Modern Eloquence Volume Ii Part 19

It is not given to many men in their experience to see such a sight as is now spread before us on the waters of the harbor of New York. The might and majesty of the great nations of the earth are here represented in their fleets which typify the country afloat, as the valor, the ability and the distinction of their officers represent that of their peoples. Former antagonists here float side by side; peace broods over the armored sides of battles.h.i.+ps and the feverish lips of their guns speak only salutes of friends.h.i.+p and courtesy. It is a pity that it is not always so.

Among the flags that float from the mastheads of the fleet in yonder harbor there is one--the blue St. Andrew's Cross--that represents an empire of over 8,000,000 square miles, of more diversified races than any other in Europe; that reaches from the Baltic to the Pacific--from the Arctic to the Black Sea; that receives the allegiance of 103,000,000 of people, and from its great white throne on the sh.o.r.es of the Gulf of Finland directs the destinies of its subjects and shapes the policy of Europe. [Applause.]

That flag is not unfamiliar in these waters. In the battle summer of 1863--thirty years ago--while we were engaged in a life-and-death struggle for national existence and the preservation of the Union, it floated over the fleet of Admiral Lissoffski in this harbor--a signal of friends.h.i.+p, encouragement and protection against foreign interference, pending the settlement of the issues of our Civil War. No diplomatic declaration was made, no threat was uttered, no sign was given; we only knew the flag was there, and if it meant anything, that the power of one of the mightiest nations of Europe was behind it. We now know from what it saved us:--

"When darkness hid the starry skies, In war's long winter night, One ray still cheered our straining eyes, The far-off Northern Light."

No American who loves his country can forget that incident in our hour of agony, nor the friendly significance of that flag. It was an American captain who used the expression which has become historic, when he went to the relief of his English brother-in-arms at the storming of the Pei-Ho forts, that "blood is thicker than water," and while it courses in the veins of a loyal American, he will remember with grateful appreciation the sympathy and the moral support, more powerful than armed battalions or cruisers, of Alexander II, who, like our Lincoln, freed his serfs, and like him, while serving his people, fell by the hand of an a.s.sa.s.sin.

Gentlemen, who serve His Imperial Majesty the Czar, we salute you and your flag under whatever skies or on whatever sea it floats. We remind you that we are not ungrateful. The best we have is yours; the Nation presents arms as you pa.s.s in review, and as our borders approach each other in the frozen zone so when we meet you here:--

"Though our hearts were dry as the sh.e.l.l on the sand, They would fill like the goblet I hold in my hand."

"Bleak are our sh.o.r.es in the blast of December, Fettered and chill is the rivulet's flow, Throbbing and warm are the hearts that remember Who was our friend when the world was our foe.

"Fires of the North, in eternal communion Blend your broad flashes with evening's bright star, G.o.d bless the Empire that loves our great Union!

Strength to her people! Long life to the Czar!"

OUR ANCESTORS AND OURSELVES

[Speech of Henry E. Howland, President of the New England Society in the City of New York, at their ninety-fourth annual dinner, New York, December 22, 1899.]

FELLOW-MEMBERS OF THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY:--It is my agreeable duty to receive this weary, way-worn band of Pilgrims upon the occasion of their 279th landing upon these bleak and arid sh.o.r.es, and, like Samoset on the occasion of your first arrival, to welcome you to the scanty fare and the privations and sufferings that are incident to this ledge of the old Plymouth Rock. [Applause.]

The traditions of the early entertainment of Ma.s.sasoit and his warriors at Plymouth, lasting several days, to cement a friends.h.i.+p which was never broken, when heavy drafts were made upon the little stock of New England rum, imported Hollands, bear's meat and Indian corn, have here been renewed to such an extent that, like them, we doubtless feel that the "earth is ours and the fulness thereof." [Laughter.] Though, if Plymouth Rock and the Waldorf-Astoria are synonymous terms for fulness, we should think that the latter was the more synonymous of the two.

[Laughter.] The surroundings of the two occasions may differ--velvet carpets, groaning tables, genial temperature and electric lights are an excellent subst.i.tute for log floors, a restricted larder, the icy chill and the winter stars. The grim, stern Pilgrim with the austere face and peaked hat, and the lean, wild, loping Indian are here supplanted by a company whose well-rounded figures and genial faces reflect the a.s.surance of the possession of sky-sc.r.a.ping buildings, pipe lines, through lines, warehouses, well-stuffed deposit vaults and comfortable bank accounts [laughter], upon whom smile from the boxes the blessings which, like those of Providence, come from above [applause] and cause us to echo the sentiment unconsciously expressed by the lady who was distributing tracts in the streets of London. She handed one to a cabman; he glanced at it, handed it back, touched his hat and politely said: "Thank you, lady, I am a married man." [Laughter.] She looked nervously at the t.i.tle, which was, "Abide with me" [laughter], and hurriedly departed. Under this inspiration we agree with the proverb of the Eastern sage: "To be constant in love to one is good; to be constant to many is great." [Laughter.] But we must remember, while the critical eyes of our households are upon us, that our halos will never be too small for our heads. [Laughter.]

Under these favoring conditions we celebrate the glories of our ancestors, the unparalleled results of their achievements, and ourselves. I hope you will find that the only defect in my perfunctory remarks as the presiding officer will be their brevity.

Remembering some past occurrences on occasions like this, we agree with the pupil who was asked by his teacher, "What is the meaning of elocution?" and he answered: "It is the way people are put to death in some States." [Laughter.] But with this array of speakers before you, full of unwonted possibilities, you will not wonder if I feel like the undertaker in Sixth Avenue who displayed a sign in his window: "It is a pleasure to show goods." [Laughter.]

The Society has shared in the all-pervading prosperity which illumines the land with a prospect of its indefinite continuance. It numbers 1,504 members, and its invested funds aggregate the sum of $108,750. It has been liberal in its charitable contributions; it has resisted all attempts like those made against some of our large life insurance companies to compel it to distribute its surplus [laughter], and, refuting the statement of Lord Chief Justice Coleridge, who said that the "chief duty of trustees was to commit judicious breaches of trust,"

it has imitated the stern integrity of that bank cas.h.i.+er who upon a warm day sat down on the neighborly side of a sheet of postage stamps, and had to go home and make a change of clothing before he could get his books to balance. [Laughter.] And, taking warning from the slogan of the Bryanized Democracy, which caused a quotation from a message of one of our modern statesmen that "a public office is a public trust," to be met with the cry "Down with the trusts," our treasurer carefully avoids handling United States nickels, for they bear the motto "In G.o.d We Trust," and the Society might be met with the same attack and come into disrepute on that account. [Laughter.]

In these days, when the Populist, fusionist, and demagogue is endeavoring, like Mrs. Partington, to sweep back the ocean tide of prosperity with a broom, clogging the wheels of industry and seeking by legislative enactment to reverse the laws of nature and of political economy, which are immutable by Divine decree, we can commend to them the answer of an examiner of a young man who applied for admission to the bar. He failed utterly in questions upon contracts, partners.h.i.+p, corporation law, commercial paper and real estate, and was told so.

"Well," he said, "won't you try me on the statutes? I am pretty strong on them." "Well, what's the use," the examiner replied, "when some d--n fool Legislature may repeal all you know." [Laughter and applause.]

Forty-seven members have died during the year. The list is entirely made up of men distinguished in all the pursuits of life--who wrote their names in bright characters upon the history of the City and State, and whose memory will always remain as a precious legacy and an example to those who succeed them. Fourteen had pa.s.sed the Psalmist's limit of life, and nine had pa.s.sed their eightieth year. In it are enrolled the names of William H. Appleton, the honored head of the great publis.h.i.+ng firm known wherever the English language is spoken, to whose reputation he contributed so much by his clear intelligence, breadth of views and spotless character.

Isaac H. Bailey, for several years the President of this Society, an honorable merchant and a trusted public officer.

William Dowd, the treasurer of the Society for fifteen years; distinguished in finance and the management of large corporate interests, and endeared to a host of friends by the charm of his genial nature.

Gen. George S. Greene, the oldest living graduate of the West Point Military Academy, who rendered valiant and distinguished service on many battle-fields of the Civil War, who was the faithful and efficient head of the Croton Aqueduct Board for many years; was represented in the military service of his country by several distinguished sons and, until his death, in his ninety-eighth year, retained all his faculties undimmed--a soldier and a citizen of whom his country was justly proud.

[Applause.]

Roswell P. Flower, an honored Governor of this State, eminent as a philanthropist and financier, a leader among strong men.

William H. Webb, a pioneer s.h.i.+pbuilder, with a name famous wherever American commerce extended, a rugged, iron man who stood four square to all the winds of heaven, generous and tender-hearted as a child, who for forty-five years never failed in his attendance at the dinners of this Society, and who left a reputation for philanthropy and public spirit unsurpa.s.sed in this city of generous giving.

John G. Moore, John Brooks, Edward H. R. Lyman, Edward A. Quintard, Dr.

Charles Inslee Pardee, and all the others to whom the limit of time will not allow a tribute worthy of their honorable lives and work.

We do well to recall upon such occasions as this, as an inspiration, the story of the emigration of our Pilgrim ancestors to America, involving, as it does, the whole modern development, diffusion and organization of English liberty, which lives and breathes and burns in legend and in song. It is unparalleled in the annals of the world, in the majesty of its purpose and the poverty of its means, the weakness of the beginning and the grandeur of the result. It is unparalleled in cla.s.sic or modern history, in its exhibition of courage, patience, persistence, steadfastness in devotion to principle. Beginning with the hasty flight from Lincolns.h.i.+re to Holland, the peaceful life in exile, the perilous ocean voyage in a crazy craft in mid-winter, the frail settlement at Plymouth--a shred of the most tenacious life in Europe--floating over the waste of waters and clinging on the bleakest edge of America, beset by Indians, wild beasts and disease, starving, frozen and dying, remote from succor and beyond the knowledge of their kin, like a seed from the Old World floated to the New by ocean currents, containing the elements which, like the mustard seed, should yield a hundred fold and overspread and dominate a continent, until the prophecy familiar to the Pilgrims should be fulfilled: "The desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose, a little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a great nation."

[Applause.]

The Archbishop and Ministers of King James, who drove these men and the 26,000 who followed them, the flower of the English Puritans, from England, like Louis XIV, when he sent the Huguenots into exile by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, furnished an example to that master of the school where the Eton system of flogging prevailed. On a Sat.u.r.day morning the delinquents were called up to be flogged. One of the boys inquired, "What am I to be punished for, sir?" "I don't know, but your name is down on the list, and I shall have to go through with it," and the flogging was administered. The boy made such a fuss that the master looked over the list on his return to his rooms, to see whether he had made a mistake, and found that he had whipped the confirmation cla.s.s.

[Laughter.]

They brought the foundation of a free people, they converted the wilderness of a continent, they established the New England home, rich only in piety, education, liberty, industry and character, from which has gone out the best inspiration of the Republic they forecast.

There have been times in the later history of the country when the Puritan was not altogether popular, and the feeling entertained toward him and his descendants was expressed like that at a Liberal meeting in Scotland, where the proceedings were being opened by prayer, and the reverend gentleman prayed fervently that "the Liberals might hang a'

thegither." He was interrupted by a loud and irreverent "Amen" from the back of the hall. "Not, O Lord," went on the clergyman, "in the sense which that profane scoffer would have ye to understand, but that they may hang thegither in accord and concord." "I dinna care so much what kind of a cord it is," struck in the voice, "sae lang as it is a strong cord." [Laughter.]

Fortunately for them, and perhaps for the world, opinions differed enough to give them a chance. "You can't always tell," said a man, at the end of a discussion, "what one's neighbors think of him." "I came mighty near knowing once," said a citizen, with a reminiscent look, "but the jury disagreed." [Laughter.] But with the Puritans, when discussion ceased and other arguments began, the result was like that when the lady said to her clergyman, who was paying her an afternoon call, of her little boy, who bore the marks of a struggle: "Johnny has been a bad little boy to-day; he has been fighting and has got a black eye." "So I see," said the clergyman. "Come into the next room with me, Johnny, and I will pray with you." "You had better go home and pray with your own little boy, he has got two black eyes." [Laughter.]

The forty-one families who came in the "Mayflower," and the thousand of English Puritans who came in the next decade, are not ent.i.tled to all the credit for the development of the country, for there were others of their kind in Virginia, and, unlike the Boers of the Transvaal, they gave later comers a show. [Laughter and applause.] The process of appropriation by one people of a country, even if they are the first settlers, can be carried too far even for advantage to them or to inspire credulity in its possibility. A returned traveller, relating his adventures, said: "The most remarkable experience I ever had occurred a short time ago in Russia. I was sleighing on the Steppes, miles from my destination, when, to my horror, I found I was pursued by a pack of wolves; I fired blindly into the pack, killing one of them, and, to my relief, saw the others stop to devour him; after doing this, however, they still came on. I repeated the shot, with the same result, and each shot gave me an opportunity to whip up my horses. Finally there was only one wolf left, yet on it came with its fierce eyes glaring in antic.i.p.ation of a good hot supper." "Hold on, there," said a man who had been listening, "by your way of reckoning, that last wolf must have had the rest of the pack inside of him." [Laughter.] "Well," said the traveller, "now I remember it, he did wobble a bit." [Laughter.]

It was wise in our forefathers to welcome those who, like them, were pioneers in the wilderness, to give them equal rights and to a.s.similate them into American citizens.h.i.+p. The qualities of which we boast in our Pilgrim ancestors still linger with their descendants, though among 75,000,000 of people there may not be enough to go around. The expectation of it would be what Dr. Johnson said of a man who had married his third wife, as the "triumph of hope over experience."

[Laughter.] But we must, on occasions like this, make some a.s.sumptions, like the lady of whom a friend said: "She puts on a good deal of style now she has a box at the opera." "Good gracious," said the other lady, "the woman must put on something when she goes to the opera."

[Laughter.]

Too many, it is true, deserve to be under the suspicion expressed by the market-man who was exhibiting his _array_ of "newly-laid eggs, fresh eggs, and plain eggs," to a young housekeeper, who finally asked, as to the latter: "Are these eggs really fresh?" "Well, madam," he replied, "we call them Sat.u.r.day night eggs; they've tried all the week to be good." [Laughter.] And we are so compromising and tender in dealing with doubtful subjects that we follow the advice given to a man who asked how to tell a bad egg: Well, if you have anything to tell to a bad egg you had better break it gently. [Laughter.] Some have that kind of a conscience which was described by a small boy as the thing that makes you feel sorry when you get found out, and their idea of commercial integrity was expressed by the man who said, proudly, "At last I can look the world in the face as an honest man. I owe no one anything; the last claim against me is outlawed." Some aim high, but from the result they must have shut their eyes when they fired, and although as a Nation we pride ourselves upon our common sense, so that we can truly say not every man is made a fool of, the observer of men and things might say every man has the raw material in him. [Laughter.]

But seriously speaking, we abate in no degree the claim that the best traditions of our forefathers have not degenerated in these modern days.

Our hearts beat with a quicker throb at the recollection of the achievements of these last pregnant years; the eye lights with enthusiasm at the sight of the flag whose fluttering folds have witnessed such scenes of danger and inspired such daring deeds, and our voices shout in unison of acclaim the achievements of what a wondering African called "the angry Saxon race." [Applause.]

The people have stood for humanity, honesty, order and progress. Its representatives in civil life have obeyed their behests. The American Regular has shown in his stern resolve, his self-control, his obedience to orders, his contempt of danger, that while he leads a forlorn hope in war, he is the advance guard of liberty and justice, law and order, peace and happiness. [Applause.]

"No State'll call him n.o.ble son, He ain't no lady's pet; But let a row start anyhow, They'll send for him, you bet.

He packs his little knapsack up And starts off in the van, To start the fight, and start it right, The Regular Army man."

[Applause.]

The gallant officers who, true to the spirit of the service, stood up on the firing line in Cuba and the Philippines, charging heights, wading rivers and storming the trenches at the head of their men, have shed new glory upon the American Army, and none more ill.u.s.triously than that splendid soldier, Major-General Henry W. Lawton [prolonged applause], who, after a distinguished and brilliant service of nearly forty years in two wars, and continuous Indian fighting, has received the soldier's summons on the field of battle, and given with his life his last pledge of devotion to his country. The flag that covers him never shrouded a finer soldier or a more typical American. [Applause.]

"Close his eyes; his work is done!

What to him is friend or foeman, Rise of moon or set of sun, Hand of man or kiss of woman?

"As man may he fought his fight, Proved his truth by his endeavor-- Let him sleep in solemn night, Sleep forever and forever."

Such men have their counterparts in the very pink and flower of the chivalry of England, who face their foe standing, and are now charging full front and fearlessly into the storm of shot and sh.e.l.l that awaits them, deeming it, in the language of young Hubert Hervey, "a grand thing to die for the expansion of the Empire." [Applause.]