ORATION DELIVERED BEFORE THE CITY COUNCIL AND CITIZENS OF BOSTON ON THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY—FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE THURSDAY, JULY 4, 1901 BY CURTIS GUILD, JR B O S T O N MUNICIPAL PRINTING OFFICE 1 9 O 1 SUPREMACY AND ITS CONDITIONS. Mn. l\IA.1*on, FELLOW Crrrznns: The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is devoted by the legend beneath her shield to peace and to law and order‘. We meet to commemorate both avvar and a breach of the peace. Carried beyond restraint by the attempt of a per—- sonally virtuous king to re—establish in both England and America the royal prerogative lost by the elder Charles, a mob of men and boys on a moonlight night in the early Spring of 1770 assaulted a solitary British sentinel pacing his beat on King street in the town of Boston. Goaded beyond endurance by shouts of “Lobsters,” “Bloodybacks,” and more lethal missiles, the sentinel and the nine comrades who rallied to his support fired one volley, and one volley only, on the swarming crowd. At the trial which followed John Adams and Josiah Quincy joined in the defence of the soldiers before a Boston judge and jury. All the accused were acquitted of murder. Two only were convicted A and punished with what in those days was a light penalty for manslaughter. The circumstances viewed in themselves are not especially remarkable. Similar brawls occur in Berlin, in London, in Albany, in‘ Chicago without altering the course of history. Yet 4 ORATION. for over one hundred years, commencing with the oration of James Lovell on March 5, 1771, this deadly street fight, in What Was then the largest town in America, has been commemorated by an annual address on American history, delivered under the auspices of the authorities, first of the town, then of the City of Boston. THE ORIGINAL RESOLUTIONS. In the Boston town meeting, on March 5, 1783, after the delivery of the annual oration on the Bos- ton Massacre, it was moved that instead of its anni- versary, the Fifth of March, that “ The Anniversary of the Fourth Day of July, 1776, ”“ ”“ shall be constantly celebrated by the delivery of a public oration if it if in which the orator shall consider the feelings, manners and principles which led to this great National event, as Well as the important and happy effects, Whether general or domestic, which have already, and will forever continue to flow from this auspicious epoch.” The first Fourth of July oration delivered in ac- cordance With this motion, which was later adopted, was pronounced by Dr. John Warren, July 4, 1783. The honor of serving as the first orator of the Nineteenth Century was given to Charles, the gifted son of Robert Treat Paine, so soon afterwards cut off in the very flovver of promise. It is no small privilege to be permitted to stand in the first year of the Twentieth Century here in Faneuil Hall, FOURTH or JULY, 1901. 5 where my kinsman stood a hundred years ago, and if I fail to carryout the noble purpose of the ancient custom may I at least say as he Wrote to the Boston Selectmen of his day, “I trust my im- perfect performance Will find an apology in the purity of my intentions.” MASSACHUSETTS FOUNDS THE NATION. Sismondi, in his introduction to his great history of the Italian Republics, sets forth at the outset that “One of the most important conclusions to be drawn from the study of history is that govern- ment is the most effective cause of a people’s char- acter ”“ ”" that government preserves or anni- hilates in those submitted to it those qualities which originally are the common heritage of man.” If this be but another Way of denying that mere race or natural surroundings are the moving cause of a nation’s progress, What community has more reason to join in grateful memory of its inheritance than the City of Boston, than the Commonwealth of Massachusetts? The Boston Massacre may have been but a street mob, but with the removal of British soldiers from King Street to Castle William there Was removed also the principle that an Eng- lish King had the right to quarter troops in an American city Without the consent of its inhabi- tants. Not Without reason Was Massachusetts singled out from all the colonies for especial punishment. New York broke her agreement in regard to impor- 6 ORATION. ‘tations from the mother country, Bhode Island and New Hampshire broke theirs. Delaware and New York. did not vote on the question of National In- dependence. South Carolina and Pennsylvania voted against it. Massachusetts stood first, as Virginia most certainly stood second, in enduring determina- tion that neither bribes, concessions nor privileges should secure from her citizens consent to be taxed by the voice of any government but one of their own choosing. That the colonies ever did unite is extraordinary. Up to the Revolution it had never been possible, even when threatened by annihilation by Indians and French, to secure united action from the vari- ous colonies for the common good. Boston and Massachusetts declined to contribute one shilling or one soldier to preserve the settlers in other colonies from the tomahavvk of Pontiac. Colonies that did not feel themselves the pressure of the Molasses Act or the Boston Port Bill were similarly slow to come to the rescue of Massachusetts. Yet somehow, tlianks to the steady education of public opinion, neither by making taxed goods cheaper than un— taxed, nor by conferring the Government patronage of the Stamp Act on Americans. alone, nor even by force of arms, was a British Parliament or a British King able to collect money in Massachusetts by any means that did not include the consent of those Who contributed, or to prevent the union of the thir~— teen colonies. FOURTH or JULY, 1901. 7 INDEPENDENCE NOT FOUNDED ON IMPULSE. It is the judgment of tlie English historian, Leclcy, as to the colonies and there are many who will agree with him ---—-that “The movement which at last arrayed them in a united front against England was not a blind,_ instinctive patriotism or community of sentiment like that Which animates old countries. It was the deliberate calculation of intelligent men, who perceived that by such union alone, could they obtain the objects of their desire.” Among such Americans Bostonians have a noble place. It was Benjamin Franklin Who urged, in the Albany Plan, the union of all the colonies for the common defence. It Was James Otis who, springing to leadership With his denunciation of_ the blanket Warrants that left no Warehouse, no home sacred from the just or unjust search of the Custom House officer, steadily pleaded year after year for permanent prin- ciple rather than present advantage. It Was John ~Hancock Who not only risked fortune but faced the felon’s rope that he might preside in turn over con- ference, convention and Congress. Finally, the very author of resistance, the “Father of the Revolution,” the busy patriot whose brain framed the conception of committees of correspondence for Massaclmsetts, which Were to expand into committees of corre- spondence for the colonies and finally into the Conti- nental Congress; the statesman Whose advice in the 8 ORATION. debate over the Declaration of Independence Was, “ I should advise persisting in our struggle for liberty though it Were revealed from heaven that nine hun- dren and ninety-nine Were to perish and one out of a thousand Were to survive and retain his liberty”; the American Wl10 sought no rank: for himself but the first rank for his country was Samuel Adams of Boston. OUR PRESENT STATE FORESEEN. The future of the United States, the results that have since flown from the “auspicious epoch” of American Independence, were foreseen, and by some even before independence itself was a fact. Forty years before the first gathering of American states- men in Philadelphia the Marquis d’Argenson, foreign minister of Louis XV., described not only the United States of a hundred years ago but the United States of to-day. George VVashington, too, viewing almost with inspired eye the stress and trials yet to come, urged upon his fellow-countrymen in his will some plan “ which would have a tendency to spread syste- matic ideas through all parts of this rising empire, thereby to do away with local attachments and State prejudices, as far as the nature of things would or indeed ought to admit, from our National Councils.” The inspiring principles of the epoch laid the axe to the root of the upas tree of feudalism in France. They inspired, as George III. foresaw they would FOURTH OF JULY, 1901. 9 inspire, the Reform Bill in England. They led Kossuth in his struggle for an independent Hungary, and cheered the Clark hours of Garibaldi with hopes of a united Italy. T The Words in which those principles have been ex- pressed have been found too, alas, in the mouth of every demagogue who has since sought to establish a dictatorship or an oligarchy on the ruins of law and order from Maximilien Robespierre in France to Juan Gualberto Gomez in Cuba. TIIE TWENTIETH CENTURY UNITED STATES. With the opening of the new century We have entered upon the inheritance promised us over one hundred and fifty years ago by the minister of the most absolute despot of his time, but in the spirit, let us hope, of the first republican of modern times. The dream of the great minister of Louis Zc Bien- cr1I972.c’a has been more than realized, and With a speed that in the light of history may Well stimulate, if not apprehension, at least caution among such Amer- icans as are eager not so much for brilliant achieve- ment as for enduring success. Not with the ordered march of a great star, but with the headlong rush of a comet, have We risen not merely to the ranks of the Great Powers but to that dominant position that can be challenged alone by a coalition of the Nations. 10 ORATION. Not until five hundred years after the date set for the foundation of Rome did the Roman Republic rise as a World power upon the ruins of Carthage. The first German Emperor was not crowned till eight hundred years had rolled by after the victory of Arminius checked the advance of Rome beyond the Rhine. Not till six hundred years after Seinpach did England, Cro1nWell’s England, sit at the board of the masters in the councils of Europe, and half a thousand years drenched unhappy Italy with tears and blood before Giuseppe Garibaldi succeeded Where Cola di Rienzi had failed. We have crushed the Work of six centuries into one. England sought to oppress us. We obtained our freedom. France seized our merchantmen. We became a “naval power. The Barbary States de- manded blackmail, and piracy vanished from the Mediterranean in the smoke of Decatu.r’s guns. Eng- land sought to press our seamen. We seized from her the freedom of the seas. Mexico tried to sub- ject Texas. She lost California. A State made in- dependent of England in spite of its own vote, fired upon the emblem of the Union at Sumter, and from the ashes of the old Federation of South Carolina and her sister States there rose up at Appomattox a united Nation. Spain forgot that the American people, slow to anger, will never endure the murder of those who serve beneath our colors, and to the Spanish islands of the sea have gone the free Amer» FOURTH or JULY, 1901. 11 ican election, the free American public school, tl1e fruit, the seed of modern civilization. The aged fingers of the dying century seize the stylus to record as the last startling deed of the world’s most startling hundred years, the partition of the great Empire of the East among the great Powers of the West. The stylus falls. The Powers have paused. Diplomacy no longer masks destruc- tion. A new century grasps the tablets, and above the guiding hand that writes, there bends a new face, child’s no longer, calm with the serene strength that seeks for peace but fears not war—-—--the United States of America. A cENTURY’s rnoenuss. A The United States that VVashington left was an undeveloped Federation of jealous, almost of incon- gruous States. The United States that Lincoln left was a N aticn fused in the crucible of war, but with resources undeveloped and with few responsibilities beyond its own borders. The United States of McKinley is one of the Powers of Earth with the destiny of Nations in its grasp, and with a respon- sibility not to itself alone but to the Greater Power that has made it great. Barely a century ago Franklin was seeking the alliance of France to aid us against a single Euro- pean nation. New Europe seeks the coalition of a Continent against the supreme influence of the 12 . ORATION. United States. Five years ago Massachusetts manu- facturers were" asking protection against European goods in the United States. To-day, the Vienna Chamber of Commerce asks that the sale of Massa- chusetts shoes be prohibited in Austria. Russia has passed the United States as a producer of petroleum but we surpass all other nations in the production of cotton, of corn, of wheat, of cop- per, of iron, of coal. No nation surpasses us now as a manufacturer of iron or copper or leather, and we are passing England as a manufacturer of wool and cotton and France as a manufacturer of silk. The little nation of farmers and fishermen, so barren of industries that they fought their first pitched battle with British guns and French powder, has become the greatest industrial, the greatest com- mercial, but, alas, not yet the greatest maritime nation in the world. For the first time in this first year of the Twentieth Century it is possible to say that no other nation excels or equals the United States in exports. The exports of A_merican manu- factured products alone are more than the entire exports of Austro—Hungary, Belgium, Italy or Russia. The nations of the East who sold ‘cotton textiles to the fathers have become the customers of the sons. American shoes tramp the “back blocks ” of Austra- lia, American bicycles spin across the sun-baked plains of South Africa, American reaping machines rattle across. the pampas of South America, Ameri— FOURTH or JULY, 1901. 13 can rails traverse the steppes of Asia, American trolley cars whiz beneath the shadows of the Par- thenon, American hardware fills the markets cf Ger1’nany, Aniiericaii bridges span 5 the swamps of Burinali, Ainerican-built cruisers fly the blue saltire of Russia in the Very face of The Czar’s Window, American telephones convey the bargains, the hopes, the aspirations of liuniaiiity to the uttermost ends of the earth. 'l‘I6IE oo‘UN"rn'i*’s cnnnrr. The first I’resident of the Republic in his second 1ilbx.li1esszLge to Congress CO11.gL‘£tbL1lziLi3@d our Well-nigh creditless nation that a loan of three million florins had been secured in Holland. Europe now floats her securities in the VVestern Republic, which, in spite of a pension list enormously exceeding the cost of the war establishments of Europe, has a National debt smaller than that of any Great Power and a per capita debt smaller than that of any nation in . the World except Mexico, Japan and India. In the last generation, the last thirty years of the Nineteenth Century, the Latin American nations have increased their indebtedness fifty per cent., the Continental nations of Europe one hundred per cent, those of Asia two hundred per cent., the British colonies, except India, four hundred per cent. Two great nations only reduced their indebtedness in that period. The United Kingdom reduced its National 14 ORATION. debt twenty-five per cent. The United States re» duced its National debt fifty per cent. Not Without reason does American credit head the list. Not Without reason does London Wait upon New York. Not without reason can We claim, at last, by the test of finance as Well as by that of industry and commerce, the leadership of the World. DEVELOP OR DIE. Alexander, sighing for more W01"‘lClS‘ to conquer, had his antithesis in the blessed Michael, sometime Seigneur de Montaigne, Who, in his essay on Vanity, quotes with approval the lines of a Worthy gossip: ’“ Ayme l’estat tel que tu le vois estre. S’il est royal ayme la royauté, S’il est de peu, on bien communauté Ayme Paussi, car Dieu t’y a facit naistre.” Unhappily the World will not stand still. VVe can- not return to the isolated little nation that our fathers left us or to the political conditions of our infancy, and much as We may love the exact goV- ernmental setting and usage to which We were born We must either develop or die. We may cordially agree with Macaulay that “Mere extent of empire is not necessarily an advantage.” We may even say of the alien peoples Whom the new century has placed upon the lap of the United States, as Macaulay said of the people of India, “ It FOUI:?.TII or JULY, 1901. ‘ 15 were liar better that these people were well governed and independent of us than ill—-governed and subject to us.” Yet witli India in his day, as with the Philippines, as with Porto Rico in ours, that alternative is not possible. India, loosed from English leading strings, would have lapsed again into the perpetual condition of pestilence, Warfare, unrelieved famine‘, infant sacrifice ancgl private murder that existed before the English came. Porto Rico, Without the restraining hand of an American governor, would have already baiikrupted its credit to pay the private debts of its coffee planters. Cuba would have followed Lacret into slough of corruption with his plans for a Cubaii navy of sixty vessels and a huge staff of highly salaried adinirals. Luzon ere this Would have been Well on the Way to the present condition of Iiztyti with Aguinaldo in the riile of Dessalines. Recognizing the dangers, recognizing the perils, recognizing the risks and the burdens that Would follow, the greatest of E1'lgl.l.Sl1 essayists in the great speech from which I h.ave quoted, predicted upon the floor of the Hoiise of Commons that England would not sliirk her duty in India. We shall not shirk our duty in the Philippines. VVe are asked to abandon them because the task of lifting them up from ignorance and slavery does not pay. We are asked to follow the easy path of leaving them to their own devices. That course 1 ORATION. was once adopted in the West Indies in regard to a people nominally as Christian as the Tagalogs and to the awful horrors of outrage and massacre of all whites, regardless of age or sex, there has succeeded a century’s carnival of robbery, lust and murder. Leaders with a superficial education, a superficial acceptance of the Christian religion, but untrained in restraint or self-government and suddenly left to . themselves have brought the richest district of the Antilles back to the conditions of the jungle. Mar- tial law, oligarchy, republic, empire, kingdom and dictatorship have succeeded each other in a whirling round of delirium until almost within sight of the coast of Florida there exists to-day not merely the pathless wilderness, but the snake worship and can- nibal sacrifices of West Africa. Our withdrawal from the Philippines would not mean the establishing of a second United States. It would be criminal to permit the existence of a second Hayti. The lions in our path are many. The Supreme Court has disposed of one. VVe have the constitu- tional power to govern Porto Rico or the Philippines as we have for years governed Alaska. We have not been particularly successful in hand- ling the Indian race within our borders. The Indian has passed through a process not so much of assimi- lation as of deglutition. We have as yet failed in our attempt to establish equal social and political rights for the Negro, and we liave frankly run away from the Chinaman as a domestic problem. FOURTH or JULY, 1901. 17 To say that a problem is diffieult, however, is not to say it is impossible. VVe have failed to induce most Indians and Esquimaux to become other than wild men. We have not failed in governing Alaska. We have failed to set the Negro by the side of the white man, but we have raised him immeasurably above the level of the slave. ‘ American rule in the tropics has not meant their translation to the Seventh Heaven, but at least it has meant that the world for the first time is free from yellow fever. It has meant law and order. It has meant, too, the only measure of self-government those lands have ever known. OUR COLONIAL EXPERIMENTS. Two years ago we inherited two island dominions and entered temporarily upon the occupation of another. Neither Cuba, Porto Rico nor the Philip»- pines were completely civilized. A band of organized bandits roamed in Porto Rico, Cuba had never known what it was to be free of roving guerillas, and every traveller’s letter on the Philippines expressly stated that the Spaniards were masters only of the towns, and not of the lawless savages of the interior. ’Corruption masqueraded as government, the great mass of the people were hopelessly ignorant, yellow fever and leprosy grinned from century—old deposits of filth, and the grossest immorality was the com- monplace of life. To such conditions has the United States applied not “experience, but good will and 18 ORATION. common sense. Six years after Yorktown we managed to organize a United States. It is but three years since Santiago. They have not been without results. The population of the American colonies was well educated, accustomed to local self-government, and, if not rich, at least in comfortable circumstances. A Swedish traveller in the British colonies in iAmer- ica, in the middle of the eighteenth century, notes with surprise that he has journeyed twelve hundred miles without meeting a beggar. . The population of our new possessions is almost wholly illiterate, and in large part to be compared not to the men who planned the American Revolu- tion, but to the slaves of the South, to whom July 4th brought no message of freedom, and to the - “ Indians not taxed ” of the West, who were expressly excluded from the rights of citizenship in Wasl1i11g- ton’s Constitution as they are to-day in ours. Yet we in this latter day have extended, and, with God’s help, propose still further to extend even to such as our fathers excluded from freedom, a steadily in- creasing measure of those blessings for which our fathers fought, but which they themselves denied even to men of the race of Crispus Attucks and Peter Salem. Porto Rico has an organized government, accepted with enthusiasm by a vast majority of her voters in the first election ever held on the island. Cuba is forming her own government in an island already freed from ignorance, filth, pestilence and famine. rovers: or JULY, 1901. 19 Local self-governinent has been set up in the Philip- pines and law and order established in districts where for centuries the bolo kept What the bolo won. The roving robber has for the first time in three hundred years been stamped out in the Spanish \Vest Indies, and if he has not yet disappeared from the Philippines it may at least be said that Ameri- can law and order has been extended further than ever did that of Spain. The United States has gained in exports to these islands, it is true, but they have gained also in e:~;po.rts to the United States. Their sales to us to-day annually out-Value our sales to them, and by niillions of dollars. The islands have cominercially ixifiriitely more to gain from us than We have to gain froin thcnii by a union of our interests. In all these islands peculation has been followed by p1;u1isln'n.ent, education has gone to the ignorant, l,;1.ospitals have risen for the diseased, sanitation has cleansed the pestilence, honesty has put to flight corruption and justice has supplanted bribery. THE OOLONIES or EUROPE. The population of the WOI‘lCl is increasing, and it is as absurd to contend that great fertile sections of the habitable globe should remain savage or revert to savagery as it is to bevvail the fact that in another century the lion and the giraffe will be extinct. The history of our dealings ovvith the 20 ORATION. Indians is not altogether a pleasant history, but Who will claim that the World as a whole a would be better off today» if the White man had been permanently excluded from tl1e great food raising districts which the Indian vvrested from Skraeling or Mound Builder? . It is unquestionably better for the World that the French flag flies in Algiers. T The Dutch have been brilliantly successful in handling tropical colonies W With a population seven times that of the mother country. The thriving colonies of England girdle the earth and, With few exceptions, for the benefit of the World as Well as of England. Is it manly for a nation that boasts its domi- nance over Europe to shrink from the task of Europeans‘? If Japan can succeed in Formosa, shall the United States fail in Luzon? Whether it please us or not the task is ours. Whether it please us or not the peace of the World is partly in our keeping. . The leadership of the United States may Well lift up the heart, its awful responsibility may Well bend the knee. Not Tagalogs in arms, not the navies of Europe, but the recklessness, the greed, the treachery of her own sons may yet send this great nation staggering to its ruin. V The conquest to which We have to set our faces is the conquest not of Weaker races but the conquest FOURTH or JULY, 1901. 21 of ourselves. It needs no Cassandra to prophesy a downfall as swift as our upbuilding; if the idols of hypocrisy, of patronage, of commercialism reek longer with the smoke of sacrifice in our market places. The economy that starves a consular to glut a con- gress district, the system that too often entrusts our commerce, our honor in foreign lands, to men untrained in languages or law, save the language of the lobby and the law of compensation, the commer- cialism that has made the profits of the counting- room blot out the duties of the caucus: these are the avexigiiig furies that yet may whip us to destruction. Talilé expansion of our territories abroad accords but ill with the contraction of the merit system at home. VVitl1 cheerful inconsistency We eXl‘1ibit our gootls to the South American nations in an inter~ national exposition, While to compete with the well paid e;~§perts who manage the business of Europe in Latin America We send untrained men with salaries too low to secure good service but too liigli for such as is given. EXTEND CIVIL snnvion nsronm. It will be well indeed if this new and mighty task that has been put upon our shoulders forces us to establish our civil service, forces us to establish our consular service upon a sounder basis than mere political favoritism, and forces the United States to 22 ORATION. pay its public servants salaries commensurate with the labors imposed upon them, that the best blood and brains of the United States may not be drawn from public service by the greater rewards of private life. . Allen, Wood, Taft, three men that will forever be associated with high desert. in American public life, have every one been forced to make a sacrifice before which this rich and prosperous country should hang its head in shame. The Governor of British Guiana, with a population of three hundred thou- sand, receives a salary of $24,000 a year. The Governor of Porto Rico, with a population of a mil-- lion, receives asalary of $8,000 a year. European nations make the diplomatic, the civil, the colonial service attractive with a secure tenure of office dependent only on good behavior, and offer pensions for a life spent in the public service. Holland governs Java in peace, order and prosperity, with a Viceroy wielding absolute power and residents representing him by the side of the native rajahs, France admits colonial representatives to her legisla- tive chamber in Paris, England varies. her system from practical independence to benevolent despotism, according to race and conditions. The systems of the nations dififer, but the men active in each are sub- jected to rigid examinations, are promoted from grade to grade, are not subject to the whirling winds of party politics. rorriirrri or JULY, 1901. 23 Tim clerk in a French coijisulate becomes sub- consul at a small 1f)0I‘t in China, consul at Boston, <3l1::1.rgé d’afEaires at VVasl1ingto11. The district 1:r1a.g- :istrate on a British rock. in the West Indies becomes cc:..>lon.ial secretary of Bermuda, colonial secretary of (}ibi-altar, colonial secretary of Guiana, governor of Guiana, anti ends his career with the accolade of knigle1tl:1oocl on his shoulders and the order of St. Michael and St. George on his breast. I quote actual and not extraordinary cases in the diplomatic service of France, in the colonial service of: G"1‘GZLi3 Britain. TlJ:1e educated youth of France, of Germany, of Holland, most of all of England, sees in the foreign, the diplomatic service, enormous possibilities for a por1na1::ient career in life with promotion for merit and an old age secure from Want. There is not an empire in Europe in which the l'1igl1est diplomatic 172iL1‘t1l{iS necessarily barred to the poor in purse. The only iiatioil in the World whose niggardly salaries fail to meet the ordinary and necessary expenses of an aml:)assador., the only nation that simply cannot be represented by a poor man at the great courts of lf+3urope, is the United States of America. THE PERILS OF oo1\IMEnoIALIsM. It is a terrible code that teaches that money rn_aking* is the cliiief end of man and that success in the acquisition of Wealth is to be the first condition ‘Z4 ORATION. of high public office. It is Well to call a Warning when above the cry from pulpit and platform “ Is it right” there comes with increasing frequency the murmur of the exchanges “Will it pay?” The opportunities for money-making under our flag are so vast that those who avail themselves of them ’ are too prone to forget that flag and opportunities alike exist only because some Americans remember that above the privileges of American Wealth are the duties of American citizenship. One hundred years ago the young Boston orator, born in the same year as the Republic, Warned his hearers in this hall of the perils of commercialism. I can conceive to-day no more hideous betrayal of the first principles of American manhood than the advice to young men publicly given by the president of the gigantic steel corporation that is controlling the industry of the World. It is a melancholy comment on our civilization that the poor boy who has risen under its institu- tions to the head of the World’s greatest industrial organization has, in the hour of his success, no better Word to his fellows than a cynical hint to eschew the higher education and to leave the school for the Work-bench, if possible, in child- hood. “Education is useless,” he cries, “unless it can be coined.” Literature, music, art, history and philos- ophy have never a word for him. There is no money FOURTII OF JULY, 1901. 2 L5‘! in them. The lofty impulse Whicli thrusts the re- form.er into public life, the soldier into battle, that in losing all he may help his country, finds no echo in this latest product of American civilization, to whom Brutus is a fool and Iago a prophet. Twice in history has supreme power been giveii to a nation that has made a god of riches, once to C&5bI‘i3l.il2:l»g‘G, once to Spain. The great merchant pri1;1ce.s of Ca.1*tl1age were ready that Hannibal and his mercenaries should fight their battles. They, too, dei:[ied the education of the counting-liouse. They, too, hired from abroad their poets and soldiers and mu- sicians and artists and lived but that they might accu- mulate the means of l1iring--—~and the dust of the desert is their monument and the record of their destru.cti.o11 their only title to a page in history. The discovery of a new continent opened a Golconda to Spain. Neither torture nor slavery was forbidden to the adventurer who so11gl’1t to fill his purse; the “ack and the stake awaited the student Who d.ared to fill his mind. Yet the Very riches of her galleons taught Spain’s sea foes how to fight her, and at the bottom of her l’a:nclora box, emptied alike of goods and glory, she found at last not hope, but the mere memory of pride. REFORM THE SYSTEM. We pride ourselves, and with reason, that We have faced these new problems not as partisans but as 26 ORATION. Americans. We rejoice that a policy that prefers natives to Americans and that has made a coin- mencement of a sound civil service system has so far controlled affairs in our new possessions. We rejoice that in China the United States means Rockhill and Chaffee, that in the Philippines it means Taft and McArthur, that in Porto Rico it means Charles Allen, and in Cuba Leonard Wood. It is not enough that this President has trusted the task to such men; no American that loves his country can rest content till the civil service, the consular service, the diplomatic corps of the United States is set upon so stable a foundation that no President can appoint any but such men. It is not enough that a good President may set a Bliss in an Havana Custom House. The day must come when no bad system can set a Neeley in an Havana Post Office. The duties of a Great Power demand the instant abolition of an Eighteenth Century system in which influence can force bad appointments, or, what is infinitely more common, secure even under the civil service law the promotion of those least fit to rise. Commercialism and partisan patronage have been enormously increased by the very same forces that have made us great. We must destroy them, or they will destroy us. It is not true, however, that to be patriotic a nation must necessarily be poor, nor that with riches there invariably must come degeneracy. FOURTH or JULY, 1901. 27 Rome was already rich when law and civilization spread over the World with her legions. Freedom first arose after her sleep in the Middle Ages not among the poor peasants in the fields, but among the rich burghers in the towns. They were men of substance Who stood up for freedom in Italy, in Flanders, in the Hanseatic League. The most des- perate and triumphant resistance to civil and relig- ious slavery in the whole history of the World was . made by the thriving merchants and handicraftsmen of the Netherlands, and the last stand for feudal despotism and the divine right of kings was made by the barefooted scythemen of Brittany and the ragged swordsmen of the Scottish clans. It is Well to know our strength, it is better to know our Weakness, it is best, knowing both, to make our Weakness strong. Nations, like men, become great not by difficulties avoided but by difficulties overcome, and the spell that overcomes them is neither riches nor poverty, but sacrifice. PROGRESS BY SACRIFICE. There is not a mighty viaduct, not a great cathe- dral, not a line of rails traced across the stretches of veldt or steppe or prairie that has not Moloch- like demanded the tribute of human life. The spread of civilization demands no less. That the many may rejoice the few must suffer. There will be, as there have been, demands from some for 28 ORATION. the sacrifice of wealth, comfort, ambition, livelihood, of human life itself. The Egyptian no died, but he left the pyramids be- hind him. The Phoenician died, but he left to the . world the alphabet and navigation. The Greek died, but poetry and philosophy blossomed where he had striven. The Roman died, but the Barbarian who slew him could not shake that mighty fabric of law that was to be the basis of social order. The Swede and the German died, but in the murky smoke of thirty years of battle there was kindled the pure white fire of religious liberty. The French- man died, but beneath his heroic corpse lay the dead feudal system, never to rise again. The Englishman has died, but the wastes of Australia and Manitoba yield food to the hungry of Europe, the inonsters of the Ganges no longer feed on helpless children, the girl widow no longer dies in torment on the funeral pyre, and the haunts of the Thug, the Dacoit and the tiger have become the highways of commerce and the field of the l1usbandman’spincrease. The torch of civilization is in our hands. Do we fear the sparks and smoke, T’ or shall we bear on the message? Difficulty? Yes. Danger? Yes. Death? Perhaps. It needs not that the American Republic should became an imperial Rome, but at the worst it were better to die as Rome than to liveas. Capua. Not with eyes cast down to the shadows at their feet did our fathers meet their trials. Let us set, like them, our faces toward the morning. flbgy kw FOURTH or JULY, 1901. 29 Not /‘after the trials of the Civil War «ale-He, but after every trial, may We lift our hearts with Lowell in hope as in l3l1EL1Z1l{Sg'lVl11g: V ~’-‘ Oh Beautiful! my Country! ours once more! Smoothing thy gold of war-dishevelled hair O’er such sweet brows as never other wore, And letting thy set lips, Freed from wratlfs pale eclipse, The rosy edges of their smile lay bare. VVhat Words divine of lover or of poet Can tell our love and make thee knovv it, Among the nations bright beyond compare? _ Whztt were our lives without thee? What all our lives to save thee? We reek not What We gave thee, VVe will not dare to doubt thee, But ask whatever else and We will dare.” A LIST OF BOSTON MUNICIPAL ORATORS. --—.—.—-nu.-.........—.m—...._...-.-—.u..-.- BY C. VV. ERNST. BOSTON ORATORS AP£>0IN'rEn BY THE I\IUNICIPA.1‘. AUTHORITIES. For the A92.9’?.i'?J6TS(I?'3/ of the 1>’0.s-ztcm fllassacre, .Zl[c:c7*c}2. 5, 1770. NOTE‘. --- '1‘he ZE‘i:1‘th—of.1\:Ia1~c11 orntions were pulilielxod in h:u:1dsome quarto editions, now very ecztrce; also collected in book form in 1785, 21.1141 again in 1807. The oration of 1776 was delivered in Wzttcrtown. 1 771 . —-—-- LOVELL, JAMES. 1 7 7 2 . -~——- VVARREN, JosE1>11.9 1 773. ~--———- CIIURCII, BENJAMIN. " 17 74.. ---~ I~LxNooc1r., .IoII1~I.‘”’ 1 775. -— VVARREN, Josmrn. 1 776 . —-—— TIIAOIIER, PETER. 1 7 77. --~--— Hxcmsoim, BENJAMIN. 1 7 78. ~--—— AUS'I.‘IN, JONA’I‘I:IA.N VVILLIAMS. 1 7 7 9. -~--- TU]‘.')(§)R, VVII.1;I.«.M. 17.50. —--—-MASON, JON'A'.1‘.I:1.A.N, JUN. 17 81 . ---— I)Aw.I«:s, TI::If(",)MAS, J UN. 17 —-- 1\IrNo'r, G120}-we R1<;:zmmI>s. 1 7 83. —— \V1«:Lsu, THOMAS. F09" the An9m've9'scm'3/ of Natioazctl 13z(Ze}.9c29'2,(Zea‘zce, Ji..11ento<1 edition, or :1. full collection, of these o.1':Ltions has not been matte. For the 1.i.'un<.-..e of the or:Ltm_-s, as c>11i.«;iztIly pi-ixited on the title pages of the ()1‘ftti()l.1S, see the Munioip:11 oltog-iste1' of 1.890. 17 83. —-—-——~ 1V..um1:N, JOHN.‘ 17 84. —— I~IIcm;>.o1=s:N, BENJAMIN. 1785. ——- GrARI)NER, JOHN. a Reprinted in Newport, 12.1., 1774, 8Vo., 19 pp. 1oA. third edition wax-:-s pilblislieci. in 1773. _ 1 Repi-in ted in iW:1.rren’e Life. '.[‘ho omtions M71783 to 1786 were pub]_1ehec1_in large qtmrto; the oration of 1.787 appezxred in octztvo; the omtion of 1788wzL531:»r1nted1’11 small quartoall succeeding orzitions appeared in octzwo, with the exceptions stated under 1863 an‘ 1876. 34 APPENDIX. 1786. —--.AUs'1:IN, J ONATIIAN LOR.IN(3‘r.. 1787. -— DAWES, THOMAS, JUN. 1 788. ---— OTIS, I~IAR1usoN GRAY. 1789. -~—- STILLMAN, SAMUEL. 1790. —— GEAY, EDWARD. 179 1 . ---——— CRAFTS, 'I‘12-IOMAS, JUN. 1792 . —-—-—- BLAKE, JOSEl?I-I, JUN.“ 1793 . —- ADAMS, J OHN Q,'UliNCY.2 17 94.. —— PHILI.I.l?S, JOHN. 1795. --—BLAKE, GEORGE. 1796 . —— LATHEOP, J OEN, JUN. 1 797. —~——— CALLENDER, JOHN. 1798. —-— QUINCY, 11JosIAI:L2’ 3 1799. --——LoWELL, JOHN, JUN.2 1800. ~——- HALL, JOSEPH. 1801. ---«-~ PAINE, CI-IAE.LEs. 1802. ——-~—-— EMERSON, VVILLIAM. 1803. —— SULLIVAN, VVILLIAM. 1804. —-~ DANFORTH, TI':lOMAS.2 1805. -—— DUTTON, WARREN. 1806. —— CHANNING, FRANCIS DANA} 1807. ---—- THACIIER, PE'l‘ER.2’ 5 1808. —— RITCHIE, ANDREW, JUN?‘ 1809. — TUDOE, VVILLIAM, JUN.2 1810. —-~—- TOWNSEND, ALEXANDER. 1811. -—— SAVAGE, JAMES.2 1812. —— POLLAED, BENJAMINX‘ 1813. —-— LIVERMORE, EDWARD ST. LOE. 9Passed to a second edition. 3 Delivered another oration in 1326. Quim.-.y’s oration of 1708 was reprinted, also, in Philadelphia. 4 Not printed. 5011 February 26, 1811, Peter '.I‘haol1er’s name was changed to Peter Oxenbridge Thacher. A (List of Persons Whose Names have been Changed in Massachusetts, 1780- 1892, p. 21.) APPENDIX. 3 5 1 814. — WEITWELL, BENJAMIN. 1815. -—-~ SHAW, LEMUEL. 1816. -—-~ SULLIVAN, GrEORGrE.2 1817. —- CHANNING, EDWARD TYRREL. 1818. -——— GRAY, FRANCIS CALLEY. 1819. -——— DEXTER, FRANKLIN. 1820. —— LYMAN, THEODORE, JUN. 1821. ---LORING, CHARLES GrREELY.2 1822. --—- GRAY, JOHN CIIIRMAN. 1823.-«-——CURTIs, CHARLES PELI~IAM.2 1824. —-- BASSETT, FRANCIS. 1825. —-— SPRAGUE, CHARLES.“ 1826. -~-—— QUINCY, JOSIAEL7 V 182 7.»-——»-MASON, ‘WILLIAM POWELL. 1828. -—-— SUMNER, BRADFORD. 1829. ~——-— AUSTIN, JAMES TRECOTHICK. 1830. ---EVERETT, ALEXANDER HILL. 1831. —— PALFREY, JOHN GORHAM. 1832. ————-QUINCY, JOSIAH, JUN. 1833. ——-—PREsOo'm:, EDWARD GOLDSEOROUGH. 1834. -—-FAY, RICHARD SULLIVAN. 1835. ————HI:LLARD, GEORGE STILLMAN. 1836. -—K1NSMAN, HENRY WILLIS. 1837. —— CI-IAPMAN, JONATHAN. I 1838. -—WINsLOW, HUREARD. “ The Means of the Per- petuity and Prosperity of our Republic.” 1839. —--AUSTIN, IVERS JAMES. 1840. -—-——~ POWER, THOMAS. 1841. ~————CURTIS, GEORGE TICKNOIL8 “The True Uses Of American Revolutionary History. ’ ’ 8 1842. -—- MANN, HORACE.” 6 Six editions up to 1831. Reprinted also in his Life and Letters. 7 Reprinted in his Municipal History of Boston. See 1798. 8 Delivered another oration in 1862. 9 There are five or more editions; only one by the City. 86 APPENDIX. 1848. --—.ADAMS, CHARLES FRANCIS. 1844.—-— CHANDLER, PELEG W'Er.rM.m-. “ The Morals of Freedom. ’ ’ ' 1845. ———— SUMNER, CI~1.A_RLEs.1° “ The True Grandeur of Nations.” 1846. -—— WEBSTER, FLETCHER. 1847. —-—-CARY, THoiwrA.s GREAVES. 1848. -~——— GILES, JOEL. “ Precticel Liberty.” 1849. -GREENOUGH, W'ILLIAM VVHITWELL. queriug Republic. ’ ’ “ The Con» 1850. —-— WHIPPLE, EDWIN PERCY.“ “ ‘Washington and the Principles of the Revolution.” 1851. -——RUssELL, CHARLES THEODORE. 1852. -KING, THOMAS STARR.” “The Organization of Liberty on the Western Continent.”19 1853. -——— BIGELOW, TIMo'rI1Y.13 1854. ~-——— STONE, ANDREW LEETE.2 American History.” 1855.——MINER, ALONZO AMES. 1856. -—-PARKER, EDVVARD GrRiEE1N. ’76 to the Men of ’56.” 1857 .—-—~ALoER, ‘WILLLRM ROUNSEVILLE.“ and Posture of America.” 1858. -—-—-I-IOLMES, JOHN SoMERs.‘*’ 1859. —-——— SUMNER, GEORGE.” 1860. —— EVERETT, EDWARD. “The Struggles of “ The Lesson of “ The Genius 1861. —— PARSONS, TI~IEOPI;I,ILUS. 1862. —— CURTIS, GEORGE T1cKRoR.? 1863. ————HoI.MEs, OLIVER VVENDELL.” 1864. -——-RUSSELL, THOMAS. 10 Passed through three editions in Boston and one in London, and was answered in a pamphlet, Remarks upon an Oration delivered by Clwrles Sumner . . . . July 4th,1845. By a Citizen of Boston. See Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, by Edward L. Pierce, vol. ii. 337-384. 11 There is a second edition. (Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 1850. 49 pp. 120.) 19 First published by the City in 1892. 1 13 Thiszmd R number of the succeeding orations, up to 1861, contain the speeches, toasts, etc., of the City dinner usually given in Faneuil 1313.11 on the Fourth of July. APPENDIX. 37 1865. ~—MANNING, J ACOB MERRILL. “ Peace under Liberty. ’ ’ 2 1866. ——~Lo:mROr, SAMUEL IQRKLAND. 1867. --—-I‘IEPWORTI-I, GEORGE HUGHES. 1868. ----ELIOT, SAMUEL. “ The Functions of :3. City.” 1869. ——-—- MORTON, ELLIS WEsLE1'. 1870 . ---EVE1"tETT, VVILLIAM. 1871. --~SAl:“tGENT, I-IORAOE BINNEY. 1872. -—.A.DAMS, CIIARLES Fl“tANCI'S, JUN. 1873. ———-VVARE, J OI-IN FOTII”E1’t(}I.LL VVATERHOUSE. 1 8 7 4. -——-~— FROTIII NGH AM, RICHARD . 1875. —--CLA.RKE, J AMES FREEMAN. “ Worth of Republi- can Institutions.” 1876. -~--- VVINTI-IROP, ROBERT CI~IARLES.17 187 7. --- VVARREN, VVILLIAM Wxiir. 1878. —-—~ IIEALY, J OSEPII. 1879. --~—— LODGE, HENRY CABOT. 1880. ----S.MITH, ROBERT DIC1”{SON.13 1881. —-~ VVARREN, GEORGE WASHINGTON. “ Our Repub- 1ie—--Liberty and Ecpiality Founded on Law.” 1882. ———LONG, JOHN Dlwis. 1883. -——~-- CARPENTER, HENRY BERNARD. “ American Character and Influence.” 1884. —-SIIEPARD, HARVEY NEWTON. 1885. ---GrARGrA.1~T, TIIOMAS J OHN. 14- Probably four editions were printedin 1857. (Boston: Oliice Boston Daily Bee. 60 pp.) Not until November 22, 1864, was Mr. Alger asked by the City to furnish a. copy forpuhlicution. lie granted the request, and the first ofliciul edition (J. E. Far- Well & Co., 1864, 53 pp.) was then issued. It lacks the interesting preface and appendix of the early editions. 15 There is another edition. (Boston: Ticknor «S5 Fields, 1859, 69 pp.) A third (Boston: Rockwell & Churchill, 1882, 46 pp.) omits the dinner at Feneuil Hall, the correspondence and events of the celebration. 16 There is a p1'e1in1inm'y edition of twelve copies. (J. E. Farwell & 00., 1863. (7), 71 pp.) It is “ the first draft of the author’s address, turned into larg;er, legible type, for the sole purpose of rendering easier its public delivery.” It was done by “the liberality of the City Authorities,” and is, typogrztphically, the hendsomest of these oretions. This resulted in the largeqgiaper 75-pzLge edition, printed from the same type as the 71-page edition, but modified by the author. It is printed “ by order of the Common Council.” The regular edition is in 60 pp., octave size. 38 APPENDIX. 1886. -—WILLIABIS, GEORGE FREDERICK. 1887. —--FITZGERALD, JOHN EDWARD. 1888.---DILLAVVAY, VVILLIAM EDWARD LOVELL. 1889. --—--SWIFT, J OHN LINDs._x_r.1° “ The American Citi- zen.” 1890.—-—-PILLSBURY, ALBERT ENOCII. “Public Spirit.” 1891.-—-QUINCY, J osIAI1."'° “The Coming Peace.” 1892 . --—- BIURPHY, J om: ' ROBERT. 1898.-—~—PUr1~L.iM;, HENRY VVARE. “The Mission of Our People.” 1894..——O’NEIL, JOSEPJEI HENRY. 1895. «WBERLE, A:oocLrH AUGUSTUS. “ The Constitution and the Citizen.” 1896. -—FI'J.‘ZGrERALD, JOHN FRANCIS. 1897 .----E[A.LE, EDWARD EVERETT. “ The Contribution of Boston to Anueriezin Independence.” 1898. — O’C.xLLAG11.iN, REV. DENIS. 1899.~—-MA:r'ruEws, NATIIAN, JR. “Be Not Afraid of Greatness.” 1900.—--O’l\II«:.=mA, STEPIIEN. “Progress Through Con-y flict.” 1901. —-GUILD, CURTIS, JR. “ Supremacy and Its Con- ditions.” 17 There is 3. large paper edition of fifty copies printed from this type, and also an edition from the press of John Wilson & Son, 1876. 55 pp. 80. 15011 Samuel Adams, a. statue of Whom, by Miss Anne Whitney, had just been completed for the City. A. photograph of the statue is added. 19 Contains a iaibliograpliy of Boston Fourth of July orations, from 1783 to 1889, inclusive, compiled by Lindsay Swift, of the Boston Public Library. 2° Reprinted by the American Peace Society. '