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 A
 
 GENERAL JOHN C. BLACK
 
 MAJOR GENERAL GRENVILLE M. DODGE
 
 A&ftrefiBrs 
 
 (Erlrb ration of the 
 tiojitu-tljiro Annim? rsarn, of tlir tBirtb, 
 
 of 
 
 ittajcr (grnrral (Sratmll* $&. Sodgr 
 
 He was a brave, gallant and capable gen- 
 eral of the Union and. if possible, a more 
 mighty captain of Industry: 
 
 But, above all, 
 
 Is a delightful neighbor and our warm 
 and loyal friend. 
 
 g>aturimii Xatrn (Club 
 April 12. 1914 
 
 (Bene-ral 3obn (C. Hark 
 
 ©ralur of tlje ©rraBion 
 
 THE MONARCH PRINTING CO. 
 
 COUNCIL BLUFFS. IOWA: 
 
 1914
 
 (Sntrral Jtalin <E. Hark 
 
 Gentlemen of the Saturday Noon Club of Council Blitffsr: 
 
 I am here to join his neighbors in honoring a mar 
 whom I love, and I rise among yon with something of 
 apprehension, no1 of your judgment, for thai I know will 
 be kindly; not because of the subject of my remarks, 
 who is friend first and critic afterward, but from a sense 
 now present with me of the majesty of the things that 
 have passed in review before me since I received your 
 kindly imitation to be present and to speak at this 
 banquet. 
 
 Sometimes in the course of the busiest affairs of 
 everyday life something will take us from the midst of 
 the hurly burly and cause us to review our way through 
 the long distances of the past. Its events come to us in 
 
 ^procession, not always orderly as the3 r occurred, but 
 'xj rat her in the proportion of their personal importance to 
 
 .v us at the time w r e were actors in them. The impressions 
 
 >iof the time or occasion die down; the vast level view 
 (••niies as when one looks at an ocean of tumbling waves. 
 But when we think closely we recall the depths and the 
 heights through and upon which we moved. So tonight 
 
 .'I am thinking of the many incidents of a career which 
 has been contemporaneous with that of your guest of 
 honor, and full to me of the splendid life of the last fifty 
 years in which he has borne his great part. 
 
 All of my life nearly has been passed in this West. 
 T remember when its known borders stretched along the 
 .Missouri river; I remember when "Western Iowa was a 
 far country, isolated by distance and difficulty of com- 
 munication from the mass and center of the Union. I 
 remember what the West was, not only to me but to 
 every man and boy of that now vanishing period, a 
 
 cr- 
 
 -
 
 period when there was no telegraph, when the mails came 
 to us once a week, when a newspaper was a rarity, a 
 great book, a treasure, and the man of a library a dis- 
 tinguished personage. The movements of population 
 were beginning; they were insignificant; the frontier 
 was pushed but slowly toward the "West. A few thou- 
 sands of peoples occupied Iowa, and a few hundreds of 
 thousands were all that dwelt in the great Northwest. 
 
 Still in the midst of this people, themselves frontiers- 
 men, restless, active, indomitable, there were those who 
 longed for a greater freedom and for wider fields of 
 enterprise and conquest. Now and then a colony went 
 out from this slenderly populated region, passing on 
 some unknown trail toward the unknown land. It went 
 guarded; its men were armed as for battle; its women 
 were prepared for all the hardships of discovery. "When 
 these colonies crossed the Missouri river and moved away 
 the memories of them were all that remained. "We that 
 lingered knew that upon them might fall destruction; 
 that they were gone from our lives ; we knew of the 
 perils, real and imaginary, of the journeys they were 
 undertaking; we knew of the long stretches of torrid 
 land and the long perils of drouth; we knew of the dry- 
 ing springs and the arid and sunburned plains that fur- 
 nished them passage ; we knew, too, of the disaster and 
 starvation which had befallen their forerunners: of the 
 raging torrents that sometimes burst their bounds and 
 overwhelmed them; of the mountains that raised their 
 awful barriers before them, and of the covert passes 
 where the savage stood on guard, and ambuscaded death 
 awaited the coming pioneer. AVe knew that the ways 
 across the Continent were dotted with the graves of the 
 young, the fair and the brave; we knew that at the last, 
 when successful and when they had reached the other 
 side of the Continent, they were gone, and forever.
 
 The Wesl was a region not alone of romance l>ut of 
 mystery, and ye1 of allurements and of possibly greal 
 reward for success. Those wlio stood here upon the 
 western boundary and gazed into the distance, filled with 
 the restless spirit of the frontier, Looked and wondered 
 what they could do to make a pathway for the swarming 
 myriads that were to come and to plunge into these 
 perils. 
 
 There is a picture in the Nation's Capitol which, in 
 
 my judgment, is a work of great genius. qo1 from its 
 color nor its perspective, but because the artist who 
 painted it caught and put into it the spirit of the time of 
 which I am speaking. It is the picture of an emigrant 
 train, men, women, children, as 1 have sought to describe 
 them to you, toiling up through a narrow mountain pass, 
 until at last as they reach the summit the great West 
 breaks upon their wondering vision. They see its van- 
 ishing forms, and they see, too, the coming places, the 
 future happy homes, the future great cities, the future 
 growth of freedom. Holding his rifle, the leader of the 
 parly stands with his foot upon the highest rock in the 
 rough trail and shades his eyes with brawny hand while 
 he looks toward the splendor of the setting sun. 
 
 Thousands of such scenes, varied in detail, were 
 enacted by the humble unknown travelers of that time; 
 and they stood not always upon mountain peaks, but 
 upon those mental heights which genius builds for her 
 favored sons. 
 
 And amongst those who stood thus came a young 
 man from the regions by the seas, and his quickened 
 vision gazed into these long stretches of desolation and 
 peril. His spirit answered to the call of the region and 
 its needs, and he settled himself to Bubdue and conquer 
 and make safe a pathway for those that were to tread 
 in his trail. lie had paused long enough in Illinois to 
 
 —9 —
 
 claim a wife from among our daughters, and thus given 
 us a proprietary and undying interest in him and his 
 fortunes; and in the earliest stages of his life, before he 
 had reached Iowa and while he still lingered in Illinois, 
 he had won the confidence of those about him by his 
 energy, bis industry and bis fidelity. 
 
 The career of Grenville M. Dodge here at his home 
 I will not depict to yon ; you all know it ; it has been 
 told over and over; it was always success, always en- 
 gagements in high enterprises, always with a view to 
 the ultimates of manhood, always looking forward for 
 the best for his people and his country. 
 
 And so he might have lived and passed away with 
 the other coming myriads ; but while so struggling and 
 while so succeeding there came the blast of the bugle, 
 the call of the country; and, responding to that call, he 
 gave up every occupation of civil life and devoted his 
 existence from that time until the close of the great 
 struggle solely to the cause of his country. 
 
 In the earlier days of that contest none were more 
 active than he in preparing therefor or in participating 
 therein. He held the borders of Iowa, when threatened, 
 safely against the enemy; and when invasion threatened, 
 he rushed to the front, drove back an active and confi- 
 dent foe, and made the borders of Iowa borders of peace 
 for all time; and when he repelled an invading foeman 
 from the Hawkeye state he earned a place in her Hall 
 of Fame which will be his until the end of time. 
 
 I am not going over all of this earlier period in de- 
 tail. But so it was that in the first of 1862 he, Colonel 
 Dodge, led the Fourth Iowa to the battlefield at Pea 
 Ridge, on which I was in service as the commander of 
 tbe Thirty-seventh Illinois. He was on the one wing aivl 
 I was in the center playing the humble part of the com- 
 mander of a regiment. On that field be felt the sting of 
 
 — 10—
 
 the bullet; and so did I. In that contest, which the 
 strategists of the world have recognized as of prime im- 
 portance, for reasons which the soldier will appreciate 
 and the citizen can understand, in that contest, which 
 was the fiercest and most extensive which had been 
 waged anywhere on our far-spread battle line except at 
 Bull Run, his regiment was the heaviest loser, and mine 
 was next; and when the smoke had cleared and deserved 
 honor had fallen upon him my mind and thought turned 
 to the splendid Colonel of the Fourth Iowa ; and from 
 that day to this, thank God, we have been friends. And 
 this is the personal element which makes this occasion 
 peculiarly dear to me. 
 
 In the state of Illinois, where Dodge had passed the 
 earlier part of his young manhood, there had been nur- 
 tured another citizen with whose name honor will be 
 busy through a thousand years. The state had taken 
 to her bosom Ulysses S. Grant, the greatest conquerer 
 thai the earth has seen in a hundred years, and lie was a 
 conquerer not alone because he had the genius of war. 
 but because he had an intimate knowledge of men. He 
 had been a graduate of "West Point. In that school every 
 student passes daily under the microscopic observance 
 of his classmates, who there study, unconsciously, each 
 other's characteristics and learn them and store the 
 knowledge up for future use. They know each other as 
 intimately as children of the same family. They are as 
 a rule men of slenderest fortune, who enter the army 
 without factitious advantage, depending only upon their 
 individual merits for success. But army service itself 
 tends to develop only the tactical soldier. This is not 
 sufficient equipment for a great leader, and in the chap- 
 ter of events it came about that Granl lefl that service 
 through weaknesses of habit that then inhered in it. to 
 struggle, without help from the Government, for a bare
 
 livelihood; and in the sad period of his retirement he was 
 thrown into intimate relations with the plain people of 
 the land. He came to earn his bread by the sweat of 
 his brow, to learn what the common man does under cir- 
 cumstances of difficulty and trial, what are his aspira- 
 tions, what his trials, and along what lines lie his suc- 
 cesses. 
 
 I take it that you at this board are all men of suc- 
 cess; I take it that in your various advantages you have 
 turned inquiring eyes upon your associates, eyes of re- 
 spect upon those who have preceded you. eyes of appre- 
 ciation upon those among you who rise to honor. You 
 learn the intimacies of their character; and this great 
 genius of war of whom I am speaking beyond doubt 
 found the greatest educational period of his life in the 
 time of his trouble and depression. He came to look 
 under the surface, and at the man and for the man who 
 could serve and who could succeed ; and when he stepped 
 back into the ranks of war he was panoplied not alone 
 with the knowledge of arms, but doubly strong in the 
 knowledge of men. 
 
 With the history of his military career it is not my 
 province to deal. He rose from the unknown in a fashion 
 as wonderful as that which made the name of Bonaparte 
 illustrious in the campaigns in Italy. The rush of his 
 battalions was resistless, and the Valley of the Missis- 
 sippi is dotted with the great places where he fought and 
 succeeded; and at last the Nation called him to the su- 
 preme command of all its armies. And when at last that 
 summons came and he passed from Chattanooga, Look- 
 out Mountain, Missionary Ridge, to the supreme com- 
 mand, he scanned the field for those who had done well 
 and would be of help in the titantic struggles that lay 
 before him and who would be able to hold all that he 
 had gained and to assist in those things he had yet to 
 
 — l:
 
 do. Going over, then, the list of the successful fighters 
 of his command, in the selection of men upon whom he 
 could utterly depend, his wisdom, not his partiality, 
 selected as one of the chiefest of these, Grenville M. 
 Dodge, making him his confident, his trusted and beloved 
 subaltern. 
 
 To you who are General Dodge's friends and neigh- 
 bors, let me relate this incident of that time which his 
 modesty has concealed. Atlanta's battle had been 
 fought. The Mississippi Valley to the north was under 
 the control of our arms. The campaigns of three years 
 were secure, and the death stroke was to be delivered to 
 the rebellion. "Who would bring together the widely sep- 
 arated armies of the Republic? Sherman was selected. 
 How greatly he discharged his duties the world knows, 
 but it is not generally known that second to Sherman, 
 the man upon whom the conquerer relied and who was 
 closest to Grant's heart, and who was only second in 
 his schemes that looked to the great march to the sea, 
 was Grenville M. Dodge. And with Sherman as with 
 Grant, he discharged every duty that lay before him; 
 and when on the 22d of July the Gray waves of valor 
 broke their bounds and came rolling on our scattered 
 lines and death claimed great McPherson, there was no 
 figure taller in that flghitng, determined and victorious 
 Army in Blue than that of Grenville M. Dodge. His 
 work was done then; the theater of mighty war was 
 transferred to regions farther south and beyond the Alle- 
 ghanies. There was demanded in the great Department 
 of the Missouri a man of utter reliability and of broad 
 knowledge of the people and the region to be controlled, 
 and that Department was given to him, and remained 
 under his control until the end of hostilities. 
 
 lb' had won enough of fame for an ordinary career; 
 he had accomplished successes which would have justi- 
 
 —13—
 
 fied a quiet retirement from the great activities of life. 
 But he was still young ; he was resolute, he was resource- 
 ful; and when peace came he returned to new responsi- 
 bilities and new duties. He took up the burdens of civil 
 life where he had laid them down five years before. "What 
 a period that five years had been, of struggle, of victory, 
 of the great things that lie in the way of duties well and 
 nobly done ! 
 
 So, with undiminished power, with resources all at 
 command, he devoted himself to the opening of that 
 pathway to the West of which I spoke in the earlier part 
 of my remarks, and became the eminent figure in smooth- 
 ing out the highway upon which the Nation should move, 
 over its own dominion, from ocean to ocean. 
 
 But he did not stand as the surveyor and thinker ; 
 he was the active, resistless, powerful man of affairs. 
 Under his leadership and direction the savage was driven 
 from the path of progress, the iron rails were stretched 
 from the Missouri to the Pacific Coast; and far distant 
 California, isolated by plains and mountains, proud of 
 the part that she had borne in the salvation of the Ee- 
 public, proud of her little contribution of citizen-sol- 
 diery, was furnished a thoroughfare by this man's ca- 
 pacity back to the old land and the old home; bonds 
 were stretched between the great oceans that never, 
 never will be dissolved. 
 
 I have recently come from the heart of that region, 
 and all around I found men and things that showed the 
 affection of the multitudes who were aided by him in 
 their great expansion and who have gratefully preserved 
 his name in mountains and rivers and in the cities that 
 dot the plains, in the names of enterprises that have been 
 accomplished, in the names of successes that have been 
 assured, in the names of enterprises that are part and 
 parcel of the vivid, living "Western life today; and
 
 wherever the pioneer lingers on that broad trail, now 
 grown to the width of an empire, the name of Grenville 
 M. Dodge is preserved in the speech and on the maps of 
 the dwellers. 
 
 While it is splendidly worth while to have been 
 spent in such a cause, it is sweeter to live and in the end 
 look upon projects all of which have benefited humanity, 
 all of which have strengthened the Nation, all of which 
 have added to the glories of this Republic. I am very 
 proud to have known and watched the great and stead- 
 fast and luminous growth of this character. There has 
 been nothing in his career meteoric, nothing of the 
 iridescent splendor that for a day may gild enterprise; 
 but he has trodden the plain path of duty, wherever it 
 might lead ; and the tallest monument that Avill be built 
 to him will be not of bronze or of stone, but in the his- 
 toric and affectionate remembrances of the great peoples 
 whom he has served. 
 
 Fellow Countrymen, we are now, as I take it, in the 
 youth and heyday of American life. Thousands of years 
 from this time, God willing — and we do not ask human 
 consent — God willing, the Republic will be here and her 
 commerce will move along that pathway of this man's 
 building, and he finally will stand revealed as among the 
 greatest of American men, a doer of great deeds well 
 done and benefitting the world. And what a character 
 the American character will be when fully disclosed ! 
 We have had Washington, we have had Lincoln, we 
 have had Grant, we have had Jackson, we have had many 
 mighty men. civic and otherwise; but as yet they are 
 single st;irs in a great constellation. By and by as the 
 constellation recedes these scattered luminaries will 
 gather in a common purpose and a common form, and 
 that will be the ideal American, of whom this man, your 
 guest tonight, is a type, the doer of deeds, the thinker 
 
 —15—
 
 of human thoughts. I congratulate you that one of the 
 men of this mighty type has made his abode with you. 
 He adds, in his declining days, the subdued luster of a 
 great life to this place where so many American path- 
 ways join, and where his memory will so long endure, 
 in the center of a region where have been developed the 
 explorers and the early builders of our time and race ; 
 great among all of them will be the character, the career, 
 and the honor of Grenville M. Dodge. 
 
 — 16—
 
 Mr. Toastmaster and Gentlemen: 
 
 It was with great satisfaction thai I put my work 
 to one side and conic from my home to join with my 
 friends at Council Bluffs in paying tribute to General 
 Dodge and likewise General Black. Of course, I had 
 known of General Black for a great many years: I had 
 seen him here at one, perhaps two meetings of the Army 
 of the Tennessee. 
 
 Some six months ago I was riding in the observation 
 car on the Burlington road and I kept looking at a gen- 
 tleman and saying to myself, "I have seen him," and 
 he impressed me a good deal as General Joe Shelby was 
 impressed at Prairie Grove. Something told me to keep 
 my distance and not approach nearer than the middle of 
 the isle of the car. When he left the car, I knew that 
 he was a person of distinction; but I did not know him 
 until the next day when I read from the Council Bluffs 
 papers that General Black was visiting General Dodge. 
 Then I knew whom I had seen on the train. 
 
 Many years since, General Dodge was pointed out 
 to me. I have learned to honor and respect him. and 
 love him. I have one little story that I have told so 
 often that it may be stale to some of you, but I will tell 
 it again. This was when the Army of the Tennessee met 
 here a number of years ago. General Dodge wrote me 
 a letter to be present, stating that certain parties would 
 be here, and "I want you to be here to represent Gen- 
 eral James B. Mcpherson." 1 replied to General Dodge 
 that I eould not claim any near relationship to General 
 ftfcPherson. lie wrote me back that I would be heard, 
 and I must attend the banquet, so 1 concluded perhaps 
 that as good a subject as I could talk upon would be 
 General McPherson. 
 
 —17—
 
 It has always been my practice to go to General 
 Dodge for history pertaining to the Western Armies. I 
 remember on one occasion I told him of the various 
 histories I had read, and I was then reading Fiske's 
 history. General Dodge told me to put it away and stop 
 instanter; he told me it was the most unreliable — that 
 Fiske was the biggest liar this side of Munchausen. 
 However, I concluded to pursue it, and in my study of 
 General James B. McPherson I found what I thought 
 was the greatest tribute to General Dodge. It related 
 to the terrible battle of July 22d. Matters had been go- 
 ing quite badly over on the left of the army. Sherman 
 and McPherson had been having trouble getting reports, 
 and everything was going to the bad and finally Mc- 
 Pherson said that he could not remain there, that he 
 must go to the left and see if he could not do something 
 to help. When he got through there and the smoke had 
 cleared away and he saw what had happened, he waived 
 his hat to his staff and yelled, "Hurrah for Dodge, he's 
 got 'em." And so far as anyone was ever able to ascer- 
 tain those were the last words of General McPherson. 
 
 That banquet was on the sixth floor of this hotel. 
 Father Sherman, General Fred Grant, General Black and 
 General Dodge urged me to say a few words, and I told 
 this story. Immediately afterwards, General Dodge told 
 me that he wanted to see me out in the corridor. I went 
 out with him and he says, "Where did you get that." I 
 said, "I cannot tell you." He says, "You will;" I says, 
 "I will not." The next day at another banquet there 
 were two or three generals present, including General 
 Dodge, and I asked General Dodge what he thought of 
 Fiske as a historian. He said he was the biggest liar 
 that ever used a pen. General Dodge said that it is not 
 a lie, that McPherson said, "Hurrah for Dodge, he's got 
 
 —18—
 
 'em," Imt he said that Fiske is unreliable. From that 
 time mi General Dodge read Fiske with more considera- 
 tion. 
 
 I always feel at home at Council Bluffs, where my 
 home once was, and I sincerely thank the gentlemen of 
 the Saturday Noon Club for inviting me to be present at 
 this occasion in honor of General Dodge and General 
 Black. 
 
 — !9—
 
 8*tt. A. <8. A. luxtott, §. i. 
 
 .1//-, Toast master and Gentlemen of the Saturday Noon Club: 
 
 It seems to me almost impossible to say anything 
 that would be worth while after what has been said and 
 said so beautifully that if it were within the character 
 of rhetorical construction to cut the words uttered, they 
 would bleed. The expression of regard and appreciation 
 for our honored guest and citizen, this man of achieve- 
 ment, who surmounting obstacles so great as to extract 
 the defying ingredient from the seemingly impossible 
 and turn the channel of difficulty into accomplishment 
 and victory, have come forth from the lips of the orator 
 and speaker of the evening, like odors from the new-born 
 bud, fresh from the womb and life of spring. 
 
 While sitting here, I have been mediating, thinking 
 and listening to the articulate music in the voice of this 
 soldier, this scholar and this statesman of American 
 product, General John C. Black, who has beautifully por- 
 trayed with words of eloquence and truth this man of 
 men, General Dodge. I have been thinking of that power 
 and potent energy which makes possible the epochs of 
 human history in the expression of life's noble career. 
 To say that George AVashington, and the Continental 
 Army, made possible the birth of this Country without 
 the direction and protection of a Divine Providence, is 
 to state an untruth. To say that the wars of the '60s 
 with their conquests and conflicts, grew and blossomed 
 into the laurels of victory on the side of right and hu- 
 manity, without the intervention of a Divine Hand, is to 
 discredit the presence and favors of the Great God, "Who 
 led the armies of this Country, and Who's manifest pur- 
 pose was so impregnate in American endeavors with the 
 qualities of freedom, and Who crowned our efforts with 
 
 —20—
 
 the handiwork of thai Colonial Dame, "Betsy R< 
 who's silken emblem still waves and will forever float, 
 iu it's heaven tinted array, over "the Land of the Kree, 
 and the Home of the Brave." God 1ms appointed Bis men 
 in the day of great moment, in the day when the man of 
 
 purpose was needed to Lubricate the wheels of evolution 
 with the mental oils of his psychic genius, whether in 
 the destruction of the enemy's stronghold, or in the lay- 
 in": of steel rails, over which to transmit the commerce 
 of progressive civilization from the middle-west to 
 where the spray of the great and beautiful Pacific cools 
 the evening of his Laborious and successful exertion, 
 with the refreshing and well-earned rest of the soldier, 
 the commander, and ingenious surveyor. Such is the 
 history in brief of our honored guest, the epitome of 
 American genius, the exemplar of perseverance. One 
 of God's men in war and railway construction, one whom 
 we all Love, and one, whom the future generations will 
 respect and regard, General Grenville M. Dodge. Gen- 
 eral Black has related in a most pleasing and eloquent 
 manner the story of his experience and association with 
 this great American character, and the history of tomor- 
 row will forever hear the name of his friend and com- 
 rad to the ambitious youth of the future day, with an 
 imaginary sense of the fiery zeal of a Dodge, who put his 
 muscle into battle and his brain into steel. And when 
 the day of eternal rest shall come and humankind shall 
 stack their rusty muskets upon the battle-field of ever- 
 lasting peace, General Dodge, with a Washington and a 
 Lincoln, and with men whom God has used in the efforts 
 of life's great conquest, we feel, will receive a victor's 
 reward. May God bless you, my Dear Sir, our friend 
 and brother, with many more such happy birthdays and 
 spare your life to us for many more years to come. 
 
 —21—
 
 Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Saturday Noon Club, and 
 Guests: 
 
 I regret that I am unable to say much to you to- 
 night. I am very grateful for your kind greetings, and 
 you all know how fully I appreciate your great kind- 
 ness and personal friendship to me in yearly making my 
 birthday one of great pleasure and honor to me. 
 
 I am also very thankful for the heavenly blessing 
 that has allowed me to be present with you tonight after 
 a year of anxiety and much suffering. But there has 
 come with it many silver linings to the cloud, for from 
 all parts of the country have come greetings of sym- 
 pathy and support that have all given me much pleasure 
 and much courage, none more than that which came 
 from the Saturday Noon Club. 
 
 I was astonished to receive so many greetings from 
 old comrades and friends that I hadn't heard from for 
 forty years or more ; men who were with me in those 
 strenuous times, and it was a great satisfaction to know 
 that they remembered me. 
 
 It is easy to keep up a physical courage, but a moral 
 courage is hard to build up and sustain. And I have 
 often thought of an incident that came to my notice at 
 the Battle of Pea Ridge, when the day was the darkest, 
 and the fighting furious. 
 
 An enlisted man of the Fourth Iowa Infantry, as he 
 was being carried to the rear, desperately wounded, 
 passed me and said to me: "Don't give up Colonel, 
 stick to them; fight them and you will win yet." The 
 past year it has been hard to "fight" or to "stick to 
 them," but I have managed not to give up, 
 
 —22—
 
 One of the greatest pleasures of the evening is that 
 my comrade, General John C. Black, has come many 
 miles to be with me. Since 1862 we have been close 
 friends ; that friendship has grown into an affection for 
 each other that has been a great pleasure to both of us, 
 and I wish to thank him for his eloquent, graceful and 
 beautiful tribute to me tonight. 
 
 I wish again with all my heart to thank the Satur- 
 day Noon Club and the guests for the great pleasure and 
 honor they have given me this evening.