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 Two Speeches at the §lueer?s Jubilee 
 
 London, 1897 
 
 By IVhitelaw Reid 
 
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 no. 21520 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
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 DEPARTMENT OF STATE. 
 
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Two hundred and fifty copies of this 
 edition were printed at the De Vinne 
 Press in the month of August, 1897. 
 
 This copy is No.. 
 
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TWO SPEECHES 
 
 AT THE 
 
 QUEEN'S JUBILEE 
 
 LONDON 
 1897 
 
 BY 
 
 WHITE LAW RE ID 
 
 THE SPECIAL AMBASSADOR OF THE UNITED STATES 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE DE VINNE PRESS 
 
 1897 
 
*'y- of t^i> 
 
 
 
 
AMERICA 
 AND ENGLAND 
 
 Speech 
 
 at the American Dinner in London, 
 
 July 5 (for Sunday, July 4), 1897. 
 
 YOUR reference to the Special 
 Ambassador is most kind, and I 
 thank you. But we are in a sad 
 mood, as you know, at the Special 
 Embassy, and nothing but a sense 
 of duty could have brought me, even 
 on the Fourth of July and among 
 Americans in London, to a banquet 
 in the evening after following to the 
 
2 America and England 
 
 grave in the morning the sole child 
 of one of my associates. The brave 
 Admiral's splendid war-ship bore for 
 him no armor against fate ; and re- 
 calling the proud pageant in which 
 he has just been so worthily rep- 
 resenting our nation, we can only 
 utter again the exclamation of 
 Edmund Burke over another sud- 
 denly yawning grave, "What shad- 
 ows we are, and what shadows we 
 pursue ! " 
 
 Let me venture to add what I 
 know will touch every American 
 heart, here and at home, that Ad- 
 miral Miller, in his desolate loneli- 
 ness this evening on the Brooklyn, 
 has received a gracious message of 
 tender, womanly sympathy from 
 Her Majesty, the Queen. 
 
Fourth of July, 1897 3 
 
 It is an interesting coincidence 
 that we pass immediately and not 
 unnaturally, even in London, from 
 the celebration of the Queen's Jubi- 
 lee to the celebration of the Fourth 
 of July. ["Hear, hear."] The one sup- 
 plements and completes the other; 
 the two together round out the 
 record, warrant the recognition the 
 world is extending to the progress 
 of the Anglo-Saxon race, and em- 
 phasize the blessings its amazing 
 advances have bestowed upon man- 
 kind. [Applause.] 
 
 Quite possibly, if the wise and 
 good Queen had been in her grand- 
 father's place, or if the Queen's son 
 had been there, things might have 
 been different. ["Hear, hear."] But it 
 is far better as it is. The colossal 
 
4 America and England 
 
 development of the Republic would 
 have been possible on no colonial 
 lines the world had then ever seen. 
 Its benefits have been reflected back 
 upon the motherland, and, under the 
 improved policy that resulted, are 
 distinctly traceable in the superb 
 growth and affectionate loyalty of 
 the vast British Empire of to-day. 
 We have been therefore, and we 
 have had the right to be, proud of 
 the Jubilee — almost as proud as 
 the English are themselves ; and as 
 proud of the wonderful history that 
 made it possible. We can have no 
 jealousy of their greatness, . their 
 power, their world-wide renown. If 
 it is not ours, it belongs to the 
 
 family. [Laughter and applause.] They 
 
 carry elsewhere what they gave us 
 
Fourth of July, i8gy 5 
 
 — the same civilization, the same 
 reverence for law, the same Anglo- 
 Saxon love for order and justice 
 and liberty; and they can take 
 no right and lawful step to spread 
 these blessings which we shall not 
 applaud. 
 
 But let me not be misunderstood. 
 The millennium has not quite 
 dawned. The American has not 
 abandoned the traits of his race any 
 more than the Englishman. We are 
 to-day the most peaceful great nation 
 on the globe, and there was never a 
 period in our history when there 
 was less popular desire for territo- 
 rial aggrandizement. But we are 
 Anglo-Saxon still. [Applause.] It fol- 
 lows, of course, that our own clear 
 rights within the legitimate sphere 
 
6 America and England 
 
 of our influence will be jealously 
 guarded; and that the consent of 
 no other nation to our exercise of 
 them will be held essential. [Prolonged 
 
 applause.] 
 
 During the last week nothing has 
 been more interesting than the evi- 
 dent English welcome to American 
 sympathy, or the occasional remark, 
 " Your people don't like us as well 
 as we wish they did; why is it?" 
 Well, perhaps there is sometimes 
 some warrant for saying that. Sir 
 Wilfrid Laurier talked very frankly 
 on the subject the other night; and 
 while not wholly accepting his- point 
 of view, I need add nothing to the 
 explanations he gave.* It is idle to 
 
 * See extracts from Sir Wilfrid Laurier's speech, 
 pages 26-30. 
 
Fourth of July, 1897 7 
 
 ignore the fact that from time to 
 time serious differences have arisen. 
 It is equally idle to imagine that 
 either nation will fail to maintain 
 what it thinks right. He is no friend 
 to either who asserts or hints it. 
 But we never forget our relation- 
 ship. ["Hear, hear."] We may have 
 family jars in the future as in the 
 past. God forbid it; and God grant 
 that if they do come, we may show 
 that we are at last, on both sides 
 of the water, civilized enough and 
 Christian enough to settle them 
 without fighting with our own blood. 
 
 [Applause.] 
 
 Our people may perhaps be some- 
 times sensitive, and sometimes bit- 
 ter. Possibly those traits of the 
 race survive yet in England also. 
 
8 America and England 
 
 But it is not best to attach too much 
 importance to superficial indications. 
 You do not judge a noble river en- 
 tirely by the drift and eddies on the 
 surface. Below, the strong, steady 
 current is sweeping on in its natural 
 course, unmoved by surface commo- 
 tions. [Applause.] 
 
 Do not forget that out of the three 
 serious wars of our national exist- 
 ence two have been with England, 
 while in the third England's attitude 
 was at least open to the interpreta- 
 tion Sir Wilfrid Laurier placed upon 
 
 it. [Stir and sensation.] Yet Such is the 
 
 real temper of the American people 
 that, when this last war ended in 
 complete surrender, not one human 
 life was sacrificed in punishment, 
 nor were even political disabili- 
 
Fourth of July, i8gy 9 
 
 ties long maintained. ["Hear, hear."] 
 How easily any lingering bitterness 
 over the first war, or any of them, 
 may be swept away has been often 
 seen. Surely, Englishmen cannot 
 have forgotten Commodore Tatnall, 
 who saw English sailors entrapped 
 and slaughtered in an Asiatic sea, 
 and without any possible warrant 
 rushed to the rescue with the sole 
 excuse : " I can't stand that ; blood 
 is thicker than water ! " [Applause.] 
 No more can Commodore Pearson 
 be forgotten, who, under somewhat 
 similar circumstances, did a similar 
 thing. And surely English sailors, 
 riding safely on the receding wave 
 out of the terrors of Samoa, can 
 never cease to hear the cheers, ex- 
 ulting in their escape, that burst 
 
io America and England 
 from the throats of American sailors 
 
 about tO die ! [Prolonged applause.] 
 
 That is the genuine American 
 feeling when stirred to its pro- 
 foundest depths [Applause]; that the 
 feeling which now warrants Whit- 
 tier's prophecy of the time — 
 
 When closer strand shall lean to strand, 
 While meet, beneath saluting flags, 
 The eagle of our mountain crags, 
 
 The lion of our motherland. [Applause.] 
 
 That is the feeling that led the Chief 
 Magistrate of our country to send 
 me here, accompanied by an Admiral 
 on his flag-ship, and by the General 
 of our army [Applause], to bear from 
 him a letter to Her Royal and 
 Imperial Majesty. 
 
 It was that which gave me war- 
 
Fourth of July, iSgy 1 1 
 
 rant, on behalf of the President and 
 people of the Republic, to present 
 personally their respectful congratu- 
 lations and most earnest good wishes 
 to the Sovereign, not merely of 
 longest reign and widest sway, but, 
 in their judgment, of most beneficent 
 influence and best beloved in the 
 whole long history of the English 
 monarchy and the Anglo-Saxon 
 
 race. [" Hear, hear."] 
 
 The President especially wished 
 Her Majesty to believe that nothing 
 can ever permit the government or 
 the people of the United States to 
 forget that at a critical period in 
 their history, the preservation of 
 peace between the two nations was, 
 as they think, largely due to the 
 gracious influence exerted by the 
 3 
 
12 America and England 
 
 Queen, with the aid of the lamented 
 Prince Consort. [Loud applause.] We 
 may well hope that the memory of 
 that act was not the least pleasant 
 of the thronging recollections that 
 added to the joy of this unparal- 
 leled anniversary. 
 
 Whatever the passing feeling of 
 the moment toward England, there 
 has never been a time within my 
 recollection when England's Sover- 
 eign was not familiarly known in 
 America as the " Good Queen" — 
 never a time when she was not re- 
 spected and admired — never a time 
 since the Trent affair when she was 
 
 not loved. [Applause.] 
 
 It was but three years before she 
 came to the throne that Daniel 
 Webster uttered his well-known 
 
Fourth of July, iSgy 13 
 
 apostrophe to Great Britain: "A 
 power which has dotted over the 
 surface of the whole globe with her 
 possessions and military posts, whose 
 morning drum-beat, following the 
 sun, and keeping company with the 
 hours, circles the earth with one 
 continuous and unbroken strain of 
 the martial airs of England." 
 
 To-day Mr. Webster might phrase 
 it a little differently. The Victo- 
 rian era has spread out its glitter- 
 ing record of sixty years, and Great 
 Britain is a power now which, in- 
 stead of merely dotting, has largely 
 overspread the surface of the globe. 
 The sound which a week or two ago 
 followed the sun and kept company 
 with the hours, circled the earth with 
 a sweeter strain than the martial airs 
 
14 America and England 
 
 of England. It circled the earth with 
 a strain in which the whole Anglo- 
 Saxon race united, while the world 
 applauded — the strain of "God Save 
 
 the Queen." [Prolonged applause, the whole 
 company rising and cheering.] 
 
ENGLAND'S VISITORS 
 
 Speech 
 
 at the cordwainers' banquet, 
 
 July 8. 
 
 THERE is a Scriptural approval, 
 I think, for the man who said 
 he would n't and then did. I trust 
 the theological opinions of the Mas- 
 ter and Wardens of the Worshipful 
 Company of Cordwainers may be 
 sufficiently liberal to permit the 
 stretching of that approval to cover 
 my present case. Having first flatly 
 refused to speak, here I am speak- 
 
1 6 The Colonials and 
 
 ing [Laughter] — with no possible 
 excuse excepting that I shall be 
 brief. 
 
 Your toast " To our Visitors " 
 means on this occasion, I am told, 
 the Colonials and the Americans. 
 One of our poets, who has met a 
 quite extraordinary appreciation on 
 this side of the water, — Mr. Walt 
 Whitman, — once defined the duty 
 you thus put upon me in another 
 way. He said, " We celebrate our- 
 selves." Now the Colonials may 
 perhaps venture to undertake that 
 task, but as for me, I hesitate at it. 
 We have high authority — no less 
 than that of the accomplished regu- 
 lar American ambassador here — for 
 the assurance that our national 
 flower, fitting America as perfectly 
 
The Americans 17 
 
 as the thistle fits Scotland, is the 
 modest, unobtrusive violet ! [Laughter 
 
 and applause.] 
 
 There is another difficulty, and in 
 this I know I may speak for the 
 Colonials as well as for ourselves. 
 We are visitors, of course; but we 
 have to pinch ourselves to keep 
 from thinking, all the while, that 
 
 we are at home. ["Hear, hear."] 
 
 I may venture to speak for all 
 your visitors on one other point. 
 You have drawn out before us, day 
 by day, a splendid historic pageant. 
 You have had a wonderful and a 
 worthy celebration of an anniversary 
 altogether unique in the history of 
 the world's civilization. But the 
 finest thing you have shown us was 
 not the brilliant military display, 
 
1 8 The Colonials and 
 
 here or at Aldershot. It was not 
 that glittering procession of rulers 
 and princes and nobles, of represen- 
 tatives of the four quarters of the 
 globe, and of all their governments, 
 that wound its stately way through 
 millions of your people up to the 
 
 Steps Of St. Paul's. ["Hear, hear. "] It 
 
 was not the colossal concentration 
 of sea-power at Spithead, that 
 proved how easily and how rrfag- 
 nificently Britannia still rules the 
 waves. It was not even the amaz- 
 ing order of London, and the magic 
 control over surging thousands that 
 lay in the gentlest wave of. a single 
 policeman's hand. Far overshadow- 
 ing all these, the one great fact of 
 the whole Jubilee was the obvious, 
 the profound, the touching devotion 
 
The Americans 19 
 
 of the people — of all the people — 
 
 to their Queen. ["Hear, hear."] 
 
 In this, too, no observer could fail 
 to note that the colonies vied with 
 the mother-country. Our friends 
 the Premiers here are in some re- 
 pects more English than the Eng- 
 lish themselves. They are proud, 
 as they have a right to be, of their 
 British origin and connection and 
 loyalty. Long may it last ! But 
 they cannot escape their environ- 
 ment. Climate, circumstances, the 
 struggle with the forces of nature 
 and of savage man, have done their 
 work on you as they have on us. 
 You will not take it as unfriendly or 
 uncomplimentary for a Yankee to 
 say, "After all, what Yankees you 
 have become ! " [Laughter.] 
 
 4 
 
20 The Colonials and 
 
 Still, the race which peoples these 
 isles is no doubt in some ways an 
 unchanging one. Let us hope that, 
 to whatever distant clime it goes, 
 whatever fever in the blood may be 
 engendered by pioneer conflict or 
 tropic sun, it will always remain un- 
 changed in those things which lie at 
 the very foundation of all it has done 
 in the world that was worth doing. 
 I do not speak now merely of its 
 liberty, and the watchful care that 
 must preserve it. That is secure. All 
 of our race are of one mind with our 
 Yankee philosopher on that subject : 
 
 For what avail the plough or sail, 
 Or land or life, if Freedom fail ? 
 
 But it is not freedom that has 
 made our nations great. ["Hear, hear."] 
 
The Americans 21 
 
 It may be that there are in these 
 very days of ours special reasons to 
 remember that the mighty national 
 structures we have reared would 
 soon crumble did they not repose 
 on the solid characteristic Anglo- 
 Saxon virtues of morality, law, or- 
 der, and equal justice alike to the 
 richest and the poorest. The use 
 of liberty is to guarantee and defend 
 all these, and unless it does it is 
 worthless, and must perish from the 
 
 earth. [Applause.] 
 
 It is pleasant to see our Canadian 
 neighbor here, from the province 
 which gave such a stormy greeting 
 to the young Queen sixty years ago, 
 where now the swords of Mont- 
 calm and Wolfe, peacefully crossed, 
 hang below the cross of St. George, 
 
22 The Colonials and 
 
 and with them the hearts of all 
 Canada, French and English alike. 
 
 [Applause.] 
 
 One of our writers had the temer- 
 ity to describe the French Cana- 
 dian as belonging still to the period 
 of Louis Quatorze. He was mis- 
 taken. The French Canadian, as 
 seen here to-night, belongs neither 
 to the period of Louis Quatorze nor 
 to the nineteenth century. What 
 he really is is a twentieth-century 
 
 American ! [Laughter and applause.] 
 
 It may strike you as American 
 brag when we speak of the Austra- 
 lians also as our neighbors ;• but it 
 is n't. The geographical center of 
 the United States is not near the 
 Mississippi, as so many suppose. 
 ["Hear."] It is not St. Louis, not 
 
The Americans 23 
 
 even Denver, in the Rockies. It is 
 San Francisco. Measure eastward 
 from that lovely harbor on the 
 Pacific to New York, and measure 
 westward to the extremest island 
 belonging to the United States, and 
 you will have traversed about the 
 same distance. [Laughter.] But we 
 would like to be a little more neieh- 
 borly still. We hope that soon, "by 
 and with the consent of the Senate," 
 when the Australian comes sailing 
 eastward home, he may feel that he 
 is at least beginning to reach the 
 estates of some of the family when, 
 in mid-Pacific, the Stars and Stripes 
 wave their welcome to him at 
 
 Honolulu. ["Hear, hear."] 
 
 I am admonished that this toast to 
 the visitors includes the ladies, but 
 5 
 
24 The Colonials and 
 
 some worthier person should re- 
 spond to that, from whose tongue 
 would come more trippingly what 
 we all feel ; and I shall venture but a 
 word about it. We are very proud 
 of the American ladies you are cap- 
 turing and bringing over to Eng- 
 land, but we are also getting a little 
 uneasy. We value your appre- 
 ciation, but we are alarmed at 
 
 your acquisitiveness. ["Hear, hearV'] 
 
 We don't want to spare you so 
 many, and if your conquests con- 
 tinue in the present progressive 
 ratio, the prospect at home grows 
 
 Serious. [Laughter.] 
 
 I venture one word more — as re- 
 spectful as it is sincere. The longest, 
 wisest, most progressive, most pros- 
 perous, and happiest reign in the 
 
The Americans 25 
 
 whole long history of the English 
 monarchy is that of the gracious 
 Lady who now occupies the throne. 
 God keep her there for many, many 
 years yet to come. [Applause.] 
 
From the Speech of 
 
 "THERE WAS A WAR IN AMERICA 
 FOR THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY." 
 
 From the Speech of Sir Wilfrid Lau- 
 rier, Premier of the Dominion of 
 Canada, Hotel Cecil, London, Do- 
 minion Day, June 29, 1897. 
 
 YOU have stated that we share the conti- 
 nent of North America with a great na- 
 tion of kindred race, but with which the rela- 
 tions of England have not always been of the 
 most satisfactory character. Since I have 
 been in England, within the last few days, it 
 seems to me that I have found evidences not 
 a few that there are perhaps in the minds of 
 
Sir Wilfrid Laurier 27 
 
 public men in England, and not only in the 
 minds of public men, but in the minds of 
 the people at large, some apprehensions of a 
 latent sentiment on the part of the American 
 nation not altogether friendly to her mother 
 land. I would say without any hesitation at 
 all that the sentiment which prevails among 
 the American nation is a sentiment of affection 
 and of reverence, though unfortunately there 
 still remain many causes of friction between 
 the two nations. The memories of the unfor- 
 tunate state of things which prevailed under 
 the old regime and which led to the war of 
 independence have not altogether been for- 
 gotten. The rancor created by the war is still 
 living in the minds of the American people. 
 
 This might have been cast away, but unfor- 
 tunately, as we know in our own generation, 
 there was a civil war in America — a civil war 
 waged, I am sure, in the minds of all men to- 
 day, for as noble a cause as ever excited men 
 to fight — for the abolition of slavery; yet it 
 is a matter of history, strange as it may seem 
 to us in these days, that at that period the 
 
2 8 From the Speech of 
 
 sympathies of the civilized world were not in- 
 clined on the side of the cause of freedom. 
 If I may be permitted to speak my own mind 
 — and I do so because what I state here I 
 have often stated in my own country, and I 
 do not know how to flatter — I have always 
 said in Canada that the attitude maintained 
 by England and by Canada was neither worthy 
 of Canada nor of England at that time. But 
 if there were a spirit of friction, rancor, and 
 enmity at work at that time let me say at once 
 that those enmities have been, to a large ex- 
 tent, removed by the conduct of the Queen of 
 England herself. In the worst days of the war, 
 when the opinion was prevalent in the United 
 States of America that the English people 
 were not as friendly to them as they ought 
 to be, the opinion was also prevalent that the 
 heart of the Queen of England was engaged 
 on the side of liberty. In the worst days of 
 the war, in a poem addressed to the English 
 people by the most American of all poets, J. 
 G. Whittier, while reproving England for her 
 want of sympathy with a cause which has al- 
 
Sir Wilfrid Laurier 29 
 
 ways been dear to the heart of Great Britain, 
 he paid this warm tribute to Her Majesty : 
 
 We bow the heart, if not the knee, 
 To England's Queen, God bless her. 
 
 Only a few years later, at the close of the 
 war, when the hand of the assassin struck down 
 the great and wise man who had carried his 
 nation safely through the awful crisis, the 
 Queen herself, then in the first years of her 
 own bereavement, sent a letter of condolence 
 and sympathy to the wife of the martyred 
 President. That letter from a widow to a 
 widow appealed to the American heart. It 
 brought tears to the eyes of strong men; it 
 caused tears to stain the furrowed faces of 
 many veterans. Sir, this letter of the Queen 
 did more to erase the bitterness that had been 
 caused by the attitude of the British people 
 than anything else could possibly have done. 
 There is more. At that time we did not know, 
 as we now do, the history of the diplomacy 
 on this matter, but we know now, thanks to 
 the researches which have been made, that on 
 
30 Speech of Sir Wilfrid Laurier 
 
 a previous occasion — on the occasion of the 
 unfortunate Trent affair — when the sacred 
 soil of England — because her ships are part 
 of her soil — had been invaded by Americans 
 to abstract forcibly from the soil of England 
 men who were guests of England — when the 
 dignity of England forced them to claim back 
 those prisoners — we know that the hand of 
 Her Majesty herself corrected the despatch of 
 her foreign minister and erased every offensive 
 word from it, and left it in such a state that it 
 was possible for the American nation to sur- 
 render without any surrender of dignity. 
 
*MAY 28 WW* 
 
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