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 Washington 
 
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THE NATIONAL SPIRIT 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED BY 
 
 EDWIN A.' ALDRRMAN, LLD, 
 
 BKPORE 
 
 THE WASHINGTON ASSOCIATION 
 OF NEW JERSEY 
 
 With Introduction by STEPHEN PIERSON, Vice-President 
 and Proceedings of the Celebration 
 
 AT HEADQUARTERS, MORRISTOWN, N. J., 
 On February 22. 1911 
 
D. Of D. 
 APR 6 1916 
 
 
ADDRESSES 
 
 Before the Members of the Washing-ton Association 
 
 of New Jersey, at Headquarters, Morristown, 
 
 N. J., February 22, 1911. 
 
 DR. PIERSON : Fellow members of the Washinoton 
 Association : Your officers are very glad to welcome you to 
 your own home again today. We hope that you have been 
 pleased so far and we know that you will be pleased after 
 you have listened to the program of the afternoon. We also 
 hope that you will return to your homes feeling that it has 
 lieen a day well spent. 
 
 The program for the afternoon will open with the selec- 
 tion that might be entitled "The Adoration of Columbia." 
 an ode to be sung by the audience standing, with Brother 
 Bennell slightly in the lead. Be sure to remember to repeat 
 the third line. 
 
 (Singing of HAIL COLUMBIA.) 
 
 You are all very sorry. I am sure, that our President, 
 Mr. Roberts, can not preside in person today. For the last 
 two years he has sent you his greetings, using the voice and 
 words of a second party. This year he has taken a hint, 
 something like that which Priscilla gave to John Alden 
 when he came to court her for Miles Standish, "Why don't 
 you speak for yourself, John." So Mr, Roberts will speak 
 to you this afternoon in his own words, through a letter, 
 which will now be read by A'ice President .Alfred Elmer 
 Mills. [Applause]. 
 
 1 
 
MR. MILLS: Before readino^ this message from the 
 President I am requested by him to make an announce- 
 ment. We have, strange to say, three vacancies still left for 
 membership in the Association and the President asks me 
 to iannounce that if any of you know of some first-class can- 
 didate whom you would like to propose, he would be very 
 glad to have it done. The names can be sent to any officer 
 of the Association. 
 
 I will now read the President's message, which, T know 
 will be acceptable to you all. 
 
 Morris Plains, N. J., February 22, 191 1. 
 TO THE WASHINGTON ASSOCIATION OF NEW 
 
 JERSEY: 
 
 My Dear Associates, FellOw-members and Friends : — 
 Your President, now in his ninetieth year, extends a warm 
 and hearty greeting to each of his fellow-members and their 
 guests assembled here today. 
 
 For more than a quarter of a century, he has had the 
 great pleasure of joining in these festive gatherings, but 
 now he is physically incapable of doing so — his lower limbs, 
 having faithfully served him for about 88 years, have gone 
 on a strike and have refused to serve him longer, or even 
 to arbitrate the case, and in consequence he and they have 
 not, so far, come to a satisfactory settlement, thus making 
 it impossible for him to be present and to enjoy the great 
 privilege of taking each of you by the hand, as he has done 
 for manv years. 
 
 He feels that he has no right to longer occujiy the ])osi- 
 tion with which you have honored him in the years past, 
 and sujiposed that he had arranged at the last annual meet- 
 ing to terminate the holding of his office but failed in doing 
 so, notwithstanding his earnest request to be relieved, ha\'- 
 ing urged the selection of our honored and able First \'icc- 
 President, Dr. Stephen Pierson. as his successor. 
 
 [ MR. MILLS: At this pciint 1 might state the ne.xt two 
 sentences will be read bv me, but all the officers mildlv pro- 
 test at the contents and especially Doctor Pierson. J 
 
 2 
 
But, as you know, Dr. Pierson, is a very modest man, 
 and the only man in this Association or among his friends 
 or acquaintances who does not reaHze his eminent fitness 
 for the place which he has heretofore declined to take. 
 
 With Stephen Pierson as your President, Alfred Elmer 
 Mills and Willard. W. Cutler as Vice Presidents, Henry C. 
 Pitney, Jr., Secretary and John H. Bansall, Treasurer, with 
 their associates in the Board of Trustees, you would lose 
 nothing in my dropping out. 
 
 This Association ennobled by the name of Washington 
 and these Headquarters hallowed by his presence in the 
 days past, are very dear to each of us and must be main- 
 tained and preserved, and the State of New Jersey has 
 never done a better thing than in giving its aid to this pa- 
 triotic purpose. 
 
 The Washington Association of New Jersey knows no 
 party in politics and no sect in religion. Patriotic citizens 
 of good character are eligible to its membership whether 
 native or foreign born, or whether descendants of Patriots 
 or of Loyalists. And while always conservatively progres- 
 sive, it is mindful that "all is not gold that glitters" and that 
 what is new is not necessarily an improvement on the old, 
 and although we gladly welcome all that is good in the 
 present, we will not fail to give due honor and reverence to 
 all that is good and great in the past. And knowing as we 
 do, that then, as now, women were better than men, we are 
 inclined to the belief that our ancestors were neither saints 
 nor angels, but very human, but withal are entitled to our 
 grateful and undying remembrance and respect. 
 
 We not only disclaim all credit for the virtues and pa- 
 triotic deeds of our ancestors but generously concede to 
 the^ all the honor of having such remarkable descendants 
 as ourselves. 
 
 We must not be unmindful of the patriotic men who 
 founded this Association and who have gone from us, Theo- 
 dore F. Randolph, George A. Halsey, N. Norris Halstead, 
 and within the last year our constant friend, William Van 
 
 3 
 
Vleck [.idgerwood and their associates. Also we should re- 
 member our loyal friends and fellow-workers, Albert H. 
 V'ernam. for many years our genial First Vice President, 
 Henry C. Pitney, who g;ave us such valuable legal service 
 when much needed, Edmund D. Halse^^ our able historian, 
 William L. King. George H. Danforth, William Walter 
 IMielps, Ferdinand J. Dreer. Thomas C. Bushnell and oth- 
 ers; especially, one very dear to me, who by her many and 
 generous gifts devoted labor and deep interest in the collec- 
 tion of relics for these Head(]uarters is justly entitled to our 
 grateful remembrance, Mrs. Jonathan W. Roberts. 
 
 And now in conclusion permit me to urge upon the 
 ])resent members of this Association, and their successors, 
 fidelity to the trust imposed upon them as members, in 
 maintaining and perpetuating these Headquarters as a me- 
 morial to Cieneral (jeorge Washington and his associate 
 ofificers in the War of the Revolution. 
 
 Although not bodily ])resent. I am with you in mind 
 and in spirit at this celebration today and ask you to accept 
 my sincere regard for each of you. 
 
 Again with a warm and hearty greeting to the Wash- 
 ington Association of New Jersey, I am, as ever, 
 \"ery faithfully yours, 
 
 JONATFIAN W. ROBERTS. 
 
 MR. STL'LTS: I ofifer three cheers for President 
 Roberts! [Cheers were given, with a tiger]. 
 
 Resolved that the Washington Association of New Jer- 
 sey highly appreciate the letter of greeting from our hon- 
 ored and beloved President and tender him our sincere re- 
 grets that he cannot personally be present : 
 
 JUDGE CUTLER: I would like to offer the following 
 resolutions : 
 
 And be it further resolved that we fully realize his un- 
 tiring efforts on behalf of this Association and appreciate 
 his invaluable services and hereby unanimously insist that 
 
 4 
 
he shall continue in the office of President which he has so 
 long- and acceptably filled in the past : 
 
 And, Mr. Chairman, recognizing- the modesty of our 
 President in that he has not thought fit in his letter to men- 
 tion the services of one who has done more than any one 
 else, except himself, to keep this building and grounds in 
 their present beautiful and splendid condition, I would add: 
 
 BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That we tender our 
 thanks and appreciation to his niece. Miss Atha E. Hatch, 
 for the faithful and able manner in which she has filled the 
 office of Curator. [Applause]. 
 
 MR. NELSON: I take great pleasure in seconding the 
 resolutions which are so felicitously expressed as read by 
 Judge Cutler. I am sure that they voice the sentiment of 
 all the members of this Association and I think that we all 
 feel, when it comes to the question of Mr. Roberts retiring 
 from the Presidency, we would go on a strike, like his lower 
 limbs, and I am sure that we would have our Vice Presi- 
 dent lead us as the business agent in that strike. [Ap- 
 plause]. 
 
 DR. PIERSON : Gentlemen, you have heard the mo- 
 tion of Judge Cutler, seconded by Mr. Nelson. All those in 
 favor of that motion will please rise. 
 
 (Entire audience arose). 
 
 It is a unanimous vote. [Applause]. 
 
 Gentlemen, if after listening to what Mr. Roberts so 
 kindly said about his official staff you noticed that our faces 
 are a little reddened, I hope you won't think it was because 
 we have been sitting by that punch bowl too long. [Laugh- 
 ter]. There hasn't been much said about that punch bowl 
 of late years. It has been standardized. [Laughter]. Its 
 component parts have been carefully thought out and now 
 they slip into the swim with ease and precision. Bearing in 
 mind the rather strict motor laws of New Jersey, the punch 
 has been geared down to the lowest rate of speed consistent 
 
 5 
 
with your pleasure and a good time. [Applause and laugh- 
 ter]. 
 
 The usual political weather map and forecast will be 
 omitted this year. Things are too mixed. Our forecaster 
 has not yet been able to decipher to his own satisfaction 
 just what did happen last November, or why it happened, 
 nor how -it happened, nor what is going to happen. 
 [Laughter]. From Vermont and Maine, on down through 
 the autumn months, the political barometer kept steadily 
 foretelling a fearful disturbance of some sort. Many hug.- 
 ged to their bosoms fondly the delusion that it would only 
 be some wind puffs, only that and nothing more. But when 
 the storm did burst in November it proved to be the real 
 thing, and the slaughter of unsuspecting political innocents 
 was unprecedented. [Laughter]. The identity of the par- 
 ticular sparrow, who, with his little bow and arrow, killed 
 all these cock robins, was the subject of much acrimonious 
 dispute at the time and has not been settled yet to the sat- 
 isfaction of everybody. Perhaps there was more than one 
 of him. During all this time, too, the political seismograph, 
 or earthquake indicator, kept busy. Its oscillations were 
 extreme, indicating a tremendous upheaval going on be- 
 neath the surface. Beginning in the west, that prolific 
 mother of storms and notions, it started eastward, from the 
 Pacific to the Atlantic it went, and from the Great Lakes 
 south to what used to be the Mason and Dixon line — now a 
 real line no longer, existent only in memory and a very dim 
 memory at that, the Lord be praised. [Applause]. Below 
 that line the usual unanimity prevailed, — too solid, last No- 
 vember, for even a tremor. [Laughter]. The political pool 
 of Siloam was vehemently stirred ; its waters fairly boiled ; 
 up to the edge of the pool the nation progressed tumultu- 
 ously and then plumped in with both feet. Now, whether 
 it (the nation) is to be healed or only scalded remains to be 
 seen. [Applause and laughter]. 
 
 Three years ago I was in New Haven, attending the 
 fortieth anniversary of my class. The Corporation each 
 
 6 
 
year, at commencement time, gives the alumni dinner to 
 thousands of her graduates who return. That year some 
 iifteen hundred or two thousand of us graduates were gath- 
 ered at the long tables in the great commons dining room. 
 Those occasions are understood to be "a feast of reason and 
 a flow of souls." Well, as to the "feast" and the "flow" an 
 •elaborate discussion is not necessary. As to the former 
 there was some bread, dry and plenty of it; a modicum of 
 butter, some radishes, some cold meats, about a dozen 
 strawberries per. a sHce of tri-colored ice cream and some 
 denatured coffee. [Laughter]. The "flow" consisted of 
 Apollinaris and New Haven city Avater mixed, city water 
 being in the majority. But the "reason" and the "soul" 
 were all there, of excellent quality, in great abundance and 
 Avith undaunted enthusiasm. After two or three had 
 spoken, a collegeman from the Southland arose and deliv- 
 ered a message to the college men of the Northland. With 
 his opening sentence he caught our attention and he held 
 ns to the close. When he had finished, with one accord we 
 gave him round after round, because we felt that a man had 
 been speaking to us. That man was Edwin A. Alderman, 
 L.L.D., president of the University of Virginia, whom we 
 will soon have the pleasure of listening to. [Applause]. 
 And when he is presented to you I wish you would rise and 
 as Jerseymen welcome a Virginian of today to the home of 
 a Virginian of yesterday. [Applause]. 
 
 Gentlemen, I present Doctor Alderman. [Applause]. 
 
ADDRESS OF HDWIN A. ALDERMAN, LLJX, 
 
 President of the University of Virginia. 
 "The National Spirit." 
 
 Mr. President and Gentlemen cf the Washington Associa- 
 tion: 
 
 My first impulse to-day is to brino- to you greetings and 
 sympathy from a land of unlimited and seductive mint 
 juleps to a land of "standardized punch and denatured cof- 
 fee,'' [Laughter]. 
 
 It is not often that a public speaker feels called upon to 
 ])ay a compliment to the presence and personnel of an audi- 
 ence of mere men, liut it has been a long time since it has 
 been my privilege to speak to an audience of men exclu- 
 sively, and I confess to a new sense of the dignity and ma- 
 jesty inherent in the ])rcsence of a great company of 
 thoughtful American citizens, such as I see before me to- 
 day. I wish it were possible for me to bring to you a better 
 thought-out and a l)etter-ordered discussion than 1 shall be 
 able to do, owing to the exigencies of my life for some time 
 ])ast. I am just a bit in the situation of the old colored 
 ])reacher who made a settled distinction between being a 
 preacher and an exhorter: when asked what was the distinc- 
 tion, he said that he "i)referred being an exhorter, 'cause the 
 ])reacher had to stick to the resolutions, but the exhorter 
 could branch." (Laughter J. So I distinctly claim, and I 
 think if you knew my history for the past three or four 
 weeks you would pardon me, the S])lendid privilege of 
 "branching" here this afternoon. 
 
 I congratulate this ancient town upon the possession of 
 this great si)iritual asset, the Headcpiarters of George 
 Washington, which constitutes an object lesson, a bit of 
 concrete teaching to all generations and to all races. As an 
 
American citizen who lives himself at another shrine of 
 American greatness and patriotism — the home of Jefferson. 
 — I am proud of the idealism, of the common sense patriot- 
 ism that have moved the men of this community for a gene- 
 ration or more to do what they have so splendidly done to 
 perpetuate this great building and to make it an inspiring 
 influence in the life of this state and this nation. 
 
 On January igth of this year the people who live in the 
 states to the south of us celebrated the birthday of Robert 
 E. Lee. [Applause]. On February 12th the people of the 
 north and west celebrated the birthday of Abraham Lin- 
 coln. [Applause]. To-day the whole people between the 
 double seas are celebrating the birthday of George Wash- 
 ington. [Applause]. Three such men — W^ashington, Lee 
 and Lincoln, — practically in one century, give to this young 
 land of ours, this young civilization of ours, the sort of dis- 
 tinction which names like Pericles and Leonidas give to the 
 Grecian Archipelago, for after all it is the output of great 
 men that makes fame and friends for nations. And the 
 whole people, north and south and east and west, will one 
 day see all three of them as superlatively great men, great 
 iTioral fires burning on the level plain of our existence, giving 
 light and warmth to our national conscience and to our 
 national ideals. It seems to me to fit in with the theory of 
 an overruling Providence governing men's affairs that three 
 such men as those three men should stand out in the fore- 
 front of American life, furnishing to you their ideals of 
 greatness, suggesting restraint, teaching patriotism. The 
 grave and thoughtful Washington incarnates to me the very 
 genius of integrity, of glorified common sense, of well bal- 
 anced righteousness. Abraham Lincoln, into whose face, as 
 St. Gaudens has carved it, with its homeliness and its utter 
 plainness and yet with its dignity and gentleness and 
 strange sweetness, one can not look without seeing the soul 
 of democracy shining there, and seeing revealed there some- 
 how the whole splendid rise of man from animalism to soul 
 and mind and spirit, symbolizes for me the genius of sym- 
 
 9 
 
pathy and patience and devotion to unselfish ends; while 
 the regnant figure of Lee, lying so stately on his bier at 
 Lexington, stands for duty and unselfish love and stainless- 
 ness of life. Differing in character — they were all alike in 
 one great essential, they understood the spiritual signifi- 
 cance of patriotism. Patriotism is a hard thing to define, as 
 I shall hereafter show. But so is it hard to define the love 
 that a mother bears for a child, or the glory of a sun-set. 
 But it is a very real thing, and these men felt it, and I be- 
 lieve this company feels it, and I believe there are times in 
 this great mobile nation of ours, thrilling with all the emo- 
 tions of ambition and growth, when it creeps into the hearts 
 of the whole nation ; and all men know that after all their 
 country is a definite thing and that if need be they would 
 give up their lives for it. A clear perception of civic purity 
 and enthusiasm for the future marks this interpretation of 
 l^atriotism. 
 
 Sympathetic and curious friends from other lands and 
 states, if I may "branch" here, sometimes wonder and ask 
 me and others why Virginia and the South give to General 
 Lee a sort of intensity of love that they do not give to 
 \\"ashington. There is a reason for that and it is simple. 
 Washington stands high, clean, spotless, like the shaft that 
 commemorates his fame in the National Capital, at the very 
 gateway of our republican history, symbolizing the majesty 
 of the era of origins and success. Lee to them is a type, an 
 embodiment of all there is in the sincere and romantic his- 
 tory of the state ; its triumphs, its defeats, its joys, its suf- 
 ferings, its rebirths, its tragedies, its pride, its pa- 
 tience, its sufferings, somehow all center in him. In that 
 quiet figure of simple strength and invincible rectitude may 
 be discerned, if you will look closely enough, the complete 
 drama of a great stock. As he stood at Arlington on that 
 fateful day in 1861, smiting his hands over a decision he 
 needs must make, his agony, was his people's agony ; as he 
 rode in triumph, by virtue of valor and of genius through 
 the storm of victorious battle, his glory was their glory ; as 
 
 • 10 
 
lie stood forth amid the vicissitudes of war. unshaken by 
 disaster or unspoiled by success, his fortitude was their for- 
 titude ; and as the result of their great appeal was seen at 
 last to rise upon his broad shoulders and his stout heart, 
 his constancy was their constancy ; and as he stood at the 
 ■end, amid the shadows of defeat, an appealing^ figure of vir- 
 tue and of dignity, his dignity was their dignity ; and some- 
 how in the majesty of his manner and bearing he reached 
 back into the roots of the golden past of the proud Domin- 
 ion and connected that age and its ancient authorities with 
 the wonder and the pity and the trouble of the present. And 
 now, in this hour of reunion, reconciliation, of absolute for- 
 getfulness of old strife, we can all see how, in those five 
 quiet years at Lexington, he symbolized and marked out 
 the future for every Southern man as it has come to pass 
 and bade us live in liberal and lofty fashion, with hearts un- 
 spoiled by hate and eyes clear to see the needs of a new and 
 mightier day in a new and mightier land. [Applause]. 
 
 Can you wonder at the measure of love people with a 
 tragic history bear for such an embodiment of their best, 
 who is close, very close to them in their lives? We of the 
 South are sometimes laughed at gently for our sensitiveness 
 to local things and our pride of State. You will remember 
 the dear old A^irginia woman in the 'fifties, who always hesi- 
 tated to ask a stranger where he was from for fear that he 
 might have to confess that he was not from Virginia. 
 [Laughter]. That would make an awkward pause in the 
 conversation. Now, I am an xAmerican, and feel utterly at 
 home in this Republic of my fathers, "but while there is a 
 sectionalism which distrusts all who do not live in their par- 
 ticular region, there is as well a fruitful and noble sectional- 
 ism which symbolizes love of home, and interest and afifec- 
 tion for one's neighbors. Out of such sectionalism as this 
 have come the great literatures of the world, the great hero- 
 isms of the world, the great sacrifices and the great men. 
 And I do not think I speak in any parochial spirit, when, in 
 bringing to this company in this great commonwealth which 
 
 11 
 
Washington served and upon whose soil he lived, the greet- 
 ings of the State that gave him birth. T say that Virginia 
 seems to me the most encouraging, tlie most unselfish in a 
 spiritual sense, the most fruitful of all of our common- 
 wealths, for from out of her life rose the genius that clothed 
 in noble phrase the reasons for revolution, that guided vic- 
 toriously the legions of war, that bore for most initiative in 
 shaping the constitution, that afterward interpreted its 
 spirit, that widened colonial vision from provincialism to 
 maturity, and that fixed faith, through the philosophy of 
 Thomas Jefiferson. in average humanity, as the philosophy 
 (^f a new civilization. T think that one who is not a Vir- 
 ginian by birth can. in this presence, pav, without immod- 
 esty, that compliment to the birthland of George Washing- 
 ton. [Applause!. 
 
 Now. my friends, the most fruitfid idea in the world to 
 me is the idea of democracv. The most interesting, mental 
 and moral exercise is the eft'ort to try to interpret demo- 
 cracy : to understand its currents as thev flow in the life of 
 this nation. Democracv is the greatest idea, but it is almost 
 the most terrible idea, in a certain sense, that we have, be- 
 cause when democracy is once corrupted it is very difficult 
 ever to reform it. You can cut off the head of a king — that 
 has been done with expedition and success : you can take a 
 sultan in an automobile and carry him to a seaside resort 
 and get you another nice, good sidtan ; but vou can not 
 change the heart of a great democracy, or vou do it with dif- 
 ficulty if it has ever become poisoned. The most glowing 
 and wonderful thing to be seen in this world to-day to me 
 is the spectacle of this Republic as it is likely to be shaped 
 by the forces at work upon it. Somehow the rest of the 
 world sees even more clearlv than we do the national per- 
 spective, and feel dimly that America is to remake the 
 world. Our nearness blinds us somewhat to the wonderful 
 national panorama as it has unrolled itself before our eyes. 
 First, a group of rustic communities, making common cause 
 in behalf of ancient guarantees of freedom : then suspicious 
 
 12 
 
colonies, unused to the shrewd air that blows through 
 democracy, striving- after some bond amid the clash of jeal- 
 ous interests ; then a paper writing, a wonderful paper writ- 
 ing, compact, of high sense and human foresight and tragic 
 compromise ; then a young- republic, lacking the instinct of 
 unity, virile, unlovely, raw, waj^ward. in its confident young 
 strength. Some confused decades of sad. earnest efifort to 
 pluck out an e\'i\ growth planted in its life by the hard 
 necessities of compromise by the fathers, but which needs 
 must blossom into the flower of civil war before it can be 
 plucked out and thrown to the void. Then young manhood, 
 nursing its youth, whole and undivisible. proven by trial of 
 fire and dark days, opening its eye upon a new world of 
 steam and force and siezing greedily and selfishly every 
 coign of advantage. And to-day a great and venerable Re- 
 public of the world — we do not often reflect that we are 
 practically the most venerable republic on this earth, but 
 still young and brilliant and cosmopolitan and hopeful and 
 breathless, doing our tasks like a titan, and asserting our 
 will among the nations. We used to shout over this story, 
 like boys at a picnic. The 4th of July speech of 1840, for 
 instance, if you could read it, and the speech of men who 
 talk on such occasions as this to-day, are very different in 
 quality ; the one, as I have said, was like the shouting of 
 happy boys, the other is like the talk of mature men on the 
 edge of battle. And it is proof of our maturity as a nation 
 that the whole idea induces soberness and question. 
 
 It is somewhat difficult in these days to make a speech 
 without mentioning Wall Street. Wall Street is bracketed 
 with Gehenna, wherever that is, as a sort of symbol of sin. 
 Probably that is going' a little strong. A reflection that its 
 great activities are founded on faith and integrity gives to 
 it and its fellow sinners, Lombard and State, a certain 
 aspect of greatness which increases my pride, in a certain 
 degree, of the race. Sometimes I go down to Wall Street, 
 impelled by that wonder which Plato called the beginning 
 
 13 
 
of knowledge. I seldom stay long, for the atmosphere 
 leaves something to be desired in academic peace ; but I do 
 not ever come away without stopping for a look at the fin- 
 est thing down there, and you know Avhat that is. It is the 
 bronze figure of an old Virginia country gentleman, who 
 was the richest man, and the most public spirited citizen at 
 the same time, standing upon the steps of the Sub-treasury 
 liuilding, looking out with his plain, homely face and his 
 honest eyes upon that sea of hurrying men. That statue is 
 tlie most remarkable allegory that ever did get placed bv 
 historic chance at just the right spot in the history of the 
 world. [Laughter and applause]. It points forward to 
 some high social order in the future, when the Places 
 Vendomes and Trafalgar Squares of the world will cele- 
 brate the glory of the great citizen. The romance of Ameri- 
 can life for the last generation or so has been the story of 
 the poor boy who got rich by the exercise of splendid quali- 
 ties ; and that wasn't a bad thing for him to do; but I am 
 convinced that the romance of a coming age will not be that 
 alone, but rather the story of the poor boy or of the rich boy 
 who becomes a great citizen, fit to illustrate the dignitv and 
 the majesty of republican life. [Applause]. 
 
 N^ow, how can such a nation as Ave have, so begun, so 
 advanced, so beset, be so guided that all of its citizens shall 
 l)ecome free men, entering continuallv into the possession 
 of intellectual, material and mental benefits?' That is the 
 interrogatory of democracy as a sane vision glimpses demo- 
 mocracy, robbed of its earlier delusions. Xow, Ave have said 
 that the richest man of his day Avas George Washington, 
 whose wealth was estimated at eight hundred thousand dol- 
 lars. And we have said that the most public spirited man 
 of his day was certainly George Washington. Xow. put the 
 tAvo facts together and they induce a desire to inquire Avhat 
 Avas the conviction in the heart of the richest man of his 
 time that enabled him to be the most patriotic man of his 
 time, for that conviction has enough strength in it, if it be 
 
 14 
 
real and if it can be infused into the life of this nation, to carry 
 this democratic experiment of ours past a very serious peril. 
 Briefly. I believe it was a belief in his heart that democracy 
 is the final and the triumphant form of human society : that 
 power rests on fitness to rule ; that you can trust men if you 
 will train them ; that the sole object of power is the public 
 g-ood, and that service to the republic is a glory quite suffi- 
 cient in itself. [Applause]. That collection of ideas formed 
 a religion to men like Washington and Jefiferson and Hamil- 
 ton and Clinton and Adams ; they had a religious sanction 
 m the air of an age of moral imagination and superb human 
 enthusiasm, which counted any dual standard for public 
 and private life the essence of republican treason. A cen- 
 tury of trial has somewhat dulled the halo about that 
 ancient concept of democracy, but only to men of little 
 faith. It is quite true that our democracy of to-day is not 
 what Rousseau thought it would be, nor Lord Byron, nor 
 Shelley, nor Karl Marx. But as we talk about it and medi- 
 tate about it and realize that it has not done everything that 
 the dreamers dreamed it would do, we ought to try to settle 
 first what it has done and chalk that up to its credit. Here 
 are some things I think it has done, or helped to do. It has 
 abated sectarian fury. Sectarian fury is ridiculous in this 
 age ; it was not always so. Was there anything finer in any 
 country than the attitude of the country as to the unitarian- 
 ism of President Taft? Did anybody say anything about it 
 that amounted to anything? [Applause], jefiferson was a 
 Unitarian, but great numbers of the American people called 
 him an infidel, and they only began there and then went on 
 to fiercer epithets [Laughter]. He was nothing in the 
 world but a devoted L^nitarian and had the courage to think 
 straight and talk clearly, and with his vast intellectual curi- 
 osity and integrity he couldn't do anything else ; but he was 
 an infidel to thousands of good people. Democracy has 
 abolished slavery. It has protected and enlarged manhood's 
 sufifrage. It has mitigated much social injustice. It has de- 
 veloped a touching and almost sublime faith in the power of 
 
 15 
 
education, illustrating- it by expending^ six hundred million 
 dollars a year in the most darino- thing;- that democracy has 
 ever tried to do. namely, to fit for citizenship every human 
 being born within its borders. [Applause]. It has increased 
 kindness and gentleness, and thus diminished the fury of par- 
 tisanship. Have you ever thought how much less partisan- 
 ship there is now than there used to be even when we were 
 boys? Think of that spectacle in Washington of President 
 Taft and Champ Clark passing the reciprocity bill, non-par- 
 tisan zeal actuating both parties. [Laughter]. Think of 
 President Taft appointing Edward Douglas White, a Con- 
 federate soldier and a Democrat and a Roman Catholic — all 
 three — to the Chief Justiceship of the United States. [Ap- 
 plause]. Was there ever a greater blow in the face of com- 
 bined partisanship and sectarianism than that? It preserved 
 the form of the Union. It has conquered its wilderness. It 
 has developed great agencies of culture and has somehow 
 made itself a symbol of prosperity, of individual prosperity, 
 and is diminishing daily the very possibility of war with any 
 country, but especially with that great country from which 
 we came and from which we separated, because it was right 
 and just that we should separate. [Applause]. So I do not 
 think that democracy has failed. I think it has done a world 
 of good. It has justified itself of the sufferings and the sac- 
 rifices and the dreams of the men who established it in this 
 new land. P)Ut it has also, without doubt, by the very trust 
 that it places in men, developed new and hateful masters in 
 ])olitics and new shapes of temptations and wrong-doing, 
 and in this generation, from 1870 to 1910, which, I am in- 
 clined to think, is the busiest, the most hot-footed genera- 
 tion that the world has ever seen, without sufl'icient leisure 
 for ethical considerations, it is in danger of its own strength, 
 and it must somehow find out how to protect itself with its 
 own strength. Now, I am not going to rail against great 
 constructive forces, or utter cheap prophecies of condemna- 
 tion, or to doubt that the future of this country will be a 
 happier future and a republican future. But I am simply 
 
 16 
 
claiming- that democracy, like a man's character, is never 
 clean out of dano;er. You have got to watch it. The moral 
 life of man, said Froude, is like the flight of a bird in the 
 air; he is sustained only by effort and when he ceases to 
 exert himself he falls. And the same, it seems to me, is im- 
 pressively true of institutional and ^governmental life. It is 
 not selfishness or corruption alone that we have to fear in 
 our democracy, for we have vanquished these before and 
 these existed before, but even more the temper of despair, of 
 faithlessness, which blinds the eyes of men, and of youth 
 especially, to the heroic simplicity, to the love of freedom 
 and to the essential cleanliness of the heart of the American 
 people. The chief weapon of the protective strength of 
 democracy I conceive to be the acceptance of the Washing- 
 ton type of public spirit as a working^ form of patriotism, 
 upon as large a scale in the social and political order as the 
 principle of co-operation and combination has been accepted 
 in the industrial order. By the measure in which the Uni- 
 ted States Steel surpasses a blacksmith shop in efficiency ; 
 by the measure in which municipal government surpasses 
 the rural township in complexity of politics ; in that mea- 
 sure must the national conscience become able to see the 
 essential moral and public nature of both business and poli- 
 tics, not in a socialistic but in a democratic sense. Now, 
 must this involve a moral miracle? Must we all be born 
 again and have an utter change of human nature? Or does 
 it involve a surrender of democracy to socialism, or to some 
 other order? I think that it involves profoundly and yet 
 simply the reaffirmation of the founders' idea of public 
 spirit and simplicity of life as a dominant national motive 
 and as a sort of inner well-springy of conduct in place of the 
 idea of headlong- streng-th and achievement that has domi- 
 nated us for some generations back. Patriotism, therefore, 
 as I said before, — which is hard to define and new with 
 every age, and public spirit, which is hard to define and new 
 with every age, — must redefine themselves ; patriotism 
 meant manhood rights when Washington took it to his 
 
 17 
 
heart and foug'ht for it here on these hills, as it means to the 
 Russian to-day. It somehow spelled culture, refinement and 
 distinction of mind when Emerson in his Phi Beta Kappa 
 address besou^s^ht the slusrsi'ish intellect of his country to 
 look up from under its iron lids. It signified ideals and 
 theories of g-overnment to the soldiers of Grant and to the 
 soldiers of Lee. It meant industrial grreatness and a splen- 
 did desire to annex nature to man's uses when the great 
 business leaders of this generation and of the last genera- 
 tion built up their great businesses and tied the Union to- 
 gether in a unity of steel and steam more completely than 
 all the wars could do and did it, with a patriotism 
 and a statesmanship and an imagination that no man 
 can deny. [Applause]. The honest business-man 
 needs somebody to praise 'him. He has done a great 
 service in this country, and when he is steady and honest 
 there is no greater force in all our life. Now, to-day, pa- 
 triotism means — I am just taking a fling at the definition of 
 it — a reaction from an unsocial individualism — that sounds 
 sort of academic — to restraint and consideration for the 
 general welfare, expressing itself in a cry for moderation 
 and fairness and justice and honor and sympathy in the use 
 of power and of wealth as the states of spirit and mind, that 
 alone can safeguard republican ideals. The emphasis was 
 formerly on the rights of man ; it is getting to be placed 
 upon the duties of man. If in our youth and feverish 
 strength there has grown up a spirit of avarice and a desire 
 for quick wealth, and a theory of life in lesser minds that 
 estimates money is everything and is willing to do anything 
 for money, that very fact has served to define the patriotic 
 duty and the mood of the national mind. And is not the 
 theory of our overlooking special providence borne out 
 again in the fact that, as in the period seeking to establish 
 manhood rights there stood forth at the head of the nation 
 the figure of Washington, a republican saint around whom 
 a young nation could rally, so in this period, pausing to 
 search its heart, there stood forth as our president for seven 
 
 18 
 
years the figure of a bold prophet of common righteousness 
 and common decency, strong enough to be everywhere and 
 unconscious enough to preach his doctrine in a thousand 
 voices, [Applause] to be followed in that great office by 
 our present President, clear of heart, pure of heart, strong 
 of mind, patient minded, seeking to put into law the thing 
 that needs to be done? I, who say this of these two republi- 
 can leaders, am a Democrat to the bone and rejoice that that 
 party has come into power again. I am impressed with the 
 patience and good sense with which its leaders have grap- 
 pled with their problems. I take especial pride in the fact 
 that Oscar Underwood, the foremost figure in the approach- 
 ing Tariff struggles, is a son of the University of Virginia. 
 [Applause]. This re-awakened patriotism of the common 
 good has the advantage of appeal to a sound public con- 
 science as yet unbalanced by hysteria and of being sup- 
 ported by a valid public opinion not yet dulled by content- 
 ment. It is an astonishing thing what our public opinion 
 has stood. In proof of the soundness and the authority of 
 public opinion I would claim that if there be a man in 
 America to-day who has an unjust fortune and a pagan 
 ideal of its use, he will not bask as cozily in the self-respect 
 of his fellows, nor have half as much fun as Croesus had, or 
 as Louis XIV' had, or Cardinal Richelieu had, or Warren 
 Hastings or any of that ilk. The gift of a hundred and 
 twenty millions in one year by private individuals to the 
 public welfare, the colossal development of the sense of 
 social obligations is a substantial testimony on the affirma- 
 tive side of that opinion. A servant of the people, in city or 
 state, who is out for exploitation rather than service is not 
 as highly an honored man as was Robert Walpole or War- 
 ren Hastings or Aaron Burr, as the roll call of some prison 
 houses will show. The disposition which democracy has 
 shown at the most inconvenient moment to ask the bosses 
 that be whether they are the bosses that ought to be, to 
 paraphrase Mr. Lowell's phrase, and the answer to that 
 question, are the other testimonials to the affirmative side 
 
 19 
 
of tliat opinion. Plain people, it is true, are not as awe 
 struck at the names of the rich and powerful as they once" 
 were ; but one may note a oTowincr ability to render awe 
 where awe is worthily rendered, which is a beautiful g-rowth 
 in discernment. The part that vulgar cunning has played in 
 creating- great fortunes has been made known to this great 
 democracy and they know the genuine from the spurious, 
 and some who were once looked at with awe and greatness 
 as great ones, are not now looked at in that wa}'. I am re- 
 minded of the tragic little verse : 
 
 "Alary had a little lamb, 
 Its fleece was white as snow, 
 She took it to Pittsburg one day. 
 And now look at the damn thing." [Laughter]. 
 
 This very growth in discernment gives us power to see 
 in a nobler and truer light, for the people of America, the 
 names of those upright souls in business and in politics who 
 have held true in a heady time and who have kept clean and 
 , kept human their public sympathies and their republican 
 ideals, and by so doing have kept sweet their country's 
 fame. Away with the thought that this country is sunk in 
 any mire of moral degradation. It has simply met and is 
 out-facing — it hasn't yet outfaced it — one of the million 
 moral crises that are likely to assail free government, and I 
 believe that it is cleaner to-day in ruling passion, in motive 
 and in practice, than it has been in fifty years. [Applause]. 
 
 Now, let me hurry to my conclusion. I do not mean in 
 all that I have said to be indulging in any easy and gracious 
 optimism. This republic is trying to adjust itself, its old self, 
 which was the product of rural individualism and a reaction 
 against monarchy, to its new self, which is the product of 
 urban democracy and natural science, in such fashion that 
 it shall lose neither the individualism, which guarantees 
 freedom, nor the co-operative genius, which insures power 
 and progress. That is a colossal task. 
 
 (3ur old political philosophy contended that that gov- 
 ernment is best which governs least. The French have put 
 
 20 
 
this theory of government into the expression "Laissez 
 faire." Herbert Spencer shaped it into an ordered philoso- 
 phy. The hi^h priest of that idea in America is Thomas 
 Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson feared kings and priests. He 
 did not fear wealth nor great organized corporate power 
 with money at its center. We hear a great deal about 
 Thomas Jefferson in Virginia. He is not dead down in 
 Charlottesville or in Albemarle county. He is living, is 
 walking around, the most persistent type of immortality I 
 have ever encountered. He is quoted on everything, from 
 "How to Plough," to the nature of the curriculum at the 
 University of Virginia. [Laughter]. Jefferson was a wise 
 old souh and the greatest bit of wisdom that the man had 
 and the thing that lifts him among the great of this wide 
 earth was a patient belief in the ultimate integrity of popu- 
 lar impulse, plus the determination never to cease giving 
 the public an opportunity to fit itself for its work. [Ap- 
 plause]. That old man loved the plain people and trusted 
 them. He was an idealist, a dreamer of dreams, and that 
 spirit kept him young when eighty-six years had gone over 
 his head, and made him sit on his mountain top in a certain 
 splendid heroism and watch the slow-rising walls of the in- 
 stitution which he thought would train the democracy to 
 right ways, and which, I thank God, has trained democracy 
 somewhat for its work in this country. 
 
 Now, the young men coming up in life to-day are wit- 
 nessing and being taught in the schools a new social philo- 
 sophy which is making over the world in which we live. I 
 do not know what to call it exactly. I would call it social- 
 ism, if that noble and beautiful word considered philo- 
 sophically had not been bandied about until it had gained a 
 sinister meaning and an evil significance. I can not find a 
 name for it that quite- suits me, but it differs fundamentally 
 from the old philosophy which perceived government as a 
 sort of near-sighted and benevolent policeman, and society 
 as a group of units to be protected from violence, to be 
 helped not at all, and to be allowed to do as they pleased 
 
 21 
 
provided they didn't please to do other people. [Laughter]. 
 It was the doctrine of non-interference, of each man for 
 himself and the devil take the hindmost. Now, this new 
 philosophy has arrived, which I have not found a name for. 
 Call it collectivism, if you want to, anything will do. I am 
 not arguing- for it. You will understand I am simply at- 
 tempting to describe it, to segregate it in a few words. It 
 has three fundamental qualities ; it treats society as an or- 
 ganism and proposes to study it and to make it scientific, 
 and through knowledge of it to help it. Never in the his- 
 tory of the world have men set about to study society scien- 
 tifically as they are doing now. Twenty-five years ago you 
 could hardly find a chair in any American college for the 
 study of sociology ; the word had not been born and when it 
 got born people sneered at it. Now, it is everywhere, in 
 every college men are studying society. I do not think 
 there is a more interesting thing in present day politics than 
 the proposal to establish a tariff commission, and there is a 
 likelihood that it will be established. Fifty years, thirty 
 years, twenty years ago such a commission would have been 
 laughed out of court. Back of it is this scientific spirit 
 which urges people to find out the facts about things, and 
 know about things before they do them, instead of doing 
 them first and then, finding out about them afterward. 
 [Applause]. Second, this new scientific spirit is informed 
 with the spirit of sympathy and of brotherhood. It will rrot 
 let people alone. It insists upon helping people whether 
 they want it or not. It is sympathetic, merciful and curi- 
 ous. I had a dear friend, a woman in Louisiana, known to 
 my friend Mr. Mabie, who heard me making a 
 speech once, and I unfortunately used the word "uplift ;" 
 she came to me with face flushed and said "Don't you talk 
 about any uplift to me. I don't want to be uplifted." 
 [Laughter]. Well, now, a good many people feel that way, 
 but the spirit of modern society is in the uplift business. 
 The beggar has been known to literature for all time, but 
 this age proposes to introduce him to political economy and 
 
 22 
 
study him. The child has been a pathetic and a beautiful 
 figure in our literature. This age, the first of all ages, is 
 making scientific, passionate, devoted study of the child. 
 That child exhibit in New York is one of the greatest thino-s 
 to be seen on this continent, or in any land. The child has 
 become the center of the regard of statesmen and political 
 economists. Men say that all this eager concern for the 
 child is making him a little more difficult to handle. Per- 
 haps that is true. I myself notice that it is getting a little 
 more difficult for parents to give satisfaction to their chil- 
 dren. [Laughter]. I do not think we have quite reached 
 the danger point, however. Our new philosophy, then, 
 treats society as an organism and studies it; secondly, it is 
 informed by intense sympathy; third, it has a genius for 
 organization and co-operation. This genius for organiza- 
 tion manifests itself not only in individual organization for 
 the public welfare, but in a passion for legislation and the 
 enactments of statutes for the public welfare as well as in 
 big business. Fifteen hundred laws in the last ten years 
 have been passed to effect the betterment of the laboring 
 man. If I were to read off to this great company a mere 
 list of great organizations like the National Civic Federa- 
 tion, the National Society for the Suppression of Tubercu- 
 losis, the Public Health Societies, with two thousand mem- 
 bers; the great foundations, like the Sage Foundation, the 
 Carnegie Foundation, the General Educational Board,' the 
 Rockefeller Institute, great movements, voluntarily entered 
 into by individuals to effect world purposes, I would con- 
 sume all of my time. Think of AndrcAv Carnegie proposing 
 to stop war in all the world ; taking this great question and 
 putting it on a basis so that patiently the futility of war can 
 be taught to all nations. This will not come about in any- 
 body's time, but there is a sort of majestic idealism in the 
 thought of it. 
 
 Now, you can call this new social philosophy what you 
 will, it is a new and mighty force in American life, one 
 formed by sympathy, by vast human interest, by brother- 
 
 23 
 
hood, by the instinct of a passion for knowledge of society 
 and by a wonderful genius for co-operative effort. It has 
 come to stay and we must adapt it to our new needs and 
 make it a useful agent of genuine democracy. 
 
 Now, my friends it is difficult for me to close without 
 saying just this one word. The Southern man is so often 
 thought of as an ambassador from one court of public opin- 
 ion to another, that I had thought of closing my speech 
 without mentioning the South at all. So completely do I 
 think of my section as one, simply one, with you and all the 
 rest of this nation in social and in economic unification ; but 
 the impulse to declare to you, and I think you will be glad 
 to have me say it, that the progress in Southern affairs con- 
 stitutes one of the most satisfying visions bf the nation's 
 life, is too strong for me to resist. After isolation and sub- 
 mersion through the virtues of self-reliance and patience, 
 the Southern States are now vigorous parts of the modern 
 industrial democracy. Their development in education, in 
 agriculture, in industrialism, in public spirit, is harmonious 
 and equable, without frenzy or perversion of ideals. 
 
 Our people have learned that patriotism may express 
 itself in terms of wealth, as well as in terms of loyalty, but 
 somehow they have not learned it too well. They are happy 
 over full smokehouses and corn cribs and cotton fields and 
 savings banks, and it is very pleasant to wax fat a little 
 after lean years. But their happiness is not yet sordid in- 
 toxication ; the>' are growing rich, but yet not disgustingly 
 rich. [Laughter]. They know that they have much to 
 learn of the East and the West of the value of universal 
 training, of orderly community effort, of industrial organiza- 
 tion ; and they are learning it and they are sitting at the 
 feet of the masters of it. But they believe that they, too, 
 have something to teach you and their brethren in the na- 
 tion of the dignity of personality, of idealism, of unsordid- 
 ness, of a certain individualism bred in the bone of an 
 American untouched as yet by racial intermingling and un- 
 moved as yet by restless urban influences. The Southern 
 
 24 
 
boy of this generation, with whom 1 deal, has found himself 
 at last. He has been wanderinor about ; he didn't quite know 
 where he was, but he has found himself in American life 
 and he has made himself at home, at the very moment. I 
 .think, when the Republic is most in need of him. for I want 
 to tell you that I believe him to be a fine, simple, helpful 
 figure, this young Southern boy, whom I teach and whom I 
 love and whom I know so well, of good political instincts 
 facing tardily a fierce industrialism and a new democracy, 
 with its temptations and its grandeurs and its opportunities, 
 and yet somehow striving to hold fast, through the con- 
 servatism in his blood, to the noble concepts of public 
 honor and public probity. And there is a fine justice that 
 this should be true, at the climax of the heroic rebirth of his 
 section, so long overborne with burdens and tragedies and 
 misconceptions, but at last, and you will rejoice with me, I 
 believe in this, unhindered and buoyant and free to run the 
 course which Jefiferson foresaw and Washington blessed 
 with his transparent integrity and his noble common sense. 
 [Applause]. 
 
 DR. PIERSON: When I told you that three years ago 
 a man spoke to us in New Haven, was I right? [Cries "of 
 '•Yes, yes."l Now, I feel like adding to that that this af- 
 ternoon an inspired, and an inspiring, man has spoken to us. 
 [Applause). 
 
 I am sure I speak for you all when I thank Doctor Al- 
 derman for his address and ask for a copy for publication in 
 our minutes. Do you so feel? [Members : "We do."] 
 
 We will now close by singing the first and last verses 
 of AMERICA. 
 
 (Singing of AMERICA). 
 
 Good by, until next year. 
 
HAI.JAN. 21, igOS 
 
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 ■^■^," 
 
 
 
LS?!^ °^ CONGRESS 
 
 011 711 594 
 
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