UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY Volume Book Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. A charge is made on all overdue books. U. of I. Library Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/modelbanquetspeeOOunse Model Banquet Speeches. I003 J Great Northwest. Response by Gen. John C. Black, of [3 1883 ^ * banquet of the Iro 1 uois Club, Chicago, April --^fc Me p P f?P° ns « by Rev. William E. Park,’ ai ’a dinner of the Republican Club, New York, February 15, 1896 64 The Home of Lincoln. Response by Dr. Emil G. Hirsch of Chicago, at a dinner of the Republican Club, New York, November 15, 1896 _ ’ 7 g The Republican Party. Response by Hon. Joseph b' Foraker, of Ohio, at a dinner of the Republican Club, of New York February 15, 1896 ’ g 4 Abraham Lincoln Response by Hon. Chauncey M. Depew at a dinner of the Republican Club, New York, February’ 15, 1 90 92 11 1 7 23 29 33 4i 49 58 Paje. Dinners. Response by Hon. John B. Green, at a “stag” dinner of Commonwealth Council, R. A., at the Clarendon Hotel, Brooklyn, N. Y., in the winter of 1886 The Ladies. Response by Hon. John B. Green, New York, at a banquet at Westfield, N. J., in celebration of the city’s one hundredth birthday George Washington. Response by Hon. John B. Green, of New York, at a dinner in honor of Washington’s birthday at Westfield, N. J., February 22, 1894 Danger Ahead. Response by Henry Wollman, of Kansas City, at the second annual banquet of the Commercial Law League of America, at Omaha, July 21, 1896 Speech of Hon. John B. Green, president of the Brooklyn Republican League, at a dinner in honor of the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, at Remsen Hall, February 13, 1888 Our Country. Response by Frank T. Lodge, of Detroit, at a Decoration Day banquet, held at Detroit, May 30, 1893 President Grant and San Domingo. Response by Hon. William Alden Smith, of Michigan, at the annual banquet of the Middlesex Club, of Boston, Mass., at a dinner in honor of the birthday of Ulysses S. Grant, April 27, 1895 Doctors, Lawyers, Preachers, Business Men. Response by Joseph B. Connell, B. S., LL. B., M. D., Kansas City, at a banquet of the Michigan University Alumni, at Kansas City, April, 1896 The Legal Profession. Response by Frank T. Lodge, of Detroit, at the annual banquet of the Michigan College of Medicine and Surgery, at Detroit, March 6, 1895 The Lawyer. Response by H. H. Wilson, of Lincoln, Neb., at a re-union of the Union Literary Society of the University of Nebraska, June, 1883. A Doctor’s Impression Concerning Lawyers. Response by Dr. G. Frank Lydston, representing Kent College of Law, at the first annual banquet of the Law Student’s Association of Chicago Wampum, or the Free Coinage of Clams. Response by Joseph C. Hendrix, of New York, at a dinner of the New England Society, Brooklyn, December 21, 1894 Chauncey M. Depew to Tramps The Federal Judiciary. Response by Judge P. S. Grosscup of Chicago, at a banquet of the Illinois Bar, July 16, 1896 The Advocate. Response by J. J. McCarthy, of Duluth, at a banquet of the Iowa State Bar Association, Des Moines, July 20, 1896 Nebraska Harvest. Response by Hon. E. M. Bartlett, of Omaha, at a banquet of the Millers of Nebraska, at Omaha, August 3L 1896 98 101 106 108 1 12 1 16 121 129 134 141 143 149 154 160 162 166 Page. Brotherhood of Railroad Brakemen. Response by W. W. Dodge, of Burlington, la., at a banquet at the annual convention of the Brotherhood of Railroad Brakemen in the city of Bur- lington, October 19, 1885 171 St. Valentine. Response by W. W. Dodge, of Burlington, la., at a banquet of the Des Moines Press Club, at Des Moines, la., February 14, 1888 174 The Sacred Mistletoe. Response by W. W. Dodge, at a banquet of the United and Ancient Order of Druids, at Burlington, la., June 14, 1893 179 The Ladies. Response by W. W. Dodge, at a Bar banquet at Burlington, la., December 30, 1886 182 Hancock, the Superb. Response by W. W. Dodge, art a G. A. R. Campfire at Burlington, la., December 18, 1887 183 The Anchor and Shield. Response by W. W. Dodge, at a banquet of the Ancient Order of United Workmen at Bur- lington, la., July 20, 1886 186 Knights of the Footboard. Response by W. W. Dodge at a banquet of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers at Burlington, la., July 19, 1886 188 Uncertainty of the Law. Response by Hon. John B. Green, of New York, at the second annual banquet of the Commercial Law League of America, at Omaha, July 21, 1896 191 The Ladies. Response by Martin F. Saxe, of New York, at the second annual banquet of the Commercial Law League of America at Omaha, July 21, 1896 195 The United States of America. Response by John L. Webster, at the Omaha banquet of the Commercial Law League of America, July 21, 1896 198 The Lawyer of the South ; What He. Has Been, Is Now, and Ex- pects to Be. Response by Hill Montague, of Virginia, at the first annual banquet of the Commercial Law League of America alt Detroit, August 15, 1895 205 The Ladies. Response by Hon. Ernest T. Florance, of New Orleans, at the first annual banquet of the Commercial Law League of America at Detroit, August 15, 1895. 207 “OUR COUNTRY.” Response by Hon. Thomas A. Hendrick'?, at a banquet oi the Iroquois Club at Chicago, March 15, 1882. Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: You will, no doubt, regard it as appropriate in re- sponding to this toast, to refer to some of the circumstances that especially contribute to our country’s greatness and power. Some of the important influences and agencies must, however, be omitted. I cannot so much as make mention of all. The railroads, the telegraphs and the tele- phones have been heretofore sufficiently discussed. But, with your permission and approval, we will take a journey upon some of the great lines of railroads. Shall it be from Boston to San Francisco? Seven days and seven nights will pass, as the train flies onward, before we hear the ceaseless murmur of the Pacific. Such a journey, from Paris eastward, would carry us beyond Europe and far into Asia. The line of our travel marks and measures the great extent of our country. The same flag remains over us. We start from the landing place of the Mayflower, and will stop alongside the great steamers that are in our trade with China and Japan. All the way our hearts are cheered with the music of active industry, and towns and cities are our mile-posts. As we pass New York and Chicago, we take off our hats in recognition of the indomitable genius of daring and successful enterprise. All the way, and in every employment and pursuit, health, energy and courage compel success, and the numerous trains we meet, carrying our products to their markets, answer the inquiry why the balance of trade with foreign countries has been so largely in our favor. On the summit of the mountains, as we gaze upon the distant plains, toward the Atlantic and toward 8 MODEL BANQUET SPEECHES. the Pacific, the spirit of our country is upon us and as- sures us that in every element of wealth and greatness we are to lead all the nations, if we but dwell together in peace and harmony. San Francisco is the New York of the Pacific Coast. It commands the commerce of the East and the trade of the Pacific Slope in its gold and silver products of the soil. We will go out upon the bay and as far as the Gold- en Gates. This is the great entrance to our country from the Pacific. It can be securely defended, and the defenses already completed are probably impregnable. We cannot remain longer at San Francisco. Of course we will return by the Southern route. The next time it will be. by the Northern route. The train cannot wait for us to visit the vineyards and the orange groves of Los Angeles, or San Gabriel, or San Bernardino. Fruit of the richest quality, and wines of choice flavor and of great value are here produced. I cannot conceive of anything, not even the magnolia, more beautiful than the orange tree, when the ripe fruit and the blossoms mingle with foliage of the deepest green. It was a beautiful concep- tion of the Spaniard to call this the land of the angels. We will not stop at that ancient seat of our military power, Fort Yuma, at the crossing of the Colorado, except to say good-bye to California. Passing the long line of rail through Arizona and New Mexico and the giant State of Texas, we reach New Or- leans. It was here the illustrious patriot and statesman, the anniversary of whose natal day we celebrate, achieved great renown as a warrior. It is one hundred and fifteen years since the day of his birth and forty-five since his re- tirement from public life. Yet his name and fame are cherished with the same devotion by the people as when in their midst he defended their safety on the battlefield and protected their rights in the executive mansion. We stand beside the Father of Waters. He rages, and 9 “our country.” his anger is frightful. His punishment of the people on the border is cruel and remorseless. He has broken away from the restraints that held him in the channel. He has driven the people from their farms and seized their lands. What agencies shall be invoked to control the turbulent waters? When it was once my duty to speak and vote on this question, I had difficulty in satisfying myself of the authority of Congress to vote money to maintain the le- vees. It seemed it was not so much in aid of commerce as to defend and protect agriculture. But I came to the conclusion that as Jefferson had foufid authority in the Constitution for the purchase of that country, I might feel authorized to vote for its preservation. The great interests of the country require it. Shall we return by Washington? Perhaps it would be of interest to witness something of the strife between the belligerent Republican party. My sympathies were with the stalwarts. I thought them the more sincere and honest; and also they seemed to be the “under dog in the fight.” Our journey is now ended. What have we observed? This we can say : Our country is great and strong be- cause it has a great and strong population. We have journeyed among the people and observed their charac- teristics. Engaged in useful and honorable industry, they fill the valleys ; seeking homes, subsistence and wealth, they climb the mountain sides. The great qualities that characterize our people are the result, as I suppose, of the commingling of the blood of the strongest nations. They are irresistible in the pur- suits of peace, invincible in war. Barbarism in Russia and cruelty in England will stimulate the spirit of immi- gration to these States from all parts of Europe, and our population will be increased at a greater ratio than ever. We have also observed in our journey the great variety of climate, of soil, and of production ; each section IO MODEL BANQUET SPEECHES. is developing those industries to which it is best adapted. You gentlemen who have never before traveled over the great Northwest have seen with wonder and admiration the extent and value of our agricultural productions, while we of the North have rejoiced at the increased cot- ton growth of the South. We all rejoice in the fact that the sections maintain an honorable and friendly rivalry for the greatest success in their respective productions. Cotton in the South and corn in the North each claims to be king. They are so great, so powerful, and contribute so largely to hold the balance of trade in our favor with other countries, that each may well claim a scepter. In excellence of quality and the quantity produced, each has almost the exclusive product of this country, and each may securely rely upon the wants of mankind to supply a market. That product which always commands a market is king. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, while with gratified pride we are considering the vast extent of our country and the great variety and enormous value of its produc- tions, we are admonished that the purest of our patriots and the wisest of our statesmen have expressed their fears and profound anxiety lest out of these shall come jealousies and antagonisms. No danger need be appre- hended from that source if we but stand by our system and form of government. It was the child of patriotism and wisdom, and experience has proven it well suited to our condition. It is madness to hope that a consolidated and single authority can maintain peaceful government over a country so extended, and with productions and in- terests so varied. If we but maintain the constitutional authority of the United States, and preserve to each State the right to regulate whatever belongs to itself alone, we fear no troubles arising from sectional jealousies, how- ever much our territory may be extended or our produc- tions increased. “ANDREW JACKSON.” II “ANDREW JACKSON.” Response by Hon. William F. Vilas, of Wisconsin, at a banquet of the Iro- quois Club, at Chicago, March 15, 1883. Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Iroquois Club : The selection of this anniversary for your first festival is a signal mark of the patriotism, wisdom and political courage which animate your organization, and a prophecy of its usefulness. Andrew Jackson! What a flood of glorious history rises on the name! A generation ago and more, the old Democratic hero passed behind the curtain of death, but only in the flesh to die ! The mortal change was his apotheosis to the celestial company of the gods of our political religion. Well worthy of his immortality was that heroic life. Riven by passion and scarred by the strokes of strife, yet it stands a colossal figure among the heroes and states- men of mankind, pre-eminent for single-hearted honesty of purpose and exalted bravery to do and bear. The ivy of aflfection and the laurel of renown, rich by the growth of years, now hide beneath their beauty the scars and seams of human weakness in that splendid tower of God’s architecture in man. The features of its majesty and strength alone are left open to view. Turn we our gaze on them, behold the beacon which blazes from its lofty head, and fitly celebrate his day by invoking the inspiration of that character to rule again our political world. This country ever loved, and, as it shall be ever free, ever must love, in its true ideal, the Jackson Democracy. False leadership and the turbulence of war distracted its counsels, obscured its distinctiveness and scattered its fol- lowers among various parties. The painful political scenes of our day cry aloud for their patriotic reunion and the restoration of its power. It was not great intellect which made Andrew Jackson 12 MODEL BANQUET SPEECHES. a great leader of men. It was his towering character. He had great intellect, and for war genius. But high above all, as mountain peaks ascend above the lower lying hills, rose the lofty eminences of his stupendous character. Its paramount features were indomitable will and daring, but intelligent courage. No page of history tells of one who, before him, survived seventy-eight years and so continually performed such and so many actions of des- perate audacity. From early boyhood to whitened age, he was beset by perils and involved in strife, sometimes crippled by wounds and often broken by disease. Others would have yielded, or, not yielding, would have died. But not he ! Through every year of life, in every danger, in difficulties unmeasured, the flame of that matchless soul burned undimmed; his courage never flinched, nor his iron will surrendered. His personal hardihood was not more remarkable than 'his moral courage. The two went ihiamd in hand. He as boldly met the judgment of men and angels as the efforts of an enemy. For he was founded on absolute honesty of thought. Not always right, he always thought he was right. His acts were sometimes wrong; his purposes in them to his mind never. It guided him in quarrels with his enemies, it ennobled his intercourse with friends. It governed his individual transactions, and rose to exalta- tion when he dealt for his country and fellow men. There his example voiced the teaching: The man is a felon who in politics cheats the people, and he a traitor who betrays public trust. And this our day and generation, which has seen a secret plotter, because his corrupt arts turned awry a State’s election on which a Presidential contest pivoted, wined and feasted as a political hero — which witnesses even now at the capital of its greatest State the consum- mation of a shameful compact for the barter of public offices of trust — while yet we have not ceased to shudder “ANDREW JACKSON.” 13 from the horror of a President’s assassination in time of peace, because of the passionate intrigues of faction — may well return an anxious eye to the lesson of honest convic- tion and integrity of purpose taught by Jackson’s open war. Better far to the country were all his upright errors than a single drop of the subtle poison of the blood in- noculated by the chicane and fraud which have been too long the instruments of power in the Republic. These were the qualities which made the leadership of Jackson great and successful. These magnetized and unified the Jackson Democracy of fifty years ago. These were their principles of action — first, to see the right, blazing with the authority of the burning bush to Moses, then fight for it, recking no peril. Above all, and first of all, the Jackson Democrat, as Jackson did, loves his country with a love which knows no higher duty but to God. He loves this complex frame of government which, when young, kings derided, and the world cannot comprehend this mystic child of Liberty, heaven-conceived, of one in many and many in one; this fast-bound Union of Independent States, this system of the stars, resting on the equipoise of contending forces, safe as law and free as space. He loves it without reason- ing and with reason ; not alone because it shelters his wife and babes and household gods, protects his labor and opens unlimited possibilities to his manhood; but because it satisfies the natural longings of his soul, because our fathers won it as the price of blood, because it is the ark of their covenant and holds in security the fruit and hope of Liberty. He loves it because it stands up in the way of the tyrants of the earth ; inviting the oppressed to safety and teaching the example of freedom to men. The springing manhood of his youth rejoices in this idol, su- perior to the love of woman, and the experience of his age sinks the roots of his affection in wisdom and phi- lanthropy. *4 MODEL BANQUET SPEECHES. Such was Jackson’s patriotism, intense as his charac- ter, passionate and true. It was a nursling of the bloody Tarleton’s Waxhaw massacre, printed on his boyish head by a British butcher’s sword-stroke, nourished in captiv- ity while yet but fourteen. It sank deep in his heart as he helped to raise the frame of a State in the wilds of primi- tive Tennessee, and fought the savage in the Southern glades and forests. And how full of glory to his country were its ripened fruits! Recall the scenes of the second war with Great Britain. With all our victories on lake and sea, disaster and humiliation had befallen us by land. Our soil had been invaded, our capital captured and rav- aged by fire. Our wide seacoast, so promising to com- merce, seemed helpless of defense. And when England gathered at Jamaica her vast armada, boastfully threat- ening to seize our great river, rob us of our new-bought territory, and push her ships and armies northward, till her cordon of empire bound us from Canada to the Gulf, who compared her mighty preparations with our feeble force, without some fear? Who but Andrew Jackson? With the daring patriotism of Leonidas, intelligently skillful as it was desperate, he flung, by night, his little band upon the enemy, instantly he had landed upon the Louisiana shore; then, gaining delay to raise a hasty breastwork, with bloody slaughter of her trained and veteran army, he gave to England, more by valor than by arms, her most ignominous defeat, and, changing our humiliation to joy, finished the war in glory by the splen- did victory of New Orleans. Not alone by a savage or a foreign enemy was that love of country tried. When his hair was white with the toils and wars of more than three-score years, when care, disease and grief had long pressed hard upon his soul, from the very people he had fought and labored for, from his own Southern clime a deadly blow was leveled at his country. The treason of secession raised its horrid front “ANDREW JACKSON.” 1 5 to defy the Constitution and tear our Union asunder. Though many trembled, the old President was unshaken. With the fierce alacrity of youth, he met it before it came forward ; and raising that fitting cry of a Republic’s Chief Magistrate, “By the God of Heaven I will uphold the laws,” he struck the treason down ! He knew but one dealing with his country’s enemy, whether he came in ships across the sea, or traitorously at home struck at the sacred bond of Union ; to fight him on the instant and to fight him to the death. And this is the devotion everywhere of the true Jack- son Democrat. This led him to the fore-ranks of war, when a second time secession aimed its mortal stroke upon our nation’s bond, when, alas! no Jackson stood in front. Forgotten all divisions, loosed all other ties, this devotion bound the Jackson Democrat to all true com- rades in arms. Let the warriors who fought with tongues and offices, at home, raise their chatter in vain ! It was not they ! This fellowship of the brave in patriotic duty then saved the Republic to men, and shall be its safe foundation forever ! Fellow Democrats ! These were the ruling guides of the illustrious man whose name and inspiration you in- voke to-night. But volumes only can tell the many deeds and services by which he exemplified them in action. I may not pause to touch them with even bare allusion. Yet I would bid you mark his dealings with another peculiar danger to popular institutions — the clutch of a great corporation on the Government. Like other com- binations of capital, the Bank of the United States had its field and day of usefulness. In its useful work it was en- titled to credit and protection, and both it received. But with strength it grew ambitious, and strained for unjust power. It stretched out its arm and took the Congress in its grasp. It defied the Executive, and a weaker one would have bent to its will. But Jackson smote it, like i6 MODEL BANQUET SPEECHES. Hercules the dragon, and it fell ! And with it fell to us the warning: Keep corporations in their places. Hands off the government of the free ! And still more pertinent to the day is it to recall his entrance on the field of national politics. Then,, as now, a vicious party system bound the people and fettered their free choice. Spurning the power of the caucus, he burst its bands of false cohesion as a mass of cobweb, and won the people overwhelmingly by direct, open war. Let us emulate the pregnant example. Down with intrigues for office ! Democracy wants no hireling soldiery who war for sack and spoil ! Up with the clear-cut principles which mark the manhood of a free man, and recruit our hosts from them who will fight for the right because it is right — for love of country and fellow-men. There is work enough to do, were we all herculean. The Augean stables must be cleaned of long-accumulated corruption ; our public trusts set utterly above the reach of political beasts of prey; our trade made free of taxes which rob the general public; our commerce to ride the waves of every sea, beneath our country’s flag. Fill up, then, gentlemen, a brimming cup to the glori- ous memory of Andrew Jackson. With joy all good men may drink it through the reunited nation. In Southern homes his name must have peculiar honor. For he was theirs from whom we claim this heritage of glory! And so was the majestic Washington! So was Jefferson! And a long line of sacred memory! Well may they jump the sins of a later generation to sink in oblivion, and seize again on the traditions of the fathers as theirs and ours together. Drink to the glories of the past — the hopes of coming time ! And, while this government bears the ark of liberty down the ages, green grow the laurels on the hero’s grave and sweetly rest his sleep ! Abide with us forever the alert and fearless courage, the open simple honesty, and pure, patriotic love of Old Hickory! “business education.” 17 “BUSINESS EDUCATION AND EDUCATION AMONG BUSINESS MEN ; a more thorough gen- eral Education is essential to the American Mer- chant, IN ORDER THAT HE MAY SUCCESSFULLY PROSE- CUTE THE GREAT AFFAIRS OF COMMERCE, AND HAPPILY ENJOY THE FRUITS OF HIS LABOR.” Response by Col. W. F. Vilas, of Madison, Wis., at a banquet of the Milwau- kee Merchants’ Association, June 5, 1884. Mr. President and Gentlemen : The sentiment rather invites an essay than a speech ; a studious, passionless, and extensive excursion upon a wide domain of history and thought. It is a serious theme, full of interest and value, and that you set it for- ward for prominent contemplation in this joyous hour of festivity, testifies the honorable spirit which rules the merchants of Wisconsin's metropolis. The craving for broader education is the proof of enlightenment already gained in great degree; it bespeaks a mind already edu- cated to comprehension of our nature, and conscious of its capability for exalted power and exquisite pleasure; it is the noble appetite of the soul. And the reflection is pleasing to us, members of the brotherhood of Liberty, that everywhere in our happy land, from every calling, from all the ranks of business and of labor, mercantile, professional and mechanical, that yearning cry is heard, marking steady diffusion of intelligence, enlarged appre- ciation of the power of knowledge, increased numbers set free in intellect by their free equality in law. The lamp of science now bestows its rays on every scene of human effort, and the quickening power of its light stimulates inquiry and growth in every field where industry adds some product for the comfort or joy of men. The teem- ing mouth of the mine is vocal with the sounds of inven- tive science ; the forest, in rapid fall, reverberates its mighty stroke ; the farmside mingles the melody of civil- i8 MODEL BANQUET SPEECHES. ization’s machinery with nature’s voices; and, in various form, the manufactory hums the notes of enlightened progress. New methods constantly grant greater forces to man ; multiply the old and develop new products to enter the marts of trade. The merchant is the agent and factor of all the ranks of industry and life ; gathering from every class, dis- tributing to every class. He must be quick to know the wants of all, the availability of the products of all. At his highest value, he must advantageously partake the knowledge of all. His intelligence must comprehend not only the necessities, but the luxuries, the elegant tastes, the most delicate gratifications. He teaches the producer what are the choicest demands of society, the consumer what the richest fruits of labor. Nor will the jealous ex- action of an ambitious people suffer the American mer- chant to limit his trials to his own country. He has ever been, and must not cease to be, the adventurous traveler of the globe. And now a thousand avenues are opened, and new journeyings inviting him, where, but shortly since, comparatively few challenged his attempts. The railroad and steamship have made all the produce of earth his commodities, every clime his garden, every peo- ple his customers. His ear must catch the daily notes of traffic, thrumming the electric wire from every leading mart of trade around the great world. His factors must be in Europe, in China, in the Indies, in South America, in the northern seas, and the far-off islands of the great oceans, and his competition outstrip rivals in every land and clime. Wherever on earth the want of his country’s productions is to be discovered or excited, there his pene- trating activity must find a market. Alert, enterprising, indefatigable, bold, handling every product of scientific industry or popular need, rapping at the gate of every av- enue of commerce — such the character and mission which a great people demand of the American merchant. Well 19 ‘'business education/' may you say the most extensive education is essential to his successful prosecution of the great affairs of com- merce committed to his charge. For, not alone must the merchant intimately know the methods and the articles of production, the channels of intercourse, the varied wants and the changing markets of the people of the earth ; he must know the science of applied statistics, the laws of trade and political economy — whence comes the wisdom to forecast events, and, still more, he must be a lawyer — in several languages — to read the chart of artificial reefs and obstructed channels by which the statutes of different nations, according to the respective degrees of their ignorance, prejudice and self- wounding selfishness, imperil the rich argosies of com- merce. But no further here. Politics is barred. True it is, minute and skillful division of these vast labors apportions but a minor share to the individual. But this is also true of every great department of affairs, and not otherwise could great achievements follow. It argues no less intelligence to be necessary to the class ; it detracts nothing from the magnitude and credit of the common enterprise. The highest rank in any calling can be reached only by possession of the gifts and acquire- ments requisite to perform its functions ; and the noblest aim and effort lead honorably to the foremost place. Whosoever is unwilling to undergo the conditions of a higher, must take, in contentment, his lesser place ; who looks to be a leader among American merchants, must be equipped with the knowledge of the world. A broader and a truer education is also needful in another point of view — to enforce the policy of honesty, and guard against the wild irruptions of folly. It must be confessed the time has not yet passed when Darien colonization schemes, South Sea bubbles, and Mississippi companies, in other guises and by other names, may sink the earnings 20 MODEL BANQUET SPEECHES. of a generation. Business men still sometimes mistake reckless speculation for business, and seek the road to wealth “across lots.” Is it not true, for some time past, much of our legitimate traffic has been a mere body-ser- vant to gambling? When the lexicon of business is chiefly studied for definition of “puts,” “calls,” “spreads,” and “straddles ;” when the neophyte is taught to buy v/hat is not sold, and to sell what he does not own, “business education” is a direct preparation for the faro-table or sweat-cloth. For years Wall street and Monaco might have been indifferently visited for “business,” with equal morality, and the former has been infinitely more pernici- ous in consequences. It has spread the fatal itch among the people, which, long hid in the circulation, is now broken out in recent mortgages, pock-spotting the whole country. That is, I understand, the healthy state of erup- tive disease ; and it may be hoped our period of convales- cence has begun. It demands educated intelligence to distinguish and guide the daring enterprises of honest business which bring legitimate gains, though often large, especially, to commend to the man of moderate affairs the wisdom of patience, the security and certainty of that steady growth which builds the oak by yearly rings of gain ; above all, to shun the seductive lures of dishonest speculation, which, sooner or later, surely wrecks its inebriated victim. It is a special pleasure to touch another feature of your toast. Happy, indeed, is that enjoyment of the fruits of labor which derives its zest from the accomplishments of the mind. This bodily frame, in youth exuberant with expanding powers, advances in growth but to manhood’s middle age ; then begins its slow, its swift descent to mor- tal dissolution, tortured with a thousand ills, monitory of the end. Not so the mind. Rightly guided, its faculties develop, its tastes improve, its wisdom strengthens, and all its pleasures widen, from when the body begins to “business EDUCATION." 21 fail ; and, not rarely, the soul shows its climax of nobility as it shakes off the mortal dust. But there is an inexor- able condition. Unremitting and generous cultivation alone bestows these treasures. Wealth of intellect, like the honest fortune of industry, is the fruit of patient ac- cumulation, the slow product of wisdom and philosophy. The appetites of youth pall in age ; the more bitterly, the greater the youthful indulgence. Woe betide that man whose only resource for joy has been their gratification, when the ills of age beset him ! Hardly less pitiable is he whom a sordid greed enslaves. He stands like some soli- tary trunk, when the fire has swept the forest; every leaf and flower turned to blackness, where nature offered a scene of beauty. It is the peculiar peril of the man of business, who must needs employ his faculties for gain. Well shall it be for him if he wisely applies in time the counter-check of polite studies. Happily falls the even- tide of life on that man, who, with a garnered competence, has secured his quiet seat where the sun-rays of philoso- phy and literature shall soften, with delicious colors, the twilight of his declining day; and sweetly shall his natur- al sleep embrace him at its close. There is, in the volumes of recorded lore, a mine of interest and delight for the special delectation of the merchant-student. It has been, perhaps still is, an affectation of the so- called nobility across the sea, to contemn the man of trade, calling all — in scorn — shopkeepers ; and even ser- vile scholars — for mere learning never gave independence — have stalked along behind, carrying the train of this pride. You may, at times, chance to see some blood- cursed heir of this depravity turn up an aristocratic nose — often over a hungry mouth — at bare thought of such association. It is a mushroom of ignorance. Review of the history and deeds of his calling may justly fill the merchant’s heart with generous pride. At its head has stood, from the earliest years of the 22 MODEL BANQUET SPEECHES. race, the genius of inquiry and enterprise. It has been the forlorn hope and the vanguard of civilization. In ancient days, when priests and scholars turned for knowledge their feeble gaze to the stars, in credulous lunacy, and every stranger was a frightful barbarian and a foe, the merchant’s caravan unfolded a knowledge of the earth and of the arts of life. In later times, when the deluge of barbarism had submerged the civilization of the ancients, and again darkness was upon the face of the earth, the rays of returning light shone from the cities which the Adriatic merchant built and endowed, and thence, also, sprung that perfect code of the laws of busi- ness, to which all civilization pays the grateful tribute of obedience. Afterwards, when tyrants, big and small, ruled and robbed the land of Europe; while pirates de- spoiled the seas, alike unchecked by fear of justice or of a spiritless and subjugated people, it was the merchants and tradesmen who joined together that puissant league of towns which bowed princes to their law, strung pirates to their gibbets, and taught the first lessons to the people of their rights and power. It was little Holland, mighty in her knowledge of the laws of trade, from whose mer- cantile genius, like Minerva from the head of Jove, sprung Grotius, to write that law which rules nations as its sub- jects; it was trading Holland which gave secure asylum to the oppressed in conscience, and ushered from its shores the, adventurous pilgrims, heralds of liberty to the new world. It has been the merchant who broke the synonymy of enemy and stranger, who discovered the brotherhood of man, and pioneered the civilization which Christianity purified; it was the merchant who practiced the Baconian philosophy before Bacon lived, and displayed, by his ad- venturous inquiry, the beginning of many sciences ; it was the merchant whose intelligent courage and wisdom first subdued the anarchy, that broke the tyranny of the mid- 23 “our hotel." die ages, and gave the spirit of liberty to the land, and all the security of law to the sea. And as we stand here in the mere youth-time of a new and mighty world, may we not strain a prophetic eye to that future day when the American merchant — worthy in- heritor of the glories of his line — descending to his ships from either shore of this harmonious continent, shall cause the gigantic arteries of an earth-surrounding traffic to beat from the American heart of commerce, concen- trating here the returning wealth of all nations. “OUR HOTEL — John Plankinton's house, the famous Caravansary of the Northwest; grand in its pro- portions AND IN ALL ITS APPOINTMENTS, THEY SIMPLY REFLECT THE HEAD AND HEART OF ITS ORIGINATOR AND PROPRIETOR ONE OF MILWAUKEE^ FOREMOST CITI- ZENS." Response by James G. Jenkins, at a banquet of the Milwaukee Merchants’ Association, June 5, 1884. Mr. President: The theme assigned me is double; the house Plankin- ton, and the man Plankinton. Ordinarily — like a patent of nobility — they speak for themselves; they are their own best advocates. It seems, however, fitting to the time when the merchants of Milwaukee hold their annual feast, sacred to their titular deity Ceres, the goddess of corn and of harvests, and appropriate to the occasion when they dedicate to use this beautiful banquet hall, that mention should be made of the house that is the pride of the city, and of the man whose public spirit has made such an hostelry an accomplished fact. The practical religion of a practical age declares as in- fallible truth that man’s first great duty is to his stomach. Unless that organ be healthful and well supplied, the body is not nourished, the brain works awry, and dis- -4 MODEL BANQUET SPEECHES. torted fancies usurp the throne of reason and of common sense. The ill-conditioned stomach can neither rightly appreciate the present life, nor justly reason on the life to come. In vain the missionary appeals to the starving savage to comprehend and reconcile the great fundament- al doctrines of predestination, election, fore-ordination and free-will. But fill that empty stomach with whole- some food, and the brain receives invigorating force, suffi- cient, if the treatment be timely prosecuted, to digest even those theological brick-bats. The communist is merely a starving stomach crying for food, the protest of nature’s law of nourishment against man’s law of starva- tion; forcible the protest, because the demands of nature are peremptory; violent, because to the starving, peace- able means seem unavailing. A full stomach is, politi- cally, conservative. An ill-fed stomach is radical in pro- portion to its emptiness. The safety of the state lies not in written constitutions, nor in armies, but in well-filled stomachs. The bullet of wheat is more effective than the bullet of lead. “Let me have men about me that are fat;. Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o’nights; Yond’ Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.” In all the progress of the race, man’s first effort has been to better his physical condition. The race has striven — is still striving — for better homes, for better clothing, for better food, and, last but not the least, for better cook- ing. Not, perhaps, to so great an extent as formerly, but still, in large measure, is it true to-day that “Heaven sends us good meat, but the devil sends us cooks.” In spite of the wonderful advance in scientific knowl- edge and the means of information, but little progress, outside of the commercial centers, has been made in the science of cooking. Cooking should be one of the learned professions. It is the master of all. It gives tone to religious thought. It makes and unmakes presidents. It 25 "our hotel/' largely influences legislation and the administration of the law. It affects the decision of the judge upon the law, and the finding of the jury upon the facts. It creates the necessity which renders tolerable the medical profes- sion. But, sad to say, the science of cooking is for the most part in the keeping of the ignorant and the careless. The coat of arms of the average cook should be a weak concoction of coffee couchant, with a fried beefsteak rampant. The cook is man’s tyrant. Before this despot how powerless are we ! His sway is all-pervading. He is re- sponsible for most of the evils of life. He may be persua- sive also to the attainment of great happiness. Mens sana in corpore sano — a sound mind in a sound body — is to the rational mind the indispensable condition of complete manhood. The one cannot exist without the other, and both are dependent in a large degree upon the cook. He controls our destinies, our bodies, our nerves, our thoughts, our ambitions. His art or want of skill builds up or destroys the body, enriches or impoverishes the blood, strengthens or weakens the nerves, affects the very fibre of the brain, the very quality of thought. The suc- cess or failure of "enterprises of great pith and moment” often hinge upon the quality of one’s breakfast. The cook may be either Vishnu, the preserver, or Siva, the de- stroyer. He most frequently develops as the latter divin- ity. He is the fruitful parent of dyspepsia, and dyspepsia destroys a good statesman, a good merchant, a good law- yer, and a good citizen. The dyspeptic is always a bear — in more senses than one — and as to every enterprise. The well-fed stomach looks grandly and hopefully upon life, its possibilities and its means of usefulness. The Eng- lish are wise. Their appeals for charitable, religious and public aid are made at the close of a good dinner. The subtle chord of sympathy between the stomach and the 26 MODEL BANQUET SPEECHES. pocket-book can only be tuned to sweet music by the cook. This tyrant of ours is unassailable — entrenched in power. His government is an absolute despotism, accom- panied by heavy taxation without much representation. There is no republican form of government in the kitchen. No revolution can dethrone him, and we cannot live with- out our tyrant. Although he slay us, yet must we trust in him. “We may live without poetry, music and art; We may live without conscience, and live without heart; We may live without friends ; we may live without books ; But civilized man cannot live without cooks.” Seeing, then, that much of life depends upon the cook, that the stability of governments and the destinies of men are within his power, ought we not, as lovers of our couni try and of our fellows, to seek the application of the prin- ciples of good government first where it is most needed — to the kitchen? We have common schools all over the land to nourish the brain. Let us have cooking schools to nourish the body. Let the rallying cry be, “Shall the coming woman cook?” It matters little whether Arthur or Blaine, or Tilden or Cleveland be president. It is es- sential to the safety of the republic that we inaugurate true civil-service reform in the kitchen. Some one has said that “if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation.” Let Plankinton name the cooks, and I will show you bet- ter ballads and better laws. The contrast between the ancient inn and the modern hotel presents in striking manner the progress of civiliza- tion. Anciently, stringent laws were necessary to protect the guest from the landlord. The latter was usually poor, of rather unsavory reputation, and sometimes a highway- man. Being unable — like the modern landlord — to ab- sorb all of his guests’ money in a legal way, he resorted 27 “our hotel." to forcible and unlawful measures to obtain it. The inn of the olden time was a necessity to furnish a meagre livelihood to the landlord. The hotel of a commercial metropolis now is the plaything of a millionaire. Form- erly, traveling, even for short distances from home, was confined to the rich, and was infrequent. The inn, there- fore, was adapted only to the needs of the time. It was small and crude in all its appointments, and yet it must have furnished a deal of comfort; for a century ago, so great a man as Samuel Johnson asserted, that “there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn." But so great have become the means of communi- cation in modern times, and so confirmed the necessity and habit of frequent and long journeys, that the inn has, at all commercial centers, developed into a palace, at- tended by an army of retainers, quick to meet the require- ments of the guest. Royalty in the time of Elizabeth was not lodged or fed as is the ordinary American sover- eign in the modern inn. A ducal palace in all its glory could not compare with a metropolitan hotel of to-day. It is magnificent in its proportions, royal in its appoint- ments, epicurean in its larder, luxurious in all its sur- roundings. The modern inn is a sure indication of the progress of the race in material wealth and physical com- fort. And now to come back to my text. Of all modern hotels there are doubtless many that are larger, but I think none can surpass in quiet, but beautiful and rich in- terior, in attention and care for guests, the fullness, rich- ness and variety of its larder, in the whiteness and cleanli- ness of its linen, and the solid comfort of its beds, in the excellency of its cooking, the Plankinton House of Mil- waukee. All that art and science and money could sup- ply, has been supplied, and with no niggard hand, to ren- der this an abode of luxurious ease. Beautiful marbles 28 MODEL BANQUET SPEECHES. and frescoes delight the eye. Here sweet, clean beds invite to repose. Here every comfort is at your bidding. The “salted seas,” the great lakes and the mountain streams yield their rich food. The forests and the great prairies ren- der their savory game. The tropics and the Pacific slope bestow delicious fruits. The tables groan beneath the weight of luxury And here is a cook upon whom the title is rightly bestowed. He is an artist, not a boor. He knows better than to fry a steak, and can discern the difference between coffee and dishwater. And there is a bar — ah, gentlemen, I see your eyes glisten and mouths water at the very men- tion of the place — a bar where the choicest beverages, the most fragrant Havanas, are at command. There every taste may be gratified. There is champagne for the man of high license, Best’s beer for the man of low license, and an ex- cellent quality of Apollinaris for the prohibitionist. In brief, whatever of luxury unlimited means can com- mand, with respect to the lodgment and care of guests, can here be found. With John Plankinton as general in com- mand, and Charles W. White as brigadier, the guest may always be assured of right royal welcome and right royal care. Well may Milwaukee be proud of the Plankinton — house and man. Fitting is it that the merchants of the city should dedicate this elegant banquet room. Here hold your annual feasts ; for many a day shall pass before Mil- waukee can boast a finer room, a more elegant hotel, a more sumptuous table, or better cooking than we have seen and enjoyed to-night. Of the man Plankinton — to whom the city and state are indebted for this noble hostelry — it is needless to speak in any mere words of praise. To say of him that his name is a synonym of honor, of large-hearted liberality, of en- lightened public spirit, is but to say what is a proverb with every man, woman and child in Milwaukee. The monu- ments of his enterprise and public liberality are seen and 29 “the jury." known of all. His private charities are known only to the recipients. Long may he live to enjoy the well-deserved esteem of his neighbors, and the fruits of an honest and well-spent life. I conclude, Mr. President, by asking leave to propose the health of John Plankinton, The sagacious merchant, The public-spirited citizen, The friend of the poor, The Christian gentleman, The man who “can keep a hotel." “ THE JURY." Response by George W. Wakefield, at the banquet of the Iowa State Bar Asso- ciation, at Davenport, Iowa, July 38, 1896. The jury is an ancient and honorable branch of the court, a safeguard to personal liberty, fostered and preserved by a freedom-loving people, and the direct legacy of the common law to us. It is essentially democratic in its origin and nature and grew out of the customs and laws of a people who in the savage and barbarous state acknowledged no king. Then the sovereign communities were small, the members of each few, and the whole body of freemen in each, assembled full armed, in their annual court, when officers for the year were elected, public business transacted and the more grave controversies between individuals as well as offenses against the community, were heard and de- termined by the voice of all. This simple method has grown and changed with the increase in numbers,. the com- bination of small communities into great states, and the advance of civilization and consequent increasing complex- ity of controversies. The forming of a great state made a representative system for the small communities necessary, not only in the ordinary affairs of government, but also in the determination of controversies. The Anglo-Saxon, 30 MODEL BANQUET SPEECHES. carried to England from the German forests, the court of the hundred and the wapentake, where all the people attended. As numbers increased it was found inconvenient to require all to attend the Shire courts, and provision was made for a specified number from each hundred as “the four best men,” to attend instead. So through representation by slow steps has grown the jury as we now have it. In its scope and purpose the jury is representative of the people, and when untrammeled its influence is on the side of per- sonal right and popular privilege and opposed to prerog- ative and kingly tyranny. Monarchs do not look upon it with kindly eyes. While the infamous Jeffreys coerced the jury to find Alice Lisle guilty of high treason, another jury, notwithstanding the influence of the king, acquitted the seven bishops who refused to aid James II. to overthrow the Protestant faith. Though the jury that acquitted Sir Nicholas Throgmorton in disregard of the wishes of the judges were assessed to pay enormous fines by the council in the Star Chamber, yet in the face of threatened punish- ment a jury found William Penn not guilty of an offense for having spoken at a Quaker meeting. A jury relieved the Virginia planters from the undue burden of a tobacco tax, though all the influence of prerogative was used to enforce that burden. The jury system had no place upon the con- tinent of modern Europe until it was introduced by the French Revolution. Since then it has been quite generally adopted in some form and with various limitations for the trial of the more grave criminal causes, but it has not been used in determining civil matters, the continental jurists thinking the system not well adapted to such use. One of the French jurists has well said: “Of all the positions of trust which the law can confer on a citizen, there is not one which requires more of discernment, of independence and of real morality, than that of juryman; and a study of the political movements and reforms on the continent of Europe for the past century will show the profound interest 3i “the jury/' which the jury has excited there, while the number of laws that have been enacted with a view to bringing good men into the jury box and regulating their actions 'according to the best principles, testifies to the fact that the author above quoted but voices a general conviction.” (Dr. Scaife.) In 1864 the jury system obtained a foothold in Russia, the land of absolute monarchy. While the system is thus growing and extending over continental Europe, it is with * us growing more and more common to hear disparaging remarks about the jury and our jury system. There may be just cause of complaint as to the particulars of our jury system and its workings as now constituted. If so, then the people should by apt laws remedy the defect and not destroy the system. There is no perfect human law, and the best human ingenuity can devise will only approx- imately secure right and justice among men. Those laws best considered and best adapted to the purposes intended and most generally accepted in particular cases, sometimes result in hardship. If the results are uncertain, so are all human judgments. Are the judgments of Chancery Courts more easy to forecast than the verdict of the jury? Richard Francis, more than a hundred years ago, said it was a common objection that courts of equity were uncertain and precarious, and the unhappy suitor must enter such court with doubts and fears. Whether the conditions have im- proved, each may answer for himself if the number of ap- peals and reversals do not answer it for him. As the old English king made the length of his arm the standard length of the English ell. so monarchs and rulers are still disposed to insist that their conscience is the measure of good and evil, and justice can only proceed from them in the business affairs of everyday life. However, the fact is that there is no perfect human judgment or conscience. The men of science, trained to thought and deliberate study, watching the heavens night after night through the tele- scope, find that their observations of the same body at the 32 MODEL BANQUET SPEECHES. same time do not agree, and through extended comparison of many observations by a corps of observers they compute and assign to each his tendency to error, which is called personal equation, and which is considered as inhering in all of his observations. So we, men of the law, as well as men of the business world and ordinary jurors, each and all have our personal equation, but we have not, like the men of science, by extensive comparison, measured and deter- mined what it is. Duport, advocating the introduction of the jury system into France, said : “Every man can be used for unearthing a fact.” We cannot in this age and time use every man. The multitude of causes and necessities of civil life forbid. Many are by nature or by want of education ill adapted to such service generally, and their personal equation is so great as to render their use undesirable. It is therefore wise to impose restrictions in selecting jurors, so that the more capable can be chosen. Jurors selected with reasonable care from the various walks of life, having due regard to character and judgment, will each present in the jury room some personal equation, some tendency to error, but these tendencies will vary with the individuals, and each will in some measure offset and modify the other so that the joint personal equation of the twelve men will be minimized in the verdict. In Iowa the recent jury law was framed to carry out the thought of Duport and to make all voters in turn serve upon the jury. The law makes the jury thoroughly representative. It brought into the jury box all classes and conditions, indifferent and bad jurors as well as good ones, and no doubt, in some localities, the change from a system of selected names as eligible jury- men, was a change for the worse. It is desirable that the list of eligible jurymen should be as extensive and as thor- oughly representative as reasonable care can make it, but with such limitations that it may not be truly said : “The jury passing on the prisoner’s life, May in the sworn twelve, have a thief or two Guiltier than him they try.” "our country.” 33 The present jury laws may need modification and be capable of improvement, but in its essential character the jury should remain a permanent institution in all free gov- ernments, for it is the best system devised by man for the trial of criminal causes and issues of fact involving conflict of testimony. “For men’s judgments are A parcel of their fortunes; and all things outward Do draw the inward quality after them.” “ OUR COUNTRY.” Response by Hon. Thos. F. Bayard, of Delaware, at a banquet of the Iroquois Club, at Chicago, April 13, 1883. Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Iroquois Club: The toast you have just given is surely the best in the world to bring an American a thousand miles to respond to it, and no better place for such response can be found than this proudly representative city of Chicago — so distinctively American — where the pulsations of energy, enterprise, and feeling are so full, warm and strong, and the characteristics of our country so splendidly illustrated. And in what assemblage can such a theme be more properly contem- plated and discussed than that in which I happily find my- self to-night? For I see around me a group of my fellow- countrymen, called together from private occupations by a common impulse of patriotic observance and commemora- tion, animated by a public spirit, seeking only to promote the cause of good government and the prosperity of all classes through the organization of a political party as the only efficient means to the great end — the regulation and control of all the elements to society by a system of laws enacted and forms ordained for self-government by the people — a government of a great family of republics, each exercising for itself, and within its borders, the essential rights, and fulfilling the correspondent duties of local self- government, and all bound in a union for a common defense 34 MODEL BANQUET SPEECHES. and the general welfare under a written constitution of dele- gated and limited powers. The topic you have selected is the highest, our place of meeting the fittest, this assemblage the most congenial, and the occasion, the 143rd anniversary of the birth of the illus- trious author of the declaration of American independence, “The title-deed of the liberties of the American people/’ Do not suppose that I am so unmindful of the proprieties of the occasion, or so ungrateful as to requite your hospitali- ties by a long recital of statistics of the wealth and progress of this country. What I have to say shall be said shortly. Grand as is our own heritage, magnificent and mar- velous as is the landed estate which we call “our country,” it is its soul rather than its body, the jewel rather than the casket containing it, which attracts my thought to-night, and impels me to invite yours. And yet a glance at this grand empire of land and sea, upon whose sides break the waves of two oceans, over whose fair and ample bosom countless rivers thread their way, like veins carrying life- blood and fructification for the millions who gather strength and subsistence from such exuberant fountains of supply, may imperfectly disclose the material force — the actual ex- tent of the land so bounteously given to us for our own use for life, and in remainder to our posterity forever. For, in the language of Webster, “We are in the line of conveyance through which, whatever has been obtained by the spirit and efforts of our ancestors, is to be communi- cated to our children.” With no desire to inflate national vanity, it may not be uninstructive to take a glance over this vast unbroken area of our dominions, almost four millions of square miles, an acreage staggering to arithmetical expression ; with a pres- ent population of 55,000,000, and increased by an annual immigration of nearly one million ; with climate infinite in its variety, soils teeming with every vegetable production known to man’s imagination or needed for his use; mines 35 “our country.” of every metal, precious and base ; a land so vast in extent, so varied in feature, so replete in all that can elevate and gratify human feeling and imagination, or exalt the sense of religious gratitude; within whose borders a lifetime could well be spent in travel and discovery, to find at its close that but a fragment of the great whole had been seen, and its marvelous capacities and beauties scarcely comprehended. Standing thus upon the highlands of vision, realizing the material forces placed in our care, how important, how dignified, becomes the duties of each American citizen ! How vast the interests committed to his charge ! For we cannot disguise the presence nor lessen the weight upon the members of a democratic republic, of individual as well as collective responsibilities to administer well and wisely the affairs of so great an empire, so vast a body of human in- terests. And the soul of our country is the spirit of justice and liberty, finding expression under equal laws, for the preser- vation of which the written Constitution of our Union was ordained, and the free institutions of our government founded. Left free and unfettered to proclaim and assert them- selves, the intelligence and faculties of mankind have vindi- cated by their results in this country the wisdom of non- interference by the government, either to assist or obstruct the exercise of individual effort and faculty, under regula- tion of equal laws, in just such mode and direction as the possession of conscious power and inclination by the indi- vidual should instruct. Hence, we have seen in America the children of obscur- ity and poverty growing strong in their contests with ad- versity, which elsewhere would have proved an insuperable bar, but, under the equity of our American system, become guides and instructors to success — tests for growing abilities, and encouragements to high and honorable aspirations. The enduring greatness of our country is founded upon 36 MODEL BANQUET SPEECHES. what is really elevated and great in the minds and hearts of our people. Let us never forget that we have embarked our hopes upon trust — and not upon distrust — in human nature ; upon what it contains of strength and worth, and not upon its weakness and depravity ; upon the belief that the instinct of self-preservation, left free to recoil from natural and necessary errors and mistakes, will not repeat them; and that, with free and recurrent opportunities for popular elec- tions, misconduct in rulers and mistakes in public policies can and will be corrected and remedied, under the peaceful, orderly and effective forms of law. And can we be mistaken in the present indications so manifest and abundant, that we are soon to witness, in the election of 1884, a splendid and potential proof of popular wisdom and power to redress grievances, reform unwise policies, rebuke corruption, and purify and strengthen pop- ular institutions ; by driving out of the temple of our liberties the mercenary and machine politicians who have betrayed popular trust and disgraced and degraded the administration of our government? Gentlemen, the era which includes our lifetime is one of remarkable, almost incredible, combination of the results of invention in production of material wealth, in the rapid and facile distribution of that wealth, and the bringing of the whole world into such close and intimate relation that all former conditions of human intercourse are changed, and problems bewildering in number and importance are pre- sented to our view. Time and space are no longer obstructions to the world’s intercourse. The telephone has already brought the lips of New York close against the ear of Chicago, and to “girdle the earth in forty minutes” would be to-day an unpardon- able waste of time. Never in human history was the creation of material wealth so easy, and so marvelously abundant. Its consoli- dation, under the forms of incorporation, is creating vast 37 “our country.” units of power which result in monopolies, and absorb and overthrow individual and independent rivalries. Herein are dangers it will behoove us gravely to contemplate, and con- sider what forces shall be summoned to counteract them. The great question which attends this creation of wealth is : What will you do with it? Are we to be content with making this land of ours one great wealth- factory ? Is that to be the all and end all? Are we to travel over the same lowlands of luxury, effem- inacy, corruption and decay as the nations and governments that have risen and fallen before us on the plains of history? On what do we build, and for what do we build ? What greatness do we seek to achieve ? To what do our institu- tions tend? Is it the creation of mere wealth? or is it the advance- ment and elevation of the human race? Shall we not light up our pathway of progress as a people with more of justice, more of benevolence, more of the higher attributes that stir within our hearts and dignify our manhood ? The Greek called man anthropos — “one with face turned upward.” And what shall be the use of all our wealth- creating inventions if they do not turn man’s face upward, and create a higher range of personal feeling, ambition, and action for our people? Shall not the possession of wealth bring not merely lux- ury, culture and refinement, but also a high spirit of benefi- cence guided by justice, and justice adorned with the gar- lands of benevolence ? Shall we not encourage mankind to higher ends by ad- vancing to public power only the wise, the honorable, and the true, and turning with disdain from the time-servers, demagogues, and plutocrats of our time, who sneer at dis- interested efforts and honest attempts to purify and reform our civil service, and believe the best route to success is a “star route?” 38 MODEL BANQUET SPEECHES. Shall we not multiply our charities, and lift from the weak and unfortunate of our species “Their portion of that weight of care That crushes into dumb despair, One-half the human race!” If we are to have wealth in houses, lands, in physical luxuries and comforts, if “palaces are to rise like exhala- tions, and equipages flash like meteors/’ let us also create and foster a wealth of honorable traditions, of lives and names made glorious and immortal by justice, heroism, and unselfishness ; wealth of art, scholarship, and learning ; wealth of science and philosophy ; wealth of public morality, of charity and religious faith. The strength of a people is not merely the physical strength, natural advantages, and material resources. Strong fortresses, chains of mountains, rugged frontiers and deep seas do not of themselves protect a country. It is the living wall of brave hearts and willing arms that constitute its sure and chief defense. The strong- est fortress in the known world is the rock of Gibraltar, and for nearly two centuries it has been held by the mailed hand of an alien and a stranger ; a menace and an abiding re- proach to' the kingdom and the people who surround it, be- cause a braver and a bolder hand than its natural owners has taken and withheld it from them. The essential integer of our country, the seminal princi- ple of American government, the germ of our greatness as a people, is the independent, fearless, individual man, the founder and head of the family, whose social and political influence enlarges itself from the family into the State. For the family is the birthplace and nursery of the fireside vir- tues. Home bred — bred at home. Honor, truthfulness and courage, self-denial and modesty, charity and honesty — these are the qualities which enlarge their influences from the home to the neighborhood, until they permeate the com- munity, pervade the State, and public sentiment at last be- 39 “our country.” comes imbued with the spirit of personal worth and in- tegrity. In the ultimate settlement of the gravest affairs of na- tions, these are the qualities upon which men must rely for safety and good order, and under the form of government we have adopted the need for their cultivation and ascend- ency seems greater even than elsewhere. They must be rep- resented somewhere in our government. Therefore, wheth- er you call it local self-government or home-rule (which to me has a sweeter sound), I am deeply-impressed with the necessity for its restoration in full force in the broad 1 Union, equally for the strength and safety of the Union as well as of these pillars of State, of which that Union is composed, and upon whose integrity it depends ; and this is one of the most important duties of the political party to which we are attached. A proper regulation of the two opposing forces, the centrifugal and the centripetal, maintains a true equilib- rium, but for the last twenty years the latter force has been over-exercised, and the former weakened by disuse. Centralization of power and action is the obvious result of the invention of steam and telegraphy, and the safety of our popular institutions demands decentralization — distri- bution of power, and its exercise for local self-government by those whose daily lives and interests are to be affected by it. Home-rule, or local self-government, is the right as it is a necessity for the American citizen — and it is the intent and meaning of our written constitution of union. The strength of a State rests upon the number of up- right, independent, self-reliant, self-respecting individuals it contains ; and under our democratic theories of government all invasions of individual freedom of conscience and action, not essential for the preservation of social order, and the protection of individual and public rights, are unwise and unwarranted. ' All tendencies of legislation which, ignoring individual 40 MODEL BANQUET SPEECHES. responsibility, substitute governmental control in matters social and personal, weakens the powers of the individual, and enfeebling them by disuse, lessens their agency in the good government of himself and his family. In this mis- chievous substitution of governmental power in matters social and personal lies the objection to sumptuary laws, interference with conscience in social and religious affairs, invasion of the domain of private opinion and personal lib- erty, which seeks to impose penalties for anticipated acts and offences as yet uncommitted. This spirit of unwise and unjust interference by the gov- ernment is the objection to laiws which, under the name of taxation, favor certain classes of occupation at the cost of the others, and abridge that freedom of contract and com- mercial intercourse which an enlightened and enlarged sense of self-interest should control. It is, in fact, the principle of socialism, of communism, of paternal oversight of the government substituted for in- dividual endeavor, guided by intelligent self-interest, and restrained by individual conscience. It is to promote the healthy sentiment and habit of self- reliant manhood that the Democratic party throughout the United States insist upon the fullest degrees of individual liberty of conscience and action consistent with public safety and the rights of others ; and for that reason we deprecate all unnecessary interference with the rights of local self- government, and all class legislation by the general govern- ment which assumes guardianship and protection over the business of the private citizen, and functions of control over matters of domestic and local interest. We must carefully and jealously insist that the true germ and real basis of the greatness of our country should not be obscured and overlooked, and public control allowed over matters properly belonging to private jurisdiction. We need this as a check upon the centralizing influences, the consolidation of wealth and power, and the tyranny of party “democracy; past, present and future/' 41 organization; all of which tend to wither individual man- hood and conscience, and absolve men from the sense of personal duty and obligation. The emphasis and reiteration of this thought may assist us to comprehend the strength and glory of our free insti- tutions, and the conditions upon which they may secure their perpetuity, and which, if accepted, fastens upon each one of us as an integer in that strength and greatness a fuller sense of his responsibility. Such contemplation cannot fail to send us back to our respective scenes of labor elevated and invigorated by a comprehension of the trust committed to our hands, so that the political party we sustain shall indeed become worthy means to a noble end, the advancement of the honor and welfare of our country. Therefore, let us join in the sentiment, “Our Country/' May the administration of its government be intrusted only to those who love each member of the Union, and respect equally the rights of each and the rights of all. And may we ever comprehend that our country's greatness consists, not in the wealth of its inhabitants, nor the extent of its do- minion, but in the fitness of its people to maintain justice, liberty, and conscientious manhood through the agency of popular self-government. “DEMOCRACY; PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE." Response by Col. William F. Vilas, of Wisconsin, at a banquet of the Iroquois Club, at Chicago, April 13, 1883. Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the Iroquois Club : You propose a sentiment as grateful to feeling as it is honorable to discuss in this splendid presence at your festal board. The pure origin, high principles and happy career o'f the Constitutional Democracy of the Union, as estab- lished and conducted by the fathers, are both delightful to contemplate and pregnant with admonition of present duty. A 2 MODEL BANQUET SPEECHES. To a lover of his country and his kind, the theme is en- trancing, and moderation with difficulty subdues ardor, to make the retrospect a calm lesson. The success of our Revolutionary arms bestowed on mankind a continent to which princes were strangers, and where the divinity of kingship was laughed to scorn by na- ture’s majesty. The dream of liberty, which for centuries of despotism had tortured humanity like a nightmare, was a waking reality of joy. At last force and law were at one, and the power of government was with the right of gov- ernment, in the hands of the people to be governed. Hap- pier still, virtue and capability prevailed to sway thatscep- ter. Cromwell could not destroy the king and overturn the kingdom ; the blood of his zealots fertilized flowers for Charles the Second, and the commons of Britain remain the empire’s third estate to-day. In fortunate America, the opportunity gained by arms was not lost in dissension or smothered by habits. Wisdom and liberty crystallized in the Constitution, that most blessed work conceived of heaven in the human brain. Then the great experiment began. A happy flush of enthusiasm and affectionate devotion to the god-like Wash- ington appointed, without division, the opening administra- tion. It was fraternity too pure to long sustain the assault of human passions. America is not Utopia, and divisions must follow inevitable differences. A few years distin- guished parties by a line to be expected from human nature and the history of men. It holds to-day, as then, marking the aristocratic greed for special privileges to classes, against the democratic love of common humanity, demand- ing equal privileges for all. On the one hand gathered they who — though patriotic and manly in resisting the arrogant tyranny of England — yet timidly distrusted the people, favored a strong centralized government, and, un- der the form of a republic, would have preserved much of “democracy; past, present and future.” 43 the reality of the empire. On the other were the intrepid philosophers and statesmen who accepted the convictions of their logic, religiously loved their race, believed and trusted in the people and regarded all institutions of government only valuable as they subserved the common welfare of equal humanity. To them, the new Constitution and the new Union were not to establish governors upon and over the people, but a beneficent means by which self-government and individual liberty were forever secured, and the agencies of the popular will defined and limited. Not in any spirit of demagoguery, nor from any effemi- nate sentimentalism, but with exalted philanthropy and profound philosophy, and in the strength of freedom, they arrayed themselves as the popular party, and the champions of popular rights. With dramatic fitness, its character was marked, its perpetuity guaranteed, when its foremost ban- ner was flung to' the breeze by the hand that penned the declaration of our independence as a Nation, the immortal philosopher and statesman of Monticello, whose fortunate gift to a favored land we choose to celebrate to-night. Looking over the gulf of war upon the vista of the past, how bright appears the career then inaugurated ! From the Presidency of Thomas Jefferson, for half a century and more, with but brief gusts of fitfulness which testified their freedom, the American people confided to that partv the keeping of their republic. With the gigantic ease of Atlas, it bore the new world upon its shoulders. In its hands, government was simple, cheap and without burden, and this nation rose before mankind from weakness to power, from poverty to riches, from insignificance to grandeur. Bv its guidance, the republic obtained, in veritable fact, “her equal station among the powers of the earth,” ex- tended her domain to> the continent’s utmost shore, with her sails whitened everv sea, and spread her starry flag, em- blem of power, in the skies of every port in the world. Un- 44 MODEL BANQUET SPEECHES. der its care her people advanced in education and intelli- gence, generally diffused, in riches, well distributed ; works of improvement proceeded without overshadowing corpo- rations or depletion of the Nation’s treasury, and equality in liberty kept pace with progress in science, arts and mate- rial prosperity. Mingling enterprising spirits from every civilized land, our people reveled in the successful “pursuit of happiness,” joyous as the laughter of children gathering the fruits of autumn. Unexpectedly, a fearful tornado fell from this sunny sky, and in its spinning vortex the laws of our liberty and happiness helplessly whirled into chaos, and, finally, lay scattered upon its track, amid the ruins of property and the wreck of ife. And there, in great part, they have been suf- fered to lie, as if destroyed or valueless, while, with venge- ful wrath, the wake of ruin has been cleared. Hate and passion have outvoted every other sentiment, and dema- gogues have quickly pressed the bellows when the embers cooled. Profiting by the opportunity, conspiracy, in vari- ous shapes, has aimed its secret machinations at the dear- est privileges of a free people. For party ends, it has stran- gled the popular voice, to put the reins of power in fraudu- lent hands ; it has perverted and abused the Federal agency, to the injury of local and State government. For private gain, it has corrupted legislation for the use of classes and monopolies, to the enormous acquisition by few of the fruits of the labor of the people. It has made our navy a by-word, and denied to our merchant marine the industries of the sea. It has squandered our wealth of land, and drawn the bars of the treasury that jobbery and robbery might plunder it. And, for both objects, with the spoil of the people, it has inoculated the freeman at the polls with corruption, which steals his manhood as the immoderate cup bereaves the brain. The practice of tyrannical methods, so long indulged, obediently to natural law, has extended to every phase of 45 “democracy; past, present and future/' political action. It has dominated all the usages of the ad- ministration party, until men of independent thought are denied the libery of voice within its pale. For the extinction of slavery and perpetual security to the Union — the gain of war — the cost of life and wealth the republic could well afford to pay. It cannot afford this additional waste of the safeguards of liberty, unless it speedily cease. It threatens not ourselves and our pros- perity alone, but our children and the race. It avails nothing to criminate or recriminate the author- ship or causes. It avails nothing to defend or apologize for the action of the so-called Democratic party of twenty years ago, and later. It must be conceded that it has kept some bad company and been visited with its effects. But “sweet are the uses of adversity may we have profited by them ! There must be a change, and a great change ; a change of sentiment and a change of methods. The controversies and passions begotten of the war are things of the past, use- ful only in their teachings of errors to avoid. New ideas, new purposes, new issues and new political associations are before us. Mr. President and gentlemen, the change has already begun. To your credit and honor the keynote of that change, most fruitful to our hope, was sounded at your banquet last year, and resounded with cheerful melody in the elections of last fall. To overthrow the gigantic forms of error and wrong which have intrenched and fortified, almost unobserved, for these twenty years, will require the concerted energy of all the best of every political complexion. There must be political association to unite them, without animosities to prosecute or revenges to gratify ; its face set forward to do the mighty work incumbent on the people of to-day. All philosophy and reason teach that its germ must lie with the party in opposition, for the evils are rooted tin the party in administration. But its blossom and fruitage will spring from the hearts and minds of the whole people. 46 MODEL BANQUET SPEECHES. Your conference of last year invited recurrence to the teachings of the fathers for light and inspiration on the path ahead. It is the dictate of wisdom. It will revive a party of the people, instant and zealous, to demand and secure their rights and privileges. The country needs renewal of the faith and doctrine of the old democracy of Jefferson. Now, as then, it is ade- quate, and nothing less is adequate, to maintain constitu- tional government and constitutional liberty. Now, as then, it will prove the road to happiness and prosperity. We want it, to defend against the Nation’s most insid- ious peril, centralization of powers, unnecessary to the com- mon welfare of the Union. We want it to reform our civil service, to restore honesty, capability and fidelity to supre- macy as qualifications for office. We want it to give again purity, integrity, simplicity and economy to the administra- tion of government. We want it to suppress the tyranny of “bossism,” and open the ways of political service to self- respecting manhood ; to put a period to the canting Peck- sniffism in office, which so long has openly prated virtue and secretly practiced iniquity, and give us again the plain and sturdy public servants of ‘ the olden days, who are what they seem. We want it, to stop the plunder of office- holders by assessments, and to put down that secret treason of distrust iwhich resorts to corruption as better than argu- ment to win the judgment of the people. We want it for its equality and philanthropy, for its broad faith and in- trepid confidence in humanity, for its love of justice to all, for its abhorrence of class favoritism in legislation, taxation and administration. There rest the principles which must animate and sus- tain the people’s cause in the tremendous conflict immedi- ately impending. I need hardly name it. No man can longer shut his eyes to the open fact. There must and will be aggressive and relentless war against the dominion of monopoly, and the oppression of iniquitous taxation and “democracy; past, present and future.” 47 unjust laws. Many forms of this tyranny beset us. But one overshadows all the rest, demands the earliestt redress, and challenges the greatest effort. Its long, felonious ten- tacles have bound their prehensile grip upon every mode of primary production, every source of wealth. They are fastened upon all parties, all classes and conditions. It is a conspiracy against the people so comprehensive that every community holds its agents, so potential that Con- gress has obeyed it for more than twenty years. There stands the enemy, there lies the battle-field, and there the battle is at hand ! I give you joy in the prospect of it ! The foe is sturdy and defiant. From their rampart of riches, piled in menacing mass, the lords of the tariff pro- claim their purpose and power to maintain that sum of financial villainy, protective taxation. With skillful ingen- uity they have lightened other burdens to make this more secure, and they fill the air with sophistries. The simple question is: Is it right or is it wrong? For, if wrong, it robs the industrious, wealth^producing workers of this country of more than $50,000,000 of their earnings every year to fill the chests of a favored class. If wrong, it is a stupendous wrong. All the doctrines and traditions of democracy, springing from the toil of liberty, cry out against it. It is heresy, false and pernicious, that our mil- lions must labor in forest and field, in counting-room and office, to maintain any class of manufacturers, under pre- tense of pampering any form of industry. The spoil en- riches only the few masters, enervates labor, and strikes enterprise with paralysis. With every material native to our soil, our manufacturers, with profitable adventure, ought to fill our own ships, manned by our own hardy sea- men, with products for every buying country on the globe. But what do we see? Our exports are mostly from the farm and mine, carried in the ships of free-trade England ; our manufacturing industries fitted and limited only to our fictitious market, with prices upheld by force of legislation, 4 8 MODEL BANQUET SPEECHES. are in a state of intermittent fever, now stimulated