Author 
 
 Title 
 
 Class E6..6-4.... 
 BookJ)..4ll5fi. 
 
 Imprint 
 
 GPO 16 — 7461 
 
ADDRESSES 
 
 SENATOR CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 
 
 \ 
 
 DINNER GIVEN BY THE MONTAUK CLUB, OF 
 
 BROOKLYN, ON SATURDAY EVENING, 
 
 APRIL 21, 1900, IN CELEBRATION 
 
 OF HIS BIRTHDAY 
 
 AND AT 
 
 GIRARD COLLEGE, MAY 19, 1900, AT THE CELEBRA- 
 TION OF THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH 
 ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF ITS 
 FOUNDER, STEPHEN GIRARD 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
 JUDD & DETWEII.ER, PRINTERS 
 
 1900 
 
« I., 4$. • 
 
 r^-fc 
 

 V 
 
 At the Dinner Given by the Montauk Club, of Brooklyn, on Saturday 
 Evening, April 21, 1900, in Celebration of His Birthday. 
 
 Gentlp::men : For the ninth successive year you give me 
 your hearty welcome and generous greeting on my birth- 
 day. Your inspiring message has always been, " God bless 
 you and good luck to you." In the kaleidoscope of the 
 revolutions of time we have found something on each anni- 
 versary in the experiences of the year which has intervened 
 for discussion and reflection. The transition from private 
 station to public life since we met here last April gives the 
 thought for tonight. The differences between social life at 
 the Capitol and in the metropolis and a view from the inside 
 of the Senate as it is — and not as it is pictured — are perilous, 
 but interesting subjects for the talk of this anniversary of 
 1900. 
 
 Society is a term of as wide range as civilization. The 
 social world illustrated by the late Mr. Ward McAllister 
 has neither touch nor interest in that which met for years 
 at Parker's, in Boston, every week, with Longfellow, .James 
 Russell Lowell, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell 
 Holmes, Whittier, and congenial friends at the table. The 
 newspapers print news which their readers want, and the 
 criticism of the paper should be directed against the sub- 
 scriber. It is a singular commentary upon public curi- 
 osity that one or more conspicuous columns in the press of 
 large cities and of villages are filled with the doings of 
 
fashionable folks, while the feast of the gods at Parker's 
 rarely receives a paragraph. One who travels much over 
 the country finds in families which never liave met or seen, 
 or ever expect to meet or see, the people in smart society in 
 New York, Philadelphia, Boston, or Newport reading with 
 avidity, to the exclusion of news about the war, the Govern- 
 ment, or the markets, the descri})tions of dinners, dances, 
 and dresses, and the names of hosts and guests. We have 
 reversed the rule of classic days. AVhen Athens guided the 
 thought and set the fashions for the ancient world, in the 
 peculiar relations which women held to society at the 
 Grecian capital, Aspasia established a salon. It is the first 
 of which we have record, and in her parlors could be met 
 all there was of distinction in war, letters, art, philosophy, 
 or the stage, and all the reigning beauties. Apparently 
 these gatherings and the balls and banquets received no 
 public notice, while the dinners of Alcibiades and others, 
 with Plato, Socrates, and the philosophers and orators as 
 guests, were reported in full, and the conversations at these 
 banquets have survived for the instruction and delight of 
 succeeding generations for three thousand years. 
 
 People are gregarious and love to meet each other to 
 agreeably pass away time, some for mutual improvement 
 and others for pleasure. Neither of these classes can criti- 
 cise the other, and the world is large enough for all. The 
 dancing set call the thinkers and workers bores and muffs, 
 and the sages decr}^ the gay and happy crowd who chase 
 the fleeting hours with flying feet as frivolers and fools- 
 Both are wrong. Each group in its way is getting its share 
 of the things which each believes makes life wortli the liv- 
 ing. We have to recognize in recreation and pleasure, as 
 
we do in food and drink, that what is one person's meat is 
 another's poison. The end to be attained is happiness, and 
 the seeker is a success, whether he or she finds it by the head 
 or the heels. 
 
 The happiest men and women are those who are suffi- 
 ciently broad, liberal, and cosmopolitan to be at home with 
 the devotees of fashion, with authors, actors, artists, or poli- 
 ticians, and can enjoy the freedom of Bohemia. 
 
 The society of the national capitals is more interesting 
 than that of great financial and commercial centers. On 
 the other side of the sea, London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and 
 Rome are conspicuous illustrations, and in America, Wash- 
 ington. Government and governing and the rewards and 
 honors of public life attract to the capital ambition, genius, 
 and beauty. Political position and the official class, with 
 their recognized precedence at both public and private 
 functions, so level or lift, as you please to view it, social 
 standar^ that brains and achievement are welcome at the 
 most exclusive gatherings and receive honor and recogni- 
 tion from those whose position is founded on ancestry or 
 money. In elegance, refinement, and culture, the outward 
 and visible forms of social life are the same in all large 
 cities and fashionable summer resorts. The world of society 
 in the city is closely built. 
 
 The entrance is necessarily carefully guarded and creden- 
 tials critically examined. There is a certain intimacy and 
 camaraderie which calls for confidence and obligates the 
 erection and maintenance of barriers against improper per- 
 sons. The same people are continually meeting, and their 
 interests become largely concentrated in each other. Social 
 requirements occupy every hour of disposable time. Gen- 
 
eral reading or the study and discussion of current move- 
 ments in religion, politics, art, literature, or science become 
 impossible, talk about them stupid, and their representatives 
 bores. I heard a charming New York social leader say, in 
 the weariness of the close of a crowded season, " I wonder if 
 it would be more lively and interesting to have with us some 
 of the brightest literary freaks." 
 
 At Washington the tremendous game of politics, national 
 and international, draws in every one. All the residents, 
 and strangers spending the winter at the capital, find them- 
 selves suddenly having a deep interest in the cjuestions 
 discussed in the Senate and House of Representatives and 
 engaging the attention of the President and Cabinet. Cabi net 
 ministers, ambassadors from foreign governments and their 
 secretaries and attaches, Senators and Congressmen, army 
 and navy ofhcers and accomplished under-secretaries, are met 
 everywhere. The personal kaleidoscope is ever changing, 
 and there is little talk about what people are doing. The 
 subjects of conversation are rmj^ersonal and cover a wide 
 range. Rough diamonds, rubbing against sympathy and 
 understanding, become suddenly and exceptionally brilliant. 
 A tactful host or neighbor discovers eloquent and enjoyable 
 resources by starting a guest upon the deeds or ideas which 
 have given him distinction. Every one reads so as to be up 
 to date with the cabinet minister or ambassador or Senator 
 or Congressman, and in reading and studying great ques- 
 tions they find an unexpected field of pleasure and excite- 
 ment. 
 
 For those who are subject to mental labor, and, in a word, 
 for all workers, relaxation is health for mind and body. 
 Social pleasures soothe and rest the taxed brain and freshen 
 
 4 
 
it for tomorrow's duties. A man or woman who cannot en- 
 joy dining or meeting in any form of entertainment with 
 friends and such strangers as they know about are unfortu- 
 nately constituted. They are dissatisfied with tliemselves 
 and disagreeable to others. 
 
 Society, after all, is a sort of trust for mutual enjoyment. 
 Every stockholder must contril)ute something to the general 
 pleasure. Cynical sneers or platitudinous preachings have 
 never affected it and never will. People want to be happj", 
 and all forms of association and pleasant activity which are 
 free from immorality or bad breeding are part of the good 
 things which in various ways, adaptable to their years, 
 smooth the pathway of life for childhood, youth, maturity, 
 and old age. 
 
 The cost of an entertainment has little to do with social 
 enjoyment. Luxur}' is very good, if the host can afford it, 
 but not necessary to a good time. I have found more pleasure 
 in a two-dollar dinner at the Lotos club, when the lights of 
 literature or the press were brilliantly scintillating, than in 
 any number of ten-dollar ones. The most stupid and un- 
 utterably boreous dinner I ever suffered through cost the 
 giver thirty-six dollars a plate. I was at General Garfield's 
 home, at Mentor, the day after Maine went Democratic. It 
 was believe<l all over the country that this presaged the 
 General's defeat for President. The fickleness of political 
 worshippers had a fine illustration in his experience. From 
 his nomination up to the day after the election in Maine 
 his visitors numbered hundreds daily. That day no one 
 came but two old Army comrades of the General's. The 
 noonday dinner was a simple country meal of beefsteak, 
 potatoes, and apple dumjdings ; but story, personal incident, 
 
and debate were memorably keen and bright. The General 
 himself gave a word picture of the battle of Chickamauga 
 which was the most realistic description of an historic 
 struggle I have ever heard or read. When called to catch 
 my train I found that at the General's table had sped three 
 of the most enjoyable hours of my life. 
 
 I remember sitting beside Browning one evening in London 
 when hours seemed minutes. Six hours at dinner and the 
 opera with Gladstone are to me an ever-living memory of a 
 memorable night. Lincoln, Grant, Seward, Chase, Greeley, 
 Raymond have each contributed to that enrichment of my 
 life which I value more than any material accumulations. 
 Kingsley, Holmes, Farrar, Lowell, and men and women of 
 the lyric and dramatic stage have stamped upon my mind 
 recollections as realistic and fascinating as the tales of the 
 Arabian Nights in boyhood's memory. 
 
 The Senate is constantly represented as the millionaire's 
 club. The ])ersistent repetition of this statement has created 
 a general impression that its membership is composed of men 
 of large wealth. The reverse is the fact. There are ninety 
 Senators. Ten of them, according to general belief, are worth 
 more than a million of dollars. Ten more may be able to 
 live upon the income of their accumulations. But more 
 than three-fourths of the Senators have little or no property 
 and no income beyond their salaries and what they can gain 
 in addition by limited opportunities from their public duties 
 for the practice of their professions, contributions to maga- 
 zines, and other literary efforts. Many of them gave up 
 years ago lucrative and rapidly increasing incomes from 
 their professions /rom a profound sense of public duty and 
 fondness for public life. They have reached their present 
 
 6 
 
position and prominence by hard work and ability to do 
 something better than their rivals. Industry has become a 
 habit. There are conspicuous instances on both sides of 
 Senators whose long service, familiarity with the needs of 
 government, exhaustive labors upon public measures, inti- 
 mate knowledge of the subjects before the Senate, and critical 
 examinations of bills which get on the calendar make them 
 invaluable, and their disappearance from the Senate would 
 be a calamity. 
 
 Fifty letters a day to be answered is a moderate corre- 
 spondence, and committee and Senate duties fill the day. 
 Senators, as a rule, are willing and anxious to oblige office- 
 seekers. They know that many men prefer the government 
 service to any other occupation, and others have earned 
 recognition, if opportunity offers to gratify them, by work 
 for the party ; but, Avith the civil-service examinations to 
 contend with and the limited number of vacancies occurring, 
 the difficulty of finding a position is very great. There are 
 hundreds of applicants for each place, and behind each appli- 
 cant a Senator and member of Congress, and the one who 
 succeeds has simply won a prize in a lottery where all the 
 rest draw blanks. Valuable time is often occupied by im- 
 perious and importunate people who, instead of retaining 
 an attorney, think their Senator should drop his public 
 duties and prepare papers, briefs, bills, and gather testimony 
 for their claims — a labor which would occupy a good lawyer 
 days and weeks to accomplish. 
 
 The statement has become common that the Senate has 
 deteriorated since the days of Webster, Clay, and Calhoun. 
 A careful comparison of the conditions then and now will 
 demonstrate that this is not so. The Congress of their time 
 
 7 
 
was legislating for thirty millions of people and tlie wants of 
 a territory lying between the Atlantic ocean and the Rocky 
 mountains, while the welfiire of seventy millions, the devel- 
 opment and protection of a country of continental area, the 
 governing of distant possessions and alien races, and complex 
 international obligations, because of contact with the great 
 powers and the need of markets for our increasing surplus, 
 are the problems of today. 
 
 The debate in both Houses of Congress upon the Phili})- 
 pine and Porto Rican Cjuestions has been on as high a plane 
 and shown as great ability as any of the famous historic 
 discussions. In the days of Webster the congressional orator 
 was the spokesman of his party, and furnished opinions 
 both for the people and the paj^ers. He became a popular 
 idol, and tradition always enlarges the proportions of an 
 idol ; but now the newspapers are so cheap that every one 
 reads several. They discuss and inform on all public ques- 
 tions with fullness and authority. They give scant space to 
 the debates in Congress, and they have greatly diminished 
 the reputation and power of the speaker, no matter how 
 eloquent he may be. AVith the exception of Webster's, 
 none of the speeches of the idealized period of senatorial 
 debate are read or can be read. The finish, style, literary 
 quality, and scope of Webster will make his efforts American 
 classics for all time. The methods of debate have changed 
 in the Senate, as oratory has in the pulpit, at the bar, and 
 on the platform. The preacher is now more direct and 
 more practical than doctrinal. The lawyer has become 
 careless and slipshod in order to be plain and conversational, 
 and the sky-scraper who enchanted our ftithers is laughed 
 off the platform. Careering among the stars, knocking out 
 
constellations, and strewing the floor with star-dust are 
 memories of the barbaric amusements of a ruder age. 
 
 The Senate is patient and long-suffering and will stand 
 anything but eloquence. The Senator who has something 
 to say and says it lucidly and incisively is sure of a respect- 
 ful hearing, even if halting in speech and awkward in man- 
 ner. It is the matter which is wanted, though preparation 
 and the graces of good English, cultured style, and fine de- 
 livery are appreciated. It is a most considerate body, and 
 there is a continuing courtesy and deference to the wishes 
 or the convenience of a Senator making a request, which is 
 found in no other deliberative assembly. 
 
 The election of Senators by the legislatures of the States, 
 which was devised by the founders of our Government, so that 
 the sovereign Commonwealths in the Union might be equal 
 in the upper and the people represented directly in the lower 
 house, subjects the candidate to selection by the members and 
 senators of the State legislatures who are themselves the sur- 
 vival of the fittest in their districts. No Senator is the acci- 
 dent of a State convention sitting for one day, but must neces- 
 sarily be a prominent and popular leader in his State to com- 
 mand an election by the Legislature. The election of United 
 States Senators by popular vote, instead of l)y the representa- 
 tives of the people in the Legislatures of the States, would 
 reverse the conditions which led to the adoption of the Con- 
 stitution. In theory the candidates would be selected by the 
 constituencies ; in practice the candidates would l)e nomi- 
 nated by each party in its State convention. They would be 
 part of the many names on the State ticket, and the choice 
 the result of the concessions to localities and compromises ot 
 factions which characterize conventions. The change is a 
 
revolution, and revolutions do not stand still. The enact- 
 ment of a Federal election law which will secure to every 
 citizen the suffrage and j)rotect him in its exercise is a 
 necessary i3rereciuisite. The contests, which would be many, 
 could not be decided for the possessor of the certificate of 
 election or his opponent until the Senate was satisfied of an 
 untrammeled vote and honest count for every citizen. 
 
 The breaking down of the principle that in the Senate the 
 States are equally represented in their sovereign capacity 
 must lead in the end to the people and not the States being 
 represented in the Senate, as in the House, and the member- 
 ship of that body recast according to either population or the 
 number of votes. New York State cast for President in 1896 
 one million four hundred and twenty-three thousand eight 
 hundred and seventy-six votes, and has two votes in the 
 United States Senate. Nineteen States, with thirty-eight 
 votes in the Senate, cast at the same election one million 
 three hundred and seventy-four thousand five hundred and 
 three votes. 
 
 Contact with Senators soon reveals the special ability and 
 characteristics which account for their importance at home 
 and their presence in the Senate, and the more its ways and 
 work are studied, the more the student will be convinced 
 that the Senate of the United States is equal to the lofty posi- 
 tion and imposing power which it holds in our Government. 
 
 Well, gentlemen, I fear I have wearied you by these 
 familiar confidences of my new experience. The philoso- 
 phy of your greeting and my response is the happiness 
 which is derived from broader opportunities for diversify- 
 ing our careers and enriching our lives. The energy and 
 ambition which carry us into other fields of endeavor is 
 
 10 
 
strengthened by the effort, while the expanding intelhgence 
 which comes from contact with as many sides as possible of 
 the diversified world gives exquisite pleasure, prolongs life, 
 and doubles and trebles each year by the good things which 
 are enjoyed in it; so that at sixty we have, compared Avith 
 the dullards and drones, equalled the ages of Methuselah 
 and his cotemporaries. 
 
 It may seem a grewsome thought, but many lessons are 
 learned at funerals. My club, political, social, and business 
 relations devolve on me a frequent necessity for attendance. 
 I recall a man of many millions, whose career was concen- 
 trated on accumulation. He was a power in his way, and 
 its exercise was his sole enjoyment. The club, society, 
 the festive gatherings where all are equal and human, and 
 public activities knew him not. There were neither regrets 
 nor tears at his grave. I heard his relatives discussing be- 
 hind the backs of their mourning hands the extent of his 
 wealth and its disposition, and the poor relation whispered 
 to her neighbor while all heads were bowed in prayer : " I 
 hope he has remembered all his family. He had such a 
 lot." His life was mud. 
 
 I tried in vain to check or guide a youth of large fortune 
 who sought what he thought was pleasure in the excesses of 
 every dissipation which money can buy, and was a physical, 
 moral, and intellectual wreck before he learned that true 
 pleasure leaves neither sting nor pain. I knew a genius 
 whom God had endowed with the faculty for fame and large 
 contributions to the happiness and knowledge of his fellow- 
 men. He became the slave of drink. He squandered gifts 
 of more value than the wealth of the world. Bankrupt in 
 mind, in position, and in friends, he died as the fool dieth. 
 
 u 
 
I stood beside a glorious good fellow in his last hours. He 
 had been fairly successful in his profession, had filled public 
 office creditably, and been a daring and brilliant soldier in 
 the civil war, and won repeated promotions on the field of 
 battle. He was the life of ever}- social gathering, and his 
 mone}'', when he had any, and his time were at the service 
 of the cause of patriotism or charity or the assistance of a 
 friend in distress. At the el)b of the tide he left his friends 
 this message : " The world owes me nothing. I have got out 
 of life all there is in it." 
 
 We all, I trust, reverently bow to the spiritual duties of 
 life. But this occasion is not a pulpit. The work-a-day 
 problems of rest and labor, of recreation with and in spite 
 of worry and work, are the thought of this hour. After the 
 peace of the little })rayer we learned and repeated at our 
 mother's knee, and become children again in its nightly 
 iteration, may we be able ere sleep comes, to face the world 
 at the close of each day and say with my gallant friend, 
 "Dear old world, you have treated me fair; you owe me 
 nothino:. I have aot out of life all there is in it." 
 
 12 
 
At Girard College, May 19, 1900, at the Celebration of the One Hundred and 
 Fiftieth Anniversary of the Birth of its Founder, Stephen Girard. 
 
 The civilization of antiquity, its art and literature, are as 
 clear to us as the events of yesterday. The same cable 
 which announces a battle on the Upper Nile records dis- 
 coveries among the monuments near its delta which tell the 
 story of dynasties ruling the country five and six thousand 
 years before the Christian era. The social and intellectual 
 life of Athens and Rome are as familiar to us as cotemporary 
 reports in the press make that of London or Paris ; but we 
 study little and are comparatively ignorant of the dark ages 
 which followed, and the rise in the eighteenth century of 
 civil and religious liberty. In the one hundred and fifty 
 years from the birth of Stephen Girard until today are 
 crowded nearly all of modern history worth preserving, 
 and of human achievement which has uplifted the human 
 race. The rights of the people and popular government 
 were an academic discussion among French pliiloso})]iers to 
 amuse a jaded aristocracy in 1750, the date of the birth of 
 Stephen Girard at Bordeaux, France, and found expression 
 in vague generalizations among a few patriots in the English 
 colonies in America. As an enterprising and adventurous 
 sailor during the first twenty-five years of his life, young 
 Girard learned much of the greater privileges which pre- 
 vailed in Great Britain, Holland, and America. He saw 
 with clear vision the frightful conditions which existed in 
 his own country. The tyranny, oppression and corruption 
 
 13 
 
of the court and aristocracy, the denial of law or justice for 
 the people, the grindint^ poverty, brutal ignorance and 
 practical slavery of the masses became to his opened mind 
 intolerable, and he cast his fortunes with the young Repub- 
 lic of the West. 
 
 The names he gave his first fleet of American merchant 
 vessels reveal the mainsprings of his life and the develop- 
 ment and fruition of this benefaction. From time immemo- 
 rial ships have reflected in their titles the loves or the gods 
 of their builders. More frequently they proudly carry over 
 oceans and around the world the cherished names of wife or 
 sweetheart, next of favorite heroes and then of places 
 connected with boyhood memories. There is to the sailor a 
 personality about his ship which belongs to no other inani- 
 mate thing in any pursuit. She is his companion, his 
 treasure, his safety and his home. Her speed, her move- 
 ments, her idiosyncrasies, her varying temper in storm and 
 calm, are to him a mystery and delight which find their 
 counterpart only in the woman he adores. Stephen Girard 
 had been from early boyhood on the seas as seaman and 
 master. He was self-taught. He had l^ecome an American 
 citizen during the most trying times of the AVar of the Revo- 
 lution, and keenly appreciated his membership in the 
 fortunes of the young Republic. He had a wife and child. 
 He was an ardent patriot, a child of the church and devoted 
 to his family. He was intensely proud of these new vessels, 
 which, when launched, were the finest and fastest afloat. 
 An ordinary man would have christened these pets from 
 his home, from Washington and his compatriots, or from his 
 birthplace at Bordeaux, or the scenes of his prosperity in 
 Philadelphia. But this unimaginative "merchant and 
 
 14 
 
mariner," as he describes himself in his will, called them 
 respectively A^oltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau and Helvetius. 
 
 To his solid, broad-brimmed cotemporaries of the Quaker 
 City, whose acquaintance with French literature was limited 
 by ignorance, prejudice and aversion, this act was the freak 
 of a Frenchman. It did not astonish them, because one of 
 the favorite delusions of Americans has always been that 
 frivolity and France are synonymous. The tremendous re- 
 sults which had followed the teachings of the four philoso- 
 phers of Girard's admiration and the French encyclo- 
 pedists were familiar to him. He saw and experienced the 
 practical effect of their principles in the liberty, happiness 
 and increasing prosperity of himself and his fellow-citizens 
 in his adopted country. Naturally his mind went back of 
 the Declaration of Independence and the statesmen so famil- 
 iar to him in their daily sessions at Liberty Hall to the 
 works of Voltaire and Montesquieu. He regarded the 
 fathers of the Republic as the pupils and disciples of his 
 idols. 
 
 The longer I live and observe, the more I am impressed 
 with the little things which have revolutionized the world. 
 Voltaire Avas the preeminent genius, the dominant intelli- 
 gence of the eighteenth century. In his youth his brilliancy 
 and wit made him a favorite with the nobility, who w^re 
 amused by his conversation, but resented his familiarit3^ 
 At a dinner at the Duke of Sully's, where were gathered the 
 flower of French aristocracy, A'oltaire, as usual, was urged 
 to talk. To these dissipated courtiers, wrapped in the divine 
 right of birth, he Avas still only one of the people, and only 
 superior to the rest of the common mass as a performing- 
 monkey receives more consideration than his fellows. The 
 
 15 
 
Clievalier de Roliaii, iiitemipting, said, ""AVho is this vouug 
 man who speaks so loud ? " " He is," said VoUaire, " one who 
 does not carry a great name, Ijut can do credit to the one he 
 has." The Chevalier, in the superior rights and privileges 
 which the nobles then had over the people, and from which 
 genius was not exempt, had Voltaire beaten and nearly killed 
 in the hallway l^y his retainers, and when A^oltaire recovered 
 and challenged him to a duel, he caused him to be arrested 
 and thrown into the Bastile. Such was the chivalry of the 
 age of Louis XV, when mind was matched against heredity. 
 This was one of the events wdiich changed the destiny of 
 Europe. A^oltaire bent all the marvelous powers of his 
 une(|ualed genius against state and church. The church 
 survived, but throne and nobility were submerged in the 
 French revolution. State and church condemned the ency- 
 clopaedia of Diderot and his associates to be burned. A 
 copy came into the possession of Madame de Pompadou]-. 
 In a dispute at Versailles with the king and court one 
 evening as to the composition of her rouge, she sent for 
 her secreted copy of the encyclopaedia. There not only 
 that but other ditficult matters were explained. At the 
 entreaty of Pompadour, a royal decree permitted the publi- 
 cation of the work. The intellect of France, enfranchised 
 by the truths revealed in this monument of learning, was 
 aroused to eager inquiry. It found guide and leadership in 
 Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau and Helvetius. The en- 
 lightened people rose in revolt. They broke the cruel bonds 
 which had so long enchained body, mind and soul. But 
 in their fury over centuries of wrong they rushed into such 
 excesses that from the rouge of the frail favorite grew the 
 revolution which erected the guillotine and reddened the 
 
 IG 
 
streets of Paris with the best blood of France. The princi- 
 ple, policy and practice of feudalism divided the people into 
 masters and serfs. The masses were the bearers of burdens, 
 and the classes booted and spurred to ride them. The teach- 
 ings of Girard's mentors were the rights of man. The}^ 
 recognized and enforced the truths which JeflFerson con- 
 densed into the immortal sentence, " that all men are created 
 equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain 
 unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the 
 })ursuit of happiness." 
 
 Stephen Girard settled in Philadelphia in May, 1776. 
 His adventures on the sea had prospered and the mariner 
 became a merchant. The world was before him for a home, 
 but he deliberately risked his riches and cast his lot in the 
 fiery furnace of the American Revolution. Concord, Lex- 
 ington and Bunker Hill had become the stepping-stones of 
 humanity in its upward march to liberty. ' Washington and 
 his army were encamped in New York, and George HI and 
 his cabinet were concentrating all the power and resources of 
 Great Britain to crush the colonies. Two months later the 
 ContinentalCongress, then in session within a stone's throw 
 of Girard's new home, electrified America and Europe with 
 the Declaration of Independence. 
 
 For fifty-five years after this epoch-making document had 
 created a new power and inaugurated the experiment of gov- 
 ernment by the people under equal laws and equal rights, 
 this merchant and mariner, this far-sighted man of busi- 
 ness, keen observer and profound philosopher, grew with 
 the growth and strengthened with the strength of the young 
 Republic. He saw the country increasing in wealth by 
 leaps and bounds, ^jike the born leaders of every period, 
 2 17 
 
he earlier grasped the situation and more largely benefited 
 by the marvelous results of the development of our resources 
 under freedom, Init in less measure every citizen and every 
 home was blessed. He was one of the first to recognize that, 
 wliile monarchical governments rest upon class and priv- 
 ilege, republics will live and prosper only as the people are 
 intelligent. He was disgusted and alarmed by the Penn- 
 sylvanian experiments with a common-scliool system and 
 similar mistakes everywhere except in New England and 
 New York. They reversed the principles of equality which 
 he had so profoundly mastered. To the blind educators of 
 our first quarter of a century the public school was the })au- 
 pers' refuge. They claimed that the state could give educa- 
 tion free only to those who declared their poverty and de- 
 pendence. It required nearly fifty years of irritation and 
 failure before the great truth triumphed that the first duty 
 of free government is to give the opportunity for education 
 with self-respect to all alike, to make the school-house as 
 sacred as the home and to grant honor and applause to the 
 boys and girls who avail themselves of the priceless oppor- 
 tunities for usefulness, happiness and a career which knowl- 
 edge and training bestow. 
 
 At the age of eighty-one he was the most prosperous mer- 
 chant, successful banker and wealthiest man in the United 
 States. Six months before his death he executed his will. 
 It exhibited his gratitude to his adopted country, and recog- 
 nized that under its free institutions had been possible his 
 remarkable career. It presented, at a time when such dis- 
 positions of property were unknown, his mature judgment 
 as to the uses of riches. It illustrated the working out in 
 his mind of the teachings of his favorite authors, Voltaire, 
 
 IS 
 
y 
 
 •Montesquieu, Rousseau and Helvetius. The indissoluble 
 connection of liberty and law, of the perpetuity of free gov- 
 ernment and the equal rights of all with education were 
 emphasized by the dedication of his fortune to the culture of 
 intelligent citizenship. His purpose was grandly expressed 
 by this declaration in his will : " I ^vould have them taught 
 facts and things, l-ather than words or signs ; and especially 
 I desire that by every proper means a pure attachment to 
 our republican institutions, and to the sacred rights of con- 
 science as guaranteed by our happy constitutions, shall be 
 formed and fostered in the minds of the scholars." Girard 
 College was builded upon this noble sentiment. For fifty- 
 two years it has been the inspiration of its faculty and 
 students. Over six thousand youths have graduated from 
 it and entered upon the active duties of life. 
 
 So thoroughly have the i)rinciples and precepts of the 
 founder been imbedded in their plastic minds and charac- 
 ters that ninety per cent, of them have succeeded in their 
 various avocations and become useful and patriotic citizens. 
 If it be true, as Bismarck said, tliat "one-third of the stu- 
 dents of the German universities destroy themselves by 
 dissipation, one-third wear themselves out by overwork, 
 and the rest govern Euro})e," then the average of Girard is 
 exceptionally high. They may not govern the state or 
 nation, but as sovereign citizens their contribution is effect- 
 ive. The educated are the leaders in every community of 
 its public spirit, its humanitarian and religious work, its 
 progress and reforms. 
 
 Two classes of strong men influence the world. The one 
 act upon impulse or are moved by the exigent necessities of 
 the day ; the other build upon the basic principles which 
 
 ]9 
 
control in the end, though it may take years for them to- 
 work out, and then the heneficent results go on forever. 
 Stephen Girard was of the latter class. He studied his 
 teachers in the long watches of his voyages. He tested and 
 proved the truths they evolved, which were rocking thrones 
 and elevating peoples, by the unexampled success of the 
 American experiment in which he had acted an important 
 part. So he saw far beyond his cotemporaries, and in his 
 work he was a pioneer blazing a pathway for progress 
 through the forests and jungles of ignorance and prejudice. 
 It was clear to him that though the defective common- 
 school system might grow with time to become nearly per- 
 fect, yet it could never care for orphans who had lost parents 
 and homes. We are all familiar with domestic tragedies 
 where the bread-winner falls suddenh' in the fierce fight of 
 modern competition, and in the confusion of his affairs all 
 is lost and his young family cast adrift. His children must 
 have support as well as education, the environment and 
 safety of family influences as well as the lessons of the 
 teacher, and the more enduring impressions which come by 
 absorption from companionship and contact with people 
 and things good or bad. 
 
 And here comes in the admonition of the philosopher- 
 philanthropist, as expressed in his will : " I would have 
 them taught facts and things, rather than words and signs." 
 He gave first a home, instinct with virtue and patriotism. 
 It is possible for one-third of the youth in the universities 
 of the old world to die from dissipation because their wealth 
 and position leave no incentive to the ordinary mind for a 
 career ; another third may fall from dissipation in unhealthy 
 and unregulated study ; but the nobility of labor, the re- 
 
 20 
 
/ 
 
 wards of wisely directed work, the healthy spur of necessity, 
 have been the favorable conditions of the Girard student 
 and the Girard alumnus. 
 
 When the founder died, higher education was thought 
 necessary only for the liberal professions. It was said in de- 
 rision of college training for practical affairs that anything 
 beyond the " three R's," " readin," " ritin," and " rithmetic," 
 distracted and s})oiled the business man. The country was 
 then full of self-made men who proudly boasted of their 
 ignorance of book learning. A college course for business 
 is the product of the present generation, and manual train- 
 ing has been adopted in few places and is slowly fighting its 
 way to universal recognition. But this institution has been 
 giving an enlarged curriculum and industrial education since 
 the beginning under the directions of its far-sighted founder. 
 The university was for centuries only for the priest ; then 
 the lawyer was admitted and later the doctor. They ranked 
 all other pursuits and led because of the opportunities and 
 advantages of broader culture and more scientific training 
 than their fellows. But invention and discovery have stim- 
 ulated effort and necessitated preparation. " The journalist 
 and the architect, the electrician and the engineer, the ed- 
 ucated farmer and the learned blacksmith, the cultured 
 teacher and the highly equipped executive of great corpo- 
 rations and enterprises, demand the advantages and share 
 the privileges of the learned professions. 
 
 Stephen Girard was the first to begin and significantly 
 enforce the duty of riches to the country which gives oppor- 
 tunity for their accumulation. There were not then five 
 men in the United States worth a million of dollars. His 
 example has received the cordial and unanimous approval 
 
 21 
 
of public opinion. It has taught the seltish that the safety 
 of their accumulations depends upon their recognition of 
 the fact that to a certain extent they are trustees and held 
 accountable for the administration of the trust. It has 
 pointed the way for the wise, generous, and benevolent for 
 the most beneficial employment of their gifts. The secret 
 is now a revealed truth, that philanthropy fails when it 
 pauperizes and performs a grand work when it heli)s others 
 to help themselves. 
 
 From this source there now flows a contribution for 
 schools, colleges, libraries, art, music, science and indus- 
 trial education which amounts to thirty millions of dollars 
 a year and is constantly increasing. B}^ Avise management 
 the endowment of (lirard has grown from five to twenty-six 
 millions, giving it an estate larger than that possessed by 
 any university in the world. The founder in his invest- 
 ments for the future of this college, as in his provision for 
 its purposes, put his trust in the development of his countr}'. 
 Surplus income from more and more productive mines and 
 real estate adds to its endowment a million nearly a year. 
 As the fund grows the benefaction embraces an enlarging 
 number of pupils. The increase during the early years 
 cared for hundreds in a sparse population, but it advances 
 as the country fills up and will take under its fostering care 
 and give the blessings of Girard for manhood and citizen- 
 ship to thousands in the future. 
 
 The wealth of Girard was the product of peace. Its ad- 
 ministration recruits and disciplines workers for the industrial 
 army which has placed the United States in the front rank 
 among the powers of the world in all that constitutes a mighty 
 nation and prosperous and happy people. Among the 
 
 l-ofC. 
 
/ 
 
 famous as warriors and statesmen, men of letters and enter- 
 prise, builders and architects of States and institutions, whose 
 lives cover the century and a half backward from today, this 
 mariner and merchant is forging to the front. In one hun- 
 dred and fifty years from today there will be gathered to 
 celebrate the birth of the founder a multitude of living 
 witnesses and honorable memories of those who have died, 
 testifying to the work and worth of the college which sprang 
 from his mind, was built by his beneficence, and expands by 
 his endowment. America freely expresses her debt of grat- 
 itude to her heroes and her statesmen, and gladly gives a 
 day for equal appreciation to Stephen Girard, mariner and 
 merchant. 
 
 23 
 
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