely asserted, and 
 pride of State birth was strongly felt and strong- 
 ly maintained. That great drift of power and 
 authority to Washington, which began with the 
 war and which has grown stronger and stronger 
 ever since and is growing more rapidly to-day 
 than ever, had not yet begun. 
 
 It was in such a situation that the members of 
 this Society assembled in 1855 to celebrate the 
 
 256 
 
THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY IN 1855 
 
 day that is so dear to us. It took two days then 
 to celebrate the memory of that little band of 
 colonists who now are recognized as the most 
 famous ever known in the world. The place se- 
 lected for the celebration was Dr. Cheever's 
 church on Union Square— on the very spot, I be- 
 lieve, where afterwards the golden house of Tif- 
 fany was erected— and there came to conduct the 
 celebration two great citizens, two great New 
 Englanders, Dr. Oliver "Wendell Holmes, beloved 
 by everybody, and that noble old champion of 
 liberty, John Pierpont. There could not by any 
 possibility have been selected two men who more 
 fitly illustrate the contrast of ideas that then di- 
 vided the nation. 
 
 We assembled to hear the orator and poet of 
 the evening on the 21st of December. The orator, 
 Dr. Holmes, was the best embodiment of New 
 England culture and refinement. Tender-hearted 
 and unwilling to offend anybody, he delivered 
 the most eloquent discourse, in which he spoke 
 for harmony between the threatening sections 
 of the country, so soon to be divided. He pleaded 
 for a closer union between New England and 
 the rest of the country, and between the North 
 and the South. He deprecated all extreme 
 ideas, and one of the themes on which he laid 
 most stress would have interested our President, 
 General Hubbard, if he had been there; for he 
 even denounced the Maine law which had recently 
 gone into operation. He spoke for a continuance 
 of compromise, and for the strict observance of 
 
 257 
 
THE NEW ElNGLAND SOCIETY IN 1855 
 
 all constitutional obligations, and although he 
 was then, as he always was afterwards, as I think, 
 the most popular man in the country, his audi- 
 ence was so divided that distinct hisses were 
 heard at many of his emphatic periods. 
 
 Dr. Holmes was one of the most loyal and pa- 
 triotic of men, and no man was more devoted to 
 his country, as the result soon proved; but he 
 never could have dreamed, as he stood there 
 pleading for harmony between Freedom and 
 Slavery, that in less than seven years, immedi- 
 ately after the bloody battle of Antietam, a tele- 
 gram would arouse him from his slumbers at mid- 
 night, telling him that his first-bom son, whom 
 he had given to the service of his coimtry and 
 the cause of liberty, had been shot through the 
 neck, but that the wound was not thought to be 
 mortal ; that next morning he would have to start 
 on that famous search for his captain, "The Himt 
 for my Captain;" and that after a week's jour- 
 ney over hundreds of miles, visiting hospitals 
 and camps and railway stations, he should find 
 him at last among the wounded in a baggage- 
 car entering Hagerstown in Maryland, and should 
 exchange those greetings so characteristic of the 
 self-contained Bostonian, but which he has made 
 so classical and historic. As they came together, 
 the father and the son, their first words were: 
 " How are you, boy? " " How are you, dad? " 
 
 When Dr. Holmes sat down, then up rose old 
 John Pierpont and blew a mighty blast for free- 
 dom. Why, you would have thought that his 
 
 258 
 
THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY IN 1855 
 
 own withers had been wrung by slavery. At any 
 rate, the iron of slavery seemed to have entered 
 into his soul. I think he must have been in State 
 street when Anthony Bums was hurried down 
 on his way from the Court House in the hands of 
 federal officers and federal troops, to be carried 
 back to bondage in the South. 
 
 After Mr. Pierpont had most pathetically 
 spoken of the sufferings and troubles of the Pil- 
 grim mothers and the Pilgrim fathers, he broke 
 out into a splendid apostrophe to the spirit of 
 liberty, of which the Pilgrim fathers had been 
 the finest exponents in history, and he concluded 
 with that stanza which he made historic: 
 
 Oh, thou Holy One, and just, 
 Thou who wast the Pilgrims' trust, 
 
 Thou who watchest o'er their dust 
 
 By the moaning sea ; 
 By their conflicts, toils, and cares. 
 By their perils and their prayers. 
 By their ashes, make their heirs 
 
 True to them and Thee. 
 
 "Well, next day came the dinner at the Astor 
 House, which compared with this banquet of 
 yours to-night very much as that ancient and 
 simple hostelry of that day compares with this 
 glorious House of Mirth, the Waldorf-Astoria. 
 
 Harmony prevailed there, absolute harmony, in 
 spite of all that had happened the night before. 
 Dr. Holmes had improved the occasion over night 
 to prepare some verses for the reunion and show 
 
 259 
 
THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY IN 1855 
 
 how little he had been disturbed by what had 
 taken place the evening before. Let me read you 
 two or three of his stanzas: 
 
 New England, we love thee ; no time can erase 
 Prom the hearts of thy children the smile on thy face. 
 'Tis the mother's fond look of affection and pride 
 As she gives her fair son to the arms of his bride; 
 
 Come, let us be cheerful, we scolded last night. 
 
 And they cheered us and — never mind, — meant it all 
 
 right. 
 To-night we harm nothing, we love in the lump. 
 Here 's a bumper to Maine in the juice of the pump ! 
 
 Here's to all the good people, wherever they be, 
 That have grown in the shade of the liberty tree. 
 We all love its leaves and its blossoms and fruit, 
 But pray, have a care for the fence round the root. 
 
 We should like to talk big, 'tis a kind of a right. 
 When the tongue has got loose as the waistband grew 
 
 tight. 
 But as pretty Miss Prudence remarked to her beau, 
 "On its own heap of compost no biddie should crow." 
 
 "Well, the night before Dr. Holmes had told 
 his audience the story of lo, beloved of Jupiter 
 and changed by him into a heifer, to protect her 
 from the wrath of Juno, but Juno was too much 
 for him, and for her, and sent the gadfly to tor- 
 ment lo and to drive her careering over seas and 
 continents, until at last she brought up in the 
 Valley of the Nile, resumed her original form, 
 
 260 
 
THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY IN 1855 
 
 became the mother of kings and the founder of a 
 new dynasty, and was ever afterwards wor- 
 shipped by the Egyptians as the goddess Isis. He 
 had likened to the gadfly the edicts of Elizabeth 
 and of James, which had driven the Pilgrims, 
 and the Puritans, out of the English Church, and 
 had sent them over the broad ocean to found a 
 new empire. And when Mr. Pierpont found in 
 what a delightful frame of mind Dr. Holmes had 
 come there in spite of the discomfort of the night 
 before, he responded to his verse with this: 
 
 Our Brotlier Holmes's gadfly was a thing 
 That lo knew by its tormenting sting. 
 The noisome insect still is known by this, 
 But geese and serpents by their harmless hiss. 
 
 And Dr. Holmes immediately jumped to his 
 feet, and replied, impromptu: 
 
 Well said, my trusty brother, bravely done ; 
 Sit down, good neighbor, now I you one. 
 
 That is the way we celebrated the day fifty 
 years ago, and we had as good a time as I have 
 ever known the New England Society to have 
 since. 
 
 But now I have another duty very briefly to 
 perform, by right of seniority, as an ex-President 
 of this Society; and that is to say a few words 
 about the ex-Presidents. Considering that I was 
 elected President of this Society thirty-eight 
 years ago, and that all my predecessors and my 
 
 261 
 
THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY IN 1855 
 
 seven immediate successors have already crossed 
 the Great Divide, I think perhaps I had better 
 avail myself of my chance while I have it, to say 
 a few words for the ex-Presidents. Not all. The 
 living ex-Presidents — General Woodford and Mr. 
 Bliss and Judge Howland needn't be afraid of 
 that— they can speak for themselves. When we 
 retire from the chair we pass into the ranks, and 
 eat our Boston baked beans and pumpkin pie 
 with that humility which is characteristic of all 
 New Englanders. But of the departed ex-Presi- 
 dents, and of three of them, who were very dear 
 to me, I wish to say a few words. I think this can 
 be said of all without any invidious distinction, 
 without singling out any from the list, of all the 
 ex-Presidents of the Society, that they were most 
 typical New Englanders in New York, and be- 
 cause of the qualities which they showed in that 
 way, they were elected your Presidents. What 
 do I mean by typical New Englanders in New 
 York? Let me see if I cannot state it in a very 
 few words, in a way which will conamend itself 
 to many of you, from your own personal experi- 
 ence. 
 
 In an humble old homestead in New England, 
 in town or country, presided over by God-fearing 
 and man-loving parents, where both plain liv- 
 ing, very plain living, , and very high 
 thinking prevailed, the whole object of the 
 family life from the beginning to the end 
 was to create a future for the sons and 
 daughters. The whole of every year was dedi- 
 
 262 
 
THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY IN 1855 
 
 cated to that, and every sacrifice that was neces- 
 sary was made to give the boys and the girls the 
 finest education which their times afforded. I 
 remember one such household where the strug- 
 gle was strenuous and unceasing, and it was the 
 proud boast of the parents that they did succeed, 
 on a modest professional income, in keeping four 
 sons, Mr. President, four sons at once, in one 
 single year, in one annual catalogue of Harvard 
 College. 
 
 How were such trimnphs achieved? Of course, 
 it was by absolute self-denial ; by utter self-sacri- 
 fice; by subordinating always the present to the 
 future; by really merging the entire lives of the 
 parents in the success and future career of their 
 children. All honor to such fathers and mothers, 
 who are and always have been the great glory 
 of New England! They are entitled to the chief 
 part of the credit, rather than the children. A 
 shame would it be to the children, if conscience, 
 and duty, and enterprise, and public spirit, and 
 patriotism were not quickened and nourished by 
 such nurture and such discipline. 
 
 Thus bred and trained, the boy comes to man's 
 estate and looks about him. The world is all be- 
 fore him where to choose, and if health be suffi- 
 cient and courage dwell within him, and that stern 
 tenacity of purpose, which is indispensable to 
 success anywhere, as he looks out upon the world 
 New York with its teeming life and its splendid 
 prizes holds out to him an irresistible fascination. 
 Leaving his home, followed by the blessings and 
 
 263 
 
THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY IN 1855 
 
 the hopes of those dear ones who have done so 
 much for him, he comes to New York empty- 
 handed; but with a courage all his own, and bear- 
 ing perhaps one letter of introduction from some 
 prominent person in his neighborhood to some 
 New Englander of a preceding generation, whose 
 success here has found an echo in his native re- 
 gion. The letter gives him all the credit it can, 
 and commends him to this friend to smooth his 
 first steps. By this, or by some means, getting his 
 foot upon the lowest round of the ladder; he can 
 do his own climbing after that. If he has good 
 fortune— for after all " the race is not always to 
 the swift nor the battle to the strong, nor riches 
 to men of understanding, but time and chance 
 happen to them all " — if he has good fortune, he 
 can reasonably be certain of success here, and 
 possibly may become President of the New Eng- 
 land Society. 
 
 Such is my idea of the typical New Englander 
 in New York. There were three of your ex- 
 Presidents who were very near and dear to me. 
 I grieved at their absence when I came home from 
 abroad, and remembered the warm hand-grasp 
 which each gave me when I went away. All 
 were distinguished ex-Presidents of this Society. 
 I refer to Mr. Evarts, Mr. Carter, and Mr. Sea- 
 man. 
 
 What a splendid example of New England cul- 
 ture and New England training was Mr. Evarts! 
 I owe htm more than words can tell. My connec- 
 tion with him was very close, from my arrival 
 
 264 
 
THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY IN 1855 
 
 here in 1855 until his death in 1901. I brought 
 to him a letter of introduction, such as I have 
 described, from Rufus Choate, who was then at 
 the very zenith of his fame. A few years before 
 he had delivered before this society his famous 
 oration, of which the refrain was " A Church 
 without a Bishop and a State without a King." 
 He was most beloved and most honored by all 
 New Englanders, as well as by the rest of the 
 country. When I handed that letter to Mr. Evarts 
 he took me by the hand and said : ' ' Join the New 
 England Society, and come into my office." And 
 my fortune was made! My first steps were most 
 effectively smoothed by him. 
 
 What a great professional career he enjoyed; 
 how he leaped to the front almost at the begin- 
 ning of his life here in 1840, and maintained his 
 place to the end against all competitors, and with 
 the entire confidence of the profession and the 
 community! His career professionally was as 
 fortunate as it was well deserved. It was most 
 unique, for certainly never in this country be- 
 fore, and never since, did four great forensic 
 causes occur in the short time while one and the 
 same man was at that professional height which 
 commended him as a leader in all of them. I 
 refer to the impeachment of a President, the 
 Electoral Commission, the Geneva Arbitration, 
 and the trial of the Beecher case— all testing pro- 
 fessional capacity in the very highest form and 
 in every varied way, and in each case he was 
 found fully equal to the occasion. Then what a 
 
 265 
 
THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY IN 1855 
 
 leader lie was of public sentiment! Courageous, 
 conservative, learned, he was always willing to 
 give his service and his advice and guidance to 
 his fellow citizens. Many of you remember his 
 sparkling wit, how it lightened and enlivened all 
 the meetings of this Society, of which he was the 
 life and the soul for many years. He was, in 
 truth, the quickest-witted man that I have ever 
 met on either side of the water. Character is 
 what tells. It was that grand, unfailing Puritan 
 character, guided by conscience, devoted to duty, 
 that gave him predominance among his fellow 
 citizens and made him dear to their hearts. So 
 that he, if any man, deserves some public monu- 
 ment in New York to transmit to future genera- 
 tions the knowledge of his great character and 
 his invaluable public services. 
 
 What shall I say of Mr. Carter, another of your 
 great ex-Presidents and another of the great 
 products of New England soil and of Harvard 
 culture? When I entered Harvard College in 
 1848 I found him there already a marked man, 
 where he had been for two years, dominating the 
 minds and affections of his fellows. When he 
 came to New York at the time of his graduation 
 it was the certain expectation and hope of all in 
 his college that he would meet with great suc- 
 cess here. Carter had a hard, up-hill fight from 
 the beginning, but he reached the goal of his am- 
 bition, which was the leadership of the New 
 York bar and the American bar. He was 
 one of those pure lawyers, who owed noth- 
 
 266 
 
THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY IN 1855 
 
 ing to the adventitious aid of title or of 
 office; one of that little group of great untitled 
 advocates of whom America is so proud, like Mr. 
 Horace Binney, and Mr. Sidney Bartlett, Mr. 
 Daniel Lord, and Mr. Charles 'Conor. He was 
 one of that famous galaxy and was equal to the 
 best. On great public questions he was always at 
 the service of the community, but he could never 
 quite keep step with any party. He never nar- 
 rowed his mind to give up to party what was 
 meant for mankind— I mean his great personal 
 character, and influence, and wisdom. It is but 
 yesterday that he was taken from us, and it does 
 seem to me that the New England Society and the 
 City of New York have met with no greater loss 
 in recent years, and that as long as manly char- 
 acter, great mental endowments, and sublime 
 public spirit are to be rewarded with admiration 
 he must be accounted among your truly great. 
 
 A word now about Mr. Beaman, another most 
 typical New Englander in New York, trained 
 under the very discipline that I have described 
 to you and showing all its best merits and results. 
 He was nearer to me than a brother, and I cannot 
 sit down without saying a word or two about 
 him. When Walter Scott wa,s dying he said to 
 Lockhart as his parting blessing, " Be a good 
 man, my dear, be a good man; " and that is ex- 
 actly what Beaman was in a preeminent degree — 
 with the biggest of hearts and the warmest of 
 sympathy, and the most far-reaching sense of 
 the brotherhood of man. I think that he had 
 
 267 
 
THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY IN 1855 
 
 more friends in New York and more friends in 
 the eomitry than any man I have ever known. 
 He had a singular and marked capacity, a genu- 
 ine instinct, for friendship. He had a full, great- 
 hearted sympathy, and he touched human rela- 
 tions at more points than any other man among 
 us. All the people that he met were his friends, 
 and, besides that, he had a nobility of character 
 which gave his judgment and opinion vast and 
 beneficent weight with all with whom he came in 
 contact. I know that his intuitions of law were, 
 nine times out of ten, better than the results of 
 other men's study. He was a most delight- 
 ful and beautiful character, and he was one of 
 those men of whom this Society and this city can 
 well cherish the memory. " He that would be 
 greatest among you, let him be the servant of 
 all," and that is what Beaman always was, and 
 was always trying to be, and so I think I have a 
 right to class him among your great Presidents. 
 
 268 
 
JAMES COOLIDGE CAETEE 
 
JAMES COOLIDGE CARTER 
 
 Address delivered before the Bar Association of the City of New 
 York, March 13, 1906. 
 
 JAMES COOLIDGE CARTEE was bom at 
 Lancaster, in the State of Massachusetts, on 
 October 14th, 1827, and died in New York City, 
 February 14th, 1905— his life covering a period 
 of seventy-seven years and four months, just two- 
 thirds of the existence of the Government of the 
 United States. He thus lived during the admin- 
 istration of twenty of our twenty-five Presidents. 
 In this single lifetime our country grew from 
 twenty-four States, with 12,000,000 of people, to 
 forty-five, with 80,000,000 and 10,000,000 more in 
 our conquered dependencies— made material 
 progress such as no equal period of the world has 
 witnessed in any country, and became a world 
 power ready and able to take a just and leading 
 part in international affairs. Mr. Carter, coming 
 into life with no advantages whatever but his 
 own natural gifts stimulated by poverty and the 
 spur of necessity, grew with the growth of the 
 country and by sheer force of brains and char- 
 acter, had become at the time of his death one 
 of her best known and most valued citizens, the 
 acknowledged leader of the great profession of 
 the law, foremost among its 110,000 votaries— 
 and exercising a wide and powerful iafluence for 
 
 271 
 
JAMES COOLIDGE CAETEE 
 
 good among the people of his time. Such a career 
 is no accident, and it is interesting to recall, as 
 briefly as possible, the steps by which he rose from 
 obscurity to national and international distinc- 
 tion. 
 
 When I entered Harvard College in 1848, Mr. 
 Carter, who had already been there for two years, 
 was a very marked man among the three hundred 
 students who then constituted the entire com- 
 munity of that little college. To very command- 
 ing abilities he added untiring industry, and to 
 lofty character most pleasing manners, a com- 
 bination which made him easily foremost. He 
 was filled with an honorable ambition, and took 
 all the prizes, and not content with perfection in 
 the college curriculum, he took an interest in 
 the public questions of the day, and cultivated 
 the art of public speaking with discriminating 
 assiduity. Like all the yotmg men of that day he 
 was a devoted admirer of Mr. Webster, who did 
 more than any other man to kindle the patriotism 
 and arouse the national spirit of the younger 
 generation, and I always thought that he modelled 
 himself upon that noble example in style, in ex- 
 pression and in the mode of treating every ques- 
 tion that arose. Indeed in his last years I re- 
 garded him as the last survivor of the Websterian 
 School. Dr. Storrs, who died some years before 
 him, was another example of that noble school, 
 and if he had followed the law as he began it, 
 he would have been just such another lawyer as 
 Carter, and his most formidable rival. 
 
 272 
 
JAMES COOLIDGE CARTER 
 
 From lack of means, Mr. Carter found it a 
 hard struggle to get through college, and even 
 to enter it. For this reason he came two years 
 late, having, I believe, engaged in some commer- 
 cial employment to enable him to enter. He did 
 not hesitate to avail himself of the generous aid 
 of an admiring fellow townsman who recognized 
 his great qualities, and meant that they should 
 not be lost to the world. Just as Rufus Choate 
 once told me, that it would be better to borrow 
 the money for your college education at ten per 
 cent, compound interest, than not to get the edu- 
 cation at all. 
 
 "Well, seeing his manifest ability, his spirited 
 and attractive personality, and his sympathetic 
 interest in all our college affairs, we all recog- 
 nized him as our leader. He exercised a potent 
 influence upon all his companions. He was made 
 Class Orator at Commencement— and entered up- 
 on life with assured prospects of success. But 
 still the lack of means was an obstacle to his im- 
 mediate entrance upon the profession of the law, 
 to which he looked forward as the only one pos- 
 sible for him. I believe that he never had a 
 thought of any other occupation in life. So, up- 
 on graduating he betook himself to teaching as 
 a necessary means to that great end. 
 
 It is interesting to read the letter which Judge 
 Willard Phillips, a great jurist and author of the 
 leading work on marine insurance gave him to 
 the gentleman in New York, who had applied to 
 him to recommend a teacher in his family. The 
 
 273 
 
JAMES COOLIDGE CARTER 
 
 letter bears date June, 1850, just before he grad- 
 uated. It says: 
 
 " The young gentleman who has been spoken 
 with for instructor in your family is Mr. James 
 C. Carter, of Lancaster, Mass., a member of the 
 Senior Class. He can teach all the branches of 
 English education and the classics, he is, as Pro- 
 fessor Pierce assures me, a thoroughly educated, 
 talented, accomplished, sensible and pleasing 
 young gentleman, of good principles and high 
 morals." 
 
 How many of us have had our first steps in 
 life smoothed by just such letters! 
 
 At the same time that he took this engagement 
 for a year's service as a teacher in the summer 
 of 1850, he entered the office of Kent & Davies as 
 a student, but his attendance there was only 
 nominal. This firm was composed of Henry E. 
 Davies, afterwards Chief Judge of the Court of 
 Appeals, and William Kent, the son of the Chan- 
 cellor, who had been at one time a Circuit Judge, 
 before the adoption of the Constitution of 1846. 
 He always spoke of Judge Davies with great re- 
 spect and esteem, but he simply loved Judge 
 Kent, of whom he always spoke to me in terms of 
 lanbounded affection and admiration. 
 
 He remained in New York teaching till the au- 
 tumn of 1851, when he entered the Dane Law 
 School at Harvard and remained there three 
 terms till the spring of 1853— so that I was with 
 
 274 
 
JAMES COOLIDGE CAETER 
 
 him there again for six months, and had full op- 
 portunity to observe that the same qualities 
 which had made him so distinguished in college, 
 to which was now added an unbounded enthusiasm 
 for the law, made him still a leading and com- 
 manding spirit among his new associates. 
 
 What an impression he had left at the office in 
 New York, in spite of his scanty attendance there, 
 appears from the fact that in February, 1853, Mr. 
 Davies visited the Law School and said that he 
 had come on to see Mr. Carter — that his firm of 
 Kent & Davies was about to dissolve — that he was 
 going to take Henry J. Scudder as jimior partner 
 and wanted Mr. Carter to come to him as manag- 
 ing clerk. Mr. Carter accepted the position, and 
 was soon after admitted to the Bar in New York. 
 In 1854, Mr. Davies withdrew, to become Cor- 
 poration Counsel, and the firm of Scudder & Car- 
 ter was formed, with whom it was my good for- 
 tune to study the Code in the following year. 
 This firm under its successive organizations of 
 Scudder and Carter, Carter and Ledyard, Carter, 
 Eollins and Ledyard, and Carter, Ledyard and 
 Milbum has occupied a great place in the annals 
 of the profession in New York. 
 
 But the firm of Scudder and Carter started in 
 1854 substantially as a new firm, and Mr. Car- 
 ter, instead of deriving any special benefit from 
 it at the outset in his career at the Bar, had to 
 make his own way there. It served as a good 
 personal introduction to the profession, by whom 
 he was received in that cordial and hospitable 
 
 275 
 
JAMES COOLIDGE CARTER 
 
 spirit which, when our Bar wa& smaller, was more 
 characteristic of it. 
 
 He made no brilliant debut in the courts, as Mr. 
 Evarts had done in the celebrated Monroe Ed- 
 wards case. He was not plunged at once into a 
 great volume of business as some of us were who 
 joined as juniors, old and long established firms, 
 the elder members of which were already over- 
 worked. He had to paddle his own canoe and 
 work his way up stream. But slowly and surely, 
 on a solid basis of work well done, he advanced 
 step by step, and soon came to be recognized by 
 his seniors at the Bar, by such men as Daniel 
 Lord and 'Conor and Cutting and William M. 
 Evarts and William Curtis Noyes, as a young man 
 who must be reckoned with, and as a foeman 
 likely to be worthy to meet them in any cause. 
 
 From the first he aimed at nothing short of 
 perfection in everything that he undertook, and 
 as his ideals were high, and his conscience su- 
 preme, this involved an amount of labor and self 
 absorption seldom if ever exceeded. In those 
 days he had but few social duties or pleasures to 
 distract him from minding the main chance, suc- 
 cess on the forensic side of the profession, and 
 to that he was able and eager to devote all his 
 energies of mind and body. I know of no lawyer 
 whose success was more fairly earned or more 
 thoroughly deserved, or less derived from ad- 
 ventitious sources or external aid. By his own 
 might he worked his way to the front. Let me 
 try very briefly to trace the personal qualities 
 
 276 
 
JAMES COOLIDGE CARTER 
 
 which were the weapons by which he won the 
 victory. For I have known personally all the 
 lawyers in New York who for the last fifty years 
 have one after another been foremost among us 
 —and no two of them were alike. 
 
 In the first place, he had a very sound mind in 
 a very sound body. But those are the common 
 and necessary requisites of any measure of suc- 
 cess. His mental endowments were of a very su- 
 perior and splendid quality, and he appreciated 
 his own intellectual powers and revelled in the 
 exercise of them. Thinking, which to most of us 
 is a painful and tiresome process, he delighted in, 
 and pursued it as a most fascinating game. His 
 mind was of a decidedly philosophical turn, fond 
 of considering and solving all the problems of 
 human society and progress — and the reasoning 
 powers which in most of us are dwarfed or 
 twisted, in him were naturally and fully devel- 
 oped. Logic as a pastime was as acceptable to him 
 as golf or bridge is to the average man to-day. 
 
 He was undoubtedly extremely ambitious— but 
 his ambition was of a very high order and made 
 of the sternest kind of stuff. He would not stoop 
 to conquer and disdained to climb by unworthy 
 means. His nature was robust and his disposi- 
 tion combative, so that he loved the contests of 
 the forum, and its triumphs and trophies were a 
 great joy to him. He eagerly seized the palm of 
 victory, but with him it was always palma non 
 sine pulvere, and always fairly won. 
 
 His conscience was clear as crystal, and never 
 277 
 
JAMES COOLIDaE CARTER 
 
 went back on him, as it sometimes does on men 
 whose mental vision is less clear than his. 
 
 Absolute independence was the controlling fea- 
 ture of Mr. Carter's mind and character. It 
 marked and guided his whole conduct, profes- 
 sional, public and personal. He must act on his 
 own carefully matured judgment, no matter with 
 whom or with what it brought him in conflict— 
 and he had the courage which naturally accom- 
 panies such independence of character. 
 
 He was not without a large share of self asser- 
 tion, and yet was one of the most unselfish of 
 men. 
 
 Imbued with a high sense of public duty, and 
 most ardently patriotic, he studied with keen in- 
 terest public questions as they axose from time 
 to time, and was ever willing to give his fellow 
 citizens the benefit of his opinion, but he never 
 sought ofiice and never allowed his interest in 
 public affairs to distract him for a moment from 
 the pursuit of his chosen profession, well know- 
 ing what a jealous mistress the law is. 
 
 His power of labor was prodigious, and as he 
 had given no hostages to fortune in the shape of 
 wife and children, he was always ready and able 
 to serve his clients and the cause of justice with 
 relentless devotion. 
 
 By nature warm hearted and magnanimous, he 
 was one of the most loyal and persistent of 
 friends, and in spite of his contentious life, I 
 never heard of his having an enemy. He was too 
 just and generous for that. 
 
 278 
 
JAMES COOLIDGE CARTER 
 
 These excellent mental, moral and physical en- 
 dowments, were the effective instruments by 
 which he worked his way to fame and fortune. 
 
 His professional conduct and habits were just 
 what you would have expected from such a char- 
 acter. He honored and magnified his profession, 
 and fully recognized the debt which, as Lord Ba- 
 con says, we all owe to it. He scorned all mean 
 and trifling arts, and relied solely on the merits 
 of his cause and his own prowess in maintain- 
 ing it. 
 
 He had a unique habit when he had embarked 
 in a cause, of first convincing himself of its jus- 
 tice, before he undertook to convince court, or 
 jury, or adversary. He was very far from limit- 
 ing himself to causes that he thought he could 
 win, or to such as were sound in law or right in 
 fact. No genuine advocate that I know of has 
 ever done that. He recognized and maintained the 
 true relation of the advocate to the courts and 
 the community, that it is a strictly professional 
 relation, and that either side of any cause that a 
 court may hear, the advocate may properly main- 
 tain. For him newspaper clamor had no terrors. 
 He realized that the newspaper is accuser, judge 
 and executioner, all in one, but for all that he 
 could and did maintain the unpopular side of a 
 controversy with the same zeal and fidelity, as if 
 the whole press were backing his client's claims. 
 As his fame increased he was called, like the lead- 
 ing physicians, into the most grave and critical 
 cases— and I have no doubt that he lost in the 
 
 279 
 
JAMES COOLIDGE CARTER 
 
 long run more cases than he won. But having 
 once undertaken the conduct of a case he made 
 a careful study of it to try to build upon the 
 facts a theory consistent with his own sense of 
 right and justice, which he might fairly and ear- 
 nestly present to the favorable consideration of 
 the court— and in this he generally succeeded— 
 and having once convinced himself, he could ap- 
 ply all the clearness, force and earnestness of 
 which he was master to convince the tribunal, 
 whether court or jury. 
 
 He had such reliance on his own judgment, 
 and confidence in his own opinion, that when he 
 had once found the theory satisfactory to his own 
 mind, on which he ought to present the cause, 
 he never changed or departed from it, no matter 
 what arguments the other side might present, or 
 what decisions the court might make as the cause 
 progressed; and even when the court of last re- 
 sort had pronounced against him, he bowed to 
 the law which the court by reason of its power 
 had declared, but still maintained the theory 
 which by the power of his reason he had evolved 
 in the ease. This forensic habit often gave to his 
 weaker adversaries, who could tack and trim their 
 sails as the judicial breezes changed, an appar- 
 ent advantage. He would present his case on the 
 first and second appeal, more strongly and more 
 forcibly, of course, but it was always the same 
 view of the same case, and we knew exactly where 
 and how we should have to strike to meet it. This 
 absolute reliance on his own judgment some- 
 
 280 
 
JAMES COOLIDGE CARTER 
 
 times led him to underrate the force of his oppo- 
 nent's position. He affected in such cases to 
 treat the propositions of his adversary as " no- 
 tions," and to be surprised and indignant when 
 they commanded the approval of the Court. 
 
 In another respect, also, he sometimes in the 
 arena exposed to his adversary a vulnerable 
 flank. So masterly was his independence of mind 
 and character, that he was not always willing to 
 admit or to recognize the binding force of pre- 
 cedents, however numerous, which failed to run 
 the gauntlet of his own reasoning powers. One 
 of his favorite maxims was, that nothing was fi- 
 nally decided until it was decided right, and so 
 no amount of so-called authorities was sufficient 
 to dissuade him from maintaining the contrary 
 view. 
 
 So earnest and zealous and well sustained was 
 his advocacy, that he sometimes presented the 
 appearance of seeming to drive the court, which 
 a weak judge would resent, and take refuge in 
 his power to decide, while a strong judge would 
 lock horns with him on the spot. 
 
 Mr. Carter's forensic character was a most in- 
 teresting one to study, and it was always hard to 
 say in the particular case whether those fea- 
 tures, which seemed to give his adversary an ad- 
 vantage, were elements of strength or of weak- 
 ness. But on the whole, he grew to be the most 
 formidable advocate, in both the State and Fed- 
 eral courts, and was, I think, so recognized 
 throughout the country. 
 
 281 
 
JAMES COOLIDGE CARTER 
 
 My judgment of him in this respect is con- 
 firmed by a review of the cases in which he was 
 constantly engaged. They were mostly leading 
 cases of great difficulty, magnitude and danger, 
 involving the severest responsibility, and chal- 
 lenging the best powers of the advocate. A mere 
 list of their titles recalls their overwhelming im- 
 portance, and the prodigious labor that must 
 have been involved in their preparation and ar- 
 gument. In all the important branches of the 
 law, he seemed to be equally at home. Great 
 maritime and commercial causes, great railroad 
 controversies and, above all, great constitutional 
 cases were constantly engrossing his attention 
 and taxing his powers. His sense of duty and 
 justice to his clients was shown, not only by his 
 exhaustless labors in their behalf, but by the 
 extreme moderation of his fees and charges. We 
 used sometimes to thiuk that in his careful con- 
 sideration for his clients, he hardly did justice to 
 the profession; and in this respect, by the great 
 weight of his reputation and example, rather 
 lowered the standard which we, with a more real- 
 izing sense of the wants of life, desired always to 
 see highly advanced. But as long as lofty char- 
 acter, commanding abilities, and loyalty to the 
 profession and to the truth constitute just and 
 abiding claims to the admiration of lawyers and 
 of laymen, we shall always be proud of his leader- 
 ship and grateful for his example. A nobler 
 model, on which young advocates may mould 
 their careers, cannot be found in legal annals. 
 
 282 
 
JAMES COOLIDGE CARTER 
 
 Early in his professional career, Mr. Carter's 
 splendid talents and faculties attracted the spe- 
 cial attention of the great leaders of that day, and 
 particularly of Mr. Charles 'Conor, who was 
 preeminent among them, not merely for pro- 
 found erudition, but also for an experience sel- 
 dom equalled, in all branches of the law, for his 
 keen and subtle learning, and for his supreme con- 
 tempt of all shams and false pretences in the way 
 of the profession. He saw in Mr. Carter a kind- 
 dred spirit, and a junior upon whom he could 
 rely for thoroughness equal to his own— for in- 
 exhaustible power of labor, and for absolute de- 
 votion to any cause which he undertook, and they 
 soon became co-laborers in several causes of 
 unique magnitude, importance and difficulty. 
 Probably no lawyer then at the bar was so ex- 
 acting of himself or of his juniors in the prepara- 
 tion and trial of a cause as Mr. 'Conor, and Mr. 
 Carter fully satisfied his most strenuous demands. 
 In the great cause of the City against Tweed, to 
 establish the claims of the City for that long 
 series of deep-laid frauds and peculations by 
 which, through a period of many years, it had 
 been robbed of millions— a trial which extended 
 through several weeks and involved an examina- 
 tion of the most complicated system of thefts 
 which had been exposed by the ingenious re- 
 searches of Governor Tilden; the combined pow- 
 ers of Mr. Peckham, Mr. Carter, and Mr. 'Conor 
 were drawn upon to their utmost to unravel the 
 tangled skein. 
 
 283 
 
JAMES COOLIDaE CAETER 
 
 Mr. Carter's intimate and constant association 
 "with Mr, 'Conor, and laboring witli him through 
 many years had a marked and lasting effect up- 
 on the younger man— as such associations gen- 
 erally do have. The modes of thought and study, 
 the absolute thoroughness, the exhaustless re- 
 search, the style of speech, and even the modes 
 of utterance, and expression of feature and mode 
 of gesticulation of the younger man carried al- 
 ways a suggestion of his great senior. Of course, 
 it was only an unintended and unconscious re- 
 semblance—for Mr. Carter was a much broader 
 and fuller man than Mr. 'Conor, much more 
 highly and generally educated, and more full of 
 sympathy and sentiment— a bigger hearted man 
 and built on a larger scale. And yet, what he 
 thus insensibly imbibed or absorbed from Mr. 
 O 'Conor did strongly characterize his forensic 
 conduct and style, and lent much force and em- 
 phasis to his bearing in court— and always re- 
 called an impression of the great Irish advocate. 
 
 Before the trial of the Tweed case, another tre^ 
 mendous cause, still more laborious, absorbing 
 and exciting had arisen— The Jumel Will Case, 
 and in this, ia all its various forms from begin- 
 ning to end, Mr. Carter and Mr. 'Conor were 
 constantly associated, and bore between them the 
 whole brunt and burden of the arduous contest. 
 It involved not only the most difficult and diverse 
 questions of law that called for great learning 
 and study, but issues of fact of a highly danger- 
 ous and complicated character: questions of pedi- 
 
 284 
 
JAMES COOLIDGE CARTEE 
 
 gree, marriage, paternity and consanguinity — de- 
 pendent for their solution upon old and doubtful 
 documents and papers, upon the fading memory 
 of aged witnesses, upon history and tradition, 
 and upon gatherings from the border line of evi- 
 dence—all appealing strongly to the imagination 
 as well as to the reason of the advocate; and there 
 is no doubt that to this whole range of study and 
 preparation, and to the final success in the case, 
 Mr. Carter contributed, at least, his full share. 
 
 But he paid a bitter penalty for these splendid 
 achievements and triumphs, for, taken with his 
 own regular practice, which was already large, 
 this additional burden proved too much for even 
 his marvellous power of labor, and it ended in a 
 truly tragical catastrophe. The exciting trial of 
 the Jumel case attracted great popular interest, 
 and engaged the attention of Judge Shipman and 
 a jury in the United States Circuit Court for 
 many weeks. The long hours of every day in 
 court were a constant nervous strain, and the 
 longer hours of every night were protracted 
 vigils of labor— with an utter disregard of the 
 commonest laws of health, even of the universal 
 rule that the only cure for fatigue is rest— so that 
 the wonder was that mere flesh and blood could 
 stand it as long as they did. 
 
 Mr. 'Conor was a rule unto himself, and re- 
 versed the usual custom, taking himself the open- 
 ing of the case and throwing the summing up upon 
 his junior, so that Mr. Carter, in the true spirit 
 of the advocate, was in his own mind summing 
 
 285 
 
JAMES COOLIDGE CARTER 
 
 up the case every minute from the first word of 
 the first witness to the last word of the last, and 
 all the while defying the demands of nature for 
 regular food, sleep and repose. His part was 
 splendidly performed, but when the fatal morning 
 of the closing argument arrived, and Mr. Carter 
 arose to address the jury, after a few halting 
 words it was manifest that nature could go no 
 further, and he collapsed upon the spot, so that 
 Mr. 'Conor, whose physique seemed to be made 
 of gutta-percha and steel springs, had to take 
 his place and sum up the case himself. But with 
 the true grit and pluck that characterized him, 
 he persevered, after a temporary recovery, in the 
 trial of the Tweed case, and conducted a vast 
 mass of litigation for the City besides, which re- 
 sulted in a more disastrous breakdown, and for a 
 period of nearly three years he appeared no more 
 at the Bar or in New York. All his unique power 
 of labor had disappeared— he was incapable of 
 the least exertion, and his friends who saw him 
 in the interval hardly dared hope that he would 
 reappear in the arena whose contests were so 
 dear to him. 
 
 But his splendid constitution contained such 
 reservoirs of strength and such living springs of 
 vigor that in 1880, after three years of complete 
 retirement, he came once more upon the scene, 
 fully armed and equipped and ready for new con- 
 tests. In truth, his long period of retirement and 
 repose seemed to have renewed and invigorated 
 all his powers. So that he entered upon another 
 
 286 
 
JAMES COOLIDGE CARTER 
 
 twenty years of professional achievement of tlie 
 very highest order and dignity, which he sus- 
 tained with new and constant safeguards of re- 
 pose and sport and exercise, the neglect of which 
 had so nearly proved fatal to him before. 
 
 From 1880 to 1900 his employment in the 
 courts. State and Federal, was constant in causes 
 of the greatest magnitude and importance, a mere 
 enumeration of which demonstrates that he was 
 all the while a most potent factor in the develop- 
 ment of the law and the settlement of momentous 
 constitutional questions, and these involved an 
 amount of labor and study that is almost ap- 
 palling. But his vigor seemed rather to increase 
 with his years, and he was more than adequate 
 to all the demands upon him. 
 
 All these great and conspicuous cases con- 
 ducted with exquisite professional skilly with un- 
 failing courage and courtesy, and with all the 
 eloquence that earnest conviction and ever youth- 
 ful enthusiasm could arouse, established his fame 
 as a lawyer throughout the country, on a basis 
 as nearly imperishable as any lawyer's ever can 
 be. But his employment in 1893, as one of the 
 chief counsel of the United States before the Tri- 
 bunal established by the Treaty with Great Bri- 
 tain for the settlement of the long vexed Behring 
 Sea dispute in regard to the Seal Fisheries— and 
 the characteristic manner in which he performed 
 that great service, gave him an international 
 reputation of the highest value. He was asso- 
 ciated with Edward J. Phelps and Frederic R. 
 
 287 
 
JAMES OOOLIDGE CARTER 
 
 Coudert, and to oppose them Great Britain, as slie 
 always does on sucli occasions, selected her best, 
 in the persons of Sir Charles Russell and Sir Rich- 
 ard Webster, both afterwards Lord Chief Jus- 
 tice of England, under the names of Lord Rus- 
 sell of Killowen and Lord Alverstone. Both of 
 those gentlemen have often expressed to me their 
 profound appreciation and admiration of Mr. 
 Carter's ability and forensic faculties, as dis- 
 played in that great international cause, and their 
 warm friendship for him, which grew out of their 
 protracted and intimate acquaintance with him 
 in the course of it — in which he showed himself as 
 the great lawyer and gentleman. The contestants 
 were admirably matched, but the balance of the 
 cause was most unequal, for our counsel had to 
 rest their case upon the claim of property right 
 in the seals, accruing to the United States from 
 their being bred upon the Pribiloff Islands, which 
 we had acquired from Russia as part of the 
 Alaska purchase, and our consequent right and 
 duty to protect them wherever found on the high 
 seas, to the extent that we might replevy them 
 at the South Pole, and by force prevent any in- 
 terference with them by vessels of other nations 
 pursuing the business of pelagic sealing. The 
 authority for the first proposition at common law 
 was of the most meagre character, while there 
 had certainly been no international agreement to 
 the second proposition. 
 
 Great Britain relied upon the universally es- 
 tablished doctrine of the freedom of the seas, and 
 
 288 
 
JAMES COOLIDGE CARTER 
 
 upon the proposition that the right of fishing on 
 the high seas could not be interfered with except 
 by the common consent of nations restraining the 
 right. 
 
 We certainly had the strongest moral grounds 
 for elaimirig the protection of the herd of seals 
 from destruction, on our own account and on ac- 
 count of the world at large— and if the case could 
 have been decided upon what ought to have been 
 international law, our contention would have 
 been more hopeful— indeed irresistible. 
 
 It was just the case for the exercise of Mr. Car- 
 ter's characteristic qualities and methods in their 
 very finest and highest forms. It fell to his lot, 
 in the division of labor between our counsel, to 
 open the case, which he did in a most exhaustive 
 and eloquent argument of seven days. The 
 preparation which this involved was incredible— 
 for his argument contained an exhaustive history 
 of the controversy ; — a complete narrative of Rus- 
 sian and American rule in Behring Sea for nearly 
 a hundred years ; — an exploration of the habits of 
 seals and of seal fishing during the entire period ; 
 — a discussion of the principles of international 
 law bearing nearly or remotely on the subject of 
 dispute, the origin and growth of the right of 
 property, particularly in animals, and the inter- 
 pretation and effect of all treaties and regula- 
 tions bearing upon the questions involved. It is 
 needless to say that after months of toilsome 
 preparation, Mr. Carter came to the argument 
 with a theory of the case which, to his own mind, 
 
 289 
 
JAMES COOLIDGE CAETEE 
 
 was absolutely irresistible, and pressed it upon 
 the tribunal with an eloquence, earnestness and 
 force which even he had never equalled; — that 
 his splendid gifts of imagination and illustration 
 were brought into play with graphic power ;— and 
 that if we could have won the case by demon- 
 strating what international law ought to have 
 been, and what expediency, humanity and civili- 
 zation demanded in the particular case, it was 
 more than demonstrated. 
 
 His argument, like all his arguments at the Bar 
 from the beginning, was extremely dignified, and 
 pitched upon a very lofty plane of morals and 
 right. But he was storming an impregnable cita- 
 del, when he sought to diminish the freedom of 
 the seas without the warrant of an international 
 agreement to that effect. It is greatly to be re- 
 gretted that his labors could not have resulted 
 in an effective agreement between the nations to 
 that effect, so far as pelagic sealing was con- 
 cerned, for the herds have already nearly van- 
 ished from the Islands, and the industry, most 
 useful under proper limits, has been well nigh 
 destroyed. 
 
 The time prescribed to me will hardly permit 
 even an allusion to the great services rendered 
 by Mr. Carter in maintaining by precept and ex- 
 ample the dignity of the profession, and its pro- 
 tection from everjdihing unworthy; — ^in preserv- 
 ing the common law in its integrity as the basis 
 and method of our jurisprudence, and rescuing it 
 from the destructive assaults of the wholesale 
 
 290 
 
JAMES COOLIDGE CARTER 
 
 codifier; — in his constant and courageous war- 
 fare against everything that looked like corrup- 
 tion in the courts or in the profession; — in his 
 active participation in the foundation of this As- 
 sociation, as the bulwark of a sound and pure 
 administration of justice; — in his service again 
 and again as its President, and in his persistent 
 and successful efforts at all times to keep it up to 
 the mark, and to achieve through its instrumen- 
 tality the lofty objects of its founders. 
 
 It is melancholy to think how fast the memory 
 of all this splendid service and achievement, of 
 which I have given such a meagre and inade- 
 quate sketch, is fading away. He had for the 
 last six or seven years of his life retired absolutely 
 from the practice of his profession, so that to the 
 younger members of the Bar his face and figure, 
 which had once been so familiar in the courts, 
 were almost unknown. 
 
 But in these years of retirement, rendered nec- 
 essary by constant threats of a return of the mal- 
 ady which had once laid him so low, he was never 
 idle. He enjoyed these years in the heartiest 
 manner, spending a large part of each of them 
 in outdoor life and sports which he had learned 
 to love so well, and to value so highly, as the 
 only safeguards of declining health. But all the 
 while his ieart and mind were intent upon a 
 work, which he has left as a legacy to the profes- 
 sion, and which, if I am not mistaken, will long 
 perpetuate his reputation as a jurist. 
 
 In a course of carefully prepared lectures on 
 291 
 
JAMES COOLIDGE CAETER 
 
 the philosopliy of the law, which I have had the 
 privilege of reading, completed just before his 
 death, and intended to be delivered at the Har- 
 vard Law School, he has embodied the rich fruits 
 of his ripe experience and learning, of which it 
 will be an enduring monument. He has explored 
 and portrayed the whole history of human con- 
 duct, in support of his favorite theory that law 
 instead of being a " command " as defined by 
 Austen, and other distinguished writers upon the 
 subject, is entirely the growth of custom and of 
 public opinion; — that the common law as devel- 
 oped by English and American courts is the 
 wisest and safest form of administering justice 
 and best adapted to the ever changing needs and 
 exigencies of human society; — and that all at- 
 tempts to substitute in its place a rigid and 
 crystallized codification in any form, must neces- 
 sarily fail of their object. In this effort he has 
 garnered up all the wealth of learning, of imagin- 
 ation, of common sense and of foresight, which in 
 his long and busy life, devoted to his divine mis- 
 tress, he had made his own. It is delightful to 
 think that this masterpiece of legal literature, 
 practically perfect as it came from his hand, will 
 transmit some knowledge of the man to future 
 generations, when all the great controversies in 
 which he was engaged have lost their interest and 
 been forgotten. 
 
 I have necessarily refrained from enlarging at 
 all upon the spotless purity and manly indepen- 
 dence of his public life and of its great and be- 
 
 292 
 
JAMES COOLIDGE CAETER 
 
 nefieent influence upon the thought of his time— 
 and of those charmiag and endearing traits of 
 personal character, which made him so beloved 
 in life and so lamented in death by all who had 
 the great privilege of knowing him. 
 
 293 
 
GAEL SCHUEZ 
 
CARL SCHURZ 
 
 Address delivered at the Schurs memorial meeting, New YorTc, 
 November 21, 1906. 
 
 THIS great and brilliant company; has assem- 
 bled for no funereal rites, for no obituary 
 service. We are here to do honor to the memory 
 of a great citizen, to exult in his exalted virtues, 
 and to learn the lesson of patriotism from his 
 long and honorable life. A noble friend of mine, 
 dying, said that his life seemed like the flight of 
 a bird through a church from window to window, 
 and at best it is 
 
 " Short as the watch that ends the night 
 Before the rising sun." 
 
 And our sketches of Carl Schurz to-night must 
 be short, indeed, if we are to do justice to this 
 splendid program, and enjoy the music which he 
 loved so much better than words, however 
 weighty. 
 
 I heard Mr. Lincoln at the Cooper Institute in 
 1860 say: " Let us have faith that right makes 
 might, and in that faith let us dare to do our duty 
 as we understand it." Search all the books in our 
 libraries, and you can find no better statement of 
 Mr. Schurz 's rule of life than this. Truth, right, 
 
 297 
 
GAEL SCHURZ 
 
 duty, freedom were the four corners of his chart 
 of life, with which all his speech and conduct 
 squared. And so it was from the beginning to 
 the end. In the first freshness of youth he left 
 the university and joined the Eevolution of 1848, 
 and fought to break oppression and maintain con- 
 stitutional liberty. In that marvellous achieve- 
 ment of daring and devotion, by which, at the 
 deadly peril of his own life, he rescued his old 
 teacher and comrade from the fortress in which 
 he had been condemned for life to pick oakum for 
 the Prussian Government, he furnished to the 
 world a heroic romance, worthy to be immortal- 
 ized by a new Schiller, a miracle long since cele- 
 brated, and always to be celebrated in German 
 poetry and song. A refugee from hopeless 
 tyranny, he came here into exile and made Amer- 
 ica his home. He was himself the choicest example 
 of that splendid host of Germans who have en- 
 riched and strengthened and fertilized our native 
 stock, to produce that composite creature, the 
 latest result of time, the blending of all the Cau- 
 casian races — the New American. 
 
 With intense devotion he applied himself to 
 mastering the English language, that he might 
 with free speech utter free thought to free men 
 throughout the whole land of his adoption. The 
 year before the arrival of Mr. Schurz, I had 
 heard Kossuth himself, who in a few months had 
 learned the English language in an Austrian 
 dungeon, deliver to a Harvard audience an ad- 
 dress in our own tongue. But Mr. Schurz as a 
 
 298 
 
CARL SCHUEZ 
 
 linguist surpassed even Kossuth, for he soon be- 
 came one of our foremost orators, perhaps the 
 most cogent and convincing debater of his time ; 
 and if his hearers shut their eyes and trusted 
 only to their ears, they might well believe that he 
 had never spoken any language but our own. 
 
 With an inherent instinct for freedom, he was 
 at one with Lincoln, that " a house divided 
 against itself must fall, and that this government 
 could not permanently endure half slave and half 
 free," and so he took part in German in that 
 great debate with Douglas, and made the vast 
 hosts of his countrjnnen in the West familiar 
 with the vital issue in that irrepressible conflict. 
 In the convention of 1860, that nominated Lin- 
 coln, he insisted successfully, with Curtis, upon 
 incorporating in the platform the cardinal princi- 
 ples of the Declaration of Independence. When 
 the war broke out, and it became manifest that 
 the Gordian knot of slavery could be cut only by 
 the sword, he resigned the lazy post of Minister 
 to Spain, and on many a bloody field — at Manas- 
 sas, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and Chatta- 
 nooga — with dauntless skill and courage he 
 fought for freedom here as he had fought for it 
 at home. 
 
 As a Senator, I think he made the noblest rec- 
 ord of his noble life. There his genius, his cour- 
 age, his humanity, and his patriotism had full 
 play. There politics, patronage, the chance of re- 
 election were nothing to him. He was there not 
 to serve his State only, but the whole country, in 
 
 299 
 
CARL SOHURZ 
 
 the true spirit of Burke's letter to the electors of 
 Bristol. With exhaustless energy, he mastered 
 every important question, and led in a great de- 
 bate, and regarded the foundations of the Con- 
 stitution as of vastly greater importance than 
 any ephemeral question of the day, however burn- 
 ing. He always stood by these great landmarks, 
 that the executive should keep within its constitu- 
 tional limits, and not invade by one hair's breadth 
 the functions of the legislature or judiciary; — 
 and that they should do the like by it ; — and, above 
 all, that the Federal power should not encroach 
 upon the State power, nor this upon that, but each 
 keep within its own limits ; — that the delicate bal- 
 ance of our dual system, which has justly excited 
 the wonder and admiration of the world, might 
 not be disturbed. Oh, for such a Senator now! 
 What would not this great Empire State give 
 for one such man — for two such men, if happily 
 they could be found ! 
 
 As a Cabinet Minister, too, his record is a noble 
 one. Politics and politicians he turned " neck 
 and heels ' ' out of his department, and made ten- 
 ure of office there depend only upon merit and fit- 
 ness. Frauds and plunderers found in him their 
 most dangerous foe. He was a real father to the 
 Indian tribes, and fought in defence of our vast 
 forest domains that were then already falling 
 victims to robbers. In short, it is sufficient to 
 say of him that his administration of the depart- 
 ment of the Interior is only equalled by that of 
 his distinguished successor, Mr, Hitchcock, who 
 
 300 
 
GAEL SCHUEZ 
 
 now, after six years of service, is retiring, car- 
 rying with him imperishable laurels. 
 
 Compelled by the exigencies of our political 
 system to abstain from holding public office dur- 
 ing the last twenty years of his life, his inde- 
 pendence, his courage, his spotless character, and 
 boundless knowledge of affairs have been of vast 
 service to his country. Taking up the reins of 
 the Civil Service Eeform from the dying hands 
 of one who in this city and in such company as 
 this will ever be held in fond remembrance — 
 George William Curtis — he carried it to its pres- 
 ent advanced state, and has thereby done in- 
 estimable good. A fearless foe of every wrong, 
 an independent champion of every wise reform, 
 setting personal consequences always at defiance 
 where public service was concerned, he has left 
 to the young Americans of the present and the 
 future an example of honesty, courage, and patri- 
 otism; a richer legacy than if he had been able 
 to transmit to them, or to each of them, the com- 
 bined wealth of all the millionaires of the land. 
 Truly, to recall again the words of Lincoln, he 
 had faith that right makes might, and he dared 
 to the end to do his duty as he understood it. 
 
 301 
 
THE ENGLISH BAR 
 
THE ENGLISH BAR 
 
 Address delwered before the New York State Bar Association, 
 at Albany, N. Y., January 16, 1907. 
 
 IT is certainly delightful to welcome so large 
 a gathering of the active and prominent 
 members of the Bar of the State as are assem- 
 bled here to-day. I am sure that our meetings 
 and discussions and our published reports are of 
 great value to the profession. 
 
 I seize upon the first opportunity to thank you 
 for the great honor done me in electing me as 
 your President after a long absence from the 
 country, during which I was wholly withdrawn 
 from your ranks. 
 
 In selecting a subject for my address, it has 
 occurred to me that some account of the English 
 Bar, as it was my great privilege to meet its mem- 
 bers under the pleasantest circumstances, might 
 possibly be of interest and advantage on an oc- 
 casion like the present. 
 
 You will, of course, understand that I make 
 no reference to the other branch of the profes- 
 sion, which is so distinct — the Attorneys and So- 
 licitors — upon whose learning, efficiency and 
 skill, the whole of the social and business life of 
 England very largely depends ; but I speak only 
 of the Bar proper, and of it especially as repre- 
 
 305 
 
THE ENGLISH BAE 
 
 sented by its leading members, with whom I had 
 much personal intercourse. These are really a 
 group by themselves, generally University men 
 of generous culture, not deficient in means to sus- 
 tain them during the longhand dreary waiting 
 for briefs after their call to the Bar, and then 
 working their way to the front by force of char- 
 acter, courage and ability, and universally recog- 
 nized as the worthy representatives of the whole 
 body of our great profession. 
 
 Let me say in the first place as to the English 
 Bench and Bar both, that I always found them 
 full of interest in, and sympathy with, their 
 brethren in America. Their fraternity with us 
 was always cordially acknowledged, as that of 
 two great branches of the same stock. In view 
 of our common history and language and our 
 identical system of jurisprudence, which relies 
 upon the same authorities, English and Ameri- 
 can — freely interchanged — for the establishment 
 of the same principles of justice, I found no per- 
 ceptible difference in what I may call the cardi- 
 nal features of the profession between them and 
 us. Their hospitality on all occasions was most 
 cordial, alike in their private houses, in the Inns 
 of Court, and in that great banquet which they 
 gave to the Bench and Bar of the United States 
 in 1900, which was promoted by that noble advo- 
 cate and jurist, Lord Eussell of Killowen, the 
 Lord Chief Justice, and which took place on the 
 very eve of his untimely death. 
 
 While I was made to feel entirely at home 
 306 
 
THE ENGLISH BAR 
 
 among them, by the general resemblance and 
 identity of our pursuits and surroundings, it was 
 in the changes that time and circumstances have 
 wrought in us rather than in them that I was 
 most interested — and in the observation of which 
 I think we have something to learn. 
 
 The English barrister 's relation to the business 
 of his clients is always strictly and absolutely 
 professional, just as much so as that of the physi- 
 cian or the surgeon. 
 
 Whether he tries or argues a cause, or revises 
 a pleading or a contract, or gives an opinion on 
 the facts submitted, he acts without any possible 
 interest in the matter, or any relation to it other 
 than the purely professional one. The rigid rules 
 of the profession by which he is bound absolutely 
 forbid him to take a contingent interest or share 
 in any controversy in which he acts profession- 
 ally, and the slightest violation of this rule would 
 compel his disbarment. And so the whole com- 
 munity knows, that in proportion to his skill and 
 capacity and judgment, they may absolutely con- 
 fide in his professional conduct, and that no pri- 
 vate or personal interest in the subject of the con- 
 troversy can bias him, to mislead or confuse the 
 coujisels of the Court. In the same way his com- 
 pensation is not dependent upon the amount in- 
 volved or upon the result of the controversy, but 
 upon his own eminence and reputation. So that 
 when I told some leading barristers that our 
 Court of Appeals had decided that the amount in- 
 volved and the result as to winning or losing, 
 
 307 
 
THE ENGLISH BAE 
 
 were material factors in the measurement of the 
 lawyer's compensation, they fairly scouted the 
 idea. 
 
 There is no doubt that two important changes 
 in our system have seriously detracted from this 
 strictly professional attitude of the American 
 Advocate, and laid him open to question. I mean 
 the fact that we have not maintained the distinc- 
 tion between the two branches of the profession, 
 but every one of us is a barrister, a solicitor and 
 an attorney. But the chief cause of detraction 
 from our absolute independence and disin- 
 terestedness as advocates, is that fatal and per- 
 nicious change made several generations ago by 
 statute, by which lawyers and clients are per- 
 mitted to make any agreements they please as to 
 compensation — so that contingent fees, contracts 
 for shares, even contracts for half the result of a 
 litigation, are permissible, and I fear not un- 
 known. How can we wonder, then, if the com- 
 munity implicates the lawyer who conducts a 
 cause with the morale of the cause and of the 
 client? If he has bargained for a share of the 
 result, what answer can we make to such a 
 criticism? And how can we blame the commu- 
 nity when it suspects that such practices are fre- 
 quent or common, and even sanctioned by emi- 
 nent members of the profession, if they confound 
 us all in one indistinguishable crowd, and refuse 
 to accord to any of us that strictly professional 
 relation to the cause which the English bar- 
 rister enjoys? And how can the Courts put full 
 
 308 
 
THE ENGLISH BAE 
 
 faith in the sincerity of our labors as aids to 
 them in the administration of justice, if they have 
 reason to suspect us of having bargained for a 
 share of the result? 
 
 If you ask me whether there is no way out of 
 this confusion of condemnation or suspicion for 
 the individual lawyer, I say emphatically there 
 is. 
 
 True, we cannot go back on the habits of gen- 
 erations, or repeal statutes which have imbedded 
 such practices in the social habits of the people. 
 But the individual advocate can persistently re- 
 fuse to follow such practices, or to take a contin- 
 gent fee or a share in the controversy, and I am 
 old-fashioned enough to wish that every member 
 of the profession who aspires to leadership, would 
 take such a stand, and to believe that if he did so, 
 it would promote his reputation and success in 
 true professional distinction. 
 
 For a whole generation, yes, for two genera- 
 tions, we had before us a noble example of this 
 moral distinction — alas, he is no longer with us — 
 I refer to the late James C. Carter, who so long 
 and so gloriously led us, and who I believe never 
 touched a contingent fee or a share in a contro- 
 versy of which he had the conduct, and was for 
 all the world exactly like the best examples of 
 the leaders of the English Bar. 
 
 In another respect the English barristers have 
 a great advantage over us, and one that tends to 
 promote and increase the reasonable enjoyment 
 of life, and that is in more frequent recreation 
 
 309 
 
THE ENGLISH BAR 
 
 and relaxation and more stated and prolonged 
 holidays — holidays established by custom which 
 has the force of law. In all the time of my busy 
 practice in New York, we were steadily engaged 
 in Court from the first Monday of October to 
 the last Friday of June, with hardly an appre- 
 ciable break — a few days at Thanksgiving, the 
 week from Christmas to New Year's, and the le- 
 gal holidays, very few in number. With these 
 scanty exceptions, it was one perpetual grind of 
 work for nine successive months, and the few 
 lucky ones were those who had the temperament 
 and the physique to stand the strain. 
 
 But in England the Courts come in with appro- 
 priate and appointed ceremonies on the twenty- 
 fourth of October, and work for eight weeks, 
 which brings them to Christmas and a two weeks ' 
 holiday — ^when every barrister drops his briefs 
 absolutely and quits London for the country or 
 for the Continent, which can be reached in a few 
 hours. Then they return and work for eight or 
 ten weeks more, which brings them to the Easter 
 recess, another real holiday of ten or twelve 
 days, with the same advantages — another eight 
 or ten weeks of work and Whitsuntide arrives, a 
 third intermediate holiday, of which we know 
 nothing and which we ought to borrow at once, 
 and then a fourth term of eight or ten weeks of 
 work brings them up to the twelfth of August, 
 when the law is off on grouse, and Courts and 
 barristers. King, Lords and Commons disappear 
 for the long vacation of ten or eleven weeks, 
 
 310 
 
THE ENGLISH BAR 
 
 which brings them back new men for the begin- 
 ning of the working year again. 
 
 Thus, with the same or only a little more vaca- 
 tion in the aggregate these frequently recurring 
 holidays of substantial amount, which are thor- 
 oughly availed of, relieve both judges and barris- 
 ters of that protracted and unremitting strain 
 and pressure which I used to find it so hard to 
 bear. 
 
 The amount of litigation in proportion to the 
 population must, I think, be much less in England 
 than in New York, Otherwise it would be quite 
 impossible for the thirty-five judges of the High 
 Court and the Lords Justices of Appeal, and the 
 Judicial Committee of the House of Lords to dis- 
 pose of the whole of the principal business of 
 England without any serious accumulation of 
 arrears, while in the State of New York, with its 
 eight millions of people, we have ninety-seven 
 Justices of the Supreme Court, seven Judges of 
 the Court of Appeals and ten Federal Judges. 
 Doubtless the County Courts in England dispose 
 of more business and give greater relief to the 
 High Court than is afforded by similar subordi- 
 nate tribunals to our Supreme Court, but, for all 
 that, the volume of business must be vastly 
 greater here than there. 
 
 It is an essential part of our system to bring 
 justice home to every man's door, and it is made 
 very cheap here, especially for the losing party, 
 while in England litigation for the party who 
 unsuccessfully and without merits prosecutes or 
 
 311 
 
THE ENGLISH BAR 
 
 defends a lawsuit, is a seriously expensive busi- 
 ness, for in the exercise of the discretion vested 
 in them, the judges in the adjustment of costs are 
 inclined to charge the beaten party with the whole 
 expense of the litigation, including the counsel 
 fees paid by the other side. 
 
 Here again comes in another unfortunate re- 
 sult of our system of contingent fees which has 
 resulted in blocking our calendars with thousands 
 of experimental and speculative lawsuits, in ar- 
 rears, in at least one of our departments for two 
 or three years, which it is quite impossible for 
 our judges to cope with. 
 
 Everything in the system of English judicature 
 seems to be arranged with a view to the despatch 
 rather than the accumulation of business. They 
 have nothing like our dismal Code of Civil Pro- 
 cedure with its many thousand sections, which it- 
 self in the whole history of its growth and devel- 
 opment has been, and is to-day, a prolific cause 
 of litigation and delay, and affords, I should 
 think, an opportunity for a distinct and separate 
 motion every week, from the commencement of 
 the cause till its trial. Instead of that they have 
 a few simple rules of practice made by the High 
 Court and always under its control, and these 
 are very simply administered, usually before a 
 Master, after the cause is at issue — and the bar- 
 rister is generally relieved of any attention to 
 that part of the practice which acts so thoroughly 
 upon the nerves of any lawyer who is engaged in 
 great affairs. 
 
 312 
 
THE ENGLISH BAH 
 
 Our pernicious and dilatory habit of waiting 
 for counsel, who are engaged elsewhere, when the 
 cause is reached or called on the day assigned, is 
 practically unknown, and the consequence is that 
 in an important cause several counsel must be re- 
 tained, so that if one is not ready, another shall 
 be, and the cause proceed. 
 
 Of course the solicitors and attorneys prepare 
 briefs, and relieve the barrister of a vast amount 
 of that kind of work out of Court, for which coun- 
 sel with us are largely responsible. I am sure, 
 however, that every conscientious barrister, from 
 the moment of receiving his retainer, is ready to 
 hold consultations and advise on every important 
 step, but as a rule they are not troubled with in- 
 terviews with parties and witnesses in prepara- 
 tion for the trial. In fact, direct communication 
 between the barrister who is to try the case and 
 the witnesses is theoretically disallowed, and sel- 
 dom happens. 
 
 But it is in the actual conduct of the case in 
 Court that the barristers derive great assistance 
 and support from the prompt and efficient sys- 
 tem that prevails. The judges, being appointed 
 by the Government, practically selected by the 
 Lord Chancellor from barristers who have been 
 long in active practice in the Courts, are already 
 fully qualified for the performance of judicial 
 duties from the moment they enter on their ex- 
 alted office, and are not only presumed to know 
 the law, but generally do actually know it. Such 
 a thing as a judge having to be educated upon 
 
 313 
 
THE ENGLISH BAE 
 
 the Bench, so expensive and so detrimental when 
 it does happen, is utterly unknown there, and as a 
 result the judge takes charge and holds control 
 of the case from beginning to end. Questions of 
 evidence and motions for nonsuit, which with us 
 are often occasions of prolific argument, are 
 promptly decided. The judge is presumed to 
 know the law of evidence, and it rarely happens 
 that such a question has to be more than stated 
 in order to have it disposed of. Perhaps I was 
 myself as great an offender as anybody in the 
 consumption of time in the discussion of ques- 
 tions of evidence, having often argued them by 
 the hour ; and I well remember one case with Mr. 
 Roscoe Conkling, where we spent an entire day 
 in the argument of a motion to nonsuit, and even 
 then the Court adjourned till the next morning 
 to decide it. 
 
 In cases tried without a jury, including equity, 
 probate and admiralty causes, when the judge 
 has heard the evidence and the arguments, he is 
 generally ready to decide it, and the pernicious 
 habit which once prevailed, and I fear still pre- 
 vails with us, of taking two weeks, often extended 
 to four, to hand up briefs, when the judge will 
 have largely forgotten the case, and will have to 
 study them at his subsequent leisure, is practi- 
 cally unknown, and the proceedings upon appeal 
 in cases reserved are greatly facilitated by the 
 appeal being heard on the judges' minutes, and 
 report of the points reserved. 
 
 If you ask me how the leaders find their way 
 314 
 
THE ENGLISH BAE 
 
 to the front, I should say exactly as they do with 
 us. They are eliminated by a process of natural 
 selection, for merit and fitness, from the whole 
 body of the Bar. I have known the leaders of the 
 Bar on both sides of the Atlantic, and in this 
 respect the same rule prevails. There is every 
 variety among them of physical, mental and moral 
 qualities. No two are ever alike in personal char- 
 acteristics, except in one vital and essential 
 quality, which is common to them all, I mean the 
 power and the will to hold on and hold out, under 
 all circumstances and against all counter induce- 
 ments until the goal is reached. This indomitable 
 tenacity of purpose, with brains, health and char- 
 acter, insures success and leadership there, as 
 here. 
 
 A very striking story told me by one of the 
 gentlemen named illustrates what I mean. Some 
 forty years ago, on the Northern Circuit, three 
 able and ambitious young men had tried hard for 
 a few years, by assiduous attendance, for business 
 inthe Courts, and, almost hopeless of success, they 
 met and seriously discussed the question whether 
 they should not give it up, and seek some other 
 service, in the Colonies, or iu some of the many 
 avenues of employment which are open there as 
 here to barristers who despair of the future in 
 the direct line of the profession — but they held 
 on, for life or for death, and in thirty years or 
 thereabouts from the time of their discussion, 
 one had become Lord Chief Justice of England, 
 as Lord Eussell of Killowen, the second Lord 
 
 315 
 
THE ENGLISH BAE 
 
 Higli Chancellor, as Lord Herschel, and the third 
 Speaker of the House of Commons, who, after an 
 arduous and honorable term of service in that 
 high office, now lives in retirement as Viscount 
 Selby. 
 
 The question of emoluments is always an inter- 
 esting one to lawyers, and if things remain as 
 they were when I went to England eight years 
 ago, I should say that for professional leaders 
 in the same relative position the earnings here 
 and there were about the same. There is a well- 
 worn story of Sir Eoundell Palmer, who, as At- 
 torney-General, contested against Mr. Evarts the 
 Alabama claims before the Geneva Tribunal of 
 Arbitration, that in one year he realized fifty 
 thousand pounds, but that was adding his com- 
 pensation as Attorney-General to his large and 
 lucrative private practice, which is not permitted 
 any longer to the Attorney-General or the Solici- 
 tor-General. But such earnings there or here 
 represent a prodigious and killing amount of 
 work ; and the story is that an old friend, desiring 
 an interview with Sir Eoundell, called at his 
 chambers one Thursday morning, and asked if he 
 could see him. The clerk replied that if he must 
 he could do so, but he would advise him not to, 
 for he hadn't been in bed since Sunday night. 
 
 So I have heard of a great Chancery barrister 
 many years later realizing in one year twenty- 
 eight thousand pounds, and during my stay in 
 London thirty thousand pounds a year was the 
 highest sum I heard ascribed to the most success- 
 
 316 
 
THB ENGLISH BAE 
 
 ful leaders of the day. Such earnings anywhere 
 represent the absolute devotion of the highest 
 professional qualities and the sacrifice of every- 
 thing else to the largest interests of the commer- 
 cial world. These figures compare very favor- 
 ably with the best I ever knew or heard of, while 
 I was actually engaged in steady practice. Since 
 my return, I have heard of fabulous sums re- 
 ceived by lawyers, either as shares agreed upon, 
 or from great corporations or estates, as rewards 
 for very moderate services. For the credit of 
 the profession, I decline to believe such stories, 
 for in the long run nothing is so damaging to us 
 as a profession as the spirit of commercialism — 
 the Wall street notion, that money is the only 
 thing worth striving for, an idea which when it 
 once gets hold of a man unfits him for true lead- 
 ership, and when it once gets hold of the profes- 
 sion is sure to demoralize it. 
 
 I have no time to discuss here to-day the much- 
 vexed question of the comparative merits of legal 
 education here and in England — ^but from what 
 I have seen of the leading English barristers, 
 what splendid men they are physically, mentally 
 and morally, how learned and broadly educated, 
 accomplished and thoroughly equipped, I should 
 say that the system which has produced such men, 
 the combined results of education at the universi- 
 ties and the great Inns of Court, ought not hastily 
 to be exchanged for another as a training for the 
 English Bar. 
 
 Perhaps some day the Inns of Court will com- 
 317 
 
THE ENGLISH BAR 
 
 bine their splendid resources to create and main- 
 tain a great University of Law, to which men of 
 all nations, races and languages will resort for 
 legal training, but although this was strongly 
 urged upon them, I believe by Lord Eussell and 
 other prominent benchers, the time for such a 
 serious change has not yet come. 
 
 Those splendid Inns of Court to which I have 
 so often referred — for it is impossible to speak 
 of English law or English lawyers without con- 
 stant reference to them — afford to our brethren 
 who belong to them and to whom they belong, a 
 home around which their affections centre, and 
 places and occasions of social and fraternal in- 
 tercourse utterly unknown to us. 
 
 As the sole authority through which admission 
 to the Bar can be obtained, as seats of study 
 and learning in preparation for professional life, 
 as the custodians and guardians of all the history 
 and traditions of the law, they command the loyal 
 affection and devotion of all their members. As 
 the great nurseries of common law and of equity, 
 and identified in their annals with the whole prog- 
 ress of justice and of civilization in England, es- 
 tablished already for centuries, while we were yet 
 a component part of the English nation, I regard 
 them as the common property and the common 
 pride of all lawyers the world over who speak the 
 English tongue. There our predecessors in the 
 Bar of England have been working out by patient 
 industry, and with ever advancing knowledge 
 those principles which underlie the liberties of 
 
 318 
 
TT 
 
 THE ENGLISH BAE 
 
 England and America alike, and the debt of grati- 
 tude we owe them for that long service cannot be 
 overstated. "What are those absolute principles 
 which thus lie at the foundation of our common 
 civilization? That there is no such thing as 
 absolute power, that King, Lords and Commons, 
 Presidents, Congress, Courts and people are alike 
 subject to the law, that before its supreme 
 majesty all men are equal; that no man can be 
 punished or deprived of any of his rights except 
 by the edict of the law, pronounced by indepen- 
 dent tribunals which are themselves subject to 
 the law; that every man's house is his castle, and 
 though the winds and the storms may enter it, the 
 King or the President cannot; that our govern- 
 ment on both sides of the water is, in the sub- 
 lime words of the great Sidney, " a government 
 of laws and not of men." 
 
 You will not wonder, then, that in common with 
 all other lawyers I felt an immediate and per- 
 sonal interest in those cradles of the law in which, 
 before America was discovered, those ultimate 
 principles of right and justice which our fathers 
 brought over with Magna Charta and the Peti- 
 tion of Eight were brought into being, and already 
 in the way of final establishment. 
 
 Those graceful and magnificent halls, rich in 
 beauty and teeming with great traditions, about 
 which the memories of all that has been great 
 and noble in our profession for five centuries still 
 lingers, cannot but have an ennobling and inspir- 
 ing influence upon all who frequent them. The 
 
 319 
 
THE ENGLISH BAE 
 
 footsteps of American lawyers on arriving in 
 England naturally turn first to them, and often 
 as I haunted them I always met and heard of my 
 countrymen there before me. Their unbounded 
 hospitality often gladdened my long stay among 
 them. On Grand Night in each term of Court 
 when the Benchers of each Inn assemble within 
 those noble walls to entertain their friends and 
 their members and students, with the por- 
 traits of the great judges of the past whom 
 they claim as their own, looking down upon 
 them, and the shields and arms of their 
 treasurers for centuries surrounding them, 
 they seemed to me to represent and embody the 
 living spirit of our law, holding now, for the time 
 being, and for transmission to future generations, 
 all the rich heritage of the past. And when as a 
 tribute to the American Bar and in demonstra- 
 tion of their fraternal sympathy and affection 
 they made me, too, a Bencher of the Middle Tem- 
 ple, to represent you all, and in the same spirit 
 bade me farewell at Lincoln's and Gray's Inns, 
 I felt that my professional life had not been 
 wholly in vain. 
 
 My conclusion, from a fair knowledge of both 
 countries, is that in the law, as in every other 
 element of our common civilization, each nation 
 has yet much to learn from the other, and that to 
 that end we ought studiously on both sides to cul- 
 tivate more frequent and constant intercourse and 
 a better knowledge of each other, and no profes- 
 
 320 
 
THE ENGLISH BAE 
 
 sion can do so mucli as ours to bring about this 
 happy consummation. 
 
 I also became thoroughly convinced that for 
 each country its own system of legal administra- 
 tion and of professional life, as it stands to-day, 
 is better than any abrupt or violent effort at re- 
 form would be. That system for each nation has 
 been slowly evolved out of social usage, and com- 
 mon law and statute in the course of centuries, 
 and any sudden changes would be more likely to 
 mar than to mend it. But we may hope on both 
 sides, by the friendly interchange of ideas from 
 time to time, to gain much in the way of progress 
 and improvement. 
 
 321 
 
CHAELBS FOLLEN McKIM 
 
CHARLES FOLLEN McKIM 
 
 Address delivered at the McKim memorial meeting, at The New 
 Theatre, New York, Novemler SS, 1909. 
 
 WE have assembled in this wonderful hall to- 
 day, at the combined invitation of all the 
 organizations for the promotion of art in New 
 York, to pay a tribute of respect and affection to 
 a great artist, a noble gentleman, a self-sacrificing 
 and public-spirited citizen, and the recognized 
 leader for many years of a powerful and brilliant 
 profession. I deem it a signal privilege and 
 honor, as a lifelong friend of Mr. McKim, to 
 have been asked by this great body of his pro- 
 fessional colleagues and disciples to address this 
 interested and sympathetic company of his ad- 
 mirers. Interested and sympathetic, I know you 
 must all be, for it was impossible to come into 
 contact with Mr. McKim without loving and hon- 
 oring him, or to be even the most casual observer 
 of his work without some appreciation and admi- 
 ration of that. 
 
 We have all known him in the zenith of his 
 fame — long recognized at home and abroad as the 
 foremost of American architects — creating in 
 rapid succession building after building, public 
 and private, of singular dignity, simplicity and 
 beauty; surrounded by all the signs of affluence 
 
 325 
 
CHAELES FOLLEN McKIM 
 
 and luxury, consulted as the leading authority on 
 all matters of taste and art, with all sorts of 
 honors and distinctions heaped upon him, and yet 
 always as simple as a child, as modest and gentle 
 as a woman — shunning publicity and shocked at 
 all ostentation. 
 
 It would be interesting to know from what be- 
 ginnings all this greatness, this gentleness, this 
 instinct for beauty, came. Some day I hope his 
 life will be written by some competent hand. 
 
 Eecently there were placed in my hands some 
 letters of his to his father, written in his twen- 
 tieth year — probably before any person present 
 here to-day had any knowledge of him — ^which 
 seemed to me to shed much light on the formation 
 of his manly and beautiful character. 
 
 We know something of the father and the 
 mother, too — a sturdy abolitionist and a famous 
 Quaker beauty. It was from her, no doubt, that 
 he got his striking grace and delicacy of feature. 
 They were both as brave and fearless as they 
 were plain and simple in life and manner. To 
 show their faith by their works, they accompa- 
 nied the widow of John Brown to Virginia to 
 bring home his mangled body, which was to lie 
 moldering in the ground while his soul went 
 marching on. 
 
 The letters are from Cambridge in the summer 
 and fall of 1866, where the boy was searching in 
 vain in the vacation for a teacher to coach him 
 in chemistry and mathematics to enable him to 
 enter the Lawrence Scientific School ia the Min- 
 
 326 
 
CHARLES FOLLEN MciaM 
 
 ing Department. Mining engineering was what 
 lie was bent upon, with no more idea of becoming 
 an architect than of studying divinity. 
 
 The Quaker discipline and spirit is stamped 
 upon every line of his letters. They are ad- 
 dressed to " Dear Home," and they reveal on 
 every page the simplicity, the earnestness, the 
 narrow means and self-denial of that home and of 
 the writer. Simplicity, quietness, self-restraint 
 — were not these his guiding motives all through 
 life? Are they not the very things that the name 
 of McKim, Mead & White stands for still? Truly 
 the boy was father of the man. He uses the 
 Quaker style and vernacular: "Father, does 
 thee think I had better come home to Thanksgiv- 
 ing, or will it be spending too much? I can wait 
 tiU January if thee thinks it best," but " Do send 
 mother to see me ' ' is his constant refrain. ' ' Dear 
 mother, thee must come! " His prevailing 
 thought seems to have been how best to ease the 
 burden of his education on the lightly furnished 
 family purse. What he seems to have intended 
 was one year in the Scientific School and then 
 two years in Paris — ^not at all at the Beaux Arts, 
 but in the School of Mines, where the education 
 for his life 's calling would be cheaper and better. 
 The spur of necessity was the goad to his ambi- 
 tion, as it always has been to most Americans 
 who succeed. Evidently he had no love for mathe- 
 matics or mining, but he could toil terribly, even 
 at that. What it was in that one short year at 
 Cambridge that roused in his soul the dormant 
 
 327 
 
CHARLES FOLLEN McKIM 
 
 love of art and passion for beauty, we cannot tell. 
 But kindled they were, and at the end of the year 
 he went straight to Paris and to the Beaux Arts 
 to study architecture, and then to travel as long 
 as he could and feast his soul on all the wonder- 
 ful and beautiful buildings which abound in 
 France and Italy. And at last he came home, 
 fully equipped for the arduous and fascinating 
 labors that were to fill and crown the thirty years 
 of his successful and brilliant career. In architec- 
 ture, as in every other profession, opportunity 
 counts for much, and he found a golden oppor- 
 tunity awaiting him. 
 
 When Lincoln at Gettysburg, in the middle of 
 the war, said : ' ' This nation under Grod shall have 
 a new birth of freedom," even he perhaps little 
 dreamed of the marvellous growth and develop- 
 ment which that new birth should usher in. Not 
 only was slavery to be abolished and the Union 
 to be rebuilt upon imperishable foundations, but 
 upon these was to arise a wholly new America, 
 of a power and grandeur unknown before, and 
 pregnant with a progress and prosperity never 
 approached by any nation in the same period of 
 time. The national energy and enterprise were 
 to expand and spring forward by leaps and 
 bounds. A really new people, fired by the stimu- 
 lus of success in a great war on which the salva- 
 tion of the nation was at stake, were to grapple 
 with the overwhelming problem of national ex- 
 pansion. New cities and States were to be foun- 
 ded and the old ones rebuilt, and art and arohi- 
 
 328 
 
CHAELES FOLLEN McKIM 
 
 tecture especially were to contribute to this devel- 
 opment as they had never done before. 
 
 Some of you are old enough to remember how 
 New York looked at the close of the Civil War. 
 From the Battery to Forty-second Street it was 
 covered with buildings in the construction of 
 which stability and utility had been consulted, 
 but very rarely beauty at all. Architecture was 
 at a very low ebb, and architects were at a de- 
 cided discount. Scattered through the city were 
 many good churches and some good public build- 
 ings, and there were two actual gems which still 
 exist to challenge admiration — St. Paul's Chapel 
 and our delightful old City Hall, which has, I be- 
 lieve, but one blemish, that while all the rest of 
 the building is of beautiful marble, the rear wall 
 was of brown stone, it being thought a hundred 
 years ago that nobody would get so far uptown as 
 to see it. But these two noble examples had been 
 so far forgotten and overlooked that our new 
 Court-House, hideous in its composition as in its 
 history, and the new Post-Oflfice, another horror, 
 were built right over against them to hide them 
 from view; and at the other end of the city the 
 grim Croton reservoir frowned upon us, on the 
 very spot where the New Library now lights up 
 the whole surrounding region. 
 
 But for the great fire of London, which laid 
 waste a whole city for him to rebuild. Sir Christo- 
 pher Wren would probably never have been 
 heard of except as the worthy but obscure profes- 
 sor of astronomy at Oxford. No other architect 
 
 329 
 
CHARLES FOLLEN McKIM 
 
 in modern history had such an opportunity as 
 that. But McKim and his contemporaries, dis- 
 ciples, and followers had their opportunity, too, 
 when it fell to their hands to reconstruct our 
 somewhat ugly and obstinately commonplace 
 city, with its long rows of plain and uniform 
 brownstone fronts, and adorn it with so many 
 dignified and beautiful structures which we now 
 take pleasure in showing to strangers. 
 
 The architects of the last thirty years have not 
 only built for us a noble city, but have raised 
 their own profession into a brotherhood which 
 almost outranks all the others in efficiency and 
 utility. 
 
 When McKim came home in 1872 to offer his 
 services to his countrymen as an architect of rec- 
 ognized qualifications, only a very few of the 
 many societies which have been united in inviting 
 you here to-day to do honor to his memory had 
 come into existence. The Metropolitan Museum 
 of Art, which heads the list, had but just been 
 founded, and was leading a precarious existence, 
 with no idea of the possibility of its ever attain- 
 ing its present splendid position. 
 
 I shall not in this presence undertake to draw 
 any comparison between him and any other of 
 his brethren, or to measure or analyze his merits. 
 I shall leave all that to his professional brethren. 
 I only know that, by common consent of them all, 
 he was for years recognized, admired, and hon- 
 ored as their leader and master; that many of 
 the chief ornaments of this and other cities are 
 
 330 
 
CHAELES FOLLEN McKIM 
 
 his personal work, or that of the firm of which 
 he was the head and moving spirit ; and that not 
 only in his own country, but in England and in 
 Italy, the highest authorities in art have selected 
 him to receive their special honors. And how 
 modestly and meekly he bore all those accumu- 
 lating honors! I remember when he came to 
 London in 1903, when at the very top of his pro- 
 fession, to receive the Eoyal Gold Medal for 
 services to architecture the world over, how mod- 
 estly and timidly he bore himself. He was really 
 all of a tremble, and nothing would do but that 
 Mr. Henry "White and I, who had been his friends 
 for many years, must stand by him through what 
 he regarded as a terrible ordeal, and so we held 
 up his arms. And when it was all over, and he 
 began to receive the congratulations of his friends 
 from home, he cabled back: " Thanks! many 
 thanks! but I still wear the same hat! " And 
 that was the beauty of it and of him. No matter 
 what happened, no matter what he achieved in 
 the way of success and fame, he always wore the 
 same hat — his head never swelled; he carried it 
 all off with absolute Quaker simplicity. It re- 
 quired all his early training to bear meekly the 
 flood of applause and adulation which, with many 
 men, would have called for a hat of colossal pro- 
 portions. 
 
 When he took into his hands the British Gold 
 Medal, he said that he accepted it as an honor due, 
 not to himself, but to his profession in America, 
 whose representative he was proud to be, and I 
 
 331 
 
CHARLES FOLLEN McKIM 
 
 am sure that he would not be content to-day if we 
 failed to recognize the encouragement which he 
 received from those who went before him, and 
 the constant aid and support of those who shared 
 his labors and his triumphs. It is impossible to- 
 day to forget his indebtedness to Eichardson and 
 Hunt, those two brilliant masters and examples 
 to whom he was proud to declare his allegiance 
 and loyalty. It was in Richardson's office that he 
 began his professional life, and although few 
 traces of the influence of that distinguished fore- 
 runner are visible in his work, he never ceased to 
 be grateful to him for smoothing his first steps. 
 And working side by side in the same city with 
 Hunt, that ardent and intrepid spirit whom he 
 cheerfully recognized so long as leader and chief, 
 it was impossible but that each should give much 
 to the other — ^much aid, much encouragement, 
 and much inspiration. Let us not forget that 
 Richardson and Hunt led and blazed the way in 
 which McKim so modestly and triumphantly fol- 
 lowed. 
 
 Another important factor in McKim 's lifework 
 was the founding and maintenance of the pro- 
 fessional firm in which the names and labors of 
 Mr. White and Mr. Mead were indissolubly linked 
 with his own. For more than twenty-five years 
 they were like brothers, brain to brain and heart 
 to heart, sharing each other's labors and designs 
 and triumphs. It was impossible often to tell 
 where McKim 's work ended and the others' be- 
 gan, or how much of any given piece of work was 
 
 332 
 
CHAELES FOLLEN McKIM 
 
 done by the one or the other, or which contributed 
 the more important part. At a great banquet, 
 when Burnham, who was presiding, attributed to 
 McKim the great merit of Madison Square Gar- 
 den, McKim is said to have interjected, " White," 
 and that was the only word he uttered on that 
 occasion. McKim always imputed to his partners 
 a full and equal share of the credit and merit of 
 what was done in their joint names, and during 
 the whole existence of the firm no single piece 
 of work was undertaken except in their joint 
 names, but upon almost every piece of their joint 
 work the impress of McKim 's peculiar person- 
 ality and fine genius is indelibly stamped. The 
 truth is that the three stood together at the head 
 of the profession, and the city and the nation owe 
 to their joint labors an everlasting debt of grati- 
 tude. Each relied upon the other, and their mu- 
 tual devotion and admiration knew no limits. 
 
 And there was another personal association and 
 ever-abiding influence which McKim enjoyed in 
 all his later years — in the friendship of Saint- 
 Gaudens. I do not suppose there ever was a 
 closer union, or a more active sympathy, between 
 three great artists of kindred tastes and the same 
 exalted aims, as that which bound together Mc- 
 Kim, Saint-Gaudens, and White — working to- 
 gether, helping each other, criticizing each other, 
 and all intent together upon the same end — to 
 elevate the artistic standard which it was the 
 great object of their lives to promote and ad- 
 vance. All three have passed away together in 
 
 333 
 
CHAELES FOLLEN McKIM 
 
 three short years. As they were united in life, 
 they were not far divided in death, a triple calam- 
 ity and loss to the city and the country. 
 
 The secret of McKim's professional eminence 
 was not far to seek. There was nothing strange 
 or providential about it. 
 
 Emerson attributes to the greatest architects 
 a sort of special divine inspiration: 
 
 The hand that rounded Peter's dome 
 And groined the aisles of Christian. Kome 
 Wrought in a sad sincerity. 
 Himself from God he could not free. 
 He molded wiser than he knew; 
 The conscious stone to beauty grew. 
 
 And another poet, two hundred years before Em- 
 erson, had explained the first miracle in a similar 
 figure of speech: 
 
 The conscious water saw its God and blushed. 
 
 But, in the sober prose of modern life, conscious 
 stone is as rare as conscious water, and archi- 
 tects must work out their own salvation, Mc- 
 Kim did this by the hardest of hard work, by con- 
 centrating his whole mind and heart and feeling 
 upon his work as an architect, never turning to 
 the right or the left, or trying his hand at any 
 other art. 
 
 Evelyn, writing from Eome, says: " Bernini, 
 the Florentine sculptor, architect, painter, and 
 poet, a little before my coming to Eome, gave a 
 
 334 
 
CHAELES FOLLEN McKIM 
 
 public opera wherein he painted the scenes, cut 
 the statues, invented the engines, composed the 
 music, writ the comedy, and built the theatre." 
 And it has been happily said of Michelangelo that 
 he wore the four crowns of architecture, sculp- 
 ture, painting, and poetry. 
 
 McKim was satisfied with the crown of archi- 
 tecture only, and to win and wear it he gave his 
 life's blood. 
 
 I asked Mr. Mead what he thought was Mc- 
 Kim 's chief motive and object in life, and he said: 
 " Perfection in whatever he undertook to do." 
 
 To this single lofty aim he devoted all his pow- 
 ers—his fertile imagination, a memory richly 
 stored with treasures, a patient study of all the 
 best examples of ancient and foreign art, a self- 
 control which enabled him to persuade and con- 
 trol others, an insatiable love of beauty, and that 
 sweet reasonableness which was an essential part 
 of his nature. And with all this, in spite of occa- 
 sional moods and apparent lapses, he had that 
 unyielding tenacity of purpose which kept the 
 end in view always from the beginning, and 
 which is the invariable trait of leadership in all 
 professions. 
 
 But, besides being a great artist, McKim was 
 a great educator. The influence which his work 
 and the work of his firm exercised upon the pub- 
 lic taste and judgment was of incalculable value. 
 Scattered through many cities, each building 
 they designed was an object-lesson to the public 
 in dignity, harmony and beauty. How can even 
 
 335 
 
CHARLES FOLLEN McKIM 
 
 the casual observer stop to gaze at such build- 
 ings as the Boston Library, the Ehode Island 
 State House, or the Columbia or Morgan Library 
 without being deeply impressed? I am sure these 
 are creating an enthusiasm for beautiful build- 
 ings, which is sure to grow and never to die out 
 among us. And yet I fear that not one in five 
 of this company of his admirers has gone out of 
 his or her way as far as Seventh Avenue to study 
 the last and perhaps most marvellous of all their 
 works, the new Pennsylvania Station. 
 
 I must leave it to others to tell you how much 
 he has done to elevate the standard and the dig- 
 nity and the value of his own profession — how 
 large a proportion of the younger architects of 
 to-day have graduted from his office, and have 
 carried with them into actual work throughout 
 the country the impress and the influence of his 
 large imagination and his abiding inspiration. 
 You will hear from them, I doubt not, of his ever- 
 living sense of public duty and responsibility; 
 how freely he gave of his time, his thought, and 
 his influence to the great work of the improve- 
 ment of the Capitol and the laying out of the city 
 of Washington ; and, more than all the rest, how, 
 remembering the difficulties that beset his own 
 career at the outset, he labored in season and out 
 of season in the founding of the American Acad- 
 emy at Rome, which in life and in death was the 
 darling of his hopes. Who knows but that those 
 hopes may be speedily and finally realized and 
 completed by some timely helping hand? 
 
 336 
 
CHARLES FOLLEN McKIM 
 
 The name of an architect is generally lost in 
 his works. Of all the great buildings and struc- 
 tures that survive from a remote past, only a 
 very few have brought with them the names of 
 the great geniuses who must have designed them. 
 " Here lies one," wrote Keats in his own epi- 
 taph, " whose name is writ in water." But those 
 whose names are writ in stone are hardly as last- 
 ing. I doubt whether one in fifty of this audience 
 can give the name of the truly eminent architect 
 who designed our City Hall at about the time that 
 Keats, whose fame has ever since been growing, 
 was born. Now and then there is a signal excep- 
 tion. The name of Agrippa, on the portico of the 
 Pantheon, has kept his fame alive as a great 
 builder for centuries after his military achieve- 
 ments are forgotten. The ashes of Wren, happy 
 in death as in life, enshrined in the great cathe- 
 dral that he restored, surrounded by what re- 
 mains of the beautiful churches that he rebuilt, 
 are marked with that matchless inscription: " Si 
 monumentum quaeris, circumspice." " If you 
 seek for his monument, look around you. ' ' Hunt 's 
 statue upon the roof of Mr. Vanderbilt's house — 
 his masterpiece — so unique and characteristic, 
 will keep his features in view as long as that 
 beautiful house shall stand; but his monogram 
 " E. M. H." must be stamped upon it to tell fu- 
 ture generations who he was. Indeed, there is no 
 sign manual for architects as there is always for 
 painters. But McKim's spirit and memory will 
 survive, not only in the masterly and beautiful 
 
 337 
 
CHAELES FOLLEN McKIM 
 
 works of his hands, but in the new life that he 
 inspired in his great profession, in the valued 
 services that he rendered to his country, in the 
 ever-growing idealism which he fostered and en- 
 couraged in the American people. 
 
 Perhaps this is hardly the occasion to dwell 
 upon those innate traits and qualities that made 
 him so dear and precious to his friends, and his 
 loss so deeply and widely lamented. But in truth 
 he was one of the most charming personalities 
 that America has ever known. Wherever he 
 came, he always brought light and warmth and 
 sympathy, which seemed to flow from him, 
 whether he spoke or kept silent. It was impossi- 
 ble to know him and not to love him, and, to bor- 
 row the language of St. Paul, it may truly be said 
 of him: 
 
 " Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever 
 things are honest, whatsoever things are just, 
 whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things 
 are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report ; 
 if there be any virtue and if there be any 
 praise, ' ' we think of these things as all embodied 
 and transfigured in the life and character of 
 Charles Pollen McKim. 
 
 338 
 
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 
 
i(i. 
 
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 
 
 Address delivered at the fiftieth annwersary of the founding of 
 
 the First Training School for Nurses, New YorTc, 
 
 May 18, 1910. 
 
 I CONSIDER it a very great privilege to be 
 permitted to stand here for a few minutes 
 to speak about Florence Nightingale. How could 
 this great convention of the nurses of America, 
 gathered from all parts of the country, represent- 
 ing a thousand schools of trained nurses ; repre- 
 senting more than fifty thousand graduates of 
 those schools, and more than twenty-five thou- 
 sand pupils of those schools to-day — how could 
 they better close their conference than by coming 
 here to-night, to celebrate the foundation, by 
 that great woman, of the one first great training 
 school for nurses, which was the model of them 
 all? And how could she, that venerable woman, 
 be more highly honored than by this gathering, 
 in a distant land, of these representatives of the 
 profession which she really founded and created, 
 to do her homage? I hope that before we close 
 our proceedings this evening, we shall authorize 
 our presiding officer to send her a cable of affec- 
 tion and gratitude for all the great work she has 
 done, not only from all the nurses of America, but 
 to testify the admiration of the entire American 
 people for her great record, and her noble life. 
 
 341 
 
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 
 
 One word as to the place and date of her birth. 
 She was born in the beautiful city of Florence, 
 where the steps of Americans always love to lin- 
 ger, in the very first year of the reign of George 
 the Fourth. She lived in honor and triumph 
 through the succeeding reigns of William the 
 Fourth, of Victoria, and of Edward the Seventh, 
 and at last united with the rest of her countrymen 
 to hail the accession of George the Fifth who, 
 I am sure, values her among his subjects quite 
 as highly as he does the most renowned statesmen 
 and greatest soldiers among them. 
 
 She was born in the first administration of 
 James Monroe, the fifth president of the United 
 States — before the Monroe doctrine had ever yet 
 been thought of. She has lived through the en- 
 tire terms of the twenty succeeding presidents, 
 and is now cherished in the hearts of the Ameri- 
 can people as one of the great heroines of the 
 race. 
 
 As there were great heroes before Agamemnon, 
 so she would be the last to wish us to deny or 
 ignore the fact that there were splendid nurses 
 engaged in the work, even before she was born. 
 Not trained nurses, nursing according to the mod- 
 ern school of the Nightingale system, but women, 
 ladies, refined, delicate, accomplished, giving 
 themselves to the service of the sick and suffer- 
 ing. And I believe we ought always to acknowl- 
 edge the debt of gratitude that the world owes to 
 the great Eoman Catholic Church for the Sisters 
 of Mercy whom for centuries it was sending out 
 
 342 
 
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 
 
 for the relief and succor of the sick and suffering 
 in all parts of the world. It has been truly said 
 that for centuries the Roman Catholic community 
 was training and setting apart holy women to 
 minister to the sick and poor in their own homes, 
 and had hospitals supplied with the same type of 
 nurses. A large number of these women were 
 ladies of birth and breeding, who worked for the 
 good of their souls and the welfare of their 
 church; while all received proper education and 
 training, and abjured the world for the religious 
 life. Now all you have to add to that character is 
 the discipline and special training and organiza- 
 tion which Florence Nightingale contributed to 
 this great profession, to bring into view the 
 trained nurse as she is to-day. 
 
 This woman of great brains, of large heart, of 
 wonderfully comprehensive faculties, appears to 
 have been born a nurse. If the stories we hear of 
 her in the nursery are true, that was literally so ; 
 because they tell us that her dolls were always in 
 very delicate health, and had to be daily put to 
 bed and nursed and petted, with all possible care ; 
 and that the next morning they were restored to 
 health, only to become ill again for her service the 
 next night. And her sister's dolls — she was less 
 careful of them — suffered all kinds of broken 
 limbs, and were subjected to amputation and 
 splinting and decapitation; and Florence was on 
 hand always to restore those broken fragments 
 to their original integrity. 
 
 She had every possible advantage to make her 
 343 
 
FLOEENCE NIGHTINGALE 
 
 what she afterwards came to be. She was born 
 in that most interesting phase of English society 
 — in English country life — ^where for centuries it 
 has been the rule that the lord of the manor, the 
 squire in his mansion, the leading person of the 
 region and his family, have the responsibility 
 always upon them to take care of the sick and 
 suffering among all their neighbors. She was 
 trained in that school; and one of her first ex- 
 periences was to visit with her mother the poor 
 and the sick of all the neighboring region. 
 
 And she had a magnificent education. She was 
 not averse to the pleasures of society; but she 
 fortunately had a father who believed in disci- 
 pline, and he gave her the finest education known 
 to that day. Not only was she thoroughly 
 trained in Greek and Latin and mathematics, 
 but in French and German and Italian, and 
 I do not suppose there was any young woman 
 of her time who was better or more brilliantly 
 educated than this woman, who was to become 
 the leading nurse of the world. 
 
 She was brought up to believe in work and 
 training. And would you know the secret of her 
 success; would you realize the rule of her life? 
 Let me give it to you in her own words. " I 
 would say," she says, " I would say to all young 
 ladies who are called to any particular vocation, 
 qualify yourself for it, as a man does for his 
 work. Don't think you can undertake it other- 
 wise. Submit yourself to the rules of business, 
 as men do, by which alone you can make God's 
 
 344 
 
FLOEENCE NIGHTINGALE 
 
 business succeed." And again she says: 
 "Three-fourths of the whole mischief in women's 
 lives arises from their excepting themselves from 
 the rules of training considered needful for 
 men." 
 
 Besides this, she had every possible advantage 
 in the way of association. Early in life, as a 
 very young girl, or young woman, she made the 
 intimate acquaintance of Elizabeth Frye, who 
 had already for many years been visiting the sick 
 in the prisons and had established, under her old- 
 fashioned Quaker garb, such an immense reputa- 
 tion as a reformer of prison life. And through 
 Elizabeth Frye, she fell in, fortunately, with the 
 Fliedners, Theodore and Fredericka Fliedner, 
 who had established at Kaiserwerth in Germany 
 a real training school for nurses ; and it was the 
 delight of her life, that she, an accomplished lady, 
 went to that training school of the Fliedners, on 
 the banks of the Ehine, and labored hard, adopt- 
 ing the garb, following the habits, and associating 
 on terms of absolute equality with the nurses who 
 were there being trained, all of whom, but her- 
 self, I believe, were of the peasant class; and 
 came out of it, after a few months, knowing as 
 much about nursing as it was possible for any 
 woman then to know. 
 
 Then she visited the hospitals of all the great 
 countries of Europe, and among others, she spent 
 some weeks, or months, with the Sisters of St. 
 Vincent De Paul, that splendid Catholic institu- 
 tion where some of those nurses, such as I have 
 
 345 
 
FLOEENCE NIGHTINGALE 
 
 described to you, were already gathered, and 
 there she added to her wealth of knowledge and 
 richness of experience. 
 
 She recognized no religious differences. Cath- 
 olic and Protestant were both alike to her. The 
 real object of her life; the real object that she 
 had in view in influencing other women was how 
 best she might help them to benefit mankind. 
 
 The English hospitals of that day could not, by 
 any chance, be compared with those upon the 
 continent which she had visited. The character 
 of the nurses was absolutely beneath contempt. 
 Let me read you from a very authoritative state- 
 ment what was the truth about them : ' ' The nurs- 
 ing in our hospitals was largely in the hands of 
 the coarsest type of women ; not only in training, 
 but coarse in feeling, and even coarser morally. 
 There was little to counteract their baneful in- 
 fluence, and the atmosphere of the institutions, 
 which as the abode of the sick and dying had 
 special need of spiritual and elevating influences, 
 was of a degrading character. The habitual 
 drunkenness of these women was then proverbial, 
 while the dirt and disorder rampant in the ward 
 were calculated to breed disease. The profes- 
 sion — if the nursing of that day can claim a title 
 so dignified — had such a stigma attached to it, no 
 decent woman cared to enter it ; and if she did, it 
 was more than likely she would lose her char- 
 acter." 
 
 Now, she had to contrast with this the splendid 
 discipline and training that was maintained at 
 
 346 
 
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 
 
 Kaiserwerth, and the very fine character of the 
 nurses whom she had seen in these Catholic insti- 
 tutions abroad. She had acquired a thorough 
 training and was ready to become a true pioneer 
 in the profession to which she was to give her 
 life. She wrote a book about her experiences at 
 Kaiserwerth. It shows that she was a woman in 
 every sense of the word, full of sensibility. She 
 never married; but although she never married 
 herself, she approved of it. Let me read you a 
 few words from her own book. In her descrip- 
 tion and reminiscences of Kaiserwerth, she says : 
 ' ' It has become the fashion of late to cry up old 
 maids, and inveigh against marriage as the voca- 
 tion of all women; to declare that a single life 
 is as happy as a married one, if people would but 
 think so ; so is the air as good a medium for fish 
 as water, if they did but know how to live in it. 
 So she could be single and well content. But hith- 
 erto we have not found that young English 
 women have been convinced, and we must con- 
 fess that in the present state of things their hor- 
 ror of being old maids seems justified." 
 
 So you see, it was not without a full apprecia- 
 tion of all that goes to make home life tender and 
 happy that she turned her back upon matrimony, 
 and gave it up to nursing and caring for the sick 
 and suffering. 
 
 She was fortunate at every step of her career. 
 She was the immediate neighbor, down there on 
 the borders of Wiltshire, of the famous Sydney 
 Herbert, who afterwards became the war minister 
 
 347 
 
FLOEENCE NIGHTINGALE 
 
 of the day, at the time of the Crimean war, and at 
 his splendid ancestral home, Wilton House, she 
 was a frequent visitor ; she was well liked by that 
 household and by all who knew her. Her training 
 told ; her education told ; her character told. Let 
 me read you a wonderful prophecy that was made 
 about her, long before the Crimean war broke out, 
 long before she had shown the world what was in 
 her, and what she could do. This verse is by Ada, 
 Countess of Lovelace, the daughter of Byron; 
 and I call it a wonderful prophecy: 
 
 In future years, in distant climes, 
 
 Should war's dread strife its victims claim; 
 
 Should pestilence unchecked, betimes, 
 
 Strike more than swords, than cannon maim ; 
 
 Then readers of these truthful rhymes 
 Will trace her progress through undying fame. 
 
 It is not often that you will find in history such 
 a prophecy as that, so absolutely realized within 
 a few short years. 
 
 Then came the breaking out of the Crimean 
 war. As Colonel Hoff told you, twenty-five thou- 
 sand English soldiers landed at Scutari. And 
 such a state of things, I won't say never has been 
 heard of, because it is often heard of in the out- 
 break of many a war. War often finds a nation 
 utterly unprepared to engage in it. There were 
 no ambulances, no nurses, no means provided for 
 caring for the wounded and suffering soldiers as 
 they were brought in from the fields of battle. 
 
 348 
 
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 
 
 Fortunately we had a great war correspondent 
 at the Crimea in those days — we afterwards knew 
 him here, when he wrote the dispatches about our 
 battle of Bull Run — Mr. William Howard Russell, 
 as he was then called, who spoke in clarion notes 
 to the men, and especially to the women of Eng- 
 land, making an appeal which reached the ears 
 of this wonderful woman, and made her the hero- 
 ine of her age. Let me read you one sentence of 
 Russell's appeal. After describing the horrible 
 state of things that existed at the Crimea, and the 
 shameful want of preparation for the care of the 
 soldiers, he says : ' ' Are there no devoted women 
 amongst our people, willing to go forth to minis- 
 ter to the sick and suffering soldiers of the east, 
 in the hospitals of Scutari? Are there none of 
 the daughters of England, at this stormy hour of 
 night, ready for such a work? France has sent 
 forth her Sisters of Mercy unsparingly, and they 
 are even now by the bedsides of the wounded and 
 dying, giving what woman's hand alone can give 
 of comfort and relief. Must we fall far below 
 the French in self-sacrifice and devotedness in a 
 work which Christ so signally blessed, as done to 
 Himself, * I was sick and ye visited me ' ? " 
 
 And a lady, the wife of an officer, wrote from 
 the seat of war : ' ' Could you see the scenes that 
 we are daily witnessing, you would indeed be dis- 
 tressed. Every corner is filled with the sick and 
 wounded. If I am able to do some little good I 
 hope I shall not be obliged to leave. Just now 
 my time is occupied in cooking for the wounded. 
 
 349 
 
FLORENCE NiaHTINaALE 
 
 Three doors from me is an officer's wife who de- 
 votes herself to cooking for the sick. There are 
 no female nurses here, which decidedly there 
 should be. The French have sent fifty Sisters of 
 Mercy, who, I need hardly say, are devoted to 
 the work. We are glad to hear that some efforts 
 are being made at home." 
 
 Miss Nightingale was one of the first to 
 respond to that appeal. And yet there was hos- 
 tile objection from many quarters: from official 
 quarters, where it was thought that the present 
 regimen, the present organization, was good 
 enough, and could do all the work; from social 
 sources, for whom Mrs. Grundy spoke, " Why, 
 certainly it cannot be proper for young women 
 — young ladies — to go as nurses in a soldiers' 
 hospital, of all things in the world ! Too horrible 
 to think of ! " 
 
 There was a great deal of that sort of opposi- 
 tion; and there was religious opposition, too. 
 When she made up the band of thirty-seven 
 nurses, which Colonel Hoff has spoken of as her 
 first contingent with whom she went to the Cri- 
 mea, there were ten Catholic Sisters of Mercy, 
 twelve Church of England Sisters, I believe, and 
 then there were some who belonged to neither or- 
 ganization; and the religious people took it up, 
 and they said, ' ' She is evidently going to the Cri- 
 mea to convert the soldiers to the Roman Catho- 
 lic Church; " and others said, " No, that isn't so; 
 don't you see she is taking some that are neither 
 Catholic nor Episcopalian? We really believe 
 
 350 
 
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 
 
 that she belongs to that horrible sect, the Uni- 
 tarians! " 
 
 Even Pimch, who always represents the cur- 
 rent feeling of the day, made a little light of her, 
 with mingled admiration and raillery. Let me 
 read you two of his verses, in honor of " The 
 Lady Birds," as they were called in London, be- 
 fore they started for the seat of war. 
 
 THE nightingale's SONG TO A SICK SOLDIEE 
 
 Listen, soldier, to the tale of the tender nightingale ; 
 
 It is a charm that soon will ease your wounds so cruel. 
 Singing my song for your pain, in a sympathetic strain, 
 
 With a jug of lemonade and gruel. 
 Singing succor to the brave, and a rescue from the 
 grave; 
 
 Hear the Nightingale sing that goes to the Crimea. 
 'Tis a Nightingale as, tender in her heart as in her song, 
 
 To carry out her golden idea. 
 
 When this terrible state of things was disclosed 
 by the letters of Eussell and* other news that came 
 from the seat of war, the government was as 
 horror-stricken as the people, and so were Mr. 
 Sydney Herbert, the life-long friend of Florence 
 Nightingale, and Mrs. Herbert, who was also one 
 of her friends. Mr. Herbert, who was responsi- 
 ble for the administration of military affairs, said 
 to his wife, ' ' We must send for Florence ! ' ' And 
 then a most singular coincidence happened. He 
 wrote her a most serious and dignified letter, 
 pointing out the necessity of sending a band of 
 
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 nurses, composed of capable and courageous 
 women ; and he said to her, ' ' It all depends upon 
 you; if our plan is to succeed, you must lead it." 
 And without pressing her unduly, he put it be- 
 fore her as a matter of conscience and duty. I 
 believe that letter was written on the fifteenth of 
 October, 1854, when the first horrible news came 
 from the front. What I call the remarkable co- 
 incidence was that on the same day, without know- 
 ing anything about the writing of that letter, 
 Florence Nightingale was writing unsolicited, to 
 Sydney Herbert, the Secretary of War, offering 
 her services to lead a band of nurses to the front. 
 Time would fail me if I undertook to tell you 
 the frightful condition of things she found when 
 she got there. Doubtless you have all read of it. The 
 great Barracks Hospital of Scutari was filled with 
 thousands and thousands of sick and wounded men 
 who had been brought from the seat of war, with- 
 out nurses, without suitable food, without a laun- 
 dry, without the possibility of a change of clothes, 
 without a kitchen for the preparation of proper 
 food, with no possible conveniences or appliances 
 for the care of the sick and the wounded. The 
 descriptions are too horrible to realize or to re- 
 peat. She found these three or four thousand 
 men in this great hospital, which had been a bar- 
 racks and had been converted, off-hand, into a 
 hospital — a place for the deposit of these poor 
 bodies of the sick and wounded; and that was 
 about all that had been done for them before 
 Miss Nightingale arrived. They had had no medi- 
 
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 cal attendance from the time they left the front, 
 many days before; they had had no change of 
 clothing, nor the possibility of a bath or a clean 
 shirt. 
 
 And this woman, with her thirty-seven nurses, 
 came among them. It was chaos! confusion, 
 worse confounded ! She put to use her wonderful 
 powers of organization, and in two months she 
 had that hospital in absolute control. A kitchen 
 was established and a laundry, and she provided 
 ten thousand clean shirts for these sufferers, and 
 had taken absolute command of the whole estab- 
 lishment, as the government had given her 
 authority to do. In six months, great re- 
 sources being sent to her from home, great num- 
 bers of recruits to her nurses arriving, every sol- 
 dier, to the number of six thousand in the Bar- 
 racks Hospital and in the General Hospital at 
 Scutari, was being well and comfortably taken 
 care of and provided for. 
 
 Then came all the other horrors that attend 
 war. Fever broke out, and the frost-bitten men 
 who had lain in the trenches before Sebastopol 
 were brought in, after spending five days out of 
 seven in those horrible trenches, exposed to the 
 Crimean frost, with nothing but the linen clothes 
 that they had worn in Malta. All these ghastly 
 things she had to take care of and provide for, 
 but her genius was equal to the emergency. Her 
 powers of organization, her powers of endurance 
 seem to me to surpass those of any other woman 
 on record. They tell us that for twenty hours at 
 
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 a time she would stand when the ships arrived — 
 twenty hours at a time — receiving those broken 
 fragments of men that came from the front, see- 
 ing that they were properly handled and cared 
 for. And when all the work of the day was done 
 and others rested she made her rounds, visiting 
 the worst cases, the most frightful cases. They 
 weren't safe, she thought, unless she personally 
 visited them. She, the Lady in Chief, as she was 
 ordinarily called, and " The Lady of the Lamp," 
 as she became known in poetry and history, vis- 
 ited the bedsides of the suffering, soothed the 
 wounded and dying. She wrote letters to their 
 friends at home, and did everything that one 
 woman could do to restore life and light to the 
 suffering. Let me read you Longfellow's tribute 
 to her: 
 
 On England's annals, through the long 
 Hereafter of her speech and song, 
 
 That light its rays shall cast 
 
 From the portals of the past. 
 
 A lady with a lamp shall stand 
 In the great history of the land, 
 
 A noble type of good, 
 
 Heroic Womanhood. 
 
 Then she went on from Scutari to the Crimea. 
 She went so far as to visit Sebastopol itself, go- 
 ing to the very front, and not only looked into 
 the trenches, but entered the great crater of that 
 
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 vast volcano of war; and on her way back she 
 was stricken with the Crimean fever and very 
 nearly lost her life. They carried her to the hos- 
 pital — one of those improvised hospitals on the 
 heights of Balaklava, five hundred feet above the 
 sea. She was nursed for weeks and weeks, 
 and finally brought back to life. They tell 
 us of the Six Hundred at Balaklava : that ' ' into 
 the jaws of death rode the six hundred ! ' ' Why, 
 this woman was in the jaws of death from the time 
 she landed at Scutari until she was stricken down, 
 eight months afterwards. 
 
 Then they said, " You must go home to Eng- 
 land; that is the only way for you to get well." 
 " I will not go home," she replied, " I will not 
 leave these soldiers ; " and she continued her he- 
 roic duties of nursing and supervising. She was 
 a great genius in every sense of the word. She 
 would not go home, and did not go, until not only 
 the war had closed, but until long after; until 
 every soldier had been shipped home to England, 
 and every hospital was cleared. 
 
 And then, how do you think she went home? 
 she, the foremost woman in the world now! to 
 whom all mankind and womankind looked with 
 reverence and honor. How do you think she went 
 home ? Did she go with a flare of trumpets ? Did 
 she expect or wait for a grand demonstration on 
 her return? Did she notify everybody or any- 
 body that she was coming? Not at all. She had 
 such a horror of publicity, she was so modest, so 
 meek — one of those that are going to inherit the 
 
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FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 
 
 earth — that she went home incognito. She ar- 
 rived in England without letting anybody know it. 
 She managed somehow or other to get into the 
 back door of her father's house in Derbyshire, 
 and the first that was known of her having re- 
 turned to England was when the neighbors heard 
 that Miss Florence was really sleeping in her 
 father's house. Punch, always quick to respond 
 to public feeling, reflected the sentiment of the 
 hour with respect to her return. Punch says 
 this: 
 
 Then leave her to the guide she has chosen ; 
 
 She demands no greeting from our brazen throats and 
 
 vulgar elappmg hands. 
 Leave her to the sole comfort the saints know that have 
 
 striven ; 
 What are our earthly honors : her honors are in heaven ! 
 
 Earthly honors awaited her. In truth the 
 whole nation was up in arms to do her honor, to 
 pay homage to her, and to make some reward for 
 her wonderful sacrifice and services. Subscrip- 
 tions were opened, not only in all parts of Eng- 
 land, but in all the English dominions, extending 
 all around the British Empire. Subscriptions were 
 actually opened among the English residents at 
 Hong Kong, and fifty thousand pounds was 
 poured out by the English people into her lap. 
 England is full of generosity to her heroes and 
 heroines. She rewards her great generals with 
 munificent sums; and so her people in this case 
 
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FLOEENCE NIGHTINGALE 
 
 wanted in like manner to honor this heroine of 
 their own. 
 
 What did she say? She said, ' ' Not for me ; not 
 one penny for me. I will not take a penny. But 
 it has been the ambition of my life to establish 
 a training school for nurses — the first of its kind 
 to be conducted on high and broad and pure meth- 
 ods and principles. Let it all be devoted to that, 
 and I accept the gift. Otherwise, not." And so 
 it came about that the first great nurse's train- 
 ing school was established at St. Thomas's Hos- 
 pital, which bears her name. It is still supported 
 by ' ' The Nightingale Fund, ' ' and is a model and 
 example for all the training schools of the world. 
 
 Colonel Hoff has told you of her subsequent 
 life. Practically her health was ruined. She has 
 been fifty-five years an invalid, often confined to 
 her bed, and yet always working for the good of 
 humanity, always for the relief of the sick and 
 wounded, the sanitation of camps and the relief 
 and succor of the soldiers. 
 
 But she has had her reward; through all ranks 
 of mankind, wherever there is a heart to beat in 
 response to such noble deed as hers, there has 
 been a glorious answer. 
 
 I will only speak for a few minutes of those 
 things in which we are especially interested and 
 first of the Red Cross. The convention that met 
 in Geneva, in 1863, founded it, and it has from 
 time to time since been the subject of subsequent 
 amendment. Our Hague Conference, in 1907, had 
 representatives from forty-four nations, and 
 
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FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 
 
 there for the first time all the nations of the 
 world became parties to the Red Cross movement, 
 which meant the saving of the sick and wounded, 
 and hospital and ambulance corps to rescue them 
 from all the perils of war and of battle; which 
 meant preparation for war while yet there is 
 peace, so that these horrible sufferings that have 
 been witnessed at the outbreak of almost every 
 war may not be repeated. At the meeting of the 
 Congress of Red Cross Societies, held in London 
 two years later, in June, 1909, unanimous resolu- 
 tions were passed, honoring Miss Nightingale and 
 declaring that her work was the beginning of the 
 Red Cross activities. 
 
 Then look at her influence in America 1 When 
 our terrible Civil "War broke out we were almost 
 as unprepared in this matter of sanitation and 
 nursing as the British had been at Scutari. For- 
 tunately there were some women who lent their 
 tiid at once, and these were inspired by the exam- 
 ple of Miss Nightingale. They were women of 
 the same type. Let me read you the names of 
 some of them. One, at least, is present here to- 
 night, and I do not know but there are more. Dr. 
 Elizabeth Blackwell, the intimate friend of Miss 
 Nightingale is, I believe, still living in England, 
 one year younger than Miss Nightingale herself; 
 Miss Louisa Lee Schuyler, Miss Dorothea L. Dix, 
 Miss Collins, and Mrs. Griffin. What did they do? 
 Why they were responsible, really, for our great 
 sanitary commission, and they formed the wom- 
 an's branch of that great humanitarian enter- 
 
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FLOEENCE NIGHTINGALE 
 
 prise, which did so much to save our sick and 
 wounded in that protracted and terrible war. 
 They acknowledged their allegiance to Miss 
 Nightingale, and were in constant correspondence 
 with her. Dr. Blackwell had known absolutely 
 all her methods, her principles, and her whole 
 plan of nursing, and it was on those principles 
 and those lines that our noble women worked. 
 
 Then, ten years afterwards, there came the 
 foundation of this work in America, I might al- 
 most say, the foundation of the training school 
 for nurses — at Bellevue Hospital. And there 
 you find several of the same women again : Miss 
 Schuyler, Miss Collins, Mrs. William Preston 
 Griffin, and leading them was Mrs. Joseph Hob- 
 son, afterwards president of one of the commit- 
 tees; and there was the mother of our present 
 chairman, that woman of sainted memory, Mrs. 
 William H. Osborn, who led their activities in 
 the creation of that great school. It is a splendid 
 thing that he should be here to-night to represent 
 one who gave so much of her heart, her soul, her 
 life and her treasure, to the building up of that 
 school. Miss Nightingale was immediately ap- 
 proached by the founders of that school, and gave 
 them full written instructions as to how they 
 ought to proceed. 
 
 Her letter ought to be read by everybody ; it is 
 full, explicit, and detailed, and she is as much en- 
 titled to the credit of the creation of this school 
 in America as even those ladies of whom I have 
 spoken. 
 
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FLOEENCE NIGHTINGALE 
 
 Now, I close as I began. Do not let us separate 
 to-night without authorizing our chairman to 
 send, on behalf of all the nurses and all the people 
 of America, a word of greeting and of gratitude 
 to this noble woman. 
 
 IHE END. 
 
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