273 
 
 )5 
 
 >y 1 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 TO 
 
 THE LOTOS CLUB OF 
 NEW YORK 
 
 BY 
 
 HOWARD ELLIOTT, 
 
 Chief Executive 
 
 of 
 
 THE NEW YORiC NEW HAVEN AND HARTFORD 
 
 and 
 
 NEW ENGLAND 
 
 TRANSPORTATION LINES. 
 
 LOTOS CLUB, 
 
 NEW YORK CITY 
 December 13, 1913 
 
 «J 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 TO 
 
 THE LOTOS CLUB OF 
 NEW YORK 
 
 BY 
 
 HOWARD ELLIOTT, 
 
 Chief Executive 
 
 of 
 
 THE NEW YORK NEW HAVEN AND HARTFORD 
 
 and 
 
 NEW ENGLAND 
 
 TRANSPORTATION LINES. 
 
 LOTOS CLUB, 
 NEW YORK CITY 
 
 December 13, 1913. 
 
k9R z r«i4 
 

 Mr. President Lawrence and Members of the Lotos Club : 
 
 Gathering around the dinner table and talking over the 
 questions of the day is not a phase of modern life. It is as 
 old as civilization. Much good often comes from these din- 
 ners, although they impose, perhaps, a burden upon the 
 speakers and often a greater burden upon the listeners. 
 
 Early I have much sympathy with the tenets and 
 
 Recollections high purposes of the Lotos Club, and of its 
 intellectual atmosphere. I was born in 
 New York City and my father before and 
 after the war was intimately associated with the literary 
 circles of the city, a writer of some books and a contributor 
 to many magazines. I can remember very well the kindly 
 face of Horace Greeley, who came to our house when I was 
 a little boy. I remember meeting George William Curtis, 
 and, in later days, at Cambridge, I knew James Russell 
 Lowell and William Dean Howells, all of whom are held in 
 grateful remembrance by this club. Then, too, in my early 
 days, I heard reminiscences in my family of the Brook 
 Farm of Dana and Eipley and the high-minded souls of that 
 experimental community, and about Thoreau, Hawthorne, 
 and Emerson. 
 
 Lotos It is difficult for me to express fittingly my 
 
 Guests appreciation of the compliment you pay in 
 
 asking me to be your guest. This club has 
 had for its guests Presidents of the United 
 States, princes, distinguished ambassadors and cabinet offi- 
 cers of our own and other countries, renowned literary men 
 and painters, great travelers, scholars and publicists, and 
 its influence for good cannot be estimated. 
 
 Our It has been in my mind for some time to 
 
 New say a word about the responsibility of the 
 
 Citizens American citizen. There is today a burden 
 
 upon the educated and intelligent man to 
 lift up his voice in favor of the preservation of our institu- 
 tions. It is a time for candor. We all recall that in Eng- 
 
land one hundred years ago the idea prevailed that when 
 there were 100,000,000 people in this country, then would 
 begin the disintegration of the republic, on the theory that 
 the original Anglo-Saxon could not be assimilated with the 
 blood of immigrants coming from other nations. We 
 have reached the 100,000,000 mark, and the census of 1910 
 states that the population of forty-two cities having more 
 than one hundred thousand population is 18,751,405, or 
 twenty per cent, of the population of the United States; 
 and that two out of every three of the inhabitants of these 
 cities are descendants of foreign-born parents. Since the 
 dawn of the twentieth century more than 10,500,000 immi- 
 grants have landed in the United States, and four out of 
 every five immigrants had no trade. These immigrants have 
 swelled the ranks of the workers in industrial centers; in 
 the slums of Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia, and New 
 York the foreign-born and their descendants form the fol- 
 lowing percentages of population: 77, 90, 91, and 95 re- 
 spectively ; and of every 100 aliens in these same cities, 40, 
 47, 51, and 59 in these respective cities are illiterate. It is 
 estimated that more than 7,000,000 people of Slav, Latin, 
 and Asiatic blood dwell in crowded industrial centers. 
 They come from lands where democracy is unknown and 
 the universal franchise unheard of and government is auto- 
 cratic, arbitrary, often unjust and inhuman. Do these new 
 citizens understand their responsibility to a government 
 ' ' of the people, for the people, and by the people ' ' ? 
 
 Lord You will remember that Lord Macauley 
 
 Macanley stated that the test of the government of 
 
 the United States would come when our 
 national domain was piettj well occupied. 
 
 This able English statesman and essayist, on May 23, 1857, 
 
 wrote as follows, about the United States: 
 
 His ''I have long been convinced that institu- 
 
 Prophecy tions purely democratic must, sooner or 
 
 later, destroy liberty or civilization, or 
 
 both. In Europe, where the population is 
 
 dense, the effect of such institutions would be almost in- 
 
etantaneous. What happened lately in France is an ex- 
 ample. In 1848 a pure democracy was established there. 
 During a short time there was reason to expect a general 
 spoliation, a national bankruptcy, a new partition of the 
 soil, a maximum of prices, a ruinous load of taxation laid 
 on the rich for the purpose of supporting the poor in idle- 
 ness. Such system would, in 20 years, have made France 
 as poor and barbarous as the France of the Carlovingians. 
 Happily, the danger was averted; and now there is a des- 
 potism, a silent tribune, an enslaved press. Liberty is gone, 
 but civilization has been saved. I have not the smallest 
 doubt that if we had a purely democratic government here 
 the effect would be the same. Either the poor would 
 plunder the rich, and civilization would perish; or order 
 and prosperity would be saved by a strong military gov- 
 ernment, and liberty would perish. You may think that 
 your country enjoys an exemption from these evils. I will 
 frankly own to you that I am of a very different opinion. 
 Your fate I believe to be certain, though it is deferred by a 
 physical cause. As long as you have a boundless extent 
 of fertile and unoccupied land, your laboring population 
 will be far more at ease than the laboring population of the 
 Old Vv'^orld, and, while that is the case, the Jefferson poli- 
 tics may continue to exist without causing any fatal cal- 
 amity. But the time will come when New England will be 
 as thickly peopled as Old England. Wages will be as low, 
 and will fluctuate as much with you as with us. You will 
 have your Manchesters and Birminghams, and in those 
 Manchesters and Birminghams hundreds of thousands of 
 artisans will assuredly be sometimes out of work. Then 
 your institutions will be fairly brought to the test. Dis- 
 tress everywhere makes the laborer mutinous and discon- 
 tented, and inclines him to listen with eagerness to agi- 
 tators who tell him that it is monstrous iniquity that one 
 man should have a million while another cannot get a full 
 meal. * * * It is quite plain that your Government 
 will never be able to restrain a distressed and discontented 
 majority. For with you the majority is the government 
 and has the rich, who are always a minority, absolutely at 
 its mercy. The day will come when in the State of New 
 
York a multitude of people, none of whom has had more 
 than half a breakfast, or expects to have more than half 
 a dinner, will choose a legislature. Is it possible to doubt 
 what sort of a legislature will be chosen? On one side is a 
 statesman preaching patience, respect for vested rights, 
 strict observance of public faith. On the other is a dema- 
 gogue ranting about the tyranny of capitalists and usurers, 
 and asking why anybody should be permitted to drink 
 champagne and to ride in a carriage, while thousands of 
 honest folks are in want of necessaries. Which of the two 
 candidates is likely to be preferred by a workingman who 
 hears his children cry for more bread? I seriously appre- 
 hend that you will, in such a season of adversity as I have 
 described, do things which will prevent prosperity from 
 returning; that you will act like a people who should in a 
 year of scarcity devour all the seed corn, and thus make 
 the next a year not of scarcity, but of absolute famine. 
 There will be, I fear, spoliation. The spoliation will in- 
 crease the distress. The distress will produce fresh spoli- 
 ation. There is nothing to stop you. Your Constitution is 
 all sail and no anchor. As I said before, when a society 
 has entered on its downward progress, either civilization or 
 liberty must perish. Either some Caesar or Napoleon will 
 seize the reins of government with a strong hand, or your 
 Republic will be as fearfully plundered and laid waste by 
 barbarians in the twentieth century as the Roman Empire 
 was in the fifth; with this difference, that the Huns and 
 Vandals who ravaged the Roman Empire came from with- 
 out, and that your Huns and Vandals will have been en- 
 gendered within your own country and by your own insti- 
 tutions." 
 
 Good I do not agree with all that Lord Macauley 
 
 Sense to says because I believe the good sense of all 
 
 Prevail the American people will solve their prob- 
 
 lems, but it is well to heed what he says 
 and exercise good sense vigorously and continuously so as 
 to prevent the conditions described by him. 
 
 James Bryce, formerly British Ambassador at Wash- 
 ington, in his work, ''The American Commonwealth", 
 states : 
 
What ''The coming of these humble suppliants 
 
 Bryce for entrance into the land of a people rich 
 
 Says and strong cannot but affect that people. 
 
 What changes in the character and habits 
 of the American people will this influx of new elements make, 
 elements wholly diverse, not only in origin, but in ideas 
 and traditions, and scarcely less diverse from the Irish and 
 Teutonic immigrants of previous years than from the men 
 of predominantly English stock, who inhabited the country 
 before the Irish or continental Teutons arrived*? This is 
 the crucial question in which every study of the immigrant 
 problem leads up to. It is a matter of grave import for the 
 world, seeing that it is virtually a new phenomenon in 
 world history, because no large movement of the races of 
 mankind from one region of the earth to another has ever 
 occurred under conditions at all resembling these. But it 
 is primarily momentous for the United States, and that all 
 the more so because these new immigrants go to swell the 
 class which already causes some disquietude, the class of 
 unskilled laborers, the poorest, the most ignorant, and the 
 most unsettled part of the population. Tbat there is 
 ground for anxiety in the presence of this vast and grow^ 
 ing multitude of men ignorant and liable to be misled can- 
 not be denied. Let it not be forgotten that a low standard 
 of living is an economic disease. ' ' 
 
 Prof. Frank Julian Warne, Secretary of the New York 
 State Immigration Commission, and Special Expert on the 
 Foreign Born Population, United States Census of 1910, 
 in his book entitled "The Immigrant Invasion," says: 
 
 Prof. Wame's ** Never before in the history of this people, 
 Views with the possible exception of the Revolu- 
 
 tionary and Civil War periods, have the 
 underpaid and ignorant laborers of the Old 
 World been called upon by the inexorable logic of economic 
 forces to decide so momentous a question as the election of 
 a President of the United States and all others in author- 
 ity." 
 
Prof. Warne believes that the only course is to restrict 
 immigration and take an inventory of those already here 
 and who must be raised to a higher standard of living and 
 trained for their duty as citizens. 
 
 William WiUiams, former United States Commissioner 
 of Immigration at New York, in his work, ''The New Im- 
 migration — Some Unfavorable Features and Possible 
 Remedies, " remarks: 
 
 Mr. WiUiams' ''The most important effects of immigra- 
 Prediction tion today are the racial effects. They con- 
 
 stitute a question not between the citizens 
 and immigrants of today, but between the 
 citizens' children and grandchildren. We owe our present 
 civilization and standing amongst nations chiefly to people 
 of a type widely different from that of those now coming 
 here in such numbers. The probable effect on the future of 
 this country of the millions of further immigrants repre- 
 senting the bad elements of Russia, Austria and Southern 
 Italy, who are sure to come here during the next few years, 
 if permitted to do so, should be made the subject of exhaus- 
 tive scientific research, which might or might not show that 
 to maintain our institutions and standards of civilization 
 substantially as they are it will be necessary to limit this 
 new immigration in some manner far more radical than any 
 hereinbefore suggested. ' * 
 
 Dr. Prescott F. Hall, Secretary of the Immigration Re- 
 striction League, in his work, "Immigration and Its Effects 
 Upon the United States, ' ' says : 
 
 Dr. Hall on "The enormous political power which can 
 the Foreign be exercised by the foreign-bom is shown 
 Vote by the fact that of the males of voting age 
 
 over one-quarter are foreign born, and that 
 nearly three-fifths of these have been naturalized. Indeed, 
 the foreign vote of two generations hence is larger than the 
 native vote of native parentage. One grave danger lies in 
 the liberality with which the ballot is given foreigners. ' ' 
 
 8 
 
I have given these quotations to emphasize the respons- 
 ibility of the educated citizen. Personally, I am opposed to 
 a too rigid restriction of immigration because the country 
 needs strong men and women to cut down the forests, 
 to reforest the land, to dig the coal, to build good roads, 
 and to do the many kinds of work needed under modern con- 
 ditions of life. Particularly does the country need those 
 who are willing to clear the land and to till the soil and do 
 the work on the farm, the ranch, and the orchard, which is 
 so vitally necessary if this country is to improve and 
 cheapen its food supply. Is it not wiser to permit these 
 strangers to come to us and then teach them the duties and 
 responsibilities they owe to the country that gives them 
 the great opportunities that this country furnishes rather 
 than to turn them away? Most of these new citizens are 
 not students. Seldom do many of them read even news- 
 papers. As Stevenson would say, ''Life is their volume." 
 When they first come hard work and discomfort is often 
 their lot, but there are countless examples of success far 
 greater than they could have achieved in their foreign 
 homes. A large proportion are receptive and subject to the 
 influences that surround them. They may become a menace, 
 but they can be made a boon to the country if their good 
 qualities are developed and the bad ones eliminated. It is 
 for the Lotos Club and bodies of similar cultivation and 
 force to say which. We ought not to neglect the newcomers 
 to our shores. Threats of the terrors of the law will not do 
 all that is needed. By individual appeal and personal re- 
 sponsibility must these new peoples in our land be taught 
 the power for good of this great nation. 
 
 Consider the great growth of the population and the 
 change of the character of it since 1870; the marvelous 
 growth in material wealth, and remember that much of the 
 brains and energy of the country have been very busily 
 engaged since the Civil War in the wonderful material de- 
 velopment of the country and that possibly not enough 
 attention has been paid to some of the fundamentals of 
 national life. Our prosperity has increased the complica- 
 tions of government, and the close attention given by our 
 people to business has diverted the personal attention of 
 
 9 
 
many from public affairs, and there is not the feeling of 
 interest and responsibility about them that characterized 
 the American people when there were fewer people and less 
 wealth. 
 
 Vast In the year 1870 the estimated wealth of 
 
 Increase this country was $24,054,814,806. In 1900 
 
 in Wealth it had increased to $88,517,306,775, and in 
 
 1904, the last year for which it has been 
 computed, to $107,104,192,410. Between 1890 and 1900 the 
 increase was $23,480,215,588, or 36 per cent., while in the 
 four years from 1900 to 1904 the increase was $18,586,885,- 
 635, or about 21 per cent. In 1870 the wealth per capita 
 was $624 ; in 1904 it was $1,318. Goldsmith says : 
 
 ''111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, 
 where wealth accumulates and men decay. ' ' 
 Wealth has accumulated in a phenomenal manner in this 
 country, but we cannot, and must not, permit a decadence 
 of our citizens. 
 
 Failure Has not the time arrived when, by indi- 
 
 to Vote vidual effort, we must see to it that the 
 
 so-called professional politicians do not 
 control our foreign-born citizens or their 
 immediate descendants ? Are those of us who are fortunate 
 enough to have received a good education, to have a little 
 more than actual bread and butter, to have some traditions 
 about the United States doing all that we should, as citizens, 
 to help? In Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachu- 
 setts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, 
 Pennsylvania and Delaware about thirty per cent, of those 
 entitled to vote did not take advantage of the franchise. In 
 the country at large about thirty-five per cent, failed to take 
 their share of the responsibility of selecting a ruler. In a 
 number of Northwestern states and cities for which I have 
 the figures, in 1910, when there was not the interest of a 
 Presidential election, from 45.9% to 59.1% of those having 
 the right to vote did not do so. These figures show that 
 
 10 
 
from 21% to 33% of those entitled to vote decide who shall 
 hold office and make and administer the laws under which 
 all must work and live. This relatively small proportion 
 of voters who make the majority in an election enables the 
 boss to work his will and create conditions which we all 
 may deplore but which we submit to passively. 
 
 Force of In the long run, all great questions affect- 
 
 Public Opinion ing the national welfare are settled by the 
 force of public opinion, but is that force 
 properly and fairly reflected when so large 
 a proportion of those holding the franchise fail to exercise 
 it? As educated men are we doing our full duty and en- 
 couraging others to do theirs in making intelligent use of 
 the great privilege of selecting and voting for those that are 
 to rule us 1 
 
 A group of men discussed several evenings ago the talk 
 about old political nostrums. Some believed that the in- 
 itiative, referendum and the recall of officials and of judicial 
 decisions had been revived in recent years by some political 
 leaders in the hope of remedying or readjusting political 
 conditions. Others in the group believed these doctrines 
 had been revived for personal ends. 
 
 Neglect It was the opinion of several in the group 
 
 of th,e that much of the dissatisfaction with politi- 
 
 Primaries cal conditions had come from voters who 
 
 had neglected their opportunities to 
 straighten out affairs themselves. They referred to the 
 fact, or what they believed to be a fact, that this is a dele- 
 gated government — not a representative government nor a 
 democratic government, but a delegated government and 
 nothing more. They told how merchants, professional men 
 and many others engaged in the activities of life failed year 
 in and year out to attend the primaries of their parties. 
 They insisted that the primary is the unit of government. 
 One in the gathering was a merchant who likes to take a 
 hand in politics ; another was a lawyer, another was an im- 
 porter, and they admitted that they seldom, if ever, at- 
 tended the primaries of their parties, and in remaining 
 
 11 
 
away had left the control of those primaries in the hands 
 of professional politicians, and thus these professional poli- 
 ticians had, through the voters' own negligence, been dele- 
 gated to represent them in making nominations for local, 
 state, and eventually national offices, as well as in the prep- 
 aration and adoption of state and national platforms. 
 
 Proposed One of the lawyers in the gathering insisted 
 
 New that there was only one remedy which 
 
 Amendment would compel the business, professional 
 and working men of the country to destroy 
 this alleged delegated system of government. He declared 
 that this remedy consisted entirely and only in an amend- 
 ment to the Constitution of the United States which would 
 disfranchise a voter who did not attend the primaries. He 
 thereupon drew up the following proposed amendment to 
 Article XV of the Constitution of the United States : 
 
 ''Eesolved, By the Senate and House of Represent- 
 atives of the United States of America, in Congress 
 assembled, two-thirds of both houses concurring, that 
 the following article be proposed to the Legislatures of 
 the several States as an amendment to the Constitution 
 of the United States, which article, when ratified by 
 three-fourths of the said Legislatures, shall be valid to 
 all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitu- 
 tion, namely: 
 
 Aeticle XV. 
 
 ''SECTio]sr 3. — Every male citizen of the United 
 States, of the age of 21 years, shall have the right to 
 vote at any State or general election, providing he 
 shall have first voted at the primary in his district next 
 preceding such election." 
 
 This lawyer believed if such an amendment could be 
 introduced and passed in Congress at Washington this 
 Winter it would forever do away with the system of dele- 
 gated government. 
 
 12 
 
We I am not enough of a student of public af- 
 
 Must fairs to have any opinion as to the wisdom 
 
 Vote of such an amendment and I have no cure 
 
 for the difficulty. I only want to point out 
 that it seems to me unfortunate that a more intelligent use 
 of the franchise is not made, and that the educated man does 
 not work harder to help his less fortunate brother to come 
 to right conclusions. This failure to use the franchise, the 
 neglect of the educated man to do his full duty as a citizen 
 and to take some time away from his business for his civic 
 duties, have a relation to some of the economic difficulties 
 now confronting the country, and creating a period of un- 
 certainty and unrest. 
 
 Let me refer for a moment to a recent speech by a mem- 
 ber of this club, Samuel Untermyer. His declaration that 
 a halt should be called upon further governmental investi- 
 gations of past doings of corporations is an expression of 
 a growing sentiment among intelligent citizens, and reflects 
 the feeling that greater care should be used in making and 
 administering the laws. 
 
 Don't It has been said, "Criminologists hold that 
 
 Always imprisoning a man fo'r a crime punishes 
 
 Punish him but does not augment his value as a 
 
 member of society." Perhaps Mr. Unter- 
 myer had that thought in mind when he made his address to 
 the Economic Club of Springfield several evenings ago. I do 
 not agree with all that Mr. Untermyer said, but the present 
 day situation about certain kinds of business, railroad and 
 otherwise, is illustrated by an incident that occurred in the 
 West some twenty years ago. 
 
 Bill Yoldm was an excellent fellow who kept a livery 
 stable and set up to be a great horse expert. One day, 
 Bill had a colt coming in which he was going to break, and 
 a number of friends were invited to witness the perform- 
 ance. The spectators sat on the fence while Bill trained 
 the colt. It took him about an hour and a half, and when 
 he got through the colt was dead. 
 
 13 
 
Bill ¥okim's Bill Yokim's experience, I fear, may be re- 
 Remedy peated if we remain passive and permit 
 our politicians, perhaps I should say, rul- 
 ers, to keep on regulating or training the 
 railroad and other forms of public service corporations; 
 they will be well trained, but they will be dead. Some day, 
 possibly not before the millenium, the people will 
 reach the conclusion that there are only two ways 
 of treating railroad business. One is to treat it 
 as a function of government, and the other is to 
 treat it as commerce, or business subject to reasonable 
 regulation. There is no middle ground. It is impossible, 
 fii the long run, to persuade private capital to invest in rail- 
 roads if politicians and governmental bureaucrats are to ex- 
 ercise all the functions of ownership and management. It 
 may be in the power of the government to destroy a part or 
 the whole of the private capital which has heretofore been 
 invested in the railroads, on the theory that the investor 
 was to have some voice in managing his business, but it 
 is not in the power of the government to make individuals 
 repeat any such foolish experiment, and they will not do it. 
 
 Dislocation While, as I say, I do not accept all of Mr. 
 Should Untermyer's suggestions in his Spring- 
 
 Oease field address, I do believe most earnestly 
 
 that the period of dislocation should cease 
 and all hands be given an opportunity for constructive 
 work which will help the welfare of the people, of security 
 holders, and the development of the nation. 
 
 Is it for the best interest of all to punish the railroads 
 and other corporations for misdeeds that were not con- 
 sidered wrong in the light of the law as then understood, 
 or of public opinion at the time the deeds were done! Is 
 it necessary for a continued flood of legislation against the 
 railroads and against all corporations? 
 
 14 
 
Flood of It may be said that in the matter of legis- 
 
 Legislation lation the railroads suffer in common with 
 
 all other enterprises and with every indi- 
 vidual in the country from the American 
 passion for legislation and their belief that a new law will 
 cure any and all troubles incident to human life. How pro- 
 found that passion is can be gathered from a comparison of 
 the bills introduced into and passed by the English Parlia- 
 ment and by our national Senate and House. At West- 
 minster, during the ten years ending with 1909, there were 
 introduced and considered 6,251 measures, of which 3,882 
 became law; at Washington, during the same period, there 
 were considered 146,471 different bills, of which no less 
 than 16,000 became law. In forty-two State Legislatures, 
 in session since January of the present year, there were 
 introduced 1,395 bills affecting the operation of railroads. 
 This is almost five times as many as were introduced in 
 the legislatures of 1912, and three times as many as those 
 introduced in the year 1911. In 1912, only nineteen State 
 Legislatures met, which partly accounts for the lessened 
 activity of the legislatures that year. But, as an indica- 
 tion of how rapidly the tide of railway legislation is rising, 
 in 1911 there were fourteen bills introduced per legislative 
 session; in 1912, fifteen, while in the present year there 
 have been thirty-three such measures per legislative ses- 
 sion. Of the 1,395 bills introduced in the present year 
 affecting railroad operation, 230 have become law. This 
 is practically the same proportion as in the previous year 
 when forty-eight out of 292 bills were enacted. The bills 
 introduced covered almost every conceivable subject — for 
 instance: 107 full crew bills were introduced, of which 14 
 passed ; other bills took up hospital and relief departments, 
 burning of weeds, speed of dead freight trains, make-up of 
 freight and passenger trains, signals, crossings and loco- 
 motive headlights, block signals and steel cars ; while on the 
 subject of railroad trespassing, for which the railroads 
 have been asldng for relief to reduce accident liability, out 
 of 65 such bills introduced only six became laws. 
 
 15 
 
A You probably all remember the story at- 
 
 Lynching tributed to early days in Arkansas, about 
 
 Story tlie man who was lynched for stealing a 
 
 horse. After the ceremony was over and the poor fellow 
 was cut down, it was found that another man had stolen 
 the horse. The lynchers were in trouble, but they mustered 
 up their courage and took the body to the little cabin where 
 the unfortunate widow lived. Pushing it through the door, 
 the spokesman said: ''Here's your husband, marm. We 
 thought he stole a horse and we hung him. It's our mistake 
 and the laugh's on us." In the very earnest desire that 
 every right thinking man has for improving living and 
 business conditions, reform and corrective movements 
 should be undertaken with great care and moderation so 
 that the country will not wake up some day and find that 
 they have lynched some important form of business and it 
 is "their mistake," but the laugh will not be on any one in 
 that case! 
 
 Responsibility The press, authors, scholars, and publicists 
 of the have much responsibility to the public for 
 
 Press what they present to that public. As one 
 
 of your distinguished members, Chester S. 
 Lord, has pointed out in his lecture as a Eegent of the Uni- 
 versity of the State, before the Columbia School of Jour- 
 nalism, "Everybody of any account reads the newspapers, 
 and I am sorry to say that the great mass of the community 
 read little else. I judge this to be true largely by compari- 
 son with other publications. Take the magazine, for in- 
 stance, which for numbers of readers ranks next to the 
 newspapers. About 4,000,000 magazines are printed in this 
 city each month for circulation all over the United States 
 and the world, of which approximately one-eighth, or 500,- 
 000, are sold in this community. A million and a half news- 
 papers are printed in New York every morning; another 
 million and a half are printed every afternoon. We have 
 then 500,000 magazines sold here every month against 
 3,000,000 newspapers sold every day, or 90,000,000 news- 
 papers sold every month." Some figures obtained a few 
 years ago showed that the printing of newspapers and 
 
 16 
 
periodicals in this country has grown from 11,314 publica- 
 tions in 1880, issuing 2,067,848,209 copies a year, to 22,603 
 a year or so ago, issuing 10,600,000,000 copies a year. Each 
 one of these publications has some effect, good or bad, on 
 someone, and particularly on the newcomer, who knows 
 little about our institutions. The schools of the country 
 are teaching daily about 20,000,000 boys and girls, and every 
 individual interested in the welfare of his country should 
 exercise some influence in seeing that common sense, in- 
 dustry, self-denial, and patriotism are taught as well as 
 some other things, many of which are useless to the child 
 in his or her future. 
 
 Faith This influx of those who do not understand 
 
 in the the United States, the multitude of laws, 
 
 Future the half teaching of many young people of 
 
 some of the great fundamental principles 
 oi* living, the head lines in the press, the neglect by many 
 to do their duty as citizens have tended to produce some 
 of the conditions feared by Lord Macauley, but I have great 
 faith in the future. My business has been such that I have 
 traveled many times in the last twenty years between tht 
 Atlantic, the Mississippi Valley, the Rocky Mountains, and 
 Puget Sound. To make those trips and to see the farms, 
 the small towns mth neat and prosperous little houses, and 
 the growing cities, restores one's confidence when the 
 attacks on and criticisms of some of our affairs by both poli- 
 ticians and the press seem to imply that the country is 
 going to the dogs. The country is not going to smash ; it is 
 going to keep on going forward. Business methods are im- 
 proving every year — there is a higher standard today 
 among those engaged in administering the great business 
 concerns and public service corporations than there was ten 
 years ago. As a class, the men in that work are as honest, 
 high-minded, earnest, and patriotic as those in any other 
 line of activity in the United States, not excepting govern- 
 mental service. 
 
 17 
 
Higher This class of men has done much in the last 
 
 Business twenty -five years to create the conditions 
 
 Standards that enable the United States to hold the 
 
 proud position that she does. They now owe 
 it to themselves and to the country to devote some of their 
 time, ability and energy to explaining and defending them- 
 selves and in telling the people the truth about their busi- 
 ness. In the long run, the people of the United States are 
 not unjust, but they must know the real truth or in striving 
 to bring about reforms they may act as to upset and injure 
 business conditions in such a way as to defeat the very 
 results they wish. We all remember how nearly the silver 
 question plunged the country into real distress. The same 
 unthinking course towards business may produce a like 
 result. It is very difficult, in this large and complicated 
 land of ours, to have the same things considered in the same 
 way and at the same time by all the people. Hence the 
 importance of having the educated citizen use his influence 
 to present the facts correctly at all times. 
 
 Individual Complaint was made at one time that busi- 
 
 Eesponsifoility ness was too much engaged in politics, and 
 perhaps it was, but now it can be said 
 justly that politics is engaged entirely too 
 much in business, and that such policy tends to take away 
 the self-reliance and initiative of the American man who 
 has done such a good work in making this United States 
 what it is. So I repeat again that if we are to avoid some 
 of those difficulties that Lord Macauley and the others re- 
 ferred to speak of, we must, each one of us as American 
 citizens, do a little more of the work of a citizen and not 
 leave the work of deciding what our government is to be to 
 those who are ignorant, unthinking, and sometimes actually 
 dishonest. 
 
 Two dinners will always remain cherished memories 
 with me. One was given to me by officers and men of the 
 Northern Pacific when I retired from the Presidency of that 
 great property and came here to help solve this compli- 
 
 18 
 
cated New England situation. There were 240 men at the 
 dinner, from junior clerks receiving $50.00 a month to Gen- 
 eral Managers, Counsels, and Vice-Presidents, receiving 
 $10,000, $15,000, and $20,000 a year. There were men from 
 all classes in the service and 18 states and 35 cities were 
 represented. That dinner represented the size and ramifi- 
 cations of the great transportation agencies of the country, 
 and the meeting was a tribute of which any man should be 
 proud. 
 
 Two The other dinner of which I am equally 
 
 Dinners proud is this one, and most heartily do I 
 
 thank you again for it. This dinner 
 represents a different set of men and dif- 
 ferent activities, but those in this room have more diverse 
 powers for helpful influence in shaping the affairs of the 
 country than the men at the other dinner. The men at 
 both dinners have an opportunity, each one in the niche 
 fate has allotted to him, and a duty to use his influence just 
 a little more than he does to help train the many new citi- 
 zens to realize their duties and responsibilities as well as 
 to care for himself and his family. There is a favorite 
 quotation of mine that I think has an inspiration for every 
 patriotic American, and should be taken to heart by him at 
 this time, when great, silent changes seem to be taking place 
 in the character of our people and of our methods of gov- 
 ernment : 
 
 ''Say not the days are evil — Who's to blame? 
 And fold the hands and acquiesce — shame! 
 Stand up, speak out and bravely in God's name." 
 
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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