[Speech of Andrew D. White at the 111th annual dinner of the New
York Chamber of Commerce, May 13, 1879. The President of the
Chamber, Samuel D. Babcock, introduced Mr. White as follows: "The
next toast is 'Commerce and Diplomacy--twin guardians of the
world--Peace and Prosperity.' [Applause.] The gentleman who is to
respond to the toast is one who is about to represent our country
at the Court of Berlin. I am quite sure there is not a man present
who does not feel that a more creditable representative of the
people of the United States could not be sent abroad. [Applause.] I
hope, gentlemen, you will receive him with all the honors."]
MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN:--Speaking in this place and at this
time I am seriously embarrassed; for when charges have been made upon
the American people on account of municipal mismanagement in this city,
now happily past, we have constantly heard the statement made that
American institutions are not responsible for it; that New York is not
an American city. [Applause.] I must confess that when very hard pressed
I have myself taken refuge in this statement.
But now it comes back to plague me, for on looking over the general
instructions furnished me by the State Department I find it laid down
that American Ministers on the way to their posts are strictly forbidden
to make speeches in any foreign city, save in the country to which they
are accredited. You will pardon me, then, if I proceed very slowly and
cautiously in discussing the sentiment allotted to me.
No one, I think, will dispute the statement that commerce has become a
leading agency among men in the maintenance of peace. [Applause.]
Commercial interests have become so vast that they embrace all the
world, and so minute that they permeate every hamlet of every nation.
War interferes with these interests and thwarts them. Hence commerce
more and more tends to make war difficult. [Applause.] As to the fact
then, involved in your toast, it needs no argument in its support. We
all concede it. Were we to erect a statue of Commerce in the midst of
this great commercial metropolis, we should doubtless place in her hand,
as an emblem, a ship-like shuttle and represent her as weaving a web
between the great nations of the earth tending every day to fasten them
more securely and more permanently in lasting peace. [Applause.]
Nor, I think, will the other part of the sentiment be disputed by any
thoughtful person. Of course much may be said upon the solemn nothings
which have occupied diplomatists; much historic truth may be adduced to
show that diplomats have often proved to be what Carlyle calls "solemnly
constituted impostors." But after all, I think no one can look over the
history of mankind without feeling that it was a vast step when four
centuries ago the great modern powers began to maintain resident
representatives at the centres of government; and from that day to this
these men have proved themselves, with all their weaknesses, worth far
more than all their cost in warding off or mitigating the horrors of
war, and in increasing the facilities of commerce. Not long since I made
a pilgrimage to that quaint town hall in that old German city of
Munster, where was signed the Treaty of Westphalia. There I saw the same
long table, the same old seats, where once sat the representatives of
the various powers who in 1648 made the treaty which not only ended the
Thirty Years' War, the most dreadful struggle of modern times--but which
has forever put an end to wars of religion.
I have stood in the midst of grand cathedrals and solemn services, but
never have I sat in any room or in any presence with a greater feeling
of awe than in that old hall where the diplomatists of Europe signed
that world-renowned treaty so fruitful in blessing not only to Germany,
but to all mankind. [Applause.]
We shall all doubtless concede then that on the whole it is best to have
a diplomatic body, that if it only once in ten, or twenty, or one
hundred years, prevents serious misunderstanding between nations, it
will far more than repay its cost. [Applause.]
But the point to which I wish to call your attention, in what little I
have to say this evening, is this: That this idea of the value of
commerce and diplomacy in maintaining peace has by no means always been
held as fully as now, nor are commerce and diplomacy and all they
represent at this moment out of danger. Two hundred years ago a really
great practical statesman in France [Colbert], by crude legislation in
behalf, as he thought, of manufactures and commerce, brought his country
into wars which at last led her to ruin. The history of the colonial
policy of England also is fruitful in mistaken legislation on
commercial, political, and social questions, which have produced the
most terrible evils. Indeed, in all nations we have constantly to lament
the short-sighted policies, ill-considered constitutions, crude
legislation, which have dealt fearful blows to the interests of
commerce, of diplomacy, of political and social life, and of peace.
Nor has our own country been free from these; in our general government
and in all our forty legislatures, there are measures frequently
proposed striking at commercial interests, at financial interests, at
vested rights, to say nothing of great political and social interests,
which, though often thwarted by the common sense of the people, are
sometimes too successful. At this very moment the news comes to us that
a slight majority, led by arrant demagogues, have fastened upon the
great Empire State of the Pacific a crude, ill-digested constitution,
which while it doubtless contains some good features, embodies some of
the most primitive and pernicious notions regarding commerce and
manufactures and the whole political and social fabric of that
Commonwealth. [Applause.]
So, too, in regard to diplomacy, there is constant danger and loss from
this same crudeness in political thinking. A year or two since, in the
Congress of the United States, efforts were put forth virtually to
cripple the diplomatic service; but what was far worse, to cripple the
whole Consular system of the United States. Although the Consular
service of our country more than pays for itself directly, and pays for
itself a thousand times over indirectly; although its labors are
constantly directed to increasing commerce, to finding new markets, to
sending home valuable information regarding foreign industries, to
enlarging the foreign field for our own manufactures, and, although the
question involved not only financial questions of the highest
importance, but the honor of the country, the matter was argued by many
of our legislators in a way which would have done discredit to a class
of college sophomores. I am glad to say that the best men of both
parties at Washington at last rallied against this monstrous legislation
and that among them were some representing both parties of the State and
City of New York. [Applause.]
The injury wrought upon this country in its national Legislature and in
its multitude of State Legislatures by want of knowledge is simply
enormous. No one who knows anything of the history of the legislation of
any State will dispute this for a moment. The question now arises, is
such a state of things necessarily connected with a Republican
government? To this I answer decidedly, no. The next question is, is
there any practical means of improving this state of things? To this I
answer decidedly, yes. [Applause.]
Here comes the practical matter to which I would call your attention.
Recently, in the presence of some of you, I spoke at length on the
necessity of training men in the institutions of higher learning in this
country for the highest duties of citizenship, and especially for
practical leadership. I cannot here go into details as I was able to do
in that paper, but I can at least say that if there is anything to which
a portion of the surplus wealth of men who have been enriched in
commerce and trade may well be devoted, it is to making provision in our
institutions of learning for meeting this lack of young men trained in
history, political and social science, and general jurisprudence--in
those studies which fit men to discuss properly and to lead their
fellow-citizens rightly in the discussion of the main questions relating
to commerce, to diplomacy, and to various political and social subjects.
[Applause.]
I fully believe that one million dollars distributed between four or
five of our great institutions of learning for this purpose would
eventually produce almost a revolution for good in this country, and
that in a very few years the effect of such endowments would be seen to
be most powerful and most salutary. Provision on the largest scale
should be made for the training of young men in political and social
science, in such institutions as Harvard, Yale, Amherst, Columbia,
Princeton, Union, Johns Hopkins University, the State Universities of
Michigan, Wisconsin, Virginia, Minnesota, and California, and I trust
that you will permit me to add, Cornell. [Applause.]
I do not pretend, of course, that this would supersede practical
training--no theoretical training can do this--but it would give young
men, at any rate, a knowledge of the best thoughts of the best thinkers,
on such subjects as taxation, representation, pauperism, crime,
insanity, and a multitude of similar questions; it would remove the
spectacle which so often afflicts us in our National and State
legislatures, of really strong men stumbling under loads of absurdity
and fallacy, long ago exploded by the best and most earnest thought of
the world, and it would teach young men to reason wisely and well on
such subjects, and then, with some practical experience, we should have
in every State a large number of well-trained men ready to reason
powerfully and justly, ready to meet at a moment's warning pernicious
heresies threatening commerce and trade and our best political and
social interests. Had there been scattered through California during the
recent canvass for their new constitution, twenty men really fitted to
show in the press and in the forum the absurdities of that Constitution,
it would never have been established. [Loud applause.]
Ten thousand dollars to any one of these colleges or universities would
endow a scholarship or fellowship which would enable some talented
graduate to pursue advanced studies in this direction. Ten thousand to
twenty thousand dollars would endow a lectureship which would enable
such a college or university to call some acknowledged authority on
political subjects to deliver a valuable course of lectures. Thirty to
fifty thousand dollars would endow a full professorship--though I must
confess that in subjects like this, I prefer lectureships for brief
terms to life-long professorships--and at any of these institutions the
sum of two hundred thousand or three hundred thousand dollars, under
the management of such men as may be found in any one of them, would
equip nobly a department in which all these subjects may be fully
treated and fitly presented to young men. Such a department would send
out into our journalism, into our various professions, and into our
public affairs, a large number of young men who could not fail to
improve the political condition of the country, and would do much to
ward off such dealings with commerce, with currency, with taxation, and
with the diplomatic and consular service as have cost the world and our
own nation so dear hitherto. [Applause.]
I can think of no more noble monument which any man of wealth could rear
to himself than a lectureship or professorship or a department of this
kind, at one of our greater institutions of learning, where large
numbers of vigorous and ambitious youths are collected from all parts of
the country; I do not, of course, say that all of these men would be
elected to public office; in the larger cities, they perhaps would not,
at least, at first; in the country, they would be very frequently
chosen, and they could hardly fail to render excellent service.
[Applause.]
Any man worthy of the name, leaving his country for a long residence
outside its borders, feels more and more impressed with what is needed
to improve it. If I were called upon solemnly at this hour to declare my
conviction as to what can best be done by men blessed with wealth in
this Republic of ours, I would name this very thing to which I have now
called your attention. [Applause.] It has been too long deferred; our
colleges and universities have as a rule only had the means to give a
general literary and scientific education, with very little instruction
fitting men directly for public affairs. But the events of the last few
years show conclusively that we must now begin to prepare the natural
leaders of the people for the work before them, and by something more
than a little primary instruction in political economy and the elements
of history in the last terms of a four years' course. [Applause.]
The complexity of public affairs is daily becoming greater; more and
more it is necessary that men be trained for them. Not that practical
men, trained practically in public affairs will not always be
wanted--practical men will always be in demand--but we want more and
more a judicious admixture of men trained in the best thought which has
been developed through the ages on all the great questions of government
and of society. [Applause.]
No country presents a more striking example of the value of this
training than does that great nation with which my duties are shortly to
connect me. [Applause.] Several years since she began to provide in all
her universities for the training of men in political and social
questions, for political life at home and for diplomatic life abroad.
This at first was thought to be another example of German pedantry, but
the events of the last fifteen years have changed that view. We can now
see that it was a part of that great and comprehensive scheme begun by
such men as Stein and Hardenbergh and carried out by such as Bismarck
and his compeers. [Applause.]
Other nations are beginning to see this. In France, within a few years,
very thoroughly equipped institutions have been established to train men
in the main studies required in public life and in diplomacy; the same
thing is true in England and in Italy. Can there be again, I ask, a more
fitting object for some of the surplus wealth of our merchant princes
than in rendering this great service to our country, in furnishing the
means by which young men can have afforded them a full, thorough, and
systematic instruction in all those matters so valuable to those who are
able to take the lead in public affairs. [Applause.]
Mr. President, in concluding, allow me to say that in so far as any
efforts of mine may be useful I shall make every endeavor that whatever
diplomatic service I may render may inure to the benefit of commerce,
knowing full well that, in the language of the sentiment, "Commerce and
Diplomacy are the twin guardians of Peace and Prosperity." [Applause.]
In spite of the present depression of business in Germany and the United
States, there are evidences of returning confidence. The great, sturdy,
vigorous German nation and our own energetic people cannot long be held
back in their career, and in this restoration of business, which is
certain, unless gross mismanagement occurs, I believe that these two
nations, America and Germany, will become more and more friendly; more
and more Commerce will weave her web uniting the two countries, and more
and more let us hope that Diplomacy may go hand in hand with Commerce in
bringing in an era of Peace which shall be lasting, and of Prosperity
which shall be substantial. [Loud applause.]