[Speech of Horace Porter at the eighty-sixth annual dinner of the
New England Society in the City of New York, December 22, 1891. J.
Pierpont Morgan, the President, occupied the chair, and called upon
General Porter to speak on "Sires and Sons."]
MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:--All my shortcomings upon this
occasion must be attributed to the fact that I have just come from last
night's New England dinner, in Brooklyn, which occurred largely this
morning. They promised me when I accepted their invitation that I should
get away early, and I did. I am apprehensive that the circumstance may
give rise to statements which may reflect upon my advancing years, and
that I may be pointed out as one who has dined with the early New
Englanders.
I do not like the fact of Depew's coming into the room so late to-night
and leaving so short an interval between his speech and mine. His
conduct is of a piece with the conduct of so many married men nowadays
who manifest such exceedingly bad taste and want of tact in dying only
such a very short time before the remarriage of their wives.
I have acquired some useful experience in attending New England Society
dinners in various cities. I dine with New Englanders in Boston; the
rejoicing is marked, but not aggressive. I dine with them in New York;
the hilarity and cheer of mind are increased in large degree. I dine
with them in Philadelphia; the joy is unconfined and measured neither by
metes nor bounds. Indeed, it has become patent to the most casual
observer that the further the New Englander finds himself from New
England the more hilarious is his rejoicing. Whenever we find a son of
New England who has passed beyond the borders of his own section, who
has stepped out into the damp cold fog of a benighted outside world and
has brought up in another State, he seems to take more pride than ever
in his descent--doubtless because he feels that it has been so great.
[Laughter.]
The New England sire was a stern man on duty and determined to
administer discipline totally regardless of previous acquaintance. He
detested all revolutions in which he had taken no part. If he possessed
too much piety, it was tempered by religion; while always seeking out
new virtues, he never lost his grip on his vices. [Laughter.] He was
always ambitious to acquire a reputation that would extend into the next
world. But in his own individual case he manifested a decided preference
for the doctrine of damnation without representation.
When he landed at Plymouth he boldly set about the appalling task of
cultivating the alleged soil. His labors were largely lightened by the
fact that there were no agricultural newspapers to direct his efforts.
By a fiction of speech which could not have been conceived by a less
ingenious mind, he founded a government based upon a common poverty and
called it a commonwealth. He was prompt and eminently practical in his
worldly methods. In the rigors of a New England winter when he found a
witch suffering he brought her in to the fire; when he found an Indian
suffering he went out and covered him with a shotgun. [Laughter.]
The discipline of the race, however, is chiefly due to the New England
mother. She could be seen going to church of a Sabbath with the Bible
under one arm and a small boy under the other, and her mind equally
harassed by the tortures of maternity and eternity. When her offspring
were found suffering from spring fever and the laziness which
accompanies it, she braced them up with a heroic dose of brimstone and
molasses. The brimstone given here was a reminder of the discipline
hereafter; the molasses has doubtless been chiefly responsible for the
tendency of the race to stick to everything, especially their opinions.
[Laughter.]
The New Englanders always take the initiative in great national
movements. At Lexington and Concord they marched out alone without
waiting for the rest of the Colonies, to have their fling at the
red-coats, and a number of the colonists on that occasion succeeded in
interfering with British bullets. It was soon after observed that their
afternoon excursion had attracted the attention of England. They acted
in the spirit of the fly who bit the elephant on the tail. When the fly
was asked whether he expected to kill him he said: "No, but I notice I
made him look round." [Laughter.]
[Illustration: _THE MINUTE MAN_
_Photogravure after a photograph_
In commemoration of the famous Revolutionary struggle of the farmers of
Concord, Mass., April 19, 1775, this statue was erected. The sculptor
was Daniel Chester French, a native of Concord. The statue was unveiled
at the centennial celebration of the battle, 1875. It is of bronze,
heroic size, and stands near the town of Concord, by the battlefield, on
the side of the Concord River occupied by the Americans. The position is
described by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his lines which are graven in the
pedestal of the statue:
"By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world."]
Such are the inventive faculty and self-reliance of New Englanders that
they always entertain a profound respect for impossibilities. It has
been largely owing to their influence that we took the negro, who is a
natural agriculturist, and made a soldier of him; took the Indian, who
is a natural warrior, and made an agriculturist of him; took the
American, who is a natural destructionist, and made a protectionist of
him. They are always revolutionizing affairs. Recently a Boston company
equipped with electricity the horse-cars, or rather the mule-cars, in
the streets of Atlanta. When the first electric-motor cars were put into
service an aged "contraband" looked at them from the street corner and
said: "Dem Yankees is a powerful sma't people; furst dey come down h'yar
and freed de niggers, now dey've done freed de mules." [Laughter.]
The New Englander is so constantly engaged in creating changes that in
his eyes even variety appears monotonous. When a German subject finds
himself oppressed by his Government he emigrates; when a French citizen
is oppressed he makes the Government emigrate; when Americans find a
portion of their Government trying to emigrate they arm themselves and
spend four years in going after it and bringing it back. [Laughter and
applause.]
You will find the sons of New England everywhere throughout the world,
and they are always at the fore. I happened to be at a French banquet in
Paris where several of us Americans spoke, employing that form of the
French language which is so often used by Americans in France, and which
is usually so successful in concealing one's ideas from the natives.
There was a young Bostonian there who believed he had successfully
mastered all the most difficult modern languages except that which is
spoken by the brake-men on the elevated railroads. When he spoke French
the only departure from the accent of the Parisian was that _nuance_ of
difference arising from the mere accidental circumstance of one having
learned his French in Paris and the other in Boston. The French give
much praise to Molière for having changed the pronunciation of a great
many French words; but his most successful efforts in that direction
were far surpassed by the Boston young man. When he had finished his
remarks a French gentleman sitting beside me inquired: "Where is he
from?" I replied: "From New England." Said he: "I don't see anything
English about him except his French." [Laughter.]
In speaking of the sons of New England sires, I know that one name is
uppermost in all minds here to-night--the name of one who added new
lustre to the fame of his distinguished ancestors. The members of your
Society, like the Nation at large, found themselves within the shadow of
a profound grief, and oppressed by a sense of sadness akin to the sorrow
of a personal bereavement, as they stood with uncovered heads beside the
bier of William T. Sherman; when the echo of his guns gave place to the
tolling of cathedral bells; when the flag of his country, which had
never been lowered in his presence, dropped to half-mast, as if
conscious that his strong arm was no longer there to hold it to the
peak; when he passed from the living here to join the other living,
commonly called the dead. We shall never meet the great soldier again
until he stands forth to answer to his name at roll-call on the morning
of the last great reveille. At this board he was always a thrice welcome
guest. The same blood coursed in his veins which flows in yours. All
hearts warmed to him with the glow of an abiding affection. He was a
many-sided man. He possessed all the characteristics of the successful
soldier: bold in conception, vigorous in execution, and unshrinking
under grave responsibilities. He was singularly self-reliant,
demonstrating by all his acts that "much danger makes great hearts most
resolute." He combined in his temperament the restlessness of a Hotspur
with the patience of a Fabius. Under the magnetism of his presence his
troops rushed to victory with all the dash of Cæsar's Tenth Legion.
Opposing ranks went down before the fierceness of his onsets, never to
rise again. He paused not till he saw the folds of his banners wave
above the strongholds he had wrested from the foe.
While mankind will always appreciate the practical workings of the mind
of the great strategist, they will also see in his marvellous career
much which savors of romance as well as reality, appeals to the
imagination and excites the fancy. They will picture him as a legendary
knight moving at the head of conquering columns, whose marches were
measured not by single miles, but by thousands; as a general who could
make a Christmas gift to his President of a great seaboard city; as a
chieftain whose field of military operations covered nearly half a
continent; who had penetrated everglades and bayous; the inspiration of
whose commands forged weaklings into giants; whose orders all spoke with
the true bluntness of the soldier; who fought from valley's depth to
mountain height, and marched from inland rivers to the sea. No one can
rob him of his laurels; no man can lessen the measure of his fame. His
friends will never cease to sing pæans in his honor, and even the wrath
of his enemies may be counted in his praise. [Prolonged applause.]
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